Microsoft CEO Says the Company Is Working To Address Election “Disinformation and Misinformation”
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | February 2, 2024
Concerns are growing over the role of Big Tech companies in moderating “misinformation,” particularly due to the fear that these corporations already wield significant power and influence which could potentially sway political outcomes, including elections.
Many worry that the concentrated power in these tech giants allows them to arbitrarily define what constitutes misinformation, leading to a situation where they could suppress certain viewpoints or information. This raises questions about the impartiality and fairness of such moderation, especially in the context of political discourse and the democratic process. The debate is fueled by the concern that these companies, due to their size and reach, could have a disproportionate impact on public opinion and electoral processes.
In an AI-focused interview with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, it was revealed that Microsoft intends to combat alleged “disinformation” throughout the 2024 elections.
During his conversation with NBC’s Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News’ January 30 edition, Nadella was questioned about how AI might either assist or endanger the future election.
However, Nadella’s response seemed to imply a willingness to use technology for censoring content in pursuit of fighting what he identified as disinformation.
Nadella stated, “This is not the first election where we dealt with disinformation or propaganda campaigns by adversaries and election interference.
“We’re doing all the work across the tech industry around watermarking, detecting deep fakes and content IDs. There is going to be enough and more technology quite frankly in order to be able to identify the issues around disinformation and misinformation.”
INTERVIEW: OMALI YESHITELA, FACING 15-YEARS FOR “PRO-RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA”
Glenn Greenwald | January 31, 2024
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Transparency troubles: The Global Disinformation Index faces scrutiny over government ties and biased practices
More controversy surrounding the pro-censorship group
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | January 31, 2024
The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a US government-funded pro-censorship organization, has come under fire for lacking transparency, ironically the same issue it labels non-mainstream websites for.
Despite hypocritically casting aspersions on sites that reject the mainstream narrative on many issues, the GDI, as per a report by the Washington Examiner, exhibits a conspicuous absence of this very transparency in its operations.
Billing itself as nonpartisan and objective while routinely favoring leftist narratives, the GDI has received over $100k from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. Part of the score it assigns to online platforms stems from the possibility of controversial interests emerging from shadowy ownership structures—a principle it doesn’t appear to abide by itself.
According to Mike Davis, founder and president of the Internet Accountability Project, the GDI is in breach of the law by keeping its disclosures hidden. The Washington Examiner also mentioned that the GDI is currently under congressional investigation. Adding to the mystery is the GDI’s refusal to disclose its “dynamic exclusion list,” a tool reportedly used by businesses like Microsoft and Oracle to hamstring ad placements on right-leaning outlets, thereby achieving a sort of financial strangulation of these sites.
Despite providing heavily concealed tax information for its two U.S. subsidiaries, Disinformation Index Inc. and the AN Foundation, upon request from the Examiner, details from the GDI’s tax filings on ProPublica reveal a closer relationship between the organization, the US Government, and left-wing donors.
The report discloses that the State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy and the billionaire George Soros together donated a grand total of $465,750 to the GDI in 2022.
In 2023, Texas along with media outlets The Daily Wire and The Federalist started legal proceedings against the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, alleging governmental attempts to silence the American press through funding the GDI. The action taken was based on GDI’s activities which reportedly included blacklisting conservative media.
German “Fact Checker” That Received Funding From Government, Facebook, Omidyar Network, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, Dismisses German Farmers As “Conspiracy Theorists”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | January 31, 2024
The expression is, “you can’t make that up” – to signal the level of the absurdity of a situation.
Meanwhile, groups calling themselves “fact checkers” and those bankrolling them keep making things up. And becoming used to it aside, their work still feels as if – “you can’t make that up.”
When names like the Omidyar Network, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and Meta start cropping up in the same sentence, you start believing anything could come out of an “alliance” of the sort.
Here we have yet another supposedly “fact-checking” effort that turned into a smear campaign against people engaged in lawful protest regarding economic, social, and political issues.
In this instance, in Germany. There the economy, and with it the government, has been in serious trouble ever since Germany, for political reasons, cut itself off from affordable gas. Those with the most to lose, such as farmers, have been hit the hardest.
One of the recent consequences, though you may not hear much about it in legacy media, have been mass and ongoing farmer protests. At the same time, efforts are under way to ban one of the country’s most popular parties, AfD. Both have been labeled as right-wing conspiracy theorists, Covid “misinformationists,” and even Russia supporters.
And this labeling work is being done by something called “Correctiv” – a group that says it is a news and fact-checking site. Correctiv gets its money from Omidyar, Soros, Meta, but also the current German government.
In a report on Public, US-based author Gregor Baszak goes into the weeds of the situation, that shows a beleaguered government resorting to decidedly undemocratic moves and pondering shockingly undemocratic ideas, such as banning political opposition.
Baszak talks about a Correctiv article that goes after the farmers as some sort of right wing menace, supposedly spreading not only Russian propaganda and Covid disinformation – just because of expressing anger over their business becoming unsustainable with the government’s fuel and vehicle subsidy cuts.
“The (Correctiv) article does not specify what ‘Covid disinformation’ the farmers spread,” Baszak writes. “Nor does it offer any evidence of ties between the farmers and the Russian government, only that ‘some X accounts’ that support the farmers wrote posts that ‘coincided with the methods of a pro-Russian propaganda network.’”
However, at least for the time being, what left-leaning German politician Sahra Wagenknecht has described as “the stupidest government in Europe” is succeeding in keeping its opponents divided by throwing damning, even false, accusations their way.
Dr. Mark Trozzi’s Licence Stripped for “Misinformation” & Criticizing CPSO Policy
Dr. Trozzi to appeal after College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario revokes his licence
PRESS RELEASE | January 25, 2024
The Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal issued a penalty decision today revoking Dr. Mark’s Trozzi‘s medical licence after ruling in October that he had committed acts of professional misconduct by spreading misinformation about Covid-19 science and making statements critical of Covid-19 public health policies and recommendations. Through his counsel, Michael Alexander, Dr. Trozzi announced today that he will exercise his statutory right to appeal the decision to the Ontario Divisional Court.
In reaching its decision, the Tribunal rejected Supreme Court cases, dating from 1939, which hold that Canadians enjoy an absolute constitutional right to express minority opinions on any subject. This allowed the Tribunal to rule that the College has a right to regulate the expression of its members in the name of the public interest.
The Tribunal’s ruling also rested on the prior discipline hearing decision, where the Tribunal found that Dr. Trozzi had caused harm by spreading misinformation, even though expert witnesses for the College failed to tender evidence that Dr. Trozzi’s statements had caused harm to a patient or a member of the public.
In support of its ruling, the Tribunal also rejected a 41-page report Dr. Trozzi submitted in 2021 in which he defended himself against the College’s initial allegations, citing 29 references from mainstream sources such as Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, Public Health Ontario and Statistics Canada. This was done without mentioning that the College’s main expert witness, Dr. Andrew Gardam, had admitted on cross-examination during the discipline hearing that he had never attempted to refute the Trozzi report.
When the pandemic was on the horizon in 2020, Dr. Trozzi, a university professor and 25-year ER veteran, played a leading role in preparing his own ER facility to deal with Covid patients. However, while the press was reporting in late 2020 that ER rooms were overwhelmed, Dr. Trozzi’s ER room was virtually empty. Wondering how this could be, Dr. Trozzi called colleagues around Canada and the U.S. to inquire about their experiences and learned that their ER rooms were empty too.
As a result, Dr. Trozzi began to study Covid-19 science rigorously and soon discovered the government’s narrative regarding the virus was deeply flawed. He then quit his job and devoted himself full-time to exploring the truth about all things Covid on a dedicated site. When a scientist friendly to the government’s narrative alerted the College of Physicians to the site and Dr. Trozzi’s heretical views, the College launched an investigation that resulted in his prosecution for professional misconduct.
Dr. Trozzi’s registration history: no disciplinary issues in 20+ years of medicine since his start Jun. 22, 1990. Issues only began when he, like any other doctors during Covid, spoke out against the unscientific Covid and “vaccine” mandates and, ironically, by continuing to follow the CPSO’s own guidelines prior to Covid, including giving patients informed consent for any medical treatments.
Alexander commented: “Since Dr. Trozzi’s right to appeal to the Divisional Court is based on a statute, the Court will be required to employ the highest standard of review on all legal issues, and that standard is correctness. In other words, the Court will have to determine whether the Tribunal got the right answer on every key legal issue; and where it does not, the Court will be required to correct the Tribunal’s reasoning. The College has never had to face a fundamental challenge to its authority on this basis.”
He added: “On correctness review, it will be very hard for the College to justify its initial decision to investigate Dr. Trozzi. Under the legislation, the College must have reasonable and probable grounds, which is the criminal standard, for believing that a member has committed an offence before it can launch an investigation. However, in its orders, the College did not describe any evidence to support the probable belief that Dr. Trozzi had done something wrong, and even failed to cite a specific offence. The appeal should succeed on this point alone.”
Finally: “The Court of Appeal’s recent decision to refuse to hear Jordan Peterson’s case does not mean, as some have speculated, that freedom of expression is dead in Ontario. The Peterson case turned on the issue of whether the College of Psychologists could regulate the form of Dr. Peterson’s expression, not its content. In Trozzi, the Divisional Court must decide whether to recognize the right of every citizen to express an alternative opinion, even if it offends censorious bureaucrats.”
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Federal Court Judge Pulls Canada Back from the Brink
By Bruce Pardy | Brownstone Institute | January 25, 2024
The Canadian government’s use of the Emergencies Act was unlawful. The Trucker Convoy did not constitute a national emergency. So said a judge of the Federal Court on Tuesday. The decision may help to pull Canada back from the brink of authoritarian rule.
The Federal Court decision contains four conclusions. Two prerequisites for invoking the Emergencies Act, said Justice Richard Mosley, were not met. Moreover, the two regulations issued under it were unconstitutional. Predictably, the government has promised to appeal. For the government to prevail, an appeal panel would have to overturn all four. But there is a wrinkle, which I will get to momentarily.
Between 1963 and 1970, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), a separatist organization in Quebec, committed bombings, robberies, and killed several people. In October 1970, they kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross, and then kidnapped and killed Pierre Laporte, a minister in the Quebec government. In response, Pierre Trudeau’s government invoked the War Measures Act, the only time it had been used in peacetime. In the years that followed, the invocation of the Act became regarded as a dangerous overreach of government powers and breach of civil liberties.
The Emergencies Act, enacted in 1988 to replace the War Measures Act, had higher thresholds. It was supposed to be more difficult for governments to trigger. Before Covid and the trucker convoy, it had never been used.
The Freedom Convoy arrived at Parliament Hill in Ottawa on January 29, 2022 to protest Covid vaccine mandates. The truckers parked unlawfully in downtown Ottawa. They violated parking bylaws and probably the Highway Traffic Act. Authorities could have issued tickets and towed the trucks away. But they didn’t.
In the meantime, protests in other parts of the country emerged. Trucks blocked border crossings in Coutts, Alberta and at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario. Local and provincial law enforcement dealt with those protests and cleared the borders. By February 15, when Justin Trudeau’s government declared a public order emergency and invoked the Emergencies Act, only the Ottawa protests had not been resolved.
The government issued two regulations under the Act. One prohibited public assemblies “that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace.” The other outlawed donations and authorized banks to freeze donors’ bank accounts. On February 18 and 19, police brandishing riot batons descended on the crowd. They arrested close to 200 people, broke truck windows, and unleashed the occasional burst of pepper spray. By the evening of the 19th, they had cleared the trucker encampment away. Banks froze the accounts and credit cards of hundreds of supporters. On February 23, the government revoked the regulations and use of the Act.
Governments cannot use the Emergencies Act unless its prerequisites are met. A public order emergency must be a “national emergency” and a “threat to the security of Canada,” both of which are defined in the Act. A national emergency exists only if the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.” “Threats to the security of Canada” can be one of several things. The government relied upon the clause that requires activities “directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective.”
The trucker protests were neither a national emergency, Mosley concluded, nor a threat to the security of Canada.
There was no national emergency:
Due to its nature and to the broad powers it grants the Federal Executive, the Emergencies Act is a tool of last resort. [Cabinet] cannot invoke the Emergencies Act because it is convenient, or because it may work better than other tools at their disposal or available to the provinces.…in this instance, the evidence is clear that the majority of the provinces were able to deal with the situation using other federal law, such as the Criminal Code, and their own legislation…For these reasons, I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires.
A threat to the security of Canada did not exist:
Ottawa was unique in the sense that it is clear that [Ottawa Police Services] had been unable to enforce the rule of law in the downtown core, at least in part, due to the volume of protesters and vehicles. The harassment of residents, workers and business owners in downtown Ottawa and the general infringement of the right to peaceful enjoyment of public spaces there, while highly objectionable, did not amount to serious violence or threats of serious violence…[Cabinet] did not have reasonable grounds to believe that a threat to national security existed within the meaning of the Act and the decision was ultra vires.
Nor were the regulations constitutional. The prohibition on public assemblies infringed freedom of expression under section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Empowering financing institutions to provide personal financial information to the government and to freeze bank accounts and credit cards was an unconstitutional search and seizure under section 8. Neither was justified, Mosley concluded, under section 1 of the Charter, the “reasonable limits” clause.
To prevail on appeal, the government would have to reverse all four conclusions. Justice Mosley did not make obvious errors of law. But there are a couple of odd bits. In particular, Mosley admits to doubts about how he would have proceeded had he been at the cabinet table himself:
I had and continue to have considerable sympathy for those in government who were confronted with this situation. Had I been at their tables at that time, I may have agreed that it was necessary to invoke the Act. And I acknowledge that in conducting judicial review of that decision, I am revisiting that time with the benefit of hindsight and a more extensive record of the facts and law…
Which brings us to the wrinkle. In April 2022, Richard Wagner, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, gave an interview to Le Devoir. Speaking in French, he characterized the protest on Wellington Street in Ottawa, where Parliament and the Supreme Court are located, as “the beginning of anarchy where some people have decided to take other citizens hostage.” Wagner said that “forced blows against the state, justice and democratic institutions like the one delivered by protesters… should be denounced with force by all figures of power in the country.” He did not mention the Emergencies Act by name. But his comments could be interpreted as endorsing its use.
The government’s appeal will go first to the Federal Court of Appeal but then to the Supreme Court of Canada. Its chief justice appears to have already formed an opinion about the dispute. Having made his public comments, the chief justice should announce that he will recuse himself from the case to avoid a reasonable perception of bias. That too would help bring Canada back from the brink.
Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.
Only Democrats are allowed to question election validity
By Drago Bosnic | January 26, 2024
Ever since Joe Biden took the presidency in the United States, the mainstream propaganda machine has been absolutely merciless toward anyone who’d dare to question the validity of the 2020 presidential election. The DNC-dominated federal institutions, particularly the highly politicized Department of Justice (DoJ), offered full support in this regard, looking to suppress any attempts of “undermining American democracy”, which is just another lifeless euphemism used against anyone daring to expose lies and outright voter fraud. However, this sort of behavior uncovers another form of hypocrisy and double standards in American politics (not that those were ever in deficit). Namely, the Democratic Party never had any qualms about questioning the validity of the 2016 presidential election, as well as countless other instances when elections on state and other levels weren’t beneficial to them.
In fact, it could easily be argued that the so-called “Russiagate” conspiracy theory that has been recycled over and over in the last well over half a decade is a prime example of questioning the validity of elections by the Democrats. What’s more, this laughable claim was even used as a pretext to change the geopolitical landscape by bringing the relations between Russia and the US to (First) Cold War levels, perhaps even worse, pushing the world to the edge of an abyss. Of course, no such concern was shown during the much more controversial 2020 election that saw actual mass voter fraud committed, as evidenced by recent findings. However, that’s a forbidden topic for the DNC, the so-called “Big Tech” and the mainstream propaganda machine. God forbid anyone would ask any questions about it, as they’d get nothing but open hostility or even get prosecuted.
Steve Watson of the Modernity News recently covered this topic, showing the case of the Fox News reporter Peter Doocy who confronted the troubled Biden administration’s Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over this practice. Namely, on January 24, he pointed out the recent footage of Joe Biden calling Democrat Terry McAuliffe “the real governor of Virginia”. Doocy asked whether questioning election validity is a joke now, resulting in an awkward exchange with Jean-Pierre, who was clearly agitated by the question. Her rather clumsy attempt to play ignorance didn’t last long and she soon found herself having to defend Joe Biden’s statement as a supposed “joke”. When Doocy asked for further clarification, Jean-Pierre failed to provide one, trying to go around the question. However, the Fox News reporter refused to back down and stood his ground, asking the following:
“How are you going to convince people, though, that this idea of denying election results is very bad if President Biden is going out and making jokes like this?”
Jean-Pierre kept insisting that this was “merely a joke”. However, as Watson pointed out, this wasn’t the first time Joe Biden questioned election validity. He previously called former president Donald Trump “an illegitimate president”. Biden’s practice of denying election results goes back decades, as evidenced by his claim that “Al Gore really won the 2000 election”. There are numerous other examples of the DNC’s top people questioning election validity, perhaps best illustrated by this video showing 24 minutes of footage proving it. And yet, the mainstream propaganda machine is “worried about our democracy” whenever the Republicans question election results. Apparently, claiming that Trump is supposedly “illegitimate” and even “Vlad’s pal” is perfectly fine and doesn’t constitute any sort of “danger for American democracy“. However, similar criticism of the DNC is “deplorable“.
Worse yet, these same people are demanding Trump be prosecuted and even jailed for “undermining our democracy” by refusing to acknowledge that the 2020 election was valid. What’s more, on December 19, the Colorado Supreme Court banned Trump from running for presidency under the pretext that he led the so-called “January 6 insurrection”. Although he was never formally charged (let alone convicted) for that highly controversial event, the Court made its decision based precisely on that premise. On the other hand, the DNC-aligned judges probably didn’t expect this obviously partisan decision would open up a political “Pandora’s box” in the US. Namely, in response to the ruling, high-ranking officials from Texas, Arizona and Pennsylvania suggested taking Biden off the ballot. Such developments could even lead to America’s collapse along state lines.
As for election validity, recent findings show that the public’s trust in the impartiality of federal institutions has been severely undermined. The latest poll, conducted jointly by Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports, found that 20% of voters who cast mail-in ballots during the 2020 presidential election admitted to participating in voter fraud. However, such findings aren’t limited to polls, as evidenced by a recent court ruling in Connecticut. Namely, according to the Epoch Times, Superior Court Judge William Clark overturned the results of a Democrat mayoral primary in November 2023 and ordered a new election. The ruling was based on hours of video evidence showing hundreds of illegally harvested absentee ballots being stuffed into drop boxes in the city of Bridgeport. Clark called the videos shocking and warned they “should be shocking to all the parties”.
The report further points out other instances when election results were nullified by lower court decisions across the US, including the 2021 Compton City Council run-off race that was initially decided by a single vote. The judge tossed four fraudulent ballots cast by people not legally registered in the jurisdiction, while five people pleaded either guilty or no contest to conspiring to commit election fraud. The report cites an even worse case in Mississippi, where both state and federal institutions were deeply involved in election fraud and attempted cover-up. There are dozens of such cases across the country, many still pending for court proceedings. The Epoch Times also pointed out the thousands of court convictions for election fraud in the last two decades. This is yet another proof that the “rule of law” in the US is nothing but a myth that not even Americans themselves believe.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Top Democrat-linked PR firm tapped by pro-Israel groups to control Gaza war narrative
By Kit Klarenberg | MintPress News | December 29, 2023
On December 6, it was announced with much fanfare that the 10/7 Project, a new “centralized communications operation to promote continued US bipartisan support for Israel; push for accurate, complete coverage of the Israel-Hamas war,” and achieve a “stronger” media “focus” on the victims of October 7’s Al-Aqsa Flood would be launched, by a quintet of the largest Israeli lobby groups on U.S. soil.
Who and what is funding the 10/7 Project isn’t at all clear. Publicity material spoke vaguely of an unnamed “coterie of philanthropists” and the organization’s interest in sourcing “more philanthropic support” moving forward. Future formal financial disclosures may make for fascinating reading, but its founders offer some clues.
The five comprise the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. This is quite the rogue’s gallery of Zionist entities, several of which have deplorable track records of actively whitewashing, if not outright facilitating, Israeli apartheid propaganda activities that have become turbocharged since October 7.
As such, the 10/7 Project’s professed mission of countering “disinformation” about October 7 and “Israel’s response” to the events can only be considered highly disquieting, especially given its target audience is “key media and government influencers.” In reality, of course, the organization is just the latest salvo in the Zionist state’s long-running information war against Palestinians and the Western world. This pitched battle has recently become ever more treacherous, specifically due to Tel Aviv’s genocidal “response” to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
One could be forgiven for thinking the 10/7 Project had already floundered in its objectives. After an initial ripple of mainstream interest, primarily from Israeli outlets and Zionist news platforms, the organization has seemingly vanished without a trace from the media landscape – or at least, its name has. As we shall see, though, it’s evident that in the manner of an iceberg, the 10/7 Project’s public footprint represents but the visible tip of something far larger and considerably more destructive.
‘STRANGLEHOLD ON CONGRESS’
While the 10/7 Project may not be directly making headlines daily, its parent organizations certainly are. The ADL has since October 7 published a steady stream of reports, lapped up by the media largely without question, testifying to an explosion of “anti-Semitic incidents” across the Western world in the wake of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Shocking stuff, one might think. Yet, as an investigation by MintPress News Senior Staff Writer Alan MacLeod revealed, the ADL is producing such staggering figures by categorizing anti-Israel and pro-Palestine rallies and corresponding chants at both as individual “anti-Semitic incidents.” Despite the exposure of its embarrassing, Enron-style accounting, the League continues to pump out the same bogus “research” at regular intervals. On December 12, it claimed “anti-Semitism” in the US was now up 337% in the wake of October 7, “an all-time record.”
It is far from the first time ADL definitions of anti-Semitism have failed to pass muster. For example, in December 2022, The Grayzone’s Alex Rubinstein revealed that the League did not categorize Ukraine’s openly Neo-Nazi paramilitary Azov Battalion to be the “far right group it once was.” This, despite the fact that Azov’s mission to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen,” as articulated by founder Andriy Biletsky, remains unchanged.
Meanwhile, the infamous AIPAC – accurately described by U.S. political scientist John Mearsheimer as “a de facto agent for a foreign government, [with] a stranglehold on Congress” – has made clear its significantly intensified mission to rid Washington DC of any elected official possessed of even vaguely anti-war, pro-Palestinian views, by declaring war on lawmakers such as Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
When AIPAC moves against, or in favor, of particular politicians, they mean business – and depressingly, the organization usually wins. Annually, the organization publishes a report on its “policy and political achievements” that year. Its 2022 installment boasts, among other things, of bagging $3.3 billion “for security assistance to Israel, with no added conditions” and having gifted $17.5 million – the most of any U.S. PAC – to “pro-Israel candidates,” 98% of whom won their elections, in the process defeating 13 anti-Israel challengers.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The official website of the 10/7 Project is spartan in the extreme. Visitors are offered a “contact us” form, a link to subscribe to its regular newsletter, and a “what we do” section listing purported activities. This includes informing the public “with credible, real-time information about events in Israel and Gaza,” highlighting “excellent reporting,” calling out “biased coverage,” holding “biased media accountable,” and offering “expert spokespeople for press and broadcast outlets.”
Unmentioned anywhere is that the 10/7 Project is represented by a trio of notorious PR and political consultancies – CKR Solutions, OnMessage Public Strategies, and SKDK. Together, they move in the shadows to advance the organization’s interests and messaging publicly and on Capitol Hill. SKDK’s contribution will inevitably be the most insidious and impactful.
Since its founding in 2004, the company has careened from damaging scandal to damaging scandal yet consistently secures major, big-ticket clients. The reason for this is clear. SKDK was founded by and employs a retinue of high-ranking, well-connected Democratic operatives. Among them is Anita Dunn, Barack Obama’s White House Communications Director, credited as the “mastermind” of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win and widely regarded as a key member of the President’s “inner circle.”
Joe Biden speaks with SKDK’s Anita Dunn ahead of his State of the Union address in February 2023. Adam Schultz | White House
Ever since Obama’s 2008 election win, SKDK has been plausibly accused of selling privileged access to the White House to clients despite failing to register as a lobbying firm. This means major corporations have a direct means of encouraging – and bribing – the Oval Office to offer tax breaks, shred regulations, dump legislation, smash unions, and generally harm the U.S. public interest with total impunity and in absolute secrecy.
SKDK’s expansive Rolodex also helps politicians get out of serious trouble. In 2018-2019, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan paid the company $200,000 for “crisis communications” assistance after one of his campaign workers sued him for harming her professionally when she complained of sexual harassment by one of his top aides. Meanwhile, in August 2021, it was revealed a senior SKDK staffer personally intervened to suppress negative media coverage of sexual harassment allegations against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Even more perversely, it’s since been revealed that at the same time, SKDK was advising Madigan on how to navigate his public controversy, the company was also helping his former campaign worker bring a lawsuit against the aide who’d sexually harassed her. A more perfect demonstration of the DC blob’s incestuous nature and SKDK’s total lack of ethical and professional scruples one would be hard-pressed to find. And both are highly competitive categories.
SKDK played a pivotal role in Biden’s 2020 presidential bid, decisively reversing his fortunes after abysmal performances in various caucuses. While the mainstream media primarily praised the miraculous work of the company and Dunn – his de facto campaign director – there has also been fierce controversy surrounding its electioneering activities. For example, SKDK fired off daily “Misinformation Briefings” to major tech and social media firms, including Google, Meta and Twitter, requesting that specific content be suppressed or removed.
In most cases, the recipients complied, meaning SKDK exerted extraordinary influence over what voters did and did not know and could and could not see during the controversial 2020 Presidential election. Which surely at least partially accounts for Biden’s victory. To make matters even worse, the company was simultaneously. reaping a $35 million windfall from the government of California by running the state’s supposedly bipartisan “get-out-the-vote” campaign. The contract, originally to be financed by local taxpayers, was mysteriously awarded to SKDK on a “no-bid” basis.
‘DICTATE TERMS’
Clearly, the 10/7 Project was intended to be a very public affair. In an early promotional interview, executive director Josh Isay – perhaps unsurprisingly, until August 2022 SKDK’s longtime CEO – boasted about the “widespread enthusiasm” with which the organization’s “efforts to set the record straight and combat misinformation spouted by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel allies” had so far been received:
We look forward to continuing to do the critically important work of providing policymakers and the American public with reliable information about Israel and Hamas, and uplifting the stories of the innocent victims of the October 7th massacre.”
Yet, there is no obvious sign of those ambitions bearing fruit to date. A partial explanation for this failure may lie in the 10/7 Project’s wish to transform the “innocent victims” of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood into human interest stories and atrocity propaganda while elevating the organization’s eponymous date to the position of 9/11 in the American public’s mind.
In the weeks since the 10/7 Project’s inception, it has become ever-increasingly clear the Zionist narrative of what unfolded when Hamas breached Gaza’s armored concentration camp walls – unquestioningly regurgitated over and again for weeks after that by the Western media – is completely and grotesquely fraudulent.
For example, on December 15, it was reported based on social security data that Tel Aviv’s claim that 1,200 civilians died in the initial assault was greatly exaggerated. In reality, just 695 lost their lives. The previous figure was itself a revision from an initial civilian casualty “estimate” of 1,400.
Every civilian death in a warzone is an extremely grave crime. It is surely for this reason that Tel Aviv on December 12 desperately argued “it would not be morally sound” to investigate “friendly fire” incidents in “kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities” during Operation Al Aqsa Flood – civilians killed by Israeli Occupation Forces. Nonetheless, the numbers involved are avowedly “immense.”
Among the “stories of the innocent victims of the October 7th massacre” selected by the 10/7 Project for public “uplifting” in service of whitewashing and justifying the Gaza genocide will have been a great many individuals slaughtered in cold blood by indiscriminate, excessively violent IDF actions. This is all but inevitable. Urgently casting those victims into obscurity while ensuring the entire issue of Zionist “friendly fire” is not examined is now of paramount importance.
More significantly, though, the exposure – and occasional admission – of Tel Aviv’s brazen lies has fundamentally shifted mainstream narratives and sympathies away from Israel and towards the Palestinians. Audiences of every extraction globally can witness the monstrous reality of the genocide in Gaza and learn of Zionist abuse of the Palestinians even before the colonial entity’s founding in 1948 with their own eyes and ears.
Israeli deceit has been so relentless and so readily exposed that even typically subservient Western news networks and their featured pundits are treating official claims with enormous skepticism. Similarly, Zionist violence is so constantly unremitting and wantonly sadistic that graphic reports of carpet bombs maiming and slaughtering every generation of Palestinians are now commonplace.
Meanwhile, developments such as the revelation that IDF soldiers killed three shirtless Israelis waving a white flag, speaking Hebrew and seeking their assistance have traveled widely, in turn highlighting prior examples of identical “peacetime” atrocities inflicted upon Palestinians. By contrast, there has to date been no “misinformation spouted by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel allies” to combat at all.
A LOSING BATTLE
As a result, the 10/7 Project and its founders are placed in the invidious position of having to publicly defend the indefensible – namely, a modern-day genocide unfolding on television screens and front page headlines the world over. In such circumstances, overt and unashamed advocacy work is best conducted behind the scenes. Yet, it is precisely in this context that the 10/7 Project may be most dangerous and potent due to its open-door Oval Office access.
Tireless solidarity efforts by European activists, protesters, citizen journalists, and civil society organizations have produced significant results. Paris went from mulling legislation criminalizing anti-Zionism in November to now leading global pressure for a ceasefire. Multiple governments and opposition leaders are likewise changing their tune. Senior British officials openly warn Netanyahu to drastically rein in his unquenchable bloodlust if he wishes to retain any international support.
Stateside, however, while the crusading work of grassroots pro-Palestine voices and groups has been redoubtable, the Biden administration’s commitment to facilitating, encouraging, and exacerbating the Gaza genocide, however it can, remains undimmed. While the President has demanded Netanyahu’s slaughter be wrapped up by the new year, there is no indication material, financial, and diplomatic support upon which the new Nakba depends is being curtailed. On December 18, during an official visit to Tel Aviv, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a bloodcurdling oath:
This is Israel’s operation, and I’m not here to dictate timelines or terms. Our support [for] Israel’s right to defend itself is ironclad, as you’ve heard me say a number of times, and that’s not going to change.”
One way greater pressure could be brought to bear against the Biden administration might be for citizens to demand their elected representatives in Washington to disclose what dealings they may have had with the 10/7 Project or its representatives since its launch.
To ascertain whether and how White House policy and public pronouncements are being directly informed, if not explicitly dictated, by the wishes and wills of a shadowy and unaccountable lobbying coalition with indeterminate but no doubt intimate political and financial connections to the perpetrators of a 21st century Holocaust.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.
Poland’s new government moves to crack down on ‘hate speech’
Karina Bosak and Dobromir Sośnierz from the Confederation party
BY GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK | KRESY.PL | JANUARY 22, 2024
Poland’s new government is moving to limit freedom of speech and actively penalize so-called hate speech, a move that has been associated with stifling dissent and limiting opposition to issues surrounding mass immigration, religion, and LGBT issues in other European countries.
Poland’s Confederation party is now voicing its opposition to new proposals outlined in the left-liberal coalition government’s agreement, which will effectively destroy free speech.
“The ruling coalition, as part of its coalition agreement, has announced that they want to penalize so-called hate speech. The current left-wing Deputy Minister of Justice Krzysztof Śmiszek, from the New Left, has stated that his department is currently working on introducing these regulations, which limit freedom of speech and public debate in Poland. We, as the Confederation, strongly oppose this. The direct consequence of criminalizing certain words will, in fact, be the criminalization of conservative, religious, Christian views,” declared Confederation MP Karina Bosak on Friday.
Bosak added that public debate needs to be free, open, and unencumbered. She pointed out that her party “does not want there to be any sacred cows in Poland, that there are social groups whose ideas cannot be criticized at all in a healthy, free public debate.”
“We will defend Poles against such regulations and proposals that threaten freedom of speech and their values,” declared the Confederation MP.
Dobromir Sośnierz, another party member, highlighted concerns about the subjective nature of defining hate speech.
“What the left understands by so-called hate speech, in practice, will mean speech hated by Minister Śmiszek, not necessarily speech that expresses hatred towards someone, but something that leftists dislike,” he remarked.
Sośnierz also warned that such regulations would, in practice, limit public debate.
“This government is starting not by expanding our freedoms but by limiting them again, which will also lead to clogging up the courts,” he added.
In his view, the ministry’s work is “an act of sabotage, especially in this situation where a massive crisis in the judiciary is looming, as well as perhaps the exclusion of certain judges from ruling. Adding more cases for the judiciary to resolve, which are completely unnecessary, will be counterproductive.”
Deputy Minister Śmiszek announced this week legislative changes to introduce criminal responsibility for what his party considers hate speech against homosexuals.
“The time has come to ban disgusting, homophobic, discriminatory statements in the public sphere,” declared Śmiszek, who is openly homosexual.
Meanwhile, the European Parliament is calling on EU leaders to include incitement to hatred and hate crimes in the catalog of transnational crimes, which include terrorism or human trafficking.
Israelis opposing war receiving ‘death threats,’ says Knesset member Ofer Cassif
Lawmaker from the Arab-majority Hadas-Ta’al party and a Knesset member, Ofer Cassif in his office in West Jerusalem on January 12, 2024. [Arif Kayacan – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | January 20, 2024
Firebrand Israeli lawmaker Ofer Cassif, who has been criticized for backing South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, says “there is an assault going on” against those who are opposing Tel Aviv’s military campaign in Gaza.
The vocal politician from the left-wing, Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al party, was suspended from the Knesset for 45 days for criticizing the war that began after the Oct. 7 cross-border offensive by Hamas.
The Palestinian death toll from Israel’s more than 100-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip has crossed 24,000 people, most of them women and children.
The initial Hamas attack is said to have killed 1,200 people, and around 240 hostages were taken, some of whom were released during a week-long truce in November.
In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Anadolu, Cassif said rejection of Israel’s military response has led to “an assault on freedom of speech,” including death threats.
“People are arrested for tweets and posts, not in support of Hamas, of course, but in supporting ending the war, or before even cease-fire. Students are suspended from the universities and colleges. People are fired from their workplaces. The police are brutally violent towards the demonstrators,” Cassif said.
“There is an assault on freedom of speech of those who raise voice against the war … there are death threats. Because it’s not only violence from above, from the government from the prime minister, legitimization of the violence against the protesters, of course by [Itamar] Ben Gvir (national security minister) and the police, which unfortunately mostly became a kind of a private militia of Ben Gvir. But it also penetrates the society as a whole. And you can see that within the society, a growing a part of the public supports, literally and explicitly, violence against those who oppose the war, including death threats.”
‘Region will explode’ if Netanyahu doesn’t go
Cassif said everyone will pay a “huge price” and the entire “region is going to explode” if Israel does not get rid of the “terrible government” headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to him, the only way to stop the catastrophe from happening is by stopping the war, exchange of prisoners and release of all hostages, withdrawal of Israeli military from Gaza, and the beginning of serious peace process.
“This government should go home, if not to prison” as it has caused a lot of damage to both Israelis and Palestinians, he said. “The only way to live, to have a future, to prosper, is this. No war.”
Israeli contradictions
He also highlighted the contradiction in statements of Israeli authorities over the assault on the blockaded enclave, who on one hand say they never intentionally target civilians, but at the same argue there are no innocents in Gaza.
“A minister said ‘… dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza is an option.’ Another member of the Knesset, although a backbencher, said Gaza be eliminated. He used this term eliminated. Netanyahu himself, the prime minister, said Gaza is like Amalek. Amalek is like a codename, a biblical codename, of a group that deserves extermination.
“The president of Israel, who is supposed to be objective and beyond politics, signed a bomb, before it was sent to Gaza. And he also said that there aren’t any innocent people in Gaza. This is only the tip of the iceberg. So how can you say that you do not target civilians, innocent civilians, and at the same time, you say they aren’t innocent civilians. This contradiction shows exactly how this government behaves, what is the policy of this government, and I emphasize this is against Israel too.”
‘What’s going on in Gaza must be investigated by impartial body’
Cassif said he did not want to claim that the Israeli government is pursuing a genocidal policy in the Gaza Strip, arguing: “The legal definition of genocide is one that I leave experts to analyze.”
But, he added, there are two main reasons for him supporting the genocide case in The Hague: conducting an impartial investigation on Gaza bombing, and to save lives.
“What’s going on in Gaza must be investigated by an impartial body. I do not trust the government of Israel or any branch or proxy of the Israeli government to investigate itself … It’s like asking a thief to investigate oneself whether he or she stole something. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
“This terrible assault on Gaza is costing the lives of thousands of thousands of Palestinians, and hundreds of Israeli soldiers and Israeli hostages. They (Israeli hostages) are held in terrible conditions by Hamas in Gaza. I want the lives to be saved.”
But that cannot be done just through protests in Israel, he added.
“We cannot demonstrate, we cannot raise our voice. We are limited. There is a dictatorship now here, practically. What’s left is to look for a refuge in international organizations. So that’s the main reason why I think we should have supported the appeal of South Africa.”
Interests of Palestinians and Israelis ‘not contradictory’
“The interests of Israel, and the interests of Palestinians, as far as I see, are not contradictory. I think it’s in common interest of both the Palestinians and the Israelis to seek peace and to end the war,” Cassif said.
The Israeli government, he said, “totally neglected” the hostages. “The government doesn’t do anything to save the hostages. And everybody knows the only way to save the hostages, who are dying there, is by ending the war.”
The parliamentarian claimed 47% of the Israeli public, according to polls, supports ending the war in order to rescue the captives. “I agree with this specific point. I do hope the ICJ will ensure a decision that will end the war.”
Israeli press ‘betrayed’ profession
Asked why the Israeli army does not allow journalists to enter Gaza, Cassif said: “Perhaps they have something to hide … Normally when you don’t allow someone to get into somewhere. It’s because you don’t want someone to see something.”
About press freedom in Israel, Cassif said there have been situations where authorities “mobilize,” or force the media to “publish something and not to publish something else,” but now a vast majority of journalists are “voluntarily” supporting the policy of the government.
“You can say, there are not many limitations on freedom of the press, but the press itself, most of them, choose not to act freely … this is disgraceful, it’s unprofessional, and it will be remembered once this terrible era is ended and finished. It will be remembered that they betrayed the profession.”
‘They want to silence us’
Commenting over a lawmaker’s efforts to get him expelled from the 120-member Knesset, Cassif said “they want to silence” and “don’t want our voice to be heard … the voices against the war. This is the part of the persecution and silencing of the people who support peace and go against violence and war.”
The opposition lawmaker said he believed the efforts against him will succeed, but he will approach the Supreme Court to get relief as “there is no legal basis.”
“According to the law, a member of Knesset can be expelled only if one supports racism, terrorism, or armed struggle against Israel. Neither of those is relevant to me. I’m against racism, I’m against terrorism. I am against armed struggle against Israel.”
He said the claim is based on political reasons. “The world should understand that the assault on Gaza, and the silencing of peace lovers and the democrats in Israel are two sides of the same coin. They continue with a coup they began before Oct. 7 by other means.”
More than 390 educational institutes destroyed in Gaza
Press TV – January 18, 2024
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas announced the destruction of more than 390 schools, universities, and educational institutions in over 100 days of brutal bombardment of the besieged strip by the Israeli regime.
In a press note issued on Thursday, the resistance movement said, “More than 390 schools, universities, and educational institutions have been destroyed in 100 days, the most recent of which was the bombing of Al-Isra University and the re-bombing of the Islamic University today.”
Hamas said that the destruction of school and university buildings in the Gaza Strip “is a war crime and criminal behavior aimed at destroying all components of human life…” The resistance group stated that Israel is deliberately targeting the education system to erode the national identity of Palestinians.
Calling on the United Nations and other human rights organizations to document and prosecute the regime for its crimes, Hamas said, “We affirm that our people, through their steadfastness, sacrifices, and resistance, will thwart these despicable plans to undermine the educational system and obliterate the deep-rooted national identity of our Palestinian people.”
Gaza’s Ministry of Education announced on Tuesday that 4,368 students have been killed while almost 8000 have been injured since the start of Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on October 7.
The number of teachers killed is 231 teachers with 756 injured.
Israel’s relentless bombardment has also targeted 65 schools affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA).
As per the figures given by the Palestinian Health Ministry on Wednesday, the death toll from Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has surged to 24,448.
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From the Archives
Trans ‘milk’ as good as the real thing – NHS
RT | February 18, 2024
The drug-induced nipple secretions of trans women are as good as mothers’ breast milk for babies, the University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust claimed in a letter to campaigners made public in a report by British think tank the Policy Exchange on Sunday.
The healthcare trust’s medical director, Rachel James, argued that the off-label prescription drug cocktail men transitioning to female take in order to produce milk was “similar to the natural hormones which encourage lactation to develop when the baby is newly born.”
“The evidence which is available demonstrates that the milk is comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby,” James wrote in the letter, sent to Children of Transitioners last August.
Biological men who wish to lactate must first take hormones to grow milk glands and then take high doses of either domperidone or metoclopramide to stimulate milk production. Neither drug is approved for this use, though they are occasionally prescribed off-label to biological women who have trouble lactating.
However, domperidone’s own manufacturer, Janssen, warns patients the drug “may cause unwanted side effects affecting the heart in a breastfed baby” and “should be used during breastfeeding only if your physician considers this clearly necessary.” … continue
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