Israel lobby’s war on students won’t end pro-Palestine activism
By Yves Engler | November 24, 2023
The Israel lobby’s contempt for student democracy is striking. In their bid to defend apartheid and genocide they are willing to sue, fabricate, blackmail and more.
Recently, McGill students voted for the Policy Against Genocide in Palestine. In the largest referendum turnout in Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) history, 78.7% of undergraduates called on the university administration to denounce Israel’s “genocidal bombing campaign” against Gaza. The resolution also called on McGill to sever ties with “any corporations, institutions or individuals complicit in genocide, settler-colonialism, apartheid, or ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.”
Before the election was completed the genocide lobby had already demanded the student’s vote be ignored. Simultaneously, they pressed McGill’s administration to condemn the resolution and demand SSMU jettison the results. If the student society ratified the results, the administration announced that it would terminate its Memorandum of Agreement with SSMU, which regulates fees, use of name and other matters between the university and student union.
The day after the voting results were announced, but before SSMU had a chance to ratify the resolution, B’nai B’rith brought a legal case to the Quebec Superior Court against it. An unnamed student claimed the resolution was discriminatory and the judge agreed to consider the case. As such, SSMU is restricted from ratifying or implementing the policy until after March 24 when the court will adjudicate the matter. Backed by a well-resourced outside organization, a single individual has been allowed to suppress the overwhelming will of students.
The Israel lobby followed a similar playbook 18 months ago when 71% of McGill undergraduates supported a Palestine Solidarity Policy, which called for boycotting “corporations and institutions complicit in settler-colonial apartheid against Palestinians.”
Before students voted on the Palestine Solidarity Policy Israel activists sought an injunction from SSMU’s Judicial Board to block the vote. After the policy was supported the administration, under Zionist lobby group pressure, threatened to terminate its Memorandum of Agreement with SSMU. This led SSMU’s unelected judicial board to reject the constitutionality of the Palestine Solidarity Policy.
Not satisfied with their undemocratic victory, B’nai Brith backed a lawsuit against SSMU, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) and McGill’s administration. The Jewish advocacy organization sponsored Jonathan Fried’s bid to have the provincial court block McGill students from being able to collectively take action in support of Palestinian rights. A New York transplant, Fried sought to have Québec’s Superior Court prevent McGill students from exercising their democratic rights in the hopes it would protect a violent, colonial, system in the Middle East.
When the Palestine Solidarity policy passed in March 2022 its opponents highlighted the fact that only 17% of eligible voters cast ballots. But participation more than doubled in the recent referendum — with the proportion of students supporting Palestine increasing — yet the suppression continues.
What’s taking place at McGill’s is egregious but Israel lobby groups have pursued similar policies at other universities. They’ve recently launched lawsuits against Concordia, Queen’s, Toronto Metropolitan, University of British Columbia and York for purported “antisemitism”. They’ve also pushed university administrators to condemn student groups and succeeded in having them reprimand or dismiss medical and nursing students as well as university chaplains and sexual assault centre staff for opposing genocide. At the University of British Columbia, the Jewish Zionist group Hillel was recently caught creating falsely attributed stickers in a bid to discredit the Social Justice Centre opposition to genocide.
An important part of the apartheid lobby’s power within universities is that administrations are obsessed with fundraising and Jewish Zionists donate large sums. Israel lobby activists constantly raise the specter of withdrawing funds from universities that don’t clampdown on students. On November 10 Liberal MP Anthony Hausefather “encouraged donors to contact” Concordia’s administration to pressure them to suppress Palestine solidarity. Ten days earlier he “demanded that university administrators crack down on antisemitism on campus or lose funding.”
Suing, seeking to intimidate students and labeling opposition to genocide “antisemitism” is a tacit admission that you can’t make the case for Israel. Unable to win the argument, the apartheid lobby increasingly relies on smears and legal action. But anti-democratic maneuvers can only stunt Palestine solidarity for so long. It can’t hide the fact that Israel has lost control of the narrative with the younger generation.
Over 90% of pro-Palestinian content deleted since Oct. 7 on social media following Israel’s request
The New Arab | November 22, 2023
Social networking sites, mostly Meta-owned, have deleted thousands of pro-Palestinian posts since the outbreak of Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, in response to Tel Aviv’s request to do so.
The Israeli Attorney General’s Office has sent approximately 9,500 requests since October 7 to Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – as well as the video-sharing app TikTok, to remove content related to Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, according to a recent report published by Forbes.
As a result, around 94 percent of that content has been deleted, digital researcher Mona Shttayeh said in an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher, citing the report.
The number of requests to delete such content has increased since the report’s publication, she said.
Shtayyeh said that it is “impossible” to comprehend the magnitude of the large number of Israeli requests to restrict Palestinian content, adding that the number of demands has increased tenfold since Israel’s onslaught on the besieged strip, which has killed over 14,000 Palestinians began.
Last month, Instagram had deleted and later reinstated the Eye on Palestine account, which has been a source of on-the-ground images and videos in Gaza.
Prior to the war, pro-Palestinian content already experienced censorship, restrictions and shadow-banning. In 2021, Facebook was accused by activists for censoring Palestine-related posts on its platform on Israel’s military assault in Gaza and protests against forced expulsions of Sheikh Jarrah families in the same year. The social networking giant was then investigated, and found guilty of violating Palestinian human rights in documenting Israeli atrocities.
Last year, in 2022, prominent Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid said she was shadow-banned when attempting to post Palestinian content relating to the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque to the Instagram Stories feature.
Shttayeh also stressed that incitement and hate speech against Palestinians on social media also increased as Israel’s military campaign in Gaza began.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian censorship online could witness a significant increase following the Knesset’s approval of a draft law banning the consumption of terrorist publications earlier this month.
Digital advocacy group 7amleh told The New Arab in a press release that the bill could pave the way for “the preemptive criminalisation” of people who have neither committed nor planned any crime. The draft law could also increase the Israeli authorities’ surveillance of Arab Palestinian citizens while infringing on their rights to privacy, freedom of expression and the right to access information.
There have been several cases of Palestinian citizens of Israel being arrested for sharing pro-Palestinian content on social media, including singer Dalal Abu Amneh who wrote “there is no victor but God”, in support of Gaza.
UN Experts Voice Alarm Over Attacks on Critics of Israeli Policies in Palestine
Sputnik – 23.11.2023
Western journalists, athletes and students who criticize Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories or share pro-Palestinian views face censorship, threats and discrimination, the UN special experts said in a fresh report, published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“Journalists and media outlets in Israel and Western countries reporting critically about Israeli policies and operations in the occupied territories or expressing pro-Palestinian views have been the target of threats, intimidation, discrimination and retaliation, which have increased the risk of self-censorship, undermining the diversity and plurality of news that is essential for press freedom and the right of the public to be informed,” the report out Thursday read.
At least one media outlet in Israel has reportedly been threatened with closure for allegedly being “biased” toward Palestine, while pro-Palestinian content is being disproportionately and wrongfully removed by social media platforms, the experts said.
“The experts raised concerns about suspensions and expulsions of students from universities, dismissal of academics, calls for their deportation, threats to dissolve student unions and associations, and restrictions on campus meetings to express solidarity with the suffering civilians in Gaza and denounce the ongoing Israeli military response,” the report added.
In some universities, students have been blacklisted for supporting “terrorism” and threatened with diminished prospects in their future careers, according to the report.
Certain athletes, “particularly in Europe,” have been suspended from their teams and competitions after posting their opinions on the situation in the Gaza Strip on social media, while others have been threatened with suspension, termination of contracts and even deportation, the experts said.
Calls to an end to the violence in the Gaza Strip and to humanitarian ceasefire, as well as criticism of Israeli government’s policies and actions, have often “misleadingly equated with support for terrorism or anti-Semitism,” the experts said.
The document was signed by four UN Special Rapporteurs on human rights, including UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Clement Nyaletsossi Voule.
On October 7, Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip and breached the border, killing around 1,200 people and abducting over 200 others in neighboring Israeli communities. Israel launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, cutting off supplies of water, food, and fuel.
On October 27, Israel launched a large-scale ground incursion inside the Gaza Strip with the declared goal of eliminating Hamas fighters and rescuing the hostages. The conflict has resulted in the deaths of nearly 1,200 people in Israel and over 14,800 in the Gaza Strip.
Harvard Law Review bans article on Israeli genocide in Gaza
MEMO | November 23, 2023
The prestigious Harvard Law Review (HLR) has made the extraordinary decision to ban publication of an article examining the legal framework surrounding Israel’s ongoing Nakba against Palestinians, particularly in Gaza.
Authored by Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah, who is currently completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School, the piece had cleared editorial review and was nearing publication when HLR’s president intervened.
In an email quoted by the Intercept’s recent investigation, Editor Tascha Shahriari-Parsa revealed the president blocked publication over concerns that “editors who might oppose or be offended by the piece” may face harassment by pro-Israel groups.
On Saturday, following several days of debate and a nearly six-hour meeting, the HLS’ full editorial body came together to vote on whether to publish the article, reported the Nation. A subsequent vote rejected the article, with 63 per cent of HLR editors voting against its right to be heard. While no reason was given, the facts speak for themselves – honest discourse about Palestinian suffering remains taboo.
In a joint statement, 25 HLR editors expressed alarm that fear of public intimidation now governs editorial decisions at the university that promises to pursue truth and protect academic freedom.
“At a time when the Law Review was facing a public intimidation and harassment campaign, the journal’s leadership intervened to stop publication,” they wrote. “The body of editors—none of whom are Palestinian—voted to sustain that decision. We are unaware of any other solicited piece that has been revoked by the Law Review in this way.”
The Nation has published the article Harvard Law Review refused to run in full. The article argues that the horrific violence and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza should be recognised as genocide. It states that there is credible evidence that Israel intends to destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part, meeting the UN definition of genocide.
The author cites numerous statements by Israeli officials, as well as the material conditions imposed on Palestinians, to demonstrate genocidal intent and outcome. He asserts that the blockade of Gaza and mass killing of civilians could plausibly constitute genocide under international law.
Additionally, the article condemns the refusal of Western institutions, including prominent legal scholars and journals, to acknowledge the reality of genocide due to selective application of international law. It states that Palestinian lives are devalued and their innocence denied within a colonial structure.
The author argues the Nakba, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 as well as the ongoing system of oppression, serves to erase Palestinians politically and physically. The article concludes that just as concepts like genocide and apartheid were codified in international law post-WWII, the Palestinian experience of genocide equally deserves recognition in order to end the crimes against them.
How the Democratic Party Faked an American Insurrection
By Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 23, 2023
Last week, more than 40,000 hours of Jan. 6 Capitol Police security footage was released in the public domain that once and for all blew a hole in the pro-Trump ‘violent insurrection’ narrative so dear to the Democrats.
The one question on countless Americans’ minds following the release of the damning videos was: will all those men and women recently locked away as political prisoners for dozens of decades get another day in court? Indeed, January 6 may have been a lot of things to many people, but another Boston Tea Party it most definitely was not.
Social media was alight over the weekend showing one benign scene after another of the ‘insurrectionists’ casually strolling through the Capitol Building premises, exchanging pleasantries with the on-duty police officers, even giving each other fist-bumps.
The revelations of the true nature of the event came to light as newly appointed House Speaker Mike Johnson released the security footage, which came as a political manna from heaven for former president Donald Trump and other members of the Republican Party.
“Truth and transparency are critical,” Johnson said in a prepared statement. “This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials.”
Democrats, however, who have milked the ‘insurrectionist’ narrative for everything it is worth, predictably chafed at the release, calling it a ‘risk to national security.’
“It is unconscionable that one of Speaker Johnson’s first official acts as steward of the institution is to endanger his colleagues, staff, visitors, and our country by allowing virtually unfettered access to sensitive Capitol security footage,” said New York Democrat Rep. Joseph Morelle, who sits on the Committee on House Administration. “That he is doing so over the strenuous objections of the security professionals within the Capitol Police is outrageous. This is not transparency; this is dangerous and irresponsible.”
For almost two years, Democrats, who managed to cherry-pick the most suggestive scenes of the footage, portrayed January 6th as everything from another September 11 to a second Pear Harbor.
Last year, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the photogenic member of the Democrat’s radical progressive wing, was shown visibly upset after having to “relive” the events of the Capitol riot.
“I am so angry. Having to relive that footage,” she sobbed, rubbing her forehead. “I know it’s not just me. This is everyone.”
“These attacks killed people, traumatized people and for any of you right-winger Trump loyalists, he sent his own people to jail, and promised his own people that he would pardon them.”
The inconvenient truth, however, is that only one person was killed on the day of the Capitol riot – unarmed Air Force veteran and avid Trump supporter, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by a police officer.
Now, Republicans are demanding justice be served and that the incarcerated protesters be immediately set free.
“And just like that the J6 Committee’s violent insurrection narrative has crumbled,” said conservative commentator Charlie Kirk over X (formerly Twitter). “The Capitol Police facilitated the protesters passage through the building…the vast majority of J6ers should be immediately released.”
However, with the Democrats still in control of Washington, D.C., together with the FBI, the Justice Department and other administrative offices, the Republicans will have to wait until November 4th – and possibly longer if they lose their White House bid – before any real justice is meted out.
Meanwhile, federal officials have said there is no evidence that law enforcement officials helped coordinate the attacks.
“If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources or agents the answer is emphatically no,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) during a House Committee hearing. Higgins was questioning Wray about two Greyhound buses he said dropped off FBI agents dressed as Trump supporters at the Capitol on January 6, referring to the vehicles as “ghost buses.”
Whatever the case may be, the fresh revelations were a silver lining in a shitstorm that has been following Donald Trump, who hopes to win back the White House next November despite multiple legal woes.
“Congratulations to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for having the Courage and Fortitude to release all of the J6 Tapes, which will explicitly reveal what really happened on January 6th!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday.
Ukraine will not recognize rights of Russian citizens
By Lucas Leiroz | November 23, 2023
Apparently, not even with the catastrophic military results and serious consequences of the conflict, Ukraine is willing to change the way it treats ethnic Russian citizens. In a recent statement, a top Ukrainian politician made it clear that there will be no recognition of the rights of the Russian population in Ukraine. In practice, this is an admission that Kiev will continue to practice genocide against Russian speakers, further legitimizing Moscow’s military actions.
In an interview with Ukrainian state TV on November 20, Ruslan Stefanchuk, head of the country’s parliament, stated that there will be no concessions from Ukraine regarding the rights of Russian citizens. Stefanchuk claims that there are no ethnic minorities in Ukraine, which is why there should be no protection to Russians and other groups. Furthermore, he clearly states that the Russian population on Ukrainian territory can be legitimately persecuted now, as they are supporting Moscow’s military measures.
“There are no Russian ethnic minorities in Ukraine as of now and there can be none (…) If a people do not show respect but commit aggression against Ukraine, their rights should be infringed upon in this field”, he told journalists.
More than that, Stefanchuk said that Kiev has reached a “consensus” with its European partners on this topic. According to him, there is a common “understanding” between Ukraine and Europe regarding the non-existence of Russian minorities in the country. If this information is confirmed, the situation will become even more serious, as European leaders will be openly supporting the anti-Russian genocide practiced by the neo-Nazi regime.
Until now, despite the unlimited support of most European states for Ukraine, the institutional stance on minorities’ rights has been ambiguous. This year, Ukraine was requested to improve its ethnic policies, recognizing local minorities. The measure is a prerequisite in the process of joining the European Union, which was demanded by Kiev. In this sense, the Venice Commission asked Ukrainians to make some reforms, allowing, for example, the official use of other languages in regions with a non-Ukrainian majority.
As expected, Kiev never complied with European requests and continued its supremacist policy towards other peoples. Despite really wanting to enter the EU, the neo-Nazi regime is ideologically linked to the racist mentality and will not change this until the effects of the 2014 coup are completely reversed. In the same sense, the Europeans never vetoed the Ukrainian membership project because, despite publicly defending “democratic values”, they are geopolitically aligned with NATO’s proxies.
It is important to emphasize that Stefanchuk clearly lies when he says there are no non-Ukrainian ethnicities in the country. There are regions of Ukraine with a Russian majority, as well as significant Hungarian, Polish, Moldovan and other populations. All non-Ukrainian people have suffered racism to some degree since the neo-Nazi Junta came to power in Kiev. Undoubtedly, the people most affected are Russians, as Russophobia is a vital part of Ukrainian ultranationalist ideology. Since 2014, Russians have been massacred in a brutal process of ethnic cleansing, which resulted in Moscow’s decision to launch a special military operation to protect its people.
However, non-Russian people are also persecuted in Ukraine. One of the greatest evidences of this is the case of the Transcarpathia’s Hungarians. Kiev has persecuted the local people in recent years, closing Hungarian schools and reducing the population’s civil rights. As the conflict escalated, something even more brutal began to be done, as the regime launched a campaign of forced recruitment of ethnic Hungarians, sending them en masse to the front lines, while Ukrainians were kept as much as possible in the rear.
In fact, the Ukrainian reality is an example of what happens when xenophobic and ultranationalist groups are placed in power to serve selfish geopolitical interests. NATO strengthened Ukrainian neo-Nazism to carry out a prolonged war plan against Russia, consciously using racism and ethnic hatred as tools against Moscow. Now, even in the face of imminent military defeat, Ukrainian non-Nazis continue to insist on their racist mentality, which shows how long the conflict will take to end.
Without a voluntary willingness on the part of Kiev to abandon its neo-Nazi ideology, the Russians have no alternative but to continue fighting. The Russian population needs to be protected by Moscow by all possible means. If Kiev does not want to cooperate in reaching a diplomatic consensus, then Russian military efforts will continue.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.
New World Dis-Order on CHD TV
Corbett • 11/21/2023
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
James Corbett and Dr. Meryl Nass return to “Good Morning CHD” to chronicle the latest Oct. 30 draft of the WHO Pandemic Treaty — now pegged the pandemic ‘agreement’. As the clock counts down until the May 2024 World Health Assembly, the time has come for free and sovereign individuals of the world to reclaim their sovereignty, and fast. James and Meryl elucidate what a “complete reimagination” of the world’s power structure looks like, walking us through the game plan of the opponent’s multi-angled attack to bring about their “New World Dis-Order,” and provide us with inspirational solutions to fight back. Learn their strategies and get a grasp of the bigger picture in this episode of “Good Morning CHD.”
SHOW NOTES:
The Corbett Report – Open Source Intelligence News
Oct 30. Latest WHO “Agreement”
Conference Of The Parties (COP) | UNFCCC
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – Twitter
Missouri V. Holland 252 U.S. 416 (1920) Justia US Supreme Court Center
United States V. Belmont 301 U.S. 324 (1937) Justia US Supreme Court Center
United States V. Pink 315 U.S. 203 (1942) Justia US Supreme Court Center
“The Great Taking”: How They Can Own It All
Sen. Ron Johnson, Advocates Brief On WHO’s Transformation ‘From Health Advisor To Dictator’
German News Report on Covid Vaccines and ‘Turbo Cancer’ Withdrawn in “Frontal Assault on Freedom of the Press”
BY ROBERT KOGON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | NOVEMBER 21, 2023
This past September 21st, the German news agency epd – the news agency of the German Protestant Church – published a potentially explosive report titled ‘Coronavirus Vaccines: Doctors and Researchers Express Concerns.’ The concerns in question were, more precisely, about a possible link between mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines and rapidly-developing or “turbo” cancers.
Thus, we read, for instance:
The Munich-based immunologist Peter Schleicher is currently treating 1,000 patients in his medical practice. Around 30 of them have “turbo cancer”, as he says. This means that “the cancer grows incredibly quickly,” Schleicher told the Evangelischer Pressedienst (epd). He has never before had so many “turbo cancer patients” at the same time, he added.
According to Schleicher, all 30 patients were diagnosed with cancer within three months of their last coronavirus vaccination. He has long suspected that mRNA vaccines can impair the immune system, so that diseased cells in the body can no longer be effectively combated: “In my view, this explains why the tumours grow at lightning speed.”
And further on in the article:
“As early as autumn 2021, I suspected that the coronavirus vaccines could give rise to turbo cancer,” Ute Krüger told epd. The cancer epidemiologist, who specialised as a breast cancer pathologist at the Breast Cancer Centre of Oskar Ziethen Hospital in Berlin in 2004, is currently conducting research at Lund University in Sweden.
For some time now, she has been dealing with cancer patients the course of whose illness has been extremely strange, she says. The cancer specialist points, for instance, to a 70-year-old woman who had been living with metastatic breast cancer for several years: “Shortly after being vaccinated against COVID-19, the tumour growth in her liver exploded.” The patient died within a month.
The article also cites chemistry professors Andreas Schnepf of the University of Tubingen and Martin Winkler of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, who likewise expressed their worries about the dangers of the vaccines.
Within one week of publication, however, the report had been quietly withdrawn. The article has been preserved on the Wayback Machine here. But it has disappeared from the original URL on the website of the German Protestant Church newspaper, the Evangelische Zeitung. Under the same title, ‘Coronavirus Vaccines: Doctors and Researchers Express Concerns’ – even with the same publication date and time! – we now find a brief disclaimer instead of the article. This disclaimer begins as follows:
Here, there was previously a text about coronavirus vaccinations and alleged possible links to cancer illnesses. It was an agency text which came directly from the agency and which had not been edited [by us]. The editors had already distanced themselves from the text and the repeatedly-used term ‘turbo cancer’, which has gained notoriety from its use by so-called ‘Querdenker‘.
The term Querdenker is widely used in German public discourse to refer to opponents of Covid measures such as lockdowns and mass vaccination. ‘Quer-denker‘ literally means ‘oblique’ or ‘transverse’ thinker and has the connotation of non-conformist or dissident, i.e., someone who ‘thinks differently’. (Thus, the English ‘queer’ appears to be derived from the German quer or to share a common etymological root with it.) The term has somehow become a term of disparagement in contemporary German usage.
It should be noted that Germany’s “Protestant Newspaper”, needless to say, regularly runs articles from its Protestant news agency.
The disclaimer goes on to cite a ‘fact-check’ from Germany’s public health authority, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), which virulently rejects any link between the vaccines and cancer and indeed goes on the attack against those suggesting there is one:
Alluding to such fears is a targeted strategy of opponents of vaccination, which is used again and again. They try to create an association between vaccinations and cancer using invented notions like ‘turbo cancer’.
“There is no scientific basis whatsoever for this supposed relationship,” the RKI concludes. Oddly enough, the RKI ‘fact-check’ makes no specific reference to mRNA vaccines here, even though it is obviously such vaccines which are at issue in this context. It only mentions the mRNA vaccines in passing later on, in order to praise the “ingenious idea” of using mRNA technology to fight cancer.
It should be noted that the original epd article already included contrary opinion, including from the German regulatory agency, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which told the epd, somewhat elliptically, that it “has no indication that the COVID-19 vaccines authorised in Germany altered the human genome”.
Although the German public health authority is cited in the disclaimer, in response to a recent query by the German regional newspaper the Nordkurier, epd Editor-in-Chief Karsten Frerichs insisted that the agency had not come under any pressure from Government officials to withdraw the article, but merely reconsidered the wisdom of its publication after receiving inquiries from “private individuals”.
Peter Schleicher, the Munich-based immunologist cited in the article, calls its withdrawal “outrageous”, describing it as a “frontal assault on freedom of the press”. There is “a great deal of absolutely serious [scientific] literature which undergirds the suspicion” of a link between mRNA vaccines and cancer, he told the Nordkurier.
Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on X.
Moderna’s ‘Disinformation Department’ Monitors 150 Million Websites for ‘Anti-Vaccine’ Narratives
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 21, 2023
Moderna’s “disinformation department” partnered with an industry-backed nonprofit, the Public Good Projects (PGP), to monitor and suppress dissenting voices on COVID-19 vaccine policy, according to a new report by investigative journalists Lee Fang and Jack Poulson published Monday in UnHerd.
Over the last year, the “Twitter Files,” two lawsuits against the Biden administration and other investigations have exposed instances of collusion among government, social media and universities to suppress dissenting speech about COVID-19 policies, election fraud allegations and other topics.
This new report sheds light on Moderna’s behind-the-scenes strategy within this new media landscape. It exposes key actors and how they worked to monitor 150 million websites for the purpose of censoring speech that undermines the company’s COVID-19 vaccine narrative and actively shaping public discourse to benefit Moderna’s bottom line.
Great Barrington Declaration co-author and Stanford University professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who was blacklisted by Twitter, praised the new report in a tweet.
Moderna had never successfully advanced any product to market prior to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and was teetering on the edge of collapse when the pandemic was announced.
Its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine transformed the drugmaker into a $100 billion company almost overnight and turned its CEO, chairman and co-founders into billionaires.
Today, as public interest in taking yet another booster shot tanks and federal subsidies for the shot are disappearing, so are profits, leading the company to invest in new strategies — like a flashy marketing campaign — to stay afloat, Fang and Poulson reported.
Moderna also is doubling down on work started during the pandemic to attack dissent about vaccines and to direct vaccination policy, they found.
In fact, Moderna today employs former law enforcement agents, like Nikki Rutman, a 20-year FBI veteran who worked for the agency in Boston during Operation Warp Speed where her job was to conduct weekly cybersecurity meetings with Moderna.
Now she runs Moderna’s global intelligence division — part of the department spearheading Moderna’s work to stop “disinformation” — producing reports that flag “anti-vaccine narratives” online and recommending whether and how to address them, they wrote.
The department works with the PGP, largely funded through a $1.27 million donation from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a biotech lobbying group that represents Pfizer and Moderna.
Through PGP and Talkwalker, a “social listening” company, Moderna’s team monitors everything from mainstream news outlets to gaming sites, deploying artificial intelligence to monitor 150 million websites across the world for vaccine-related conversation.
The team issues reports to Moderna staff that color-code the “anti-vaccine narratives” by level of risk. Low-risk narratives “don’t currently warrant any action.” For the higher-risk narratives, the team “will notify the appropriate stakeholders with recommendations,” Lee and Poulson wrote.
Analyzing sample reports, the journalists discovered that examples of “high-risk” posts included a video posted by Elon Musk mocking myriad claims that the vaccines were “100% effective” along with a number of posts made by comedian and political commentator Russell Brand, whom they flagged in September for his “anti-vaccine” beliefs.
The Moderna team also raised concerns over the optics when tennis star Novak Djokovic, who refused the COVID-19 vaccine, won the Moderna-sponsored U.S. Open.
Lee and Paulson reported that Moderna was unconcerned with the truth of any of the claims made in the posts it flagged, only with their effects.
“None of the reports that we have seen makes any attempt to dispute the claims made,” they wrote. “Rather the claims are automatically deemed ‘misinformation’ if they encourage vaccine hesitancy.”
Moderna first began working with PGP in 2021-2022 on a program called “Stronger,” where the nonprofit “identified misinformation and shaped content decisions on social media.”
PGP could do this effectively because it had “backdoor access” to Twitter data, through a “firehose,” which provides real-time access to all tweets on the platform for large-scale data analysis and data mining.
PGP, which worked directly with Twitter to develop its policies around the pandemic, would send Twitter lists of accounts to amplify or censor.
Twitter’s general counsel also advised the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s task force on combating misinformation to work with PGP on COVID-19 speech-related issues.
Lee and Poulson also found that PGP distributed talking points and advice on how to respond to vaccine misinformation to a network of 45,000 healthcare professionals.
“[Moderna’s] intention, as we have gleaned from the emails exchanged, was not only to combat misinformation, but also to affect the content and tenor of public debate,” Fang and Paulson wrote.
This year, as the COVID-19 booster uptake numbers have collapsed, Moderna and PGP launched a new collaboration, this time working with the American Board of Internal Medicine, to develop a training program called the “Infodemic Training Program,” to train healthcare workers to identify “medical misinformation.”
Despite public outrage regarding social media censorship, a clear lack of interest in continuing to take booster shots and the official end of the pandemic announced in May by the Biden administration, Moderna continues to grow its surveillance operation.
Internal alerts analyzed by Fang and Poulson reveal the company is closely monitoring laws and politicians seeking to restrict vaccine mandates and that it continues to flag messages posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, by Musk, who Moderna notes, “increasingly uses that platform to elevate fringe vaccine opponents and conspiracy theorists.”
The authors wrote:
“The network of fact-checking nonprofits has grown at an industrial pace, providing opaque opportunities for private and public interests to take subtle control over the public discourse. Such sophistication in blending public-health messaging and corporate advertising should concern anyone with an interest in how government controls free speech.”
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
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.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul Announces Plans to Implement Pre-Crime Surveillance, Target Online “Hate”
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | November 21, 2023
In a press conference today, New York Governor Kathy Hochul outlined her administration’s aggressive new strategy for combating online “hate” and implementing pre-crime-esque online surveillance.
As part of this approach, New York’s Threat Assessment and Management Teams (TAM teams), which were established in August 2022 in response to the Buffalo mass shooting, will extend their efforts and start targeting speech surrounding the conflict in the Middle East, with a focus on preventing crimes before they occur. TAM teams will be given an additional $3 million investment for their implementation across New York State college campuses.
“We’re creating strategies, first time ever, to help identify hate at the source and prevent crimes before they occur,” Hochul said.
The TAM teams, primarily focused on tracking and stopping violent acts of hate, work in collaboration with mental health professionals. They establish reporting systems for red flags and provide training to identify early warning signs of radicalization. This initiative, while seemingly noble in its intent to protect New Yorkers, raises significant privacy and First Amendment concerns.
In addition to expanding the scope of the TAM teams, Hochul also demanded that social media companies take more aggressive steps to reduce hate on their sites, specifically by expanding their moderation teams and providing greater transparency.
Critics of Hochul’s approach argue that it toes a dangerous line between ensuring public safety and infringing on free speech. The First Amendment, a cornerstone of American democracy, guarantees the right to free expression, including the expression of unpopular or controversial views. While the governor insists that the TAM teams are not targeting innocuous content like Instagram sunset posts or tweets about favorite football teams, the scope of what constitutes hate remains ambiguous.
These concerns are particularly pertinent in relation to Hochul. She has previously claimed that “hate speech” is not protected speech, despite the US Supreme Court unanimously reaffirming that there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hochul also signed a controversial “hateful conduct” law last year, which is currently facing legal challenges and injunctions over free speech concerns.
The focus on surveillance and intervention, especially in the digital space, is also reflective of the ever-expanding specter of mass government surveillance of everything we say and do online.
Hochul has been a big proponent of this constant monitoring. Earlier this month, she revealed that New York had started conducting social media “surveillance efforts” to monitor hate. And the governor is also an advocate of digital IDs — a type of technology that has numerous privacy concerns.
Governor Hochul’s approach reflects a growing trend among policymakers to address the dark side of digital platforms. However, the effectiveness and legality of such measures in protecting citizens while respecting their constitutional rights remain to be seen.
BitChute Asks Jim Jordan to Investigate the Deplatforming of Parler
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | November 20, 2023
BitChute, a platform for video hosting and social media, has reached out to Representative Jim Jordan, requesting an investigation into the removal of Parler, a social media platform once favored by free speech supporters, from online platforms. This request is part of a broader inquiry by Jordan’s House panel into possible misuse of government power to pressure online companies to suppress speech.
The Chief Policy Officer at BitChute, Amy Peikoff, who previously held the same position at Parler, addressed a letter to Jordan. In it, she suggested that the actions taken against Parler might be similar to the coordinated efforts outlined in a report by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. This report focused on the Censorship-Industrial Complex.
Parler, which prided itself on minimal content moderation, was deplatformed by key service providers in early January 2021. This move came in the aftermath of January 6th.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the platform’s hosting provider, suspended service on January 10th, citing a violation of its terms of service due to inadequate content moderation systems. This action followed closely on the heels of both Apple and Google removing Parler from their respective app stores, thereby significantly limiting the platform’s accessibility to new users. These moves by major tech companies effectively cut off Parler from a significant portion of its operational infrastructure and user base, sparking a widespread discourse on the role of large technology companies in moderating content and their impact on public discourse.
In her letter, Peikoff remarked, “Perhaps your focus on the 2020 election caused you to overlook the contemporaneous deplatforming of millions of ‘everyday Americans of all political affiliations’ in one fell swoop.”
She went on to question whether the neglect of Parler’s situation, which she considers crucial for maintaining competitive balance in a free market, might have been overlooked to maintain legislative harmony.
Peikoff concluded her correspondence by urging Jordan and his committee to examine the Twitter Files and to include the Parler deplatforming in their investigation.
We Must Demand Justice for the January 6th Protestors!
By Ron Paul | November 20, 2023
New US House Speaker Mike Johnson struck a blow for liberty and justice last week when he finally authorized the release of all the tapes from the January 6, 2021 “insurrection.” We were told by no less than President Biden himself that this was the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”
The FBI was unleashed by the Biden Administration to hunt down hundreds of participants in this “insurrection” and lock them up in the gulag where they awaited trial in torturous conditions – many in solitary confinement.
A Congressional Committee was set up under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi to “get to the bottom” of the “Trump-led insurrection.” It did not include a single Representative nominated by the opposition Republican Party, but rather two “Republicans” – Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – who could be relied on by Pelosi and the Democrats to toe the line.
In short, the whole thing was an old-fashioned Soviet show trial, where the evidence was kept secret and the pre-determined verdict – guilty – was to be used to tighten the grip of the ruling regime and intimidate any further dissenters into silence. The message was clear: “speak out against the ‘perfection’ of the 2020 election and you may find yourself in the gulag along with the insurrectionists.”
It was terrifying and profoundly anti-American.
And, as we finally can see for ourselves thanks to Speaker Johnson, it was a huge lie. The new video shows demonstrators shaking hands with police officers once they entered the Capitol Building. They were welcomed into the building by officers who even held the doors for them to enter! They had no way of knowing that they would soon be rounded up and locked away.
Does that mean no crimes were committed on January 6th? Not at all. The tapes already released were carefully chosen to single out examples of violence and other possible criminality. But the full release of the tapes demonstrates beyond a doubt that the endless propaganda that this was a coordinated attempt to overthrow the government was false.
And as for that violence and mayhem on January 6th? How much of it was instigated by undercover FBI agents? New footage clearly shows officers outside the building firing on protestors with no warning. That must be why, in hearing after hearing, Biden Administration officials like Attorney General Merrick Garland have refused to tell Congress the number of federal agents present and their roles in instigating violence.
The release of this evidence should immediately result in the release of all non-violent protestors awaiting trial or serving their sentences. Those in power responsible for promoting this lie should take their places in the jail cells.
This delayed justice will not help protesters like Matthew Perna, however. Though the new video release clearly shows him calmly walking inside the Capitol in the presence of unconcerned police officers, when Merrick Garland’s Department of “Justice” announced they would seek terrorism charges against him, Perna, in despair, decided to hang himself in his garage.
Yes, there was an insurrection of sorts. Those in power hated Donald Trump so much that they were willing to torture and even murder their fellow Americans to keep him from the presidency. Unless these people are brought to justice, we will have no Republic left to defend.
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9/11 In Perspective
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From the Archives
Still No End in Sight of the Murder and Mayhem Wrought by the 9/11 Culprits
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | July 17, 2016
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Fourth part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
Back in 2006 all but a prescient few, such as Christopher Bollyn, perceived it as premature to try to identify and bring to justice the actual perpetrators of the 9/11 crimes. There was still some residue of confidence that responsible officials in government, law enforcement, media and the universities could and would respond in good faith to multiple revelations that great frauds had occurred in interpreting 9/11 for the public.
Accordingly, the main methodology of public intellectuals like Dr. Kevin Barrett or, for instance, Professors David Ray Griffin, Steven E. Jones, Peter Dale Scott, Graeme MacQueen, John McMurtry, Michael Keefer, Richard B. Lee, A.K. Dewdney, Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed, and Michel Chossudovsky, was to marshal evidence demonstrating that the official narrative of 9/11 could not be true.
The marshaling of evidence was spurred on by observations coming from government insiders like Eckehardt Wertherbach, a former head of Germany’s intelligence service. In a meeting in Germany with Christopher Bollyn and Dr. Andreas von Bülow, Wertherbach pointed out that, “an attack of this magnitude and precision would have required years of planning. Such a sophisticated operation would require the fixed frame of a state intelligence organization, something not found in a loose group like the one led by the student Mohammed Atta in Hamburg.”
Andreas von Bülow was a German parliamentarian and Defense Ministry official. He confirmed this assessment in his book on the CIA and 9/11. In the text von Bülow remarked that the execution of the 9/11 plan “would have been unthinkable without backing from secret apparatuses of state and industry.” The author spoke of the “invented story of 19 Muslims working with Osama bin Laden in order the hide the truth” of the real perpetrators’ identity. … continue
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