Feb 232022
 


Pablo Picasso Le pigeon aux petits pois (Pigeon with Peas) – stolen May 20 2010 1911

 

Pfizer & Moderna Investors Run for the Exits (Hope)
Multiple Brokerage Houses Now Investigate MRNA Jabs (Paine)
17,000 Physicians and Medical Scientists Declare “COVID National Emergency Over” (GCS)
Bill Gates-Linked Lab Developing Vaccine That Spreads Like a Virus (NP)
The Day Russia’s Patience Ran Out (Orlov)
Blackwater is in Donbass with the Azov Battalion (Dinucci)
Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Tyranny (WSJ Op-ed)
Trudeau Style Tyranny Is Already Here (Kelly)
Conservatives Force Trudeau To Defend And Vote On Emergency Powers Again (TSun)
Pentagon Considers Sending National Guard To DC Ahead Of US Freedom Convoy (DM)
John Durham Sent A Message To The Attorney General And The Country (Hill)
What Canada Means for Crypto (Doomberg)

 

 

 

 

Nawaz: Power gets to define reality
https://twitter.com/i/status/1495922272732950530

 

 

Oz “91% had other health issues on death certificates”

 

 

Find an enemy

 

 

 

 

Justus Hope on Edward Dowd. Who compares the vaccines to the 2008 mortgage crisis, and says the FDA play the same role as the ratings agencies back then. But there is one difference, which I don’t think he stresses enough: ratings agencies are companies, enterprises; the FDA is literally the government. He sort of touches on it, “I believe the fraud has moved on to central banks and governments”, but not enough.

Pfizer & Moderna Investors Run for the Exits (Hope)

Wall Street investors are dumping their Moderna and Pfizer stock faster than the world can drop the mandates. Moderna is down 70 percent from its high, while Pfizer is off 19 percent. Former Blackrock Executive and investment adviser Edward Dowd calls for Moderna to go to zero and Pfizer to end under ten dollars per share. How is this possible given that Pfizer now enjoys record earnings per share and a market capitalization of some $270 billion, making it the 29th largest corporation globally? With nothing but profits in sight for the Pharmaceutical giant, what could be the problem? After all, in December, a Forbes’ headline read, “The Vaccine Maker Can Dominate The Covid Market For Years to Come, Wells Fargo Predicts.” In addition to the enormously profitable mRNA vaccines, Pfizer is rolling out potent antivirals like Paxlovid, which could earn $22 billion in 2022.

Compared to the $81 billion in 2021 revenue, the earnings from the vaccines and the antivirals could top $102 billion for 2022, which is music to shareholders’ ears. However some are hearing shrieks, and these happen to be Wall Street’s finest, the smart money that beats the rest of the herd to the exits like clockwork. These sophisticated investors make it their business to not go with the conventional wisdom but to do their own research, which often pays spectacular dividends. [..] Dowd has sounded the alarm on Moderna and Pfizer as sinking ships that investors need to abandon. So what does the man who foresaw the dot com and the subprime mortgage crisis have to say about Moderna and Pfizer, and what trouble could exist in the paradise of COVID vaccine profits?

Here are Dowd’s words: I want to liken here to what’s gone on in the Great Financial Crisis. We had rating agencies, third-party verification sources that were able to perpetuate the fraud because the money got too big, their institutions became corrupted with the institutional imperative, and they got triple-A ratings which we all know in hindsight were not triple-A ratings – let’s move forward to today. The FDA is the trusted third-party verification of pharmaceutical products. 50% of their budget comes from Pharma…due to the institutional imperative that was in place at the time and the speed with which they tried to approve these unproven products with this unproven technology, fraud did occur, and what’s my proof of that? The FDA, together with Pfizer, were trying to hide the clinical data.

And it’s come out recently…that the all-cause mortality for the Pfizer product failed – that means there were more deaths in the vaccine group than the placebo group. Normally in such a case, you have NO drug approval for such drugs. It’s the gold standard. I’ve been told by all my people in the Biotech Industry they were horrified… And unfortunately, that is not all. Dowd feels that although he has successfully predicted three large frauds in his career, he now expects a global financial market collapse with the debt bubble getting ready to burst. “So I’ve seen three frauds; the corporate fraud of the dot com boom, the bank fraud of the Great Financial Recession, and I believe the fraud has moved on to central banks and governments – because that’s the nature of our monetary system – you have to constantly create credit to keep this thing going.”

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More Dowd. $14 billion hedge fund, former Blackrock. Will make some FDA people nervous, and Pfizer/Moderna too.

Multiple Brokerage Houses Now Investigate MRNA Jabs (Paine)

EXCLUSIVE: Wall Street Taps Pfizer Whistleblower to Help Probe Alarming Details of Fraud During VAX Clinical Trials; Former Blackrock’s Edward Dowd Drops More Bombs as ***MULTIPLE*** Brokerage Houses Now Investigate MRNA Jabs

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Anyone seen Fauci lately?

17,000 Physicians and Medical Scientists Declare “COVID National Emergency Over” (GCS)

After two years of scientific research, clinical data and evidence from frontline medical professionals treating hundreds of thousands of patients, the international alliance of more than 17,000 physicians and medical scientists have concluded that the highly treatable COVID-19 illness, which is better addressed with natural immunity and proven medication, no longer requires national emergency status. Vaccines have failed to reduce spread of COVID-19 and pose several health risks, while natural immunity for children and healthy adults has proven more effective. Moreover, treatment protocols that use well-studied, FDA approved medications are now proven to be effective in preventing severe illness and death from Covid-19.

With the success of treatments and broad natural immunity amidst waning strength of COVID-19 variants, there is no longer a credible need for a national emergency in the U.S. On March 13th, 2020, Donald Trump used an Executive Order under the National Emergency Act to declare a national emergency concerning COVID-19. On February 24, 2021, the order was extended by President Biden. Since then, the constitutional rights of Americans have been trampled on by allowing governments aligned with pharmaceutical companies to exploit its citizens. Biden’s extension of the national emergency on February 18th, 2022 ignores the extensive medical and scientific data, confirming a non-medical agenda by the White House.

The over 17,000 independent physicians and medical scientists, who reject the corporate interests of pharmaceutical companies, are calling on Congress to reject President Biden’s extension of the national emergency that was declared by President Trump, to reinstate our constitutional democracy, restore doctor-patient relationships, medical privacy and personal medical choice, and end coercive tactics and mandates.

Dr. David Martin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1494212959912050697

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To vaccinate anti-vaxxers.

Bill Gates-Linked Lab Developing Vaccine That Spreads Like a Virus (NP)

An international team of researchers are working on an experimental self-spreading vaccine that could stop the virus leaping from rats to humans — a phenomenon scientists call zoonotic spillover. The drive to develope self-spreading vaccines is not without controversy. The DHSC paper notes: ‘Self-spreading vaccines are less lethal but not non-lethal: they can still kill. ‘Some people will die who would otherwise have lived, though fewer people die overall. ‘The other issue is there is no consent (for vaccination) from the majority of patients.’ But some ethics experts say there are parallels for ‘treating’ mass populations for public health issues without first getting individual consent.

For example, the fluoridation of mains drinking water to prevent tooth decay already happens in some parts of the UK and the Government is considering extending it to all of England. ‘Nobody is asked whether they give consent, even those who disagree with it,’ says Professor Dominic Wilkinson, a medical ethics specialist at Oxford University. ‘Instead, we entrust elected officials to examine the likely health benefits and make decisions based on the evidence.

‘I don’t think that there is anything intrinsically different when it comes to the idea of self-spreading vaccines.’ However, some scientists have serious misgivings about the risk that weakened viruses could mutate into a more potent form once they are free to spread in the population. Dr Filippa Lentzos, a senior lecturer in science and international security at King’s College London, warns of a danger that the science behind self-spreading vaccines could be hijacked to make biological weapons. ‘Such a self-spreading weapon may prove uncontrollable and irreversible,’ she says.

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“There were also over two million Donbass refugees in Russia, more than one million in the Ukraine and around 50 thousand in Belarus.”

The Day Russia’s Patience Ran Out (Orlov)

Today’s date, commonly written out as 22.02.2022, will be an easy one for future schoolchildren to remember. Various people will remember it in various ways. The residents of Donetsk and Lugansk, the two formerly Ukrainian, now once again Russian cities that have been subjected to conditions bordering on genocide since the US-instigated government overthrow of 2014 will remember jubilantly dancing in the streets, shooting off lots of fireworks, waving Russian flags and hollering the Russian national anthem. For them, this is the day on which new hope arrived that their eight-year nightmare would soon be over and life would finally return to normal.


The badly informed new German chancellor inadvertently helped to resolve the situation by saying that the idea of a Ukrainian-caused genocide in the Donbass is ridiculous. Given the history of the region, the public spectacle of a German leader using the words “genocide” and “ridiculous” in the same sentence made the moment pregnant with possibilities. Here is the information the seemingly rather dim-witted chancellor was missing. There were 9,282 dead on the Donbass side (70% of them civilians) and 114 children. The dead on the Ukrainian side (the Ukrainian troops and various assorted mercenaries that had been attacking and laying siege to the Donbass since 2014) numbered 20,186. This was prior to the renewed Ukrainian shelling of recent days. There were also over two million Donbass refugees in Russia, more than one million in the Ukraine and around 50 thousand in Belarus.

Most Russians will also remember this day with relief as the day their government finally—finally! after eight literally bloody years!—determined that a negotiated settlement in the Ukraine would simply never happen and that there was no point in waiting any further before going ahead and cleaning it up. It was cathartic for them to hear their president unleash a torrent of truth about the Ukraine, calling it a Bolshevist concoction of mostly historically Russian lands that was simply never intended for independent statehood, pointing out that it never paid its share of Soviet-era foreign debt (Russia paid it off on its behalf), that it refused to turn over Russian assets with which it incidentally ended up, and instead soaked up several hundred billion dollars of Russian subsidies, that it extorted money for the use of its Soviet-built gas pipeline that it got free of charge, and that it has squandered and stolen the rest of its vast Soviet patrimony.


He also mentioned was the Ukraine’s stated ambitions simultaneously to join NATO and to invade Crimea—automatically triggering a world war. He mentioned its stated ambition to use plutonium from its spent nuclear fuel stockpiles and rockets left over from the Soviet times to concoct weapons of mass destruction—a situation that simply had to be dealt with. Finally, he made clear that all of the Ukrainian war crimes of the past eight years have been carefully documented and that all of these war criminals will be brought to justice.

Tucker Putin

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A $10 billion plan. In case you wonder why Putin did what he did.

Blackwater is in Donbass with the Azov Battalion (Dinucci)

The phone call between President Biden and Ukrainian President Zelensky “did not go well”, CNN headlines: while “Biden warned that a Russian invasion is practically certain in February, when the frozen ground makes it possible for tanks to pass through”, Zelensky “asked Biden to lower his tone, arguing that the Russian threat is still ambiguous”. As the Ukrainian president himself takes a more cautious stance, Ukrainian armed forces are massing in the Donbass near the area of Donetsk and Lugansk inhabited by Russian populations. According to reports from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, obscured by our mainstream which only talks about the Russian deployment, Ukrainian Army and National Guard units, amounting to about 150 thousand men, are positioned here. They are armed and trained, and thus effectively commanded, by US-NATO military advisers and instructors.

From 1991 to 2014, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the U.S. provided Ukraine with $4 billion in military assistance, which was added to by over $2.5 billion after 2014, plus over a billion provided by the NATO Trust Fund in which Italy also participates. This is only part of the military investments made by the major NATO powers in Ukraine. Great Britain, for example, concluded various military agreements with Kiev, investing among other things 1.7 billion pounds in the strengthening of Ukraine’s naval capabilities: this program provides for the arming of Ukrainian ships with British missiles, the joint production of 8 fast missile launchers, the construction of naval bases on the Black Sea and also on the Sea of Azov between Ukraine, Crimea and Russia. In this framework, Ukrainian military spending, which in 2014 was equivalent to 3% of GDP, increased to 6% in 2022, corresponding to more than $ 11 billion.

In addition to the US-NATO military investments in Ukraine, there is the $10 billion plan being implemented by Erik Prince, founder of the private US military company Blackwater, now renamed Academy, which has been supplying mercenaries to the CIA, Pentagon and State Department for covert operations (including torture and assassinations), earning billions of dollars. Erik Prince’s plan, revealed by a Time magazine investigation [1], is to create a private army in Ukraine through a partnership between the Lancaster 6 company, with which Prince has supplied mercenaries in the Middle East and Africa, and the main Ukrainian intelligence office controlled by the CIA. It is not known, of course, what would be the tasks of the private army created in Ukraine by the founder of Blackwater, certainly with funding from the CIA. However, it can be expected that it would conduct covert operations in Europe, Russia and other regions from its base in Ukraine.

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The WSJ editors have had enough.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Tyranny (WSJ Op-ed)

Modern liberals can hurtle from extravagant tolerance to suppression without batting an eye. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dramatizes the tendency.

Every trucker blockade in Canada has been cleared, yet Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal government isn’t giving up the emergency powers it claimed to criminalize the protest movement against vaccine mandates. “This state of emergency is not over,” Mr. Trudeau said, citing the risk of future blockades. This isn’t how a nation of laws is supposed to function. Mr. Trudeau’s new powers rely on defining the disruptive but peaceful truckers as a security threat akin to violent terrorists. His emergency law, a broad prohibition on public assemblies and even indirect support for them, ensnares tens of thousands of Canadians as “designated persons” whose assets must, per another of his new laws, be found and frozen by any financial institution, without due process or court supervision. There isn’t an appeals process in case of error, and so far 200 accounts are frozen.

Pressed for details, Justice Minister David Lametti initially explained that “pro-Trump” big donors “ought to be worried.” Now the government says it is targeting only the truckers, but its power has no limiting principle. Mr. Lametti says, “We took measures that had been applied to terrorism and applied them to other illegal activity.” This is how a trucker who violated traffic laws or committed “mischief” becomes the target of financial tools designed to disable al Qaeda cells. Bank-account freezes weren’t necessary to clear the blockades. That required police only to arrest those blocking traffic and to requisition tow trucks (already authorized by Canada’s criminal code). The asset freezes serve not to end an emergency but to incapacitate and intimidate protesters after the fact.

Parliament declined Monday night to revoke Mr. Trudeau’s emergency. He prevailed with the support of the socialist New Democratic Party, which once prided itself like others on the left as a defender of civil liberties. “We understood absolutely that we do not want to trigger an election,” said leader Jagmeet Singh, cowed by Mr. Trudeau’s threat. “That would be the worst thing to do in this crisis.” The vote captured the left-liberal pas de deux that has led to abuse of emergency powers. Ottawa’s police chief was a progressive and, as progressives do, he let protesters violate the law with impunity—for weeks. This exasperated Canadians who wanted order and commerce restored. The Liberals blamed foreign interference and lambasted the truckers along trendy American lines as racists and insurrectionists. Then Mr. Trudeau stepped in to curtail the rights of political enemies.

Kenney

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“The comparisons are stark.”

Trudeau Style Tyranny Is Already Here (Kelly)

In a recent court motion, Joe Biden’s Justice Department changed the official name of its investigation into the protest at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Originally designated the “Capitol breach” probe, the department just replaced “breach” with a more sinister word: siege. “The ‘Capitol Siege’ refers to the events of January 6, 2021, when thousands of individuals entered the U.S. Capitol and U.S. Capitol grounds without authority, halting the Joint Session and the entire official proceeding of Congress for hours,” Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote in a footnote to a February 10 filing. Graves commended Capitol and D.C. Metro police for “clear[ing] the Capitol of rioters” that afternoon. But courtroom rhetoric isn’t the only thing Graves is heating up.

The Justice Department has opened a “Capitol Siege Section” in the agency’s criminal division and wants to hire at least 20 more lawyers to help prosecute Americans for any involvement in what happened on January 6. Qualified attorneys will be employed on a temporary basis and could earn as much as $176,000 per year. “Capitol siege” prosecutors will complement an army of thousands of Justice Department employees, including FBI agents from 56 field offices across the country, handling what Attorney General Merrick Garland warned is the biggest investigation in the department’s history. More than 730 people have been arrested so far—amounting to more than three times the number of federal arrests related to the 2020 “mostly peaceful” riots that lasted for months and resulted in far more death and destruction—and the first major trial of a January 6 defendant starts next week.

As freedom-lovers justifiably recoil at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s crackdown on vaccine mandate protesters, Americans worry the same sort of political retribution could happen here. I’m sorry to report, it already has. The scenes from Ottawa are matched or surpassed by the images here, including thuggish cops attacking January 6 protesters with mace and explosive devices. The difference? Instead of mounted police trampling a woman, ours merely shot and killed one woman and beat up a few more. What the Trudeau regime is now unleashing against the truckers and their supporters has been underway in America for more than a year. Using January 6 as a pretext, the Biden regime is brandishing its authority to crush political dissent. Now, it appears Trudeau and his apparatchiks are stealing the U.S. Justice Department’s playbook of power and pain.

The comparisons are stark. Take, for example, the words of Steve Bell, acting chief of the Ottawa police department. He told a reporter over the weekend how the government will hunt down those who stood in defiance of Trudeau’s vaccine mandates. “If you were involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges, absolutely,” Bell said during a press briefing on February 19. “This investigation will go on for months to come. It has many many different streams from a federal level from a financial level from a provincial licensing level to a criminal code level from a municipal breach of . . . court order level. It will be a time consuming and complicated investigation that will go on for a period of time.”

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The NDP holds the balance. And their leader is WEF.

Conservatives Force Trudeau To Defend And Vote On Emergency Powers Again (TSun)

If Justin Trudeau wants to keep the Emergencies Act for the full 30 days, Candice Bergen and the Conservatives are going to make him explain himself to Canadians again next week. Immediately following the vote to extend the federal government’s new powers, Bergen tabled a motion to rescind those very powers. That may seem odd given that she and the Conservatives had just lost the vote 185-151 but it was in fact a very strategic move. Under Section 59 of the Emergencies Act, any group of 10 Senators or 20 members of the House of Commons can sign a request to revoke the government’s emergency powers. By tabling the motion on Monday night immediately after the vote, Bergen has ensured that there will be another debate and another vote next week on the need for these powers.

“Liberal and NDP MPs will need to explain to Canadians why they are continuing to enforce a national state of emergency that gives the federal government far-reaching powers and authority,” Bergen said. Given that the area around Parliament is cleared out, the borders are all clear, there really isn’t the need for the emergency powers to continue. That’s a position held by some in Trudeau’s own Liberal caucus and several New Democrats as well. The government could rescind their powers before we even get to that point but it does put Trudeau on notice that he will have to continue defending his extraordinary power grab. He had trouble doing so on Monday when asked by reporters.

In fact, Trudeau turned to tow trucks as the first reason for needing the act to continue to be used when asked what was so vital in the act that he needed it to continue. Of course, the trucks have all left the Parliamentary precinct and there is no need for tow trucks. His next line of reasoning was that people might come back. Well then, use regular policing powers and stop them. Trudeau then turned to the ability to keep border crossings like the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor clear. That bridge was cleared away before he even invoked the Emergencies Act and existing federal and provincial laws are sufficient to keep border crossings clear and operating. “The Emergencies Act was not necessary to clear the blockades. The government already had all the tools they need under current Canadian law,” Bergen said.

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It’ll be fun.

Pentagon Considers Sending National Guard To DC Ahead Of US Freedom Convoy (DM)

The Pentagon could commission the National Guard to help manage thousands of big rigs expected to descend upon the nation’s capital this week in protest of government mandates. Following the path of a Canadian convoy of anti-vaccine long haulers who congested Ottawa’s streets for weeks this month, a group of fed-up American truckers from throughout the country are setting out Wednesday to launch their own mass protest in Washington, D.C., and plan to congest popular thoroughfares – including the Capitol Beltway. The Pentagon has been asked to help manage the protests by deploying the National Guard, according to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.

‘The Department is analyzing a request for assistance from the U.S. Capitol Police and the DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency,’ Kirby said in a statement. ‘Those agencies have asked for National Guard personnel to provide support at traffic control points in and around the District to help the USCP [U.S. Capitol Police] and D.C. government address potential challenges stemming from possible disruptions at key traffic arteries.’ Although it’s not clear how many people will participate in the protests, it could number in the thousands, Fox News reported. Those leading the movement have requested a National Park Service permit that could accommodate up to 3,000 truckers in D.C., according to the report. This comes as officials also plan to reinstall the fencing that surrounded the Capitol complex last year ahead of Biden’s March 1 State of the Union address.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1496280231040393218

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“He has provided hope that accountability in D.C. — rare as a MAGA sticker on a Prius — actually might happen.”

John Durham Sent A Message To The Attorney General And The Country (Hill)

John Durham has been a special prosecutor for almost a year and a half — not a long time, but plenty of time for a drumbeat to begin that he was showing little progress against his orders to examine the origins of the debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative that convulsed a presidency. His few indictments so far have been directed against peripheral players, feeding a fear among Donald Trump’s supporters that elites higher up the stack are going to get away with their chicanery. The problem for Durham is that these perceptions were providing the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) with increasing political top cover to shut down the special prosecutor’s office as an unproductive, politics-driven exercise in futility that is wasting taxpayer dollars.

If Durham were to be terminated, the American people might not even push back much since no one had a clue whether his investigation was bearing meaningful fruit. Attorney General Merrick Garland already had undercut Durham’s investigation once by taking steps to rehabilitate the reputation of fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a key figure in the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion debacle. The Biden DOJ is not friendly to the goals of Mr. Durham. Durham couldn’t hold a news conference or pen an op-ed touting progress; that’s just not done by investigators in the middle of an investigation. So, he turned to a readily available vehicle — a routine, fairly innocuous motion filed with the court — to embed an explosive message to the DOJ and the American people. It landed like fireworks at a funeral. No one saw it coming.

Tucked inside the court filing, John Durham laid out a good chunk of the case he’s building, and it was stunning. Durham revealed the outlines of a corrupt conspiracy by operatives linked to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The exposed conspiracy allegedly made a contrived, fraudulent and shocking attempt to entice the FBI and CIA to use their powers against the rival Trump campaign and presidency. This recent filing by Durham was designed to have two effects. First, and most important, he has now made any decision by the president or attorney general to dump him much more difficult to undertake. The last time a president fired a special prosecutor who was making significant progress, he lost his presidency.

Second, Durham has signaled to the American people that his investigation has legs, despite perceptions of plodding inertia. He has provided hope that accountability in D.C. — rare as a MAGA sticker on a Prius — actually might happen.

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Can Justin destroy bitcoin?

What Canada Means for Crypto (Doomberg)

The digitization of currency ties each individual directly – transparently – to their money and empowers the state with decision power on whether any particular citizen is allowed to transact in modern society. Your money no longer represents stored wealth that can be exchanged for goods and services. Rather, it represents stored wealth that can be exchanged for goods and services as permitted by the state. Mostly gone is the anonymity that comes with transacting in physical cash – the ultimate manifestation of a decentralized currency. (Just try booking a hotel room with nothing but cash and a valid passport.) In its place we find myriad extrajudicial procedures and complex regulations that strip away our freedoms and, if left unchecked, will ultimately make way for the displacement of our representative democracies with totalitarian states.

In a staggering 56-part Twitter thread that recently went viral, an anonymous account by the name of @punk6529 drives home this point brilliantly. A link to the full thread is here. The core thesis is that one cannot have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, or freedom of religion without the freedom to transact. Robbing a citizen of his or her ability to transact is a devastating punishment, and for the government to claim it has the ability to do so without judicial review or any reasonable recourse is the functional equivalent of totalitarianism. The 18th and 19th tweets in the thread are particularly compelling:

As we described in our last piece, Justin Trudeau has crossed the Rubicon in this regard, and if his actions become normalized, the entire edifice of Western democracy will undoubtedly collapse. Lest our readers think this is hyperbole or that Trudeau’s behavior will be contained to Canada, we point you to an excellent piece called In Praise of Bitcoin written by Dr. Ben Hunt . In it, Hunt correctly likens the US Treasury to the Eye of Sauron. Here’s a critical passage (emphasis added):

“If there’s a Western governmental institution that is more unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality than the US Treasury, I am unaware of what that institution might be. But unlike Wall Street, which is motivated by Flow, the US Treasury has an entirely different (but highly compatible!) goal. The goal of the US Treasury is to see all of the money in the world. That’s really all it is. That’s what Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations are all about. That’s what Know Your Client (KYC) regulations are all about. That’s what Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) regulations are all about. That’s what the Treasury-led Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) is all about. That’s what the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) is all about. None of these programs are really about taxes. None of these programs are really about catching crooks or fighting terrorists. All of these programs are really about information for information’s sake regarding the greatest source of power in the world and the raison d’etre of every government on Earth: money.”

It is through a related lens that we have written skeptically about crypto in the past. We’ve marveled as US regulators allowed the crypto ecosystem to evolve, warned crypto participants that a crackdown is inevitable, and questioned how the “value” of one’s crypto holdings could be effectively transmitted back to the fiat world. Many have filled our Twitter feed and Substack comments section expressing the view that Trudeau’s descent into totalitarianism validates the need for cryptocurrencies. While we don’t doubt the demand for such exposure will increase because of his actions, we draw a more sobering conclusion. Trudeau’s actions destroy the concept that cryptocurrencies will ever be an effective medium of exchange. We recently summarized this view on Twitter:

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Dr. Lee Merritt ft. Dr. Tom Cowan

 

 

 

 

 

 

RFKjr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1496113233287168005

 

 

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Feb 212022
 
 February 21, 2022  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  147 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Saskia en profil in expensive attire 1640-45

 

Biden And Putin Accept Macron’s Proposal (RT)
Biden-Putin Peace Summit Certain to Bring Nobel Peace Nomination (CTH)
Ukraine DM: Low Probability of Major Escalation With Russia (Antiwar)
Europe Has Next To No Gas Left – Gazprom (RT)
New World Order Desperate as Plan Falls Apart – Martin Armstrong (USAW)
The Next Step for the World Economic Forum (Koops)
The Great Reset Becomes The Great Awakening (Luongo)
Why People Believe Wrong Things: A Response to Reader Critiques (Eugyp)
The CDC Isn’t Publishing Large Portions of the Covid Data It Collects (NYT)
Scientists Reluctant to Study Vaccine Side Effects, Notes Top Journal (DS)
American Truckers Are Launching The People’s Convoy (Malone)
Ottawa Mayor Wants To Sell Confiscated Freedom Convoy Trucks (RT)
US Congresswoman Proposes Asylum For Canadian Protesters (RT)
A Social Credit System Arrives in Canada (Sacks)
Trudeau to Make Surveillance Powers over Financial Transactions Permanent (NR)
Eric Adams Admits That Vax Mandates Don’t Work, But Won’t Change Them (NYP)

 

 

 

 

Rogan Maajid Nawaz
https://twitter.com/i/status/1495280535207555079

 

 

 

 

Ha ha ha ha!

“..such a meeting “can only be held at the condition that Russia does not invade Ukraine,” the Elysee palace added”

Biden And Putin Accept Macron’s Proposal (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Joe Biden have both agreed in “principle” to hold a meeting to halt escalation of conflict in Ukraine, the Elysee Palace said in a statement on Sunday night. Emmanuel Macron “proposed a summit to be held between President Biden and President Putin and then with relevant stakeholders to discuss security and strategic stability in Europe,” according to the statement. “Presidents Biden and Putin have both accepted the principle of such a summit,” it added. However, such a meeting “can only be held at the condition that Russia does not invade Ukraine,” the Elysee palace added. The “substance” of the summit, should it take place, will be prepared by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during their meeting expected on Thursday, February 24.


While the Kremlin has yet to issue a comment, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that President Biden “accepted in principle a meeting with President Putin following [Blinken-Lavrov] engagement, again, if an invasion hasn’t happened.” French President briefed his US counterpart on Sunday evening on his talks with Vladimir Putin of Russia and Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in a call that reportedly lasted only 15 minutes on Sunday evening. In a call with Putin earlier on Sunday, Macron offered to mediate talks in the so-called Normandy Format “in the next few hours” to secure a ceasefire along the line of contact in the disputed region of Donbass in eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin confirmed that “the two leaders agreed to maintain contact at various levels,” but did not provide any specific details on such plans.

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“..they must take the manufactured crisis to the brink of thermonuclear war, so that Joe Biden can save the world and be seen as this legendary diplomat.”

Biden-Putin Peace Summit Certain to Bring Nobel Peace Nomination (CTH)

To understand why there has been so much escalating rhetoric about Russia going to invade Ukraine at any moment, you must realize the intent. The motives of the crisis narrative are crystal clear. Everything about the Russia invasion of Ukraine has to be increasingly imminent, horrible and loomingly catastrophic for the planet, so that when it doesn’t happen the glorious victory for Dear Leader Biden can be proclaimed and amplified from the mountaintops. Russia has absolutely no plan to invade Ukraine and doesn’t even have a role in this theatrical production from the White House. The way the game is played; and believe me, everything about this is a game; they must take the manufactured crisis to the brink of thermonuclear war, so that Joe Biden can save the world and be seen as this legendary diplomat.

In the annals of U.S. historym there has never been such an important summit. The nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, that Ron Klain wants in this mid-term election year, is dependent on magnanimous and strategic Biden overcoming all geopolitical odds to save the world. Everything is carefully planned and scripted with a ‘this’, then ‘that‘ approach toward sequencing. Earlier today, the Sunday news talk shows were filled with pending invasion rhetoric. Putin was mere moments away from a massive army entering Ukraine. The smells of heavy diesel loomed in the valleys as the thundering sound of tank tracks approached ever closer. Dark men with black weapons were beating drums and carrying the flag of Mother Russia, as millions were seen marching by U.S. spy satellites in the region.

The birds all fled as the sounds of the battle groups began converging on the Ukraine border. “The Russians are coming; The Russians are coming” one lad shouted to the CNN crew as he whizzed by on his bicycle, trying to peddle fast while carrying a bag of sausages for his sullen and sickly grandparents in eastern Ukraine. CBS David Martin and Margaret Brennan reported {link} the Russian generals were informing their troop commanders of the invasion plans. CNN then broke into the news cycle quoting three sources {link} “saying that the US has intelligence indicating that orders have been sent to Russian commanders to proceed with an attack on Ukraine.” Things looked really bad just before noon…

Everything within the game needs to be looming on the precipice of crisis in order for it to have maximum impact when it doesn’t happen. However, it was always never going to happen, because it is pretend. It is all a big performance, a ruse, built on a completely manufactured scenario they know will never happen… because the White House is making it up.

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“Ukraine’s own assessment is clearly far afield of America’s.”

Ukraine DM: Low Probability of Major Escalation With Russia (Antiwar)

Ukraine DM Oleksii Reznikov told parliament on Friday that there is a low probability of any major escalation with Russia. He added that Ukraine intelligence sees every move made in the area. Tensions at the Russia-Ukraine border have been ongoing, with several Western nations repeatedly predicting a huge war. Ukraine has chided those nations for causing a panic. Predictions of such a conflict go back years, and while previous Ukraine officials had similar pessimism about it, more recently officials see a lot more chance for diplomacy. President Biden again predicted a Russian invasion Friday, noting a Russian offer to talk later this month and suggesting there’d be no point if invasion happens first. Ukraine’s own assessment is clearly far afield of America’s.

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Gazprom has honored all contracts.

Europe Has Next To No Gas Left – Gazprom (RT)

Underground gas storage facilities (UGS) in Europe were 95.3% empty as of February 17, Russia’s state energy giant and major gas exporter Gazprom said on Saturday, citing data from Gas Infrastructure Europe. This means that Europe now has only 4.7% of its gas reserves left for the remainder of the winter season. The volume of active gas in storage facilities is 21% or 8.3 billion cubic meters less compared to the same time last year. In total, 44.8 billion cubic meters have already been withdrawn from Europe’s UGS this winter. According to Gazprom, gas reserves in underground storage facilities in Ukraine are also at a minimum, having dropped to 10.6 billion cubic meters, which is 45% less than last year. Also, earlier this week, authorities in Germany, which has one of the largest underground storage capacities in Europe, reported a plunge in storage volumes to historically low levels compared to previous years.


The European Union, however, this week claimed that its supplies were sufficient to last several more weeks in the event that Russia stops its gas flow to the bloc amid tensions over Ukraine. Russian gas supplies to European countries had already started to fall in mid-2021, and the decline accelerated at the beginning of 2022. Gazprom, however, repeatedly insisted that it is still supplying Europe with gas in strict accordance with existing contracts. Despite this, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Saturday called Gazprom’s supply policy intentionally harmful. “Gazprom is consciously trying to store and deliver as little as possible while prices and demand are skyrocketing,” she said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference, as quoted by Anadolu news agency.

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“The financial system has come to an end.”

New World Order Desperate as Plan Falls Apart – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong thinks the New World Order’s so-called “Great Reset” plan for humanity is falling apart, and the globalists are becoming increasingly “desperate.” Armstrong explains, “They are basically desperate at this stage. I don’t think they anticipate the amount of resistance that they are getting. It’s not just with the truckers in Canada, but this is starting everywhere. There has been an awful lot of resistance consistently that the press does not cover in virtually every city throughout Europe. . . . . They never step out and talk to the people because we are too stupid to actually have an opinion. They know better. This is what Klause Schwab does. He is far more sophisticated than people realize.

He has methodically gone out and created his young global leaders. He is basically sticking people in government positions that are loyal to him. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau is one of them. . . . They think communism is a step up, and the last time this was attempted, it led to the death of 200 million people. This is absurd. . . . You are not allowed to think freely. That’s what communism really is. . . . You don’t realize this whole thing we are going through right now is the same thing. This is cancel culture. Someone said something I don’t like, and that was 20 years ago, so cancel them. This is exactly what took place in communism. You are destroying the right to speak freely.” The so-called “Great Reset” is all about control and tyranny. Armstrong says, “Just look at Canada. Trudeau is one of Klaus Schwab’s young global leaders. The worst countries have leaders that have graduated from his school. Make everybody comply, and if they don’t, crush them to the ground.”


The only good news is, according to Armstrong and his “Socrates” computer analysis, this is “not going to work out well for the globalists pushing communism.” Armstrong says, “With Karl Marx, at the time, people owned nothing. Schwab is saying, ‘You will own nothing and you will be happy.’ This is absurd because what you are doing is creating a fake image. Schwab is saying I am going to relieve you of all your debt. . . . That is a front because the government has gone to the point of no return. What you have to understand here is it is really the government that has to default. What I have said is, look, governments are going to have to default because this is no longer sustainable.” Armstrong predicted last year, “The financial system has come to an end.”

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A WEF overview. Can you still get elected anywhere without being a member?

The Next Step for the World Economic Forum (Koops)

If I give you the names of the following people – Biden, Trudeau, Ardern, Merkel, Macron, Draghi, Morrison, Xi Jinping – what do you think that they have in common? Yes, they are all pampered and stumble over themselves, but that is also not the connection. One can see very quickly that these names certainly connect to lockdown countries and individuals who have ignored their own laws and/or tried in some way to usurp them. But, there is more to it than that and I will give a hint by providing a link with each name. Joseph Biden, President, United States Boris Johnson, PM of United Kingdom Jacinda Ardern, PM of New Zealand Angela Merkel, Former PM of Germany Emmanuel Macron, President of France Justin Trudeau, PM of Canada Xi Jinping, CCP Leader, China Mario Draghi, PM of Italy Scott Morrison, PM of Australia

They are all associated with the World Economic Forum (WEF), a “nonprofit” private organization started (in 1971) and headed by Klaus “You will own nothing and be happy” Schwab and his family. This is a private organization that has no official bearing with any world governance body, despite the implication of the name. It could just as well have been called the “Church of Schwabies.” The WEF was the origin of the “Great Reset” and I would guess that it was the origin of “Build Back Better” (since most of the above names have used that term recently). If you think that the WEF membership ends with just leaders of countries, here are a few more names: Gavin Newsom, Governor of California Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington State Anthony Fauci, Director NIAID Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House .

Allow me to introduce more of the WEF by giving a list of names for the Board of Trustees. Al Gore, Former VP of the US Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy for Climate Action T. Shanmugaratnam, Seminar Minister Singapore Christine Lagarde, President, European Central Bank Ngozi Okonja-Iweala, Director General, WTO Kristalian Georggieva, Managing Director, IMF Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Minister of Canada Laurence Fink, CEO, BlackRock

You can see a cross section of political and economic leaders on the board. The leader of the organization, that is the leader of the Board, is still Klaus Schwab. He has built an impressive array of followers. If you want to really see the extent of influence, go to the website and pick out the corporate name of your choice; there are many to choose from: Abbott Laboratories, Astra-Zeneca, Biogen, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Serum Institute of India, BASF, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Blackrock, CISCO, Dell, Google, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Zoom, Yahoo, Amazon, Airbus, Boeing, Honda, Rakuten, Walmart, UPS, Coca-Cola, UBER, Bank of China. Bank of America. Deutsche Bank, State Bank of India, Royal Bank of Canada, Lloyds Banking, JP Morgan-Chase, Equifax, Goldman-Sachs, Hong Kong Exchanges, Bloomberg, VISA, New York Times, Ontario (Canada) Teacher’s Pension Plan

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“That’s what the State is folks, violence. Always has been. This is why Klaus Schwab and his minions like Trudeau, Arden and others will fail.”

The Great Reset Becomes The Great Awakening (Luongo)

The reality is that Arden and Trudeau are both hanging on by a thread because public opinion already turned against them. The only thing propping Trudeau up at this point is the shock at the speed he has escalated events. That shock will wear off very soon. If parliament doesn’t act to limit/censure or simply get rid of this guy, Canadians will have a much bigger problem on their hands. Too many Canadians are still asking, “Is this Canada?” When they should be stating, “This is not Canada.” Stop asking for permission to feel outraged and feel the outrage.

In New Zealand, the veil of authority for Arden is thinner thanks to Trudeau’s mistakes in Ottawa. No doubt they are seeing the same things we are and want no part of it. The knives will come out for Arden quickly if she doesn’t back down. I say all the time, spooks start civil wars, militaries end them. In Canada, the civil war there is just beginning. What we’ve not seen in New Zealand means it’s likely over before anyone even realized they were in one. The Great Reset rests on tyrants like Justin Trudeau to win through fear, intimidation and the banal corruption of weak people to support them. With each image of peaceful people being trampled under the bootheel of Canadian stormtroopers, more people awaken from the slumber of the comfortable lie the government protects us from chaos.

That’s what the State is folks, violence. Always has been. This is why Klaus Schwab and his minions like Trudeau, Arden and others will fail. There is no law these people recognize. There is no restraint on their behavior they feel is justified for their holy cause. The sooner we accept that, like many of the truckers who organized this protest, the sooner we can all begin bridging the divide.

Schwab
https://twitter.com/i/status/1487922335864741890

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“The problems we have go a lot deeper than the World Economic Forum and Bill Gates.”

Why People Believe Wrong Things: A Response to Reader Critiques (Eugyp)

People on the establishment side of the debate mainly argue that Corona is an unprecedented and unusual virus, and that the scientific response has been totally reasonable and justified. People on our side of the discussion tend to see Corona as nothing special, but the scientific and political response as something new and unusual. I suggest that it helps to see the virus, despite its laboratory origins, as a biological threat of the kind we’ve lived with for millennia; and that it likewise helps to see our unbalanced reaction to this virus as an expression of our own declining society and institutions. That’s a big reason why fixing this has proven to be so hard.

The problems we have go a lot deeper than the World Economic Forum and Bill Gates. In many ways, those guys are just the surface manifestations of this much deeper rot. I know a lot of you conceive of what happened in 2020 as a kind of mass hysteria or hypnosis, or compare our current policies to National Socialism in the 1930s. I think there can be polemical value in both points, but I also think the most important thing, is to recognise that containment is a characteristic policy not of Nazi Germany, but of western liberal democracies. These regimes have enthusiastically embraced lockdowns, compulsory vaccination, and widespread restrictions. For two years, our governments pursued containment as their highest and most central political goal; it became a kind of ideological system unto itself, and persists as one. These are western, liberal, democratic policies by definition, and they show that something is terribly wrong with our political order.

I think it is important to come to terms with these simple facts, because these dangerous crazy lunatics are still running everything. The pandemicists have come out of the past two years more entrenched and powerful than ever before. Our public health bureaucracies have learned what they can do now, and with what little pretence. SARS-2 research will receive tidal waves of funding for decades to come; even people who study elephants or soil fungi will now find incentives to make their work at least a little bit about Corona. The SARS-related virus research will also continue, there will be more lab leaks, and the vaccinators will show up every fall with their mRNA snake oil. It would be better, if all of this nonsense were directed, or the result of some unusual passing madness. It’s not; it is the way things are. This is the nature of the political and social institutions that govern us.

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What’s more striking, that the NYT goes after the CDC, or that they do it only now?

The CDC Isn’t Publishing Large Portions of the Covid Data It Collects (NYT)

For more than a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collected data on hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the United States and broken it down by age, race and vaccination status. But it has not made most of the information public. When the C.D.C. published the first significant data on the effectiveness of boosters in adults younger than 65 two weeks ago, it left out the numbers for a huge portion of that population: 18- to 49-year-olds, the group least likely to benefit from extra shots, because the first two doses already left them well-protected. The agency recently debuted a dashboard of wastewater data on its website that will be updated daily and might provide early signals of an oncoming surge of Covid cases. Some states and localities had been sharing wastewater information with the agency since the start of the pandemic, but it had never before released those findings.

Two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the country’s response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected, several people familiar with the data said. Much of the withheld information could help state and local health officials better target their efforts to bring the virus under control. Detailed, timely data on hospitalizations by age and race would help health officials identify and help the populations at highest risk. Information on hospitalizations and death by age and vaccination status would have helped inform whether healthy adults needed booster shots. And wastewater surveillance across the nation would spot outbreaks and emerging variants early.

Without the booster data for 18- to 49-year-olds, the outside experts whom federal health agencies look to for advice had to rely on numbers from Israel to make their recommendations on the shots. Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data “because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.” She said the agency’s “priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable.” Another reason is fear that the information might be misinterpreted, Ms. Nordlund said.

[..] Last year, the agency repeatedly came under fire for not tracking so-called breakthrough infections in vaccinated Americans, and focusing only on individuals who became ill enough to be hospitalized or die. The agency presented that information as risk comparisons with unvaccinated adults, rather than provide timely snapshots of hospitalized patients stratified by age, sex, race and vaccination status. But the C.D.C. has been routinely collecting information since the Covid vaccines were first rolled out last year, according to a federal official familiar with the effort. The agency has been reluctant to make those figures public, the official said, because they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective.

Ms. Nordlund confirmed that as one of the reasons. Another reason, she said, is that the data represents only 10 percent of the population of the United States. But the C.D.C. has relied on the same level of sampling to track influenza for years. Some outside public health experts were stunned to hear that information exists. “We have been begging for that sort of granularity of data for two years,” said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist and part of the team that ran Covid Tracking Project, an independent effort that compiled data on the pandemic till March 2021. A detailed analysis, she said, “builds public trust, and it paints a much clearer picture of what’s actually going on.”

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CDC doesn’t publish, and scientists don’t research.

Scientists Reluctant to Study Vaccine Side Effects, Notes Top Journal (DS)

While current evidence suggests that serious side effects are rare, the same is true of Covid itself when we’re talking about healthy, young people or those with a prior infection. Hence it’s by no means clear that vaccination actually makes sense for these people – especially if you factor in the possibility of unknown, long-term effects. So far, there’s evidence of an increased risk of blood clots following the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines, and an increased risk of heart inflammation following the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. While the absolute risks are still low, any side effects – however rare – have to be taken seriously. What’s more, there’s evidence that side effects are more common in young people and those who’ve already had Covid – two groups that face very little risk from the disease itself.

However, we still don’t know exactly what the risk of side effects is for specific subgroups, such as ‘people aged 18–30 with a prior infection’. In addition, some conditions that have been linked to the vaccines (including one that resembles long Covid) are not yet well-understood. Shouldn’t scientists be rushing to answer these and other unanswered questions about vaccine side effects? You’d certainly think so. But unfortunately, that isn’t the way science works in our current, politicised era. As this surprisingly candid report in the journal Science notes, scientists have other things to consider aside from how pressing certain questions might be:

“Probing possible side effects presents a dilemma to researchers: They risk fomenting rejection of vaccines that are generally safe, effective, and crucial to saving lives. “You have to be very careful” before tying COVID-19 vaccines to complications, Nath cautions. “You can make the wrong conclusion. … The implications are huge.” [Avindra Nath is clinical director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke]” Researchers are reluctant to work on vaccine side effects for fear of causing, or being accused of causing, ‘vaccine hesitancy’. The Science report goes on: “Other researchers note the scientific community is uneasy about studying such effects. “Everyone is tiptoeing around it,” Pretorius says. “I’ve talked to a lot of clinicians and researchers at various universities, and they don’t want to touch it.” [Resia Pretorius is a physiologist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa]”

Needless to say, this does not bode well for science. Nor does it bode well for vaccine uptake in the long term. After all, people will only take vaccines – whether for Covid or anything else – if they trust the medical establishment. And ignoring side effects, even rare ones, isn’t the way to build trust.

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Wednesday.

American Truckers Are Launching The People’s Convoy (Malone)

American truckers are launching The People’s Convoy, a peaceful and unified transcontinental movement, on Wednesday, February 23, 2022, from the Adelanto Stadium in Southern California. Starting at 10:00 a.m., hundreds of truckers will hear words of encouragement and blessings from a group of speakers including FLCCC President Dr. Pierre Kory and Godspeak Church Pastor Rob McCoy. The truckers and blue-collar workers of the United States will be joined by freedom-loving supporters from all walks of life – frontline doctors, lawyers, first- responders, former military servicemen and women, students, retirees, mothers, fathers and children – on this peaceful and law-abiding transcontinental journey toward the east coast. The truckers encourage one and all to come out to the stadium in the heart of Adelanto, California to wish them well, see them off and join in the journey.

This convoy is about freedom and unity: the truckers are riding unified across party and state lines and with people of all colors and creeds – Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Mormons, Agnostics, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Republican, Democrats. All individuals are welcome to participate by either attending the launch gathering – at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday February 23, at Adelanto Stadium – or by getting in their own vehicles and following the big rigs from Adelanto toward the east coast! The message of The People’s Convoy is simple. The last 23 months of the COVID-19 pandemic have been a rough road for all Americans to travel: spiritually, emotionally, physically, and – not least – financially.


With the advent of the vaccine and workable therapeutic agents, along with the hard work of so many sectors that contributed to declining COVID-19 cases and severity of illness, it is now time to re-open the country. The average American worker needs to be able to end-run the economic hardships of the last two years, and get back to the business of making bread – so they can pay their rents and mortgages and help jumpstart this economy. To that end, it’s time for elected officials to work with the blue collar and white-collar workers of America and restore accountability and liberty – by lifting all mandates and ending the state of emergency – as COVID is well-in-hand now, and Americans need to get back to work in a free and unrestricted manner.

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“Watson said that officers had “done a remarkable job,” and were “very measured in their response.“

Ottawa Mayor Wants To Sell Confiscated Freedom Convoy Trucks (RT)

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson has praised the police crackdown on anti-mandate Freedom Convoy protesters in the Canadian capital. With the demonstrations cleared, he told state media that trucks, campers, and vehicles seized from the protesters should be sold off, claiming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s controversial emergency powers allow him to do so. Speaking to CBC on Saturday, Watson commended police officers for clearing protesters from downtown Ottawa, where they had been camped for three weeks protesting vaccine mandates. The demonstrations were broken by city and federal police officers between Friday and Saturday after Trudeau invoked the never-before-used Emergencies Act on Monday.

Despite video footage showing shocking scenes of police brutality, Watson said that officers had “done a remarkable job,” and were “very measured in their response.” At least 170 protesters have been arrested, more than 50 vehicles have been seized, and the government has frozen the bank accounts of at least 76 protest participants and supporters. “Under the Emergencies Act I’ve asked our solicitor and our city manager, ‘how can we keep the tow trucks and the campers and the vans and everything else that we’ve confiscated, and sell those pieces of equipment to help recoup some of the costs that our taxpayers are absorbing?’” Watson told CBC.

[..] It is unclear whether Watson’s plan will go ahead, and whether the Emergencies Act actually allows the city to auction off seized vehicles. Ottawa Police have previously stated that seized vehicles will be held for seven days, after which time they can be retrieved. Likewise the Emergencies Act is currently being enforced despite not being debated in Parliament, and could end up amended significantly. While some of Canada’s provincial premiers have relaxed their rules on masking and vaccination since the protest began, Trudeau’s nationwide vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers and a rule requiring Canadians be vaccinated to leave the country remain in effect.

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Ha! Yeah, that’ll work…

US Congresswoman Proposes Asylum For Canadian Protesters (RT)

A US congresswoman has promised to introduce legislation to grant asylum to Canadian truckers facing persecution from their government for being involved in the recent ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests against Covid-19 restrictions. Republican New Mexico Congresswoman Yvette Herrell announced her campaign to provide refuge to dissident Canadians on Saturday, comparing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “heavy-handed crackdown against peaceful protesters” to that of “an authoritarian regime like Venezuela.”


Arguing that Canada’s treatment of protesters “is not the action of a Western Democracy,” Herrell said the US should provide asylum for protesters “who have been subjected to violence, had their property confiscated, and their bank accounts frozen by a government that is quickly becoming the embarrassment of the free world.” “I am introducing legislation that would temporarily grant asylum to innocent Canadian protesters who are being persecuted by their own government,” she said. “We cannot be silent as our neighbors to the north are treated so badly “

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“When these protestors or those that supported them end up in financial hardship because they lose their job, business, or bank account, what will happen to those who try to help them?”

A Social Credit System Arrives in Canada (Sacks)

On Monday, the rhetoric turned to action when Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act. This heretofore-unused 1988 law gives the government virtually unlimited power for 30 days to deal with a crisis. Invoking the law under the present circumstance would require the threat or use of “serious violence,” yet the vast majority of protesters have been entirely peaceful—playing “We Are the World” and waving Maple Leaf flags. Indeed, the government has made little attempt to justify the need for emergency powers beyond Trudeau’s frequent bemoaning of the truckers’ alleged “hateful rhetoric.” His public safety minister Marco Mendocino stated that such extraordinary measures were necessary due to “intimidation, harassment, and expressions of hate.” Perhaps he doesn’t realize that none of these are listed in the law as valid reasons to invoke it.

Trudeau escalated things further on Tuesday night, when he issued a new directive called the Emergency Economic Measures Order. Invoking a War on Terror law called the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act, the order requires financial institutions—including banks, credit unions, co-ops, loan companies, trusts, and even cryptocurrency wallets—to stop “providing any financial or related services” to anyone associated with the protests (a “designated person”). This has resulted, according to the CBC, in “frozen accounts, stranded money and canceled credit cards.” Banks, according to this new order, have a “duty to determine” if one of their customers is a “designated person.” A “designated person” can refer to anyone who “directly or indirectly” participates in the protest, including donors who “provide property to facilitate” the protests through crowdfunding sites.

In other words, a designated person can just as easily be a grandmother who donated $25 to support the truckers as one of the organizers of the convoy. Because the donor data to the crowdfunding site GiveSendGo was hacked—and the leaked data shows that Canadians donated most of the $8 million raised—many thousands of law-abiding Canadians now face the prospect of financial retaliation and ruin merely for supporting an anti-government protest. Already, a low-level government official in Ontario was fired after her $100 donation came to light. A gelato shop was forced to close when it received threats after its owner was revealed to have donated to the protest. On Wednesday, Justice Minister David Lametti went on Canadian television to say the quiet part aloud, namely that anyone contributing to “a pro-Trump movement” should be “worried” about their bank accounts and other financial assets being frozen.

When these protestors or those that supported them end up in financial hardship because they lose their job, business, or bank account, what will happen to those who try to help them? Will Canadian financial institutions be forced to play Six Degrees of Deplorables? The fear of being ensnared in the dragnet will surely have a chilling effect on the commercial prospects of those suspected of “unacceptable views,” creating a caste of untouchables whom no one will dare to transact with or help. B.J. Dichter, one of the protest organizers who has had all of his bank accounts and credit cards frozen, expressed the sense of desperation: “It feels like being banished from the medieval village left to die.”

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Make sure you have cash.

Trudeau to Make Surveillance Powers over Financial Transactions Permanent (NR)

As all eyes were trained on the aggressive police sweep of the Ottawa trucker convoy this week, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s administration was quietly moving to implement a sweeping expansion of surveillance power at the federal level. The Trudeau government’s financial war against the truckers has been covered at length. But one underreported aspect of this broader assault on Canadian civil liberties is the effort to bring crowdfunding and payment service providers — two of the most prominent routes for financial transactions on the Internet — under the permanent control of a centralized government authority.

In a February 14 news conference, Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland said that the government was using the Emergencies Act to broaden “the scope of Canada’s anti-money-laundering and terrorist financing rules so that they cover crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use.” That broadened power requires all forms of digital transactions, including cryptocurrencies, to be reported to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada. (I.e., “Fintrac”). “As of today, all crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use must register with Fintrac, and they must report large and suspicious transactions to Fintrac,” Freeland said. She justified the move as a way to “mitigate the risk” of “illicit funds” and “increase the quality and quantity of intelligence received by Fintrac and make more information available to support investigations by law enforcement.” Trudeau, standing behind Freeland at the press conference, nodded his head in agreement.

Freeland said the trucker convoy, which had assembled to protest coronavirus restrictions, had “highlighted the fact” that digital assets and funding mechanisms “weren’t captured” by the Canadian government’s pre-existing surveillance powers. As a result, she said, “the government will also bring forward legislation to provide these authorities to FinTrac on a permanent basis.” Freeland reiterated that point in a subsequent press conference this past Friday. “We reviewed very, very carefully the tools at the disposal of the federal government, and we used all the tools that we had prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and we determined that we needed some additional tools,” she said. “Now some of those tools, we will be putting forward measures to put those tools permanently in place. The authorities of FinTrac, I believe, do need to be expanded to cover crowdsourcing platforms and their payment providers.”

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New York can’t pick a decent mayor, can it?

Eric Adams Admits That Vax Mandates Don’t Work, But Won’t Change Them (NYP)

Mayor Eric Adams admitted Wednesday that vaccine mandates don’t work — yet he’s still going ahead with firing city workers who refuse to show proof they got their shots. “The rule was put in place; to start changing it now would send mixed messages,” he said while lamenting the fact that un-jabbed Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving can’t play at his home arena even though unvaxxed out-of-towners can. Mixed messages? We’ve heard time and again that vax mandates are a life-and-death question of public health, fending off some new COVID surge. That’s plainly no longer true, if it ever was. So what’s the point now? New York City’s positivity rate is below 2%, down from an Omicron peak of near 23%. It’s clearly time to rethink draconian COVID approaches

The disconnect between policy and reality here is so glaring that the best Adams can offer in defense is a lukewarm worry that changing it might scramble political messaging. But at least he’s finally, albeit inadvertently, come clean about mandates: They’ve become pure hygiene theater. As we’ve said before: The vaccines are safe and effective and almost everybody should get them. But the data reveal that mandates have near-zero effect on COVID outcomes. Look at Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis actively restricted vaccine mandates. Per Mayo Clinic data, the Sunshine State saw about 347 average daily cases per 100,000 people at its Omicron peak. New York, with vastly stricter policies, saw 366. Florida’s fatality rate at the peak was 1.2% vs. New York’s 1.4%. And those outcomes were this similar even before Delta hit.


But even if you don’t want to “follow the science,” what about basic logic? You are allowed to play ball at Barclays Center or the Garden if you’re not vaccinated; you just can’t play for a New York team. Guess we missed that epidemiological principle: Away players are never disease vectors. A rule so self-contradictory has nothing to do with health. It’s pure power politics. Kyrie Irving is lucky. He earns many multiples of what average Americans will see in a lifetime even with his haircut for missed home games. But what of the hundreds of teachers, cops, firefighters and so on Adams just axed for refusing a vaccine? If the mandate’s main purpose is now literally rhetorical, it’s indefensible.

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Police in Paris have joined the march against Covid mandates.

 

 

 

 

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Feb 182022
 


Pablo Picasso Portrait de femme au col d’hermine (Olga) 1923

 

Civil Liberties Group Files Court Action Against Use of Emergencies Act (CP)
Ottawa May Euthanize Truckers’ Pets As Punishment (Bexte)
Unvaccinated Truckers Delivering Vaccines, Covid Devices Exempt From Rules (TS)
Canada Reveals the Core Conflict of Our Age (McGrogan)
American Truckers to Drive From California to DC in ‘The People’s Convoy’ (ET)
‘Russiagate’ Is Indeed Worse Than Watergate (Malic)
Australia Starts Vaccine Injury Payouts (RT)
Kulldorff: ‘Science and Public Health Are Broken’ (ET)
RFK, Jr.’s ‘The Real Anthony Fauci’ Is a Record-Smashing Bestseller (CHD)
Ukraine Invasion Scheduled for Wednesday Canceled (McGovern)
Harris Flies To Europe To Help Secure Ukraine Border, Biden Stays Behind (NYP)
German Central Bank Doesn’t Rule Out Gold Revaluation (GO)

 

 

 

 

Edward Dowd

 

 

 

 

Bank accounts have already been frozen and people have been arrested, under the Emergencies Act. Which the House of Commons and the Senate must vote on first. If they vote it down, it’s null and void. But then the damage will have been done.

Civil Liberties Group Files Court Action Against Use of Emergencies Act (CP)

The federal government faced a constitutional challenge Thursday over its historic invocation of the Emergencies Act, as police began to move on protesters with large trucks paralyzing the heart of the national capital. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said using the emergencies law was a measure of last resort to bring an end to the illegal and undemocratic blockades that had harmed Canadians for nearly three weeks. He made the remarks during debate in the House of Commons over his government’s decision to use the law for the first time since its introduction in 1988. The Conservatives accused the prime minister of failing to try to de-escalate the conflict before turning to emergency powers. Trudeau said using the act was not the first, second or even third choice of the government.

“We did it to protect families and small businesses, to protect jobs and the economy,” the prime minister said. “We did it because the situation could not be dealt with under any other law in Canada.” Hours later, the federal government was told it would face court action over its decision, as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association announced it was seeking a judicial review of the government’s invocation of the act. The group said at a Toronto news conference it did not want to minimize the effects of the protests across the country, but added it was unclear that the demonstrations endanger the lives, health or safety of Canadians so seriously that they constitute a national emergency.

“The government has brought in an extreme measure that should be reserved for national emergencies, a legal standard that has not been met. Emergency powers cannot and must not be normalized,” said Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, the civil liberties association’s executive director. Police deal with complex law-enforcement issues every day and have cleared multiple border blockades across the country without emergency powers, the association said. The group’s criminal justice director, Abby Deshman, said the Emergencies Act orders do not apply only in Ottawa and actually affect the rights of every Canadian. The group believes the measures are clearly unconstitutional and it will be asking the courts to step in to defend the rule of law and the constitutional rights of all people across the country, she said.

“Local police across this country have cleared several highly disruptive border blockades and are successfully managing numerous other protesters in communities across the country, all without emergency powers,” Deshman said. Through the Emergencies Act, new powers have been granted to freeze bank accounts of protest participants and bar people from assembling in specific places or joining protests that threaten trade, critical infrastructure, individuals or property. It is also now illegal to bring children to within 500 metres of the blockades or provide supplies or property to participants. The new powers took effect earlier this week but the House of Commons and the Senate must both vote to confirm use of the emergencies law. The House debate will continue through the weekend and Monday with a vote planned for 8 p.m. ET that day. If the motion fails, the act will be suspended immediately.

[..] Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said at a news conference bank accounts had already been frozen and more will be put on hold in the coming days. But she refused to say how many, or even declare if accounts could be frozen for people who aren’t participating in the blockade but who donated to the convoy’s various online fundraisers.

Tow truck
https://twitter.com/Resist_05/status/1494497012234219523

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Not even surprising anymore.

Ottawa May Euthanize Truckers’ Pets As Punishment (Bexte)

The same day that videos emerged of Ottawa and Quebec police gearing up to go after peaceful Convoy supporters in the capital, the Ottawa government has warned protesters that their pets may be confiscated following their arrest. Moreover, position statements issued by the Ottawa Humane Society reveal that they may unilaterally euthanize any animal that they deem to be “not suitable for adoption.” Arbitrary behavioral and health tests would be used to make the call. These decisions about the life of a trucker’s pet would, thus, be made without their consent or knowledge while they are imprisoned for indefinite periods of time via the Emergency Powers of the Trudeau regime.

“Attention animal owners at [the] demonstration,” Ottawa By-law writes in a Tweet. “If you are unable to care for your animal as a result of enforcement actions, your animal will [be] placed into protective care for 8 days, at your cost. After 8 days, if arrangements are not made, your animal will be considered relinquished.” As anyone with experience in pet care or animal shelters will know, “relinquishment” means that ownership of pets will be handed over to animal shelters, where the pets will be housed while awaiting a prospective owner to adopt them or to be euthanized. As Adopt-a-Pet explains, “When shelters run out of kennel space, sometimes even healthy adoptable dogs are put to sleep.


Some shelters simply don’t have the manpower to spend time with each dog, so they spend most of their time alone in a small cage… What is true at every shelter is that when you surrender a dog, what happens to him is completely out of your hands.” It isn’t clear what length of time Convoy supporters may face if arrested for peacefully protesting, but the government has been clear that it could be up to one year in prison, in addition to a possible $100,000 fine.

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“..this exemption requires a ministerial invitation and had been “rarely used.”

Unvaccinated Truckers Delivering Vaccines, Covid Devices Exempt From Rules (TS)

Unvaccinated truckers bringing COVID-19 vaccines and medical devices into Canada to combat the pandemic are exempt from testing and quarantine requirements at the border, a government order says. The exemption is due to the “urgent public health necessity” of the supplies they are transporting, Health Canada states. The government has given exemptions from testing and quarantine rules for certain people crossing the border into Canada to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. They include unvaccinated and vaccinated people invited by the health minister to help with the COVID-19 “response.”

A spokeswoman for Health Canada said in a statement that this exemption requires a ministerial invitation and had been “rarely used.” She said it had been used, for example, to help with the supply of ventilators. The exemption is one of a number set out in an order-in-council published last month that outlines decisions made by cabinet, such as regulations or appointments. Drivers dropping off students on either side of the U.S.-Canada border at a college, school or university are also exempt from quarantine and testing requirements, the order says.

The order makes clear that unvaccinated truckers are not exempt from the testing and quarantine requirement in other circumstances. They must obtain a pre-arrival COVID-19 test, quarantine and undergo COVID-19 molecular testing in Canada. The restrictions on unvaccinated cross-border truckers have caused much political debate in Canada and are ostensibly a major sticking point for the protesters camped outside Parliament Hill. But the order reveals that unvaccinated truckers can avoid the border requirements if they are transporting medical supplies, including products with a drug identification number, such as medications and vaccines authorized for use in Canada.

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“It is only the state’s power that saves and secures. And since only the state can save, it is the only legitimate source of authority..”

Canada Reveals the Core Conflict of Our Age (McGrogan)

Justin Trudeau’s confrontation with the Canadian truckers may be the single most significant event of the Covid pandemic – not because of its eventual outcome, whatever that may be, but because of what it symbolises. It captures, in perfect microcosm, the tensions between the competing imperatives of the age: freedom versus security; the rule of law versus flexible ‘responsive’ governance; the priorities of the workers versus those of the Zooming bourgeoisie; the need for real-world human interaction and belonging versus the promises of splendid online isolation; the experiences of the common man, who knows where it hurts, versus those of the professional expert class, who know nothing that cannot be expressed as a formula.

More than all of that, though, it gives us a lens through which to view a much deeper, much older conflict of much larger scope – one which underlies not just the struggles of the Covid age, but of modernity itself. On the one hand, the state, which seeks to make all of society transparent to its power. On the other, alternative sources of authority – the family, the church, the community, the firm, the farm, and the human individual herself. For centuries, the state has waged a quiet war against those competitors, and bent them to its will. It has done this not through conspiracy or deliberate strategy but merely through the single-minded pursuit, across generation after generation of political leaders, of one goal: legitimacy. Governments and other state organs derive their legitimacy, and therefore their positions of rulership, from convincing the population that they are necessary.

They do this by suggesting that without their intervention, things will go badly; left to their own devices, ordinary people will suffer. The family, the church, the community, the firm, the farm, the human individual – these are inadequate to the task of securing human well-being. That task, only the state is equipped to achieve, for only the state can keep the population educated, healthy, safe, prosperous and satisfied. Since this is the case, only the state is fit to deploy power – and only those who govern the state are fit to rule. The logic of this argument is writ large, of course, in the Covid response across the developed world. What will keep us ‘safe?’

Certainly not traditional sources of succour, such as the church or the family. Certainly not individual people, who cannot be trusted to behave responsibly or assess risks for themselves. No – it is only the state, first with its lockdowns, then with its social distancing, its mask mandates, its vaccine programs, and lately its vaccine mandates and ‘passports.’ It is only the state’s power that saves and secures. And since only the state can save, it is the only legitimate source of authority – along, of course, with its leaders.

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“I think that the truckers, when they hit the Capitol, may well wake up a large number of our representatives and senators that are kind of a little bit asleep right now,” Malone said.

American Truckers to Drive From California to DC in ‘The People’s Convoy’ (ET)

California truckers fed up with the federal government’s endless emergency powers mandating masks and vaccines are gearing up for what they hope will become a Canadian-style “freedom convoy” to Washington, D.C., and are set to roll on Interstate 40 heading east from Barstow on Feb. 23. A national group, called The People’s Convoy, is organizing the truckers who will hit the road for the nation’s capital city to demand the Emergency Powers Act be lifted, ending the mandates, according to Chris Marston, chairman of the American Foundation for Civil Liberties, a non-profit that advocates for civil liberties issues and is helping coordinate the trucker’s protest. Though previous news reports stated the convoy wouldn’t depart California until March 7, organizers now say the convoy will leave earlier than planned.

“Freedoms can’t wait,” Marston told The Epoch Times. The group said it is calling on the American people to join the “call to freedom” in the spirit of “our brave and courageous neighbors to the north—our Canadian brothers and sisters who led the charge.” The Freedom Convoy in Canada has captured international attention the last handful of weeks as hundreds of truckers have parked in protest outside Parliament in Ottawa, the nation’s capital, demanding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation and an end to mask and vaccine mandates. A map of the convoy’s expected route will be posted to the group’s website, Maureen Steele, a The People’s Convoy organizer, said Feb. 16 on “War Room,” a streaming political talk show and podcast hosted by former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

To ensure donations for the truckers won’t be frozen or routed to other causes—a problem the Canadian truckers encountered with the crowdsourcing platform GoFundMe—The People’s Convoy is taking donations directly on their website. Peter Navarro, Trump’s former economic adviser—and a regular on Bannon’s show—praised Canadian truckers for leading the charge against what he called government tyranny. “They are like the Boston Tea Party. They’re the fountainhead of a worldwide movement, which is basically on the right side of both science and economics. And we have to thank those Canadian truckers,” Navarro said. Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist, immunologist, and inventor of mRNA vaccines, who has been an outspoken critic of the federal government’s handling of the pandemic and mandates, also suggested on the show that Washington may soon see a new kind of “woke”—that supporters have called an “awakening.”

“I think that the truckers, when they hit the Capitol, may well wake up a large number of our representatives and senators that are kind of a little bit asleep right now,” Malone said.

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“..Trump-hater John Brennan actually briefed President Barack Obama in July 2016 that Clinton had signed off on a proposal to vilify Trump by “stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.”

‘Russiagate’ Is Indeed Worse Than Watergate (Malic)

On Friday, Durham filed an innocuously-titled Motion to Inquire into Potential Conflicts of Interest in the Sussmann case. The 13-page document pointed out that the legal firm representing Sussmann – Latham & Watkins LLP – previously represented his firm of Perkins Coie, its former partner Marc Elias, and the Clinton campaign, all in dealings with the Durham investigation. So far, so boring – except that the filing also lays out the role of a tech company that exploited access to Trump Tower, another Trump-owned building, a “healthcare provider,” and even “the Executive Office of the President of the United States” (EOP) in order to “mine Internet data to establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative’ tying then-candidate Trump to Russia.”

While the Durham documents do not name the company or the executive, they have since been identified by the New York Times as Neustar and Rodney Joffe, respectively. Durham says Neustar was hired by the Obama administration to “access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services,” and had access to these servers since at least 2014. Recall that Sussmann was accused of “coordinating” the tech company’s work with the Clinton campaign, including feeding the Alfa Bank story to the FBI. He allegedly also leaked the story to the press, which then ran multiple articles about the FBI investigation – which were promoted by Clinton herself as well as her aide Jake Sullivan, now President Joe Biden’s national security adviser.

According to Durham, Sussmann also packaged the false Alfa Bank story with another claim that came from Joffe and Neustar – that Trump and his aides used “Russian-made wireless phones” at the White House – and fed it to the CIA, on February 9, 2017, almost three weeks into Trump’s presidency. Durham “identified no support for these allegations” by Joffe. Now, the FBI is not supposed to spy on Americans without a warrant, while the CIA is not supposed to spy on US soil at all. So how did these two agencies respond to these attempts to weaponize them for political purposes? Well, we know that the FBI was instrumental in the ploy to pressure Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn to resign over allegedly lying about his perfectly legitimate conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US.

As for the CIA, its then-director and confirmed Trump-hater John Brennan actually briefed President Barack Obama in July 2016 that Clinton had signed off on a proposal to vilify Trump by “stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.” Three days later, the FBI opened a probe dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane” – targeting not Clinton, but Trump.

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Same MO as the adverse effects registration sites:

“..very complicated and very hard to navigate, particularly if you’re suffering an adverse health effect..”

Australia Starts Vaccine Injury Payouts (RT)

Australians who experienced adverse reactions to Covid-19 vaccines have started receiving compensation, local media reported on Wednesday, though the number of people applying to the scheme is far lower than expected. Figures from Australia’s Health Department show that less than 10% of the more than 10,000 people who registered their interest in the government scheme before December have submitted claims. The no-fault indemnity scheme grants people a one-off payment ranging from AU$1,000 (US$720) to AU$20,000 (US$14,400) for lost wages or other expenses if they suffered bad reactions to Covid-19 vaccines. The conditions for application include having spent at least one night in hospital and having suffered at least AU$1,000 (US$720) in economic losses.

Services Australia has received 861 applications – including death claims – as of February 9, a Health Department spokesman told news.com.au. One case has been paid but 11 have already been withdrawn, they added. The authorities have requested further information from 225 claimants. A total of 849 “remain under consideration.” “With the indemnity scheme having only been opened for a short period of time, information on eligible claims and payment amounts is still being assessed,” the spokesman said. Shine Lawyers’ head of medical negligence, Clare Eves, said the number of claimants was “disappointing” and attributed some blame to the complex nature of the scheme’s application process.

The website the government had set up was “very complicated and very hard to navigate, particularly if you’re suffering an adverse health effect,” she said. As of February 6, Australia’s medicines regulator had registered a total of 108,000 total reports of adverse reactions, most of which were minor, believed to be as a result of receiving a Covid-19 vaccine. Nearly 51.2 million total doses have been administered.

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Canceled.

Kulldorff: ‘Science and Public Health Are Broken’ (ET)

Dr. Martin Kulldorff is one of the most qualified public health pandemic experts in the United States. To the narrative-shapers, he’s a pariah. As a prominent epidemiologist and statistician, Kulldorff has worked on detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks for two decades. His methods are widely used around the world and by almost every state health department in the United States, as well as by hundreds of people at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Kulldorff has also worked on vaccine safety for decades, developing globally used methods for monitoring adverse reactions in new vaccines. His résumé on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website is 45 pages long and includes a list of 201 peer-reviewed published journal papers. His work has been cited more than 27,000 times.

Since 2003, Kulldorff worked at Harvard Medical School, first as an associate professor of population medicine and later as a professor of medicine. In November, Harvard and Kulldorff abruptly parted ways. Kulldorff prefers to keep the reasons private, but it’s hard to ignore that he placed himself in the crosshairs of the pandemic narrative early on in the “15 days to slow the spread” lockdown and has since paid the price. It’s quite something for a public health scientist at the top of his game to admit that “both science and public health are broken.” “For some reason, a public official narrative was established, and you weren’t allowed to question it—which, of course, is very detrimental, both to the pandemic and how to deal with the pandemic, because you have to have a vibrant discussion to figure out how best to deal with these things,” he told The Epoch Times.

The Swedish native said he tried to point out in March 2020 that there was a very steep age gradient on mortality for COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Kulldorff said he attempted to publish a paper both in U.S. medical journals and mainstream newspapers stating that while anyone could contract the virus, the focus should be on protecting the elderly and those at high risk. His paper was knocked back from all directions.

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…But Mainstream Media Pretends It Doesn’t Exist

RFK, Jr.’s ‘The Real Anthony Fauci’ Is a Record-Smashing Bestseller (CHD)

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s record-smashing bestseller, “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” demolishes the public images — piously promoted by corporate media — of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates. Unfortunately, however, you won’t be able to read a review of Kennedy’s book in major media. That’s because the corporate establishment has circled the wagons to censor it — by pretending it doesn’t exist. But it does exist. The book surged to #1 on Amazon.com even before it hit the bookstores, and it swept the bestseller lists of the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY and Publishers Weekly — none of which will even mention that the book was published, let alone review it.


It seems we are witnessing a mind-boggling first in U.S. book publishing history — when the hottest runaway bestseller of the season can’t even get its name mentioned in any major newspaper, TV or cable news program anywhere in the 50 states. Say hello to a new kind of suppression: censorship by oblivion — brazen, vicious, ugly and cowardly. This type of censorship subverts your right to make up your own mind after hearing both sides of a controversy. Instead, it simply labels the side it doesn’t like as “misinformation” and keeps you from hearing it at all. Astonishingly, given how much establishment firepower was lined up to crush this book, it is not working. Against all odds, the disturbing portrait Kennedy paints in “The Real Anthony Fauci” led the book to sell a record-breaking 110,000 copies in its first week. Through word of mouth, sales have reached more than 900,000 copies.

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“Biden made this commitment to Putin during the telephone call of Dec. 3..”

Ukraine Invasion Scheduled for Wednesday Canceled (McGovern)

At yesterday’s press conference, Chancellor Scholz at times played straight man for Putin, calling the announcement of the Russian troop pullback a “good signal” and agreeing that diplomatic options are “far from exhausted”, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had reported to Putin on Monday. Here’s what’s important (and was given appropriate prominence in AP’s reporting). Putin at the presser with Scholz: “… as [Lavrov] reported yesterday, the [US and NATO] responses still contain a number of considerations that we are not only ready to discuss but that we have actually suggested to our partners over the years. I am referring to our proposals on European security, certain weapons systems, notably, intermediate and shorter-range missiles, and military transparency. We are ready to continue this joint work. …


So far, the NYT has omitted that statement by Putin, which, coming yesterday together with the troop pullback, is highly significant. That the Times “forgot” to include it is yet another sign that even the most sensible, rudimentary negotiations on key matters of concern to Russia will be resisted tooth and nail by the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-MEDIA-Academia-Think-Tank) complex in which the NYT is right there in the middle, the fulcrum – the key “M.” Still, some Times editor apparently insisted on slipping in the important acknowledgment by Mr. Biden today that: “Neither the US or NATO have missiles in Ukraine. We do not, do not have plans to put them there as well.” [Emphasis added.] Biden made this commitment to Putin during the telephone call of Dec. 30 that Putin had urgently requested. It amounts to a major concession and enabled Moscow to conclude that at least one or two of Biden’s retinue – or Biden himself – have their heads screwed on right.

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Try not to laugh..

Harris Flies To Europe To Help Secure Ukraine Border, Biden Stays Behind (NYP)

Vice President Kamala Harris set off Thursday on a peace mission to Europe as Russia appeared to accelerate preparations for an invasion of Ukraine — undeterred by her failure to resolve the ongoing US-Mexico border crisis as President Biden’s point person on illegal immigration. About two hours after Harris departed DC to attend the Munich Security Conference, Biden emerged from the White House and said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin will launch an invasion of Ukraine “within the next several days.” As Harris flew east to Germany, Biden traveled west to Lorain, Ohio, to talk about fixing Great Lakes pollution through his three-month-old bipartisan infrastructure law — prompting his aides to insist the jaunt wouldn’t distract him from the potential outbreak of the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.

“I doubt [Putin’s] sitting back at the Kremlin right now shaking because Kamala Harris is over there,” Rep Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview with Newsmax TV Wednesday. “She couldn’t pour something out of a boot if there were instructions written on the heel,” Burchett added. “She can’t even find our southern border, much less the Ukrainian border. This is a joke, this is a travesty.” Biden tapped Harris in March to stem illegal immigration across the southern border, but the crisis only got worse, with a record-breaking 1.9 million arrests in 2021. Critics blame lax Biden administration enforcement policies, but Harris defended her work last month in Honduras, saying addressing the “root causes” of illegal immigration wouldn’t have an effect “overnight.”

The vice president’s performance on the US border crisis received bipartisan blowback, including from Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who said in December, “She was tasked with that job, [but] it doesn’t look like she’s very interested in this.”

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“[Banca D’Italia] can also continue to absorb debt, say, an additional €500 billion euros, and then revalue gold times ten.”

German Central Bank Doesn’t Rule Out Gold Revaluation (GO)

When the gold price rises the value of the gold on the asset side of a central bank’s balance sheet increases. At the same time, on the liability side of the balance sheet an equal increase will be recorded in what is referred to as a “revaluation account.” A gold revaluation account, which effectively has no limit, registers the unrealized gains on gold. An example: the German central bank owns 3,359 tonnes of gold, which was purchased for €8 billion euros. Currently the gold is worth €173 billion euros, creating a gold revaluation account of €165 billion euros (173 – 8).*

While researching this subject I asked the German central bank (the Bundesbank, or “BuBa” in short) if it’s possible to use gold’s revaluation account to write off bad debt. I tend to aim such questions at the Bundesbank because they always respond very quickly. I’m aware that Italy’s government debt is the elephant in the room, but these countries are part of the same monetary union and Germany is the main guarantor of the E.U. Recovery Fund (Next Generation EU). BuBa replied that according to the prevailing accounting rules any unrealized gains in gold can only be used for unrealized losses in gold, not for losses in assets such as U.S. dollars or European bonds.

[..] They could have just said no, but they didn’t. They replied that, “at this stage, we prefer not to speculate” about changing the accounting rules and revalue gold to write off bad debt. Meaning, they don’t rule out this possibility. Also note, BuBa writes that “in general” the accounting rules are set “by the ECB Governing council in accordance with the limits set by the European Treaties.” Implying that there are exceptions. Why did BuBa write this to me? Possibly, this was a signal for the market to revalue gold, saving BuBa the hassle of doing it themselves (printing money to buy gold). As a reminder, former Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann wrote in 2018 that gold is “the bedrock of stability for the international monetary system.” A comment that is anything but discouraging investors from buying gold and driving up its price.

Weidmann added that gold is a “major anchor underpinning confidence in the intrinsic value of the Bundesbank’s balance sheet.” If gold is underpinning confidence in BuBa’s balance sheet, why wouldn’t it underpin confidence in investors’ balance sheets? It’s impossible to furnish the Italian government substantial debt relief without revaluing gold. Italy’s government debt is €2.7 trillion euros, of which is €600 billion euros is held by the Italian central bank (Banca D’Italia, or BDI). BDI’s gold revaluation account is currently over €100 billion euros, so the gold price has to be multiplied by approximately five for BDI to be able to write off its domestic government bonds. Though, BDI can also continue to absorb debt, say, an additional €500 billion euros, and then revalue gold times ten.

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Jon Stewart Inflation

 

 

It used to be that everything gives you cancer. Now, everything gives you blood clots.

 

 

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