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30 Lawmakers Sponsor Bill to End Liability Protection for Vaccine Makers

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 30, 2024

A bill introduced late last week in the U.S. House of Representatives would end the liability protections Congress gave vaccine makers under the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.

Thirty Republican lawmakers signed on as co-sponsors to House Bill 9828, End the Vaccine Carveout Act. The proposed legislation would end the broad protection from liability for injuries resulting from vaccines listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Childhood Immunization Schedule.

“The … vaccine makers are criminal enterprises that have paid tens of billions in criminal penalties over the past decade,” Children’s Health Defense (CHD) founder and chairman on leave Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement on the bill.

Kennedy, who has long advocated for eliminating liability protection for vaccine manufacturers, added, “By freeing them from liability for negligence, the 1986 statute removed any incentive for these companies to make safe products. If we want safe and effective vaccines we need to end the liability shield.”

CHD, React19 and The American Family Project also supported the development of the bill, the press release said.

REACT19 founder Brianne Dressen, who experienced a debilitating COVID-19 vaccine injury as a volunteer in AstraZeneca’s clinical trial, announced the bill and its co-sponsors in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“People harmed are long overdue for a compensation process that actually works, and it’s time for the drug companies to pick up the tab,” she said.

‘Complex sham compensation program’ in place since 1986 act

Congress passed the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act to address the risks of vaccines — which Congress and vaccine makers acknowledged had “unavoidable” side effects.

The act set up a “no-fault” system whereby instead of suing the manufacturers, people injured by vaccines can file a claim with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which adjudicates the claims.

The VICP was meant to insulate vaccine makers from lawsuits that could bankrupt them while ensuring that injury victims had a straightforward, non-adversarial and fair path to compensation.

The program is funded by a 75-cent-per-dose tax, paid by vaccine makers, for every vaccine included in the program.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services administers the VICP, also known as the “vaccine court.” Court-appointed “special masters” — typically lawyers who previously represented the U.S. government — manage and decide the individual claims.

The proceedings are more informal than a typical courtroom. There is no judge or jury, and the rules of evidence, civil procedure and discovery do not apply.

In practice, getting compensation through the VICP has been notoriously difficult. Critics say the program has devolved to protect government agencies and corporations rather than the health of vaccinated children.

CHD CEO Mary Holland said the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act effectively left parents and children injured by vaccines with no substantive way to get any compensation while giving vaccine makers a free pass.

“For over 35 years, parents of children injured and killed by government-recommended vaccines have been left with no meaningful redress — only a complex, sham compensation program that pits grieving families against the government, while Big Pharma enjoys no liability,” she said.

“During that same time, chronic health conditions in children — autism, ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder], severe allergies, asthma — have skyrocketed,” Holland said.

In some cases, people who are dissatisfied with the outcome of their case in the VICP, or who don’t get a timely decision, can sue the manufacturer for limited causes of action, such as fraud — as is the case in many of the over 200 gardasil injury lawsuits currently being argued against Merck in federal court.

Special protections for COVID drugmakers

Vaccines administered under emergency use authorization (EUA), such as the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, aren’t covered by the VICP.

Instead, COVID-19 vaccine makers are protected from all liability by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which grants producers of vaccines, medications and medical devices total freedom from liability for any injuries arising from “countermeasures” used to address a public health or national security threat.

The PREP Act directs such “countermeasures” to be covered by the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

While the FDA fully licensed versions of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for people ages 12 and up, it’s unclear if the fully licensed formulations are being administered, or if some people are still receiving EUA formulations.

COVID-19 vaccines for infants and children ages 6 months through age 11 have not yet been fully licensed — however, they were added to the childhood schedule.

Still, all COVID-19 vaccine injuries  — whether from a fully licensed or EUA formulation — remain covered only through the CICP.

However, for the tens of thousands of people injured by the COVID-19 vaccine, compensation through this program has proven nearly impossible.

To date, the CICP has paid only 16 claims for COVID-19 vaccine injuries, totaling $425,301.55. Except for one payment, all of the claims resulted in compensation of $8,962 or less.

The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for people ages 12 and up, however those vaccines continue , and added to the childhood schedule, they are still not even included in the VICP process.

During the pandemic, Pfizer and Moderna generated the largest profits in history for a drug from their COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Pfizer made $37 billion in 2021, and slightly more in 2023 from the COVID-19 vaccine alone. Moderna generated over $18 billion in profits in 2021 and $19 billion in 2022.

The most current data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) show that between Dec. 14, 2020, and Aug. 30, 2024, a total of 1,602,516 total adverse events related to the COVID-19 vaccine were reported to VAERS, including 37,390 deaths. There were 311,544 serious injuries reported.

Research also shows that VAERS tends to provide an underestimation of vaccine injuries. Most people don’t report their vaccine injuries to VAERS. Research also has shown that many VAERS reports are delayed or deleted from public view for reasons that are not transparent.

Several lawsuits are currently challenging the constitutionality of the PREP Act, and others have made legal arguments that the PREP Act doesn’t apply in particular cases. However, recently many of these cases have been dismissed in state and federal courts.

Last week, after the Nevada Supreme Court dismissed a case against a man injured by remdesivir, a drug covered by the Prep Act, Kim Mack Rosenberg, general counsel for CHD, told The Defender the decision highlighted “that we need legislative action to undo the damage created by acts such as PREP and the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.”

What the ‘urgently needed’ legislation will do

Holland said the End the Vaccine Carveout Act is “urgently needed”:

“This legislation will help end Big Pharma’s reign over government. The corrupt public-private partnership of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act has suppressed science, stacked the deck against families, subverted the democratic marketplace of checks and balances, and removed citizens’ rights to a trial by jury.

“Americans deserve better.”

The bill proposes to remove the requirement for vaccine-injured people to pursue compensation in the vaccine court. Under the law, someone injured by a vaccine would be able to pursue civil action against a vaccine maker, and to seek compensation through the VICP or both.

However, once a person is awarded compensation in civil court, they will no longer be eligible for compensation through the VICP.

The 1986 law also set a short statute of limitations for seeking injury compensation to two or three years of the death or injury, respectively. However, it often takes longer than that for people to realize that a vaccine caused their injury or illness.

The proposed law would allow anyone injured since the program became effective in 1988 to file a lawsuit.

Finally, the bill would end the protection from liability for the COVID-19 vaccines, allowing people injured by the vaccine to sue the vaccine makers in court.

“COVID-19 vaccines must be redefined as vaccines and not ‘countermeasures,’ so that the PREP Act’s liability carveout can no longer apply,” according to a white paper that provided justification for the bill.

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.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

UN Official’s Battle With “Toxic Information” Raises Censorship Fears Ahead of US Election

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 30, 2024

United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming’s focus is “disinformation” and “toxic information systems” – and she presents those as standing in the way of the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs).

SDGs are the UN’s plan that opponents say is “toxic” in itself since it seeks to promote such controversial things as censorship and digital ID and, to make matters worse, that’s supported by major countries.

Now, Fleming seems to be keen to add to the avalanche of pressure on Big Tech – even though the term she no doubt carefully uses instead is “domination of public discourse” in places where this alleged disinformation is most present.

Coincidentally or not this is coming right before a US presidential election, but Fleming is framing her parroting of the “disinformation” narrative in terms of the social platforms, as purely an “SDGs and UN” issue.

She is even trying to link this with the UN’s purpose, which is (rather, should be) peacekeeping and humanitarian missions, but from which the world organization has been disconnecting for a while.

Responding to a question lumping disinformation, climate change, and conflict resolution into one, Fleming asserted that disinformation and “toxic information systems” are damaging humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts, not to mention SDGs (she doesn’t quite explain this assertion).

Fleming’s official UN bio says one of her roles is “far-reaching efforts to address mis- and disinformation, and hate speech,” while supposedly simultaneously promoting “free and independent media.”

However, she started her career with an outlet that’s anything but free and independent: Fleming used to work for “Radio Free Europe,” funded by the US authorities (originally through the CIA).

Now, no doubt thanks to Fleming, the UN has something called DG Media Zone and it is there and during this year’s UN General Assembly that Fleming sounded her alarm bells, going as far as to say that “every single one” of UN’s priorities is these days under threat due to disinformation. (“Climate change” is now proudly listed among those priorities, in case you missed that.)

Fleming’s solution: collusion. This time (and publicly) “merely” with “civil society and people” who need to “work on our information ecosystems together.”

A word of warning about “civil society,” though: it’s often a moniker behind which groups implementing censorship through “fact-checking” etc, like to hide.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Free speech makes US ‘hard to govern’ – John Kerry

RT | September 30, 2024

The freedom for individuals to choose their sources of information makes it difficult to govern effectively, former US Secretary of State John Kerry has said.

Speaking at a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel on Green Energy last week, Kerry criticized the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and the press.

“It’s really hard to govern today,” he remarked, arguing that social media poses challenges for building consensus in democracies.

“The referees we used to have to determine what is fact and what isn’t have kind of been eviscerated,” Kerry stated, adding that individuals now decide where to get their news.

“If people go to only one source… and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to simply hammering it out of existence,” added Kerry, who served as secretary of state under Barack Obama.

As long as Democrats can “win ground” and “win the right to govern,” they will be “free to implement change,” the former senator stated.

“I think democracies are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to address the challenges we face. To me, that is part of what this race, this election, is all about,” he added.

At another WEF event earlier this year, Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker lamented the loss of the corporate media’s monopoly on information.

“We owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well,” she said, noting that customers now have access to a broader array of sources.

Amid increasingly divisive election rhetoric, research suggests that Americans trust the media even less than they are willing to publicly admit. While 24% of Americans claim to trust the media to tell the truth, only 7% believe it privately, according to a study completed in June by the think tank Populace, in cooperation with Gradient and YouGov.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

UK ministers tried to sway police to stifle anti-‘Israel’ activists

Al Mayadeen | September 30, 2024

Home Office ministers and staff attempted to influence UK police and legal prosecutors to take action against activists targeting the facilities of Elbit Systems, a major Israeli arms manufacturer, campaigners revealed after obtaining internal documents as proof, The Guardian reported.

Briefing notes obtained by Palestine Action through freedom of information requests reveal discussions held prior to October 7 and the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which aimed to “reassure” Elbit Systems UK, the main target of an action campaign by the network.

The prosecution of Palestine Action activists, who have relentlessly protested the Israeli genocide and war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, has resulted in some convictions for charges like burglary and criminal damage.

Briefing notes, though heavily redacted, reveal that Home Office ministers attended meetings with representatives from Elbit Systems, and one meeting included a director from the Attorney General’s Office reportedly representing the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). These notes also indicate that Home Office officials reached out to the police regarding Palestine Action.

Tim Crosland, coordinator of Defend Our Juries, which argues that judges are undermining jurors’ absolute right to acquit based on conscience by restricting defendants from discussing their motivations, stated, “These disclosures, despite the extensive redaction, are the smoking gun on what has been obvious for a while: the government has been trying to put a stop to juries acquitting those who expose and resist corporate complicity in violations of international law and mass loss of life.”

He further asserted that the political intervention constitutes a “national scandal that implicates those at the highest levels”, indicating that the matter is also tantamount to the corruption of democracy and a breach of law by the UK’s elite.

Details

A private secretary note from March 2, 2022, detailing a meeting between then Home Secretary Priti Patel and Martin Fausset, CEO of Elbit Systems UK, noted, “Palestine Action’s criminal activity is for the police to investigate and though they are operationally independent of government meaning we cannot direct their response, my officials have been in contact with the police about PA.”

Another briefing from April 19, 2023, framing a session between Chris Philp, then a Home Office minister, and Elbit, revealed that a director from the Attorney General’s Office will attend to represent the CPS, as the CPS opted not to participate in the meeting to maintain their operational independence.

Meanwhile, the content of a section titled “past lobbying” was redacted.

A spokesperson for Palestine Action stated that claims of independence were undermined within the same sentences where they were made.

“What is happening behind closed doors is clear evidence of collusion between the government, a foreign private arms manufacturer, the CPS, the Attorney General’s Office, and the police,” they said, asserting that it was a flagrant abuse of power that asserts how the state prioritizes the interests of Elbit Systems “over the rights and freedoms of its own citizens.”

On the other hand, a police spokesperson said, “We fully respect the operational independence of the police and the independent judiciary, which remains the bedrock of our policing model. These meetings took place under the previous government.”

Previous documents obtained through FoI requests indicated that Israeli embassy officials in London sought to have the Attorney General’s Office intervene in UK court cases involving the prosecution of protesters.

Labour continues arming ‘Israel’

Since its election, the new Labour government has been at the center of demands to halt all arms sales to “Israel”.

Although it announced that it would continue funding UNRWA following a baseless global defunding campaign and that it would not contest the International Criminal Court’s authority to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Security Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes, the government was yet to completely commit to the more significant shift that the public is calling for, which is the cessation of arms shipments to “Israel”.

Mark Smith, a counterterrorism official at the British Embassy in Dublin, relayed to his colleagues after submitting his resignation, “Each day we witness clear and unquestionable examples of War Crimes and breaches of International Humanitarian Law in Gaza perpetrated by the State of Israel.”

“There is no justification for the UK’s continued arms sales to Israel, yet somehow it continues. I have raised this at every level in the organization … As a fully cleared officer raising serious concerns of illegality in this Department, to be disregarded in this way is deeply troubling. It is my duty as a public servant to raise this,” he added.

Earlier this month, the British government announced the immediate suspension of 30 out of its 350 arms export licenses with the Israeli occupation, citing concerns that the equipment might be used in ways that violate international humanitarian law, Foreign Minister David Lammy announced after a review of arms sales to the occupying regime, particularly in the context of the ongoing war on Gaza.

Lammy emphasized that this suspension does not amount to a blanket ban or an arms embargo but is a targeted measure. “It is with regret that I inform the House of Commons today that the assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude anything other than that for certain UK arms exports to Israel, there exists a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” Lammy stated.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Big Brother Banking? UK’s New “Fraud Bill” Sparks Fears of Financial Snooping

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 26, 2024

A considerable scandal broke out in the UK under the previous government over a practice dubbed, “debanking” – which saw various public, but not only, figures cut off from financial services as a way of punishing them for their political views.

That also faced a considerable backlash, but the Labor government that took over earlier in the year doesn’t seem to be willing to give up on the core postulates: it appears to be just trying to go about achieving the same end goal in a more “subtle” manner.

The policy is this: give banks spying powers over everybody, but call that a requirement for banks and financial institutions to “share data that may show indications of potential benefit overpayments.”

In order to achieve the stated goal, the whole population’s bank accounts are likely to be monitored.

So one can think of this as the financial sector version of the “online age verification” push. In that scenario everybody (“the whole population”) loses their right to anonymity for no good reason – but a reason, nonetheless. Opponents say it’s to surveil and control as many people, in as many ways possible, at one time.

The UK government naturally keeps its messaging on this legislative initiative as “clean” as possible – it’s to crack down on fraud in the social security system, they say.

Remember what it’s called, because it is sure to crop up in the future, and not in a good way: “Fraud, Error and Debt Bill.”

The government plays not only on people’s natural aversion to fraud but also on sensibilities around spending taxpayer money – the sponsors promise not to waste £1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) of public money over the next five years, just thanks to this bill.

But, to get there, they need to “extend and modernize DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) powers.”

Like this: “Better investigate suspected fraud and new powers of search and seizure so DWP can take greater control investigations into criminal gangs defrauding the taxpayer. (…) Require banks and financial institutions to share data that may show indications of potential benefit overpayments.”

Hold the phone, rights groups are basically saying at this point. And then some are blasting this as (PM) Keir Starmer’s “benefits bank spying plans.”

“A financial snoopers’ charter targeted to automate suspicion of our country’s poorest is intrusive, unjustified, and risks Horizon-style injustice on a mass scale,” said Big Brother Watch, adding that his was “an assault on the presumption of innocence.”

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

EU country firing ‘pro-Russia’ civil servants – media

Lithuanian soldiers at the presidential palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 12, 2024. © SOPA Images / Getty Images
RT | September 29, 2024

Lithuania is actively investigating and dismissing “disloyal” officials who are reportedly being accused of having pro-Russian views, local broadcaster TV3 has reported.

According to a report aired on Saturday, several police officers and firefighters have been dismissed from their posts or warned about their views and labeled ‘vatniks’ – a derogatory term used to insult supporters of the Russian government, which derives from a jacket once worn by Red Army soldiers.

The report claimed that “pro-Russian statements lead to job losses,” warning that public servants “should think carefully” before openly expressing their views on social media.

“After the start of the war in Ukraine… nine police officers were identified as possibly pro-Russian,” Ramunas Matonis, the head of the police communication division, told TV3, adding that while most of the officers denied holding these views during “preventative talks” conducted by the department, one of them “was not granted an extension to work with classified information.”

It quoted the minister of internal affairs, Agne Bilotaite, as saying that the authorities “are closely monitoring the situation,” adding that only “loyal officials” who hold Lithuania’s official pro-Kiev position are suitable to serve the state.

“We certainly do not tolerate cases where officials demonstrate disloyalty through their actions and behavior,” Bilotaite told the outlet, warning that these “individuals lose the right to work in service, and this is understandable, as officials must be loyal to their country.”

The TV channel highlighted the case of Genadijus Rogacius, a former Lithuanian army soldier who was investigated by the prosecutor’s office after he “criticized Lithuania and glorified Russia” on the internet.

It also claimed that pro-Russian sentiments were revealed in the former Soviet republic when people laid flowers by a Russian tank that was hit during the Ukraine conflict last year and later displayed in Vilnius. The significant support for anti-establishment candidate Eduard Vaitkus in the presidential election also indicated pro-Russian sentiments, according to TV3.

Lithuania has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. It has pursued a number of hardline anti-Russia policies and advocated for increased military aid to Kiev by NATO and the EU.

The authorities have previously ordered the demolition of Soviet war memorials and stripped several Russian-born celebrities living in the country of their citizenship for alleged pro-Kremlin views.

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

As the West tries to silence RT, the Global South speaks out

The US-led “diplomatic campaign” to suppress RT worldwide is not getting the warm reception Washington hoped for

By Anna Belkina | RT | September 28, 2024

The United States government has recently issued new sanctions against RT, with the State Department announcing a new “diplomatic campaign” whereby – via US, Canadian, and UK diplomats – they promise to “rally allies and partners around the world to join us in addressing the threat posed by RT.”

In other words, the plan is to bully countries outside of the Collective West into shutting off their populations’ access to RT content in order to restore the West’s almost global monopoly on information. Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa appear to be of particular concern to the State Department’s James Rubin, as it is in those regions where US foreign policy has failed to find universal purchase.

As Rubin said during a press conference, “one of the reasons… why so much of the world has not been as fully supportive of Ukraine as you would think they would be… is because of the broad scope and reach of RT.”

Clearly not trusting anyone outside of the Western elite circles to think and decide for themselves which news sources people should or should not have access to, Rubin promised that the US will be “helping other governments come to their own decisions about how to treat” RT.

The statement reeks of patronizing and neo-colonialist attitudes, especially when you consider the countries that are being targeted.

Therefore, it has been reassuring to observe over the past couple of weeks the diversity of voices that have spoken out against this latest US-led crusade.

The Hindu, one of India’s newspapers of record, was among the first, reporting that while “US officials have spoken to [India’s] Ministry of External Affairs about joining their actions” against RT, “government officials said that the debate on sanctions is not relevant to India, while a former diplomat said that banning media organizations showed ‘double standards’ by Western countries.”

This position was seconded by Indian business newspaper Financial Express : “India is unlikely to act on this request [to ban RT], given its longstanding friendly relations with Russia and its own position on media censorship… In India, RT enjoys significant viewership, with its content reaching a large number of English-speaking audiences and also expanding its reach through a Hindi-language social media platform. RT has grown in popularity in India and other parts of the world, claiming that its main mission is to counter the Western narrative and offer Russia’s perspective on global affairs.”

In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s Okaz paper said, “it is paradoxical, that when [free] speech becomes a threat to the US and the West, they impose restrictions on it, as it happened with the ban on RT under the pretext of lack of transparency, spreading false information, interfering in internal affairs and inciting hatred – something that Washington and the West themselves do in relation to other countries.”

Leading Lebanese daily Al Akhbar wrote: “despite all the attempts to ban it… RT continues to broadcast and causes concern among supporters of imperial wars. These efforts also demonstrate the hypocrisy of their authors and their false claims about ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of the press,’ among their other loud proclamations. They claim that RT is a ‘mouthpiece of disinformation,’ but if this is so, then why is there such fear of it? If the channel really is spreading lies, won’t the viewers be able to notice? [This only works] if Western rulers view their citizens as simple-minded and easily deceived, which in turn explains the misinformation coming from every side of the Western media.”

It is safe to say that “Western rulers” view with such disregard and distrust not only their own citizens, but most of the world’s population… But I digress.

In Latin America, Uruguay-based current affairs magazine Caras y Caretas praised RT for “maintain[ing] a truthful editorial line, beyond being a state media outlet, and [it] has increased its popularity and credibility by exposing a perspective that makes it creative, original and authentic… RT has helped open the eyes of a very large part of the world’s population and of increasingly numerous governments and countries. That is the reason for the sanctions that the US and hegemonic media conglomerates such as Meta and Facebook have imposed on RT and its directors, adjudicating against them with the charges that are not believable, and are ridiculous. The statements of top US administration officials claiming to be defenders of press freedom and accusing RT of being a front for Russian intelligence is only an expression of impotence in the face of an alternative narrative to the hegemonic imperialist story.”

Rosario Murillo, the vice president of Nicaragua, sent RT a letter of support. In it, she berated the US authorities for their actions against the network, asking when they will “learn that the aggressions that they shamelessly call Sanctions, (as if they had divine powers to dispense punishments)… have no more sense than establishing their claims to the position [of] dictators of the World.” She praised RT’s “work and the creative, thoughtful, illustrative, sensitive and moving way” that RT “manage[s] to communicate.”

A number of African outlets have also spoken out about the hypocrisy of America’s global censorship. Nigerian newspaper The Whistler summarized the latest Western media diktat and its colonialist undertones thusly: “The Americans got into some quarrel with Russia and then shut down this Russian news channel. An order signed by some American politician in Washington got the European company supplying Multichoice to stop streaming RT… The result? We in Nigeria woke up one day to find we could no longer watch RT on TV or stream them on Facebook because of some drama happening in Washington and Moscow. Imagine the audacity! It was a decision made by Americans and Europeans without asking anybody here in Africa how we felt about it. They decided what we could and could not watch on our own TVs.”

It is heartening to see that so many different countries, with incredibly varied politics, societies, and cultures, speaking out against Washington’s imposing its world order on them. They prove that RT’s voice continues to be not just necessary, but welcomed and sought after.

Last night, as part of RT’s response to the actions of the US government, the bright green RT logo lit up the facade of the US Embassy building in Moscow with the message: “We’re not going away.”

Not in the US, not in the West at large, not in other parts of the world.

See you around!

September 28, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

20 State AGs Put Top U.S. Pediatric Group On Notice for “Abusive” and “Experimental” Trans Therapy Guidance

By Jefferey Jaxen | September 26, 2024

“It is abusive to treat a child with biologically altering drugs that have an unknown physiological trajectory and end point. It is also inhumane to endorse such experimentation without a confident safety profile, especially if more times than not, it proves to be medically unnecessary.”

This statement unpins the tone of the legal notice signed by 20 state Attorneys General to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) asking the group to answer to possible violations of state consumer protection statutes over its questionable standards on gender dysphoria care for minors.

“… the AAP continues to authoritatively declare that puberty blockers are ‘reversible,’” the letter continued. “That claim is scientifically unsupported and contradicts what is medically known. And because that claim raises questions under most state consumer protection laws, it has the undersigned alarmed,” the letter goes on to state.

Idaho AG and co-signer of the action letter Raúl Labrador stated, “It is shameful the most basic tenet of medicine – do no harm – has been abandoned by professional associations when politically pressured,” said Attorney General Labrador. “These organizations are sacrificing the health and well-being of children with medically unproven treatments that leave a wake of permanent damage.”

Why are these AGs acting now? The momentum has gained breakaway speed regarding the science of gender affirming care for minors.

Puberty blockers are not fully reversible and come with serious long-term consequences. According to the Cass Report commissioned by NHS England, using puberty blockers are used to suppress hormones during or before puberty can interfere with neurocognitive development, compromise bone density and may negatively affect metabolic health and weight.

And when puberty blocker use is followed directly by cross-sex hormone use, which is often the case, infertility and sterility is a known consequence.

The controversial world of gender care isn’t the only space that the AAP has dove into without an abundance of caution. The group made headlines in 2023 by radically altering their front line weight loss recommendations children ages 12 and up to include a new class of risky drugs and weight-loss surgery.

The AAP’s murky ‘science’ recommendations reached an early level of appalling shame in 2019 when, during a public hearing in 2019 to discuss an act before it was signed into law, pediatrician Dr. Helene Felman, representing Washington D.C.’s chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), stated:

“As a pediatrician, I like the legislation as it stands because it offers the opportunity to capture those young adults who can make informed decisions at technically any age.”

11 was ultimately decided upon until a federal court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction in a case funded by The Informed Consent Action Network.

The American Medical Association (AMA) had also thrown its full weight behind attempting to remove the parents from medical decisions involving their children.

Looking at where their energy has gone in key moments, one thing appears clear, the AAP wants children isolated from their parents and given over to the medical system for pharmaceutical interventions with known risk profiles. Why?

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

Germany’s BfV intelligence agency includes Remix News on list of websites tied to Russian propaganda campaign

Remix News | September 25, 2024

Remix News has been included on a list of websites accused of being used in a Russian propaganda operations, according to a controversial report from the powerful Office of the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), although Remix News has no ties to Russia.

The report, labeled “Doppelgänger,” made headlines across Germany due to its claims that certain media outlets were pushing Russian narratives or producing news reports that the Russians could use to promote propaganda campaigns. As a result, many of these media outlets, including Der Freitag, Junge Freiheit, and Berliner Zeitung successfully sued the BfV concerning a passage in the report which stated that “from the perspective of the actor, the content in question supports the Russian narrative.” The Bavarian BfV further wrote, “For this purpose, some of the articles were deliberately taken out of context.”

The report describes how Russia was allegedly using a number of news websites to promote its own narrative on social media platforms, and even in some cases, created duplicate news websites that appeared to be authentic to end users.

The lawsuit was successful and the secret service was forced to change part of the report, which then was updated to read: The BayLfV does not explicitly assume that those responsible for the websites listed here are spreading Russian propaganda or are aware of it or approve of their content being disseminated as part of the ‘doppelgänger’ campaign. Furthermore, the BayLfV does not make any assessment of the content of the websites in question.”

While Remix News is not among the websites mentioned in the actual main body of the report, it is instead included in a table at the end of the report along with about 350 news websites. Many of the news website are smaller, but Reuters, Zerohedge, Newsweek, and top German news outlets, such as Welt, Berliner Zeitung, and Junge Freiheit, are also included.

Many of these websites may not even be aware they are included in this report, as they are too large to be concerned about what a German intelligence agency operating from a single German state is publishing. However, the inclusion of Remix News on this list is problematic. For one, malicious journalists or activists may attempt to smear Remix News for being included on such a list from the German intelligence services, as the list tangentially ties our site to so-called Russian propaganda efforts. Without the proper context, such a list could be deemed extremely harmful to Remix News.

Second, there are no examples given of how Remix News was used by the Russians in their campaign. We are simply left to speculate how our website may have been allegedly used by these “Russian actors.”

For the record, Remix News has no ties to Russia in any form whatsoever.

The entire report appears to be somewhat of a debacle for the German intelligence services and has been heaped with criticism.

Speaking to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Vice President of the Bundestag and FDP politician Wolfgang Kubicki said it was a good thing that the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution had been forced to correct its report.

“This correction should also give food for thought to all those who believe that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s assessments are sacrosanct per se. We must continue to be careful that authorities do not restrict the right to freedom of expression for political reasons — not just in Bavaria, but throughout Germany,” he stated.

Media lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel criticized the Bavarian BfV’s failure to act without the threat of a lawsuit, which he said was “certainly one of the most blatant examples of how state bodies try to disparage the media.”

Notably, many of the media outlets listed in the report are seen as critical of the German government. It is unclear how Remix News landed on this list, but it is concerning that we were included with no context whatsoever. Our publication does not have the resources at this time to take legal action against the BfV, and the report remains part of the public record, albeit with an updated correction thanks to the legal battle waged by German media outlets.

Some commentary pieces Remix has published from Poland are strongly critical of Russia and the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, some content we have published that conveys arguments from a Hungarian perspective, simply state the official position, which has never condoned Russia’s invasion. These pieces have simply stated Hungary will not send weapons to Ukraine and has consistently called for a ceasefire. However, in both media markets, there is a broad range of opinions, and Remix News has endeavored to publish a wide range of perspectives on this complex issue.

The report is also concerning due to the fact that Remix News has reported a number of times in a critical manner in relation to the BfV. As Remix News has previously reported, the BfV is a highly politicized agency, with a special focus on targeting critics of the government, perhaps most notably the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The BfV is focused on Germany’s domestic sphere and is tasked with ensuring Germany’s constitution is protected. This role has increasingly morphed into fighting parties deemed outside the mainstream, with many analysts viewing the agency as a growing threat to democracy.

It features incredible spying powers, which enable it to monitor political activists and even people who have done nothing wrong besides being members of political parties deemed a threat by the ruling class. The AfD, for instance, is labeled in some states as a “suspected threat” to democracy and a “confirmed right-wing extremist” party, which enables security forces in the BfV to monitor all communications, including email, phone and text messages of all its members.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Fugitive Ukrainian MP fights extradition from UK

RT | September 25, 2024

A Ukrainian lawmaker who fled the country has contested a request for his extradition in a UK court. Artyom Dmitruk, who is a Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) deacon, claimed on Tuesday that he had to flee due to his public opposition to the Kiev government’s crackdown on the country’s largest Christian denomination.

Dmitruk, who left Ukraine in August, said he is being targeted with criminal charges for criticizing a law effectively banning the UOC, which was historically part of the Moscow Patriarchate, over what Kiev claims is its alleged subservience to Russia.

“Right now there is a political persecution going on against me and my family, against myself for my political views and my support for the UOC,” he told The Independent ahead of his appearance at the courthouse.

The preliminary hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court went in Dmitruk’s favor. He retained his freedom, he said in a brief statement following the proceedings, adding “thank God for everything.”

According to Ukrainian journalist Anatoly Shariy, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Prosecutor General Andrey Kostin have personally contacted UK officials to ask them to accelerate the case.

Dmitruk claims that his life was in danger in Ukraine. He previously alleged that his family was surveilled in Europe in a possible kidnapping plot.

Speaking to The Independent, he said he illegally crossed the Ukrainian border with Moldova and spent some time in Italy before reaching the UK. The British government has been providing him with security, he added.

Last week Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko published a report about threats against Dmitruk made by radical nationalists, in whch she alleged that a “bounty” on his head is linked to the Kiev government.

She claimed that former MP Andrey Lozovoy, who publicly offered $250,000 for “an ashtray with the remains” of Dmitruk, had approached one of the latter’s former assistants.

He was seeking information that could be used to publicly humiliate Dmitruk and details of his whereabouts, Panchenko claimed, sharing tapes of the purported conversations. Lozovoy later put the source in touch with a Ukrainian counterintelligence officer, she alleged.

Dmitruk has endorsed the reporting and claimed that the plot against him could be traced to the top of the Ukrainian government and as far as Vladimir Zelensky personally.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Biden’s ‘Performative’ Lecture on Democracy at UN Belies True US Role in World

By John Miles – Sputnik – 25.09.2024

Biden has made his claimed struggle for democracy a primary argument for the Democratic Party’s campaign against former President Donald Trump, but a closer look reveals the malign role of the United States in preserving countries’ sovereignty and self-rule.

US President Joe Biden spoke before the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, taking the opportunity to deliver what is likely one of the final major speeches of his political career.

The yearly gathering of world leaders and diplomats, which takes place each September in New York City, has served as the backdrop for several significant moments throughout its almost 80-year history. Cuban revolutionary Ché Guevara addressed the assembly in 1964, touting Havana’s literacy campaign and assailing US intervention in Latin America. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi delivered a highly memorable speech in 2009, as did ex-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who blasted George Bush, neoliberalism, and the US War on Terror in a 2006 broadside.

The week-long event provides an important forum for developing nations, who are briefly granted equal footing with great world powers. But the General Assembly is often criticized as a “talk shop” by those who claim the recognition granted to countries is more symbolic than tangible. Author and analyst Caleb Maupin joined Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program Tuesday to discuss the 78th session of the annual event and break down Biden’s address before the international audience.

“He talked about democracy and how he’s committed to democracy,” said Maupin, noting that Biden touched on themes he has frequently spoken about during the 2024 presidential election season. “He talked against Russia. He talked against Venezuela. He talked against the Palestinians. He talked up support for Israel. Joe Biden made a series of remarks going over standard US foreign policy.”

“Joe Biden really likes to do these kinds of performative, ideological shows, and that’s what his summit for democracy that he bragged about in his UN speech was,” the analyst claimed. “He loves to do these little performances where he talks about how he’s sticking up for democracy and democratic ideals.”

Biden has made his claimed struggle for democracy a primary argument for the Democratic Party’s campaign against former President Donald Trump, but a closer look reveals the malign role of the United States in preserving countries’ sovereignty and self-rule. A 2015 study found the US provides military support to 73% of nations labeled “dictatorships,” with Saudi Arabia and Juan Orlando Hernández’s oppressive former regime in Honduras providing perhaps the most prominent examples.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, still lauded as one of America’s most admired and consequential statesmen, made his contempt for democracy clear in 1970, when he vowed to intervene in Chile if the country elected an anti-imperialist leader. “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people,” said the controversial figure, who spearheaded a campaign of social and economic subversion of the Latin American country after the election of Salvador Allende.

Three years later Chile’s democratically-elected president would be removed in a bloody US-backed military putsch, ushering in almost two decades of bloody dictatorship resulting in the death and torture of tens of thousands. The model was duplicated in Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina in a campaign of state terror and repression known as Plan Cóndor.

The US has worked to support coups and subvert democracy in dozens of countries around the globe, but its role in Palestine has generated perhaps the most attention in recent years. The United States has frequently undermined the influence of the UN and the force of international law in the name of defending Israel from criticism, recently downplaying the importance of a vote by the UN Security Council that called on the country to end its campaign in Gaza. The US has also led a group of Western countries in defunding the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a crucial lifeline for refugees facing hunger and displacement that Israel has long viewed as an impediment.

“There is a lot of criticism that can be leveled at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency,” noted Maupin. “[With] Israel though, in particular, there is a political issue there, which is the UN frequently criticizes Israel and calls out Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.”

“Israel considers any connection with the legitimate elected government of Gaza, which is Hamas… support for terrorism,” he continued. “If the UN set up a health care clinic and an elected official who’s part of the government in Gaza – that would be a member of Hamas – showed up and got health care, that would be considered aid to terrorism.”

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed the country’s actual views on democracy in leaked audio of comments from 2006, in which she demonstrated that the United States’ support for democratic elections is highly contingent upon voters choosing candidates in line with views and policies supported by Washington.

“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” Clinton said of the ballot that brought Hamas’s armed resistance movement to power in Gaza.

“If we were going to push for an election then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win,” she claimed, appearing to suggest the United States should have intervened to rig the outcome.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Democrat Senators Urge Platforms To Share Plans for Addressing “Disinformation” (Even Inside Encrypted Apps)

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 24, 2024

US Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have joined those currently publicly pressuring companies behind social media platforms and encrypted messages – they have identified 11 of the most widely used ones – to make sure they “combat election disinformation.”

Specifically, four Democrats (the letter was also signed by Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren) want to know what these companies’ censorship plans are: the senators phrase it as the need to discover what measures will be taken to “de-amplify” (and that includes removal) content and accounts seen as spreading the said type of disinformation.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

How will the tech companies know this is happening on their platforms? They will, the senators write if that content or accounts violate their policies. (That is, those same vague and restrictive policies that have been used and abused over the years.)

As far as Wyden and Merkley and others are concerned, it doesn’t matter if this content they consider to be election disinformation is AI-generated or not.

On the encrypted chat apps front, they want the companies operating them to “explain whether they have a reporting system for their users to flag unwanted election disinformation and what enforcement measures are in place.”

To cover all this the way the senators see fit, the companies and their platforms – Meta, Google (YouTube), TikTok, X, Reddit, Snapchat, Amazon (Twitch), Discord, Signal, Telegram, and Apple (Messages) – are urged to “increase resources” needed to fight what the US lawmakers describe in terms presented as a national-level crisis.

They warn that disinformation that is allegedly now more present than ever could suppress voter participation, but also “sow doubt in US democracy and incite political violence.”

The many times repeated references are made in the senators’ letter about alleged foreign disinformation campaigns during the 2020 and 2022 elections in the US, and a note is made that this “disinformation” would at that time remain online longer if it was in Spanish.

Essentially, what Wyden and Merkley now want from the tech giants – but also companies like Signal, that bill themselves as the ultimate privacy-friendly choice – is a report, to keep them on the straight and narrow, at least the way that is perceived by four Democrat senators at the height of a presidential campaign.

“Share information about the size and capacity of their 2024 US elections safety resourcing – including personnel and technologies – broken down by language,” is the opening demand aimed at social platforms.

September 24, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

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