Why are the globalists calling “Climate Change” a “Public Health Crisis”?
The answer is all to do with the pandemic treaty and climate lockdowns
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | October 30, 2023
The global elite plan to introduce a near-permanent “global state of emergency” by re-branding climate change as a “public health crisis” that is “worse than covid”.
This is not news. But the ongoing campaign has been accelerating in recent weeks.
I have written about this a lot over the last few years – see here and here and here. It started almost as soon as Covid started, and has been steadily progressing ever since, with some reports calling climate change “worse than covid”.
But if they keep talking about it, I’ll keep writing. And hopefully the awareness will spread.
Anyway, there’s a renewed push on the “climate = public health crisis” front. It started, as so many things do, with Bill Gates, stating in an interview with MSNBC in late September:
We have to put it all together; it’s not just climate’s over here and health is over here, the two are interacting
Since then there’s been a LOT of “climate change is a public health crisis” in the papers, likely part of the build-up to the UN’s COP28 summit later this year.
Following Gate’s lead, what was once a slow-burn propaganda drive has become a dash for the finish line, with that phrase repeated in articles all over the world as a feverish catechism.
It was an editorial in the October edition of the British Medical Journal that got the ball rolling, claiming to speak for over 200 medical journals, it declares it’s…
Time to treat the climate and nature crisis as one indivisible global health emergency”
Everyone from the Guardian to the CBC to the Weather Channel picked up this ball and ran with it.
Other publications get more specific, but the message is the same. Climate change is bad for the health of women, and children, and poor people, and Kenyans, and workers and…you get the idea.
And that’s all from just the last few days.
It’s not only the press, but governments and NGOs too. The “One Earth” non-profit reported, two days ago:
Why climate change is a public health issue
Again, based entirely on that letter to the BMJ. The UN’s “climate champions” are naturally all over it, alongside the UK’s “Health Alliance on Climate Change”, whoever they are.
Both the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders have published (or updated) articles on their website in the last few days using variations on the phrase “The climate crisis is a health crisis.”
Local public health officials from as far apart as Western Australia and Arkansas are busy “discussing the health effects of climate change”
Tellingly, the Wikipedia article on “effects of climate change on human health” has received more edits in the last 3 weeks than the previous 3 months combined.
All of this is, of course, presided over by the World Health Organization.
On October 12th the WHO updated its climate change fact sheet, making it much longer than the previous version and including some telling new claims:
WHO data indicates 2 billion people lack safe drinking water and 600 million suffer from foodborne illnesses annually, with children under 5 bearing 30% of foodborne fatalities. Climate stressors heighten waterborne and foodborne disease risks. In 2020, 770 million faced hunger, predominantly in Africa and Asia. Climate change affects food availability, quality and diversity, exacerbating food and nutrition crises.
Temperature and precipitation changes enhance the spread of vector-borne diseases. Without preventive actions, deaths from such diseases, currently over 700,000 annually, may rise. Climate change induces both immediate mental health issues, like anxiety and post-traumatic stress, and long-term disorders due to factors like displacement and disrupted social cohesion.
They are tying “climate change” to anyone who is malnourished, has intestinal parasites or contaminated drinking water. As well as anyone who dies from heat, cold, fire or flood. Even mental health disorders.
We’ve already seen the world’s first “diagnosis of climate change”. With parameters set this wide, we will see more in no time.
Just as a “Covid death” was anybody who died “of any cause after testing positive for Covid”, they are putting language in place that can redefine almost any illness or accident as a “climate change-related health issue”.
Two days ago, the Director General of the World Health Organization, the UN’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health and COP28 President co-authored an opinion piece for the Telegraph, headlined:
Climate change is one of our biggest health threats – humanity faces a staggering toll unless we act
The WHO Director went on to repeat the claim almost word for word on Twitter yesterday:
At the same time, the Pandemic Treaty is busily working its way through the bureaucratic maze, destined to become law sometime in the next year or so.
We’ve written about that a lot too.
Consider, the WHO is the only body on Earth empowered to declare a “pandemic”.
Consider, the official term is not “pandemic”, but rather “Public Health Emergency of International Concern”.
Consider, a “public health emergency of international concern”, does not necessarily mean a disease.
It could mean, and I’m just spit-balling here, oh, I don’t know – maybe… climate change?
Consider, finally, that one clause in the proposed “Pandemic Treaty” would empower the WHO to declare a PHEIC on “precautionary principle” [my emphasis]:
Future declarations of a PHEIC by the WHO Director-General should be based on the precautionary principle where warranted
Essentially, once the new legislation is in place, the plan writes itself:
- Put new laws in place enabling global “emergency measures” in the event of a future “public health emergency”
- Declare climate change a public health emergency, or maybe a “potential public health emergency”
- Activate emergency measures – like climate lockdowns – until climate change is “fixed”
See the end game here? It’s just that simple.
Oh, and we won’t be able to complain, because “climate denial” is going to be illegal. At least, if prominent climate activists like this one get their way.
That’s only a whisper in the background right now, but it will get louder after COP28, just wait.
Until then, like I said, I’m stuck here writing forever.
FBI = Following Biden’s Instructions?
By James Bovard | October 30, 2023
Does “FBI” now stand for “Following Biden’s Instructions”? The FBI is doing backflips to boost Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Unfortunately, federal courts don’t recognize law enforcement shenanigans as a violation of the Voting Rights Act.
The FBI is categorizing Donald Trump’s supporters as terrorist suspects, according to a new report in Newsweek. The FBI created “a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers,” Newsweek revealed. The FBI is relying on the same counterterrorism methods honed to fight al Qaeda to go after the incumbent president’s political opponents.
Naturally, the latest Washington crusade against extremism has more malarkey than a White House summit. Federal bureaucrats heaved together a bunch of letters to contrive an ominous new acronym for the latest peril to domestic tranquility. The result: AGAAVE—“anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism”—which looks like a typo for a sugar substitute.
Recently, the FBI vastly expanded the supposed AGAAVE peril by broadening suspicion from “furtherance of ideological agendas” to “furtherance of political and/or social agendas.” Anyone who has an agenda different from Team Biden’s could be AGAAVE’d for his own good. The great majority of the FBI’s “current ‘anti-government’ investigations are of Trump supporters,” William Arkin, a highly respected investigative journalist, reported in Newsweek.
The FBI crackdown is following some of the most overheated political rhetoric of our era. Biden has denounced Trump supporters for “semi-fascism.” Biden tweeted last November, “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country.”
Biden’s Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall declared, “The use of violence to pursue political ends is a profound threat to our public safety and national security… it is a threat to our national identity, our values, our norms, our rule of law—our democracy.” And since Team Biden says that Trump supporters could be violent, suppressing them is the only way to protect “the will of the people” or whatever honorific is used for rigged election results.
In June, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a warning: “Sociopolitical developments—such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence—will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence.” In other words, alleging that there was election fraud in past elections can qualify a person as a terrorist suspect—and justify suppressing their political activity in subsequent elections.
Biden’s FBI views Trump supporters as a deadly threat to democracy, thereby justifying subverting or crippling Trump supporters’ ability to oppose Biden and other Democrats.
The FBI is required to have (or claim to have) solid information before launching a criminal investigation. But the bureau needs almost zero information to open an “assessment.” The FBI conducted more than 5,500 domestic-terrorism “assessments” in 2021, a 10-fold increase since 2017 and a 50-fold increase since 2013. “Assessments are the closest thing to domestic spying that exists in America and generally not talked about by the Bureau,” Arkin noted. The House Weaponization Subcommittee warned that “the FBI appears to be complicit in artificially supporting the Administration’s political narrative” that domestic violent extremism is “the ‘greatest threat’ facing the United States.”
Those assessments could prove perilous because the official demand for terrorists far exceeds the domestic supply. A top federal official told Newsweek last year, “We’ve become too prone to labeling anything we don’t like as extremism, and then any extremist as a terrorist.” “Trespassing plus thought crimes equals terrorism” is the Biden standard for prosecuting January 6 defendants.
FBI whistleblower Steve Friend complained of current FBI leadership, “There is this belief that half the country are domestic terrorists and we can’t have a conversation with them. There is a fundamental belief that unless you are voicing what we agree…you are the enemy.”
Did the Biden administration secretly want Newsweek to vindicate the fears of legions of Trump supporters? Perhaps those “assessments” are repeating a tactic used against Vietnam War protesters: FBI agents were encouraged to conduct frequent interviews with antiwar activists to “enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles” and “get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox,” according to an FBI memo from that era.
The more abusive the FBI becomes, the more outraged that Trump supporters sound, thereby justifying further FBI repression. That also makes it easier for Team Biden to portray Trump supporters as public menaces.
Biden’s war on extremism could become a self-fulfilling prophecy that destroys American political legitimacy. An official in the Office of Director of National Intelligence lamented, “So we have the president increasing his own inflammatory rhetoric which leads Donald Trump and the Republicans to do the same”—and the media follow suit. Biden is exempt from official suspicion even when he denounced Republicans as fascists who want to destroy democracy. Yet if Republicans sound equally overheated, Biden’s FBI has pretexts to unleash the hounds.
Is there any limit to the federal entrapment operations designed to spur headlines that make politicians applaud? The latest FBI crackdown echoes a DHS campaign that was leaked to the press in 2021. Federal policymakers launched a “legal work-around” to spy on and potentially entrap Americans who are “perpetuating the ‘narratives’ of concern,” CNN reported. The DHS plan would “allow the department to circumvent [constitutional and legal] limits” on surveillance of private citizens and groups. Federal agencies are prohibited from targeting individuals solely for First Amendment-protected speech and activities. But federal hirelings would be under no such restraint.
Will the FBI’s interventions in the 2024 presidential election be even more brazen than its 2016 and 2020 stunts? Will the agency exploit its “assessments” to recruit knuckleheads to engage in another pre-election Keystone Kops plot to kidnap a governor, as it did in Michigan in 2020?
The FBI has a sordid history of intervening in presidential elections since 1948—if not before. A 1976 Senate report on FBI abuses warned, “The American people need to be assured that never again will an agency of the government be permitted to conduct a secret war against those citizens it considers threats to the established order.” Unfortunately, Americans may not learn the damning details of another FBI “secret war” until long after the next election.
Ironically, the Biden administration is vilifying anti-government opinions at the same time judges are exposing federal crimes. Federal court decisions in July and September condemned the Biden censorship regime—and those rulings were preceded by Supreme Court decisions striking down President Joe Biden’s student-loan-forgiveness scheme and vaccine mandates.
But Team Biden still presumes anyone who suspects the feds are violating the Constitution is up to no good. In the same way that Biden based his 2020 election campaign on vilifying Charlottesville 2017 protests, so the Biden re-election campaign will vilify anyone who distrusts the feds. Regardless of the outcome, the 2024 election will be another boomtime for cynics.
What’s Wrong with Mandating Tests?
By Alan Lash | Brownstone Institute | October 27, 2023
Renewed calls for mask mandates are on the rise, as reports of scary Covid variants are making their way through the news. My perception is that most people will not accept this. It’s fairly well known among the public that masks do not work to halt the transmission of respiratory diseases.
There is even less support for vaccine mandates. There are more successful lawsuits against vaccine mandates each month, and greater numbers of doctors are speaking against forced medicines. Many of them seem to be rediscovering informed consent.
There is one other area where mandates may still have a foothold: that is in the test for disease, particularly Covid. Take a test before you enter a public space; take a test before you go to work; take a test merely because the authorities say so, because they want to track where the virus is going. There are many authorities saying that testing should be mandated, and many ordinary citizens are going along with the idea, thinking, “What’s the harm in taking a test?”
Should you be required to take a test for Covid or any other disease in order to participate in society?
This question seems slightly different from the questions of the other two mandates that have been presented in the past few years. The attack on vaccine mandates has been straightforward: Covid is not dangerous to large cohorts of the population; the vaccines do not prevent transmission; the mRNA jab has been known to cause harm. Likewise, with masks, the arguments are centered around the idea that they don’t really work, and they might also cause harm. We have heard about respiratory problems from microparticles and learning disabilities in children, from their stunted growth in communication skills.
To combat mandated testing, these arguments do not hold as much sway. It’s difficult to argue that testing for Covid might harm the person being tested, and therefore, it’s difficult to attack on the grounds that the tests don’t work perfectly well.
Even the arguments I have heard against mandatory testing usually have a qualifier in them about the relative danger of the disease in question: “I would understand mandated testing if this was a highly virulent and deadly virus.”
There have been many times we have heard from public health officials about the need for centralized control of people’s behavior in the response to disease. Indeed, even Jay Bhattacharya, who has been fiercely against lockdowns and who has promoted focused protective measures, has said that a scenario could arise where such coordination may be necessary. In discussing the rising lack of trust in public health, he says:
In theory, there is a risk to restricting public health action: It will make coordinated nationwide action more difficult in the next pandemic. What if next time, we have a disease outbreak that requires every part of the country to shut down everywhere, all at once, for a long time?
My issue is with the word requires. Required by whom and to what end? A disease is not an agent. Whatever it may do to us, diseases don’t require action. Humans in charge require action.
So let’s ignore for the moment whether tests work or not, but instead focus on what it means for someone to have the authority to say that you must take a harmless test.
Does someone, anyone, an individual or a government authority, have the right to require you to do something, just because it won’t hurt you?
And on top of the claim that you are not being hurt, there is the more insidious charge: you are being selfish. The authorities and society have decided that the needs of the group rise above the needs of the individual. Certainly this seems to be the case if the test causes no harm. But who is being selfish here? Is it you or the selfish collective?
Regardless of whether you are not being hurt, and whether you are being selfish, here is the essential point of requiring you to take the test.
The point is that the outcome of the test will influence or dictate your subsequent behavior.
Based on the test, it is implied that you will have to do something about it, or that someone will make you. If you test positive, will that mean you cannot go out? Will it mean that you will be locked in a room and can’t see your family and friends? Will it open the door to other bodily controls, like mandated medicine?
If there is no understanding that your behavior will be dictated by the result of the test, what’s the point of the test?
This question can be stated more precisely by saying: the act of forcing you to take a test for disease removes your agency. The idea of agency, as introduced in the Enlightenment, is that each individual carries a moral responsibility for their actions, and that each individual should have that responsibility. The responsibility to act in a way that respects the life and liberty of others should not be taken or assumed by another person or authority.
I have heard the argument that authorities test not in order to control our behavior and thus remove our agency, but instead only to understand how the virus may be spreading in a particular area. They can then understand how to best focus resources to help where outbreaks occur. This is indeed the path that Bhattacharya is on in his article: mandatory testing is justified for the public good when there is no infringement of individual rights, and that a uniform nationwide response is never the correct answer.
But I ask you this: how many times in the past three years has mandated testing led merely to expanded awareness of where the virus is headed and not to control individuals? I have heard many stories personally of individuals who tested positive and were immediately quarantined, and then subsequently tracked by authorities through their phones. I have also read more horrible stories, of arrests and inhumane conditions. In fact, the language around these enforced behaviors gets even more dire than that.
On March 22, 2020, Trump said, “In a true sense, we’re at war. And we’re fighting an invisible enemy.” Trump along with many others compared fighting a virus to fighting a war. In fact, that is how the whole pandemic response was run, as a national security operation.
But what is war? War occurs when two groups of people attempt to kill each other. That is, when individuals and their governments use their agency to seek out and destroy others or to defend themselves. When individuals claim not to use their agency, as when they say, “I was just following orders,” or “We all have to do what the authorities are saying is correct,” they are merely abdicating their own agency, but not relieving their own responsibility.
Robin Koerner describes this connection in his recent article, “The Complicity of Compliance.” He points out that in such situations, people merely subordinate their agency to an agenda. They do not alleviate the burden of their responsibility, although they think they might, they are only going along with the immoral action of the state.
How does this compare to a “war” against a virus? A virus has no agency, and more importantly, an individual carrying a virus has no agency. Any individual, sick or not, cannot decide to infect another person. You may argue that a person can use their agency to attempt to make another person sick. You could cough in someone’s face intentionally, for example. But this is about the extent to which you could go to use your agency to attempt to infect others. It is your moral decision not to cough in someone’s face.
Now let’s get back to mandatory testing. What happens to your agency when someone or an authority requires that you be tested for a particular virus? As I’ve described, the test comes with an implicit assumption that your behavior will be controlled if that test is positive. Will you be quarantined? Will you not be permitted to enter a public space? Will your movements be tracked?
The deadliness of the virus is irrelevant.
The accuracy of the test is irrelevant.
The motivation of the authority is irrelevant.
What matters is that by requiring a test, the authority has removed your agency.
You can no longer act in a way in accordance with your morality and conscience, and the door is open for your liberties to be removed.
So really, how harmless is it to allow any authority or state actor to require that you take a test for disease? This is a trick. By going along, you are thus agreeing to subordinate your own agency to that of the state.
This situation throws us back to before the Enlightenment, before the 17th century, to a time of feudal control of the lives of individuals. If the state says you do it, you do it, whatever it is. The comparison of virus control to feudalism has been made many times.
Is that how you want to live your life?
Or has freedom been good to you?
Take a test voluntarily if you like, if you think it will help to protect your family, friends, and all of your compatriots, or possibly if you think it will help authorities to understand the spread of disease. Respect others and do not try to infect them, as unrealistic as that notion may be.
But do not submit to mandatory testing for disease. Maintain your independence, your morality, and your conscience; do not be tricked into relinquishing your agency to the state. It is a trick to obtain control over your life that you will have willingly surrendered.
Your moral responsibilities are yours alone. Keep them that way.
Alan Lash is a software developer from Northern California, with a Masters degree Physics and a PhD in Mathematics.
Sen. Ron Johnson Accuses Public Health Agencies of ‘Appalling Lack of Transparency’ on COVID Vaccines
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 27, 2023
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) accused federal public health agencies of displaying an “appalling” lack of transparency with the American public during the pandemic, depriving them of “the benefit of informed consent.”
In a letter sent Oct. 25 to the heads of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health, Johnson said that even now, “As new and alarming information continues to come to light, federal health agencies continue to stonewall and gaslight Congress and the public.”
The lawmaker pointed to an FDA-funded study published this month that identified a potential safety signal linking mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to seizures in children ages 2-5.
Johnson questioned whether the CDC was aware of these findings last month when it recommended everyone 6 months of age and older be vaccinated to protect against COVID-19 this fall and winter.
Johnson said the leaders of these agencies — Xavier Becerra, Dr. Robert Califf, Dr. Mandy Cohen, and Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D. — have failed in their duty to be transparent with Americans regarding what they knew about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.
As a result, they “have not even come close to ensuring that doctors can provide informed consent on a new gene therapy masquerading as a ‘vaccine’ that was rushed to market without adequate safety or efficacy testing,” he said.
The Wisconsin senator has been a vocal critic of the federal COVID-19 response and an outspoken advocate for people injured by the vaccine. In 2022, he led a roundtable discussion with doctors and scientists to shed light on what was known so far about the vaccines.
Johnson has also accused the CDC of colluding with Twitter to censor his own social media posts about the vaccines.
In his letter, the lawmaker wrote that the agencies’ refusal to respond to the “vast majority” of his questions and information requests “only heightens [his] level of suspicion.”
He listed over a dozen letters he sent requesting information on the COVID-19 vaccines that the agencies “have failed to adequately address.”
These included requests for data about vaccine lots linked to high rates of adverse events, information suppression on social media and the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program.
The CDC and FDA also failed to fulfill Johnson’s requests for their adverse events surveillance data and their analyses of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, database.
Children’s Health Defense also is suing the FDA to respond to its Freedom of Information Act requests to make that same data available.
Johnson listed 11 other outstanding requests he made regarding the other aspects of the pandemic.
But these make up only a partial list of over 60 public letters Johnson said he has sent to government agencies concerning various aspects of the pandemic.
“It is well past time for U.S public health agencies to be transparent,” he said.
Johnson requested the agencies respond by Nov. 8 to questions about what they knew about the risks COVID-19 vaccines posed to children, when they knew it and how they plan to address those issues.
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.
Republicans Question Biden Official On “Disinformation” Group That Blacklisted Conservative News Outlets
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 29, 2023
A senior Biden administration representative was recently questioned in a congressional hearing by the Republican members over allegations about the federal government funding an organization that allegedly deprives conservative media platforms of advertising revenue under the guise of purging disinformation. The organization, called the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), is a UK-based think tank that flags suspected sources of disinformation, compelling advertisers to blacklist these sources, thereby threatening their financial sustainability.
The questioning unfolded in the backdrop of a hearing held by the House Foreign Affairs Committee led by the GOP. They contend that the government-funded Global Engagement Center (GEC) of the State Department, handed over a grant of $100,000 to the GDI in 2021.
The GDI has become a point of contention for congressional members due to its censorship measures. The organization has flagged several media outlets, including the New York Post, as disseminators of “disinformation.”
The accountability hearing had Republicans like Representative Darrell Issa question GEC’s Acting Coordinator Daniel Kimmage on whether these popular outlets, targeted by the GDI, were really spreading disinformation. Kimmage responded by stating that the GEC does not get involved in matters concerning US media outlets or domestic affairs.
However, when confronted with the question of GEC funding the London-based GDI, Kimmage admitted to the funding but clarified it was only for specific works targeted at Russian and People’s Republic of China narratives in languages other than English. Yet, the GOP lawmakers have continued to argue that the taxpayer funds are indirectly supporting the GDI’s blacklisting activities in the US.
In a period where concerns over free speech and censorship have become increasingly prevalent, the funding extended to entities like the GDI, which tiptoe the line between fact-checking and ideological bias, raises valid queries eerily resonating with the ongoing debate on censorship versus free speech. Notably, at the heart of the controversy is the question of third-party bias and transparency, and whether the act of flagging media outlets as dispensers of “disinformation” contributes to the suppression of certain types of content or perspectives.
Pro-surveillance EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson Dismisses Concerns About Lobbyists in Message Surveillance Bill
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 29, 2023
The various EU institutions’ “entanglement” with the bloc’s own idea to try to substantially and dangerously undermine online encryption via a legislative effort known colloquially as “chat control” seems to be nearing a (positive for the internet) resolution – but the bureaucrats who support it appear to be unwilling to go down without a fight.
On Wednesday, European Parliament member (MEP) from Germany Patrick Breyer posted on his blog about EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson laboring to downplay concerns that lobbyists were reportedly part and parcel of drafting the regulation, supposedly there to protect children (stop the proliferation of CSAM content) – but in the process, thanks to its aggressive anti-encryption provisions, destroy the privacy of everyone on the web – including children!)
A day later, Breyer announced that the EP (European Parliament) negotiators had a majority to push through not what the EU Commission wanted – said to be indiscriminate bulk scanning of private communications – but to instead allow “only for a targeted surveillance of specific individuals and groups reasonably suspicious of being linked to child sexual abuse material, with a judicial warrant.”
Even with this development, it’s well worth taking a look at what the likes of Johansson had in mind just a day earlier (which they still could find some of the many EU loopholes to push through, mind you) – and how they justified it.
So, on Wednesday, the LIBE (European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs) grilled Johansson on the issue of the alleged lobbying, in the context of “chat control.”
Reports about this first emerged in the press in September, and implied that the EU Commission was basically in cahoots with what’s described as “a foreign network” while coming up with what the critics dismiss as at once dangerous, and not even a smart scheme.
However, Johansson, as Breyer put it – “insisted no mistakes had been made.” (And here you see what it apparently takes to become a high-ranked EU official – the ability not to even wince when faced with overwhelming facts).
But for every bureaucrat speaking in circles, there are representatives of the public unwilling to mince their words.
“It was only to be expected that Johansson would respond to the revelations with her usual propaganda, such as citing a biased and suggestive Eurobarometer survey that violates the rules of good public opinion research,” Breyer spelled it out on Wednesday.
“In order to really hold Johansson accountable for her foreign-influenced bill and her lobbying in office, my committee, on our initiative, has demanded full access to all correspondence of her office with lobbying organizations – such as the secret letters of the dubious US foundation Thorn. Only then can we see the full extent of the entanglement with our own eyes” – he added at the time.
Israel targets journalists, kills their families as Big Tech & Biden admin silence Palestinians
BY WYATT REED · THE GRAYZONE · OCTOBER 27, 2023
With Israeli airstrikes on Gaza killing at least twenty Palestinian journalists—and the Biden administration working to muzzle others—Big Tech is quietly coordinating with Tel Aviv to muzzle Palestinian media outfits.
Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed three Palestinian journalists on October 25 in one of the deadliest days for local reporters since the military’s bombing campaign began nearly three weeks before. As the hours passed, footage appeared showing the moment Ramallah-based journalist Mohammed Farra learned that his wife and children were all killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza’s Khan Younes neighborhood.
Similarly heart-rending scenes would play out more than once over the course of the day. Elsewhere in the besieged coastal enclave, an Israeli airstrike killed the wife, son, daughter and infant grandson of Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh.
Israel’s attacks on Palestinian journalists came hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured “American Jewish community leaders” that he urged Qatar’s government “to tone down Al Jazeera’s rhetoric about the war in Gaza” during a recent trip to Doha.
Suspicions that Israeli forces deliberately targeted Dahdouh’s family were quickly bolstered by comments from News 13 journalist Zvi Yehezkeli.
“Generally we know the target,” Yehezkeli told audiences within hours of the strike, adding, “for example, today there was a target: the family of an Al Jazeera reporter.”
“In general, we know,” he concluded.
If true, it wouldn’t be the first time the Dahdouh’s outlet found itself in Israeli crosshairs. In 2021, the Israeli military leveled the Gaza tower that housed the officers of both the Associated Press and Al Jazeera. The following year, Israeli forces assassinated renowned Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh, a veteran Jerusalem-based correspondent for Al Jazeera, in a shooting that drew international condemnation but was largely ignored by the US government, which echoes the Israeli government’s position that her killing was “unintentional.” Under Blinken, the State Department has distanced itself from its initial expressions of outrage and no longer calls for either an independent investigation or criminal charges for the perpetrators.
Big Tech censorship targets Palestinian journalists after Israel targets their homes
As the US and Israel rush to censor the voice of Palestinian journalists, Big Tech censorship has proven indispensable to Israel’s propaganda war. In the aftermath of October 7, multiple social media platforms have suspended or deactivated profiles belonging to numerous prominent journalists, human rights advocates, and Palestinian activists. The crackdown follows years of complaints alleging double standards when it comes to anti-Zionist content on social media.
Accounts operated by Eye On Palestine disappeared from Instagram, Facebook, and X on October 25, leaving more than 6 million followers unable to access one of the most popular resources providing firsthand footage of destruction in Gaza. A spokesman for Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, insisted the suspensions were not politically motivated, asserting “We did not disable these accounts because of any content they were sharing.”
Despite Meta’s denial, it is worth recalling the company’s record of complying with Israeli government censorship requests. Following the approval of a so-called “Facebook Bill” aimed at clamping down on digital “incitement” in 2016, fanatical former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked bragged that Facebook, Twitter and Google were complying with 70 percent of their takedown orders.
Tamer Al Mishal, a Palestinian journalist who has served as a crucial Gaza-based news source for many years, put a face to that statistic. In September, Al Mishal made waves when he published an exposé on Al Jazeera illustrating how Meta coordinated with Israeli intelligence to stifle pro-Palestinian content. When he attempted to access his social media profile days later, the reporter made an alarming discovery: his Facebook page had completely ceased to exist.
He wasn’t the only one. The week before, Meta suspended the Instagram account of Palestinian influencer and photojournalist Motaz Azaiza after he shared footage of the remnants of his apartment building, where 15 of his family members were killed in an Israeli airstrikes.
“Palestinian journalists in Gaza are not just facing the Israeli occupation,” Shadi Abdelrahman, a local reporter with years of experience covering events in Gaza from the ground, explained to The Grayzone. “They also have to overcome a lot of censorship by Facebook, YouTube,” he told The Grayzone, adding: “anything on social media, they need to be very careful because they will get their accounts banned.”
“Working as a journalist in Gaza is not an easy job,” he says, not only “because you are being censored by social media, [but] also it can cause problems with Israeli authorities, especially if you’d like to leave through any crossing which is controlled by Israel.”
If you’re outspoken in your coverage, Abdelrahman says, Israeli authorities “will consider you as an enemy.”
During 2021’s Great March of Return, “those journalists who were attending the weekly marches and covering it were targeted deliberately by Israel.”
“Some of them were shot in the knees, some of them were shot in the legs. Some of them got killed,” Abdelrahman recalled.
On Instagram, meanwhile, users noted an apparent ‘glitch’ temporarily translated the Arabic word for “Palestinian” into “Palestinian terrorist.”
During an October 26 raid in Jenin, the Israeli army destroyed the memorial to Shireen Abu Akleh, the renowned Al Jazeera correspondent it killed there a year before.
Gaza suffers near-total information blackout
RT | October 27, 2023
Internet and cell phone services stopped working in Gaza on Friday night, after Israel “expanded” its military operation against Hamas militants in the Palestinian enclave.
The largest telecommunications provider in Gaza, Paltel, has announced “a complete severance of all communications and Internet services” due to intensified Israeli strikes.
“The intense bombing in the last hour caused the destruction of all remaining international routes linking Gaza to the outside world,” the company said.
Netblocks, a company that tracks internet connectivity globally, confirmed the information blackout, calling it “the largest single disruption to internet connectivity in Gaza since the beginning of the conflict and will be perceived by many as a total or near-total internet blackout.”
International media outlets, including RT, have partially lost contact with their crews and stringers on the ground. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told news organizations that Israel “cannot guarantee your employees’ safety, and strongly urge you to take all necessary measures for their safety,” according to a letter sent to Reuters and AFP.
The head of RT Arabic, Maya Manna, said there was no contact with correspondents and photographers operating in the Palestinian enclave as of Friday evening. The sole message came from an RT stringer in the area, describing a “very violent bombing.”
“I don’t know what to do with my children and my family. Everyone is afraid, everyone is terrified, and there is screaming everywhere in the Gaza Strip,” Masoud Abu Jarash, a local reporter, told RT.
According to an NBC News crew member, who was also able to message colleagues, “all internet, electricity and everything” has been cut off. “The situation we’re in is difficult, so difficult and very dangerous. We’re being extensively shelled by artillery and by air,” the unnamed staffer said.
The UN children’s agency also lost contact with their colleagues in Gaza, with UNICEF chief Catherine Russel saying she was “extremely concerned about their safety and another night of unspeakable horror for 1 million children in Gaza.”
The international healthcare charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said there was no contact with some of their Palestinian colleagues.
“We are particularly worried for the patients, medical staff and thousands of families taking shelter at Al Shifa hospital and other health facilities,” MSF said, expressing deep concern over the situation regarding one of Gaza’s biggest medical centers.
Israel has accused Hamas of turning hospitals into “headquarters for their terror,” referring specifically to Al Shifa, and even published an “illustrative video” which supposedly points out the “different locations in and under the hospital which are being used to plan and implement terrorist activities.”
Hamas claims that by cutting off communications from Gaza, Israel is attempting to “cover up the crimes of the occupation without any oversight or accountability,” and tries to “create an image of victory,” a senior official, Osama Hamdan, told Al Jazeera.
Canadian Lawmakers Want to Punish Online Platforms For Allowing “Misinformation” Spread
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 27, 2023
The Canadian Parliament has become the latest global player in a widening tug-of-war geared towards constraining the tide of “misinformation” seeping into the digital landscape.
The House Ethics Committee in the North American province of Ottawa is calling for the imposing of stringent repercussions on tech giants whom they claim are complicit in disseminating “unverified” or “deceptive” content online.
The Committee’s directives come after an exhaustive ten-month investigation focused primarily on the mounting concern of foreign interference, particularly from powerhouse nations such as China and Russia. It held eight separate public consultation sessions throughout its investigatory period, featuring input from 23 key witnesses.
Vice-chair of the Committee, Bloc Quebecois MP Rene Villemure, emphasized the urgent need for decisive action, mirroring similar controversial legislative combat seen by the European Union, which has imposed significant online regulations to control the spread of digital falsehoods.
“At some point companies will have to understand that they’re actors and they’re not the government,” Villemure said.
“What happens online is basically shaping society, and if we’re not acting in a decisive manner, they will shape society to the bottom.”
Villemure refrains from laying down a specific strategy but looks to the European Union as a potential model. He refers to the European Commission’s recent judicious testing of its new digital laws during the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Missouri v. Biden
By Aaron Kheriaty, MD | Human Flourishing | October 24, 2023
The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments over the Fifth Circuit’s grant of a preliminary injunction in Missouri v. Biden. As I mentioned in previous posts, the injunction would bar officials from the White House, CDC, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Surgeon General’s office from coercing or significantly encouraging social media platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech. My fellow plaintiffs and I welcome this opportunity to defend the First Amendment rights of all Americans in the U.S. Supreme Court. We expect to hear from the Court soon regarding the hearing dates—it could be in February or March.
The Fifth Circuit panel of judges last month upheld the key components of U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 preliminary injunction order, prohibiting named federal officials from coercing or significantly encouraging social media companies to suppress legal speech. That decision vindicated our claims that we—and countless other Americans—were blacklisted, shadow-banned, de-boosted, throttled, and suspended on social media as part of the government’s years-long censorship campaign orchestrated by the federal government.
The Biden Administration’s censorship regime has successfully suppressed perspectives contradicting government-approved views on hotly disputed topics such as whether natural immunity to covid exists, the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, the virus’s origins, and mask mandate efficacy. Beyond covid, the documents we’ve obtained on discovery demonstrate that the government was also censoring critiques of its foreign policy, monetary policy, election infrastructure, and lightning rod social issues from abortion to gender ideology.
The vast, coordinated, and well-documented effort has silenced influential, highly qualified voices including doctors and scientists like my co-plaintiffs Dr. Bhattacharya and Dr. Kulldorff, as well as those like Jill Hines who have tried to raise awareness of issues. Though the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily stayed the Fifth Circuit’s injunction until they make a ruling, I believe the Justices are ultimately unlikely to permit the egregious First Amendment abridgements our case has exposed.
The Fifth Circuit recognized that the Plaintiffs did “not challenge the social-media platforms’ content-moderation policies.” Rather, Plaintiffs challenged the government’s unlawful efforts to influence “enforcement of those policies.” The government gravely harmed the ability of Americans to convey their views to the public, and it deprived Americans of their right to hear opinions that differ from the government’s. Judge Doughty strikingly described the Administration’s conduct as “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States history” and “akin to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth.” He was right, and the U.S. Supreme Court must not permit it.
Here are some reactions to the news from our lawyers at NCLA:
“NCLA is thrilled to have the opportunity to vindicate the First Amendment rights of our clients, and all Americans, in the nation’s highest court. We are confident that after a thorough review of the disturbing facts in this important case—which involves unprecedented government-imposed, viewpoint-based censorship—the Court will recognize the grievous, unconstitutional nature of the government’s conduct and enjoin it.”
— Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel, NCLA“We are disappointed Americans’ First Amendment rights will be vulnerable to government infringement until this case is decided. But we are confident this Court, as strong as it is on First Amendment issues, will rule against the government and uphold our clients’ rights and liberties.”
— John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA“If anything, the Fifth Circuit’s decision did not go far enough in enjoining the reprehensible conduct exposed in this case. The facts of this case show government agencies censored speech in a deliberate effort to control the narrative on several controversial topics ahead of the last election. The First Amendment forbids such censorship, and the Supreme Court must never allow such mischief again, if we are to keep our democracy.”
— Mark Chenoweth, President, NCLA
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Woolsey Fire started at Santa Susana Field Lab — where “radioactive materials released were never accurately measured”
By John Laforge | CounterPunch | November 30, 2018
In my Nov. 16 column, I reported on potential radiation risks posed by California’s Woolsey wildfire having burned over parts or all of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory—south of Simi Valley, Calif., 30 miles outside Los Angeles—site of at least four partial or total nuclear reactor meltdowns.
The field laboratory operated 10 experimental reactors and conducted rocket engine tests. In his 2014 book Atomic Accidents, researcher James Mahaffey writes, “The cores in four experimental reactors on site … melted.” Reactor core melts always result in the release of large amounts of radioactive gases and particles. Clean up of the deeply contaminated site has not been conducted in spite of a 2010 agreement.
Los Angeles’s KABC-7 TV reported Nov. 13 that the Santa Susana lab site “appears to be the origin of the Woolsey Fire” which has torched over 96,000 acres. Southern Calif. Public Radio said, “According to Cal Fire, the Woolsey Fire started on the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 8 … on the Santa Susana site.” … continue
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Aletho News- US IRAN TALKS: Who Are the Crazy Ones Here? /Lt Col Daniel Davis
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