The U.S. Intelligence Community, Flouting Laws, is Increasingly Involving Itself in Domestic Politics
By Glenn Greenwald | March 24, 2021
A report declassified last Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security is raising serious concerns about the possibly illegal involvement by the intelligence community in U.S. domestic political affairs.
Entitled “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021,” the March 1 Report from the Director of National Intelligence states that it was prepared “in consultation with the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security—and was drafted by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with contributions from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).”
Its primary point is this: “The IC [intelligence community] assesses that domestic violent extremists (DVEs) who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.” While asserting that “the most lethal” of these threats is posed by “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and militia violent extremists (MVEs),” it makes clear that its target encompasses a wide range of groups from the left (Antifa, animal rights and environmental activists, pro-choice extremists and anarchists: “those who oppose capitalism and all forms of globalization”) to the right (sovereign citizen movements, anti-abortion activists and those deemed motivated by racial or ethnic hatreds).
The U.S. security state apparatus regards the agenda of “domestic violent extremists” as “derived from anti-government or anti-authority sentiment,” which includes “opposition to perceived economic, racial or social hierarchies.” In sum, to the Department of Homeland Security, an “extremist” is anyone who opposes the current prevailing ruling class and system for distributing power. Anyone they believe is prepared to use violence, intimidation or coercion in pursuit of these causes then becomes a “domestic violent extremist,” subject to a vast array of surveillance, monitoring and other forms of legal restrictions:
It goes without saying that violence of any kind — including that which is politically motivated — is a serious crime under U.S. law, and it is the proper role of the U.S. Government to investigate and prevent it. But there are real and important legal and institutional limits on the authority of the intelligence community to involve itself in domestic law enforcement, or other forms of domestic political activity, that seem threatened here, if not outright violated.
In particular, the Report’s acknowledgement that it was compiled by institutions including “the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with contributions from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)” has alarmed numerous members of the House Intelligence Committee. On Thursday, all ten minority members of that Committee wrote a previously unreported letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines “to raise serious concerns about the production of this document by the Intelligence Community (IC) and to seek clarification of the facts related to its production.”
Among the issues raised was that the DHS Report was not subject to the standard rigors of an intelligence community finding, yet continually makes sweeping claims that it prefixes with the authoritative phrase “the IC assesses.” The Committee members found this “to be misleading,” adding: we “urge you to clarify which elements in the IC concurred with this judgement and the intelligence basis, if any, for that concurrence.” In other words, Haines claims that these dubious assertions about various threats faced by Americans are the findings of the intelligence community when that is not true: just like the originally false claim widely spread by the media that “all seventeen intelligence agencies” endorsed the 2016 election findings about Russian interference when, in fact, it was only a few which had done so. Haines’ claims have support only from a few agencies as well.
But the more substantive danger is the role played by the CIA and other intelligence agencies in the domestic politics of the U.S., all in the name of fighting “domestic terrorism” (similar dangers were previously created by the Bush and Obama administrations in the name of fighting “international terrorism”). As the committee members’ letter details:
The Intelligence Committee members, citing the fact that the intelligence community is “subject to longstanding prohibitions against domestic activities,” then demanded answers to a series of questions based on this substantive concern:
Involvement of the intelligence community in the domestic activities of U.S. citizens is one of the most dangerous breaches of civil liberties and democratic order the U.S. Government can perpetrate. It was after World War II when the CIA, the NSA and other security state agencies that wield immense and unlimited powers in the dark were created in the name of fighting the Cold War. Legal and institutional prohibitions on wielding that massive machinery against the American public were central to the always-dubious claim that this security behemoth that operates completely in the dark was compatible with democracy. As the ACLU noted, “in its 1947 charter, the CIA was prohibited from spying against Americans, in part because President Truman was afraid that the agency would engage in political abuse.”
Since then, Truman’s fear has been realized over and over. Some of the worst post-WW2 civil liberties abuses have been the result of breaches by the CIA and other agencies of this prohibition. As the ACLU documents, the CIA in the 1960s was caught infiltrating and manipulating numerous domestic political activist groups. Under the auspices of the War on Terror, entire new bureaucracies (such as the Department of Homeland Security) and new legal regimes (such as the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act) were designed to erode these long-standing limitations by dramatically increasing surveillance powers aimed at U.S. citizens. And by design, the infiltration of these security state agencies in U.S. domestic politics has dramatically escalated.
As the first War on Terror was escalating, The Washington Post — under the headline “CIA Is Expanding Domestic Operations” — reported in October, 2002, that “The Central Intelligence Agency is expanding its domestic presence, placing agents with nearly all of the FBI’s 56 terrorism task forces in U.S. cities.” The Post added that in the name of that War on Terror:
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III recently described the new arrangement as his answer to MI5, Britain’s internal security service. Unlike the CIA, MI5 is empowered to collect intelligence within Britain and to act to disrupt domestic threats to British national security. “It goes some distance to accomplishing what the MI5 does,” Mueller told a House-Senate intelligence panel last week in describing the new CIA role in the FBI task forces.
In the years following, two NSA whistleblowers — William Binney and Edward Snowden — both cited their horror over the turning of the surveillance machinery against American citizens as the reason for their decision to denounce their agency. One of the aspects that most disturbed me about the Russiagate conspiracy theory from the start was that it was created and disseminated by the CIA and related agencies with the intent, first, to alter the outcome of the 2016 election, and then to undermine the elected president with whom they were at war. Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) went on The Rachel Maddow Show to warn — or more accurately: threaten — Trump that the CIA would destroy his presidency if he continued to criticize or otherwise oppose them:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/505WGUrCp10?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0
It is encouraging to see Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee starting to express serious concerns over the dangers of intelligence community involvement in domestic politics. That is underscored by their approving citation to the mild mid-1970s reforms of the intelligence community ushered in by the Senate’s Church Committee, once primarily a liberal cause. Indeed, many of the same House Republicans who wrote this important letter to the DNI have in the past supported laws that allow greater involvement of the CIA, NSA and other agencies in activities on U.S. soil — including the Patriot Act.
The head of the Church Committee, Sen. Frank Church (D-ID), made clear in his iconic quote on Meet the Press in 1975 that those reforms were primarily motivated by fears that the U.S. Government would one day turn its vast intelligence powers onto the American people, rendering core civil liberties an illusion:
In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. (…) We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left: such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.
(That quote from Sen. Church was the first one that appeared in my 2014 book on the NSA reporting I did with Edward Snowden, and the title of that book, No Place to Hide, was a nod toward Church’s chilling warning, now come true).
As I have been repeatedly noting over the last two months, the Biden administration, along with leading Democrats such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), have been stating explicitly that one of their top priorities is the adoption of new laws designed to import the Bush/Cheney/Obama War on Terror onto U.S. soil for domestic purposes. As recently as February 14, The Washington Post — under the headline: “The agency founded because of 9/11 is shifting to face the threat of domestic terrorism” —noted that Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is now demanding that homeland security resources be re-directed toward domestic extremists, and “lawmakers of both parties spoke favorably of new legislation to specifically address domestic terrorism.”
Nobody from the Biden administration or Congressional members demanding enactment of Schiff’s proposed new “domestic terrorism” law can identify any activities that are not now criminal that they believe ought to be. Unless it is to permit intelligence agencies to start policing constitutionally protected speech and associational activities among U.S. citizens, why are any new laws needed? Unless it is to empower them to escalate their already-aggressive use of War on Terror tactics against U.S. citizens, what do they want security state agencies to be able to do on U.S. soil that they cannot now do?
But just as the fear of international terrorism was constantly inflated to place such questions off limits when it came to the War on Terror, and just as critics of the excesses of the first War on Terror were constantly accused of downplaying the threat of Islamic extremism if not harboring outright sympathy for it, the same tactics are being used now. Anyone raising civil liberties concerns about what is being done in the name of combating “domestic extremism” is vilified as ignoring and even supporting such domestic extremism.
No matter: there are few dangers more acute than the weaponization of these security state instruments against U.S. citizens for political ends. The DNI should provide full, complete and truthful answers to the important questions posed by these Intelligence Committee members, and should do so promptly. The evidence of growing incursions by the intelligence community in U.S. domestic politics is already strong and ample, and further incursions would be both dangerous and illegal.
Professor: Britain Can’t Be Held To Ransom By Vaccine Refuseniks
By Richie Allen | March 24, 2021
Writing in the Daily Mail today, Brendan Wren, Professor of Vaccinology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said that “a third wave caused by vaccine refuseniks would devastate our return to normality.” He also said that “there is no excuse” for not having a vaccine. He writes:
… a worryingly high proportion of British people will continue to refuse the jab — preventing us reaching the crucial ‘herd immunity’, whereby the virus cannot spread because it cannot find enough people to infect.
We know, for example, that more than three million over-55s — including half a million over-65s — have still not been vaccinated, even though all are eligible and could surely have had the vaccine if they wanted it.
In both Britain and Europe, the costs of this vaccine hesitancy are now all too clear. France’s history of ‘anti-vax’ thinking — up to 60 per cent of French people have previously said they wouldn’t take a Covid jab — is now surely playing its part in the country’s third wave.
Here, we know, sadly, that vaccine hesitancy is particularly high in certain sections of the black, Asian and minority ethnic [BAME] communities.
Wren goes on to say that while he “ordinarily baulks” at the idea of compulsory vaccination, he does support making covid jabs mandatory for care workers. He then writes that Britain cannot be held to ransom by refuseniks:
Though I do not believe we are there yet, a third wave caused by vaccine refuseniks would devastate our return to normality. Britain cannot be held to ransom because of a minority who don’t understand the value of the vaccines, risking their own health and that of others in the process.
There it is. We, who will never take their experimental medicines, which are already causing real harm, will be blamed for delaying the exit from lockdown. We’ll be blamed for future lockdowns too. They’ll use every trick in the book, to get us to roll up our sleeves.
We know that Covid Status Certificates or Vaccine Passports are a reality. That’s effectively mandating by coercion.
Now a leading scientist is saying that the country cannot be held to ransom by refuseniks. This will lead to families, friends and neighbours falling out and singling out those of us who won’t have a jab. It’s going to get uglier, that’s for sure.
Lockdown One Year On – It doesn’t work, it never-worked & it wasn’t supposed to work
Light up the lone candle on the saddest birthday cake in the world! The most destructive public policy of the century is growing up and doesn’t look like slowing down.
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | March 23, 2021
And so we come to March 23rd, and lockdown’s first birthday. Or, as we call it here, the longest two weeks in history.
1 year. 12 calendar months. 365 increasingly gruelling days.
It’s a long time since “2 weeks to flatten the curve”, became an obvious lie. Sometime in July it turned into a sick joke. The curve was flattened, the NHS protected and the clapping was hearty and meaningful.
… and none of it made any difference.
This was not a sacrifice for the “greater good”. It was not a hard decision with arguments on both sides. It was not a risk-benefit scenario. The “risks” were in fact certainties, and the “benefits” entirely fictional.
Because Lockdowns don’t work. It’s really important to remember that.
Even if you subscribe to the belief that “Sars-Cov-2” is a unique discrete entity (which is far from proven), or that it is incredibly dangerous (which is demonstrably untrue), the lockdown has not worked to, in any way, limit this supposed threat.
Lockdowns. Don’t. Work.
They don’t make any difference, the curves don’t flatten and the R0 number doesn’t drop and the lives aren’t saved (quite the opposite, as we’ve all seen).
Just look at the graphs.
This one, comparing “Covid deaths” in the UK (lockdown) and Sweden (no lockdown):
Or this one, comparing “Covid deaths” in California (lockdown) and Florida (no lockdown):
From Belarus to Sweden to Florida to Nicaragua to Tanzania, the evidence is clear. “Covid”, whatever that means in real terms, is not impacted by lockdowns.
Putting the entire population under house arrest doesn’t benefit public health. In fact, it’s (rather predictably) incredibly counter-productive.
The damage done by shuttering businesses, limiting access to healthcare, postponing treatments and diagnoses, postponed surgeries, increasing depression, soaring unemployment and mass poverty has been discussed to death. The scale of the impact cannot be overstated.
Dr David Nabarro, World Health Organization special envoy for Covid-19, said this of lockdowns back in October:
We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of the virus[…]just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry… look what’s happening to small-holding farmers […] it seems we may have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition […] This is a terrible, ghastly global catastrophe.”
A terrible, global catastrophe. A doubling of childhood malnutrition.
The “pandemic” didn’t do that, lockdowns did that. They were never going to achieve their stated aims. And what’s more, they were never intended to achieve those aims.
Too often soft language in the media talks about “misjudgments” or “mistakes” or “incompetence”. Supposed critics claim the government “panicked” or “over-reacted”. That is nonsense. The easiest, cheesiest excuse that has ever existed.
“Whoops”, they say, with an emphatic shrug and shit-eating grin “I guess we done messed up!”. Unflattering, but better than the truth.
Because the truth is that the government isn’t mistaken or scared or stupid…they are malign. And dishonest. And cruel.
All the suffering of lockdown was entirely predictable and deliberately imposed. For reasons that have nothing to do with helping people and everything to do controlling them.
It’s been more than apparent for most of the last fifty-two weeks that the agenda of lockdown was not public health, but laying the groundwork for the “new normal” and “the great reset”.
A series of programmes designed to completely undercut civil liberties all across the world, reversing decades (if not centuries) of social progress. A re-feudalisation of society, with the 99% cheerfully taking up their peasant smocks “to protect the vulnerable”, whilst the elite proselytise about the worth of rules they happily admit do not apply to them.
And we’ve all had lives ruined and a year of precious time wasted. For nothing. You’ve been locked up for two weeks that lasted 365 days. For nothing.
…or rather, for everything. Because that’s what they are trying to take from us. Everything. And the only way to stop them is not to let them. To simply refuse consent.
Let’s not let lockdown get a second birthday.
Pro-Palestine activist stands trial after leading boycott against Israeli pharmaceutical company
Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement march in Marseille, southern France. (Photo via Twitter)
Press TV – March 22, 2021
French activist Olivia Zemor has gone on trial in Lyon after making an online appeal in 2016 for a boycott of Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva company.
She appeared in court on March 16 over publishing a call by Collectif Palestine 69 on EuroPalestine website, urging readers to boycott Teva, the largest Israeli pharmaceutical corporation by market value.
Zemor, an active advocate of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, was sued for “defamation” by Teva after she accused the company of complicity in apartheid and occupation.
In comments to French newspaper Le Courrier de l’Atlas, she said, “Through its financial contribution to Israel, this pharmaceutical giant contributes to the financing of military operations in Gaza and to the development of colonization in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in defiance of the rights of the Palestinian people and of international resolutions.”
Therefore, she added, it is necessary to call for the company’s boycott.
Pro-Palestine activist Olivia Zemor is going on trial in France after leading a boycott campaign against Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva pic.twitter.com/ENtpjlLG2I
However, Frédéric Jeannin, lawyer for the pharmaceutical company, denied the accusation, claiming that “Teva is not involved in a geopolitical, ethnic or religious conflict, and these actions hamper its economic activity.”
On the day of Zemor’s trial, activists gathered outside the courtroom to condemn the French government’s attempts to silence criticism of Israel and those who speak out against the oppression of Palestinians.
They argue that the European Court of Human Rights last year affirmed the right to boycott Israel and that this ruling invalidates the French prosecution of Zemor, who is the president of the EuroPalestine solidarity group.
French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti is accused of “a blatant violation of the decision” by distributing a circular to prosecutors urging them to take action against activists supporting the BDS campaign.
Teva, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of generic drugs, provides millions of pounds in tax revenue to the Israeli regime and its military.
The company is accused of “joining hands with the French state to aggressively seek to shut down and silence international voices of conscience for exposing corporate complicity and profiteering from the Israeli occupation regime.”
People have been asked to show solidarity with Zemor by writing to French embassies and consulates and holding protests outside them.
Palestinians have for decades called on civil campaigns against Israel, organized under the BDS umbrella.
The BDS movement was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, unions, as well as cultural and rights groups, including all major political parties, trade and academic unions that were pushing for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.”
Thousands of volunteers worldwide have since then joined the nonviolent campaign, which calls for people and groups across the world to cut economic, cultural and academic ties to Tel Aviv, to help promote the Palestinian cause.
Israel claims that the movement is a strategic threat and accuses it of anti-Semitism – a claim that activists firmly deny, calling it an attempt to discredit them.
The BDS, which adheres to peaceful resistance, intends to exert pressure on the Israeli regime to adhere to international law and human rights by lobbying various states, institutions and individuals to understand its oppression of Palestinians and take action as a result.
Former Scottish ambassador Craig Murray facing prison over reporting of defence case in Alex Salmond trial
Craig Murray arrives at the extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, September 7, 2020 in London, England. © Getty Images / Guy Smallman
RT | March 22, 2021
Former Scottish diplomat Craig Murray faces possible imprisonment after he lost a contempt of court case over his coverage of the Alex Salmond trial in 2020. His legal team is preparing an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and RT contributor Murray faces a maximum sentence of two years in prison and an unlimited fine if his contempt of court ruling is upheld.
Murray sat in the public gallery when he attended two days of a trial against the former first minister of Scotland Alex Salmond, who was cleared of 13 sexual assault charges made by nine women following a 2020 trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Virtual contempt of court proceedings were held at the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, before Lord Justice Clerk Lady Dorrian on Wednesday, during which the court argued that information published on Murray’s blog could have led to the identification of the women involved in the Salmond trial, in breach of a court order and potentially influencing the jury’s decision.
Murray’s defence counsel John Scott QC said the Crown contacted Murray about one such article in January 2020, but did not request that it be taken down.
Murray’s defence team argues that, if these publications were likely to influence the trial, then it should not have gone ahead as planned and action taken immediately, not once proceedings had concluded.
“[Murray] was aware of the names of the complainers, even when there was no court order regarding them. But he said it would not be responsible journalism to have named them,” Murray’s counsel said.
“The fact alone is that he knew about the names and if he wanted to name them, he could have done so.”
The team added that Murray discovered who the complainants in the trial were via jigsaw identification, the process of piecing together names kept secret for legal reasons using multiple pieces of information and sources, which anyone else could have done, but insisted that he chose not to publish their names publicly out of journalistic responsibility.
Murray is expected to stand as a pro-Scottish independence candidate in the upcoming Scottish parliamentary elections, but he will be disqualified from standing if he is sentenced to more than a year in prison should he lose his appeal.
Murray posted a brief reaction to the news on his blog. “I suspect I should say as little as possible in the next few days,” he wrote in a piece titled: ‘The World Darkens a Little More: I May Have to Spend Some Time as a Political Prisoner’.
Hearing Loss, Tinnitus & Vertigo Linked To Covid – “Scientists”
By Richie Allen | March 22, 2021
UK scientists have claimed that hearing loss and vertigo may be caused by coronavirus. Researchers from The University of Manchester and Manchester Biomedical Research Centre, compiled data from 24 studies.
They believe that 7.6 per cent of people infected with covid experience hearing loss, while 14.8 per cent suffer tinnitus. They also believe that 7.2 per cent of coronavirus patients develop vertigo.
Speaking to SKY News, Professor Kevin Munro, director of the Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness said;
“There are big implications for clinical services if this means there could be a big increase in the number of people coming forward. There are some people who say the symptoms are ongoing. There are others who say it seems to have settled down a bit so there are lots of unknowns right now.”
In other words it’s just more scaremongering by UK scientists enabled by a totally inept media. Temporary hearing loss isn’t uncommon. It can be caused by a variety of viruses including the common cold, exposure to loud noises, a build-up of fluid, earwax or an ear infection.
SKY News acknowledged on its website:
The researchers’ data primarily used self-reported questionnaires or medical records to obtain coronavirus-related symptoms, rather than the more scientifically reliable hearing tests.
It’s garbage dressed up as science. No self-respecting journalist would touch it. They’ve previously linked coronavirus to depression, heart palpitations, hearing voices, sore toe, memory loss and rashes. They use terms like “may” or “might” and the media publishes as if it’s a fact.
Covid-19 is harmless to nearly everybody. It has a 99.7 per cent survival rate. The average age of someone dying WITH it, is 83. Yet every other day a scientist claims that covid may lead to other serious conditions. The evidence is always anecdotal. That isn’t science.
The reason for this is obvious. The public is waking up to the fact that covid isn’t nearly as dangerous as it was led to believe. The public wonders why society hasn’t reopened. Therefore, the public needs to be scared into complying and having the vaccines.
This isn’t about a virus. By now, the most vulnerable people in the UK have been vaccinated. We were told it was all about them. They’ve had their jabs and yet the government will not end the lockdown.
Now scientists are claiming that mask wearing and social distancing may be with us for years. See my previous article. Apart from a few Tory backbenchers, there is no opposition to any of it.
This week, the government will ask parliament to permit it to extend powers to impose restrictions until September 25th. This despite Boris Johnson’s stated aim to remove most restrictions by June 21st. Labour and The Liberal Democrats will wave it through.
Life will never return to the way it was in January 2020. It was never meant to.
The New Normal “Reality” Police
Credit: Kate Sheets/Flickr CC-BY-2.0
By CJ Hopkins | Consent Factory, Inc. | March 22, 2021
So, according to Facebook and the Atlantic Council, I am now a “dangerous individual,” you know, like a “terrorist,” or a “serial murderer,” or “human trafficker,” or some other kind of “criminal.” Or I’ve been praising “dangerous individuals,” or disseminating their symbols, or otherwise attempting to “sow dissension” and cause “offline harm.”
Actually, I’m not really clear what I’m guilty of, but I’m definitely some sort of horrible person you want absolutely nothing to do with, whose columns you do not want to read, whose books you do not want to purchase, and the sharing of whose Facebook posts might get your account immediately suspended. Or, at the very least, you’ll be issued this warning:
Now, hold on, don’t click away just yet. You’re already on whatever website you’re reading this “dangerous,” “terrorist” column on (or you’re reading it in an email, probably on your phone), which means you are already on the official “Readers of Mass-Murdering Content” watch-list. So you might as well take the whole ride at this point.
Also, don’t worry, I’m not going to just whine about how Facebook was mean to me for 2,000 words … well, all right, I’m going to do that a little, but mostly I wanted to demonstrate how “reality” is manufactured and policed by global corporations like Facebook, Twitter, Google, the corporate media, of course, crowdfunding platforms like Patreon and PayPal, and “think tanks” like the Atlantic Council and its Digital Forensic Research Lab (“DFRLab”).
First, though, let me tell you my Facebook story.
What happened was, I made a Facebook post, and a lot of people tried to share it, so Facebook and the DFRLab suspended or disabled their accounts, or just prevented them from sharing it, and sent them the above warning. Facebook didn’t suspend my account, or censor the post on my account, or contact me to let me know that they have officially deemed me a “dangerous individual.” Instead, they punished anyone who tried to “boost” my “dangerous” post, a tactic anyone who has been through boot camp or in prison (or has watched this classic scene from Full Metal Jacket) will be familiar with.
Here’s the “dangerous” post in question. (If you’re particularly sensitive to “terrorist” content, you may want to put on your “anti-terrorism” glasses, or take some other type of prophylactic measures to protect yourself from “offline harm,” before you venture any further.)
The photo, which I stole from Gunnar Kaiser, is of an art exhibit in Düsseldorf, Germany. My commentary is self-explanatory. As you can see, it is extremely “dangerous.” It literally radiates “offline harm.”
OK, before you write to inform me how this was just the work of a dumb Facebook algorithm, think about what I described above. If an algorithm was preventing sharing and suspending people’s accounts based on keyword spotting, it would have censored my original post, and presumably suspended my account. Or, if Facebook has an algorithm that recognizes certain “dangerous” phrases, and then censors or suspends the accounts of people who share a post including those phrases, but doesn’t censor the original post or suspend the account of the author of the post … well, that’s kind of strange, isn’t it?
In any event, shortly after I posted it, I started seeing reports like this on Facebook:
Those are just a few examples, but I think you get the general idea.
The point is, apparently, the Corporatocracy feel sufficiently threatened by random people on Facebook that they are conducting these COINTELPRO-type ops. Seriously, think about that for a minute. I am not Stephen King or Margaret Atwood. I’m not even Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi. I’m a midlist-level author of unusual literature, and a political satirist, and a blogger, basically, and yet Facebook, and their partners at the Atlantic Council, and AstraZeneca, and Pfizer, and Moderna, and who knows which other global corporations and transnational, non-governmental entities like the WEF and WHO, consider someone of my lowly status enough of a threat to their “New Normal” narrative to warrant the attention of the Reality Police.
Now, let me be clear about who I’m talking about when I’m talking about the “Reality Police.” Facebook’s partnership with the Atlantic Council is only one example, but it is a rather good one. Here’s a quick profile of the Atlantic Council …
“The Atlantic Council of the United States was founded in 1961 as a think tank and anticommunist public relations organization to prop up support within the US for NATO in the post-World War II era … [its] current, honorary and lifetime directors list reads like a bipartisan rogues gallery of American war-criminals, including Henry Kissinger, George P. Shultz, Frank Carlucci, James A. Baker, R. James Woolsey, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta. Among the former Atlantic Council chairman have been Obama administration officials James L. Jones, (national security advisor) and Chuck Hagel (secretary of defense). The chairman of the council is Brent Scowcroft, the retired US Air Force officer who held national security and intelligence positions in the Nixon, Bush I and Bush II administrations. [It] is funded by substantial government and corporate interests from the financial, defense and petroleum industries. Its 2017 annual report documents substantial contributions from HSBC, Chevron, The Blackstone Group, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Ford Motor Company, among many others. Also listed is Google Inc. in the $100,000 to $250,000 donor category. Among the largest council contributors are the US State Department, The Foreign & Commonwealth Office of the UK, and the United Arab Emirates. Other contributors include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Boeing, BP, Exxon and the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.” — Kevin Reed, World Socialist Website
These are the folks that are policing “reality” (the “reality” they have manufactured, and are manufacturing moment by moment), deciding what officially happened, and didn’t happen, and what it means, and who qualifies as an “authoritative news source,” and “fact-checking” everything we see on the Internet. It’s not a bunch of pimply-faced IT nerds writing sloppy code in Menlo Park. It’s GloboCap and the Military-Industrial Complex.
If you’re one of my “New Normal” ex-friends and colleagues (or one of my Facebook or Twitter trolls) who, for some unknown reason, is still reading this column, perhaps on your way to get experimentally “vaccinated” or report one of your neighbors for not wearing a mask or being outdoors without a valid reason, this is who has manufactured your “reality” and the so-called “science” you claim I am “denying,” even as reality stares you in the face …
This did not begin with the “New Normal,” of course. Every system of power manufactures its own “reality” (totalitarian systems more fanatically than others). No, I’ve been writing about the manufacturing of “normality,” and the War on Dissent and Populism that GloboCap has been relentlessly waging on anyone and everyone opposing its hegemony or refusing to conform to its ideology, since back when I was still writing heretical columns like this for CounterPunch … before the editors saw which way the wind was blowing and ideologically purged its roster to get back into the good graces of GloboCap (following which ideological purge, Google restored it to the ranks of “real news”).
And that is how reality-policing works. It’s a bullying operation, basically. The entire “cancel culture” phenomenon is. “Cancel culture” is a silly name for it. We are talking about a global empire imposing total ideological conformity (or, in simpler terms, its version of “reality”) on the entire planet through fear and force. The Nazis referred to this process as Gleichschaltung.
Global capitalism has reached the stage where it no longer needs to tolerate dissent (any kind of dissent, from any quarter) to maintain the illusion of “freedom and democracy,” because there is no alternative to global capitalism. It is everywhere. There is nowhere to run or hide. When the Reality Police find you, and threaten to “cancel” you, you have two choices … obey or be vaporized.
If you’re a Palestinian, a Syrian, a Yemeni, the president of an uncooperative African country, or some other type of non-Western person, you might very well be physically vaporized. For Westerners, vaporization is less dramatic and final. You will simply be disappeared from the Internet, fired from your job, socially ostracized, deemed a “dangerous individual,” a “racist,” an “anti-Semite,” a “conspiracy theorist,” a “white supremacist,” a “domestic terrorist,” an “anti-vaxxer,” a “Covid denier.”
If you’re a member of the independent media, or a prominent activist, or a lawyer, or doctor, or just someone with a big social media platform, and have not seen the “New Normal” light, you will be demonized, demonetized, deplatformed, censored, and subjected to the type of creepy COINTELPRO-type tactics I described above. If you don’t believe me, just ask Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Rainer Fuellmich, Vanessa Beeley, Whitney Webb, James Corbett, Ken Jebsen, Cory Morningstar, The Last American Vagabond, Geopolitics & Empire, The Centre for Research on Globalization, OffGuardian, and countless other people and outlets that have challenged the official “New Normal” narrative.
Or have a look at this “warning” you get on Twitter if you attempt to read anything published by OffGuardian …
I could go on and on with this, and I’m sure I will in future columns. It’s kind of the only story at the moment, the changeover from simulated democracy to pathologized-totalitarianism as the governing structure of global capitalism. For now, I’ll just leave you with one more image in this already overly pictorial column. Don’t worry, it’s been thoroughly “fact-checked,” so there’s no need to read or question the fine print (even though I have a feeling you will) …
Do watch out for those “unrelated coincidences.” Some of them, I hear, can be rather nasty.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volumes I and II of his Consent Factory Essays are published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.
Father of trans teen kept in jail after speaking to press about resisting hormone injections for his child
RT | March 21, 2021
A Canadian man, involved in a legal battle over his right to object to hormone treatment for his teenage trans child, has reportedly been jailed and denied bail for violating a gag order banning him from discussing the story.
Robert Hoogland was denied bail by the Vancouver Supreme Court on Friday and will remain in the North Fraser remand prison, according to news website the Post Millennial. He was arrested this week for contempt of court, due to his continued violation of an order restricting his speech regarding his transgender child. Hoogland fought a lengthy battle, defending his right to have a say in whether life-changing hormone therapy may be offered to a minor without parental consent.
The signature case in Canada’s British Columbia (BC) started several years ago. At the age of 12, ‘Maxine’ (not the child’s real name), who was assigned female gender at birth, struggled to find her place in life, including her gender identity. Her school counselor suggested she may be transgender, referring her to a doctor and telling the school to treat her like a boy.
By the age of 14 the teen was identifying as a male trapped in a female body and was eager to start hormone therapy. The mother was supportive of the decision, but Hoogland – who was separated from the rest of the family but shared custody over the child – felt things were rushed. He said he would be OK with a transition if his child were older and more prepared to make an informed decision about a life-altering procedure. The consent form he refused to sign said hormones could result in various health complications, including elevated risk of heart disease, stroke, or diabetes, and even infertility.
This happened in 2018 and led to a series of court proceedings to decide whether Maxine could be the ultimate arbiter on the matter. That was the position of the gender clinic at BC Children’s Hospital, based on the Infants Act. The law says a “mature minor” may give consent to receiving healthcare.
Critics believe the law allows ideologically driven trans activists to lean on confused children and convince them into making a transition that would not necessarily be beneficial to them, while barring their legal guardians from having a say on the issue.
In Hoogland’s case, Canadian courts repeatedly sided with the hospital and allowed hormone therapy to proceed. Moreover, the father was significantly restricted in how he could speak about the case. He was ordered to always use Maxine’s chosen name, gender, and pronouns, and was banned from trying to convince his child to stop the therapy. A judge even stated that his interviews with the media, in which Hoogland referred to Maxine as his daughter and said things like “her DNA will not change through all these experiments that they do,” may be considered “family violence.”
A 2020 review of the conflict at the BC Court of Appeal opined against such framing, acknowledging there was no evidence that Hoogland (who is called ‘CD’ in court papers and ‘Clark’ in some earlier media reports) was intentionally abusive, and saying the conflict was about “a complex family relationship stemming from a profound disagreement about important issues of parental roles and medical treatment.” His plea to block the transition, however, was rejected.
The April 2019 gag order, which barred Hoogland from sharing information about Maxine’s “sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, mental or physical health, medical status or therapies” with the general public, also remained in place. The dad, who believes his family’s story should be properly discussed, disobeyed, and in early March an arrest warrant was issued against him at the request of the BC Attorney General. He surrendered to the authorities on March 16.
The denial of bail puts Hoogland between a rock and a hard place. One of the things he was reportedly admonished for by the judge was failing to take down a crowdfunding page, on which he explains his situation – in apparent breach of the gag order – and asks for donations to cover legal fees. He had been instructed to comply by April 12, when proceedings on his contempt of court case are scheduled to begin, but says he cannot do it from jail.
British plan to treat misogyny as hate crime is a travesty of justice… and won’t make women more secure
By Frank Furedi | RT | March 20, 2021
By criminalising misogyny we accept the totalitarian idea of thought crime, because in a just society people are prosecuted for what they do, but not what they think.
Have you noticed that we live in an age where a variety of different campaigns are constantly calling for the invention of a new hate crime? Groups as disparate as vegans and fat people are demanding to be protected through the enactment of new hate crime legislation.
In the wake of the tragic murder of Sarah Everard moral entrepreneurs are demanding that misogyny should be criminalised as a hate crime. The British government has agreed and declared that from the autumn the police will be asked to categorise a variety of different offences and crimes as motivated by “hostility based on their sex.”
Like all hate crimes, the criminalisation of ‘hostility based on sex’ constitutes a travesty of justice. In an enlightened and just society people are prosecuted and judged for what they have done rather than what they think. Otherwise, we accept that dreadful totalitarian idea of a thought crime. It means that we are not simply judged for what we do but what the police believe we think.
Even if we decry the emotions and sentiment of misogyny it is far from clear whether a criminal act was motivated by it. The heinous crime perpetrated by the murderer of Sarah Everard may or may not have been motivated by hostility towards women. Not even the most sophisticated psychiatrist can be relied on to give an objective verdict on this score.
A hate crime is wrong in principle because by targeting subjective attitudes of people it deprives the legal system of its necessary objectivity.
Given its diffuse and subjective character, it is evident that the criminalisation of hate is an expressive act – that sends out a message. In this case the message is simply that of beware of men. Hate crimes have a tendency to expand the numbers and types of acts that can be punished. Wolf whistling, an unwelcome expression towards a woman can and will be treated as a potential hate crime.
The criminalisation of hostility is particularly insidious because in recent years the meaning of misogyny has become emptied of its classical meaning and turned into an ideological weapon wielded by identity entrepreneurs.
The meaning of misogyny has been transformed from a noun that means hatred of women to a veritable ideological concept that turns it into one of the defining characteristics of maleness.
According to the classical definition provided by the Oxford English Dictionary, it means “hatred or dislike of, or prejudice of women.” Today it is no longer about an individual’s prejudice. Its meaning has expanded to the point that it has been transformed into an all encompassing regime of patriarchal oppression.
According to the current definition featured on Wikipedia, misogyny “enforces sexism by punishing those who reject an inferior status for women and rewarding those who accept it.”
Wikipedia adds that “Misogyny manifests in numerous ways, including social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, androcentrism, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, disenfranchisement of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification.”
Since sexual objectification by both men and women is an everyday fact of life it is only a matter of time before any expression of desire can become the target of the thought police.
The mutation of an individual prejudice into an all-pervasive omnipotent force has rendered this concept so banal that virtually any act of male communication towards a woman can be encompassed by the misogyny label. Pointing to the trivialisation of its meaning, Nina Renata Aron in the New York Times explained, “misogyny is everywhere.” She added that “the way the word is now used, you don’t have to hate women to be a misogynist.”
Unfortunately, it does not matter whether or not you hate women because once ‘hostility based on sex’ becomes a crime you are likely to be seen as guilty until you prove your innocence. The motivation of hate and its expression is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. With hate crimes what really matters is how your behaviour is perceived.
The transformation of the newly expanded concept of misogyny into a hate crime serves as an ideological statement that assumes that violent intent is one of the foundational attributes of maleness. Aside from offering a distorted account of the motives that drive male behaviour it also assigns to women the act of permanent victims. This ideology, which insists that misogyny is everywhere, does nothing to render the position of women more secure; it merely further complicates relationships between the sexes.
Frank Furedi is an author and social commentator. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Author of How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century.
Interview 1625 – New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato
Corbett • 03/18/2021
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Welcome to New World Next Week – the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:
Watch on Archive / BitChute / LBRY / Minds / YouTube or Download the mp4
Story #1: March 20 “World Wide Rally For Freedom”
https://www.startpage.com/do/search?q=March+20+World+Wide+Rally+Freedom
QAnon Groups on Telegram Seethe with Covid Denialism and Vaccine Misinformation
https://archive.is/cpznz
Global March 20 Anti-Vaccine Protests Promoted by QAnon-Linked Groups
https://archive.is/I3DX6
Far-Right Trump Supporters Hope to Use RFK Jr.-Backed Protests to Stage Comeback
https://archive.ph/FVEV1
No to the new normal which takes away the future of Japan and children’s smiles.
https://twitter.com/jimakudaio/status/1371045888001474561
Nagoya, Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa, Kyushu, Shikoku, Tohoku and Hokkaido
https://www.facebook.com/events/188525632676626
World Wide Rally – Walk For Freedom – Calgary, Alberta
https://thelibertyclub.ca/event/world-wide-rally-walk-for-freedom-calgary-alberta/
No Lockdown, Yes Freedom: New Mexico Statewide Rally
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/821800098953691178/821800379691433994/image0.jpg
Daily Kos: CIA-Engineered Controlled Opposition? (Aug. 9, 2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20071011031548/http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=950
Story #2: Moderna Begins Study of COVID-19 Vaccine In Kids
https://archive.is/dnL9E
Toronto Lockdown Czar’s Husband Has ‘Financial Ties’ to Pfizer
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/toronto-lockdown-czars-husband-has-financial-ties-to-pfizer-astrazeneca
“Doctor” Fauci sat down for an interview with Mexican “comedian”
https://twitter.com/wakeupfromcovid/status/1370188597366784003
Fauci gets grilled by Mexican Comedian
https://odysee.com/@TruthPills:5/derbez:3
‘Vaccine Secrets’: What Parents Should Know Before They Vaccinate Their Kids
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/vaccine-secrets-parents-should-know-before-vaccinate/
Story #3: Spotify Censors Art for “Misinformation,” Pulls Ian Brown’s Anti-Lockdown Track
https://reclaimthenet.org/spotify-censors-ian-browns-anti-lockdown-track/
NSFW: Media Monarchy Cancels His Spotify Premium, Asks Questions About Other Pop Songs
https://twitter.com/mediamonarchy/status/1372018888674713600
Visit NewWorldNextWeek.com to get previous episodes in various formats to download, burn and share. And as always, stay up-to-date by subscribing to the feeds from Corbett Report (https://corbettreport.com/members) and Media Monarchy (https://mediamonarchy.com/join).
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CNN Forced to Admit Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Refusal to Lockdown Florida is “Paying Off”
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | March 18, 2021
CNN was forced to admit that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ refusal to impose strict lockdown measures and mask mandates is “paying off,” with the state recording fewer COVID-19 deaths per capita while the economy is booming.
Unlike states run by Democrat politicians, DeSantis consistently refused to impose harsh pandemic restrictions and has been pilloried for it by the media for the best part of a year.
However, compared to those states, which have recorded higher COVID deaths and face massive economic turmoil, Florida is in such a better position that even CNN has been forced to acknowledge it.
“A year into the pandemic, Florida is booming and Republican Gov. DeSantis is taking credit,” writes CNN’s Jeff Zeleny.
“As many parts of the country embark on an uneasy march toward normalcy, Florida is not only back in business — it’s been in business for the better part of the past year. DeSantis’ gamble to take a laissez faire approach appears to be paying off — at least politically, at least for now, as other governors capturing attention in the opening phase of the pandemic now face steeper challenges.”
“Despite far fewer rules and restrictions, Florida lands nearly in the middle of all states on a variety of coronavirus metrics. The state has had about 3% more Covid-19 cases per capita than the US overall, but about 8% fewer deaths per capita.”
Drew Holden pointed out on Twitter how, as recently as December, CNN was amplifying claims that DeSantis was putting politics in front of lives.
Now they’re having to eat those words.
Florida’s unemployment rate stands at just 4.8% compared to 6.8% in Texas, 8.8% in New York and 9% in California.
“DeSantis suddenly appears to be in a position of strength compared to some of his fellow governors, including many of whom took far more restrictive approaches to the fight against coronavirus that caused a trickle-down effect on the economy,” admits CNN.
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The infinite list
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | October 12, 2022
Almost three years ago science entered a new dark age.
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, seems to agree. He has been compiling a list of the examples of anti-science we have unfortunately become used to.
I have listed his thoughts so far but the list is continually expanding... continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- UAE deports tens of thousands of Pakistanis, seizes their savings amid war on Iran: Report
- Wheels Down in Tbilisi: Was a Routine U.S. Military Stopover a Deliberate Signal to Iran?
- Trump’s second strike on Iran would be suicidal. But that’s not the reason why he won’t go ahead with it
- Palantir touts record expansion and ‘battlefield’ AI value
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- No, New York Times, We Don’t Need to Dam the Bering Strait
- Gates-Funded ‘Big Catch-Up’ Delivers 100 Million Vaccine Doses — Including High-Risk DTP Vaccine Not Used in U.S.
- No commercial ship or oil tanker transited Strait of Hormuz in past hours: IRGC
- If Americans Knew
- 6,000 Gazans lack prosthetic and/or rehabilitation care – Daily Update
- As in Gaza, Israel is targeting rescue workers in South Lebanon, killing more than 100 since March
- Israel’s Obliteration Ecocide from Gaza to Lebanon and Beyond
- Israel Said It’s Applying the Gaza Model in Lebanon. This Is What the Devastation Looks Like.
- New Member of Trump’s Iran Negotiating Team Comes From Notoriously Pro-Israel Think Tank
- Israeli army demolishes Christian monastery, nuns’ school in southern Lebanon
- Tokenizing Christians In Israel
- One Gaza is not enough: Israel is turning southern Lebanon into another Gaza – Daily Update
- As Palestinians die, Ben-Gvir celebrates birthday with golden noose cake – Daily Update
- Israel’s New Ambassador to the ‘Christian World’ Served as Envoy to Azerbaijan During the Ethnic Cleansing of Christians from Nagorno-Karabakh
- No Tricks Zone
- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Another Study Links Warming To Cloud Forcing, Shortwave Radiation, Natural Atmospheric Circulation
- Wind Energy Is Toxic, Hazardous To Human Health, Scientific Review Shows
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
Aletho News 