Leaked Memo Shows Mayo Clinic Doubles Down On Censorship
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 7, 2023
Reports this week expose Mayo Clinic as “doubling down” on speech restrictions it previously chose to impose affecting Dr. Michael Joyner.
The information comes from an internal memo sent to Mayo Clinic College of Medical Science, which is interpreted as sticking to a policy of preventing this medical organization’s members from speaking freely.
Previously, Joyner, a professor, was punished for his public statements related to his research, concerning public health, including topics such as Covid, and transgenderism and, in general, making comments that were construed as being against some government policies, that is, something that was well within his right to do.
But Mayo Clinic took the stance that what was more important, and takes precedence was for Joyner to toe the line – i.e., stick to “prescribed messaging” and rather than focus on his medical expertise, worry more ardently about the clinic’s chosen “brand” and (ideological?) standing it derives from that.
The Joyner incident came to light in early June, and after Foundation For Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) urged the health facility to withdraw the decision. Mayo Clinic’s Chief Communication Officer Halena Gazelka a while later the same month penned the memo, recommending to those in charge to effectively ignore the criticism.
One of the key points of the controversy is that the college has made a “promise” to its teachers and students of the right to free speech – which clearly wasn’t exercised when Joyner got suspended, and had a gag-order placed on him.
In the memo, Gazelka fairly brazenly advises college leadership to keep saying that Mayo Clinic continues to be “fully committed to academic freedom and expression.”
Joyner, who is still banned from talking to reporters without the college’s permission, might be surprised to learn this.
Furthermore, in the same vein of “tweaking reality,” the memo wants the college to push the narrative that Joyner’s punishment did not come as a result of his statements about transgender athletes, but because of his criticism (“unprofessional comments”) regarding the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) regulation of convalescent plasma.
There’s also a whiff of character assassination here, as the memo recommends framing the whole thing as sour grapes on Joyner’s part:
“Dr. Joyner’s comments about the NIH did not reflect the expression of a scientific or academic opinion but instead were an expression of his personal frustration with the NIH’s regulation of a therapy he had championed,” wrote Gazelka.
Palestine urges US to retract from building embassy in Jerusalem
MEMO | July 6, 2023
The Palestinian Presidency urged the US, on Thursday, to retract plans to build its embassy in Jerusalem because it will be built on Palestinian “private property”, Anadolu Agency reports.
The statement was in response to Israeli approval plans submitted by the US to build the embassy on lands the statement said were confiscated from Palestinian owners by Israel in 1948.
It described the move as “illegal” and “a violation of international law” because it will be built “on private property confiscated in 1948 from Palestinian owners, some of whom are holders of US citizenship”.
The Presidency said moving ahead with building the embassy “gives legitimacy to racist Israeli laws such as the absentee property law designed to legitimise the theft of Palestinian property”.
It added that the move is a “joint American-Israeli blow to any remaining hopes for a two-state solution.”
Former President, Donald Trump announced the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017. The US moved its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May the following year.
Jerusalem remains at the heart of the decades-long Mideast conflict, with Palestinians insisting that East Jerusalem — illegally occupied by Israel since 1967 — should serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.
Countess “Absolutely Terrified” After Bank Accounts Closed Without Explanation
Richie Allen | July 5, 2023
More and more evidence is emerging that banks and building societies are closing the accounts of customers who hold controversial views.
Countess Alexandra Tolstoy told LBC’s Nick Ferrari this morning that she was left “absolutely terrified” after her accounts were closed without explanation.
Tolstoy claims that someone at her bank told her that they were not obliged to provide her with any explanation.
She was left wondering if her Russian sounding surname led to the closure of her accounts.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt have both criticised banks for closing the accounts of customers with controversial views.
Thousands displaced from Jenin as Israeli siege enters second day
The Cradle – July 4 2023
Around 3,000 Palestinians were forced to leave the Jenin refugee camp overnight on 4 July, as the Israeli army pushed ahead with the second day of the largest military invasion into the occupied West Bank since 2002.
“There are about 3,000 people who have left the camp so far,” Jenin deputy governor Kamal Abu al-Roub told AFP on Monday night, highlighting that 18,000 people live there.
Palestinians leaving their homes told reporters that Israeli forces had threatened to target them if they refused to leave, while some said the troops fired live shots at their homes.
Several families were tear-gassed as they fled for safety.
According to the mayor of Jenin, Nidal Obeidi, the Israeli army started demolishing homes in the refugee camp after displacing their residents.
“Those being targeted now are not just the resistance fighters, but civilians are being killed and wounded as well,” he told Al Jazeera.
Tel Aviv’s brutal invasion of the flashpoint West Bank city started in the early hours of 3 July and has left at least 10 Palestinians dead. Over 100 others have been wounded.
Shelling and fighting continued overnight. In the early hours of Tuesday, Israeli warplanes launched a series of airstrikes in the Al-Damej neighborhood, while drones could be seen flying over the camp.
The Israeli siege involved drone strikes, Apache helicopters, and ground forces, including army bulldozers that tore up streets across Jenin. The offensive has been widely described as one of the worst Israeli attacks on the West Bank since the end of the Second Intifada.
While reporting on the siege, several journalists reported they were directly targeted by Israeli live fire. Al Araby TV correspondent Ahmed Shehadeh said the army destroyed his camera while he and four other journalists were taking refuge inside one of the homes in the camp before being evacuated by the Red Crescent.
While the Israeli military initially declined to say how long the siege of Jenin would take, army spokesperson Daniel Hagari announced on Tuesday morning that the operation “could end faster than initially expected, even within a matter of days.”
The operation was launched in response to the unprecedented rise of armed resistance in the West Bank, which has become a significant threat to Israeli cities and illegal West Bank settlements.
Confronting the massive invasion are several different resistance factions, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) Jenin Brigade, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and groups linked with Hamas.
The Jenin Brigade claims they have shot down at least four Israeli drones since the start of the siege.
Solidarity with Jenin has been pouring in from across West Asia and North Africa, with dozens of nations condemning the Israeli aggression.
A general strike was announced in the occupied West Bank for Tuesday, while people in Gaza held rallies to express solidarity with the people of Jenin.
Gaza resistance factions on Monday said in a statement, “We call on all our people in cities, villages, and camps, especially around Jenin, to confront the Israeli occupation and support Jenin.”
“We call on the resistance fighters in all arenas to respond to any aggression if the Israeli occupation continues its crimes against our people.”
Christianity’s Survival in Israel Is Under Attack
Extremist government headed by Netanyahu promotes de facto ethnic cleansing
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JULY 4, 2023
Israel’s new government is still taking shape, but some of the policy changes being promoted are so Jewish-centric that they will inevitably impact disproportionately on minority disadvantaged communities like the Palestinian Christians and Muslims. The government itself is already being described in the press as the “most extremist or right wing in Israel’s history,” though what exactly that means is left to the perception of the reader. Several government ministers have even at times been excoriated for some of their extreme views inclusive of encouraging homicidal genocide or even the complete removal of all non-Jews by force from the country and occupied territories.
The Joe Biden Administration, in which nearly half of all senior appointments are Jews, as well as nearly everyone who deals with foreign policy, is doing its part to comply with traditional White House submission to Israel’s perceived interests. Israel is in the driving seat, and Biden knows it, declaring himself to be personally a Zionist. Much has been made of the fact that Biden has not invited Netanyahu to the White House to congratulate him on his latest electoral victory over concerns relating to the proposed judiciary changes and increasing settlement expansion, but it is clear that Israel and America’s Jewish Lobby are fully in control of both the White House and Congress.
Israel has certainly morphed into a nice place if one likes to feel racially and morally superior while shooting Arab children. This move of the Israeli government rightwards is reflected in a shift in popular sentiment. A recent poll by Israel Democracy Institute revealed that a record-high 62% of Israeli Jews place themselves on the right wing of the political map. The shift is best appreciated by examining the profiles of several of Netanyahu’s new ministers. The one most often cited is Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Jewish Power party. Ben-Gvir, who calls for deporting Arabs, has been charged with crimes 50 times, and convicted on eight occasions, including once for involvement in a Jewish terrorist group. Ben-Gvir is notorious for his provocations directed against Palestinian Muslims and Christians, which have included marches of armed settlers flaunting Israeli flags through Arab quarters of cities and towns. To cap the irony, though he is a persistent law violator he has been the National Security Minister since November 2022, which gives him authority over the police. He is currently seeking to have the Knesset pass legislation explicitly conferring legal immunity on all Israeli soldiers for any and all killings of Palestinians and also pressed the parliament to institute a formal, judicially administered death penalty for “terrorists”, which would mean any Palestinian who physically resists the Israeli occupation.
Another extremist politician who has obtained a major ministry in the Netanyahu government is Bezalel Yoel Smotrich who has served as the Minister of Finance since 2022. He has recently completed a controversial trip to the United States where he met with American Zionist leaders. Smotrich is the leader of the Religious Zionist Party, and lives in an illegal settlement in a house within the Israeli occupied West Bank that was also built doubly illegally outside the settlement proper. Smotrich supports expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, opposes any form of Palestinian statehood, and even denies the existence of the Palestinian people. He has now been granted authority over settlement development and support on the West Bank.
Though Israel’s internal enemies, such as they are, are frequently characterized as Muslims, the dwindling ancient Christian community in Israel and what remains of Palestine has also been under increasing pressure as Israel becomes less multi-cultural and more a state designed only to accommodate Jews. Increasing illegal settlement growth in largely Christian areas has also threatened the survival of many Christian villages and towns. Nevertheless, Israel remains a home to 185,000 Christian Palestinians, most of whom reside in Nazareth, Haifa and Jerusalem. Tens of thousands of people of partial or full Christian ancestry, some of whom are married to Jews, live in Israel as well. Beyond that, there are many Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches, institutions, holy places and cemeteries in Israel.
Several months ago, the head of the Roman Catholic church in Israel, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said that Christians have faced difficult challenges since the formation of Netanyahu’s far right-wing government last December. According to Pizzaballa, his government has emboldened ultra-nationalist religious activists, many of whom are armed settlers, and some of whom have harassed male and female members of the clergy and vandalized religious property. Pizzaballa observed how “The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new. These people feel they are protected … the cultural and political atmosphere can now justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.” A colleague, Francesco Patton, the Custodian of the Holy Land, elaborated how “We are horrified and hurt in the wake of the many incidents of violence and hatred that have taken place recently against the Catholic community in Israel.” He described the desecration of a Lutheran cemetery, the vandalizing of a Maronite prayer room, urination on holy sites, destruction of sacred images and the spraying of “death to Christians” on church property, all taking place shortly after the new government was installed. He also noted “the responsibility of the leaders, of those who have power,” adding that the Israeli police routinely failed to investigate such incidents after the churches reported them.
To determine if the claims of increased violence and hate crimes directed against Christians were true, on June 26th the liberal leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz sent one of its journalists dressed as a priest into downtown Jerusalem. Within five minutes, the journalist Yossi Eli “was derided and spat at, including by a child and a soldier… A bit later a man mocked [him] in Hebrew, saying, ‘Forgive me father for I have sinned.’ Then an 8-year-old spat at [him], as did [another] soldier when a group of troops passed by later.”
Given what is going on on-the-ground, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has called for an investigation into the role that Israeli-US dual national settlers are currently playing in the recent wave of violence directed against both Christian and Muslim Palestinian towns and villages. ADC Executive Director Abed Ayoub has said that “We have strong reason to believe that American citizens are among the key perpetrators of the most recent brutal and violent attacks.” Since June 21st, armed Israeli settler mobs have been terrorizing Palestinian villages in the West Bank on a nearly daily basis. They have destroyed homes, burned vehicles, and killed at least one Palestinian. For decades US Citizens have moved to Israeli settlements, which they use as bases for regularly engaging in violence against Palestinians, all with impunity, as the Israeli police and army provide the Arabs with no protection and instead often protect the settlers. Many of these US Citizens also take advantage of American charitable and non-profit tax laws to fund illegal settlements and initiate violence against Palestinians.
In another major incident, five weeks ago dozens of Israeli extremists, primarily Orthodox Jews, disrupted a Christian prayer event for pilgrims near the Western Wall. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Aryeh King and leading Rabbi Avi Thau led the protesters. Denouncing the Christians as “missionaries” trying to convert Jews, the extremists spat at and cursed the pilgrims, many of whom were ironically normally strongly pro-Israel evangelical Christians from the US. Deputy Mayor King said that Christians should enjoy freedom of worship “only inside their churches.”
According to Protecting Holy Land Christians, an organization established by Christian groups to raise awareness of threats their religion, 2022 was “one of the worst years for Christians in Jerusalem to date.” The organization reported spitting attacks, vandalism, and property theft as mechanisms of erasure. And there are other accounts of how Christians have been subjected to increasing persecution. A recent report details how Palestinians have been targeted by what it calls settler-colonialism, which is a series of measures intended to destroy their communities and drive them from their land. It identifies seven policies that Israel uses against Palestinians throughout the whole of Mandatory Palestine (1948 Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank including East Jerusalem) and also to punish those in exile: “denial of residency; land confiscation and denial of use; discriminatory planning; denial of access to natural resources and services; imposition of a permit regime; fragmentation, segregation and isolation; denial of reparations; and suppression of resistance.” The report concludes “Whether these policies are considered separately or taken together, they amount to forced population transfer, a grave breach of international humanitarian law (IHL).”
To cite only one example of how it works, the venerable Armenian Christian community has been the victim of a controversial land sale in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City Armenian Quarter that is being developed as a luxury resort which will effectively destroy a neighborhood that has existed for seven hundred years. The Australian-Israeli developer who obtained the land apparently did so through a shady deal with a bribed community official that circumvented local zoning and property sale regulations. The religious leadership of the Armenian community, which numbers less than 1,000, fears that the resort will force many families, already suffering under Israel’s rule, to depart.
Recently, these essentially genocidal measures have included the outright theft of their historic buildings and land by the government, and denial of other rights, including refusal to permit gatherings of the faithful at the existing churches on major holidays like Christmas and Easter. There have also been many physical attacks on individual Christians carried out by extremist Jews as well as desecration of Christian religious sites and destruction or defacement of Christian relics and statuary. A conference in Jerusalem held last Friday to address the issue of increased violence against Christians attracted a number of diplomats, scholars and representatives of religious groups, but it was boycotted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The US Embassy also did not send a representative or observer, indicating clearly that it was not interested in the plight of Christians in Israel, or rather that it did not even want to admit that there was a problem.
So there you have it. The new Israeli government is not very interested in human rights for anyone who is not a Conservative or Orthodox Jew. It is, in fact, essentially hostile to all Palestinians and foreigners, be they Muslim, Christian or even irreligious. They denigrate such people as what Germans in the 1930s would have referred to as “untermenschen” meaning subhumans, a word then used to describe Jews, ironically enough. That the United States ignores all of Israel’s war crimes and human rights violations is disgraceful, but par for the course as American Jews who are advocates for Israel have corrupted and taken firm control of the political process. And do not think for a second that Israel’s leaders give one damn about the United States and its people. Recall for a moment how former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon referred to Americans in a discussion with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres: “Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” And more recently Netanyahu said “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.” That is what they really think of us.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Nigel Farage Announces He’s a Victim of Financial Deplatforming
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 29, 2023
Former leader of the Brexit Party, Nigel Farage, alleges that he is facing what he describes as “serious political persecution” by the banking sector in the UK, claiming that the pro-Remain establishment is making a concerted effort to exclude him from the banking system. Farage asserts that this has made him contemplate whether he will be able to continue residing in the UK.
In a video released on Twitter, Farage shared that seven banks had turned down his applications for both personal and business accounts, making him feel like a “non-person.”
He stated that his bank accounts at an undisclosed financial institution, where he has been a customer for over four decades, were on the verge of being terminated without any explanation provided.
Farage posited three theories to explain why he believes the banking establishment is distancing itself from him. Firstly, he asserts that his role in championing Brexit has made him a persona non grata in the banking circles. “The banks did not want Brexit to happen,” Farage said in the video. “The corporate world will never forgive me.”
Additionally, Farage speculates that his political standing might be a factor. The “politically exposed person” protocol requires banks to conduct additional scrutiny on accounts held by politicians and their families to guard against the possibility of foreign bribery. Farage acknowledged the rationale behind such precautions but emphasized that the additional compliance burden for the banks should be commensurate.
Thirdly, Farage raised concerns about allegations that were made by Labour lawmaker Sir Chris Bryant in the previous year.
Bryant claimed that Farage had received a substantial sum of money, specifically £548,573, from Russia Today television station in 2018, an assertion that Farage vehemently denies. Farage stated, “The truth is I’ve never received any money from any sources with any link to Russia.”
CISA Was Behind the Attempt to Control Your Thoughts, Speech, and Life
Brownstone Institute | June 30, 2023
Keeping up with the corruption of the Covid regime feels like drinking from a firehose. The volume of the fraud, the pace of new discoveries, and the breadth of the operations are overwhelming. This makes it imperative for groups like Brownstone Institute to digest the onslaught of information and communicate salient themes and dispositive facts, particularly given the dereliction of mainstream media.
On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee released a report on how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) “colluded with Big Tech and ‘disinformation’ partners to censor Americans,” adding to the informational firehose we work to imbibe.
The 36-page report raises three familiar issues: first, government actors worked with third parties to overturn the First Amendment; second, censors prioritized political narratives over truthfulness; and third, an unaccountable bureaucracy hijacked American society.
- CISA’s Collusion to Overturn the First Amendment
The House Report reveals that CISA, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, worked with social media platforms to censor posts it considered dis-, mis-, or malinformation. Brian Scully, the head of CISA’s censorship team, conceded that this process, known as “switchboarding,” would “trigger content moderation.”
Additionally, CISA funded the nonprofit EI-ISAC in 2020 to bolster its censorship operations. EI-ISAC worked to report and track “misinformation across all channels and platforms.” In launching the nonprofit, the government boasted that it “leverage[d] DHS CISA’s relationship with social media organizations to ensure priority treatment of misinformation reports.”
The switchboard programs directly contradict sworn testimony from CISA Director Jen Easterly. “We don’t censor anything… we don’t flag anything to social media organizations at all,” Esterly told Congress in March. “We don’t do any censorship.” Her statement was more than a lie; it omitted the institutionalization of the practice she denied. The agency’s initiatives relied on a collusive apparatus of private-public partnerships designed to suppress unapproved information.
This should sound familiar.
Alex Berenson gained access to thousands of Twitter communications that uncovered concrete evidence that government actors – including White House Covid Advisor Andy Slavitt – worked to censor him for criticizing Biden’s Covid policies.
White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty privately lobbied social media groups to remove a video of Tucker Carlson reporting the link between Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and blood clots.
Facebook worked with the CDC to censor posts related to the Covid “lab-leak” hypothesis. Company employees later met with the Department of Health and Human Services to de-platform the “disinformation dozen,” a group including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
These were not cherry-picked examples – they were part of an institutional collusion to strip Americans of their First Amendment rights. Journalists Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi exposed the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” a collection of the world’s most powerful government agencies, NGOs, and private corporations that worked together to silence dissent.
The Supreme Court has held that it is “axiomatic” that the government cannot “induce, encourage, or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.” Yet, CISA has joined the disturbing tendency of public-private partnerships designed to impede Americans’ right to information and freedom of speech.
- Political Operatives
Second, these programs were not idealistic attempts to promote the truth; they were calculated programs designed to quash inconvenient but truthful narratives.
The report outlines how CISA censored “malinformation – truthful information that, according to the government, may carry the potential to mislead.” Journalist Lee Fang later wrote that the malinformation campaign “highlights not only the broad authority that the federal government has to shape the political content available to the public, but also the toolkit that it relies upon to limit scrutiny in the regulation of speech.”
In this system, uncensored information has a tacit government approval, amounting to a system of widespread propaganda.
“State and local election officials used the CISA-funded EI-ISAC in an effort to silence criticism and political dissent,” the report notes. “For example, in August 2022, a Loudon County, Virginia, government official reported a Tweet featuring an unedited video of a county official ‘because it was posted as part of a larger campaign to discredit the word of’ that official. The Loudon County official’s remark that the account she flagged ‘is connected to Parents Against Critical Race Theory’ reveals that her ‘misinformation report’ was nothing more than a politically motivated censorship attempt.”
The officials supporting the operation remained unrepentant in their aim to advance political agendas. Dr. Kate Starbird, a member of CISA’s “Misinformation & Disinformation” subcommittee, lamented that many Americans seem to “accept malinformation as ‘speech’ and within democratic norms.”
Of course, the program explicitly violated the Constitution. The First Amendment does not discriminate based on the veracity of a statement. “Some false statements are inevitable if there is to be an open and vigorous expression of views in public and private conversation,” the Supreme Court’s controlling opinion held in United States v. Alvarez. But CISA – led by zealots like Dr. Starbird – appointed themselves the arbiters of truth and worked with the most powerful information companies in the world to purge dissent.
This was part of a larger political campaign.
Hunter Biden’s laptop, natural immunity, the lab-leak theory, and side effects of the vaccine were all censored at the government’s behest. The truth of the reports were not at issue; instead, they presented inconvenient narratives for Washington’s political class, who then used the Orwellian label of “malinformation” to lend cover to eviscerating the First Amendment.
- The Terror of the Administrative State
Third, the report exposes the increasing power of the administrative state. Federal bureaucrats rely on anonymity and unaccountability. Private industry employees could never oversee a disaster like the Covid response and maintain their jobs. It’d be like if BP’s head of safety for the Gulf of Mexico received a promotion after the oil spill.
But unelected officilals like CISA officials enjoy ever-increasing power over Americans’ lives without having to answer for their calamities. Suzanne Spaulding, a member of the Misinformation & Disinformation Subcommittee, warned that it was “only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about our work.”
Spaulding’s comment reflects the power that CISA wields and the benefit it derives from its lack of public exposure. Most Americans have never heard of CISA despite its overwhelming influence over lockdowns.
In March 2020, CISA divided the American workforce into categories of “essential” and “nonessential.” Within hours, California became the first state to issue a “stay at home” edict. This began a previously unimaginable assault on Americans’ civil liberties.
The House Report indicates that CISA was a central actor in censoring criticism of the Covid regime in the ensuing months and years. The agency is representative of the cabal of censorial and unaccountable officials engaged in public-private partnerships designed to keep us in the dark.
EU and UN Discuss How to Address “Disinformation” on Digital Platforms
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 30, 2023
In an apparent display of bureaucratic synergy, the European Union and United Nations have convened to muse over the implementation of new social media regulations, ostensibly in the pursuit of a more secure and transparent digital milieu. What stirs apprehension, however, is the overt enthusiasm of the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, Melissa Fleming, who anticipates that the EU’s Digital Services Act will establish a “new de facto global regulatory benchmark.” The skepticism arises from the suspicion of veiled intentions to curb free speech under the guise of combating “disinformation.”
Platforms are constantly blamed for the proliferation of “disinformation” and “hate speech,” with detractors painting them as adversaries to science, democracy, and human rights. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres brandishes a doomsday brush, asserting that large-scale disinformation constitutes “an existential risk to humanity.”
What is crucial here is the essence of the dialogue and the response it seeks to galvanize. The UN is fervently plotting a Code of Conduct premised on a policy brief that stresses the imperative for an international clampdown on disinformation. It lays out what seems to be an ambitious and comprehensive framework, involving governments, tech companies, advertisers, and other stakeholders. All very fine, but what remains unaddressed is the question of who gets to define what is “disinformation,” and what criteria determine the line between free speech and misinformation.
The Code of Conduct, steeped in an aura of academic rigor and global research, envisages a change in the fabric of digital platforms. However, the aspects it emphasizes – detaching from engagement-driven business models, and ostensibly placing human rights, privacy, and safety at the forefront – are nebulous in terms of implementation and potential overreach. Furthermore, the UN’s admission of wielding moral authority without sanctions may be viewed as a tacit endorsement of soft power coercion.
While Melissa Fleming’s words convey a seeming commitment to protect human rights and access to information, the phraseology she employs – “human rights-based,” “multi-stakeholder,” and “multi-dimensional” – are threadbare buzzwords that do little to assuage the concerns over censorship and institutional overreach.
The concern is not with the stated objectives of fostering a safe and open digital environment, but rather with the specter of global entities like the EU and UN using the cloak of “disinformation” to infringe on the bedrock principle of free speech.
Religious Exemption Form for Parents of School-Age Kids in D.C. ‘Intentionally Misleading and Unlawful’
The Defender | June 27, 2023
A form provided by the District of Columbia Department of Health for parents seeking a religious exemption for mandated vaccines on behalf of their minor children is “intentionally misleading and unlawful,” according to Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Senior Staff Attorney Rolf Hazlehurst.
A letter from Hazlehurst and CHD Acting President Laura Bono to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and school and health department officials states there is “no legal basis or requirement” for parents to use the newly revised “2023 Religious Exemption Request Process for Families” posted on the DC Health website.
According to the health department, “In consideration of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for eligible students, and the need to ensure all students in the District remain up to date with all necessary or required vaccinations to attend school,” health officials revised the religious exemption form “to include a section to document a strongly held religious belief opposing vaccination.”
Parents and guardians are instructed to request the form and return it directly to DC Health/Immunization Division after carefully reading and completing it in its entirety. “incomplete or non-compliant forms will be returned before being sent for review, the department said.
But the updated form contains at least two subsections that are “unlawful as written and applied,” Hazlehurst said.
In the first part of Section 2, parents and guardians are required to initial to acknowledge that “by not vaccinating their child for one or more of the listed vaccinations, they are placing their child at ‘increased risk,’ thus implying that they are unfit parents or guardians.”
And, according to the letter, the second part of Section 2 requires each parent or guardian to:
“Please provide a written statement on a) why you do not get vaccinations based on your sincerely held religious beliefs, b) the religious principles that guide your decision not to get vaccinated, and c) whether you are opposed to all vaccinations, and if not, d) the religious beliefs you follow that will not allow you to get the COVID-19 vaccination.”
In their letter, Bono and Hazlehurst said this language “intentionally misleads those parents or guardians seeking religious exemptions into believing they must comply with these instructions or their request will be denied.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” they wrote, adding that according to the law, Code of the District of Columbia §38-506, entitled “Exemption from Certification” states:
No certification of immunization shall be required for the admission to a school of a student:
(1) For whom the responsible person objects in good faith and in writing, to the chief official of the school, that immunization would violate his or her religious beliefs.
In other words, parents and guardians are not required to complete the updated form — they can simply write a letter to the chief official of the child’s school certifying that in accordance with the Code of the District of Columbia §38-506, they object in good faith that immunization(s) violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.
If DC Health officials wanted to create a new process in which parents and guardians must comply to receive a religious exemption, the agency is required by law to promulgate the new rule by complying with the administration process and allowing the public the opportunity to respond — neither of which were done, Hazlehurst and Bono wrote.
D.C. Council weighs bill to remove COVID vaccine mandate for schools
Hazlehurst and Dr. Elizabeth Mumper last week submitted written testimony to D.C. Council members in support of Bill 25-0278, the School Student Vaccination Amendment Act of 2023, which would remove the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students attending D.C. schools.
Both commended the council members for introducing the amendment. In his written statement, Hazlehurst called on the council to expedite passage of the bill “to avoid parents unnecessarily getting their children the COVID-19 vaccine in order to attend school.”
He also outlined his legal objections to the health department’s newly revised religious exemption form.
Mumper, a pediatrician, also showed support for the bill. In a lengthy written statement, she said:
“As a pediatrician with 43 years of experience in pediatrics and 24 years of experience identifying and treating children with vaccine injuries, I oppose giving COVID-19 vaccines to infants and children.
“Having carefully studied the risks and benefits, I conclude unequivocally that the risk of harm outweighs any potential benefit. Multiple sources of scientifically sound data support my position.”
In July 2022, The Washington Post said the district’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for schoolchildren was “among the strictest in the nation.”
CHD last year represented a group of parents challenging the D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccination Act, which would have allowed children as young as 11 to consent to vaccination without parental knowledge or consent.
CHD fought, and the court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the law and the district was forced to repeal it.
In his ruling, Judge Trevor N. McFadden said:
“States and the District are free to encourage individuals, including children, to get vaccines. But they cannot transgress on the Program Congress created. And they cannot trample the Constitution.”
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.
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The toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing serves as a stark warning of the danger these weapons pose
By Scott Ritter | RT | March 11, 2021
Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent. … continue
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