We need an inquiry into nudge
Letter to PACAC about ethical concerns arising from the Government’s use of covert psychological ‘nudges’
By Laura Dodsworth | February 1, 2022
Mr William Wragg, MP, Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
1st February 2022
Dear Mr Wragg,
Re: Ethical concerns arising from the Government’s use of covert psychological ‘nudges’.
Thank you for meeting me to allow me to explain my concerns about the government’s use of behavioural science during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. I noted your positive comments about the need to better understand how nudge sits within parliamentary democracy and ministerial accountability, in a Telegraph article dated 28th January 2022, entitled ‘Government nudge unit “used grossly unethical tactics to scare public into Covid compliance”’, which was written in response to a letter by psychologist Gary Sidley et al requesting an investigation.1 I concur with Gary’s letter wholeheartedly.
During the course of researching my book A State of Fear: how the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic I gained a fascinating but sometimes disturbing insight into how reliant the government is on behavioural science and how little transparency there is about the people, methods, impacts and ethics.2
Behavioural scientists and politicians have called for public consultation in the past, but it has not happened. The Science and Technology Select Committee’s 2011 report Behaviour Change noted that there are ‘ethical issues because they involve altering behaviour through mechanisms of which people are not obviously aware’ and ‘ethical acceptability depends to a large extent on an intervention’s proportionality’.3 David Halpern, the head of the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), has said that ‘if national or local governments are to use these approaches [behavioural psychology tools], they need to ensure that they have public permission to do so – ie, that the nudge is transparent, and that there has been appropriate debate about it’.4
The MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy discussion document which David Halpern co-authored recommended a public consultation about the use of behavioural insights.5 This has never been more pertinent. Fear messaging was used to encourage compliance with the rules. This has changed our lives and our relationships with each other. It has also changed our relationship with the government. This was predicted in the same report, which warned:
‘People have a strong instinct for reciprocity that informs their relationship with government – they pay taxes and the government provides services in return. This transactional model remains intact if government legislates and provides advice to inform behaviour. But if government is seen as using powerful, pre-conscious effects to subtly change behaviour, people may feel the relationship has changed: now the state is affecting “them” – their very personality.’
Our personalities were changed 2020-2021. And the use of fear – a particularly destabilising tactic – has made recovery harder. The collateral damage is becoming clearer, not least with the identification of Covid Anxiety Syndrome, whereby people have heightened fears which are disproportionate to the remaining threat.6 While it is difficult to extricate the different causes – lockdown, the epidemic itself, government messaging, the media – the overall result merits close scrutiny.
One of the BIT founders, Simon Ruda, admitted in an article published in Unherd, that ‘the most egregious and far-reaching mistake made in responding to the pandemic has been the level of fear willingly conveyed on the public’.7 It’s a pity that this revelation was made so late in the pandemic management. (After the sale of BIT to NESTA for a ‘healthy capital gain’, as Ruda observes, for the BIT shareholders.) If the previous calls for public consultation on the use of nudge had happened years ago, then maybe this egregious mistake could have been avoided. But it is never too late.
I believe the UK needs a full analysis of the tactics used and their impacts from experts, including psychologists, behavioural scientists, mental health specialists, politicians, political scientists, sociologists, philosophers, civil liberties organisations, lawyers, as well as representatives of the public.
Furthermore, the harmful impacts of behavioural science go beyond the handling of the Covid epidemic. The impact of behavioural insights on mental health was reported in Loan Charge All-Party Parliamentary Group Report on the Morse Review into the Loan Charge March 2020.8 It concluded that independent assessment and a suspension of HMRC’s use of behavioural insights was needed, ‘in light of the ongoing suicide risk to those impacted by the Loan Charge’. Clear misconduct and bullying, including using 30 behavioural insights in communications, were cited in one of the seven known suicides of people facing the Loan Charge.
The collaboration between a major UK broadcaster and BIT to promote one of the most controversial policies today is deeply alarming. The report, The Power of TV: Nudging Viewers to Decarbonise their Lifestyles, jointly published by BIT and Sky, shows little regard for the obligation imposed on broadcasters by Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code to maintain ‘due impartiality’ across all their output, particularly when it comes to news and current affairs.9 It also neglects the requirement that broadcasters expose viewers to a wide range of different views when it comes to ‘matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy’. I wrote a letter of complaint to Ofcom with Toby Young, Founder of the Free Speech Union, on 21st December 2021.
Recently, the Home Office has hired an advertising agency to mobilise public opinion against encrypted communications, with plans that include some shockingly manipulative tactics to sway concerned parents.10
In the past two years I have noted new behavioural science appointments within the government, Public Health England (now UKHSA) and NHS, and nudge seems likely to play a bigger part in future government attempts to transform us into ‘model citizens’ and foreground acceptance of controversial policies. Indeed, this is openly acknowledged. One recent report from a team at the University of Bath already shows how behavioural psychologists hope to segue from Covid to climate behaviour change while ‘habits are weakest and most malleable to change’.11 A BIT paper on how to nudge the public towards Net Zero referred to our ‘powerful tendency to conform’.12
I agree with Gary Sidley that the government must be held to account over its use of behavioural science. The Covid epidemic has shone a spotlight onto how embedded behavioural science is within government, but the inquiry would benefit from widening the scope to a historical review and also agree new frameworks for the future. This should include a historical analysis of all campaigns (especially the many unpublished ones), a review of the ethical framework government behavioural scientists adhere to, and scrutiny of accountability. Most importantly, a review must include the general public, who are as yet unaware of the prolific campaigns to influence them below the level of consciousness, but nevertheless fund the campaigns through taxation.
Nudge assumes we are not rational beings. Ruda does not shy away from this in his article, clearly stating that ‘behavioural science was conceived as a means of recognising and correcting the biases that lead humans to make non-rational decisions’. Stripping away our rational choices and influencing us at a subliminal level is anti-democratic and we are now at a crucial point to take stock of the government’s use of these tactics. I hope that PACAC can conduct a comprehensive and independent investigation. I would be delighted to assist by sharing notes and evidence.
I look forward to speaking with you.
Yours sincerely,
Laura Dodsworth
Justice For the Hyde Park One
By Andrew Rootsey | The Daily Sceptic | February 1, 2022
As you may recall, we secured Debbie’s acquittal at Cheltenham Magistrates Court on the December 20th 2021 for offences relating to organising/being involved in organising a gathering of more than 30 people during a period of national lockdown or alternatively for participating in the gathering.
The relevant gathering was a protest held in Stratford Park in Stroud in November 2020 against the restrictions imposed on the British public under the Coronavirus Regulations. The protest was called the ‘Freedom Rally’ and was attended by more than 50 people.
The Stroud ‘Freedom Rally’ was held two days into the second national lockdown and therefore at the time it was illegal to organise a gathering of more than 30 people or to meet in groups of more than two people. A conviction would have left her liable for a £10,000 fine.
Ms. Hicks was acquitted of both offences after the court accepted our argument that her arrest and prosecution was a disproportionate interference with her human rights – namely the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, given that she was engaging in a legitimate protest.
The court found that Ms. Hicks had organised the ‘Freedom Rally’ and had breached the Coronavirus Regulations in force at the time by doing so. However, she had a reasonable excuse because she was attending a legitimate, peaceful and well-organised protest. The officers on the ground at the protest had been labouring under a misapprehension of the law – that protesting was not lawful under the Regulations – and were essentially imposing a blanket ban on protesting. Therefore, their actions in arresting her were not rational or proportionate.
In complete contrast – and a perfect example of how this contentious piece of legislation is flawed and open to misinterpretation – on the November 16th 2021 the City of London Magistrates Court convicted Debbie of breaching similar coronavirus regulations by protesting in Hyde Park against the imposition of lockdown restrictions during the pandemic. The District Judge in this case found that Debbie did not have a ‘reasonable excuse’ for protesting and found that the interference with her Human Rights was proportionate. Debbie was convicted and sentenced to a financial penalty.
The case raises important issues on freedom of expression and assembly, as well as the chilling of the right to protest. We wish to appeal this case to the High Court in order for the High Court to settle the important questions of law raised.
A fundamental consideration for the High Court is the ambiguity of the right to protest during the Coronavirus pandemic during periods of national lockdown and the operation of the ‘reasonable excuse’ jurisdiction in this regard.
The Government has made it clear, as have the courts, including in Debbie’s case before the Cheltenham Magistrates Court, that protesting during the Coronavirus pandemic was never illegal. Yet that was not always clear from the Coronavirus regulations nor was it the understanding of most police officers. How the reasonable excuse defence is to operate in these circumstances requires clarity and we are confident that the High Court will settle the issue in our favour and set a precedent for future cases and those seeking to appeal against their own convictions.
Debbie Hicks is probably best known for filming within the Gloucester Royal Hospital in December 2020 during Tier 3 restrictions. Debbie did so, exercising her freedom of expression, in order to highlight that Government restrictions were having a devastating effect upon access to healthcare across the board and to investigate mainstream media reports that hospitals were overflowing with patients.
Despite her efforts to avoid confrontation, she was challenged at the hospital by two employees. During the exchange, which lasted less than a minute, Debbie did not film the staff members. She explained the purpose of her visit and her views as to the provision of NHS services during lockdown. Staff members took offence at her comments and subsequently made a complaint to the police. Debbie immediately left the hospital voluntarily and was subsequently arrested at her home in front of her family and charged with using abusive, threatening or disorderly words or behaviour.
Debbie was not at the hospital deliberately seeking an encounter with staff. She has in the past been a vociferous supporter of the NHS and has supported NHS staff in respect of vaccine mandates.
In connection with this episode, Debbie stood trial for an offence under Section 5 of Public Order Act on January 6th 2022 and having adjourned the case in order to hand down his judgement the District Judge convicted Debbie of a S5 Public Order Act offence on January 19th 2022 at Cirencester Magistrates Court.
We wish to appeal this conviction as well and ask that the High Court settle this case on the basis that the District Judge was wrong in law to convict Debbie of this offence. We are firmly of the view that the Prosecution case simply did not cross the threshold of what constitutes abusive, threatening or disorderly words or behaviour. The District Judge’s analysis was flawed and did not properly interpret Supreme Court authorities nor give appropriate weight to Debbie’s rights of freedom of expression and assembly as enshrined in the European Convention for Human Rights, nor give appropriate weight to the political nature of Debbie’s views when the case law makes clear political freedom of expression should be given special protection.
Debbie is trying to raise £10,000 to take both cases to the High Court. She hopes that those who continue to believe in freedom of speech and the the right to protest will continue to support her. Our hope is that if we can get these convictions overturned, it will set a legal precedent for those convicted of similar offences and who may face prosecution in the future.
Debbie needs to raise funds in order to pay her legal costs and any help is hugely appreciated. Her fundraiser can be found here.
Andrew Rootsey is a solicitor at Murray Hughman.
They’re Coming to Take You Away
Biden Administration steps up its war on the American People
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 1, 2022
What would a completely unscrupulous chief executive whose sole purpose in life is to seize power and never relinquish it do to conceal his evil intentions? He or she would use deception to change the narrative. Many are beginning to recognize that that is precisely what the Democrats are doing and their game plan includes demonizing both Russia and China to create plausible external enemies while also generating fear and uncertainty around alleged domestic threats as well as the COVID menace, to include initiating mandates designed to make the people submissive and fearful of legal and personal consequences for defying the government. Well, be that as it may, the penny has finally dropped and it is now clear that Biden-Pelosi-Schumer are intent on changing the rules and using lawfare and other tools to create a permanent governing majority.
The key to power in this case has been exploiting the legal system to criminalize many forms of dissent. For the past year President Joe Biden and his Department of Justice sidekick Attorney General Merrick Garland have been making noises about all the terrorists running around loose in the country. And they have not been shy about suggesting that the alleged terrorists are nothing less that “white supremacists” who are allegedly promoting violence to address their grievances against the new administration in Washington. Well, it has now become official. The Biden government has mobilized and has finally declared “war on the American people,” most particularly the third or so of the population that has concerns about the conduct and results of the 2020 election as well as over the “woke” racial preference policies that the government has been aggressively promoting.
On January 11th, Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, revealed to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI has now created a special unit that will deal exclusively with “domestic terrorism,” which it further describes as constituting an “elevated threat” to American democracy. Olsen claimed that there has been a large increase in “domestic extremism” reports having doubled in 2021 compared with the previous year. The new unit will “augment the existing approach” by way of additional resources that have been made available to identify the dissidents, track them down, arrest them and try them under the authority of various laws that were originally conceived as a legal tool to combat the perceived international terrorist threat after 9/11.
Olsen, citing what he referred to as the January 6th 2021 “riot” at the Capitol in Washington, elaborated how the Department of Justice believes that the nation now faces a serious threat from “domestic violent extremists — that is, individuals in the United States who seek to commit violent criminal acts in furtherance of domestic social or political goals.” He also suggested a racist motive behind some of the violence, adding that “We’ve seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus…,” and observed that the “terrorists” often are “anti-Authority,” whatever that is supposed to mean.
Olsen did not mention that the war on dissent has even included monitoring the social media of America’s military personnel lest they harbor dangerous thoughts. To be sure, the driving force behind the government’s campaign to criminalize the actions of the many citizens who object to the Biden Administration policies appears to be Olsen’s boss Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is very well placed to engage in mischief that will potentially affect all Americans. In fact, he has proven to be a more than willing accomplice in the social engineering that the Biden Administration is engaged in, to include his declaration last year that white supremacists are the single greatest terrorist threat the United States faces today.
Garland and others in the Biden Administration unashamedly propose that America’s governmental bodies and infrastructures are racist and supportive of “white supremacy” and must be deconstructed. “Building Back Better” requires everything to be examined through a value system determined by identity politics and race and it views both whites and their institutions as hopelessly corrupted, if not evil.
If there were any doubts about Biden’s intentions, they were dispelled in a speech made in Georgia on the same day that Olsen was addressing the Senate. Biden issued a call to arms that was full of race-baiting, claiming that those who are resisting the voting “reforms” that he is promoting are little better than notorious civil-rights era racists like George Wallace and Bull Connors. In reality, however, the voting changes that the Administration is promoting by fiat are, in fact, licenses to steal votes and commit large scale electoral fraud as they will strip states of the right to demand that voters prove both that they are citizens and legal residents.
On January 26th the Department of Homeland Security got into the game, releasing a memo suggesting that the “domestic extremists” are seeking to make the lives of all Americans more difficult. The dissidents “have been developing plans to attack the US electric sector… since at least 2020.’” The report stated that extremists “adhering to a range of ideologies will likely continue to plot and encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure” but it did not provide even a single piece of evidence that the “threat” had ever proceeded beyond the talking stage, suggesting that the report was generated to create fear on the part of the public regarding the “domestic terrorism” issue.
In yet another instance demonstrating how the White House is interpreting its national security mandate in a highly partisan fashion, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated last week that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) works closely with the Bureau to identify and investigate instances of anti-Semitism in the United States. That should raise questions about a private group with an agenda working as a source for the police and intelligence services and it suggests in particular that critics of Israel and its policies will find themselves increasingly targeted by law enforcement under “hate crime” legislation. Such statements citing rising anti-Semitism and “holocaust denialism” also generate more fear among the public to justify “protection” by a dominating and intrusive national security apparatus.
Witness how this has already played out in Europe where “holocaust denial” has been widely criminalized by way of so-called “memory laws [which] prohibit the denial, justification, or trivialization of the crimes committed by the Nazis during World War II… France has had a ban on Holocaust denial in place since 1990. Austria’s ban was adopted in 1992, and Belgium’s is from 1995. Germany itself did not adopt an explicit ban until 1994, though it countered Holocaust denial before then through laws against defamation, incitement, and disparaging the memory of the dead… Holocaust denial laws were also approved in the 1990s by the European Court of Human Rights (under the Council of Europe), which stated that the negation or revision of ‘clearly established historical facts — such as the Holocaust — … would be removed from the protection’ of free speech under the European Convention on Human Rights.”
Eliminating free speech, the most fundamental right, would allow government and a compromised media to gain control of the narrative of government that prevails in the United States and would be a significant step towards totalitarian control. Going beyond that, the Administration is even reported to be considering devastating proposals to make all illegal immigrants citizens to allow them to vote. New York City has already declared that all residents will be able to vote on local issues, whether they are in the country legally or not. More to the point, the discussion comes at a time when the nation’s southern border has become an out-of-control entry point for anyone who can reach Mexico.
Even though the Biden Administration’s enemies list admittedly features white supremacists regarded ipso facto as extremists, it is now notoriously also including those parents who do not support the various formulae being employed to install programs seeking to establish what is referred to as “equity” in the nation’s public schools. That the agenda is both reverse racism and detrimental to good educational practice is why parents are protesting. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has observed how “The Department of Justice’s fight against angry parents is a real testament to the authoritarian nature of the Biden administration and indeed, the entirety of the left. It takes a lot of hubris to declare that you know how to raise someone’s child better than them and send authorities to shut you down when you protest that.”
Senator Paul’s father former Congressman Ron Paul has also responded to the threat coming from a government that he perceives as trending towards totalitarianism by way of a single state model for education, commenting how “If government can override the wishes of parents in the name of ‘education’ or ‘protecting children’s health’ then what area of our lives is safe from government intrusion?”
If it is indeed true that Joe Biden is not completely in control of what his administration appears to be doing, one then has to wonder who is directing his appointed officials to pursue policies that are destructive of all the freedoms and other positive things that this nation once represented. One thing for sure, the mask is now off and the Democratic Party plan to create something like a totalitarian state with one party rule in perpetuum is right there for everyone to see.
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.
Truckers blockade US-Canada border
Alberta dispatched heavily armed police to break up ‘unlawful’ protest
RT | January 31, 2022
Authorities in the Canadian province of Alberta have dispatched heavily armed police units to disperse the blockade of a border crossing with the US state of Montana by truckers opposed with Covid-19 vaccine mandates.
Scores of Canadian truckers blocked the border crossing between Coutts, Alberta and Sweet Grass, Montana over the weekend, as thousands of their colleagues descended on the Canadian capital of Ottawa to picket the parliament.
On Monday afternoon, surrounded by special units of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the truckers prayed and decided to open one northbound lane for local traffic and let anyone who wishes to leave do so, but voted to stand their ground. One of them vowed the “only way I’m leaving is in a [police] cruiser.”
Police are “not willing to negotiate,” one of the truckers told the outlet Rebel News, adding that by opening a lane, they were technically complying with a provincial law passed in 2020 to crack down on indigenous rights activists.
According to Coutts Mayor Jim Willett, about 100 trucks were blocking Highway 4 on the Canadian side, causing a miles-long backup on Interstate 15 in Montana. About 50-100 trucks have reportedly been stuck on the US side since Saturday.
The blockade is a protest against US and Canadian governments mandating that truckers must be “fully vaccinated” against Covid-19, which came into effect on January 15.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who is in Washington, DC for a meeting of US governors, denounced the blockade on Sunday as “causing significant inconvenience for lawful motorists” and insisted it “must end immediately.”
Kenney, a member of the United Conservative Party, also joined Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – a Liberal – in condemning the “Freedom Convoy” that drove across Canada last week and parked outside the parliament in Ottawa, demanding an end to vaccine mandates.
Trudeau claimed that he will not give in to “those who fly racist flags” or “engage in vandalism or dishonor the memory of our veterans,” insinuating that an unidentified man photographed with a Nazi flag and three protesters who climbed onto the National War Monument disqualified the entire movement.
Kenney has said that the Coutts protest violates the Alberta Traffic Safety Act. Truckers have countered that opening up a lane for local traffic technically makes them compliant with both ATSA and the 2020 Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, passed after indigenous rights activists blockaded railways.
However, Mayor Willett told reporters on Monday morning that the RCMP was “getting impatient.”
Surveys Show That Democrats Can’t Let Covid Go
By Noah Carl | The Daily Sceptic | January 31, 2022
In the early days of the pandemic, when we didn’t have much information, partisan differences in concern about Covid were relatively small. A Gallup poll from February of 2020 found that precisely 35% of U.S. conservatives and 35% of liberals were worried about the pandemic.
Since then, a massive partisan gap has opened up, with Democrats being far more concerned than Republicans. This gap persists to the present day.
While being greatly concerned about the disease was not unreasonable in the spring of 2020, when few people had immunity and excess mortality was high, the situation we face now is dramatically different. All adults have been offered a vaccine, and a significant fraction of the population has natural immunity.
More and more people can see it’s past time we got back to normal. Even one-time ‘Zero Covid’ advocates like Devi Sridhar admit the virus has been “defanged”. But in the U.S., Democrats can’t seem to let Covid go.
Their refusal to face reality is laid bare in two recent surveys: one by Morning Consult, which is summarised in the New York Times; one a join venture of Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute.
Let’s take each one in turn. Here are two headline results from the first survey. Remember, the data were collected in January of this year – mere weeks ago.
83% of Democrats are still concerned about their children getting sick from Covid at school. 83%! This is despite the fact that Covid poses almost no risk to children; indeed, those aged 5–14 are more likely to die in a car accident on their way to school.
As a result of these ungrounded fears, a shocking 65% of Democrats want to go back to remote learning – something that has demonstrably harmed kids’ education, while yielding almost no benefit in terms of reduced transmission.
What about the second survey? Respondents were asked a series of questions about measures that could be taken against the unvaccinated. The results make for alarming reading indeed.
59% of Democrats would support a policy of confining unvaccinated people in their homes “at all times, except for emergencies”. 48% would support a policy to “fine or imprison” those who publicly question the vaccines’ efficacy. And 45% would support a policy of requiring unvaccinated people to live in “designated facilities or locations”.
Of course, polls can’t always be trusted. Yet as Philippe Lemoine observed, “even if we divide each number by 2, this is still completely insane…” Not least because the vaccines, as we’ve known for some time now, don’t stop transmission.
Note: I’m not claiming that Democrats are uniquely irrational; Republicans have plenty of biases and misconceptions of their own. But if after two years, you still don’t get that Covid isn’t a threat to children, I don’t really know what to say.
And make no mistake: what Democrats believe matters. They currently control the White House (in the world’s ‘most powerful country’), and remain disproportionately represented in U.S media and academia, including public health. Once Democrats let Covid go, the rest of us can too.
Do zero deaths in 2 years justify a vaccine mandate?
Apparently so! We live in very strange times, don’t we?
By Steve Kirsch | January 30, 2022
Credit to UCSF Professor Aditi Bhargava for bringing this particular UK FOIA request to my attention. I haven’t seen it anywhere else, so I thought I’d share it with you in case you missed it as well.
The request was:
Please supply deaths caused solely by covid 19, where covid is the only cause of death listed on the death certificate, broken down by age group and gender between feb 2020 up to and including dec 2021.
Here is the most interesting part of the full response which covered nearly two years since the very start of the pandemic: the number of young people in the UK who died solely from COVID:
Your chance of being killed from COVID is basically 0 if you are under 24 years old.
Therefore, based on this data, if you were a policymaker in the US, you’d want to mandate the vaccines for anyone under 24, right?
0 deaths in 2 years, yet vaccines are mandated for young people in schools and universities.
This is how insane these mandates are.
How can 0 deaths justify a state of emergency applied to people under 24? How can it justify mandating a vaccine?
As far as I know, not a single one of the 3,143 public health officials in the US has spoken out against vaccine mandates for people under 24.
FDA math
Want to know how the FDA justifies the vaccines?
Did you ever read the risk-benefit analysis FDA did for 5 to 11 year olds? It was based entirely on assumptions (not data), assumptions of incredible efficacy at preventing all sorts of covid-19 related harms, and on the adverse event side of the ledger, just one single AE (myocarditis). That’s it. No other risks.
And no use of actual data, because trials provided zero data on any of all the endpoints (benefits and harms) that they thought were important.
See PDF p.39 (section 9.5) of the FDA’s EUA memo on 5-11 year olds: https://www.fda.gov/media/153947/download.
Congress totally trusts the FDA no matter how bad their analysis is.
If you want to see a more realistic risk-benefit analysis, see Dr. Toby Rogers’ analysis. Want more proof? Read this article.
A tale of two cities
In the UK now, we have: masks gone, social distancing gone, work from home gone, care home restrictions gone, travel restrictions gone, VACCINE PASSPORTS GONE and the Coronavirus Emergency Act will not be extended.
In Santa Clara County, we have mandated masks, vaccines, etc. for everyone who works for the County.
Same virus, different policymakers.
Dr. Richard Pan introduces bill in California to close the personal belief exemption loophole
The very worst people in my opinion are the policymakers who actively force every last human being to take the jab by eliminating exemptions. For example, Dr. Richard Pan and his California State Senate bill to keep schools safe which is supported by:
- Los Angeles Unified Board President Kelly Gonez
- Los Angeles Unified Interim Superintendent Megan K. Reilly
- San Diego Unified Board Member Richard Barrera
- California Medical Association President Robert E. Wailes, M.D.
Nowhere in that article do you see any mention of a risk-benefit calculation. Never does he mention the number of lives he’s going to save with his bill. Never does he compute the number of deaths. It’s all fear-based policymaking with no math.
Which begs the question: Is there any policymaker with a working brain in the United States of America? Please identify yourself.
We Are All Canadian Truckers Now!
By Ron Paul | January 31, 2022
We all remember where we were when the Berlin Wall came down. While it may have seemed that communist rule would go on forever, when the people decided that they had enough suddenly the wall fell. Just like that.
Thus it is after two years of Covid authoritarianism that in Canada the largest truck convoy in history has smashed through the Berlin Wall of tyranny. I have watched as the Canada I once respected as a haven for antiwar Americans in the 1960s turned into one of the most repressive countries on earth. I wondered how a freedom-loving people could allow themselves to be abused by these mini-Stalins without a peep.
But then Canada stood up and showed the rest of the world that freedom can triumph over tyranny if the people demand it. As I say, no army can stop an idea whose time has come.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau had been basking in his ability to terrorize the population in the name of fighting a virus. He was so confident in his seemingly unlimited power that he felt he could ridicule any Canadian with different views. The prime minister said in a recent interview that unvaccinated Canadians were “extremists,” “misogynists,” and “racists.”
When the Canadian truckers stood up to his tyranny and began their historic convoy to Ottawa, he thought he could continue ridiculing people. The truckers and their supporters were just a “small fringe minority” who hold “unacceptable views,” he confidently claimed. For Trudeau, love of liberty is just an “unacceptable view.”
Less than a week later, as tens of thousands of trucks began entering the capital with millions of supporters behind them, the “brave” Canadian prime minister had fled the city and shuffled off to an undisclosed location.
As Elon Musk Tweeted, “It would appear that the so-called ‘fringe minority’ is actually the government.”
The Canadian mainstream media is obviously just as obedient to the regime as ours. They ignored the Freedom Convoy for as long as possible. There was almost no reporting. Then, when it became impossible to ignore, they began to attack and ridicule instead of trying to report it accurately. It was disgusting and almost comical to see a “reporter” from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation suggest that the Canadian Freedom Convoy was cooked up by Putin and the Russians!
Thousands of trucks have arrived in Ottawa. They demand an end to covid tyranny. They are backed by millions of citizens, who braved the Canadian winter at night to cheer the truckers on.
This protest is so important because it’s not limited to Canada. The truckers are being supported worldwide, and a similar convoy is being planned from California to Washington, DC. In a US where grocery store shelves are increasingly bare, the truckers have more leverage than the powers-that-be would like to admit.
If I were prime minister of totalitarian Australia or New Zealand – or most anywhere in Europe – I would be getting pretty nervous right now. Just as the Covid tyranny descended across the globe in a seemingly coordinated fashion, now that the Berlin Wall of the tyrants has been breached, it’s just a matter of time before the shockwaves are felt far and wide.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the Canadian truck drivers. Let’s all do whatever we can to help the freedom movement continue to gather steam!
Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute.
FREEDOM CONVOY – CANADIAN TRUCKERS INSPIRE THE WORLD!
https://www.bitchute.com/video/0ryAP7gn11N4/
Amazing Polly | January 29, 2022
What a time to be alive! Me & the mister talk all things convoy & show lots of videos, etc from around the country. Get a tissue, you’re going to tear up. ♥ My website is here: https://amazingpolly.net/ God bless the truckers & their families and God bless each and every one of us.
Truckers Demand Letter: https://canada-unity.com/mou/
The act of theatre that shows Israel’s contempt for Gaza
By Eva Bartlett | RT | January 30, 2022
Israel has apparently reprimanded a soldier for firing rounds into Gaza. That’s all very well, but what about the countless other soldiers who have done the same for years, maiming and killing Palestinian civilians?
The soldier, who posted his bravado video to TikTok, reportedly got 10 days in military prison. According to an Israeli army statement, “The soldier’s behavior in the video does not conform with the norms expected of soldiers and commanders.”
His sentencing and the media reporting around the incident is pure theatre, given the reality of how the Israeli army routinely targets Palestinians working on land in Gaza’s east and northern regions. While this one particular soldier received a mild punishment, many others who attack unarmed civilians are not held accountable.
Since pulling the illegal settlers out of Gaza in 2005, Israel has implemented a kill zone – dubbed the “buffer zone” or “no go zone” – where, on a regular basis, its soldiers shoot at Palestinian civilians. Ostensibly, it comprises a band of land 300 metres from the fence encaging Palestinians in Gaza. In reality, Israeli soldiers fire upon civilians well over a kilometre away, or even further, as I have experienced myself.
As I reported some years ago, “According to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the 300 metres off-limits area extends in areas to at least 1.5 km. PCHR [the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights] has documented the Israeli army targeting of Palestinian civilians as far as 2 km from the border.”
Israeli soldiers in sniper position. © Eva Bartlett
Between 2008 and 2013, I regularly accompanied farmers and other civilians in border areas, and on many of the occasions that we came under fire, we were 500 metres or more from the fence. Among the disturbing incidents was an attack one morning in February 2009, when I came under prolonged Israeli gunfire while accompanying a group of farm labourers on land roughly 500 metres from the fence. By then, I was accustomed to the routine – I would walk with farmers on their land, the Israeli soldiers would arrive in jeeps, assume sniper position and begin firing at us.
On this occasion, the young men had finished their parsley harvest and were pushing a stalled pickup truck when the Israeli gunfire began. The incident was captured on video, as I was there to document such attacks, and as I wrote at the time, “The lightly-dressed, unarmed farmers were clearly visible to… the several Israeli army jeeps and the Hummer which had patrolled the border fence, stopping for long intervals to watch the farmers work, then moving on.” I noted that the soldiers had observed us for a good half hour before shooting, choosing to fire at precisely the time when the farmers were leaving.
Shooting just beyond where I stood in a fluorescent vest, an Israeli soldier hit 20-year-old Mohammad al-Buraim in his leg, and continued to fire at us for a further 15 minutes. Some weeks prior, an Israeli soldier shot his cousin Anwar in the neck, killing him and leaving his wife, young children, and extended family without a breadwinner. Anwar had been on land 600 metres from the fence, also doing farm labour work.
When someone gets injured in these areas, the injury is compounded by the fact that ambulances cannot reach them, as they are targeted by the Israeli army. So, locals need to somehow get the injured to a point where an ambulance can safely reach them. If this is not done quickly enough, the injured risks bleeding to death.
On another occasion, again with farm workers in Gaza’s southeast, I came under intense Israeli fire lasting over 40 minutes from soldiers roughly 500 metres away. Bullets flew within metres of our hands, heads, and bodies. This proved to be an especially interesting case, as a representative from the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv – who had been informed of the shooting by other volunteers – called me to express concern for my safety.
This dissipated as soon as she realized I was being fired on by an Israeli soldier, and not a Palestinian. Her superior, the then-attache in the Tel Aviv office, had the gall to state quite clearly that they were fine with Israel’s “security measures” – firing on an unarmed Canadian and unarmed Palestinians and internationals, who in no way posed any threat to the heavily armed Israeli soldiers – and that we should be aware of the risks.
In another example, in February 2009, also in the southeast on land 550 metres from the fence, I accompanied elderly farmers and their families who intended to harvest some of their meagre crops. Shortly after we had arrived on the land, Israeli soldiers started firing very close to us, less than a metre from where we stood.
As I wrote at the time, “We could almost taste Tuesday’s firing, and the distinct ping-whizz sound they make was somehow impossibly loud, so close the shots were. One of the older women was having trouble walking away, stumbling in her fear. As the shots dug in around her she fell to the ground in terror. Positioning ourselves between the elderly farmers and the Israeli snipers, we accompanied them off the field. A few hundred metres away, the Israeli snipers continued to shoot. Another elderly woman had dived in terror behind a rock and adamantly wouldn’t get up. “They’ll kill me, they’ll kill me,” she cried in fear…”
Thankfully we did make it away that day in one piece. But this was just one of many examples of the terror Palestinian farmers face on a daily basis. And it’s not just farmers – at around the same time, a 17-year-old girl standing around 800 metres from the fence, near the ruins of her home (destroyed in the war just a month previously), was shot in the kneecap by an Israeli sniper.
Children going to school in the eastern village of Khoza’a were, at the time, being fired upon by Israeli soldiers at the fence 1km away. Teens and young men gathering scrap metal from demolished homes routinely come under Israeli fire. One example was 15-year-old Said Abdel Aziz Hamdan, who went to an area in Gaza’s north with his 13-year-old brother, to try to earn money for their large family. After finishing his work, an Israeli soldier fired at him, hitting his leg, without warning.
“People go there every day to gather bits of metal and concrete. The Israelis see us and know we are just working, it’s normal,” he told me when I visited him in hospital.
Palestinians don’t only face Israeli sniper fire, but also flechette shelling – dart bombs – which Israel has indiscriminately used against civilians and medics. One victim was 17-year-old Saleh Ahmad al-Medani, whose shoulder and neck were punctured by the two-inch-long, razor-like, dart-shaped bits of metal packed by the thousands into a single shell. He was attacked while walking home after midnight in June 2009, in northwestern Gaza, over 1km from the wall.
As I wrote at the time, “Due to their design, flechettes dig deeply into their target, with their “tails” frequently breaking off, leaving multiple injuries and rendering them nearly impossible to extract without inflicting more injury in the surgical search. In most cases, doctors opt against surgery, leaving the darts inside the victim’s body.”
The routine and very dangerous Israeli policy of harassment, which risks maiming or killing targets, also means farmers frequently stay off their land, meaning plants don’t get watered, and crops don’t get harvested. These are not isolated and random instances. They are part of a policy that aims to cut off any means of self-sufficiency the Palestinians try to engage in. Other Israeli army tactics include burning Palestinian crops, destroying wells and cisterns, and demolishing homes, livestock farms, and trees throughout the border regions.
So, please, let’s not get carried away with the fact that Israel has thrown one soldier in prison for unacceptable behaviour. It is quite clear that Israel doesn’t hold its own soldiers accountable for their crimes, including killing children or firing white phosphorus on heavily populated civilian areas. Neither does the United Nations nor anybody else appear willing to make Israel take responsibility for its decades of crimes against Palestinians.
One headline about one soldier being reprimanded for posting his tough-guy video on TikTok should not fool anyone.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
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Sanctions, War and the Policy of Dual Containment
By SASAN FAYAZMANESH | March 17, 2008
It is now nearly three decades since the Unites States adopted the policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq. While much has been written about the containment of Iraq, there has been very little in-depth analysis of this policy when it comes to Iran. In a book that is going to be released on March 31, 2008, entitled The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment (Routledge), I attempt to address this shortcoming by investigating when and why the US policy of containment of Iran came about, how it evolved, and where it stands today.[1] To the extent that Israel has been involved in US policy making, the study will also include the role that Israel has played in the containment of Iran. Also, since the fate of Iran has been inextricably linked to that of Iraq, occasionally the investigation will overlap with the containment of Iraq.
The policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq originated during the Carter Administration, but it was not until the Clinton Administration that the expression “dual containment” became popular. … continue
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