Freedom Convoy lawyers REJECT portrayal of protest against Trudeau Covid lockdowns as an ‘occupation' during first day of trial

"It's a ridiculous characterization. It's complete hyperbole and absolutely unnecessary."

Lawyers for Tamara Lich and Chris Barber put Crown Counsel Tim Radcliffe on alert Tuesday as both said they will not tolerate the Freedom Convoy protest being called "an occupation."

Lich and Barber are charged with mischief, counseling others to commit mischief, intimidation and obstructing police as leaders of the Freedom Convoy that polarized residents of Ottawa in February 2022 and arguably began to rollback Covid-19 mandates.

When asked why he so strongly objected to the use of the word occupation, Lich's lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, told The Post Millennial. "It's a ridiculous characterization. It's complete hyperbole and absolutely unnecessary."

The courtroom was packed full of media and Freedom Convoy supporters. Speaking to TPM before the trial began, Lich said she could not comment on the trial itself at this time but allowed that she was "ready for the long month ahead" and said she was confident in ultimate victory.

Justice Heather Perkins-McVey is the presiding judge. Her first order of business was to secure a second large-screen television in order to ensure everyone could view the video evidence.

Crown counsel Radcliffe in his opening statement called the Freedom Convoy protest "anything but peaceful" and insisted the trial was not about the political beliefs of Lich and Barber but was focused on "the means" that both used to achieve their goals.

The Crown plans to call 22 witnesses, including former Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, who repeatedly blasted the Freedom Convoy for setting up "bouncy castles" for the children of protesters to use.

A video played by the Crown on Tuesday showed a peaceful protest and one lane of traffic open into the city of Ottawa on the first day of the protest in late January 2022.

Much of the morning was spent on routine legal housekeeping as both the prosecution and defense discussed how testimony would unfold over the expected 16-day trial.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to meet with any of the Freedom Convoy protesters during their protest in Ottawa. The protesters were a multi-racial group of truckers and others opposed to the Covid-19 mandates that forced many people to get the vaccine in order to work.

Trudeau characterized the group as racists and misogynists. "There is a small fringe minority in this country that is lashing out with racist, misogynist attacks. The vast majority of Canadians aren't represented by them," he said at the time.

He invoked the draconian Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 – martial law legislation that had not been used since its creation in 1988.

The trial continues Wednesday.

https://thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-freedom-convoy-lawyers-refuse-to-allow-ottawa-covid-protest-to-be-called-an-occupation-on-first-day-of-trial

'That Is Crap': Biden, Xi Had Heated Argument Over Alleged Biolabs In Ukraine, Book Says

President Joe Biden had a heated argument with Chinese President Xi Jinping over alleged biolabs in Ukraine, causing the U.S. president to lose “his cool,” according to a new book about the White House.

Biden and Xi had a conversation in March of 2022 after the U.S. gathered intelligence indicating that China was potentially going to supply Russia with arms during its war with Ukraine, according to Franklin Foer’s book, “The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future.” After Biden warned Xi that providing Russia with arms would have consequences, the Chinese president pressed Biden on the potential presence of U.S. labs developing biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine, the book claims.

“You know better than that, this is crap,” Biden told Xi after he pressed about the biolabs. “Stop mouthing nonsense Russian talking points: I know you know that, so give me a break.”

Biden and Xi had kept the pretense that they “were old friends,” though tension between the two countries continues to grow, Foer writes. The interaction over Russia receiving Chinese supplies and alleged biolabs in Ukraine was the most heated argument the pair had ever had, the book claims.

Penguin Press, the publisher of Foer’s book, states that the book draws on “unparalleled access to the tight inner circle of advisers who have surrounded Biden for decades,” as Foer’s information predominately comes from anonymous sources. Foer notes in his book that he reports on Biden “from a close distance” through “several hundred interviews with his White House inner circle, his cabinet, his old friends and members of Congress.”

https://dailycaller.com/2023/09/05/joe-biden-xi-jinping-arms-russia-ukraine-biolabs/

CDC Repeatedly Advised People With Post-Vaccination Conditions To Get More Doses

A network composed of experts from inside and outside the U.S. government repeatedly recommended that people who suffered adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination receive additional shots, even when the experts could not rule out the vaccines as the cause of the events, documents obtained by The Epoch Times show.

The network, the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Project, is run by a doctor who has received extensive funding from pharmaceutical giants, including the top two COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, according to other records.

In one example, CISA was presented with records showing a 63-year-old woman experienced chronic kidney disease, with symptoms including kidney swelling, after receiving a second dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.

CISA subject matter experts (SMEs) said that the diagnosis could not be definitively confirmed without a kidney biopsy but that they still felt comfortable using a causality algorithm for the presumed diagnosis developed in part by Dr. Kathryn Edwards, CISA's principal investigator.

Applying the algorithm to the case resulted in an "indeterminate" designation, or an inability to rule out the vaccine causing the problem, in part because there was no evidence of other causes. But that inability did not stop the program from recommending additional shots.

"Weighing the potential risks of COVID-19 vaccination and the benefits of preventing COVID-19, the SMEs provided their opinion that the patient should receive future COVID-19 vaccinations," the Feb. 24, 2023, letter to the patient's doctor stated.

At the time, the effectiveness of the vaccines against symptomatic infection had been shown to start low and wane quickly, while protection against severe disease began higher but also rapidly dropped.

After the woman received her next shot, the CISA experts said, the doctor should check in on her to see if she experienced recurrent hematuria, or blood in her urine.

"Although the CDC’s subject matter experts claim to have no idea if inflammation of the kidneys in a 63-year-old woman was caused by the mRNA COVID-19 biological, they tell the attending physician to go ahead and give the woman another COVID shot. That amounts to a challenge/re-challenge experiment on a sick woman without informed consent," Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, told The Epoch Times in an email.

"Government officials admitting ignorance about a biological product’s potential side effects but directing a doctor to risk a patient’s life by continuing to inject the product into a patient, who already has suffered an injury following use of that product, is immoral," she added. "We expect and deserve government health officials to adhere to a higher professional and ethical standard of care."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cdc-repeatedly-advised-people-post-vaccination-conditions-get-more-doses

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23935453-cisa-2023-letter