Nov 162021
 
 November 16, 2021  Posted by at 9:48 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  95 Responses »


Francisco Goya The straw mannequin 1791-92

 

Who Will Answer? (Kunstler)
The Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine Monopoly: The Backstory (Kogon)
New Type Of Covid-19 Vaccine In The Works (RT)
Austria’s Greatest Olympian Quits Politics As Lockdown For Unvaxxed Starts (RT)
Why Have We Doctors Been Silent? (Wilk)
Biden’s Moribund Vaccine Mandate (AS)
Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccination Up to 9 Months (Lancet PP)
Gibraltar Cancels Christmas Celebrations Amid Covid Spike (Exp.)
Brits Will Need 3 Jabs to Be Considered ‘Fully Vaccinated’ -PM (ET)
Gavin Newsom Is Lying About His Vaccine Injury And Now I Can Prove It (Kirsch)
Fauci, Gates Admit COVID Vaccines Don’t Work as Advertised (CHD)
160,000 US Military Families Struggling With Food Insecurity (JTN)
Bitcoin’s Mysterious Inventor May Be Revealed In Court (RT)

 

 

Ryan Cole: Vaccines weaken immune systems

 

 



SARS-CoV-2 is a highly transmissible aerosolized cytotoxic chimeric quasispecies RNA virus.
You’re not gonna get a worthwhile vaccine out of it.
In any form.
Ever.

 

 

“One wonders: is this child vax campaign an attempt to eliminate the last major control group in the population?”

Who Will Answer? (Kunstler)

Did all that vaxxing help? It apparently did nothing to prevent transmission of the disease. The vaxxed were spreading it as effectively as the unvaxxed, and the vaxxed were catching the disease as easily, too, though supposedly suffering not as badly as the unvaxxed (if you choose to believe the official press releases, and why would you believe them?). Then, along came the reports of “adverse reactions” to the vaccines, many of them quite grave — clots, strokes, infarctions, neurological havoc, organ failure. In mid-October this year, the VAERS registry had it at 17,000 deaths and 26,000 permanent disabilities, and the rule-of-thumb was that these represented only 10 percent of the actual number of adverse events because the VAERS website was so badly designed that it crashed half the time any doctor tried to use it… plus the doctors were being silenced and punished for voicing any distrust of the vaccines.

Then why the mad rush to vaccinate all the children in America? There have been next-to-zero covid deaths among children besides a few hundred with grave co-morbidities like cancer or cystic fibrosis — and the hospitals had a cash subsidy incentive from the federal government to list them as dying “with Covid.” Children are far more likely to suffer harm from the vaccines than from the Covid-19 disease. The child vax experiment is only just underway, and there are already enough cases of myocarditis and other disorders to be very concerned. The medical establishment has no idea what the long-term effects on children might be, in particular on their reproductive systems, since the chief active ingredient in the vaccines, the spike protein, has a proclivity for the sexual organs. It happens, too, by the way, that mothers who got vaxxed in early 2021 are just now giving birth to babies with myocarditis and other signature disorders of adverse mRNA vaccine reactions. Keep your eye on that sub-plot of the story.

One wonders: is this child vax campaign an attempt to eliminate the last major control group in the population? (Or just to eliminate a big demographic chunk altogether?) Is it tied in some way to beating the release date for Pfizer’s “Comirnaty” vaccine — which would vacate the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) that protects the pharma companies from liability? Despite delirious propaganda from the likes of National Public Radio, the bad news is out, and the bad news is that the Covid vaccines for children are bad news. Parents ought to object to any official attempts to coerce them into vaxxing their kids, but will they? I’d guess that the reaction will be ferocious. Stand by on that.

Meanwhile, what would be an intelligent response to Covid-19 at this point? Well, how about letting it burn through the population as expeditiously as possible, along with an aggressive nationwide early treatment program using existing effective drugs such as ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, fluvoxamine, budesonide, monoclonal antibodies, for starters, along with vitamin D3, quercetin, zinc, selenium, N-acetyl L-cysteine (NAC)? That would minimize fatalities and confer superior natural immunity throughout the whole population.

Read more …

“But if Pfizer did not rule the world two years ago, how did it come to rule the world today?”

The Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine Monopoly: The Backstory (Kogon)

The notion that vaccine mandates and related measures to compel vaccination are the product of the influence of “Big Pharma” on governments is a commonplace among the critics of such measures. Moreover, with the Pfizer vaccine going from one regulatory success to another and increasingly dominating the Covid-19 vaccine market in both the United States and continental Europe (not to mention Israel, whose vaccination campaign has consisted almost exclusively of Pfizer), it is clear that what is really meant today by “Big Pharma” must be Pfizer and Pfizer alone. Following negative media coverage of adverse effects (in particular, thrombosis) and, in some cases, regulatory intervention on the part of national supervisory agencies, both of the other actual “Big Pharma” alternatives, AstraZeneca in the EU and Johnson & Johnson in the EU and the US, have been relegated to the status of bit players outside of the United Kingdom.

It would appear that in the West at least, we are moving toward a virtual Covid-19 vaccine monopoly for Pfizer. Even the Covid vaccine of Moderna – a company that famously had never brought a drug to market previously and hence that could hardly be described as “Big Pharma” – is increasingly coming under scrutiny for causing myocarditis in young males and its use is being restricted to people under 30 in a whole series of European countries. Pfizer, by contrast, has remained untouched. This even though myocarditis is a widely-reported and officially acknowledged adverse effect of both mRNA vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer, even though recent statistical analysis by the CDC, at any rate, found no “significant difference” in reported myocarditis between the two vaccines for males 18-25, and even though there is evidence that Moderna provides longer-lasting protection (the effectiveness of the vaccine even being twice that of Pfizer six months on, according to this recent study [p. 11]).

What greater proof of the inordinate power of “Big Pharma” – i.e. Pfizer – could there be? But if Pfizer did not rule the world two years ago, how did it come to rule the world today? Moreover, as many Americans will only have discovered when the FDA’s full approval of the “Pfizer” vaccine was given not to Pfizer, after all, but to BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH of Mainz, Germany, the actual developer of the so-called “Pfizer” vaccine is precisely Pfizer’s German partner BioNTech. This is already evident indeed from the codename of the vaccine: BNT162b2. Needless to say, “BNT” does not stand for Pfizer. The partnership agreement between the two firms likewise makes abundantly clear that BNT162b2 is BioNTech’s vaccine. Thus, apart from its own direct proceeds from sales of the vaccine, BioNTech receives “up to double-digit tiered royalty payments” from Pfizer on the latter’s sales of the vaccine in Pfizer’s assigned territories.

This is in addition to “$120 million in upfront, equity and near-term research payments and up to an additional $305 million in potential development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments”. (See BioNTech press release here.) BioNTech, incidentally, has a similar agreement with Fosun Pharma for commercializing its vaccine in China. Now, far from being “Big Pharma,” prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, BioNTech was still, in effect, a small, struggling start-up, which, like Moderna, had yet to bring a product to market. BioNTech’s own 2019 annual report filing to the SEC describes the company as follows: “We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with no pharmaceutical products approved for commercial sale.”

The filing continues frankly, “We have incurred significant losses since our inception and we anticipate that we will continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future….” Thus, in the 2nd quarter of 2020, BioNTech had only 41.8 million euros in (non-product) revenues and losses of more than twice that amount (88.3 million euros). Thanks to its Covid-19 vaccine, however, one year later, in the 2nd quarter of 2021, its revenues had rocketed to 5.31 billion euros – a more than 100-fold increase! – of which over three-quarters (4 billion euros) is profit. As the economist Carsten Brzeski of the Dutch bank ING put it to Reuters, BioNTech had gone “from 0 to 100 in just a year.” BioNTech’s recently announced 3rd quarter results show estimated revenues of over 6 billion euros and gross profits of nearly 4.7 billion euros.

Read more …

Always, as long as there’s money to be made.

New Type Of Covid-19 Vaccine In The Works (RT)

A British company is moving towards phase 1 trials for its novel Covid-19 vaccine, which is applied as a skin patch and uses T-cells to fight back against the virus. In theory it offers longer-lasting protection. Speaking to The Guardian in an article published on Monday, Emergex Chief Commercial Officer Robin Cohen hailed the awarding of regulatory approval by Swiss authorities for allowing his Oxfordshire-based firm to push forward with the clinical trials. Cohen stated that it was the first time a regulator had approved a Covid-19 vaccine for clinical trials in which the vaccine’s sole purpose was to “generate a targeted T-cell response” rather than an antibody response.

While the antibody response, engendered by overcoming infection or the administration of one of the current cohorts of widely used vaccines, wanes over time, the Emergex skin patch could offer longer-lasting immunity – possibly for decades, according to Cohen. The COO claimed that the vaccine could be more effective too. Research published last week described a so-called “abortive infection” in which T-cells destroy the virus before it has the chance to settle in the body. However, Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told the Guardian that a T-cell vaccine was unlikely to be capable of providing complete cover against the virus, suggesting it could be used to complement an existing vaccine that generates an antibody response.

Altmann noted that the Pfizer vaccine elicits a weaker T-cell response than the AstraZeneca shot, but the former is considered more effective against Covid-19. Emergex’s skin patch vaccine will start its trial on January 3 after the Swiss drugs regulator granted approval for the 26-person test. Interim results from the trial are expected in June with some participants receiving higher doses than others. Cohen added that the skin patch vaccine would not be available until 2025 at the earliest, noting the normal timeframe for vaccine development.

Read more …

“I am deeply ashamed of our country and, as an Austrian, I am angry, sad and stunned at the same time.”

Austria’s Greatest Olympian Quits Politics As Lockdown For Unvaxxed Starts (RT)

Austria’s most successful Olympian, Felix Gottwald, has accused the government of discriminating and dividing by introducing a strict lockdown for the unvaccinated, causing the country’s Sports Minister to defend the measures. As of Monday, around two million Austrians who have not yet received their Covid vaccinations have been thurst into the initial 10-day measures with their country facing a rise in cases and strains on its public health system. They have received permission to leave their homes only for work or food shopping, with police carrying out spot checks across public spaces to determine vaccination status and dish out fines ranging from €500 ($572) to €1,450 ($1,650) for anyone caught breaching protocol or refusing to comply. “We are not taking this step lightly but unfortunately it is necessary,” said Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg.

In an open letter voicing his disgust at the move, three-time Olympic and triple world champion Gottwald has resigned from his role as chairman for popular sports while denouncing “division, agitation, [and] discrimination”, which he claims are “the government imperatives of the hour”. “After nine official months in this function, I can say that there may be a lot going on in our country, but certainly not about the health and well-being of Austrians and the people living in Austria – and that in the midst of the greatest health crisis,” the Nordic combined all-time great continued. “I am deeply ashamed of our country and, as an Austrian, I am angry, sad and stunned at the same time.”

A self-professed “healthy person who uses sensible and sensible measures to contain the pandemic very responsibly”, Gottwald took aim at the Minister of Sports, Werner Kogler, and said that he “would have the power to set levers in motion that promote, rather than prevent, exercise and (popular) sport in what is probably the greatest health crisis of our time”, with the unvaccinated unable to partake in such activities. “As an athlete, I have learned to deal with defeat and failure, to learn from them, to develop myself further and to treat myself and others with respect and dignity. I am currently missing these virtues entirely on the part of politics,” he stated. As Gottwald thanked party members and the Bundes-Sport GmbH organization which he was a part of, he admitted that he accepted that he had “failed” in his duties and felt unable to “continue as if I wasn’t aware of the unsportsmanlike and unhealthy developments surrounding this pandemic”, which he said “is not an option for me.”

Read more …

“A betrayal of the Nuremberg Code constitutes a crime against humanity.”

Why Have We Doctors Been Silent? (Wilk)

I have watched as ‘the science’ has been presented on the national stage flanked by Union Jack flags as an unassailable truth. For something so apparently inviolable, it seems to shift and change disconcertingly from week to week, and for those of us looking beneath the pomp to the plain data, we see the rather unexciting (and unchanging) truth: the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, as it turns out, has a much lower infection fatality rate than early predictions. It is less deadly than the seasonal flu in children. The Office for National Statistics has reported the mean age of a Covid-attributed death in the UK to be 80.3 years, slightly older than deaths from other causes (78.2 years over the comparable time period).

What has been most upsetting for me has been the unquestioning compliance from the medical community as increasingly draconian, non-evidence-based and destructive virus control measures have been implemented. Some of the overt corruption, financial conflict of interests and politicisation has been laid bare in editorials in prominent medical journals such as the BMJ. But the vast majority of doctors have had no interest in asking questions or looking further. My concern over our professional passivity turned to alarm as our compliance required us to support the roll-out of an experimental vaccine to a trusting population. Contrary to the basic tenets of evidence-based medicine, pronouncing an experimental medical intervention ‘safe and effective’ now does not seem to require any peer-reviewed evidence of safety or clinically meaningful efficacy.

The vaccines have not been shown in clinical trials to reduce transmission, hospitalisation or death. The phase 3 trials are not over and the safety data is not complete; the earliest trials will run into 2023. The consent form for the Covid-19 vaccine does not disclose its status as an unlicensed experimental product. The risks remain largely unknown, although it is becoming clear that the vaccine has resulted in death or injury in a rising number of healthy people. A growing number of vaccine-induced syndromes are being recognised, including immune thrombotic thrombocytopaenia, myocarditis and menstrual irregularities, among many others being published in the literature. At the time of writing, there have been more than 380,000 reports, 1.2million injuries and 1,700 fatalities submitted under the MHRA Yellow Card scheme.

The Prime Minister himself has communicated the latest evidence, that two doses of the vaccine do not stop one contracting the virus, nor do they stop person-to-person transmission, they merely reduce the severity of symptoms. Despite this, it is clear the public are being subjected to a relentless media campaign of shame and coercion, that they must take this experimental product ‘for the greater good’ lest they be viewed as selfish cowards. A vaccine passport is now likely to be rolled out under ‘Plan B’, which proposes to return unlawfully usurped fundamental human rights and freedoms to only the vaccinated. Workers in the care home sector have had their livelihoods tethered to their compliance with the vaccine mandates, and a recent announcement confirms that this will soon include NHS employees. Not only is there no scientific basis for these mandates, these coercive actions breach the Nuremberg Code, as does the unprecedented lack of animal safety data for a novel medical product. A betrayal of the Nuremberg Code constitutes a crime against humanity.

Read more …

“SCOTUS will concur with the 5th Circuit that this arbitrary edict is fatally flawed.”

Biden’s Moribund Vaccine Mandate (AS)

The Biden administration will inevitably ask the Supreme Court to review last Friday’s decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to halt its vaccine mandate. The effort is likely to be futile, however. Writing for the appeals court, Judge Kurt Engelhardt confidently predicted that the mandate’s challengers “are likely to succeed on the merits” under judicial review. Engelhardt took particular exception to the attempt to impose the mandate through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), pointing out that the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and the nondelegation doctrine preclude OSHA from making such “sweeping pronouncements on matters of public health affecting every member of society in the profoundest of ways.”

The decision also declared the mandate “fatally flawed on its own terms,” emphasizing that it purports to “save employees with 99 or more coworkers from a ‘grave danger’ in the workplace, while making no attempt to shield employees with 98 or fewer coworkers from the very same threat.” This seriously undermined the administration’s claim that the purpose of the mandate is a response to a genuine national emergency: “The underinclusive nature of the Mandate implies that the Mandate’s true purpose is not to enhance workplace safety, but instead to ramp up vaccine uptake by any means necessary.” This created questions concerning OSHA’s use of the emergency temporary standard (ETS):

As the name suggests, emergency temporary standards “are an ‘unusual response’ to ‘exceptional circumstances.’” Thus, courts have uniformly observed that OSHA’s authority to establish emergency temporary standards under § 655(c) “is an ‘extraordinary power’ that is to be ‘delicately exercised’ in only certain ‘limited situations.’” But the Mandate at issue here … is a one-size fits-all sledgehammer that makes hardly any attempt to account for differences in workplaces (and workers) that have more than a little bearing on workers’ varying degrees of susceptibility to the supposedly “grave danger” the Mandate purports to address.

The appeals court goes on to point out that President Biden and OSHA have both undermined the legitimacy of the mandate by contradicting their own prior positions concerning the need to impose such a measure. Judge Engelhardt quotes Biden’s answer to a question posed to him on December 4 of last year concerning whether vaccines should be mandatory: “No, I don’t think [they] should be mandatory. I wouldn’t demand it be mandatory…” The judge also quotes a D.C. Circuit Brief filed by OSHA in May of 2020: “Based on substantial evidence … an ETS is not necessary both because there are existing OSHA and non-OSHA standards that address COVID-19 and because an ETS would actually be counterproductive.”

Read more …

“..47% [..] at day 121..”

Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccination Up to 9 Months (Lancet PP)

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using Swedish nationwide registries. The cohort comprised 842,974 pairs (N=1,684,958), including individuals vaccinated with 2 doses of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, mRNA-1273, or BNT162b2, and matched unvaccinated individuals. Cases of symptomatic infection and severe Covid-19 (hospitalization or 30-day mortality after confirmed infection) were collected from 12 January to 4 October 2021.


Findings: Vaccine effectiveness of BNT162b2 against infection waned progressively from 92% (95% CI, 92-93, P<0·001) at day 15-30 to 47% (95% CI, 39-55, P<0·001) at day 121-180, and from day 211 and onwards no effectiveness could be detected (23%; 95% CI, -2-41, P=0·07). The effectiveness waned slightly slower for mRNA-1273, being estimated to 59% (95% CI, 18-79) from day 181 and onwards. In contrast, effectiveness of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 was generally lower and waned faster, with no effectiveness detected from day 121 and onwards (-19%, 95% CI, -97-28), whereas effectiveness from heterologous ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 / mRNA was maintained from 121 days and onwards (66%; 95% CI, 41-80). Overall, vaccine effectiveness was lower and waned faster among men and older individuals. For the outcome severe Covid-19, effectiveness waned from 89% (95% CI, 82-93, P<0·001) at day 15-30 to 42% (95% CI, -35-75, P=0·21) from day 181 and onwards, with sensitivity analyses showing notable waning among men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities.

Interpretation: Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 infection wanes progressively over time across all subgroups, but at different rate according to type of vaccine, and faster for men and older frail individuals. The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months, although not for men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities. This strengthens the evidence-based rationale for administration of a third booster dose.

Read more …

“Gibraltar; the most vaccinated region on Earth (100% fully vaccinated, 40% boosted) has now cancelled Christmas due to “exponential” rise in cases.”

Gibraltar Cancels Christmas Celebrations Amid Covid Spike (Exp.)

While the government has called upon the public to “exercise their own judgement”, they have “strongly” advised against any social events for at least the next four weeks, discouraging people from holding private Christmas events. Gibraltar has seen a steady increase in active cases of COVID-19 throughout October and November, which has gained pace over the past few days. Health Minister, the Hon Samantha Sacramento, described the increase in case numbers as “drastic”, encouraging people to come forward to receive their booster vaccine. The government has advised members of the public to wear masks, avoid large gatherings and maintain social distancing. They also advised people to “conduct themselves in a cautious and sensible manner”, reminding the public that “we are still in a global pandemic and that people are losing their lives every day all over the world.”


Gibraltar has seen an average of 47 cases per day over the last seven days. The country saw 124 new cases appear over the weekend, taking the number of active cases to 474. Ms Sacramento said: “The drastic increase in the numbers of people testing positive for COVID-19 in recent days is a stark reminder that the virus is still very prevalent in our community and that it is the responsibility of us all to take every reasonable precaution to protect ourselves and our loved ones. “The vaccination programme for 12 to 15-year-olds and the booster vaccination programme are now underway, and Gibraltar received 4680 more doses this week. “Everyone who is eligible for a vaccine or a booster is strongly encouraged to take up the offer when they are called.”

Read more …

Cheaper by the dozen?

Brits Will Need 3 Jabs to Be Considered ‘Fully Vaccinated’ -PM (ET)

People will need to have COVID-19 booster shots on top of the original two doses to be considered “fully vaccinated” in the UK, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday. At a Downing Street press briefing, Johnson said the concept of what constitutes “full vaccination” will need to be adjusted. “On boosters, it’s very clear that getting three jabs—getting your booster—will become an important fact and it will make life easier for you in all sorts of ways, and we will have to adjust our concept of what constitutes a full vaccination to take account of that,” he said. “As we can see from what’s happening, the two jabs sadly do start to wane, so we’ve got to be responsible and we’ve got to reflect that fact in the way we measure what constitutes full vaccination.”


Johnson said the government will be making plans to add the booster to the digital COVID-19 passport issued by the National Health Service. The prime minister urged people to get the booster jab as soon as they are eligible. “It would be an utter tragedy if, after everything we have been through, people who had done the right thing by getting double vaccinated ended up becoming seriously ill or even losing their lives because they allowed their immunity to wane,” he said. Earlier on Monday, the UK government accepted the advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to extend the booster vaccine programme to include people aged 40 to 49. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: “We know immunity to COVID-19 begins to wane after six months and new data published today shows a third dose boosts protection against symptomatic infection to more than 90 percent—this highlights just how important it is that everyone eligible gets their top-up jabs as soon as possible.”

Read more …

Not Kirsch’s strongest outing. But I guess it’s not his fault that a previous piece on Newsom is his most viewed yet.

Gavin Newsom Is Lying About His Vaccine Injury And Now I Can Prove It (Kirsch)

Recently, I wrote a very popular article about Gavin Newsom being vaccine injured. It got over 250K views, my most popular article so far. As expected, Newsom denied it: Naturally, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and Newsweek immediately “fact checked” my article and deemed it to be false. Of course, none of them could explain why Newsom was a no-show at the UN Climate summit via Zoom. Not even for 5 minutes via Zoom!?! Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Not a very thorough fact check. And none of the organizations analyzed the before and after Newsom videos either by asking a prominent neurologist for their opinion. I guess it is hard to find competent help in the fact checking department nowadays.

Not only was Newsom himself vaccine injured and deliberately covered it up, but I found out that his kids aren’t vaccinated either. Want to know why? Because his wife is smart: she knows that vaccines are dangerous. She doesn’t want his kids to be vaccine injured. And she’s right! Good for her. Bravo! But Gavin’s stance is horrible. He’s not just suggesting how you should care for your kids. The governor is dictating medical treatment for your kids based on what he believes. But for his own kids? No way are they going to get vaccinated. He said, “Public or private, they have to be vaccinated.” I don’t have a problem with Gavin recommending vaccination. Everyone makes mistakes. But he has no right to force your child to do what he wants even if the vaccine was perfectly safe (which it isn’t). And it’s hypocritical to force you to vaccinate your kids when he won’t vaccinate his own kids.


[..] Here’s how I am going to prove to the world I’m right: Gavin, I’m willing to bet you $1M that I’m right about you being vaccine injured and that you are lying about the injury and covering it up. We don’t have to drag your kids into it. Will you take my bet? All I need is for you to disclose the names of all doctors who were involved in any way in your vaccine injury treatment within 21 days of the booster and an order from you demanding that all of these doctors disclose to me any and all vaccine-related conversations, emails, notes, and/or medical records regarding you and your vaccine side effects in the 21 days after you got your booster and give me permission to disclose that information publicly. That’s it. Easy peasy. If you were telling the truth, you have absolutely nothing to lose. You will provide no list of doctors and your doctors will not be able to tell me anything since there is nothing to tell and no records to produce! There will be nothing to disclose.

Read more …

“..waning to the point where booster doses will become “essential” for everyone.”

Fauci, Gates Admit COVID Vaccines Don’t Work as Advertised (CHD)

In two recent interviews, pandemic thought leaders Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates drastically changed their opinions on COVID vaccine effectiveness — and used their newfound concerns to push booster shots for the general population. Last week, in an interview with Jeremy Hunt at London’s Policy Exchange, Gates admitted what many, including the Lancet, have been saying for months — that the vaccines aren’t effective. Gates, who previously referred to the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines as “magic,” told Hunt “we need a new way of doing the vaccines.” Only days later, Fauci echoed similar sentiments during a New York Times podcast. Fauci said the COVID vaccine’s effectiveness against infection, hospitalization and even death, for all age groups, is waning to the point where booster doses will become “essential” for everyone.

Fauci said: “I think the boosting is going to be an absolutely essential component of our response, not a bonus, not a luxury, but an absolute essential part of the program.” Fauci said authorities are observing vaccine waning “involving all age groups.” Making his case for a wider booster program, he told The Times the vaccines are “waning to the point that you’re seeing more and more people getting breakthrough infections, and more and more of those people who are getting breakthrough infections are winding up in the hospital.” Today in the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson similarly spoke of widening the UK’s COVID booster program.

“Getting three jabs or getting your booster will become an important fact … We will have to adjust our concept of what constitutes a full vaccination,” he told Britans. The mainstream media also is priming the public for an unknown number of additional COVID shots. Sunday, Bloomberg reported: “It may turn out that the term ‘booster’ is a bit of a misnomer, and that the correct number of shots for maximum efficacy isn’t yet known.” If Gates and Fauci coordinated their latest COVID vaccine messaging, to manufacture consent for wider uptake of COVID vaccines through booster programs, it wouldn’t be the first time the two have collaborated closely on vaccines.

Read more …

“We’re the mightiest military on the face of the earth..”

You sure?

160,000 US Military Families Struggling With Food Insecurity (JTN)

At least 160,000 active-duty military members are struggling to feed their families, according to Feeding America, which coordinates over 200 food banks across the country. It is unknown what the exact scope of the issue is, as there have been no formal studies. But activists say it has continued for years, mostly with junior-level enlisted service members — ranks E1 to E4 in military parlance — who have children, The Associated Press reported. “It’s a shocking truth that’s known to many food banks across the United States,” said Feeding America’s government relations officer, Vince Hall. “This should be the cause of deep embarrassment.” During the previous year, 29% of military members faced food insecurity, according to an estimate by Feeding America.

Junior enlisted ranks receive modest pay and have to frequently move, making it difficult for their spouses to maintain a job, the AP reported. There is a significant network of military-adjacent charitable organizations, like Blue Star Families and the Armed Services YMCA, that have created an infrastructure of food banks near the majoriy of most domestic bases. Military families living outside of base grounds receive a Basic Allowance for Housing to help cover the majority of their costs. But the 2008 Food and Nutrition Act counts the allowance as income when calculating food stamps eligibility, which results in disqualifying thousands of military families. However, the allowance does not count as income with WIC benefits for mothers and children or for tax reasons.

“It’s one of these things that the American people don’t know about, but it’s a matter of course among military members. We know this,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a former Blackhawk pilot who lost both of her legs in a helicopter crash in Iraq. “We’re the mightiest military on the face of the earth and yet those who are on the lower rung of our military ranks are — if they are married and have a child or two– they’re hungry. How can you focus on carrying out the mission and defending our democracy. If you’re worried about whether or not your kid gets dinner tonight?”

Read more …

How do you reveal what you don’t know?

Bitcoin’s Mysterious Inventor May Be Revealed In Court (RT)

The true identity of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, who has been one of the financial world’s enduring mysteries, could be finally unveiled in a Florida court, the Wall Street Journal reports.According to the media, a lawsuit is currently underway where the family of deceased man David Kleiman is suing his former business partner Craig Wright over control of their shared assets. The assets in question are a cache of about one million bitcoins (worth over $64 billion), belonging to bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright, a 51-year-old Australian programmer living in London, has been making statements since 2016 saying he created bitcoin. Those claims, however, have been strongly criticized and dismissed by most of the bitcoin community.

The family reportedly plans to provide evidence that Wright and Kleiman worked together since the cryptocurrency’s inception. “We believe the evidence will show there was a partnership to create and mine over one million bitcoins,” Kleiman family lawyer Vel Freedman told the WSJ. The defense aims to prove that Wright is the sole creator of bitcoin. “We believe the court will find there’s nothing to indicate or record that they were in a partnership,” Wright’s lawyer said. Some cryptocurrency experts still remain skeptical about whether Wright or Kleiman actually had the knowledge needed to create the world’s most prominent crypto token.

The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for the author of the white paper titled ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’ in 2008, remains a mystery. Various theories have emerged but to date nobody knows who Nakamoto is. One of the most celebrated candidates was a 64-year-old Japanese-American engineer from California named Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto. In 2014, he became the subject of an extensive Newsweek magazine report which purported to identify bitcoin’s inventor. The man, however, has denied any involvement with cryptocurrency.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Feb 142021
 
 February 14, 2021  Posted by at 10:22 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  12 Responses »


Edward Hopper Christmas card 1928

 

Only Seven GOP Senators Vote To Convict Trump (F.)
Trump’s Philly Lawyers Are Facing A Backlash At Home (Inq.)
Statement on Senate Impeachment Acquittal of Trump (Nader/Fein)
Newsom Recall Effort Has Enough Signatures To Trigger Special Election (JTN)
How To Understand The Rage Economy (IC)
Cuomo Didn’t Protect Seniors. But it Was the Media That Covered it Up (NW)
Patent For Secret Bat Cages At Wuhan Lab (DM)
India Finally Bans Cryptocurrencies (BTCPeers)
State Clears First Three Foreign Military Sales Of Biden Administration
Why Russia Is Driving The West Crazy (Escobar)
Opening the CIA’s Can of Worms (Edward Curtin)

 

 

 

 

As I said to friends earlier: A circus in which even the clowns are not funny. The Dems never really tried to win. When they all agreed on witnesses, the Dems reneged as soon as it was clear that Pelosi would be called.

Only Seven GOP Senators Vote To Convict Trump (F.)

The U.S. Senate on Saturday voted to acquit former President Donald Trump on charges of inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, with just 7 Senate Republicans siding with Democrats in voting to convict him. Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) voted with all Democrats to convict Trump on one article of impeachment. The article alleges the ex-president “engaged in high Crimes and Misdemeanors by inciting violence against the Government of the United States.” The result comes after a particularly tumultuous final day of an already chaotic trial in which senators voted to approve debates on calling witnesses, only to backtrack and swiftly conclude the proceedings hours later.

Trump’s acquittal was widely seen as a foregone conclusion, cemented further by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s announcement to Republican colleagues on Saturday that he would vote to let off the ex-president he has publicly condemned. “Whatever you came to Washington to do… This is almost certainly how you will be remembered by history,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead impeachment manager, had told senators before the vote. Trump became the first president to be impeached twice last month when the House passed the article of impeachment 232-197, with a historic 10 House Republicans breaking with their party and voting to impeach.

[..] Trump is not out of the woods yet, as he is facing legal scrutiny from prosecutors in several states. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is probing his finances and business practices, while prosecutors in Georgia have reportedly opened a criminal investigation into his call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he urged Georgia election officials to “find” votes for him.

Read more …

Mostly peaceful.

“Michael van der Veen hired 24-hour private security for his family after vandals smashed windows & spray-painted “TRAITOR” on the driveway of his..home Friday night. He told reporters Saturday he received more than 100 death threats.”

Trump’s Philly Lawyers Are Facing A Backlash At Home (Inq.)

If Donald Trump’s team of Philadelphia lawyers thought they’d get a reputational bump from defending a former president on the biggest stage of their careers, it hasn’t turned out that way. They won his acquittal Saturday at his second impeachment trial. But the backlash could end up following them for years. Members of the team described the five-day trial as a trying experience, from infighting between attorneys and second-guessing by Republican advisers in Washington, to derision hurled their way online and at their homes and offices. Michael van der Veen hired 24-hour private security for his family after vandals smashed windows and spray-painted “TRAITOR” on the driveway of his suburban Philadelphia home Friday night. He told reporters Saturday he received more than 100 death threats.

And they acknowledged being caught off guard by the level of rancor from Trump’s critics and supporters alike — even given the country’s fiercely divided politics and how other lawyers in his orbit have fared. “I’ve been representing controversial clients for 30 years, and I’ve never experienced this type of vitriol,” said William J. Brennan, another local member of the team whose past clients include priests accused of sexual abuse and judges facing corruption charges. “We had no political agenda here. We are not partisan warriors. We are criminal defense lawyers who represented a client.” Bruce L. Castor Jr., the former Montgomery County commissioner and district attorney, entered the week as the nominal leader of Trump’s team — a high-profile job that had some back home wondering if it could bolster a future run for statewide office.

Instead, his rocky, rambling opening performance Tuesday drew his client’s ire and turned him into an internet punchline. Conservative TV hosts, like Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, called him “terrible.” Sean Hannity responded: “You’re way too charitable.” Everything from his verbose delivery to his pin-striped suit became targets for social media mockery. Some used his performance to question the aptness of the term Philadelphia lawyer — a phrase inspired by Colonial-era attorney Andrew Hamilton that has long characterized an exceptionally shrewd attorney. Van der Veen — the head of Castor’s law firm, who took over the defense presentation Friday after Castor was sidelined — fared little better.

He delivered a more combative, incendiary performance, attacking Democrats for “hypocrisy” and what he described as “constitutional cancel culture.” His style was reportedly more to his client’s liking. But his testy, hectoring demeanor at the lectern turned him into a target, too. On Saturday, a small group of protesters gathered outside his Center City law firm. They left “VAN DER VEEN = LIAR” scrawled in chalk on the street. On Facebook, the firm’s page turned into a toxic stew of invective. “Michael van der Veen is ranting on my television screen — the new shame of Philadelphia,” one commenter wrote, as another added: “This entire firm should be shut down and every single one of you should lose your license.”

 

 

MVDV: “What happened at the Capitol on January 6 is absolutely horrific. But what happened at the Capitol during this trial was not too far away from that.”

Read more …

Pelosi didn’t want to be called, so no-one was?!

Tweet: “The Democrats went for cover when they found out that the Defense was going to call DC Mayor and Pelosi to testify. What are they hiding?”

Statement on Senate Impeachment Acquittal of Trump (Nader/Fein)

Donald J. Trump has once again circumvented justice, but not because of a want of facts or law. His life preserver was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to refrain from calling critical witnesses possessing “smoking gun” incriminating evidence at Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial. Her plan to abandon an Ace of Spades for a Two of Clubs to prove Mr. Trump’s guilt was upset by Republican freshman Congresswoman Jamie Herrera Butler (Wash.) who gave the Democrats an opportunity to subpoenas witnesses to testify under oath to fortify the video evidence introduced during the House Managers’ case in chief.

Ms. Butler’s disclosing a conversation with House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) proving President Trump’s endorsement of his mob’s resort to lethal force and violence to unconstitutionally prevent a peaceful transfer of presidential power precipitated a surprise 55-45 Senate vote this morning, including several Republicans, to entertain live witnesses. Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin (Maryland) appeared on NPR shortly before the Senate reconvened from a recess at 12:30 pm. The Senator declared that the impeachment trial would be continued for two weeks; and, that the only issue remaining for resolution between the prosecution and defense (then in private negotiations) was whether five witnesses for each side would be named or left open for later identification in a Senate witness resolution.

Mr. Cardin was clueless of the Democratic capitulation, snaring defeat from the jaws of victory. The House Managers and Mr. Trump’s defense team agreed to a stipulation to admit into the record a mere written statement by Congresswoman Butler, not delivered in person under oath or via a deposition. Not a single witness would be called.

Read more …

Schwarzenegger redux.

Newsom Recall Effort Has Enough Signatures To Trigger Special Election (JTN)

The growing effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom has reportedly secured enough signatures to trigger a special election, potentially setting up the first gubernatorial recall in that state in nearly two decades. Organizers have obtained 1.5 million signatures, more than enough to mandate a special election, Fox News reported on Saturday. The number was allegedly hit earlier this week. The state secretary will have to process the signatures first to ensure they are valid.


Newsom has faced extended criticism for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic—particularly his shutdown orders, which have at times been among the strictest in the nation—as well as a disastrous PR blunder last year when he was spotted mask-less and at a crowded dinner table in an indoor restaurant. The last California recall election took place in 2003; in that instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger successfully won the election after voters recalled Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.

Read more …

“..the fragmentation of the American public into a multitude of angry factions, radicalized in different ways online and holding completely different baseline perceptions of reality.”

How To Understand The Rage Economy (IC)

The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 underlined a disturbing phenomenon that has become undeniable at this point: the fragmentation of the American public into a multitude of angry factions, radicalized in different ways online and holding completely different baseline perceptions of reality. The problem of deliberate misinformation undermining democracy has received lots of attention, but in many ways, the power of fantastic lies to grab people’s allegiance is also a byproduct of a deeper problem: extreme polarization driven by news media monetizing anger in order to survive.

This phenomenon is at the core of what media ecologist and author Andrey Mir in a new book calls “postjournalism.” Mir’s book, titled “Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers,” is a sweeping look at how the news media evolved and shaped the world over hundreds of years, from newsletters for traders published in medieval Venice, Italy, to modern print newspapers, television, and finally the internet. For pretty much everyone, the news media is the major force that shapes how they perceive the world outside their direct experience. During an era when the main technology for producing and disseminating information changes, the world changes as well. For better or worse, we are living through one of those eras now.

The collective psychological impact of new technologies like social media has been written about in a wave of books over the past few years. Equally significant has been the underlying economic shift that has gradually transformed even traditional media outlets into something wholly different. Journalism traditionally relied on an advertising-based revenue model, and that economy also subtly incentivized a particular lens through which the world was depicted: an upbeat-as-possible, unifying worldview that made advertisers happy and promoted the needs of consumerism, even as it often overlooked or suppressed stories that fell outside its parameters.

When advertisers suddenly flocked to social media, the traditional economic model that underpinned the media and allowed even smaller papers to afford luxuries like foreign correspondents suddenly collapsed. Today established news outlets not only struggle to find advertisers after Facebook and Google swallowed up the market, but they must also compete with a seemingly infinite number of other websites, companies, and even individuals committing “acts of journalism” or just putting out entertainment, thus forcing them to battle for a finite slice of an attention economy that they cannot possibly corner.

The loss of the old advertising paradigm simply killed many local news outlets, which have shuttered at an incredible rate over the past decade. The surviving large organizations have sought desperately for a new model to support themselves. A lucky few have been able to rely on the patronage of philanthropists supporting journalism as a pure social good. But many others have been forced to do something not seen since the era of mass-produced penny tabloids: relying primarily on readers to support them through subscription and membership fees. As Mir argues, this change in the economic structure of the news media has quietly transformed what journalism itself is about, turning it from a theoretically neutral means of “manufacturing consent” into a political cause that people are rallied into supporting, usually by inciting them to some form of outrage.

Read more …

“It would prove a death sentence for thousands of seniors.”

Cuomo Didn’t Protect Seniors. But it Was the Media That Covered it Up (NW)

Things are not looking good for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. After receiving an Emmy “in recognition of his leadership” and writing a bestselling book called American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic, the toll Cuomo’s leadership has taken is finally emerging. On Thursday, the New York Post broke the story that Melissa DeRosa, one of the governor’s top aides, apologized to Democratic lawmakers for fudging the number of nursing home deaths from COVID for fear of being investigated.

Such an investigation was long overdue. One of the biggest scandals of the pandemic has been the number of nursing home deaths in New York City, many of them possibly linked to a March 25 directive from the Cuomo administration forcing nursing homes to take in people even if they had tested positive for COVID-19. It would prove a death sentence for thousands of seniors. And to fend off an investigation, the Cuomo administration underestimated the number of nursing home deaths by 40%. The true number was 15,000, not 9,056.

But this isn’t just a government scandal. It’s a media scandal. For while the Cuomo administration was sentencing seniors to death, the media was busy fawning over Cuomo in a series of softball interviews, many of them conducted by his own brother. Cuomo has been a television mainstay throughout the crisis, particularly on CNN where his brother, Chris Cuomo, is a host. But it wasn’t just his brother who fawned. A June interview with CNN’s Chris Cilizza provided Cuomo an opportunity to tout his performance while criticizing that of then-president Donald Trump and Republican governors who had not gone along with economy-crushing lockdowns. Cilizza was more than happy to assist.

“We tested both theories,” Cuomo told Cilizza. “We have the evidence. It’s numbers. It’s irrefutable. Why don’t we pause and recognize the undeniable reality of the situation?” “On the numbers, it’s hard to disagree,” Cilizza dutifully wrote. “On April 9, New York had almost 10,000 coronavirus cases in a single day, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. On Friday, it had just 673 cases statewide.” There would be no follow-up article when New York would hit over 14,000 cases in January. No review of what went wrong in Cuomo’s “undeniable reality.” No comparison to states that found a different “undeniable reality of the situation” and have objectively handled the COVID crisis better.

Read more …

What does the WHO hold back?

Patent For Secret Bat Cages At Wuhan Lab (DM)

The Chinese laboratory at the centre of suspicion over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic was awarded a patent for cages to hold live bats for testing just months before the virus started spreading. The revelation comes after the World Health Organisation last week backed Beijing’s line, saying that a leak from the institute was ‘highly unlikely’, while giving credence to theories that the virus had entered the country via frozen meat. The team included Peter Daszak, a British-born zoologist whose organisation EcoHealth Alliance has studied bat-borne viruses with Wuhan lab scientists for 15 years, and who has categorically denied that researchers keep the mammals for testing.

However, The Mail on Sunday has established that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) filed an application in June 2018 to patent ‘bat rearing cages’ which would be ‘capable of healthy growth and breeding under artificial conditions’. The patent, which has been seen by this newspaper, was granted in January 2019 – 11 months before Beijing reported that the first cases of the virus in the city had broken out just a few miles from the institute. A separate patent, filed by the institute on October 16, 2020, relates to the ‘artificial breeding method of wild bat’. The patent discusses cross- species transmission of SARS- CoV from bat to humans and other animals, saying: ‘Bats infected with the virus naturally or artificially have no obvious clinical symptoms, and the mechanism is unknown’.

It explicitly states that the method is for breeding bats for scientific experiments: ‘The invention aims to provide an artificial breeding method of wild bat predators, which aims at overcoming the defects in the prior art, and the wild bat predators are artificially domesticated, bred and passaged to establish an artificial breeding group, thereby providing a brand-new model experimental animal for scientific research.’ Responding to a question over whether researchers were keeping live bats, Mr Daszak tweeted in April last year: ‘The researchers don’t keep the bats, nor do they kill them. ‘All bats are released back to their cave site after sampling. It’s a conservation measure and is much safer in terms of disease spread than killing them or trying to keep them in a lab.’

Read more …

6 months to liquidate your assets.

India Finally Bans Cryptocurrencies (BTCPeers)

India has become the second country to outrightly ban Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This is coming after the Central Bank of Nigeria instructed all financial institutions in the country to block the accounts of all individuals and entities linked to cryptocurrency transactions. There has been a lot of drama surrounding India’s cryptocurrency stance. In 2018, the Reserve Bank of India issued a ban on all cryptocurrency transactions. The ban was lifted by the country’s Supreme Court in March 2020. In December 2020, government officials hinted that they were considering taxing Bitcoin transactions by up to 18%. Barely a month later and there were rumors that the country was mulling over banning all private cryptocurrencies.


Apparently, officials were serious about banning cryptocurrencies. Citing an unnamed senior finance ministry official, BloombergQuint disclosed the government’s move. However, according to the official, the ban would not be imposed overnight, as in the case of Nigeria. Instead, investors would be given three to six months to liquidate their investments. As per the report, India’s Parliament will proceed to introduce a law that bans the usage of cryptocurrencies in all forms, including restricting trading via foreign exchanges. On the flip side of India’s ban is Kenya, an East-African country that has proposed to make Bitcoin its base currency.

Read more …

BAU

State Clears First Three Foreign Military Sales Of Biden Administration

The Biden administration has approved three Foreign Military Sales requests for Jordan, Chile and a NATO agency, with a combined potential price tag of more than $200 million.] The approvals mark the first FMS cases moved since President Joe Biden took office. The last FMS cases approved by the State Department came in late December; the Biden team has since announced a pause and review of a number of weapon sales approved by the Trump administration, most notably on weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The three approvals were announced on the website of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. DSCA announcements mean that the State Department has decided the potential FMS cases meet its standards, but this does not guarantee the sales will happen in their announced forms.

If the U.S. Congress does not object, the foreign customer begins to negotiate on price and quantity, both of which can change during the final negotiations. Jordan was approved for an F-16 Air Combat Training Center and related equipment, with an estimated cost of $60 million. That package would include “mission trainers, combat tactics trainers, instructor/operator stations, tactical environment simulators, brief/debrief stations, scenario generation stations, database generation stations, mission observation centers, and other training center equipment and support,” per the DSCA notice. The center would “enhance” Jordan’s pilot training for their fleet of F-16s, the oldest of which entered service in 1997. Work will primarily be done at Lockheed Martin’s Rotary & Mission Systems center in Orlando, Fla.

Chile was approved to purchase up to 16 Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) Block IIIA missiles, along with support equipment and contractor assistance, with an estimate price tag of $85 million. The anti-air weapons are slated to be used aboard two recently transferred former Adelaide-class frigates to the Chilean Navy. Work would be preformed by Raytheon Missiles and Defense in Tucson, Ariz. The NATO alliance’s Communications and Information Agency to buy 517 AN/PRC-158 Manpack UHF SATCOM radio systems, worth an estimated $65 million. Also included in the package would be “crypto fill devices, man-portable ancillaries, vehicular ancillaries, deployed Headquarter ancillaries, power support, and operator and maintenance training,” per the DSCA notice.

Read more …

“The main problem we all face is the lack of normalcy in relations between Russia and the European Union – the two largest players in the Eurasian space. It is an unhealthy situation, which does not benefit anyone.”

Why Russia Is Driving The West Crazy (Escobar)

Future historians may register it as the day when usually unflappable Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov decided he had had enough: “We are getting used to the fact that the European Union is trying to impose unilateral restrictions, illegitimate restrictions and we proceed from the assumption at this stage that the European Union is an unreliable partner”. Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, on an official visit to Moscow, had to take it on the chin. Lavrov, always the perfect gentleman, added, “I hope that the strategic review that will take place soon will focus on the key interests of the European Union and that these talks will help to make our contacts more constructive.” He was referring to the EU summit of heads of state and government at the European Council next month, where they will discuss Russia.

Lavrov harbors no illusions the “unreliable partners” will behave like adults. Yet something immensely intriguing can be found in Lavrov’s opening remarks in his meeting with Borrell: “The main problem we all face is the lack of normalcy in relations between Russia and the European Union – the two largest players in the Eurasian space. It is an unhealthy situation, which does not benefit anyone.” The two largest players in the Eurasian space. Let that sink in. We’ll be back to it in a moment. As it stands, the EU seems irretrievably addicted to worsening the “unhealthy situation”. European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen memorably botched the Brussels vaccine game. Essentially, she sent Borrell to Moscow to ask for licensing rights for European firms to produce the Sputnik V vaccine – which will soon be approved by the EU.

And yet Eurocrats prefer to dabble in hysteria, promoting the antics of NATO asset and convicted fraudster Navalny – the Russian Guaido. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, under the cover of “strategic deterrence”, the head of the US STRATCOM, Admiral Charles Richard, casually let it slip that “there is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state.” So the blame for the next – and final – war is already apportioned to the “destabilizing” behavior of Russia and China. It’s assumed they will be “losing” – and then, in a fit of rage, will go nuclear. The Pentagon will be no more than a victim; after all, claims Mr. STRATCOM, we are not “stuck in the Cold War”.

Read more …

RFK, Jr.

Opening the CIA’s Can of Worms (Edward Curtin)

With the rise of alternate media and a wide array of dissenting voices on the internet, the establishment felt threatened and went on the defensive. It, therefore, should come as no surprise that those same elite corporate media are now leading the charge for increased censorship and the denial of free speech to those they deem dangerous, whether that involves wars, rigged elections, foreign coups, COVID-19, vaccinations, or the lies of the corporate media themselves. Having already banned critics from writing in their pages and or talking on their screens, these media giants want to make the quieting of dissenting voices complete. Just the other day The New York Times had this headline: “Robert Kennedy Jr. Barred From Instagram Over False Virus Claims.” Notice the lack of the word alleged before “false virus claims.” This is guilt by headline.

It is a perfect piece of propaganda posing as reporting, since it accuses Kennedy, a brilliant and honorable man, of falsity and stupidity, thus justifying Instagram’s ban, and it is an inducement to further censorship of Mr. Kennedy by Facebook, Instagram’s parent company. That ban should follow soon, as the Times’ reporter Jennifer Jett hopes, since she accusingly writes that RFK, Jr. “makes many of the same baseless claims to more than 300,000 followers” at Facebook. Jett made sure her report also went to msn.com and The Boston Globe. This is one example of the censorship underway with much, much more to follow. What was once done under the cover of omission is now done openly and brazenly, cheered on by those who, in an act of bad faith, claim to be upholders of the First Amendment and the importance of free debate in a democracy.

We are quickly slipping into an unreal totalitarian social order. Which brings me to the recent work of Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, both of whom have strongly and rightly decried this censorship. As I understand their arguments, they go like this. First, the corporate media have today divided up the territory and speak only to their own audiences in echo chambers: liberal to liberals (read: the “allegedly” liberal Democratic Party), such as The New York Times, NBC, etc., and conservative to conservatives (read” the “allegedly” conservative Donald Trump), such as Fox News, Breitbart, etc. They have abandoned old school journalism that, despite its shortcomings, involved objectivity and the reporting of disparate facts and perspectives, but within limits.

Since the digitization of news, their new business models are geared to these separate audiences since they are highly lucrative choices. It’s business-driven since electronic media have replaced paper as advertising revenues have shifted and people’s ability to focus on complicated issues has diminished drastically. Old school journalism is suffering as a result and thus writers such as Greenwald and Taibbi and Chris Hedges have taken their work to the internet to escape such restrictive categories and the accompanying censorship.

Secondly, the great call for censorship is not something the Silicon Valley companies want because they want more people using their media since it means more money for them, but they are being pressured to do it by the traditional old school media, such as The New York Times, who now employ “tattletales and censors,” people who are power-hungry jerks, to sniff out dissenting voices that they can recommend should be banned. Greenwald says, They do it in part for power: to ensure nobody but they can control the flow of information. They do it partly for ideology and out of hubris: the belief that their worldview is so indisputably right that all dissent is inherently dangerous ‘disinformation.’”

Read more …

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in 2021. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.