WHO Member Says Agency Needs To “Nullify The Conspiracies” About Covid Vaccines
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | June 13, 2023
In 2020, as people challenged the “expert guidance” on Covid during the first few months of the pandemic, the use of the term “misinformation” in news articles almost doubled. This rapid increase in the use of the term by legacy media outlets was followed by an equally rapid rollout of new Big Tech misinformation rules which targeted content that questioned the Covid guidance being pushed by authorities.
Fast forward to 2023 and the first signs of this censorship pattern are starting to play out again.
The WHO, an unelected global health agency, is less than a year away from finalizing an international pandemic treaty/accord and amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005). These two instruments will collectively give the World Health Organization vast new powers to target misinformation and increase its surveillance powers.
And as this WHO power grab faces mounting criticism and pushback, several representatives of this unelected global health agency decided to use the recent seventy-sixth World Health Assembly (WHA) (the annual meeting of the WHO’s decision-making body) to claim that dissent is misinformation and call for more action against dissenting voices.
During a WHA committee meeting, the WHO representative for the Bahamas said “dissenting voices can clutter the airwaves and derail the public health good with disinformation and misinformation.” She added that “more is needed to nullify the conspiracies.”
Professor Peter Piot, a former Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a Handa Professor of Global Health, urged the WHO to do more to combat so-called “fake news” during the opening of the seventy-sixth WHA. Specifically, he said the declining trust in science, technology, and the actions of public health groups is “very damaging for health of the people” and called for the WHO to “invest with the same energy as those who are spreading the fake news and are undermining all these efforts.”
And during the closing of the seventy-sixth WHA, the WHO’s Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said:
“We must work hard to counter the mis and dis-information about the accord that’s circulating in many member states. We cannot mince words. The idea that this accord will cede authority to WHO is simply fake news.
This is an accord by member states, for member states, and will be implemented in member states in accordance with their own laws.”
Although the pandemic treaty won’t “cede authority to WHO,” it does recognize “the central role of WHO, as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work, in pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and recovery of health systems.”
While these WHO members are railing against what they deem to be misinformation, the WHO itself is infamous for pushing misleading information during the early stages of the Covid pandemic. In a January 2020 tweet, the global health agency amplified a claim from Chinese authorities that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the coronavirus.
Despite repeating these misleading claims from China, the WHO has gained major power over online speech since 2020 via partnerships with YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia. On YouTube alone, over 800,000 videos were deleted for contradicting the WHO. Many of the deleted videos shared perspectives that health officials have now admitted to be true. And Google recently renewed its partnership with the WHO.
But the WHO doesn’t appear to be satisfied with the increased influence it has gained in just a few short years and hopes that the pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) will give it more powers to target speech.
If these instruments are finalized, WHO member states will be instructed to “tackle false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through promotion of international cooperation” and combat “infodemic[s]” (infodemic is a WHO buzzword that describes “too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak”).
The WHO hopes to finalize both instruments by May 2024 and both will be legally binding under international law. The instruments have the full support of the US, Canada, and France.
Permanent Apartheid in Palestine: This is why Israel wants to reactivate E1 Plan
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2023
The Israeli government is at it again, actively discussing the construction of thousands of illegal settlement units as part of a massive settlement expansion scheme known as E1.
Though Israeli construction in the East Jerusalem area has supposedly been halted under international pressure, the Israeli government has found ways to keep the plan alive.
It did so through constant expansion of the various settlements in the name of ‘natural expansion’, confiscation of Palestinian land and the ruthless yet routine demolition of Palestinian homes.
But why does Washington, Israel’s main defender and benefactor, oppose, at least verbally, the construction in E1, while turning a blind eye to illegal construction throughout the West Bank?
The answer lies in the fact that E1 will further expand the Jerusalem municipal boundaries, minimise any Palestinian demographic presence in the city (from the current 42 per cent to about 20 per cent), and prejudice any political solution that includes East Jerusalem.
East Jerusalem is a Palestinian city, occupied by Israel during the June 1967 war. It is recognized by the United Nations and international law as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel should have neither legal rights nor jurisdiction there.
Washington, which rarely cares about the rights of Palestinians, is concerned that, without East Jerusalem as part of the political equation, any discussion of a ‘two-state solution’ will become forever obsolete.
In other words, the US is more worried about the political, not territorial consequences of the Israeli decision. Indeed, the US’s entire political program in Palestine and Israel is situated within the two-state solution template. Without it, Washington’s role would cease to serve any purpose.
This is precisely why US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, criticized Israeli settlements during his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on 5 June.
Though he covered the habitual US commitment to Israel’s security, describing it as “non-negotiable” and “ironclad”, he also warned against “any move toward annexation of the West Bank … disruption of the historic status quo at holy sites (and) the continuing demolitions of homes.”
These steps, and more, will “damage prospects for two states”, the cornerstone of US foreign policy in the Middle East.
Israel, on the other hand, is neither interested in a two-state, one-state nor any ‘solution’ to its military occupation and apartheid in Palestine. Instead, Tel Aviv is working towards a specific end, a formula of permanent domination, one that would satisfy its quest for ‘security’, demographic superiority and ‘defensible’ borders.
It matters little that Israel’s vision for its own border lines is largely inconsistent with international law. All that matters to the current, in fact, all Israeli governments, are the ‘national interests’ of the country’s Jewish population, whose future has been linked to the crushing of political aspirations and civil rights of the country’s native Arab, Palestinian inhabitants.
Jerusalem’s particular significance stems from two factors: one, its historical, spiritual, economic and administrative centrality to all Palestinians and, two, the fact that it has been the Holy Grail of Israel’s settler colonialism in Palestine for the last 75 years.
A quick look at the map of Occupied East Jerusalem is enough to explain Israel’s ultimate motive in the Palestinian city: Maximum land with an absolute Jewish majority.
For this to take place, much work has to be done, namely ensuring the territorial continuity between the massive illegal Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem.
Israel’s motives are not a secret. A long report by the Zionist Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs champions and illustrates Tel Aviv’s objectives in detail. The report warns against allowing “security and urban discontinuity between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, or the reversion of Jerusalem to a border-town status … that would preclude the city’s eastward development.”
The reference to ‘eastward development’ is particularly dangerous, as many illegal Jewish settlements have purposely been planted in various parts of the West Bank, all the way to the Jordan Valley for the sole purpose of linking them all up, thus dividing the West Bank into two main regions, south and north.
Considering the current administration and ‘security’ divisions of the Occupied West Bank, a major territorial division will deny Palestinians any sense of physical continuity, let alone statehood. In other words, apartheid will become permanent and, from Israel’s perspective, also sustainable.
As for the westward expansion, connecting Ma’ale Adumim to the so-called “metropolitan Jerusalem” through construction in E1 will help Israel resolve a fundamental component of its expansionist strategy. According to the Zionist Jerusalem Centre, such a merger will “incorporate both settlement and security as two vital, complementary components of Israel’s national interest.”
And, wherever there is Israeli construction in Occupied Palestine, there is always the destruction of Palestinian properties and confiscation of land.
According to the European Union Office in Palestine, in 2022, 28,208 illegal settlement units “were advanced” in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, compared to 22,030 in 2021. A higher number is expected in 2023.
As for Palestinian home demolition, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) paints a grim picture: in the first quarter of 2023 alone, 290 Palestinian structures in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were demolished or seized. This represents an increase of 46 per cent, compared to the same period of the previous year.
East Jerusalem has had a major share of this destruction, specifically 95 homes and other structures between 1 January and 28 March, according to the World Council of Churches. The outcome has been the displacement of 149 Palestinians. Among them, 88 children have been rendered homeless.
The price of Israel’s major plans in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank is not just humanitarian. It is essentially political, aimed at cutting off Palestinian communities from one another, isolating Jerusalem completely, and ensuring a Jewish demographic majority for generations to come.
Though Secretary Blinken tries to emphasise the danger of such actions to the two-state solution, the real danger lies in the fact that such measures threaten the very fabric of Palestinian society and the political future of the Palestinian people.
Israel’s quest to reactivate its E1 plan requires not just mere condemnation, but tangible and decisive action, especially as Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government is more unhinged than ever before.
Shadowy UK Unit Surveilled Telegram Posts, Had Hourly Contact With Social Platforms
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 12, 2023
The Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU), an enigmatic arm of the UK government that monitors misinformation, was relentlessly liaising with social media platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes on an hourly basis. This revelation came from the unit’s leader, Sarah Connolly, who spilled the beans on the operation in front of MPs.
Zooming in: Connolly depicted the unit as primarily tasked with “passing information over” to social media companies to persuade them to pull the plug on certain posts. She claimed that the unit was in cahoots with “almost all” platforms, engaging in discussions “daily, sometimes hourly,” The Telegraph reported.
The decision-making process was swift. Connolly detailed, “If somebody from the cell says: ‘We are worried about this,’ that goes immediately to the top of the pile. Whoever it is in whatever company.”
The CDU’s flagging efforts weren’t for naught, as 90% of content flagged by the CDU was either annihilated or its diffusion curtailed.
Another hat: Connolly was pulling double duty as she also chaired the Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum, a group tracking misinformation for six months during the pandemic. This forum was essentially designed to take the baton for the CDU’s “sometimes hourly” contact with social media firms.
What counts as disinformation?: Connolly’s disclosures indicate that the CDU isn’t frugal with labeling content as disinformation. She cited vaccine skeptic discussions surrounding side effects and claims of hasty development as the most concerning content.
Voices of dissent: MP David Davis isn’t onboard with the CDU’s modus operandi. He urged for the unit’s dissolution and a subsequent investigation by a parliamentary committee. Davis lambasted the unit, saying the “most paranoid wing of Government is interfering in the democratic process” and called for an investigation backed by the “biggest combination of power, access and speed.” Davis has spoken out against such practices in the past.
Opaque operations: The government is tight-lipped when it comes to divulging specifics about the CDU, such as staff count and budget.
Official word: A government spokesperson chimed in, stating, “As we have repeatedly made clear, the primary purpose of the unit was to track narratives, not individuals. It does not have, and has never had, the power to remove online content – on occasions where it encountered content considered to be in breach of social media platforms’ own terms of service, it was referred to them for consideration. When referrals were made during Covid, over 90 per cent of them were ultimately found to be in breach of terms of service. It is important to remember that this engagement with social media platforms was undertaken at the height of an unprecedented pandemic when the government’s overriding concern was to protect public health.”
Telegram: Though it was not one of the platforms the government had hourly contact with, the CDU also monitored Telegram posts, including ones related to Prof. Carl Heneghan, a prominent epidemiologist and a critic of lockdown measures. The information is sourced from documents released by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and obtained by The Telegraph.
The App: Telegram, the messaging app in question, is WhatsApp’s lesser-known cousin, with a bent on free speech. It has end-to-end encryption for confidential chatter and features public channels, where posts are on display for all.
The Data Trail: The documents reveal “sample Telegram posts” concerning Prof. Heneghan’s sharp critiques on the utility of face masks in stopping the coronavirus. It’s worth noting that the CDU’s data cache traces public channels on Telegram, not private conversations.
Official Stance: Sources within say that gathering these posts was aimed to “better understand how to analyze narratives on social media.” They deny any ulterior motives, asserting that the CDU did not see it as “an attempt to identify disinformation.”
Smoke and Mirrors? Despite assurances that the CDU “has never tracked the activity of individuals” and that Prof. Heneghan was “never monitored,” the extent of data collected by the unit remains shrouded in mystery. This discovery is turning heads.
Shadow Play: The plot thickens with whispers of intelligence agencies possibly colluding with the CDU. The government, tight-lipped and citing national security, has only added fuel to the conspiracy fire.
Prof. Heneghan Weighs In: The professor himself isn’t mincing words. He told The Telegraph, “The effect of these tactics is chilling.” He added, “The Counter-Disinformation Unit’s tactics included looking at posts from ‘popular channels’ on Telegram, a platform we didn’t use. It’s likely these were groups, but it’s not clear to us how they were identified or how they gathered the material.”
United States: Fifty Little Dictatorships
Brownstone Institute | June 11, 2023
Historically, a public policy catastrophe like the Covid response would lead to reform aimed at curtailing the powers that leadership abused. The Teapot Dome scandal led to increased regulation from the House Ways and Means Committee. The Vietnam War prompted the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Watergate caused Congress to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act.
But what if the government had responded to Iran-Contra by increasing the president’s ability to circumvent federal arms embargoes? In the wake of the Johnstown Flood, what if lawmakers’ reaction had been to make it more difficult for victims to recover for their damages?
We’d consider the rulers delusional and corrupt, callous to the damage that they inflicted on the people they purport to represent. It would be worse than dereliction; it would indicate that they relished the damage or remained beholden to interests averse to the general public.
It is now clear that those responsible for the Covid response aren’t looking for amnesty or forgiveness; they seek a government structure that codifies their authoritarian impulses and a legal system that offers citizens no means of demanding accountability from their rulers. Publicly, they are searching for any “emergency” to increase their power. Privately, they are looking to put that system into law.
With the East Coast enveloped in smoke, the political class immediately saw the temporary crisis as an opportunity to implement permanent change. Despite evidence that arson caused the wildfires in Quebec, the same groups that adopted mantras of “public health” to collect power announced that the smog was evidence of a “climate crisis.” Like Covid, the emergency demanded centralizing power and overturning American society.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote, “We must adapt our food systems, energy grids, infrastructure, healthcare, etc ASAP.” Senator Chuck Schumer similarly called on government to “do more to speed our transition to cleaner energy and reduce carbon.”
Just as a respiratory virus became the pretext for unrelated political aims like student debt relief and eviction moratoriums, leaders already seek to impose unrelated cultural change through fear-mongering and deception.
But while the smoke clears, a more insidious development is taking place. The largely unknown Uniform Law Commission (ULC) has proposed a law that would drastically increase executive power in the United States and reduce citizens’ legal right to resist unconstitutional edicts.
The ULC is an influential interstate organization that works to make state laws more uniform. Since 2021, the group has worked to draft a “Model Public Health Emergency Authority Act.”
The impetus for this initiative was the “uncertainty about the legal authority of governors and other state officials to enact certain emergency laws and declarations” during Covid, according to journalist David Zweig. “The legal ambiguity around many pandemic declarations resulted in new legislation in many states that explicitly clawed back public health powers from governors and executive branch officials.”
In response, the ULC seeks to codify a system that shields and promotes unchecked executive authority. Zweig writes, “It wants the legal authority that’s given to governors to be clear. And a memo indicates that the ULC expects the adoption of the Act will result in people suing only if the Act itself wasn’t followed, rather than suing based on a claim that the governor’s actions were unconstitutional.”
The Act threatens to strip Americans of their legal ability to oppose mandates, lockdowns, or other government orders. It offers total deference to governors in deciding what constitutes an emergency. No evidence would be required for state leaders to impose arbitrary and irrational limits on human liberty. Schools, businesses, and churches would be subject to the whims of executive power.
The ULC plans to vote on the Act in July, and passage threatens to strip Americans of their constitutional rights.
If passed, Kathy Hochul would be free to declare that the Quebec smoke constituted an emergency that justified her drastically limiting New Yorkers’ fuel consumption. Gavin Newsom could ban singing in churches the next time a town had a Covid outbreak. The pretense of an emergency would abolish the separation of powers, leaving legislatures and the judiciary powerless to oppose the mandates of self-appointed governor-tyrants.
Brownstone was founded on the premise that Covid was “not just about this one crisis but past and future ones as well. This lesson concerns the desperate need for a new outlook that rejects the power of the legally privileged few to rule over the many under any pretext.”
The pretexts are many, some predictable and some not. But the drive remains the same: more power to the government, less freedom for the people.
The ULC’s proposal prepares the ground for any and all crises. It codifies a system that augments the power of the legally privileged under any pretext and strips the many of their right to legal recourse.
In Federalist No. 51, Madison wrote, “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
Citizens had painful reminders of their leaders’ mammalian flaws of the last three years. Hypocrisy, irrationality, self-interest, and insatiable pursuits of power became commonplace. There were the double standards of governors flaunting their own restrictions and granting blatant political favoritism. Children suffered under cruel and irrational edicts and states criminalized basic human liberties. Governors called on local law enforcement to break into homes to arrest families for gathering at Thanksgiving.
Now, the ULC proposes granting governors more power for when the next emergency arrives. There is no reason to expect angelic behavior in the next crisis. The attempt here is to end what most annoyed the ruling elites during the Covid crisis: the relatively decentralized response due to American federalism. One state (South Dakota) did not go along at all. Others bailed on the lockdown agenda after a few weeks. As time dragged on, some states tried to hang on to the crisis for as long as possible while others moved on with life as normal.
In all the postgaming in the elite narratives, this point sticks out the most. The next time, they want an all-of-society response, no stragglers and refuseniks. The efforts by the ULC are part of rigging the system toward that end. Instead of 50 “laboratories of democracy” they want 50 mini-dictatorships carrying out the orders of the elites in Washington, DC.
This legal push has received no public attention, and not even Zwieg’s expert journalism seems to have broken through the wall set up by the mainstream media. And that is precisely why anyone concerned about the future needs to get the word out. The efforts toward fundamental regime change are real, threatening, and deeply dangerous to the future of liberty itself.
Irish Farmers Protest Plans to Cull Livestock to Meet Climate Targets
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 8, 2023
Farmers in Ireland are protesting government proposals to cull livestock — including up to 200,000 cows — in an effort to meet national and European Union (EU) climate targets.
According to Ireland’s Independent, up to 65,000 dairy cows and 10% of the livestock herd would have to be removed from the national herd every year for three years at a cost of €200m ($215.2 million) if the farming sector is to “meet its climate targets.”
The figures come from an Irish government document the Independent obtained following a freedom of information request.
National climate targets in question include a 51% reduction in emissions by 2030 — the target year for the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals — and net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the Independent reported.
According to the Irish Mirror, a 25% emissions reduction goal has been set for the agricultural sector by 2030.
The government document proposes farmers receive compensation of up to €5,000 ($5,381) for each cow that is culled.
According to Remix News, the plans were first outlined in 2021. A report at the time recommended culling up to 1.3 million cattle to reduce emissions to “sustainable” levels.
There are approximately 2.5 million dairy and beef cows in Ireland, according to the Irish June Livestock Survey. Of these, 1.6 million are dairy cows — which have increased by 40% in the past decade — while beef cows total approximately 913,000, representing a decrease of 17% over the same period, the Irish Mirror reported.
Separately, Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a 115-page report in March that recommended “effective abatement of livestock emissions … of approximately 30% plus ruminant livestock number reduction [of] up to 30%.”
According to the EPA, the country’s agricultural sector is directly responsible for almost 38% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, as reported by the Irish Mirror.
And a report published in October 2022 by the Irish government’s Food Vision Dairy Group — established to “identify measures which the dairy sector can take to contribute to stabilization and subsequent reduction of emissions” — said there is an “urgent need to address the negative environmental impacts associated with dairy expansion.”
The report said dairy farmers could lose between €1,770 ($1,906) and €2,910 ($3,134) per cow removed.
Ireland, along with other EU member states and the U.S., are participants in the 2021 “Global Methane Pledge,” whose participants “agree to take voluntary actions to contribute to a collective effort to reduce global methane emissions at least 30 percent from 2020 levels by 2030.”
Organizations supporting the Global Methane Pledge include the United Nations Environment Programme, the European Investment Bank, the Global Dairy Platform, the Green Climate Fund, the International Energy Agency and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Bloomberg Philanthropies is one of the major funders of the C40 Good Food Cities Accelerator, whose signatory cities commit to achieving a “planetary healthy diet” by 2030, defined by more “plant-based foods,” and less meat and dairy.
C40 merged with the Clinton Climate Initiative in 2006, and in 2020, said cities should “build back better.”
Separately, EU member states are discussing proposals to “cut pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from livestock,” according to Reuters.
The United Nations Environment Programme and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition claim livestock emissions account for approximately 30% of total methane emissions.
Cattle reduction proposals ‘absolute madness’
The Independent’s report prompted an immediate reaction in Ireland — particularly from the agricultural sector. This then prompted the Irish government to walk back the report.
The Irish Mirror reported that a spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Agriculture said the report “was part of a deliberative process … one of a number of modelling documents” it is considering and “not a final policy decision.”
Pat McCormack, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, told Newstalk Breakfast that Ireland’s “herd isn’t any larger than it was 25, 30 years ago.”
He said the farming sector is prepared to follow the strategic direction of the Irish government, but that, “If there is a scheme, it needs to be a voluntary scheme.”
Addressing the Irish Parliament on May 30, Peadar Tóibín, head of the Aontú political party, criticized the government’s proposals, calling them “an incredible threat to the farming sector at a cost of about €600 million [$646.9 million].”
Tóibín said:
“A full 25% of beef that’s being imported into the European Union is now coming from Brazil. How is it environmentally friendly to kill large swathes of the Amazon, import that beef from Brazil to substitute for Irish beef that’s been culled here in this state?”
A member of the Irish Parliament, Michael Healy-Rae, called the government’s proposals “absolute madness,” and warned that many farmers will refuse to comply or opt to leave the sector altogether if these plans move forward.
Tim Cullinan, president of the Irish Farmers’ Association told The Telegraph, “Reports like this only serve to further fuel the view that the government is working behind the scenes to undermine our dairy and livestock sectors.”
“While there may well be some farmers who wish to exit the sector, we should all be focusing on providing a pathway for the next generation to get into farming,” he added.
Ian Plimer, Ph.D., professor emeritus of geology at the University of Melbourne, told Sky News Australia that the culling of 200,000 cattle “can only end in disaster.”
“The Irish know about this from the potato famine,” he said. “A third of their population died, a third emigrated, and the same thing will happen. They will lose productive people from Ireland and they’ll go somewhere else.”
Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk also weighed in over the controversy, tweeting “This really needs to stop. Killing some cows doesn’t matter for climate change.”
British author and farmer Jamie Blackett wrote, “It seems increasingly clear that there is an eco-modernist agenda to do away with conventional meat altogether. It’s not just the Extinction Rebellion mob, either; many of the world’s politicians are on board.”
An August 2022 report suggested “insects could soon be on the menu in Ireland” and that “High-protein bug replacements for meat and dairy could help save the planet.”
According to a report by the Independent, a 10% reduction in Ireland’s dairy herd would cost €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) annually, while industry experts argued such proposals would result in global greenhouse gas emissions actually increasing.
According to Agriland, Ireland imported more than 14,000 tons of beef in the first quarter of this year, while Ireland exported €2.5 billion ($2.69 billion) worth of beef in 2022, an 18% increase compared to 2021, likely contributing to higher emissions.
The Food Vision Dairy Group’s October 2022 report “on measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the dairy sector” said:
“Ireland’s carbon footprint per unit of output is considered to be the lowest amongst milk-producing countries. It is also noted that the carbon footprint per unit of output has declined [in] recent years.”
However, an August 2022 Euronews report claimed Ireland “has the highest methane emissions per capita of all EU member states, with much of this due to beef production.”
The Food Vision Dairy Group’s report also stated:
“Once methane emissions are stabilised and remain stable then the atmospheric concentration will stabilise.
“Emissions should be reduced by around 3% per decade or offset by carbon dioxide removals which provides a similar climate impact. This would neutralise its impact on the global temperature. There is no basis in science therefore that requires emissions from enteric fermentation to be reduced to net zero.”
The group said it was focused on actions the dairy sector needs to take to make its “proportionate contribution” toward the target 25% reduction in agriculture emissions.
Several other proposals are contained in the report, including reducing chemical nitrogen use in the dairy sector by 27-30% by the end of 2030, and a “Voluntary Exit/Reduction Scheme.”
As these proposals are put forth, other reports indicate the use of private jets is “soaring” in Ireland. Remarking on this, Irish Senator Lynn Boylan recently stated:
“Climate justice advocates have long argued that not all carbon emissions are created equal. To date, the government’s approach has been about punishing ordinary people while the wealthy are exempt to continue living their carbon-intensive lifestyles.”
And in a May op-ed for Agri-Times Northwest, farmer and agronomist Jack DeWitt criticized cattle reduction proposals, arguing they rely on untrue science. He wrote:
“Something you have no doubt heard is that cattle who live their entire lives on pastures (i.e. grass-fed beef) emit less methane. That’s not true.
“Cattle’s methane impact in the U.S. is significantly less than 50 years ago and continues to reduce because of efficiency gains in producing beef and milk … Beef cattle numbers are down 6 percent since 1970, but meat production from those cattle is up 25 percent, partly due to heavier weight at slaughter, made possible by breeding animals to deliver higher growth rates and higher feed efficiencies. Expect these efficiency trends to continue.”
DeWitt also wrote, “Some people want to eliminate 1 billion cattle and convert people to veganism,” he added. “But humans pass methane too, and a vegan diet doubles the amount.” He said farmers can also trap methane and use it for electricity production.
Gates a major investor in methane reduction schemes
Similar proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector in several other countries also triggered farmer protests.
According to AgDaily, the Dutch government “is slated to cut nitrogen oxide and ammonia by 50 percent by 2030,” leading to many farms now “facing shutdowns.” The Dutch government “expects about a third of the 50,000 Dutch farms to ‘disappear’ by 2030” and has proposed a program of “voluntary” buyouts of farms and cattle stocks.
These plans resulted in large-scale protests by Dutch farmers earlier this year, and led to significant electoral losses by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s governing coalition and significant gains made by the Farmer Citizen Movement, in March’s provincial elections.
Nevertheless, the European Commission recently approved two Dutch government plans to buy out livestock farmers.
According to AgDaily, the plans, worth €1.47 billion ($1.65 billion), aim “to reduce nitrogen emissions and meet EU environmental targets. Farmers will be offered financial compensation to stop farming and sell their animals voluntarily.”
Farmer protests also occurred in Belgium in March, following plans introduced by the Flemish government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector.
And a report commissioned in 2022 by Northern Ireland’s agricultural sector suggested that more than 500,000 cattle and approximately 700,000 sheep would need to be culled to meet the region’s climate targets.
In October 2022, the government of New Zealand “announced its plans to impose a farm-level levy on farmers for their livestock’s emissions … to meet climate targets,” according to Popular Science, with plans for the program to come into effect by 2025.
That proposal was met with mild opposition by Ermias Kebreab, Ph.D., director of the UC Davis World Food Center, who told Popular Science “The burden needs to be shared by society and not just farmers that are already operating on small margins.”
Society “sharing the burden” may imply reductions in meat consumption, a view that was further elucidated in a March 24 Reuters op-ed by columnist Karen Kwok.
Kwok wrote the “War on cow gas is [a] stinky but necessary job in [the] climate-change struggle.” If the price of meat goes up, Kwok said, “that will close a gap with plant-based burgers and steaks, which today cost twice as much as animal-based ones” — which will deter consumers from “purchasing chops and sausages and opt for less carbon-intensive alternatives,” she said.
In January, French dairy firm Danone announced it is considering placing masks on cows to trap their burps and reduce methane emissions, while Danone is also mulling forcing cows to wear diapers to trap their flatulence. One farmer told Fox News the plan was “utter madness” and said those proposing such ideas have “gone to loony town.”
Bill Gates recently made some high-profile investments in startups and technologies purporting to reduce methane emissions in the agricultural sector.
In January, Gates announced an investment in Australian start-up Rumin8, which is developing a seaweed-based feed to reduce the methane emissions cows produce “through their burps and, to a lesser extent, farts,” CNN reported.
And in March, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation granted $4.8 million to Zelp (Zero Emissions Livestock Project), a firm developing face masks for cattle that capture methane emitted by animal burps, converting it to carbon dioxide.
Speaking to Cowboy State Daily in March, Brett Moline, director of public and governmental affairs for the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, called the face mask proposal “one of the most pickle-headed ideas I’ve ever heard of.”
The Daily Mail, quoting The Associated Press, noted Gates is considered the largest private owner of farmland in the U.S., having “quietly amassed” close to 270,000 acres.
Such proposals may all be connected to the “One Health” concept promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“One Health,” which figures prominently in the pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations currently being negotiated, calls for global surveillance to detect potential zoonotic diseases that may cross over from animals to humans.
At the recent World Health Assembly, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of a future pandemic that may be fueled by a zoonotic disease.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Russia’s Release Of Captured Ukrainian Fighters To Hungary Sent Three Messages
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 10, 2023
The Russian Orthodox Church’s press service revealed late last week that Patriarch Kirill mediated an unusual prisoner transfer. According to their statement, “at the request of the Hungarian side, a group of Ukrainian war prisoners of Transcarpathian background, who participated in active service, was transferred to Hungary.” The Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister later said that Kiev wasn’t informed of this ahead of time, which prompted all sorts of speculation about this event.
Some background context is in order before going any further. Most Westerners might not be aware of it, but Hungary is very worried about the human rights of its co-ethnics in Ukraine, who found themselves in that former Soviet Republic as a result of post-World War II border changes. What’s now known as “Zakarpattia Oblast” had been part of Hungarian Civilization for over a millennium up until the interwar period when it was first part of Czechoslovakia before being given to Ukraine by the Allies.
Kiev began to crack down on all its minorities after the Western-backed spree of urban terrorism popularly known as “EuroMaidan” overthrew that country’s government in 2014. Ethnic Hungarians’ linguistic rights were rescinded, including the freedom for members of this community to study in their native language. They were then conscripted by Kiev to fight in the NATO-Russian proxy war that broke out 15 months ago despite the majority of them wanting to be left alone to live in peace with everyone.
Having brought the reader up to speed about this group’s background, they can now better understand why they were transferred to Hungary instead of Ukraine. The Hungarian news portal Telex published a detailed analysis here about their speculative legal status at the time that they entered that country. It suggests that Russia released them from their formal status as prisoners of war so they could travel to Hungary as civilians, where they might have been given citizenship to prevent their return to Ukraine.
That’s a sensible enough interpretation, but whatever their legal status may or may not have been at the time of transfer, this very event itself sent three very strong messages. Recalling the Russian Orthodox Church’s statement, this was done at the behest of the Hungarian side, though it’s unclear how Budapest became aware that its co-ethnics were captured by Russia. More than likely, Moscow informed it of this upon learning their identities, after which Budapest requested the transfer.
Hungary thus sent the first message by showing that it sincerely believes that its co-ethnics in Ukraine are exploited as cannon fodder. The second one was sent by Russia and concerns its tacit agreement with this assessment, which explains why it presumably contacted Hungary after learning that it had captured some of its co-ethnics. Both countries then sent the final message to Ukraine by carrying out this transfer and showing the world that they don’t trust Kiev to protect minorities within its borders.
Those captured Hungarian minority fighters never wanted to participate in this conflict but were forced against their will to do so since Kiev refused to give them exemptions from conscription, which is why they fear for their lives if they’re sent back since they know they’ll be thrown back to the frontlines. Their personal experiences attest to the fact that it isn’t so-called “Russian propaganda” to claim that Kiev violates its minorities’ human rights.
Extrapolating from this, the only reason why Ukraine won’t exempt minorities from conscription and consequently counteract Russia’s aforementioned accusation in part is that it desperately needs as many fighters as possible. This insight implies that there’s a very high casualty rate, which in turn corroborates Wagner chief Prigozhin’s infamous claim that his forces turned the Battle of Artyomovsk into a meat grinder for Kiev.
This unusual transfer therefore exposes the dark truth that the Mainstream Media has hidden from the world since the start of this conflict if those who hear about this event actually take the time to dwell on all its dimensions. Russia and Hungary sent three very clear messages regarding the true state of affairs for Ukraine’s minorities, who are exploited as cannon fodder in a conflict that they never wanted to participate in but are forced against their will to fight on pain of imprisonment or worse.
Bipartisan opposition to US government spying grows – poll
RT | June 8, 2023
For the first time in over a decade, less than half of Americans – 48% – believe it is sometimes necessary to relinquish freedom to the government in exchange for protection from terrorism, according to an AP-NORC poll published on Thursday.
Half of the poll’s 1,081 respondents countered that sacrificing one’s rights was never necessary for security. When the pollster asked the same questions in 2011, nearly two thirds (64%) had accepted the possibility they might have to jettison their liberty to fight terrorism, with one third disagreeing.
Declining trust in US intelligence agencies and their leadership appeared to play a significant role in the shift. Just 18% of poll respondents said they had “a great deal of confidence” in the leaders of the intelligence community, and while 49% had “some” confidence, nearly a third (31%) had hardly any.
The sharpest decline was among Republicans, only 44% of whom supported sacrificing liberty for security – in comparison with 55% of Democrats and 42% of independents. In 2011, 69% of Republicans had prioritized protection over freedom.
Accompanying the decline in trust has been a growing awareness that Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), while explicitly intended to spy on foreign targets, is also used to surveil millions of Americans. The infamous loophole makes any American contacted by a foreign target fair game for warrantless wiretapping by US intelligence. This deeply unpopular scheme has united even some Republicans and some Democrats in Congress against it.
That FISA warrants illegally obtained by the FBI were used to spy on former president Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign has only strengthened some Republicans’ rejection of that system.
Asked about different types of warrantless wiretapping, poll respondents found eavesdropping on domestic phone calls to be the most objectionable tactic, with 67% of respondents opposing it. While 62% found reading domestic emails equally beyond the pale, three out of five responses opposed monitoring domestic text messages as well.
A plurality even opposed government eavesdropping in situations involving reading emails of foreign origin and listening to phone calls from outside the US, with just 28% thinking warrantless wiretapping was acceptable in either case. Monitoring internet searches for “suspicious activity” attracted more approval, with 30% favoring it, and more disapproval, with 48% being against it at the same time.
The Biden administration has urged Congress to renew Section 702, which will otherwise expire at the end of the year. Claiming it is critical to fighting terrorism overseas, intelligence officials nevertheless declined to share specifics on how they use the controversial program earlier this year, instead merely informing lawmakers that every court that has examined the FISA provision has “found it to be constitutional.”
Billionaire Biden Donor Bankrolled 2020 Election Social Media Censorship Effort
BY LEE FANG | JUNE 8, 2023
The Department of Homeland Security’s controversial social media censorship effort during the 2020 election was propped up by a partisan billionaire.
Newly obtained documents, acquired through a public records request, confirm that Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder of eBay, financed a specialized portal maintained by the Center for Internet Security (CIS). This portal was used to facilitate the swift removal of predominantly conservative messages on Twitter and Facebook during the previous presidential election.
Omidyar, previously identified as one of the largest donors to campaign groups supporting Joe Biden’s presidential bid, donated $45 million to the “Sixteen Thirty Fund” in 2020. This dark money group mobilized Democratic voters and financed pro-Biden Super PACs. However, Omidyar’s direct involvement in the DHS partnership, which is now facing increased scrutiny, remained undisclosed until now.
The funding provided by Omidyar to CIS was used to establish a Misinformation Reporting Portal (MiRP). A team from CIS continuously monitored this portal 24/7 from September 28 to November 6, 2020, as revealed in a post-election report, “Election Infrastructure Misinformation Reporting.” The Democracy Fund, Omidyar’s foundation, supported the creation of the MiRP through a direct grant, according to the report.
The misinformation reporting portal served to rapidly identify and remove instances of alleged misinformation. CIS’s report acknowledged that the flagged content ranged from “intentional misinformation to honest mistakes.” Of the content reported by CIS, 61% “resulted in positive action,” which the group defined as content takedowns or labeling.
This MiRP system was used by a coalition of liberal-leaning research groups and overseen by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), a sub-agency of the DHS that has led the government’s push to censor social media. Despite government backing for the project, the effort was partisan – the Democratic National Committee was part of the consortium, but not the Republican National Committee, indicating a partisan bias.
“In addition to sharing all reports with CISA, some reports were shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the CIS report noted. The effort focused on “election narratives” deemed conspiratorial or inaccurate.
Tax records appear to confirm the Omidyar funding. The Democracy Fund’s 990 disclosure shows that it donated $130,000 to CIS in 2020. The grant, however, is listed as support for “election security best practices,” a vague description that belied the true function of the MiRP portal.
CIS did not respond to a request for comment. The Omidyar Network discussed this inquiry with me but stopped responding before publication.
Evidence of this MiRP system first emerged in emails I obtained from a visit to Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters in December. In an email thread dated October 1, 2020, Twitter attorney Stacia Cardille mentioned receiving outreach from DHS, forwarding a censorship demand from CISA, CIS official Aaron Wilson, and a representative from the Election Integrity Partnership, a coalition monitoring misinformation.
The alleged misinformation mentioned in the October 1 thread revolved around conservative warnings regarding potential risks associated with mail-in voting—a concern voiced by partisans from both sides. Twitter, however, took action against conservative accounts but did not similarly act against Democrats who warned against mail-in ballots, as I’ve previously reported. For instance, former D.N.C. chairman Howard Dean tweeted during the election: “Do not vote by mail. Ok to vote now early and drop your ballot off in person at the proper office. Too late to trust trumps postmaster thug.”
The Dean tweet was noted by Twitter’s content moderation team but no action was taken, while similar messages warning against mail-in voting from conservative accounts were censored.
The CIS report provides a comprehensive explanation of the public-private apparatus employed to influence content on social media. In doing so, the report also debunks recent myths. In April, MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan made a false claim that journalist Matt Taibbi deliberately misrepresented his case under oath during his congressional testimony on CISA’s role in shaping social media decisions. Hasan suggested that Taibbi had willfully conflated CISA with CIS during his testimony. This claim led Representative Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I) to accuse Taibbi of perjury in a letter.
The CIS report I obtained contradicts Hasan and Plaskett, clarifying that “CIS and CISA worked together to ensure the reports were sent to the social media platform within an hour of their receipt.” CIS also played a pivotal role in triaging the material while maintaining the government partnership with disinformation research think tanks.
In essence, CIS and CISA worked in close collaboration to exert pressure on platforms like Twitter, aiming to remove conservative political expression deemed untrustworthy. The project was a public-private venture, overseen by government agencies, and supported by a system financed entirely by a Democratic donor.
The report makes recommendations for future elections. It notes that misinformation reporting may require dedicated government funding, with a “transition to the operational side of CIS” under the CISA umbrella, as well as better operational support from social media platforms.
The CIS report is part of a batch of documents recently received from Kate Starbird, an advisory board member of CISA at the University of Washington, via a records request. As I reported on Tuesday, the Justice Department intervened last year to impede the release of records from Starbird’s team. Starbird has also accused journalists seeking these records of “harassment,” likening it to a cyber attack.
Nevertheless, these inquiries are part of a broader public examination of government-backed censorship. As previously reported, Starbird’s advisory panel advocated for an expanded role for CISA, calling for an extension of its monitoring to include various platforms such as social media, mainstream media, cable news, hyper-partisan media, talk radio, and other online resources.
To support their argument for such a broad mandate, CISA advisors highlighted the detrimental effects of alleged misinformation on key democratic institutions like the courts, as well as other sectors such as the financial system and public health measures, suggesting that virtually any major public interest concern may be used as justification for broad censorship.
Missouri v. Biden might be most important legal case in U.S. history
From what I’ve read, proof our federal government wants to kill free speech is overwhelming.
BY BILL RICE, JR. | JUNE 7, 2023
Until yesterday, I’d not read any documents in the lawsuit brought by the states of Missouri, Louisiana et al vs. President Biden. Because of this, I didn’t fully grasp the stunning claims made by the plaintiffs, nor realize how overwhelming the evidence is that supports this case.
Yesterday, I read the first 54 pages of a 354-page legal document that was filed with a federal district court in Louisiana on March 3, 2023.
I now better understand why some people believe this might be the most important legal case in U.S. history.
In a nutshell, attorneys for the plaintiffs are compiling and presenting a mountain of evidence that shows actors for the U.S. government have conspired to nullify the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
This Amendment was first for an important reason.
It states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The core issue at stake is should American citizens be allowed to have genuine “freedom of speech.”
In my view, the evidence already presented in this legal case proves beyond a reasonable doubt that a cadre of officials in government (and organizations working “in partnership” with government agencies) despise, fear and want to end “free speech.” In fact, they’ve already effectively blocked the free speech of millions of Americans.
In a democracy, free speech is vitally important as it makes dissent from prevailing narratives possible and thus protects the “natural rights” of citizens who may hold minority views. That is, without “free speech,” only the views of those who embrace “authorized” opinions would be allowed to participate in any meaningful way in democratic debates.
One can parse this lengthy document a thousand ways, but the bottom-line conclusion is that the U.S. government believes only its views should be allowed to be widely disseminated.
Even more terrifying, virtually all the important institutions in contemporary society defend and seemingly support the efforts of the federal government to censor any speech labeled “mis-“ or “disinformation.”
A few of my main take-aways from my (partial) reading of this must-read legal document:
All Hope is Not Lost
The fact that attorneys general from at least two U.S. states have filed such a lawsuit provides hope that the entire country has not yet become disciples and enforcers of Big Brother.
It is also significant that the push-back to mass censorship comes from the state level of our “republic” and not from the federal government itself. That is, the Attorney General of the United States should have brought this case. Instead, representatives of the U.S. government are vigorously defending mass censorship, and the effort to “abridge the freedom of speech.”
The Legal System Can Work
This document is 354 pages because it’s replete with transcripts from legal depositions and exhibits that the public would have not seen absent the commencement of this legal proceeding.
The document also proves the power of legal “discovery” wherein defendants have to turn over all relevant evidence such as emails, meeting records, etc. (although plaintiffs argue that the defendants have still not turned over every piece of “discovery” requested).
A healthy democracy hinges on “fact-finding” and a “search for the truth.” This lawsuit has made it possible for the people who are following this case (not enough people) to learn more about the activities of the most powerful individuals who work for the most powerful government on the planet.
A quick aside ….
In reading this summary of evidence, I was struck by how easy it was for plaintiffs’ attorneys to build their case.
The attorneys, investigators and staffers bringing this case are clearly intelligent professionals who’ve been very thorough in developing their evidence and trying to prove their case. That is, if they get a fair hearing (which I’m not sure they will), they should win this case with ease.
However, this example made me think of all the lawsuits and “fact-finding” exercises that have NOT occurred with any of the litany of crimes and scandals of our Covid times (and even before Covid).
One strongly suspects that if other teams of competent litigators and investigators had employed the same tools of discovery and depositions, every scandal of our times would also be just-as-easily exposed.
Just like I think about all of the mainstream news articles that are off limits to alleged “watchdog” journalists, I also think about all the lawsuits and prosecutions that are apparently off limits to the people and organizations who could bring such cases.
What’s the core issue in this case?
The first paragraph of the “motion for the injunction” describes what the plaintiffs are trying to prove (and have already proven as far as I am concerned).
- “Federal officials, including Defendants, have made a long series of public statements since at least 2018 demanding that social-media platforms increase their censorship of speech and speakers disfavored by these officials, and threatening adverse consequences – such as repeal or reform of Section 230 immunity under the Communications Decency Act (CDA), antitrust scrutiny or enforcement, increased regulation, and other measures – if the platforms do not increase censorship …. “ (emphasis added).”
Note: For more excerpts from the document, see Reader Comments (under “most recent.”)
Comments:
Laymen and legal scholars alike agree that the First Amendment does not compel any publisher to print any and all speech. For example, a private company like The New York Times can publish, or not publish, whatever speech it wants for whatever reason it wants.
The issue in this case is whether citizens living in the “town square” can use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. to share their opinions or facts.
Or, more specifically, can the government use its immense power to compel private companies to censor speech the government doesn’t like (speech labeled by the government as dangerous, extremist, false or basically “misinformation” or “disinformation” as the government defines these terms).
Plaintiffs argue that the federal government is using its power to abridge free speech. The federal government is doing this by threatening to effectively shut down social media companies who don’t comply with the government’s wishes.
The federal government could harpoon these companies by “reforming” or “amending” Section 230 of the CDA. This section grants legal immunity to such companies, meaning social media companies can’t be sued or criminally tried because of the speech of citizens who make posts on their platforms.
Paragraph 3 of the document explains the power of this “threat.”
“3. The threat of antitrust scrutiny or enforcement is also a major motivator to social-media platforms. For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that the threat of antitrust enforcement is “an ‘existential’ threat” to his platform.”
The evidence – presented on scores of pages – clearly reveals this “threat” was made explicitly, implicitly, publicly and privately over and over and over by myriad employees of the U.S. government, including the President of the United States.
This makes one (almost) feel empathy for these social media companies, which have had a symbolic bazooka pointed at their heads by the U.S. government dating to the day “Joe Biden” allegedly won the presidential election over Donald Trump.
I write that I “almost” feel empathy for these companies because if anyone skims this document, he will quickly see that virtually every employee and key executive of these companies was eager and happy to accede to the demands of their pro-censorship rulers.
Those who read this document will see never-ending examples of government officials brow-beating and intimidating social media companies for NOT censoring MORE.
To me, these companies appear almost masochistic – as in they seemingly enjoyed their incessant scoldings. For example, social media employees often thanked their government minders for pointing out their transgressions, which they seem overly-eager to correct. (Here, the Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind).
The “stick” of repealing Section 230 is not the only motivation social media companies have for complying with Big Brother.
Numerous “carrots” also exist as almost every one of these companies also profits from big contracts with the federal government and/or receives large sums of money (such as vaccine advertising spends) for supporting the authorized narratives (or, more precisely, silencing the non-authorized narratives).
The Virality Project
The document makes many references to the Virality Project, an influential project commissioned by academics at Stanford University.
As I’ve written previously, the most important goal of the world’s real rulers in Covid times was/is the effort to fight “vaccine hesitancy.”
If people were hesitant about getting their Covid vaccines, the mRNA project would be a bust. Big Pharma and all the many entities that receives massive amounts of money from Big Pharma would not be pleased.
One thing that might make half the world skeptical of the “safe and effective” non-vaccines would be if the views of vaccine skeptics actually “went viral.”
This, very possibly, could have happened … absent mass censorship.
In my last article, I discussed several of the key “chess moves” our rulers have made to make sure they win this “game.”
Arguably, the most important move was making sure dissenting views did NOT go viral, a result which didn’t happen by chance … but by a coordinated effort to censor hundreds of millions of potential skeptics and critics.
Since the government doesn’t own Facebook (where two billion people share speech), the government had to “persuade” Facebook (Meta) to do their censoring for them.
This was a conspiracy, a massive one …
In reading this document, I was also stunned when I thought about all the employees and organizations that were involved in the effort to defeat the threat of “vaccine hesitancy” (and protect all the other many untrue Covid narratives).
I stopped reading after 54 pages, but this was enough to see that the actors in this conspiracy (a cover-up of the truth) included the President of the United States, all his key White House employees, the CDC, the Census Bureau, The Surgeon General and his staff, officials in the NIH (such as Anthony Fauci), many of the key members of Congress, all the new “fact checkers” and probably the White House chef.
Time and again, plaintiff’s attorneys present examples where government officials cite articles written by “journalists” at The New York Times or Washington Post that were used as a weapon to demand even more censorship among social media companies.
Surreally, this means our “free press” has been one of government’s key allies in suppressing free speech.
Government contractors, non-profits and think tanks were also brought in to help with the vital censorship chess moves.
Another hallmark of a conspiracy would be any evidence proving a coordinated initiative. The plaintiff’s attorneys have done an excellent job proving this happened. For example, the authors of the legal brief repeatedly show how the words “accountable” and “transparency,” were used ad nauseam by all the censorship conspirators.
When government actors told social media companies they would be “held accountable,” this was a not-too-subtle threat that they better do as told … Which, sadly and not surprisingly, they did.
The conspirators also incessantly demand “transparency” from social media companies.
The government didn’t just ask social media companies to do a little more censorship for the good of the country, they demanded access to all the algorithms, data bases, search queries, content-moderation policies, etc. that would prove companies were censoring the content the government said must be censored.
Amazingly, companies like Meta complied …. so, apparently, officials at the CDC and The Census Bureau (which for some reason took a lead role in enforcing censorship) and key White House staffers were looking at the same tools Meta used to see what Covid topics were trending on their platform.
The government would then tell the companies to ban such speech on their platforms.
Not only did government actors hold a gun to the social media companies’ heads, they wanted to see (and even use) the very tools that allow these companies to know what their users were posting.
As we’ve learned from the “Twitter files,” government officials also repeatedly zeroed in on key “disinformation super-spreaders” and made sure they were banned and punished.
Victims/targets of these censorship efforts include high-profile Covid skeptic like Alex Berenson, Steve Kirsch and Robert Kennedy, Jr., but they might as well have included Bill Rice, Jr, whose Facebook account has also been suspended (for no known or stated reason) multiple times.
Per the copious evidence in this legal brief, every time Meta banned someone or said some topic was now taboo, government officials were rarely placated, and demanded even more censorship. And, again, government officials kept demanding “transparency” to see that thy’s will was being done.
The irony of course is that the U.S. government is the least transparent entity on the face of the earth.
To be clear and to state what should be perfectly obvious by now, the multi-faceted censorship and “disinformation” programs (which pre-date Covid) were created and enforced to make sure no real government “transparency” is/was possible.
For our government officials, transparency is like sunlight or a silver crucifix to a vampire.
What will be the result of this lawsuit?
I actually don’t know what the plaintiffs are demanding except for the government to cease and desist with its efforts to compel censorship.
Speaking for myself, I’ve already seen enough evidence where this U.S. citizen won’t be mollified unless we have criminal prosecutions, the impeachment of President Biden and the censure of all the members of Congress who bullied these social media executives.
Also, the companies that went along with this need to be boycotted by every citizen that still cares about the First Amendment.
I’d also note that while Twitter has (largely) turned over a new leaf under the ownership of Elon Musk, the rest of the social media companies are censoring left and right just like they’ve been doing since “Joe Biden” was sworn into office. (This tells me these companies are betting on “Biden” prevailing in this lawsuit).
It’s not just Covid issues subject to mass censorship ….
For those who think the censorship regime only deals with Covid topics, I say you better think again … as this document also proves.
Plenty of sections of this document provide evidence showing that “disinformation” about Climate Change, election fraud and woke issues like “gender identification” will also continue to be subject to the whims of the government’s arbiters of truth.
For my part, I’m now convinced that what shouldn’t happen … will probably happen. This means, “Joe Biden” will probably win re-election and this case will probably be thrown out or the Supreme Court led by (captured?) John Roberts will ultimately side with the defendants.
If this happens, perhaps more Americans will belatedly understand the new legal precedent that has been set.
In the future, any speech that’s deemed “misinformation” by unelected bureaucrats (at say the CDC or EPA) can indeed be censored and banned.
It will be perfectly fine for presidents, Congressmen and surgeon generals to demand that social media companies censor unauthorized or “dangerous” speech. Furthermore, the government will be granted that “transparency” that tells them Meta or Google are following their orders.
Strangely, Substack wasn’t mentioned …
In reading this document, I was struck by the fact Substack (as far as we know) has yet to be targeted by the Censorship Czars.
My guess is that if this case is decided in favor of the defendants, this will no longer be the case. The “dangerous misinformation” I’ve been posting (and my readers in the Reader Comments) will suddenly be fair game for censorship as well.
Substack is replete with writers challenging the false Covid narratives, but this speech platform is also full of skeptics of Climate Change, writers who might not support the Ukraine War or central bank digital currencies … authors who think election fraud is real and correspondents who don’t like the “woke” transgender and pronoun malarky.
For the past 240 years, Americans thought the First Amendment gave them the “freedom” to share their views on controversial topics. If Biden and the U.S. government win this case, I suspect we’ll soon learn otherwise.
China’s criticism of America’s ‘piecemeal crisis management’ in Palestine is based on international law
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 6, 2023
Remarks on 24 May by China’s Ambassador to the UN on the situation in Occupied Palestine were impeccable in terms of their consistency with international law. Compared with the position of the US, which perceives the UN and the Security Council in particular as a vehicle to defend Israeli interests, the Chinese political discourse reflects a legal stance based on a deep understanding of the realities on the ground.
Articulating Beijing’s thinking during a Security Council “Briefing on the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestine Question”, Ambassador Geng Shuang did not mince his words. He spoke forcefully about the “irreplaceable” need for a “comprehensive and just solution” that is based on ending Israel’s “provocations” in Jerusalem and respect for the right of “Muslim worshippers” as well as the “custodianship of Jordan” in the occupied city’s holy sites.
Widening the context of the reasons behind the latest violence in Palestine, and the 9 May Israeli attack on Gaza, Geng went on to state a position that both Tel Aviv and Washington find totally objectionable. He condemned unapologetically the “illegal expansion of [Israeli Jewish] settlements” in Occupied Palestine and Israel’s “unilateral action”, urging Tel Aviv to “immediately halt” all of its illegal activities. The Chinese ambassador then proceeded to discuss issues that have been relatively ignored, including “the plight of the Palestinian refugees”.
In doing so, Geng has enunciated his country’s political vision regarding a just solution in Palestine, one that is predicated on ending the Israeli occupation, halting Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies, and respecting the rights of the Palestinian people.
Is this a new position, though?
While it is true that China’s policies on Palestine and Israel have historically been consistent with international law, in recent years it has attempted to tailor a more “balanced” position, one that does not impede growing trade with Israel, particularly in the area of advanced microchip technology.
However, Chinese-Israeli affinity was motivated by more than trade. Since its official launch, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has served as the cornerstone of Beijing’s global outlook. The massive project involves nearly 150 countries and aims to connect Asia with Europe and Africa via land and maritime networks. Due to its location on the Mediterranean Sea, Israel’s strategic importance to China which, for years, has been keen on gaining access to Israeli ports, has thus doubled. Predictably, such ambitions have been of great concern to Washington, whose naval vessels often dock in the port city of Haifa.
Washington has repeatedly cautioned Tel Aviv against its growing close relationship with Beijing. The then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went as far as warning Israel in March 2019 that, until Tel Aviv re-evaluates its cooperation with China, America could reduce “intelligence sharing and co-location of security facilities.”
Appreciating fully China’s current and potential global power, Israel has laboured to find a balance that would allow it to maintain its “special relationship” with the US, while financially and strategically benefiting from its closeness to Beijing. Israel’s balancing act has encouraged China to translate its growing economic relationship with the Middle East into a political and diplomatic investment as well.
For example, in 2017, China put into motion a peace plan — formulated initially in 2013 — called the Four-Point Proposal. The plan offered Chinese mediation as a substitute for US bias and, ultimately, the failed “peace process”. The Palestinian leadership welcomed China’s involvement, while Israel refused to engage, causing embarrassment to a government that insists on respect and recognition of its rising importance in every arena.
If balancing acts in geopolitics were possible back then, the Russia-Ukraine war has brought it all to a sudden end. The new geopolitical reality can be expressed in the words of former Italian diplomat Stefano Stefanini. The former ambassador to NATO wrote in an article in La Stampa that the “international balancing act is over” and “there are no safety nets.” Ironically, Stefanini made this point in reference to Italy’s need to choose between the West and China. The same logic can also be applied to Israel and China.
Soon after China succeeded in brokering a landmark deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran on 6 April, it again floated the idea of mediating between Palestine and Israel. China’s new Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, reportedly consulted with both sides on “steps to resume peace talks”. Yet again, the Palestinians accepted while Israel ignored the subject.
This partly explains China’s frustration with Israel, and also with the US. As China’s former ambassador to Washington (2021-23), Qin must be familiar with the inherent US bias towards Israel. This was expressed succinctly by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying during the latest Israeli war on Gaza: “The United States should realise that the lives of Palestinian Muslims are equally precious,” he said on 14 May.
A simple analysis of China’s language regarding the situation in Palestine clarifies that Beijing sees a direct link between the US and the continued conflict; or at the very least the failure to find a just solution. This assertion can also be gleaned from Ambassador Geng’s most recent Security Council remarks, where he criticised “piecemeal crisis management”, a direct reference to US diplomacy in the Middle East, while offering a Chinese alternative based on a “comprehensive and just solution”.
Equally important is that the Chinese position seems to be linked intrinsically to that of Arab countries. The more that Palestine takes centre stage in Arab political discourse, the greater emphasis the issue receives in China’s foreign policy agenda.
In the recent Arab Summit held in Jeddah, Arab governments agreed to prioritise Palestine as the central Arab cause. Allies with great and growing economic interests in the region, such as China, took notice immediately.
All of this must not suggest that China will be severing its ties with Israel. However, it certainly indicates that Beijing remains committed to its principled stance on Palestine, as it has been over the decades.
The relationship between China and Israel will soon face the litmus test of US pressure and ultimatums. Considering Washington’s unparalleled importance to Israel on the one hand, and the Arab-Muslim world’s significance to China on the other, the future is easy to foresee. Nevertheless, judging by China’s political discourse on Palestine — situated solidly within international and humanitarian law — it seems that Beijing has already decided what to do.
Choked to death by hospital guards, for wearing a Covid mask too low
By Paul Stevens | TCW Defending Freedom | June 6, 2023
May 27, 2023 marked three years since the death of Stephanie Warriner. A coroner’s report records that this was the result of brain injuries consistent with ‘restraint asphyxia following struggle and exertion’, suffered more than two weeks earlier whilst a patient at Toronto General Hospital (TGH), Ontario. Stephanie’s alleged crime was failing to wear a Covid face mask properly. I recommend pausing to take that in.
Stephanie, 43, was a slight figure, 5ft 5in and 120lb. Having experienced long-term mental illness, including bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the mother of five was admitted to TGH on May 10 with what a civil suit filed by her family describes as a ‘productive cough’. A Covid test had been negative. Having gone in search of a sandwich in the early hours of May 11, she was confronted aggressively by five personnel, four of them security guards, about her improper use of a face mask, which they said was worn too low.
As recorded in the civil suit document, after being ‘berated’ and ‘demeaned’ by guards, Stephanie was forced towards a wall, thrown to the ground and restrained, with weight applied to her back. During this time she was forced into handcuffs. Once the guards removed their weight from her back, she was seen to be ‘limp and lifeless’ but they did not attempt resuscitation or call for help. Instead, they placed her in a wheelchair and removed her from the view of security cameras and witnesses.
About ten minutes later the guards, moving her body into an elevator bay, attempted to resuscitate her but, as the coroner’s report noted, because of the ‘downtime’ between the damage being incurred and measures being taken, she developed a brain injury from which she never recovered.
The majority of the incident was captured on CCTV and may be viewed here. (You will notice that during recording, the CCTV camera appears to be moved. More about this later.) As a result of the restraint, Stephanie went into cardiac arrest, but did not die immediately. In fact, she lived for another 16 days, being first intubated and placed in intensive care and then transferred to Toronto Western Hospital on May 15. No attempt was made to contact her family until May 22, a full 11 days after the incident.
In July, two of the guards were dismissed and two were the subject of unspecified ‘internal disciplinary action’. According to a media report, at this time Toronto police said investigators were ‘awaiting the results of a full autopsy and that the case was in its early stages’. Five months later Stephanie’s sister, Denise, was still awaiting information from the police. Finally, in early December 2020, two guards were each charged with two counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of manslaughter.
In November, 2022, two and a half years after Stephanie’s death, an Ontario judge quashed the case against the two guards, due to come before a jury last month, saying there was ‘a lack of admissible evidence to support the findings necessary for making a placement order on both counts’. Subsequently, the Federal government declined to pursue further criminal action. This despite the coroner’s report and other evidence, such as the CCTV video and court documents submitted by the Crown for an earlier preliminary hearing which contain evidence that one of the guards lied in his deposition, having initially claimed that Stephanie had ‘delivered several overhand and underhand punches to [Guard A’s] face and was kicking her feet’, but then ‘later on, [Guard B] began sobbing and admitted he had not been truthful in the report, saying: “I’m sorry. I would have never said the things I said in there if I knew there was a video”.’
Speaking of the CCTV footage, over two minutes of it has never been seen – and never will be. During Stephanie’s interrogation and restraint the camera was intentionally moved to point elsewhere. The guard monitoring the CCTV from the security office claimed that he ‘suffers from anxiety’ and moved the camera because he was ‘anxious and concerned about the altercation and use of force between [Guard A] and Stephanie’. In their civil suit, her family make it clear that they believe the camera was moved to ‘shield the other defendant guards from any potential criminal liability’.
This tragedy was the direct result of the febrile atmosphere and enforcement of unevidenced, irrational and petty Covid mask rules. Contrast Stephanie’s case with that of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody that same month in Minneapolis. Protests were everywhere across the US and the entire world. Movements such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) sprang up. People were ‘taking the knee’ and filling their social media profiles with BLM images. There were calls for police forces to be defunded. Floyd himself achieved something close to beatification, with statues and wall paintings appearing widely. His police attackers received hefty prison sentences.
Stephanie Warriner? Nothing. Not a squeak. Because of a police and judicial embargo, it was barely a month ago that the public could even see the video and read about her death. Those who were implicated have walked free. And the health network which owns Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals still tells us on its website that ‘in 2019, Toronto General was named among the world’s Top 10 Hospitals by Newsweek magazine’. It insists that its priorities include being ‘compassionate and caring’ with a focus on ‘quality and safety’.
Stephanie Warriner died, at the age of 43, for wearing a Covid face mask improperly. This in the very same city of Toronto where nurses unions’ had twice – in 2015 and 2018 – won cases against hospitals seeking to mask them at work over influenza, with the evidence in favour of masking ruled ‘insufficient, inadequate and completely unpersuasive’. As with so much harm which has been done to so many people in the name of ‘safety’ these past three years, it appears no one in authority questions this, much less cares.
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Book Review
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
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