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COVID Vaccine Mandates Are Killing Aviation, Healthcare, Other Critical Services. Is It Intentional?

The Defender | October 15, 2021

The widespread hemorrhaging of experienced public- and private-sector employees — a “man-made disaster of historic proportions,” according to former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul — is hollowing out some of the most important public-facing professions in the country.

Although many factors are at play, COVID vaccine mandates are a significant contributor, with employers refusing to honor the option to refuse Emergency Use Authorization COVID vaccines that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) supposedly guaranteed.

The result has been the threatened or actual mass firing and resignation of thousands of unvaccinated workers in critical sectors like healthcare, policing, firefighting, education and aviation, with skilled and experienced workers prepared to “leave if that’s what it comes to” rather than take the risky shots.

Even though these departures are “drastically overwhelming employers’ ability to replace them,” many of the politicians and corporate executives pushing the mandates seem weirdly at ease with their policy.

This complacency begs the question: Is the sabotage of air travel, high-quality healthcare, first-responder capability and other core services an intentional step designed to further weaken Americans’ resilience and expand authoritarian controls?

Flying the friendly skies

In one of the most widely publicized recent examples of workforce havoc, Southwest Airlines had to ground 35% of its scheduled flights this past holiday weekend, less than a week after the carrier mandated COVID vaccines for all employees.

The airline’s feeble explanation — bad weather and other problems — left many stranded passengers “confounded … because weather was clear over most of the country, particularly near airports that had lots of delays and cancellations.”

As Paul wryly noted, “the weather problems that Southwest claims to be experiencing seem unique to that carrier.”

In “methinks they doth protest too much” fashion, the airline, the pilots union and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are telling the public that the flight upheaval had nothing to do with employee ire over the vaccine edict.

However, one news report indicated that on the Friday in question, only three of 35 pilots showed up for work at Southwest’s Jacksonville hub, suggesting the pilots — at least 50% of whom are unvaccinated — are “drawing a line in the sand.”

Other major airlines that have imposed mandates — JetBlue, American, United, Alaska, Frontier and Hawaiian Airlines — are also facing fierce employee pushback.

The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association has gone so far as to criticize the company’s mandate as a “bad move,” stating pilot fatigue is already at triple its historic levels, with flights “operating at a higher than normal operational risk.”

Seeking to reassure its employees, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly told ABC News in an interview after the travel kerfuffle, “we’re not going to fire any employees over this [vaccine mandates].” Kelly said Southwest would urge unvaccinated employees to “seek an accommodation.”

Certainly, further outflows of competent personnel unwilling to be jabbed would exacerbate understaffing problems — and increase airline customer risks.

Adverse events in mid-air?

Commercial airline executives and pilots would be well-advised to read the affidavit submitted in late September by Lt. Col. Colonel Theresa Long, M.D., brigade surgeon for the 1st Aviation Brigade in Ft. Rucker, Alabama. Long is “responsible for certifying the health, mental and physical ability and readiness for … nearly 4,000 individuals on flight status.”

The affidavit highlights serious concerns about vaccinated pilots’ fitness for duty in light of myocarditis and other cardiac risks linked to COVID injections — problems that potentially could cause pilots to die in mid-flight.

Military aviators, Long points out, must meet “the most stringent medical standards” in the entire military to be eligible for flight status. In the private sector, heart problems can cause pilots to lose their commercial airline license.

In Long’s view, it is highly likely that “all persons who have received a COVID-19 Vaccine are damaged in their cardiovascular system in an irreparable and irrevocable manner.”

Noting that she has ascertained development of “significant and aggressive systemic health issues” in multiple flight crew members within 48 hours of vaccination, Long described one particularly alarming case:

“I personally observed the most physically fit female soldier I have seen in over 20 years in the Army, go from collegiate-level athlete training for Ranger School, to being physically debilitated with cardiac problems, newly diagnosed pituitary brain tumor [and] thyroid dysfunction within weeks of getting vaccinated.”

Other military physician-colleagues, Long said, are also reporting “firsthand experience with a significant increase in the number of young soldiers with migraines, menstrual irregularities, cancer, suspected myocarditis and reporting cardiac symptoms after vaccination.”

For young and fit pilots, the conclusion is obvious: COVID vaccines “are more risky, harmful and dangerous than having no vaccine at all,” Long said.

Many members of the military have apparently reached similar conclusions. With only 62 deaths attributed to COVID during the entire pandemic — out of 2.1 million troops — hundreds of thousands of service members are not in compliance with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Nov. 2 deadline to be fully vaccinated.

In February, a poll found that 53% of active-duty personnel, spouses and veterans had no plans to get injected.

Long said military flight crews present “extraordinary risks,” not just to themselves, but also to others “given the equipment they operate, munitions carried thereon and areas of operation in close proximity to populated areas.”

Her recommendations? “[A]ll pilots, crew and flight personnel in the military service who … received any COVID-19 vaccination [should] be grounded” and the “[c]ompulsory SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination program should be immediately suspended.”

Where are we headed?

Far from being receptive to the attempts by Long and at least 15 of her colleagues to share their disturbing observations with military superiors, the physicians say they are being ignored, rejected, ostracized or met with “threats of punishment.”

Long therefore issued her affidavit under the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, fully cognizant of the “horrific repercussions” her whistleblowing may have on her “career, [her] relationships and life as an Army doctor.”

The Ft. Rucker brass’s lack of interest in the impact of the experimental vaccines on pilot health is puzzling in light of Government Accountability Office (GAO) analyses showing there are already acute shortages of military pilots.

In late September, Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw reminded the secretary of defense that military readiness is subpar and tweeted, “are you really willing to allow a huge exodus of experienced service members just because they won’t take the vaccine?”

With the U.S. mired in “the worst … healthcare labor crisis in memory,” the same question could be directed to hospital CEOs who seem willing to let go of sizeable proportions of employees — even if it means adopting drastic measures such as refusing patients, closing departments or leaving beds empty.

Fed up, 96% of union members working at Kaiser Permanente in California and Oregon just voted to go out on strike.

Notably, hospitals earned record windfall profits last year from COVID federal stimulus and Medicare add-ons for ventilator intervention, even as they furloughed, laid off or cut the pay of frontline health workers in the midst of a “pandemic.”

And this year, politicians like New York’s unelected governor seem blithely willing to let the experienced health workers who took those furloughs and pay cuts go, bringing in pinch-hitting National Guard members or imported foreign workers.

It may still be too soon to untangle the full array of corporate and political interests driving the counterproductive policies that are chasing out large swaths of competent health workers, first responders, aviation workers and service members — while demoralizing (or sickening via COVID injection) those who comply with mandates and remain.

One thing is for sure, however: COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of blood clots and so does air travel, which could make flight personnel especially vulnerable. Members of the public who take to the skies would surely rather have an experienced unvaccinated pilot who is of the caliber of a Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in the cockpit — rather than a “second-string” vaccinated pilot who could be at higher risk of dying in mid-flight.

© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

October 17, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

British propaganda campaign incited mass slaughter of communists in Indonesia in 1960s, declassified papers reveal

RT | October 17, 2021

British spies played a part in the mass murder of Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) members in the 1960s, urging locals, including army generals, to “cut out” the “communist cancer,” declassified papers have revealed.

The Indonesian Army’s brutal clampdown on the PKI in 1965 and 1966 is considered to be one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century. Between 500,000 and three million supporters of the Communist Party were slaughtered, according to various estimations.

Declassified Foreign Office documents, which were recently released by Britain’s National Archives and seen by The Guardian newspaper, indicate that the UK isn’t without fault in those shocking events.

The British Foreign Office had always denied the country’s involvement in the brutal clampdown on those blamed of communist links in Indonesia.

But it turns out that London focused its propaganda machine on the founding Indonesian President Sukarno and his communist backers over the leader’s stern opposition to the Federation of Malaya, which the UK thought should unite its former colonies in the region.

Tensions between the PKI and the Indonesian military had been mounting since the early 1960s, with the president struggling to balance the rivaling forces. The army-sponsored massacre of communists began after a failed coup attempt by the supporters of Sukarno within the army ranks on October 1, 1965.

Several months before that, a team of specialists from the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD) had already been deployed in Singapore to produce black propaganda to undermine Sukarno’s rule, according to The Guardian. The failed coup only made it easier for the propagandists to influence their intended audience, which included anti-communist politicians and Indonesian army generals.

The propaganda was shared through an Indonesian-language newsletter, which was said to have been the work of Indonesian immigrants, but was actually issued by British specialists in Singapore. Within a year, some 28,000 copies of the newsletter had been published. The UK also funded a radio station, which Malaysians had been broadcasting into Indonesia.

Shortly after the massacre of the communists by the military began, the British-produced newsletter called for “the PKI and all communist organisations” to “be eliminated.” It claimed that Indonesia will remain in peril “as long as the communist leaders are at large and their rank and file are allowed to go unpunished.”

“Procrastination and half-hearted measures can only lead to… our ultimate and complete destruction,” the authors of the pamphlet warned their readers.

The killings allegedly intensified across the Indonesian archipelago in the weeks following the publication of the newsletter, with The Guardian insisting that “there can be little doubt that British diplomats became aware of what was happening.” The UK spies in the region had all the means to intercept Indonesian government communications and monitor the movement of its military, according to the paper.

One of the newsletters, released during the clampdown on the communists, had praised “the fighting services and the police” for “doing an excellent job.” The British propagandists compared the PKI to Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan in the pamphlet, and insisted that “the work started by the army must be carried on and intensified.”

Moreover, a letter from Norman Reddaway, one of the leading propagandists working in Singapore, to the British ambassador in Jakarta revealed the UK’s strategy “to conceal the fact that the butcheries have taken place with the encouragement of the generals.” He wrote that such an approach should’ve been taken in the hope that the generals would “do us better than the old gang.”

The Foreign Office experts and Indonesian generals were “singing in harmony,” Reddaway insisted in another declassified document. He also celebrated the British propaganda for being able to abolish Sukarno’s opposition to the Federation of Malaya project at “minimal cost” and within just half-a-year.

What Reddaway described as “the old gang” was completely crushed by the bloody events of the mid-1960s. President Sukarno was arrested in 1967 and died three years later under house arrest.

He was overthrown by General Suharto, who had been leading the Indonesian Army. Suharto then ruled Indonesia until 1998, enjoying political and economic support from the West. Transparency International (TI) labeled him the most corrupt politician in modern history in 2004, claiming that he embezzled between $15 billion and $35 billion during his time in office.

Documents that were declassified in the US in 2017 revealed that Washington also not only had “detailed knowledge” of the massacre of communists in Indonesia, but provided “active support” for those actions.

A Yale University study described the slaughter ordered by Suharto as an “absolutely essential cleaning out,” detailing the killing of from “50 to 100 PKI members” every night by civilian anti-communist groups with the “blessing” of the military.

October 17, 2021 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Men ‘cleared’ for release from GITMO is a cruel, twisted joke

It likely means years of languishing until some client state takes them on board under Washington’s strict conditions

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | October 15, 2021

The announcement that the Biden Administration has cleared two more Guantanamo Bay detainees for transfer is a hopeful sign in as much that two men have surpassed one hurdle on the way to freedom. But don’t be fooled, they may not see the light of day outside the barbed wire and concrete of the Cuban island for years. And if they do, it will most likely be in a foreign country not of their own choosing, with government monitors awaiting them. And if they are sent to the United Arab Emirates, it could be the next stop to an even greater hell.

Simple question: What kind of constitutional republic are we that supports federal measures that detain other human beings without charge for 20 years and then, when they are “cleared” to go, insist they must be released to a foreign government that agrees to treat them as criminals furthermore?

According to the New York Times, Sanad Yislam al-Kazimi and Assadullah Haroon Gul, of Yemen and Afghanistan respectively, cannot go back to their native countries because of obvious security concerns. Al-Kazimi is likely to go to neighboring Oman, which has taken some 30 repatriations over the years, and Gul’s fate is up in the air.

The Biden Administration has released but one Guantanamo Bay prisoner since he took office. But even then, the process for Abdul Latif Nasser’s release began during the Obama administration. Nasser, 56, who was never charged with a crime, actually got to return to his home country of Morocco, though he was subsequently put under investigation there, too.

So who is left? According to the Times, there are 39 detainees at the prison (which Obama had pledged to close during his time) today. Al-Kazimi and Assadullah now join 10 others of that number who are cleared to go but awaiting repatriation. Another 15 are not charged but are considered “law of war” prisoners and not cleared (news flash: supposedly we are not “at war” anymore — or are we? Apparently it is fungible). That includes Abu Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times upon his capture nearly 20 years ago and still hasn’t been charged (and is still awaiting a ruling as to whether his detention is lawful). There are 10 who are awaiting trial (including the so-called 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four cohorts), and two already convicted. No one has any confidence that those trials will go anywhere soon, given the issues over torture evidence and the convoluted nature of the system. Meanwhile, as of 2019, each prisoner at GTMO has cost the U.S. taxpayers $13 million a year.

The military tribunal system is broken and many argue that it should have never been stood up after 9/11. It was illegal from the beginning, and efforts to “legalize” it only managed to keep it open. As we know, access to due process means one thing in America and another at Guantanamo Bay.

But yes, let’s talk about the “rules based order” some more. Biden may say his hands are tied by Congress, which won’t let him release prisoners anywhere near U.S. territory, or be tried in U.S. courts. But the fact is the interagency Periodic Review Board that clears the prisoners is under Executive Branch purview and the president should have some authority to expedite the processes and or/loosen the restrictions and conditions placed on potential host countries. Unfortunately, aside from the dense legal and administrative thicket, the stigma built up around these men has rendered them radioactive — who knows who will take them if given the right opportunity. They have been stripped of their humanity and their native lands, and to the American government they are nothing but a cost and legal burden. How long will it be before we forget why they are even there?

October 17, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Switching Renewable Subsidies To Gas Will Make Little Difference

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | October 14, 2021

It is not only the UK that is thinking of switching green levies from electricity to gas.

But this analysis inadvertently highlights why the whole idea is so ludicrous:

image

In the UK, consumer prices for electricity are five times more expensive than for gas. It is a disincentive to adopt electric heat pumps. To make things harder, 23% of the electricity price comes from climate and social levies. It’s just 2% for gas. No wonder the UK continues to install about 1.7 million gas boilers a year. Jan Rosenow and Richard Lowes at RAP call for changes that will incentivise customers to buy heat pumps while having a minimal effect on their total bill or the revenues raised, according to their calculations. One way is to simply move the levies from electricity to gas. The Netherlands and Germany are planning to do just that. Sweden has done it for decades. But such changes require serious policy reform and may face political barriers. Much simpler would be to minimise taxes on the electricity consumed by a heat pump, as Denmark started doing this January. Despite heat pump sales rising, without a drastic change it’s difficult to see how the UK will reach its target of 600,000 new heat pumps per year – it’s only in the tens of thousands now.

Every year households in the UK install about 1.7 million gas boilers. In May, the Heating and Hotwater Industry Council reported that 2021 looks to be a record year for gas boiler sales, with year-to-date sales up 41 per cent from 2020. So far, low-carbon heating occupies a small — although growing — niche in the heating market.

One important factor supporting a booming boiler market is quite simple: Gas is cheap and electricity is expensive. Residential electricity prices per kilowatt hour are currently around five times higher than gas prices. This means that switching to a heat pump, even with an efficiency of 300 per cent, does not offer bill savings for customers on a standard tariff.

This is partly a political choice. Legacy policy costs drive part of the difference in price. Most of levy-funded energy and climate policies, which make up 23% of the total household bill, are presently paid for through electricity bills. In the UK, these legacy costs include charges for policies such as feed-in tariffs, the Energy Company Obligation, Contracts for Difference, the Renewables Obligation and the Warm Home Discount.

https://energypost.eu/redesigning-uk-electricity-taxes-to-boost-heat-pump-sales/

For a start, let’s get away from the misleading use of the term, levies and taxes, which are intended to distract attention from the truth.

Apart from the tiny Warm Homes Discount, all of these added costs are SUBSIDIES for renewable electricity. It is therefore perfectly logical that they should be included in the cost of electricity, so that the price reflects the cost of generation.

There is no logic in adding the cost of subsidies to the price of gas any more than adding them to the price of food or petrol.

In any event, the switch will make little difference to the relative cost of heat pumps. Subsidies currently cost domestic customers about 2.5p/KWh, a total of £2.6bn a year. This brings the electricity price up from 12.5p to 15.0p/KWh. (These figures are probably out of date now, but the comparison remains the same)

Annual domestic gas consumption is 300 TWh, so £2.6bn would equate to 0.9p/KWh, increasing gas prices from 2.5p to 3.4p/KWh.

In other words, electricity will still cost nearly four times as much as gas. With heat pumps working at 300% efficiency, that still means they will be more expensive to run.

In any event, the reason why barely anybody wants heat pumps has nothing to do with the running cost, as people have no idea what they cost to run. It is the fact that they will have to fork out £10,000 plus to install one, not to mention the cost and hassle of insulation and replacing radiators.

There is, however, one fatal flaw in the argument employed by the authors of this study. They claim that switching the subsidies to gas is a zero cost option. It may be in the short run, but eventually, when nobody uses gas anymore, the subsidies will have to revert to being added onto electricity bills.

Under that scenario, homeowners will have paid out £20000 for heat pumps, but will still have to pay the cost of subsidies on their electricity bills. In other words, a double whammy.

October 16, 2021 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

10th Anniversary of Obama Killing a Young American

By James Bovard | October 14, 2021

October 14th is the 10th anniversary of the drone killing of Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi, a 16 year old born in Colorado and killed in Yemen.  He perished as part of Obama’s crackdown on terrorist suspects around the world. His father, who was also an American citizen, was killed two weeks earlier by another drone strike ordered by Obama.

I wrote a piece condemning Obama’s assassination program for Christian Science Monitor in 2011,  “Assassination Nation: Are There Any Limits on President Obama’s License to Kill?” I derided the Obama administration’s claim that the president possessed a “right to kill Americans without a trial, without notice, and without any chance for targets to legally object…. Killings based solely on presidential commands radically transform the relation of the government to the citizenry.”

Readers responded by calling for my assassination.  My article mentioned an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit pressuring the Obama administration “to disclose the legal standard it uses to place US citizens on government kill lists.” “Will R.” was indignant: “We need to send Bovard and the ACLU to Iran. You shoot traders and the ACLU are a bunch of traders.” (I was pretty sure the ACLU was not engaged in international commerce). “Jeff” took the high ground: “Hopefully there will soon be enough to add James Bovard to the [targeted killing] list.” Another commenter—self-labeled as “Idiot Savant”—saw a grand opportunity: “Now if we can only convince [Obama] to use this [assassination] authority on the media, who have done more harm than any single terror target could ever dream of … ”

Here’s  riff I did on Obama’s assassination program in 2013:

The Obama administration yesterday leaked out its confidential legal paper on killing Americans to NBC News. Obama’s legal wizards decided that the Fifth Amendment’s pledge that no citizen shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” is invalid in cases of imminent attack by terrorists.

Though this might sound reasonable, the memo proceeds to craft a totally bogus notion of “imminent.” But, as John Glaser notes at Antiwar.com, “The memo refers to what it calls a “broader concept of imminence” than what has traditionally been required, like actual intelligence an ongoing plot against the US. ‘The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,’ the memo states, contradicting conventional international law.”

In a January 2017 USA Today piece, I urged Trump to open the files on Obama’s killings:

“Trump should quickly reveal the secret memos underlying Obama’s “targeted killing” drone assassination program.

Administration lawyers defeated lawsuits by the ACLU, The New York Times, and others seeking disclosure of key legal papers on how the president became judge, jury and executioner. A Trump administration could disclose the memos and white papers without endangering anything other than the reputation of the soon-to-be former president and his policymakers.

Didn’t happen.  The Trump administration could have exposed vast numbers of abuses by the Obama administration the same way that Obama (partially) opened the files on some of President George W. Bush’s torture policy and other atrocities.  But as usual, the Trump team blew the opportunity.

As a result, Obama can pirouette as a champion of civil liberties while the horrendous precedents he set continue to endanger Americans and anyone else in the world in the vicinity of people suspected of bad thoughts by the U.S. government.

October 16, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US Treasury deputy sec warns unvaxxed Americans that shortages will continue until EVERYONE is jabbed

RT | October 15, 2021

The deputy secretary at the US Treasury has put Americans on notice that the only way to end the plague of empty shelves around the country is for every resident to be vaccinated. The frank warning came off as a threat to many.

Wally Adeyemo, the Biden administration’s second-highest official in the Treasury Department, appeared to publicly blackmail the still-sizable portion of Americans who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 during a Thursday ABC interview, seemingly blaming them for the ongoing shortages of consumer goods that have led many to mock the president as ‘Empty Shelves Joe’.

Despite viral photos depicting thousands of cargo ships lined up at the Port of Los Angeles ready to unload their goods, Adeyemo claimed that the supply chain issues plaguing so many US retailers are an international issue and will only let up when a sufficient percentage of the country has been vaccinated.

Describing the disastrous economic conditions as “an economy that’s in transition,” Adeyemo acknowledged that “we are seeing high prices for some of the things that people have to buy.” While he praised the administration’s stimulus payments, he also pinned the blame squarely on the unvaccinated.

“The reality is that the only way we’re going to get to a place where we work through this transition is if everyone in America and everyone around the world gets vaccinated.”

While the ABC reporter repeatedly suggested that the country’s shortages of toilet paper and other panic-buy items could be traced to international supply chain disruptions, a growing number of Americans are demanding answers regarding the weirdly specific nature of certain products missing from store shelves. Some have even voiced doubt concerning whether the shortages are being introduced deliberately, either to gin up hatred against the unvaccinated or keep Americans economically off-balance as they grow accustomed to the wild disruptions of the pandemic.

Adeyemo did the Biden cabinet no favors by adding fuel to the conspiratorial fire, explaining the primary reason Biden continued to push for everyone to be vaccinated was that only then could the White House “provide the resources the American people need to make it to the other side” of the supply chain problem.

Despite blaming the international shipping industry for empty shelves in the US, the media establishment has acknowledged that the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach – which together process 40% of the nation’s imports – had their busiest years on record last year, giving the lie to the notion that the products missing from American shelves simply don’t exist. However, many truckers working for shipping companies have balked at the idea of mandatory vaccination, leaving their firms’ fleets woefully understaffed, and others have gone on strike to demand better working conditions.

The Biden administration has attempted to address the supply chain problem by calling for the Port of Los Angeles to run 24 hours, but while he praised his own promised move as a “game changer,” the executive director of the port has made it clear that there is no timetable in place for the promised schedule shift. Meanwhile, Biden’s cabinet has come across as woefully out of touch – White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, for example, pooh-poohed the issue of empty shelves as a “high class” problem earlier this week, eliciting criticism from both Left and Right. And Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been quietly vacationing on paternity leave since mid-August, leaving the country without even a semblance of logistical oversight as the cargo clog shows no signs of dissipating.

Labor shortages are being felt far beyond the US, though often for similar reasons. In Italy, thousands of protesters turned out to block cargo ships from unloading their bounty earlier this week. The demonstrators were outraged over the country’s adoption of a mandatory vax-to-work policy similar to that threatened by the Biden administration. And the UK government has begged lorry drivers to return to work, even luring foreign drivers in with temporary visas as the country frets over its own empty shelves issues.

Australian ‘truckies’ have united with other unions to exert pressure on the government, which has kept cities like Melbourne under lockdown for months despite vanishingly few reported cases of Covid-19. The government was already floating policies like ‘no jab, no job’ over a year ago and has led the way in leveraging the pandemic to turn Five Eyes ‘democracies’ into police states.

October 15, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

More stories about staffing problems and lawsuits over the mandates

By Meryl Nass, MD | October 14, 2021

Massachusetts may lose 40-50% of its corrections officers to the mandate, and the governor is talking about bringing in the National Guard. The Guard is already driving school buses. Massachusetts is possibly the bluest state in the nation. It was the only state that voted for McGovern in 1972.

Massachusett’s State Police union has filed for an injunction against the clot shot mandate. So has the corrections officers’ union.

If this is what is happening in the bluest state, just think how many clot shot refusers there are everywhere else. The society can’t run if the workers can’t work. Are the bosses trying to create chaos as a pretext for something else, or are they only trying to bluff and coerce us into submission?

———————

Dr. Peter McCullough said doctors are now being hunted for refusing to go along. One day after an affidavit I wrote was filed in court in Maine against our health department’s mandate for healthcare workers, I got a letter from the secretary of the medical board telling me I had to respond to a complaint. What was the complaint? Someone who never met me and does not know any of my patients didn’t like a video interview he saw, and said so to the board. Not a single specific complaint or allegation was made against anything I said.

I will keep you all updated regarding this business. I am dismayed but simultaneously amused at how a medical board or its secretary can ask me to defend myself against a charge of being disliked. Is this America’s COVID jurisprudence?

October 15, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Biden praises Southwest Covid vaccine mandate amid cancelation chaos, says it will help ‘eliminate this disease’

© REUTERS/Leah Millis
RT | October 14, 2021

In an address from the White House, President Joe Biden praised companies like Southwest Airlines enforcing his Covid-19 vaccine mandate, despite the CEO seemingly rebuking the requirement the day before.

Addressing the government’s effort to battle the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday through vaccine mandates, Biden praised private companies that have already been “stepping up” to combat misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine and the implementation of their vaccine mandates.

“Southwest Airlines … the head of the pilots’ union and its CEO dismissed critics who claim vaccination mandates contributed to flight disruptions,” Biden said, referring to mass cancelations at Southwest Airlines that peaked on Sunday, shortly after the company began enforcing the vaccine mandate put forth by the president.

The company and the White House have denied the mandate and ensuing staffing shortages caused them to delay a third of their flights in the US. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki even deemed the mandates “good for the economy” following the cancelations and speculation by critics.

In his address, Biden went on to praise school board members, doctors, and other healthcare workers for battling “misinformation” about vaccines.

“All of these efforts,” Biden said of the companies and individuals facing “misinformation” about vaccines and mandates, “are going to help us continue moving the dial to eliminate this disease.”

Biden’s comments came shortly after Southwest CEO Greg Kelly appeared to distance himself from the mandate, despite the company saying there was no connection between their scheduling troubles and the requirement.

The CEO told CNBC he had never “been in favor of corporations imposing that kind of a mandate,” though adding again it has nothing to do with the cancelations.

Biden pushed back against the divisive response his vaccine mandates have received from the public, saying mandates “should not be another issue that divides us” and is only part of the larger effort to battle the virus and get the still lagging, according to the president, vaccination rate up.

“Mandates work,” the president said, and companies like Southwest that have already implemented them prove that, he added.

The Department of Labor will be requiring all businesses with 100 or more employees to require Covid vaccinations, an order multiple companies have already said they will defy.

October 14, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Facebook’s secret blacklist, a powerful tool for moderating thought and free speech, projects US foreign policy globally

By Norman Lewis | RT | October 14, 2021

Despite the appearance of conflict between Facebook and the US government, there is an insidious, censorious division of labour between the company and the State Department, enabling both to evade public accountability.

The publication by The Intercept of Facebook’s secret blacklist of ‘Dangerous Individuals and Organisations’ (DIO) it does not allow on its platform – from white supremacists, hate groups, militarised social movements, and alleged terrorists – provides a glimpse into how the social media network moderates content that it asserts could lead to violence offline.

There are two worrying dimensions to this latest revelation. The first is that the list, particularly regarding the terrorism category, is drawn mainly from a sanctions list maintained by the Treasury Department and created by George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001.

These restrictions can be traced back to 2012, when in the face of growing alarm in Congress and the United Nations about online terrorist recruiting, Facebook added to its ‘Community Standards’ a ban on “organisations with a record of terrorist or violent criminal activity.” Initially, this was modest. But today, this has morphed into what’s known as the DIO policy. This restricts what Facebook’s 2.9 billion active global users (not just US citizens) can say about an enormous and ever-growing roster of entities it and the US State Department deem to be beyond the pale.

Facebook is effectively projecting US foreign policy globally. And if that’s not worrying enough, this legitimises its growing power to police global free speech – an ability that has no limits because it is beyond public accountability.

This is the second and most worrying component of the DIO. Facebook has carte blanche to control the thoughts and speech of billions of internet users around the world.

The category of hate groups or individuals, including long-dead historical figures like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, is insidious. When Facebook bans a group or people, it places severe constraints on the public’s ability to discuss or even merely depict events or ideas.

How Facebook decides what to ban or what constitutes ‘prohibited’ comments is genuinely chilling. Internal materials previously reported by The Guardian and Vice show how imprecisely Facebook defines what it means for a user to ‘praise’, ‘support’, or ‘represent’ a DIO listee. Facebook is effectively asking its moderators to second guess what is in the minds of its users. It’s not only speech, but thoughts, that are being policed globally.

Facebook’s moderators are not psychologists. Even if they were, moderating thought and speech should not be treated with such contempt. Yet, it is worse than that. Its global content moderators are an outsourced army of poorly paid hourly contractors who, along with automated software, are expected to work out what constitutes forbidden ‘praise’ or what meets the threshold of ‘support’, among other criteria, and then decide if it’s acceptable for their specific geographic location, language, and context.

It is a remarkably flippant and cavalier approach towards upholding such fundamental freedoms. But this is not flippant. It is deadly serious.

The notion that a private company, in pursuit of profit, has the power to effectively shoehorn the thoughts and speech of billions of people from hundreds of countries and countless cultures into a tidy framework decreed from Silicon Valley and the US State Department should be a major cause for global concern.

October 14, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Go Fund Me Takes Down Fundraising Campaign for Litigation Over Vaccine Mandate

By Jonathan Turley | October 12, 2021

We previously discussed how GoFundMe has joined social media sites in censoring opposing viewpoints on subjects from critical race theory to vaccines to election fraud. The site once offered a neutral site for those seeking to support others with similar views or interests. The company now insists that it will only allow people to gather on the site if it believes their views are true and correct. However, it was still surprising to see the site take down a fundraising account for litigation against vaccine mandates. The effort of former nurse Jennifer Bridges was simply to get such matters before the courts, which can be the ultimate authority on what is “misinformation.” GoFundMe however blocked people from contributing to the litigation.

Bridges is a former registered nurse at Houston Methodist hospital who was fired after refusing to comply with the hospital’s vaccine requirement. She raised more than $180,000 for her lawsuit before being shutdown under the company’s “misinformation” policy. Heidi Hagberg, a spokesperson for GoFundMe, said in a statement to Business Insider that “when our team initially reviewed the fundraiser, it was within our terms of service as the funds were for legal fees to fight vaccine mandates. The fundraiser has since been updated to include misinformation which violates our terms of service.”

What is striking about this latest ban is that the courts are the place for such claims to be weighed in a neutral and dispassionate forum. “Misinformation” can be addressed by judges after both sides are allowed to present evidence. Bridges’ lawsuit was dismissed in June, Bridges’ attorneys appealed the decision. We should all favor such reviews. Indeed, if GoFundMe believes that Bridges is wrong, it should invite further judicial review to establish a clear record on such issues.

GoFundMe admits to have taken down “hundreds” of fundraisers that included statements of “misinformation related to vaccines.”

I do not agree with the arguments against the vaccine. I and my family are vaccinated. However, I am equally concerned with avoiding the growing virus of censorship. In the last few years, we have seen an increasing call for private censorship from Democratic politicians and liberal commentators. Faculty and editors are now actively supporting modern versions of book-burning with blacklists and bans for those with opposing political views. The most chilling aspect of this story is how many on the left applaud such censorship. A new poll shows roughly half of the public supporting not just corporate censorship but government censorship of anything deemed “misinformation.”

Free speech can be its own disinfectant for bad speech. GoFundMe is a private company and can impose such rules on users. However, it is an act of censorship and it is a denial of free speech by a corporation. In this case, the company is preventing its site from being used to raise money to allow courts to review the factual and legal basis for these claims — a curious effort for a company that claims to be fighting “misinformation.”

October 14, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Southwest Airlines pilots and staff are flying in the face of corporate and government vaccine mandates

By R. M. Huffman | RT | October 12, 2021

Southwest Airlines’ top brass can deny the massive delays they’ve been experiencing have anything to do with their insistence staff take Covid shots or lose their job till they are blue in the face… but no one is buying it.

Southwest is experiencing turbulence. Over the weekend, the Texas-based airline canceled over 1,800 flights. Monday was no better: almost 400 more flights were canceled. A corporate spokesman, Alan Kasher, blamed the catastrophic interruption in business on bad weather in Florida and “issues” with air traffic control.

His claim was met with immediate disbelief, as the Federal Aviation Administration countered that no ATC staffing shortages were reported over the weekend, and competitor airlines flying in the same regions only canceled a tiny fraction of their own flights. The real reason for the cancellations is an open secret, despite Kasher’s reticence in acknowledging it. Southwest’s pilots and crews have been given a vaccine mandate, and they’re simply not having it.

Just today, on Good Morning America, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly spun the bad news like a turbine, citing “no evidence” that his company’s disastrous past few days had any connection with the vaccine ultimatum he’d handed down to his workforce. It does, of course, and Kelly knows it.

Here’s what’s actually happening. On September 9, Joe Biden announced his intention to force every company that employs more than 100 people to give their employees a vaccine mandate. Southwest Airlines subsequently relayed a missive to its employees, pilots, and crew members: “Southwest Airlines will be required to comply with the federal government’s directive for Employees of federal contractors to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.” The deadline was set for December 8: get the vaccine, hope for an exemption, or be fired.

Many of these employees had already contracted and beaten the disease, enjoying an effective natural immunity. Others remained concerned about reports of adverse effects, including thrombosis (for which the Johnson & Johnson jab was pulled from market) and myocarditis (for which the Moderna shot was pulled as well). Many were also aware that vaccinations, while decreasing hospitalizations and deaths, don’t completely stop breakthrough infections and have demonstrated a diminishing efficacy.

Whatever the individual reasons, a mandate mutiny began brewing. It’s manifested now, asserting itself over these last few days in a way that can’t be ignored. Pilots save up paid sick days, often accumulating months’ worth, even years. As their concerns have gone unheard by executives and, faced with the ignominy of sacrificing bodily autonomy for corporate compliance, or being fired and losing their careers – including all those saved hours they’ve earned – pilots are simply calling in sick and cashing in their paid leave.

The union for Southwest’s 9,000 pilots denies an organized protest, sick-out, or shutdown, and that’s true. These individuals acting out of conscience are a loose confederation of colleagues at best. They’ve been told by Southwest suits that “the federal directive gives little latitude for input or choice.”They rejected that assertion, are rejecting it, and will continue to reject it.

Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the entire scenario is the fact that there isn’t even a rule with which Southwest Airlines is complying. When President Biden delivered his ultimatum in September, lawmakers and legal scholars were dubious. Many wondered how Biden intended to give teeth to his speech, as he’s not a part of any legislative body. His answer: use the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to define vaccination as a workplace safety concern and issue a rule accordingly.

Regardless of the small agency’s legal standing to accomplish such a legislative workaround, or its ability to subsequently enforce it, a more foundational problem remains for Southwest and other employers: OSHA has not yet made such a rule, much less navigated the legal challenges already being made.

Unsuccessful with his carrots, Biden has picked up a stick; legally, this stick would be fragile in the best case, but at the moment it remains a complete mirage. It’s hard to believe that Southwest is so willing to infuriate both stranded customers and disgruntled pilots to avoid being beaten with it.

It is natural that airline executives would want to stay in the government’s good graces. After all, they’ve multiple times gone begging to Congress, cap in hand, lamenting the looming layoffs of their “valued employees” and asking for taxpayer bailout dollars. They’ve received them, to the tune of billions, as well as millions in compensation for themselves. Government contracts, at risk if the company doesn’t impose a vaccine mandate, make up a mere 3% of Southwest’s business, yet a hard line has been drawn over all objections of pilots and crews. How could Southwest’s employees not question where their CEO’s loyalty really lies?

Customers stranded at airports and dealing with canceled flights can’t be blamed for being frustrated, but their ire ought not be aimed at Southwest pilots, any more than the many tea enthusiasts among the American colonials should have been angry at the men who tossed the tea shipments into Boston Harbor. Economic disruption can be powerful, both as a symbol and as a practical protest method (although sometimes it’s mostly property destruction and looting, to which this current action bears no resemblance).

Perhaps even more so than the nurses and doctors once held up as heroes and now fired for refusing the jab, these pilots and crew members are showing concerned Americans, Europeans, Australians, and all free citizens, a potential way forward through this miserable morass of mandates. In Western democracies, government is designed to represent the people, not rule them. At some point, our elected officials decided that they would prefer to be masters rather than servants, entangling themselves with corporate leadership in a moldering rat king of stifling bureaucratic fiat and decree.

Just tell them no.

American corporations exist at the whim of their customers and through the willingness of their employees.

The United States government serves only with the consent of the governed.

Neither is the king of anybody. It’s high time they stop behaving as if they are.

Southwest Airlines’ goodwill is gone. Its executives now have a choice: hold firm to a specious vaccine mandate and watch its customers and employees fly away or, find a spine, and tell the federal government that it won’t play the willing stooge to Biden’s bullying tactics.

It’s time for corporate vaccine mandates to crash and burn.

R. M. Huffman is a physician, author, and observer of culture.

October 13, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Sen. Rand Paul: ‘We’ve Got Fauci Spreading Mistruths Across the Country’

The Defender | October 13, 2021

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Monday took to the podium on Capitol Hill to criticize the media and Dr. Anthony Fauci for spreading mistruths about COVID, and for their role in causing unnecessary deaths by politicizing the science around COVID vaccines and treatments.

“We’ve got Dr. Fauci spreading mistruths across the country, saying we’ve got to forcibly vaccinate the kids,” Paul said. “There’s no science behind any of that.”

Paul accused CNN and others of misleading the public on a host of COVID-related of issues, including the need to vaccinate children:

“For example, the one truth you won’t be told is an 85-year-old has a 10,000 times greater chance of dying [from COVID] than a 10-year-old. Now you think we should treat them the same. If you were their doctor, do you think a 10-year-old should get the same healthcare and the same prescriptions for what they need to do as an 85-year-old? Makes no sense at all.”

Paul, who said he refused to get the COVID vaccine because he already had the virus, and has natural immunity, has been an outspoken critic of Fauci and the Biden administration for their handling of the pandemic.

In July, he accused Fauci of lying to Congress about approving funding for gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate.

Paul told the U.S. Senate on Monday it’s time to stop censoring people just for asking questions about COVID policies, and get back to the ideas of classical liberalism, where “we debated things.”

See also Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) grilled HHS Sec. Xavier Becerra during a Senate Health Committee hearing on September 30, 2021:

© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

October 13, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

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