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Texas judge: Enforcing the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism limits speech

Interim decision allows policies to remain in place for now

‘Freedom for Palestine’ protest march that drew thousands of participants on November 4, 2023 in Berlin, Germany. [Sean Gallup/Getty Images]
MEMO | October 31, 2024

A federal court in Texas ruled this week that restrictions imposed by Texas public universities on anti-Israel speech violate the First Amendment. The case, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Houston et al v Greg Abbott et al, involves student organisations who argue that Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s executive order, known as GA-44, stifles their ability to engage in constitutionally protected criticism of Israel on campus.

The order, issued by Governor Abbott in March 2024, was framed as a measure against rising anti-Semitism in Texas universities. It mandates all higher education institutions in Texas to update their free speech policies to include a specific definition of anti-Semitism, incorporating the highly controversial, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

Seven of the 11 examples cited in the IHRA conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish racism. It’s widely criticised for having a chilling effect on free speech including by its founder Kenneth Stern. It lists examples of anti-Semitic acts, such as claiming that “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

Student groups argue that these examples restrict their ability to express criticisms of Israeli policies without facing sanctions from the university.

The plaintiffs, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Houston and the Palestine Solidarity Committee at the University of Texas at Austin, said amendments to the speech policy were unconstitutional. They argued that the policies discriminate against their legitimate views, effectively censoring their criticisms of Israeli state policies by labelling them anti-Semitic. The plaintiffs further alleged that the policy changes chill free expression on campus, leading to self-censorship due to fear of punishment. This crackdown on speech was unconstitutional, they added.

Judge Robert Pitman, who presided over the case, noted that the IHRA definition specifically targets expressions critical of Israel, thus chilling a form of “political speech that is fundamental to the university experience.” The judge highlighted that universities, as centres of intellectual debate, are “vital spaces” where students should be able to engage in robust discussions on contentious issues, including foreign policy matters such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

While the court acknowledged that universities have a responsibility to prevent genuine harassment and anti-Semitism, it found that enforcing a definition which includes political criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic oversteps constitutional boundaries. The court’s decision emphasised that the First Amendment prohibits the state from punishing viewpoints it finds disagreeable and that universities cannot impose speech restrictions based solely on anticipated discomfort or controversy.

This ruling is also a significant critique of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which has faced growing scrutiny for conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Free speech advocates argue that adopting such definitions threaten to limit open discussions on Israel-Palestine issues. Civil rights organisations and free speech groups have long warned that such definitions, when codified into policy, could stifle legitimate political discourse and are particularly problematic in academic settings.

The court’s decision sends a clear signal about the constitutional risks of using the IHRA definition as a basis for regulating speech in academic settings. As Judge Pitman observed, the inclusion of specific IHRA examples within university policies likely infringes upon the First Amendment by “chilling” protected political expression critical of Israel.

The court ultimately denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, meaning it declined to enforce any immediate changes to the university’s policies while the case continues. Although the court recognised that the plaintiffs could have a strong First Amendment claim, it found that the specific restrictions they requested were too broad to impose right away.

This interim decision allows the policies to remain in place for now, but the court’s findings suggest that any restrictions on political speech at public universities will undergo rigorous First Amendment scrutiny. The case will continue as the plaintiffs seek a resolution, which could further clarify the limits of permissible restrictions to free speech in academic institutions across the US.

October 31, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Will Tuesday’s Vote Counts Be Another Sham Biden-Harris Statistic?

By James Bovard – Mises Wire – October 30, 2024

If Kamala Harris wins the presidential election on Tuesday, Americans will be told that the final vote count is a sacred number that was practically handed down from Mt. Sinai engraved on a stone tablet. Any American who casts doubt on Harris’s victory will be vilified like one of those January 6, 2021 protestors sent to prison for “parading without a permit” in the US Capitol. Actually, anyone who doubted the 2020 election results was being prominently denounced as “traitors” even before the Capitol Clash.

But is there any reason to expect the final vote count in next week’s presidential election to be more honest than any other number that the Biden-Harris administration jiggered in the last four years?

Biden, Harris, and their media allies endlessly assured Americans that the national crime rate had fallen sharply since Biden took office. That statistical scam was produced by the equivalent of disregarding all the votes in California and New York. FBI crime data simply excluded many of the nation’s largest cities until a revision earlier this month revealed that violent crime had risen nationwide.

Deceitful national crime data helped cover-up the disastrous impact of open border policies. The Biden-Harris administration did backflips to avoid disclosing the true size of the surge of illegal immigrants from early 2021 onwards. Kamala Harris did zombie-like face plants in recent interviews when elbowed for honest answers.

In the same way that another surge of unverified mail-in ballots may determine the 2024 election, Biden manipulated the number of illegal aliens by using his presidential parole power to entitle more than a million people from Haiti, Venezuela, Cubans, and other countries to legally enter and stay in America on his own decree. The Biden administration even provided a vast secretive program to fly favored foreign nationals into select airports late at night where their arrival would occur under the radar.

Some states will officially count mail-in ballots that arrive well after Election Day even if the envelopes have no postmark. This is the same “late doesn’t matter” standard that Biden used to vindicate the $42 billion provided by his 2021 infrastructure law to boost broadband access in rural America—which Uncle Joe said was “not unlike what Roosevelt did with electricity.” Unlike the Tennessee Valley Authority, Biden’s broadband program has nothing to show since it delivered faster internet access to almost no one. The same default occurred with the Inflation Reduction Act’s alleged showpiece achievement—42,000 new charging stations around the nation for electric vehicles. But that program produced more presidential applause lines than EV refills. As of March, $7.5 billion in federal spending had only produced seven new charging stations nationwide.

How many votes will Harris lose on Tuesday because Americans remain outraged at the inflation that has slashed the dollar’s value by more than 20 percent since Biden took office? There would be far more popular fury if the feds had not deceived Americans about the full financial damage that Washington inflicted. The official inflation statistic doesn’t count soaring mortgage and housing costs—which is akin to excluding any state south of the Mason-Dixon Line from the national vote tally. Larry Summers, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, said that if the feds today used the same inflation gauges used in the 1970s, Biden’s peak inflation would have been 18 percent, twice as high as the reported number.

Tens of millions of voters will not be obliged to show any identification before voting in this election: they are presumed trustworthy regardless of zero verification. But this is the same standard that the Biden-Harris administration uses for not disclosing its most controversial policies to American citizens. People will vote next week without knowing the facts behind whistleblower allegations on Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz’s connections to the Chinese Communist Party, to Secret Service failures to prevent Trump assassination attempts, and the brazen details of the Censorship Industrial Complex.

In Washington, politicians feel entitled to applause for any grandiose promise—regardless of their failure to deliver. Similarly, politicians and election officials promising that the presidential vote count will be accurate and reflect “the will of the people” is far more important than tabulating the actual ballots. Will the unmanned ballot boxes in big cities be stuffed with bogus ballots the same way a politician jams endless balderdash into his campaign speeches? As pundit Stephen Kruiser quipped, “the clothing donation boxes that were all over my old neighborhood in Los Angeles were probably more secure than the ballot drop boxes.”

Of course, if Trump wins, then all the forces of decency must instantly shift to the other side of the barricades. Any electoral victory by Trump will be illegitimate because of politically incorrect comments made by speakers at Trump campaign rallies. As in 2017, if Trump wins, every “true patriot”—or at least every true progressive—will be honor-bound to join The Resistance™.

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | | Leave a comment

FBI ran ‘honeypot’ operation on 2016 Trump campaign – whistleblower

RT | October 30, 2024

Former FBI Director James Comey personally ordered “honeypot” spies to infiltrate Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to an agency whistleblower. The off-the-books operation was described by the agency insider as a “fishing expedition” to find wrongdoing among Trump’s team.

The operation was “personally directed” by Comey and launched in June 2015 without any case file being created in the FBI’s database, according to a whistleblower report handed to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and seen by the Washington Times.

At the time, Trump had just announced his first presidential campaign and neither he nor anyone on his campaign team was suspected of any crimes. Nevertheless, Comey ordered two “honeypot” agents to infiltrate Trump’s team on the campaign trail with the aim of extracting damning information from adviser George Papadopoulos, the report claimed.

A “honeypot” agent refers to an attractive woman who uses a sexual or romantic relationship to gather intelligence from a target.

Comey’s operation took place a year before the FBI’s ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged contacts with Russia, which later morphed into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year ‘Russiagate’ probe. According to the whistleblower, the honeypot operation was kept “off the books” to conceal it from the US Justice Department’s inspector general, who later determined that Comey knowingly lied when submitting evidence to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump’s campaign.

Papadopoulos was eventually questioned by the FBI and in 2017 pled guilty to making false statements to agents regarding his alleged contacts with Russia the year before. He served 12 days in federal prison in 2018, and has claimed ever since that he was entrapped by FBI agents posing as Russians with damaging information on Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

He complained about sloppy FBI agents “dropping information in my lap that I did not want regarding Hillary Clinton’s emails in the hands of the Russians” during the Crossfire Hurricane probe, and claimed to have been targeted by at least one “honeypot” beforehand. However, Papadopoulos thought that the woman was working for the CIA and “affiliated with Turkish intelligence,” he said in 2019.

The operation was canceled when a newspaper obtained a photograph of one of the agents and was about to publish it, the whistleblower claimed. The FBI allegedly contacted the newspaper claiming that the woman in question was an informant, and not an agent, and would be killed if the photo was released, successfully preventing its publication. One of the agents was then allegedly transferred to the CIA so she would not be available as a potential witness.

“The FBI employee personally observed one or more employees in the FBI being directed to never discuss the operation with anyone ever again, which included talking with other people involved in the operation,” the report states.

The Judiciary Committee told the Washington Times that it “plans to look into” the report. Trump fired Comey in 2017, describing him as a “liar” and a “slimeball.”

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

How the West rigged Moldova’s referendum on the European Union

By Raphael Machado | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 30, 2024

On October 20, a referendum was held on the Moldovan public’s interest in a constitutional reform to enable entry into the European Union. The “yes” vote won with 50.39%, a numerical margin of about 12,000 votes.

This result was well below expectations, considering all the government’s preparation and mobilization in support of the referendum.

Since Maia Sandu came to power, the goal has been to transform Moldova into a platform and tool for provocation and attack against Russia, similar to how Georgia and Ukraine were positioned in the past.

This had already begun even before Sandu’s election in 2020, with the free operation of Western or pro-Western NGOs in the country. According to various studies, there are around 14,000 NGOs registered in Moldova, a ratio of 1:200, with USAID having a strong direct presence in the country and indirect influence (as a funder of other NGOs).

USAID alone has invested more than $500 million in Moldova over the past 10 years. In terms of general funding, the West supports NGO activities in Moldova with $110 million annually. Besides USAID itself, other main NGO funders include the Open Society Foundation, the governments of Germany and the Netherlands, the NED, and Chatham House.

Among these “Moldovan” NGOs are Promo-LEX, IDIS Viitorul, the EEF (East Europe Foundation), WatchDog.MD, and the EBA (European Business Association), among others. All these groups work in areas like “promoting democracy and human rights” and “countering Russian disinformation.”

In recent years, these and many other NGOs have been actively shaping public opinion through social engineering techniques, aiming to “Ukrainize” Moldovans; that is, to turn Moldovans into Russophobic bots and compliant followers of Washington and Brussels.

With Sandu’s victory, Moldova’s automatic alignment with the West began. To achieve this, the nationalist sentiments of the population are naturally utilized, as the population historically identifies with Romania. However, this connection is manipulated not to foster a Romanian ethno-cultural identity but as a vehicle for the Westernization of Moldova.

When Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine began, Sandu seized the moment to formally apply for EU membership, despite Moldova’s constitution mandating geopolitical non-alignment. Shortly thereafter, the government started imposing censorship on the use of the Russian language in the country, as well as restricting Russian media and symbols, and even arrested her political rival, Igor Dodon. Predictably, Sandu quickly began indebting her country with multi-million euro loans from the European Union.

In the Moldovan narrative, Transnistria, a tiny strip of land with a Russian majority, poses a major threat to “Moldovan sovereignty.” Thus, Sandu decided to sacrifice Moldovan sovereignty in order to defend it. It makes no sense, but that’s how the minds of politicians who have been brainwashed by Western influence work.

Meanwhile, NATO stationed nearly 10,000 troops along the Moldovan border (even though foreign troops are prohibited on its territory), and the country faces frequent anti-government protests from citizens worried that the West might try to turn Moldova into another Ukraine.

This brings us to the referendum on constitutional reform aimed at EU integration. The result, although “victorious,” was disappointing, considering all the money spent promoting the EU, the imprisonment of opposition members, media censorship, and social engineering efforts by NGOs. Even this victory was only achieved through fraud. If you look closely at the referendum maps, you get the impression that the “no” vote won over the “yes.” And that’s exactly what happened: only 46% of Moldova’s residents voted for the reform. The majority of the country’s population voted against EU integration. In all of Gagauzia and the northern regions, opposition to the EU was nearly unanimous, and even in the center of the country, a significant portion of the population voted against joining the EU.

That’s when the “expatriate” population came into play—those who don’t live in the country, don’t share its fate, yet feel entitled to decide on its future. Out of 235,000 diaspora votes, 180,000 supported EU membership. The trick was simple: they increased the number of polling stations in Western countries while in Russia, where 500,000 Moldovans live (half the diaspora and one-sixth of all Moldovans worldwide), they reduced polling stations from 17 to 2, with only 10,000 ballots available.

The conclusion, therefore, is that under democratic rules, the Eurocrats and globalists would be soundly defeated at the polls. But since they don’t really care about democracy, they ensured that only the “right people” could vote.

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Concerts, restaurants, nightlife – Kiev regime hunting for conscripts

By Ahmed Adel | October 30, 2024

Ukraine is struggling to recruit troops to reinforce its front lines amid thousands of casualties in nearly three years of conflict. Under these conditions, the Kiev regime is hunting for recruits in places that were once off-limit, such as “upscale venues,” whilst also becoming increasingly reliant on foreign mercenaries to perform special operations.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Kiev regime has expanded its search network for military recruits to include “upscale venues” and “nightlife spots,” which is creating more social tension.

Even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tries to secure more weapons and security guarantees from the US government, the “biggest immediate problem” in Ukraine is recruiting more soldiers, the US outlet said. To deal with this issue, the Kiev regime recently lowered the age of compulsory military service to 25 and imposed additional penalties for draft dodgers, seeking to bring more soldiers to the front lines in the face of advancing Russian forces.

However, the newspaper said that most of the men who wanted to join the Ukrainian armed forces had already done so, while others had fled the country or were in hiding to avoid being drafted. Some prominent figures, including state prosecutors, are also avoiding joining the military by claiming medical exemptions.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the military is stepping up its recruitment campaigns in public places in the capital and other major cities. Military agents check concert halls, grocery stores, and even luxury restaurants in the port city of Odessa.

Mathieu Boulègue, a researcher at the Transatlantic Defence and Security Programme at the Centre for European Political Analysis, believes “there is no easy solution” to Ukraine’s troop shortage.

“That is unfortunately a critical issue that you cannot solve by sending stuff over, short of sending Western troops,” the researcher told the American outlet.

Some Ukrainian officials, cited by the outlet, said they were building up reserves of conscripts to replace those who had lost their jobs. However, they warned that mobilising new troops would not be effective without “more Western supplies to arm new recruits properly.”

The deployment of new Ukrainian troops is not just a military problem for Kiev, the Wall Street Journal noted, but also a growing social and political issue for Zelensky.

“Among soldiers who have been serving on the front line for nearly three years, resentment is building against men avoiding military service,” while scandals continue to emerge involving officials who allegedly accept bribes to grant exemptions.

For this reason, the Kiev regime is increasingly reliant on foreign mercenaries to perform military operations since the citizenry does not provide enough soldiers. In effect, the presence of foreign mercenaries demonstrates the extreme shortage of experienced troops in Ukraine.

In the latest example, foreign mercenaries from the US, Canada and Poland, likely on a sabotage mission or raid, attempted to breach Russia’s Bryansk Oblast on October 27. The special operations mission the mercenaries were assigned required highly skilled operators capable of sabotage or reconnaissance, so given the lack of such people in the Ukrainian military, it is reasonable that they would turn to foreigners.

Emphasising this point is the fact a tattoo was discovered on the body of one of the eliminated foreigners, indicating that he was a member of the elite 75th Ranger Regiment of the US Army.

The discovery of the mercenary group makes a mockery of the West’s claim that soldiers from North Korea are fighting in Ukraine since it is Ukraine suffering from a shortage of troops and relying on foreigners. In fact, it is clear that the West planned the operation rather than Ukraine.

While South Korea and the Kiev regime spread fake news that North Korean troops are fighting in Ukraine, about 15,000 mercenaries from more than 100 countries have arrived in the country since February 2022 to join Ukrainian forces.

According to a Russian Defence Ministry report, Western secret services recruit mercenaries through the US private military companies Academi (formerly Blackwater), Cubic, Dark Horse Benefits, Dean Corporation, Forward Observations Group, Hyperion Services, and Sons of Liberty International, as well as the Polish ASBS Othago and the European Security Academy. At the same time, mercenaries are recruited by neo-Nazi and right-wing organisations from Germany, Italy, Portugal and other countries.

With Ukraine’s best troops dead, wounded or exhausted, the Kiev regime is now hunting for recruits all over the country, including in places that were once considered off-limits. This only deepens Kiev’s reliance on foreign mercenaries and, more importantly, demonstrates the hopeless position that the regime is in.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Canada’s ‘New Red Scare’ is profoundly undemocratic

By Paul Robinson – Canadian Dimension – October 28, 2024

In the past decade, a disturbing phenomenon has arisen in the Western world. One might call it the “New Red Scare.” According to many, the West is the target of a highly sophisticated, professional, and dangerous campaign of foreign subversion, coming mainly from the Russian Federation. Accusations abound against “Russian agents,” “Kremlin influencers,” “Moscow proxies,” and the like. Don’t like someone, call them “pro-Russian;” dislike what they say, call it “Russian disinformation;” want to silence them, call them a “Russian agent.” And so on. Increasingly, reasoned debate is being replaced by silencing and name-calling.

Speaking on Thursday to a parliamentary committee, former diplomat and Member of Parliament Chris Alexander painted a picture of Canada as the victim of an extraordinarily successful malign Russian operation. “Far from being marginal players, Russian information assets and active measures are often kingmakers in our elections,” he declared—a truly remarkable claim that will probably have many wondering how they had failed to notice the dominant role that Russia plays in our political life.

But that wasn’t all. According to Alexander, the leaders of “The People’s Party of Canada, the yellow vest movement, trucker protests, and Wexit [i.e. Western Canadian separatism]” were “radicalized online by Moscow’s active measures” and their funding “had all the hallmarks of Russian influence.” The convoy protests of 2022, Alexander claimed, were designed by the Russians “to distract a country with a huge Ukrainian diaspora as it launched its war of aggression [against Ukraine].” Who knew? And who knew that Russian secret services were so devastatingly efficient as to be able to manipulate a political party and a separatist movement, and to engineer the occupation of the national capital? Frankly, it beggars belief.

In my opinion, there’s a serious problem with threat inflation of this sort. It distracts from real problems and prevents a proper analysis of the causes of those problems by blaming them all on outside actors. When “Blame Russia” is the response to any difficulty, proper solutions are unlikely to be found.

But the statements above weren’t even the most striking bit of Alexander’s evidence to Parliament. For Alexander then submitted documents to the committee that he said showed that a journalist codenamed “Stuart,” whom he identified as the Ottawa Citizen’s defence correspondent David Pugliese, had been recruited by the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB, in the 1980s. He said that the journalist had demonstrated “long-running covert ties to Moscow” and had written divisive articles about “Ukraine’s Nazi links, Nazis in Canada, defamatory pieces about the family of deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, provocative takes on [defence] procurement and other issues at the Department of National Defence,” and so on. According to Alexander, “These are themes that Moscow would be delighted to promote.”

In response, Pugliese has called the accusation “total fabrication. … It’s just ridiculous.” He has pointed out that some of the information in the documents presented by Alexander does not fit him. For instance, one of the documents lists the journalist codenamed “Stuart” as having been in Ottawa in 1984, but Pugliese did not live in Ottawa at that time. In a statement on X, Pugliese remarked that “Individuals linked to Mr. Alexander’s false claims have also stated I play hockey on the Russian embassy hockey team in Ottawa. That is a total fabrication and shows the ridiculousness of this campaign to undercut my journalism. I have never played hockey and can barely skate.”

In any event, it seems that the documents don’t actually say that “Stuart” (whoever he might be) was ever recruited by the KGB. Global News reports that “Several experts on KGB documents said the papers appeared to be legitimate but did not suggest the reporter was ever a Russian agent, only that the Soviets looked at him.” According to one expert, “All [the documents] say is that an individual by this name came to the attention of KGB officials, not even necessarily very senior ones, and that they were interested in exploring him as a potential target of recruitment … So nothing in these documents clearly says that this individual was even approached, or certainly says that that approach was successful. All they do is say this is something worth exploring.”

Pugliese commented that “I get that I piss off a lot of people with my articles … I understand that not everybody appreciates my style of journalism.” Certainly, his reporting on issues such as wasteful defence procurement projects, sexual assault in the military, Nazi links to the Monument to the Victims of Communism, and so on, does not make certain people and institutions look very good. But the insinuation that if you write such things you are not fulfilling the basic journalistic role of holding those institutions to account, but rather working to divide our society on behalf of a hostile foreign power, is profoundly undemocratic.

Our society is not without faults. Our domestic and foreign policies are also often flawed. To correct failings, we need people who point them out, however unpopular that may be. In my view, we should be enabling the widest possible framework of public discourse, not seeking to silence people. To date, we haven’t quite reached the level of hysteria of 1950s McCarthyism, but as the paranoia over foreign interference ramps up, we are perhaps coming painfully close.

Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

White House Security Adviser’s “Information Czar” Idea Triggers Free Speech Concerns

By Dan Frieth – Reclaim The Net – October 29, 2024

Amid escalating assertions over foreign influence in US elections, the White House is exploring a controversial proposal that some warn could threaten free speech and open debate. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently confirmed that the administration has been “grappling with and thinking about” the potential creation of an “information czar,” sparking concern over the government’s expanding role in controlling narratives under the guise of national security.

Speaking at the National War College, Sullivan responded to a question about the potential for a centralized figure to oversee and counter foreign disinformation efforts by suggesting that while the idea has been under consideration, it could raise issues in a free society. “Questions around information operations, around public diplomacy, around the voice that America uses to speak to the world, bleed over into questions of propaganda or politics,” he said, implicitly acknowledging that such a role could have far-reaching consequences on public discourse.

The proposal for an “information czar” raises immediate concerns over whether any centralized control over information could be used to restrict speech and stifle dissenting opinions. Sullivan recognized this risk, questioning whether such a role should be linked to the White House itself or to a more removed agency in order to “insulate this from the twos and fros of politics.” Still, the idea of government officials controlling “information resiliency” remains contentious, especially when directed at speech in the US rather than strictly addressing threats abroad.

In defending the proposal, Sullivan argued that foreign election interference, particularly by Russia and other state actors, poses a national security issue and “an attack on our country” that needs a robust response. However, critics argue that efforts to counter disinformation could easily expand into broader content censorship efforts, a slippery slope that could ultimately see the government interfering with free speech in the name of “resilience.”

We’ve Been Down This Road Before

The White House’s recent consideration of an “information czar” to counter foreign election disinformation brings to mind the Department of Homeland Security’s short-lived Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) in 2022, which aimed to address misinformation but was quickly dismantled after facing public backlash and First Amendment violation concerns. The DGB’s stated mission was similar: to safeguard national security by countering foreign misinformation.

However, it was met with immediate and intense criticism, as many feared the board would become a vehicle for government overreach, potentially chilling free speech under the guise of “information resilience.” The public pushback against the DGB showed the deeply rooted skepticism toward government involvement in controlling or moderating information, especially when it intersects with free speech concerns.

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Orban accuses EU of attempting ‘regime change’ in Hungary

RT | October 29, 2024

The European Union is hoping to install a ‘Jawohl government’ in Hungary as it did in Poland, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, vowing to resist such plans.

Orban came under attack by 13 EU member states on Monday, after he visited Georgia and commended its government for a fair and democratic election. Meanwhile, the EU leadership has embraced the Georgian opposition’s claims that the vote had been marred by irregularities.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Orban issued a reminder that two powerful German officials in Brussels are hoping to replace his government with one more willing to obey their orders – just as they boasted about doing in Poland last year.

“There’s an open conspiracy against Hungary led by Manfred Weber and President [Ursula] Von der Leyen.” Orban said. “They admitted that their aim is to replace the Hungarian government with a new ‘Jawohl government’, just like the current Polish one. We will not let this happen!”

He included a minute-long video from his recent radio interview, where he explained the matter in detail.

In the video, Orban showed EU officials declaring that his government should be replaced by the opposition and boasting that they had done so in Poland – whose previous government also defied many of the orders from Brussels – last year, by installing former European Council chair Donald Tusk as prime minister.

‘Jawohl’ is the German word used to respond to commands. Orban used it because the head of the European People’s Party (EPP) faction in the bloc’s parliament, Manfred Weber, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, are both German.

“We call what they want a ‘Jawohl’ government. So you get a phone call from Brussels or Berlin, and then you have to say ‘Jawohl’! And then it must be done,” Orban told the national broadcaster Kossuth on Friday.

“The Poles were also going their own way,” Orban added. “They also pursued their own independent Polish policy in migration, gender, and the economy. They were on the same page as the Westerners when it came to the [Russia-Ukraine conflict], but not in all other matters.” The EPP then openly announced that the conservative Polish government would leave and be replaced with another, the Hungarian prime minister explained. “This is how our friend Tusk became prime minister in Poland. Now the same scenario exists in the case of Hungary.”

“This is not even a secret conspiracy against Hungary, this is a plan they announced openly,” Orban said. “I was sitting there, they said it to my face.”

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

EU journalist to apply for asylum in Belarus

RT | October 29, 2024

Latvian journalist Yury Alekseev has fled to Belarus where he says he will seek political asylum, the media outlet Delfi reported on Monday.

The escape comes days before Alekseev was due to appear in court in his home country.

The journalist and his defenders claim he is being persecuted for his pro-Russian views.

Alekseev said in a post on Facebook that he left Latvia this past Saturday, traveling from Riga to Vilnius, Lithuania, where he took a bus to Minsk. “I crossed the border. I was nervous throughout my entire body,” the journalist wrote.

In Latvia, the 66-year-old had been charged with inciting national, ethnic or racial hatred, illegal possession of ammunition and distribution of materials containing child pornography, according to the news portal. The trial in one of the cases was scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

During his career, Alekseev has served as editor-in-chief of Business & Baltic, Kommersant Baltic, and other publications in Latvia.

In 2017, the State Security Service of Latvia detained him over criminal charges in connection with a publication of comments allegedly inciting ethnic hatred. The intelligence services conducted several searches of his home. During one investigators allegedly found ammunition for a pistol and materials containing child pornography.

The Riga district court found Alekseev guilty and sentenced him to two years in prison, but the journalist appealed the sentence and it did not come into force. The court later sentenced him to a year of probation.

Alekseev has denied all the accusations against him and says the charges were fabricated.

October 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The Most Devastating Report So Far

By Jay BhattacharyaJayanta Bhattacharya | Brownstone Institute | October 27, 2024

The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.

HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission.

The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures.

Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health.

The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from the CDC’s “guidance,” which ignored the FDA’s findings on the vaccine’s limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink.

The report details the CDC’s mask flip-flopping through the years. It’s especially infuriating to recall the CDC’s weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022.

President Biden’s Covid advisor Ashish K. Jha waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that “[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.” What took him so long?

In 2021, former CDC director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of the national teachers’ union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months.

During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got Covid-vaccinated.

In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. “It’s not time to ease up” we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good.

In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris administration’s push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped Covid transmission. When people started getting “breakthrough” infections, public trust in public health collapsed.

Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax.

HHS has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its web pages. It’s easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated.

When the Delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing.

In September 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency’s external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director’s action was “highly unusual” and went beyond the FDA’s approval of the booster for only the elderly.

The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of Covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the Covid vax.

In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its Covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate?

The Biden/Harris administration imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the Delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants.

The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to “persuade” children to get the Covid vax.

I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people.

In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting Long Covid.

With the collapse in public trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines.

The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining the CDC’s core mission to focus on disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by the FDA’s product labeling rules, and revamping the process of evaluating vaccine safety.

Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC groupthink.

You can find a copy of the full House report here. The HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a physician, epidemiologist and health economist. He is Professor at Stanford Medical School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a Faculty Member at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, and a Fellow at the Academy of Science and Freedom. His research focuses on the economics of health care around the world with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Co-Author of the Great Barrington Declaration.

October 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

‘Seismic’ Verdicts: SF Transit System Must Pay Almost $8 Million to 6 Workers Fired for Refusing COVID Shots

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 25, 2024

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) must pay about $7.8 million to six former employees who lost their jobs after the district denied their requests for accommodations for religious exemptions from BART’s COVID-19 mandate.

In the largest financial win yet for workers fired for failing to comply with COVID-19 vaccine mandates, a federal jury composed of entirely vaccinated jurors on Wednesday awarded the plaintiffs between approximately $1.2 million and $1.5 million each to compensate for economic losses and mental anguish.

The case is one of hundreds filed across the country since 2021, representing thousands of workers who say they lost their jobs when their employers illegally denied their requests for religious accommodation to the COVID-19 mandate.

“These verdicts are seismic — a 7.8 San Francisco legal earthquake,” Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “This amazing outcome represents so much hard work by our team, perseverance by these clients, and fairness from our judicial system.”

The workers’ attorney, Kevin Snider, told The Defender that because of BART’s mandate, “The workers were forced to either deny their faith or lose their jobs.” He said they chose the latter, demonstrating the sincerity of their religious convictions.

The lawsuit began as three separate cases representing 35 employees fired by BART. The three cases were later consolidated into a single lawsuit. Twenty-nine of the plaintiffs settled with BART, but the remaining six went to trial this month.

“These workers lost their jobs and have struggled for more than two years,” Snider said. “It was a devastating disruption to their lives and to their families. Being able to settle or get a jury verdict helps them to put closure on this and for those who went to trial, they felt heard and understood by a jury, which can be important.”

This was the second time the case went to trial. The first trial ended in a mistrial in July when the jury could not reach a unanimous decision, as required in federal civil trials.

BART, which can appeal the decision, declined to comment. Bloomberg Law reported that BART filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law during the trial, which U.S. District Judge William Alsup said would be argued in December.

The motion argues that the plaintiffs have insufficient evidence to reasonably support their case, even if a jury finds otherwise. In response, the judge can allow the verdict to stand, order a new trial or overrule the jury’s verdict.

Religious objectors had option to comply, retire, resign or be terminated

The plaintiffs first sued BART in December 2022, alleging the agency violated their First Amendment rights to religious freedom and federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

The BART system, which operates in five counties across the San Francisco Bay area, issued a mandate on Oct. 14, 2021, requiring employees to be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment.

Employees could apply for a religious or medical exemption. If granted, BART determined whether to provide them reasonable accommodation. Between October 2021 and February 2022, 204 of Bart’s 4,000-plus employees sought an exemption.

Approximately 179 of those were for religious beliefs by people practicing a variety of religious faiths, including various forms of Christianity, Islam and Ruism, according to Snider.

BART granted 70 of the religious exemptions and denied the rest, according to the complaint.

But even the employees granted an exemption were denied reasonable accommodation so they could continue working. Although BART acknowledged their right to a religious exemption, the agency said it couldn’t reasonably make accommodations, like allowing them to work at home or do weekly testing.

However, 1 in 3 of the employees seeking medical exemption were granted exemption and given accommodation, according to the complaint.

Instead of proceeding on the assumption that the accommodation requests were based on sincerely held religious beliefs, the complaint alleges, BART launched a probe into the sincerity of the employees’ beliefs.

Employees’ claims were investigated using an interviewer template that asked for a detailed explanation of their beliefs and why taking the COVID-19 vaccine would violate them. The template included questions like, “What do you think will happen to you if you take the COVID-19 vaccine?”

BART proceeded to deny all requests for accommodation from religious objectors and gave them the option to comply with the mandate, retire if qualified, resign or be terminated.

All of the plaintiffs refused to comply and lost their jobs.

Over the next couple of years, many of those employees, working with the Pacific Justice Institute, sued BART and settled their cases. The cases that couldn’t reach a settlement proceeded to trial — which Snider said carried a serious risk, because “San Francisco is probably the most difficult venue in the entire country to have a vaccine case.”

The trial happened in two phases. First, the jury was asked to rule on whether BART could have granted the requested accommodations. They rejected the agency’s argument that it couldn’t reasonably accommodate the employees seeking religious exemptions without facing an undue hardship.

Then they heard testimony about the sincerity of the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs and the damages they suffered.

Sinder, whose firm represents plaintiffs alleging religious discrimination in more than a hundred vaccine mandate lawsuits across the country, said that he thought public opinion was slowly changing to favor workers.

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.

October 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Fluoride Finally Declared an “Unreasonable Risk”

A look at the ruling that will have a widespread impact on the health of all American children

By Aaron Siri | Injecting Freedom | October 25, 2024

A seven-year battle between the EPA and the public interest regarding the fluoridation of public drinking water has finally concluded. This is an excellent result by Siri & Glimstad partner Michael Connett in securing a court order against the EPA. Great job, Michael!

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen concluded the following in his ruling:

“[T]he Court finds that fluoridation of water at 0.7 milligrams per liter (“mg/L”) – the level presently considered “optimal” in the United States – poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children… [A] risk sufficient to require the EPA to engage with a regulatory response…”

“There is little dispute in this suit as to whether fluoride poses a hazard to human health. Indeed, EPA’s own expert agrees that fluoride is hazardous at some level of exposure. And ample evidence establishes that a mother’s exposure to fluoride during pregnancy is associated with IQ decrements in her offspring. The United States National Toxicology Program (“NTP”) – the federal agency regarded as experts in toxicity… concluded that fluoride is indeed associated with reduced IQ in children, at least at exposure levels at or above 1.5 mg/L (i.e., “higher” exposure levels)…”

“In all, there is substantial and scientifically credible evidence establishing that fluoride poses a risk to human health; it is associated with a reduction in the IQ of children and is hazardous at dosages that are far too close to fluoride levels in the drinking water of the United States. And this risk is unreasonable under Amended TSCA. Reduced IQ poses serious harm. Studies have linked IQ decrements of even one or two points to e.g., reduced educational attainment, employment status, productivity, and earned wages.”

The NTP report referred to above can be found here. While we wait for the EPA to take the next step, many municipalities have already acted to remove fluoride from their water systems.

October 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

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