What doesn’t add up in the Braggs phony case. This from the start was weaponization of the justice department. Why would the number three man in the DOJ resign and come to work as an assistant in a local district court?
Assistant DA Matthew Colangelo (formerly Joe Biden’s number three official at the Justice Department) told the panel, “This case is about a criminal conspiracy.” But there’s no charge of conspiracy. And why would an assistant make the opening statement instead of the affirmative action DA Braggs? I guess I answered my own question.
Colangelo claimed election fraud numerous times. Federal Election Commission examined Trump’s payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and determined there was no fraud because the money conferred did not qualify as a campaign donation. Federal prosecutors who investigated reached the same conclusion. So did Bragg’s predecessor. There was no crime.
Trump attorney Blanche offered a full-throated defense of his famous client when he declared to the jury, “President Trump is innocent.” He described how Trump had nothing to do with the bookkeeping or the 34 invoices reflecting the same number of charged counts. He assigned his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, to resolve the demands for money, which he did. Cohen booked the cost as legal services and expenses, which they were.
Lee Fang, RealClearInvestigations & LeeFang.com January 16, 2024
Finances at the vaccine manufacturer Moderna began to fall almost as quickly as they had risen, as most Americans resisted getting yet another COVID booster shot. The pharmaceutical company, whose pioneering mRNA vaccine had turned it from small startup to biotech giant worth more than $100 billion in just a few years, reported a third-quarter loss last year of $3.6 billion.
Arpa Garay, Moderna: “It really is a vaccine that’s relevant across all age groups,” she insisted.
LinkedIn
In a September call aimed at shoring up investors, Moderna’s then–chief commercial officer, Arpa Garay, attributed some of the hesitancy pummeling Moderna’s numbers to uninformed vaccine skeptics. “Despite some misinformation,” Garay said, COVID-19 still drove significant hospitalizations. “It really is a vaccine that’s relevant across all age groups,” she insisted.
To get past the “misinformation” and convince the public to take continual booster shots, Garay briefly noted that Moderna was “delving down” on ways to partner “across the ecosystem to make sure consumers are educated on the need for the vaccine.”
What Garay hinted at during the call, but didn’t disclose, was that Moderna already had a sprawling media operation in place aimed at identifying and responding to critics of vaccine policy and the drug industry. A series of internal company reports and communications reviewed by RealClearInvestigations show that Moderna has worked with former law enforcement and public health officials and a drug industry-funded non-governmental organization called The Public Good Projects (PGP) to confront the “root cause of vaccine hesitancy” by rapidly identifying and “shutting down misinformation.”
Part of this effort includes providing talking points to some 45,000 healthcare professionals “on how to respond when vaccine misinformation goes mainstream.” PGP and Moderna have created a new partnership, called the “Infodemic Training Program,” to prepare healthcare workers to respond to alleged vaccine-related misinformation.
The company has also used artificial intelligence to monitor millions of global online conversations to shape the contours of vaccine-related discussion. The internal files — shorthanded here as the Moderna Reports — show high-profile vaccine critics were closely monitored, particularly skeptics in independent media, including Michael Shellenberger, Russell Brand, and Alex Berenson. PGP, which was funded by a $1,275,000 donation from the Biotechnology and Innovation Organization, a lobby group representing Pfizer and Moderna, has identified alleged vaccine misinformation and helped facilitate the removal of content from Twitter, among other social media platforms, throughout 2021 and 2022.
Kaitlyn Kkrizanic of PGP: Beware of “reports that Sweden is no longer recommending the vaccine for children.”
rocketreach.com
Emails from that period show that PGP routinely sent Excel lists of accounts to amplify on Twitter and others to de-platform, including populist voices such as ZeroHedge.
The messages also suggested emerging narratives to remove from the platform. “People opposed to vaccines are capitalizing on the NYT [New York Times] article about the CDC withholding vaccine information. The articles do not contain misinformation themselves but are using the news to further prove the CDC is untrustworthy,” wrote Savannah Knell, PGP’s senior director of partnerships, in an email to a Twitter lobbyist in September 2022. In another email the following month, Kaitlyn Krizanic, PGP’s senior program manager, told Twitter to be on the lookout for “reports that Sweden is no longer recommending the vaccine for children.” In some cases, conservative accounts expressing outrage at restrictive pandemic policies, such as vaccination passports, were deemed by PGP as “misinformation” that warranted removal.
The Moderna Reports consistently show the company raising red flags about those reporting documented side effects of the vaccine the biotech company was selling. Such concerns, which may be typical of corporate public relations efforts that want their product shown in the best light, take on a darker cast when it involves medicine injected into people’s bodies.
Like the Twitter Files, the Moderna Reports highlight the push by powerful entities – especially government, Big Tech, and Big Pharma – to identify and brand dissenting opinions about establishment narratives as risky forms of speech. The growing network these efforts rely on shows the growth of what has been called the censorship industrial complex. Moderna’s faltering financials also suggest, at least for now, the limits of that project.
Public Good Projects and Moderna did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
In an internal email sent last July, Moderna notified its team of its latest efforts to shape the vaccine debate. “We have partnered with PGP (The Public Good Projects) and Moderna’s Global Intelligence, Corporate Security, Medical Affairs, Corporate Communications, Clinical Safety and Pharmacovigilance teams to provide media monitoring for misinformation at scale,” Marcy Rudowitz, the company’s customer program lead, wrote. “If and when a response is needed, our team will notify the appropriate stakeholders with recommendations,” she added.
The extent to which the company may intervene to shape content decisions is not clear. PGP continues to boast close relations with establishment institutions, including major medical associations.
The rise of censorship is inextricably connected to the pandemic, which emerged in the U.S. in early 2020. As federal, state, and local governments imposed unprecedented regulations on Americans in the name of public health, efforts arose to discredit counter-narratives that could be spread easily on social media. Early in the pandemic, criticism of policies such as lockdowns and vaccine mandates came almost entirely from independent media, which faced shadowbans and outright censorship on various platforms.
Stéphane Bancel, Moderna CEO: “As you can see, we’re losing economies of scale,” he said, explaining price hikes.
Moderna 2022 ESG Report
When they introduced their vaccines in 2021, manufacturers such as Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson also had a powerful financial interest in bolstering such censorship.
Moderna, perhaps more than other drug firms, is overwhelmingly reliant on the continued success of its vaccine. The company announced a price hike of up to $130 a dose this month, far higher than the $15-26 for American federal contracts, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We’re expecting a 90% reduction in demand,” Modena CEO Stéphane Bancel said, when he was asked to defend the decision. “As you can see, we’re losing economies of scale.”
Far from acting as a neutral arbiter, the Moderna Reports show that the company blurred the lines between public relations and public health. In many cases, Moderna’s intelligence and communications team targeted accurate information that had “the potential to fuel vaccine hesitancy” as menacing forms of misinformation in its reports. Given the size and scope and the censorship industrial complex, it can be difficult to draw a clear straight line between Moderna’s surveillance and actions taken against specific articles, posts, and writers. Instead, as Garay suggested, the company is one stream in an evolving ecosystem aimed at undermining dissent.
Alex Berenson
Berenson: “It’s nice to know Moderna is watching me. I’m watching them too.”
FNC
Independent journalist Alex Berenson is a repeated subject of the company’s surveillance efforts. A former reporter for the New York Times, Berenson quickly emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of vaccine-related policies. He was among the earliest to cast doubt on the Biden administration’s false claim that the vaccinated people could not transmit the COVID-19 virus to others. After government pressure on Twitter, Berenson was banned from the platform in 2021, only to return after successfully litigating against the company.
He appears to still be in the crosshairs. In September 2023, Moderna flagged a tweet from Berenson that highlighted the CDC’s data showing that among 1 million mRNA-vaccinated teenagers, there were from zero to a single COVID death and up to 200,000 side effects.
The company cited Berenson’s tweet under a report headline “Attacks on pediatric COVID-19 vaccines escalate” and claimed he had “cherry-picked data.” However, the company did not directly rebut any of Berenson’s claims in its report. Rather, Moderna noted the “high-risk” danger of Berenson’s viral tweet related to the potential for low child COVID-19 vaccination rates. “Fears about side effects and long-term dangers are major reasons parents report not vaccinating their children,” the report stated. It further concluded that “resistance to COVID-19 vaccines for children can be a gateway to broader anti-vaccine beliefs.”
Other Moderna reports flag Berenson’s tweets for “misinformation about mRNA safety” and claim that he is a “conspiracy theorist” for suggesting that health authorities have not properly taken into account the documented risks of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) for young men receiving the vaccine. Such questions have been posed by an increasing number of health professionals, but the misinformation reports dismiss any Berenson criticism as inherently false.
“It’s nice to know Moderna is watching me,” said Berenson, when asked about his response to the revelations. “I’m watching them too. mRNA shots carry unacceptably high heart risks for teenagers and young adults. Nearly the entire rest of the world accepts this reality and now discourages or bans people under 50 from taking mRNA Covid boosters. It is unconscionable that Moderna and Pfizer continue to market them to non-elderly adults.”
“They can call me whatever they like,” he noted, “but they can’t stop my reporting.”
Russell Brand
Brand: Moderna warned of his videos “in anti-vaccine spaces where he is viewed as a truth-teller.”
Invision
Russell Brand, the British commentator and comedian, is also a repeated name in the Moderna misinformation files. The left-leaning populist routinely pillories the pharmaceutical industry for exploiting the pandemic to generate unprecedented profits.
Moderna has closely monitored Brand’s criticism of the drug industry.
In various “low-risk” reports produced in August 2023, Moderna flagged videos produced by Brand twice. In one, Moderna noted that Brand had broadcast a monologue about Jonathan Van-Tam, a former senior health official who helped formulate COVID-19 policies in Britain. Van-Tam had just taken a position with Moderna, a move that raised eyebrows with many in the press. In the video, Brand noted that the company had just “made a fortune during the pandemic selling vaccines to the government,” and that the “government worker that bought all those vaccines” was now moving through the revolving door.
In another report, Moderna alleged that Brand “claimed that COVID-19 vaccine mandates were based on a lie in a recent podcast episode.” The video was broadly accurate. The monologue highlights CDC documents that had come to light showing that officials were aware that the virus would “break through” and still infect vaccinated patients. In an ironic twist, Brand finished the segment with a discussion of efforts to censor debate around the vaccine.
Moderna noted they were not yet taking action on this broadcast, but “we are monitoring with our partner, the Public Good Projects.”
The following month, several media outlets reported that several women who insisted on anonymity were claiming that Brand had abused them nearly twenty years ago. The ensuing media firestorm, which led to YouTube demonetizing his account, became fodder for other Moderna misinformation reports. The company warned that the cancellation of Brand was sparking a backlash among social media users, who believed that he may be targeted by government and corporate censors for his outspoken opposition to pandemic narratives.
In a Moderna high-risk report, the company noted that speculation was swirling that “allegations are part of a conspiracy to silence the comedian, who has been a vocal opponent of COVID-19 vaccines.” The report linked an X video of Brand sharply criticizing Moderna and Pfizer for generating “$1,000 of profit every second” in 2021. The specific claim of profiteering was a mainstream claim, a statistic that was produced by Oxfam.
Nowhere in its reports on Brand did Moderna highlight any incorrect information. But the reports noted that they monitored Brand because he “has a large platform with over 6.6 million YouTube subscribers and over 21 million followers across multiple social media platforms.” Moreover, his “videos are widely circulated in anti-vaccine spaces where he is viewed as a truth-teller and threat to authority,” and that Brand maintained support from Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk.
Michael Shellenberger
Shellenberger: Dismissed by Moderna in internal reports as a known “misinformation author.”
AP
The Moderna misinformation reporting system reveals that the pharmaceutical firm maintained an interest in pandemic-related issues that go beyond vaccine policy, overlapping with general issues surrounding the unexplained questions that still swirl around the source of the pandemic.
The company, for instance, flagged discussions around news last year of a congressional whistleblower who came forward with allegations that the CIA suppressed an assessment from analysts that COVID-19 originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The story has garnered widespread coverage in NBC, Science, and ABC News, among other outlets.
But Moderna’s misinformation alerts flagged Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and journalist Michael Shellenberger for distributing information about the CIA allegation. Shellenberger – with whom this reporter has worked on the Twitter Files – had exclusively reported earlier last year that U.S. government sources believed that the “patient zeros” of COVID-19 were a group of Chinese scientists at the Wuhan lab – a major revelation later confirmed by the Wall Street Journal.
Despite his work on the issue, Moderna dismisses Shellenberger in its reports as among its known “misinformation authors.”
“Moderna has spent years spreading disinformation about their vaccines and so it makes sense that they would smear the scientists and journalists who expose them as conspiracy theorists and sources of misinformation,” Shellenberger told RCI.
“The question is why is Moderna spreading disinformation on the high probability that Covid escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab?” he added. “A company that makes its money selling a coronavirus vaccine shouldn’t care where Covid came from.”
Others
Moderna closely monitored other independent voices. The company flagged left-wing comedian Jimmy Dore for simply tweeting at a New York Times call for triple-vaccination with the two-word response, “Hard pass,” as an example of misinformation. The company also warned about the appearance of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the Joe Rogan podcast as well as Lex Fridman, a popular independent podcaster.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Moderna warned of his appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast.
AP
Other reports flag skeptics of vaccine efficiency and potential side effects. In September, Moderna’s system cited Megyn Kelly, the podcaster and former Fox News host, for a viral clip in which she said she regrets the COVID-19 booster after she developed an autoimmune condition that she believes was caused by the shot.
Moderna warned that such comments could “discourage people who are on the fence about getting vaccinated.” In its alert about Kelly, the company noted that her comments added to growing concern around autoimmune disorders and COVID-19 vaccinations. The Moderna misinformation email proceeded to offer data that appeared to reaffirm, rather than debunk, Kelly’s assertions. The alert concluded with a message about an NIH report that highlights a link between SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and inflammatory and autoimmune skin diseases. Moderna did not dispute the findings of the NIH study, but noted that it “is in rotation in anti-vaccine spaces online.”
Megyn Kelly: Moderna warned that her apparently valid comments could “discourage people who are on the fence about getting vaccinated.”
Invision
The merging of public health and corporate influence peddling has concerned many academics. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University who says the government violated his free-speech rights by trying to silence his questioning of federal policies regarding COVID, told RCI: “We have a problem that social media companies and the government have allied with pharma to treat information flows around the COVID vaccine as a propaganda problem, rather than a medical issue that is best resolved by patients talking with their doctor about what’s best for them.”
Jay Bhattacharya: Moderna flagged a tweet of his simply linking to an unwelcome FDA finding on child vaccination.
FNC
Bhattacharya was one of the most prominent academics who was shadowbanned under the previous owners of Twitter because of his criticism of the lockdowns and masking policy. He is now one of the plaintiffs litigating against the U.S. government’s role in shaping content decisions on social media platforms in the Missouri v. Biden case, which is now before the Supreme Court.
Bhattacharya’s outspoken advocacy has attracted attention from Moderna as well. In October 2023, shortly after I spoke to him for an interview, Moderna flagged one of the Stanford professor’s tweets that shared a link to a new Food and Drug Administration preprint study that documented “elevated risk of seizures in toddlers and myocarditis in teenagers associated with covid mRNA vaccination.” Moderna did not directly dispute the study findings other than to note that its authors wrote that it “should be interpreted cautiously.”
In the attached report, Moderna added that it had highlighted the tweet and others like it because “concerns about safety and side effects are among the main reasons parents are hesitant about or oppose COVID-19 vaccines for their children.”
In other words, anything that might discourage children from vaccinations, despite any risks or lack of benefits, is dangerous information. That suggests a motive far from bringing truth to the vaccine debate, and far more about dominating it for financial gain.
Near the end of the Moderna call last September, as the biotech firm worked to highlight its stepped-up outreach to consumers, James Mock, the chief financial officer, spoke briefly to assure investors of the company’s ability to continue to make money.
“COVID is a very valuable product line of business and will continue to be,” said Mock, “and we’ll make it more profitable.”
DA Alvin Bragg — dodging criticism from elsewhere.
There have been few light moments in the thunderous collision between former President Donald Trump and the legal system.
But one incident Tuesday put a brief smile on Trump’s face.
Trump faces 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting as felonies. The allegations against Trump are that ahead of the 2016 election, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000, so she would not go public with claims of an affair with Trump. Trump has denied the affair ever took place.
On the second day of jury selection, one potential juror said he had read Trump’s books “The Art of the Deal” and “How to Get Rich,” according to Newsweek.
After mentioning the second book, the juror asked if he got the title right.
Trump smiled and then nodded. The incident was not videoed because no cameras are allowed in the courtroom.
Although Monday was not very productive, with more than 50 of 96 potential jurors dismissed for saying they could not be fair and impartial, six people made the cut Tuesday, according to the New York Post. The names of jurors are being withheld.
The Post said the foreman of the jury is a married person from West Harlem who came to America from Ireland; another juror is a corporate lawyer who is an Oregon native; one is a female nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering; and another is a female software engineer.
A juror described by the Post as a “young black woman” said during selection that she respected Trump because he “always speaks his mind.”
Also joining the jury is a 40-year-old from the Lower East Side who said Trump was “fascinating and mysterious.”
“He walks into a room, and he sets people off one way or another,” the IT consultant said. “I find that really interesting. Really, this one guy can do all of this. Wow, that’s what I think.”
On potential juror was rejected for having posted in 2017 on Facebook, “Good news!! Trump lost his court battle on his unlawful travel ban!!!”
He added, “Get him out, lock him up.”
Joshua Steinglass, a prosecutor, asked if the man still thinks Trump should be locked up.
The man drew a smirk from Trump when he replied that he no longer thinks so.
Judge Juan Merchan was irritated once with Trump and warned Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche that Trump mumbled something toward a potential juror “12 feet away from your client.”
“Your client was audibly uttering something,” the judge said. “I don’t know what he was uttering …”
“I won’t tolerate that. I won’t have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I will be crystal clear,” he said.
Question: If Merchan didn’t know what Trump said — per his own words — how could he decide Trump was trying to intimidate a potential juror?
Joe and Kamala want the rich to pay their fair share. But they don’t. Both pay less than what Joe wants the new rate to be. Now Joe paid around 23% and Kamala paid around 19% The new rate Joe wants?
Those making more than $400,000 a year would see their top tax rate on their income tax go up, from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. So the two didn’t even pay the 37%, so why raise it to 39?
Also Biden and Kamala paid 20% Capital gains tax. So will they pay the 39%?
Truth and Justice the NY way. https://heartofashepherd.com/
Visits: 29
Is it just me or do these NY judges and prosecutors look like the folks who are in prison? I mean just take a look at them. What a bunch of scary looking folks.
And the one judge, the silver fox. Born in Columbia. His father served as a military officer in Colombia. His dad also worked in Colombia’s intelligence service. Need I say more?
And what they all have in common? Political lawfare. To see some of the charges and the restrictions. Trump is not allowed to comment, but all the other folks involved are. How crazy is that?
Biden begs Ukraine to not bomb Mother Russia’s Oil Refineries.
There’s a false narrative that Mother Russia is no longer the darling favorite of Progressives. The claim now is that China and Iran are the new favorites. According to Joe, that’s just not true.
Biden administration has been urging Ukraine not to attack Mother Russian oil refineries, reportedly worried that strikes worsen the war and drive up energy prices.
I think it’s more than that. Don’t forget that Russia had donated to the Biden cartel in the past and Joe doesn’t want to anger a friend. Also remember that China(Joe’s other bud is Russia’s biggest customer).
One Law. One Page. Part 11. Paying back school loans and getting government out of the school loan business. If I could pass one law on Education, this would be the one. First you remove the government from the school loan business and give it back to the banks.
Second you have the banks go after those who had their loans dismissed and give that money recovered to the banks. If not paid back the students are charged with a felony.
The loans were taken out with a promise that they would be paid back. Most of the students pay them back. But to allow a select few to not is criminal and those who don’t pay them back should be charged.
Short and Sweet. Progressives in Action. Oakland, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Below are videos of how Progressives run cities. Common scene nationwide. Today’s examples are Oakland, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. How did they miss Sacramento?
Watch this. Especially if you suffer under the totalitarian reign of CA’s Governor.
— Reeve Swainston, Esq. (@ReeveSwainston) April 12, 2024
Sadly this is the norm. The joys of Democrat Progressive living. There’s nothing like it. Democrat Party has a consistent track record of taking over the politics in an American city and turning it into a sh*thole in just a few short years.
Audit the little guy. The Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, Feb. 2. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGE
Visits: 23
Why the IRS Still Focuses on the Middle Class.
Of course, Joe never had no plans of going after the rich and famous. They gave him over 25 million in one night. So why should he go after part of his base. Here’s the WSJ take on this.
It should come as no surprise that Internal Revenue Service audits continue to target the middle class (“IRS’s Most Wanted: The $200,000 Man,” Review & Outlook, April 3). Any new agents the IRS can hire at a salary of $125,000 will be no match for the more experienced, high-end tax professionals employed by the wealthy. An easier way to recoup the cost of new agents is to go after the many filers who make good money, whose returns aren’t as complex, and who rely on more garden-variety tax advice.
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