Apr 132022
 
 April 13, 2022  Posted by at 8:04 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Margaret Bourke-White Coney Island 1952

 

CIA Admits Feeding Americans False Info About Ukraine (Ron Paul)
The West Cannot Isolate Russia, Putin Warns (F.)
China’s Jan-March Overall Trade With Russia Rises 28% (R.)
The Defense Industry’s Ukraine Pundits (Lever)
Top American Golfer Recently Underwent Surgery For Blood Clot In Her Left Arm (GW)
Bitcoin Fans Are Psychopaths Who Don’t Care About Anyone, Study Shows (NYP)
California Now Leads The Country In Illiteracy (CJ)
At Least 20 Federal ‘Assets’ Embedded at Capitol on Jan. 6 (ET)
Covering for the Big Guy (Dinesh D’Souza)
Canada’s Next PM (Bexte)
Rebel News Founder Speaks After Trudeau Denies Them Journalism ‘License’ (Fox)
Trudeau Considers Trucker Tax (TCS)
Twitter ‘A Sh*t Show’ For Employees Since Elon Musk Took Major Stake (NYP)
Elon Musk Accused Of Breaking Law While Buying Twitter Stock (AP)
Elon Musk’s Vision For The Internet Is Dangerous Nonsense (Robert Reich)

 

 

 

 

“Americans are directly in charge of the war on the ground.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

” Isn’t it ironic that the CIA itself has done more than the Russians to undermine Americans’ faith in the media..”

CIA Admits Feeding Americans False Info About Ukraine (Ron Paul)

Late last year, a Gallup poll showed that Americans’ trust in the mainstream media has fallen to its second lowest level on record. Only seven percent of Americans responded that they have a “great deal” of trust in the media. That loss of trust has been well-earned by the mainstream media, and it explains the massive growth of independent media and alternative voices on social media. The response to the rise of independent media voices has been a rush to “cancel” any voice outside the accepted mainstream narrative. Citizens of the Soviet Union would read manipulated media like Pravda not because the regime reported facts, but because truth was hidden between the lines of what was reported and what was not reported. That seems to be where we are in the US today.

Last week an extraordinary article appeared in, of all places, NBC News, reporting that the US intelligence community is knowingly feeding information it does not believe accurate to the US mainstream media for the American audience to consume. In other words, the article reports that the US “deep state” admits to being actively engaged in lying to the American people in the hopes that it can manipulate public opinion According to the NBC News article, “multiple US officials acknowledged that the US has used information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it has used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect…” Readers will recall the shocking headlines that Russia was prepared to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, that China would be providing military equipment to Russia, that Russian President Putin was being fed misinformation by his advisors, and more.

All of these were churned out by the CIA to be repeated in the American media even though they were known to be false. It was all about, as one intelligence officer said in the article, “trying to get inside Putin’s head.” That may have been the goal, but what the CIA actually did was get inside America’s head with false information meant to shape public perception of the conflict. They lied to propagandize us in favor of the Biden Administration’s narrative. Those pushing the “Russiagate” hoax through the Trump years claimed that the goal of “Russian disinformation” was to undermine Americans’ trust in our government, media, and other institutions. Isn’t it ironic that the CIA itself has done more than the Russians to undermine Americans’ faith in the media by feeding false stories to establish a particular narrative among the American people?

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“It is practically “impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world,” let alone a country as “vast” as Russia..”

“..reiterating unproven claims the West has fostered a neo-Nazi, anti-Russian state on its doorstep..”

The West Cannot Isolate Russia, Putin Warns (F.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin toured a spaceport in the far east of Russia on Tuesday with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, defending Russia’s “clear and noble” goals in Ukraine and pointing to the country’s prior achievements in space as proof Western efforts to isolate Moscow will fail. It is practically “impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world,” let alone a country as “vast” as Russia, Putin said, according to Reuters, citing Russian state television. Even the “total” sanctions and “complete” isolation of the Soviet Union did not stop it from beating the West into space, Putin said, adding that Russia does not “intend to be isolated.”

Putin said Russia would never again depend on the West and doubled down on the main goal of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, which is to “help people in the Donbas,” the primarily Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine, and ensure Russia’s security, according to the New York Times. He said Russia made the “right decision” and “didn’t have a choice” but to invade Ukraine, reiterating unproven claims the West has fostered a neo-Nazi, anti-Russian state on its doorstep. Putin was touring the Vostochny spaceport with Belarusian ally Lukashenko, who reportedly asked why everyone is “getting so worried about these sanctions.” The pair celebrated Cosmonaut’s Day—a celebration of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin carrying out the first human spaceflight in 1961—and announced a joint project to guarantee both countries independent access to space.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine six weeks ago, Western countries have imposed a series of increasingly harsh sanctions and restrictions against Russian businesses, industry, and key members of Putin’s inner circle. Many businesses have elected to withdraw from Russia as well. The sanctions have had a dramatic impact on the Russian economy and the World Bank estimates its economy will be around 11% smaller at the end of 2022 (it estimates Ukraine’s will fall around 45%). Despite the Russian downturn, critics, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, argue that sanctions are too weak and Europe’s continued purchasing of Russian oil and gas amounts to giving Russia “permission to attack.” Increasing indications of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, such as signs of executed civilians in Bucha, have added to pressure to up sanctions.

Pence Putin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1514060795079966728

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What isolation looks like.

China’s Jan-March Overall Trade With Russia Rises 28% (R.)

China’s overall trade with Russia rose to 243.03 billion yuan ($38.18 billion) in January-March, a Chinese customs spokesman said on Wednesday, up 27.8 percent from a year earlier. China’s total trade with Ukraine climbed to 29.6 billion yuan in the first quarter, customs spokesman Li Kuiwen said at a press conference, up 10.6 percent. China’s trade with both Russia and Ukraine has maintained an uptrend, Li said, adding that China’s economic and trade cooperation with other countries including Russia and Ukraine will remain normal. China’s overall trade with Russia reached 190.12 billion yuan in January-March 2021, while its trade with Ukraine stood at 26.77 billion yuan, according to previous customs data.

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Maybe step 1 is to stop calling it the *Defense* industry?

The Defense Industry’s Ukraine Pundits (Lever)

Last week, CNN brought on former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for his fourth recent appearance to talk, once again, about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deadly invasion of Ukraine. “I think we need to understand that there is only one thing that Putin understands, and that’s force,” said Panetta on Newsroom. The former CIA director added: “I think the United States has to provide whatever weapons are necessary to the Ukrainians, so that they can hit back, and hit back now.” At no time did Panetta nor CNN mention that he’s a senior counselor at Beacon Global Strategies, a defense industry consulting firm that has reportedly represented weapons manufacturer Raytheon. The firm doesn’t disclose its clients, but Raytheon and the defense industry generally stand to benefit from the conflict in Ukraine.

The episode is part of a broader pattern and practice: Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, cable news networks have routinely called on defense officials-turned-consultants to offer analysis and help the American public make sense of the crisis. Often, these analysts have used their TV time to call for greater U.S. involvement and bolder moves that could ratchet up tensions between two nuclear-armed superpowers. The networks have consistently failed to disclose these analysts’ day jobs, describing them instead by only their former high-ranking military or government roles — leaving viewers in the dark about the analysts’ financial ties to defense contractors that stand to profit from increased or prolonged conflict.

During its Ukraine coverage, MSNBC even failed to include disclosures when the network invited on former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who serves on the board of directors at Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest defense contractor. When asked about this matter, Johnson told The Lever, “I have no comment.” Corporate media’s lack of transparency about these consultants is deeply troubling, said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. “This type of revolving-door behavior should be prohibited for military officials to serve in a private capacity representing military contractors,” Holman told The Lever. “If not prohibited, it should be disclosed to everyone so when they’re going on television trying to affect Biden’s policy on whatever war they have in mind, they ought to be straightforward.”

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Probably nothing. Golfers get blood clots all the time.

Top American Golfer Recently Underwent Surgery For Blood Clot In Her Left Arm (GW)

Nelly Korda announced Friday on social media that she recently underwent surgery for a blood clot in a subclavian vein in her left arm. “I am pleased to report the procedure went well and the doctors were happy with the outcome,” Korda wrote. “I am now home recovering and preparing to start rehab. I am looking forward to getting back to 100 percent so I can begin practicing.” Korda, the No. 2-ranked player in the world, first posted about the blood clot on March 13 and withdrew from the next two events in California, including the Chevron Championship, the season’s first major. “I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming support and messages I have received the last few weeks,” Korda posted. “Your kind words have helped me get through this challenging and scary time.”

Korda last teed it up on the LPGA in early February at the LPGA Drive On Championship. She has finished T-15, T-20, and T-4 in three starts this season. In 2021, Korda won four times on the LPGA as well as Olympic gold in Tokyo and was named Female Player of the Year by the Golf Writers Association of America. She was honored by the GWAA on Wednesday night at the organization’s annual dinner near Augusta. Korda also revealed that she had tested positive for COVID-19 in the second week of January, which “kept her off her feet for some time” before the LPGA season started.

McCullough: permanent DNA alteration
https://twitter.com/i/status/1512916014882828292

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“A team of experts..”

Bitcoin Fans Are Psychopaths Who Don’t Care About Anyone, Study Shows (NYP)

The average Bitcoin investor is a calculating psychopath with an inflated ego, according to scientists. A team of experts recently surveyed more than 500 people to uncover the personality traits that are most common among crypto nuts. They identified that many investors exhibit signs of the “dark tetrad”, a group of four unsavory traits made up of narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy and sadism. In plain English, that means dark tetrads have an inflated sense of self-importance and derive pleasure from the pain of others. They also find it difficult to empathize with others and are sly and manipulative.


Scientists at Queensland University of Technology described their findings in research published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences earlier this month. They asked 566 people to complete personality surveys as well as answers questions about their attitudes to crypto. Of the participants, one in four reported that they owned crypto and two-thirds showed an interest in crypto investing. All four dark tetrad traits correlated with an affinity for investing, each for their own reasons. According to the researchers, dark tetrads are partly drawn to crypto because they are prepared to take risks. Digital assets such as Bitcoin are infamously volatile and the feast-or-famine nature of investing is particularly enticing to some.

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3rd world.

California Now Leads The Country In Illiteracy (CJ)

With California’s porous southern border, soaring taxes, and ongoing flow of overbearing and occasionally bizarre regulations (one law targets cow flatulence, for example), state residents could use a break from bad news. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon. According to a recent report, California now leads the country in illiteracy. In fact, 23.1 percent of Californians over age 15 cannot read this sentence. While the problem has many causes, much of the blame falls on the state’s failing public schools. The 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that just 30 percent of California eighth-graders are proficient in reading. And those numbers reflect results gathered before the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Voters’ attitudes toward California’s government-run schools have tumbled accordingly. A new poll from UC–Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies reveals that just 35 percent of the state’s voters gave public schools in their local district a grade of A or B, down from 55 percent in 2011. At the other end of the spectrum, 25 percent now give their local public schools a D or an F, up 15 percentage points from 2011. The poll included responses from 800 California voters, with 50 percent identifying as Democrats, 26 percent as Republicans, and 24 percent as independents. It’s hardly a surprise, then, that public school enrollment is sinking. In 2018–2019, the system lost about 23,000 students, but between the 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 terms, California public schools saw more than 160,000 students leave—a sevenfold increase.

In Los Angeles, defections are accelerating. Whereas L.A. Unified schools were home to 737,000 students 20 years ago, the district is now forecasting a 25,000-student drop by the fall, which would bring their attendance number below the 400,000 mark. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the district’s “American Rescue Plan” funding will soon run out: “From July forward, the district is projected to spend about $1 billion more than it will take in over a two-year period. The district also must wrestle with underfunded retiree health benefits.” Additionally, the district’s contract with United Teachers Los Angeles runs out at the end of the school year, and the union will demand the sun and the moon for the next contract.

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“One agent was even recorded stating, ‘We don’t know what we are looking for yet.’ They should look for a copy of the Constitution and read it.”

At Least 20 Federal ‘Assets’ Embedded at Capitol on Jan. 6 (ET)

At least 20 FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives “assets” were embedded around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a defense attorney wrote in a court filing on April 12. The disclosure was made in a motion seeking to dismiss seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges against 10 Oath Keepers defendants in one of the most prominent Jan. 6 criminal cases. David W. Fischer, attorney for Thomas E. Caldwell of Berryville, Virginia, filed a 41-page motion to dismiss four counts on behalf of all Oath Keepers case defendants before U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, D.C. Caldwell is charged in the indictment, but is not a member of the Oath Keepers, he told The Epoch Times in March.

“At least 20 FBI and ATF assets were embedded around the Capitol on J6,” read a footnote on Page 6 of the motion. No other details were provided in the document. The footnote said defense attorneys “combed through a mountain of discovery,” including FBI form 302 summaries of interviews conducted by FBI agents. In addition to the information about law-enforcement assets on the ground at the Capitol, the footnote says, the Oath Keepers “were being monitored and recorded prior to J6.” Poring over evidence turned over in discovery by prosecutors in two major Oath Keepers cases has “not found one iota of proof” that defendants “had any plan, intention, design, or scheme to specifically enter the Capitol Building on J6,” the motion said.

Since the first arrests of Jan. 6 defendants in early 2021, there has been extensive speculation and questions from attorneys, defendants, case observers, and members of Congress about the role law enforcement played that day. During a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Jan. 11, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) grilled top FBI officials on the subject. “How many FBI agents or confidential informants actively participated in the events of Jan. 6?” Cruz asked Jill Sanborn, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch. “Sir, I’m sure you can appreciate that I can’t go into the specifics of sources and methods,” Sanborn said. Cruz replied, “Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of Jan. 6, yes or no?” “Sir, I can’t answer that,” Sanborn said. “Did any FBI agents or confidential informants commit crimes of violence on Jan. 6?” Cruz asked. “I can’t answer that, sir,” Sanborn replied.

Jeremy M. Brown, an Oath Keepers member from Florida who was charged with two Jan. 6-related counts but is not part of either major Oath Keepers conspiracy case, told The Epoch Times earlier this year that the FBI unsuccessfully tried to recruit him in 2020 to spy on the group. Brown said the same agents who later arrested him for alleged Jan. 6 crimes tried to recruit him on Dec. 11, 2020, to become a confidential informant. He refused. He was arrested on Sept. 30, 2021, when dozens of federal agents swarmed his Florida property. “When asked by me and my girlfriend to produce the warrants at the time of arrest, they refused to produce them,” Brown said. “One agent was even recorded stating, ‘We don’t know what we are looking for yet.’ They should look for a copy of the Constitution and read it.”

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“This is a Joe Biden scandal, not a Hunter Biden scandal.”

Covering for the Big Guy (Dinesh D’Souza)

This has all the persuasive power of saying that Don Corleone knew nothing about his family’s activities and played no part in them whatever. It makes no sense. And Joe Biden’s direct involvement in his son’s activities has now been confirmed with a new email that has emerged. The email involves a college recommendation that Joe Biden wrote for a Chinese businessman who was partners with Hunter Biden. Jonathan Li is the CEO of a company BHR that entered into a joint venture with Hunter Biden’s company Rosemont Seneca. Hunter also held a 10 percent stake in BHR. In 2017, Li sent an email to Hunter Biden and his business associates Devon Archer and Jim Bulger.

“Gentlemen,” he wrote, “Please find the attached resume of my son, Chris Li. He is applying [to] the following colleges for this year.” Li listed Brown University, Cornell University, and New York University. He also attached an “updated version” of his son’s resume. So then what happened? Let’s follow the email trail. “Let’s see how we can be helpful here to Chris,” Bulger responded to Hunter and the gang. A few weeks later, on Feb. 18, 2017, Eric Schwerin, president of Rosemont Seneca, replied to Li. “Jonathan,” he wrote, “Hunter asked me to send you a copy of the recommendation letter that he asked his father to write on behalf of Christopher for Brown University.” In other words, Joe Biden wrote the letter.

Is it reasonable, at this point, to continue to say Joe Biden told the truth when he said he had nothing to do with his son’s business? Is it believable that he was never in on the deals, or stood to benefit from them? No, it’s not. On the contrary, it seems that Hunter Biden was Joe Biden’s frontman. This is a Joe Biden scandal, not a Hunter Biden scandal. If the circuitous family racket can be likened to the coils of a snake, Joe Biden is the head of the snake.

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I understand he’s a good speaker.

Canada’s Next PM (Bexte)

Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre has drawn a massive crowd to his campaign rally in Calgary, Alberta. According to organizers, over 7,000 RSVP’d to the event, and more are coming. The hype is real, and traffic jams have built up along the road to the rally. “People haven’t felt so free in this country, have they,” Poilievre began. “Whether it’s the fourteen-year-old girl suffering depression after separation from her sport[s] and social activities for two long years; whether it’s the waitress who mortgaged her house to start a business only to have it locked down again and again until she couldn’t open it up anymore; whether it is the hard-working trucker who delivered the goods and services that we need —” The rally erupted at the mention of truckers, all but drowning out Poilievre as he continued praising their gusto and disparaging Trudeau for his tyrannical response.


Indeed, it appears that after years of ‘Red Erin’ O’Toole, Calgarians and Canadians more generally are ready for a Conservative leader who will end Trudeau’s carbon tax, denounce the WEF, and defund the CBC. Speaking of Justin Trudeau, just yesterday, he managed to draw a crowd, too… A crowd of protesters honking and telling him he’s a disgrace to Canada. This most recent barrage of boos and honks occurred while entering Victoria City Hall to speak with Mayor Lisa Helps. This visit would have been innocuous for most leaders, but merely his presence draws a crowd of disdain. It’s gotten so bad that he’s taken to hiding his itinerary to avoid protests. The contrast couldn’t be starker. Poilievre is being celebrated across the country, while Trudeau slithers in through back doors even while abroad. Assuming he keeps up the momentum, Poilievre might just be the first opponent capable of dethroning Trudeau since he was elected PM.

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“A panel of five people in secret: We don’t even know what they said or did or what they looked at. And they claim that only one percent of our stories are news..”

Rebel News Founder Speaks After Trudeau Denies Them Journalism ‘License’ (Fox)

Rebel News founder Ezra Levant sounded off Tuesday after the Trudeau administration denied his outlet what he described as a newly-conceived “license” to fully practice journalism. Levant told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that, if the Liberal Party leader’s behavior during the Ottawa trucker protests is any indicator, he is working hard to punish critics and upturn their lives. He noted how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously slammed his agency when a reporter from it asked a question during a press availability while the politician was running for reelection in 2021. At the time, Trudeau claimed Rebel News was engaging in “disinformation on the science around vaccines” and made a point to declare he could not bring himself to describe them as a “media organization.”


“It’s not yet illegal to do journalism without that license, it’s a government license called the Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization License. A government panel reviews you. They spent one year reviewing Rebel News, looking through more than 100 of our stories,” Levant told host Tucker Carlson. “A panel of five people in secret: We don’t even know what they said or did or what they looked at. And they claim that only one percent of our stories are news, so we don’t get the license.” Levant went on to describe what that means for his organization, versus mainstream outlets like CBC. Trudeau plans to “compel” Big Tech to down-rank non-licensed journalists and change the Income Tax Act to punish them, Levant said. “We’re not banned yet, although we are banned from government events, as you said earlier. But I’m worried that he’s done all this in two years. The worst is yet to come. He may well ban us yet,” he concluded.

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What a surprise….

Trudeau Considers Trucker Tax (TCS)

After re-raising the carbon tax on April 1, Trudeau is considering yet another carbon-based tax that specifically targets your everyday trucker. If passed, owners of Ford F-150s will pay a $1,000 tax, while those who own a Ram 3500 heavy-duty pickup trucks will have to dish out $4,000. The tax comes as part of Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan, in which the government claims it’s “making it easier for Canadians to switch to electric vehicles.” Part of this plan includes taxing truck owners so much that they can’t afford to own one anymore. Page 192 of the report states that the government will:

“Broaden Canada’s existing Green Levy (Excise Tax) for Fuel Inefficient Vehicles to include additional ICE vehicle types, such as pickup trucks. A sliding scale for the implementation of this Green Levy should be developed based on the emissions produced from different vehicles. Revenue from a broadened Green Levy could increase available funding for ZEV incentives for individuals and organizations without limiting the fleet size and while encouraging smaller vehicles of all fuel types. Carefully consider the impacts on and supports for low-income households and other vulnerable populations when exploring changes to the Green Levy and ZEV incentives.”

That’s right. It appears Trudeau is freezing out truck owners again. First, their bank accounts, now their savings. This shouldn’t surprise people at this point. After all, Trudeau isn’t shy when it comes to coercing Canadians. He imposed draconian federal mandates that are still in place despite what the data says and has kept the travel ban on the unvaccinated even as the rest of the world opens up. Now, he’s targeting truckers by legally requiring them to comply with his environmental activism. And he’s comfortable doing this despite a bleeding economy, unreasonable carbon taxes, and record-high inflation.

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Twitter’s been ‘A Sh*t Show’ for much longer..

Wokist traumas: “..a scheduled “day of rest” for company employees..”.

Twitter ‘A Sh*t Show’ For Employees Since Elon Musk Took Major Stake (NYP)

Elon Musk’s looming battle with Twitter’s board is a source of major anxiety for company employees – many of whom are reportedly worried that billionaire’s campaign to force changes is just beginning. Musk’s surprise rejection of a Twitter board seat emerged ahead of a scheduled “day of rest” for company employees, according to a report. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal broke the news on his account the previous night, describing Musk’s decision as “for the best” even as he warned workers they would face “distractions ahead,” Bloomberg reported late Monday. The uncertainty left Twitter workers feeling “super stressed” about the future, with employees reportedly “working together to help each other get through the week.”

The report cited interviews with Twitter employees who asked not to be identified while discussing the company’s inner workings. Several employees told the outlet that Twitter’s internal environment was a “s–t-show” after Musk’s deal with the board fell through. One Twitter employee griped that Musk was likely ‘just getting started” with pushing for change at the company – a development the worker described as “unfortunate,” according to Bloomberg. Musk has emerged as a vocal critic of Twitter’s business practices, taking particular umbrage with the platform’s content moderation policies. He’s also the company’s largest individual shareholder after acquiring a 9% stake earlier this month.

Under the terms of his initial agreement with Twitter, Musk would have received a board seat through at least 2024 and would be barred from acquiring more than 14.9% of the company. Without that deal in place, Musk is free to acquire a larger stake in the company and push for greater influence over its operations. Musk updated an SEC filing on his Twitter holdings with language that suggests he plans to stay active in the company’s dealings, despite his expanding business empire that includes Tesla and SpaceX.

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Can a investor be compelled to lose money? Musk disclosed his stake when he was done buying. If he had disclosed it before, it would have cost him 100s of millions.

“The lawsuit alleges that by March 14, Musk’s stake in Twitter had reached a 5% threshold that required him to publicly disclose his holdings under U.S. securities law by March 24. Musk didn’t make the required disclosure until April 4.”

“..depriving investors who sold shares before Musk’s improperly delayed disclosure [of] the chance to realize significant gains..”

The gains they could only have realized because Musk was buying…

Elon Musk Accused Of Breaking Law While Buying Twitter Stock (AP)

Elon Musk’s huge Twitter investment took a new twist Tuesday with the filing of a lawsuit alleging that the colorful billionaire illegally delayed disclosing his stake in the social media company so he could buy more shares at lower prices. The complaint in New York federal court accuses Musk of violating a regulatory deadline to reveal he had accumulated a stake of at least 5%. Instead, according to the complaint, Musk didn’t disclose his position in Twitter until he’d almost doubled his stake to more than 9%. That strategy, the lawsuit alleges, hurt less wealthy investors who sold shares in the San Francisco company in the nearly two weeks before Musk acknowledged holding a major stake.

Musk’s regulatory filings show that he bought a little more than 620,000 shares at $36.83 apiece on Jan. 31 and then continued to accumulate more shares on nearly every single trading day through April 1. Musk, best known as CEO of the electric car maker Tesla, held 73.1 million Twitter shares as of the most recent count Monday. That represents a 9.1% stake in Twitter. The lawsuit alleges that by March 14, Musk’s stake in Twitter had reached a 5% threshold that required him to publicly disclose his holdings under U.S. securities law by March 24. Musk didn t make the required disclosure until April 4.

That revelation caused Twitter’s stock to soar 27% from its April 1 close to nearly $50 by the end of April 4’s trading, depriving investors who sold shares before Musk’s improperly delayed disclosure the chance to realize significant gains, according to the lawsuit filed on behalf of an investor named Marc Bain Rasella. Musk, meanwhile, was able to continue to buy shares that traded in prices ranging from $37.69 to $40.96. The lawsuit is seeking to be certified as a class action representing Twitter shareholders who sold shares between March 24 and April 4, a process that could take a year or more.

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Washed up Robert Reich has it figured out: Elon Musk is Putin. And Trump. “.. the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth..”

Some people really don’t like free speech…

Elon Musk’s Vision For The Internet Is Dangerous Nonsense (Robert Reich)

The Securities and Exchange Commission went after Musk after he tweeted that he had funding to take Tesla private, a clear violation of the law. Musk paid a fine and agreed to let lawyers vet future sensitive tweets, but he has tried to reverse this requirement. He has also been openly contemptuous of the SEC, tweeting at one point that the “E” stands for “Elon’s”. (You can guess what the “S” and “C” stand for.) By the way, how does the SEC go after Musk’s ability to tweet now that he owns Twitter? Billionaires like Musk have shown time and again they consider themselves above the law. And to a large extent, they are.

Musk has enough wealth that legal penalties are no more than slaps on his wrist, and enough power to control one of the most important ways the public now receives news. Think about it: after years of posting tweets that skirt the law, Musk was given a seat on Twitter’s board (and is probably now negotiating for even more clout). Musk says he wants to “free” the internet. But what he really aims to do is make it even less accountable than it is now, when it’s often impossible to discover who is making the decisions about how algorithms are designed, who is filling social media with lies, who’s poisoning our minds with pseudo-science and propaganda, and who’s deciding which versions of events go viral and which stay under wraps.

Make no mistake: this is not about freedom. It’s about power. In Musk’s vision of Twitter and the internet, he’d be the wizard behind the curtain – projecting on the world’s screen a fake image of a brave new world empowering everyone. In reality, that world would be dominated by the richest and most powerful people in the world, who wouldn’t be accountable to anyone for facts, truth, science or the common good. That’s Musk’s dream. And Trump’s. And Putin’s. And the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth. For the rest of us, it would be a brave new nightmare.

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George Webb Rotterdam

 

 

 

 

Athens strike

 

 

 

 

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Oct 252021
 


Vincent van Gogh Autumn landscape with four trees 1885

 

Fauci Predicts Covid Shots For Kids 5 To 11 By Early November (G.)
Physicians and the Vaccine Tyranny (Blaise Edwards, M.D.)
Dissenters In Medicine, Education Facing Attempted Cancellation (JTN)
Comcast Refuses Pfizer Adverse Effects Ad at Last Minute (GP)
Healthy Mum In Wheelchair After Blood Clot, Stroke ‘Post Covid Vaccine’ (MEN)
Border Patrol To Fire Up To 5,000 Agents Over Vaccine Mandate (OAN)
DeSantis Woos Police Who Lose Jobs Over Vaccine Mandates (JTN)
Hillary Clinton Demands Boris ‘Mandate Vaccines’ (Exp.)
Are The US Supply Chain Disruptions Deliberate? (Martin Armstrong)
Proton Wins Appeal In Swiss Court Over Surveillance Laws (SWI)
Anti-Biden ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Song Censored On Social Media, #1 On iTunes (JTN)

 

 

Kerala. Only state that rejects IVM. 3% of population, 60% of new cases.

 

 

Bahkti
https://twitter.com/i/status/1451646315469885447

 

 


Veteran left-wing Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig sacked for anti vaccine mandate cartoon.

 

 

Risch

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can’t watch that video, sorry. Question is: if someone is capable of doing that to puppies, do you really think they wouldn’t do it to your children?

Fauci Predicts Covid Shots For Kids 5 To 11 By Early November (G.)

Vaccines to protect children ages five to 11 from Covid-19 will be available in the US in early to mid-November, Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s chief medical adviser, predicted on Sunday. A review panel of the US food and drug administration (FDA) found last week that the benefits of Pfizer-BioNTech shots for the younger age group outweighed the risks, setting up an advisory meeting on Tuesday of outside FDA experts who are expected to recommend emergency use authorization. With final approval from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) likely to come the following week, Fauci said he believed pediatric vaccines would start going into arms in short order.

“If all goes well, and we get the regulatory approval and the recommendation from the CDC, it’s entirely possible if not very likely that vaccines will be available for children from five to 11 within the first week or two of November,” Fauci told ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “You never want to get ahead of the FDA in their regulatory decisions, nor the CDC and their advisers on what the recommendation would be, but if you look at the data that’s been made public, the data look good.” Pfizer has claimed its coronavirus vaccine is 91% effective in the five-11 age group. The extension of vaccine availability to those younger than 12 is seen as a key step in getting a pandemic that has killed more than 735,000 in the US under control.

Despite polls showing that more parents than previously are willing to allow their children to be vaccinated, there remains significant hesitance. Only one third of parents with children ages five to 11 say they will vaccinate their child right away, according to Kaiser, while one in four say they will not allow it under any circumstances.

Beagles

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“Even if I survive this round, if the “pandemic” continues, it won’t be long before I am shelved like a can of spam.”

Physicians and the Vaccine Tyranny (Blaise Edwards, M.D.)

I find myself in the position that I must use an alias for fear of reprisal. Those days may be quickly coming to an end, as hospitals are denying requests for vaccine exemptions with impunity. I will likely soon be out the door, with nothing to lose. Even if I survive this round, if the “pandemic” continues, it won’t be long before I am shelved like a can of spam. Doctors need to be called out. From early in the pandemic, it was like a mass hypnosis or forgetfulness of everything we had learned in medical school. Immune system knowledge was shelved and replaced by government dictates. The thought of early outpatient treatment with “off label” drugs that could modulate the immune system was forbidden. We essentially told patients that they had to go home and wait until they were sick enough to be hospitalized, then treatment would begin.

Imagine telling all diabetics that there is no metformin, Glucophage, or insulin. Would we really wait until patients are in diabetic ketoacidosis, and then treat them only at the hospital? It is medical malfeasance of a grand scale. We physicians gave up our training and our reasonable medical thought process. The reasons are multiple. First, it was the easy way out. Second, many of us are employed and fear reprisal. Third, despite what the public thinks, we physicians are not bold leaders, we tend to be sheep, and are afraid of having an entire institution ostracize us or our colleagues to think us crazy.

[..] I, for one, will remember that when we faced a real crisis, the hospitals and many physicians chose money and profit over their own community’s best interest. Perhaps it is time for groups of physicians to get back to running their own healthcare clinics and hospitals. We used to have a code of ethics. We used to put patients first. Not anymore. As for physicians, those who are blindly following the government edicts are culpable in a moral atrocity. Bullying and deriding patients who chose to refrain from this still experimental therapy is an abomination. (You will say it isn’t experimental anymore, to which I would say that just because the government broke its own rules regarding approval, doesn’t make it legal or right). Patients have sincere beliefs for making their choice. Respect their thoughts. Do you yell as much at smokers, drinkers, fornicators, drug abusers, etc? No, I think not. I think you chose to fit in because it gives you a sense of righteousness.

And going so far as to encourage vaccination in children and pregnant women is crazy. There is blood on the hands of any physician who does this. With children, there is no benefit to the vaccine, only harm. They would serve themselves and society better with natural immunity. The vaccine hasn’t been studied on women and their babies. It is pregnancy category X (unknown) but being pushed wholesale on these poor women without proper studies. Shame on you, doctors who are doing this. I certainly have lots to answer for when I meet my maker, but this is on another level. I beg physicians to get back to basics, remember all the epidemiology and immunology that bored us to tears in school. Investigate the real literature and take a stand. Society needs us to do this. Even if you have been vaccinated, help those who are fighting for their lives. Stand up against this forced vaccine tyranny. Support those who have legitimate reasons for declining the jab. If you don’t stand up now, who will stand up for you when you are faced with your choice of yet another booster or your job.

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The Science.

Dissenters In Medicine, Education Facing Attempted Cancellation (JTN)

As tolerance for intellectual diversity continues to narrow within the academic and public health establishments, dissenters in medicine and education are facing a range of professional reprisals and censorship by peers, regulators and Big Tech. The Idaho medical establishment targeted pathologist Ryan Cole’s license to practice shortly after the medical director of America’s Frontline Doctors, which challenges COVID-19 orthodoxy, was appointed to a regional health board. The University of California is putting psychiatrist and bioethics professor Aaron Kheriaty on unpaid leave for refusal to get vaccinated for COVID, the subject of his ongoing lawsuit seeking recognition of natural immunity.

Apart from COVID, a “pro-American” education startup founded by a self-described “deplorable” professor accused YouTube of pretextually suspending its account, preventing its launch advertisement from being seen for several days. The Idaho Medical Association (IMA) asked the Board of Medicine to investigate Cole for “refusing to use accepted and documented medical practices and vaccination and instead prescribing ivermectin,” which the FDA has misleadingly insinuated is purely a treatment for horses. Calling Cole’s views “profoundly wrong” and “dangerous” to the public, IMA said earlier this month: “We believe his practice, as he has described it himself … does more harm than good. It should be stopped.”

IMA CEO Susie Keller told Just the News the Board of Medicine hasn’t responded to its complaint, and in an uncredited statement BOM said it can’t confirm open investigations under state law. While he’s best known for calling vaccines “needle rape,” Cole told KTVB that was his “tongue in cheek” repetition of a shouted suggestion from the audience he was addressing. In a statement responding to the letter, Cole asked the IMA to discuss their concerns with him. “Filing a complaint and threatening my license is unprofessional and sows distrust within the medical community and with patients in our state,” he said. Kheriaty, who teaches at UC Irvine, was put on “investigatory leave” earlier this month for flouting the university system’s vaccine mandate, which he said took away half his income that comes from non-academic work. He’s losing all of it starting Nov. 2. “I am working on setting up or joining a private practice so that I can continue to treat my patients and earn an income next month,” he wrote Wednesday.

Several other UC employees contacted him who received the same “notice of intent to suspend without pay” letter, Kheriaty said. He quoted from a supportive letter he received earlier from a black professor and “man of the left” who has remained silent “for one of the first times in my life” because he is “one lost paycheck away from economic precarity.” An Indiana University immunologist who has questioned the effectiveness of masks and calls evidence for COVID interventions “underwhelming” has yet to face any serious threat, he told Just the News, with the caveat “Give it some time.” “Most of my writing has been for the local paper to try to change local attitudes, and many people in town know me or my boss, even if we are angering them,” Steve Templeton wrote in an email. He recently started a public newsletter, “Fear of a Microbial Planet,” and is working on a book with the same title.

8 doctors

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Keep on pushing.

Comcast Refuses Pfizer Adverse Effects Ad at Last Minute (GP)

13-year-old Maddie de Garay volunteered for the Pfizer vaccine clinical trials. According to her parents, she volunteered to help, but did not expect that she would suffer significant Pfizer vaccine-related injuries. Maddie’s mother wants to warn other parents that the COVID vaccine is not safe. But Comcast pulled the mother’s ad telling Maddie’s story. Maddie’s mother will be testifying at the FDA’s VRBPAC Meeting on Pfizer Data on October 26th. The public can submit public comments to the FDA for its VRBPAC meeting on Pfizer Data taking place 10/26 for Children ages 5-11.

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“As part of the operation she had a part of her skull removed..”

Healthy Mum In Wheelchair After Blood Clot, Stroke ‘Post Covid Vaccine’ (MEN)

A 43-year-old mum who thought says she was doing ‘the right thing’ in getting her Covid vaccine – before suffering from a blood clot and stroke. Kerry Hurt, who in now in a wheelchair, had to have life saving treatment after a blood clot formed on her brain a week after having her AstraZeneca vaccine in April. As part of the operation she had a part of her skull removed and suffered a ‘massive stroke’ which resulted in the left side of her body being paralysed, YorkshireLive reported. A week later fluid built up on her brain which required another life saving operation to insert a drain in her skull, which required another three weeks in intensive care at the Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield. After nearly five months in hospital Mrs Hurt has now returned home where the downstairs area has been converted to better support her in her current condition.

Doctors attributed the complications to the vaccine and Mrs Hurt’s husband Patrick, who was by his wife’s bedside during the months in hospital, emphasised that the family were not ‘anti-vaccination peddlers’. He called on the government to provide better support to families like his though, saying: “Millions of people have been helped, but for those who have suffered, surely they should be given the support they need, as after all we were only doing what we were asked for the benefit of all. “We were a healthy couple that went on six mile walks at the weekend and we didn’t expect anything like this.” Mr Hurt, of Kiveton, Rotherham, added that he has spoken to lawyers about how to claim support or compensation as a result of what has happened but they have not wanted to take their case on.

“We know it’s saved a lot of people but for us it went wrong and they need to support us,” he said. Mother-of-two Mrs Hurt added: “We thought we were doing the right thing by taking the vaccine but obviously it all went a bit pear shaped for me.” Mrs Hurt has been unable to return to her job at Santander and the conversion at home cost over £4,000, which is why her brother David Poucher has set up a GoFundMe page to help her and her husband.

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There is no mandate.

Border Patrol To Fire Up To 5,000 Agents Over Vaccine Mandate (OAN)

U.S. Border Patrol plans to fire agents who don’t receive the COVID-19 vaccine. According to reports on Friday, the agency is looking to enforce Joe Biden’s federal vaccine mandate by the end of November. They said those who refuse to do so without an approved religious or medical exemption could face action up to termination. Critics have said this would only further complicate the crisis at the southern border, where over 1.5 million illegal immigrants have crossed in 2021 alone. Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs (R) said he believes as many as 5,000 agents could separate from Border Patrol over the issue.


“Think of how many people, like on the border, Border Patrol. How many of these Border Patrol agents are going to separate? I’ve been told it could be as many as 5,000,” said Biggs. “And if that many were to leave, as porous as our border already is, you’d truly have a national security crisis along your border.” According to the Department of Homeland Security, the last date to receive the vaccine before being terminated is Nov. 8. “DHS is actively working to ensure compliance with President Biden’s executive order requiring that all federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 by November 22, except in limited circumstances where an exception is required by law,” said CBP Media Relations Headquarters Branch Chief Justin Long.

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Smart move. You’ll get the ones who are brave. And can think.

DeSantis Woos Police Who Lose Jobs Over Vaccine Mandates (JTN)

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said Sunday that his state is “actively working to recruit out of state law enforcement” as some lose their jobs due to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. DeSantis told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” that he’s hoping to sign legislation in the next legislative session that will give a $5,000 bonus to out-of-state law enforcement officials who relocate to Florida. “In Florida, not only are we going to want to protect the law enforcement and all the jobs, we’re actually actively working to recruit out-of-state law enforcement because we do have needs in our police and our sheriffs’ departments,” DeSantis said. “So, in the next legislative session, I’m going to hopefully sign legislation that gives a $5,000 bonus to any out-of-state law enforcement that relocates in Florida.


So, NYPD, Minneapolis, Seattle — if you’re not being treated well, we’ll treat you better here. You can fill important needs for us, and we’ll compensate you as a result.” DeSantis’ comments follow Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police First Vice President Michael Mette’s rebuke last week of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s city employee vaccine mandate, as he encouraged officers to not give in, Fox News reported. What President Biden’s vaccine mandate “will do on a practical level, in addition to being unconstitutional, in addition to … taking away people’s personal choices, is it will wreak havoc in the economy,” said DeSantis, “because even if a small percentage of these folks end up losing their jobs or voluntarily walking away, you’re going to have huge disruptions in medical, in logistics, in law enforcement. “So in Florida our policy’s very clear. We’re going to have a special session, and we’re going to say nobody should lose their job based off these injections.”

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Shaddap Ya Face.

Hillary Clinton Demands Boris ‘Mandate Vaccines’ (Exp.)

Hillary Clinton has demanded Prime Minister Boris Johnson mandate vaccines and sack anti-vaxxers in an extraordinary intervention into British politics.The former Democrat presidential candidate told Andrew Marr Mr Johnson should implement draconian rules and sanctions around vaccine uptake in order to force infection rates down ahead of winter. Mrs Clinton said: “I do think it is imperative that the Prime Minister do what he can to stop the rise in Covid in the UK. “He doesn’t need to shut the society down but he does need to mandate vaccines.” Mr Marr clarified that mandating vaccines would see the implementation of vaccine passports in Britain, which Mrs Clinton wholeheartedly agreed was the correct way forward.

She then went on to explain how the health sector in New York has taken a hard line against vaccine hesitancy and implemented a mandate. While in an extraordinary revelation the Democrat told Andrew Marr how 1,000 medical staff were fired from their jobs at a single medical group in the city after refusing to get vaccinated. Mrs Clinton said: “I think you have got to make it clear that we are not going to go back into lockdown – that is not going to happen. “But if you don’t get vaccinated if you don’t have proof of vaccination when you go into a club or a restaurant… “And employers don’t enforce vaccines, we may see some problems here in the UK as the weather gets colder and people are forced back inside again.”

Her comments come as Boris Johnson chose to scrap vaccine passports, while Wales and Scotland have now rolled them out. In both countries the passes are required to enter nightclubs and large events. Anyone aged over 16 who has been fully vaccinated in Wales or England can use the NHS Covid Pass to prove their status. The passport is compulsory for over-18s who wish to attend large events.

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“Starve them out, let the dissenters suffer, and those who bought into this agenda will turn against them.”

Are The US Supply Chain Disruptions Deliberate? (Martin Armstrong)

Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo may have accidentally leaked the cause of America’s supply chain issues. “The reality is the only way we’re going to get to a place where we work through this transition is if everyone in America and everyone around the world gets vaccinated,” Adeyemo admitted in an interview with ABC News. Starve them out, let the dissenters suffer, and those who bought into this agenda will turn against them. Adeyemo said that the Biden Administration has already provided “the resources the American people need to make it to the other side.”Basically, everyone should give into the vaccine mandate or face the consequences. They are masking authoritarianism as utilitarianism.

The vaccine has not been mandated at the federal level in the US, yet, but it is apparent that the government plans to make life as difficult as possible for those who do not obey. Echoing the Fed, Adeyemo said that inflation is “transitory,” and “as part of the transition we are seeing higher pieces for some of the things people have to buy… That’s exactly why the president was focused in the American Rescue Plan in ensuring on getting stimulus into the hands of the American people, so they’d be able to buy the products they need.” Yes, the government expects us, the Great Unwashed, to be thankful for their measly handouts to purchase unavailable products at an all-time high. There is a reason people have recently nicknamed the president “bare shelves Biden,” with the hashtags #BareShelvesBiden and #EmptyShelvesJoe becoming a viral sensation.

Although the Biden Administration met with the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which handles 40% of the nation’s goods, the promise of a 24/7 operation has not yet occurred. There is no ETA for when the ports will begin 24/7 operations either. Some ships are allegedly waiting 12 days at anchor before reaching the dock, and over 60 vessels are idled in the San Pedro Bay at the moment. With one of the nation’s busiest shopping holidays approaching (Black Friday) followed by ongoing seasonal shopping, this matter is likely to turn ugly.

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Yeah yeah. “The recording of IP addresses is only allowed in “extreme criminal cases”, but they “shared the IP address of one of its users as part of a French investigation that led to the arrest of climate activists..”

Proton Wins Appeal In Swiss Court Over Surveillance Laws (SWI)

On Friday, the Swiss Federal Administrative Court upheld Proton’s appeal against the Swiss Post and Telecommunications Surveillance Service (PTSS) over obligations to store data and monitor email traffic. The court confirmed that email services can’t be considered telecommunications providers in Switzerland, and therefore are not subject to data retention requirements. Proton founder and CEO Andy Yen said the ruling was an “important first step” in its campaign to advance privacy and freedom, reported Reuters. “We expect there to be further attempts to force tech companies to undermine privacy in both Switzerland and abroad, and we are committed to continuing to challenge this through both our encryption technology and through the courts,” he said.

PTSS had decided in September 2020 that Proton could no longer benefit from limited surveillance obligations but had to store data necessary for surveillance and be available to answer questions. The court overturned this and sent it back on appeal. Last month ProtonMail found itself in the centre of a social media storm after it emerged that the company shared the IP address of one of its users as part of a French investigation that led to the arrest of climate activists. However, the company said that it had to comply with a Swiss court order to provide data that helped identify the activists.

From its inception, the company has prided itself on strict user privacy and security. The recording of IP addresses is only allowed in “extreme criminal cases” according to the company’s transparency report. ProtonMail was founded in 2013 at the initiative of a group of scientists from CERN in Geneva and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Proton says it is the largest secure email provider and uses end-to-end encryption and state-of-the-art security features.

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The song features the lyrics ‘pandemic ain’t real, they just planned it,’ and ‘Biden said the jab stop the spread, it was lies.’

Anti-Biden ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Song Censored On Social Media, #1 On iTunes (JTN)

A new anti-Biden “Let’s Go Brandon” song by rapper Bryson Gray has been censored by both YouTube and Instagram, but still reached #1 on iTunes. “Let’s Go Brandon” is a meme that began during a NASCAR race, where the fans were chanting “F— Joe Biden,” but NBC reporter Kelli Stavast claimed they were saying “Let’s Go Brandon” for the winner of the race, Brandon Brown. Last week, another “Let’s Go Brandon” song, by rapper Loza Alexander, hit #1 on iTunes’ hip-hop chart. Gray’s new “Let’s Go Brandon” song has reached #1 on iTunes, despite YouTube taking it down for “medical misinformation.” The social media site first banned the lyric video, and then the music video of the song was taken down afterwards, according to Fox News.

“YouTube has banned ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ song from YouTube due to ‘medical information,'” Gray tweeted. “What medical misinformation is in the song? Whoa.” Responding to Gray’s tweet, YouTube said, “Jumping in – we’re passing this along to the right team for a re-review. We’ll share updates once we hear back from them. Appreciate your patience in the meantime.” Gray told Fox News that he has yet to hear back from YouTube. As of Sunday, Gray’s song has become the #1 downloaded song on iTunes, according to PopVortex rankings. “WE DID IT. FROM BANNED ON YOUTUBE TO PASSING ADELE ON THE ITUNES CHARTS TO BECOME THE #1 SONG IN THE COUNTRY!” Gray tweeted.

“Stop being afraid of censorship. Stop being afraid to be cancelled. STAND UP. Thank y’all so much! KEEP IT GOING!” Gray replied to his post showing that Instagram also banned his song’s music video, and responded, “Haha cute but it’s too late.” “Why is the most censored rapper in the country someone that doesn’t even curse in songs?” the rapper told Fox News. “Why can you rap about murder, sex, and drugs but when I rap about questioning the government I get banned? Is this still America?”

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Neil Oliver

 

 

 

 

This woman is a psychopath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Apr 182021
 
 April 18, 2021  Posted by at 8:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  23 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Green Wheat Field With Cypress 1889

 

Viral Sequence Suggests Coronavirus Jumped Between Hotel Rooms (G.)
The Blood-Clot Problem Is Multiplying (Atl.)
UK Church Leaders Warn Against ‘Dangerous’ Vaccine Passport Plans (G.)
Denying the Demonic (Edward Curtin)
Ukrainian Envoy: NATO or Nuclear Weapons (Antiwar)
US Laments ‘Unwanted Escalation’ & Warns It Reserves Right To Retaliate (RT)
Czech Govt Expels 18 Russian Diplomats Over 2014 Blast (Y!)
Macron Urges ‘Clear Red Lines’ With Russia Amid Buildup Near Ukraine (Y!)
Russia, Ukraine Expel Diplomats As Tensions Soar (Y!)
CNN Viewership Down By Half Since Biden Took Office (ZH)
Biden Describes Border Surge As ‘Crisis’ For First Time (JTN)

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Florida: No lockdowns or masks
• Texas: Ended lockdowns, restrictions and mask mandates on 10th March 2021
• California: Full lockdown and mask mandate

 

 

What type of ventilation do they have?

Viral Sequence Suggests Coronavirus Jumped Between Hotel Rooms (G.)

Covid-19 appears to have jumped between neighbouring rooms in hotel quarantine in Sydney after seven cases of people arriving from different countries were revealed to have the same viral sequence. NSW Health said today that it had been notified on Friday that the returned travellers had the same viral sequence. The cases may have to be reclassified as locally acquired. The seven cases came from two family groups who arrived from different countries on different days. They stayed in adjacent rooms on the 12th floor of the Adina Apartments Hotel at Sydney’s Town Hall.


Staff who worked on the floor when the original case was believed to have been infectious – between 8 and 11 April – are self-isolating. NSW Health said all security staff who worked on the 12th floor at the time had had at least one vaccination. Other people in quarantine on the 12th floor at the time have all been retested and returned negative results.

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It’s certainly growing. Interesting: the producers have all received immunity. But how about the governments that push these things onto their people?

The Blood-Clot Problem Is Multiplying (Atl.)

For weeks, Americans looked on as other countries grappled with case reports of rare, sometimes fatal blood abnormalities among those who had received the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19. That vaccine has not yet been authorized by the FDA, so restrictions on its use throughout Europe did not get that much attention in the United States. But Americans experienced a rude awakening this week when public-health officials called for a pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, after a few cases of the same, unusual blood-clotting syndrome turned up among the millions of people in the country who have received it.

The world is now engaged in a vaccination program unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes, and with it, unprecedented scrutiny of ultra-rare but dangerous side effects. An estimated 852 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered across 154 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. Last week, the European Medicines Agency, which regulates medicines in the European Union, concluded that the unusual clotting events were indeed a side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine; by that point, more than 220 cases of dangerous blood abnormalities had been identified. Only half a dozen cases have been documented so far among Americans vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and a causal link has not yet been established. But the latest news suggests that the scope of this problem might be changing.

Whether the blood issues are ultimately linked to only one vaccine, or two vaccines, or more, it’s absolutely crucial to remember the unrelenting death toll from the coronavirus itself—and the fact that COVID-19 can set off its own chaos in the circulatory system, with blood clots showing up in “almost every organ.” That effect of the disease is just one of many reasons the European Medicines Agency has emphasized that the “overall benefits of the [AstraZeneca] vaccine in preventing COVID-19 outweigh the risks of side effects.” The same is true of Johnson & Johnson’s. These vaccines are saving countless lives across multiple continents.

But it’s also crucial to determine the biological cause of any vaccine-related blood conditions. This global immunization project presents a lot of firsts: the first authorized use of mRNA vaccines like the ones from Pfizer and Moderna; the first worldwide use of adenovirus vectors for vaccines like AstraZeneca’s, Johnson & Johnson’s, and Sputnik V; and the first attempt to immunize against a coronavirus. Which, if any, of these new frontiers might be linked to serious side effects? Which, if any, of the other vaccines could be drawn into this story, too? How can a tiny but disturbing risk be mitigated as we fight our way out of this pandemic? And what might be the implications for vaccine design in the years to come?

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Amen:

“For the church of Jesus Christ to shut out those deemed by the state to be social undesirables would be anathema to us and a denial of the truth of the gospel.”

UK Church Leaders Warn Against ‘Dangerous’ Vaccine Passport Plans (G.)

Hundreds of UK church leaders have told the prime minister that plans to use vaccine passports for entry into venues is “one of the most dangerous policy proposals ever to be made in the history of British politics” with the “potential to bring about the end of liberal democracy as we know it”. An open letter to Boris Johnson signed by more than 1,250 clergy from different Christian denominations across the UK says the “introduction of vaccine passports would constitute an unethical form of coercion and violation of the principle of informed consent”. It says people may have valid reasons for being unable or unwilling to be vaccinated against Covid, “including, for some Christians, serious issues of conscience related to the ethics of vaccine manufacture or testing”.

Covid status certificates would be “divisive, discriminatory, and destructive”, it adds. “We risk creating a two-tier society, a medical apartheid in which an underclass of people who decline vaccination are excluded from significant areas of public life. There is also a legitimate fear that this scheme would be the thin end of the wedge. “This scheme has the potential to bring about the end of liberal democracy as we know it and to create a surveillance state in which the government uses technology to control certain aspects of citizens’ lives. As such, this constitutes one of the most dangerous policy proposals ever to be made in the history of British politics.” The letter says there is no logical sense in terms of protecting others in introducing Covid status certificates as a requirement for entry for venues, which could include churches.

“If the vaccines are highly effective in preventing significant disease, as seems to be the evidence from trial results to date, then those who have been vaccinated have already received protection; there is no benefit to them of other people being vaccinated,” it says. Describing the proposal as “illiberal and dangerous”, the signatories say: “As Christian leaders we … envisage no circumstances in which we could close our doors to those who do not have a vaccine passport, negative test certificate, or any other ‘proof of health’. For the church of Jesus Christ to shut out those deemed by the state to be social undesirables would be anathema to us and a denial of the truth of the gospel.”

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“The FDA issued Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for these inoculations only under the proviso that they may make an infection less severe. Yet millions have obediently taken a shot that doesn’t do what they think it does.”

Denying the Demonic (Edward Curtin)

In March of last year as the coronavirus panic was starting, I wrote a somewhat flippant article saying that the obsession with buying and hoarding toilet paper was the people’s vaccine. My point was simple: excrement and death have long been associated in cultural history and in the Western imagination with the evil devil, Satan, the Lord of the underworld, the Trickster, the Grand Master who rules the pit of smelly death, the place below where bodies go. The psychoanalytic literature is full of examples of death anxiety revealed in anal dreams of shit-filled overflowing toilets and people pissing in their pants. Ernest Becker put it simply in The Denial of Death: “No mistake – the turd is mankind’s real threat because it reminds people of death.”

The theological literature is also full of warnings about the devil’s wiles. So too the Western classics from Aeschylus to Melville. The demonic has an ancient pedigree and has various names. Rational people tend to dismiss all this as superstitious nonsense. This is hubris. The Furies always exact their revenge when their existence is denied. For they are part of ourselves, not alien beings, as the tragedy of human history has shown us time and again. Since excremental visions and the fear of death haunt humans – the skull at the banquet as William James put it – the perfect symbol of protection is toilet paper that will keep you safe and clean and free of any reminder of the fear of death running through a panicked world. It’s a magic trick of course, an unconscious way of thinking you are protecting yourself; a form of self-hypnosis.

One year later, magical thinking has taken a different form and my earlier flippancy has turned darker. You can’t hoard today’s toilet paper but you can get them: RNA inoculations, misnamed vaccines. People are lined up for them now as they are being told incessantly to “get your shot.” They are worse than toilet paper. At least toilet paper serves a practical function. Real vaccines, as the word’s etymology – Latin, vaccinus, from cows, the cowpox virus vaccine first used by British physician Edward Jenner in 1800 to prevent smallpox – involve the use of a small amount of a virus. The RNA inoculations are not vaccines. To say they are is bullshit and has nothing to do with cows. To call them vaccines is linguistic mind control.

These experimental inoculations do not prevent the vaccinated from getting infected with the “virus” nor do they prevent transmission of the alleged virus. When they were approved recently by the FDA that was made clear. The FDA issued Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for these inoculations only under the proviso that they may make an infection less severe. Yet millions have obediently taken a shot that doesn’t do what they think it does. What does that tell us? Hundreds of millions of people have taken an injection that allows a bio-reactive “gene-therapy” molecule to be injected into their bodies because of fear, ignorance, and a refusal to consider that the people who are promoting this are evil and have ulterior motives. Not that they mean well, but that they are evil and have evil intentions. Does this sound too extreme? Radically evil? Come on!

So what drives the refusal to consider that demonic forces are at work with the corona crisis? Why do the same people who get vaccinated believe that a PCR test that can’t, according to its inventor Kary Mullis, test for this so-called virus, believe in the fake numbers of positive “cases”? Do these people even know if the virus has ever been isolated? Such credulity is an act of faith, not science or confirmed fact. Is it just the fear of death that drives such thinking? Or is it something deeper than ignorance and propaganda that drives this incredulous belief?

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The Ukraine government really is this crazy.

Ukrainian Envoy: NATO or Nuclear Weapons (Antiwar)

Today Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seconded a statement by Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili that “it is time for concrete proposals for Ukraine and Georgia to obtain a NATO MAP and a plan to join the EU.” The two countries have been paired as partners for future NATO membership, with both being promised membership in the global military bloc at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania in 2008. Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, seconded Zelensky’s demand that NATO admit Ukraine as a full member, stating that only that move would prevent a Russian invasion: “The only possibility for this [to prevent alleged invasion plans] is for Ukraine to finally become a NATO member.”

He also claimed that had his country been in NATO in 2014 the secession of Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea would not have occurred; neither would the now seven-year was in the Donbass. He neglected to state whether the U.S.-engineered uprising and overthrow of an internationally-recognized government would also have occurred. Most likely not, as the populations of NATO nations are not allowed to elect, or if elect, keep any government Washington and Brussels view with disapprobation. The envoy then made this provocative statement: “Ukraine has no other choice: either we are part of an alliance such as NATO and are doing our part to make this Europe stronger, or we have the only option – to arm by ourselves, and maybe think about nuclear status again. How else can we guarantee our defense?”

He also claimed there were 90,000 Russian military personnel deployed to the Donbass border and to Crimea; in his words, “We are dealing with the largest troop movement in Russia since the Second World War.” Which is arrant nonsense. When the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 a third of total Soviet nuclear weapons were in Ukraine; with 1,700 warheads in the country it had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world after the U.S. and Russia. In 1994 Ukraine joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear-weapon nation. It’s that decision the above-cited ambassador suggested be reversed. In fairness, this isn’t the first time the question of Ukraine developing its own nuclear weapons capacity has been broached.

Over the past twenty years NATO-trained military leaders have raised the issue. But never before, and never during a crisis remotely comparable to the present one, has the issue been phrased so brutally: either place Ukraine under NATO Article 5 mutual military assistance status – and NATO acknowledges itself a nuclear alliance – or Ukraine will reassert itself as a nuclear power. The shelling of the Donbass will be mild in comparison to what an armed conflict between a nuclear Ukraine and nuclear Russia would portend.

Russia does the exact same thing the US does and it’s labeled escalation.

US Laments ‘Unwanted Escalation’ & Warns It Reserves Right To Retaliate (RT)

As Russia blacklisted eight current and former American officials and sent ten diplomats packing in retaliation for US sanctions, the State Department has lamented the “escalatory” response and said that Washington might respond. “Our recent actions were proportionate and appropriate to Russia’s harmful activities. Today’s announcement by the Russian government was escalatory and regrettable,” a State Department spokesman said in a statement on Friday evening. “It is not in our interest to get into an escalatory cycle, but we reserve the right to respond to any Russian retaliation against the United States.” Foggy Bottom was responding to the announcement that Moscow will expel 10 US diplomats, restricting the number of short-term visas for State Department staff to 10 per year, and ban the US embassy from hiring citizens of Russia and third countries as administrative staff.

The “open ground” memorandum of 1992, allowing US diplomats to move freely around Russia, has also been “declared invalid due to systematic violations” by Americans, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. There are also plans to “halt the activities… of American foundations and NGOs controlled by the Department of State and other US government agencies” since the US “shows no intention of scaling back its systematic subversive efforts.” These measures were a response to President Joe Biden’s executive orders sanctioning 30 Russian individuals and entities for allegedly interfering in the 2020 US presidential election and alleged involvement in the SolarWinds hack – both of which Russia has vehemently denied. Biden also expelled 10 Russian diplomats and banned US companies from trading in Russian sovereign debt.

Russia also chose to respond to Biden’s March 2 decision to sanction several Russian officials accused – with no evidence provided – of involvement in the alleged “poisoning” of opposition blogger Alexey Navalny. On Friday, Moscow banned eight current and former US officials from entering Russia. The ban applies to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Director of Federal Bureau of Prisons Michael Carvajal, and President Joe Biden’s domestic policy adviser Susan Rice. Former national security adviser John Bolton made the Russian blacklist as well. As did James Woolsey, who ran the CIA between 1993 and 1995 – and recently authored a book ‘Operation Dragon: Inside the Kremlin’s Secret War on America’, which accused the Soviet Union of assassinating US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963.

The unusual step to publicize the response was taken “in view of the unprecedented complications in Russia-US relations provoked by Washington,” the Foreign Ministry said. US sanctions and messages from Washington “show that Washington is not willing to listen and does not appreciate the restraint that we have displayed despite the tensions that have been purposefully fueled” by Washington since the Obama administration, said the Foreign Ministry. [..] Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters on Friday that Russia could have inflicted “painful measures” on US businesses, but chose not to do so – at this time.

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Some things are just too insane:

“Czech police said on Saturday they were looking for two men with Russian passports that had also been used by the suspects in the 2018 poisoning attempt on Sergei Skripal in Britain..”

Mark Ames: “If I understand this right, apparently GRU thought it’d be smart to use the same 2 spies to carry out 2 separate deadly operations in NATOland—2014 bombing in Czech Rep, 2018 Skripal poisoning—using exact same aliases & fake passports in both operations.”

Czech Govt Expels 18 Russian Diplomats Over 2014 Blast (Y!)

The Czech government said Saturday it would expel 18 Russian diplomats identified by local intelligence as secret agents of the Russian SVR and GRU services that are suspected of involvement in a 2014 explosion. Czech police also said later they were seeking two Russians in connection with the blast, which killed two people, with passports used by the suspects in the attempted poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in 2018. “Eighteen employees of the Russian embassy must leave our republic within 48 hours,” Foreign Minister Jan Hamacek told reporters. Prime Minister Andrej Babis said Czech authorities had “clear evidence” linking GRU officers from unit 29155 to the blast in a military ammunition warehouse near the eastern Czech village of Vrbetice.

He added that he had received the information on Friday, without explaining why the investigation had taken so long. “The explosion led to huge material damage and posed a serious threat to the lives of many local people, but above all it killed two citizens,” Babis said. The blast occurred on October 16, 2014 at a warehouse with 58 tonnes of ammunition. It was followed months later by another big blast at a nearby warehouse with 98 tonnes of ammunition. The Czech organised crime squad (NCOZ) said it was looking for two men using Russian passports in relation to the explosions. The passports bear the names of Alexander Petrov, born in 1979, and Ruslan Boshirov, born in 1978, and their holders are also wanted in Britain in connection with Skripal’s poisoning in Salisbury.

Russia denied involvement in the poisoning but some 300 diplomats were sent home in subsequent tit-for-tat expulsions. “The two men were present on Czech territory in… October 2014” when the Vrbetice blast occurred, the NCOZ said, adding that the two men also used Tajik and Moldovan identities. Babis said the expulsion of 18 diplomats had the full support of President Milos Zeman, a veteran leftwinger who has fostered close ties with both Moscow and Beijing. Zeman has repeatedly spoken out against his country’s Security Information Service (BIS), which has accused Russian intelligence services of orchestrating recent cyberattacks on the Czech foreign ministry and other targets.

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You said what? Ha ha ha!

“I do prefer constructive dialogue, but to have a constructive and efficient dialogue, you need credibility.”

Macron Urges ‘Clear Red Lines’ With Russia Amid Buildup Near Ukraine (Y!)

French President Emmanuel Macron said the international community has to “define clear red lines with Russia,” in an interview extract released Saturday, adding that countries must be ready to impose sanctions in case of “unacceptable behavior.” His remarks, made during an interview with the US network CBS, came amid high tensions over a major military buildup by Russian forces along the border with Ukraine. Macron said the world needed to make it clear to Moscow that while it preferred “open and frank dialogue,” it will not shy from imposing sanctions after any “unacceptable behavior.” “Indeed, we have to sanction. This is what we did after (Russia annexed Crimea in 2014) or after a series of crises which happen. And I think we have to define clear red lines with Russia. This is the only way to be credible.”


He added: “I think that sanctions are not sufficient in itself, in themselves, but sanctions are part of the package. I do prefer constructive dialogue, but to have a constructive and efficient dialogue, you need credibility.” Russia is believed to have deployed tens of thousands of soldiers near its border with Ukraine and in Crimea. Clashes along the border, which had nearly ceased after a cease-fire reached last summer, have recently resumed. On Thursday, US President Joe Biden announced financial sanctions against Moscow and the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats over a massive series of cyber attacks against US targets, as well as over Russian interference in American elections. In addition, eight people linked to the “occupation” of Crimea were sanctioned.

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Ukraine tries to resemble an actual country.

Russia, Ukraine Expel Diplomats As Tensions Soar (Y!)

Russia on Saturday said it would expel a Ukrainian diplomat, prompting an immediate pledge of retaliation from Kiev, further escalating tensions over Moscow’s troop build-up on Ukraine’s eastern flank. The detention of a Ukrainian consul in the second city Saint Petersburg comes at a time of global concern of a repeat of Moscow’s 2014 aggression, when Russia annexed the peninsula of Crimea and backed separatists in Ukraine’s east. Moscow claimed the Ukrainian diplomat had been caught “red-handed” trying to obtain sensitive information. In response, the Ukrainian foreign ministry protested “the illegal” detention of its diplomat and said Kiev would expel a senior Russian diplomat. Kiev has been battling Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since 2014 and clashes intensified early this year, effectively shredding a ceasefire agreed last July.


Around 30 Ukrainian troops have been killed since the start of the year, compared to 50 last year. Most of them were victims of sniper fire. Russia has detained a number of Ukrainian nationals on suspicion of spying in recent years but the arrest of a diplomat is rare. “A Ukrainian diplomat, a consul of Ukraine’s Consulate General in Saint Petersburg, Alexander Sosonyuk, has been detained by Russia’s FSB,” the security service said in a statement, using the Russian language spelling of his name. He was held on Friday, the security service said. Kiev said the diplomat had spent several hours in detention. The Russian foreign ministry said Saturday it had summoned Ukraine’s charge d’affaires Vasyl Pokotylo and told him that the Ukrainian diplomat had 72 hours to leave the country “beginning April 19”.

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Clown News Network.

CNN Viewership Down By Half Since Biden Took Office (ZH)

While CNN may no longer be torturing people in airports, voluntary viewership has fallen over 50% in multiple categories since President Biden took office, according to Fox News. Who knew that their best move during the 2020 election would have been to help Trump win, instead of helping Biden. In the first three weeks of 2021, the network averaged 2.2 million viewers – only to plummet to just one million viewers – a decline of 54%. Among the key advertising demographic of adults age 25-54, ratings are down 60%. From December 28 through Inauguration day, viewership went from 617,000 viewers in that demographic to just 244,000 since Biden took office.

“CNN’s liberal primetime hosts Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon haven’t been able to keep their audiences under the new administration, either. CNN averaged 3.1 million viewers from 8-11 p.m. from Dec. 28 through Inauguration Day but only 1.4 million since for a whopping 55-percent decline. Over the same time period, CNN’s primetime lineup lost 63 percent of its viewers among the crucial demo.” -Fox News. CNN also fared worse than liberal competitor MSNBC, which lost ‘only’ 34% of its total-day viewers, and 30% of primetime viewers under Biden. Fox News points out, of course, that their viewership has remained mostly flat – as declines remained in the single digits.


When asked if he was worried about the ratings disaster, CNN host Don Lemon told the New York Times’ podcaster “Sway”: “No. I’m not worried about it … Trump was a horrible person. And he was terrible for the country. And it is better for all — for the world that he is no longer the President of the United States,” adding “So if that means that cable news ratings go down? Aww. So I’m not really that concerned about it. I would prefer that my ratings go down and Trump not be in office than my ratings be sky-high and him be there. That’s the honest truth.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1382529326839697409

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“..liberal Democrats complained.”

Biden Describes Border Surge As ‘Crisis’ For First Time (JTN)

President Biden on Saturday called the historic border surge a “crisis” for the first time, even as he pushed ahead with plans to increase the caps for refugees admitted into the United States. ”We’re going to increase the number [of refugees],” he said at a news conference. “The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people. We couldn’t do two things at once. But now we are going to increase the number.” His comments came one day after the Biden administration had to do a flip-flop, first announcing it was freezing refugee caps at the same 15,000 level that President Trump had created and then retreating a few hours later when liberal Democrats complained.


Biden had said in February he planned to raise the cap to 125,000, next year while his administration had suggested the number might increase to 62,000 for this year. The original announcement Friday was met with outrage by far-left Democrats, who then applauded the reversal. “This is a testament to the power that people’s movements, community advocates, & progressive coalitions have built,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

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