WORLD NEWS
Bodies of all 62 victims of stunning Brazil plane crash recovered
The bodies of all 62 victims of a stunning plane crash in Brazil in which the aircraft plummeted to the ground in a residential neighborhood have been recovered, government officials said Sunday.
Investigators finished a search for victims at the site of the crash outside Sao Paulo on Saturday night, according to the state government in Sao Paulo, located in southeast Brazil. The cause of the Friday crash is still unknown.
Dozens of families of victims descended on a medical facility Sunday to help identify their loved ones.
The remains of all 62 victims − 34 males and 28 females − were taken to a central police medical facility after responders completed their recovery efforts at 10:45 p.m. Saturday, about 33 hours after the crash, the Sao Paulo state government said in a Sunday statement. At least 31 bodies had been recovered as of Saturday afternoon.
In earlier announcements, authorities said there were 61 people onboard the flight, operated by Brazilian airline Voepass. The passenger total was later updated to 62.
European gas prices surge after Kursk incursion
The cost of gas futures at the hub in the Netherlands has jumped to its highest level since December
Natural gas prices in Western Europe continued to climb on Monday, according to data from the London Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
The cost of gas futures for September delivery at the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) hub in the Netherlands increased by roughly 6% to $490 per thousand cubic meters, or €42.82 per megawatt-hour in household terms, before retreating slightly. The last time gas futures were at this level was in early December.
Gas prices began to surge last week, just as Ukrainian forces launched their cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region.
According to Russian media, investors are concerned about the possible impact of the fighting on the transit of Russian pipeline gas to the EU via Ukraine’s transit network.
European leaders urge restraint amid expected Iran response towards Israel
France, Germany and the United Kingdom have called on Iran and its allies to refrain from anticipated attacks on Israel in retaliation for the recent killings of senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The leaders of the three European states issued a joint statement on Monday calling for “de-escalation and regional stability” in the Middle East and an urgent ceasefire.
Pandemic 2.0 will see police, NATO forcing the world to get vaccinated
The latest version of New Zealand’s pandemic plan, which serves as a blueprint for the rest of the world to follow, includes provisions to allow law enforcement and even NATO to enforce the government’s mandatory vaccination agenda.
Published on July 12, the updated plan arrived just one week after the Bill Gates-bankrolled World Health Organization (WHO) sent Dr. Peter Hotez to tell the world that both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) should be allowed to punish “anti-vaxxers” in the United States. Hotez also mentioned deploying NATO as a weapon against domestic populations that refuse to get jabbed.
A modified version of the Civil Defense Emergency Management Act of 2002, the updated plan grants special powers to government officials to override the law during an “epidemic” or “emergency” to keep the public “safe” from harm.
The updated plan specifies three special powers that are allowed during a “threat:”
1) The power to detain, isolate, or quarantine persons, places, buildings, ships, vehicles, aircraft, and animals
2) The power to prescribe preventive treatment like pharmaceutical drugs or vaccines to people – those who refuse will fall into the first special power category
3) The power to allow police forces to “do anything reasonably necessary (including the use of force) to help a medical officer of health or any person authorised by the medical officer of health in the exercise or performance of powers or functions under sections 70 or 71”
That third bullet point is especially threatening in that it allows weapons-brandishing state agents to harm people who refuse to submit to the enforcement of these special powers.
Get ready for medical martial law, coming soon to a town or city near you
New Zealand initially decided to make these changes on March 19, 2020, right before the Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) was declared to be a global “pandemic.” At the time, The New Zealand Herald published an entire article about the need for an updated pandemic plan, which has now arrived.
The first pandemic plan in New Zealand was introduced in 2006. It was then updated in 2017 to reflect the passage of new legislation as well as changes in population and demographics. Now, version three of the plan has been unleashed, and it is a real doozy.
Imperial College London created a model that New Zealand used to assess how to recreate its pandemic plan. British physicist Neil “Professor Lockdown” Ferguson is credited with masterminding it, though there is much controversy surrounding his lack of accuracy.
“Ferguson is one of a small group of global ‘scientists’ whose job is to control the narrative,” reports The Exposé about who Ferguson really is. “The real driving force behind updating pandemic preparedness is WHO.”
No longer is the word “influenza” included in the title of New Zealand’s pandemic plan, thanks to Ferguson’s input. This means the range of what can be considered a “pandemic” has expanded to include pretty much anything.
According to The Exposé, the first time “special powers” were actually used in New Zealand was for covid, also known as “the dummy run.” The next time around will be a hell unlike anything the people of this world have ever seen or could ever comprehend.
“The updated pandemic plan covers the health system response,” the Ministry of Health ominously said in a statement about the changes. “It does not cover the all-of-government or wider societal response to a pandemic. It is also only one tool for developing the health system’s preparedness.”
Totalitarian U.K Schools to Teach Students to Identify ‘Extremist Content’ Online
Is this irony? I’m not sure because I went to public school.
Via The Guardian (emphasis added):
Children in England will be taught how to spot extremist content and misinformation online under planned changes to the school curriculum, the education secretary has said.
Bridget Phillipson said she was launching a review of the curriculum in primary and secondary schools to embed critical thinking across multiple subjects and arm children against “putrid conspiracy theories”…
Phillipson, the Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, told the Sunday Telegraph: “It’s more important than ever that we give young people the knowledge and skills to be able to challenge what they see online.
“That’s why our curriculum review will develop plans to embed critical skills in lessons to arm our children against the disinformation, fake news and putrid conspiracy theories awash on social media. Our renewed curriculum will always put high and rising standards in core subjects – that’s non-negotiable.
“But alongside this we will create a broad, knowledge-rich curriculum that widens access to cultural subjects and gives pupils the knowledge and skills they need to thrive at work and throughout life.”
I made the mistake once of spotting extremist racial content in public school in Atlanta and paid the price for my civic engagement — I saw something, and I said something, just like Homeland Security told me to.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
BREAKING: Trump to Sue Joe Biden’s DOJ Over Unprecedented Mar-a-Lago Raid for $100 Million
President Trump announced on Monday that his legal team will sue the Biden Department of Justice for $100 million over the unprecedented raid on his home in 2022.
Last month, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the high-profile classified documents case, citing the unlawful appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith.
This decision comes as a significant blow to the Biden regime and the Department of Justice, raising questions about the integrity of the entire investigation.
Attorney General Garland violated the Constitution by appointing Jack Smith to conduct this politically motivated persecution against President Trump.
The decision effectively halts the prosecution led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In her ruling, Judge Cannon wrote:
Former President Trump’s Motion to Dismiss Indictment Based on the Unlawful Appointment and Funding of Special Counsel Jack Smith is GRANTED in accordance with this Order [ECF No. 326]. The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution. U.S.
Const., Art. I, $ 2, cl. 2. Special Counsel Smith’s use of a permanent indefinite appropriation also violates the Appropriations Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 7, but the Court need not address the proper remedy for that funding violation given the dismissal on Appointments Clause grounds.
The effect of this Order is confined to this proceeding.
The court found that Smith’s appointment did not adhere to the Appointments Clause, which requires that principal officers of the United States be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
The Special Counsel’s use of a permanent indefinite appropriation was also deemed a violation of the Appropriations Clause, although the court did not address the remedy for this funding violation given the dismissal on Appointments Clause grounds.
The case, which stemmed from a grand jury indictment on June 8, 2023, charged Trump with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information and additional conspiracy and concealment charges against Trump and his co-defendants, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. The indictment was later expanded to 42 charges in a superseding indictment.
President Trump previously filed a motion to dismiss Jack Smith’s classified documents charges based on the “unlawful appointment and funding of Special Counsel.”
‘Outrageous killing’: Feds ordered to answer $30 million lawsuit over shooting of Ashli Babbitt
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to answer a $30 million wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of the estate of Ashli Babbitt.
The unarmed protester was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, like many others, opposing the certification of Joe Biden as president.
In a crowd in the building, in which two individuals already had dislodged the glass panels in the lobby doors, she was raising herself into the opening when Capitol police officer Michael Byrd shot and killed her.
Alarm sounded on Kamala’s ‘extreme’ agenda to eliminate ‘ALL limits on abortion’
A prominent pro-life group is warning Republicans about the “extreme” abortion platform of the Democratic presidential ticket, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) sent a memo, obtained by the DCNF, to GOP candidates, leadership and state leaders about Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who have a record of supporting unlimited abortion and voting against life-saving legislation.
“Harris & Walz support NO limits on abortion and want to impose this extreme position on all 50 states…even painful late-term abortions in the 7th, 8th, and 9th month of pregnancy,” SBA President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement. “Harris is so committed to abortion that she can’t see anything else – including the developmental stages of children before birth or the real needs of women.”
Kamala Harris: Owned by Big Pharma, big trans, and big abortion
throughout her mystifying, skyrocketing political career, Kamala Harris has repeatedly demonstrated her fealty to the pharmaceutical, abortion, and tra nsgender industries, using her position of authority to feed their unquenchable thirst for profit by promoting their manufactured demands for dangerous experimental vaccines, for their monstrous so-called “sex-changing” medical and surgical treatments for young people and kids, and for the devaluing and destruction of human life through abortion.
Harris, along with her newly picked vice-presidential running mate Tim Walz, are dangerous radical extremists, more beholden to lining the pockets of demonic so-called “healthcare” industries than they are to protecting the dignity and flourishing of American lives.
Harris: Fighting for Big Pharma profits, not public health
Harris has promoted the COVID-19 (C19) vaccine from the start and continues to do so as evidenced by an “up to date” vaccination requirement for all who seek employment at her campaign headquarters.
Harris currently demands that those she employ continually update their C19 vaccination status, despite the fact that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have admitted since August 2021 that the C19 jab does nothing to stop the transmission of COVID.
“Harris has steadfastly stood by Biden’s federal vaccine mandates, federal mask mandates, as well as lockdowns of businesses, schools, and places of worship all across America during COVID,” noted Nikos Biggs-Chiropolos of the Honest Media Project. “As someone who has spent her entire career trying to please Democratic Party elites and donors, rather than regular people, it is clear that her top priority is propping up powerful companies rather than fighting for better public health.”
In a remarkable, damning video from July 2021, Harris spouts off one lie after another about the efficacy of the C19 vaccine.
“Getting vaccinated is the single best defense against getting COVID-19 and its variants,” declared Harris, who has never corrected herself or bothered to change her guileful messaging.
“First, we all know it doesn’t stop transmission,” said Dr. James Lyons-Weiler, an expert who has documented vaccine safety and efficacy.
“Second, where’s the study comparing it to the Brownstein protocol? Or comparing vaccination to Ivermectin? Or comparing vaccination to hydroxychloroquine plus corticosteroids and zinc?” continued Lyons-Weiler. “There have been no randomized clinical trials that made these comparisons.”
“She’s literally making this up as she goes along,” he pointed out.
“Is it moral for the vice president of the United States to say a vaccine is ‘highly effective’ when it is unable to stop transmission of the virus it is intended to combat?” asked Biggs-Chiropolos.
It’s not moral, but her lies certainly helped pharmaceutical companies reap windfall profits from the C19 hysteria that Harris helped to foment.
“Her record clearly shows how she is a puppet of Big Pharma rather than a champion of the people,” said Biggs-Chiropolos.
But Harris’s confounding continued push to promote the COVID-19 jab is only part of a larger picture of a leader who in reality is nothing more than a tool of nefarious “healthcare” industries.
It gets worse. Far worse.
Big Trans industry radical
In choosing Tim Walz – who as governor declared Minnesota to be a transgender sanctuary state and placed Tampon machines in the boys’ restrooms in public schools – Harris has signaled her support for the burgeoning, multi-billion-dollar transgenderism-technology-medical-industrial complex.
“Healthcare” professionals who stand to extract huge incomes from those entrapped in the nightmare of medically mutilated bodies and souls have repeatedly outright lied about the impact of and motivation behind their ghoulish medical practices.
That is clearly of no concern to either Walz or Harris. But why? What is the source of their remarkable allegiance?
In a video interview published last year, investigative journalist Jennifer Bilek demystified the ascendancy of the cult of transgenderism. It’s all reaping huge profits by permanently mutilating the bodies of vulnerable young people.
A hardcore abortion industry extremist
Harris has proven time and again throughout her career as California’s attorney general, as United States senator, and as vice president that she is 100 percent dedicated to protecting and promoting the abortion industry which earns billions of dollars annually through the slaughter of the unborn in their mothers’ wombs.
“The Democratic Party under Harris is as radically pro-abortion as it can possibly be. Short of coming out for killing toddlers, there simply is no way to be more extreme than Kamala Harris and her party now are,” wrote Ethics and Public Policy Center president Ryan T. Anderson in a searing essay at First Things. “She “is a hard-core ideologue – an abortion extremist – and has been since her first days as an elected official. As president, she would be no different.”
While serving in the Senate, Harris received a 100 percent voting record from NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood.
“From targeting pro-life journalists and forcing pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion in her A.G. days, to voting to override state pro-life laws in her Senate days, she has repeatedly made clear her fealty to the abortion lobby,” recounted Anderson. “Since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, Harris has sown confusion about her political vision by reversing many of her own publicly stated positions. But one thing remains constant: Abortion is her top priority.”
Judicial Watch: FBI Refuses to Release Trump Assassination Records
Judicial Watch announced today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) withheld information on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about its coordination with the U.S. Secret Service regarding the July 13 Butler, PA, rally at which former President Trump was shot.
In denying Judicial Watch’s FOIA request, the FBI cites FOIA exemption 7(A), which applies to information that “would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication.”
The Judicial Watch FOIA request on July 26 asked for:
All records of the FBI, including emails, email chains, email attachments, text messages, video or audio recordings, photographs, drawings, outlook calendars, meeting minutes, finished intelligence products, bulletins, raw intelligence, threat products, correspondence, statements, letters, memoranda, reports, briefings, presentations, notes, summaries, or other form of record, regarding preparation and coordination with the USSS for former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign rally that was held in Butler, PA, on July 13, 2024. Please provide records from June 15, 2024, to present.
Judicial Watch is pursuing the next steps in preparation for litigation.
“Were there others involved in the assassination attempt on Trump? If not, then why would the FBI use the excuse of protecting someone’s right to a fair trial to hide records on the FBI’s and Secret Service’s inexcusable failures to protect Trump from being nearly assassinated,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The Biden-Harris administration is running a major league cover-up on the near assassination of former President Trump.”
The Secret Service also recently refused to honor FOIA requests for information on the shooting.
Judicial Watch has over 25 FOIA and open records requests currently pending on the shooting of Trump with the Biden administration, local and state officials, and agencies in Pennsylvania.
Elon Musk to Interview Trump on X Social Media Network
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is due to interview Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on the X social media network on Monday in an event that could inject more surprises into the turbulent U.S. presidential election.
The interview, scheduled for 8 p.m. ET (0000 Tuesday GMT), could provide the former president an opportunity to seize the limelight at a time when his campaign is seen as sagging.
His Democrat rival for the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris, has erased Trump’s lead in opinion polls and energized Democrat voters with a series of high-energy rallies.
The interview on Musk’s social media platform could allow Trump to reach a different audience than the conservative faithful who attend his rallies and watch his interviews on Fox News. However, similar events on the platform have been plagued by technical problems.
“Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of the conversation,” Musk wrote on the platform.
The interview will be hosted live using Trump’s official X account, his campaign said on Sunday. Trump’s access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk’s ownership of X after being suspended by the platform’s previous owners following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his supporters.
Scott Ritter: FBI Raids Part & Parcel of US Gov’t’ Intimidation
Former USMC intelligence officer and Sputnik contributor Sсott Ritter’s New York home was raided earlier this month over allegations he had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires anyone who acts on behalf of a foreign nation to register as such to the US government.
The US government is “not happy” with the truthful message that he is conveying as a Sputnik contributor, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter believes.
This explains the recent FBI raid on his home over claims he had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
It was “disconcerting and chilling” when around 40 FBI agents raided his house, revealed Ritter.
“I asked repeatedly, ‘Why are you doing this?’’ What are you concerned about? Tell me what specific actions you’re concerned about and I can help resolve this.’ Now, we had a lengthy conversation, the special agents and I, but never once were they able to say this is why we believe you’re in violation,” he said
However, what the agents did talk a lot about was the pundit’s relationship with Sputnik.
“They were very concerned about the work that I do as a contributor to Sputnik […] The US government is clearly unhappy with my message, unhappy with the impact that I’m having, and nervous that they can’t control me. And so I think that this raid, this search warrant, this ongoing investigation is part and parcel of a larger project of intimidation that unfortunately will continue, I believe, for the near future,” Ritter said.
The FBI and US Department of Justice are bothered by the impact people like him are having “on informing an audience not only inside the United States, but around the world about the malfeasance of American foreign policy,” Scott Ritter said. However, the author and commentator refused to be intimidated, saying he looked forward to continuing to operate as a contributor to Sputnik.
“I’m very proud of this relationship and I think highly of the editors and producers that I work with, and I look forward to continuing to do this for the foreseeable future,” Ritter stated.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
VP Kamala Harris Cast Tie-Breaking Vote to Let IRS Track Workers’ Tips so They Can Be Taxed
Vice President Kamala Harris — who on Saturday copied a campaign promise first announced by former President Donald Trump to eliminate taxes on tips — voted in 2022 to pass legislation that allowed the IRS to track down workers’ tips so that they could be taxed.
On August 7, 2022, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act that provided $80 billion in additional funding to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which then got to work cracking down on the service industry’s reporting of tips so that they could be taxed.
“Two years ago today, I proudly cast the tie-breaking vote to pass our Inflation Reduction Act,” Harris’s Facebook account reminded the public on Wednesday, sharing a video of the vice president voting to pass the legislation.
Former Minnesota Bar Owner Calls Tim Walz ‘Evil Man’ Who ‘Ripped’ Up Small Businesses During COVID
A former Minnesota bar owner who faced more than $300,000 in fines during the COVID-19 pandemic described Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as an “evil man” who had taken “small businesses and ripped them up.”
In an interview with the New York Post, Lisa Zarza, who now runs the Outpost Bar and Grill in Bay City, Wisconsin, described Walz as having “overstepped his role as the governor.”
HEALTH
Is A Much Deadlier Strain Of Monkeypox Going To Be The Next Great Global Health Scare?
Should we be alarmed? Many of us have been watching the spread of a deadly new strain of Monkeypox for quite some time, and now it appears that this crisis is about to reach a boiling point. It is being reported that the World Health Organization is going to hold an “emergency meeting” to determine whether or not to declare a “public health emergency of international concern” due to a rapidly growing outbreak of Monkeypox in central Africa. For those that are not familiar, a “public health emergency of international concern” is the highest level of alert that the WHO issues. For example, in January 2020 a “public health emergency of international concern” was declared when COVID started to spread like wildfire inside China. So could we now be on the verge of the next great global health scare?
Two years ago, an outbreak of Monkeypox quickly spread all over the planet, and it is truly a horrifying disease…
Mpox is a viral disease that causes painful rashes and flu-like symptoms such as fever, headaches and body aches. The virus that causes it comes from the same family as that of smallpox. It spreads from person to person and from animals to people through direct contact.
In May, scientists reported a new strain of the virus in the DRC that they said was more virulent and might spread more easily.
Right now, if you somehow got infected with the strain that spread throughout the world in 2022, there is a good chance that you would be in so much pain that you would actually believe that you were about to die.
But that strain was rarely fatal.
Unfortunately, this strain is much more deadly.
According to the head of the World Health Organization, this new strain has already killed more than 500 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo so far this year…
The outbreak, which began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo but has spread recently to at least three other neighboring countries, has involved more than 14,000 reported cases so far this year alone, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, with at least 511 deaths reported.
Some experts believe that this new strain also spreads more easily.
Like the strain that spread all over the globe in 2022, this new strain spreads through sexual contact, but apparently it also spreads in other ways as well…
The CDC said in the alert that outbreaks in some provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been associated with sexual contact.
In other parts of the country, however, patients have gotten sick through contact with infected animals, household transmission or patient care, the CDC said, adding that a high proportion of cases have been reported in children younger than 15.
“Most reported cases in known endemic provinces continue to be among children under 15 years of age,” the World Health Organization wrote on its website on June 14. “Infants and children under five years of age are at highest risk of severe disease and death.”
In 2022, very few children got infected.
But this time around lots of children are getting infected.
There had been hope that this outbreak could be confined to the Democratic Republic of Congo, but that didn’t happen.
Cancer Risk from Pesticides Equivalent to Smoking – New US Study
Pesticides have long been established as potentially health damaging, with some of them linked to cancer. In a populational US-wide study that considered not only farmers who actively use pesticides but communities as a whole, researchers contextualized cancer risk associated with pesticide use and smoking. They found that living in an environment heavily exposed to pesticides could increase the incidence of cancer as much as smoking, Frontiers reported.
Pesticides are often falsely claimed to ensure high enough crop yields and food security. These chemicals can also adversely affect plant and animal life as well as the people exposed to them.
Now, in a population-based, nation-wide study, researchers in the US have put increased cancer risk through agricultural pesticide use into context with smoking, a better understood cancer risk factor. The results were published in Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society.
“In our study we found that for some cancers, the effect of agricultural pesticide usage is comparable in magnitude to the effect of smoking,” said the study’s senior author, Dr Isain Zapata, associate professor at the Rocky Vista University, College of Osteopathic Medicine in Colorado.
“We accept that a person who is not a farmer living in a community with heavy agricultural production is exposed to many of the pesticides used in their vicinity. It becomes part of their environment,” Zapata said.
The researchers found that in such an environment, the impact of pesticide use on cancer incidence rivaled that of smoking. They strongest association was among Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, leukemia, and bladder cancer. In these types of cancers, the effects of pesticide exposure were more pronounced than the effects of smoking.
“We present a list of major pesticide contributors for some specific cancers, but we highlight strongly that it is the combination of all of them and not just a single one that matters,” Zapata pointed out.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
What a wild coincidence: one branch of government (judiciary) doesn’t mind another branch of government (executive) doing whatever it likes extraconstitutionally.
That’s called Democracy™, boys and girls, and it’s sacred.
Via Reuters (emphasis added):
“Meta Platforms defeated an appeal by Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., challenging its censorship of Facebook posts that spread misinformation about vaccines’ efficacy and safety.
In a decision on Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California, said the nonprofit did not show that Meta worked with or was coerced by federal officials to suppress views challenging “government orthodoxy” on vaccines.
Children’s Health Defense sued in 2020, saying that Meta had violated its constitutional rights by flagging “vaccine misinformation” as false, and taking away its right to advertise on Facebook.”
Not being a legal scholar, I’m sure there’s a good answer to this, but I’m not clear: why would CHD sue Meta and not the government for violating its First Amendment rights, when it was at the government’s behest that Meta acted?
Via Children’s Health Defense (emphasis added):
“CHD’s suit accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal agencies of “privatizing” the First Amendment by teaming up with Facebook to censor speech which, “under the Bill of Rights, the Government cannot censor.”
According to the lawsuit, filed in August 2020 — and amended in December 2020 — the CDC and the World Health Organization “collaborated closely with Facebook to suppress vaccine safety speech by using a ‘warning label’ and other similar types of notices which, while purporting to flag misinformation, in reality censor valid and truthful speech, including content posted by plaintiff on its Facebook page regarding vaccines.”
This collaboration amounted to “state action” and was in violation of the First Amendment, CHD said…
The court… ruled that CHD failed to allege any facts that would suggest an agreement between the government and Meta that “required Meta to take a particular action in response to misinformation about vaccines or that the government coerced Meta into implementing a specific policy.””
I must have skipped the day in Constitution Law at Valdosta State University when we learned that the Constitution carves out special powers for the government to interfere in a private company’s affairs in order to cajole them into suppressing speech it finds distasteful. My mistaken impression was that the First Amendment covered that whole issue pretty decisively.
Maybe it’s the ambiguous “promoting the general welfare” clause, which has been invoked in all manner of absurd government social engineering over the years.
These are not two people “talking to each other.” This is one entity — the government — with immense power to regulate, tax, and even shut down the other entity — Meta — if it doesn’t go with the program a la TikTok.
And Meta is massively exposed in multiple ways: it turns over private user data to shady third parties for cash; it breaches anti-trust laws; it colludes with hostile foreign governments, to name a few. Were the government so inclined, it could flush Meta down the memory hole into oblivion in a heartbeat.
But, this being anarcho-tyranny, it doesn’t, because Meta heels when it’s commanded to heel. Mark Zuckerberg is a good boy who behaves himself for his masters.
Google Admits to Changing Search Results for ‘Trump Assassination’ Searches and Much More
Well, this is indeed a shocker: Google admitted this past week that they were indeed censoring searches on GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and the assassination attempt against him. But it was just an outdated algorithm, honest!
In the latest improbable claim of semi-innocence in the field of election manipulation by a big tech corporation, counsel for Google parent company Alphabet told the House Judiciary Committee that its autocomplete algorithm wouldn’t allow people to search for results about the Trump assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13 due to a prohibition against searches for political violence-related topics, National Review reported.
Similar “errors” — and I know, this is the strangest coincidence! — were also responsible for not giving autocomplete suggestions when “President Donald” was typed in or giving users news stories about Trump’s presumed rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, when searching for him.
“The attorney said the bugs were fixed after they were brought to Google’s attention,” National Review reported.
The responses came after a letter from Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday laid out the issues in depth.“The Committee and Select Subcommittee [on the Weaponization of the Federal Government]’s oversight has shown how the federal government has coerced or colluded with technology, social media, and other companies, including Alphabet, to moderate content online,” Jordan wrote.
“Recent reporting has indicated that Google may now be interfering in the 2024 presidential election by censoring information about former President Donald Trump’s ongoing campaign for the presidency, including relating to the July 13 assassination attempt on him in Pennsylvania.
“In response to the Committee and Select Subcommittee’s oversight, your counsel provided the Committee and Select Subcommittee with non-public information about Google’s issues with Search and Autocomplete and the company’s efforts to correct them, in addition to offering a private briefing to the Committee and Select Subcommittee this week.”
During the private briefing, Google’s counsel offered somewhat unconvincing explanations for phenomena that many on social media, including X impresario/tech titan Elon Musk, had noticed.
In Jordan’s letter, he noted that Google’s counsel reportedly admitted to the committee that “predictions for queries about the assassination attempt against former President Trump … should have appeared but didn’t.”
Counsel blamed protections for political violence which were “out of date.”
Meanwhile, when it came to Trump’s name not showing up in autocomplete, counsel said “that this particular issue was caused by a bug.”
As for searching for Trump and getting news about Kamala, Google said that “predictions … may be unexpected or imperfect, and bugs will occur.”
“Bugs will occur” is essentially a big tech version of “mistakes were made.” Bugs did not just spring up out of thin air, Google software engineers programmed the software that contained the bugs.
Under each of the points, Jordan asked Pichai a series of questions he wanted answered. The last one under each point was the same, and it was the most important: “How can the American people be confident that a similar issue, whether intentional or not, will not occur again?”
I can answer for them — you can’t, because it’s Google.
SURVEILLANCE STATE
NFL Deploys Facial Recognition Tech at ALL 32 Stadiums
“The National Football League is the latest organization to turn to facial authentication to bolster event security, according to an announcement this week.
All 32 NFL stadiums will start using the technology this season, after the league signed a contract with a company that uses facial scans to verify the identity of people entering event venues and other secure spaces.
The facial authentication platform, which counts the Cleveland Browns’ owners as investors*, will be used to ‘streamline and secure’ entry for thousands of credentialed media, officials, staff and guests so they can easily access restricted areas such as press boxes and locker rooms, Jeff Boehm, the chief operating officer of Wicket, said in a LinkedIn post Monday.”
*What a wild coincidence.
Continuing:
“‘Fans come look at the tablet and, instantly, the tablet recognizes the fan,’** Brandon Covert, the vice president of information technology for the Cleveland Browns, said in a testimonial appearing on Wicket’s website. ‘It’s almost a half-second stop. It’s not even a stop — more of a pause.’
‘It has greatly reduced the amount of time and friction that comes with entering the stadium,’ Covert added. ‘It’s so much faster.’
The Browns also use Wicket to verify the ages of fans purchasing alcohol at concession stands, according to Wicket’s LinkedIn page.
The use of facial recognition or authentication technology, particularly when applied to thousands of people who are scanned in the course of doing their job or entering a sports stadium, has long concerned privacy advocates.
In addition to concerns about the technology being used to track people’s locations, privacy advocates and academics say that facial recognition technology intensifies racial and gender discrimination because it is more frequently inaccurate when identifying people of color, women and nonbinary individuals.”
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Why Has The United States Been Shaken By So Many Unusual Earthquakes Lately?
It is getting very difficult to ignore all of the shaking that is going on. Over the past few months, there have been very unusual earthquakes all over the United States. As you will see below, there have been noteworthy quakes on the west coast, on the east coast, near our northern border, and near our southern border. Of course all of this comes at a time when the entire planet is being shaken by unusual seismic activity. Is all of this unusual seismic activity building up to something? If so, what does that mean for all of us?
On Tuesday night, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake that shook southern California made headlines all over the nation…
An earthquake northwest of Los Angeles shook a large swath of Southern California on Tuesday night, but there were no immediate reports of damage.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 5.2 magnitude temblor struck at 9:09 p.m. and was centered near Mettler, an unincorporated area in Kern County about 85 miles (137 kilometers) from downtown Los Angeles.
Following the quake, Dr. Lucy Jones went on television and revealed that her initial assessment was that the quake was not associated with any known fault.
I thought that was quite strange.
Another earthquake expert named Ole Kaven agreed with that assessment, but he did note that this particular area is known for earthquakes…
There isn’t a known fault in the area where the earthquake struck on Tuesday night, but it’s still an area known for earthquakes, said Ole Kaven, U.S. Geological Survey research geophysicist.
The shaking was felt over a very large area.
In fact, it was being reported that this earthquake was felt by those living “in Ventura, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Santa Clarita, Encino, Hollywood, Santa Monica, North Hollywood and Woodland Hills”.
Subsequently, there have been more than 200 aftershocks in that same region…
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