Authored by Julie Kelly via RealClear Wire,

At her first appearance in the criminal case against Donald Trump for his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan repeatedly warned the former president’s lawyers that politics would not be tolerated in her courtroom. 

“The fact that [Trump is] running a political campaign has to yield to the orderly administration of justice,” Chutkan said during the August 11 hearing. “If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, that’s how it has to be.” 

But even as she warns Trump about his “inflammatory” language, Chutkan has routinely issued politically charged rulings and made incendiary statements of her own while presiding over some 30 cases involving Trump supporters charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, melee at the U.S. Capitol. 

A review of thousands of pages of hearing transcripts reveal that Chutkan has repeatedly expressed strong and settled opinions about the issues at the heart of United States v. Donald Trump – the criminal case she is now presiding over.  

These include her public assertions that the 2020 election was beyond reproach, that the Jan. 6 protests were orchestrated by Trump, and that the former president is guilty of crimes. She has described Jan. 6 as a “mob attack” on “the very foundation of our democracy” and branded the issue at the heart of the case she is hearing – Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen – a conspiracy theory.   

Although judges often make comments from the bench, Chutkan’s strident language raises questions about her impartiality in handling the case against the presumptive GOP nominee for president in 2024. 

The U.S. code that addresses grounds for recusal states, ”Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” One reason to recuse is if the judge has demonstrated “a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party.”  

GOP Rep. Matthew Gaetz of Florida recently filed a resolution to condemn and censure Chutkan for exhibiting “open bias and partisanship in the conduct of her official duties as a judge.”  

But if the aim among Trump loyalists is to get a new judge assigned to the case, it’s a steep legal hurdle. Stephen Gillers, a professor of law at New York University, said that typically a judge can be recused for bias or the appearance of bias “only when the purported bias comes from a source outside the judge’s work as a judge.” He continued, “Almost never will a judge be recused for opinions she forms as a judge – in hearing cases and motions. Judges are expected to form opinions based on these ‘intrajudicial’ sources. It’s what judges do.”  

A Trump representative declined to comment about Judge Chutkan’s potential bias. The chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the American Bar Association did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Chutkan.

Appointed by Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2013, Chutkan has been one of the toughest judges on Jan. 6 defendants. In several cases, she has given defendants longer prison terms than recommended by prosecutors. In at least two cases she sentenced defendants to jail time when prosecutors only sought probation. Chutkan herself admitted during a July 2022 court hearing that she is “one of the few judges that’s given a lot of terms of incarceration” in Jan 6. cases. 

On at least one occasion, Chutkan suggested in open court that Trump should have been charged for his alleged role in what she routinely describes as “an attempt to overthrow the government” on Jan. 6.  

Before sentencing Christine Priola, a Trump supporter from Ohio who pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding, to 15 months in jail, Chutkan appeared to lament the fact Trump was not yet in prison. “[The] people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man – not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant, not to the ideals of this country, and not to the principles of democracy,” Chutkan said on Oct. 28, 2022. “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” (Emphasis added.) 

Chutkan accused Matthew Mazzocco, another Jan. 6 defendant, of choosing Trump over the country. In rejecting Mazzocco’s argument that he traveled from Texas to Washington to engage in a legal political demonstration, Chutkan declared at his October 2021 sentencing hearing: “He went there to support one man who he viewed had the election taken from him. In total disregard of a lawfully conducted election, he went to the Capitol in support of one man, not in support of our country or in support of democracy.”   

Although Mazzocco only spent 12 minutes inside the Capitol and committed no violence, Chutkun rejected the government’s recommendation of three months home confinement for pleading guilty to “parading” in the Capitol, a Class B misdemeanor, and instead sentenced Mazzocco to 45 days in jail.   

Despite President Trump’s explicit request that his supporters march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol, Chutkan blamed Trump for the Jan. 6 violence while sentencing Robert Palmer, who pleaded guilty in June 2021 to one count of assaulting police officers with a dangerous weapon (a fire extinguisher). In that case, Palmer’s lawyer sought a reduced prison sentence by echoing the judge’s view of Trump.  

“Mr. Palmer went to the Capitol at the behest of the former president,” attorney Bjorn E. Brunvand wrote in a December 2021 sentencing memo to Chutkan. “Like many others who participated in the Capitol riot, Mr. Palmer blindly followed the many figures who falsely but persistently claimed that the election had been stolen from the president.”  

Palmer himself told Chutkan that Trump’s claims about a “stolen” 2020 election prompted him to travel from his Tampa home to the nation’s capital to participate in the Capitol protest. In a handwritten note dated November 2021, Palmer told Chutkan that he realized “Trump supporters were lied to by those that at the time had great power meaning the then sitting president, as well as those acting in his behalf.” 

Palmer apologized to Chutkan for his conduct and begged for mercy. 

His plea fell on deaf ears. Although Chutkan expressed no sympathy for Palmer, whom she sent to prison for more than five years, she amplified Palmer’s assertions that Trump bore some responsibility:

And it is true, Mr. Palmer you have made a very good point, one that has been made before – that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged. That is not this court’s position. I don’t charge anybody. I don’t negotiate plea offers. I don’t make charging decisions. I sentence people who have pleaded guilty or have been convicted. The issue of who has or has not been charged is not before me. I don’t have any influence on that. I have my opinions, but they are not relevant. And you’re correct in that no one who was encouraging everybody to take the Capitol has been charged as of yet, but I don’t think that fact means that you should get a lower sentence. 

Chutkan’s references to the former president aren’t the only area of concern for Trump. Her comments from the bench also suggest that she shares the same view of Jan. 6 as the man prosecuting Trump in her courtroom, Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Tasked by Attorney General Merrick Garland with investigating “whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021,” Smith indicted Trump in the District of Columbia on three conspiracy counts and one obstruction count last month.  

Throughout the 45-page indictment, Smith repeatedly accused Trump of knowingly promoting falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election. “[For] more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway – to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.” 

Chutkan clearly shares that view. On numerous occasions, the judge has insisted the 2020 election was legitimate and fully vetted by the court system – a claim disputed by Trump that lies at the heart of the case she is now hearing.  

“He went to the Capitol because, despite election results which were clear-cut, despite the fact that multiple court challenges all over the country had rejected every single one of the challenges to the election, Mr. Palmer didn’t like the result. He didn’t like the result, and he didn’t want the transition of power to take place because his guy lost,” Chutkan also said during Palmer’s sentencing. (When not cryptically referring to Trump, Chutkan often describes the former president as “guy.”) 

She has accused individuals who believe the 2020 election was “stolen” as promoting “conspiracy theories.” In the case of Donna Bissel, who pleaded guilty to the nonviolent petty offense of “parading” in the Capitol, Chutkan cited Bissel’s personal beliefs as reason to sentence her to 14 days in jail rather than impose the three-year probation sentence recommended by prosecutors. 

“As noted in the government’s sentencing memo, the defendant appears to be susceptible to believing outlandish and absurd conspiracy theories,” Chutkan said during Bissel’s October 2021 sentencing. “To protect the public, it’s important to make sure that she does not fall victim to another lie or conspiracy and act out in a way that again jeopardizes public safety. It’s one thing to believe in conspiracy theories in your basement, and it’s another thing to act out on them and, for instance, to travel from Indiana to D.C. to storm the Capitol to overturn an election.” 

Court records show that Chutkan has repeatedly scolded defendants who question the integrity of the 2020 election – skepticism shared by 39% of Americans, according to a recent CNN poll. Here are a few examples of Chutkan’s comments on Jan. 6:  

• USA v. Scott Ponder: “When you say you got caught up, Mr. Ponder, there’s a lot of rage and a lot of emotion and a lot of tension as you describe, and people felt very strongly, right or wrongly, that an election had been stolen. I think the evidence is quite clear that it had not, but that’s neither here nor there.” (July 26, 2022)
• USA v. Benjamin Larocca: “Everyone standing around with their cameras on that — in front of those doors, every single one of those people contributed to the mob that tried to intimidate those police officers; that tried to gain entry into that building; that were trying to stop the transfer of power and nullify a lawfully conducted election. This was a lawfully conducted election.” (August 10, 2022)
• USA v. Christian Cortez: “[He] was motivated to come because his candidate didn’t win and he somehow believed this election was stolen and he wanted to get it back. As I said, this wasn’t just a protest. He wanted to — that mob wanted to overthrow the government. They wanted to undo the results of what they considered a stolen election; their guy didn’t win.” (August 31, 2022) 

Little Nuance: Chutkan’s View of Jan. 6 

For Chutkan, the events of Jan. 6 provoke strong emotions, which she freely volunteers from the bench. “[Every] single time I watch the videos and look at the photographs of what was going on that day, I am struck anew by how horrible this was, by how violent and terrifying, and how the outnumbered and vastly unequipped law enforcement officers were feeling that day as they were basically struggling for their lives and wondering if they were going to make it home to their kids,” Chutkan told defendant Matthew Caspel in December 2022. “I don’t know if we’ll ever recover from that.” 

A former public defender in Washington, D.C. – one of the country’s most perennially violent cities, and one generally lenient toward criminals – Chutkan argues that Jan. 6 is among the worst crime scenes she’s ever witnessed.  

“I watch these videotapes in almost every case, and every single time I am struck anew at how horrifying the events of that day were,” she volunteered to Benjamin Larocca, who pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct misdemeanor and received 60 days in jail. “And I’m struck as someone who is watching – has seen this kind of footage multiple times and was looking at footage on the day – and as somebody, frankly, who has seen a lot of crime scene footage. I was a criminal defense lawyer, I was a public defender for many years. I’m not easily shocked, but it’s shocking.”  

Many observers believe Trump already confronts a nearly insurmountable task in receiving a fair trial in the nation’s capital, a city that voted 92% for Joe Biden. Further, the Justice Department has a near-perfect conviction rate in Jan. 6 trials. Chutkan’s extensive record of comments suggest the judge presiding over his case will not make it any easier. 

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge has blocked the University of Wyoming (UW) from censoring a Christian activist who openly called a female-identifying transgender student “male.”

In a preliminary injunction issued on Aug. 18, the U.S. District Court in Wyoming sided with Todd Schmidt, an elder at Laramie Faith Community Church, ordering the university to not ban him from tabling on campus while the case proceeds.

On Dec. 2 2022, Mr. Schmidt set up a table in the UW student union with a sign that read, “God created male and female and Artemis Langford is a male.” Mr. Langford is a transgender student who joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority earlier that year, prompting members to sue the national Greek organization for admitting a biological male into the all-female group.

When asked by a UW administrator to remove the student’s name from his sign, Mr. Schmidt initially refused but complied after they threatened to call the police on him. He continued to debate with students passing by for the remainder of that day.

“I’m just trying to tell the truth and bring people to God. That’s all there is. There are not any more genders than that. Biology teaches everybody about that,” Mr. Schmidt said, reported the student newspaper Branding Iron, where Mr. Langford is a reporter.

The incident ultimately led to the university placing a one-year sanction on Mr. Schmidt. While he is still allowed in other areas of campus, he could no longer reserve a table in the UW student union until the spring of 2024.

In a campus-wide message sent on Dec. 5, UW officials said Mr. Schmidt “violated the university policy prohibiting discrimination and harassment,” noting that “a line was crossed when a student was harassed by name.”

Mr. Schmidt, on the other hand, argued that the area serves as a public forum and that his message was not harassment but First Amendment-protected speech.

U.S. Senior District Judge Nancy Freudenthal disagreed with the university, saying that the inclusion of the student’s name was necessary for the Christian activist to fully express his opinion.

“Schmidt’s speech was expressive, with the intent to convey a particular message,” the judge wrote. “Schmidt mentions Artemis Langford by name, but that is unavoidable, as the debate revolves around the propriety of a particular biological male participating in an activity—joining a sorority—traditionally reserved for biological females.”

The judge further recognized that the church elder’s action was not harassment or discrimination but a genuine “debate about gender identity, a matter of public importance.”

“Schmidt does not misgender Langford to denigrate her, but to debate a public issue,” she wrote.

“This is particularly true on college campuses because they are the ‘marketplace of ideas.’ While elementary and public schools prioritize the inculcation of social values, universities seek to encourage inquiry and the challenging of a priori assumptions,” Judge Freudenthal added. “Therefore, this Court finds that Schmidt’s speech is protected free expression and not harassment or discriminatory conduct.”

In response to the ruling, the university said in a statement that although it is disappointed, it will comply with the terms of the preliminary injunction while weighing on whether to keep defending its policy in court.

“The university believed its one-year suspension … was appropriate and lawful, especially considering his prior misconduct and the university’s legal obligations,” the statement read.

“Providing a forum for free expression and the airing of diverse views is a foundational principle for UW. However, the university must also prioritize protection of its students from unlawful harassment and discrimination,” it argued.

“The university will continue to take lawful steps to protect the safety of students, employees and members of the public.”

Sorority Sisters Lawsuit

In a separate lawsuit, seven sorority sisters from the UW chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma claimed that the organization violated its own rules by admitting Mr. Langford last September.

The women are seeking damages from the national sorority and the revoking of Mr. Langford’s membership.

According to the complaint, while Mr. Langford does not live in the Kappa house, he spends time there frequently in areas reserved for women, watching the female members as they walk into the bathroom with only a towel on or spending hours sitting on a couch “staring at them without talking.”

“Some Plaintiffs sought to live in Kappa’s single-sex environment because of religious or moral beliefs that young, unmarried women should not live with young, unmarried men,” the lawsuit stated, adding that one of the plaintiffs is “a victim of sexual assault who wanted a safe place to interact with other college students without the presence of men.”

In June, Kappa Kappa Gamma filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, denouncing it as a “frivolous” attempt to remove Mr. Langford for “political purposes.”

“Kappa defines its membership in its position statement adopted in 2015 as individuals who identify as women,” the motion read. “Plaintiffs cannot identify any bylaw, standing rule, or policy that prohibits Kappa from taking this position, and the term is unquestionably open to multiple interpretations.”

Corporate media outlets, climate crusaders like Greta Thunberg, and new and improved ‘Greta 2.0’ (Sophia Kianni), as well as progressives across Western governments, who echo climate doom propaganda at the peak of the Northern Hemisphere, have desperately attempted to convince folks the world is on fire.

However, Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, served up an inconvenient truth on X, formerly known as Twitter, for ‘science-loving’ climate warriors, citing weather data from European government-run Copernicus. 

Lomborg said, “Fire has burned lowest area in the US in a decade.”

 But if you were reading mainstream media headlines. You would’ve believed “the world is on fire”: 

“Have you seen that reported anywhere?” he asked, referring to Copernicus’ wildfire data is absent from corporate presses. It’s an inconvenient truth that destroys the climate change narrative. 

Data:

Fire has burned 𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙨𝙩 area in the US in a decade

Have you seen that reported anywhere?

Yes, Canada burned much more (constantly reported), but the US, Europe, Africa, Asia burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨

In total, world burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨

🧵 and refs belowhttps://t.co/scZCc2cFi9 pic.twitter.com/ZpxW6BokPI

— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

Lomborg continued, “Contrary to what you constantly hear in the media Global fire in 2023 has so far burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 than normal Yes, the Americas burned much more, but surely the media should also tell you that Africa and Europe burned much less?”

Contrary to what you constantly hear in the media

Global fire in 2023 has so far burned 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 than normal

Yes, the Americas burned much more,

but surely the media should also tell you that Africa and Europe burned much less?https://t.co/scZCc2cFi9 pic.twitter.com/KagbUtav8P

— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

“Global emissions of CO₂ from fire is down,” he said. 

Global emissions of CO₂ from fire is downhttps://t.co/PSNDw5CRSc

— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

Meanwhile, The New York Times insists the “climate crisis” is a “World on Fire”: 

New York Times literally shows you a world in flames

— despite less fire globally https://t.co/xaMsaQjayC

— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

Maybe the NYT is spreading misinformation. 

Satellites show ever smaller area burned in the world, with 2022 lowest yethttps://t.co/bednTdlbsP

— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

And other corporate media outlets are doing the same. 

While the world burns ever 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨

Media talks about the world burning ever 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚https://t.co/D7NUAb6JlJ

— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) August 23, 2023

The same corporate media outlets that once shouted ‘trust the science’ are now conveniently turning a blind eye to the hard data. Why? Because facts don’t align with their climate apocalypse narrative. So what’s the endgame of the elites just north of Richmond? Well, it’s to ram through a dystopic climate agenda of banning cow farts and forcing an insect diet on the masses. 

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Well, the COVID panic has been over for more than a year, and most people seem to be breathing a bit easier now, both literally and figuratively.

Most everyone has returned to their pre-COVID lives. The masks are mostly gone, and testing is only undertaken by a few people who remain in fear.

The great majority of people state that they did the “right thing” and got the requisite initial jabs, although a majority of people state that they decided against the boosters. The reason? Most are unclear on that, except to say that, “I was beginning to have doubts… but I’m still glad I got the initial injections.”

Of course, since the “all clear” signal was sounded, those doctors who initially jumped on board the COVID Express with both feet have calmed down a bit, and many research facilities have been doing studies on the possibility of vax damage.

Those studies have been showing with fair consistency that the jab was indeed detrimental – both short-term and long-term. At this point, scores of studies have come to this conclusion, and even many prominent doctors who initially supported vaxxing are now stating emphatically, “We were lied to.”

So, we might expect that those who filed into clinics like cattle to get the jab would now have learned three important lessons –

• Don’t trust Big Pharma

• Don’t trust the media as regards Big Pharma

• Don’t trust the authorities as regards Big Pharma

And yet these lessons, with few exceptions, do not seem to have been learned.

Some people are still getting tested whenever they get cold symptoms. When asked why, they don’t seem to have a clear answer.

When asked if they would trust those who pushed the vaccines again, their eyes tend to glaze over. Again, they don’t really have an answer.

Most people who got the jab don’t seem to have advanced their thinking in the last year. Their learning curve appears to have halted the moment the media stopped talking about COVID.

But why should this be? Surely, the evidence of deception by Big Pharma and its support group is self-evident at this point. One only has to read the results of post-COVID studies that have been undertaken to arrive at the conclusion that the evidence is overwhelming: A major con has been played on the world – a con that netted tens of billions of dollars for Big Pharma.

The answer to the question, I’m afraid, may well be harder to face than the fact that the majority of people bought into the vaccine charade. The answer as to why very few people have advanced their understanding of what’s been done to them has more to do with human nature than medical perceptions.

It’s unfortunately true that, back when we went to school, we were taught almost entirely by rote. We weren’t asked to learn why the world believed that warfare was necessary; we were only told to memorise the names of the generals and the dates that the wars took place.

If we were asked to read the works of great writers, we weren’t expected to develop an understanding of their insights; we were merely expected to memorise some famous quotes by them.

And, once we had passed our exams, it was perfectly acceptable for us to forget what we’d memorized.

In short, a primary principle of “normal” education was that all that mattered was that we could parrot back whatever we had been fed most recently.

No surprise, then, that, in adulthood, we do the same. Of course, adults tend to study less than when they were in school. They rely instead on the evening news to keep them informed. We hear the latest urgent breaking news, and we pay careful attention. We then follow the instructions we receive from the “experts” doing the speaking and wait until the following evening to receive further indoctrination and instructions.

Along the way, we also hear “non-authoritative” information and are careful to classify such information as “conspiracy theory.” Such information enters the temporal lobe only briefly. In most cases, the human brain has been trained to delete such information, as it has no value with regard to following instructions. Worse, it makes us question that instruction. The temporal lobe becomes adept at deleting such information as though it had never been received.

And, here, we have a basic function of the human brain that affects the great majority of people – indeed, all people who have not, at some point in their lives, become independent thinkers:

Respond to controlled input and ignore peripheral input

For those who questioned the COVID scam early, a great deal was learned even as it was playing out. But the question remains, why did others, who bought into it, not learn from the plethora of studies that have been released over time?

After all, the controlled input regarding COVID ceased to be pushed a year or more ago. What that translates into is that those who simply memorise information and do not significantly question it now have nothing to go on. They’re stuck in neutral. They’re receiving occasional peripheral input that negates the controlled input, but they interpret it as peripheral input and, in a trained knee-jerk reaction, ignore it on each and every occasion. They don’t ever consider its totality, as they’re not programmed to think in that fashion.

As unpleasant as it is to consider, this inability is the norm, even for people who are otherwise intelligent and/or educated. Like hamsters on a wheel, they’re under the impression that they’re in forward motion, but in truth, they won’t move an inch forward until they receive controlled input instructing them to do so.

The COVID masks have been taken off, but an understanding of the fraud that has been perpetrated has, for the majority of people, not been understood.

It could be argued that the discussion presented above could be seen as being academic – pointless – as the COVID scare is now over, and the masks are gone.

But, in fact, unless we pay attention to what researchers have been concluding in the last year and, indeed, if we return to our well-ingrained training not to question, but merely to respond to immediate input, we’re primed to get suckered again.

If we and the majority of the people we know, once again, respond to the controlled input and ignore the peripheral input, we won’t merely have missed the boat on the reality of the COVID scam.

We’re primed to be fooled again.

*  *  *

The wave of political correctness and liberal group-think has taken the US by storm. The effort to silence opposing viewpoints and free speech will continue to accelerate. That’s why Doug Casey has prepared a timely video on surviving this modern American trend. In it Doug exposes the lies and mainstream bias that’s poisoning America… Click here to watch it now.

A leading medical journal, JAMA, recently published an essay lamenting that the National Institutes of Health would be slowing awards for “misinformation research,” aka, studies to justify censorship.

Written by JAMA reporter Rita Rubin, the piece cites one Dr. Richard Baron, president and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Yet, what journalist Paul Thacker uncovered in a recent article in The Disinformation Chronicle is mind-numbingly par for the course given the propaganda we’ve seen from leading ‘experts’ over the last 3.5 years; Baron is totally conflicted.

According to Thacker, Baron has been collaborating with Pfizer and Moderna’s PR firm, Weber Shandwick.

But wait, there’s more!

And here comes a shocker: Richard Baron’s concern about “misinformation” was first triggered when physicians spoke out against COVID vaccine safety, efficacy, and side effects. Of course, these are the same concerns held by Weber Shandwick, who Pfizer and Moderna are paying big buck to promote their vaccines.

What a surprise.

…

Now that I’ve explained what Richard Baron views as “misinformation” let me explain what Weber Shandwick views as “medicine.” Some years back, Weber Shandwick was caught aiding Forest Pharmaceuticals in their illegal promotion of Celexa for treating children and adolescents suffering from depression. Forest later pleaded guilty and paid $313 million in 2010 to resolve this with the Department of Justice.

–The Disinformation Chronicle

And why would Baron collaborate with Weber Shandwick on “misinformation”? Because it’s become a central focus for vaccine makers and, of course, their PR firms! Hence the massive, undisclosed conflict of interest contained within the JAMA article.

3) Here’s the questions I sent to JAMA EIC @KBibbinsDomingo. She failed to respond. pic.twitter.com/Dnp4SztbGR

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) August 16, 2023

6) Weber Shandwick is also the PR firm contracted to staff the CDC’s vaccine centre to promote vaccines. pic.twitter.com/gjUpSjSLlO

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) August 16, 2023

After taking her sweet time, Bibbins-Domingo finally responded – saying in a statement:

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention.  We initiated our internal investigation earlier this week, in accordance with our standard processes for allegations of non-disclosure of conflicts.”

More via The Disinformation Chronicle…

Congress started investigating university misinformation researchers after the Twitter Files exposed some of the academics who cloak censorship under the rubric of “misinformation research”—people such as Stanford’s Renee DiResta, formerly with the CIA, and Brown University’s Claire Wardle. Due in part to this pressure, the NIH has been slowing down awards for research that helps the government censor Americans.

As JAMA’s Rita Rubin reported:

As stated by the Common Fund, the program’s objectives were to “investigate, develop, test, and disseminate new approaches for effective and equitable health communication,” an effort that would include addressing misinformation. The 5-year program would partner its research with technology and social media platforms, marketing experts, and health information communicators. The budget was set at $154.3 million, a tiny share of the NIH’s 2023 fiscal year budget of $47.5 billion but a windfall for health communications researchers.

One of the experts Rubin cites to explain why the NIH should keep funding medical “research” that runs afoul of First Amendment protected speech is Dr. Richard Baron. In Baron’s mind, this is all about politics, not free speech.

“They’re backing away from research that could save lives because there’s some political agenda they’re afraid they’re going to run afoul of.”

In this case, Baron said, the political agenda appears to center on the debate over whether people who make claims on social media that go against public health recommendations are simply exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.

At the bottom of the Rubin’s JAMA essay, the journal discloses the conflicts of interest of anyone named or mentioned in the essay. But at no point does JAMA disclose that Baron is collaborating with Weber Shandwick in his crusade against “misinformation.”

I first brought to light Baron’s collaboration with Weber Shandwick last November: “PR Firm Repping Vaccine Manufacturers Now Promotes Doctors Group Denouncing Alleged COVID Vaccine Disinformation.” Weeks before uncovering Baron’s ties to Weber Shandwick, I had discovered that the PR firm was repping Pfizer and Moderna while staffing the vaccine office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Read the rest (and there’s a lot more) here…

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

New guidance on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) announced by New York Attorney General Letitia James warns schools not to ban any curriculum components from classrooms on the “pretext” of obscenity or lewdness—or face the prospect of legal action.

Ms. James and New York State Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa have jointly released guidance reminding New York public schools that they have a legal obligation to promote DEI to schoolchildren.

The guidance (pdf) warns schools not to ban certain books; not to remove curriculum components under the “pretext” that they are inappropriate, lewd, or obscene; and not to stop students who are transgender or nonbinary from using single-gender facilities or participating in programs that don’t match their biological sex.

“As states such as Texas, Florida, and Missouri are banning books and canceling classes, New York is making clear that diversity, equity, and inclusion will always be protected and central to our children’s education,” Ms. James said in a statement.

Parents in a number of states—with Florida and Texas being at the forefront of such efforts—have raised objections to their children being exposed to what they say are sexually inappropriate, explicit, or outright pornographic materials and have been fighting to get such materials banned.

In the guidelines, Ms. James and Ms. Rosa told schools that New York State’s Dignity for All Students Act and the New York State Human Rights Law contain anti-discrimination provisions that prohibit a district from adopting a curriculum that “excludes” people or their histories because of race, color, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender—including gender identity.

Schools could be in violation of these laws if they decide to adopt an “exclusive” curriculum on an impermissible basis (such as race or gender identity) or if the curriculum “causes or contributes to race- or gender-based harassment.”

One notable example of an action that could cause a school to run afoul of the two laws is “using a pretext of inappropriateness or lewdness to systemically remove diverse perspectives from the classroom.”

Another such action, according to the guidance, is prohibiting classroom discussions on issues related to “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary and gender expansive people, or diverse family structures and identities using a pretext of inappropriateness or obscenity.”

Yet another is “prohibiting a transgender, gender expansive, or nonbinary person from using the single-gender extracurricular program or facility most closely aligned with their gender identity.”

Parental Backlash

It comes as parents in schools across the country have raised objections to their children being exposed to books and classroom materials that contain sexually inappropriate or explicit material and are fighting to have such materials removed.

For example, Florida adopted a law that prohibits K–3 students from receiving any type of teaching or classroom materials that deal with sexual orientation or gender identity.

Florida Citizens Alliance, a group that has been pushing for the removal of sexually explicit materials from schools, provided a sample list of objectionable materials in its “porn in schools” report and argued that all the books listed at the very least “violate common decency for age-appropriate material and undermine Judeo-Christian and traditional family values.”

“We urge parents to be extremely vigilant on what their kids are reading,” the group wrote in the report.

Content that parents might find disturbing in books often found in school libraries is detailed in reports on an independent review site called BookLooks. The home page of the site reads, “Find out what objectionable content may be in your child’s book before they do.”

In another example of pushback against the availability of objectionable materials in schools, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law in June that restricts the availability of sexually themed content in public schools and affirms that parents are the main decision-makers on what materials their children are exposed to.

“Some school libraries have books with sexually explicit and vulgar materials,” Mr. Abbott said at a signing ceremony on June 12. “I’m signing a law that gets that trash out of our schools.”

By contrast, some organizations, such as civil liberties advocacy group PEN America, have expressed alarm over book bans, portraying moves to ban books and other classroom content as censorship and as discriminatory, and in some cases premised on a shaky legal foundation.

For example, PEN America wrote in a note that the crux of the “porn in schools” report by the Florida Citizens Alliance is the claim that the books on the list violate Florida laws because of alleged sexually explicit content, “characterized as ‘indecent,’ ‘inappropriate,’ ‘pornographic,’ and ‘obscene.'”

“These allegations do not appear to adhere to legal definitions nor take into account relevant federal jurisprudence, resulting in a lack of foundational integrity of the report,” the group argued.

PEN America stated in its Index of School Book Bans that there have been nearly 1,500 instances of book banning in schools in the first half of the 2022–2023 school year, a nearly 30 percent increase from the prior year.

The internet has exploded with an avalanche breaking reports that Wagner chief Yvgeny Prigozhin’s business jet has crashed over Russia’s Tver region.

Unconfirmed reports say anywhere from seven to ten people were on board, all presumed dead – but it’s as yet unclear if Prigozhin himself was on board at the time. Russian media sources are now suggesting that he his indeed dead.

TASS says the crashed business jet was on its way from Moscow to St. Petersburg. pic.twitter.com/u3gAjOkY3B

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) August 23, 2023

This has led to immediate speculation that the private plane could have been shot down upon Putin’s orders.

The Kremlin has quickly issued confirmation that the aircraft did indeed belong to the controversial Wagner leader who led a mutiny against the defense ministry June 23-24. Per official news wires out of Russia

• RUSSIA SAYS 10 PEOPLE KILLED AFTER PRIVATE JET CRASHES IN TVER REGION NORTH OF MOSCOW
• RUSSIA SAYS EVGENY PRIGOZHIN COULD BE ON BOARD OF PLANE THAT CRASHED IN TVER REGION NORTH OF MOSCOW – TASS

Russia Embraer Legacy 600 business jet with registration number RA-02795 crashed. This board belonged to the team of Yevgeny Prigozhin and was repeatedly seen in Belarus. pic.twitter.com/DPk9Q8tDaR

— Getty (@region776) August 23, 2023

Russian official sources are confirming, including RT…

KOMMERSANT: PRIGOZHIN HAS DIED IN THE PLANE CRASH IN RUSSIA’S TVER, RUSSIA’S FEDERAL AIR TRANSPORT AGENCY SAYS

Below is another video widely circulating of what is purported to be the Wagner chief’s plane going down:

⚡️ Самолёт, который разбился в Тверской области, принадлежит Евгению Пригожину, утверждают издание Baza и журналистка Ксения Собчак. На борту бизнес-джета Embraer, как утверждается, были 7 человек, они погибли.

Видео: соцсети pic.twitter.com/EzyZ3PbVT8

— ЭХО (@echofm_online) August 23, 2023

developing…

After significant internet rumors emerged Tuesday, Russian state news agency RIA confirmed Wednesday that Gen. Sergei Surovikin has been fired as head of the country’s air force. He has been “missing” – or believed under house arrest, since the Wagner mutiny events of June 23-24. He had for months prior overseen Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.

“The ex-Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces of Russia Sergei Surovikin has now been relieved of his post, Colonel General Viktor Afzalov, Chief of the General Staff of the Aerospace Forces, is temporarily acting as Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces,” RIA reported based on single unnamed source.

According to NBC, the news first emerged Tuesday after “The Izvestia newspaper, known for its pro-Kremlin view reported what it said was Surovikin resignation from the post, citing its own unnamed sources.”

Further based on the same reporting: 

Alexei Venediktov, former head of the Ekho Moskvy, a prominent independent radio station that was shut down by authorities within days of the Ukraine invasion was the first to report that Surovikin had been dismissed on Tuesday, but said the general was being “retained by the defense ministry.”

The man known as ‘General Armageddon’ is believed to have come under Kremlin scrutiny as Putin cracked down on the military chain of command over handling of the short-lived rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. That’s when he was effectively ‘disappeared’ from public view.

In late June American intelligence officials told The New York Times that at the highest ranks of Russia’s military command, a key general had foreknowledge that an armed Wagner uprising was coming. In particular, the report claimed had Surovikin advanced awareness of the mutiny plot.

The anonymous US intel officials had taken the claims even further, suggesting potential active plotting and co-conspiracy within the defense ministry. “The officials said they are trying to learn if Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former top Russian commander in Ukraine, helped plan Mr. Prigozhin’s actions last weekend, which posed the most dramatic threat to President Vladimir V. Putin in his 23 years in power,” said the June NYT report.

But some analysts pointed to red flags regarding the claims of US intel officials, as it seemed a coordinated attempt of Washington to sow distrust, paranoia, and further discord in the Kremlin. 

⚡️RBC reported that Army General Sergei Surovikin was relieved of his post as Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces due to a transfer to another job. pic.twitter.com/mHR7GQ0WI7

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) August 22, 2023

Surovikin hasn’t been heard from publicly or in any online or official statement since then. His security detail has also not been seen. Given the prior reports of house arrest, his dismissal had been seen as likely or as imminent. He will reportedly be transferred elsewhere within the defense ministry or Russian government, but very little details are known.

Via SchiffGold.com,

The BRICS summit is underway with talk of expanding the economic block and speculation about a “new currency.” Peter Schiff appeared on Real America with Dan Ball to talk about these developments, saying the BRICS nations will blunt Western dominance.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa make up the BRICS block. It accounts for about 40% of the global population and a quarter of the global GDP. Peter pointed out that not only does the BRICS block supply a lot of goods to America, but it also loans the US a lot of money.

The interest that we have to pay on that debt is soaring.”

Peter noted that Treasury bond yields were at the highest level in 16 years. That’s a big problem when you have a $32.7 trillion national debt and massive budget deficits month after month.

This backup in the yield on the 30-year Treasury — mortgage rates are going to hit 8% pretty soon. Think about that for a minute. When was the last time anybody was looking at an 8% mortgage? Just a year ago, they were in the threes. So, everybody is going to be paying more.”

And things don’t appear to be on track to get any better.

We are broke as a nation, and the inflation genie is out of the bottle. We’ve had more than 10 years of reckless money printing. There’s no way these rate hikes are going to do anything about that. So, high inflation is here to stay. And it’s going to get even higher.”

President Biden keeps saying the economy is strong. Peter asked how he could make that assertion.

We’re the world’s biggest debtor nation. We have record trade deficits, record budget deficits, and inflation that’s about to run out of control. I don’t think the economy has ever been this weak.”

Given the current state and the trajectory of the economy, the US is ripe to fall from its perch as the world’s economic superpower. And the BRICS block is in a position to further undermine the American economy.

Dan said he thinks the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed the BRICS nations into a corner and forced them to look more closely at an alternative to the US dollar. Peter said he agreed.

The blowback from those sanctions is going to be a disaster.”

When the Biden administration started imposing sanctions, we reported that there were possible long-term consequences for using the dollar as a tool for war — that it could accelerate de-dollarization globally and even threaten the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. As Peter explained, this would be a gut punch for the US economy.

The US really depends on the dollar as the reserve currency. But what we did with those sanctions — we gave the world a powerful reason not to want to be a part of that system anymore because we demonstrated the downside, the risk that you take in holding dollars and being part of this dollar payment system. We gave everybody another reason, as if they needed more, to de-dollarize. So, that whole process has been sped up. The last thing we should have done was punish Russia for doing exactly what we wanted them to do. We wanted Russia to hold dollars because that benefits us. That keeps our prices down. That keeps our interest rates down. And then we punished Russia for doing exactly what we wanted them to do. Now, what kind of message are we sending to the rest of the world?”

This morning, we said that in a year that has seen every monthly payrolls report revised lower…

… which is hardly a fluke since under Biden, every single data point ends up being revised lower eventually, with today’s new home sales getting the same treatment and every month’s new home sales data was also revised lower…

… the last pillar of Bidenomics was about to be revised away even more, as the BLS confirmed what we have been saying for much of the past year, namely that hundreds of thousands of US jobs were nothing more than a figment in the BLS’s imagination, and politically motivated excel spreadsheets.

That’s precisely what happened when according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ preliminary benchmark revision projection published this morning, US job growth was far less robust in the year through March than previously reported, and according to the BLS the number of workers on payrolls will be revised down by at least 306,000, and likely much more when the final revisions take place in early 2024.

The revision results from a comparison between reported nonfarm payrolls and a (near) universe count of employment from unemployment insurance records. In last year’s benchmark revision, the BLS revised up nonfarm payrolls by 506k.

The BLS table below shows the March 2023 preliminary benchmark revisions by major industry sector. While the preliminary benchmark revisions are calculated only for the month of March 2023 for major industry sectors, the data for all CES series will be updated when the final benchmark revision is issued.

The background, for those who missed it: once a year, the BLS benchmarks the March payrolls level to a more accurate but less timely data source called the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) that’s based on state unemployment insurance tax records and covers nearly all US jobs. When the March payrolls figures are aligned to that count, the change is proportionally distributed across the year ended in March. First-quarter QCEW figures were also released Wednesday.

QCEW is used as the benchmark because it is a more comprehensive count of jobs than NFP. It aims at a complete count of all 11 million establishments/workplaces in the US and has a 90%+ response rate, compared to 660k establishments surveyed by NFP with a 43% response rate.

While the preliminary downward adjustment was smaller than some economists expected – of note, Std Chartered’s Steven Englander had expected at least 650,000 jobs to be revised out – keep in mind this is only the first revision; the final revision – which is incorporated into the data series with the release of the January jobs report in February 2024 – and in keeping with the Biden admin’s stealthy downward revisions, expect at least another 300K or so jobs to magically disappear from the total, which will “gradually” come down to the cumulative household survey which remains about 1 million lower than the market-moving, if extremely inaccurate and politically sensitive, establishment survey.

By then, however, nobody will care since US payrolls in early 2024 will have slumped deep into negative territory and the Fed will be in full-blown freakout/easing/QE mode.