July 19, 2023 - "The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) just released a report claiming there are 1,225 hate and anti-government groups in America. These groups cause 'fear and pain [in] Black, brown, and LGBTQ communities.' The SPLC lists such groups on its 'hate map.' I once believed the Center. Well-meaning people still do. Apple once gave them $1 million. But what donors don't know is that today, the SPLC smears good people, not just 'haters.'
"Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up Muslim in Somalia, but now she criticizes radical Islam, and sometimes (maybe this is what really bothers the SPLC) fraternizes with American conservatives. The Center put Hirsi Ali on its list.
"The Center also smears the Family Research Council. I sometimes disagree with the Council. But they don't belong on a 'hate map'.... The Council merely opposed gay marriage, an opinion they shared with Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. One man became so enraged by what the SPLC wrote, he went to the Council's headquarters to kill people. He shot a security guard. Fortunately, that wounded guard stopped him before he could shoot anyone else....
The Center also smears the Ruth Institute, a Christian group that believes adoption agencies should first try to place children with straight couples.... When the SPLC put the Institute on its hate map, its bank cut them off. 'You're an organization that promotes hate, violence…,' wrote the bank. 'Therefore we're not doing business with you.' The Ruth Institute and Family Research Council are still on the hate list....
"I suspect the Center keeps its hate list long to bring in lots of money. The Center pays some of its people more than $400,000 a year.... Harper's Magazine once reported that the Center was the richest civil rights group in America, one that spends most of its time and energy trying to raise more money. They promised they'd stop fundraising once their endowment reached $55 million. But when they reached $55 million, they raised their goal to $100 million, saying $100 million would allow them to 'cease costly fundraising.' But when they reached $100 million—they didn't cease. They collected $200 million. Then $400 million. Now they have $730 million. Yet they still raise money....
"Today the SPLC even smears groups like Moms for Liberty and Moms for America, calling them anti-government extremists because they oppose sexually explicit content in schools, and seek school board seats to try to 'stop…school districts [from] disregarding the opinions of parents'....
The Center puts Moms for America on its 'hate map,' but not Antifa, the hate group that beats up people on the right. Today the Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate group itself. It's a left-wing, money-grabbing smear machine."
Federalism vs. separatism has been replaced by a new "'liberal-authoritarian' divide" as the main division in Quebec politics, argues a Quebec historian.
July 20, 2023 - "For the last 60 years, the main divide in Quebec politics has been whether the province should remain a part of Canada or separate. Supporters of staying in Canada backed federalism and the Quebec Liberal Party, while those favouring separation supported the Parti Québécois. This federalist-separatist divide was twice elevated as an existential battle during the 1980 and 1995 referendums.
"Since then, Quebec politics has changed considerably. In 2007, a third political party, the Action démocratique du Québec, became the official opposition. And in 2008, Québec solidaire [QS] elected its first member in the National Assembly. This shift in dynamics was confirmed with the CAQ’s election in 2018, which relegated the federalist-separatist divide to the background of the political debate. It also pushed the Liberal party and the PQ to the sidelines.
"What is, then, Quebec’s new political divide? It involves two opposing sides: one that leans 'liberal,' which is more reserved on state intervention and supportive of individual freedoms, and one that leans 'authoritarian,' which favours state intervention and is inclined to restrict individual freedoms in the name of the majority.
"What some call the 'liberal-authoritarian' divide is present in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada and western democracies. It ... does not involve parties or governments promoting the establishment of an authoritarian regime, let alone a dictatorship, or protecting individual freedoms above all other concerns. Instead, it suggests that authoritarianism and liberalism are today’s prevailing political tendencies.
"Political parties express one tendency or the other. This is particularly the case with the CAQ [Coalition Avenir Québec] government, whose policies, attitudes and actions put it on the authoritarian side of the spectrum. Consider Bills 21 and 96. Both invoke the notwithstanding clause that overrides rights and freedoms protected by the Quebec and Canadian charters of rights and freedoms. But what is most revealing is that Premier François Legault labels criticism of these bills as an assault on the Quebec nation.
"The notwithstanding clause is not inherently authoritarian. However, it becomes authoritarian when used without justification in the name of the majority and those who oppose it are labelled as anti-Quebec, which is exactly what the CAQ government has been doing. Moreover, the government’s cancellation of an anti-abortion event at the Quebec City convention centre under the pretext that it did not reflect Quebec’s values is another obvious example of the CAQ’s authoritarian tendencies.
"What about the liberal side? The QLP [Quebec Liberal Party] .. is the official opposition, and individual rights and freedoms are part of its core values. It has yet to recover, though, from the 2018-2022 election defeats and has begun rebuilding itself, which will take some time. QS has had more success positioning itself as an opponent to the CAQ, notably on climate change, housing and diversity issues. Still, voters perceive it for what it is — a very left-wing party with a tendency to tax, spend and systemically promote state intervention.
"It’s unclear where the PQ and Quebec Conservatives are positioned on the liberal-authoritarian divide. While the PQ is focused on surviving politically, the Conservatives’ ambiguous stance on Bills 21 and 96 — supporting the use of the notwithstanding clause for one but not the other — makes it difficult to know where they stand. At this point, no single opposition party has been able to capture and embody the liberal side.
"But if the liberal-authoritarian divide is the main driver of Quebec politics, and the CAQ represents the authoritarian side, the party that champions the liberal side will eventually replace the CAQ government."
Antoine Dionne Charest is a public affairs consultant who has contributed to political history books, including Legacy: How French Canadians Shaped North America (2016) and Canada Always: The Defining Speeches of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (2016).
July 25, 2023 - "Mastercard has said financial payment companies must stop allowing US customers to buy legal marijuana in shops with its debit cards. Because marijuana remains illegal at a federal level in the US, customers in the 38 states where it is allowed are usually forced to pay in cash. Mastercard said the move comes after it found some shops accepted debit payments despite the federal ban....
"'As we were made aware of this matter, we quickly investigated it. In accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions that offer payment services to cannabis merchants and connects them to Mastercard to terminate the activity,'" Mastercard said in a statement on Wednesday. '"The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems'....
"The crackdown aims to stop marijuana businesses, known as dispensaries, from offering the option to customers of paying with a debit card after entering their account's PIN number.
"Marijuana is currently legal for medical use in 38 states. It is also legal for adults over 21 years old to buy for recreational use in 23 states, including Washington DC and the entire US West Coast.
"In Canada, where cannabis was legalised on the national level in 2018, customers are often permitted to make payments with credit or debit cards.
"Sunburn Cannabis CEO Brady Cobb criticised Mastercard's decision, saying 'this move is another blow to the state-legal cannabis industry and patients/consumers who want to access this budding category'.
"The Democrat-controlled US Senate is hoping to pass a law that would make it easier for cannabis businesses to interact with financial institutions. But earlier this month, top Republican Senator John Cornyn described the bill's passage as "wishful thinking".
Excess deaths in Britain (so far) in 2023 so far are higher than in 2021 and 2022, and on a trajectory to pass even 2020 levels; while excess deaths among those aged 15-44 are higher than in any of the three previous years.
Jul 22, 2023 - "An urgent investigation is needed into why excess deaths are near pandemic levels, because the lack of an explanation is fuelling 'wild and dangerous theories'”, experts warn. Government figures suggest the number of extra or 'unnecessary' fatalities this year is higher than 2021 and 2022, and on a trajectory that could even surpass 2020. Of particular concern is the 15 to 44 age group, where cumulative deaths are tracking above all recent years, including 2020.
"Some commentators have suggested delayed medical treatment due to lockdown measures might be contributing to the rise. Others have blamed the indirect impact of pandemic measures, such as increased loneliness and isolation, as well as a rise in alcohol consumption and recreational drug use.
"Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has previously hypothesised that rising non-Covid excess deaths could have been caused by a fall in heart drug prescriptions. But subsequent research has shown there was no such drop. It was also claimed doctors’ strikes coincided with the jump in deaths. However, the British Medical Association said walkouts were not 'the root cause'. It insisted: 'There was no change in mortality trends during strike action.'
"The latest figures mean that since 2019 more deaths are being recorded each week than the five-year average. Only a small proportion of these are now being directly attributed to Covid.
"Dr Charles Levinson, Medical Director of private GP service Doctorcall, said the “silence” from Government was allowing conspiracy theories to flourish, including from anti-vaxxers. He said: 'A refusal to openly discuss these statistics is an abdication of responsibility from parts of the scientific community, leading to an irreversible erosion of trust by parts of society. There has been radio silence on the crisis from almost all, leaving a vacuum which is being filled by dangerous theories.'
"Last night Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine at Oxford University, called for an urgent inquiry. He said: 'There has been a complete failure by the Government to investigate these deaths correctly. This means we don’t know how to prevent further unnecessary deaths, fuelling wild speculation about the drivers.'
"The Department of Health and Social Care said: 'A wide variety of factors have contributed to excess deaths in recent months and we’re taking action to reduce them.'"
Security experts say that William Majcher, the ex-Mountie charged last week under Canada's Security of Information Act, likely worked for Operation Fox Hunt, a Chinese government operation targeting the Chinese diaspora which the Trudeau regime originally supported.
July 25, 2023 - "As an RCMP officer, William Majcher, 60, used fake identities to infiltrate organized crime groups to investigate money laundering.... After leaving the national police force in 2007, Majcher moved to Hong Kong, where he helped create a firm called Evaluate Monitor Investigate Deter Recover (EMIDR) ... to help China and its corporations recover assets it alleged were stolen, Majcher said in previous interviews.... Three security experts told CTV National News it’s likely Majcher was part of China’s notorious Operation Fox Hunt, an anti-corruption campaign under the regime of President Xi Jinping....
"Created in 2014, Fox Hunt and its later iteration, Sky Net, targeted Chinese nationals living abroad. Under the program, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would recruit police officers, private investigators and lawyers in foreign countries to help track down fugitives suspected of financial crimes and bring them back to China to face prosecution. The CCP’s latest statistics from October 2022 show that more than 12,000 Chinese Nationals have been 'involuntarily returned' to China under Operation Fox Hunt and Sky Net.
"According to Safeguard Defenders, a Spanish non-government organization, alleged fugitives were repatriated using extradition as well as covert methods such as threats and kidnapping. Safeguard says targets can also be lured to another country with an extradition treaty with China and arrested there. And not all of those forced to return home are suspected criminals. Human rights groups say fighting corruption was also a guise used by the CCP to find and silence its critics....
"The RCMP, Majcher’s former employer, has charged him under the rarely used Security of Information Act with preparatory acts for the benefit of a foreign entity and conspiracy. Majcher is accused of foreign interference-related activities for using his knowledge and extensive network of contacts to allegedly help the Chinese government 'identify and intimidate' an individual in Canada. Scott McGregor, a former military intelligence officer who has researched Operation Fox Hunt, says the charges likely stem from Majcher’s work tracking down alleged criminals for the Chinese government.... But McGregor points out that prosecuting Majcher under these charges will be complicated because Canada once tacitly supported China’s international efforts to fight corruption.
"In September 2016, nearly a year after he became prime minister, Justin Trudeau welcomed former premier Li Keqiang to Canada. During that visit, Li, China’s second-in-command, sealed a historic agreement to work together to recover and share in the return of stolen assets. According to Chinese state media, Canada was the first country to enter into such a treaty with China since it launched its anti-corruption campaign in 2014. The CCP estimated that as many as 25 per cent of its most wanted financial fugitives had fled to Canada. Under the agreement, Canada and China would co-operate in investigations and split the proceeds of crime once they were recovered.... During Li's visit, where removing trade barriers was also discussed, Trudeau expressed in a speech his excitement about developing 'a real partnership that will benefit all our people for generations to come.'
"But five years later, the government began striking a different tone. In February 2021, Public Safety Canada issued a warning about Operation Fox Hunt stating that China’s anti-corruption efforts weren’t just used to bring criminals to justice, but its tactics could also be used to 'silence dissent, pressure political opponents and instill a general fear of state power on Canadian soil.' Later that year in the autumn of 2021, the RCMP would begin investigating Majcher.
"Police have not released the name of the victim that Majcher is alleged to have targeted, but other Canadian cases related to Operation Fox Hunt have been made public. Safeguard Defenders claimed in a March 2022 report that Zhang Yan from Canada was warned by Chinese police to return because they had placed his father under arrest. The human rights organization also revealed the presence of a global network of illegal Chinese police stations, including at least five in Canada. Earlier this year, CTV National News reported on the case of Edward Gong, a Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur and former Toronto mayoral candidate who is suing the Ontario Securities Commission. Gong alleges the OSC endangered his life by co-operating with Chinese police in a fraud investigation.
"Katherine Leung, a policy advisor for advocacy group Hong Kong Watch, says the arrest of Majcher could also erode the diaspora’s trust in law enforcement. 'They’re told to go to the police when things like this happen,' says Leung. 'Knowing that there's someone who could be in the RCMP today and be on China's side tomorrow tells us that there needs to be a better way for these diaspora groups to report foreign interference and intimidation.' Leung wants to see a dedicated phone line to report foreign interference, staffed with workers who can communicate in Cantonese and Mandarin. Leung says Majcher’s case also illustrates the need to create a foreign agent registry. If the registry existed, Majcher would be legally required to identify himself as someone who worked for the Chinese government instead of allegedly operating in the shadows....
Kansas highway police have "waged war on motorists" for years, a federal judge says, in a ruling which draws back the veil on routine police practices that victimize innocent drivers.
July 24, 2023 - "A cop pulls you over for a minor traffic violation. After giving you a warning or a ticket, he says, 'Drive safe!' and starts walking away. But he immediately turns around and walks toward your car again, saying, 'Hey, can I ask you something?' That maneuver, known as the 'Kansas Two-Step,' is aimed at evading the Fourth Amendment's constraints on searches and seizures. Police are not supposed to continue detaining you after the ostensible purpose of the stop has been accomplished unless they reasonably suspect you are involved in criminal activity. The two-step is designed to extend the encounter by making it notionally voluntary....That trick, which Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP) troopers commonly use based on training that recommends it, is undeniably convenient for cops who hope to find contraband or seizable cash. According to a federal judge in Kansas, it is also unconstitutional.
"'Troopers occupy a position of power and authority during a traffic stop,' U.S. District Kathryn Vratil observes in a decision published on Friday, 'and when a trooper quickly reapproaches a driver after a traffic stop and continues to ask questions, the authority that a trooper wields — combined with the fact that most motorists do not know that they are free to leave and KHP troopers deliberately decline to tell them that they are free to leave — communicates a strong message that the driver is not free to leave'.... 'In such circumstances,' Vratil says, "the theory that a driver who remains on the scene gives knowing and voluntary consent to further questioning is nothing but a convenient fiction; in the circumstances present in this case, troopers unlawfully detained drivers, without reasonable suspicion, for further questioning.'
"The case, Shaw v. Jones, involves several drivers represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas who objected to stops that they argued were illegally extended after they had received warnings or citations. In addition to agreeing with the plaintiffs on that point, Vratil found that KHP troopers improperly considered drivers' destinations or starting points as a significant reason to detain or search them. Her strongly worded rebuke pulls back the veil on pretextual traffic stops, which police routinely use to harass, detain, and search innocent motorists in the name of enforcing drug prohibition....
"The KHP 'has waged war on motorists — especially out-of-state residents traveling between Colorado and Missouri on federal highway I-70 in Kansas,' Vratil, a George H.W. Bush appointee, writes. 'As wars go, this one is relatively easy; it's simple and cheap, and for motorists, it's not a fair fight. The war is basically a question of numbers: stop enough cars and you're bound to discover drugs. And what's the harm if a few constitutional rights are trampled along the way?'... 'Kansas has hundreds or thousands of traffic laws on the books,' Vratil observes. 'These traffic laws give KHP troopers innumerable reasons to stop motorists for violations which may involve public safety, but the stops [are] actually intended to investigate drug crimes for which they have little or no evidence'....
"Interstate 70 connects Colorado and Missouri, where marijuana is legal, through Kansas, where it is not.... 'Now that both states have legalized recreational marijuana,' Vratil notes, 'any traveler on I-70 between Colorado and Missouri — that is, anywhere on I-70 in Kansas, traveling in either direction—is by definition traveling both to and from a "drug source" state. And it doesn't stop there: according to KHP troopers, all major cities are also drug sources. As a result, all drivers on I-70 have moving targets on their backs'.... In the 2016 case Vasquez v. Lewis, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which includes Kansas, ruled that a KHP trooper had 'impermissibly relied' on a driver's 'status as a resident of Colorado' to justify a search of his car....
"Based on the training received by KHP troopers and the details of the traffic stops experienced by the plaintiffs, Vratil concludes that the KHP has flouted Vasquez.... In some of those stops, she notes, troopers relied on 'an absurd and tenuous combination of factors,' such as driving on Interstate 70, driving a rental car, driving a car with out-of-state plates, 'seeming nervous while interacting with law enforcement,' 'going on a trip with one's nephew,' 'having fingerprints on the trunk lid,' and 'having a bag in the passenger seat.' In one case, a trooper deemed it 'extremely suspicious' that a woman with an autoimmune disorder 'chose to drive instead of fly during the COVID-19 pandemic.' He also thought it was suspicious that she was driving a Mercedes....
"In several cases, troopers who suspected drivers for such tenuous reasons used drug-detecting dogs to justify fruitless vehicle searches. The Supreme Court has approved the use of such dogs during routine traffic stops, provided it does not 'unreasonably' prolong the driver's detention. And the Court has said an alert by a properly trained dog is enough to provide probable cause for a search, notwithstanding substantial evidence that such alerts are often erroneous, imagined, invented, or triggered by the handler's subconscious cues.... Based on the KHP's account of what an alert actually signifies, that assumption seems unjustified, even when a dog is properly trained, actually reacts to a car, and is not responding to the handler's cues.
"For the plaintiffs in Shaw v. Jones, this confluence of factors — broad police power to stop cars, the fiction that interrogation during those stops is consensual, frivolous rationales for 'reasonable suspicion,' and excessive faith in canine narcs — turned alleged traffic violations that could have been addressed in 10 minutes or so into ordeals lasting 40 minutes or more. Those encounters included unjustified grilling, baseless accusations of wrongdoing, and humiliating searches that turned up nothing incriminating. They left a lasting impression on the plaintiffs, who report that they are now wary of the police, highly anxious about being pulled over, and disinclined to report crimes or otherwise seek police assistance....
"The abuses documented in this case are by no means limited to the Kansas Highway Patrol. Based on the leeway that the Supreme Court has given them, police officers across the country routinely use alleged traffic violations as an excuse to conduct criminal investigations that otherwise would not be permitted. Assuming that the Court is not prepared to revisit the precedents that created this situation, the best remedy may be public education about Fourth Amendment rights and the importance of asserting them even when it is psychologically difficult."
A retired RCMP officer has been charged with having "contributed to the Chinese government's efforts to identify and intimidate an individual outside the scope of Canadian law."
July 21, 2023 - "A retired RCMP officer has been charged with foreign interference, the Mounties said in a news release Friday. William Majcher, 60, 'allegedly used his knowledge and his extensive network of contacts in Canada to obtain intelligence or services to benefit the People's Republic of China,' the RCMP in Montreal said in the news release.
"The release alleged that Majcher 'contributed to the Chinese government's efforts to identify and intimidate an individual outside the scope of Canadian law.' The alleged foreign interference did not involve elections or politics, an RCMP spokesperson said.
"Cpl. Tasha Adams told Radio-Canada that Majcher works for a firm based in Hong Kong that was collecting information about an individual in Canada. That information was being gathered on behalf of China, which wanted to target the person in question, Adams said. She added she did not know the nationality of the person being targeted. Police said Majcher is from Hong Kong.
"He appeared in court in Longueuil, Que. by videoconference on Friday. He is charged with preparatory acts for the benefit of a foreign entity and conspiracy. Both alleged offences fall under the Security of Information Act....
"The RCMP said their Integrated National Security Team (INSET) launched an investigation into Majcher's "suspicious activities" in fall of 2021.... David Beaudoin, the head of Montreal's INSET, told CBC the investigation was launched through a complaint-driven process, but the complaint didn't come from the victim. Beaudoin said Majcher was arrested Thursday in Vancouver, but the investigation is taking place in Quebec because Majcher spent most of his RCMP career in B.C.... 'Because of those links, the national security program of the RCMP deemed it necessary to assign the file to a different unit,' he said....
"Majcher's LinkedIn page says he worked on a number of money laundering investigations as a covert operator while serving with the RCMP. In 2006 he moved to Hong Kong, where he has been working as a risk assessment adviser for the investment banking sector, says his LinkedIn profile.
"According to his profile on the Hong Kong-based website Speakers Connect, Majcher founded a corporate risk firm called EMIDR in 2016. EMIDR's website lists state-sponsored espionage, intelligence gathering and money laundering as some of its areas of expertise. It also says the firm specializes in asset recovery.
"An Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) article from 2019 said Majcher was part of Project Dragon, a Chinese operation to recover money allegedly siphoned out of the country illegally. In the article, Majcher ... told ABC that he was working for a third-party "entity" that was associated with Chinese police "in some form or another." Adams told CBC the evidence 'appears' to suggest the Chinese government was one of Majcher's clients. But Beaudoin said the RCMP is unable to state whether these charges are related to Majcher's past employment."
A meta-analysis published by Britain's Institute of Economic Affairs concludes that Covid-19 lockdowns were "a global policy failure of gigantic proportions."
June 5, 2023 - "A new systematic review and meta-analysis published by the Institute of Economic Affairs finds that Covid lockdowns failed to significantly reduce deaths The Herby-Jonung-Hanke meta-analysis found that lockdowns, as reported in studies based on stringency indices in the spring of 2020, reduced mortality by 3.2 per cent when compared to less strict lockdown policies adopted by the likes of Sweden. This means lockdowns prevented 1,700 deaths in England and Wales, 6,000 deaths across Europe, and 4,000 deaths in the United States.
"Lockdowns prevented relatively few deaths compared to a typical flu season – in England and Wales, 18,500–24,800 flu deaths occur, in Europe 72,000 flu deaths occur, and in the United States 38,000 flu deaths occur in a typical flu season. These results pale in comparison to the Imperial College of London’s modelling exercises (March 2020), which predicted that lockdowns would save over 400,000 lives in the United Kingdom and over 2 million lives in the United States.
"Herby, Jonung, and Hanke conclude that voluntary changes in behaviour, such as social distancing, played a significant role in mitigating the pandemic – but harsher restrictions, like stay-at-home rules and school closures, generated very high costs but produced only negligible health benefits. COVID-19 lockdowns were 'a global policy failure of gigantic proportions,' according to this peer-reviewed new academic study. The draconian policy failed to significantly reduce deaths while imposing substantial social, cultural, and economic costs.
"'This study is the first all-encompassing evaluation of the research on the effectiveness of mandatory restrictions on mortality,' according to one of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Lars Jonung, professor emeritus at the Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies at Sweden’s Lund University. 'It demonstrates that lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social and political costs to society. Most likely lockdowns represent the biggest policy mistake in modern times.'
The comprehensive 220-page book, published today by the London-based think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, began with a systematic review of 19,646 potentially relevant studies. For their meta-analysis, the authors’ screening resulted in the choice of 22 studies that are based on actual, measured mortality data, not on results derived from modelling exercises. A meta-analysis is considered the ‘gold-standard’ for evidence, as it combines comparable, independent studies to determine overall trends.
"The authors, including Professor Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University, also consider a range of studies that determined the impact of individual lockdown restrictions, including stay-at-home rules ... school closures and travel restrictions. In each case, the restrictions did little to reduce COVID-19 mortality. Shelter-in-place (stay at home) orders in Europe and the United States reduced COVID mortality by between 1.4 and 4.1 per cent; Business closures reduced mortality by 7.5 per cent; Gathering limits likely increased COVID mortality by almost six per cent....
"The study compares the effect of lockdown measures against the effect of ‘doing the least,’ rather than doing nothing at all.... Voluntary measures, like social distancing and the reduction of person-to-person contact, effectively reduced COVID mortality in Sweden, a country that did not impose draconian legal restrictions. This is consistent with evidence early in the pandemic that voluntary action began reducing transmission before lockdowns. The authors also conclude that legal mandates only limited a relatively small set of potential contagious contacts, and could in some cases have backfired by encouraging people to stay indoors in less safe environments.
"If voluntary action, minor legal changes, and proactive information campaigns effectively reduced the transmission of COVID, lockdowns were unwarranted from a public health point of view. This negative conclusion is amplified by the significant economic and social costs associated with lockdowns, which include:
stunted economic growth;
large increases in public debt;
rising inequality;
damage to children’s education and health;
reduced health-related quality of life;
damage to mental health;
increased crime; and
threats to democracy and loss of freedom.
"The research concludes that, unless substantial alternative evidence emerges, lockdowns should be ‘rejected out of hand’ to control future pandemics."
July 19, 2021 - "City council passed two different motions on Wednesday: One looking to allow an activity that is already happening, the other to ban something the city has no ability to enforce.
"Council gave the go-ahead to allow a pilot project to allow consumption of alcohol in 22 of the city’s roughly 1,500 parks between Aug. 2 and Oct. 9. The motion requires city staff to prepare a report on the pilot project and report back in early 2024. The province gave municipalities the ability to allow alcohol consumption in city parks years ago. Many municipalities did so simply by removing their existing bylaws, but not Toronto....
"My first time in High Park after moving here in my 20s was to watch a play in the park, which I did while drinking a bottle of wine like most of those around me. That was in the 1990s and it’s still happening in parks, at the beach and elsewhere without much in the way of an issue, but we had to debate it still and demand a report....
"Moments later, council went from being permissive to restrictive, deciding that even if two-stroke engines powering weed whackers, leaf blowers, lawn mowers and other small engine equipment are legal, they shouldn’t be used in Toronto. The motion called for city staff to 'identify the resources required to develop and implement a ban on two-stroke equipment.'
"The ban would cover city workers using the equipment and residents. For residents struggling to transition, the motion called for staff to look into the ability to set up a lending library for electric versions of lawn equipment that residents could borrow...
"What’s fascinating about this proposed ban is that the city has little ability to enforce such a ban. Buying the equipment would still be legal unless and until the federal government passes legislation to ban it. Even if local stores stopped carrying the equipment, there would be nothing to stop residents from driving outside of city limits to buy their lawnmower or weed whacker or ordering them online.
"It’s certain that some residents would rat out neighbours using gas-powered lawn gear, but what could the city do? The city can’t enforce existing bylaws and has allowed encampments to take over parks across the city, but some councillors want to make stopping you from using a weed whacker a priority."
Some Canadian progressive media and politicians, including the Prime Minister, are blaming the American far right for recent protests by Muslim parents against school curricula.
July 18, 2023 - "The 2023 edition of the Calgary Stampede drew to a close this weekend, but not before the national media could squeeze out one more faux scandal ... after a photo of Conservative party finance critic Jasraj Singh Hallan (MP for Calgary Forest Lawn) flanked by three Muslim Canadian men at an outdoor Stampede breakfast surfaced on social media. Two of the men were wearing matching white t-shirts emblazoned with the words 'Leave our KIDS alone'.... (One of the men in the photo was identified as Mahmoud Mourra, the administrator of the Facebook group YYC Muslims and an organizer of last month’s protest against 'forced LGBTQ indoctrination in schools' in downtown Calgary.)
"Coming on the heels of two similar incidents earlier in the week (involving Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, respectively), the photo has spurred calls for both Hallan and Poilievre to clarify whether they agree with the message written on the t-shirts. As of Monday evening, neither man has responded to media requests for comment on the matter. The manufactured controversy also reflects a worrisome trend of left-leaning Canadian media outlets casting aspersions on Muslims communities for wrongthink on LGBT issues....
"A string of recent news stories have placed Muslim Canadians at the heart of an intensifying backlash against Pride events. These articles have characteristically portrayed conservative Muslim activists as wrongheaded dupes who’ve been manipulated by algorithms into carrying water for the far-right enemies of the LGBT community. The very same far-right that, not too long ago, fought against Muslim immigration.
"One particularly condemnatory write-up, published earlier this month in the Toronto Star, called it 'heartbreaking' to see Muslim groups at the forefront of anti-Pride demonstrations. The column’s author, social and racial justice columnist Shree Paradkar, alleges, 'leaders of the white far right, sensing weakness in the solidarity of right groups' have forged a temporary alliance of convenience with conservative Muslim activists. 'Images with visibly Muslim people in their midst make for an effective cover (against claims of white supremacism),' she adds.
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed this framing himself last week when he was filmed interacting with a group of Muslim men at Calgary’s Baitun-Nur Mosque. 'First of all, there is an awful lot of misinformation and disinformation (on) social media, particularly fueled by the American right wing,' Trudeau tells the men.
"'If you look at the various curriculums,' Trudeau continues, 'you will see that there is not what is being said out there about aggressive teaching or conversion of kids to being LGBT. That is something that is being weaponized by people who are not doing it because of their interest in supporting the Muslim community. These are people on the far-right who have consistently stood against Muslim rights and the Muslim community.'
"This conspiratorial (and, quite frankly, condescending) progressive narrative strips Canadian Muslims of their agency and delegitimizes the entirely valid concerns that thousands of Muslim parents across Canada have voiced over their children being exposed to mandatory educational content that’s diametrically opposed to the teachings of their faith.
"In dismissing the (organic) Muslim pushback against an overbearing Pride agenda as an astroturfed machination of the white-led far-right, progressives are exposing their own dim view of Muslims as a servile and easily manipulated band of nitwits. This patronizing and harmful progressive narrative needs to be called out for the hogwash that it is."
The Ontario Provincial Police have issued an advisory over a convicted child trafficker living at a children's center near Barrie. The man, who says he ran an escort service which hired a minor who used fraudulent ID, called the advisory "ridiculous".
July 17, 2023 - "A man previously convicted of human trafficking of children is living at an Ontario centre offering services for children with autism, police say, prompting a community safety advisory. Lauriston Charles Maloney, 42, 'resides at, and has regular access to' the Beating the Odds centre, which offers services for children with autism, police said. 'Maloney is a convicted sex offender with several prior convictions, which include human trafficking of children,' the advisory read.
"OPP Sgt. Jason Folz told Global News Maloney faced charges in Peel Region and was convicted in 2004 and 2013. 'It’s a total of 16 criminal charges related to human trafficking and trafficking of minor age children, which has put him on the sex offender registry,' Folz said.... Maloney is not under any conditions relating to associating with young children, Folz said....
"The OPP said they were releasing the information as a precautionary measure. 'Members of the public are reminded that, although "Maloney does present a safety risk, his rights are guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” the advisory said. 'As such, the Nottawasaga OPP will act to protect these rights if they are infringed.'
"Police said they issued the advisory after a 'careful review of the offender as it relates to issues of public safety.' 'The Police Services Act permits the commissioner of the OPP, the local chief of police, or his/her designate, to make public notification regarding high-risk offenders in the community if the community’s safety will be enhanced by the release of the offender’s personal information,' the OPP noted." Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/9837508/man-convicted-human-trafficking-living-ontario-childrens-centre/
July 18, 2023 - "Amber Maloney, the owner of Beating the Odds, said her husband is not connected to her business. 'Yes, we share the same property address, but he does not work with these kids. He has his own job that brings him off-site and allows me to operate solely without him,' she wrote in a statement to CTV News....
"In an interview with CTV, Maloney called the police advisory 'ridiculous.' 'For every child, there is a supervisor who watches that child individually. It’s one-to-one therapy. So, no, I have no interaction with the children,” [he] said.... 'It’s just ridiculous that this is how they are trying to... make me look like some sort of predator.'
"Maloney claims he was convicted because he ran an escort agency from 2002 to 2004. 'I would be picking up women and bringing them to hotels with a company as well as collecting money and sometimes booking hotel rooms for the girls … Those charges were as a result of collecting money for the girls performing sex acts.' He claims one of the girls was a minor. 'It was in evidence that this girl provided false identification, but you’re still held liable as a company if somebody even provides false ID.'
"CTV requested court documents to confirm Maloney’s convictions but they were not provided."
July 19, 2023 - "Lauriston Maloney, 42, and his wife Amber Maloney, 36, were taken into police custody on Wednesday morning and charged with multiple offences related to recruiting, exercising control, exploitation, assault, forcible confinement, and financial benefit from committing a crime. A publication ban has been placed to protect any youth involved."
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated a lower court's injunction barring federal government agencies from ordering social media companies to suppress protected free speech.
July 17, 2023 - "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit put on temporary hold an order blocking federal officials from pressuring social media companies to suppress certain accounts, posts, or types of information ... issued Friday. It deferred ruling on the Biden administration's motion for a stay pending appeal 'to the oral argument merits panel which receives this case,' which means those judges will decide whether to lift the current administrative stay or keep things on pause [after] the full appeals process plays out. The court also expedited the case to the next available oral argument slot, meaning an appeals court panel will hold a full hearing on the case as soon as possible....
"First Amendment lawyer Robert Corn-Revere recently wrote for Reason about this case (Missouri v. Biden), suggesting that 'the political noise surrounding the case is distracting attention from the important First Amendment principles at stake.' Corn-Revere cites Judge Richard Posner in Backpage.com, LLC v. Dart: A public official who 'threatens to employ coercive state power to stifle protected speech violates a plaintiff's First Amendment rights, regardless of whether the threatened punishment comes in the form of the use (or, misuse) of the defendant's direct regulatory or decisionmaking authority…or in some less-direct form.' (In that case, an Illinois sheriff pressured credit card companies to stop doing business with Backpage.)
"A ruling that federal authorities must limit flagging online speech to encourage its suppression or removal by tech platforms should be viewed by free speech defenders as an unambiguously good thing. But the lower court's decision in Missouri v. Biden — the decision now on temporary hold — has attracted a lot of criticism in some corners that should know better. For instance, The Washington Post called the initial order 'a victory for conservatives' and warned that it 'could have a major chilling effect on contacts between tech companies…and a broad swath of federal agencies' — as if that's a bad thing!...
"In the lower court's ruling, U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty banned all Department of Justice and FBI employees plus many federal public health officials from 'meeting with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content,' and 'specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech'....
"The case was brought by the Republican attorneys general (A.G.s) of Louisiana and Missouri, as part of a beef with the Biden administration.... 'State A.G.s are unlikely defenders of the First Amendment given the members of that fraternity who make their political bones by mounting anti-speech crusades,' notes Corn-Revere. And on the same day Missouri v. Biden came down, [Missouri A.G. Andrew] Bailey was one of seven state A.G.s who sent a threatening letter to Target warning that the sale of LGBTQ-themed merchandise as part of a 'Pride' campaign might violate state obscenity laws.'
So, Bailey is not exactly a stalwart and unwavering defender of First Amendment principles. And Doughty's opinion 'credulously accepts plaintiffs' claims that almost all of the contacts with government officials (and some civilians) were coercive, and it uncritically accepts assertions that "only conservative viewpoints were allegedly suppressed,"' notes Corn-Revere. Doughty also makes a number of other puzzling assertions in his (now on-hold) 155-page ruling.... But it doesn't mean that Doughty's decision is totally without merits, either.
"'The district court's ruling in Missouri v. Biden rightly recognizes the serious threat government pressure tactics pose to free speech online,' as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression put it. This sort of backhanded pressure on social media has come to be known as 'jawboning.' Robby Soave took a deep look at the issue for Reason's March 2023 cover story [see video].
"Perhaps the 5th Circuit's temporary hold on the order is 'the right call given the scope of the order and the many questions it raises," suggests Corn-Revere. But 'while the court of appeals should clarify and narrow the terms of the injunction, reversing it would be a mistake. It doesn't require an active imagination to predict how far a future administration (of either party) might venture if the courts greenlighted this level of governmental meddling in private moderation decisions.'"
The Toronto government, supported by the police and board of health, has asked the federal government to decriminalize drug possession for personal use in the city. But the Ontario premier vows to fight it.
July 6, 2023 - "Toronto Public Health, with the support of the Toronto Police Service, has recently re-applied to Health Canada to decriminalize personal use drugs within the city limits as part of their effort to tackle the opioid crisis.... Initially submitted in January 2022, the now updated application from Ontario’s capital city asks Health Canada to go beyond the exemption it recently granted to British Columbia.
"Effective Jan. 31, Health Canada granted B.C. a three-year decriminalization exemption covering adults and certain drugs — namely, opioids, crack and powder cocaine, meth and MDMA — and decriminalizes possession up to a combined 2.5 grams of otherwise illegal drugs. The Toronto Model does not outline a proposed threshold, nor does it have limitations on the types of substances one can possess. The city is asking for all drugs to be decriminalized for personal use and for the exemption to cover adults and young people. It would also extend across the city, except for schools, child-care facilities and airports.
"Toronto Public Health’s stated goal is to 'reduce the mental, physical and social harms associated with criminalizing people for possessing drugs for their personal use.' In the application itself, Toronto Police Service states their data shows that of 617 charges for possession in 2021, in 36 of these cases, possession was the only charge....
"In many countries across the world decriminalization has proven effective. Czechia, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland are among a handful of countries that have decriminalized drug use and possession for personal use and have invested in harm reduction programmes.
"According to a New York Times analysis, the number of heroin users in Portugal has dropped from 100,000 to just 25,000 today. The number of HIV diagnoses caused by injection drug use has plummeted by more than 90 per cent. Over the last 20 years, levels of drug use in Portugal are consistently under the European average, particularly with young people between the ages of 15-34.... A 2015 study found that since Portugal approved this new national strategy, the per capita social cost of substance use decased by 18 per cent." Read more: https://www.sudbury.com/local-news/could-decriminalization-of-drugs-combat-the-opioid-crisis-7241636
Toronto's Push to Decriminalize Drugs | The Agenda | TVO Today | January 20, 2022:
July 17, 2023 - "Ontario Premier Doug Ford is slamming the City of Toronto’s plan to decriminalize hard drugs, including fentanyl and meth for kids and adults.... In a Friday radio interview with Global AM 640’s Alex Pierson, Ford said Toronto’s sweeping proposal is the 'craziest thing I’ve ever heard.' 'Go out to Vancouver, go out to San Francisco,' he added amid the two cities facing major drug issues.
"'I will do everything I can to fight this,' said Ford. 'This goes up to the federal government. They cannot be following up with the request. It would be an absolute disaster for our city.'"
The theory of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) may explain the explosion in the numbers, and the changing profiles, of adolescents transitioning over the past decade. But some people don't want you to read about it.
July 10, 2023 - "I am a professor of psychology at Northwestern University. I have been a professor for 34 years, and a researcher for 40. Over the decades, I have studied controversial topics — from IQ, to sexual orientation, to transsexualism (what we called transgenderism before 2015), to pedophilia. I have published well over 100 academic articles.... My research has been denounced by people of all political stripes because I have never prioritized a favored constituency over the truth. But I have never had an article retracted. Until now.
"On March 29, I published an article in the prestigious academic journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.... The ... article, 'Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases', was coauthored with Suzanna Diaz, who[m] I met in 2018 at a small meeting of scientists, journalists, and parents of children they believed had Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD).
"ROGD was first described in the literature in 2018 by the physician and researcher Lisa Littman. It is an explanation of the new phenomenon of adolescents, largely girls, with no history of gender dysphoria, suddenly declaring they want to transition to the opposite sex..... Until recently, females treated for gender dysphoria were masculine-presenting girls who had hated being female since early childhood. By contrast, girls with ROGD are often conventionally feminine, but tend to have other social and emotional issues. The theory behind ROGD is that through social contagion from friends, social media, and even school, vulnerable girls are exposed to the idea that their normal adolescent angst is the result of an underlying transgender identity. These girls then suddenly declare that they are transgender.... After the declaration, the girls may desire — and receive — drastic medical interventions including mastectomies and testosterone injections.
"There is ample evidence that in progressive communities, multiple girls from the same peer group are announcing they are trans almost simultaneously. There has been a sharp increase in this phenomenon across the industrialized West. A recent review from the UK, which keeps better records than America, showed a greater than tenfold increase in referrals of adolescent girls during just the past decade. But there have been virtually no scientific data or studies on the subject. In part that is because researchers who have touched this topic have been punished for their curiosity. Just ask Lisa Littman. Ultimately, her paper on the subject resulted in an unnecessary 'correction' by the journal that published it, and the loss of Littman’s academic affiliation with Brown University.... This explains why my coauthor, 'Suzanna Diaz,' doesn’t go by her real name....
"Our article was based on parent reports of 1,655 adolescent and young adult children. Three-fourths of them were female. Emotional problems were common among this group, especially anxiety and depression, which many parents said preceded gender issues by years.... Parents observed that after their children socially transitioned, their mental health deteriorated. A small number—seven percent of those whose parents answered Suzanna’s survey—had received medical transition treatment, including drugs to block puberty, or cross-sex hormones. Disturbingly, those young people with more emotional problems were especially likely to have socially and medically transitioned....
"Our article was published to a fair amount of attention.... But from the start, it got negative attention from trans activists and their political allies. Almost immediately these activists began to lobby both the publisher of Archives of Sexual Behavior (Springer Nature Group) and the organization affiliated with the journal (International Academy of Sex Research, or IASR) to retract the article and to punish the editor of Archives, psychologist Kenneth Zucker, because he had published our work. On May 5, a group of 100 academic activists and gender clinicians published an online Open Letter expressing 'ethical' and 'editorial concerns' about the journal and 'serious concerns over research ethics and intellectual integrity' of our article....
"On May 23, we received an email from Springer informing us that they were retracting our article. The ostensible reason:
The Publisher and the Editor-in-Chief have retracted this article due to noncompliance with our editorial policies around consent. The participants of the survey have not provided written informed consent to participate in scholarly research or to have their responses published in a peer reviewed article. Additionally, they have not provided consent to publish to have their data included in this article. Table 1 and the Supplementary material have therefore been removed to protect the participants’ privacy.
"We appealed after consulting a lawyer, but Springer retracted our paper on June 14. Springer’s reasoning was preposterous and simply an excuse to retract an article they wanted to go away in order to stop the controversy.... All parents completing Suzanna’s survey knew they were being asked questions about their children’s ROGD, and they decided to answer. Parents were promised privacy of personal information, and they got it.... We did inform participants that we would publish their data. At the end of the survey participants were told: 'We will publish our data on our website when we have a large enough sample. . .'
"We are outraged and disappointed that our article was retracted. But the ... article’s retraction has inadvertently resulted in a triumph for truth and reason. Start with the support we’ve received from FAIR, Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine, and others. Unless you have ever been cancelled, you have no idea how important this is. The campaign against our article, from the open letter to the final retraction, has generated immense publicity by academic standards, so far largely favorable. Our academic article has been viewed online more than 100,000 times in not quite three months, an astonishing number for an article of this nature. This reflects a thirst for knowledge about this important subject. Speaking for myself, this episode has guaranteed that I will study ROGD until we understand it."
Jul 8, 2023 - "Former Liberal Party president Stephen LeDrew continues to condemn the rulership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for undermining Canada. In his latest rant, entitled, 'Justin Trudeau’s Woke Nanny State is Making Life Worse—for Each and Every Canadian!' [see video], LeDrew said the mainstream media is 'being lulled into silence by the cheques from Justin, or they just acquiesce. And that's wrong'....
Ledrew, recently had Hamilton school trustee Catherine Kronas on his program. She posted the Hamilton Gender Identity and Gender Expression Procedure on Twitter June 16 saying it 'will ... deny ... parental involvement in social transition'.... Ledrew said this policy, endorsed by the Liberal government, is off-base. 'Parents are the parents; they should know. Seamus Reagan said, "Well, you know what, sometimes parents cannot be trusted," and that's where the state falls into it; that's where the school boards should be in control of this. I say that's absolutely wrong. We don't need more states taking care of our children. That's like the USSR'....
"From one controversy to another, Ledrew called the prime minister offside. In another example, Ledrew conceded some death and mistreatment occurred at residential schools but said Trudeau had presented a false narrative. 'Our prime minister said, it's genocide. He besmirched Canada around the world, and no facts to support that.'
"The idea that the government provide a safe supply of drugs may occasionally apply, Ledrew said, but fails as a one-size-fits-all solution. 'We really need more on rehabilitation. There are so many different solutions to it. We have a Prime Minister who is dogmatic, who really just sticks to one thing, ignores [the rest], and it calls it science. It's not science....
> And that, of course, brings us to climate change and the taxes that are killing the middle class in this country. The Prime Minister says we're doing it to fight climate change. And yet, climate change is just getting worse in this country, his fight is over. He's done nothing about it except for impoverish many, many Canadians who had good paying jobs before. And the rest of the world is noticing that Canada is just not up to snuff.
"That was only a short list, LeDrew said, of government failures. 'Canadians need to pay attention, and I think we need to discuss it more because we can do better, but we're letting those politicians off the hook. This country needs bold and fearless discussion of the issues that are confronting it.'"
Charges against former MP Derek Sloan and former Ontario MPP Randy Hillier for attending a banned "No More Lockdowns" 2021 protest in Stratford, Ontario, have been dropped by the Crown.
July 12, 2023 - "The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is pleased to announce that charges against Mr. Derek Sloan and Mr. Randy Hillier were dropped on Thursday, June 29, 2023. Both men allegedly attended a rally against Covid-19 lockdown measures in April 2021.
"On April 8, 2021, the Ontario government declared a state of emergency over increasing cases of Covid-19. The government then implemented its most draconian measures yet by instituting an outdoor gathering ban which effectively made peaceful political protest illegal in Ontario. Mr. Sloan was a former MP, and Mr. Hillier was a sitting MPP at the time. Both believed that these lockdowns were harmful and attended these gatherings to protest the measures.
"On April 25, 2021, there was a 'No More Lockdowns' protest in Stratford, which the 2 men attended. At the time, the Ontario government’s regulations stated that zero persons were allowed to gather outdoors.... The Ontario government did this despite the fact most experts agree that spread of respiratory viruses at short duration, outdoor events are extremely limited. Mr. Sloan and Mr. Hillier each faced a maximum fine of $100,000 for attending this protest.
"The prosecutor agreed to drop the charges in exchange for a modest charitable donation or volunteer work. Mr. Sloan made the charitable donation and Mr. Hillier volunteered at a food bank in Lanark County.
“'The Ontario government’s lockdowns, which effectively banned any political protesting whatsoever, were a grave threat to our freedom in Canada. Restrictions may be over for now, but there was no indication how long they would last at the time. 2 weeks became 2 months which became almost 2 years of failed COVID policies.', says Mr. Sloan. 'I am proud to have stood against this tyranny with many other brave Canadians.
"'The Stratford prosecutor made the right choice, and it is now up to other prosecutors in other districts to drop these meaningless charges. One day, history, and the courts, will concur that these lockdowns were unwarranted and a serious and unnecessary interference with Canadian’s basic freedoms,' he continued.
"Both Mr. Hillier and Mr. Sloan have similar outstanding charges in Ontario. Mr. Hillier has launched a Charter challenge against the lockdowns that banned all outdoor protests, and will argue that they were an unjustifiable infringement of his rights. The hearing is set for July 27-28, 2023."
Some critics of the injunction against the U.S. government using social media to suppress constitutionally protected speech actually have a problem with the Constitution itself.
July 12, 2023 - "Some critics of last week's preliminary injunction in Missouri v. Biden, which bars federal officials from encouraging social media platforms to suppress constitutionally protected speech, reject the premise that such contacts amount to government-directed censorship. Other critics, especially researchers who focus on 'disinformation' and hate speech, pretty much concede that point but see nothing troubling about it. From their perspective, the problem is that complying with the First Amendment means tolerating inaccurate, misleading, and hateful speech that endangers public health, democracy, and social harmony.
"The day after Terry Doughty, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, issued the injunction, The New York Times gave voice to those [latter] concerns in a piece headlined 'Disinformation Researchers Fret About Fallout From Judge's Order.' According to the subhead, those researchers 'said a restriction on government interaction with social media companies could impede efforts to curb false claims about vaccines and voter fraud'....
"'Most misinformation or disinformation that violates social platforms' policies is flagged by researchers, nonprofits, or people and software at the platforms themselves,' the Times notes. But 'academics and anti-disinformation organizations often complained that platforms were unresponsive to their concerns.'
The paper reinforces that point with a quote from Viktorya Vilk, director for digital safety and free expression (!) at PEN America: 'Platforms are very good at ignoring civil society organizations and our requests for help or requests for information or escalation of individual cases. They are less comfortable ignoring the government.'
"The reason social media companies are 'less comfortable ignoring the government,' of course, is that it exercises coercive power over them and could use that power to punish them for failing to censor speech it considers dangerous. In the 155-page opinion laying out the reasoning behind his injunction, Doughty ... cites myriad communications that show administration officials expected platforms to promptly comply with the government's censorship 'requests,' which they typically did, and repeatedly complained when companies were less than fully cooperative. He emphasizes how keen Facebook et al. were to assuage President Joe Biden's anger at moderation practices that he said were "killing people'.... As the fretful researchers quoted by the Times see it, that is all as it should be....
"The Times paraphrases Bond Benton, an associate communication professor at Montclair State University, who worries that Doughty's ruling 'carried a message that misinformation qualifies as speech and its removal as the suppression of speech.' As usual, the Times glides over disputes about what qualifies as 'misinformation,' which according to the Biden administration includes truthful content that it considers misleading or unhelpful. But since even a demonstrably false assertion 'qualifies as speech' under the First Amendment, the 'message' that troubles Benton is an accurate statement of constitutional law. That does not mean platforms cannot decide for themselves what content they are willing to host, but it does mean the government should not try to dictate such decisions....
"In an interview with the Times, Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, complained that the U.S. takes 'a 'particularly fangless' approach to dangerous content compared with places like Australia and the European Union.' Those comparisons are telling. Australia's Online Safety Act empowers regulators to order removal of 'illegal and restricted content'.... Internet service providers that do not comply with complaint-triggered takedown orders within 24 hours are subject to civil penalties.... Freedom House notes that Australia's law includes 'no requirement for the eSafety Commissioner to give reasons for removal notices and provides no opportunity for users to respond to complaints'.... Australia's scheme plainly restricts or prohibits speech that would be constitutionally protected in the United States.
"Likewise the European Union's Digital Services Act, which covers 'illegal content,' a category that is defined broadly to include anything that runs afoul of a member nation's speech restrictions. E.U. countries such as France and Germany prohibit several types of speech that are covered by the First Amendment.... These are the models that Ahmed thinks the U.S. should be following.... Critics like Ahmed, in short, do not merely object to Doughty's legal analysis; they have a beef with the First Amendment itself, which allows Americans to express all sorts of potentially objectionable opinions. If you value that freedom, you probably consider it a virtue of the American legal system. But if your priority is eliminating 'hate and disinformation,' the First Amendment is, at best, an inconvenient obstacle."
Toronto mayor-elect Olivia Chow says her campaign did not ask for help from nor coordinate with two pro-CCP (Chinese Communist Party) groups that "went all out" to support her election.
July 10, 2023 - "Two prominent community groups aligned with the Chinese government — including one that allegedly hosted a Chinese police station in Ontario — 'went all out' to support Chow’s push to be mayor, supplying numerous volunteers to the effort, a letter from one of the groups claims. A post last month on WeChat from Felicity Guo, deputy secretary general of the Canada Toronto Fuqing Business Association (CTFBA), one of the two groups, urged followers to back Chow. The message was accompanied by a photo of Guo, Chow and another woman.
"'We did not ask for or co-ordinate any volunteers from either organization,' said Shirven Rezvany, a spokesman for Chow. He also pointed to the mayor-elect’s longstanding support for opponents of the Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong, and her history of speaking out against Beijing’s human-rights abuses. Chow was supported during the campaign, in fact, by two of Toronto’s fiercest critics of the Chinese regime: Gloria Fung of Canada Hong Kong Link and Cheuk Kwan of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China....
"[I]deological differences aside, the first election of a person of colour as Toronto mayor has been hailed as a long-overdue breakthrough in one of the world’s most culturally diverse cities. But evidence that the Fuqing Business Association and the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations (CTCCO) worked to help get Chow elected on June 26 — even if their participation was not requested (or, arguably, needed) — raises further questions about the involvement of Beijing and its local allies in Canadian politics. Neither group responded to requests for comment.
"Jonathan Fon, a Toronto-based commentator and Beijing critic, said it’s unlikely Chow would have any motivation to promote groups aligned with the Chinese Communist Party. But 'it is a concern that those pro-Beijingers really have the capacity of mobilization among Chinese diasporas,' he said.... The groups’ participation is worrying because 'they work too close to the Chinese government,' said an immigrant from mainland China and small-business owner in the Greater Toronto Area, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution....
"A series of intelligence leaks in recent months alleges Chinese interference in Canada’s federal and provincial politics, but there is evidence that Beijing targets municipal-level politicians, as well. A leaked handbook for cadres of the United Front Work Department — a huge branch of the Chinese Communist Party at the forefront of foreign influence and interference efforts — urged officials to 'work with' several candidates of Chinese descent elected in Toronto in the early 2000s. A recent Globe and Mail report cited a Canadian Security Intelligence Service briefing that said Chinese diplomats tried to get sympathetic candidates elected in last year’s Vancouver municipal vote, in part by using diaspora groups that represented Beijing’s interests. Ken Sim, who won the Vancouver mayor’s race in a landslide, has denied that such interference played any part in his victory.
"An article on the Canadian Chinese Media News site reprinted on June 28 a letter of congratulations to Chow from the Fuqing Business Association, named after a city in China’s Fujian province. [T]he letter says the Fuqing group and the CTCCO 'went all out to actively support, and sent a large number of volunteers to participate in the campaign,' according to a translation from Chinese. In the WeChat post, first reported by the blog Found in Translation, which monitors China’s influence, the Fuqing group’s Guo says 'let’s all support' Chow so she will win.
"The association’s ties to the Chinese regime are not hidden. Its website says it was set up under the guidance of the United Front and other Chinese government agencies. The association also lists its headquarters as a commercial office space it owns in Markham, Ont., that state-media in China listed as the site of one of three Fujian 'police service stations' in Ontario. The RCMP has said it is investigating the stations, amid allegations they are being used to intimidate Chinese expatriates here.... It has defended Beijing’s crackdown on democracy protesters in Hong Kong, while working with the local consulate to promote Beijing’s stance on Tibet, trying to bring the Chinese-outreach Confucius Institute to Toronto schools, and to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Chinese Communist revolution. Beijing’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office has praised the group on its website....
"National Post reported earlier that Chow also spoke to and received a gift from the Confederation of Ontario Newcomer Organizations, another group with close ties to Beijing.... National Post has [also] reported on non-Chinese politicians’ relationships with such groups, as well. It documented, for instance, how Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was introduced by a staunchly pro-Beijing regional councillor at an event earlier this year, and sat next to one of China’s most prominent local allies at the same gathering."
July 10, 2023 - "On July 2, Kenya's president ended an almost six-year moratorium on logging in the country's public and community forests. 'We can't have mature trees rotting in forests while locals suffer due to lack of timber. That's foolishness,' President William Ruto explained during a church service. 'This is why we have decided to open up the forest and harvest timber so that we can create jobs for our youth and open up business.'
"In 2018, when he was deputy president, Ruto announced a 90-day ban in order 'to allow reassessment and rationalisation of the entire forest sector.' The government regularly extended the ban as part of an effort to limit illegal logging and prevent the lowering of Kenya's water levels.
"While lifting the ban, Ruto is maintaining Kenya's goal of planting 15 billion trees over the next 10 years. The Kenya Forest Service (KFS) has also set rules for harvesting in gazetted forests, including requiring loggers to acquire entry and exit certificates.
'Some of the areas, in the Great Rift Valley for example, used to be hubs for timber production,' says Lubanga Makanji, who teaches environment and resource development at Egerton University in Kenya. 'And that means that there were wood processors that would provide employment for the local community. As soon as the moratorium came into place, those jobs were lost.' According to the Kenya Forestry Research Institute, the 2018 ban led to the loss of approximately 44,000 jobs and $28 million in revenue, bringing economic collapse to communities that relied on the logging industry.
"Ruto's decision has set off a storm of environmentalist anger, with activists accusing Kenya of favoring economic development over its climate goals. John Kioli, the executive director of the Green Africa Foundation, told the Associated Press that ... lifting the ban would 'undermine all efforts to put Kenya on a low-carbon trajectory.' 'By lifting this ban president Ruto has prioritised profit over people and nature,' said Tracy Makhet of Greenpeace Africa in a press release....
"But the ban is still in effect for indigenous forests. The lifted portion of the ban applies to trees in plantation forests, which should be felled when the trees reach rotation age, Makanji says....'We have a community that is also engaged in tree planting within these gazetted government forests. So to me, there shouldn't be any environmental impact.'
"Furthermore, it's far from clear that the moratorium substantially reduced illegal logging. In a 2004 study, Makanji and Haruyuki Mochida of the University of Tsukuba found that a previous ban did not prevent illegal logging in the Kakamega forest. 'As wood shortage bites, the price of sawn timber has risen hence creating a major incentive for illegal extraction,' explained the authors....
"By bringing property rights to the forest, Kenya could ensure that its trees are both conserved and used depending on the utility they bring to Kenyans, as determined by price signals. A 2000 paper on forest conservation in Kenya's Mt. Elgon National Park, written by Esther Mwangie of Indiana University and Paul Ongugo and Jane Njuguna of the Kenya Forest Research Institute, found that the 'institutional flexibility' of 'according claimant rights to local communities' can 'create incentives that encourage communities to take long term benefits and short term costs into account when making decisions.'"
