Oct 112024
 


Jean-Francois Millet The Young Shepherdess 1870-73

 

They’re Just Not That Into You (DeMartino)
‘Too Late’ For Harris Rematch – Trump (RT)
Dem Strategist Claims Trump Vowed To EXTERMINATE People With Eugenics (MN)
‘Total Killer’ – Trump on Modi (RT)
Global Denuclearization Deal Was Close – Trump (RT)
Russia Rubbishes Trump’s Nuclear Arms Claim (RT)
Nearly 3 Million Americans Have Voted So Far. Here’s What We Know. (ET)
Delayed Ramstein Meeting Speaks Volumes About Zelensky Regime’s Failure (Sp.)
Capitulation to Save Lives Only ‘Victory’ Left to Ukraine (DeMartino)
Netanyahu’s ‘God Complex’ Caused Cancellation of Defense Chief’s US Visit (Sp.)
Does Israel Wag America or Does America Wag Israel (Paul Craig Roberts)
The Fall of Israel (Scott Ritter)
US Elites Inclined to Cover Up P. Diddy Sex Scandal (Sp.)
Russia Calls Out US Deep State on Covering Up P. Diddy Sex Scandal (Sp.)
EU Committing ‘Energy Suicide’ – Gazprom CEO (RT)

 

 

 

 

RFK Trump legacy

RFK critical thinking

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“Volodymyr Zelensky is willing to kidnap his own people and send them to die simply to hold off his defeat until after the US presidential elections.”

They’re Just Not That Into You (DeMartino)

As Hurricane Milton is nearing landfall, victims of Hurricane Helene are still waiting for supplies and rescue. Meanwhile, FEMA says it doesn’t have enough funding to last the hurricane season and taxpayers in the affected areas are undoubtedly having buyer’s remorse over all the funds Congress has allocated to Ukraine and Israel. The issue, it seems, is the American people don’t really do anything for the elite in this country. Sure, everyday people make up the tax base and quite literally are the economic engine that led to the 1%’s great fortunes, but that’s expected. Ukraine and Israel are new and exciting. Big bombs and bigger contracts, that’s the way to a president’s heart. Volodymyr Zelensky is willing to kidnap his own people and send them to die simply to hold off his defeat until after the US presidential elections.

Benjamin Netanyahu is genociding a population so the West can have a forward operating base in the Middle East. What has North Carolina done for America recently? They’ve been coasting on that “first in flight” tagline for far too long. Last week, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre admitted that only $4 million had been sent directly to hurricane victims. That number has likely increased in the week since but it is still a pathetically paltry sum a full week after Hurricane Helene hit. Meanwhile, FEMA keeps touting its top-line number of $286 million, which has primarily been given out to well-connected aid organizations that filled out the organization’s “Vendor Profile Forum,” enabling it to engage in “business with FEMA” (their words) if approved.

And even that number pales in comparison to what the government spent on previous major hurricanes, like Katrina and Andrew. Maybe it is time for Americans to accept the facts. When it comes to the ruling elite and the Biden administration, they just aren’t that into you.

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“..he is “leading in the polls, with the lead getting bigger by the day – and leading in all swing states.”

‘Too Late’ For Harris Rematch – Trump (RT)

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said that he is not going to debate his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris again before the November 5 election, and outlined his rationale for the decision. Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, a few hours after Fox News reported that it had made a final pitch to host a televised face-off between the two US presidential candidates in Pennsylvania on October 24 or 27. “It is very late in the process, [early] voting has already begun – there will be no rematch!” he wrote in an all-caps. The former president implied that he had been victorious in his first and only debate with Harris on September 10. “The first thing a prizefighter does when he loses a fight is say that he ‘demands A Rematch,’” he said of his rival in the race for the White House.

A poll commissioned by CNN suggested that 67% of registered voters who watched that debate believed Harris to be the winner. “Besides, Kamala stated clearly, yesterday, that she would not do anything different than Joe Biden, so there is nothing to debate,” Trump pointed out. He was referring to the vice president’s appearance on ABC’s program ‘The View’ on Tuesday, during which the hosts pressed Harris to name a decision she would have made differently if she had been the US president instead of Joe Biden. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” the Democratic nominee replied. Harris joined the presidential race in June as Biden stepped down as his party’s candidate after a poor performance in his debate with Trump on June 27.

Another reason presented by the Republican contender for not needing to debate his opponent again is because he is “leading in the polls, with the lead getting bigger by the day – and leading in all swing states.” According to polling averages provided by ABC News on Thursday, Harris is actually in the lead, on 48.4%, with Trump 2.5% behind. The former president previously declined the offer by Harris to hold a debate on CNN on October 23. Instead, he suggested another face-off on Fox News on September 4 or on September 25 on NBC News, but the vice president never confirmed her participation.

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“While she was saying all this, CNN’s chyron read “Trump Links Migrants to Murderers: ‘It’s In Their Genes.’”

Dem Strategist Claims Trump Vowed To EXTERMINATE People With Eugenics (MN)

A deranged Democrat strategist appeared on CNN and claimed that Donald Trump has promised to “exterminate” people with “bad genes,” suggesting that she is at risk because she is a “black lesbian.” Yes, it really has gotten that crazy. Aisha Mills seriously argued that Trump, should he be elected, will engage in a eugenics program to eliminate black people and gay people. “Listen, this isn’t the first time we heard this kind of talk from Donald Trump, and it reeks of authoritarianism,” Mills stated, adding “It also harkens back to a time of Hitler who used the same exact language that Donald Trump is now quoting to talk about the people who he thinks are poisoning the blood of the nation.”

She continued, “You know, all of this smells like an affinity towards eugenics, which really should give us all pause, because when we remember the last person, the last awful authoritarian dictator who believed in eugenics, it was someone who really wanted to exterminate an entire people because they thought that they didn’t have good genes and because they were trying to create a certain type of race.”

Republican strategist David Urban, who was also on the segment, attempted to point out how completely bat shit Mills’ assertions are, urging that it is “just shameful to compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.” Mills charged that Urban is “doing Donald Trump’s bidding” and then claimed that she is “at risk of being exterminated” by Trump for being a “black lesbian.” When Urban asked her to provide any evidence of Trump saying such a thing, she shouted back “I’m not going to be lectured by some white man who has no idea what he’s talking about and is trying to rewrite history here.” “I am afraid as an American of a Donald Trump presidency, and his actual quotes don’t lie because I take him seriously and I think that he believes what he says. And that is why he is a danger and a threat to America,” she further blathered.

While she was saying all this, CNN’s chyron read “Trump Links Migrants to Murderers: ‘It’s In Their Genes.’” This all stems from Trump positing that illegal immigrant murderers, 13,000 of them convicted under the Biden Harris administration, people who have come into the US illegally and have killed Americans, might have “bad genes.” He never talked about “exterminating” anyone, only about securing the border and preventing thousands of murderers and violent criminals getting in. Mills is clearly mentally unstable, yet another example of a rabid leftist engaging in this bizarre fantasy about Trump throwing them in detention camps or even worse, executing them, and contributing to the vile rhetoric that has almost gotten him assassinated twice.

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“On the outside, he looks like he’s your father. He is the nicest and a total killer..”

‘Total Killer’ – Trump on Modi (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has expressed his admiration for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a “friend of mine” and the “nicest human being.” Speaking on the Flagrant podcast hosted by Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh, the Republican presidential candidate claimed that India’s political landscape had been “very unstable” before Modi took office in 2014. “On the outside, he looks like he’s your father. He is the nicest and a total killer,” Trump stated. In fact, Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh of the Congress Party, had held power from 2004 to 2014. Trump also reminisced about Modi’s [visit] to the US in 2019, when he participated in the grand ‘Howdy, Modi’ rally in Houston, Texas, addressing the Indian diaspora. The event was attended by tens of thousands and was described as the largest gathering ever for a foreign leader in the US.

”It was me and him, and it was beautiful. There were around 80,000 people, and it felt crazy. We were walking around. Today, maybe I wouldn’t be able to do something like that,” Trump added, seemingly alluding to the recent assassination attempts against him. Trump recounted conversations with Modi regarding India being “threatened” by a “certain country.” “I said, let me help; I am very good with those people,” the former president remarked, before appearing to impersonate Modi, by altering his tone and saying: “I will do it; I will do anything necessary. We have defeated them for hundreds of years.”

“He was talking about a certain country; you can probably guess which one,” Trump continued, apparently referring to Pakistan, India’s nuclear-armed neighbor with which it has had longstanding border disputes and has accused of sponsoring cross-border terrorism. Ahead of Modi’s visit last month to the US for the ‘Summit of the Future’ conference at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, as well as the Quad summit of leaders from the US, Japan, India, and Australia hosted by President Joe Biden in Delaware, Trump suggested that he would meet with the Indian prime minister. “He (Modi) happens to be coming to meet me next week,” Trump stated during a town hall meeting in Flint, Michigan, referring to Modi as a “fantastic man.”

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“Nuclear weapons are “the biggest threat we have in the world today,” Trump argued. “It’s not global warming, where the oceans are rising 1/8 of an inch in the next 500 years.”

Global Denuclearization Deal Was Close – Trump (RT)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said Washington almost reached an agreement on nuclear weapons with Russia and China during his time in the White House. The former president made the claim during a two-hour interview with comedian Andrew Schulz, posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday. “We were close to a deal for getting rid of nuclear weapons. It would be so good,” Trump said. “I’m talking about Russia, ourselves, and China. We would then bring everyone else into it.” Nuclear weapons are “the biggest threat we have in the world today,” Trump argued. “It’s not global warming, where the oceans are rising 1/8 of an inch in the next 500 years.” Neither Russia nor China have yet commented on Trump’s claim about a denuclearization treaty being in the works during his administration.

Trump’s remarks came during a discussion of Iran’s alleged nuclear program, in which he criticized US President Joe Biden for being reluctant to confront Tehran. Biden has publicly urged Israel to refrain from striking Iranian nuclear and oil facilities. The five nuclear-armed members of the UN Security Council struck a deal with Tehran in 2015, under which Iran would not enrich uranium beyond a certain level, and therefore be unable to build atomic weapons. Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the arrangement in 2018. Though Biden promised to reinstate the deal, his diplomats have failed to get any traction on the issue over the past four years. In 2019, Trump also pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) Treaty, accusing Russia of being in breach of it. That left the New START as the last remaining arms control deal between Russia and the US.

Trump initially sought to get China to join the treaty, but Beijing declined, and it appeared as if New START might expire at the start of Trump’s second term. The Biden White House extended the treaty in February 2021, but it now seems likely to expire in 2026. Russia suspended its participation in New START in February 2023, citing the illegal and illegitimate US sanctions preventing its reciprocal enforcement, as well as US support for Ukrainian attacks on Russian strategic airbases. Trump officially lost the 2020 election to Biden but has questioned the vote’s legitimacy ever since. He won the 2024 Republican nomination and will face current Vice-President Kamala Harris – nominated by the Democrats after Biden withdrew from the race in July – in the November 5 election.

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Or maybe not…

Russia Rubbishes Trump’s Nuclear Arms Claim (RT)

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has denied a claim that Moscow, Beijing and Washington were at one point close to reaching a denuclearization agreement, a claim made earlier this week by former US President Donald Trump. “No, that is not true. It is well-known that attempts by the Trump administration to put a Chinese delegation at the negotiations table with us [Russia and the US] did not end in a success,” the official said on Thursday. Any hypothetical nuclear reduction talks will have to involve “nuclear allies of the US, meaning the UK and the French Republic, which, naturally, showed no desire to join the negotiations too,” Ryabkov added. Trump, who is running for a second term in office, has regularly raised –on his campaign trail– the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons.

In an interview with comedian Andrew Schulz posted on X on Wednesday, the Republican candidate claimed that Russia, the US and China were “close to a deal for getting rid of nuclear weapons,” with “everyone else” potentially brought into it at a later time. The US under Trump pulled out of a number of nuclear-arms-related agreements, including the bilateral Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia, which it quit in 2018. Washington accused Moscow of violating its terms but Western press reported that the US was concerned that the agreement imposed no restrictions on its rising strategic rival, China. The INF treaty used to ban the US and Russia from developing and deploying certain types of land-based nuclear-capable missiles. It was signed in the late 1980s and was meant to prevent an accidental nuclear war.

The scrapped weapons had flight times of mere minutes, which gave the rival sides of the Cold War a very short window to decide whether to disregard a detected launch as a false positive or to order retaliation, before any incoming weapons reach their targets and the ability to respond is diminished. New START, the last surviving US-Russian bilateral agreement on nuclear reduction, is set to expire in 2026. Ryabkov told journalists that Moscow sees no basis for talks about its prolongation, or any other issues of strategic stability, as long as the US maintains its hostile policy towards Russia. This will remain the case “regardless of who becomes the next president of the US,” he stressed.

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Time flies…

Nearly 3 Million Americans Have Voted So Far. Here’s What We Know. (ET)

Nearly 3 million Americans have cast early ballots either in person or by mail with under four weeks to go until Election Day, an election tracking site shows. As of 6:43 p.m. on Oct. 9, 2,877,590 people had cast ballots in states that report early voting data, according to an update from the University of Florida’s Election Lab website. Of that figure, nearly 504,000 people had voted early in person, and more than 2.37 million had voted by mail, the tracking site found. About 47.5 million mail-in ballots have been requested so far. In comparison, more than 92 million mail-in ballots were requested through the 2020 election, according to the university. In the states reporting how people voted by party, 56.3 percent of people who had returned early ballots were Democrats, representing about 732,378 people. Another 27.4 percent were Republican, representing 356,797 voters, and 16.2 percent, or 210,980, were independent or members of a third party, according to the website.

When broken down by age, nearly 60 percent of early voters were over 65, the tracking site found. Another 28 percent were age 41 to 65, while 9 percent were age 26 to 40, and only 3.2 percent were aged 18 to 25. Slightly more than 54.4 percent of people who returned early ballots were female, and roughly 44.6 percent were male, the site found. The remaining 1.1 percent were marked “unknown,” according to the site. Among early voters, about 72 percent were white, 8.6 percent were black, 2.2 percent were Hispanic, 2.4 percent were Asian, and 14.3 percent were marked “unknown,” the site stated. Early in-person voting started on Oct. 9 in Arizona, making it the earliest of this year’s presidential battleground states to enable residents to cast a ballot at a traditional polling place ahead of Election Day.The start of in-person voting in the closely contested state is also drawing the presidential tickets, with both campaigns scheduling visits in the state this week.

The Oct. 9 start date for early voting overlaps with campaign stops by both vice presidential nominees, Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who are each holding events in Tucson, Arizona, on that day. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, is scheduled to host a rally in Phoenix on Oct. 10, while former President Donald Trump will hold an event on Oct. 13 in Prescott Valley, north of Phoenix. Early voting, particularly by mail, has long been popular in Arizona, where nearly 80 percent voted before Election Day in 2020, according to the secretary of state’s office. Each of Arizona’s 15 counties is required to open at least one site for in-person early voting, which runs until the Friday before the Nov. 5 general election. In Maricopa County, a dozen voting centers are scattered around the metro Phoenix area. Early in-person voting has been underway in some states for several weeks now. It begins next week in four more swing states: Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Nevada.

Following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina, the state’s election board this week approved an emergency measure that changes voting rules. The rule changes apply to 13 counties that saw infrastructure, voting sites, and mail delivery impacted by Helene, which made landfall in late September. One change approved by the board includes enhancing in-person early voting by allowing county boards to modify early voting sites, dates, and hours. It will also allow a county election board for one county to open a polling site in another county, depending on the circumstances, the state election board stated. Voters in affected counties can now request an absentee ballot in person up until Nov. 4, the day before the general election, according to the election board.

Completed ballots can be dropped off by Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m. at a polling location. Voters who were displaced are also allowed to turn in ballots to another county’s elections board by the same deadline, the state said. Previously, voters could turn in absentee ballots to early voting sites only in their county or to their county elections board by Election Day. South Carolina took action earlier this month to extend its voter registration deadline to Oct. 14, while Georgia elections officials have said they do not expect major disruptions from Helene. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order allowing election supervisors in 13 counties impacted by Helene to make voting-related changes. The state is bracing for a major hurricane, Milton, which is expected to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on the night of Oct. 9.

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“..money follows a winning hand, not a losing one..”

Delayed Ramstein Meeting Speaks Volumes About Zelensky Regime’s Failure (Sp.)

President Joe Biden’s decision to remain in the United States – resulting in the postponement of a summit in Germany organized by Ukraine’s NATO allies – is not due to Hurricane Milton, asserts ex-DoD analyst and retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski. “The risk is high that Biden is not current on his understanding of this situation, and will say something that will embarrass or overly commit the US in the region,” Kwiatkowski said, adding that the Biden administration sees “the US must… minimize US policy failures that led to the destruction of Ukraine as a functioning and potential EU state.” According to the pundit, the Biden administration sees “the US must solve a new problem in Ukraine, and to minimize US policy failures that led to the destruction of Ukraine as a functioning and potential EU state.”

“The NATO game in Ukraine has run its course, and money follows a winning hand, not a losing one,” she said, referring to the Zelensky regime’s failed 2023 counteroffensive and Kiev’s “compound strategic miscalculation” in the Kursk region, that cost the Ukrainians even more loss of territory and depletion of manpower. Kwiatkowski continued that Washington’s allies vis-a-vis Ukraine “already understand that a miracle of military prowess and productivity in the West isn’t coming in time to save Ukraine.” In the meantime, NATO war planners don’t seem to be ready to talk about a post-war Ukraine plan yet, she said, presuming that “it must be made ready soon.”

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“The mayor of Dnepropetrovsk today spoke out that there’s a problem, there’s hardly any men in the city, so they have no one to defend the city..”

Capitulation to Save Lives Only ‘Victory’ Left to Ukraine (DeMartino)

On Saturday, US President Joe Biden indefinitely delayed his meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, citing the dual crisis of Hurricane Helene and Milton. However, the delay was also seen as a slight against Zelensky, who planned to press Biden to support his so-called victory plan. Sports are often compared to war. NFL Films are full of flowery prose about the soldiers of the gridiron battling to the finish. And it is often said that there are no symbolic victories, no half-measures, no capitulation in sports. A win –and nothing else– is a win. But life isn’t a sport. There is no timer in real life, except for death, and that can hit zero at any moment. Every day it does for scores of people, some in incredibly gruesome and violent ways, more so in recent years. The elite play with our lives like a sport, but it is not a game. Reality is a shared continual experience that lasts as long as we do, all you can do is work to improve it while you are on the field.

Enter Volodymyr Zelensky, the man ostensibly able to make decisions in Ukraine but one seemingly without the ability to do anything. I imagine Zelensky was proud of himself when he morphed from a comedian with an unusual method of playing the piano, to the NATO-backed and installed “leader” of Ukraine. I imagine that the first night he slept in Marie Palace, he stayed up late thinking about all the things he would do with his newfound power. I also presume he woke up sometime between then and now and found out that power was nothing but a dream. Maybe it was in 2019 when an Azov battalion fighter embarrassed Zelensky while he was allegedly attempting to get them to abide by the Minsk agreements. Or maybe he woke up when Ukraine had a peace treaty signed with Russia, only to have then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson come and tell him to scrub the whole thing and condemn his country to a bloody and fruitless fight with a much larger and more powerful country.

Or maybe it was this morning, when he found out the Ramstein conference, where he planned to ask Biden for more assistance and permission to strike deep inside Russia, had been delayed to an unspecified date. Zelensky’s so-called “victory plan” will go unheard. “There is no victory plan for Zelensky. Everybody understands that. His days are numbered,” explained whistleblower and former Ukrainian diplomat Andrii Telizhenko on Sputnik’s The Final Countdown. “We’re going to see how many days there are. [Is he] going to stay afloat until New Year’s? Or [is he] going to stay afloat until November 5th – the [US] elections? Or until January [when the new term begins]? This is Zelensky’s timetable now.” Zelensky is beset by enemies on all sides. Not just on the battlefield but internationally and domestically. The West is no friend to Zelensky. They assured him he could win with their help. They assured him that they’d stick by him “for as long as it takes.”

Anyone with a knowledge of US history could have told him that the US has a history of chewing up and spitting out its supposed allies, but Zelensky was a mere actor, what qualification did he have to doubt the leaders of the West? Since they never blame themselves, the US will blame Zelensky for losing to Russia in a fight they never expected him to win and will look to replace him as Ukraine transitions to a rump state, but they’d prefer that he holds on until after the election in November. “They need to sustain themselves. The deep state, the Biden administration, Kamala Harris, [the] Obamas, they need to show that they are still fueling this war, that they’re fighting Russia to stay afloat until the elections. That is the main goal for them, and until then they will decide what’s going to happen next,” explained Telizhenko.

“Kamala or Trump, they’re going… to blame Europe and Zelensky and the Nazis in Ukraine. [Say] that they didn’t do their job, even though they were given all the money that the world could give them, they didn’t win.” There is also Azov, who never respected Zelensky to begin with and would be furious if he asked for peace. His political rivals are also salivating at Zelensky’s perilous hold on power. “The [Petro] Poroshenko people, the neo-Nazi radical groups, which Zelensky thinks he controls but they’re controlled by the Ukrainian intel and law enforcement, together with the United States [Ukrainian People’s Deputy of Ukraine] Yulia Tymoshenko, [Kiev Mayor Vitali] Klitschko, that crowd, they are going to eat him alive like spiders,” Telizhenko said. Lastly, the people of Ukraine themselves are increasingly turning on Zelensky. Those that wanted, or could be forced to fight in Ukraine have already been sent to the frontline. “The mayor of Dnepropetrovsk today spoke out that there’s a problem, there’s hardly any men in the city, so they have no one to defend the city,” Telizhenko explained.

Over the summer, the anti-war underground in Ukraine started to grow, with multiple videos showing the vehicles used by mobilization officers being burned with gasoline. Without the support of his people, his military, his government, or his nominal allies in the West, Zelensky has one option left: turning to Russian President Vladimir Putin and requesting capitulation. It’s not the end he wanted, but nearly a million Ukrainian men have been killed trying to secure his vision of victory. This is not a game. Zelensky should not worry himself with what he could have had, even though what he was offered by the Russians in Istanbul is far better than he can hope for now. Instead, he needs to look forward and make the only move he can to end the bloodshed. “A win for Ukraine is saving more lives,” argued Telizhenko. “As [many] lives as they can save, as [many] men they can save, women and children to rebuild Ukraine in the future, that’s going to be a win for Ukraine.”

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“..The closer the US election nears, the more unhinged Netanyahu gets and the more “outrageous actions” he performs..”

Netanyahu’s ‘God Complex’ Caused Cancellation of Defense Chief’s US Visit (Sp.)

The sudden cancellation of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s visit to the US may be related to his complicated relationship with Israel’s PM Netanyahu, suggests Tel Aviv-based international relations expert Dr. Simon Tsipis. According to Tsipis, Netanyahu is afraid that Gallant may be gunning for him and would immediately start plotting against him upon arriving in the US. “Netanyahu is paranoid, he has a king syndrome, a god complex,” says Tsipis. “He constantly fears that someone might overthrow or supplant him. This paranoia of his grows more acute with each passing day. He sees traitors everywhere, he sees enemies inside his inner circle.” Seeing how the potential Israeli strike on Iran was the very issue Gallant and Austin were supposed to discuss in the US, Netanyahu basically ended up “holding hostage the entire Middle East, including Israel’s population and Iranian society,” argues Tsipis.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that Netanyahu is essentially trying to blackmail the US by threatening to start a major conflict right on the eve of the US presidential election, the expert adds. “The relations between the US and Netanyahu are quite strained. Neither Democrats nor Republicans can hold the election normally if there is a big war raging in the Middle East,” Tsipis explains. “This is Netanyahu’s biggest leverage and the primary instrument of blackmail.” The closer the US election nears, the more unhinged Netanyahu gets and the more “outrageous actions” he performs, Tsipis notes.

He also suggests that the upcoming phone call between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden is going to be related to the security situation in the Middle East: namely, Netanyahu will likely seek the United States’ support in case of a war with Iran, whereas Biden will probably demand from Netanyahu to not start such war in the first place. Finally, Tsipis points out that one should not necessarily equate Benjamin Netanyahu with Israel. “Netanyahu does not represent the entire Israel,” he insists, arguing that the Israeli prime minister currently “acts as a dictator.”

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“We are approaching Armageddon from two directions, and the word can’t get out.”

Does Israel Wag America or Does America Wag Israel (Paul Craig Roberts)

Americans who pay attention are critical of Israel for its control not only of US foreign policy but also US domestic policies, such as those regulating speech, and even tenure decisions of Catholic universities. CIA personnel have complained that attempts to rein-in Israeli spying on America have been politically blocked. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, reveal Israel’s power over America. It is hard to see it any other way when American universities, such as Harvard, prevent students from protesting Israel’s genocide of Palestine, and when in the middle of the genocide, the US Congress shows its support for the genocide by inviting Israeli prime minister Netanyahu to address Congress and reward his war crimes with 53 standing ovations. How can Washington be any more subservient to Israel than that?

[..] Michael Hudson and Richard Wolfe are credible witnesses, because they, especially Hudson, participated in the formation of Washington’s policy to use and direct Israel in behalf of US hegemony in the Middle East. Israel is Washington’s proxy against the Muslims, just as Ukrainians are Washington’s proxy against Russia, just as Georgians were when Washington sent them to invade South Ossetia, and just as the British and Europe are by serving Washington’s hegemony at the risk of their own destruction. Looking at it from this standpoint, the view that Israel controls Washington serves as a cover to protect Washington from responsibility for Israel’s actions that serve Washington’s agendas.

Instead of choosing between the two explanations, I would say both are true. The cover has been in place for 50 years, and during that time due to belief in it, acquired its own power. The consequence is that whereas Israel has as much power over Americans’ First Amendment rights as the US Supreme Court, Israel continues as Washington’s proxy against the Arabs. The Hudson-Wolfe explanation originated as an interview hosted by Nima Alkhorshid on October 6, 2024. At places it seems there are errors in the transcription that result in confusion, but if you attend to the confusing passages you can figure out what is being said.

In the last part of the interview, Hudson and Wolfe seem to agree with my position that the Russians, Arabs, and Iranians are miscalculating when they rely on threats of wider war and demonstrations of ability to strike Israel to bring the Washington hegemon to his senses. What they are actually doing is giving away their strategic advantage to Washington and to Israel without getting credit for trying to stop the widening of the wars. Hudson and Wolfe support the point that I have often made. No one with a wide audience, money, or clout from a think tank, university, or major foundation is saying a word about the risks of two wars spinning out of control into nuclear war. Those few of us speaking are isolated individuals denounced as Russian agents, anti-semites, and purveyors of disinformation. This should scare the world to death. We are approaching Armageddon from two directions, and the word can’t get out.

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“..a propensity for violence against innocents which defines the Israeli way of war and, by extension, the Israeli nation..”

The Fall of Israel (Scott Ritter)

I have previously written about Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, calling it “the most successful military raid of this century.” I have described the Hamas action as a military operation, while Israel and its allies have called it a terrorist action on the scale of what transpired against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. “The difference between the two terms,” I noted, “is night and day — by labeling the events of October 7 as acts of terrorism, Israel transfers blame for the huge losses away from its military, security, and intelligence services, and onto Hamas. If Israel were, however, to acknowledge that what Hamas did was in fact a raid — a military operation — then the competency of the Israeli military, security, and intelligence services would be called into question, as would the political leadership responsible for overseeing and directing their operations.”

Terrorism employs strategies that seek victory through attrition and intimidation — to wear an enemy down and create a sense of helplessness on the part of the enemy. Terrorists by nature avoid decisive existential conflict, but rather pursue asymmetrical battle which pits their strengths against the weaknesses of their enemies. The war that has gripped the Levant since Oct. 7, 2023, is not your traditional anti-terrorism operation. The Hamas-Israeli conflict has morphed into a conflict between Israel and the so-called axis of resistance involving Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansarullah (the Houthi of Yemen), the Popular Mobilization Forces, i.e. militias of Iraq, Syria and Iran. It is a regional war in every way, shape, or form that must be assessed as such. The Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz noted in his classic work, On War, that “war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.”

From a purely military perspective, the Hamas raid on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, was a relatively minor engagement, involving a few thousand combatants from each side. As a global geopolitical event, however, it has no contemporary counterpart. The Hamas raid triggered a number of varied responses, some of which were by design, such as luring the Israeli Defense Forces into Gaza, where they would become trapped in a forever war they could not win, triggering the dual Israeli doctrines governing military response to hostage taking of the “Hannibal Doctrine” and the Israeli practice of collective punishment, the “Dahiya Doctrine.” Both of these doctrines put the IDF on display to the world as the antithesis of the “world’s most moral military” by exposing the murderous intent ingrained into the DNA of the IDF, a propensity for violence against innocents which defines the Israeli way of war and, by extension, the Israeli nation.

Prior to Oct. 7, 2023, Israel was able to disguise its true character to the outside world, convincing all but a handful of activists that its actions in targeting “terrorists” were proportional and humane. Today the world knows Israel as the genocidal apartheid state it really is. The consequences of this new global enlightenment are manifest.

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“..federal authorities possess “several terabytes of electronic data from P. Diddy and his empire”..”

US Elites Inclined to Cover Up P. Diddy Sex Scandal (Sp.)

US media earlier reported that federal authorities possess “several terabytes of electronic data from P. Diddy and his empire” as part of the prosecution of the 54-year-old hip-hop mogul. Speaking to Sputnik, US constitutional historian and political commentator, Dan Lazare, said that it remains to be seen how the sex scandal surrounding American rapper Sean Combs, better known as P. Diddy, will further unfold. The scandal shows “the really ugly underside of the US entertainment industry, where one man, a billionaire, was able to run wild and essentially engage in a lot of sex crimes of a really horrific sort, against women,” Lazare underscored. He recalled that there are “a lot of very big name celebrities who are there, including Donald Trump, Al Sharpton, many Hollywood stars, etc.”

With the 2024 US presidential election race now in full swing, the photograph of P. Diddy with the former POTUS and his wife Melania could have been released “in an attempt to get Trump, to embarrass Trump,” Lazare said. According to the analyst, “some members” of the American elites “are so inclined to cover up” the brouhaha over the P. Diddy case. “Certainly, he was buying influence, and he was eagerly sought out by some of the most famous names of the day, all of whom are now acutely embarrassed to be associated with him. It reminds me of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. And Epstein made a big point of cultivating the most prominent people in America. So it’s very similar,” Lazare pointed out.

The analyst didn’t rule out that further information on the scandal, and the possible involvement of the US deep state, including its intelligence agencies such as the FBI “will come out” soon. “How far this scandal will go is impossible to say,” the analyst concluded. P. Diddy, who was arrested at a New York hotel on September 16, is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution, among other felonies. Combs has been denied a $50 million bail after pleading not guilty to all the charges.

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“..a smokescreen and a distraction from the bottomless decline of a society whose elite rapes children.”

Russia Calls Out US Deep State on Covering Up P. Diddy Sex Scandal (Sp.)

54-year-old Sean Combs, also known as P. Diddy, was charged earlier with sex trafficking, racketeering, conspiracy and other felonies. US political elites knew perfectly well about the crimes committed by P. Diddy, but they turned a blind eye to it, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, told Sputnik when commenting on the scandal surrounding the US rapper. She stated that the scandal is not merely a problem, but a catastrophe, and what’s been revealed is just “the tip of the iceberg.” For many years, P. Diddy’s “white parties” were highly exclusive and not all Hollywood stars were given access. Participation at this level of crime was reserved for the highly exceptional business elites only, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

US law enforcement agencies and special services were involved in all this media blackmail, as well as “thousands of people” who were engaged in the “criminal network,” Zakharova said. She also noted that many US experts believe the content of those “freak-offs” was recorded. The records enabled the creation of an “elite network” which has been spreading information to manipulate public opinion for years. Zakharova also made the topic-related remarks on her Telegram page: “Now it is clear why the American deep state is interested in foreign policy, the Ukrainian agenda, hacking accusations against Russia, the “remlin hand,” and purported interference in US elections – all this is a smokescreen and a distraction from the bottomless decline of a society whose elite rapes children.”

The idols of the American show business have collapsed, and continue to do so, dragging neoliberal values into the abyss with them.” “It’s funny and terrifying that a show business big shot has been accused of all the sins of modern America, camouflaged by its political establishment as the new normal.” “All of America knew about these ‘white parties.’ They were discussed so widely that they became memes. A unique situation: everyone talked, but kept mum on the main thing,” Zakharova concluded.

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“..the “deindustrialization of Europe” will continue..”

EU Committing ‘Energy Suicide’ – Gazprom CEO (RT)

The EU economy is suffering without cheap Russian gas and its industrial production has slumped to record lows, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller has said. His comments came after the German government warned that the EU’s economic powerhouse is facing a second consecutive year of recession in 2024. The EU gas market is seeing ‘demand destruction’, Miller told the St. Petersburg International Gas Forum on Thursday. The term refers to a situation in which persistently high prices or limited supply of a certain commodity lead to lower demand for it and trigger a search for alternatives. “Some [experts] say that [the situation] may be described as Europe’s energy suicide,” the head of the Russian state-run energy giant said. Others say that the “economic locomotive” has turned into “the sick man of Europe,” Miller added, in apparent reference to Germany.

The EU’s largest economy contracted 0.3% last year, with the slowdown being attributed partly to a sharp drop in pipeline gas imports from Russia. Germany’s GDP is expected to decline by a further 0.2% this year, Berlin’s Ministry for Economic Affairs announced on Wednesday. That would mark the second straight year of recession for the country. Miller argued that the “deindustrialization of Europe” will continue, as well as increasing volatility in the gas market, warning that the trend could lead to “a new price shock for gas and supply disruptions.” According to the Gazprom chief, EU policies have resulted in a nearly 10% decline in industrial production in the bloc, to the lowest levels in a decade. European industry will not become more competitive, Miller argued, saying that industries in the US spend up to five times less on energy.

The EU previously received the bulk of its Russian gas via the Nord Stream pipelines, but supplies stopped indefinitely after the under-sea infrastructure was damaged in a sabotage attack in September 2022. According to EU statistics, Russia’s share in EU gas supplies plunged from 45% in 2021 to 15% in 2023. Russian gas is currently delivered to Western and Central Europe via Ukraine, based on a contract signed by Gazprom and Naftogaz in 2019. Kiev, however, has said it has no intention of extending the agreement when it expires at the end of this year.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Dems drove Elon away

 

 

Elon Obama
https://twitter.com/i/status/1844045138177192180

 

 

Friedman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1844259132926534118

 

 

Stray

 

 

Night train

 

 

Pineapple

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 242021
 
 September 24, 2021  Posted by at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  78 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh A Restaurant at Asnieres 1887

 

Why Are We Vaccinating Children Against Covid-19? (Elsevier)
Full Covid Genome Found In Stools – Meaning For Prevention And Treatments (VC)
Directed Evolution I – When Applied To People Is Eugenics (Anandamide)
Directed Evolution II – Gates Got Your Tongue? (Anandamide)
‘Covid-19 Will Become Like Common Cold’ By Next Spring, Say Experts (INews)
Covid-19 Pandemic Will Be Over In A Year – Moderna CEO (RT)
You, In Fact, Have ALL The Power. Use It (Denninger)
Scientists Slam Chris Whitty For Scare-mongering Over Unjabbed Children (DM)
Americans Have No Clue What the True COVID Numbers Are (Mercola)
DeSantis Acquires New Monoclonal Antibodies From UK Drug Firm (JTN)
YouTube Promises Pullback On Covid Censorship (JTN)
Arizona Audit for Dummies (Ivory Hecker)
Agustín Carstens: Would You Buy A Dieting Régime From This Man? (Ward)

 

 

Perth nurses

 

 

Rebel News Melbourne

 

 

 

 

Toronto
https://twitter.com/i/status/1441015146609094659

 

 

Israel

 

 

The second narrative-damning report published by Science Direct in a week.

Robert W Malone, MD: “In summary, the value of these COVID-19 inoculations is not obvious from a cost-benefit perspective for the most vulnerable age demographic, and is not obvious from any perspective for the least vulnerable age demographic.”

“Thus, our extremely conservative estimate for risk-benefit ratio is about 5/1. In plain English, people in the 65+ demographic are five times as likely to die from the inoculation as from COVID-19 under the most favorable assumptions!

Why Are We Vaccinating Children Against Covid-19? (Elsevier)

Adequate safety testing of the COVID-19 inoculations would have provided a distribution of the outcomes to be expected from ‘lighting the match’. Since adequate testing was not performed, we have no idea how many combustible materials are on the floor, and what the expected outcomes will be from ‘lighting the match’. The injection goes two steps further than the wild virus because 1) it contains the instructions for making the spike protein, which several experiments are showing can cause vascular and other forms of damage, and 2) it bypasses many front-line defenses of the innate immune system to enter the bloodstream directly in part. Unlike the virus example, the injection ensures there will always be some combustible materials on the floor, even if there are no other toxic exposures or behaviors.

In other words, the spike protein and the surrounding LNP are toxins with the potential to cause myriad short-, mid-, and long-term adverse health effects even in the absence of other contributing factors! Where and when these effects occur will depend on the biodistribution of the injected material. Pfizer’s own biodistribution studies have shown the injected material can be found in myriad critical organs throughout the body, leading to the possibility of multi-organ failure. And these studies were from a single injection. Multiple injections and booster shots may have cumulative effects on organ distributions of inoculant! The COVID-19 reported deaths are people who died with COVID-19, not necessarily from COVID-19. Likewise, the VAERS deaths are people who have died following inoculation, not necessarily from inoculation.

As stated before, CDC showed that 94 % of the reported deaths had multiple comorbidities, thereby reducing the CDC’s numbers attributed strictly to COVID-19 to about 35,000 for all age groups. Given the number of high false positives from the high amplification cycle PCR tests, and the willingness of healthcare professionals to attribute death to COVID-19 in the absence of tests or sometimes even with negative PCR tests, this 35,000 number is probably highly inflated as well. On the latter issue, both Virginia Stoner [85] and Jessica Rose [86] have shown independently that the deaths following inoculation are not coincidental and are strongly related to inoculation through strong clustering around the time of injection. Our independent analyses of the VAERS database reported in Appendix 1 confirmed these clustering findings.

Additionally, VAERS historically has under-reported adverse events by about two orders-of-magnitude, so COVID-19 inoculation deaths in the short-term could be in the hundreds of thousands for the USA for the period mid-December 2020 to the end of May 2021, potentially swamping the real COVID-19 deaths. Finally, the VAERS deaths reported so far are for the very short term. We have no idea what the death numbers will be in the intermediate and long-term; the clinical trials did not test for those. The clinical trials used a non-representative younger and healthier sample to get EUA for the injection. Following EUA, the mass inoculations were administered to the very sick (and first responders) initially, and many died quite rapidly. However, because the elderly who died following COVID-19 inoculation were very frail with multiple comorbidities, their deaths could easily be attributed to causes other than the injection (as should have been the case for COVID-19 deaths as well).

Read more …

HCQ and IVM.

Full Covid Genome Found In Stools – Meaning For Prevention And Treatments (VC)

“You heard it here first, COVID-20,” said Dr. Sabine Hazan on Sept. 16 during a discussion with the Ventura County Reporter at the offices of Ventura Clinical Trials and ProgenaBiome in Ventura. “We are already starting to see COVID-20-associated diarrhea and rectal bleeding.” She agreed to talk about findings in a ProgenaBiome report currently undergoing peer review. It is the first study she is aware of that finds the entire genome — along with 33 different mutations — in the stools of those with SARS-CoV-2. The paper, “Detection of SARS-CoV-2 from Patient Fecal Samples by Whole Genome Sequencing,” authored by Dr. Andreas Papaoutis, Jordan Daniels, Skylar Steinberg, Dr. Brad Barrows and Dr. Sabine Hazan (all with ProgenaBiome) and Dr. Thomas Borody and Dr. Siba Dolai of the Center for Digestive Diseases. (1)

That paper reports on the existence of hundreds of thousands of replicas of the complete genome of the virus in the stool samples of people who tested positive by nasal swab PCR testing, both symptomatic and asymptomatic. By using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) the researchers identified 33 unique variations of the virus, indicating a high propensity for mutations, potentially making treatment by something as fine-tuned as a vaccine extremely challenging. The report also shows the initial findings of the clinical trial studying whether a combination treatment protocol called HAZDPaC (which includes hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, zinc and Vitamins C and D) or high dosages of Vitamin C, D and Zinc alone (the placebo in the trial) may prove effective in eradicating the virus from the gut, where it could potentially cause long-lasting problems if left to “percolate.”

Eleven of 14 trial participants were positive (nasal swab PCR) for the virus. Eight of those people were not treated and the full virus genome was found in each of their stool samples. A total of 33 unique mutations of the virus were identified in those eight participants. The remaining three people who had the virus were treated for 10 days with HAZDPaC or high dosages of Vitamin C; when retested, they had no trace of the virus in their stools. Three additional trial participants served as the “control.” Two were negative (nasal swab PCR); one was not tested. None were treated and no virus was detected in stools. Until the report is printed as a peer reviewed paper (currently in process) it cannot be relied upon for other clinical study or purposes. But Hazan is confident of the findings’ ultimate confirmation through peer review.

[..] The initial protocols used in the FDA trial were formulated as a hypothesis to reach the ACE-2 receptors but also to destroy the virus. The treatment ProgenaBiome is using occupies those spots. Zinc fills up the ACE-2 receptors so there is nowhere for the virus to “park,” helping to maintain the gut barrier. Vitamins C and D boost the good gut bacteria. Hydroxychloroquine’s role is to raise the pH of the lysosome, or stomach of the cells. “If you change the pH in lysosome with medication, you change the pH…to 9 or 9.5. It’s a super alkaline environment and the virus disappears, it cannot replicate on the next cell. And so you stop the reproduction.” (2) With nowhere to go and unable to replicate, the virus is quickly evacuated by the bowel.

“At least that’s the hypothesis from the mechanism of action of all these products brought together as one formula. It’s not a one-pill solution,” said Hazan. She thinks earlier studies involving hydroxychloroquine were flawed because they were only using that one drug approach.

Read more …

“To supercharge such a narrow directed evolution experiment, it is best to lower the defenses of the host. Tie all of their foot soldiers boots together.”

Directed Evolution I – When Applied To People Is Eugenics (Anandamide)

Is there Spike Escape? This is hot debate stimulated by Geert Vanden Bossche. The critiques levied against his hypothesis (March 15th) are not completely compelling as more evidence matures demonstrating the waning protection of the vaccines and frequent transmission of the virus in Israel, Iceland and many other highly vaccinated countries. The premise of the argument against Geert appear to be rooted in a technophiles desire to always change the treatment. This is a desire to obtain the ultimate ring of power: A vax platform one can continually update (with no liability) and mandate to return freedom to its subjugates. I am more optimistic than Geert in that I believe many jurisdictions have enough natural immunity to thwart this experiment and the pandemic will cool down once all the vaccinated experience and develop immunity to the full 29kb virus.

So do we have Spike Escape? A frequent question these days but more akin to a retrospective “Oh Shit” inquiry. While it is deserving of its own captain obvious meme, it is important to explain why this is not only the expected outcome but how re-applying the same selective agent will only accelerate the escape. The more parsimonious response: If you can’t detect selection against the spike RNA sequence, you have no basis upon which to claim your vaccine has influence over this evolutionary experiment we have engaged in. This isn’t a small experiment. This is the grandest medical experiment ever imagined so it is important we reflect on the type of selection being applied.

These are non-sterilizing vaccines. There is a difference between being infected (RNA+) and being infectious (Virus+ and shedding). Non-Sterilizing vaccines leave the breakthrough patients as both. They can be PCR positive with a new virus. It can be replicative and have similar Ct scores as the unvaccinated control and the vaccinated can still transmit the virus. There are suggested benefits of these vaccines ( and risks) but one such benefit is not the reduction of RNA polymerase activity and evolution of the virus. The selection being applied is very narrow compared to how our bodies traditionally fight viruses and how most vaccines prior to 2020 fight viruses. 4,284 bases of this ~29,500 base pair virus (14% of the virus) encode the spike protein of a spike-only vaccine. This is a very narrow pressure point and is akin to using low dose antibiotics across the whole population… all at the same time.

In other evolutionary fights in medicine, narrow is naive. We fight sepsis with broad scale antibiotics. We fight cancer with cocktails that attack multiple pathways to prevent mutagensis. These are genomic diseases and one trick pony solutions are a hubristic trainwreck. To supercharge such a narrow directed evolution experiment, it is best to lower the defenses of the host. Tie all of their foot soldiers boots together. Get a good head start for your RdRp polymerase to kick into high gear. Promiscuous copying of viral genomes with low fidelity and a pinpointed selective pressure on a narrow region of the genome.

Read more …

“More than one way to skin a cat…. but dont skin cats!! We kill bats.”

Directed Evolution II – Gates Got Your Tongue? (Anandamide)

This is an excellent presentation on the evolutionary trajectory of SARs-CoVs-2 and just as fascinating as the genomics, is the content that is explicitly not spoken about. You see, NextStrain and GISAID all have alot of uncle Bills grant money and he loves vaccines so much, that he has over $100M in BioNtech stock and CureVac stock tucked away in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As a result, many people in the Epi space we affectionately refer to as the Nerd Sweater Mafia…. they know to never speak ill of vaccines. See if you can find the word vaccine anywhere in the first 24 minutes of this very well done analysis on the directed evolution of this virus. The fascinating aspect of this presentation is that it highlights the mutational spectrum of C19 during 2021 and it is as clear as day that there is a massive enrichment for mutations in the spike protein compared to other parts of the genome.

There is also a lot of squid ink diverting the viewers attention as to the cause of this. Let’s look at the running hypothesis they float to explain such an enrichment of mutagenesis in spike. 1.Natural selection against Host immunity. Note the language.. not vaccine immunity.. host immunity. Blame the victim some more and redirect attention from the obvious selective pressure going on with “Spike only vaccination” to those immunocompromised people (the ones you need to get vaccinated to save). Note at 8:52 he mentions this is speculative as they didn’t see any of this happening in the Spring 2020 during the ‘first’ pandemic wave. Remember this point as the emergence date of C19 continues to back into October 2019 with WIV employees losing their sense of smell. The first wave (in Trevor’s eyes) is only the wave he could see with qPCR but he forgets that viruses with R0 this high are unlikely to be at their first rodeo when we wise up and point our sequencers at them.

They begin to see spike mutagenesis in the fall of 2020 but it really takes off in 2021. This is where they will play their magic tricks. They will claim this was witnessed before the vax roll out therefore the vax is innocent. Watch them like a hawk. A fly in their ointment: You will also see them speak about convergent evolution being evident (min 20+) in the data which refutes their own chronological argument that attempts to blame this on pre-vax “partially immune” people. Convergent evolution is where the same mutations appear to evolve independently over and over again around the world as similar selective pressures are applied. The polymerase doesn’t make random errors. It has propensity to make some of the same errors due to the sequence context of the virus.

This means an ORF8 deletion can occur in Africa and Australia independently without anyone traveling between the two continents to spread it there. There are also similar selective pressures being applied in geographically distant places. In some of these cases, we can see different RNA variants emerge across the globe which may differ at a RNA sequence level but code for the same amino acid change. Let’s take the UUC codon for Phenylalanine. You can mutate it to UUA or UUG and still code for the same alternative amino acid Leucine. More than one way to skin a cat…. but dont skin cats!! We kill bats.

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6 more months of misery.

“If you look at the trajectory we’re on, we’re a lot better off than we were six months ago… I think we’re over the worst of it now.”

‘Covid-19 Will Become Like Common Cold’ By Next Spring, Say Experts (INews)

Covid-19 could soon resemble the common cold as the virus weakens and people’s immunity is boosted by vaccines and exposure, two leading experts have said. Professor Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, has claimed the coronavirus could become like a cold by as soon as next spring. He also claimed the UK “is over the worst” of the pandemic and things “should be fine” once winter has passed. Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, the co-creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, has made similar claims and said Covid-19 will become like a cold as it is unlikely to mutate into a dangerous variant. Speaking to a Royal Society of Medicine webinar last night, she said that viruses tend to become weaker as they spread.


She said: “We normally see that viruses become less virulent as they circulate more easily and there is no reason to think we will have a more virulent version of Sars-CoV-2 [Covid-19]. “We tend to see slow genetic drift of the virus and there will be gradual immunity developing in the population as there is to all the other seasonal coronaviruses.” Seasonal coronaviruses cause colds, and Dame Sarah said: “Eventually Sars-CoV-2 will become one of those.” Sir John was asked about the experts comments on Times Radio this morning, where he said the country’s position is much more promising than it was just six months ago. He said: “If you look at the trajectory we’re on, we’re a lot better off than we were six months ago… I think we’re over the worst of it now.” Sir John added that because cause numbers are currently high, immunity to Covid will increase substantially.

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This guy is a salesman, not a scientist.

Covid-19 Pandemic Will Be Over In A Year – Moderna CEO (RT)

The CEO of US pharma giant Moderna, Stephane Bancel, has come up with a reassuring forecast, suggesting that increasing vaccine production could see the coronavirus pandemic finally coming to an end in mid-2022. “If you look at the industry-wide expansion of production capacities over the past six months, enough doses should be available by the middle of next year so that everyone on this Earth can be vaccinated,” Bancel said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. There’ll be jabs available even for infants soon as well as booster doses for those who would require them, he said. “Those who don’t get vaccinated will immunize themselves naturally because the Delta variant is so contagious,” the chief executive pointed out.

According to Bancel, the situation with Covid-19 will become similar to the one with flu. “You can either get vaccinated and have a good winter. Or you don’t do it and risk getting sick and possibly even ending up in hospital.” When asked when humanity will be able to exit the pandemic, which already saw over 219 million people infected and more than 4.5 million dead, and return to normal life, he replied: “As of today, in a year, I assume.” Moderna’s two-dose Covid-19 vaccine is approved in some 100 countries, while also being one of three drugs used in the immunization campaign in the US. The jab boasts a high efficacy rate of 93% six months after the administration of its second shot, barely waning from the 94.5% reported during its phase-three clinical trials.

However, Bancel insisted that those vaccinated would “undoubtedly” need a refresher at some point to stay protected from the virus. He said he expects younger people to get a booster shot once every three years and older people – once a year. Moderna’s booster contains half a dose of the active ingredient compared to the original injection, which provides the company with a further opportunity to increase production, he said. “The volume of vaccine is the biggest limiting factor. With half the dose, we would have three billion doses available worldwide for the coming year instead of just two billion,” the CEO explained.

Read more …

“So let’s say your really don’t like the idea of a vexxing mandate on employers in your state or county. Fine. Find the appropriate legislators and picket their house.

That’s legal. It’ll******them off but so what?”

You, In Fact, Have ALL The Power. Use It (Denninger)

You think OSHA has the power? Biden? Wrong. The Founders gave us a government structure intentionally designed to give the people the tools necessary to prevent what is being done right now. The closer to the people – that is, the smaller the division of government – the less-likely it is that anyone serving in said government in a legislative role is doing that on an exclusive, or nearly-so, basis. Most State Legislatures are part-time; that is, they meet for a couple months out of the year, plus the rare special session here and there. Essentially all County Commissions and City Alderman (or whatever they call them in your town) are. Every one of those people is utterly reliant on either a job or a business they own or control to put food on their table, keep their house and feed their family — just like you are. They’re just as vulnerable to attack on that means of earning a living as you are as well so why don’t you use it and go after them when they threaten to or actually do it to you?

Every single place I have ever lived required any business to obtain a county license, most business require state registration (even if only for sales tax) and a large percentage require licensing of either the firm, certain people in it, or both. The County or State can pass an ordinance requiring any non-discriminatory code of conduct they choose on said firms as a condition of that license. Refuse to comply, you’re closed right here, right now. Period. It doesn’t matter who you are — a hospital, a car dealer, a grocery store, a restaurant, etc. Done through regular legislative order these ordinances (or in the case of a state, laws) are presumptively valid and enforceable. So let’s say your really don’t like the idea of a vexxing mandate on employers in your state or county. Fine. Find the appropriate legislators and picket their house.

That’s legal. It’ll******them off but so what? There’s not a damned thing they can do about it. That’s personal pressure and it won’t be long before their spouse and kids start getting really unhappy. Which, of course, is the point — to make them unhappy enough that they fold. But the best pressure that can be applied through legal means is economic, which is exactly what they’re trying to do to you. So to really **** them up find the business or businesses they and their spouse, if any own, control or are part of — all this is public record and trivial to discover — and picket those, especially if they transact with the general public. Be targeted about it. Get 10, 20 or 100 other people in your local area and pick on one of them. Let’s say one of your County Commissioners owns a very popular tourist location in your town.

Picket it with the intent of destroying the customer volume he does at his business until and unless he, along with the rest of the Commission, do what you want. In this case, specifically, as a condition of a County Business License “no license holder or their agent may inquire of employee or customer personal medical status nor demand any medical treatment, prophylaxis or personal health record, effective immediately.” That eliminates the firm’s ability to put in place a vaccine mandate and arguably bars mask mandates too; they either comply or they’re done. You can’t operate without a business license; the Sheriff can and will come and chain the doors closed! Oh, they don’t want to pass that? Fine — put the first Commissioner’s business in the dirt and then move to the next one. Keep going until you get what you want.

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‘It is true that schoolchildren will mostly catch Covid, if unvaccinated. But it is a poor reason to vaccinate them.’

Scientists Slam Chris Whitty For Scare-mongering Over Unjabbed Children (DM)

Unvaccinated children getting infected with Covid isn’t an issue because they face such a vanishingly rare chance of falling seriously ill, a scientist said today. England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, yesterday told MPs ‘virtually all’ unjabbed youngsters would eventually catch the virus. He revealed about half of youngsters have already had the virus but insisted others would get it ‘sooner or later’. Justifying the decision to roll-out jabs to millions of 12-15 year olds, Professor Whitty added: ‘Vaccination will reduce that risk’. But one academic today criticised the CMO’s reasoning, arguing the majority would probably still get infected even if they were inoculated.

Professor David Livermore, a medical microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, said the virus has evolved to be extremely transmissible — and that vaccines aren’t perfect at blocking the pathogen. And he said natural infection would be preferable to jabs for children because the virus poses little-to-no-threat of causing serious illness in youngsters, whereas the vaccines aren’t risk-free. Some studies even suggest immunity from infection is stronger than that produced by the vaccines. Despite the chief medical officers who advised the Government to extend the rollout claiming they did so after assessing the benefits to children themselves, critics view the move as one intended to protect adults by reducing the risk of transmission.

But a host of scientists are now suggesting the virus now amounts to little more than a common cold for the vast majority of vaccinated adults. Dame Sarah Gilbert, one of the chief scientists behind the AstraZeneca vaccine, last night claimed viruses tend to ‘become less virulent as they circulate’ through the population. And Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King’s College London, today said jabs had already drastically changed Covid’s tell-tale symptoms, effectively turning it into a bad cold for most who catch it. He said other warning signs like a sore throat, runny nose and sneezing should be added to the official list of symptoms.

Professor Livermore told MailOnline: ‘It is true that schoolchildren will mostly catch Covid, if unvaccinated. But it is a poor reason to vaccinate them. ‘First, vaccines provide only limited protection against infection and transmission, so children are going to be infected over time anyway regardless of whether they have been vaccinated. At most, vaccinating them will only delay this. ‘Secondly, Covid infection does healthy children little harm. They suffer mild disease and recover swiftly. The hazard from Covid is largely for the elderly, not children. ‘Thirdly, evidence from Israel shows natural immunity — which children will acquire from infection — is 13-fold more protective than vaccination.’

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What you get when the MSM spread misinformation:

“..for people aged 18–24, the share of those worried about serious health consequences is 400 times higher than the share of total COVID deaths..”

Americans Have No Clue What the True COVID Numbers Are (Mercola)

Six months after the start of the pandemic, investment management organization Franklin Templeton Investments, in collaboration with Gallup,2 released a report about Americans’ understanding of the COVID-19 infection. The research focused on fundamental and undisputed facts of the risk for individuals and did not address any information that might be seen as controversial, such as treatment options and lockdown policies. In the report, the firm wrote:“Six months into this pandemic, Americans still dramatically misunderstand the risk of dying from COVID-19 … These results are nothing short of stunning. Mortality data have shown from the very beginning that the COVID-19 virus age-discriminates, with deaths overwhelmingly concentrated in people who are older and suffer comorbidities.


This is perhaps the only uncontroversial piece of evidence we have about this virus. Nearly all US fatalities have been among people older than 55; and yet a large number of Americans are still convinced that the risk to those younger than 55 is almost the same as to those who are older.” The Franklin Templeton-Gallup Economics of Recovery Study of Americans found there were misconceptions in the general population about the risks associated with infection. The analysts then separated the beliefs and compared those to the actual data. This is from the report: “On average, Americans believe that people aged 55 and older account for just over half of total COVID-19 deaths; the actual figure is 92%. Americans believe that people aged 44 and younger account for about 30% of total deaths; the actual figure is 2.7%. Americans overestimate the risk of death from COVID-19 for people aged 24 and younger by a factor of 50; and they think the risk for people aged 65 and older is half of what it actually is (40% vs 80%).

When the data were broken down by age groups they found that most people under age 65 really had no concept of the actual number of deaths for their age group. “The discrepancy with the actual mortality data is staggering: for people aged 18–24, the share of those worried about serious health consequences is 400 times higher than the share of total COVID deaths; for those age 25–34 it is 90 times higher.” Writing in Wirepoints, Mark Glennon commented on the findings saying, “The only good news there is that folks 65 and older are much more aware of the heightened risk for their own age group.” The report identified two major culprits of the fundamental misunderstanding of basic facts from a COVID-19 infection. Those culprits were misinformation predominantly shared on social media and the partisan bias for Democrats to “mistakenly overstate the risk of death from COVID-19 for younger people.”

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Best part:

“..the treatment is covered by the federal government. The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization to the drug back in May..”

DeSantis Acquires New Monoclonal Antibodies From UK Drug Firm (JTN)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has arranged a shipment of a new monoclonal antibody medication to help treat those sick with COVID-19. The Republican governor on Thursday announced the shipment of 3,000 doses of the drug produced by U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline, a direct response to the Biden administration’s abrupt rationing of other antibody drugs, like Regeneron. “That’s showing that we’re going to leave no stone unturned. And, if there’s somebody that needs a monoclonal antibody treatment, we’re going to work hard to get it to them,” DeSantis told a press conference in Tampa. According to the Epoch Times, one dose of the drug by GSK, known as Sotrovimab, costs approximately $2,100. However, the treatment is covered by the federal government.


The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization to the drug back in May. During the press conference announcing the shipment of Sotrovimab, DeSantis blasted the Biden administration for withholding other antibody treatments that could potentially save the lives of thousands of Floridians. “We’re going to be able to use that Sotrovimab to bridge some of the gaps that are gonna be developing as a result of the Biden administration dramatically cutting medications to the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. According to the New York Times, Florida, alongside six other southern states, was consuming 70% of the federal government’s supply of the antibody drug, Regeneron. In response, the Biden administration began rationing the treatments due to a national shortage.

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“It has successfully appealed four removals, including the Sept. 14 meeting, but the county is tired of dealing with YouTube’s censorship..”

YouTube Promises Pullback On Covid Censorship (JTN)

Speaking your mind about COVID-19 policies at a public meeting can trigger YouTube into holding your local government hostage until it deplatforms your voice. The Google-owned video platform removed an Illinois school board meeting for “medical misinformation,” the latest example of tech giants policing what is permissible to say on the ever-evolving debate over pandemic research, restrictions and treatments. Springfield District 186 said it assumed YouTube objected to the public comment portion of the June 21 meeting, according to The Center Square. As a result, board president Anthony Mares said its YouTube videos will exclude public comments going forward. A parent in the district claimed partial credit for the removal, citing his own public comment.

Ryan Jugan said that “witnessing censorship, suppression of medical professionals, science and data is appalling.” District spokesperson Bree Hankins told Just the News it never got specifics on the purported misinformation in the video and that YouTube denied the district’s appeal. While YouTube said it restored the video following The Center Square report — conducting a third review prompted by the media organization — Hankins said the company has yet to inform the district the video has been reinstated. The video platform has a contentious history with COVID-19 contrarians, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. It pulled down a healthcare roundtable he hosted with former White House COVID advisor Scott Atlas, Harvard Medical School’s Martin Kulldorff, Stanford Med’s Jay Bhattacharya and Oxford’s Sunetra Gupta. DeSantis defiantly hosted another.

Reclaim the Net, which tracks digital censorship, shared several similar incidents that involve public meetings upon request. The St. Louis County Council is dumping YouTube completely after four removals in less than two months due to public comments against mask and vaccine mandates. It has successfully appealed four removals, including the Sept. 14 meeting, but the county is tired of dealing with YouTube’s censorship, information technology director Charles Henderson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It’s planning to sign a contract with BoxCast.

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Today. Open hearing.

Arizona Audit for Dummies (Ivory Hecker)

It’s hard to keep up with it all! Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers gives a preview ahead of Friday’s release of the report documenting results of an audit of the Presidential Election in Maricopa County, Arizona.

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“..the aim is to abolish physical cash within 27 months of right now.”

Agustín Carstens: Would You Buy A Dieting Régime From This Man? (Ward)

The somewhat bulky gentleman to your left is the boss of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Agustín Guillermo Carstens Carstens. Clearly, one Carstens wasn’t enough for him…judging by his build, in fact, one of anything is never quite enough for Agustín. It’s the sort of build that could be Built Back Better…unless the aim is to Build Better Billy Bunter Backs & Bottoms. In 2018, he was demanding more BIS control over Central Banks, whom he accused of ‘piggy-backing’…I suppose if you have a piggy back yourself, that’s something about which you’re entitled to opinionate. In the last two days, he’s been pushing hard for complete digital control over all money. Many suggest that in calling for this, Aggy is punching above his weight; but if the bloke was any heavier, in the absence of 180 centimetre arms he’d be punching himself.

Carstens Carstens has been a regular feature of Davos meetings since 2010. Let’s face it, as a physical feature, il gran Mexicano is a topological man mountain worthy of his own personal contour lines: he’s a hard guy to miss, and impossible to mark absent. As a result of climbing his own mountain, he has become the 4th richest politician in Mexican history, with a personal wealth estimated at $27 million. If and when Agustín finally achieves his goal of “resetting” who gets what in the Brave New Normal, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that his sharing methodology might be “83 for me, 1 for you” and so forth. Take in this second shot of Senor Carstens: I met Robert Maxwell several times, and trust me – the bouncing Czech was borderline anorexic compared to this guy.

When not busy having doors widened in advance of his meetings outside the BIS, he’s a big wheel in The Innovation BIS 2025 project – a scheme that would be dear to the hearts of the Davos élite if they had such organs factory-fitted. By 2025, the BIS hopes to complete the digitalisation of all payment systems in the UK, the U.S, the EU and every nation State in their orbit. Note the use of the pronoun ‘by’ there, and work backwards: the aim is to abolish physical cash within 27 months of right now. In every context (especially those of France, Italy and Greece) that timetable is about as practical as the idea of picking a locked toilet door with a blade of grass when stricken with diarrhoea.

The BIS refers to electronic cash as central bank digital currency (CBDC), but even this is immensely misleading: the organisation’s project is nothing less than the establishment of a New World Order-valued virtual coinage without reference to any criteria beyond, um, well, er…what the Bank for International Settlements says it is – the clue’s in the name, and all that. But there’s a more than slightly concerning two-tier nature to CBDC. Carstens-Carstens “explains” as follows: “Like cash, a CBDC could and would be available 24/7, 365 days a year. At first glance, not much changes for someone, say, stopping off at the supermarket on the way home from work. He or she would no longer have the option of paying cash. All purchases would be electronic.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Dec 272020
 


Winslow Homer Spanish Girl with Fan 1885

 

Developers of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Tied to UK Eugenics Movement (Webb)
The Breakthrough Medicines That Could Change The Course Of Covid (G.)
Japan Halts All Foreign Arrivals Over UK COVID Variant (AP)
Britain First To Infect Healthy Volunteers With Covid19 For Research (NYP)
Scientists Call For UK Lockdown After Rapid Spread Of Covid19 Variant (G.)
Two Pandemic Assistance Programs Expire, Leaving 12 Million Without Benefits (ZH)
RussiaGate 2.0, Right on Schedule (Luongo)
This Brexit Deal Is Emphatically Nothing To Celebrate (Lis)
Glenn Greenwald: Coverage Of Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Media Misconduct’ (Hill)

 

 

 

 

Whitney Webb. Long read.

Developers of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Tied to UK Eugenics Movement (Webb)

For much of 2020, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was treated as an early front-runner, though its lead would later be marred by scandals related to its clinical trials, including the death of participants, sudden trial pauses, the use of a problematic “placebo” with its own host of side effects and the “unintentional” mis-dosing of some participants that skewed its self-reported efficacy rate. The significant issues that emerged during trials have provoked little concern from the vaccine’s two lead developers, despite critical attention from even mainstream media of its complications. The lead developer of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Adrian Hill, told NBC on December 9th that the experimental vaccine should be approved and distributed to the public before the conclusion of the safety trials, saying,”to wait for the end of the trial would be the middle of next year. That’s too late, this vaccine is effective, available at large scale and easily deployed.”

Sarah Gilbert, the other lead researcher on the vaccine, seemed to believe that pre-mature safety approval was likely, telling the BBC on December 13 that the chances of rolling out the vaccine by the end of the year are “pretty high.” Now, the UK is expected to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine shortly after Christmas, with India also set to approve the vaccine next week. While the controversies surrounding the vaccine’s trials did ultimately undermine its previous frontrunner status, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine remains heavily promoted as the vaccine of choice for the developing world, as it is cheaper and has much less complicated storage requirement than its main competitors, Pfizer and Moderna.

Earlier this month, Dr. Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, told CNBC that “The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is the vaccine right now that is going to be able to immunize the planet more effectively, more rapidly than any other vaccine we have” in large part because it is a “vaccine that can get to lower middle-income countries.” CNBC also quoted Andrew Baum, global head of health care for Citi Group, as saying that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine “is really the only vaccine that is going to suppress or even eradicate SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the many millions of individuals in the developing world.”

In addition to longstanding claims that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will be the vaccine of choice for the developing world, this vaccine candidate has also been treated by several outlets in the mainstream and even independent media as “good for people, bad for profits” due to the partnership’s “explicit intention of supplying [the vaccine] around the world on a not-for-profit basis, meaning that the poorest nations on the planet will not have to worry about being shut out of a cure due to lack of funds.” However, investigation into the vaccine’s developers and the realities of their “no-profit pledge” reveals a very different story than that which has been spun for most of the year by corporate press releases, experts and academics tied to the vaccine and the mainstream press.

For instance, mainstream media has had little, if anything, to say about the role of the vaccine developers’ private company – Vaccitech – in the Oxford-AstraZeneca partnership, a company whose main investors include former top Deutsche Bank executives, Silicon Valley behemoth Google and the UK government. All of them stand to profit from the vaccine alongside the vaccine’s two developers, Adrian Hill and Sarah Gilbert, who retain an estimated 10% stake in the company. Another overlooked point is the plan to dramatically alter the current sales model for the vaccine following the initial wave of its administration, which would see profits soar, especially if the now obvious push to make COVID-19 vaccination an annual affair for the foreseeable future is made reality.

Yet, arguably most troubling of all is the direct link of the vaccine’s lead developers to the Wellcome Trust and, in the case of Adrian Hill, the Galton Institute, two groups with longstanding ties to the UK Eugenics movement. The latter organization, named for the “father of eugenics” Francis Galton, is the re-named UK Eugenics Society, a group notorious for its promotion of racist pseudoscience and efforts to “improve racial stock” by reducing the population of those deemed inferior for over a century.

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Is this a Guardian infomercial? Meant to cast doubt on HCQ and azithromycin, and promote dexamethasone?

The Breakthrough Medicines That Could Change The Course Of Covid (G.)

It remains one of the most dramatically successful outcomes in the battle against Covid-19. A cheap treatment for inflammation was found to save lives of seriously ill patients while a trio of much-touted therapies were shown to have no effect. It is now estimated that the discovery of the effectiveness of the drug dexamethasone has saved around 650,000 lives across the world, according to Professor Martin Landray, a founder of the Recovery programme – the world’s largest randomised Covid-19 drugs trial – which revealed the medicine’s anti-Covid properties last summer. “In the UK alone, dexamethasone has already prevented more than 12,000 deaths,” he told the Observer.

The breakthrough demonstrates the power of large-scale randomised trials in pinpointing effective medicines and will be followed, in the next few weeks, with results from another handful of promising treatments being studied as part of the Recovery programme. These medicines, which could be crucial in the fight to contain Covid-19 next year, are: convalescent plasma, taken from recovering Covid patients; monoclonal antibodies, made by Regeneron, that were used to treat Donald Trump; two anti-inflammatory drugs, tocilizumab and colchicine; and aspirin. All are undergoing trials carried out by thousands of doctors and nurses on tens of thousands of patients in hospitals across Britain. First results are expected in January or early February.

Recovery was set up by Landray and Peter Horby at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The two Oxford scientists realised doctors would soon be looking for treatments once cases started pouring into hospitals but would need a clinical trial to find which were effective. It took them nine days from drafting their first protocol to the enrolling of their first patient, a process that normally takes nine months. One in 10 patients hospitalised with Covid have since entered the trial. And such numbers have been crucial to success, added Landray. Comparing 100 people who get a drug with 100 who do not can produce highly variable results. However, by randomising thousands of patients to get contrasting treatments, robust answers are produced.

“You find out which actually work,” said Landray. “In addition, we can discover which patients will benefit most. Will it be the old or the young or the immuno-compromised? You can only find that out if you have a trial with thousands of people in it.” So far, Recovery – short for Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy – has pronounced on four medicines: azithromycin, an antibiotic; the drug combination lopinavir-ritonavir; hydroxychloroquine, a treatment for malaria and rheumatic diseases; and dexamethasone. Only the last saved lives or aided recovery. A hit rate of only one in four might seem poor value. However, the extraordinary numbers of lives saved thanks to dexamethasone demonstrates the value of the Recovery programme, the world’s largest randomised Covid-19 drug trial.

The programme also ensured time and money have not been wasted on medicines that were found not to help patients. And that will become an increasingly important issue, Landray said. “When we started Recovery we looked at cheap, widely available but promising drugs, and found one of them – dexamethasone – worked. But the medicines we’re looking at now will cost hundreds of pounds per treatment, so we need to be really sure they work before we deploy them on wide scale,” Landray said.

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The world keeps getting smaller.

Japan Halts All Foreign Arrivals Over UK COVID Variant (AP)

Japan is barring entry of all nonresident foreign nationals as a precaution against a new and potentially more contagious coronavirus variant that has spread across Britain. The Foreign Ministry says the entry ban will start Monday and last through Jan. 31. Last week, Japan banned nonresident foreigners coming from Britain and South Africa after confirming the new variant in seven people over the last two days — five from Britain who tested positive at airports and two others in Tokyo. Japan is also suspending the exemption of a 14-day quarantine for Japanese nationals and resident foreigners in a short-track program that began in November.


The entrants now must carry proof of a negative test 72 hours prior to departure for Japan and self-isolate for two weeks after arrival. Japan is struggling with surging cases since November. It has confirmed a total of 217,312 cases including 3,213 deaths, up 3,700 from the previous 24-hour period. Tokyo alone reported 949 cases, setting a new record, despite calls by experts and government officials for people to spend a “quiet” holiday season.

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“..an experimental nasal vaccine..”

Britain First To Infect Healthy Volunteers With Covid19 For Research (NYP)

The world’s first COVID-19 human challenge is about to start. Britain will infect 2,500 healthy volunteers with coronavirus to study how the infection behaves in the body — specifically the amount it takes before a person develops Covid-19, the Sun reported. The government has budgeted $45 million for the research, which is being conducted by Imperial College, the National Health Service’s Royal Free Hospital and pharmaceutical company hVIVO, a pioneer in viral human challenge models. Human challenge studies aren’t used often because of the ethical questions raised about infecting healthy people.


The Brits, ages 18 to 30, will get a dose of an experimental nasal vaccine, then be infected. The project gets underway in January; scientists expect the first results in May. Alastair Fraser-Urquhart, 18, of Stoke-on-Trent, raised his hand because he wants to help “bring the world out of the pandemic sooner.. “I can’t let this opportunity to do something, to really do something, pass me by when I’m at such low risk.” Fraser-Urquhart and his fellow volunteers will be paid about $5,300 for their three-week stay at the hospital’s specialist diseases clinic, where they will be monitored around the clock, the Mail Online reported. Later, researchers will use the human challenge model to find out how vaccines work to prevent coronavirus.

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January will be dark and bleak in many places.

Scientists Call For UK Lockdown After Rapid Spread Of Covid19 Variant (G.)

Cases of the new variant Covid-19 virus were confirmed in several European countries on Saturday, including Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. All were linked to people who had arrived from the UK. Meanwhile, Japan has announced it is banning all new entries of foreign nationals from Monday following the discovery of the variant in travellers from the UK. The news came at the same time as a further six million people in east and south-east England had tier 4 conditions, England’s strictest Covid level, imposed on them on Boxing Day. Lockdowns were also introduced in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Around 24 million people in England, more than 40% of the population, are now living in tier 4, as pressure mounts for the whole country to be put in this category.

Scientists from the Independent Sage group have urged that all regions of England be placed in tier 4, meaning that non-essential shops, hairdressers, and leisure and entertainment venues must close. Devolved nations were advised to bring forward their own national lockdowns. Tier 4 should include enhanced travel restrictions, the group said, while arguing that an emergency plan be introduced to enable safe education in January and February. This idea is supported by teaching unions, who have demanded that the government keeps schools closed as evidence has grown that the new virus variant is proving to be particularly infectious among children.

This point was backed by Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia. “If this new variant is behind the increase in this age group, then that is a big worry,” he said. France announced this weekend that it has discovered its first case of the new variant – a French citizen who arrived in Tours after travelling from London a week ago, according to health officials. In Madrid, Spanish officials said three cases of the new variant recently discovered in the country involved relatives of a man who had arrived from the UK on Christmas Eve, while the fourth case also involved a traveller from the UK. None of the patients was reported to be seriously ill.

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Blame it on Trump. But never on Pelosi and Schumer. Let alone Biden.

Two Pandemic Assistance Programs Expire, Leaving 12 Million Without Benefits (ZH)

With Congressional leaders feigning productivity for two months on a renewed stimulus – only for President Trump to veto their 11th hour porkfest and demand they increase direct stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 per person – a series of assistance programs are set to lapse into the new year. Two of them, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, will expire Saturday night, leaving around 12 million Americans without the assistance. As we noted in November, this would roughly translate into an income shortfall of $39BN in 1Q if these workers are unable to find work or alternative income support. BofA calculates that based on its work on fiscal multipliers, income loss of $39BN would translate into a 1.2% hit to growth on an annualized basis in 1Q 2021.

One of the two programs expiring Saturday, the PUA, provided unemployment benefits to around 7.3 million gig workers and others not eligible for traditional unemployment, according to the Century Foundation. The expiring programs come after lawmakers cobbled a $900 billion pandemic stimulus package to a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill, which President Trump vetoed over the sheer amount of pork and $600 direct checks, which he deemed to small. House Democrats will vote on a standalone bill Monday for $2,000 checks, while Congressional Republicans are expected to flatly reject it. Meanwhile, several additional programs are set to expire on December 31.

Additionally, the concurrent expiration of eviction moratorium, mortgage forbearance programs, and suspension of student loan payments could all be headwinds early next year, creating further obstacles. Unless Trump reverses course and signs the package on Tuesday, the government will shut down – sans another short-term bill to keep it limp things along into 2021.

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“..whoever it was behind this attack the one group who was definitely NOT behind it was the Russians.”

RussiaGate 2.0, Right on Schedule (Luongo)

Without offering any evidence or specifics, Pompeo said Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the cyberattack during an appearance on the conservative talk radio Mark Levin Show. “I can’t say much more, as we’re still unpacking precisely what it is, and I’m sure some of it will remain classified. But suffice it to say there was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of US government systems and it now appears systems of private companies and companies and governments across the world as well,” Pompeo explained. Notice how there is no evidence given, just the typical intelligence agency, “believe me” line, which is your first clue that whoever it was behind this attack the one group who was definitely NOT behind it was the Russians.

This week’s cyber attack on the U.S. government was perfectly timed with the Electoral College submitting its votes to the Congress and Joe Biden claiming he’s president-elect. The reason why the release of this ‘attack’ on our government was perfectly timed is because it is a distraction from the growing unrest over the Democrats’ having stolen the election and cowering the courts into irrelevance. This is classic CIA-level misdirection from what was more likely a Chinese or, dare I say it, homegrown operation for the very purpose of blaming the Russians to tamp down the anger and confuse the MAGA crowd. And it resurrects the ghost of RussiaGate for the libs by putting Trump in a Catch-22.

If he doesn’t respond to this it keeps alive the smoldering embers of the TDS crowd watching Rachel Maddow that Trump really does have deep, covert ties to Russia. If he does react, what possible reaction could he take to escalate the tensions with Russia that are already one step below open warfare? Oh, and he has to respond to this while also fighting an uphill battle against the courts and his own bureaucracy to invoke his executive order involving outside interference into the election. [..] Provoking the exact reaction you’d expect from the BlueChecked Sneetches among the Twitterati. RussiaGate was an embarrassment that should have died years ago but it persists precisely because Trump refuses to formally concede and continues to give his people the opportunity to fight the Swamp.

The only way Putin and the Russians were behind this attack on the U.S. government was as a 5-d chess move where Trump invited them to do it on his behalf to ‘prove’ external interference in the election and allow Trump to cross the Rubicon, invoke the Insurrection Act and his 2018 EO on election interference. Yeah, by the way, John Le Carre died this week, life ain’t a movie and Trump isn’t that savvy a player. Ye gods, I wish he was. That we are in this mess proves he isn’t. This pronouncement by Pompeo was just good ol’ fashioned swamp double talk who continues his job of maintaining continuity of U.S. foreign policy on behalf of the Neoconservatives whose raison d’etre is the destruction of Russia to the exclusion of nearly every other consideration of any other human on the planet.

Don’t be confused by this nonsense. Whoever was behind this attack wasn’t the Russians. The motive for this operation lies squarely with China, The Davos Crowd, the Democrats and our own intelligence agencies trying to move the Overton Window away from the real problem, a stolen election. Outing Solarwinds and tying it directly to Dominion Voting Systems is your smoking gun.

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“The certainty of no tariffs, yes—but also of trade barriers, red tape and reduced future prosperity.”

This Brexit Deal Is Emphatically Nothing To Celebrate (Lis)

And so the long wait is finally over. Late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, at the precise moment businesses were shutting up shop for a four-day national holiday, Boris Johnson took to a podium in Downing Street to herald a trade deal with the European Union. This was a good deal, he said. It allowed us to take back control of our money, borders, laws and fisheries. It provided certainty for businesses. Of course, the Prime Minister was wrong on almost all counts. This was the thinnest deal available within the ruinous red lines he had laid out, and preferable only to no deal at all. We already had control of everything he claimed to have won back—even fisheries, whose viability depends on exporting British catches into the EU. On only one point was he correct: his deal does indeed provide certainty. The certainty of no tariffs, yes—but also of trade barriers, red tape and reduced future prosperity.

The alternate press conferences in London and Brussels amply demonstrated who had made the concessions. This was an inevitable consequence of differential power, wealth and size, and the UK fell short. While both sides seem to have budged on fish, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasised the EU’s success in ensuring the far more important level playing field for competition. The UK would lose key rights such as financial passporting. It would no longer enjoy automatic access to the EU’s invaluable security databases. Fundamentally it was a question of how power is exercised. Sovereignty in the 21st century, she said, meant “pulling each other up, instead of trying to get back to your feet alone.”

While von der Leyen combined detailed information with sensitivity in tone, Johnson took to bluster. He dismissed the media question about security, asserting, without evidence, that everything would work out. He preposterously declared that the deal would eliminate non-tariff barriers, when the truth is our departure from the single market and customs union necessitate the greatest introduction of new bureaucracy and commercial obstacles in recent history. And he batted away the ending of UK access to the Erasmus scheme, which has offered new horizons to thousands of students across the continent. The new “Turing scheme,” he insisted bombastically, would be better and wider reaching.

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“.. they’re just manipulating this messaging to sanction certain events that they find politically palatable while demanding everybody stay home for the things that they don’t value .”

Glenn Greenwald: Coverage Of Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Media Misconduct’ (Hill)

Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept, said the media’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic was the “worst event of media misconduct.” Speaking on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Greenwald said that the media’s coverage of the pandemic was initially geared toward forcing people to stay home, and shaming those who went outside for acting irresponsibly. Greenwald then added that the media shifted its tone around its coverage after the protests against police brutality over the summer following the police killing of George Floyd in May.


“Suddenly, it all turned to ‘What these people are doing is noble,’” he said. “And not only do you no longer have the obligation to stay at home, you now have the obligation to go and march against racism on the grounds that racism is the worst public [threat] than the coronavirus pandemic.” Greenwald noted that despite its coverage of the protests, the media continued to shame people who went to church or gathered for outdoor protests for different causes. “What it really made it seem like was there’s no trust or confidence due to public health authorities or media narratives surrounding this pandemic,” he said. “That they’re just manipulating this messaging to sanction certain events that they find politically palatable while demanding everybody stay home for the things that they don’t value .”

Read more …

 

 

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