US funds Ukraine outlets that censor and smear pro-peace Americans – report
Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov, Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Photo by Vladimir Shtanko/Anadolu Agency)
RT | April 11, 2024
A “sprawling constellation” of supposedly independent organizations and fact-checkers bankrolled by Washington has been behind labeling Americans who disagree with Kiev Russian propagandists, according to an investigation published on Thursday.
Journalist Lee Fang and RealClearInvestigations have looked into outfits such as New Voice of Ukraine, VoxUkraine, Detector Media and others, finding that in many cases they “promoted aggressive messages that stray from traditional journalistic practices” to support the Ukrainian government and “delegitimize its critics,” both at home and abroad.
Americans they have gone after range from economist Jeffrey Sachs and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer to journalists Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald. Some of these outfits have also denounced a factually correct New York Times article about the battle of Avdeevka as a “Russian psyop” and “disinformation.”
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) have funded scores of Ukrainian organizations. Some of them act as fact-checking partners for Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms, helping Ukraine censor critics under the guise of fighting “Russian disinformation.”
The London-based Zinc Network has been paid by USAID to “undermine Kremlin information operations” and help Ukraine with its own “strategic communications.”
According to another investigative journalist, Jack Poulson, Zinc’s Open Information Partnership in Ukraine has defined disinformation as “verifiable information which is unbalanced or skewed, amplifies, or exaggerates certain elements for effect, or uses emotive or inflammatory language to achieve effects which fit within existing Kremlin narratives, aims, or activities.”
Asked about the “anti-disinformation” groups in Ukraine targeting Americans, the State Department told Fang and RealClear that it “provides funding to credible independent media organizations to strengthen democracies in the countries we work in around the world.”
“We do not control the editorial content of these organizations,” the State Department insisted. According to documents Fang has reviewed, however, the US government and its contractors have “directly set the agenda” for Ukrainian outlets.
The US is “an active participant” in the information war between Russia and Ukraine, George Beebe, a director with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Fang. “The US government has been trying to shape perceptions, and it’s very difficult to separate what’s intended for foreign audiences from what seeps into the Anglosphere media,” he added.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has accused Russia of influencing US lawmakers and society at large. While he has offered little evidence for his claims, Fang’s investigation has revealed that much of the content generated by US-funded Ukrainian outlets “explicitly targets American foreign policy discourse.”
Jim Jordan Demands Big Tech CEOs and Feds Hand Over Censorship Collusion Documents
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 10, 2024
Advocating for transparency in the interactions between Big Tech and the government, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has taken further action. On Tuesday, he issued letters to the FBI, Department of Justice, and CEOs of key Big Tech firms, including Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. These letters were not just mere inquiries; they were demands for documents that could shed light on the Biden administration’s communication with social media companies.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
Jordan’s initiative isn’t isolated but comes in the context of an ongoing legal battle concerning the government’s alleged collaboration with social media platforms. He pointed out in a recent press release that the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) had, as of March, re-engaged with major social media companies. This development, especially considering the FITF’s prior interactions with these companies during the 2020 presidential election, raises significant concerns for Jordan. With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, he finds the renewal of this relationship between the FITF and Big Tech worrisome.
The documents are related to the renewed efforts of the DOJ to work with tech companies after the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of censorship claims.
He expressed these apprehensions, stating, “Given the FITF’s improper role in communicating with social media and technology companies during the 2020 presidential election, the resumption of meetings between the FITF and Big Tech before the 2024 presidential election is deeply troubling.”
But Jordan’s requests went beyond mere expressions of concern. He specifically asked Alphabet, and similarly, the other companies and government agencies, to produce detailed documentation of their communications with the FITF or the San Francisco Field Office of the FBI. He underscored the urgency and legitimacy of his request by referencing a continuing subpoena issued last year.
German Intelligence Chief Advocates for Monitoring Speech and Thought
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | April 9, 2024
The head of Germany’s domestic spy agency, Thomas Haldenwang, has penned an op-ed for a German newspaper and provided some insight into the way he understands freedom of expression, and more importantly, its limits.
Haldenwang, who is at the helm of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), defended in the article published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung his policy of keeping watch on citizens, which includes things like “thought and speech patterns.”
At the same time, Haldenwang didn’t rule out that legal expressions of opinion might be targeted in this population surveillance effort, and made attempts to provide justification for such a stance.
Meanwhile, critics see this as a policy designed to advance restrictions on speech and economic freedoms, primarily aimed at political opponents. In fact, recent polls suggest that most citizens also believe that BfV has become a political tool, and this opinion is said to be strongly present among parties (other than, unsurprisingly, the Greens).
That seems to be precisely the reason Haldenwang felt compelled to publish his thoughts in the newspaper, noting the increased frequency of “headlines and articles” that question and criticize BfV’s activities, some suggesting the agency is policing opinion, language, and even “mood” – and is morphing into German government’s, basically, “bodyguard.”
Haldenwang goes on to assert that “freedom of opinion prevails” in his country, and reminds his readers (less so, it seems, himself) that this freedom is what separates a democracy from an autocracy.
But, the BfV chief also seems to differentiate between “freedom of opinion” and freedom to actually express that opinion. And while in Germany one can have “offensive, absurd and radical opinions” – freedom of expression “has its limits,” he writes.
“Even within the limits of criminal law, however, expressions of opinion, despite their legality, can become relevant for constitutional protection,” the op-ed goes on.
This can be interpreted as yet another example of authorities in a declaratively democratic country trying to find a way to restrict speech they don’t like regardless of its being formally legal – while at the same time being unwilling to legislate to outlaw it, either because of lack of political consensus, or fear of political backlash.
As for what is speech and opinion that the Constitution may need protecting from, the “definition” is broad enough to fit in a lot of things.
It includes “permissible criticism and democratic protest escalating and turning into aggressive, systematic delegitimization of state conduct” – and this may or may not include “calls for violence.” There’s also violation of “human dignity of members of certain social groups or political actors.”
Disasters Cost More Than Ever — But Not Because of Climate Change
From the archives, a look back and an update
Fundraiser from 2014. We learned from Wikileaks that Tom Steyer, the Center for American Progress, and Michael Mann were behind the curtain. Just $10? Deplatforming me should get at least $15!
By Roger Pielke | The Honest Broker | March 26, 2024
This week marks my final spring break as a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Ten years ago this week, during spring break while on vacation with my family, I was dealing with the consequences of what appeared to be an online mob seeking to get me fired from Nate Silver’s 538 where I had just been hired as a writer.
My first piece for 538 was a summary of recent IPCC report consensus conclusions on disasters and extreme events. The apparent mobbing worked.1 I soon lost my position as a writer at 538.
Not long after, I was under investigation by a member of Congress.2 I lost the support of my university and my role in the center I had founded, so I moved across campus to work on sports governance.3 I have little doubt that I remained employed only thanks to academic tenure. It was quite an experience.
Two years later, in 2016, courtesy of the Wikileaks publication of John Podesta’s emails, it was revealed that the Center for American Progress, funded by billionaire Tom Steyer and in collaboration with the ever-present Michael Mann, had been engaged in a well-funded campaign to delegitimize my research, hurt my career, and to have me removed as a writer at 538.4
I can draw a straight line from those events a decade ago to where I am today. And given where I am today, I wouldn’t change a thing. I have no hard feelings towards Nate — He got played and did what he felt he had to at the time.
Below, I have reproduced my first column at 538 in 2014 that was apparently so threatening to some in the climate advocacy community.5 I also add a post-script below. How does it hold up?
In the 1980s, the average annual cost of natural disasters worldwide was $50 billion. In 2012, Superstorm Sandy met that mark in two days. As it tore through New York and New Jersey on its journey up the east coast, Sandy became the second-most expensive hurricane in American history, causing in a few hours what just a generation ago would have been a year’s worth of disaster damage.
Sandy’s huge price tag fit a trend: Natural disasters are costing more and more money. See the graph below, which shows the global tally of disaster expenses for the past 24 years. It’s courtesy of Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies, which maintains a widely used global loss data set. (All costs are adjusted for inflation.)
In the last two decades, natural disaster costs worldwide went from about $100 billion per year to almost twice that amount. That’s a huge problem, right? Indicative of more frequent disasters punishing communities worldwide? Perhaps the effects of climate change? Those are the questions that Congress, the World Bank and, of course, the media are asking. But all those questions have the same answer: no.
When you read that the cost of disasters is increasing, it’s tempting to think that it must be because more storms are happening. They’re not. All the apocalyptic “climate porn” in your Facebook feed is solely a function of perception. In reality, the numbers reflect more damage from catastrophes because the world is getting wealthier. We’re seeing ever-larger losses simply because we have more to lose — when an earthquake or flood occurs, more stuff gets damaged. And no matter what President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron say, recent costly disasters are not part of a trend driven by climate change. The data available so far strongly shows they’re just evidence of human vulnerability in the face of periodic extremes.
To identify changes in extreme weather, it’s best to look at the statistics of extreme weather. Fortunately, scientists have invested a lot of effort into looking at data on extreme weather events, and recently summarized their findings in a major United Nations climate report, the fifth in a series dating back to 1990. That report concluded that there’s little evidence of a spike in the frequency or intensity of floods, droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes. There have been more heat waves and intense precipitation, but these phenomena are not significant drivers of disaster costs. In fact, today’s climate models suggest that future changes in extremes that cause the most damage won’t be detectable in the statistics of weather (or damage) for many decades.
On Earth, extreme events don’t happen in a vacuum. Their costs are rising, sure, but so is overall wealth. When we take that graph above and measure disaster cost relative to global GDP, it changes quite a bit.6
Occasionally, big disasters bring outsize costs — especially the Kobe earthquake in 1995, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Honshu earthquake in 2011 — but the overall trend in disaster costs proportional to GDP since 1990 has stayed fairly level. Of course, wealthy countries hold all of the sway in worldwide cost estimates, which tips the scales when we’re looking for a “global” perspective on extreme events. U.S. hurricanes, for example, are responsible for 58 percent of the increase in the property losses in the Munich Re global dataset.
That’s just the property bill. There’s a human toll, too, and the data show an inverse relationship between lives lost and property damage: Modern disasters bring the greatest loss of life in places with the lowest property damage, and the most property damage where there’s the lowest loss of life. Consider that since 1940 in the United States 3,322 people have died in 118 hurricanes that made landfall. Last year in a poor region of the Philippines, a single storm, Typhoon Hayain, killed twice as many people.
We can start to estimate how countries may weather crises differently thanks to a 2005 analysis of historical data on global disasters. That study estimated that a nation with a $2,000 per capita average GDP — about that of Honduras — should expect more than five times the number of disaster deaths as a country like Russia, with a $14,000 per capita average GDP.2 (For comparison, the U.S. has a per capita GDP of about $52,000.)
In the 20th century, the human toll of disasters decreased dramatically, with a 92 percent reduction in deaths from the 1930s to the 2000s worldwide. Yet when the Boxing Day Tsunami struck Southeast Asia in 2004, more than 225,000 people died.
So the frequency of disasters still matters, and especially in countries that are ill-prepared for them. After 41 people died in two volcanic eruptions in Indonesia last month, a government official explained the high stakes: “We have 100 million people living in places that are prone to disasters, including volcanoes, earthquakes and floods. It’s a big challenge for the local and central governments.”
When you next hear someone tell you that worthy and useful efforts to mitigate climate change will lead to fewer natural disasters, remember these numbers and instead focus on what we can control. There is some good news to be found in the ever-mounting toll of disaster losses. As countries become richer, they are better able to deal with disasters — meaning more people are protected and fewer lose their lives. Increased property losses, it turns out, are a price worth paying.
Postscript March 2024
As THB readers well know, I have continued the research that was the subject of the column above. Below is an update to the figures in the column above, adjusted just for inflation and with 11 more years of data.
Inflation adjusted losses, 1990 to 2023.
Below is the second figure showing weather and climate disaster losses as a proportion of global GDP.
Global weather and climate losses as a percent of global GDP, 1990 to 2023.
I’ve published this analysis in the peer-reviewed literature as well:
Pielke, R. (2019). Tracking progress on the economic costs of disasters under the indicators of the sustainable development goals. Environmental Hazards, 18(1), 1-6.
Scotland Police May Be Forced To Make Budget Cuts To Deal With Authoritarian Speech Complaints
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 8, 2024
Police Scotland is grappling with potential budgetary pressures and service reductions. David Threadgold of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) has raised concerns about the financial impact of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. According to him, the legislation has already led to an overload of calls, with over 6,000 logged since its enactment. This influx of reports, he fears, will necessitate cuts elsewhere in the police budget.
Threadgold’s worry centers on the unforeseen costs of handling these cases, particularly the overtime payments for control room staff. He believes these expenses will reverberate throughout the year, affecting other police services. Calum Steele, former general secretary of the SPF, echoes these concerns. As reported by The Scotsman, Steele criticized Police Scotland’s preparation for the Act, calling it “negligently unprepared” and pointing out that the additional costs were predictable.
The new authoritarian legislation has been criticized not only for its financial burden but also for its potential to stifle free speech. The Act consolidates existing hate crime laws and introduces a new offense of inciting hatred against protected characteristics. This broadening of the law has sparked fears about its impact on free speech and expression.
Critics, including Tory MSP Russell Findlay, have accused Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf of ignoring these concerns. Yousaf, for his part, maintains confidence in Police Scotland’s ability to manage these cases, emphasizing that the force is well-equipped and trained for this task.
The legislation’s impact extends beyond financial strains. The Act has resulted in a notable rise in the logging of non-crime hate incidents, incidents perceived as hateful but not necessarily criminal. This increase has prompted concerns about a potential inundation of trivial or malicious complaints, especially in the context of highly charged events like football matches. Tory MSP Murdo Fraser has already lodged a complaint over a tweet he posted being logged as a hate incident.
The Scottish government and Police Scotland maintain that they are adept at handling such cases. However, critics argue that the focus on these hate incidents diverts attention and resources from more serious crimes, potentially impacting the overall efficacy of law enforcement.
Fauci’s Inquisition Against Safe and Effective Anti-COVID-19 Drugs
By Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null | Global Research | April 6, 2024
A question needs to be asked. Were the novel experimental drug treatments for SARS-CoV-2 viral infections that Anthony Fauci, the CDC and FDA advocated for and funded responsible for worsening the contagion and countless deaths?
However, at that time there were plenty of studies confirming there were pre-existing safe, inexpensive medications known to have highly effective antiviral properties to treat Covid-19 patients. Among these were ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).
There were also specific nutrients such as vitamin D and zinc, known to strengthen the immune system against viral infection and yet there was no recommendation from the government about the benefits of proper nutrition. So why did Fauci along with other federal health officials choose to intentionally ignore the scientific evidence and rather condemn these repurposed drugs? In Fauci’s case, over a year and half into the pandemic, he continued to lie outright on CNN that “there is no clinical evidence whatsoever that [ivermectin] works.”[1] And could millions have been saved if these generic medications were prescribed rather than the feds doing nothing but recommending social isolation and quarantines as the world awaited an experimental Covid-19 vaccine to enter the market?
To date, between ivermectin and HCQ alone, there have been 670 published studies, analyses and papers involving over 9,800 scientists and over 682,000 patients supporting the use of these drugs over and beyond those the FDA has approved under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) statutes. Despite this, four years later, the FDA continues to fiercely deny ivermectin’s and HCQ’s efficacy and safety under proper administration. Why this blatant cover-up?
Every CDC effort to approve a novel drug treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infections has been a dismal failure. Aside from monoclonal antibody therapy, only three anti-Covid-19 drugs have been approved under an EUA in the United States. None met their promised expectations from either the manufacturer or our federal health agencies. With their poor efficacy rates, safety profiles and a black box warning slapped upon Pfizer’s anti-Covid-19 drug Paxlovid, the CDC is scrambling to find new viable alternatives in the pharmaceutical pipeline. Bloomberg amplifies the fake Covid-19 treatment crisis by lamenting that repurposed drugs such as ivermectin are gaining global popularity as “the world needs effective Covid drugs.”[2]
Shortly after the pandemic was formally announced, the FDA recommended the cheap over the counter anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine but then quickly reversed its decision after Fauci publicly announced the future arrival of Gilead Sciences’ novel intravenous drug Remdesivir. The FDA’s and European Union’s approvals of Remdesivir baffled many scientists, according to the journal Science, who questioned its therapeutic value and kept a close watch on the drug’s clinical reports about a “disproportionally high number of reports of liver and kidney problems.”[3] Even an earlier Chinese study published in The Lancet found that remdesivir had no impact on the coronavirus. The Science article notes that the “FDA never consulted a group of outside experts that it has at the ready to weigh in on complicated antiviral drug issues.”[4] Six months before remdesivir received EUA approval, Anthony Fauci had already hailed the drug as a major breakthrough that would establish a new “standard of care” in Covid-19 treatment.[5]
Today, remdesivir is being increasingly recognized as a debacle in antiviral therapeutic care. Even the WHO released a “conditional recommendation against the use of remdesivir in hospitalized patients, regardless of disease severity, as there is currently no evidence that remdesivir improves survival and other outcomes in these patients.” An Italian study observed a 416 percent increase in hepatocellular injuries among hospitalized Covid-19 patients treated with Remdesivir.[6] And a smaller Taiwanese study of hospitalized unvaccinated patients reported a 185 percent higher mortality during late remdesivir treatment.[7]
Earlier this year, Pfizer’s novel oral Covid-19 medication Paxlovid was given an FDA black box warning for clinically significant adverse reactions that can potentially be fatal. Because the company does not permit independent random-controlled trials to investigate its drug, other than retrospective studies, we only have Pfizer’s own data to rely upon. Nevertheless, The Lancet published a study by a team of Chinese scientists at Shanghai Jiao Tong School of Medicine that managed to look at Paxlovid’s use among critically ill patients hospitalized with Covid-19. The study reported a 27 percent higher risk of the infection progressing, a 67 percent increased risk in requiring ventilation, and 10 percent longer stays in ICU facilities.[8]
Paxlovid is a combination of a novel SARS-CoV-2 protease inhibitor and the HIV protease inhibitor ritonavir. The FDA approved Paxlovid under a EUA with the claim it was safe. However, on the government’s HIV.gov website for ritonavir it is clearly stated that the drug “can cause serious life-threatening side effects. These include inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis), heart rhythm problems, severe skin rash and allergic reactions, liver problems and drug interactions.”[9] Perhaps due to the drug’s serious side effects, it is no longer used solely against HIV, but rather is given in smaller doses as a booster for AZT-related drugs. Being highly toxic, ritonavir is also not recommended for pregnant women and has been shown to interfere with hormone-based birth control efficacy.
Paxlovid only received FDA EUA approval in May 2023. At that time, the agency claimed there was no evidence that patients who were treated with the drug rebounded and came down with Covid. However, shortly thereafter this was determined to be untrue.[10] A Harvard analysis found that 21 percent of Paxlovid recipients will remain contagious and likely succumb to a viral rebound compared to only 1.8 percent who did not take the drug.
Merck’s anti-Covid-19 drug molnupiravir (Lagevrio) also has an FDA black box warning for potential fetal harm when administered to pregnant women. Why the drug was ever approved under an EUA seems to be an enigma. The drug’s antiviral activity is based upon a metabolite known as NHC, which for many years has been known to create havoc in an enzyme crucial for viral replication by inserting errors into the virus’ genetic code. The theory is: produce enough errors and the virus kills itself off. However, molnupiravir can cause hundreds of mutations thereby “supercharging” the manufacturing of new Covid-19 viral strains. Moreover, according to a Forbes article, the drug’s mutagenic powers may also interfere with our own body’s enzymes and DNA.[11] Another Forbes article points out that Merck’s clinical trial only enrolled around 1,500 participants, which is far too “small to pick up on rare mutagenic events.”[12]
Molnupiravir has a poor efficacy rate across the board including viral clearance, recovery, and hospitalizations/death (68 percent).[13] One trial, funded by Merck, concluded the drug had no clinical benefit.[14] More worrisome, the drug also has life-threatening adverse effects including mutagenic risks to human DNA and mitochondria, carcinogenic activity and embryonic death.[15]
Each of these drugs have been outrageous cash cows for their manufacturers. Remdesivir is priced at $3,120 per treatment and earned Gilead $5.6 billion in sales for 2021.
Pfizer’s Paxlovid is priced at $1,390 per treatment. Last year, the company’s revenues for its Covid products—Paxlovid and the Comirnaty vaccine—came in at $12.5 billion, and, according to Fierce Pharma, Pfizer wrote off an additional $4.7 billion on its overstocked Paxlovid inventory.[16] Merck’s molnupiravir’s sales for 2022 cashed in almost $5.7 billion. Despite their profits, none of these drugs have been shown convincingly to have measurably lessened the pandemic nor the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
Despite all the attention and medical hype about novel experimental antiviral drugs to treat Covid-19, Anthony Fauci and other federal officials had full knowledge that other FDA-approved drugs existed that could have been quickly repurposed at minimal expense to effectively treat Covid-19 infections. Repurposing existing drugs to treat illness is a common occurrence. The antiparasitic and antiviral drug Ivermectin best stands out. Its effectiveness was observed to be so remarkable and multifaceted that researchers started to investigate its potential.
The mainstream media, including many liberal news sources who pride themselves on their independence, continue to channel the voices of Anthony Fauci, the CDC and FDA to demonize ivermectin and other generic drugs for treating Covid-19 and to reduce hospitalization and deaths. This propaganda campaign, however, has completely ignored the large body of medical literature that shows ivermectin’s statistically significant efficacy against symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-2 infections.
Originally developed for veterinarian use, in 1987, the FDA approved ivermectin for treating two parasitic diseases, river blindness and stronglyoidiasis, in humans. Since then an enormous body of medical research has grown showing ivermectin’s effectiveness for treating other diseases. Its broad range of antiviral properties has shown efficacy against many RNA viruses such avian influenza, zika, dengue, HIV, West Nile, yellow fever, chikungunya and earlier severe respiratory coronaviruses. It has also been shown to be effective against DNA viruses such as herpes, polyomavirus, and circovirus-2.[17]
Unsurprisingly, ivermectin’s inventors Drs. William Campbell and Satoshi Omura were awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
It has been prescribed to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Given its decades’ long record of in vitro efficacy, it should have been self-evident for Fauci’s NIAID, the CDC and the WHO to rapidly conduct in vivo trials to usher ivermectin as a first line of defense for early stage Covid-19 infections and for use as a safe prophylaxis.
For example, if funding were devoted for the rapid development of a micro-based pulmonary delivery system, mortality rates would have been miniscule and the pandemic would have been lessened greatly.[18] Repurposing ivermectin could have been achieved very quickly at a minor expense.[19] However, despite all the medical evidence confirming ivermectin’s strong antiviral properties and its impeccable safety record when administered properly, we instead witnessed a sophisticated government-orchestrated campaign to declare war against ivermectin and another antiviral drug, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), in favor of far more expensive and EUA approved experimental drugs. Unlike the US, other nations were eager to find older drugs to repurpose against Covid-19 and protect their populations. A Johns Hopkins University analysis offered the theory that a reason why many African countries had very few to near zero Covid-19 fatalities was because of widespread deployment of ivermectin. In February 2020, the National Health Commission of China, for example, was the first to include hydroxychloroquine in its guidelines for treating mild, moderate and severe SARS-2 cases. Eight Latin American nations distribute home Covid-19 treatment kits that include ivermectin.[20] Why did the US and most European countries swayed by the US and the WHO fail to follow suit?
Early in the pandemic, physicians in other nations where treatment was less restricted, such as Spain and Italy, shared data with American physicians about effective treatments against the SARS-2 virus. In addition, there was a large corpus of medical research indicating that older antiviral drugs could be repurposed. Doctors who started to prescribe drugs such as ivermectin and HCQ, along with Vitamin D and zinc supplementation, observed remarkable results. Unlike the dismal recovery and high mortality rates reported in hospitals and large clinics that relied upon strict isolation, quarantine, and ventilator interventions, this small fringe group of physicians reported very few deaths among their large patient loads. Even reported deaths were more often than not compounded by patients’ comorbidities, poor medical facilities and other anomalies.
Very early into the pandemic, medical papers indicated ivermectin was a highly effective drug to treat SARS-2 infections.
In April 2020, less than a month after the WHO declared Covid-19 as a global pandemic, Australian researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity published a paper demonstrating that a single ivermectin dose can control SARS-CoV-2 viral replication within 24-48 hours.[21] Monash University’s Biomedicine Discovery Institute in Australia had also published an early study that ivermectin destroyed SARS-2 infected cell cultures by 99.8 percent within 48 hours. But no American federal health official paid any attention.
As of March 2024, a database for all studies and trials investigating ivermectin against Covid-19 infections records a total of 248 studies, 195 peer-reviewed, and 102 involving controlled groups reporting an average 61 percent improvement for early infections, a 39 percent success rate in treating late infections, and an 85 percent average success rate for use as a preventative prophylaxis.[22] Moreover, prescribing ivermectin reduced mortality by 49 percent, compared to remdesivir’s 4 percent, Pfizer’s Paxlovid’s 31 percent, and molnupiravir’s 22 percent. Even hydroxychloroquine well outperforms these drugs mortality risk for early treatment at 66 percent.
A noteworthy study conducted in Brazil and published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science prescribed ivermectin in a citywide prophylaxis program in a town of 223,000 residents. 133,000 took ivermectin. The results for a population of this size are indisputable in concluding that ivermectin is a safe first line of defense to confront the pandemic. Covid mortality was reduced 90 percent. There was also a 67 percent lower risk of hospitalization and a 44 percent decrease in Covid cases. Garcia-Aquilar et al reports a Mexican in vitro analysis showing a definitive interaction between ivermectin and the SAR-CoV-2 spike protein, which would account for its high efficacy in Covid-19 cases.[23]
The All India Institute for Medical Science (AIIMS) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), two of India’s most prestigious institutions, acted against the WHO and launched an ivermectin treatment campaign in several states. In Uttar Pradesh there was a 95 percent decrease in morality (a decline from 37,944 to 2,014). The Indian capital of New Delhi witnessed a 97 percent reduction. During the same time period, the state of Tamil Nadu, which followed the WHO’s ban on ivermectin, had a 173 percent increase in deaths (from 10,986 to 30,016 deaths).
There have been many concerted efforts to discredit ivermectin and other repurposed drugs’ effectiveness. Most notable is the large TOGETHER Trial Brazil study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that concluded both ivermectin and another repurposed drug fluvoxamine showed no beneficial signs for treating Covid-19 patients. The study was widely reported in the mainstream media. However, a Cato Institute analysis discovered the study in fact showed its benefits and the results were in agreement with 87 percent of other clinical trials investigating ivermectin. The Cato analysis identifies many odd anomalies in how the trial was conducted including an unspecified placebo—although it is suspected it was Vitamin C, which has itself been shown to be mildly effective against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and protocol changes as the study was underway including inclusion/exclusion criteria. By his own admission the TOGETHER Trial’s principal investigator Dr. Ed Mills at McMaster University in Ontario “designs clinical trials, predominantly for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”[24] In a McMaster University press release, the Gates foundation is listed as a funder for the study to debunk ivermectin and fluvoxamine.[25] Oddly, Gates is nowhere listed among the several funders in the NEJM study’s disclosure. In addition, TOGETHER Trials is owned by the Canadian for profit startup Purpose Life Sciences, founded by Mills; legal documents showed Mills’ PLS is largely funded and controlled by Sam Bankman Fried’s FTX who invested $53 million into the project. Administrators of FTX’s bankruptcy are suing PLS for fraud.[26]
In short, the ivermectin/fluvoxamine TOGETHER Trial was a complete medical sham and intentionally designed for one single purpose: to fuel media disinformation in order to undermine ivermectin’s superior efficacy and safety profile to Big Pharma’s more profitable designer drugs.
In 2004, the US Congress passed an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act known as Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). This piece of legislature legalized an anti-regulatory pathway to allow experimental medical interventions to be expedited and bypass standard FDA safety evaluations in the event of bioterrorist threats and national health emergencies such as pandemics. At the time, passage of the EUA amendment made sense because it was partially in response to the 2001 anthrax attacks and the US’s entry into an age of international terrorism. However, the amendment raises some serious considerations. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, EUAs had only been authorized on four occasions: the 2005 avian H5N1 and 2009 H1N1 swine flu threats, the 2014 Ebola and the 2016 Zikra viruses. Each of these pathogen scares proved to be false alarms that posed no threat of pandemic proportions to Americans. The fifth time EUAs were invoked was in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, which at the time seemed far more plausible.
Before the government can authorize an EUA to deploy an experimental diagnostic product, drug or vaccine, certain requirements must be fulfilled. First, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must have sufficient proof that the nation is being confronted with a serious life-threatening health emergency. Second, the drug(s) and/or vaccine(s) under consideration must have sufficient scientific evidence to suggest they will likely be effective against the medical threat. The evidence must at least include preclinical and observational data showing the product targets the organism, disease or condition. Third, although the drug or vaccine does not undergo a rigorous evaluation, it must at least show that its potential and known benefits outweigh its potential and known risks. In addition, the product must be manufactured in complete accordance with standard quality control and safety assurances.
When we look back at the government’s many debacles during the Covid-19 pandemic, other EUA requirements warrant the spotlight. On the one hand, an EUA cannot be authorized for any product or intervention if there is an FDA alternative approved product already available, unless the experimental product is clearly proven to have a significant advantage. Moreover, and perhaps more important, EUAs demand informed consent. Every individual who receives the drug or vaccine must be thoroughly informed about its experimental status and its potential risks and benefits. Recipients must also be properly informed about the alternatives to the experimental product and nobody should be forced to take it.
Finally, an EUA requires robust safety monitoring and reporting of adverse events, injuries and deaths potentially due to the drug or vaccine. This is the responsibility not only of the private pharmaceutical manufacturers but also the FDA, physicians, hospitals, clinics and other healthcare professionals.
Obviously important cautions must be considered after approving a medical intervention under the EUA requirements. Foremost are the inherent health risks of any rapid response of experimental medical interventions, especially novel drugs and vaccines. As we observed during the FDA approval process and roll out of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s mRNA Covid-19 jabs, no long-term human trials were conducted to even estimate a reliable baseline of their relative efficacy and safety. The American public has blindly placed its trust in our federal health authorities decision-making. It is expected that under a national health emergency, the authorities would be completely transparent and act only by the highest ethical standards. However our institutions betrayed public trust and either ignored or transgressed cautions underlying EUA approved medical interventions in every conceivable way. Moreover, conflicts of interests have been discovered to have plagued the entire EUA review process.
Although the EUA amendment provides some protections to authorized drug and vaccine manufacturers, it was the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP) in 2005 that expanded liability protections. In addition to protecting private corporations, PREP also shields company executives and employees from claims of personal injury or death resulting from the administration of authorized countermeasures. The only exceptions for liability are if the company or its executive offices are proven to have engaged in intentional and/or criminal misconduct with conscious disregard for the rights and safety of those taking their drugs and vaccines.
During the pandemic, the FDA issued widespread EUAs with liability immunity for the PCR diagnostic kits for SARS-2, the mRNA vaccines and the anti-Covid-19 drugs. Curiously, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services invoked the PREP Act on February 4, 2020 giving liability protections; this was over a month before the pandemic was officially announced, which raises serious questions about prior-planning before the viral outbreak in Wuhan, China.
From the pandemic’s outset, Fauci embarked on the media circuit to promise Americans that federal health agencies were doing everything within their means to get a vaccine on the market because there was no available drug to clear the SARS-2 virus. As we have seen with respect to ivermectin alone, this was patently false. Rather the government placed an overriding emphasis on vaccination with a near total disregard for implementing very simple preventative measures to inhibit viral progression. Once mass vaccinations were underway, we were promised that the SARS-2 virus would be defeated and life would return to normal. In retrospect, we can look back and state with a degree of certainty that American health authorities and these products’ corporate manufacturers may have violated almost every EUA requirement. Everything that went wrong with the PCR kits, the experimental mRNA vaccines and novel drugs could have been avoided if the government had diligently repurposed effective and safe measures as pandemic countermeasures. Very likely, hundreds of thousands of lives, perhaps millions, would have been saved.
Similarly the FDA issued a warning statement against the use of ivermectin. Even ivermectin’s manufacturer Merck discredited its own product. Shortly after ridiculing its drug, the Alliance for Natural Health reported, “Merck announced positive results from a clinical trial on a new drug called molnupiravir in eliminating the virus in infected patients.”[27]
And still the FDA considers these novel patented drugs to be superior to ivermectin. Favoring a vaccine regime and government-controlled surveillance measures to track every American’s movements, American health officials blatantly neglected their own pandemic policies’ severe health consequences. Ineffective lockdowns, masks, social isolation, unsound critical care interventions such as relying upon ventilators, and the sole EUA approvals of the costly and insufficiently effective drugs brought about nightmares for tens of millions of adults and children. This was all undertaken under Fauci’s watch and the heads of the US health agencies in direct violation of the EUA requirements to only authorize drugs and medical interventions when no other safe and effective alternative is available. Alternatives were available.
The 4-year history of the pandemic highlights a sharp distinction between dependable medical research and pseudoscientific fraud. The CDC adopted a common Soviet era practice to redefine the very definition of a vaccine and the parameters of vaccine efficacy in order to fit economic and ideological agendas. This explains Washington’s aggressive public relations endeavors to silence medical opponents. According to cardiologist Dr. Michael Goodkin’s private investigations, several of the most cited studies discrediting ivermectin’s antiviral benefits were intentionally manipulated in order to produce “fake” results.[28] These studies were then widely distributed to the AMA, American College of Physicians and across mainstream media to author “hit pieces” to demonize ivermectin and other repurposed drugs. The government’s belligerent and reactive diatribes, brazenly or casually advocating for censorship, were direct violations of scientific and medical integrity and contributed nothing towards developing constructive policies for handling a pandemic with a minimal cost to life. The consequence has been a less informed and grossly naïve public, which was gaslighted into believing lies.
The FDA’s EUAs for the Covid-19 vaccines and novel experimental drugs were in fact an attack on the amendments and PREP directives. Neither the vaccines nor drugs warranted emergency authorization because effective and safe alternatives were readily available. No doubt a Congressional investigation would uncover criminal misconduct and conscious fraud. Moreover, these violations of the PREP Act may have the potential to lead directly into medical crimes against humanity as outlined in the Nuremberg Code.
Although the Nuremberg Code has not been officially adopted in its entirety as law by any nation or major medical association, other international treaties, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (which is not legally binding), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research on Human Subjects incorporate some of Nuremberg’s main principles that aim to protect people from unethical and forced medical research. Although the US signed the ICCPR as an intentional party, the US Senate never ratified it. The ICCPR’s Article 7 clearly states, “No one shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” which can legally be interpreted to include forced medical experimentation implied as cruel, inhuman treatment. Other ICCPR articles, 6 and 17, are also applicable to medical experimentation to ensure ethical conduct, obtaining proper informed consent and the right to life and privacy. For a moment, consider the numerous senior citizens in nursing homes and hospitals who were simply administered experimental Covid-19 vaccines without full knowledge about what they were receiving. And now how many children are being coerced by the pseudoscience of health officials’ lies to be vaccinated without any knowledge of these mRNA products’ risk-benefit ratio?
The US is also a signatory to the Helsinki Declaration, which, although not directly aligned with Nuremberg, shares much in common. The Declaration shares some common features with the EUA amendment and PREP Act. These include voluntary informed consent—which is universally accepted, adequate risk and benefit information about medical interventions, and an emphasis on the principle of medical beneficence (promoting well-being and the Hippocratic rule of doing no harm). It also guarantees protections for vulnerable groups, especially pregnant women and children, which the US government and vaccine makers directly violated by conducting trials on these groups with full knowledge about these vaccines’ adverse events in adults. In addition, weighing the scientific evidence to assess the risk-benefit ratios between prescribing ivermectin and HCQ over the new generation of novel experimental drugs conclusively favors the former. This alone directly violates the ethical medical principles noted above.
However, the failure to repurpose life-saving drugs is less criminal than the questionable unethical motivations to usher a new generation of genetically engineered vaccines that have never before been adequately researched in human trials for long term safety. This mass experimentation, which continues to threaten the health and well-being of millions of people, is global and can legally be interpreted as a genocidal attack on humanity.
If the emerging data for increasing injuries and deaths due to the Covid-19 vaccines is reliable—and we believe it is—the handling of the pandemic can be regarded as the largest medical crime in human history. In time, and with shifting political allegiances and public demands to hold our leaders in government and private industry accountable, the architects of this medical war against civilization will be brought to justice.
*
Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.
Dr. Gary Null is host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including his recent Last Call to Tomorrow.
Notes
[1] https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2021/08/29/dr-anthony-fauci-ivermectin-covid-19-sotu-vpx.cnn
[4] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31022-9/fulltext
[6] https://www.dldjournalonline.com/article/S1590-8658(21)00923-3/fulltext
[8] https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2666-6065%25252823%25252900012-3
[9] https://clinicalinfo.hiv.gov/en/drugs/ritonavir/patient
[10] https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/13-things-to-know-paxlovid-covid-19
[13] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.20.23284849v1.full.pdf
[14] https://evidence.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/EVIDoa2100044
[15] https://c19early.org/waters.html
[17] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7290143/
[18] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539925/
[19] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7564151/
[21] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7129059/
[22] https://c19ivermectin.com
[23] https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/24/22/16392
[25] https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/855535
[26] https://c19ivm.org/tallaksen.html
[27] https://anh-usa.org/fda-ensures-pharma-profits-on-covid/
[28] https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/are-major-ivermectin-studies-designed-for-failure
Disinformation “Expert” Tells People To Only Use “Trusted Sources,” Avoid “Doing Your Own Research”
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | April 6, 2024
Brianna Lyman, elections correspondent at The Federalist, recently reported on a panel discussion featuring Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth, and Beth Schwanke, Executive Director of the Pitt Disinformation Lab. Schmidt and Schwanke, speaking at a forum organized by Spotlight PA, voiced their stance on “misinformation” and “disinformation” surrounding elections. Strikingly, Schwanke recommended that rather than conducting self-led investigations, Pennsylvanians should place their confidence in so-called “trusted” sources. These include certain institutions and media outlets that have unfortunately been tied in the past to acts of censorship.
“One thing everyone can do to make sure they are seeing accurate information is to use trusted sources. So in elections that means using the Department of State, that means using your county elections office, it means using media organizations that follow, that adhere, to professional journalism standards like … your local NPR affiliate,” Schwanke said. “And it doesn’t mean you know, ‘doing your own research’ and just asking questions and sharing, you know, posts from – I don’t know, in my case, it’s Uncle Joe, right? It means being thoughtful about where your sources are coming from.”
Schwanke’s advice, interestingly, seemed to discourage individual research, questioning, and sharing of ideas. Instead, she advocated the use of sources like the Department of State, county elections offices, and, strikingly, media organizations such as local NPR affiliates, which she implied upheld superior journalistic standards.
Despite what Schwanke says, the importance of being vigilant about our sources of information cannot be overstated. This was vividly demonstrated in the lead-up to the 2020 election when a significant story on Hunter Biden’s laptop by the New York Post was unjustly labeled “disinformation,” and subsequently suppressed across several tech platforms.
As The Federalist reported, what made matters worse, in an incident hinting at bias, NPR blatantly refused to report on the story, with its Managing Editor Terence Samuels declaring it as unworthy of coverage.
The Pennsylvania State Department presented a similar cause for alarm. It announced its collaboration with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to monitor and control online talks deemed a “threat” related to the election process. Despite its claimed intention to offer voters accurate, trustworthy election-related data and to counter threats such as so-called “misinformation,” there is good reason to question the impartiality of its activities. Case in point, CISA had previously facilitated the silencing of Americans expressing valid concerns on social media, as if they were spreading “disinformation,” and even had a post from President Donald Trump flagged under these pretenses.
Related:
Pennsylvania Collaborates With DHS and CISA To Monitor Online Election-Related Speech
New Challenges to the First Amendment from the Biden Administration
By Peter van Buren | We Meant Well | April 3, 2024
The great irony is despite all the fear mongering spewed out about Donald Trump ending democracy, it is mostly the Democrats who are taking shots at its most sacred freedoms, those of the First Amendment.
The House recently passed a bill, HR 7521, seeking to “ban” the popular app Tik Tok from America’s smartphones. The logic works like this: Tik Tok is owned by a Chinese company. Chinese companies are under the control of the Chinese Communists. Therefore, Tik Tok is brainwashing American youth while at the same time gathering their personal data for some undefined yet assumed nefarious use. Tik Tok thus should be banned.
No evidence has been presented for any of the assertions listed — no evidence the Chinese government exerts control over Tik Tok, whose contents are 100 percent user-created, no evidence the app has any purpose other than to make money, and no evidence the app collects data and uses it in some way, nefarious or not. It just feels scary bad, like any other Red Scare, and so the House moved to ban it. The Senate votes soon, and Joe Biden says he will sign the bill if it reaches him.
This is not the first time the government has tried to ban Tik Tok. In 2021, President Donald Trump issued an executive order against Tik Tok that was halted in federal court when a judge found it was “arbitrary and capricious.” Another judge found that the national security threat posted by Tik Tok was “phrased in the hypothetical.” When the state of Montana tried to ban the app in 2023, a federal judge found it “oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users,” with a “pervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment.” Candidate Trump now opposes the Tik Tok ban.
You’d think that was enough for Tik Tok. Yet note the ban is just on some Chinese company owning the app and the bill allows for an American company or ally to buy Tik Tok and go on its merry way. It’s not a ban, it’s a hijacking. And don’t think the Chinese won’t find an American app to retaliate against. Listening Apple and Android?
But that is not where the true First Amendment challenge lies, though “banning” the app can itself be seen as restricting speech. The real challenge lies in the details of the actual bill, another Patriot Act in hiding.
Section 2(a)(1) of the bill prohibits “foreign adversary controlled applications” (FACA) from operating in the U.S. The prohibition applies not just to the app itself but to app stores and Internet hosting providers. There’s even a provision for a penalty of $5,000 per user fine; Tik Tok has 170 million users. Effectively, the bill creates a Federal government kill switch preventing distribution of “prohibited” apps or websites at the hosting level, clear top-down central government censorship of speech and absolutely unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Unless of course the weasel excuse is used that the actual killing of the imported app is carried out by Apple and Google as proxies without being touched by the Feds, the same trick currently used to gather American citizen data, in addition to direct hoovering up of material by the NSA on a scale the Chinese could only dream of.
What is a “foreign adversary controlled application” under Section 2(g)(3) of the new bill? Any social/content-sharing website, desktop app, mobile app, or VR app that has more than a million monthly active users creating content is a FACA when two conditions are met: First, if it is “controlled by a foreign adversary” or a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity controlled by a foreign adversary. Second, if the President determines it “presents a significant threat to the national security of the United States.” The term “controlled by a foreign adversary” means that the company (a) is domiciled in, headquartered in, or organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country; or (b) has a 20 percent ownership group from one of those countries; or (c) is “subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity” from one of those countries (Section 2(g)(1). “Adversary” is currently defined elsewhere in the U.S. Code as Russia, China, North Korea or Iran, but can be changed to someday be, say, France (remember “Freedom Fries“?)
There in the details lies the real challenge to the First Amendment, a set of vague criteria that allow the president to ban websites and apps based on his own finding of threat. No appeals, no due process. Censorship.
Americans have a right to speak freely, and to listen/read/watch freely and make up their own minds. The Supreme Court in Lamont v. Postmaster General already ruled in 1964 that this right even extends to foreign propaganda (the case involved Soviet propaganda materials passing through the U.S. Mail.) In addition, the irony of the U.S. government showing concern for what a foreign company might do with user data when in the U.S. such data is openly for sale, including to the government itself, cannot be dismissed. The Tik Tok ban is bad law, likely unconstitutional, and generally unconscionable.
The Tik Tok bill is not the only current challenge to the First Amendment. As exposed by the Twitter Files and elsewhere, for years the Biden administration worked hand-in-glove with the big tech social media companies, @jack’s old Twitter in particular, to censor speech. Various agencies, including those responsible for Covid-19 policy, would contact the media companies to demand wrongthink posts be taken down. Particularly offensive were conservative posts questioning the efficiency and safety of the Covid vaccine, and those dealing with election fraud.
The question of whether or not the government can do that — demanding specific online speech be killed — reached the Supreme Court, and oral arguments were held earlier this month in the case of Murthy v. Missouri. The Court seemed skeptical of the idea that such action by the government was unconstitutional on its face, as the states claimed. Instead, the justices’ questions seemed to lean toward how the censorship was done. The government was free to persuade social media carriers, cajole them, argue with them but as long as the government did not force them to take something down, it was likely legal. The states contend the looming power of the federal government made each request, however bland and polite, into a threat. Same as when the mafia thug in the movies says “Nice home you have here, hate to see anything happen to it if you’re late paying us.” In one interaction a government watchdog seeking to deep six some posts stated “the White House is considering its options” if the take down effort fails.
There was room for debate. Justice Alito stated “When I see the White House and Federal officials repeatedly saying that Facebook and the Federal government should be partners… regular meetings, constant pestering… Wow, I cannot imagine Federal officials taking that approach to print media.” Alito also thought the barrage of emails from the White House and others to the social media companies may have met the legal standard for coercion. The states agreed, saying “Pressuring platforms in back rooms, shielded from public view, is not using a bully pulpit. That’s just being a bully… We don’t need coercion as a theory. The government ‘cannot induce, encourage or promote’ to get private actors to do what government cannot: censor Americans’ speech.”
Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson came back with “Whether or not the government can do this… depends on the application of our First Amendment jurisprudence. There may be circumstances in which the government could prohibit certain speech on the internet or otherwise. My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways.”
Justice Barrett seemed uncomfortable with the lower courts’ conclusion that the Biden administration could be banned not only from “coercion,” but also from any action that “significantly encourages” platforms to take down protected speech. “Encouragement would sweep in an awful lot,” she said.
Interactions between administration officials and news outlets are part of a valuable dialogue that is not prohibited by the First Amendment, said Justices Kavanaugh and Kagan. The Justices suggested instead there is a role for vigorous efforts by the government to combat bad speech, for example discouraging posts harmful to children or conveying anti-Semitic or Islamophobic messages.
Brown’s, et al, remarks are frightening from a constitutional point of view, basically saying when the government is ineffective in creating dominant content of its own to address public messaging (i.e., “Vaccines are safe”) it justifies proxy censorship to eliminate counter information.
A Supreme Court decision is expected in June.
Mexico warns Israel for ‘protecting’ suspect in disappearance of 43 students
Press TV – April 6, 2024
Mexico has warned that if Israel continues with its refusal to extradite a fugitive security official wanted in connection with the disappearance of 43 Mexican college students a decade ago, their bilateral ties may be damaged.
Back in September 2014, 43 male students disappeared from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College after being abducted in Iguala, in the southwestern state of Guerrero. The students were traveling to a demonstration in Mexico City amid a drug war.
The official narrative by the government said at the time that corrupt police handed the ill-fated students over to drug gang henchmen, who then incinerated the students at a garbage dump and threw the ashes in the San Juan River.
Questioning the official narrative by some experts as well as growing anger in Mexico at federal inaction prompted the current administration, led by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, to pledge to re-open the case.
Tomas Zeron, who headed the Criminal Investigation Agency that led the inquiry into the case – dubbed one of Mexico’s worst human rights tragedies – is wanted by the Mexican justice system for the crimes of torture, violation of human rights and forced disappearance of the 43 students.
“The lack of progress in resolving this case is interpreted as de facto protection by Israel of Tomas Zeron and threatens to become an irritating and disruptive factor with” Tel Aviv, the Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The former official, who fled to Israel in 2020, has also been charged with the abuse of power and authority, embezzlement, fraud and criminal association. He has consistently denied all allegations.
Although Mexico and Israel do not have an extradition treaty, Mexico City has repeatedly asked Tel Aviv to hand over Zeron over allegations of serious irregularities in the probe into the said case, but all to no avail.
Zeron is one of the architects of the 2015 official narrative or the so-called “historical truth” regarding the fate of the disappeared students, whose exact circumstances of their disappearance are still unknown.
The victims’ families have so far strongly rejected that narrative.
Reiner Fuellmich Team Find Bombshell Evidence Of A Dossier Showing Conspiracy To “Deal With” Him
ELSA | APRIL 4
On Reiner’s first court appearance after the long Easter break, he and his legal team made what can easily be termed bombshell – that there has been a Dossier Reiner Fuellmich from the German state with the express purpose to take him out, notably out of any possibility of gaining a position in the political arena.
I understand the concerns of the German state. Here was someone with integrity and courage, with charisma and intelligence, with extensive experience plus shared leadership in a small German political party. Very appealing to many people fed up with mandates, loss of freedom of speech, mass immigration, and ever so much else. Here was a suitable leader.
Anyway, here is the Dossier, from bittel.tv. You can also find it on Roger Bittel’s Telegram channel:
👉 Dossier Deutsch (https://t.me/bitteltv/25826)
👉 further languages (https://t.me/bitteltv/25838)
👉 the full broadcast (https://t.me/bitteltv/25839)
All of the dossier is important. However, you may be most interested in the last section:
Report and recommendations for action regarding Reiner Fuellmich
Date: August 24, 2021
Author: B**
Subject: Comprehensive analysis and recommendations for dealing with Reiner Fuellmich
Included within this last section:
The awarding of or the possibility of obtaining politically exposed offices must be prevented by all means within the rule of law.
How is this to be done:
The initiation of criminal proceedings on the basis of the evidence collected against Reiner Fuellmich must be prepared. This includes cooperation with public prosecutors [bolding and italics mine] and the preparation of charges in the event of demonstrable violations of the law. Any necessary constructions must be weighed up and suitable third parties recruited [bolding and italics mine].
NOW HERE, THE FULL DOSSIER. I RECOMMEND READING IT.
http://www.bittel.tv / Broadcast from 2.4.2024
Dossier Reiner Fuellmich
Reiner Fuellmich, co-chairman and candidate for chancellor of the party “dieBasis”, is a German lawyer who has become known in particular for his involvement in various legal disputes and his public statements on various issues, including the measures and political decisions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. His views and legal activities have attracted both national and international attention and are the subject of controversy.
Professional career:
Reiner Fuellmich began his legal career after graduating from law school. He is licensed to practice law in Germany and in California, USA. Over many years, he has specialized in various areas of civil law and has been involved in several legal disputes, some of which have attracted considerable media attention.
Engagement against banks and corporations:
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Fuellmich made a name for himself in particular through his involvement in cases against large banks and companies. These often involved consumer protection and claims for damages.
Read the rest of Elsa’s article here.
Deploying spies on campus in the US: The ‘Israel on Campus Coalition’
By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | April 4, 2024
Listen to Nancy Pelosi at the end of January this year: “What we have to do is to try and stop the suffering in Gaza. This is about women and children, people who don’t have a place to go. So let’s address that. But for them to call for a ceasefire is Mr Putin’s message… Make no mistake. This is directly connected to what he would like to see.”
“I think some of these protestors are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia and I say that having looked at this for a long time.”
What is going on here? These are Zionist talking points. As the Palestinians say – every Zionist accusation is a confession. In reality, the only entity with really significant spy networks in the US is the Zionist entity.
The FBI and the CIA know this, but they are either unwilling or unable to investigate Israeli espionage networks operating freely in universities, businesses, and government facilities across the United States.
One well-known spy network is the Anti-Defamation League. Created in 1913, it has been spying on Arab Americans since before the creation of the Zionist entity. Throughout this period, the ADL has also closely collaborated with the FBI. Today, the ADL is doing more than attempting to repress free speech on Palestine; it is attempting to have ordinary pro-Palestine activism declared to be “terrorism”.
What they are trying to do is to use a vaguely worded law, which they lobbied for, to entrap Palestine solidarity activism as falling under a legal definition of material support for “terrorism”.
In late October, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and another Zionist group published an open letter urging universities to investigate Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) under the material support statute introduced in 1996.
In addition to accusing SJP of supporting Hamas, they were also, the ADL claimed, “voicing an increasingly radical call for confronting and ‘dismantling’ Zionism on U.S. college campuses.”
Material support for “terrorism” can include giving advice or other speech so long as it is at the behest or in coordination with the “terrorist” group.
But there is also an attempt by the ADL and its allies to claim that routine pro-Palestine activism should be legally understood as support for “terrorism”. They are working to blur the line between independent advocacy, which is allowed, and coordination, which could be terrorism.
It is of little comfort that there is no public evidence any SJP student members coordinated with Hamas or any other armed group. The case law construing the material support statute’s punishment of advocacy is so underdeveloped that there is considerable room for investigative overreach by the FBI.
The line between independent advocacy and material support as speech in coordination with a listed “terrorist” group “remains unelaborated”.
Of course, the ADL is one of the few non-government groups that trains federal law enforcement on counterterrorism. It can use the gap to advance its overreaching conception of the material support statute.
To fight back, all campus groups and university management need to declare that no independent campus speech, no matter how incendiary, serves as a legitimate basis for a material support investigation.
Another group, the Israel on Campus Coalition has been spying on pro-Palestine students for years.
It is linked to Israeli intelligence and strategically targets individual students or faculty on campus in order the “crush” the movement.
ICC was created by Hillel International and the Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation in 2002 to promote “Israel” advocacy on campus.
The money came from the business Charles who at that stage had a “major interest in Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s largest bank, and has extensive interests in oil, real estate, banking and shipping in the US.”
Today, Hillel and the ICC maintain close organizational ties. The ICC continues to provide Hillel professionals with “Israel” advocacy training and support.
Hillel has taken on a more extreme form of Zionism in recent years, sparking a rebellion by some student members who are critical of some aspects of Zionism.
They called their challenge Open Hillel, which says it “promotes pluralism and open discourse on Israel-Palestine in Jewish communities on campus and beyond. We aim to eliminate Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership for Israel Activities, which exclude individuals and groups from the Jewish community on campus on the basis of their views on Israel.” But even calling for a debate on Zionism was too much for the ICC, which engaged in spying on the Jewish student group.
The spy operation is closely co-ordinated with the Zionist regime as was revealed by The Lobby USA.
Here is Lila Greenberg, formerly of AIPAC:
“The ICC pools resources from all of the campus organizations. So that they’re tapped in on all angles.”
According to Jacob Baime, currently the ICC’s chief executive officer, “We built up this massive national political campaign to crush [pro-Palestine activism].”
“It’s modeled on General Stanley McCrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. We’ve copied a lot from that strategy … And one of the pieces was this Operations and Intelligence Brief.”
This is then passed on to the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs.
Baime confirmed that ICC “coordinates with” and “communicates with” the Ministry.
Once collected, data from the ICC’s web of campus spies and high-tech Israeli surveillance equipment then flow to the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL, is in itself closely in touch with Zionist intelligence agencies but also uses the data to weaponize anti-Semitism in its reports on BDS and Palestine activism.
Among its other activities, the ICC offered to pay any pro-“Israel” student $250 to attend the sparsely attended damp squib of the March for Israel in November 2023 in Washington DC.
Make no mistake, the Zionist regime has agents on campus all over the United States. Everyone must be removed.
Israel Passes Law, Giving Itself Power To Temporarily Shut Down Al Jazeera
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | April 1, 2024
On April 1, 2024, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a sweeping statement indicating the immediate ceasing of Al Jazeera’s operations within Israeli territory. The Prime Minister’s staunch decision followed the legislative green light enhancing the authority of senior ministers to terminate the operations of non-domestic news agencies that are perceived as a potential threat to national security.
Emphasizing his intention to immediately commence action according to newly approved legislation, Netanyahu proclaimed, “Al Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel.” The declaration, which received widespread publicity through a post on X, was made right after the final iterations of the law received parliamentary approval.
Netanyahu’s decision can be traced back to an ongoing conflict with the Qatar-based media house, which he accuses of biased reporting against Israel. With a 70-10 majority vote in the Knesset, the legislation empowers the Prime Minister, alongside the Communications Minister, to order the closure of foreign networks in Israel and seize their equipment if identified as a security hazard.
An immediate international reaction to the news came from the White House, where spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre opined that restricting Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel would be “deeply concerning.”
Al Jazeera has denied allegations that its coverage jeopardizes Israel’s security, labeling these claims as “dangerous and ridiculous lies.” The network, known for its critical stance on Israel’s military actions in Gaza, has accused Israeli authorities of deliberately targeting its offices and staff.
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From the Archives
Magic Hour for Gates
By Gary Jordan | Wake The F*** UP | March 15, 2021
Bill Gates wants to know everything about you.
He wants to control every aspect of your life.
His insatiable thirst for the supervision and scrutiny of every human being alive has sparked a US$1 billion investment that will blanket the earth in video surveillance satellites, providing real-time feedback with a mere one-second delay. He advocates for Orwellian digital tools to track your every move and has bankrolled US$1.7 billion to provide artificial intelligence that will be used to scan each and every visitor to major event venues worldwide. He wants to do away with end-to-end encryption, so he can snoop on your private conversations. He wants to know when and where you travel and who you travel with. He wants you to eat whatever he says you should eat, drink whatever he says you should drink, think how he wants you to think and know only what he wants you to know. Plus he wants to dictate what goes inside your body.
But he doesn’t want you to know a lot about him.
For instance… continue
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