Abuse of Power Part 2: Investigation Interference & Illegal Spying

Roosevelt helped a loyal Texas congressman by the name of Lyndon Johnson. "Johnson himself became an IRS target for failing to properly report income from his campaigns," explains Folsom. "On January 13, 1944, just as six IRS agents were winding up their 18-month investigation of Johnson, President Roosevelt had an emergency meeting with Johnson. That day, the president contacted . . . Irey and began the process of halting the investigation of Johnson. . . . Johnson was not harmed at all. He had proven himself too valuable to the president to lose.

……….

President Kennedy even had installed a secret recording system in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room as well. He personally ordered Secret Service agent Robert Bouck to undertake the task. In his book The Tunnels, author Greg Mitchell wrote: "Three previous presidents had installed listening devices, but they had used them sparingly. Franklin Roosevelt made a few recordings in 1940; Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower left behind less than a dozen hours of tapes each. Kennedy's plan would give him far more opportunity than that. JFK aimed to document face-to-face conversations with aides and visitors, for his own use and/or the historical record. Without telling anyone why . . . At Kennedy's direction, he installed the Oval Office microphones under the President's desk and in a coffee table. Kennedy could activate them with the discreet push of a button on his desk. The microphones in the Cabinet Room were hidden behind drapes and could be turned on and off by a button at the head of the table where Kennedy sat."

………

Like several of his predecessors, but even more so, Johnson used the IRS and the FBI, as well as the CIA, for unconstitutional and unlawful purposes. For example, the Heritage Foundation's Lee Edwards, who had served as director of information for the 1964 Barry Goldwater presidential campaign, tells how Johnson used the CIA and FBI to spy on the Goldwater campaign.

"Former intelligence officer E. Howard Hunt, best known for his role as an orchestrator of the Watergate bugging," wrote Edwards, "told a Senate committee in 1973 that his CIA superior ordered him to infiltrate the Goldwater campaign. Hunt claimed to have questioned the order, only to be told that it had been a personal request of President Johnson and that the information he received would be delivered to a White House aide. CIA Director William Colby confirmed the White House's role in the illegal surveillance while addressing a congressional hearing in 1975. That the CIA is prohibited by law from operating within the U.S. didn't matter to the Johnson campaign. The Goldwater people never suspected that one of them was a spy for the Democrats."

Source: Unfreedom of the Press (2019) by Mark R. Levin.

The Senate Is Considering An AI Bill That Could Radically Alter The Future Of The Internet

From Daily Caller.com (Dec. 10, 2023):

The Senate could soon take up a bipartisan bill defining the liability protections enjoyed by artificial intelligence-generated content, which could lead to considerable impacts on online speech and the development of AI technology.

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal in June introduced the No Section 230 Immunity for AI Act, which would clarify that liability protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act do not apply to text and visual content created by artificial intelligence.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 states that internet companies cannot be held liable for third-party speech posted on their platforms. The question of whether these same protections apply to content created by artificial intelligence could have a dramatic impact on online speech, especially as artificial intelligence technology such as ChatGPT come to play a large role online, as major tech companies could face a deluge of lawsuits for AI-generated content.

The bill would enable Americans to file lawsuits against AI firms whose advanced technology enables the production of damaging content. The bill would target AI-generated content such as deepfakes, which are false but realistic-looking visual imitations, often of a real person. Deepfakes are becoming much more widespread, leading lawmakers to raise concerns that they could enable financial fraud and intellectual property theft.

The legislation defines generative AI as “an artificial intelligence system that is capable of generating novel text, video, images, audio, and other media based on prompts or other forms of data provided by a person.’’

Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, one of the authors of Section 230, said it should not apply to AI in comments to The Washington Post in March.

“AI tools like ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion and others being rapidly integrated into popular digital services should not be protected by Section 230,” he told the Post. “And it isn’t a particularly close call … Section 230 is about protecting users and sites for hosting and organizing users’ speech” and it “has nothing to do with protecting companies from the consequences of their own actions and products.”

“The reality is Section 230 was not written with artificial intelligence in mind, or the idea that artificial intelligence creating content is the same thing as user-generated content,” Jon Schweppe, director of policy for American Principles Project told the DCNF. “And so, obviously, we need to consider what we want to do with AI before we just grant immunity from civil liabilities to all these firms.” [read more]

CIA Yanks 19 Docs ‘Compromised’ By Leftist Activism, Including Threat Assessment Targeting ‘Traditional Motherhood’

From The Federalist.com (Feb. 20):

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe ordered the retraction of 19 intelligence products following an independent review that found the documents failed to meet regulatory standards of tradecraft and quality, the agency announced Friday.

Redacted versions of three documents obtained by The Federalist showed that the analyses promoted left-wing ideology, took sides on domestic political disagreements in foreign countries, fell outside of the CIA’s official role, and were sourced to left-wing media, nongovernmental organizations, and nonprofit groups. This commitment to advancing leftist activism appears to span at least three presidential administrations beginning in 2015.

“There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record,” Ratcliffe said in a statement. “These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis.”

In one 15-page intelligence assessment published in October 2021, the CIA dubs organizations that have historically “lauded motherhood and homemaking as women’s most important responsibility” as suspect, especially because those groups reportedly “recorded an increased number of female recruits.”

Another document — a World Intelligence Review (WIRes), bulletins that are often distributed to “several hundred senior Executive and legislative branch policymakers” on a daily basis — raised concerns that too many children would be born in countries such as Egypt, Nigeria, and Pakistan if Covid disrupted the distribution of condoms and other contraceptives. That particular review relied on data provided by abortion giants and activist groups such as International Planned Parenthood Federation, Guttmacher Institute, and Marie Stopes International to draw such conclusions.

A third document, published in January 2015, advocated the launch of LGBT academic programs in North African and Middle Eastern universities. The WIRe also asserted that Middle Eastern and North African governments’ “tough stance” on LGBT people and issues is “driven by conservative public opinion and domestic political competition from Islamists, and is hindering US initiatives in support of LGBT rights.”

The decision to remove 17 intelligence documents and substantially revise two more comes after the nonpartisan President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) audited 300 analyses spanning the last decade to ensure they met the agency’s standards. It is unclear how the 300 documents were selected for the audit. Intelligence Directive 203 requires the CIA to produce intelligence products that are accurate, objective, impartial, and “independent of political consideration.” The CIA declined to answer whether the individuals who created and distributed the flawed documents faced any disciplinary action.

The intelligence assessment about female involvement in “white racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist” (REMVE) groups defined its targets as women who “may not openly advocate violence” but “amplify” narratives regarding perceptions of racial hierarchy. Admitting its assessment was limited by “minimal reporting” and reliant on “open-source reporting,” it listed “traditional motherhood” as a “white REMVE goal” and said females were emerging as “key players” to advance that goal.

The assessment also suggests that “white REMVE-sympathetic women” use “blogs, videos, or other online content under the guise of cooking tutorials” to facilitate conversations or promote content the CIA deems alarming. These videos, the document claims, “feature discussions about the importance of organic food alongside subtle narratives about racial purity and the defense of white European heritage.”

The file titled “Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist (REMVE) Radicalization and Recruitment” does not list evidence of any violence attributed to the women considered by the CIA to be “perceived threats.”

The CIA relied on reporting from The Atlantic, owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, a major Democrat donor, and encouraged others to use similar “strategic messaging campaigns” that focused on “limits to [female] authority” in targeted groups. A senior CIA official said the assessment was a prime example of how analysts should not spend their time.

“The intelligence products we released to the American people today — produced before my tenure as DCIA — fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned,” stated Director Ratcliffe. [source]

Good.  Glad the CIA is doing this. Other agencies should follow suit and remove the Marxist virus.

Trump: Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei Killed in Strikes

From Newsmax.com (Feb. 28):

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in joint Israeli-U.S. airstrikes early Saturday, President Donald Trump said.

"Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Iranian state media confirmed the Supreme Leader's death.

"This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS," Trump continued.

"He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do," Trump added.

"This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country."

The president cited reports that many Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, security, and police forces "no longer want to fight, and are looking for Immunity from us."

"As I said last night, 'Now they can have Immunity, later they only get Death!'" Trump wrote.

"Hopefully, the IRGC and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves," he continued.

"That process should soon be starting in that, not only the death of Khamenei but the Country has been, in only one day, very much destroyed and, even, obliterated," Trump wrote.

"The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!"

Previously, Newsmax correspondent Zach Anders reported that Khamenei was killed, and Newsmax later confirmed the Iranian leader's death.

In a televised address Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel eliminated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, senior regime officials, and senior nuclear officials.

He added that in the coming days, "we will hit thousands of targets of the terror regime."

"There are growing indications that [Khamenei] is no longer alive," Netanyahu said, according to The Jerusalem Post. He did not provide additional details.

Netanyahu's comments came after Israel and the U.S. launched attacks on Iranian military targets in what Israel has dubbed Operation Roaring Lion and the U.S. has called Operation Epic Fury.

Israel's Channel 12 News reported that Netanyahu was shown an image of Khamenei's body after Iranian authorities recovered it from his compound in Tehran, The Times of Israel reported.

Israel carried out a massive strike on the compound in the opening salvo of attacks on Iran early Saturday.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter updated American officials that Israel had succeeded in killing Khamenei, a source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel, confirming earlier reporting by Axios.

Khamenei, 86, became Iran's highest authority in 1989 following the death of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Israel long viewed Khamenei as a destabilizing force in the Middle East, citing his backing for terrorist groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

He had been the target of several assassination attempts since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Most notably, on June 27, 1981, a bomb exploded during a speech at a mosque in Tehran, severely injuring him and permanently paralyzing his right arm, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Khamenei had six children, including Mojtaba Khamenei, who had been touted in recent years as a possible successor. [source]

Another evil thug dead. Good. I read on Newsmax.com that he and his top henchmen were meeting all together in one location. Thanks for making the military's job easy. Evidently, the Supreme Corpse didn't believe in decentralization and oh, I don't know, teleconferencing? 

The IRGC should do itself a favor and surrender. They lost. Just accept defeat. The POTUS gave you an out. Take it.

The country should rename itself Persia again or another name (like Trumpland or Trumpia 😀) and drop the Hitlerian name Iran. Just saying that would be great gesture of peace.

More articles on the Iran operation:

• Satellite images show Iranian sites before and after airstrikes
  
• How Israel killed Ayatollah Khamenei with a missile from space
  
• US Sinks 17 Ships, Hits 2K Targets; Trump Says Tehran Forces Largely Knocked Out
  
• Israel eliminates man behind Trump assassination attempt
  
• US Military: 3 Service Members Killed; 5 Seriously Wounded in Iran Operation
• Trump Awards Medal of Honor to 3 US Army Service Members
• ‘Bottom Of The Sea’: Trump Declares Iran’s Navy Is Finished
• ‘Wake Up’: Iranian Democrat Blasts Her Own Party’s Iran Strike Backlash
• Trump Demands Role in Choosing Iran's Next Leader
  
• Russia Providing Intel to Iran, US Official Confirms to Newsmax
  
• Witkoff: Iran Boasted It Has Fuel for 11 Nuclear Bombs
  
• The Situation in Iran
• Trump's REAL Goal with the Iran Strikes Was NOT the Ayatollah [video]
  

Big ideas from Trump's State of the Union speech, from federal 401k payments to Dalilah's law

From Just the News.com (Feb. 24):

After a whirlwind year of action abroad and home, President Donald Trump on Tuesday night used the first State of the Union address of his second administration to propose sweeping new ideas – ranging from trucker safety to an historic change to the energy grid in a signal he has no plans to relent on his agenda in the face of the midterm congressional elections.

Here are some of the big ideas the 47th president put on the table during a joint session of Congress:

A federal matching payment for Americans' 401k retirement accounts

Trump announced he will be creating a new program giving Americans up to $1,000 to match their retirement savings in 401k accounts, promising more details in the near future.

"Your 401ks are way up, yet half of all of working Americans still do not have access to a retirement plan with matching contributions from an employer," Trump declared. "To remedy this gross disparity, I'm announcing that next year my administration will give these often forgotten American workers, great people, the people that built our country, access to the same type of retirement plan offered to every federal worker.

"We will match your contribution with up to $1,000 each year, as we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market."

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A plan to protect electricity rate payers from the costs of Artificial Intelligence grid expansion

Trump announced a “rate-payer protection pledge” being executed with major tech companies requiring them to provide for their own power needs by building their own power plants and grids. It's a major revolution in power policy, allowing private companies to do what major governments have handled for decades.

U.S. electricity rates have soared an average of 6.3% in the past year as the AI revolution rages forward with massive data center construction.

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Delilah's Law: A Major Reform for Commercial Truck Driver Licenses

Trump called on Congress to pass a "Delilah's Law," barring states from issuing commercial driving licenses to illegal immigrants. In announcing the proposed law, he turned to the audience and Dalilah Coleman, a first-grader who was severely injured in a car accident caused by an illegal alien driving a semi-truck.

"Many, if not most, illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs," Trump said. "That's why tonight I'm calling on Congress to pass what we will call the Delilah law, barring any state from granting commercial driver's licenses to illegal aliens."

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Tariffs to income tax freedom?

Trump said he will make new legal justifications for his tariffs to preserve them after a recent loss at the Supreme Court and predicted they would one day put the country on a path to reducing federal income taxes.

"I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love," Trump said.

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A new commander for the war on fraud and a goal for a balanced budget

Trump turned to tech entrepreneur Elon Musk at the beginning of his second term to run the DOGE review to identify waste, fraud and abuse in taxpayer programs. Musk finished his temporary assignment identifying tens of billions of dollars in potential savings before returning to his suite of companies.

On Tuesday night, Trump said the next phase of the “war on fraud” would be led by Vice President JD Vance. He also suggested there were enough savings to be achieved that could put America on a path toward a balanced budget after years of annual budget deficits of $2 trillion or more.

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Redirecting federal health subsidies from big insurers under Obamacare to American families instead

Trump proposed anew redirecting the billions of dollars in subsidies given to health insurers under Obamacare to individual health savings accounts, allowing people to choose health care services directly.

"I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and instead give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care, which will be better health care at a much lower cost," Trump said. [source]

A pretty good speech. I don’t think taxpayers should pay for others’ babies though. Private donations (like from the Dell family) are okay. Otherwise, it is just a form of welfare.

Other mentions of the speech:

• Read the complete transcript of Trump’s 2026 State of the Union
• Trump declares 'war on fraud' during State of the Union
• Cheap Gas, Less Crime, Lives Saved, And 4 Other Victories Dems Refused To Cheer At SOTU
• The Right’s Brand Is 'America First.' The Left's Brand Is Getting Mad About That
• Miracle in the Capitol: Trump Compels Dems To Stand During SOTU
• The Silence of the Dems
• 7 Ways Republicans Can Capitalize On SOTU Momentum If They Want A Shot At Midterm Victory
• Trump’s Pro-America Vision Will Only Succeed If He Pushes Republicans To Implement It
• Trump Hails 'Turnaround for the Ages' in SOTU Address
• In SOTU, Trump Slams Court Ruling, Says Tariffs Will Stand
• Trump's speech is longest State of the Union address in recent history
• President Trump Gets the Job Done
• The most INCREDIBLE moment of Trump's 2026 State of the Union [video]

What “Separation of Church and State” Is Really About

From Breakpoint.org (July 14, 2022):

In response to the recent Dobbs decision and the Supreme Court’s clear, consistent support for religious liberty throughout this term, many progressives are warning of an imminent “Christian theocracy.” Among the loudest voices predicting our collective doom are mainstream media outlets. For example, a recent story in Reuters claimed, “U.S. Supreme Court Takes Aim at Separation of Church and State.”

What’s missing in virtually all of these pieces is a proper understanding of the “establishment clause.” The establishment clause is derived from the opening lines of the First Amendment which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” There are two ways this statement is commonly misunderstood.

First, it is often described as establishing a “wall of separation between church and state.” In fact, those words are found nowhere in the Constitution. The phrase actually was coined later in a letter by Thomas Jefferson. Second, and more importantly, it is assumed that if organized religion cannot be supported by the state, then secularism is somehow “neutral.” Thus, by default, anything goes as long as it’s “secular.”

Understanding the historical context is essential. In the 18th century, an “established” religion referred to an official state church. In the U.S., individual states had already established churches, such as the Anglican Church in Virginia. The First Amendment specifically applied to Congress and prohibited a national church. To prefer the Anglican Church over the Congregationalists or Presbyterians would, at the time, mean alienating certain citizens and entire states. States continued to have established churches well into the 19th century.

In addition, the First Amendment was not intended to prohibit religious activities in governmental institutions. From the very beginning, Congress started each session with prayer. That continues today and is led by an official chaplain.

Our founding fathers, particularly James Madison, believed that religious liberty was an innate right, and inseparable from the freedom of conscience. He also believed that religion would better flourish in a free marketplace of ideas. That thinking was the basis for the free exercise clause.

This understanding of the freedom of conscience is the foundation for the other freedoms protected in the First Amendment. Without conscience rights, we cannot truly speak, write, assemble, or advocate freely from our deepest beliefs. That’s why the freedom of religion is often called “the first freedom.” Its position in the Bill of Rights highlights its importance.

Although the rights of conscience should not be controversial, somehow, that’s what they have become. How this happened is worth considering. By claiming secularism to be neutral, proponents of secularism ,as far back as the 19th century, attempted to broadly apply laws originally intended by Protestants to prevent Catholic schools from accessing state funds. In the 20th-century, secularists embraced the concept of “a living Constitution” in order to transform the meaning of the First Amendment, attempting to keep religious institutions from accessing state funds and allowing only “secular” views in the public arena.

Though many court cases illustrate this, among the more important was Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), which declared unconstitutional Maryland’s requirement that officeholders state belief in God. Rather than ruling on the basis of Article VI, which prohibits religious tests for public office, the Supreme Court ruled on the basis of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from violating the rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens. The same line of reasoning has since been used to challenge prayers at public meetings, Bible studies in schools, and nativity scenes on public property. In the process, the First Amendment was turned on its head, taking a clause intended to keep the state from backing any one denomination and construing it to position the state in opposition to all organized religions.

In footnote 11 of the Torcaso v. Watkins decision, Justice Hugo Black listed secular humanism as one of a number of religions “which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God.” Calling humanism a religion was not outlandish.  For a century, humanists such as John Dewey and Julian Huxley had defined their beliefs as a religion. After all, secularism involves certain claims about the cosmos, existence, and human nature.

And yet in 1994, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled in Peloza v. Capistrano Unified School District that while “religion” should be broadly interpreted for free exercise clause purposes, “anything ‘arguably non-religious’ should not be considered religious in applying the establishment clause.” In other words, secular organizations were able to play both sides, qualifying as a religion for the free exercise clause but free from constraints from the establishment clause.

To further determine whether religious activities could utilize public spaces, the Supreme Court derived the so-called “Lemon Test” in the case Lemon v. Kurzman (1991). According to this rule, a religious activity is only licit on public grounds if it performs a secular purpose, neither advances nor inhibits religion, and does not foster excessive government entanglement in religion. This test maintained an obviously secular bias: Secular organizations were not required to pass any tests to obtain access.

In the recent decision in the Coach Kennedy case, the Supreme Court continued its long-overdue corrections to the anti-religious way the First Amendment had been interpreted. Particularly by unequivocally tossing the “Lemon Test,” the Court has stopped the active suppression of religious beliefs and practice. We ought not fear an impending theocracy, but instead welcome a redress to the unjust and ahistorical understandings of religion. [source]

Amen. Religion in gov’t doesn’t necessary mean a theocracy, but containing moral lawgivers if the religion is based on Judea-Christian beliefs. Otherwise, you might have corrupt and tyrannical lawgivers.

Information Warfare: An Interview With Dr. Robert Malone

From Zachary Emmanuel on Countere.com (June 16, 2022):

There are many moments one could call the definitive end of the 60s—the resignation of Nixon, the Manson murders, Altamont—but one last leprous gasp was heard from the decade’s corpse in February of 2022, when 76-year-old Canadian citizen Neil Young removed his music from Spotify in protest over The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Rogan’s transgression? Interviewing Dr. Robert Malone, a renowned pioneer in mRNA vaccine technology and horse farmer, about his concerns over mRNA vaccine technology. The hippie movement is diseased and dead.

……

What sources or institutions can we trust?

As a scientist, I'm trained not to trust anything.

In the medical world, my intellectual home is pathology. Pathology is essentially the quality control discipline for the entire medical care system. That's the nature of an autopsy—not just to ascertain the truth of an individual and their death, but to provide quality assurance for hospitals in the entire medical system. We're trained in pattern recognition, we detect and discern signal from noise, we’re trained to do this in the medical world.

As a scientist, I was rigorously trained to question everything, including myself. [I use] the intellectual structure called The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses [pdf]. The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses was originally published in Science Magazine in the late 1800s. So these are fundamental philosophies of medicine and clinical research that I'm speaking of.

The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses addresses the problem that exists for scientists, which is that we have a tendency to use a system of scientific questioning that we call hypothesis-driven research. The problem with hypothesis-driven research as a tool to discern truth is that it suffers from what's called “strong inference”—the tendency of a scientist to say, “I know the answer, I have a hypothesis, it’s my hypothesis, and I take ownership of it.”

What happens when you do that is that you will bend truth and reality and information to conform with your hypothesis. I don't normally discuss The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. I'm speaking about this because I know that your magazine [Countere] thinks about these kinds of underlying philosophical issues.

I've been trained to approach the world as a cluster of information. That information is divided into three compartments. One is, there's the Known, the things that we can all agree on: the Earth is generally round, it orbits the sun, gravity exists. These have been divisive at various times in human history, but now we're pretty convinced those are solid truths.

Then, there’s the world of Knowable but Unknown. If we apply the Scientific Method—which is increasingly a new priesthood, but that's another problem—if we rigorously apply the Scientific Method to this world of Knowable but Unknown things, we can gradually pull truth out of that information cloud and place it into the world of the Known.

Then, there's a third compartment of information. This is the Unknown Unknowable. And that's basically the world of faith. That's the intellectual space of things which we are not able to directly perceive or measure, which may or may not exist. And we can't really apply the Scientific Method to this thought space. We can't get data to test hypotheses. This is the world of philosophers and theologians.

I've been trained on the first compartment, the Known. Then there’s this middle compartment of stuff that’s Knowable but Unknown, and that’s the world I’ve always lived in, first as a young academic and then as a scientist and pathologist.

I had thought that I didn't have to apply that kind of intellectual rigor to the world of politics or public policy or economics. I thought that that was all being adequately handled by other experts that were similarly objective. Now we learned that absolutely not the case, and all of us are forced into becoming citizen-scientists-philosophers, whether or not we're trained.

I didn't choose to be one of the “Leaders of the Resistance,” to use a Star Wars metaphor. But having been placed in that position through circumstance—because I was early in speaking out about certain things, and I had a background that enabled me to legitimately question what was going on—I now find myself with the burden of responsibility of that leadership, and it's one that I don't take lightly. Feeling that responsibility results in some self-editing, some self-censorship. There are things that I observed, for instance, about the World Economic Forum that are so far beyond what average people can accept that I have to self-censor. Otherwise, I'll be labeled as a crazy person. [read more]