1386: Frakenjab

I was due to get the AZ vaccine tomorrow. I felt powerless and that I had no choice but to take it due to Dan Andrews' crackdown on the tradies, and I felt that

if I didn't, I'd lose my job next.

I'm an engineer in a supervisory role, and all of the graduates under me have already taken either the Pfizer or AZ vaccination. The prevailing attitude is that

anyone not taking the vaccine is ignorant, brainwashed or stupid.

Today I learned that an apprentice in a different department who chose not to have the vaccine has been suffering a sustained campaign of silence, and is now

basically a pariah to his peers.

Something snapped in me when I heard about this and so I cancelled my appointment. I will be unable to participate in society or even go shopping or go out to eat

shortly. I don't really mind, because any company who will facilitate a two-tier society of 'haves' and 'have-nots' do not deserve my money.

I was resigned to being forced to give up what I thought was my dream job due to my decision, but this evening the news broke that the Federal Fair Work Ombudsman

has ruled that vaccine mandates in virtually all cases are unenforceable, and so is dismissal due to being unvaccinated. Here is his part of his summary regarding

enforced vaccinations:

"The statements by politicians that those who are not vaccinated are a threat to public health and should be 'locked out of society' and denied the ability to

work are not measures to protect public health. They are not about public health and not justified because they do not address the actual risk of COVID. These

measures can only be about punishing those who choose not to be vaccinated. If the purpose of the PHOs (Public Health Order) is genuinely to reduce the spread of

COVID, there is no basis for locking out people who do not have COVID, which is easily established by a rapid antigen test. Conversely, a vaccinated person who

contracts COVID should be required to isolate until such time as they have recovered."

Matt

A plan devised by the Canadian Joint Operations Command relied on propaganda techniques similar to those employed during the Afghan war

The campaign called for “shaping” and “exploiting” information. CJOC claimed the information operations scheme was needed to head off civil disobedience by Canadians during the coronavirus pandemic and to bolster government messages about the pandemic.

A separate initiative, not linked to the CJOC plan, but overseen by Canadian Forces intelligence officers, culled information from public social media accounts in Ontario. Data was also compiled on peaceful Black Lives Matter gatherings and BLM leaders. Senior military officers claimed that information was needed to ensure the success of Operation Laser, the Canadian Forces mission to help out in long-term care homes hit by COVID-19 and to aid in the distribution of vaccines in some northern communities.

Link

"45 percent of teens and young adults say climate anxiety is affecting

their daily lives and ability to function. It’s the first study to suggest

that young people’s emotional distress is strongly linked to their

governments’ failure to respond."

This study was funded by Avaaz, in their own words: "Avaaz is an

independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that *works to

ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global

decision-making*."

Link

So with Walmart ditching the free layaway, we won’t be seeing some dude dressed up in a Santa suit or at least hearing about some anonymous dude going in a paying off everyone’s layaways. Because I’d they are all locked into a 6 payment financing plan, that’s outside of Walmart and they have nothing to do with that. So all that joy that was brought (and local tv advertising for Walmart really) by people that would load their layaways up with all sorts of shit, in hope some dude would come in and pay it off, are shit out of luck! I mean it’s a win win for Walmart. They don’t finance the layaway, and they aren’t stuck with a bunch of crap people change their mind about after they find out some did DIDN’T come in a pay it all off for everyone. ( honestly though I thought their free layaway was, you put 10% down and made payments till Christmas?)

Either way, Walmart is trying to psychologically add to the killing of Christmas.

He bought nail polish remover and nails, so yeah, lock him up.

Possibly he thought nail polish remover is used with nails much like

people think sealing wax is used to wax your ceiling.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/pennsylvania-man-pleads-guilty-attempting-provide-material-support-isis

"In or around June 2019, Alowemer purchased several items, including

nails and acetone (nail polish remover) with the belief that they were

necessary to assemble a destructive device and with the intention they

be used to construct the explosives that would be detonated in the

vicinity of the church."

Intel professionals say the most important question about Milley’s unusual China call is this: was Milley talking to his “counterpart”or his “handler”? The answer should be clear from the transcript, acc to multiple sources trained to know the difference. Don’t you want to know?

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 12:32

A plan devised by the Canadian Joint Operations Command relied on propaganda techniques similar to those employed during the Afghan war

Author of the article:

David Pugliese

'

Ottawa Citizen

Publishing date:

Sep 27, 2021

'

3 days ago

'

5 minute read

Lt.-Gen. Mike Rouleau Photo by Adrian Wyld / The Canadian PressCanadian military leaders saw the pandemic as a unique opportunity to test out propaganda techniques on an unsuspecting public, a newly released Canadian Forces report concludes.

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The federal government never asked for the so-called information operations campaign, nor did cabinet authorize the initiative developed during the COVID-19 pandemic by the Canadian Joint Operations Command, then headed by Lt.-Gen. Mike Rouleau.

But military commanders believed they didn't need to get approval from higher authorities to develop and proceed with their plan, retired Maj.-Gen. Daniel Gosselin, who was brought in to investigate the scheme, concluded in his report.

The propaganda plan was developed and put in place in April 2020 even though the Canadian Forces had already acknowledged that ''information operations and targeting policies and doctrines are aimed at adversaries and have a limited application in a domestic concept.''

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A copy of the Dec. 2, 2020, Gosselin investigation, as well as other related documents, was obtained by this newspaper using the Access to Information law.

The plan devised by the Canadian Joint Operations Command, also known as CJOC, relied on propaganda techniques similar to those employed during the Afghanistan war. The campaign called for ''shaping'' and ''exploiting'' information. CJOC claimed the information operations scheme was needed to head off civil disobedience by Canadians during the coronavirus pandemic and to bolster government messages about the pandemic.

A separate initiative, not linked to the CJOC plan, but overseen by Canadian Forces intelligence officers, culled information from public social media accounts in Ontario. Data was also compiled on peaceful Black Lives Matter gatherings and BLM leaders. Senior military officers claimed that information was needed to ensure the success of Operation Laser, the Canadian Forces mission to help out in long-term care homes hit by COVID-19 and to aid in the distribution of vaccines in some northern communities.

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BLM organizers have questioned why military officials gathered information on their initiative, pointing out they followed pandemic rules and did not hold any gatherings outside LTC homes.

Then chief of the defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance shut down the CJOC propaganda initiative after a number of his advisers questioned the legality and ethics behind the plan. Vance then brought in Gosselin to examine how CJOC was able to develop and launch the propaganda operation without approval.

Gosselin's investigation discovered the plan wasn't simply the idea of ''passionate'' military propaganda specialists, but support for the use of such information operations was ''clearly a mindset that permeated the thinking at many levels of CJOC.'' Those in the command saw the pandemic as a ''unique opportunity'' to test out such techniques on Canadians.

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The views put forth by Rear Adm. Brian Santarpia, then CJOC's chief of staff, summed up the command's attitude, Gosselin noted in his report. ''This is really a learning opportunity for all of us and a chance to start getting information operations into our (CAF-DND) routine,'' the rear admiral stated.

The command saw the military's pandemic response ''as an opportunity to monitor and collect public information in order to enhance awareness for better command decision making,'' Gosselin determined.

Gosselin also pointed out CJOC staff had a ''palpable dismissive attitude'' toward the advice and concerns raised by other military leaders.

The directive for the propaganda plan was issued by CJOC on April 8, 2020, but it took until May 2 of that year before Vance's order to shut it down took effect.

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Gosselin recommended a comprehensive review of Canadian Forces information operations policies and directives, particularly those that may impact any activities for domestic missions.

There is an ongoing debate inside national defence headquarters in Ottawa about the use of information operations techniques. Some public affairs officers, intelligence specialists and senior planners want to expand the scope of such methods in Canada to allow them to better control and shape government information that the public receives. Others inside headquarters worry that such operations could lead to abuses, including having military staff intentionally mislead the Canadian public or taking measures to target opposition MPs or those who criticize government or military policy.

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Military propaganda training and initiatives within Canada over the last year have proved to be controversial.

The Canadian Forces had to launch an investigation after a September 2020 incident when military information operations staff forged a letter from the Nova Scotia government warning about wolves on the loose in a particular region of the province. The letter was inadvertently distributed to residents, prompting panicked calls to Nova Scotia officials who were unaware the military was behind the deception. The investigation determined the reservists conducting the operation lacked formal training and policies governing the use of propaganda techniques were not well understood by the soldiers.

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Yet another review centred on the Canadian Forces public affairs branch and its activities. Last year, the branch launched a controversial plan that would have allowed military public affairs officers to use propaganda to change attitudes and behaviours of Canadians as well as to collect and analyze information from public social media accounts.

The plan would have seen staff move from traditional government methods of communicating with the public to a more aggressive strategy of using information warfare and influence tactics on Canadians. Included among those tactics was the use of friendly defence analysts and retired generals to push military PR messages and to criticize on social media those who raised questions about military spending and accountability.

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The Canadian Forces also spent more than $1 million to train public affairs officers on behaviour modification techniques of the same sort used by the parent firm of Cambridge Analytica, the company implicated in a 2016 data-mining scandal to help Donald Trump's U.S. presidential election campaign.

The initiative to change military public affairs strategy was abruptly shut down in November after this newspaper revealed details about the plan. A military investigation determined what the Canadian Forces public affairs leadership was doing was ''incompatible with Government of Canada Communications Policy (and the) mission and principles of Public Affairs.'' None of the public affairs leadership was disciplined for their actions.

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Several months ago, Acting Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre and DND deputy minister Jody Thomas acknowledged in an internal document that the various propaganda initiatives had gotten out of control. ''Errors conducted during domestic operations and training, and sometimes insular mindsets at various echelons, have eroded public confidence in the institution,'' noted a June 9, 2021, message signed by Eyre and Thomas. ''This included the conduct of IO (Information Operations) on a domestic operation without explicit CDS/DM direction or authority to do so, as well as the unsanctioned production of reports that appeared to be aimed at monitoring the activities of Canadians.''

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Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 12:13

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) '-- Dollar Tree embedded in its very name what it stands for: Behind these doors, everything can be had for just $1.

The mantra to which the Chesapeake, Virginia, company has held true for decades will now be only mostly true.

After expanding nationwide from only a handful of stores in Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, Dollar Tree is breaking the mold and will sell items in some locations that exceed the tantalizing $1 grab-n-go price.

The cost of clothes, cars, food and just about everything else has soared this year as the global economy emerges from a pandemic uppercut and Dollar Tree has not been untouched.

Last month the retail chain said that rising shipping costs would take a bite of $1.50 to $1.60 out of its per-share profits this year. That's a huge hit for any business, perhaps more so for one founded decades ago steadfastly calling itself ''Only $1.00 Inc.''

''For decades, our customers have enjoyed the 'thrill-of-the-hunt' for value at one dollar - and we remain committed to that core proposition - but many are telling us that they also want a broader product assortment when they come to shop,'' said CEO Michael Witynski in a prepared statement.

Raising some prices will certainly give the national chain some flexibility and likely more variety on its shelves. But a dollar this year will not buy you what it did in 2020.

Annual inflation in the U.S. reached 4.2% in July, the highest in three decades. And this week in an appearance before Congress, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that price increases have worsened amid snarled supply chains and rising labor costs.

That has hit businesses of every type, perhaps especially one that has held the line at $1 for decades.

Witynski said this week that Dollar Tree is a ''test-and-learn'' company, and they'll be watching how customers react.

The company had already begun testing higher prices at several hundred of its nearly 8,000 locations in a section of the store called ''Dollar Tree Plus'' with items that can go for as much as $5. Items that can go for $1.25 to $1.50 will soon be found in the mix at some locations amid the typical assortment of $1 products.

Analysts with J.P. Morgan noted past conversations with Dollar Tree executives who cited a significant sales boost at stores offering a Plus section and if no one else is cheering the shift to the top side of $1 at Dollar Tree, Wall Street is.

Shares of Dollar Tree Inc. jumped 13% at the opening bell Wednesday.

As Dollar Tree breaks the $1 barrier, Witynski said the company would remain true to its promise of value.

''We will continue to be fiercely protective of that promise, regardless of the price point, whether it is $1.00, $1.25, $1.50,'' Witynski said.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:18

The bulk of the Tony Awards on Sunday ran on Paramount+. The few awards presented on CBS, as part of a special called Broadway's Back, didn't draw much of an audience.

The two-hour special '-- primarily a celebration of Broadway's return after 18 months of shuttered shows, due to the COVID-19 pandemic '-- averaged 2.75 million viewers Sunday night, per final same-day ratings from Nielsen (up from a preliminary 2.62 million).

The audience for Broadway's Back was barely half that of the last Tony Awards in 2019 (5.4 million), though the comparison isn't exactly like to like. The Tonys typically air in June, opposite far less competition than Sunday's show faced '-- which included a tightly contested Sunday Night Football game on NBC and season premieres of series on ABC and Fox.

The bulk of the Tonys also streamed exclusively on Paramount+, with only the awards for best play, best revival of a play and best musical presented during the CBS special. Per usual with streaming platforms, viewer figures for the Paramount+ Tonys presentation (and its simulcast of Broadway's Back) are being treated as a state secret.

Sunday Night Football dominated primetime with 19.69 million viewers and a 5.63 rating among adults 18-49 on NBC. With help from an NFL lead-in, the season premiere of The Simpsons on Fox became the only scripted broadcast show to top a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic during premiere week; it drew a 1.18, along with 3.48 million viewers.

Bookmark THR.com/Ratings for more ratings news and numbers.

Sept. 28, 8:30 a.m. Updated with final Sunday ratings.

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Archived Version

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 23:27

yesterday we spoke about this remarkable alignment of the number of people who have one (but not two) doses of a covid vaccine and covid deaths following shortly thereafter.

we first looked at palestine: (pawlestine, according to the endlessly hilarious ''islamicat'')

and this led me to seek similar signals using the same metric:

it shows up with near identical signature in israel during their initial vaccine push:

and, also in the world leading israeli push for boosters. (i could not synthesize the same metric here and so used ''the number of people who had received a booster in the las 14 days'' instead as it should amount to the same thing. (and provides both the best fit and the best alignment with what we, a priori, believe to be the underlying biology)

this is enough coincidence to really start wondering what's going on here. note that both israel and palestine are using mRNA vaccines.

to assess further, i jumped to a new region in which vaccine programs are recent: southeast asia.

it's always good to start from the simplest data and work into the more manipulated to you keep a sense of what you're looking at:

we can see 2 different start times for the surge in deaths. provocatively, they align with different start times for vaccines. even the vaccine surge and then cessation in viet nam seems mirrored by the later deaths surge and drop and they had basically no deaths prior to vaccines though whether they were looking for them is an open question.

full region looks like this.

all in all, this looks quite fertile for inquiry.

thailand provided a near perfect replication of what we saw in the levant.

of interest, they largely did NOT use mRNA vaccines, choosing to use mostly astra zenca (AZ) instead. this is a modified adenovirus vaccine and works similarly to mRNA by inducing cells to produce covid spike proteins to elicit immune adaptation. this seemingly identical relationship may indicate that the AZ vaccine induces a similar ''worry window'' to the mRNA vaccines (i have not seen any specific clinical evidence here. if anyone has, please link in the comments. i'd love to see it.)

where the plot starts to thicken is in the rest of southeast asia and, frankly, the data is getting a little weird and hard to parse as we see a different sets of vaccine programs used.

cambodia may provide a really interesting test case of vaccine variance. back on march 2, they got 324k doses of the AZ vaccine with 1.1 million to follow by may. but then, they switched to sinovac and sinopharm and have received over 23 million doses, so they are nearly fully chinese vaccines at this point. this is interesting because these vaccines are meaningfully different from others and purport to be based on actual inactivated coronavirus. so they look little like pfizer, moderna, JnJ, or AZ.

what we see is sort of striking one you realize the switch that occurred.

the first 2 humps in the vaxxed population in april and may are from AZ. both are followed quite rapidly or align with by rises in deaths, just as in other places. it's easier to see if we zoom in:

but after that, the series decouple and vaccination becomes a follower of death rate. it does not look like size of of single dosed population in the chinese vaccines predicts forward deaths.

(note that this says nothing about their efficacy and i have no idea what it actually is. sugar water would decouple too. so would the world's most perfect vaccine with no side effects or immunosuppression. we simply cannot speak to that question from this data.)

but there is one more feature here that i find extremely interesting. let's zoom in on only the VERY recent past:

note the sudden re-alignment where a rise in the single vaxx population leads a sudden (and unexpected as no one else in the region is showing this rise, all are in decline (see above)) increase in deaths.

this could be coincidence and the simple result of minds seeking to impose patterns on randomness. but it could be something else as well. it could be a VERY strong signal IF (and i need to stress ''if'' here, it turns out that this recent round of vaccinations were AZ or mRNA.

and there is reason to suspect it may be. cambodia has started using AZ boosters mixed with chinese vaccines to ''aid resistance.'' and it just started recently. in addition, the US sent about a million doses of JNJ. so the potential is certainly there for this recent vaccine surge to be boosters and first doses of modified adenovirus vaccines that we saw predict later deaths so well in thailand.

if we can find a way to pin this down beyond the circumstantial, it would provide quite an interesting data point.

from here, the data gets kind of messy. laos is simply unusable. their reporting of deaths is so non-existent and implausible as to render meaningful analysis impossible. i tried to work with their data but simply gave up. the quality is not there.

vietnam (using AZ and mRNA) is, frankly, just weird.

either their vaccination data reporting is off or they are using a highly differentiated model for vaccination that seems like ''get everyone one dose before giving out second doses''. unlike everyone else i've graphed, their ''one dose but not 2'' cohort just keeps growing.

it's also possible they are using something uncommon like a 6 week interval between doses. this data on the right makes that look possible.

this puts us into an odd weird paradigm very different from others and renders the ''one dose but not 2'' unfit as we have strong reason from clinical studies to believe in a 2 week risk window and not the 6ish weeks this one would be measuring.

while i dislike jumping around on metrics, it seems the only sensible thing to do here. it will make this a bit of an asterisk and i just have less overall confidence here.

we get this:

this shows some of the patterns we've seen elsewhere, but not others. there is linkage with vaccine dosing and later spikes, even in that first spike on 7/7 and the little deaths echo on 7/18-22. but it then becomes a following series which seems counter to or at least less supportive of the premise.

tantalizingly, it then leads on the peak, with cohort size peaking on 8/18-22 ahead of deaths peak on 8/28. however, this recent surge has led to nothing and has not disturbed the gompertz pattern at all.

so, all in all, i'm really not sure what to make of vietnam.

it's possible that this current surge of vaccination is in a less vulnerable population and that we've been looking at a lot of ''first surges'' in the highly vulnerable and thus getting a very different deaths signal.

it's also possible that this new surge has just now shown up in deaths yet and that we may see an upturn as in cambodia.

there is also an possibility that the fully vaxxed rate is having an effect, though this does not seem to be the case in cambodia (of course, they used mostly chinese vaxxes about which many have significant doubts, so perhaps that is telling too?)

we're also using a different metric that i think should be similar but that may have injected new data issues, lags, and transpositions, so caution is warranted.

going to keep looking at more of these with a focus on mRNA and adenovirus vaxx countries that reside predominantly in one climate zone/seasonal pattern. first vaccination surges and surges of boosters look most interesting to me.

open to ideas on where to go next of you have some good ideas.

also very curious as to whether anyone knows what the current vaccination surge in cambodia is, who is getting vaccinated, and what vaccine is being used. if anyone has that info, please share.

this puzzle is getting pretty interesting.

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Archived Version

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 17:55

Scientists may have found a link between serious childhood infections and autism later in life. They prompted young male mice to mount an immune response, then found the mice later had trouble recognizing familiar faces. A study of more than 3.6 million hospitalized children bolster these findings. Loading Something is loading.

Scientists may be a step closer to understanding what causes autism and how to treat it. A study released this month offers evidence that severe infections in childhood might make a future diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder more likely in men who are genetically predisposed to the condition.

Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles performed the study on mice, so it's too early to say what its implications are for humans. But other research hints at a similar association: Data collected by researchers at the University of Chicago and used in the same new study found that boys diagnosed with autism were more commonly hospitalized with infections between the ages of 1.5 and 4 than boys who didn't have autism. (That dataset included more than 3.6 million children with a host of different infections, though the UCLA study didn't explore whether any particular virus was associated with autism.)

"These parallels are so striking that they're highly unlikely to be unrelated," Alcino Silva, director of UCLA's Integrative Center for Learning and Memory, said of the mouse and human data.

The research bolsters the idea that genetic factors don't necessarily trigger autism on their own. Environmental factors, like a viral infection, also play a role.

The mouse study even offers a possible explanation as to why: Childhood infections may cause the body to over-express genes that code for microglia, the central nervous system's primary immune cells. That, in turn, can affect brain development, which could be at play in some traits commonly associated with autism, such as difficulty communicating verbally or recognizing familiar faces.

So the researchers experimented with drugs that target microglia, and found that they not only prevented those social issues in adult mice '-- they might have reversed them.

Male mice with mock-viral infections had trouble recognizing familiar faces A lab mouse used in a preclinical study at the Novosibirsk Tuberculosis Research Institute in Russia on March 23, 2017. Kirill Kukhmar/TASS/Getty Images Studies in mice are often critical to understanding how viruses affect human health, since scientists can't ethically induce viral infections in people.

For the UCLA study, researchers used newborn mice with a genetic disorder called tuberous sclerosis, which is associated with autism in people. Silva said only a subset of humans with this disorder '-- around half of them '-- go on to develop autism. The researchers were attempting to figure out why.

To start, they injected some of the mice with a chemical that stimulates an immune response, much like a viral infection would. The rest of the mice received a placebo.

The results showed that only the male mice that received the chemical as newborns saw impaired social behavior as adults. These mice weren't able to distinguish between a mouse they had seen before and a mouse they had never met.

Another UCLA lab then replicated the study and found that the mice injected with the chemical were less skilled at communicating with other mice '-- a hallmark of autism.

The researchers concluded that early viral infections, in combination with certain genetic mutations, could lead to an autism diagnosis down the line, but only in men.

"The female seems to be less affected than the male," Manuel L"pez-Aranda, the study's lead author, told Insider. "Maybe the root of this question is in the microglia."

Boys' and girls' microglia may be in different developmental stages when they're young, L"pez-Aranda said, which could explain why men are more predisposed to autism.

Scientists are getting closer to identifying possible autism treatmentsOne of the biggest lessons of the UCLA study is to not underestimate viral infections.

Dr. Lopez-Aranda in the lab. Dr. Lopez-Aranda "Something that has to be clear from this work is: please vaccinate your kids," L"pez-Aranda said. "Our results and the human results suggest that if you're not vaccinating your kids for polio and they get polio, if they don't die because of polio, they have a higher chance than other kids to develop autism spectrum disorder."

Silva said severe childhood infections might also be linked to a higher likelihood of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, anxiety, or depression '-- a concept the researchers are studying further.

For now, though, existing data from the UCLA study suggests that rapamycin, a drug approved to treat rare lung disease, either prevented male mice from forgetting familiar faces or reversed this memory deficit after the mice had developed it. In theory, that's a clue that children who get severe viral infections could receive treatments that help prevent them from developing autism later.

But Silva said scientists are still at the beginning stages of this research.

"We have some of the pieces of the puzzle, but it's only two or three pieces of 1,000-piece puzzle," he said.

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Archived Version

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:55

New Hampshire man, 28, files discrimination suit against his state after he was refused a COVID-19 vaccine shot 'because he's white'A federal complaint was filed against New Hampshire with the Health and Human Services Department's Office of Civil RightsThe complaint says a man, 28, tried to schedule a vaccination on April 2 but was told that the appointments were 'fully subscribed for people of color' The complaint said the state should be held accountable for its 'blatant discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin'A recent survey said the racial gap in vaccination is closing with 70 percent of black adults and 72 percent of white adults having received at least one doseBy Gina Martinez For Dailymail.Com

Published: 11:53 EDT, 29 September 2021 | Updated: 12:01 EDT, 29 September 2021

A white man is filing a discrimination lawsuit against the state of New Hampshire after he says he was denied a COVID-19 vaccination on the basis of race.

On Tuesday a federal complaint was filed against the state of New Hampshire with the Health and Human Services Department's Office of Civil Rights on behalf of an unidentified 28-year-old white New Hampshire man.

The complaint says that the man, who is diabetic and therefore at elevated medical risk, tried to schedule a vaccination on April 2 but was told by the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley in a recorded message that the appointments were 'fully subscribed for people of color.'

According to a new complaint, a 28-year-old New Hampshire man tried to schedule a vaccination on April 2 but was told that the appointments were 'fully subscribed for people of color' (file image)

The 28-year-old was eventually able to get his vaccination a month later on May 2, but the complaint said the state should be held accountable for its 'blatant discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin'

According to the complaint, the state received millions in federal funding, including over $500 million from HHS to administer its health programs and $43 million to support vaccination efforts specifically, and using those funds in a 'discriminatory manner' would violate federal laws.

The complaint said when Public Health Council Director Alice Ely said she was 'thrilled' to be able to vaccinate 'so many of our neighbors who identify as black, Indigenous or a person of color,' that was an ' insult to the many people, especially those at elevated medical risk, who were forced to wait behind younger healthy college students simply because of their race, skin color, and national origin.'

The complaint is demanding that HHS open a compliance review and withhold funding of the state HHS and the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley until they commit in writing that they won't discriminate on the basis of race.

About 70 percent of both black and White adults have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine - closing an earlier divide - Pew's survey found

'Although it is unclear if the state continues to discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, at least as late as June 27, 2021, the state's main COVID vaccine website continued to state that 'appointments are limited' and 'dependent on [vaccine] supply,' which left open the door to state discriminating against whites.'

The New Hampshire COVID vaccine rollout had five stages of eligibility that first prioritized high-risk health workers, first responders, and older adults living in residential care settings followed by people 65 and older, and certain medically vulnerable people who are at significantly higher risk, and certain persons who work with medically vulnerable persons.

The complaint says on top of that criteria the state took racial and ethnic considerations into who was eligible for the vaccine and set aside 10 percent of available vaccines for 'disproportionately impacted populations' that was distributed to a 'familiar and accessible to the target population.'

The state relied upon the COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index (CCVI) which was produced by a privately funded think tank, to determine who would receive the vaccine ahead of others based on race, the complaint said.

According to the CCVI minorities were identified as 'all persons except white, non-Hispanic' and the complaint accuses the state on relying on the CCVI's 'patently racist stereotype' that non-whites are inherently 'less resilient' than whites in order to justify deprioritizing only white people for vaccines.

Researchers have long studied the role race plays in medicine and it has been at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In May researchers at the Wayne State University School of Medicine reported that black Americans were more likely to distrust the medical community compared to white Americans.

Researchers also found that black participants at the time were half as likely to get a COVID vaccine compared to white participants and said studies showed that historical and contemporary experiences-such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and experiences of racism in the U.S. healthcare system- were behind black Americans' vaccine hesitancy.

But attitudes about the COVID vaccine among black Americans seem to be changing and the racial gap in COVID-19 vaccinations is closing.

A recent Pew Research Center survey revealed that 70 percent of black adults and 72 percent of white adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

The findings from the study indicated that, despite continued polarization, the majority of Americans are on the same page about vaccines and other Covid precautions.

But as vaccine rollout has continued dynamics have shifted and in the spring and summer white Americans got vaccinated at lower rates while more black Americans sought their shots.

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Archived Version

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:48

NEWS Monday 27 September 2021, 10:20AM

By Ministry for Families 65888 views The New Zealand Prime Minister's facebook page is still reeling from a PR (public relations) nightmare, after a post that encouraged the public to talk about vaccine side effects exploded.

On Saturday 25 September the NZ testimonials facebook page, which allowed members to report vaccine injuries direcly and had over 17,000 members, was shut down. The following day, Jacinda Ardern addressed the elephant in the room on her facebook page about the growing narrative of vaccine hesistancy, spurred by people sharing stories of the negative side effects of the vaccine including myocarditis, shingles, blood clots, heart attacks, seizures and death.

Unlike media, such as TV, print and online, social media is a two way communication and operating it gives a demographic of people who have had a negative perception of you or your company access to your entire audience.

The Prime minister told her own story of her post COVID vax experience stating she just had a sore arm and felt weary following it. A meme attached stated 'Lets talk about side effects' which in hindsight seems like perhaps it was a rhetorical question as what followed was over 30,000 comments, many of which were deleted by her admin team. Ardern's FB posts typically attract between 2-3,000 comments.

One contributor who pulled an all nighter stated ''New Zealanders essentially took down the government over it. Whilst she may have had Aucklanders in lockdown for two months, bankrupted businesses with her behaviour and now discriminated against people who are unvaxxed from attending events, I don't think any indoor concert or game could have rivalled a ring side seat at last nights event. I ran out of popcorn."

A bedraggled Prime Minister appeared on this mornings AM show but nothing was asked of her regarding the matter nor has any mainstream media covered the issue/

Scathing comments made on Jacinda Arderns facebook page included:

"How do you like the team of 5 million now Cindy?"

"Welcome to Nuremberg 2021"

"Six hangings in Pukekohe and one in Tuakau"

"80% of NZ'ers vaccinated but only 284,000 followers on the Unite against Covid 19 page - yeah right"

"Graphene oxide is in that vaccine and PCR tests (whether nasal or oral) and it will compromise your immune system"

"Her true agenda is no longer hidden it's mass genocide"

"Where are all the deleted comments from side effect sufferers and their families who have been killed by the shots?? How dare you casually delete their stories. Their blood is on your hands."

"I am a registered emergency nurse'...we are always told to research, analyse and never write any academic paper with only one source, And this is exactly what you are doing."

"How do you sleep at night? You know people are dying, children are dying? You offered one family $100K to keep their mouths shut."

In several facebook groups including The NZ Health Forum discussions have been had as to whether the post was intended to weed out people who were standing against the governments narrative.

Since the event a facebook page titled 'Deleted comments from PM's post' has been established.

The most recent comment on Arderns facebook page addresses the new elephant in the room "Why aren't mainstream media covering this when there is obviously so much public concern and harm resulting from the vaccine, especially to our children. It would suggest they are now merely government puppets."

Similarly comments have been made charging Ardern with treason and calling for her arrest.

Internationally other countries are following suit. The Testimonies Project was created in Israel to provide a platform for all those who were affected after getting the covid-19 vaccines, and to make sure their voices are heard, since they are not heard in the Israeli media.

https://rumble.com/vmpbh3-38132823.html?mref=6zof&mrefc=3&fbclid=IwAR0eZn8NnXZbab7b60Y6XCEK_egE2ipd-3Jji54Mv-qcflVTd3S3sGWYnZ8

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:38

Days before lawyers allied with Donald Trump gave a news conference promoting election conspiracy theories, his campaign had determined that many of those claims were false, court filings reveal.

Sidney Powell, a lawyer allied with Donald J. Trump's campaign, spoke at the Republican National Committee's headquarters in November and pushed baseless claims of election tampering. Credit... Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock Sept. 21, 2021

Two weeks after the 2020 election, a team of lawyers closely allied with Donald J. Trump held a widely watched news conference at the Republican Party's headquarters in Washington. At the event, they laid out a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that a voting machine company had worked with an election software firm, the financier George Soros and Venezuela to steal the presidential contest from Mr. Trump.

But there was a problem for the Trump team, according to court documents released on Monday evening.

By the time the news conference occurred on Nov. 19, Mr. Trump's campaign had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about the company, Dominion Voting Systems, and the separate software company, Smartmatic. The memo had determined that those allegations were untrue.

The court papers, which were initially filed late last week as a motion in a defamation lawsuit brought against the campaign and others by a former Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, contain evidence that officials in the Trump campaign were aware early on that many of the claims against the companies were baseless.

The documents also suggest that the campaign sat on its findings about Dominion even as Sidney Powell and other lawyers attacked the company in the conservative media and ultimately filed four federal lawsuits accusing it of a vast conspiracy to rig the election against Mr. Trump.

According to emails contained in the documents, Zach Parkinson, then the campaign's deputy director of communications, reached out to subordinates on Nov. 13 asking them to ''substantiate or debunk'' several matters concerning Dominion. The next day, the emails show, Mr. Parkinson received a copy of a memo cobbled together by his staff from what largely appear to be news articles and public fact-checking services.

Even though the memo was hastily assembled, it rebutted a series of allegations that Ms. Powell and others were making in public. It found:

That Dominion did not use voting technology from the software company, Smartmatic, in the 2020 election.

That Dominion had no direct ties to Venezuela or to Mr. Soros.

And that there was no evidence that Dominion's leadership had connections to left-wing ''antifa'' activists, as Ms. Powell and others had claimed.

As Mr. Coomer's lawyers wrote in their motion in the defamation suit, ''The memo produced by the Trump campaign shows that, at least internally, the Trump campaign found there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories regarding Dominion'' and Mr. Coomer.

Even at the time, many political observers and voters, Democratic and Republican alike, dismissed the efforts by Ms. Powell and other pro-Trump lawyers like Rudolph W. Giuliani as a wild, last-ditch attempt to appease a defeated president in denial of his loss. But the false theories they spread quickly gained currency in the conservative media and endure nearly a year later.

It is unclear if Mr. Trump knew about or saw the memo; still, the documents suggest that his campaign's communications staff remained silent about what it knew of the claims against Dominion at a moment when the allegations were circulating freely.

''The Trump campaign continued to allow its agents,'' the motion says, ''to advance debunked conspiracy theories and defame'' Mr. Coomer, ''apparently without providing them with their own research debunking those theories.''

Image Eric Coomer, a former Dominion Voting Systems employee, was accused of playing a role in a conspiracy to breach voting machines and reverse the 2020 election's outcome. Credit... Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via Associated Press Mr. Coomer, Dominion's onetime director of product strategy and security, sued Ms. Powell, Mr. Giuliani, the Trump campaign and others last year in state district court in Denver. He has said that after the election, he was wrongly accused by a right-wing podcast host of hacking his company's systems to ensure Mr. Trump's defeat and of then telling left-wing activists that he had done so.

Soon after the host, Joe Oltmann, made these accusations, they were seized upon and amplified by Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani, who were part of a self-described ''elite strike force'' of lawyers leading the charge in challenging Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory.

On Nov. 19, for example, Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani appeared together at the news conference at the Republican National Committee's headquarters and placed Mr. Coomer at the center of a plot to hijack the election by hacking Dominion's voting machines. By Ms. Powell's account that day, the conspiracy included Smartmatic, Venezuelan officials, people connected to Mr. Soros and a ''massive influence of communist money.''

Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani did not respond to messages seeking comment on the documents. Representatives for Mr. Trump also did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Mr. Trump continues to falsely argue that the election was stolen from him, and in recent months Ms. Powell and Mr. Giuliani have stuck by their claims that the election was rife with fraud. A lawyer for Mr. Giuliani said in a court filing last month that at least some of his claims of election fraud were ''substantially true.''

And as recently as three weeks ago, Ms. Powell told a reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the 2020 election was ''essentially a bloodless coup where they took over the presidency of the United States without a single shot being fired.''

It remains unclear how widely the memo was circulated among Trump campaign staff members. According to the court documents, Mr. Giuliani said in a deposition that he had not seen the memo before he gave his presentation in Washington, and he questioned the motives of those who had prepared it.

''They wanted Trump to lose because they could raise more money,'' Mr. Giuliani was quoted as saying in the deposition.

Trump's Bid to Subvert the Election Card 1 of 4Pressuring state officials to 'find votes.' As the president continued to refuse to concede the election, his most loyal backers proclaimed Jan. 6, when Congress convened to formalize Mr. Biden's electoral victory, as a day of reckoning. On that day, Mr. Trump delivered an incendiary speech to thousands of his supporters hours before a mob of loyalists violently stormed the Capitol.

But at the time that the internal report was prepared, Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell were both ''active supervisors,'' as he put it in his deposition, in the Trump campaign's broader plan to challenge the election results '-- an effort that eventually included more than 60 failed lawsuits filed across the country. While Ms. Powell soon went her own way in claiming that Dominion had conspired to steal the election, Mr. Giuliani continued working closely with Mr. Trump and his campaign, ultimately changing strategies and seeking to persuade state legislatures to overturn the popular vote.

The motion notes that ''the lines were blurred'' as to whom Ms. Powell was working for at the time: herself, her nonprofit organization or the Trump campaign. Almost immediately after she promoted the conspiracy theory about Dominion at the news conference in November, Mr. Trump sought to distance himself from her. But by December, as Mr. Trump's legal options narrowed, the former president considered bringing her back into the fold and discussed whether to appoint her as a special counsel overseeing an investigation of voter fraud.

The release of the documents was only the latest legal trouble for Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell, both of whom have been sued directly by Dominion for defamation. Dominion has also brought a defamation suit against Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, for amplifying false election claims. Last month, a federal judge in Washington ruled that the cases could continue moving toward trial.

About the same time, a federal judge in Detroit ordered penalties to be levied against Ms. Powell and eight other pro-Trump lawyers '-- Mr. Giuliani was not among them '-- who filed a lawsuit that sought to overturn the election results in Michigan using the false claims about Dominion.

''This case was never about fraud,'' the judge, Linda V. Parker, wrote in her decision. ''It was about undermining the people's faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so.''

In June, a New York court suspended Mr. Giuliani's law license, ruling that he had made ''demonstrably false and misleading statements'' while fighting the results of last year's election for Mr. Trump.

Even recently, the new court documents say, former Trump campaign officials have continued to cling to the baseless notion that the election was marred by fraud.

When lawyers for Mr. Coomer asked Sean Dollman, a representative of the Trump campaign, in a deposition if the campaign still believed that the election was fraudulent, he answered, ''Yes, sir.''

The lawyers then asked, ''What is that opinion based on?''

According to the court documents, Mr. Dollman gave a less than certain answer.

''We have no underlying definite facts that it wasn't,'' he said.

Susan Dominus, Shay Castle and Mindy Sink contributed reporting.

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:34

The Global Health and Wellness Consortium that has replaced the WHO (lawfully, but not yet in practice) has issued a global order for the destruction of all C-19 vaccines, stopping of masking for children, and instruction on the only treatments allowed for SARS-COV/2:

This order will be going out to every government in the world, and all complicit stakeholders, everything from the military and the public health officials, to doctors, teachers, and pharmacists. If you'd like to join us in researching the names/emails of all the intended recipients of this order, please join us at:

Global-Health-and-Wellness-ordersPhoto by Bruce Warrington on Unsplash

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:25

WASHINGTON (AP) '-- The newly installed chief of the U.S. Capitol Police says the force, still struggling six months after an insurrection that left its officers battled, bloodied and bruised, ''cannot afford to be complacent.'' The risk to lawmakers is higher than ever. And the threat from lone-wolf attackers is only growing.

In an interview with The Associated Press, J. Thomas Manger said his force is seeing a historically high number of threats against lawmakers, thousands more than just a few years ago. He predicts authorities will respond to close to 9,000 threats against members of Congress in 2021 '-- more than 4,100 had been reported from January to March.

''We have never had the level of threats against members of Congress that we're seeing today,'' Manger said. ''Clearly, we've got a bigger job in terms of the protection aspect of our responsibilities, we've got a bigger job than we used to.''

Manger touted changes that have been made in intelligence gathering after the department was widely criticized for being woefully underprepared to fend off a mob of insurrectionists in January. Officials had compiled intelligence showing white supremacists and other extremists were likely to assemble in Washington on Jan. 6 and that violent disruptions were possible. Police officers were brutally beaten in the insurrection.

The events of that day have redefined how the U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies in Washington approach security. Extreme measures put into place two weeks ago for a rally in support of those jailed in the riot aren't a one-off, they might be the new normal. Propelled by former President Donald Trump, the awakening of domestic extremist groups and the continued volatility around the 2020 election have changed the calculus.

Manger said putting up temporary fencing around the Capitol and calling in reinforcements was a prudent decision. It may not be the same for every demonstration.

''It's really going to depend on the intelligence we have beforehand,'' he said. ''It's going to depend on the potential for violence at a particular demonstration.''

With Manger, the police force got a longtime lawman. He served as chief in Maryland's Montgomery County, outside Washington, from 2004 to 2019. Before that, he led the Fairfax County, Virginia, police department. Those jobs, as well as a leadership position in the Major Cities Chiefs Association, have made him a familiar face in Washington law enforcement circles and on Capitol Hill.

He took over in late July, months after the former chief resigned amid the fallout from the insurrection. The Sept. 18 rally was Manger's first test '-- and he was taking no chances.

''We just were in a position where we could not allow another January 6th,'' he said. ''And I really needed to ensure that the men and women of the Capitol Police department understood that we had the resources we need, the training that we needed, the equipment that we needed, and the staffing that we needed to ensure that they could do their job and do it safely.''

In the end, police far outnumbered the protesters and the Capitol officers were mocked by some for going overboard. But Michael Chertoff, a Homeland Security secretary during the George W. Bush administration, said it's just smart policing to learn from mistakes and be better prepared the next time, and so what if there's too many police milling around '-- if the result is no one is killed or hurt.

''When you get demonstrations that are advertised or pitch to right wing or left wing extremists, I think you're going to see that they're going to lean into a visible show of protection, maybe more than they need but enough to make it clear they won't be overwhelmed again,'' he said.

Chertoff, who now runs the Chertoff Group security and cybersecurity risk management, said such fortifications won't be necessary for every free speech event planned in the nation's capital, but law enforcement must be better prepared when it comes to people who have expressed sympathy for Jan. 6, because there is strong reason to believe they're sympathetic to the idea of using violent force to disrupt government. Because it already happened.

The Capitol Police are part security agency, part local police '-- it has an annual budget of approximately $460 million and about 2,300 officers and civilian employees to police the Capitol grounds and the people inside the building, including all the lawmakers and staff. By contrast, the entire city of Minneapolis has about 800 sworn officers and a budget of roughly $193 million.

On Jan. 6 at least nine people who were there died during and after the rioting, including a woman who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber and three other Trump supporters who suffered medical emergencies. Two police officers died by suicide in the days that immediately followed, and a third officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.

The Metropolitan Police announced this summer that two more of their officers who had responded to the insurrection, Officers Kyle DeFreytag and Gunther Hashida, had also died by suicide.

A scathing internal report earlier this year found that serious gaps in tactical gear including weapons, training and intelligence capabilities contributed to security problems during the Jan. 6 melee. In his report, obtained by the AP, Capitol Police Inspector General Michael A. Bolton cast serious doubt on the force's ability to respond to future threats and another large-scale attack.

But then a second task force later charged with reviewing Jan. 6 said the Capitol Police already has the ability to ''track, assess, plan against or respond'' to threats from domestic extremists who continue to potentially target the building.

The report recommended a major security overhaul, including the funding of hundreds of new officer positions and establishing a permanent ''quick response force'' for emergencies.

But those changes would require massive influx of money. In a $2.1 billion measure in July, Congress delegated nearly $71'‰million, with much of that funding going to cover overtime costs.

Still, Manger said, ''I think that what we have in place today is an improvement over what we had a year ago or nine months ago.''

The event, which Republican lawmakers and Trump and his allies have sought to downplay and dismiss, has prompted a surge in applications to join the force. Manger likened it to police and firefighter applications after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Manger also defended keeping on Yogananda Pittman, the Capitol Police official who led intelligence operations for the agency ahead of January's attack. Pittman, who was elevated to acting chief with a tenure marred by a vote of no-confidence from rank-and-file officers on the force and questions about intelligence and leadership failures, is back in charge of intelligence and protecting congressional leaders.

Manger pointed to Pittman's decision as acting chief to implement recommendations from the inspector general and to expand the department's internal intelligence capabilities so officers wouldn't need to rely so heavily on intelligence gathered by other law enticement agencies. A number of top officials had left their posts after January's attack.

But Manger shot back at critics who have said Pittman should have been let go after her stint as acting chief because she was the top official in charge of intelligence before the insurrection.

''This notion that I should come in and just fire everybody on the leadership team because they failed on January 6th ... first of all, this department was in enough chaos without me firing everybody,'' Manger said, ''and then where would I have been without any experience on my leadership team to rely on and to assist me going forward?''

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 15:38

Sept. 29, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ET

Sept. 29, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ET By Davey Alba

YouTube said it was banning the accounts of several prominent anti-vaccine activists from its platform, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s. Credit... Clemens Bilan/EPA, via Shutterstock YouTube said on Wednesday that it was banning the accounts of several prominent anti-vaccine activists from its platform, including those of Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as part of an effort to remove all content that falsely claims that approved vaccines are dangerous.

In a blog post, YouTube said it would remove videos claiming that vaccines do not reduce rates of transmission or contraction of disease, and content that includes misinformation on the makeup of the vaccines. Claims that approved vaccines cause autism, cancer or infertility, or that the vaccines contain trackers will also be removed.

The platform, which is owned by Google, has had a similar ban on misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccines. But the new policy expands the rules to misleading claims about long-approved vaccines, such as those against measles and hepatitis B, as well as to falsehoods about vaccines in general, YouTube said. Personal testimonies relating to vaccines, content about vaccine policies and new vaccine trials, and historical videos about vaccine successes or failures will be allowed to remain on the site.

''Today's policy update is an important step to address vaccine and health misinformation on our platform, and we'll continue to invest across the board'' in policies that bring its users high-quality information, the company said in its announcement.

In addition to banning Dr. Mercola and Mr. Kennedy, YouTube removed the accounts of other prominent anti-vaccination activists such as Erin Elizabeth and Sherri Tenpenny, a company spokeswoman said.

The new policy puts YouTube more in line with Facebook and Twitter. In February, Facebook said that it would remove posts with erroneous claims about vaccines, including taking down assertions that vaccines cause autism or that it is safer for people to contract the coronavirus than to receive vaccinations against it. But the platform remains a popular destination for people discussing misinformation, such as the unfounded claim that the pharmaceutical drug ivermectin is an effective treatment for Covid-19.

In March, Twitter introduced its own policy that explained the penalties for sharing lies about the virus and vaccines. But the company has a five ''strikes'' rule before it permanently bars people for violating its coronavirus misinformation policy.

The accounts of such high-profile anti-vaccination activists like Dr. Mercola and Mr. Kennedy remain active on Facebook and Twitter '-- although Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has suspended Mr. Kennedy's account.

Misinformation researchers have for years pointed to the proliferation of anti-vaccine content on social networks as a factor in vaccine hesitation '-- including slowing rates of Covid-19 vaccine adoption in more conservative states. Reporting has shown that YouTube videos often act as the source of content that subsequently goes viral on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, sometimes racking up tens of millions of views.

''One platform's policies affect enforcement across all the others because of the way networks work across services,'' said Evelyn Douek, a lecturer at Harvard Law School who focuses on online speech and misinformation. ''YouTube is one of the most highly linked domains on Facebook, for example.''

Understand Vaccine and Mask Mandates in the U.S.

Vaccine rules. On Aug. 23, the Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and up, paving the way for an increase in mandates in both the public and private sectors. Private companies have been increasingly mandating vaccines for employees. Such mandates are legally allowed and have been upheld in court challenges.Mask rules. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July recommended that all Americans, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in indoor public places within areas experiencing outbreaks, a reversal of the guidance it offered in May. See where the C.D.C. guidance would apply, and where states have instituted their own mask policies. The battle over masks has become contentious in some states, with some local leaders defying state bans.College and universities. More than 400 colleges and universities are requiring students to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Almost all are in states that voted for President Biden.Schools. Both California and New York City have introduced vaccine mandates for education staff. A survey released in August found that many American parents of school-age children are opposed to mandated vaccines for students, but were more supportive of mask mandates for students, teachers and staff members who do not have their shots. Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and major health systems are requiring employees to get a Covid-19 vaccine, citing rising caseloads fueled by the Delta variant and stubbornly low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their work force.New York City. Proof of vaccination is required of workers and customers for indoor dining, gyms, performances and other indoor situations. On Sept. 27, a federal appeals panel reversed a decision that paused a mandate that teachers and other education workers in the city's vast school system will need to have at least one vaccine dose, without the option of weekly testing. City hospital workers must also get a vaccine or be subjected to weekly testing. Similar rules are in place for New York State employees.At the federal level. The Pentagon announced that it would seek to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for the country's 1.3 million active-duty troops ''no later'' than the middle of September. President Biden announced that all civilian federal employees would have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel.She added: ''It's not possible to think of these issues platform by platform. That's not how anti-vaccination groups think of them. We have to think of the internet ecosystem as a whole.''

Prominent anti-vaccine activists have long been able to build huge audiences online, helped along by the algorithmic powers of social networks that prioritize videos and posts that are particularly successful at capturing people's attention. A nonprofit group, Center for Countering Digital Hate, published research this year showing that a group of 12 people were responsible for sharing 65 percent of all anti-vaccine messaging on social media, dubbing the group the ''Disinformation Dozen.'' In July, the White House cited the research as it criticized tech companies for allowing misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines to spread widely, sparking a tense back-and-forth between the administration and Facebook.

Dr. Mercola, an osteopathic physician, took the top spot in the Disinformation Dozen. His following on Facebook and Instagram totals more than three million, while his YouTube account, before it was taken down, had nearly half a million followers. Dr. Mercola's Twitter account, which is still live, has over 320,000 followers.

YouTube said that in the past year it had removed over 130,000 videos for violating its Covid-19 vaccine policies. But this did not include what the video platform called ''borderline videos'' that discussed vaccine skepticism on the site. In the past, the company simply removed such videos from search results and recommendations, while promoting videos from experts and public health institutions.

Ben Decker contributed research.

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 15:07

Politics Once again, another bizarre photo of Joe sets the internet on fire ðŸ"By Missy Crane September 28, 2021

Yesterday, Joe Biden got his THIRD vaccine shot on live TV.

That's right, the vaccine that works so great apparently doesn't actually work unless: 1) everyone takes it and 2) you take another shot of it.

Some would argue that it's not actually a ''vaccine,'' but it's more like a ''flu shot'' with a whole bunch of different boosters, due to the different variants that viruses naturally form and mutate into.

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But instead of exploring this very ''scientific'' narrative, Joe Biden has decided to demonize all unvaccinated people and blame them instead'...so that's why he's now going on a PR tour to push the new booster '' which I am sure won't be the last. They'll probably have a new booster every month.

Booster of the Month Club'...you'll get a free box of donuts every time you get your 10th booster'...seriously, can't you see them doing that? I can'...

Of course, not everyone believes that Joe actually got jabbed with the ''goop.'' Many think he was injected with saline solution, but that's a conspiracy theory that we're not delving into today.

MORE NEWS: [VIDEO] Agitated Jen Psaki Gets Really Snotty With OANN Emerald Robinson Over Joe's Low Polling Numbers

We've got other things to discuss, like Joe Biden's overly hairy upper arms'...

Hey, cut me a break, it's a slow news week.

That's right, a photo taken from the booster shot PR event, reveals that Joe Biden has really hairy, fuzzy arms, and as with all things ''Joe,'' the photo has sparked a lot of interest online'...Now, for me, I don't really care about ''fuzzy upper arms,'' and I don't see much controversy in that, but when I was looking at this topic and reading what people were saying online, I did come across one thing that I found rather interesting.

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But first, check out the photo that started it all:

That arm is sickening pic.twitter.com/NzrC7IO8uL

'-- Benny (@bennyjohnson) September 28, 2021

Yowza. That's a lot of hair, but again, besides it being a bit off-putting, I don't really see the big deal.

However, if you look back at his January photos when he supposedly got his first vaccine shot, Joe was far less hairy '' perhaps his Handlers shave him as part of their grooming regime, and they just hadn't gotten around to it by the time he got his booster? Maybe it's a weird camera angle. Who knows?

Again, I am still not too enthralled with the arm hair, but the one thing that did intrigue me is this:

One Twitter user points out there's a distinct ''bald'' patch that looks exactly like the outline of a large bandage on the crook of Joe's arm where a vein is '' a vein that is often used for IVs, I know this because I used to dehydrate rather easily when I lived in Vegas and was hospitalized many times to get rehydrated and I am painfully familiar with where they shove IV needles, and that area is among their favorites.

But no matter what the reason was, it does look as if Joe is regularly bandaged there, in my opinion.

Enough so that his overly hairy arms don't produce any hair on the outer edges of that spot, and it does appear to create the ''shape'' of a bandage.

Now, if you ask me, that's the more interesting aspect of this hairy arm story '' because it goes along with the very valid questions about Joe's health and his very obviously diminishing mental faculties'...and more so to the questions about why he's always going to Delaware '' is it for medical treatments? People are wondering this '' and not just ''Q kooks'' '-- conservative journalists have brought it up many times.

To me, any questions about Joe's mental health are legit and important questions to ask, since our mainstream media doesn't ask, and seems totally indifferent to the whole thing.

Looks like Joe might get a lot of IVs? 🤷''¸ pic.twitter.com/DIHDmHCfwg

'-- Ames (@RestingTwitFace) September 28, 2021

Here's a closer look at those photos:

Here's what folks online were saying about the bizarre photo:

''10 to 1 that shot had nothing but saline or maybe vitamin B12''

''It turns blonde in the sun''

''Where is a silver bullet when ya need one.''

''I got hairy arms. That that that that turn blonde in the sun''

''Oh God! I just had a visual of his hairy legs in the pool. Ewwww make it stop''

''Dude got three shots and STILL wearing his muzzle? ''

''They should be waxing him instead''

'''...And the hairs stand up in the water. And kids like to rub my hairs. And I like to sniff the kids. While Corn Pop watches in awe.''

''Lol staged saline shot'.... So much bullshit that I can't stand it.''

''Too bad that shot isn't truth serum'...''

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Sadly, in this day and age, there's no trust or faith in the government, so everything, even overly hairy arms, and bizarre injection photos are all the ''buzz'' online.

Such is life in the era of the ''Joe Show.''

Attn: Wayne Dupree is a free speech champion who works tirelessly to bring you news that the mainstream media ignores. But he needs your support in order to keep delivering quality, independent journalism. You can make a huge impact in the war against fake news by pledging as little as $5 per month. Please click here Patreon.com/WDShow to help Wayne battle the fake news media.

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 14:20

By Adam Andrzejewski, CEO/Founder of OpenTheBooks.com; originally published in Forbes

President Joe Biden didn't just announce a Covid-19 vaccine mandate on companies employing 100 or more people, he plans to enforce it.

On Saturday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi's House quietly tucked an enforcement mechanism into their $3.5 trillion ''reconciliation'' bill, passed it out of the Budget Committee, and sent it to the House floor.

Buried on page 168 of the House Democrats' 2,465-page mega bill is a tenfold increase in fines for employers that ''willfully,'' ''repeatedly,'' or even seriously violate a section of labor law that deals with hazards, death, or serious physical harm to their employees.

The increased fines on employers could run as high as $70,000 for serious infractions, and $700,000 for willful or repeated violations'--almost three-quarters of a million dollars for each fine. If enacted into law, vax enforcement could bankrupt non-compliant companies even more quickly than the $14,000 OSHA fine anticipated under Biden's announced mandate.

The Biden Administration has already started implementing its vaccine mandate enforcement blueprint:

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) set precedent this summer and published an emergency Covid-19 rule in the Federal Register taking jurisdiction over and providing justification for Covid-19 being a workplace hazard for healthcare employment.

Early in September, Biden announced his 100-or-more employee Covid-19 vaccine mandate and tasked OSHA with drafting an enforcement rule to exert emergency vaccine compliance authority over companies with 100 or more employees.

The legislative provision that passed the Budget Committee raises the OSHA fines for non-compliance 10 times higher '' and up to $700,000 for each ''willful'' or ''repeated'' violation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not announced when the House will vote on the reconciliation bill that includes the new OSHA fines.

If the legislation is enacted, OSHA could levy draconian fines to enforce Biden's vaccine mandate, a move that could rapidly bankrupt non-compliant companies. The Biden mandate affects employers collectively employing an estimated 80 million workers.

The Democrats are playing hardball.

President Biden embraced an aggressive stance earlier this month when he challenged Republicans who are threatening lawsuits over what they decry as his federal overreach: ''Have at it. '... We're playing for real here. This isn't a game.''

The LegislationThe provision tucked in the House reconciliation budget bill (on page 168) that increases OSHA fines reads:

SEC. 21004. ADJUSTMENT OF CIVIL PENALTIES.

(a) OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT OF 1970.'--Section 17 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 666) is amended'--

(1) in subsection (a)'--

(A) by striking ''$70,000'' and inserting ''$700,000''; and

(B) by striking ''$5,000'' and inserting ''$50,000'';

(2) in subsection (b), by striking ''$7,000'' and inserting ''$70,000''; and

(3) in subsection (d), by striking ''$7,000'' and inserting ''$70,000''

That provision would change existing law relating to OSHA's enforcement fines, the very same section of law whose fines OSHA referenced in its June Covid-19 healthcare worker rule and is likely to use again to enforce its forthcoming vaccine compliance rules.

The Existing Law

29 U.S.C.§ 666 lays out OSHA enforcement fine levels. The 1970-enacted law reads:

29 U.S. Code § 666 - Civil and criminal penalties

(a) Willful or repeated violation Any employer who willfully or repeatedly violates the requirements of section 654 of this title, any standard, rule, or order promulgated pursuant to section 655 of this title, or regulations prescribed pursuant to this chapter may be assessed a civil penalty of not more than $70,000 for each violation, but not less than $5,000 for each willful violation

(b) Citation for serious violation Any employer who has received a citation for a serious violation of the requirements of section 654 of this title, of any standard, rule, or order promulgated pursuant to section 655 of this title, or of any regulations prescribed pursuant to this chapter, shall be assessed a civil penalty of up to $7,000 for each such violation [emphasis added].

Each year, OSHA adjusts these penalties for inflation, so for 2021, the fines are not actually capped at $70,000 and $7,000, but $136,532 and $13,653 per violation. If House Democrats get their way, by enacting the page 168 changes, those fines would increase to $700,000 for willful and repeated violations and $70,000 for serious violations.

Section 654, cross-referenced in the OSHA enforcement penalty code, outlines the law requiring workplaces to be ''free from recognized hazards'' causing harm or death:

29 U.S. Code § 654 - Duties of employers and employees

(a) Each employer'--

(1) shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees;

(2) shall comply with occupational safety and health standards promulgated under this chapter.

(b) Each employee shall comply with occupational safety and health standards and all rules, regulations, and orders issued pursuant to this chapter which are applicable to his own actions and conduct [emphasis added].

OSHA has already published a rule this year claiming Covid-19 is a workplace hazard, and the agency is using this provision of law to assert and enforce its authority. It is likely the new rule to enforce Biden's mandate will also use this authority, and by extension use the fines upon enforcement.

Huge Crippling OSHA Fines, Likely By DesignThe crippling change described on page 168 of the Democrats' bill isn't a typo or a clerical error. It was inserted by design and, likely, with the hope that no one would notice before Democrats ram the bill through Congress.

If enacted, it could bankrupt a whole host of companies that do not believe they should have to comply with the Biden administration's mandate or harbor the cost of intrusive, weekly tests.

In its June 2021 emergency rule affecting health care workers, OSHA complained it was having a hard time motivating employers with its paltry $13,653 fine:

''OSHA has been limited in its ability to impose penalties high enough to motivate the very large employers who are unlikely to be deterred by penalty assessments of tens of thousands of dollars, but whose noncompliance can endanger thousands of workers '...''

The CriticsSome have openly discussed businesses defying the mandate and taking their risks with OSHA fines. For example, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) tweeted that businesses ''should openly rebel'' against any OSHA rule.

It's one thing to defy a $14,000 fine. It's quite another to risk incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. One or two disgruntled employees, for example, could bring an employer $70,000-$140,000 in OSHA fines. If considered ''willful,'' as per Rep. Roy's tweet '-- just three ''violations'' could quickly become a $2.1 million OSHA fine.

Conclusion: If its provision becomes law, the Biden administration may force American businesses to choose between vaccinating their employees, testing them weekly for Covid-19, or going bankrupt under crippling OSHA fines.

In September, Biden warned the tens of millions of Americans who have declined vaccination against Covid-19, ''We've been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us.''

Now the Democrats in the House are hoping to make employers foot the bill for that ''cost'' in the form of fines and bankruptcy.

Republicans might want to read page 168 of the Democrats' bill. After all, as we like to say at OpenTheBooks.com, the text of the bill is online in real time.

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 04:22

The media now has a name to show Left wing agitators were at the Capitol on January 6; John Sullivan''a man so radical Black Lives Matter kicked him out '-- has a family history of dangerous behavior

Air Force Major General Kevin Sullivan was caught giving nuclear fuses to who knows who'...Now his son has been indicted for involvement with the attack on the Capitol.

With the sketchy cover story that he was making a documentary on the attack on the capitol on January 6, John Sullivan was on the front lines of seemingly every moment of the melee. He was there when Asli Babbit was shot. He was there when the guy in the furs and face paint took the dias. He was there when windows were being broken. How did he manage to be everywhere at once?

More disturbingly, who is he really? Rolling Stone reports his language was so violent and dangerous that Black Lives Matter voted him out. Certainly no legitimate news company would hire a liability like him. Like so much going on, we have to look at the bigger picture, and the darker forces at work.

John's father is ''Retired'' Major General Kevin J. Sullivan of the U.S. Airforce. He was caught in a shady deal transferring nuclear fuses via Taiwan. The official paper work swept it under the rug '-- and sent him off with a slap on the wrist '-- forced retirement '-- in order to keep the indecent quiet. But even Acting Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told NBC News at the time, ''I cannot ignore the breach of trust.'' Read this to mean''too many people knew about what happened to just keep it secret.

''The unleashing of the fuses wasn't discovered until 2008,'' an aerospace industry analyst with intelligence ties and knowledge of the case told us. ''Who knows what else he gave away before he was caught and to whom. Our best guess is that Beijing was working to get supplies through to Tehran. ''

Sullivan went on to take a lucrative job brokering military contracts '' a typical 'hush money'' type deal.

''Here's how it looks to me,'' said the analyst. ''Dad was sidelined. The son was indoctrinated''turned into a Trojan Horse for the Chinese. Maybe he thought it was for ideological reasons '-- at the bottom levels people often do '-- but at its core it almost certainly involved massive amounts of money.''

Watch the real news at Filmon.com/News.

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 02:23

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 02:18

ContentsMarcus Garvey's Early Years Universal Negro Improvement Association Marcus Garvey Quotes and Black NationalismBlack Star Line J. Edgar Hoover Spies on Marcus GarveyMarcus Garvey After PrisonDeath of Marcus GarveyLegacy of Marcus GarveySources Marcus Garvey was a Jamaican-born Black nationalist and leader of the Pan-Africanism movement, which sought to unify and connect people of African descent worldwide. In the United States, he was a noted civil rights activist who founded the Negro World newspaper, a shipping company called Black Star Line and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, or UNIA, a fraternal organization of black nationalists. As a group, they advocated for ''separate but equal'' status for persons of African ancestry, and as such they sought to establish independent Black states around the world, notably in Liberia on the west coast of Africa.

Marcus Garvey's Early Years Marcus Moziah Garvey was born on August 17, 1887 in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica to Marcus Garvey Sr. and Sarah Jane Richards. His father was a stonemason and his mother was a household servant. Though the couple had 11 children, only Marcus and one other sibling survived into adulthood.

Garvey attended school in Jamaica until he was 14, when he left St. Ann's Bay for Kingston, the island nation's capital, where he worked as an apprentice in a print shop. He later said he first experienced racism in grade school in Jamaica, primarily from white teachers.

While working in the print shop, Garvey became involved in the labor union for print tradesmen in Kingston. This work would set the stage for his activism later in life.

Garvey spent time in Central America, where he had relatives, before moving to London in 1912. While in Britain, he attended the University of London's Birkbeck College, where he studied law and philosophy.

He also worked for a Pan-Africanism newspaper and led debates at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, London, a famous spot in the city for public discourse, even today.

Universal Negro Improvement Association After two years in London'--where he received an education that would likely have been unavailable to him in the Americas because of the color of his skin'--Garvey returned to Jamaica. It was during this time that he started the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

Garvey also began corresponding with Booker T. Washington, the African American leader, author and activist who had been born into slavery. In 1916, Garvey boarded a ship bound for the United States, where'--as a dramatic and invigorating public speaker'--he intended to go on a lecture tour.

He ended up settling in New York City, where he first spoke at the famous St. Mark's Church before embarking on a 38-city speaking tour. He also took on work in a print shop to make ends meet.

While in New York, he authored the ''Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World,'' which was ratified at the convention of the Universal Negro Improvement Association at Madison Square Garden in 1920. It was during this meeting that Garvey was also elected ''Provisional President'' of Africa.

Marcus Garvey Quotes and Black NationalismIn many of his lectures, Garvey summarized his views on the rights of African Americans by noting, ''The first dying that is to be done by the Black man in the future will be done to make himself free. And then when we are finished, if we have any charity to bestow, we may die for the white man. But as for me, I think I have stopped dying for him.''

He also told members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1921, ''If you want liberty you yourselves must strike the blow. If you must be free, you must become so through your own effort '... Until you produce what the white man has produced you will not be his equal.''

Black Star Line Garvey established the first U.S. chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1917 in Harlem, and began publishing the Negro World newspaper. Soon, his speaking engagements took on an angry tone, in which he questioned how the United States could call itself a democracy when across the country people of color were still oppressed.

By 1919, he and his associates set up the shipping company Black Star Line under the auspices of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which by then had grown to include more than four million members.

Not long after the Black Star Line had purchased its first ship, the S.S. Yarmouth, and rechristened it the S.S. Frederick Douglass, the company began its ''African Redemption'' Liberia program, with the idea of establishing a nation on the west coast of Africa for African Americans, or those who were born into slavery or were the descendants of enslaved people.

Garvey was married twice: His first marriage to Amy Ashwood, who was a fellow activist in the Universal Negro Improvement Association, ended in divorce in 1922.

Later that year, Garvey married Amy Jacques, who was also active in social causes. The couple had two sons together, Marcus Mosiah Garvey III and Julius Winston Garvey.

READ MORE: How a Movement to Send Formerly Enslaved People to Africa Created Liberia

J. Edgar Hoover Spies on Marcus GarveyBecause of his outspoken activism and Black nationalism, Garvey became a target of J. Edgar Hoover at the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), a precursor to the FBI. The BOI began investigating Garvey on charges of mail fraud in connection with a brochure for the Black Star Line that included a photo of a ship before the company actually had a vessel in its fleet. Hoover, who referred to Garvey as a ''notorious negro agitator,'' even hired the first Black FBI agent in 1919 to spy on Garvey.

In 1923, after a controversial trial, Garvey was found guilty of these charges and sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison. He blamed a Jewish judge and Jewish jurors for his conviction, saying that they sought retribution against him after he had agreed to meet with the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.) several months prior to the trial.

Garvey believed he and the K.K.K. shared similar views on segregation, given that he sought a separate state for African Americans.

He began serving his sentence at Atlanta Prison in 1925. It's from there that he authored his famous paper ''First Message to the Negroes of the World from Atlanta Prison.''

In it, he wrote, ''After my enemies are satisfied, in life or death I shall come back to you to serve even as I have served before. In life I shall be the same; in death I shall be a terror to the foes of Negro liberty. If death has power, then count on me in death to be the real Marcus Garvey I would like to be. If I may come in an earthquake, or a cyclone, or plague, or pestilence, or as God would have me, then be assured that I shall never desert you and make your enemies triumph over you.''

Marcus Garvey After PrisonWhen he was released from prison in 1928 after serving three years of his sentence, Garvey travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, to speak to the League of Nations on issues of race and the worldwide abuse of people of color.

A few months later, he returned to Jamaica where he established the People's Political Party, that nation's first modern political organization. Its platform focused on workers' rights and the poor.

Death of Marcus GarveyIn 1935, Garvey returned to London where he lived and worked until his death at age 52. Marcus Garvey died on June 10, 1940 from complications brought on by two strokes. Due to World War II travel restrictions, he was originally buried in St. Mary's Roman Catholic cemetery in Kensal Green, London. But on November 13, 1964, his body was exhumed and buried beneath the Marcus Garvey Memorial in National Heroes Park in Kingston, Jamaica.

Legacy of Marcus GarveyWhile in London, Garvey continued to write and coordinated the establishment of the School of African Philosophy in Toronto to train future leaders of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. By then, the organization had more than a thousand chapters worldwide.

Although his legacy as a leader and activist lives on, Garvey's separatist and Black Nationalist views were not embraced by many of his peers. In fact, W.E.B. Du Bois of the NAACP famously said, ''Marcus Garvey is the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world.''

However, Garvey's supporters prefer to focus on his key message, which was steeped in African American pride. After all, he is credited with coining the phrase ''Black is beautiful.''

His philosophy is perhaps best exemplified in the following quote: ''We must canonize our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honor Black men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history '... I am the equal of any white man; I want you to feel the same way.''

Sources Marcus Garvey: Civil Rights Activist. Biography.com.

Hill, R.A. ''Marcus Garvey: The Negro Moses.'' New York Public Library.

Van Leeuwen, D. ''Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association.'' National Humanities Center. humanitiescenter.org.

Friedman, J. (2018). ''From Jamaica's Marcus Garvey came an African vision of freedom.'' USAToday.com.

Garvey, M. (1925). ''First Message to the Negroes of the World from Atlanta Prison.'' hartford-hwp.com.

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 01:53

2014 American film

The Newburgh StingThe Newburgh Sting (2014) documentary film

Directed byKate Davis, David HeilbronerWritten byDavid HeilbronerProduced byKate Davis, David HeilbronerProductioncompany

Q-Ball Productions

Release date

Running time

80 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishThe Newburgh Sting is a 2014 documentary film about the Federal Bureau of Investigation's sting operation on four Muslim men involved in the 2009 Bronx terrorism plot. Beginning in 2008, an FBI informant, Shaheed Hussain, recorded hours of conversations with the men who were ultimately arrested and convicted of planting three non-functional bombs next to two synagogues in Riverdale, Bronx and for planning to use Stinger missiles to shoot down United States military cargo planes near Newburgh, New York. The documentary shows that the four men were coaxed into participating in the plot by an FBI informant and offered incentives including $250,000. The men's lawyers, including Sam Braverman, who is featured prominently in the film, argue that this was a case of entrapment.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Also featured in the film is Michael German, a former undercover FBI agent and a current fellow in the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security program.

Awards [ edit ] The film was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival. It won a Peabody Award and a Founder's Prize special award at the Traverse City Film Festival.[8][9]

References [ edit ] External links [ edit ] HBO Documentary FilmsThe Newburgh Sting at IMDb

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 01:37

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)

Far from being the zealous champion of civil rights that it presents itself to be, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has followed a consistent pattern of defending designated terrorist organizations and their supporters, opposing U.S. counterterrorism efforts and spouting anti-Semitic rhetoric.

That is the key conclusion drawn in a thorough, carefully documented 88-page report on the organization prepared by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).

Beginning life in 1986 as the Muslim Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC), MPAC split off two years later and adopted its new name-- one that managed to preserve the same acronym. Though it is now independent, the two organizations remain closely intertwined.

One example of that close connection was The Minaret, a now-defunct monthly magazine affiliated with the ICSC. Many MPAC officials worked simultaneously with The Minaret itself until it ceased publication in 2005.

Articles and editorials in the magazine, including those by MPAC members, downplayed the threat posed by Islamic extremists, served up inflammatory rhetoric about Jews and Zionism, and repeated conspiracy theories about both the 1993 and September 11, 2001 World Trade Center bombings.

MPAC's public advocacy often involves defending accused terror financiers and opposing law enforcement efforts to root out terrorists and their enablers.

In nearly every case, MPAC has responded to investigations by the FBI and the U.S. Treasury Department with complaints that authorities have not proven their allegations, and variations on the constant themes that enforcement actions unfairly single out Muslim groups and "bear strong signs of politicization."

At the same time, MPAC has been equally diligent in defending individual terrorists uncovered by federal investigations.

The result of this approach has been to foster mutual distrust between American Muslims and the broader U.S. society, and so to undermine relations between the two.

Examples of all of these criticisms can be seen in our full report on MPAC here.

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 01:06

Contention as to what terrorism is

There is no universal agreement on the legal definition of terrorism,[1][2][3] although there exists a consensus academic definition created by scholars.[4]

Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions of terrorism, and governments have been reluctant to formulate an agreed-upon and legally binding definition. Difficulties arise from the fact that the term has become politically and emotionally charged.[5] A simple definition proposed to the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) by terrorism studies scholar Alex P. Schmid in 1992, based on the already internationally accepted definition of war crimes, as "peacetime equivalents of war crimes",[6] was not accepted.[7][4]

Scholars have worked on creating various academic definitions, reaching a consensus definition published by Schmid and A. J. Jongman in 1988, with a longer revised version published by Schmid in 2011,[4] some years after he had written that "the price for consensus [had] led to a reduction of complexity".[8]

The United Nations General Assembly condemned terrorist acts by using the following political description of terrorism in December 1994 (GA Res. 49/60):[9]

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.

In the United States of America, terrorism is defined in Title 22 Chapter 38, of the U.S. Code as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents".[10]

Etymology [ edit ] A 30 January 1795 use of the word 'terrorism' in

The Times, an early appearance in English. The excerpt reads: "There exists more than one system to overthrow our liberty. Fanaticism has raised every passion; Royalism has not yet given up its hopes, and Terrorism feels bolder than ever."

The term "terrorism" comes from French terrorisme, from Latin: terror, "great fear", "dread", related to the Latin verb terrere, "to frighten". The terror cimbricus was a panic and state of emergency in Rome in response to the approach of warriors of the Cimbri tribe in 105 BCE.

The French National Convention declared in September 1793 that "terror is the order of the day". The period 1793''94 is referred to as La Terreur (Reign of Terror). Maximilien Robespierre, a leader in the French revolution proclaimed in 1794 that "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible."[11]The Committee of Public Safety agents that enforced the policies of "The Terror" were referred to as "Terrorists".[12] The word "terrorism" was first recorded in English-language dictionaries in 1798 as meaning "systematic use of terror as a policy".[13]

Although the Reign of Terror was imposed by the French government, in modern times "terrorism" usually refers to the killing of people by non-governmental political activists for political reasons, often as a public statement. This meaning originated with Russian radicals in the 1870s. Sergey Nechayev, who founded the People's Reprisal (Ð'аÑодная ÑасÐÑава) in 1869, described himself as a "terrorist".[14] German radicalist writer Johann Most helped popularize the modern sense of the word by dispensing "advice for terrorists" in the 1880s.[15]

According to Myra Williamson (2009): "The meaning of "terrorism" has undergone a transformation. During the reign of terror a regime or system of terrorism was used as an instrument of governance, wielded by a recently established revolutionary state against the enemies of the people. Now the term "terrorism" is commonly used to describe terrorist acts committed by non-state or subnational entities against a state".[16]

General criteria [ edit ] Terrorism has been described[by whom? ] as:[citation needed ]

The use of violence or of the threat of violence in the pursuit of political, religious, ideological or social objectivesActs committed by non-state actors (or by undercover personnel serving on the behalf of their respective governments)Acts reaching more than the immediate target victims and also directed at targets consisting of a larger spectrum of societyBoth mala prohibita (i.e., crime that is made illegal by legislation) and mala in se (i.e., crime that is inherently immoral or wrong)The following criteria of violence or threat of violence usually fall outside of the definition of terrorism:[17][18]

Wartime (including a declared war) or peacetime acts of violence committed by a nation state against another nation state regardless of legality or illegality and are carried out by properly uniformed forces or legal combatants of such nation statesReasonable acts of self-defense, such as the use of force to kill, apprehend, or punish criminals who pose a threat to the lives of humans or propertyLegitimate targets in war, such as enemy combatants and strategic infrastructure that form an integral part of the enemy's war effort such as defense industries and portsCollateral damage, including the infliction of incidental damage to non-combatant targets during an attack on or attempting to attack legitimate targets in warIn international law [ edit ] The need to define terrorism in international criminal law [ edit ] Schmid (2004) summarised many sources when he wrote: "It is widely agreed that international terrorism can only be fought by international cooperation". If states do not agree on what constitutes terrorism, the chances of cooperation between countries is reduced; for example, agreement is needed so that extradition is possible.[8]

Ben Saul has noted (2008): "A combination of pragmatic and principled arguments supports the case for defining terrorism in international law". Reasons for why terrorism needs to be defined by the international community include the need to condemn violations to human rights; to protect the state and its constitional orders which protects rights; to differentiate public and private violence; to ensure international peace and security, and "control the operation of mandatory Security Council measures since 2001".[19][20]

Carlos Diaz-Paniagua, who coordinated the negotiations of the proposed United Nations Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (proposed in 1996 and note yet achieved), noted (2008) the need to provide a precise definition of terrorist activities in international law: "Criminal law has three purposes: to declare that a conduct is forbidden, to prevent it, and to express society's condemnation for the wrongful acts. The symbolic, normative role of criminalization is of particular importance in the case of terrorism. The criminalization of terrorist acts expresses society's repugnance at them, invokes social censure and shame, and stigmatizes those who commit them. Moreover, by creating and reaffirming values, criminalization may serve, in the long run, as a deterrent to terrorism, as those values are internalized." Thus, international criminal law treaties that seek to prevent, condemn and punish terrorist activities, require precise definitions:[21]

The definition of the offence in criminal law treaty plays several roles. First and foremost, it has the symbolic, normative role of expressing society's condemnation of the forbidden acts. Second, it facilitates agreement. Since states tend to be reluctant to undertake stringent obligations in matters related to the exercise of their domestic jurisdiction, a precise definition of the crime, which restricts the scope of those obligations, makes agreement less costly. Third, it provides an inter-subjective basis for the homogeneous application of the treaty's obligations on judicial and police cooperation. This function is of particular importance in extradition treaties because, to grant an extradition, most legal systems require that the crime be punishable both in the requesting state and the requested state. Fourth, it helps states to enact domestic legislation to criminalize and punish the wrongful acts defined in the treaty in conformity with their human rights' obligations. The principle of nullum crimen sine lege requires, in particular, that states define precisely which acts are prohibited before anyone can be prosecuted or punished for committing those same acts.

Saul noted in this sense that, missing a generally agreed, all-encompassing, definition of the term:[19]

'Terrorism' currently lacks the precision, objectivity and certainty demanded by legal discourse. Criminal law strives to avoid emotive terms to prevent prejudice to an accused, and shuns ambiguous or subjective terms as incompatible with the principle of non-retroactivity. If the law is to admit the term, advance definition is essential on grounds of fairness, and it is not sufficient to leave definition to the unilateral interpretations of States. Legal definition could plausibly retrieve terrorism from the ideological quagmire, by severing an agreed legal meaning from the remainder of the elastic, political concept. Ultimately it must do so without criminalizing legitimate violent resistance to oppressive regimes '' and becoming complicit in that oppression.

Obstacles to a comprehensive definition [ edit ] There are many reasons for the failure to achieve universal consensus regarding the definition of terrorism, not least that it is such a "complex and multidimensional phenomenon". In addition, the term has been used broadly, to describe so many different incidents and events that scholar Louise Richardson has said that the term "has become so widely used in many contexts as to become almost meaningless". An analysis of 73 different definitions in 2004 came up with only five common elements, which excluded any reference to victims, fear/terror, motive, non-combatant targets or the criminal nature of the tactics used.[8]

Historically, the dispute on the meaning of terrorism arose since the laws of war were first codified in 1899. The Martens Clause was introduced as a compromise wording for the dispute between the Great Powers who considered francs-tireurs to be unlawful combatants subject to execution on capture, and smaller states who maintained that they should be considered lawful combatants.[22][23]

More recently the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, which applies in situations Article 1. Paragraph 4 "... in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes...", contains many ambiguities that cloud the issue of who is or is not a legitimate combatant.[24]

In a briefing paper for the Australian Parliament in 2002, Angus Martyn resported that "[t]he international community [had] never succeeded in developing an accepted comprehensive definition of terrorism. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United Nations attempts to define the term foundered mainly due to differences of opinion between various members about the use of violence in the context of conflicts over national liberation and self-determination."[25] These divergences have made it impossible to conclude a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that incorporates a single, all-encompassing, legally binding, criminal-law definition of terrorism. In the meantime, the international community adopted a series of sectoral conventions that define and criminalize various types of terrorist activities.[21]

Diaz-Paniagua (2008) has noted that, to "create an effective legal regime against terrorism, it would be necessary to formulate a comprehensive definition of that crime that, on the one hand, provides the strongest moral condemnation to terrorist activities while, on the other hand, has enough precision to permit the prosecution of criminal activities without condemning acts that should be deemed to be legitimate".[26] Nonetheless, due to major divergences at the international level on the question of the legitimacy of the use of violence for political purposes, either by states or by self-determination and revolutionary groups, this has not yet been possible."[21] In this sense, M. Cherif Bassiouni (1988) notes:

to define 'terrorism' in a way that is both all-inclusive and unambiguous is very difficult, if not impossible. One of the principle difficulties lies in the fundamental values at stake in the acceptance or rejection of terror-inspiring violence as means of accomplishing a given goal. The obvious and well known range of views on these issues are what makes an internationally accepted specific definition of what is loosely called 'terrorism,' a largely impossible undertaking. That is why the search for and internationally agreed upon definition may well be a futile and unnecessary effort.[27]

Sami Zeidan, a diplomat and scholar, explained the political reasons underlying the current difficulties to define terrorism as follows (2004):

There is no general consensus on the definition of terrorism. The difficulty of defining terrorism lies in the risk it entails of taking positions. The political value of the term currently prevails over its legal one. Left to its political meaning, terrorism easily falls prey to change that suits the interests of particular states at particular times. The Taliban and Osama bin Laden were once called freedom fighters (mujahideen) and backed by the CIA when they were resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Now they are on top of the international terrorist lists. Today, the United Nations views Palestinians as freedom fighters, struggling against the unlawful occupation of their land by Israel, and engaged in a long-established legitimate resistance, yet Israel regards them as terrorists [...] The repercussion of the current preponderance of the political over the legal value of terrorism is costly, leaving the war against terrorism selective, incomplete and ineffective.[28]

In the same vein, Jason Burke (2003), a British reporter who writes about radical Islamist activity, said:

There are multiple ways of defining terrorism, and all are subjective. Most define terrorism as "the use or threat of serious violence" to advance some kind of "cause". Some state clearly the kinds of group ("sub-national", "non-state") or cause (political, ideological, religious) to which they refer. Others merely rely on the instinct of most people when confronted with innocent civilians being killed or maimed by men armed with explosives, firearms or other weapons. None is satisfactory, and grave problems with the use of the term persist. Terrorism is after all, a tactic. The term "war on terrorism" is thus effectively nonsensical. As there is no space here to explore this involved and difficult debate, my preference is, on the whole, for the less loaded term "Militancy". This is not an attempt to condone such actions, merely to analyse them in a clearer way.[29]

The political and emotional connotation of the term "terrorism" makes difficult its use in legal discourse. In this sense, Saul (2004) notes that:

Despite the shifting and contested meaning of "terrorism" over time, the peculiar semantic power of the term, beyond its literal signification, is its capacity to stigmatize, delegitimize, denigrate, and dehumanize those at whom it is directed, including political opponents. The term is ideologically and politically loaded; pejorative; implies moral, social, and value judgment; and is "slippery and much-abused." In the absence of a definition of terrorism, the struggle over the representation of a violent act is a struggle over its legitimacy. The more confused a concept, the more it lends itself to opportunistic appropriation.[30]

As scholar Bruce Hoffman (1998) has noted: "terrorism is a pejorative term. It is a word with intrinsically negative connotations that is generally applied to one's enemies and opponents, or to those with whom one disagrees and would otherwise prefer to ignore. (...) Hence the decision to call someone or label some organization 'terrorist' becomes almost unavoidably subjective, depending largely on whether one sympathizes with or opposes the person/group/cause concerned. If one identifies with the victim of the violence, for example, then the act is terrorism. If, however, one identifies with the perpetrator, the violent act is regarded in a more sympathetic, if not positive (or, at the worst, an ambivalent) light; and it is not terrorism."[5] For this and for political reasons, many news sources (such as Reuters) avoid using this term, opting instead for less accusatory words like "bombers", "militants", etc.[31][32]

The term has been depicted as carrying racist, xenophobic and ethnocentric connotations when used as an ethnic slur aimed at Arabs or Middle Easterners, or at someone of Arab or Greater Middle Eastern descent or when used by white supremacists.[33][34][35][36][37][38]

These difficulties led Pamala Griset (2003) to conclude that: "the meaning of terrorism is embedded in a person's or nation's philosophy. Thus, the determination of the 'right' definition of terrorism is subjective".[39]

The sectoral approach [ edit ] To elaborate an effective legal regime to prevent and punish international terrorism'--rather than only working on a single, all-encompassing, comprehensive definition of terrorism'--the international community has also adopted a "...'sectoral' approach aimed at identifying offences seen as belonging to the activities of terrorists and working out treaties in order to deal with specific categories thereof".[40] The treaties that follow this approach focus on the wrongful nature of terrorist activities rather than on their intent:

On the whole, therefore, the 'sectoral' conventions confirm the assumption that some offences can be considered in themselves as offences of international concern, irrespective of any 'terrorist' intent or purpose. Indeed, the principal merit of the 'sectoral approach' is that it avoids the need to define 'terrorism' of 'terrorist acts' ... So long as the 'sectoral' approach is followed, there is no need to define terrorism; a definition would only be necessary if the punishment of the relevant offences were made conditional on the existence of a specific 'terrorist' intent; but this would be counter-productive, inasmuch as it would result in unduly restricting their suppression.[40]

Following this approach, the international community adopted 12 sectoral counter-terrorism conventions, open to the ratification of all states, between 1963 and 2005 (see below), relating to types of acts (such as aboard an aircraft, taking hostages, bombings, nuclar terrorism, etc.).[21]

Analyzing these treaties, Andrew Byrnes observed that:[41]

These conventions '' all of which are described by the United Nations as part of its panoply of anti-terrorist measures '' share three principal characteristics:

(a) they all adopted an "operational definition" of a specific type of terrorist act that was defined without reference to the underlying political or ideological purpose or motivation of the perpetrator of the act '' this reflected a consensus that there were some acts that were such a serious threat to the interests of all that they could not be justified by reference to such motives;

(b) they all focused on actions by non-state actors (individuals and organisations) and the State was seen as an active ally in the struggle against terrorism '' the question of the State itself as terrorist actor was left largely to one side; and

(c) they all adopted a criminal law enforcement model to address the problem, under which States would cooperate in the apprehension and prosecution of those alleged to have committed these crimes.

Byrnes notes that "this act-specific approach to addressing problems of terrorism in binding international treaties has continued up until relatively recently. Although political denunciation of terrorism in all its forms had continued apace, there had been no successful attempt to define 'terrorism' as such in a broad sense that was satisfactory for legal purposes. There was also some scepticism as to the necessity, desirability and feasibility of producing an agreed and workable general definition." Nonetheless, the same committee of the United Nations General Assembly which authored the 1997 Bombing Convention and the 1999 Financing Convention has been working on a proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, given renewed impetus by the September 11 attacks in 2001.[41]

Comprehensive conventions [ edit ] The international community has worked on two comprehensive counter-terrorism treaties, the League of Nations' 1937 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism, which never entered into force, and the United Nations' proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, which has not yet been finalized.

League of Nations (1930s) [ edit ] In the late 1930s, the international community made a first attempt at defining terrorism. Article 1.1 of the League of Nations' 1937 Convention for the prevention and punishment of Terrorism defined "acts of terrorism" as "criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public". Article 2 included as terrorist acts, if they were directed against another state and if they constituted acts of terrorism within the meaning of the definition contained in article 1, the following:[42]

1. Any willful act causing death or grievous bodily harm or loss of liberty to:

a) Heads of State, persons exercising the prerogatives of the head of the State, their hereditary or designated successors;b) The wives or husbands of the above-mentioned persons;c) Persons charged with public functions or holding public positions when the act is directed against them in their public capacity.2. Willful destruction of, or damage to, public property or property devoted to a public purpose belonging to or subject to the authority of another High Contracting Party.

3. Any willful act calculated to endanger the lives of members of the public.

4. Any attempt to commit an offence falling within the foregoing provisions of the present article.

5. The manufacture, obtaining, possession, or supplying of arms, ammunition, explosives or harmful substances with the view to the commission in any country whatsoever of an offence falling within the present article.

These articles which never entered into force, owing to lack of support.[8]

UN Comprehensive Convention (1997''present) [ edit ] In 1996 an Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism was set up, with the remit of drafting several conventions condemning various aspects of terrorism, with the intention of producing a final Comprehensive Convention which would either supplement or replace the series of sectoral conventions.[8]

Since January 1997, the United Nations General Assembly has been negotiating a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. The definition of the crime of terrorism on the negotiating table reads as follows (GA Resolution 51/210, Declaration to Supplement the 1994 Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism, December 1996; adopted January 1997[43][44]):[45]

1. Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person, by any means, unlawfully and intentionally, causes:

(a) Death or serious bodily injury to any person; or(b) Serious damage to public or private property, including a place of public use, a State or government facility, a public transportation system, an infrastructure facility or the environment; or(c) Damage to property, places, facilities, or systems referred to in paragraph 1 (b) of this article, resulting or likely to result in major economic loss, when the purpose of the conduct, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.Among the negotiators, the 1996/7 definition is not controversial in itself; the deadlock in the negotiations arises instead from the opposing views on whether such a definition would be applicable to the armed forces of a state and to self-determination movements. Thalif Deen described the situation as follows: "The key sticking points in the draft treaty revolve around several controversial yet basic issues, including the definition of ´terrorism´. For example, what distinguishes a "terrorist organisation" from a 'liberation movement'? And do you exclude activities of national armed forces, even if they are perceived to commit acts of terrorism? If not, how much of this constitutes 'state terrorism'?"[46]

In 2002, the coordinator of the negotiations, supported by most western delegations, proposed the following exceptions to address those issues:[47]

1. Nothing in this Convention shall affect other rights, obligations and responsibilities of States, peoples and individuals under international law, in particular the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and international humanitarian law.

2. The activities of armed forces during an armed conflict, as those terms are understood under international humanitarian law, which are governed by that law, are not governed by this Convention.

3. The activities undertaken by the military forces of a State in the exercise of their official duties, inasmuch as they are governed by other rules of international law, are not governed by this Convention.

4. Nothing in this article condones or makes lawful otherwise unlawful acts, nor precludes prosecution under other laws.

The state members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference proposed instead the following exceptions:

2. The activities of 'the parties' during an armed conflict, 'including in situations of foreign occupation', as those terms are understood under international humanitarian law, which are governed by that law, are not governed by this Convention.3. The activities undertaken by the military forces of a State in the exercise of their official duties, 'inasmuch as they are in conformity' with international law, are not governed by this Convention.[47]

Sectoral conventions (1963''2005) [ edit ] The various sectoral counter-terrorism conventions, or treaties, define as terrorist particular categories of activities. These include:[21]

The 1963 Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed On Board AircraftThe 1970 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of AircraftThe 1971 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil AviationThe 1979 International Convention against the Taking of HostagesThe 1979 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear MaterialThe 1988 Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports Serving International Civil AviationThe 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime NavigationThe 1988 Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental ShelfThe 1991 Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of IdentificationThe 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist BombingsThe 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of TerrorismThe 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism1997: Terrorist Bombings Convention [ edit ] Article 2.1 of the 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings defines the offence of terrorist bombing as follows:

Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person unlawfully and intentionally delivers, places, discharges or detonates an explosive or other lethal device in, into or against a place of public use, a State or government facility, a public transportation system or an infrastructure facility:

a) With the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury; orb) With the intent to cause extensive destruction of such a place, facility or system, where such a destruction results in or is likely to result in major economic loss.[48]Article 19 expressly excluded from the scope of the convention certain activities of state armed forces and of self-determination movements as follows:

1. Nothing in this Convention shall affect other rights, obligations and responsibilities of States, and individuals under international law, in particular the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and international humanitarian law.2. The activities of armed forces during an armed conflict, as those terms are understood under international humanitarian law, which are governed by that law, are not governed by this Convention, and the activities undertaken by the military forces of a State in the exercise of their official duties, inasmuch as they are governed by other rules of international law, are not governed by this Convention.[49]

1999: Terrorist Financing Convention [ edit ] Article 2.1 of the 1999 sectoral United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (Terrorist Financing Convention) defines the crime of terrorist financing as the offence committed by "any person" who "by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out" an act "intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act."

2005: Nuclear Terrorism Convention [ edit ] The 2005 United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism defines the crime of nuclear terrorism as follows:

Article 2

1. Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person unlawfully and intentionally:(a) Possesses radioactive material or makes or possesses a device:

(i) With the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury; or(ii) With the intent to cause substantial damage to property or to the environment;(b) Uses in any way radioactive material or a device, or uses or damages a nuclear facility in a manner which releases or risks the release of radioactive material:

(i) With the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury; or(ii) With the intent to cause substantial damage to property or to the environment; or(iii) With the intent to compel a natural or legal person, an international organization or a State to do or refrain from doing an act.[50]Article 4 of the convention expressly excluded from the application of the convention the use of nuclear weapons during armed conflicts without, though, recognizing the legality of the use of those weapons:

1. Nothing in this Convention shall affect other rights, obligations and responsibilities of States and individuals under international law, in particular the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international humanitarian law.

2. The activities of armed forces during an armed conflict, as those terms are understood under international humanitarian law, which are governed by that law are not governed by this Convention, and the activities undertaken by military forces of a State in the exercise of their official duties, inasmuch as they are governed by other rules of international law, are not governed by this Convention.

3. The provisions of paragraph 2 of the present article shall not be interpreted as condoning or making lawful otherwise unlawful acts, or precluding prosecution under other laws.

4. This Convention does not address, nor can it be interpreted as addressing, in any way, the issue of the legality of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons by States.[51]

Definitions of terrorism in other UN decisions [ edit ] In parallel with the criminal law codification efforts, some United Nations organs have put forward some broad political definitions of terrorism.[citation needed ]

The United Nations did not focus any debate on terrorism until 1972, after the terrorist attack at the Olympic Games in Munich.[8]

UN General Assembly Resolutions (1972, 1994/6) [ edit ] In 1972 the General Assembly passed a resolution entitiled "Measures to prevent international terrorism which endangers or takes innocent human lives or jeopardises fundamental freedoms, and study of the underlying causes of those forms of terrorism and acts ofviolence which lie in misery, frustration, grievance and despair, and which cause some people to sacrifice human lives, including their own, in anattempt to effect radical changes". An Ad Hoc Committee on International Terrorism, consisting of three sub-committees, was established, but no consensus was reached on the various draft proposals submitted, and the matter was again put aside until the Cold War had ended (1991).[8]

In 1994, the General Assembly agreed on a declaration that terrorism was "criminal and unjustifiable", condemning all such acts "wherever and by whomever committed",[8][52] in its Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism (GA Res. 49/60).[53][43]

A 1996 non-binding United Nations Declaration to Supplement the 1994 Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism (which described terrorism as "Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them"[9]) annexed to the UN General Assembly Resolution 51/210, described terrorist activities in the following terms:[54]

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.

Antonio Cassese has argued that the language of this and other similar UN declarations "sets out an acceptable definition of terrorism."[55]

Each year, a legal committee of the General Assembly meets to discuss international cooperation to counter terrorism, and in 2019 the committee "reaffirmed the importance of the negotiations on and successful conclusion of the draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism" and the need for consensus for this and in particular stressed "the importance of negotiating an internationally agreed definition of terrorism".[56]

UN Security Council (1999, 2004) [ edit ] In 1999, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1269 unanimously, which "unequivocally condemn[ed] all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation".[57]

In 2004, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1566 condemned terrorist acts as:

criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act, which constitute offences within the scope of and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature.

High-Level Panel (2004) [ edit ] Also in 2004, a High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change composed of independent experts and convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations called states to set aside their differences and to adopt, in the text of a proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, the following political "description of terrorism":

any action, in addition to actions already specified by the existing conventions on aspects of terrorism, the Geneva Conventions and Security Council resolution 1566 (2004), that is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.[58]

The following year, Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan endorsed the High Level Panel's definition of terrorism and asked states to set aside their differences and to adopt that definition within the proposed comprehensive terrorism convention before the end of that year. He said:

It is time to set aside debates on so-called "State terrorism". The use of force by states is already thoroughly regulated under international law. And the right to resist occupation must be understood in its true meaning. It cannot include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians. I endorse fully the High-level Panel's call for a definition of terrorism, which would make it clear that, in addition to actions already proscribed by existing conventions, any action constitutes terrorism if it is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a Government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act. I believe this proposal has clear moral force, and I strongly urge world leaders to unite behind it and to conclude a comprehensive convention on terrorism before the end of the sixtieth session of the General Assembly.[59]

The suggestion of incorporating this definition of terrorism into the comprehensive convention was rejected. Some United Nations' member states contended that a definition such as the one proposed by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, and endorsed by the Secretary General, lacked the necessary requirements to be incorporated in a criminal law instrument. Diaz-Paniagua stated that a comprehensive definition of terrorism to be included in a criminal law treaty must have "legal precision, certainty, and fair-labeling of the criminal conduct - all of which emanate from the basic human rights obligation to observe due process".[60][61]

European Union [ edit ] The European Union defines terrorism for legal/official purposes in Art. 1 of the Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism (2002). This provides that terrorist offences are certain criminal offences set out in a list consisting largely of serious offences against persons and property that:[62]

...given their nature or context, may seriously damage a country or an international organisation where committed with the aim of: seriously intimidating a population; or unduly compelling a Government or international organisation to perform or abstain from performing any act; or seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organisation.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization [ edit ] NATO defines terrorism in the AAP-06 NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions, Edition 2019 as "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence, instilling fear and terror, against individuals or property in an attempt to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, or to gain control over a population, to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives".[63][64]

In national law [ edit ] Australia [ edit ] As of April 2021[update], the Criminal Code Act 1995 (known as the Criminal Code), representing the federal government's criminal law and including Australia's laws against terrorism, defines "terrorist act" in Section 5.3.[65] The definition, after defining in (a) the harms that may be caused (and excluding accidental harm or various actions undertaken as advocacy) defines a terrorist act as:[66]

(b) the action is done or the threat is made with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause; and(c) the action is done or the threat is made with the intention of: (i) coercing, or influencing by intimidation, the government of the Commonwealth or a State, Territory or foreign country, or of part of a State, Territory or foreign country; or (ii) intimidating the public or a section of the public.Within the Criminal Code, a variety of offences are defined with reference to the definition of a terrorist act, for example financing terrorism, activities which advocate violent terrorist acts, etc.[66]

Argentina [ edit ] The Argentine National Reorganization Process dictatorship, which lasted from 1976 to 1983, defined "terrorist" as "not only who set bombs and carry guns, but also those who spread ideas opposite to Christian and western civilization".[citation needed ]

Brazil [ edit ] In 2016, Brazil passed a law that defines acts of terrorism and establishes punishment for committing, planning, enabling, sponsoring, inciting and participating in terrorist acts. The bill lists a series of acts that provoke social and general terror or endanger people, property, infrastructure, or public peace, for reasons of xenophobia, discrimination or prejudice of race, color, ethnicity and religion.[67] Shortly after the creation of the law, Federal Police's Operation Hashtag[68] arrested eleven suspects of planning a terrorist attack in the run-up to th 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.[citation needed ]

France [ edit ] In 1986, France adopted its first "anti-terrorism" law.[69] The French legal definition of "acts of terrorism" as in force since 2016 is to be found in the French Code p(C)nal, article 421. The article starts with:

Acts of terrorism '' provided they are intentional, connected to either an individual or a collective enterprise, and intended to gravely disturb the public order by way of intimidation or terror '' are: 1º deliberate assaults on life or on personal integrity; the hijacking of an aeroplane, ship or other means of transport; 2º theft, extorsion, destruction, degradation, deterioration; infractions on computerized information; ... [etc.][70]

India [ edit ] The Supreme Court of India quoted Alex P. Schmid's definition of terrorism in a 2003 ruling (Madan Singh vs. State of Bihar), "defin[ing] acts of terrorism veritably as 'peacetime equivalents of war crimes.'"[71][72]

The now lapsed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act specified the following definition of terrorism:

Whoever with intent to overawe the Government as by law established or to strike terror in the people or any section of the people or to alienate any section of the people or to adversely affect the harmony amongst different sections of the people does any act or thing by using bombs, dynamite or other explosive substances or inflammable substances or lethal weapons or poisons or noxious gases or other chemicals or by any other substances (whether biological or otherwise) of a hazardous nature in such a manner as to cause, or as is likely to cause, death of, or injuries to, any person or persons or loss of, or damage to, or destruction of, property or disruption of any supplies or services essential to the life of the community, or detains any person and threatens to kill or injure such person in order to compel the Government or any other person to do or abstain from doing any act, commits a terrorist act.

Pakistan [ edit ] The Pakistan Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 1999 states:

A person is said to commit a terrorist act if he,

(a) in order to, or if the effect of his actions will be to, strike terror or create a sense of fear and insecurity in the people, or any section of the people, does any act or thing by using bombs, dynamite or other explosive or inflammable substances, or such fire-arms or other lethal weapons as may be notified, or poisons or noxious gases or chemicals, in such a manner as to cause, or be likely to cause, the death of, or injury to, any person or persons, or damage to, or destruction of, property on a large scale, or a widespread disruption of supplies of services essential to the life of the community, or threatens with the use of force public servants in order to prevent them from discharging their lawful duties; or

(b) commits a scheduled offence, the effect of which will be, or be likely to be, to strike terror, or create a sense of fear and insecurity in the people, or any section of the people, or to adversely affect harmony among different sections of the people; or

(c) commits an act of gang rape, child molestation, or robbery coupled with rape as specified in the Schedule to this Act; or

(d) commits an act of civil commotion as specified in section &A."[73]

Saudi Arabia [ edit ] Saudi Interior Ministry issued a set of anti-terrorist laws in 2014. According to Article 1 and 2:

''Calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based'' and anyone who questions the King or the government or supports any group, party, organization other than that of the ruling elite inside or outside the Kingdom is a terrorist.[74][75]

Syria [ edit ] After the United States attack on Abu Kamal, the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem defined terrorism as "Killing civilians in international law means a terrorist aggression."[76]

Turkey [ edit ] The definition of "Terrorism" in Article 1 of Anti-Terror Law 3713 is: "Terrorism is any kind of act done by one or more persons belonging to an organization with the aim of changing the characteristics of the Republic as specified in the Constitution, its political, legal, social, secular and economic system, damaging the indivisible unity of the State with its territory and nation, endangering the existence of the Turkish State and Republic, weakening or destroying or seizing the authority of the State, eliminating fundamental rights and freedoms, or damaging the internal and external security of the State, public order or general health by means of pressure, force and violence, terror, intimidation, oppression or threat."[77]

United Kingdom [ edit ] The United Kingdom's Terrorism Act 2000 defined terrorism as follows:

(1) In this Act "terrorism" means the use or threat of action where:

(a) the action falls within subsection (2),(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public and(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.(2) Action falls within this subsection if it:

(a) involves serious violence against a person,(b) involves serious damage to property,(c) endangers a person's life, other than that of the person committing the action,(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public or(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.[78]Section 34 of the Terrorism Act 2006 amended sections 1(1)(b) and 113(1)(c) of Terrorism Act 2000 to include "international governmental organisations" in addition to "government".[citation needed ]

Successive Independent Reviewers of Terrorism Legislation (most recently in a report of July 2014) have commented on the UK's definition of terrorism.

United States [ edit ] U.S. Code (U.S.C.) [ edit ] Title 22, Chapter 38, Section 2656f, of the United States Code (regarding the Department of State) contains a definition of terrorism in its requirement that annual country reports on terrorism be submitted by the Secretary of State to Congress every year. It reads:[10]

[T]he term 'terrorism' means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.

Title 18 of the United States Code (regarding criminal acts and criminal procedure) defines international terrorism as:

(1) [T]he term 'international terrorism' means activities that '--

(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;(B) appear to be intended '--(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum".[79]Commenting on the genesis of this provision, Edward Peck, former U.S. Chief of Mission in Iraq (under Jimmy Carter) and former ambassador to Mauritania said:

In 1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, [my working group was asked] to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government. We produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities. ['...] After the task force concluded its work, Congress [passed] U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2331 ... the US definition of terrorism. ['...] one of the terms, "international terrorism," means "activities that," I quote, "appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping." ['...] Yes, well, certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. ['...] And so, the terrorist, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.[80]

U.S. Code of Federal Regulations [ edit ] The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).

U.S. Department of Defense [ edit ] The U.S. Department of Defense recently changed its definition of terrorism. Per Joint Pub 3-07.2, Antiterrorism, (24 November 2010), the Department of Defense defines it as "the unlawful use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies. Terrorism is often motivated by religious, political, or other ideological beliefs and committed in the pursuit of goals that are usually political."

The new definition distinguishes between motivations for terrorism (religion, ideology, etc.) and goals of terrorism ("usually political"). This is in contrast to the previous definition which stated that the goals could be religious in nature.

U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency [ edit ] The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) contains a definition of terrorism, which reads:

Terrorism is the use of force or violence against persons or property in violation of the criminal laws of the United States for purposes of intimidation, coercion, or ransom. Terrorists often use threats to:

Create fear among the public.Try to convince citizens that their government is powerless to prevent terrorism.Get immediate publicity for their causes.The new definition does not require that the act needs to be politically motivated. The FEMA also said that terrorism "include threats of terrorism; assassinations; kidnappings; hijackings; bomb scares and bombings; cyber attacks (computer-based); and the use of chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological weapons" and also states that "[h]igh-risk targets for acts of terrorism include military and civilian government facilities, international airports, large cities, and high-profile landmarks. Terrorists might also target large public gatherings, water and food supplies, utilities, and corporate centers. Further, terrorists are capable of spreading fear by sending explosives or chemical and biological agents through the mail."[81]

U.S. National Counterterrorism Center [ edit ] The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) define terrorism the same as United States Code 22 USC § 2656f(d)(2). The Center also defines a terrorist act as a "premeditated; perpetrated by a sub-national or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a non-combatant target."[82]

U.S. national security strategy [ edit ] In September 2002, the U.S. national security strategy defined terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence against innocents."[83] This definition did not exclude actions by the United States government and it was qualified some months later with "premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents".[84]

USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 [ edit ] The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 defines domestic terrorism as "activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S."

Terrorism Risk Insurance Act [ edit ] Section 102(1)(a) of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act contains a definition of terrorism in order for insurance companies to provide coverage to all prospective policy holders at time of purchase and to all current policyholders at renewal and requires that the federal government pay 90 percent of covered terrorism losses exceeding the statutorily established deductible paid by the insurance company providing the coverage. It reads:

(1) ACT OF TERRORISM-

(A) CERTIFICATION- The term 'act of terrorism' means any act that is certified by the Secretary [of Treasury], in concurrence with the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General of the United States--(i) to be an act of terrorism;(ii) to be a violent act or an act that is dangerous to--(I) human life;(II) property; or(III) infrastructure;(iii) to have resulted in damage within the United States, or outside of the United States in the case of--(I) an air carrier or vessel described in paragraph(5)(B); or(II) the premises of a United States mission; and(iv) to have been committed by an individual or individuals as part of an effort to coerce the civilian population of the United States or to influence the policy or affect the conduct of the United States Government by coercion.[85]Insurance coverage [ edit ] After the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., many insurers made specific exclusions for terrorism in their policies, after global reinsurers withdrew from covering terrorism. Some governments introduced legislation to provide support for insurers in various ways.[86][87]

In Australia, the Terrorism Insurance Act 2003 created a scheme to administer reinsurance scheme for insurance, relating to commercial properties and enterprises, but excluding residential properties, travel insurance, vehicles, and others.[86] This legislation uses the same definition as specified in the Criminal Code (see above).[88] The act's definition has as of April 2021[update] only been applied once, when in 2015 the Federal Treasurer declared the 2014 Lindt Caf(C) siege as a ''declared terrorist incident'' under the act,[86] although there was some debate about the classification of this incident.[89][90] Twenty insurers made 92 claims, for a total of A$2.3 million , for various losses caused by the siege.[87]In the U.S., the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (2002) provides a government reinsurance backstop in case of large-scale terrorist attacks, requiring that commercial insurers offer terrorism coverage for the types of insurance included in the act. This Act includes a definition of terrorism (see above).[85]Some insurance companies exclude terrorism from general property insurance. An insurance company may include a specific definition of terrorism as part of its policy, for the purpose of excluding at least some loss or damage caused by terrorism. For example, RAC Insurance in Western Australia defines terrorism thus:[91]

terrorism '' includes but is not limited to the use of force or violence and/or threat, by any person or group of persons done for or in connection with political, religious, ideological or similar purposes including the intention to influence any government and/or to put the public, or any section of the public, in fear.

Timeline of political definitions [ edit ] Listed below are some of the historically important understandings of terror and terrorism, and enacted but non-universal definitions of the term:

1795. "Government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France." The general sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" was first recorded in English in 1798.[92]1916. Gustave LeBon: "Terrorization has always been employed by revolutionaries no less than by kings, as a means of impressing their enemies, and as an example to those who were doubtful about submitting to them...."[93]1937. League of Nations convention language: "All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public."[94]1972, after the terrorist attack at the Olympic Games in Munich. UN General Assembly passed a resolution entitiled "Measures to prevent international terrorism which endangers or takes innocent human lives or jeopardises fundamental freedoms, and study of the underlying causes of those forms of terrorism and acts ofviolence which lie in misery, frustration, grievance and despair, and which cause some people to sacrifice human lives, including their own, in anattempt to effect radical changes". No consensu was reached.[8]1987. A definition proposed by Iran at an international Islamic conference on terrorism: "Terrorism is an act carried out to achieve an inhuman and corrupt (mufsid) objective, and involving [a] threat to security of any kind, and violation of rights acknowledged by religion and mankind."[95]1989. United States: premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.[96]1992. A definition proposed by Alex P. Schmid to the United Nations Crime Branch: "Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime."[94]1994/1996 United Nations General Assembly's 1994 Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism,[8] and 1996 Supplement, Paragraph 3:[97]Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them;...

1996. UN General Assemby sets up an Ad Hoc Committee with the responsibility of drafting several conventions condemning various aspects of terrorism, as well as a final Comprehensive Convention to either supplement or replace the series of sectoral conventions.[8]2002. European Union:[62]...given their nature or context, [acts which] may seriously damage a country or an international organisation where committed with the aim of seriously intimidating a population.

2003. India: Referencing Schmid's 1992 proposal, the Supreme Court of India described terrorist acts as the "peacetime equivalents of war crimes."[71][72]2014. Contained in a Saudi Arabia terrorism law taking effect 1 February 2014, the following definition has been criticized by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for being overly broad:Any act carried out by an offender in furtherance of an individual or collective project, directly or indirectly, intended to disturb the public order of the state, or to shake the security of society, or the stability of the state, or to expose its national unity to danger, or to suspend the basic law of governance or some of its articles, or to insult the reputation of the state or its position, or to inflict damage upon one of its public utilities or its natural resources, or to attempt to force a governmental authority to carry out or prevent it from carrying out an action, or to threaten to carry out acts that lead to the named purposes or incite [these acts].[98][99]

2016. Brazilian anti-terrorism law:[100]Terrorism consists in the practice, by one or more individuals, of the acts listed in this article for reasons of xenophobia, discrimination or prejudice of race, color, ethnicity and religion, when committed with the objective of provoking social or generalized terror, exposing people, property, the public peace or the public safety.

Academic definitions by scholars [ edit ] Numerous scholars have proposed working definitions of terrorism.

Schmid and Jongman (1988) counted 109 definitions of terrorism that covered a total of 22 different definitional elements,[101][102] and Walter Laqueur counted over 100 definitions, concluding that the "only general characteristic generally agreed upon is that terrorism involves violence and the threat of violence". This is clearly inadedquate, as many other actions involve both elements.[103]

Bruce Hoffman (2006) has thus noted that:

It is not only individual agencies within the same governmental apparatus that cannot agree on a single definition of terrorism. Experts and other long-established scholars in the field are equally incapable of reaching a consensus. In the first edition of his magisterial survey, Political terrorism: A Research Guide, Alex Schmid devoted more than a hundred pages to examining more than a hundred different definition of terrorism in a effort to discover a broadly acceptable, reasonably comprehensive explication of the word. Four years and a second edition [2005] later, Schimd was no closer to the goal of his quest, conceding in the first sentence of the revised volume that the "search for an adequate definition is still on" Walter Laqueur despaired of defining terrorism in both editions of his monumental work on the subject, maintaining that it is neither possible to do so nor worthwhile to make the attempt. "Ten years of debates on typologies and definitions," he responded to a survey on definitions to conducted by Schmid, "have not enhanced our knowledge of the subject to a significant degree." Laqueur's contention is supported by the twenty-two different word categories occurring in the 109 different definition that Schmid identified in survey. At the end of this exhaustive exercise, Schmid asks "whether the above list contains all the elements necessary for a good definition. The answer," he suggests" is probably 'no'." If it is impossible to define terrorism, as Laqueur argues, and fruitless to attempt to cobble together a truly comprehensive definition, as Schmid admits, are we to conclude that terrorism is impervious to precise, much less accurate definition? Not entirely. If we cannot define terrorism, then we can at least usefully distinguish it from other types of violence and identify the characteristics that make terrorism the distinct phenomenon of political violence that it is.[104]

Hoffman believes it is possible to identify some key characteristics of terrorism. He proposes that:

By distinguishing terrorists from other types of criminals and terrorism from other forms of crime, we come to appreciate that terrorism is:

ineluctably political in aims and motives;violent '' or, equally important, threatens violence;designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target;conducted either by an organization with an identifiable chain of command or conspiratorial cell structure (whose members wear no uniform or identifying insignia) or by individuals or a small collection of individuals directly influenced, motivated, or inspired by the ideological aims or example of some existent terrorist movement and/or its leaders;and

perpetrated by a subnational group or nonstate entity.[105]After surveying the various academic definitions of terrorism, Rhyl Vallis and others (2004) concluded that:

Most of the formal definitions of terrorism have some common characteristics: a fundamental motive to make political/societal changes; the use of violence or illegal force; attacks on civilian targets by 'nonstate'/'Subnational actors'; and the goal of affecting society. This finding is reflected in Blee's listing of three components of terrorism:

Acts or threats of violence;The communication of fear to an audience beyond the immediate victim, and;Political, economic, or religious aims by the perpetrator(s).[106]A definition proposed by Carsten Bockstette (2008), a German military officer serving at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, underlines the psychological and tactical aspects of terrorism:[107]

Terrorism is defined as political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols). Such acts are meant to send a message from an illicit clandestine organization. The purpose of terrorism is to exploit the media in order to achieve maximum attainable publicity as an amplifying force multiplier in order to influence the targeted audience(s) in order to reach short- and midterm political goals and/or desired long-term end states.

Academics and practitioners may also be categorized by the definitions of terrorism that they use. Max Abrahms (2010) introduced the distinction between what he calls "terrorist lumpers" and "terrorist splitters." Lumpers define terrorism broadly, brooking no distinction between this tactic and guerrilla warfare or civil war. Terrorist splitters, by contrast, define terrorism narrowly, as the select use of violence against civilians for putative political gain. As Abrahms notes, these two definitions yield different policy implications:

Lumpers invariably believe that terrorism is a winning tactic for coercing major government concessions. As evidence, they point to substate campaigns directed against military personnel that have indeed pressured concessions. Salient examples include the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the U.S. withdrawal from Lebanon in 1984, and the French withdrawal from Algeria in 1962. Significantly, terrorist splitters do not regard these substate campaigns as evidence of terrorism's political effectiveness. Rather, they contend that disaggregating substate campaigns directed against civilian targets versus military ones is critical for appreciating terrorism's abysmal political record.[108]

In 2011 Alex Schmid published an updated academic consensus definition in The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research, which includes additional discussion of the UN struggle to find a legal definition, and 260 other definitions. The revised definition includes 12 points, the first of which is:[109][4]

1. Terrorism refers, on the one hand, to a doctrine about the presumed effectiveness of a special form or tactic of fear-generating, coercive political violence and, on the other hand, to a conspiratorial practice of calculated, demonstrative, direct violent action without legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants, performed for its propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and conflict parties;...

Academic vs legal definition [ edit ] Schmid returns to the problem of legal definition in an October 2020 article in Contemporary Voices, in which he reviews the history of the efforts to arriving at agreement on a common legal definition of terrorism and names six reasons underlying the challenges faced in achieving this.[7] In a new major work edited by Schmid, Handbook of Terrorism Prevention and Preparedness (2020''2021), he states:[110]

...the broader a definition, the more terrorism there is that ought to be countered and the more difficult it becomes to prevent it. If countries have different definitions of terrorism, extradition of terrorist suspects and mutual legal assistance become more difficult and often impossible...

In contrast to a consensus on the legal definition however, the 2011 academic definition of terrorism, which is social-scientific rather than legal in nature, has gained a fair degree of acceptance among scholars.[110]

Timeline of academic defnitions [ edit ] DateNameDefinition and notes1987 Khan, L. Ali L. Ali Khan"Terrorism sprouts from the existence of aggrieved groups. These aggrieved groups share two essential characteristics: they have specific political objectives, and they believe that violence is an inevitable means to achieve their political ends. The political dimension of terrorist violence is the key factor that distinguishes it from other crimes."[111]1988 Schmid and Jongman Schmid and Jongman"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-)clandestine individual, group, or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons, whereby'--in contrast to assassination'--the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperiled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought".[52][102]1989 Gibbs,Jack Jack Gibbs"Terrorism is illegal violence or threatened violence directed against human or nonhuman objects, provided that it: (1) was undertaken or ordered with a view to altering or maintaining at least one putative norm in at least one particular territorial unit or population: (2) had secretive, furtive, and/or clandestine features that were expected by the participants to conceal their personal identity and/or their future location; (3) was not undertaken or ordered to further the permanent defense of some area; (4) was not conventional warfare and because of their concealed personal identity, concealment of their future location, their threats, and/or their spatial mobility, the participants perceived themselves as less vulnerable to conventional military action; and (5) was perceived by the participants as contributing to the normative goal previously described (supra) by inculcating fear of violence in persons (perhaps an indefinite category of them) other than the immediate target of the actual or threatened violence and/or by publicizing some cause."[112]1992 Schmid, Alex P. Alex P. Schmidshort legal definition proposed to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: "Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime".[52]1997 Higgins, Rosalyn Rosalyn HigginsJudge at the International Court of Justice, "Terrorism is a term without any legal significance. It is merely a convenient way of alluding to activities, whether of States or of individuals widely disapproved of and in which wither the methods used are unlawful, or the targets protected or both."[113]1999 Richardson, Louise Louise Richardson"Without attempting a lengthy rationalization for the definition I employ, let me simply assert that I see terrorism as politically motivated violence directed against non-combatant or symbolic targets which is designed to communicate a message to a broader audience. The critical feature of terrorism is the deliberate targeting of innocents in an effort to convey a message to another party."[114]2002 Laqueur, Walter Walter Laqueur"Terrorism constitutes the illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective when innocent people are targeted."[115]2002 Poland, James M. James M. Poland"Terrorism is the premeditated, deliberate, systematic murder, mayhem, and threatening of the innocent to create fear and intimidation in order to gain a political or tactical advantage, usually to influence an audience".[116]2004 Bassiouni, M. Cherif M. Cherif Bassiouni"'Terrorism' has never been defined..."[117]2004 Hoffman, Bruce Bruce Hoffman"By distinguishing terrorists from other types of criminals and terrorism from other forms of crime, we come to appreciate that terrorism is :ineluctably political in aims and motivesviolent'--or, equally important, threatens violencedesigned to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or targetconducted by an organization with an identifiable chain of command or conspiratorial cell structure (whose members wear no uniform or identifying insignia) andperpetrated by a subnational group or non-state entity.We may therefore now attempt to define terrorism as the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change. All terrorist acts involve violence or the threat of violence. Terrorism is specifically designed to have far-reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate victim(s) or object of the terrorist attack. It is meant to instil fear within, and thereby intimidate, a wider 'target audience' that might include a rival ethnic or religious group, an entire country, a national government or political party, or public opinion in general. Terrorism is designed to create power where there is none or to consolidate power where there is very little. Through the publicity generated by their violence, terrorists seek to obtain the leverage, influence and power they otherwise lack to effect political change on either a local or an international scale."[118]

2004 Rodin, David David Rodin"Terrorism is the deliberate, negligent, or reckless use of force against noncombatants, by state or nonstate actors for ideological ends and in the absence of a substantively just legal process."[119][120]2004 Simpson, Peter Peter Simpson"Terrorism consists of acts of indiscriminate violence directed at civilians or non-hostile personnel, in order to terrorize them, or their governments, into carrying out or submitting to the demands of the terrorists."[121]2005 Ganor, Boaz Boaz Ganor"Terrorism is the deliberate use of violence aimed against civilians in order to achieve political ends."[122]2005 Palmer-Fernandez, Gabriel Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez"Terrorism is the organized use of violence against civilians or their property, the political leadership of a nation, or soldiers (who are not combatants in a war) for political purposes."[123]2007 Novotny, Daniel D. Daniel D. Novotny"An act is terrorist if and only if (1) it is committed by an individual or group of individuals privately, i.e. without the legitimate authority of a recognized state; (2) it is directed indiscriminately against non-combatants; (3) the goal of it is to achieve something politically relevant; (4) this goal is pursued by means of fear-provoking violence."[124]2008 Bockstette, Carsten Carsten Bockstette"Terrorism is defined as political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear (sometimes indiscriminate) through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets (sometimes iconic symbols). Such acts are meant to send a message from an illicit clandestine organization. The purpose of terrorism is to exploit the media in order to achieve maximum attainable publicity as an amplifying force multiplier in order to influence the targeted audience(s) in order to reach short- and midterm political goals and/or desired long-term end states."[125]2008 Lutz, James M. and Brenda J. Lutz Lutz, James M. Lutz, Brenda J"Terrorism involves political aims and motives. It is violent or threatens violence. It is designed to generate fear in a target audience that extends beyond the immediate victims of the violence.The violence is conducted by an identifiable organization. The violence involves a non-state actor or actors as either the perpetrator, the victim of the violence, or both. Finally, the acts of violence are designed to create power in a situation in which power previously had been lacking."[126]

2008 Meisels, Tamar Tamar Meiselsadvocates a consistent and strict definition of terrorism, which she defines as "the intentional random murder of defenseless non-combatants, with the intent of instilling fear of mortal danger amidst a civilian population as a strategy designed to advance political ends."[127]2011 Schmid, Alex P. Alex P. SchmidA revised, 12-point academic consensus definition, in The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research. Point 1: "Terrorism refers, on the one hand, to a doctrine about the presumed effectiveness of a special form or tactic of fear-generating, coercive political violence and, on the other hand, to a conspiratorial practice of calculated, demonstrative, direct violent action without legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants, performed for its propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and conflict parties".[109]2018 Petta, De Leon De Leon Petta"In fact a "terrorist group" is just a label, a layer of interaction between the political groups inside the core of the government with groups outside this governmental sphere. Interpreting the terrorist label by understanding the different levels of interaction and the function of the state may help to explain when such group will or will not be described as terrorist group rather than ''just'' a criminal organization."[128]2018Boaz Ganor"Terrorism is the deliberate use of violence against civilian targets by a non-state actor to achieve political aims."[129]See also [ edit ] -ismControversies about labeling terrorismBandenbek¤mpfungNotes [ edit ] ^ Williamson, Myra (2009). Terrorism, war and international law: the legality of the use of force against Really aj 2001. Ashgate Publishing. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-7546-7403-0. ^ Schmid, Alex P. (2011). "The Definition of Terrorism". The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research. Routledge. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-203-82873-1. ^ Frampton, Martyn (2021), English, Richard (ed.), "History and the Definition of Terrorism", The Cambridge History of Terrorism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 31''57, ISBN 978-1-108-66262-8 , retrieved May 11, 2021 ^ a b c d Schmid, Alex P., ed. (2011). The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research (PDF) . Routledge Handbooks. Routledge. pp. 50''60, 86''87. ISBN 978-0-203-82873-1. ^ a b Hoffman (1998), p. 23, See the 1 Nov 1998 review by Raymond Bonner in The New York Times of Inside Terrorism ^ Siegel, Larry (January 2, 2008). Criminology . Cengage Learning. ISBN 9780495391029 . Retrieved November 27, 2015 . ^ a b Schmid, Alex P. (October 7, 2020). Brunton, Gillian; Wilson, Tim (eds.). Issue title: Terrorism: Its Past, Present & Future Study - A Special Issue to Commemorate CSTPV at 25. "Discussion 1 - Revisiting the wicked problem of defining terrorism". Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations. 1 (1). doi:10.15664/jtr.1601 . ISSN 2516-3159. Text may have been copied from this source, which is available under a Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. (Per this page. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Schmid, Alex P. (2004). "Terrorism - The Definitional Problem". Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law. 36 (2) . Retrieved April 9, 2021 '' via Case Western Reserve University School of Law. ^ a b United Nations General Assembly (December 9, 1994). "49/60: Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism". UN Doc. A/Res/60/49. Archived from the original on June 16, 2019. The General Assembly, Recalling its resolution 46/51 of 9 December 1991 and its decision 48/411 of 9 December 1993,... Annex: Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism ^ a b "22 U.S. Code § 2656f - Annual country reports on terrorism". LII / Legal Information Institute . Retrieved March 10, 2019 . ^ Burgess ^ Early History of Terrorism, http://Terrorism-Research.com ^ Harper ^ Crenshaw, p.77 ^ Crenshaw, p. 44. ^ Williamson, Myra (2009). Terrorism, war and international law: the legality of the use of force against Afghanistan in 2001. Ashgate Publishing. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-7546-7403-0. ^ Terrorism: Concepts, Causes, and Conflict Resolution, Jan 2003 ^ Various Definitions of Terrorism Archived 2016-03-19 at the Wayback Machine ^ a b Saul, Ben (October 29, 2008). " " Defining 'Terrorism' to Protect Human Rights " ". Sydney Law School Legal Studies Research Paper (8/125): 1,11. ^ Staines, Deborah, ed. (2007). Interrogating the war on terror: interdisciplinary perspective. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 190''210. ISBN 978-1847181305. SSRN 1292059 . Retrieved April 12, 2021 . ^ a b c d e D­az-Paniagua, C.F. (2008). Negotiating Terrorism: The Negotiation Dynamics of Four UN Counter-terrorism Treaties, 1997-2005 (PhD). Posted online 7 Dec 2011. City University of New York. p. 41,46''47, 551-553. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1968150. SSRN 1968150 . Retrieved April 12, 2021 . (Or here). ^ Rupert Ticehurst (references) in hist footnote 1 cites The life and works of Martens are detailed by V. Pustogarov, "Fyodor Fyodorovich Martens (1845-1909) '-- A Humanist of Modern Times", International Review of the Red Cross (IRRC), No. 312, May''June 1996, pp. 300-14. ^ Rupert Ticehurst (references) in hist footnote 2 cites F. Kalshoven, Constraints on the Waging of War, Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, 1987, p. 14. ^ Gardam p. 91 ^ Martyn, Angus (February 12, 2002). "The Right of Self-Defence under International Law-the Response to the Terrorist Attacks of 11 September". Parliament of Australia Parliamentary Library. Current Issues Brief 8 2001-02. Australian Law and Bills Digest Group. Archived from the original on April 29, 2009. ^ See Marsavelski, A. (2013) The Crime of Terrorism and the Right of Revolution in International Law (In Chapter II.A.4., entitled "Criteria for the Use of Revolutionary Force", Marsavelski provides four guiding principles for distinguishing legitimate acts of freedom fighters from terrorist acts). (Connecticut Journal of International law, Vol. 28) at pp. 278-75. ^ M. Cherif Bassiouni, "A Policy-oriented Inquiry of 'International Terrorism'" in: M. Cherif Bassiouni, ed., Legal Responses to International Terrorism: U.S. Procedural Aspects, (Dordrecht, Boston and London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988) xv '' xvi.) ^ Sami Zeidan, Desperately Seeking Definition: The International Community's Quest for Identifying the Specter of Terrorism, 36 Cornell International Law Journal (2004) pp. 491-92 ^ Jason Burke. Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, ch. 2, p. 22) ^ Ben Saul, Defining Terrorism in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 3. ^ Staff, City Diary: Reuters sticks to the facts, City Diary, The Daily Telegraph, 28 September 2001 ^ Hoffman, (2006) pp. 28''30 ^ "Racism Against Middle Easterners In America Is Strong". Blogcritics. August 10, 2009 . Retrieved March 23, 2016 . ^ "Of attacks, fear and changed lives". Sify. Archived from the original on April 5, 2016 . Retrieved March 23, 2016 . ^ Yahya R. Kamalipour (2000). "The TV Terrorist: Media Images of Middle Easterners". 2 (4). Centre for World Dialogue. Archived from the original on February 24, 2014. ^ Language Justice Network (2013). Social Justice Glossary of Terms - The Mccune Foundation (PDF) . Middle Easterners also often experience discrimination as a result of societal prejudice around Muslims, Arabs and terrorists all being seen as the same group. ^ Salaita, Steven G. (2007). "Beyond orientalism and Islamophobia: 9/11, anti-Arab racism, and the mythos of national pride". CR: The New Centennial Review. 6 (2). tired strategy of demonizing the Other'--in this case Arabs, all of whom, according to the totalized pronoun usage common in the United States, are terrorists ^ Mufdi, JL (2012). Constructing the collective experience of being Arab American in post-9/11 America (Dissertation). Archived from the original on April 5, 2016. Demeaning representations of Arabs come from multiple sources. The entertainment industry is guilty of frequently portraying Arab men as terrorists ^ Griset, p. xiii. See also: Smelser, p. 13 ^ a b Andrea Gioia, "The UN Conventions on the Prevention and Suppression of International Terrorism" in Giuseppe Nesi, ed., International Cooperation in Counter-terrorism: The United Nations And Regional Organizations in the Fight Against Terrorism, p. 4 (2006). ^ a b Byrnes, Andrew (May 30, 2002). "Apocalyptic Visions and the Law: The Legacy of September 11" (PDF) . Inaugural lecture presented by Andrew Byrnes, Faculty of Law, Australian National University. ANU. p. 11. ^ "League of Nations' 1937 Convention for the prevention and punishment of Terrorism" (PDF) . 1938. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 24, 2011. ^ a b "Ad Hoc Committee established by General Assembly resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996 (Terrorism) - Ad Hoc and Special Committees (established on the recommendation of the Sixth Committee)". United Nations - Office of Legal Affairs. December 17, 1996 . Retrieved April 15, 2021 . ^ PDF ^ United Nations General Assembly. "Annex II, art. 2.1.". Report of the Ad Hoc Committee established by General Assembly resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996 Sixth session (28 January-1 February 2002) (PDF) . General Assembly Official Records, Fifty-seventh Session Supplement No. 37 (A/57/37). Archived from the original (PDF) on January 26, 2019. ^ Thalif Deen, POLITICS: U.N. Member States Struggle to Define Terrorism Archived June 11, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, IPS 25 July 2005. ^ a b United Nations General Assembly. "Annex IV, art. 18". Report of the Ad Hoc Committee established by General Assembly resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996 Sixth session (28 January-1 February 2002) (PDF) . General Assembly Official Records, Fifty-seventh Session Supplement No. 37 (A/57/37). Archived from the original (PDF) on January 26, 2019. ^ Terrorist Bombings Convention art. 2.1. ^ Terrorist Bombings Convention art. 19. ^ Nuclear Terrorism Convention, art. 2. ^ Nuclear Terrorism Convention, art. 4. ^ a b c "Definitions of Terrorism". United Nations. Archived from the original on January 29, 2007 . Retrieved July 10, 2007 . ^ (Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism. U.N. GAOR, 49thSess., 84th plen. mtg., U.N. Doc. A/RES/49/60 (1994). ^ "A/RES/51/210. Measures to eliminate international terrorism". Archived from the original on February 15, 2001. ^ Cassese (2002), p. 449. ^ "Sixth Committee (Legal) '-- 74th session: Measures to eliminate international terrorism". UN General Assembly. November 20, 2019 . Retrieved April 11, 2021 . ^ "Security Council unequivocally condemns terrorism as "criminal and unjustifiable" -". United Nations. October 19, 1999 . Retrieved April 15, 2021 . ^ Report of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change "A more secure world: Our shared responsibility" (2004) para. 164. ^ United Nations General Assembly, Secretary General, Report of the Secretary-General In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all Chapter 3 (2005) para. 91. ^ "Ad Hoc Committee near consensus on draft nuclear terrorism convention, chairman says - Meetings Coverage and Press Releases". United Nations. Ad Hoc Committee on Assembly Resolution 51/210, 34th Meeting (AM). March 31, 2005 . Retrieved April 12, 2021 . CS1 maint: others (link) ^ Barnidge, R.P. (2008). Non-State Actors and Terrorism: Applying the Law of State Responsibility and the Due Diligence Principle. Cambridge University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-90-6704-259-8 . Retrieved April 12, 2021 . ^ a b "Article 1". Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on combating terrorism (PDF) . Official Journal of the European Communities, 2002/475/JHA. June 22, 2002. pp. 164/4. ^ "Topic: NATO's military concept for defence against terrorism". NATO. August 19, 2016 . Retrieved April 9, 2021 . ^ North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO Standardization Office (NSO) (2019). "AAP-06 Edition 2019: NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions (English And French)" (PDF) . ^ "Australia's counter-terrorism laws". Attorney-General's Department. Australian Government. ^ a b "Criminal Code Act 1995: No. 12, 1995, Compilation No. 137". Federal Register of Legislation. Australian Government. March 3, 2021 . Retrieved April 12, 2021 . ^ law ^ Operation Hashtag ^ (in French) 'Quand parler de terrorisme >> ?' ('When to speak of "terrorism"?') Vincent Sizaire, in: Le Monde diplomatique, August 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2016. ^ (in French) Code p(C)nal, article 421 ('Des actes de terrorisme'), L(C)gifrance. Retrieved 3 November 2016. ^ a b "In the Supreme Court of India, Criminal Appelate Jurisdiction, Criminal Appeal No. 1285 of 2003 Madan Singh vs. State of Bihar". 2003. ^ a b "Terrorism: Indian Law & Practise: Judgment of the Supreme Court of India in Madan Singh v State of Bihar". TamilNation . Retrieved April 9, 2021 . ^ Pakistan Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 1999 ^ "All atheists are terrorists, Saudi Arabia declares". The Independent. April 1, 2014 . Retrieved December 9, 2018 . ^ Gupta, Manas Sen (May 22, 2017). "The Reason Why Facebook's AI Research Director Did Not Visit Saudi Arabia Has Set The Internet On Fire". TopYaps . Retrieved December 9, 2018 . ^ "Middle East | Syria hits out at 'terrorist' US". BBC News. October 28, 2008 . Retrieved February 22, 2010 . ^ "Anti-Teror (sic) Law No. 3713" (PDF) . The Financial Crimes Investigation Board of Turkey. ^ UK Terrorism Act 2000 art. 1. ^ "18 U.S. Code § 2331 - Definitions". LII / Legal Information Institute. ^ Democracy Now Archived 2006-07-31 at the Wayback Machine. ^ "Federal Emergency Management Agency '-- Terrorism" (PDF) . ^ "GHR International Definitions". Archived from the original on April 22, 2009. ^ Halibozek, Edward P.; Jones, Andy; Kovacich, Gerald L. (2007). The corporate security professional's handbook on terrorism (illustrated ed.). Elsevier. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-7506-8257-2. ^ Rockmore, Tom; Margolis, Joseph; Marsoobian, Armen (2005). The philosophical challenge of September 11: Metaphilosophy. 35. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 15. ISBN 1-4051-0893-2. ^ a b The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002(TRIA), as amended by the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act of 2005 (TRIEA) and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 (TRIPRA) ^ a b c "Terrorism: Is Your Cover Affected?". Marsh. January 15, 2015 . Retrieved April 13, 2021 . ^ a b The Treasury (Australia) (December 12, 2018). "Terrorism Insurance Act Review: 2018" (PDF) . Australian Government . Retrieved April 13, 2021 . ^ "Terrorism Insurance Act 2003, No. 43, 2003, Compilation No. 9". Federal Register of Legislation. Australian Government. October 2020 . Retrieved April 13, 2021 . ^ Simon, Benjamin (16 December 2014). "Experts say Sydney hostage taker man Haron Monis wasn't a terrorist, just a man with mental problems". Inquisitr. Archived from the original on 30 December 2014 . Retrieved 13 April 2021 . ^ "Sydney siege would have been extremely hard to predict, inquest told". The Guardian. Australian Associated Press. 26 August 2015. Archived from the original on 30 March 2016 . Retrieved 13 April 2021 . ^ RAC Building, Contents and Personal Valuables Insurance : Combined Product Disclosure Statement and Financial Services Guide (PDF) , RAC Insurance, April 15, 2015, p. 42, archived from the original (PDF) on January 1, 2017 , retrieved January 1, 2017 ^ "Terrorism - Define Terrorism at Dictionary.com". Dictionary.com . Retrieved November 27, 2015 . ^ Gustave LeBon, The Psychology of the Great War, 1916, p. 391. Google Books: [1] ^ a b Siegel, Larry (January 2, 2008). Criminology . Cengage Learning. ISBN 9780495391029 . Retrieved November 27, 2015 . ^ "JUST Response - Ayatollah Taskhiri - Definition of terrorism". justresponse.net. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 . Retrieved November 27, 2015 . ^ U.S. Code Title 22, Ch.38, Para. 2656f(d) ^ Perera, Rohan (December 17, 1996). "United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law". United Nations - Office of Legal Affairs . Retrieved April 9, 2021 . ^ Stork, Joe (February 6, 2014). "Saudi Arabia: Terrorism Law Tramples on Rights". Human Rights Watch . Retrieved February 25, 2014 . ^ "Saudi Arabia: New terrorism law is latest tool to crush peaceful expression". Amnesty International. February 3, 2014 . Retrieved May 4, 2010 . ^ "Lei Nº 13.260". Presidªncia da Repºblica, Secretaria-Geral, Subchefia para Assuntos Jur­dicos (in Portuguese). March 16, 2016 . Retrieved April 13, 2021 . ^ Record, p. 6 (page 12 of the PDF document), citing in footnote 10 Alex P. Schmid, Albert J. Jongman, et al., Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1988, pp. 5-6. ^ a b Schmid, Alex Peter; Jongman, A. J (1988), Political terrorism: a new guide to actors, authors, concepts, data bases, theories, and literature (Rev., expanded and updated ed.), New Brunswick (USA): North-Holland Pub. Co., ISBN 978-0-444-85659-3 ^ Record, p. 6 (page 12 of the PDF document) citing in footnote 11: Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 6. ^ Bruce Hoffman, Inside terrorism, 2 ed., Columbia University Press, 2006, p. 34. ^ Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 2 ed., Columbia University Press, 2006, p. 40. ^ Rhyll Vallis, Yubin Yang, Hussein A. Abbass, Disciplinary Approaches to Terrorism: A Survey, University of South Wales, p. 7. For similar surveys see also: Hoffman, Bruce Inside terrorism, 2 ed. Columbia University Press, 2006, p. 34; and Alex Schmid, Statistics on Terrorism: The Challenge of Measuring Trends in Global Terrorism" in Forum on Crime and Society, v. 4, N. 1-2 (2004) pp. 52-53. ^ Bockstette, Carsten (2008). "Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management Techniques" (PDF) . George C. Marshall Center Occasional Paper Series (20). ISSN 1863-6039. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 1, 2009 . Retrieved January 1, 2009 . ^ Abrahms, Max. Lumpers versus Splitters: A Pivotal Battle in the Field of Terrorism Studies. Cato. ^ a b Schmid, Alex P. (May 16, 2012). "The Revised Academic Consensus Definition of Terrorism". Perspectives on Terrorism. 6 (2) . Retrieved March 31, 2021 . A description how it was arrived at can be found on pp. 39-98 of Alex P. Schmid (Ed.). The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research. London and New York: Routledge, 2011. The same volume also contains 260 other definitions compiled by Joseph J. Easson and Alex P. Schmid on pp. 99-200. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. ^ a b Schmid, Alex P., ed. (November 2021 '' June 2021). Handbook of Terrorism Prevention and Preparedness. International Centre for Counter-Terrorism. doi:10.19165/2020.6.011 (inactive May 3, 2021). ISBN 9789090339771. ISSN 2468-0486 . Retrieved April 10, 2021 . CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of May 2021 (link) ^ Ali Khan, A Legal Theory of International Terrorism, Connecticut Law Review, Vol. 19, p. 945, 1987 ^ Dallas A. Blanchard, Terry James Prewitt. Religious Violence and Abortion: The Gideon Project, 303,333. Cites Gibbs, Jack P. 1989. "The Conceptualization of Terrorism." American Sociological Review 54, no. 2 (June): 329-40. ^ Rosalyn Higgins, "The General International Law of Terrorism" in Rosalyn Higgins and M. Flory, International Law and Terrorism (1997) p. 28. ^ Louise Richardson, "Terrorists as Transnational Actors", Terrorism and Political Violence: Volume 11, Issue 4, (1999) p. 209-219. ^ Tony Coady, et al. Terrorism and Justice: Moral Argument in a Threatened World Melbourne University Publishing, 2002ISBN 978-0-522-85049-9 p. 8. Cites Walter Laqueur The Age of Terrorism ^ A.K.M. Atiqur Rahman Economic Cost Of Terrorism In South Asia: The Case Of Bangladesh p. 3. Paper presented at the International Conference on Terrorism in South Asia: Impact on Development and Democratic Process Soaltee Crowne Plaza, Kathmandu, Nepal November 23''25, 2002. ^ 36 Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 2&3, 2004, p. 305 ^ Bruce Hoffman, Inside terrorism, 2 ed., Columbia University Press, 2006, p. 41. ^ [2] Chicago Journals - Ethics 114 (July 2004): 647''649 ^ Uwe Steinhoff. On the Ethics of War and Terrorism p. 119 ^ Violence and Terrorism in Northern Ireland", in Primoratz (ed), Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2004, p.161 ^ The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, "The Relationship Between International and Localized Terrorism", Vol. 4, No. 26, 28 June 2005 ^ Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez, "Terrorism, Innocence and Justice", Philosophy and Public Quarterly, Vol. 25, no3, summer 2005, p.24 ^ Linden, Edward V., ed. (2006). "2". What is Terrorism?. Focus on Terrorism. 8. Nova Publishers. pp. 23''32. ISBN 978-1-60021-315-1 . Retrieved February 22, 2010 . ^ Bockstette ^ James M. Lutz and Brenda J. Lutz, Global Terrorism. London: Routledge, 2008, p. 9 ^ Meisels, Tamar. "The trouble with terror: the apologetics of terrorism -- a refutation". UCL . Retrieved April 11, 2021 . ^ Petta, De Leon (2018). "Why there is no real difference between a Terrorist Organization and an Organized Crime faction, just a matter of interaction towards the State". Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations. 1: 26. doi:10.15664/jtr.1472 . ISSN 2516-3159. ^ "MIA: An International Definition for Terrorism". www.ict.org.il . Retrieved April 28, 2019 . References [ edit ] Bockstette, Carsten (December 2008). Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management Techniques, George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies no 20, p. 1-28 ISSN 1863-6039Burgess, Mark. A Brief History of Terrorism, Center for Defense Information.Cassese, A. (2002), International Law, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-925939-9Crenshaw, Martha, Terrorism in ContextGardam, Judith Gail (1993). Non-combatant Immunity as a Norm of International Humanitarian, Martinus Nijhoff ISBN 0-7923-2245-2.Griset, Pamala L. & Mahan, Sue (2003). Terrorism in perspective, SAGE, 2003, ISBN 0-7619-2404-3, ISBN 978-0-7619-2404-3Hoffman, Bruce (1998). "Inside Terrorism" Columbia University Press 1998 ISBN 0-231-11468-0.Hoffman, Bruce (2006),Inside terrorism, Edition 2, Columbia University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-231-12699-9, ISBN 978-0-231-12699-1.Khan, Ali (Washburn University - School of Law. 1987). A Theory of International Terrorism, Connecticut Law Review, Vol. 19, p. 945, 1987Novotny, Daniel D. (2007). "What is Terrorism?" in: Linden, Edward V., ed. Focus on Terrorism 8, ch. 2, pp. 23''32. (ISBN 1-60021-315-4).Primoratz, Igor (2007/2011). "Terrorism". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).Record, Jeffrey (December 2003). Bounding the Global War on Terrorism, December 1, 2003 ISBN 1-58487-146-6.Smelser, Neil J.; et al. (2002). Terrorism: perspectives from the behavioral and social sciences, National Academies Press, 2002, ISBN 0-309-08612-4, ISBN 978-0-309-08612-7Ticehurst, Rupert. The Martens Clause and the Laws of Armed Conflict 30 April 1997, International Review of the Red Cross no 317, p. 125-134 ISSN 1560-7755External links [ edit ] Introductory note by A. Rohan Perera and procedural history note on the Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism and the 1996 Supplementary Declaration thereto in the Historic Archives of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law

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Tue, 28 Sep 2021 22:21

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image caption, Arnoud van Doorn (L) was a member of the far-right Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), before converting to IslamDutch police have arrested a politician in the Hague on suspicion of involvement in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

The prime minister's security service said Arnoud van Doorn, the leader of The Hague Unity Party, was arrested on Sunday.

He "displayed suspicious behaviour" as he walked through the same area of the city as Mr Rutte, the service said.

Mr van Doorn was released on Monday after a police interrogation.

His lawyer Anis Boumanjal told the BBC he should not have been arrested because there was no reasonable suspicion of guilt.

The arrest was reported on Tuesday, a day after Dutch media said Mr Rutte had been given extra security over fears that he may be the target of an attack or kidnapping by a criminal gang.

Mr Rutte, 54, has been followed by so-called spotters linked to a drug trafficking gang, the De Telegraaf newspaper reported on Monday.

Telegraaf journalist Mick van Wely told broadcaster NOS the matter was being taken "very seriously". NOS confirmed the report but Dutch security authorities and the prime minister declined to comment.

Outside parliament on Monday, as he arrived for coalition talks, Mr Rutte told journalists: "Safety and protection are issues never to be discussed in public."

'It was very dramatic'

Prosecutors in The Hague confirmed the arrest of Mr van Doorn to Dutch media and said an investigation was still ongoing.

A spokesperson said there was suspicion that Mr van Doorn was trying to gather information for "preparation of attempted murder". No further details were provided.

Prior to his arrest, Mr van Doorn had been in the Hague for about an hour, his lawyer said. He said Mr van Doorn had a coffee at a cafe and made some enquiries at a fitness centre before walking past a BMW thought to be chauffeuring Mr Rutte.

image source, Getty Images

image caption, The prime minister of the Netherlands usually walks or cycles the streets aloneMr van Doorn's lawyer said the arrest was an overreaction to the recent concerns surrounding the safety of the prime minister.

"They weren't reasonable in how they handled the case. It was very dramatic," Mr Boumanjal said. "They detained him for 30 hours."

The reported threat to Mr Rutte follows the murder of prominent Dutch journalist Peter R de Vries, who was known for investigating the criminal underworld in the Netherlands.

The shooting in July stunned the country, where gun violence is rare but killings linked to organised crime have become increasingly common in recent years.

In office since 2010, the conservative prime minister is fond of cycling and is often seen riding to appointments in the Hague with little or no security in sight.

image source, Getty Images

image caption, Mr Rutte is regularly seen riding his bike around the HagueThe Telegraaf said Mr Rutte had been protected with "visible and invisible measures" since the threats had become known.

Telegraaf journalist Mr van Wely said "spotters" linked to a drug trafficking network known as the Mocro Mafia had been seen near Mr Rutte.

"That is so worrying for the security services," he told NOS.

In the criminal world, spotters are people who gather intelligence in preparation for a criminal act, such as an attack or kidnapping.

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, who is usually an ardent critic of Mr Rutte, wished him well, calling the reports "terrible".

Mr van Doorn used to be a leading member of Mr Wilders' far-right Freedom Party, which is known for its anti-Islam stance. But in 2013 Mr van Doorn surprised his party by converting to Islam, and told the BBC he had turned his back on his former life.

image source, Getty Images

image caption, Peter R de Vries was well known for his coverage of high profile crime casesMr Rutte vowed to get tough on criminal gangs after the murder of Mr de Vries.

Mr de Vries had been advising a former gang member, Nabil B, who was testifying in the trial against Ridouan Taghi, described as the Netherlands' most wanted criminal.

The Moroccan-Dutch suspect and his associates are currently on trial for murder and drug trafficking.

The case has put the Netherlands on edge after Nabil B's previous lawyer, Derk Wiersum, was assassinated in front of his Amsterdam home in September 2019.

It has heightened concerns about the criminal underworld in the country, which one police union chief compared to a "narco-state" in 2019.

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Tue, 28 Sep 2021 16:50

Harvard Business School says it is reverting to remote learning after beginning the semester with in-person classes, citing a rise in breakthrough COVID-19 cases among its students.

All first-year and some second-year MBA students will take classes online beginning this week. Classes will take place remotely at least until October 3, the school said in a statement.

As universities resumed in-person instruction this fall, outbreaks of COVID-19 cases have popped up among students across the nation '-- despite the fact that many colleges have vaccine mandates, as well as the requirement to wear masks indoors. More than 900 institutions of higher learning had vaccine mandates in place as of September 20, with such requirements more prevalent on campuses in Northeastern and Western states, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

"With the support of Harvard University leaders, advised by city and state public health officials, we have decided to move all first-year MBA students and some in the second year, to remote learning for the week of 9/27 to 10/03," HBS spokesperson Mark Cautela said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch Monday.

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The move comes after "a steady rise in breakthrough infections" among the business school's student population.

"Contact tracers who have worked with positive cases highlight that transmission is not occurring in classrooms or other academic settings on campus. Nor is it occurring among individuals who are masked," Cautela added.

COVID-19 testingThe renowned business program is also asking its students to stop participating in unmasked indoor activities and to limit in-person interactions with individuals outside of their households by moving all group gatherings online and cancelling group travel.

Cautela added that students are now being tested three times a week, and will be kept apprised of "all aspects of the situation." A business school dashboard, accessible only to members of the community, is regularly updated with the latest testing data.

Ninety-six percent of Harvard University's employees are vaccinated, while 95% of its students are vaccinated, according to the university's COVID-19 testing dashboard.

Harvard is requiring vaccination against COVID-19 for all of its community members, including students, faculty, staff and researchers. There were 62 positive tests among graduate students and three in its undergraduate population for the week of September 19.

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Tue, 28 Sep 2021 15:52

Photo: Kaspars Grinvalds (Shutterstock)

In recent years, the iPhone has developed a reputation for having solid battery life. In fact, critics recently singled out the batteries on the entire iPhone 13 lineup as among those devices' best new features. You would be forgiven for thinking the opposite, however, if you're a heavy Spotify user, as it appears the app eats through iPhone batteries for breakfast.

Now, this accusation isn't only based on user complaints'--it comes directly from the king of music streaming itself. Spotify acknowledged in a blog post that the company is aware of battery drainage reports on iPhones running both iOS 14.8 and iOS 15. According to ZDNet , users are reporting losing as much as 30% of their battery in just an hour while using the app.

How to fix Spotify's battery draining issue on iPhoneAt this time, troubleshooting the issue is in a delicate space. There are workarounds you can try in order to restore a more harmonious relationship between Spotify and your iPhone battery. However, they might not fix your issue.

The first thing you should try is to disable Background App Refresh. This feature allows Spotify to use data in the background, essentially allowing the app to run when it isn't active. While that setting normally adds a slight burden to your battery life, Spotify thinks it might currently be abnormally taxing. To disable the feature, head to Settings > General > Background App Refresh, then disable the toggle next to ''Spotify.''

If you're still seeing terrible battery drain while using Spotify, your next step is to uninstall and reinstall the app. The hope here is that a fresh copy of Spotify on your iPhone will give the boot to whatever bug is causing this battery issue. To do so, long-press the Spotify app on your Home Screen, choose ''Remove App,'' then tap ''Delete App.'' Now, open Spotify in the App Store , and redownload it.

G/O Media may get a commission

If that doesn't work, you'll unfortunately need to wait for Spotify to release a patch for the issue. Your best bet is to frequently check in with your app updates in the App Store. Tap your profile in the top right, then pull down on the page to refresh and check for an update.

We'll update this article when Spotify issues this new patch. Until then, you might want to remember to take your charger the next time you go out.

[ ZDNet ]

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Tue, 28 Sep 2021 15:22

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki attempted to downplay President Joe Biden refusing to take questions from reporters multiple times last week, claiming that he did so because the reporters were not going to ask questions about the issues at hand.

Psaki made the remarks in response to questions from reporters during Monday's press briefing who asked about instances in the Oval Office where Biden did not answer questions following talks with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

''Just one more, as he sat down with Prime Minister Modi last week, the president said that the Indian press is better behaved than the US press, and then he advised him not to take questions,'' a reporter said to Psaki. ''Can you explain why the American president was criticizing US reporters in that setting?''

After claiming that Biden does take questions, Psaki said, ''I think what he said is that they're not always on point.''

''Now I know that isn't something that anyone wants to hear in here, but what I think he was conveying is today he might want to talk about COVID vaccines, some of the questions were about that,'' she continued. ''Some of the questions are not always about the topic he's talking about in that day. I don't think it was meant to be a hard cut at the members of the media, people he's taken questions from today and on Friday as well.''

Another reporter quickly followed up, noting, ''It happened that he was sitting next to [the] Prime Minister of India, the world's largest democracy, when he said that. It also followed the incident on Wednesday when he was sitting next to the Prime Minister of Great Britain.''

''Is the president reticent to take questions when he's sitting next to a foreign leader in the Oval Office?'' the reporter asked. ''Can we expect him to do that in the future?''

''He'd already taken questions that day,'' she said. ''I think that was the context of his comments.''

WATCH:

Good on @WSJ's @Catherine_Lucey & @CBSNewsRadio's @StevenPortnoy for repeatedly pressing Jen Psaki on the fact that Biden blew off the press last week with U.K. PM Boris Johnson & took a swipe at them last week behind their backs, telling Indian reporters not to ask questions. pic.twitter.com/dUS24W8X90

'-- Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 27, 2021

Later during the press briefing, another reporter brought up the incident on Friday, noting, ''The president said that the Indian press was better behaved than the US press, but the Indian press is ranked 142nd in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders, for press freedoms.''

''How does he say that about the US press compared to the Indian press?'' the reporter asked.

''Well, I would just say to you that having now worked for the president, serving in this role for nine months, having seen that he's taken questions from the press more than 140 times, including today and Friday, that he certainly respects the role of the press, the role of the freedom of free press,'' she claimed. ''We ensure that we have press with us, of course, when we travel, that we have press with us for sprays in foreign capitals, and we will continue to. I think that should speak to his commitment to freedom of press around the world.''

WATCH:

FTR, Fox's @JacquiHeinrich also asked: "The President said that the Indian press was better behaved than the U.S. press, but the Indian presence ranked 142nd in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders for press freedoms. How does he say that about the U.S. press[?]" pic.twitter.com/mhNwt4OwSD

'-- Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 27, 2021

The Daily Wire is one of America's fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member .

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Tue, 28 Sep 2021 14:49

Fri Apr 9, 2021 / 4:50 AM EDT

LAUNCESTON, Australia (Reuters) - China is paying a high price for its unofficial ban on coal imports from Australia, with the cost of domestic and alternative foreign supplies rising for both thermal and coking grades of the fuel.

China, the world's biggest importer, producer and consumer of coal, has effectively ended imports from Australia, the biggest shipper of coking coal used to make steel and number two in thermal coal used to produce electricity, as part of an ongoing political dispute between the two nations.

The restrictions on imports from Australia came into effect in the second half of last year, resulting in China's imports dropping to virtually zero in the first two months of this year from a 2020 high of 9.46 million tonnes in June, according to Refinitiv vessel-tracking and port data.

However, China's consumers of imported coal have been facing higher costs, with prices for alternatives to supplies from Australia, both local and foreign, rising as the market adjusts to the unofficial ban.

In coking coal, the price of free-on-board Australian cargoes has been weakening since the ban was imposed, apart from the usual seasonal gain for the northern hemisphere winter.

The Singapore Exchange contract for Australian coking coal ended at $113.71 a tonne on Thursday, down 18.8% from the $140 that it reached at the start of October, just as the Chinese ban was coming into effect.

If a Chinese importer switched from Australian cargoes to those from the United States, the price difference has entirely reversed since the ban started to affect flows.

Coking coal free-on-board at the U.S. east coast port of Hampton Roads, as assessed by commodity price reporting agency Argus, has surged to $152.75 on Thursday from $114 a tonne at the start of October last year, a gain of 34%.

This means that U.S. coking coal is currently about $39 a tonne more expensive that supplies from Australia, and this doesn't account for the higher shipping costs given the longer distance from the U.S. east coast to China.

China's domestic coking coal price has also been gaining since the restrictions on imports from Australia, with Dalian Commodity Exchange futures rising 16% from 1,353 yuan ($206.56) a tonne at the start of October to end at 1,573 yuan on Thursday.

This price isn't directly comparable to the free-on-board prices in Australia and the United States, as it includes freight and other costs as well as import taxes and duties.

However, it does show that Chinese domestic prices have been pushed higher, partially reflecting the higher cost of imports from sources other than Australia.

China's neighbour Mongolia has become its biggest supplier of coking coal, meeting 61.7% of imports in the first two months of this year, up from just 17.7% in the same period in 2020, according to official data.

Australia's share of imports came down to zero from 68.4% in January-February 2020, according to the data, while the United States boosted its share to 9.1% from under 2%, and Canada went to 12.1% from 6.1%.

DOMESTIC THERMAL COAL PAIN

For thermal coal, the main impact from the ban of Australian cargoes appears to have been strength in Chinese domestic prices, with benchmark coal at Qinhuangdao, as assessed by SteelHome, closing at 747 yuan a tonne on Thursday, equivalent to about $114.

It's also believed that the Chinese authorities prefer a domestic thermal coal price in a range between 530 to 580 yuan a tonne, a level said to secure the profitability of mines while keeping electricity prices competitive.

China has turned to Indonesia, the world's top exporter of thermal coal, to plug some of the gap caused by the absence of Australian cargoes, as well as buying more from Russia and South Africa, two countries that can offer similar quality coal to Australia.

But boosting supplies from these countries appears to have done little to lower domestic prices, meaning Chinese users are still paying substantially more for the fuel than what they were prior to the ban of Australian coal.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.

(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Tue, 28 Sep 2021 09:02

Sept. 27, 2021, 10:21 PM EDT

By Tim Stelloh

Authorities in Northern California last week announced the arrest of a woman who they say ignited a wind-whipped wildfire that quickly tore through steep, rugged terrain, destroying 144 buildings, prompting the evacuation of thousands of people and becoming one of the state's more destructive blazes this year.

The woman, Alexandra Souverneva, 30, a onetime yoga teacher from the San Francisco Bay Area whom a former colleague recalled as "brilliant," is among more than 100 people who have been accused of wildland arson and arrested this year by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

The charge alleges a rare but significant act that has come into sharper focus as parched, overgrown forests explode across thousands of acres in days.

"It is difficult to grasp when disaster like this is, apparently, not a natural disaster, but we have a suspect, and this might be an arson case," Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson said during a community meeting Saturday.

Souverneva has pleaded not guilty.

Flames consume a house near Old Oregon Trail as the Fawn Fire burns about 10 miles north of Redding, Calif., on Thursday. Ethan Swope / APWildfires are usually accidental, ignited by damaged power lines, vehicles and logging equipment, said Ed Nordskog, a retired arson investigator with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and a co-author of "Arson Investigation in the Wildlands."

While most wildfire agencies attribute about 10 percent of blazes to arson, Nordskog said the real number could be twice as high '-- a result of decades of officials' prioritizing suppression over investigations.

"If you don't send an investigator, you don't have arson," he said.

The intentional setting of a wildland fire can have swift, profound consequences. As Nordskog put it: "They literally have the power of an atomic bomb at their fingertips. They can burn an entire town down if the conditions are right."

In 2006, for instance, a wind-driven blaze burned across 40,000 acres in Southern California, destroying dozens of homes and killing five firefighters. Raymond Oyler, a mechanic from Riverside County, was convicted of arson and murder and sentenced to death.

In 2008, a former volunteer firefighter from Northern California, Robert Eason, was convicted of setting a dozen fires north of Sacramento, including one that burned 1,000 acres and killed 200 sheep. Investigators said Eason used a sophisticated time-delay device to ignite the fires.

Unlike urban arsonists, whose ages, genders and races vary, wildland arsonists tend to be middle-age men, said Nordskog, who also wrote "The Arsonist Profiles: Analyzing Arson Motives and Behavior." Although lighters and matches are the preferred methods of ignition, some people, like Eason, use time-delay devices, such as matches wrapped around a cigarette, he said.

"When they burst into flames, they're seven to 15 miles away," Nordskog said.

Although some arsonists act for thrills, Nordskog said, anger, frustration and mental illness are more common motives. Just as common is how daunting the investigations can be. They're often in remote areas, with ignition points that could be devastated as firefighters work to extinguish the blazes, he said.

Fire officials said Souverneva was arrested Wednesday night after she emerged from the brush near a fire line northeast of Redding in Shasta County. She had a working lighter in her pocket, Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett said Friday, and told firefighters that she was dehydrated and needed medical treatment.

RecommendedAccording to a Cal Fire report obtained by the Record Searchlight of Redding, Souverneva said she was hiking to Canada and tried to boil water that she found in a puddle. Her attempts failed, the report said, but she drank the water anyway '-- she believed it was mixed with bear urine '-- then walked uphill and saw smoke and airplanes ''dropping pink stuff.''

Souverneva was taken into custody on suspicion of arson.

Because of a declared state of emergency, Souverneva faces an enhanced sentence of nine years if she is convicted, Bridgett said. She said authorities are "aware" of other fires locally and around the state that Souverneva "may be linked to." Bridgett declined to provide additional details.

Bridgett, who also declined to discuss a possible motive, said there was no indication that Souverneva was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Nor did she appear mentally ill, Bridgett said, although witnesses who saw her earlier said she was acting "irrationally," Cal Fire said in a statement.

Souverneva pleaded not guilty to felony arson. Her attorney, Shana Vegvary, said that Souverneva was "asserting her innocence" and that "no evidence has been presented to the contrary."

"We request that the public not prejudge this case," she said.

Relatives in the Bay Area did not respond to requests for comment. A former colleague and instructor who taught Souverneva at Avalon Yoga International, in Palo Alto, recalled her as a brilliant student who attended the California Institute of Technology and worked for pharmaceutical companies before she burned out on "big money-grubbing corporations."

"I thought she was an idealistic kid," said Steve Farmer, the chief executive of Avalon. "She was into conservation and forests."

Farmer said he hadn't seen her since the coronavirus pandemic started, when Avalon shuttered, although he planned to rehire her after it reopened. "She would have been the last person I would have thought to get involved in something like this," he said.

As of Monday, the fire in Shasta County had destroyed dozens of homes and grown to nearly 9,000 acres, according to Cal Fire. Firefighters had surrounded half of the blaze with containment lines.

Tim Stelloh Tim Stelloh is a reporter for NBC News based in California.

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Archived Version

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 08:49

Show caption Power cuts to meet official energy use targets have forced Chinese factories to shut down and left some households in the dark Photograph: Olivia Zhang/AP

ChinaFactories were closed to avoid exceeding limits on energy use imposed by Beijing to promote efficiency

Guardian staff and agencies

Mon 27 Sep 2021 21.24 EDT

Widening power shortages in China's north-east have left homes without power and halted production at numerous factories, while some shops operated by candlelight as the economic toll of the squeeze mounted.

Residents in the north-east, where autumn temperatures are falling, reported power cuts and appealed on social media for the government to restore supplies.

Rationing has been implemented during peak hours since last week, while residents of cities including Changchun said cuts were occurring sooner and lasting for longer, state media reported.

China's power crunch, caused by tight coal supplies and toughening emissions standards, has hurt production in industries across several regions and poses a risk to already strained global supply chains.

Xi Jinping's drive for economic equality comes at a delicate moment for China Manufacturers face existing shortages of processor chips, disruptions in shipping and other lingering effects of the global shutdown of travel and trade to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

In the north-east, factories were idled to avoid exceeding limits on energy use imposed by Beijing to promote efficiency. Economists and an environmental group say manufacturers used up this year's quota faster than planned as export demand rebounded from the coronavirus pandemic.

In the city of Liaoyang, 23 people were hospitalised with gas poisoning after ventilation in a metal casting factory was shut off after a power outage, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

The suspension of production at some factories prompted concerns over the possible shortage of goods ahead of Christmas, including smartphones and devices.

Apple components supplier Eson Precision Engineering said on Sunday it would halt production at its factory in Kunshan, west of Shanghai, until Thursday ''in line with the local government's power restriction policy.''

Eson said the suspension shouldn't have a ''significant impact'' on operations.

Apple didn't immediately respond to a question from Associated Press about the possible impact on iPhone supplies.

The impact on homes and non-industrial users comes as night-time temperatures slip to near-freezing in China's northernmost cities. The National Energy Administration has told coal and natural gas firms to ensure sufficient energy supplies to keep homes warm during winter.

Liaoning province said power generation had declined significantly since July, and the supply gap widened to a ''severe level'' last week. It expanded power cuts from industrial firms to residential areas last week.

The city of Huludao told residents not to use high energy-consuming electronics like water heaters and microwave ovens during peak periods, and a resident of Harbin city in Heilongjiang province told Reuters that many shopping malls were closing earlier than usual.

The power squeeze is unnerving Chinese stock markets at a time when the world's second-largest economy is already showing signs of slowing. The Chinese economy is grappling with curbs on the property and tech sectors and concerns around the future of cash-strapped real estate giant China Evergrande.

Stricter emissions standards have in part driven the power shortages.

China has vowed to cut energy intensity by about 3% in 2021 to meet its climate goals. Provincial authorities have also stepped up the enforcement of emissions curbs in recent months after only 10 of 30 mainland regions managed to achieve their energy goals in the first half of the year.

'Big line in the sand': China promises no new coal-fired power projects abroad The ruling party also is preparing for the Winter Olympics in Beijing, and the nearby city of Shijiazhuang in February, a period when it will want clear blue skies.

The power pinch has been affecting manufacturers in key industrial hubs on the eastern and southern coasts for weeks.

At least 15 Chinese companies have said in exchange filings that production had been disrupted by power curbs, while more than 30 Taiwan-listed firms with China operations had stopped work to comply with the power limits.

The fallout of the power shortage has prompted some analysts to downgrade their 2021 economic growth outlook for China, and also warned of possible global supply shortages to textiles, toys and machine parts.

With Reuters and Associated Press

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Archived Version

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 02:43

Via The Automatic Earth blog,

This is an anonymously posted document by someone who calls themselves Spartacus. Because it's anonymous, I can't contact them to ask for permission to publish. So I hesitated for a while, but it's simply the best document I've seen on Covid, vaccines, etc. Whoever Spartacus is, they have a very elaborate knowledge in ''the field''. If you want to know a lot more about the no. 1 issue in the world today, read it. And don't worry if you don't understand every single word, neither do I. But I learned a lot.

The original PDF doc is here: Covid19 '' The Spartacus Letter

Hello,

My name is Spartacus, and I've had enough.

We have been forced to watch America and the Free World spin into inexorable decline due to a biowarfare attack. We, along with countless others, have been victimized and gaslit by propaganda and psychological warfare operations being conducted by an unelected, unaccountable Elite against the American people and our allies.

Our mental and physical health have suffered immensely over the course of the past year and a half. We have felt the sting of isolation, lockdown, masking, quarantines, and other completely nonsensical acts of healthcare theater that have done absolutely nothing to protect the health or wellbeing of the public from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, we are watching the medical establishment inject literal poison into millions of our fellow Americans without so much as a fight.

We have been told that we will be fired and denied our livelihoods if we refuse to vaccinate. This was the last straw.

We have spent thousands of hours analyzing leaked footage from Wuhan, scientific papers from primary sources, as well as the paper trails left by the medical establishment.

What we have discovered would shock anyone to their core.

First, we will summarize our findings, and then, we will explain them in detail. References will be placed at the end.

Summary:COVID-19 is a blood and blood vessel disease. SARS-CoV-2 infects the lining of human blood vessels, causing them to leak into the lungs.

Current treatment protocols (e.g. invasive ventilation) are actively harmful to patients, accelerating oxidative stress and causing severe VILI (ventilator-induced lung injuries). The continued use of ventilators in the absence of any proven medical benefit constitutes mass murder.

Existing countermeasures are inadequate to slow the spread of what is an aerosolized and potentially wastewater-borne virus, and constitute a form of medical theater.

Various non-vaccine interventions have been suppressed by both the media and the medical establishment in favor of vaccines and expensive patented drugs.

The authorities have denied the usefulness of natural immunity against COVID-19, despite the fact that natural immunity confers protection against all of the virus's proteins, and not just one.

Vaccines will do more harm than good. The antigen that these vaccines are based on, SARS-CoV- 2 Spike, is a toxic protein. SARS-CoV-2 may have ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement; current antibodies may not neutralize future strains, but instead help them infect immune cells. Also, vaccinating during a pandemic with a leaky vaccine removes the evolutionary pressure for a virus to become less lethal.

There is a vast and appalling criminal conspiracy that directly links both Anthony Fauci and Moderna to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

COVID-19 vaccine researchers are directly linked to scientists involved in brain-computer interface (''neural lace'') tech, one of whom was indicted for taking grant money from China.

Independent researchers have discovered mysterious nanoparticles inside the vaccines that are not supposed to be present.

The entire pandemic is being used as an excuse for a vast political and economic transformation of Western society that will enrich the already rich and turn the rest of us into serfs and untouchables.

COVID-19 Pathophysiology and Treatments:COVID-19 is not a viral pneumonia. It is a viral vascular endotheliitis and attacks the lining of blood vessels, particularly the small pulmonary alveolar capillaries, leading to endothelial cell activation and sloughing, coagulopathy, sepsis, pulmonary edema, and ARDS-like symptoms. This is a disease of the blood and blood vessels. The circulatory system. Any pneumonia that it causes is secondary to that.

In severe cases, this leads to sepsis, blood clots, and multiple organ failure, including hypoxic and inflammatory damage to various vital organs, such as the brain, heart, liver, pancreas, kidneys, and intestines.

Some of the most common laboratory findings in COVID-19 are elevated D-dimer, elevated prothrombin time, elevated C-reactive protein, neutrophilia, lymphopenia, hypocalcemia, and hyperferritinemia, essentially matching a profile of coagulopathy and immune system hyperactivation/immune cell exhaustion.

COVID-19 can present as almost anything, due to the wide tropism of SARS-CoV-2 for various tissues in the body's vital organs. While its most common initial presentation is respiratory illness and flu-like symptoms, it can present as brain inflammation, gastrointestinal disease, or even heart attack or pulmonary embolism.

COVID-19 is more severe in those with specific comorbidities, such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. This is because these conditions involve endothelial dysfunction, which renders the circulatory system more susceptible to infection and injury by this particular virus.

The vast majority of COVID-19 cases are mild and do not cause significant disease. In known cases, there is something known as the 80/20 rule, where 80% of cases are mild and 20% are severe or critical. However, this ratio is only correct for known cases, not all infections. The number of actual infections is much, much higher. Consequently, the mortality and morbidity rate is lower. However, COVID-19 spreads very quickly, meaning that there are a significant number of severely-ill and critically-ill patients appearing in a short time frame.

In those who have critical COVID-19-induced sepsis, hypoxia, coagulopathy, and ARDS, the most common treatments are intubation, injected corticosteroids, and blood thinners. This is not the correct treatment for COVID-19. In severe hypoxia, cellular metabolic shifts cause ATP to break down into hypoxanthine, which, upon the reintroduction of oxygen, causes xanthine oxidase to produce tons of highly damaging radicals that attack tissue. This is called ischemia-reperfusion injury, and it's why the majority of people who go on a ventilator are dying. In the mitochondria, succinate buildup due to sepsis does the same exact thing; when oxygen is reintroduced, it makes superoxide radicals. Make no mistake, intubation will kill people who have COVID-19.

The end-stage of COVID-19 is severe lipid peroxidation, where fats in the body start to ''rust'' due to damage by oxidative stress. This drives autoimmunity. Oxidized lipids appear as foreign objects to the immune system, which recognizes and forms antibodies against OSEs, or oxidation-specific epitopes. Also, oxidized lipids feed directly into pattern recognition receptors, triggering even more inflammation and summoning even more cells of the innate immune system that release even more destructive enzymes. This is similar to the pathophysiology of Lupus.

COVID-19's pathology is dominated by extreme oxidative stress and neutrophil respiratory burst, to the point where hemoglobin becomes incapable of carrying oxygen due to heme iron being stripped out of heme by hypochlorous acid. No amount of supplemental oxygen can oxygenate blood that chemically refuses to bind O2.

The breakdown of the pathology is as follows:

SARS-CoV-2 Spike binds to ACE2. Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 is an enzyme that is part of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, or RAAS. The RAAS is a hormone control system that moderates fluid volume in the body and in the bloodstream (i.e. osmolarity) by controlling salt retention and excretion. This protein, ACE2, is ubiquitous in every part of the body that interfaces with the circulatory system, particularly in vascular endothelial cells and pericytes, brain astrocytes, renal tubules and podocytes, pancreatic islet cells, bile duct and intestinal epithelial cells, and the seminiferous ducts of the testis, all of which SARS-CoV-2 can infect, not just the lungs.

SARS-CoV-2 infects a cell as follows: SARS-CoV-2 Spike undergoes a conformational change where the S1 trimers flip up and extend, locking onto ACE2 bound to the surface of a cell. TMPRSS2, or transmembrane protease serine 2, comes along and cuts off the heads of the Spike, exposing the S2 stalk-shaped subunit inside. The remainder of the Spike undergoes a conformational change that causes it to unfold like an extension ladder, embedding itself in the cell membrane. Then, it folds back upon itself, pulling the viral membrane and the cell membrane together. The two membranes fuse, with the virus's proteins migrating out onto the surface of the cell. The SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid enters the cell, disgorging its genetic material and beginning the viral replication process, hijacking the cell's own structures to produce more virus.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins embedded in a cell can actually cause human cells to fuse together, forming syncytia/MGCs (multinuclear giant cells). They also have other pathogenic, harmful effects. SARS-CoV- 2's viroporins, such as its Envelope protein, act as calcium ion channels, introducing calcium into infected cells. The virus suppresses the natural interferon response, resulting in delayed inflammation. SARS-CoV-2 N protein can also directly activate the NLRP3 inflammasome. Also, it suppresses the Nrf2 antioxidant pathway. The suppression of ACE2 by binding with Spike causes a buildup of bradykinin that would otherwise be broken down by ACE2.

This constant calcium influx into the cells results in (or is accompanied by) noticeable hypocalcemia, or low blood calcium, especially in people with Vitamin D deficiencies and pre-existing endothelial dysfunction. Bradykinin upregulates cAMP, cGMP, COX, and Phospholipase C activity. This results in prostaglandin release and vastly increased intracellular calcium signaling, which promotes highly aggressive ROS release and ATP depletion. NADPH oxidase releases superoxide into the extracellular space. Superoxide radicals react with nitric oxide to form peroxynitrite. Peroxynitrite reacts with the tetrahydrobiopterin cofactor needed by endothelial nitric oxide synthase, destroying it and ''uncoupling'' the enzymes, causing nitric oxide synthase to synthesize more superoxide instead. This proceeds in a positive feedback loop until nitric oxide bioavailability in the circulatory system is depleted.

Dissolved nitric oxide gas produced constantly by eNOS serves many important functions, but it is also antiviral against SARS-like coronaviruses, preventing the palmitoylation of the viral Spike protein and making it harder for it to bind to host receptors. The loss of NO allows the virus to begin replicating with impunity in the body. Those with endothelial dysfunction (i.e. hypertension, diabetes, obesity, old age, African-American race) have redox equilibrium issues to begin with, giving the virus an advantage.

Due to the extreme cytokine release triggered by these processes, the body summons a great deal of neutrophils and monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages to the lungs. Cells of the innate immune system are the first-line defenders against pathogens. They work by engulfing invaders and trying to attack them with enzymes that produce powerful oxidants, like SOD and MPO. Superoxide dismutase takes superoxide and makes hydrogen peroxide, and myeloperoxidase takes hydrogen peroxide and chlorine ions and makes hypochlorous acid, which is many, many times more reactive than sodium hypochlorite bleach.

Neutrophils have a nasty trick. They can also eject these enzymes into the extracellular space, where they will continuously spit out peroxide and bleach into the bloodstream. This is called neutrophil extracellular trap formation, or, when it becomes pathogenic and counterproductive, NETosis. In severe and critical COVID-19, there is actually rather severe NETosis.

Hypochlorous acid building up in the bloodstream begins to bleach the iron out of heme and compete for O2 binding sites. Red blood cells lose the ability to transport oxygen, causing the sufferer to turn blue in the face. Unliganded iron, hydrogen peroxide, and superoxide in the bloodstream undergo the Haber- Weiss and Fenton reactions, producing extremely reactive hydroxyl radicals that violently strip electrons from surrounding fats and DNA, oxidizing them severely.

This condition is not unknown to medical science. The actual name for all of this is acute sepsis.

We know this is happening in COVID-19 because people who have died of the disease have noticeable ferroptosis signatures in their tissues, as well as various other oxidative stress markers such as nitrotyrosine, 4-HNE, and malondialdehyde.

When you intubate someone with this condition, you are setting off a free radical bomb by supplying the cells with O2. It's a catch-22, because we need oxygen to make Adenosine Triphosphate (that is, to live), but O2 is also the precursor of all these damaging radicals that lead to lipid peroxidation.

The correct treatment for severe COVID-19 related sepsis is non-invasive ventilation, steroids, and antioxidant infusions. Most of the drugs repurposed for COVID-19 that show any benefit whatsoever in rescuing critically-ill COVID-19 patients are antioxidants. N-acetylcysteine, melatonin, fluvoxamine, budesonide, famotidine, cimetidine, and ranitidine are all antioxidants. Indomethacin prevents iron- driven oxidation of arachidonic acid to isoprostanes. There are powerful antioxidants such as apocynin that have not even been tested on COVID-19 patients yet which could defang neutrophils, prevent lipid peroxidation, restore endothelial health, and restore oxygenation to the tissues.

Scientists who know anything about pulmonary neutrophilia, ARDS, and redox biology have known or surmised much of this since March 2020. In April 2020, Swiss scientists confirmed that COVID-19 was a vascular endotheliitis. By late 2020, experts had already concluded that COVID-19 causes a form of viral sepsis. They also know that sepsis can be effectively treated with antioxidants. None of this information is particularly new, and yet, for the most part, it has not been acted upon. Doctors continue to use damaging intubation techniques with high PEEP settings despite high lung compliance and poor oxygenation, killing an untold number of critically ill patients with medical malpractice.

Because of the way they are constructed, Randomized Control Trials will never show any benefit for any antiviral against COVID-19. Not Remdesivir, not Kaletra, not HCQ, and not Ivermectin. The reason for this is simple; for the patients that they have recruited for these studies, such as Oxford's ludicrous RECOVERY study, the intervention is too late to have any positive effect.

The clinical course of COVID-19 is such that by the time most people seek medical attention for hypoxia, their viral load has already tapered off to almost nothing. If someone is about 10 days post-exposure and has already been symptomatic for five days, there is hardly any virus left in their bodies, only cellular damage and derangement that has initiated a hyperinflammatory response. It is from this group that the clinical trials for antivirals have recruited, pretty much exclusively.

In these trials, they give antivirals to severely ill patients who have no virus in their bodies, only a delayed hyperinflammatory response, and then absurdly claim that antivirals have no utility in treating or preventing COVID-19. These clinical trials do not recruit people who are pre-symptomatic. They do not test pre-exposure or post-exposure prophylaxis.

This is like using a defibrillator to shock only flatline, and then absurdly claiming that defibrillators have no medical utility whatsoever when the patients refuse to rise from the dead. The intervention is too late. These trials for antivirals show systematic, egregious selection bias. They are providing a treatment that is futile to the specific cohort they are enrolling.

India went against the instructions of the WHO and mandated the prophylactic usage of Ivermectin. They have almost completely eradicated COVID-19. The Indian Bar Association of Mumbai has brought criminal charges against WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for recommending against the use of Ivermectin.

Ivermectin is not ''horse dewormer''. Yes, it is sold in veterinary paste form as a dewormer for animals. It has also been available in pill form for humans for decades, as an antiparasitic drug.

The media have disingenuously claimed that because Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug, it has no utility as an antivirus. This is incorrect. Ivermectin has utility as an antiviral. It blocks importin, preventing nuclear import, effectively inhibiting viral access to cell nuclei. Many drugs currently on the market have multiple modes of action. Ivermectin is one such drug. It is both antiparasitic and antiviral.

In Bangladesh, Ivermectin costs $1.80 for an entire 5-day course. Remdesivir, which is toxic to the liver, costs $3,120 for a 5-day course of the drug. Billions of dollars of utterly useless Remdesivir were sold to our governments on the taxpayer's dime, and it ended up being totally useless for treating hyperinflammatory COVID-19. The media has hardly even covered this at all.

The opposition to the use of generic Ivermectin is not based in science. It is purely financially and politically-motivated. An effective non-vaccine intervention would jeopardize the rushed FDA approval of patented vaccines and medicines for which the pharmaceutical industry stands to rake in billions upon billions of dollars in sales on an ongoing basis.

The majority of the public are scientifically illiterate and cannot grasp what any of this even means, thanks to a pathetic educational system that has miseducated them. You would be lucky to find 1 in 100 people who have even the faintest clue what any of this actually means.

COVID-19 Transmission:COVID-19 is airborne. The WHO carried water for China by claiming that the virus was only droplet- borne. Our own CDC absurdly claimed that it was mostly transmitted by fomite-to-face contact, which, given its rapid spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world, would have been physically impossible.

The ridiculous belief in fomite-to-face being a primary mode of transmission led to the use of surface disinfection protocols that wasted time, energy, productivity, and disinfectant.

The 6-foot guidelines are absolutely useless. The minimum safe distance to protect oneself from an aerosolized virus is to be 15+ feet away from an infected person, no closer. Realistically, no public transit is safe.

Surgical masks do not protect you from aerosols. The virus is too small and the filter media has too large of gaps to filter it out. They may catch respiratory droplets and keep the virus from being expelled by someone who is sick, but they do not filter a cloud of infectious aerosols if someone were to walk into said cloud.

The minimum level of protection against this virus is quite literally a P100 respirator, a PAPR/CAPR, or a 40mm NATO CBRN respirator, ideally paired with a full-body tyvek or tychem suit, gloves, and booties, with all the holes and gaps taped.

Live SARS-CoV-2 may potentially be detected in sewage outflows, and there may be oral-fecal transmission. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, in the Amoy Gardens incident, hundreds of people were infected by aerosolized fecal matter rising from floor drains in their apartments.

COVID-19 Vaccine Dangers:The vaccines for COVID-19 are not sterilizing and do not prevent infection or transmission. They are ''leaky'' vaccines. This means they remove the evolutionary pressure on the virus to become less lethal. It also means that the vaccinated are perfect carriers. In other words, those who are vaccinated are a threat to the unvaccinated, not the other way around.

All of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use have undergone minimal testing, with highly accelerated clinical trials. Though they appear to limit severe illness, the long-term safety profile of these vaccines remains unknown.

Some of these so-called ''vaccines'' utilize an untested new technology that has never been used in vaccines before. Traditional vaccines use weakened or killed virus to stimulate an immune response. The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines do not. They are purported to consist of an intramuscular shot containing a suspension of lipid nanoparticles filled with messenger RNA. The way they generate an immune response is by fusing with cells in a vaccine recipient's shoulder, undergoing endocytosis, releasing their mRNA cargo into those cells, and then utilizing the ribosomes in those cells to synthesize modified SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins in-situ.

These modified Spike proteins then migrate to the surface of the cell, where they are anchored in place by a transmembrane domain. The adaptive immune system detects the non-human viral protein being expressed by these cells, and then forms antibodies against that protein. This is purported to confer protection against the virus, by training the adaptive immune system to recognize and produce antibodies against the Spike on the actual virus. The J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines do something similar, but use an adenovirus vector for genetic material delivery instead of a lipid nanoparticle. These vaccines were produced or validated with the aid of fetal cell lines HEK-293 and PER.C6, which people with certain religious convictions may object strongly to.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike is a highly pathogenic protein on its own. It is impossible to overstate the danger presented by introducing this protein into the human body.

It is claimed by vaccine manufacturers that the vaccine remains in cells in the shoulder, and that SARS- CoV-2 Spike produced and expressed by these cells from the vaccine's genetic material is harmless and inert, thanks to the insertion of prolines in the Spike sequence to stabilize it in the prefusion conformation, preventing the Spike from becoming active and fusing with other cells. However, a pharmacokinetic study from Japan showed that the lipid nanoparticles and mRNA from the Pfizer vaccine did not stay in the shoulder, and in fact bioaccumulated in many different organs, including the reproductive organs and adrenal glands, meaning that modified Spike is being expressed quite literally all over the place. These lipid nanoparticles may trigger anaphylaxis in an unlucky few, but far more concerning is the unregulated expression of Spike in various somatic cell lines far from the injection site and the unknown consequences of that.

Messenger RNA is normally consumed right after it is produced in the body, being translated into a protein by a ribosome. COVID-19 vaccine mRNA is produced outside the body, long before a ribosome translates it. In the meantime, it could accumulate damage if inadequately preserved. When a ribosome attempts to translate a damaged strand of mRNA, it can become stalled. When this happens, the ribosome becomes useless for translating proteins because it now has a piece of mRNA stuck in it, like a lace card in an old punch card reader. The whole thing has to be cleaned up and new ribosomes synthesized to replace it. In cells with low ribosome turnover, like nerve cells, this can lead to reduced protein synthesis, cytopathic effects, and neuropathies.

Certain proteins, including SARS-CoV-2 Spike, have proteolytic cleavage sites that are basically like little dotted lines that say ''cut here'', which attract a living organism's own proteases (essentially, molecular scissors) to cut them. There is a possibility that S1 may be proteolytically cleaved from S2, causing active S1 to float away into the bloodstream while leaving the S2 ''stalk'' embedded in the membrane of the cell that expressed the protein.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a Superantigenic region (SAg), which may promote extreme inflammation.

Anti-Spike antibodies were found in one study to function as autoantibodies and attack the body's own cells. Those who have been immunized with COVID-19 vaccines have developed blood clots, myocarditis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Bell's Palsy, and multiple sclerosis flares, indicating that the vaccine promotes autoimmune reactions against healthy tissue.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike does not only bind to ACE2. It was suspected to have regions that bind to basigin, integrins, neuropilin-1, and bacterial lipopolysaccharides as well. SARS-CoV-2 Spike, on its own, can potentially bind any of these things and act as a ligand for them, triggering unspecified and likely highly inflammatory cellular activity.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike contains an unusual PRRA insert that forms a furin cleavage site. Furin is a ubiquitous human protease, making this an ideal property for the Spike to have, giving it a high degree of cell tropism. No wild-type SARS-like coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 possess this feature, making it highly suspicious, and perhaps a sign of human tampering.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a prion-like domain that enhances its infectiousness.

The Spike S1 RBD may bind to heparin-binding proteins and promote amyloid aggregation. In humans, this could lead to Parkinson's, Lewy Body Dementia, premature Alzheimer's, or various other neurodegenerative diseases. This is very concerning because SARS-CoV-2 S1 is capable of injuring and penetrating the blood-brain barrier and entering the brain. It is also capable of increasing the permeability of the blood-brain barrier to other molecules.

SARS-CoV-2, like other betacoronaviruses, may have Dengue-like ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement of disease. For those who aren't aware, some viruses, including betacoronaviruses, have a feature called ADE. There is also something called Original Antigenic Sin, which is the observation that the body prefers to produce antibodies based on previously-encountered strains of a virus over newly- encountered ones.

In ADE, antibodies from a previous infection become non-neutralizing due to mutations in the virus's proteins. These non-neutralizing antibodies then act as trojan horses, allowing live, active virus to be pulled into macrophages through their Fc receptor pathways, allowing the virus to infect immune cells that it would not have been able to infect before. This has been known to happen with Dengue Fever; when someone gets sick with Dengue, recovers, and then contracts a different strain, they can get very, very ill.

If someone is vaccinated with mRNA based on the Spike from the initial Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2, and then they become infected with a future, mutated strain of the virus, they may become severely ill. In other words, it is possible for vaccines to sensitize someone to disease.

There is a precedent for this in recent history. Sanofi's Dengvaxia vaccine for Dengue failed because it caused immune sensitization in people whose immune systems were Dengue-naive.

In mice immunized against SARS-CoV and challenged with the virus, a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, they developed immune sensitization, Th2 immunopathology, and eosinophil infiltration in their lungs.

We have been told that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines cannot be integrated into the human genome, because messenger RNA cannot be turned back into DNA. This is false. There are elements in human cells called LINE-1 retrotransposons, which can indeed integrate mRNA into a human genome by endogenous reverse transcription. Because the mRNA used in the vaccines is stabilized, it hangs around in cells longer, increasing the chances for this to happen. If the gene for SARS-CoV-2 Spike is integrated into a portion of the genome that is not silent and actually expresses a protein, it is possible that people who take this vaccine may continuously express SARS-CoV-2 Spike from their somatic cells for the rest of their lives.

By inoculating people with a vaccine that causes their bodies to produce Spike in-situ, they are being inoculated with a pathogenic protein. A toxin that may cause long-term inflammation, heart problems, and a raised risk of cancers. In the long-term, it may also potentially lead to premature neurodegenerative disease.

Absolutely nobody should be compelled to take this vaccine under any circumstances, and in actual fact, the vaccination campaign must be stopped immediately.

COVID-19 Criminal Conspiracy:The vaccine and the virus were made by the same people.

In 2014, there was a moratorium on SARS gain-of-function research that lasted until 2017. This research was not halted. Instead, it was outsourced, with the federal grants being laundered through NGOs.

Ralph Baric is a virologist and SARS expert at UNC Chapel Hill in North Carolina. This is who Anthony Fauci was referring to when he insisted, before Congress, that if any gain-of-function research was being conducted, it was being conducted in North Carolina.

This was a lie. Anthony Fauci lied before Congress. A felony.

Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli are colleagues and have co-written papers together. Ralph Baric mentored Shi Zhengli in his gain-of-function manipulation techniques, particularly serial passage, which results in a virus that appears as if it originated naturally. In other words, deniable bioweapons. Serial passage in humanized hACE2 mice may have produced something like SARS-CoV-2.

The funding for the gain-of-function research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology came from Peter Daszak. Peter Daszak runs an NGO called EcoHealth Alliance. EcoHealth Alliance received millions of dollars in grant money from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (that is, Anthony Fauci), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (part of the US Department of Defense), and the United States Agency for International Development. NIH/NIAID contributed a few million dollars, and DTRA and USAID each contributed tens of millions of dollars towards this research. Altogether, it was over a hundred million dollars.

EcoHealth Alliance subcontracted these grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab in China with a very questionable safety record and poorly trained staff, so that they could conduct gain-of-function research, not in their fancy P4 lab, but in a level-2 lab where technicians wore nothing more sophisticated than perhaps a hairnet, latex gloves, and a surgical mask, instead of the bubble suits used when working with dangerous viruses. Chinese scientists in Wuhan reported being routinely bitten and urinated on by laboratory animals. Why anyone would outsource this dangerous and delicate work to the People's Republic of China, a country infamous for industrial accidents and massive explosions that have claimed hundreds of lives, is completely beyond me, unless the aim was to start a pandemic on purpose.

In November of 2019, three technicians at the Wuhan Institute of Virology developed symptoms consistent with a flu-like illness. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric knew at once what had happened, because back channels exist between this laboratory and our scientists and officials.

December 12th, 2019, Ralph Baric signed a Material Transfer Agreement (essentially, an NDA) to receive Coronavirus mRNA vaccine-related materials co-owned by Moderna and NIH. It wasn't until a whole month later, on January 11th, 2020, that China allegedly sent us the sequence to what would become known as SARS-CoV-2. Moderna claims, rather absurdly, that they developed a working vaccine from this sequence in under 48 hours.

Stephane Bancel, the current CEO of Moderna, was formerly the CEO of bioMerieux, a French multinational corporation specializing in medical diagnostic tech, founded by one Alain Merieux. Alain Merieux was one of the individuals who was instrumental in the construction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology's P4 lab.

The sequence given as the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13, is not a real virus. It is a forgery. It was made by entering a gene sequence by hand into a database, to create a cover story for the existence of SARS-CoV-2, which is very likely a gain-of-function chimera produced at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and was either leaked by accident or intentionally released.

The animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 has never been found.

This is not a conspiracy ''theory''. It is an actual criminal conspiracy, in which people connected to the development of Moderna's mRNA-1273 are directly connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and their gain-of-function research by very few degrees of separation, if any. The paper trail is well- established.

The lab-leak theory has been suppressed because pulling that thread leads one to inevitably conclude that there is enough circumstantial evidence to link Moderna, the NIH, the WIV, and both the vaccine and the virus's creation together. In a sane country, this would have immediately led to the world's biggest RICO and mass murder case. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric, Shi Zhengli, and Stephane Bancel, and their accomplices, would have been indicted and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Instead, billions of our tax dollars were awarded to the perpetrators.

The FBI raided Allure Medical in Shelby Township north of Detroit for billing insurance for ''fraudulent COVID-19 cures''. The treatment they were using? Intravenous Vitamin C. An antioxidant. Which, as described above, is an entirely valid treatment for COVID-19-induced sepsis, and indeed, is now part of the MATH+ protocol advanced by Dr. Paul E. Marik.

The FDA banned ranitidine (Zantac) due to supposed NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine) contamination. Ranitidine is not only an H2 blocker used as antacid, but also has a powerful antioxidant effect, scavenging hydroxyl radicals. This gives it utility in treating COVID-19.

The FDA also attempted to take N-acetylcysteine, a harmless amino acid supplement and antioxidant, off the shelves, compelling Amazon to remove it from their online storefront.

This leaves us with a chilling question: did the FDA knowingly suppress antioxidants useful for treating COVID-19 sepsis as part of a criminal conspiracy against the American public?

The establishment is cooperating with, and facilitating, the worst criminals in human history, and are actively suppressing non-vaccine treatments and therapies in order to compel us to inject these criminals' products into our bodies. This is absolutely unacceptable.

COVID-19 Vaccine Development and Links to Transhumanism:This section deals with some more speculative aspects of the pandemic and the medical and scientific establishment's reaction to it, as well as the disturbing links between scientists involved in vaccine research and scientists whose work involved merging nanotechnology with living cells.

On June 9th, 2020, Charles Lieber, a Harvard nanotechnology researcher with decades of experience, was indicted by the DOJ for fraud. Charles Lieber received millions of dollars in grant money from the US Department of Defense, specifically the military think tanks DARPA, AFOSR, and ONR, as well as NIH and MITRE. His specialty is the use of silicon nanowires in lieu of patch clamp electrodes to monitor and modulate intracellular activity, something he has been working on at Harvard for the past twenty years. He was claimed to have been working on silicon nanowire batteries in China, but none of his colleagues can recall him ever having worked on battery technology in his life; all of his research deals with bionanotechnology, or the blending of nanotech with living cells.

The indictment was over his collaboration with the Wuhan University of Technology. He had double- dipped, against the terms of his DOD grants, and taken money from the PRC's Thousand Talents plan, a program which the Chinese government uses to bribe Western scientists into sharing proprietary R&D information that can be exploited by the PLA for strategic advantage.

Charles Lieber's own papers describe the use of silicon nanowires for brain-computer interfaces, or ''neural lace'' technology. His papers describe how neurons can endocytose whole silicon nanowires or parts of them, monitoring and even modulating neuronal activity.

Charles Lieber was a colleague of Robert Langer. Together, along with Daniel S. Kohane, they worked on a paper describing artificial tissue scaffolds that could be implanted in a human heart to monitor its activity remotely.

Robert Langer, an MIT alumnus and expert in nanotech drug delivery, is one of the co-founders of Moderna. His net worth is now $5.1 billion USD thanks to Moderna's mRNA-1273 vaccine sales.

Both Charles Lieber and Robert Langer's bibliographies describe, essentially, techniques for human enhancement, i.e. transhumanism. Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum and the architect behind the so-called ''Great Reset'', has long spoken of the ''blending of biology and machinery'' in his books.

Since these revelations, it has come to the attention of independent researchers that the COVID-19 vaccines may contain reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles. Japanese researchers have also found unexplained contaminants in COVID-19 vaccines.

Graphene oxide is an anxiolytic. It has been shown to reduce the anxiety of laboratory mice when injected into their brains. Indeed, given SARS-CoV-2 Spike's propensity to compromise the blood-brain barrier and increase its permeability, it is the perfect protein for preparing brain tissue for extravasation of nanoparticles from the bloodstream and into the brain. Graphene is also highly conductive and, in some circumstances, paramagnetic.

In 2013, under the Obama administration, DARPA launched the BRAIN Initiative; BRAIN is an acronym for Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies®. This program involves the development of brain-computer interface technologies for the military, particularly non-invasive, injectable systems that cause minimal damage to brain tissue when removed. Supposedly, this technology would be used for healing wounded soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, the direct brain control of prosthetic limbs, and even new abilities such as controlling drones with one's mind.

Various methods have been proposed for achieving this, including optogenetics, magnetogenetics, ultrasound, implanted electrodes, and transcranial electromagnetic stimulation. In all instances, the goal is to obtain read or read-write capability over neurons, either by stimulating and probing them, or by rendering them especially sensitive to stimulation and probing.

However, the notion of the widespread use of BCI technology, such as Elon Musk's Neuralink device, raises many concerns over privacy and personal autonomy. Reading from neurons is problematic enough on its own. Wireless brain-computer interfaces may interact with current or future wireless GSM infrastructure, creating neurological data security concerns. A hacker or other malicious actor may compromise such networks to obtain people's brain data, and then exploit it for nefarious purposes.

However, a device capable of writing to human neurons, not just reading from them, presents another, even more serious set of ethical concerns. A BCI that is capable of altering the contents of one's mind for innocuous purposes, such as projecting a heads-up display onto their brain's visual center or sending audio into one's auditory cortex, would also theoretically be capable of altering mood and personality, or perhaps even subjugating someone's very will, rendering them utterly obedient to authority. This technology would be a tyrant's wet dream. Imagine soldiers who would shoot their own countrymen without hesitation, or helpless serfs who are satisfied to live in literal dog kennels.

BCIs could be used to unscrupulously alter perceptions of basic things such as emotions and values, changing people's thresholds of satiety, happiness, anger, disgust, and so forth. This is not inconsequential. Someone's entire regime of behaviors could be altered by a BCI, including such things as suppressing their appetite or desire for virtually anything on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Anything is possible when you have direct access to someone's brain and its contents. Someone who is obese could be made to feel disgust at the sight of food. Someone who is involuntarily celibate could have their libido disabled so they don't even desire sex to begin with. Someone who is racist could be forced to feel delight over cohabiting with people of other races. Someone who is violent could be forced to be meek and submissive. These things might sound good to you if you are a tyrant, but to normal people, the idea of personal autonomy being overridden to such a degree is appalling.

For the wealthy, neural laces would be an unequaled boon, giving them the opportunity to enhance their intelligence with neuroprosthetics (i.e. an ''exocortex''), and to deliver irresistible commands directly into the minds of their BCI-augmented servants, even physically or sexually abusive commands that they would normally refuse.

If the vaccine is a method to surreptitiously introduce an injectable BCI into millions of people without their knowledge or consent, then what we are witnessing is the rise of a tyrannical regime unlike anything ever seen before on the face of this planet, one that fully intends to strip every man, woman, and child of our free will.

Our flaws are what make us human. A utopia arrived at by removing people's free will is not a utopia at all. It is a monomaniacal nightmare. Furthermore, the people who rule over us are Dark Triad types who cannot be trusted with such power. Imagine being beaten and sexually assaulted by a wealthy and powerful psychopath and being forced to smile and laugh over it because your neural lace gives you no choice but to obey your master.

The Elites are forging ahead with this technology without giving people any room to question the social or ethical ramifications, or to establish regulatory frameworks that ensure that our personal agency and autonomy will not be overridden by these devices. They do this because they secretly dream of a future where they can treat you worse than an animal and you cannot even fight back. If this evil plan is allowed to continue, it will spell the end of humanity as we know it.

Conclusions:The current pandemic was produced and perpetuated by the establishment, through the use of a virus engineered in a PLA-connected Chinese biowarfare laboratory, with the aid of American taxpayer dollars and French expertise.

This research was conducted under the absolutely ridiculous euphemism of ''gain-of-function'' research, which is supposedly carried out in order to determine which viruses have the highest potential for zoonotic spillover and preemptively vaccinate or guard against them.

Gain-of-function/gain-of-threat research, a.k.a. ''Dual-Use Research of Concern'', or DURC, is bioweapon research by another, friendlier-sounding name, simply to avoid the taboo of calling it what it actually is. It has always been bioweapon research. The people who are conducting this research fully understand that they are taking wild pathogens that are not infectious in humans and making them more infectious, often taking grants from military think tanks encouraging them to do so.

These virologists conducting this type of research are enemies of their fellow man, like pyromaniac firefighters. GOF research has never protected anyone from any pandemic. In fact, it has now started one, meaning its utility for preventing pandemics is actually negative. It should have been banned globally, and the lunatics performing it should have been put in straitjackets long ago.

Either through a leak or an intentional release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a deadly SARS strain is now endemic across the globe, after the WHO and CDC and public officials first downplayed the risks, and then intentionally incited a panic and lockdowns that jeopardized people's health and their livelihoods.

This was then used by the utterly depraved and psychopathic aristocratic class who rule over us as an excuse to coerce people into accepting an injected poison which may be a depopulation agent, a mind control/pacification agent in the form of injectable ''smart dust'', or both in one. They believe they can get away with this by weaponizing the social stigma of vaccine refusal. They are incorrect.

Their motives are clear and obvious to anyone who has been paying attention. These megalomaniacs have raided the pension funds of the free world. Wall Street is insolvent and has had an ongoing liquidity crisis since the end of 2019. The aim now is to exert total, full-spectrum physical, mental, and financial control over humanity before we realize just how badly we've been extorted by these maniacs.

The pandemic and its response served multiple purposes for the Elite:

Concealing a depression brought on by the usurious plunder of our economies conducted by rentier-capitalists and absentee owners who produce absolutely nothing of any value to society whatsoever. Instead of us having a very predictable Occupy Wall Street Part II, the Elites and their stooges got to stand up on television and paint themselves as wise and all-powerful saviors instead of the marauding cabal of despicable land pirates that they are.

Destroying small businesses and eroding the middle class.

Transferring trillions of dollars of wealth from the American public and into the pockets of billionaires and special interests.

Engaging in insider trading, buying stock in biotech companies and shorting brick-and-mortar businesses and travel companies, with the aim of collapsing face-to-face commerce and tourism and replacing it with e-commerce and servitization.

Creating a casus belli for war with China, encouraging us to attack them, wasting American lives and treasure and driving us to the brink of nuclear armageddon.

Establishing technological and biosecurity frameworks for population control and technocratic- socialist ''smart cities'' where everyone's movements are despotically tracked, all in anticipation of widespread automation, joblessness, and food shortages, by using the false guise of a vaccine to compel cooperation.

Any one of these things would constitute a vicious rape of Western society. Taken together, they beggar belief; they are a complete inversion of our most treasured values.

What is the purpose of all of this? One can only speculate as to the perpetrators' motives, however, we have some theories.

The Elites are trying to pull up the ladder, erase upward mobility for large segments of the population, cull political opponents and other ''undesirables'', and put the remainder of humanity on a tight leash, rationing our access to certain goods and services that they have deemed ''high-impact'', such as automobile use, tourism, meat consumption, and so on. Naturally, they will continue to have their own luxuries, as part of a strict caste system akin to feudalism.

Why are they doing this? Simple. The Elites are Neo-Malthusians and believe that we are overpopulated and that resource depletion will collapse civilization in a matter of a few short decades. They are not necessarily incorrect in this belief. We are overpopulated, and we are consuming too many resources. However, orchestrating such a gruesome and murderous power grab in response to a looming crisis demonstrates that they have nothing but the utmost contempt for their fellow man.

To those who are participating in this disgusting farce without any understanding of what they are doing, we have one word for you. Stop. You are causing irreparable harm to your country and to your fellow citizens.

To those who may be reading this warning and have full knowledge and understanding of what they are doing and how it will unjustly harm millions of innocent people, we have a few more words.

Damn you to hell. You will not destroy America and the Free World, and you will not have your New World Order. We will make certain of that.

* * *

This PDF document contains 14 pages, followed by another 17 pages of references.

For those, please visit the original PDF file at Covid19 '' The Spartacus Letter.

* * *

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Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 22:34

Gustave Caillebotte Rue Mont-Cenis, Montmartre 1880 This is an anonymously posted document by someone who calls themselves Spartacus. Because it's anonymous, I can't contact them to ask for permission to publish. So I hesitated for a while, but it's simply the best document I've seen on Covid, vaccines, etc. Whoever Spartacus is, they have a very elaborate knowledge in ''the field''. If you want to know a lot more about the no. 1 issue in the world today, read it. And don't worry if you don't understand every single word, neither do I. But I learned a lot.

The original PDF doc is here: Covid19 '' The Spartacus Letter

Hello,

My name is Spartacus, and I've had enough.

We have been forced to watch America and the Free World spin into inexorable decline due to a biowarfare attack. We, along with countless others, have been victimized and gaslit by propaganda and psychological warfare operations being conducted by an unelected, unaccountable Elite against the American people and our allies.

Our mental and physical health have suffered immensely over the course of the past year and a half. We have felt the sting of isolation, lockdown, masking, quarantines, and other completely nonsensical acts of healthcare theater that have done absolutely nothing to protect the health or wellbeing of the public from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, we are watching the medical establishment inject literal poison into millions of our fellow Americans without so much as a fight.

We have been told that we will be fired and denied our livelihoods if we refuse to vaccinate. This was the last straw.

We have spent thousands of hours analyzing leaked footage from Wuhan, scientific papers from primary sources, as well as the paper trails left by the medical establishment.

What we have discovered would shock anyone to their core.

First, we will summarize our findings, and then, we will explain them in detail. References will be placed at the end.

Summary:

' COVID-19 is a blood and blood vessel disease. SARS-CoV-2 infects the lining of human blood vessels, causing them to leak into the lungs.' Current treatment protocols (e.g. invasive ventilation) are actively harmful to patients, accelerating oxidative stress and causing severe VILI (ventilator-induced lung injuries). The continued use of ventilators in the absence of any proven medical benefit constitutes mass murder.' Existing countermeasures are inadequate to slow the spread of what is an aerosolized and potentially wastewater-borne virus, and constitute a form of medical theater.' Various non-vaccine interventions have been suppressed by both the media and the medical establishment in favor of vaccines and expensive patented drugs.' The authorities have denied the usefulness of natural immunity against COVID-19, despite the fact that natural immunity confers protection against all of the virus's proteins, and not just one.' Vaccines will do more harm than good. The antigen that these vaccines are based on, SARS-CoV- 2 Spike, is a toxic protein. SARS-CoV-2 may have ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement; current antibodies may not neutralize future strains, but instead help them infect immune cells. Also, vaccinating during a pandemic with a leaky vaccine removes the evolutionary pressure for a virus to become less lethal.' There is a vast and appalling criminal conspiracy that directly links both Anthony Fauci and Moderna to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.' COVID-19 vaccine researchers are directly linked to scientists involved in brain-computer interface (''neural lace'') tech, one of whom was indicted for taking grant money from China.' Independent researchers have discovered mysterious nanoparticles inside the vaccines that are not supposed to be present.' The entire pandemic is being used as an excuse for a vast political and economic transformation of Western society that will enrich the already rich and turn the rest of us into serfs and untouchables.

COVID-19 Pathophysiology and Treatments:

COVID-19 is not a viral pneumonia. It is a viral vascular endotheliitis and attacks the lining of blood vessels, particularly the small pulmonary alveolar capillaries, leading to endothelial cell activation and sloughing, coagulopathy, sepsis, pulmonary edema, and ARDS-like symptoms. This is a disease of the blood and blood vessels. The circulatory system. Any pneumonia that it causes is secondary to that.

In severe cases, this leads to sepsis, blood clots, and multiple organ failure, including hypoxic and inflammatory damage to various vital organs, such as the brain, heart, liver, pancreas, kidneys, and intestines.

Some of the most common laboratory findings in COVID-19 are elevated D-dimer, elevated prothrombin time, elevated C-reactive protein, neutrophilia, lymphopenia, hypocalcemia, and hyperferritinemia, essentially matching a profile of coagulopathy and immune system hyperactivation/immune cell exhaustion.

COVID-19 can present as almost anything, due to the wide tropism of SARS-CoV-2 for various tissues in the body's vital organs. While its most common initial presentation is respiratory illness and flu-like symptoms, it can present as brain inflammation, gastrointestinal disease, or even heart attack or pulmonary embolism.

COVID-19 is more severe in those with specific comorbidities, such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. This is because these conditions involve endothelial dysfunction, which renders the circulatory system more susceptible to infection and injury by this particular virus.

The vast majority of COVID-19 cases are mild and do not cause significant disease. In known cases, there is something known as the 80/20 rule, where 80% of cases are mild and 20% are severe or critical. However, this ratio is only correct for known cases, not all infections. The number of actual infections is much, much higher. Consequently, the mortality and morbidity rate is lower. However, COVID-19 spreads very quickly, meaning that there are a significant number of severely-ill and critically-ill patients appearing in a short time frame.

In those who have critical COVID-19-induced sepsis, hypoxia, coagulopathy, and ARDS, the most common treatments are intubation, injected corticosteroids, and blood thinners. This is not the correct treatment for COVID-19. In severe hypoxia, cellular metabolic shifts cause ATP to break down into hypoxanthine, which, upon the reintroduction of oxygen, causes xanthine oxidase to produce tons of highly damaging radicals that attack tissue. This is called ischemia-reperfusion injury, and it's why the majority of people who go on a ventilator are dying. In the mitochondria, succinate buildup due to sepsis does the same exact thing; when oxygen is reintroduced, it makes superoxide radicals. Make no mistake, intubation will kill people who have COVID-19.

The end-stage of COVID-19 is severe lipid peroxidation, where fats in the body start to ''rust'' due to damage by oxidative stress. This drives autoimmunity. Oxidized lipids appear as foreign objects to the immune system, which recognizes and forms antibodies against OSEs, or oxidation-specific epitopes. Also, oxidized lipids feed directly into pattern recognition receptors, triggering even more inflammation and summoning even more cells of the innate immune system that release even more destructive enzymes. This is similar to the pathophysiology of Lupus.

COVID-19's pathology is dominated by extreme oxidative stress and neutrophil respiratory burst, to the point where hemoglobin becomes incapable of carrying oxygen due to heme iron being stripped out of heme by hypochlorous acid. No amount of supplemental oxygen can oxygenate blood that chemically refuses to bind O2.

The breakdown of the pathology is as follows:

SARS-CoV-2 Spike binds to ACE2. Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 is an enzyme that is part of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, or RAAS. The RAAS is a hormone control system that moderates fluid volume in the body and in the bloodstream (i.e. osmolarity) by controlling salt retention and excretion. This protein, ACE2, is ubiquitous in every part of the body that interfaces with the circulatory system, particularly in vascular endothelial cells and pericytes, brain astrocytes, renal tubules and podocytes, pancreatic islet cells, bile duct and intestinal epithelial cells, and the seminiferous ducts of the testis, all of which SARS-CoV-2 can infect, not just the lungs.

SARS-CoV-2 infects a cell as follows: SARS-CoV-2 Spike undergoes a conformational change where the S1 trimers flip up and extend, locking onto ACE2 bound to the surface of a cell. TMPRSS2, or transmembrane protease serine 2, comes along and cuts off the heads of the Spike, exposing the S2 stalk-shaped subunit inside. The remainder of the Spike undergoes a conformational change that causes it to unfold like an extension ladder, embedding itself in the cell membrane. Then, it folds back upon itself, pulling the viral membrane and the cell membrane together. The two membranes fuse, with the virus's proteins migrating out onto the surface of the cell. The SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid enters the cell, disgorging its genetic material and beginning the viral replication process, hijacking the cell's own structures to produce more virus.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins embedded in a cell can actually cause human cells to fuse together, forming syncytia/MGCs (multinuclear giant cells). They also have other pathogenic, harmful effects. SARS-CoV- 2's viroporins, such as its Envelope protein, act as calcium ion channels, introducing calcium into infected cells. The virus suppresses the natural interferon response, resulting in delayed inflammation. SARS-CoV-2 N protein can also directly activate the NLRP3 inflammasome. Also, it suppresses the Nrf2 antioxidant pathway. The suppression of ACE2 by binding with Spike causes a buildup of bradykinin that would otherwise be broken down by ACE2.

This constant calcium influx into the cells results in (or is accompanied by) noticeable hypocalcemia, or low blood calcium, especially in people with Vitamin D deficiencies and pre-existing endothelial dysfunction. Bradykinin upregulates cAMP, cGMP, COX, and Phospholipase C activity. This results in prostaglandin release and vastly increased intracellular calcium signaling, which promotes highly aggressive ROS release and ATP depletion. NADPH oxidase releases superoxide into the extracellular space. Superoxide radicals react with nitric oxide to form peroxynitrite. Peroxynitrite reacts with the tetrahydrobiopterin cofactor needed by endothelial nitric oxide synthase, destroying it and ''uncoupling'' the enzymes, causing nitric oxide synthase to synthesize more superoxide instead. This proceeds in a positive feedback loop until nitric oxide bioavailability in the circulatory system is depleted.

Dissolved nitric oxide gas produced constantly by eNOS serves many important functions, but it is also antiviral against SARS-like coronaviruses, preventing the palmitoylation of the viral Spike protein and making it harder for it to bind to host receptors. The loss of NO allows the virus to begin replicating with impunity in the body. Those with endothelial dysfunction (i.e. hypertension, diabetes, obesity, old age, African-American race) have redox equilibrium issues to begin with, giving the virus an advantage.

Due to the extreme cytokine release triggered by these processes, the body summons a great deal of neutrophils and monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages to the lungs. Cells of the innate immune system are the first-line defenders against pathogens. They work by engulfing invaders and trying to attack them with enzymes that produce powerful oxidants, like SOD and MPO. Superoxide dismutase takes superoxide and makes hydrogen peroxide, and myeloperoxidase takes hydrogen peroxide and chlorine ions and makes hypochlorous acid, which is many, many times more reactive than sodium hypochlorite bleach.

Neutrophils have a nasty trick. They can also eject these enzymes into the extracellular space, where they will continuously spit out peroxide and bleach into the bloodstream. This is called neutrophil extracellular trap formation, or, when it becomes pathogenic and counterproductive, NETosis. In severe and critical COVID-19, there is actually rather severe NETosis.

Hypochlorous acid building up in the bloodstream begins to bleach the iron out of heme and compete for O2 binding sites. Red blood cells lose the ability to transport oxygen, causing the sufferer to turn blue in the face. Unliganded iron, hydrogen peroxide, and superoxide in the bloodstream undergo the Haber- Weiss and Fenton reactions, producing extremely reactive hydroxyl radicals that violently strip electrons from surrounding fats and DNA, oxidizing them severely.

This condition is not unknown to medical science. The actual name for all of this is acute sepsis.

We know this is happening in COVID-19 because people who have died of the disease have noticeable ferroptosis signatures in their tissues, as well as various other oxidative stress markers such as nitrotyrosine, 4-HNE, and malondialdehyde.

When you intubate someone with this condition, you are setting off a free radical bomb by supplying the cells with O2. It's a catch-22, because we need oxygen to make Adenosine Triphosphate (that is, to live), but O2 is also the precursor of all these damaging radicals that lead to lipid peroxidation.

The correct treatment for severe COVID-19 related sepsis is non-invasive ventilation, steroids, and antioxidant infusions. Most of the drugs repurposed for COVID-19 that show any benefit whatsoever in rescuing critically-ill COVID-19 patients are antioxidants. N-acetylcysteine, melatonin, fluvoxamine, budesonide, famotidine, cimetidine, and ranitidine are all antioxidants. Indomethacin prevents iron- driven oxidation of arachidonic acid to isoprostanes. There are powerful antioxidants such as apocynin that have not even been tested on COVID-19 patients yet which could defang neutrophils, prevent lipid peroxidation, restore endothelial health, and restore oxygenation to the tissues.

Scientists who know anything about pulmonary neutrophilia, ARDS, and redox biology have known or surmised much of this since March 2020. In April 2020, Swiss scientists confirmed that COVID-19 was a vascular endotheliitis. By late 2020, experts had already concluded that COVID-19 causes a form of viral sepsis. They also know that sepsis can be effectively treated with antioxidants. None of this information is particularly new, and yet, for the most part, it has not been acted upon. Doctors continue to use damaging intubation techniques with high PEEP settings despite high lung compliance and poor oxygenation, killing an untold number of critically ill patients with medical malpractice.

Because of the way they are constructed, Randomized Control Trials will never show any benefit for any antiviral against COVID-19. Not Remdesivir, not Kaletra, not HCQ, and not Ivermectin. The reason for this is simple; for the patients that they have recruited for these studies, such as Oxford's ludicrous RECOVERY study, the intervention is too late to have any positive effect.

The clinical course of COVID-19 is such that by the time most people seek medical attention for hypoxia, their viral load has already tapered off to almost nothing. If someone is about 10 days post-exposure and has already been symptomatic for five days, there is hardly any virus left in their bodies, only cellular damage and derangement that has initiated a hyperinflammatory response. It is from this group that the clinical trials for antivirals have recruited, pretty much exclusively.

In these trials, they give antivirals to severely ill patients who have no virus in their bodies, only a delayed hyperinflammatory response, and then absurdly claim that antivirals have no utility in treating or preventing COVID-19. These clinical trials do not recruit people who are pre-symptomatic. They do not test pre-exposure or post-exposure prophylaxis.

This is like using a defibrillator to shock only flatline, and then absurdly claiming that defibrillators have no medical utility whatsoever when the patients refuse to rise from the dead. The intervention is too late. These trials for antivirals show systematic, egregious selection bias. They are providing a treatment that is futile to the specific cohort they are enrolling.

India went against the instructions of the WHO and mandated the prophylactic usage of Ivermectin. They have almost completely eradicated COVID-19. The Indian Bar Association of Mumbai has brought criminal charges against WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for recommending against the use of Ivermectin.

Ivermectin is not ''horse dewormer''. Yes, it is sold in veterinary paste form as a dewormer for animals. It has also been available in pill form for humans for decades, as an antiparasitic drug.

The media have disingenuously claimed that because Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug, it has no utility as an antivirus. This is incorrect. Ivermectin has utility as an antiviral. It blocks importin, preventing nuclear import, effectively inhibiting viral access to cell nuclei. Many drugs currently on the market have multiple modes of action. Ivermectin is one such drug. It is both antiparasitic and antiviral.

In Bangladesh, Ivermectin costs $1.80 for an entire 5-day course. Remdesivir, which is toxic to the liver, costs $3,120 for a 5-day course of the drug. Billions of dollars of utterly useless Remdesivir were sold to our governments on the taxpayer's dime, and it ended up being totally useless for treating hyperinflammatory COVID-19. The media has hardly even covered this at all.

The opposition to the use of generic Ivermectin is not based in science. It is purely financially and politically-motivated. An effective non-vaccine intervention would jeopardize the rushed FDA approval of patented vaccines and medicines for which the pharmaceutical industry stands to rake in billions upon billions of dollars in sales on an ongoing basis.

The majority of the public are scientifically illiterate and cannot grasp what any of this even means, thanks to a pathetic educational system that has miseducated them. You would be lucky to find 1 in 100 people who have even the faintest clue what any of this actually means.

COVID-19 Transmission:

COVID-19 is airborne. The WHO carried water for China by claiming that the virus was only droplet- borne. Our own CDC absurdly claimed that it was mostly transmitted by fomite-to-face contact, which, given its rapid spread from Wuhan to the rest of the world, would have been physically impossible.

The ridiculous belief in fomite-to-face being a primary mode of transmission led to the use of surface disinfection protocols that wasted time, energy, productivity, and disinfectant.

The 6-foot guidelines are absolutely useless. The minimum safe distance to protect oneself from an aerosolized virus is to be 15+ feet away from an infected person, no closer. Realistically, no public transit is safe.

Surgical masks do not protect you from aerosols. The virus is too small and the filter media has too large of gaps to filter it out. They may catch respiratory droplets and keep the virus from being expelled by someone who is sick, but they do not filter a cloud of infectious aerosols if someone were to walk into said cloud.

The minimum level of protection against this virus is quite literally a P100 respirator, a PAPR/CAPR, or a 40mm NATO CBRN respirator, ideally paired with a full-body tyvek or tychem suit, gloves, and booties, with all the holes and gaps taped.

Live SARS-CoV-2 may potentially be detected in sewage outflows, and there may be oral-fecal transmission. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, in the Amoy Gardens incident, hundreds of people were infected by aerosolized fecal matter rising from floor drains in their apartments.

COVID-19 Vaccine Dangers:

The vaccines for COVID-19 are not sterilizing and do not prevent infection or transmission. They are ''leaky'' vaccines. This means they remove the evolutionary pressure on the virus to become less lethal. It also means that the vaccinated are perfect carriers. In other words, those who are vaccinated are a threat to the unvaccinated, not the other way around.

All of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use have undergone minimal testing, with highly accelerated clinical trials. Though they appear to limit severe illness, the long-term safety profile of these vaccines remains unknown.

Some of these so-called ''vaccines'' utilize an untested new technology that has never been used in vaccines before. Traditional vaccines use weakened or killed virus to stimulate an immune response. The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines do not. They are purported to consist of an intramuscular shot containing a suspension of lipid nanoparticles filled with messenger RNA. The way they generate an immune response is by fusing with cells in a vaccine recipient's shoulder, undergoing endocytosis, releasing their mRNA cargo into those cells, and then utilizing the ribosomes in those cells to synthesize modified SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins in-situ.

These modified Spike proteins then migrate to the surface of the cell, where they are anchored in place by a transmembrane domain. The adaptive immune system detects the non-human viral protein being expressed by these cells, and then forms antibodies against that protein. This is purported to confer protection against the virus, by training the adaptive immune system to recognize and produce antibodies against the Spike on the actual virus. The J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines do something similar, but use an adenovirus vector for genetic material delivery instead of a lipid nanoparticle. These vaccines were produced or validated with the aid of fetal cell lines HEK-293 and PER.C6, which people with certain religious convictions may object strongly to.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike is a highly pathogenic protein on its own. It is impossible to overstate the danger presented by introducing this protein into the human body.

It is claimed by vaccine manufacturers that the vaccine remains in cells in the shoulder, and that SARS- CoV-2 Spike produced and expressed by these cells from the vaccine's genetic material is harmless and inert, thanks to the insertion of prolines in the Spike sequence to stabilize it in the prefusion conformation, preventing the Spike from becoming active and fusing with other cells. However, a pharmacokinetic study from Japan showed that the lipid nanoparticles and mRNA from the Pfizer vaccine did not stay in the shoulder, and in fact bioaccumulated in many different organs, including the reproductive organs and adrenal glands, meaning that modified Spike is being expressed quite literally all over the place. These lipid nanoparticles may trigger anaphylaxis in an unlucky few, but far more concerning is the unregulated expression of Spike in various somatic cell lines far from the injection site and the unknown consequences of that.

Messenger RNA is normally consumed right after it is produced in the body, being translated into a protein by a ribosome. COVID-19 vaccine mRNA is produced outside the body, long before a ribosome translates it. In the meantime, it could accumulate damage if inadequately preserved. When a ribosome attempts to translate a damaged strand of mRNA, it can become stalled. When this happens, the ribosome becomes useless for translating proteins because it now has a piece of mRNA stuck in it, like a lace card in an old punch card reader. The whole thing has to be cleaned up and new ribosomes synthesized to replace it. In cells with low ribosome turnover, like nerve cells, this can lead to reduced protein synthesis, cytopathic effects, and neuropathies.

Certain proteins, including SARS-CoV-2 Spike, have proteolytic cleavage sites that are basically like little dotted lines that say ''cut here'', which attract a living organism's own proteases (essentially, molecular scissors) to cut them. There is a possibility that S1 may be proteolytically cleaved from S2, causing active S1 to float away into the bloodstream while leaving the S2 ''stalk'' embedded in the membrane of the cell that expressed the protein.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a Superantigenic region (SAg), which may promote extreme inflammation.

Anti-Spike antibodies were found in one study to function as autoantibodies and attack the body's own cells. Those who have been immunized with COVID-19 vaccines have developed blood clots, myocarditis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Bell's Palsy, and multiple sclerosis flares, indicating that the vaccine promotes autoimmune reactions against healthy tissue.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike does not only bind to ACE2. It was suspected to have regions that bind to basigin, integrins, neuropilin-1, and bacterial lipopolysaccharides as well. SARS-CoV-2 Spike, on its own, can potentially bind any of these things and act as a ligand for them, triggering unspecified and likely highly inflammatory cellular activity.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike contains an unusual PRRA insert that forms a furin cleavage site. Furin is a ubiquitous human protease, making this an ideal property for the Spike to have, giving it a high degree of cell tropism. No wild-type SARS-like coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 possess this feature, making it highly suspicious, and perhaps a sign of human tampering.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike has a prion-like domain that enhances its infectiousness.

The Spike S1 RBD may bind to heparin-binding proteins and promote amyloid aggregation. In humans, this could lead to Parkinson's, Lewy Body Dementia, premature Alzheimer's, or various other neurodegenerative diseases. This is very concerning because SARS-CoV-2 S1 is capable of injuring and penetrating the blood-brain barrier and entering the brain. It is also capable of increasing the permeability of the blood-brain barrier to other molecules.

SARS-CoV-2, like other betacoronaviruses, may have Dengue-like ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement of disease. For those who aren't aware, some viruses, including betacoronaviruses, have a feature called ADE. There is also something called Original Antigenic Sin, which is the observation that the body prefers to produce antibodies based on previously-encountered strains of a virus over newly- encountered ones.

In ADE, antibodies from a previous infection become non-neutralizing due to mutations in the virus's proteins. These non-neutralizing antibodies then act as trojan horses, allowing live, active virus to be pulled into macrophages through their Fc receptor pathways, allowing the virus to infect immune cells that it would not have been able to infect before. This has been known to happen with Dengue Fever; when someone gets sick with Dengue, recovers, and then contracts a different strain, they can get very, very ill.

If someone is vaccinated with mRNA based on the Spike from the initial Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2, and then they become infected with a future, mutated strain of the virus, they may become severely ill. In other words, it is possible for vaccines to sensitize someone to disease.

There is a precedent for this in recent history. Sanofi's Dengvaxia vaccine for Dengue failed because it caused immune sensitization in people whose immune systems were Dengue-naive.

In mice immunized against SARS-CoV and challenged with the virus, a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, they developed immune sensitization, Th2 immunopathology, and eosinophil infiltration in their lungs.

We have been told that SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines cannot be integrated into the human genome, because messenger RNA cannot be turned back into DNA. This is false. There are elements in human cells called LINE-1 retrotransposons, which can indeed integrate mRNA into a human genome by endogenous reverse transcription. Because the mRNA used in the vaccines is stabilized, it hangs around in cells longer, increasing the chances for this to happen. If the gene for SARS-CoV-2 Spike is integrated into a portion of the genome that is not silent and actually expresses a protein, it is possible that people who take this vaccine may continuously express SARS-CoV-2 Spike from their somatic cells for the rest of their lives.

By inoculating people with a vaccine that causes their bodies to produce Spike in-situ, they are being inoculated with a pathogenic protein. A toxin that may cause long-term inflammation, heart problems, and a raised risk of cancers. In the long-term, it may also potentially lead to premature neurodegenerative disease.

Absolutely nobody should be compelled to take this vaccine under any circumstances, and in actual fact, the vaccination campaign must be stopped immediately.

COVID-19 Criminal Conspiracy:

The vaccine and the virus were made by the same people.

In 2014, there was a moratorium on SARS gain-of-function research that lasted until 2017. This research was not halted. Instead, it was outsourced, with the federal grants being laundered through NGOs.

Ralph Baric is a virologist and SARS expert at UNC Chapel Hill in North Carolina. This is who Anthony Fauci was referring to when he insisted, before Congress, that if any gain-of-function research was being conducted, it was being conducted in North Carolina.

This was a lie. Anthony Fauci lied before Congress. A felony.

Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli are colleagues and have co-written papers together. Ralph Baric mentored Shi Zhengli in his gain-of-function manipulation techniques, particularly serial passage, which results in a virus that appears as if it originated naturally. In other words, deniable bioweapons. Serial passage in humanized hACE2 mice may have produced something like SARS-CoV-2.

The funding for the gain-of-function research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology came from Peter Daszak. Peter Daszak runs an NGO called EcoHealth Alliance. EcoHealth Alliance received millions of dollars in grant money from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (that is, Anthony Fauci), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (part of the US Department of Defense), and the United States Agency for International Development. NIH/NIAID contributed a few million dollars, and DTRA and USAID each contributed tens of millions of dollars towards this research. Altogether, it was over a hundred million dollars.

EcoHealth Alliance subcontracted these grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab in China with a very questionable safety record and poorly trained staff, so that they could conduct gain-of-function research, not in their fancy P4 lab, but in a level-2 lab where technicians wore nothing more sophisticated than perhaps a hairnet, latex gloves, and a surgical mask, instead of the bubble suits used when working with dangerous viruses. Chinese scientists in Wuhan reported being routinely bitten and urinated on by laboratory animals. Why anyone would outsource this dangerous and delicate work to the People's Republic of China, a country infamous for industrial accidents and massive explosions that have claimed hundreds of lives, is completely beyond me, unless the aim was to start a pandemic on purpose.

In November of 2019, three technicians at the Wuhan Institute of Virology developed symptoms consistent with a flu-like illness. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric knew at once what had happened, because back channels exist between this laboratory and our scientists and officials.

December 12th, 2019, Ralph Baric signed a Material Transfer Agreement (essentially, an NDA) to receive Coronavirus mRNA vaccine-related materials co-owned by Moderna and NIH. It wasn't until a whole month later, on January 11th, 2020, that China allegedly sent us the sequence to what would become known as SARS-CoV-2. Moderna claims, rather absurdly, that they developed a working vaccine from this sequence in under 48 hours.

Stephane Bancel, the current CEO of Moderna, was formerly the CEO of bioMerieux, a French multinational corporation specializing in medical diagnostic tech, founded by one Alain Merieux. Alain Merieux was one of the individuals who was instrumental in the construction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology's P4 lab.

The sequence given as the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13, is not a real virus. It is a forgery. It was made by entering a gene sequence by hand into a database, to create a cover story for the existence of SARS-CoV-2, which is very likely a gain-of-function chimera produced at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and was either leaked by accident or intentionally released.

The animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 has never been found.

This is not a conspiracy ''theory''. It is an actual criminal conspiracy, in which people connected to the development of Moderna's mRNA-1273 are directly connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and their gain-of-function research by very few degrees of separation, if any. The paper trail is well- established.

The lab-leak theory has been suppressed because pulling that thread leads one to inevitably conclude that there is enough circumstantial evidence to link Moderna, the NIH, the WIV, and both the vaccine and the virus's creation together. In a sane country, this would have immediately led to the world's biggest RICO and mass murder case. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric, Shi Zhengli, and Stephane Bancel, and their accomplices, would have been indicted and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Instead, billions of our tax dollars were awarded to the perpetrators.

The FBI raided Allure Medical in Shelby Township north of Detroit for billing insurance for ''fraudulent COVID-19 cures''. The treatment they were using? Intravenous Vitamin C. An antioxidant. Which, as described above, is an entirely valid treatment for COVID-19-induced sepsis, and indeed, is now part of the MATH+ protocol advanced by Dr. Paul E. Marik.

The FDA banned ranitidine (Zantac) due to supposed NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine) contamination. Ranitidine is not only an H2 blocker used as antacid, but also has a powerful antioxidant effect, scavenging hydroxyl radicals. This gives it utility in treating COVID-19.

The FDA also attempted to take N-acetylcysteine, a harmless amino acid supplement and antioxidant, off the shelves, compelling Amazon to remove it from their online storefront.

This leaves us with a chilling question: did the FDA knowingly suppress antioxidants useful for treating COVID-19 sepsis as part of a criminal conspiracy against the American public?

The establishment is cooperating with, and facilitating, the worst criminals in human history, and are actively suppressing non-vaccine treatments and therapies in order to compel us to inject these criminals' products into our bodies. This is absolutely unacceptable.

COVID-19 Vaccine Development and Links to Transhumanism:

This section deals with some more speculative aspects of the pandemic and the medical and scientific establishment's reaction to it, as well as the disturbing links between scientists involved in vaccine research and scientists whose work involved merging nanotechnology with living cells.

On June 9th, 2020, Charles Lieber, a Harvard nanotechnology researcher with decades of experience, was indicted by the DOJ for fraud. Charles Lieber received millions of dollars in grant money from the US Department of Defense, specifically the military think tanks DARPA, AFOSR, and ONR, as well as NIH and MITRE. His specialty is the use of silicon nanowires in lieu of patch clamp electrodes to monitor and modulate intracellular activity, something he has been working on at Harvard for the past twenty years. He was claimed to have been working on silicon nanowire batteries in China, but none of his colleagues can recall him ever having worked on battery technology in his life; all of his research deals with bionanotechnology, or the blending of nanotech with living cells.

The indictment was over his collaboration with the Wuhan University of Technology. He had double- dipped, against the terms of his DOD grants, and taken money from the PRC's Thousand Talents plan, a program which the Chinese government uses to bribe Western scientists into sharing proprietary R&D information that can be exploited by the PLA for strategic advantage.

Charles Lieber's own papers describe the use of silicon nanowires for brain-computer interfaces, or ''neural lace'' technology. His papers describe how neurons can endocytose whole silicon nanowires or parts of them, monitoring and even modulating neuronal activity.

Charles Lieber was a colleague of Robert Langer. Together, along with Daniel S. Kohane, they worked on a paper describing artificial tissue scaffolds that could be implanted in a human heart to monitor its activity remotely.

Robert Langer, an MIT alumnus and expert in nanotech drug delivery, is one of the co-founders of Moderna. His net worth is now $5.1 billion USD thanks to Moderna's mRNA-1273 vaccine sales.

Both Charles Lieber and Robert Langer's bibliographies describe, essentially, techniques for human enhancement, i.e. transhumanism. Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum and the architect behind the so-called ''Great Reset'', has long spoken of the ''blending of biology and machinery'' in his books.

Since these revelations, it has come to the attention of independent researchers that the COVID-19 vaccines may contain reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles. Japanese researchers have also found unexplained contaminants in COVID-19 vaccines.

Graphene oxide is an anxiolytic. It has been shown to reduce the anxiety of laboratory mice when injected into their brains. Indeed, given SARS-CoV-2 Spike's propensity to compromise the blood-brain barrier and increase its permeability, it is the perfect protein for preparing brain tissue for extravasation of nanoparticles from the bloodstream and into the brain. Graphene is also highly conductive and, in some circumstances, paramagnetic.

In 2013, under the Obama administration, DARPA launched the BRAIN Initiative; BRAIN is an acronym for Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies®. This program involves the development of brain-computer interface technologies for the military, particularly non-invasive, injectable systems that cause minimal damage to brain tissue when removed. Supposedly, this technology would be used for healing wounded soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, the direct brain control of prosthetic limbs, and even new abilities such as controlling drones with one's mind.

Various methods have been proposed for achieving this, including optogenetics, magnetogenetics, ultrasound, implanted electrodes, and transcranial electromagnetic stimulation. In all instances, the goal is to obtain read or read-write capability over neurons, either by stimulating and probing them, or by rendering them especially sensitive to stimulation and probing.

However, the notion of the widespread use of BCI technology, such as Elon Musk's Neuralink device, raises many concerns over privacy and personal autonomy. Reading from neurons is problematic enough on its own. Wireless brain-computer interfaces may interact with current or future wireless GSM infrastructure, creating neurological data security concerns. A hacker or other malicious actor may compromise such networks to obtain people's brain data, and then exploit it for nefarious purposes.

However, a device capable of writing to human neurons, not just reading from them, presents another, even more serious set of ethical concerns. A BCI that is capable of altering the contents of one's mind for innocuous purposes, such as projecting a heads-up display onto their brain's visual center or sending audio into one's auditory cortex, would also theoretically be capable of altering mood and personality, or perhaps even subjugating someone's very will, rendering them utterly obedient to authority. This technology would be a tyrant's wet dream. Imagine soldiers who would shoot their own countrymen without hesitation, or helpless serfs who are satisfied to live in literal dog kennels.

BCIs could be used to unscrupulously alter perceptions of basic things such as emotions and values, changing people's thresholds of satiety, happiness, anger, disgust, and so forth. This is not inconsequential. Someone's entire regime of behaviors could be altered by a BCI, including such things as suppressing their appetite or desire for virtually anything on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Anything is possible when you have direct access to someone's brain and its contents. Someone who is obese could be made to feel disgust at the sight of food. Someone who is involuntarily celibate could have their libido disabled so they don't even desire sex to begin with. Someone who is racist could be forced to feel delight over cohabiting with people of other races. Someone who is violent could be forced to be meek and submissive. These things might sound good to you if you are a tyrant, but to normal people, the idea of personal autonomy being overridden to such a degree is appalling.

For the wealthy, neural laces would be an unequaled boon, giving them the opportunity to enhance their intelligence with neuroprosthetics (i.e. an ''exocortex''), and to deliver irresistible commands directly into the minds of their BCI-augmented servants, even physically or sexually abusive commands that they would normally refuse.

If the vaccine is a method to surreptitiously introduce an injectable BCI into millions of people without their knowledge or consent, then what we are witnessing is the rise of a tyrannical regime unlike anything ever seen before on the face of this planet, one that fully intends to strip every man, woman, and child of our free will.

Our flaws are what make us human. A utopia arrived at by removing people's free will is not a utopia at all. It is a monomaniacal nightmare. Furthermore, the people who rule over us are Dark Triad types who cannot be trusted with such power. Imagine being beaten and sexually assaulted by a wealthy and powerful psychopath and being forced to smile and laugh over it because your neural lace gives you no choice but to obey your master.

The Elites are forging ahead with this technology without giving people any room to question the social or ethical ramifications, or to establish regulatory frameworks that ensure that our personal agency and autonomy will not be overridden by these devices. They do this because they secretly dream of a future where they can treat you worse than an animal and you cannot even fight back. If this evil plan is allowed to continue, it will spell the end of humanity as we know it.

Conclusions:

The current pandemic was produced and perpetuated by the establishment, through the use of a virus engineered in a PLA-connected Chinese biowarfare laboratory, with the aid of American taxpayer dollars and French expertise.

This research was conducted under the absolutely ridiculous euphemism of ''gain-of-function'' research, which is supposedly carried out in order to determine which viruses have the highest potential for zoonotic spillover and preemptively vaccinate or guard against them.

Gain-of-function/gain-of-threat research, a.k.a. ''Dual-Use Research of Concern'', or DURC, is bioweapon research by another, friendlier-sounding name, simply to avoid the taboo of calling it what it actually is. It has always been bioweapon research. The people who are conducting this research fully understand that they are taking wild pathogens that are not infectious in humans and making them more infectious, often taking grants from military think tanks encouraging them to do so.

These virologists conducting this type of research are enemies of their fellow man, like pyromaniac firefighters. GOF research has never protected anyone from any pandemic. In fact, it has now started one, meaning its utility for preventing pandemics is actually negative. It should have been banned globally, and the lunatics performing it should have been put in straitjackets long ago.

Either through a leak or an intentional release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a deadly SARS strain is now endemic across the globe, after the WHO and CDC and public officials first downplayed the risks, and then intentionally incited a panic and lockdowns that jeopardized people's health and their livelihoods.

This was then used by the utterly depraved and psychopathic aristocratic class who rule over us as an excuse to coerce people into accepting an injected poison which may be a depopulation agent, a mind control/pacification agent in the form of injectable ''smart dust'', or both in one. They believe they can get away with this by weaponizing the social stigma of vaccine refusal. They are incorrect.

Their motives are clear and obvious to anyone who has been paying attention. These megalomaniacs have raided the pension funds of the free world. Wall Street is insolvent and has had an ongoing liquidity crisis since the end of 2019. The aim now is to exert total, full-spectrum physical, mental, and financial control over humanity before we realize just how badly we've been extorted by these maniacs.

The pandemic and its response served multiple purposes for the Elite:

' Concealing a depression brought on by the usurious plunder of our economies conducted by rentier-capitalists and absentee owners who produce absolutely nothing of any value to society whatsoever. Instead of us having a very predictable Occupy Wall Street Part II, the Elites and their stooges got to stand up on television and paint themselves as wise and all-powerful saviors instead of the marauding cabal of despicable land pirates that they are.' Destroying small businesses and eroding the middle class.' Transferring trillions of dollars of wealth from the American public and into the pockets of billionaires and special interests.' Engaging in insider trading, buying stock in biotech companies and shorting brick-and-mortar businesses and travel companies, with the aim of collapsing face-to-face commerce and tourism and replacing it with e-commerce and servitization.' Creating a casus belli for war with China, encouraging us to attack them, wasting American lives and treasure and driving us to the brink of nuclear armageddon.' Establishing technological and biosecurity frameworks for population control and technocratic- socialist ''smart cities'' where everyone's movements are despotically tracked, all in anticipation of widespread automation, joblessness, and food shortages, by using the false guise of a vaccine to compel cooperation.

Any one of these things would constitute a vicious rape of Western society. Taken together, they beggar belief; they are a complete inversion of our most treasured values.

What is the purpose of all of this? One can only speculate as to the perpetrators' motives, however, we have some theories.

The Elites are trying to pull up the ladder, erase upward mobility for large segments of the population, cull political opponents and other ''undesirables'', and put the remainder of humanity on a tight leash, rationing our access to certain goods and services that they have deemed ''high-impact'', such as automobile use, tourism, meat consumption, and so on. Naturally, they will continue to have their own luxuries, as part of a strict caste system akin to feudalism.

Why are they doing this? Simple. The Elites are Neo-Malthusians and believe that we are overpopulated and that resource depletion will collapse civilization in a matter of a few short decades. They are not necessarily incorrect in this belief. We are overpopulated, and we are consuming too many resources. However, orchestrating such a gruesome and murderous power grab in response to a looming crisis demonstrates that they have nothing but the utmost contempt for their fellow man.

To those who are participating in this disgusting farce without any understanding of what they are doing, we have one word for you. Stop. You are causing irreparable harm to your country and to your fellow citizens.

To those who may be reading this warning and have full knowledge and understanding of what they are doing and how it will unjustly harm millions of innocent people, we have a few more words.

Damn you to hell. You will not destroy America and the Free World, and you will not have your New World Order. We will make certain of that.

This PDF document contains 14 pages, followed by another 17 pages of references. For those, please visit the original PDF file at Covid19 '' The Spartacus Letter .

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Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 21:32

Demissionair staatssecretaris Keijzer van Economische Zaken (CDA) is door demissionair premier Rutte ontslagen vanwege haar uitspraken over het coronatoegangsbewijs. Keijzer uitte vanochtend in De Telegraaf grote twijfels over het toegangsbewijs, op de dag dat dat voor het eerst moet worden gehandhaafd.

In een verklaring laat Rutte weten dat hij dat heeft besloten, met instemming van de minister van Economische Zaken en Klimaat, en na overleg met de drie viceminister-presidenten. "De genoemde staatssecretaris wordt voorgedragen voor ontslag met onmiddellijke ingang. De werkzaamheden worden overgenomen door de minister van Economische Zaken en Klimaat, Stef Blok."

Verder zegt hij: "De uitspraken van de staatssecretaris van het ministerie van Economische Zaken en Klimaat , Mona Keijzer, gedaan in het interview van De Telegraaf van vandaag, verdragen zich niet met besluiten die de ministerraad recentelijk heeft genomen, en die van belangrijke en zwaarwegende aard zijn."

Uitspraken KeijzerIn de krant zei Keijzer: "Je ziet dat het steeds moeilijker uit te leggen is waarom die pas op de ene plek wel nodig is en op de andere plek niet." En: "Dan denk ik: ja jongens, gaan we nou door op deze weg of gaan we het anders organiseren?"

Binnen haar partij het CDA ontstond meteen grote onvrede over haar uitspraken. Die staan haaks op het kabinetsbeleid van onder anderen haar partijgenoten De Jonge van Volksgezondheid en Grapperhaus van Justitie en Veiligheid. Het kabinet wordt geacht met een mond te spreken en eenheid van beleid uit te dragen.

Omdat Keijzer zich daar niet aan heeft gehouden werd haar positie onhoudbaar.

Het is niet de eerste keer dat Keijzer tegen de stroom ingaat. In november 2020 zei Keijzer in het televisieprogramma Op1 dat corona-deskundigen niet te pessimistisch moesten zijn over het vieren van Kerst dat jaar omdat oudere en kwetsbare mensen, zoals haar moeder, daar angstig van werden.

In december 2020 kwamen vanuit het ministerie van Keijzer signalen dat winkels als Hema, Wibra en Action toch onder voorwaarden open konden, terwijl het kabinet een 'harde lockdown' voor winkels met niet-essentile producten had aangekondigd.

In maart 2021 moest het kabinet zich laten testen omdat Keijzer corona had en bij een ministerraad was geweest. Ze had weinig klachten zei ze zelf. "Geen zorgen; ik voel mij goed."

Politiek verslaggever Ron Fresen over het ontslag van Keijzer:"Het opmerkelijke aan deze zaak is dat ze feitelijk is ontslagen. Het kabinet beschouwt de uitspraken als ondermijnend voor het kabinetsbeleid, want vandaag moet dat coronatoegangsbewijs in werking treden en dan heb je een staatssecretaris die zegt: ik zie dat eigenlijk helemaal niet zitten. Dus heeft premier Rutte met instemming van de minister van Economische Zaken en de drie vicepremiers besloten Mona Keijzer met onmiddellijke ingang te ontslaan. Daar kun je uit opmaken dat het geen vrijwillig vertrek is. Het is niet zomaar een aftreden. Ze is er echt om het op z'n Hollands te zeggen, uitgegooid."

"De vraag is of het interview in De Telegraaf juist vandaag een bewuste actie is van Keijzer. Dat moeten we haar zelf vragen, maar de timing is opvallend. Keijzer klaagde ook al vaker over coronabeleid, maar ze was uiteindelijk wel altijd loyaal. Vandaag wijkt ze daar dus vanaf op een heel gevoelig moment. Ik weet het niet zeker, maar ik kan me ook niet voorstellen dat het puur toeval is."

"Keijzer is nog wel lid van de Tweede Kamerfractie, maar haar positie in de fractie is nagenoeg onhoudbaar geworden. Ze gaat eigenlijk ook in tegen de lijn van de CDA-fractie. Morgen of overmorgen is er overleg over Keijzers positie binnen de partij."

Lid van het formatieteamIn oktober 2017 trad Keijzer als staatssecretaris Economische Zaken en Klimaat toe tot het kabinet-Rutte III. Als lid van het formatieteam van het CDA was Keijzer nauw betrokken bij de vorming van het kabinet.

Zij zit sinds 2012 namens het CDA in de Tweede Kamer. Ook nu maakt zij deel uit van de fractie. Daarvoor was ze afwisselend gemeenteraadslid en wethouder in de Noord-Hollandse gemeenten Purmerend en in Waterland. Ze hield zich toen bezig met onder andere ruimtelijke ordening, milieu en (jeugd)zorg. In de Tweede Kamer was ze woordvoerder op het gebied van curatieve zorg, asiel en integratie.

Keijzer heeft niet altijd in de politiek gezeten. Na haar studies rechten en bestuurskunde in Amsterdam werkte ze als advocaat en mediator.

LijsttrekkersverkiezingenKeijzer deed twee keer mee aan de lijsttrekkersverkiezing voor haar partij. In 2012 verloor ze toen van Sybrand van Haersma Buma. In 2020 viel zij in de eerste ronde af. De tweede ronde ging tussen Omtzigt en vicepremier De Jonge, die toen nipt won.

Zij steunde toen kandidaat Pieter Omtzigt die opheldering wilde van het partijbestuur over het verloop van de lijsttrekkersverkiezing. "Als er op een gegeven moment vraagtekens bij te zetten zijn, moet je dat goed uitzoeken om de discussie te beindigen", zei ze.

Keijzer zelf wilde vandaag niet reageren.

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Mon, 27 Sep 2021 18:17

Current Key Question on COVID-19 and Cardiovascular Disease

Organized in an FAQ format for easy navigation, this guidance is summarized from more extensive documents and approved by the ACC Science and Quality Committee. This FAQ is intended to be topical, not comprehensive.

Category: COVID VaccinationPatient Type: COVID-19 VaccinatedPrevalence: Extremely rarePrincipal Guidance: In extremely rare cases, the Johnson & Johnson/Jansen and Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccinations may cause vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), a condition characterized by simultaneous acute thrombosis and thrombocytopenia. The condition is similar to heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. Specific risk factors for VITT have yet to be determined given the extremely low case count, though presentation seems to appear between 5-28 days post vaccination. Patients should be reassured that the benefits of vaccination against COVID-19 far outweigh any potential risk. Diagnostic, therapeutic, and patient communication recommendations are included below.Authors: Geoffrey D. Barnes, MD, MSc, FACC; Adam Cuker, MD, MS; Gregory Piazza, MD, MS, FACC; Deborah Siegal, MD, MScSQC Approval Date: June 8, 2021

What is VITT and how common is it?

Vaccine-inducted thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) has also been referred to as vaccine-induced prothrombotic immune thrombocytopenia (VIPIT) or thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS). This condition is similar to heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) but is associated with prior administration of the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen or AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines without prior exposure to heparin. To date (June 8, 2021), this condition has not been reported in patients who have received the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines.

VITT is characterized by the presence of two conditions concurrently: thrombosis (often in unusual sites like the cerebral veins or splanchnic veins) AND thrombocytopenia. Early mechanistic evaluations have identified antibodies directed against the platelet factor 4 (PF4)-heparin complex which activate platelets, similar to HIT antibodies. Detection of the PF4 antibodies can be done using a HIT ELISA test, but not reliably with other HIT laboratory tests.

The incidence of VITT is not certain, but it appears to be extremely rare. A recent report in JACC found that cerebral vein thrombosis occurred in 3.6 per million people after the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and 0.9 per million people after Johnson & Johnson vaccine. For comparison, the rate of cerebral vein thrombosis is estimated at 207 per million in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and 2.4 per million in the general population. The risk of death and serious outcomes of COVID-19 (including thrombosis) far outweigh the small risk of VITT.

Who is at risk for VITT?

Early data suggest that VITT occurs only following a COVID-19 vaccination with Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca vaccine. Note that AstraZeneca vaccine is NOT available in the United States. Furthermore, the small number of reported events occurred between 5-42 days following the vaccine. They have not been reported to occur immediately (within 1-2 days) or longer-term (beyond 6 weeks) after vaccination. It will be important to re-evaluate the "at risk" window as more is learned about VITT.

Demographic and clinical risk factors for the development of VITT are uncertain. Most patients who developed VITT were younger (age <60 years). While most of the cases following Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the United States occurred in women, both men and women have been diagnosed with VITT following AstraZeneca vaccine in other parts of the world.

There is no evidence that patients with a history of thrombosis, thrombophilia, or prior HIT are at increased risk for VITT.

What should I do if I suspect a case of VITT?

The first thing to do for a suspected case of VITT is to verify COVID-19 vaccine details '' which vaccine and when was it administered? Only patients who have received Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca vaccine 5-42 days previous to symptoms onset are at risk based on current information.

Next, imaging appropriate to their symptoms (e.g., CT or MR venogram of the head for suspected cerebral vein thrombosis) and urgent complete blood count (including platelet count) are appropriate. If either test is normal (no thrombosis or thrombocytopenia), then VITT is highly unlikely. A markedly elevated D-dimer test can also be suggestive of early VITT in the setting of low/normal platelet levels. If BOTH imaging and laboratory tests are abnormal (acute thrombosis and thrombocytopenia), hospitalization for further evaluation and treatment guided by a hematologist or other thrombosis expert is appropriate.

What should I tell my patients who call with questions about VITT and COVID-19 vaccines?

First, provide reassurance that these events are extremely rare. In the rare event that VITT occurs, hospitals and doctors have the tools to diagnose and treat this condition.

Second, remind them that VITT has only been seen with the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines. Note that AstraZeneca's vaccine is not available in the United States and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine program has been placed on hold. Furthermore, VITT has not been reported in patients who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. Overall, the available COVID-19 vaccines are very safe and highly effective at preventing COVID-19 infection. All patients should be encouraged to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible given the ongoing pandemic and known risks of COVID-19 infection. Finally, the apparent risk of VITT with a COVID-19 vaccine is greatly outweighed by the risk of complications from COVID-19 infection (including hospitalization, thrombosis and death).

Third, if a patient did receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the presumed window of risk is narrow '' between 5 and 42 days after vaccination. Based on our initial understanding of this condition, patients outside that window can be further reassured.

Finally, use of any medication to prevent VITT (e.g., aspirin) is not recommended. These events are extremely rare and there is no evidence that any medication would prevent them from occurring.

Where can I get more information?

CDC websiteASH websiteISTH websitePublished References

Greinacher A, et al. Thrombotic thrombocytopenia after ChAdOx1 nCov-19 vaccination. N Engl J Med 2021;April 9:[Epub ahead of print]. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2104840Schultz NH, et al. Thrombosis and thrombocytopenia after ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccination. N Engl J Med 2021;April 9:[Epub ahead of print]. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2104882Muir KL, et al. Thrombotic thrombocytopenia after Ad26.COV2.S vaccination. N Engl J Med 2021;April 14:[Epub ahead of print]. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2105869Tacquet M, et al. Cerebral venous thrombosis: a retrospective cohort study of 513,284 confirmed COVID-19 cases and a comparison with 489,871 people receiving a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. Preprint available here.Cines DB, Bussell JB. SAR-CoV-2 vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia. N Engl J Med 2021;April 16:[Epub ahead of print]. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMe2106315Bikdeli B, et al. Cerebral Sinus Thrombosis in the US Population, After Adenovirus-based SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination, and After COVID-19. J Am Coll Cardiol 2021;June 8:[Epub ahead of print]. Clinical Topics: Acute Coronary Syndromes, Anticoagulation Management, Arrhythmias and Clinical EP, Cardiac Surgery, Cardiovascular Care Team, Congenital Heart Disease and Pediatric Cardiology, Diabetes and Cardiometabolic Disease, Dyslipidemia, Geriatric Cardiology, Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathies, Invasive Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention, Noninvasive Imaging, Pericardial Disease, Prevention, Pulmonary Hypertension and Venous Thromboembolism, Sports and Exercise Cardiology, Stable Ischemic Heart Disease, Valvular Heart Disease, Vascular Medicine, Anticoagulation Management and ACS, Implantable Devices, SCD/Ventricular Arrhythmias, Atrial Fibrillation/Supraventricular Arrhythmias, Cardiac Surgery and Arrhythmias, Cardiac Surgery and CHD and Pediatrics, Cardiac Surgery and Heart Failure, Cardiac Surgery and SIHD, Cardiac Surgery and VHD, Congenital Heart Disease, CHD and Pediatrics and Arrhythmias, CHD and Pediatrics and Imaging, CHD and Pediatrics and Interventions, CHD and Pediatrics and Prevention, Acute Heart Failure, Pulmonary Hypertension, Interventions and ACS, Interventions and Imaging, Interventions and Structural Heart Disease, Interventions and Vascular Medicine, Angiography, Nuclear Imaging, Sleep Apnea, Sports and Exercise and Congenital Heart Disease and Pediatric Cardiology, Sports and Exercise and ECG and Stress Testing, Sports and Exercise and Imaging, Chronic Angina

Keywords: ACC Publications, Cardiology Magazine, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Coronavirus Infections, Acute Coronary Syndrome, Anticoagulants, Arrhythmias, Cardiac, Cardiac Surgical Procedures, Metabolic Syndrome, Angina, Stable, Heart Defects, Congenital, Dyslipidemias, Geriatrics, Heart Failure, Angiography, Diagnostic Imaging, Pericarditis, Secondary Prevention, Hypertension, Pulmonary, Sleep Apnea Syndromes, Sports, Exercise Test, Heart Valve Diseases, Aneurysm

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Archived Version

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 15:34

President Biden : I give you my word as a Biden: If you make under $400,000 a year, I'll never raise your taxes one cent.But, I'm'... https://t.co/Pg7AUg7BkU

Mon Sep 27 00:24:40 +0000 2021

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Mon Sep 27 15:33:55 +0000 2021

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Mon, 27 Sep 2021 11:41

HELSINKI (AP) '-- Police in Norway on Sunday reported dozens of disturbances and violent clashes including mass brawls in the Nordic country's big cities after streets, bars, restaurants and nightclubs were filled with people celebrating the end of COVID-19 restrictions that lasted for more than a year.

The Norwegian government abruptly announced Friday that most of the remaining coronavirus restrictions would be scrapped beginning Saturday and that life in the nation of 5.3 million would return to normal.

The unexpected announcement by outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solberg to drop coronavirus restrictions the next day took many Norwegians by surprise and led to chaotic scenes in the capital, Oslo, and elsewhere in the country.

''It has been 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime,'' Solberg said on Friday at a news conference. ''Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life.''

Rowdy celebrations by hundreds of citizens across Norway started Saturday afternoon and lasted until the early hours of Sunday. Police said unrest was reported in several places, including in the southern city of Bergen and the central city of Trondheim, but the situation was the worst in Oslo.

Long lines were seen outside Oslo's nightclubs, bars and restaurants late Saturday and police registered at least 50 fights and disturbances during the night. Neither vaccination status certificates nor negative test results are required to enter such venues in Norway.

''That's exactly what I predicted would happen,'' angry nightclub manager Johan Hoeeg Haanes in Oslo told Norwegian newspaper VG. ''It was a life-threatening situation in the city because they (government) didn't give us at least a few days advance notice. This was a dangerous situation, as police said all places were packed.''

Among other incidents, Norwegian media reported that police received an alert about a man carrying a machete on a bus in Oslo and people fainting while waiting to get into pubs in Trondheim.

''There was a significantly greater workload (Saturday) than during the summer. There were a lot of people out already in the afternoon and it continued during the night,'' Oslo police spokesman Rune Hekkelstrand told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

Solberg responded to criticism of the sudden move to reopen society by saying that Norwegian health experts had supported the measure.

''We shall not have strict (coronavirus) measures unless they are professionally justified. People must be allowed to live as they wish,'' Solberg told VG late Saturday.

Norway is the second country in Nordic region to lift COVID-19 restrictions after Denmark did so on Sept. 10.

More than 76% of Norway's population have received one vaccine dose, and nearly 70% have had both shots, according to official figures.

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Follow all of AP's pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

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Archived Version

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 11:19

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic says foreign partners are turning a blind eye to a security crackdown in Serb-majority areas of Kosovo, where the breakaway region's forces have brought essential cross-border traffic to a halt.

''The complete occupation of northern Kosovo and Metohija with armored vehicles by Pristina has been going on for the past seven days, and everyone in the international community stays thunderously silent,'' Vucic said on Sunday, referring to the region by its Serbian name.

The statement refers to the ongoing crisis in northern Kosovo, involving several crossings into inner Serbia, which have been effectively blocked by the partially recognized authorities of Kosovo after the government in Pristina banned cars with Serbian license plates from entering the region.

Also on rt.com Kosovo's Albanian police ban Serbian license plates, use tear gas against protesters, as US and EU urge 'restraint' on both sides Accompanied by a ramped-up security presence, Kosovo police proceeded to seize license plates from the locals, saying they had to be replaced by Republic of Kosovo plates. They banned drivers with Serbian plates from entering Kosovo unless they paid a tax and acquired the newly mandated plates before crossing the border, creating kilometers-long traffic jams.

The situation has disrupted food and medication deliveries to local communities, which, despite now living in the breakaway province, are dependent on supplies from inner Serbia. Attempts by ethnic Serbs to protest at border crossings against what they view as Pristina's occupation and a crackdown on their local autonomy, have been quelled by tear-gas-firing Kosovo police. On Friday, Reuters cited the police as having said that two government offices were attacked in northern Kosovo, and that disgruntled Serbian residents were blocking the roads.

Serbia responded to the situation by deploying tanks and fighter jets right next door, with footage of the armored vehicles rolling in triggering calls for ''restraint'' from the US and their allies.

Also on rt.com Tanks, fighter jets spotted near Kosovo border as tensions flare between Serbia and breakaway region (VIDEOS) Vucic remarked on Sunday that everyone was ''suddenly worried'' when they saw ''Serbian helicopters and planes over the territory of central Serbia because, I guess, they shouldn't take off until [Kosovo Prime Minister Albin] Kurti or someone from the international community approves.''

Despite cozying up to the US for years, Vucic has had no public support from Washington, and attempts to resolve the situation via NATO have proven similarly fruitless. Speaking by phone to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Vucic stressed that Serbia remained committed to the 2013 EU-brokered agreement that laid the groundwork for the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina. Stoltenberg only urged Vucic and Kurti to take steps towards de-escalation and dialogue.

Russia, which does not recognize Kosovo's independence from Serbia, said the Pristina authorities were to blame for the escalation of tensions. The Russian ambassador to Belgrade toured the positions of the Serbian military with the country's defense minister on Sunday, the Russian embassy saying the Serbs had been acting ''responsibly'' in the circumstances.

Meanwhile, the EU foreign policy head, Josep Borrell, issued a statement urging both the Serbian and Kosovo authorities ''to unconditionally de-escalate the situation on the ground by immediately withdrawing special police units and dismantling roadblocks,'' and said they must resolve the crisis via ''the EU-facilitated dialogue.''

Also on rt.com Leaked files expose London's cloak-and-dagger scheming to secure the permanent divorce of Kosovo from Serbia Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, just over a decade after NATO's 'humanitarian intervention' in the Yugoslav conflict, which saw a bloody guerilla campaign, led by ethnic Albanians, met with a military crackdown by then-President Slobodan Milosevic. The US and its allies sided with the guerilla fighters, bombing former Yugoslavia for three months, destroying its military, as well as civilian infrastructure, and NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force was deployed in Kosovo. An ethnic Albanian rule was eventually established in the province, except for several Serb-majority regions that maintained de-facto autonomy. Despite years of talks, the signing of the 2013 Brussels Agreement, and various suggestions of mutual exchange of territories, the situation remains unresolved, and Serbia does not recognize Kosovo's independence.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 21:07

At first, Ryan Lackey thought the email was a scam. It arrived one morning in March, bearing news that Facebook had received an order from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to turn over data from personal accounts Lackey uses to chat with friends and exchange cat photos.

Even weirder, the email said Facebook had been forced to keep this intrusion secret. Six months later, Lackey, a computer security consultant in Puerto Rico, still has no idea what Facebook turned over to an FBI investigation that he believes may have started as early as 2019.

''My online life, at least half of it touches Facebook in some way,'' said Lackey, 42.

Every year, Facebook, Google and other technology companies receive hundreds of thousands of orders from law enforcement agencies seeking data people stash online: private messages, photos, search histories, calendar items '-- a potentially rich trove for criminal investigators. Often, those requests are accompanied by secrecy orders, also known as nondisclosure or gag orders, that require the tech companies to keep their customers in the dark, potentially for years.

Opinion: The secret gag orders must stop

Concern about the practice spiked this summer after journalists at The Washington Post and the New York Times learned that the Trump Justice Department had secretly subpoenaed their email account data in an effort to identify the source of classified leaks early in President Donald Trump's term. Federal prosecutors also targeted Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, their aides and even family members.

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But those requests were just a tiny fraction of the orders prosecutors secure annually to stealthily snoop through the data of ordinary users like Lackey.

In the last six months of 2020, Facebook received 61,262 government requests for user data in the United States, said spokesman Andy Stone. Most '-- 69 percent '-- came with secrecy orders. Meanwhile, Microsoft has received between 2,400 and 3,500 secrecy orders from federal law enforcement each year since 2016 '-- or seven to 10 per day '-- according to congressional testimony by vice president of customer security and trust Tom Burt.

Google and Apple declined to disclose the number of gag orders they've received. But in the first half of 2020, Google said U.S. law enforcement made 39,536 requests for information about 84,662 accounts '-- with many of the requests targeting multiple accounts. Apple said it received 11,363 requests.

Tech giants have to hand over your data when federal investigators ask. Here's why.

The Trump administration is hardly the first to use gag orders for tech-company searches. Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal prosecutors are required to seek digital information from tech companies, not their customers. Since then, prosecutors have routinely used gag orders to prevent the companies from spilling the beans to suspects who might destroy evidence, go into hiding or threaten someone's life.

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But the practice has mushroomed over the past two decades, part of a broader surveillance ramp-up following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, lawyers said. As the orders have proliferated, privacy advocates and the tech companies themselves have become increasingly concerned.

An investigation by a consortium of media organizations has found that military-grade spyware licensed by an Israeli firm has been used to hack smartphones. (Jon Gerberg/The Washington Post)Some tech company officials have accused prosecutors of reflexively requesting gag orders for routine investigations, regardless of whether the cases actually require such secrecy. And an array of company officials and legal experts argue that the practice robs tech company customers of their constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

''Across all the rest of society, it's understood that government doesn't get to take your stuff, doesn't get to come in and into your house, doesn't get to break into your file folders or your lock box at the bank without a warrant. And you get to know about that warrant and you get to exercise your legal rights,'' Microsoft's Burt said in an interview. ''Someone cannot exercise their Fourth Amendment rights when their data has been taken in secret.''

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With lawmakers in both parties considering reining in the practice, the Justice Department is reviewing its policies regarding nondisclosure orders that delay notification of tech company customers, said spokesman Joshua Stueve.

''The Department is committed to properly balancing legitimate needs for confidentiality in criminal investigations with the public's interest in understanding how investigative authorities are used,'' Stueve said in an email, though he declined to specify what changes are under consideration.

Justice Dept. watchdog to probe Trump-era leak investigations, including secret subpoenas for data from Congress, journalists

The proliferation of gag orders mirrors the explosion of electronic evidence as the world has become more digital, said Ed Kim, a former prosecutor in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, who is in private practice in New York now.

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''That's led tech companies to get more vigilant,'' Kim said.

When prosecutors obtain warrants for physical evidence, they rarely need a gag order. That's because the person who owns the objects '-- a weapon used in a crime, for example, or a box of documents '-- is often present when the evidence is seized. And if the evidence is seized improperly, either because the dragnet is overly broad or because of outright investigative abuses, the target of the search typically has an opportunity to challenge it in court.

It's different with digital evidence, which is often kept on the servers of tech companies. That evidence can include highly sensitive details about a person's entire life, including photos, text messages and phone records that could be used to establish their relationships, describe their motives or even place them at the scene of a crime.

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But when investigators serve tech companies with subpoenas or search warrants for this information, the target of the investigation has no idea their data is being seized. And if investigators obtain a gag order, the records must be handed over without the person's knowledge or consent '-- depriving the person of an opportunity to challenge the seizure in court.

Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Post reporters' phone records

Justice Department officials argue there are legitimate reasons to request secrecy orders, especially during complex investigations targeting drug dealers or crime bosses. They note that secrecy orders require judicial approval, providing a check on their investigative powers.

But the bar is often low for investigators to prove the need for secrecy, said white-collar defense lawyer Robert Mintz, a former deputy chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force Division of the U.S. attorney's office.

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''Judges are in a difficult position of having to gauge the necessity of having subpoenas being secret at the beginning of an investigation,'' he said. ''Historically, judges have given great deference to prosecutors.''

How America's surveillance networks helped the FBI catch the Capitol mob

Over the years, tech companies such as Google have increasingly tried to challenge gag orders that appear to be unnecessary, said Albert Gidari, a former lawyer for Big Tech and telecommunications firms who later served as director of privacy at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. Where possible, he said, they also have sought to alert users to the search warrants and share details in so-called ''transparency reports.''

But tech company officials said it is often difficult to tell which orders are worth fighting. The orders are often vague '-- sometimes just email addresses '-- and the owner of the account isn't always obvious.

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Microsoft provided two secrecy orders to The Post with the names of the customers redacted. Each is only about four paragraphs long and declares that notifying the customer about the existence of the data request could lead to evidence tampering or flight from prosecution.

Neither order offers any support for those claims, or any details to indicate why secrecy is necessary. Microsoft complied with both orders and notified customers of the seizure only after the orders expired.

Justice Department seeks 50-year bar to release of grand jury material

Microsoft said it generally complies with secrecy orders because it is legally required to do so. At Google, director of law enforcement and information security Richard Salgado said the company will challenge nondisclosure orders if there are ''external signals'' that the orders lack merit. For example, email addresses can indicate who the subjects or their employers are, providing an avenue for the company to argue against secrecy, said Salgado, a former federal prosecutor.

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Google's decision to challenge the gag order on the Trump Justice Department's subpoena for email data belonging to four reporters at the New York Times, which uses Google's mail service, offers a rare example of such a challenge becoming public. Google won, and was able to share details of the subpoena '-- initially only with a Times lawyer.

Often, however, the orders ''are rather generic,'' Salgado said, providing too little information for Google to mount a case.

''These nondisclosure orders are issued more routinely than makes sense,'' he said.

Consider the case of Lackey. A former Defense Department contractor, Lackey now runs a security consulting business that has handled matters involving cryptocurrency and ransomware. Lackey acknowledges that work could conceivably place him in the crosshairs of law enforcement.

But Lackey says it's not at all clear why prosecutors would sift through his data on Facebook, where he oversees several groups, including one focused on cat photos.

Was the FBI after basic subscriber information, such as his name and when he created the account? Or did they seize something much more problematic, such as personal photos, private messages or a history of his movements at home and abroad during 15 years of logging into the app? The latter, he said, would be a ''severe violation of my expectation of my privacy.''

It's unclear even when the secrecy order was first issued, though Lackey said clues from legal documents he has since obtained suggest that he was kept in the dark for at least two years before Facebook sent him that March email.

''I'm pretty confident that I'm a fairly boring person. I haven't done anything that I would consider worthy of the FBI's time or interest,'' Lackey said.

Stueve, the Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment on Lackey's case, as did Stone, the Facebook spokesman. Stone pointed to Facebook's transparency report, which notes that it complies with government requests for user information when required by law and that it turns over data ''narrowly tailored'' to each request.

ICE investigators used a private utility database covering millions to pursue immigration violations

In an emailed statement, Facebook vice president and deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby said Facebook officials ''push back against government overreach and challenge nondisclosure orders in court when necessary.'' He added: ''Our policy is to notify people who use our platform of requests for their information unless prohibited by law or in exceptional circumstances.''

After receiving the March email, Lackey asked Facebook what information it had handed over and what time frame the request covered. In an emailed response reviewed by The Post, the tech giant wrote that it couldn't give him ''legal advice'' and suggested that he ''consult with an attorney.''

Lackey said he has been left with ''low-level anxiety'' and lots of unanswered questions.

''I'm not opposed to helping law enforcement with a legitimate investigation,'' he said. ''But if it's a civil liberties violation or a fishing expedition, I don't want to help them in that.''

As privacy advocates and tech company officials press prosecutors for more transparency, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are beginning to sift through their options for reining in the practice. One idea: Require tech companies to preserve digital files that are the subject of court orders and permit customers to challenge the orders in court before the information is turned over to prosecutors.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is drafting a measure that would require government investigators to tell the targets of surveillance what data they gather from the tech companies within a reasonable time, much as they already do for more traditional wiretaps and bank-record subpoenas. The measure would cover demands for location records, stored emails, social media photos and other data, said a Wyden aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal bill-writing process.

The measure also would require federal courts to publish, for the first time, basic statistics about surveillance and secrecy orders. But it would continue to permit the orders to be issued.

Garland says Justice Department will strengthen policies for obtaining lawmakers' records

Wyden is hoping the measure will attract bipartisan support. While Democrats have expressed outrage over the Trump administration's leak investigation, Republicans have accused President Biden and former president Barack Obama of snooping on conservatives.

''The United States of America should not spy on its citizens,'' Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said during a June hearing on the issue. ''This process is in need of reform.''

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 23:22

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Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:46

Spraying your food with genetically modified spores with custom DNA sequences in order to trace it through the global supply chain sounds like science fiction, but one company funded by SOSV '-- the same VC behind 'food replacement' companies like Memphis Meats, Finless Foods, and NotCo '-- has made it a reality, and is already testing its technology. Biological barcodes and resource tracking is clearly integral part of the blockchain/AI supply chain being rolled out as part of The Great Reset. But what happens when you eat them? Christian breaks down Aanika and their technology in this Ice Age Farmer broadcast.

Download (mp3):

FULL SHOW NOTES: https://www.iceagefarmer.com/2021/04/29/bio-barcodes-gmo-spores-hidden-in-food-to-track-supply-chain/

SUBSCRIBE on bitchute: https://bitchute.com/iceagefarmerOn Odysee: https://odysee.com/@iceagefarmer

On TELEGRAM: https://t.me/iceagefarmer

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT:https://patreon.com/iceagefarmer'' other methods/PO box: https://iceagefarmer.com/support

Ice Age Farmer Guilded (chat) group:http://iceagefarmer.com/guilded

The Victory Seed '-- easy pamphlet to share:http://thevictoryseed.org

__

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Archived Version

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:38

The New York Times published a striking front-page report last week with a headline that read, "Trump Campaign Knew Lawyers' Voting Machine Claims Were Baseless, Memo Shows." As the article detailed, Donald Trump's political operation carefully examined key election conspiracy theories, found them to be baseless, and prepared an internal memo on the findings.

Trump's lawyers, of course, pushed the falsehoods anyway.

We learned of this, not through a whistleblower or investigative reporting, but because of a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems employee, who was targeted by the former president's team.

As we've discussed, however, there's no reason to believe this memo will be the only relevant revelation. On the contrary, the Coomer vs Trump Campaign case has also produced depositions from a variety of political players who were also involved in propagating nonsensical claims about the 2020 election. They've already answered questions, under oath, about their role in spreading conspiratorial falsehoods.

Take Rudy Giuliani, for example.

In this same defamation case, attorneys sat down with Donald Trump's infamous lawyer last month and asked about the origins of the Republican conspiracy theories, specifically related to voting machines '-- a core element of the GOP's anti-election push. As part of the deposition process, Giuliani, among others, was required to answer questions under oath, which in turn offers the public a window into how the nonsense became an animating principle for the former president and his allies.

The core question for the former New York City mayor was simple: Where did all this weird stuff come from? Giuliani was asked, for example, about media reports in which he said he'd relied on some media accounts and social media posts in order to go after a Dominion Voting Systems executive. Giuliani responded that he couldn't remember if it was Facebook or some other platform. "Those social media posts get all one to me," he said.

Giuliani added that he couldn't think of anything else "that I laid eyes on." This was itself amazing: Before going public with anti-election conspiracy theories, Giuliani's due diligence involved reading some stuff via social media '-- though he's not sure which platform.

The former president's lawyer also told the public he knew of a witness who could bolster the allegations against Dominion. In the deposition, Giuliani conceded that he didn't actually speak to the alleged witness, but he thinks someone else on Team Trump probably did.

Giuliani also said he didn't have any information about the alleged witness' credibility, and didn't make an effort to check. From the transcript:

"It's not my job in a fast-moving case to go out and investigate every piece of evidence that's given to me. Otherwise, you're never going to write a story."

He added that he didn't have the time to check whether the alleged witness' claims were reliable before sharing them with the public.

Rachel summarized Giuliani's message this way: "I read some stuff '-- I think it was maybe on Facebook '-- I laid it out to the public as what we knew to be the facts, and no, I had no idea if it was true or not. I didn't even try to check. Why would I try to check? You wouldn't have a story then."

At face value, it's tempting to laugh at the absurdity of Giuliani's deposition. Similarly, it's hard not to wonder how much longer he'll be permitted to have a law license.

But let's not forget that the bonkers conspiracy theories Giuliani and his associates pushed weren't just lies, they were toxins that entered the political world's bloodstream. The political system's resulting sickness isn't going away.

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Archived Version

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 14:27

Investigative Summary:What if the city's underground infrastructure was changing the foundation of your biggest investment? That's what some Austin homeowners say is happening to them as sinkholes form at their homes around Austin's aging stormwater pipes. KXAN investigated Austin's storm system and found this infrastructure, intended to prevent erosion and flooding, is largely uninspected and in unknown condition.

AUSTIN (KXAN) '-- Michael Sanford looks at his backyard and wonders if he'll ever see a permanent fix. Exposed by heavy rain, a large sinkhole formed there around an underground City of Austin storm drainage pipe.

''It was very deep,'' Sanford said. ''It was about five feet deep, 12 feet wide.''

After we first brought you this story in June, the city filled the hole with rocks.

''If they told me this was the final solution, I'd be throwing a fit,'' the homeowner said.

The city's underground inspection revealed a deeper cause for the erosion: the stormwater pipe had corroded.

In an internal email from June, Austin's then-Watershed Protection Assistant Director said it ''does not appear to have a bottom'' and ''needs to be pulled and replaced.''

Sanford said he hasn't gotten many answers from the city since it temporarily filled the hole.

''Any heavy rain is going to pull that rock through,'' he said. ''The biggest concern for me is '-- a child falls in during a rain event.''

From his backyard Michael Sanford speaks to KXAN's Kevin Clark. (KXAN Photo/Ben Friberg)

The city's Watershed Protection Department told KXAN it is working on a fix to relocate the drainage system. It first unsuccessfully tried to purchase an easement on a neighboring property, then recently partnered with the property's owner to get temporary construction access.

''[Watershed Protection] is currently finalizing a solution for the infrastructure repair that we plan to present to the neighborhood,'' a department spokesperson said. ''We have begun work on design and permitting while also working with a contractor. Our goal is to start construction by the end of this year.''

The solution won't be simple. Sanford is far from the only one affected; the corroded pipe runs under nearly 20 homes in the Villages of Shady Hollow subdivision in south Austin. Sanford and his neighbors have counted five sinkholes along the pipeline so far.

''One neighbor has bought flood insurance,'' Sanford said. ''Another neighbor has put in a retention wall.''

Photos of the sinkhole in Michael Sanford's yard from June, along with the rusting stormwater pipe below his and his neighbors' properties. (Courtesy Michael Sanford)

'It started getting bigger and bigger'Twenty minutes away live Barrett and Nicolet Morgan.

''We were really excited when we bought this home,'' Barrett said.

Barrett and Nicolet Morgan. (KXAN Photo/Ben Friberg).

The couple bought their Travis Heights home in 2012 and learned the stormwater system under their property was active two days after they closed on it.

Now, along that underground line, they're seeing pockets of erosion, including a sinkhole in their front yard.

''I don't want my three or five-year-old stepping off their porch and falling into a hole,'' Barrett said.

The city, which promises a fix here, too, told us it believes ground water is entering through cracks in the pipe, leading to the erosion and loss of soil. It estimates the pipe was constructed between 1915 and 1937, meaning it could potentially be more than 100 years old.

''At the time of construction, the City did not have standards or criteria that regulated the design or construction of storm drain systems,'' a Watershed Protection Department spokesperson told KXAN. ''As a result, the current storm drain system is not up to current City requirements or standards.''

Long-term, the department tells KXAN it's investigating realigning the pipe into the right-of-way.

''I'm trying to voice my concerns and be the squeaky wheel, so they can see this as a problem that needs to be addressed,'' Barrett said.

How well does the city know its stormwater system?Austin has nearly 1,200 miles of stormwater pipe. The system, maintained and inspected by Watershed Protection, is intended to store, treat and discharge stormwater runoff to prevent adverse flooding and erosion.

However, a Comprehensive Infrastructure Assessment from 2019 notes that several legacy infrastructurenetworks are not built to standards not able to meet the current demands on those networks. The document notes this is a particular issue with the stormwater network, where ''deficiencies have potential health, life and safety impacts.''

''Before a certain time frame in the 1970s and 1980s, the criteria for the storm pipes didn't necessarily have reinforced concrete pipe,'' said Jorge Morales, Director of Austin Watershed Protection.

With several families experiencing sinkholes, we wanted to know how often Watershed Protection inspects and repairs its stormwater infrastructure.

Our investigation found, the system meant to protect Austinites from flooding and erosion is less scrutinized than other types of city infrastructure.

According to Austin's Long-Range Capital Improvement Program Strategic Plan, the city has labeled 93% of its storm drain pipe in ''unknown condition'' while the condition of its manholes and inlets are also labeled as unknown.

According to the Comprehensive Infrastructure Assessment, which is included in Austin's Long-Range Capital Improvement Program Strategic Plan, the condition of 93% of the city's stormwater pipes is unknown. (KXAN Graphic)

Compare that with Austin's water utility: none of its water and wastewater pipes are in unknown condition, according to the infrastructure assessment within the Capital Improvement Plan.

''What would the reason for that be?'' KXAN Investigator Kevin Clark asked Morales.

''I think it probably has to do with the age, the time we've had our program relative to the water utility,'' Morales said. ''From an asset management standpoint, they've probably been doing things for a lot longer.''

A department spokesperson added because there are so many storm drains in the city, ''inspections require quite a bit of time and resources. In addition, this infrastructure does not face the same state and federal regulatory requirements as some of the other infrastructure within the City of Austin.''

These requirements are referring to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, regulations that require all sewage collection systems to be tested every five years. That does not apply to storm drain infrastructure, the city said.

Morales said Watershed Protection inspects drain pipes by putting cameras in them to keep track of inventory and identify potential problem spots. This is part of the department's Asset Management Plan, which looks at the age, condition, material and size of the city's storm drain pipes.

A view from inside one of the city's drainage pipes. Austin's Watershed Protection Department uses cameras to proactively inspect its pipes. However, the department is budgeted to only be able to inspect 1% of its inventory per year. (City of Austin Photo)

Proactive monitoring is slow; Morales said the department has inspected about 100 of its near-1,200 miles of pipe since it began inspecting pipes 10 years ago. A city spokesperson added the Watershed Protection Department's budget allows it to inspect 1% of its storm drains annually and that pipes are not repeatedly inspected because of ''limited resources.''

The department said through its Asset Management Plan, it has identified 75 miles of high-risk storm drains to be prioritized for inspection. It says at the department's current rate, it will take nearly five years to complete.

Despite the city's own reporting of its manholes and inlets in unknown condition, the department says it visually inspects and cleans manholes and inlets on a recurring two-year cycle.

''We're trying to be strategic based on risk, based on age and material type, where we get our eyes on some of those pipes,'' Morales said.

Meanwhile, in his backyard, Michael Sanford hopes for more urgency in conducting proactive inspections.

''I know there's miles and miles of it,'' he said, ''But waiting to react doesn't seem like the right solution.''

For Barrett and Nicolet Morgan, their home is their biggest investment. They even bought the property next door, in preparation for the possibility of physically moving their home off the stormwater system, in case the city doesn't realign the pipe.

''The hard part is when I asked the city if this was a safe place for my children and my family to be, they couldn't give me that answer,'' Barrett said.

A challenge for citiesUT Professor and Civil Engineer Ben Hodges. (KXAN Photo/Chris Nelson)

For more perspective, we spoke with Ben Hodges, a UT Professor and Civil Engineer who has expertise in stormwater systems and fluid mechanics.

We asked: is it possible for cities to know the condition of its stormwater pipes, in order to proactively prevent sinkholes and other issues?

''As a professor, I can say, theoretically, we can do it as a practical matter,'' Hodges said. ''The question would be the costs associated with the surveying, the landscape around understanding where the possibilities are.''

Hodges mentions budget constraints, adding cities tend to put stormwater systems on the backburner when there's a crunch in city budgets. Problems with stormwater systems tend to be more isolated and less obvious to the general public.

''We see the roads every day and when the roads get bad, people are complaining because they're driving over potholes,'' Hodges said. ''But when the equivalent of a pothole occurs in a stormwater drain, who sees it?''

He said Austin is far from alone in facing the challenge of detecting cracks in the system or predicting where they occur. He cited constant development cities need to keep up with; Austin has annexed areas where stormwater systems were previously not under its control. He also mentioned factors like the surrounding geology, the earth and the condition of the pipe itself.

''There's no easy answer,'' he said. ''But we need a better understanding of resilience, especially under large storms.''

Photojournalist Ben Friberg, Director of Investigations & Innovation Josh Hinkle, Photojournalist Chris Nelson, Digital Director Kate Winkle and Graphic Artist Jeffrey Wright contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 14:26

AUSTIN (KXAN) '-- Airbnb is asking for more Austinites to open their doors to Afghan refugees.

''Demand for housing for refugees is particularly high in Austin, and today, we're urging local residents to consider hosting our new neighbors,'' the short-term rental company said Tuesday.

Refugee Services of Texas says it has resettled 117 Afghans in Austin as of Sept. 1, and it expects to house dozens more by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, RST also told KXAN Austin is leading the way in resettling Afghan refugees in the state.

''Every refugee actually has a caseworker. Their health is also being monitored by the U.S. State Department,'' said Airbnb spokesperson Liz Fusco. ''So, truly, all we need is for people to open up their homes, and our partners will be able to do the rest.''

But Airbnb host Kelly Graham says right now, an empty room is rare.

''This time of year for the next three months, I'm probably only going to have 2% availability,'' said Graham, who owns two Airbnbs in Fredericksburg and manages a third.

That's part of why he says he can't offer these spots to Afghan refugees. He also says hosts have to list their units at some sort of discounted rate as part of the initiative.

He tries to help when he can. Last month for example, he housed a family escaping Hurricane Ida at-cost, meaning it covered his expenses, but he didn't make any profit. He says he can't do that all the time.

''This is my main source of income, and so it's kind of a difficult thing to weigh, like, do I give up my main source of income trying to do some good? And so it's kind of hard,'' Graham said.

Fusco says so far, about 5,000 hosts have signed up for this initiative across the country.

''Many hosts have offered to actually make housing available for free via that process, but we understand that there are individuals who can't afford to do so,'' said Fusco.

In August, Airbnb announced it would help temporarily house 20,000 Afghan refugees nationally through Airbnb.org, saying the cost would be funded by donations from the company CEO as well as others.

Since that announcement, the company says the need for temporary housing for Afghan refugees has continued to grow.

The company says it now has the capacity to go beyond its original commitment '-- if demand for refugee housing ''matches the supply in communities where refugees are resettling.''

In a statement to KXAN, RST said it's grateful to Airbnb for its support, saying it ''makes a huge difference in the Austin community-wide effort to provide open hearts and fresh starts for Afghan families.''

If you're interested in becoming host or donating to this initiative, visit airbnb.org/refugees.

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Archived Version

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 14:23

Local Haitian-American chef Nahika Hillery has made it her mission to feed and educate people about Haiti. Her dishes have earned her several awards and national attention, but she's using that spotlight to speak about the events happening in Del Rio. (Photo courtesy: Nahika Hillery and{ } Karla Gryzmala)

AUSTIN, Texas '--Local Haitian-American chef Nahika Hillery has made it her mission to feed and educate people about Haiti. Her dishes have earned her several awards and national attention, but she's using that spotlight to speak about the events happening in Del Rio.

''I hope everyone shares the same sentiments on what's happening, it is literally inhumane what's going on right now, it's devastating,'' said Hillery.

Hillery is the chef and owner behind Kreyol Korner Caribbean Cuisine. She delivers, caters, and runs a pop-up food truck for events and festivals.

"It's been such a great experience, what I do have to say is Austinites have been open arms with the idea of bringing Haitian cuisine here,'' said Hillery.

Her mission is now evolving after seeing what's happening along the border in Del Rio.

In the last six years, she's shared her cuisine with Austin, Houston, and across the country on food competition shows. Her goal is to inform people more about Haitian culture through cuisine.

''The cuisine is everything about who we are,'' said Hillery,

"We have Spanish influence in our food, Arab influence in our food, African influence in our food, so bringing all of those together really makes our cuisine."

Local Haitian-American chef Nahika Hillery has made it her mission to feed and educate people about Haiti. Her dishes have earned her several awards and national attention, but she's using that spotlight to speak about the events happening in Del Rio. (Photo courtesy: Nahika Hillery and Karla Gryzmala)

Her mission is now evolving after seeing what's happening along the border in Del Rio. An estimated 14,000 migrants, mostly asylum seekers fleeing from Haiti, have been camping under the International Bridge in Del Rio. Several shocking photographs have been taken of the situation.

RELATED: State lawmakers briefed on latest situation in Del Rio

"I think even just the man on the horse with the whip, like, that literally killed me to see that, but that's like a depiction of what I feel like Americans are towards Haitians just in general," said Hillery.

Hillery is volunteering with an organization in Houston, called Houston Haitians United, to serve food to the arriving migrants, many of whom she says lack necessities.

''I saw so many pregnant women that need maternity clothes,'' said Hillery, "so many children that need new shoes."

''Everyone that marched for Black Lives Matter, we need everyone to speak up right now,'' said Hillery.

Hillery says the lack of education on the history between Haiti and America is disappointing, and she wants to see more Americans helping.

"They're of Haitian descent but they're coming from South America, they spent most of their lives there, so to even consider deporting them to Haiti, to me that's a humanity problem,'' said Hillery, "why would we drop them off in a county they're not familiar with at all that can't provide them the resources for the peaceful lives they are looking for?"

The Del Rio port of entry has reopened, and the migrant encampment has now been cleared. Hillery says she will continue to change people's perceptions of Haiti.

"We have an amazing cuisine we have beautiful music so it's just really nice to share those parts of who I am, how I grew up, and what Haiti really represents.

Local Haitian-American chef Nahika Hillery has made it her mission to feed and educate people about Haiti. Her dishes have earned her several awards and national attention, but she's using that spotlight to speak about the events happening in Del Rio. (Photo courtesy: Nahika Hillery and Karla Gryzmala)

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Archived Version

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 14:18

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Archived Version

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 19:39

ApartmentBoss : https://t.co/TZT8Oxhpku https://t.co/8eFUl3yAtM

Tue Sep 28 17:45:41 +0000 2021

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Archived Version

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 16:48

Townhall.com : AUSTIN: "We planned to execute between 70 and 80 thous'--we planned to *evacuate* between 70 and 80 thousand people." https://t.co/v0OGyT0qfl

Tue Sep 28 13:55:22 +0000 2021

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Tue, 28 Sep 2021 16:44

Liberty Lockdown w/ Clint Russell : I would bet my life's savings this woman is a CIA assetShe is the biggest liar on earthhttps://t.co/SMCemnVKT8

Tue Sep 28 08:12:00 +0000 2021

Bourbon Moon. me/mine/moon ' ¸ðŸŒ : @LibertyLockPod She's perfect too. I get so angry watching videos of her smug authoritarian face that I forget to b'... https://t.co/hRgTZPutp3

Tue Sep 28 16:25:59 +0000 2021

Nah nahhh : @LibertyLockPod @richschwab1 Did you see her Boston marathon interview via cnn? It's not even a bet worth taking.

Tue Sep 28 15:31:40 +0000 2021

PeddlingFictionPodcast : @LibertyLockPod And she's procreating. Oh boy.

Tue Sep 28 15:29:00 +0000 2021

#AðŸ'‰Against''¨War''¨ðŸŒðŸ•Š : @LibertyLockPod She's def a @wef asset'... which I guess is the same thing lo https://t.co/Wgb8gQXeHM

Tue Sep 28 14:59:45 +0000 2021

Ryan : @LibertyLockPod What the fuck is the point of the vaccine then. Logic makes zero sense

Tue Sep 28 14:55:36 +0000 2021

AstasisMusic : @LibertyLockPod Definitely not a spook

Tue Sep 28 14:29:59 +0000 2021

Shane Hazel : @LibertyLockPod CCP asset for sure

Tue Sep 28 14:29:22 +0000 2021

137 Dekoven Street : @LibertyLockPod And your life savings are a lot.

Tue Sep 28 14:25:50 +0000 2021

DefundTheFed : @LibertyLockPod I hate absolutely everything she says

Tue Sep 28 14:04:56 +0000 2021

Dave Woods : @LibertyLockPod Check this out @LibertyLockPod https://t.co/a7IsK13nZs

Tue Sep 28 13:22:41 +0000 2021

TheLibertyDude : @LibertyLockPod I've thought this for a year now. 100% spook, question is, for who? China or the US.

Tue Sep 28 12:01:24 +0000 2021

Rambling Photon : @LibertyLockPod The real question is how long has she been a CIA asset

Tue Sep 28 11:58:17 +0000 2021

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Archived Version

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 15:28

Jewish Deplorable : Effective midnight tonight, nurses and hospital staff that did not get the vaccine will be fired NY Gov Hochul wi'... https://t.co/oOF0I1TUSA

Mon Sep 27 19:16:28 +0000 2021

Kevin Eskew : @TrumpJew2 Does the National Guard have the doctors and nurses to support these mandates and provide care in the US?

Tue Sep 28 15:24:48 +0000 2021

all entertainement nothing serious : @TrumpJew2 People that had covid are 13 times more immune than people with 2 times emergency vaccine or genetic the'... https://t.co/aQZ8TpblPu

Tue Sep 28 15:22:39 +0000 2021

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Archived Version

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 17:30

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Archived Version

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 16:46

Michael P Senger : Justin Trudeau: ''We've reached an agreement with Pfizer'...This deal includes options to add 30 million doses in both'... https://t.co/c0kHy7nj7a

Sun Sep 26 21:34:11 +0000 2021

GJ DH 'ž¸ : @MichaelPSenger Imagine living in Canada'... one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Canada is being destroy'... https://t.co/0EaPJtKasn

Mon Sep 27 16:38:54 +0000 2021

pokerguy7 : @MichaelPSenger I bet u did u sell out. Daddys boy

Mon Sep 27 16:36:24 +0000 2021

LiLu : @MichaelPSenger What does he know about what's coming?

Mon Sep 27 16:27:21 +0000 2021

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Mon, 27 Sep 2021 11:41

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Mon, 27 Sep 2021 11:42

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