The Most Revolutionary Act

Uncensored updates on world events, economics, the environment and medicine

The Most Revolutionary Act
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About stuartbramhall

Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.

Biggest Bank Failure Since 2008 as Regulators SHUT DOWN Silicon Valley Bank

 

The Blogging Hounds

Financial regulators have closed Silicon Valley Bank and taken control of its deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Friday, in what is the largest U.S. bank failure since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.

The collapse of SVB, a key player in the tech and venture capital community, leaves companies and wealthy individuals largely unsure of what will happen to their money.

According to press releases from regulators, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation closed SVB and named the FDIC as the receiver. The FDIC in turn has created the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara, which now holds the insured deposits from SVB.

The FDIC said in the announcement that insured depositors will have access to their deposits no later than Monday morning. SVB’s branch offices will also reopen at that time, under the control of the regulator.

This story is an UPDATE to a story I published about 7:30 this morning showing that bank in particular has seen its share price plunge upwards of 70% overnight, and looked to be in trouble.  That earlier story is HERE

UPDATE —

A Silicon Valley Bank branch in Manhattan today called the cops on tech investors trying to pull their cash out as a run on the bank today forced regulators to seize its assets.

Police were called after ‘about a dozen’ financiers, including former Lyft executive Dor Levi, showed up outside the building on Park Avenue as investors scrambled to get their money out in the biggest collapse since the Great Recession.

The bank failed today as depositors – mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies – began withdrawing their money following a shock announcement of a $1.8bn loss. The bank took a hammering in pre-market with its price plunging by 66 percent before trading was halted.

But with investors only protected up to $250,000, there have already been horror stories. Ashley Tyrner, CEO of Boston wellness firm FarmboxRx, said she had at least $10m deposited with SVB and has been frantically calling her banker. She called it ‘the worst 18 hours of my life.’

With around $209bn in assets, SVB is the second-largest bank failure in US history after the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual. It is the first FDIC-insured bank to fail in more than two years, the last being Almena State Bank in October 2020.

[…]

Via https://theblogginghounds.com/2023/03/10/update-biggest-bank-failure-since-2008-as-regulators-shut-down-silicon-valley-bank/

 

Conquistador Hernando de Soto Destroys Mississippian Civilization

Ucita

 

Episode 13: De Soto Against the Mississippian

Ancient Civilizations of North America

Dr Edwin Barnhart (2018)

Film Review

The most soul wrenching episode so far, in this lecture Barnhart describes the systematic destruction of the Mississippian civilization (consisting of thousands of sizeable cities) by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his men.

Ponce de Leon was the first European to arrive in North America at Melbourne Beach Florida in 1513. He returned in 1521 after being given permission to settle and was immediately attacked by the Colusa people. He returned to Cuba where he died from a poison arrow wound.

Eighteen years later de Soto landed at Ucita near modern day Tampa Bay with seven ships, 600 men, 237 horses and 200 pigs. Driven by rumors of gold and silver mines (comparable to those Spanish explorers discovered in South America), he and his men spent the next five years traversing a wide arc through Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas, finding numerous well-developed cities with spectacular earthen pyramids.

In Barnhart’s words, the expedition was a three year reign of terror led by a murderer, rapist, thief and psychopath. He burned people alive, fed them to his dogs and cut of their limbs. Claiming to be a god, je also enslaved hundreds of people and worked them to death.

 

Cities De Soto conquered:

  • Ucita – finding residents living in wooden plank homes, among tall earthen pyramids, de Soto seizes over the chief’s palace on the tallest pyramid and makes it his headquarters. After spinning tales about gold and silver to be found in the northern kingdom of Apalache (population 100,000), the chief vies him food and slaves to carry his army’s food and equipment.
  • Uzachila (in the Florida panhandle) – Again taking over the great house of the paramount chief, de Soto and his men eat all their corn, enslave many of them as porters and concubines and march them north.
  • Anhaica (currently downtown Tallahassee) – capitol of the kingdom of Apalache. Usurping the modest dwelling of the city’s paramount chief, de Soto and his men come under continual attack by Apalache’s expert bowmen.
  • Talemeco (in present day South Carolina) – a large city with numerous pyramids, where he queen of Cofitachequi province welcomes de Soto, willingly feeds him and gifts him a pearl necklace. After sacking all the city’s graves for pearls, he forces the queen, along with a number of enslaved residents, to accompany him westward over the mountains to persuade the chiefs they encounter to relinquish their corn stores. The queen is eventually rescued by a group of escaped slaves.
  • Kingdom of Coosa (northern Alabama) – De Soto again takes the paramount chief captive, occupying his palace and sitting on his throne.
  • Atahaachi (near Sprott Alabama) – after de Soto captures the paramount chief Tascoloosa, he sends De Soto on a wild goose chase to Mabila (present day Mobile), with fanciful tales of sizeable gold stores. Instead it’s full of armed warriors who attack De Soto’s men from behind fortified palisades and force them to flee the city.
  • Quizquiz (on the Mississippi River near Memphis) – after seizing the residents’ food stores, de Soto and his men are attacked every day for a month by a Mississippian navy consisting of 200 Mississippian warships.

Planning to march to the Pacific Ocean, de Soto is turned back by the Tula, who attack him with long buffalo lances and establishes winter camp on the western bank of the Mississippi.

There the Quigaltam send more warships to attack him, eventually killing de Soto. Hiding his body, his men try to march through Texas to Mexico but the heat forces them back to the Mississippi, where they are fiercely attacked by both the Quigaltam and then the Natchez.On September 10, 1543, roughly 300 of de Soto’s original 640 men arrive in Mexico, where they are rescued by Spanish ships.
When the Spanish return decades later, dozens of cities representing millions of indigenous Mississippians have vanished and the hundreds that survive are struggling to farm among the city ruins.

The city of Apalache would survive another 150 years until the English arrive and wipe them out.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5713021/5712762

JPMorgan must hand over CEO Dimon’s records in Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit

NEW YORK, March 9 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) to hand over more documents concerning Chief Executive Jamie Dimon to the U.S. Virgin Islands for the territory’s lawsuit accusing the bank of aiding in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said the bank must turn over requested documents from 2015 to 2019, a period after JPMorgan had dropped Epstein as a client. Rakoff did not explain his reasoning in his one-sentence order.

JPMorgan declined to comment.

The U.S. Virgin Islands is seeking damages from JPMorgan for allegedly aiding in Epstein’s sex trafficking by keeping him as a client, and missing red flags about his misconduct on Little St. James, a private island he owned.

Epstein had been a JPMorgan client from 2000 to 2013. He killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The U.S. Virgin Islands has called Dimon “a likely source of relevant and unique information” about why JPMorgan kept Epstein on, and discussions on Epstein’s referrals of prominent and wealthy potential clients.

JPMorgan countered by accusing the U.S. Virgin Islands of going on a “fishing expedition” after having obtained a “massive trove” of information in litigation in which the territory recovered more than $105 million from Epstein’s estate.

Lawyers for the U.S. Virgin Islands did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Rakoff scheduled a March 16 conference in the case.

JPMorgan also faces a proposed class action over its ties to Epstein by Jane Doe 1, a former ballet dancer who said Epstein abused and trafficked her from 2006 to 2013.

On Wednesday, the bank filed two lawsuits accusing former private banking chief Jes Staley of “intentional and outrageous conduct” in concealing information about Epstein, with whom he had been friends.

JPMorgan wants Staley to reimburse it for damages it might incur in the other lawsuits, and return eight years of compensation.

Its lawsuits attempt to portray Staley as a “bad apple” solely at fault for the bank’s relationship with Epstein, said Alison Taylor, a corporate governance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

The case is Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands v JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-10904.

[…]

Via https://www.reuters.com/legal/jpmorgan-must-hand-over-ceo-dimons-records-jeffrey-epstein-lawsuit-2023-03-09/

Former NIH Director Emails Reveal British Physicians and Scientists Group Recommended Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19

(Washington, D.C.) Judicial Watch announced today that it received 254 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This included emails of then-Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Francis Collins regarding a British group’s recommendations on the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat COVID-19.

Judicial Watch obtained the records as the result of an August 2021 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for Collins’ emails filed after the HHS failed to respond to a June 8, 2021, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-02302)).

In February 2021, a leading British physician and World Council for Health co-founder Dr. Tess Lawrie, who is director and founder of a doctors’ organization called the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Group (BIRD), emailed 31 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials, including the Director of the Offfice of New Drugs in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Peter Stein; Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Peter Marks; and then-Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock; and copying several leading foreign medical figures, with an email titled “URGENT: The BIRD meeting and recommendation on covid-19 prevention and treatment.” She attached a document titled “Draft BIRD Proceedings 25-02-2021 v.1.4.pdf.”

While the document attached to the email is completely redacted, Lawrie’s cover letter states: “BIRD panel conclusions are that Ivermectin should be approved immediately for prevention and treatment of covid-19:”

The British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Panel recommends ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of covid-19 to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with covid-19 infection and to prevent covid-19 infection among those at higher risk. [Emphasis in original]

The BIRD Steering Group has taken heed of the WHO statement on ‘Developing global norms for sharing data and results during public health emergencies’ that states that ‘public disclosure of information of relevance to public health emergencies should not be delayed’, and also notes the ‘very great risks’ that can occur from ‘withholding data and results arising from analyses’. We are, therefore, sharing this evidence-to decision framework within just a few days of the BIRD meeting to avoid delay.

Further, due to the urgency related to the communication and dissemination of this recommendation that is aimed at saving thousands of lives daily, please forgive the limitations of the draft proceedings document attached. Information on the process and methods can be found among the annexes. An Executive Summary is being finalised and will be available on Monday.

Later that day, Woodcock forwards Lawrie’s email and attachment to then-NIH Director Francis Collins, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, Operation Warp Speed director David Kessler and several other HHS officials, with a comment that is entirely redacted.

“Rather than educate the public about the supposed reasons for their rejection of the Ivermectin-use recommendation, the FDA, NIH, and Fauci’s former agency have blacked out their responses in these documents,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

[…]

Via https://www.judicialwatch.org/ivermectin-for-treatment-of-covid/

9 Leading Experts: 5G Can Lead to Brain Damage and Possibly Alzheimer’s

By  Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Research on 5G radiofrequency (RF) radiation shows it can cause brain damage and possibly lead to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to nine independent experts in the RF radiation field who published a new peer-reviewed article.

Research on 5G radiofrequency (RF) radiation shows it can cause brain damage and possibly lead to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to nine independent experts in the RF radiation field.

In a peer-reviewed article published last week in the Annals of Clinical and Medical

Case Reports, the experts called on authorities to heed the voices of the RF scientific community by establishing a “more stringent regulatory framework” on RF radiation and by halting the rollout of 5G technologies — including smart meters and 5G cell towers — until a team of “qualified scientists independent of industry” review the risks of the technology.

“The situation is absurd,” said Mona Nilsson, managing director of the Swedish Radiation Protection Foundation and lead author of the article.

Although the first two studies ever published on 5G’s effects on humans and animals reported serious adverse health effects, government authorities and telecom companies continue to put 5G cell towers and smart meters on and around people’s homes, Nilsson told The Defender.

Dr. Lennart Hardell, a leading scientist on cancer risks from radiation and co-author of the article, told the Defender, “I think it is time to have an ethical discussion.”

“What kind of society should we have?” asked Hardell, an oncologist and epidemiologist with the Environment and Cancer Research Foundation who has authored more than 100 papers on non-ionizing radiation.

“Is it possible for the government to expose people to hazardous pollution in their own homes and you can’t escape?” he asked.

From an ethical point of view, that’s a very problematic societal situation, Hardell said.

So much research and ‘still nothing happens’

Hardell, Nilsson and their co-authors are leaders of independent organizations in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland that focus on RF radiation.

They said the first study on 5G’s effects showed people experienced a plethora of symptoms — including severe sleep disturbances, dizziness, skin complaints, concentration problems, tinnitus, impaired short-term memory, confusion, fatigue, tendency toward depression, heart and lung symptoms and heart palpitations — days after a 5G cell tower was installed above their apartments.

The second 5G study showed rats exposed to 5G had an increased incidence of damage to neurons and increased oxidative stress in the brain.

These effects could eventually lead to degenerative brain diseases, such as dementia, Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases, the authors said.

Nilsson said there are many earlier studies showing detrimental effects from RF radiation on the brain and nervous system.

According to a compilation by Henry Lai, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of bioengineering at the University of Washington, 244 studies between 2007 and 2022 showed negative neurological effects from RF radiation, Nilsson said.

“We have so much research and we have so many scientists that are raising their voices louder and louder — and still nothing happens because those institutions that have influenced the authorities … are captured by the industry,” Nilsson said.

Hardell and Rainer Nyberg, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of education and welfare studies at Åbo Akademi University in Finland and a co-author on the article, launched in 2017 the 5G Appeal, which asks policymakers to halt 5G deployment due to the risk of serious human health consequences until the risks have been investigated by scientists with no ties to industry.

As of Jan. 10, 430 medical doctors and scientists from around the world have signed the 5G Appeal.

Despite the accumulating scientific evidence of harmful effects, authorities “continue to ignore the increasing evidence of clear risks,” the authors said in their article.

Regulatory authorities claim current guidelines are sufficient to protect people from harm. But they rely on a “limited group of experts” — who are not representative of the scientific community at large — to support their position, according to the authors.

Moreover, the majority of these experts have “ties to the telecom companies,” the authors said.

What’s needed to fix the problem?

The authors said a new committee comprised of qualified scientists independent of the industry is urgently needed for a sound scientific evaluation of 5G.

Until then, “the 5G rollout must stop,” they said.

5G Rollout a ‘violation of human rights’

Given that 5G RF radiation levels are well above levels known to be harmful to human life and wildlife, the author considered it “a violation of human rights to impose this harmful radiation on people in their own homes without their informed consent.”

“This is a clear violation of human rights [that is] a consequence of the corruption of the science and the experts who have the role … of evaluating the science,” Nilsson said.

Hardell said he was pessimistic that regulatory authorities would heed the advice he and his co-authors offer in their latest article.

“The industry and the politicians … have decided, ‘No problem, so let’s go on,’” he said.

Nonetheless, Hardell said the article — and the 5G Appeal — are important historical documents showing that scientists warned about the health effects of 5G.

Plus, he said, it’s important that scientists continue writing on the topic — because how can they do otherwise, as ethical human beings?

The case reports published by Hardell and Nilsson on 5G’s effects showed that people had to leave their homes to get relief from their symptoms, Hardell emphasized.

“Do we really have an environmental pollutant that’s so strong or hazardous that people have to leave their own homes? I mean, how can we tolerate that?” he asked.

Hardell said he was especially concerned about those who are poor.

The individuals featured in the case reports had the means to relocate for the sake of their health, but most people don’t have the economic resources to do that, he said.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/radiofrequency-radiation-brain-damage-dementia-alzheimers/

Former CDC Director: ‘No Doubt’ Fauci Funded Gain-of-Function Research That Likely Led to Pandemic

By  Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Wednesday said he has “no doubt” the National Institutes of Health and Dr. Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function research that likely resulted in the creation of COVID-19 and its subsequent leak.

Redfield made the statement during the first formal hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The hearing included testimony related to the lab leak theory as a plausible explanation as the origin of COVID-19 and how the theory was shut down early in the pandemic in favor of narratives that COVID-19 had zoogenic — or natural — origins.

Committee members and witnesses also debated the future of gain-of-function research.

Other witnesses Wednesday included: Jamie Metzl, Ph.D., J.D., senior fellow at the Atlantic Council; Nicholas Wade, former New York Times science editor and former deputy editor of Nature; and Paul G. Auwaerter, M.D., MBA, clinical director in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

The hearing followed the subcommittee’s release of a memo revealing that key NIH figures, including Fauci, helped persuade virologists to write an influential article squelching the theory that COVID-19 may have leaked from a lab and asserting the virus evolved naturally.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) last month determined SARS CoV-2 most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China — a theory later endorsed by FBI Director Christopher Wray. These developments helped lead to a Senate vote to declassify U.S. intelligence documents on the origins of COVID-19.

Redfield also told the committee, “There’s no doubt that NIH was funding gain-of-function research,” and that the research also received funding from the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/cdc-robert-redfield-covid-origins/

Secret Surveillance Video Dismantles January 6 Narrative

Infowars host Owen Shroyer charged in Jan. 6 Capitol riot – Boston News ...

By
American Greatness

Clips aired during Tucker Carlson’s show on Monday night demonstrate how the January 6 select committee doctored surveillance video.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired the first set of previously-unseen surveillance video captured by Capitol police security cameras on January 6, 2021 that undermines several aspects of the reigning narrative about what happened that day.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last month gave Carlson’s team “unfettered” access to 41,000 hours of footage the government kept hidden from the American public and individuals charged in the Justice Department’s unprecedented and ongoing investigation into the events of January 6. Capitol Police and the Justice Department designated the recordings as “highly sensitive” material in March 2021; the trove remains under tight protective orders and defendants must agree to strict rules before gaining access to clips entered as evidence against them.

Capitol Police turned over to the FBI roughly 14,000 hours of video covering the hours of noon and 8:00 p.m. on January 6 but the full 24-hour reel has been in the hands of House Democrats for two years—reportedly the footage that Carlson’s team was authorized to view.

Carlson exposed falsehoods that bolster key animating aspects of January 6 including the movements of Jacob Chansley; the activity of still-uncharged agitator Ray Epps; the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick; alleged “reconnaissance tours” conducted by House Republicans the day before; the “escape” of Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.); and the overall deceptiveness of the January 6 Select Committee. “Taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection,” Carlson explained. “In fact, it demolishes that claim. And that’s exactly why the Democratic Party and its allies in the media prevented you from seeing it.”

At least nine police officers escorted Jacob Chansley, the so-called “QAnon shaman” throughout the building that afternoon. Some even opened doors so Chansley could access rooms inside the Capitol. Chansley was recorded inside the Senate chambers where he led a prayer and thanked law enforcement.

American Greatness first reported Chansley’s peaceful interaction with Capitol Police officers in May 2021. Chansely spent more than 300 days in solitary confinement conditions under court-ordered pretrial detention before finally accepting an offer to plead guilty to the nonviolent offense of obstruction of an official proceeding. In announcing his sentence in November 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth described Chansley, a Navy veteran with no criminal record and a history of mental disorders, as the “epitome” of January 6 and insisted his conduct was “horrific.” (Chansley was not charged with a violent crime.) He is currently serving a 41 month prison term.

American Greatness has also covered the lies about what happened to Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, first raising doubts about the account of his death as early as February 2021. The media, Justice Department, leading Democrats, and the January 6 select committee claim Sicknick died as a result of scuffles with protesters that afternoon. But Carslon played a never-before-seen video of Sicknick walking around the inside of the building after the alleged attack where he appears to be healthy. A man from New Jersey, Julian Khater, pleaded guilty to spraying Sicknick with pepper spray after spending 18 months in the D.C. Gulag. He was sentenced to six years in prison.

Infamous provocateur Ray Epps, contrary to his sworn testimony, remained on restricted grounds for at least 30 minutes past the time he told the committee that he had left the scene. “We do know he lied to investigators,” Carlson said. Epps accompanied the group of protestors who first breached the exterior boundary of the Capitol  on the west side before 1:00 p.m. on January 6; the new surveillance video proves he stayed on what is considered a restricted area for nearly two hours.

During one televised hearing, the January 6 Select committee aired a very brief clip of Hawley leaving the Senate chambers, video designed to show Hawley was fearful of the alleged “insurrectionists” after raising his fist in support of the crowd prior to the start of the joint session. Journalists and those in attendance at the July 2022 hearing laughed in response. “That famous clip is a sham, edited deceptively by the January 6 committee,” Carlson said. “The clip was propaganda, not evidence.” Carlson explained the full recording shows numerous lawmakers being “ushered out” of the building by Capitol Police.

And as American Greatness reported in May 2022, accusations about “reconnaissance tours” by House Republicans on January 5, 2021 are also false. “The surveillance video we reviewed showed this story is a lie.”

Additional video also showed protesters walking throughout the building and even picking up items on the floor. While acknowledging a “small percentage were hooligans,” Carlson aired unseen video of individuals respecting police and rope lines. “But the overall majority weren’t. They were peaceful and orderly and meek. They were not insurrectionists, they were sight-seers.”

Via https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/07/secret-surveillance-video-dismantles-january-6-narrative/

The British-American coup that ended Australian independence

Antinuclear

The Guardian, John Pilger, Thu 23 Oct 2014

In 1975 prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has died this week [Oct 2014], dared to try to assert his country’s autonomy. The CIA and MI6 made sure he paid the price.

Across the media and political establishment in Australia, a silence has descended on the memory of the great, reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam. His achievements are recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason for his extraordinary political demise will, they hope, be buried with him.

Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing.

Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the farm”. In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain’s colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent’s vast natural wealth.

Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone. “Try to screw us or bounce us,” the prime minister warned the US ambassador, “[and Pine Gap] will become a matter of contention

Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, “This threat to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House … a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion.”

Pine Gap’s top-secret messages were decoded by a CIA contractor, TRW. One of the decoders was Christopher Boyce, a young man troubled by the “deception and betrayal of an ally”. Boyce revealed that the CIA had infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as “our man Kerr”.

Kerr was not only the Queen’s man, he had longstanding ties to Anglo-American intelligence. He was an enthusiastic member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, The Crimes of Patriots, as “an elite, invitation-only group … exposed in Congress as being founded, funded and generally run by the CIA”. The CIA “paid for Kerr’s travel, built his prestige … Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money”.

When Whitlam was re-elected for a second term, in 1974, the White House sent Marshall Green to Canberra as ambassador. Green was an imperious, sinister figure who worked in the shadows of America’s “deep state.”

[…]

The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain’s MI6 was operating against his government. “The Brits were actually decoding secret messages coming into my foreign affairs office,” he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, “We knew MI6 was bugging cabinet meetings for the Americans.” In the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that the “Whitlam problem” had been discussed “with urgency” by the CIA’s director, William Colby, and the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: “Kerr did what he was told to do.”

[…]

On 11 November – the day Whitlam was to inform parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia – he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The “Whitlam problem” was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.

John Pilger’s investigation into the coup against Whitlam is described in full in his book, A Secret Country (Vintage), and in his documentary film, Other People’s Wars, which can be viewed on www.johnpilger.com

Via https://antinuclear.net/2023/03/09/a-the-british-american-coup-that-ended-australian-independence/

Jan 6 Tapes: Why didn’t 9 armed policemen arrest the unarmed “QAnon Shaman”?

By John Leake

On January 9, 2021, Jacob Anthony Chansley was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona for allegedly committing the following offenses:

Civil Disorder; Obstruction of an Official Proceeding; Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building; Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building; Violent Entry and Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building; Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building.

If the unarmed Chansley (known in the mainstream media as the “QAnon Shaman”) indeed committed these offenses, why was he escorted around the Capitol Building by armed police officers, at one point standing in the midst of NINE of them? If the strangely-clad young man bearing an American flag was trespassing and behaving in a “violent, disorderly, and disruptive” way, why didn’t the officers arrest him on the spot?

In reviewing the strange case of Jacob Anthony Chansley, the American people should consider that this country has a longstanding tradition of civil disobedience. In its relationship with the citizenry, the United States government has always had to contend with the somewhat awkward fact that the Republic was founded by men who, legally speaking, committed treason. Thomas Jefferson justified their conduct as follows:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Jefferson’s sentiments sound good and reasonable to a citizenry animated with classical liberal principles of government, but they are problematic for men in power who have little patience or tolerance for pesky dissenters like Jacob Anthony Chansley.

While the surveillance tape shows that many of the January 6, 2021 protestors did indeed commit acts of violence and vandalism, where is the evidence that Jacob Anthony Chansley was one of them?

As Tucker Carlson points out (starting at 2:50 on the tape) multiple cameras from multiple angles show that he is completely unarmed, calmly walking around carrying an American flag in his left hand and a bullhorn in his right.

Since November 17, 2021, Chansley has been serving his sentence of 41 months in prison. Does he really deserve this severe punishment?

Mainstream media pundits have made him—presumably because of his visually arresting and outlandish costume—the face of what it has characterized as an insurrection, but what kind of insurrectionist shows up with no weapons or incendiary devices?

[…]

Via https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/the-strange-case-of-jacob-anthony/

Lawsuits and Legislation Strip Public Health Authorities of Dictatorial Authority

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/6V44DWRPKUI6XHOWFUAXTGAXDE.jpg&w=691

Protesters descend on the Ohio Statehouse for an anti-mask rally in Columbus on July 18, 2020. (Jeff Dean/AFP/Getty Images)

By

Washington Post

When the next pandemic sweeps the United States, health officials in Ohio won’t be able to shutter businesses or schools, even if they become epicenters of outbreaks. Nor will they be empowered to force Ohioans who have been exposed to go into quarantine. State officials in North Dakota are barred from directing people to wear masks to slow the spread. Not even the president can force federal agencies to issue vaccination or testing mandates to thwart its march.

Civil libertarians have defanged much of the nation’s public health system through legislation and litigation as the world staggers into the fourth year of covid.

At least 30 states, nearly all led by Republican legislatures, have passed laws since 2020 that limit public health authority, according to a Washington Post analysis of laws collected by Kaiser Health News and the Associated Press as well as the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University.

Health officials and governors in more than half the country are now restricted from issuing mask mandates, ordering school closures and imposing other protective measures or must seek permission from their state legislatures before renewing emergency orders, the analysis showed.

The movement to curtail public health powers successfully tapped into a populist rejection of pandemic measures following widespread anger and confusion over the government response to covid. Grass-roots-backed candidates ran for county commissions and local health boards on the platform of dismantling health departments’ authority. Republican legislators and attorneys general, religious liberty groups and the legal arms of libertarian think tanks filed lawsuits and wrote new laws modeled after legislation promoted by groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, corporate-backed influence in statehouses across the country.

The Alabama legislature barred businesses from requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination. In Tennessee, officials cannot close churches during a state of emergency. Florida made it illegal for schools to require coronavirus vaccinations.

The result, public health experts warn, is a battered patchwork system that makes it harder for leaders to protect the country from infectious diseases that cross red and blue state borders.

“One day we’re going to have a really bad global crisis and a pandemic far worse than covid, and we’ll look to the government to protect us, but it’ll have its hands behind its back and a blindfold on,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. “We’ll die with our rights on — we want liberty but we don’t want protection.”

Those seeking to dismantle public health powers say they’re fighting back against an intrusion on their rights by unelected bureaucrats who overstepped amid a national crisis.

“We don’t want to concentrate power in a single set of hands,” said Rick Esenberg, head of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a libertarian law firm that won a state Supreme Court case barring health officials from closing schools. “It’s a usurpation of the legislative role.”

Many conservatives said they did not believe the public health orders were effective in saving lives, despite evidence to the contrary. One study, for example, found that coronavirus vaccines prevented 3.2 million additional deaths in the United States.

Leaders in the public health establishment readily admit that many of their problems have been self-inflicted. Among the mistakes: an early failure by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to roll out a diagnostic test for covid; an about-face on whether people should wear masks to limit the spread of the virus; and confusing messages on when to exit isolation after an infection. The duration of school closures remains a source of recriminations.

“We deserve to have that backlash to some extent,” said Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force under President Donald Trump, citing early CDC stumbles.

More than 1,000 legal decisions have been made at the local, state and federal level regarding public health protections since March 2020, according to research published in January in the American Journal of Public Health. While only a quarter succeeded in weakening public health powers, the rulings have substantially chipped away at the legal standing of health agencies and officials to protect the public, said Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern University’s Center for Health Policy and Law, who co-wrote the paper. “The courts are leaving us vulnerable,” Parmet said.

The lawsuits found a conservative Supreme Court and federal judiciary transformed by Trump and ready to strip the federal government’s public health powers to issue mandates or other disease-control measures, said Jennifer Piatt, a deputy director with the Network for Public Health Law.

A single federal judge in Florida was able to defeat the CDC’s travel mask mandate. Republican attorneys general knocked out a federal vaccinate-or-test mandate issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

These “big court wins” ensure that the next time there is a pandemic, the country will not be able to respond as it had in 2020 with government overreach, said Peter Bisbee, executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association.

“People are going to push for more freedom in every aspect of their lives, but specifically when it comes to the ability to make decisions regarding health and medicine,” Bisbee said. “So many people lost faith with the government messaging on public health crises.”

The consequences are already playing out in Columbus, Ohio, where a child with measles was able to wander around a mall before showing symptoms in November, potentially spreading the highly contagious disease. The state legislature in 2021 had stripped the city health commissioner’s ability to order someone suspected of having an infectious disease to quarantine.

Columbus Health Commissioner Mysheika Roberts bemoans the basic public health functions she has lost control of — such as the ability to shut down a restaurant with a hepatitis A outbreak as she had done before covid. “All the other workers exposed preparing food for others to eat — they could continue to go to work and shed hepatitis A” under the new legislation, she said.

In Wisconsin, the constant threat of lawsuits by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty has made officials wary of acting quickly to address any public health threat, said Kirsten Johnson, the former health commissioner of Milwaukee who is now the state’s health secretary.

Before the pandemic, Johnson said, she had threatened to shut down a prominent local golf tournament after E. coli was found in the well water, which forced the organizers to bring in bottled water. Now, she said, she’s afraid to issue such a threat, for fear of legal retribution.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, it didn’t even occur to me that public health authority was an issue,” Johnson said. “Fast forward a year later, I had great hesitation of what was appropriate.”

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Via https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/03/08/covid-public-health-backlash/