In a triumph of Orwellian newspeak, over the past academic year Israel advocates at 15 American colleges succeeded in pushing through a newly created definition of ‘antisemitism’ that focuses on Israel. The formulation for the new definition – known as the IHRA definition – originated with an Israeli official in 2004 and has been promoted worldwide ever since.
As an Israel advocate writes, the IHRA definition is “the only definition which includes anti-Zionism within it.” Anti-Zionism is a highly diverse movement that supports Palestinian rights and opposes Israel’s ethno-religious discriminatory system, which is widely considered a form of apartheid.
The normal, traditional definition of antisemitism is simply “hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people.”
According to the American Jewish Committee,* the definition has now been endorsed by at least 30 American colleges and universities:
- Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ (September 2020)
- Brooklyn College, New York, NY (November 2020)
- California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA (April 2021)
- California State University, Northridge (CSUN), Los Angeles, CA (December 2020)
- Chapman University, Orange, CA (May 2017)
- City College of New York, New York, NY (November 2020)
- East Carolina University, Greenville, NC (February 2017)
- Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (July 2020)
- Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA (October 2020)
- Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (December 2018)
- Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA (March 2021)
- Northeastern University, Boston, MA (November 2020)
- Pace University, New York, NY (October 2020)
- Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA (April 2021)
- San Diego State University, San Diego, CA (April 2017)
- St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY (November 2020)
- Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA (February 2019)
- Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY (March 2021)
- Texas A & M University, College Station, TX (September 2020)
- University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA (March 2015)
- University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA (February 2021)
- University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA (February 2021)
- University of Georgia, Athens, GA (January 2021)
- University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA (May 2021)
- University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (March 2021)
- University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN (April 2021)
- University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX (March 2021)
- University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX (April 2021)
- University of Wisconsin, Madison, Madison, WI (September 2017)
- Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC (December 2018)
While adoption of the new definition for antisemitism may seem symbolic, pro-Israel groups have a reason for promoting it: under Trump’s 2018 executive order on antisemitism it can potentially be used to censor information about Israel-Palestine on the campuses.
*Although it is named “the American Jewish Committee,” the AJC is actually an international Israel advocacy organization with offices throughout the world.
March 23, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, United States, Zionism |
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Samizdat | March 22, 2022
University of Edinburgh professor Tim Hayward is being hammered in the media for sharing an article suggesting the bombing of a theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol may have been staged by Ukrainian nationalists. Hayward’s skepticism has already led Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi to promise a “crackdown” on such wrongthink.
Hayward shared an article on Sunday from the Grayzone, a left-wing news outlet. Citing eyewitnesses in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, the article claims that Ukrainian ‘Azov’ fighters – once described by western outlets and lawmakers as “neo-Nazis” – sheltered behind civilians in a theater in Mariupol, before blowing the building up as Russian forces entered the Ukrainian city.
Azov forces and journalists linked to the extremist unit accused Russia of bombing the building, and used the incident to call for western intervention against Russia. US President Joe Biden declared Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” in response, and American politicians from both parties and from Europe renewed their calls for military aid – including fighter jets – for Ukraine.
However, no video exists showing the theater being bombed and Russia denies attacking the building, stating that it had “never been considered as a strike target.” Conflicting reports of the weapons supposedly used and the civilian casualties or lack thereof only muddy the picture further.
Yet Hayward was condemned by his colleagues for raising the issue. In a Times article on Tuesday accusing him of “spreading propaganda,” Dr. Aliaksandr Herasimenka, a ‘misinformation’ researcher at Oxford University, said that “we must be very careful” when reading reports critical of the official narrative in Ukraine, and that outlets like the Grayzone “are currently engaged in a massive disinformation campaign.” He did not provide any evidence that would support such allegations against the media outlet.
Hayward has been singled out by the Scottish government too. Having shared articles questioning the alleged bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol and claiming that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad did not gas his own citizens as Western sources insist, the professor was accused in Westminster last week by Tory MP Robert Halfon as being a “useful idiot for President Putin’s atrocities.”
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said that academics like Hayward were already being investigated, and that their universities would be contacted.
“Putin and his cronies are a malign influence on anyone in this country buying their false narrative, and I have to repeat it is a false and dangerous narrative, and we will crack down on it hard,” Zahawi said, without elaborating on how.
Speaking to Edinburgh Live, Hayward said that he is concerned about restrictions to free speech, and considers hearing both points of view important in wartime.
“In war, miscalculations can have terrible consequences. We also know that misinformation can sometimes even slip through on our own side, as when the UK went to war in Iraq, mistakenly believing it had weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “As for the people of Ukraine, their need is for peace – not to become the epicenter of World War III,” he added, referring to the widely-held belief that were Western powers to intervene in Ukraine, the consequence would be a third world war.
March 22, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, UK, Ukraine |
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A new poll finds that vaccinated people are far more likely to risk World War III over Ukraine by supporting aggressive measures against Russia, while unvaccinated people are more likely to support diplomatic measures.
The revealing results of the survey, which was conducted by EKOS, were published by the Toronto Star.
Canadians who have received “three or more shots” massively supported expanding sanctions (86%), seizing Russians assets (85%), cutting off shipments of Russian oil (81%) and sending additional military equipment to Ukraine (82%). Over half (52%) supported providing Ukraine with fighter jets.
On the flip side, unvaccinated Canadians were far less likely to support measures that would serve to escalate the conflict.
Indeed, a majority of unvaccinated (52%) don’t support any of the measures listed at all.
“The overwhelming majority probably would have said “use diplomacy” if it was an option but the warhawks behind the poll left it off the list,” comments Chris Menahan.
The insightful poll results back up the claims of many, that the COVID narrative was switched for ‘support Ukraine’ virtually overnight by the media and the unthinking masses immediately displayed their ideological subservience.
NPCs were able to seamlessly transfer from zealous support for vaccines and vitriolic denunciations of anyone who didn’t get one, to zealous support for Ukraine and vitriolic denunciations of anyone who didn’t fully swallow the war narrative.
It seems that mass support for whatever ‘current thing’ the political class and culture demands has become a form of cognitive addiction.
Humanity is seemingly dependent on defining itself by lurching from one crisis to another and weaponizing it to ostracize, publicly shame and deplatform dissidents who suggest all may not be as it seems.
Samizdat adds:
The poll also revealed how the two groups feel about the reasons for the conflict, with 88% of vaccinated respondents saying the repression of Russian speakers in the Donbass region does not justify Russia’s actions in Ukraine. The unvaccinated, however, are more split on the question, with 26% saying Russia’s military operation is justified, 27% saying it isn’t, and 35% saying they neither agree nor disagree with it.
The vaccinated also say, almost unanimously (88%), that Russia is guilty of war crimes in Ukraine, while only 32% of unvaxxed respondents agree, and 42% say they don’t believe it is happening at all.
EKOS President Frank Graves said he found the poll results alarming, suggesting that vaccine refusers were “much more sympathetic to Russia,” and that it showcased the “highly corrosive influences of disinformation.”
“This is definitely a new and bluntly insidious force that’s contributing to polarization and disinformation and poor decision-making. And it doesn’t seem to be going away. Things are getting worse,” Graves said, as reported by the Toronto Star.
“I don’t think this is because those people had an ingrained sympathy to the Russians. They’re reading this online, they’re consuming this from the same sources that were giving them the anti-vax stuff.”
March 22, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, Ukraine |
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So Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “thug and a murderous dictator.” That is the judgement of President of the United States Joe Biden, delivered directly to Putin during a phone conversation, and it is backed up by a unanimous vote in the US Senate endorsing Biden’s more recently expressed view that Putin is also a “war criminal.” And if anyone doubted the sheer malignancy of America’s legislators, the viewing of a televised appeal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskyy calling for US intervention in his war was met with cheers, shouts of approval and a standing ovation not seen in this hemisphere since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited a Joint Congressional session in 2015. Unfortunately, in spite of all the euphoria, these comments, gestures and allegations are completely gratuitous, whether they are wholly or partly true or not, and they guarantee that a normal relationship between Russia and the United States is not likely to be reestablished no matter what the outcome to the current fighting in Ukraine.
If that is what diplomacy looks like in 2022 America then we are in serious trouble. The fact is that the US record for committing what are potentially war crimes dwarfs that of Russia or any other country with the sole exception of Israel. One only has to go through the list starting with Vietnam and continuing with Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen to appreciate the places that have been on the receiving end of either covert actions or direct intervention by US armed forces or those of its close allies. Along the way, civilians have literally died in their millions as the Pax Americana has proven to be elusive in spite of a sprinkling of more than 1,000 United States military bases worldwide. Russia is a parvenu in comparison.
It is widely understood that the United States in the post-World War 2 world, shaped the new so-called international rules-based order to benefit itself, with the designation of the dollar as the world reserve currency for energy purchases, benefitting only Washington through the Treasury Department’s ability to print money without any commodity having real value to back it up. Combine that with de facto control over the international banking system and the US has been able to render itself bullet proof when it starts wars or commits other crimes. It does not accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, has even blocked the travel of ICC investigators to the US, and has never been held accountable for any of its questionable activities.
The end of the cold war brought about some adjustments in the international order, but, for the US, it meant an initial drive to loot the resources of Russia under Boris Yeltsin followed by Bill Clinton’s breaking the promise made to Mikhail Gorbachev not to take advantage of the changed circumstances to expand NATO to include the former Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe. The current situation with Ukraine is a consequence of that continuous interference in Russia’s legitimate sphere of influence, which culminated with the regime change engineered by Washington in Kiev in 2014.
The United States is often regarded by other countries as a rogue nation, precisely because it shows little respect for the vital interests of others and is willing to manipulate international institutions in support of political and social objectives that have little or nothing to do with actual national security. Its sanctions frequently bring suffering to ordinary people in the countries targeted without affecting decisions made by the leadership. And the sanctions themselves are often poorly conceived while also being factually challengeable. The US governing elite invariably covers its misbehavior with self-serving aphorisms like the rubbish peddled by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, when she enthused how “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.” Yes indeed, she actually said that.
Worse still, the sustained flood of government inspired propaganda used to justify questionable actions has had the regrettable consequence of turning inward, leading to charges of “treason” directed against the few journalists and politicians who dare to challenge conventional wisdom. In the current Ukraine crisis, journalists like Tucker Carlson are under fire, as are former politicians like Tulsi Gabbard, for having committed the crime of opposing America’s deepening involvement in the fight against Russia. Indeed, the blacklisting of Russian music and books as well as foods and even vodka represent something pathological in the mainstream response to the fighting. Reliably left-wing Move-On has launched its own in-house “Creative Lab” (sic) to produce its own propaganda videos. It describes as a “debunked conspiracy theory” the Carlson claim, originally surfaced from the US government itself, that the “Biden administration was funding secret biolabs in Ukraine.” It is seeking to discredit Carlson’s “lies” which “are now fueling Putin’s relentless campaign of death and destruction in Ukraine.” It is “freedom fries” all over again.
A recent story illustrating just how deep the rot has penetrated the core of United States government and its institutions has predictably been given little coverage by the US mainstream media, but it is a tale that is appalling in its implications. The story involves a March 3rd Supreme Court ruling on a motion filed by accused terrorist Abu Zubaydah, who is currently a prisoner held in Guantanamo, though he has never actually been convicted of anything and is being nevertheless held “incommunicado for the rest of his life.” Abu Zubaydah maintained that he was tortured extensively by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at a secret prison in Poland as well as in Thailand and Cuba.
The CIA captured a wounded Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian radical, in 2002 in Pakistan, and immediately acted on the belief that he was a leader of al-Qaeda. He was tortured for several years. The CIA “waterboarded Zubaydah at least 80 times, simulated live burials in coffins for hundreds of hours,” and brutalized him through sleep deprival. They also hung him by his wrists on hooks, beat him physically and he, as a result, lost one eye. A heavily redacted CIA 683 page torture report to the Senate released in 2014, which included some details of the standard practices in place at that time, mentioned Abu Zubaydah over 1,000 times.
Abu Zubaydah was seeking release from Guantanamo based on the fact that the United States, in torturing him, had committed a war crime. His lawyers were seeking to subpoena and interview former CIA contractors to determine what exactly occurred in Poland. The US is, by the way, a signatory on the UN Convention Against Torture. The Abu Zubaydah suit may initially have appeared to be a slam-dunk given what was already known about CIA torture. The brutality was incredible. For example, newly declassified documents that surfaced last week revealed how a prisoner at an Agency “black site” in Afghanistan was used as a training prop to teach inexperienced operatives how to torture other prisoners, leaving him with serious brain damage.
Even given that and much other evidence of both illegal activity and crimes against humanity, the Supreme Court case was instead derailed by what is referred to as the “state secrets privilege.” The court’s 6–3 ruling, written by Justice Stephen Breyer included “To assert the [state secrets] privilege, the Government must submit to the court a ‘formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter.’” That done, the court “should exercise its traditional reluctance to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in military and national security affairs.”
The court’s ruling thereby upheld a “state secrets” claim based on the fact that the Agency has never admitted that it had secret prisons in Poland to prevent Abu Zubaydah’s lawyers from seeking subpoenas on the two psychologists who created the CIA torture program or to use those insights to learn the details of the interrogations. The court also ruled against any attempt by Polish investigators to seek to obtain US government information about the possible crimes committed at the CIA “black site” in Poland.
So welcome to the land of the free and the home of the brave…where you can be tortured at the whim of a government official, imprisoned without ever being convicted of anything, and, when you seek redress from a court, you can be told that “Too bad, it’s a state secret even though the government has already admitted having engaged in a criminal practice.” And one should not ignore in passing a related issue, the savage persecution of journalist Julian Assange for having exposed US government crimes.
An article on the case in the Los Angeles Times, one of the few to appear, puts it this way: “the government may invoke the ‘state secrets’ privilege to block former US contractors from testifying about the now well-known waterboarding and torture of prisoners held at CIA sites in Poland. By a 6-3 vote, the justices said the US government can claim a privilege of secrecy even if there is no secret.” An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who observed the process added that “US courts are the only place in the world where everyone must pretend not to know basic facts about the CIA’s torture program. It is long past time to stop letting the CIA hide its crimes behind absurd claims of secrecy and national security harm.” Or one might observe that it’s called in the vernacular “Getting Away with Murder.”
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.
March 22, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | CIA, Human rights, United States |
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Washington, DC – On March 18, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order granting a preliminary injunction to prohibit the mayor of the District of Columbia, the D.C. Department of Health and D.C. public schools from enforcing the D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccination Act of 2020 until further order of the court.
“This is a major legal victory for children, parental rights, and informed consent,” said Rolf Hazlehurst, senior staff attorney for Children’s Health Defense (CHD) who argued the case. “Government overreach such as this has dire implications for children’s health and the constitutional rights of citizens.”
The D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccination Act of 2020, allows children eleven years of age and older to consent to vaccinations without their parents’ knowledge or consent. The law specifically targets children whose parents have religious exemptions for their children. The D.C. Act contains several provisions designed to deceive parents and hide the fact that their children have been vaccinated against their parental judgment, authority or religious convictions.
The court order states that the parents “have shown they are likely to succeed on the merits because the District’s law requires providers to hide children’s vaccination status from parents who invoke their religious exemption rights…”
The D.C. Minor Consent Act requires health care providers to falsify records by leaving the child’s school vaccination records “blank.” The doctors may bill the parents’ insurance companies for the vaccines administered to the children against the parents’ written directive. However, to deceive the parents, insurance companies may not send the parents an Explanation of Benefits (EOB).
CHD and Parental Rights Foundation filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking a court order to declare the D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020 unconstitutional. Plaintiffs, (Booth, et al.) are four parents of minor children who attend public school in Washington, D.C. Oral arguments were heard on March 3, 2022.
In the opinion issued on Friday, March 18, the court found the parents likely to succeed on the merits in their arguments that the D.C. Act is unconstitutional for two reasons. First, the D.C. Act is preempted by federal law because it directly contradicts the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. The D.C. Act also violates the right to free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Hazlehurst argued that the District has created a “pressure-cooker environment, enticing and psychologically manipulating [minor children] to defy their parents and take vaccinations against their parents’ will.”
The Plaintiffs overcame a high legal hurdle that “threatened injury must be certainly impending” as established by the U.S. Supreme Court precedent Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l., in part by the use of a drawing entitled “Peer Pressure,” drawn by one of the plaintiff’s children. The drawing depicts the dilemma children face at school when they do not want to get the COVID vaccine or have been advised by their parents not to take the shot.
“This preliminary injunction is part of ongoing litigation in an extremely important national precedent-setting case,” said Hazlehurst. “The rights of parents to decide what is best for their children’s health is at stake. Government can’t be allowed to make such decisions for minor children.”
Two similar but separate lawsuits, Booth (argued by CHD/Parental Rights Foundation) and Mazer (supported by Informed Consent Action Network), were filed against the D.C. Minor Consent Act. In both Booth and Mazer, the court ruled the plaintiffs have “standing” based on preemption because the D.C. Minor Consent Act conflicts with Congress’ National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. In CHD’s Booth case, the court made the additional finding that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits that the D.C. Minor Consent Act violates the free exercise of religion clause in the First Amendment of the Constitution.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden stated, “Removing the law would revert the District to the standard age of consent of 18.” Although the case is not yet final, the preliminary injunction reverts D.C. to the standard age of consent of 18.
###
Children’s Health Defense is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Its mission is to end childhood health epidemics by working aggressively to eliminate harmful exposures, hold those responsible accountable, and establish safeguards to prevent future harm. For more information, visit ChildrensHealthDefense.org.
CHD Links:
a) 1 of 38-page document- PI Memo Opinion DC Minor Case:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/PI-memo-opinion-DC-minor-case.pdf
b) 1 of 2-page document- Booth Preliminary Injunction Order:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/Booth-Preliminary-Injunction-Order.pdf
c) 1 of 88-page document- #31 Amended Complaint:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/31-AMENDED-COMPLAINT-against-All-Defendants-filed-by-SHANITA-WILLIAMS-SHAMEKA-WILLIAMS-VICTOR-M.-BOOTH-JANE-HELLEWELL.-AttachmentsHazlehurst-Rolf.pdf
d) 1 of 131-page document- #31 Appendix:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/31-1-Appendix.pdf
e) DC Plaintiff Drawing (Exhibit 11 & timestamp included):
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/Exhibit-11-DC-plaintiff-drawing-.png
March 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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There aren’t many ways to make something as objectively awful as civil asset forfeiture worse, but the FBI has found a way to do it. As it stands now, forfeiture allows law enforcement to take cash and property from people under the (unproven) theory that it was illegally obtained. The rest of the process does nothing to prove the theory. The burden of proof is often shifted to people who had their stuff taken by law enforcement and the process of seeking the return of property is so expensive and counterintuitive, most people just take the L and move on.
The FBI wants to make asset forfeiture even shittier. It’s rolling out what appears to be a pilot program in Charlotte, North Carolina — supposedly a major hub on the East Coast drug distribution chain. Behold these (also unproven) claims the FBI has deployed to justify its new forfeiture ride-along program.
The FBI Charlotte Field Office is offering cash rewards for tips that help agents intercept drug trafficking shipments through Charlotte. With multiple interstates running directly through the Queen City, the route is appealing to traffickers who deliver their products and transfer the cash proceeds up and down the East Coast. While law enforcement agencies are effective at intercepting many of the shipments, the FBI recognizes the value the public can offer to our investigations.
Did you get that? Multiple interstates leading to a large city is all the “evidence” the FBI needs to call literally any city with a network of accessible roads a hotspot for drug trafficking activity. Everything is a hub and every road is an artery. That’s how the interstate highway system works. And because it works, every road must be a drug trafficking route and every city must be simultaneously a source for drug distributors and the home to thousands of drug customers.
All of North Carolina is suspect, according to the FBI. To clean up this southeastern drug paradise, the FBI is asking the public to contribute to its government theft program.
If a drug/cash shipment is successfully seized, the tipster could receive up to 25% of the seized money. FBI Charlotte will use the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture Program to pay tipsters. Currently, the new program is only active in the Charlotte metro area with plans to expand across North Carolina in the future.
The FBI has set up an SMS accessible tip line in addition to its normal field office phone numbers. Tipsters who know where some drug cash might be found can directly profit from providing information that points agents in the direction of seizable property.
Unlike other tip lines with reward offers like CrimeStoppers, there’s no need to wait around to see if the tip results in arrests or convictions. The civil asset forfeiture process doesn’t require arrests and convictions, only nebulous accusations about the cash itself, which is named as the “defendant” in forfeiture proceedings as though it committed criminal acts all by itself.
And while it might be tempting to flood the tip line with bogus reports, keep in mind making false statements to federal agents is a federal crime, one that can lead to real, in-fucking-federal-prison sentences. It isn’t like filling out a false police report, which may lead to little more than a few months of probation and local cops treating future reports as highly suspect. Federal crimes are no joke and the FBI loves to catch people lying because it allows the DOJ to add to its prosecutorial wins even when agents are unable to find evidence of any actual criminal activity.
The hard rule (DON’T!) about talking to federal agents without a lawyer present applies here as well. Think about it. You provide a tip, thinking you’re doing a good deed by sending agents to seize the ill-gotten gains of an alleged criminal enterprise. But if any entity is capable of ensuring no good deed goes unpunished, it’s the FBI.
Agents may decide the submitted tip indicates the tipster is involved in drug trafficking or, at the very least, may be able to provide even more tips on criminal activity. This may lead to some in-person “interviews” with agents who — as noted above — can always accuse a tipster of lying if they believe they’re not being fully honest about their relationship to the seized cash or the people who formerly possessed it. They may also attempt to pressure a tipster into becoming a federal snitch and make their lives miserable if they refuse to play ball.
No good can come of this. No good comes from civil asset forfeiture and this invitation for the public to skim the federal government’s take makes it much, much worse. If the FBI’s going to be this stupid, it’s time for federal lawmakers to take this abusable revenue stream away from it by requiring forfeitures to be tied to convictions.
March 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption | FBI, Human rights, United States |
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Ukrainian refugees in Nürnberg
Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Public Radio) notices that Ukrainian refugees are overwhelmingly unvaccinated:
Only about a third of Ukrainians have been vaccinated against Corona, in part with vaccines that are unapproved in the EU. The low vaccination rate could cause problems in the refugee centres. The city of Nürnberg, for example, has set up three gymnasiums to accommodate 600 people, where many must share a small space. …
Anyone who wants to can receive a vaccination a few hundred metres away … free of charge for Ukrainian refugees.
“Unfortunately, we’re finding that the refugees aren’t exactly snatching the vaccines out of our hands,” says Nürnberg Mayor Marcus König.
“Many new arrivals are very worried about ‘forced vaccinations’,” adds Thomas Jung, Mayor of Fürth. He says you have to approach the topic with sensitivity. …
It’s been months of overt coercion to accept vaccination from politicians and the press here in the Federal Republic of Germany. Months of social exclusion and jeopardised careers and all the rest of it. Nobody has given the slightest thought to “sensitivity.” Why are they now at pains to accommodate the feelings of Ukrainians?
Jung explains that city officials pressed a Ukrainian doctor into service, to begin delicately preaching the Gospel of Vaccination to refugees last Friday. It’s rare, because the West is so totalising, but every now and then you get an idea of what it must be like to look into this funhouse from the outside. You flee a war-zone and end up sleeping on the floor of some repurposed gym, while the locals scheme madly about how to inject you with their latest mRNA tech.
Dear Ukrainians: You’re entirely right to be terrified of forced vaccination. We are too.
March 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | Human rights, Ukraine |
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Over 11,000 Americans signed a petition demanding General Mills shut down its Pillsbury factory in the illegal Atarot settlement, which is built on occupied Palestinian land.
The petition said, “The U.N. has named General Mills as one of the 112 businesses violating international humanitarian and human rights law by operating in occupied Palestinian territories.”
“It’s Pillsbury factory in the Atarot Industrial Zone, an illegal Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, has displaced, exploited, stifled, and otherwise harmed local Palestinian lives, livelihoods, and land,” added the petition.
The petition said that General Mills “profits off of apartheid and is complicit in Israel’s occupation and annexation of the West Bank.”
The signatories demanded that General Mills shut down its factory in occupied East Jerusalem, stressing their commitment to boycotting Pillsbury products until this demand is met.
News of this comes as at least seven Palestinians were arrested by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank today, including a 62-year-old.
Local sources said occupation forces arrested at least seven Palestinians, including 62-year-old Hamas official Shaker Amara from the Aqabat Jabr camp in Jericho, as well as released prisoners and other citizens.
The sources noted that the occupation forces also arrested municipal elections candidate from Al-Bireh, Islam Al-Taweel, head of the Al-Bireh Brings us Together list, researcher and released prisoner Emad Abu Awwad from Al-Bireh, released prisoner Nael Abu Asal, Omar Abu Jenadi from Jericho, Muath Abu Tarboush from Al-Ezza camp north of Bethlehem, and Mahdi Zakarneh and Rami Yaseen from Jenin.
Hamas leader Amara is a former prisoner, arrested more than 13 times by the occupation, and each time held under administrative detention – without charge or trial.
March 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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Ronald B. Standler, Esq. has produced an extraordinary resource that summarizes key legal precedents
I want to draw your attention to an extraordinary legal resource that I just discovered (hat tip to the brilliant @blueivyrose_ on Instagram). It’s a document prepared by Massachusetts lawyer Ronald B. Standler titled Legal Right to Refuse Medical Treatment in the U.S.A.
It summarizes all of the key court cases (up until 2012 when it was published) that establish the legal right to refuse medical treatment. He writes,
This essay discusses the history of judicial opinions that hold a mentally competent adult patient has the legal right in the USA to refuse continuing medical treatment for any reason, even if that refusal will hasten his/her death.
His summaries are excellent and really zoom in on the key quotes from the decisions:
Basis for Right to Refuse Treatment
History
The history of the right to refuse medical treatment in the USA is often traced back to two judicial opinions:
• Union Pacific Railway Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891) Botsford sued railroad for concussion resulting from alleged negligence of railroad. Railroad wanted surgical examination of her injuries. Request of railroad denied. “No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.”
• Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital, 105 N.E. 92, 93 (N.Y. 1914) “Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient’s consent commits an assault, for which he is liable in damages.”
It goes on like this for 57 pages with summaries of key cases, discussion of the major issues raised by each case, and important insights into how the courts have interpreted these precedents over the years.
I imagine this will be a helpful resource for warrior mamas in child custody cases trying to keep their kids from being poisoned by vengeful spouses. I also think it may be helpful for our warrior litigators fighting against a wide range of Pharma fascist policies at the federal, state, and local level.
One bummer about the document is that it is a locked PDF — which makes it difficult to copy and paste. I imagine that clever people will find a way around that.
To recap where we are at in the legal fight against vaccine mandates:
There are four broad sets of legal doctrines that clearly support bodily autonomy:
1. The U.S. Constitution, including the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion (1st Amendment), the right of people to be secure in their person (4th Amendment), the prohibition on involuntary servitude (13th Amendment), and the right to equal protection under the law (14th Amendment) — all support personal sovereignty.
2. International law and medical norms including:
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• The Nuremberg Code and
• The Declaration of Helsinki
support the absolute right to refuse medical treatment.
3. The mountain of case law cited in Legal Right to Refuse Medical Treatment in the USA shows that the courts have long-supported medical autonomy.
4. The recent Supreme Court decision in the OSHA case and 5 other federal cases establish that federal agencies do not have the power to mandate a medical product.
Meanwhile, all that Team Pharma has going for it is the wrongly decided 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts case that is now completely discredited because it was used as a justification for forced sterilization in the Buck v. Bell case in 1927 that was struck down as unconstitutional in 1978 (see Holland, 2010, p. 42, footnote 300). Jacobson is a product of eugenic thinking and it must be repudiated as such and permanently relegated to the dustbin of history.
Were it not for that fact that Pharma pumps billions of dollars into our political and regulatory system every year we would not even be having this conversation because the courts have been clear at least since World War II that bodily autonomy is sacrosanct and that all medical decision reside with the individual — not the state, not doctors, and not the public health system.
The real story here is that progressives just cannot seem to quit eugenics. They loved eugenics in the 1900s when Jacobson was decided. They loved eugenics in the 1920s when Buck v. Bell was decided. And now progressives have once again embraced eugenics with their fanatical support for junk science mRNA shots that are killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. and around the world.
All decent and sane people must reject eugenics and reject Pharma junk science and return to the bedrock legal principles of individual autonomy and personal sovereignty.
March 20, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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The book The Year the World Went Mad by SAGE-member Mark Woolhouse, has now been published as an audiobook and will be available in hard cover on April 12th. This is an important book, for here the author, a key player in the pandemic response in the UK, admits that more or less everything he and his colleagues suggested and the government did was wrong.
In this interview with Spiked-online, Woolhouse admits that focused protection, as suggested by the proponents of the Great Barrington Declaration, would have been the right approach, and that he and his associates knew it. He even claims they suggested it, but nobody listened. However, even if they did, why didn’t they speak up? The scientists who wrote and published the Great Barrington Declaration were denounced as pseudo-scientists – and by whom? Among others, by the very people who knew they were right all along.
In the author‘s own words:
“So how do you protect those people? First of all, since they have to have contact with certain people, you make it as Covid-safe as possible for them to have those interactions. Take all the precautions we know to take now, about wearing masks, ventilation and physical distancing. But that alone is not enough. You need to make sure that the contact themselves does not have an infection and is not going to pass it on to the vulnerable people they’re interacting with. We were talking about this in April and May 2020 to many people in government. But we never implemented it. It never took off. And yet it’s quite clear from our work that this would have had a very significant impact. It would not be enough by itself “You still need to suppress the virus to a degree, but you would not need lockdown.”
The lockdowns, travel bans, school closures and all the rest were useless and extremely harmful to society. But still the scientists in charge of the pandemic response, including Mark Woolhouse, promoted those methods and justified them. They derided those who criticised their methods, cancelled them, claimed they didn’t respect science. But it was the other way around. This, we must never forget.
This book is a good step. But I wonder if the author has apologised to those who were right all along, to Martin Kulldorff, Sunetra Gupta, Jay Bhattacharya and all the other honest, real scientists who had the courage and moral standard to tell the truth. If he hasn’t, I urge him to do so.
March 20, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Audio program, Book Review, Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, Human rights, UK |
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Following our recent article highlighting isolation and neglect in care homes, we are appalled to report that the situation is only slowly improving. What is more, many NHS sites are still imposing draconian and vindictive policies. Children are being separated from parents and dying relatives are being abandoned to a lonely end.
It is beyond comprehension that this situation persists. Three weeks to flatten the curve? More like 24 months to bulldoze the social contract. Here is one quote from a UK hospital this week:
“We know that continuing to extend restrictions on visiting will be disappointing and it is not a decision we have taken lightly. We understand how important the support of family and friends can be for patients in their recovery while they are in hospital, however, our number one priority is to keep everyone safe”.
These silken, virtue-signalling words – keeping “everyone safe” – are not only utterly simplistic, they disguise blanket policies that encourage multiple Milgram-esque acts of cruel depravity. We are hearing horrific stories of desperate children being denied access to their dying parents.
“Everyone” is not safe when a nonagenarian, now in declining health, has to spend their remaining weeks – or even days – in soulless incarceration. These individuals spent their entire working lives rebuilding this country after WW2 and then brought up a subsequent generation of taxpayers. Surely we owe these bastions of society the dignity of choice in their final days.
If this situation was not depressing enough, HART has also been made aware of the most cruel of indignities: patients in their final days of life are being denied palliative care if they refuse a covid injection. It is hard to comprehend the wickedness of foisting this particular medical intervention – with all the known short-term adverse effects – on someone with a severely weakened immune system who is already in their final days. It is hard to see this as anything other than battery.
There is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of people involved in the healthcare services want the best for their patients, so how can these things still be happening? Two years into this depressing saga, perhaps it is too late for those who promote these injustices to take responsibility for the harm caused. However, those that have been ‘going with the flow’, perhaps hoping for an easy life, might want to reconsider whether their consciences can bear any more of this, and whether they want to align themselves with faceless and sadistic despotism.
After all, you cannot comply your way out of tyranny.
March 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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The Bundestag passes a new Infection Protection Act
As I wrote a few weeks ago, the legal basis for our current regime of unnecessary restrictions and interference in the everyday lives of German citizens expires after tomorrow, but Corona cannot be allowed to end in Germany. The past few weeks have seen fraught negotiations within the coalition government to draft a new Infection Protection Act and continue the circus.
Today, after acrimonious debate, the Bundestag voted in the new legislation. It provides two tiers of ongoing Corona regulation:
1) Automatically and at all times, “basic protection” measures will be available to the federal states. These allow the state governments to impose mask mandates upon local transit and healthcare facilities, and to impose testing requirements on healthcare facilities and schools. Of course, they will all do so. Mask mandates will also continue in long-distance trains and in aeroplanes.
2) State governments will be allowed to impose additional restrictions, including vaccination and testing requirements for restaurants and public events, in the case of so-called “hotspots.” Anytime you encounter English vocabulary in German law, it is a sign of bad things. A vote of the state parliament is necessary to declare a hotspot and these additional restrictions.
The federal states are allowed a transitional period to continue current rules, but this ends on 2 April.
The press is starting to fill with vile articles about the “freedoms” that will be returning to us. The thing is, that these are not freedoms anymore. They have become temporary, seasonal privileges, which can be removed anytime political pressure builds on the state parliaments. A softening of the rules makes things more comfortable in the shorter term, but it extends the political half-life of the Corona regime substantially.
Despite all the crazy discussion in the press and from individual politicians, vaccine mandates appear to be dead in Germany; only about a third of the Bundestag support a universal mandate for adults.
That’s not as good as it sounds: A lot of other members of parliament want mandate-adjacent requirements that are also bad. Andrew Ullmann, from the FDP, has gained some support for his scheme of mandatory vaccine information sessions rather than mandatory vaccination. I agree that forced lectures from ignorant low-level bureaucrats are preferable to forced medical procedures, but the whole scheme also makes me find Andrew Ullmann even more loathsome than I did before.
In case you thought Ullmann was just trying to reach a compromise to ward off the vaccinators, he’s also open to mandates for the 50+ crowd, so he’s not your friend.
Meanwhile, the CDU (and CSU), who are not in government, propose setting up a creepy “vaccination register” so the vaccinators know who to pressure. They want vaccine mandates maybe possibly for certain at-risk groups and for certain professions.
Of 736 Bundestag members, a mere 50 support a resolution against mandatory vaccination, primarily from the FDP and the AfD.
March 18, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Germany, Human rights |
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