Justice For the Hyde Park One
By Andrew Rootsey | The Daily Sceptic | February 1, 2022
As you may recall, we secured Debbie’s acquittal at Cheltenham Magistrates Court on the December 20th 2021 for offences relating to organising/being involved in organising a gathering of more than 30 people during a period of national lockdown or alternatively for participating in the gathering.
The relevant gathering was a protest held in Stratford Park in Stroud in November 2020 against the restrictions imposed on the British public under the Coronavirus Regulations. The protest was called the ‘Freedom Rally’ and was attended by more than 50 people.
The Stroud ‘Freedom Rally’ was held two days into the second national lockdown and therefore at the time it was illegal to organise a gathering of more than 30 people or to meet in groups of more than two people. A conviction would have left her liable for a £10,000 fine.
Ms. Hicks was acquitted of both offences after the court accepted our argument that her arrest and prosecution was a disproportionate interference with her human rights – namely the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, given that she was engaging in a legitimate protest.
The court found that Ms. Hicks had organised the ‘Freedom Rally’ and had breached the Coronavirus Regulations in force at the time by doing so. However, she had a reasonable excuse because she was attending a legitimate, peaceful and well-organised protest. The officers on the ground at the protest had been labouring under a misapprehension of the law – that protesting was not lawful under the Regulations – and were essentially imposing a blanket ban on protesting. Therefore, their actions in arresting her were not rational or proportionate.
In complete contrast – and a perfect example of how this contentious piece of legislation is flawed and open to misinterpretation – on the November 16th 2021 the City of London Magistrates Court convicted Debbie of breaching similar coronavirus regulations by protesting in Hyde Park against the imposition of lockdown restrictions during the pandemic. The District Judge in this case found that Debbie did not have a ‘reasonable excuse’ for protesting and found that the interference with her Human Rights was proportionate. Debbie was convicted and sentenced to a financial penalty.
The case raises important issues on freedom of expression and assembly, as well as the chilling of the right to protest. We wish to appeal this case to the High Court in order for the High Court to settle the important questions of law raised.
A fundamental consideration for the High Court is the ambiguity of the right to protest during the Coronavirus pandemic during periods of national lockdown and the operation of the ‘reasonable excuse’ jurisdiction in this regard.
The Government has made it clear, as have the courts, including in Debbie’s case before the Cheltenham Magistrates Court, that protesting during the Coronavirus pandemic was never illegal. Yet that was not always clear from the Coronavirus regulations nor was it the understanding of most police officers. How the reasonable excuse defence is to operate in these circumstances requires clarity and we are confident that the High Court will settle the issue in our favour and set a precedent for future cases and those seeking to appeal against their own convictions.
Debbie Hicks is probably best known for filming within the Gloucester Royal Hospital in December 2020 during Tier 3 restrictions. Debbie did so, exercising her freedom of expression, in order to highlight that Government restrictions were having a devastating effect upon access to healthcare across the board and to investigate mainstream media reports that hospitals were overflowing with patients.
Despite her efforts to avoid confrontation, she was challenged at the hospital by two employees. During the exchange, which lasted less than a minute, Debbie did not film the staff members. She explained the purpose of her visit and her views as to the provision of NHS services during lockdown. Staff members took offence at her comments and subsequently made a complaint to the police. Debbie immediately left the hospital voluntarily and was subsequently arrested at her home in front of her family and charged with using abusive, threatening or disorderly words or behaviour.
Debbie was not at the hospital deliberately seeking an encounter with staff. She has in the past been a vociferous supporter of the NHS and has supported NHS staff in respect of vaccine mandates.
In connection with this episode, Debbie stood trial for an offence under Section 5 of Public Order Act on January 6th 2022 and having adjourned the case in order to hand down his judgement the District Judge convicted Debbie of a S5 Public Order Act offence on January 19th 2022 at Cirencester Magistrates Court.
We wish to appeal this conviction as well and ask that the High Court settle this case on the basis that the District Judge was wrong in law to convict Debbie of this offence. We are firmly of the view that the Prosecution case simply did not cross the threshold of what constitutes abusive, threatening or disorderly words or behaviour. The District Judge’s analysis was flawed and did not properly interpret Supreme Court authorities nor give appropriate weight to Debbie’s rights of freedom of expression and assembly as enshrined in the European Convention for Human Rights, nor give appropriate weight to the political nature of Debbie’s views when the case law makes clear political freedom of expression should be given special protection.
Debbie is trying to raise £10,000 to take both cases to the High Court. She hopes that those who continue to believe in freedom of speech and the the right to protest will continue to support her. Our hope is that if we can get these convictions overturned, it will set a legal precedent for those convicted of similar offences and who may face prosecution in the future.
Debbie needs to raise funds in order to pay her legal costs and any help is hugely appreciated. Her fundraiser can be found here.
Andrew Rootsey is a solicitor at Murray Hughman.
Media floats Russia theory for Canadian trucker protest
State-owned CBC suggests that ‘Russian actors’ may have instigated massive protest convoy that shut down nation’s capital
RT | January 29, 2022
A cross-country convoy of truckers that has jammed the streets of Canada’s capital in protest against Covid-19 vaccine mandates might seem like grass-roots pushback against government overreach, but broadcaster CBC Television has offered a more sinister explanation: Russia did it.
Speaking in an interview on Friday with Canada’s public safety minister, Marco Mendicino, CBC host Nil Koksal suggested that possible Kremlin meddlers might have brought about the massive “Freedom Convoy.” “Given Canada’s support of Ukraine in this current crisis with Russia, I don’t know if it’s far-fetched to ask, but there is concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as this protest grows, but perhaps even instigating it from the outset,” she said.
Koksal didn’t offer any evidence to back up the theory or say who has raised such concern. Mendicino replied, “I’m gonna defer to our partners in the public safety, the trained officials and experts in that area.”
The interview came just before disgruntled truckers began to arrive in Ottawa on Friday night. Thousands of convoy participants and other protesters massed in the city on Saturday, bringing traffic to a standstill and sending Prime Minister Justin Trudeau into hiding. State-owned CBC said Trudeau and his family had been moved from his official residence to a “secure location.”
As many as 50,000 trucks were reportedly expected to flood into Ottawa, and traffic was snarled through much of the city. Some trucks were emblazoned with “F**k Trudeau” signs across their trailers, while other protesters demanded, “Mandate freedom.”
Government restrictions that went into effect on January 15 require unvaccinated Canadian drivers to quarantine for 14 days when they cross the border back into their country. Trudeau has condemned the angry truckers as holding “unacceptable views.”
Prior to floating the theory of a Russian bogeyman, Canadian media outlets have made other claims that appeared to smear the protesters, such as suggesting they are racist or extremist.
The Toronto Star said the convoy became a “magnet” for such undesirable elements as “conspiracy nuts, Western separatists, far right-wingers and worse.” Others have suggested that some participants want to carry out their own version of last year’s US Capitol riot.
A counter-protester was seen on Saturday saying, “F**k your white nationalist agenda,” while Canadian television reporter Mackenzie Gray was quick to post a Twitter message proclaiming “our first Confederate flag of the day here on Parliament Hill.” Multiple observers replied that Gray had spotted the “first fed of the day,” meaning a federal agent seeking to discredit the protest.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, at Least Not on Mainstream Media
By Madhava Setty, M.D. | The Defender | January 26, 2022
More than 30,000 people gathered Sunday near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in our nation’s capital to protest COVID vaccine mandates.
Attendees were treated to nearly four hours of impassioned, poignant and uncensored speeches from more than 20 speakers who helped spearhead the movement for medical freedom.
Rather than attempting to summarize their commentary on the purported safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines, departures from accepted practices of informed consent around medical intervention and rapid erosion of the patient/doctor relationship from Big Pharma interference, I will instead list some pearls that might easily get overlooked but should not go forgotten.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Children’s Health Defense chairman and chief legal counsel, elucidated the single most important point of Pfizer’s six-month trial data.
He explained that more participants died in the vaccine group compared to placebo group, and one vaccine recipient perished from COVID during this period compared to two in the placebo group — hence Pfizer can claim its product provides 100% efficacy against COVID death.
But at what cost?
Four times as many people died of cardiac arrest in the vaccine group than placebo. We can thus conclude the risk of dying from a cardiac arrest is 300% greater if you get vaccinated — a fact that goes unacknowledged by our medical authorities and legacy media.
Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) spokesperson and board-certified critical care physician Dr. Pierre Kory expressed his frustration in trying to publish rigorous peer-reviewed data on the undeniable efficacy of the early COVID treatment protocol FLCCC formulated during the desperate early days of the pandemic.
This led him to emphatically conclude, “Every policy out of our agencies has been written by the pharmaceutical industry … It’s a war. A war on repurposed drugs.”
Dr. Robert Malone, in his typically measured fashion, reminded us that our authorities and vaccine manufacturers have nearly 100% indemnity from vaccine-related injury and that it is our job to protect our kids, not theirs.
Unfortunately, the magnitude of vaccine risks is yet unknown. Still, “If there is risk,” Malone said, “there must be choice.”
Steve Kirsch took the podium two hours into the program and recounted his introduction into the vaccine-hesitant sphere and described the abject refusal of any authority to answer a single one of his questions.
However, Kirsch’s biggest point was not his attack on tightlipped and avoidant medical authorities.
Kirsch offered a very reasonable counterargument to the mainstream push to accept these vaccinations out of a moral obligation to our community. Do we in fact have an obligation to others that can be mandated? On what moral grounds can this be enforced?
Kirsch said:
“Nobody has the right to mandate that I must risk my life to save other people that I don’t know. It’s unethical and immoral. I will not voluntarily choose to deprive my kids of their father.”
These points are important for every person in the world to consider, regardless of which side of the vaccine debate you are on.
Of course, these sentiments predictably resonated with those in attendance. But is that good enough? Will vaccine mandate proponents ever have the opportunity to hear this perspective?
Perhaps not.
One needs only to listen to how legacy media covered the rally. In this three-minute clip — “Anti-Vaccine Mandate Protests During Omicron Surge” — NBC News gave its viewers a glimpse of what this event signified.
The reporter said:
“Thousands rallying on the National Mall for the ‘Defeat the Mandates’ protest featuring some of the nation’s most prominent anti-vaxxers…”
Then the camera immediately cuts to protesters complaining:
“… we tried to get a burger last night but couldn’t because we didn’t have a proof-of-vaccine card.”
Are these really the most prominent spokespersons of the movement explaining why mandates are not just scientifically unfounded but unethical?
Another protester stated on camera he is not “anti-vax” but chooses not to get the jab because these vaccines are experimental. However, the NBC News reporters said, “That’s not true, COVID vaccines are fully approved, more scrutinized than any vaccine in history…”
Of the three COVID vaccines currently authorized for emergency use, only the Pfizer Comirnaty formulation has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
However, that formulation has not been made available in this country. There isn’t a single person in this country who has been inoculated with a fully approved COVID vaccine. (Consider yourselves fact-checked, NBC News.)
The idea COVID vaccines have been “more scrutinized than any vaccine in history” is a frank lie. The vaccine trials were rushed, poorly designed, offered no meaningful age stratification and used a participant pool that was younger and healthier than those who succumb to serious COVID.
The trials effectively ended several months after they began when the participants were unblinded and offered the vaccine, making any long-term efficacy or safety comparisons impossible.
Moreover, federal agencies responsible for scrutinizing the vaccines have done just the opposite, allowing serious, life-threatening and fatal adverse events to go unacknowledged and uninvestigated.
Despite the magnitude of expert opinion on hand, NBC News chose not to seek it. NBC did not interview one of the physicians, scientists, healthcare advocates or vaccine-injured who spoke at the rally.
A free press, dedicated to balanced reporting and an intrepid pursuit of the facts is our only guardian against tyranny. It is their job to pose difficult questions and demand answers. It is their job to give a voice to the dissenter and the whistleblower.
This is why Del Bigtree’s finale was so salient. Bigtree got large reactions from the crowd when he drew upon Lincoln’s words and Bible quotations, framing the issue as a struggle between good and evil and leading the crowd in a chant for freedom. His comments will likely draw criticism from mainstream pundits that continue to frame the anti-mandate movement as one that is based in ideology and not science.
But it was his admonishment of the mainstream media that will reverberate most in the weeks and months ahead.
Bigtree said:
“For those of you who are standing here quietly today, I know who you are. I know you work for The New York Times. I know you work for the Washington Post and you are here trying to support us quietly… You should have written about us. You should have told the truth!”
The revolution will not be televised. At least not on NBC News.
© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
Guardian: ANTI-VAXXERS ARE JOINING RACIST MILITIAS
OffGuardian | January 23, 2022
This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.
1. “ANTI-VAXXERS ARE JOINING RACIST MILITIAS”
We’ve covered the increasing demonisation of the “anti-vaxxers” regularly for over a year now. Ever since Joe Biden announced his new “domestic terrorism bill”, it was obvious that “Anti-vaxxers” were going to be re-branded as some kind of violent threat to democracy (and they were).
Now it’s happening in the UK too, with a story being published warning that “anti-vaxxers” are becoming more militant and there are fears they will “evolve towards US-style militias”, according to the Guardian.
The article references nameless “counter terrorism” officials and anonymous “Whitehall sources”, who warn that…
Latest intelligence assessments describe the anti-vaxxer movement as ostensibly a conveyor belt, delivering fresh recruits to extremist groups, including racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist organisations.
So there you have it, being anti-Covid “vaccines” is a gateway protest. Before you know it you’ll be shaving your head and sieg hieling all over the place.
Absolutely pathetic propaganda, and hopefully not an early warning sign of legislation to come.
2. “WHAT IF DEMOCRACY AND CLIMATE MITIGATION ARE INCOMPATIBLE?”
OK, this is from two weeks ago, but it’s too important to skip. The title says it all, Foreign Policy is genuinely wondering if climate change is too much of a threat to let democracy stand in the way of fighting it.
It’s a long read, soaked to the bone in double-talk and built on some very shaky assumptions, but there’s some good material on there…
Democracy works by compromise, but climate change is precisely the type of problem that seems not to allow for it. As the clock on those climate timelines continues to tick, this structural mismatch is becoming increasingly exposed. And as a result, those concerned by climate change—some already with political power, others grasping for it—are now searching for, and finding, new ways of closing the gap between politics and science, by any means necessary.
It warns in the opening section, before concluding…
… democracy, in its current form, is not necessarily the path to a solution. It might, instead, be part of the problem.
It’s not hard to see where this is going. We warned, several times, that we would be moving on from Covid to climate, and that “climate lockdowns” were a very real possibility. This kind of talk is setting the groundwork for that movement.
3. ‘MORE PEOPLE IS THE LAST THING THIS PLANET NEEDS’
Another from the Guardian, this time interviewing all the hip and happening young men who are “getting vasectomies to save the world”
It’s about the climate. Again.
Apparently, there are already too many people (that’s not true, but whatever), and so young men are getting the snip. Bravely preventing placing the burden of climate catastrophe onto the next generation… by making sure there isn’t one.
One of the (anonymous, and therefore potentially made-up) interviewees went right out cut his balls off the week Donald Trump was elected. That’ll show ’em.
But wait… It’s not just about climate, it’s also about feminism.
Specifically, it’s about correcting the “gender imbalance” traditionally associated with birth control:
Vasectomies address the gender imbalance that still accompanies the choice and practice of birth control. They come with less risk than more invasive and less reliable methods of female contraception, including sterilisation and the coil.
They are genuinely arguing that making yourself sterile forever is less risky and less invasive than having a completely 100% reversible IUD inserted.
Then they start bemoaning that vasectomies can be “hard to come by, especially for younger, childless men“. NHS GPs are apparently reticent to simply sterilise perfectly healthy young men for no good reason:
While there are no laws on the age at which men in the UK can get a vasectomy, the NHS advises that they may be more likely to be accepted if they are older than 30 and have children. “Your GP can refuse to carry out the procedure … if they don’t believe it’s in your best interests,”
Not only that, but the NHS has cut funding to for vasectomies, and perhaps as a result of this, vasectomy numbers are down nationwide. The Guardian want us to think this is a bad thing, but considering the UK’s birth rate has been falling for decades, it might not be.
Nevertheless, there is hope that “world vasectomy day”, and its links to the fight against climate change, will help “burnish” the vasectomy’s progressive image.
The story ends with inspiring words from one of the voluntarily snipped…
“A lot of people are happy to point and say: ‘That’s wrong,’ or film it on their phone… I look at the world and say: ‘That’s not right; I’m going to try to do something about it.’”
A wonderful attitude. I hope he can pass that wisdom on to his children and his children’s children.
… oh, wait.
BONUS: (NEW) HELLHOLE OF THE WEEK
Not Australia this time, well done guys.
This time it’s New Zealand, where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just put in place strict new rules to “combat” the spread of Omicron.
Starting today, the whole of the country will move into the red on New Zealand’s “traffic light” system, meaning mandatory masks, lockdowns for the unvaccinated and an increased self-isolation period of 24 days.
How many cases prompted this decision? Nine.
Nine Covid cases in Motueka are confirmed to have the Omicron variant, prompting the decision, Ardern said.
Australia has been pretty aggressive in the game of “anything you can do, I can do worse” they have going with both New Zealand and Canada, so expect a move from them sometime this week.
IT’S NOT ALL BAD…
Yesterday marked 2022’s first “Worldwide Freedom Rally”, with marches taking place all over the world, from London to Bern, to Vancouver to Warsaw to Liverpool to Genoa.
Bilbao, Graz, Brisbane. The list goes on and on and on.
Huge crowds turned out in Toronto… Stockholm… and Sydney.
In London NHS staff threw down their uniforms in front of Downing Street.
These are the people who they want to classify as domestic terrorists and militias.
Also, someone also sent us this sign, which is our new favourite:
All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention that the world’s ten richest men have doubled their fortunes during the pandemic or the Fed’s report on a digital dollar.
An Amateur Look At “Russian Build Up” Photographic Evidence
By Walrus | Turcopolier | January 22, 2022
Western Media talk knowledgeably about a “Russian Build Up on the Border with Ukraine”. These stories are often accompanied by one of two satellite images which purport to show evidence of the same.
The first of these, as used by Politico, correctly identifies the location of this vehicle park as Yelnya. However the image is cropped so you cannot see the extensive barracks and infrastructure which identify this as a permanent military base constructed no later than 2016. Furthermore Politico defines “near” the Ukraine border as within 150 miles for that is Yelnyas distance from it.
The second image used is located at Soloti – again the image is cropped so the extensive permanent barracks and infrastructure are excluded. This base is about 30km from the Ukraine border but it has been there since 2005!
Details of the formations based at these locations are available here:
https://www.gfsis.org/maps/russian-military-forces
I have not included details of the sizes of the ammunition dumps that would be required to support any “invasion” of Ukraine. They would stick out a mile but are invisible today.
IMO, the “Russian Build Up” story is rubbish.
Wrong Again, Atlantic, High Lumber Prices Are Not Being Caused by ‘Climate Change’
By Linnea Lueken | ClimateRealism | January 19, 2022
Near the top of the results of a Google search for “climate change” was a story in The Atlantic, titled “Lumber Prices Are off the Rails Again. Blame Climate.” This is false. The evidence shows supply chain disruptions are responsible for higher lumber prices.
The article claims that recent high lumber prices and volatility are due to climate change severely impacting the lumber supply coming from Canada.
“When it comes to lumber, climate change has manifested itself in extreme volatility, lack of supply, and a paradigm shift in how lumber markets have behaved for decades. Lumber prices are the second highest they’ve ever been, today, this moment—ever. And it was precipitated by mudslides, which was precipitated by burning, which was precipitated by beetle kill. There’s an infrastructure story in there. There’s a climate story.”
While it is true that lumber prices are currently abnormally high, as shown by this screenshot of a five-year trend from the NASDAQ report on lumber (LUM), climate change is not to blame.
Screenshot taken from NASDAQ: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/commodities/lbs
The recent spike in lumber prices is due to the post-pandemic supply chain and shipping bottlenecks. The already climbing prices were exacerbated by the destruction of infrastructure like roads and rail lines in British Columbia and the North-Western United States due to heavy rainfall that struck the region this winter. Parts of major highways like British Columbia Highway 1 were closed for repairs or debris clearing after the flooding and associated mud slides.
This atmospheric river event that carried rain to the West this winter is not an unprecedented climate event, but is instead a weather event. Climate Realism discusses the difference between weather events and climate change here and here, for example.
A recent Climate Realism article showed the claim that the recent atmospheric river event spanning the Pacific Northwest was caused by climate change was false. In the article, Cliff Mass, Ph.D., of the University of Washington, cited rainfall data proving the recent weather event was not sign of climate change. Mass analyzed the rainfall data from Bellingham and Clearbrook Washington, which goes back more than a hundred years, and found no evidence to support the claim that there has been an increase in heavy rainfall.
“There is NO HINT of a trend towards more extreme precipitation at either of these sites.” Dr. Mass said.
Atmospheric rivers have occurred in the region many times throughout history, and have been much more severe in the decades prior to the Industrial Revolution, as described by meteorologist Anthony Watts:
“The highest rainfall ever in California during recorded history likely occurred in January 1862, during the “Great Flood”. This was an atmospheric river event like we are experiencing now, but lasted several days, dumping 24.63 inches of rain in San Francisco, 66 inches in Los Angeles, leaving downtown Sacramento underwater.”
Strong weather events always have been, and always will be potential causes of infrastructure damage and supply-chain disruptions. The potential for localized natural disasters should be factored into infrastructure plans. Corporate media outlets like The Atlantic are wrong to blame climate change every time the skies open.
SPOOKS, RUSSIA, AND DISINFORMATION
By Paul Robinson | IRRUSIANALITY | January 20, 2022
Jeremy Morris has an interesting post on his Postsocialism blog about the malicious role played by Western intelligence services in shaping narratives of Russia. I’m somewhat sceptical about his thesis – or at least the extent of the phenomenon he describes – but as if by chance, today I also came across a story that kind of backs him up.
Morris complains of two “elephants in the room,” who together distort our understanding of Russia. The first is the “clear leveraging of latent public sympathy abroad for the Russian regime by our friends at the English-language offices of RT.” I guess that would be me.
The second is “academic and think-tank contacts with the security services in the West.” Given my former involvement in the intelligence world, and the fact that I’ve taught courses at the University of Ottawa with members of the Canadian security and intelligence services, I guess that would be me too.
Double elephant!
I imagine that Morris thinks that elephant number one distorts things in favour of Russia, and elephant number two distorts them against. That must make me some sort of push-me-pull-you doing both at once. Perhaps that explains why I always end up occupying the middle ground!
Anyway, I digress, because this isn’t meant to be about me. Back to the point.
“If you underestimate the hidden motives of those that comment on Russia – from both elephants, then you are guilty of the ‘fallacy of insufficient cynicism’,” writes Morris. I must confess myself guilty as charged. I can be pretty cynical, but I don’t think that everybody has “hidden motives.” People who write what one might call “pro-Russian” articles for RT aren’t doing it for the money or because the FSB has got some dirt on them any more than people writing Russophobic stuff for think tanks are doing it because they’re taking orders from the FBI, MI5, or CSIS. People tend to believe what they’re doing.
In any case, I worry less about spooks and more about the military industrial complex and its funding of think tanks and the like, all of which work together to inflate threats, keep us in a state of fear, and justify increased defence spending and aggressive foreign policies. But even there, the think tankers etc believe in what they’re doing. The problem is that believers get funded whereas non-believers don’t. I don’t think “hidden motives” are the issue.
That said, Morris has a point, in that security and intelligence services do maintain contacts with chosen favourites and feed them information that they hope will further their chosen narrative. The story I came across today illustrates how this works quite well.
A while back, I mentioned a law case in the UK involving Guardian journalist Carol Cadwalladr and British businessman Arron Banks. Banks is suing Cadwalladr for libel for having claimed that the Russian government offered him money for use in the Brexit referendum campaign, and that he lied about his relationship with the Russians. The case is now before the court, and Cadwalladr’s defence is becoming clear.
The Guardian journalist isn’t claiming that what she said about Banks was true, merely that given the evidence she had at the time she had good reason to believe that it was in the public interest for her to report it. So what was this evidence, and where did she get it from? This is where it becomes interesting. For as the Guardian reports,
In her written evidence statement, she [Cadwalladr] said she had obtained two intelligence files from an organisation contracted to undertake work countering Russian disinformation in Europe on behalf of a government agency, one file of which raised concerns about Banks’s Russian wife.
In other words, British intelligence fed the information to her via another source.
The accusation that Banks took Russian money to fund Brexit received widespread coverage. It was even repeated in a parliamentary report. Yet no evidence to support the claim has ever been produced, and as we have seen, Cadwalladr isn’t trying to say that it was true. In short, it was disinformation. And yet, what prompted it was in part documents leaked by British intelligence to a third party “contracted to undertake work countering Russian disinformation” and then in turn given by that organization to Ms Cadwalladr.
Doesn’t that strike you as a bit iffy?
In the first place, the story reinforces what I have said several times before, namely that the “disinformation industry” set up to “counter Russian disinformation” is itself a major source of disinformation. And second, it reveals an excessively cosy relationship between the media – supposedly an independent guardian of the truth that holds the state to account – and state organizations, including secret intelligence.
Personally, I find it more than a little disturbing.
Maybe Mr Morris is right after all!
Forget the headlines, these are the vaccine facts
By Geoff Moore | TCW Defending Freedom | January 20, 2022
WE were told before the Covid vaccine rollout that it wouldn’t block transmission, but that it would reduce symptoms and therefore hospitalisation. Throughout 2021 we saw many warning headlines like ‘Pandemic of the unvaccinated’, becoming ever more alarmist like this one in the Guardian towards the end of November when Professor Sir Andrew Pollard opined that ‘Getting jabs to the unvaccinated has never been more critical’. The article said that the horrors of Covid are now restricted to those who won’t or can’t have a jab, and further claimed that Covid patients in ICUs are ‘now almost all unvaccinated’. The BBC too was not backwards in coming forwards, in December reporting a spokesman for Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, saying that ’80 per cent of patients we’ve seen over the last few months in general wards and critical care have been unvaccinated’.
In his statement to Parliament yesterday the Prime Minister continued with this narrative: ‘When there are still over 16,000 people in hospital in England alone, the pandemic is not over. And, Mr Speaker, make no mistake, Omicron is not a mild disease for everyone – and especially if you’re not vaccinated.’
So, let’s report what Mr Johnson so blatantly ignored – the latest government data on Covid-positive hospitalisations: the facts, not his opinions. It makes for interesting reading.
Public Health Scotland’s Winter Statistical Report states that 541 vaccinated people were hospitalised versus 168 unvaccinated, see page 36 table 12 (I used December 25-31 as it’s not provisional) which by my count is over three times as many vaccinated.
NHS Wales Surveillance of Vaccine Status states that 433 vaccinated people were hospitalised versus 90 unvaccinated, see page 4 table 4. That’s nearly five times as many.
Northern Ireland’s Vaccination Status of Deaths and Hospitalisations states that 395 vaccinated people were hospitalised versus 289 unvaccinated (page 8 table 1). That’s 108 more vaccinated than unvaccinated.
UK Health Security Agency Covid-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report states that 8,566 vaccinated people were hospitalised in England versus 4,738 unvaccinated (Page 40 table 10).That’s nearly twice as many.
All confirmed in the report of the 95th Sage meeting on Covid-19 which states: ‘For patients admitted after 16 June 2021 the majority of patients had received two doses’ (Page 3 item 3).
I don’t know what Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, University of Oxford and the media were basing their headlines on but it certainly wasn’t this data.
Meanwhile Johnson did his best with something that’s come to be understood with the phrase, ‘lies,damn lies and statistics’, telling us that from ‘our NHS data, we know that around 90 per cent of people in intensive care are not boosted’. Never mind that the totally unvaccinated are the minority in intensive care.
Sir Andrew Pollard might buy that one. Others won’t.
Fallen Icon: Sir David Attenborough and the Walrus Deception
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | January 19, 2022
In 2019 Netflix in conjunction with WWF broadcast Frozen Worlds, an episode in the Our Planet series and narrated by David Attenborough. The scenes it showed shocked and horrified viewers around the world.
After a brief introduction about the recent loss of Arctic summer sea ice and the ‘inevitable’ devastation this will cause for Arctic animals, it shifts to a series of amazing shots of tens of thousands of walrus, crowded cheek-by-jowl on a beach in Siberia.
The camera pans out to a rocky cliff, which several walrus are attempting to climb. Then suddenly, one after another, the walrus are shown falling off the cliff to their deaths on the rocky shore below.The scenes are shown in slow motion and repeated in order to maximise the shock effect.
As the scenes unfold, Attenborough coolly informs viewers that the walrus would not normally be there, but out on the sea ice instead. But because of man-made global warming, the poor walrus have been forced onto land in crowded conditions, where they will inevitably suffer and die.
But was it all as simple as Attenborough portrayed?
A number of suspicions were immediately evident. Far from these beach haulouts being unusual, walrus in fact regularly use these beaches every year, in order to rest and feed while waiting for the sea ice to move south in autumn.
Walrus also invariably crowd together in these situations, both for warmth and protection from polar bears. Indeed, far from walrus being threatened by climate change, their populations have been growing in recent years, explaining why so many were hauled out that day.
And what made those walrus try to climb the cliff?
Dr Susan Crockford is a professional zoologist, who has specialised in Arctic mammals for many years, particularly polar bears and walrus. She immediately smelled a rat.
Her newly released book, Fallen Icon, tells the story of how she uncovered exactly what went on that day on the Siberian beach. Her detective work reveals how it was polar bears stalking them that forced the walrus up that cliff; how this is a common hunting tactic and how the bears then fed off the carcasses down below.
She uncovers evidence that WWF already knew about this hunting tactic at that particular location, and that was precisely why this beach was chosen for the film.
She goes on to describe how retreating sea ice actually increases the food supply for walrus and how their populations are both healthy and increasing.
And how Attenborough used this horrifying imagery to jump-start a three year campaign against human-caused global warming that included ten documentaries laden with groundless climate emergency messaging, much of it aimed at the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. Attenborough’s relentless climate activism included a utopian vision of global changes for society eerily similar to the one proposed by the World Economic Forum.
It is hard to disagree with Crockford’s conclusions:
The public’s trust in science and medicine now appears to be at an all-time low. People who had been blind to the abuse of science rampant in the climate change narrative have had their eyes opened by the pandemic response. These things cannot be unseen.
In a worrying trend, traditional scientists struggle to be heard or have their concerns and criticisms published, both for climate change and Covid-19 related issues. Research that features testable hypotheses and reproducible studies seem to be rare birds while predictive modelling projects gobble up grant funds as well as the media attention.
Is science as we used to know it already dead? If so, how much of a role has Attenborough played in this progression? Over the last three years, he has used weaponized science presented to a trusting public in a most egregious manner.
My ultimate goal in writing this book is not to denigrate Sir David but to correct the misinformation he has deliberately or unwittingly promoted in his documentaries and public statements.
I am a traditional scientist standing up for science as it is meant to be – without activism and without politicization – because its loss to society will be incalculable.
Over the years but especially since 2018, Attenborough has shown that he lets others do his serious thinking for him and has often placed his trust where it was ill-advised, as he has done with the WWF. By that I mean he has relied on others to present information to him in an easily digestible manner rather than delving into the literature himself.
And having spent a lifetime taking this easy way out, when he decided he wanted his legacy to be something more substantial than ‘a good storyteller’, he seemed to take on the role of spokesman for others with ideological political agendas.
It appears to me that when he agreed to present the gruesome falling walrus film footage in Our Planet as evidence of climate change, Attenborough compromised his principles to achieve a specific end result. Such noble cause corruption is common in the conservation world but it was new for Attenborough.
I am convinced that what Attenborough has done with the falling walrus episode will be remembered long after he’s dead but not for the reasons he intended. It will go down as another ‘own goal’ for the climate change movement and judged as the moment Attenborough fell from grace as a trusted British icon.
Susan Crockford’s book is now available on Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0991796691
Susan Crockford adds:
As I point out in my new book, Fallen Icon, David Attenborough devised a three year campaign on the falsehood that hundreds of Russian walrus died falling off a cliff due to climate change because he also desired what the World Economic Forum (WEF), meeting online this week, say they want: immediate and drastic changes, supposedly to mitigate an invisible ‘climate emergency’ and other societal ills.
Despite the fact that walrus and polar bears are thriving in the Arctic, this fabricated ’emergency’ seems to be the reason that its new chairman plans to make the G7 into a ‘climate club’.
Do face masks make you more attractive?
By James Townsend | January 18, 2022
Cardiff University published a news story on their website about a new scientific study suggesting “protective face masks make wearers look more attractive”. It was framed around experts finding a “surprising new reason to mask up”.
At the time of writing this, the study had been covered in media in six different countries, spanning print, online, broadcast, & radio — the whole spectrum of earned media. Sky News framed their coverage most positively and put forward that people previously reluctant to wear one “may change their minds” thanks to this academic discovery.
The headlines all scream in unison: face masks make you look more attractive – ‘The Science’ says so. A resounding success for the Cardiff Uni team!
Knowing that many who wear masks do so under duress, and then accounting for the significant proportion of the population who hate the very concept of them, I immediately smelt a rat. Besides which, even if you agree with their usage from a public health point-of-view, it is surely a stretch of anyone’s imagination to claim that most people find a germ-ridden mouth blanket more attractive than being exposed to a naked face? Nonetheless, that’s what the scientists were claiming.
In this weird, post-Covid world where fiction is often pushed as fact, I decided to do what any journalist worth their salt would do, and explore the veracity of such claims.
Various articles only quoted Dr Lewis directly from the press release, and it was obvious they hadn’t spoken to him. As a journalist, this immediately set alarm bells ringing for me. If they didn’t speak to the lead scientist, did they even read the study? If they didn’t read the study, how can they be sure what they are reporting is correct? What if they missed some crucial context?
Call me old fashioned but I then did what the journalists should have done, and I read the actual study.
Before even clicking onto the study, I already knew from the initial press release that only 43 participants had taken part. Had the group of 43 included women from all walks of life and parts of society, perhaps the small number would have stood up to scrutiny more robustly. So, it was genuinely bemusing to then read that every single participant was a psychology student from the same course being run by the report authors. On top of that, they were 93% white and all aged 18 to 24. No diversity in a small sample to start with, is bad news.
Beautiful Cardiff is the capital city of Mark Drakeford’s Labour-run Wales – a country which has seen and, in many cases, embraced some of the most draconian reactions to this pandemic we have seen; including wearing masks with pride, introducing scientifically illiterate vaccine passports, and even banning people from buying books from supermarkets during the 2020 lockdowns. With this in mind, it’s not beyond the realms of sensible possibility to think that psychology students logging onto their laptops – who, by the way, received “course credits as compensation” for their participation – already knew what the ‘right’ answer was before rating their first masked and unmasked face.
This feeling was confirmed pretty swiftly when I stumbled across what I would describe as the key nugget of information:
It’s little wonder they hid this line at the end of the paper, given it confirms the vast majority of the participants were essentially pro-maskers talking favourably about men in masks.
It is an indictment of the sad state of journalism today that the enthusiastic coverage of this woeful study has not excavated this nugget. One of the reasons I left the newsroom, was the slow transition from journalist to churnalist – churning out other organisations’ press releases rather than discovering your own stories. So, in many respects, I haven’t been surprised to witness what I have since March 2020.
Of course, declining journalistic standards are nothing new and have been apparent for some years. The pandemic has merely shone a light on how dangerously out of control it is, and what a devastating impact it can have on the relationship of trust that should exist between citizens and the people who are employed to disseminate news and information to serve the public interest.
The uncomfortable truth is that agenda-driven scientists sometimes try to prove a pre-determined outcome. Misinformation based on flawed data create headlines around the world. And another ugly truth? Masks don’t make you more attractive.
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‘Conspiracy Theory’ Now Fact: Greater Israel Has Arrived
By Kit Klarenberg | Mint Press News | January 28, 2025
Ever since Tel Aviv’s 1948 creation, much has been said and written about ‘Greater Israel’ – the notion Zionism’s ultimate end goal is the forcible annexation and ethnic cleansing of vast swaths of Arab and Muslim lands for Jewish settlement, based on Biblical claims this territory was promised to Jews by God. The mainstream media typically dismisses this concept as antisemitic conspiracy theory, or at most the fringe fantasy of a minuscule handful of extremist Israelis.
In reality … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Pro-Israel terrorist arrested before assassination of pro-Palestinian activist
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- German journalist threatened with homelessness as German court upholds EU sanctions in landmark free speech case
- US Tells Allies That Ukraine-Bound Arms Could be Sent to Middle East
- Organized terrorism: Iran condemns killing of its diplomats in Lebanon
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- Hamas official rejects Mladenov Plan linking disarmament to Gaza reconstruction
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- Researchers at Human Rights Watch Resign Over Blocked Report on Palestinian Refugee Return
- Jewish Groups Are Backing a War Americans Don’t Want
- Eric Fingerhut Thinks He’s the President of the Jews
- Top Jewish Philanthropists, Rabbis Urge Israeli President to Take Action Against ‘Jewish Extremists’
- Don’t Be Fooled. Zionist Leaders Have Always Wanted to Control Southern Lebanon
- Israel’s widespread use of torture is a core element of its genocide against the Palestinian people
- In Israel’s War on Iran, Many Middle East US Bases Rendered “All But Uninhabitable”
- ‘Burn the lawn’: Israel pursues ‘Rafah model’ in southern Lebanon
- A genocide here, an amputation there
- Reports: Iran mobilizing 1M fighters, Israel-US run low on ammo, Israeli army faces shortage – Not a ceasefire Day 168
- No Tricks Zone
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
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