Coronavirus-Abuse Myth Recognized as Greatest Media Hoax of 2020

WASHINGTON / December 29, 2020 – On March 23, the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence issued an Alert with this provocative claim: “Survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault are facing extreme danger and risk.” (1) This startling but unsupported claim would eventually lead to the biggest media hoax of 2020, as articles were published warning of an impending domestic violence “spike” as a result of victims being “trapped” with their abusers under COVID stay-at-home policies.

Four independent analyses have revealed this claim to be categorically false:

1. The National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice concluded, based on reports from 13 cities, that there had been “No significant change in domestic violence over the previous year.” (2)

1. The Marshall Project found declines in domestic violence cases in Chicago, IL, Austin, TX, and Chandler, AZ, ranging from 13% to 23%. (3)

1. The Coalition to End Domestic Violence compiled police reports from 33 police departments around the country, which revealed steady numbers of domestic violence calls in 19 departments, small increases in three localities, and decreases in 11 jurisdictions. (4)

1. In 67 large cities across the country, the Major Cities Chiefs Association reported that during the first 9 months of 2020, the number of reported rapes dropped from 25,130 to 21,100, compared to 2019. This change represents a 16% decrease. (5)

The most likely explanation for these trends was identified by the Family Life Survey of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, which found that coping with the COVID threat has served to strengthen family relationships. 56% of survey respondents agreed that experiencing the pandemic “Has made me appreciate my partner more,” and 47% agreed that the coronavirus, “Has deepened my commitment to my relationship.” (6)

A Google News search using the terms “COVID,” “domestic violence,” and “2020” turned up 11.9 million results, revealing saturation media coverage of the issue during the year. (7)

One of the reasons for the false claims was a failure to recognize that domestic violence follows a cyclical pattern, with the number of cases rising in the Spring and declining in the Fall (2). If this pattern is not recognized, increases due to seasonal changes could be incorrectly attributed to coronavirus stay-at-home policies.

Media accounts consistently depicted men as the abusers and women as victims, despite the fact that each year there are 4.2 million male victims of domestic violence, compared to 3.5 million female victims, according to the CDC. (8)

The Coronavirus-Abuse Hoax of 2020 bears an eerie resemblance to the 1993 Superbowl Abuse Hoax, when domestic violence activists claimed that "Women's shelters and hotlines are flooded with more calls from victims on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year." The Superbowl Hoax was later debunked by Ken Ringle of the Washington Post. (9)

Commentator Corrine Barraclough concludes, “The myth that domestic violence is surging in lockdown will become one of the biggest lies the gendered narrative leans on for additional funding.” (10) More information on the Coronavirus-Abuse Hoax is available online. (11)

Citations:

http://www.4vawa.org/ntf-action-alerts-and-news

https://cdn.ymaws.com/counciloncj.org/resource/collection/D26974EF-0F75-4BDE-ADE7-86DA0741DC49/Impact_Report_-_Crime.pdf Page 9.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/04/22/is-domestic-violence-rising-during-the-coronavirus-shutdown-here-s-what-the-data-shows

http://endtodv.org/pr/lawmakers-should-not-be-fooled-by-bogus-claims-of-a-domestic-violence-surge/

https://www.majorcitieschiefs.com/pdf/news/mcca_violent_crime_report_2020_and_2019_jan1tosept30.pdf

https://media.deseret.com/media/misc/pdf/afs/2020-AFS-Final-Report.pdf Table 13.

https://www.google.com/search?biw=1600&bih=757&tbm=nws&sxsrf=ALeKk01thAO7rUtayed_Z-sPJbu0sHzH_A%3A1609245623072&ei=tyPrX4D2A8TH5gLIsb6YCg&q=COVID+%22domestic+violence%22+2020&oq=COVID+%22domestic+violence%22+2020&gs_l=psy-ab.3…28074.29039.0.29854.5.5.0.0.0.0.73.295.5.5.0….0…1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.3.171…33i299k1.0.7ZXtU3oDYyE

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/2015data-brief508.pdf Tables 9 and 11

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/domestic-violence-super-bowl-sunday/

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=corrine%20barraclough&epa=SEARCH_BOX

http://endtodv.org/coronavirus-abuse-hoax/

Press release published here: http://endtodv.org/pr/coronavirus-abuse-myth-recognized-as-greatest-media-hoax-of-2020/

After Trump Blocked UN Inquiry of Racist Violence in the U.S., NGOs Are Conducting Their Own

Shortly after the public lynching of George Floyd, the U.S. Human Rights Network and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) organized an international coalition of more than 600 organizations and individuals to urge the United Nations Human Rights Council to convene a commission of inquiry to investigate systemic racism and police brutality in the United States.

Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, addressed the Council by video, stating, “You in the United Nations are your brothers’ and sisters’ keepers in America.” He implored the UN, “I’m asking you to help us — Black people in America.”

However, the Trump administration lobbied heavily against this investigation, objecting to limiting the inquiry to the U.S. The Council subsequently declined a request by a group of African countries within the Council to establish the inquiry commission. “The outcome is a result of the pressure, the bullying that the United States did, assisted by many of its allies,” said Jamil Dakwar, the ACLU’s human rights program director.

But the Council did task the High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet with preparing a report by June 2021 on “systemic racism, violations of international human rights law against Africans and people of African descent by law enforcement agencies, especially those incidents that resulted in the death of George Floyd and other Africans and people of African descent, to contribute to accountability and redress for victims.”

In Resolution 43/1, the Council did not limit the subject matter of the report to violations in the United States.

To assist in the preparation of Bachelet’s report, the Council called for input from several entities, including nongovernmental organizations.

The International Association of Democratic Lawyers, National Conference of Black Lawyers and National Lawyers Guild responded to that call by establishing their own International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States.

Rutgers University law professor emeritus Lennox Hinds, who conceived of the idea for the commission, told Truthout, “This International Commission of Inquiry is an attempt to give voice to the international outrage resulting from the public lynching of George Floyd and to expose the racist and systemic nature of police violence against people of African descent in the United States and to hold the U.S. government accountable before the international community.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56095.htm

>>12231482

No deal

Japan Gave Key Intel On China's Uighur Crackdown To U.S. And Britain

Are relations between China and Japan about to enter another deep freeze?

According to Japan Times, which quoted "a person close to Japan-U.S. relations" Japan provided intelligence to the United States and Britain last year showing evidence of China's forceful detainment of the Muslim Uighur minority on condition of keeping the source confidential. Using on that information, the United States stepped up criticism against China's alleged crackdown on Uighurs in the Xinjiang autonomous region, the source said.

The move shows Japan has already been sharing key intelligence with partners behind the scenes amid calls within the government to join the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing alliance to better respond to increasing threats by North Korea and China. The intelligence-sharing network involves Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

Britain joined the United States in pressing Beijing over its crackdown on Uighurs, but Japan has only said it "is closely watching the situation with concern."

Japan seeks to maintain friendly ties with China - its largest trading partner - without hurting relations with its top security ally, the United States. In retrospect, that may prove extremely impossible now that Japan's backroom backstabbing of Beijing has leaked.

Given that Tokyo's relations with Beijing had been improving, it was preparing for Chinese President Xi Jinping's first visit as a state guest in spring 2020, although the planned visit was later postponed after the outbreak of the global coronavirus pandemic.

US President Donald Trump's administration has put in place a series of sanctions on Beijing for alleged human rights abuses against Uighurs, such as visa restrictions on Chinese officials, increasing bilateral tensions.

Vice President Mike Pence severely criticized China in a July 2019 speech in Washington, claiming that the "Communist Party imprisoned more than a million Chinese Muslims, including Uighurs, in internment camps where they endure around-the-clock brainwashing."

China has, naturally, responded with anger and urged Western counties to mind their own problems, slamming criticisms as interference in its internal affairs.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/japan-gave-key-intel-chinas-uighur-crackdown-us-and-britain

The Top 10 Most-Suppressed News Stories Of 2020

5) Mysterious mutating lockdown:

Has anyone ever figured out why it is OK for grocery store workers to remain on the job during an international pandemic while serving the needs of the entire population with no restrictions other than wearing a mask, but it is considered dangerous for gyms to open or, most ludicrously, for anyone other than spouses of governors to take their boat for a quick spin around the lake? It seems like the lockdown can turn into whatever is convenient for politicians. The uneven effects of the lockdown on different states and different sectors have resulted in the shift of trillions of dollars of capital in ways that will reshape the economy for generations to come, yet we are not supposed to talk about it.

4) Hydroxychloroquine:

If you know anything about this drug, it is probably just that some guy in Arizona died after drinking it, and that maybe President Trump was somehow responsible. Well, as they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The guy in Arizona didn’t take hydroxychloroquine; he took a fish tank cleaner called chloroquine phosphate. And Trump never told anyone to take either the drug or the fish-tank cleaner. He just said hydroxychloroquine was a promising treatment against COVID-19. Of course, as soon as he said it, the radical academic leftists who control medical journals and associations warned that hydroxychloroquine had no benefit as a treatment and was potentially dangerous even though it had been safely used against malaria and various immune deficiency syndromes for decades. Fortunately, many doctors who were familiar with the drug continued to use it as a therapy in the early stages of COVID infections, and many patients around the world have been spared the most dire effects of the virus as a result. Just don’t expect to read about it in the New York Times.

3) Trump’s vaccine victory:

While the president has been painted as anti-science, it was his administration’s support that led to the fastest turnaround ever from viral discovery to viral vaccine — essentially less than a year. Even as House Democrats are poised to launch investigations into Trump’s supposed crimes against humanity for being president during the COVID crisis, lives are being saved as a result of his policies. Just don’t expect to read about it in the mainstream media, which spent much of 2020 ridiculing Trump for his prescient predictions that a vaccine would be developed by the end of the year.

2) Hunter Biden’s laptop:

The ability to bury the Hunter Biden story throughout the 2020 presidential campaign ranks as one of the greatest victories in the history of propaganda. Hunter is the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, and his acknowledged history as a drug addict is now considered his strong suit. The Senate Homeland Security Committee found extensive evidence that Hunter has made hundreds of millions of dollars for the Biden family by selling access to his father, so when Hunter’s laptop turned up with first-person incriminating evidence, it was pretty obvious that Joe Biden had a lot of answer for. Except that the media never made him answer for anything. It preferred to rest on the bizarre assertion from 50 former U.S. intelligence officials that clear evidence of foreign collusion on Hunter’s laptop had all the earmarks of a “Russian disinformation” campaign. This was errant nonsense. Reporters, read the emails!

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/top-10-most-suppressed-news-stories-2020

US green lights sale of 3,000 bombs worth $290 million to Saudi Arabia & flurry of other Middle East arms deals

The US State Department has approved the possible sale of 3,000 precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia, alongside more than $4 billion in arms transfers to other regional states, arguing the deals support “national security.”

The munition sale to Saudi Arabia was authorized by the State Department on Tuesday, according to a Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notice, giving the go-ahead for a transfer of 3,000 GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs to the Gulf monarchy, worth some $290 million.

The DSCA said the proposed sale would “support US foreign policy and national security objectives” by improving the security of a “friendly country” that promotes “stability” in the Middle East.

The possible deal comes less than a week after the State Department notified Congress that it would issue a license for the sale of 7,500 air-to-ground munitions to the tune of $478 million, allowing Raytheon to directly sell the missiles to the Saudi government.

Like Congress, President-elect Joe Biden will have the ability to block the sales after he takes office in January and has vowed to “reassess” the US-Saudi relationship, but it remains to be seen whether he will take that step. The Barack Obama administration – under which Biden served as Vice President – approved billions of dollars in arms deals to the kingdom during its two terms, more than any previous president, according to Reuters, while Biden’s nominee for defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has been on Raytheon’s board of directors since 2016.

Weapons transfers to Riyadh have come under fire on Capitol Hill and beyond in recent months, with lawmakers such as New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, refusing to support the $478 million missile deal when it was first proposed earlier this year. William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, insisted the sale “should not be allowed to stand,” pointing to Riyadh’s deadly five-year bombing campaign on Yemen, in which US-made weapons have been implicated in possible war crimes.

“The United States should not be selling precision-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia at this time, given their leading role in the air war in Yemen which has killed thousands of civilians and prolonged a conflict that is now the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe,” Hartung wrote in a statement.

Last year, the Trump administration vetoed a series of bipartisan measures seeking to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia, in which lawmakers cited the war on Yemen and the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, believed to have been killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Trump argued that blocking the sales would “weaken America’s global competitiveness” and “damage” US-Saudi ties, and overrode a previous blocking attempt by invoking broad “emergency” powers over an alleged “threat” from Iran, despite extreme skepticism from lawmakers.

https://www.rt.com/usa/511062-us-approves-bombs-saudi/