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Climate lockdowns coming? You will be tracked in your suburb and happy about it.

By Jo Nova | December 3, 2022

The 15 Minute City is a UN and WEF plan, because they care about you want you to drive less.

A cartoon from the WEF just for you good girls and boys:

15 Minute City, WEF, UN.

In the WEF’s own words — this rearrangement of cities is absolutely about climate change:

As climate change and global conflict cause shocks and stresses at faster intervals and increasing severity, the 15-minute city will become even more critical.

And the solution was the pandemic (they really say that):

The obvious, yet incomplete, answer is the pandemic… with COVID-19 and its variants keeping everyone home (or closer to home than usual), the 15-minute city went from a “nice-to-have” to a rallying cry. Meeting all of one’s needs within a walking, biking or transit distance was suddenly a matter of life and death.

And then the dark hand of the totalitarian managers appears, as James Woudhuysen, warned in Spiked in late October:

The madness of the ‘15-minute city’

The green agenda is taking inspiration from the illiberal days of lockdown.

To this end, Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, wants to divide the city of Oxford into six ‘15 minute’ districts. In these districts, it is said, most household essentials will be accessible by a quarter-of-an-hour walk or bike ride, and so residents will have no need for a car.

On the surface, these 15-minute neigbourhoods might sound pleasant and convenient. But there is a coercive edge. The council plans to cut car use and traffic congestion by placing strict rules on car journeys.

Residents will have to register their cars with the council and they will be tracked to count their journeys through the key gateways. It’s the social credit scheme that starts with your car and works like anti-frequent-flyer points.

Under the new proposals, if any of Oxford’s 150,000 residents drives outside of their designated district more than 100 days a year, he or she could be fined £70.

The concept of the 15-minute city was born with ‘C40’. Chaired today by London mayor Sadiq Khan, C40 calls itself a ‘network of mayors of nearly 100 world-leading cities collaborating to deliver the urgent action needed right now to confront the climate crisis’.

Climate lockdowns? Seriously?

It all sounds a bit ridiculous to suggest a lockdown “for the climate” but listen to the BBC.  They’re working awfully hard to persuade us — they obviously think voters won’t want this. Here they are connecting the “15 Minute City” to the fun of covid lockdowns, and setting this up as though it’s totally normal for the government to decide who your friends are:

How ’15-minute cities’ will change the way we socialise

And furthermore lockdowns in Paris were great social moments where we all made friends. Who knew how much fun it would be to be told you couldn’t drive far?

… for Fraioli, the two-month lockdown that began on 17 March – confining her to a 1km radius of her home – gave her a nuanced, enriching view of her neighbourhood. “I discovered it’s possible to feel like you’re in a small village in Paris,” she says. “To get to know your neighbours, to maintain good links with shopkeepers, to favour local craftsmen and shops over large supermarkets. I even joined a citizens’ movement where people prepare food baskets for homeless people. I thought I would have a hard time living the lockdown, but I was perfectly at home, in a quiet place.”

I don’t seem to recall “getting to know neighbours” as being part of any lockdown anywhere?

And lookout —  the 15 minute city is not just Oxford, but turning up in Brisbane, Melbourne, Barcelona, Paris, Portland and Buenos Aires. It’s everywhere.

UN Climate Change logo

Oxford City Council is moving faster than the rest

Apparently, not enough people are catching buses or riding bikes. But instead of making that more appealing, the totalitarians will force it through tracking and fines. Oxfordshire has just approved on November 29th, the “traffic filters” trial which will turn the city into a “fifteen minute city”. The Trial will start in Jan 2024.

It’s a crowded area, Oxfordshire, and no one likes traffic congestion, but in a free world the problem is self-limiting as drivers get fed up with delays and exorbitant parking costs, and they car-pool or choose to catch the bus or ride a bike. But in Big Nanny State the local rulers start making rules about who can and can’t visit and how often, and they want your car registered on their own special list with cameras to track you and fines to punish you. They offer exemptions of course, but then you have to apply for them and get permission.

Oxfordshire County Council Pass Climate Lockdown ‘trial’ to Begin in 2024

Vision News, November 30th

Oxfordshire County Council yesterday approved plans to lock residents into one of six zones to ‘save the planet’ from global warming. The latest stage in the ’15 minute city’ agenda is to place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, confining residents to their own neighbourhoods.

Under the new scheme if residents want to leave their zone they will need permission from the Council who gets to decide who is worthy of freedom and who isn’t. Under the new scheme residents will be allowed to leave their zone a maximum of 100 days per year, but in order to even gain this every resident will have to register their car details with the council who will then track their movements via smart cameras round the city.

Every resident will be required to register their car with the County Council who will then monitor how many times they leave their district via number plate recognition cameras.

In the end, these aggressively overmanaged schemes mean more paperwork, more tracking, more jobs for bureaucrats and more free passes for “friends” of Big Government.

The more rules you have the more corrupt the system gets. For example, some city blocks are included in the favored list with 100 passes, while others get just 25 — so the property values of the inner circle addresses rise. As a bonus, in years to come property developers “in the know” and on the favoured list with certain councilors can arrange for rezoning on the right day (the one after they buy the property) and voila — that’s a nice capital gain for them

“Reconnecting Oxford” wants to end these artificial blockages

From “Reconnecting Oxford” –– a protest movement to stop filters and road closures.

The councilors held a major consultation process but apparently knew the outcome. It says rather a lot about the attitude of one councilor who said it was going ahead whether people liked it or not.

Traffic filters will divide city into six “15 minute” neighbourhoods, agrees highways councillor

Oxford Mail, October 24

ROAD blocks stopping most motorists from driving through Oxford city centre will divide the city into six “15 minute” neighbourhoods, a county council travel chief has said.

And he insisted the controversial plan would go ahead whether people liked it or not.

Businesses in Oxford are not impressed:

Hotelier Jeremy Mogford, who owns the Old Bank Hotel in High Street and the Old Parsonage Hotel and Gees, both in Banbury Road, described the plan as disastrous for business.

He previously told the Oxford Mail : “What we have is people making decisions that don’t live in the city centre or spend much time in the city.

“The council has adopted the position that climate change is real”

Skeptic and long range weather forecaster Piers Corbyn spoke to the council to warn them:

[Piers Corbyn said] “The point is that the basis of these documents are false – man-made climate change does not exist and if you don’t believe me, look at the sky. You should have a special meeting to discuss whether man-made climate change exists or not.”

Responding to Mr Corbyn’s claims, councillor Andrew, the council’s cabinet member for highways management, said: “Mr Corbyn said climate change is not real – this council has formally adopted a position that climate change is real.

“Mr Corbyn you are wrong, we are right.”

Well that’s it then. Councils control the weather. If this had nothing to do with climate change they could have said “we’ll see” and dismissed him anyway. But they have to believe…

Oxfordshire council has already infuriated local businesses earlier this year with road closures and traffic calming measures which have reduced the customer base significantly. Drivers destroyed 20 bollards in less than three weeks, and one frustrated cafe owner put up a giant billboard in protest saying “So much for democracy”. Even cyclists don’t like the traffic slowing measures, saying their road trips are more dangerous.  There is at least one Oxford protest group that seems to have some success in stopping the road closures.

So who does want the traffic filters? Oxford University and the bus companies, and the council which expects to make £1.1m from fining errant drivers.

From the Oxford City Council Consultation page we see the plan is to reduce journeys that you think are necessary but the councilors don’t.

Why are we introducing trial traffic filters?

Across our county, we want to reduce unnecessary journeys by private vehicles and make walking, cycling, public and shared transport the natural first choice.

This will help us deliver an affordable, sustainable and inclusive transport system that enables the county to thrive whilst protecting the environment and making Oxfordshire a better place to live for all residents.

And it is about “protecting the environment” by tracking you and resisting your movement.

Canterbury is planning something spookily similar –– dividing up the city into five different districts with drivers unable to cross between zones without being fined. The old grid system of cities made for shorter distances and more choices. The new system offers only more obstacles and less freedom.

December 5, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

Elon Musk says PayPal is moving in the “direction of social credit”

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | December 5, 2022

“ seems to be moving in the direction of social credit and restricting transactions – that’s concerning,” PayPal co-founder, and now Tesla and  CEO, , said in a recent Spaces.

Last month, Twitter filed registration paperwork to pave the way for it to process payments, according to a filing with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, which was obtained by The New York Times.

Following that, Musk said that he envisioned users connecting their online bank accounts to the social media service, with the company moving later into “debit cards, checks, and whatnot.”

Following public backlash, PayPal recently abandoned a proposed update to its Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that would have led to penalties of $2,500 for spreading “misinformation.” However, the company still maintains a policy carrying similar penalties for “intolerance.”

The AUP prohibits the “promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance.” Free speech advocates feel that the policy is vague and is left to the interpretation of PayPal staff.

Aaron Terr, a senior program officer of the rights group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said at the time that the policy “suffers from the same defect as a lot of the other proposed prohibitions on speech, in that it’s vague.”

Terr added: “And it’s left open to interpretation by PayPal employees, and because of its vagueness, that gives them a lot of discretion to essentially just enforce that provision against disfavored speakers, and to do so in a viewpoint-discriminatory manner.”

The revoked misinformation policy update was condemned by PayPal founders. Co-founder Elon Musk said the update “goes against everything I believe in.”

December 5, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Repeal All Laws Against the Phony Crime of ‘Seditious Conspiracy’

By Ryan McMaken | Mises Wire | December 3, 2022

On Tuesday, a District of Columbia jury convicted Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs of seditious conspiracy in relation to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol building. Three other defendants were acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other felonies. Convictions of seditious conspiracy represent a political victory—not just a legal one—for those who have long insisted that the January 6 riot was no mere riot, but an organized armed rebellion of some sort. This claim has been key in the administration’s ongoing vague claim that “democracy”—however defined—is somehow “at risk.”

Yet, few of the legal proceedings arising out of the Justice Department’s prosecutions of rioters have done much to forward this narrative. Out of the approximately 850 people charged with crimes of various sorts, only a small number have been charged with anything close to treason or violent insurrection. Specifically, the closest the Justice Department has come is the charge of “seditious conspiracy” applied to 11 defendants total. So far, only 2 have been convicted of the charge.

Seditious conspiracy must not be confused with the act of treason legally defined in the US Constitution, however. Generally speaking, while treason requires an overt act of some kind, seditious conspiracy is a charge that a person has said things designed to undermine government authority. In other words, it is a “crime” of intent as interpreted by state authorities. This is fundamentally different from picking up a weapon and using it against agents of a government.

Of course, as we’ve noted here at mises.org before, the very idea of treason is itself problematic since it assumes that violence against a government agent is somehow worse than a crime against a private citizen. Governments love this double standard because it reinforces the idea that the regime is more important than the voluntary private sector. Ultimately, however, violence against a person or property should be prosecuted as exactly that, and not as some separate category of crime against the “special” human beings who work for a regime.

Seditious conspiracy suffers from this same problem but is even more problematic because it relies primarily on circumstantial evidence to “prove” that a person was saying things in favor of obstructing or overthrowing a government. Indeed, the supposed necessity of such a “crime” is belied by the fact that no such crime even existed in federal law between the repeal of the hated Alien and Sedition Acts, and the advent of the Civil War. Nor did seditious conspiracy laws play an important role in the U.S. regime’s military success against the secessionists in the Southern Confederacy.

Instead, what we find is that seditious conspiracy is a crime that is both prone to abuse by state authorities and is unnecessary in terms of preventing violence to life and property. In cases such as the January 6 riot, crimes against persons and property ought to simply be considered violent crimes and property crimes of the usual sort. Contrary to absurd romantic notions that the January 6 rioters struck some sort of blow against “democracy” the fact is that any disruptions against Congressional proceedings can be addressed as assault, trespassing, and other related crimes. Seditious conspiracy, in contrast is merely a type of “thoughtcrime.”

The Origins of Seditious Conspiracy 

When the framers of the United States constitution wrote the document’s text, they defined treason in very specific and limiting terms:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Note the use of the word “only” to specify that the definition of treason shall not be construed as something more broad than what is in the text. As with much of what we now find in the Bill of Rights, this text stems from fears that the US federal government would indulge in some of the same abuses that had occurred under the English crown, especially in the days of the Stuart monarchs. Kings had often construed “treason” to mean acts, thoughts, and “conspiracies” far beyond the act of actually taking up arms against the state. Instead, in the US constitution, the only flexibility given to congress is in determining the punishment for treason.

Naturally, those who favored greater federal power chafed at these limitations and sought more federal laws that would punish alleged crimes against the state. It only took the Federalists ten years to come up with the Alien and Sedition Acts which stated:

That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing or executing his trust or duty, and if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor.

Note the references to “intent,” “counsel,” and “advise” as criminal acts so long as these types of speech are employed in a presumed effort to obstruct government officials. This part of the Act however, was never used by the regime. Those prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition Acts were charged under the section on seditious libel which were heartily opposed for being obviously and blatantly against basic rights of free expression. Nonetheless, the Sedition Act was allowed to expire thanks to the election of Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans (later known as Democrats).

For sixty years, the United States government had no laws addressing sedition on the books. But the heart of the 1798 Sedition Act would be revived. As passed on July 1861, the new Seditious Conspiracy statute stated

That if two or more persons within any State or Territory of the United States shall conspire together to overthrow, or to put down, or to destroy by force, the Government of the United States, or to oppose by force the authority of the Government of the United States; or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States; or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States against the will or contrary to the authority of the United States; or by force, or intimidation, or threat to prevent any person from accepting or holding any office, or trust, or place of confidence, under the United States . . . shall be guilty of a high crime

Given the timing of the legislation—i.e., in 1861 following the secession of several southern states—it is assumed the origins of the legislation at the time was in addressing alleged Confederate treason. This is not quite the case. Indeed, the legislation enjoyed considerable support from those who were especially militant in their opposition to the confederacy. For example, Rep. Clement Vallandigham of Ohio—who would later be exiled to the Confederacy for opposing the war—supported the bill precisely because he thought it would help in punishing those engaged in “conspiracies to resist the fugitive slave law.” Indeed, the Congress had initially become serious about punishing “conspiracies” not in response to southern secession, but in response to John Brown’s 1859 raid in Harper’s Ferry.1

Southern secession and fears of rebellion helped enlarge the coalition in favor of a new sedition law. The new sedition law represented a significant expansion of the idea of “crimes against the state” in that the sedition law did not require overt acts against the government, but merely “conspiring” vaguely defined. Douglas understood this perfectly well, explaining the benefits of his bill as such:

You must punish the conspiracy, the combination with intent to do the act, and then you will suppress it in advance. There is no principle more familiar to the legal profession than that whenever it is proper to declare an act to be a crime, it is proper to punish a conspiracy or combination with intent to perpetrate the act. . . . If it be unlawful and illegal to invade a State, and run off fugitive slaves [for example] why not make it unlawful to form conspiracies and combinations several States with intent to do the act?

Others were more suspicious of expanding federal power in this way, however. Sen. Lazarus Powell and eight other Democrats presented a statement opposing the passage of the bill.2 Specifically, Powell and his allies believed the new seditious conspiracy law would be a de facto move in the direction of allowing the federal government to effectively expand the definition of treason offered by the federal constitution. The statement read:

the creation of an offense, resting in intention alone, without overt act, would render nugatory the provision last quoted, [i.e. the treason definition in the Constitution] and the door would be opened for those similar oppressions and cruelties which, under the excitement of political struggles, have so often disgraced the past history of the world.

Even worse, the new legislation would provide to the federal government “the utmost latitude to prosecutions founded on personal enmity and political animosity and the suspicions as to intention which they inevitably engender.”

Seditious conspiracy legislation gives the federal government far greater leeway to punish political opponents. Certainly, such legislation could have indeed been used against opponents of the fugitive slave acts, as well as against opponents of federal conscription. After all, opponents of both the Civil War draft and the Vietnam War draft—as with the heroic draft-card burnings of the Catonsville Nine, for example — ”conspired” to destroy government property. It would be far harder to prove in court that such acts constituted treason. Unfortunately, the new legislation was ultimately approved in 1861, and the United States government had its first permanent laws against seditious conspiracy.

We now have the same reasons to fear seditious conspiracy laws as Powell did in 1861. Such measures allow the federal government to construct laws addressing intent, thoughts, and words, rather than overt acts. This greatly expands federal power and allows for prosecution of mere inflammatory rhetoric against the federal government. Indeed, prior to his conviction this week, Rhodes’s attorneys reminded jurors that Rhodes never even entered the capital on January 6. They also noted that Rhodes had expressed verbal opposition to entering the capital. Yet, he was apparently convicted because “conspiracy” can encompass so many acts, especially in the minds of jurors.

A common-sense foundation for addressing violence in the Capitol building, however, would be to simply prosecute those who engage in actual violence and trespass. It is clear, however, that gaining convictions for seditious conspiracy has been an important goal for the administration because it assists in the narrative that Donald Trump’s supporters attempted some sort of coup. Unfortunately, These sorts of political prosecutions are just the sort of thing we’ve come to expect from the Justice Deptrtment. While the FBI can’t be bothered with investigating sex criminals such as Larry Nassar, they’ll pull out all the stops to prosecute hundreds of those who entered the Capitol on January 6, many of whom simply stood around gawking at the scenery. But when Congress gives the FBI a near carte blanche as it has done with seditious conspiracy laws, we should expect as much.

  • 1. Catherine M. Tarrant, “To ‘Insure Domestic Tranquility’: Congress and the Law of Seditious Conspiracy, 1859-1861,” The American Journal of Legal History 15, no. 2 (April 1971): 112, 119.
  • 2. Ibid., p. 119.

Ryan McMaken is the editor of Mises Wire and The Austrian. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

December 5, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Macron wants more Twitter censorship to stop people saying “crazy things” about vaccines, pandemics, and war

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | December 2, 2022

French President Emmanuel Macron criticized ’s owner  for relaxing content censorship policies on the platform, arguing that content on Twitter needs more regulation. Macron made the comments in an appearance on ABC News ahead of his visit to The White House.

Macron said that democracies are under “very strong pressure” from forces like social media where users can say “crazy things about a vaccine, a pandemic, the war.”

This week, Musk said he would relax content moderation policies surrounding topics like the coronavirus.

Good Morning America and ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “He’s making it worse, isn’t he?”

“I think this is a big issue,” Macron responded. “I think it deserves to be largely engaged. What I push very much for, want, is exactly the opposite – more regulation.”

Macron further argued that speech in a democracy has to be “based on respect and political order.”

The French President added: “You can demonstrate, you can have free speech, you can write what you want – but there is responsibilities and limits. The limits is you cannot go in the streets and have racist speech, or antisemitic speech, you cannot put at risk the life of someone else. Violence is never legitimate in democracy.”

Macron also criticized former US President , whose Twitter account was recently restored after an almost two-year ban after the January 6, 2021, riot at the US capitol.

“When in one of the biggest democracies and oldest democracies in the world, you can have a leader and supporters deciding on purpose to refuse the results because this is the one they didn’t want to see, this is just the beginning of the end of the democracy,” Macron said.

Earlier this week, regulators in the European Union warned Musk that Twitter could be banned in the region or face fines if it does not enforce content censorship policies. Musk was also warned about the arbitrary reinstatement of previously banned accounts. The new owner said he would grant “general amnesty” to banned accounts that had not broken the law or spammed.

December 3, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

New Zealand admits it has direct access to Facebook takedown portal where it can flag content for censorship

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | December 2, 2022

New Zealand’s government has officially admitted that it has partner access to ’s controversial content takedown portal.

This portal is designed specifically for government agencies to flag content to Facebook for censorship. According to The Intercept, which reported on the portal in October, government partners can also use the portal to “report disinformation directly” to Facebook.

And in a recent response to a New Zealand Official Information Act (OIA) request, which asked whether the government has partner access to Facebook’s takedown portal, the New Zealand government confirmed that the Department of Internal Affairs has access. While this was the only government department that was confirmed to have access to the portal, the OIA response also said “we cannot advise if any other government agency has access to the takedown portal.”

We obtained a copy of the OIA response for you here.

The OIA response didn’t detail how much content had been censored via this Facebook takedown portal. However, other reports on similar types of backdoor content takedown arrangements between governments and Big Tech have shown that governments regularly use them to target legal content such as parody accounts, accounts questioning the effectiveness of Covid vaccines, and so-called election misinformation.”

Publicly, the New Zealand government has endorsed the censorship of legal content with Prime Minister  saying “disinformation” should be regulated like guns, bombs, and nuclear weapons. Big Tech companies have also agreed to a censorship pact in the country where they suppress “misinformation” and “harmful content.”

Most other governments haven’t admitted that they have access to these portals. However, last year The White House did admit that the United States (US) Surgeon General’s Office is flagging posts for Facebook to censor.

The Intercept’s report on this Facebook content takedown portal claimed that several other United States (US) government agencies have access to the portal, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Documents released as part of 2021 lawsuits suggest that the  Secretary of State’s Office of Elections Cybersecurity (OEC) also has access to the Facebook takedown portal and a similar type of portal on Twitter.

December 2, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Rumble files lawsuit to challenge New York’s social media censorship law

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | December 1, 2022

Free speech video sharing platform  and its subscription platform  have sued New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James to challenge a social media censorship law that they say would force platforms to target constitutionally protected speech.

Rumble and Locals are being represented by the free speech nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and are joined in the lawsuit by constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh, the co-founder of the Volokh Conspiracy legal blog.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

“The law is titled ‘Social media networks; hateful conduct prohibited,’ but it actually targets speech the state doesn’t like — even if that speech is fully protected by the ,” FIRE said in a statement.

The law forces a wide variety of internet platforms to publish a policy detailing how they’ll respond to posts that are deemed to “vilify, humiliate, or incite violence” based on protected classes such as religion, gender, or race.

It also requires platforms to create a way for visitors to complain about “hateful content” and requires them to respond to complaints directly. Platforms that refuse to comply can be investigated by the AG’s office, subpoenaed, and fined up to $1,000 per violation.

It comes into force on Saturday, December 3, 2022.

As is often the case with censorship laws, this Social Media Networks; Hateful Conduct Prohibited law doesn’t define “vilify,” “humiliate,” or “incite.”

Rumble suggested that this means it would “cover constitutionally protected speech like jokes, satire, political debates, and other online commentary.”

FIRE noted that the law’s scope is “entirely subjective” and suggested that it could target a wide range of First Amendment-protected speech such as “a comedian’s blog entry ‘vilifying’ men by mocking gender stereotypes” and most comments on almost any website “that could be considered by someone, somewhere, at some point in time, as ‘humiliating’ or ‘vilifying’ a group based on protected class status like religion, gender, or race.”

FIRE added: “Bloggers, commenters, websites, and apps around the country are ensnared by the New York law due to its broad definition of ‘social media networks’ as for-profit ‘service providers’ that ‘enable users to share any content.’ This vague wording means that the law can impact virtually any revenue-generating website that allows comments or posts and is accessible to New Yorkers — but no government entity can legally compel blogs or other internet platforms to adopt its broad definition of ‘hateful conduct.’”

“New York politicians are slapping a speech-police badge on my chest because I run a blog,” Volokh said. “I started the blog to share interesting and important legal stories, not to police readers’ speech at the government’s behest.”

Rumble Chairman and CEO Chris Pavlovski added: “New York’s law would open the door for the suppression of protected speech based on the complaints of activists and bullies. Rumble will always celebrate freedom and support creative independence, so I’m delighted to work with FIRE to help protect lawful online expression.”

This law is one of several attempts by New York to encroach on the First Amendment and push for the censorship of constitutionally protected speech. Other laws and proposals from the state have pushed to ban the sharing of violent crime videos online, ban gendered language in law, and allow officials to sue platforms that are suspected of “contributing” to the “knowing or reckless” spread of “misinformation.

December 2, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

People of the World are Dramatically Losing Years of Life

By Sven Román | The Brownstone Institute | December 1, 2022

Covid-19 vaccines and lockdowns are associated with years of life lost on a scale that is unprecedented. EuroMomo includes European mortality monitoring activity data from 22 European countries as well as Israel, representing a total population of around 450 million people.

Since the pandemic began, life years lost reported by EuroMomo have increased by 60%. Compared to the 1.5 years before the pandemic, the number of life years lost after Covid vaccinations were introduced has increased by 384%.

EuroMomo presents weekly statistics of possible excess mortality. The graph below shows data plotted for cumulative excess deaths over the period from 2018 to 20th November 2022 for all ages.

Excess mortality was evident in the pandemic year of 2020 (grey line), and in 2021 (dark blue line) when mass vaccination began, but even higher in 2022 (light blue line), despite the fact that the Omicron variant, with a modest mortality rate, began to dominate at this time.

An interesting pattern is seen when comparing age groups. According to Professor of Epidemiology John Ioannidis, the rate of Covid-19 mortality for those aged <60 years is only 0.035%. However, in the groups aged 0-14 years and 15-44 years, in which the Covid-19 mortality rate is even lower, excess mortality has been extremely high since mass vaccination was introduced.

Considering the fact that excess mortality is more serious for a younger person than an older person, we determined the effects of lockdown measures and vaccine deployment by calculating the number of life years lost before and after these interventions.

The average age of death for all persons recorded in EuroMomo is 82 years. The average number of remaining years of life for all persons that died before this age was estimated. For example in the 0-14 years age group, on average 82-(0+14/2) = 75 years were lost for each person. In the 85+years group, this calculation would mean years of life gained, which is of course unreasonable. In this age group, 1 year of expected survival was assumed.

The chart below shows excess mortality in each age group for three periods: 1) the 1.5 years immediately before the pandemic, 2) the pandemic period before mass vaccination was initiated, 3) the pandemic period after mass vaccination was initiated. For all age groups, the highest degree of excess mortality is in the period after mass vaccination was initiated.

The next chart shows the years of life lost in each age group. The greatest number of years of life lost after the start of vaccination are in the 45-64 and 65-74 years age groups.

The last chart shows the total number of life-years lost for the same 3 periods.

The trend of increasing life-years lost is contrary to what would be expected for effective Covid-19 countermeasures, including mass vaccination and lockdowns. The damage in terms of reduced longevity is becoming greater with each passing week. How much longer should we proceed down this road of failed public health policy before we start to reverse the trajectory?

Sven Román is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and since 2015 a consultant psychiatrist working in child and adolescent psychiatry throughout Sweden. He is also one of three physicians who in March 2021 founded Läkaruppropet (The Physicians’ Appeal), a Swedish response to The Great Barrington Declaration, and since then this appeal has become a non-profit association whose work is carried out by physicians, researchers, lawyers, other health care clinicians and academics, in the same spirit as the Brownstone Institute.

December 1, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Western University Drops ALL Vaccine Mandates

By Igor Chudov | November 29, 2022

Remember the scandal with Western University in Ontario, Canada, that was requiring boosters from its students?

That’s the college that required bivalent boosters for fall classes.

The uproar was momentous. How can a college require completely unproven “boosters” to be taken by young, healthy students who had one or more Covids anyway?

The college finally relented and fully discontinued Covid vaccination requirements:

Note the BLUE highlighting of “medical experts” in both above images. In three months, the brilliant “medical experts” have completed a 180-degree turnaround in their deep evidence-based scientific thinking and no longer demand the boosters.

What made them change their minds?

I am sure it is you, the protesters, the public, substack authors, etc.

The experts are possibly starting to worry that their role in the “pandemic” will soon be subject to pointed questions from the disappointed public worried about health and fertility.

Personally, I will do my best to continue exposing Covid criminals so that they are not let off the hook and their crimes are not forgotten.

December 1, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Israel revokes Jerusalem Residency Rights Of Imprisoned Palestinian-French Lawyer

IMEMC | DECEMBER 1, 2022

On Wednesday, the Israeli Prison Authority informed imprisoned Palestinian-French lawyer, held under Administrative Detention without charges or trial, that it revoked his Jerusalem ID card and stripped him of all residency rights in occupied Jerusalem, and will be deporting him to France upon his release.

The Israeli occupation imposed a three-month Administrative Detention order against the imprisoned lawyer, Salah Hammouri, 37, and renewed the order in June 2022, then renewed it again in September 2022.

Hammouri, a lawyer and a field researcher with the Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support And Human Rights Association, spent more than eight years in Israeli prisons, starting when he was abducted in 2001 and was sentenced to five months in prison.

In 2004 he spent four months under arbitrary Administrative Detention orders without charges, then was abducted again in the year 2005 and was imprisoned for seven years, and then in the year 2017, he was abducted yet another time and spent 13 months under Administrative Detention orders, and upon his release, he received an order barring him from entering the rest of the West Bank for two years.

On June 6, 2022, Salah received another three-month Administrative Detention order just hours before his scheduled release after being imprisoned for three months under a similar order.

The decision to revoke his residency was made in October of last year, 2021, after accusing him of “breeching loyalty to the state” for his human rights and legal work in defending Palestinian political prisoners.

Salah was born to a Palestinian father from Jerusalem where he grew up and lived, and his mother is a French national.

Several years earlier, Israel deported his French wife to her country after detaining her at the airport in Tel Aviv for three days when she returned to Jerusalem. Salah and his wife have two children.

Palestinians born in occupied Jerusalem are only granted “residency” status and not citizenship of Israel despite Israel’s constant claims of “unified Jerusalem as its capital.” Children born to Jewish parent/s in any part of the world are entitled to become citizens of Israel.

December 1, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Doctors who are accused of spreading “misleading information” could be jailed under new British Columbia law

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | November 29, 2022

During the pandemic, several doctors in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) hit the headlines for opposing Covid measures. State-sanctioned medical authorities responded by warning physicians that if they “put the public at risk with misinformation,” they may face investigations and regulatory action. Now, just 18 months later, these threats from medical authorities have evolved into a sweeping piece of legislation that includes two-year jail sentences for doctors who are deemed to be spreading certain types of “false or misleading information.”

The new legislation, Bill 36 — Health Professions and Occupations Act (HPOA), was approved by the legislature last Thursday and immediately received Royal Assent. A Cabinet order will determine when it comes into force.

According to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that defends the freedoms of Canadians, the bill will permit BC’s Health Minister to appoint College Boards who have the power to enforce many of the bill’s provisions. The bill also gives the Health Minister powers to enforce some provisions.

These combined powers can be used to jail, fine, and suspend doctors who are deemed to have spread certain types of “false or misleading information to patients or the public” and force doctors to get vaccinated as a condition of being eligible to practice. These powers are outlined in sections 259, 514, 518, 506, 511, and 200.

You can see the full text of Bill 36 here.

Powers to suspend and impose limits on health practitioners

Section 259 (“Summary protection orders”) states that health practitioners can be suspended or have limits imposed on their practice authority if they provide “false or misleading information to patients or the public” and it’s deemed that “a person who acts on the information is significant risk of harm” or providing the information is deemed to be a “health hazard” under the Public Health Act.

The Public Health Act classifies any activity that “is likely to interfere, with the suppression of infectious agents or hazardous agents” as a health hazard. This definition is broad and could easily be applied to criticism of vaccines, masks, lockdowns, thermal surveillance, lateral flow tests, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, antibody tests, and any other measures that authorities claim are necessary to stop the spread of Covid or another infectious disease.

Bill 36 also doesn’t define “false or misleading information” which raises the possibility that doctors could be suspended for sharing something that challenges the current narrative and later turns out to be true.

During the pandemic, multiple statements that were branded false later turned out to be true, such as those related to vaccines. Initially, high-ranking public health officials praised the purported 90% Covid-19 vaccine efficacy rate and said the vaccine will protect against the delta variant. Big Tech platforms made questioning the effectiveness of the vaccine a bannable offense. Yet this year, high-ranking health officials have reversed their stance and admitted that they “knew” Covid-19 vaccines wouldn’t prevent infection.

Powers to jail and fine health practitioners

Section 514 (“Offences”) and Section 518 (“Penalties”) permit fines of up $200,000 per individual or $500,000 per company and prison terms of up to two years for those that “knowingly” disclose information that contravenes a provision of Bill 36.

This seemingly suggests that someone who “knowingly” violate’s Bill 36’s rules on false or misleading information can be jailed or fined.

Just like the term “false or misleading information,” the term “knowingly” isn’t defined in Bill 36 and there’s no methodology or test in the bill that describes how courts will determine whether someone knowingly violated the rules.

Section 506 (“Search and seizure order”) permits judges to authorize a person to search and seize items from a health practitioners’ premises on the pre-crime-esque premise that the target will “likely contravene” a provision of Bill 36.

And section 511 (“Warrantless search”) allows those petitioning the judge for a search and seizure order to perform warrantless searches if they deem there to be “grounds for a search and seizure order” and “the delay necessary to obtain the order would result in the loss or destruction of evidence.” Those performing warrantless searches are also allowed to prevent the lawful owner of the premises from entering and seize items if they deem there to be “reasonable grounds” for it.

This seemingly means that if a health practitioner is deemed to be “likely” to break the bill’s false or misleading information rules or “likely” to push back against the bill’s mandatory vaccine provisions, even when they haven’t actually done any of these things, they could have their premises searched and items seized without a warrant if the person performing the search decides that there are grounds and that evidence could be destroyed.

Powers to force health practitioners to get vaccinated

Section 200 (“Eligibility to practise”) allows the Health Minister to introduce regulations that make being “vaccinated against specified transmissible illnesses” a condition of eligibility to practice. This means that doctors could be forced to get the Covid vaccine and any other vaccines specified by the Health Minister in order to continue practicing.

“An end run around democratic checks and balances”

Bill 36 has been blasted by legal groups and political parties.

“The legislation represents an end run around democratic checks and balances,” the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms wrote in a statement on Bill 36.

BC lawyer Charlene Le Beau added: “The enactment of Bill 36 would evidence a further erosion of the rights and freedoms our Charter is supposed to protect, particularly individual liberty. As Aristotle posited, ‘The basis of a democratic state is liberty.’”

David Leis, the vice president of engagement and development at the public policy think tank the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, called the bill “a full-frontal assault on the professional integrity and freedom of the health-care professions” and said the bill is “entirely inappropriate.”

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | Leave a comment

Medical clinic treating people injured by COVID shot opens in Italy

By Ken Hall | LifeSiteNews | November 28, 2022

LUCCA, Italy — A private medical clinic has opened in Lucca, Italy that is devoted to caring for patients who have been injured by the experimental COVID-19 vaccines.

The clinic was opened by a group of doctors and health workers who were recently reinstated to their positions after newly-elected Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government removed discriminatory legislation that barred vaccine-free Italians from working in healthcare.

An Italian medical rights group celebrated the clinic as “helpful” and “welcoming,” but a left-wing political party from Tuscany has attempted to pressure the mayor of Lucca to publicly disavow the clinic seeking to help heal those suffering from COVID vaccine injuries.

The local Partito Democratico (Democratic Party) released a statement saying “we believe the mayor needs to take a position, and distance himself from what is happening on this front in our city.”

The statement was made even after the party admitted that the group who started the clinic did so with the intention of helping the vaccine-injured, and that the group also wanted doctors to have freedom of conscience protections when practicing medicine.

Italy has flipped the script on COVID restrictions since the election of Meloni, who has admitted that Italy had the “most restrictive anti-COVID measures in the entire Western world,” but was still “among the countries with the highest numbers of deaths and infections.”

She vowed that her government “will not replicate that pattern in any way,” promising to never “limit fundamental freedoms.”

Under previous Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the then left-wing government had enacted severe measures against Italians who chose not to take the COVID jab, restricting them from many aspects of public life under the guise of the “Super Green Pass.”

Under the restrictions, all Italians were required to be jabbed or provide proof that they had previously recovered from COVID in order to work, and all those over 50 years old had to be vaccinated or they would be fined by the government on a monthly basis.

In response, Italians protested in massive numbers, and it is believed that support swelled for the populist Meloni as a result of her opposition to such measures.

November 29, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Oblivion: the best cure?

The effects of lockdown, now becoming clearer by the day, should never be forgotten.

By Tom Jefferson | Trust the Evidence | November 29, 2022

My grandfather was a decorated WWI veteran. He was lucky and got back home minus a hand. My dad participated in the Battle of Britain, North African and Italian campaigns. He got home apparently unscathed. However, both had one thing in common: they would not speak of what they had done and seen. What they had been through was too terrible to describe, and people were not interested; it was all in the past. That is one of the reasons why we have wars: few people have any idea what it’s like.

It’s going that way with the most traumatic experience in this lifetime: lockdowns.

Looking at the media, you would think nothing extraordinary has happened since 2020.

Well, let me remind you.

Our civil liberties were severely curtailed, drones were sent after lone runners on deserted moorland, children could see but not touch toys in stores (if they were let in at all), our elders died abandoned in nursing homes or their own homes, governments spurted gibberish on the advice of modellers and overnight experts. The media ran a wall-to-wall campaign to get the populace to toe the line. Crooks were allowed to run away with billions of public money while massive amounts were spent on useless tests. That is why the Chancellor has a large hole in his books. While patients likely to be infected were moved around hospitals, in some casualties, separation consisted of taped bin bags stretched across walls, GPs were not accessible, and the police were checking people’s movements and compliance with government policies. Children were confined to home; people stopped exercising and took to drinking. People with serious illnesses did not get treated, partly because they were rightly scared of catching the plague when in hospital. Few people questioned what was going on.

Data, real data on which momentous decisions were made, were absent. We do not know how many real infectious cases or deaths attributable to SARS-CoV-2 there were. Even deceased who tested negative were wrapped up in the Covid death tally. So we cannot separate the impact of the agent from the self-inflicted devastation.

The current economic crisis has its genesis in the demented and wasteful response to an unknown unquantified threat, then came the war in Ukraine, but the lockdown came first. Remember how many businesses stopped paying taxes because they had gone bust or could not trade?

Parliament had little say in what went on while large swathes of politicians were trying to outdo each other in demanding more restrictions and closures.

Scientific evidence, when available, was used as a political weapon regardless of its quality and credibility.

So now that I have refreshed your memory and now we know that no one will ever be held responsible for the greatest catastrophe in our generation, I ask you, when will the next round be? There is ample precedent, so it’s only a matter of time.

The government is now bending over backwards it seems to address four problems: cancer, obesity, addiction and mental health, throwing more money at four problems which its policy magnified and worsened. I will save you the effort of searching. In the glossy press release, I failed to find any mention of restrictions, isolation or lockdown.

Perhaps my grandfather and father should have spoken about the war and reminded those who wanted to forget that oblivion is the road to perdition. For our democracy, our society and our families.

November 29, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

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