Nov 082021
 


Vincent van Gogh Roofs of Paris 1886

 

No Booster… No Hassle-Free Foreign Travel (DM)
The Mandate on Business Intensifies the Crisis (Tucker)
Experts Rip CDC Study Claiming Vax Protection Beats Natural Immunity (JTN)
UK Excess Deaths At Home Soar Past 65,000 In Just 18 Months (Exp.)
When Will The CDC Correct Its Covid Death Counts, As Italy Just Did? (AT)
Doctors And Researchers Demand That Vaccination In Sweden Be Suspended (LRP)
World Record Freediver Diagnosed With Myopericarditis After Pfizer Vaccine (CW)
Jen Psaki , Gavin Newsom Not Been Seen in Public for Eleven Days (BN)
How Low Will He Go? Biden Approval Rating Now At 38% (JTN)
Stop Looking at Danchenko, Start Looking at Weissmann and Robert Mueller (CTH)
The Biggest Loser Of The Durham Indictments: James Comey’s FBI (JTN)

 

 

 

 

McCullough Spike Protein
https://twitter.com/i/status/1457322772439486464

 

 

“Ministers are drawing up plans to bring back tests and quarantine for those who refuse third Covid jab.”

No Booster… No Hassle-Free Foreign Travel (DM)

British travellers who fail to take their booster jabs face renewed restrictions, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Plans to reimpose quarantine and testing for those who have refused their third vaccine are currently being drawn up by Ministers to protect the UK against the spread of new coronavirus variants. But they are likely to prove controversial if introduced before most of those eligible for their booster have received it. So far, only 60 per cent have done so. The move would change the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ from having had two jabs to three. Officials are divided over how soon to implement the measure and are discussing a grace period that would allow people to travel without quarantine if they had sought a booster six months after their second jab but had not yet been offered an appointment.

Under the plans, modelled on the Israeli system, travellers would not be able to avoid the need for a third jab by producing evidence of a negative Covid-19 test. Last night a Government source said: ‘This is not going to happen immediately – but happen it will.’ The news came as Health Secretary Sajid Javid said almost 10 million people have now received their booster jab, but encouraged people to urge their elderly relatives to come forward. Boosters are currently available to over-50s, health workers and the clinically vulnerable, although the scheme is expected to be extended to the over-40s early next year.

Seven out of ten of those over 80 and three in five of the over-50s in England have had their third injection, which can be administered six months after the second. As at present, those who have not been fully vaccinated will have to self-isolate for ten full days on returning to the UK and pay for four expensive PCR tests, two before departure and two back on British soil. It is the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ that will be extended to include only those who have accepted the booster.

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Overreach.

Opposition To New Biden Vaccine Mandate Explodes As 27 States Join Fight (JTN)

A total of 27 states so far have filed lawsuits against the Biden administration over the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on private businesses of 100 or more employees. The mandate, which is being enforced by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), will require employers to ensure all their employees are either vaccinated by Jan. 4 or are tested weekly and wearing masks. If the businesses do not follow the mandate, they could face fines of up to $14,000 per violation. All but one of the states that filed lawsuits, Iowa, have Republican attorneys general. Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana are the only three of the 27 states that have Democratic governors, and Iowa’s governor is a Republican.

Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly criticized President Biden’s vaccine mandate on private businesses on Friday, saying, “While I appreciate the intention to keep people safe, a goal I share, I don’t believe this directive is the correct, or the most effective, solution for Kansas.” Kelly is up for reelection next year, and her GOP challenger is the state attorney general, whose campaign called her out for waiting until the mandate went into effect to criticize it. As for Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, he said he’s unsure if the state lawsuits against the Biden administration over the vaccine mandate have merit, WDRB reported. “I don’t know the nuances of this lawsuit, but in the end, we have to follow the law as a state, so we will prepare to comply,” Beshear said.

According to Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ spokeswoman, he is reviewing the “directive” and “will continue to ensure that all state resources are available to assist those employers affected by the requirements,” The Advocate reported. Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds released a statement on the lawsuit that reads: “I believe the vaccine is the best defense against COVID-19, but I also firmly believe in Iowans’ right to make healthcare decisions based on what’s best for themselves and their families, and I remain committed to protecting those freedoms. President Biden should do the same.”

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“..the mandate is a masking and testing one, with an exemption permitted for the vaccinated. That little trick is designed to survive the flurries of inevitable court challenges.”

The Mandate on Business Intensifies the Crisis (Tucker)

It’s hard to imagine that public confidence in everything could fall further, but it surely will. This past week was emblematic. We saw Biden’s party face an electoral rout on Tuesday due mostly to pandemic policy – even the education controversies in Virginia trace to disastrous school closures – followed two days later by an intensification of those very policies with a vaccine mandate on companies with 100 or more employees. That was followed by an announcement from Pfizer the very next day that they have a new therapeutic pill that is 89% effective, in which case, why the vaccine mandate? That’s more than enough to make one’s head spin. But then it got worse: on the same day, the head of the CDC claimed on Twitter that masks reduce “your chance of Covid-19 infection by 80%,” a claim without a shred of evidence in the scientific literature.

At this point, it seems like they will say anything, knowing full well that the fact checkers will leave alone any high official in the federal government. Let’s focus on the mandate on business. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has thankfully issued a stay on the entire order pending a closer review, citing grave constitutional problems with the OSHA order. The Biden administration is being asked to respond by tomorrow evening as of this writing. The edict itself relies most fundamentally on the claim that “immunity acquired through infection appears to be less protective than vaccination,” which is unproven and likely false. It is imposed in the midst of evidence all around us that the previous public-sector and contractor mandate has led to sickouts, resignations, and unpaid leave announcements hitting industrial sectors and cities all over the country, from airlines to fire departments to hospitals and academia.

In Senate testimony, Anthony Fauci cited the fantastic success of mandates at United Airlines while failing to mention the hundreds of firings and the pilot and staff revolt at every other airline. One would suppose that this mess would be enough to forestall more mandates but no: now all companies with 100 employees must force vaccines on its employees, or else pay fines of $13,600 per violation. More precisely, the mandate is a masking and testing one, with an exemption permitted for the vaccinated. That little trick is designed to survive the flurries of inevitable court challenges. Yes, it overtly creates a segregated caste system based on one’s willingness to submit to an injection via a government mandate. The rules come into effect on January 4, 2022, which means that businesses all over the country will spend the next two months trying to figure out what to do.

Same with workers, many millions of whom do not believe that they need, and thus do not want this vaccine that neither stops infection, nor transmission and is also associated with unusually high adverse effects for which the vaccine makers bear no liability. Buried in the gigantic text is a request for public comment on expanding this to all businesses of any size. So there is no real escape in the long run. It’s truly hard to imagine how this could happen in the U.S. But the same could be said about nearly everything that has happened in the last 21 months. Citizens are desperately struggling to get out from under the yoke of this despotism, and using every opportunity available to do so. Politicians who back these policies are being swept out of office. And yet they carry on. It appears that the sadistic state is quickly becoming a masochistic one.

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“It’s not even clear enough naturally immune people were hospitalized to reach statistical significance..”

Experts Rip CDC Study Claiming Vax Protection Beats Natural Immunity (JTN)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published an “early release” study last week that uses a highly curated population to purportedly show that mRNA-vaccinated people have a much lower rate of reinfection by COVID-19 than naturally immune people, contradicting a much larger Israeli study this summer. The CDC study concludes: “All eligible persons should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, including unvaccinated persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.” The study analyzed “COVID-19–like illness hospitalizations among adults” across nine states from January through Sept. 2. Because public health authorities portrayed vaccination as the best way to avoid hospitalization, it’s less likely that vaccinated people would seek hospitalization, thus hiding their breakthrough infections relative to the naturally immune.

Attorney Jenin Younes, whose New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) files legal challenges against COVID vaccine mandates, tweeted that the study contradicts a meta-analysis touted by the CDC, which found “no significant difference” in protection between vaccination and natural immunity. Immunologist Hooman Noorchashm, the medical expert for multiple NCLA challenges, called the study “another teleological piece of propaganda” by the CDC because it excludes the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and likely includes recovered people in the vaccinated group.

Harvard Medical School epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff tweeted that the study has a “major statistical flaw” — falsely portraying hospitalized respiratory patients as “representative of the population” — which renders the odds ratio “wrong.” Former New York Times journalist Alex Berenson argued the study “is meaningless gibberish that would never have been published if the agency did not face huge political pressure to get people vaccinated.” It’s not even clear enough naturally immune people were hospitalized to reach statistical significance, he said, noting there’s no unadjusted odds ratio.

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Nope, not a word about vaccines. It’s all very mysterious. What could it be?

UK Excess Deaths At Home Soar Past 65,000 In Just 18 Months (Exp.)

Figures from the Office of National Statistics for England and Wales show over the past eighteen months there have been at least 74,745 excess deaths – deaths above the five-year average – in private homes. Only 8,759 (12 percent) involved COVID-19. The deaths at home figures from 7 March, 2020 to 17 September, 2021 are 37 percent higher than the 2015 – 2019 average and the numbers are continuing to climb. Last week was the 16th week in a row where the ONS reported extra or “excess” deaths. The disturbing trend includes 15-19-year-old boys. Deaths in this group have risen by 30 percent between January and October this year compared to the same period in 2020 – from 355 to 462. This is 20 percent higher than the five-year average for this period which was 386.


Last night Professor Carl Heneghan, Director of Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, called for an urgent inquiry into the circumstances behind the deaths to find out whether they could have been prevented. He said: “More people are dying of non-covid causes and we continue to see a considerable and continuing rise in excess deaths this year not caused by Covid-19 and occurring mostly in the home. This is extremely concerning. It is urgent we now launch a proper inquiry to find out whether these deaths could have been prevented. The death certificates only give a snapshot of what is actually going on. “We need to go beyond these and look at those deaths which may not have been covered by coroners. To understand the true cause and what can be done to reduce the high number of excess deaths, particularly those in the home setting.”

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Don’t worry, the first fact checks deriding the Italian Higher Institute of Health are already out.

When Will The CDC Correct Its Covid Death Counts, As Italy Just Did? (AT)

The Summit caught a fascinating story out of Italy: the Italian Higher Institute of Health decided it had miscounted COVID deaths. Instead of looking at people who died with COVID, as it once did, it looked only at people who died from COVID — leading to a 97% decrease in Italy’s COVID death count. So far, the CDC shows no signs of following suit. According to The Summit: “The Italian Higher Institute of Health has drastically reduced the country’s official COVID death toll number by over 97 per cent after changing the definition of a fatality to someone who died from COVID rather than with COVID. Italian newspaper Il Tempo reports that the Institute has revised downward the number of people who have died from COVID rather than with COVID from 130,000 to under 4,000. “Yes, you read that right. Turns out 97.1% of deaths hitherto attributed to Covid were not due directly to Covid,” writes Toby Young.

Of the of the 130,468 deaths registered as official COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic, only 3,783 are directly attributable to the virus alone. “All the other Italians who lost their lives had from between one and five pre-existing diseases. Of those aged over 67 who died, 7% had more than three co-morbidities, and 18% at least two,” writes Young. “According to the Institute, 65.8% of Italians who died after being infected with Covid were ill with arterial hypertension (high blood pressure), 23.5% had dementia, 29.3% had diabetes, and 24.8% atrial fibrillation. Add to that, 17.4% had lung problems, 16.3% had had cancer in the last five years and 15.7% suffered from previous heart failures.”

There’s more interesting material here, for the article discusses the ethics of overcounting to induce panic. Reading between the lines, the problem in Italy was that the socialized medicine system was unable to cope with an influx of patients during a bad flu season. (And it was a bad flu season.) The actual data match closely what those who are not panicking have observed in America. As with every flu season, there are unlucky young (and youngish) people who die from the flu. Overall, though, the ones who die are either very elderly or have comorbidities of the type described in the quoted material above. In America, however, counting COVID deaths is more of an art than it is a science (and that’s not even getting into the way the government incentivized hospitals to count COVID deaths).

Read more …

Google translate.

“..the vaccine had a good effect for about two months..”

Doctors And Researchers Demand That Vaccination In Sweden Be Suspended (LRP)

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) revealed on November 2, 2021 that a subcontractor to Pfizer was likely to conduct extensive research fraud during the Phase III study of Pfizer’s covid vaccine in the fall of 2020. The article’s main witness is Brook Jackson, in September 2020 , who worked on Pfizer’s vaccine studies. Jackson’s testimony shows that the company falsified data, blinded patients, hired insufficiently trained vaccinators and was slow to follow up on side effects reported in the Phase III study. The staff who performed quality checks were overwhelmed by the amount of problems they discovered. After repeatedly informing Ventavia of the shortcomings, Brook Jackson sent a complaint via email to the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) on September 25, 2020.

Ventavia fired her later that day. In support of his criticism, Jackson has provided BMJ with dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings and emails. BMJ substantiates her testimony with statements from many former employees at Ventavia. The article also states that the FDA never did any review of the business where Brook Jackson worked. The article describes that the FDA has too few resources to review clinical trials. In the years 2000 to 2005, only about 1 percent of all studies were reviewed, since then the number of reviews has decreased. In August 2021, the FDA published a summary of the number of reviews of Pfizer’s covid vaccine studies. A total of 9 of 153 study places had been examined, which corresponds to 6 percent of the study’s research centers.

We believe that what BMJ reported is extremely serious. This overturns confidence in Pfizer, which is responsible for testing the vaccine and for the safety of the vaccine currently used by Swedes, of whom hundreds of thousands are children. The extent of the number of reported suspected side effects of the covid vaccine is also gigantic, for example in Sweden during the ten months that vaccination has taken place 83,744 suspected side effects have been reported , which is more than 10 times more than all side effects reported per year during the most recent years for all drugs and vaccines, a total of about 25,000 substances. About twenty studies have shown that the effect of the vaccine is very weak. One of these studies, which is Swedish, showed that the vaccine had a good effect for about two months, that AstraZeneca’s vaccine had no effect against the delta variant after four months and that the same applied to Pfizer’s vaccine after seven months.

The strong suspicion that parts of the clinical trial of Pfizer’s vaccine have not been performed in a scientifically acceptable manner and where the study results can not be considered reliable, combined with the large extent of reported suspected side effects after vaccination, many of a serious nature, make us doctors , researchers and immunologists are deeply concerned. Not least for children who are at extremely low risk of serious illness with covid-19, but who are at risk of serious side effects. The fact that the vaccine’s effect has already subsided sharply after a few months and is weak against the delta variant of the virus contributes to our conclusion that covid vaccination in Sweden should be paused until risk / benefit calculations are made for all age groups. Our position is taken in the light of the revelation in BMJ and what we know today about the risks for the patient.

Read more …

End of career.

World Record Freediver Diagnosed With Myopericarditis After Pfizer Vaccine (CW)

Florian Dagoury, currently the world’s top static breath-hold free diver, has been diagnosed with myocarditis and pericarditis 40 days following his second dose with the Pfizer vaccine. He is known for the fact he officially held his breath for 10 minutes and 30 seconds. The elite Freediver, of French origin and based in Thailand, experienced a significant decrease in his breath-hold ability and went to a cardiologist who told him that it’s a common side effect of the Pfizer vaccine. Florian shared his experience on Instagram:

“Myocarditis, Pericarditis and Trivial Mitral regurgitation! Thank you Pfizer. Just want to share my annoying experience after vaccination and perhaps have some testimonials and similar stories around Freedivers. Did you get better? After my 2nd dose I noticed that my heart rate was way higher than normal and my breath hold capacities went down significantly. During sleep, I’m at 65-70bpm instead of 37-45bpm. During the day I’m now always over 100bpm instead of 65bpm, even when I sit down and relax. I once even reached 177bpm while having dinner with friends !!!! 10 days after my 2nd jab, I went to see a cardiologist and he told me it’s a common side effect of Pfizer vaccin, nothing to worry about, just rest it will pass. 40days after 2nd jab, I had no progress so I went to see another cardiologist and got diagnosed with Myocarditis, Pericarditis and Trivial Mitral regurgitation!

Which is basically an inflammation of the heart muscles caused by the immune system and some tiny leaks of blood from the valves that no longer close properly. I’m now struggling to reach 8min breath hold, 150m dyn and I even have a strong urge to breathe doing 40m dives. 30% decrease on my diving performance roughly. My first thought and recommendation to Freedivers around the world is to choose a vaccine which is done the old fashion way like Sputnik, Sinovac, Sinopharm etc…instead of those new mRNA vaccines.”

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Both have sudden family emergencies.

Jen Psaki , Gavin Newsom Not Been Seen in Public for Eleven Days (BN)

Ever since White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that she had a case of Covid-19, despite being fully vaccinated, she has been absent from the public spotlight. This week her role was taken by Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who just might be the least credible person on the planet. Psaki disclosed on October 31 that she had a “breatkthrough case” of Covid-19 in what she characterized as an abundance of transparency. “Psaki, who is fully vaccinated, said she has experienced only mild symptoms,” NPR reported. “In a statement, she said she had not had contact with senior White House officials since Wednesday — four days before she tested positive — and last saw Biden on Tuesday, when they were wearing masks and were more than six feet apart from each other, outdoors.”

“The White House had announced early on Thursday morning that Psaki would not be traveling with Biden to the G-20 summit in Rome due to a family emergency,” she said. “That emergency, she said on Sunday, was that members of her household had tested positive for COVID-19.” “Since then, I have quarantined and tested negative (via PCR) for COVID on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. However, today, I tested positive for COVID,” Psaki said. The last press conference given by Jen Psaki was on October 27. Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had multiple myeloma, was reported to have died from “complications of Covid,” despite the 84-year-old being “fully vaccinated.” Powell’s passing caused a spike in searches on breakthrough infections.

As of October 18, 2021, the CDC reports that 41,127 patients have been hospitalized or died as a result of breakthrough COVID infections. The CDC saays that there were 10,857 deaths resulting from breakthrough COVID infections. The CDC claims that there are 189 million fully vaccinated people in the U.S. If mortality rates for these vaccinated Americans were reported the same way ‘Covid-related deaths’ have been since 2020, we would be reading about tens of thousands of “vaccine-related deaths.” Jen Psaki’s disappearance since news of her ‘breakthrough infection’ accompanies another mysterious shrinking from public view: California Govenor Gavin Newsom. As reported earlier today, Gavin Newsom hasn’t been seen in public for eleven days, since he received a ‘mix-and-match’ booster shot. Newsom also explained his cancelation of his trip to Rome as a sudden family emergency.

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Don’t worry, Kamala is still lower..

How Low Will He Go? Biden Approval Rating Now At 38% (JTN)

President Joe Biden’s approval rating has sunk to its lowest point thus far at 38%, according to a new poll released Sunday. USA Today and Suffolk University conducted the poll between Wednesday and Friday last week, following the Democratic party’s loss in the Virginia state elections and as Biden’s legislative agenda was in flux on Capitol Hill, but prior to the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, The Hill reported. Biden’s approval rating has continued declining in recent months, after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, as a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll at the end of last month found it to be at 43%, a five-point reduction from the previous September poll, according to the news outlet.


According to the USA Today/Suffolk University poll, 46% of respondents said Biden’s job as president is worse than expected, including 16% who voted for him last year. A total of 44% of Independents said Biden’s performance is worse than expected. The poll also found that 64% of those surveyed, including 28% of Democrats, didn’t want to see Biden run for reelection in 2024. In comparison, 58% didn’t want to see former President Trump as the GOP presidential nominee for 2024, including 24% of Republicans. Last week, Biden responded to his declining poll numbers, saying “that’s not why I ran,” according to The Hill. He remarked on the volatility of polls, adding that he “didn’t run to determine how well I’m going to do in the polls.”

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FISA applications based on material they knew was false.

Stop Looking at Danchenko, Start Looking at Weissmann and Robert Mueller (CTH)

When Andrew Weissmann and crew entered the DOJ to effectively run the Trump-Russia investigation, their purpose was to: (1) continue what was ongoing; and (2) coverup all that came before. AG Jeff Sessions recused himself, and DAG Rod Rosenstein became the co-dependent enabler for the Weissmann crew’s needs. During a June 2020 Senate hearing, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein openly admitted to being nothing more than the rubber stamp for every request. Rosenstein approved every request, signed every authorization and agreed to every scope expansion Andrew Weissmann put in front of him. There was nothing Rosenstein ever denied the Weissmann crew. Team Weissmann, under the authorities of a blank-check special counsel, effectively ran Main Justice top to bottom for two years.

When you accept the framework Rosenstein later admitted was in place, then you understand that anything blocked from DOJ/FBI release (see Nunes pleas) was blocked by Weissmann Inc; and everything that ever came out of the DOJ/FBI was released by Weissmann Inc. Reread that as many times as needed until it sinks in. Back to the question about why the DOJ/FBI were protecting Danchenko by not exposing the lies that John Durham is now making public in his indictments. To wit, I would reference you THAT specific moment in July of 2018 when Team Weissmann wrote a letter to the FISA Court that was increasingly distrusting of what they were seeing and hearing within the justice system: Look at how the FISA was used by the Mueller investigation to continue its weaponization throughout 2017 and even into 2018. In July of 2018, long after the source material was debunked, the special counsel office was still telling the FISA court the predication for the FISA application and subsequent renewals was valid.

Drive this point home. This is a key to understanding the scope of how weaponized the Mueller team was. In July of 2018 the special counsel resistance group was lying to the FISA court in order to protect the cornerstone document that permitted them to weaponize the intelligence apparatus. This letter was written July 12, 2018. It is NOT accidental that only a week later, July 21st, the special counsel released the FISA application under the guise of FOIA fulfillment. Aside from the date, the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The Mueller team running the DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the application. The resistance unit running the DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.

On page #8 [Source Document Here] when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, Igor Danchenko, the special counsel group notes the FBI found Danchenko to be truthful and cooperative. This is an incredibly misleading statement to the FISA court, because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier Danchenko, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, disavowed the content and informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk. By July 2018, the DOJ clearly knew the dossier was full of fabrications, yet they withheld that information from the court and said the predicate was still valid. Why? It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive. In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex.

Read more …

Wait till Obama’s involvement comes to light.

The Biggest Loser Of The Durham Indictments: James Comey’s FBI (JTN)

Special Counsel John Durham’s latest criminal case is as much an indictment of James Comey’s FBI as it is of the primary source of the Steele dossier, whom Durham accuses of repeatedly lying to agents. The Steele dossier was the central evidence used by the FBI to win four consecutive FISA warrants targeting Trump’s campaign — and in 39 pages of painstaking detail the indictment lays out just how flawed and fake central elements of the dossier were. Those FISA warrants allowed the bureau to spy on former Trump adviser Carter Page and his many contacts in Trump world for nearly a year.

Igor Danchenko, Steele’s primary source for the dossier, contrived an entire source for key allegations in the dossier and relied on a longtime Hillary Clinton-supporting public relations executive for other intelligence without telling the FBI, the indictment charges. That PR executive had extensive ties to Russian government officials, even as he provided Danchenko information that landed in the dossier. For some reason, Comey’s FBI couldn’t detect these serious flaws even though a group of civil lawyers was able to locate several Russians suspected of being Danchenko’s sub-sources, interviewing each of them and securing declarations that the information attributed to them in the dossier was wrong or contrived.

“I believe that Mr. Danchenko framed me as Sub-Source 4 to add credibility to his low-quality work, which is not based on real information or in-depth analysis,” said the witness declaration from Alexey Sergeyevich Dundich. “My impression is that Mr. Danchenko fabricated the information published in the Dossier to make quick money,” he added. “It is apparent to me that the Dossier is a deliberate fraud and a collection of idle rumors.” [..] In the meantime, experts see in Durham’s indictment serious red flags for an FBI counterintelligence probe on Comey’s and deputy Andrew McCabe’s watch before they were fired, an investigation that stretched more than two years without finding any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.

“The fact pattern that John Durham is methodically establishing shows what James Comey and Andrew McCabe likely knew from day one, that the Steele Dossier was politically-driven nonsense created at the behest of the Clinton campaign,” said Kevin Brock, the FBI’s former intelligence chief and one of the bureau’s most respected retirees. “And yet they knowingly ran with its false information to obtain legal process against an American citizen,” he said. “They defrauded not just a federal court, they defrauded the FBI and the American people.”

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Sep 182021
 
 September 18, 2021  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Starry night over the Rhône 1888

 

To Governor DeSantis, Ivey, Lee And Others (Denninger)
FDA Advisory Panel Rejects Widespread Pfizer Booster Shots (AP)
FDA Advisory Panel Rejects COVID Booster Shot for Most Americans (NR)
How ‘Witch Hunts’ ALWAYS Start… (Denninger)
24 State AG’s Challenge Biden’s Vaccine Mandate For Private Sector (JTN)
Biden To Host Covid-19 Summit On Wednesday (Y!)
Excess Death:Life Ratio Is Unacceptable (Kirsch)
11 of 15 NYC Restaurants Not Enforcing Vaccine Mandate (NYP)
Vaccine Nasal Sprays Aim To ‘Shut Door’ On Virus (Y!)
Ronapreve: ‘Most Vulnerable’ To Get New Covid Drug Next Week (BBC)
Lions and tigers at National Zoo Being Treated For Covid-19 (JTN)
Morrison, The Third Amigo, Speaks Loudly To Xi (SMH)

 

 

Remarkable.

 

 

 

 

Less than a year ago.

 

 

Ron Paul

 

 

Karl leaves out the vit. D. Not great. But a good initiative.

To Governor DeSantis, Ivey, Lee And Others (Denninger)

It is time to respond to this outrage: BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – “The increase in usage of monoclonal antibodies has caused federal officials to place new limits on how much of them Alabama will get. We’ve learned that state health officials and legislators are fighting to make sure the state gets as much as it needs. The interesting twist is that there is no shortage of monoclonal antibodies of any kind nationwide. As of this week, the more than 200 providers offering monoclonal antibodies will see a roughly 30 percent reduction in what they requested.”

Ok, fine. Which one of you Governors would like to have a basically-zero Covid rate? Which one of you would like to be the State with the lowest rate of coronavirus disease, a collapsed health-care burden (to near-zero) and a collapsed rate of death too. How would you like to see this start to happen within two weeks and be so apparent every news stations has to report on it within a month?Here’s how — which, if you read when I put this forward, was something I promoted in early December of 2020. It costs about $2 per person in a household.

It’s simple: For anyone suspected (test results not back yet) you dispense to them five doses of Ivermectin to be taken every day if they are obese or otherwise morbid, and every second day if not along with one dose per every two days for everyone in the household, calibrated by their weight. Everyone in the household also gets ten days of a 1,000mg Vitamin C tablet and ten days of 30mg of Zinc, both dietary supplements. The exception is anyone on a blood thinner; you simply ask and, if they are, they don’t get the drug (but do get the supplements.) The State buys the drug in bulk, from India if you have to (fly a charter over there to pick it up; **** the Feds) and dispenses it.

Why? Read the linked article. This is is not just about treatment; it is also about cutting off forward transmission of the virus. It will not work every time but it doesn’t have to work every time — just often enough to suppress Rt below 1.0 and the virus dies out. The risk of someone having a serious adverse event from this is 1 in 600,000. If Florida has ten percent of their population that gets infected (or suspected to be) or is in a household with someone who is over the next three months (improbably high, but let’s go with it) that would be a cost of about $5 million. For Alabama it would cost about a million. That’s it. Who’s got the stones to do this?

Whoever does it first and collapses their Covid-19 case, hospitalization and death rate is President in 2024 — that is, if the other 49 States don’t have their residents lay siege to DC and their State governments as soon as they see the first State’s results. It won’t work? Yes it will — it did in a State in India too with over 200 million people. Grow a set, governors. The Federal Government cannot prevent you from doing this.

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AP changed the headline on the fly. From the one I used it became: “US Panel Backs Covid-19 Boosters Only For Seniors, High-risk”. Curious.

The rejection was massive, that is noticeable. 16-2.

FDA Advisory Panel Rejects Widespread Pfizer Booster Shots (AP)

Dealing the White House a stinging setback, a government advisory panel overwhelmingly rejected a plan Friday to give Pfizer COVID-19 booster shots across the board, and instead endorsed the extra vaccine dose only for those who are 65 or older or run a high risk of severe disease. The twin votes represented a heavy blow to the Biden administration’s sweeping effort, announced a month ago, to shore up nearly all Americans’ protection amid the spread of the highly contagious delta variant. The nonbinding recommendation — from an influential committee of outside experts who advise the Food and Drug Administration — is not the last word. The FDA will consider the group’s advice and make its own decision, probably within days. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to weigh in next week.

In a surprising turn, the advisory panel rejected, 16-2, boosters for almost everyone. Members cited a lack of safety data on extra doses and also raised doubts about the value of mass boosters, rather than ones targeted to specific groups. Then, in an 18-0 vote, it endorsed extra shots for people 65 and older and those at risk of serious disease. Panel members also agreed that health workers and others who run a high risk of being exposed to the virus on the job should get boosters, too. That would help salvage part of the White House’s campaign but would still be a huge step back from the far-reaching proposal to offer third shots of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to Americans eight months after they get their second dose. The White House sought to frame the action as progress.

“Today was an important step forward in providing better protection to Americans from COVID-19,” said White House spokesman Kevin Munoz. “We stand ready to provide booster shots to eligible Americans once the process concludes at the end of next week.”

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Same thing, but I noticed this sentence: “..data from Israel which shows that a booster can strengthen protection for a few weeks in older adults.”

FDA Advisory Panel Rejects COVID Booster Shot for Most Americans (NR)

An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration on Friday recommended against approving a booster shot of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to most Americans. The scientific advisory committee voted 16-to-3 against recommending the additional shots, thwarting the Biden administration’s hopes that the FDA would approve the third shot in time to begin rolling out the extra dose for Pfizer recipients next week. However, the panel voted 18-0 in favor of recommending a booster shot for anyone over 65 or anyone who is at high risk of severe disease from COVID-19.

The vote followed a daylong debate in which a number of the panel’s independent experts questioned whether the data justified a broad rollout of an additional shot to most Americans while the vaccines still appear to offer strong protection against severe COVID-19 disease and hospitalization. “It’s unclear that everyone needs to be boosted, other than a subset of the population that clearly would be at high risk for serious disease,” said Dr. Michael G. Kurilla, a committee member and official at the National Institutes of Health. The CDC’s Dr. Sara Oliver presented data showing that vaccines continue to offer robust protection against severe forms of COVID-19 in the U.S., even in people 75 and older.

Jonathan Sterne, a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology in the U.K., said his analysis of 76 different studies on the vaccines’ real world effectiveness found that a number of factors can skew the results, including how many unvaccinated people in a study have natural immunity from earlier COVID-19 disease. He cautioned against drawing conclusions from short-term results from booster shots, such as data from Israel which shows that a booster can strengthen protection for a few weeks in older adults.

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“..the reason the town has a rat problem is that they’re leaving their damned trash outdoors and have killed all the cats who would otherwise control the rodents.”

How ‘Witch Hunts’ ALWAYS Start… (Denninger)

Non-sterilizing vaccines increase infection prevalence markedly because someone who is infected yet has protection does not know they’re infected and thus spreads it all over the place until it hits someone who has had a vaccine failure (not “breakthough”) or is unvaccinated. You then see actual symptomatic disease yet the vaccinated people may well have passed the pathogen through a dozen or more of them before that happened. In short the vaccines we’re using today cause VACCINATED PERSONS to screw both the unvaccinated and those who have waning immunity which incidentally is extremely common with narrowly-focused non-sterilizing vaccines (again, witness the “aP” versions of the pertussis vaccine .vs. the “wP” versions which are durable) and that does not even account for the coronavirus mutational factor which we’ve also know about for decades and, in non-sterilized vaccinated persons promotes mutational escape since the odds of being symptomatic go down.

Who doesn’t get screwed? Those who got the pathogen and built durable and broad natural immunity, as well as those who used sterilizing vaccines — if there is one. For coronaviruses there isn’t one so in point of fact the actual plague rats are calling everyone else a “witch” and threatening to drown or burn them when in fact the reason the town has a rat problem is that they’re leaving their damned trash outdoors and have killed all the cats who would otherwise control the rodents. And the worst part of it are the grifters who have 40+ years of actual scientific knowledge that they’re 100% full of **** and yet run around scaring everyone and telling them that if they just drown a few more witches the rats will go away. It was a damnable lie hundreds of years ago, it was used for profit hundreds of years ago and it remains a damnable lie used for profit today. Worse is a “vaccine passport”; that provides the plague rats the ability to congregate with more plague rats and wildly spread disease among them so as to find more susceptible hosts!

Such schemes with non-sterilizing vaccines ridiculously increase disease propagation.The absolute worst of this is forced, encouraged or, dare I say, allowed non-sterilizing vaccination among health care workers. That’s manslaughter because some percentage of their patients cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons and by definition those who seek health care are already compromised in some fashion or they wouldn’t be there. Perhaps they have cancer and are taking chemotherapy or have some immunological disorder. A non-sterilized vaccinated nurse or doctor treating them is going to kill them as certain as the sun will rise in the East tomorrow because said doctor or nurse has no idea they’re infected and passing the pathogen to others; as soon as it hits someone who is actually susceptible to get sick that person is screwed.

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“..a public health disaster that will displace vulnerable workers and exacerbate a nationwide hospital staffing crisis, with severe consequences for all Americans.”

24 State AG’s Challenge Biden’s Vaccine Mandate For Private Sector (JTN)

24 Republican attorneys general, led by South Carolina AG Alan Wilson, have joined a coalition to stop President Joe Biden’s recent order that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandate that private sector employers with 100 or more employees require them to receive a COVID-19 shot, submit to weekly testing, or lose their jobs. The order, the AGs argue, would drive some workers to leave their jobs (in an already tight labor market not yet recovered from last year’s shutdowns) — including those in the healthcare industry. Calling Biden’s plan “disastrous and counterproductive,” the AGs’ letter warns the “vaccination mandate represents not only a threat to individual liberty, but a public health disaster that will displace vulnerable workers and exacerbate a nationwide hospital staffing crisis, with severe consequences for all Americans.”

Nurses have already been refusing vaccine mandates imposed by their employers in many states, and filed lawsuits arguing their natural immunity protects them and others. After working for over a year in hospitals and urgent care centers being exposed to those who had the coronavirus, plaintiffs in several lawsuits argue they were considered heroes. Now, they’re losing their jobs or being vilified for choosing not to take an experimental drug only available, in some cases, through emergency use authorization, according to their complaints. Biden’s mandate doesn’t include exemptions for those who work remotely, have religious objections or health concerns, or have already obtained natural immunity following recovery from the virus.

The attorneys general argue Biden’s “edict is also illegal,” relying as it does on a rarely used emergency temporary standard under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Exempt from the normal public notice and comment period, the emergency standard can go into effect immediately upon publication. In June, the Department of Labor attempted to adopt an emergency temporary standard for the first time since 1983, and that attempt is currently under challenge. “Regardless of how you feel about vaccines, President Biden’s edict is illegal and if the administration doesn’t change course we’ll pursue every legal option to strike it down,” S.C. AG Wilson said in a statement. “I’m fully vaccinated and encourage everyone who can to get the shot, but this is a question of following the law. We think it will also mean fewer people will get vaccinated, which we’ve already seen in New York, where healthcare workers quit because of New York’s vaccine mandate.”

Read more …

More vaccines.

“..NGOs, philanthropists, and industry..”

Biden To Host Covid-19 Summit On Wednesday (Y!)

President Joe Biden will host a virtual summit with world leaders on the coronavirus pandemic next Wednesday, a day after he addresses the United Nations General Assembly, the White House said Friday. “This meeting is about expanding and enhancing our shared efforts to defeat Covid-19” and will seek to “align on a common vision” against the virus, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. The summit will be “on the margins of the UN General Assembly.” Biden, due to address the annual UN meeting on Tuesday, has pitched the United States as the global leader on the fight to get the world vaccinated, even if the claim is greeted with skepticism by some health NGOs and others.


No details about participants were provided. Psaki said in her statement that the summit will build “from previous gatherings of world leaders and ministers in fora like the G7, G20, and Act Accelerator to rally civil society, NGOs, philanthropists, and industry along with world leaders and align on a common vision for defeating Covid-19 together.”

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Kirsch’s slides don’t fit well into Debt Rattle format.

Steve Kirsch Founded COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund (CETF). Entrepreneur, philanthropist, environmentalist.
Tweet: “@stkirsch had his Twitter account suspended for asking people to read his article on # of people killed by the vaccines. If Twitter thinks he’s wrong on this important issue, why not debate him instead of censoring him? You can follow him on GETTR. Slide 6 offered $1M bet to anyone who thought he was wrong. Where’s the misinfo? But if I tweet a link to his article, my account will be taken down so go to his GETTR account to see the post.”

Excess Death:Life Ratio Is Unacceptable (Kirsch)

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They need to make a living.

11 of 15 NYC Restaurants Not Enforcing Vaccine Mandate (NYP)

Most of the 15 Manhattan restaurants visited by undercover sleuths this week were not enforcing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s city-wide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for people dining inside, according to a new investigation. Only four of the 15 restaurants asked reporters for ID along with proof of vaccination before seating them inside, according to a segment from Inside Edition. At an Upper East Side location of the BurgerFi chain, the restaurant let a producer for the show order and eat inside without showing proof of vaccination — even though the eatery had small signs at each table that read “show me your vax.” When confronted the following day about the lax enforcement, a manager of the store said, “I’m shocked right now, not gonna lie. I’m shocked because I know that I’ve definitely been asking everyone.”


BurgerFi is now investigating the matter, a representative for the company told The Post. “After learning about the incident, we immediately began an investigation, and will continue to work with all BurgerFi locations to ensure all proper steps are taken to abide by vaccination dining regulations and policies appropriate to each restaurant location,” the spokesperson said. Hummus Kitchen, an Upper East Side Mediterranean restaurant, also didn’t ask to see proof of vaccination and matching ID when visited by an Inside Edition producer. Among the four restaurants that did cooperate with the order was SoHo’s Mercer Kitchen, where a hostess asked to see a vaccine card at the door.

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“.. trigger production of an antibody known as immunoglobulin A..”

Vaccine Nasal Sprays Aim To ‘Shut Door’ On Virus (Y!)

Could delivering Covid-19 immunity directly to the nose — the area of the body via which it is most likely to be transmitted — help conquer the pandemic? The World Health Organization says clinical trials are underway to evaluate eight nasal spray vaccines that target Covid-19. The most advanced effort so far by China’s Xiamen University, the University of Hong Kong and Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy has completed phase-2 trials. “When the virus infects someone it usually gets in through the nose,” said researcher Nathalie Mielcarek who is working with the Lille Pasteur Institute to develop a nasal spray vaccine against whooping cough. “The idea is to shut the door.”


An article published in Scientific American in March urged developing nasal spray vaccines because they have an immediate effect on the virus in an infected person’s mucus. There they trigger production of an antibody known as immunoglobulin A, which can block infection. “This overwhelming response, called sterilising immunity, reduces the chance that people will pass on the virus,” said the article. The vaccines currently available offer strong protection against severe forms of Covid-19 but are less reliable at preventing the spread of the virus. Stimulating immunity directly in the nose “lowers the risk of infecting other people”, said Mielcarek. “From there you have less of the virus infecting the lungs and so fewer severe cases since the viral load is lower,” she added.

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“..uses a pair of laboratory-made antibodies to attack the virus..”

“The UK is leading the world in identifying and rolling out life-saving medicines..”

Ronapreve: ‘Most Vulnerable’ To Get New Covid Drug Next Week (BBC)

The UK’s “most vulnerable” hospital patients, who are unable to build up an antibody response to Covid, will be offered new drug Ronapreve from Monday. The new Covid treatment, approved just last month, uses a pair of laboratory-made antibodies to attack the virus. It was famously used as part of the suite of experimental medicines given to US President Donald Trump last year. The antibody cocktail has been shown to reduce hospital stays by four days and cut the risk of death by a fifth. The government said it had secured sufficient supply of the new therapeutic for eligible NHS patients across the four nations to cover the forthcoming winter.


Health Secretary Sajid Javid said he was “thrilled it will be saving lives from as early as next week”. “The UK is leading the world in identifying and rolling out life-saving medicines, particularly for Covid 19, and we will continue our vital work to find the best treatments available to save lives and protect the NHS,” he said. The new treatment is expensive and priority will be given to those patients at greatest risk of becoming severely ill. It will be offered to those over-50 without the necessary antibodies, and those aged 12-49 who are immuno-compromised – for example those with certain cancers – who struggle to mount an antibody response, either through being exposed to Covid, or from vaccination.

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“..the Zoetis covid vaccine..”

Lions and tigers at National Zoo Being Treated For Covid-19 (JTN)

Nine big cats at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington D.C. are being treated for COVID-19 after testing positive for the virus, according to reports. According to zoo officials, six African lions, two Amur tigers, and a Sumatran tiger fell ill earlier this week. Animal keepers at the zoo say they observed decreased appetites, coughing, sneezing, and lethargy in several lions and tigers last weekend. After running a fecal test on the large cats, it was confirmed they had contracted the virus.


“The tigers are less affected than the lions, showing fewer symptoms. The varying degrees of symptoms have us watching all of the animals very carefully,” a zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson told WTOP. ”We’re being as positive as possible.”The nine animals are being treated with anti-inflammatory and anti-nausea medication, along with an antibiotic to prevent pneumonia. The rest of the animals at the zoo are expected to be given the Zoetis covid vaccine, which is made specifically for animals. All of the large cats are expected to recover.

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“.. In the time it takes China to build 10 new submarines, Australia will be taking delivery of exactly none…”

Morrison, The Third Amigo, Speaks Loudly To Xi (SMH)

Beijing decided to break Australia’s will. It imposed trade bans on more than $20 billion worth of exports last year and published a list of 14 demands on Australia’s sovereignty. Australia’s reply was delivered this week. In co-ordinated appearances by Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, Australia elevated its relationships with the US and Britain to pool their efforts on the most important next-generation warfighting technologies. This so-called “trilateral security partnership” is to be known as AUKUS. In some ways this was mildly comical. The Dad’s Army Anglophone allies who fought together in World War II getting back together for one more fight, led by an American President who forgot Scott Morrison’s name at the critical moment – “that fella down under”, he improvised, “I appreciate you, pal” – in their joint video appearance on Thursday.

The three amigos – an Aussie marketing huckster, an English buffoon and an American senior citizen. Fresh from being chased out of Afghanistan and humiliated by barbarian terrorists they’d set out to defeat 20 years earlier. Their marquee initiative – for Washington and London to supply nuclear propulsion technology for Australian submarines – is serious. But Canberra has no ability to make use of it in a deployable submarine for at least another 20 years. What’s the point of giving an engine to someone without a car? In embracing AUKUS, Australia tore up its $90 billion deal with France for the supply of 12 conventionally powered submarines. Meaning that, from Thursday, Australia has no arrangements with anyone to supply any new submarines whatsoever.

China has 66 submarines. It’s expected to have 10 more by 2030. Six of those new boats will be nuclear-powered, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence. In the time it takes China to build 10 new submarines, Australia will be taking delivery of exactly none.

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Aug 142021
 


Pablo Picasso The old guitarist 1903-4

 

Biden Admin Warns Of Threat From Anti-Lockdown ‘Extremists’ and More (RT)
Ex-Pfizer VP Urges Pregnant, Childbearing Age Women Not To Get Vaccine (CP)
Dr. Peter McCullough – Ends The Pandemic With 5 COVID Facts (LS)
Pfizer CEO to Public: Just Trust Us on the Covid Booster (KHN)
Renowned German Pathologist Urges More Autopsies of Vaccinated People (NA)
Israel Predicts Thousands Of Seriously Ill Covid Patients Within Month (ToI)
Japanese Doctors Recommend Ivermectin to Cure Corona (Tribun)
Why Won’t Our Government Even Inform People About Vitamin D? (Horowitz)
Head Of WHO Covid Origin Team Admits China Ordered Them What To Write (SN)
Drug Firms Poised To Make Billions Of Dollars From Covid Booster Jabs (G.)
Low-Cost Test Could Detect Delta Variant In Saliva (MNT)
Brace for Impact (Kunstler)
The Vanishing Legacy of Barack Obama (Taibbi)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The right thing
https://twitter.com/i/status/1422286221015982082

 

 

 

 

The storyline is being written right before your eyes:

Unvaccinated = Anti-Lockdown Extremist = Conspiracy Theorist = Domestic Terrorist = Jihadist = Al-Qaeda.

“..though there are currently no credible or imminent threats identified.”

Biden Admin Warns Of Threat From Anti-Lockdown ‘Extremists’ and More (RT)

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a terror warning that appears to put Americans pushing back against Covid-19 restrictions on par with jihadists who might strike on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. A DHS bulletin published Friday said that “anti-government, anti-authority violent extremists” may try to “exploit the emergence of Covid-19 variants by viewing the potential re-establishment of public health restrictions across the US as a rationale to conduct attacks.” The Covid-19 pandemic has stoked “societal strains and tensions,” the DHS said, “driving several plots by domestic violent extremists, and they may contribute to more violence this year.”

The terrorism warning, which runs through November 11, cited a host of other potential threats, including violent bigots who may perpetrate mass-casualty attacks, “though there are currently no credible or imminent threats identified.” Other potential attackers include “domestic violent extremists” and other “ideologically-motivated” individuals who may be triggered by “conspiracy theories” on such issues as “perceived election fraud,” DHS said. “Law enforcement have expressed concerns that the broader sharing of false narratives and conspiracy theories will gain traction in mainstream environments, resulting in individuals or small groups embracing violent attacks to achieve their desired objectives,” the bulletin claimed.

President Joe Biden’s administration has elevated domestic “extremism” as a top security threat in the wake of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. Democrat politicians have hyped the riot as a racially motivated “insurrection,” and Biden in April called it “the worst attack on our Democracy since the Civil War.” Critics pushed back against the claim, noting such previous tragedies as the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, four presidential assassinations and – more recently – race riots that torched cities and left dozens of people dead last summer.

On Friday, however, the DHS again raised the specter of January 6. DHS intelligence chief John Cohen told CNN that online rhetoric is similar to the chatter seen before the Capitol riot. He cited such “extremist” comments as “the system is broken,” “take action into their own hands,” and “bring out the gallows.” DHS also noted that, with the 20-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaching, Al-Qaeda recently published the first issue of its English-language magazine in more than four years. That move “demonstrates that foreign terrorist organizations continue efforts to inspire US-based individuals susceptible to violent extremist influences,” the agency said.

Read more …

It really has never been tested. Some things are still hard to believe.

“Our government is urging pregnant women, and women of childbearing age, to get vaccinated. And they’re telling them they’re safe. And that’s a lie because those studies have simply not been done.“

Ex-Pfizer VP Urges Pregnant, Childbearing Age Women Not To Get Vaccine (CP)

A former Pfizer executive recently advised that women of childbearing age and those who are already pregnant should consider opting out of taking the COVID-19 vaccine. “We never, ever give experimental medicines to pregnant women,” said Michael Yeadon, Ph.D., in a presentation for Life Site News’ “Stop the Shot” conference held on Aug. 4 that featured physicians, scientists, attorneys and religious leaders. Yeadon, who holds degrees in biochemistry and toxicology, and a Ph.D. in respiratory pharmacology, served as vice president and chief scientist for allergy and respiratory at Pfizer until 2011, when he retired to launch his own biotech company after working in the pharmaceutical industry for 32 years.

The British pharmacologist, who has attracted media attention for questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, criticized those in power for not providing the public with adequate information about vaccine risks. “You’re being lied to,” he said to pregnant women who’ve been told that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe for them and their preborn babies. “That’s bad enough because what that tells me is that there’s recklessness. No one cares. The authorities do not care what happens,” Yeadon asserted. “You never ever give inadequately tested medicines, medicinal products, to a pregnant woman,” he continued. “And that is exactly what is happening. Our government is urging pregnant women, and women of childbearing age, to get vaccinated. And they’re telling them they’re safe. And that’s a lie because those studies have simply not been done.”

Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, advise that pregnant women can get the COVID-19 vaccine. Similarly, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine have urged pregnant women to get vaccinated. The CDC states that pregnant women are at increased risk for severe illness with COVID-19 compared to non-pregnant women, adding that they’re also at increased risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes. CDC adds that experts believe the vaccines are “unlikely to pose a risk for people who are pregnant,” but “there are currently limited data on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant people.”

During his presentation, Yeadon listed three concerns he has with COVID-19 vaccines that he said haven’t undergone adequate toxicology testing to assess their effects on the reproductive system. Thousands of birth malformations resulted from pregnant women taking thalidomide to treat morning sickness 60 years ago, he said, because studies at the time did not assess that thalidomide was toxic for babies in the womb. “So here we are. There’s been potentially hundreds of millions of women of child-bearing potential [injected] with products which are untested in terms of impacts on fertilization and development of the baby,” he continued. Yeadon added that a study out of Japan found high concentrations of the spike protein in the ovaries, organs and tissue when tested on rats.

“What we find is the vaccine [in rats] doesn’t just distribute around the body and then wash out again, which is what you’d hope,” he said. “It concentrates in ovaries of rats, and it concentrates at least 20-fold over the concentration in other background tissues like muscles.” “You don’t want this product in your ovaries. It’s simply not necessary to induce immunity to have a vaccine in your ovaries. And, as it’s concentrating in the ovaries, getting higher concentrations over time, they have not even defined what the maximum levels are or when that occurs,” he added.

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And this man is being sued for $1 million.

Dr. Peter McCullough – Ends The Pandemic With 5 COVID Facts (LS)

Dr. Peter McCullough – Ends The Pandemic With 5 COVID Facts

1. The virus does not spread asymptomatically.

2. We should never test asymptomatic people.

3. Natural immunity is robust, complete, and durable.

4. COVID-19 is easily treatable at home.

5. The current vaccines are obsolete, unsafe, and unfit for human use.

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“Pfizer announced its global phase 3 trial on a third dose in mid-July. That trial’s completion date is in 2022.”

But they will give it to you in September. Already have in Israel. Trials are for pussies.

Pfizer CEO to Public: Just Trust Us on the Covid Booster (KHN)

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was confident in June about the ability of his company’s vaccine to protect against the highly contagious delta variant, as it marched across the globe and filled U.S. hospitals with patients. “I feel quite comfortable that we cover it,” Bourla said. Just weeks later, Pfizer said it would seek authorization for a booster shot, after early trial results showed a third dose potentially increased protection. At the end of July, Pfizer and BioNTech announced findings that four to six months after a second dose, their vaccine’s efficacy dropped to about 84%. Bourla was quick to promote a third dose after the discouraging news, saying he was “very, very confident” that a booster would increase immunity levels in the vaccinated. There’s one hitch: Pfizer has not yet delivered conclusive proof to back up that confidence.

The company lacks late-stage clinical trial results to confirm a booster will work against covid variants including delta, which now accounts for 93% of new infections across the U.S. Pfizer announced its global phase 3 trial on a third dose in mid-July. That trial’s completion date is in 2022. Phase 3 results generally are required before regulatory approval. “We are confident in this vaccine and the third dose, but you have to remember the vaccine efficacy study is still going on, so we need all the evidence to back up that,” Jerica Pitts, Pfizer’s director of global media relations, said Monday. The financial stakes are enormous: Pfizer announced in July that it expects $33.5 billion in covid-19 vaccine revenue this year. Meanwhile, Pfizer recently said that if a third dose couldn’t combat the delta or other variants, the drugmaker is poised to come up with a “tailor-made” vaccine within 100 days.

All of this has sown a sense of confusion about what exactly will work, and when. The pharmaceutical industry’s rush to recommend boosters for the public is “a little frustrating,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an adviser to the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration. Even if a booster is found to be safe, he said, the U.S. effort should focus on “vaccinating people who are unvaccinated.” In any case, decisions about boosters do not rest with vaccine makers, he said. “Pharmaceutical companies aren’t public health agencies, it’s really not theirs to determine when or whether there should be booster dosing,” Offit said. “That is the purview of the CDC.”

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“..if we had had a data and safety monitoring board, they would have shut down the vaccine in February of 2021..”

Renowned German Pathologist Urges More Autopsies of Vaccinated People (NA)

A renowned German pathologist has sounded the alarm on the number of fatal consequences of COVID-19 vaccinations being drastically underestimated, according to his findings. Peter Schirmacher, the director of the Pathological Institute of the University of Heidelberg, who was admired by The Pathologist magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential professionals in the field, stated that 30 to 40 percent of people who died within two weeks after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and whom he performed an autopsy on died from the vaccination, according to the local outlet Augsburger Allgemeine.

The pathologist argues that just like cadavers of people who died from COVID-19, corpses of people who die within the short period of time after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine should be examined more frequently and meticulously. He added that currently, pathologists do not study possible connections between inoculation and a development of deadly health implications such as cerebral vein thrombosis or autoimmune diseases. Since vaccinated people usually do not die under clinical observation, Schirmacher explains, “The doctor examining the corpse does not establish a context with the vaccination and certifies a natural death and the patient is buried. Or he certifies an unclear type of death, and the public prosecutor sees no third-party fault and releases the corpse for burial.”

Schirmacher said that in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, his autopsy group worked closely with public prosecutors, the police, and resident doctors to study the phenomenon, and that the vaccine-related morbidity rate that they established is a “politically explosive statement in times when the vaccination campaign is losing momentum, the delta variant is spreading rapidly and restrictions on non-vaccinated people are being discussed.” [..]The administration of German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected Schirmacher’s conclusions and seemingly declined his calls, stating that vaccines are safe. The Paul Ehrlich Institute, a German federal agency, medical regulatory body, and research institution for vaccines and biomedicines, announced that Schirmacher’s statements were “incomprehensible.”

Thomas Mertens, chairman of the Standing Committee on Vaccination (Stiko), dismissed the findings: “I don’t know of any data that would allow a justifiable statement to be made here and I am not assuming an unreported number.” Schirmacher defends his opinion and calls for further study into the issue. “My colleagues are definitely wrong because they cannot assess this specific question competently,” he responded. Schirmacher added that while he has no intention to spread panic or discourage vaccination, he believes that “individual protection consideration” had been overlooked in the attempt to mass-vaccinate the general public.

[..] The underreporting of vaccine-related deaths and adverse effects is becoming an issue in the United States as well. As reported by the New American, a lawsuit filed in federal court in Alabama is alleging that the federal government is hiding, as of the beginning of July, “at least 45,000” deaths related to COVID-19 vaccines. According to the testimony from whistleblower working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and who has access to government servers including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service, there is evidence that the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (VAERS), which collects data on vaccine-related deaths, is under-reporting such deaths “by a conservative factor of at least five.” According to Dr. Peter McCullough, since typically only 10 percent of vaccine-injury cases make it to VAERS, the death toll from the vaccines may actually be 10-fold higher than the official number. Still, he said, a vaccine that leads to 150 deaths is usually withdrawn from use. “I think if we had had a data and safety monitoring board, they would have shut down the vaccine in February of 2021,” McCullough said.

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Berenson: “Israel, with a nearly entirely vaccinated adult population, now expects this coronavirus wave to be the worst yet – up to 2,500 serious cases compared to 1,200 in January.


Note: the article doesn’t mention vaccines once. It’s like they never even happened.”

Israel Predicts Thousands Of Seriously Ill Covid Patients Within Month (ToI)

Israeli hospitals have to prepare for an influx of nearly 5,000 coronavirus patients within weeks, half of whom will need acute care to deal with severe bouts of COVID-19, health officials have warned Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, according to reports Wednesday. The dire predictions came during a Tuesday meeting between Bennett and senior health experts amid a major influx of new cases, prompting the premier to back a plan to expand hospital capacity, a signal that the government will look to absorb the crush of severe cases head-on rather than attempt to swerve out of its way. Senior Health Ministry officials and other experts presented Bennett with data forecasting some 4,800 coronavirus patients requiring hospitalization by September 10.


The experts expect half of the patients to be seriously ill, putting a major strain on Israel’s health system, according to Hebrew-language media reports on the closed-door meeting. Israel has seen new case numbers skyrocket in recent weeks from a few dozen a day to over 6,000 on Monday. Another 5,755 were diagnosed on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said Wednesday morning, bringing the number of active cases to 38,942. Ministry numbers showed 694 patients hospitalized as of Wednesday morning, 400 of whom were listed in serious condition. Sixty-two people were being treated on ventilators. Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz agreed to pump money into the health system to bring in 100 more doctors, 500 nurses and 200 paramedical and support staff every 10 days to keep up with growing demand, according to a summary of the meeting drafted by the Prime Minister’s Office and published by the Ynet news site.

Read more …

More Israel. This one is a bit strange, a Google doc as a pic in Hebrew, no access. But the details, via Ran Israeli, are interesting:

New Concerning Results, Israel 2021 (Prof. Retsef Levi)

MDA Emergency calls:

25% increase in Cardiac arrests & Heart attacks (16-29).

83.6% increase in Heart attacks (Women 20-29).

According to the study, this increase was correlated with Mass vaccination.

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Google translate from Indonesia.

Japanese Doctors Recommend Ivermectin to Cure Corona (Tribun)

Dr. Kazuhiro Nagao (63) Chairman of medical company Yuwakai, director (Head) of Nagao Amagasaki Clinic, Hyogo prefecture, and visiting professor at Kansai University of International Studies highly recommend Ivermectin as a drug that can cure early patients infected with the corona virus. “Medical situation we are currently in a state of almost critical and many patients can not be accommodated in the hospital. For patients who are exposed to the corona early is highly recommended to drink the drug Ivermectin . I’ve tried a lot to me and heal patients,” said Dr. Nagao this afternoon (12/8/2021) on NTV. Professor Nagao also sees this (the drug Ivermectin ) as one of the solutions among many efforts to suppress the increasing number of people infected with the corona and at risk of becoming severe.

“In the early stages it’s good to take the drug . I always give my patients the drug , of course it’s made in Japan and the next day it gets better. I ask them to report to me every day the effects of the drug and it turns out to be good, they get well immediately,” he continued again. . In addition, Dr. Nagao also appealed to the Minister of Health and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to immediately promote the drug Ivermectin to the public so that it would be widely used among those infected with the early corona virus. “So far, all of my patients are good, recovering without any problems with the drug . In addition, the drug is also guaranteed and included in insurance coverage in Japan . So I think it’s not a problem and light, not too burdensome for the Japanese people ,” he added.

Until now, the Japanese government, especially the ministry of health, is still monitoring the use of the drug Ivermectin in Japan , and there has been no decision to promote the drug in the midst of the current pandemic. Tokyo itself this Thursday (12/8/2021) drastically increased the number of infected nearly 5000 people per day. Last week a doctor predicted that around August 18 the number of patients infected with the corona virus in Tokyo could reach 10,000 people per day. Professor Yoshihito Niki, Deputy Director of the Respiratory Center, Kurashiki Daiichi Hospital, Professor of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Japan’s Showa University School of Medicine estimates the number of infections could reach 10,000 people in Tokyo around August 18, he explained last August 6.

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Basics.

Why Won’t Our Government Even Inform People About Vitamin D? (Horowitz)

Imagine if rather than running out to buy worthless Chinese face diapers or toilet paper last March, there had been a mad rush to stock up on vitamin D. What would our hospitalization rate have been after the initial wave, and after the early science was clear about the efficacy of vitamin D, had government mailed out free vitamin D to every American (especially in nursing homes)? For a fraction of the cost of a shutdown, waning vaccines, remdesivir, and endless welfare, government could have offered free blood tests of everyone’s vitamin D, C, and zinc levels and advised a plan to bulk up those levels?

Well, we have a new study that demonstrates a good number of hospitalizations could have been avoided. Government agencies that are censoring information on vitamin D can no longer say the same thing about the vaccines, given how Israel is now showing that the vaccine wears off and the country is preparing for the worst run on hospitals ever, despite nearly every adult having been vaccinated. And unlike the vaccines and everything else our government promoted and mandated, vitamin D comes with no risk, numerous other vital benefits, and empowers rather than controls people. There is a misnomer that those promoting vitamin D for COVID somehow believe that all people have to do after getting the virus is to take vitamin D and they will suddenly get better (although there is evidence it works in the active form).

That is obviously an easy straw man for those who oppose preventives and early treatment to knock down. In reality, while vitamin D is definitely important post-infection, it takes several months to bulk up one’s level if it is deficient. A new study recently published in the International Journal of Clinical Practice demonstrates that had Fauci and Co. simply told Americans, especially the vulnerable, to take high doses of Vitamin D (like he does), most of the hospitalizations could have been avoided. The meta-analysis of 23 published studies containing 11,901 participants found the following: One who is vitamin D deficient was 3.3 times more likely to get infected with SARS-CoV-2 than one who is not deficient.

The serum vitamin D concentration, on average, was 20.3 ng/mL among all COVID19 patients but was 16.0 ng/mL among those with severe cases. It’s recommended that one’s levels be at least over 40. “The chance of developing severe COVID-19 is about five times higher in patients with vitamin D deficiency.” A total of 84% of COVID patients in the study were either deficient or insufficient in vitamin D. In other words, whether your vitamin D level is 15, 30, or 50 will make all the difference in terms of getting a mild, moderate, or severe case of the virus, or perhaps getting it at all. How is it that, to this very day, there is no effort to inform people about such a painless, cheap, and effective fix?

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Horse, door, barn.

Head Of WHO Covid Origin Team Admits China Ordered Them What To Write (SN)

The head of the World Health Organization’s origin investigation into COVID-19 has admitted that China basically ordered his team on what to write in their report and allowed them to mention the lab leak theory, but only on the condition that they didn’t recommend following it up. Revealing what is clear evidence of a cover up, the Washington Post reports that Danish WHO chief Ben Embarek made the admission after also commenting that he believes patient zero was a worker at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where experiments on coronaviruses were being carried out. Embarek noted that “human error” could have ultimately led to the virus jumping to humans, but that “the Chinese political system does not allow authorities to acknowledge that.”

Embarek commented that “Somebody could also wish to hide something.” As we have previously noted, the Communist Chinese government, along with Dr. Peter Daszak, President of the EcoHealth Alliance, steered the course of the pathetic WHO “investigation”, which had already dismissed the lab leak notion after only a three hour visit to the facility in February. In addition, China has refused to cooperate with the renewed WHO probe, declaring that any attempt to look into the lab leak theory goes “against science” and claiming, contrary to U.S. intelligence and the WHO’s own conclusions, that workers in the lab were hospitalised with COVID in the autumn of 2020.

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The Guardian has two different articles on this. Must be important.

Drug Firms Poised To Make Billions Of Dollars From Covid Booster Jabs (G.)

The drug companies Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are poised to make billions of dollars from Covid-19 booster jabs this autumn, with analysts estimating that sales could rival the $6bn-a-year market for seasonal flu vaccines. The UK government is expected to announce details of its booster programme in the coming days, based on formal advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, but the health secretary, Sajid Javid, has suggested the over-50s could be offered a dose along with their winter flu jabs. The UK is expected to join France and Germany in offering follow-up doses from September. The US authorities on Friday approved a third dose for those with compromised immune systems, and Israel and Chile have begun administering boosters to their elderly citizens.


However, health experts are warning that many more people around the world will die of Covid if western countries prioritise boosters for their own populations instead of sharing them with the rest of the world. Moderna, Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, have already inked over $60bn in sales for this year and next, in deals for supplying follow up shots and also the initial two doses for those being inoculated for the first time in less wealthy countries. Analysts polled by data group Refinitiv have forecast revenue of more than $6.6bn for the Pfizer/BioNTech shot and $7.6bn for Moderna in 2023, mostly from booster sales. They expect the annual market to settle at about $5bn or higher eventually, with additional drugmakers competing for those sales.

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CAN you test for Delta? Yes, but only through genome sequencing, and that doesn’t happen all the time. Instead, as an MD explains: “The CDC does intermittent sequencing of the virus to determine what strain/variant is predominant in a particular region at any given time. The PCR tests do not differentiate.”

In other words: “There is not a specific test for the delta variant. However, since the vast majority of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are the delta variant, it’s likely a positive test result indicates you could be infected with the delta variant, according to Human and Health Services of Texas.”

Low-Cost Test Could Detect Delta Variant In Saliva (MNT)

Scientists from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), both in Cambridge, MA, and several Boston-area hospitals, recently created miSHERLOCK. miSHERLOCK is an inexpensive, CRISPR-based diagnostic test that allows users to self-test for variants of SARS-CoV-2 at home, using their saliva. “Simple things that used to be ubiquitous in the hospital, like nasopharyngeal swabs, were suddenly hard to get, so routine sample processing procedures were disrupted, which is a big problem in a pandemic setting,” said co-first author of the study, Dr. Rose Lee, who is a visiting fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at MIT. “Our team’s motivation for this project was to eliminate these bottlenecks and provide accurate diagnostics for COVID-19 with less reliance on global supply chains, and could also accurately detect the variants that were starting to emerge,” she notes.


“miSHERLOCK is a low-cost point-of-care [COVID-19] test that is capable of detecting and differentiating specific SARS-CoV-2 variants, which could be used to guide patient care as well as for infection control or epidemiological purposes,” lead author Helena de Puig Guixe, a postdoctoral researcher at the Collins lab at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, told Medical News Today. “Our device is low-cost, provides a simple visual answer in 1 hour, and only requires saliva from a patient with no additional equipment separate from the device itself (including its standard battery). […] Our full device, including all testing components, costs $15, down to $6 with reuse of the housing and electronics, but could be as low as $2–3 per test if produced at scale,” she added.

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“General David Berger, Commandant of the US Marine Corps, briskly told the SecDef, in effect, to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. What do you make of that?”

Brace for Impact (Kunstler)

My Pillow man Mike Lindell’s three-day Cyber Symposium demonstrated a couple of things about the current depraved state of our nation: You could prove pretty conclusively that the national election of 2020 was saturated with fraud; and that no one in the news business would either care or dare to report it. Otherwise, it’s a little early to tell whether the exercise will have any effect on the country’s mood, though it is apparently a fact that millions tuned into the event on the few Internet sites that evaded the efforts to hack it out of existence.

The presentations by physicist Douglas Frank, law professor (New Mexico State U) David Clements, and retired army intelligence analyst Seth Keshel made a multi-dimensional case that the Dominion vote tallying machines were both pre-programmed with insidious algorithms and were also run remotely by Internet connection through servers in Senegal tied to China the night of Nov. 3, 2020. Even so, the vote in favor of Donald Trump so overwhelmed the programming that oafish mopping-up operations with bogus write-in paper ballots had to be conducted on-the-fly to make sure the election came out in “Joe Biden’s” favor.

It was interesting to be reminded that four key states — Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — all claimed to have stopped counting votes around 10:30 eastern time, and nobody reporting the tally on TV (a national ritual going back seventy years) seemed to consider anything irregular about it. But since when in US elections do officials not work through the whole of election night to reach a result? The answer, of course, is never before. It is, as they say, not a thing. Shouldn’t that have been a national WTF moment?

And so began the secret after-hours hijinks, such as in the Fulton County, GA, arena, where poll watchers were shooed out of the joint and then ballot-counters supplied by a Stacey Abrams-owned temp worker company got foolishly caught on a security camera running reams of paper ballots multiple times through their machines… and the arrival in Philadelphia of a truck from Long Island delivering tens of thousands of fresh paper ballots… and so on through the long night of supposedly no vote counting.

[..] The regime is trying to soften up the public for mandatory vaxes now, using its propaganda arms to turn up the volume on pandemic fear and new variants, using phony statistics and threats to turn the unvaxed into social pariahs, including schoolchildren. The regime is playing with nitroglycerine there. How desperate and crazy are they, really? Is something wicked coming their way? I think so, and I think they know it’s so, and I think they have just about run out of tricks for avoiding it. A crack in the edifice of tyrannical coercion materialized a few days ago when SecDef Lloyd Austin declared his intention to vax-up the whole military. General David Berger, Commandant of the US Marine Corps, briskly told the SecDef, in effect, to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. What do you make of that?

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Barack and Hunter, the new elites.

The Vanishing Legacy of Barack Obama (Taibbi)

“Even Scaled Back,” wrote Vanity Fair, “Barack Obama’s Birthday Bash Is the Event of the Season.” Not even the famed glossy Bible of the unapologetic rich seemed sure of whether to write Obama’s Birthday bash straight or as an Onion headline: what did the “Event of the Season” mean during a pandemic? A former president flying half the world’s celebrities to spend three days in a maskless ring-kissing romp at a $12 million Martha’s Vineyard mansion, at a moment when only a federal eviction ban prevented the outbreak of a national homelessness crisis, was already an all-time “Fuck the Optics” news event, and that was before the curveball.

Because of what even the New York Times called “growing concerns” over how gross the mega-party looked, not least for the Joe Biden administration burdened with asking the nation for sober sacrifice while his ex-boss raised the roof with movie stars in tropical shirts, advisers prevailed upon the 44th president to reconsider the bacchanal. But characteristically, hilariously, Obama didn’t cancel his party, he merely uninvited those he considered less important, who happened to be almost entirely his most trusted former aides.

Cast out, the Times said, were “the majority of former Obama administration officials… who generally credit themselves with helping create the Obama legacy,” including former top aide David Axelrod, who’d just called Obama an “apostle of hope” in the Washington Post and sat for a three-hour HBO documentary deep-throat of his ex-boss. Remaining on the list were celeb couples Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, as well as Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union, along with Steven Spielberg, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen, Questlove, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Don Cheadle, and other Fabulous People, who drank “top shelf liquor,” puffed stogies, and hit the links at the Vineyard Golf Club (membership fee: $350,000). An early report that Pearl Jam had been hired to perform was later refuted. Eddie Vedder would just be there, but not to play.

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If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read “Vietnam.”
– Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967

 

 

 

 

Oz

 

 

@LilithAssyria
My Russian friends told me – it was a very strict compliance about vax passports in Moscow.

Nobody would be allowed to come into the restaurant without a vax.

That lasted about 3 weeks. Why? Because nobody went to the restaurants anymore.

 

 

 

 

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Aug 132021
 


Roy Lichtenstein Forget it! Forget me! 1962

 

C-19 Pandemia: Quo Vadis, Homo Sapiens? (Vanden Bossche)
Deadly Lambda Variant Could Be Vaccine-Resistant (NYP)
“Herd Immunity Is Not A Possibility”: Dr. Malone Vindicated (ZH)
Fauci Says Everybody Will Need A Covid Vaccine Booster Shot Eventually (CNBC)
Wakeup Call: Pfizer Vax Only 42% Effective Against Infection In July (ZH)
360, 000 Teens Age 12 To 17 Develop Myocarditis After Covid-19 Shots (UPI)
Scientists Who Denied Lab Engineering Acknowledged Possible Lab Origin (USRTK)
Young Adult Mortality In Israel During The Covid-19 Crisis (Ohana)
Half Of America Values Vaccine Mandates, COVID Passports Over Freedom (SN)
The Impersonator: Eric Feigl-Ding (Schachtel)
A Day in the Death of British Justice (John Pilger)
Do Britain And US Secretly Want Julian Assange To Commit Suicide? (Galloway)

 

 

While I was fearing it, it came,
But came with less of fear,
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it dear.

– Emily Dickinson

 

 

Egypt: 2% Vaccinated; 100M Pop.; 66 New Daily Cases

 

 

 

 

Vanden Bossche called a lot of what is happening, a long time ago.

C-19 Pandemia: Quo Vadis, Homo Sapiens? (Vanden Bossche)

The WHO’s mass vaccination program has been installed in response to a public health emergency of international concern. As of the early days of the mass vaccination campaigns, at least a few experts have been warning against the catastrophic impact such a program could have on global and individual health. Mass vaccination in the middle of a pandemic is prone to promoting selection and adaptation of immune escape variants that are featured by increasing infectiousness and resistance to spike protein (S)-directed antibodies (Abs), thereby diminishing protection in vaccinees and threatening the unvaccinated. This already explains why the WHO’s mass vaccination program is not only unable to generate herd immunity (HI) but even leads to substantial erosion of the population’s immune protective capacity.

As the ongoing universal mass vaccination program will soon promote dominant propagation of highly infectious, neutralization escape mutants (i.e., so-called ‘S Ab-resistant variants’), naturally acquired, or vaccinal neutralizing Abs, will, indeed, no longer offer any protection to immunized individuals whereas high infectious pressure will continue to suppress the innate immune defense system of the nonvaccinated. This is to say that every further increase in vaccine coverage rates will further contribute to forcing the virus into resistance to neutralizing, S-specific Abs. Increased viral infectivity, combined with evasion from antiviral immunity, will inevitably result in an additional toll taken on human health and human lives.


Immediate action needs, therefore, to be taken in order to dramatically reduce viral infectivity rates and to prevent selected immune escape variants from rapidly spreading through the entire population, whether vaccinated or not. This first critical step can only be achieved by calling an immediate halt to the mass vaccination program and replacing it by widespread use of antiviral chemoprophylactics while dedicating massive public health resources to scaling early multidrug treaments of Covid-19 disease.

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77,692 US Delta cases so far? Is that a typo?

Deadly Lambda Variant Could Be Vaccine-Resistant (NYP)

As the US struggles to suppress the rapidly advancing coronavirus Delta variant, new evidence has emerged that the latest Lambda mutation — ravaging parts of South America — won’t be slowed by vaccines. In a July 28 report appearing on bioRxiv, where the study awaits peer review prior to getting published, researchers in Japan are sounding the alarm on the C.37 variant, dubbed Lambda. And it’s proven just as virulent as Delta thanks to a similar mutation making them even more contagious. The strain has been contained in 26 countries, including substantial outbreaks in Chile, Peru, Argentina and Ecuador. “Notably, the vaccination rate in Chile is relatively high; the percentage of the people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine was [about] 60%,” the authors write.

“Nevertheless, a big COVID-19 surge has occurred in Chile in Spring 2021, suggesting that the Lambda variant is proficient in escaping from the antiviral immunity elicited by vaccination,” they warn. The Lambda variant is thought to have emerged somewhere in South America between November and December 2020, and has since turned up in countries throughout Europe, North America and a few more isolated cases in Asia, according to GISAID data. The proportion the Lambda variant has of COVID-19 cases in the US is low with just one-tenth of 1% of the share — about 911 cases. Compare that to Delta, which has infected some 77,692 Americans so far. “In addition to increasing viral infectivity, the Delta variant exhibits higher resistance to the vaccine-induced neutralization,” the authors said.

“Similarly, here we showed that the Lambda variant equips not only increased infectivity but also resistance against antiviral immunity.” Lambda has so far been labeled a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization, compared to the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta strains, which have all risen to “variant of concern,” or VOC, status. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published scant literature on the Lambda variant, though a COVID-19 vaccine briefing from July 27 cited another pre-print study, dated July 3, which concluded that the mRNA vaccine in particular is thought to effectively neutralize the Lambda variant. In Chile, where C.37 is proliferating, their notably aggressive vaccine campaign relied predominantly on the Sinovac Biotech vaccine, which employs the inactivated virus to promote the production of COVID-19 antibodies.

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This from Zero Hedge doesn’t seem quite right: “..’imperfect’ vaccines might actually help foster more virulent COVID variants due to a phenomenon called ‘ADE’..”

That’s not what ADE is. But when Pollard mentions highly vaccinated Israel’s surge in “cases”, which might be due to ADE, it is not mentioned.

“Herd Immunity Is Not A Possibility”: Dr. Malone Vindicated (ZH)

In one of the most appalling examples of Big Tech silencing scientists who refuse to withhold their criticisms of the mRNA technology behind the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccines, Dr. Robert Malone, a pioneer who helped develop mRNA vaccine technology, saw the credit for his contribution to medicine effectively erased from the Internet by Wikipedia after he raised concerns about potential long-term autoimmune issues and other complications potentially arising from mRNA jabs. He has also shared other medical heresies, including the possibility that ‘imperfect’ vaccines might actually help foster more virulent COVID variants due to a phenomenon called ‘ADE’ – antibody-dependent enhancement. Essentially, what doesn’t kill the virus makes it stronger. In retaliation for sharing these views, Dr. Malone was ridiculed by colleagues as a conspiracist and an “anti-vaxxer”.

But earlier this week, Dr. Malone saw his views subtly vindicated by an unexpected source: a British scientist and academic named Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who is the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group. During a briefing, Sir Pollard warned Parliament that the UK likely won’t ever achieve herd immunity, thanks to the delta variant. In remarks that risked undermining the government’s vaccination campaign, Sir Pollard, a professor of pediatric infection and immunity, warned Parliament on Tuesday that achieving herd immunity is likely “not a possibility” thanks to variants like delta.

[..] He said it was unlikely that herd immunity will ever be reached, saying the next variant of the novel coronavirus will be “perhaps even better at transmitting in vaccinated populations.” Pollard also shared what sounded like a subtle criticism of masks by saying that “We don’t have anything which will stop that transmission to other people.” As an example, he pointed to Israel, which saw new cases and hospitalizations nearly disappear before the new variant took hold, causing cases and hospitalizations to surge once again. Now, there have even been a handful of patients who have tested positive even after receiving their third dose of the Pfizer jab (which the US has only just approved for a third dose as well).

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“Remember when you got your Covid vaccine and they told you you’d need a booster real soon-like?
Of course you do! It was also when they told you it didn’t actually stop infection.”

Fauci Says Everybody Will Need A Covid Vaccine Booster Shot Eventually (CNBC)

White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday everybody will someday “likely” need a booster shot of the Covid-19 vaccines. “We’re already starting to see indications of some diminution” in the durability of the vaccines, Fauci told “CBS This Morning.” However, he said it’s not likely that they will be widely administered any time soon. The priority, Fauci said, is to give boosters to people who have compromised immune systems, including those with cancer and transplanted organs. “We don’t feel at this particular point that, apart from the immune-compromised, we don’t feel we need to give boosters right now,” he said.

Fauci’s comments come the same day the Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize third Covid shot for people with weakened immune systems, a highly anticipated move intended to shield some of the most vulnerable Americans from the highly contagious delta variant. Such people, including cancer and HIV patients, represent only about 2.7% of the U.S. adult population but make up about 44% of hospitalized Covid breakthrough cases, which is when a fully vaccinated individual becomes infected, according to recent data from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group. Studies suggest that a third vaccine shot might help patients whose immune systems don’t respond as well to a first or second dose.

Covid vaccine makers, including Pfizer and Moderna, have repeatedly argued that everyone will eventually need a booster shot and potentially extra doses every year, just like for the seasonal flu. Pfizer has said it plans to ask the FDA to authorize boosters as it sees signs of waning immunity. The U.S. drugmaker has cited data out of Israel, where officials are reporting the two-dose vaccine is now just 39% effective in the country. The vaccine is still highly effective against severe disease, hospitalizations and deaths, according to Israeli health officials. The CDC does not currently recommend booster doses of the vaccines for otherwise healthy people at this time. But Fauci, speaking Thursday on NBC’s “TODAY,” said “inevitably there will be a time when we’ll have to get boosts.” “No vaccine, at least not within this category, is going to have an indefinite amount of protection,” he said.

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Not exactly a wake-up call, we knew. But important to note that 42% is not enough for an EUA, so why use it as a booster shot?

Wakeup Call: Pfizer Vax Only 42% Effective Against Infection In July (ZH)

“This week, Dr. Fauci confirmed that “at some time in the future” everyone will likely need a booster shot for the Covid-19 vaccine due to “fading efficacy.” Now, Axios reports that a new preprint study which has ‘already grabbed the attention of top Biden administration officials’ over the vaccines’ effectiveness against new variants, with Pfizer’s jab being of particular concern. The study found the Pfizer vaccine was only 42% effective against infection in July, when the Delta variant was dominant. “If that’s not a wakeup call, I don’t know what is,” a senior Biden official told Axios. The study, conducted by nference and the Mayo Clinic, compared the effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the Mayo Clinic Health System over time from January to July. -Axios

The overall figures suggest that the vaccines provide robust (yet lower-than advertised) immunity early on, only to sharply drop in efficacy over time. Between January and July, Moderna’s vaccine was found to be 86% effective against infection over the study period, while Pfizer’s was 76%. As far as hospitalization, Moderna’s vaccine was 92% effective, while Pfizer’s was 85%. Bringing the averages down, of course, was the sharp drop in efficacy observed in July with Moderna proving just 72% effective against infection and Pfizer clocking in at 42%. In other states such as Florida, the risk of infection in July among those who had taken the Moderna vaccine was around 60% lower than for people full vaccinated with Pfizer. More via Axios:

“Why it matters: Although it has yet to be peer-reviewed, the study raises serious questions about both vaccines’ long-term effectiveness, particularly Pfizer’s. • It’s unclear whether the results signify a reduction in effectiveness over time, a reduced effectiveness against Delta, or a combination of both. • “Based on the data that we have so far, it is a combination of both factors,” said Venky Soundararajan, a lead author of the study. “The Moderna vaccine is likely — very likely — more effective than the Pfizer vaccine in areas where Delta is the dominant strain, and the Pfizer vaccine appears to have a lower durability of effectiveness.” • He added that his team is working on a follow-up study that will try to differentiate between the durability of the two vaccines and their effectiveness against Delta.”

Bring on the boosters.

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Must have gone something like this: Quiet UPI article about a very small study, “rare”, “mildly affected”, yada yada, and then some editor figures out that 4% of 9 million is 360,000 and makes that the headline!

360, 000 Teens Age 12 To 17 Develop Myocarditis After Covid-19 Shots (UPI)

Teens who develop myocarditis after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 typically do so within six days of their second dose, and most are “mildly affected” by it, according to an analysis published Tuesday by JAMA Cardiology. The condition, which is rare, is characterized by inflammation of the heart muscle that affects its ability to pump blood to the body. In the small study of 15 teens age 12 to 18, all experienced chest pain within six days of COVID-19 vaccination, while two-thirds had a fever and more than half had muscle pain, the data showed. All 15 patients in the study were hospitalized due to the heart complication, but all were discharged after an average of two days without the need for intensive care, and only one had lingering symptoms.

“Myocarditis is a rare complication that develops following COVID-19 vaccination in children [and though] the acute course was relatively benign … the long term cardiac effects remain unknown,” study co-author Dr. Audrey Dionne told UPI in an email. However, “myocarditis is also a risk with COVID-19 infection [and its] course can be more severe acutely,” said Dionne a cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. For this reason, “the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks,” even in teens, she said. The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in teens ages 12 to 15 years in May.

The Moderna vaccine, which has a similar composition, has not yet received an EUA or approval for children in this age group, though studies are ongoing. Through mid-July, nearly 9 million teens in the age group had received at least one dose of the two-shot vaccine, with just over 4% developing myocarditis, according to data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Still, fewer than 1% of teens age 12 to 17 required medical care in the week after receiving either vaccine dose, the agency said.

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They all knew and said nothing.

Scientists Who Denied Lab Engineering Acknowledged Possible Lab Origin (USRTK)

Four prominent U.S. virologists who published a widely cited commentary strongly rebutting the theory that SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, might have been engineered in a lab privately acknowledged that they could not “rule out the possibility” of a lab leak, according to emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know. The emails discuss the need for careful wording of the commentary titled “No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2,” which was published in the journal Emerging Microbes & Infections (EMI) on February 26, 2020.


[..] The newly released emails contain discussions between scientists Shan-Lu Liu and Linda Saif, both with Ohio State University; Susan Weiss, of the University of Pennsylvania; and Lishan Su, who at the time was employed by the University of North Carolina. Some correspondence includes EMI editor Shan Lu, of the University of Massachusetts. The published EMI commentary outlined multiple arguments as to why SARS-CoV-2 was not the result of laboratory engineering, arguing it was “more likely” the virus originated “in nature between a bat CoV and another coronavirus in an intermediate animal host.” The authors stated in the article: “there is currently no credible evidence to support the claim that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a laboratory engineered CoV.” They wrote that despite “speculations, rumours and conspiracy theories that SARS-CoV-2 is of laboratory origin,” there was in fact “no evidence of laboratory origin.” However, in a Feb. 16, 2020 email, Liu wrote to Weiss “we cannot rule out the possibility that it comes from a bat virus leaked out of a lab.”

[..] An important part of the debate over the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is the existence of a furin cleavage site (FCS) at the junction between the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein domains, S1 and S2. SARS-CoV-2 belongs to a group of viruses known as betacoronaviruses lineage B. The FCS, however, does not appear in any of the other coronaviruses in this group. One argument in support of the lab origin hypothesis is that the FCS within the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein could be a result of laboratory manipulation. The EMI commentary does not address the existence of the FCS, even though it is widely considered one of the strongest pieces of evidence of lab engineering. Evidence supports the importance of the FCS in the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to infect human cells and tissues. Engineering FCS within coronaviruses is a well-known practice in coronavirus research labs.

[..] The emails also show the commentary included the involvement of coronavirus expert Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina (UNC) and Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Baric and Shi have been central figures in ongoing inquiries regarding the potential origins of SARS-CoV-2 and whether or not there is a connection between the virus and gain-of-function research collaborations between UNC and WIV. Such collaborations have been funded in part by the USAID-EPT-PREDICT program through an organization called EcoHealth Alliance. [..] Documents show that Kristian Andersen, a virologist with the Scripps Research Institute, emailed Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, early in 2020 expressing concerns about possible genetic engineering of the virus.

Andersen had a conference call with Fauci and other scientists in February 2020, and shortly after led the authoring of a high profile article, published as a correspondence in the journal Nature Medicine, specifically arguing against any possible laboratory engineering of the virus.

Read more …

Something to keep an eye on.

Young Adult Mortality In Israel During The Covid-19 Crisis (Ohana)

In this paper, we analyze excess mortality in Israel during the COVID-19 crisis, focusing on the age group of young adults under 50 years of age, as their susceptibility to COVID-19 mortality is low. Based primarily on online data from the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel, we observed an unexpected rise of excess mortality among 20 to 49-year-olds in February-March 2021. It should be noted that excess mortality peaks among these young age groups are rarely observed, with low number of deaths that are usually caused by wars. We examined whether COVID-19 could account for this excess mortality.


The inconsistency between the reported COVID-19 deaths and the excess deaths within this age group led to consider other potential causes: accident and vaccination. Indeed, the surge in mortality coincided with the rollout of the Israeli vaccination campaign for the 20 sto 49-year-olds, which reached more than 75% of individuals in this age group. This unexpected rise in excess mortality among young adults was also found in two other countries, the United Kingdom and Hungary, which have in common with Israel a massive vaccination of their populations. Thus, our observations should prompt to pause the campaign, while clarifying the underlying reasons for those excess deaths, especially in the context of a low mortality risk from COVID-19 within adults under 50 years of age.

Read more …

More dangerous than a virus.

Half Of America Values Vaccine Mandates, COVID Passports Over Freedom (SN)

A Fox News poll contends that a majority of Americans are in SUPPORT of vaccine mandates and the introduction of COVID passports that tie freedoms to vaccination status. The survey found that 50 percent of respondents are in favour of requiring proof of a coronavirus vaccine for “indoor activities such as restaurants, gyms and performances,” while 46% oppose the idea. Fifty percent also agreed that “protecting the safety of Americans” by requiring vaccinations in order to engage in everyday activities trumps “protecting the freedom” of Americans to choose whether or not they are vaccinated. In contrast, 47% of respondents said protecting freedom is more important.


The poll also found that 44% said they were more likely to frequent stores and establishments that require customers and workers to be vaccinated, or have a recent negative COVID-19 test. Only 24% said they were less likely to do that. Other interesting findings of the poll include 46% of Americans believing the federal government’s change in mask guidance has more to do with politics than science, with 42% saying the opposite. In addition, 63% of parents agree schools should mandate masks for the unvaccinated, while 60% of respondents who said they had not taken the vaccine said they had no plans to do so. The poll correlates with findings from April, when a Rasmussen poll revealed that almost half of Americans support the introduction of vaccine passports in order to get “back to normal.”

Read more …

10 months old but just too funny. He’s in the news again.

The Impersonator: Eric Feigl-Ding (Schachtel)

If you’re on social media and you follow news related to the coronavirus pandemic, chances are you’ve stumbled upon some panicked pandemic posts coming from a man named Eric Feigl-Ding, a nutritionist and longtime democrat political operative who has succeeded in impersonating a medical professional, and is generating a cult following in the process. With one hysterical tweet after another, Feigl-Ding went from having a small social media following to accumulating a massive army of influence. Feigl-Ding’s consistent elevation of fear and panic, doom and gloom, and his relentless themes of chaos and destruction related to a virus with a 99.8% recovery rate has brought his accounts millions of clicks and views, and hundreds of thousands of new followers.

And he did it all without having a clue what he’s talking about. At the beginning of 2020, Feigl-Ding was an unpaid, visiting scientist in Harvard’s nutrition department. His academic research centered entirely around nutrition, diet, and exercise. If Eric Feigl-Ding was interested in pandemics and the study of viruses, his research and academic credentials did not reflect that. When the coronavirus pandemic began to make waves in the media, everything changed. Feigl-Ding, an aspiring politician, appeared to see an opening to influence the masses and build up his brand. Feigl-Ding’s rise to coronavirus stardom began with a since-deleted tweet falsely describing the coronavirus as “the most virulent virus epidemic the world has ever seen.”

But not everyone associated with Feigl-Ding was thrilled with the early panic promotion act. Feigl-Ding’s frequent use of Harvard-associated credentials to elevate his baseless COVID-19 proclamations greatly upset some of his colleagues (despite many of them advocating for the same draconian measures proposed by Feigl-Ding to “combat” the virus), and landed him in hot water with the academic institution. Twitter, for reasons unknown, decided to credential him as a “COVID-19 health expert,” which further elevates his supposed legitimacy as an “expert” on the pandemic. In mid March, Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard, described him as a “charlatan exploiting a tenuous connection for self-promotion.” The Association of Health Care Journalists also took notice, reporting that he has “precisely zero experience in infectious diseases.”

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It’s already died.

A Day in the Death of British Justice (John Pilger)

For those who may have forgotten, WikiLeaks, of which Assange is founder and publisher, exposed the secrets and lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, Syria and Yemen, the murderous role of the Pentagon in dozens of countries, the blueprint for the 20-year catastrophe in Afghanistan, the attempts by Washington to overthrow elected governments, such as Venezuela’s, the collusion between nominal political opponents (Bush and Obama) to stifle a torture investigation and the CIA’s Vault 7 campaign that turned your mobile phone, even your TV set, into a spy in your midst. WikiLeaks released almost a million documents from Russia which allowed Russian citizens to stand up for their rights. It revealed the Australian government had colluded with the U.S. against its own citizen, Assange. It named those Australian politicians who have “informed” for the U.S.

It made the connection between the Clinton Foundation and the rise of jihadism in American-armed states in the Gulf. There is more: WikiLeaks disclosed the U.S. campaign to suppress wages in sweatshop countries like Haiti, India’s campaign of torture in Kashmir, the British government’s secret agreement to shield “U.S. interests” in its official Iraq inquiry and the British Foreign Office’s plan to create a fake “marine protection zone” in the Indian Ocean to cheat the Chagos islanders out of their right of return. In other words, WikiLeaks has given us real news about those who govern us and take us to war, not the preordained, repetitive spin that fills newspapers and television screens. This is real journalism; and for the crime of real journalism, Assange has spent most of the past decade in one form of incarceration or another, including Belmarsh prison, a horrific place.

Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, he is a gentle, intellectual visionary driven by his belief that a democracy is not a democracy unless it is transparent, and accountable. On Wednesday, the United States sought the approval of Britain’s High Court to extend the terms of its appeal against a decision by a district judge, Vanessa Baraitser, in January to bar Assange’s extradition. Baraitser accepted the deeply disturbing evidence of a number of experts that Assange would be at great risk if he were incarcerated in the U.S.’s infamous prison system. Professor Michael Kopelman, a world authority on neuro-psychiatry, had said Assange would find a way to take his own life — the direct result of what Professor Nils Melzer, the United Nations rapporteur on torture, described as the craven “mobbing” of Assange by governments – and their media echoes.

Those of us who were in the Old Bailey last September to hear Kopelman’s evidence were shocked and moved. I sat with Julian’s father, John Shipton, whose head was in his hands. The court was also told about the discovery of a razor blade in Julian’s Belmarsh cell and that he had made desperate calls to the Samaritans and written notes and much else that filled us with more than sadness. Watching the lead barrister acting for Washington, James Lewis — a man from a military background who deploys a cringingly theatrical “aha!” formula with defence witnesses — reduce these facts to “malingering” and smearing witnesses, especially Kopelman, we were heartened by Kopelman’s revealing response that Lewis’s abuse was “a bit rich” as Lewis himself had sought to hire Kopelman’s expertise in another case.

Read more …

Secretly? Why do you think they’re talking about suicide in front of him?

Do Britain And US Secretly Want Julian Assange To Commit Suicide? (Galloway)

The recent shameful High Court ruling in London indicates that the only way Britain’s most prominent political prisoner can prove he’s a suicide risk is by actually taking his own life. Is that what the authorities are hoping? The 21st century has provided many days of shame for Britain and yesterday was just another. The High Court in London casually set aside a decision by one of its own judges – who’d heard every minute of the evidence – that Julian Assange, Britain’s most prominent political prisoner, might commit suicide if extradited to the United States injustice system.

The Appeal Court decided that the main US appeal against the refusal of their extradition in October MAY now argue that the original judge was misled about the true mental health of Assange – who has been a prisoner effectively for a decade – and the US’s lawyers need not be confined to arguing that their super-max penitentiaries are perfectly humane places really. The bizarre argument of the Biden government’s English counsel may be a unique non sequitur. Julian can’t be a suicide risk, she argued, because he had “secretly fathered children” with his fiancée Stella Morris. What that even means is beyond me – in nearly 30 year as a parliamentarian, I’ve never heard such nonsense. Doesn’t every man father his children secretly? Do some men do it publicly? Did she mean out of wedlock? How quaint.

Are married fathers more likely to be suicide risks? Or did she mean that he was a father at all? Are childless men more likely to be a suicide risk? So mindless are these contentions, it’s a wonder how anyone could take fees for arguing them, more wondrous that any judge could side with them. Most wondrous of all is that President Joe Biden, the tan-suited Democratic party animal of Martha’s Vineyard, could commission them. The long and the short of it is that it’s more likely today that Assange will be extradited to the US than it was the day before yesterday. And certain that he will remain in the Devil’s Island of Belmarsh Prison while the glacial course of events creeps on. Perhaps the only way Assange can prove he’s a suicide risk is by committing suicide. Come to think of it, maybe that’s Joe Biden’s big idea…

Read more …

 

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René Magritte The evening gown 1954

 

A Hypothesis (Greer)
Fauci Warns Of ‘Worse Variant’ That ‘Could Impact The Vaccinated’ (RT)
14 Israelis Have Caught COVID-19 Even After Booster Shot (ZH)
Covid Booster Shots Coming “Soon”, Fauci Tells CNN (ZH)
What Changes The Unvaccinated Minds? Fear. (CNN)
Majority of American Physicians Decline COVID Shots (AAPS)
Prophylactic Role of Ivermectin in SARS-CoV-2 Infection (Cureus)
Information Security Expert On Revealed Pfizer Agreements (Aflds)
Covid-19 Survivors May Possess Wide-ranging Resistance To The Disease (Emory)
A Massive Black Hole With 34 Billion Times The Mass of Our Sun (SA)
Spanish Village Seeks Unesco World Heritage Status For Outdoor Chats
2500 Year Old Ancient Olive Tree Burned Down in Evia Fires in Greece (GR)

 

 

 

 

Ouch!

 

 

Iceland gives up on immunity through vaccination. Smart.


 

 

UK, Israel, US saw an early surge in vaccinations. 6 months later, they have a surge in infections.

 

 

Greer has the bleakest vision yet. It makes being vaccinated look like a crazy gamble.

Oh, and remember: ADE is not a wild hypothesis, it has been observed in numerous animal trials over the years.

A Hypothesis (Greer)

Stage Nine: Things Get Serious

All of a sudden, as a result, it was no longer enough to vaccinate 70% of the US population. Everyone without exception had to get vaccinated—if everyone gets the vaccine, after all, it will be easier to claim that what’s happening is a nasty new variant rather than vaccine-driven ADE, since nobody will be able to point out that the unvaccinated aren’t getting it. All of a sudden, officials dropped the (inaccurate) claim that the vaccines keep you from getting Covid-19. New outbreaks flared in which most people who got sick had been fully vaccinated; stories surfaced in the media about how strange it was that so many people were getting really nasty summer colds; the labor shortage somehow just kept getting worse and other shortages snowballed, but if you suggested that it was because too many people were sick you could count on being shouted down. Authorities began to talk earnestly about how a new variant might show up soon that would kill a third of the people who caught it. Under normal circumstances, there’s no way they could know that in advance. It makes perfect sense, however, if the vaccines have been found to cause serious ADE and they already have a good idea of what the fatality rate will be.

This is where we are as I write this. If my hypothesis is right, here’s what we can expect.

Stage Ten: Hoping for a Miracle

As ADE becomes more common, breakthrough infection clusters will pop up with increasing frequency, and the higher the percentage of the population in that region is vaccinated, the worse they will be. Variants will be blamed for this. Word of the imminent crisis will spread through the upper levels of society, however, causing increasingly frantic and irrational behavior, until it becomes next to impossible to get anything done if it depends on the government or big corporations. Medical laboratories will scramble to find a way to counteract ADE, though that’s been tried for decades now without success. Meanwhile the people who refuse to get vaccinated won’t budge no matter how much furious rhetoric and punitive policy gets dumped on them. Once this becomes clear, authorities will insist that everyone but a few holdouts has been vaccinated, in the fond hope that people will believe them one more time.

Stage Eleven: Into The Endgame

When ADE becomes too widespread to ignore and people begin to die in significant numbers, expect governments to proclaim the arrival of the predicted new hyper-lethal variant and impose a new round of shutdowns, mask mandates, and the like. The media will insist that the people who are dying are all unvaccinated as long as they can get away with it; pay attention to the vaccination status and health outcomes of people you know for a reality check. Unless some way of stopping ADE-enhanced infections can be found in a hurry, medical systems will buckle under the caseload and triage will become the order of the day. How soon this will happen, if it does, is impossible to say in advance. It’s also impossible to know in advance how soon it will become clear that the vaccines are responsible—or just how violent a backlash against the political and economic establishment this could provoke.

Read more …

“There’s a tenet that everybody knows in virology: a virus will not mutate unless you allow it to replicate..”

Another tenet says it’s unlikely to mutate very much unless you give it a reason to. Like a non-sterilizing vaccine.

Oh, and Tony, the vaccines allow it to replicate, remember?

Fauci Warns Of ‘Worse Variant’ That ‘Could Impact The Vaccinated’ (RT)

In his latest bid to promote Covid-19 jabs, White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci upped his pandemic warnings and cautioned vaccinated individuals about an even “worse variant” that could come after Delta. Those who remain unvaccinated, Fauci claimed in a Sunday interview with MSNBC, are responsible for the coronavirus mutating. This has led to the Delta variant, which health officials have continuously warned is partly behind the mass rise in cases and could lead to another surge in the fall. “There’s a tenet that everybody knows in virology: a virus will not mutate unless you allow it to replicate,” Fauci said. “Fortunately for us, the vaccines do quite well against Delta, particularly in protecting you from severe disease.”

“But if you give the virus the chance to continue to change, you’re leading to a vulnerability that we might get a worse variant, and then that will impact not only the unvaccinated, that will impact the vaccinated because that variant could evade the protection of the vaccine.” Despite aggressive efforts from Joe Biden’s administration to promote vaccines, rates have been lagging as coronavirus cases have been on the rise recently. Some cities, such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas, have found themselves facing reinstated mask mandates in response to the new cases. New York City also became the first this month to announce that proof of vaccination will be required at certain venues, gyms, and restaurants.

While Fauci does not see a federal mandate being imposed, he did say he believes that once the FDA gives full approval to the vaccines, which he predicts will be sometime later this month, it will make it easier for private businesses to begin mandating vaccinations, something Fauci has endorsed in the past. The infectious disease expert had previously predicted a “flood” of vaccine mandates earlier in the week when discussing the impending approval. “The time has come [when] we’ve got to go the extra step to get people vaccinated.”

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Good thing they’re cheaper by the dozen.

14 Israelis Have Caught COVID-19 Even After Booster Shot (ZH)

The population of Israel has been looked upon of late as a global guinea pig of sorts given it was the first country out of the gate to implement a large-scale booster shot program for people 60 and up who’ve already been vaccinated with two rounds of the COVID-19 shot. This was announced only at the end of July, and the early data is beginning to trickle in. Israel is considered to have among the world’s highest vaccination rates, with 5.3 million of its citizens having been inoculated with two doses, with weeks ago headlines declaring it had reached ‘herd immunity’ – only for the headlines to give way to reports of the alarming rapid rise of breakthrough cases.

And now it appears that even the much touted COVID booster shot could be failing to protect: “Internal Health Ministry data shows that 14 Israelis have been infected with COVID-19 a week after receiving a booster shot, Channel 12 news reports,” The Times of Israel writes Sunday. Already over the weekend Israeli media is reporting that “serious cases” have hit a four month high, with over 324 patients hospitalized, many of them in critical condition. It was only a little over a week ago that elderly Israelis began receiving the third shot, and so “early results” and observations have only now begun to come in, and it’s not looking good. The Times of Israel continues in its breaking report:

The network says 11 of those infected are over the age of 60 — two of whom have now been hospitalized — while the other three got their third dose because they are immunocompromised.= If confirmed in larger samples, the figures could cast doubt on the effectiveness of the booster shot, which Israel has started administering before major health bodies around the world have approved it. Channel 12 noted that the confirmed new infections were revealed based on tests performed one week after the group had received the third shot. Three of the above are being described as “younger patients”. This comes as the CDC and FDA have begun discussions on pushing forward with offering booster shots in the US – possibly as early as September, according to some reports.

[..] Anthony Fauci, has already begun making the pitch for a third shot “reasonably soon” while making the rounds on the big Sunday shows… “We need to look at them in a different light,” Fauci said of boosters on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” on Sunday, according to Bloomberg. “We would certainly be boosting those people before we boost the general population that’s been vaccinated, and we should be doing that reasonably soon.” He began by noting the booster would first be made available for the immunocompromised and elderly (just like in Israel). “As soon as they see that level of durability of protection goes down, then you will see the recommendation to vaccinate those individuals,” Fauci added.

Read more …

Something I’ve been pondering:

“Fauci said the Delta variant presents the additional problem that vaccinated people can also transmit the virus to someone else.”

Whichever variant you have has been transferred to you from someone. The only “active ingredient” we know of related to the vaccines is spike proteins.

Does Alpha prevent their propagation, but Delta does not? How does that work?

Covid Booster Shots Coming “Soon”, Fauci Tells CNN (ZH)

As for the kind of data the CDC will be looking for, Fauci said that the CDC has been tracking the level of durability of protection for the elderly, those in nursing homes and young people, month by month. “As soon as they see that level of durability of protection goes down, then you will see the recommendation to vaccinate those individuals.” Speaking one day after Barack Obama’ epic birthday bash (despite it being shrunk for just the closest family and friends), Fauci said that health officials don’t take breakthrough infections “lightly,” warning that the delta variant which is more contagious and is fueling the surge of U.S. cases to more than 100,000 a day, will produce “more” breakthrough cases. Luckily, everyone inside the Barack Birthday Bash tent is exempt from such risks.


And speaking of furiously moving goalposts, Fauci said the Delta variant presents the additional problem that vaccinated people can also transmit the virus to someone else. That has led to the CDC revising its mask guidelines recently. But, he stressed: “The vaccines are still doing what you originally want them to do — to keep you out of the hospital to prevent you from getting seriously ill.” Actually, what the CDC “originally” wanted the vaccines to do, was to prevent those who were jabbed from infecting others. Only later did we learn that too was a fabrication. Finally, Fauci reminded viewers that all Covid-19 vaccines remains experimental although he assured his pals at CNN that a full approval could arrive “within the next few weeks.”

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Scare them into submission. Then get ’em a shrink.

“Of course, there will always be people who won’t get vaccinated no matter what. About half of America’s unvaccinated adult population say they’ll never get a vaccine.”

Wait, doesn’t that invalidate the entire concept?

What Changes The Unvaccinated Minds? Fear. (CNN)

So what does work to get more people to take the vaccine? One answer seems clear in the polling and in the real world: fear. Fear of getting the virus and of losing freedoms looks like it motivates people to get vaccinated. You can see this well in the latest trends in vaccination and case counts. As of Friday morning, more people have taken the vaccine in the last week than have since June. This has happened as case counts and hospitalizations have been rising nationally. Zoom in on the places where cases are the highest: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. With the exception of Florida, all have had some of the lowest vaccination rates since vaccines were made available. Over the last week, however, all five states rank in the top five for number of people per capita getting vaccinated throughout the entire country.

The correlation here is clear enough, and the polling buffers the idea of a real connection. The jump in vaccinations is happening as concern about the virus is rising once again. In Monmouth University polling, for example, concern that someone in your family would catch the virus jumped 11 points from June to late July. The Axios/Ipsos poll showed a similar trend with concern about the virus jumping in early August to its highest level since April. When we examine Ipsos’ last two polls more closely, the connection between fear of the virus and likelihood of the unvaccinated getting shots becomes clear enough. Among those who are extremely or very concerned about the virus, about 39% of the unvaccinated say they’re likely to get the vaccine. This drops to about 30% who are somewhat concerned.

It declines to only about 12% with those who are not very concerned about the virus, and a mere 5% of those who are not concerned at all about the vaccine. Kaiser Family Foundation polling confirms this trend. Of those who are open to getting the vaccine but aren’t sure (i.e. the wait and see group), 45% are concerned they could get seriously ill from coronavirus. This drops to just 8% among those who say they will definitely not get the vaccine. These findings also comport with what I showed last week: The vaccinated are most likely to fear the virus most. Protecting themselves from getting sick or fear of getting sick was the No. 1 and 2 reasons respondents who are vaccinated said they got the vaccine in a June Kaiser poll. Fear, not surprisingly, is a powerful emotion. For those who don’t fear the virus, fear of losing their job may be the answer to getting them vaccinated.

Ipsos showed this past week that 33% of unvaccinated adults said an employer requiring them to get the shot would make them likely to get one. That may seem low, but it was actually the highest rated action of any tested to see if the unvaccinated would likely get a vaccine. The only thing that came close was when respondents were told that they would get a bonus or raise (26%). [..] Of course, there will always be people who won’t get vaccinated no matter what. About half of America’s unvaccinated adult population say they’ll never get a vaccine. The key is to convince the other half who aren’t vaccinated yet to get it. Fear does seem to be working with them.

Read more …

June 16. They’re just not scared enough yet… Maybe they don’t watch CNN?

Majority of American Physicians Decline COVID Shots (AAPS)

Of the 700 physicians responding to an internet survey by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), nearly 60 percent said they were not “fully vaccinated” against COVID. This contrasts with the claim by the American Medical Association that 96 percent of practicing physicians are fully vaccinated. This was based on 300 respondents. Neither survey represents a random sample of all American physicians, but the AAPS survey shows that physician support for the mass injection campaign is far from unanimous. “It is wrong to call a person who declines a shot an ‘anti-vaxxer,’” states AAPS executive director Jane Orient, M.D.

“Virtually no physicians are ‘anti-antibiotics’ or ‘anti-surgery,’ whereas all are opposed to treatments that they think are unnecessary, more likely to harm than to benefit an individual patient, or inadequately tested.” The AAPS survey also showed that 54 percent of physician respondents were aware of patients suffering a “significant adverse reaction.” Of the unvaccinated physicians, 80 percent said “I believe risk of shots exceeds risk of disease,” and 30% said “I already had COVID.” Other reasons for declining the shot included unknown long-term effects, use of aborted fetal tissue, “it’s experimental,” availability of effective early treatment, and reports of deaths and blood clots.

Of 560 practicing physicians, 56 percent said they offered early treatment for COVID. Nonphysicians were also invited to participate in the survey. Of some 5,300 total participants, 2,548 volunteered comments about associated adverse effects of which they were aware. These included death, amputation, paralysis, stillbirth, menstrual irregularities, blindness, seizures, and heart issues. “Causality is not proven. However, many of these episodes might have resulted in a huge product liability or malpractice award if they had occurred after a new drug,” stated Dr. Orient. “Purveyors of these COVID products are protected against lawsuits.”

Read more …

India. “..reduced the risk of COVID-19 infection by 83%..”

Prophylactic Role of Ivermectin in SARS-CoV-2 Infection (Cureus)

Introduction
Healthcare workers (HCWs) are vulnerable to getting infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Preventing HCWs from getting infected is a priority to maintain healthcare services. The therapeutic and preventive role of ivermectin in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is being investigated. Based on promising results of in vitro studies of oral ivermectin, this study was conducted with the aim to demonstrate the prophylactic role of oral ivermectin in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection among HCWs at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Bhubaneswar.

Methods
A prospective cohort study was conducted at AIIMS Bhubaneswar, which has been providing both COVID and non-COVID care since March 2020. All employees and students of the institute who provided written informed consent participated in the study. The uptake of two doses of oral ivermectin (300 ºg/kg/dose at a gap of 72 hours) was considered as exposure. The primary outcome of the study was COVID-19 infection in the following month of ivermectin consumption, diagnosed as per Government of India testing criteria (real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR]) guidelines. The log-binomial model was used to estimate adjusted relative risk (ARR), and the Kaplan-Meier failure plot was used to estimate the probability of COVID-19 infection with follow-up time.

Results
Of 3892 employees, 3532 (90.8%) participated in the study. The ivermectin uptake was 62.5% and 5.3% for two doses and single dose, respectively. Participants who took ivermectin prophylaxis had a lower risk of getting symptoms suggestive of SARS-CoV-2 infection (6% vs 15%). HCWs who had taken two doses of oral ivermectin had a significantly lower risk of contracting COVID-19 infection during the following month (ARR 0.17; 95% CI, 0.12-0.23). Females had a lower risk of contracting COVID-19 than males (ARR 0.70; 95% CI, 0.52-0.93). The absolute risk reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection was 9.7%. Only 1.8% of the participants reported adverse events, which were mild and self-limiting.

Conclusion
Two doses of oral ivermectin (300 µg/kg/dose given 72 hours apart) as chemoprophylaxis among HCWs reduced the risk of COVID-19 infection by 83% in the following month. Safe, effective, and low-cost chemoprophylaxis has relevance in the containment of pandemic alongside vaccine.

Read more …

More ouch.

Information Security Expert On Revealed Pfizer Agreements (Aflds)

“If you were wondering why Ivermectin was suppressed, it is because the agreement that countries had with Pfizer does not allow them to escape their contract, which states that even if a drug will be found to treat COVID-19, the contract cannot be voided.”

Unredacted contracts for the experimental biological agent known as the “COVID-19 vaccine” between the Pfizer corporation and various governments continue to be revealed. Information security expert Ehden Biber told America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) Frontline News that the first document to recently emerge was discovered by Albanian newspaper Gogo.al. Biber then was able to locate the digitally-signed Brazilian contract, and at least two others, one with the European Commission, and the other with the Dominican Republic. AFLDS Chief Science Officer Dr. Michael Yeadon responded to the revelations after perusing the Albania contract, saying it “looks genuine.”

He continued: “I know the basic anatomy of these agreements and nothing is missing that I’d expect to be present, and I’ve seen no clues that suggests it’s fake.” Yeadon noted what he found “the most stunning revelation,” citing the clause that stipulates “if there are any laws or regulations in your country under which Pfizer could be prosecuted, you agree to CHANGE THE LAW OR REGULATION to close that off.” (emphasis his) In a Twitter thread that has since been removed except the first tweet in the thread, Biber explained the significance of the revealed agreements: “Because the cost of developing contracts is very high and time consuming (legal review cycles), Pfizer, like all corporations, develop a standardized agreement template and use these agreements with relatively minor adjustments in different countries.

“These agreements are confidential, but luckily one country did not protect the contract document well enough, so I managed to get a hold of a copy. “As you are about to see, there is a good reason why Pfizer was fighting to hide the details of these contracts.”

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No vaccines needed, just anti-virals.

Covid-19 Survivors May Possess Wide-ranging Resistance To The Disease (Emory)

Recovered COVID-19 patients retain broad and effective longer-term immunity to the disease, suggests a recent Emory University study, which is the most comprehensive of its kind so far. The findings have implications for expanding understanding about human immune memory as well as future vaccine development for coronaviruses. The longitudinal study, published recently on Cell Reports Medicine, looked at 254 patients with mostly mild to moderate symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection over a period for more than eight months (250 days) and found that their immune response to the virus remained durable and strong.

Emory Vaccine Center director Rafi Ahmed, PhD, and a lead author on the paper, says the findings are reassuring, especially given early reports during the pandemic that protective neutralizing antibodies did not last in COVID-19 patients. “The study serves as a framework to define and predict long-lived immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection. We also saw indications in this phase that natural immunity could continue to persist,” Ahmed says. The research team will continue to evaluate this cohort over the next few years. Researchers found that not only did the immune response increase with disease severity, but also with each decade of age regardless of disease severity, suggesting that there are additional unknown factors influencing age-related differences in COVID-19 responses.

In following the patients for months, researchers got a more nuanced view of how the immune system responds to COVID-19 infection. The picture that emerges indicates that the body’s defense shield not only produces an array of neutralizing antibodies but activates certain T and B cells to establish immune memory, offering more sustained defenses against reinfection. “We saw that antibody responses, especially IgG antibodies, were not only durable in the vast majority of patients but decayed at a slower rate than previously estimated, which suggests that patients are generating longer-lived plasma cells that can neutralize the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.”

Ahmed says investigators were surprised to see that convalescent participants also displayed increased immunity against common human coronaviruses as well as SARS-CoV-1, a close relative of the current coronavirus. The study suggests that patients who survived COVID-19 are likely to also possess protective immunity even against some SARS-CoV-2 variants. “Vaccines that target other parts of the virus rather than just the spike protein may be more helpful in containing infection as SARS-CoV-2 variants overtake the prevailing strains,” says Ahmed. “This could pave the way for us to design vaccines that address multiple coronaviruses.”

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If it eats 1/34 billionth of its mass each day, it’s not all that hungry?!

A Massive Black Hole With 34 Billion Times The Mass of Our Sun (SA)

Scientists have recently reported discovering what they believe is the most massive black hole ever discovered in the early Universe. It is 34 billion times the mass of our Sun, and it eats the equivalent of one Sun every day. The research led by the National University of Australia (ANU) has revealed how massive the fastest-growing black hole in the Universe really is, as well as how much matter it is able to suck in. The black hole, known as ‘J2157’, was discovered by the same research team in 2018. The study detailing the humongous black hole’s characteristics has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.


According to Dr. Christopher Onken and his colleagues, this object is 34 billion times the Sun’s mass and gobbles up the equivalent of one Sun every day. That’s billion with a b. For other comparisons, the monstrous black hole has a mass of approximately 8,000 times the mass of Sagittarius A*, the black hole located at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. “If the Milky Way’s black hole wanted to get fat, it would have to swallow two-thirds of all the stars in our galaxy,” explains Onken.

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Love it.

Spanish Village Seeks Unesco World Heritage Status For Outdoor Chats

It’s a nightly summer ritual across much of Spain: as the sweltering heat of the day eases off, chairs are hauled out to the street for an alfresco chat. Now an enterprising village in southern Spain is seeking to have the tradition recognised by the United Nations as a cultural treasure. The aim is to protect the centuries-old custom from the encroaching threat of social media and television, said José Carlos Sánchez, the mayor of Algar, a town of about 1,400 people. “It’s the opposite of social media,” he told the Guardian. “This is about face-to-face conversations.” Sánchez recently applied to have the custom added to Unesco’s list of intangible cultural heritage, hoping it will be able to earn a spot in a catalogue that ranges from the art of Neapolitan pizza making to sauna culture in Finland and a grass mowing competition in Bosnia and Herzegovina.


It’s a novel way to think about the impromptu, often banal gatherings that have long provided a respite from the heat, he conceded. But each time extended families and neighbours in the pueblo blanco – or white town – take to their front steps, he sees it as an effort to safeguard the tradition. “But it’s not what it was,” said Sánchez. “So we want to return to having everyone outside of their doors alfresco instead of scrolling through Facebook or watching television inside their homes.” Sánchez, who regularly spends balmy summer evenings on the doorstep of his 82-year-old mother’s house, is quick to list off the many benefits of what is known as charlas al fresco, from the energy savings gleaned from turning off the air conditioning for a few hours to the sense of community forged as neighbours share in the day’s gossip or comment on the latest news stories.

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” The tree was large, with a trunk so wide ten people could fit along its diameter. The tree was fertile with olives all the way until it fell victim to the wildfire.”

2500 Year Old Ancient Olive Tree Burned Down in Evia Fires in Greece (GR)

A 2,500 year old ancient olive tree on the island of Evia was destroyed today in the ongoing wildfires consuming the region. The ancient tree was located in the olive grove of Rovia, and was such an enduring symbol of the landscape that the ancient geographer and philosopher Strabo featured it in his writings. The tree was large, with a trunk so wide ten people could fit along its diameter. The tree was fertile with olives all the way until it fell victim to the wildfire. The tragic loss of the Evian tree was posted to Twitter by Apostolis Panagiotou, and the evocative image quickly gained over a thousand likes, with many Greeks leaving responses mourning the impact of the fires.


Apostolis Panagiotou

The destruction of the treasured tree is just one of many losses experienced by the Greek people in Evia during the course of the wildfires. In a statement that showcases the desperation and pain of the people of northern Evia, Giannis Kontzias, the mayor of Istiaia – Aidipsos, said that what the people are seeing now is ”the completion of a holocaust.” ”Truth be told, we could have saved much more,” he says. ”I’ve been up on the mountain from Wednesday at 2:30 PM making dramatic calls for more aircraft in the front that we managed to keep back for 30 hours.” Kontzias described the dramatic turn of events when the wind changed direction and brought the fire to the northwest of Evia.


”The wind turned the fire towards the Municipality of Istiaia Aidipsos, multiplying the fronts,” he explains. ”I’m making a dramatic appeal (to the Greek authorities) to bring aircraft.” ”Very few of them arrived yesterday, but they were inadequate. Today, only seven of them are operating particularly near Artemisio,” the devastated mayor explains. ”One after the other our villages fall. One municipal unit after the other is being destroyed completely. What’s saved has been saved by volunteers and the soul of the residents of this land,” Kontizas noted. ”They remained the last ones to save something from their homes, something from which we’ll be able to hold onto in order to stay and live in this land.”

Evia

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Quiet.

 

 

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Aug 072021
 
 August 7, 2021  Posted by at 9:06 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  93 Responses »


René Magritte The human condition 1935

 

Fauci: ‘Flood’ Of Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates After Full FDA Approval (USAT)
Covid19 Vaccine Efficacy & Effectiveness – The Elephant (Not) In The Room (L.)
Leaky Blood Vessels: An Unknown Danger of COVID-19 Vaccination (D4CE)
Early Signs Covid-19 Vaccines May Not Stop Delta Transmission (R.)
In England, Hundreds Of Vaccinated People Hospitalised With Delta (AlJ)
Greater Antibody Response In Recovered COVID Patients Than Vaccinated (Fed.)
Swedish Professor Says 5 Shots of COVID Vaccine May be Necessary (SN)
CDC Director Makes Case Vaccination Passports are Futile (CTH)
White House: No More Lockdowns Of Schools Or Economy Despite Covid Rise (JTN)
UK Draws Up Contingency Plans For ‘Firebreak’ Covid Lockdowns (iN)
Australia’s ‘Covid Zero’ Days May Be Numbered (ST)
Indiana University Students Appeal Vaccine Mandate To US Supreme Court (JTN)
US Last In Health Care Among Richest Countries Despite Spending Most (Hill)
Dems’ Crusade Against Trump Does Real Harm To Presidency, Constitution (Fox)

 

 

 

 

Yeadon

 

 

 

 

They’re planning the approval in early September. That will be the last of the FDA’s credibility.

“This is a dystopian world we’re living in,” he said. The public is awash in lies and misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines, “they are being misled.”

“Americans, he hopes, will say, “I’m not going to take any of this. I’m seeing everybody around me get sick and dying. Let me just go ahead and get vaccinated.'”

Fauci: ‘Flood’ Of Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates After Full FDA Approval (USAT)

As soon as the Food and Drug Administration issues a full approval for a COVID-19 vaccine, there will be “a flood” of vaccine mandates at businesses and schools across the nation, Dr. Anthony Fauci told USA TODAY’s editorial board on Friday. Mandates aren’t going to happen at the federal level, but vaccine approval will embolden many groups, he predicted. “Organizations, enterprises, universities, colleges that have been reluctant to mandate at the local level will feel much more confident,” he said. “They can say, ‘If you want to come to this college or this university, you’ve got to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this plant, you have to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this enterprise, you’ve got to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this hospital, you’ve got to get vaccinated.'”

Fauci doesn’t see more lockdowns in the nation’s future. They were issued early in the pandemic to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed, known as “flattening the curve.” “The rationale for shutting down was that the hospital system would not be able to handle the surge of cases because everybody was getting sick,” he said. With upwards of 70% of adults having had at least one dose of vaccine, the epidemic has shifted to one of the unvaccinated, he said. “When you walk into a hospital, what you’re going to see is a lot of young people, some of whom are seriously ill, but you’re not seeing an overwhelming outstripping of the capability of the hospitals throughout the country,” he said. While he’s attacked online and in conservative media every day, Fauci said he worries less about himself than for the nation as a whole.

“This is a dystopian world we’re living in,” he said. The public is awash in lies and misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines, “they are being misled.” With COVID-19 cases rising among the unvaccinated as the highly contagious delta variant spreads, Fauci hopes people’s “better angels” will prevail over the sea of lies on social media. Americans, he hopes, will say, “I’m not going to take any of this. I’m seeing everybody around me get sick and dying. Let me just go ahead and get vaccinated.'”

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Absolute Risk Reduction = 1·3% for the AstraZeneca–Oxford, 1·2% for the Moderna–NIH, 1·2% for the J&J, 0·93% for the Gamaleya, and 0·84% for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines.

Covid19 Vaccine Efficacy & Effectiveness – The Elephant (Not) In The Room (L.)

Vaccine efficacy is generally reported as a relative risk reduction (RRR). It uses the relative risk (RR)—ie, the ratio of attack rates with and without a vaccine—which is expressed as 1–RR. Ranking by reported efficacy gives relative risk reductions of 95% for the Pfizer–BioNTech, 94% for the Moderna–NIH, 91% for the Gamaleya, 67% for the J&J, and 67% for the AstraZeneca–Oxford vaccines. However, RRR should be seen against the background risk of being infected and becoming ill with COVID-19, which varies between populations and over time. Although the RRR considers only participants who could benefit from the vaccine, the absolute risk reduction (ARR), which is the difference between attack rates with and without a vaccine, considers the whole population. ARRs tend to be ignored because they give a much less impressive effect size than RRRs: 1·3% for the AstraZeneca–Oxford, 1·2% for the Moderna–NIH, 1·2% for the J&J, 0·93% for the Gamaleya, and 0·84% for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines.

ARR is also used to derive an estimate of vaccine effectiveness, which is the number needed to vaccinate (NNV) to prevent one more case of COVID-19 as 1/ARR. NNVs bring a different perspective: 81 for the Moderna–NIH, 78 for the AstraZeneca–Oxford, 108 for the Gamaleya, 84 for the J&J, and 119 for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccines. The explanation lies in the combination of vaccine efficacy and different background risks of COVID-19 across studies: 0·9% for the Pfizer–BioNTech, 1% for the Gamaleya, 1·4% for the Moderna–NIH, 1·8% for the J&J, and 1·9% for the AstraZeneca–Oxford vaccines. ARR (and NNV) are sensitive to background risk—the higher the risk, the higher the effectiveness—as exemplified by the analyses of the J&J’s vaccine on centrally confirmed cases compared with all cases:8 both the numerator and denominator change, RRR does not change (66–67%), but the one-third increase in attack rates in the unvaccinated group (from 1·8% to 2·4%) translates in a one-fourth decrease in NNV (from 84 to 64).

There are many lessons to learn from the way studies are conducted and results are presented. With the use of only RRRs, and omitting ARRs, reporting bias is introduced, which affects the interpretation of vaccine efficacy.10 When communicating about vaccine efficacy, especially for public health decisions such as choosing the type of vaccines to purchase and deploy, having a full picture of what the data actually show is important, and ensuring comparisons are based on the combined evidence that puts vaccine trial results in context and not just looking at one summary measure, is also important. Such decisions should be properly informed by detailed understanding of study results, requiring access to full datasets and independent scrutiny and analyses.

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Doctors 4 Covid Ethics: “Are we about to witness the birth of an entirely new world of autoimmune disease?”

Leaky Blood Vessels: An Unknown Danger of COVID-19 Vaccination (D4CE)

Dear colleague: Six months ago, we laid out the reasons for our fears that gene-based vaccines were potentially dangerous [1]. These concerns were based primarily on the expectation that the vaccine would through lymphatic transport soon enter the circulation, where it would be taken up by the endothelial cells. These cells would then start producing the spike protein, which would cause them to be attacked and destroyed by cytotoxic Tlymphocytes. The resulting lesions would give rise to platelet activation and blood clot formation. Since then, clotting abnormalities have indeed taken center stage as propagators of adverse events following vaccinations.

Rapid entry of the vaccine into the bloodstream has been confirmed, as has rapid appearance of expressed spike protein in the bloodstream. Activation of clotting is very common even in those without characteristic or lasting symptoms, but the number of grave adverse events caused by this mechanism—heart attack, stroke, cerebral sinus venous thrombosis, and others—is very high. With this letter, your attention is directed to a second autoimmune pathway that will be triggered simultaneously with the activation of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes. We predict that this pathway will cause damage to and leakiness of blood vessels, with consequences that are far-reaching and profound, particularly upon repeated vaccination. This second autoimmune pathway will render booster shots uniquely dangerous.

1. The proposed mechanism
The first injection will induce the expression of spike protein, and the formation of specific antibodies to it. Re-vaccination will lead to a second round of spike protein production, including in endothelial cells. The antibodies, now already present, will bind to these spikes and will direct attack of the complement system to these cells. Neutrophil granulocytes, too, will be activated by antibodies bound to the endothelial cells. Vascular damage and leakage will ensue.

1.1. Evidence that SARS-CoV-2 spikes provoke complement attack on vessels
Investigations published last year by Jeffrey Laurence and colleagues [2] have establishedthat spike proteins direct complement attack to the inner vessel lining. The authors showed that spike proteins released from the lungs of COVID-19 patients travelled via the circulation to attach at distant sites to the inner vessel lining, i.e. the endothelial cells. Leukocytes and the complement system became activated precisely at those sites, which resulted in damage and leakiness of the vessels. Why this occurred became evident only recently, through several discoveries that we have discussed in a previous letter to physicians [3]. Specifically, the immune system of all individuals is already primed to respond to coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, most likely through cross-immunity with widespread respiratory human coronavirus strains. This immunological memory causes antibody production to commence early on during SARS-CoV-2 infection [4–7]. Thus, antibodies will already be there to bind the spike proteins when these become stranded in the vessel linings. This inevitably triggers activation of the complement cascade.

1.2. The effect of booster shots
Repeat injections of gene-based “vaccines” are bound to intensify and reproduce this basic event wherever the newly expressed spike protein appears on the vessel lining. Spike protein-induced complement attack on vessels has been shown to evoke a plethora of skin lesions in COVID-19 patients [8]. These show a striking resemblance to some of those which are now being reported in vaccinated individuals [9]. Complementmediated vascular injury occurring at multiple sites throughout the body will have potentially devastating effects not only on the health of the vaccinated individual, but also on pregnancy and fertility. Complement will also likely potentiate coagulation abnormalities via yet another pathway. Spike protein molecules, known to be released into the bloodstream shortly after vaccination [5] will bind to platelets, marking them as targets for antibody binding. Subsequent attack by complement must be expected to cause platelet destruction, possibly culminating in immune thrombocytopenic purpura. This, too, has been clinically observed after vaccination [10–13]. With regard to long term effects of re-vaccination, what will happen when the “vaccines” seep out of damaged blood vessels and reach the organs of the body? Will gene uptake and spike production then mark each and every cell type for destruction by killer lymphocytes? Are we about to witness the birth of an entirely new world of autoimmune disease?

1.3. Conclusion
It is beyond question that repeated vaccinations carry serious and unprecedented risks as outlined above. While government officials, authorities and vaccine manufacturers may remain ignorant of the medical implications of such findings, any physician in possession of this knowledge cannot administer repeated COVID-19 vaccination in good conscience, nor in good faith. Under no circumstances is it acceptable for a doctor to knowingly inflict harm on a patient. ALL PHYSICIANS ARE HEREWITH CALLED ON TO RECONSIDER THE ETHICAL ISSUES SURROUNDING COVID-19 VACCINATION.

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Not THAT early…

Early Signs Covid-19 Vaccines May Not Stop Delta Transmission (R.)

There are early signs that people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 may be able to transmit the Delta variant of the virus as easily as those who have not, scientists at Public Health England (PHE) said on Friday. The findings chime with those from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which last week raised concerns that vaccinated people infected with Delta could, unlike with other variants, readily transmit it. read more The highly infectious Delta variant has become the dominant coronavirus type globally, sustaining a pandemic that has already killed more than 4.4 million people, including over 130,000 in Britain. Vaccines have been shown to provide good protection against severe disease and death from Delta, especially with two doses, but there is less data on whether vaccinated people can still transmit it to others.

“Some initial findings … indicate that levels of virus in those who become infected with Delta having already been vaccinated may be similar to levels found in unvaccinated people,” PHE said in a statement. “This may have implications for people’s infectiousness, whether they have been vaccinated or not. However, this is early exploratory analysis and further targeted studies are needed to confirm whether this is the case.” PHE said that of confirmed Delta cases that had ended up hospitalised since July 19, 55.1% were unvaccinated, while 34.9% had received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Nearly 75% of the British population has had two vaccine doses, and PHE said that “as more of the population gets vaccinated, we will see a higher relative percentage of vaccinated people in hospital”.

Separately, PHE said another variant, known as B.1.621, first detected in Colombia, had shown signs of evading the immune response triggered by either COVID-19 vaccines or previous infection. PHE has labelled the variant “under investigation” but has not declared it a “variant of concern” – a designation that can trigger strong policy responses. “There is preliminary laboratory evidence to suggest that vaccination and previous infection may be less effective at preventing infection with (B.1.621),” it said, adding there had been 37 confirmed cases of the variant in England.

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How to redefine “rare”: “..34.9 percent had received two doses..”

In England, Hundreds Of Vaccinated People Hospitalised With Delta (AlJ)

Hundreds of fully vaccinated people in England have been hospitalised with the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant, scientists said on Friday. In its latest COVID-19 update, Public Health England (PHE) also warned there were early signs that people who have been inoculated may be able to transmit the Delta strain as easily as those who have not received any jabs. From July 19 to August 2, 55.1 percent of the 1,467 people hospitalised with the Delta variant were unvaccinated, PHE said, while 34.9 percent – or 512 people – had received two doses. Dubbed “freedom day”, July 19 was the date England significantly eased lockdown restrictions. All vaccines in use in the United Kingdom – those produced by AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech – require recipients to receive two doses to be fully inoculated.


About 75 percent of the UK’s adult population has received two shots to date. “As more of the population gets vaccinated, we will see a higher relative percentage of vaccinated people in hospital,” PHE said. Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said the hospitalisation figures showed “once again how important it is that we all come forward to receive both doses of the vaccine as soon as we are able to do so”. “Vaccination is the best tool we have in keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe from the serious disease risk COVID-19 can pose,” Harries said in a statement. “However, we must also remember that the vaccines do not eliminate all risk: it is still possible to become unwell with COVID-19 and infect others.”

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“..such infection simultaneously assists in offering protection against developing variants.”

Greater Antibody Response In Recovered COVID Patients Than Vaccinated (Fed.)

A new study has found that individuals that have previously contracted COVID-19 show a more potent antibody response than those who were solely vaccinated for the respiratory virus. Conducted by a research team at Rockefeller University in New York, the analysis found “that between a first (prime) and second (booster) shot of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, the memory B cells of infection-naïve individuals produced antibodies that evolved increased neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2,” but also that “no additional increase in the potency or breadth of this activity was observed thereafter.” Meanwhile, researchers determined that not only do recovered COVID-19 patients possess neutralizing antibodies up to a year after infection, but that such infection simultaneously assists in offering protection against developing variants.

“Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection produces B-cell responses that continue to evolve for at least one year,” the study read. “During that time, memory B cells express increasingly broad and potent antibodies that are resistant to mutations found in variants of concern.” The analysis later goes on to conclude, “Memory antibodies selected over time by natural infection have greater potency and breadth than antibodies elicited by vaccination.” Moreover, the results suggest that “boosting vaccinated individuals with currently available mRNA vaccines would produce a quantitative increase in plasma neutralizing activity but not the qualitative advantage against variants obtained by vaccinating convalescent individuals.”

The study’s findings add to further mounting evidence detailing the level of protection natural immunity offers previously infected COVID-19 patients. Last month, Emory University published an extensive investigation describing the efficiency of long-term immunity against the respiratory virus. Similar discoveries have also been identified in research released by the Cleveland Clinic and the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, respectively.

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Every next shot is more dangerous.

Swedish Professor Says 5 Shots of COVID Vaccine May be Necessary (SN)

While many people have bragged about being “fully vaccinated” after taking two COVID-19 jabs, a Swedish professor says that as many as five shots may be needed to combat falling immunity. “We don’t know how long the vaccine protects against serious illness and death,” said Karolinska Institute Professor Matti Sällberg. “This means that you pick the safe before the unsafe.” Numerous European countries are planning a 3rd round of COVID “booster shots” in September, and the FDA also indicated that vaccinated individuals will be given another shot in the fall. However, Sällberg suggests this probably won’t be enough and that “recurring shots” will be necessary. “After receiving the second dose, the immune response slowly subsides. Within a year, many may have lost their protection. We do not know yet, but if you get a third dose, it will be activated again,” he said. “Biology says that a fading immune response is not unlikely. Then it’s time for a third, fourth, maybe fifth dose”.


One wonders whether Sällberg holds a conflict of interest given that he is also chairman of the board at vaccine company SVF. Meanwhile, in Israel, a doctor warned that “the effectiveness of the vaccine is waning/fading out” and that “85-90% of the hospitalizations are in fully vaccinated people.” Dr. Kobi Haviv also chillingly pointed out that 95% of the patients in hospital with the most severe symptoms are vaccinated. The meme below is already coming true, and with vaccine passports seemingly on the way, people will have to keep taking recurring vaccinations simply to maintain access to basic lifestyle activities. Whether vaccine side-effects or the hassle of continually having to return for more jabs will put some people off remains to be seen.

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“..both the vaxxed and non-vaxxed person walking into a restaurant, store, group, venue or workplace present the exact same risk to other people there, so how does the presentation of proof of vaccine make any difference?”

CDC Director Makes Case Vaccination Passports are Futile (CTH)

They are just making up narratives now, and the media are not calling them out on it…. The Director of the CDC made an important admission during an interview today on CNN. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated the vaccine does not prevent COVID-19 infection, nor does it stop the vaccinated person from transmitting the infection or the delta variant. According to Director Walensky, the only benefit from the vaccine now is presumably that it reduces the severity of symptoms. If a vaccinated and non-vaccinated person have the same capacity to carry, shed and transmit the virus – with or without symptoms – then what difference does a vaccination passport or vaccination ID make? According to the CDC TODAY, both the vaxxed and non-vaxxed person walking into a restaurant, store, group, venue or workplace present the exact same risk to other people there, so how does the presentation of proof of vaccine make any difference?

Additionally, her entire statement makes no sense. There is no evidence that vaccinated asymptomatic carriers are asymptomatic because of the vaccine. There are likely just as many asymptomatic non-vaccinated carriers. The data shows an equally distributed infection rate regardless of vaccination rate, which is simultaneously admitted by Direcor Walensky, which, as an outcome, is an admission that undercuts the entire argument for compulsory vaccines. The reverse is also evident in the data. There are just as many vaxxed carriers who are symptomatic (ie. sick), as there are un-vaxxed carriers who are symptomatic (ie. sick). The percentage of vaxxed and non-vaxxed people hospitalized it identical to the vaxxed/non-vaxxed population around the hospital.

In regional populations with extremely high vaccination rates, the COVID infection rate continues unabated. The percentage of vaccinated people hospitalized is identical to the percentage of people vaccinated in the community. In Gibraltar, 99% of the population vaccinated; COVID infection rate climbs. In Iceland over 75% of population vaccinated; infection rate climbs. Singapore and Israel show the same thing [Data Sets Here]. So what value is the vaccination passport?

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Does Fauci agree?

White House: No More Lockdowns Of Schools Or Economy Despite Covid Rise (JTN)

The Biden White House insisted Friday that American schools and the economy will not shut down again even as COVID-19 infections rise with the new Delta variant. “We are not going back. We are not turning back the clock,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “This is not March 2020 or even January 2021,” she added. “We’re not going to lock down our economy or our schools because our country’s in a much stronger place than when we took office.” The promise came as some teachers unions aligned with the Democratic Party call for the school year to begin with virtual classes, not in-classroom learning.

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No lockdowns in US, but the UK knows better.

UK Draws Up Contingency Plans For ‘Firebreak’ Covid Lockdowns (iN)

The government has put contingency plans in place for further Covid-19 lockdowns should the NHS be forced back to the brink over winter, i can reveal. While No10 is confident that the vaccine rollout will prevent Covid hospitalisations rising to the levels that led to previous lockdowns, there remains concern that the NHS could be put under intense pressure from issues such as a large resurgence in patients suffering serious flu symptoms. A senior government source has told i that the Prime Minister authorised planning for “firebreak” lockdowns if a number of factors combine to push the NHS to breaking point in the autumn and winter months. There are also said to be concerns at a sharp increase in the number of NHS staff taking sick leave following 18 months fighting on the front line of the pandemic.


“The Government believes it has got to grips with the pandemic following the vaccine rollout,” said the Government advisor. “Barring a new vaccine-beating strain, fears over a rise in infections similar to that seen last autumn are actually outweighed by other issues like an NHS staffing crisis and the likely resurgence in flu infections, and other respiratory diseases. On top of Covid infections these factors could tip the NHS back to the brink and force more lockdowns.” However, the source added the Government is determined to avoid the long lockdowns the UK has endured since the pandemic struck in March 2020. = “Should more lockdowns be necessary, the plan is for them to be short, and preferably during the school holidays in late October and over Christmas. Firebreaks rather than lasting for months at a time.”

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Zero covid is a really stupid idea. So, ideal for Australia.

Australia’s ‘Covid Zero’ Days May Be Numbered (ST)

Australia’s coveted status as a haven from the pandemic could be at an end, with experts warning that a sustained Delta outbreak makes a return to “Covid zero” unlikely. After long stretches with zero local cases – what Australians once jokingly referred to as “doughnut days” – a Sydney outbreak has now grown to 4,610. Record numbers of new cases are being reported each day despite widespread lockdowns. Slowly but surely, some local authorities have shifted to talking about containing the virus rather than beating it. “Given where numbers are, given the experience of Delta overseas, we now have to live with Delta one way or another, and that is pretty obvious,” said New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian. After 18 months of advocating “Covid zero”, that represents a step-change in the country’s approach.

For experts like Emma McBryde, an infectious diseases and statistical modelling expert at James Cook University, the shift in tone is a reflection of the new reality that Delta has brought. “We’re buying time, not getting back to Covid zero,” she told AFP. Like most experts she agrees that Australia’s old virus toolbox – aggressive tracing and testing, snap lockdowns and extensive travel restrictions – while less effective, is still essential to stop exponential virus spread. But, she said: “The goal now should be keeping Covid in check for long enough to get vaccinated.” Dr Tony Blakely, an epidemiologist at the University of Melbourne, echoed those comments, telling public broadcaster ABC that Australia will “probably never” get back to zero transmission.

Barring a few isolated Pacific islands and neighbouring New Zealand, few countries weathered the first 18 months of the coronavirus quite as well as Australia. As the rest of the world hunkered down, got sick and lost loved ones, Australians flocked to bars, restaurants and the beach. Occasionally, the virus jumped from hotel quarantine facilities into the community but aggressive tracing and testing, snap local lockdowns and domestic travel restrictions kept it in check. Then came Delta.

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“An admitted IU student’s right to attend IU cannot be conditioned on the student waiving their rights to bodily integrity and autonomy..”

Indiana University Students Appeal Vaccine Mandate To US Supreme Court (JTN)

First Amendment attorney Jim Bopp filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday on behalf of eight Indiana University students, asking the nation’s top court to stop the university from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. “Continuing our fight against this unconstitutional mandate is necessary to guarantee that IU students receive the fair due process they’re owed by a public university,” Bopp said in a statement sent to the media. “An admitted IU student’s right to attend IU cannot be conditioned on the student waiving their rights to bodily integrity and autonomy and to consent to medical treatment like IU has done here. The emergency application for writ of injunction was sent to Associate Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who is assigned to review cases coming out of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bopp is requesting she issue a decision by Aug. 13, 10 days before the start of IU’s fall semester Aug. 23. Indiana University announced its COVID-19 vaccine mandate May 21, outlining what it called “strong consequences” for all those who did not comply – students would have their classes canceled and email accounts cut off, the university said, and employees would be fired if they hadn’t gotten the vaccine by the start of the fall semester. The university said exemptions would be “strictly limited to a very narrow set of criteria, including medical exemptions, and documented and significant religious exemptions.” Students were told they needed to get their first dose of the vaccine by July 1 in order to be fully vaccinated by the start of school.

In response to angry calls from parents and a letter signed by the majority of Indiana’s state senators (all Republicans) expressing concerns with the mandate, IU softened its position, and began to grant all religious exemptions. But those students were told they would need to continue to wear masks, would likely be prohibited from attending certain events on campus and would be subjected to frequent testing. Then in mid-July, the university introduced an ethical exemption, allowing students and employees who don’t qualify for a medical exemption and do not want to object on religious grounds to cite personal ethics as a reason for not choosing to get the vaccine. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana upheld the mandate in July, and a three-judge panel with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals also sided with IU, saying if IU students didn’t want to get the vaccine, they could go elsewhere. Bopp said his firm filed suit “to preserve students’ rights to bodily integrity and autonomy and the right to consent to medical treatment.”

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The Hill labels it a “Stunning new report”. They must be the only ones who didn’t know yet.

US Last In Health Care Among Richest Countries Despite Spending Most (Hill)

The U.S. health care system ranked last among 11 wealthy countries despite spending the highest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care, according to an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund. Researchers behind the report surveyed tens of thousands of patients and doctors in each country and used data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Health Organization (WHO). The report considered 71 performance measures that fell under five categories: access to care, the care process, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes. Countries analyzed in the report include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the U.S. Norway, the Netherlands and Australia were the top-performing countries overall, with the U.S. coming in dead last.


The U.S. ranked last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity and health care outcomes despite spending 17 percent of GDP on health care, but came in second on the measures of care process metric. The nation performed well in rates of mammography screening and influenza vaccination for older Americans, as well as the percentage of adults who talked with their physician about nutrition, smoking and alcohol use. Half of lower-income U.S. adults in the report said costs prevented them from receiving care while just more than a quarter of high-income Americans said the same. In comparison, just 12 percent of lower-income residents in the U.K. and 7 percent with higher incomes said costs stopped them from getting care. The U.S. also had the highest infant mortality rate and lowest life expectancy at age 60 compared with other countries.

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Obsessed with power.

Dems’ Crusade Against Trump Does Real Harm To Presidency, Constitution (Fox)

The progressive crusade to bring down Donald Trump by any means necessary continues to damage the Office of the President and the Constitution’s separation of powers. New York prosecutors succeeded in subpoenaing a sitting president — and thereby interfering with his ability to carry out his duties — all for the sake of indicting a single Trump Organization official for under-reporting taxes. Now the Biden administration has inflicted even more damage on the Presidency by waiving Trump’s constitutional right to confidential communications with his closest aides. On January 23, 2021, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats sent a letter to the Department of Justice demanding production of documents concerning meetings and communications between Trump and high-ranking Justice Department officials regarding election fraud.

House and the Senate committees subsequently followed up with subpoenas for a slew of top former Justice Department officials, such as Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, assistant attorney general Jeffrey Clark, and U.S. Attorneys in Georgia and New York. In normal times, the Justice Department would immediately reject these demands. Article II of the Constitution specifies, after all, that the President “may require the Opinion” from his principal officers “upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective offices.” Ever since President George Washington refused to share documents with the House about the Jay Treaty, the Executive Branch has asserted the need to keep confidential documents and information that reflect presidential decision-making and deliberation.

In Nixon v. United States, the Supreme Court recognized that the President must enjoy an executive privilege in order to receive the full and frank advice of top officials in order to effectively discharge his constitutional duties. More recently, the D.C. federal court has recognized that “history and legal precedent teach that documents from a former or an incumbent President are presumptively privileged.” The Supreme Court has only recognized an exception when a criminal defendant’s own constitutional right to information conflicts with the President’s right to confidentiality. Then—and only then—has the Court sought to balance the two competing rights by intruding only as necessary on the claim of privilege. Congress’s demands for documents and subpoenas for testimony are more far-reaching and much more destructive to the separation of powers.

While Congress has a right to investigate the events leading to the terrible riot of January 6, it does not have a right to override the constitutional prerogatives of an independent branch of government. If Congress has the right to demand presidential documents and discussions at will, it could just as easily force the Justices of the Supreme Court to reveal their deliberations about the electoral fraud cases brought after the November 3 elections, too. Imagine the howls from Capitol Hill if the Trump Justice Department had issued subpoenas to Nancy Pelosi to obtain internal documents and communications between her and her top legislative advisors about threat assessments provided in the run-up to the January 6 joint meeting of Congress.

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Jul 092021
 


Alessandro Allori Self portrait c1555

 

Those Dying Post-Vaccine: Where Are The Autopsies? (WND)
‘Absolutely Government’s Business’ To Know Who in US Hasn’t Been Jabbed (Fox)
Pfizer To Seek Authorization For “Booster” Dose To Protect Against Delta Variant (ZH)
Feds Dispute Pfizer On Need For A Covid Booster Shot (JTN)
Fauci Defends Vaccines But Antibodies Don’t Protect Against Delta (ZH)
Fauci Tells People Hesitant About The Vaccine To ‘Just Get Over It’ (DC)
Sturgeon Warns Against Treating Young People Like Covid ‘Guinea Pigs’ (G.)
Risking England’s Health: Not Everyone Can Choose To Stay Safe (G.)
Canada Cracks Down On Doctors Who Warn Of Covid-19 Vaccines Risks (JTN)
How Some Teens are Faking Positive Covid-19 Tests (GR)
Wells Fargo Shuts Down All Personal Lines Of Credit (CNBC)
Trump Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Twitter, Facebook & Google (HE)
Trump Says Hunter Biden Is Worse Than Al Capone (DM)
Hunter Biden Art Show Sparks Ethics Concerns (NYP)
UK High Court Grants US Permission for Appeal in Assange Extradition Case (CD)

 

 

 

 

Should I take the vaccine?

 

 

 

 

I don’t especially like to agree with Laura Ingraham, but in this case I do.

Ingraham

 

 

Jane M. Orient, M.D. is executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, AAPS.

Those Dying Post-Vaccine: Where Are The Autopsies? (WND)

My internal medicine training was in the dark ages before CT and MRI, but we were still supposed to make an accurate diagnosis. A patient who died without a medical history was an “ME case.” We had to call the medical examiner, who would decide whether an autopsy was indicated. Anything potentially related to the death, such as pill bottles, was evidence. If an injection had been given, the vial would be recovered if possible. With vaccines, one is supposed to record the lot number, so it would be possible to check a sample for contaminants. If the patient died in hospital, the medical resident was required to request permission for an autopsy. Survivors might be persuaded to OK one by the possibility that their loved one may have had a hereditary condition or an infection that might affect others.

In any event, we assured them that their loved one would be treated with respect and that funeral arrangements would not be affected. A chaplain would volunteer to attend. The most important reason was that the “altar of truth” was the ultimate “quality assurance” mechanism. Hospitals were required to perform autopsies on a certain proportion of decedents in order to maintain their accreditation. A classic study of 100 randomly selected autopsies from each of three years (1960, 1970 and 1980) revealed that major diagnoses had been missed in about 22% of cases in all three eras, despite the introduction of modern imaging methods. Unfortunately, autopsy rates have fallen from 25% to less than 5% over the past four decades. It never was a revenue producer for anyone except malpractice attorneys.

I always attended the autopsy if I could. One of my most important teachers was a patient in whom we had missed a condition that was glaringly obvious when the skull was opened. We might not have been able to save him, but since we hadn’t even thought of the diagnosis, he didn’t have a chance. Tens of thousands of patients died of COVID before a series of 12 autopsies done in Germany showed that most had blood clots and could not have been saved by forcing air into their lungs with a ventilator. If a person dies after a COVID jab, I would like to know whether there are spike proteins in the tissues and blood vessels, and whether there was an immunological reaction that was damaging those tissues. If a mother loses a baby, I would like to see a thorough examination of the placenta. Was the baby’s oxygen and nutrition cut off because of damaged blood vessels?

I find it shocking that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Joint Commission that accredits hospitals are not demanding autopsies or testing of vaccine samples. It is not possible to declare a product safe and effective without obtaining direct evidence from potential victims. The manufacturers are protected against product liability, thanks to Congress. But where is the accountability of the government agencies charged with protecting us, or of the private entities coercing employees or students to take an experimental, potentially dangerous, or even lethal product? If someone you love dies unexpectedly, call the medical examiner, and demand a forensic autopsy.

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Medical information is private.

‘Absolutely Government’s Business’ To Know Who in US Hasn’t Been Jabbed (Fox)

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday it was “absolutely the government’s business” to know which Americans haven’t been vaccinated yet against the coronavirus. Responding to GOP criticisms of the Biden administration’s planned “door-to-door” campaign to encourage unvaccinated Americans to inoculate themselves, Becerra told CNN the government has had to “spend trillions of dollars to try to keep Americans alive during this pandemic.” “So it is absolutely the government’s business, it is taxpayers’ business, if we have to continue to spend money to try to keep people from contracting COVID and helping reopen the economy,” he said.


Becerra said people didn’t have to answer the door but he hoped they would so officials could dispel rumors about the vaccine, which has proven to be highly effective in driving down cases, hospitalizations and deaths. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 56% of the adult population has been “fully vaccinated” and 67% has gotten at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. States that tend to vote Republican have reported lower vaccination rates, and polls show Republican voters are far more likely than Democrats to say they will not or likely will not get the vaccine. The issue has become part of a larger debate over public health measures colliding with Americans’ personal freedoms.

Ultimatum

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Every next shot is more dangerous.

Pfizer To Seek Authorization For “Booster” Dose To Protect Against Delta Variant (ZH)

Hours ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci emphatically defended the efficacy of the three American-made vaccines that have received emergency authorization for use by the FDA. His comments weren’t unprompted: reports out of Israel claiming the Pfizer jab is far less effective than advertised have shaken public confidence in the jabs, at a time where President Biden is about to send people knocking on doors to try and encourage more adults (and increasingly, children) to get vaccinated. It’s no secret that a handful of southern and western states are lagging the rest of the country in vaccine rollout. But not long after Dr. Fauci made his comments (which were picked up by all the major newswires) the NYT published a sneak peak at new research showing how the Delta variant bypasses the antibodies created by the vaccines, and prior infection with another strain of the virus.

It’s just the latest example of how the authorities don’t care about the “science” so much as protecting the narrative that helps Big Pharma sell the most vaccines. And while the vast majority of countries are still struggling with vaccination rates below 1% since they simply can’t get the supplies (while unused jabs are piling up across the US) – and Bill Gates doing everything he can to keep it that way – Pfizer and Moderna have apparently spotted an opportunity. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced Thursday evening that they will seek authorization from the FDA for a third “booster” dose of their COVID vaccines that will offer increased protection against the Delta variant (despite the fact that both Pfizer and its rival Moderna repeatedly insisted that its vaccines are still effective against all known variants including Delta), the Hill reports.

In a statement, the company referenced the data out of Israel, where government scientists have estimated the real efficacy of the vaccine vs. Delta is somewhere around 64%, while leaving particularly vulnerable patients at risk of severe illness and death. The booster dose would ideally be given within 6 to 12 months post-vaccination. “Based on the totality of the data they have to date, Pfizer and BioNTech believe that a third dose may be beneficial within 6 to 12 months following the second dose to maintain highest levels of protection,” the companies said.

Don’t take the 2nd shot

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Once you’ve had the first one, you’re hooked.

Feds Dispute Pfizer On Need For A Covid Booster Shot (JTN)

Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech said Thursday they are developing a booster shot to combat the highly transmissible delta variant of the COVID-19 virus. As the pharmaceutical companies announced their shot, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that fully vaccinated people do not need those types of booster shots. “People who are fully vaccinated are protected from severe disease and death, including from the variants currently circulating in the country such as Delta,” the FDA and CDC said Thursday, according to Axios. “Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time.”


The companies cited a study by the Israel Ministry of Health released on Monday that showed the “vaccine efficacy has declined six months post-vaccination, at the same time that the Delta variant is becoming the dominate variant in the country.” “These findings are consistent with an ongoing analysis from the companies’ Phase 3 study,” the companies said in a written statement, according to CNBC News. “That is why we have said, and we continue to believe that it is likely, based on the totality of the data we have to date, that a third dose may be needed within 6 to 12 months after full vaccination.”

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“The logic is confusing, but it goes something like this: Delta is scary, so get vaccinated…but vaccines don’t protect against Delta.”

Fauci Defends Vaccines But Antibodies Don’t Protect Against Delta (ZH)

As the world passes 4MM confirmed COVID cases, the NYT has just published new research published in the journal Nature calling into question the efficacy of US-made vaccines in offering protection against the Delta variant. Shortly before the research was released, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday defended American COVID vaccines, claiming that the jabs developed by Pfizer, Moderna and J&J are all effective against the Delta variant, a mutant strain that has become the obsession of public health officials who claim that it could ignite another wave of the pandemic. But what they don’t tell you is that epidemiologists believe COVID is now endemic in the human population, and that reaching “COVID zero” simply isn’t possible.

At any rate, while the vaccine makers are salivating at the opportunity to produce lucrative booster shots offering protection against various variants, the new research previewed by the NYT and published in the journal Nature found that the Delta strain is able to bypass the antibodies produced by vaccination or prior infection. Delta, which was first identified in India, is believed to be roughly 60% more infectious than the alpha variant – the strain also known as the “Kent Strain”, or B.1.1.7, which was first identified by scientists in England. This week, as the number of new COVID cases climbed by double-digits from the prior week (while hospitalizations and deaths remained stagnant), Delta was declared the dominant variant found in the US. Almost as alarming, the researchers found that while Delta is able to effectively evade the antibody response, the Beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa, can do it even more easily. Here’s more from the NYT report on the research:

“The researchers looked at blood samples from 103 people who had been infected with the coronavirus. Delta was much less sensitive than Alpha to samples from unvaccinated people in this group, the study found. One dose of vaccine significantly boosted the sensitivity, suggesting that people who have recovered from Covid-19 still need to be vaccinated to fend off some variants. The team also analyzed samples from 59 people after they had received the first and second doses of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.

Blood samples from just 10 percent of people immunized with one dose of the AstraZeneca or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were able to neutralize the Delta and Beta variants in laboratory experiments. But a second dose boosted that number to 95 percent. There was no major difference in the levels of antibodies elicited by the two vaccines. “A single dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca was either poorly or not at all efficient against Beta and Delta variants,” the researchers concluded. Data from Israel and Britain broadly support this finding, although those studies suggest that one dose of vaccine is still enough to prevent hospitalization or death from the virus.”

What’s more, the delta variant was also found to be resistant to antibody-based treatments, like “bamlanivimab”, the monoclonal antibody cocktail produced by Eli Lilly. Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci tells reporters that nine out of ten Americans who died from the virus were unvaccinated. Despite the growing number of vaccinated patients who are being infected and seriously sickened, insisted that the “science” shows the vaccines are extremely effective at preventing infection. The logic is confusing, but it goes something like this: Delta is scary, so get vaccinated…but vaccines don’t protect against Delta. It’s just the latest reminder that Dr. Fauci & company don’t care about “the science”.

Tucker about vaccine coercion

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Those who still believe him have already gotten jabbed.

Fauci Tells People Hesitant About The Vaccine To ‘Just Get Over It’ (DC)

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that people hesitant about getting vaccinated against COVID-19 should “just get over it.” Fauci appeared on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes,” where he went on a rant equating people’s hesitancy towards the vaccines’ safety to a “political statement.” “This is not complicated. We’re not asking anybody to make any political statements one way or another,” he said. “So many diseases that I deal with … don’t have solutions. It’s very frustrating — you don’t have a treatment, or you don’t have a vaccine,” Fauci added. “Here, we have a vaccine that’s highly, highly effective.”


“What is the problem? Get over it. Get over this political statement. Just get over it and try and save the lives of yourself and your family.” he concluded. Fauci has previously warned about the possibility of the emergence of “two Americas” as a result of low vaccination rates in some areas of the country. “When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, what you are going to see among under-vaccinated regions … you’re going to see the individual types of blips. It’s almost like it’s going to be two Americas,” Fauci said on June 30.

Fauci GET OVER IT

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Don’t be a guinea pig. Be a guinea pig instead.

Sturgeon Warns Against Treating Young People Like Covid ‘Guinea Pigs’ (G.)

Nicola Sturgeon has warned against treating young people like “guinea pigs” by allowing them to get infected with coronavirus when lifting restrictions, amid fears they remain at risk of significant health impacts such as long Covid. Scotland’s first minister said the desire to live free of lockdown-style restrictions did not mean governments could “throw all caution to the wind”, while suggesting the “domination” of England’s plans to scrap Covid rules risked confusing other UK nations. The steep rise in infections across Scotland caused by theDelta variant may be levelling off, Sturgeon added. The current spike has led to six Scottish health boards being placed among the top 10 worst-hit regions in Europe by the WHO last weekend.


The levelling off gave her “more cause for optimism” that she would be able to confirm the move to level 0 of Scotland’s five-tier system of Covid controls in parliament next Tuesday, she said, before emphasising that the planned easing on 19 July “won’t be an abrupt end to basic protective measures like face covering, physical distancing, rigorous hand hygiene and advising on good ventilation.” However, she pointed out the “significant” impact the virus can have on younger people, even if there is a lower risk of death. She said: “I want to set out simply why we can’t just throw all caution to the wind. Firstly, this virus is still dangerous, as we see every day. It is still taking lives, though mercifully, thanks to the vaccines, it is doing so in far fewer numbers than we saw in earlier stages.”

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“the authors of the Lancet letter are too generous in describing this as “a dangerous and unethical experiment”: that terminology suggests a degree of scientific rigour and concern. Instead, this is a political wager..”

That comment is pro-vaccination. You would’t know without the context.

Risking England’s Health: Not Everyone Can Choose To Stay Safe (G.)

In a letter to the Lancet, over 100 global scientists have warned that rushing ahead with reopening on 19 July – rather than waiting until more people are vaccinated – is dangerous and premature. Those concerns will be compounded by the relaxation of travel restrictions announced on Thursday. Allowing children and double-vaccinated adults to travel to amber list countries without quarantining on return increases the risk of importing new variants which could be more infectious or more resistant to current vaccines, just as opportunities for transmission increase. The health secretary, Sajid Javid, concedes we could soon be looking at 100,000 cases a day, but argues that hospitalisation and death numbers are what matter more than anything.

Unfortunately, he will not say what figures he expects or would tolerate. The link between infection and serious illness or death has been much weakened, but not broken. Vaccination rates vary widely; in some areas, fewer than 30% have received two doses. On Thursday, the UK reported weekly rises of more than 50% in Covid hospital admissions and deaths – both of which lag rises in cases – to 456 and 35 respectively. The government’s chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, has said that we are likely to see a significant increase in long Covid; experts fear that huge numbers could be affected. Though the government talks of personal responsibility, there can be no responsibility without choice. For too many, danger is being imposed upon them. Vaccines are widely available, and people can still cover their faces.

But masks are better at protecting people from the wearer than protecting the wearer. Young workers on public transport or in shops, not yet able to get a second jab, will be exposed to the virus by customers who choose not to wear masks. They surely need and deserve protection. Children are currently unable to be vaccinated. The immunocompromised are less protected by vaccines and more likely to become seriously ill if they contract Covid. Reportedly, the department of health will be issuing new guidance for the immunosuppressed and clinically very vulnerable. But while support for shielders is needed, confining them to quarters indefinitely is hardly a liberation.

Nor is there much choice for exhausted NHS staff who face a soaring workload again, or for patients whose operations are being cancelled because hospitals are treating growing numbers of Covid patients or staff are having to self-isolate. If anything, the authors of the Lancet letter are too generous in describing this as “a dangerous and unethical experiment”: that terminology suggests a degree of scientific rigour and concern. Instead, this is a political wager, in which large parts of the population are not players but gambling chips.

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“I have not met a single vaccinated child or parent who has been adequately informed and who then understand the risks of this vaccine or its benefits.”

Canada Cracks Down On Doctors Who Warn Of Covid-19 Vaccines Risks (JTN)

Canadian doctors are facing professional repercussions for sharing their concerns about COVID-19 vaccines, specifically their emergency use authorization status and safety for children. The University of Saskatchewan removed Francis Christian, a clinical professor of surgery, from his faculty and administrative responsibilities days after he hosted a press conference about “the risks of mRNA vaccines to children” and alternatives to vaccination, including use of the drug ivermectin. The Saskatchewan Health Authority also said it was terminating Christian’s contract Sept. 21, after the required 90-day notice, for his “conspiracy theories” on COVID-19 vaccines. He is not “committed to fact-based, scientifically driven public messaging,” the provincial agency told the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

Christian endangers lives by “potentially discouraging uptake on life-saving vaccines.” Christian opened the June 17 press conference with an explicit disclaimer that he was not representing the university or the provincial agency, and emphasized he was “very pro-vaccine” in general. “The principle of informed consent is being consistently violated in this province for the mRNA vaccine for our kids,” for whom there is no “emergency” justifying experimental COVID-19 vaccines, he said. “I have not met a single vaccinated child or parent who has been adequately informed and who then understand the risks of this vaccine or its benefits.”

Christian said nearly 6,000 deaths have been associated with mRNA vaccines in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Echoing arguments by other medical experts, he said such associations “in any other drug or vaccine … would have been sufficient to stop the whole program” to allow for reevaluation. “Tomorrow the CDC is meeting in emergency session to discuss this issue” of heightened risk for myocarditis among young COVID-19 vaccine recipients, he said, and “there is a good likelihood that they too will call for a pause in vaccinating our kids.” The U.S. FDA added heart-inflammation warnings to two vaccines several days later.

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Can they fake negative tests as well? Asking for a friend.

How Some Teens are Faking Positive Covid-19 Tests (GR)

A new study released on Monday suggests that teenagers are using social media to share information on faking covid-19 tests in order to get a positive result. Since July 1, videos of young people sharing information on how to trick rapid at-home covid tests (lateral flow tests) into producing positive results using soda drinks have gone viral. This has prompted researchers at the University of Liverpool to look into whether there is any validity to the claim that artificial sweeteners used in sodas can change negative coronavirus results into positive ones. The results of their study, which is still awaiting peer review, were submitted to medRxiv on Monday. The videos of children faking positive covid-19 test results have gone particularly viral in the UK, where a single case of coronavirus in a school can often lead to the whole grade of the person diagnosed needing to isolate at home.

In the UK, schools have mandated students test themselves for the coronavirus twice weekly, in a move similar to that enacted by the Greek government. Some teens have decided that sham positive results are a good thing, as it allows them and their friends to skip school for around ten days and hang out instead. However, this can have a devastating effect on learning, as students miss out on school for days because of false information. Videos are continually being uploaded to social media sites with the hashtag “#fakecovidtest,” showing children putting different liquids on rapid antigen tests in an attempt to produce a positive result. The study by University of Liverpool researchers showed that soda drinks could be used to fake rapid covid-19 tests.

The researchers first ruled out the significance of artificial sweetener, as four different kinds of artificial sweetener and spring water produced negative results on the test swabs. However, when the researchers went to test sodas, the results became a bit more concerning. Ten out of fourteen sodas tested were able to produce positive or weakly positive results. However, the researchers have had a hard time identifying what ingredient produces this reaction, as there seems to be no apparent link between the test results and the soft drinks’ ingredients.

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One shut down after another. Not a good sign at all.

Wells Fargo Shuts Down All Personal Lines Of Credit (CNBC)

Wells Fargo is ending a popular consumer lending product, angering some of its customers, CNBC has learned. The bank is shutting down all existing personal lines of credit in coming weeks and no longer offers the product, according to customer letters reviewed by CNBC. The revolving credit lines, which typically let users borrow $3,000 to $100,000, were pitched as a way to consolidate higher-interest credit card debt, pay for home renovations or avoid overdraft fees on linked checking accounts. “Wells Fargo recently reviewed its product offerings and decided to discontinue offering new Personal and Portfolio line of credit accounts and close all existing accounts,” the bank said in the six-page letter. The move would let the bank focus on credit cards and personal loans, it said.

Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf has been forced to make difficult decisions during the coronavirus pandemic, offloading assets and deposits and stepping back from some products because of limitations imposed by the Federal Reserve. In 2018, the Fed barred Wells Fargo from growing its balance sheet until it fixes compliance shortcomings revealed by the bank’s fake accounts scandal. The asset cap has ultimately cost the bank billions of dollars in lost earnings, based on the balance sheet growth of rivals including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America over the past three years, analysts have said. It has also affected Wells Fargo’s customers: Last year, the lender told staff it was halting all new home equity lines of credit, CNBC reported. Months later, the bank also withdrew from a segment of the auto lending business.

With its latest move, Wells Fargo warned customers that the account closures “may have an impact on your credit score,” according to a frequently asked questions segment of the letter. Another part of the FAQ asserted that the account closures couldn’t be reviewed or reversed: “We apologize for the inconvenience this Line of Credit closure will cause,” the bank said. “The account closure is final.”

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“We are going to hold Big Tech very accountable..”

Trump Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Twitter, Facebook & Google (HE)

Trump is suing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for violating his First Amendment rights. “Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I’m filing as the lead class representative a class action lawsuit against Facebook, Google and Twitter,” Trump said. “Our case will prove this censorship unlawful.” “We’re demanding an end to the shadowbanning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing and canceling that you know so well,” he added.


The lawsuits, filed in the Southern District of Florida, also call for the court to strike down Section 230, a decades-old Internet law that protects tech companies from lawsuits over content moderation decisions, per the New York Times. The suits seek unspecified punitive damages. The announcement came during a morning press conference at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, where he was joined by Linda McMahon and Brooke Rollins of the America First Policy Institute, per the Tennessee Star. Trump is bringing the lawsuit on behalf of not only himself, but other Americans whose First Amendment rights were violated by the Big Tech conglomerate. “We are going to hold Big Tech very accountable,” he said.

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He’s seen the laptop’s contents.

Trump Says Hunter Biden Is Worse Than Al Capone (DM)

Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday there was more ‘criminal activity’ on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop than mobster Al Capone ever carried out. Trump commented on what he termed the ‘laptop from hell’ as he announced his lawsuit against Facebook and big tech. He used language that suggested he may have seen the laptop, although he didn’t specify if he was referring to media reports on its contents. ‘The laptop from hell,’ Trump termed it. ‘You look at that thing, there’s more criminal activity on that laptop than Al Capone had if he ever had a laptop,’ the former president said. The tech-averse Trump then riffed: ‘We’d like to give Al Capone one, but he was a baby compared to what I was able to see.’

The laptop purportedly once owned by the president’s son has produced a series of revelations about Hunter Biden’s convoluted family sagas and international business deals. DailyMail.com consulted computer forensics experts who vouched for its authenticity. The New York Post reported on some of its email contents weeks before the election, reporting that it was dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in 2019 and never picked up. Recent stories unearthed from the laptop appear to show Hunter paying his father’s AT&T bill, saying prostitutes should unionize, as well as information on the family’s painful struggles with addiction. Longtime Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, whose apartment was raided by the FBI in April, said agents refused to take hard drives he said were Hunter’s during the search.

[..] Trump brought up the laptop while complaining about probes of him he terms witch hunts. ‘That’s what happened with Russia, that’s what happened with Ukraine,’ he said, before pivoting to Hunter. He invoked Capone, the Chicago mobster famously sentenced to 11 years on tax charges, days after longtime Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was indicted on tax fraud charges over $1.7 million in perks and benefits prosecutors say he did not disclose.

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The White House ensures secrecy for the buyers? That’s in their job description?

Hunter Biden Art Show Sparks Ethics Concerns (NYP)

Government ethics watchdogs and art critics alike are voicing their concerns as first son Hunter Biden prepares for his first solo art exhibition this fall — where paintings from the former lawyer and lobbyist are expected to fetch between $75,000 and $500,000 and buyers will remain anonymous. “The whole thing is a really bad idea,” Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, told the Washington Post. “The initial reaction a lot of people are going to have is that he’s capitalizing on being the son of a president and wants people to give him a lot of money. I mean, those are awfully high prices.” Walter Shaub, who led the Office of Government Ethics under President Barack Obama, told the paper that the art buyers having their identities protected created a host of problems.

“Because we don’t know who is paying for this art and we don’t know for sure that [Hunter Biden] knows, we have no way of monitoring whether people are buying access to the White House,” he said. “What these people are paying for is Hunter Biden’s last name.” Painter also referenced the issue of anonymity, noting that foreign governments or lobbyists could buy the art through intermediaries in an effort to curry favor with the Biden White House. President Biden’s 51-year-old son is putting the finishing touches on the 15 paintings that will comprise his first solo exhibition, which is scheduled to open in October at the Georges Berges’ Gallery in Soho, with a private viewing for VIP collectors in Los Angeles in September. Speaking to The Post late last month, Berges, 45, who said he discovered Biden after being introduced by a “serious” Los Angeles-based collector, admitted he was skeptical of the president’s son’s artistic ability.

“A lot of people say they can paint and do sculpture, but what I was concerned about was whether Hunter’s work would be authentic,” the gallery owner said. Berges, who represents a roster of international artists, spent three years helping Biden, who is self-taught, take his abstract expressionist painting from a hobby that occupied “about 20 percent of his time” to a full-time job that saw Biden spend the last two and a half years holed up in his home studio on a hillside in Los Angeles following a “regimented” routine. “What interested me was whether the work was going to be honest — something that was really true to him and his journey,” Berges said. “But as soon as I met him, I had a real connection with him and I felt I could work with him.”

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Julian has nothing to expect from British law.

UK High Court Grants US Permission for Appeal in Assange Extradition Case (CD)

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s legal team said Wednesday that the United Kingdom’s High Court had granted permission to the U.S. government to appeal an earlier decision that blocked Assange’s extradition The court reportedly granted the appeal “on a limited basis” and on “narrow, technical grounds,” and did not set a date for a future court hearing. The ruling led to intensified calls by Assange’s supporters for his release from Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh, where he has been held for more than two years following seven years in isolation at the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he claimed asylum. The High Court’s decision “means he is still at risk of extradition where he faces a 175-year prison sentence and…is certain to lose his life if he is extradited,” said Stella Moris, Assange’s partner.


District Judge Vanessa Baraister ruled at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in January that Assange should not be extradited to the U.S., where the government is pursuing Espionage Act charges against him for his publication of military and diplomatic documents, on the grounds that Assange was at “substantial” risk for committing suicide in the “harsh conditions” of the U.S. prison system. Baraister’s ruling led to calls for the U.S. to end its pursuit of Assange—which has been called a threat to press freedom all over the world by international rights groups including Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation—but U.K. authorities continued his detention at Belmarsh pending the Biden administration’s appeal.

Greenwald NSA Assange

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disclaimer at the beginning of Birth of a Nation.

 

 

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Jun 252021
 
 June 25, 2021  Posted by at 8:53 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Edward Hopper Summertime 1943

 

Structural Basis Of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Activity of HCQ (RS)
Half Of New Israel Covid-19 Cases In Last Month Were Fully Vaccinated (INN)
Nearly All US COVID Deaths Now Among Unvaccinated People (NYP)
Surgeon Fired For Voicing Safety Concerns About Covid Shots For Children (JCCF)
‘Single Most Qualified’ mRNA Expert Speaks About Vaccine Risks (WE)
CDC Official Says Coronavirus Vaccine Booster May Not be Needed (GR)
The Delta COVID-19 Variant Has A Mutation Called K417N (R.)
Almost 600m NHS Home Covid Tests Unaccounted For (G.)
The Icarus Wax Of The Everything Bubble Is Melting (Von Greyerz)
The “Conspiracy Theory” Charade (Bovard)
Merkel Urges ‘Direct Contact’ With Putin (Pol.eu)
Britain Acknowledges Surprise At Speed Of Russian Reaction To Warship (G.)
Solar Panels Create 50 Times More Waste Than Predicted, Much Of It Toxic (RT)

 

 

A little reminder.

 

 

Ivory Hecker

 

 

Singaporean researchers believe that they have discovered a new mechanism of action of Hydroxychloroquine in Covid-19 and very boldly conclude:

“HCQ is a promising candidate to help terminate the pandemic”.

“Most importantly, HCQ-binding residues are identical in SARS-CoV-2 variants and therefore HCQ is likely effective to them all.”

Structural Basis Of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Activity of HCQ (RS)

Great efforts have led to successfully developing the spike-based vaccines but challenges still exist to completely terminate the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) protein plays the essential roles in almost all key steps of the viral life cycle, thus representing a top drug target. Almost all key functions of N protein including liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) depend on its capacity in interacting with nucleic acids. Therefore, only the variants with their N proteins functional in binding nucleic acids might survive and spread in evolution and indeed, the residues critical for binding nucleic acids are highly conserved.

Very recently, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was shown to prevent the transmission in a large-scale clinical study in Singapore but so far, no specific SARS-CoV-2 protein was experimentally identified to be targeted by HCQ. Here by NMR, we unambiguously decode that HCQ specifically binds NTD and CTD of SARS- CoV-2 N protein with Kd of 112.1 and 57.1 µM respectively to inhibit their interaction with nucleic acid, as well as to disrupt LLPS essential for the viral life cycle.

Most importantly, HCQ-binding residues are identical in SARS-CoV-2 variants and therefore HCQ is likely effective to them all. The results not only provide a structural basis for the anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of HCQ, but also renders HCQ to be the first known drug capable of targeting LLPS. Furthermore, the unique structure of the HCQ-CTD complex decodes a promising strategy for further design of better anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs from HCQ. Therefore, HCQ is a promising candidate to help terminate the pandemic.

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VanDen Bossche strikes again.

Half Of New Israel Covid-19 Cases In Last Month Were Fully Vaccinated (INN)

Israel’s campaign to promote the coronavirus vaccine – now focusing on young teens – is going full steam ahead, in spite of statistics presented by government officials showing that half of those recently infected with Covid-19 were fully vaccinated, Behadrey Haredim reports. Head of Public Health Services, Dr. Sharon Alray-Price, revealed the disturbing facts at a media presentation on Wednesday. According to her data, of the 891 cases of coronavirus confirmed in the last month alone, half had received both doses of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine. According to a report on Channel 12, in the months since the vaccines were rolled out, 6,765 people who received both shots have contracted coronavirus, and epidemiological tracing has revealed that an additional 3,133 people contracted Covid-19 from those vaccinated individuals.

The 6,765 represent a little more than one percent of the total number of those vaccinated, which now stands at over 5,100,000. It is clear that officials were already aware that the vaccine does not provide sufficient protection, as quarantine regulations for those returning from abroad have recently been changed, requiring even those fully vaccinated to self-isolate upon return from certain countries. In addition, military intelligence has been warning of such a scenario at least since January, when a report was published that suggested a mass vaccination campaign would lead to vaccine-resistant strains of Covid-19 emerging. Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett convened a panel of experts together with the heads of the various health service organizations in the country.

“Our aim at the present moment, first and foremost, is to protect Israeli citizens from the Delta strain that is running amok around the world,” Bennett said at the meeting. “As we do so, we will endeavor to limit the impact this has on daily life in Israel. Therefore, we have decided to take immediate action in order to avoid paying a heavier price at a later stage. It all depends on us. If we are meticulous in adhering to the guidelines and behaving responsibly, we will overcome this – together.”

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This doesn’t appear to rhyme with Doc Robinson’s numbers yesterday.

Nearly All US COVID Deaths Now Among Unvaccinated People (NYP)

Nearly all recent COVID-19 deaths in the US were of people who had not been vaccinated, a new analysis found. The examination by the Associated Press of data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was released as about 63 percent of all eligible American adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine — and 53 percent are fully vaccinated. The AP found that only 150 of the more than 18,000 coronavirus deaths in May were of people who were fully vaccinated. In the same month, more than 853,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19. Less than 1,200 of them, or roughly 0.1 percent, were fully vaccinated.


On Tuesday, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky spoke of the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine. “Nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable,” Walensky said. AP’s findings come as COVID-19 deaths per day in the nation have dropped dramatically — from a daily high of about 3,400 in mid-January to currently under 300.

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Canada.

Surgeon Fired For Voicing Safety Concerns About Covid Shots For Children (JCCF)

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms represents Dr. Francis Christian, Clinical Professor of General Surgery at the University of Saskatchewan and a practising surgeon in Saskatoon. Dr. Christian was called into a meeting today, suspended from all teaching responsibilities effective immediately, and fired from his position with the University of Saskatchewan as of September 2021. There is a recording of Dr. Christian’s meeting today between Dr. Christian and Dr. Preston Smith, the Dean of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, College of Medicine, Dr. Susan Shaw, the Chief Medical Officer of the Saskatchewan Health Authority, and Dr. Brian Ulmer, Head of the Department of Surgery at the Saskatchewan College of Medicine.

In addition, the Justice Centre will represent Dr. Christian in his defence of a complaint that was made against him and an investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan. The complaint objects to Dr. Christian having advocated for the informed consent of Covid vaccines for children. Dr. Christian has been a surgeon for more than 20 years and began working in Saskatoon in 2007. He was appointed Director of the Surgical Humanities Program and Director of Quality and Patient Safety in 2018 and co-founded the Surgical Humanities Program. Dr. Christian is also the Editor of the Journal of The Surgical Humanities.

On June 17, Dr. Christian released a statement to over 200 doctors which contained his concerns regarding giving the Covid shots to children. In it he noted that he is pro-vaccine, and that he did not represent any group, the Saskatchewan Health Authority, or the University of Saskatchewan. “I speak to you directly as a physician, a surgeon, and a fellow human being.” Dr. Christian noted that the principle of informed consent was sacrosanct and noted that a patient should always be “fully aware of the risks of the medical intervention, the benefits of the intervention, and if any alternatives exist to the intervention.” “This should apply particularly to a new vaccine that has never before been tried in humans… before the vaccine is rolled out to children, both children and parents must know the risks of m-RNA vaccines,” he wrote.

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Interviews in yesterday’s Debt Rattle.

‘Single Most Qualified’ mRNA Expert Speaks About Vaccine Risks (WE)

The man who invented the mRNA technology used in some coronavirus vaccines says he was censored by YouTube for sharing his concerns on the vaccines in a podcast. “[O]ne of my concerns are that the government is not being transparent with us about what those risks are. And so, I’m of the opinion that people have the right to decide whether to accept a vaccine or not, especially since these are experimental vaccines,” said Dr. Robert Malone during a Wednesday segment on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, saying YouTube deleted a video of him speaking about the associated risks. Opening the segment, Carlson shared some studies showing heart inflammation and death correlating with the use of the vaccines.

“A Norwegian study conducted of 100 nursing home residents who died after receiving Pfizer’s corona shots. They found that at least 10 of those deaths were likely caused by the vaccine. 10%,” Carlson said. “Young adults in the prime of their lives are being forced to take the vaccine because Tony Fauci said that,” he said, contending Malone’s expertise makes him “the single most qualified” person to share information about the technology and warrants him “a right to speak.” Malone clarified that he was not discouraging the use of the vaccine but was providing people with as much fair information as he could about their risks.

“This is a fundamental right having to do with clinical research ethics,” he said. “And so, my concern is that I know that there are risks. But we don’t have access to the data, and the data haven’t been captured rigorously enough so that we can accurately assess those risks — and therefore … we don’t really have the information that we need to make a reasonable decision.” “That’s one of my other objections, is that we toss about these words, risk-benefit analysis, casually as if it’s a very deep science. It’s not. Normally, at this stage, the CDC [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] would have performed those risk-benefit analyses. They would be data-based and science-based. They’re not right now,” Malone said.

Malone also said he has “a bias that the benefits probably don’t outweigh the risks” for younger people who are being encouraged or required to take the vaccine. “I can say that the risk-benefit ratio for those 18 and below doesn’t justify vaccines, and there’s a pretty good chance that it doesn’t justify vaccination in these very young adults,” he added. Malone discovered in-vitro and in-vivo RNA transfection when he was at the Salk Institute in 1988, and he subsequently invented mRNA vaccines, which are being used over 20 years later to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

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ha ha ha

CDC Official Says Coronavirus Vaccine Booster May Not be Needed (GR)

A US Centers for Disease Control official stated on Wednesday that, according to information available at present, there is no need for a booster shot for the coronavirus vaccine. However, certain at-risk populations will be closely monitored for the possibility of a booster, including residents of long-term care facilities, adults who are 65 and older, those who are immunocompromised and those who work in health care. The findings so far in mid-June, according to Sara Oliver of the CDC, indicate that the world’s major Covid-19 vaccines offer lasting protection that could diminish any need for frequent booster shots. However, she cautioned that more research is still needed and that virus mutations remain a concern worldwide.


No data that is currently available supports a recommendation for coronavirus booster shots, Oliver told an advisory group, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, yesterday. Oliver assured the committee that officials will continue to monitor all incoming data to determine if a booster shot is necessary at some point as time goes on. A recommendation for booster shots would likely “only occur” after “evidence of declining protection against illness, such as declines in vaccine effectiveness” or the detection of a “variant of concern substantially impacting vaccine protection,” Oliver told the Committee.

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HCQ works against all of them.

The Delta COVID-19 Variant Has A Mutation Called K417N (R.)

The variant, called “Delta Plus” in India, was first reported in a Public Health England bulletin on June 11. It is a sub-lineage of the Delta variant first detected in India and has acquired the spike protein mutation called K417N which is also found in the Beta variant first identified in South Africa. Some scientists worry that the mutation, coupled with other existing features of the Delta variant, could make it more transmissible. “The mutation K417N has been of interest as it is present in the Beta variant (B.1.351 lineage), which was reported to have immune evasion property,” India’s health ministry said in a statement. Shahid Jameel, a top Indian virologist, said the K417N was known to reduce the effectiveness of a cocktail of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies.


As of June 16, at least 197 cases has been found from 11 countries – Britain (36), Canada (one), India (eight), Japan (15), Nepal (three), Poland (9), Portugal (22), Russia (one), Switzerland (18), Turkey (one), the United States (83). India said on Wednesday around 40 cases of the variant have been observed in the states of Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, with “no significant increase in prevalence.” The earliest case in India is from a sample taken on April 5. Britain said its first five cases were sequenced on April 26 and they were contacts of individuals who had traveled from, or transited through, Nepal and Turkey. No deaths were reported among the U.K. and Indian cases.

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Fraud.

Almost 600m NHS Home Covid Tests Unaccounted For (G.)

Almost 600m lateral flow tests given to the public in England may not yet have been used, according to a report that says the hugely expensive test-and-trace system is still bedevilled by problems. The National Audit Office said NHS Test and Trace (NSHT&T), which Boris Johnson promised would be world-beating and has a budget exceeding that of the Department for Transport, was struggling with some “fundamental parts” of its role. In a move to help track and suppress the spread of coronavirus, NHST&T distributed 691m quick-result tests to people across England with the aim of helping people to return to workplaces.


The NAO said results from only 14% of them had been registered, meaning almost 600m had gone unaccounted for. “NHST&T does not know whether the tests that have not been registered have been used or not,” the report says. “It has started a programme of research to understand why the registration of test results is so low and is working to increase public awareness of the need to register results and improve its ability to track tests.” The startling finding will increase scrutiny of the test-and-trace system, which was hailed by the prime minister as a vital part of the government’s plan to beat coronavirus, and of its former head Dido Harding, who is seeking to become the next head of the NHS.

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Good metaphor.

The Icarus Wax Of The Everything Bubble Is Melting (Von Greyerz)

When will the wax melt that holds up the global economy? Hubris is driving humans and markets ever higher and closer to the sun. The higher everything goes, the greater the risk that the wax melts and the wings that are supporting the global economy just fall off and everything crashes to the ground. Investing successfully is primarily about managing risk rather than maximising profits. As we reach the end of the biggest bull market in history, investors feel so secure that risk has become an irrelevance. The Hocus Pocus system of finance has offered total downside protection for investors for 1/2 a century. The last big crash that affected a whole generation was the 1929 crash. After a 90% fall in the Dow, it took 1/4 of a century to recover to the 1929 high.


But since Nixon caused the Hocus Pocus system to thrive from 1971, all major crashes have quickly retraced to new highs. The Dow has fallen 40-60% in 1973, 1987, 2000, 2008 and 2020. But instead of taking 25 years to recover like after the 1929 crash, no retracement since 1971 has taken more than 2 years. This is the beauty of Hocus Pocus finance. Through printing and credit expansion you create unlimited access to liquidity for the big investors. Virtually no funds reach ordinary people who need it but instead the Hocus Focus system rewards the Croesus investors which means the haves get more and the have nots become relatively much poorer.

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Funny that “Putin Puppet” was never called a conspiracy theory.

The “Conspiracy Theory” Charade (Bovard)

“Conspiracy theory” is often a flag of convenience for the media. In 2018, the New York Times asserted that Trump’s use of the term “Deep State” and similar rhetoric “fanned fears that he is eroding public trust in institutions, undermining the idea of objective truth and sowing widespread suspicions about the government and news media.” However, after allegations by anonymous government officials spurred Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, New York Times columnist James Stewart cheered, “There is a Deep State, there is a bureaucracy in our country who has pledged to respect the Constitution, respect the rule of law… They work for the American people.” New York Times editorial writer Michelle Cottle proclaimed, “The deep state is alive and well” and hailed it as “a collection of patriotic public servants.” Almost immediately after its existence was no longer denied, the Deep State became the incarnation of virtue in Washington.

The media elite can fabricate “conspiracy theory” designations almost with the flip of a headline. A week after Election Day 2020, the New York Times ran a banner headline across the top of the front page: “Election Officials Nationwide Find No Fraud.” How did the Times know? Their reporters effectively called each state and asked, “Did y’all see any fraud?” Election officials answered “no,” thus proving that anyone who subsequently questioned Biden’s victory was promoting a groundless conspiracy. While top liberal politicians denounced electronic voting companies as unaccountable and dishonest in 2019, any doubts about such companies became “conspiracies” after that headline in the Times. The Times helped spur a media cacophony drowning out anyone complaining about ballot harvesting, illegal mass mailing of absentee ballots, or widespread failures to verify voter identification.

Actually, “conspiracy theory” accusations helped Biden win the 2020 presidential election. As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently noted, if Americans believed that the COVID-19 virus was created in a Chinese government lab, Trump would have likely won the election because voters would have sought a leader who could be tough on China. But the lab origin explanation was quickly labeled a pro-Trump heresy. The Washington Post denounced Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR,) for suggesting the virus originated in the lab, which supposedly was a “conspiracy theory that was already debunked.” Twenty-seven prominent scientists signed a letter in the Lancet: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin… Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.”

The Lancet did not reveal until last week that one of the signers and the person who organized the letter signing campaign ran an organization that received U.S. government subsidies for its work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab. President Biden has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to take another look to seek to determine the origin of COVID-19. Will “conspiracy theory” charges provide a “get out of jail free” card for the FBI and other federal agencies regarding the January 6 clash at the Capitol? After Fox News’s Tucker Carlson featured allegations that FBI informants or agents may have instigated the ruckus, the Washington Post speedily denounced his “wild, baseless theory” while Huffington Post denounced his “laughable conspiracy theory.”

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And the EU said no.

Merkel Urges ‘Direct Contact’ With Putin (Pol.eu)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday called on the EU to establish high-level talks with Vladimir Putin, seeking to buttress a Franco-German proposal for a summit with the Russian president that opened up serious divisions within the EU. “In my opinion, we as the European Union must also seek direct contact with Russia and the Russian president,” Merkel told the German Bundestag in a government statement ahead of an EU leaders’ meeting in Brussels on Thursday afternoon, where relations with Russia will be discussed. “It is not enough for U.S. President Joe Biden to talk to the Russian president — I very much welcome that — but the European Union must also create formats for talks here,” she added, referencing Biden’s recent one-on-one meeting with Putin in Geneva. “There is no other way to resolve conflicts.”

The chancellor’s comments were an apparent defense of a Franco-German overture to Putin that was unveiled to EU partners on Wednesday. The divisive proposal suggested EU leaders should endorse both the threat of new economic sanctions against Moscow while also signaling openness to a summit with Putin himself. The offer was immediately met with opposition from some EU countries, especially the three Baltic countries and Poland. The latest draft conclusions for the European Council meeting in Brussels indicate the Franco-German offer is at least being considered, saying EU leaders “will review the existing formats of dialogue with Russia, including at Leaders’ level.” But the phrasing is in brackets, meaning it has not been agreed to and could easily be dropped.

The conclusions also mention the possibility of further economic sanctions against Russia, while also noting the EU’s “openness to a selective engagement with Russia in areas of EU interest” on areas like climate, energy, health, terrorism and some foreign policy areas.

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Stupid provocations.

Britain Acknowledges Surprise At Speed Of Russian Reaction To Warship (G.)

British officials acknowledged they were taken by surprise by the speed of the Russian reaction to HMS Defender’s 36-minute passage through Crimean waters on Wednesday as the British ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Kremlin. Although a Russian response to the Royal Navy warship’s passage within the 12-mile territorial limit was anticipated, the UK Ministry of Defence did not expect the Kremlin to speedily declare that warning shots had been fired. That dramatically escalated the situation on Wednesday lunchtime, forcing the MoD in London to scramble to establish what had happened, before concluding that the Russians had fired cannon at a safe distance behind the British warship.

“We knew that something might happen, but we didn’t quite expect the Russians to say that,” a defence source said. What had been expected to be a tense, if routine, mission to assert navigation rights in the Black Sea, had escalated into a military and diplomatic incident. The Russian military also claimed that a jet had dropped four bombs in the path of the British destroyer to force it to change course, but that was rapidly debunked, because there was no evidence to support it. Speaking on Thursday, Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, said the deployment of the HMS Defender was “wholly appropriate” – although Downing St would not confirm whether he personally authorised the mission.

The prime minister added: “The important point is that we don’t recognise the Russian annexation of Crimea. This is part of a sovereign Ukrainian territory, it was entirely right that we should vindicate the law and pursue freedom of navigation in the way that we did, take the shortest route between two points, and that’s what we did.” Russia said it would summon the British ambassador to the foreign ministry in a political escalation after the unexpected diplomatic and military clash in the Black Sea on Wednesday.

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Makes you wonder who did the predicting.

Solar Panels Create 50 Times More Waste Than Predicted, Much Of It Toxic (RT)

Environmentalists’ bright promises of utilising solar energy to power the world are darkening quickly as it becomes clear how much dangerous trash is generated, with tonnes of old panels being discarded in landfill sites. The basic pitch for ‘net zero’ policies to combat climate change is this: a warming world will be devastating, but we can cut emissions down to next-to-nothing by using renewable energy technologies like wind and solar, which will keep on getting cheaper and cheaper. But the idea that we can have it all – energy that is plentiful, zero-carbon, and cheap – is a mirage, at least when it comes to renewables.

There are some obvious, long-standing problems with renewables: what happens when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow? Some argue in favour of nuclear energy, others for using biomass (which basically means burning wood pellets and planting new trees to soak up the CO2 eventually), while some hope that energy storage using batteries will save the day. Whatever the solution, the problem of low-carbon electricity is going to keep getting bigger as we demand the phasing out of fossil fuels – including a shift to electric cars and banning gas boilers.

Still, renewables do, on the face of it, look like they might be getting cheaper. Solar panels are slowly getting more efficient. More importantly, the price for each panel has plummeted – perhaps by 70 percent. But the total cost of sticking solar panels onto a network has to take into account paying for backup for when those panels aren’t producing power. Yet that backup is very often treated as if it is a separate cost, rather than a necessary consequence of using an intermittent power source. In reality, renewables are a lot more expensive than proponents like to admit. But a new article in the Harvard Business Review points to another cost that is frequently downplayed: waste.

Solar panels are supposed to last for 30 years, and calculations about how much waste will be produced are based on that assumption. The trouble is that as the panels have got cheaper, and a bit more efficient, the economics have changed. Replacing them sooner could make a lot of sense, financially. As the authors of the article point out, that could lead to a tsunami of solar panel waste: “If early replacements occur as predicted by our statistical model, they can produce 50 times more waste in just four years than IRENA [International Renewable Energy Agency] anticipates. That figure translates to around 315,000 metric tonnes of waste, based on an estimate of 90 tonnes per MW weight-to-power ratio.”

And that estimate is just for domestic solar panel users. Throw in commercial users, too, and the mountain of waste will be enormous. Ah, supporters of solar will say, the panels can simply be recycled. But there isn’t much of value to be stripped from old solar panels. They are mostly made of glass, and they’re a pain to remove and transport safely. Recycling could cost $20-$30 per panel. Landfill, by contrast, would cost $1-$2 per panel. So if we’re going to recycle the panels, we need to work out who is going to pay the difference.

Read more …

 

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