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Best of the Web: New Zealand's high court rules first covid lockdown UNLAWFUL

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern new zealand
© Xinhua/Guo Lei via Global Look PressPrime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed New Zealand's first lockdown in March.
New Zealand's High Court has ruled that the country's first nine-day, Covid-19 lockdown from March 26 to April 3 was unlawful as it infringed on people's rights and freedoms without a legal basis.

The High Court of New Zealand ruled on Wednesday that the country's stay-at-home orders, under threat of punishment, were in breach of civil liberties after lawyer Andrew Borrowdale launched a suit against the government in July.

A panel of three judges waved off a number of associated complaints but conceded that authorities should have written the order into law before using the threat of police detention to keep people inside.

Comment: Interesting how physically isolated, western-aligned nations like New Zealand and Australia seem to be running the most draconian lockdown policies. It's almost like an experiment on a captive population. But our dear leaders would never do that would they?



Quenelle - Golden

Best of the Web: Red landslide ahead? 27-year-old dissident journalist Laura Loomer wins Florida congressional primary for 21st District

laura loomer florida senate
Incumbent Lois Frankel and social media firebrand Laura Loomer won their respective primaries Tuesday, setting the tone for what will be a fiery, nationally watched congressional election in November.

Frankel, a former West Palm Beach mayor seeking her fifth term in U.S. House District 21, beat newcomer Guido Weiss by a landslide to win the Democratic nomination. Frankel captured 86.40% of the votes to Weiss' 13.60%.

"Every election night is exciting, no matter how many times you are in it," Frankel said Tuesday night from her home in West Palm Beach.

While Frankel was celebrating her quick win, Loomer was surrounded by an all-star cast of conservative and far-right leaders toasting her win in the GOP primary.

Among those gathering to watch returns with Loomer were political strategist Roger Stone, British writer Milo Yiannopoulos and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes.


Comment: ALL of whom are banned on social media, nevermind access to mainstream media! But now the MSM HAS TO address this news!

Here's Stone being Stone at Loomer's victory lap:
roger stone loomer florida

Even President Donald Trump weighed in on Loomer's victory via Twitter.

"Great going Laura," he wrote. "You have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet!"


Comment: USA Today is trying to remain 'objective', but their report (in addition to containing the usual distortions and smears) is positively doused in fear and loathing!

Suck it up, cupcakes.

We note that Loomer first appeared on the scene when she was booted from Las Vegas PD press conferences in the aftermath of the multi-site terror attack in Las Vegas in October 2017. She was asking the sheriff 'all the wrong questions'...


Vader

Best of the Web: Fascism on the march: Ireland put back into lockdown

leo varadkar micheal martin
"We've got them where we want them now, Leo."
The country is in a battle to stop a slide back to lockdown after Covid-19 restrictions were introduced to limit the movement of young and old.


Comment: "A slide back into..."

Help, we're sliding! We can't stop ourselves imprisoning everyone over a benign virus. Send money, muzzles, and vaccines...


Vulnerable people and those over 70 will feel the brunt of the new rules but families and those involved in sports will also be reassessing their plans today.


Comment: I.e., they're not SAYING it's 'full lockdown', but the subliminal message you're very much meant to receive is: THIS IS FULL LOCKDOWN.


"We are acting to try and stop a national lockdown," Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said last night. He also admitted there was "robust debate" at Cabinet about whether or not the measures went too far.


Comment: It's a national lockdown. They're just covering their a**es with weasel-words in the event of major public backlash.


Family gatherings are now limited to just six people and all outdoor gatherings to 15 people.

The GAA [major Irish sports association - Sott.net ed.] has called on the Government and health chiefs to "present the empirical evidence" that informed the decision to move all sporting events behind closed doors.


Comment: They won't because there is none. This is being done to protect their 'gains' thus far this year from terrorizing and hystericizing the population.


Comment: Those 'martyrs to the cause' the Irish PM is emotionally manipulating people with for the most part died BECAUSE OF THE LOCKDOWN.

If this 'second lockdown' takes in Ireland, expect it to be rolled out across the West in due course.


Cow Skull

Best of the Web: CODENAME: Operation Virus Identification 2019; the Elitist Plan to Remake Society

CFR chart
Everything we were originally told about the Coronavirus has turned out to be wrong. In fact, it's not a "novel" one-of-a-kind infection at all, but a member of a larger family of which there have been many iterations in the recent past. It's also not the most contagious or most lethal virus we've ever seen, but a fairly-mild infection that has no impact on the majority of people and that only kills somewhere between 1 in every 200 to 1 in every 1,000 people. (CDC-IFR- 0.26%) Also, there was no real danger that our public health system was going to collapse, because the projected number of potential deaths (1 to 2 million in the US) never approached the estimates of the flawed computer models that were used to decide the policy. In short, just about everything we were told from the very beginning turned out to be demonstrably wrong. Why is that? Why do you think that the people who provided us with the information - many of them supposedly "experts" in their field - were so wrong about everything? And why haven't they made any effort to publicly correct their mistakes when they realize how much confusion they've caused?

Gold Seal

Best of the Web: Has Sweden beaten C0VlD? One death so far in August, no lockdown, no masks

Ben Swann video
Can it be? Is it true? With the relentless almost word-wide hysteria around you know what, how is it that Sweden is doing so well doing so little? Are those Swedes, unlike the rest of us just, somehow, Covid-resistant? Or have their policies of just letting the virus take its course proven the policy of lockdowns, masks, social distancing just a load of pure bull?


Comment: The truth about Sweden has been out there for some time now, but don't expect to hear anything about it from the talking heads in corporate media:


Pharoah

Best of the Web: Our leaders cannot 'eradicate' much less 'mitigate' this Coronavirus. We grossly overestimate their powers

australia lockdown
On the hunt for The Covid
We can probably excuse Henry VI for trying to ban kissing in 1439 without a serious cost-benefit analysis. The Black Death was wiping out close to a third of all people, after all, so it was natural the precautionary principle would swing into action.

But the spectacle of millions of masked-up Victorians, clinking elbows if they find someone else bold enough to have stepped outside, suggests our response is over the top, born of a mistaken belief that governments have more control over the course of events than they really do.

King Canute realised he couldn't control the tides. Outbreaks of the coronavirus in Victoria and New Zealand should remind us that controlling the spread of an invisible, highly contagious virus is not much easier.

Comment: Coronaviruses and many other types of highly contagious viruses are essentially designed by Nature to blanket the entire human population as quickly as possible.

In fact, we're MEANT to be infected by them because they're essentially 'system upgrades', without which the ever-changing near-Earth and planetary environment would REALLY kill us all!

Which means that trying to stop such system upgrades is the height of folly. Really, it's the stupidest thing the human race has ever attempted to do.

And that's saying something.


Blue Planet

Best of the Web: Lebanon: Pearl on the New Silk Road or zone of Dark Age chaos

lebanon
© AP Photo/ Hassan Ammar
Many voices have been quick to enter the chorus of commentators hypothesizing the manifold possible causes of the devastating explosions which occurred on the afternoon of August 4 in Beirut which has led to mass anarchy and the surprising resignation of the government on August 11th.

While I have no great novel contribution to offer in that growing array of hypotheses (which are slowly turning into noise), I would like to share an insight which addresses a too-often-overlooked aspect of the role of Lebanon in the Great Game. Before proceeding, it is useful to hold in the mind several points of certainty:

1) The official narrative of a chance mishap of Turkish fireworks instigating the detonation of the 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate which had been sitting at the Port of Beirut for six years is entirely unbelievable.

Comment: See also:


Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Narrative control tightens as panicked anti-Trump aristocrats crank up media gaslight machines

protesters
© Getty Images / Giles Clarke
Orange Man Bad. It's a narrative that is being made harder to question every day, even as Democrat-controlled cities descend into chaos and Americans are being fed the same old status quo from the Obama and Clinton era.

The middle and lower classes have been eviscerated, and America's big cities have been decimated and destroyed by the mob. And who is the mob? They are Antifa, BLM, ideologues (aka Democratic elites) and their multi-million-dollar-a-year media propaganda mouthpieces. The mob and its supporters are creating extreme tribalism that is ripping America apart.

Disgracefully, Democratic Party members of the US Congress are actively calling for "unrest in the streets" and the Democratic Party's presidential dream team of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris condone this anarchy, chaos and violence by their silence, as they dance to the mob's tune saying and doing anything to grab power through instilling more fear, terror and uncertainty amongst the voters. Democrats have not denounced the surge in murders, looting, and violence infecting America's biggest cities, but many are instead actively working to defund the police during a massive crime wave. People have to "shoplift some bread," as New York City's member of Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explains.

Bomb

Best of the Web: Nasrallah: If Israel is behind Beirut blast, our response will be devastating

nasrallah
Speech by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayed Hassan Nasrallah on August 14, 2020, on the occasion of the celebration of the 14th anniversary of the 2006 victory.

Source: moqawama.org

Translation: resistancenews.org

This video only captions the last section of the excerpt transcribed below

Transcript:

[Israel assassinated a Hezbollah fighter in Syria, and our retaliation in kind is inevitable]

[...] Today there is an equation that protects Lebanon, namely the deterrence equation (against Israel). And this equation grows stronger and stronger (to our advantage) day after day through the development of our equipment, our state of readiness, our personnel, our abilities, our human, military and material capacities (and our experiences on various battlefields โ€” Syria, Iraq, Yemen...). And Israel and its (American) masters know it (very) well, and they fear and dread it. This is the equation that protects Lebanon today. There is nothing else that protects Lebanon. It is the golden equation Army-People-Resistance, and essentially (the) Resistance (Axis) through the equation of deterrence, that protects Lebanon. It is neither the Arab League, nor the Organization of the Islamic Conference โ€” which is now called the Organization of Islamic Cooperation โ€” nor the United Nations, nor the Security Council, nor the international resolutions (that protect Lebanon). And anyone who claims otherwise, let him come forward and enlighten us with his perspective. [...]

Pistol

Best of the Web: Carlson rips lack of coverage of DC mass shooting, claims media silent to help Biden campaign

'Dead bodies don't count unless they are politically useful dead bodies'
mass shooting washington DC
"Nothing to see here, move along please..."
"The single biggest U.S. mass shooting of 2020 occurred over the weekend in Washington, but because the story didn't "help the Biden campaign," it went largely unreported on, Tucker Carlson said Monday.


Comment: That's Monday last week, in reference to this mass shooting in DC on Saturday August 8th.


"Twenty-one people were shot in this single incident ... more than half of them were women. One was a D.C. Police officer. It was the single biggest mass shooting in America this year and yet you probably heard nothing about it," the "Tucker Carlson Tonight" host said.

"Members of Congress didn't lock arms on the House floor to demand an end to the gun violence, CNN didn't book a procession of weepy teenage gun-control activists ... news organizations barely touched the story and when they did, they moved fast," Carlson continued. "It wouldn't help the Biden campaign to talk about it, so they didn't talk about it."


Comment: Can you guess what color the perps were? Not even Tucker would mention that.

Once you figure that out, you have your answer for why you didn't hear about the 2020 Washington DC mass shooting before now.

But that wasn't the main thing Carlson spoke about in this segment. He spoke about a 'demographic shift' taking place in the US; people (mostly white people) are packing up and moving out of the cities because of the explosion in (mostly black) crime/rioting.

In short, American cities are becoming no-go zones.

Here's the full transcript to go with the above video:
CARLSON: Craziness, but it seems now almost normal. Violence is a feature of daily life at this point in the nation's capital. Over the weekend, 21 people were shot in a single incident in Washington. More than half of them were women, one was a D.C. police officer.

It was the single biggest mass shooting in America this year, and yet, you probably heard nothing about it.

Members of Congress didn't lock arms on the House floor to demand an end to the gun violence. CNN didn't book a procession of weepy teenage gun control activists or extended Town Hall meeting.

News organizations barely touched the story, and when they did, they moved on fast. It wouldn't help the Biden campaign to talk about it, so they didn't talk about it.

As far as we can tell, neither CNN nor MSNBC even mentioned it today. Twenty one people shot in a group in our capital city and they acted like it didn't happen, but it did happen. We're showing it to you on the screen right now.

Twenty one African-Americans shot by a gunman, yet the media spent all weekend telling you about how Simon Cowell fell off his electric bike in Malibu, because really, Black Lives Matter. MSNBC wants you to know that. It's grotesque.

But it's now the rule. Dead bodies don't count unless they are politically useful dead bodies.

Last month, the gang members shot 15 people outside a funeral home in Chicago. It looked like Fallujah. We played some of the video of it on the show. It was very upsetting.

The other channels did not play it. None of the primetime hosts on CNN or MSNBC even mentioned the shooting. They didn't care.

Politicians didn't care either. Muriel Bowser is the Mayor of Washington, D.C. Bowser claims to care about black lives very much. She ordered the slogan Black Lives Matter in fact painted in yellow on the road leading to the White House just to underscore how much she cares.

So how did Muriel Bowser respond when 21 African-Americans were gunned down in her city? Well, she talked about her coronavirus lockdowns.

Bowser has banned gatherings in the city of more than 50 people and apparently there were more than that at the cookout where the shooting occurred. This enraged Muriel Bowser.

Here's what the Mayor said about the shooting yesterday, quote, "It's important as a community that we have zero tolerance for this kind of activity," end quote.

Now to be perfectly clear, Mayor Bowser was not talking about the mass shootings. When she said we need zero tolerance, Bowser is happy to tolerate violence, she does every day. She often encourages violence.

What Bowser won't put up with is citizens violating her lockdown orders. Bowser's Chief of Police, a man called Peter Newsham reiterated that point, quote, "We can't have these large gatherings in the city," the Chief said.

In other words, shootings are acceptable as long as the police don't commit them, but disobey our corona decrees and we will come for you.

The media wholeheartedly agree with this, of course. Violence does not bother them. They encourage it regularly. Disobedience bothers them.

This weekend, motorcycle riders mostly on Harley-Davidsons from all over the country gathered in Sturgis, South Dakota for their annual rally, the Sturgis Rally. Some of them forgot their masks. This outraged our news media.

The people on motorcycles were too masculine and too patriotic, and therefore too unlikely to vote for Joe Biden to go un-criticized. So the media spent a lot of the weekend trying to shame the bikers into disappearing.

In other words, as some of the poorest people in Washington bled onto the sidewalk, this is what your news anchors talked about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A bike rally is drawing tens of thousands of people to a small town in South Dakota for what doctors warn could turn into a coronavirus super spreader event.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not seeing a lot of masks there. Very little social distancing is what we're hearing from our team on the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell people what the odds are, tell people what the risks and the dangers are and let them decide and expect them to be responsible.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: To others, that event, a reckless affront to commonsense and a likely coronavirus super spreader.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, super spreaders. In other words, men who are unapologetically male. They hate that.

Meanwhile, the City of Washington back in the real world continue to spiral toward chaos. In Georgetown, one of the richest, most liberal neighborhoods in the city, certainly, in the country, a group of thugs marched on residential streets in the middle of the night to make certain that no one was sleeping.

People who live there must have been confused. In Georgetown, Black Lives Matter yard signs are about as common as designer dog breeds โ€” it is very common.

The residents apparently thought they bought themselves peace by paying their indulgences with the correct political slogans, but they hadn't.

The fact their neighborhood is still safe is now considered a crime and the mob made that very clear.

[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]

CARLSON: Did you see that footage on CNN? Oh, you didn't. You saw footage of super spreaders at Sturgis. How dare they ride motorcycles without masks?

Meanwhile, back in Georgetown, again, the real world, just in case the residents here didn't feel sufficiently threatened, the mob then barricaded a key bridge, the Francis Scott Key Bridge. That's the main artery from Georgetown out of the city.

Blocking main arteries out of cities is an obvious threat to public safety. It's far more dangerous than any over attended cookout. But police didn't stop it, they helped the mob. And once again, the media collectively ignored all of it.

And what exactly did the liberal passive heavily elderly residents of Georgetown do to deserve this kind of abuse and harassment from a mob of Joe Biden voters? That's the core question. But no one on television wanted to talk about that. So again, they just ignored the entire thing.

They're doing it all over the country. Story after story, ignored, disappeared down the memory hole because it is politically inconvenient.

In Los Angeles, for example, a City Council member called Mike Bonin voted to slash the LAPD budget by $150 million. He is very opposed to the police, but that didn't stop him from calling the police.

Since April, it turns out that cops have been called to Bonin's home eight separate times, often to deal with โ€” surprise, surprise โ€” protesters.

Bonin's defense is that he didn't make the calls. No. Somehow the LAPD with collusion from rightwing elements made the calls.

Does that make sense? No, it doesn't make sense. But it's good enough for the newspapers in Los Angeles. They're not covering the story. It's not a story. Right.

A guy who votes to defund the police calls them eight times to keep the lunatics from coming through his front door? Not a story. Okay.

Last Thursday, meanwhile, in Portland, Oregon, a city that effectively no longer has a government, rioters threw paint on an elderly woman. What was her crime? She made the mistake of trying to stop them from destroying a building.

Here's why this is so interesting. As the mob attacked her, they explained their agenda, quote, "This isn't your world anymore," they shouted. "Put your mask on." Boy, does that tell you everything.

Meanwhile, in the City of Chicago, rioters have dropped any pretense of ideology. Sure, they'll vote for Joe Biden, obviously, but this isn't about the election. They just want to steal things.

And in effect, authorities there, as they are in so many places, are allowing them to do that.

Early this morning, caravans of looters sacked stores in downtown Chicago. Here's part of it.

[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]

CARLSON: What country is this? And what's the justification for that? There's always a story at the bottom of these things that the media repeat, allow them to believe it was justified.

The pretext for that theft and destruction you just saw was a false report that a teenager had been executed by the police. It was a lie as it turned out, it usually is a lie.

In fact, a 20-year-old had been killed after shooting at the police. Whatever. We're so used to violence justified by lies that few people seem to notice the difference, and speaking of, just this weekend, Joe Biden honored Michael Brown. That was the man killed in Ferguson, Missouri after he violently attacked a store owner on tape, and then a cop.

Joe Biden apparently doesn't remember that part. He seems to consider Michael Brown a martyr.

It's hard to know who in America still believes these lies. Most people no longer seem to believe anything they hear from politicians. When everything is political, we learn to trust nothing.

But one thing that is real and will always be real is the debris left behind. Bullet holes are real. So are burnt store, so are boarded up windows and terrified neighbors. That will always be real โ€” and we have it.

So what will be the aftermath of all of this? What are America's cities going to look like a year from now? There's no question people flee Georgetown. They may have BLM signs in the driveway, but it doesn't mean they want screaming BLM lunatics on their streets. They don't. Nobody does, actually, no matter what they tell you. No matter what color they are, no one likes that.

That's true for people in Georgetown, in Portland, Oregon, in San Francisco and Chicago, New York โ€” any other place where order and decency have disappeared.

People will not live long with chaos. No matter what they tell you. No matter what signs they put in their yard, they will leave and many of them have already left.

We are about to see one of the great demographic shifts in American history. Unless the insanity stops and soon, our biggest cities will revert to what they were 50 years ago โ€” broke, dirty and dangerous.

On the bright side, we'll have resolved the gentrification problem. So a lot of college professors pat themselves on the back.