UK “hate crime” plans could criminalize comedy, rights group says
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | May 31, 2022
The Home Office is working on a new hate crimes strategy to encourage more people to report hate crimes. Campaigners have warned that the new strategy might result in criminalizing comedians like Ricky Gervais, who question the trans ideology in comedy routines.
The strategy is being drawn up despite a court ruling last year that banned police from recording “gender-critical” comments as non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs).
“These plans suggest either that the Government is not paying attention, or that they have contempt for the Court of Appeal,” said a lawyer from campaign group Fair Cop.
“Either way, it is astonishing that legislators are planning to expand the discredited and unlawful practice of recording non-crime hate incidents [NCHIs]. Following Fair Cop’s win in the Court of Appeal in December, the College of Policing promised to publish revised hate crime guidance by the end of May this year. We’re still waiting. Police forces that record complaints against comedians – or any other lawful speech – as NCHIs will be piling illegality upon illegality.
“They will then find themselves in court with no legitimate defense. This quixotic strategy oozes arrogance, as if the law does not apply if you’re fighting for ‘the right side of history.’
“But how can you be on the right side of history if you’re repeatedly on the wrong side of the law?”
This news comes comedian Ricky Gervais faced a censorship mob from his recently aired Netflix Special SuperNature, where he covered the topics of cancel culture, transgender ideology, Hitler, and AIDS.
At some point he says: “The worst thing you can say today is, ‘Women don’t have penises,’ right?”
He was accused of “hate crimes” by some trans campaign campaigners, and would have probably been recorded for NCHIs if the new plans were already in place.
148 Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists in May
MEMO | June 1, 2022
An Arab NGO has documented 148 Israeli rights violations against Palestinian journalists in the occupied Palestinian territories last month, Anadolu News Agency reports.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Journalists Support Committee said the month of May witnessed a surge in attacks on Palestinian journalists by Israeli forces and settlers.
It termed the attacks as “an attempt to prevent Palestinian journalists from covering Israeli assaults against Palestinians and their holy sites.”
According to the NGO, the Israeli violations varied from arrests, intimidation, shooting, verbal and physical assaults to car-ramming incidents.
It said 11 journalists were detained by Israeli forces in the West Bank during May, while the custody of five others was extended without trial.
“Israeli forces, in collaboration with settlers, disrupted the work of 61 journalists and media institutions while covering Israeli violations in the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron and Jenin,” it added.
The NGO also noted that the social media accounts of 11 Palestinian journalists were suspended for alleged violations of publication rules.
Last month, Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, 51, was shot dead while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.
Palestinian officials and her employer, Al Jazeera, said she was killed by Israeli forces.
There was no comment from Israeli authorities on the NGO’s report.
Fears of cover-up of vaccine caused deaths
Pathologist who said 30-40% of post-vaccine autopsies died of the vaccine went oddly silent and suddenly stopped carrying out autopsies
By Will Jones | The Daily Sceptic | May 31, 2022
If we are going to get to the bottom of whether and to what extent vaccines are contributing to the deaths of the vaccinated, autopsies are a crucial tool. So where are all the autopsies to help us answer these questions?
Back last summer, the Chief Pathologist at the University of Heidelberg, Dr. Peter Schirmacher, was pushing for many more autopsies of vaccinated people. His team had just finished conducting 40 autopsies of people who had died within two weeks of vaccination and concluded that 30-40% of them died from the vaccine.
Dr. Schirmacher warned of a high number of unreported deaths from vaccination and lamented that pathologists don’t notice most of the patients who die from a vaccination. The problem, he explained, is that vaccinated people do not usually die under clinical observation.
The doctor examining the corpse does not establish any context with the vaccination and certifies a natural death and the patient is buried. Or he certifies an unclear manner of death and the public prosecutor sees no third-party fault and releases the body for burial.
Dr. Schirmacher’s claims were dismissed at the time by Government scientists, but he stuck to his guns. “The colleagues are definitely wrong because they cannot judge this specific question competently,” he said. He clarified that he is in favour of the vaccines to fight Covid and has been vaccinated himself, but says the benefits and risks must be considered for each person. He argued in favour of “individual protection considerations” instead of quickly vaccinating everyone.
At the time, the Federal Association of German Pathologists was also pushing for more autopsies of vaccinated people. Johannes Friemann, head of the autopsy working group in the association, said this was the only way that connections between deaths and vaccinations could be ruled out or proven. The association had already in March 2021 sent a letter to Health Minister Jens Spahn requesting that German state governments instruct health authorities to order autopsies on site. Five months later, in August, this letter remained unanswered.
Following the reports in the media of his comments, Dr. Schirmacher fell oddly silent. Today, ten months later, no further autopsies by his group have been reported and no further calls for them have been heard. There are also no reports of autopsies being conducted specifically on those who died shortly after Covid vaccination in any other countries – save for the 15 done by Dr. Arne Burkhardt towards the end of 2021, which found “clear evidence of vaccine-induced autoimmune-like pathology in multiple organs” in 14 of 15 cases, but which were ignored by all health authorities and mainstream media.
Where are all the autopsies to investigate the role of vaccines in post-vaccine deaths, and why have Dr. Schirmacher and his colleagues gone quiet, after being so emphatic about the risks and the need?
This looks very much like a cover-up and a silencing. If it isn’t, then why don’t governments order autopsies to be carried out, to put the matter to rest? What have they got to hide?
Connecticut to hire “misinformation” expert who will urge social media sites to censor “false” posts
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | May 31, 2022
Connecticut plans to pay a “misinformation” expert $150,000 per year to scour the internet for election content that they deem to be “false” and then urge social media platforms to flag or remove posts containing this information.
According to The New York Times, this misinformation expert will flag information that’s going viral, memes, and “emerging narratives.” They will also be instructed to look for this information on alt-tech platforms such as GETTR and Rumble.
Connecticut officials said they would prefer candidates that are fluent in English and Spanish so that they can target misinformation in both languages.
Connecticut is one of several Democrat-controlled states that are launching efforts to flag and censor misinformation in the run-up to the 2022 US midterm elections.
Colorado is redeploying a “Rapid Response Election Security Cyber Unit” that it created for the 2020 election. This unit is made up of three election security experts who will surveil the internet for election misinformation and report it to federal law enforcement.
And California’s office of the Secretary of State is working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and academics to search for “patterns of misinformation across the internet.”
In addition to these flagging and censorship efforts, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, and Arizona will also be spending millions of dollars on ad campaigns that push “accurate” election information.
Colorado’s Democratic Secretary of State, Jena Griswold, will head the Rapid Response Election Security Cyber Unit. She justified her team’s flagging of misinformation to federal law enforcement by claiming that “lies are being used to chip away at our fundamental freedoms.”
Connecticut’s Deputy Secretary of the State, Scott Bates, justified his state’s misinformation censorship program by insisting that the state needs to have “situational awareness by looking into all the incoming threats to the integrity of elections.”
Bates added: “Misinformation can erode people’s confidence in elections, and we view that as a critical threat to the democratic process.”
While representatives of these states are framing these programs as a way to boost confidence in elections and protect the democratic process, Tom Fitton, founder of the conservative, non-partisan educational foundation Judicial Watch, argued that these states are “setting up ‘Ministries of Truth’ to censor Americans.”
These programs are the latest of many online censorship initiatives pushed by politicians that raise First Amendment flags. Some other examples include the recently paused DHS “Disinformation Governance Board” which was launched with the intention of fighting “disinformation,” the Biden administration’s admission that it flags content for Facebook to censor, and Democrats working with Twitter to get tweets taken down.
Critics have argued that programs that involve public officials flagging speech for Big Tech platforms to censor violate the First Amendment because the government is coercing these private companies to censor on its behalf. However, courts have so far dismissed lawsuits that allege these public-private censorship initiatives violate the First Amendment.
A lawsuit that was filed in March and alleged that several of the Biden administration’s actions, including its admission that it flags content for Facebook to censor, violated the First Amendment was dismissed in May.
Journalist Alex Berenson’s December 2021 lawsuit, which accused Twitter of violating several laws when banning his account and alleged that the federal government coerced Twitter to deprive Berenson of his right to speak, was recently allowed to proceed but the First Amendment claim was dismissed.
Trudeau wants “new tools” to tackle online “misinformation”
No details given
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | May 28, 2022
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the government is investing in new tools for security agencies to fight extremism and online “misinformation.”
“We need new tools to fight all of these pending threats, and that’s why we’ve turned to all of our security agencies to look at new ways of ensuring peoples’ safety,” Trudeau said in a press briefing in Vancouver, without specifying the tools he was referring to.
“Because, as we know, what happens in the virtual world has impact in the real world. It doesn’t stay on the internet.”
Trudeau added that the tools were necessary to fight “new threats weighing in on our society and country,” mentioning the spike in disinformation and misinformation and foreign adversaries and domestic extremists weaponizing social media.
“Whether it’s extremist ideology and right-wing terrorism on the rise in Canada, or whether it’s examples like the illegal [Freedom Convoy] protests we saw in the winter, there are a whole new set of challenges that we need to be responding to,” Trudeau said.
The prime minister paid the usual lip service that politicians do when they bring in limits to speech, saying that the new tools would be deployed in a way that protects free speech and the right to protest.
Trudeau specified that the government was “working closely with organizations like the Canadian Security Establishment [CSE] around communications.”
The mention of communications suggest tools that would collect and analyze data from social media to identify potential threats.
ICC urged to end Israel’s ‘devastating impunity’, as war crimes probe includes Abu Akleh
MEMO | May 27, 2022
Palestinian journalists are being systematically targeted by Israel because of the “gift of impunity” granted to the Apartheid State, a press conference in London was told today in the wake of the killing of Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh.
Convened by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), lawyers working on an existing case filed at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the targeting of Palestinian journalists by Israel announced that they will add the killing of Abu Akleh to the complaint issued in April.
Lawyers from Doughty Street Chambers and Bindmans LLP, along with representatives from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, and the ICJP, spoke about Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists and the ongoing legal battle to bring prosecution against the Occupation State.
The same group of lawyers and unions submitted a formal complaint to the ICC accusing Israel of systematically targeting journalists working in Palestine and failing to properly investigate killings of media workers, which amount to war crimes. The ICC recognised, in a February 2021 ruling, that it has jurisdiction over the situation in occupied Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem. This has paved the way for legal prosecution to be brought against Israel over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The complaint details the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists on behalf of four named victims – Ahmed Abu Hussein, Yaser Murtaja, Muath Amarneh and Nedal Eshtayeh – who were killed or maimed by Israeli snipers while covering demonstrations in Gaza. All were wearing clearly marked PRESS vests at the time they were shot.
The complaint also highlights the targeting of media and bombing of the Al-Shorouk and Al-Jawhara Towers in Gaza City in May 2021, including the cases of Alam News, Al Hayat Newspapers, Mayadeen Media, Al Bawaba 24 and others. Complaints have also formally been submitted to the UN Special Rapporteurs (UNSR) setting out how the systematic targeting of journalists working in Palestine, as well as the failure to properly investigate killings of media workers.
“We are awaiting confirmation from the ICC’s Prosecutor’s Office about the action they intend to take, but the killing of Shireen and the shooting of Ali Al-Samoudi bring to sharp focus the need for urgent action by the ICC”, Bindmans LLP, the firm hosting the event, said before the press conference. “We will seek to add these cases to the complaint that is already before the ICC.”
Director of the ICJP, Tayeb Ali, and the solicitor in the case said. “The targeting of journalists in conflict zones anywhere in the world is unacceptable and must bring severe consequences for those who try to hide their crimes and violations by killing or maiming journalists.” Ali described how “Israel has enjoyed a devastating impunity” and that the “gift of impunity” granted to the Apartheid State by international community has endangered the lives of Palestinian journalists. He stressed that “evidence is not the problem … holding Israel to account is.” Ali citied the large pool of documented evidence which he claims proves Israel is targeting journalists.
Updating the press conference over the April complaint issued to the ICC and the next step to prosecuting Israel, Jennifer Robinson, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, also spoke of Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists.
Robinson mentioned the findings of the 2019 Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 protests in Gaza. The Commission paid special attention to the protection of civilians and to groups warranting protection under international law, including children, women, health workers, journalists and persons with disabilities. Citing several individual cases including journalists that were shot in the abdomen, the Commission concluded that it had “found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot journalists intentionally, despite seeing that they were clearly marked as such”. The killing of Abu Akleh, said Robinson, is not one off. There exists a “pattern of targeting Palestinian journalists” she stressed, urging the ICC “to take action.”
Jim Boumelha, the former president of IFJ, a federation of some six thousand journalists world-wide, including Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, warned against the culture of impunity enjoyed by Israel. “Risk-free killing has become a norm” he said speaking about Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists. The killing of Abu Akleh is a message to countless others that they could be next, Boumelha claimed. IFJ alone has documented 877 violations by Israel against media and journalists. Appealing to the ICC to do its job, Boumelha said that “Israel may be the only country in the world that refuses to accept Palestinian journalists as journalists.”
A video message by Nasser Abu Bakr, President of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, urged new ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan to hold Israel to account. 50 journalists have been killed since 2000 alone said Abu Bakr. 7,000 crimes against Palestinian journalists have been documented.
A detailed account of Abu Akleh’s killing was given by her colleague, Walid Al-Omari. “Why would they target Shireen?” asked Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief. He suggested that Israel was seeking to inflict a direct and powerful blow to Al Jazeera. By killing Abu Akleh, the Occupation State hoped to silence one of the most powerful voices in Arab media, Al Omari claimed.
Al Jazeera has called Abu Akleh’s killing a “blatant murder” that violates “international laws and norms”. In its statement on Thursday, the network said, according to Article 8 of the ICC Charter, “targeting war correspondents, or journalists working in war zones or occupied territories by killing or physically assaulting them, is a war crime”.
EU urges citizens to inform on sanctions violators
‘Whistleblower tool’ created for people to report on violators of restrictions on Russia and Belarus
Samizdat | May 27, 2022
The European Commission on Friday announced the introduction of an anonymous online platform for people to report any violations of sanctions on Russia and Belarus.
“Aware of anyone violating EU sanctions on Russia or Belarus? We have created an online tool for whistleblowers to contact us and report violations of EU sanctions,” the EC tweeted.
The commission also said on its website that “sharing first-hand information” can be a powerful tool to help uncover cases of violations, including evasion and circumvention.
“By voluntarily providing us with information about EU sanctions violations of which you might be aware, you can help us investigate such practices and ensure sanctions compliance in the EU,” it said.
The statement noted that anyone can report anonymously, with the guarantee that their identity will be protected.
Sweden’s “Psychological Defence Agency” issues warning about memes that “spread misleading information”
Hurtful meme requiring censorship for public safety
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | May 26, 2022
Sweden’s “Psychological Defence Agency,” which is dedicated to preventing and countering “malign information” and “disinformation,” has taken aim at “misleading” memes in its new “Do Not Be Fooled” campaign.
On a page titled “Laughter that can hurt,” the agency warns that:
“Humor, parody and satire are usually harmless forms of entertainment that can sometimes be used to spread misleading information and ridicule or criticize people or opinions – for example in the form of memes.”
Not only is the Psychological Defence Agency warning Swedish citizens to be on the lookout for misleading memes but it also urges them to be wary of the persuasive power of memes.
“Memes can be used to shift focus from a particular issue, take over and change the direction of a debate, or to support a hidden agenda,” the agency states.
Another point of contention raised by the Swedish Psychological Agency in this campaign is the way memes spread. Apparently, popular memes don’t usually go viral because they’re funny and get lots of shares. Instead, the Laughter that can hurt page claims that they have “often gone viral through bots.”
Nemo Stjernström, the project manager for the campaign, told the Swedish magazine Resume that memes were included in this Do Not Be Fooled campaign because “misinformation and foreign influence can be clothed in the most innocent packaging.”
The communications manager at the Psychological Defence Agency, Mikael Östlund, tied the campaign to this year’s Swedish general election by noting that “it is becoming increasingly important to increase one’s own resilience [to information influence], not least in an election year like this.”
Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency was launched in January. Its efforts include training thousands of public officials on how to respond to false information and working with social media companies to reduce its spread. When it launched, the head of the agency, Henrik Landerholm, insisted that it’s “not the Ministry of Truth or a State Information Board like we had during the Cold War.”
Outside of Sweden, mainstream media outlets, politicians, and activists have all taken aim at memes by suggesting that they need to be debunked, censored, or even banned. Big Tech platforms are also “fact-checking” and censoring memes.
Domestic terrorism bill fails in Senate
Samizdat | May 27, 2022
A Democrat proposal to create a special task force for hunting down “white supremacists” in the US military and federal law enforcement agencies failed in the Senate on Thursday, after no Republicans voted for it. The ruling party invoked the recent mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York supermarket to argue such enforcement was necessary.
An 18-year-old killed 10 people and wounded three more on May 14, in the attack the authorities say was racially motivated.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act would have set up an interagency task force within the FBI and the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to analyze and counter white supremacist infiltration in the military and federal law enforcement.
“The bill is so important because the mass shooting in Buffalo was an act of domestic terrorism,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said on the floor ahead of the vote. “We need to call it what it is, domestic terrorism. It was terrorism that fed off the poison of conspiracy theories like white replacement theory.”
Opposing the bill, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said it was an “insult” to claim US Marines and police were “consumed with white supremacy and neo-Nazism.”
“It would be the Democrat plan to name our police as white supremacists and neo-Nazis. I met policemen throughout Kentucky and I’ve not met one policeman motivated or consumed with any kind of racial rage,” Paul added.
The final vote in the Senate was 47-47, right along party lines. The US House of Representatives approved the bill in a 222-203 vote last week, with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) as the only Republican in favor.
Republicans have accused the Democrats of seeking to smear all critics as domestic terrorists, pointing to the party’s insistence that the January 6 riot at the US Capitol was an “insurrection.” In his inauguration speech, President Joe Biden called domestic terrorism and white supremacy the greatest threat the US faced.
Within days of Biden taking office, the Pentagon announced a “stand-down” to investigate extremism in its ranks, and appointed a controversial Democrat activist to formulate new diversity and extremism regulations.
Nuland-Pyatt Tape Removed From YouTube After 8 Years
A popular version, with subtitles, suddenly was made unavailable on Wednesday. The tape provides evidence of US involvement in 2014 Kiev coup.
By Joe Lauria | Consortium News | May 25, 2022
The smoking gun proving U.S. involvement in the 2014 coup in Kiev has been removed from YouTube after eight years.
It was one of the most watched versions of the intercepted and leaked conversation between then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, in which the two discuss who will make up the new government weeks before democratically-elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a violent coup on Feb. 21, 2014.
The two talk about “midwifing” the unconstitutional change of government and “gluing it together” and of the role then Vice President Joe Biden should play and what meetings to set up with Ukrainian politicians.
The U.S. State Department never denied the authenticity of the video, and even issued an apology to the European Union after Nuland is heard on the tape saying, “Fuck the E.U.” Mainstream media at the time focused almost exclusively on that off-color remark, ignoring the greater significance of U.S. interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs.
Consortium News has numerous times embedded the YouTube video in articles about the overthrow of Yanukovych.
The video was posted on April 29, 2014 and had 181,533 views before it was taken down, was among the most viewed versions of the conversation on YouTube. Eight years worth of comments on the video have also been removed.
The same video can be viewed on Rumble here.
A version from a Russian YouTube channel with Russian subtitles, still available, has garnered 1.4 million views.
Timing of Removal
The removal of a video that had existed online for eight years raises major questions as it comes during the war in Ukraine. Corporate media has studiously avoided mentioning the causes of the current conflict, including NATO eastward expansion, the rejected Moscow treaty proposals in December, the civil war in Donbass and the 2014 coup in Kiev that led to the Donbass uprising and violent repression by the coup government.
The coup in 2014 is the starting point that led to all these events culminating in Russia’s invasion in February. Removing the video would be consistent with the suppression of any information that falls outside the enforced narrative of events in Ukraine, including whitewashing any mention of the U.S.-backed coup.
Transcript Still Online
The BBC on Feb. 7, 2014 — 14 days before Yanukovych was toppled — published a transcript of the Nuland-Pyatt conversation. Consortium News is republishing the transcript here, lest it be removed from the internet as well:
Warning: This transcript contains swearing.
Voice thought to be Nuland’s: What do you think?
Voice thought to be Pyatt’s: I think we’re in play. The Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko, one of three main opposition leaders] piece is obviously the complicated electron here. Especially the announcement of him as deputy prime minister and you’ve seen some of my notes on the troubles in the marriage right now so we’re trying to get a read really fast on where he is on this stuff. But I think your argument to him, which you’ll need to make, I think that’s the next phone call you want to set up, is exactly the one you made to Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk, another opposition leader]. And I’m glad you sort of put him on the spot on where he fits in this scenario. And I’m very glad that he said what he said in response.
Nuland: Good. I don’t think Klitsch should go into the government. I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Pyatt: Yeah. I guess… in terms of him not going into the government, just let him stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I’m just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together. The problem is going to be Tyahnybok [Oleh Tyahnybok, the other opposition leader] and his guys and I’m sure that’s part of what [President Viktor] Yanukovych is calculating on all this.
Nuland: [Breaks in] I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the… what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going in… he’s going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it’s just not going to work.
Pyatt: Yeah, no, I think that’s right. OK. Good. Do you want us to set up a call with him as the next step?
Nuland: My understanding from that call – but you tell me – was that the big three were going into their own meeting and that Yats was going to offer in that context a… three-plus-one conversation or three-plus-two with you. Is that not how you understood it?
Pyatt: No. I think… I mean that’s what he proposed but I think, just knowing the dynamic that’s been with them where Klitschko has been the top dog, he’s going to take a while to show up for whatever meeting they’ve got and he’s probably talking to his guys at this point, so I think you reaching out directly to him helps with the personality management among the three and it gives you also a chance to move fast on all this stuff and put us behind it before they all sit down and he explains why he doesn’t like it.
Nuland: OK, good. I’m happy. Why don’t you reach out to him and see if he wants to talk before or after.
Pyatt: OK, will do. Thanks.
Nuland: OK… one more wrinkle for you Geoff. [A click can be heard] I can’t remember if I told you this, or if I only told Washington this, that when I talked to Jeff Feltman [United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs] this morning, he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry did I write you that this morning?
Pyatt: Yeah I saw that.
Nuland: OK. He’s now gotten both Serry and [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, Fuck the EU.
Pyatt: No, exactly. And I think we’ve got to do something to make it stick together because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude, that the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it. And again the fact that this is out there right now, I’m still trying to figure out in my mind why Yanukovych (garbled) that. In the meantime there’s a Party of Regions faction meeting going on right now and I’m sure there’s a lively argument going on in that group at this point. But anyway we could land jelly side up on this one if we move fast. So let me work on Klitschko and if you can just keep… we want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.
Nuland: So on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [US vice-president’s national security adviser Jake] Sullivan’s come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need [US Vice-President Joe] Biden and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden’s willing.
Pyatt: OK. Great. Thanks.
###
Iran opposed to US push for reforms in global health rules: Official
Press TV – May 25, 2022
A senior Iranian health ministry official says the country has publicly declared its opposition to a US-led proposal to reform the International Health Regulations (IHR).
Mohammad Hassan Niknam, a special aide to the Iranian health minister, said on Wednesday that an Iranian delegation attending the World Health Organization’s annual assembly in Geneva had rejected a proposal put forward by the United States and other countries to speed up the implementation for future IHR reforms from 24 to 12 months.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran officially distanced itself from accepting any commitment on this proposal during the assembly,” said Niknam.
Media reports on Tuesday suggested Iran and Malaysia had expressed reservations about the IHR reforms while a delegate representing African countries had entirely rejected the move.
Niknam said, however, that Iran has publicly announced that it is opposed to fast tracking future IHR reforms.
He said Iranian health minister Bahram Einollahi had declared the opposition during his speech to the WHO assembly while delegates representing the country in committee discussions had also opposed the move.
The Iranian health system has suffered from the impacts of American sanctions on the country during the spread of the coroanvirus pandemic.
Iran was forced to rely on home-grown capacities to tackle one of the largest outbreaks of the disease in the Middle East as the sanctions hampered its access to foreign supplies of vaccines, medicines and medical equipment.
US officials have repeatedly claimed that Iran’s humanitarian needs have been exempt from the sanctions. That comes as foreign suppliers and banks have refused to process Iranian requests for medical supplies under pressure from Washington.
The Scottish government is silencing Palestinians
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | May 24, 2022
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is facing a backlash after a group of Palestinian academics criticised her decision to embrace the working definition of anti-Semitism prepared by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance because the definition clearly contradicts a hate crime review commissioned by her own government.
The Holyrood government took the decision to follow Westminster in its adoption of the controversial IHRA definition of anti-Semitism which includes, as an example, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour.”
Now Sturgeon’s government is in the embarrassing position of embracing two conflicting reports which openly contradict each other. To add to her woes, international human rights groups as well as a UN rights expert recently declared Israel to be an “apartheid state”.
The contents of the IHRA definition clash with the findings of Lord Bracadale, who was appointed by Scottish Ministers in 2017 to lead the Independent Review of Hate Crime Legislation. A group of Palestinian academics has now confronted Sturgeon’s government over this clear contradiction.
A few days ago, an open letter was published in the Scottish media about the dilemma facing Palestinians living in Scotland who accuse the Holyrood government of effectively gagging them from talking about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine during and ever since the Nakba.
“As Palestinians in Scotland we feel the need to be able to tell our story of being driven from our homeland in a programme of ethnic cleansing that built the state of Israel on the destruction of our villages and towns,” wrote the 26 signatories, including Amina Abdel-Khaliq, Dr Nur Abdelkhaleq, Waseem Abu Aghlain and Dr Kholoud Ajarma. “The Scottish Government’s adoption of the problematic IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of anti-Semitism limits that freedom by protecting the state of Israel from democratic critiques of its widely recognised apartheid structures.
“Responding in part to the question of the IHRA definition, Lord Bracadale’s 2018 Review of Hate Crime Legislation accepted the case put forward by Palestinians and others that legislation should not protect ‘political entities’ since that could lead to the ‘curtailment of freedom of expression and freedom of political debate’.”
In their letter, the signatories demand that the Scottish Government should act on the findings of Lord Bracadale’s hate crime review which it commissioned.
“The Palestinian community voice has been absent while the state that violates them has been armed and supported by our government and the entire UK political class,” commented the co-founder of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Mick Napier. “That Palestinian first-person voice is uniquely compelling in forcing acknowledgement of the blood-soaked record of Israel, its past and present record of violent ethnic cleansing that is concealed or justified by our politicians.”
Napier added the warning that, “The Scottish Government seems intent on burying Bracadale’s warning that the IHRA can muzzle free speech. It must not be allowed to do so.”
I’ve always believed that hate towards and the unfair treatment of Jews should be roundly condemned, opposed and met with zero tolerance. But to be frank, the IHRA definition, which seeks to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, does not serve to protect Jews; it is all about protecting the rogue state of Israel and its zealous supporters.
Towards the end of last year, I wrote about 82-year-old Diana Neslen who faced expulsion from the Labour Party after she was accused of posting “anti-Semitic” views on social media. The problem for Labour leader Keir Starmer and his party, though, was that Diana is a Jew.
After three investigations by the party she became so fed up that she employed lawyers, who fired off a warning letter telling Labour officials that her anti-Zionist viewpoint is a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act in the UK. Furthermore, the lawyers at Bindmans said that she herself had been “subjected by the party to discrimination and harassment related to her protected philosophical belief.”
Predictably, the Labour Party backed down although it has yet to apologise to Neslen or abandon complaints against other party members under similar investigations. Jewish Voice for Labour, of which Neslen is a member, says that at least 46 Jewish Labour Party members, two of whom have since died, have faced or are facing disciplinary charges relating to allegations of anti-Semitism.
“To say that we are insulting Jews is wrong,” Neslen told the Guardian in February. “We are acting in accord with what we regard as Jewish values and Jewish ethics, and I’m not going to change that.”
So it seems that for most Palestinians and many Jews, the IHRA was designed to protect Israel, its racist policies and its Zionist supporters. Meanwhile, Lord Bracadale’s report makes it crystal clear that criticism of Israel and its racist policies is entirely legitimate.
There can be no doubt that anti-Semitism is a crime, but equally there can be no doubt that fighting Zionism is a duty for anyone who opposes apartheid. It’s time for Sturgeon and her government to get off the fence, scrap their support for the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and allow Scottish Palestinians to tell their stories without let or hindrance.
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Book Review
The Voters’ Self-Induced Matrix
By Jeb Smith | The Libertarian Institute | April 20, 2026
In Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions, Professor Todd Rose explains that to belong to a group, people “keep twisting [themselves] into pretzels, trying to conform to what we falsely believe everyone else expects of us.” Seeking acceptance from the group, we conform in language, behavior, beliefs, and practices. As a result, we lose our individuality and aggregate into herds. Within our group we create an alternate reality to fit whichever collective mindset we attach ourselves to, and interpret the world through those lenses—our innate desire to belong overrides reality.
Rose says these illusions “have become a defining feature of our modern society.” In other words, the collectivist mindset is a great conduit for spreading illusions; thus, it is the politician’s favored form of governance.
Rose points to studies in psychology and neuroscience showing we delude ourselves into believing what the majority does, even if it is not what we desire or know to be accurate. … continue
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