Category: Back Door Power Grab

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Biden Pandemic Censorship Commentary Corruption COVID Government Overreach Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. The Law Tony the Fauch

Fauci Diverted US Government Away From Lab Leak Theory Of COVID’s Origin, Sources Say.

Doing what he does best. Lies. Dr. Anthony Fauci (C) speaks as US President Donald Trump listens during a press conference on COVID-19 in the Rose Garden of the White House on March 13, 2020, two days before the publication of the “Proximal Origin” paper dismissing the lab leak theory of Covid’s origin. (Photo by Chen Mengtong/China News Service via Getty Images)

Fauci Diverted US Government Away From Lab Leak Theory Of COVID’s Origin, Sources Say.

MATT TAIBBI

,

ALEX GUTENTAG

, AND

MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER

The former director of the US National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the US government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, visited CIA headquarters to “influence” its review of COVID-19 origins, the House Oversight Committee reported yesterday.

Last month, Committee Chair Brad Wenstrup made headlines when he revealed that seven CIA analysts “with significant scientific expertise” on the agency’s COVID-19 Discovery Team (CDT) received performance bonuses after changing a report to downplay concerns about a possible lab origin of the virus.

Now, a months-long investigation by Racket and Public, which included interviews with the CIA whistleblower behind last month’s revelations and others in a position to know, reveals that Fauci not only visited the CIA but also pushed the controversial “Proximal Origin of SARS CoV-2” paper, published by Nature Medicine, in meetings at the State Department and the White House.

Previous reporting already showed that Fauci “prompted” the “Proximal Origin” paper, according to its authors. Lead author Kristian Andersen expressed grave doubts about the natural origin theory even months after Nature Medicine published the paper. And they described themselves as pressured by “higher ups,” referring to individuals in the White House and other government agencies.

Now, the new information from multiple sources, including a CIA whistleblower, a senior government investigator, and a senior official, suggests a broad effort by Fauci to go agency by agency, from the White House to the State Department to the CIA, in an effort to steer government officials away from looking into the possibility that COVID-19 escaped from a lab.

“Fauci’s expert opinions were a significant consideration and were part of our classified assessment,” said the CIA whistleblower, a decorated and long-serving CIA officer with expertise in Asia. “His opinion substantially altered the conclusions that were subsequently drawn.”

Fauci had reasons to push scientists and intelligence analysts to believe the virus had a zoonotic origin since his agency had issued a grant to fund research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China.

The Wenstrup press release noted that the whistleblower’s information suggested Fauci was escorted in “without record of entry.” According to the CIA whistleblower, the CIA purposely did not “badge” Fauci in and out of the building so as to hide any record that he had been there.

“Fauci came to our building, to promote the natural origin of the virus,” the CIA whistleblower said. “He knew what was going on. I mean, you see all the redacted documents that are coming out. He was covering his ass and he was trying to do it with the Intel community… I know he came multiple times and he was treated like a rockstar by the Weapons and Counter Proliferation Mission Center. And, he pushed the Kristian Anderson paper.”

Fauci, CIA, And Conflicts Of Interest

 

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Biden Cartel Censorship Commentary Corruption How sick is this? Opinion Politics The Law White Progressive Supremacy

Fact or Fiction. Biden Documents Probe Expands Beyond Obama WH.

Exclusive: Biden classified document probe widens: Sources The federal probe into President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents prior to becoming president has grown into a sprawling investigation, sources tell ABC News. © Provided by America Insider

Fact or Fiction. Biden Documents Probe Expands Beyond Obama WH. ABC News is reporting that Special counsel Robert Hur’s office has been interviewing scores of witnesses, ranging from executive assistants and senior advisers to White House attorneys, for nearly nine months, with several sources estimating that as many as 100 witnesses have already been interviewed. Some have reportedly been asked to return for follow-up sessions.

I myself think that this is just a stall tactic like the Hunter Biden Investigation. As a Senator and Vice President Joe Biden had top secret documents that weren’t locked up. And the documents were in several locations across the country. What’s there to investigate?

 

I used ABC News and Newsmax as a source for this.

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Censorship Commentary Corruption Free Speech Government Overreach Gun Control Leftist Virtue(!) Reprints from others.

A Nation of Snitches: DHS Is Grooming Americans to Report on Each Other

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute.
By John & Nisha Whitehead
September 19, 2023

“There were relatively few secret police, and most were just processing the information coming in. I had found a shocking fact. It wasn’t the secret police who were doing this wide-scale surveillance and hiding on every street corner. It was the ordinary German people who were informing on their neighbors.”—Professor Robert Gellately, author of Backing Hitler

Are you among the 41% of Americans who regularly attend church or some other religious service?

Do you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law?

Do you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car?

Are you among the 44% of Americans who live in a household with a gun? If so, are you concerned that the government may be plotting to confiscate your firearms?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the government and flagged for heightened surveillance and preemptive intervention.

Let that sink in a moment.

If you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you have just been promoted to the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

I assure you I’m not making this stuff up.

So what is the government doing about these so-called American “extremists”?

The government is grooming the American people to spy on each other as part of its Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, or CP3 program.

According to journalist Leo Hohmann, the government is handing out $20 million in grants to police, mental health networks, universities, churches and school districts to enlist their help in identifying Americans who might be political dissidents or potential “extremists.”

As Hohmann explains, “Whether it’s COVID and vaccines, the war in Ukraine, immigration, the Second Amendment, LGBTQ ideology and child-gender confusion, the integrity of our elections, or the issue of protecting life in the womb, you are no longer allowed to hold dissenting opinions and voice them publicly in America. If you do, your own government will take note and consider you a potential ‘violent extremist’ and terrorist.”

Cue the dawning of the Snitch State.

This new era of snitch surveillance is the lovechild of the government’s post-9/11 “See Something, Say Something” programs combined with the self-righteousness of a politically correct, hyper-vigilant, technologically-wired age.

For more than two decades, the Department of Homeland Security has plastered its “See Something, Say Something” campaign on the walls of metro stations, on billboards, on coffee cup sleeves, at the Super Bowl, even on television monitors in the Statue of Liberty. Colleges, universities and even football teams and sporting arenas have lined up for grants to participate in the program.

The government has even designated September 25 as National “If You See Something, Say Something” Awareness Day.

If you see something suspicious, says the DHS, say something about it to the police, call it in to a government hotline, or report it using a convenient app on your smartphone.

This DHS slogan is nothing more than the government’s way of indoctrinating “we the people” into the mindset that we’re an extension of the government and, as such, have a patriotic duty to be suspicious of, spy on, and turn in our fellow citizens.

This is what is commonly referred to as community policing.

Yet while community policing and federal programs such as “See Something, Say Something” are sold to the public as patriotic attempts to be on guard against those who would harm us, they are little more than totalitarian tactics dressed up and repackaged for a more modern audience as well-intentioned appeals to law and order and security.

The police state could not ask for a better citizenry than one that carries out its own policing.

After all, the police can’t be everywhere. So, how do you police a nation when your population outnumbers your army of soldiers? How do you carry out surveillance on a nation when there aren’t enough cameras, let alone viewers, to monitor every square inch of the country 24/7? How do you not only track but analyze the transactions, interactions, and movements of every person within the United States?

The answer is simpler than it seems: You persuade the citizenry to be your eyes and ears. You hype them up on color-coded “Terror alerts,” keep them in the dark about the distinctions between actual threats and staged “training” drills so that all crises seem real, desensitize them to the sight of militarized police walking their streets, acclimatize them to being surveilled “for their own good,” and then indoctrinate them into thinking that they are the only ones who can save the nation from another 9/11.

Consequently, we now live in a society in which a person can be accused of any number of crimes without knowing what exactly he has done. He might be apprehended in the middle of the night by a roving band of SWAT police. He might find himself on a no-fly list, unable to travel for reasons undisclosed. He might have his phones or internet tapped based upon a secret order handed down by a secret court, with no recourse to discover why he was targeted.

This Kafkaesque nightmare has become America’s reality.

This is how you turn a people into extensions of the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent police state, and in the process turn a citizenry against each other.

It’s a brilliant ploy, with the added bonus that while the citizenry remains focused on and distrustful of each other and shadowy forces from outside the country, they’re incapable of focusing on more definable threats that fall closer to home—namely, the government and its cabal of Constitution-destroying agencies and corporate partners.

Community policing did not come about as a feel-good, empowering response to individuals trying to “take back” their communities from crime syndicates and drug lords.

Rather, “Community-Oriented Policing” or COPS (short for Community Partnerships, Organizational Transformation, and Problem-Solving) is a Department of Justice program designed to foster partnerships between police agencies and members of the community.

To this end, the Justice Department identifies five distinct “partners” in the community policing scheme: law enforcement and other government agencies, community members and groups, nonprofits, churches and service providers, private businesses and the media.

Together, these groups are supposed to “identify” community concerns, “engage” the community in achieving specific goals, serve as “powerful” partners with the government, and add their “considerable resources” to the government’s already massive arsenal of technology and intelligence. The mainstream media’s role, long recognized as being a mouthpiece for the government, is formally recognized as “publicizing” services from government or community agencies or new laws or codes that will be enforced, as well as shaping public perceptions of the police, crime problems, and fear of crime.

Inevitably, this begs the question: if there’s nothing wrong with community engagement, if the police can’t be everywhere at once, if surveillance cameras do little to actually prevent crime, and if we need to “take back our communities” from the crime syndicates and drug lords, then what’s wrong with community policing and “See Something, Say Something”?

What’s wrong is that these programs are not, in fact, making America any safer while turning us into a legalistic, intolerant, squealing, bystander nation.

We are now the unwitting victims of an interconnected, tightly woven, technologically evolving web of real-time, warrantless, wall-to-wall, widening mass surveillance dragnet comprised of fusion centers, red flag laws, behavioral threat assessments, terror watch lists, facial recognition, snitch tip lines, biometric scanners, pre-crime programs, DNA databases, data mining, precognitive technology, and contact tracing apps, to name just a few.

This is how the government keeps us under control and in its crosshairs.

By the time you combine the DHS’ “See Something, Say Something” with CP3 and community policing, which has gone global in the guise of the Strong Cities Network program, you’ve got a formula for enabling the government to not only flag distinct “anti-government” segments of the population but locking down the entire nation.

Under the guise of fighting violent extremism “in all of its forms and manifestations” in cities and communities across the world, the Strong Cities Network program works with the UN and the federal government to train local police agencies across America in how to identify, fight and prevent extremism, as well as address intolerance within their communities, using all of the resources at their disposal.

What this program is really all about, however, is community policing on a global scale with the objective being to prevent violent extremism by targeting its source: racism, bigotry, hatred, intolerance, etc. In other words, police will identify, monitor and deter individuals who could be construed as potential extremist “threats,” violent or otherwise, before they can become actual threats.

The government’s war on extremists has been sold to Americans in much the same way that the USA Patriot Act was sold to Americans: as a means of combatting terrorists who seek to destroy America.

However, as we now know, the USA Patriot Act was used as a front to advance the surveillance state, allowing the government to establish a far-reaching domestic spying program that has turned every American citizen into a criminal suspect.

Similarly, the concern with the government’s ongoing anti-extremism program is that it will, in many cases, be utilized to render otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist.

Keep in mind that the government agencies involved in ferreting out American “extremists” will carry out their objectives—to identify and deter potential extremists—in concert with fusion centers, data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics (in which life experiences alter one’s genetic makeup).

This is pre-crime on an ideological scale, and it’s been a long time coming.

For example, in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released two reports, one on “Rightwing Extremism,” which broadly defines rightwing extremists as individuals and groups “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely,” and one on “Leftwing Extremism,” which labeled environmental and animal rights activist groups as extremists.

These reports, which use the words terrorist and extremist interchangeably, indicate that for the government, anyone seen as opposing the government—whether they’re Left, Right, or somewhere in between—can be labeled an extremist.

Fast forward a few years, and you have the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which each successive presidential administration has continually re-upped, that allows the military to take you out of your home, lock you up with no access to friends, family or the courts if you’re seen as an extremist.

Now connect the dots, from the 2009 Extremism reports to the NDAA and the far-reaching data crime fusion centers that collect and share surveillance data between local, state and federal police agencies.

Add in tens of thousands of armed, surveillance drones that will soon blanket American skies, facial recognition technology that identifies and tracks you wherever you go and whatever you do. And then to complete the circle, toss in the real-time crime centers which are attempting to “predict” crimes and identify criminals before they happen based on widespread surveillance, complex mathematical algorithms, and prognostication programs.

If you can’t read the writing on the wall, you need to pay better attention.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, unless we can put the brakes on this dramatic expansion and globalization of the government’s powers, we’re not going to recognize this country five, ten—even twenty—years from now.

As long as “we the people” continue to allow the government to trample our rights in the so-called name of national security, things will get worse, not better.

It’s already worse.

Source: The Rutherford Institute

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Biden Cartel Climate "change" Commentary Corruption Government Overreach Links from other news sources. Politics Reprints from others.

Biden handed major legal defeat in attempt to restrict oil, gas drilling in Gulf of Mexico.

The Biden administration's actions — rejected by a federal court late Thursday — removed about six million acres of potentially oil-rich leases from an upcoming federal lease sale. (Getty Images)

Biden handed major legal defeat in attempt to restrict oil, gas drilling in Gulf of Mexico.

A federal court struck down the Biden administration’s last-minute restrictions on an upcoming offshore oil and gas lease sale in a ruling late Thursday evening.

Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana granted a preliminBiden handed major legal defeat in attempt to restrict oil, gas drilling in Gulf of Mexico.ary injunction request from plaintiffs — the State of Louisiana, industry association American Petroleum Institute (API) and oil companies Chevron and Shell — to block the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) restrictions on Lease Sale 261. The lease sale spanning millions of acres across the Gulf of Mexico is slated for next week.

Cain ruled the federal government must proceed with the lease sale by Sept. 30 under its original conditions. As a result of a July settlement with environmental groups, BOEM removed about six million acres from the sale and imposed various restrictions on oil and gas vessels associated with the leases auctioned to protect the Rice’s whale species found in parts of the Gulf of Mexico.

“The court observes that plaintiffs have demonstrated substantial potential costs resulting from the challenged provisions,” Cain wrote in his decision. “While the government defendants largely focus on the acreage withdrawal and dynamics of the sale itself, many of plaintiffs’ alleged hardships arise from the vessel restrictions.”

 

The Biden administration's actions remove about six million acres of potentially oil-rich leases from an upcoming federal lease sale.

The Biden administration’s actions — rejected by a federal court late Thursday — removed about six million acres of potentially oil-rich leases from an upcoming federal lease sale. (Getty Images)

“Industry plaintiffs have shown a likelihood that these will burden their operations on current and planned leases,” the ruling continued. “The resulting costs would not be undone by the court’s entry of a permanent injunction and order of another sale.”

Cain also said the Biden administration’s actions appeared to be an attempt to “provide scientific justification to a political reassessment of offshore drilling.” And he said the administration’s process looked “more like a weaponization of the Endangered Species Act than the collaborative, reasoned approach prescribed by the applicable laws and regulations.”

In a statement following the ruling Thursday, API Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ryan Meyers said it was a positive step in ensuring energy security.

 

“We are pleased that the court has hit the brakes on the Biden Administration’s ill-conceived effort to restrict American development of reliable, lower-carbon energy in the Gulf of Mexico,” Meyers said in a statement.

“Today’s decision will allow Lease Sale 261 to move forward as directed by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act, removing the unjustified restrictions on vessel traffic imposed by the Department of the Interior and restoring the more than 6 million acres to the sale,” he added. “This decision is an important step toward greater certainty for American energy workers, a more robust Gulf Coast economy and a stronger future for U.S. energy security.”

Native Boarding Schools-Oral History

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speaks in Las Vegas on April 14, 2023. The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management put the lease sale restrictions forward after a settlement with eco groups. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

In late August, API and its fellow plaintiffs filed the lawsuit against the Biden administration calling for the court to require the Biden administration to “fulfill its obligations to the American people.” According to industry, sales like Lease Sale 261, which is the final federal offshore lease sale scheduled, are vital to ensure long-term oil and gas production.

Overall, BOEM said — following its eco settlement in July — it would offer 12,395 blocks across approximately 67 million acres in multiple regions of the Gulf of Mexico, less than the 13,620 blocks across 73.4 million acres it originally planned to offer. The acreage stripped from the sale included potentially oil-rich tracts located in the middle of the lease area.

Offshore lease sales often span large swaths of federal waters, but earn bids on a fraction of blocks projected by companies to contain more resources and to have a higher return on investment. For example, BOEM auctioned off 73.3 million acres during Lease Sale 259 in March, but received bids worth $263.8 million for 313 tracts spanning 1.6 million acres.

 

“The injunction is a necessary and welcome response from the court to an unnecessary decision by the Biden administration,” said Erik Milito, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA). “The removal of millions of highly prospective acres and the imposition of excessive restrictions stemmed from a voluntary agreement with activist groups that circumvented the law, ignored science, and bypassed public input.”

In addition to removing acreage from the sale, BOEM also imposed restrictions on oil and gas vessel traffic associated with the leases set to be auctioned during Lease Sale 261. Among the requirements, BOEM said specially-trained visual observers must be aboard all vessels traversing the area, all ships regardless of size must travel no quicker than 10 knots and vessels should only travel through the area in the daytime.

Oil and Gas Leases Lawsuit

An oil platform is pictured in the Gulf of Mexico about 200 miles south of Galveston, Texas. Judge James Cain blasted the Biden administration for its restrictions on offshore drilling Thursday. (AP Photo/Jon Fahey, File)

BOEM’s restrictions came in response to the administration’s settlement last month with a coalition of four environmental groups led by the left-wing Sierra Club.

In a federal stipulated stay agreement filed on July 21, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) agreed to a number of conditions requested by the groups which, in response, agreed to temporarily pause litigation in the related case. The case dates back nearly three years when, in October 2020, the environmental coalition sued the NMFS for failing to properly assess the oil industry impacts on endangered and threatened marine wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The groups pursued the lawsuit after the NMFS coordinated a multiagency consultation studying the effects all federally regulated oil and gas activities would have on species like the Rice’s whale listed under the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf of Mexico over the next 50 years. The groups argued in the original complaint that the NMFS’ biological opinion resulting from its consultation was not based on the best science.

API and NOIA also argued BOEM’s action had contravened the congressional intent of the Inflation Reduction Act, which reinstated multiple lease sales, including Lease Sale 261, after the Biden administration axed them in May 2022. In the sale’s record of decision, it is mandated to be region-wide while its environmental analysis didn’t acknowledge risks it may pose to the Rice’s whale.

 

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Elections Government Overreach Leftist Virtue(!) Opinion Politics Reprints from others.

NY Governor Goes Around Voters’ Backs, Signs Change in State Election Laws

Only the peons have to wear masks under her governorship

 

New York’s Democratic legislature and governor have decided to change election laws despite the fact that voters had previously rejected the idea.

On Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s website announced that she had signed a series of election reforms designed to “strengthen democracy and protect voting rights.”

Among these new voting laws is S. 7394-A/A. 7632-A, which strengthens the controversial early voting by mail that caused so much uproar in the 2020 presidential election.

“This legislation will create a process allowing all eligible, registered New York State voters the opportunity to vote early by mail in advance of an election,” a statement on the governor’s website reads. “This legislation represents a significant expansion of ballot access in New York State, and will provide millions of New York voters with an easy, safe, and secure means of voting early by mail ballot.”

Yet for all their talk about protecting “democracy” and “voting rights,” the leftist Democrats who run New York State seem to have forgotten one big thing: The people of New York do not want this.

According to Just the News, in 2021, voters in New York rejected a measure that would have enshrined early voting by mail into the state’s constitution.

Nevertheless, Hochul and her fellow Democrats have decided to push ahead anyway, in defiance of the will of the very people they claim to serve. It’s a strange form of “democracy,” if you ask me.

Hochul’s new laws are not without pushback, however, and several Republican lawmakers at both the state and federal levels have filed a lawsuit against the governor for violating the state’s constitution.

Among those suing the governor are Rep. Elise Stefanik, the Republican National Committee, and the New York Republican State Committee. All allege that this new law is unconstitutional.

“The Mail-Voting Law is a blatant violation of Article II, § 2 of the New York State Constitution, which requires qualified voters to cast their vote in any election in person at their designated polling places unless they will be unable to do so,” the lawsuit says. The only exceptions to voting in person allowed by law are absence from the county of residence or being unable to go to their polling place because of illness or physical disability.

The lawsuit is also careful to mention that the people of New York voted against this very thing two years ago.

“The Mail-Voting Law was enacted by the Legislature in open and knowing defiance of Article II, § 2, ignoring and subverting the will of the People whom the Legislature is supposed to represent. Only two years earlier at the general election held in November 2021, the voters of the State soundly rejected a constitutional amendment proposed by the Legislature entitled “Authorizing No-Excuse Absentee Ballot Voting,” which had sought to amend Article II, § 2 by deleting the requirements for absentee voting in order to allow all qualified voters to vote by mail without providing a specific reason.”

Robert Ortt, New York State Senate Minority Leader, called the vote-by-mail scheme “yet another attempt by the far-left to keep themselves in power in New York State.”

Honestly, this situation is really infuriating. The governor and legislature are  not only violating the laws of their own state, they are also going against the will of the people and are trying to push this agenda through anyway.

Yet this is hardly surprising. The left always loves to talk about “defending democracy,” but more often than not, that just means defending the liberal agenda and advancing their ideology.

The people of New York are learning the hard way that in the world of the left, just because you vote a certain way, it does not mean that the leftist authorities are going to respect your decision.

The Republicans have every right to take Hochul and her state election officials to court because what they are doing is illegal.

Let’s hope the people of New York will not forget this illegal act and will vote differently in the next election.

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Biden Cartel Biden Pandemic Censorship Commentary Corruption COVID Crime Government Overreach Links from other news sources. Medicine Politics Progressive Racism Reprints from others. Science Uncategorized WOKE

The Biden administration tried to censor this Stanford doctor, but he won in court.

A court found Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was among those indirectly censored by the Biden administration for his views on COVID-19. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag

The Biden administration tried to censor this Stanford doctor, but he won in court.

By Rikki Schlott.

This is a continuation/follow up to an article from Phoenix.

Judge: Biden Admin Violated Doctor’s First Amendment Rights – Looking at today’s world (atwebpages.com)

A federal court of appeals ruled earlier this month that the White House, surgeon general, CDC and FBI “likely violated the First Amendment” by exerting a pressure campaign on social media companies to censor COVID-19 skeptics — including Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

“I think this ruling is akin to the second Enlightenment,” Bhattacharya told The Post. “It’s a ruling that says there’s a democracy of ideas. The issue is not whether the ideas are wrong or right. The question is who gets to control what ideas are expressed in the public square?”

The court ordered that the Biden administration and other federal agencies “shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly” to coerce social media companies “to remove, delete, suppress or reduce” free speech.

Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, economics and health research policy at Stanford University, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in the fall of 2020 with professors from Harvard and Oxford.

The epidemiologists advocated for “focused protection” — safeguarding the most vulnerable Americans while cautiously allowing others to function as normally as possible — rather than broad pandemic lockdowns.

Joe Biden in a mask
The Fifth Circuit court found that the Biden administration and other federal agencies pressured social media companies to censor dissenting views on COVID-19.
Getty Images
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
A court found Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was among those indirectly censored by the Biden administration for his views on COVID-19.
CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag

“We were just acting as scientists, but almost immediately we were censored,” said Bhattacharya, director of Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. “Google de-boosted us. Our Facebook page was removed. It was just a crazy time.

“The kinds of things that the federal government was telling social media companies to censor included us — along with millions of other posts from countless other people who were criticizing government COVID policy,” he added.

A New Orleans-based three-judge panel found that the federal government “likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media platforms to moderate content” by vaguely threatening adverse regulatory consequences if social media companies did not suppress certain viewpoints on the pandemic.

Martin Kulldorff, Jay Bhattacharya, and Sunreta Gupta
Dr. Bhattacharya (from right) co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration with Oxford researcher Sunreta Gupta and Harvard professor Martin Kulldorff.
UnHerd
Stanford campus
Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine, economics and health research policy at Stanford University, where he serves as director of the Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging.
Getty Images

“The government had a vast censorship enterprise,” Bhattacharya said. “It was systematically used to threaten and coerce and jawbone and tell all these social media companies, ‘You better listen to us: Censor these people, censor these ideas, or else.’”

It was later revealed that then-NIH director Dr. Francis Collins called for a “swift and devastating takedown” of Bhattacharya and his co-authors — whom Collins dubbed “fringe epidemiologists” — in an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Subsequent reporting from Elon Musk’s so-called Twitter Files — internal documents and communications released by Musk, after he bought the platform, to expose Twitter’s inner workings — revealed that Bhattachrya’s profile was being suppressed on the platform.

“It’s akin to the efforts by governments to suppress the printing press when it first was invented, when books represented an enormous threat to power,” Bhattacharya said, referring to efforts by King Henry VIII and the Catholic Church to curb use of the printing press in the 16th century.

“There’s an analogous fight that’s currently going on with social media, which makes it vastly easier for anybody to express their ideas, and very powerful people find that incredibly threatening.”

The September 8 ruling affirmed but narrowed a lower court order, issued on July 4 by US District Judge Terry Doughty, which found that the Biden administration and other federal agencies “engaged in a years-long pressure campaign [on social media outlets] designed to ensure that the censorship aligned with the government’s preferred viewpoints” and that “the platforms, in capitulation to state-sponsored pressure, changed their moderation policies.”

Francis Collins
In an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Francis Collins (above) referred to Bhattacharya and his co-authors as “fringe epidemiologists.”
AP

Bhattacharya says the first victory, although in a lower court, was the most exciting to him.

“I was just absolutely thrilled, especially to have it on July 4th,” he said. “I think that judge was sending a message by issuing this ruling on July 4th that we’re going to restore free speech in this country.”

The Biden administration appealed to the Supreme Court on Thursday — a move that Bhattacharya anticipated.

Judge Terry A. Doughty
Judge Terry A. Doughty declared the Biden administration’s actions “Orwellian” in a July 4th ruling.
Youtube

But he believes it’s “unlikely” the Supreme Court will overturn the Fifth Circuit’s decision.

He feels his is a landmark case in curbing the influence the government has over social media — on matters that extend far beyond just COVID-19 and lockdowns.

 

 

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Biden Cartel Commentary Corruption Government Overreach January 6 Leftist Virtue(!) Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. White Progressive Supremacy

Biden Admin Taps Ex-Intel Officials Who Signed Infamous Hunter Biden Laptop Letter To Form DHS ‘Expert’ Committee.

Liar. (Photo by Gabriella Demczuk/Getty Images) © (Photo by Gabriella Demczuk/Getty Images

Biden Admin Taps Ex-Intel Officials Who Signed Infamous Hunter Biden Laptop Letter To Form DHS ‘Expert’ Committee

Story by Jennie Taer

Several former intelligence officials who signed a letter suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was likely a “Russian information operation” are joining a federal “expert” board handling issues of national security, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Tuesday.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe, who will now serve on the board, all signed an October 2020 letter casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden laptop and suggesting its release was a Russian disinformation ploy. The group will advise DHS on intelligence and national security efforts regarding issues such as “terrorism, fentanyl, transborder issues, and emerging technology,” DHS announced.

The Hunter Biden laptop contents were authenticated by the Daily Caller News Foundation as well as The New York Times, Washington Post, CBS News and other media outlets. There is currently no evidence suggesting the laptop was a Russian disinformation operation.

The group will meet four times per year to advise DHS on countering threats to national security, according to the agency.

“The security of the American people depends on our capacity to collect, generate, and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and private sector partners,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in a statement Tuesday regarding the group’s formation. “I express my deep gratitude to these distinguished individuals for dedicating their exceptional expertise, experience, and vision to our critical mission.”

Biden himself used the letter, whose conclusion is false, to characterize reports on the laptop’s contents as a “bunch of garbage.”

However, former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morrell testified to the House Judiciary Committee that then-Biden senior adviser Antony Blinken, who is now the Secretary of State, “triggered” the creation of the letter. Former CIA chief of staff Jeremy Bash, who signed the letter, connected Morrell and then-Biden campaign chairman Steve Richetti; Bash was later appointed to Biden’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

Moreover, both Clapper and Brennan have been previously criticized for misleading the American public.

Clapper gave incorrect information to Congress on multiple occasions, including in one instance when he gave “inconsistent testimony” about contacts he had with the media while in office. Brennan, for his part, denied that CIA officials had hacked the computers of Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, a statement that was later proven false.

The Letter signed by Brennan, Clapper and Kolbe argued that the release of emails from the laptop was an attempt by Russia to influence the U.S. election.

“We write to say that the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” the 2020 letter read.

“If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this,” the letter added.

In a February letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ), lawyers representing Hunter Biden appeared to admit that data from his laptop is real.

Several social media platforms censored the New York Post’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop archive.

DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the specifics of the board.

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Crime Elections Leftist Virtue(!) Politics Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Democrat Mayoral Candidate John Gomes Files Lawsuit to Block Certification of Stolen Connecticut Primary Race That Was Caught on Video

Geter-Pataky dropped stacks of ‘illegal’ ballots into an absentee ballot box

On Monday, Democrat Mayoral candidate John Gomes filed a lawsuit challenging the results of his party’s primary in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and requesting a new Democratic primary.

This comes after a video surfaced showing a Democrat clerk inserting illegal ballots into a drop box, which prompted an investigation by the Bridgeport Police Department for “possible misconduct.”

The Gateway Pundit reported that Gomes’ campaign released a damning video on Saturday showing evidence of election fraud in the recent Bridgeport Democratic primary.

The video posted on Gomes campaign’s Facebook page shows a woman dropping stacks of ‘illegal’ ballots into an absentee ballot box outside the Bridgeport government center, where the city’s Registrar of Voters office is located, CT Mirror reported.

The Gomes campaign was able to identify the woman in the footage as Wanda Geter-Pataky, the Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic Town Clerk and a vocal supporter of incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim, who is seeking reelection.

Geter-Pataky sent one of her employees to make the fourth ballot drop while she watched

Gomes’ campaign claims that the video shows Geter-Pataky dropping off stacks of absentee ballots ahead of the September 12th primary.

“Video surveillance proving that the mayoral election was unequivocally stolen through corruption within City Hall by tampering with absentee ballots,” John Gomes said in a statement.

“This is an undeniable act of voter suppression and a huge civil rights violation. It’s time to restore lasting credibility to our city’s democracy. Once and for ALL. Enough is enough!” he added.

Gomes lost to incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim in the Democratic primary by a narrow margin of 251 votes, according to the most recent preliminary count posted on the Secretary of the State’s website. Ganim won the absentee vote tally 1,545 to 779, while Gomes led on the voting machines.

The Bridgeport Police Department confirmed that they are actively investigating the actions shown in the video.

“The Bridgeport Police Department are actively investigating information regarding possible misconduct based upon a video that has surfaced on social media,” the department told CT Mirror.

The police department is investigating how the video was obtained and released to the public.

“The Bridgeport Police Department immediately initiated an investigation to determine if any criminal wrongdoing has occurred. In addition, an internal investigation is being conducted to determine if any possible breach to our security video management system has occurred,” it added.

Bridgeport Police Chief Roderick Porter said the department takes “these actions seriously and we will pursue possible criminal prosecution and/or administrative discipline as it relates to any such security violations.”

In a press conference held on Monday, Christine Bartlett-Jose, the campaign manager for Democrat Mayoral candidate John Gomes, laid out a compelling case for why the recent Democratic primary election results in Bridgeport should be scrutinized and possibly invalidated.

“In this primary alone, the city of Bridgeport received over 4,000 absentee ballot applications, an unprecedented number in the city and possibly the state,” said Bartlett-Jose. She pointed out that the city had a lead of 470 votes based on incoming results on primary night. However, as absentee ballots were tabulated, their lead dramatically eroded, resulting in a two-to-one loss margin with an ultimate election difference of 251 votes.

Bartlett-Jose stated that the campaign has gathered evidence indicating voter suppression and absentee ballot fraud. “Multiple complaints have been filed with the State Election Enforcement Commission, including the most recent and irrefutable piece of evidence—an incriminating video from City Hall security footage showing Wanda Gita Pasky, the vice chair of the Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee, depositing absentee ballots,” she said.

Gita Pasky’s involvement in this election is deeply concerning, according to Bartlett-Jose.

“She has been named in various complaints across many districts related to harassment, bullying, promises of Section Eight, rent rebate, groceries, just to name a few,” she added.

Gita Pasky was recommended by the State Election Enforcement Commission to the State’s Attorney’s Office for criminal investigation regarding the alleged misuse of absentee ballots in the 2019 primary election.

The campaign will be petitioning the court to file an injunction against the primary election results, which have yet to be certified by the Secretary of State.

“This step is essential to prevent potential tainted results from being finalized,” Bartlett-Jose emphasized. They will also be seeking a restraining order against the distribution of any additional absentee ballot applications from the Town Clerk’s Office.

John Gomes, the Democratic challenger, said, “Right now there is a black cloud over Bridgeport, there is no trust. We walk around and I don’t know what to tell the people.”

He added that the evidence is overwhelming and speaks for itself, especially the video footage. Gomes and his campaign are filing a lawsuit, not only seeking a judge to prevent last week’s election results from being certified but also asking for a new Democratic primary.

video
play-sharp-fill
So, if they (Conn State Election Enforcement Commission) recommended a prosecution regarding absentee ballots for an election in 2019, doesn’t that suggest that Trump was correct about the 2020 election? — TPR

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Climate "change" Corruption Economy Faked news Government Overreach Leftist Virtue(!) Links from other news sources. Politics The Courts Work Place

Blaming Big Oil for their incompetence. California Sues Exxon, Shell and BP.

Crybaby. California Sues Exxon, Shell And BP Over 'Shameful' Deception: 'Sickens You To Your Core' © Provided by Benzinga

Blaming Big Oil for their incompetence. California Sues Exxon, Shell and BP.

Just in case you missed it, California is blaming their failures on big oil. So, they’re going to court. Yes, they claim big oil caused Climate change. What happened to mankind being the culprit?

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group also named in the lawsuit, said climate policy should be debated in Congress, not the courtroom.

“This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry and its workers is nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of California taxpayer resources,” institute senior vice president Ryan Meyers said in a statement.

If big oil caused this, why not sue for damages? But the state wants the establishment of a fund to offset future costs from extreme weather events and climate mitigation efforts.  In other words, it rains, or snows, big oil pays.

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Censorship Free Speech How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Media Woke

SSDD Part Two: Disqus channels are selectively censoring again.

"Free speech" wins again.

I expect to be kicked off of ‘Breaking News’ soon.

Pud is supposed to be a mod there, but his name doesn’t appear as a mod there. I asked Finn, a gold star with a closed profile, about it. That will probably get me kicked off. Anyone still displaying a gold star in their screen name is likely not to be trusted. Several of our lurkers still display their gold star and brag about their “All Star” status.

Disqus is the AI bot. Fate is a gold star with a closed profile, and then there’s Finn:

So, where is Pud’s name in that list????

He’s already stated although he was made a moderator on Breaking News and Chit Chat, he can’t override the Disqus Bot  “decisions.” Numerous users have complained about innocuous posts getting deleted over there. (I can attest to that!)

But Leftists have free reign to insult every other poster on a thread. Why is that? Disqus is up to its old tricks.

Finally, they are also auto-censoring OP’s with no REAL reason given. Seriously? (You may need to enlarge the screencap below, even though it is full-size and easily readable IRL.)

Auto refused—no way to appeal.

The only POSSIBLE “rule” I am breaking there is #1: “Targeted Harassment”….hmm.

So, who am I targeting? Mod bots? Or maybe it’s the trolls showing up who call those who disagree with them MAGAts, Trumpers, commies, and assorted personal insults? As I say in the screencap, they are following the same tactics Media Mattress-trained trolls did eight years ago.

It’s strange how all those OP’s and comments attacking Trump (and conservatives in general) are fine and dandy with the Gods of Disqus.

Pud, aka The Coconut Whisperer, seems to be window-dressing to fool conservatives. He doesn’t seem to have any real power that Disqus can’t override without reason or explanation.

Remember when the original (and promoted by Disqus) NEWS VIEWS was the #1  channel — despite banning hundreds of unwary newbies who posted the wrong opinion there?

I do. I was one of them. This raises the specter of the same censorship starting all over again.

SSDD.