Western Elites Doubling Down On Censorship

NC  |  The goal of the political leadership in the US, the EU, the UK, and other ostensibly liberal democracies is simple: to gain much greater, more granular control over the information being shared on the internet. As Matt Taibbi told Russell Brand in an interview last year, both the EUçs Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Biden Administration’s proposed RESTRICT Act  (which Yves dissected in April, 2023) are essentially a “wish list that has been passed around” by the transatlantic elite “for some time,” including at a 2021 gathering at the Aspen Institute.

The same goes for the UK’s Online Safety Bill, which Kier Starmer would like nothing better than to beef up. Likewise, Canada has introduced sweeping new internet regulation through its Online News Act, which includes, among other things, a link tax, and Online Streaming Act. So, too, has Australia through a censorship bill that is strikingly similar to the EU’s DSA and even includes a punitive fine of up to 2% of global profits for social media companies that do not comply.

It’s not hard to see why. With economic conditions deteriorating rapidly across the West, after decades of rampant financialisation, kakistocracy, and corporatisation, to the extent that even the United Nations is now one giant private-public partnership, the social contract is, to all intents and purposes, worthless. Even the WEF admits that corporations, its main constituency, have turbocharged inequality. Populism is on the rise just about everywhere and angry and fragmented protest movements have been growing since at least 2019.

Thanks largely to the countervailing information still available on the internet, governments are rapidly losing control of the narrative on key issues, including the war in Ukraine and Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Their stock response has been to clamp down on the ability of citizens to use the internet to generate, consume and share important news, dissenting views and uncomfortable truths.

 

Elite Donor Level Conflicts Openly Waged On The National Political Stage

thehill  |  House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has demanded the U.S. Chamber of Commerce answer questions about the more than $12 million its Chamber of Commerce Foundation received from the Tides Foundation, a left-leaning nonprofit, between 2018 and 2022.

In a letter last Monday to Chamber president and CEO Suzanne Clark and foundation President Carolyn Cawley, Smith said that the Tides grants appear to conflict with the Chamber’s mission to support American businesses and raise questions about the groups’ tax-exempt status.

A GOP chair investigating the Chamber and its foundation is a major shift from the historically close alignment between the group and Republicans. The probe also comes as the Chamber gears up for a massive lobbying blitz around the expiration of former President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a fight in which Smith and Ways and Means Republicans will have heavy influence.

If Republicans hold the House, Smith is expected to retain the Ways and Means gavel and run the House committee charged with tax policy. A sour relationship with Smith could compromise the Chamber’s ability to sway the 2025 tax fight and other priorities that fall before the panel.

The inquiry also represents a new phase in well-reported tensions that erupted after the 2020 election between the Chamber and an increasingly populist Republican Party, some members of which were unhappy with the Chamber’s efforts to improve its relationships with Democrats.

The Chamber and the foundation say the probe is based on a misunderstanding. Eric Eversole, president of the foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program, told The Hill the funds the foundation received “were charitable contributions from corporations made to the donor advised fund,” a charitable giving vehicle that makes it virtually impossible to trace the ultimate source of the funds.

A Tides spokesperson told The Hill that Smith’s inquiry “is a politically-motivated PR tactic during an election year, driven by actors who disagree with the social justice work of Tides and our partner organizations.”

But Smith made clear he was not satisfied with the initial response.

“The mission statement for the Chamber is pretty obvious: to help American businesses,” he said. “Getting $12 million from Tides and then trying to say it’s really not from Tides, it’s from someone else, that makes me want to look harder.”

 

Populism Is The Voice Of The Voiceless vs. Nancy Pelosi's Crypt-Keeper Gas...,

realclearpolitics  |   Winston Marshall, the former banjo player from the band "Mumford & Sons", now host of The Winston Marshall Show podcast, spoke in opposition to an Oxford Union motion that "This House Believes Populism is a Threat to Democracy." Speaking for the motion was former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"Populism is not a threat to democracy," Marshall said. "Populism is democracy."

"Populism is not a threat to democracy, but I'll tell you what is. It is elites ordering social media to censor political opponents. It's police shutting down dissenters," he said.

WINSTON MARSHALL: Words have a tendency to change meaning when I was a boy, "woman" meant "someone who didn't have a cock."

Populism has become a word used synonymously with "racists." We've heard "ethno-nationalist," with "bigot," with "hillbilly," "redneck," with "deplorables."

Elites use it to show their contempt for ordinary people.

This is a recent change. Not long ago, Barack Obama, while he was still president, at the North American Leaders Summit in June 2016, took umbrage with the notion that Trump be called a "populist." How could Trump be called a populist? He doesn't care about working people. If anything, Obama argued he was the populist. If anything Obama argued, Bernie was the populist. It was Bernie who'd spent five decades fighting for working people. But Trump.

Something curious happens. If you watch Obama's speeches after that point, more and more recently, he uses the word "populist" interchangeably with "strong man," with "authoritarian." The word changes meaning, it becomes a negative, a pejorative, a slur.

To me, populism is not a dirty word. Since the 2008 crash and specifically the trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout, we are in the populist age, and for good reason. The elites have failed.

Let me address some common fallacies, some of which have been made tonight. If the motion was that demagoguery was a threat to democracy, I would be on that side of the House. If the motion was that political violence was a threat to democracy, I'd be on that side of the house. January 6th has been mentioned -- a dark day for America, indeed. And I'm sure Congresswoman Pelosi will agree that the entire month of June 2020, when the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon was under siege, and under insurrection by radical progressives, those too were dark days for America.

REP. NANCY PELOSI: You are not. There is no equivalence there.

WINSTON MARSHALL: So you don't agree, that is fine. You don't agree. That's fine.

REP. NANCY PELOSI: It is not like what happened on January 6, which was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.

iWINSTON MARSHALL: So you don't agree, but you will condemn those days.

My point, though is that all political movements are susceptible to violence, and indeed insurrection. And if we were arguing that fascism was a threat to democracy, I'd be on that side of the House.

Indeed, the current populist age is a movement against fascism. I've got quite a lot to get through.

Populism as you know, is the politics of the ordinary people against an elite, populism is not a threat to democracy. Populism is democracy, and why else have universal suffrage, if not to keep elites in check?

Ladies and gentlemen, given the success of Trump, and more recently, Javier Milei taking a chainsaw to the state behemoth of Argentina's bureaucratic monster, you'd be mistaken for thinking this was a right-wing populist age, but that would be ignoring Occupy Wall Street. That would be ignoring Jeremy Corbyn's "for the many, not the few," that would be ignoring Bernie against the billionaires, RFK Jr. against Big Pharma, and more recently, George Galloway against his better judgment. Now all of them, including Galloway, recognize genuine concerns of ordinary people being otherwise ignored by the establishment.

I'm actually rather surprised that our esteemed opposition, Congressman Pelosi, is on that side of the motion. I thought the left was supposed to be anti-elite. I thought the left was supposed to be anti-establishment today, particularly in America, the globalist left have become the establishment. I suppose for Miss Pelosi to have taken this side of the motion, she'd be arguing herself out of a job.

But it's here in Britain, where right and left populists united for the supreme act of democracy, Brexit. Polls have showed the number one reason people voted for Brexit was sovereignty, for more democracy.

What was the response of the Brussels elite? They did everything in their power to undermine the Democratic will of the British people and the Westminster elite were just as disgraceful. As we've heard, David Cameron called the voters "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists." The liberal Democrats did everything they could to overturn a democratic vote. Keir Starmer campaigned for a second referendum. Elites would have had us voting and voting and voting until we voted their way. Indeed, that's what happened in Ireland and in Denmark.

Let's look at some of the other populist movements. The Hong Konger populist revolt is literally called the Pro-Democracy Movement. In the Farmer revolts from the Netherlands to Germany, France, Greece, to Sri Lanka, farmers are taking their tractors to the road to protest ESG policy that's floated down to us from those all-knowing, infallible elites of Davos. The trucker movement in Canada became anti-elitist when petty tyrant Prime Minister Justin Trudeau froze their bank accounts, not the behavior of a democratic head of state. The Gilets Jaunes France, ULEZ in London, working people protesting policy that hurt them. And how are they treated? They're called conspiracy theorists. They're called far-right, by the mayor as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, populism is the voice of the voiceless. The real threat to democracy is from the elites. Now don't get me wrong, we need elites. If President Biden has shown us anything, we need someone to run the countries. When the president has severe dementia, it is not just America that crumbles, the whole world burns.

But let's examine the elites. European corporations spend over €1 billion a year lobbying Brussels, U.S. corporations spend over $2 billion a year lobbying in DC, and two-thirds of Congress receive funding from pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer alone spent $11 million in 2021. They made over $10 billion in profit. No wonder then that 66% of Americans think the is rigged against them for the rich and the powerful.

And by the way, we used to have a word for when big business and big government were in cahoots. And I think any students here of early 20th-century Italian history will know what I'm talking about.

What about Big Tech? Throughout the pandemic, Biden's team, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security colluded with Big Tech in censoring dissenting voices. Not kooky conspiracy theorists, people like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford epidemiologist, people like Harvard scientist Martin Kulldorf, people spreading true information, not misinformation, true information at odds with the government narrative.

Need I remind you, democracy without free speech is not democracy.

This was a direct breach by the way of the First Amendment. Before COVID, Intelligence services colluded with Big Tech to have Trump suspended off Twitter. Yes, the same platform which hosted the Taliban and Ayatollah "Death To Israel" Khomeini. They thought the president crossed the line when he tweeted on Jan 6 quote, "Remain peaceful. No violence! Respect the law and our great men and women in blue." That's a quote.

You may be thinking now that Trump is a populist. You are right. He didn't accept the 2020 elections and he should have. So should Hillary in 2016. So should Brussels, and so should Westminster in 2016. And so too should Congresswoman Pelosi, instead of saying the 2016 election was quote, "hijacked."

PELOSI: That doesn't mean we don't accept the results, though!

WINSTON MARSHALL: What about the mainstream media? Let me read you some mainstream media headlines. The New Yorker the day before the 2016 election, "The Case Against Democracy." The Washington Post, the day after the election, "The Problem With Our Government Is Democracy." The LA Times, June 2017, "The British Election Is A Reminder Of The Perils Of Too Much Democracy." Vox, June 2017, "Two eminent political scientists say the problem with democracy is voters." New York Times, June 2017, "The Problem With Participatory Democracy Is The Participants."

Mainstream media elites are part of a class who don't just disdain populism, they disdain the people. If the Democrats had put half their energy into delivering for the people, Trump wouldn't even have a chance in 2024. He shouldn't, he shouldn't have a chance. You've had power for four years. From the fabricated Steele dossier, to trying to take him off the ballot in both Maine and Colorado, the Democrats are the anti-Democrat party. All we need now is the Republicans to come out as the pro-Monarchist party.

Ladies and gentlemen, populism is not a threat to democracy, but I'll tell you what is. It is elites ordering social media to censor political opponents. It's police shutting down dissenters, be it anti-monarchists in this country or gender-critical voices here, or last week in Brussels, the National Conservative Movement.

I'll tell you what is a threat to democracy. It's Brussels, DC, Westminster, the mainstream media, big tech, big Pharma, corporate collusion and the Davos cronies. The threat to democracy comes from those who write off ordinary people as "deplorable." The threat to democracy comes from those who smear working people as "racists." The threat to democracy comes from those who write off working people as "populists."

And I'll say one last thing. This populist age can be brought to an end at the snap of a finger. All that needs to be done is for elites to start listening to, respecting, and God forbid, working for ordinary people. Thank you.

H.R. 6408 Terminating The Tax Exempt Status Of Organizations We Don't Like

nakedcapitalism  |  This measures is so far under the radar that so far, only Friedman and Matthew Petti at Reason seem to have noticed it. And Petti has pointed out that the Secretary of the Treasury can designate any organization to be “terrorist-supporting organization,” so the does not think, as Friedman seems to, that any other measures are needed to allow an Administration to try to financially cripple not-for-profits engaging in wrong speech.

Note that the messaging depicting Hamas as somehow behind the campus protests has increased:

And Aljazeera has already produced evidence of Zionist groups trying to stoke confrontations at the demonstrations (hat tip Erasmus):

Mind you, not-for-profits are already subject to mission and censorship pressures by large donors, witness the billionaires who loudly said they would halt donations to Ivy League schools if they “tolerated anti-Semitism,” as in did not quash criticism of Israel. But as you will see, this is a whole different level of censorship.

First, we are hoisting Friedman’s entire tweetstorm. She stresses that not only does this bill create a star chamber when existing laws allow for crackwdowns on terrorist supports, but that it could be easily extended to other types of establishment-threatening speech.

Petti at Reason is more pointed. From This Bill Would Give the Treasury Nearly Unlimited Power To Destroy Nonprofits:

A bipartisan bill would give the secretary of the treasury unilateral power to classify any charity as a terrorist-supporting organization, automatically stripping away its nonprofit status….

In theory, the bill is a measure to fight terrorism financing…

Financing terrorism is already very illegal. Anyone who gives money, goods, or services to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization can be charged with a felony under the Antiterrorism Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. And those terrorist organizations are already banned from claiming tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Nine charities have been shut down since 2001 under the law.

The new bill would allow the feds to shut down a charity without an official terrorism designation. It creates a new label called “terrorist-supporting organization” that the secretary of the treasury could slap onto nonprofits, removing their tax exempt status within 90 days. Only the secretary of the treasury could cancel that designation.

In other words, the bill’s authors believe that some charities are too dangerous to give tax exemptions to, but not dangerous enough to take to court. Although the label is supposed to apply to supporters of designated terrorist groups, nothing in the law prevents the Department of the Treasury from shutting down any 501(c)(3) nonprofit, from the Red Cross to the Reason Foundation.

Petti explains that an initial target appears to be Students for Justice in Palestine, which he says have not had enough of an attack surface to be targeted under current law; in fact, Florida governor DeSantis had to shelve a plan to shut down Students for Justice in Palestine when confronted with a lawsuit.

Petti explains that his concerns are not unwarranted:

Under the proposed bill, murky innuendo could be enough to target pro-Palestinian groups. But it likely wouldn’t stop there. After all, during the Obama administration, the IRS put aggressive extra scrutiny on nonprofit groups with “Tea Party” or “patriot” in their names. And under the Biden administration, the FBI issued a memo on the potential terrorist threat that right-wing Catholics pose.

The Charity and Security Network, a coalition of charities that operate in conflict zones, warned that its own members could be hindered from helping the neediest people in the world.

“Charitable organizations, especially those who work in settings where designated terrorist groups operate, already undergo strict internal due diligence and risk mitigation measures and…face extra scrutiny by the U.S. government, the financial sector, and all actors necessary to operate and conduct financial transactions in such complex settings,” the network declared in November. “This legislation presents dangerous potential as a weapon to be used against civil society in the context of Gaza and beyond.”

Recall how the US has fired on Médecins Sans Frontières staff who were according to the US, assisting bad guys in their relief efforts? Financial sanctions are so much tidier.

I urge readers, and particularly donors, to alert the fundraising and executive staff at not-for-profits, particularly the journalistic sort, so they can object to this legislation. It would likely not survive a Supreme Court challenge in its current form, but that’s an awfully heavy load to have to carry, plus the legislation might not be subject to an injunction in the meantime.

Dr. Martin Kulldorf Was Fired For Cause From Both Mass General And Harvard

respectfulinsolence  |  So what was (and is) going on? Kulldorff now says he was fired as though the firing happened recently, but two and a half years ago he was already referring to his time as professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in the past tense. Something odd is going on here but what could it be. One big hint is his profile on the Harvard website, which lists him as being “on leave,” which led me to immediately recognize that trying to figure out when Kulldorff went on leave was a job for the almighty Wayback Machine at Archive.org. There, I found that, as early as December 2021, Kulldorff’s status had already been listed as “on leave.” So where did Wikipedia get the idea that he had only been on leave since 2023? Whatever the case, it’s clear that before his “firing,” Kulldorff had not been working for Mass General Brigham or Harvard since at least November or December 2021, given that the last archive of his webpage showing him not on leave is dated October 20, 2021 and the next one on December 20, 2021 shows his status as “on leave.” This time period aligns very nicely with his move to the Brownstone Institute.

However, it also aligns with the Harvard vaccine mandate for the fall 2021 term. So maybe Harvard did fire him for refusing to be vaccinated and raising all sorts of nonsensical objections, such as his claim that it was against his religion because the vaccine mandate was more religious than science-based? If that was the case, though, then why was he listed as “on leave” on the website, rather than as suspended? Let’s look further.

Here’s yet another hint. If you look at Kulldorff’s Harvard listing, you’ll see that it includes his research support, specifically his grant support. This listing indicates that he has not had NIH grant support since 2019. To understand why this is important, you need to know that lots of universities, but in particular Harvard Medical School-associated positions, require faculty to maintain grant support sufficient to cover a specific percentage of their salary. This percentage can range from a relatively modest 30-50% to a rather draconian 100%. (If you have to get grants to cover 100% of your salary, I always wonder, what good is the university?) While it is true that there is some wiggle room in that if you lose grant funding for a while usually the university will support you until you reacquire funding, but the university won’t support you forever. Kulldorff’s leave started a bit more than two years after his NIH R01 grant support expired, which is a fairly reasonable period of time for Harvard to support whatever percentage of Kulldorff’s salary that had been grant-supported, in the hopes that he would reacquire NIH funding.

The overall narrative is that the reason that Kulldorff had to go on leave was because of Harvard’s vaccine mandate for its fall 2021 term, which somewhat fits with the timeline. However, what doesn’t make sense (at least to me, at least) about this potential explanation. Harvard got rid of its vaccine mandate a week ago. Would Harvard decide to fire Kulldorff now, given that it had progressively decreased its requirements for boosters and now has eliminated the COVID-19 vaccine mandate altogether? Possibly. I can’t rule it out entirely. Certainly, that’s what Kulldorff appears to be claiming, that he was fired because he refused to be vaccinated. However, it seems rather excessive that it took over two and a half years. I also believe, based on my experience observing him, that Kulldorff is not to be trusted, which is why I’m skeptical of his explanation.

Here’s my educated guess as to what really happened, and I freely acknowledge that it is nothing more than an educated guess. However, it is a guess that makes sense given the timeline and what we know. My guess is that in late 2021, having failed to garner any new NIH RO1 grants, Kulldorff saw the writing on the wall and decided to go on leave in order to accept Tucker’s offer to become senior scientific director of the new right wing think tank that Tucker was forming, the Brownstone Institute. (It is also possible that Harvard’s imposition of a vaccine mandate for fall 2021 might have played into his considerations.) My further guess is that Brigham has a limit to how long you can be on leave before you lose your position. Here we are, over two years since Kulldorff went on leave, and Kulldorff shows no signs of renewed academic activity that might allow him to score new NIH or other government grant funding. Assuming that Kulldorff was not tenured, which now seems likely, that meant that it was time for him to go.

Of course, I still can’t totally rule out the possibility that he was actually canned because he refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and that he was tenured, which somehow allowed him to drag out the process two and a half years. However, it still seems unlikely (to me, at least) that he would have been able to drag out the appeals process that long even as a tenured full professor, particularly given that in the intervening time Harvard has progressively decreased its vaccine mandate until it got rid of it altogether a week ago. Still, it seems rather implausible that it would take two and a half years from his refusal to his being fired, and it seems even less plausible that Harvard would go through with firing Kulldorff after that long given how much the political winds have shifted with respect to mandates and how much heat Harvard would face for doing so, in particular after its president Claudine Gay was forced to resign over her testimony regarding campus free speech plus plagiarism charges.

When The Iron Law Of Oligarchy Pinched Joe Biden's Little Narrow Peasant Ass

ZeroHedge  |  As the MSM turns on President Joe Biden heading into the 2024 election, the Washington Post had an interesting piece on Thursday exploring a little-known connection between the Bidens and the du Pont family, which revolves around a 2001 case in which then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) was voted in as a prominent new member of a prestigious Golf Club in Wilmington, Delaware, founded by a du Pont heiress.

That year, Biden, known for his "Middle-Class Joe" image and modest financial status, joined the exclusive Fieldstone Golf Club, a symbol of prestige and power. This move painted a contrasting picture: a politician aligned with working-class values, yet rubbing shoulders with the state's most affluent family, renowned for their chemical company empire.

At the time, Biden walked a delicate line. On one hand, he campaigned as an Amtrak-riding “Middle-Class Joe” striving to make ends meet, and accurately described himself as “one of the poorest members of Congress” — reporting $221,000 in combined income with his wife that year and $360 in charitable contributions. -WaPo

Biden's connection to the du Ponts extended beyond social interactions. His staffing choices, political allies, and personal real estate investments all reflected a deep integration with this influential family. His acquisition of a mansion built by a du Pont member further underscores this relationship.

Yet, Biden's entry into the Fieldstone Golf Club raised eyebrows and led to a brief FBI investigation in 2007. The inquiry centered on how Biden obtained his club membership, especially as it involved an "unused" ticket from a company owned by the club's founder, potentially bypassing a substantial partnership fee. The FBI's probe, which included photographing Biden's personal locker at the club, eventually closed without any allegations of wrongdoing. It's unknown whether Biden was ever informed about the FBI investigation.

In response to an inquiry, the White House told the Post: "These bizarre suggestions from more than 20 years ago are confusing given the fact that the Post is reporting that President Biden was fully responsible for membership dues at the golf club and all out-of-pocket costs associated with it. Frankly, the Post’s own reporting suggests this supposed matter was closed 15 years ago with no finding of wrongdoing. If you want to dig deep on who’s funding a president’s golf habits, we might have some suggestions."

Yet, this story reveals the delicate balance Biden navigated between his public identity as a relatable politician and his private interactions with Delaware's elite. While maintaining his image as a defender of middle-class interests, Biden also sought inclusion in the state's upper echelons, epitomized by his association with the du Ponts and his membership at Fieldstone.

For someone raised in Delaware with Biden’s blue-collar background, “it would be quite an accomplishment” to rise into the same social circles as the du Ponts, said Joseph Hurley, a Wilmington attorney who grew up with Biden and represented Moseley.

“It’s like, ‘I’ve really arrived,’ because the du Ponts were the family, the king’s-family type thing,” he said. -WaPo

Biden often cited the long role of the du Pont family in Delaware in his family story - writing in his memoir that his father moved the family from Scranton, PA to a suburb of Wilmington, which was made more economically stable thanks to so many well-paid DuPont employees.

"DuPont meant security for today and better times for the future," Biden wrote.

Years later, Biden recalled that his mother urged him to value his heritage with as much pride as the state’s best-known family. “Like I’m a du Pont or something,” Biden recalled. “You’re a Biden. Nobody is better than you, and everybody’s equal to you,” his mother told him.

Still, he envied the position and power of those who founded the DuPont company.

Elected to the Senate in 1972, he served in Congress alongside Rep. Pierre “Pete” du Pont IV, who later became Delaware’s governor and ran for president. Biden’s close adviser and Senate chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, had worked for DuPont as a plastics engineer.

 

 

 

When Russell Brand Was A Degenerate He Was "All Good", Now That He's All Good He's A "Degenerate"?

.@RobertKennedyJr talks to Russell Brand about how the NSA was in charge of Operation Warp Speed, the history of the United States bioweapons program, and why Anthony Fauci is the highest-paid government official in history:

"The weird thing about the pandemic was this constant… pic.twitter.com/qunw3Bn6pP

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) September 18, 2023

nydailynews  |  YouTube has demonetized Russell Brand’s channel, and the BBC pulled some of his shows from its online streaming service, after several women accused the comedian-turned-wellness guru of rape and sexual assault in an investigative report published over the weekend.

In a statement on Tuesday, YouTube said they took action against Brand’s account — which has 6.6 million subscribers — to “protect” users in light of “serious allegations against the creator.” It means 48-year-old Brand will no longer be able to profit from the ads that run within and alongside his videos, which have titles like “What REALLY Started the Hawaii Fires?” and “Covid Tsar Admits Lockdowns Were NEVER About Science.”

Other channels associated with the funnyman’s main YouTube page also include Awakening With Russell, which has 426,000 subscribers, Football Is Nice, which has some 20,000 subscribers, and Stay Free With Russell Brand, which has 22,200 subscribers.

“This decision applies to all channels that may be owned or operated by Russell Brand,” the Google-owned video service said.

While Brand has not been charged with any crimes, YouTube said he violated its “creator responsibility policy.”

“If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community,” the statement read.

BBC echoed the sentiment, saying Brand’s content “now falls below public expectations” of iPlayer and BBC Sounds.

Over the weekend, the Times of London, The Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches published a joint investigation in which several women accused Brand of sexual assault and rape between 2006 and 2013 — a period during which Brand also became married to and subsequently divorced from pop star Katy Perry.

 

Political Elites Spying On And Censoring "Constituents"

public  |  Social media companies, including TikTok, Snap, and Twitter, caused people in France to riot and so the government should shut them down, say French President Emmanuel Macron and the European Union’s top censor, Thierry Breton.

Said Macron, “When things get out of hand, we may have to regulate them or cut [social networks] off.” The reason, Breton explained today, is that “Social media didn’t do enough” to remove "content that is hateful, that calls to revolt and to kill.” Warned Breton, "If they don’t do it, they will be sanctioned immediately.”

The comments made by Macron and Breton are shocking, and anybody who cares about freedom of speech should denounce them as a clear and present threat to the fundamental human right to freedom of expression as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, the French Constitution, and the European Constitution.

It’s true that there are legal protections for removing "content that is hateful, that calls to revolt and to kill.” Such immediate incitement to violence is even illegal in the United States, which has much stronger free speech protections than France and Europe.

But neither Macron, Breton nor their defenders have presented any evidence showing that hate speech or incitement to violence rather than outrage over a police killing, combined with a large and restless immigrant population that France has failed to integrate and assimilate, caused the riots.

And their calls for greater censorship come at the same moment that the Macron government has passed a new law allowing police to spy on people by secretly taking control of their phones and laptop computers and activating the microphone, camera, and GPS. The government says a judge will have to approve all spying, but it is reasonable to worry about abuses of power. In 2013, military contractor Edward Snowden revealed mass US government spying without a warrant.

What’s more, the attack on privacy and the demand for censorship is worldwide. The British parliament is expected to pass legislation in the next few weeks that will allow the government to spy on private and encrypted text messages. The Irish Senate is expected to pass legislation in October that will allow the police to enter homes without a warrant and search phones and laptops for evidence of hate speech. And Australia is on the cusp of passing a new law that would require social media companies to remove any speech that causes “harm” to “health” or “the environment,” which would allow government censorship of criticisms of its climate and energy policies.

Why is the attack on free speech and privacy happening in so many nations simultaneously? And what can be done about it?

The Garden Intends To Clamp Down On Thought Crimes Among You Ashy-Assed Jungle Bunnies

NC  |  So, who in the EU will get to define what actually constitutes mis- or disinformation?

Surely it will be the job of an independent regulator or a judicial authority with at least clear procedural parameters and no or few conflicts of interest. At least that is what one would hope.

But no.

The ultimate decider of what constitutes mis- or dis-information, possibly not just in the EU but across multiple jurisdictions around the world (more on that later), will be the European Commission. That’s right, the EU’s power-hungry, conflict-riddled, Von der Leyen-led executive branch. The same institution that is in the process of dynamiting the EU’s economic future through its endless backfiring sanctions on Russia and which is mired in Pfizergate, one of the biggest corruption scandals of its 64-year existence. Now the Commission wants to take mass censorship to levels not seen in Europe since at least the dying days of the Cold War.

In this task the Commission will have, in its own words, “enforcement powers similar to those it has under anti-trust proceedings,” adding that “an EU-wide cooperation mechanism will be established between national regulators and the Commission.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) broadly supports many aspects of the DSA, including the protections it provides on user rights to privacy by prohibiting platforms from undertaking targeted advertising based on sensitive user information, such as sexual orientation or ethnicity. “More broadly, the DSA increases the transparency about the ads users see on their feeds as platforms must place a clear label on every ad, with information about the buyer of the ad and other details.” It also “reins in the powers of Big Tech” by forcing them to “comply with far-reaching obligations and responsibly tackle systemic risks and abuse on their platform.”

But even the EFF warns that the new law “provides a fast-track procedure for law enforcement authorities to take on the role of ‘trusted flaggers’ and uncover data about anonymous speakers and remove allegedly illegal content – which platforms become obligated to remove quickly.” The EFF also raises concerns about the dangers posed by the Commission’s starring role in all of this:

Issues with government involvement in content moderation are pervasive and whilst trusted flaggers are not new, the DSA’s system could have a significant negative impact on the rights of users, in particular that of privacy and free speech.

And free speech and a free press are the foundation stones of any genuine liberal democracy, as notes the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU):

The First Amendment protects our freedom to speak, assemble, and associate with others. These rights are essential to our democratic system of governance. The Supreme Court has written that freedom of expression is “the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom.” Without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would cease to exist. Since its founding, the ACLU has advocated for broad protection of our First Amendment rights in times of war and peace, to ensure that the marketplace of ideas remains vigorous and unrestricted.

A Transatlantic “Wish List”

The DSA and the Biden Administration’s proposed RESTRICT Act (which Yves dissected back in April) were among the topics discussed during Russell Brand’s recent interview of Matt Taibbi. Both bills, said Taibbi, are essentially a “wish list that has been passed around” by the transatlantic elite “for some time,” including at a 2021 gathering at the Aspen Institute:

The governments want absolute, full and complete access to all data that these platforms provide. And then they want a couple of other things that are really important. They want to have the authority to come in and moderate or at least be part of the process of moderation. And they also want people who are called trusted “flaggers” — that’s how they’re described in the European law — to have access to these platforms as well. What they mean by that are these outside quasi-governmental agencies who tell these platforms what they can and cannot print about things like vaccine safety.

In other words, the legal environment for free speech is set to become even more hostile in Europe. And possibly not just Europe. As Norman Lewis writes for the British online news website Spiked, the DSA will not only force the regulation of content on the Internet, but could also become a global standard, not just a European one:

This Jungle-esque Arab Spring In The Garden Must Not Be Tolerated...,

English translated pic.twitter.com/SMSPbR9whZ

— Top Notch Journal (@topnotchjournal) July 2, 2023

 

theconservativetreehouse |  Let me take you back to 2010 and 2011 when the U.S. State Department, Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, CIA Director Leon Panetta and French President Nicholas Sarkozy wanted to support the Islamist Spring uprisings in Tunis, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. 

What happened then is very much related to what we are seeing right now in Europe, specifically France; only this time we are seeing the inverse of the government interests regarding social media on display. 

The bad dictators were targeted for removal following the now famous Barack Obama Cairo, Egypt speech. President Barack Obama triggered the removal of the Zookeepers and released the big cats to become apex predators; the downstream consequences eventually showed up with ISIS burning people in cages. 

When the leaders of Tunis, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Sudan and a multitude of other unapproved dictatorships, reacted to the collective effort of the CIA and U.S. state Dept by shutting down cell phone communication, the CIA and DoS responded by enlisting Twitter and Facebook as the messaging platforms for the rebels in each country.

Twitter became the main conduit through which the people on the ground could organize against their regimes. This was the initial merge of the U.S. government using social media to effect political change. [Side Note: this is the atom splitting moment which eventually led to the government’s ability to control, filter and ultimately censor U.S. social media content.]

Twitter, and to a lesser extent Facebook, served the interests of western government by helping the people on the ground to organize protests, violent uprisings, against the dictators in the Arab Spring. As we eventually saw in Libya and Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt, AQIM) and al-Qaeda (Libya, AQAP) were supported by the State Dept/CIA during that effort.

The key takeaway is: the uprisings were supported by the western governments, and the social media platforms served the interests of the western government leadership.

We have the inverse issue for the interests of western government, specifically France and broad parts of the EU as well as the United States.

General uprisings, riots and assorted mayhem created by mostly Islamic immigrants and the subsequent cultural clash, are against the interests of France and the EU. The ability of the cultural insurgents to organize on social media is now against the interests of western government. How are they reacting? They are shutting down the utility of the platforms and shutting down the internet.

The initial takeaway from this might be perceived as good. The rioters are creating social unrest, looting, arson and crisis; they must be stopped and controlled. It seems like the government action will be a good thing.

However, as with the example of private corporations joining in alignment with WEF government to target Russia, what do you think will happen when a populist revolt of yellow vests, or anti-vaxxers, or freedom rebels take to the streets? Precedents are being set.

You might cheer France using control over communication to target the violent brown people now; but what happens when those same EU entities decide to target the communication of a different type of uprising. This is me, sending warning flares to those who might not care about this ‘beta-test’.

Oh, and don’t forget the Senate Intelligence Committee recent effort with the “Restrict Act“, total internet and domestic social media control pushed under the auspices of controlling TikTok data collection.

 

 

Political Satirist CJ Hopkins Under Criminal Investigation For Thought Crimes In Germany

cjhopkins  |  The Berlin State Prosecutor has launched a criminal investigation of me for tweeting the image on the cover of my book, The Rise of the New Normal Reich. 

I am charged with “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization,” which is punishable by “imprisonment for not more than three years or a fine.”

The “propaganda” in question is the image on the cover of my book, which image will be familiar to the thousands of readers who have bought and read it. It was a Barnes & Noble and Amazon bestseller upon its release in 2022, and continues to sell quite well internationally. 

As you might recall, the book was banned by Amazon in Germany, Austria, and The Netherlands in August 2022 (i.e., the time of my alleged Twitter crimes).

The Prosecutor’s notice orders me to respond to the charge within two weeks, though it’s possible the deadline to respond was today, June 8, 2023 (i.e, the day I received the notice of the investigation, dated May 25, 2023, in the mail).

Along with my response to the charge, I am ordered to provide the Prosecutor with all my personal identification papers and documentation of my net monthly income.

Obviously, the cover of my book is not “propaganda intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.” Anyone vaguely familiar with my work over the last 30 years is aware of my fierce opposition to fascism, totalitarianism, and all other forms of authoritarianism.

The charge is utterly ridiculous. Swastikas are banned in Germany if they are used to promote Nazism, fascism, neo-Nazi organizations, etc. However, they are allowed to be displayed for the purposes of “civic education, countering anti-constitutional activities, art and science, research and education, coverage of historic and current events,” and similar purposes, according to German law.

Given the circumstances, I have to assume the Berlin State Prosecutor has launched this absurd investigation in order to punish me for my aggressive opposition to the roll-out of the New Normal, or intimidate me into silence. There’s quite a lot of that going around these days … just ask Matt Taibbi, Roger Waters, Sucharit Bhakdi, and Kit Klarenberg, among others.

It is possible these trumped-up charges are also a result of my criticism of the official Russia/Ukraine narrative. I’ve been pretty tough on the NATO-backed neo-Nazis and the official propaganda the corporate media has been churning out.

Whatever the actual reason is, I am, needless to say, angry. I will be responding to this baseless and unsupportable charge in a robust fashion. I’ll keep you posted.

 

 

Think'em Bilderbergers Wuz Talm'bout Flushing These Epstein-Tainted Turds?

WaPo  | As government attorneys unravel Jeffrey Epstein’s complex finances and sex trafficking ring, officials are training their focus on other high-wealth individuals with whom the disgraced financier may have done business.

Epstein’s List: Bill Gates & Mila Antonova, a quick look back 2009–2023 pic.twitter.com/gpgSWAOh5S

— TexasLindsay™ (@TexasLindsay_) May 22, 2023

One of the most closely watched cases comes from the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein maintained a residence, as it pursues a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, Epstein’s bank of 15 years. The suit alleges that the institution profited from keeping Epstein on as a client and was complicit in funding his long history of abuse and child sex trafficking.

Deutsche Bank, where Epstein took much of his wealth after leaving JPMorgan in 2013, has already settled a similar case for $75 million. But legal observers say the claims against JPMorgan are far more sweeping than those against Deutsche Bank, covering a period when his trafficking operation was more robust and sophisticated.

Here are the figures surrounding the JPMorgan-Epstein case, and what you need to know about them.

The United States Has Been Destroyed By Its Ruling Elites

PCR  |  Against the backdrop of the United States’ recognition of the investigation against Donald Trump as politically motivated, structural and ideological controversies, and concerns that the American economy will enter a recession, the GEOFOR editorial board asked Paul Craig Roberts, Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy (USA), a PhD in Economics and US Undersecretary of Treasury in the Reagan administration, to share his views on America’s future.

GEOFOR: Special Counsel John Durham “acquitted” Donald Trump on the so-called “Russiagate”, writing in his report that the FBI investigation was politically motivated. How will this news affect the Democrats’ fight against Trump?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: The Special Counsel’s vindication of Donald Trump and denunciation of the FBI for conducting a politically motivated investigation devoid of any evidence should collapse the equally fraudulent Biden regime investigation of Trump on fake documents charges and the New York state prosecution of Trump on alleged expense misreporting charges. It has been clear for a long time that the list of fake charges against Trump, supported by the media, are propaganda to prevent Trump again running for President and to teach all future potential presidential candidates that they will be destroyed if they attempt to represent the people instead of the unelected ruling oligarchy.

However, the Democrat Party and the presstitutes that service them have no respect whatsoever for truth. Facts simply do not matter to them. This is true also of American Universities, law associations, medical associations, the CIA, FBI, NSA, the State Department, the regulatory agencies such as NIH, CDC, FDA, the large corporations, and many establishment Republican members of the House and Senate who serve the economic interests that pay them, not truth. It is also the case with a high percentage of Democrat voters who have been conditioned by propaganda to hate Trump. To Democrats what matters is not facts, but getting Trump. Truth is not permitted to prevent the destruction of Trump.

Consequently, the US is moving toward a fatal split in the society from which recovery is impossible. Trump represents ordinary Americans who prefer peace to the neoconservatives’ wars, who want their jobs back that the greed-driven capitalist global corporations sent to China and Asia, who want their children properly educated instead of indoctrinated with sexual perversion, Satanism, and told that they are racists. In contrast, the Democrats are increasingly Woke–people who believe that truth is an oppressive tool of white supremacy, that Christian morality is tyrannical and discriminatory against pedophiles and other sexual perverts, and that, as “President” Biden himself has said, white people are the greatest threat to America. See: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/05/15/us-navy-enlists-drag-queen-for-digital-ambassador-role-to-attract-more-recruits-2/

Now that official investigations by the House Republicans have brought the utter corruption of Biden and his son to light (see: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/05/16/bank-records-show-biden-family-received-10-million-in-payments-from-china-foreign-interests-house-oversight/ ), the Democrats, the dangerous and corrupt military/security complex, and the complicit whore American media, are desperate. They all stand as being exposed. So, rather than apologize for their mistreatment of Trump and his supporters–1,000 of whom the Democrats have illegally imprisoned–they will likely strike out while they still control the Executive Branch, the US Senate, the CIA, FBI, NSA, and federal agencies such as the IRS that have been armed and militarized.

Alternatively, the corrupt and threatened Democrats might cause war between the US and Russia, or Iran, or China in the hopes that a war will unify even Trump supporters, especially the super-patriots among them, around the “President” against “foreign enemies.”

Rupricht DID NOT LIKE All Of Tucker's Good/Evil/God/Prayer Talk....,

vanityfair  | A new theory has emerged. According to the source, Fox Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch removed Carlson over remarks Carlson made during a speech at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary gala on Friday night. Carlson laced his speech with religious overtones that even Murdoch found too extreme, the source, who was briefed on Murdoch’s decision-making, said. Carlson told the Heritage audience that national politics has become a manichean battle between “good” and “evil.” Carlson said that people advocating for transgender rights and DEI programs want to destroy America and they could not be persuaded with facts. “We should say that and stop engaging in these totally fraudulent debates…I’ve tried. That doesn’t work,” he said. The answer, Carlson suggested, was prayer. “I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will,” he said. “That stuff freaks Rupert out. He doesn’t like all the spiritual talk,” the source said. 

Carlson declined to comment. A spokesperson for Fox Corp. declined to comment. 

It’s been reported that Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott made the decision to fire Carlson on Friday night. Another source, a person close to Murdoch, has said something similar to me. Scott informed Carlson of the decision on Monday morning. 

Rupert Murdoch was perhaps unnerved by Carlson’s messianism because it echoed the end-times worldview of Murdoch’s ex-fiancée Ann Lesley Smith, the source said. In my May cover story, I reported that Murdoch and Smith called off their two-week engagement because Smith had told people Carlson was “a messenger from God.” Murdoch had seen Carlson and Smith discuss religion firsthand. In late March, Carlson had dinner at Murdoch’s Bel Air vineyard with Murdoch and Smith, according to the source. During dinner, Smith pulled out a bible and started reading passages from the Book of Exodus, the source said. “Rupert just sat there and stared,” the source said. A few days after the dinner, Murdoch and Smith called off the wedding. By taking Carlson off the air, Murdoch was also taking away his ex’s favorite show. 

Smith did not respond to a request for comment. 

The 92-year-old mogul’s broken engagement is part of a string of erratic decisions he has made of late that raises questions about Murdoch’s leadership of his media empire. According to sources, executives at Fox are worried about Murdoch’s unsteady hand at the wheel of the company. “It’s like the King is senile but no one wants to say anything,” the source said. According to two sources, Fox settled with Dominion moments before the trial was set to begin because Fox’s lawyers didn’t want Murdoch to testify in public. “They were hoping and praying to settle for months, but they didn’t want to pay up,” the second source said. Once the trial began, the lawyers told Fox execs that Murdoch would be “disgraced on the stand, run out of the boardroom, and his testimony will expose him as a lunatic sliding into senility.” (The person close to Murdoch disputed this. “Rupert was very well prepared to testify.”)