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Ukraine to jail people for storing firewood – media

RT | November 4, 2024

The Ukrainian parliament has passed a law introducing criminal liability for storing firewood without proper paperwork about its origin, local media have reported. The country faces an energy crisis in the coming winter, amid the ongoing conflict with Russia.

The Verkhovna Rada, the nation’s legislature, adopted the new rule last month, and it now awaits Vladimir Zelensky’s signature, the outlet Strana said on Sunday.

Ukrainian lawyer Aleksey Kinebas told the public broadcaster Suspilne that once the law comes into force, people could face “either administrative or criminal punishment simply for the storage, transportation or sale of firewood.” Ukraine has criminalized logging without a permit.

“For example, two people, a married couple, store firewood worth over 30,000 hryvnia (around $730) and have no documents showing where they bought it. In this case, they could face from five to seven years in prison,” he said.

The punishment has the potential to be even harsher if the destruction of trees is qualified as leading to severe consequences during wartime, the lawyer said.

According to Kinebas, those storing a smaller amount of firewood without proper paperwork – even if it is just “one trunk, one tree, one stump” – will face hefty fines of up to 34,000 hryvnia (around $825).

The measure will mostly affect the low-income residents of Ukrainian villages, he warned, saying “100% of the population living in rural areas could be indicted” under the new legislation.

Last week, Zelensky said that he is “preparing the country for a winter that will be decisive, which is a big challenge… because this will be the third winter with power outages, with all the difficulties.”

During his speech at the UN General Assembly in September, the Ukrainian leader claimed that 80% percent of the country’s power generation capacity has been destroyed during the conflict with Russia, including all thermal power plants and the largest hydroelectric power plants.

In July, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s energy and housing utilities committee, Sergey Nagornyak, also predicted a harsh winter and called upon the people to look for homes that they could heat on their own.

November 4, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Alberta court certifies class-action lawsuit against the provincial government for COVID-19 health orders that impacted businesses during the pandemic

The Canadian Independent | October 31, 2024

Rath & Company, the law firm representing Alberta business owners in a class action lawsuit against the provincial government over COVID-19 restrictions, has cleared a crucial legal hurdle.

Justice Colin C.J. Feasby of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta certified the case, allowing it to proceed as a class action.

The lawsuit, led by plaintiffs Rebecca Ingram and Christopher Scott, challenges the authority of Alberta’s government in implementing business restrictions through Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) orders, which the plaintiffs allege were unauthorized and illegally imposed.

The class action seeks compensation on behalf of a broad group of Alberta business owners, claiming that the health orders, issued ostensibly under public health directives, resulted in devastating financial losses.

In a ruling that highlights concerns around government accountability, the court confirmed that the lawsuit can proceed on multiple claims, including negligence, bad faith, and misfeasance in public office.

The lawsuit’s roots go back to a ruling by Justice Romaine in 2023 (Ingram v. Alberta [2023]), which found that key pandemic health orders were issued outside the legal authority of the Public Health Act. Rather than being made independently by the CMOH, Deena Hinshaw, the orders were shown to have been directed by the Alberta Cabinet, according to Justice Romaine’s findings.

The plaintiffs allege that the CMOH orders were improperly authorized and were issued in a way that obscured Cabinet’s role, thus avoiding political accountability during a critical public health crisis.

A key component of the plaintiffs’ argument is that Alberta’s Cabinet acted in bad faith by issuing these orders under the guise of health directives to avoid democratic oversight. In doing so, they argue, the government failed to protect Alberta business owners’ rights to property and due process under the Alberta Bill of Rights. Justice Feasby’s decision allows these claims, as well as those for punitive damages, to be addressed in court.

The Court’s certification encompasses several types of claims, including allegations of negligence and misfeasance. It specifically allows the plaintiffs to pursue punitive damages, which are intended to hold the government accountable and discourage similar conduct in the future. Unlike compensatory damages that vary by individual losses, punitive damages in a class action address the alleged wrongful intent and actions affecting the whole class.

The certified class includes “all individuals who owned, in whole or in part, a business in Alberta that was subject to full or partial closure, or operational restrictions, mandated by the CMOH Orders between March 17, 2020, and the date of certification.”

Justice Feasby’s decision paves the way for the case to proceed to trial, where the claims and evidence will be examined more closely. The certification does not decide on the merits of the case but rather affirms that the plaintiffs meet the legal threshold to pursue their claims as a unified class.

Rath & Company is encouraging any affected business owners to retain records of losses related to the CMOH orders. They urge those who may be eligible for inclusion in the class action to visit their website for further information on the certification and to access intake forms to join the lawsuit.

You can join the class action at the link below.

https://rathandcompany.com/business-class-action/

You can see the class action certification at the link below.

https://rathandcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/covid-business-class-action-certification-ruling.pdf

November 4, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Victoria Nuland Laments Social Media Won’t Play Censor for the Feds Anymore

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 3, 2024

The original “Russia Gate” might have been debunked a long time ago, but politicians and officials continue to seek to explain their electoral failures by accusing other countries of “meddling.”

There is an even more serious angle to their insistence on this – namely, using it as justification for putting in place what opponents (and a congressional investigation) call the government-Big Tech collusion to censor online speech.

Speaking of meddling – former senior US State Department official Victoria Nuland’s handiwork is probably better known in Europe than in the US, and she is now revisiting the script of (Russian) meddling, but is also complaining that social platforms are not as willing to “work” with the government as before on US presidential elections.

Nuland clearly believes her own freedom of speech has no consequences, so she decided to tell MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “at it again” – and also explicitly accuse X owner Elon Musk of making his platform implicit in this alleged election interference.

“In 2020, the social media companies worked hard with the US government to try to do content moderation, to try to catch this stuff as it was happening,” said Nuland.

Now, laying the groundwork for election interference claims, according to her, Musk is “talking directly to the Kremlin.”

The astonishing accusation goes on to “explain” what exactly Musk and the Kremlin are chatting about. “Every time the Russians put out something, [Musk makes sure] it gets five million views before anyone can catch it,” said Nuland.

The frontal assault on Musk also saw the former official tell Maddow that he is “a new, very powerful tool” in Putin’s hands.

To quote Maddow – “I’m not sure people have absorbed the magnitude of what you’re describing there.”

She, of course, was not dismayed by Nuland’s statements but was with this comment “aiding and abetting” them. Once Nuland was done with linking Musk and Putin, she moved on to President Trump, who she asserted is “taking Putin’s lessons.”

Maddow for her part took this cue to attack Trump as essentially creating “alliances” with what Nuland and Maddow consider to be autocrats. And, the “magnitude of that” is what the MSNBC host was not sure Americans have “absorbed.”

Back to Nuland’s activities in Europe, while she still had an official role. This enabled her to become a key player behind the so-called Steele Dossier, by providing the since-debunked documents to the FBI back in 2016.

November 3, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Israel: Justice minister seeks to criminalise calls for sanctions against state

MEMO | November 3, 2024

Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin requested on Friday the preparation of a bill that criminalises those calling for imposing international sanctions on his country, including a prison sentence of up to ten years.

This comes following an article by the publisher of the left-wing newspaper Haaretz, Amos Schocken, in which he called for imposing sanctions on Israel due to the genocide it is currently waging in the Gaza Strip, describing what is happening in Gaza as “a second Nakba”.

Minister Levin’s move reflects an authoritarian approach by Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government that aims to silence critical voices and protect the government from any international accountability, even if the calls are directed to pressure Israel to stop the genocidal war in Gaza.

Levin sent a letter on Thursday to Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, requesting her to: “Urgently provide me with a draft law stipulating that actions by Israeli citizens to promote or encourage international sanctions on Israel, its leaders, security forces, and citizens shall constitute a criminal offence punishable by ten years in prison.”

“I further request that such an offence during wartime be considered an aggravating circumstance, allowing for the penalty to be doubled,” he added, noting: “Calls for sanctions against Israel … constitute a severe breach of the fundamental duty of loyalty of a citizen toward their country. Such actions promote a course intended to deprive Israel of its right to self-defence.”

November 3, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Regarding the WHO ‘Pandemic Agreement’

Negotiating with bullies, liars and thieves is unlikely to be a winning strategy

By Tess Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD​ | November 1, 2024

There is a lot on the go at the moment, so you may have missed that the World Health Organization’s ‘Pandemic Agreement’ is in the process of being finalised. Scheduled to be finalised by November 11, 2024, the aim is to ‘adopt’ it at a special session of the World Health Assembly in December.

Given that the WHO continues to violate its key objective, which is the highest attainable standard of health for every human being, the WHO can no longer be considered an authority on health, except in the matter of ensuring that it and key individuals within it are held liable for the deteriorating health of the world’s people due to its failed Covid policies.

With regard to the WHO Pandemic Agreement to be finalised by November 11, 2024, I encourage you to consider whether this boy’s club agreement pertains to us at all.

Imagine there is a gang in a school. The gang with their own gang rules set themselves up at the school gate and say, We are in charge of this school. You cannot say this or that anymore, you must follow our gang rules, and you have to buy your lunch from us. Be quiet and don’t ask questions. If you don’t do our bidding, the teachers, whom we control, will force you to and/or detain you.

Would you negotiate with this gang of bullies?

Among our choices when confronted by this WHO gang are the following:

  • we can comply and hope they will show mercy;
  • we can ask nicely or beg them to reconsider some of their rules;
  • we can jump over the school fence to avoid them, and live in daily fear of their vindictiveness;

or…

  • we can say to them “This school is a prison, if you like it so much you can keep it!”

Negotiating with bullies, liars and thieves is unlikely to be a winning strategy.

It is time for us to let the WHO and its controllers know that they can make as many agreements as they like, but they are all fake and irrelevant, and have no bearing on us, the people of this beautiful earth.

You can read the document that the WHO aims to ‘adopt’ illegitimately this December here, and read James Roguski’s insights here.

November 2, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Ireland’s Online “Hate Crime” Law Passes, Sparks Major Future Free Speech Concerns

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 1, 2024

In Ireland, the controversial Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offenses) Act 2024 has become law.

President Michael Higgins on Tuesday signed the bill – as Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman welcomed the development, and vowed that if still in power after the November election, this party would “certainly” work to get even more “hate speech legislation” adopted.

This remark has to do with a temporary removal of some of the current bill’s controversial provisions, the implication being that those might make a comeback in some “new hate speech” bill.

The parts removed concern some incitement to violence and hatred and hate speech provisions; however, those on hate crime have been left in the text.

Prior to being signed into law, the amended Criminal Justice Act 2024 – known as the “Hate Crime Bill” – cleared the country’s parliament in a 78-50 vote earlier in the month, despite strong criticism both from politicians and free speech groups.

The general argument used by the law’s opponents is that it is criminalizing free speech in a number of ways, with the most ardent critics seeing the legislation as moving Ireland closer to oppression and the rule of tyranny.

One of the controversial parts of the law revolves around the definition of gender, which is both extensive and expansive: “(…) the gender of a person or the gender which a person expresses as the person’s preferred gender or with which the person identifies and includes transgender and a gender other than those of male and female.”

And if the chosen gender – such as it is defined here, is found to be the reason for “hatred” expressed against someone – then from now on, this is to be treated as an aggravating factor, bringing with it a greater sentence than would have been the case had the “protected characteristics” not played a role in the consideration of an offense.

Speaking of protected characteristics, the act defines them as religion – including “absence of religious belief” – race, ethnicity, gender (as defined), sexual orientation, disability, and also, “references to sex characteristics shall be construed as references to the physical and biological features of a person relating to sex.”

During the debate in parliament, the bill’s sponsors made sure to note that this legislation – in the way it criminalizes certain behaviors – is the first of its kind in Europe.

November 2, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Brazilian journalist fined, ordered to delete posts over criticizing Israeli war in Gaza

Press TV – November 2, 2024

A Brazilian court has ordered renowned journalist Breno Altman, who has frequently denounced Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, to pay a fine and delete a number of his posts on social media platforms.

Judge Paulo Bernardi Baccarat of the Court of Justice of São Paulo said on Thursday that the founder of the independent news portal Opera Mundi should pay a fine of 20,000 Brazilian reals ($3,407) in compensation for collective moral damages, and remove five posts deemed anti-Semitic.

This is yet another lawsuit against Altman, who is facing several cases in São Paulo courts due to his critical stance regarding the Tel Aviv regime’s devastating and bloody onslaught against Gaza.

In this case, the judge considered a request for censorship and compensation filed by the Brazilian Israelite Confederation (CONIB), which is the central organization of the Brazilian Jewish community.

CONIB asked for 80 thousand reals in compensation, the demonetization of Altman’s profile on social media and the payment of a minimum wage to each Israeli in Brazil.

The pro-Israeli lobby group said Altman should be banned from publishing posts about the Gaza conflict, alleging that his conduct exceeded the limits of freedom of expression, and claimed the journalist could incite hatred towards Jews and Israel with his posts.

Baccarat, however, concluded that there was no reason to pay compensation or remove most of the posts, considering that they were not anti-Semitic but rather political comments.

In other posts, however, he purportedly found racist content, such as the use of the term “rats” in reference to the Israeli military offensives against Palestinian Hamas resistance fighters.

The judge considered the reference to be racist, given that the term “rat” has a historical anti-Semitic association. The request for individual compensation for each Israeli in Brazil, however, was dismissed by the judge.

The journalist’s defense, represented by attorneys Pedro Serrano and Anderson Medeiros, said they will appeal the decision.

The objective, according to them, is to “demonstrate the absolute legality of all posts, supported by constitutional rights that ensure freedom of expression and freedom of thought.”

Back in August, Altman was sentenced to three months in prison for insulting Brazilian economist and former Director of International Affairs of the Central Bank of Brazil, Alexandre Schwartsman, and President of the pro-Israel organization StandWithUs Brazil, André Lajst.

The case also involved social media posts about Israel’s atrocious military campaign in Gaza. The sentence was commuted to a fine.

November 2, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Government Agents Try to Stir Up Fear of Russian Election Interference a Third Presidential Election in a Row

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | November 1, 2024

For a third United States presidential election in a row, US agents are out warning of Russian election interference.

In the previous two elections the warnings were spurious. Still, the government agents succeeded in raising worry in people’s minds regarding candidate Donald Trump. And they suppressed consideration of information damaging to Trump’s opponents, including through indicating the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop were “Russian disinformation.”

This election, the government agents are at it again. Their latest spurt of relating supposed Russian election interference arrived in a Friday joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). This joint statement is one among a series of updates concerning what the press release calls “Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans.”

Yeah, whatever, guys. Have you ever read the story about the boy who cried wolf?

November 1, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

House Panel Refers Andrew Cuomo for Prosecution

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | November 1, 2024

NBC News just reported the following:

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic sent a letter Wednesday to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland accusing the former governor of providing false statements to the panel when he testified on June 11.

In the Republican-led committee’s referral, it says Cuomo “knowingly and willfully made materially false statements” to the panel during its investigation into the New York’s Covid-19 response. The statements in question stem from exchanges about a New York state Department of Health report on nursing home infections and deaths that was released on July 6, 2020.

The report caught my eye because I have long followed the New York nursing home scandal, which I thoroughly investigated for our book The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex.

This particular chapter about the mindbogglingly stupid and criminal pandemic response is so noteworthy that I believe it is worth republishing.


CHAPTER 11: “Cuomosexuals”

On the same day (March 23) that Dr. Bright initiated his scheme to restrict hydroxychloroquine to hospitalized patients, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued the following executive order:

No pharmacist shall dispense hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine except when written as prescribed as an FDA-approved indication; or as part of a state approved clinical trial related to COVID-19 for a patient who has tested positive for COVID-19 with such test result documented as part of the prescription. No other experimental or prophylactic use shall be permitted …

This order prohibited New York pharmacies from filling off-label prescriptions for Covid patients. The exceptionally determined Dr. Zelenko found a way to get around it, but it made his practice much more difficult.

Two days later, on March 25, the New York Department of Health issued the following directive to nursing home administrators:

No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.

As anyone who has ever worked in a nursing home knows, respiratory viruses can rip through the facility and cause severe illness. Virulent common cold rhinovirus outbreaks have resulted in multiple deaths in this setting. By March 25, it was crystal clear that the risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19 is by far the highest for patients over the age of seventy-five. Thus, ordering “confirmed or suspected” Covid patients to be readmitted to nursing homes was the equivalent of forcing foxes into henhouses. What was the New York State Health Department thinking?

On March 27, the United States set the world record of COVID-19 cases, and New York City was the nation’s epicenter—a five-alarm fire of serious infections. On April 10, New York State recorded more Covid cases than any country on earth except the United States in total and its nursing homes were devastated by the contagion. The legacy media was slow to notice this, perhaps because it was blinded by Governor Cuomo’s stardom. He gave daily press conferences in which he spoke about the measures he and his team were taking to keep New Yorkers safe. Millions across the country watched these performances for which he later received an Emmy.

As the spring wore on, reports of mass casualty events in nursing homes emerged, and these drew scrutiny to the Health Department’s March 25 directive. On May 21, the Associated Press reported that over 4,500 Covid patients had been sent back into New York nursing homes. This number would later be revised upward to over 9,000. The AP report coincided with growing suspicion the Health Department wasn’t being transparent about mortality data in these facilities. Suspicion was confirmed on January 28, 2021, when New York Attorney General Latitia James reported that the Department of Health had undercounted nursing home deaths by 50%.

On February 11, 2021, the New York Post published a leaked audio recording of Governor Cuomo’s secretary, Melissa DeRosa, speaking confidentially with the New York State Democratic Committee. On this tape she can be heard apologizing for concealing nursing home data. Though mealy-mouthed, her apology revealed that Cuomo’s team had acted out of fear of getting into trouble with the DOJ.

Basically, we froze because then we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice or what we give to you guys and what we start saying was going to be used against us, and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation.

After making this confession, she changed the subject to “the context” of their decision—namely, they were concerned that President Trump would try to politicize the incident in the upcoming election.

“Right around the same time, he [Trump] turns this into a giant political football,” she told the Committee.

For many who followed the New York nursing home story, it seemed emblematic of many pathologies afflicting the U.S. political and media class. First was the nepotism of the Cuomo family, with CNN Anchor Chris and Governor Andrew regularly putting on shows for their fawning, sentimental fans, many of whom called themselves “Cuomosexuals.” T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and even a popular music video appeared bearing the term’s definition: In love with competent, reassuring governance by a leader who uses complete sentences and displays common sense during a pandemic.

The Governor’s cult of personality yielded a $5.2 million book deal with Penguin Random House, initiated by an acquiring editor on March 19, 2020, three days before the state went into lockdown. The deal for American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic stipulated the book be ready for publication before the November elections. Governor Cuomo purportedly wrote a 70,000-word typescript in three months while at the same time executing his duties as full-time “Leader” in handling New York’s Covid crisis. The state ethics board approved the deal on the condition that no state resources were used in the book’s production, but that didn’t stop Cuomo from using his staff and a ghostwriter.

Complementing the governor’s book deal was his Emmy Award. As Bruce Paisner, CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, explained in his announcement of November 20, 2020:

The Governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure. People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.

All these awards and extravagant expressions of adulation for the Governor’s leadership overlooked his executive order impeding access to hydroxychloroquine and his Health Department’s catastrophic directive to nursing homes. Protecting nursing homes was the only contagion control policy for which there was a crystal clear rationale. While general lockdowns did little to stop the spread, extraordinary measures to secure nursing homes probably would have given some protection to society’s most vulnerable. Instead, the New York Health Department sent thousands of Covid patients back into these facilities and then concealed the ensuing death toll. On June 2, 2020, USA Today reported that “Over the last three months, more than 40,600 long-term care residents and workers have died of COVID-19—about 40% of the nation’s death toll attributed to the coronavirus …”

After flying high in 2020, the Cuomo brothers fell back to earth in 2021, when multiple women accused the Governor of sexual harassment. He was then further accused of using his executive power to suppress these allegations. Chris Cuomo was likewise accused of using his powerful media connections to aid and abet his brother in the concealment.

A cynic might be tempted to wonder about the timing of the sexual misconduct allegations—right as reports emerged that New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Attorney Seth Ducharme of the Eastern District of New York, and the FBI were opening investigations into allegations of malfeasance resulting in nursing home deaths. Especially disturbing was the allegation that Governor Cuomo provided legal immunity to nursing home executives from whom he received campaign contributions, possibly giving them carte blanche to cut costs at the expense of the care and safety of their residents. As the Attorney General stated in her preliminary findings:

On March 23, Governor Cuomo created limited immunity provisions for health care providers relating to COVID-19. The Emergency Disaster Treatment Protection Act (EDTPA) provides immunity to health care professionals from potential liability arising from certain decisions, actions and/or omissions related to the care of individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is reasonable to provide some protections for health care workers making impossible health care decisions in good faith during an unprecedented public health crisis, it would not be appropriate or just for nursing homes owners to interpret this action as providing blanket immunity for causing harm to residents.

With multiple allegations of sexual misconduct made in March 2021, the subject in mainstream media reporting was largely changed from New York State’s possible liability for the preventable deaths of thousands to Governor Cuomo’s inappropriate behavior with women.

On August 7, 2021, the New Yorker published a coda to Governor Cuomo’s rise to superstardom and his crashing fall from grace. In an essay titled, Diving Into the Subconscious of the “Cuomosexual,” reporter Lizzie Widdicombe posed the question:

How could we have witnessed the Governor’s narcissism, bullying, and hackneyed paternalism and found these qualities attractive?

To answer it, she interviewed psychoanalyst Virginia Goldner, who explained that Governor Cuomo “was radiating an eroticized masculinity that has within it hostility and a little tenderness. That combination of soft and hard—mostly hard, but also soft—is what so many women crave in some way.”

Dr. Goldner’s remarks pointed to a key feature of how the public responded to official Covid policy. Approval of policies had little to do with their substance. Mostly it derived from impressions of the personal qualities, political affiliation, and perceived authority of the officials who presented the policies. Governor Cuomo exuded masculine confidence and gave the impression of taking bold action against a foreign invader. His performances were fascinating to watch, but they had little to do with reality.

By late March of 2020, the virus had spread far beyond the possibility of being contained. The Swedish state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, pointed this out in a March 28, 2020 New York Times interview, but no major public health official in the United States acknowledged this reality. Because the virus was far beyond containment, it was unlikely that any of Governor Cuomo’s contagion control orders such as his statewide lockdown or shutdown of “nonessential businesses” made any positive difference. He was awarded an Emmy for embodying “the determination to fight back” against the virus. In fact, he disarmed New Yorkers by impeding their access to the only weapon (hydroxychloroquine) known at the time for fighting it. Covid patients, including thousands of sitting ducks in nursing homes, were consequently left defenseless.

From: The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, by John Leake and Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH, SKYHORSE, New York, 2022.

November 1, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

House Floats Law to Make Colleges That Mandated COVID Shots Pay for Vaccine Injuries

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 30, 2024

Colleges that mandated the COVID-19 vaccine would be liable for medical expenses for students who experienced adverse events from the shot, under a bill introduced Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The University Forced Vaccination Student Injury Mitigation Act of 2024 would require higher education institutions to cover medical costs for students who were — or still are — required to get a COVID-19 shot for class attendance and who experienced an injury.

The bill — introduced by Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) — stipulates colleges must cover the medical costs or risk losing all federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education.

“If you are not prepared to face the consequences, you should have never committed the act,” said Rosendale in a press release. “Colleges and universities forced students to inject themselves with an experimental vaccine knowing it was not going to prevent COVID-19 while potentially simultaneously causing life-threatening health defects like Guillain-Barré Syndrome and myocarditis.”

“It is now time,” Rosendale added, “for schools to be held accountable for their brazen disregard for students’ health and pay for the issues they are responsible for causing.”

Reps. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) and Bill Posey (R-Fla.) co-sponsored the bill.

Dr. Joseph Marine, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explained in the press release why he supports the bill:

“COVID-19 vaccine mandates for college students were flawed policies that did not alter the course of the pandemic and were not needed to keep college campuses ‘safe.’ I had to make efforts to prevent my own high school and college-age children from receiving COVID-19 booster shots that they did not want or need.

“It seems reasonable to me that institutions that implemented such policies without a sound medical or scientific rationale should take responsibility for any proven medical harm that they caused.”

If passed, the bill would allow students to submit a formal request for reimbursement, the Washington Examiner reported.

The request would have to include a record of COVID-19 vaccination, certification from a medical provider that the vaccine caused some kind of disease and a detailed account of related medical expenses.

Diseases covered by the legislation include myocarditis, pericarditis, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, Guillain-Barré syndrome and any other diseases that the U.S. Secretary of Education determines to be linked to COVID-19 vaccination.

After the student’s request is vetted to ensure it’s valid and contains sufficient evidence, the college would have to pay the medical costs within 30 days.

It is unclear when a vote on the bill will take place.

CHD took college mandate challenge to U.S. Supreme Court

Rutgers University was the first college or university in the U.S. to mandate the vaccines, threatening to disenroll noncompliant students in the fall 2021 semester. In August 2021, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) sued the university in an attempt to block the mandate.

The case was dismissed in January 2023. After losing on appeal in February, CHD in May asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, but the court declined. Meanwhile, a month earlier, Rutgers abruptly ended the mandate.

Meanwhile, a federal appeals court this summer ruled that employees in the Los Angeles Unified School District can sue the district over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate because the shots don’t prevent transmission.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges that myocarditis and pericarditis may occur after COVID-19 vaccination. And research shows that adolescents and young adults are particularly at risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis.

As of Sept. 27, there were 1,604,710 Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports of injury or death following a COVID-19 vaccination.

VAERS is the primary mechanism for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before confirming the reported adverse event was caused by the vaccine. VAERS has historically been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

Meanwhile, citing concerns about the shots’ efficacy and safety, Idaho’s Southwest District Health last week voted to no longer offer COVID-19 vaccines at all 30 locations where it provides healthcare services.

17 colleges still have COVID vaccine mandates

By late May 2021, more than 400 U.S. colleges and universities required students to be vaccinated against COVID-19, The New York Times reported.

As of Oct. 19, 17 of those institutions still have a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for students to be able to enroll or live on campus, according to No College Mandates, a “group of concerned parents, doctors, nurses, professors, students and other college stakeholders working towards the common goal of ending COVID-19 vaccine mandates.”

Lucia Sinatra, co-founder of No College Mandates, said in the press release:

“College students were never at risk of severe injury or death from any variant of the COVID-19 virus and institutions of higher education had this data well in advance of mandating COVID-19 vaccines.”

According to the CDC, age is the “strongest risk factor” for severe outcomes from COVID-19 — meaning that the older a person is, the greater their risk for severe symptoms and death.

The CDC said its National Center for Health Statistics shows that “compared with ages 18–29 years, the risk of death is 25 times higher in those ages 50–64 years, 60 times higher in those ages 65–74 years, 140 times higher in those ages 75–84 years, and 340 times higher in those ages 85+ years.”

In other words, the typical college student — ages 18-22 — isn’t usually at risk of severe disease or death from COVID-19 when compared with older age groups.

Nonetheless, Sinatra said, many colleges imposed “some of the most coercive and restrictive vaccination policies” on college students, stripping them of their “fundamental right to bodily autonomy and informed consent.”

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 31, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

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