This is the text of a speech Dr. Helen Joyce gave at Ireland Uncensored, a one-day conference in Dublin on September 16th to rally opposition to the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, a new law that will impose more speech restrictions in Ireland than anywhere else in Europe. The conference was organised by Free Speech Ireland and Gript.
Five years ago, I was working as the Economist’s International editor. One fateful day in 2017, the editor asked me: “Why do kids keep coming home and say, ‘Such and such is trans’?” I replied that I didn’t know, but would look into it. Though I had no idea about that at the time, that conversation changed my life.
I ended up writing an article about it – an only semi-satisfactory article, because it was so hard to get a handle on what people were talking about. Many potential interviewees I reached out to either didn’t reply or brushed me off with platitudes. They seemed to think I was doing something very wrong simply by asking obvious questions – the sorts of questions journalists ask of all sorts of people, all the time. Basics like: what does ‘trans’ mean? What is ‘transition’? Do people feel better afterwards? Why do some people say they ‘feel like’ members of the opposite sex? And the big one: should those feelings give them licence to use facilities restricted to that sex?
The difficulty of getting facts, the science-denial that was universal among proponents of ‘trans rights’ and the circularity of their core mantra, namely that ‘trans women are women’ all kept bothering me. I became seriously concerned that grave harms were being done in the name of this ideology: harms to women, who were losing single-sex spaces, services and sports; children, who were being taught that one’s sex is a matter of feelings; and lesbians, who were being pressured to include men who identified as women in their dating pools.
I started thinking about writing a book about it. By now I knew that women were losing jobs and facing death threats for expressing the slightest scepticism about so-called ‘trans inclusion’. But I worried I wasn’t the right person – and if I’m honest also about the toll it would take.
And then, in late 2018, I met a group of detransitioners. A half-dozen young women, all of whom now identified as women, and as lesbian. All had been gender non-conforming in childhood; most had suffered mental-health issues, including anxiety, bulimia and self-harm. Doctors had diagnosed them with gender dysphoria (a fancy word for distress), and given them testosterone, which left them with permanently lowered voices, thick facial and body hair and distressing changes to their genitals. Some had had double mastectomies; one, at age 21, had had her uterus and ovaries removed.
That night, for the first time, I articulated the thought I’d been circling around for months: “They’re sterilising gay kids.” My hesitations vanished. As a journalist, you’re supposed to run towards the news. A scandal that is being suppressed for political convenience isn’t the sort of story you should ignore.
Well, I wrote my book, Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality (recently reissued as Trans: Gender Identity and the New Battle for Women’s Rights). And although my career at the Economist continued to flourish, I became increasingly convinced that the book alone wasn’t enough. I moved to work with Sex Matters, a non-profit human-rights campaign group co-founded by Maya Forstater, who lost her job at an American think-tank, the Center for Global Development, after tweeting about her concerns about ‘gender self-ID’ – the policy of allowing people to change their legal records to reflect the sex they want to be, rather than the sex they actually are.
I now believe that ‘gender-identity ideology’ – the claim that self-defined gender should trump sex when it comes to classifying humans – is far from the liberal, kind approach it is portrayed as. Indeed, it is quite the opposite: part of a generation-defining threat to liberalism and indeed rationalism; and also deeply cruel.
You can imagine that given that I think this, after years of thinking about it, I regard it as my moral duty to say so, as loudly as possible, as often as possible, in front of as many people as possible.
This is an ideology that is harmful to women, because women’s ability to play a full part in public life requires us to be able to draw boundaries, on occasion, that exclude men. That’s all men. Including the men who wish they weren’t men, and the men who think they’re not men, and the men who identify as women.
It’s harmful to children, because children believe what adults tell them. The idea that you can really be a member of the opposite sex is a seductive one for quite a lot of them. Disproportionately the ones who are going to grow up gay, the ones who have autistic-spectrum disorders, the anxious or self-harming or depressed ones, the ones who are being abused.
And it’s harmful to gay people for two reasons. The first is that without a meaningful definition of sex, there cannot be sexual orientation. What does it mean to be same-sex attracted, if ‘sex’ is a matter of self-identification? The second is that gay adults are disproportionately likely to have been gender non-conforming in early youth. Now those children are being told that their atypicality makes them ‘really’ members of the opposite sex. This lie starts some of them on a pathway towards cross-sex hormones, genital surgery – and eventual sterility.
All of what I’ve said till now is deeply unpopular speech with some people. Because it punctures dearly held beliefs about people’s identities, some of whom experience what I say as unkind, even hateful. I don’t revel in being unkind, still less ‘hateful’. I’m not someone who seeks controversy for its own sake. But neither do I shy away from it. And on this subject I speak to prevent harm, and to prevent unkindness.
What happens if you base public policy on substituting subjective, self-declared gender identity for the objective material reality of sex?
For women, it means men in rape crisis centres, rapists in women’s prisons, men winning women’s sporting prizes.
Barbie Kardashian – a man who was recently jailed for four and a half years for threatening to torture, rape and murder his own mother, and who is “legally female” and universally called a woman in Ireland’s self-satisfied, corporatist mainstream media – was until recently held in Ireland’s sole women-only prison in Limerick. He is being moved to a men’s prison only because the staff in Limerick don’t feel safe having to handle him – no one seems to give a toss about the female inmates.
For children, this ideology means telling them lies about their bodies and the material reality of being a member of this evolved mammalian species. This creates mental distress and confusion. We’re telling them that if they don’t fit into the pink or blue box designated for their own sex, they should declare they are the opposite sex so they can fit back in. This is the very opposite of progressive. It’s cruel.
As for gay people, once sex becomes a matter of self-identification, so does sexual orientation. It’s lesbians who bear the brunt of it: lesbian friends tell me that a quarter to a third of the profiles on lesbian dating apps are now of men, and that if they make it clear in their own profiles that they will only consider partners who are really female, as opposed to pretend-female, they are banned for ‘hate’.
———
There is no material reality to the notion of gender identity; it’s a belief that a minority of people have about themselves, given life by utterances and nothing else. A person declares their gender, declares their pronouns, and everyone else is supposed to ignore the evidence of their own senses, their own understanding of the nature of humans, and accept that ‘people are who they say they are’.
So it is no coincidence that the draconian, Orwellian, Hate Crime Bill Ireland is considering enshrines within it a circular, non-reality-based definition of ‘gender’ or ‘gender identity’:
‘Gender’ means the gender of a person or the gender which a person expresses as the person’s preferred gender or with which the person identifies and includes transgender and a gender other than those of male and female.
This is tautology – circular gobbledegook. It’s not a definition at all.
As for hate, I know what it feels like to be its target. I’ve experienced serious death threats, some from men who identify as women who have serious criminal records, and who express their threats in gruesome, sexualised, personalised ways. On September 11th in Manchester, as I walked peacefully along the road after a teach-in on equality and human-rights law, I was followed by masked, flag-waving protesters shouting the usual idiotic slogans, with the addition of “Fuck Helen Joyce, my body my choice” and “There are many, any more of us than you”.
It makes some sense to call that hateful – though to be clear, I don’t think we need any new laws to handle this, just better policing. It’s a public-order offence. Me saying that men are men, that no man can become or be a woman, that a man who ‘feels like a woman’ is having an entirely male experience, albeit an atypical one – that’s not. Those statements are not just true, but in some situations essential to say in order to uphold other people’s human rights.
Irish legislators are considering passing a law that will criminalise ‘hate’ –undefined. Which protects ‘gender’, defined circularly – that is, undefined.
This law could criminalise mere possession of the book I blew up my life to write. There’s a ‘safety clause’ that excuses works of scientific or artistic merit – but please. The people who call me a Nazi, genocidal, antisemitic, racist, homophobic and so on, and who follow me down the street bellowing Fuck Helen Joyce, don’t think my work has scientific or artistic merit. That clause isn’t going to stop them going after me.
The problem isn’t so much that I might actually be charged and found guilty. It’s that I can’t be sure I won’t be. This is the so-called chilling effect.
I hear from my fellow thought criminals all the time. And I’ve seen the public polling. Most people agree with me entirely on issues of sex and gender.
But they don’t dare say so.
Well, I do, and I’m not going to stop saying it. I don’t do it for fun, I do it because everyone’s human rights depend upon it. I am going to keep saying the following true and important things:
• Being a man or woman is entirely a matter of biology and not at all a matter of identity.
• Men can’t be women. None of them, no matter how much they want to.
• Children shouldn’t be given puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones. They shouldn’t be told they can change sex. They shouldn’t be told that their feelings define their identities.
• No men, and that includes men who say they are women, should be allowed into women’s spaces or sports.
And so, if Ireland, my home country, does pass this dumb new law, I’m willing to go there and say all this again, because I feel a moral imperative. And even if you don’t feel the same urgency on this particular subject, I hope you will support me. My free speech is your free speech. You don’t know what unpopular thing you may one day feel a moral imperative to say.
Dr. Helen Joyce is the author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality and the Director of Advocacy at Sex Matters.
September 19, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Ireland, UK |
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“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” ~ Solzhenitsyn
Our wise and benevolent liberal overlords, satisfied with how well their exploitation of the covid pandemic went three years ago, have decided to do it all over again since the nonconformists, for all their outrage, never got around to holding them accountable. Not for the lockdowns. Not for the censorship. Not for the toxic injections. Not for shoving infected patients into nursing homes. Not for police brutalizing peaceful citizens. Not for the deaths they caused.
It would not be hyperbole to state they were drunk with power. Power is intoxicating.
They used the panic and the prediction of millions and millions and millions of deaths to suppress well-established rights: the right of assembly, the right to worship, the right of free speech, the right of free press—all selectively applied.
And they did it with glee.
And, furthermore, they masqueraded as being pro-science, shouting, “Follow the science!” Yet, physicians, scientists, and nurses who disagreed with the official dogma and cited facts were persecuted to such an extent that they lost their jobs, and their licenses were revoked and their professional opinions suppressed (yet, these—isolated—brave professionals persisted in telling the truth, which media propaganda called “disinformation”). Mind you, these are the same pro-science persons who deny that sex is determined through chromosomes, and insist that sex is “a social construct” (which begs the question, if a person’s genitals do not determine their gender, how does removing them change their gender?).
So now, it seems that the first phase is to, once again, force everyone to don those cloth face masks, which were useless from the beginning, as several scientific papers have shown, but which became a sign of conformity and political affiliation. Even children.
The rest may come later.
The fact of the matter is that, if one examines the elites’ actions during the pandemic—which, remember, we were told it would kill millions and millions of people—it is apparent that they really did not believe any of it. Not the lockdown. Not the mortality. Not the face masks. To prove that this was so, I will set down the specifics rather than write in generalities. If it seems that I am overdoing by doing so, if it is extensive, it proves my point precisely.
And remember while reading the following that during the pandemic everyone was forced to wear masks. Everyone did except for the ones who had backbone and refused who were harassed, arrested, insulted as “white supremacists” and “fascists,” and even physically attacked for not conforming:
2020
CNN’s Chris Cuomo was caught breaking lockdown by a cyclist. Predictably, Cuomo insulted the man for outing him. Cuomo is related to the politician who jammed infected patients in nursing homes, causing the deaths of thousands and who has never been held accountable.
CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins took off her face mask once the cameras were not recording her. Surprise! They were!
Democratic governor Steve Sisolak of Nevada apologized after a photo showed him not wearing a mask nor abiding by social distancing guidelines.
Democratic governor Gavin Newsom of California was caught wining and dining at a posh restaurant named The French Laundry (!) with friends and associates, none of them wearing face masks and obviously flaunting lockdowns, both of which were meant for the average citizen and not for the elite.
Democrat Nancy Pelosi took time off from criticizing Trump for not wearing a mask to go to a hair salon and not wearing a mask, contrary to policy.
The wife of Democratic Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker violated the state’s stay-at-home order when she traveled to a second home in Wisconsin. Why? Because her husband is one of the elites. This same elite sent construction workers to go work on his mansion.
Next door, the husband of Democratic Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, called a marina to get their yacht in the water for a Memorial Day trip. The person at the other end of the line blew the whistle, whereupon Whitmer claimed that he was making a joke. Nobody laughed. She was also found dining with at least a dozen other people at The Landshark Bar & Grill in East Lansing, Michigan. She also took a trip to Florida. Whitmer, incidentally, also put infectious covid patients with healthy residents inside nursing homes, just like Cuomo. And just like Cuomo, she has never been held accountable.
In California, Democratic governor Newsom ordered vineyards closed to prevent the spread of covid and the resulting deaths of millions and millions and millions of people. All vineyards except for the one he owns.
In the People’s Democratic Republic of Austin, Mayor Steve Adler told everyone to stay home and not travel, then took a trip to Mexico for fun and giggles.
Democrat Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl was seen dining outdoors, maskless, hours after banning outdoor dining for the masses.
Democrat San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo had dinner with numerous people in spite of state regulations.
Democrat California Sen. Dianne Feinstein was seen at an airport without a face mask. The sight of her face was traumatic for some.
Democrat Mayor Michael Hancock from Denver flew across state lines to Mississippi for fun.
Democrat politician Eric Adams hosted a maskless fundraiser in order to become mayor of NYC.
Democratic Chicago Mayor, and Crypt-Keeper twin, Lori Lightfoot, ignored the statewide order for salons and barber shops to be closed to the peasants and got some work done on her. Not enough, though. Upon being confronted with the transgression, she said she could do it because she was special.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, a Democrat, of course, was found to have been playing hockey in a skating rink after closing the rink to one and all, including children who were immune to the covid virus. He explained that, yes, he was skating, but he was alone in the rink. Then a video surfaced showing he was playing with 10 others, so he condemned the video as “stalking.”
2021
Alexandria Ayala, a member of the Palm Beach County School Board who had insisted that (immune) children should be masked regardless of parents’ wishes, was seen partying maskless over the weekend. In a demonstration of her arrogance, she had once told citizens during a school board meeting that it is “a privilege to address your public officials and to be in this chamber.”
Federal postal workers were exempt from the toxic injection but private businesses were fined $14K per violation. Nor were illegal aliens required to have the “vaccine.” Aside from the lack of legislation and the obvious dictatorial aspects, think about the logic there.
Members of Congress and their staff were exempt from taking the toxic injection because they are the elites. The peasants, otherwise, can be poisoned with the toxic substance in the “vaccine.”
Being one of the elites, Democratic San Francisco Mayor London Breed was seen partying at a club without the face mask she had mandated for the peasants. She stated that she should not be blamed because she was enjoying the music.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was seen at the NFC Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams without a face mask that he had been raging about for everyone to wear. Asked to explain, he said he was holding his breath.
At the Emmy Awards, where the elites tell each other how wonderful they are, none of them were wearing masks.
Democratic Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib admitted that she wore a face mask in public because there was a Republican tracker keeping tabs on her hypocrisy.
Democratic New Jersey governor Phil Murphy and Essex County Education Association (ECEA) members celebrated at a gala entitled—get this—the Equality Ball. Which you could only attend if you were one of the elites in that state. “At the very same time that this governor issued another EO mandating two-year-olds wear masks for upwards of 7 hours a day because of purported ‘safety,’ the New Jersey political Democratic elite gathered maskless by the thousands,” said State Senator Holly Schepisi.
The vermin are everywhere, including Tennessee, while in Washington, DC, Pseudo-President walked around in public without a face diaper.
Democrat Nancy Pelosi took off time from her insider trading to attend a public function—maskless. Considering the way she looks, she could have done everyone a favor by covering up her face.
And in the UK, their elites do exactly the same. First Minister Mark Drakeford of Welsh Labour was seen at a party maskless. The wanker had passed some of the strictest mask mandates in the country. Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, did the same. And, speaking of wankers, Professor Neil Ferguson—the one who predicted millions and millions and millions of people were going to die from covid—was caught breaking lockdown in order to have sex with a whore. Dominic Cummings helped to draft the government’s Stay Home—except he didn’t. Neither did Labour MP Dawn Butler who went out to lead a Marxist rally. Leftist Labor wanker Keir Starmer believed that lockdowns were for the proles, not for the aristocratic elites like himself. And then, of course, there was Commissar Jeremy Corbyn.
AOC was found maskless, not in NYC, not in DC, but in Florida. No lockdown, no mask. My, my. Back in her home turf, she put on a mask when cameras pointed at her only to take it down when they did not. It must be because cameras contained covid 19 and were contagious. Yeah! That must be it!
If you know anything about universities, it is that they are infested with scumbag administrators with grandiose titles who are parasites on students. At Northern Illinois University, a maskless Christmas party saw law school dean Cassandra Hill, Chief of Staff Melody Mitchell, assistant dean Kellie Martial, Assistant Professor Matthew Timko, and President Lisa Freeman. Several of these individuals among others, had snarled at any students walking around without face masks on.
2022
Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, unaware that the peasants would take umbrage at her privileged elite status, apologized for not wearing a mask in public and “promised to do better.” At not being caught.
Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock entered a room full of people who were ordered to wear masks. He did not wear one since he is one of the elites.
While NYC was turning into a hellhole—and it continues that way—Democratic Mayor Adms insisted that (immune) children in schools had to wear masks for the public good. Which doesn’t apply to him.
After two years the hysteria began to die down, but LA County public health director Barbara Ferrer wanted to reinstate indoor face masks in 2022 because covid was so dangerous, yet she was seen without a mask on. Nor was she alone. Seattle Public Schools wanted to reimpose the face masks for (immune) children.
When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went to Ukraine for a photo-op, he was not wearing a mask, supposedly the first time in 2 years. Sure. He also did not wear a mask when visiting the Queen. Or on a train in BC.
You can’t make this up: The arrogant elitist Broadway star Patti LuPone—who was not wearing a mask with other elites on stage, shrieked obscenities at an audience member for not having his/her face mask over the nose.
Democrat NYC mayors Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams mandated (notice the lack of legislation) that employees of businesses be vaccinated. But fellow elite artists and athletes were exempted.
TV celebrity Joy Behar, well known for her shrieking in The View, was spotted not wearing a face mask less than 24 hours after virtuously posturing before the other harpies that she would continue wearing one.
The political elites of California, specifically the governor and the mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles posed maskless in public with sports elite Magic Johnson (maskless also, of course), contrary to the mask mandate.
The City of St. Louis had a mask mandate for indoor public spaces. But partying Mayor Tishaura Jones and friends were exempted. You see, the elites are immune to the virus. More so than children.
Election denier and future President of Earth, Stacey Abrams, had her picture taken in a class of masked (immune) children, though she herself was unmasked. The picture was quickly taken down. Too late.
The arrogance of the elites has been for some reason particularly evident in school boards, whether relating to mutilating children, attempts to turn children into homosexuals, or anti-white racists. It was also evident during the pandemic that was going to kill millions and millions of people. At any rate, Susan Kass, Chairwoman of the Montgomery County, Virginia, school board, had a fit when she was outed for not wearing a mask while adamant that (immune) children should wear one.
2023
In their hellbent drive to destroy America, Democrats have eliminated our national borders and have urged and welcomed illegal aliens to just walk in and make themselves at home, even during the “height” of the pandemic. And they did not have to wear masks or be vaccinated.
Democratic President Obama had a birthday bash which, for all the warnings about yet another variant of covid, was maskless.
Conclusion
In looking back, several things become obvious. One, as evidenced by their behavior, it appears our overlords knew from the very beginning that it was all bogus in spite of their self-righteous proclamations and posturing before the cameras.
Second, it is particularly interesting that the rank-and-file of true believers (the Covidians for lack of a better term) never stopped to think, never had their fervor or their fanaticism diminished by seeing that their overlords—having the same politics as them—obviously thought the restrictions were absurd and broke them and flaunted doing so. Instead, they became even more virulent in their hatred for common people who refused to wear masks, and for the physicians and scientists who stated that lockdowns and face masks were not only useless, but counterproductive.
Now, they have dusted off their face masks. Some are wearing them again in fear, others with pride, and still others with glee, while some never took them off, as they walk around, looking down with disdain at the rest of us. All of them are looking forward to millions and millions and millions of deaths. Just like it happened with AIDS.
Third, everything, literally everything, that our overlords said about the covid pandemic was wrong: the social distancing, the effectiveness of face masks, the safety of the “vaccines,” the lockdowns, the mortality, the treatments were wrong. And they persisted in being wrong even when they knew the facts. In fact, it had become thoroughly evident by the middle of the first year. Nonetheless, they persisted. Why?
Fourth, if one checks the links to the above, one can notice that almost none came from the mainstream media, the same who were fanning the flames of panic. They deliberately suppressed the stories (just like they have suppressed the stories on the Hunter Biden laptop, the crimes of Joe Biden, and many more facts). There must be a reason for all those. I am not sure what that is.
Lastly, whether in Europe, Canada, Australia, or America, the opposing political parties kept mum. Aside from an isolated squawk here and there, they said nothing, they did nothing to counter the authoritarian impulse. The term “uniparty” has come into being as a result. What opposition there was to the oppression came from the citizenry.
Now, for our own good, we are supposed to relive the covid fiasco, perhaps to gauge how submissive the population remains. Considering the fact that neither the overlords nor the rank-and-file Covidians were ever held accountable—not at the local level, not at the state/provincial level, not at the national level—there is a basis for their optimism.
Months ago, a writer suggested that, yes, terrible “mistakes” had been made, but instead of holding people accountable, we should have an amnesty for the perpetrators. No, we see why we cannot have an amnesty, why we must hold them accountable, because if we don’t they will try again, with variations.
Armando Simón is a retired psychologist, originally from Cuba, and author of The U, Fables From the Americas and A Prison Mosaic.
September 19, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, United States |
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Study Finds Platform is Cleansing Side Effect Information and Promoting Unbridled Use of Experimental Products
YouTube is the most utilized video platform in the world. Many of my patients ask “doctor, why don’t we hear about vaccine side effects?” People feel blind-sided when they develop myocarditis, stroke, blood clots, or other common vaccine side effects but can can find no information on them with standard Google searches landing on YouTube.
Ng and colleagues performed a rigorous analysis of YouTube COVID-19 vaccine content and found that the platform is having effective content moderation. This means when you do a search, they are wiping vaccine safety information off the platform as “anti-vaccine” and replacing it with either irrelevant health information or pro-vaccine content.
Ng YMM, Hoffmann Pham K, Luengo-Oroz M Exploring YouTube’s Recommendation System in the Context of COVID-19 Vaccines: Computational and Comparative Analysis of Video Trajectories J Med Internet Res 2023;25:e49061 doi: 10.2196/49061PMID: 37713243
The authors declare this a “success” of content moderation. Others would say this is censorship of valuable health information replaced with propaganda promoting novel, experimental unsafe, ineffective, genetic vaccines. What YouTube is doing is very scary, the authors self-expressed virtuosity is even more alarming.
Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
President, McCullough Foundation
www.mcculloughfnd.org
Ng YMM, Hoffmann Pham K, Luengo-Oroz M Exploring YouTube’s Recommendation System in the Context of COVID-19 Vaccines: Computational and Comparative Analysis of Video Trajectories J Med Internet Res 2023;25:e49061 doi: 10.2196/49061 PMID: 37713243
September 19, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Human rights, United States |
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Millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on programs that target speech
Since the start of September, the Biden administration’s National Science Foundation (NSF) and State Department have awarded grants totaling more than $4 million to programs, studies, and other initiatives that target “misinformation” — a term that the Biden admin has used to demand censorship of content that challenges the federal government’s Covid narrative.
The NSF has awarded the following nine grants since September 1:
- A $330,000 grant to a postdoctoral fellowship that will “develop educational materials to help identify misinformation in media.” The associated program began on September 1, 2023.
- A $1.5 million grant to Arizona State University as part of a biological sciences program. The grant will help build “new risk management strategies” and its description claims that the “rapid dissemination of information on the internet is contributing to the spread of misinformation about hazards, risks, and how to manage them.” The associated program began on September 1, 2023.
- A $529,609 grant to Florida International University to conduct a study on “detection and containment of influence campaigns” that “distribute and amplify misinformation and hate speech with significant societal impact.” The associated program is due to start on October 1, 2023.
- Two grants totaling $730,017 to the Research Foundation for the State University of New York and Trustees of Boston University for a collaborative research program that will develop a platform to “help identify and mitigate information manipulation (misinformation and dis-information).” The associated programs are due to start on October 1, 2023.
- Two grants totaling $547,555 to the University of Florida and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as part of a collaborative research program involving the Poynter Institute — an organization that certifies Facebook’s “fact-checkers” through its International Fact-Checking Network and receives funding from Big Tech. The grant descriptions claims that “combating misinformation in the digital age has been a challenging subject with significant social implications” and describe misinformation as “a serious threat.” The associated programs are due to start on October 1, 2023.
- Two grants totaling $600,000 to the University of Rochester and Trustees of Indiana University for a collaborative research program that aims to increase the efficiency of an AI technique that can be applied to various areas, including “identifying misinformation on social media.” The associated programs are due to start on October 1, 2023.
The State Department has awarded the following five grants since September 1:
- An $18,000 grant to the Albanian-based non-governmental organization (NGO) the Institute for Democracy, Media, and Culture to ensure a “whole-of-society response to cyber incidents and misinformation.” The associated program began on September 1, 2023.
- A $14,500 grant to Paraguay’s American Cultural Center that will be used to implement workshops that “seek to combat misinformation and promote responsible digital citizenship.” The associated program began on September 1, 2023.
- A $15,000 grant to the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Udayana University to “raise digital literacy among selected amcors communities, journalists, and social media influencers to combat misinformation, pre-2024 general election.” The associated program is due to start on October 1, 2023.
- A $50,000 grant to New York University to complete the implementation of a speaker series that supports “countering misinformation.” The associated program is due to start on October 1, 2023.
- A $50,000 grant to the non-profit Digital Rights Nepal “to create a sustainable network of youth to promote digital rights, safer internet use and a collective resilience towards misinformation and disinformation.” The associated program is due to start on October 2, 2023.
These awards were granted as the Biden admin faces a major lawsuit for pressuring Big Tech to censor content that it deems to be misinformation.
An appeals court recently stated that the Biden regime violated the First Amendment when pushing social media platforms to censor and in an Independence Day ruling on this case, a judge described the Biden admin’s actions as “Orwellian.” The Supreme Court is now considering whether to hear the case.
While some of the grants focus have been awarded to non-American organizations, whose misinformation targeting efforts don’t fall under the scope of the First Amendment, these types of programs can result in the speech of Americans being targeted.
For example, Biden’s State Department has previously funded foreign think tanks that created “disinformation” blacklists. These blacklists were used to target American conservative media outlets.
Both of the agencies that awarded these grants have been involved in prior censorship controversies.
In addition to funding groups that created disinformation blacklists, Biden’s State Department has flagged thousands of accounts to Twitter, now known as X, for censorship.
Meanwhile, the NSF has been accused of funding programs that develop tech that targets vaccine dissent and has funded research on correcting “false beliefs” online.
September 19, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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Video link
From an IMDB review:
I was pleased to see it’s not just a movie of “sad stories” I walked away knowing what vaccines to stay away from, what side effects to look for, what doctors know and don’t know and why we’re not being told this information in the media or at the doctors office. As exemptions are being taken away and mandates are being implemented, this is a movie everyone (not just parents!) needs to see.
Mirrored with thanks to Observation Deck https://www.bitchute.com/channel/observation_deck/
September 19, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video |
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Legislation that seeks to tie the hands of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from setting up another Disinformation Governance Board is being launched by House Republicans. Brought about by Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ronny Jackson, and August Pfluger, this move is viewed as the Party’s effort to block limitations on what it deems to be free speech by federal agencies.
The DHS had originally set up a Disinformation Governance Board with a view to counteract, as it claimed, misinformation, malformation and disinformation. Yet, the initiative was met with criticism from conservative groups, leading to the body’s disbandment in 2022. Concerns centered around allegations of stifled free speech and political bias, rather than a focus on national security issues.
Representative Pfluger, who is part of the Homeland Security Committee along with Greene, expressed his skepticism about the previous governance board to The Washington Examiner.
According to him, it was less about maintaining factual discourse and more about controlling public discourse. He described the administration’s attempt to oversee American’s speech as discouraging, adding that the DHS’ energy should rather be directed to improving national security.
“Partisan government officials running a ‘disinformation board’ sounds ridiculous to most people, but yet the Biden administration tried to control the speech of American citizens… DHS should be focused on securing the border and preventing terrorist attacks, not fact-checking social media and censoring Americans.”
Republicans are progressively striking back against attempts by the current administration to regulate alleged disinformation. They are backing funding bills that effectively cut the government’s opportunities to bankroll these programs. This resistance to censorship extends beyond domestic boundaries, with the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee considering refusing authorization to the Global Engagement Center, a State Department-associated body.
It was revealed that this body had funneled $100,000 towards the British-based Global Disinformation Index which allegedly stealthily blacklisted conservative channels. Moreover, this isn’t the GOP’s debut attempt to disable the DHS from governing a disinformation board.
September 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | DHS, United States |
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Nothing screams ‘cult’ more than a building being lit up in corporate colours to celebrate a product launch.
Further evidence of the big pharma brainwashing can be seen with the Empire State Building turning Pfizer blue in celebration of the CDC recommending that everyone, from 6 months of age and older, can get this season’s updated Covid shot.
They then sponsored news articles to tell everyone that Covid is here again but that Pfizer is here to save us.
Seems like COVID’s everywhere again. But here’s good news from Pfizer!
This season’s updated COVID-19 shots are now available for ages 6 months and up, and they’re designed to help protect against recent variants.
That is why today, at 8pm, the Empire State Building turned its iconic building blue to announce that the CDC recommends everyone 6 months of age and older get this season’s updated COVID-19 shot. The blue light symbolizes our gratitude and appreciation for the updated vaccines and all those who made it possible.
COVID-19 isn’t gone, and vaccination remains one of our best tools to help protect against the virus that causes the disease. Ask your doctor or pharmacist about this season’s updated COVID-19 shots. Learn more and schedule at the CDC’s website, vaccines.gov.
Sponsored by Pfizer.
In almost religious like devotion, Pfizer wants your gratitude and appreciation for the updated vaccines. Because billions of dollars just isn’t enough anymore, they also want your adoration and eventually your soul.
We have got to the point now where everyone knows Covid is mild for most and that the vaccines don’t do anything. But there is a significant percentage of the population who are still in denial and convince themselves that the jabs work, save lives and make them morally superior.
Bobs Cartoons summed it up nicely with this image.
September 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | CDC, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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After shunning COVID vaccines during the early pandemic response, Tanzania became a natural experiment for all-cause mortality rates. Compared to large U.S. states like Texas and California, Tanzania, with one of the lowest COVID vaccination rates in the world, succeeded in having one of the lowest all-cause mortality rates on earth, through the worst of the pandemic.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | September 14, 2023
Citing a public health emergency, New Mexico governor Michelle Grisham revoked the 2nd amendment rights of residents of her state this week. After citing that constitutional rights and oaths taken by public officials were not “absolute”, she was quickly condemned by some of the highest officials in the state.
September 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video, War Crimes | Africa, Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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Prolonged wearing of a surgical face mask, made compulsory in many settings in many countries during the Covid years, reduces cognitive function and increases reaction time in addition to increasing shortness of breath and fatigue. These are the findings of a study published in Nurse Education in Practice, an international peer reviewed journal, on September 15th 2023.
The study, carried out in Turkey and titled ‘The effect of prolonged use of surgical masks during face-to-face teaching on cognitive and physiological parameters of nursing students: a cross-sectional and descriptive study’ involved 61 nursing students who volunteered to participate in the study. The sample size was determined to be adequate for the study using the statistical method of power analysis. Information was collected on cognitive fatigue and dyspnoea (shortness of breath) using a self-administered questionnaire and cognitive reaction time was measured objectively using an app. Body temperature and blood oxygen saturation were also measured.
The students were asked to complete the questionnaires and measure the above parameters at the start of a five-hour class and to repeat the process at the end. Surgical face masks were worn for the duration of the class. With the exception of blood oxygen saturation, all the remaining parameters were adversely and statistically significantly affected over the course of the class.
At the end of the class, the students reported greater shortness of breath, cognitive fatigue and had demonstrably slower reaction times. They experienced a rise in body temperature which is an established correlate of physical fatigue.
The authors of the study are careful to point out that the design of their study was a pre-test/post-test where the participants were, effectively, acting as their own controls. It is possible, therefore, that alternative explanations may exist to explain the observations. For example, we do not know if or to what extent the observed changes in parameters may have taken place anyway after five hours in class. For that reason, as recommended by the authors, further study is required of these phenomena using a parallel control group who undergo the five-hour class but who are not subjected to wearing surgical face masks for the duration. The reported study was carried out under Covid restrictions, therefore, there was no possibility of incorporating a control group.
Assuming that the outcome of the study does provide evidence for the adverse effects of face masks then further study should be conducted. Furthermore, the implications of the study could be very important if transposed to clinical practice. Prolonged wearing of surgical (and even more restrictive) face masks was compulsory during Covid restrictions. The ramifications for the ability of clinicians to make the correct decisions and to act quickly in emergency situations are surely worrying.
Declaration of interests: the author is Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry. He writes in a personal capacity.
September 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, Human rights |
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“Not A Good Decision For Young People”
Uttering words that would have seen you excommunicated from ‘good’ society, ostracized to an island of racists, bigots, and vaccine-deniers; Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said in a statement that the vaccines “are not backed by clinical evidence, but blind faith alone with ZERO regard for widespread immunity.”
In guidance (pdf) to patients and doctors, the Florida Department of Health added:
“Based on the high rate of global immunity and currently available data, the state surgeon general recommends against the COVID-19 booster for individuals under 65. Individuals 65 and older should discuss this information with their health care provider, including potential concerns outlined in this guidance.”
This directly contradicts guidance from The White House (everyone get up to date) and the CDC and FDA (endorsing the new jabs for anyone over 6 months old):
“We continue to live in a world where the CDC and the [Food and Drug Administration], when it comes to COVID at least, are just beating their own path in a direction that’s inexplicable in terms of thinking about data and in thinking about common sense,” Ladapo said.
And three years into this flu season, Ladalpo highlights ‘herd immunity’ among most of America:
“With the amount of immunity that’s in the community – with virtually every walking human being having some degree of immunity, and with the questions we have about safety and about effectiveness, especially about safety, my judgment is that it’s not a good decision for young people and for people who are not at high risk at this point in the pandemic,” he said.
Florida Governor DeSantis agreed:
“I will not stand by and let the FDA and CDC use healthy Floridians as guinea pigs for new booster shots that have not been proven to be safe or effective,”
In March, the CDC and FDA sent a letter to Ladapo, warning that he was fueling vaccine hesitancy and harming Florida’s seniors.
Ladalpo is not alone in his scepticism.
“Pushing a new COVID vaccine without human-outcomes data makes a mockery of the scientific method and our regulatory process,” Drs. Marty Makary and Tracy Beth Hoeg said in an op-ed.
“If public-health officials don’t want a repeat disappointing turnout of Americans who get the COVID booster shot, they should require a proper clinical trial to show the American people the benefit,” they added.
Just 17 percent of Americans received one of the bivalent doses, which were made available in the fall of 2022. The new vaccines replaced the bivalents.
“The CDC is advising the children get these boosters when there’s no evidence that children receive any benefit and clear evidence that they receive harm,” Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use, said on EpochTV’s “Crossroads.”
Risks include myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation that can lead to sudden death.
And cue the mainstream media ‘blood on their hands… science-denying’ headlines.
September 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | CDC, COVID-19 Vaccine, FDA, United States |
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The District of Columbia (DC) Court of Appeals has rejected Meta’s appeal to quash a sweeping subpoena that demanded it hand over “documents sufficient to identify all Facebook groups, pages, and accounts that have violated Facebook’s COVID-19 misinformation policy with respect to content concerning vaccines” to the DC government.
Millions of users, many of whom made truthful statements that challenged the government’s Covid narrative, are likely to be swept up in this government data grab due to the scope of Facebook’s “Covid-19 misinformation” rules and the number of users that were impacted by them.
Facebook’s Covid-19 misinformation rules prohibited many truthful statements during the pandemic. For example, at one point claiming that “vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they are meant to protect against” was banned — an assertion that health officials have now reluctantly admitted is true.
Even Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that Facebook censored truthful information.
And millions of people were impacted by these far-reaching censorship rules. In some quarters, Facebook censored over 100 million posts for violating these rules. Some of the groups Facebook took down under these rules also had hundreds of thousands of users.
Meta had challenged the subpoena on free speech and privacy grounds, arguing that it violated the First Amendment and that a warrant was required to compel disclosure of the requested data.
Specifically, Meta argued that the subpoena violated Meta’s own First Amendment rights by “prob[ing] and penaliz[ing]” its ability to exercise editorial control over content on its platform and also violated Meta users’ First Amendment rights because it would deter them from engaging in future online discussions of controversial topics.
Additionally, Meta cited the warrant requirements in the Stored Communications Act (SCA) — a law that sought to provide Fourth Amendment-like privacy protections by statute to communications held by third party service providers.
However, the DC appeals court rejected Meta’s arguments.
The court stated that Meta had not shown the subpoena will result in its free speech or associational rights being chilled. Additionally, it said Meta users’ First Amendment rights wouldn’t be chilled because “the users who made those posts have already openly associated themselves with their espoused views by publicly posting them to Facebook.”
The court also insisted that the warrant requirement in the SCA does not apply to public posts and that the subpoena “does not require Meta to ‘unmask’ any anonymous Users.”
Furthermore, the court characterized this mass request for user data as “reasonably relevant” to the DC’s investigation and said the subpoena is “narrowly tailored to the government’s asserted interest.”
We obtained a copy of the opinion for you here.
Not only does the subpoena require Facebook to hand over the data of users that were banned for sharing dissenting opinions on Covid but the Covid-19 misinformation policy the subpoena centered around is starting to be rolled back by Meta.
September 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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