COVID-19
Freedom Convoy leaders’ lawyers ask court to dismiss ‘weak’ case over lack of evidence
From LifeSiteNews
‘There is no evidence of any of the leaders of the Freedom Convoy 2022 agreeing to pursue their ends by way of illegal activity,’ the defense team wrote, asking for the case to be dismissed
After the Crown prosecutors abruptly decided to end its case against Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber last week, the pair’s legal teams have filed for the case to be dismissed, saying the government has no evidence that would lead to the convoy organizers being found guilty of their charges.
“To the extent there were any collective objectives on the part of the protesters, they were not inherently illegal,” wrote Lich’s legal counsel Lawrence Greenspon in a filing seeking a full dismissal of the case against his client.
Continuing, Greenspon pointed out in the filing, which was submitted to the court last week, that something that would be “inherently illegal” would be murder or serious drug-related issues, but that going to Ottawa to protest government COVID mandates does not fit this description.
“Similarly, there is no evidence of any of the leaders of the Freedom Convoy 2022 agreeing to pursue their ends by way of illegal activity,” added the defense.
The defense team also noted that there is “[n]othing illegal about encouraging others to come to or stay in Ottawa to protest lawfully.”
“Lich does not encourage anyone to engage in any unlawful conduct at any time,” they added.
Last Monday, which was sitting day 27 of the trial, Lich and Barber’s legal counsel argued that the Crown to date has not been able to prove the organizers participated in a conspiracy to break the law or encourage others to break the law, and that therefore the case should be tossed altogether.
The Crown has been trying to prove that Lich and Barber had somehow influenced the protesters’ actions through their words as part of a co-conspiracy.
The trial has been ongoing for nearly three months, having started on September 5, 2023. Despite seeing a few breaks here and there, including being off most of November, the Crown prosecution had been taking its time calling forth its witnesses.
On Monday, however, the Crown abruptly decided to end its case, telling the court it would not call forth any new witnesses.
Also on Monday, the Crown’s last witness, Nicole Bach of the Ottawa Police Services’ (OPS) Police Liaison Team (PLT), testified in court about a chat group created between officers. She had previously testified her police-provided phone was “wiped” of all information when asked by Judge Heather Perkins-McVey if she had copies of vital information of conversations between her and protesters.
Lich and Barber are facing multiple charges from the 2022 protests, including mischief, counseling mischief, counseling intimidation and obstructing police for taking part in and organizing the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy. As reported by LifeSiteNews at the time, despite the non-violent nature of the protest and the charges, Lich was jailed for weeks before she was granted bail.
In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14.
During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, one protester, an elderly lady, was trampled by a police horse, and one conservative female reporter was beaten by police and shot with a tear gas canister.
Lich and Barber’s trial has thus far taken more time than originally planned due to the slow pace of the Crown calling its witnesses. LifeSiteNews has been covering the trial extensively.
COVID-19
Rand Paul vows to target COVID-19 cover-up, Fauci as Senate Homeland Security Committee chairman
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks to reporters
From LifeSiteNews
“I think we’re on the cusp of, really, the beginning of uncovering what happened with COVID”
Rand Paul is set to become chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee beginning in January, putting him in a position to more doggedly investigate the government’s role in covering up the truth about the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I chose to chair this committee over another because I believe that, for the health of our republic, Congress must stand up once again for its constitutional role,” Paul told the New York Post. “This committee’s mission of oversight and investigations is critical to Congress reasserting itself.”
“I think we’re on the cusp of, really, the beginning of uncovering what happened with COVID,” the Kentucky senator said. “The biggest item of the COVID cover-up is that for years, we’ve known there is this dangerous research.”
“We are going to, hopefully, have a friendlier administration, and we’re hoping that there will be a friendly person at (the Department of Health and Human Services), and we’re hoping they’ll be friendly at (the National Institutes of Health),” he added.
With President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment yesterday of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Paul has likely gotten his wish.
The Bluegrass State senator has long suspected that the accepted official narrative asserting that the COVID-19 virus did not originate in a Wuhan, China lab was intended to obscure the U.S. government’s role in developing the virus and conducting dangerous “gain of function” experiments with the deadly virus.
Paul recently told Fox News that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and HHS “have refused to turn over the documents as to why Wuhan got this research money and why it wasn’t screened as dangerous research. I’m looking forward to getting those (documents), mainly because we need to try to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“The cover-up went beyond public statements. Federal agencies and key officials withheld and continue to conceal crucial information from both Congress and the public,” Paul said in his opening remarks at a Senate hearing in June dedicated to COVID’s origins. “This has been a deliberate, prolonged effort to deceive the committee about certain gain-of-function research experiments that the agencies have been withholding. What we have found as we’ve gone through this is at every step there’s been resistance.”
“So the hearing today is to try and find out whether or not we can get to the truth,” Paul said at the time. “Do we know for certain it came from the lab? No, but there’s a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab. Do we know viruses have come from animals in the past? Yes, they’ve come from animals in the past. But this time, there’s no animal reservoir. There’s no animal handlers with antibiotics. There’s a lot of reasons why there are indications that this could have come from the lab.”
“The American people deserve complete transparency on the origins of COVID-19. The pandemic killed millions of people and shut down global economies,” Paul declared in a post on X after the hearing. “Our federal and state governments used the pandemic as a justification to strip Americans of their civil liberties and freedoms. Children missed critical developmental opportunities, families lost jobs, and businesses were forced to close.”
And it seems that Sen. Paul has infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, the man who quickly emerged as a central figure at the very start of the pandemic, in his sights as well.
Paul and Fauci have long had a combative relationship as exemplified in several committee hearings over the last few years.
Paul has said multiple times that Dr. Fauci should “go to prison” for lying to Congress.
A year ago, Paul told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that “We now have proof in Anthony Fauci’s own words, we have his emails.”
“In public he’s saying, ‘Oh, if you say it came from the lab, you’re a conspiracy theorist, you’re crazy, it’s a fringe theory,’” Paul said. “But in private, he’s saying, ‘We’re very concerned because the virus appears to be manipulated. And we’re also very concerned because we know they’re doing gain of function research in Wuhan.’”
A post on X by an RFK Jr. parody this morning said, “Dear Dr. Fauci, I’m still looking for you.”
Sen. Paul reposted it, saying, “I bet we find him.”
COVID-19
Peer-reviewed study finds over 1,000% rise in cardiac deaths after COVID-19 shots
From LifeSiteNews
A new study published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine by a team of McCullough Foundation doctors reports significant links ‘between excess fatal cardiopulmonary arrests and the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.’
A new peer-reviewed study reports that it has found a more than 1,000 percent increase in heart-related deaths among a large pool of people who have taken the COVID-19 shots.
On October 24, the Journal of Emergency Medicine published a study by a team of McCullough Foundation doctors who reviewed the annual reports of cardiopulmonary arrests, survival rates, and emergency medical services (EMS) incidents from King County, Washington, from 2016 to 2023. The county presented a “unique opportunity” for analysis because nearly the entire population (an estimated 98%) had received at least one COVID shot dose.
“As of August 2nd, 2024, there have been approximately 589,247 confirmed COVID-19 cases in King County,” the study found.
“In 2021-2022, Total EMS attendances in King County sharply increased by 35.34% from 2020 and by 11% from pre-pandemic years. Cases of ‘obvious death’ upon EMS arrival increased by 19.89% in 2020, 36.57% in 2021, and 53.80% in 2022 compared to the 2017-2019 average. We found a 25.7% increase in total cardiopulmonary arrests and a 25.4% increase in cardiopulmonary arrest mortality from 2020 to 2023 in King County, WA.”
“Excess fatal cardiopulmonary arrests were estimated to have increased by 1,236% from 2020 to 2023, rising from 11 excess deaths (95% CI: -12, 34) in 2020 to 147 excess deaths (95% CI: 123, 170) in 2023,” the study continued. “A quadratic increase in excess cardiopulmonary arrest mortality was observed with higher COVID-19 vaccination rates. The general population of King County sharply declined by 0.94% (21,300) in 2021, deviating from the expected population size. Applying our model from these data to the entire United States yielded 49,240 excess fatal cardiopulmonary arrests from 2021-2023.”
The authors concluded that there was a “significant ecological and temporal association between excess fatal cardiopulmonary arrests and the COVID-19 vaccination campaign,” but allowed that “COVID-19 infection and disruptions in emergency care during the pandemic” could be an alternative explanation.
To more fully understand the problem, they called for “continuous monitoring and analysis of cardiopulmonary arrest data to inform public health interventions and policies, especially in the context of vaccination programs,” as well as for the “U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 vaccination administration data [to] be merged with all death cases so that the vaccine type, dose(s), and date of administration can be analyzed as possible determinants.”
The study adds to a large body of evidence linking significant risks to the COVID shots, which were developed and reviewed in a fraction of the time vaccines usually take under the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative.
The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports 38,068 deaths, 218,646 hospitalizations, 22,002 heart attacks, and 28,706 myocarditis and pericarditis cases as of October 25, among other ailments. U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) researchers have recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than over-reporting.
An analysis of 99 million people across eight countries published February in the journal Vaccine “observed significantly higher risks of myocarditis following the first, second and third doses” of mRNA-based COVID jabs, as well as signs of increased risk of “pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis,” and other “potential safety signals that require further investigation.” In April, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions, and a study out of Japan found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after third doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 shots, and offered several theories for a causal link.
All eyes are currently on former President Donald Trump, who last week won his campaign to return to the White House and whose team, which will be helmed by prominent vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, has given mixed signals as to the prospects of reconsidering the shots for which he has long taken credit. At the very least, Trump has consistently opposed jab mandates and is expected to fill more federal judicial vacancies with jurists similarly inclined.
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