Oct 232021
 
 October 23, 2021  Posted by at 7:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Autumn landscape 1885

 

Sweden Suspends Moderna Shot Indefinitely (TTC)
Pfizer, BioNTech Announce Their Vaccine Is Useless After 11 Months (Berenson)
CDC Considers Changing Definition Of “Fully Vaccinated” (JTN)
More Americans Getting Boosters Right Now Than First Vaccine Shots (Hill)
Biden Vaccine Mandate Not In Effect, Not Enforceable – Republican AGs (JTN)
Strain Of Delta Variant Causing Panic In UK Has Been Found In US (ZH)
Southwest Airlines Says It Won’t Fire Workers Who Don’t Get COVID Vaccine (ET)
Accountability (Denninger)
“What Am I Doing?” He Asks (Kunstler)
Nunes: ABC News HQ should move to Disney’s Fantasyland (JTN)
NATO Unveils Master Plan To Defeat Russia In Nuclear War (RT)
Magnesium Shortage Threatens To Paralyze Global Car Production (AD)
Chief Justice of England & Wales Joins Bench for Assange Hearing (CN)

 

 

Scary numbers. Among 40-49, infection risk for unvaccinated down some 15%, vaccinated up over 50%.

 

 

“..to anyone under 31..”

Sweden Suspends Moderna Shot Indefinitely (TTC)

New concerns are being raised about side effects from the Moderna vaccine against the coronavirus. Swedish health officials have now decided that a moratorium on giving the Moderna vaccine to anyone under 31 will be extended indefinitely, the U.K. Daily Mail reported. The pause on the Moderna shots had been scheduled to end on Dec. 1. Finland, Iceland and Denmark have taken similar steps. Norway is encouraging men under 30 not to get the Moderna shot, but is not mandating it. For months, the Moderna vaccine has been under scrutiny because of data that shows young men who receive it are at increased risk for myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac around the heart.


[..] The decision comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is putting Moderna’s plans for a shot aimed at the population from age 12 to 17 on hold due to concerns over risks of the ailments, according to The Wall Street Journal. Although a federal CDC panel on Thursday approved boosters for the Moderna and Johnson & Johson vaccines, there were some cautions raised, according to CNBC. Dr. Tom Shimabukuro said there is an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis with either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, in particular after the second dose of the vaccines. According to the Daily Mail, the data indicated the risk was 13 times greater for those getting the Moderna vaccine than for those who got the Pfizer vaccine. Sweden’s Public Health Agency said the unpublished data linking the Moderna vaccine with the two conditions means there is “an increased risk of side effects such as inflammation of the heart muscle or the pericardium.”

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Not sure where he gets the 11 months. I think it might be 6.

Pfizer, BioNTech Announce Their Vaccine Is Useless After 11 Months (Berenson)

Well, that’s not how they phrased it. But it is the only reasonable way to read their press release claiming that the booster is 95% effective. Remember. The booster is given to people who have RECEIVED the vaccine. (That’s why it’s a booster, right?) And when they tested a booster against a placebo in those people, they found a 95% reduction in disease in people who received the booster (for a total of 11 weeks after they received the booster, excluding the first week, because science – by which I mean because including that week would not help their results). 95%! Where have you heard that figure before? Oh yeah, it is EXACTLY the same relative risk reduction they claimed in the pivotal trial last year, when they tested the INITIAL dose against placebo.


The only reasonable read is that the booster is providing (temporary) protection similar to the first two-dose series (temporarily) did AGAINST PLACEBO. But these are VACCINATED people. So where’s the protection from the initial two doses? There is ONE difference, though. The ABSOLUTE risk appeared at least two to three times higher in the vaccinated people in this trial than in UNVACCINATED people in the initial trial – 110 infections in 5,000 people in 10 weeks, compared to 162 infections in 20,000 people in about the same period. Because vaccines work. If you are vaccinated, get ready to take boosters forever. By the way, the press release includes NO specific safety data. Yay Pfizer!

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Worst kept secret.

CDC Considers Changing Definition Of “Fully Vaccinated” (JTN)

The U.S. could change the definition of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday. The definition might be changed as booster shots become more prevalent, the CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters in a briefing. “We have not yet changed the definition of ‘fully vaccinated.’ We will continue to look at this,” Walensky said. “We may need to update our definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ in the future. If you’re eligible for a booster, go ahead and get your booster and we will continue to follow up.”


According to The Hill, the term “fully vaccinated” applies to people who have received the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine, or both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. According to the White House, more than 70 million Americans qualify for a booster shot, while predicting another 120 million Americans should become eligible in the coming months. Currently, the CDC estimates about 58% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against the virus, while nearly 68% is only partially vaccinated.

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All under informed consent, we may presume?

More Americans Getting Boosters Right Now Than First Vaccine Shots (Hill)

The number of Americans getting their booster shots is outpacing those who are getting their first vaccine dose, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to the latest data, 190 million people are fully vaccinated in the U.S. and 12 million people have received their booster dose since it was authorized in August. An average of roughly 340,000 people are getting a booster shot on a daily basis, compared to a daily average of 157,605 who received their first vaccine shot for the week ending Tuesday, government data shows, according to The Washington Post. The disparity isn’t particularly surprising given the demand for booster shots among the vaccinated population, and the fact that the unvaccinated population has had months to get a shot but has not so far.

But it points to how even with boosters available, a stubborn minority of Americans are likely to not take initial vaccinations or boosters. It is much easier for the coronavirus to spread the larger that population is. An Axios-Ipsos poll published in August found that 20 percent of Americans said they either are not very likely or not likely at all to receive a vaccine. There are now booster recommendations for all three available COVID-19 vaccines in the United States, after the CDC on Thursday approved both the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson boosters. “These recommendations are another example of our fundamental commitment to protect as many people as possible from COVID-19,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement on Thursday.

“The evidence shows that all three COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the United States are safe – as demonstrated by the over 400 million vaccine doses already given. And, they are all highly effective in reducing the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death, even in the midst of the widely circulating delta variant,” Walensky said.

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A superbly weird game is being played. As long as it’s not in effect, the White House can’t be sued. There are dozes of court cases pending.

Biden Vaccine Mandate Not In Effect, Not Enforceable – Republican AGs (JTN)

President Joe Biden’s executive order requiring private employees to get the COVID-19 shots hasn’t gone into effect and therefore isn’t enforceable, argue several Republican attorneys general — and if and when the regulation does go into effect, they vow, they will immediately sue to stop it. “No such rule or regulation is currently in effect,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen wrote in an open letter to all Montanans, and “there has been a great deal of confusion” since Biden announced his mandate Sept. 9. The letter was released the same day as an announcement made by Biden, who said, “The Labor Department is going to soon be issuing an emergency rule for companies with 100 or more employees to implement vaccination requirements.”

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration only last week submitted the initial text of the mandate’s regulatory language to the Office of Management and Budget for review. This is the first of several steps in the regulatory process. OSHA will implement, oversee and enforce the Biden mandate, which it has yet to do. It plans to do so under an obscure authority known as “emergency temporary standards” that has been used only a handful of times. [..] The mandate was a reversal of policy advocated by the White House just five months earlier. On April 6, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters: “The government is not now, nor will we be supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential. There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential.”

However, after Biden’s Sept. 9, mandate, numerous companies issued vaccine mandates requiring employees to provide proof of vaccination status in order to remain employed. Some companies issued fines for employees who chose to not get the shots. Some rejected religious exemption requests, others rejected exemption requests from those who could prove they have natural immunity after they got the coronavirus. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argues the mandate is unconstitutional, and in response to pushback throughout the state, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued his own mandate prohibiting all entities in Texas from issuing vaccine mandates as a condition of employment. Knudsen says his office is “preparing to immediately challenge and enjoin this federal overreach on a variety of grounds when the Biden administration issues its announced rule.”

Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor also announced that no federal rule mandating employers to require their workers to get the shots exists. He’s instructed employers — and Oklahomans — to ignore Biden’s order. “I urge Oklahoma employers to disregard the Biden Administration’s wishes to the contrary,” O’Connor said in a statement. “In the event federal emergency rules are issued that place such an unlawful demand upon employers, our office will be joined by other state Attorneys General across the country to quickly sue and seek an injunction against any implementation or enforcement.”

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Let me guess: mostly found among the vaccinated?

Strain Of Delta Variant Causing Panic In UK Has Been Found In US (ZH)

A mutated version of the delta variant that has caused panic in the UK has been detected in several states in the US, the CDC revealed this week. AY.4.2, a subtype of the highly transmissible delta variant which has become informally known as “delta plus”, accounted for 6% of all sequenced samples of the virus. Its emergence has coincided with a rebound in COVID cases in the UK. To be sure, right now, the strain is still rare in the US and accounts for “well below 0.05%” of cases sequenced, the CDC says. So there’s no reason to panic. “At this time, there is no evidence that the sublineage AY.4.2 impacts the effectiveness of our current vaccines or therapeutics,” the CDC said. “Vaccination remains the best public health measure to slow the spread of the virus and reduce the likelihood of new variants to emerge.”


Around 16,830 AY.4.2 cases have been detected around the world across at least 28 countries, according to data from Outbreak.Info. Jeffrey Barrett, director of the COVID-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the U.K., told Newsweek on Thursday that it’s still unclear whether the subtype is helping drive rising case numbers in the UK. “We are one of the groups that has observed a [roughy] 10 percent growth advantage compared to other Delta.” “I’d say we can’t say for sure yet that that is a true biological advantage, as opposed to a bit of epidemiological ‘luck’ for this lineage, but the data are now accumulating week-by-week in favor of a small growth advantage.”

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Still trying to hide the reason why. Still the weather.

Southwest Airlines Says It Won’t Fire Workers Who Don’t Get COVID Vaccine (ET)

Southwest Airlines’ CEO said the company will not fire employees who do not get the COVID-19 vaccine by Dec. 9 following a Biden administration mandate that was announced last month for federal contractors. In a statement to news outlets Friday, the Dallas-based carrier confirmed to Fox News it does not want to “lose any employee” over President Joe Biden’s mandate, adding that firing a worker over the vaccine “makes no sense.” It came a day after Southwest CEO Gary Kelly made a similar announcement during an earnings call. “This is an evolving process working with the government in terms of what they expect, and very clearly, we wanted our employees to know that nobody is going to lose their job on December the 9th if we’re not perfectly in compliance,” Kelly said, according to news reports.

“It is a work in progress, and we’re going to continue working in good faith to meet the requirements of the executive order. But I’ve already said, and I’m sure you’ve heard, we’re not going to fire anybody who doesn’t get vaccinated,” he continued. Biden’s mandate will start on Dec. 8, requiring federal contractors to make sure their workers are vaccinated. Employees can be granted a medical or religious exemption. But Kelly’s and Southwest’s announcements this week mark a reversal in the carrier’s vaccination stance. Earlier this month, Southwest stated that workers would have to be fully vaccinated or receive an exemption to “continue employment with the airline” after it conducted a “thorough review of President Biden’s COVID Action Plan and determined that the carrier’s contracts with the U.S. government require full compliance with the federal vaccination directive.”

Also on Thursday, Southwest said in its quarterly results that it lost some $75 million after thousands of flights were canceled and delayed earlier this month. The firm blamed the weather and unspecified staffing issues, although there was widespread speculation that pilots and other employees walked out over the vaccine requirement.

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Sometimes I suspect Karl is a faster typer than I am.

“Whether said reprogramming is good, bad, effective or not isn’t the question; it is the claim that such constitutes a “vaccine” that is medically and scientifically false..”

Accountability (Denninger)

That the current jabs are not vaccines is not in question; it is truth. The government has changed the definition of a “vaccine” but you cannot change something that is false into something that is true by making a claim that it is so. A vaccine is a preparation that causes or mimics actual infection but is either attenuated or killed so that it will not harm you. The current “clot shots” are genetic programming designed to alter the core processes of your cells. That the intended outcome of this is to produce an immune response protective against a pathogen does not change the fact that they are not vaccines and that we have discovered the direct result of said programming is pathogenic is not in scientific question either; it is, and is almost-certainly responsible for all the adverse effects of same.

A therapy alters the core processes of your cells to combat a disease; every drug in the pharmacy does this in one form or another. Whether said reprogramming is good, bad, effective or not isn’t the question; it is the claim that such constitutes a “vaccine” that is medically and scientifically false, and no matter how many people believe it, whether that number is zero or 100% of the population does not change the falsity of the statement. That there has never been a successful vaccine — an actual vaccine — against a coronavirus in man or beast is also fact. That is not due to the lack of attempt; there have been many attempts. All have ended in failure; either the protection is non-durable and thus becomes a “required subscription” or worse, it turns on the inoculated individual member of the population and potentiates illness, severely injuring or killing them. Attempting to force that model on the human population through lies or worse, mandates, marks every person involved in advocating or attempting to impose same worthy of immediate imprisonment or even execution as they are wild-eyed extortionists at best or even mass-murdering psychotic criminals.

That every respiratory pandemic in history has progressed into an endemic disease is scientific fact. If it was not, even once, every single one of us would not exist because somewhere before our birth humans would have all been dead. Yet here we are, which is scientific proof that any claim that Covid-19 would not follow the same pattern absent our intervention was and is false. That is not to say that certain pathogens haven’t been worse than others; there have, of course. But the trend toward endemicity and immunity from serious outcome via infection or the mimicry of actual infection, not genetic engineering which only now exists as possible, is fact. Thus my commentary, which I have repeated relentlessly: We are all going to get this thing, there’s nothing we can do about that, and we ought to work on personal resistance to serious outcomes which we know we can have positive impact upon. Indeed, were Covid-19 to have occurred prior to our obsession with obesity and “healthy at any size” it is probable that 99% of those who have died from it in the US would have successfully fought it off and it would have been less serious than seasonal influenza.

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“The Obama-led claque behind all the White House fakery wants to cram this down the country’s craw before things go so far south that Americans start to think they’re living in Tierra del Fuego.”

“What Am I Doing?” He Asks (Kunstler)

The Leader of the Free World wandered the stage, sometimes oddly circling his interlocutor, Anderson Cooper of CNN, who had to step in and rescue the maundering “Joe B,” when he lost himself in thickets of talking points that no amount of rehearsal could avail to untangle. “What am I doing?” he asked more than once, but no one on the scene volunteered to remind him. The “president” frequently assumed poses that signified some kind of gross cognitive dysfunction: head turned down to the floor with his eyes shut… strange, mincing steps in the direction of a fugitive thought… fists balled like a two-year-old resisting some simple instruction… There was a robotic quality to the act, too, as “JB” repeated his place-holder phrase “Here’s the deal” to preface each flight into the murky jargon of Build Back Better.

It fell short of convincing anyone about who was in charge of the nation’s affairs at a very sketchy moment in history, and at the end Ol “Joe” just ran down like a three-dollar gyroscope. In his most lost moments, such as when AC inaptly tried to prompt him on the border crisis — “I guess I should go down,” he admitted dolefully — the “POTUS” directed the cameras to his wife in the audience, saying, “Jill’s been down there!” We were supposed to conclude that she’d fixed all that for us.

The exercise was also obviously designed to turn up the heat on the two renegade senators, Joe Manchin (WVA) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) who are disinclined to vote for the trillions of dollars in pending proposed legislation to drop money from helicopters all over the land and save the economy — and impose all manner of janky surveillance measures and vote-rigging scams on the country. The Obama-led claque behind all the White House fakery wants to cram this down the country’s craw before things go so far south that Americans start to think they’re living in Tierra del Fuego.

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“[T]hey’re not falling for this,” he replied. “There’s something more nefarious going on — ABC News to put something out like that is just bizarre.”

Nunes: ABC News HQ should move to Disney’s Fantasyland (JTN)

Following an ABC News interview with Christopher Steele, author of the discredited Steele dossier used in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said the media outlet’s headquarters should move to Fantasyland at its parent company’s Walt Disney World. “[I]t’s a little bit of an embarrassment for ABC News and Disney Corporation,” said Nunes, who as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was instrumental in exposing the Trump-Russia narrative as a political dirty trick funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC in 2016. “I’ve been kind of half joking, but really half not, because you wonder if ABC News is gonna move their headquarters to Fantasyland at Disney World,” Nunes quipped. “It’s such a joke.”

Nunes alleged that the network’s hour-long documentary “Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier,” released Monday on Hulu, is “entirely fiction.” “[I]t’s really about what was left out,” he said. “And then the lack of clarity on the folks who are … kind of posing as actors in this — you know, they’re supposedly journalists.” Steele was the one “peddling Russian disinformation and the whole hoax early on,” but in his interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos “he’s sitting there going, ‘Oh, we just don’t know if this is true or not,'” observed Nunes. “[I]t’s basically misinformation or disinformation by omission,” he said. Nunes was asked if he was surprised the media is still falling for the Russia collusion narrative five years later.

“[T]hey’re not falling for this,” he replied. “There’s something more nefarious going on — ABC News to put something out like that is just bizarre. “So I have no idea, you know, what’s behind this — the timing, the release of this. That anybody would be defending Steele or those dossiers … at this point is an absolute joke.” While Nunes believes that Special Counsel John Durham is “doing a real investigation” of the Russia collusion hoax, he is concerned about the prosecutor’s ability “to continue this investigation, because we know DOJ is completely politicized.”

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NATO is done. And not a minute too soon. They can’t even win a game of backgammon. But then again that’s been true for the US for many decades too. Just because they can’t win at anything doesn’t mean they can’t be a major nuisance.

NATO Unveils Master Plan To Defeat Russia In Nuclear War (RT)

Top defense chiefs from NATO member states have given a green light to a new grand strategy on how to beat Russia in any potential all-out conflict, as Moscow says the move proves the US-led bloc isn’t open to improving relations. On Thursday, ministers met in Brussels to sign off the scheme, named the “Concept for Deterrence and Defense in the Euro-Atlantic Area.” According to NATO’s General Secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, it is part of efforts to “continue to strengthen our alliance with better and modernized plans.” The bloc’s officials insist they don’t believe an attack is imminent, but that it is worthwhile being prepared in any case.As part of the plan, NATO troops would fight against Russia’s forces in both the Baltic Region and across the Black Sea.


The battle plans also focus on non-conventional warfare, including the use of nuclear weapons, cyber-attacks and even conflict in space. However, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov hit out at the adoption of the strategy on Friday, saying that it shows there is no prospect for turning around rock-bottom relations with the bloc. “There is no need for dialogue under these conditions,” he argued, saying that the adoption “of such a concept by NATO confirms it once again.” According to him, “this alliance was not created for peace, it was conceived, designed and created for confrontation.”

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Google translate from Dutch.

“If the supply of magnesium stops, the entire auto industry may be forced to shut down.”

Magnesium Shortage Threatens To Paralyze Global Car Production (AD)

The automotive industry is already having a hard time due to the shortage of chips and semiconductors, causing many factories to shut down. There is now a threat of a new crisis in Europe due to a magnesium shortage. Magnesium is essential for aluminum production. That material is needed on a large scale for building cars. It is used in gearboxes, steering columns and brakes, seat frames, at fuel tanks, in the bodywork and for many other parts. About 85 percent of global magnesium production comes from China and much of that comes from Yulin City in Shaanxi Province. But due to an energy crisis, production restrictions have been imposed on many factories there. Of the fifty magnesium factories, only fifteen are still active.


They also run at half power to meet the energy requirements. It will remain that way at least until the end of the year. Analysts warn in The Financial Times that stocks of magnesium in the rest of the world are dwindling rapidly. The German and European car industry, almost entirely dependent on China for magnesium, threatens to get nothing in November. “There are no alternatives to aluminum production,” said Barclays analyst Amos Fletcher. “If the supply of magnesium stops, the entire auto industry may be forced to shut down.” In that case, consumers will have to wait even longer for their new car, while the shortage of semiconductors has already doubled or even tripled delivery times.

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He blocked the Lauri Love extradition.

Chief Justice of England & Wales Joins Bench for Assange Hearing (CN)

Ian Duncan Burnett, the most powerful judge in England and Wales, will join Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde on the bench next week for the two-day U.S. appeal in the extradition case of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange at the High Court in London, according to a spokesman at the Royal Courts of Justice. Burnett, known as Baron Burnett of Maldon, was the High Court justice who on humanitarian grounds overturned a lower court ruling that British activist Lauri Love should be extradited to the United States. Burnett ruled in February 2018 that Love’s extradition would be “oppressive by reason of his physical and mental condition.” Burnett and Mr. Justice Duncan Ouseley said in their decision that, “We accept that the evidence shows that the fact of extradition would bring on severe depression, and that Mr. Love would probably be determined to commit suicide, here or in America.”


Instead they recommended that Love be tried in the United Kingdom on charges of hacking into U.S. government computers. Unlike Love, Assange is accused of no crimes in Britain. But like Love, he has been deemed (by the magistrate’s court) at high risk of suicide if he were to be extradited to the United States. The U.S. is appealing the lower court’s decision not to extradite Assange to the U.S. based on his propensity for suicide. The U.S. is arguing that Assange is not too sick to be sent to the U.S. and that he is a malingerer. Holroyde is the High Court judge who on Aug. 11 reversed an earlier High Court order limiting the U.S. from appealing Assange’s medical issues.

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Snowden

 

 

 

 

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