Jun 192021
 


Vincent van Gogh The sower 1888

 

Why Has “Ivermectin” Become a Dirty Word? (Taibbi)
Feds Now See the Need for Funding Antivirals (TSN)
What If The Mainstream Media Had Told The Truth? (PF Whalen)
AstraZeneca Vaccine Not Good Enough to See ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ (NM)
‘I’d Rather Die Actually Living’: Buffalo Bills’ Wide Receiver (G.)
EU Regulator Won’t Impose 50% Efficacy Threshold For Covid-19 Vaccines (RT)
Only 41.9% Of French Nursing Home Workers Vaccinated (RT)
Greece Bioethics Committee To Green-light Mandatory Vaccinations (K.)
Dying Of Covid-19 Has Become Optional In Russia (RT)
Will US Meet Biden’s Vaccine Goal? (ZH)
Chinese Defector’s Identity Confirmed, Was Top Counterintelligence Official (RS)
Democracy Dies at the Washington Post Editorial Board (MPN)
Who Is A “Terrorist” In Biden’s America? (Whitney Webb)
Questions About the FBI’s Role in 1/6 (Greenwald)
Free At Last (Jim Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Positive test does NOT mean infected with SARS-CoV-2….
It means one or multiple target genes of the SARS-CoV-2 genome, that has never been purely isolated, showed a hit after immense amplification.
But what is SARS-CoV-2 besides a computersimulation?

 

 

Experimental

 

 

Taibbi should ask not only “Why Has “Ivermectin” Become a Dirty Word?” but also “When Has “Ivermectin” Become a Dirty Word?”. And then apologize to his readers for completely missing the story for a year, or at least the half year it’s been since Kory’s Senate testimony -which he talks about- was cancelled.

Why Has “Ivermectin” Become a Dirty Word? (Taibbi)

One of the challenges of the pandemic period is the degree to which science has become intertwined with politics. Arguments about the efficacy of mask use or ventilators, or the viability of repurposed drugs like hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, or even the pandemic’s origins, were quashed from the jump in the American commercial press, which committed itself to a regime of simplified insta-takes made opposite to Donald Trump’s comments. With a few exceptions, Internet censors generally tracked with this conventional wisdom, which had the effect of moving conspiracy theories and real scientific debates alike far underground. A consequence is that issues like the ivermectin question have ended up in the same public bucket as debates over foreign misinformation, hate speech, and even incitement.

The same Republican Senator YouTube suspended for making statements in support of ivermectin, Ron Johnson, has also been denounced in the press for failing to call the January 6th riots an insurrection, resulting in headlines that blend the two putative offenses. “You have these ideas about the need to censor hate speech, calls for violence, and falsity,” Kory says, “and they’ve put science on the same shelf.” As a result, doctors and organizations that may have little to do with politics but have advocated for ivermectin, from Dr. Tess Lawrie’s British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) to California pulmonologist Roger Seheult to many others, have been shut down online with the same unilateral abruptness platforms apply to hate speech or threats.

Dr. Sabine Hazan, a gastroenterologist and CEO of a genetic sequencing laboratory called ProGenaBiome in Ventura, California, was blindsided. She got involved with ivermectin when she was pulling out the stops for Covid-19 patients. “I’m a doctor. My job isn’t to do nothing. If I wanted to do nothing, I’d be selling shampoo,” Hazan says. When patients got really sick, she tried everything, treating off-label with a number of drugs in combination, including ivermectin. Eventually, she ended up taking it upon herself to run clinical trials with repurposed, off-patent drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, fearing that the lack of a profit angle would prevent a major corporate effort in that direction.

“I felt, no one is going to be investigating a cheap solution, so I did it myself,” she says. Some weeks ago, Hazan got up early on a Sunday to present findings to a group of physicians that included Dr. Kylie Wagstaff, one of the physicians in the first in vitro ivermectin study, a family doctor in Zimbabwe named Jackie Stone, and others. She uploaded the talk on YouTube, and “lo and behold, it got taken down. It’s amazing. These are doctors talking. It’s not anyone selling anything.”

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And Trial Site News should not pretend they invented the wheel.

Feds Now See the Need for Funding Antivirals (TSN)

After over a year of TrialSite reporting on the need for early-onset, antiviral-like care for COVID-19, now the U.S. government will launch a mini “moonshot” targeting antivirals necessary not only for viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 but for the inevitable new ones that will surface in the future. Powered by the same players—that is, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) as well as the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)—under the current Executive Branch administration, a new program under Dr. Anthony Fauci’s NIAID called the “Antiviral Program for Pandemics” will target the 90% of cases involving either asymptomatic to mild-to-moderate SARS-CoV-2 infection.

But now with a focus on “sustainable platforms” to discover and develop antivirals, perhaps one of the key players in what’s been a total failure on the part of the federal research apparatus to address affordable repurposed antivirals (other than ensure Gilead could secure billions starting last May), Dr. Anthony Fauci was still able to get his customary quote, emphasizing, “New antivirals that prevent serious COVID-19 illness and death, especially oral drugs that could be taken at home early in the course of disease, would be powerful tools for battling the pandemic and saving lives.”

TrialSite makes the case below that the time to act to save lives with antivirals, especially cost-effective ones, addressing the pandemic was last summer at the latest. The federal money train spent probably north of $20 billion not only to help accelerate vaccines but also several novel experimental therapies with little pragmatic utility during a pandemic where 90% of the cases are asymptomatic to early-onset mild-to-moderate infections, necessitating care over advanced experimentation.

This platform supported the experimentation but implored that the NIH move aggressively with dozens of identified repurposed drugs to consider for treating COVID-19 early on. More on that below. But what the federal bureaucracy has done now is created yet another program where more than likely over-paid bureaucrats will be able to take credit for first and foremost handing lots of money over to biotech and pharmaceutical companies. In this post-free market, crony capitalistic world, one where regulatory capture is the norm, not the exception, this is exactly what happens as the same old cast of characters behind the last efforts are at it all over again.

They will “evaluate, prioritize and advance antiviral candidates to Phase 2” while benefitting from the present day and “expanded contract resources” of the NIH as well as the infrastructure provided by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to “de-risk” those early pipeline candidates. They’ll spend over $300 million for research and lab support and toss in almost $1 billion for preclinical and clinical evaluation plus nearly $700 million for development and manufacturing via NIAID and BARDA.

Moreover, the feds will now spend up to $1.2 billion to create and support a new group called the Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens and Pandemic Concern that seeks to “harness the creativity of the biomedical research community and drive innovative antiviral drug discovery and development.” Seeking to develop “platforms,” the initial target is SARS-Cov-2, although as TrialSite has and will argue, they’re about a year or more late in the game, and unfortunately, the lives lost can’t be changed.

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Whalen has 5 things the media got wrog on Trump. One of them is HCQ.

What If The Mainstream Media Had Told The Truth? (PF Whalen)

2. Hydroxychloroquine Last year at this time it was verboten to even bring up the name of the drug and doing so was enough to get you booted off Twitter or Facebook. President Trump frequently touted hydroxychloroquine’s efficacy in battling COVID, and it was that advocacy which sent the media into conniptions on the subject. If Trump supports the drug, it must be bad. Last week, over a year after most Americans became familiar with the medication, a new study out of New Jersey, the hardest hit state by COVID, shows that if used in conjunction with a regimen of zinc, hydroxychloroquine can give COVID patients upwards of a 200% better survival rate against COVID. Hydroxychloroquine is indeed a miracle drug.

With modern news cycles, our attention spans are merely fractions of what they once were, but we must remember the context with which the attacks on Trump and hydroxychloroquine were being made. The media was whipping up everyone into a full-blown panic with COVID. “It’s highly infectious to the point you can’t go to church or walk around the park. If you get it bad enough to be sent to the hospital, you’re probably going to die. And there’s no cure; we’re doomed.” Meanwhile Trump was right all along, and this treatment was available the whole time. So, what if the media had told us the truth from the beginning with hydroxychloroquine? Patients who died having refused the drug because of the media’s lies need not have perished. How many thousands of patients died because of the media’s deceit? We’ll never know.

Doctors who refrained from administering the drug based on the treachery of so-called experts and the menaces in the media had patients die for no reason other than politics. Again, how many thousands of Americans died because of their fraudulence? We’ll never know. For many patients who survived severe cases of COVID, they will carry the long-term effects of the virus around with them for the rest of their lives. Severe, long-lasting damage to both the lungs and hearts of severe COVID patients is common, and it’s likely many of those folks must now endure shortened life expectancies as a result. There were undoubtedly scores of them, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic, who could have been treated with hydroxychloroquine but weren’t. If the media had told the truth, many of those patients would now be living normal lives.

Roadmap to Recovery
https://twitter.com/i/status/1406046367542169600

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Badlands. No more freedom fighter.

AstraZeneca Vaccine Not Good Enough to See ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ (NM)

Bruce Springsteen is returning to Broadway, though certain people inoculated against COVID-19 will not be allowed to see him. Springsteen’s show, set to run June 26-Sept. 4, will not be open to people who’ve been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the New York Post reported Friday. “At the direction of New York State, Springsteen on Broadway and the St. James Theatre will only be accepting proof of FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson),” the show’s website reads.

People attending the show must be fully vaccinated with an FDA-approved shot to get in. That means at least 14 days after a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech or Moderna vaccine, or at least 14 days after a single dose of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine. The Post reported Springsteen said in a statement he wanted to make the 2-hour-plus shows as “personal and intimate as possible.” Some Canadian fans who received the AstraZeneca shot were upset about potentially being denied entrance. “It’s just plain not fair,” said University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman in Wednesday’s Toronto Star.

“From an ethical point of view, it’s very difficult, because what has happened is people have made their commitment to being vaccinated for their own health and the health of their communities and the world, and people are turning their nose up at it.” The only exceptions to the vaccine policy will be for children under the age of 16 who have had a negative antigen COVID-19 screening within six hours of the show’s start, or a negative nose swab test within 72 hours of the start. Masks were not mentioned on the show’s website, which reminded guests that all seating is “not socially distant.”

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I got my vaccine from God.

‘I’d Rather Die Actually Living’: Buffalo Bills’ Wide Receiver (G.)

Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley leaned into the sharp backlash from statements he’s made critical of the coronavirus vaccine on Friday, disclosing that he is not vaccinated and pledging to “live my one life like I want to regardless”. “I will be outside doing what I do,” he wrote in a statement posted to social media. “I’ll be out in the public. If your (sic) scared of me then steer clear, or get vaccinated. Point. Blank. Period. I may die of covid, but I’d rather die actually living. “I have family members whose days are numbered. If they want to come see me and stay at my house then they are coming regardless of protocol. I don’t play for the money anymore. My family has been taken care of. Fine me if you want. My way of living and my values are more important to me than a dollar.


I love my teammates and enjoy playing ball because all the outside bs goes out the window in these moments. I just want to win the Super Bowl and enjoy these relationships that will be created along the way. “I’m not going to take meds for a leg that isn’t broken. I’d rather take my chances with Covid and build up my immunity that way. Eat better. Drink water. Exercise and do what I think is necessary to be a healthy individual. That is MY CHOICE based on MY experiences and what I think is best. I’ll play for free this year to live life how I’ve lived it from day one. If I’m forced into retirement, so be it.” The 32-year old veteran also said that he has spoken with the NFL Players Association about his issues with the NFL’s new virus policies. Beasley said he is not inoculated against Covid-19 and made it clear he did not want to receive the vaccine.

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Feel lucky, punk?

EU Regulator Won’t Impose 50% Efficacy Threshold For Covid-19 Vaccines (RT)

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has said it will not bring in a minimum efficacy threshold for Covid-19 vaccines. The comment comes after clinical trials showed Germany’s CureVac jab to be only 47% effective against the virus. CureVac announced data on the efficacy of its jab on Wednesday after it was tested in second- and third-phase trials involving 40,000 people across ten countries. The company suggested variants of the virus may be behind the poor result.


On Thursday, the EMA’s vaccine chief Marco Cavaleri said it was “a bit early to say” after being asked by a journalist about the CureVac results and the threat variants may pose to vaccine efficacy. “We will need to collect all the final data from this clinical trial, and have a good analysis of the outcome throughout different regions, age groups and according to different variants,” he told an EMA briefing. Asked specifically about a 50% efficacy minimum level for vaccines, he added that the EMA had “always felt it was difficult to define upfront a threshold.”

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“He said it could not be the case that there was more vaccine uptake in the general population than there was among care home workers.”

They simply know more.

Only 41.9% Of French Nursing Home Workers Vaccinated (RT)

Public Health France (SpF) has said that less than half of health professionals working in nursing homes are vaccinated against Covid-19 after the health minister called on workers to come forward and get their shot.
In data published on Thursday evening, SpF stated that only 41.9% of people working in nursing homes in France had been fully vaccinated against the deadly Covid-19 virus, despite the country’s vaccination program being nearly six months old, and 55.3% had received one shot. Healthcare workers were among the first in the country to be offered the jab. The health agency had stopped publishing this data for several weeks as it reworked its calculation method. SpF has reportedly realized that the figures were overestimated.


Meanwhile, of the care home residents surveyed, some of society’s most vulnerable people to the Covid-19 virus, only 81.1% were fully vaccinated. SpF estimates that as of June 15, 87.8% had received at least one dose. Earlier on Thursday morning, Health Minister Olivier Veran, speaking on BFM TV, made a “solemn appeal” to caregivers, in particular in nursing home staff, who have not yet been vaccinated. He also threatened to make inoculations compulsory for them. He said it could not be the case that there was more vaccine uptake in the general population than there was among care home workers. As of Wednesday, approximately 46% of France’s population has received at least one shot.

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Desperate for tourists.

Greece Bioethics Committee To Green-light Mandatory Vaccinations (K.)

The National Bioethics Committee is expected to give its approval for the mandatory vaccination of specific social and professional groups, such as health workers, in its report on Friday to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The obligation will apply in the fall once all the opportunities for the voluntary vaccination of citizens have been exhausted over the summer. In the meantime, a “persuasion campaign” will be undertaken to ensure that as many people are vaccinated as possible. Kathimerini understands that the conditions set by the committee before mandatory vaccinations begin include making the process as easy as possible and allowing people to choose the vaccine they want, and to have additional vaccination centers so that people don’t have to travel far to get the vaccine.

What’s more, the committee is set to insist on the need for information campaigns over the summer targeting specific groups, such as health professionals, educators, young people and the elderly who have not yet been vaccinated. Discussions are being held about including statistics that will prove the benefit of the vaccine. Those who refuse to be inoculated will not be fired, but they will be transferred to other divisions that are not in contact with vulnerable citizens, Kathimerini understands. The campaigns are expected to go on air from July onward, and will run for a full two to three months before any final decisions on mandatory vaccination are made.

It is a given, however, that from next autumn vaccinated people will enjoy privileges such as being able to eat in indoor dining areas. Fully vaccinated people will begin enjoying privileges in the coming weeks, as they will be able to head to gyms without a mask and enter indoor cinemas that open at the beginning of July with the demonstration of their certificate without having to upload their self-test results. As of July 1, the fully vaccinated are expected to be excluded from the program of mandatory self-tests.

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More vaccine hesitancy.

Dying Of Covid-19 Has Become Optional In Russia (RT)

In a speech on Tuesday, the head of Russia’s central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, announced that the country’s finances had recovered from the losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. “The economy has recovered to its pre-crisis level, and in many industries it has exceeded it and continues to grow,” she said. This success has been achieved without racking up substantial debts. While Western states plunge deeper into the red with borrowing, Russia’s reserves keep growing. It’s quite an achievement. However, next is the bad news. On the same day as Nabiullina was giving her triumphant speech, Russian statistical agency Rosstat released new figures on coronavirus deaths in the country, indicating that the number of people who died in the country last year was around 340,000 higher than the year prior, before the pandemic.

This means that the country suffered an increase in its mortality rate of 2,328 per million inhabitants, a figure well in excess of most other developed nations. By comparison, the equivalent numbers in the UK and USA stand at 1,275 and 1,535 per million, respectively. The good news and bad news are not unrelated. One of the reasons why Russia’s economy has been able to recover so rapidly from the impact of the virus is that after an initial tough lockdown in spring 2020, the government refused to reimpose the harshest available measures. That saved the economy, but by allowing people to freely mix, it may have enabled the spread of the virus. The economy’s recovery came at a price paid in human lives.

Cynics might accuse the Russian state of putting money before people, but Russia’s large death rate is a result of more than a lax attitude to social mingling. This is shown by a third story coming out of the country this week, with the city of Moscow issuing an order to make vaccination against coronavirus compulsory for all workers who have direct contact with the public. Justifying the move, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin declared, “ultimately, it’s up to everyone to get vaccinated or not.” He added that whether you get the jab is “a personal matter… as long as you sit at home.” But, the politician argued, “when you go out into public places… you become an accomplice of the epidemiological process.”

The reason why Sobyanin has had to issue this order is clear. Residents of his city simply aren’t getting vaccinated. Russia is believed to have administered about 33 million vaccine doses to its 145 million population, a rate of only 23 doses per 100 people. This now lags far behind much of the rest of Europe. The UK, for instance, has administered over 100 doses for every 100 inhabitants (most Covid-19 vaccines require two doses, so a complete vaccination program would require 200 doses). Russia’s vaccination rate is therefore about one-fifth of the UK’s.

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They’ll play with the data.

Will US Meet Biden’s Vaccine Goal? (ZH)

White House officials on Thursday brushed off questions about President Joe Biden’s July 4 vaccine goal, which appears to be in jeopardy due to the current vaccination rate. Asked about the goal during a virtual briefing on Thursday, White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients did not say whether the goal could still be met. “We’ve made tremendous progress. Today, more than 175 million Americans have gotten at least one shot: as I said, 87 percent of seniors, 74 percent of people over the age of 40. And we’re now nearly 2 in 3 adult Americans, hundreds of thousands of people are continuing to get their first shot each day,” he said.

“And we are going to get to 70 percent. And we’re going to continue across the summer months to push beyond 70 percent,” he added. Biden earlier this year said he wanted 7 out of 10 adults to get at least one COVID-19 jab by Independence Day. But the rate of vaccination has fallen sharply, dropping from over 4 million to around 1 million on an average day. Only 184,847 shots were administered on Memorial Day, and several other recent days have seen a figure well under 1 million. Biden also wanted 160 million Americans to be fully vaccinated by July 4. Fully vaccinated refers to a person getting both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna shots or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson, and then two weeks elapsing.

Just 147.7 million people have been fully vaccinated as of June 17. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Sunday, after being asked whether she was concerned the goals wouldn’t be reached, that while the government can provide incentives to get a vaccine, “it is ultimately up to individuals to do that.” “What you’ve seen is that a number of states have met and surpassed that goal, right? Many have not yet. But we’ve started—kicked off this one-month campaign to do everything we can to reach it. And we’ll see where we get. We’ve got some time,” she said.

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“If the stories are true, Dong would be the highest-level defector in the history of the People’s Republic of China.”

Chinese Defector’s Identity Confirmed, Was Top Counterintelligence Official (RS)

We now know the name of the Chinese defector who has been working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for a few months and what his position within the Chinese military and government was, among other details. Matthew Brazil and Jeff Stein at Spy Talk reported on the “rumor,” and gave the name and background of the rumored defector: “Chinese-language anti-communist media and Twitter are abuzz this week with rumors that a vice minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei defected in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang. Dong is, or was, a longtime official in China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), also known as the Guoanbu. His publicly available background indicates that he was responsible for the Ministry’s counterintelligence efforts in China, i.e., spy-catching, since being promoted to vice minister in April 2018. If the stories are true, Dong would be the highest-level defector in the history of the People’s Republic of China.”

RedState’s sources confirmed that the defector is, in fact, Dong, that he was in charge of counterintelligence efforts in China, and that he flew to the United States in mid-February, allegedly to visit his daughter at a university in California. When Dong landed in California he contacted DIA officials and told them about his plans to defect and the information he’d brought with him. Dong then “hid in plain sight” for about two weeks before disappearing into DIA custody. According to Spy Talk, Dong’s name came up during the Sino-American Summit held in Alaska in March 2021: “In a tweet on Wednesday, Han [Dr. Han Lianchao, a Chinese defector], citing an unnamed source, alleged that China’s foreign minister Wang Yi and Communist Party foreign affairs boss Yang Jiechi demanded that the Americans return Dong and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken refused.”

RedState’s sources say that Chinese officials did demand that the United States return Dong, but Blinken didn’t exactly refuse; at that time Blinken wasn’t aware that Dong was with the US government, the sources say, and told China that the US didn’t have Dong. It’s only in the last three to four weeks that anyone outside DIA knew about the defector, according to RedState’s sources. Prior to that time, DIA was vetting the information provided and confronting Langley officials with what they’d learned without divulging the source.

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A proud tradition.

Democracy Dies at the Washington Post Editorial Board (MPN)

The Washington Post’s glaring conflicts of interest have of late once again been the subject of scrutiny online, thanks to a new article denouncing a supposed attempt to “soak” billionaires in taxes. Written by star columnist Megan McArdle — who previously argued that Walmart’s wages are too high, that there is nothing wrong with Google’s monopoly, and that the Grenfell Fire was a price worth paying for cheaper buildings — the article claimed that Americans have such class envy that the government would “destroy [billionaires’] fortunes so that the rest of us don’t have to look at them.” Notably, the Post chose to illustrate it with a picture of its owner, Jeff Bezos, making it seem as if it was directly defending his power and wealth, something they have been accused of on more than one occasion.

There was considerable speculation online as to whether Bezos himself wrote the piece, so blatantly in his interest it was. Unfortunately, this sort of speculation has raged ever since the Amazon CEO bought the newspaper in 2013 for $250 million. Being owned by the world’s richest individual does not mean that The Washington Post and its employees are rolling in dough themselves. Far from it: Bezos’ revolution at the newspaper, which has led to both increased pageviews and company value, has been largely based on simply squeezing workers harder than before. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, management acknowledged that Post reporters are pushed to produce almost four times as many stories as their peers at The New York Times.

Furthermore, the Post writes and rewrites the same story but from slightly different angles and with different headlines in order to generate more clicks, and thus more revenue. Thanks to new technology, reporters’ every keystroke is monitored and they are under constant pressure from management not to fall behind. The technique of constant surveillance is not unlike what hyper-exploited Amazon warehouse workers who wear GPS devices or Fitbit watches have to endure.

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Everyone, potentially.

Who Is A “Terrorist” In Biden’s America? (Whitney Webb)

In the latest sign that the US government’s War on Domestic Terror is growing in scope and scale, the White House on Tuesday revealed the nation’s first ever government-wide strategy for confronting domestic terrorism. While cloaked in language about stemming racially motivated violence, the strategy places those deemed “anti-government” or “anti-authority” on a par with racist extremists and charts out policies that could easily be abused to silence or even criminalize online criticism of the government.

[..] In introducing the strategy, the Biden administration cites “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” as a key reason for the new policy and a main justification for the War on Domestic Terror in general. This was most recently demonstrated Tuesday in Attorney General Merrick Garland’s statement announcing this new strategy. However, the document itself puts “anti-government” or “anti-authority” “extremists” in the same category as violent white supremacists in terms of being a threat to the homeland. The strategy’s characterization of such individuals is unsettling. For instance, those who “violently oppose” “all forms of capitalism” or “corporate globalization” are listed under this less-discussed category of “domestic terrorist.”

This highlights how people on the left, many of whom have called for capitalism to be dismantled or replaced in the US in recent years, could easily be targeted in this new “war” that many self-proclaimed leftists are currently supporting. Similarly, “environmentally-motivated extremists,” a category in which groups such as Extinction Rebellion could easily fall, are also included. In addition, the phrasing indicates that it could easily include as “terrorists” those who oppose the World Economic Forum’s vision for global “stakeholder capitalism,” as that form of “capitalism” involves corporations and their main “stakeholders” creating a new global economic and governance system. The WEF’s stakeholder capitalism thus involves both “capitalism” and “corporate globalization.” The strategy also includes those who “take steps to violently resist government authority . . . based on perceived overreach.”

This, of course, creates a dangerous situation in which the government could, purposely or otherwise, implement a policy that is an obvious overreach and/or blatantly unconstitutional and then label those who resist it “domestic terrorists” and deal with them as such—well before the overreach can be challenged in court. Another telling addition to this group of potential “terrorists” is “any other individual or group who engages in violence—or incites imminent violence—in opposition to legislative, regulatory or other actions taken by the government.” Thus, if the government implements a policy that a large swath of the population finds abhorrent, such as launching a new, unpopular war abroad, those deemed to be “inciting” resistance to the action online could be considered domestic terrorists.

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“A laughable conspiracy theory,” chortled The Huffington Post, who has done more to help the FBI find citizens allegedly at the Capitol riot than any local law enforcement agency.”

Questions About the FBI’s Role in 1/6 (Greenwald)

In 2011, Mother Jones published an outstanding, lengthy investigation by reporter Trevor Aaronson, entitled “The Informations,” which asked: “The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?” Aaronson covered numerous similar cases for The Intercept where the FBI designed, directed and even funded the terror plots and other criminal rings they then boasted of disrupting. A widely praised TEDTalk by Aaronson, which, in the words of organizers, “reveals a disturbing FBI practice that breeds terrorist plots by exploiting Muslim-Americans with mental health problems,” featured this central claim: “There’s an organization responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and ISIS combined: The FBI.”

So far from being some warped conspiracy theory, that the FBI purposely targets vulnerable people and infiltrates groups in order to create attacks and direct targets to engage in them is indisputably true, well established, and a commonly reported fact in mainstream liberal media. Exactly that has been happening for decades. Yet the DNC-loyal sector of the corporate media reacted to the Revolver News article and Carlson’s segment which raised these questions as though they were positing something that no sentient being could possibly regard as viable. CNN — which spent years leading its viewers to believe that the Kremlin controlled the U.S. Government through sexual and financial blackmail — published what they labeled a “fact-check” that denounced this as a “haywire theory” that “is nothing more than a conspiratorial web of unproven claims, half-truths and inaccurate drivel about perceived bombshells in court filings.”

As it usually does, The Washington Post — which told Americans that Russians had invaded the U.S. electricity grid and that a huge army of Kremlin-loyal American writers was shaping our discourse — echoed the instant CNN/liberal consensus by mocking it as “Tucker Carlson’s wild, baseless theory,” claiming that “it’s the kind of suggestion journalists in other organizations would quite possibly be fired for if they sought to push it nearly as hard.” The standard liberal blob of HuffPost/ DailyBeast/ BusinessInsider all recited from the herd script. “A laughable conspiracy theory,” chortled The Huffington Post, who has done more to help the FBI find citizens allegedly at the Capitol riot than any local law enforcement agency.

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“But Americans have to do something to make a living,..”

Free At Last (Jim Kunstler)

The biggest question that the authorities want to evade is: if the virus did originate from the Wuhan lab, was it released by accident… or on purpose? The “Joe Biden” government is now forced to, at least, pretend that it will investigate. My guess is: they don’t want to know. It would raise enough subsidiary questions to leave a normal person panting with nausea. For instance: was China trying to soften-up the USA by disabling our economy? And soften us up… for what? Some observers who are hardly dumb or crazy think that China wants to reduce the USA to a vassal nation that can only supply China with food, oil, and other resources.

Sound far-fetched? Maybe. After all, we still have that fleet of submarines armed with multiple-warhead nuclear missiles circulating around the oceans as a kind of insurance policy. But Americans have to do something to make a living, and it sure isn’t going to be mass production of consumer goods, like in the old days. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of the service economy got gutted during the lockdowns — millions of businesses bankrupted, restaurants, yoga studios, concert venues, dog groomers, shops of all kinds, you name it — gone, and a lot of the people who took livelihoods from all that are financially ruined for good.

What’s left? Health care and pharma, two odious rackets preying on the psychological weakness of people so beaten down by adversity that they can only console themselves with junk food, liquor, sexual debauchery, and drugs, and then must beg the health care system to fix them — after which it squashes them to death with outlandish charges for services rendered? Or government, another reprehensible racket, seeking desperately now to control its citizens’ every move while everything it does is not only running wildly out of control, but via the most idiotic, suicidal policies — such as throwing the border with Mexico wide open to all comers, while it pays Americans to not work.

Read more …

 

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Jun 092021
 


Vittorio Matteo Corcos Conversation in the Jardin du Luxembourg 1892

 

Pfizer Begins Testing Its Covid Vaccine In Children Aged 5-11 (DM)
Moderna CEO: Vaccine Boosters, Flu/Covid Combo Shots Likely For The Future (F.)
India Accuses WHO Chief Scientist of Suppressing Ivermectin Data (ET)
Indian Health Regulator Removes Ivermectin from Its Covid-19 Protocol (NC)
Oh, Once Again Right -Rank Corruption And Lies (Denninger)
Greek Leaders Take Stand On Mandatory Vaccination (K.)
Segregated Dining In NYC (DM)
Beijing’s Useful Idiots (Unherd)
China, Russia to Take Up Korea Issue Together (NW)
Blinken Says 100s of Sanctions Will Remain on Iran Despite Talks (Antiwar)
Federal Prosecutors Subpoena Material From Andrew Cuomo’s Book (DM)
US State Sues To Have Google Declared A Public Utility (Y!)

 

 

McCullough
https://twitter.com/i/status/1402221070061649920

 

 

 

 

Russell Brand
https://twitter.com/i/status/1402239104432193545

 

 

I see nothing but pure evil. It’s too easy to propagandize children. That’s why we protect them.

Pfizer Begins Testing Its Covid Vaccine In Children Aged 5-11 (DM)

Pfizer-BioNTech has entered late-stage clinical trials of their coronavirus vaccine in children between ages five and 11. Just a few weeks after the shot was approved for teens ages 12 to 15 in the U.S., the companies are now testing safety and efficacy on younger children. Around 4,500 participants will be enrolled at nearly 100 clinical trial sites in 26 states, Finland, Poland and Spain, according to a press release. Trials for kids as young as six months to four years old are still in early stages and will expand once the researchers can determine safety. It comes as Moderna Inc’s CEO says he believes his company’s COVID-19 jab should be available for U.S. children as young as age five by fall of this year.

Parents and doctors have been debating about whether or not to inoculate children because they make up just 0.1 percent of all COVID deaths. According to clinicaltrials.gov, Pfizer’s study in younger children will work similarly to the way it did in older children and adults. About half of the ages five-to-11 group will receive two doses 21 days apart and the other half will be given placebo shots. The team will test the safety, tolerability and immune response generated by the vaccine, likely by measuring antibody levels in the young subjects.

[..] In a recent poll, conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, parents were asked if they would get their child immunized once a COVID-19 vaccine is authorized and available for their child’s age group. Only about three in 10 parents – 29 percent – of children under 18 said they would get their child vaccinated ‘right away.’ The poll also found 15 percent only plan to vaccinate their children if the school requires it and 19 percent said their child will definitely not be getting vaccinated. What’s more, although children can contract COVID-19 and pass the disease on to others, they tend to not get very ill. More than 3.97 million children have tested positive for the virus as of Tuesday, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Pfizer trial

Read more …

Snake oil.

Moderna CEO: Vaccine Boosters, Flu/Covid Combo Shots Likely For The Future (F.)

As new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus continue to spread around the world, vaccines produced by Moderna, BioNTech/Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson won’t be enough to provide immunity forever, says Stéphane Bancel. Speaking at the Forbes Health In Action Summit, the Moderna CEO says it’s likely booster shots will be needed in the near future, both to bolster waning immunity and to protect against new virus mutations. “First, immunity wanes with time meaning rollover of antibodies you have in your body from the vaccine – all natural infection goes down over time,” he says. “Two is you don’t know which virus you’re going to get infected with down the road, which variant is one of the four areas alpha, beta, gamma, delta, or even a new one that we don’t know of yet. And then it depends on your age and medical condition.”

To make future vaccine shots an easier process, Bancel says, the company is working on developing a booster shot to both reboot pre-existing antibodies as well as “provide new antibodies in your body that will bind specifically to those new mutations.” He also shared that Moderna is working on a booster for seasonal flu that operates with a 90-95% efficacy, and in the long run the company hopes to produce a shot where a single dose can vaccinate against both Covid-19 and the flu.

But while Moderna’s CEO looks at the future, the present still has a long way to go to get enough people vaccinated to reach herd immunity. Tom Polen, CEO and President of Becton, Dickinson and Company said his company received orders for over 2 billion syringes to assist with vaccine demand. “All of the syringes that we provide in the U.S., which are routinely used to deliver a variety of different vaccines and injectable therapies in hospitals, we make in the U.S. and always made in the U.S., so we work with the U.S. government to expand some of that capacity. For example, one of our manufacturing locations in Nebraska who work with the government to install new capacity that’s coming online right now just to scale that up even further to deliver vaccines,” Polen says.

Pfizer vs AZ

Read more …

“..claiming that she was “spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfill her agenda” and sought to prevent her from “causing further damage.”

India Accuses WHO Chief Scientist of Suppressing Ivermectin Data (ET)

The Indian Bar Association has taken legal action against the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for her alleged role in spreading disinformation on the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19. The association served a legal notice on Swaminathan on May 25, claiming that she was “spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfill her agenda” and sought to prevent her from “causing further damage.” They further say that Swaminathan, in her statements against the use of ivermectin, ignored research and clinical trials from two organizations – the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance and the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) – who have presented solid data showing ivermectin prevents and treats COVID-19.

“Dr. Soumya Swaminathan has ignored these studies/reports and has deliberately suppressed the data regarding effectiveness of the drug Ivermectin, with an intent to dissuade the people of India from using Ivermectin,” the plaintiff said in a statement. In a May 10 tweet that has since been deleted after the notice was issued, Swaminathan wrote, “Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication. WHO recommends against the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 except within clinical trials.”

Swaminathan made the Twitter post soon after Goa’s health minister announced that every Goa resident 18 and older would be given ivermectin as prevention regardless of their COVID-19 status, as part of the state government’s effort to stop the transmission of the virus. India has been hit hard in the second wave of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic beginning in March 2021. The legal notice calls for a clear response from Swaminathan on a number of key points, and the association said that in the case of a failure to provide a clear response, it reserves the right to initiate prosecution under sections of the Indian Penal Code and Disaster Management Act, 2005.

Read more …

It’s getting hard to know who allows it and who doesn’t anymore.

Indian Health Regulator Removes Ivermectin from Its Covid-19 Protocol (NC)

India’s Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has executed a policy reversal that could have massive implications for the battle against covid-19, not only in India but around the world. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives, are at providing stake. Providing no explanation whatsoever, the DGHS has overhauled its COVID-19 treatment guidelines and removed almost all of the repurposed medicines it had previously recommended for treating asymptomatic and mild cases. They include the antibiotic doxycycline, hydroxychloroquine zinc, ivermectin and even multivitamins. The only medicines that are still recommended for early treatment are cold medicines, antipyretics such as paracetamol and inhaled budesonide.

“No other covid-specific medication [is] required,” say the new guidelines, which also discourage practitioners from prescribing unnecessary tests such as CT scans. “Patients are advised to seek tele consultation; and Covid-19 appropriate behaviour must be observed such as mask, strict hand hygiene and physical distancing… [Patients are also advised to maintain] a healthy diet with proper hydration… [and] to stay connected [with family] and engage in positive talks through phone, video-calls, etc.”

The decision to remove ivermectin, multivitamins and zinc from the treatment guidelines is hard to comprehend given the current state of play in India — unless, of course, you assume After suffering one of the worst covid-19 outbreaks since the pandemic began, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, India is not just flattening the curve, it is crushing it. And the widespread use of ivermectin, a potent anti-viral and anti-inflammatory with an excellent safety profile, appears to have played an instrumental role.

Read more …

“..in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally..”

Oh, Once Again Right -Rank Corruption And Lies (Denninger)

“In the case of the gain-of-function supercharge, other sequences could have been spliced into this same site. Instead of a CGG-CGG (known as double CGG) that tells the protein factory to make two arginine amino acids in a row, you’ll obtain equal lethality by splicing any one of 35 of the other two-word combinations for double arginine.” Yep. And here’s the rub – while this is a “preferred” (lowest energy) combination for human cells it is not in other animals. Biology is a thermodynamic process as is everything else in the universe. For instance, your body prefers to burn glucose rather than fats; that is, the process by which ATP is generated prefers glucose or glycogen over lipids (fat.) Why? It’s easier, metabolically. If you are out of glycogen (what glucose is stored as), and those stores are very limited, then your body will burn fats.

In addition you body will not store fat (which also requires energy) until it fills up the glycogen stores for the same reason — it is more efficient. That’s thermodynamics folks — and everything in the universe follows those laws. That which is easier is always preferred over that which is harder, or another way to put it is that all things, absent input, go from higher energy states to lower ones. We call that “entropy” and it’s part and parcel of thermodynamics which tell us that there is no such thing as a free lunch – indeed, you can’t even break even. If the insertion takes place naturally, say through recombination, then one of those 35 other sequences is far more likely to appear; CGG is rarely used in the class of coronaviruses that can recombine with CoV-2.

In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here. A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus. I did not know back in early 2020 that there were no other coronaviruses found naturally that had the CGG-CGG pairing. I did know that it was not the preferred coding for that amino acid in other potential candidate source or pass-through animals than humans, and it was on that basis that I put forward early in 2020 that the odds of this virus naturally jumping to humans as a result of infecting other animals was statistically non-existent since recombination in those animals with that pairing was impossible.

Oh sure, anything can happen, but the odds of it happening are basically nil. That was the basis on which I stated that I believed it was a lab leak; no other explanation was logical. But now we know that the most-common means by which viruses mutate, which occurs when one cell is infected by two or more viruses at once (called “recombination”) could not have occurred in humans at all as the viruses must be compatible to do that and all the other coronaviruses lack that sequence. Therefore it could not have happened that way; you can’t exchange for what’s not there. Could it have occurred by just wild random chance instead of recombination? Perhaps. But damned unlikely — like asteroid strike unlikely.

Read more …

A new twist: “Beyond protecting public health, the Constitution in no way recognizes a person’s right to jeopardize another’s life and health..”

From what I hear, resistance to vaccines is high here, as things go, they’ll never get above 50% vaccinated. But tourism!

Greek Leaders Take Stand On Mandatory Vaccination (K.)

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hinted Tuesday that the government could make vaccination against Covid-19 mandatory for healthcare professionals and nursing home carers. Speaking during a debate on a bill on the digital Covid certificate, Mitsotakis said that the government is mulling the mandatory vaccination of workers working in hospitals and clinics, as well as in elderly care units. “The government will make a decision in a sensitive manner, setting public health as a top priority,” he told lawmakers.


Earlier Tuesday, President Katerina Sakellaropoulou also weighed in on the issue of compulsory vaccination during a conversation with the premier at the Presidential Palace, saying that the Constitution does not give anyone the right to put the lives of others at risk. “Beyond protecting public health, the Constitution in no way recognizes a person’s right to jeopardize another’s life and health,” said Sakellaropoulou, previously a high-ranking judge who also served as president of the Council of State, Greece’s highest administrative court.

Read more …

Politics likes to push the responsibility onto the private sector.

Segregated Dining In NYC (DM)

Some bars and restaurants in New York City have begun segregating diners, creating separate seating areas where vaccinated customers can mingle while the unvaccinated have to remain outdoors or behind plexiglass. It came after bars were last month given the go-ahead by New York State to operate at 100% capacity and remain open until 4am. But while state law now says that vaccinated parties in bars and restaurants do not have to be socially distanced, bars must allow six feet of distancing or appropriate physical barriers for unvaccinated customers. It means that bars are under pressure to demand proof of vaccination to maximize the number of people who can fit inside.

And while the new policies might sound good in theory, they don’t make much sense from a legal, and, in some cases, a health standpoint. State laws do not require proof of vaccination at ‘indoor catered events of 250 or less’, meaning customers could just claim to be vaccinated to get better seats. And even if restaurants and bars could could enforce policies based on who is and who isn’t vaccinated, health experts say being indoors, segregated or not, presents the same risk of infection, particularly for the unvaccinated crowd. The policies seem to be taking different forms at different bars, with some reserving their indoor seating exclusively for the vaccinated in a bid to once again take full advantage of their indoor space.

Llama San in Manhattan’s West Village, for example, is asking that in order to seat its dining room close indoor capacity, diners are asked to provide proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test. ‘We believe this will help bring peace of mind to you and your guests to fully enjoy your dining experience with us,’ the restaurant says on its Resy. ‘Similarly, the entirety of our staff has been vaccinated or will provide frequent negative covid tests.’

Read more …

Daszak is everywhere.

Beijing’s Useful Idiots (Unherd)

Only now is acceptance emerging that the science establishment colluded to dismiss the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory, assisted by prominent experts with clear conflicts of interest, patsy politicians and a pathetic media that mostly failed to do its job. And yet, at the heart of this scandal lie some of the world’s most influential science journals. These should provide a forum for pulsating debate as experts explore and test theories, especially on something as contentious and fascinating as the possible origins of a global pandemic. Instead, some have played a central role in shutting down discussion and discrediting alternative views on the origins, with disastrous consequences for our understanding of events.

Many scientists have been dismayed by their actions. “It is very important to talk about the scientific journals — I think they are partially responsible for the cover-up,” said Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo, a leading French evolutionary biologist and key member of the Paris Group of scientists challenging the established view on these issues. The rejection of the lab leak hypothesis, she argues, in many places was not due to Trump’s intervention but the result of “respectable scientific journals not accepting to discuss the matter”.

The Paris Group, for instance, submitted a letter to The Lancet in early January signed by 14 experts from around the world calling for an open debate, arguing that “the natural origin is not supported by conclusive arguments and that a lab origin cannot be formally discarded”. This does not seem contentious. But it was rejected on the basis it was “not a priority for us”. When the authors queried this decision, it was reassessed and returned without peer review by editor-in-chief Richard Horton with a terse dismissal saying “we have agreed to uphold our original decision to let this go”. The authors ended up publishing their statement on a pre-print site.

Yet this is the same prestigious journal that published a now infamous statement early last year attacking “conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin“. Clearly, this was designed to stifle debate. It was signed by 27 experts but later turned out to have been covertly drafted by Peter Daszak, the British scientist with extensive ties to Wuhan Institute of Virology. To make matters worse, The Lancet then set up a commission on the origins — and incredibly, picked Daszak to chair its 12-person task force, joined by five others who signed that statement dismissing ideas the virus was not a natural occurrence.

Read more …

“Biden has signaled no desire to rush into the decades-long dispute.”

China, Russia to Take Up Korea Issue Together (NW)

China and Russia have signaled a greater desire to work together on the issues plaguing the neighboring Korean Peninsula amid uncertainties that continue to surround U.S. President Joe Biden’s approach to the region. A readout published Tuesday by the Chinese Foreign Ministry detailed a conversation the previous day between Special Representative on Korean Peninsula Affairs Liu Xiaoming and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov “to exchange views on the situation on the Korean Peninsula.” “Recognizing the cooperation on the Peninsula issue as a major component of the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era,” the statement said, “Liu reaffirmed China’s willingness to enhance communication and coordination with Russia in a joint effort to maintain peace and stability on the Peninsula, and play constructive roles in promoting the political settlement of the Peninsula issue.”

Morgulov “stressed that the two countries’ positions are highly consistent, and the cooperation on the Peninsula issue has been fruitful,” according to the Chinese side. “He also expressed the readiness of his country to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China through bilateral and multilateral channels to move the Peninsula situation to a more positive direction.” The Russian Foreign Ministry also shared an account of the call, during which the two sides were said to have “reaffirmed their mutual disposition to deepen cooperation between Russia and China in the interests of a comprehensive settlement of the problems of this subregion on the basis of existing joint initiatives.”

The exchange comes just over two weeks after Biden hosted South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House for their debut summit. While both leaders have eagerly sought to reemphasize their nations’ longstanding alliance, Moon has appealed to Biden to further a now-frozen peace process launched by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Nearly three years after the historic meeting between the two men, Biden inherits a U.S.-North Korea dialogue that has unraveled. Facing an array of domestic crises plaguing the economy, public health and civil society, as well as pressing foreign policy issues involving China, Russia and Iran, Biden has signaled no desire to rush into the decades-long dispute.

Read more …

Deep state.

Blinken Says 100s of Sanctions Will Remain on Iran Despite Talks (Antiwar)

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said even if the US rejoins the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, “hundreds” of sanctions would still remain on Iran, including Trump-era measures. “I would anticipate that, even in the event of a return to compliance with the JCPOA, hundreds of sanctions remain in place, including sanctions imposed by the Trump administration,” Blinken told a Senate hearing. Blinken’s remarks are just his latest bad faith comment about the indirect negotiations between the US and Iran that have been ongoing since April. Because the Biden administration refuses to lift all Trump-era sanctions, the talks are being dragged out.

Blinken and other Biden officials justify their refusal to lift all of Trump’s sanctions by claiming they will only lift measures that are “consistent” with the economic relief Iran expects from the JCPOA. “If they are not inconsistent with the JCPOA, they will remain unless and until Iran’s behavior changes,” Blinken said. The Trump administration imposed an enormous number of sanctions on Iran. Some were implemented over Tehran’s nuclear program, while others were put in place over claims of “terrorism” and alleged human rights violations. From the start of negotiations, the Biden administration has been clear that it is not going to lift all human rights and terror sanctions.

One terror-related measure the Biden administration is reportedly unwilling to lift is the designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a “foreign terrorist organization.” But the IRGC designation is a sweeping measure, as it subjects current and former members of the military organization to US sanctions. Keeping the IRGC designation would likely not be acceptable to Tehran, especially after the June presidential elections, when Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is expected to be replaced by a more hardline candidate.

Read more …

“The DOJ is said to be after a host of materials that would have been used during the pitching process to publishers – including various contracts and documents.”

Federal Prosecutors Subpoena Material From Andrew Cuomo’s Book (DM)

The U.S. Department of Justice has subpoenaed material connected to a memoir written by the Democratic governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, as part of an investigation into a possible cover-up of COVID deaths in the state’s nursing homes. Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York are said to have requested communications associated with Cuomo’s book, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic. The DOJ is said to be after a host of materials that would have been used during the pitching process to publishers – including various contracts and documents. The subpoenas have been issued as prosecutors continue to probe the the details of the nursing home debacle which was discussed in the memoir.

The governor’s office has been under multiple investigations as to a possible cover-up of the true number of deaths in nursing homes that could be attributed to COVID-19. State officials who helped with the editing of early versions of Cuomo’s book were among the individuals who received subpoenas for materials, The Wall Street Journal reported. It’s thought prosecutors might be interested in book-related materials because they will have captured a real-time snapshot of Cuomo’s work surrounding nursing homes. ‘If reflections memorialized in records and notes are inconsistent with what he was saying publicly or with disclosures to health or government officials, that is potentially problematic,’ said Michael Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor to the Journal.

Republican lawmakers have accused Cuomo’s administration of intentionally manipulating and obscuring the COVID fatality data. The data saw the intentional undercounting of thousands of deaths, in New York’s assisted-living facilities in an attempt to shield the governor from political criticism. Federal prosecutors began a criminal investigation into the governor’s alleged mismanagement of the state’s nursing homes during the pandemic in February. One month earlier, a report from New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office suggested that nursing home deaths were potentially undercounted by as much as half.

Read more …

A start?!

US State Sues To Have Google Declared A Public Utility (Y!)

The state of Ohio on Tuesday filed an unprecedented lawsuit calling on a local court to declare Google as much a public utility as an electric company. Google should be designated a public utility subject to government regulation regarding its search engine and other services, Ohio attorney general Dave Yost contended in the legal filing. Public utilities supply essential goods or services such as water or power, and are often effectively monopolies. “When you own the railroad or the electric company or the cellphone tower, you have to treat everyone the same and give everybody access,” Yost said in a release announcing the suit. Yost accused Google of favoring its own products, websites, and services in search results, putting competitors at a disadvantage. Google said the lawsuit had no basis in fact and that it will defend itself in court.


“AG Yost’s lawsuit would make Google Search results worse and make it harder for small businesses to connect directly with customers,” a company spokesman said in reply to an AFP inquiry. “Ohioans simply don’t want the government to run Google like a gas or electric company.” Ohio late last year was among some three dozen US states that filed a federal lawsuit accusing Google of abusing its market dominance. That case is still pending. France’s competition regulator fined Google 220 million euros ($267 million) on Monday for favoring its own services for placing online ads at the expense of rivals, as US tech giants face growing pressure in Europe and the United States. The penalty is part of a settlement reached after three media groups – News Corp, French daily Le Figaro and Belgium’s Groupe Rossel — accused Google in 2019 of abusing a dominant market position over ad sales for their websites and apps.

Read more …

 

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Magnets

 

 

 

 

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Apr 092021
 


Willem de Kooning Rosy-fingered Dawn at Louse Point 1963

 

 

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on Thursday issued a controversial ruling in a case brought by Czech families concerning vaccination of children against a number of diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and measles.

The court said that “the compulsory vaccines administered by Czech health authorities were in line with the “best interests” of children. “The objective has to be that every child is protected against serious diseases, through vaccination or by virtue of herd immunity.” It ruled that the Czech health policy was not in violation of Article 8 on the right to respect for private life in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights. Summit News:

European Court of Human Rights Rules That Mandatory Vaccinations Are Legal

Mandatory vaccinations “could be regarded as being ‘necessary in a democratic society’,” the court judgment read. Although not directly related to COVID, the ruling could have significant implications given current debates over vaccine passports and whether workers in some jobs should be forced to take the vaccine as a condition of employment. This judgment “reinforces the possibility of a compulsory vaccination under conditions of the current COVID-19 epidemic,” Nicolas Hervieu, a legal expert specializing in the ECHR, told AFP.

I liked that one of the Czech cases, from 2006, involved a girl expelled from school because she didn’t have a vaccination, and was therefore judged to be a risk to all other children, who had all been vaccinated. Since that makes zero sense, we must presume something else might have been going on.

Still, I don’t think that the judgment “reinforces the possibility of a compulsory vaccination under conditions of the current COVID-19 epidemic.” For one thing, no politician who likes their job wants to drag children from their homes to get injected.

But more importantly, the diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and measles vaccines are actual vaccines, that have been properly tested and approved. While none of the currently used Covid “vaccines” have. Is anyone going to make untested and unapproved substances mandatory? If so, someone is going to get themselves a good lawyer.

Mandatory vaccination is a legal nightmare no matter what, but in this particular case, it would appear to be DOA. Still, there are other avenues. They can, through vaccine passports, attempt to exclude you from social activities, including shopping. These passports always say a negative test is good too, but only if your test is less than, say, a day old. And you mostly have to pay for it yourself.

And even if you do, and you test negative 100 times, you still lose out to someone who has been injected with untested and unapproved substances of which nobody has shown any evidence that they will protect you from infection, or from infecting others. Bizarro world meets Kafka. If you work in sectors like travel and hospitality, forget about having a choice.

The ECHR ruled that the Czech health policy was not in violation of Article 8 on the right to respect for private life in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights. But how about Unesco’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, to which all countries involved are also signatories?

 

I quoted Greek political scientist and lawyer Nelly Psarrou in The One Year Emergency on February 4:

1. Vaccination, like any medical action, requires citizen consent. Consent is not regarded as valid if it is not fully informed, nor “if it is the result of deceit, fraud or threat, or conflicts with the demands of decency” (Medical Code of Ethics, Greek law 3418/2005). Failing this, the consent is waived and the person/body who has exerted the pressure or extortion to vaccinate is subject to penal sanctions and/or civil damages in the event of harm.

2. Vaccination is not a prerequisite for the exercise of any other institutional requirement, such as education or otherwise recognized basic right such as the right to employment and free movement. Correspondingly, no private company has the legal authority to impose restrictions violating citizens’ constitutional rights. Discrimination and Stigmatization are forbidden (Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, UNESCO). Moreover, imposition of a medical action in any manner constitutes torture and is illegal.

 

That Declaration literally says:

Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights


Article 3 – Human dignity and human rights

1. Human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms are to be fully respected.

2. The interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.

Article 4 – Benefit and harm

In applying and advancing scientific knowledge, medical practice and associated technologies, direct and indirect benefits to patients, research participants and other affected individuals should be maximized and any possible harm to such individuals should be minimized.

Article 5 – Autonomy and individual responsibility

The autonomy of persons to make decisions, while taking responsibility for those decisions and respecting the autonomy of others, is to be respected. For persons who are not capable of exercising autonomy, special measures are to be taken to protect their rights and interests.

Article 6 – Consent

1. Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.

2. Scientific research should only be carried out with the prior, free, express and informed consent of the person concerned. The information should be adequate, provided in a comprehensible form and should include modalities for withdrawal of consent. Consent may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without any disadvantage or prejudice. Exceptions to this principle should be made only in accordance with ethical and legal standards adopted by States, consistent with the principles and provisions set out in this Declaration, in particular in Article 27, and international human rights law.

3. In appropriate cases of research carried out on a group of persons or a community, additional agreement of the legal representatives of the group or community concerned may be sought. In no case should a collective community agreement or the consent of a community leader or other authority substitute for an individual’s informed consent.

Seems obvious enough. Bring on the lawyers.

 

PS I admit I stole the title for this essay from a tweet by longtime partner in crime Dave Collum. It has little to do with the matter at hand, but it’s just genius. And since I’m apparently getting a good lawyer anyway, sue me Collum.

 

 

 

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, you are now not just a reader, but an integral part of the process that builds this site. Thank you for your support.

 

 

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