Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing Day 9

ORIGINAL LINK

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Things became not merely dramatic in the Assange courtroom today, but spiteful and nasty. There were two real issues, the evidence and the procedure. On the evidence, there were stark details of the dreadful regime Assange will face in US jails if extradited. On the procedure, we saw behaviour from the prosecution QC that went well beyond normal cross examination and was a real attempt to denigrate and even humiliate the witness. I hope to prove that to you by a straightforward exposition of what happened today in court, after which I shall add further comment.

Today’s witness was Eric Lewis. A practising US attorney for 35 years, Eric Lewis has a doctorate in law from Yale and a masters in criminology from Cambridge. He is former professor in law at Georgetown University, an elected member of both the American Law Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He is Chairman of Reprieve. He has represented high profile clients in national security and terrorism cases, including Seymour Hersh and Guantanamo Bay internees.

Lewis had submitted five statements to the court, between October 2019 and August 2020, addressing the ever changing indictments and charges brought by the prosecution. He was initially led through the permitted brief half hour summary of his statements by defence QC Edward Fitzgerald. (I am told I am not currently allowed to publish the defence statements or links to them. I shall try to clarify this tomorrow).

Eric Lewis testified that no publisher had ever been successfully prosecuted for publishing national security information in the USA. Following the Wikileaks publications including the diplomatic cables and the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, Assange had not been prosecuted because the First Amendment was considered insuperable and because of the New York Times problem – there was no way just to prosecute Assange without prosecuting the New York Times for publishing the same material. The New York Times had successfully plead the First Amendment for its publication of the Pentagon Papers, which had been upheld in a landmark Supreme Court judgement.

Lewis here gave evidence that mirrored that already reported of Prof Feldstein, Trevor Timm and Prof Rogers, so I shall not repeat all of it. He said that credible sources had stated the Obama administration had decided not to prosecute Assange, notably Matthew Miller, a highly respected Justice Department figure who had been close to Attorney General Holder and would have been unlikely to brief the media without Holder’s knowledge and approval.

Eric Lewis than gave testimony on the change of policy towards prosecuting Assange from the Trump administration. Again this mostly mirrored the earlier witnesses. He added detail of Mike Pompeo stating the the free speech argument for Wikileaks was “a perversion of what our great country stands for”, and claiming that the First Amendment did not apply to foreigners.

Attorney General Sessions had accordingly stated that it was “a priority for the Justice Department” to arrest Julian Assange. He had pressured prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia to bring a case. In December 2017 an arrest warrant had been issued, with the indictment to be filled in later. The first indictment of a single count had been launched in March 2018, its timing possibly dictated by a limitation deadline.

In May 2019 a new superseding indictment increased the counts from one to eighteen, seventeen of which related to espionage. This tougher stance followed the appointment of William Barr as Attorney General just four months previously. The plain intention of the first superseding indictment was to get round the New York Times problem by trying to differentiate Assange’s actions with Manning from those of other journalists. It showed that the Justice Department was very serious and very aggressive in acting on the statements of Trump administration officials. Barr was plainly acting at the behest of Trump. This represented a clear abuse of the criminal enforcement power of the state.

The prosecution of a publisher in this way was unprecedented. Yet the facts were the same in 2018 as they had been in 2012 and 13; there was no new evidence behind the decision to prosecute. Crucially, the affidavits of US Assistant Attorney Gordon Kromberg present no legal basis for the taking of a different decision to that of 2013. There is no explanation of why the dossier was lying around with no action for five or six years.

The Trump administration had in fact taken a different political decision through the Presidential spokesperson Sarah Sanders who had boasted that only this administration had acted against Assange and “taken this process seriously”.

Edward Fitzgerald QC then turned to the question of probable sentencing and led Lewis through his evidence on this point. Eric Lewis confirmed that if Julian Assange were convicted he could very probably spend the rest of his life in prison. The charges had not been pleaded as one count, which it had been open to the prosecution to do. The judge would have discretion to sentence the counts either concurrently or consecutively. Under current sentencing guidelines, Assange’s sentence if convicted could range from “best case” 20 years to a maximum of 175 years. It was disingenuous of Gordon Kromberg to suggest a minimal sentence, given that Chelsea Manning had been sentenced to 35 years and the prosecution had requested 60.

It had been a government choice to charge the alleged offences as espionage. The history of espionage convictions in the USA had generally resulted in whole life sentences. 20 to 30 years had been lighter sentences for espionage. The multiple charges approach of the indictment showed a government intention to obtain a very lengthy sentence. Of course the final decision would lay with the judge, but it would be decades.

Edward Fitzgerald then led on to the question of detention conditions. On the question of remand, Gordon Kromberg had agreed that Julian Assange would be placed in the Alexandria City Jail, and there was a “risk” that he would be held there under Special Administrative Measures. In fact this was a near certainty. Assange faced serious charges related to national security, and had seen millions of items of classified information which the authorities would be concerned he might pass on to other prisoners. He would be subject to Special Administrative Measures both pre and post conviction.

After conviction Julian Assange would be held in the supermax prison ADX Florence, Colorado. There were at least four national security prisoners currently there in the H block. Under SAMS Assange would be kept in a small cell for 22 or 23 hours a day and not allowed to meet any other prisoners. He would be allowed out once a day for brief exercise or recreation excluded from other prisoners, but shackled.

Fitzgerald then led Lewis to the 2017 decision by the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, in which the evidence provided by the Wikileaks release of US war logs and diplomatic cables provided essential evidence. This had been denounced by Trump, John Bolton and Pompeo. The ICC prosecutor’s US visa had been canceled to hinder his investigation. An Executive Order had been issued imposing financial sanctions and blocking the banking access of any non US national who assisted the ICC investigation into crimes alleged against any US citizen. This would affect Julian Assange.

At this point, the half hour guillotine imposed by judge Baraitser on defence evidence came down. Fitzgerald pointed out they had not even reached the second superseding indictment yet, but Baraitser said that if the prosecution addressed that in cross examination, then the defence could question on it in re-examination.

James Lewis QC then rose to cross examine Eric Lewis. Yet again, he adopted an extremely aggressive tone. This is perhaps best conveyed as a dialogue.

NB this is not a precise transcript. It would be illegal for me to publish a transcript (of a “public” court hearing; fascinating but true). This is condensed and slightly paraphrased. It is I believe a fair and balanced representation of what happened, but not a verbatim record.

Eric Lewis was appearing by videolink and it should be borne in mind that he was doing so at 5am his time.

James Lewis QC Are you retained as a lawyer by Mr Assange in any way?
Eric Lewis No.
James Lewis QC Are you being paid for your evidence?
Eric Lewis Yes, as an expert witness. At a legal aid rate.
James Lewis QC Are you being paid for your appearance in this court?
Eric Lewis We haven’t specifically discussed that. I assume so.
James Lewis QC How much are you being paid?
Eric Lewis £100 per hour, approximately
James Lewis QC How much have you charged in total?
Eric Lewis I don’t know, haven’t worked it out yet.
James Lewis QC Are you aware of the rules governing expert witnesses?
Eric Lewis Yes, I am. I must state my qualifications and my duty is to the court; I have to give an objective and unbiased view.
James Lewis QC You are also supposed to set out alternative views. Where have you set out the arguments in Mr Kromberg’s five affidavits?
Eric Lewis The court has Mr Kromberg’s affidavits. I address his arguments directly in my statements. Are you saying that I should have repeated his affidavits and all the other evidence in my statements? My statements would have been thousands of pages long.
James Lewis QC You are supposed to be unbiased. But you had previously given views that Mr Assange should not be extradited.
Eric Lewis Yes, I published an article to that effect.
James Lewis QC You also gave an interview to an Australian radio station.
Eric Lewis Yes, but both of those were before I was retained as an expert witness in this case.
James Lewis QC Does this not create a conflict of interest?
Eric Lewis No, I can do an objective analysis setting aside any prejudice. Lawyers are used to such situations.
James Lewis QC Why had you not declared these media appearances as an interest?
Eric Lewis I did not think perfectly open actions and information needed to be declared.
James Lewis QC It would be much better if we were not forced to dig out this information. You give opinions on law. You also give opinions on penal conditions. Are you an expert witness?
Eric Lewis I am very familiar with prison conditions. I visit prisons. I studied criminology at Cambridge. I keep up to date with penology. I have taught aspects of it at university.
James Lewis QC Are you a qualified penologist?
Eric Lewis I think I have explained my qualification
James Lewis QC Can you point us to peer reviewed articles which you have published on prison conditions?
Eric Lewis No.
James Lewis QC Have you visited ADX Colorado?
Eric Lewis No, but I have had a professional relationship with a client in there.
James Lewis QC Have you represented anyone in Alexandra Detention Centre?
Eric Lewis Yes, one person, Abu Qatada.
James Lewis QC So you have no expertise in prisons?
Eric Lewis I have visited extensively in prisons and observed prison conditions. I have read widely and in detail on the subject.
James Lewis QC Abu Qatada was acquitted of 14 of the 18 charges against him. Was that not acquittal by the same jury pool that would try Julian Assange?
Eric Lewis No. That was Colombia, not Eastern Virginia. Very different jury pools.
James Lewis QC The prosecutors withdrew capital charges. You said that was a courageous but correct decision?
Eric Lewis Yes.
James Lewis QC So what was Qatada’s sentence and what was the maximum?
Eric Lewis The government asked for life but to my mind that was not legal for the charges on which he was convicted. He got 22 years. That was much criticised as harsh for those charges.
James Lewis QC Was the Abu Qatada trial a denial of justice?
Eric Lewis No
James Lewis QC Abu Qatada was held under Special Administrative Measures. Did that prevent you from spending many hours with him?
Eric Lewis No, but it made it extremely difficult. The many hours were spread out over a long period. That is why remand lasted for three years.
James Lewis QC Were your meetings with him monitored?
Eric Lewis Yes.
James Lewis QC But not by the prosecution.
Eric Lewis It was all recorded by the authorities. We were told that nothing would be passed to the prosecution. But from many other reports I am not convinced that is true.
James Lewis QC What jury pool was Zacarias Moussaoui convicted by?
Eric Lewis He was not convicted by a jury. He plead guilty.
James Lewis QC But the jury decided against the death penalty.
Eric Lewis Yes.
James Lewis QC What about Maria Butina? She was charged with being an agent of the Russian Federation but received a light sentence?
Eric Lewis That was a very weird case. She did no more than cultivate some figures in the National Rifle Association. She was sentenced to time served.
James Lewis QC But she only got 18 months when the maximum was 20 years?
Eric Lewis Yes. It was not a comparable case, and it was a plea deal.
James Lewis QC You have addressed prison conditions because the defence argue that Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights will be breached. You consider the case of Babar Ahmed. You state that it is “almost certain” that Julian Assange will be subject to administrative segregation. What is the procedure for administrative segregation?
Eric Lewis The bureau president will decide depending upon various factors including security risk, threat to national security, threat to other prisoners, seriousness of the charge. My experience is that national security charged prisoners go straight into administrative segregation.
James Lewis QC (very aggressive) What are you reading?
Eric Lewis Pardon?
James Lewis QC You are reading something there. What is it?
Eric Lewis It is my witness statement. (Holds it up). Is that not OK?
James Lewis QC That is alright. I thought it was something else. How many categories of administrative detention are there?
Eric Lewis I just went through the main ones. National security, serious charge, threat to other prisoners.
James Lewis QC You do not know the categories. They are (reels off a long list including national security, serious charge, threat to others, threat to self, medical custody, protective custody and several more). Do you agree there is no solitary confinement in administrative segregation and Special Administrative Measures?
Eric Lewis No
James Lewis QC US Assistant Attorney Kromberg states in his affidavit that there is no solitary confinement
Eric Lewis It is solitary confinement other than in the vernacular of the US prison service
James Lewis QC In that case it is also not solitary confinement in the vernacular of the English High Court, which has accepted there is no solitary confinement
Eric Lewis It is solitary confinement. When you are kept in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day and allowed no contact with the rest of the prison population even during the one hour you are allowed out, that is solitary confinement. The attempt to deny it is semantic.
James Lewis QC Was Abu Qatada in solitary confinement? When he was permitted unlimited legal visits?
Eric Lewis They were not unlimited. In reality there were practical and logistical obstacles. There was a single room that could be used, for the entire prison population. You had to get a booking for that one room. You had to book translation services. The FBI oversaw the visits and listened in. Now with Covid there are no visits at all. Theoretically visits are “unlimited” but in practice you do not get nearly as much time with your client as you need.
James Lewis QC You said that he would be held in solitary confinement. But is it not true that even prisoners under SAMs get a break schedule?
Eric Lewis There is a break schedule but it requires no other prisoner to be in the communal areas to have contact with the prisoner under SAM. So in practice the “one hour break” would typically be scheduled between 3am and 4am. Not many prisoners wanted to get out of bed at 3am to walk around a cold and empty communal area.

At this point there was a break. James Lewis QC used it forcefully to complain to Baraitser about the four hour limit set on his cross-examination of Eric Lewis. He said that so far he had only got through one and a half pages of his questions, and that Eric Lewis refused to give yes or no answers but instead insisted on giving lengthy explanations. James Lewis QC was plainly extremely needled by Eric Lewis’ explanations of “unlimited visiting time” and “no solitary confinement”. He complained that Baraitser was “failing to control the witness”.

It was plain that James Lewis’ real aim was not to get more time, but to get Baraitser to curtail Eric Lewis’s inconvenient answers. It is of course amazing that he was complaining about four hours when the defence had been limited to half an hour and had not even been permitted to get to the latest superseding indictment.

Baraitser, to her credit, replied that it was not for her to control the witness, who must be free to give his evidence so long as it was relevant, which it was. It was a question of fairness not of control. James Lewis was asking open or general questions.

James Lewis responded that the witness refused to give binary answers. Therefore his cross examination must be longer than four hours. He became very heated and told Baraitser that never in his entire career had he been subject to a guillotine on cross examination, and that this “would not happen in a real court”. He very definitely said that. “This would not happen in a real court”. I have of course been arguing all along that this is not a genuine process. I did not expect to hear that from James Lewis QC, though I think his intention was just to bully Baraitser, which was confirmed by Lewis going on to state he had never heard of such a guillotine in his capacity of “High Court Judge”. I find that Lewis is listed as “deputy high court judge”, which I think is like being 12th man at cricket, or Gareth Bale.

Baraitser only conceded very slight ground under this onslaught, saying she had never used the word guillotine, that the timings had been agreed between parties, and she expected them to stick to them. James Lewis said it was impossible in that way adequately to represent his client (the US government). He said he felt “stressed”, which for once seemed true, he had gone purple. Baraitser said he should try his best to stick to the four hours. He fumed away (though at a later stage apologised to Baraitser for his “intemperate language”).

James Lewis QC’s touting for business webpage describes him as “the Rolls Royce of advocates”. I suppose that is true, in the sense of foreign owned. Yet here he was before us, blowing a gasket, not getting anywhere, emitting fumes and resembling a particularly unloved Trabant.

Cross-examination of Eric Lewis resumed. James Lewis QC started by reiterating the criteria and categories for Administrative Segregation after conviction (as opposed to pre-tral). Then we got back into questioning.

James Lewis QC Gordon Kromberg states that there is no solitary confinement in ADX Colorado.
Eric Lewis Again this is semantic. There is solitary confinement.
James Lewis QC But there is an entitlement to participate in three programmes a week
Eric Lewis Not in Special Administrative Measures
James Lewis QC But which of the criteria for Special Administrative Measures might Julian assange fall into?
Eric Lewis Criteria 2, 4 and 5, at least.
James Lewis QC Can we agree there is a formal procedure?
Eric Lewis Yes, but not worth the name.
James Lewis Your opinion is based on one single client in ADX Colorado
Eric Lewis Yes, but the system is essentially the same as other supermaxes
James Lewis At para 14 of your report you state that the system lacks procedural rights, and is tantamount to solitary confinement. Had you read the Eurpopean Court of Human Rights judgement on Barbar Ahmed when you wrote this.
Eric Lewis Yes
James Lewis That judgement specifically rejects the same claims you make.

James Lewis QC refers to a number of paragraphs in the original UK District court decision in the case of Babar Ahmad. Eric Lewis asks for more time to find the document as “I only received these documents from the court this morning”.

James Lewis QC But Mr Lewis, you have testified on oath that you had read the Babar Ahmad judgement.
Eric Lewis I have read the final judgement of the European Court of Human Rights. I had not read all the judgements from lower courts. I received them from the court his morning.
James Lewis QC The senior district judge ruled that although Special Administrative Measures were a concern, they did not preclude extradition. There were various safeguards to SAMs. For example although attorney/client conversations were monitored, that was only for the purpose of preventing terrorism and the FBI did not pass on the recordings to the prosecution. The judge rejected the idea that SAMs amounted to solitary confinement. The High Court upheld the District judge’s ruling and the House of Lords rejected Babar Ahmad’s application to appeal. In its ruling on admissibility of the case, the European Court of Human Rights considered six affidavits from US attorneys very similar to that submitted by Eric Lewis in this case. This included the affirmations that it would be “virtually certain” that Babar Ahmad would be subject to SAMs, and that these would interfere directly with the right to a fair trial, and would constitute cruel and degrading treatment. The ECHR found in relation to pre-trial detention that these allegations were wrong in the Babar Ahmad case.
Eric Lewis But that was a terrorism case, not a national security case. SAMs apply differently in national security cases. This is about a million classified documents. Different cases had to be considered each on their merits.
James Lewis QC In the Babar Ahmad case, the defence submissions were that the regime was harsh, amounted to solitary confinement nearly 24 hours a day, with one phone call every two weeks and one family visit a month. Is that not almost identical to your evidence here?
Eric Lewis Each case must be considered on its merits. There are key differences. Assange is charged with espionage not terrorism, and possession of classified intelligence is a factor. Mental health issues are also different. Under SAMS there is no intenet access and no access to any news source. Only approved reading material is allowed. These would be particularly hard for Assange.
James Lewis QC But the Babar Ahmad case does specifically deal with mental health issues, between Babar and co-defendants these include clinical depression, suicide risk and Asperger’s. The court agreed that SAM’s would be likely to be applied both before and after trial. But it ruled that the American government had good reasons for imposing SAMs, were entitled to do so, and that there was a clear and non-arbitrary procedure for implementing them.
Eric Lewis replied that he disagreed that would be true in this case. SAM’s could be applied without procedure, by the US Attorney-General, and William Barr would do that in this case, on the basis of statements by Trump and Gina Haspel. In practice, SAMs had never been overturned whatever the claimed procedure. Eric Lewis did not agree they were not arbitrary.

There now followed an episode where James Lewis QC successfully tripped up Eric Lewis by quoting a passage from an Ahmad case judgement and then confusing him as to whether it was from the final ECHR judgement, which Eric Lewis had read, or from an earlier English court judgement or the ECHR prior judgement on admissibility, which he had not.

James Lewis QC So the ECHR viewed the argument that the SAM regime in pre-trial detention breaches Article 3 as ill-founded and inadmissible. Do you agree with the European Court of Human Rights?
Eric Lewis They found that in the Babar Ahmad admissibility decision in 2008. New information and evidence and changes to the regime since then might change that view.
James Lewis QC What are the defence issues that Assange will raise that you say makes proper consultation under the SAM regime impossible?
Eric Lewis Well I don’t know the precise details of what his defence will be but…
James Lewis QC [interrupting] Well how can you possibly know what the issues will be if you do not know the case?
Eric Lewis Because I have read the indictment. The issues are very wide ranging indeed and involve national security documents.
James Lewis QC But you don’t know what defence at all will be put forward, so how can you opine?
Eric Lewis The charges themselves give a fair idea what might be covered
James Lewis QC Turning to the Babar Ahmad final judgement on post trial incarceration at ADX Colorado. Have you read this (sarcastic emphasis) judgement? Of 210,307 federal prisoners, only 41 of these had SAMs. 27 were in ADX Colorado.
Eric Lewis The Warden of ADX Colorado himself had stated that it was “not fit for humanity” and “a fate worse than death”.
James Lewis QC The ECHR said that SAMS was subject to oversight by independent authorities who looked after the interests of prisoners and could intervene.
Eric Lewis Since that ECHR judgement, a new US judgement had stated that prisoners have no Fifth Amendment right to appeal against the conditions of their incarceration.
James Lewis QC The ECHR found that the US prison authorities took cognisance of a prisoner’s mental state in relation to SAM measures
Eric Lewis Things have also moved on there since 2012. He referenced details from his written evidence.
James Lewis QC The ECHR also found that “the isolation experienced by ADX inmates is partial and relative. The court notes that their psychiatric conditions have not prevented their high security detention in the United Kingdom.” Do you accept that in 2012 the ECHR made a thorough finding?
Eric Lewis Yes, on the basis of what they knew in 2012, but much more information is now available. And there are specific reasons to doubt Mr William Barr’s impartiality.
James Lewis QC You say that Mr Assange will not receive adequate healthcare in a US prison. Are you a medical expert?
Eric Lewis No
James Lewis QC Do you hold any medical qualification?
Eric Lewis No
James Lewis QC What published statement gives the policy of the Bureau of Prisons on Mental Health?
Eric Lewis I was relying on the published statement of the US Inspector of Prisons and the study by Yale Law School of mental health in US prisons. The US Bureau of Prisons states that 48% of prisoners have serious mental health problems but only 3% receive any treatment. The provision for mental healthcare in jails has been cut every year for a decade. Suicides in jail are increasing by 18% a year.
James Lewis QC Have you read “The Treatment and Care of Prisoners with Mental Illness” by the US Department of Health?
Eric Lewis Yes.
James Lewis QC You purport to be an expert. Without looking it up what year was it published? You don’t know, do you?
Eric Lewis Could you be courteous. I have been courteous to you. Can you refer me to a relevant question?
James Lewis QC The policy has had eight changes since 2014. Can you list them?
Eric Lewis I am trying to testify on my experience and my knowledge in dealing with these questions on behalf of the may clients I have represented. If you are asking me am I a prison psychiatrist, I am not.
James Lewis QC Do you know the specific changes made since 2014 or not?
Eric Lewis I know that there were new regulations stipulating 1 mental health professional for every 500 inmates and guidelines for an increase in accessility, but I also know those have not in fact been implemented due to lack of resources.
James Lewis QC (smirking) How many levels of psychiatric assessment are there? What is level number three? What are you reading? You are reading! What are you reading! What are you reading! [Yes, this is not a mistake. He did pull this stunt again]
Eric Lewis I am looking at my own witness statement (shows it to camera).
James Lewis QC You are not a genuine expert witness you have no expertise in these matters. As you are being paid to give evidence and are not an expert, that is something the court will have to take account in deciding what weight, if any at all, to give to your evidence.

Before Eric Lewis could respond, the video link broke down, rather bizarrely broadcasting a news item about Donald Trump attacking Julian Assange. It could not be restored all day, so that was the end of proceedings, for which my note taking hand was not ungrateful. The link could be restored in the adjacent courtroom, which indicates the problem was very local. he judge considered changing courts but it was considered too difficult to move everyone and the great mounds of files and equipment. This hearing has frequently been interrupted by the strange incompetence of the Ministry of Justice in establishing simple videolinks.

James Lewis QC’s conduct was very strange. It really is not normal courtroom behaviour. Were there a jury, they would completely have written him off now as rude and obnoxious, and even Baraitser finally seems to have found her limit of being pushed around by the prosecution. Ivan Lewis is obviously a very distinguished man and a lawyer with immense experience of the US system. Trying to claim he has no expertise because he is not a psychiatrist or an academic in penology is no more than a shoddy trick, performed in a manner designed to humiliate.

The asking for the precise title of one particular Department of Health Pamphlet or for a specific point in it, as though that were a way of invalidating all that Eric Lewis knows, is so transparently invalid as a test of worth that I am astonished Baraitser let James Lewis pursue it, let alone the histrionic accusations about “reading”. This was really hard to sit through silently for me; goodness knows what it was like for Julian.

The mainstream media are turning a blind eye. There were three reporters in the press gallery, one of them an intern and one representing the NUJ. Public access continues to be restricted and major NGOs, including Amnesty, PEN and Reporters Without Borders, continue to be excluded both physically and from watching online. It has taken me literally all night to write this up – it is now 8.54am – and I have to finish off and get back into court. The six of us allowed in the public gallery, incidentally, have to climb 132 steps to get there, several times a day. As you know, I have a very dodgy ticker; I am with Julian’s dad John who is 78; and another of us has a pacemaker.

I do not in the least discount the gallant efforts of others when I explain that I feel obliged to write this up, and in this detail, because otherwise the vital basic facts of the most important trial this century, and how it is being conducted, would pass almost completely unknown to the public. If it were a genuine process, they would want people to see it, not completely minimise attendance both physically and online.

Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation.

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The post Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing Day 9 appeared first on Craig Murray.



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The Green New Deal IS the Great Reset

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No sooner was the curve flattened and a Warp Speed vaccine appeared on the horizon than all the Globalists started conflating the coronavirus with climate change, like WHO Director, Tedros Adhanom, who said, “The Covid-19 pandemic has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change.”

Yesterday, Joe Biden’s staff tweeted, “Climate change is the existential challenge that will define our future as a country. Tune in as I discuss the wildfires up and down the West Coast…”

During that broadcast, Biden sought to recover the suburban voters he’s lost with his Suburbia-killing AFFH regulation, with threats. “If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires? How many suburban neighborhoods will have been flooded out? How many suburbs will have been blown away?”

California Governor Newsom, seen in this video looked like the latest iteration of The Joker in a Batman movie, grimacing and chortling like a drug-crazed maniac through the haze as he said, “The debate is over around climate change. Just come to the State of California. Observe it with your own eyes. It’s not an intellectual debate. It’s not even debatable.”

Washington State Governor, Jay Inslee performed the most extreme gaslighting ever during a televised address, deploying neurolinguistic programming as he repeated the term, “climate fire” over and over, telling his constituents, “if you’re suffering from a climate fire,” to seek help from a mental health professional!

The Portland FBI stood in solidarity with the mainstream media, giving cover to the Communist insurgency in progress and supporting this false Democrat/Globalist narrative by repeatedly denying that extremists were involved in setting the fires raging on the West Coast. This, despite over a dozen arson arrests in the state of Oregon, alone. One has to comb through Twitter and QAnon posts to find the latter because these arrests are not being reported in the Mainstream Media.

The numerous denials of arson by Portland FBI caused former National Security Council staffer, Rich Higgins to tweet, “They aren’t on your side…Their underground has penetrated deep into our institutions. Act accordingly.”

In 2017, Higgins was removed from the NSC by HR McMaster, after warning of a Deep State coup to remove the President – a warning which proved to be accurate.

To the Globalists, EVERYTHING is about climate change because they need to impose the Green New Deal worldwide in order to usher in a new reserve currency and energy paradigm to replace the inflated petrodollar.

As Robert David Steele recently said, “COVID-19 [is] a fake pandemic closely tied to a global economic meltdown necessary to cover over $300 trillion in naked short selling positions.”

In other words, the Green New Deal IS the Great Reset.

 

Alexandra Bruce

Contributed by Alexandra Bruce

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Black Lives Matter and the nuclear family

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If Black Lives Matter were actually about protecting and enriching black lives, then it would be a praiseworthy organization — but it’s not. BLM’s stated goals have little to do with black lives and more to do with social revolution. One of the movement’s founders, Patrisse Cullors, once described BLM’s members as “trained Marxists.”

This article was originally published by MindingTheCampus and is reprinted here with permission.

Indeed, they are. Consider this goal as stated in Black Lives Matters’ foundational document: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement.” Marx and Engels had no qualms about similar aspirations in The Communist Manifesto: “Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists… The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.”

This is wrong and amounts to little more than an ideological supposition. The nuclear family is not a “Western-prescribed requirement”, or no more than a “bourgeois institution”. Anthropologists have long documented a wide array of kinship and social patterns of organization: matrilineal clans, patrilineal clans, moieties, phratries, milk relations, fictive kinship, etc. But, underneath that immense variety, the nuclear family is a universal institution. In the 1940s, George Peter Murdock completed a comprehensive comparative study of societies around the world and came to a not so uncertain conclusion:

The nuclear family is a universal human social grouping. Either as the sole prevailing form of the family or as the basic unit from which more complex familial forms are compounded, it exists as a distinct and strongly functional group in every known society.

Predictably, any deviation from the nuclear family is likely to become highly dysfunctional.

The universality of the nuclear family strongly indicates that it is humanity’s natural inclination. But Marxists often think otherwise. In 1884, after Marx’s death, Engels wrote The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. In that book, he posits that the nuclear family is not natural; that in our species’ primordium, there were promiscuous hordes practising sexual communism. This theory reflects Victorian phantasies about the past, and it soon collapsed under the weight of further anthropological evidence.

Yet, the theory made a comeback in 2010, with Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá’s Sex at DawnThe authors argue, mostly on the basis of bonobo behavior, that monogamy and the nuclear family are unnatural to the human species and have doomed it to failure. The only way to live happier lives, so the authors claim, is to embrace a “free love” ethos and raise children communally.

Apart from the ethnographic evidence that suggests the nuclear family is universal, evolutionary theory provides additional reasons as to why monogamy and the nuclear family are natural to our species. Jealousy, a result of parental uncertainty, is powerfully built in males. Since males can never be sure that the offspring they are raising actually carry their genes, they become possessive of females in order to prevent other opportunistic males from sharing their mate, competitors who would otherwise divulge their genes without having to provide scarce resources. For that very reason, polyandry (a mating system in which a woman mates with various men) is rare among humans, and when it does happen, it is usually in the adelphic variety (ie, a group of brothers share a wife).

Polygyny (a mating system in which a man mates with various women) is more common, but it poses problems of its own. Human infants require huge parental investment — pair-bonding makes this possible. If a male has a harem, he usually neglects the care of children and does not concentrate his parental efforts enough. That is why, as a general rule, those species that require greater parental effort tend to be monogamous. In that regard, humans are more similar to birds than to bonobos. Bonobos do engage in the type of promiscuous lifestyle that Ryan and Jethá are so fond of. But this comes at a price: since bonobo males lose any parental certainty in their promiscuous mating system, they do not invest in raising their offspring, as they do not know if such offspring carry their genes. Admittedly, humans are not strict adherents to monogamy or the nuclear family and occasional escapades are frequent. Yet, by and large, monogamy and the nuclear family are the norm as a natural feature of our species, not as a result of bourgeois institutions.

Marx and Engels were by no means the first philosophers to rebel against monogamy and the nuclear family. There is a long history of utopian thought that aspires to some sort of communal life, and in such utopias, the institution of the nuclear family is frowned upon. Most of these utopian projects have been disastrous.

In The Republic, Plato proposed to have a “community of women,” in which no man would have a particular wife and children would be raised communally. Plato’s project never came to be, but Aristotle already knew this would be folly: in Aristotle’s view, that which belongs to everyone really belongs to no one, and is therefore neglected.

In the 19th century, some Christian utopians were also enthusiastic about such projects. The Oneida Community came to practice “complex marriage”, in which members of the community were discouraged from pair-bonding and children were raised communally. Unsurprisingly, all sorts of problems arose (jealousy, sexual abuse, neglect of children), and the community collapsed by 1878.

Even the seemingly successful experiment of the kibbutz movement in Israel has its share of problems. As anthropologist Melford Spirodocuments in a longitudinal study of kibbutzim, members of these communities were unsatisfied with the sort of communal organization that was prevalent and often demanded a return to typical (ie, nuclear family) social structures.

With these antecedents, it is unlikely that Black Lives Matters’ aspiration to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement” and its utopian desire to support “each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children”, will lead to any good outcome.

When Daniel Patrick Moynihan issued his famous report on the lack of coherent organization in the African American family in 1965, it was met with suspicion. The number of broken African American homes was difficult to deny, but critics asserted that the African American family organization was unfairly compared to a “white” family model that is culturally arbitrary and not the most desirable. Yet, the test of time has proven Moynihan correct. The absence of a paternal guardian (regardless of race) is predictive of lower academic achievement and a higher incarceration rate.

If Black Lives Matter is to gain serious intellectual credibility, it must refocus its priorities. The struggle against racism is a noble ideal. But the appeal to utopian tropes that rely on faulty anthropological premises hamstrings BLM’s cause. To save and enrich black lives, Black Lives Matter must recognize the overwhelming contemporary evidence which proves that deviations from the nuclear family are detrimental to children — not revel in the pride of being “trained Marxists”.

The post Black Lives Matter and the nuclear family appeared first on MercatorNet.



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Monday, September 14, 2020

Resurfaced video appears to show Biden using teleprompter for 'live' TV interview

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Interviewers have been incredibly indulgent with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden when he gives interviews from the basement of his home, particularly on one account: He seems to be reading his answers off of a teleprompter.

And they have to be noticing. Anderson Cooper is a veteran newsman who's reported from war zones and interviewed every political figure under the sun. Surely he knew enough to notice, during a segment with Biden last month, that the candidate was looking down and to the left when he gave answers.

In another interview with a Miami TV station, Biden accidentally read the title on his teleprompter talking points, leading to the phrase "Venezuela top line messages" going viral on conservative Twitter. Last week, when he was asked a question, the camera cut to Biden before he was ready and he was forced to tell his staff to "move it up here."

Biden's campaign has been cagey about whether he uses a teleprompter during interviews and Q&A periods.

When asked by Fox News' Bret Baier whether his boss uses canned text when he's supposed to be spontaneous, Biden spokesman T.J. Ducklo didn't answer, saying that "this is straight from the Trump campaign’s talking points" and that "it’s trying to distract the American people."

By not giving a concrete answer, Ducklo said, he wasn't going to "allow the Trump campaign to funnel their questions through Fox News."

Whenever a campaign functionary evades a question with that kind of clumsy ineptitude, you can safely assume the worst.

However, if you want confirmation of the fact that Biden's been very literally staying on script, I present this resurfaced clip from Biden's appearance on James Corden's late-night CBS show in April.

The "show and tell" format comes across as a set-up anyway, but check out the reflection about the 1:50 mark when Biden raises a picture of his two sons when they were in college:

You can plainly see that Biden's reading text off of his computer monitor, either canned or being fed to him offscreen. This drew a pretty strong reaction from Twitter:

So here we have Biden caught redhanded using a teleprompter during a tv interview with James Corden. Now we know why his spokesman refused to answer @BretBaier's question about this the other day.

Who wants to bet that the media is going to ignore/cover this up to protect Joe? https://t.co/fUvLQ15RjI

— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) September 12, 2020

If Joe Biden can’t do an interview with James Corden without a teleprompter how do you think he will handle Mexico, China, Russia, and all our other adversaries?

— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) September 13, 2020

I don’t want to hear another damn word from Stelter, Tapper, Rucker et al. about the critical role they play as guardians of our democracy. They need to start asking Biden some legit questions or they need to sit down & shut their mouths. https://t.co/fcJGQU7TWD

— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) September 12, 2020

And there were even those who thought the interview itself was staged:

Yes, this "Interview" was scripted. Note different colors for teleprompter text. They are two sides to the "conversation". I've worked with TV teleprompters before. This is what they are.

This was staged. It's all a show.

Why does Biden need a script? pic.twitter.com/zEwyR5E94u

— Eye of Orwell (@OrwellOf) September 12, 2020

It's not just the fact he's reading off of a teleprompter, which would be problematic enough in any normal context. This is on freaking James Corden's show, for heaven's sake.

When a prominent Democrat makes an appearance on "The Late Late Show with James Corden," it's basically the interview equivalent of making a three-foot putt.

The fact Biden's handlers believe he isn't even capable of dealing with that should set off klaxons of warning to anyone who thinks they're dealing with a man who's not quite ready for the powers of the Oval Office.

Of course, this isn't a surprise to anybody. When Biden doesn't have a teleprompter, his interviews seem to turn disastrous.

Several of his basement appearances have been rambling messes, which one assumes are the ones where the teleprompter broke or Uncle Joe couldn't read the script.

My personal "favorite," so to speak, is this response from "The View" in March:

"Are you at all concerned, as President Trump said, we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself?"

"We have to take care of the cure that will make the problem worse no matter what"

Um, what? pic.twitter.com/VylTvzO3Tw

— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) March 24, 2020

That's hysterical stuff until you realize that could be the resident of the White House -- one who could get obstreperous if asked to outsource decisions to his staff and their scripts as he so often has during this unusual campaign.

The bar is going to be set low for Biden during the presidential debates, but if the Democratic standard-bearer can't even get through James Corden without a teleprompter, it's hard to imagine him clearing even that.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Resurfaced video appears to show Biden using teleprompter for 'live' TV interview appeared first on WND.



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PA Governor's COVID-19 Restrictions Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Judge

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PA Governor's COVID-19 Restrictions Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Judge Tyler Durden Mon, 09/14/2020 - 18:20

Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf's pandemic restrictions - including a requirement that "non-life-sustaining" businesses were to shut down - has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

US District Judge William Stickman IV, a Trump appointee, ruled on Monday in a 66-page opinion that the restrictions were overreaching, arbitrary, and violated citizens' constitutional rights. Plaintiffs in the case include hair salons, a farmer's market vendor, a horse trainer drive-in movie theaters, and several GOP lawmakers, according to 6ABC.

The ruling means that the current restrictions - including limitations on the size of all gatherings, cannot be enforced.

"It's really 100% in our favor. The court found in all respects that the orders issued by the governor and the secretary of health were unconstitutional. What it means is they can't do it again, and they should not have done it in the past," said attorney Thomas W. King III, who represents the plaintiffs. "It’s a complete and total victory for the counties, the businesses and the representatives," he added.

Wolf said in a statement that his office would seek an immediate stay to halt the order while they file an appeal.

"The actions taken by the administration were mirrored by governors across the country and saved, and continue to save, lives in the absence of federal action," said Lyndsay Kensinger, a spokesman for the governor, adding "This decision is especially worrying as Pennsylvania and the rest of the country are likely to face a challenging time with the possible resurgence of covid-19 and the flu in the fall and winter."

Kensinger noted that Monday's order does not apply to the mandatory mask order or the mandatory work-from-home order according to  triblive.com.

After reviewing the record, Stickman said that he “believes that defendants undertook their actions in a well-intentioned effort to protect Pennsylvanians from the virus. However, good intentions toward a laudable end are not alone enough to uphold governmental action against a constitutional challenge. Indeed, the greatest threats to our system of constitutional liberties may arise when the ends are laudable, and the intent is good — especially in a time of emergency.”

Stickman, who was appointed to the bench in 2019, said that “even a vigilant public may let down its guard over its constitutional liberties only to find that liberties, once relinquished, are hard to recoup and that restrictions — while expedient in the face of an emergency situation — may persist long after immediate danger has passed.” -triblive.com

"You can’t just shut down American society," said King, the plaintiffs' attorney.



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Sunday, September 13, 2020

Not recommended: flying a jetpack near Los Angeles Airport

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But that’s just what somebody did last Sunday afternoon, in the sky over Cudahy, California, a one-square-mile town about eighteen miles (29 km) east of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Two pilots spotted the person at an altitude of about 3000 feet (914 meters).

Flight controllers were inclined to doubt the credibility of the American Airlines pilot who first saw the flyer, but then it was confirmed by a Southwest pilot a few minutes later. One plane came within an estimated 300 yards (90 meters) of the still-unidentified jetpack pilot, whom the FBI is still looking for. I don’t know how many FAA regulations one violates by flying a jetpack into the LAX runway approach, but all it takes is one to get you in serious hot water.

This incident could have turned out much worse, as a man and a jetpack getting sucked into an intake cowling or hitting a wing could seriously cripple a jetliner, not to mention putting a premature end to the jetpack pilot’s career. And this is why justice, in the form of the FBI, is seeking him out.

About a week before the LAX incident, a couple of residents in the LA area spotted something that looked like a flying person in the sky and even got some brief cellphone videos, although the jetpack-flyer was too far away to see details. So assuming it was a man (and I don’t think most women will be offended if I assume testosterone was at least partly responsible for this situation), it looks like the guy took some test flights before doing the really foolish thing of hanging out in controlled airspace long enough for a couple of airline pilots to get a good look at him.

Let’s speculate a little and imagine profiling this person. While control systems have improved since the very early days of jetpacks in the 1960s, to the point that you can find one or two companies that sell jetpacks commercially nowadays, it’s still not something that the average citizen can just strap on his back and fly. So our suspect has to have had some kind of flight training, though it might not have been anything too out of the ordinary — he might be a general-aviation pilot, for example, or a helicopter pilot. Or he could just be somebody who’s really good at a flight-simulator video game.

Next, there’s the resources you need to get a jetpack and fuel it up. The information I could find on jetpacks indicates that the fuel used was probably high-purity hydrogen peroxide, around 85% to 90% pure.

German scientists came to the same conclusion about the fuel when they designed the first rocket-propelled interceptor plane during World War II, the Messerschmitt Bf 109. It used high-purity hydrogen peroxide too, which has got to be one of the nastiest substances to handle that there is. It wants to let go of its oxygen really bad, to the point that if it comes in contact with any organic substance — dirt, cloth, hair, skin — it catches fire. Reportedly, more people died during the testing and training phase of the Me-109 deployment than were killed in combat, and I’m sure the hydrogen peroxide was a big factor in that.

So our California jetpack enthusiast, tiring of his enforced idleness during COVID-19 days, orders a $200,000 jetpack and either manages to lie his way into a delivery of high-purity hydrogen peroxide, or gets the fuel some other way. Now there are lots of aerospace companies in the LA area, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the fuel or the jetpack or both were obtained via good-old-boy connections. But the pilot would have to be a good old boy himself, and so engaged in some sort of high-tech network that investigators shouldn’t have too much trouble identifying, assuming his friends are willing to talk.

Barring that, I’m sure UPS or whoever delivered these things kept records, because offhand I wouldn’t have the first idea how to ship such dangerous stuff without all sorts of special permits and so on, which would make it easy to trace.

The most mysterious part of this incident remains the motivation. If it was just personal curiosity, going somewhere way out in the desert by oneself would seem to be the best place to practice jetpack flying, not directly over one of the most densely-populated municipalities in the United States. Leaving all questions of personal safety aside, having a misguided jetpack fly in through your kitchen window would not be an easy thing to handle in case something went wrong, and so the choice of location seems singularly poor.

It doesn’t seem like Cudahy itself, which is comprised mostly of lower-income apartments, is exactly a likely hotbed of cutting-edge aerospace technology expertise, although in California, you never know. One thing we can be sure of is that the pilot didn’t travel very far from where he took off, because the flight times of even the longest-flight jetpacks are measured in minutes. Here it will be helpful to figure out where else he was sighted in his practice flights, which by necessity would be close to home. On your first flight in your brand-new jetpack, I don’t think you’re going to fly out of your backyard and intentionally land at the door of the neighbourhood QuikSak to pick up some beer.

But if the pilot could choose where to fly, why the LAX landing pattern, unless he was wanting to make some kind of statement? Anybody smart enough to fly a jetpack would be smart enough to know what restricted airspace is, and so it was a deliberate attempt to cause consternation, at the least.

Well, sometimes people do stupid things just for the heck of it, and that may be the case here. With all the clues we’ve enumerated, it does seem like it will just be a matter of time before the FBI identifies the pilot and comes calling, if he can be found. On the other hand, he may have wised up once the publicity appeared about his little stunt, and taken a long vacation in the Bahamas. Anybody who can afford a $200,000 jetpack can probably afford a vacation in the Bahamas too.

Karl D. Stephan is a professor of electrical engineering at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. This article has been republished, with permission, from his blog, Engineering Ethics, which is a MercatorNet partner site. His ebook Ethical and Otherwise: Engineering In the Headlines is available in Kindle format and also in the iTunes store. 

The post Not recommended: flying a jetpack near Los Angeles Airport appeared first on MercatorNet.



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COVID-911: From Homeland Security to Biosecurity

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About a month ago, YouTube stopped notifying me of when my subscriptions post new videos, so I’m kind of flying blind. I would have posted James Corbett’s latest tour-de-force sooner, had I been notified.

Here are some highlights from the transcript, which can be read in full here.

Those paying attention will have already noted the parallels between the “War on Terror” declared after 9/11 and the “War on the Invisible Enemy” that has been declared on COVID-19

That so many of the people who were there at the birth of the war on terror are currently acting as midwives to the biosecurity state should come as no surprise. After all, the biosecurity paradigm is not a replacement for the terror paradigm; it is its fulfillment

…we find insight on this turn of events from [Italian philosopher] Giorgio Agamben, who has noted that viral epidemics are

“above all a political concept, which is preparing to become the new terrain of world politics—or non-politics. It is possible, however, that the epidemic that we are living through will be the actualization of the global civil war that, according to the most attentive political theorists, has taken the place of traditional world wars. All nations and all peoples are now in an enduring war with themselves, because the invisible and elusive enemy with which they are struggling is within us.”

Governments are banning gatherings and events. Instituting new screening procedures. Quarantining healthy, functioning people against their will. Tracking and surveilling every individual. Controlling their movements. Monitoring their transactions. Make no mistake: the “War on Terror” is not over. It has just greatly expanded.

The proponents of 9/11 truth have warned for 19 years that the “War on Terror” was always a war on the public. Long pushed to the margins of the political debate, that viewpoint has been vindicated as the “terrorist” label is replaced by the “asymptomatic carrier” label and all the machinery of the police state is wielded against everyone who opposes the biosecurity takeover.

Given that those once derided as “conspiracy theorists” have turned out to be the most prescient political observers of all, perhaps it is time to learn the real lessons from 9/11 that mainstream discourse has always excluded:

  • That 9/11 and the “War on Terror” was not a war at all, but a power grab;
  • That the “temporary” measures brought in to deal with an alleged “emergency” will never be relinquished;
  • And, most importantly, that unless everyone who cares about this—the most blatant power grab in history—rises up, refuses to cower in fear of the invisible enemy, and reclaims their inalienable rights to freedom of movement, freedom of association and freedom of assembly, then those freedoms will be gone for good.

This is the message of 9/11 truth: that the world was tricked into giving up their rights in the name of an endless parade of bogeymen. In reality, it was the very politicians and officials claiming to protect us from these bogeymen—the ones donning the mantle of “homeland security”—who were the greatest threat to the public. And now they are claiming we are the bogeymen, “asymptomatic carriers” of an invisible enemy,” walking and talking weapons of mass destruction who must be caged in fear forever lest the virus kills us all.

This is a lie, and it exposes what the fearmongers are themselves afraid of: free humanity. Gathering. Talking. Working. Playing. Living.

It is no small irony that this year’s 9/11 memorials have been disrupted by the COVID scare. The torch has well and truly passed, and the annual injunctions to “Never Forget” have been replaced by a litany of “Always Remembers.” Remember to wear your mask. Remember to stay 6 feet apart. Remember to avoid large groups. Remember to stay home.

After 19 years, perhaps it is time to admit that 9/11 truth failed to expose the “War on Terror” lie in time to derail the homeland security agenda. But we are entering a new era, and we have a new chance to wake from this nightmare.

Knowing this, the only question is: Will we reject the “War on the Invisible Enemy” before it’s too late?

Whatever our choice, we better make it quickly. A Great Reset is coming.

Alexandra Bruce

Contributed by Alexandra Bruce

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Tucker Carlson Questions DOJ Aggression Toward Julian Assange….



Nancy Pelosi previously labeled all Trump supporters as “enemies of the state.”  Similarly we note the apparatus of the administrative state labels Julian Assange the same.  There’s a good argument that the reason why Assange is considered such a threat to the U.S.

ORIGINAL LINK

Declaring Elections Illegitimate - By Rejecting To Send Observers

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International election observer missions are supposed to watch that the individual legal voting rules of a country are followed. They are expected to report any irregularities they detect. Unfortunately there are now attempts to pervert their purpose. The active withholding...

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Author Of Dystopian Classics Predicted 'Use Of Face Masks To Enforce Conformity' 70 Years Ago

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Author Of Dystopian Classics Predicted 'Use Of Face Masks To Enforce Conformity' 70 Years Ago Tyler Durden Sun, 09/13/2020 - 08:10

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Respected German author Ernst Jünger predicted the ubiquitousness of face masks to enforce conformity and uniformity in a dystopian future society in a novel called The Worker that was published nearly 90 years ago.

With face masks now becoming a mandatory part of the “new normal,” the enforcement measures to make people wear them, by both agents of the state and members of the general public, are becoming more dehumanizing and draconian.

This is precisely the scenario envisaged by enigmatic German author Ernst Jünger in his 1932 classic.

As Thomas Crew details in his article The Dystopian Age of the Mask, the “eradication of all individuality” is a running theme of all dystopian literature.

This is expressed by George Orwell in 1984 when he describes the masses as, “a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans…three hundred million people all with the same face.”

Crew explains that this theme is dominant in Jünger’s The Worker, where, “The uniformity of the new age is symbolized…by the sudden proliferation of the mask in contemporary society.”

“It is no coincidence,” he writes, “that the mask is again beginning to play a decisive role in public life. It is appearing in many different ways … be it as a gas mask, with which they are trying to equip entire populations; be it as a face mask for sport and high speeds, seen on every racing driver; be it as a safety mask for workplaces exposed to radiation, explosions, or narcotic substances. We can assume”, he continues, with an eerie prescience, “that the mask will come to take on functions that we can today hardly imagine.”

Crew explains how the public has been brainwashed to believe that the continuation of life, no matter how stifled, atomized and undignified it may be, is the only consideration.

“Given the sudden ubiquity of the face mask in 2020, across the entire globe and in an increasing number of social contexts, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that this is precisely the sort of development Jünger had in mind. Our readiness to obscure the face reflects the dehumanising tendencies that, for Jünger, underlie the modern period. It represents another stage in the degradation of the individual that became explicit in the First World War. Whether as a scrap of material on the battlefield or a cog in the machine of the wartime economy, the modern age has a habit of reducing the human being to a functional object. Everything “non-essential” – everything, that is, that makes us human – is blithely discarded.”

As we document in the video below, the level of compliance that governments and the media have been able to indoctrinate people to embrace means there is little need for police officers and security officials to enforce mask wearing.

A cowed public, whipped up into a frenzied lust for obedience, will do it for them.

*  *  *

In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Also, I urgently need your financial support here.



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