By Children’s Health Defense Team<\/p>\n
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On Friday, June 11, resourceful process servers working for Children\u2019s Health Defense (CHD) Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. served a subpoena in San Francisco on Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos<\/a>, a liberal progressive news and activist forum. The subpoena<\/a>, from a Westchester County New York Supreme Court Judge, orders Moulitsas to disclose the true name of \u201cDowneast Dem\u201d \u2014 a blogger who libeled Kennedy<\/a> on the Daily Kos platform on Aug. 29, 2020.<\/p>\n Moulitsas had been fighting the order in court since December 2020, when Kennedy filed, and dodging the subpoena for a fortnight. Earlier this month, Daily Kos security guards at the company\u2019s San Francisco headquarters twice blocked Kennedy\u2019s process servers from entering the building.<\/p>\n The Daily Kos\u2019 malicious article<\/a> claimed that Kennedy spoke at a Nazi rally in Berlin \u201corganized by right-wing extremist organizations, including the AFD party and various anti-Semitic conspiracy groups as well as the neo-Nazi NPD party.\u201d<\/p>\n When Kennedy provided Daily Kos proof that the claims were false<\/a>, Daily Kos nevertheless refused to remove the defamatory statements, claiming immunity under Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, which provides a legal shield to internet platforms against lawsuits redressing defamatory statements by its guest writers.<\/p>\n Daily Kos took the position that Kennedy\u2019s beef was with its pseudonymous author and that Kennedy\u2019s only remedy was to sue Downeast Dem. But then the Daily Kos refused to disclose Downeast Dem\u2019s true name or address.<\/p>\n Accordingly, Kennedy filed a petition<\/a> with the Supreme Court of Westchester County to order Daily Kos to disclose \u201cDowneast Dem\u2019s\u201d identity and contact information. Justice Mary H. Smith ruled in Kennedy\u2019s favor<\/a> in April, ordering Daily Kos to unmask Kennedy\u2019s incognito attacker. Downeast Dem has no immunity from libel laws. Moulitsas and Kos Media have until tomorrow, June 30, to respond to the subpoena.<\/p>\n Immediately after Kennedy completed service, his team received a call from a Paul Levy, Esq. of the consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen to inform them that Public Citizen is now representing Downeast Dem, pro bono, in a bid to save Downeast Dem, presumably a Maine Democrat, from having to reveal his identity.<\/p>\n Public Citizen has a long and noble history of advocating against corruption in the pharmaceutical industry<\/a>. Kennedy himself has fought alongside Public Citizen during his well-documented history of battling regulatory and industry corruption.<\/p>\n Mary Holland, a former NYU Law professor with her own record on the frontlines for human rights and other liberal causes, now serves as CHD\u2019s president and general counsel.<\/p>\n \u201cPublic Citizen\u2019s choice to take on this case as its cause celebre is one of the most dismaying emblems, to date, of the co-optation of liberal institutions by Big Pharma and the medical cartel,\u201d said Holland. \u201cWe have seen a lot of ideological chaos, confusion, doctrinal bankruptcy and intellectual dishonesty among our leading liberal institutions in the wake of the COVID crisis<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Kennedy\u2019s speech in Berlin<\/a> was a part of his crusade against Pharma\u2019s growing power over government agencies and public policy. Kennedy says that the industry\u2019s claims about COVID vaccines merit heightened scrutiny during their rollouts.<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike other drugs,\u201d he argued, \u201cvaccines are given to healthy individuals<\/a>. We therefore should be far less tolerant of risk.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked about Public Citizen\u2019s decision to take Pharma\u2019s side in the lawsuit, Kennedy remarked, \u201cPublic Citizen has done an extraordinary job documenting<\/a> the pharmaceutical industry\u2019s relentless and intractable history of homicidal corruption. It\u2019s dismaying that the organization is switching sides at a time when this crisis has amplified the need for fearless pharma watchdogs.\u201d<\/p>\n Kennedy reasoned that no matter how badly you want to believe in these vaccines<\/a>, \u201cthere is no reason to think that COVID-19 has suddenly changed Big Pharma\u2019s corrupt institutional culture. We need to be mindful that their opportunities for criminal profiteering are now manifold.\u201d<\/p>\n He pointed out that vaccine makers are getting billions in government subsidies<\/a> and support for their products.<\/p>\n Kennedy said:<\/p>\n \u201cFurthermore, they are immune from liability<\/a> and therefore have no incentive to make COVID vaccines safe. The vaccines are unlicensed, unapproved experimental technologies<\/a>. Their short pre-licensure trials were incapable of spotting long-term injuries. The government\u2019s post-licensing surveillance system is badly broken<\/a> and fails to capture most vaccine injuries, making risk assessment impossible.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s appropriate for us to be hyper-vigilant when governments mandate medical interventions or compel citizens to consume profit making pharmaceutical products. We need to be especially attentive to risks in children<\/a> about whom there is almost no relevant safety information. Children, after all, have almost no risk from the disease<\/a> and so any risk from the vaccine is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of championing Kennedy\u2019s right to raise these questions, Public Citizen is now defending the supposed right of an anonymous individual to make misleading and false claims about Kennedy that are clearly defamatory.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s elemental fairness \u2014 an American tradition \u2014 that Kennedy should be able to face his accuser,\u201d observed Holland. \u201cIt seems both cowardly and unfair that Downeast Dem is going to great lengths to remain faceless.\u201d<\/p>\n Holland said that Public Citizen\u2019s position does not appear to arise from any coherent ideological conviction but simply because Downeast Dem is attacking an enemy of Big Pharma, which is now thoroughly aligned with Democratic party leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s tribalism,\u201d said Holland. \u201cTribalism is poison to democracy. It is the enemy of truth. It is the enemy of dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n Reflecting on her own history as a Democratic Party stalwart, Holland remarked:<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m in shock that instead of debating Kennedy\u2019s questions and prevailing in the marketplace of ideas, the liberal intelligentsia has responded with censorship and name calling. As a lifelong liberal, I find it mind-blowing that Pharma\u2019s biggest critics have suddenly become its strongest defenders.<\/p>\n \u201cI also find it troubling that liberals, once the champions of free speech, are now advocating censorship. The fundamental essence of the liberalism I grew up with was a fearlessness toward lively debate, even on the most difficult issues. All these sensible people who were heroes of mine are now behaving as if there is a pandemic exception in the First Amendment. We see leading liberal institutions, media moguls and social media robber barons acting as patronizing, elitist self- appointed \u2018thought police\u2019 to protect Americans from dangerous information.\u201d<\/p>\n Daily Kos, Public Citizen and other liberal institutions are calling for the muzzling not just of Kennedy<\/a> but of the many scientists and doctors and anyone else who raises difficult questions about vaccines. They are even deplatforming<\/a> Americans who report their own vaccine injuries or who cite to government statistics on injury.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are trying to silence and gaslight their fellow Americans who question government policies,\u201d said Holland. \u201cCriticizing our government is not just a right, it is a duty of citizenship. Kennedy is gagged by the censors while Daily Kos gives his detractors a bullhorn to make false charges, cravenly defame him and then hide themselves behind Section 230.\u201d<\/p>\n Downeast Dem\u2019s defamatory article<\/a> \u2014 \u201cAnti-Vaxxer RFK, Jr. joins neo-Nazis in massive Berlin \u2018Anti-Corona\u2019 Protest\u201d \u2014 falsely accused Kennedy of \u201cjoin[ing] neo-Nazis\u201d at a Berlin protest \u201corganized by\u201d \u201cvarious anti-Semitic conspiracy groups as well as the neo-Nazi NPD party.\u201d<\/p>\n The post purports to describe an Aug. 22 speech Kennedy delivered to more than 1 million people at the Rally for Peace and Freedom in Berlin organized by the German group Querdenken 711, or \u201cCritical Thinking 711.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat post,\u201d remarked Holland, \u201cis the opposite of true.\u201d The Querdenken movement is a broad-based, peaceful citizens\u2019 movement for freedom, justice and human rights. It strongly opposes Nazism, anti-Semitism and all forces of extremism.<\/p>\n As usual, Querdenken took great pains to exclude extremists from the Berlin event. Those efforts were spectacularly successful. Among the speakers who followed Kennedy on the podium were politicians from Germany\u2019s Green Party, Labor Leaders, human rights activists, doctors, lawyers, clergy of many religions, soldiers, police officers, parents, children, world-famous athletes and leaders of politically progressive nonprofit organizations.<\/p>\n The event\u2019s Master of Ceremonies was a Black African born in Ghana. The musical performance included an Indian Hare Krishna monk. The principal stage ornament was a giant mural of Mahatma Gandhi, who is hardly a Nazi hero. The banners were rainbows, peace signs and the flags of every European nation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe crowd looked like Woodstock,\u201d said Holland. \u201cThe speakers and audience were racially and religiously diverse.\u201d<\/p>\n This complete absence of extremist influence or right-wing iconography is evident from the program, from all the footage publicly available, including this video<\/a>. Anyone interested in accuracy could have easily check hundreds of sources to understand the true nature of the event. The fact that the erroneous nature of Daily Kos\u2019 inflammatory \u201cfake news\u201d was so easily discernible attests to the Downeast Dem\u2019s malicious intent.<\/p>\n Kennedy\u2019s Berlin speech video<\/a> was a screed against Nazism, tyranny, fascism, autocracy and a celebration of traditional liberal values, freedom of speech, worship and assembly, and justice and due process, and jury trials.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a powerful message against totalitarianism,\u201d said Holland. \u201cDowneast Dem\u2019s comments were not just abusive and false, they were cowardly. Downeast Dem slandered Mr. Kennedy from the shadows. His hope was to sling his barbs and then flee from public debate. That is the classic cowardice of a bully.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than acknowledging the Daily Kos post was fake news, Moulitsas has dug in and is now resorting to pleading with his readers to send cash to fund his crusade to keep Downeast Dem anonymous.<\/p>\n \u201cThose fundraising letters have the poisonous, nasty, baiting tone of a schoolyard bully,\u201d said Holland, \u201cand by school, I mean elementary school \u2014 they are shockingly childish. It\u2019s almost beyond comprehension that this low-level diatribe is coming from one of the most revered exemplars of the liberal intelligentsia, one of our Democratic Party\u2019s superstars.\u201d<\/p>\n Moulitsas wrote, \u201cOne more thing, Robbie or Bob or whatever people call you, because you sure as hell don\u2019t deserve to be called by your initials like our great president.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked about Moulitsas\u2019 attacks, Kennedy refused to respond saying only that he was surprised that Moulitsas seemed to believe that his father won the 1968 Presidential election. Robert Kennedy was assassinated after winning the California Primary that June. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty much common knowledge,\u201d Kennedy commented dryly.<\/p>\n Ironically, the Daily Kos founder, who has been relentlessly bobbing and weaving to dodge any confrontation with Kennedy, is suddenly challenging Kennedy to engage. His invitation \u2014 it can only be described as an unhinged vitriolic diatribe \u2014 doubles as a fundraising appeal.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, this fight isn\u2019t inexpensive,\u201d Moulitsas pleads with his readers, adding, \u201cAnd if Kennedy isn\u2019t a coward, he can drop the suit targeting Downeast Dem and come directly after me \u2026 So bring it, a**hole.\u201d<\/p>\n Holland said Moulitsas\u2019 challenge was surprising.<\/p>\n She said:<\/p>\n \u201cWe originally did sue Daily Kos directly,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was Mr. Moulitsas himself who pointed his finger at Downeast Dem as the culprit we needed to pursue.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Mr. Moulitsas really wants to debate, I doubt that would be a problem. Kennedy has always been willing to debate all comers. I\u2019m quite sure that if Mr. Moulitsas is looking for a civil conversation, all he has to do is ask. Daily Kos presents itself as a serious forum for liberal debate, but the fact is that no one dares to debate Kennedy. Everyone saw the way that he demolished Alan Dershowitz in their debates<\/a>, and so they all prefer to resort to name calling from a safe distance.\u201d<\/p>\n Holland wonders out loud why Daily Kos is going so far to protect Downeast Dem from embarrassment.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they really think this is truthful information,\u201d she asked, \u201cwhy don\u2019t they come forward? Why does Downeast Dem have to slink around in darkness? Why doesn\u2019t he come out of the shadows and engage in an open dialogue with Mr. Kennedy?\u201d<\/p>\n Kennedy shared:<\/p>\n \u201cI think we need to all move beyond vituperation and polarization and have a larger discussion.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up in a milieu when liberals were the champions of civil rights, religious freedom, free speech and due process. Liberals were sworn enemies of censorship and the control of the government by corporate multinationals, including pharmaceutical corporations. Why do we now fear to have conversations about science? Why are we retreating instead into appeals to authority?\u201d<\/p>\n Kennedy was referring to the persistent liberal mantra that people should \u201ctrust the experts\u201d rather than research government claims, cultivate scientific curiosity and engage in critical thinking. Putting faith in \u201cexperts,\u201d is a \u201clogical fallacy,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cIt is a feature of religion, not science.<\/p>\n He continued:<\/p>\n \u201cThat notion is anathema to both science or democracy, which begin with skepticism, with curiosity, with relentless questioning, and with critical thinking. Furthermore, the particular group of experts that they are instructing us to trust are mainly badly conflicted government and industry stooges.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are aggressively censoring the armies of highly credentialed independent experts who challenge the official orthodoxies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy have some in the liberal establishment folded their tents on the field of logic, reason and scientific literacy, and retreated from dialogue?\u201d asked feminist icon Dr. Naomi Wolf.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are so many reduced to ad hominem attacks and to efforts at censorship? Why must they often accuse those who simply disagree with them of being Trump supporters, \u2018Qanon followers,\u2019 \u2018anti-vaxxers\u2019 or even Nazis? Many in\u00a0 our intellectual class have devolved \u2014 in a single year \u2014 into adolescent bullying, and it is bad for journalism and for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n