Jan van Eyck Madonna and Child at the Fountain 1439 (height: 7.4“, 19cm)
A lot of farmers will not grow wheat at present fertilizer prices. In the US, many will switch to soy beans.
“Retail fertilizer is ripping in the Midwest as growers begin to put on purchases for spring product. Anhydrous has set a new record at $1492/ton, which is 200% more than this time last year. With harvest delivered corn in the low $5/bu range right now, it doesn’t pencil.”
Trucker
https://twitter.com/i/status/1488672963801104385
Urso
Worrisome… pic.twitter.com/JsK6n4FfXM
— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) February 1, 2022
“..it’s impossible to centrally plan human life. Yet, there’s never a shortage of misguided individuals who are willing to give it a try.”
• Truckers Are Lighting “Brushfires of Freedom” In Millions of Minds (Rossini)
Tyranny is nothing new. People who embrace it, and who lust after power, tend to follow a similar pattern. There are no brakes. They always push it too far. They always overplay their hand. They can’t seem to stop themselves once they have a grip on the population. Canada experienced a shocking amount of tyranny over the last several years. And yet, under the extreme pressure that the Canadian people were forced to endure, it appears that a diamond has been formed. Out came a force for liberty that has caught the attention of the entire world! We are born free, and meant to always stay free. Authoritarians, no matter how much data they chase after, can never know or anticipate everything.
Who could have predicted that a major spark would emerge in Canada? Yet, that is how the history of Liberty vs. power has always been. Who could have predicted that 13 colonies would secede from the biggest empire on earth back in 1776? In our world of perpetual uncertainty, it’s impossible to centrally plan human life. Yet, there’s never a shortage of misguided individuals who are willing to give it a try….and create mass human suffering in doing so. It’s hard enough to plan one’s own life, let alone venturing out and foolishly sticking your nose into someone else’s business. But this fact never seems to dawn on authoritarians, no matter how much logic, theory, and history backs it up.
The desire for freedom is innate. It can be suppressed, but not abolished. Life and Liberty are two sides of the same coin. Without Life, there is no Liberty. Without Liberty, there is no Life. When backed into an impossible corner, Life and Liberty always finds a crack to burst through. After 2 years of hardcore tyranny around the world, the ideas of freedom are bursting forth, first in Canada…
Justin’s not the only Little Napoleon in town…
• Ottawa City Councillor Wants To Seize Freedom Convoy GoFundMe Funds (RTN)
The public participation in online crowdfunding for public protests related to the Freedom Convoy taking place in Canada continues to be hit with roadblocks and is becoming a further threat to free expression and the right to protest. After first having GoFundMe temporarily block the release of some of the funds that Canadians have donated to help support the livelihoods of the truckers taking place in the demonstration, GoFundMe began to pay out the funds, with the first payment of $1M in Canadian dollars being released, the campaign organizer tweeted on Friday. However, the campaign has raised more than $7.3 million in Canadian dollars and those funds could now be at risk of being seized by the local government if some politicians get their way.
Mathieu Fleury, the Ottawa City Councillor of Rideau-Vanier Ward, has today announced his support for the government to launch a legal challenge to seize the remaining GoFundMe donations that had been collected online. “This morning, I have asked the city manager and city solicitor to immediately launch court proceedings targeting the millions of dollars in funds frozen by @GoFundMe so Ottawa taxpayers are not left holding the bag for these protests,” Fleury tweeted, before locking his account after facing backlash.
“While COVID testing may be clinically valuable for people with symptoms, testing millions of asymptomatic people can lead to large-scale, unnecessary quarantines and disruptions (as Fauci has now admitted).”
• COVID Affects Your Memory (Gutentag)
In December 2021, the CDC announced a change in quarantine guidelines from 10 days to five, with Fauci confessing that the purpose of the change was to “get people back to jobs” and Walensky stating that the guidelines were based on “what we thought people would be able to tolerate.” These statements came after months and years of restrictions based on the idea that no concern superseded the mitigation of COVID risks—that COVID policies were, by definition, above cost-benefit analysis. In 2020, Fauci and Francis Collins (then director of the National Institutes of Health) had orchestrated a media-assisted smear campaign to this effect against the scientists behind the Great Barrington Declaration, who argued for more focused protection of the elderly and immunocompromised instead of blanket lockdowns.
This effort to quash dissenting viewpoints lasted well past the point when vaccines became available for any adult who wanted them. Now, having attempted to damage the reputations of these scientists, Fauci believes that COVID mitigation policies must be balanced by other priorities. The CDC has also determined that Americans no longer have to test themselves at the end of the new quarantine period because they can stay positive for up to 12 weeks after infection. But this change in testing protocol only confirms that detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has never meant that someone is ill or contagious. A clinical case of a disease almost always involves symptoms, but for COVID, the definition of a “case” for the past two years has been a positive PCR test, symptoms or no symptoms.
In other words, while major news outlets presented rates of “cases” as synonymous with rates of illness, the number of positive PCR tests has never necessarily reflected the number of people sick with COVID (because the SARS-CoV-2 material detected by PCR may not be intact, abundant, or infectious). This was a problem in 2007 when the use of PCR tests to detect pertussis led scientists to believe they were observing an epidemic, only to discover that the tests had been generating false positives and patients most likely had other respiratory infections like the common cold. While COVID testing may be clinically valuable for people with symptoms, testing millions of asymptomatic people can lead to large-scale, unnecessary quarantines and disruptions (as Fauci has now admitted).
Nevertheless, state and city governments used “rising cases” to rationalize shutdowns, school closures, and mask mandates. Public health officials and the media portrayed these raw case numbers as a meaningful metric and presented testing as an infallible tool. In the past month, this approach has abruptly changed. When questioned about child hospitalization rates, Fauci recently cited broken bones and appendicitis as among the reasons for high hospitalization numbers, telling MSNBC, “It’s over-counting the number of children who are, quote ‘hospitalized with COVID,’ as opposed to because of COVID.” By the first week of January, data released by New York state showed that about half of all COVID patients in New York City hospitals were admitted for reasons other than COVID; in Los Angeles, the same was true for about two-thirds of COVID patients. The Los Angeles Times argued that the number of incidental hospitalizations during omicron means “this surge is different.” But how different is it, really?
The craziest thing in quite some time. Those involved in its research and publishing should either get a big Stupidity Award, or be prosecuted.
• Covid Vaccine Hesitancy Could Be Linked To Childhood Trauma (G.)
Refusal or reluctance to have a Covid-19 vaccine may be linked to traumatic events in childhood, such as parents separating, neglect, or physical, verbal and sexual abuse, new research suggests. Those who suffer in childhood are also least likely to trust official NHS coronavirus information, follow the rules of restrictions or wear masks during the pandemic, public health experts found. Two years after the virus first reached the UK and a year after vaccines to protect against it were made available for free on the NHS, millions of people have yet to be vaccinated. Almost one in 10 people in the UK – 9% – have still not had a single dose. Health experts and policymakers are urgently trying to figure out why.
Now the findings of a new study funded by Public Health Wales and published in the journal BMJ Open suggests that Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy may be linked to childhood trauma. Researchers surveyed 2,285 people aged 18 and over in Wales during lockdown restrictions between 2020 and 2021. They were asked about nine different adverse childhood experiences (Aces) as well as low trust in NHS Covid-19 information, whether they backed the removal of social distancing and mandatory face coverings, and breaking Covid rules and vaccine hesitancy. Aces include neglect, physical, psychological or sexual mistreatment, and growing up in a household affected by domestic violence, substance or alcohol abuse and other criminal justice problems.
Parents separating or divorcing, abandonment, or having a parent with a mental health condition are other examples of Aces. The nine Aces included in the study were: physical, verbal and sexual abuse, parental separation, exposure to domestic violence, living with a household member with mental illness, alcohol and/or drug misuse, or a family member in prison. Half of those in the study had not experienced any childhood trauma, one in five had suffered one type, about one in six reported two or three, and one in 10 reported four or more. The results showed that the more trauma people had experienced in childhood, the more likely they were to mistrust NHS Covid-19 information, to feel unfairly restricted by the government and to support the end of mandatory face masks.
“..lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument..”
• Lockdowns Had Little Or No Impact On Covid-19 Deaths (WT)
Lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe had little or no impact in reducing deaths from COVID-19, according to a new analysis by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies. “We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote. But the research paper said lockdowns did have “devastating effects” on the economy and contributed to numerous social ills. “They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.
“Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument,” the paper concluded. Early on, many states and 186 countries imposed bans on work, socialization, in-person schooling, travel and other restrictions to limit the spread of the disease, citing recommendations by top health care experts. Researchers at the Imperial College London, for example, predicted that such steps could reduce death rates by up to 98%. That never happened, according to the new study by researchers Steve Hanke, Jonas Herby, and Lars Jonung at Johns Hopkins. “Overall, we conclude that lockdowns are not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic, at least not during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic,” they wrote.
“the whole history of the pandemic and the response are being rewritten in real time by Big Tech to cover up what happened..”
• Big Tech Purges Anti-lockdown Scientists (JTN)
The campaign to get Joe Rogan booted from Spotify may have failed for now, but Big Tech appears to be ramping up its COVID-19 “misinformation” crackdown on medical and other figures. Two permanent social media bans bookended Rogan’s interview with mRNA vaccine pioneer-turned-critic Robert Malone, which birthed the trending phrase “mass formation psychosis.” Twitter cited Malone for COVID misinformation shortly before the interview, while LinkedIn “flushed my 30,000 connections and de-platformed me” days after, Malone wrote in his newsletter. “No explanations, no warnings were given.” The last complete archive of his page was Jan. 3.
Malone said he had rarely posted anything “controversial” on the Microsoft-owned professional social network due to his brief suspension last summer, which a LinkedIn “senior executive” blamed on the platform’s purported difficulty in “detangling complicated, subtle scientific claims.” YouTube reportedly removed uploads of the Rogan episode as well, and Malone and others claimed Google was manipulating search results for “mass formation psychosis” to hide the episode, contrasting the search engine’s results with competitor DuckDuckGo. The censorship has not chastened Malone, who has since claimed he “almost died” following his second Moderna vaccine dose, likely due to a “bad batch.”
LinkedIn shut down former Harvard Medical School epidemiologist and lockdown critic Martin Kulldorff’s account last week, allegedly reinstating it without explanation several hours after his affiliated Brownstone Institute noted the removal. It was also Kulldorff’s second brush with LinkedIn, which censored two of his posts for purported misinformation last summer. Twitter suspended his account for a month last spring for disputing the protective powers of commonly worn masks — a position that is now mainstream. The actions suggest “the whole history of the pandemic and the response are being rewritten in real time by Big Tech to cover up what happened, who wrote what and when, and how the thing fleshed itself out in real time,” wrote Brownstone Institute founder Jeffrey Tucker.
Malone Big Tech
https://twitter.com/i/status/1488548271505170433
I bet most people still don’t believe the lab leak theory. Propaganda is sticky.
• Scientists Speak Out On Being Silenced On Lab Leak Theory (Fox)
Some scientists have begun speaking out about efforts to silence researchers who raised concerns about the possibility that COVID-19 could have originated in a Chinese lab. “It shot from every direction from people who we now know were actually thinking exactly the same thing but have chosen to say the opposite, which is extraordinary,” Australian Dr. Nikolai Petrovsky, a Flinders University Medicine professor, told Fox News of the backlash he received for voicing concerns that the pandemic may have originated in a lab. Petrovsky was not alone, according to reporting from Fox News’ Benjamin Hall, who spoke with scientists from Israel, the U.S., Australia, Germany, the U.K., Australia and Germany. The scientists told Fox News that they received backlash and resistance to getting their work published, even from those who quietly believed in the possibility of the “lab-leak theory.”
“It’s taken two years for that to finally come out and be exposed,” Petrovsky said. The scientists say that there was a top-down effort aimed at protecting the scientific community from negative public attention, with fears spreading among scientists that a public realization that the pandemic may have spread due to gain-of-function research in a lab could hamper future experiments. Many in the scientific community who attempted to speak out about COVID-19’s origins were labeled conspiracy theorists in the media and by fellow scientists early on in the pandemic, even though the possibility of human error has now gained renewed attention from experts. The scientists expressed fear to Fox News that the silencing of such voices has led to little change, with gain-of-function research continuing both in the U.S. and abroad despite growing calls for international regulation.
DARPA.
• Watch The Diversion! (Denninger)
Let’s cut the crap eh? It’s established that DARPA was handed a proposal from Ecohealth, Duke, UNC and Palo Alto Labs that intended for work to be done at the WIV and then intentionally released into bat caves in China related to coronaviruses. It’s also established that DARPA told them to pound sand, because, as I’ve pointed out, it not only violated gain-of-function but also raised grave concerns about being dual use (that is, bioweapon use) and that Ecohealth was apparently claiming the right to do same on a foreign land where they neither owned the cave or the people around there that might get screwed. As it turns out people did get screwed and it appears to have initiated right there. There is evidence NIH funded this after DARPA told them to go to Hell. The evidence points to that how Covid-19 occurred.
Proved? Not yet. But if not… it’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it — both on what was being done and the timing. But note well that Trump, and Fox, are all over the Wuhan Institute only. Oddly silent is that institutions right here in the United States appear to have been part of it. They most-certainly were in the original proposal which has surfaced, I remind you. Exactly nobody has called for a full and open investigation into that, and there is evidence that they were involved after DARPA rejected the work too in the form of transfer agreements in late 2019, just before everything went to Hell. Where be the subpoenas out of Congress, may I ask? Where be anything other than the focus on China? Yeah, China was involved and covered it up. That’s clear.
But what’s also clear is that China has also not released the information including exactly what was transferred back, to whom and when. So yeah, let’s bag on China because they deserve it. But at the same time where’s the big fat wrecking ball and even criminal charges for those in the so-called “public health” and “research” community right here in the United States that got involved in this crap and, it appears, may well be equally responsible for what happened? Oh, you want to know why not? Here you go: The scientists expressed fear to Fox News that the silencing of such voices has led to little change, with gain-of-function research continuing both in the U.S. and abroad despite growing calls for international regulation. There you are. They’re still doing it.
Very obvious. But who’s first?
• Top Doctor Calls for Reinstatement of People Fired Over Vaccine Mandates (TH)
After instruction from President Joe Biden and federal government regulators, a number of corporations fired workers who refused the Wuhan coronavirus vaccine. They did so before the Supreme Court ruled Biden’s vaccine mandate for large companies was unconstitutional. Now, with worker shortages and long delayed scientific evidence from the Centers for Disease Control that the vaccine does not prevent the transmission of the virus, a number of companies are hiring back previously fired workers. Dr. Marty Makary, a top doctor for John’s Hopkins University, has been calling on companies to rehire fired employees for weeks. Now, he’s calling for workers to not only give people their jobs back but to issue an apology.
“Public-health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they weren’t fully vaccinated. But after two years of accruing data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear. By firing staff with natural immunity, employers got rid of those least likely to infect others. It’s time to reinstate those employees with an apology,” Dr. Makary writes in the Wall Street Journal. “None of this should surprise us. For years, studies have shown that infection with the other coronaviruses that cause severe illness, SARS and MERS, confers lasting immunity. In a study published in May 2020, Covid-recovered monkeys that were rechallenged with the virus didn’t get sick. Public-health officials have a lot of explaining to do.”
Medical debt.
• Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis Injuring Record Number of Young People (CHD)
In one-fourth (or more) of consumer bankruptcies, medical debt is the predominant causal factor, often triggered by “sudden adverse events.” As of 2022, vaccine adverse event reporting of heart disease following COVID vaccines had increased 15,600% in young people under the age of 30, compared to the previous 31 years of heart injuries reported following receipt of FDA-approved vaccines. Autism, linked to vaccines as well as other toxic exposures, furnishes a cautionary tale, potentially saddling families with lifetime care costs of $1.4 to $2.4 million. In 2010, a government study estimated 1 in every 38 vaccine doses (2.6%) produced an adverse reaction. However, the sluggish and adversarial vaccine injury compensation process and a sky-high burden of proof leave two-thirds of claims dismissed or in limbo.
Emergency Use Authorization COVID shots are even less likely to garner vaccine injury compensation. Attorneys caution, “If you have suffered a serious injury from a Covid-19 vaccine, you are basically on your own.” With over a million COVID-vaccine-related adverse events reported since December 2020, households are racking up extraordinary debt and turning to crowdfunding for help. Heart conditions, among the 20 most expensive conditions treated in American hospitals, pack a financial wallop. According to CDC, 96% of those under age 30 who experience heart injuries following COVID vaccination are hospitalized. Children tend to have a more sudden and severe myocarditis presentation than adults, with an estimated 7% to 15% mortality rate. Children hospitalized with myocarditis are more likely to die than children admitted with other diagnoses.
Studies of children and adolescents who developed myocarditis following COVID vaccination show a “potentially poor prognosis despite the heart seeming to have returned to normal.” According to Mayo Clinic, “the greatest burden of myocarditis may not be apparent for 6-12 years after diagnosis when children die or need to undergo cardiac transplantation.” Cardiac injuries triggered by dangerous COVID injections appear to be good for business. A July 2021 BusinessWire report forecast a booming market for cardiac assist devices, noting “increasing incidence of heart failure is driving growth.” Families, however, are left holding the bag not just emotionally, but financially, blindsided by financial impacts they surely never anticipated.
Great Migration.
• 47 Million Americans Quit Their Jobs Last Year: ‘Uncharted Territory’ (CNBC)
Another historically high 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in December, according to the Labor Department’s latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover report, closing out a record-shattering year when roughly 47.4 million people voluntarily left their jobs for better work during the pandemic and Great Resignation. For comparison, 42.1 million people quit in 2019, at the time considered the tightest labor market on record. “All of this is uncharted territory,” says Rucha Vankudre, a senior economist at Emsi Burning Glass, a labor market analytics firm. The U.S. saw record-breaking months of turnover throughout 2021, with early signs of trouble kicking off in April as vaccination efforts improved, consumer activity rebounded and businesses scrambled to re-staff to meet demand.
Workers, especially in low-wage service roles, quit their jobs for higher pay and better work conditions. Employers responded to record turnover by “trying to get employees in the door” with signing bonuses, higher salaries, the option to work remotely and expanding their geographic hiring boundaries for teleworkers, Vankudre tells CNBC Make It. They’ve increased retention efforts by offering more employee training and development opportunities. “Employers are doing what they can at this point,” Vankudre says. She expects pay increases to continue unabated as a means of attracting new hires, retaining workers and pulling people back into the workforce. “What else can they do? We’ll have to see. They’ve done the things we’ve expected them to do at increasing rates, but what’s next?”
Even still, rising wages may not be enough to keep pace with the rate of inflation. Though wages rose 4.7% from a year prior, according to the Labor Department, consumer prices reached a 40-year high in December, when the consumer price index (which measures the cost of goods and services) showed a 7% jump year-over-year.
Rabbi Dov Fischer is western regional vice president of Coalition for Jewish Values.
• It’s a Mitzvah, Not Anti-Semitism, To Attack Soros’ DA campaigns (Dov Fischer)
Ever since Jonathan Greenblatt, a woke former Obama White House official, took over the Anti-Defamation League, it reflexively screams “Anti-Semitism!” when critics fault Soros’ political work — and the left loyally follows suit. It therefore falls upon established rabbis with authentic Jewish lifetime bona fides, like yours truly, to assert unequivocally that it’s a mitzvah (a righteous act) — not “anti-Semitism” — to castigate George Soros for his radical attempts to undermine public safety and the American republic. I’ll be clear: Political pundits, ranging from columnists to cartoonists to on-air talent, should not hesitate to condemn Soros as perhaps the most despicable person in public affairs.
Disbursing tens of millions of dollars, Soros has funded local campaigns across America to elect progressive district attorneys who agitate for the lethal cocktail of defunding police and decriminalization. These prosecutors tend not to prosecute property crimes or severe misdemeanors. Instead, they purposefully undercharge felonies as misdemeanors, then plead them down to disorderly-conduct violations. The result? A new term, “smash and grab,” has entered the crime lexicon. Soros just poured a whopping $125 million into a super PAC called Democracy PAC, noting the donation is a “long-term investment.” Prior to this, between 2015 and 2019, he and his affiliated PACs spent more than $17 million on local DA races. That number is believed to have topped $20 million from just 2020 to 2021.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner received $1.7 million from a Soros PAC for the 2017 campaign that put him into office, an unheard-of sum for such a race. Last year, 559 people were murdered in his city, the most in history. Cook County, Ill., State’s Attorney Kim Foxx received $2 million from a Soros PAC. In 2021, 797 people were murdered in Chicago, 25 more than in 2020. Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby was one of the first individuals Soros supported by when in 2014 he decided to fund progressive prosecutors’ election efforts. Despite progressive Mayor Brandon Scott’s attempt at “violence reduction” strategies, Baltimore’s homicide rate rose for a second year in a row, climbing to 337 in 2021.
The damage one old man can do…
• Soros Calls For Regime Change In China (RT)
Liberal billionaire George Soros called for the replacement of Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, comparing the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. In a speech delivered at the conservative Hoover Institution, Soros called China the “world’s most powerful authoritarian state” and “the greatest threat that open societies face today.” Soros claimed that China, “like Germany in 1936,” will “attempt to use the spectacle” of the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games “to score a propaganda victory for its system of strict controls.” He also called Xi “a true believer in communism,” unlike former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who introduced free market reforms, and warned that “Mao Zedong and Vladimir Lenin are his idols.”
Soros concluded his speech with a call for regime change in China – echoing the current line of many American conservatives, who also oppose Xi’s leadership. It is to be hoped that Xi Jinping may be replaced by someone less repressive at home and more peaceful abroad “This would remove the greatest threat that open societies face today and they should do everything within their power to encourage China to move in the desired direction,” the billionaire declared. Soros is the founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundation, which backs liberal and left-wing causes in the US and around the globe, including Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood and immigration reforms. He has also taken an interest in US district attorney races, pouring millions into these contests, with some of these Soros-backed candidates now overseeing prosecution in America’s major cities.
China’s Xi Jinping is the greatest threat that open societies face today. The country’s roiling real estate market, falling population, and fast-spreading omicron variant might be his undoing, all during his prestige project of the Winter Olympics. https://t.co/1Pf0XEy29M pic.twitter.com/WMyWpPKg0y
— George Soros (@georgesoros) January 31, 2022
But only on “Romanian dealings”?
• New York Times Sues To Get Hunter Biden Information (Turley)
We have repeatedly discussed the virtual new blackout on the influence peddling by the Biden family, particularly Hunter Biden. Despite overwhelming evidence of millions given by foreign companies and officials, the media has preferred to cover literal scoops over a story of breathtaking levels of self-dealing and corruption by the Bidens. Now, however, the New York Times has sued to force the Biden Administration to turn over information on Hunter Biden’s Romanian dealings. The lawsuit comes after another report that, in 2019, the FBI subpoenaed JP Morgan for records on Hunter Biden’s Chinese dealings.
In a new lawsuit on Monday, the Times sued the State Department to obtain emails from Romanian embassy officials sent between 2015 and 2019 mentioning a number of international business figures, including the president’s son and his former business associate Tony Bobulinski. While the request was sent in December 2021, the Biden Administration told the Times that the soonest that it could possibly turn over the information is April 15, 2023. That is after the mid-term elections. This story could be a bit awkward for the White House staff. When the New York Times Ken Vogel wrote about Hunter Biden’s dealings as a potential “significant liability,” Biden officials viciously attacked him while others suggested that he was a pawn of Russian or Trump disinformation. Of course, the allegations proved to be true and the infamous laptop is now considered authentic.
One of the most outspoken aides denying the entire story was Kate Bedingfield, who is now the director of White House Communications. She denounced the story as an “egregious act of journalistic malpractice.” Andrew Bates, who is now deputy director, tweeted “SCOOP from Philadelphia: KEN VOGEL (@kenvogel ) is a COWARD.” They will now handle questions on this story as White House officials. That includes why President Biden repeatedly said that no one had accused Hunter or his family of “doing anything wrong” when he was presumably aware of the FBI subpoena and the seizure of the laptop. Given these investigations, there is also the question of why a special counsel has not been appointed given President Biden’s past comments that have been contradicted by witnesses (as well as references to his own financial accounts in these emails).
The media and FBI investigations now cover transactions ranging from China, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, and other countries. Millions flowed to the Biden family while Joe Biden was Vice President and later as he prepared for a presidential run. Biden is still running out for ice cream and the media is dutifully covering it. The question however remains whether this will remain just desserts . . . or whether Hunter and others will receive their just deserts for influencing peddling.
How hard will the IMF and World Bank come after El Salvador?
• El Salvador Angrily Rejects IMF Call To Drop Bitcoin Use (AP)
The government of El Salvador on Monday rejected a recommendation by the International Monetary Fund to drop Bitcoin as legal tender in the Central American country. Treasury Minister Alejandro Zelaya angrily said that “no international organization is going to make us do anything, anything at all.” Zelaya told a local television station that Bitcoin is an issue of “sovereignty.” “Countries are sovereign nations and they take sovereign decisions about public policy,” he said. The IMF recommended last week that El Salvador dissolve the $150 million trust fund it created when it made the cryptocurrency legal tender and return any of those unused funds to its treasury.
The agency cited concerns about the volatility of Bitcoin prices, and the possibility of criminals using the cryptocurrency. After nearly doubling in value late last year, Bitcoin has plunged in value. Zelaya said El Salvador has complied with all financial transaction and money laundering rules. The trust fund was intended to allow the automatic conversion of Bitcoin to U.S. dollars — El Salvador’s other currency — to encourage people wary of adopting the highly volatile digital currency. The IMF also recommended eliminating the offer of $30 as an incentive for people to start using the digital wallet “Chivo” and increasing regulation of the digital wallet to protect consumers. It suggested there could be benefits to the use of Chivo, but only using dollars, not Bitcoin.
“In the near-term the actual costs of implementing Chivo and operationalizing the Bitcoin law exceed potential benefits,” the report said. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele had been dismissive of the IMF’s recommendation’s concerning Bitcoin. Government officials told the IMF that the launch of “Chivo” had significantly increased financial inclusion, drawing millions of people who previously lacked bank accounts into the financial system. They also spoke of the parallel tourism promotion targeting Bitcoin enthusiasts.
Western Australia
Western Australian government have banned unvaccinated parents from visiting their sick children in hospital… The main stream media are laughing on air about it and saying that they hope it’s the last straw to change these parents “philosophy”. The world needs to see this… pic.twitter.com/lCtbdrnzMy
— Evelyn Rae (@_evelynrae) February 1, 2022
Healthy child
Is a healthy child at risk of serious illness from Covid? No
Do the vaccines stop a child from catching Covid? No
Is there any long-term safety data for the vaccines? No
Is there a risk of serious illness or death (however rare) from the vaccines? Yes#LeaveOurKidsAlone pic.twitter.com/7YZDBUC0Ar
— Mike Fairclough (@1MikeFairclough) February 1, 2022
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