TiLTNews Network: Earth Watch -
Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference,
not by safety. It is easy to clamor for government security when terrible things happen; but liberty is given true meaning when we support it without exception, and we will be safer for it ~ Dr. Ron Paul
The corporatization process started with “co-branding” agreements, rationalized by Park Service officials as “aligning the economic and historical legacies” of parks with advertisers. In other words, they’re selling the Park Service’s proud public brand — as well as its soul. First in line was Coca-Cola. In 2007, the multibillion-dollar colossus became a “proud partner” with the Park Service by donating a mere $2.5 million (tax-deductible, meaning we taxpayers subsidized the deal) to the Park Service fundraising arm. In return, not only did Coke get exclusive rights to use park logos in its ads, but it was allowed to veto a Park Service plan to ban sales of bottled water in the Grand Canyon National Park. Disposable plastic bottles are that park’s biggest source of trash, but Coke owns Dasani, the top-selling water, so bye-bye ban. Public outrage forced officials to reverse this crass move, but the Park Service’s integrity has yet to recover.
By Heather Callaghan Boy or girl. Public school or private school. If the Rhode Island child is middle-school age, it is now mandatory to receive a Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. The jab would...
Britain’s police watchdog said Monday that it is investigating claims that authorities dropped a sex abuse case during the 1990s that contained an allegation against the former Prime Minister Edward Heath. Heath, who died in 2005 at 89, was named by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which said the probe will look at Wiltshire Police’s investigation into an alleged claim of child sexual abuse made in the 1990s.
By Brandon Turbeville Fresh on the heels of the establishment of an "ISIL-Free Zone" (aka "No-Fly Zone") in northern Syria along the Turkish border, the United States has quietly announced that it...
Speaking in Cairo on Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry reassured Egyptian officials that the country's human rights abuses will not get in the way of further boosts to U.S. aid, arms, and military "cooperation." "Egypt remains vital ... to engagement and stability in the region as a whole," said Kerry at joint appearance with Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri following a weekend of bilateral talks. "There are obviously circumstances where we have found reason to have grave concern and we have expressed it very publicly, but we have multiple issues that we need to work on simultaneously."
Last week, a Denver man was arrested and charged with multiple felonies, but not for stealing, committing fraud, or engaging in violent crime. He was targeted for attempting to educate jurors about their rights in the courtroom. Mark Ianicelli, 56, set up a table outside of Lindsay-Flanigan Courthouse in Denver in order to educate jurors about jury nullification. Jury nullification is the process by which members of juries can nullify unjust laws by finding defendants charged with them not guilty. Ianicelli is charged with tampering with a jury, a felony in Colorado that carries a minimum bond of $5,000. He was charged by the Denver District Attorney for seven counts of tampering, and has since bailed out of jail. Ianicelli was in the second day of a planned three-day outreach to educate jurors entering the courtroom about the power of jury nullification. He was handing out fliers when he was arrested. His goal was to inform potential jurors about a vital, centuries-old function of juries. The practice was first used in America in 1735 to exonerate a man of libel charges after he printed unflattering statements about the Governor of New York (a British colony at the time). Though he had undoubtedly printed them, the jury found him not guilty and set the precedent that members of juries could judge the morality and legitimacy of laws. The United States’ first Chief Justice, John Jay, once told jurors, “You have a right to take upon yourselves to judge [both the facts and law].” Jurors would seize this right to nullify anti-sedition laws in the early 1800s that attempted to stifle free speech criticizing the newly formed United States government.
Judges first began cracking down on the right to nullify in the late 1800s. By that time, jurors had already used nullification to challenge the Fugitive Slave Act, which imposed heavy punishment on Northerners who aided escaped slaves from the South. Though judges came to discourage nullification, the practice went on to be useful in nullifying Prohibition-era laws. Jury nullification still affects prohibition against outlawed drugs. In 2012, a New Hampshire jury acquitted a Rastafarian man, Doug Darrell, of growing marijuana—though he was technically guilty of the violation. The jurors had been informed of their right to nullify and found the law and charges against Darrell to be unjust. They found him not guilty. However, this power of the people has not gone unchecked. Though some states allow for the practice, judges often fail to notify jurors of their ability to nullify. Activists have been harassed and jailed for attempting to inform jurors of their right to judge the morality of laws. The Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA), a non-profit organization that educates jurors on their rights (and whose pamphlets Ianicelli was handing out when he was arrested), is one group that attempts to counter these suppressions by the justice system. Kirsten Tynan of FIJA reported on Ianicelli’s case, stating that officials in Denver claimed a juror had complained about Ianicelli’s presence near the courthouse, prompting his arrest. Tynan was told Ianicelli was arrested on charges of jury tampering, which according to Colorado law, consists of:
(1) A person commits jury-tampering if, with intent to influence a juror’s vote, opinion, decision, or other action in a case, he attempts directly or indirectly to communicate with a juror other than as a part of the proceedings in the trial of the case.
(1.5) A person commits jury-tampering if he knowingly participates in the fraudulent processing or selection of jurors or prospective jurors.
(2) Jury-tampering is a class 5 felony; except that jury-tampering in any class 1 felony trial is a class 4 felony.
Though Tynan acknowledged that under some circumstances nullification activism is not legally permissible, it appears Ianicelli was within his rights. He is due back in court on August 11 to face his victimless felony charges. It is more than alarming that a man attempting to facilitate and strengthen the judicial process is punished with the full force of the law—the very thing Ianicelli sought to educate jurors about. As Harlan F. Stone, the 12th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court said in 1941, “The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.” When the justice system refuses to allow jurors to be aware of their rights, let alone exercise them, the country’s entire system of “law and order” is called into question. Carey Wedler writes for theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org. Carey Wedler joined Anti-Media as an independent journalist in September of 2014. As a writer and senior editor, her topics of interest include the police and warfare states, the Drug War, the relevance of history to current problems and solutions, and positive developments that drive humanity forward. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where she was born and raised. Learn more about Wedlerhere! This article may be re-posted in full with attribution.
A current CDC senior scientist has blown the whistle on a monumental cover-up that confirms the link between vaccines and autism.
Dr. William Thompson says that CDC researchers conspired to destroy documents relating to a study that proved vaccinations caused autism. Four co-authors of the study met in a meeting room, and brought all the hardcopy documents of an explosive report, in order to destroy them.
Despite this whistleblower testimony, which Dr. Thompson provided to Rep. Bill Posey, R-Florida, there is little chance of a meaningful hearing or investigation.
In an untainted news environment, the allegations would make headlines in most legitimate publications and would trigger federal inquiries. However, the interests of the powerful pharmaceutical industry reach deeply into Congress and the news media through lobbyists, propaganda and advertising dollars.
The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. –CDC Senior Scientist Dr. William Thompson
That’s why Congressman Posey resorted to simply reading some of Dr. Thompson’s statement today on the House floor…including the part in which Dr. Thompson says he retained the evidence that had been thrown in the garbage can, in the unlikely event that a neutral investigative or scientific body would like to see it today.
“[B]ecause I assumed it was illegal and would violate both FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] and DOJ [Department of Justice] requests, I kept hardcopies of all documents in my office, and I retain all associated computer files,” Posey quotes Dr. Thompson as reporting.
The CDC and Thompson’s co-author Dr. Frank DeStefano, CDC Director of Immunization Safety, have defended the controversial study as originally published.
One final note: Rep. Posey unequivocally states that he is pro-vaccine. However, the propaganda campaign typically falsely portrays anyone who addresses vaccine safety issues as “anti-vaccine.”
Congressman Posey speaks on the House floor about a CDC whistleblower exposing deception at the CDC. July 29, 2015:
Rep. Posey’s entire statement about Dr. Thompson:
“I rise today on matters of scientific integrity and research. To begin with, I am absolutely, resolutely, pro-vaccine. Advancements in medical immunization have saved countless and greatly benefitted public health. That being said, it’s troubling to me that in a recent Senate hearing on childhood vaccinations, it was never mentioned that our government has paid out over $3 billion through a vaccine injury compensation program for children who have been injured by vaccinations.
“Regardless of the subject matter, parents making decisions about their children’s health deserve to have the best information available to them. They should be able to count on federal agencies to tell them the truth. For these reasons, I bring the following matter to the House floor.
“In August 2014, Dr. William Thompson, a senior scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, worked with a whistleblower attorney to provide my office with documents related to a 2004 CDC study that examined the possibility of a relationship between [the] mumps, measles, rubella vaccine and autism. In a statement released in August, 2014, Dr. Thompson stated, ‘I regret that my co-authors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics.’
“Mr. Speaker, I respectfully request the following excepts from the statement written by Dr. Thompson be entered into the record.
“Now quoting Dr. Thompson.
“‘My primary job duties while working in the immunization safety branch from 2000 to 2006, were to later co-lead three major vaccine safety studies. The MADDSP, MMR autism cases control study was being carried out in response to the Wakefield-Lancet study that suggested an association between the MMR vaccine and an autism-like health outcome.
There were several major concerns among scientists and consumer advocates outside the CDC in the fall of 2000, regarding the execution of the Verstraeten Study. One of the important goals that was determined up front, in the spring of 2001, before any of these studies started, was to have all three protocols vetted outside the CDC prior to the start of the analyses so consumer advocates could not claim that we were presenting analyses that suited our own goals and biases.
We hypothesized that if we found statistically significant effects at either 18 or 36 month thresholds, we would conclude that vaccinating children early with MMR vaccine could lead to autism-like characteristics or features. We all met and finalized the study protocol and analysis plan. The goal was to not deviate from the analysis plan to avoid the debacle that occurred with the Verstraeten thimerosal study published in Pediatrics in 2003.
‘At the Sept 5th meeting we discussed in detail how to code race for both the sample and the birth certificate sample. At the bottom of table 7, it also shows that for the non-birth certificate sample, the adjusted race effect statistical significance was huge.
‘All the authors and I met and decided sometime between August and September 2002, not to report any race effects from the paper. Sometime soon after the meeting, we decided to exclude reporting any race effects. The co-authors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the study. The remaining four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room, and reviewed and went through all the hardcopy documents that we had thought we should discard, and put them into a huge garbage can. However, because I assumed it was illegal and would violate both FOIA and DOJ requests, I kept hardcopies of all documents in my office, and I retain all associated computer files. I believe we intentionally withheld controversial findings from the final draft of the Pediatrics paper.’
“Mr. Speaker, I believe it is our duty to insure that the documents that Dr. Thompson are not ignored. Therefore I will provide them to members of Congress and the House Committees upon request. Considering the nature of the whistleblower’s documents as well as the involvement of the CDC, a hearing and a thorough investigation is warranted.
“So I ask, Mr. Speaker, I beg, I implore my colleagues on the appropriations committees to please, please take such action.”
CDC Say They Destroyed Documents That Prove Vaccines Cause Autism
