Tag: police state

Don’t Let the ‘Infaux Thugs’ Close Down Debate

Today’s censors wield cudgels with the word ‘information.’ Content they don’t like they call ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation.’ The justification is fake. The protection is faux protection. Pretending to protect people from bad information by means of censorship may be called infaux thuggery.

The cudgels are hidden, of course, but it is not hard to see through the pretence and discern the underlying message: knuckle under or we will hurt you.

The UK’s Online Safety Act exemplifies infaux thuggery, as does Brazil’s recent action against X (formerly Twitter). The Australian government is dominated by another gang of infaux thugs. The UK, sadly, not only practices infaux thuggery at home, it tutors the world in infaux thuggery.

The same goes for where I live, the United States. Kamala Harris threatens: ‘If you act as a megaphone for misinformation… we are going to hold you accountable.’ Hillary Clinton calls for criminalization of speech not to her liking. Harris’ running mate Tim Walz threatens: ‘There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation and hate speech.’

Thankfully, that’s not true, at least in the US. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. responded, the US Constitution ‘is exactly what prevents the government from stifling dissent by labeling something “hate speech” or “misinformation.”’ Alarmingly, former Secretary of State John Kerry recently lamented that the First Amendment ‘stands as a major block to…hammer it [“disinformation”] out of existence,’ and implied that that ‘is part of what this race, this election is all about.’

Of course, malicious actors, including enemy states, may spread lies to sow discord – especially online. So too can those who are simply ill-informed. Yet in the absence of censorship, big lies will be torn to shreds. In this battle, the infaux thugs are on the wrong side.

The infaux thugs use ‘information’ to confuse matters. The content they suppress is more aptly termed narratives, interpretations, opinions or judgments. Those terms are more capacious, befitting frank and open debate and controversy.

In their hostility to open debate, the infaux thugs are mounting an attack on modern civilisation. They evoke our crude instincts from pre-modern life, instincts for a small, simple society, in which the leader’s narrative must be believed by all and enforced upon the members of the band. If you don’t share the leader’s narrative, you are a miscreant. You are to be corrected, expelled or destroyed. At the very least, you are to shut up.

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The Corporate Transparency Act — The Most Aggressive Domestic Spying Program Since the Patriot Act

At a press conference on August 12th, 1986, President Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

These words reflected the general and growing distrust of the government.

Today, this quote could be reinterpreted to say, “I’m from the federal government, give up your personal data, and as long as you don’t step out of line, we will keep you safe”. Not as snappy but truer today than ever before.

By the end of this year, every citizen in the United States will be required to hand over the personal data of their small business, S-corp, LLC, HoA, Board of Directors, Trustees, Real Estate Holdings, etc., to the Federal Government’s law enforcement database, operated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) under the Department of Treasury. Welcome to the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).

President Trump saw this act for what it was, just another way for the Federal Government to target the middle class and their political enemies. President Trump vetoed this unconstitutional power grab in 2019, but it’s back.

In an unprecedented act of overreach, the Federal Government is moving to aggressively collect data on all small business owners, who make up the backbone of the U.S. economy, for reasons that seem “murky” at best.

The sole goal appears to be setting up yet another new database of citizens to monitor, observe, and punish. The Feds are moving to implement the CTA at warp speed, and in seeming total secrecy, as the majority of the millions of small business owners in the United States have no idea this law even exists.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Orders Suspension of Private Drone Flights in North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene Flood Zone — Immediately Issues Clarification After Backlash

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has ordered a suspension of private drone flights in North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene flood zone, only to backtrack amid intense backlash.

The deadly storm has left a trail of destruction across North Carolina, with 94 confirmed deaths in the western part of the state alone. Hundreds remain unaccounted for, and residents are desperate for help.

However, instead of expediting rescue efforts, FEMA and the Biden administration seem more focused on suppressing the efforts of private citizens who stepped up where the federal response has faltered.

Buttigieg’s Department of Transportation took to social media to announce, Drone pilots: Do not fly your drone near or around rescue and recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene. Interfering with emergency response operations impacts search and rescue operations on the ground.”

Many on social media rightfully pointed out the absurdity of the ban.

One user wrote, “The USDOT and FAA don’t know drones are saving lives and aiding rescue efforts by flying insulin to inaccessible regions, locating trapped and isolated individuals, and providing imagery to the world.”

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Off-duty Atlanta police officer shot, killed while breaking into Douglas County home, deputies say

An Atlanta police officer was shot and killed outside a Douglas County home during what investigators say was an apparent early-morning break-in attempt. He was identified as Investigator Aubree Horton by the Atlanta Police Department.

It happened around 5 a.m. Friday at a home along Orkney Way near E. Carroll Road in the Andrews Country Club neighborhood.  

According to Douglas County Sheriff Tim Pounds, deputies responded to a burglary call.  

“On an attempted burglary, understanding, at this time, that a person attempted to gain entry into the residence behind,” the sheriff said. “When he gained entrance, the homeowner produced a firearm in self-defense and shot the individual. At this time, the individual is deceased.

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Censorship Allegations Resurface as New Demonetization Coalition Takes Shape

A new organization has emerged, seemingly as a successor to the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which disbanded in early August under a cloud of controversy and accusations of corporate censorship, according to a new letter.

This new entity dubbed the “Dentsu Coalition,” was formed by Dentsu, a major Japanese PR firm and original GARM member, alongside The 614 Group, a prominent ad consulting firm. Their stated mission is to bolster “credible news” and foster a thriving journalistic environment through the collective effort of leading advertising industry figures.

However, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, expressed concerns in a letter sent to Dentsu Americas CEO Michael Komasinski that the Dentsu Coalition might be walking a path similar to its predecessor. Jordan highlighted that GARM, during its operation, engaged in practices that appeared to suppress certain media voices by guiding major advertisers on which news sources were deemed “credible,” with a noticeable bias favoring left-leaning media. He noted that these practices could potentially violate the Sherman Act by unlawfully restraining trade under the guise of social justice.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

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Israeli authorities are using facial recognition technology to entrench apartheid

The Israeli authorities are using an experimental facial recognition system known as Red Wolf to track Palestinians and automate harsh restrictions on their freedom of movement, Amnesty International said today.  In a new report, Automated Apartheid, the organization documents how Red Wolf is part of an ever-growing surveillance network which is entrenching the Israeli government’s control over Palestinians, and which helps to maintain Israel’s system of apartheid. Red Wolf is deployed at military checkpoints in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, where it scans Palestinians’ faces and adds them to vast surveillance databases without their consent.

Amnesty International also documented how Israel’s use of facial recognition technology against Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem has increased, especially in the wake of protests and in the areas around illegal settlements. In both Hebron and occupied East Jerusalem, facial recognition technology supports a dense network of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras to keep Palestinians under near-constant observation. Automated Apartheid shows how this surveillance is part of a deliberate attempt by Israeli authorities to create a hostile and coercive environment for Palestinians, with the aim of minimizing their presence in strategic areas.

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Josef Pieper, Discourse, and the Age of Covid

Just a few days back, I was lunching with a friend. Over a plate of meatballs and spaghetti, he remarked how radically his professional direction and political orientation had changed over the years 2020 to 2022, the Covid ‘pandemic’ era.

He went on to say, “There are people I once trusted and respected who I can no longer trust and respect; and there are people I once distrusted who I have learned to respect.”

I know what he meant – and there are a great many others who today could say much the same of their own experiences, sharpened (or shattered) by the Covid time.

People who once eyed one another across great divides – measured by politics or philosophy, culture or religion, much education or little, profession or trade – have been drawn unexpectedly together by the force of events revolutionary in character.

There should be no need to restate these but, to provide my present remarks with a firmer context, I’ll quote an earlier summation of the crisis as I saw it:

…the mass destruction of Australian small business; the vast increase in the debt incurred by Federal and State governments; de facto compulsory vaccination with an experimental drug; the refusal of effective early treatments to those infected by the Wuhan virus; the abandonment of national health decision-making to an unelected, globalist health bureaucracy; the failure of the federal government to exercise its responsibility for quarantine and to uphold the free movement of our people across state borders; and, finally, and most dishonestly, enabling, via its vaccine certification system, the imposition of vaccine passports by the State and Territory governments.

As it happened, the “imposition of vaccine passports” within Australia broke down in practice. We cannot, however, be confident that, with the same political class in power today that gave us the Covid ‘crisis’ back then, another emergency of whatever kind might not be used to enforce similar measures of social control.

So it was late last year (November 18 – 19), that I attended in Sydney the inaugural conference of Australians for Science and Freedom – an initiative whose first movers were a Melbourne GP, Dr Arief Farid, and a Sydney Professor of Economics (UNSW), Gigi Foster.

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FEMA under Biden now CONFISCATING donations made to Hurricane Helene survivors

Social media is abuzz with reports that the Biden regime is working against the people of Appalachia when it comes to victims of Hurricane Helene receiving donations and supplies for recovery.

An individual named Alicia Schubert told a story on Facebook about how the aid that recently arrived from the Red Cross and FEMA was confiscated by the Biden regime, preventing it from being distributed to people in need.

“Starting with Davy Crockett High School, they are taking over all volunteer schools in Washington County and Greene County,” Schubert claimed in a post about the situation in eastern Tennessee.

“In order for anyone to get donations that were given, they must be approved. All monetary donations have been taken as well and placed into a TEMA account. If you are unaware of how that works, those items don’t all get used for this particular disaster.”

Schubert says that volunteers who arrived to the damaged areas are being turned away and told to leave. The only ones who are allowed to stay are those who first get trained by United Way, she says.

“Please, I know I already made a post on Red Cross and FEMA the other day, but please if you donate, donate to a church or give to individuals,” Schubert urges.

“They cannot take supplies from churches! Church members will make sure your donations get into the correct hands.”

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Rep. Adam Schiff and Other Democrats Demand Social Media Companies Censor “Misinformation” and “Disinformation” This Month

In the US, the Democrats continue with their sustained efforts to pressure major social media platforms, now about a month ahead of the presidential election.

The Twitter Files give some idea about what may be happening behind closed doors (if previous campaigns/elections are any indication), but this is about public pressure. This time, Congressman Adam Schiff’s turn is to “demand action” from companies behind social media.

Meta (Instagram separately), X, Google (and YouTube separately), TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Microsoft are the recipients of a letter Schiff signed along with seven fellow members of the House of Representatives (four of them, like Schiff, California Democrats).

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

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American Hurricane Victims Forced to Support Israel for Govt Aid

Texans applying for relief from Hurricane Harvey faced an unusual stipulation to receive aid. Over 20,000 people in Dickinson, Texas, had their lives affected by the storm. The US federal government is offering to provide some form of aid, but first, residents must agree to support Israel.

The “Verification not to Boycott Israel” clause states that by signing the agreement, “the Applicant verifies that the Applicant: (1) does not boycott Israel; and (2) will not boycott Israel during the term of this Agreement.”

This is absolutely outrageous as once again our government places its boot on the neck of the people to force them to abide by their agenda. There is absolutely no correlation between Israel and the hurricane as this measure is simply all about power and forcing the people to submit.

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