Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks to reporters

From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

“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.”

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

A report from the House of Commons Heritage Committee claimed that ‘some individuals and groups create disinformation to promote political ideologies including extremist views and conspiracy theories or simply to make money.’

A report from a Canadian federal committee said MPs should enact laws to penalize social media and tech companies that don’t take action to quell so-called “undesirable or questionable” content on the internet.

MPs from the ruling Liberal, New Democratic Party (NDP), and separatists Bloc Québécois party on the House of Commons Heritage Committee summarized their opinions in a report.

“The Government of Canada notes some individuals and groups create disinformation to promote political ideologies including extremist views and conspiracy theories or simply to make money,” reads the report titled Tech Giants’ Intimidation and Subversion Tactics to Evade Regulation in Canada and Globally.

“Disinformation creates ‘doubt and confusion’ and can be particularly harmful when it involves health information,” it continues.

The report notes how such “disinformation” can cause “financial harms as well as political polarization and distrust in key institutions,” adding, “The prevalence of disinformation can be difficult to determine.”

As noted in Blacklock’s Reporter, the report claims that many of Canada’s “major societal harms” have come from “unregulated social media platforms relying on algorithms to amplify content, among them disinformation and conspiracy theories.”

Of note is the committee failed to define what “disinformation” or “conspiracy theories” meant.

Most of the MPs on the committee made the recommendation that Google, Facebook, and other social media platforms, which ironically have at one point or another clamped down on free speech themselves, “put mechanisms in place to detect undesirable or questionable content that may be the product of disinformation or foreign interference and that these platforms be required to promptly identify such content and report it to users.”

“Failure to do so should result in penalties,” the report stated.

As it stands, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has plowed ahead to push laws impacting free speech online.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Canadian legal group The Democracy Fund (TDF) warned that the Liberal government’s Bill C-63 seeks to further clamp down on online speech and will “weaponize” the nation’s courts to favor the ruling federal party and do nothing but create an atmosphere of “fear.”

Bill C-63 was introduced by Liberal Justice Minister Arif Virani in the House of Commons in February and was immediately blasted by constitutional experts as troublesome.

Jordan Peterson, one of Canada’s most prominent psychologists, recently accused the bill of attempting to create a pathway to allow for “Orwellian Thought Crime” to become the norm in the nation.

Conservative MPs fight back: ‘A government bureaucracy should not regulate content’

Conservative MPs fought back the Heritage Committee’s majority findings and in a Dissenting Report said the committee did not understand what the role of the internet is in society, which is that it should be free from regulation.

“The main report failed to adequately explore the state of censorship in Canada and the role played by tech giants and the current federal government,” the Conservatives wrote in their dissenting report, adding, “Canadians are increasingly being censored by the government and tech giants as to what they can see, hear and say online.”

The Conservative MPs noted that when it comes to the internet, it is “boundless,” and that “Anyone who wants to have a presence on the internet can have one.”

“A government bureaucracy should not regulate which content should be prioritized and which should be demoted,” it noted, adding, “There is space for all.”

LifeSiteNews reported how the Conservative Party has warned that Trudeau’s Bill C-63 is so flawed that it will never be able to be enforced or become known before the next election.

The law calls for the creation of a Digital Safety Commission, a digital safety ombudsperson, and the Digital Safety Office, all tasked with policing internet content.

The bill’s “hate speech” section is accompanied by broad definitions, severe penalties, and dubious tactics, including levying pre-emptive judgments against people if they are feared to be likely to commit an act of “hate” in the future.

Details of the new legislation also show the bill could lead to more people jailed for life for “hate crimes” or fined $50,000 and jailed for posts that the government defines as “hate speech” based on gender, race, or other categories.