Mattis didn't disclose ties to China-boosting firm in column slamming Trump's 'America First' policy

Mattis denounced Trump's foreign policy in a column written with three coauthors.

In an online column denouncing President Trump's "America First" policy that includes measures regarding Beijing, ex-Defense Secretary James Mattis did not disclose his affiliation with an organization that fosters international business deals with communist China.

As coauthor with three other writers in a Nov. 23 Foreign Affairs column, Mattis did not mention that he works for the The Cohen Group consulting firm. Nor did he challenge China's tough talk against U.S. policies regarding Taiwan, nor the strict economic retaliation Beijing levied against Australia.

Instead, Mattis criticized Trump administration policies toward Beijing. Such policies, touted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are not in line with The Cohen Group's approach toward international business dealings with Beijing.

"China is a market of enormous opportunity and complexity," the group states on its website, adding that the group's China Practice "has a solid record of success with professionals in offices in Beijing, Tianjin and Washington, DC."

The Cohen Group is run by another former Defense Secretary. William Cohen, who has been involved with China since 1978, when he went there to meet with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, according to the organization.

"Since then, he has been a constant presence in the U.S.-China relationship, including commercial development and security cooperation," the organization states, noting that Cohen serves on the Board of Directors of the U.S.-China Business Council.

Mattis joined The Cohen Group in 2019 as a senior counselor.

Mattis was among a group of retired four-star officers who drew criticism earlier this year for denigrating Trump in a series of articles, tweets, and other commentary.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/mattis-didnt-disclose-ties-china-boosting-firm-column-slamming

UK Govt: Lockdown Likely to Last 12+ Months, ‘Hard Winter’ Coming, Repeated Vaccinations May be Required

Lockdowns won’t end until anticipated vaccines “come to our aid” in the future and the country can expect a “hard winter”, the Prime Minister has said, as the government’s science advisor warned it is quite possible the coronavirus will simply mutate to outperform vaccinations.

Speaking at the Downing Street press conference hours after the details of the new post-lockdown-lockdown were revealed to the country, Prime Minister Boris Johnson made clear to the nation that there was no reasonable hope of lockdown ending soon, saying merely that there was “reason to hope” that spring would see an end of “this era of restrictions”.

Given the United Kingdom’s regime of lockdowns began in March 2020, it stands to reason that the Prime Ministers remarks confirm that the nation’s lockdown will be in place with varying degrees of intensity for at least a full calendar year.

As England emerges from the so-called second lockdown running into early December and heads straight into tighter-than-before tiered regional lockdowns, the Prime Minister also teased that things stand to get worse before they improve. Johnson said: “to get there we must first navigate a hard winter, when the burden on our NHS is heaviest, and cold weather favours the virus… If we ease off now, we risk losing control all over again.”

Ultimately, Mr Johnson said, perpetual lockdown would do nothing but “suppress” the coronavirus until a vaccine comes “to our aid”.

Yet subsequent comments by the science experts flanking the Prime Minister at Thursday’s conference made clear that the arrival of a vaccine would not necessarily herald the end of Covid-19 as repeat vaccinations may, in the eyes of the government, be required in return for allowing society to re-establish itself.

Speaking after the PM, Patrick Vallance said of the propensity of viruses to mutate for their own survival: “it is possible that as the vaccines work, and they put pressures on the virus, that the virus mutates and other forms arise that would require new vaccines in due course. So I don’t think it is the case that the vaccines we have now will be the ones we have forever, we may have to get new ones”.

Vallance compared the mutation to the flu virus and the annual vaccinations released for the virus.

Chris Whitty also interjected on the matter of repeated vaccinations, remarking that with some diseases, immunity falls with time and so top-up courses are required.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/11/26/uk-govt-lockdown-likely-to-last-12-months-hard-winter-coming/

BBQ Rebellion: Restaurant Owner Arrested After Days of Defying Toronto Lockdown

Restaurant owner Adam Skelly was arrested by Toronto police Thursday after defying the city’s Wuhan coronavirus lockdown order for several days by opening his barbeque restaurant for indoor dining.

Skelly was arrested shortly before 12:30 p.m. on Thursday by police who had blockaded the entrance to his restaurant Adamson Barbecue, located in the Toronto district of Etobicoke, which is currently under a lockdown ordered by Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

Footage of Skelly’s arrest was posted on social media platform Twitter by local broadcaster Newstalk 1010, showing Toronto police officers escorting him away from the restaurant where a crowd of anti-lockdown protestors had also gathered.

Skelly announced the opening of his restaurant in protest of the lockdown measures earlier this week and opened on Tuesday at 11 a.m. Police did not shut down the restaurant on Tuesday, citing public safety fears, City News reported.

On Wednesday Skelly opened his restaurant once again despite being ordered to close by the Medical Officer of Health, Dr Eileen de Villa, who issued a closure of the small business under the Health Protection and Promotion Act.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford expressed sympathy on Tuesday for small business owners across the province and commented on Skelly’s protest, saying, “I don’t condone that he opened up but I feel terrible. My heart breaks for these guys … these business-owners, believe me.”

Ford’s attitude changed Wednesday after Skelly remained defiant, saying, “Buddy, you need to shut down,” and adding, “You’re putting people’s lives in jeopardy. I always try to be nice the first time, but this guy is just totally ignoring public health officials.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/11/26/bbq-rebellion-restaurant-owner-arrested-after-days-defying-toronto-lockdown/

YouTube Attempts To Silence The Mises Institute

YouTube, the dominant video platform owned by Google, decided yesterday to remove a Mises Institute video. This decision apparently lasts for all eternity, cannot be appealed to an actual human, and comes with this friendly admonition: "Because it’s the first time, this is just a warning. If it happens again, your channel will get a strike and you won’t be able to do things like upload, post, or live stream for 1 week."

The video, a talk by Tom Woods titled "The Covid Cult" with more than 1.5 million views, was recorded at our live event in Texas two weeks ago. It offered challenges to the official narrative surrounding the coronavirus, particularly with respect to mask mandates. Woods's talk featured several charts showing rises in Covid "cases" across multiple cities and countries not long after imposing mask rules, demonstrating how such rules apparently have little effect on slowing transmission of the virus.

The speech was nothing less than a heartfelt tour de force against the terrible lockdowns and pseudoscience plaguing the debate over Covid, and a call to reexamine tradeoffs and priorities. It was, as you might imagine, a mix of unassailable data combined with our friend Tom's strong prescription for liberty and personal choice rather than centralized state edicts.

In other words, YouTube had no earthly business removing it. This kind of discourse seems to me the best and highest use for YouTube, its most important function.

"Big Digital," as Professor Michael Rectenwald terms tech companies, have become "governmentalities": supposedly private enterprises turned into instruments of state power and state narratives. This sordid process is different for each company, (some are more complicit than others, a few are heroically non-compliant) but it involves a mix of early start-up funding; connections and contracts with state agencies, particularly relating to defense and surveillance; and propaganda campaigns in service of state narratives. Rectenwald explains this phenomenon in his own recent talk titled "The Google Election":

In short, Google, Facebook and others are not strictly private sector entities; they are governmentalities in the sense that I have given to the term. They are extensions and apparatuses of the state. Furthermore, these platforms are governmentalities with a particular interest in the growth and extension of governmentality itself. This includes championing every kind of “subordinated” and newly created identity class that they can find or create, because such “endangered” categories require state acknowledgement and protection. Thus, the state’s circumference continues to expand. Big Digital is partial to the interests and growth of the state. It not only does business with statists but also shares their values. This helps makes sense of its leftist bent and their preference for the deep state Democrats. Leftism is statism.

We encourage readers to consider the entirety of Rectenwald's talk, and his sobering book Google Archipelago for his thorough treatment of the facts and realities behind tech companies and the US state. This is not alarmism or conspiracies, but documented examples of how Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and others actively participate—including financially—in a melding of corporate and state power.

This, then, is real fascism. Big Digital—what writer Ilana Mercer calls "Deep Tech"— is not a collection of private companies in the sense we think of such. They are partners of the federal government, committed to ideological service as part and parcel of their own bottom line.

Thankfully, the sneering call to "build your own platforms" is being answered. Companies like Bitchute and LBRY (its video platform is Odysee) continue to host Mises Institute content, and promise to continue doing so. In fact, you can view Dr. Woods's forbidden talk at those respective source here and here.

Truth tellers matter more than ever. It's time for our own institutions and platforms, which is precisely why the Mises Institute exists.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/youtube-attempts-silence-mises-institute