Social Media’s War On Free Markets! (Must Read Articles)

I have always said that the Left are “totalitarians,” and that is because they want “total thought” — in other words, homogenized thinking through the filter of Leftism (race, class, sex: the “unholy trinitarian” goal of the Left). Here is the latest on this fight for societal freedom.

This is the excuse the totalitarians are looking for, PJ-MEDIA has a must read:

….While conservatives rightly denounced the violence this week, this response bodes ill for conservative speech not just on social media, but in the public square and even in private organizations.

In the aftermath of the Capitol riots, Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account for the first time and Facebook permanently banned the president. After Trump deleted the tweets Twitter had flagged and had his account restored, Twitter proceeded to ban him entirely on Friday, and then it banned the official President of the United States (POTUS) account.

Facebook throttled the great Rush Limbaugh, notifying him that his “Page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news.” Limbaugh left Twitter in protest after the platform banned Trump. Apple and Google attacked Parler, claiming that the new haven for conservatives had allowed people to plan the violence of the Capitol riots on its platform.

House Democrats filed articles of impeachment that explicitly blame President Trump for the Capitol riots, even though he never told his supporters to invade the Capitol. While the president’s exaggerated rhetoric inflamed the rioters, Democrats repeatedly did the same thing this summer. Before and after Black Lives Matter protests devolved into destructive and deadly riots, Democratic officials repeatedly claimed America suffers from “systemic racism” and institutionalized “white supremacy.”

Big Tech did not remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s accounts when she called for “uprisings” against the Trump administration. Facebook and Twitter did not target Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she claimed that allegedly marginalized groups have “no choice but to riot.” These platforms did not act against Kamala Harris when she said the riots “should not” stop.

This week, Joe Biden condemned the Capitol rioters, saying, “What we witnessed yesterday was not dissent, it was not disorder, it was not protest. It was chaos. They weren’t protesters, don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. It’s that basic, it’s that simple.”

Yet he refused to speak in those terms when Black Lives Matter and antifa militants were throwing Molotov cocktails at federal buildings, setting up “autonomous zones,” and burning down cities. Instead, he condemned Trump for holding up a Bible at a church — without mentioning the fact that that very church had been set on fire the night before.

Despite this hypocrisy, Biden’s speech on Thursday proved instructive. Biden used the Capitol riots to condemn Trump’s entire presidency, accusing Trump of having “unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of our democracy from the outset.” Biden twisted Trump’s actions into an attack on “democracy.” He claimed Trump’s originalist judges were a ploy to undermine impartial justice — when they were truly the exact opposite. Biden claimed Trump’s complaints about the Obama administration spying on his campaign were merely an “attack” on America’s “intelligence services.” Biden said Trump’s complaints about media bias constituted an attack on the “free press,” when the Obama administration actually attacked the free press.….

(READ THE REST!)

UPDATED post via PJ-MEDIA… who points out that these social media tech giants think they are the arbiter of speech as well as the type of information you consume. What is the free market solution? To start your own “companies,” or outlets of free speech. However, as PARLER is succeeding against Twitter and Facebook as a place to speak freely, Big Tech is going after those, too. More via PJ in a minute.

Many #NeverTrumpers love David French’s views — as he is the intellectual leader of the rational side of the movement. This article by THE FEDERALIST needs to be gone through, here is the portion I think is most relevant, but the entire thing should be read (I linked to it in a conversation I just had with a #NeverTrumper):

….National Review writer David French has criticized the bill for attempting to regulate free speech. He argues that this invites a dangerous level of government involvement in public discourse. Subjecting social media companies to government scrutiny may sound appealing with a Republican president in power and a predominantly Republican Senate, but this could backfire if Democrats take control: “Will a Kamala Harris administration decide that disproportionate conservative success violates political neutrality?”

Bad Examples Abound

Besides taking a rather Pollyannaish view on conservative success on social media—never bothering to mention the blatant partisan censorship of conservative voices like Steven Crowder, Prager University, or Live Action—this argument from French and those of other like-minded critics rests on two counterexamples where government cannot regulate speech without violating the First Amendment: a controlled forum like a college classroom, and a public utility like a telephone service.

However, these two examples do not have any bearing on what is meant by free speech. In the case of regulating a public utility, this does not involve actual speech. Speech, in the First Amendment sense, consists of arguments made to a public audience. A telephone service is a means of communication, not a platform for facilitating speech. Therefore, the federal government cannot demand a company like AT&T refuse service to pathological liars or criminals because they perpetuate harmful speech.

Furthermore, if AT&T executives did start to do this, on the grounds that they work for a private company and can do what they want, customers could rightly charge them with discrimination (violating the 14th Amendment). They must provide phone service to all who agree to pay them, not just those who meet their speech guidelines—again, because their service does not pertain to speech, but basic communication, a utility.

In the case of a college lecture hall, the speech in question is not actually free. The professor can make his arguments and say whatever the school permits him to say. He also sets the rules for what students can say. If Dr. Kevin Sorbo tells his students that God doesn’t exist, as he does in the Pure Flix movie “God’s Not Dead,” his students are not free to debate him unless he allows it—which he foolishly does, much to his demise. Nevertheless, they do have the right to free speech outside his class (unless they attend Harvard University) and can complain about their atheist professor all they like.

This is different from students who request government action when they feel their free speech rights are somehow violated because a professor has an opinion that they dislike. Hawley’s bill would not require the fictional Dr. Kevin Sorbo or the real Dr. Fang Zhou to change their views or speech policies to uphold political neutrality in their classroom. It only applies to large social media companies and is meant to prevent silencing any particular view, conservative or progressive.

It’s Naive to Think Big Tech Companies Will Die Out

Given that these social media platforms have billions of users altogether, and will simply buy up any worthy competitor if it stumbles on a new idea (which is the ongoing plotline of the television series “Silicon Valley”), it is misguided to assume that they will pass away like the social media companies of yesteryear (Myspace, Friendster, etc.). The Big Tech platforms are less like a few popular channels on television and more like the whole cable and basic television package. The truth is that they won’t need to change; conservatives who try to create content on their sites will.

Without any laws to check them, Big Tech companies are removing conservative voices and clearing the way for the Democratic narrative that Trump is terrible and more government can save America. Heard often enough, this narrative will convince Americans who have no way of knowing better to vote for Democrats. And it is not a stretch to assume that the first order of business for any Democratic president will be to impose speech laws that suppress conservative ideas or grant greater authority to the Big Tech thought police.

In this, French is right to ask what a Harris administration would do to free speech if given the chance, but wrong to conclude that she would exploit Hawley’s law to do it. She doesn’t need to. Speaking for most Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes taking away social media’s legal protection (Section 230), considering it a “gift.” She recognizes that Democrat politicians will continue to benefit from the bias dominating all media and only stand to lose if conservatives compete on a level playing field.

It is nonetheless worth noting that even with numerous obstacles put in place, conservatives still dominate the internet because most Americans recognize that they have the better argument and discuss more relevant issues. By contrast, leftist publications depend on skewed narratives and bad arguments and tend to focus on tired topics like the Mueller report, Trump’s tax returns, and Joe Biden.

When given the chance, viewers will watch the watch Crowder over Vox’s Carlos Maza because Crowder is funnier, smarter, and doesn’t rely on people’s sympathy for his success. Of course, if Crowder stops producing his show because YouTube demonetizes his videos, viewers will not have a choice anymore.

In light of this fact, it is probably more accurate to frame the issue of regulating social media as more a matter of a free market than one of free speech, although one depends on the other. Many people on the left want to eliminate competition online and stop losing to conservative content creators. Allegations of hate and radicalization are merely a pretext to this.

(READ IT ALL!)

Now, here is the continuation of PJ-MEDIA….

….After the social media platforms nixed Trump, people appeared to leave platforms in droves.

Nancy Pelosi, Ayanna Presley, and other Democrats have egged on rioters in the streets. Their social media accounts are still intact.

Conservative Americans have left the platforms in the understandable belief that if they could cut off the most powerful man in what used to be known as the free world, then they stood no chance.

They’re right.

To avoid the speech police, Americans have been leaving those platforms for Rumble and Parler, social media sites that promise to have few filters on speech. Parler does not allow illegal activity on its site under its terms of service.

But even as conservatives fled Facebook and Twitter for Parler, Big Tech decided to censor the site.

As I reported at PJ Media, Google Play cut off the Parler app from its app store and Apple followed suit in short order.

On Friday, a group called the “Amazon Employees for Climate Justice” wrote a screed to management demanding the tech behemoth boot the Parler app from its servers.

[….]

On Saturday, Amazon capitulated to the leftist rage mob and informed Parler it was getting rid of the social site from its servers.

Parler CEO John Matze announced that at midnight Sunday, Amazon would expunge the app content from its servers. Furthermore, he alleged that the tech giants conspired to orchestrate their moves to make it harder for Parler to stay afloat.

Sunday (tomorrow) at midnight Amazon will be shutting off all of our servers in an attempt to completely remove free speech off the internet. There is the possibility Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch. We prepared for events like this by never relying on amazons [sic] proprietary infrastructure and building bare metal products.

We will try our best to move to a new provider right now as we have many competing for our business, however Amazon, Google and Apple purposefully did this as a coordinated effort knowing our options would be limited and knowing this would inflict the most damage right as President Trump was banned from the tech companies.

This was a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the market place. We were too successful too fast. You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count us out.

#speakfreely

This is tyranny. This is groupthink.

To sum up:

  • Big Tech censored you and the president on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter
  • You left to go to other social media sites such as Parler, MeWe, Minds
  • Big Tech didn’t want you to leave for more freedom
  • Big Tech refused to let another social media platform, Parler, use their app stores
  • Big Tech then booted the social media site Parler from their servers

Double standards abound. No one on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram was tossed off those platforms for protesting, rioting, looting, and vandalizing on behalf of Black Lives Matter and antifa. Lobbing Molotov cocktails wouldn’t get a group booted off a platform.

Ayatollahs and the Chinese death camp operators are held in higher regard than the president of the United States of America – and his supporters – because of Wednesday’s siege on the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

The line is drawn.

UPDATE!

RED STATE and WEASEL ZIPPERS notes the latest attack on free-markets and free speech by the Tech Giants:

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Mocks Parler after Coordinated Big Tech to Take Down His Competition

So with this coordination to take down the right and any other alternative to Twitter, you would think that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey would be standing up for free speech, right? Just kidding.

Not only are they cool with booting off folks on the right from their site and removing the followers from virtually every right leaning account on Twitter, they’re also cool with their competition being stomped on. Indeed, if we were looking into antitrust questions in the coordination of all this, what Jack just posted would be Exhibit #1 in that action.

Here’s Jack celebrating that instead of Parler being the number 1 App on the App Store, his Signal App private messenger is instead. With a little help from his friends.

WEASEL ZIPPERS continues:

Amazon Kills Parler Server

You are not allowed an alternative either. They’re pulling them down tonight at 11:59 p.m. so Parler is looking for a new server.

Via BizPac Review:

Calling it a “coordinated attack,” Parler CEO John Matze informed the social media platform’s users Saturday that Amazon kicked Parler off their web hosting service, which will wipe them off the internet until they find a new host.

This devastating blow coming after Parler was removed from Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.

The narrative employed to justify the Big Tech attack on Twitter’s biggest competitor is to link Parler, a free speech site being billed by the corrupt media as a “pro-Trump” site, to last week’s U.S. Capitol protest, claiming they allowed “calls for violence.”

Keep reading

MORE: 

Trump Acted Quickley On Coronavirus (TIMELINES PART DEUX)

A friend – in response to a challenge, posted multiple stories about Trump’s response to the Coronavirus to my single post detailing the timeline of the Trump admins response here: Trump Acted Quickley On Coronavirus (TIMELINES)

This was his firing away as if to make a point:

JIM

  • 10 times Trump and his administration were warned about coronavirus (AXIOS)
  • Trump’s daily briefings warned about COVID-19 at least a dozen times before the US outbreak, but he ‘failed to register’ the threat (BUSINESS INSIDER)
  • Trump was warned in January of Covid-19’s devastating impact, memos reveal (THE GUARDIAN)
  • Trump Was Warned About Virus Threat In More Than A Dozen Intelligence Reports In January, February (KAIESER HEALTH NEWS)
  • Trump Received Intelligence Briefings On Coronavirus Twice In January (NPR)
  • Trump Aide Warned Early on of Deadly US Coronavirus Outbreak (VOA NEWS)

(The italicized articles are completely debunked by information below – the others are highly questionable, the ones that have unnamed sources that is, and other portions of them are called into question by the timeline below.)

Besides the obvious question of, “which Western leader do you look to as a shining example of reacting in January to the crisis?” I could have easily responded to these papers who spread stories from a single anonymous source as if they are all different stories based on different [again, unnamed] sources, which, their practice of has undone almost all their stories [one example, another, and another] on the Russian Collusion Hoax, like this,

  • Memory Hole: What the Media Wants You to Forget About Their Biased Coronavirus Coverage (PJ-MEDIA)
  • The Media’s Top Lies and Spins About COVID-19 (REAL CLEAR POLITICS)
  • The Top 10 Lies About President Trump’s Response to the Coronavirus (PJ-MEDIA)
  • The China Virus Pandemic: COVID-19 Response and Recovery (PATRIOT POST)
  • Pollak: Democrats Pushed Impeachment While Coronavirus Spread (BREITBART)
  • China hid extent of coronavirus outbreak, US intelligence reportedly says (CNBC)
  • China deliberately hid coronavirus, admonished whistleblowers (WASHINTON TIMES)
  • Fauci points to China for late realization coronavirus was his ‘worst nightmare’ (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)
  • China admits to destroying coronavirus samples, insists it was for safety (NY POST)
  • China confirms US accusations that it destroyed early samples of the novel coronavirus, but says it was done for ‘biosafety reasons’ (BUSINESS INSIDER)
  • China pressured WHO to delay global coronavirus warning: report (NY POST)
  • China’s president Xi Jinping ‘personally asked WHO to hold back information about human-to-human transmission and delayed the global response by four to six WEEKS’ at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, bombshell report claims (THE DAILY MAIL)

MY OWN SITE:

However, this does nothing to prove or disprove a point. So, I merely went to the first point made in his first linked article at AXIOS, quoting the NYTs:

AXIOS:

On Jan. 18, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar first briefed Trump on the threat of the virus in a phone call, the New York Times reports. Trump made his first public comments about the virus on Jan. 22, saying he was not concerned about a pandemic and that “we have it totally under control.”

NEW YORK TIMES:

Even after Mr. Azar first briefed him about the potential seriousness of the virus during a phone call on Jan. 18 while the president was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Mr. Trump projected confidence that it would be a passing problem.

“We have it totally under control,” he told an interviewer a few days later while attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. “It’s going to be just fine.”

(NEW YORK TIMES)

Now, much like the Left’s favorite thing to do, they take Trump out of context and use this false context to create a straw man and then bludgeon it. Why did Trump say it was going to be fine? Because, according to the WALL STREET JOURNAL, Alex Azar “oversold his agency’s progress in the early days and didn’t coordinate effectively across the health-care divisions under his purview.” Trump could only report what Alex told him on the 18th.

But this January 18th discussion is not proven to have even taken place, all we have again are unnamed sources: Azar told several associates that Trump thought his warnings were ‘alarmist’, according to The Washington Post” (DAILY MAIL). And again, NEWSMAX discusses that WALL STREET JOURNAL article, saying:

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar waited weeks to brief President Donald Trump on the coronavirus threat and oversold the progress of developing an effective test for the virus, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.

The newspaper said that as of Jan. 29, Azar had assured Trump the coronavirus outbreak was under control. And during the meeting with Trump, Azar said the government had never mounted a better interagency response to a crisis.

But that isn’t the only story to the story. I do not think this even reported by anonymous sources actually happened. The same people that wrongly reported using anonymous sources are now the same people using anonymous sources.

News media figures advancing “Trump-Russia collusion” narratives are now spreading misinformation about President Donald Trump and the coronavirus outbreak as part of a “permanent coup,” […..]

The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, recently alleged that Trump was issued repeated warnings about the coronavirus through a dozen classified daily briefings between January and February.

“An article in the Washington Post … said that in [his] presidential daily briefings, Trump repeatedly ignored warnings of the coronavirus,” Smith recalled. Acting DNI Richard Grenell tweeted at the authors of this piece. [He] said. ‘That’s not true. We told you this is not true, and yet you only included our denial in the ninth paragraph.’”

Smith continued, “So these two Washington Post journalists were a core Russiagate conspiracy team. Again, unfortunately, we’re seeing the same thing unfold again and again, and that’s why the title of the book is The Permanent Coup.”

(BREITBART)

And the LEGAL INSURRECTION does a bang-up job on the same subject:

According to the Washington Post, the president’s classified daily briefings included “warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February, months during which he continued to play down the threat.”

The unnamed sources were foregrounded, while an actual named source refuting the claim was not mentioned until paragraph eight:

A White House spokesman disputed the characterization that Trump was slow to respond to the virus threat. “President Trump rose to fight this crisis head-on by taking early, aggressive historic action to protect the health, wealth and well-being of the American people,” said spokesman Hogan Gidley. “We will get through this difficult time and defeat this virus because of his decisive leadership.”

As if that’s not bad enough, it’s only in the ninth paragraph that WaPo gets around to noting that the suggestion the president ignored his presidential daily briefing (PDB) has been denied by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the office responsible for the PDB.

  • The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for the PDB. In response to questions about the repeated mentions of coronavirus, a DNI official said, “The detail of this is not true.” The official declined to explain or elaborate.

So WaPo contacted the DNI about claims the president ignored Wuhan coronavirus warnings in Jan/Feb PDB’s, and the DNI responded that the “detail of this is not true.” What do they need to explain here?  Maybe WaPo needs to provide its list of questions so that we can make that determination ourselves?  I’m pretty sure the context would greatly improve our understanding of the DNI responseand undermine the WaPo smear, thus the absence of said context.

It’s not actually clear what the point of the WaPo article is except to smear the president with the false implication that his administration ignored the Wuhan coronavirus until March.  This smear is completely and demonstrably false.

Of course, the mindless, anti-Trump stenographers who make up the legacy and leftstream media “covered” the questionable story, all linking to this flimsy WaPo hit piece that provides no evidence to support—and that actually refutes—its own claim.

  • Business Insider: “Trump’s daily briefings warned about COVID-19 at least a dozen times before the US outbreak, but he ‘failed to register’ the threat”
  • CNN: “The intelligence community did its job, but Trump didn’t do his”
  • MSN: “Trump reportedly ignored intel briefings on coronavirus threat”
  • NYMag: “Trump Informed of Coronavirus Threat in January in Briefings He’s Known Not to Read: Report”
  • CNN (again): “Washington Post: US intelligence warned Trump in January and February as he dismissed coronavirus threat”

Setting aside for the moment the fact that a global pandemic of this sort is new to everyone in the world and that no one, including top virologists, has answers, keep in mind that the first U.S. death from Wuhan coronavirus was reported on February 29th in Seattle.

What was Trump doing about the Wuhan coronavirus in January and February when he was supposedly ignoring the potential crisis?

Oh, right, setting up a coronavirus task force and issuing travel restrictions on China, well before the first U.S. death occurred.  How did he know to take these actions if he was ignoring his daily briefings?  Weird, right?

(READ THE REST – EXCELLENT POSTit includes a timeline as well)

Mollie Hemingway says it best:

Hemingway began by noting that the “Russia narrative” predates the Mueller probe, having begun circulating during the 2016 election after the creation of the infamous Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier, which pushed the theory that then-Republican candidate Donald Trump was a “Russian agent.”

“We have, for the last three years … frequently [witnessed] hysteria about treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election,” Hemingway told the panel. “The fact [is] that there are no more indictments coming and the fact [is] that all of the indictments that we’ve seen thus far have been for process crimes or things unrelated to what we were told by so many people in the media was ‘treasonous collusion’ to steal the 2016 election.”

“If there is nothing there that matches what we’ve heard from the media for many years, there needs to be a reckoning and the people who spread this theory both inside and outside the government who were not critical and who did not behave appropriately need to be held accountable,” she added.

THE FEDERALIST has a printing of the HHS timeline for January that shows that the propositions made by these Leftist newspapers are not revealing the whole timeline to their readers:

The Wall Street Journal should do a lot better; they asked Azar for the truth. He gave it to them. They chose not to report it. For those who want to know, here is HHS’s offical timeline of what happened in January:

December 31: CDC, including Director Robert Redfield, learns of a “cluster of 27 cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology” reported in Wuhan, China.
January 1: CDC begins developing situation reports, which are shared with HHS.
January 3: Director Redfield emails and speaks on the phone with Dr. George Gao, Director of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
January 3: Director Redfield speaks with Secretary Azar, and HHS notifies the National Security Council (NSC).
January 4: Director Redfield emails Dr. Gao again and offers CDC assistance, stating, “I would like to offer CDC technical experts in laboratory and epidemiology of respiratory infectious diseases to assist you and China CDC in identification of this unknown and possibly novel pathogen.”
January 6: At the request of Secretary Azar, Director Redfield sends formal letter to China CDC offering full CDC assistance.
January 6: CDC issues a Level 1 Travel Watch for China.
January 6: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci begins doing interviews on the outbreak.
January 7: CDC establishes a 2019 nCoV Incident Management Structure to prepare for potential U.S. cases and to support the investigation in China or other countries, if requested.
January 8: CDC distributes an advisory via the Health Alert Network, which communicates to state and local public health partners, alerting healthcare workers and public health partners of the outbreak.
January 9: CDC and FDA begin collaborating on a diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus.
January 10: China shares viral sequence, allowing NIH scientists to begin work on a vaccine that evening.

JANUARY 11: FIRST DEATH REPORTED IN CHINA
JANUARY 13: 41 CASES IN CHINA, FIRST CASE REPORTED OUTSIDE CHINA

January 13: NIH shares their vaccine sequence with a pharmaceutical manufacturer.
January 14: The National Security Council begins daily Novel Coronavirus Policy Coordination Council meetings.
January 14: WHO tweets: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.”
January 17: CDC and Customs and Border Protection began enhanced screening of travelers from Wuhan at three airports that receive significant numbers of travelers from that city, expanded in the following week to five airports, covering 75–80 percent of Wuhan travel.
January 17: CDC hosts its first tele-briefing on the virus, with Dr. Nancy Messonnier, Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who emphasizes “this is a serious situation” and “we know [from the experience of SARS and MERS that] it’s crucial to be proactive and prepared.”
January 17: CDC posts interim guidance, updated regularly in the coming weeks and months, for collecting, handling, and testing clinical specimens for the novel coronavirus, includingbiosafety guidelines for laboratories.
January 18: CDC publishes interim guidance on how to care for novel coronavirus patients at home who do not require hospitalization.
January 20: The Chinese government confirms human-to-human transmission of the virus.

JANUARY 21: FIRST U.S. CASE CONFIRMED (FROM TRAVEL)[1]

January 21: CDC activates its Emergency Operations Center.
January 21: The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA, part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or ASPR) begins holding market research calls with industry leading diagnostics companies to gauge their interest in developing diagnostics for the novel coronavirus and to encourage initiating development activities.
January 21: CDC holds its second tele-briefing on the virus, with officials from Washington State, to discuss the first U.S. case, and Dr. Messonnier, who notes “CDC has been proactively preparing for an introduction of the virus here” and that a CDC team was deployed to Washington.
January 21: CDC posts interim guidance, updated regularly in the coming months, on how to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in homes and other settings.
January 21: Secretary Azar discusses coronavirus with Lou Dobbs on Fox Business Network, noting “we have been heavily engaged at the outset” of the outbreak, with the CDC and the rest of HHS working under the President’s direction to develop testing and alert healthcare providers.
January 22: Secretary Azar signs a memorandum from CDC Director Redfield determining that the novel coronavirus could imminently become an infectious disease emergency, which allows HHS to send a request to the Office of Management and Budget to access $105 million from the Infectious Disease Rapid Response Reserve Fund.
January 22: FDA, working with test developers, shares an authorization application template with a diagnostic test developer for the first time.
January 22: ASPR stands up an interagency diagnostics working group with BARDA, CDC, FDA, NIH, and the Department of Defense (DOD).
January 22: HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement began flagging any children referred from China for risk assessments and, if indicated by their travel and exposure history, for quarantine for up to 14 days before being placed in the general community of the shelter. Screenings expanded to children referred from Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea on March 2.

JANUARY 22: ALL OUTBOUND TRAINS AND FLIGHTS FROM WUHAN CANCELED

January 23: ASPR convenes a Disaster Leadership Group (DLG), to align government-wide partners regarding the outbreak situation, communications strategies, and the potential medical countermeasure pipeline. The same week, conversations begin with manufacturers of N95 masks, enabling mask production on U.S. soil to rise from about 250 million a year in January to about 640 million a year in March.
January 24: ASPR forms three government-wide task forces—on healthcare system capacity and resilience, development of medical countermeasures (diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines), and supply chains—as part of work under Emergency Support Function 8 of the National Response Framework.
January 24: CDC hosts its third tele-briefing on the virus, with Dr. Nancy Messonnier and officials from Illinois, where CDC has deployed a team to respond to the second U.S. case, from travel. Dr. Messonnier notes, “We are expecting more cases in the U.S., and we are likely going to see some cases among close contacts of travelers and human to human transmission.”
January 24: CDC publicly posts its assay for the novel coronavirus, allowing the global community to develop their own assays using the CDC design.
January 25: Five days before WHO’s declaration of a public health emergency of international concern, Secretary Azar preemptively notifies Congress of his intent to use $105 million from the Infectious Disease Rapid Response Reserve Fund.

JANUARY 26: FIVE U.S. CASES CONFIRMED, ALL TRAVEL-RELATED

January 26: ASPR holds first meetings of healthcare resilience, medical countermeasure development, and supply chain task forces, which continue several times a week or daily in the coming weeks.
January 27: In a Washington, D.C., speech, Secretary Azar shares that HHS is “proactively preparing for the arrival of the novel coronavirus on our shores,” noting that “the novel coronavirus is a rapidly changing situation, and we are still learning about the virus.” “While the virus poses a serious public health threat, the immediate risk to Americans is low at this time,” Azar says, noting that he spoke on the morning of January 27 with China’s Minister of Health and WHO Director-General Tedros speak to discuss the novel coronavirus.
January 27: CDC hosts a tele-briefing with Dr. Nancy Messonnier, who notes that new travel recommendations are coming and that “there may be some disruptions” to Americans’ lives as a result of the public health response, but that “this virus is not spreading in the community” in the U.S.
January 27: CDC and State Department issue Level 3 “postpone or reconsider travel” warnings for all of China.
January 27: FDA begins providing updates about processes for approval and authorization to developers of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other countermeasures for the novel coronavirus.
January 27: CDC’s Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases, Jay Butler, holds a call with the nation’s governors on the novel coronavirus.
January 28: HHS hosts press briefing by Secretary Azar, Dr. Fauci, Director Redfield, and Dr. Messonnier. Azar says, “Americans should know that this is a potentially very serious public health threat, but, at this point, Americans should not worry for their own safety.” He underscores, “This is a very fast moving, constantly changing situation…. Part of the risk we face right now is that we don’t yet know everything we need to know about this virus. But, I want to emphasize, that does not prevent us from preparing and responding.”
January 28: CDC posts interim guidance, updated regularly in the coming months, for airline crews regarding the novel coronavirus.
January 29: The White House announces the establishment of the Coronavirus Task Force, which begins daily meetings.
January 29: CDC hosts a tele-briefing with Dr. Messonnier, who notes that “despite an aggressive public health investigation to find new cases [in the U.S.], we have not.”
January 29: CDC posts infection prevention and control recommendations for novel coronavirus patients in healthcare settings, updated regularly in the coming months.
January 29: The Chinese government sends email to HHS acknowledging offer of U.S. expert assistance; HHS begins soliciting nominees for mission from across the department.
January 29: ASPR, CDC, FDA, NIAID, and DOD host a listening session with industry—1,468 participants—on medical countermeasure development, health system preparedness, supply resilience, and medical surge needs.
January 29: The first repatriation flight from Wuhan, China arrives at March Air Reserve Base in California, beginning the safe repatriation of Americans and marking the first use of federal quarantine power in more than 50 years. The operation eventually totals more than 3,000 repatriations, with citizens from Wuhan and passengers from cruise ships. Repatriated Americans praise the work of the quarantine teams—including a couple who spent an extended honeymoon at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.

JANUARY 30: SIXTH AND SEVENTH CASES CONFIRMED IN THE U.S., CLOSE CONTACTS OF TRAVEL-RELATED CASE

January 30: CDC hosts a tele-briefing with Director Redfield, Dr. Messonnier, and officials from Illinois, where a sixth case is identified, in a spouse of a confirmed case who had traveled to China. Director Redfield notes that most cases around the world outside of China are close contacts of travelers, and “the full picture of how easy and how sustainable this virus can spread is unclear.” (A seventh case is identified later that evening.)
January 30: Department of State issues Level 4 warning, “do not travel,” for all of mainland China.
January 30: The Trump Administration hosts a call with Secretary Azar, Director Redfield, Dr. Fauci, and others with the nation’s governors to present the Administration’s action plan on responding to the outbreak.
January 30: In an appearance on Fox News, Secretary Azar notes that, whether the WHO declares a public health emergency of international concern (declared January 31), “That doesn’t change anything about what we are doing here in the United States.The President is ensuring that we are proactively preparing and also taking the necessary steps to prevent or mitigate any potential further spread here in the United States.”
January 30: Trump Administration budget officials begin discussions about funding needed for development of vaccines and therapeutics, purchases of Personal Protective Equipment for the Strategic National Stockpile, surveillance and testing, and state and local support.
January 30: ASPR launches a coronavirus portal to receive market research packages and meeting requests from industry stakeholders interested in developing or manufacturing medical countermeasures.
January 31: At the recommendation of his public health officials, President Trump issues historic restrictions on travel from Hubei and mainland China, effective February 2.
January 31: Secretary Azar signs a declaration of a nationwide Public Health Emergency, which allowed HHS to begin using a range of emergency authorities and flexibilities, and, together with other subsequent declarations, would allow emergency flexibilities for healthcare providers. At a White House briefing, he notes, “The risk of infection for Americans remains low, and with these and our previous actions, we are working to keep the risk low. It is likely that we will continue to see more cases in the United States in the coming days and weeks, including some limited person-to-person transmission.”
January 31: CDC hosts a tele-briefing with Dr. Messonnier, who notes possible reports of asymptomatic transmission and says, “We are preparing as if this were the next pandemic, but we are hopeful still that this is not and will not be the case.”
January 31: FDA holds a virtual meeting with American Clinical Laboratory Association about the emergency use authorization application process.

Yes, Trump acted as soon as the news of the virus was available. And as we know from the results, stringency of lockdowns did not translate into how many deadly infections there were:

(Click Graphic To Enlarge)


While not a gauge of whether the decisions taken were the right ones, nor of how strictly they were followed, the analysis gives a clear sense of each government’s strategy for containing the virus. Some — above all Italy and Spain — enforced prolonged and strict lockdowns after infections took off. Others — especially Sweden — preferred a much more relaxed approach. Portugal and Greece chose to close down while cases were relatively low. France and the U.K. took longer before deciding to impose the most restrictive measures.

But, as our next chart shows, there’s little correlation between the severity of a nation’s restrictions and whether it managed to curb excess fatalities — a measure that looks at the overall number of deaths compared with normal trends.

(BLOOMBERG)

Pagan Nationalism Driving Deadly Violence (New Shooting Update)

(JUMP to UPDATE) This post is merely an intro to one of the proginators of a pagan nationalism that has created many violent followers. A “comparative-religion” intro to Alain de Benoist for my site.

Despite a veneer of fashionable progressivism, the fact is that environmentalism’s fundamental opposition to modernity propels it straight into the arms of neofascism. For just like their precursors in the twenties and thirties, today’s ultranationalist and neo-Nazi groups chime with many of the ideas that also march under the green banner. In France, Italy and Belgium, the Nouvelle Droite combined Hellenic paganism with support for the dissolution of national boundaries; it was anticapitalist and anti-American, adopt­ing sociobiological arguments to stress the uniqueness of each race and culture within national boundaries and to oppose colonization and empire. In Germany, the radical-right journal Mut was pacifist and ecological?’ Such groups met the left on the common ground of New Age paganism, expressed in particular through the religions and cultures of the East.

— Melanie Phillips (read her entire chapter discussing this, HERE)

I found the following review of Alain de Benoist’s “On Being a Pagan.” He (and thus his followers) are very confused… especially on the Bible and the Christian faith. While the below video is not done by a stated Christian (I assume she is a pagan from her other videos, but SHE HAS SOME VERY USEFUL posts and interviews), she does a great job on summarizing Benoist’s view of YHWH. 

PJ-MEDIA has an excellent article discussing the roots of the “far-right” in Europe. At the beginning of the article they note that the Mosque shooter, Brenton Tarrant, may have been viewed as a “Christian” — “The media may have given the impression that Brenton Tarrant, the New Zealand mosque murderer, was a Christian or accidentally conveyed that sense by spotty coverage.” But they go one to note the trail of these so-called “reborn Knights Templars.” They note the media searching for connections that are more a video game fantasy than real leg-work.

Here is the meat of the article:

What actually exists is Tarrant’s association with the Identitarian Movement of Austria. “A shadowy far-right group in Europe has been linked to Brenton Tarrant as its leader’s home was raided by intelligence agents who found a large donation from a supporter with the same surname as the accused Christchurch terrorist. Electronic devices were seized from the home of Martin Sellner, head of the Identitarian Movement of Austria (IBO)”.

The white supremacist Identitarian Movement originated in France and is considered the equivalent of the American alt-right, rising out of the ashes of fascism and drawing on European Neo-Nazism and Germany’s New Right.

Its followers idolise anti-immigration French writers including Alain Benoist and Renaud Camus from whom Tarrant borrowed the title of his sickening manifesto, “The Great Replacement”.

Who is Alain Benoist? According to Wikipedia, “Alain de Benoist born 11 December 1943 is a French academic, philosopher, a founder of the Nouvelle Droite (New Right), and head of the French think tank GRECE”, dedicated to the abolition of Christianity and repaganization of Europe.

Benoist is opposed to Christianity, the United States, free markets, neoliberalism, democracy, and egalitarianism. His work has been influential with the alt-right movement in the United States, and he presented a lecture on identity at a National Policy Institute conference hosted by Richard B. Spencer; however, he has distanced himself from the movement

He is an admirer of Pan-European nationalism and neopaganismBenoist considers himself both left and right-wing.

Benoist’s manifesto, On Being a Pagan, frankly advocates a sophisticated form of nature-worship. “Paganism, far from being something that can be characterized as a denial of spirituality or a rejection of the sacred, consists on the contrary in the choice (and reappropriation) of another spirituality, another form of the sacred. Far from being confused with atheism or agnosticism, it poses a fundamentally religious relationship between man and the world — and a spirituality that appears to us as much more intense, much more serious, and stronger than what Judeo-Christianity claims for itself. Far from desacralizing the world, it sacralizes it in the literal sense of the word; it regards the world as sacred — and this is precisely, as we shall see, the core of paganism.”

Paganism — and nature worship — are part of the plan to put Europe back on top.

The alt-right is anti-Christian.  Not by implication or insinuation, but by confession. Its leading thinkers flaunt their rejection of Christianity and their desire to convert believers away from it. … Alt-right thinkers are overwhelmingly atheists, but their worldview is not rooted in the secular Enlightenment, nor is it irreligious. Far from it. Read deeply in their sources—and make no mistake, the alt-right has an intellectual tradition—and you will discover a movement that takes Christian thought and culture seriously. It is a conflicted tribute paid to their chief adversary. Against Christianity it makes two related charges. Beginning with the claim that Europe effectively created Christianity—not the other way around—it argues that Christian teachings have become socially and morally poisonous to the West. A major work of alt-right history opens with a widely echoed claim: “The introduction of Christianity has to count as the single greatest ideological catastrophe to ever strike Europe.”

Not only is paganism good because it is the original European religion but it is desirable because it “regards the world as sacred  — and this is precisely, as we shall see, the core of paganism.” The link between paganism and fringe environmentalism is yet another link the media hesitates to explore, yet is essential to the story.

In The Guardian‘s description of Tarrant’s intellectual history, it was clear the killer came to eco-fascism via the left-wing route rather than the churches. “When he was young, he was ‘a communist, then an anarchist and finally a libertarian before coming to be an eco-fascist.'” The term “eco-fascist,” which puzzled Heavy, is now very easy to understand. They wrote that “perhaps bizarrely, the gunman’s manifesto combines environmentalism with racism. He considers himself an ‘eco-fascist.'”

[….]

Once the reader realizes that nature worship, the abolition of Christianity, environmentalism and mass murder can all be part of the same package, a clearer picture of the mosque killer’s belief system emerges. But given the revulsion caused by Tarrant’s actions, it was far more convenient to tie him to the Reborn Knights Templars of World of Warcraft fame rather than a real “established, if somewhat obscure, brand of neo-Nazi” pagan environmentalism.

Great stuff!

You can hear Alain Benoist discuss his aversion to free-markets for yourself (thick French accent warning), thus showing his adherence to Marxism. Benoist is a Leftist, but in European confusion of everything categorical — he is considered “right-wing.” Something that has always infected almost all totalitarian thinking — Leftism.


SAN DIEGO SYNAGOGUE SHOOTING


THERE WAS JUST A SHOOTING today where the shooter of a Synagogue in San Diego praised Brenton Tarrant — the above Mosque shooter.

According to a possible manifesto he left after the shooting. Here are a couple relevant portions from it that coincide a bit with what is already written (added emphasis):

My name is John Earnest and I am a man of European ancestry. The blood that runs in my veins is the same that ran through the English, Nordic, and Irish men of old. I am a descendant of one of the original colonists of Roanoke—John Earnest. What happened to him I do not know, and nor does anyone. But I do know that he left his wife and son, James Earnest, back in England. This son shortly after made the same daring journey across the Atlantic to the New World. From my mother’s side I inherited the blood of very wealthy Yankees—intelligent, resourceful, uncompromising. From my father’s side I inherited the blood of poor Southern farmers—intelligent, musically gifted, self-sufficient. A part of my ancestors lives within me in this very moment. They are the reason that I am who I am. Their acts of bravery, ingenuity, and righteousness live on through me. Truly, I am blessed by God for such a magnificent bloodline.

[….]

“How does killing Jews help the European race? The European race is doomed? What are you talking about? These Jews were innocent!” Every Jew is responsible for the meticulously planned genocide of the European race. They act as a unit, and every Jew plays his part to enslave the other races around him—whether consciously or subconsciously. Their crimes are endless. For lying and deceiving the public through their exorbitant role in news media; for using usury and banks to enslave nations in debt and control all finances for the purpose of funding evil; for their role in starting wars on a foundation of lies which have costed millions of lives throughout history; for their role in cultural Marxism and communism; for pushing degenerate propaganda in the form of entertainment; for their role in feminism which has enslaved women in sin; for causing many to fall into sin with their role in peddling pornography; for their role in voting for and funding politicians and organizations who use mass immigration to displace the European race; for their large role in every slave trade for the past two-thousand years; for promoting race mixing; for their cruel and bloody history of genocidal behavior; for their persecution of Christians of old (including the prophets of ancient Israel—Jeremiah, Isaiah, etc.), members of the early church (Stephen—whose death at the hands of the Jews was both heart-wrenching and rage-inducing), Christians of modern-day Syria and Palestine, and Christians in White nations; for their degenerate and abominable practices of sexual perversion and blood libel (you are not forgotten Simon of Trent, the horror that you and countless children have endured at the hands of the Jews will never be forgiven); for not speaking about these crimes; for not attempting to stop the members of their race from committing them. And finally, for their role in the murder of the Son of Man—that is the Christ. Every Jew young and old has contributed to these. For these crimes they deserve nothing but hell.

I will send them there.

[….]

“ARE YOU A TRUMP SUPPORTER?”

YOU MEAN THAT ZIONIST, JEW-LOVING, ANTI-WHITE, TRAITOROUS COCKSUCKER? DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH.

“Are you affiliated with any political ideology?”

Yes. It’s called not wanting to go extinct.

“Are you a conservative?”

I am not a useless, spineless coward so no—I am not a conservative. Conservative is a misnomer. They conserve nothing. They’ll complain all they want but they won’t take up arms and threaten their government with death (the only thing that works). Ever heard about the Battle of Athens (1946)? Find your balls again you insufferable faggots. If you do not defend your rights you deserve none.

[….]

“Do you feel any remorse for what you did?”

The Jews have depleted our patience and our mercy. I feel no remorse. I only wish I killed more. I am honored to be the one to send these vile anti-humans into the pit of fire—where they shall remain for eternity.

“Do you feel anything but hatred for Jews?”

Disgust. Disgust that a race can become so unrecognizably corrupted that they would commit the most heinous acts that only the most twisted of individuals could put into reality.

[….]

“Do you hate all Jews?”

I hate anyone who seeks the destruction of my race. Every Jew currently alive plays a part in the destruction of my race. Does that answer your question?

“Do you hate other races?”

I hate anyone who seeks the destruction of my race. Spics and niggers are useful puppets for the Jew in terms of replacing Whites. Of course, they aren’t intelligent enough to realize that the Jew is using them and they will be enslaved if Europeans are eliminated. Do they actively hate my race? Yes, I hate them. Are they in my nation but do not hate my race? I do not hate them, but they aren’t staying. Are they out of my nation and do not hate my race? Fine by me.

[….]

“Why did you use guns instead of a flamethrower? Wouldn’t a flamethrower have given you a much higher score?”

Yes. I encourage you to use flamethrowers as well as guns. Use what you think would be best in your situation. I used a gun for the same reason that BRENTON TARRANT used a gun. In case you haven’t noticed we are running out of time. If this revolution doesn’t happen soon, we won’t have the numbers to win it. The goal is for the US government to start confiscating guns. People will defend their right to own a firearm—civil war has just started. Stop the slow boil of the frog—prevent the Jew from using incrementalism. Make the Jew play all of his cards to make it apparent to more people how their rights are being taken away right before their eyes.

“Did your family cause you to think this way?”

Unfortunately, no. I had to learn what they should have taught me from the beginning.

[….]

“How long did it take you to plan this attack?”

Four weeks. Four weeks ago, I decided that I was doing this. Four weeks later I did it. I remember a specific moment in time after BRENTON TARRANT’S sacrifice that something just clicked in my mind. ‘If I won’t defend my race, how can I expect others to do the same?’ I immediately got to planning, and I never looked back. I never had doubts. I never felt afraid. I never felt anxious—just the occasional nervous excitement.

“Who inspires you?”

Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther, ADOLF HITLER, ROBERT BOWERS, BRENTON TARRANT, Ludwig van Beethoven, Moon Man, and Pink Guy.

REMEMBER, Bowers was the recent Synagogue shooter in Pittsburgh. He was a hater of Trump and Jews (via PAMELA GELLER)

 

 

 

The Owners of The Red Hen in Virginia Are the Real Bigots

  • “Once Sarah and her family left — and of course Sarah was asked to please vacate, Sarah and her husband just went home. They had sort of had enough. But the rest of her family went across the street to a different restaurant,” Huckabee said on “The Laura Ingraham Show.” “The owner of the Red Hen — nobody’s told this — then followed them across the street, called people and organized a protest yelling and screaming at them from outside the other restaurant and creating this scene.” (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)

Here is something I have been saying the past days… and now PJ-MEDIA has a wonderful article stating it as well. Here are my bullet points and then an excerpt from the article:

  • Both the Masterpiece Cake Shop and Sweet Cakes, as well as Arlene’s Flowers are examples of Christian owners serving everyone who comes through their door. The gay couples were regular customers of both businesses, for MANY years. These two Christian business owners would sell and did offer to sell anything in the shop for the event (the same-sex marriage/wedding event), but merely chose due to conscience to withhold participating in managing and contributing their artistic expression and free speech to the EVENT. Blanket service was never denied. (See more here: “Having Your Cake and Forcing Others to Eat It Too“)
  • The Red Hen restaurant decided to do just the opposite of every example these Christian store owners did. They denied BLANKET service to an opposing point of view. The Huckabees did not ask the restaurant to cater a political or religious event celebrating something that the owner’s conscience would not be able to participate in. Rather, it is an example of Jim Crow type laws, being reinstated by the same party that establish them to begin with.

(By the way, I truly believe every business owner should be allowed to refuse business to whomever one wishes… and this is why Barry Goldwater was right: “The American Experiment Wanes ~ Indiana and Religious Discrimination” | BUT by trying to meter out who has rights or what political or religious position holds precedence… we are in the beginning stages of chaos for our legal system.)

Here is a portion of PJ-MEDIA’S excellent post:

Of course, these people who were outraged that Christian bakers wouldn’t make custom cakes for gay weddings think somehow that outrage over what happened to Sarah Huckabee Sanders makes conservative hypocrites, while their enthusiastic approval of her being kicked out of The Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, doesn’t make them hypocritical in the least.

But, I’m going to explain why what happened to Sarah Sanders and her family is actually worse, and why the people who celebrate that denial of service are the real hypocrites and bigots.

The key difference here is that baking a custom cake for a gay wedding is not the same thing as blanket denial of service at a restaurant. None of the Christian bakers ever denied service to gay customers — they just didn’t want to make custom cakes celebrating a lifestyle they believe to be sinful. Media coverage of various incidents has likened the cases of Christian bakers not wanting to create custom cakes for same-sex weddings as refusing to serve homosexuals. However, this is simply not true.

Masterpiece Bakery, owned by Jack Phillips, the complainant (and victor) in the recent Supreme Court case, never refused to serve gay customers.

from the beginning, Jack has seen his business as an expression of his faith (hence the name), and that has led him to reject business throughout his career. For example, he’s refused to make custom cakes for Halloween and divorce celebrations, and he’s turned down requests for lewd cakes for bachelor and bachelorette parties.

Back in 2012, two men asked Jack to design a cake for their same-sex wedding. Now mind you, back in 2012, the state of Colorado didn’t even recognize same-sex weddings. Jack told them that he would gladly sell them any item in the store—including cakes—but that he could not, due to his religious convictions, use his cake-design talents to participate in the celebration of their ceremony.

So Mr. Phillips went out of his way in an attempt to accommodate the gay couple. This was not a case of denial of service.

How about Sweet Cakes by Melissa, the Christian-owned bakery in Oregon? In this case, the lesbian couple that had wanted a custom cake for their wedding had been customers before the incident that resulted in the bakers being fined $135,000 (which ultimately forced them to shut down the business). There was no refusal of service by owners Aaron and Melissa Klein. The Kleins, in their own words, “declined to create a custom cake that would have required us to express a message our faith teaches against.”

How about 111 Cakery in Indianapolis, Indiana? 111 Cakery, formerly owned by Randy and Trish McGath, was forced to close its doors in 2015 after three years in business. But they weren’t guilty of refusing to serve gay customers, either.

McGath said he and his wife, who attend a Baptist church, were well aware of the neighborhood’s gay culture when they opened their bakery there in 2012. They served the gay community gladly for several years but “just didn’t want to be party to a commitment ceremony” because such an event reflected “a commitment to sin.”

[…]

“There was zero hate here,” said McGath, who is now selling recreational vehicles. “We were just trying to be right with our God. I was able to speak to many homosexuals in the community and to speak our opinion and have a civil conversation. I’m still in touch with some.”

Despite all the news stories that accused these bakers of refusing to serve gay customers, nothing could be further from the truth. That’s why what happened to Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family is so much worse….

(READ IT ALL)

The owner is related to a Hollywood defender of child rapists