Is Israel Using Soccer to Export Its Racist Political Model to Europe?
By Mike Whitney • Unz Review • November 15, 2024
For the second time in 8 days, hundreds of Israeli soccer hooligans attacked unidentified fans at a football match in Paris, France. A number of videos circulating on social media show swarms of young men—mostly dressed in black with masks and stocking caps or draped in Israeli flags—pummeling an unknown Frenchman who was beaten to the ground. The extent of his injuries remains unknown.
The skirmishes took place at Thursday’s UEFA Nations League soccer game between France and Israel at the Stade de France which drew the smallest crowd in history due to the threat of hooligan violence. But although the streets of Paris were heavily patrolled by thousands of police and security guards to protect the visiting Israelis, fans of the home team received no such security. When the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans began raining-down blows on their unnamed victims, the police were nowhere to be found.
Some of the videos show terrified fans fleeing an area in the stands that was overrun by a hostile Maccabi mob sprinting across the upper deck while thousands of fans “Booed” loudly from below. The scene seemed more reminiscent of the political street fights that took place in Weimar Germany in the early 1930s than a football match in 2024. The ensuing mayhem was described by analyst Arnaud Bertrand on his Twitter site:
… There was a football match between Israel and France yesterday and this happened at the beginning of the match: a horde of Israeli supporters openly lynched some French supporters in the stands. Macron himself was in attendance at the match to show his commitment to “fighting antisemitism” after Amsterdam…
He made no public comment that I know of on these French supporters getting lynched in front of his eyes. And the police made no reported arrests. Had the reverse been the case, had this been some Israeli supporters getting lynched by a horde of French supporters, you can absolutely bet 100% that he (and all the French media) would have made a huge deal out of it. You cannot overstate the absurdism of it: because we’ve so gaslighted ourselves around “antisemitism” and so distorted the meaning of it, Western countries would literally rather let our their own citizens get lynched on their own soil – in front of the president’s eyes (!) – than face accusations being “antisemitic” in their own definition of the term. @RnaudBertrand (video)
Bertrand is using the term “lynching” in the legal sense as it relates to the “Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act” in 2022… meaning “that the actions of the Israeli supporters would most certainly be considered lynching under US law because they conspired as a mob to cause serious bodily harm based on bias regarding “the actual or perceived religion or national origin” of the person(s) – matching exactly 18 USC §249(a)(5)’s definition requiring conspiracy & serious injury in hate-motivated attacks. @RnaudBertrand
Arnaud is correct in pointing out that President Macron attended the match. Not surprisingly, Macron was joined in his luxury box by two former presidents, the current prime minister and a large portion of France’s political establishment, all of whom stand foursquare behind the violent Zionist thuggery they witnessed in the stands. (Note—Joshua Zarka, Israeli ambassador to Paris, was also at the game, while Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, was in France to supervise the security of Israeli players and fans.)
This is from an article at inews.uk:
Fights broke out at a sparsely attended France–Israel match at the Stade de France in Paris on Thursday night, despite a heavy security presence inside and outside the stadium. Footage on social media showed clashes between home and away fans in the stands, with one clip appearing to show men wearing Israel flags punching and kicking a man on the ground before stewards intervened.
Tensions ran high even before the match with a heavy security operation around the stadium, with 4,000 police and 1,600 civilian security personnel deployed as French authorities sought to avoid a repeat of the violent scenes around a Maccabi Tel Aviv match in Amsterdam last week. Police lines extended more than a kilometer from the stadium with barricades along the streets and helicopters buzzing overhead… Just 13,000 tickets had been sold the day before the game – reportedly the lowest attendance for any home fixture in the history of the French national team…
Israel fans sang songs in support of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) and “free the hostages,” in references to captives held by Hamas in Gaza. Some wore masks and IDF shirts.
Despite Israeli government advice, some Israeli dual nationals were in Paris with Betar, an international right-wing Zionist group. Betar’s social media channels posted an image of members in the French capital holding baseball bats before the game. Fights break out at France-Israel match in Paris despite heavy security, inews.co.uk
Let’s recap:
- No expense was spared to provide security for the Maccabi hooligans, but French fans were beaten in the stands without anyone lifting a finger.
- A mere 13,000 people attended a stadium that holds 80,000, but the match was given the go-ahead regardless.
- The Maccabi mob sang military songs and bellowed racist slogans, but no government official has had the courage to order an inquiry. Note: According to the Middle East Eye, Israeli fans chanted “Free the hostages” and “Hamas, Hamas, we’re fucking you”.)
Readers should take a minute and carefully examine the photo at the top of this article. What do you see?
Do you see a gathering of typical soccer fans dressed in team colors and jerseys waving banners and singing team songs, or do you see a uniformly dressed and deeply threatening throng of black-clad troopers with stocking caps and masks who could—just as easily be conducting a military operation as attending a match of their favorite football team?
Who wears a black mask and a stocking cap to a soccer match? Who chants “Hamas, Hamas, we’re fucking you” at a soccer match?
Was this really a spontaneous get together of pumped-up Maccabi fans expressing their support for their team or a clandestine infiltration of the EU overseen by Israeli intelligence agents on secret assignment?
And be sure to take special note of the author’s last observation:
Despite Israeli government advice, some Israeli dual nationals were in Paris with Betar, an international right-wing Zionist group. Betar’s social media channels posted an image of members in the French capital holding baseball bats before the game.
Betar? The far-right youth movement founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky that fought against the British in Mandatory Palestine and was closely affiliated with the Zionist terrorist organization, the Irgun?
Here’s more from an article at the Middle East Eye:
At the demonstration in Paris, Salah Hamouri, a French-Palestinian lawyer who was deported from Jerusalem by Israel in 2022 after spending many years in prison and is now a member of Urgence Palestine, also accused the French president of sending a political message of support for Israel by attending the match.
“This match and the participation of Macron, Hollande and Sarkozy is part of France’s complicity in the ongoing genocide. It is a diplomatic green light given to the Israeli occupier for all its actions in Palestine and Lebanon and for it to continue its massacres in Palestine and in Lebanon,” he told MEE.
“Today, the low turn-out at the stadium shows that the public opinion in France is in favour of the Palestinian cause, and that the people support the people. It shows that the voice of the Palestinian people has been heard, and that a boycott needs to be implemented.” France-Israel match marked by scuffles, booing and a record-low attendance, Middle East Eye
Summary and Analysis
So, now we’ve seen two significant and politically destabilizing events in less than 10 days both of which took place in European capitals. And in both cases, the violence and racist chants were initiated by Israeli hooligans engaged in actions aimed at intimidating the public. Is there a rational explanation for this sudden uptick in social unrest attributable to Maccabi sports fans?
Of course, it could be just a coincidence linked to the behavior of overzealous sports fans who need to practice more self-restraint. That is one possibility. We cannot exclude another possibility, however, that the violence we have seen in Paris and Amsterdam is not a one-off or merely a case of exuberant young men “letting off a little steam.” We must at least consider the possibility that Israeli powerbrokers have launched this operation—using their assets in the IDF and Mossad—to advance their own strategic agenda consistent with their expansionist Zionist plan.
What we’ve seen is that the incitements on the ground have been coordinated with journalists in the legacy media and with political leaders across the West who have fabricated a narrative of growing antisemitism when, in fact, that storyline is easily debunked by the hundreds of first-person eyewitness accounts and the numerous videos on social media that prove that the sole responsibility for the violence in both cities lies entirely with the Israeli soccer thugs.
But why would political leaders and the media want to create the impression that antisemitism is on the rise? That is the question we must ask ourselves, because that is the narrative we are expected to believe.
IMHO, Israeli leaders understand that the claim of antisemitism is a powerful coercive tool that can be used to pressure parliamentarians to modify the law in ways that benefit one group over the others. Thus, as fears of a new wave of antisemitism intensify, the demand for changes to the law increase. Eventually—as in the case of Israel—equal protection is no longer equal protection. One category of people is placed above the law, while the others are crushed beneath the wheel of “second class citizenship.” This erosion of equal protection—that is attributable to the creation of “special” laws for special people—is the fast-track to apartheid, which is the end of a justice system that treats all people equally and with dignity.
Israel is frequently called an apartheid state because one group of people is treated differently (under the law) than the other. If my theory is correct, then Israeli policymakers are trying to affect those same changes in Europe, which means, they are exporting their racist political model to the continent.
Readers may want to skim the article below and decide for themselves whether this theory has any merit:
Calling for a boycott against Israel is forbidden now – and other measures against anti-Semitism, CNE
The German Bundestag took the clearest decision. Last week, the parliament accepted a resolution from both the government and the Christian Democratic opposition to protect Jewish life in the country. The title of the resolution was “Never again is now”, according to reports from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
According to the text, hatred against Jews and Israel is higher than “decades” since the terror attacks on October 7th 2023. The resolution also explicitly mentions that migrants especially add to this problem…. Concrete measures of the resolution are that no state money can go to organizations that… call for a boycott against Israel. Also, schools will be supported in educating about the Holocaust….
Norway
This Monday, the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre presented an action plan with 22 measures against hatred against Jews. He invited representatives of the Jewish community to a meeting to discuss the matter. “We would love we did not need an action plan”, the Prime Minister said. “But we know that it is necessary.”
The Holocaust Centre in Norway has reported that anti-Semitism is growing after many years of decrease. “It is not just one budget post that resolves this”, Støre said. “This is about something difficult as attitudes.”…
Netherlands
Also , the Dutch government has been invited to take action against anti-Semitism. On Wednesday, there was a lengthy urgency debate in the Lower House about the incidents in Amsterdam last Friday.
The debate was dominated by Geert Wilders –who is leading the largest party– who presented immigration by Muslims as the basic problem of anti-Semitism.
The Dutch society was shocked by the pogrom-style hunt of Israeli football supporters. Hundreds of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were asked for their passports, beaten and chased. Opposition leader Frans Timmermans expected concrete measures from the government. He advocated for appointing more detectives to track down anti-Semitic offenders and then imposing harsher penalties….
European Parliament
Also, in the European Parliament in Brussels, parties held an urgency debate about anti-Semitism later on Wednesday. The debate was requested by the Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen from the Reformed SGP party after the shocking events in Amsterdam. The title of the debate is the “deplorable escalation of violence around the football match in the Netherlands and unacceptable attacks on Israeli football fans.”
“Europe is increasingly in the grip of extremist violence and Jew-hatred”, Ruissen said in a written statement. “This must stop as soon as possible.”
Already in October, the EU ministers of Foreign Affairs adopted a declaration that condemned “all forms of anti-Semitism, racism, hatred and discrimination.” Also, in this statement, action in schools was asked to keep the Holocaust in the “collective memory”. Calling for a boycott against Israel is now forbidden, CNE
Everyone is entitled to equal treatment under the law. There should be no legal carveouts for special people.
Canada’s Censorship Crusade Targets Tech Giants in a Push for “Disinformation” Control
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 15, 2024
Over the last four years, Canada’s Liberal government headed by Justin Trudeau got itself heavily aligned with the neighbor to the south on several key but also very contentious issues – such as restrictive Covid measures, various forms of pressure on tech companies, and “disinformation” censorship.
A flurry of controversial bills in Canada, some of which became law, serve to cement this impression.
Now, as President Trump prepares to start his second term in office in the US, Canada’s “orphaned” ruling class continues with the “disinformation” narrative – either as a sign of long-term commitment or looking for new “disinformation partners” elsewhere in the world – or simply as a sign of inertia.
Time will tell, and it will be interesting to see, but for the moment, news out of Canada speaks about a report compiled by the House of Commons Heritage Committee, titled, “Tech Giants’ Intimidation and Subversion Tactics to Evade Regulation in Canada and Globally.”
How about the tactics deployed in Canada – and globally – using all manner of intimidation and subversion to evade citizens’ right to free speech?
Maybe another day, by another ruling coalition.
Right now, the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and Bloc Québécois stand behind statements such as this one, found in the cumbersomely-named report:
“The Government of Canada notes some individuals and groups create disinformation to promote political ideologies including extremist views and conspiracy theories or simply to make money.”
This looks like a call to combine (yet more) censorship with (yet more) deplatforming. And the ones to “fix” things for Canada’s current government are companies behind major social platforms, like Meta and Google.
It’s always fascinating to see that even today, there are still those willing to claim that these giants could possibly “do more” (censorship, that is) than they have been earnestly doing, for years.
But the group of Canada’s MPs behind the report believes so.
They want mechanisms put in place “to detect undesirable or questionable content that may be the product of disinformation or foreign interference and that these platforms be required to promptly identify such content and report it to users.”
Does Canadian parliament’s pressure on US tech companies not count as “foreign interference”? Unclear. Another thing that’s unclear – as in, undefined in the report – is what its authors have in mind when they mention “disinformation” and, “conspiracy theories.”
It’s as if these terms have become “art for art’s sake.”
Whatever that may be, Canada’s ruling parliamentarians want specific actions against these undefined phenomena to be enforced by tech companies.
“Failure to do so should result in penalties,” reads the document.
Congressional Investigation into Authors of ‘Disinformation Dozen’ Intensifies
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 15, 2024
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), authors of the “Disinformation Dozen,” faces a Nov. 21 deadline to provide Congress with documents related to its alleged collusion with the Biden administration and social media platforms to censor online users.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Nov. 7 subpoenaed CCDH as part of an ongoing congressional investigation, launched in August 2023, into the nonprofit’s censorship-related activities.
The subpoena requests all communications and documents “between or among CCDH, the Executive Branch, or third parties, including social media companies, relating to the identification of groups, accounts, channels, or posts for moderation, deletion, suppression, restriction, or reduced circulation.”
The subpoena also requests all records, notes, and other “documents of interactions between or among CCDH and the Executive Branch referring or relating to ‘killing’ or taking adverse action against Elon Musk’s X social media platform.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1854563397859193136
CCDH previously included Kennedy on its “Disinformation Dozen” list, published in March 2021, of the 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers.”
Leaked CCDH documents released last month by investigative journalists Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi revealed that CCDH sought to “kill” Twitter and launch “black ops” against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
CCDH included Kennedy, founder of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), on its list of “The Disinformation Dozen” when he was still chairman of CHD.
“Black ops” are defined as a “secret mission or campaign carried out by a military, governmental or other organization, typically one in which the organization conceals or denies its involvement.”
A subsequent report by Taibbi and Thacker showed that CCDH employed tactics it initially developed to help U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the U.S. Democratic Party, to target Musk, Kennedy and others.
CCDH used ‘explicit military terminology’ to target speech
Thacker told The Defender the leaked documents “definitely spurred” Jordan’s subpoena.
Sayer Ji, the founder of GreenMedInfo, was also listed among “The Disinformation Dozen.” He said the leaked documents were “chilling” and that CCDH’s efforts were part of “the largest coordinated foreign influence operation targeting American speech since 1776.”
Ji told The Defender :
“The leaked documents confirm what we experienced firsthand: CCDH wasn’t just targeting 12 individuals — we were test cases for deploying military-grade psychological operations against civilians at scale.
“Just as the British Crown once used seditious libel laws to silence colonial dissent, CCDH’s operation expanded to silence hundreds of millions globally, from doctors sharing clinical observations to parents discussing vaccine injuries.”
Ohio physician Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, also on “The Disinformation Dozen” list, told The Defender, “The exposure of the manipulation that went on behind the scenes to silence us is what we suspected, and now we know … We have the sad last laugh against their attacks. They are the ones with blood on their hands.”
Ji said CCDH’s internal communications reveal not just bias, “but explicit military terminology — ‘black ops,’ ‘target acquisition,’ ‘strategic deployment’ — coordinated between Five Eyes networks and dark money interests to target constitutionally protected speech.”
Writing on GreenMedInfo, Ji said, “CCDH’s ‘black ops’ approach includes coordinated media smears, economic isolation, and digital censorship.” Ji said CCDH’s activities represent “a new level of institutionalized power directed at civilian targets, often bypassing constitutional safeguards.”
Thacker said Jordan’s investigation should expand to include CCDH’s “black ops.”
“I don’t want to speculate on what CCDH was doing with ‘black ops’ against Kennedy,” Thacker said. “I think that should be explored by a congressional committee, with CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed put under oath,” Thacker said.
CCDH facing multiple lawsuits, possible Trump administration investigation
Jordan’s subpoena is the latest in a series of legal challenges for CCDH. According to GreenMedInfo, the organization faces several lawsuits and government investigations.
Following last month’s CCDH document leak, the Trump campaign said an investigation into CCDH “will be at the top of the list.”
The campaign also filed a complaint against the Harris campaign with the Federal Election Commission, “for making and accepting illegal foreign national contributions” — namely, from the U.K. Labour Party.
This followed the release of evidence indicating that the Biden administration coordinated with the U.K. Foreign Office as part of what GreenMedInfo described “as a systematic censorship regime involving CCDH and affiliated organizations.”
A lawsuit Musk filed against CCDH in July 2023 for allegedly illegally obtaining data and using it in a “scare campaign” to deter advertisers from X will likely proceed on appeal. A federal court initially dismissed the lawsuit in March.
Discovery in the Missouri v. Biden free speech lawsuit may also “shed further light and legal scrutiny on the critical role that CCDH played in allegedly suppressing and violating the civil liberties of U.S. citizens,” according to GreenMedInfo.
CCDH, others flee X in protest
Earlier this week, CCDH deleted its account on X, the platform it wanted to “kill.”
Writing on Substack, Ji said CCDH’s departure from X, during the same week Trump nominated Kennedy to lead HHS, represents a “seismic shift” and marks “a watershed moment, signaling the unraveling of entrenched systems of control and the rise of a new era for health freedom and open discourse.”
Several other left-leaning organizations and individuals, including The Guardian and journalist Don Lemon, also said they will stop using X, after Trump tapped Musk to lead a federal agency tasked with increasing government efficiency.
According to NBC News, many ordinary users are also fleeing X, citing “bots, partisan advertisements and harassment, which they all felt reached a tipping point when Donald Trump was elected president last week with Musk’s support.”
But according to Adweek, X’s former top advertisers, including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Lionsgate Entertainment, resumed ad spending on the platform this year, but at “much lower rates” than before.
“Elon Musk’s ties with Donald Trump might spur some advertisers to think spending on X is good for business,” Adweek reported.
Thacker said CCDH’s deletion of its X account was “aligned” with the departure of “other organizations and ‘journalists’ aligned with the Democratic Party.” He said it appears to have been a “coordinated protest.”
Ji said organizations like CCDH view X “as an existential threat.” He added:
“Having experienced both Twitter 1.0’s AI-driven censorship system and X’s more open environment, I understand exactly why CCDH sees X as an existential threat. X represents what Twitter 1.0’s embedded censorship infrastructure was designed to prevent: a truly free digital public square.
“Under Musk’s commitment to free speech, their tactical advantage disappeared. They’re not leaving because X is toxic. They’re leaving because they can’t control it.”
Online censorship ‘may no longer be sustainable under intensified scrutiny’
According to GreenMedInfo, CCDH’s departure from X “appears to reflect an internal recognition that their operational model — characterized by critics as a US-U.K. intelligence ‘cut-out’ facilitating unconstitutional suppression of civil liberties — may no longer be sustainable under intensified scrutiny.”
In recent months, several mainstream media outlets have corrected stories that relied upon CCDH reports claiming “The Disinformation Dozen” was responsible for up to two-thirds of vaccine-related “misinformation” online.
According to Thacker, this reflects an increasing awareness by such outlets that readers are turning their backs on such reporting.
“The outlets that promoted CCDH propaganda are being investigated by their own readers, who are fleeing in droves. Readers are voting against this type of propaganda by refusing to subscribe to these media outlets,” Thacker said.
Yet, “many outlets continue to host these demonstrably false narratives without correction,” Ji said.
According to Ji, these false narratives resulted in medical professionals fearing the loss of their licenses for expressing non-establishment views, self-censorship among scientists “to avoid career destruction,” suppression of “critical public health discussions” and the labeling of millions of posts as “misinformation.”
“This isn’t just about suppressing speech. It’s about establishing a new form of digital control that echoes the colonial-era suppression our founders fought against,” Ji said.
“CCDH has polluted political discourse by pretending there is some absolute definition of the term ‘misinformation’ and that they hold the dictionary,” Thacker said. “That’s nonsense. They spread hate and misinformation to attack perceived political enemies of the Democratic Party.”
Ji called upon Congress to investigate “The full scope of those silenced beyond the ‘Disinformation Dozen,’” the “systematic suppression of scientific debate,” “media organizations’ role in amplifying foreign influence operations” and “dark money funding networks” supporting such organizations.
Thacker said Congress should examine possible CCDH violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. “We need to also look at how much foreign money they took in and whether we as a nation are comfortable with foreign influence trying to alter the law and political discussions.”
“The fight isn’t just about correcting past wrongs or personal vindication. It’s about preserving fundamental rights to free speech and scientific inquiry in the digital age,” Ji said. “If we don’t address this systematic abuse of power, we risk surrendering the very freedoms our founders fought to establish.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
ADL attacks Trump’s attorney general pick
RT | November 15, 2024
The Anti-Defamation League has accused US President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, of “trafficking in anti-Semitism” and called for him to be barred from office.
Trump announced Gaetz’s nomination on Wednesday, declaring that the Florida Republican would end the “partisan weaponization of our justice system.” Gaetz is a hardline conservative and staunch ally of Trump, but his nomination rankled some establishment Republicans and angered the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish advocacy group that typically supports the Democratic Party.
”Rep. Matt Gaetz has a long history of trafficking in anti-Semitism – from explaining his vote against the bipartisan Anti-Semitism Awareness Act by invoking the centuries-old trope that Jews killed Jesus to defending the Great Replacement Theory and inviting a Holocaust denier as his 2018 State of the Union guest,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X on Wednesday.
”He should not be appointed to any high office, much less one overseeing the impartial execution of our nation’s laws.”
Greenblatt did not fully explain the examples of Gaetz’s conduct that he cited. The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this year but never became law, would have criminalized “contemporary examples of anti-Semitism,” including “claims of Jews killing Jesus.” As these claims are repeatedly made in the New Testament of the Bible, Gaetz argued that the bill would have essentially outlawed much of Christianity’s core text.
The so-called ‘Great Replacement Theory’ refers to the idea that white people are slowly being replaced in their own lands by non-white immigrants. While this is often written off by liberals as a racist conspiracy theory, the ratio of whites to other races in the US has steadily been shrinking since the mid-20th century.
In 2021, the ADL condemned former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for claiming that Democrats plan to replace America’s Republican-voting whites with Democrat-voting immigrants. Greenblatt called Carlson’s claims “toxic, anti-Semitic and xenophobic.”
Gaetz weighed in on the controversy, calling the ADL a “racist organization.”
In 2018, Gaetz invited right-wing pundit Charles Johnson to then-President Trump’s State of the Union address on Capitol Hill, prompting another showdown with the ADL. Johnson had previously claimed that 250,000, and not six million, Jews were killed by Nazi Germany during World War II. Gaetz refused to call Johnson a “Holocaust denier,” but said afterwards that he “should’ve vetted him better before inviting him.”
It is unclear how Greenblatt’s complaint will affect Gaetz’s chances of being confirmed by the Senate. While the GOP holds a majority in the upper chamber, four ‘no’ votes from Republicans plus unified opposition from Democrats would sink the Florida lawmaker’s chances of leading the Department of Justice.
Michigan Senate Advances Bill To Impose Fines for Spreading Election “Misinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 14, 2024
A Senate committee in the US state of Michigan has approved Bill 707, which seeks to impose fines on those who, under the proposed legislation’s scope, are found to be spreading election misinformation, and doing that intentionally.
Introduced earlier in the year by Senator Mary Cavanagh, if adopted, this bill would amend the Michigan election law to introduce fines ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 and qualify “spreading of election disinformation” as an offense.
Disinformation here is defined as statements and misrepresentations that are considered false by the authorities – but the authorities would also have to determine if those statements are made intentionally.
This is not the first time Cavanagh, a Democrat, has tried to push through legislation of this kind; the first attempt happened in 2022.
And it’s not the first time that similar proposals, similarly vaguely worded have seen the light of day in the US these last years; here as well, opponents are wondering who would be “the judge and jury” that declares somebody had intent to spread false information – but also, how the amended bill would be enforced.
“What is the burden of proof here? Is it clear and convincing evidence?,” asked Senator Ed McBroom, a Republican.
Supporters of the new bill – accepted by the Senate’s Elections and Ethics Committee along party lines – say it would “clarify” the state’s existing law dealing with voter intimidation, and adapt it to “modern” intimidation techniques.
Senator Cavanagh said that in addition to “specifying” that an individual (or a company employing them) must know their election-related statements are false, the bill aims to make sure voters in this swing state are aware of a Michigan Supreme Court ruling.
Namely, it decided that the First Amendment protections somehow “do not extend to intentionally false speech about election misinformation,” Cavanagh noted.
Therefore, what was left to do was introduce a new bill that “specifies” (but crucially, opponents think – it actually doesn’t) what passes for “intentionally spreading election disinformation,” and then suppress this speech.
French prosecutor wants a five-year prison term and a ban from running for public office for Le Pen
RT | November 14, 2024
French prosecutors have asked a judge to slap former National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen with a five-year prison term and a ban from running for public office in an embezzlement case.
Le Pen and 24 other current and former members of the right-wing National Rally are accused of using €3 million ($3.3 million) in European Parliament money intended for payments to parliamentary assistants to fund work on internal party business from 2004 to 2016, in violation of EU law. All of the defendants have denied any wrongdoing.
During the proceedings in Paris on Wednesday, the prosecutors argued that Le Pen should receive the harshest punishment as she was a member of the European Parliament and the leader of the National Rally when some of the alleged violations took place. She led the party, which was previously called the National Front, from 2011 to 2021 and still remains a member.
Three years of Le Pen’s sentence would be suspended, and the other two could be served with an electronic bracelet, the prosecutors said. They also asked for her to be fined €300,000 ($316,000).
The prosecutors said the five-year ban on running for office should be implemented immediately, before the defense can appeal the ruling. This means that if found guilty, Le Pen would be disqualified from the presidential election in 2027. During the trial, which began in late September, she announced plans to run for president for the third time.
“It is clear that the only thing the public prosecutors wanted was Marine Le Pen’s exclusion from political life,” Le Pen told reporters after the hearings.
National Rally leader Jordan Bardella, who is not a defendant in the case, took to X to accuse the prosecutors of an “assault on democracy,” saying they are “seeking to persecute and take revenge on Marine Le Pen.”
The prosecutors also requested that the National Rally be fined €2 million, and that all of the others who are accused receive bans from running for public office from one to five years.
The defense will now present its arguments to the judge until the trial concludes on November 27. A verdict is expected in early 2025.
In the 2022 election, Le Pen lost to President Emmanuel Macron in the second round 58.55% to 41.45%.
FBI and Justice Department Anticipate Shake-Up Following Trump’s Comeback
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 12.11.2024
US Justice Department and FBI employees fear widespread “housecleaning” as Donald Trump’s White House return looms, with agency brass reportedly “stunned” and “shell-shocked,” CNN and The Washington Times have reported.
“Let’s hope the housecleaning starts after Trump’s inauguration. The FBI is in desperate need of a change in leadership, one which restores trust and seeks to end the politicization of the agency,” Techno Fog, a nom de plume for a lawyer, blogger and popular legal observer on X, told Sputnik.
The DoJ and FBI’s reaction appears to be strikingly different from what unfolded after Trump’s first win, with the bureau waging Operation Crossfire Hurricane and Operation Crossfire Razor against the newly-elected president and his aides under the false pretext of “collusion with Russia”.
In 2018, former FBI Director James Comey openly bragged about sending two operatives to interrogate Trump’s national security advisor, Michael Flynn, in violation of White House legal rules.
“Thankfully, 2024 isn’t 2016,” Techno Fog said. “There is less hysteria both in the press and at the FBI. Trump won’t be caught off-guard this time by a secret operation targeting his administration – the illegal wiretaps, the lies to the FISA court – that we saw in Trump’s first term. And FBI leadership, by now, hopefully knows better. [FBI Director Christopher] Wray isn’t perfect, and he has made plenty of mistakes, but he is not as deceitful and prone to abuse his power as former FBI Director James Comey.”
Nonetheless, Wray is rumored to step down prior to Trump’s inauguration, before the housecleaning begins. “Director Wray never truly sought responsibility for the Russiagate fiasco,” the lawyer remarked. “It seems like Wray has to go.”
Similarly, there won’t be the weaponization of the Justice Department that one saw in 2016, the pundit continued.
“Special Counsel Jack Smith’s ‘election interference’ case against Trump, which is pending in Washington, DC, will likely be dismissed,” Techno Fog said. “Last week, after Trump’s election, Smith asked the court to vacate the briefing schedule so that the Department of Justice could ‘determine the appropriate course going forward’ given the DoJ’s policy to not seek continue the criminal case against a president. The court granted that request and vacated the briefing schedule and all deadlines in the pretrial schedule.”
That doesn’t mean, however, that Trump has become immune to deep state interference, according to the lawyer.
“The deep state may push back on parts of Trump’s policies that it finds disagreeable, especially when it comes to foreign policy. Keep an eye on efforts to subvert Trump’s goal of seeking an end to the Ukraine-Russia war and any limitations to Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO,” the pundit concluded.
Stunning Revelations in Massive Robert Koch Institute Leak
Breathtaking November 2 presentation in the German Parliament
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | November 9, 2024
A massive leak of internal e-mails and memos from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (federal agency and research institute for controlling infectious disease) reveals that the institute’s scientists understood that virtually every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic response was NOT guided by science, but by political machinations to spread fear, control the population, and promote the experimental vaccines. On November 2, 2024, Professor Stefan Homburg gave a presentation on the leaked documents in the German Parliament.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have suspected that governments throughout the world were committing the greatest organized fraud in history, but I still found Professor Homburg’s presentation to be absolutely breathtaking in the sheer ruthlessness of the lies and manipulation revealed in these leaked documents. Perhaps the most perfidious is a memo from September 28, 2020.
Translation: 28.09.2020: FDA approval [of COVID-19 vaccines] before the US Elections is not desired, also not by European authorities.
In other words, both U.S. and European public health authorities were afraid the COVID-19 vaccines—which had been heralded as the forthcoming saviors of mankind—could help to get Donald Trump elected if they were approved before the election. And so they found it expedient to withhold approval until after the election, even though they claimed the vaccines could save millions of lives.
I strongly encourage everyone to watch the video presentation (in German with English subtitles) and to share it far and wide.
A whistleblower obtained 10GB from Robert-Koch-Institute, the German CDC. This so-called RKI-Leak reveals that Covid was a scam from start to finish. The presentation took place in the second largest room of the German Bundestag, which is actually intended for committees of inquiry. Recorded 2 November 2024 in Berlin, English subtitles provided by the speaker.
Internet sources:
The RKI-Leak The Federal Ministry of Health has confirmed the authenticity of the leak. You can download the entire material anonoymously and free of charge from https://rki-transparenzbericht.de/
Here is a convenient search tool: https://www.rkileak.com/
Lauterbach‘s Post on X: https://x.com/Karl_Lauterbach/status/…
Lauterbach and political independence https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/rk… Spahn: Test, test, test https://www.aerztezeitung.de/Politik/…
CNN reporting emergency authorization https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/11/he…
RKI-Grapah Influenca like illnesses (ILI) https://influenza.rki.de/Wochenberich…
WDR-Graph vaccine development https://www.quarks.de/gesundheit/medi…
Lauterbach on the unvaccinated https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschla…
Citation Dr. Brigitte Keller-Stanislawki https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/gesun…
Steinmeier, Merkel, Scholz, Lauterbach, Spahn were allegedly vaccinated https://www.bundespraesident.de/Share… https://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichte… https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutsc… Lauterbach on child vaccination https://x.com/Karl_Lauterbach/status/…
RKI risk levels (deleted, only available from the internet archive) Go to https://archive.ph and type:https:/www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Risikobewertung.html Intensive care unit occupation https://infektionsradar.gesund.bund.d…
RFK Jr. Could Pose Existential Threat to Big Pharma If He Joins Trump’s Cabinet: Here’s Why
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – November 9, 2024
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is primed for a possible senior job in Trump’s White House, promising to “Make America Healthy Again” by reining in big pharma’s enormous influence on US health policy, and by improving food standards. Here’s why the pharmaceutical lobby is going to have a hard time accepting that.
“He’s going to have a big role in health care, a very big role. He knows it better than anybody,” Donald Trump said last week when asked about RFK Jr.’s possible future in his administration. “He’s got some views that I happen to agree with very strongly and I have for a long time.”
Sources told media Saturday that Kennedy has already been asked to make recommendations to the Trump team on appointments to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration.
Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies have already prepared for the worst, with some execs reportedly hoping Trump and and RFK Jr. have a falling out before Kennedy can do any damage to their respective bottom lines.
“We need to have somebody who is going to be grounded by science and evidence and not somebody who rejects it,” John Maraganore, former CEO of Boston-based biotech firm Alnylam, told FT in a story published Friday, commenting on Kennedy’s prospects.
Kennedy involvement in Trump’s health policy “would be awful on a lot of levels,” a senior unnamed health exec said. “RFK is going to blow up. He’s marching around saying what he wants the administration to do before Trump’s had a chance to take a breath. Eventually Trump will sour on him,” another suggested.
Kennedy’s poor reputation with pharmaceutical companies is understandable, given the attention he’s gotten on the campaign trail during his 2024 presidential run, and before that – for his work as an environmental lawyer, Children’s Health Defense chairman and author of the 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, which spent twenty weeks on NYT’s bestseller list.
Kennedy used the national attention he got over the past three years to promote his favorite causes – vaccine safety and public health. His stinging remarks on these issues, and ability to now have the president-elect’s ear, explain why big pharma finds him so dangerous. Here’s a selection:
Anti-Vaxxer?
Smeared, throttled and censored by legacy media as an “anti-vaxxer” in virtually every article that mentions him, Kennedy has said repeatedly that he’s “never been anti-vaccine.”
“I fought against mercury in fish for 40 years. Nobody called me anti-fish. I like the idea that we have seatbelts in cars. Nobody calls me anti-automobile. I want vaccines that are safe just like every other medication and that are adequately tested. It doesn’t mean I’m anti-vaccine. It just means that I’m sensible and have common sense,” Kennedy said in a tense PBS interview in 2023.
‘Criminal’ Drug Companies
“The pharmaceutical industry is – I don’t want to say because this is going to seem extreme – a criminal enterprise, but if you look at the history, that is an applicable characterization. For example, the four biggest vaccine makers, Sanofi, Merck, Pfizer and Glaxo make all of the 72 vaccines that are now effectively mandated for American children. Collectively, those companies have paid $35 billion in criminal penalties and damages in the last decade,” he told Lex Fridman in 2023.
“And the problem is that they’re serial felons,” Kennedy said, citing the example of Merck’s non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx. “They killed people by falsifying science. And they did it. They lied to the public. They said, ‘this is a headache medication and an arthritis painkiller’. But they didn’t tell people that it also gave you heart attacks… We found when we sued them the memos from their bean counters saying ‘we’re going to kill this many people, but we’re still going to make money,” Kennedy said.
“The way that the system is set up, the way that it’s sold to doctors, the way that nobody ever goes to jail so there’s really no penalty [and] it all becomes part of the cost of doing business,” Kennedy said.
Big Pharma’s Role in Hooking Americans on Opioids
The opioid epidemic is a perfect example of big pharma’s corrupting influence, Kennedy believes, recalling the latter’s’ lobbying the FDA to tell doctors oxycodone isn’t addictive, and getting “a whole generation addicted to oxycodone. And when they got caught, and we made it harder to get oxycodone, now all those addicted kids are going to fentanyl and dying.”
“This year it killed 106,000. That’s twice as many people who were killed during the 20-year Vietnam War. But in one year, twice as many American kids. They knew it was going to happen and they did it to make money. So I don’t know what you call that other than saying that’s a criminal enterprise,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy vs. Mutilation of Children
RFK Jr. has stepped out against ‘gender-affirming care’ and hormone therapy for children, referring to the former as “surgical mutilation” and the latter as “castration drugs.”
“Minors cannot drive, vote, join the army, get a tattoo, smoke, or drink, because we know that children do not fully understand the consequences of decisions with life-long ramifications… People with gender dysphoria or who want to change their gender deserve compassion and respect, but these terribly consequential procedures should be deferred till adulthood. We must protect our children,” he tweeted in May.
That’s more bad news for the pharmaceutical industry, which has walked lock-step in support of the trans rights movement, and profited immensely from hormone therapy drugs and surgical procedures from the late 2000s onward.
RFK Jr. on Chronic Disease
Kennedy has also vowed to “end the chronic disease epidemic” facing America, another potential blow to big pharma, this one possibly the most serious.
“There is nothing more profitable in our society today than a sick child,” RFK Jr. told Tucker Carlson in August.
“Because all of these entities are making money on him – the insurance companies, the hospitals, the medical cartel, the pharmaceutical companies have lifetime annuities… They want [them] sick for the rest of their lives… When my uncle was president, 6% of Americans had chronic disease. Today it’s 60%. When my uncle was president, do you know what the annual cost of treating chronic disease was in this country? Zero. There weren’t even any drugs invented for it. Zero. Today it’s about $4.3 trln,” Kennedy said.
RFK Jr.’s Solution? Sweeping Reforms
RFK Jr. has pointed to statistics suggesting that effectively half of the FDA’s budget comes from the pharma companies they’re supposed to be regulating, and said this needs to stop. He’s also said that “entire departments” at the federal agency should be “cleared out,” and that many of the problems caused by big pharma could be “fixed” with effective regulation, tougher penalties for harmful products, taking a page from the regulatory and health care environments of other countries, and a change in the overall culture of the US health care system.
JD Vance Warns US May Withdraw NATO Support if Europe Tries To Censor Social Media Platforms
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 9, 2024
As Americans look at what the incoming administration’s policy will be in relation to tech, JD Vance, the Republican Vice President-Elect, has made a bold suggestion that the United States might reconsider its support for NATO if the European Union attempts to regulate US social media platforms.
This statement was made during the campaign, in an interview with podcaster Shawn Ryan, where Vance relayed an incident involving a top EU official who threatened Elon Musk for allowing former President Donald Trump on the platform.
Vance highlighted the stark contrast between European and American values, particularly on the issue of free speech. “The leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, ‘We’re going to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump,’ who, by the way, is the likely next president of the United States,” he reported.
Vance is likely referring to Thierry Breton, a pro-censorship crusader who was, at the time, European Commissioner for Internal Market. Bretton has since resigned.
In response to Breton, Musk promised a “very public battle in court,” and revealed, “The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.”
The Vice President-Elect argues that America’s participation in NATO should be contingent on the alliance’s respect for free speech, a core American value. “So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech?” Vance questioned. He criticized the notion of supporting a military alliance that does not uphold free speech as “insane,” insisting that American support comes with prerequisites, such as respecting free speech, particularly among European allies.
President-Elect Trump, Vance’s running mate, has been critical of some aspects of NATO, having expressed a desire to pull out from the alliance and disregard the Article 5 collective defense clause.
US Lawmakers Investigate Biden White House-Affiliated UK Censorship Group’s Plot To “Kill” Elon Musk’s X
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 8, 2024
Among the investigations currently carried out by the US House Committee on the Judiciary and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is the one into a case involving UK-based “censorship group” – the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
In a letter dated November 7, Committee chairman Jim Jordan is asking CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed to, by November 21, comply with a subpoena issued on August 30, 2023.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
According to Jordan, it covers the group’s activities as well, including documents showing the Biden-Harris administration’s alleged collusion with Big Tech to censor Americans’ lawful online speech.
Another point the letter makes is the plan to “kill Musk’s Twitter” – which communications recently revealed suggest was being hatched by CCDH. And Jordan reminds Ahmed that this, too, is with the subpoena’s scope.
On August 3, 2023, the Committee asked CCDH to present it with communications it had had with the US government as well as third parties regarding “moderation of online content” – and what role the government played in this (by exerting pressure on social platforms).
The letter then cites internal CCDH documents that recently came to light – particularly emails that show “killing Musk’s Twitter” was made a priority for the group this year.
Prior to that, the letter notes, CCDH in 2020 communicated with Twitter – then under its previous ownership – to identify content and accounts that should be censored, while earlier this year, CCDH “held a private event tat included (US) Executive Branch personnel.”
Last month, UK media reported about CCDH’s effort against X, as well as a formal request from then presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign suggesting the ruling Labour party was essentially interfering in US elections.
Not only were Labour advisers dispatched to the US to help Kamala Harris’ effort to remain in the White House – it was also revealed that CCDH has ties to UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s party.
Namely, Paul Thacker and Matt Taibbi’s Disinformation Chronicle named Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney as the (co) founder of CCDH. And it just so happened that “strengthening ties with senior Democrats” features as one of the controversial group’s priorities, right along with, “killing Musk’s Twitter.”
FLUORIDE HARMS HIT THE MAINSTREAM
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | November 7, 2024
Jefferey Jaxen’s reporting last week on the historical EPA ruling on fluoride in drinking water made its way into corporate media with a slurry of misinformation to help sway the election. At the same time, governments worldwide continue to use the term misinformation as a way to control free speech.
Featured Video
It’s the Occupation, Stupid
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
A superpower and “the world’s sickest warrior state”
By Paul J. Balles | March 8, 2010
Living through five or six major wars has hardened me to what I thought were the extremes of inhuman cruelty and brutality.
Two things made those extremes almost bearable: the brutality always revealed – at least according to the media coverage – the viciousness of the enemy. It was therefore quite understandable when our “brave men and women” pulverized the enemy.
Films of Japanese torturing captive Americans somehow justified holding Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II; and only a small percentage of Americans found the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki unreasonably vengeful at best, at worst, depraved.
The media giants in America portrayed the North Koreans as barbaric beasts with their captives, quite unlike their southern counterpoints – our allies during the Korean War. No one ever felt the need to explain how the South Koreans were a civilized breed while the North Koreans were absolute savages, at least according to the official line.
In Vietnam, our warriors justifiably (or so the media made us believe) dropped napalm on the North Vietnamese who had the gall to hide in villages and tunnels to ravage our invaders. At least it was accepted practice until some rogue photojournalist filmed a young girl screaming down a Vietnamese road in flames. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Pakistan to Host US-Iran Talks
- How Indonesia’s tilt toward the US left it stranded in the Strait of Hormuz
- US has no choice but to retreat from Iranian borders: Top commander
- Iran Retaliation Strikes Chemical Plant Near Dimona
- AWACS’ Destruction is a Major Loss for US Military – Ex-DoW Analyst
- Israel’s Iran Strategy Uses US Military & Gulf States as Its Pawns
- Iran: Trump wanted regime change, now just begging for Hormuz to open
- IRGC: Israeli, US universities in region legitimate targets after strikes on Iranian university
- Trump admits Iran hit USS Ford carrier: ‘We ran for our lives’
- Battle for Hungary: EU attacks on Orban are a sign of worse things to come
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli police block Catholic cardinal from entering Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday
- Israel is assassinating journalists again, more than any other nation, anywhere, ever – Not a ceasefire Day 170
- Over 300 US service members wounded, majority have brain injuries – Not a ceasefire Day 169
- Researchers at Human Rights Watch Resign Over Blocked Report on Palestinian Refugee Return
- Jewish Groups Are Backing a War Americans Don’t Want
- Eric Fingerhut Thinks He’s the President of the Jews
- Top Jewish Philanthropists, Rabbis Urge Israeli President to Take Action Against ‘Jewish Extremists’
- Don’t Be Fooled. Zionist Leaders Have Always Wanted to Control Southern Lebanon
- Israel’s widespread use of torture is a core element of its genocide against the Palestinian people
- In Israel’s War on Iran, Many Middle East US Bases Rendered “All But Uninhabitable”
- No Tricks Zone
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
Aletho News 