Will Wilkinson is about as mainstream and conventional a thinker as one can find, and is unfailingly civil and restrained in his rhetoric. But yesterday, he was fired by the technocratic centrist think tank for which he worked, the Niskanen Center, and appears on the verge of being fired as well by The New York Times, where he is a contributing writer. This multi-pronged retribution is due to a single tweet that was obviously satirical and sarcastic and for which he abjectly apologized. But no matter: the tweet has been purposely distorted into something malevolent and the prevailing repressive climate weaponized it against him.
Neither Wilkinson nor his tweet are particularly interesting. What merits attention here is the now-pervasive climate that fostered this tawdry episode, and which has unjustly destroyed countless reputations and careers with no sign of slowing down.
During the Bush and Obama years, Wilkinson worked at the libertarian CATO Institute but, even then, he was not much of a libertarian. As he himself explained, he is far more of a standard-issue neoliberal that one finds everywhere throughout DC think tanks, the op-ed pages of large newspapers, and the green rooms of CNN, just with a bit wonkier style of expression and a few vague libertarian gestures on some isolated issues. That self-description was in 2012, and he since then has become even more of a standard liberal during the Trump era, which is why the Paper of Record made him a contributor opinion writer where he published articles under such bold and groundbreaking headlines as “Trump Has Disqualified Himself From Running in 2020.”
On Wednesday, the night of Joe Biden’s inauguration, Wilkinson posted this now-deleted tweet in which he was obviously not calling for violence. He was instead sardonically noting that anti-Pence animus became a prevailing sentiment among some MAGA followers over the last month, including reports that at least a few of those who breached the Capitol were calling for Pence’s hanging on treason grounds, thus ironically enabling liberals and MAGA followers to “unite” over that desire:
The next morning, a right-wing hedge fund manager and large-money GOP donor, Gabe Hoffman, flagged this tweet and claimed to believe that Wilkinson “call[ed] for former Vice President Mike Pence to be lynched.” Hoffman also tweeted at Wilkinson’s New York Times bosses to ask if they have “any comment on your ‘contributing opinion writer’ calling for violence against a public official?,” and then tweeted at Wilkinson’s other bosses at the think tank to demand the same.
It is unclear whether Hoffman really believed what he was saying or was just trying to make a point that liberals should be forced to live under these bad faith, repressive “cancel culture” standards he likely blames them for creating and imposing on others. This is how he responded when I posed that question:
I was not attempting anything. Numerous major news outlets reported on Wilkinson’s tweet, including Fox News. I simply documented the events on my Twitter feed yesterday. Clearly, many liberal journalists were outraged at his firing, noticed my documentation, and decided to inexplicably blame me for his firing. It’s ridiculous that many liberal journalists apparently had nothing better to do on Twitter, than blame a guy with less than 10,000 followers documenting events, for getting Wilkinson fired, considering many major news outlets reported on Wilkinson’s tweet.
When I pressed further on whether he really believed that Wilkinson’s tweet was an earnest call for assassination or whether he was just demanding that perceived “cancel culture” standards be applied equally, he responded: “I did not take a position either way on the matter. Wilkinson is perfectly capable of explaining the tweet and his intended meaning, since he wrote it. Clearly, given the content, the least one can expect is that he should give that explanation.”
Either way, intentional or not, Hoffman’s distorted interpretation of Wilkinson’s tweet produced instant results. That afternoon, Wilkinson posted a long and profuse apology to Twitter in which he made clear that he did not intend to advocate violence, but still said: “Last night I made an error of judgment and tweeted this. It was sharp sarcasm, but looked like a call for violence. That’s always wrong, even as a joke. It was especially wrong at a moment when unity and peace are so critical. I’m deeply sorry and vow not to repeat the mistake. . . . [T]here was no excuse for putting the point the way I did. It was wrong, period.”
At least for now, that apology fell on deaf ears. The president and co-founder of the Niskanen Center, Jerry Taylor, quickly posted a statement (now deleted without comment) announcing Wilkinson’s immediate firing, a statement promptly noted by Hoffman:
Wilkinson’s job with The New York Times is also clearly endangered. A spokesperson for the paper told Fox News: “Advocating violence of any form, even in jest, is unacceptable and against the standards of The New York Times. We’re reassessing our relationship with Will Wilkinson.”
So a completely ordinary and unassuming liberal commentator is in jeopardy of having his career destroyed because of a tweet that no person in good faith could possibly believe was actually advocating violence and which, at worst, could be said to be irresponsibly worded. And this is happening even though everyone knows it is all based on a totally fictitious understanding of what he said. Why?
It is important to emphasize that Wilkinson’s specific plight is the least interesting and important aspect of this story. Unlike most people subjected to these sorts of bad faith reputation-wrecking attacks, he has many influential media friends and allies who are already defending him — including New York Times columnists Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat — and I would be unsurprised if this causes the paper to keep him and the Niskanen Center to reverse its termination of him.
All of this is especially ironic given that the president of this colorless, sleepy think tank — last seen hiring the colorless, sleepy Matt Yglesias — himself has a history of earnestly and non-ironically advocating actual violence against people. As Aaron Sibarium documented, Taylor took to Twitter over the summer to say that he wishes BLM and Antifa marchers had “rushed” the St. Louis couple which famously displayed guns outside their homes and “beat their brains in,” adding: “excuse me if I root for antifa to punch these idiots out.” So that’s the profound, pious believer in non-violence so deeply offended by Wilkinson’s tweet that he quickly fired him from his think tank.
Whatever else might be true of them, the Niskanen Center’s president and The New York Times editors are not dumb enough to believe that Wilkinson was actually advocating that Mike Pence be lynched. It takes only a few functional brain cells to recognize what his actual intent with that tweet was, as poorly expressed or ill-advised as it might have been given the context-free world of Twitter and the tensions of the moment. So why would they indulge all this by firing a perfectly inoffensive career technocrat, all to appease the blatant bad faith and probably-not-even-serious demands of the mob?
Because this is the framework that we all now live with. It does not matter whether the anger directed at the think tank executives or New York Times editors is in good faith or not. It is utterly irrelevant whether there is any validity to the complaints against Wilkinson and the demands that he be fired. The merit of these kinds of grievance campaigns is not a factor.
All that matters to these decision-makers is societal scorn and ostracization. That is why the only thing that can save Wilkinson is that he has enough powerful friends to defend him, enabling them to reverse the cost-benefit calculus: make it so that there is more social scorn from firing Wilkinson than keeping him. Without the powerful media friends he has assembled over the years, he would have no chance to salvage his reputation and career no matter how obvious it was that the complaints against him are baseless.
Humans are social and political animals. We do fundamentally crave and need privacy. But we also crave and need social integration and approval. That it is why prolonged solitary confinement in prison is a form of torture that is almost certain to drive humans insane. It is why John McCain said far worse than the physical abuse he endured in a North Vietnamese prison was the long-term isolation to which he was subjected. It is why modern society’s penchant for removing what had been our sense of community — churches, mosques, and synagogues; union halls and bowling leagues; small-town life — has coincided with a significant increase in mental health pathologies, and it is why the lockdowns and isolation of the COVID pandemic have made all of those, predictably, so much worse.
Those who have crafted a society in which mob anger, no matter how invalid, results in ostracization and reputation-destruction have exploited these impulses. If you are a think tank executive in Washington or a New York Times editor, why would you want to endure the attacks on you for “sanctioning violence” or “inciting assassinations” just to save Will Wilkinson? The prevailing culture vests so much weight in these sorts of outrage mobs that it is almost always easier to appease them than resist them.
The recent extraordinary removal of the social media platform Parler from the internet was clearly driven by these dynamics. It is inconceivable that Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos and Google executives believe that Parler is some neo-Nazi site that played anywhere near the role in planning and advocating for the Capitol riot as Facebook and YouTube did. But they know that significant chunks of liberal elite culture believe this (or at least claim to), and they thus calculate — not irrationally, even if cowardly — that they will have to endure a large social and reputational hit for refusing mob demands to destroy Parler. Like the Niskanen and Times bosses with Wilkinson, they had to decide how much pain they were willing to accept to defend Parler, and — as is usually the case — it turned out the answer was not much. Thus was Parler destroyed, with nowhere near the number of important liberal friends that Wilkinson has.
The perception that this is some sort of exclusively left-wing tactic is untrue. Recall in 2003, in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when the lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, uttered this utterly benign political comment at a concert in London: “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” In response, millions joined a boycott of their music, radio stations refused to play their songs, Bush supporters burned their albums, and country star Toby Keith performed in front of a gigantic image of Maines standing next to Saddam Hussein, as though her opposition to the war meant she admired the Iraqi dictator.
But two recent trends have greatly intensified this mania. Social media is one of the most powerful generators of group-think ever invented in human history, enabling a small number of people to make decision-makers feel besieged with scorn and threatened with ostracization if they do not obey mob demands. The other is that the liberal-left has gained cultural hegemony in the most significant institutions — from academia and journalism to entertainment, sports, music and art — and this weapon, which they most certainly did not invent, is now vested squarely in their hands.
But all weapons, once unleashed onto the world, will be copied and wielded by opposing tribes. Gabe Hoffman has likely seen powerless workers fired in the wake of the George Floyd killing for acts as trivial as a Latino truck driver innocently flashing an “OK” sign at a traffic light or a researcher fired for posting data about the political effects of violent v. non-violent protests and realized that he could use, or at least trifle with, this power against liberals instead of watching it be used by them. So he did it.
It’s exactly the same dynamic that led liberals to swoon over Donald Trump’s banning from social media and the mass-banning of his followers only to watch yesterday as numerous Antifa accounts were banned for the crime of organizing an anti-Biden march and how, before that, Palestinian journalists and activists have been banned en masse whenever Israel claims their rhetoric constitutes “incitement.”
Unleash this monster and one day it will come for you. And you’ll have no principle to credibly invoke in protest when it does. You’ll be left with nothing more than lame and craven pleading that your friends do not deserve the same treatment as your enemies. Force, not principle, will be the sole factor deciding the outcome.
If you’re lucky enough to have important and famous media friends like Will Wilkinson, you have a chance to survive it. Absent that, you have none.
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COVID-19 surges in Oregon, sickening younger adults and forcing a return to restrictions
For months, Susannah Sbragia waited her turn for a COVID-19 vaccination while Oregon’s teachers, older adults and others with higher priority got theirs.
The 55-year-old city finance director was meticulous about wearing a mask and washing her hands during the pandemic. She worked at home and stayed fit with daily walks and YouTube dance lessons with her husband.
But a week before her appointment for an April 22 shot, she felt exhausted and began aching all over. A test confirmed COVID-19. She gasped for breath during an ambulance ride to Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital, a 25-bed medical center in a onetime logging and lumber mill town 80 miles south of Portland.
Sbragia became one of hundreds of patients hospitalized in a COVID-19 surge that has struck Oregon, alarming officials, who have slammed the state’s opening measures into reverse. Doctors say that patients they’re seeing are younger, sicker and often without underlying medical conditions, suggesting that potent variants could be partly to blame.
EXCLUSIVE: FBI Raids Alaska Spa Seeking Pelosi’s Laptop | Podcast: 48 Minutes 53 Seconds
Raheem Kassam is joined by Paul and Marilyn Hueper after their home was raided by the FBI on Wednesday, April 28th. The FBI claimed they were looking for Pelosi’s laptop…
‘We Are Killing Our Own People’ Says BLM Supporter Accused of Murder
33-year-old Zimele ‘Prince’ Dube, 40-year-old Simon Emmons, and a 19-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons are accused of murdering 35-year-old Ebrima ‘Brim’ Cham by stabbing him 11 times in his own home in Hounslow, West London, according to a Court News report.
Emmons and the 19-year-old are also accused of involvement in the killing of 53-year-old William ‘Blaise’ Algar and dismembering him after he accused the teen of being responsible for his cat going missing. Mr Algar’s arms and legs were buried at Hounslow Heath after being taken from the flat in a taxi, but his severed head and torso remained at the premises where they were found wrapped in a bedsheet by the authorities. . .
A Black Lives Matter support accused of a “ferocious and frenzied” knife murder has told a court that “we are killing our own people as well, so it’s sad.”
Louisville Police Can’t Replace Veteran Cops Who Quit After Department Embraced Leftist Policies
The Louisville, Kentucky, police union says that the department is currently in “dire straits” in terms of employment after 200 officers quit their positions in 2020 and 2021 amid leftist calls to defund the police.
Following the officer-involved shooting that led to the death of Breonna Taylor, nearly 190 police officers quit their jobs in 2020, reported Daily Wire. The Louisville police union says that they are now in “dire straits,” failing to replace the officers amid the department’s embrace of leftist policies.
The shooting incident resulted in protests as no officers were charged for Taylor’s death. In response, the city has placed a ban on “no-knock warrants,” which prevent officers from entering a residence without announcing themselves, even if they had obtained a warrant.
The Louisville Police Department is now having trouble finding replacement officers as anti-police leftists continue their calls to “Defund the Police” according to the police union. “Nearly 190 cops left the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) in 2020 and 43 have stepped away from the Kentucky city’s agency so far in 2021, either choosing to retire or resign altogether, as law enforcement officials struggle to recruit new members to make up for a deficit in manpower,” reported Fox News. “I would say that we’re in dire straits,” said a union spokesperson.
Chinese money-laundering rings in Chicago, New York cleaning Mexican drug cartel cash
They’ve used complex schemes to disguise millions in drug proceeds, making them seem to be legitimate transactions, according to law enforcement sources and court files.
A Chinese money-launderer was about to pick up Mexican drug-cartel cash in Chicago, federal authorities say, when his plans suddenly changed.
They say the suspected launderer got a call from a man he thought was a Mexican money courier who told him they needed to change their meeting place because he’d spotted a cop.
“You Asian, I’m Mexican — not a good look,” the courier said in the 2017 phone call, court records show.
So they picked a different address to meet. They described their cars to each other. And when they met on the Southwest Side, they had a way to identify each other, authorities say: The money-launderer handed the courier a $1 bill. The men had agreed earlier that the serial number on the bill — G5915410C — would confirm the Chinese man’s identity. Authorities say that’s common in the world of drug-trafficking.
They say the courier then turned over a Menards shopping bag stuffed with nearly $200,000 in cash to Huazhi Han, who later was charged with money-laundering.
But the courier was no courier. He was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
DEA agents arrested Han and say they found a gun in his van.
They also searched the Riverside home where he was living and seized about $1.2 million they found hidden in the ceiling there, according to court documents.
Han’s now awaiting trial on money-laundering charges in Chicago.
He was part of a network of Chinese nationals who were using complex financial schemes to launder Mexican cartel cash, federal authorities say. Such schemes have disguised tens of millions of dollars of drug proceeds into what are supposed to look like legitimate business transactions, according to law-enforcement sources and court documents.
It’s party time again! 6,000 clubbers in Liverpool return to dancefloor for pilot post-lockdown rave
It’s party time again! 6,000 clubbers in Liverpool return to dancefloor for Britain’s first post-lockdown rave (but doors open at 2pm and pre-drinks are replaced by Covid tests).
- Thousands of revellers are returning to the dancefloor at the UK’s first post-lockdown ‘nightclub’ rave today
- But there will be tent of scientists outside the venue monitoring their behaviour at the two-day mini festival
- Ravers had to take a lateral flow test 24 hours before the event and show negative result to release e-tickets
- The trial events are designed to advance the reopening roadmap’s plan to scrap social distancing on June 21
Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene sure to drive media insane with ‘America First’ tour. First stop, Sunshine State!
Embattled Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is going on tour, and if that wasn’t enough on its own to drive the liberal media insane, he’s doing so with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the controversial freshman Republican from Georgia.
The dynamic conservative duo, perhaps the “most canceled” two people in Congress, are holding an America First Rally at The Villages, a mostly Republican retirement community in Florida.
Gaetz announced the tour in a radio ad for the May 7 event in Florida, according to Politico.[…]
Poll: Democrats Want Puerto Rico Statehood More Than Puerto Ricans
With current control in Congress and the White House, Democrats are considering attempting to add Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico as states. The additions will likely give Democrats more power, which may explain why Democrats support Puerto Rico statehood more than Puerto Ricans.
A recent Economist/YouGov poll of 1,500 U.S. adults taken from April 25-27 found that a plurality of Americans (43%) support statehood for Puerto Rico, while 31% were opposed and about a quarter were undecided.
However, the approval for Puerto Rican statehood increased by 20 points among Democrats.
The poll found 63% of Democrats approved of statehood for Puerto Rico. Just 13% of Democrats were opposed, although another 24% remained undecided. Even if all undecided Democrats surveyed ended up opposing Puerto Rico statehood, support for Puerto Rico statehood would still be higher among U.S. Democrats than native Puerto Ricans.
April 30, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 52 Minutes 29 Seconds
Officials in Texas say the discovery of 90 people in a house there could be a human smuggling case, President Joe Biden says railroad company Amtrak could be in for a large 50th anniversary gift, and Andrew Giuliani tells NTD what he thinks about his father’s investigation.
One Of The Bravest, If Not THE Bravest Journalist In Today’s ‘Leftist’ Cancel Culture, Classical Liberal Glenn Greenwald Charged With Cybercrimes
| Brazilian federal prosecutors have charged the American journalist Glenn Greenwald for cybercrimes in a decision which has prompted outrage among press freedom activists – and celebration by allies of the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
The prosecutors said that Greenwald “helped, encouraged and guided” a group of hackers who obtained cellphone messages between leading figures in Brazil’s mammoth Car Wash anti-corruption investigation.
The leaks, subsequently published in several stories on the investigative site the Intercept Brazil, which Greenwald co-founded, appeared to show collusion between then judge Sérgio Moro and prosecutors and exacerbated questions of political bias of the investigations. Moro was subsequently named justice minister by Bolsonaro.
“It’s not just Glenn and his family’s safety which are threatened by this, but all journalists and freedom of speech in Brazil. This is an attempt to intimidate the press in general,” said Rogério Sottili, the executive director of the Vladimir Herzog Institute, an NGO that advocates for democracy, human rights and press freedom. | ~ The Guardian, “Brazilian prosecutors charge journalist Glenn Greenwald with cybercrimes” by Sam Cowie in São Paulo
With Trump Out Of Office, It’s Open Game On Those Who Fight For Freedom | “Brazil Charges Journalist Glenn Greenwald With Cyber Crimes” by New York Mag
| Journalist Glenn Greenwald, best known for publishing Edward Snowden’s leaked government documents, has been charged with cyber crimes by Brazilian authorities for his “role in the spreading of cellphone messages that have embarrassed prosecutors and tarnished the image of an anti-corruption task force,” the New York Times reported.
The Brazil-based American journalist, whose reporting exposed corruption in the upper ranks of the Brazilian government, is accused of being a part of a “criminal organization” that hacked private devices belonging to the officials. The Intercept Brazil, which Greenwald co-founded, published stories based on leaks under the heading of the “Secret Brazil Archive.” | ~ New York Mag
Greenwald Discusses Freedom Of The Press and How It Was Obama and The Democrats That Jailed Reporters and Threatened Sources, NOT President Donald Trump
“If you look at the last 8 years, there has been a very concerted war on not just sources and whistleblowers, also journalists, implemented not by Donald Trump but by the Obama Administration. More sources prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act than in all previous administrations combined.” ~ Glenn Greenwald
“Trump Wages War on the Press, but Was Obama Much Better to Reporters? (Guest Column)” in Variety | Trump Ended Up Using Speech |
As it turned out, the ‘war’ was actually a ‘war of words’. In one sense, Trump turned out to be the greatest proponent of Article 19, then our own American Press.
| Obama, who campaigned on a promise to protect government whistle-blowers, made greater use of the Espionage Act to prosecute leakers and menace journalists than all other presidents combined.
Obama’s Justice Department accessed the personal email of a Fox News reporter and surveilled the reporter’s parents and colleagues. They seized the home, work and mobile phone records of journalists at the Associated Press.
Risen, who fought the administration to protect his sources, got so deep in his own legal battle with Obama that he selected a reading list for prison before the government finally backed off.
White House officials subverted the press in a number of ways while touting themselves as the most transparent in history.
Obama routinely banned news photographers from official events. He went months between press conferences and used social media to circumvent reporters.
First lady Michelle Obama took policy trips overseas with no press on her airplane. The White House scrubbed public visitor logs of names it didn’t want in the news.
The Obama administration posted the worst record in history for fulfilling requests for public records under the Freedom of Information Act.
In a bleak episode of unintended irony, an open-government group gave Obama an award for transparency in an Oval Office ceremony closed to the press.
Trump may well end up being worse on press issues than Obama, and today’s White House reporters could be picking out their prison reading lists eventually.
But for now, those on duty there are guardedly hopeful. | ~ Paragraph 8 on, Variety
In 2020, It Was Reported That A “Record Number Of Journalists Jailed Worldwide” | Committee To Protect Journalists | But Not By President Trump
Again, while attacking President Trump’s own use of free speech, our friends on the ‘left’ again have to admit that President Trump never jailed any journalists.
| Within the United States, no journalists were jailed at the time of CPJ’s prison census, but an unprecedented 110 journalists were arrested or criminally chargedin 2020 and around 300 were assaulted, the majority by law enforcement, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. At least 12 still face criminal charges, some of which carry jail terms. Observers told CPJ that the polarized political climate, militarized law enforcement, and vitriol toward the media combined during a wave of protests to eradicate norms that once afforded journalists police protection. | ~ Paragraph 4, Committee To Protect Journalists
Even In Articles When The “Left” Tried To Convince Us That Trump Was An Enemy To Freedom, They Admit He Never Jailed One Journalist | Reuters
| While no journalists were in prison in the United States as of Dec. 1, 110 were arrested or charged in 2020, many while covering demonstrations against police violence, the CPJ said. | Paragraph 8 ~ Reuters
Obama’s War On Freedom Of The Press | Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
In 2014, Kevin Lamarque for Reuters reported:
| President Barack Obama came into office in 2009 promising a new era of unprecedented transparency in his administration. But when he leaves office, reporters may remember him for an effort that has largely turned out to be the opposite — and for being what one affected reporter has called the “greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation.”
At a time when journalists’ roles in covering different, critical conflict zones have been under the microscope, renewed attention has come to the case involving James Risen. He is the New York Times journalist who has been fighting efforts by two different Departments of Justice — under Presidents Obama and George W. Bush — to compel him to identify sources from a 2006 book that reveals a secret CIA plan to sabotage Iran’s budding nuclear program.
For the past five years, he has battled the Obama administration’s Justice Department, which in 2009 took a rather unprecedented step of renewing a subpoena scheduled to expire that year. From his case and others the Obama administration has pursued, Risen told The Times’ Maureen Dowd recently that Obama represented a fundamental obstacle for press freedom.
“It’s hypocritical,” Risen said. “A lot of people still think this is some kind of game or signal or spin. They don’t want to believe that Obama wants to crack down on the press and whistleblowers. But he does. He’s the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation.” |
For the full text -> Why The Obama Administration Wants This Journalist In Jail
Can independent journalism fight back in Turkey?
“Accusing journalists of aiding terrorists because they do not toe the regime’s line is the first step to a totalitarian state,” journalist Sue Turton told me a few years ago.
Turton – the force behind the #FreeAJStaff campaign which helped release three Al Jazeera journalists jailed in Egypt in 2013 – was offering thoughts on how to secure the release of more than 100 journalists unjustly detained in Turkey.
The country is among the world’s biggest jailers of journalists for the fifth year in a row, and was ranked 153 out of 180 countries in the newly published World Press Freedom Index, between Belarus and Rwanda.
Since the failed coup attempt in July 2016, at least 180 media outlets have been shut down in Turkey and scores of journalists have been jailed on baseless ‘terrorism offences’ -many charged as a result of posts they have shared on Twitter, cartoons they have drawn or opinions they expressed.
COVID-19 has brought additional fears for journalists behind bars. Last week, Turkey entered its second lockdown but overcrowding and unsanitary facilities has been a concern long before the pandemic that already posed a serious health threat to Turkey’s prison population.
So how can we help get them out of jail?
“My advice is to build international solidarity,” Sue Turton tells me. “When my colleagues were convicted in Egypt, we knew our best weapon was the solidarity of the media all over the world”.
So we did just that. On World Press Freedom Day 2017, Amnesty International together with several other prominent human rights organizations launched the Free Turkey Media campaign. Four years on, more than 250,000 people have signed an online petition calling for the immediate release of Turkey’s journalists. Thousands of others have posted ‘solidarity selfies’ on Twitter, and leading journalists, politicians and celebrities have joined the call too.
And yet, the situation for journalists in Turkey remains dire.
SAGE admits risk of catching Covid in a pub or restaurant is ‘relatively low’
SAGE admits risk of catching Covid in a pub or restaurant is ‘relatively low’ with just 226 outbreaks in them since pandemic began – despite England’s hospitality sector being shut for another three weeks.
- Analysis by SAGE found risk of Covid in hospitality, retail or leisure sector ‘small’
- Admission came in a review of studies and data from UK and around the world
- SAGE found there’d been just 226 outbreaks in pubs and restaurants in England
Reuters exclusively reports why a U.S. hospital and oil company turned to facial recognition
Reuters exclusively reported how deployments of facial recognition from Israeli start-up Any Vision show how the surveillance software has gained adoption across the United States even as regulatory and ethical debates about it rage. The technology finds certain faces in photos or videos, with banks representing one sector that has taken interest in systems from Any Vision or its many competitors to improve security and service. Organizations in other industries are chasing similar goals. The Los Angeles hospital Cedars-Sinai and oil giant BP Plc are among several previously unreported users of Any Vision.
Feds’ cover-up of UFOs puts US at risk, ex-Pentagon official warns
The federal government has long been covering up the existence of UFOs because of religious objections, concerns over tarnishing its own reputation and fears of inciting public panic, according to the former Pentagon official who says he ran the program investigating “unidentified aerial phenomena” or UAP.
This longtime suppression of research data has resulted in a serious threat to US national security, controversial whistleblower Luis “Lue” Elizondo told The Post.
With a bombshell government report on UFOs set to be released any time between now and the end of June, Elizondo has revealed the shocking things he alleges to have learned — and the chilling reason why some in the Pentagon don’t want this information made public.
As part of his job, Elizondo says he had access to the Pentagon’s UFO data and interviewed military eyewitnesses who encountered UAP on an almost “daily basis.” Meanwhile, Navy pilots have testified about engaging 50-foot Tic-Tac shaped vessels only to see them disappear in the blink of an eye. Other pilots said their fighter jets had a “near collision” with a strange “sphere encasing a cube.” Elizondo scrutinized all this evidence, including radar and electro-optical data, that showed unknown aircraft zipping 60 miles in five seconds and descending at speeds of 14 miles per second.
“Do the math,” Elizondo, also a former intelligence officer for the US Department of Defense, told The Post. “You’ll see that it’s very fast.” (BTW: We did the math — and 60 miles in five seconds is 216,000 miles-per-hour.)
Despite those mind-blowing discoveries, Elizondo — who says he came into the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program in 2008, and headed it up from 2010 until 2017 — was always swimming upstream. He tried to share frightening evidence with close-minded non-believers who shunned his research, which he has now compared to an “intelligence failure on the level of 9/11.”
‘I Feel Like a Character in 1984’: Giuliani Exposes Why Raid of His Apartment Was Totally Illegal
“A covert warrant about a President’s lawyer during an impeachment process. How extraordinary is that during an impeachment process?” ~ Steve Bannon
“If it were done in a prior period the people found doing would be fired and possibly prosecuted. . . I don’t know if the American people realize how serious a destruction of our rights it is under this wonderful Constitution.” ~ Rudy Giuliani
PATEL: Misinformation On Hamburgers Is A Joke Compared With The Media’s Misinformation On Climate
The left had a lot of fun this week mocking a false claim in some conservative circles that President Joe Biden was planning on limiting hamburger consumption. There are a few lessons in all of this. The first is obvious and has been driven home in the corporate media: Conservatives need to be more careful on the facts. By taking liberties on the potential costs of Biden’s climate goals, conservatives walked into a hailstorm of criticism that could easily have been avoided.
The second and more important lesson is that the hamburger misinformation pales in comparison to the corporate media’s misinformation on Biden’s climate targets. Biden has proposed cutting U.S. emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030. This is double the hugely ambitious target set by former President Barack Obama in 2015.
Meeting Biden’s emissions targets would require major lifestyle changes that Americans may not want to make. But the media has done a great job of obscuring this fact, so people aren’t aware of the radical sacrifices that could be demanded of them. Talk about misinformation. Hiding the impact of Biden’s climate goals on the American people is misinformation of the highest order.
Georgia Republican secretary of state hits Loeffler as ‘weak,’ ‘fake Trumper’
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) on Thursday called former Sen. Kelly Loeffler “weak” and a “fake Trumper” following her call for the state official to be investigated over his handling of the 2020 election.
During an appearance on Fox News, network host Neil Cavuto asked the Georgia Republican about his plans for the future, existing within a part that “might be pushing” him “to the side — or trying to.”
Raffensperger responded, stating that he plans to run for reelection in the state and acknowledged that Georgians may still be upset about the results in the 2020 election.
“Many people support what I have done, when I talk to people throughout the state … there were still some hard feelings from some of the people, but many of the people understood that we did everything right — they didn’t like the results, but neither did I,” he said.
Cavuto then asked Raffensperger if he would support Loeffler should she run for Senate again and win the Republican nomination.
“I don’t believe that’s going to happen. I think that what the base wants is someone that’s a true blue Trump supporter, and she’s a fake Trumper,” Raffensperger said.
Cavuto asked again if she won the nomination if he would throw his support behind the former senator.
“That’s such a wild hypothetical,” Raffensperger said. “Let’s talk about it if it happens.”
Can Colleges and Employers Legally Require You to Get Vaccinated? It’s Complicated.
A slew of colleges and universities are embracing COVID vaccine mandates, telling students if they want to attend classes on campus, they’ll need to be vaccinated.
Meanwhile, a look at job postings across the country reveals many employers are requiring job candidates to get vaccinated, or promise to get vaccinated within 30 days of hire.
Whether you’re a job hunter or a college student, you may soon face the prospect that your future plans could hinge on your willingness to get the COVID vaccine. But can colleges and employers legally require it? The answer is … complicated.
100 Days Into Biden’s Presidency, Hunter Still Owns Stake In Chinese Private Equity Firm, Business Records Show
Hunter Biden continues to hold a minority stake in a Chinese private equity firm 100 days into President Joe Biden’s term, business records show.
Hunter Biden holds a 10% equity stake in BHR Partners through his company, Skaneateles LLC, according to Qixinbao and Baidu, two independent services that provide business records on Chinese corporations based on China’s National Credit Information Publicity System.
Joe Biden promised in October 2019 that if elected president, nobody in his family would have any business relationship with any foreign corporation or country.
“No one in my family will have an office in the White House, will sit in on meetings as if they are a cabinet member, will, in fact, have any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or a foreign country,” Joe Biden told reporters in Iowa. “Period. Period. End of story.”
BHR is co-owned by the Chinese state-controlled Bank of China, the business records show, and manages the equivalent of $2.1 billion in assets, according to its website. Hunter Biden acquired his 10% stake in the firm with a $420,000 investment in October 2017, according to a statement released by his lawyer in October 2019.
BHR’s business file was last updated on July 28, 2020, the records show.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in early February that Hunter Biden was in the process of divesting his ownership stake in the equity firm.
Cuomo and de Blasio trade jabs through media: ‘Serial sexual assaulter says what?’
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) traded barbs through the media on Thursday as the longtime political rivals face off over issues including the reopening of businesses in the state.
The feud was reignited at a vaccination event in Buffalo, N.Y., where reporters asked the governor about de Blasio’s announcement that New York City was hoping to loosen most if not all of its COVID-19 restrictions by July 1.
“First, the mayor of New York, I don’t know what he’s indicative of. And I say that as a former New York City boy,” Cuomo said, according to Business Insider. “Ask the people in New York City what they think of the mayor of New York City, and I would second their opinion.”
De Blasio’s spokesman, Bill Neidhardt, fired back in a statement to the New York Post by referencing how Cuomo is facing multiple allegations of unwanted sexual contact
“Serial sexual assaulter says what?” Neidhart said in response to Cuomo’s comments about de Blasio.
When asked about Cuomo’s attacks on the Mayor today, City Hall press secretary Bill Neidhardt responds: “Serial sexual assaulter says what?”
— City Nolan (wears a , so should you) (@ndhapple) April 29, 2021
Cuomo’s spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, later sent reporters a link to a tweet depicting Val Kilmer’s character from “Top Gun” making a taunting face at Tom Cruise’s character.
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded April 30, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 30 Seconds
Episode 912 – Taking of the Swamp Goliaths … (w/ Kelly Tshibaka, Natalie Winters). Guests are: Kelly Tshibaka, Natalie Winters.
Wisconsin passes law requiring schools teach students about Holocaust and other genocides
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) signed legislation into law on Tuesday making it mandatory for schools to include lessons about the Holocaust and other genocides in social studies education for students.
“This bill will affect generations of kids in our state and bring increased awareness, and recognition in our schools to the tragedies of the Holocaust, the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism to this day, and hopefully cultivate a generation that is more compassionate, more empathetic, and more inclusive,” Evers said in a statement.
“States across our country require or encourage education about the Holocaust for students, I am glad that today, Wisconsin will be joining them,” he added.
Under the measure, school districts, independent charter schools and private schools that participate in a choice program will be required to teach about the Holocaust and other genocide “at least once in grades five through eight, and again at least once in grades nine through twelve,” an announcement from Evers’s office detailing the measure states.
The State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Carolyn Stanford, will also be required to include the Holocaust and other genocides into model academic standards for social studies and develop model curriculum “in consultation with a state agency in another state that has developed such standards,” his office states.
Russia: Release prominent lawyer defending Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation from arbitrary detention
Responding to news that Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers have detained Ivan Pavlov, a human rights lawyer defending the Anti-Corruption Foundation founded by Aleksei Navalny, Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Moscow Office Director, said:
“Lawyers are the last line of defence against the government’s growing crackdown on human rights, and now the authorities are going after one of the country’s most courageous lawyers. They accused him of disclosing information about cases they are arbitrarily treating as a state secret. This is a travesty of justice. The authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Ivan Pavlov from arbitrary detention.
“Targeting lawyers who defend victims of politically motivated prosecutions has become a dangerous trend in Russia, especially in the North Caucasus. Rarely has it being done in such a brazen manner, with open FSB involvement, as with Ivan Pavlov. If the international community was waiting for a signal to sound the alarm, then that time has come. Ivan Pavlov and his brave Team 29 have helped countless people. Now they themselves need our solidarity and support.”
“Lawyers should never be arrested simply for peacefully exercising their human rights and discharging their professional duties. Russian authorities must end the crackdown on the legal profession, and respect, protect, promote and fulfil the human rights of everyone.”
Background
Ivan Pavlov, human rights lawyer and the head of the human rights group Komanda 29 (Team 29), has worked on numerous high-profile cases including that of Ivan Safronov, a former journalist charged with state treason, and is now representing Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation in the “extremism” case against it. He was detained in the early hours of 30 April after a raid on the hotel where he was staying in Moscow. He was apprehended by the officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB).
According to Team 29, Ivan Pavlov is charged with “disclosure of materials of the preliminary investigation” (Article 310 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). It is not yet known under which case he is being prosecuted. The Russian authorities have arbitrarily classified a lot of criminal cases as secret and closed trials to the public, including the Anti-Corruption Foundation case.
If found guilty, he could face up to two years of compulsory labour and might be disbarred.
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded April 30, 2021 | Video: 47 Minutes 38 Seconds
Episode 913 – Straight Out of 1984 … (w/ Rudy Giuliani). Guest is: Rudy Giuliani.
Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded April 30, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 59 Seconds
Episode 914 – North By Northwest Meets Homer, Alaska … FBI’s Abuse of Power. “This would have been a particularly unethical time to go in and spy on and emails texts and memorandum,” he said. “There isn’t much else you’re going to get.”They are trying to pretend they have a clue,” said Raheem Kassam. “They both pretend to know, then hide the details, then ask the American people to take precautions anyway.” Our guest is: Patrick Coffin.
Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with Mike Lindell | Video: 18 Minutes 13 Seconds
Mike Lindell joins the infamous Black Face Artist, Jimmy Kimmel, and plays a good sport on the show while answering questions on his life story and explaining some of his positions on Election 2020.
Samuel Alito’s Culture-War Warning
Remember when you were told that a Supreme Court with six Republican-appointed Justices would consistently favor conservative outcomes? Well, this week the Justices sided with California against Texas and 19 other mostly red states in declining to hear a challenge to progressive cultural imperialism.
In 2017 a California law went into effect instructing the Attorney General to blacklist states with less progressive policies on gay rights, transgender policy or religious liberty. Texas was identified because it does not compel religious child-welfare organizations to place children with same-sex parents if that violates their conscience.
The California law bars the use of public funds for travel to any of the 12 states on the list. Texas explained in its petition last year that at least two academic conferences in Houston were disrupted as students and scholars from California’s public universities couldn’t get funding. Politicians have had to use campaign funds rather than state dollars to travel to cities like Nashville in boycotted Tennessee.
Texas said such travel restrictions violate the Commerce Clause, which limits the ability of states to discriminate economically against their peers. It asked the Justices to invoke their original jurisdiction to block California’s economic coercion.
The Justices on Monday turned Texas down, but Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, argued that the Court should settle more such disputes.
‘Breakfast Club’ Host DJ Envy Called a Race Traitor After Defending the Officer Who Shot Ma’Khia Bryant
“Breakfast Club” radio host DJ Envy is facing down a backlash after comments he made in support of the police officer who shot and killed Ma’Khia Bryant last week.
COVID vaccine maker Emergent says it has a plan to fix Baltimore plant after mistake
Emergent BioSolutions plans to submit a plan to the FDA to fix systems at the Baltimore plant where COVID vaccine had to be dumped.
John Eastman lays groundwork to sue CU Boulder for stripping him of duties after appearance at Jan. 6 Trump rally
John Eastman, the University of Colorado Boulder’s visiting conservative scholar, laid the groundwork to sue the school Thursday, filing a legal claim alleging breach of contract and defamation over how the university responded to his role in efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election.
The six-page claim, a necessary precursor to filing a lawsuit, indicates Eastman will seek at least $1.9 million in damages, consisting of nearly $20,000 that remains in a CU research account and $1.85 million in future salary he alleges he can’t earn because of “reputational harm.”
The notice of claim filed by Eastman — who spoke at President Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., rally that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection — alleges CU officials “have denied his the ability to complete his duties under the contract. They have committed libel and slander against him and have irreparably damaged his career and his professional standing.”
Eastman and his attorney Randy Corporon held a news conference in Boulder on Thursday afternoon to announce the legal move. Corporon said CU Boulder has taken “remarkable steps to cancel the voice of my client.”
Jan. 6 Defendants Win Unlikely Dem Champions As They Face Harsh Detainment
Sen. Elizabeth Warren fled the Capitol on Jan. 6 from a mob she later called domestic terrorists. Now she and another Senate Democratic leader are standing up for their attackers’ rights as criminal defendants.
Most of the 300-plus people charged with participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot have been released while they await trial, but dozens of those deemed to be dangerous, flight risks or at high risk of obstructing justice were ordered held without bond. D.C. jail officials later determined that all Capitol detainees would be placed in so-called restrictive housing — a move billed as necessary to keep the defendants safe, as well as guards and other inmates. But that means 23-hour-a-day isolation for the accused, even before their trials begin.
And such treatment doesn’t sit well with Warren or Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), two of the chamber’s fiercest critics of solitary confinement.
“Solitary confinement is a form of punishment that is cruel and psychologically damaging,” Warren said in an interview. “And we’re talking about people who haven’t been convicted of anything yet.”
Secrecy Surrounds Solitary Confinement of 2 Men Arrested in Jan. 6 Capitol Breach
Julian Khater of Pennsylvania and George Tanios of West Virginia are being held without bail by the federal government in a District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DOC) restrictive housing facility. “Restrictive housing” is another way of saying “solitary confinement.” Khater and Tanios are restricted to their cells for all but one hour of each […]
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EU Vaccine Injury Reporting System Shows More Than 330,000 Adverse Events Following COVID Vaccines
Every week The Defender publishes the latest data from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) on injuries and deaths reported after people received one of the three COVID vaccines that have received Emergency Use Authorization in the U.S.
VAERS, which operates under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. In the EU, suspected drug reactions are reported to EudraVigilance, which also tracks reports of injuries and deaths following the experimental COVID vaccines.
Health Impact News compiled the latest EudraVigilance data on reports of COVID vaccine-related injuries and deaths and found — as of April 17 — 7,766 reports of deaths and 330,218 reports of injuries following injections of the four COVID vaccines approved for emergency use in the EU: Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, marketed under the Janssen brand.
The Health Impact News report broke down the data by vaccine, type of injury and country.
According to the report, injury and death report totals for each vaccine were:
- Pfizer-BioNTech: 4,293 deaths and 144,607 injuries
- Moderna: 2,094 deaths and 15,979 injuries
- AstraZeneca: 1,360 deaths and 169,386 injuries
- Johnson & Johnson (Janssen): 19 deaths and 246 injuries
Cardiac and blood/lymphatic disorders were among the most commonly reported injuries.
According to its website, EudraVigilance was launched by the European Medicines Agency in 2012. Reports of suspected adverse events are submitted electronically to EudraVigilance by national medicines regulatory authorities and by pharmaceutical companies that hold marketing authorizations (licenses) for the medicines.
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An unusual coalition as Supreme Court rules for immigrant
By a 6-3 vote, the court sided with Agusto Niz-Chavez, a Guatemalan immigrant who has been in the United States since 2005.
WASHINGTON — An unusual coalition of Supreme Court justices joined Thursday to rule in favor of an immigrant fighting deportation in a case that the court said turned on the meaning of the shortest word, “a.”
By a 6-3 vote, the court sided with Agusto Niz-Chavez, a Guatemalan immigrant who has been in the United States since 2005. Eight years later, he received a notice to appear at a deportation hearing but this notice did not include a date or time. Two months after that, a second notice instructed him when and where to show up.
By sending notice of a deportation hearing, the government can stop the clock on immigrants hoping to show they have been in the United States for at least 10 straight years. The 10-year mark makes it easier under federal law to ask to be allowed to remain in the country.
The court was deciding whether immigration officials had to include all the relevant information in a single notice.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in his majority opinion that they do, criticizing the government’s “notice by installment.”
Two other conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, signed on, as did the court’s three liberal members, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. The case was argued in November during the Trump administration.
“Anyone who has applied for a passport, filed for Social Security benefits, or sought a license understands the government’s affinity for forms. Make a mistake or skip a page? Go back and try again, sometimes with a penalty for the trouble. But it turns out the federal government finds some of its forms frustrating too,” Gorsuch wrote.
A 1996 immigration law specifies “a notice to appear” for people the government wants to deport, Gorsuch said.
“At first blush, a notice to appear might seem to be just that — a single document containing all the information an individual needs to know about his removal hearing. But, the government says, supplying so much information in a single form is too taxing. It needs more flexibility, allowing its officials to provide information in separate mailings (as many as they wish) over time (as long as they find convenient),” he wrote.