Midnight Riders (Riding Free)

1.3 million Israelis locked down as curfew kicks off in virus hotspots

Residents of ‘red’ towns and neighborhoods must stay close to home; schools and most businesses shuttered in affected areas

A curfew approved Tuesday evening by the cabinet went into effect at 7 p.m. in 40 towns and neighborhoods throughout the country, in the latest measure meant to help contain a coronavirus infection rate spiraling out of control in dozens of communities.

The new rules, which will close schools and most businesses, will last for a week before being reconsidered by the cabinet.

The curfew, lasting from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. the next day, targets nightlife activities, whether bars or traditional slichot prayer gatherings held in the evenings in Haredi towns ahead of the Rosh Hashana holiday, which falls on September 18 this year.

Most of the municipalities affected are among the poorest in Israel, with Arab and Haredi towns making up much of the list. Some one million three hundred thousand Israelis were covered by the curfew, according to a Channel 12 tally.

The Health Ministry said Tuesday that 3,425 new coronavirus cases were confirmed over the previous day — the highest daily figure since the start of the pandemic, shattering a previous record set last week. Health officials say ultra-Orthodox and Arab locales have seen the most major outbreaks nationwide.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/1-3-million-israelis-locked-down-as-curfew-goes-into-effect-in-virus-hotspots/

Senate GOP unveils slimmed-down coronavirus relief bill

Senate Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a pared-down coronavirus relief package as they prepare to force a vote on the legislation as soon as this week.

The bill, released by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), includes a $300 per week federal unemployment benefit through the end of the year, another round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding and liability protections from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

It also includes $105 billion for schools and an additional $16 billion for coronavirus testing. Legislative language would make a Treasury Department loan to the Postal Service, authorized under the CARES Act in March, forgivable.

McConnell's office did not release a price tag for the forthcoming bill, though it was largely expected to cost around $500 billion, about half of the $1 trillion package Republicans previously unveiled in July.

Unlike the previous GOP proposal, the legislation put forth on Tuesday does not include another round of stimulus checks.

“Today, the Senate Republican majority is introducing a new targeted proposal, focused on some of the very most urgent healthcare, education, and economic issues. It does not contain every idea our party likes. I am confident Democrats will feel the same," McConnell said in a statement.

"Yet Republicans believe the many serious differences between our two parties should not stand in the way of agreeing where we can agree and making law that helps our nation," he added.

McConnell is planning to move later Tuesday to set up a vote on the GOP package for as soon as Thursday.

The bill is not expected to get the 60 votes needed to ultimately pass the Senate, but GOP leaders are hoping to secure 51 Republican votes. Majority support from Senate Republicans would be a symbolic victory that would let them showcase their unity after weeks of deep divisions within the conference foiled previous GOP plans to force messaging votes on PPP and unemployment insurance.

The vote comes as McConnell is eager to give his vulnerable GOP colleagues something to highlight with voters in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign, where Republicans are playing defense as they trie to hold onto the Senate majority.

But McConnell also faces pressure from conservatives to include their priorities in the bill. He previously predicted that up to 20 GOP senators won't support any new relief, but has made concessions as he's tried to shore up support for the new measure.

For example, the GOP proposal includes education-related tax credits sought by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) from his Education Freedom Scholarship and Opportunity Act.

It also includes one-time funding to states that could be used to cover grants for education-related expenses including home-schooling expenses. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) had been pushing for the inclusion of a tax credit for homeschooling expenses.

"I hope any new Republican COVID bill will include help for working families having to homeschool for the first time - with so many schools closed or online and kids at home, working families need the support," Hawley tweeted on Tuesday before the GOP package was introduced.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/515503-senate-gop-unveils-slimmed-down-coronavirus-relief-bill

Russia’s Lavrov visits Cyprus amidst East Med crisis

US actions in east Med contribute to conflict, Lavrov says.https://cyprus-mail.com/2020/09/08/us-actions-in-east-med-contribute-to-conflict-lavrov-says/

https://theduran.com/russias-lavrov-visits-cyprus-amidst-east-med-crisis/

Nearly half of all voters believe recent protests have been mostly violent rather than peaceful

Just two out of five voters believe demonstrations have been "generally peaceful."

near-majority of registered U.S. voters say that the recent Black Lives Matter-associated protests across the country have been primarily violent demonstrations, a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen shows.

When asked, 48% of voters said the protests have been "primarily violent riots," rather than "generally peaceful," while 40% said the demonstrations have been largely violence free.

The remain 12% said they were unsure, in a survey in which responses seemed related to where respondents live.

"There is also a potentially important gap based upon where people live," Rasmussen pointed out. "Suburban voters, a much sought after demographic, believe by a 48% to 40% margin that the protests have been primarily violent. Most urban voters (53%) believe they have been generally peaceful."

Most of the violent protests have taken place in major U.S. urban centers including Minneapolis, New York City, Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C.

In rural America, 62% believe they have been primarily violent," Rasmussen also said. "This is a segment of the population that [President Trump] is hoping will turn out in large numbers to vote."

The survey of 1,200 registered voters was conducted by Rasmussen using a mixed mode approach from August 27-29, 2020.

To see this poll question's cross-demographic tabulations, click here.

To see this poll question's methodology and sample demographics, click here.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/nearly-half-all-voters-believe-recent-protests-have-been-mostly-violent

The ‘Enemies List’

“There was an enemies list. it was being used to target the Trump team, was likely illegal and they were warned about it,” Fitton commented in last week’s Weekly Update about the ongoing investigation on ex-Amb. Yovanovitch’s ‘enemies list’.

Judicial Watch has fought relentlessly for more information on allegations surrounding ex-US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s ‘enemies list’ – a list compiled to “monitor the activities of U.S. citizens,” as Fitton described. Recently released documents have now confirmed the existence of the ‘enemies list’, which was compiled by the Ambassador’s staff in 2019. “There was an enemies list. it was being used to target the Trump team, it was likely illegal and they were warned about it,” Fitton explained.

While there is no law preventing a government official from looking at a citizens’ twitter account, “compiling reports about the account(s) and sharing it with government officials, is kind of like creating a file on you… [such data collection] is restricted by law by the Privacy Act, among other laws which prohibit the government from creating files on citizens.” To be clear, “they were using government employees to track Americans.”

These bombshell revelations outline how the “Ukraine embassy was desperately trying to keep Ambassador Yovanovitch in her job, as they were suppressing questions about Ukraine’s efforts, with Obama to subvert the 2016 election.” The documents also embroil Soros-funded groups in Ukraine, which according to Fitton, were also involved in “suppressing questions about Joe Biden, Burisma and that entire mess.”

Ambassador Kent, another official involved in the impeachment hearings last October, is now confirmed to have endorsed these “monitoring efforts.” “He [Kent] made it clear that he wanted this for political purposes. He wanted to know who was attacking him.” In face of these unsettling revelations, Fitton states that the president “should declare a transparency emergency and force all agencies to release all the documents about all the Obama scandals that we’re talking about.”

Regardless of what the president decides to do, we encourage you to read the documents here. Once again, all of this is the result of a Judicial Watch lawsuit, made possible by your generous support.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/deep-dive/the-yovanovitch-enemies-list/

'Trump … A Cult Leader' According To Michael Cohen's 'Disloyal: A Memoir'

Michael Cohen describes President Trump as a "cult leader" and himself a former member in his new book

Cohen speaks about Trump's racist views on Black leaders, his relationship with his family, and views on his own supporters

The White House repeatedly denied Cohen's allegations and questioned his credibility

Ahead of the Tuesday release of his new book, “Disloyal: A Memoir,” President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen compared his ex-boss to a “cult leader” and said he needs to resign.

“In the book, obviously, I describe Mr. Trump as a cult leader, and I was in this cult,” Cohen told NBC News, describing his book’s perspective as coming from a “former cult member” trying to convince other members to leave. “I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Open your eyes as I have. And I want you to appreciate that Donald Trump cares for no one or anything other than himself.”

Cohen took it step further, saying he feared the lengths Trump would go to hold on to the White House.

“Donald Trump will do anything and everything within which to win,” Cohen said. “And I believe that includes manipulating the ballots. I believe he would even go so far as to start a war in order to prevent himself from being removed from office.”

Cohen has found himself at odds with the Trump administration since he began working on his book while serving his prison term for various federal crimes, including violations of campaign finance laws. He continued working on it after being released to house arrest in May due to the coronavirus pandemic.

He was taken back into custody in July for what Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein said was “retaliation” over Cohen’s planned book, but was released shortly after.

Cohen makes many claims against his former employer in the book, such as being an outspoken racist behind closed doors. One excerpt from his book says Trump generally has “low opinions of all black folks, from music to culture and politics.”

One leader Cohen said Trump repeatedly criticized was late South African President Nelson Mandela.

“Mandela fed the whole country up,” Cohen said in the book. “Now it's a shole. F*** Mandela. He was no leader.”

The Nelson Mandela Foundation responded to this excerpt, saying Trump's own conduct while in office left him in no position to comment on the life or political career of Mandela.

https://www.ibtimes.com/trump-cult-leader-according-michael-cohens-disloyal-memoir-3042150

Leaked Document Reveals How CCP Uses ByteDance-Owned App to Spread Propaganda

Chinese tech companies have been documented to cooperate with Chinese authorities on censoring information and pushing Beijing’s propaganda messages.

One way the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses a popular news aggregator app owned by ByteDance to promote the regime’s propaganda content to users was unveiled in an internal document recently obtained by The Epoch Times.

Meanwhile, previous comments by staff at ByteDance’s app platforms, detailing the extent to which the software collects user data, raises questions about whether algorithms work similarly at ByteDance’s most widely-used app internationally, TikTok, as it seeks to sell its U.S. business before the U.S. administration’s appointed deadline of Sept. 15. Citing the app’s Chinese ownership, risks to national security, and user data collection, President Donald Trump in late July signed executive orders to effectively ban TikTok from operating in the United States, unless it finds a U.S. buyer.

Document

In 2016, the Luohe city government propaganda bureau issued a notice to all Chinese Communist Party committees in the county and district-level government offices in the city. Luohe is a city located in central China’s Henan Province.

The notice informed all-party committees to set up accounts on Toutiao, a popular news aggregator app owned by ByteDance. It then describes how Toutiao can make the propaganda information issued by these accounts appear as recommendations for users that the government has targeted.

“When there’s a big event or emergency incident happening, it can distribute information to designated users and users in designated regions. It supports the government in spreading information efficiently,” the document stated.

The document said that the CCP committees would not need to increase their following for this to be effective.

Epoch Times Photo

The internal document that Luohe city government propaganda bureau issued in 2016. (Provided to The Epoch Times by Insider)

Algorithm

As early as Jan. 2018, Cao Huanhuan, software architect at Toutiao, explained how its algorithms track users’ preferences and habits, in a post on the app’s official website.

The algorithm needs to collect three types of information before promoting a post to a user: the characteristics of a post the user interacts with; the user’s characteristics; and where the user is when he/she opens the app, according to Cao.

The post’s characteristics include which kind of media it is, such as video, photo, picture, or text; the subject of the post, such as yoga, travel, or hip hop; how long it takes the user to read the post, such as video length, photos quantity, and text length; characteristics of the post’s creator.

The user’s characteristics include hobbies, profession, age, gender, which kind of phone he/she uses, the user’s browsing history on ByteDance apps, searching and surfing histories on the internet, shopping history, and so on.

The environment characteristics include the exact position of the user, such as at home, in a restaurant, or traveling abroad, etc.; what time of day; which kind of network the user is using, such as 3G, 4G, 5G, and Wifi; and weather conditions.

The algorithm will also cull the watch histories of other users who are similar to a particular user, such as those with similar hobbies or similar profession.

After the app obtains all three categories of information, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool will generation recommendations to the user.

Cao added that the algorithm can also be used to show suitable advertisements for this user.

ByteDance also created several blacklist databases, Cao said, in which millions of keywords or pictures the Chinese authorities have prohibited would not be allowed on its social media platforms.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/leaked-document-staff-at-chinese-tech-giant-bytedance-detail-how-its-apps-collect-data-and-promote-ccp-content_3487465.html

Washington & Lee University To Teach Students To 'Overthrow The State'

Washington and Lee University is a small, private liberal arts university in Western Virginia. It’s named after George Washington and Robert E. Lee, who became its president after the Civil War. As is the case with all small, private liberal arts colleges in America except for Hillsdale, WLU is essentially a leftist indoctrination center for those students who attend.

However, even by liberal arts standards, WLU took things to a whole new level this semester when it offered first-year students a three-credit class called “How to Overthrow the State.” WLU is entitled to do so, but it seems appropriate that the taxpayers of this state have a say in the matter. Therefore, President Trump should issue an executive order withholding all federal funds from the university.

The class is one of 18 different choices offered to freshmen for their required writing seminar. All of the seminars stress that their purpose is to teach students to write well, and many of them throw in identity politics.

For example, Seminar 100-01, about “memoir and identity in literature,” promises to examine whether a “memoir also challenge[s] and educate[s] us about the identities of marginalized or silenced voices.”

Seminar 100.02, entitled “Shut Up and Play: Black Athletes and Activism,” focuses on Kaepernick’s capers.

Then there’s seminar 100-07, entitled “Don’t ‘I’ Me: Privilege, Otherness and Writing,” which covers “ the complexities of and correspondence between (suggested) inferiority and otherness based on factors such as color, gender, education, sexual orientation, privilege, and language.”

All of these classes sound incredibly boring, self-involved, and mindlessly reductive. None expand the mind; all contract it.

This post, however, is about one specific freshman writing seminar, 100-18 (“How to Overthrow the State”), that’s caused an uproar in conservative circles:

This course places each student at the head of a popular revolutionary movement aiming to overthrow a sitting government and forge a better society. How will you attain power? How will you communicate with the masses? How do you plan on improving the lives of the people? How will you deal with the past? From Frantz Fanon to Che Guevara to Mohandas Gandhi and others, we explore examples of revolutionary thought and action from across the Global South. Students engage these texts by participating in a variety of writing exercises, such as producing a Manifesto, drafting a white paper that critically analyzes a particular issue, and writing a persuasive essay on rewriting history and confronting memory.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/washington-lee-university-teach-students-overthrow-state

Despite Shunning Lock Downs And Face Masks, COVID-19 Cases In Sweden Plunge

Sweden never mandated massive lock downs or enacted draconian face-mask laws, but the Nordic country now has one of the lowest infection rates in the world.

“Sweden has gone from being the country with the most infections in Europe to the safest one,” Sweden’s senior epidemiologist Dr. Anders Tegnell told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

“What we see now is that the sustainable policy might be slower in getting results, but it will get results eventually,” Tegnell said. “And then we also hope that the result will be more stable.”

Last week, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said Sweden’s infection rate stood at only 12 cases per million, compared to 18 in Denmark and 14 in Norway. The data shows that out of 2,500 randomly selected and tested Swedes, zero tested positive, compared to 0.9 percent positive in April, and 0.3 percent in May.

“We interpret this as meaning there is not currently a widespread infection among people who do not have symptoms,” said Karin Tegmark, deputy head of the Public Health Agency of Sweden.

Tegnell has long taken a hard line, saying last month he saw “no point” in mandating masks in public across the country. “With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport,” Anders Tegnell said, according to Fortune.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/despite-shunning-lock-downs-face-masks-covid-19-cases-sweden-plunge/

India’s COVID Tracker App Leaks Location Of Military Camps In Sensitive Areas

A GIS expert has warned that India’s COVID tracking application, Aarogya Setu, maybe leaking locations of military camps and could be used by enemies for surveillance to track troop movements in sensitive areas like Pangong Tso in Ladakh.

Aarogya Setu leaks location of Military Camps

Sensitive information about the deployment of troops and their movement in military bases or spy outposts along the border with China may have been compromised by India’s COVID-19 tracker mobile application Aarogya Setu.

Aarogya Setu is designed by the government to collect one’s location data and cross reference it with the state-owned Indian Council of Medical Research’s database of COVID-19 tests to alert a user if an infected person is in close proximity.

“Through the app, one can see if a soldier using Arogya Setu is in a particular camp, or if he is going out to another camp or is being relocated or something like that. By constant measuring, you can see how many people have moved out of the camp and how many are within the camp at that time,” Raj Bhagat Palanichamy, an independent geographic information system (GIS)/remote sensing expert told Sputnik.

Alerting authorities, Raj shared an example of how Arogya Setu can be used to roughly detect numbers of people using the app (which may coincide with a number of troops) in sensitive areas like Pangong Tso where troops of India and China have been engaged in a bitter conflict since April this year.

Negative way: If we use a simple fake GPS application, then we can get number of Aarogya Setu users in and around militarily camps in sensitive areas like Pangong Tso

(numbers and locations slightly adjusted) pic.twitter.com/2CGjSEPWnL

— Raj Bhagat P #Mapper4Life (@rajbhagatt) September 6, 2020

“With a fake GPS application, you can shift your location to any place. You can simply enter Wagah Border, Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley anything. It is not a big deal. And then you can just open Arogya Setu application and it will show how many common people (COVID-affected) are there, etc.,” Raj said, adding that Chinese agents may not get the exact numbers of troops at a particular location, but “they will know whether people are moving and they are moving at what direction, what timings, etc.”

“If you are talking about the place where there is only military base, then there is no amount of technical expertise or hacking that is required. But, if you want to figure out which specific building etc., you have to do a little bit of math,” Raj Bhagat told Sputnik.

The Indian Army, while issuing an advisory in April this year, asked troops to install the Arogya Setu app and switch on location services and bluetooth while visiting public places, at Isolation Centres, when calling for COVID-19-related assistance by civil authorities and while moving out of cantonments or military stations. Army personnel had been cautioned in April not to disclose their service identity, including rank, appointment and contact list of users, while using such apps.

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/77964/indias-covid-tracker-app-leaks-location-of-military-camps-in-sensitive.html

Social media fact-checking, brought to you by the Deep State

Almost four years of mainstream media hype about “fake news” and “Russian meddling” propaganda has brought to the world exactly what they were intended to bring: an effective mechanism for internet and social media censorship.

In the center of this move toward global discourse control is an organization called the Poynter Institute, home to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), a body created to coordinate, promote and train dozens of fact-checkers from around the world.

The IFCN and many non-profits working in the same field are funded by the big capitalist “philanthropists” of our era, like George Soros, Pierre Omidyar, Bill Gates, and even the Koch brothers…but also by the US Department of State and a shady “aid” – in reality, political meddling – organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), historically linked to the CIA and regime change operations.

Google and Facebook – itself tied to the warmongering Atlantic Council and its “Digital Forensic Research Lab” – are also associated with Poynter, by funding and partnerships to fight “fake news” (including the development of an “automated” fact-checking program for the upcoming 2020).

The marriage between Poynter’s IFCN, politically inclined billionaires, the State Department – and the whitewashed public face of the Deep State – suggest that the institute is probably working in what Nelson Poynter, its founder, worked on for a key part of his life: propaganda and censorship for the US government.

Although this information is not available in Nelson Poynter’s Wikipedia profile or in poynter.org’s history page, his work for a government propaganda agency is not exactly a secret. A resemblance of his wife, Henrietta, also at the institute’s website, quickly passes over the fact that Poynter did work for the Office of War Information (OWI) during WWII, but his specific role as a government censor and propagandist is never mentioned.

Nevertheless, Hollywood Goes to War, a book written in 1987 by Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black, is one of the many historical sources that tell the details of Poynter’s job.

https://off-guardian.org/2020/09/07/social-media-fact-checking-brought-to-you-by-the-deep-state/

President Trump Deals Huge Blow to Bill Gates – Withdraws Support From ‘China-Centric’ COVAX Vaccine Alliance

President Donald Trump dealt a huge blow to Bill Gates this September by renouncing US support for COVAX, a World Health Organization (WHO) initiative aimed at pushing an experimental coronavirus vaccine on the world.

“We will not be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China,” a White House spokesman said.

Donald Trump previously pledged $1.16 billion to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), an organization also associated with COVAX and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to fund coronavirus vaccine research in early June.

“As the Coronavirus has shown, there are no borders.”

USAID echo’s @Realdonaldtrump‘s words and is proud to be partnering with @Gavi by committing $1.16 billion to protect people through vaccines, because #VaccinesWork pic.twitter.com/btSLEEM4et

— USAID (@USAID) June 4, 2020

However, after having issues with the WHO in regard to its coronavirus response which he calls ‘corrupt’ and ‘China-centric,’ Trump withdrew funding and is now focused on producing a vaccine domestically in the United States.

So far 172 countries have signed on to COVAX while several US companies have reached phase-three trials on a potential Covid-19 vaccine, including Moderna, AstraZeneca, and a partnership between Pfizer and BioNTech.

The stated goal of COVAX is to provide 2 billion vaccines to citizens around the world by the end of 2021, focusing mostly on countries with large populations such as China. In an interview with Ellen, Bill Gates said he wanted ‘7 billion healthy people’ vaccinated before the world can ‘return to normal,’ seeming to indicate that it could take years before businesses can reopen and students can go back to school.

It goes without saying that several years of lockdowns would cause irreversible damage to the economy and our freedom. Donald Trump could be expediating the process of providing coronavirus vaccines to Americans, but we may still have to deal with the issue of forced vaccination.

In Virginia, State Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver has said he will mandate a coronavirus vaccine once they become available, but governor Northam has since stated that he has not yet taken a position on the subject.

“When Dr. Oliver spoke of his support of a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine for adults, he was sharing his personal opinion as a physician. Currently, the Northam administration has taken no official policy position on whether or not a COVID-19 vaccine for adults should be mandatory.” – Virginia Spokesperson for Governor Northam [SOURCE]

Anthony Fauci has also alluded to a potential coronavirus vaccine mandate but has never officially supported that position. If the shot becomes mandatory, activists have been working on ways to refuse the Covid jab.

https://phillipschneider.com/president-trump-deals-huge-blow-to-bill-gates-withdraws-support-from-china-centric-covax-vaccine-alliance/

Biggs Calls On GOP To Push Forward Motion To Remove Pelosi As Speaker

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs, R-AZ, is calling for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “to be removed from her post as Speaker of the House,” in a new op-ed for FoxNews.com.

“Isn’t it past time for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to leave her office as Speaker of the House? I call upon our leaders in Congress to put forward the Motion to Vacate the Chair that has been prepared and merely needs to be brought to the floor,” Biggs wrote in his opinion piece.

Biggs used several examples that he believes are grounds for her removal where Pelosi acted “above the law,” including her recent visit to get her hair blown dry which violated her home State’s COVID-19 lockdown order.

Pelosi, however, claims she was “set up” by the salon’s owner and wasn’t aware of the rules that San Francisco residents can only have their hair done outdoors.

“Frankly, it a narcissistic, authoritarian view,” Biggs added.

Moreover, he said it’s “the same hubris that is demonstrated in Pelosi’s attacks on a small business owner, with the apparent objective of crushing her, also permitted the corruption of our federal intelligence gathering apparatus to spy on a political opponent’s campaign, denies that Marxist agitators are rioting, looting, and murdering; and when polling shows that Americans know better, tries to change the narrative to blame Trump.”

https://saraacarter.com/biggs-calls-on-gop-to-push-forward-motion-to-remove-pelosi-as-speaker/

“Rule by Experts” Is Tyranny Shrouded in Science

“You don’t need a mask.”

“Everyone needs to wear a mask.”

“Asymptomatic spreaders are the real problem.”

“No wait, it doesn’t look like asymptomatic carriers are spreading it.”

“Coronavirus will spread at protests… unless they’re protests over the death of George Floyd.”

Expert advice has ping-ponged on COVID-19 like a bead in a pinball machine. Even the medical literature itself has been rife with contradictions and retractions. Lawmakers have tripped over themselves trying to outdo one another in creating the most laws and regulations during the lockdowns in response to the nebulous (and ever-changing) “science” of the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, suicides, domestic violence, hunger and starvation, and economic difficulty have been on the rise. The Nobel Prize-winning Michael Levitt has said, “There is no doubt in my mind that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor.” Stacey Lennox, writing for PJ Media said, “COVID-19 may go down as history’s most devastating example of expert arrogance and media malfeasance.”

A New York Times piece from February which was titled “How Fear Distorts Our Thinking About the Coronavirus” carried the tagline, “The solution isn’t to try to think more carefully. It’s to trust the experts.”

“Trust the Experts”

A few years ago Neil deGrasse Tyson made waves with his “Rationalia” government proposal: Create a world in which all policies are based on “weight of evidence.” Let science rule us.

This utopian proposal was quickly criticized by a number of voices. Popular Science charged that such a misguided idea would lead to “vast human suffering,” and pointed out some obvious problems:

“Scientists study what they want, and they study what they can get paid to study, so the work of science is not free from the pressures of money, nor interaction with the business world…In a hypothetical world where a single person (let’s call him ‘Neil’) decided policy based on precisely measuring the weight of evidence, how that person selected evidence would matter a great deal, and would likely come down to values.”

But of course.

The idea that science could be wholly objectively applied, free from the biases, personal values, and limited understanding of the expert legislating (or proposing) it is a childish fantasy. While Tyson dreams of an unerring scientific principle formulated as a rule for society, his Rationalia proposal makes no room for human error, passion, and prejudice. Our application of science is necessarily limited by our ever-changing understanding of it. And while science can tell us what happens when X meets Y, it cannot tell us if it is moral and good for X to meet Y.

https://www.naturalblaze.com/2020/09/rule-by-experts-is-tyranny-shrouded-in-science.html

Queensland passes law to jail priests for not reporting confessions of child sexual abuse

Priests in Queensland will now be compelled to break the seal of confession to report child sexual abuse or face three years in jail.

Key points:

The law was passed with the support of the Opposition

It enacts a recommendation of the child sexual abuse royal commission

Police Minister Mark Ryan says it will help protect vulnerable children

New laws passed through Queensland Parliament will force members of the clergy to report known or suspected cases of abuse to police.

The legislation means religious institutions and their members are no longer able to use the sanctity of confessional as a defence or excuse in child sex abuse matters.

Police Minister Mark Ryan said the laws would ensure better protection for vulnerable children.

"The requirement and quite frankly the moral obligation to report concerning behaviours towards children applies to everyone everyone in this community," he said.

"No one group or occupation is being singled out.

"Child protection is everyone's responsibility."

The laws apply to information received from now, even if it relates to abuse that occurred in the past.

The law was supported by the Opposition.

'They will go to jail before obeying'

But One Nation MP Stephen Andrew said it set a dangerous precedent for religious leaders.

"The bill poses a real danger for public trust and cohesion in our community," Mr Andrew said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-08/queensland-law-jail-priests-not-reporting-child-sex-confessions/12642144

Former intelligence official avoids jail for breaching national secrecy over 'forgotten' documents

A former Australian intelligence official has avoided time behind bars for breaching national secrecy rules, after he claims he "forgot" he had classified documents lying around his home.

Key points:

Roger Uren pleaded last month guilty to three charges of unauthorised dealings with records

He maintains the documents were never shared, and were at his home because he had been working on them

Uren will avoid jail time but must pay a fine of $7,000

Roger Uren, 73, a former diplomat, was an assistant director at the Australian intelligence analysis agency, the Office of National Assessments (ONA).

Uren pleaded guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court last month to three charges of unauthorised dealings with records.

The charges were laid late last year after police had uncovered piles of unsecured classified documents during a raid on Uren's Canberra home five years ago.

Uren had taken the documents from the offices of his former employer before he left the agency in August 2001, and none was dated later than that year.

He maintained the documents were never shared, and were there simply because he had once been working on them.

The practice of the high-ranking official working from home was commonplace at the time, his solicitor argued in court.

Magistrate Glenn Theakston disagreed, convicting Uren on all three charges and fining him $7,000.

"The offending involved a breach of trust," Magistrate Theakston said.

"People who find themselves with access to national security information do so in a carefully controlled way. The obligation to protect that material and is ongoing well beyond when someone finishes that work."

'No allegation these documents were shown to anyone'

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-08/former-intelligence-officer-roger-uren-avoids-jail-time/12641896

G7 Foreign Ministers Call on Russia to Establish Transparency on Alleged Poisoning of Navalny

Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition figure, felt ill on 20 August during the Russian domestic flight from Tomsk to Moscow. After initial treatment in Omsk, he was later transfered to the Charite hospital in Berlin, with Germany announcing in several days that he was "poisoned" with a nerve agent from the Novichok group.

"We, the G7 foreign ministers, call on Russia to urgently and fully establish transparency on who is responsible for this abhorrent poisoning attack and, bearing in mind Russia’s commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention, to bring the perpetrators to justice," the statement said.

https://sputniknews.com/world/202009081080402041-g7-foreign-ministers-demand-full-transparency-from-russia-on-alleged-poisoning-of-navalny/