Saturday, July 31, 2021

Seven Words That Curse the State

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What we say can shape how we think, and what we do. For example, the use of profanity when you stub your toe can actually help ease the pain. Trust the science on this one!

Sadly, the world is far beyond the toe-stubbing stage. But profanity by itself is not the answer. There are other words we should be using daily, words far more powerful and effective for what we face today.

For example, this week, Congressman Thomas Massie repeatedly used two words that we should keep handy, in his video explaining the idiocy of Queen Nancy and her edicts. Tyrant is one of them. Tyrant, and its pal, tyranny, show up a few times in the 1776 Declaration of Independence. People living on the North American continent were kind of frustrated with a distant, elite, grasping monarch and his aggressive Army, drunk on arrogance. The tyranny of King George, in terms of liberty and economy, was mild compared to what Americans have suffered at the hand of their own elected government since the turn of the 20th Century.

We are a very different people than those who engaged in the War of Independence. We are a less bold, less brave, less faith-filled, and less confident than those who hopped on ships and left home with whatever they could carry, knowing they would never, ever return to the place of their birth, or see their parents or their remaining family again.

In that sense, we deserve exactly what we are getting from the rampant and vile statism that dominates the United States today. To get better, we ought to practice using the word “tyrant” and “tyranny” every day. If you are not familiar with this word, look it up. Tyranny is “arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority,” and a tyrant is one who exhibits this behavior.

Congressman Massie also used the word “hypocrite.” This is a wonderful and popular word; we often use it when we refer to the very rich and famous. We are less likely to apply this word routinely to our government bureaucrats and politicians. In fact, we are more likely to call someone who is employed by government a hypocrite (libertarians get this all the time with “how can you criticize the government when you work for it, etc.”) than we call out the actual politicians and political organizations who facilitate the tyranny. “Hypocrite” should be directed at our government and its spokespeople and defenders every minute, of every hour, of every day.

Another helpful word, often misdirected, is “Liar!” Warning: this is a four letter word and can cause a fight or flight response. It is widely used by the state towards its citizens, when we the people make an observation about something the state has done or proclaimed. For example, since the coronavirus fiasco (a government gain-of-function enhanced virus leaked from a government lab resulting in a government-directed shutdown, a government-funded vaccine development with government-required genetic (mRNA) therapy development, with government-exempted safety and testing protocols, to government-mandated injections, to vaccine passports issued and mandated by government) we have had a lot of citizens and organizations in this country called “liars” and in many cases, had their “lying” words and voices removed from the public discourse.

Similarly, the 21st century treatment of Julian Assange, of Craig Murray, of Daniel Hale, or a host of journalists and whistleblowers – that is, removal of these people from public life, via imprisonment or in some cases, state murder as we logically suspect with Michael Hastings or even political blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein. To put it simply the state, and the corporate elites and sociopaths who manage it, in effect and in practice, declare all of these enemies of the state to be liars. But if we point out, timidly and mouselike, that the good Doctor Fauci has reversed himself on masking, lockdowns, death rates, infection rates, treatments for viral infection, his role in funding gain of function research on coronaviruses at UNC and Wuhan, his patents, the list goes one, it is we who are the liars, we who weave conspiracies, we who don’t have the big picture, we who need to shut up or be locked up.

Thus, I add “Liar!” to the list. This word, even moreso than “Tyrant!” and “Hypocrite!” arouses emotion and will indeed make the target angry. In my experience, the use of this word by the state and by the left has been effective. For us, in our current era, going first-strike nuclear with “Liar!” is the new normal. For kind Christians and kind people in general, this can be difficult. But a name for the devil has always been the Great Liar, to lie is to violate the ninth Commandment, and liars in government service have been and remain today the absolute cause of literally millions of human deaths, massive harm and destruction of the global environment, and global fraud. Lies never solve the problem, but are always employed to cover them up. Call them out!

The other L word has fallen out of favor, and in a world of global statism, for good reason. Liberty is a lovely and powerful word. We see “liberty” in advertisements, in company names and newsletter headers – but it has a grace and nuance that really needs to be inserted into our daily conversation. For me, as a horse lover, I think about a way of working a horse called “at liberty.” It is handling and communicating with a horse without leads or physical restraints, relying on a mutual recognition of man and horse, respectful communication and identifying and encouraging points of agreement. To watch horses work with their people at liberty, or to do it yourself, is to become aware of the intelligence, peace and complexity of the world in front of us, and experience our role in that world completely.

What a wonderful blessing, to communicate and to consent, to lead and follow without force, to choose your direction and action, as one and as a team. Being at liberty is not only our God-given and God-created state of being, it is how God speaks to us and leads us. Note that this is completely antithetical to how the state relates to us. Removing the very concept of liberty is, and has always been, a method of state control. Many on the right deplore the elimination and weakening of religion, the secularization of society, or the actual assumption of a state religion – all of which are hallmarks of a well-developed state. But without understanding our natural and spiritual state as individuals, the solutions proposed by left and right – solutions that entail a “better” or “different” state – are doomed and costly.

I’ll add two of my favorites, “No!” and “Mine!” If you have dealt with toddlers, you may have heard these words, often used together. Please reinsert these into your own vocabulary, and use them every day. “No!” is useful as an initial response to anything and everything. No harm in saying “yes” later, but in this day and age “No!” must be your first response to anything and everything you see, read or hear from the state, state entities, state spokesmen, including most media outlets. To be safe, one may follow this up with a Ma’am or Sir. It could be softened with an “I don’t understand” or “I cannot verify that,” but keep “No!” handy and use it often.

“Mine” is important as it speaks to ownership – something the state, the left and globalists and elites – do not believe you deserve or need. The infamous words of Klaus Schwab, “you will own nothing and be happy” remind us that “Mine!” is a word that will not be allowed. The horrendous statist push is already on to bag and tag every human, to plug every individual into a centralized electrical-communication grid whereby their needs will be completely met by the state, based on compliance. Proclaim loudly, “My Body, My Choice” – politicians and the left will instantly recognize this phrase, and asserting what we own – our bodies, our thoughts, our homes, our autonomy, our communications, scribblings, dreams and papers, is fundamental to every part of your existence, and historically sound.

Lastly, we must always remember to say “Thank you.” Very often, in times of stress and tension, and of fear, we forget we have much to be thankful for. Like profanity, saying “thanks” and recognizing the great blessings we already have at hand, at our disposal, here and now, both relieves stress and empowers. Gratitude is something the state also insists upon, as the High Chancellor sputters to his staff in V for Vendetta “I want everyone to remember why they need us!” Something that valuable to the state, as we see in both art and life, is powerful a tool to help us break the state, by building decentralized relationships and communities.

Reprinted with permission from LewRockwell.com.

from Seven Words That Curse the State

Twitter Suspends Science Writer After He Posts Results Of Pfizer Clinical Test

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Just yesterday, we discussed the censoring of a commentator by Twitter for merely expressing an opinion over the need for a “pause” on any federal mandates on Covid-19 as new research is studied. Now, a former New York Times science reporter, Alex Berenson, has been suspended for simply quoting the results from a clinical trial by Pfizer and raising questions over any vaccine mandate. In the meantime, the White House accused both the Washington Post and New York Times of irresponsible reporting on Covid, but surprisingly Twitter has not suspended those accounts. It is the license of the censor. Twitter is unwilling to let people read or discuss viewpoints that it disagrees with as a corporation. Many on the left, however, have embraced the concept of corporate speech and censorship. It turns out that the problem with censorship for many was the failure to censor views that they opposed. With the “right” censors at work, the free speech concerns have been set aside.

I have little ability to judge the science on such questions. However, I welcome the debate. Yet, rather than answer such critics and refute their arguments, many people focus on silencing anyone with dissenting viewpoints like Berenson.

Berenson has been effectively confined to Substack by Big Tech due to his discussing dissenting views on the science surrounding Covid-19. His latest offense against Big Tech came when he posted the results published by Pfizer of its own clinical data. He claimed that the research showed little difference in morality between those in the trial with a vaccine and those given a placebo.

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In the meantime, the White House sent out an all caps condemnation for “completely irresponsible” reporting on the infliction of vaccinated people according to another study.

Ben Wakana, deputy director of strategic communications and engagement for the White House, blasted the Washington Post over its headline about a study of a COVID-19 outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts on July 4th. The Post tweet read “Vaccinated people made up three-quarters of those infected in a massive Massachusetts covid-19 outbreak, pivotal CDC study finds.” Wakana responded “Completely irresponsible,. 3 days ago the CDC made clear that vaccinated individuals represent a VERY SMALL amount of transmission occurring around the country. Virtually all hospitalizations and deaths continue to be among the unvaccinated. Unreal to not put that in context.”
Wakana addressed the same issue with a New York Times tweet stating “Breaking News: The Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and may be spread by vaccinated people as easily as the unvaccinated, an internal C.D.C. report said.” That sent Wakana into all caps: “VACCINATED PEOPLE DO NOT TRANSMIT THE VIRUS AT THE SAME RATE AS UNVACCINATED PEOPLE AND IF YOU FAIL TO INCLUDE THAT CONTEXT YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.”
Now all three posters (Berenson, The Post, and The Times) were citing studies and accused of not putting them into context. However, only Berenson was suspended.

Obviously, none of these posters should be suspended and Twitter should not be enforcing one of the largest censorship programs in history. However, the silence of free speech supporters, academics, and journalists to this hypocrisy is deafening.

The rise of corporate censors has combined with a heavily pro-Biden media to create the fear of a de facto state media that controls information due to a shared ideology rather than state coercion. That concern has been magnified by demands from Democratic leaders for increased censorship, including censoring political speech, and now word that the Biden Administration has routinely been flagging material to be censored by Facebook.

This is why I have described myself as an Internet Originalist:
The alternative is “internet originalism” — no censorship. If social media companies returned to their original roles, there would be no slippery slope of political bias or opportunism; they would assume the same status as telephone companies. We do not need companies to protect us from harmful or “misleading” thoughts. The solution to bad speech is more speech, not approved speech.

If Pelosi demanded that Verizon or Sprint interrupt calls to stop people saying false or misleading things, the public would be outraged. Twitter serves the same communicative function between consenting parties; it simply allows thousands of people to participate in such digital exchanges. Those people do not sign up to exchange thoughts only to have Dorsey or some other internet overlord monitor their conversations and “protect” them from errant or harmful thoughts.
Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org.

from Twitter Suspends Science Writer After He Posts Results Of Pfizer Clinical Test

Friday, July 30, 2021

Arkansas Governor Seeks Rollback of Mask Mandate Prohibition He Signed into Law Three Months Ago

For how long can you trust a politician to stick to his commitment to defend freedom? In the case of Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, it looks like three months max. After signing into law on April 29 legislation prohibiting mask mandates by state and local governments in Arkansas, Hutchinson on Thursday, July 29, declared he intends to call a special session of the state legislature, likely to occur next week, for the purpose of exempting kindergarten through 12th grade public schools from...

Read the full report by clicking the title, below...


from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2021/july/30/arkansas-governor-seeks-rollback-of-mask-mandate-prohibition-he-signed-into-law-three-months-ago/

The CDC Is a Threat to Science

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I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the astonishing shift from the CDC on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. It is not just that the CDC is re-recommending masks for people indoors in many parts of the country, which could include your neighborhood or not, and this could change tomorrow. (Hint: right now, it disportionately affects red states.) 

Whether and to what extent you “protect” yourself from disease with a paper strapped to your mouth and nose is now wholly contingent on data reporting and interpretation. It might feel like science but it has a better name: arbitrary power. Out with the Constitution. Out of traditions of law. Out with legislatures and the will of the people. 

What’s even stranger was the rationale that the CDC cited to claim that the Delta variant renders the vaccines – the ones that have been hyped with unrelenting propaganda for many months, including stigmatization and demonization of those who refuse – substantially less effective for stopping infection than President Biden was touting just last week.

Our thinking on the subject is supposed to mutate at the same pace as the virus itself. It’s exhausting and triggers anyone’s BS detector. How in the world does the CDC expect anyone to believe anything it says in the future?

To be sure, the claim that breakthrough infections (PCR positives in vaccinated individuals) might be more common than thought could in fact be true. Indeed, I tend to think it is. It is a general principle of immunology that for viruses that mutate quickly, inoculation cannot always keep up as an infection preventive. 

This is one reason that these fields have for the better part of 100 years observed that natural immunity is to be preferred if that is an option. It is safer and more globally effective for pathogens that are mild for most people, which is exactly what the science is (pointlessly) showing yet again now. Vaccines are glorious for stable viruses (measles, smallpox), but less comprehensively effective for flus and  coronaviruses – which is saying nothing controversial. I should add. 

For example, a study from a Houston, Texas, hospital shows that the Delta variant is more transmissible than the wild type or other mutations. “Delta variants caused a significantly higher rate of vaccine breakthrough cases (19.7% compared to 5.8% for all other variants)” and yet there are fewer hospitalizations and deaths – which is another point for traditional virus theory: as a rule of thumb, variants of these pathogens are more prevalent but less severe. We’ve long known that – or did until 2020 when we decided to scrap a century’s worth of public health wisdom. 

There is a rumor out there – that’s all it is – that the CDC is relying on some other study out of India that demonstrates that the Delta variant outwits the vaccine, but the study in question pertains to a vaccine not available in the US, has not been peer-reviewed, and was even withdrawn from preprint status so there is no way to check the findings or the data behind them. There are by now more than 100,000 pieces of science out there related to Covid, and they are public. But the one on which the CDC is rumored to follow is not available. 

Where it gets interesting is that when a CDC spokesman was asked for the science behind the mandate – we aren’t talking about masking here, but the basic claim that the Delta tends to make an end-run around vaccines – the person said it wasn’t published, as if that were completely normal. What does this mean? Only Anthony Fauci, Rochelle Walensky, and some other big shots at the government agency have access? The millions of other scientists in the world cannot even have access to check out to make sure that the science is sound? And from the interpretation of a small cabal inside some bureaucracy comes the law of the land? 

A critical principle of science is peer review, and that at least requires sharing study results that you claim to be definitive. If you don’t do that, people have every reason to dismiss your claims. In the decades since the internet, we’ve seen an ever more intense push to get those journals from behind paywalls and make them publicly available for greater accountability and a better scientific process. 

In fact, open science works. A perfect example has been shown this past year when members of the public – including this writer – have enjoyed access to all the science pouring out daily, and happened to take notice of how completely screwed up policy has been in light of the actual evidence. There is zero evidence of a relationship between lockdowns and disease mitigation, zero credible evidence that masks cause a change in the virus trajectory, zero evidence that any of this wreckage of our liberties and rights has been worth it in any case, among many other revelations thanks to open science. 

But now we have the CDC making a massive change in the lives of Americans – mandating a piece of clothing around our faces – but flat-out refusing to cite the science behind the claim; either about the variant, its effects, much less the sketchy claims that masks make any difference at all either way. They could have cited the Houston study but did not. Nope. The studies “have not been published yet,” the CDC spokesperson told the Epoch Times.

And we are just supposed to sit by, take our instructions, believe what they say about the science we’ve never seen and they will not share with other scientists, and not complain about it. To be sure, it could be correct that the vaccines are less effective than we have been told all these months, and that’s fine. Just give it to us straight. And yet even the Houston study showing this admits that Delta itself is less deadly. 

Isn’t the whole point of this whole Covid kabuki dance to minimize severe outcomes – not cases, not infections, not exposure but hospitalization and death? One would suppose so. But the data games have enabled the disease planners for the better part of a year and a half to keep the shell game going, manipulating data, trends, and various other factors to remix the numbers in ways that fit whatever story they want to tell at the moment. So long as it generates a headline and a policy, we are good to go. 

These days, the game is out in the open, brazen, completely undisguised. The science has been reduced to the status of pure diktat. They speak, you obey. If you question it, or even if you are correct too soon, you are toast. The fact-checkers will nail you and you will be body bagged as a subversive and an enemy of the people. 

The unscientific nature of this game is summed up in the following realization. The Biden administration is toying with tactics and strategies for disease control that have utterly and completely failed for the 16 months they have been tried. Everywhere in the world! The science as we know it conclusively demonstrates the failure of every bit of the lockdown agenda. And yet here we are, threatened by another round on all sides. 

I was curious how our home assistants have handled this newest turn of events that is going to land the nation’s kids in masks again this fall. I asked her. I got in return a tedious rendering of the same bland messaging from 5 different news sources, each nonchalantly telling us the new instructions from some unelected bureaucracy led by people with no experience or skin in the game.

I had the sudden sense that I was playing a bit part – the powerless man in a chair – in some dystopian science fiction movie. The point of the movie is to warn us against a future that we should all work to prevent – to know that such a nightmare would be possible and to therefore guard against any trend in that direction. Such movies exist to remind us how fragile freedom really is. 

Sadly, the nightmare is here. It is everywhere. There is no more need for warnings. Now we have to deal with the reality of what we’ve become thanks to the people who once imagined that they could use the power of the state to outwit an enemy that neither we nor they could see or understand. Refusing to admit complete failure, they only double and triple down in a theater of the tragically absurd. 

Reprinted with permission from the Brownstone Institute.

from The CDC Is a Threat to Science

The Shadow State: Twitter Suspends Commentator for Criticizing Vaccine Policies

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recently discussed how the Biden Administration was actively encouraging corporations to limit speech and impose vaccines mandates as a type of shadow state. Rather than take such actions directly ( and face both legal and political challenges), the Administration is relying on its close alliance with Big Tech and other companies to carry out such tasks. That surrogate relationship is particularly clear in the expanding censorship program carried out by the Twitter, Facebook and other companies. Twitter’s actions against political commentator Dave Rubin is an example of how these companies are now dispensing with any pretense in actively barring criticism of government policies and viewpoints.

Rubin was locked out under the common “misinformation” claim by Twitter. However, his tweet was an opinion based on demonstrably true facts. One can certainly disagree with the conclusion but this is an example of core political speech being curtailed by a company with a long history of biased censorship, including the barring of discussions involving Hunter Biden’s laptop before the election. With a new election looming, these companies appear to be ramping up their censorship efforts.

In his tweet, Rubin stated:
They want a federal vaccine mandate for vaccines which are clearly not working as promised just weeks ago. People are getting and transmitting Covid despite vax. Plus now they’re prepping us for booster shots. A sane society would take a pause. We do not live in a sane society.
Even President Biden admitted yesterday that he was wrong weeks ago when he assured people that if they took the vaccine, they would not be at risk for the variants and could dispense with their masks. There are breakthrough cases that have taken many officials by surprise. It is also true that there is now talk of likely booster shots.

Rubin takes those facts and adds his opinion that we should “take a pause.” Twitter declared that to be a violation of its policy “on spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19.”

As always, Twitter simply refuses to explain its censorship decision beyond these generalized, categorical statements. It is not clear if Twitter is calling these facts misinformation or objecting to Rubin’s opinion about a pause. It does not matter. Twitter does not like his viewpoint and does not want others to read it or discuss it.

This is precisely what Democratic leaders pressed Twitter to do in past hearings. As previously discussed the hearing with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who followed up his apology for censoring the Hunter Biden story but pledging more censorship. One of the most chilling moments came from Delaware Senator Chris Coons who demonstrated the very essence of the “slippery slope” danger.
Dorsey: Well, misleading information, as you are aware, is a large problem. It’s hard to define it completely and cohesively. We wanted to scope our approach to start to focus on the highest severity of harm. We focused on three areas, manipulated media, which you mentioned, civic integrity around the election, specifically in public health, specifically around COVID. We wanted to make sure that our resources that we have the greatest impact on where we believe the greatest severity of harm is going to be. Our policies are living documents. They will evolve. We will add to them, but we thought it important that we focus our energies and prioritize the work as much as we could.

Coons: Well, Mr. Dorsey, I’ll close with this. I cannot think of a greater harm than climate change, which is transforming literally our planet and causing harm to our entire world. I think we’re experiencing significant harm as we speak. I recognize the pandemic and misinformation about COVID-19, manipulated media also cause harm, but I’d urge you to reconsider that because helping to disseminate climate denialism, in my view, further facilitates and accelerates one of the greatest existential threats to our world. So thank you to both of our witnesses.
Notably, Dorsey starts with the same argument made by free speech advocates: “Well, misleading information, as you are aware, is a large problem. It’s hard to define it completely and cohesively.” However, instead of then raising concerns over censoring views and comments on the basis for such an amorphous category, Coons pressed for an expansion of the categories of censored material to prevent people from sharing any views that he considers “climate denialism.”

There is, of course, a wide array of views that different people or different groups would declare “harmful.” Indeed, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal seemed to take the opposite meaning from Twitter admitting that it was wrong to censor the Biden story. Blumenthal said that he was “concerned that both of your companies are, in fact, backsliding or retrenching, that you are failing to take action against dangerous disinformation.” Accordingly, he demanded an answer to this question:
Will you commit to the same kind of robust content modification playbook in this coming election, including fact checking, labeling, reducing the spread of misinformation, and other steps, even for politicians in the runoff elections ahead?
“Robust content modification” has a certain Orwellian feel to it. It is not content modification. It is censorship.

The Rubin controversy captures this raw and biased censorship by Twitter and the other Big Tech companies. They do not want people to read such dissenting views so they declare them to be misinformation and ban the poster. It also shows how such censorship becomes insatiable and expansive with time. Once you give censors the opportunity to silence others, history shows that the desire for greater and greater censorship builds inexorably. We now have the largest censorship system outside of China and it is entirely run by private companies closely aligned with one party.

As Orwell wrote in 1984:
And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.
Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org.

from The Shadow State: Twitter Suspends Commentator for Criticizing Vaccine Policies

Thursday, July 29, 2021

CDC Credibility Implosion: New Mask Mandate Makes No Sense

Even much of the mainstream media is confused and frustrated by yesterday's sudden flip-flop by the CDC, advising that everyone once again begin wearing masks indoors. They claimed it was because the "delta" variant was eluding the vaccine, while at the same time continuing to claim that the vaccine was very effective and that everyone should take it. Both of these things cannot be true...and most Americans understand that. Will the push-back on this incomprehensible policy-shift gain momentum? Watch today's Liberty Report:



from CDC Credibility Implosion: New Mask Mandate Makes No Sense

No To Vaccine 'Mandates' & 'Passports'!

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When the ideas of Liberty dominate - humanity flourishes.

When the ideas of tyranny and authoritarianism dominate - humanity suffers.

Back and forth the pendulum seems to swing. From light to dark; and then dark to light.

We live in dark times.

Many people now look back on 2020 with regret, shame and anger. Rolling over to fear did not work out at all. Allowing government to take unprecedented unconstitutional control over society produced nothing but disaster, as it always has (and always will).

The masks turned out to be useless, as was the anti-social distancing. The lockdowns produced record drug overdoses, skyrocketing suicides amongst the young (i.e., those least at risk) as well as mental and physical problems that will probably reverberate for many years to come.

With a virus that has a survival rate of 99.7% (and 99.9% in children) the entire world was turned upside-down; not by the virus itself, but by the government policies enacted in the name of it.

Even though so many people all over the world now see the light, the authoritarians continue forward without pause. Over the past weekend, there were massive protests all over the world. Videos from one country after another became available for all the see. While most people rolled over in 2020, such is not the case in 2021.

There is tremendous resistance to the insane follow-up ideas that are being proposed --- mandated vaccines and vaccine passports.

Everyone who values their freedom should be speaking out against these ideas with passion and great feeling. The reasons are too many to count. The stakes are too high to even put into words. For mere words cannot capture what it means to be free. Civilization itself is being challenged in ways that its never been challenged before.

Let's begin with vaccine "mandates." 

Vaccines, along with every other medical treatment, must be voluntarily chosen. This position should be held even by those who have chosen to take the Covid vaccine. 

You exercised your best judgment and then acted on your best judgment. Other individuals must choose what they believe to be best for them.

If government were to ever have the power to force chemicals into people's bodies, then humanity would live under a medical totalitarian dictatorship. Your sovereignty over your one-and-only body would belong to other human beings.

This is no little thing that we're talking about here. Your authority over your body would be gone.

Let's say that you're happy with your decision to get the Covid vaccine. Fine! 

But what if you're not happy about the next "mandated" injection? What if you don't want the next one? What if you don't want the next one for your kids either?

What if the next "mandated" injection (that you don't want) ends up harming either you or your loved ones?

What then?

It's too late.

You never had a choice. You never had a chance.

This is why, even if you have no problem with the Covid vaccine, you should be fervently against "mandates" of the Covid vaccine. It is 100% in your best long-term interest to be against them.

Allow mandates and forced vaccinations and everyone becomes a pin cushion (and cash cow) for Big Pharma. These massive companies wouldn't have to sell you, or try to persuade you to use their product. You would forced to have their product injected into your body. 

Such a dystopian idea should be rejected full stop.

Next, let's go to the issue of dividing our society into groups, and the tyrannical idea of "vaccine passports." The groups are broken into those that do what the government wants to their own bodies, and those that refuse to do what the government wants to their own bodies.

Both individuals and businesses should be against this idea. First, and foremost, on moral grounds.

But in addition to basic morality, why on Earth would you, a business owner, want to act as the 'vaccine police' for the government? Do you really want to turn away sales and harm your livelihood because someone hasn't taken a needle? Do you really want to deal with the endless daily headaches that "vaccine passports" would bring about? 

Didn't government "lockdowns" do enough damage to your business? You want a Round 2 of economic pain? Isn't surviving and thriving as a business hard enough? 

"Vaccine passports" would make doing business even harder still.

Segregating society into two groups would create constant conflict. Authoritarians don't mind this, of course, as it is a matter of routine. Divide-and-rule goes back to ancient times. When the people are arguing with one another, their focus is not on you! It's the ultimate act of deflection. Get the people to fight amongst themselves.

But do you, as an individual, want perpetual conflict over vaccines? Do you want it to be a part of your daily life going forward? Isn't it enough already? 

We only get one life. How long are we going to let this dominate it?

Accepting "vaccine passports" would mean we want this insanity to continue to dominate our lives; as well as the lives of all children. Is this how we want them to see our beautiful world?

The idea of "vaccine passports" needs to be squashed before it takes root. Speak out.

We live in dark times.

But after darkness comes the light.

Let's not find out how dark it can get....

Let your voice play its part in adding strength to the light.

Reprinted with permission from Ron Paul Liberty Report.

from No To Vaccine 'Mandates' & 'Passports'!

The CDC's Hysterical Delta Flip-Flop Might Be Its Final Undoing

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The crazy, convoluted, mixed up messaging from the CDC – it's been this way from the beginning of the pandemic until now – has taken yet another turn. Now the CDC is recommending masks not just for the unvaccinated but for the vaccinated too. This is supposedly because of the discovery that the variant known as Delta is making an end-run around the vaccines, causing not only infections but infectious spread. 

So we have an odd situation developing. The layperson’s understanding of a vaccine is that it protects a person against infection, like measles or smallpox. In other words, you won’t get Covid, exactly as President Biden accidentally and apparently inaccurately said in a press conference last week. That is apparently untrue in this case. That realization seemed to dawn on people only a few weeks ago, as reports from Israel revealed that half the new infections listed were with people who had been fully vaccinated. 

I pity anyone who took a few weeks’ vacation from the news during this period. We went from believing that the whole point of the vaccines was to protect against infection to realizing that this was not the case. You can still get the bug. The point of the vaccines, we were newly told, is to protect against severe outcomes. Okay, that’s reasonable enough except that we know the demographics of severe outcomes, and hence the question presents itself: why is the policy priority near-universal vaccination? 

None of this makes sense – if you are still looking for policies to make sense, which you probably gave up on long ago. 

Now to the great mask conundrum. In May, Anthony Fauci showed up to a Senate hearing fully vaccinated but wearing a mask. Rand Paul lit into him, claiming that this was absurd. Fauci, he said, was undermining confidence in the vaccines. We need to give people a reward for being vaccinated, he said. If you can’t even take off your mask, why bother?

I suspect that the CDC listened carefully to his point. Senator Paul might just be one guy but he is positioned to impact policy because he has unusual access to the public, and to Fauci himself. Fauci is otherwise only on friendly terms with media who listen and adore every pronouncement. Paul has access by virtue of Senate protocol and therefore can make a dent in what’s actually happening out there in CDC land. 

The CDC had become very aware that vaccination rates had flattened. They figured it was worth a try. So in early May, the agency did a messaging turnaround. It announced that people who are vaccinated no longer need to wear a mask. Fauci dutifully went on all the talk shows and invited the vaccinated to enjoy their privileges. He even smiled when saying so! 

That was an interesting day for me because many of my anti-lockdown friends celebrated that the 16 months of living hell had officially ended. They correctly predicted that everyone, including the unvaccinated would now take off their masks and life could go back to normal. They were correct for everyone except the poor children who, because there is no vaccine for them, became permanently marked as wild-born disease carriers even though they are not.

Hey, the CDC had to be consistent, even when the results were cray cray, and therefore did not exempt children. 

Well, how did vaccination rates respond? Far from incentivizing people to get the jab, everyone took off their masks and dared authorities to ask for their papers. This is because after a year and months of egregious restrictions on freedom, people were fed up and looking for some means by which they could pretend to go back to normal. Vaccination rates stayed stuck for the reason that everyone who wanted a vaccine already got it, while the rest possess natural immunity, are wary of the medicine, or were more than willing to accept the risks of exposure. 

Now the CDC had a problem. The great goal of a 70% rate among all people was elusive, and infuriating the pandemic planners who demanded this based on the pharmaceutical definition of herd immunity. They embraced that definition because, for some reason that remains inexplicable for everyone not working for vaccine manufacturers, natural immunity has been thoroughly dismissed as primitive and irrelevant. Talk about ignoring the science!

Then on July 22, the influential Washington Post published the following:
So the CDC needs to state, as it should have in May, that unless there is a way to distinguish between the vaccinated and unvaccinated, indoor mask requirements should be reinstated…. The Biden administration has done many things right during the pandemic, but it made a grave error with its premature return to normalcy. It must hit reset and issue new guidance that addresses the escalating infections, waning interest in vaccination and unknowns of the delta variant. If it doesn’t, we could well be on our way to another national surge — and one that was entirely foreseen and entirely preventable.
The CDC seems more easily led by op-eds in political newspapers than actual scientific papers on the topic, of which there are many thousands now. They want digestible, clear instructions on what they should be doing. This piece in the Washington Post provided exactly that. Thus did the CDC reverse itself yet again.

But in doing so, it needed some rationale. This is when the agency jumped on the excuse of how the Delta variant often evades the vaccines, so therefore even the vaccinated need masks. It’s not clear whether and to what extent the CDC realizes that it has just once again undermined public confidence in the vaccines! The horns of the dilemma are obvious to anyone who is watching this clown show unfold. If the CDC removes the mask guidance, people don’t get vaccinated; if they add it back in, people have another excuse to avoid the jab. Masks in this case remain what they always were: a tool to prod the public into compliance with other mandates and dictates, purely a symbol of fear and its unrelenting trigger. And with fear comes obedediance. Maybe. 

The real problem, conclude many, is this bogus freedom of choice. This is why there is more constant talk about  vaccine mandates, and why NPR gets breathless with excitement at every new directive – from the Department of Veterans Affairs, for example – of new mandates. What they are really pushing for is a society-wide mandate that would push the shot on everyone. Biden reportedly will impose this on the whole federal workforce. 

The Department of Justice has paved the way by issuing an opinion that such mandates are perfectly in keeping with the law. More mayors are backing the idea. The public is warmed up day by day to accept what two years ago would have universally been considered an Orwellian nightmare of passports and papers for access to regular life. It’s completely unAmerican in every way, and wholly unnecessary. It is further proof that once disease panic gets underway, and governments use it to enhance their powers in shocking ways, it becomes extremely difficult to dial it back. 

Remember when only the “conspiracy theorists” said that the real goal was a passport and eventually a China-style social credit score? 

At this point, anything is possible. The Biden administration can’t even bring itself to lift Trump-era restrictions on flights from Europe, even though every strain circulating there has long been circulating here. The default motive of exposure avoidance has completely spun out of control, holding even basic freedoms in the balance. Today your human rights are wholly contingent on what the pandemic planners desire, whether it is stay-at-home orders, school closures, mask mandates, or compulsory jabs. 

What ultimately may be our saving grace here are the furious parents who have just been told that they must once again strap a cloth on the kids’ faces this fall. These poor kids have been messed with enough as it is. Maybe this will be the last straw, the final discrediting of the CDC, and the moment at which the American people will demand that enough is way more than enough.

Reprinted with permission from Real Clear Markets.

from The CDC's Hysterical Delta Flip-Flop Might Be Its Final Undoing

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

California Governor Gavin Newsom Has a New Coronavirus Crackdown Hypocrisy Scandal

California Governor Gavin Newsom, over the last year and a half, has been one of the American governors imposing the most extensive crackdowns on freedom in the name of countering coronavirus. He also famously exhibited extreme hypocrisy in November by flagrantly violating his own California coronavirus-related mandates while taking part in a dinner party at the uber-expensive French Laundry restaurant. Newsom’s attitude seems to be that his rules are for regular people, not for himself and his...

Read the full report by clicking the title, below...


from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2021/july/28/california-governor-gavin-newsom-has-a-new-coronavirus-crackdown-hypocrisy-scandal/

Another CDC Flip-Flop: 'Put Your Mask Back On...Or Else!'

After months of assuring vaccinated Americans that they no longer need to wear masks, the CDC has suddenly reversed itself and taken the country back to early 2020: everyone must wear a mask! This time, however, there are signs of rebellion particularly among Republican governors. As the CDC has no legal authority to tell Americans what to do, many in positions of authority - for example Texas and Florida governors - have said they will ignore Fauci and his cohorts. Also today: Biden expected to demand all Federal workers take the jab. Will they stand for it? Today on the Liberty Report:



from Another CDC Flip-Flop: 'Put Your Mask Back On...Or Else!'

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

'US House Jan. 6th Committee is a Show Trial' - RPI's Daniel McAdams

In today's opening round of the House January 6th "insurrection" Hearings it has become obvious that this is not at all about getting to the bottom of what happened on that day, but is rather a show trial against the half of the country (or more) that still supports former President Trump. It's a political show trial, RPI's Daniel McAdams tells RT America:

Read the full report by clicking the title, below...


from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2021/july/27/us-house-jan-6th-committee-is-a-show-trial-rpis-daniel-mcadams/

Wrong Lessons from the Afghanistan Debacle and Defeat

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Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, interventionists are not learning the real lessons in their defeat in Afghanistan. Instead, they are coming up with all sorts of reasons as to why their Afghanistan intervention turned out to be such a big debacle. They say that they’ve learned how to do better with future interventions.

One of the favorite lessons they have learned from this fiasco is encapsulated in the phrase “forever wars.” Some interventionists now say that converting the Afghanistan war into a “forever war” was the big mistake. They say that what they should have been done is just invade, quickly capture or kill Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda, and quickly oust the Taliban regime and replace it with a pro-US regime. Then, quickly get out. No “forever war.”

What these interventionists fail to realize is that that is precisely what President George W. Bush wanted to do. Convinced that US military forces had accomplished their mission (well, except for capturing and killing bin Laden), Bush quickly turned his sights toward Iraq, where he aimed to do what his father had failed to do during the Persian Gulf intervention — oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power and replace him with a pro-US regime.

Now, let’s imagine that Bush had done what interventionists now favor — initiated a quick in-and-out intervention in Afghanistan. Wouldn’t the Taliban quickly have gone on the offensive against the new US-installed puppet regime? If the Taliban had quickly retaken power, then what would have been the point of the intervention, especially given that it had not succeeded in taking out bin Laden? The whole reason that US forces had to stay in Afghanistan and make this a “forever war” was to prevent the Taliban from reversing the regime change that the intervention had achieved. 

Another lesson that interventionists are saying they’ve learned is that from now on interventions should take place only when they are in “our national interest.” 

But that’s really no lesson at all, given that the president, the Pentagon, and the CIA are the ones deciding what it in “our national interest.” When Bush, the Pentagon, and the CIA decided to invade Afghanistan — and, for that matter, Iraq — they had concluded that doing so was in “our national interest.” In the future, whenever any president and the national-security establishment decide to initiate a new intervention, you can rest assured that they will inevitably believe that doing so is in “our national interest.”

Thus, claiming that from now on interventions should only take place when they are in “our national interests” is no lesson at all. It’s just fancy verbiage to justify a continuation of interventionism. 

Some interventionists, not surprisingly, want US forces to remain in Afghanistan. They can’t stand the prospect of another defeat akin to the one that the Pentagon and the CIA suffered in Vietnam. They want this to be a true “forever war,’ not only to keep the Afghanistan puppet regime in power, no matter how crooked and corrupt it might be, but also so that the United States won’t “lose face” with another defeat similar to the one in Vietnam.

Of course, these armchair warriors are not the ones who will be ordered to kill and die to achieve these ignominious goals. Instead, it will be US soldiers who will be expected to kill and die for nothing. Armchair warriors are always very brave and cavalier when it comes to sacrificing the lives of US soldiers for worthless causes.

These pro-forever-war interventionists cite another reason for having US forces remain permanently occupying Afghanistan. They say that if the Taliban regain power, they will re-convert the country to an anti-American terrorist haven. 

But these pro-forever-war interventionists ignore the real lesson of the Afghanistan debacle and defeat.

That lesson is that it was foreign interventionism that gave rise to anti-American terrorism in the first place. It was US interventionism prior to the 9/11 attacks that gave rise to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And for that matter it was US interventionism that gave rise to the pre-9/11 terrorist attacks, such as the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and the attack on the USS Cole. 

In other words, the real lesson to be learned in the Afghanistan debacle and defeat is the failure of interventionism. This is what interventionists just don’t get. It is not dumb interventionism that is the problem. It is interventionism itself that is the problem. No more interventionism would mean no more anti-American terrorism and, therefore, no more need for more interventionism to deal with anti-American terrorism.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

from Wrong Lessons from the Afghanistan Debacle and Defeat

Tyrants On The March: Vaccine Passports Are Here!

From the Department of Veteran Affairs to California and New York state workers to beyond, vaccine passports are creeping into US society. It is an apartheid system where only those who choose to take a particular medical treatment are afforded Constitutional rights and protections. The excuse of virus variants is what is being given for this, but nationwide there is no real uptick in Covid deaths. This is about politics and control, not science. Watch today's Liberty Report:



from Tyrants On The March: Vaccine Passports Are Here!

Monday, July 26, 2021

Politics over science: Biden Admin signals intent to force FDA approval of COVID vaccines

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The Biden Administration has signaled its next move as part of the White House’s full court press to pressure Americans into taking COVID-19 vaccines.

It seems the White House intends to strongarm the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) into fully approving COVID vaccines, while completely dismissing evolving safety and efficacy concerns in the process.

It began during a CNN town hall this week, when President Biden appeared to let it slip (in difficult to comprehend language) that he was pushing for full FDA approval before the end of the year.
Fully authorizing the COVID vaccines will allow for the government to hop over legal and regulatory hurdles that come from their current status under emergency use authorization. The Biden Administration seems to believe full approval will act as a mandate for further draconian, top down policies from the federal government, the likes of which may include vaccine passports and compulsory vaccination for much of public and private industry.

In an article earlier this week, state-corporate press organ NBC News attempted to tee up the case for vaccine mandates. Several Obama and Biden “health” officials went on the record for the piece to make it clear they wanted to make life as difficult as possible for “unvaccinated” Americans.
“The official regulatory sign off would remove a significant legal and public relations barrier for businesses and government agencies that want to require vaccinations for their employees and customers, former health officials from the Biden and the Obama administrations said,” the NBC article states.

Andy Slavitt, a former Biden Administration official who infamously advertised a mask that he claimed could “deactivate” the coronavirus, told NBC News:

“I think once the vaccines go through full FDA approval, everything should be on the table, and I think that everything will be on the table at the level of municipalities, states, employers, venues, government agencies.”

The FDA is not in fact an independent regulatory agency. It is simply another executive branch agency that falls under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services. While the FDA is tasked with ensuring the safety of drugs that have prospects for the open market, the reality remains that politicians and pharmaceutical companies regularly steer and manipulate the FDA as they please. 

The revolving door between Big Pharma and the Government Health is very much on display at the FDA today. Patrizia Cavazzoni, the FDA’s new top drug regulator, worked for two decades in Big Pharma (including a stint at Pfizer) before entering her government role in 2019. In fact, it is the norm, not an aberration, for Big Pharma executives to have a resume stuffed with Big Pharma consulting and employment gigs. Recent FDA chiefs, such as Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb and Obama FDA chief Robert Califf, have resumes stuffed with examples of the constant revolving door between lobbying, government, and pharmaceutical companies.

The notion that mRNA vaccines have proven, *long term* safety and efficacy standards for the masses is simply not possible to prove at this time. Real world data (as opposed to Big Pharma studies) out of Israel, Malta, the UK, and elsewhere show that the vaccines have not exactly demonstrated much of an ability to prevent infection, contrary to the early claims made by pharmaceutical companies and Government Health institutions. 
The bottom line: The White House is seeking to use the reputation of the FDA to force more Americans to take COVID vaccines, and they’ve made it clear that this is entirely about politics, and not science. The government agency that gave us the disaster that is the food pyramid is not an independent body, nor is it any kind of authority on science and health. The FDA is just another bureaucracy, with the primary interested parties being the White House and Big Pharma. 

Reprinted with permission from The Dossier.
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from Politics over science: Biden Admin signals intent to force FDA approval of COVID vaccines

Ineffective Coronavirus Vaccine

On Thursday, United States President Joe Biden was hyping the supposed effectiveness of experimental coronavirus vaccine shots. He claimed in a CNN event that people who take the shots will not “get covid,” “be hospitalized,” “be in an ICU unit,” or “die.” It turns out Biden’s assurance is wrong. The experimental coronavirus vaccines, some of which are not even vaccines under the normal meaning of the term, are not miracle drugs. Indeed, recent information from Israel, where shots were given...

Read the full report by clicking the title, below...


from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2021/july/26/ineffective-coronavirus-vaccine/

Fauci: 'Vaccinated? Wear A Mask!' Will He Ever Be 'Canceled?'

Fauci made the rounds on CNN and elsewhere over the weekend, addressing the increasing problem of vaccinated people testing positive for Covid. He said that the CDC is considering new mask guidelines...for the vaccinated! "Even if you are vaccinated, you should wear a mask," he said. Isn't that why millions of Americans took the shot in the first place? Because they were promised they could ditch the mask? Also today: why is the CDC ditching the PCR test for Covid-19 after a year and a half? What's going on? The "experts" don't seem to have a clue. Today on the Liberty Report:



from Fauci: 'Vaccinated? Wear A Mask!' Will He Ever Be 'Canceled?'

The Jan. 6th Show Trials Threaten All of Us

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The recent felony conviction and eight month prison sentence of January 6th protester Paul Hodgkins is an affront to any notion of justice. It is a political charge and a political verdict by a political court. Every American regardless of political persuasion should be terrified of a court system so beholden to politics instead of justice.

We’ve seen this movie before and it does not end well.

Worse than this miscarriage of justice is the despicable attempt by the prosecutor in the case to label Hodgkins – who has no criminal record and was accused of no violent crime – a “terrorist.”

As journalist Michael Tracey recently wrote, Special Assistant US Attorney Mona Sedky declared Hodgkins a “terrorist” in the court proceedings not for committing any terrorist act, not for any act of violence, not even for imagining a terrorist act.

Sedky wrote in her sentencing memo, “The Government … recognizes that Hodgkins did not personally engage in or espouse violence or property destruction.” She added, “we concede that Mr. Hodgkins is not under the legal definition a domestic terrorist.”

Yet Hodgkins should be considered a terrorist because the actions he took – entering the Senate to take a photo of himself – occurred during an event that the court is “framing…in the context of terrorism.”

That goes beyond a slippery slope. He is not a terrorist because he committed a terrorist act, but because somehow the “context” of his actions was, in her words, “imperiling democracy.”

In other words, Hodgkins deserved enhanced punishment because he committed a thought crime. The judge on the case, Randolph D. Moss, admitted as much. In carrying a Trump flag into the Senate, he said, Hodgkins was, “declaring his loyalty to a single individual over the nation.”

As Tracey pointed out, while eight months in prison is a ridiculously long sentence for standing on the floor of the “People’s House” and taking a photograph, it is also a ridiculously short sentence for a terrorist. If Hodgkins is really a terrorist, shouldn’t he be sent away for longer than eight months?

The purpose of the Soviet show trials was to create an enemy that the public could collectively join in hating and blaming for all the failures of the system. The purpose was to turn one part of the population against the other part of the population and demand they be “cancelled.” And it worked very well…for awhile.

In a recent article, libertarian author Jim Bovard quoted from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago about how average people turned out to demand "justice" for the state's designated “political” enemies: “There were universal meetings and demonstrations (including even school-children). It was the newspaper march of millions, and the roar rose outside the windows of the courtroom: ‘Death! Death! Death!’”

While we are not quite there yet, we are moving in that direction. Americans being sent to prison not for what they did, but for what they believe? Does that sound like the kind of America we really want to live in?

While many Biden backers are enjoying seeing the hammer come down on pro-Trump, non-violent protesters, they should take note: the kind of totalitarian “justice” system they are cheering on will soon be coming for them. It always does.

from The Jan. 6th Show Trials Threaten All of Us

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Daily COVID Deaths in Sweden Hit Zero, as Other Nations Brace for More Lockdowns

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Sweden's Anders Tegnell

More than 100,000 people flooded streets in France over the weekend and multiple COVID vaccination centers were vandalized as opposition grew to the government’s most recent pandemic strategy. In President Emmanuel Macron’s latest incarnation of lockdowns, government officials have decreed that unvaccinated individuals will no longer be allowed to enter cafes, restaurants, theaters, public transportation and more.

Needless to say, people were not happy.

France’s approach is unique, but it’s just one of many countries around the world imposing new restrictions as fears grow over a new variant of COVID-19. Australia’s recent restrictions have placed half the country under strict lockdown—even though a record 82,000 tests had identified just 111 new coronavirus cases—while restaurants in Portugal are struggling to survive amid newly imposed restrictions.

One country not making much news is Sweden.

Sweden, of course, was maligned in 2020 for foregoing a strict lockdown. The Guardian called its approach “a catastrophe” in the making, while CBS News said Sweden had become “an example of how not to handle COVID-19.”

Despite these criticisms, Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic continues today. In contrast to its European neighbors, Sweden is welcoming tourists. Businesses and schools are open with almost no restrictions. And as far as masks are concerned, not only is there no mandate in place, Swedish health officials are not even recommending them.

What are the results of Sweden’s much-derided laissez-faire policy? Data show the 7-day rolling average for COVID deaths yesterday was zero (see below). As in nada. And it’s been at zero for about a week now.
Even a year ago, it was clear the hyperbolic claims about “the Swedish catastrophe” were false; just ask Elon Musk (also see: herehere, and here). But a year later the evidence is overwhelming that Sweden got the pandemic mostly right. Sweden’s overall mortality rate in 2020 was lower than most of Europe and its economy suffered far less. Meanwhile, today Sweden is freer and healthier than virtually any other country in Europe.

As much of the world remains gripped in fear and nations devise new restrictions to curtail basic freedoms, Sweden remains a vital and shining reminder that there is a better way.



Reprinted with permission from FEE.

from Daily COVID Deaths in Sweden Hit Zero, as Other Nations Brace for More Lockdowns

Could The Arrest of FBI Agent Undermine The Whitmer Kidnapping Case?

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FBI Agent Richard Trask

The arrest of an FBI agent would always be newsworthy. Richard Trask of Kalamazoo has gone from making cases to being a case for prosecution. He faces up to ten years for allegedly assaulting his wife with intent to do great bodily harm. However, Trask was also key to the arrest of men in the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Those defendants — and some observers — have criticized the FBI for entrapping the men by pushing them into the conspiracy and facilitating their efforts. The question is whether Trask’s arrest could undermine those cases. The answer is yes.

There are legitimate concerns over the role of the FBI in the planning and preparation for this alleged conspiracy. As a criminal defense attorney, I have long been a critic of the degree to which the FBI often pushes defendants to take actions to trigger criminal charges. However, it is very difficult to make a case for entrapment and the agents know that.

In the Michigan case, six men are charged with a conspiracy that involved kidnapping Whitmer but news outlets like BuzzFeed News have raised serious concerns over how much of the conspiracy was directed and facilitated by the FBI. At every critical juncture, agents like Trask appear to push the effort along, even overcoming reluctance of the alleged conspirators. That includes calling meetings where the conspirators first met and structuring the planning stage for the crime. The FBI even paid for room and foods to keep the planning going. Reportedly, the FBI informant ultimately rose to second in command of the conspiracy.

Courts look to two elements in entrapment cases. While the government can encourage criminal conspirators, the courts ask whether the offense was induced by a government agent and whether “the defendant was disposed to commit the criminal act prior to first being approached by Government agents.” In Jacobson v. United States, 503 US 540 (1992), the Court ruled that a Nebraska man convicting of receiving child pornography through the mail was entrapped.

This was a strong case for entrapment but was still a close vote. Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Bryon White ruled that

“by waving the banner of individual rights and disparaging the legitimacy and constitutionality of efforts to restrict the availability of sexually explicit materials, the Government not only excited petitioner’s interest in sexually explicit materials banned by law, but also exerted substantial pressure on petitioner to obtain and read such material as part of a fight against censorship and the infringement of individual rights . . . convincing him that he had or should have the right to engage in the very behavior proscribed by law.”

These cases have raised a long debate over whether the test should be subjective or objective. In Sorrells v. United States287 US 435 (1932), the Court followed a subjective test in showing the defendant had a “predisposition” to commit the crime. Some states follow the objective standard advocated by figures like Justice Felix Frankfurter in Sherman v. United States, 356 US 369 (1958), in showing that the crime would not have occurred with the involvement of the law enforcement officials.

So that brings us back to Trask, 39. Trask’s affidavit was used to arrest the men in the Michigan case. He and other agents are accused to prodding the alleged conspirators and ultimately organizing the effort. The FBI emphasizes that Whitmer’s home was “cased” before the arrests, showing a clear intent of the defendants to move forward with the plan.

The question is whether a federal judge will be open to the entrapment defense at trial. In any case, Trask will be key to any proceedings as the author of the key affidavit. However, Trask may decide that he is at odds with his former colleagues now that he is persona non grata at the Justice Department. He could cooperate with the defense through admissions or otherwise damaging testimony. He could even invoke his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in fear of self-incrimination. While the prosecutors could force his testimony with an immunity grant, they would risk testimony that could undermine the case by highlighting the reluctance of defendants to go forward with their alleged conspiracy.

Notably, Trask was charged by the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office in Kalamazoo County District Court, not federal court. Those prosecutors may not be unduly concerned about his testimony in the federal case. However, federal prosecutors may be interested in reducing his exposure to keep him from becoming a liability in a major case. Federal and state prosecutors often confer on such cases.

The problem is that the allegations are pretty dramatic and serious — and there is no entrapment issues. Trask and his wife were reportedly returning from a “swinger’s party” at an Oshtempo Township hotel when they argued over his wife’s saying that she did not enjoy the party. Once home, Trask is accused of jumping on top of his wife in bed and slamming her head into the nightstand. She reportedly resisted and he choked her. She says that she was able to force him off and seek aid. Police describe her as covered in blood and bruises. He was arrested but then released on bond.

As the author of the key affidavit, Trask could do considerable harm to the federal case. Even without such testimony in favor of the defense, his current status as an accused felon will likely be raised with the court. A judge could conclude that the two cases are unrelated and disclosure to a jury would be prejudicial and immaterial. However, the defense could argue that the pending charges could influence his testimony. He could seek to satisfy his former federal colleagues in the kidnapping case to improve his position in seeking a plea bargain with their state counterpart. Such testimony could also be cited to mitigate any sentence or charged the assault case. Finally, Trask’s FBI career is likely over even if he pleads guilty to a lesser charge. However, any chance to stay a federal employee could depend on his federal testimony — a motivation that the defense could highlight in rebuttal if the court allowed it.

Any entrapment defense carries a very heavy burden that defendants can rarely shoulder successfully in federal cases. The advantage remains with the government in this case. However, this case has a credible claim of entrapment and one of the core witnesses for the government has suddenly become a liability. The Widner case is one o the “matinee” prosecutions of the Biden Administration but one of its stars may have just gone off-script.

Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org.

from Could The Arrest of FBI Agent Undermine The Whitmer Kidnapping Case?

Saturday, July 24, 2021

In Radical Affront To Civil Liberties, The Government Is Branding Non-Violent Jan. 6 Defendants 'Terrorists'

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'Terrorist' Paul Hodgkins

This week, the first felony sentence was handed down in relation to what’s popularly called the “insurrection” of January 6, 2021. Though he only pleaded guilty to a single count of “obstruction of an official proceeding,” defendant Paul Hodgkins — whose criminal act entailed milling around the Senate chamber for approximately 15 minutes — nonetheless found himself branded a “terrorist” in open court by the US Government. Per prosecutors’ own admission, Hodgkins committed no acts of physical violence, and wielded no weapons. He was also never formally accused of any “terrorist” offenses, at least in a way that the Government would actually have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Regardless, prosecutors have now introduced a theory in which it’s alleged that Hodgkins and other non-violent Jan. 6 defendants were operating within a supposed “context” of terrorism — and it’s this “context” that they’re citing to argue for more severe punishment.

Ultimately, Hodgkins was sentenced to eight months in prison — a long time to be confined to a cage, of course, but perhaps not the length of incarceration one would typically associate with a deadly act of “terrorism.” So there’s something incongruous about this newly concocted terrorism-designation approach. Here is how Special Assistant US Attorney Mona Sedky rolled out her new “terrorism” theory at Hodgkins’ sentencing hearing on July 19:
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Read that carefully. The Government admits that Hodgkins’ actual conduct does not meet any legally cognizable definition of “terrorism,” but nonetheless argues that Hodgkins was “part” of a domestic terrorism event — i.e., partook in the commission of a terrorist attack — and is therefore effectively a terrorist! They’re more or less saying, “We can’t meet the legal burden to actually prove that he’s guilty of terrorism, so we’re just going to kind of vaguely assert as much in this slippery, unfalsifiable way.” Expanding the applicability of “terrorism” in such a manner is self-evidently menacing to civil liberties — it’s essentially the Government claiming the ability to accuse you of terrorism without ever having to clear the due process hurdles of legally establishing your guilt. Sedky added:
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“Framing”? “Context”? What? When did “domestic terrorism” become some kind of interpretive literary principle? These are weasel-words, the vagueness of which enable the Government to level one of the most extraordinary accusations it could possibly level against a citizen — that he is a terrorist — without having to subject that designation to meaningfully adversarial scrutiny. It’s all the more galling, because again, Hodgkins was not even alleged to have committed any physical violence. “The Government nonetheless recognizes that Hodgkins did not personally engage in or espouse violence or property destruction,” wrote Sedky in a sentencing memo. But in the “context” of Jan. 6 — the hyper-charged, seismically hyperbolic political climate that these proceedings are taking place within — the “symbolism” of the affair has taken primacy.

Judge Randolph D. Moss of the DC District Court (a Democratic appointee, if anyone’s keeping score) was particularly aggrieved that Hodgkins had carried a “TRUMP 2020” flag when he meandered onto the Senate floor, as opposed to an American flag. Moss opined that this choice of flags was evidence of Hodgkins “declaring his loyalty to a single individual over the nation.” That’s quite a feat of mind-reading — who knew that sporting a presidential candidate’s campaign paraphernalia presumptively indicates “disloyalty” to the US? But the Judge confessed to being extremely fixated on “the symbolism” of Hodgkins’ act, which allegedly “captured the threat to democracy that we all witnessed that day.” As though Hodgkins banded together with the shirtless yodeling Shaman guy to land a death blow against “democracy” — whatever that means — by temporarily interrupting a ceremonial legislative session.

It gets creepier. While the Government conceded that Hodgkins engaged in no violent conduct, wielded no weapons, and caused no physical injury, they turned around and invented a new type of “injury” he allegedly inflicted in order to demand a harsher prison sentence. This “injury” conceived by the Government appears to be a form of metaphysical injury, or perhaps some bizarre political injury? Sedky again:
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“Imperiling democracy”? Given the laughable non-specificity of what the hell it even means to “imperil democracy,” it shouldn’t take too much imagination to envision how widely this new “injury” criteria could be applied — as dictated by the whims of whatever prosecutor wants to appoint themselves a noble Democracy Defender. Do leftists, who’ve been almost entirely silent about the extremely foreboding implications of the Jan. 6 prosecutions, really not understand how easily the same logic could be marshalled against their own activist comrades?

Fair use excerpt. Read the rest here.

from In Radical Affront To Civil Liberties, The Government Is Branding Non-Violent Jan. 6 Defendants 'Terrorists'

Friday, July 23, 2021

Whither Afghanistan? Getting Out Is Harder Than Getting In

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The inability of the United States to comprehend what it was becoming involved in when, in the wake of 9/11, it declared a Global War on Terror, has to be reckoned one of the singular failures of national security policy over the past twenty years. Not only did the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq make bad situations worse, but the fact that no one is Washington was able to define “victory” and think in terms of an exit strategy has meant that the wars and instability are still with us. In their wake has been hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars spent to accomplish absolutely nothing.

As a result, Iraq is unstable and leans more heavily towards America’s adversary Iran than it does to Washington. The Iraqi Parliament has, in fact, asked US forces to leave the country, a request that has been ignored both by Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Trump actually threatened to freeze Iraqi bank assets to pressure the Iraqis into accepting the continued US occupation. At the same time, American troops illegally present in neighboring Syria, continue to occupy that country’s oil fields to deprive the government in Damascus of much needed resources. Neither Iraq nor Syria threatens the United States in any way.

Given that history, it should be no surprise that the withdrawal from the twenty year-long nation building project in Afghanistan, long overdue, is not quite going as smoothly as the Pentagon and White House apparently planned. US forces pulled out of their principal base in the country, Bagram Air Base, in the middle of the night without informing the incoming Afghan base commander. A frenzy of looting of the left behind equipment followed.

The Taliban are racking up victory after victory against US and NATO trained Afghan government forces who have the disadvantage of having to defend everywhere, making them vulnerable to attacks on an opportunity basis. The Taliban now plausibly claim to control 85% of the countryside, to include crossing points into Pakistan and several important towns and provinces. They recently shocked observers by executing 22 Afghan Army commandos who had run out of ammunition and surrendered. The US government is quietly expecting a similar fate for the thousands of Afghans who collaborated with the regime installed by Washington and is hurriedly arranging for visas to get the most vulnerable out, eventually seeking to resettle them in friendly Middle Eastern countries as well as in the US.

By one estimate as many as 18,000 Afghans worked for US forces and they also have families that will have to go with them. There is particular concern that former interpreters, who would have been privy to decision making by Washington, will be most particularly targeted. The Biden White House has responded finally to the urgency of the issue – lives are at stake – by approving special flights to remove the most vulnerable to a third country for processing before determining if they can be allowed to take up residence in the United States or elsewhere.

To be sure, the struggle to rid the world of the wrong kind of terrorists has left the United States weaker and more unfocused than it was in 2001. China, Russia and Iran are already maneuvering to fill the impending power vacuum in Central Asia by coming to terms with the likely Taliban takeover, which might come sooner that Joe Biden expects. If some kind of Afghan coalition government does emerge, it will belong to Russia and China, not the US.

Meanwhile, the US military itself, under the Biden Administration, is weaker and more riven by controversy than ever before. A recent 23-page report suggests that since Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s February order to “stand down” the entire US military for commanders to address “extremism” in its ranks morale has sunk and many top soldiers have either retired or quit in disgust. During his confirmation hearings, Austin pledged that he would “rid our ranks of racists and extremists” but the reality is quite different, with the witch hunt in the ranks and endless promotion of diversity even hurting normal military readiness training.

By next month the US military presence in Afghanistan will be reduced to a battalion of infantry to guard the Embassy and CIA station in Kabul, which is itself not sustainable unless some kind of workable Afghan government coalition can be achieved. Given the recent Taliban successes, that outcome appears to be increasingly unlikely. Maintaining the Embassy will also require a viable lifeline to the city’s airport and talks are underway with Turkey to determine if Ankara will be willing to base a stay behind battalion to maintain the air link. The Taliban have already announced that a Turkish presence at the airport will be unacceptable and warned Turkey that there would be revenge attacks against any remaining NATO troops after the US pulls out. Their spokesman issued a statement declaring that “The continuation of Turkey’s occupation will provoke feelings of hatred and enmity in our country towards Turkish officials, and will harm bilateral relations.”

The US is also seeking an over the horizon offensive capability once the military has formally left Afghanistan. The intention would be to be able to strike targets in Afghanistan if a new government forms any alliances with terrorist groups that potentially threaten the United States, as unlikely as that might be. At the present time, there are few options as the US would not be able to launch cruise missile or airstrikes through the neighboring countries that surround Afghanistan to the south, east and west, though a long-distance strike from warships in the Persian Gulf is technically possible.

To the north there are, however, former Soviet central Asian states, the so-called “‘Stans,” that might be suitable for hosting some arrangement to base American equipment, aircraft and a caretaker force. Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, or Uzbekistan might be amenable to such a development, but both Tajikistan and Kazakhstan are members of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that any US presence in a CSTO country would need the approval of the alliance, which the Kremlin will veto. One might suggest that there is mistrust about the reliability of Joe Biden and company as a strategic partner, even though there is widespread concern that Afghanistan might become a rogue state. Nevertheless, Washington’s bullying in Iraq, Syria and also against Iran has failed to convince anyone that the US Air Force would make a good neighbor.

So getting out of Afghanistan will be a lot trickier than going in. The US clearly wants to have some ability to intervene using air resources if the Taliban take over and misbehave, but that just might be a fantasy as the door is closing on options while China is waiting for its own door to open to bring the Afghans into their New Silk Road. And there is no escaping the fact that the entire Afghan adventure was one hell of a waste of lives and resources. Next time, maybe Washington will hesitate to charge in, but given the lack of any deep thinking going on in the White House, I suspect we Americans could easily find ourselves in yet another Afghanistan.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation.

from Whither Afghanistan? Getting Out Is Harder Than Getting In