Wednesday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning Deplorables, the push to implement totalitarianism under the false premise of saving lives is intensifying.

Technofascism: Digital Book Burning in a Totalitarian Age

By John W. Whitehead

We are fast becoming a nation—nay, a world—of book burners.

While on paper, we are technically free to speak—at least according to the U.S. Constitution—in reality, however, we are only as free to speak as the government and its corporate partners such as Facebook, Google or YouTube may allow.

That’s not a whole lot of freedom. Especially if you’re inclined to voice opinions that may be construed as conspiratorial or dangerous.

Take David Icke, for example.

Icke, a popular commentator and author often labeled a conspiracy theorist by his detractors, recently had his Facebook page and YouTube channel (owned by Google) deleted for violating site policies by “spreading coronavirus disinformation.”

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which has been vocal about calling for Icke’s de-platforming, is also pushing for the removal of all other sites and individuals who promote Icke’s content in an effort to supposedly “save lives.”

Translation: the CCDH evidently believes the public is too dumb to think for itself and must be protected from dangerous ideas.

This is the goosestepping Nanny State trying to protect us from ourselves.

In the long run, this “safety” control (the censorship and shadowbanning of anyone who challenges a mainstream narrative) will be far worse than merely allowing people to think for themselves.

Journalist Matt Taibbi gets its: “The people who want to add a censorship regime to a health crisis are more dangerous and more stupid by leaps and bounds than a president who tells people to inject disinfectant.”

Don’t fall for the propaganda.

These internet censors are not acting in our best interests to protect us from dangerous, disinformation campaigns about COVID-19, a virus whose source and behavior continue to elude medical officials. They’re laying the groundwork now, with Icke as an easy target, to preempt any “dangerous” ideas that might challenge the power elite’s stranglehold over our lives.

This is how freedom dies.

It doesn’t matter what disinformation Icke may or may not have been spreading about COVID-19. That’s not the issue.

As commentator Caitlin Johnstone recognizes, the censorship of David Icke by these internet media giants has nothing to do with Icke: “What matters is that we’re seeing a consistent and accelerating pattern of powerful plutocratic institutions collaborating with the US-centralized empire to control what ideas people around the world are permitted to share with each other, and it’s a very unsafe trajectory.”

Welcome to the age of technofascism.

Technofascism, clothed in tyrannical self-righteousness, is powered by technological behemoths (both corporate and governmental) working in tandem. As journalist Chet Bowers explains, “Technofascism’s level of efficiency and totalitarian potential can easily lead to repressive systems that will not tolerate dissent.”

The internet, hailed as a super-information highway, is increasingly becoming the police state’s secret weapon. This “policing of the mind: is exactly the danger author Jim Keith warned about when he predicted that “information and communication sources are gradually being linked together into a single computerized network, providing an opportunity for unheralded control of hat will be broadcast, what will be said, and ultimately what will be thought.”

It’s a slippery slope from censoring so-called illegitimate ideas to silencing truth.

Eventually, as George Orwell predicted, telling the truth will become a revolutionary act.

We’re almost at that point now.

What you are witnessing is the modern-day equivalent of book burning which involves doing away with dangerous ideas—legitimate or not—and the people who espouse them.

Today, the forces of political correctness, working in conjunction with corporate and government agencies, have managed to replace actual book burning with intellectual book burning.

“Free speech for me but not for thee” is how my good friend and free speech purist Nat Hentoff used to sum up this double standard.

This is about much more than free speech, however. This is about repression and control.

With every passing day, we’re being moved further down the road towards a totalitarian society characterized by government censorship, violence, corruption, hypocrisy and intolerance, all packaged for our supposed benefit in the Orwellian doublespeak of national security, tolerance and so-called “government speech.”

The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remains the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the “principal pillar of a free government.”

The upshot of all of this editing, parsing, banning and silencing is the emergence of a new language, what George Orwell referred to as Newspeak, which places the power to control language in the hands of the totalitarian state.

Under such a system, language becomes a weapon to change the way people think by changing the words they use.

The end result is control.

In totalitarian regimes—a.k.a. police states—where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and cannot be used.

Read the entire article HERE.

Bill Gates-Backed Researchers Dramatically Raise Death Prediction As Lockdowns Ease

By Chris Donalson aka Donn Marten

Now that states not controlled by dictatorial Democrats have begun to slowly ease the restrictive and ruinous lockdowns, there is a desperate effort to instill more fear in the hearts of traumatized Americans.

According to researchers from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) the decision to allow people to return to work will result in piles of dead bodies.

The IHME is now predicting that there will be at least 135,000 more dead people by August if the measures that have already destroyed millions of lives are loosened even as signs of an unprecedented economic cataclysm are beginning to appear.

For those who don’t have short memories, the IHME badly overestimated their influential model that was one of the two used to justify the draconian lockdowns by erroneously predicting over 2 million deaths.

Rather than hang their heads in shame for the damage that they’ve already done, the IHME is now providing the fear-mongers in the media and the Democratic party with more material that they will use to push for the extension of lockdowns.

Via Reuters, “Researchers double U.S. COVID-19 death forecast, citing eased restrictions”:

A newly revised coronavirus mortality model predicts nearly 135,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 by early August, almost double previous projections, as social-distancing measures for quelling the pandemic are increasingly relaxed, researchers said on Monday.

The ominous new forecast from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) reflect “rising mobility in most U.S. states” with an easing of business closures and stay-at-home orders expected in 31 states by May 11, the institute said.

“We expect that the epidemic in many states will now extend through the summer,” the IHME director, Dr. Christopher Murray, said in a statement.

The projections reinforced warnings from public health experts that a rising clamor to lift restrictions on commerce and social activities – in hopes of healing a ravaged economy – could exact a staggering cost in terms of human lives.

Despite having already been badly wrong and contributing to the panic that forced government officials to overreact with little thought of the devastating consequences if the economy was shut down, the researchers remain the gold standard for the corrupt, lying media.

The IHME like London’s now infamous Imperial College which also badly failed in their forecasts of doom derives funding from billionaire Bill Gates who has used the health crisis to promote his dream of mandatory vaccines and even worse, Big Brother style tracking and monitoring systems that will transform freedom into slavery.

According to a 2017 press release from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) announced today the foundation’s commitment to invest $279 million in IHME to expand its work over the next decade.

The investment will allow IHME to build on its work providing independent health evidence to improve population health. The award complements other investments from the Gates Foundation to further the work of the University of Washington’s Population Health Initiative, which was launched in May 2016 and is establishing a university wide, 25-year vision to advance the health and well-being of people around the world.

“IHME provides critical data about global health trends that can empower policymakers worldwide to identify better solutions in the fight against disease,” said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mr. Gates who has been popping up virtually everywhere as almost a head of state who is in direct opposition to President Trump and the legitimately elected U.S. government is not a doctor but he stands to gain much if the state of emergency can be prolonged in order for him to be a savior with a vaccine.

The Microsoft kingpin called for a total national shutdown in a disturbing oped that was published by the Washington Post in late March.

Via The Hill, “Bill Gates calls for nationwide shutdown: ‘Shutdown anywhere means shutdown everywhere’”:

Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates called for a nationwide shutdown on Tuesday, arguing it would be the most effective way to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Gates wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that he has spoken with experts through his work with his charity who said a national policy would be more effective over having a hodgepodge of states issue stay-at-home orders while others remain more open. He argued that the country needs a “consistent nationwide approach to shutting down.”

“Despite urging from public health experts, some states and counties haven’t shut down completely. In some states, beaches are still open; in others, restaurants still serve sit-down meals,” Gates wrote.

“This is a recipe for disaster. Because people can travel freely across state lines, so can the virus. The country’s leaders need to be clear: Shutdown anywhere means shutdown everywhere,” he added. “Until the case numbers start to go down across America — which could take 10 weeks or more — no one can continue business as usual or relax the shutdown.”

Compassion for working Americans has never been one of Gates’ strong points because as one of richest men on the planet, he isn’t going to be affected one bit while businesses are bankrupted, people struggle to eat and the futures of America’s children are sacrificed on the altar of his vanity.

Now, it’s do-or-die for those who are determined to keep Americans under house arrest in order to destroy President Trump’s reelection chances with the entire country viewed as acceptable collateral damage.

There also remains the likelihood of something far more sinister and nefarious.

 

Daily columns by “Chris” can be read at Trending Politics HERE.

Green New Deal, Healthcare for Illegals: Soros-Funded Groups Push Dems to Use Virus to Achieve Progressive Wish List

Via Breitbart News

A coalition of progressive groups, many funded by billionaire George Soros, is sponsoring a “People’s Bailout” community organizing outfit nudging Congress to use the next stimulus package during the coronavirus crisis to enact reforms that would fundamentally transform American society by achieving longtime progressive aims.

In the spirit of the repurposed progressive anthem of never letting a crisis go to waste, the suddenly created People’s Bailout group is demanding that the next stimulus package adhere to “five principles” the group says are endorsed by “nearly 1,000 organizations, unions, and community leaders, and nearly 100 members of Congress.”

Those “principals” encompass such far-left wish list items as government healthcare for illegal immigrants, required $15 per hour minimum wage, enhanced union collective bargaining and government regulation of the board of directors of private companies to ensure “worker representation.”

Also within the “five principles” list are “direct sizable cash payments to every person” and the use of stimulus legislation to push what would amount to a massive “green” new deal.

The “green” section calls for public funds to (below are direct quotes):

• expand wind and solar power
• build clean and affordable public transit
• weatherize our buildings
• manufacture more clean energy goods
• expand public services that support climate resilience,
• [reduce] climate emissions and toxic pollution.

Using progressive key words, the group exclaims that a “people’s bailout should be rooted in justice” and “we demand the bailout provide a just recovery.”

The group is pushing the #PeoplesBailout hashtag and has gone so far as to provide activists with wording to use in social media posts directed at lawmakers.  The group’s website also provides exact scripting for people to read when calling their lawmakers to demand the “five principles” be incorporated in stimulus legislation.

The People’s Bailout held an online May Day rally and now wants activists to get further involved by displaying banners and forming car caravans.

The website promotes a “helpful slideshow and handout on key tactics to use” to push promote the transformative agenda.

Read the entire article HERE.

Scientist Whose Doomsday Models Sparked Global Lockdown Resigns After Breaking Quarantine To Bang Married Lover

Via Zero Hedge

Professor Neil Ferguson – whose dire coronavirus predictions prompted worldwide lockdown measures still in place – broke his own advice on the need for strict social distancing to hook up with his married lover, according to the Telegraph.

On at least two occasions, Antonia Staats, 38, travelled across London from her home in the south of the capital to spend time with the Government scientist, nicknamed Professor Lockdown.

The 51-year-old had only just finished a two-week spell self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus.

Prof Ferguson told the Telegraph: “I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action. I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage [the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies]. –Telegraph

“I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms,” he said, adding “I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic. The Government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us.”

erguson, who resigned from his Government advisory position on Tuesday, predicted that up to 500,000 Britons and 2.2 million in the US would die without measures. Somehow, Sweden – which enacted virtually no measures to mitigate the virus. has a lower per-capita mortality rate than the UK, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands – all of which enacted lockdown measures.

And while his computer models were flat-wrong, Ferguson – who leads the team at Imperial College London, has frequently appeared on media to support the lockdown and “very intensive social distancing” measures.

Of note, Ferguson and Staats hooked up on March 30 – the same day he gave a public warning that the one-week-old lockdown measures would need to remain in place until June.

Staats – a left-wing campaigner, visited again on April 8, despite telling friends that she thought her husband might have come down with coronavirus.

She and her husband live together with their two children in a £1.9 million home, but are understood to be in an open marriage. She has told friends about her relationship with Prof Ferguson, but does not believe their actions to be hypocritical because she considers the households to be one.

But one week before the first tryst, Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, and Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, clarified during the daily Downing Street press conference that couples not living together must stay apart during lockdown. –Telegraph

“He has peculiarly breached his own guidelines, and for an intelligent man I find that very hard to believe. It risks undermining the Government’s lockdown message,” said Sir. Iain Duncan Smith.

Meanwhile, over 9,000 fines have been issued to quarantine violators in England and Wales during the lockdown – while Scotland’s chief medical officer, Dr. Catherine Calderwood, made two trips to her second home during the lockdown, resulting in her resignation.

Read the entire article HERE.

Meat Shortages Leave Wendy’s Diners Asking, ‘Where’s the Beef?’

Via Yahoo/Bloomberg News

With meat shortages roiling the U.S., some Wendy’s Co. restaurants have taken burgers — their hallmark item — off the menu.

Customers have taken to Twitter to complain they couldn’t order burgers from the restaurant, which touts its beef as fresh and never frozen in its marketing.

A check on Wendy’s app showed that only chicken items were available for takeout or delivery orders from at least some of its stores in California. The situation has prompted a number of customers to ask “Where’s the beef?” on social media, invoking a Wendy’s catch phrase from the 1980s that poked fun of the small burgers sold by other chains.

North America’s meat-supply chain has fallen apart as outbreaks shutter slaughterhouses, heightening the prospect that pork, beef and chicken may go missing from grocery shelves and restaurant menus. About a dozen slaughterhouses shut last month because of infections among employees jammed together on processing lines.

Wendy’s spent years establishing itself as the first major fast-food chain to offer fresh-never-frozen beef. Rivals such as McDonald’s have followed suit. It’s a shift that has left some companies more vulnerable to disruptions to American’s beef supply chain than ones that still rely on imports from Australia and other countries.

For Wendy’s, the shortages appear to have only affected some areas so far. Items such as the “Baconator” bacon cheeseburger, for example, were still available to order in Chicago.

Wendy’s didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the entire article HERE.

Facebook SWAT Team Arrests Man For Illegal Possession Of Conservative Views

Via The Babylon Bee (Satire)

LA MESA, CA—As part of a widespread crackdown on unacceptable viewpoints on the social network, Facebook sent out its SWAT teams Monday to arrest local man Kent Rogers for illegal possession of conservative views.

After Facebook took out several fringe personalities last week, conservatives thought they were in the clear, but it turns out they were just next on the list.

Rogers’ arrest was part of a broader push against the illegal conservative view trade, which is estimated to affect millions of innocent Americans every year. Facebook SWAT specialists lined up outside his house for an early-morning, no-knock raid after he was caught posting a meme about Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 missing emails on his page.

“We booked him on possession of several tons of illicit viewpoints, including the idea that government should be relatively small, Christian values are generally a good thing, and cisgendered males aren’t always bad,” one lieutenant of the Facebook SWAT force said. “Residents of La Mesa can rest easy tonight knowing these ideas are off the streets.”

Proud officers took pictures with their haul, including hundreds of deadly books that question a far-left worldview, a signed picture of Ronald Reagan, and a copy of The Art of the Deal, a banned substance in all 50 states.

Rogers has been booked on the manufacture, possession, and spreading of conservative values.

Check out all of the Bee’s takes on politics and society HERE.

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