Jun 232022
 
 June 23, 2022  Posted by at 8:28 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  28 Responses »


Georges Seurat Study for “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” 1884

 

Why Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky Won’t Say Ukraine Is Winning the War (NW)
Jay Powell: Not Russia That Created U.S. Inflation, It Is Joe Biden Policy (CTH)
Exile on Main Street: The Sound of the Unipolar World Fading Away (Escobar)
Russia Says West Is Spreading Lies About Causes of World’s Food Crisis (R.)
Letter from Faina Savenkova (Saker)
Covid Vaccines More Likely to Put You in Hospital Than Keep You Out (DS)
We Must Never Forget (Siglaugsson)
The Neocon’s Dream – Decolonize Russia, Re-colonize China (MoA)
China’s Ties to Russia Looms Large at NATO’s Madrid Meeting (Celente)
Sri Lanka Economy Has ‘Completely Collapsed’ – PM (Sky)
Ghislaine Maxwell: US Prosecutors Urge 30-Year Minimum Prison Sentence (G.)
Extraditing Assange Would Be a “Legalized” Rendition to US Torture (Kanji)
Assange Put on Suicide Watch After Patel Decision (Lauria)

 

 

My initial take was slightly different: Get your photo taken with Ben Stiller, and you’ll be taken down shortly afterward…

 

 

Bottom Gun

 

 

 

 

“Germany shuts down nuclear reactors.
Then buys gas from Russia.
Then Russia cuts gas supply.
Then Germany reopens coal plants.
The coal is bought from Russia.”

 

 

Dore Tucker

 

 

 

 

 

 

Priceless. Newsweek outperforms itself.

Why Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky Won’t Say Ukraine Is Winning the War (NW)

Russia had lots of guns and materiel but it proved to be a hulking monster on the ground: poorly led, badly trained. Seventy-two hours became a week, then another, then the week after, then right after the next victory, then next month, and now, in the words of NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, “years.” Yet despite the setbacks, somehow the widespread notion has remained that mighty Russia will inevitably prevail over a weaker Ukraine. It won’t. At some turning point, after those 72 hours, after the bogged-down convoy, after the valiant and heartbreaking defense of Mariupol, after the failure to establish air superiority, after running low on precision weapons, after the withdrawal from the north, after more and more friends entered the fight on Ukraine’s side—Javelin, Stinger, Switchblade, M777—after deaths and injuries in the thousands, after desertions and refusals to fight, after failure upon failure on the battlefield, after one month, after two, after 100 days, the tide turned.

Yet scarcely anyone wants to say that Russia has lost. Ukrainian President Zelensky, desperate for external support and more guns, motivator of the people and rouser of the troops, has to keep the tension high and the prospects dire, lest all of the urgency and attention dissipate. President Biden and his fellow Western leaders speak of the defense of freedom and democracy, of the heightened threat to Europe and the free world, of the inevitability of China following Putin’s path, all to feed the military beast, excite the public, keep “national security” at the top of everyone’s agenda. And Putin obviously can’t admit it, determined equally to stay in power and to avoid the humiliation and danger of defeat. Putin doesn’t motivate the troops—he sends them. For weeks, Ukraine has been releasing snippets of intercepted conversations between these lowly soldiers and their parents, wives and girlfriends back home.

The soldiers complain that there is no information and no support. They are confused about the point of the war and its objectives. They are not allowed to take a break from fighting. They are poorly equipped and supplied. There is not enough medicine or doctors. “Our command has left,” one soldier told his wife, referring to platoon and company commanders who were deserting their units and the battlefield. “Well, they didn’t leave– they dropped their weapons.” It’s a myth, the soldier says, that “Russians do not let Russians down.” They’ve been let down and they all know it. Morale is so bad, British intelligence says, that there have been armed standoffs between political enforcers and individuals and even units on the battlefield that have refused to follow their orders. Russia is suffering “very heavy casualties, combat stress, continued poor logistics, and problems with pay,” the U.K. reported.

“Morale problems in the Russian force are likely so significant that they are limiting Russia’s ability to achieve operational objectives.” Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, head of the British Armed Forces was more blunt. “Russia will never take control of Ukraine,” he said. “Ukraine has shown how courageous it really is. Russia has vulnerabilities because it’s running out of people, it’s running out of hi-tech missiles,” Radakin said. “Any notion that this is a success for Russia is nonsense. Russia is failing. It might be getting some tactical successes over the last few weeks. And those might continue for the next few weeks. But Russia is losing.”

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Under the bus.

Jay Powell: Not Russia That Created U.S. Inflation, It Is Joe Biden Policy (CTH)

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell admitted the obvious in his senate testimony today when asked about U.S. inflation. However, his testimony directly contradicts the White House claims. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), member of the Senate Banking Committee, walked through the inflation timeline and asked Chairman Powell about the cause of the escalated inflation in 2021. Powell admitted the massive rise in inflation had nothing to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Jay Powell

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“The rupture with the West is irreversible and definitive. No pressure from the West will change it..”

Exile on Main Street: The Sound of the Unipolar World Fading Away (Escobar)

The era of the unipolar world is over. The rupture with the West is irreversible and definitive. No pressure from the West will change it. Russia has renewed with its sovereignty. Reinforcement of political and economic sovereignty is an absolute priority. The EU has completely lost its political sovereignty. The current crisis shows the EU is not ready to play the role of an independent, sovereign actor. It’s just en ensemble of American vassals deprived of any politico-military sovereignty. Sovereignty cannot be partial. Either you’re a sovereign or a colony. Hunger in the poorest nations will be on the conscience of the West and euro-democracy. Russia will supply grains to the poorer nations in Africa and the Middle East. Russia will invest in internal economic development and reorientation of trade towards nations independent of the U.S.

The future world order, already in progress, will be formed by strong sovereign states. The ship has sailed. There’s no turning back. How does it feel, for the collective West, to be caught in such a crossfire hurricane? Well, it gets more devastating when we add to the new roadmap the latest on the energy front. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, in St. Petersburg, stressed that the global economic crisis is gaining momentum not because of sanctions, but exacerbated by them; Europe “commits energy suicide” by sanctioning Russia; sanctions against Russia have done away with the much lauded “green transition”, as that is no longer needed to manipulate markets; and Russia, with its vast energy potential, “is the Noah’s Ark of the world economy.”

For his part Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller could not be more scathing on the sharp decline in the gas flow to the EU due to Siemens’ refusal and/or incapacity to repair the Nord Stream 1 pumping engine: “Well, of course, Gazprom was forced to reduce the volume of gas supplies to Europe by 20%+. But you know, prices have increased not by 20%+, but by several times! Therefore, I’m sorry if I say that we don’t feel offended by anyone, we are not particularly concerned by this situation.” If this pain dial overdrive was not enough to hurl the collective West – or NATOstan – into Terminal Hysteria, then Putin’s sharp comment on possibly allowing Mr. Sarmat to present his business card to “decision-making centers in Kiev”, those that are ordering the current shelling and killing of civilians in Donetsk, definitely did the trick:

“As for the red lines, let me keep them to myself, because this will mean quite tough actions on the decision-making centers. But this is an area that shouldn’t be disclosed to people outside the military-political leadership of the country. Those who deserve appropriate actions on our part should draw a conclusion for themselves – what they may face if they cross the line.”

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“..disrupting payment systems, shipping, insurance which had prevented many Russian exports of food and fertiliser..”

Russia Says West Is Spreading Lies About Causes of World’s Food Crisis (R.)

Russia on Wednesday said the West was spreading lies about the causes of the global food crisis which Moscow said was being stoked by the sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and European Union due to the invasion of Ukraine.[..] Western sanctions, Zakharova said, had tipped agricultural markets towards the edge of the abyss by disrupting payment systems, shipping, insurance which had prevented many Russian exports of food and fertiliser. “It is illogical – on the one hand the European Union… says a threat to global food security is being created but at the same time they block the delivery routes of goods to themselves on their own continent,” Zakharova said. President Vladimir Putin and Russian officials do not use the words “war” or “invasion”. They cast the action as a “special military operation” aimed at preventing the persecution of Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine.


Putin also casts the war as a revolt against the United States, which he says has humiliated Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union by pushing for the enlargement of the NATO military alliance westwards. Ukraine says it is fighting for its survival against a land grab by Russia and that it will fight to the end to free its territory from Russian control. Kyiv dismisses claims that Russian-speakers have been persecuted. Eritrea, Armenia, Mongolia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Somalia, Belarus, Turkey, Madagascar, Lebanon, Egypt and Pakistan depend on Russia or Ukraine for more than 70% of their wheat imports in 2021, according to United Nations data. Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Serbia, Honduras and Ghana rely on Russia for 50% or more of their fertiliser imports in 2021, according to the data.

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“If there is chaos around, there must be people who can show the way out to the others..”

Letter from Faina Savenkova (Saker)

Truth is the way out of chaos. To Journalist Tucker Carlson. Hello, Tucker. I am 13 years old and I live in Lugansk. I think many people from the American authorities do not even know where it is, but they continue to supply weapons to Ukraine for the war with Russia. For a week now, Ukrainian artillery has been mercilessly shelling Donetsk, killing civilians in the Donbass. It’s one thing to fight with the army, and another to just shoot guns at schools, kindergartens and sleeping residents. Many will say that this is deception and propaganda, but it is not so. I was born and live in Lugansk. I spent the entire war – since 2014 – in my hometown. Living in a war for 8 years is very hard. It’s very scary when your childhood is spent in such conditions. 8 years of hope for peace, which never came. But it didn’t break me. I keep telling the truth about what’s going on here.

And I know that you do the same thing when you talk about America. I do not consider you a friend of Russia, but the fact that you are telling the truth and do not want a war with Russia pleases me. After all, if there is a nuclear war, there will be no winners in it. I’ve had to turn to world leaders a lot. I’ve been trying to stop the war for three years, but they, like musicians and politicians, are deaf and dumb. Perhaps someone wants to calmly meet old age, someone is afraid of change, and someone simply does not understand what war is. After all, it is not next to them. Last year, Ukrainian nationalists entered my personal data on the “myrotvorets.center” (english: “Peacemaker”) website, posting them in open access. After that, I started receiving threats. You may ask, “What is a myrotvorets.center?” Indeed, many in the US do not know what it is.

If we compare, imagine if the Ku Klux Klan in the USA created its own website and posted there the addresses, bank accounts and other personal data of all politicians, actors and musicians who disagree with them. And the authorities would help them at the same time. This is what is happening in Ukraine now. A lot of my friends from Ukraine faced the same problem: “myrotvorets.center ” published their personal data, including address and phone number. Can you imagine such a thing in the USA? No. It’s hard for me to say what will happen to me tomorrow. After all, I live in a war where shells arrive every day. But I believe that the war will end, just like the confrontation between Russia and the United States. And personally, Tucker, I want to wish you good luck. Thank you for trying to tell the truth, because someone has to do it. If there is chaos around, there must be people who can show the way out to the others.

Faina Savenkova, playwright and writer, 13-year-old girl, Lugansk

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“… BMJ Editor’s Analysis of Pfizer and Moderna Trial Data Finds..”

Whatever mistakes BMJ Editor Dr. Peter Doshi may have made, this is still significant.

Covid Vaccines More Likely to Put You in Hospital Than Keep You Out (DS)

A new paper by BMJ Editor Dr. Peter Doshi and colleagues has analysed data from the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccine trials and found that the vaccines are more likely to put you in hospital with a serious adverse event than keep you out by protecting you from Covid. The pre-print (not yet peer-reviewed) focuses on serious adverse events highlighted in a WHO-endorsed “priority list of potential adverse events relevant to COVID-19 vaccines”. The authors evaluated these serious adverse events of special interest as observed in “phase III randomised trials of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines”. A serious adverse event was defined as per the trial protocols as an adverse event that results in any of the following conditions:

• death; • life-threatening at the time of the event; • inpatient hospitalisation or prolongation of existing hospitalisation; • persistent or significant disability/incapacity; • a congenital anomaly/birth defect; • medically important event, based on medical judgement. Dr. Doshi and colleagues found that the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were associated with an increased risk of serious adverse events of special interest of 10.1 events per 10,000 vaccinated for Pfizer and 15.1 events per 10,000 for Moderna (95% CI -0.4 to 20.6 and -3.6 to 33.8, respectively). When combined, the mRNA vaccines were associated with a risk increase of serious adverse events of special interest of 12.5 per 10,000 vaccinated (95% CI 2.1 to 22.9).

The authors note that this level of increased risk post-vaccine is greater than the risk reduction for COVID-19 hospitalisation in both Pfizer and Moderna trials, which was 2.3 per 10,000 participants for Pfizer and 6.4 per 10,000 for Moderna. This means that on this measure, the Pfizer vaccine results in a net increase in serious adverse events of 7.8 per 10,000 vaccinated and the Moderna vaccine of 8.7 per 10,000 vaccinated. Addressing the difference between their findings and those of the FDA when it approved the vaccines, the authors note that the FDA’s analysis of serious adverse events “included thousands of additional participants with very little follow-up, of which the large majority had only received one dose”.

The FDA also counted ‘people affected’ rather than individual events, despite there being twice as many individuals in the vaccine group than the placebo group who experienced multiple serious adverse events. The authors wonder where the U.S. Government’s own studies of adverse events are. They note that in July 2021, the FDA reported detecting four potential adverse events of interest following Pfizer vaccination – pulmonary embolism, acute myocardial infarction, immune thrombocytopenia and disseminated intravascular coagulation – and stated it would further investigate the findings. However, no update has yet appeared. They also note that “while CDC published a protocol in early 2021 for using proportional reporting ratios for signal detection in the VAERS database, the agency has not yet reported such a study”.

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“There will be a scramble for alternative truths once the narrative starts crumbling..”

We Must Never Forget (Siglaugsson)

Recently the Icelandic chief epidemiologist said in an interview the lockdowns hadn‘t been stringent enough. And he blamed those few politicians who voiced their doubts and worried about the well-being of society as a whole, for undermining the solidarity behind the measures. As if he were the emperor, the politicians only his servants. And he is not alone. Many of those people will continue pushing the narrative even as it crumbles around them. They will be the first targets of people‘s anger. Then it will be the politicians, pharmaceuticals, media and big tech. There will of course be strong pushback. There will be a scramble for alternative truths once the narrative starts crumbling; for something to keep the veil on the lies and atrocities. The push for continued masking, lockdowns, vaccine mandates will continue for a while.

And we shouldn‘t forget there are huge interests at stake here, to certain very big business sectors, lockdowns are a godsend; human interaction is a threat to them. The censorship will be ramped up even further. But despite all the power, money and technology, the facts will emerge, the truth will prevail in the end. It always does. Some might say I‘m too optimistic, that we are already under the control of conspiring media, big-tech and corrupt officials, with no way out. But is it really so? Recently a US attempt at handing unprecedented powers over to the WHO was averted, thanks mostly to African leaders and strong public opposition. The vaccine mandates are disappearing and what will eventually come of the still existing plans for health passes is unclear. But of course the danger is still there.

What really matters is how we react as the narrative crumbles. Will we just shrug and move on with our daily lives, not caring about the threat to our freedom and humanity? Or will we face the consequences of our failure to think critically, of our gullibility, our lack of moral integrity, as the German people were forced to do after World War II, as the Icelanders had to do after 2008? Will we bring those responsible to court? Will we learn, once again the hard way, how the only thing that can prevent such catastrophes in the future is taking responsibility as thinking, doubting individuals?

And will we finally understand the true meaning of Hannah Arendt‘s conclusion in The Origins of Totaliarianism, that flawed as it may be, it is only a sovereign nation state of free people, governed by elected representatives who take their responsibility seriously; as they did in the tiny Faroe Islands during the pandemic; and not unelected officials, supranational organizations or huge corporations; that only the nation state is really able to protect universal human rights? We have to move on. We have to rebuild our societies, reestablish our moral values and our rights, rebuild trust in science and trust within our communities. But to truly move on, we must face, understand and act on the roots of the catastrophe, and take full responsibility for the part each of us played. This is why we must not forget. We must never forget.

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“Russia sells its oil to China and India where it gets refined. The resulting gasoline and diesel is then exported to the U.S.. That is good for India and China as they buy the oil with a rebate and sell the end products with a substantial margin..”

The Neocon’s Dream – Decolonize Russia, Re-colonize China (MoA)

The neo-conservatives are back using a new narrative to push their old agenda. Russian officials will love such talk: “Today’s panel is a further step forward in that it tells ordinary Russians that even regime change and democracy is not good enough for them. They require the partition of their country into smaller (more easily controlled) polities, so that they can be free. Needless to say, this is a propaganda coup for Putin and the Kremlin as it allows them to paint the conflict in Ukraine as an existential fight.” The Kremlin has no need to ‘paint’ the conflict as an existential fight. The Russians know that it is such a fight. Biden’s haplessness continues to tank the Democrats chances to keep house majority. In a meager attempt to tackle the high fuel price he will today call on Congress to suspend the tax on fuel for three month. It is just a gimmick which would have little effect at the pump and has no chance to pass Congress:

“GOP lawmakers have been hammering Biden and Democrats on the campaign trail over inflation and fuel prices. They argue that such measures are political theater that will do little to make long-term dents in oil prices. The best way to reduce oil prices, they say, is to loosen regulations and increase U.S. oil production. … California had the highest average gas price of any state at $6.398 per gallon. The gas tax suspension would reduce the cost of a gallon of diesel fuel by 24 cents.” The real reason for high fuel prices is Biden’s misguided foreign policy. Three of the biggest oil producers on the globe, Venezuela, Iran and Russia, are under U.S. sanctions that limit their oil exports:

The sanctions have made it more difficult for Russia to sell its oil. Biden has also banned the import of Russian oil, and last month Europe announced it was imposing a partial embargo on it. As of 2020, Russia was the world’s third-largest producer of petroleum, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. As the New York Times correctly headlines: “Western Move to Choke Russia’s Oil Exports Boomerangs, for Now”. That move will continue to boomerang. Russia sells it oil to China and India where it gets refined. The resulting gasoline and diesel is then exported to the U.S.. That is good for India and China as they buy the oil with a rebate and sell the end products with a substantial margin. It is a ‘win’ ‘win’ ‘win’ for Russia, India and China with the sole loser being the ‘west’. Whatever NYT hope of sanction success is expressed in its ‘for now’ addition to the headline is not going to change that.

Meanwhile Russia is announcing the next target of its campaign to counter ‘western’ misbehavior – the reserve status of the U.S. dollar and the Euro: “MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/. The issue of creating an international reserve currency based on currencies of BRICS member-states is under consideration, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday in the welcome address to BRICS Business Forum participants. “The matter of creating the international reserve currency based on the basket of currencies of our countries is under review,” the Russian leader said. BRICS currently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Together those countries represent 3.2 billion people and a third of the world’s purchase power GDP. The new international reserve currency would therefore have a much larger backing than the U.S. dollar or the Euro.

Read more …

Still longing for total control.

China’s Ties to Russia Looms Large at NATO’s Madrid Meeting (Celente)

Less than a month after President Joe Biden was sworn into office, he took a 10-minute drive from the White House to the Pentagon to meet with his top military leaders, including Lloyd Austin, his new defense secretary. Biden was there for one reason: China. Biden told workers there that he was briefed about a Defense Department-wide task force headed by Austin that would look at “operational concepts, technology, and force posture,” to counter the growing competition from Beijing. Biden said the U.S. will “meet the China challenge” by taking a “whole-of-government effort, bipartisan cooperation in Congress, and strong alliances and partnerships.” No presidency is ever without surprises, but even with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it seems that it’s China that keeps Washington awake at night.

Need proof? About a month before Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine, Biden announced that U.S. troops will not fight Russians in Ukraine, which was not protected by NATO’s Article 5. But he said twice -in roughly the same time frame – that U.S. would defend Taiwan against China. (The White House on both occasions corrected the record and said Washington’s position of strategic ambiguity has not changed, but the sentiment was there.) China has recognized Russia’s security concern over an expanding NATO while calling an end to the conflict. Hua Chunying, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said the invasion of Ukraine was not what Beijing hoped to see. “China has taken a responsible attitude and persuaded all parties not to escalate tensions or incite war,” she said.

“Those who follow the U.S.’s lead in fanning up flame and then shifting the blame onto others are truly irresponsible.” Beijing has lashed out at the U.S. over its interference over Taiwan. It is widely believed that Putin informed his Chinese counterpart about his intention to invade Ukraine during their meeting at the Opening Ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. “The Chinese side stands ready to work with the Russian side to push for steady and long-term development of practical bilateral cooperation,” President Xi JinPing said, after a phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Xi said trade with Russia over the first half of this year has been [in the tens of billions of U.S. dollars] and we “can expect new records in upcoming months, which is a testament to the great cooperation between our two nations.”

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Test case?!

Sri Lanka Economy Has ‘Completely Collapsed’ – PM (Sky)

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has said the country’s economy has “completely collapsed”, leaving it unable to pay for essentials such as oil imports. It follows months of shortages of food, fuel, and electricity, and the realisation that even the credit lines from neighbouring India that have sustained the country so far will not be enough. Mr Wickremesinghe told Sri Lanka’s parliament: “We are now facing a far more serious situation beyond the mere shortages of fuel, gas, electricity and food. “Our economy has completely collapsed – that is the most serious issue before us today.” Mr Wickremesinghe said that the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation is $700m (£572m) in debt, adding: “As a result, no country or organisation in the world is willing to provide fuel to us.

“They are even reluctant to provide fuel for cash.” Sri Lanka has been struggling under the weight of its debt, combined with the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, including a loss of tourism revenue and the rising cost of commodities. In April, it suspended payment on the equivalent of £9.8bn in foreign debt. Mr Wickremesinghe said that efforts to turn the situation around had failed, adding: “If steps had at least been taken to slow down the collapse of the economy at the beginning, we would not be facing this difficult situation today. “But we lost out on this opportunity. “We are now seeing signs of a possible fall to rock bottom.” Previous prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned in May after months of protests and clashes between government supporters and those demanding a change in leadership.

This brought veteran Mr Wickremesinghe to the role for a sixth time, in a move that opposition politicians said was aimed at protecting President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family from protesters’ anger. A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) arrived in Colombo earlier this week and talks with them have made progress, Mr Wickremesinghe said on Wednesday, adding that an agreement was likely by the end of this month. “We have discussed multiple points including fiscal policy, debt restructuring and direct cash transfers,” he said. “Parallel to this, we have also started talks on a debt restructuring framework, which we hope will be completed in July.”

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“She will be sentenced on 28 June..” How about her clients?

Ghislaine Maxwell: US Prosecutors Urge 30-Year Minimum Prison Sentence (G.)

Ghislaine Maxwell should get at least 30 years’ imprisonment for sex trafficking when she is sentenced next week for her role in facilitating the abuse of teenage girls by Jeffrey Epstein, New York federal prosecutors have said in court filings. “Ghislaine Maxwell sexually exploited young girls for years. It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of her crimes and the harm she caused. Her crimes demand justice,” they said in a court filing on Wednesday. “The government urges the court to impose a sentence within the applicable guidelines range of 360 to 660 months’ imprisonment.” The prosecution’s filing comes one week after Maxwell’s lawyers argued that she should receive “well below” the 20-year sentence recommended by sentencing officials.


Although Maxwell’s defense attorneys and prosecutors each make their arguments for an appropriate sentence, the decision ultimately rests with Alison Nathan, the judge. “Maxwell’s conduct was shockingly predatory,” prosecutors said in arguing for a lengthy sentence. “She was a calculating, sophisticated, and dangerous criminal who preyed on vulnerable young girls and groomed them for sexual abuse. “Not only did her conduct exhibit a callous disregard for other human beings, but her practice of targeting vulnerable victims reflects her view that struggling young girls could be treated like disposable objects.” Maxwell was convicted on 29 December for her role in the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of girls, some as young as 14, who she brought into his orbit. She will be sentenced on 28 June. She maintains her innocence.

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Very good angle.

Extraditing Assange Would Be a “Legalized” Rendition to US Torture (Kanji)

As the British government moves ever closer to extraditing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States, the pantomime of “justice” cloaking his persecution in the regalia of the “rule of law” continues to unfold: a torture rendition by another name, inching forward as the world watches in real time. On June 17, the U.K.’s Home Secretary Priti Patel approved the extradition of Assange to the United States, following the magistrate court’s order that the transfer should proceed. In this fundamentally skewed process, Assange’s capacity to meaningfully defend himself has been systematically assaulted by government smear campaigns; surveillance of his lawyers; and stultifying, arbitrary rules and restrictions obstructing him from participating in his own case — as documented in detail by United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer in his recent book, The Trial of Julian Assange.

Previously, U.S. officials discussed “options” for kidnapping Assange and assassinating him by poison — tactics ultimately dismissed as “something we’d do in Afghanistan,” Egypt or Pakistan, but not the U.K. Therefore, they’ve opted for the more “civilized” alternative. Instead of kidnapping, extradition. And instead of assassination, entombment in the torturous U.S. carceral system, where Assange faces a death-in-prison sentence of 175 years for exposing U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. How is this, in essence and effect, anything but the “legal” equivalent of an extraordinary rendition — defined by the American Civil Liberties Union as “the practice of capturing people and sending them to countries that use torture or abuse in interrogations”?

While the U.S.’s infamous extraordinary rendition program has (now) been officially condemned and supposedly ceased, rendition to torture via legalized means is enduringly embraced. In “extraordinary” rendition, hundreds of “war on terror” detainees were secretly imprisoned and brutalized in CIA black sites around the world. In “legalized” rendition, the torture chambers are not foreign black sites but prisons transformed into “Guantánamo Norths” within the U.S. itself. In “extraordinary” rendition, victims were seized off the streets extrajudicially by the CIA. In the “legalized” version, the condemned are delivered into U.S. hands through judicially sanctioned means such as extradition — abusive processes accorded an aura of legal legitimacy.

U.S. courts have upheld transfers into U.S. custody even when the targets have been abducted at gunpoint, severely beaten, burned, kept in secret offshore captivity for weeks or months (an increasingly popular practice with U.S. law enforcement), and electrocuted in their feet and genitals: acts of violence for which the courts have refused to provide any legal redress because they occurred outside the U.S. In “legalized” rendition, as in “extraordinary” rendition, detainees have been subjected to intensive solitary confinement, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, sensory deprivation, extreme light and temperature exposure, and other mechanisms of deliberate “psychic demolition”; although the degree of isolation and control achieved in domestic U.S. prisons under regimes such as “special administrative measures” is in many ways even more totalizing than at Guantánamo Bay.

Dail Assange

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Sweet Jesus….

Assange Put on Suicide Watch After Patel Decision (Lauria)

After British Home Secretary Priti Patel signed Julian Assange’s extradition order on Friday the authorities in Belmarsh prison stripped Julian Assange and threw him into a completely empty cell in an attempt to prevent his suicide, Assange’s father has said. It was just one more instance in which the prison humiliated his son, Shipton told a rally on Tuesday night at the offices of the junge Welt newspaper in Berlin. About 300 people attended, with an overflow crowd watching on close circuit TV in the courtyard. Testimony was heard from expert defense witnesses during Assange’s extradition hearing that he might try to end his life in prison once he learned he was going to the United States.

It is not the end of the road for Assange legally, however. His lawyers have until July 1 to file for an appeal of Patel’s decision to the High Court. They also intend to apply for a cross appeal of issues such as the political nature of the charges, the threat to free speech and the reported C.I.A. plot to kidnap or kill Assange before his arrest. Shipton and Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s brother, are in Berlin to lobby the German government to put pressure on the United States to drop the case against Assange. On Monday, the Shiptons met with Tobias Lindner, the minister of state, at the German foreign ministry. “It was a practical and appropriate step for Tobias to take, to welcome Julian Assange’s father and bother into the foreign ministry,” John Shipton said.

“The invitation in itself and the meeting in the foreign ministry indicates that the German government is sincere in bringing about the freedom of Julian Assange.” But Shipton said he would like to hear a public statement from Germany in support of his son. “We’d like Tobias to confirm what he’s said.” A German government spokesman on Monday said however that Germany was unlikely to intervene with either the U.K. or the U.S. “This is a legal process that is already in motion, so I would be a little wary of political intervention,” he said, the French Press Agency (AFP) reported.

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Imagine the collapse of this…..

 

 

Mike Lynch

 

 

Cave of El Castillo, Spain. Hands and a Bison. Some of the hand stencils, mostly near the front and middle sections of the cave, were painted more than 37,000 years ago, but some of the more recent hand stencils are 24,000 years old.

 

 

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Jan 222022
 


Gerard Dou A woman playing a clavichord 1665

 

The Very Concerning Data From Scotland (Horowitz)
Covid-19 Vaccines and Treatments: We Must Have Raw Data, Now (BMJ)
Omicron Might Be The Worst Covid Gets When It Comes To Transmissibility (CNBC)
Breakthrough Infections With Omicron Despite mRNA Vaccine Booster Dose (Lancet)
Why You Don’t Say…. (Denninger)
Win-Win, Lose-Lose (Kunstler)
More Than 2/3 of Adverse COVID-19 Vaccine Events Due to Placebo Effect (STD)
CDC Admits Natural Immunity Superior to Vaccinated Immunity (BN)
The CDC Officially Moves the Goalposts on COVID-19 Vaccination (RS)
NHS Panic As Mortuaries Fill With Thousands Of Non-Covid Deaths (Exp.)
Bill Gates, Indian Gov’t Targeted in Lawsuit Alleging Vaccine Killed Man (CHD)
Democrats Fuel Doubts Over the Legitimacy of the Coming Elections (Turley)
Is The Plan To Bankrupt Russia Working? (RT)

 

 

 

 

Lying scumbags

 

 

 

 

Jan 23: March To Defeat Mandates, DC.

Jan 24: Decision due Monday 10.45am GMT on whether to permit Julian Assange to appeal the US extradition decision to UK Supreme Court “on points of law of general public importance”.

Jan 24: Ron Johnson Senate hearing with Kory, McCullough etc.

 

 

“What is clearly evident both from the hospitalizations and deaths is that the double-vaccinated are now worse off per capita even against critical illness, and that pattern appears to be accelerating.”

The Very Concerning Data From Scotland (Horowitz)

“The vaccines are incredibly safe. They protect us against Omicron; they protect us against Delta; they protect us against COVID.” Those were the words of fully vaccinated CDC Director Rochelle Walensky while testifying before the Senate Health Committee with two masks on her face on Jan. 11. Scottish data shows that the COVID-19 age-standardized case rate is highest among the two-dose vaccinated and lowest among unvaccinated! It further shows this trend of negative efficacy for the double-vaccinated persisting for hospitalizations and deaths. Something is very wrong here, and together with other data points, it raises concerning questions about the negative effect of waning antibodies, constant boosting, and the consequences of a leaky vaccine with narrow-spectrum suboptimal antibodies against an ever-evolving virus.


Every Wednesday, Public Health Scotland (PHS) has been publishing a weekly report on COVID data juxtaposed to vaccination rates. Table 14 of this week’s “Public Health Scotland COVID-19 & Winter Statistical Report” lays bare in plain English (and math) a rate of negative efficacy for the vaccine:

As you can see, while the overall Omicron wave seems to be receding in Scotland, age-standardized case rates per 100,000 people were the lowest in the unvaccinated cohort every week for the past four weeks. Thus, it’s not just the fact that the unvaccinated accounted for only 11.5% of cases the past two weeks, but even adjusted for age-stratified vaccination rates (PHS already does the math for you) the unvaccinated had the lowest infection rate out of the four cohorts – especially during the peak of Omicron. Furthermore, we see that even the triple-vaccinated clearly have no efficacy against infection, although they have some degree less negative efficacy than the double-vaccinated. Here is a linear presentation of the depth of the Omicron wave by vaccination status, where you can see that the unvaccinated had the shallowest wave:

This also coincides with the latest data from the U.K. Health Security Agency of the entire United Kingdom. This data now shows higher rates of infection among the triple-vaccinated in all but the youngest people.

Full stop right here. Any public policy measure – from vaccine passports to discrimination – cannot be justified under the science, even if one’s conscience is OK with apartheid. In fact, clearly this shows that, especially with Omicron, the vaccinated are the super-spreaders. Before we get to hospitalizations and deaths, the notion that the unvaccinated are somehow responsible for the continued spread of this virus is completely contradicted by the data. Some might suggest without evidence that the unvaccinated possibly have a higher rate of prior infection; however, Omicron seems to attack even those who already had previous versions of SARS-CoV-2.


[..] let’s take a look at tables 15 and 16 – the acute COVID hospitalization and death rates, respectively:

What is clearly evident both from the hospitalizations and deaths is that the double-vaccinated are now worse off per capita even against critical illness, and that pattern appears to be accelerating. Again, this evidently shows a pattern of negative efficacy even against critical illness over time as the shots wear off, increasingly quickly with Omicron. Why is there no desire to study the source of this negative efficacy and whether the fact that the vaccine is non-sterilizing, wanes quickly with sub-optimal antibodies, is narrow-spectrum, and is increasingly out of synch with the changing virus is going to make the pandemic worse in the long run?

Read more …

And you ask that after a whole year?

“Big pharma is the least trusted industry.”

Covid-19 Vaccines and Treatments: We Must Have Raw Data, Now (BMJ)

As well as access to the underlying data, transparent decision making is essential. Regulators and public health bodies could release details27 such as why vaccine trials were not designed to test efficacy against infection and spread of SARS-CoV-2.28 Had regulators insisted on this outcome, countries would have learnt sooner about the effect of vaccines on transmission and been able to plan accordingly.29

Big pharma is the least trusted industry.30 At least three of the many companies making covid-19 vaccines have past criminal and civil settlements costing them billions of dollars.31 One pleaded guilty to fraud.31 Other companies have no pre-covid track record. Now the covid pandemic has minted many new pharma billionaires, and vaccine manufacturers have reported tens of billions in revenue.32

The BMJ supports vaccination policies based on sound evidence. As the global vaccine rollout continues, it cannot be justifiable or in the best interests of patients and the public that we are left to just trust “in the system,” with the distant hope that the underlying data may become available for independent scrutiny at some point in the future. The same applies to treatments for covid-19. Transparency is the key to building trust and an important route to answering people’s legitimate questions about the efficacy and safety of vaccines and treatments and the clinical and public health policies established for their use.

Twelve years ago we called for the immediate release of raw data from clinical trials.1 We reiterate that call now. Data must be available when trial results are announced, published, or used to justify regulatory decisions. There is no place for wholesale exemptions from good practice during a pandemic. The public has paid for covid-19 vaccines through vast public funding of research, and it is the public that takes on the balance of benefits and harms that accompany vaccination. The public, therefore, has a right and entitlement to those data, as well as to the interrogation of those data by experts.

Pharmaceutical companies are reaping vast profits without adequate independent scrutiny of their scientific claims.33 The purpose of regulators is not to dance to the tune of rich global corporations and enrich them further; it is to protect the health of their populations. We need complete data transparency for all studies, we need it in the public interest, and we need it now.

Read more …

“If delta is replaced, then omicron has no ‘biological need’ to increase transmission efficiency..”

Omicron Might Be The Worst Covid Gets When It Comes To Transmissibility (CNBC)

It’s too soon to know if Covid’s omicron variant will hasten the end of the nearly two-year-long Covid-19 pandemic. But some experts say that when it comes to contagiousness, omicron could be the “most transmissible the virus can get.” The reason: Due to “evolutionary constraints” on how many mutations and changes the virus can make, omicron could be “the ultimate version of this virus,” Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, tells CNBC Make It. Studies show that omicron is more than four times as transmissible as Covid’s delta variant, and that it evades immunity better than delta.

As long as the virus keeps spreading, Moss says, it’ll continue to mutate going forward, creating more variants down the road. But those mutations will probably be like “sons of omicron,” he says — not so different that the virus can escape immunity from vaccines or previous omicron infections. For Covid to stop spreading, a significant portion of a population needs to maintain some level of simultaneous immunity — a challenge, since so-called “natural immunity” provides inconsistent levels of protection for unpredictable amounts of time. It’s estimated that 94% of the population must carry some form of immunity to interrupt the chain of transmission, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Moss’ theory is “my own kind of gut feeling, and I know other people don’t agree with this,” he admits. Other experts say his theory could be accurate, but it’s simply too soon to tell. “By the looks and behavior, my guess is for SARS-CoV-2, this is probably as high as it will/need climb” in terms of transmissibility, says Dr. T. Jacob John, a retired professor and head of departments of clinical virology and microbiology at CMC Vellore. But it’s a waiting game to see if omicron will displace delta as fully as delta displaced variants like alpha, beta, and gamma, John says. That matters: “If delta is replaced, then omicron has no ‘biological need’ to increase transmission efficiency,” John says.

Read more …

Didn’t we ditch the term Breakthrough Infections?

Breakthrough Infections With Omicron Despite mRNA Vaccine Booster Dose (Lancet)

A group of German visitors who had received three doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, including at least two doses of an mRNA vaccine, experienced breakthrough infections with omicron between late November and early December, 2021, while in Cape Town, South Africa. The group consisted of five White women and two White men) with an average age of 27·7 years (range 25–39) and a mean body-mass index of 22·2 kg/m2 (range 17·9–29·4), with no relevant medical history. Four of the individuals were participating in clinical elective training at different hospitals in Cape Town, whereas the others were on vacation. The individuals were members of two unlinked social groups and participated in regular social life in Cape Town, in compliance with applicable COVID-19 protocols.

Upon arrival during the first half of November, 2021, each individual tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 by PCR and provided records of complete vaccination, including booster or third, doses administered via intramuscular injection using homologous (n=5) and heterologous (n=2) vaccination courses.. Six individuals were fully vaccinated with BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer–BioNTech, Mainz, Germany), five of whom received a third (booster) dose of BNT162b2 in October or early November, 2021. One individual had received a full dose of CX-024414 (Spikevax, Moderna, Cambridge, MA, USA) in early October, 2021; this was not in line with the European Medicines Agency recommendations at that time, which suggested a half dose to boost healthy individuals.5 The seventh individual received an initial dose of ChAdOx1-S (Vaxzevria, AstraZeneca, Cambridge, UK), followed by a dose of BNT162b2 for completion of primary immunisation, and a booster dose of the same vaccine.

[..] All seven individuals were infected with omicron (PANGO lineage B.1.1.529, Nextstrain clade 21K) [..] These were the first documented breakthrough infections with the omicron variant in fully vaccinated individuals after receipt of booster vaccine doses. Some of these individuals had received heterologous vaccine doses, in line with emerging global practice. Booster doses were administered 21–37 weeks after the second vaccine doses, and breakthrough infections occurred 22–59 days thereafter.

Read more …

“You got statistically nothing out of that jab of value but you took risk — maybe very serious risk and permanent harm. This isn’t my claim or data this is the CDC’s data.”

Why You Don’t Say…. (Denninger)

By early October, compared with unvaccinated people who didn’t have a prior infection, case rates were:
“— 6-fold lower in California and 4.5-fold lower in New York in those who were vaccinated but not previously infected.

— 29-fold lower in California and 15-fold lower in New York in those who had been infected but never vaccinated.

— 32.5-fold lower in California and 20-fold lower in New York in those who had been infected and vaccinated.”

So being infected and recovered was anywhere from three to nearly five times as protective as being “vaccinated.” There was no statistically-significant improvement if “vaccinated” after infection. I put “vaccinated” in quotes because from this data it is clear that these are not *******s at all; they do not induce immunity, sterilizing or otherwise, at anything approaching that which occurs if you get infected. By any rational set of analytical standards they are defective products and grossly unfit for purpose.

What’s even worse for the jabs is that when Delta hit there were no jabs more than six months old, approximately, yet there were many infections that occurred more than a year prior. Therefore being infected was not only three to five times as protective it was protective over a much longer period as well! So if you were infected and then talked into or even coerced or forced into taking the jabs you were conned. You got statistically nothing out of that jab of value but you took risk — maybe very serious risk and permanent harm. This isn’t my claim or data this is the CDC’s data.

Read more …

“The Science personified by Dr. Anthony Fauci is not medical science after all but rather political science.”

Win-Win, Lose-Lose (Kunstler)

Isn’t it refreshing to not have to lede with Covid-19? It looks like “Joe Biden’s” effort to change the channel is working. Even so, there is some interesting Covid-19 news, like: the whole endless, heartbreaking, demoralizing episode is winding down. Whoa! That’s a shock! What will Western Civ do without it? In the UK, Boris Johnson put a stop to all restrictions, mask mandates, and vaxx passports, just like that (snap) on Wednesday. Then France announced it would lift most Covid-19 restrictions in February, which is a little more than a week from now, for those of you who haven’t mastered the new maff. Then, on Thursday, Austria’s parliament voted to approve mandatory vaccinations for everybody in the country — say, what? — leading the casual observer to wonder whether half of everybody in that country is maybe super pissed-off at their government, seeing how France and the UK are going the opposite way.

Let’s be honest: it’s getting laughable to seriously advocate vaxxing up a whole goshdarn population when it’s perfectly obvious now that the vaxxes don’t work and are making a lot of people sick with everything that can go wrong in a human body, plus Covid-19. Are nations such as Austria and Germany not looking plumb insane now? Can the European Union endure such wildly contradictory policy among its member states, and not make itself ridiculous? Let’s just say, the situation in Europe is in flux and events are moving fast.

Here in our exceptional nation, it is lately discovered — to the chagrin of the elite managerial classes — that The Science personified by Dr. Anthony Fauci is not medical science after all but rather political science. Ah! I see now why so much confusion has been sown over Dr. Fauci’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic. If he actually represented medical science, he might not have killed several hundred thousand people in this country by withholding and suppressing effective treatments and promoting deadly vaccines. He might not have disgraced the entire medical establishment and half-wrecked the system it works in. But, to paraphrase another eminent political scientist of yore, Josef Stalin, while one death is a tragedy, a half-million is a mere statistic. There’s science anyone can understand!

Read more …

Someone asked me to include this. Fine, though I think the premise is flimsy. This is about headaches and fatigues, not heart inflammation.

More Than 2/3 of Adverse COVID-19 Vaccine Events Due to Placebo Effect (STD)

In a new meta-analysis of randomized, placebo-controlled COVID-19 vaccine trials, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) compared the rates of adverse events reported by participants who received the vaccines to the rates of adverse events reported by those who received a placebo injection containing no vaccine. While the scientists found significantly more trial participants who received the vaccine reported adverse events, nearly a third of participants who received the placebo also reported at least one adverse event, with headache and fatigue being the most common. The team’s findings are published in JAMA Network Open.

“Adverse events after placebo treatment are common in randomized controlled trials,” said lead author Julia W. Haas, PhD, an investigator in the Program in Placebo Studies at BIDMC. “Collecting systematic evidence regarding these nocebo responses in vaccine trials is important for COVID-19 vaccination worldwide, especially because concern about side effects is reported to be a reason for vaccine hesitancy.” Haas and colleagues analyzed data from 12 clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines. The 12 trials included adverse effects reports from 22,578 placebo recipients and 22,802 vaccine recipients. After the first injection, more than 35 percent of placebo recipients experienced systemic adverse events – symptoms affecting the entire body, such as fever – with headache and fatigue most common at 19.6 percent and 16.7 percent, respectively.

Sixteen percent of placebo recipients reported at least one local event, such as pain at site of injection, redness, or swelling. In comparison after the first injection, 46 percent of vaccine recipients experienced at least one systemic adverse event and two-thirds of them reported at least one local event. While this group received a pharmacologically active treatment, at least some of their adverse events are attributable to the placebo – or in this case, nocebo – effect, as well given that many of these effects also occurred in the placebo group. Haas and colleagues’ analysis suggested that nocebo accounted for 76 percent of all adverse events in the vaccine group and nearly a quarter of all local effects reported.

Read more …

Why is this still being discussed? Just to slow down the real discussion?

CDC Admits Natural Immunity Superior to Vaccinated Immunity (BN)

Dr. Andrew Bostom, an epidemiologist, delved into the data and provided the statistical breakdown that helps us fully understand what is going on: There was ~6X lower risk of covid-19 hospitalization and ~28X lower risk of covid-19 death, comparing those with natural immunity to covid-19, regardless of vaccination status, to those fully vaccinated… Rhode Island raw data on covid-19 infections by vaccination and prior infection status, December, 2021

If you take these base numbers, which come from the Rhode Island Department of Health’s website, you come to some startling conclusions. After verifying the data and the epidemiologist’s methodology (Dr. Bostom changes some of the Rhode Island Health Department’s terms and does some simple math before running the statistics), you can see that cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all greatly reduced by natural immunity. The strongest takeaway is regarding deaths. Even when correcting for scale, survival of a prior infection was by far the greatest predictor of surviving another Covid infection. However, if one did not have a prior infection (or does not know if one had a prior infection), the argument can be made that vaccination appears to provide the best strategy of surviving one. (It is important to note that the vaccinated community in Rhode Island is much larger than the unvaccinated community; it is about twice as large, therefore the incidence rate for unvaccinated deaths is about three times as high).


Yet, even as the CDC estimated that as of September there were 146.6 million Americans with prior infections, the state-by-state breakdown, including Rhode Island, proves to be substantially higher after the Omicron surge, as Becker News had earlier predicted would be the case. Rhode Island’s percent of prior infections: 92 percent. [..] For perspective, the Mayo Clinic once considered 200 million Americans with vaccinated or natural immunity to be sufficient to claim “herd immunity.” The latest Omicron numbers, based on CDC’s Covid burden estimates, lead us to assess there may be as many as 250 million Americans with prior infections. (Cases, however, may be counted more than once.)

Read more …

Number 4 before you know it.

The CDC Officially Moves the Goalposts on COVID-19 Vaccination (RS)

The CDC has officially moved the goalposts on what it means to be vaccinated from COVID-19. We all knew this day was coming, even as an onslaught of “fact-checkers” assured us it was “misinformation” to assert such a change was coming publicly. But first, let’s talk about the details. CDC Dir. Rochelle Walensky appeared on CBS News and shared the news that the two-dose regiment will no longer suffice to be considered “fully vaccinated.” Instead, you will need a booster jab in order to be classified as “up to date.” That comes as part of a “pivot” in language by the government, one that many were maligned for predicting. I could have just headlined this story “Ron DeSantis was right again,” but I figured that gets a bit repetitive after a while.

The Florida governor, just a few months ago, predicted the government would make this shift. In response, the media trashed him for supposedly spreading misinformation. Well, who’s spreading misinformation now? But past the politics of this, let’s talk about how deep unnecessary it is. For example, are boosters helping quell the spread of COVID-19, which would be the primary justification for mandates? The answer is a resounding no. And if you want proof, look no further than Israel, which is already giving four shots of the vaccine to some populations. The small, isolated nation (which makes it perfect as a real-world case study) now leads the entire world in COVID-19 case rate.

Now, if the booster shots aren’t actually stopping the spread of COVID-19, and to be sure, they appear to be having no effect whatsoever on that front, are they at least preventing hospitalization and death at a dramatically different rate than two doses or natural immunity? The answer to that question also appears to be no, at least when talking about a major statistical difference. Yes, a three-dose regime cuts hospitalization down by a significant percentage compared to two doses (at least per the CDC’s claims), but the overall numbers aren’t that different because the hospitalization rate with two doses was already extremely low. When you keep chopping up a tiny fraction, you aren’t left with much change in absolute numbers.

Read more …

From November 2021, but very relevant. Where is the research?

NHS Panic As Mortuaries Fill With Thousands Of Non-Covid Deaths (Exp.)

Figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that over the last four months, England and Wales registered 20,823 more deaths than the five-year average in the past 18 weeks. Only 11,531 deaths involved Covid. It means that around 45 percent of recent deaths were related to other causes. Experts called for an urgent inquiry into whether the deaths were preventable. Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: “I’m calling for an urgent investigation.” He continued: “If you look at where the excess is happening, it’s in conditions like ischemic heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver and diabetes, all of which are potentially reversible.”

Worried that this is not just a natural occurrence, he said: “This goes beyond just looking at the raw numbers and death certificates. We need to go back and find if these deaths have any preventable causes.” With the NHS suffering huge patient backlogs, the professor told the Telegraph: “This could be the fallout from the lack of preventable care during the pandemic, and what happens downstream of that.” Calling for action to be taken, Profesor Heneghan said: “We urgently need to understand what’s going wrong and an investigation of the root causes to determine those actions that can prevent further unnecessary deaths.” Weekly figures for the week ending November 5 showed that there were 1,659 more deaths than would normally be expected at this time of year.

Of those, 700 were not caused by Covid. The excess is likely to grow as more deaths are registered in the coming weeks. Data from the UK Health Security Agency show there have been thousands of more deaths than the five-year average in heart failure, heart disease, circulatory conditions and diabetes since the summer. The number of deaths in private homes is also 40.9 percent above the five-year average, with 964 excess deaths recorded in the most recent week, which runs up to November 5.

Read more …

Worth the read.

“Yadav’s 265-page complaint stands out for the extensive legal precedent it draws upon, from Indian and common law, calling into question the legality of mandatory vaccination and other compelled medical acts.”

Bill Gates, Indian Gov’t Targeted in Lawsuit Alleging Vaccine Killed Man (CHD)

In what may be the first legal case of its kind globally, a petitioner in India is seeking to prosecute Bill Gates, Indian vaccine czar Adar Poonawalla, and Indian government and public health officials over the death of a 23-year-old man who died after receiving AstraZeneca’s Covishield vaccine. Kiran Yadav late last year filed a criminal writ petition for murder, Smt. Kiran Yadav v. The State of Maharashtra & Ors. (herein referred to as Yadav v. Maharashtra), with the Bombay High Court of Judicature, on behalf of her deceased son, Shri Hitesh Kadve. Her son was vaccinated on Sept. 29, 2021. According to the complaint, he died that same day due to side effects brought on by the vaccine.

The complaint alleges Kadve died “due to [an] act of willful commission and omission attributable to some public servants who are misusing their position to bring policies to help the pharma mafia and thereby [are] responsible [for] mass murders.” The complaint further states Yadav’s son was “unwillingly” compelled to get vaccinated based on the “false narrative” that the vaccine was entirely safe, and because the State of Maharashtra prohibited the non-vaccinated from riding on railroads or entering retail spaces such as shopping malls. The complaint alleges Maharashtra’s restrictions “are against the Central Government’s policy that, there cannot be any discrimination between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.”

Other defendants in the case include the commissioner and director-general of the Maharashtra State Police, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation and the principal secretary of the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The complaint also brings charges against Bill Gates and Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold. The Serum Institute produces the Covishield vaccine, as well as over half of the world’s vaccines that are administered to babies. In all, Yadav is requesting 1,000 crores (10 billion rupees, or $134 million USD) in compensation, including 100 crores ($13.4 million USD) in interim compensation. She is seeking lie detector and narcoanalysis tests from Gates, Poonawalla and others.

Read more …

Prepare to hear the term “Big Lie” a lot this year.

Democrats Fuel Doubts Over the Legitimacy of the Coming Elections (Turley)

This month, President Biden pivoted away from the false claim of preventing people from voting to the more Trumpian claim of questioning whether ballots would be counted: “not as to who can vote but who gets to count the vote, count the vote, count the vote — it’s about election subversion, not just whether or not people get to vote.” Any vote miscount allegation can be (as it was with the Trump litigation) reviewed by the courts. Indeed, many of the provisions alluded to by Democrats have been reviewed and — at least temporarily — upheld. Requiring voter identification has been repeatedly cited as clear evidence of an effort to steal the election. However, 80 percent of the public supports voter identification rules.

The courts have overwhelmingly upheld these rules as constitutional. Nevertheless, the drumbeat of the Democrats’ “Big Lie” continues. This month, Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman heralded Biden for confronting the “Big Lie” of Trump, but claimed that elections were still being stolen: “That dagger is still held at democracy’s throat. The lie about 2020 justifies and enables all the things Republicans are doing now to establish the means and the willingness to overturn the next election.” Once again, Waldman does not actually state how the elections are being stolen. They just are, he says.

What is most interesting is how this claim is being amplified by Biden and others despite every indication that the public isn’t buying it, with election reforms barely registering on some polls as a major concern for voters. That is the problem with big lies. If the lies are not accepted by the public, they may just reduce faith in you rather than the election. Friedrich Nietzsche observed, “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” Biden seems to be facing such a Nietzsche moment. With polls showing the president plunging and voters turning toward the GOP, there is clearly doubt over whether there really is a “dagger at democracy’s throat.”

Read more …

“..the country’s debt in relation to GDP is one of the lowest in the world..”

Is The Plan To Bankrupt Russia Working? (RT)

Economic coercion is the West’s favourite tool to influence Russian behaviour. But with oil prices rising, Russia’s economy growing, and the West backing off from pledges to exclude Russia from SWIFT, this policy seems to have reached a dead-end. In 2014, the Russian economy was struck by a double-whammy. First, the oil price collapsed. And second, Western states imposed a series of sanctions in response to events in Ukraine. The immediate impact on Russia’s economy was dire, sending GDP plummeting. Economists had problems determining which was more responsible for Russia’s problems – the oil price or the sanctions – but most came down in favour of the former. Cheaper oil translated into a less valuable ruble, which increased the price of imports and created inflationary pressures. To this end, the Central Bank responded with higher interest rates, depressing demand and thereby GDP.

The economic crisis of 2014 created hopes in the West that Russia could be brought to its knees. Pundits predicted that cheap oil was here to stay. Beyond that, the introduction of so-called ‘sectoral sanctions’, targeting Russia’s energy, financial, and military industries, was meant to strangle what were seen as the most vital sectors of the Russian economy. It would not be long before Russia would be bankrupt, some claimed. Speaking in Ottawa in November 2014, former Russian Finance Minister Mikhail Kasyanov stated that within two years, Russia would have used up all its financial reserves and would have to severely cut government spending. The Russian people would then turn away from the government en masse. In the face of cheap oil and sanctions, the ‘Putin regime’ was doomed.

It didn’t turn out that way. Sanctions had a rather marginal impact on the Russian economy. The government responded effectively by important substitution, providing financial aid to threatened sectors, and finding new sources of much-needed technologies (most notably China). This came at a price, but Russia weathered the sanctions storm quite well. Rather than declining, Russian oil and gas production has remained steady. Moreover, the price of hydrocarbons has rebounded. This week, Goldman Sachs issued a prediction that oil would reach $100 a barrel by the end of the year, as the world economy recovers from the Covid-induced recession, and demand for oil and plastics increases.

Suddenly, the picture is looking very different from what it did in 2014. In fact, the Russian government is flush with cash. Russia’s international currency reserves hit a record high of $600 billion last year. Meanwhile, the country’s debt in relation to GDP is one of the lowest in the world – especially given that, much like other former Soviet states, much of its GDP is uncounted, off the books in the black and grey economies. This compares very favourably to Western states, who have borrowed on a massive scale during the Covid pandemic and are afloat in a sea of debt. It’s the West that is looking bankrupt, not Russia.

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Dec 272021
 
 December 27, 2021  Posted by at 9:28 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  89 Responses »


Wilhelm Trübner A Gorgon‘s head 1891

 

The Value Of The Vaccine Is In Getting People To Take The Vaccine (CTH)
The Beginning of the End? (eugyp)
Alpha Covid Variant Mutates To Evade Innate Immune System (RT)
‘Israel Could Be Completely Unprotected Against Covid-19 In A Month’ (JPost)
Israeli Study Urges ‘Rethink’ Of Covid, Indicates Antioxidants May Help (ToI)
Israel Attorney General Gives Nod to Sanctions on Unvaccinated (Haaretz)
Sorry Not Sorry (Denninger)
NY Times Editor, 49, Dies One Day After Moderna Booster Shot (NP)
Algerian Football Player Dies After Collapsing On Pitch (RT)
Florida Surgeon General Promotes Nutraceuticals for COVID-19 (Mercola)
New Zealand Okays Euthanasia For Covid Patients (CH)
Facebook Now Censoring the British Medical Journal (NYNR)
Declassified Documents Show How US Lied To Russia About NATO in 1990s (RT)
Russia Advises NATO to (Finally) Honor ‘Not One Inch Eastward’ Pledge (Bridge)

 

 

Michael P Senger @MichaelPSenger
“New COVID cases in Australia are skyrocketing to nearly 4x prior record highs despite some of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns, vaccine passes, outdoor mask mandates, banning of protests, strict curfews, military-enforced restrictions, and government quarantine camps.”

 

 

 

 

They know when you are sleeping…
They know when you’re awake…
They know if you’ve been vaxxed or not,
So, get vaxxed or meet the state.

 

 

He actually says it.

The Value Of The Vaccine Is In Getting People To Take The Vaccine (CTH)

Trust the science they say…. and then, accidentally, the “scientists” admit that what they are doing under the guise of public health has absolutely nothing to do with science. Anthony Fauci appears today on ABC This Week to push the vaccine narrative. When asked about a vaccine passport requirement for airline travel, Facui admits openly the only reason for a vaccine mandate is to force people to get the vaccine. There is no other benefit for the mandate other than to force people to get the vaccine. The vaccine doesn’t stop infection. The vaccine doesn’t stop the spread of infection. The vaccine has no value from the position of decreasing the spread of a COVID-19 virus or any variant therein. The value of the vaccine is in getting people to take the vaccine. It sounds goofy, but that’s exactly what Dr. Anthony Fauci admits in this interview. Watch at 09:10 prompted.


Once again, it seems the vaccine requirements overall are just a tool to create a system for the Vaccine Passport. The passport is then a simple tracking mechanism to identify the movements of all the people being forced to show it. The Vaccine Passport is essentially the gateway to a digital id system. Even with everything that has happened in this Overton window of the past two years, it is still stunning to me how many people now accept the reality of their papers being demanded to move around and live life. The axiom of “papers please” used to trigger a common American aversion. Now, there are millions of people who just comply as if they cannot see what lies at the end of this acceptance.

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“There are failures that lose you your job, there are failures that make you a public disgrace, and then there are their failures, the kind that lead to arrest, indictment, imprisonment, and worse.”

The Beginning of the End? (eugyp)

In the coming months, Omicron will outcompete all other lineages everywhere in the world. At that point, Corona will have completed its transformation into a mild coronavirus that nobody should care about, in the same way that nobody cares about other common human-infecting coronaviruses like hCoV-OC43. Unforeseen developments are always possible; Omicron might in time acquire greater pathogenicity. Particularly if we insist on vaccinating widely, we might drive its evolution in new and potentially dangerous directions. Those are, however, mere possibilities. Right now, everything tells us that the virus part of the pandemic will soon be over. The major question, is how the rest of the Corona Circus will respond. Some thoughts on that:

In the short term, rising cases will probably fuel demand for more vaccinations. This is the blunt, stupid way that our public health experts respond to infections now, but it is not a game that will go well for the vaccinators. The vaccines will fail even more profoundly in stopping Omicron transmission, and there will be far fewer severe outcomes for them to prevent. I don’t know how long the crackpot vaccination regime can survive overt absurdities like this. Omicron will probably also unwind the broader containment regime. South Africa has already abandoned their most intrusive tracing, quarantine and isolation policies, declaring a shift towards mitigation (which is what they should have done in the first place). Trying to defeat a minimally symptomatic highly contagious virus with the comically inadequate tools of the contact tracer is simply too ridiculous.

In the longer term, things look much more uncertain. It is hard to shake the feeling that Corona has swept away the last vestiges of liberal democracy in Europe, and perhaps in the whole world. I don’t think these political systems have been very good for the West, but our new theocratic regimes steered by the Corona astrologers have been vastly worse. As soon as the hysteria boils off, many of these villains will begin trying to get the panic machine up and running again. The alternative is a future where nobody much cares what they have to think, where they’re no longer able to interfere in millions lives, and – perhaps most crucially – where a lot of politicians, journalists, and ordinary people begin to realise what utter failures they and their policies have been. There are failures that lose you your job, there are failures that make you a public disgrace, and then there are their failures, the kind that lead to arrest, indictment, imprisonment, and worse.

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Maybe you should make sure you catch Omicron first.

Alpha Covid Variant Mutates To Evade Innate Immune System (RT)

The Alpha Covid variant, in the process of mutating, has gained specific ‘skills’ to block the innate immune system response. The scientists who discovered this hope it will lead to a better understanding of how the virus evolves. According to the research, published in Nature magazine, the Alpha variant’s new isolates “more effectively suppress innate immune responses in airway epithelial cells” compared to first wave isolates. According to the report, Alpha, which was first discovered in the UK in November 2020 and quickly spread around the world, “has dramatically increased” the protein levels of “innate immune antagonists.” This means that Alpha has ‘learned’ how to evade the body’s first line of response. It does so by blocking the sensors in the airways, which under normal circumstances ‘warn’ the immune system of the virus’ presence and prompt it to produce the ‘anti-viral’ protein interferon.


The researchers say the “more effective innate immune suppression” increases the chances of transmission, as well as the duration of illness. “It will be fascinating to see how the other variants, such as Delta and Omicron, perform comparatively in our lung epithelial systems,” a co-author of the research, Dr. Lucy Thorne, said, as quoted by Science Daily. A better understanding of the mechanisms used by different variants to evade the immune defenses, “will teach us not only about the viruses themselves but also about human biology,” Thorne added. The recent spread of the Omicron variant has caused a new wave of cases and prompted countries to reintroduce restrictions and travel bans.

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The conclusion is right. The way they arrive at it is shoddy. You can’t keep on saying how effective the vaccines are, and then conclude the opposite.

‘Israel Could Be Completely Unprotected Against Covid-19 In A Month’ (JPost)

Israel’s Pandemic Response Team was warned last Tuesday night that Israel could go from being reasonably protected against Omicron to not being protected at all within just a month. As a result, the team – along with the COVID-19 Vaccination Advisory Board – voted to allow the country’s highest risk population to receive a fourth shot of the Pfizer COVID vaccine, sparking controversy in Israel and around the world. Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash has still not approved the recommendation – and may not – as more data about the likelihood of developing serious infection from the Omicron variant is starting to emerge. But why did the committee make a recommendation if it did not have all the data?

The presentations shown to the committee by the COVID-19 National Information and Knowledge Center – a division of the Israel Defense Forces – as well as by a separate joint medical research team could be the reason for what seemed like an unexpectedly bold decision. “Within a month or two, the protection in Israel could be almost back to where it was before vaccines,” a report by the knowledge center warned. “The transition from Delta to Omicron will make Israel go from being reasonably protected to being almost not protected at all.” In its presentation, which The Jerusalem Post reviewed, the center showed that the protection afforded people ages 60 and older who received a third dose is expected to decline from 75% to only 25% within a month as the Omicron variant becomes the dominant strain in Israel.

Part of the reason for this is that the vaccine wanes quickly, as explained by a separate presentation to the committee made by researchers from the Health Ministry, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Hebrew University, the Technion and the Gertner Institute. A graph presented by the Weizmann Prof. Ron Milo showed that the Pfizer vaccines began to wane after only three months for both the second and third doses. In Israel, most of the elderly population (845,779 people) received their booster shots more than four months ago. “The excellent defense against infection by the Delta variant from the third dose begins to erode,” the slide said. It showed that the third shot at first provided four times more protection than the second one but stressed that “the noted protection against infection with the Delta variant for those vaccinated with the booster begins to decline.”

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“It’s time to “rethink” the notion that COVID is above all a respiratory illness [..] ..it’s actually an “immune-and-respiratory” condition..”

Israeli Study Urges ‘Rethink’ Of Covid, Indicates Antioxidants May Help (ToI)

It’s time to “rethink” the notion that COVID is above all a respiratory illness, as new research suggests it’s actually an “immune-and-respiratory” condition, Israeli scientists say. The team behind the new peer-reviewed research says the idea may help explain the unusual nature of COVID-19, and might even pave the way for over-the-counter antioxidants to help treat the disease. The geneticists from Ben Gurion University studied the mitochondria. Often called the “power plants” of cells, they generate most of the chemical energy needed to power the cell’s biochemical reactions. “We expected to see a change in the mitochondria in the lung but not the blood, because after all, COVID-19 is supposed to be a lung disease,” Prof. Dan Mishmar, the lead researcher and president of the Genetic Society of Israel, told The Times of Israel.


“But to our surprise, we found the opposite was true. “We saw no change to mitochondria in the lung, but saw a significant change in the blood, with a reduction in mitochondria gene expression.” But Mishmar said that as the blood is a strong indicator of the state of the immune system, his study suggests that immune disruption comes before any respiratory issues. (SARS-CoV-2) But Mishmar said that as the blood is a strong indicator of the state of the immune system, his study suggests that immune disruption comes before any respiratory issues. His hypothesis is that abnormally functioning mitochondria lead to some of the most concerning effects of COVID-19, including the cytokine storm, which is often characterized as an immune overreaction that can cause rapid demise.

And Mishmar said if he is right, patients’ conditions could be improvable with existing antioxidants. “Until now the mitochondria as a system was almost overlooked, and now we’re identifying it as a central player in the disease, and starting to explore how to help and improve mitochondria function and potentially lead to an improvement in symptoms,” he said. “There are over-the-counter drugs, or strictly speaking supplements, that could help to do exactly that — they are antioxidants. They reduce the signals generated by the mitochondria, and given that the cytokine storm is essentially a signaling storm, could be very helpful in preventing this from happening.”

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The vaccines have failed dramatically in Israel. Time for desperate measures.

Israel Attorney General Gives Nod to Sanctions on Unvaccinated (Haaretz)

Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit has approved the imposition of government restrictions on unvaccinated people in an effort to encourage them to get the jab, regardless of whether those restrictions are demonstrably epidemiologically effective. In view of the attorney general’s legal brief, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz are weighing bringing a few proposals to the cabinet, designed to bolster restrictions on unvaccinated people. Until now, the attorney general has prevented the government implementing policies whose sole intention is to encourage vaccination regardless of whether it is epidemiologically justified. The prohibition included both the awarding of benefits to those who do get the vaccine and the imposing of restrictions on people refusing to get vaccinated.


Before any decision on augmenting restrictions, representatives of the attorney general generally request an expert opinion from the Health Ministry regarding the policy’s epidemiological efficacy. Policies would be implemented only after such an opinion was received. These opinions have been used by the state in responding to the numerous petitions objecting to various coronavirus-related restrictions that have been submitted to the High Court of Justice. With the rapid spread of the omicron variant, the attorney general’s has shifted his position. The reversal came during a cabinet debate on a proposal that would restrict entry to malls to fully vaccinated people, while prohibiting entry to unvaccinated people, even when they present negative COVID-19 test results. Several proposals came up during the discussion, including rewarding vaccinated people through a financial bonus or giving coupons to parents who vaccinate their children.

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“There was always going to be “that uncle” who refused, you know, and now he’s laughing while everyone else in the family is puking or coughing their lungs out.”

Sorry Not Sorry (Denninger)

There are now reports coming in of people being very cranked off at physicians offices and hospitals. Why? Well, they took the jabs, in many cases got boosted, and then got *****-19 anyway. Oh well. Now the docs and nurses are bent that their customers are pissed off and using the “B” word or even the “C” and “F” words. Awwwww, cry me a ****ing river. You ought to count your blessings you’re not getting shivved in the ER and Minute Clinics! Which docs strongly advocated for these jabs? Which ones backed up the so-called “official government advice” with exhortations of their own, pestering and hounding their customers? Which ones went even further and demanded it? Many threatened to fire customers (patients) who refused, and more than a few did do exactly that.

How many nurses and doctors wrote OpEds basically threatening the unjabbed with death if they didn’t take the shot? How many verbally accosted people — or worse, even engaged in assault? Remember we were all told you won’t get ***** if you take the shot and then that pivoted to you won’t get materially ill. Well, people are getting quite sick! WITH *****. AFTER BEING “FULLY” JABBED AND EVEN BOOSTED! “Oh but it would have been worse” the scolds say on the Internet. Except….. now we have multiple families showing up where only the jabbed people are getting hit. There was always going to be “that uncle” who refused, you know, and now he’s laughing while everyone else in the family is puking or coughing their lungs out.

Still trust doctors eh? Still think you should be nice to doctors or nurses? I think if you flim-flam someone, and these people clearly did, you deserve everything you get. Especially when the people you screwed took the risk of serious or even fatal side effects and now, it appears, the jabs made them more susceptible to infection rather than less! PS: It’s not just there. It’s also in England and….. the land of jab-a-holics, Australia where they literally arrest you if you try to refuse!

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“The NY Times has thus far made no reference to Tejada having received his booster shot just hours before his premature death.”

NY Times Editor, 49, Dies One Day After Moderna Booster Shot (NP)

Carlos Tejada, a New York Times Deputy Asia Editor, has died at the age of 49. He suffered a heart attack less than a day after posting to social media that he had received a Moderna booster vaccination. Tejada, who worked in part on the paper’s COVID-19 coverage, was married with two children. He had worked at the Wall Street Journal prior to moving to the Times, where he worked for almost five years. According to Tejada’s own Instagram page, he was grateful to receive the mRNA/LNP booster while in Seoul, South Korea. Tejada originally received the Johnson & Johnson DNA/AAV COVID-19 vaccination in July 2021. Less than a day after receiving his Moderna booster on December 17th, Tejada died of a heart attack. The news was shared via Tejada’s social media by his wife Nora the following morning. The Times confirmed his death on December 22nd.

Former NY Times journalist Alex Berenson reported on his Substack that Tejada did not given informed consent to receive the booster shot, as the consent form was written in Korea and Tejada did not read Korean. On his social media, Tejada joked that Omicron could “hit [him] with your wet snot,” before going on to say, “all I had to do was fill out this form in a language I cant read. Translation software tells me I now belong to the BTS army.” Berenson also noted that there have been no clinical trials on the efficacy of mixing two different types of vaccinations. Studies conducted on COVID-19 vaccinations suggest that those who receive vaccines in rapid succession are more likely to develop heart complications, such as myocarditis and pericarditis.

The NY Times has thus far made no reference to Tejada having received his booster shot just hours before his premature death. To this, Berenson, a former employee of the newspaper, said he hoped that Tejada’s death would finally “wake the Times.” Studies published to AAHA have suggested that mRNA vaccines increase inflammatory markers in patients. Prior to Tejada receiving his Moderna booster, the CDC announced that 80 percent of COVID-19 Omicron “variant” cases were found in “fully-vaccinated” individuals.

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“Algerian footballer, Sofiane Loukar (30) has became the 4th footballer to die of a heart attack this week The others include Croatian footballer Marin Cacic (23), Oman international player Mukhaled Al-Raqadi (39), Egyptian goalkeeper, Ahmed Amin 35).”

Algerian Football Player Dies After Collapsing On Pitch (RT)

Algerian footballer Sofiane Loukar has died after collapsing while captaining his team Mouloudia Saida in a second division match on Saturday. Loukar is said to have collided with his own goalkeeper in the 26th minute of the Algerian Ligue 2 meeting with rivals ASM Oran. After receiving treatment the player was cleared to return to the pitch, only to collapse suddenly around 10 minutes later. According to Reuters, citing local media, Loukar was attended to at the scene and then rushed to hospital but died of a heart attack on the way. Other reports have indicated that the cause of death has not been determined. The Algeria Press Service indicated that Loukar was 28 at the time of his death, although elsewhere he has been listed as age 30. Adding to the tragedy, the footballer is said to have married just one week before Saturday’s fatal incident.


Footage shared by UAE news outlet Gulf Today purported to show Loukar’s grief-stricken teammates after they discovered the news that he had passed away. Other clips circulating online apparently showed the desperate efforts to revive him. The tragedy comes after young Croatian footballer Marin Cacic died three days after being placed into a coma following a sudden collapse during training with his team NK Nehaj Sinj. Cacic’s club confirmed his passing at the age of just 23 in a touching message on social media on Christmas Eve. In another tragedy to rock football, Omani footballer Mukhaled Al-Raqadi died at the age of 29 on Wednesday after collapsing during the warm-up for a top-flight match for Muscat in his homeland.Local reports indicated that the cause was a heart attack, with Muscat and the Oman Football Association paying tribute on social media.

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“..certain supplements or foods containing vitamins and minerals might help boost your immune system, such as zinc, vitamin D, vitamin C and quercetin.”

Florida Surgeon General Promotes Nutraceuticals for COVID-19 (Mercola)

Florida’s new surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, has issued a statewide public service announcement in support of commonsense COVID prevention strategies such as optimizing your vitamin D, staying active, eating nutrient-dense foods, and boosting your immune system with supplements. Florida Health’s HealthierYouFL.org website now urges Floridians to “Talk to your health care provider about how certain supplements or foods containing vitamins and minerals might help boost your immune system, such as zinc, vitamin D, vitamin C and quercetin.” These are all well-known supplements that have been shown to have a positive impact on your COVID-19 risk. The surgeon general also supports the use of monoclonal antibodies in acute cases, and as prevention in high-risk patients who have been exposed to COVID-19.

Available treatment locations can be found on FloridaHealthCOVID19.gov. Florida Health even highlights emerging treatments such as fluvoxamine and inhaled budesonide. Importantly, Florida Health now states that: “Physicians should use their clinical judgment when recommending treatment options for patients’ individualized health care needs. This may include emerging treatment options with appropriate patient informed consent, including off-label use or as part of a clinical trial.” Well, no one could be happier about this than I. I’ve been calling for vitamin D recommendations since the earliest days of the pandemic—ideally nationwide, but statewide is at least a start, especially considering that Florida is the sunshine state.

Ladapo was appointed Florida surgeon general and secretary of the Florida Department of Health by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sept. 21, 2021, and it’s refreshing to finally see COVID guidance that makes sense. In his acceptance speech, Ladapo said: “I am honored to have been chosen by Governor DeSantis to serve as Florida’s next Surgeon General. We must make health policy decisions rooted in data and not in fear. “I have observed the different approaches taken by governors across the country, and I have been impressed by Governor DeSantis’ leadership and determination to ensure that Floridians are afforded all opportunities to maintain their health and wellness while preserving their freedoms as Americans.”

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No prophylaxis, no early treatment, but euthanasia is fine.

“It turns the ethos of medicine on its head..”

New Zealand Okays Euthanasia For Covid Patients (CH)

Patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 can die by euthanasia if doctors decide they might not survive, the New Zealand government has declared. The Ministry of Health confirmed that a right to a lethal injection under a new euthanasia law could extend to patients who were either dying from the coronavirus or suffering unbearably from its consequences. In response to a request for clarity on a euthanasia law which came into force last month, the government declared that “in some circumstances a person with COVID-19 may be eligible for assisted dying”. The admission that COVID patients were eligible for a lethal jab came after Henoch Kloosterboer, editor of the anti-euthanasia The Defender website, made a request under the Official Information Act – the New Zealand equivalent to the 2000 Freedom of Information Act.

He said the policy left “the door wide open for abuse” of elderly and vulnerable patients – especially if the country’s health service came under pressure from a COVID surge. He said: “It would not be hard to envisage a situation in which a speedy and sizeable rise in COVID-19 hospitalisations could result in pressure to utilise euthanasia and assisted suicide as tools to resolve such a serious crisis.” The euthanasia law, he added, “has now made the COVID-19 pandemic potentially even more dangerous for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand”. The 2019 End of Life Choice Act is considered to be one of the most extreme euthanasia laws anywhere in the world, and critics say the safeguards are so flimsy that they are easily circumvented.

It permits both euthanasia and assisted suicide for adults suffering from an illness which would be terminal within six months, or who were in an advanced state of irreversible physical decline or who were suffering unbearably. The law, ratified following a referendum in 2020, guarantees all residents the right of access to a doctor who will kill them within a period as short as four days from receiving a request. Doctors receive a government fee of $1,000 plus expenses for every euthanasia death they perform. Just 96 of the country’s 16,000 doctors have offered to participate, however, and all but one of the nation’s 32 hospices have indicated that they will not permit euthanasia.

In the UK, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, a professor of palliative medicine, said the New Zealand euthanasia law contradicted the fundamental purpose of medicine and health services to heal the sick. She said: “It is bizarre that a country which has been trying to protect it citizens by closing down completely from a virus from which people can fully recover … is now suggesting that these patients should be killed by their doctors. “It turns the ethos of medicine on its head,” she said. “You really cannot predict death 100 per cent,” she added. “So why not support them while they are dying and leave the door open in case they are in the group that defies all odds and recovers completely?”

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Itty-bitty problem: the BMJ itself censors too…

Facebook Now Censoring the British Medical Journal (NYNR)

Fiona Godlee, the editor of The British Medical Journal (BMJ), has written a letter to Facebook (Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerberg blasting him for the social media platform’s “inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible … fact-check” protocols that we now know are just a censorship tool. One of the oldest and most highly respected scientific journals in the world, The BMJ recently published a report entitled, “Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial” that calls into question the “science” behind Pfizer’s Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccine.” Because the report does not unquestioningly praise the jabs as “safe and effective,” Facebook “fact checked” it and deemed it as containing “false information.”

Starting on November 10, Facebook users who tried to share the article encountered problems. Many were unable to share it at all while others say the post was flagged with a warning that stated: “Missing context … Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people.” Still others were prompted with warnings advising them to not try to share “false information.” It turns out that Facebook contractor “Lead Stories” was responsible for all this censorship. After learning what had happened, Godlee ripped Zuckerberg a new one, highlighting the following points about the so-called “fact check” in her letter to him:

• It did not present any assertions of fact that The BMJ article supposedly got wrong.
• It used the following nonsensical title: “Fact Check: The British Medical Journal Did NOT Reveal Disqualifying And Ignored Reports Of Flaws In Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trials.”
• The first paragraph inaccurately labeled The BMJ a “news blog.”
• A screenshot of The BMJ report that Facebook posted with a “Flaws Reviewed” stamp over the top of it failed to identify anything false or untrue.
• It published the story on its website under a URL that contains the phrase “hoax-alert.”
• Lead Stories was contacted by The BMJ concerning these and other issues but the company refused to make any changes.
• The BMJ also tried to contact Facebook directly about removing the “fact check,” but was refused.

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Not the strongest article, but a major point.

Declassified Documents Show How US Lied To Russia About NATO in 1990s (RT)

In April 2014, President Vladimir Putin addressed Russia’s Federal Assembly in the wake of Moscow’s reabsorption of Crimea. Over the course of his speech, he laid the blame for an increase in tensions on the West, which he insisted had “lied to us many times, made decisions behind our backs, placed us before an accomplished fact.” At the heart of this apparent duplicity was NATO’s expansion to the East, “as well as deployment of military infrastructure at our borders,” contrary, he said, to its promises. Ever since, disproving the idea that Western leaders had assured Moscow the bloc wouldn’t encroach on its borders has become an obsession for think tanks and lobby groups.

For example, UK policy institute Chatham House brands the suggestion that any pledge was made not to enlarge the controversial military bloc one of the key “myths and misconceptions in the debate on Russia,” while NATO’s own website likewise claims it is wholly manufactured. Significant evidence to the contrary has long-been easily accessible, but now the National Security Archive has published a tranche of never-before-seen, highly revealing documents detailing how then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin was consistently manipulated by his US counterpart Bill Clinton on the question during the mid-1990s, while bold, false promises of a “strategic partnership” of the countries faded into nothingness.

Take for instance the transcript of a cordial July 5 1994 telephone conversation between the pair, at which time the US president was preparing to depart for Poland – which had been pushing for rapid absorption by NATO – and the Baltic states, before meeting with Yeltsin at the G7 summit in Italy. Yeltsin urged Clinton to raise the plight of Russophones in Estonia and Latvia, because “a public statement from you that the US will not support any infringement on the rights of the Russian-speaking people” would mean these countries “will act differently.” He noted Lithuania’s quick granting of citizenship to its Russian minority had prompted Moscow to withdraw its troops from Vilnius, and the same could happen by August in Tallinn and Riga if assurances were made. Yeltsin also wished to discuss NATO expansion.

In response, Clinton swore he’d “raise the issue of the Russian minorities,” and reassured Yeltsin that while NATO might “eventually expand,” he’d set out “no timetable and no requirements.” Instead, he indicated that he’d “like us to concentrate” on Partnership for Peace, a US-led initiative seeking to “achieve a united Europe where people respect each other’s borders and work together.” Yeltsin could be entirely forgiven for thinking the Partnership was Washington’s primary focus, and the military alliance an afterthought, by the conclusion of the chat.

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Putin may lose his patience.

Russia Advises NATO to (Finally) Honor ‘Not One Inch Eastward’ Pledge (Bridge)

As NATO continues its mission creep inexorably towards the Russian border, Moscow issued a security proposal to the Western military bloc, which is in fact nothing less than an ultimatum: halt any further eastward military advances or Russia will be forced to act on behalf of its national interests. The date February 9, 1990 will be forever remembered among historians as a ‘day of infamy’ as far as NATO-Russia relations are concerned. That was the date when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker famously assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, during glasnost-era talks on German unification that the Western military bloc would not advance “one inch eastward” towards Russia’s borders.

The level of deception contained in that empty pledge is easily discernible today as NATO membership has exploded since the Cold War times to 30 member states. In 2004, the former Soviet states of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined NATO at the 2004 Istanbul summit; Albania and Croatia became members in 2009, while North Macedonia joined in 2020. Already, the Western military bloc abuts Russia’s northwestern border in the Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia. But now with the political tinderbox known as Ukraine actively seeking membership in NATO, Moscow has produced what amounts to an ultimatum, where the carrot is simply the preservation of peace among the world’s nuclear superpowers.

Will the US-led organization bite? On the question of NATO, the draft agreement on security states that “The United States of America shall take measures to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and deny accession to the Alliance to the former USSR republics.”

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Home test

 

 

 

 

Tutu Dalai Lama

 

 

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Nov 052021
 
 November 5, 2021  Posted by at 9:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  89 Responses »


Ernst Haas Greece 1952

 

OSHA Vaccine Mandate Released, 84 Million Workers Face Jan. 4 Deadline (ET)
OSHA Signals to Employers to Hide Vaccine Side Effects Reporting (BN)
Rand Paul Decries Firing of Frontline Workers Over Vaccine Mandates (ET)
A Credibility Blow To Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine (Demasi)
Report of Problems With Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Being Investigated (ET)
Are You ****ed? Maybe. But.. How Bad? (Denninger)
Are Vaccines Driving Excess Deaths in Scotland ? (DS)
Here’s The Real Reason Comirnaty Is Not Available (Kirsch)
How Covid Can Render You Indecisive For The Rest Of Your Life (RT)
Arrest Of Steele Dossier Source A “Seismic Development” (ZH)

 

 

Peter Doshi, BMJ
https://twitter.com/i/status/1455976583009873928

 

 

 

 

CO2
https://twitter.com/i/status/1456172131067125760

 

 

The continued and escalating litigation can start only after the “mandate” is officially part of the Federal Register. It will be torn to shreds before Jan 4. Merry Christmas.

“Texas Attorney General @TXAG: Biden just announced his plan to wield OSHA to mandate vaccines on private businesses. And I’m announcing my plan to sue him once this illegal, unconstitutional regulation hits the Federal Register.

OSHA Vaccine Mandate Released, 84 Million Workers Face Jan. 4 Deadline (ET)

The Biden administration has released the new rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requiring 84 million private sector workers to get vaccinated for COVID-19. The administration has also announced its rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Assistance (CMS) requiring 17 million healthcare workers participating in federal health programs to be vaccinated. The White House is also pushing back the deadline for workers in those sectors, as well as federal contractors, to get fully vaccinated to Jan. 4, 2022, according to a senior administration official. “We wanted to do this because we’re really aligning it to make it easier—to make it as easy as possible for businesses to implement these requirements and for workers to comply,” said the official, when asked about pushing back the deadline.

The Biden administration had received multiple letters from industries requesting the deadline for vaccination be moved back until after the holiday season. The OSHA rule requires employers with 100 or more employees to put vaccine requirements in place for all staff, or face fines of up to $14,000 per violation. The agency is allowed to put into place an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) when it determines workers are at “grave risk.” Under the rule, workers who are not vaccinated are required to submit a weekly negative COVID test at no expense to their employer. Unvaccinated workers are also required to wear masks when on the job. Health care workers do not have the testing option. The ETS requires employers to determine and keep record of the vaccination status of each employee and report all COVID deaths and hospitalizations to OSHA.

The rule takes effect immediately upon publication, scheduled for Oct. 5, in the federal register. White House officials say the new ETS is well within OSHA’s authority under the law and consistent with OSHA’s requirements to protect workers from health and safety hazards, including infectious diseases. Officials claim there is well-established legal precedent for OSHA’s authority to evaluate existing scientific evidence and apply data to develop safety and health standards. The ETS says it preempts state and local laws that ban or limit an employer from requiring vaccination, face covering, or testing. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Oct. 11 banning Texas businesses from requiring vaccines for employees, or customers.

And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis filed suit Oct. 28 against the Biden Administration’s order requiring employees of federal contractors to be vaccinated. Several Republican governors and attorneys general have vowed to fight the new OSHA rule in court.

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JUST IN – “OSHA will consider expanding the vaccine mandate to smaller businesses with fewer than 100 employees during a 30-day comment period, according to the U.S. Labor Department.”

OSHA Signals to Employers to Hide Vaccine Side Effects Reporting (BN)

While President Biden’s federal vaccine mandate was announced in September, the OSHA regulation actually compelling qualifying federal contractors and business with over 100 employees to force workers to be vaccinated for Covid-19 has not been formally issued. But OSHA is making it clear that it does not want to know about vaccine side effects, because it has suspended employer reporting requirements. “DOL and OSHA, as well as other federal agencies, are working diligently to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations,” the health agency says on its official website. “OSHA does not wish to have any appearance of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination, and also does not wish to disincentivize employers’ vaccination efforts. As a result, OSHA will not enforce 29 CFR 1904’s recording requirements to require any employers to record worker side effects from COVID-19 vaccination at least through May 2022. We will reevaluate the agency’s position at that time to determine the best course of action moving forward.”

However, employees who have claimed injury from vaccines can still file a report with their employer under OSHA’s whistleblower regulations. “Section 11(c) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 USC 660(c)) prohibits employers from retaliating against workers for exercising a variety of rights guaranteed under the law, such as filing a safety or health complaint with OSHA, raising a health and safety concern with their employers, participating in an OSHA inspection, or reporting a work-related injury or illness,” OSHA notes. “Additionally, OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program enforces the provisions of more than 20 industry-specific federal laws protecting employees from retaliation for raising or reporting concerns about hazards or violations of various airline, commercial motor carrier, consumer product, environmental, financial reform, food safety, health insurance reform, motor vehicle safety, nuclear, pipeline, public transportation agency, railroad, maritime, securities, tax, antitrust, and anti-money laundering laws. Also see the anti-retaliation provisions in the Emergency Temporary Standard for Healthcare.”

“If you believe you have suffered such retaliation, submit a whistleblower complaint to OSHA as soon as possible in order to ensure that you file the complaint within the legal time limits, some of which may be as short as 30 days from the date you learned of or experienced retaliation,” OSHA adds. “An employee can file a complaint with OSHA by visiting or calling his or her local OSHA office; sending a written complaint via fax, mail, or email to the closest OSHA office; or filing a complaint online. No particular form is required and complaints may be submitted in any language.” “OSHA’s recordkeeping regulation, 29 CFR 1904.35, also prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for reporting work-related injuries or illnesses,” it adds.

“The purpose of this provision is to improve the completeness and accuracy of injury and illness data by allowing OSHA to issue citations to employers who retaliate against their employees for reporting an injury or illness and thereby discourage or deter accurate reporting of work-related injuries or illnesses.” While OSHA is seeking to bury vaccine side effects reporting in relation to the still-unissued federal mandate, the Biden administration has quietly authorized damages to be settled with coerced vaccine takers if they suffer serious side effects. The clause was buried deep in documents in a Division of Federal Employees’ Compensation bulletin issued earlier in October.

“On September 9, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order mandating COVID-19 vaccination for most Federal employees,” the document states. “The order directed each agency to implement a program to require COVID-19 vaccination for all of its employees, with exceptions only as required by law.” “The Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA) covers injuries that occur in the performance of duty,” the bulletin goes on. “The FECA does not generally authorize provision of preventive measures such as vaccines and inoculations, and in general, preventive treatment is a responsibility of the employing agency under the provisions of 5 U.S.C. 7901. However, care can be authorized by OWCP for complications of preventive measures which are provided or sponsored by the agency, such as adverse reaction to prophylactic immunization.”

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“It’s a great disservice to fire people—nurses, doctors, firemen, policemen—who put their life at risk when there was no vaccine at all..”

Rand Paul Decries Firing of Frontline Workers Over Vaccine Mandates (ET)

Firefighters, nurses, and other so-called frontline workers are being fired or facing termination across the country for not complying with COVID-19 vaccine mandates. That’s wrong, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says. “It’s a great disservice to fire people—nurses, doctors, firemen, policemen—who put their life at risk when there was no vaccine at all,” he told NTD’s “The Beau Show.” Officials in New York City and other locales that have imposed vaccine requirements say they will help decrease community spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, though the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines against infection has dropped sharply in recent months. “In terms of COVID, we are one of the safest places in America, because we have one of the highest levels of vaccination,” Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, told reporters on Wednesday.

Paul disagrees, particularly because many mandates lack opt-outs for those who have had COVID-19 and recovered. That means they have some level of protection against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, many studies have shown. “Many of them got COVID while taking care of people. The doctors and nurses caught COVID from their patients. Most of them survived, fortunately. They now have immunity and all the science—102 studies—show that you have immunity if you’ve had the disease naturally,” he told NTD. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges natural immunity, or protection bestowed by having COVID-19, but asserts even those with it should get a vaccine for an extra boost.

“We do know that after nearly all infectious diseases, you have some protection from getting that infection again, but we don’t really know how long that lasts or how robust it is,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the agency’s head, told reporters on Wednesday. Critics argue those points are largely the same for vaccines and note that many of the studies suggest the level of protection is similar to or even superior to vaccination. “What kind of discriminatory policies do we have in place that are excluding someone like me from the workplace when I’m 99.8 percent protected against reinfection, whereas someone who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, by the company’s own data that they submitted to the FDA, is 67 percent protective against COVID infection?” Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, who was suspended by the University of California, Irvine for not getting a vaccine, told The Epoch Times last month.

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The BMJ report is rattling some windows.

A Credibility Blow To Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine (Demasi)

When the first doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine arrived on Australian shores, Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt proudly announced that we could all be confident the vaccines had undergone “rigorous, independent testing” to ensure they were “ safe, effective, and manufactured to a high standard.” As of 24 October 2021, approximately 21 million doses of Comirnaty (Pfizer) have been administered to Australians aged >16 years, with the understanding that drug regulators and public health officials have done their due diligence on the data. Pfizer has promised that “every clinical trial is planned, conducted and reviewed according to the highest scientific, ethical and clinical standards.” This week, however, a whistle-blower has lifted the lid on breaches in research integrity and safety involving one of Pfizer’s most pivotal mRNA vaccine trials.

An investigation by the BMJ has reported that a company called Ventavia, tasked with running a trial site for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine study, “falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events”. The whistle-blower has revealed that she was fired after complaining about the company’s poor research practices, evidenced by dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails. The trial in question was Pfizer’s phase 3 study, involving around 44,000 participants in three groups aged 12-15yrs, 16-55yrs and >55yrs. The complaints included the mislabelling of laboratory specimens, vaccines not being stored at proper temperatures and a lack of timely follow-up of patients with adverse events, all of which were verified by two former colleagues.

Where was the regulatory oversight? The FDA was notified of a complaint filed by the whistle-blower but failed to action any audit of the company. One of the former employees characterised the data that had been generated for Pfizer’s mRNA trial as “a crazy mess”. Paul Thacker, the investigative journalist who broke the story for the BMJ, is incredulous that these types of violations are allowed to occur. “There were credible allegations of problems at this research site, the FDA did nothing and Pfizer hired the company [Ventavia] again,” said Thacker. “Why is the FDA not inspecting clinical research sites when they are getting credible allegations about corruption? Where is the FDA office of criminal investigations? Where is the FBI healthcare fraud unit? They’re nowhere to be seen.”

“Instead, we just get told it’s science, science, science. If you say it enough times, it must be true,” he joked. In what should have been international news, this latest whistle-blower case has barely registered in the mainstream media. “We have a lot of science-cheerleading reporters,” Thacker said, “Pfizer has such a huge PR machine, they have basically captured the media, they’ve hypnotised the media”. Pfizer has a history of deceptive practices, including illegal marketing, covering up drug harms and more recently, the company was accused of “bullying” governments in COVID-19 vaccine negotiations. Pfizer announced that it expects to earn US$36 billion in revenue from its vaccine this year, the same week the Centres for Disease Control Prevention signed off on emergency use authorisation of the vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds.

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“Jackson said she alerted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the problems she witnessed and was fired within hours of doing so.”

Report of Problems With Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Being Investigated (ET)

The alleged problems with a major clinical trial examining Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trial are being probed, a contract company involved in the research has confirmed. Ventavia Research Group operated several of the trial sites in the fall of 2020. Brook Jackson worked for the company during this time. She told the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that the trial was riddled with issues, including the falsification of data. Jackson said she alerted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the problems she witnessed and was fired within hours of doing so. Ventavia confirmed to The Epoch Times that it employed Jackson for two weeks last year. Lauren Foreman, director of business development and communications, said in an email that Ventavia is investigating the allegations from Jackson.

“Ventavia takes research compliance, data integrity, and participant safety very seriously and stands behind its important work supporting the development of lifesaving vaccines and is conducting its investigation accordingly,” she said. The FDA appeared to confirm it was aware of the matter. “Although the agency cannot comment further at this time in this ongoing matter, FDA has full confidence in the data that were used to support the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine authorization and the Comirnaty approval,” a spokeswoman told The Epoch Times in an email. Ventavia worked on the trial that led to emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizer’s jab. The FDA later approved the shot, though many or all of the doses being administered in the United States continue to be the EUA-version.

Jackson, who worked with clinical trials for over 15 years, told the BMJ she repeatedly raised concerns with her superiors about what she was witnessing, including patient safety concerns. She began to feel her reports were being ignored and began taking photographs using her phone. One photograph apparently showed that needles were discarded in a plastic bag instead of a box, while another was said to have showed packaging materials that revealed trial participants’ identification numbers, signaling they may have been unblinded. Jackson listed 12 concerns she had in a Sept. 25 message to the FDA, including participants not being monitored after receiving an injection and vaccines not being stored at proper temperatures. She also alleged that Ventavia staff members were targeted by higher-ups for reporting problems. Jackson said the FDA sent her an email acknowledging receipt of the list and she received a call from an FDA inspector, but has heard nothing from the agency since then.

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“So to “evade” the risk of Covid-19’s serious outcomes you deliberately damage the immune response for at least some period of time against all manner of other things, some of which are at least as dangerous as Covid-19 is.”

Are You ****ed? Maybe. But.. How Bad? (Denninger)

“Here, we report, besides generation of neutralizing antibodies, consistent alterations in hemoglobin A1c, serum sodium and potassium levels, coagulation profiles, and renal functions in healthy volunteers after vaccination with an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Similar changes had also been reported in COVID-19 patients, suggesting that vaccination mimicked an infection.” That is very bad. In fact its catastrophically bad. Vaccination is supposed to trick your immune system into thinking your body is being attacked without producing the bad outcomes that the actual disease can produce. You get the protection, but not the potential bad outcomes from infection itself. That is the entire point of vaccination; to evade the possible bad outcomes from infection.

Since a traditional vaccine (which this is; inactivated whole virus) cannot replicate it should never produce the bad impacts from disease itself. That is, the only “dose” your body gets from an inactivated vaccine is what is in the syringe; no more, no less. Unfortunately what this study shows is that a material number of these bad effects from infection come from vaccination as well. That’s unexpected and hideous, especially some of the markers that showed up — including most-specifically A1c. It is of particular note that A1c did not return to baseline over 90 days post jab. In fact, it remained elevated with some formerly-healthy people now being in the “pre-diabetic” category. This cannot be understated in terms of what it means: Diabetes is arguably the most-serious morbid condition you can contract. To take a person with a healthy A1c level and turn them into a pre-diabetic by telling them to take the jab is criminally insane.

If you are healthy and thus not at any special risk from Covid-19 you’d be out of your damned mind to accept that risk with certainty by taking the shot and if you are coerced into it the proper response is to be placed right between the coercing party’s eyes. Diabetes is that serious folks. Additional durable deterioration was found in both potassium (electrolyte balance) and creatinine, which is a kidney damage marker. I remind you that unlike your liver which can regenerate you only have two kidneys and if they fail you’re ****ed. What’s particularly ugly is that if you get hammered with a so-called “breakthrough” infection later on these deteriorations, which appear to be durable, may well screw you down the road. Both are serious co-morbid factors that radically increase the risk of getting screwed if you get Covid-19.

Now to be fair this study is on a whole, inactivated vaccine. It therefore may — or may not — generalize to the mRNA jabs. We do not know. But don’t you think we should know? Indeed since the jabs used in the US (and Europe) all “program” the body to produce the spike protein, and we know the spike is pathogenic, it is entirely reasonable to believe that these impacts not only exist with mRNA and viral vector jabs they may in fact be materially worse than those from whole, inactivated virus. More to the point shouldn’t we have run this sort of testing and thus known, by published studies, before we jabbed 200 million Americans and threatened the rest? If this sort of durable damage does happen how often does it happen and how-severe is it?= Folks, the change in immune markers along with creatine and A1c is flat-out nasty. Let me quote from the study itself:

“This is a comprehensive investigation of the pathophysiological changes, including detailed immunological alterations in people after COVID-19 vaccination. Results indicated that vaccination, in addition to stimulating the generation of neutralizing antibodies, also influenced various health indicators including those related to diabetes, renal dysfunction, cholesterol metabolism, coagulation problems, electrolyte imbalance, in a way as if the volunteers experienced an infection.” And while some of those returned to baseline over the subsequent 90 days renal dysfunction and diabetes markers DID NOT. “Together, these data suggested that after vaccination, at least by day 28, other than generation of neutralizing antibodies, people’s immune systems, including those of lymphocytes and monocytes, were perhaps in a more vulnerable state. “So to “evade” the risk of Covid-19’s serious outcomes you deliberately damage the immune response for at least some period of time against all manner of other things, some of which are at least as dangerous as Covid-19 is.

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What differs between the two years? The glaringly obvious answer is the rollout of COVID-19 vaccination.

Are Vaccines Driving Excess Deaths in Scotland ? (DS)

Your first explanation is that the summer excess deaths recorded as non-Covid are actually due to Covid, but have not been certified as such. I see that you yourself are not convinced by this explanation given the level of testing that has taken place. However, let us suppose this to be true. In that case the Scottish Government’s public health measures that have been put in place in summer 2021 to prevent Covid have been far worse than those put in place in summer 2020 – indeed they have been disastrous.

Your second explanation is that the non-clinical responses to COVID-19 put in place by the Scottish Government (mask-wearing, social isolation etc.) have had unintended deleterious consequences on public health and have dramatically increased the rates of death in the Scottish population. This is an admission of abject failure of the Scottish Government’s public health response to Covid. Public health policy is all about balancing the benefits and risks of interventions to achieve the lowest possible impact during a health emergency. It is pertinent to remember that no benefit-risk assessment of non-clinical interventions on the physical and mental health of the Scottish population was conducted before these interventions were enforced.

Your third explanation is that there has been a problem with access to health and social care services, and patients have not received the care they required from the NHS. Access to these services over the past 20 months has been under the control of the Scottish Government, so if this explanation is correct, then the Scottish Government is culpable for increasing the death rate in Scotland. Numerous policies have been deliberately pursued to dramatically reduce GP face-to-face consultation, to cancel appointments and operations in hospitals etc., so the evidence to support this, as at least a partial explanation, is overwhelming.

Your fourth explanation is that individuals who are in poor health have not referred themselves to health and social care services as they would at other times. To some extent this would be confounded with Scottish Government policies of restricting health care provision discussed above. However there has also been a concerted and relentless media campaign by the Scottish Government to increase fear in the public, particularly fear of hospitals where they may catch Covid. This has meant that they have not gone for treatment when it was necessary. Whatever the proximal cause of failure to seek medical attention, the ultimate cause and responsibility lies in Scottish Government policy.

Your final explanation for the dramatic rise in excess deaths in summer 2021 is that there is some other cause that has not yet been identified. As noted earlier the phenomenon of excess deaths in the presence of a Covid epidemic was not seen in summer 2020, but is seen in summer 2021. What differs between the two years? The glaringly obvious answer is the rollout of COVID-19 vaccination. There was no COVID-19 vaccination programme in 2020, but there was rollout of Covid vaccinations in a sequential way to increasingly younger age groups in 2021, a pattern that we see in the manifestation of excess deaths. All of the COVID-19 vaccines are novel and experimental with no long-term safety data. They are now associated with a wide range of serious side-effects (blood clotting, myocarditis, Guillain-Barre syndrome) whose likely frequency in the wider population was not assessed in the small-scale phase one and two trials that included only a subset of healthy volunteers. The Yellow Card adverse events reporting system, that capture only a fraction of events, has already recorded over 1,700 deaths in the U.K. population associated with the COVID-19 vaccines. There is therefore a prima facie case for COVID-19 vaccination being a contributing factor to the dramatic rise in summer excess deaths in Scotland in 2021.

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“..they used a more effective vaccine to show efficacy (in the trials they completed), then they get the FDA to approve the drug but with a change in formulation, then the product with the new buffer will go out to the public with the lower efficacy, but better safety.”

Here’s The Real Reason Comirnaty Is Not Available (Kirsch)

The reason Comirnaty isn’t available is because those shots would expose the company to liability since the fully-licensed product doesn’t have the liability waiver of the EUA product. But once the Pfizer vaccine is fully approved in kids, then Pfizer gets liability waiver on all age groups due to a “feature” in federal law for child vaccines (NCVIA). At that time, they are done. They can market the COVID vaccine products under full approval for all age groups and face no liability when it kills or disables you. This is why they are focused on the kids. This is why there is a reformulation at a 1/3 dose and they changed the buffer and the storage conditions (low temperatures not required). All of these will weaken the protection, but result in a safer vaccine (since it is ineffective).

But for the clinical trials on the 5-11 year olds, they did not use the formulation they approved in the meeting. This is known as bait and switch. So they used a more effective vaccine to show efficacy (in the trials they completed), then they get the FDA to approve the drug but with a change in formulation, then the product with the new buffer will go out to the public with the lower efficacy, but better safety. This is because they don’t want to jeopardize any adverse events happening until they are fully approved. So they basically use formula 1 for safety, get approval for formula 2 (safer, less effective), then roll out formula 2 under EUA.

They also arrange with the FDA and CDC to make sure no early treatment drugs get approved or recommended. This is why there is no movement on fluvoxamine, ivermectin, etc. since that would blow the EUA. Fluvoxamine is the best drug ever for COVID with a mortality reduction of 12X when taken early. It’s the best drug to date for COVID, but the CDC and NIH are deliberately burying it until the vaccines are fully approved. Then they’ll say, “ok, we have all the data.” So at the end, Pfizer gets a fully approved vaccine with full liability protection. At that time, then the NIH can recognize other treatments. This is how it is wired to go. Let’s be honest about it. This is why nobody wants to debate our team about what is going on.

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Don’t know what to wear? Blame it on Covid!

How Covid Can Render You Indecisive For The Rest Of Your Life (RT)

A new study has found that one unlikely result of the pandemic for many has been Panic Disorder – an increased inability to make inconsequential decisions due to the constant need for risk assessment in everyday life. If you’ve found yourself struggling with making minor decisions recently, you’re not the only one. A new study conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of the American Psychological Association found that nearly one-third of US adults (32%) are having difficulty making basic daily decisions, such as what to wear or eat. The survey also showed that, while 70% of respondents were confident that everything would work out fine once the coronavirus pandemic ended, and 77% felt like they were doing well overall, more than one-third (35%) said it has been more stressful to make major life decisions, around half (49%) said the pandemic has made planning for the future seem impossible, and 61% said the last 18 months have made them rethink how they live their lives.

Those results are not surprising in and of themselves. We’ve all read the headlines about the general anxiety and feelings of dread that people have experienced throughout the pandemic, as well as the stories about people completely re-evaluating their lives thanks to all of the free time for self-reflection. Deciding whether or not to quit your job and move to Missouri is always stressful, even when there isn’t a global pandemic going on. But the statistics about anxiety over minor daily decisions struck me as new and interesting, not least because I’ve been experiencing this myself. sI’ve always been a relatively antsy overthinker, but I have never been reduced to beads of sweat over whether or not to do a yoga class, as has recently been the case. I can spend an entire afternoon debating whether or not to go to a party. My boyfriend has taken to simply ordering for me at restaurants, like I’m a baby. I know, on a rational level, that none of these decisions are A Big Deal, but they feel like The Biggest Deal Ever in the moment, and knowing that they’re not simply makes me annoyed at myself on top of everything else.

This type of anxiety – in which you can have a panic attack over something relatively small – is known as a Panic Disorder. You might even recognize that debating whether to go to the gym or straight to work is not worth the agony it’s causing you, but you still feel like you’re in an airplane that’s about to crash into the ocean. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 4.7% of US adults experience panic disorders. Based on this new survey, it seems like quite a few more of us are suffering from them now. The survey blames this new surge of anxiety almost entirely on the pandemic. “For many, the pandemic has imposed the need for constant risk assessment, with routines upended and once trivial tasks recast in light of the pandemic. Many people ask, ‘What is the community transmission in my area today and how will this affect my choices? What is the vaccination rate? Is there a mask mandate here?’ When the factors influencing a person’s decisions are constantly changing, no decision is routine.”

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Recap: Steele promised to get the goods on Trump from Russia. But Steele hadn’t been to Russia in at least a decade. He needed an inside source. That became Danchenko, but he too was in the US (Brookings Institution). Danchenko asked some buddies to deliver the hot info, and they got him stories and -later- admitted they had made it all up under the influence of copious amounts of booze. He also apppears to have been fed fat tales by Dem associates. By then the Steele Dossier had become a important political tool in DC.

Arrest Of Steele Dossier Source A “Seismic Development” (ZH)

Shining further light on today’s arrest of Igor Danchenko – the primary source for the debunked Steele dossier – is constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, who calls it a “seismic development.” The office of Special Counsel John Durham has confirmed that Igor Danchenko, a key source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele, has been arrested. This is the third arrest by Durham who is moving toward the prosecution stage of his investigation into the origins of the Russian collusion scandal. Durham is variously described as either painfully methodical or positively glacial as a prosecutor. But he is widely credited with being a dogged and absolutely apolitical prosecutor. Danchenko’s arrest is a seismic development and confirmed Durham is far from done with his investigation.

Washington was recently rocked by the indictment of Michael Sussman, former counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, for his alleged role in spreading a false Russia conspiracy theory. Now Danchenko is being charged with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Danchenko is widely referenced as the sub-source for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele for his controversial dossier. That dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign, served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Danchenko told the FBI that the dossier was “unsubstantiated” and said that Steele asked him to look for any “compromising” information on Trump.

Mr. Danchenko worked for the Brookings Institution, a liberal Washington think-tank that often produced reports critical of Trump. Danchenko is not someone who immediately comes across as an apex defendant — the highest target in an investigation. He was a key source used by others to advance false or unsubstantiated claims against Trump. He is the type of defendant that prosecutors pressure to flip against those who retained him or used him in this effort. In other words, he strikes me as someone who can be used as a building block to apex defendants. Potential apex targets above him in investigation range from Steele himself to Clinton general counsel Marc Elias to Clinton campaign officials. There is no indication if Durham has possible evidence of criminal acts by those figures but there is every indication that he is not done by a long shot with this investigation.

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Betrayal – Mario Sánchez Nevado

 

 

Grewal

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime; donate with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

Aug 242021
 


George Caleb Bingham The verdict of the people 1854

 

Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Becomes First To Win FDA’s Full Approval (USAT)
Does The FDA Think These Data Justify Approval Of A Covid-19 Vaccine? (BMJ)
Fully Vaccinated Healthcare Workers Carry 251 Times Viral Load (McCullough)
FDA Ignores Both Science and Law (Denninger)
Pfizer and Moderna Lost The Clinical Trial Control Group (CTH)
Everything You Need to Know About Informed Consent (21CW)
Statistical Fraud in the FDA Vaccine Approval Process (JoshM)
The More Masks Fail, The More We Need Them (Ian)
Pentagon To Mandate Covid-19 Vaccinations For All Military Personnel (RT)
NYC Orders 150,000 Teachers & School Staff To Get Vaccinated (ZH)
Truckers Threaten To Shut Down Australia Due to Covid Insanity (OI)
Keeping Fear Alive (Tierney)
Throwdowns and Showdowns (Kunstler)

 

 

It’s been an insane 24 hours. You’d think a full approval of a vaccine would be a straightforward event, but the FDA just made things more, and extremely, complicated. First, a few bits and pieces from what they issued:

 

 

“COMIRNATY is the first COVID-19 vaccine to be granted FDA approval ”
also:
“These may not be all the possible side effects of the vaccine. Serious and unexpected side effects may occur. THE VACCINE IS STILL BEING STUDIED IN CLINICAL TRIALS.”

 

 

On August 23, 2021, FDA approved the biologics license application (BLA) submitted by BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH for COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) for active immunization to prevent COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 in individuals 16 years of age and older…

…the EUA will remain in place for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for the previously-authorized indication and uses, and to authorize use of COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) under this EUA for certain uses that are not included in the approved BLA…

COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) is the same formulation as the PfizerBioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine and can be used interchangeably with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to provide the COVID-19 vaccination series…

 

 

C. There is no adequate, approved, and available [see Note 9] alternative to the emergency use of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID 19 Vaccine to prevent COVID-19.

[Note 9:] Although COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) is approved to prevent COVID-19 in individuals 16 years of age and older, there is not sufficient approved vaccine available for distribution to this population in its entirety at the time of reissuance of this EUA. Additionally, there are no products that are approved to prevent COVID-19 in individuals age 12 through 15, or that are approved to provide an additional dose to the immunocompromised population described in this EUA.

 

 

Conditions Related to Printed Matter, Advertising, and Promotion

X. All descriptive printed matter, advertising, and promotional material, relating to the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID 19 Vaccine shall be consistent with the authorized labeling, as well as the terms set forth in this EUA, and meet the requirements set forth in section 502(a) and (n) of the FD&C Act and FDA implementing regulations.

Y. All descriptive printed matter, advertising, and promotional material relating to the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID 19 Vaccine clearly and conspicuously shall state that:

” This product has not been approved or licensed by FDA, but has been authorized for emergency use by FDA, under an EUA to prevent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) for use in individuals 12 years of age and older; and

” The emergency use of this product is only authorized for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use of the medical product under Section 564(b)(1) of the FD&C Act unless the declaration is terminated or authorization revoked sooner.

 

 

The original documents. Just check the dates. What happened to those?

 

 

Two high vaccination rates: Iceland Full Vaxxed 74%, Israel 62%

 

 

“The Pfizer-BioNTech emergency use authorization was based on clinical trials involving about 37,000 people.”

Well, not really, because they stopped those trials.

Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Becomes First To Win FDA’s Full Approval (USAT)

Eight months after authorizing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in the USA, the Food and Drug Administration issued its full stamp of approval. Now that the companies’ detailed, so-called biologics license application has been granted, it’s likely that vaccination will be required by many companies, schools and other entities. The FDA decision clears the way for the companies to market their vaccine, which is not permitted without full licensure. And it may launch a race for booster shots, allowing doctors to prescribe extra Pfizer-BioNTech shots “off label” to anyone they think should get one. The FDA confirmed late last year through a more streamlined evaluation process that the vaccine, from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its partner, German startup BioNTech, was safe, effective and could be reliably produced.

The review of the 340,000-page license application was completed in just 97 days by FDA staff working “night and day,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which approves vaccines “We completed this in about 40% of the normal clock time for a submission of this magnitude,” he said. The license application was three times the size of the emergency use authorization submission, which weighed in at 110,000 pages. The companies have manufactured more than 2 billion doses, more than 200 million of which were administered in the USA, the most of any of the three vaccines allowed for use in the country. The full license includes four more months of efficacy and safety data, confirming trial results and detailing manufacturing processes.

The Pfizer-BioNTech emergency use authorization was based on clinical trials involving about 37,000 people. The full approval was based on study results involving more than 44,000 people followed for six months. The license applies only to those 16 and over, but the vaccine is allowed for those 12 to 15 under the previous authorization. “Based on the longer-term follow-up data that we submitted, today’s approval for those aged 16 and over affirms the efficacy and safety profile of our vaccine at a time when it is urgently needed,” Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. “I am hopeful this approval will help increase confidence in our vaccine, as vaccination remains the best tool we have to help protect lives and achieve herd immunity.”

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Not sure it’s a great idea for the FDA to have pissed off Peter Doshi, senior editor at The BMJ, one of the most reputable magazines around. Much more at the original (link).

Does The FDA Think These Data Justify Approval Of A Covid-19 Vaccine? (BMJ)

On 28 July 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech posted updated results for their ongoing phase 3 covid-19 vaccine trial. The preprint came almost a year to the day after the historical trial commenced, and nearly four months since the companies announced vaccine efficacy estimates “up to six months.” But you won’t find 10 month follow-up data here. While the preprint is new, the results it contains aren’t particularly up to date. In fact, the paper is based on the same data cut-off date (13 March 2021) as the 1 April press release, and its topline efficacy result is identical: 91.3% (95% CI 89.0 to 93.2) vaccine efficacy against symptomatic covid-19 through “up to six months of follow-up.” The 20 page preprint matters because it represents the most detailed public account of the pivotal trial data Pfizer submitted in pursuit of the world’s first “full approval” of a coronavirus vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration. It deserves careful scrutiny.

[..] The elephant named “waning immunity”…“Waning immunity” is a known problem for influenza vaccines, with some studies showing near zero effectiveness after just three months, meaning a vaccine taken early may ultimately provide no protection by the time “flu season” arrives some months later. If vaccine efficacy wanes over time, the crucial question becomes what level of effectiveness will the vaccine provide when a person is actually exposed to the virus? Unlike covid vaccines, influenza vaccine performance has always been judged over a full season, not a couple months. And so the recent reports from Israel’s Ministry of Health caught my eye. In early July, they reported that efficacy against infection and symptomatic disease “fell to 64%.” By late July it had fallen to 39% where Delta is the dominant strain. This is very low. For context, the FDA’s expectation is of “at least 50%” efficacy for any approvable vaccine.

Delta may not be responsible Enter Pfizer’s preprint. As an RCT reporting “up to six months of follow-up,” it is notable that evidence of waning immunity was already visible in the data by the 13 March 2021 data cut-off… And it’s hard to imagine how the Delta variant could play a real role here, for 77% of trial participants were from the United States, where Delta was not established until months after data cut-off. Waning efficacy has the potential to be far more than a minor inconvenience; it can dramatically change the risk-benefit calculus.

The “six month” preprint based on the 7% of trial participants who remained blinded at six months Despite the reference to “six month safety and efficacy” in the preprint’s title, the paper only reports on vaccine efficacy “up to six months,” but not from six months. This is not semantics, as it turns out only 7% of trial participants actually reached six months of blinded follow-up (“8% of BNT162b2 recipients and 6% of placebo recipients had ≥6 months follow-up post-dose 2.”) So despite this preprint appearing a year after the trial began, it provides no data on vaccine efficacy past six months, which is the period Israel says vaccine efficacy has dropped to 39%. It is hard to imagine that the <10% of trial participants who remained blinded at six months (which presumably further dwindled after 13 March 2021) could constitute a reliable or valid sample to produce further findings.

Severe disease And on preventing death from covid-19, there are too few data to draw conclusions—a total of three covid-19 related deaths (one on vaccine, two on placebo). There were 29 total deaths during blinded follow-up (15 in the vaccine arm; 14 in placebo). The crucial question, however, is whether the waning efficacy seen in the primary endpoint data also applies to the vaccine’s efficacy against severe disease. Unfortunately, Pfizer’s new preprint does not report the results in a way that allows for evaluating this question.

Approval imminent without data transparency, or even an advisory committee meeting? …But here we are, with FDA reportedly on the verge of granting a marketing license 13 months into the still ongoing, two year pivotal trial, with no reported data past 13 March 2021, unclear efficacy after six months due to unblinding, evidence of waning protection irrespective of the Delta variant, and limited reporting of safety data. (The preprint reports “decreased appetite, lethargy, asthenia, malaise, night sweats, and hyperhidrosis were new adverse events attributable to BNT162b2 not previously identified in earlier reports,” but provides no data tables showing the frequency of these, or other, adverse events.) It’s not helping matters that FDA now says it won’t convene its advisory committee to discuss the data ahead of approving Pfizer’s vaccine. (Last August, to address vaccine hesitancy, the agency had “committed to use an advisory committee composed of independent experts to ensure deliberations about authorization or licensure are transparent for the public.”)

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“..the jab allows vaccinated individuals to carry unusually high viral loads without becoming ill at first, potentially transforming them into presymptomatic superspreaders.”

Fully Vaccinated Healthcare Workers Carry 251 Times Viral Load (McCullough)

A groundbreaking preprint paper by the prestigious Oxford University Clinical Research Group, published Aug. 10 in The Lancet, includes alarming findings devastating to the COVID vaccine rollout. The study found vaccinated individuals carry 251 times the load of COVID-19 viruses in their nostrils compared to the unvaccinated. While moderating the symptoms of infection, the jab allows vaccinated individuals to carry unusually high viral loads without becoming ill at first, potentially transforming them into presymptomatic superspreaders. This phenomenon may be the source of the shocking post-vaccination surges in heavily vaccinated populations globally. The paper’s authors, Chau et al, demonstrated widespread vaccine failure and transmission under tightly controlled circumstances in a hospital lockdown in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.

The scientists studied healthcare workers who were unable to leave the hospital for two weeks. The data showed that fully vaccinated workers — about two months after injection with the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine (AZD1222) — acquired, carried and presumably transmitted the Delta variant to their vaccinated colleagues. They almost certainly also passed the Delta infection to susceptible unvaccinated people, including their patients. Sequencing of strains confirmed the workers transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to one another. = This is consistent with the observations in the U.S. from Farinholt and colleagues, and congruent with comments by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conceding COVID-19 vaccines have failed to stop transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

On Feb. 11, the World Health Organization indicated the AZD1222 vaccine efficacy of 63.09% against the development of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. The conclusions of the Chau paper support the warnings by leading medical experts that the partial, non-sterilizing immunity from the three notoriously “leaky” COVID-19 vaccines allow carriage of 251 times the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 as compared to samples from the pre-vaccination era in 2020. Thus, we have a key piece to the puzzle explaining why the Delta outbreak is so formidable — fully vaccinated are participating as COVID-19 patients and acting as powerful Typhoid Mary-style super-spreaders of the infection.

Vaccinated individuals are blasting out concentrated viral explosions into their communities and fueling new COVID surges. Vaccinated healthcare workers are almost certainly infecting their coworkers and patients, causing horrendous collateral damage. Continued vaccination will only make this problem worse, particularly among frontline doctors and nurses workers who are caring for vulnerable patients. Health systems should drop vaccine mandates immediately, take stock of COVID-19 recovered workers who are robustly immune to Delta and consider the ramifications of their current vaccinated healthcare workers as potential threats to high risk patients and coworkers.

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“..prior infection and recovery produces durable and stable immunity in essentially everyone who has a competent immune system..”

FDA Ignores Both Science and Law (Denninger)

So the FDA has “fully approved” the Pfizer jab for Covid. In doing so standing alone they have broken the law and thus have irrevocably destroyed their authority and any reason for anyone to ever do anything based on them ever again. Let me explain. Under black letter law an EUA is illegal if there is an alternative that is considered safe, effective and available. This was the reason the FDA did not (for 18 months!) run the studies and evaluate them on other early-intervention drugs for Covid-19. We all know what they are. I’m living proof they work too, as are millions of others worldwide. But, more-importantly, this “full approval” voids all other vaccine EUAs for Covid-19. That is, under the law the Moderna and J&J instantly became illegal to offer or use within the United States.

The makers can apply for full authorization, of course, but the EUAs are void as of this morning and under black letter law cannot be administered to anyone in the United States as they are now unlicensed and unlawful products in human beings until and unless they are given full approval themselves. No medical provider can offer or administer any other than the Pfizer Covid-19 shot in the United States as of the moment of that approval. You can bet the law will be ignored; note MRNAs stock price this morning. It should have instantly been cut in half. In addition the FDA broke the law itself when it issued the “approval.” The law requires a full hearing and the data from the full set of trials; the trials are not capable of being completed until early 2022 by the original submissions and they deliberately did not hold the hearing. This is a black letter violation of the law as well, but nobody cares.

As for me, I don’t give a crap. I’ve been infected, 98% certain it was Delta (because that’s all that’s circulating right now in the US where the index case I got infected by came from, and I know who it was) and am recovered. I hit it with meds immediately and I’m fine. I know, scientifically, it was Covid-19 and not some other virus as I now have IgG antibodies and did not for the previous 18 months which I know factually as I repeatedly tested myself. There is thus exactly zero medical benefit I can derive from the jabs. I will walk without fear into a Covid-19 ICU unit right now without any PPE on whatsoever.

I have no fear of this virus because as with every other viral infection of note including those that are much more-dangerous than Covid, such as measles, prior infection and recovery produces durable and stable immunity in essentially everyone who has a competent immune system, and I do. Those of you who trust the jabs to be equally effective to an active infection and recovery are free to come with me. I will bet my life that I’m sterile immune to the virus as a result of said infection and recovery. Are you willing to place the same bet, given the many known failures to protect by the shot, including Jesse Jackson and his wife, both of whom are in the hospital with Covid-19 despite being vaccinated in a very public spectacle in January of this year? There you have it.

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“..the FDA will grant approval on results that were intentionally constructed to produce only one outcome.”

Pfizer and Moderna Lost The Clinical Trial Control Group (CTH)

According to the New York Times and multiple media outlets, Pfizer is expected to get full FDA approval today. “The move would make it the first Covid vaccine to go from emergency use authorization to full FDA approval.” With that in mind, it is worth a reminder that both Pfizer and Moderna stopped the clinical trials the FDA was using in their review: The Moderna and Pfizer vaccine tests were conducted, as customary, with a control group; a group within the trial who were given a placebo and not the test vaccine. However, during the trial -and after the untested vaccines were given emergency use authorization- the vaccine companies conducting the trial decided to break protocol and notify the control group they were not vaccinated. Almost all the control group were then given the vaccine.

Purposefully dissolving the placebo group violates the scientific purpose to test whether the vaccine has any efficacy; any actual benefit and/or safety issues. Without a control group there is nothing to compare the vaccinated group against. According to NPR, the doctors lost the control group in the Johnson County Clinicial Trial (Lexena, Kansas) on purpose: “(Via NPR) […] “Dr. Carlos Fierro, who runs the study there, says every participant was called back after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccine. “During that visit we discussed the options, which included staying in the study without the vaccine,” he says, “and amazingly there were people — a couple of people — who chose that.” He suspects those individuals got spooked by rumors about the vaccine. But everybody else who had the placebo shot went ahead and got the actual vaccine. So now Fierro has essentially no comparison group left for the ongoing study. “It’s a loss from a scientific standpoint, but given the circumstances I think it’s the right thing to do,” he says.

People signing up for these studies were not promised special treatment, but once the FDA authorized the vaccines, their developers decided to offer the shots. Just so we are clear, the final FDA authorization and approval for the vaccines are based on the outcome of these trials. As noted in the example above, the control group was intentionally lost under the auspices of “the right thing to do”, so there is no way for the efficacy, effectiveness or safety of the vaccine itself to be measured. There’s no one left within the control group, of a statistically valid value, to give an adequate comparison of outcomes for vaxxed -vs- non-vaxxed. This is nuts. That NPR article is one to bookmark when people start claiming the vaccination is effective. How can the vaccine not be considered effective when there is no group of non-vaccinated people to compare the results to?

Good grief, the entire healthcare system is operating on a massive hive mindset where science, and the scientific method, is thrown out the window in favor of ideological outcomes and self-fulfilling prophecies. The fact that the researchers and doctors, apparently under the payroll of the pharmaceutical companies that have a vested financial interest in the vaccine outcome, lost the control group on purpose is alarming. Of course, Big Pharma will promote the vaccine as beneficial, and the controlled media will promote that message with a complete disconnect from the clinical trial details, and the FDA will grant approval on results that were intentionally constructed to produce only one outcome.

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Another video on informed consent is way below. Also from Canada.

Everything You Need to Know About Informed Consent (21CW)

In Canada, informed consent to medical interventions – including vaccines – is the law. The same is true in the US, UK, EU, Australia, and New Zealand. But these governments, along with corrupt drug regulators, are now running roughshod over what were once sacrosanct laws prohibiting misleading and coercive medical procedures, and instead have unleashed a multibillion dollar media campaign of fear and mass-panic designed to pave-over the right to informed consent.

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“Vaccine A is quite safe, and vaccine B is extremely dangerous. And yet the formula for PRR will produce the same result for vaccine A and B!”

Statistical Fraud in the FDA Vaccine Approval Process (JoshM)

There are several systems for reporting vaccine reactions, including deaths, but the only one available to the public is VAERS. It is incomplete, because it relies on voluntary reporting, there is no incentive to report to VAERS, and it is a cumbersome process. We may compare reports of the COVID vaccines to past years, when there were also hundreds of millions of vaccinations, including annual flu shots and childhood vaccine schedules. The comparison is dramatic. There were more than twice as many deaths related to the COVID vaccines this year as the sum total of all vaccine deaths in the 30-year history of VAERS. Given this safety record, how is there any possibility of approval? Here is where the statistical fraud comes in. [I am grateful to have been alerted to this situation by Matthew Crawford]

The safety criterion they have chosen is an obscure computation called PRR for Proportional Reporting Ratio. As the name implies, it is based on RATIOS of different event types and is utterly blind to the ABSOLUTE RATE of such events. PRR measures the distribution of different kinds of adverse events, e.g. blood clots, heart attacks, and deaths. If those ratios are severely out of line with the great variety of vaccine reactions in the past, PRR would detect that. For example, if the new vaccines caused an extraordinary risk of myocarditis, but everything else was low, then PRR would flag that. But if myocarditis was just one risk among many that have been reported from past vaccines, then PRR would not pick that up.

The real scandal is that PRR is blind to the absolute risk numbers. PRR is defined in such a way as to look for unusual PATTERNS of adverse events, but it is completely insensitive to unusual RATES of adverse events. Of course, it is the rates and not the patterns that are of primary concern, and the PRR is designed NOT to reflect that.

For example, suppose we have 2 vaccines:

Vaccine A has 1 reported death per million vaccinations, 3 reported heart attacks per million, and 20 reported headaches per million.

Vaccine B has 1 reported death per hundred vaccinations, 3 reported heart attacks per hundred, and 20 reported headaches per hundred.

Vaccine A is quite safe, and vaccine B is extremely dangerous. And yet the formula for PRR will produce the same result for vaccine A and B!

Clearly, PRR is not an appropriate criterion for evaluating safety of any particular vaccine. Someone has arranged to cook the books.

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“Regardless of the anti-science, despicable pieces regularly appearing in those outlets, such as suggesting that actually, masking kids is good for their learning ability.”

The More Masks Fail, The More We Need Them (Ian)

The push for masking, as always, boils down to a combination of incompetence, cowardice, fear, and political pressure. Experts enjoy the ability to be seen as “doing something,” and must never appear to be “anti-mask,” since it would immediately discredit them in the eyes of their peers, the greater scientific community and their ideological compatriots. Politicians want the “get out of jail free” card that masking provides; the opportunity to blame others for poor results. The “it would have worked if you’d all just listened to me” line of defense. The media simply outsources all critical thinking to like-minded ideologues and refuses to acknowledge or take seriously the few brave experts willing to tell the truth.

And as a result, corporations, whose decision makers are exclusively influenced by the same media sources, like The New York Times, follow right along. Regardless of the anti-science, despicable pieces regularly appearing in those outlets, such as suggesting that actually, masking kids is good for their learning ability. But everywhere you look, the cultural groupthink is dramatically failing. Counties and states following the CDC’s new guidance are not succeeding, and those ignoring it are faring no worse. Locations that never removed masks, such as Hawaii and Japan, are seeing their highest numbers of the pandemic, but manage to escape the vitriol and hatred leveled at Ron DeSantis because they’re following orders and implementing what the hive mind of acceptable opinion mandates.


The dramatic, predictable failure resulting from the CDC’s science-ending reversal would, in a sane world, be cause for intellectually honest experts to revisit their guidance and accept that their efforts to “control” infections is always doomed to fail. But naturally, we’re seeing the exact opposite. The more masks fail, the more we need them.

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One third has said they won’t comply. Maybe this is where the real fight will happen.

Pentagon To Mandate Covid-19 Vaccinations For All Military Personnel (RT)

The Pentagon has said it will update its own guidance on Covid-19 vaccinations, mandating the jab for all military personnel, following the US drug regulator’s decision to fully approve the Pfizer vaccine. Speaking on Monday, US Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby said the military was aware of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to fully approve the Pfizer vaccine for use in people over 16, and was preparing to issue updated guidance to all service personnel. “We’re going to move forward making that vaccine mandatory,” Kirby told reporters. “We’re preparing the guidance to the force right now,” he stated, adding that the exact timetable for mandating the jab was still being worked out. Earlier on Monday, the FDA announced that the Pfizer jab had been fully approved for use in the US.


The shot has been administered under emergency-use authorization since mid-December 2020. The FDA added that the Pfizer vaccine will retain its emergency-use authorization for use in adolescents and for those requiring a third dose due to other health conditions. Earlier in August, the Washington Post reported that around 65% of active-duty military personnel were fully vaccinated, compared to around 59% of eligible Americans. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has previously encouraged all military personnel to get vaccinated against Covid. “To defend this nation, we need a healthy and ready force. I strongly encourage all DoD military and civilian personnel – as well as contractor personnel – to get vaccinated now and for military service members to not wait for the mandate,” Austin stated earlier in August.

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“I do not expect a staffing shortage,” Porter said.”

NYC Orders 150,000 Teachers & School Staff To Get Vaccinated (ZH)

As the NYT explained, education staffers are the first group of city workers to face a full vaccine mandate. The announcement also opens the door to a broader vaccine mandate of city workers, which the mayor said Monday the city was considering. Last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a mandate for city workers that allowed for those unvaccinated to submit for weekly coronavirus testing. “We know this is going to help ensure that everyone is safe,” Mr. de Blasio said during a news conference on Monday, adding that city schools had extremely low virus transmission last year. The mandate, the mayor said, will help the city “build on that success.”

While the mayor’s push is likely to prove unpopular with many rank-and-file members; the city’s teacher’s unions, and unions representing other DoE staff, have signed off on the new mandate (though they’re still negotiating about what might happen to workers who continue to refuse). UFT President Michael Mulgrew acknowledged that the city had the legal right to impose the mandate, but he told reporters details were still being hashed out. The city announced last month that any teacher who failed to comply with both the vaccination requirement, and the required weekly testing for those who didn’t get the jab, would be suspended without pay.

“While the city is asserting its legal authority to establish this mandate, there are many implementation details, including provisions for medical exceptions, that by law must be negotiated with the U.F.T. and other unions, and if necessary, resolved by arbitration,” Mr. Mulgrew said in a statement. Mayor de Blasio has insisted that even if negotiations stall, the mandate will still be implemented. Meisha Porter, the chancellor of NYC’s schools, said she expects a high level of compliance from school staff on the mandate. “I do not expect a staffing shortage,” Porter said.

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No clue how serious this is, but it’s a good idea.

Truckers Threaten To Shut Down Australia Due to Covid Insanity (OI)

Australia seems to be in the grips of COVID-induced insanity as people across the country are vigorously protesting against the lockdown measures imposed to curb the spread of the renewed bout of coronavirus outbreak. After violent ruckus witnessed on the streets of major Australian cities, including Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and dogs shot dead by a rural council in New South Wales to prevent volunteers from travelling during Covid restrictions, Australian truck drivers have threatened to shut down major highways across the country as a mark of protest against Covid lockdowns. Social media websites are awash with a video of a truck driver who said in his video that truck drivers are ‘planning to shut down the country’ to ‘remove the s*** government’.


He further warned the Aussies that their demonstration could end up choking supply chains and urged them to stock up on groceries to get them through the next couple of weeks. “It’s on. The truckies are doing it. The truckies are going to shut down the country,’ the man says in the video. What that means is you need to go shopping now, get what you can for the next week or two, load your fridge, freezers,” the truck driver could be seen saying in the video.

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“The same progressives who regularly denounce “systemic racism” and “Western imperialism” are now enforcing policies that disproportionately punish minorities and the poor..”

Keeping Fear Alive (Tierney)

Throughout the pandemic, American political and public-health leaders have been following Rahm Emanuel’s classic dictum for power-seeking officials: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Now they’ve adopted a corollary: you never want a crisis to end. So they are prolonging the national misery instead of easing it, which could be done with a few simple strategies. Explain to the public that the virus will never disappear but is no longer a mortal threat to the vast majority of Americans. Encourage the minority still at risk to get vaccinated by honestly discussing who is in jeopardy and what scientists have learned about infections. Promote treatments proven to prevent infection and speed recovery while avoiding unproven treatments and mandates that cause collateral damage and generate mistrust.

Above all, make it clear to Americans that we finally have reason to celebrate: what once seemed an unprecedented danger is now just one of many pathogens that we know how to live with. But the nation’s crisismongers aren’t about to relinquish their hold over the public, so they’ve set new goals that are as unachievable as they are unnecessary and harmful. Making vaccines available to every American adult is no longer sufficient; now the crisis cannot end until the entire population has been vaccinated. Instead of focusing efforts on vaccinating the vulnerable, officials obsess on compelling universal obedience, even if that means squandering vaccines on people who already have acquired natural immunity or are at minimal risk of serious illness.

The same progressives who regularly denounce “systemic racism” and “Western imperialism” are now enforcing policies that disproportionately punish minorities and the poor, both in the United States (the majority of black teenagers and young adults in New York have been banished from much of public life by the city’s new vaccine-passport policy) and in the rest of the world. The hypocrisy was deftly captured in a tweet by Martin Kulldorff, the Harvard epidemiologist: “If you favor university vaccine mandates for low-risk American and European students, when there is not enough vaccine for older high-risk people in Asia, Africa and Latin America, please remove your #BLM tags from your Twitter/Facebook profiles.”

Children are being sentenced to another round of unnecessary mask mandates and probably more school closures based on evidence-free warnings from Anthony Fauci and others that the Delta variant will be more deadly to them than the original virus. While the variant is more infectious, the evidence does not show it to be any more lethal. In fact, the current mortality rate among American children with Covid is lower than it was last year—and last year many more children died of the flu than of Covid. One of the most thorough studies, in England, shows that the survival rate for those under 18 with Covid is 99.995 percent. But instead of emphasizing these reassuring statistics, public-health officials like Jerome Adams, the surgeon general, keep looking for new ways to scare parents and children.

“I’m an anesthesiologist,” he tweeted last weekend. “And a dad. And I can assure you in both capacities that your child will be far more comfortable if they’re in a face mask, than on a ventilator. If you’re making a choice on behalf of a child, please choose based on their comfort, vs yours.” He offered no new evidence that children are at heightened risk from the virus, much less any evidence that a mask would make any difference, but he did make sure to include a gruesome photograph of a child on a ventilator. It was a new low in public-health demagoguery, but unfortunately not so different from the fearmongering of other officials, the press, and social-media platforms. They lament that a minority of the public remains reluctant to get vaccinated without recognizing that their own tactics are a likely a chief cause of this reluctance. They have been misleading people for so long—and censoring challenges to their misinformation—that it’s no wonder polls show that an overwhelming majority of unvaccinated Americans say they don’t trust Fauci or the CDC.

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“Britain and France managed to get their nationals out last week, only to be rebuked by American brass for “making us look bad.” That helped, I’m sure.”

Throwdowns and Showdowns (Kunstler)

Notice, there are two sets of hostages in this phase of what looks like an engineered US collapse: the thousands of stranded Americans who can’t get out of Afghanistan thanks to the history-rockin’ ineptitude of “Joe Biden,” Tony Blinken, and General Mark Milley, and the millions of We-the-People back home whose minds are hostage to the narratives concocted in a shadowland of sinister governance. Welcome to a week of throwdowns and showdowns, a force majeure of mind change. A strange paralysis in the Pentagon has prevented the use of US power to clear an escape corridor to Kabul’s airport and establish order in the facility — this, after the tactically mystifying decision to abandon the US Bagram military airfield, a good twenty miles outside of festering Kabul, and surrounded by more easily-securable empty desert.

Britain and France managed to get their nationals out last week, only to be rebuked by American brass for “making us look bad.” That helped, I’m sure. And then how long can the stranded Americans even stay hidden and alive? They have to eat. Either they come out of their hidey-holes and get to some market, or they would (theoretically) have to send some Afghani servants to fetch them supplies, But, what Afghani in his right mind would want to be caught in service to the Americans by the Taliban? That quandary must have a pretty short time-horizon on it. Standing by to see how it works out….

Next in this week’s throwdown parade is the FDA’s imminent approval of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, without any of the usual extensive trials. How does that even happen, with an efficacy rate of 39 percent maximum and a runaway train of vicious side effects ranging from brain and heart damage to infertility? The so-called mRNA “vaccines” are also implicated in the ongoing mutation of the disease, producing a cavalcade of variants. Is that, perhaps, on-purpose, to keep the pandemic going, preventing it from burning-out?

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