Sep 132023
 
 September 13, 2023  Posted by at 9:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Michelangelo Pietà 1498 (he was 23 years old)

 

McCarthy Launches Biden Impeachment Inquiry (ZH)
Republicans Fear Giving Biden Popularity Boost With Impeachment Probe (Sp.)
Trump Charges Are Political Persecution – Putin (RT)
Trump Demands Judge in Jan. 6 Case Stand Down (Sp.)
Fani Willis Bankrolls Private Attorneys For Trump Prosecution (WE)
Tucker Tears Into Politicians’ “Betrayal Of American Democracy” (ZH)
Ever More Deadly Arms to Ukraine Reeks of Desperation – Scott Ritter (Sp.)
Africa Will Never Forget That The West Caged Its Children – Putin (RT)
Kiev Reiterates Grain Threat To Poland (RT)
Pocahontas Threatens Musk With Investigation For Blocking Ukrainian Attack (RT)
Nuland: US ‘Supports’ Ukraine Targeting ‘Russia’s Most Precious Assets’ (Sp.)
Ukraine Missile Attack in Sevastopol Leaves 24 People Injured (Sp.)
CIA Bribed Analysts To Change Wuhan Lab-Leak Conclusions (ZH)
France Bans iPhone Over Radiation Concerns (RT)
The Mackinder Strategic ‘Bible’ Reconsidered (Crooke)

 

 


Today Health Canada approved a Moderna fall booster for COVID-19 for all Canadians over the age of 6 months.

 

 


The new FDA approved covid shots were tested. On four rats. Yes, four rats. Four. Rats.

 

 

 

 

Tulsi Watters


https://twitter.com/i/status/1701362658329645541

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paxton Trial

 

 

Schumer

 

 

 

 

McCarthy sounds like a girl here. Maybe better not ask Trump what he thinks.

And Dave Collum: “Could you take a brief moment to release the 41,000 hours of J6 tapes? The longer you wait the worse you look…”

McCarthy Launches Biden Impeachment Inquiry (ZH)

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday announced that the House will open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over a variety of alleged crimes, skipping a formal House vote he had previously teased. According to McCarthy, Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan will spearhead it. “Biden used his official office to coordinate with Hunter Biden’s business partners, about Hunter’s role in Burisma – the Ukrainian energy company,” said McCarthy, adding “it appears that the president’s family has been offered special treatment by Biden’s own administration.”

Senate RINOs are downplaying an impeachment inquiry against perhaps the most corrupt president in US history, citing a ‘distraction’ from 2024 election issues such as the economy and border security. In truth, they’re nothing more than uniparty shills protecting their preferred candidate at any cost against the return of the highly disruptive Orange Man Bad. “It really comes to how do you prioritize your time? I don’t know of anybody who believes Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will take it up and actually have a trial and convict a sitting president,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, in a comment to The Hill, adding that House Republicans can already investigate Biden without launching a formal impeachment inquiry.

“Since they got the majority, they got the chairmen of the various committees, they could do all of that now without going to a formal inquiry,” he continued. “Members of the House don’t really care what I think. All I can tell you, it’s unlikely to be successful in the Senate. “Rather than doing something they know is unlikely to end the way they would like, maybe they want to emphasize other things.” Cornyn was joined by GOP Whip John Thune (SD) and Marco Rubio (FL), the latter of whom suggested that attempting to impeach Biden would be frivolous, and “should generally be avoided for the interest of the country.”

“It can’t become routine,” Rubio continued, adding “There are countries like Peru that routinely now impeach whoever the president is, and it’s become almost a national sport.” Yes Marco, the sitting US President is suspected of taking bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch in exchange for abusing his position as then-VP, and his son – with no practicable skills in any art – appears to have been his family’s international bag man for more of the same, but let’s not make this into a ‘national sport.’

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“Biden’s either going to have to cut a deal and promise not to run again, or perhaps resign, but we are at the beginning of this process..”

Republicans Fear Giving Biden Popularity Boost With Impeachment Probe (Sp.)

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced on Tuesday the launching of an impeachment inquiry into US President Joe Biden. The leading Republican said there were “serious and credible allegations” about Biden’s conduct and the alleged “culture of corruption” surrounding the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. At the center of the issue is the president’s son, Hunter Biden, long the subject of journalist investigations and Republican denunciations, and questions about Joe Biden’s relationship to Hunter’s business dealings, especially during Joe’s time as US vice president and since he became president in 2021. Republicans have for years promised to launch such an inquiry once they won a majority in the US House of Representatives again, but that majority was reached in early January following the November 2022 midterm elections.

McCarthy became House speaker at that time after hammering out a nebulous set of promises with a pro-Trump faction of the House GOP Caucus – a faction that is increasingly upset with his performance. Democrats have accused Republicans of giving in to the agenda of former US President Donald Trump, who was impeached in 2019 on accusations he abused his power by pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to reopen a probe into the Bidens, including claims that in 2016, then-VPOTUS Biden forced Kiev’s prosecutor-general into closing a previous investigation of Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine. Ted Rall, a syndicated editorial cartoonist, opinion columnist, graphic novelist, author, and co-host of The Final Countdown, told Radio Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Tuesday that while some elder GOP lawmakers are hesitant for the moment over fears they might accidentally help Biden’s reputation ahead of the 2024 election, “Republicans will soon see that this is going to be to their advantage.”

“I think a lot of Republicans are suffering from Clinton Hangover Impeachment Syndrome. This didn’t go well for the Republicans in 1998, [former US President] Bill Clinton left office wildly popular, and they’re worried that something similar could happen. The only thing is: it’s not 1998, it’s a different world now,” he said, noting that when it came to Clinton’s impeachment, the facts were clear. “Here, most liberal Democrats and many moderates – or, for that matter, everyone who’s not a news junkie – doesn’t really know or has been following the story of this Hunter Biden laptop, which has been carefully siloed as a new ‘Benghazi malarkey’ as Biden would say. But that’s not true,” Rall said. “Beyond what McCarthy may or may not want, as the inquiry proceeds, it’s going to be impossible not to move forward with hearings simply because there are too many actionable facts.”

“The call for impeachment, under the most basic definition of the term in the Constitution, which specifically references bribery – I think they’re going to have to impeach him,” Rall asserted. “I think even the Republican senators are going to warm up to it and I think if all the facts are ultimately heard, President Biden’s either going to have to cut a deal and promise not to run again, or perhaps resign, but we are at the beginning of this process,” which he said “has no place to go but ‘down’ for President Biden.” Rall noted there was “a lot to get to the bottom” of in the case.“If my son sells me as a brand, then collects money by doing that, are you effectively bribing me? Especially if I’m 80 years old and I care deeply about my son’s finances and his ability to carry on after I’m gone? That’s a question I think hasn’t been answered and I think we need to answer,” he explained.

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“As for the persecution of Trump, well, in today’s conditions, in my view, that’s a good thing. Because it reveals the rotten American political system, which should not be able to claim it can teach others about democracy. “Everything that is happening to Trump is the political persecution of a political rival. That is what it is. And it is happening in the eyes of the US public and the whole world. They have exposed their domestic problems. In this sense, if they are trying to fight us, it is good because it shows, as they used to say in Soviet times, the beastly appearance of American imperialism, its beastly snarling grimace.”

Trump Charges Are Political Persecution – Putin (RT)

The numerous criminal charges against former US President Donald Trump amount to persecution and showcase the “rot” in the American political system, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated. The US in its current state “cannot claim the right to teach others democracy,” the Russian leader said on Tuesday during a panel discussion at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. “The things that are happening to Trump are persecution of a political competitor… That is what it is. And it is done in the full view of the US public and the entire world,” he added. The controversy is beneficial to Russia in the sense that it “exposes” Washington “for what it is,” according to Putin.

The US government chose to be hostile to Moscow and has propagandized its population into perceiving it as such, he argued. “[The US] demonstrates what they called in Soviet times ‘the bestial scowl of imperialism’,” he joked. Moscow does not expect any substantial change in US foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia, regardless of who takes the White House after next year’s election, the president said. “[Trump] was accused of having a special relation with Russia, which is total nonsense and bulls**t. But he was the president who introduced the most sanctions against Russia,” Putin noted.

The American elites predominantly perceive Russia as an existential enemy, Putin believes. The country also has friends in the US, who want good relations and share Russia’s views on traditional values, the president added, but those voices are being suppressed. Since leaving office, Trump has been charged with numerous crimes at both the federal and state level, ranging from election tampering to inciting the January 6 Capitol riot to financial improprieties. The businessman-turned-politician, who is considered the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for presidency, has said that his legal woes amount to a “witch hunt” by his opponents.

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She’s hated him for years, laments the fact that he’s walking around free.

Trump Demands Judge in Jan. 6 Case Stand Down (Sp.)

Former President Donald Trump has filed a motion in a Washington, DC, court demanding Judge Tanya Chutkan recuse and disqualify herself from his January 6 criminal case, court documents showed. “President Donald J. Trump, through undersigned counsel, respectfully moves to recuse and disqualify the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan,” Trump’s attorneys said in the court document on Monday. The motion cites what Trump alleges is Chutkan’s compromised impartiality as cause for recusal. “Although Judge Chutkan may genuinely intend to give President Trump a fair trial — and may believe that she can do so — her public statements unavoidably taint these proceedings,” Trump attorney John F. Lauro wrote in the motion.

“The public will reasonably and understandably question whether Judge Chutkan arrived at all of her decisions in this matter impartially,” the motion said, adding that “the law and the overwhelming public interest in the integrity of this historic proceeding require recusal.” US law dictates that judges recuse themselves from any legal case in which they have a personal bias, potential prejudice, or their impartiality could be “reasonably” questioned. A 1994 Supreme Court ruling determined that only in rare cases are judges ever forced out of a legal case; in fact, it must be proved the official demonstrates “deep seated favoritism or antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible.”

Chutkan has given both sides in the case until Thursday to respond to the motion, with the Trump camp given until Sunday to issue its subsequent reply. Trump is presently facing multiple indictments ranging from alleged fraudulent business practices, mishandling classified documents and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The former president has repeatedly voiced his innocence in each case, underscoring that legal filings are part of a larger political attack intended to shutter his chances at serving a second term in office.

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Taxpayer money.

“..paid massive sums to private sector attorneys for their services..”

“..it avoids the statutory requirements for the appointment of assistant district attorneys, who are paid a fixed salary, and also avoids the administration of an oath of office..”

Fani Willis Bankrolls Private Attorneys For Trump Prosecution (WE)

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has paid massive sums to private sector attorneys for their services, and a portion of those relate to investigating and prosecuting former President Donald Trump, according to county records. Nathan Wade, Willis’s lead prosecutor in the case, has raked in more than half a million dollars from the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office from January 2022 to August 2023, according to a payment history. Christopher Campbell, Wade’s colleague at Wade & Campbell Firm, has been paid $116,670 from April 2021 to August 2023, the same records show. Terrence Bradley, a former colleague of Wade’s, was paid $74,480 from May 2021 to June 2022, according to the records.

Wade, a defense attorney who can bill by the hour, was hand-picked by Willis roughly two years ago to serve as special prosecutor in the Trump case. Wade is a former Cobb County fill-in municipal court judge who ran for Cobb County Superior Court and was defeated in 2012, 2014, and 2016. Willis chose Wade over career prosecutors who work on salaries, and while the legalities of that have not been questioned at this stage, some, like Phil Holloway, an Atlanta-based attorney for more than two decades, have found the use of Wade to be “unorthodox.” “It’s certainly unorthodox and appears to be a cash cow for any lawyer paid by the hour,” Holloway said. “I’ve been practicing criminal law in Georgia for 24 years, and I’ve never seen such an arrangement.”

One of the co-defendants, former Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer, highlighted in a court filing on Thursday the hefty payments to private prosecutors, asking for Judge Scott McAfee to schedule a hearing “regarding improper contact by special prosecutor’s law firm.” [..] Shafer’s attorney in the court filing said it also violated an “anti-contact” rule, noting that “the harassing, or mocking and intimidating nature of the firm’s communication with Mr. Shafer causes grave injury to the appearance of fairness and propriety of this proceeding.” [..] Holloway observed that Wade could skirt the typical obligations of public servants while working as outsourced counsel. “For starters, it avoids the statutory requirements for the appointment of assistant district attorneys, who are paid a fixed salary, and also avoids the administration of an oath of office,” Holloway said. “The oath of office is intended to protect the public from malfeasance by public officials and carries a criminal penalty if violated.”

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Sounds like 2028.

Tucker Tears Into Politicians’ “Betrayal Of American Democracy” (ZH)

In a brief clip dropped last night, Tucker Carlson rages (in his inimitable manner) that the current system of governance in the US does not genuinely reflect the majority’s will but benefits a small group of people with power. “Most governments are run by a small group of people for their own benefit without reference to what the majority wants,” he says. Carlson highlights, based on public opinion polls as evidence, that there is often a disconnect between what the people want and what their leaders prioritize: “Take a look at the latest Gallup poll, pick a poll. What are the top 10 issues for people in the United States and then compare those to the priorities of your leaders.”

The former Fox News host takes aim at Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Greg Abbott of Texas as case examples of this disconnect. Regarding Whitmer, who he calls a “low IQ lunatic”, Carlson says her priorities are not in line with the majority of her constituents, specifically regarding social issues like “misgendering”: “The things that people care about, Gretchen Whitmer couldn’t care less about.” Abbott, who Carlson calls a “liar, and betrayer of your own people”, is accused of not taking significant action on illegal immigration, despite having the resources to do so:

“Don’t you have a National Guard? Why don’t you seal the Border? Oh, it’s very complicated. No, it’s not.” Carlson concludes that this deviation from public will is a betrayal of American democracy. “It’s not just frustrating; it’s a betrayal of the core promise of the country, which is the people rule,” he proclaims; suggesting that the current situation represents a “criminal act,” and, in what some have suggested sounded the most like a campaign/stump speech, urges the audience to reconsider their belief that a majority vote will automatically translate into action or law.

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“..anybody who looks at the situation on the ground in Ukraine knows that Ukraine is losing, Russia is winning. And literally there’s nothing that can be done to prevent a Russian victory..”

Ever More Deadly Arms to Ukraine Reeks of Desperation – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

Over the past year-and-a-half, the US and its NATO allies have adopted a cautious, “two steps forward, one step back” approach to arming Kiev, first assuring that various weapons (be it cluster munitions and long-range cruise missiles or tanks and F-16 fighter jets) would not be sent, citing the danger of escalation tensions with Russia, and then announcing their delivery weeks or months later. “The Biden administration seems to be going through a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-type phase when it comes to the nature of the weapons that it’s willing to provide to Ukraine,” Scott Ritter, a veteran former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, UN weapons inspector, and military analyst, told Sputnik. “A year ago, the Biden administration was very reticent about providing certain categories of weapons out of fear to create the potential of an escalation between the United States, between NATO and Russia over Ukraine.

“The last thing the United States wanted, or so the Biden administration said, was a direct war with Russia.” “Today, all of those inhibitions seem to have been swept away. We see the United States providing M1 Abrams tanks. We see the United States authorizing the delivery of F-16 fighters. And now the United States is considering to provide Ukraine with the ATACMS long-range missile system or the guided multiple launch rocket system, a 45-mile range rocket system delivered by the HIMARS system that has extreme accuracy and could deliver cluster munitions. This, of course, follows on the heels of the decision by the Biden administration made earlier this year to provide Ukraine with the cluster variant of the 155-millimeter artillery shell,” Ritter said.

Desperation over sobering battlefield realities and a desire to “harm Russia,” rather than hopes that the new long-range weapons could turn the tide in the conflict, are the main motivators behind the Biden administration’s escalation strategy, the observer believes. “The Ukrainians, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, have suffered 71,000 casualties over the course of the last four months in a failed counteroffensive effort. And there’s nothing about the nature of these weapons that would improve Ukraine’s chances on the battlefield. These weapons that are being provided are being provided to provide Ukraine with the potential of doing harm to Russia. The ATACMS missiles being provided, simply put, to strike the Crimea Bridge, to destroy that bridge, to enable Ukraine to strike targets deep in the Russian rear area – airfields, command posts, logistics. This is a dramatic escalation of the conflict,” Ritter stressed.

“Why is the Biden administration doing this? Frankly speaking, it’s out of an act of desperation. Look, anybody who looks at the situation on the ground in Ukraine knows that Ukraine is losing, Russia is winning. And literally there’s nothing that can be done to prevent a Russian victory. The provision of ATACMS rockets, the GMLRS rocket system isn’t going to change the outcome on the battlefield. What it will do is provide Ukraine the opportunity to inflict more harm on Russia,” and that, Washington may be hoping, will put political pressure on Moscow domestically, the observer explained.

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“As late as 1957, “people from Africa were taken to Europe in cages… You can’t watch that without tears. Children sitting in cages, displayed for everyone to see..”

Africa Will Never Forget That The West Caged Its Children – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked on Tuesday that African nations will always remember the dark chapter of Western colonial oppression when European powers trafficked children from the continent, putting them on display in cages. He also noted that these same countries are trying to push their former dominions into indentured servitude. Speaking at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said he was sure it would not be too difficult for Russia to restore close relations with Africa to the level of the Soviet era when Moscow provided the continent with ample economic aid. The Russian leader argued that African countries remember Moscow’s help in the struggle for independence and that Moscow had never acted as a colonizer.

“Our cooperation has always been based on either mutual grounds or the desire to help,” he said. However, Putin noted that these countries remember not only Soviet aid but also Western ruthlessness. As late as 1957, “people from Africa were taken to Europe in cages… You can’t watch that without tears. Children sitting in cages, displayed for everyone to see,” Putin recalled. “No one in Africa will ever forget it.” The Russian president said the West has not abandoned its subjugation attempts. “Even now, they are trying to boss around and pursue their generally neo-colonial policies,” Putin said, explaining that Western countries have imposed trillions of dollars worth of loans on the region. The West has concocted a credit system with African countries which “by definition… does not allow them to pay back their loans. These are not credit relations; this is some kind of [punitive] indemnity,” he added.

However, Russia adheres to a different approach, which gives it an advantage in fostering ties with its partners worldwide, Putin argued. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that African countries are ready to talk with their Western counterparts. However, the latter should not expect spectacular results if they reduce dialogue to “patting on the back” while failing to address the continent’s “pressing needs.” To foster closer ties with the region, Russia hosted a landmark Russia-Africa forum in St. Petersburg this summer that produced many bilateral agreements in various fields. Dozens of African delegations also attended it despite what Moscow described as “unprecedented pressure from the West” to skip the summit.

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Poland is one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters. But it won’t kill its own farmers.

Kiev Reiterates Grain Threat To Poland (RT)

Kiev does not want to harm Polish farmers, but it will lobby for its right to export grain into the EU nation under World Trade Organization rules, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal has declared. On Tuesday, the chair of the Ukrainian government reiterated Kiev’s warning that it would seek arbitration if Poland maintained a ban on imports. The current temporary restriction, which was imposed by the EU in May, is set to expire on Friday. “We have no intention of harming Polish farmers,” he stated on X (formerly Twitter). Warsaw’s stated policy of keeping the ban in place would be a “violation of trade law in the interest of political populism before the elections,” he added. Poland is set to hold a general election in October, with the ruling Law and Justice party seeking a third term at the helm.

Earlier in the day, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pledged to make sure that Ukrainian grain would not “flood” his nation, causing distress to local producers. That will be the case regardless of what the EU decides, he assured. When asked about Shmygal’s remark by local media outlets, government spokesman Piotr Muller said Warsaw would maintain the embargo at the national level if its appeal to the EU to renew the ban failed. The Polish government adopted a formal message to the European Commission arguing its case on Tuesday. Brussels’ ban had de facto legitimized prohibitions imposed nationally by Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania have said they intend to reimpose national bans if the EU prohibition expires.

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Do your homework first?!

Pocahontas Threatens Musk With Investigation For Blocking Ukrainian Attack (RT)

US Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on Congress to investigate Elon Musk over his refusal to enable a Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian naval fleet in Crimea. Despite condemnation in Washington, Musk has defended his decision to cut satellite service to the Ukrainian military. “The Congress needs to investigate what’s happened here and whether we have adequate tools to make sure foreign policy is conducted by the government and not by one billionaire,” Warren told reporters at the US Capitol on Monday. Musk and other Big Tech CEOs are due to meet with US lawmakers to discuss artificial intelligence on Wednesday. However, the subject of the hearing has been overshadowed by news that Musk intervened last year to prevent six Ukrainian naval drones from hitting Russian ships at the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

The Ukrainian military had been using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service for communications and guidance since the beginning of the conflict with Russia. When Musk learned that the drones were en route to Sevastopol, he ordered SpaceX engineers to shut down the service within 100km of the Russian peninsula, CNN reported on Thursday, quoting an upcoming biography of the billionaire. As a result, the drones “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” the report claimed. Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mikhail Fedorov then begged Musk to turn the signal back on via text messages, but Musk refused.

“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” the billionaire explained last week, adding that he never allowed the service to be activated near Crimea in the first place. Musk’s explanation caused outrage in Kiev, with President Vladimir Zelensky’s top aide accusing the SpaceX CEO of “committing evil.” In the US, CNN anchor Jake Tapper argued on Sunday that Musk had “effectively sabotaged” an American ally, and asked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken if he should face “repercussions” for thwarting the attack.

Blinken refused to condemn Musk, but several members of Congress have spoken out against the billionaire. Musk “cannot have the last word when it comes to national security,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed told reporters on Monday. At the time of the thwarted attack, Musk was bankrolling Ukraine’s access to the Starlink network. The Pentagon has since stepped in to partly fund the program, and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said on Monday that future contracts between the military and private firms like SpaceX will likely include “assurances” that these technologies can be used for offensive purposes.

Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1701648627297362426

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”..Nuland’s words showed that this was “no longer about Ukraine,” but about “an undeclared hot war with Russia.”

Nuland: US ‘Supports’ Ukraine Targeting ‘Russia’s Most Precious Assets’ (Sp.)

US Acting Deputy Secretary of State and Russophobic hawk Victoria Nuland appears to have let slip that the Biden administration supports Ukraine’s strikes targeting Russian territory. In a video clip circulating on social media, Nuland, who just recently visited Ukraine’s capital, can be heard saying that one “axis” of Washington’s strategy in it proxy war with Moscow in Ukraine is to “put some of Russia’s most precious assets at risk.” This comes amid reports that Washington will be sending long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to the Kiev regime. However, earlier in September, a Pentagon official told Sputnik no decision had been made to supply Ukraine with ATACMS.

According to US media, the Defense Department has warned that its own ATACMS arsenal is relatively small, and the missiles are already deployed to other areas, such as the Korean Peninsula, and therefore their transfer to Ukraine would jeopardize US combat readiness in other regions. In response to the clip on social media, users commented that Victoria Nuland appeared intent on unleashing a “nuclear war” – something that the career civil servant along with US President Joe Biden and senior White House and State Department officials have been repeatedly accused of. Netizens remarked that Washington has “never shown willingness to talk meaningfully with Moscow,” and warned that Nuland’s words showed that this was “no longer about Ukraine,” but about “an undeclared hot war with Russia.”

Others on social media recalled Nuland’s role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, when the country’s democratically elected government collapsed, and a pro-Western regime was installed. Then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is remembered for strolling the streets of Kiev with Geoffrey Pyatt, the then-US ambassador, handing out free cookies. Later, in February 2014, on the eve of the Euromaidan coup, in a telephone conversation she famously quipped, as per a leaked call, “Yats is the guy!” referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a politician who got less than seven percent of the vote in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election, but would be selected as the first prime minister of the post-coup government.

Nuland has been one of the most avid proponents of Kiev massively hitting Russian military installations in Crimea, considering them to be legitimate targets, as per her remarks on February 16, 2023. Crimea became a Russian region after a referendum was held there in March 2014 following a coup in Ukraine. The Russian leadership has repeatedly stated that Crimean residents democratically, in full compliance with international law and the UN Charter, voted for reunification with Russia. Furthermore, the United States considers it important to provide Kiev with the military “of the future,” Nuland had said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.

In response, Igor Girenko, press secretary of the Russian embassy in the US, said Nuland’s comment that the United States supports Ukraine targeting Russian military installations in Crimea shows Washington’s direct involvement in the Ukraine conflict. After both Washington and London agreed to supply the Zelensky regime with longer-range missiles, they claimed that Kiev had promised not to attack Russian soil with them. However, as Kiev’s counteroffensive falters, the risk of a “desperation” attack outside the Donbass is growing, pundits told Sputnik.

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“..intended to serve as psychological crutch and do not pose a meaningful military intiative.”

Ukraine Missile Attack in Sevastopol Leaves 24 People Injured (Sp.)

Russian air defenses repelled an overnight attack by the Ukrainian armed forces on the city of Sevastopol in Crimea, Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said early Wednesday. Razvozhayev indicated that he is on scene near the area where a fire broke out in the city’s industrial district, detailing that operational services were on site at the Sevastopol shipyard. The governor added that 24 people sustained injuries as a result of the missile strike, four of whom were identified as being in “moderate condition.” The Sevastopol official further said there is no threat to civilian facilities as a result of the fire. The situation in the air continues to be monitored as all operational services remain on standby, he went on to underscore.

A subsequent release issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense stated the overnight strike by the Kiev regime included the use of 10 cruise missile and three drone boats. “Tonight, the Ukrainian armed forces conducted a strike against the shipyard named after Ordzhonikidze in the city of Sevastopol using 10 cruise missiles and attacked a group of ships of the Black Sea Fleet during the movement in the sea using drone boats,” the ministry said. “Air defenses destroyed seven cruise missiles, and the Vasily Bykov patrol ship destroyed all drone boats. As a result of cruise missiles hitting the shipyard, two ships, which were in repair, were damaged.”

Over the last several months, Ukraine has repeatedly carried out drones strikes against Russian territory, more recently in the face of its failed counteroffensive. The Russian government has referred to the repeat drone attacks as a “nuisance” as experts have stressed that such efforts are intended to serve as psychological crutch and do not pose a meaningful military intiative.

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“The CIA bribing CIA officers to hide the CIA’s work on COVID is simply the most CIA thing you’ll ever hear!”

CIA Bribed Analysts To Change Wuhan Lab-Leak Conclusions (ZH)

A ‘senior-level’ CIA whistleblower has come forward to allege that the agency bribed analysts to change their opinion that Covid-19 most likely originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, according to the NY Post. The whistleblower told House committee leaders that his agency ‘ tried to pay off six analysts who found SARS-CoV-2 likely originated in a Wuhan lab if they changed their position and said the virus jumped from animals to humans,’ according to a Tuesday letter from the chairmen of two House subcommittees investigating the pandemic response and US intelligence, Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) and Mike Turner (R-OH). The pair have requested all documents, communications and pay info from the CIA’s Covid-19 Discovery Team by Sept. 26.

“According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” reads the letter from the House panel chairmen. “The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis. “The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position,” the letters continue, adding that the analysts were “experienced officers with significant scientific expertise.”

Wenstrup and Turner also asked for documents and communications between the CIA and other federal agencies, including the State Department, FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Energy Department. In a separate letter, the House committee leaders identified former CIA Chief Operating Officer Andrew Makridis as having “played a central role” in the COVID investigation and asked him to sit for a transcribed interview. -NY Post In June, the US Intelligence Community declassified a 10-page report on COVID origins, in which it found “biosafety concerns” and “genetic engineering” taking place in Wuhan, but that most of its “agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered.”

As the Post points out, however, several scientists at the WIV fell ill in late 2019 with symptoms “consistent with but not diagnostic of COVID-19,” according to the intelligence report, which concluded that the CIA and another intelligence agency “remain unable to determine the precise origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, as both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.” ot all former US intelligence officials agree with the declassified report – such as former DNI John Ratcliffe, who told Congress that the “lab leak theory” was the “only” credible explanation for the pandemic. “My informed assessment as a person with as much access as anyone to our government’s intelligence … has been and continues to be that a lab leak is the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science and by common sense,” he told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in a hearing.

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Why only France? Why only Apple?

France Bans iPhone Over Radiation Concerns (RT)

Apple must withdraw all iPhone 12 models from the French market immediately, the National Frequency Agency (ANFR) announced on Tuesday, accusing the popular smartphone of emitting far more electromagnetic radiation than European Union regulations allow. “The ANFR expects Apple to deploy all available means to put an end to the non-compliance. Failure to act will result in the recall of equipment that has already been made available to consumers,” the agency said. According to the regulator, tests at an accredited laboratory revealed that the phone exceeded the specific absorption rate (SAR) value mandated by the EU, which is four watts-per-kilogram (W/kg), when held in hand or in a trouser pocket. The “body” SAR, when the phone is in a jacket pocket or a bag at least 5mm away, was within the 2 W/kg limit, however.

Apple must immediately stop the sale of iPhone 12 models and get ANFR approval if it makes updates to them to ensure compliance, the regulator added. ANFR inspectors have been authorized to check “all distribution channels in France” for the banned device, starting Tuesday. The iPhone 12 was introduced in October 2020 and has continued to be popular due to a lower price point than the subsequent models. Apple says the model has a SAR of 0.99 W/kg when measured by the EU standard. Earlier on Tuesday, the California-based Apple announced the iPhone 15 line of devices, featuring the USB-C connector in order to comply with an EU mandate adopted in 2022.

The US Federal Communications Commission has yet to comment on the French announcement. The FCC has a SAR limit of 1.6 W/kg. sFrance’s radiation crackdown comes after several months of bad news for Apple. Last week it was reported that China has banned government employees from bringing iPhones or any other foreign devices into the office or using them for work purposes. Russian officials were advised to stop using iPhones in July, while the state military industry banned them outright, citing security concerns. Later that month, a class action suit in the UK accused the US-based company of monopolistic behavior regarding fees charged by the app store.

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“..absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with Ukraine, Russia can and would..”

The Mackinder Strategic ‘Bible’ Reconsidered (Crooke)

In 1997, Zbig Brzezinski, the original ‘driver’ behind the making of Afghanistan as a quagmire of ‘mud’ into which Russia was to be dragged, wrote his celebrated book, The Grand Chessboard. It was a work that ‘forever’ embedded the Mackinder doctrine of ‘he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world’ into the U.S. zeitgeist. Tellingly, its subtitle was American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. Brzezinski had already written in his book that absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with Ukraine, Russia can and would. Thus, Mackinder’s doctrine, ‘He who controls the heartland’ dictum, was codified into U.S. ‘cannon law’ – never to permit a united heartland. And Ukraine became seen as the hinge around which heartland power revolved.

Brzezinski further ordained that this ‘Grand Game of Chess’ was to be one of pure U.S. primacy: “No, no one else plays”, he insisted; it is a game purely for one. Once a chess piece is moved; ‘we’ (the U.S.) simply turn the board the other way around – and move the other side’s chess pieces (for ‘them’). There is ‘no other’ in this game”, Brzezinski warned. This is today’s dilemma – It is so long since Brzezinski originally formulated the Mackinder notion, that classical diplomacy has become etiolated. It was Henry Kissinger however, that gave Mackinder its celebrated twist: ‘He who controls money controls the world’ was to become the dollar and banking financialised hegemony. But, Kissinger, in this, was wrong from the ‘get go’. It always has been: ‘He who has manufacturing capacity, raw materials, food, energy (human as well as fossil) and sound money can change the world’.

But Kissinger simply ignored those adjunct conditions, and based the U.S. instead in the creation of a global ‘spider’s web of weaponised dollars (touch it, and the sanctions gossamer poisons you). Additionally, this system was multiplied through Wall Street parsing out access to trillions in newly created money only to the compliant. Kissinger did, however, evolve the doctrine of ‘triangulation’ in a nod to Mackinder: The U.S. should seek to ally with either Russia versus China, or be with China, in opposition to Russia. But never to let China and Russia conjoin against the West. The heartland must always be fractured. These ‘rules’ are imprinted on Washington’s mental circuits. Yet the notions that underpin them have little validity today. Land mass, militarised states (heartland Asia) versus the naval powers (the Atlanticists) hardly reflects today’s more abstract instruments of power.

[..] The present conflict in Ukraine has underlined the deficiencies in hegemonic power that specifically arise from a neglected manufacturing base. Mackinder, were he here today, might thus need to adjust his model, distinguishing between the land that is ‘outside’ the one set of economic policies (the BRICS-led Asian, African and global Southern bloc), and that which is ‘inside’: i.e. within a ‘coastal’ debt-led, consumerist paradigm.

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Fluoride

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Dec 052022
 
 December 5, 2022  Posted by at 9:17 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  85 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Chair 1942

 

Elon Musk: Worse Than Hitler (Titania McGrath)
Elon Musk Says There Are More Smoking Guns To Come And He’s Not Suicidal (PM)
Twitter Staff to Face Congress for Censoring Hunter Biden Laptop Story (ET)
A Baseline Understanding Mostly Missing Behind the Twitter Discussion (CTH)
Six Degrees from James Baker: A Familiar Figure Reemerges (Turley)
Katie Hobbs’ Office Contacted Twitter To Censor Posts (PM)
US Republican House Leader Calls For Big Tech Investigation (RT)
EU Desire To Pay For Ukraine Will Ruin Europe For Generations – Orbán (RMX)
EU Must ‘Take Action’ Against US – von der Leyen (RT)
EU Should Sue US – Lawmaker (RT)
Withdrawal Of Russian Weapons Is Key To Nuclear Plant Deal – IAEA Chief (RT)
Italy Justifies Russian Gas Imports (RT)
China Slams US Stationing In Syria, Oil And Grain Looting As Illegal (AlM)
Alameda’s Caroline Ellison Spotted In NY, May Be About To Roll On SBF (ZH)
Database Shows 10,000% Increase In Cancer Reports Due To Covid Vaccines (ARR)
Scientist Who Worked At Wuhan Lab Says Covid Was Man-made Virus (NYP)
What Is The Next Thing That Will Hit Us? It Will Be Huge (Ugo Bardi)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rogan Willink

 

 

 

 

Phones

 

 

 

 

Robert Kennedy Jr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Only a fascist would seek to impose free speech on humanity.”

Elon Musk: Worse Than Hitler (Titania McGrath)

It is no exaggeration to say that Elon Musk’s annexation of Twitter is the most terrifying development in recent history. Only a fascist would seek to impose free speech on humanity. This is why there has been such a chorus of execration from left-wing commentators, celebrities and influencers. On the day that Musk seized control of Twitter, Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz noted that it was “like the gates of hell opened on this site tonight”. Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic wrote that there was “an apocalyptic feel to the ordeal”. But it was the Independent that really grasped the full gravity of this moment. Its headline read — “RIP Twitter, 2006-2022: Dead at the Hands of Elon Musk”. It is a testament to the cool-headed stoicism of left-wing journalists that they have managed not to overreact.

I also am trying my best to keep matters in perspective, but Musk’s takeover of Twitter is far worse than anything Hitler ever did. I do not approve of mass genocide, but it pales in comparison to providing a social media platform where Eddie Izzard might be misgendered. The whole point of Twitter is to ensure that the masses aren’t exposed to wild conspiracy theories. If tweets aren’t censored, people might start to think that Covid-19 could have originated from a lab in Wuhan, or that there was something dodgy on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Musk has argued that Twitter ought to be a place where all political viewpoints can be aired. But keeping people informed can have dire consequences. Democracy has no chance of working properly if people keep insisting on voting for the wrong candidates.

Like many on the left, I have decided to delete my Twitter account in protest. Musk won’t know what hit him. Without my wisdom on the platform, the company will soon collapse into oblivion. There will be an outcry, share prices will plummet, and Musk will come begging for me to return. But I shall stand firm. Come to think of it, maybe I should wait until next week to delete my account. I’ve got a book to sell.

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“Twitter doesn’t know what’s going on at Twitter,” Musk said. He also noted “it appears that Twitter falsely claimed that there was no election interference.”

Elon Musk Says There Are More Smoking Guns To Come And He’s Not Suicidal (PM)

“Well,” Musk said, “I’m somewhat leaving this up to Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss. But I think the natural thing would be to say like, ‘okay, what happened after the election? Y’know, Hunter Biden laptop stuff? This may sound bizarre, but Hunter Biden sounds kind of fun, to be honest.” [..] When asked what the next round of a Twitter Files drop would like like, he said “there are more smoking guns.” “Episode two,” he said, would cover information from after the 2020 president election. Speaking to ALX, whose account was only recently restored to the platform, Musk said that all requests from both the Biden campaign and the DNC to Twitter for the purpose of censoring individual users would be released.

In saying that he would release all the files, Musk reference Nelson Mandela, from his home country of South Africa, saying that he was undertaking something like a “truth and reconciliation.” “If you want reconciliation, there must be truth, so that’s the intention here, to just make it clear what was happening and provide transparency about the past, and in doing so, to build trust in the future,” Musk said. A big issue among many users was the use of the terms misinformation and disinformation, used by media outlets, social media moderators, and government officials to suppress contrary narratives and facts about Covid, vaccines, January 6, elections, voting, and other hot button issues.

He was asked about the situation where currently, the government are the “deciders” of what constitutes misinformation and disinformation. “It’s a big deal, I agree,” Musk said, “because the hard part of the situation is that if you don’t want to have government, and especially if they aren’t even an elected officials, maybe someone who is potentially a mid-level executive ministry is deciding this, who people don’t even know and was never elected, despite being a democratic country.” Others commented on his efforts to remove image of child exploitation from the site. “Twitter doesn’t know what’s going on at Twitter,” Musk said. He also noted “it appears that Twitter falsely claimed that there was no election interference.”

“I am definitely not going to be doing any open-air car parades.”

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Under oath, we may hope.

Twitter Staff to Face Congress for Censoring Hunter Biden Laptop Story (ET)

The top Republican on the House Oversight Committee said that Twitter staff involved in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential elections will face Congress and testify about their actions. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the GOP ranking member on the Committee, made the remarks in a Friday appearance on Fox News after Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk dropped part one of the so-called “Twitter Files,” an expose of the inner workings of Twitter’s censorship machine. “Every employee at Twitter who was involved in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story will have an opportunity to come before Congress and explain their actions to the American people,” Comer told program host Sean Hannity.

Musk and independent journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday unveiled a series of internal Twitter communications that give insight into steps taken by staff at the social media platform around suppressing the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story. Republicans have long accused Twitter—and some media outlets—of suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, which included reporting that bolstered claims that the president lied when he said he had no involvement in his son’s overseas business dealings. In order to suppress the Hunter Biden report, Twitter executives marked it as “unsafe,” limiting its spread and even blocking it from being directly shared via the platform’s direct message function, Taibbi said in comments on the disclosures.

He noted that such extreme restrictions were reserved for content such as child pornography. Messages between executives in Twitter’s communications and policy departments, shared by Taibbi in screenshots, show some confusion about the actions taken, with a communications executive writing: “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe.” The disclosures show that both Democrats and Republicans had access to Twitter’s censorship system and each side lodged various requests and complaints with the social media platform’s staff. But because of Twitter employees’ predominantly left-leaning political convictions, Democrats had more avenues to press their case, Taibbi said.

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“What Obama and Holder did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons of government only targeted one side of the political continuum.”

A Baseline Understanding Mostly Missing Behind the Twitter Discussion (CTH)

Musk noted that in addition to Matt Taibbi he has given the Twitter files to Bari Weiss. However, the debate over what DC bureaucrats did -and are doing- from within the Biden administration, to censor speech, take down social media content and stop information adverse to their political interests, is a futile conversation without the full understanding of the current U.S. surveillance state. Some of the stage participants on the call with Mr. Musk have self-identified as targeted by the intelligence community, some are under active and ongoing investigation, yet they do not seem to have an understanding of what this U.S. social media surveillance system is. We cannot fight our way through the issues until we first realize what lies at the root of the problem.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; the institutions were already weaponized by the Patriot Act. What Obama and Holder did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons of government only targeted one side of the political continuum. This point is where many people understandably get confused. Elevator Speech: (1) The Patriot Act turned the intel surveillance radar from foreign searches for terrorists to domestic searches for terrorists. (2) Obama/Biden then redefined what is a “terrorist” to include their political opposition. After 9/11/01 the electronic surveillance system that was originally created to monitor threats from abroad was retooled to monitor threats inside our country.

That is when all of our electronic ‘metadata’ came under federal surveillance. That inflection point, and the process that followed, was exactly what Edward Snowden tried to point out. What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their political opposition became the target of this new national security system. The problems we face now as a country are directly an outcome of two very distinct points that were merged by Barack Obama. (1) The post 9/11 monitoring of electronic communication of American citizens; and (2) Obama’s team creating a fine-tuning knob that it focused on the politics of the targets. This is very important to understand as you dig deeper into this research outline.

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“For censors and political operatives in Twitter, Baker likely seemed like a “made man” for a company committed to systemic censorship.”

Six Degrees from James Baker: A Familiar Figure Reemerges (Turley)

As thousands of Twitter documents are released on the company’s infamous censorship program, much has been confirmed about the use of back channels by Biden and Democratic officials to silence critics on the social media platform. However, one familiar name immediately popped out in the first batch of documents released through journalist Matt Taibbi: James Baker. For many, James Baker is fast becoming the Kevin Bacon of the Russian collusion scandals. Baker has been featured repeatedly in the Russian investigations launched by the Justice Department, including the hoax involving the Russian Alfa Bank. When Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann wanted to plant the bizarre false claim of a secret communications channel between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, Baker was his go-to, speed-dial contact. [..]

The Bidens had long been accused of influence peddling, nepotism, and other forms of corruption. Moreover, the campaign was not denying that the laptop was Hunter Biden’s and key emails could be confirmed from the other parties involved. However, at the request of the “Biden team” and Democratic operatives, Twitter moved to block the story. It even suspended those who tried to share the allegations with others, including the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who was suspended for linking to the scandal. Even inside Twitter, the move raised serious concerns over the company serving as a censor for the Biden campaign. Global Comms Brandon Borrman who asked if the company could “truthfully claim that this is part of the policy” for barring posts and suspending users. Baker quickly jumped in to support the censorship and said that “it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been [hacked] and that caution is warranted.”

Keep in mind that there was never any evidence that this material was hacked. Moreover, there was no evidence of Russian involvement in the laptop. Indeed, U.S. intelligence quickly rejected the Russian disinformation claim. However, Baker insisted that there was a “reasonable” assumption that Russians were behind another major scandal. Faced with a major scandal implicating a Joe Biden in the corrupt selling of access to foreign figures (including some with foreign intelligence associations), Baker’s natural default was to kill the story and stop others from sharing the allegations. The released documents may show why Twitter was so eager to hire Baker despite his role in the Russian collusion controversies. What likely would have been a liability for most companies seemed an actual draw for Twitter. For censors and political operatives in Twitter, Baker likely seemed like a “made man” for a company committed to systemic censorship.

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How to really rig a election. What a joke.

Katie Hobbs’ Office Contacted Twitter To Censor Posts (PM)

Arizona Governor-Elect Katie Hobbs is facing backlash as proof that her office requested for certain tweets to be censored came out of Elon Musk’s release of the “Twitter Files,” the internal documents showing collusion between government officials, campaign teams, and other like actors with the social media giant to silence political dissent. On January 7 2021, the communications director for Hobbs’ Secretary of State office emailed the Center for Internet Security (CIS), a 501 nonprofit cybersecurity organization that “makes the connected world a safer place for people, businesses, and governments through our core competencies of collaboration and innovation,” according to their website.

“I’m flagging this Twitter account for your review,” Hobbs’ comms director wrote to [email protected], linking to an unidentified profile. The subject line was “Election Related Misinformation.” The “misinformation” department at CIS then forwarded the message along to an employee at Twitter, writing “Please see this report below from the Arizona SOS office. Please let me know if you have any questions.” “Thank you,” Twitter wrote back. “We will escalate.” About seven hours later, a Twitter employee wrote again; “Thank you… both tweets have been removed from the service.” Copied on this response was an employee at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a branch under the federal government’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for an investigation into the matter, writing, “The SOS of AZ and Gov candidate, Katie Hobbs, used the power of the AZ SOS to collude w/ Twitter to unconstitutionally violate 1st Amendment rights of Americans for her own political gain.” “This is communism and Hobbs can not be governor. I’m calling for a Federal investigation,” she added.

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How much does Big Tech donate to the GOP?

US Republican House Leader Calls For Big Tech Investigation (RT)

The Republican Party must be ready to investigate some of the US’ largest tech firms, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has declared, in response to recently released documents showing how Twitter suppressed information damaging to Joe Biden in 2020. McCarthy said on Saturday that the incoming Republican majority “will get answers for the American people” about Twitter’s efforts to “silence the truth about Hunter Biden’s laptop just days before the 2020 presidential election.” This will happen when the GOP takes back control of the House of Representatives in January, McCarthy stressed.

Documents released by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Friday showed a top-down effort by the platform’s most senior staff to suppress the spread of a New York Post article alleging that Joe Biden took part in numerous pay-to-play schemes with his son’s foreign business contacts whilst he was vice president of the US. Twitter banned the sharing of links to the story, even in private messages. Facebook also took action to censor the Hunter Biden story, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg later saying he was instructed to by the FBI. Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, McCarthy called on the GOP to look beyond just Twitter.

“Now we need to start looking at Facebook, at Google. These now have become arms of the Democratic Party, arms of the Biden administration,” he said. The prospective Speaker also called for the investigation of dozens of former intelligence officials who falsely claimed that the Hunter Biden story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” “[The Democrats] also used the intel community as well to lie to the American public. Should those people keep their clearances? Should those people still be allowed to have information?” he asked. “They used every arm not only of the government, but they had taken over businesses to lie to the American public,” McCarthy continued. “This is just the beginning. All this will be held up.”

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Europe has exactly one voice of reason.

EU Desire To Pay For Ukraine Will Ruin Europe For Generations – Orbán (RMX)

European policies which advocate mass joint borrowing among EU member states to further finance Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion of the country will have devastating consequences for the continent, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned on Friday. During an interview on the “Good morning, Hungary!” program on Kossuth Rádió, Orbán slammed the futility of the existing EU sanctions on Russian energy. He also said that “not only our children, but also our grandchildren will suffer the consequences” of the mass joint borrowing scheme proposed by the European Union to continue financing Ukraine’s defense; furthermore, we will also have to pay for the states that become insolvent along the way, he added.

The Hungarian leader reaffirmed his country’s opposition to Brussels financing the operation of the Ukrainian state through joint borrowing, suggesting instead that agreements with Ukraine should be made at the national level through bilateral agreements between individual countries. “We do not want the European Union to become a community or group of jointly indebted states instead of a community of cooperating member states,” Orbán told listeners. He highlighted that Ukraine has now found itself in a situation whereby it is incapable of functioning as an independent nation because of the ongoing conflict, and while it needs help from its neighbors and allies in the short-term, it is not for Brussels to speak on behalf of all member states.

“We accept the need for support, but we are not happy about it; if there was no war, there wouldn’t be this necessity either,” Orbán said. The Hungarian prime minister also discussed the ongoing EU sanctions on Russian energy, including the latest oil sanctions due to come into effect on Dec. 5, which Hungary is exempt from. He warned that any further extension of EU sanctions on Russian gas or nuclear energy would have “tragic consequences” for Hungary, and insisted his nation must be exempt from such a decision. Orbán lamented the failure of the ongoing energy sanctions, which he argued have not brought us “one millimeter closer” to the end of the war.

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In the same breath, she talks about a Russia war crimes tribunal. Relevancy is hard to come by…

EU Must ‘Take Action’ Against US – von der Leyen (RT)

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned on Sunday that to be able to compete with the US’ government-subsidized green industry, the EU must “take action” and step up state aid to its own companies. Signed into law by President Joe Biden in August, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is – despite its name – a $738 billion spending package that allocates $391 billion toward green energy and climate-friendly industry projects, including $270 billion in tax incentives. Initially lauded by liberals on both sides of the Atlantic, von der Leyen now sees the act as a threat to Europe’s industry.

The IRA’s provision of tax breaks for consumers who buy American products, and manufacturers who produce these products in the US, could “lead to unfair competition, could close markets, and thus fragment critical supply chains,” she told a gathering of students in the Belgian city of Bruges. With these incentives on the one hand, and the EU’s struggles with supply chain bottlenecks and record energy costs on the other, the IRA could place European industry at a disadvantage, she continued. Competition between the US and EU “must respect a level playing field,” she declared. “We must take action to rebalance the playing field, where the IRA and other measures create distortions.” To that end, von der Leyen said that the EU must increase state aid to its own industries, and invest in renewable energy, while lobbying the US to “address some of the most concerning aspects” of the IRA.

Earlier on Sunday, the head of the European Parliament’s trade committee, Bernd Lange, said that pressing the US to rewrite the act is a waste of time, and that the EU should file a complaint with the World Trade Organization instead. While von der Leyen blamed the Europe-wide energy crunch on Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the EU’s own sanctions on Moscow impeded critical repair work along Russian-EU gas lines before deliveries were reduced. Moreover, the bloc pressed ahead with imposing a price cap on Russian oil on Saturday. On the same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow is not planning to recognize the measure. He added that the government is currently carrying out a review of the situation.

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Look, you lost…

EU Should Sue US – Lawmaker (RT)

The EU should file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the controversial US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Bernd Lange, head of the European Parliament’s Trade Committee, told the Berliner Morgenpost news outlet on Saturday. “My assumption is that the negotiations between the EU and the US will not be able to help agree even on small changes in the implementation of the IRA. The basic structure of the IRA will remain in place. In this regard, I think it is necessary for the EU to quickly file a complaint with the WTO in the coming months,” the lawmaker said ahead of a meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council on Monday, at which the IRA package is expected to be discussed. He added that the lawsuit would help clarify “that the US’s actions are clearly not compatible with WTO regulations.”

The IRA is a $430 billion climate protection and social package passed by the US Congress in August. The package aims to help battle inflation and reduce energy prices, as well as tackling climate change. It offers generous tax breaks for US companies that invest in clean energy and significant subsidies for domestic electric vehicles, batteries and renewable energy projects. The measure has sparked concerns in the EU, with many warning that the “protectionist” legislation may be “discriminatory” towards European companies. French President Emmanuel Macron has slammed the subsidies provision in the IRA as “super aggressive,” while German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has called for a “robust” response to the law from Brussels.

Meanwhile, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche that the legislation would cause a “competitive imbalance” between the EU and other buyers of US goods. He called for the creation of a “European sovereignty fund” which would support industrial projects within the bloc. Lange also suggested the EU should step up its support for domestic industry in the face of the US legislation. “We also have to examine whether and how we can reduce energy prices for our industry, as at the moment they are up to ten times higher than in the US,” he stated.

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Yeah, that’s gonna happen…

Withdrawal Of Russian Weapons Is Key To Nuclear Plant Deal – IAEA Chief (RT)

Any deal for the “protection” of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) will involve the withdrawal of Russia’s arms from it, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi has stated. Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling the site.Speaking to Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper on Friday, Grossi said that a deal to establish a ‘safe zone’ around the plant could be reached “by the end of the year.” The Ukrainian side is pushing for “the withdrawal of armaments” from the facility, Grossi continued, adding that such a pullback “would in any case be part of the general agreement.”

The largest nuclear power facility in Europe, the Zaporozhye plant was seized by Russian troops shortly after Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February. The wider region of Zaporozhye, along with three other former Ukrainian territories, eventually joined Russia after holding referendums in September. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in October declaring Russian ownership over the plant. Moscow also stated last month that it is open to establishing a demilitarized “security zone” around it, as long as an international monitoring mechanism were put in place. Without such a mechanism, any agreement would be treated like “an empty sheet of paper” by Kiev, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organizations in Vienna, said in November.

Russia has repeatedly accused the Ukrainian military of shelling the plant, and Moscow’s troops have thwarted numerous attempts by Ukraine to retake the facility. Last month, Russian security services said they had foiled a planned “terrorist attack” on the plant orchestrated by the Ukrainian government. Grossi would not say whether he thinks Russia will agree to pull back its weapons, saying only that “Russia is not against an agreement and the principle of plant protection.” The IAEA head added that he hopes to meet Putin, as well as Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, before a deal is agreed.

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Today the total ban goes into effect. Right.

Italy Justifies Russian Gas Imports (RT)

Italy is still reliant on Russian natural gas, which it continues to import despite calls in the EU for a ban, according to Environment and Energy Security Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin. In an interview with La Stampa daily, he said 250 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas entered Italy the previous day, including 90 mcm from Algeria, which has become the country’s “main supplier.” The minister added that 30 mcm are still coming from Russia, with the average daily volume from the sanctioned country reaching around 20 mcm. “Fortunately, another 25 million cubic meters come via Trans Adriatic Gas Pipeline, about 10 million cubic meters from Norway, and 45 million cubic meters of liquefied gas load at our regasification terminals,” the energy minister explained.

He compared Italy’s energy transition plan to a “reversal of the hourglass that leads us to have to search in the South for the gas that previously came from the North and which in the future can also put Italy in a position of advantage over other European countries.” “We haven’t overturned the hourglass yet; Russia continues to have an interest in exporting gas and we are not in a condition of self-sufficiency. We’re not out of the tunnel yet,” he stressed.

According to Pichetto Fratin, Italy will make it through this winter, “but the concern remains strong because from May we have to fill the stocks to cover the next winter season, and this is a difficult undertaking.” Italy, along with other EU countries, has been battling record-high inflation, driven largely by rising energy costs. The country relies on imports for nearly 75% of its energy. At the start of this year, it was receiving 40% of its gas from Russia, but the imports later plunged due to sanctions on Moscow and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. In October, energy group Eni said that Russia now accounts for only around 10% of Italy’s gas imports.

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“..the US’s smuggling activities have cost Syria more than $100 billion of losses.”

China Slams US Stationing In Syria, Oil And Grain Looting As Illegal (AlM)

The Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, opened fire on the US’ illegal presence in Syria, shedding light on the continuous US looting of Syrian oil and grain and slamming the US occupation’s missile attacks on the country. In a press conference on December 2, 2022, addressing worldwide media outlets, Lijian said, “The US’s stationing of troops in Syria is illegal. The US’s smuggling of oil and grain from Syria is illegal. The US’s missile attack against Syria is also illegal.” Answering a question by the Chinese Shenzhen TV, whereby they asked the spokesperson to comment on the fact that “on the morning of December 1, the US forces sent 54 oil-laden tankers from northeastern Syria to its bases in northern Iraq, the latest shipment of stolen Syrian oil to be delivered,” Lijian said he noted the relevant reports, slamming the US occupation forces for leaving the Syrian people struggling to survive an anticipated harsh winter, as they continue to loot their oil and grain.


The Chinese diplomat also highlighted the financial losses of the continuous US looting and smuggling of Syrian oil, saying, “According to the official data from the Syrian government, between 2011 and the first half of 2022, the US’s smuggling activities have cost Syria more than $100 billion of losses.” According to Lijian, the US keeps violating international laws and rules, contrary to its claims that it advocates what it calls “the rules-based international order.” “When the US talks about ‘rules’, it is often just trying to find a pretext for serving its own interest and perpetuating its hegemony,” he stressed. The Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson quoted former French Ambassador to the US Gérard Araud as saying that “when the Americans basically want to do whatever they want, including when it’s against international law, as they define it, they do it. And that’s the vision that the rest of the world has of this order.”

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“..continues his deluded daily media appearances while casually throwing his former alleged lover, co-worker and penthouse-mate, Caroline – and pretty much all other co-workers – under the bus..”

Alameda’s Caroline Ellison Spotted In NY, May Be About To Roll On SBF (ZH)

As Sam Bankman-Fried enters day six of his whirlwind media tour in which he makes one or more daily appearances – against the advice of his lawyers – in hopes of convincing someone that he was too dumb to be a criminal mastermind with billions in crypto in cold storage and in bank accounts in Dubai and Singapore (luckily all his wire transfers can be traced), also known as the Simple Jack defense… the weakest link in SBF’s defense was just spotted in a New York coffee shop, amid speculation she is preparing to blow up SBF’s entire defense strategy. According to Autism Capital, the former CEO of Alameda Capital (which as a reminder was ground zero of the FTX implosion after it blew up $8 billion in FTX client funds on trades gone horribly wrong), Caroline Ellison, was spotted at 8:15am this morning at the Ground Support Coffee on West Broad in SoHo Manhattan.


This, as AC notes, “would mean she is not in Hong Kong and is in NY not in custody.” A statement from a barista at the coffee shop confirmed that it was in fact Caroline. Why does this matter? Because while the prominent Democrat donor, who reportedly is “responsible for Biden being in office” and who – at least according to Musk – donated over $1 billion to democrats…continues his deluded daily media appearances while casually throwing his former alleged lover, co-worker and penthouse-mate, Caroline – and pretty much all other co-workers – under the bus by claiming he has no idea how $8 billion in FTX client funds just vaporized in SBF’s personal hedge fund, Alameda (implying that only Alameda’s CEO, Ellison, was responsible for the theft and fraud) Caroline is two-steps ahead of SBF and is already cooperating with members of the DOJ, and specifically the SDNY, which we previously reported is probing the collapse of FTX.

Read more …

VAERS.

Database Shows 10,000% Increase In Cancer Reports Due To Covid Vaccines (ARR)

LifeSite is reporting that a researcher who queried the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) discovered a 10,661.4% increase in cancer reports as a result of experimental Covid-19 gene-base vaccines as compared with all FDA-approved vaccines over the last 30 years. Brian Shilhavy, who is the editor of Health Impact News, traced his steps in the search providing links to documentation of his various findings. Having first queried the cases of ‘the most common cancers [that] had been reported following Covid-19 vaccines,’ he found “837 cases of cancer, including 88 deaths, 66 permanent disabilities, and 104 life threatening events.

He emphasized that even these numbers were not exhaustive, and the VAERS database could not handle the larger search of ‘ALL cancers listed in VAERS’ under this category of Covid inoculations. ‘Using the exact same search terms for cancer,’ he wrote, ‘I then searched ALL FDA-approved vaccines for the previous 30 years and found only 140 cases of cancer reported. ‘That result is for 360 months (30 years), whereas the 837 cases following the experimental Covid-19 vaccines were reported in just 20 months, since the roll out of the Covid-19 shots beginning in December of 2020,’ Shilhavy wrote. ‘That is an increase of 10,661.4%!’ he concluded.

Shilhavy, whose organization is located in Texas, also made note of the significant number of the cancer cases in the database that were of young people, from age 12 up through many young adults in their 20s. Last October, a Swedish lab study found that the spike protein associated with the Covid-19 illness, and its experimental vaccines, enters the nucleus of cells and significantly interferes with DNA damage-repair functions, compromising a person’s adaptive immunity and perhaps encouraging the formation of cancer cells.

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“..the non-profit helped the Wuhan lab put together the “best existing methods to engineer bat coronaviruses to attack other species” for many years.”

Scientist Who Worked At Wuhan Lab Says Covid Was Man-made Virus (NYP)

A scientist who worked at a controversial research lab in China has claimed that COVID was a man-made virus that leaked from the facility, according to a report. Andrew Huff, who worked for a New York-based non-profit that studied viruses, said COVID leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China two-plus years ago and blamed authorities for the “biggest US intelligence failure since 9/11,” Britain’s The Sun reported Saturday. The lab has been at the center of fierce debates about the origins of COVID, with both Chinese government officials and lab personnel denying that the virus leaked from the facility. Huff, an epidemiologist, said in his new book, “The Truth About Wuhan,” that the pandemic was the result of the US government’s funding of coronaviruses in China.

He said that China’s gain-of-function experiments were carried out with lax security, which led to a leak at the Wuhan lab. “Foreign laboratories did not have the adequate control measures in place for ensuring proper biosafety, biosecurity, and risk management, ultimately resulting in the lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he said in his book, which was exclusively excerpted in the newspaper. Over the last two years, increasing evidence has suggested that the virus was leaked from the lab. Some experts believe that the virus could have escaped through an infected scientist or the improper disposal of waste from the facility.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, told a European politician that he feared that the virus escaped from the lab in “a catastrophic accident” in 2019, according to a report in the Daily Mail earlier this year. Huff is a former vice president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based non-profit that studies infectious diseases. The group has been studying different coronaviruses in bats for more than a decade with funding from the National Institutes of Health, and had forged close ties to the Wuhan lab. Huff, who worked at EcoHealth Alliance from 2014 to 2016, said that the non-profit helped the Wuhan lab put together the “best existing methods to engineer bat coronaviruses to attack other species” for many years.

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“Not only it will harm the evil Putin, but it will reduce oil prices, so everyone in the West should be happy.”

What Is The Next Thing That Will Hit Us? It Will Be Huge (Ugo Bardi)

Do you remember how many things changed during the past 2-3 years, and changed so unbelievably fast? There was a pattern in these changes: one element was that we were told they were just temporary, another that they were done for our sake. We were told that we needed “Two weeks to flatten the curve,” and that “the sanctions will cause the Russian economy to collapse in two weeks,” and many more things. Then, the world would return to normal. Instead, the result was a “new normal,” not at all like the old one. Now, the obvious question is “what next?” More exactly, “what are they going to hit us with, next time?” There is this idea that there may be a new pandemic, a new virus, or the old one returning. But, no. They are smarter than that — so far they have always been one step, maybe two, ahead of us.

They are masters of propaganda, they know that propaganda is all based on memes and that memes have a finite lifetime. Old memes are like old newspapers, they are not interesting anymore. A particular bugaboo can’t scare people for too long, and the idea of scaring us with a pandemic virus is past its usefulness stage. They may have probed us with the “monkeypox” pandemic, and they saw that it didn’t work. It was obvious anyway. So, now what? Let me suggest one possible new way to hit us. You may have heard of it but, so far, it was supposed to be something marginal, not designed to create another “new normal.” But it may. It is huge, it is gigantic, it is arriving. It is the price cap on Russian oil. The idea is that a cartel of countries, mainly Western ones, will agree on prohibiting the import of Russian oil unless it is priced at less than $60 per barrel.

It will also make it more difficult for Russia to export oil abroad even to countries that do not subscribe to the agreement. This idea is, as usual, promoted as a way to help us. Not only it will harm the evil Putin, but it will reduce oil prices, so everyone in the West should be happy. But will it actually work? Unlikely, to say the least, and it is probable that the promoters know that very well. Think about that: it had never happened during the past hundred years that a cartel of countries had intervened to force a certain oil price worldwide. Even during the famed “Oil Crisis” of the 1970s, OPEC never did what it is often accused of having done, fixing a high oil price. OPEC can only set production quotas or sanction certain countries, but it has no power, and never had power, on prices, which are set by the international market.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Maajid George Webb

 

 

Cryptome

 

 

Vivaldi Accordeon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1599380903830048768

 

 

Bird colors
https://twitter.com/i/status/1599356266102411264

 

 

 

 

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Jun 192022
 


Henri Matisse Still Life with Apples on Pink Cloth 1925

 

When The Lies Come Home (Douglas Macgregor)
Biden Tries To Climb Down From Ukraine Ledge (AT)
World War 3 For Dummies (Baltar)
Europe Committing Energy Suicide By Imposing Sanctions On Russia (PressTV)
Ukraine Proposed Viable Peace Plan in April, Then Cut Off Negotiations (LI)
Record Diesel Prices Could Lead To Food Shortages In US, Farmers Warn (NYP)
WHO Chief ‘Believes Covid Did Leak From Wuhan Lab’ (DM)
America Is The Only Country That Authorizes Covid Shots For Infants (Schachtel)
Contagious Vaccines: A Warning (Kheriaty)
Tribe Declares Trump Committed Attempted Murder (Turley)
French National Assembly Vote Decides Battle Between Macron And Left (BBC)
The Shameless Farce of UK Attempt to Send Refugees to Rwanda (NewYorker)
Assange’s Extradition – War Criminals And Murderers, Rejoice (Oborne)
The Guardian View On Julian Assange Extradition: A Bad Day For Journalism (G.)

 

 

 

 

German truth

 

 

 

 

Tucker FBI Biden

 

 

Nils Melzer

 

 

 

 

 

 

Macgregor has been a voice of reason all through the conflict. He’s so highly thought of in military circles that none of the usual suspects dares touch him.

When The Lies Come Home (Douglas Macgregor)

The Western media did everything in its power to give the Ukrainian defense the appearance of far greater strength than it really possessed. Careful observers noted that the same video clips of Russian tanks under attack were shown repeatedly. Local counterattacks were reported as though they were operational maneuvers. Russian errors were exaggerated out of all proportion to their significance. Russian losses and the true extent of Ukraine’s own losses were distorted, fabricated, or simply ignored. But conditions on the battlefield changed little over time. Once Ukrainian forces immobilized themselves in static defensive positions inside urban areas and the central Donbas, the Ukrainian position was hopeless. But this development was portrayed as failure by the Russians to gain “their objectives.”

Ground-combat forces that immobilize soldiers in prepared defenses will be identified, targeted, and destroyed from a distance. When persistent overhead intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, whether manned or unmanned, are linked to precision guided-strike weapons or modern artillery systems informed by accurate targeting data, “holding ground” is fatal to any ground force. This is all the more true in Ukraine, because it was apparent from the first action that Moscow focused on the destruction of Ukrainian forces, not on the occupation of cities or the capture of Ukrainian territory west of the Dnieper River. The result has been the piecemeal annihilation of Ukrainian forces. Only the episodic infusion of U.S. and allied weapons kept Kiev’s battered legions in the field; legions that are now dying in great numbers thanks to Washington’s proxy war.

Kiev’s war with Moscow is lost. Ukrainian forces are being bled white. Trained replacements do not exist in sufficient numbers to influence the battle, and the situation grows more desperate by the hour. No amount of U.S. and allied military aid or assistance short of direct military intervention by U.S. and NATO ground forces can change this harsh reality. The problem today is not ceding territory and population to Moscow in Eastern Ukraine that Moscow already controls. The future of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions along with the Donbas is decided. Moscow is also likely to secure Kharkov and Odessa, two cities that are historically Russian and Russian-speaking, as well as the territory that adjoins them. These operations will extend the conflict through the summer. The problem now is how to stop the fighting.

Read more …

“Climbing down off this ledge won’t be easy. It may be impossible. Biden denounced Russia’s leader as a war criminal, averred that he couldn’t be allowed to remain in office and bragged that US sanctions would cut the Russian economy in half.”

Biden Tries To Climb Down From Ukraine Ledge (AT)

President Joe Biden’s administration faces a double disaster after its Ukraine miscalculation, namely a US recession and a second strategic humiliation in the space of a year. The US economy is almost certainly in recession, while oil prices drive inflation that has cut workers’ real pay by about 6% year on year. Washington’s earlier boasts of driving Russian President Vladimir Putin from power, destroying Russia’s capacity to make war and halving the size of the Russian economy look ridiculous in retrospect. The world economy is reeling from supply shocks in energy and food provoked by Western sanctions on Russia. Monetary policy can reduce inflation only by forcing consumers to stop buying, which forces retailers to liquidate inventory at lower prices and crushes demand for raw materials – a cure that is worse than the disease.

Russia meanwhile earned a record €93 billion (US$97 billion) from energy exports during the first 100 days of the war, a Finnish study concluded. China and India, which refused to join Group of Seven sanctions against Russia, reportedly are buying oil at a discount of $30 to $40 per barrel, while American and European consumers are paying the full price. Energy prices have become the main driver of G7 inflation. Changes in the oil price lagged by one to four months explain 70% of the monthly change in the CPI, according to an Asia Times study. The sensitivity of the US Consumer Price Index to the oil price, moreover, was about twice as high during the February 2020 to May 2022 period than it had been during the preceding 15 years, the study shows.

US GDP contracted at a 1.9% annual rate during the first quarter. The surprise drop in May retail sales that was reported June 15 by the Commerce Department and the 14.4% month-on-month fall in US housing starts reported on June 16 point to a second quarter of contraction – that is, a recession according to the standard criterion. That spells catastrophe for the Democrats in next November’s election. [..] Climbing down off this ledge won’t be easy. It may be impossible. Biden denounced Russia’s leader as a war criminal, averred that he couldn’t be allowed to remain in office and bragged that US sanctions would cut the Russian economy in half. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin claimed that the US would destroy Russia’s capacity to make war.

A compromise in Ukraine with significant territorial concessions to Russia – the only conceivable way to end the war – would humiliate Washington. A negotiated solution to the Ukraine war, though, is not impossible. Washington could continue to portray itself as the defender of Ukraine’s sovereignty while encouraging European leaders to do the dirty work and force Ukraine into negotiations with Moscow. A possible hint in this direction came on June 14 from US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin H Kahl, who declared: “We’re not going to tell the Ukrainians how to negotiate, what to negotiate and when to negotiate. They’re going to set those terms for themselves.”

Read more …

“Part of the reason for the pressure on the Independents, particularly Russia and China, is simply that they have resisted western hegemony. That is enough for getting on the West’s naughty list.”

World War 3 For Dummies (Baltar)

How do Russia and China, and the war in Ukraine, factor into all of this? Why all the pressure from the West throughout the years and why all this panic now? Part of the reason for the pressure on the Independents, particularly Russia and China, is simply that they have resisted western hegemony. That is enough for getting on the West’s naughty list. But why the increased pressure in recent years? The reason is that Russia and China cannot be subjugated through bankruptcy and their assets harvested. They do not have much debt in western currencies which means that the people who own the West through debt do not currently own Russia and China (like they own the West and the indebted ‘third world’) and cannot acquire them through debt. The only way to acquire them is through regime change.

Their governments must be weakened by any means, including economic sanctions and military means if necessary -thus the use of Ukraine as a battering ram for Russia and Taiwan for China. Subjugating Russia and China is an existential issue for our Davos owners because when they take the western economy down, everything else must go down too. If the western economy is taken down and a large economic block doesn’t participate in the downfall, it will be a disaster for the West. The new block will gain massive economic power, and possibly unipolar hegemony of sorts, while the West descends into a feudal Dark Age and irrelevance. Therefore the entire world must go down for the Great Reset to work. Russia and China must be subjugated by any means, as well as India and other stubborn nations.

This is what has fueled the situation we now find ourselves in and will fuel the continuation of World War 3. The western owner-elites are going to war to keep their wealth and power. Everyone who resists must be subjugated so they can follow the West into the planned Great Reset Dark Age. The reason for the current panic among western elites is that the Ukraine project isn’t going as planned. Instead of Russia being bled on the battlefield, it is Ukraine and the West that bleed. Instead of the Russian economy crashing resulting in Putin’s replacement by a Davos-compatible leader, it is the West’s economy that is crashing. Instead of Russia being isolated, it is the West that is being increasingly isolated. Noting is working, and to top it all off, Europe has given the Russians the means and motive to destroy the European economy by partly shutting down its industry.

Without Russian resources, there is no European industry, and without industry, there are no taxes for paying for unemployment benefits, pensions, all the refugees, and pretty much everything else which holds European societies together. The Russians now have the ability to engineer an uncontrolled crash in Europe which is not what Davos planned. An uncontrolled crash might see Davos’s heads roll, literally, and that is causing fear and panic in elite circles. The only solution for them is to move on with World War 3 and hope for the best.

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“Nordstream 1 is scheduled for annual maintenance that will halt all flows between July 11 and July 21.”

Europe Committing Energy Suicide By Imposing Sanctions On Russia (PressTV)

The head of a Russian oil giant says European nations are committing energy suicide by following the United States in imposing sanctions on Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Igor Sechin, the head of Russian oil company, Rosneft, said that the Europeans are shooting themselves in the foot by restricting Russian oil and gas imports. “Europe is committing energy suicide by imposing sanctions on Russia,” Sechin said. The United States placed an embargo on Russian oil earlier this year, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a military campaign against Ukraine on February 24. Europe, particularly, has struggled to wean itself off from Russian energy.

The continent’s reliance on Russian gas and Moscow’s slashing of supplies in retaliation have proven a headache for the 27-member bloc. To that aim, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen proposed a gradual ban on Russian oil imports last month. The proposal would ban Russian crude gradually over the next six months and refined fuels by the end of this year.. The EU and Britain also agreed recently to prohibit insurance on tankers carrying Russian oil at the end of last month. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the EU “has completely lost its political sovereignty, and its bureaucratic elites are dancing to someone else’s tune, accepting whatever they are told from above, causing harm to their own population and their own economy.”

Putin previously described the sanctions on his country as a double-edged sword. Reports said Russian gas flows to Europe fell short of demand on Friday as temperatures blew past historical records for this time of the year, hitting over 40°C in some places. Italy and Slovakia reported receiving less than half of the usual volumes through the Nordstream 1 pipeline. The pipeline, which crosses the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, accounts for around 40% of Russian pipeline flows to the EU. Nordstream 1 is scheduled for annual maintenance that will halt all flows between July 11 and July 21.

Read more …

Does anyone believe Lavrov is lying here?

Ukraine Proposed Viable Peace Plan in April, Then Cut Off Negotiations (LI)

As talks toward a peaceful settlement to the war in Ukraine have all but collapsed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow received a workable proposal from Ukrainian negotiators soon after the conflict began, but claimed Kiev abruptly broke off all dialogue and has been ‘silent’ ever since. Speaking to TASS for an interview on Thursday, Lavrov said that while peace talks held in Istanbul in March offered some promise for an end to the fighting, the efforts quickly crumbled after Ukraine’s negotiation team ceased all contact with its Russian counterpart. “These negotiations at some point at the end of March … led to a result that gave hope to all of us, thanks to the fact that the Ukrainian side for the first time put on paper a position that suited us as a basis for work,” the FM said.

As of mid-April, however, “the Ukrainian side has not responded to the proposals that we transmitted to them,” Lavrov went on, adding “There has been complete silence” ever since. “If the Ukrainian side shows understanding that it is still necessary to conclude some agreements, we are ready for this. But they showed no such desire.” It’s unclear what proposal was advanced by Kiev, but Lavrov said the talks were ended soon after the “provocation in Bucha,” referring to a series of alleged Russian war crimes in the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital. Though the minister dismissed the charges, claiming the atrocities were ‘staged,’ evidence has emerged indicating Russian soldiers were behind a number of grisly executions in the city. The allegations have yet to be probed by an impartial investigator.

While Kiev has previously signaled that it would be open to a diplomatic settlement, its rhetoric has become increasingly bellicose, with President Volodymyr Zelensky vowing to achieve a full military victory over Moscow earlier this week. Ukraine’s Western allies, meanwhile, have at times discouraged negotiations altogether, while simultaneously funneling billions of dollars in heavy weapons into the chaotic warzone.

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Will, not could.

Record Diesel Prices Could Lead To Food Shortages In US, Farmers Warn (NYP)

Record-setting prices on diesel fuel, coupled with soaring inflation and the ongoing war in Ukraine, could lead to food shortages in the US, farmers warned. “For so long, we’ve enjoyed lots of food in this country, so we’ve never ever faced a food shortage and I think that’s coming in the coming months,” John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association, said during an interview on NewsNation’s “On Balance” with Leland Vittert on Monday. Average diesel prices in the US Monday reached $5.70 per gallon, representing a $2.40 increase compared to the same period last year. Farmers disproportionately rely on diesel to fuel their tractors and other heavy machinery used to plant and harvest crops, burning up to thousands of gallons a month, depending on the size of their operation.


Feeling the pinch at the pump, farmers can decide to stop planting certain crops to save money on fuel, which, in turn, could result in higher food prices and even food shortages. During this week’s hearing on inflation held by the Pennsylvania House Republican Policy Committee, Kyle Kotzmoyer, a legislative affairs specialist for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, offered a bleak outlook, describing the current situation on local farms as “teetering on the edge,” reported the Morning Call. “If the farmers cannot get crops out of the ground, then there is not food on the shelves,” the Farm Bureau aide explained. In Pennsylvania, average diesel prices Tuesday were $6.19 per gallon, up 75% compared to last year, AAA reported. Kotzmoyer said he has already heard of farmers opting to plant hay instead of corn or beans, because it is more economical.

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What is it, 2 1/2 years? Go f*ck a duck.

WHO Chief ‘Believes Covid Did Leak From Wuhan Lab’ (DM)

The head of the World Health Organisation privately believes the Covid pandemic started following a leak from a Chinese laboratory, a senior Government source claims. While publicly the group maintains that ‘all hypotheses remain on the table’ about the origins of Covid, the source said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), had recently confided to a senior European politician that the most likely explanation was a catastrophic accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, where infections first spread during late 2019. The Mail on Sunday first revealed concerns within Western intelligence services about the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where scientists were manipulating coronaviruses sampled from bats in caves nearly 1,000 miles away – the same caves where Covid-19 is suspected to have originated – in April 2020.

The worldwide death toll from the Covid pandemic is now estimated to have hit more than 18 million. The WHO was initially criticised for its deferential approach to China over the pandemic, as well as a willingness to accept Beijing’s protestations that claims of a laboratory leak were just a ‘conspiracy theory’. However, in the absence of any compelling evidence of ‘zoonotic’ spread – the process by which a virus leaps from animals to humans – it is now adopting a more neutral public stance. Dr Tedros updated member states on the pandemic this month, admitting: ‘We do not yet have the answers as to where it came from or how it entered the human population. ‘Understanding the origins of the virus is very important scientifically to prevent future epidemics and pandemics.

‘But morally, we also owe it to all those who have suffered and died and their families. The longer it takes, the harder it becomes. We need to speed up and act with a sense of urgency. ‘All hypotheses must remain on the table until we have evidence that enables us to rule certain hypotheses in or out. This makes it all the more urgent that this scientific work be kept separate from politics. The way to prevent politicisation is for countries to share data and samples with transparency and without interference from any government. The only way this scientific work can progress successfully is with full collaboration from all countries, including China, where the first cases of SARS-CoV-2 were reported.’

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Now ask why.

America Is The Only Country That Authorizes Covid Shots For Infants (Schachtel)

It appears that the United States just became the only country in the world to “vaccinate” babies and toddlers with COVID injections. Despite what you are reading in the press, the U.S. seems to be, as of Friday, the only country in the world to partake in experimental COVID therapeutics for infants. On Friday, the FDA authorized mRNA COVID shots (both Pfizer and Moderna) under emergency use authorization for children under 5 years old, all the way down to 6 months of age. As you’ll see in a moment, this is unprecedented anywhere in the world. The approval made its way through the halls of the federal bureaucracy, regardless of any studies showing a positive benefit for injecting young children with mRNA shots, which, even in adults, do not effectively prevent coronavirus infection.

Making matters worse, our deceitful corporate press is actively engaged in a cover up operation to make it seem like the new policy is not particularly unique, when in fact, it is exclusively unique. Many corporate press reports, in hailing the announcement, churned out stenography today that made a quick mention of the fact that “a dozen countries, including China, already vaccinate kids under 5.” But when you break down the data further, a true scandal arises. As of a couple weeks ago there were only 7 countries where kids under 5 were given COVID injections, though the WHO now claims that number is 12. The seven countries on record are: -Argentina -Bahrain -Chile -China -Cuba -UAE -Venezuela (the territory of Hong Kong, which uses the Chinese-made shots, is sometimes listed as the eighth country on record). But that’s only the beginning of the madness.


Venezuela and Cuba are the only countries that allow for COVID shots between the ages of two and three. The rest of the countries only go as young as three. Moreover, none of the nations are using mRNA. 5 out of 7 are using Chinese manufactured inactivated vaccines. Cuba and Venezuela are using the Cuban homebrew shot. And NONE of these countries are allowing for COVID shots between the ages of 6 months to two years, which means that the United States has become the only country in the world to allow for experimental COVID injections shots for babies and 2 year old toddlers.

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Yes, it can still get worse.

“This technology bypasses the inconvenience of recalcitrant citizens who may refuse to give consent.”

Contagious Vaccines: A Warning (Kheriaty)

For two decades scientists have been quietly developing self-spreading contagious vaccines. The NIH funded this research, in which either DNA from a deadly pathogen is packaged in a contagious but less harmful virus, or the deadly virus’s lethality is weakened by engineering it in a lab. The resultant “vaccines” spread from one person to the next just like a contagious respiratory virus. Only five percent of regional populations would need to be immunized; the other ninety-five percent would “catch” the vaccine as it spread person-to-person through community transmission. This technology bypasses the inconvenience of recalcitrant citizens who may refuse to give consent. Its advocates highlight that a mass vaccination campaign that would ordinarily take months of expensive effort to immunize everyone could be shortened to only a few weeks.

Scientists have already shown proof of concept in animal populations: in 2000, Spanish researchers injected seventy rabbits with a transmissible vaccine and returned them to the wild, where they quickly passed the vaccine on to hundreds more, reportedly stopping a viral outbreak. European countries are now testing the technology on pigs. In the wake of the covid pandemic, about a dozen research institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Australia are investigating the potential human uses for self-spreading vaccines. The federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for example, is examining this technology for U.S. military to protect against the West Africa lassa fever, a virus spread by rats to humans. This project, it should be noted, does not require the consent of our military service men and women.

In 2019 the U.K. government began exploring this technology to address the seasonal flu. A research paper from Britain’s Department of Health and Social Care advised that university students could be an obvious target group: “They do not work so [vaccinating them] will not cause much economic disruption and most have second homes to go to, thereby spreading the vaccine.” Researchers admitted a contagious vaccine for an attenuated flu virus would cause some deaths but estimated these would be less than the original influenza virus. As the U.K. government report described: “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.”

Read more …

Still afraid of Trump.

Tribe Declares Trump Committed Attempted Murder (Turley)

In past columns, we have discussed how Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe seems intent upon running through the entire criminal code in declaring clear evidence of every federal crime by former President Donald Trump and/or his family. In light of Tribe’s prior declarations of the long litany of criminal acts by Trump, the opening question of Burnett seemed almost rhetorical bordering on the comical: “From everything you have seen so far, including the hearing today that focused so much on Trump causing violence against Pence, do you believe the committee has proven that Trump himself knowingly committed crimes?”

Tribe responded: “Without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt, and the crimes are obvious. The most obvious was that he was ordering his vice-president to do what everyone in the room knew would be illegal, namely, exercise power to pick the next president. It would be very convenient if Al Gore could have picked himself as the next president in 2000, very convenient if Richard Nixon could have done it in 1960. “Ordering your vice-president to violate the law in order to stay in power is a very serious federal crime, but there are other crimes as well. One that occurred to several people today is attempted murder. You know, under the criminal code of the United States, the attempted murder of the vice-president is punishable by life imprisonment. What we saw with the president egging the crowd on, telling them that, basically, his own vice-president was a traitor while he knew that the mob had gallows waiting for him, that’s pretty serious stuff. You don’t have to go to law school to know that there’s something seriously criminal about that. There are other crimes that have been proven. Those are plenty to start with.”

It is a curious thing that these crimes “have been proven” but Trump has not been charged with them. After the riot, District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine announced that he was considering arresting Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks and charging them with incitement. So what happened to that prosecution? The failure of Racine to charge Trump was not due to any affection or loyalty to the former president. It was due to the paucity of direct evidence of a crime that would hold up in court.

Read more …

“..he remains controversial, tweeting that “the police kill” and promising to naturalise Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as French if he wins the election.”

French National Assembly Vote Decides Battle Between Macron And Left (BBC)

It’s not even two months since Emmanuel Macron was convincingly re-elected as president but he is already in a crunch election that could prevent him pushing through his reforms. French voters are going to the polls to decide who will control their National Assembly. Mr Macron beat the far right in April, but this time the challenge is harder. Far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon leads a left-green alliance that finished neck and neck with Macron only a week ago. They call themselves Nupes, which stands for New Ecological and Social Popular Union, and the polls suggest they could stop the president winning the 289 seats he needs for an outright majority. The centrist Macron alliance, Ensemble, portrays them as a “marriage of convenience” of Communists, Socialists, far-left Mélenchonists and Greens.

But Nupes have galvanised voters with a promise to fight spiralling prices, bring down the retirement age and tackle climate change. Green leaders and many green voters back them, accusing President Macron of doing little in the past five years. Sunday’s second round is almost entirely made up of run-off duels between two candidates, and almost half involve the two big alliances. Several ministers in the Macron government are battling to keep their seats and hold on to their jobs, and two of the toughest fights involve Europe Minister Clément Beaune and Green Transition Minister Amélie de Montchalin. Without an outright majority of 289 seats, Mr Macron will need the support of other parties to push through his big-ticket reforms, such as raising the retirement age, cutting taxes and reforming benefits. Pollsters suggest Ensemble will win 255-305 seats and Nupes 140-200.

While fighting for the presidency, Mr Macron rallied voters across the spectrum by presenting his main rival Marine Le Pen as an extremist and contrary to the republic’s values. With mainstream parties joining the Mélenchon alliance it has become harder to do that with this rival. President Macron has appealed to voters to give him a solid majority in the “superior interest of the nation”, while Russia’s war rages at the gates of Europe. Former Marxist Jean-Luc Mélenchon has long wanted France to leave Nato but says that is now not a priority. However, he remains controversial, tweeting that “the police kill” and promising to naturalise Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as French if he wins the election.

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Governed by criminals.

The Shameless Farce of UK Attempt to Send Refugees to Rwanda (NewYorker)

On Tuesday evening, a chartered Boeing 767 passenger jet, in a blue-and-white livery, waited in the summer sunshine on the tarmac of Boscombe Down, a testing site for military aircraft, in the South of England. The plane was scheduled to take off at 10:30 p.m. and fly to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, initiating a new arrangement in which the African country will process and house asylum seekers who have sought refuge in the United Kingdom.Priti Patel, Boris Johnson’s Home Secretary, has described the deal—which almost certainly breaches international law and will cost at least a hundred and twenty million pounds in the next five years—as a “first-class policy,” but, as with anything agreed to by Johnson’s government, it’s usually worth checking the small print. Officials said that there would be a hundred and thirty people on the first flight to Kigali.

But, after dozens of successful legal challenges, only seven asylum seekers were taken to the airbase. “I can’t say exactly how many people will be on the flight,” Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, told the media. “But the really important thing is that we establish the principle.” Around 7:30 p.m., the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, ruled that one of the seven, an Iraqi man known as K.N., should be allowed to remain in the U.K. until three weeks after all his legal options were exhausted. K.N. had crossed the English Channel in a boat on May 17th. Three days after he was ordered to be sent to Rwanda, a doctor found that he may have been a victim of torture. The European court ruling prompted a wave of emergency appeals from the other six passengers.

At around 10 p.m., half an hour before the plane was due to take off, there was no one left to take to Rwanda. Later, the jet, which had been hired at a reported cost of five hundred thousand pounds, flew back to Spain. The U.K.-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership was signed in April. It immediately invited comparisons to a similar arrangement that existed, until 2017, between Israel and Rwanda and Uganda. In the three and a half years of that program, which was secret, around four thousand Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers were relocated from Israel to sub-Saharan Africa, where they promptly disappeared. (Between 2009 and 2017, Israel accepted a total of ten refugees from Eritrea and Sudan.)

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Two pieces from the Guardian on Assange. No publication has done more to hurt him.

Assange’s Extradition – War Criminals And Murderers, Rejoice (Oborne)

Murderers, torturers and war criminals will be toasting the British home secretary, Priti Patel, tonight. Her decision to approve the extradition of Julian Assange turns investigative journalism into a criminal act, and licenses the United States to mercilessly hunt down offenders wherever they can be found, bring them to justice and punish them with maximum severity. Julian Assange’s supposed crime was to expose atrocities committed by the US and its allies, primarily in Afghanistan and Iraq, during the war on terror. He shone a light on the systematic abuse dealt out to prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. He revealed the fact that more than 150 entirely innocent inmates were held for years without even being charged.

He published a video of helicopter gunmen laughing as they casually massacred unarmed Iraqi civilians in an attack that killed around 15 people, including a Reuters photographer and his assistant. The US declined to discipline the perpetrators of that atrocity. But they are pursuing Assange to the ends of the earth for revealing it took place. Once safely in US hands, it’s all but certain that Assange will spend the remainder of his life in jail. That’s because the US is determined to show that terrible reprisals lie in store for any reporter who runs a story based on US government documents. That’s why Daniel Ellsberg, the former US Marine Corps officer behind the Pentagon Papers revelations that exposed the secret US bombing of Cambodia and Laos, has said that he feels a “great identification” with Assange’s work.

Edward Fitzgerald, Assange’s lawyer, argued convincingly in court that Assange’s only crime is investigative journalism. For example, the US charge states that he tried to conceal “the source of the disclosure of classified records”. Every journalist worth her or his salt would do the same, but the US insists that Assange is guilty of espionage – and the British home secretary shamefully agrees. While it is true that Patel is an unusually authoritarian home secretary, I suspect that every recent holder of the office, Labour or Conservative, would have made an identical decision. Britain values beyond measure its security relationship with the US.

Judge Nap Assange

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Now they think they can benefit from a 180º. Talk about shameless.

The Guardian View On Julian Assange Extradition: A Bad Day For Journalism (G.)

The decision by Priti Patel, the home secretary, to extradite the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US ought to worry anyone who cares about journalism and democracy. Mr Assange, 50, has been charged under the US Espionage Act, including publishing classified material. He faces up to 175 years in jail if found guilty by a US court. This action potentially opens the door for journalists anywhere in the world to be extradited to the US for exposing information deemed classified by Washington. The case against Mr Assange relates to hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, which were made public by WikiLeaks, working with the Guardian and other media organisations.

They revealed horrifying abuses by the US and other governments that would not otherwise have been disclosed. Despite claiming otherwise, US authorities could not find a single person, among the thousands of American sources in Afghanistan and Iraq, who could be shown to have died because of the disclosures. Mr Assange, who has a reputation for being a brilliant but difficult character, has suffered enough. Until 2019 Met police had waited seven years for him to emerge from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Since then he has spent three years in Belmarsh high-security prison without being convicted of any crime. Mr Assange should have been given bail to be with his wife and their two young children. To keep track of him, the authorities could have insisted that he be electronically tagged and monitored.

The use of the Espionage Act to prosecute him should be seen for what it is: an attack on the freedom of the press. As the Knight First Amendment Institute’s Carrie DeCell wrote in 2019, when the charge sheet was published, “soliciting, obtaining, and then publishing classified information … [is] what good national security and investigative journalists do every day”. Ms Patel could have turned down the American request. Britain should be wary of extraditing a suspect to a country with such a political justice department. Her predecessor Theresa May halted the extradition proceedings of Gary McKinnon, who hacked the US Department of Defense. The UK could have decided that Mr Assange faces an unacceptably high risk of prolonged solitary confinement in a US maximum security prison

Assange eternal war

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Democracy dies in dumbness

 

 

 

 

Our health czar is getting mighty fat

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

May 122022
 


Banksy Monkey Parliament 2009

 

Finland Announces Plans To Join NATO In Historic Move (CNBC)
Nothing to Celebrate? (Tweedie)
We Will Win (Batiushka)
Russian-Captured Ukrainian Territories Will Soon Ask To ‘Join Russia’ (ZH)
Blinken, Austin Past Ties to Investment Firms Forgotten by Media (Celente)
Garland Allowing ‘Mob Rule’ In US – GOP (Fox)
Efforts To Codify Roe vs Wade Fail In The Senate (ET)
FDA Refuses To Reopen Biggest Baby Formula Plant in US (DM)
Acting NIH Director Admits Appearance of Conflict of Interest in Payments (ET)
Top US Scientist Warned Chinese Of US Investigations Into Wuhan Lab (DC)
Trudeau Government Gave $3 Million To WEF And $1.6 Billion To UN In 2021 (TNC)
Prepare For More Chinese Capital Controls As Exodus Worsens (BBG)
Oath Keepers Rescued 16 Police Officers On Jan 6 (ET)
Feds Open Investigation Into Elon Musk (DW)
Al Jazeera Accuses Israel of Killing -American- Journalist (CD)

 

 

Finland wants to join NATO.

Russia says NATO missiles in Ukraine would be too close to Moscow. Check the distance from the Ukraine border to Moscow. Then from the Finland border to St. Petersburg.

 

 

Tulsi armageddon

 

 

 

 

Zero covid

 

 

“Finland shares a 830-mile border with Russia..”

When NATO was founded, they did’t even dare.

Finland Announces Plans To Join NATO In Historic Move (CNBC)

Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Thursday that the country should apply to join NATO “without delay.” Finland has had a decades-long policy of military neutrality that would come to an end if it becomes a full member of the military alliance. Thursday’s announcement is the strongest sign yet that Finland will make a formal application to join NATO. The government will debate the issue over the weekend and the Finnish parliament is expected to give its final approval to the application as early as Monday. At the same time, there is a risk the move from Helsinki could spark aggression from Russia, where President Vladimir Putin has expressed his opposition against NATO’s enlargement.


Finland shares a 830-mile border with Russia; if it joins the military alliance, the land border that Russia shares with NATO territories would roughly double (Russia has land borders with 14 countries and five of them are NATO members: Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Norway). Finland has been reviewing its security policy in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which showed the Kremlin is willing attack a neighboring nation. Finland has been invaded in the past — in 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland in what became known as the Winter War.

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Ukraine will become a landlocked “country”.

Nothing to Celebrate? (Tweedie)

On May 8, when Victory in Europe (VE) Day is celebrated in the West, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told CNN that Russia had “nothing to celebrate” on its own Victory Day on May 9. Her reasoning, faithfully transcribed on the US mission’s website, was that “They have not succeeded in defeating the Ukrainians.” Given that Victory Day and VE Day both specifically commemorate the allied defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, Thomas-Greenfield’s comments were like saying the US, Britain and France had nothing to celebrate this year because they got chased out of Afghanistan by the Taliban last August. The ambassador is either an apologist for Nazism or merely too ignorant to do her job. She should at least read some objective reports about the conflict in the Ukraine.

In fact Russians had two immediate military victories to celebrate that Monday. Russian and Lugansk People’s Republic troops captured the town of Popasna, a lynchpin in the Ukrainian army’s defensive line that it had held for eight years. Meanwhile Kiev, apparently desperate for a victory of its own to rain on the parade through Moscow’s Red Square, launched an airborne and marine assault on the now-famous Zmeinyy (Snake) Island off the coast of Odessa oblast. Some sources say the Russians withdrew their small force holding the island as bait for a trap, but either way it went horribly wrong for the Ukrainians. They lost four jet fighters and strike aircraft, up to 10 helicopters, a corvette and three infantry landing craft. More than 60 of their personnel were killed, of which 27 were abandoned on the island.

The Ukraine is like a bull elephant that has been shot right in the heart in mid-charge. The beast keeps on bellowing and rampaging around, not yet realising that it’s already dead. It becomes clearer by the day that the Ukrainian army attempting to occupy the remains of the Donbass republics, newly recognised by Russia just as the West ‘recognised’ its creations of Kosovo and South Sudan, is dead on its feet. Its navy, air force, artillery, tanks and transportation are almost destroyed. Its casualties are replaced with boys and old men press-ganged off the streets of Kiev and Lvov, some without proper boots. Its senior officers are fled or dead.

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“..the Russian Federation is a very unequal and corrupt society because of these oligarchs, who simply repeat the Western oligarch model..”

We Will Win (Batiushka)

Russia before 1917 was rotten from the inside, a house of cards. The whole ‘Revolution’ was a story of the treachery of the elite, the aristocrats, including many Romanovs, the politicians, the generals and the new bourgeoisie. Having lost their faith, they replaced all loyalty to the Faith, the Tsar and Home with pure greed. The same thing happened with the USSR. A generation after the people’s war won by those trained in the Tsar’s Army, the Soviet Union turned into a State in whose official Communist ideology nobody believed any more. The elite had lost faith in it and so the USSR also fell. After 1991 the Russian Federation was handed over to the future oligarchs, the new aristocrats, just as before the Revolution the Russian Empire had been far too much in the hands of the past oligarchs, the old aristocrats.


Whoever says oligarchs automatically says corruption. And when the rich have enough riches, they next want power and betray to get it. Like the rest of the world, the Russian Federation is a very unequal and corrupt society because of these oligarchs, who simply repeat the Western oligarch model. Have no illusions: Oligarchs rule the Western world. It is illusory to think otherwise. In France Pompidou was and Macron is a Rothschild banker (the ones who own The Economist and much of the rest of the media). French conglomerates stand beside them. In Germany banks and huge automobile and chemical industries put up their political candidates. In the UK all candidates are vetted by the financial sharks of the City. As for the USA, think of Trump or Hoover, and all is clear. Follow the money.

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“He stressed it would be “up to local residents” and that the process would be “absolutely clear and legitimate”

Russian-Captured Ukrainian Territories Will Soon Ask To ‘Join Russia’ (ZH)

Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency is reporting for the first time Wednesday that the Russian military occupied southern Ukrainian city of Kherson will soon petition the Kremlin to become part of the Russian Federation. It was in late April that a pro-Moscow “military-civilian administration” was installed after Kherson fell to the invading forces, complete with a local transition to the Russian ruble. While the news hasn’t been officially confirmed by the Kremlin, it’s significant that the report surfaced through RIA and not Ukrainian or opposition sources, suggesting such referendums or even simple declared annexations in captured regions could be imminent.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has in his latest statements invoked Crimea – which came under Russian control due to a Kremlin-backed ‘popular referendum’ in 2014 – as a model for what could happen regarding Kherson’s political future. He stressed it would be “up to local residents” and that the process would be “absolutely clear and legitimate”. Additionally, according to The Moscow Times, “Occupied Kherson, as well as the Pryazovske region on the Sea of Azov, reportedly began trading with Crimea shortly after Russian forces installed pro-Moscow administrations in the area.”

And Reuters writes of more signs of annexation of the city coming soon as follows: “TASS cited the Russian-controlled administration as saying that pension bodies and a banking system would be created from scratch for the region, and that branches of a Russian bank could be open there before the end of May,” according to its report. However, some correspondents are saying there won’t be a referendum, or possibly just the appearance of one as a pretext…

Lavrov

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It’s not even a revolving door anymore.

Blinken, Austin Past Ties to Investment Firms Forgotten by Media (Celente)

Top officials in the Biden administration who have been the most vocal backers of providing Ukraine with more arms than Kyiv knows what to do with have deep ties to consulting and investment firms that has raised concerns in the past about the government’s revolving door with the defense industry. The Presstitutes no longer discuss these ties because they are on the same team as the government when it comes to Ukraine. More weapons, more weapons, more weapons. Two of the biggest names in the Biden administration with these past ties are Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They have been some of the top proponents of donating weapons to Ukrainians.

BLINKEN: “Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding. Russia has sought, as its principal aim, to totally subjugate Ukraine, to take away its sovereignty, to take away its independence. That has failed.” AUSTIN: “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine. It had already lost a lot of military capability and a lot of its troops, quite frankly, and we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”

One of the names that kept popping up about a year or so ago was Blinken and Austin’s ties to a little-known investment firm called Pine Island Capital Partner. In December 2020, Pine Island Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company that claimed to have “unusual access to information” said in its SEC filings that it was “well-suited to take advantage of the current and future opportunities present in the aerospace, defense and government service industries.” (Austin also sat on the board of Raytheon Technologies in 2020, according to OpenSecrets.org. Forbes estimated that Austin’s net worth is about $7 million after serving on boards in retirement.)

From CNBC in December 2020: Pine Island’s team includes Tony Blinken, Biden’s choice to be secretary of State, and Ret. Gen. Lloyd Austin, his nominee for Defense secretary. Austin was listed on the original SPAC proposal, while Blinken was left off as he took a leave of absence from the firm when he joined the Biden campaign. Axios reported a month earlier that Pine Island was formed in 2018 by John Thain, the CEO who reportedly got his office renovated for $1 million while his Bank of America Merrill Lynch took a major loss in 2009; Phil Cooper, the former Goldman Sachs buyout big, and Clyde Tuggle, ex-Coca-Cola executive.

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“So, I know that there’s an outrage right now, I guess, about protests that have been peaceful to date, and we certainly continue to encourage that outside of judges homes..”

Garland Allowing ‘Mob Rule’ In US – GOP (Fox)

Nearly 50 House Republicans pressed Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday to prosecute those protesting outside the homes of Supreme Court justices over an anticipated ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. Led by Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., the members of Congress cite a federal law that makes it illegal to “picket or parade” outside a courthouse or a judge’s home “with the intent of influencing … the discharge of his duty.” “We therefore ask a simple question: as Supreme Court Justices are being illegally targeted at their homes, do you intend to enforce the law?” the Republicans wrote. “Your failure to act is a shameless and implicit endorsement of mob rule in America.”

Forty-seven House Republicans signed the letter, including House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.; GOP Conference Vice Chair Mike Johnson; and R-La., Byron Donalds, R-Fla. They join a chorus of voices, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who are condemning the protests at the justices’ homes. Over the weekend, protesters picketed outside the homes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts. People protested outside of Justice Samuel Alito’s home Monday.

“The right to peaceful assembly is among the most sacred rights we hold as Americans,” the GOP members wrote. “Yet our sacred right to peacefully assemble has never permitted Americans to intimidate judges, jurors or officers of the court. “We urge you to enforce the laws of the United States and stop the mob,” they added. “You should send the clear and unmistakable message to all Americans — regardless of party or political affiliation — that the intimidation of justices and the judicial process will not stand.”

The White House isn’t explicitly condemning protests outside the justices’ homes. But White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday intimidation is not acceptable. “@POTUS strongly believes in the Constitutional right to protest. But that should never include violence, threats, or vandalism,” Psaki tweeted. “Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety.” “So, I know that there’s an outrage right now, I guess, about protests that have been peaceful to date, and we certainly continue to encourage that outside of judges homes,” Psaki elaborated Tuesday. “And that’s the president’s position.”

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Filibuster had nothing to do with it.

Efforts To Codify Roe vs Wade Fail In The Senate (ET)

The Senate voted on May 11 to filibuster the Democratic-sponsored Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would have codified the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion ruling into federal law as the Supreme Court appears intent on striking down the precedent. The 51–49 procedural cloture motion vote was mostly party-line, with all Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) voting against the measure. The measure failed as expected because Democrats didn’t meet the 60-vote filibuster threshold needed to advance the legislation in the upper chamber. According to a draft opinion leaked to Politico and published on May 2—written by Justice Samuel Alito and confirmed as genuine by the court—a majority of the justices have agreed preliminarily to overturn Roe v. Wade.


The court hasn’t yet issued a final opinion. Under the 1973 standard, states are prohibited from imposing restrictions on abortion in the first trimester, during which SCOTUS ruled that the mother’s right to privacy outweighed state interest in protecting life. The move effectively overturned existing abortion laws in more than two dozen states, and since then, pro-life advocates have fought to return the power to regulate abortion to the states. Democrats decided immediately after the draft was leaked to try again on the WHPA, which the Senate failed to advance in February. A different version of the legislation was passed by the House of Representatives in September 2021 in a party-line vote, with Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), a pro-life Catholic, being the only Democrat to oppose it.

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“..there was not an outbreak caused by products from the facility..”

FDA Refuses To Reopen Biggest Baby Formula Plant in US (DM)

The biggest baby formula supplier in the U.S. has denied its Michigan plant is responsible for the deaths of two children despite the FDA closing it down. The plant was shutdown nearly three months ago after a bacterial infection caused the deaths and other serious illnesses. In mid-February Abbott Laboratories issued a nationwide baby formula recall and ceased operations at its plant in Sturgis, Michigan amid reports of babies contracting bacterial infections from its products. An Abbott spokesperson told DailyMail.com Tuesday that ‘thorough investigation’ by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Abbott revealed ‘infant formula produced at our Sturgis facility is not the likely source of infection in the reported cases and that there was not an outbreak caused by products from the facility’.


However, despite the findings of the investigation, the plant remains shuttered nearly three months later, fueling the nationwide baby formula shortage. The FDA – which said it found food safety violations at the plant, as well as five strains of Cronobacter, a bacteria that can cause blood infections and meningitis – has refused to say when the plant can resume operations. Abbott claims they are ‘working closely with the FDA to restart operations’ at the plant, with the spokesperson noting: ‘We continue to make progress on corrective actions and will be implementing additional actions as we work toward addressing items related to the recent recall’. The FDA told DailyMail.com it was holding discussions with ‘Abbott and other manufacturers to increase production of different specialty and metabolic products’ but refused to say when the Sturgis plant could reopen.

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“..he conceded that they don’t look ethical..”

Well, no. 1, they were secret. Isn’t that enough?

Acting NIH Director Admits Appearance of Conflict of Interest in Payments (ET)

Undisclosed royalty payments estimated at $350 million from pharmaceutical and other firms to Dr. Anthony Fauci and hundreds of National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists do present “an appearance of a conflict of interest,” according to the agency’s acting director. Dr. Lawrence Tabak, who took over as NIH director following the December 2021 resignation of the agency’s long-time leader, Dr. Francis Collins, told a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee that federal law allows the royalty payments, but he conceded that they don’t look ethical. “Right now, I think the NIH has a credibility problem and this only feeds into this, and I’m only just learning about this,” Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) told Tabak.

“People in my district say, ‘Well, so-and-so has a financial interest,’ or they don’t like ivermectin because they aren’t benefitting from that royalty. “You may have very sound scientific reasons for recommending a medicine or not, but the idea that people get a financial benefit from certain research that’s been done and grants that were awarded, that is, to me, the height of the appearance of a conflict of interest.” In response, Tabak said NIH doesn’t endorse particular medicines. “We support the science that validates whether an invention is or is not efficacious, we don’t say this is good or this is bad. … I certainly can understand that it might seem as a conflict of interest,” he said. Moolenaar seemed taken aback by Tabak’s response and, while pointing to Fauci, who was also testifying, said that “truthfully, I would say you’ve had leaders of NIH saying certain medicines are not good.”

Tabak said such statements by NIH are based on clinical trials that are supported by the agency. Moolenaar then asked Tabak, “But if the agency is awarding who is the beneficiary of the grant, who is doing the trial, and there is somehow finances involved, that there is a financial benefit that could be accrued if someone’s patent or invention is considered validated, do you not see that as a conflict or at least the appearance of a conflict of interest?” After conceding that there’s an appearance of a conflict of interest, Tabak suggested to Moolenaar that “maybe this is the sort of thing that we can work together on so that we can explain to you the firewalls that we do have because they are substantial and significant.”

[..] The $350 million in royalty payments were made between 2010 and 2020, according to Open the Books, the nonprofit that took the NIH to court when it refused to acknowledge the group’s FOIA request for documents. Collins received 14 payments, Fauci received 23 payments, and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received eight payments, according to Open the Books. Adam Andrzejewski, founder and president of Open the Books, told The Epoch Times on May 11 that NIH continues to withhold important information about the royalty payments, including the names of particular payers and the specific amounts paid to individuals at NIH.

Glenn Beck

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And got a fine reward.

Top US Scientist Warned Chinese Of US Investigations Into Wuhan Lab (DC)

The head of a U.S. national laboratory in Texas accepted a position at a Chinese university roughly one year after warning Chinese scientists about potential congressional investigations into COVID-19’s origins, according to emails obtained by Judicial Watch. In an April 2020 email chain, Dr. James W. Le Duc, director of the Galveston National Laboratory (GNL), warned top science officials in China, including a director at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), about Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s interest in investigating the pandemic’s origins. In April 2021, emails show Le Duc accepted a position on the “Biosafety Advisory Committee” at China’s Westlake University, a private research university with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

“These startling documents show that China had partners here in the United States willing to go to bat for them on the Wuhan lab controversy,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said in a statement. Judicial Watch obtained Le Duc’s emails through a public records request to the University of Texas Medical Branch. Judicial Watch’s investigation follows years of mystery surrounding COVID-19’s origins. Early on, the theory that COVID leaked from the WIV was roundly dismissed by government officials and prominent scientists; at one point a New York Times reporter even claimed the Wuhan-origin theory had “racist roots.” However, scientists and experts increasingly consider it the “most likely” origin for the virus, and Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul has even accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health and other top U.S. scientists of covering-up their own culpability in a possible Wuhan lab leak.

Le Duc first sent his warning to Shi, whose controversial research is at the center of the COVID origins debate, and other Chinese scientists in a series of emails beginning in April 2020. “I wonder if you would have time for a phone call sometime soon… The email below is relevant,” Le Duc wrote to Shi on April 16, 2020. Le Duc’s email linked to a Forbes report on Sen. Rubio’s interest in investigating COVID’s origins. Le Duc’s email also included a message he’d received from a former commander at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, warning that Rubio was pushing for a Wuhan lab investigation.

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“The controversial WEF has received renewed attention in the Conservative leadership race after candidate and MP Pierre Poilievre committed to boycotting the organization.”

Trudeau Government Gave $3 Million To WEF And $1.6 Billion To UN In 2021 (TNC)

The Liberal government funnelled more than a billion-and-a-half taxpayer dollars into various United Nations bodies, and millions into the World Economic Forum (WEF) last year, public accounts data shows. According to the transfer payments section of the 2020-2021 Public Accounts of Canada, the WEF received $2,915,095 from Canadian taxpayers in the form of grants and contributions. Funding was provided by two departments – the Department of Environment and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. The largest of the transfer payments to WEF was a $1,141,851 contribution from the International Development Assistance for Multilateral Programming. WEF also received another $1 million grant under the same program. Other payments were cited as “contributions in support of conserving nature” and for the “establishment and management of conservation measures.”

The Trudeau government also generously funded the UN to the tune of $1.576 billion in the form of financial support, contributions and grants. Funding came primarily from Global Affairs, although other departments including Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship also gave the UN money. Six UN-affiliated organizations received transfer payments worth more than $100 million each. The largest payment was given to the United Nations Children’s Fund, totalling $543 million. Meanwhile UN peacekeeping operations saw contributions worth $235 million, while the UN High Commissioner for Refugees received $139 million. Other large recipients include the UN Population Fund and the United Nations Organizations.

[..] According to Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation Franco Terrazzano, the Trudeau government needs to do a better job accounting for its funding of international organizations like the WEF, while Canada deals with a debt of over $1 trillion. “That’s a lot of money, and we can’t just keep sending a ton of tax dollars to international organizations because we’ve been doing it for years,” Terrazzano told True North. “The feds are more than $1 trillion in debt, so it’s on the government to make a clear case for every cent it sends to international organizations, and if it can’t make the case then we need to see reductions.” The controversial WEF has received renewed attention in the Conservative leadership race after candidate and MP Pierre Poilievre committed to boycotting the organization.

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Money flees..

Prepare For More Chinese Capital Controls As Exodus Worsens (BBG)

Strict capital controls made it impossible for several European companies to send dividends abroad and a Japanese beverage maker could not get paid due to “tougher restrictions on cross-border wire transactions.” This is not Russia in 2022, but China in late 2016 and early 2017, when the yuan plunged toward 7 per dollar. Those types of curbs could soon be brought back as part of Beijing’s arsenal to manage currency depreciation, especially in a context similar to 2016-17: Once again, the Fed hikes and capital flees. Besides the headline exchange rate, how much and how quickly money can leave China will become equally, if not more, important. Global portfolio managers, foreign businesses and the local rich are either leaving China or bringing much less capital onshore.


The nation suffered an unprecedented outflow from bond and stock investors in March and net selling continued into April, according to estimates from the International Institute of Finance. Total capital outflows, including errors and omissions, may surge to about $300b this year from $129b in 2021, IIF said in a report last week. While that figure is well below $725b, IIF’s estimate for 2016, Beijing’s options for combating it are much narrower this time around. Trade wars, Covid and supply-chain disruptions were not on the minds of foreign executives back then. In 2022, however, 52% of 121 companies polled by the American Chamber of Commerce in China have either cut or delayed investments. With only 1% planning to increase local investment, authorities have a daunting task to boost foreign direct investment as long as China sticks to its Covid Zero strategy.

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What a stupid story this has become.

Oath Keepers Rescued 16 Police Officers On Jan 6 (ET)

Video footage widely circulated in 2021 that shows a Capitol Police lieutenant asking members of the Oath Keepers for rescue help at the U.S. Capitol blows a hole in the seditious conspiracy charges brought against the group by federal prosecutors, two defense attorneys say. In the footage, Lt. Tarik Khalid Johnson asks a group of men to help him get more than a dozen trapped Capitol Police officers out of the Capitol and through a tightly packed crowd of protesters on the building’s east steps. It was widely reported in January 2021 that Johnson wore a red Make America Great Again cap on Jan. 6 as a ruse to “trick” supporters of President Donald Trump into helping him rescue fellow officers from the Capitol.

He was later suspended for wearing the MAGA cap. Johnson is a registered Democrat, according to online records. The men who answered the call to help were members of the Oath Keepers, a nationwide group of current and former military, law enforcement, and first responders who have been targeted by federal prosecutors for allegedly conspiring to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The video is at least the second example showing the Oath Keepers coming to the aid of Capitol Police inside the building that day. Would a group of men seditiously plotting an attack on the Capitol, allegedly to prevent certification of Electoral College votes, rush into the building to extract police trapped inside—all while being followed by a filmmaker?

“The prosecutors’ narrative has more holes than Swiss cheese, but it [the video footage] does directly refute their claim,” said Jonathon Moseley, who previously represented Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs. Prosecutors “just keep ignoring the self-contradictions in their stories.” The video footage was shot by part-time filmmaker Rico La Starza. One of several versions of the video footage posted online includes an introduction by La Starza. He said the video shows “me helping a group of Oath Keepers help Capitol Police get out. They looked scared and tired.”

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Just trying to scare him.

Feds Open Investigation Into Elon Musk (DW)

The U.S. government has reportedly opened an investigation into Elon Musk’s business dealings surrounding his recent $44 billion purchase of Twitter. “The Securities and Exchange Commission is probing Mr. Musk’s tardy submission of a public form that investors must file when they buy more than 5% of a company’s shares,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “The disclosure functions as an early sign to shareholders and companies that a significant investor could seek to control or influence a company.” The report said that Musk’s April 4 disclosure filing was at least 10 days late, a move that is believed to have saved him more than $140 million because share prices could have been higher if the public knew about his ownership of 5% of the company.

“The case is easy. It’s straightforward,” Daniel Taylor, a University of Pennsylvania accounting professor, said. “But whether they’re going to pick that battle with Elon is another question.” The report noted that a lawsuit against Musk from the SEC would likely not stop him from taking over Twitter since the company’s board of director’s unanimously approved to be acquired by Musk and the SEC may lack the power to do so. Musk’s purchase of Twitter is also reportedly being reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Musk said this week that he will reverse Twitter’s permanent ban on former President Donald Trump if and when the sale is finalized.

“I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country, and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” Musk said, adding that the decision was “morally bad.” “That doesn’t mean that someone gets to say whatever they want to say,” Musk said. “If they say something that is illegal or destructive to the world, then there should be perhaps a timeout, temporary suspension or that particular tweet should be made invisible or have very little traction.” “I would reverse the permanent ban,” Musk added.

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Murdering American citizens in broad daylight. Try that in Kiev.

Al Jazeera Accuses Israel of Killing -American- Journalist (CD)

The media outlet Al Jazeera accused Israeli forces of “deliberately targeting and killing our colleague” on Wednesday after journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the face while covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. In a statement, the Al Jazeera Media Network said that Abu Akleh — who worked as the publication’s Palestine correspondent — was wearing a press jacket that clearly identified her as a journalist when Israeli forces shot her “with live fire.” Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, called the attack “a blatant murder,” saying Abu Akleh, 51, was “assassinated in cold blood.” The statement continued:

“Al Jazeera Media Network condemns this heinous crime, which intends to only prevent the media from conducting their duty. Al Jazeera holds the Israeli government and the occupation forces responsible for the killing of Shireen. It also calls on the international community to condemn and hold the Israeli occupation forces accountable for their intentional targeting and killing of Shireen. The Israeli authorities are also responsible for the targeting of Al Jazeera producer Ali al-Samudi, who was also shot in the back while covering the same event, and he is currently undergoing treatment. Al Jazeera extends its sincere condolences to the family of Shireen in Palestine, and to her extended family around the world, and we pledge to prosecute the perpetrators legally, no matter how hard they try to cover up their crime, and bring them to justice.”

The Israeli government initially denied responsibility for killing Abu Akleh and wounding al-Samudi, claiming that they may have been shot by “Palestinian gunmen.” “There is a considerable chance that armed Palestinians, who fired wildly, were the ones who brought about the journalist’s unfortunate death,” said Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But al-Samudi, speaking to the Associated Press following the incident, dismissed the Israeli government’s narrative as a “complete lie.” “He said they were all wearing protective gear that clearly marked them as reporters, and they passed by Israeli troops so the soldiers would know that they were there,” AP reported. “He said a first shot missed them, then a second struck him, and a third killed Abu Akleh. He said there were no militants or other civilians in the area — only the reporters and the army.”

Shireen Abu Akleh

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Fazer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1524553912463806464

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Oct 242021
 


M. C. Escher Reptiles 1943

 

Bipartisan Letter Demands Answers From Fauci On Cruel Puppy Experiments (Hill)
NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan (VF)
The Current Covid-19 Mass Vaccinations Are A Public Health Experiment (Geert)
Infection Rates for Vaccinated Aged 40-79 Double the Rates in Unvaccinated (DS)
Israeli Doctors, Scientists Tell FDA Of Severe Concerns Over Vaccine Data (AFD)
FDA Buries Data on Seriously Injured Child in Pfizer’s Clinical Trial (Siri)
On The Primacy Of The Physician-Patient Relationship (HCR)
Generation Covid-19: Are The Kids Going To Be All Right? (Age)
Lock Him Up (Denninger)
From Economic Fantasy to Ecological Reality on Climate Change (Steve Keen)

 

 

McCullough
https://twitter.com/i/status/1451686955096420357

 

 

Science
https://twitter.com/i/status/1451818366272954375

 

 

Is it time to put a price on their heads? Run them out of town at the very least. If Congress won’t get rid of these guys, someone else will. I am sick to my stomach.

Bipartisan Letter Demands Answers From Fauci On Cruel Puppy Experiments (Hill)

A bipartisan letter demands answers from the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Biden’s chief medical adviser. The White Coat Waste Project, the nonprofit organization that first pointed out that U.S. taxpayers were being used to fund the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology, have now turned its sights on Anthony Fauci on another animal-testing-related matter — infecting dozens of beagles with disease-causing parasites to test an experimental drug on them. House members, most of whom are Republicans, want Fauci to explain himself in response to allegations brought on by the White Coat Waste Project that involve drugging puppies. According to the White Coat Waste Project, the Food and Drug Administration does not require drugs to be tested on dogs, so the group is asking why the need for such testing.


White Coat Waste claims that 44 beagle puppies were used in a Tunisia, North Africa, laboratory, and some of the dogs had their vocal cords removed, allegedly so scientists could work without incessant barking. Leading the effort is Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), writing a letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) saying the cordectomies are “cruel” and a “reprehensible misuse of taxpayer funds.” “Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive,” White Coat Waste told Changing America. “They also locked beagles alone in cages in the desert overnight for nine consecutive nights to use them as bait to attract infectious sand flies.”

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Vanity Fair’s take.

NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan (VF)

“I totally resent the lie you are now propagating.” Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared to be channeling the frustration of millions of Americans when he spoke those words during an invective-laden, made-for-Twitter Senate hearing on July 20. You didn’t have to be a Democrat to be fed up with all the xenophobic finger-pointing and outright disinformation, coming mainly from the right, up to and including the claim that COVID-19 was a bioweapon cooked up in a lab. The immediate target of Dr. Fauci’s wrath was Senator Rand Paul, who was pressing the nation’s top doctor to say whether the National Institutes of Health had ever funded risky coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Based on new information disclosed by the National Institutes of Health, however, Paul might have been onto something.

On Wednesday, the NIH sent a letter to members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that acknowledged two facts. One was that EcoHealth Alliance, a New York City–based nonprofit that partners with far-flung laboratories to research and prevent the outbreak of emerging diseases, did indeed enhance a bat coronavirus to become potentially more infectious to humans, which the NIH letter described as an “unexpected result” of the research it funded that was carried out in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The second was that EcoHealth Alliance violated the terms of its grant conditions stipulating that it had to report if its research increased the viral growth of a pathogen by tenfold. The NIH based these disclosures on a research progress report that EcoHealth Alliance sent to the agency in August, roughly two years after it was supposed to.

An NIH spokesperson told Vanity Fair that Dr. Fauci was “entirely truthful in his statements to Congress,” and that he did not have the progress report that detailed the controversial research at the time he testified in July. But EcoHealth Alliance appeared to contradict that claim, and said in a statement: “These data were reported as soon as we were made aware, in our year four report in April 2018.” The letter from the NIH, and an accompanying analysis, stipulated that the virus EcoHealth Alliance was researching could not have sparked the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, given the sizable genetic differences between the two. In a statement issued Wednesday, NIH director Dr. Francis Collins said that his agency “wants to set the record straight” on EcoHealth Alliance’s research, but added that any claims that it could have caused the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic are “demonstrably false.”

EcoHealth Alliance said in a statement that the science clearly proved that its research could not have led to the pandemic, and that it was “working with the NIH to promptly address what we believe to be a misconception about the grant’s reporting requirements and what the data from our research showed.” But the NIH letter—coming after months of congressional demands for more information—seemed to underscore that America’s premier science institute has been less than forthcoming about risky research it has funded and failed to properly monitor. Instead of helping to lead a search for COVID-19’s origins, with the pandemic now firmly in its 19th month, the NIH has circled the wagons, defending its grant system and scientific judgment against a rising tide of questions. “It’s just another chapter in a sad tale of inadequate oversight, disregard for risk, and insensitivity to the importance of transparency,” said Stanford microbiologist Dr. David Relman. “Given all of the sensitivity about this work, it’s difficult to understand why NIH and EcoHealth have still not explained a number of irregularities with the reporting on this grant.”

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A 3-month trial to direct the rest of your life.

The Current Covid-19 Mass Vaccinations Are A Public Health Experiment (Geert)

First, there is no precedent to the use of non-replicating viral vaccines in mass vaccination campaigns conducted during a pandemic, or even epidemic, of a highly mutable virus. The challenge of such an undertaking becomes even more difficult as more infectious antigenic variants had already been circulating by the time the first mass vaccination campaigns were initiated (i.e., Alpha, Beta, and Gamma variants). Their spread was featured by distinct temporal and geographic patterns, the underlying mechanism of which was not understood. Prior to the start of this universal vaccination program no single publication existed that came even close to suggesting that mass vaccinations using vaccines that permit transmission could be successful in extinguishing a pandemic of a highly mutable virus.

No such publication exists to this day, and the idea becomes even more preposterous when considering several infectious variants had already expanded in prevalence by the time the vaccines were rolled out. There is ample evidence from similarly highly mutable RNA viruses like Influenza virus and Enterovirus that expansion in prevalence of antigenic variants is driven by selective immune pressure on viral infectiousness exerted by antibodies, and that antigenic variation diminishes or even abolishes the protective neutralization capacity of Influenza virus or Enterovirus vaccines directed at a specific antigenic lineage (1, 2). Consequently, nonreplicating monovalent enteroviral vaccines, for example, are only used at scale in vaccination campaigns of vulnerable target groups (e.g., children) deployed to fight recurrent epidemics of life-threatening enterovirus infection (e.g., EV-A71) in the Asia Pacific region (3).

Interestingly, the US FDA did not approve these vaccines due to ‘concerns about the effectiveness against different pandemic strains, safety, and quality control of vaccine production’ (3). Mass vaccination programs previously conducted to combat viral epidemics/pandemics (e.g., smallpox, polio, measles, yellow fever) have nothing in common with the ongoing mass vaccination campaigns today as those viruses are very different in terms of their pathogenesis, transmissibility, route of infection, potential reservoirs, predominant effector mechanisms involved in antiviral immunity, susceptibility of population segments, as well as with regard to the vaccines used (all prior vaccination campaigns involved live-attenuated virus). In addition, vaccine efficacy as assessed during clinical trials is different from viral effectiveness, which reflects how well a vaccine performs in the field.

Viral effectiveness, therefore, depends on the level of infectious pressure exerted by the viral population and the level of immune selection pressure exerted by the host population (among other factors). Those can be very different from the ones prevailing during clinical trials. This particularly applies when the vaccine is used in mass vaccination campaigns rolled out in the middle of a pandemic of more infectious variants. Because of large-scale pharmaceutical (e.g., mass vaccination) and nonpharmaceutical (e.g., infection-prevention measures) human interventions, significant changes in viral infectious pressure and population-level immune pressure can suddenly take place and dramatically accelerate or slow down the evolutionary dynamics of a pandemic, especially if more infectious variants are circulating.

Whereas the final target population should have the same profile as the one enrolled in the vaccine trials, current Covid-19 (C-19) vaccines are now administered to several segments of the population that have not been part of the pivotal clinical trials that enabled their authorization for emergency use (e.g., children, elderly, pregnant women, women of childbearing age, individuals who previously recovered from Covid-19 disease). Furthermore, the follow-up of study participants in the clinical trials did not extend beyond 3 months as the WHO had declared the pandemic a health emergency of international concern. Short-term results from clinical vaccine trials that were conducted on a small subset of a specific target population during a short period of a pandemic caused by a specific SARS-CoV-2 lineage (most notably the original Wuhan strain) cannot even be considered informative for vaccine effectiveness of mass vaccination campaigns deployed globally across almost all population segments over a prolonged period of a pandemic trajectory involving several waves of infection caused by several different more infectious viral variants.

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It’s the 40-49 group that comes out worst in all of the stats these days.

Infection Rates for Vaccinated Aged 40-79 Double the Rates in Unvaccinated (DS)

Another week, another Vaccine Surveillance report (now published by the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the successor to Public Health England), and with it more worrying news on the vaccine front. Infection rates in the double-vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated continue to rise, meaning unadjusted vaccine effectiveness continues to decline. Infection rates are now higher in the double-vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated by 124% in those in their 40s, 103% in those in their 50s and 60s and 101% in those in their 70s, corresponding to unadjusted vaccine effectiveness estimates of minus-124%, minus-103% and minus-101% respectively. For those over 80 the unadjusted vaccine effectiveness is minus-34% while for those in their 30s it is minus-27%. For 18-29 year-olds it is 25%, so still positive but low, while for under-18s it is 90%, the only age group showing high efficacy.

Vaccine effectiveness against emergency hospital admission and death continues to hold up, though with some indication of gradual slide, particularly in older age groups. The UKHSA has continued to receive criticism for publishing this data, with claims that the figures used for the unvaccinated population are unreliable and likely too high, artificially suppressing the infection rate and vaccine effectiveness. Cambridge statistician Professor David Spiegelhalter put out a scathing tweet on these lines on Friday, but he didn’t elaborate on his claim or link to an article explaining it further. Professors Norman Fenton and Martin Neil have argued that in fact the PHE/UKHSA data may underestimate the number of unvaccinated rather than overestimate them, which would have the reverse effect.


Either way though, what wouldn’t change is the fact of the large and fast decline in effectiveness against infection. This is now generally acknowledged among many scientists (likely caused by waning over time or new variants or both), though has not had the logical impact on Government policy one might have expected and hoped for of eliminating the rationale for vaccine passports and mandates. A further point revealed for the first time in this week’s surveillance report is that the vaccines may actually hobble the body’s ability to develop the strongest immunity once infected. As noted by Alex Berenson, the report mentions (in passing) that “recent observations from U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA) surveillance data” show that “N antibody levels appear to be lower in individuals who acquire infection following two doses of vaccination”.

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“In the Book of Leviticus, it is said ‘Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.’”

Israeli Doctors, Scientists Tell FDA Of Severe Concerns Over Vaccine Data (AFD)

An independent Israeli group of physicians, lawyers, scientists, and researchers called the Professional Ethics Front today advised the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the upcoming FDA discussion on administering COVID-19 vaccines to children aged 5-11, expressing “severe concerns” regarding the reliability and legality of official Israeli COVID vaccine data. “We are aware that the state of Israel is perceived as ‘the world laboratory’ regarding the safety and efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, as reflected by statements made by Dr. Albert Bourla, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and other senior figures in leading health authorities throughout the world,” the letter reads. “It is therefore our understanding that the data and information coming from Israel play a crucial role in critical decision-making processes in regards to COVID-19 vaccination policies.

“We thus see it of utmost importance to convey a message of warning and raise our major concerns regarding potential flaws in the reliability of the Israeli data with respect to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, as well as many significant legal and ethical violations that accompany the data collection processes.” The letter elaborates: “We believe that the significant failures underlying the Israeli database, which have been brought to our attention by numerous testimonies, impair its reliability and legality to such an extent that it should not be used for making any critical decisions regarding the COVID-19 vaccines.” “This document briefly outlines the main failures that lead to this unfortunate, albeit inevitable, conclusion,” the notice reads. “We emphasize that we can expand and clarify further, as well as provide references, in relation to each of the failures described below.

[..] The Israeli Professional Ethics Front concludes its notice to the FDA: “In accordance with the accepted perception established after World War II, the findings of experiments obtained in illegal and immoral ways should not be relied upon. We believe that the same rules should apply to the findings of the current experiment in Israel, since these findings were obtained through significant legal and ethical infringements. Our conclusion is further reinforced by the significant doubts about the reliability of the data reported by Israel, as detailed above, and the consequent major concern that their use might be misleading and thus disrupt the decision-making processes pertaining to the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccines.

“In the Book of Leviticus, it is said ‘Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.’ In the spirit of those words, we implore the committee to take into consideration our urgent warnings and adopt utmost precaution when referring to the Israeli data concerning the safety and efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccines.”

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Fire everyone at the FDA too. Seriously, get rid of these people.

FDA Buries Data on Seriously Injured Child in Pfizer’s Clinical Trial (Siri)

When Stephanie and Patrick de Garay enrolled their 12-year-old child Maddie and her two brothers in Pfizer’s Covid-19 clinical trial, they believed they were doing the right thing. That decision has turned into a nightmare. Maddie, a previously healthy, energetic, full of life child, was within 24 hours of her second dose reduced to crippling, scream-inducing pain that landed her in the emergency room where she described feeling like someone was “ripping [her] heart out though [her] neck.” Over the next several months the nightmare continued, during which Maddie was hospitalized several times and suffered numerous systemic injuries, requires a tube through her nose that carries her food and medicine, and a wheelchair for assistance.

Ms. de Garay documented every detail of Maddie’s injury and reported it to the principal investigator for the Pfizer trial at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital where the vaccine clinical trial was occurring and where Maddie was treated and admitted. They first tried to treat Maddie as “a mental patient,” telling the family it was psychological and in Maddie’s imagination. Then they claimed it was unrelated to the vaccine (copy of recording with hospital below), and when that argument failed, Pfizer listed this traumatic adverse event as “functional abdominal pain” when reporting to the FDA. Ms. de Garay reported what occurred to the CDC and FDA through VAERS in June 2021 but nobody from these agencies sought additional information or followed-up with the de Garays.

Ms. de Garay also reached out to Dr. Nath, a Chief in the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, responded by stating he was “Sorry to hear of your daughter’s illness” and that “We have certainly heard of a lot of cases of neurological complications form [sic] the vaccine and will be glad to share our experience with them.” Unfortunately, other than a call arranged by Maddie’s neurologist, there was no follow-up or response from NIH or any other federal health agency. Even after Ms. de Garay did a press event on June 28, 2021 with Senator Ron Johnson, neither Pfizer nor any health agency reached out in any manner to address Maddie’s injury or obtain any additional information.

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I saw the doc from the Nebraska AG when it came out, but it was a PDF made up entirely of images of the text. Not very user friendly for me.

On The Primacy Of The Physician-Patient Relationship (HCR)

I have not written much at this site, or any site, in recent years due to being kept busy supporting litigation regarding bad healthcare information technology as an expert witness. A recent letter, however, so caught my eye regarding both current events and my past writing about bad health IT, that I decided to write about it. It is perhaps a poignant reminder of the craziness of the times in which we physicians find ourselves that a well researched letter on the primacy of the doctor-patient relationship, and the non-interference with that relationship by outside forces based on opinions of non-clinicians, half-baked ideas, overzealous government, media hysteria to garner audience share, etc. comes not from the hallowed halls of academia or a prestigious medical journal – but from a state Attorney General, namely, of Nebraska.

The letter, dated Oct. 14, 2021 and entitled “Prescription of Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine as Off-Label Medicines for the Prevention or Treatment of Covid-19”, is located at this link: https://ago.nebraska.gov/sites/ago.nebraska.gov/files/docs/opinions/21-017_0.pdf, It was requested by Dannette R. Smith, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. I recommend reading it in its entirety. In this 48-page letter, arguments regarding sanctioning of Nebraska physicians for their decisions on how to treat their patients with FDA-approved drugs for off-label purposes are discussed in significant detail and with significant literature references. The letter reaches the conclusion that:

“… Based on the available data, we do not find clear and convincing evidence that a physician who first obtains informed consent and then utilizes ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 violates the UCA (Nebraska Uniform Credentialing Act). This conclusion is subject to the limits noted throughout this opinion. Foremost among them are that if physicians who prescribe ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine neglect to obtain informed consent, deceive their patients, prescribe excessively high doses, fail to check for contraindications, or engage in other misconduct, they might be subject to discipline, no less than they would be in any other context … Allowing physicians to consider these early treatments will free them to evaluate additional tools that could save lives, keep patients out of the hospital, and provide relief for our already strained healthcare system.”

No matter one’s opinion on the specifics of this particular controversy, the primacy of the physician-patient relationship – absent extreme circumstances of malfeasance/malpractice – is a principle that should not now, and should never need a 48 page letter for its justification.

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No.

Generation Covid-19: Are The Kids Going To Be All Right? (Age)

To be a young adult in late 2021 is to have come of age while COVID-19 put your life on hold. Gone were the dreams of big 18th birthday bashes and a bustling university life. Career ambitions were deferred, exotic holidays abroad with friends a distant dream. Jobs evaporated and social lives shrivelled. For this generation, unemployment reached 10.8 per cent last month, while participation rates – the number of 15 to 24-year-olds either working or looking for work – slumped to just 51.3 per cent, from 55 per cent in March last year. As Melbourne awakens from its sixth lockdown, a generation of the city’s youth are coming to terms with the loss of almost two years of their early adult lives. No other group of young people across the country has suffered quite like those in Melbourne.

Whether it be school-leavers whose gap-year plans have been scuttled, or uni students struggling to stay afloat in remote university classes, COVID-19 has irreparably changed the course of these young people’s personal and professional lives. Now taking their first steps forward in a post-lockdown city, parents and peers alike are wondering: will the kids be all right? “I’ve just turned 21, and there’s only a few more weeks left of my degree,” says Thomas, who does not want his surname published. “I’ve made an application for a postgrad in law – which was my original plan – but if I get accepted, I think I’m going to defer and take the year off. “As a student who was already struggling with chronic mental illness, these last two years have been hell. I feel like what should’ve been some of the most freeing years of my life have been robbed from me. “I need a break.”

He’s far from alone. A longitudinal study of Australia’s young people conducted by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment showed 23 per cent of 20-year-olds lived with a serious mental health illness in 2020, up from just 7 per cent in 2014. It showed young people are in insecure work at higher rates than six years ago (39 per cent were in permanent work in 2020, compared with 43 per cent in 2014) and were underemployed at higher rates (42 per cent would prefer to work more hours, compared with 32 per cent in 2014). Unsurprisingly, given these numbers, 70 per cent of surveyed 20-year-olds were living with their parents, and of those who had moved out by 19, almost a third had been forced to move back in.

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“Whether Baldwin believed the weapon was loaded or not only goes to the issue of whether this is murder rather than manslaughter..”

Lock Him Up (Denninger)

Reality is that Alec Baldwin intentionally pointed a firearm at a person and pulled the trigger. Exactly why he did so remains in question, as the slaughter did not occur during the “action” portion of filming — that is, he was not pointing it at one of the other actors in the film at the time. In fact he pointed it at cinematographer, killing her and and wounding the director behind her who the round also struck. This is, at best, voluntary manslaughter. I do not care if you’re on a movie set or otherwise; a firearm is handed to you with the action open and thus unable to discharge — always. A firearm is always loaded, even if you’re told it is not. You never point a firearm at anything you’re unwilling to destroy, even momentarily. And you never pull the trigger of a firearm until and unless you are pointing it at whatever you are willing to destroy.

That it is occasionally necessary in film production to violate one or more of these rules doesn’t change the rules. It simply means that you had damn well better make certain you’re not going to shoot someone as a result of doing so. In this particular case there is zero evidence Alec Baldwin had any valid reason within the context of the film to point that weapon, believed loaded or not, at a cinematographer. She was not an actor in the film. There is no claim that the weapon malfunctioned (e.g. was dropped) either; older guns, which would be rather common in a western, might not have the safety features of a modern firearm that prohibit them from firing if dropped or otherwise mishandled so that is not at issue in this instance. The evidence and presumption to this point is that the weapon was pointed at the cinematographer and the trigger depressed, both intentional acts.

Whether Baldwin believed the weapon was loaded or not only goes to the issue of whether this is murder rather than manslaughter; he had a duty to inspect what he was allegedly told was a “cold” weapon and verifying it was incapable of discharge if his part in the film required him to point it at, or where in the potential path of a projectile, a human is or could be. It is clear he did not do so and that, at minimum is killing by negligence, commonly known as voluntary manslaughter. If, as appears evident, he intentionally pointed the weapon at the cinematographer and pulled the trigger outside of a requirement to “shoot” at someone while filming was being rehearsed or was actually taking place (e.g. he was pissed off for some reason and that’s why he pointed the alleged “cold gun” at her and pulled the trigger) then I argue depravity is arguably present as well and that’s Murder 2. Baldwin must be arrested now. There is no reasonable means to claim this is an “accident”; Halyna was first the victim of felony assault with a deadly weapon when a firearm was pointed at her without lawful purpose and then was killed when, through an intentional act, it was discharged. I don’t give a crap how rich or famous Baldwin is

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Steve has been doing a lot of climate work, and is running for office in Sydney.

From Economic Fantasy to Ecological Reality on Climate Change (Steve Keen)

This was an invited talk to the Oxford Department of International Development “Climate Change and the Challenges of Development Lecture Series”, on my criticisms of the application of neoclassical economics to climate change. I focused on the new paper by Dietz et al. that allegedly calculates the economic costs of tipping points: Dietz, S., J. Rising, T. Stoerk and G. Wagner (2021). “Economic impacts of tipping points in the climate system.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(34): e2103081118. Upon closer examination, this papers fails to consider tipping points in any credible way, and this is obvious in its incredible claim (in the original sense of the “not credible”), that: “Tipping points reduce global consumption per capita by around 1% upon 3°C warming and by around 1.4% upon 6°C warming. This is ridiculous: the tipping points they consider are:

• Arctic summer sea ice,
• The Greenland Ice Sheet,
• The West Antarctic Ice Sheet,
• The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (“Gulf Stream”),
• The Amazon Rainforest,
• The Indian Monsoon,
• Permafrost, and
• Ocean methane hydrates.

If all 8 of these tripped–especially with a temperature 3-6°C above pre-industrial levels–we would be experiencing a climate utterly unlike anything Earth has seen for tens of millions of years. The thought that this would just reduce global consumption by just 1.4%–compared to what it would be if none of these tipping points were triggered–doesn’t pass what Nobel Laureate Robert Solow once called “the smell test”: “every proposition has to pass a smell test: Does it really make sense?”. I show why this paper stinks in Solow’s sense.

Read more …

 

 

 

Dads on Duty

 

 

Swiss

 

 

Milan

 

 

Udine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1452004619459104773

 

 

 

 

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Oct 222021
 
 October 22, 2021  Posted by at 7:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  60 Responses »


M. C. Escher Still life and street 1937

 

Covid Vaccines Will Keep You From Acquiring Full Immunity (Berenson)
Vax Fight is On and Not Stopping – Gerald Celente (USAW)
NIH Changes Story, Confirms It Funded Wuhan Gain-of-Function Experiment (JTN)
Dr. Anthony Fauci Received Big Pay Increase To Prevent Pandemics (F.)
India Administers A Billion Covid Jabs (F24)
Over 300,000 Unvaxxed Australia Supermarket Workers To Lose Their Jobs (Sky)
Striking Hospital Staff Hold Protest In Athens (K.)
DeSantis Calls Special Session To Ban Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates (UPI)
The Real Reasons for the Congressional 1/6 Committee (Greenwald)
Jen Psaki Hates You (Klavan)
Edward Snowden: ‘If You Weaken Encryption, People Will Die’ (TNW)
Assange to Get Same Judge Who Sided with US on Appeal (Lauria)

 

 

Adverse reactions
https://twitter.com/i/status/1451159900940226564

 

 

Masks on kids

 

 

 

 

“I feel like I’m being groomed by an abusive partner.”

 

 

They’ll do much more than that.

Covid Vaccines Will Keep You From Acquiring Full Immunity (Berenson)

Don’t take it from me, I don’t even get to tweet anymore. Take it from a little place I call the British government. Which admitted today, in its newest vaccine surveillance report, that: “N antibody levels appear to be lower in people who acquire infection following two doses of vaccination.” (Page 23) What’s this mean? Several things, all bad. We know the vaccines do not stop infection or transmission of the virus (in fact, the report shows elsewhere that vaccinated adults are now being infected at much HIGHER rates than the unvaccinated). What the British are saying is they are now finding the vaccine interferes with your body’s innate ability after infection to produce antibodies against not just the spike protein but other pieces of the virus.


Specifically, vaccinated people don’t seem to be producing antibodies to the nucleocapsid protein, the shell of the virus, which are a crucial part of the response in unvaccinated people. This means vaccinated people will be far more vulnerable to mutations in the spike protein EVEN AFTER THEY HAVE BEEN INFECTED AND RECOVERED ONCE (or more than once, probably). It also means the virus is likely to select for mutations that go in exactly that direction, because those will essentially give it an enormous vulnerable population to infect. And it probably is still more evidence the vaccines may interfere with the development of robust long-term immunity post-infection. Aside from that, everything is fine.

Read more …

“This is the beginning of a civil war. There are going to be states seceding from the Union, and they are going to push for it..”

Vax Fight is On and Not Stopping – Gerald Celente (USAW)

Gerald Celente, a renowned trends researcher, is back this time to talk about the unrelenting full blown “Vax Wars” he predicted many months ago. Many people are being told “no vax, no job,” and now it’s really heating up. Celente explains, “The fight is on. The people that are not going to get it are not going to get it. They’re done. The fight is on. From the very beginning, I said about the ‘Covid War,’ it’s going to be anti-vax, anti-establishment, anti-immigration parties forming. This is the beginning of a new populous movement like we have never seen before. It is just the beginning. Remember, ‘it does not take a majority to prevail, but an irate tireless minority keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the hearts and minds of men,’ said Samuel Adams. . . .

‘Vax Wars,’ this is bigger than the Vax Wars. This is a war about freedom, and it’s going to rage around the world. Look what happened in Italy last week. Looks what’s going on in France. In the United States, it’s going to happen as well. This is the beginning of a civil war. There are going to be states seceding from the Union, and they are going to push for it. What they are doing is totally unconstitutional, un-American and un-Godly.” (as in God the Father.) All of the unions that usually support Democrats are up in arms about the coerced vax mandates. Is the DNC going to lose a huge segment of its base? Celente says, “Yes, they are. They are not the Democrat Party. They are not the Republican Party. It’s a crime syndicate. These are criminals. They are murderers and thieves. How much more proof does anybody need. . . .

Yes, the unions are going to run from the Democrat Party. There are going to be new forming parties. I say by their deeds you shall know them. Hey, you are too big to fail. The banksters, the Federal Reserve pumping in $29 trillion (in 2008 and 2009 to bail out their buddies.) . . . .They are murderers and thieves, and we are going to have a new political movement. You know what’s going to have to be behind this movement? Self-sustainability, it has to be a self-sustaining U.S. without supply chain backups. Why are we buying all that crap from China? . . . Why aren’t we making things in the United States? Because lowlife Democrat and Republican pieces of crap sold us out to get the products made overseas so they could mark up the prices when they brought them back.”

On the economic front, Celente says the trend is inflation and a coming collapse. What going to set that off? Celente says, “When they raise interest rates, this thing goes down — end of story. If they can’t put that monetary methadone out there for the money junkies for free anymore, this thing goes down. Inflation is going to make them raise rates. It’s going to make them start tapering. This is not a capitalist society, it’s fascist. They are buying $120 billion a month of government and corporate bonds. They are buying corporate bonds? Oh yeah, and junk bonds too. . . . That is a merger of state and corporate powers. That’s what Mussolini called fascism.” Celente says this is going to end badly, and he’s talking about “the greatest financial crash in history.” The little guy, meaning “We the People,” should prepare, and time to do that is running short. Celente says, “Prepare for the worst. If the worst doesn’t happen and you are prepared, you lose nothing. If the worst happens and you are not prepared, be prepared to lose everything.

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“Knowingly. Willfully. Brazenly.”

All of a sudden, lying to Congress is no longer a serious offence.

NIH Changes Story, Confirms It Funded Wuhan Gain-of-Function Experiment (JTN)

Two weeks after National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins announced his retirement, his agency has complicated congressional testimony by Collins and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci about alleged gain-of-function virus research sponsored by the U.S. Both officials have denied approving grants for such research through the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology, but a letter Wednesday from NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak to House Oversight Committee ranking Republican James Comer describes an unforeseen experimental result that calls the denials into question.

The letter shows that “NIH — and specifically, Collins, Fauci, and Tabak — lied to Congress, lied to the press, and lied to the public,” Richard Ebright, lab director at Rutgers University’s Waskman Institute of Microbiology, tweeted Wednesday night when sharing the letter. “Knowingly. Willfully. Brazenly.” The final progress report submitted by EcoHealth in August described a “limited experiment” in which a modified bat coronavirus made mice “sicker” than than original virus, Tabak told Comer. “As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research, as opposed to something that the researchers set out to do.”

NIH determined the proposed research didn’t meet the standard for “enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential” because it wasn’t shown these bat coronaviruses could infect humans. But “out of an abundance of caution” it required EcoHealth to “immediately” report “a one log increase in growth” if it happened, which would trigger a secondary review of the research by NIH. EcoHealth didn’t do that, Tabak wrote, and it now has five days to turn over “any and all unpublished data” from the research to NIH. The letter repeatedly emphasizes the viruses studied under the EcoHealth grant and “subaward” to the Wuhan lab “could not have become SARS-CoV-2” because the “sequences of the viruses are genetically very distinct.”

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How much do Pfizer, Moderna pay him?

Dr. Anthony Fauci Received Big Pay Increase To Prevent Pandemics (F.)

In a January article published at Forbes, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that Dr. Anthony Fauci was the highest paid federal employee, earning $417,608 (2019). Dr. Fauci is still the top-paid federal employee earning $434,312 in 2020. Fauci is the Director of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and current Chief Medical Advisor to the President. Fauci out-earned the U.S. president ($400,000); four-star generals in the military ($282,000); and roughly 4.3 million other federal employees. Now, new documents released via our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the NIH tell us a lot more. Dr. Fauci received a big pay hike for his biodefense research activities. In other words, Fauci was paid to prevent future pandemics.


The documents released to our non-profit organization OpenTheBooks.com reveal that Dr. Fauci was approved for a “permanent pay adjustment” in excess of his regular salary in December 2004, during the George W. Bush Administration. From 2004 through 2007, Fauci received a 68-percent pay increase from $200,000- to $335,000-a year. This award was permanent and carried forward through 2020. Fauci’s permanent pay raise was to “appropriately compensate him for the level of responsibility… especially as it relates to his work on biodefense research activities.” However, critics say that Fauci was funding research that was actually creating pandemic pathogens in labs that, if leaked or if fell into the wrong hands, might create the very human pandemic they were trying to prevent.

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Abusing the success of ivermectin to jab more people.

India Administers A Billion Covid Jabs (F24)

According to the government, around three-quarters of adults in the country of 1.3 billion people have had one shot and around 30 percent are fully vaccinated. However, hundreds of millions of Indians under 18 — who make up some 40 percent of the population — have not had a single shot. India suffered a huge spike in cases in April and May, reporting more than 400,000 infections and 4,000 deaths per day, with many hospitals unable to cope and crematoriums overwhelmed. Cases have since fallen sharply, with fewer than 20,000 infections per day, and most activity has returned to normal. Mumbai, one of India’s myriad teeming cities, recently reported zero deaths in a day for the first time since the pandemic began.

The government was reportedly set to celebrate the milestone with Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanking health workers, special announcements at railway stations and airports and monuments lit up in the national colours. Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted: “Congratulations India! This is the result of the visionary PM Modi’s able leadership.” Only China has administered more doses — the Chinese government says it has given more than 2.3 billion shots. India began vaccinations in January and after a slow start, it is now administering around eight million jabs per day. “During the first wave, I remember hearing people talking about whether coronavirus was real or not,” said Reham Ali, a 49-year-old taxi driver in New Delhi who said he has had one shot. “Now, people know that it is and there is less hesitancy. The second wave was an eye-opener.”

Exports of vaccines — halted earlier this year — have tentatively resumed, with officials saying the “pharmacy of the world” will be back in full swing again in 2022 Most restrictions on activity have been lifted, with crowds celebrating India’s main religious festival season — an important time for the battered economy — for the first time in two years. This has sparked concerns about a new wave of infections and a renewed push by the government to push people to get their second shots. Media reports last week said an expert panel of India’s drug regulator recommended the use of the homegrown Covaxin — one of seven Covid-19 vaccines approved in India — for under-18s. “I think it is unlikely that we will see a third wave that in any way resembles the second wave,” said Dr Gangandeep Kang, from the Christian Medical College, Vellore.

Read more …

Really? Where are they going to find 300,000 others?

Better grow your own food.

Over 300,000 Unvaxxed Australia Supermarket Workers To Lose Their Jobs (Sky)

More than 300,000 workers across Australia’s largest supermarket chains have been warned they will lose their jobs without a valid reason for not getting vaccinated. Woolworths employees in New South Wales, the ACT, the Northern Territory, Victoria and Western Australia have until January 31 next year to get vaccinated with a March 31 deadline set for workers in the remaining states. “If they don’t have a valid reason, we will engage with them, make sure they get the best possible advice and availability to vaccines,” Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci said. “But if they don’t have a valid religious or medical exemption, their employment at Woolworths will be terminated.”

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“..to protest staff shortages and compulsory coronavirus vaccinations..”

The two are closely related.

Striking Hospital Staff Hold Protest In Athens (K.)

Hundreds of state hospital workers marched Thursday through central Athens as part of a 24-hour strike to protest staff shortages and compulsory coronavirus vaccinations. About 500 protesters demonstrated in the center of the capital, heading past parliament toward the health ministry chanting slogans and holding up banners. Unions representing the doctors, nurses and other medical staff are protesting government plans they say exacerbate staffing shortages and lead to long working hours while undermining workers’ rights. Medical workers are also seeking to be included in the list of professions receiving extra hazard pay for “heavy and unhealthy” work. The unions have also objected to the suspension of unvaccinated health care workers, saying this only leads to further staff shortages.


Faced with rising infections and reluctance by many to get vaccinated, the government has introduced a series of incentives and penalties to encourage Greeks to get their anti-Covid-19 shots. Vaccinations have been made mandatory for health care workers and those working in care homes for the elderly, with those who refuse being suspended from work. Just over 60% of the country’s population of around 11 million people are fully vaccinated against Covid-19. The unions say that while they support vaccinations, individual staff members should have the right to choose. Greece has seen a spike in coronavirus infections this summer, and new daily cases stand at around 3,000. On Wednesday, the country saw 3,279 new cases and 38 new deaths, bringing the total confirmed cases to over 704,000 and the total death toll to nearly 15,500 in the country of nearly 11 million.

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What was normal all through our lives is now revolutionary.

DeSantis Calls Special Session To Ban Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates (UPI)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday called a special session of the Florida Legislature to pass legislation banning COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Speaking from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Hangar, he announced the special session would take place in November. He called for lawmakers to provide protections for workers whose employment is threatened by vaccine mandates. “Your right to earn a living should not be contingent upon COVID shots,” DeSantis said. “When the vaccines first came out, we worked very hard to provide it, particularly to our elderly, but we said from day one: We will make it available for all, but we will mandate it for no one because ultimately we want individuals to make the determinations about what is right for them.

“I want a state in which people are able to maintain their livelihoods, earn a living, and provide for their families. And if the federal government or big corporations are hurting people, then we have a responsibility to step up and lead.” DeSantis was joined in the press conference by Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, Attorney General Ashley Moody and Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. “The governor has made it clear: Florida will not stand by and allow hard working citizens to be subjected to unemployment because they are being forced to show vaccine documentation, especially those who have remained on the front lines of COVID-19 for nearly two years now,” Ladapo said. “The Department of Health will continue to protect Floridians through multi-faceted and data-driven solutions, not overreach.”

In addition to banning mandates, DeSantis called for employers to be held accountable if an employee becomes sick or injured from taking a mandatory vaccine. Ahead of the press conferences, members of DeSantis’ staff handed out signs to attendees featuring an alligator on a yellow background reading “Don’t Tread on Florida.”

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“The endorphin-producing fantasies on which they fed for years [..] were way too viscerally arousing for them to simply forget that none of it happened.”

The Real Reasons for the Congressional 1/6 Committee (Greenwald)

Underlying so much of the anger and resentment surrounding 1/6 is the complete dissonance between the narrative fed to the citizenry by Democrats and their media allies on the one hand, and the legal realities on the other. It must be infuriating and baffling to a large sector of the population to have been convinced that what happened on January 6 was an unprecedentedly dangerous insurrection perpetrated by an organized group of seditious traitors who had plotted to kidnap and murder elected officials, only for the Biden DOJ to have charged exactly nobody with any criminal charges remotely suggesting any of those melodramatic claims.

This was the same frustration and confusion that beset a large portion of liberal America when they were led to believe for years that Robert Mueller was coming to arrest all of their political enemies for treason and criminal conspiracy with Russia, only for the FBI Superman to close his investigation without charging a single American with criminal conspiracy with Russia and then issuing a report admitting that he could not find evidence to establish any such crime. How to keep the flock loyal when the doomsday prophecies continue to be unfulfilled, as the World-Ending Date comes and goes without so much as a bang, let alone an explosion?

Adam Schiff’s new book — which essentially claims that Mueller is senile and was suffering from pitiful dementia — is obviously intended to provide some solace or at least a framework of understanding for disappointed liberals to keep the faith, but deep down, they know what they were expecting. The endorphin-producing fantasies on which they fed for years — of Trump and Trump, Jr. and Jared and Bannon and Ivanka being frog-marched out of the White House by armed, strapping FBI agents — were way too viscerally arousing for them to simply forget that none of it happened.

A repeat of this disorientation and disillusionment when it comes to 1/6 could be quite dangerous for Democrats. It could be devastating to the media outlets which survive on serving the Democrats’ messaging and feeding dramatic conspiracy theories to the beleaguered liberal flock. In the days and weeks following 1/6, liberals really thought that dozens of members of Congress — from Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene — would be not just expelled from Congress but summarily imprisoned as traitors by a newly righteous Justice Department. They were led to believe that, with Bill Barr out of the way, Trump and his mafia family would finally pay for their crimes.

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“Jen Psaki, sneering avatar of an aristocracy that regards working Americans as less than dirt.”

Jen Psaki Hates You (Klavan)

Let us now praise Jennifer Rene Psaki—English major, sorority girl, mother of two. Let us praise her seemingly endless supply of monochrome crew-neck blouses and pencil skirts, the way she peels her mask off after striding to the lectern. Jen Psaki has been briefed by her 11 staffers; she has had her coffee (and her bagel, if it’s Wednesday); she is freshly armed with the latest talking points and she is not going to take any of your guff today. Jen communicates just how on top of things she is by nodding ceaselessly throughout every question, interjecting an “uh-huh” or a “yep” to show she has not been caught off guard since the last clause of the reporter’s sentence. This is a patented bobblehead technique she perfected as a commentator at CNN in between the Obama and Biden Administrations.

What she is saying or listening to is less important than what she is communicating with her demeanor at all times: that she is serious, that she is informed, that she is the adult in the room. We have all met someone who behaves like this: someone who has done the homework and wants you to know it. Someone whose politeness is so aggressive that it can only be read as a kind of challenge. Jen Psaki dares you to find her off-putting. Why would you? She is smiling. She even had a joke written down that she made at the appropriate juncture. See? It says “laughing time” right here in the schedule from 5:01 to 5:03 PM. Then laughing time is over, and it is time for the lies and the jabs and the polite little smirks. Jen Psaki is frankly disappointed that you would stoop so low as to question Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s right to paternity leave during a supply chain “crisis.”

It’s not really a crisis, anyway: “people have more money, expendable resources, more people are working than they were a year ago.” The economy is getting built back better, says Jen, and our ports runneth over. What are you, some kind of Peloton slut who can’t wait five extra months for your new treadmill? This is what Trump’s critics meant when they said we needed to restore “civility” to the White House: they meant we need the right kind of disdain for the right kinds of people, expressed in the right kinds of ways. Gone are the mean tweets, the off-color jokes, the rough pugilism. Now instead we have Jen Psaki, sneering avatar of an aristocracy that regards working Americans as less than dirt. People are straining to put food on the table and gas in their cars; they increasingly fail to see the point in going to work at all. Psaki’s response is that of the anointed class she represents: shut up and take it.

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“This year alone, after the fall of the government of Afghanistan, we saw how crucial encryption is in keeping ordinary people safe.”

Edward Snowden: ‘If You Weaken Encryption, People Will Die’ (TNW)

Our online privacy faces growing threats. Governments around the world are calling for encryption backdoors that would enable access to personal information. They argue that encryption protects criminals. But it also protects activists, dissidents, persecuted groups, and ordinary citizens. Edward Snowden is among the most prominent beneficiaries. The whistleblower’s first messages to journalists were made with encryption. They resulted in revelations that millions of Americans had been under illegal mass surveillance. “If you weaken encryption, people will die,” said Snowden in a statement. “This year alone, after the fall of the government of Afghanistan, we saw how crucial encryption is in keeping ordinary people safe.” Snowden has joined the Global Encryption Coalition to launch a campaign to protect encryption.

The group of civil society organizations and tech firms warns that undermining encryption will leave people more vulnerable to crime and surveillance. “I have seen first-hand how governments can abuse the power they have to access the personal data of innocent people in the name of national security,” said Snowden. “Weakening encryption would be a colossal mistake that could put thousands of lives at risk.” End-to-end encryption would make it harder to implement spy programs like the one Snowden exposed — which may be one reason why governments want to circumvent it. It would not be the first time that lawmakers have undermined our privacy in the name of fighting terrorism. Politicians assert — with justification — that criminal gangs and paedophiles use encryption.

But so do racial justice protestors to avoid police surveillance, LBTQ+ people in countries where their sexual orientation is criminalized, and even some of the politicians who have called for Snowden to be put in jail. Reporters also rely on encryption to protect their sources. “Now more than ever, journalists are facing digital threats to their work and safety,” said Lisa Dittmer, advocacy officer for Internet Freedom, Reporters Without Borders. “Encryption plays a critical role in protecting journalists and their sources, enabling them to share information even in the most dangerous environments. Yet as the need for encryption grows, so do the efforts to weaken it. Governments from India to Australia are calling for tech companies to build backdoors into their end-to-end encrypted systems.

In the UK, new regulation could make service providers criminally liable for the acts of users if law enforcement can’t access their encrypted data. Their proposals, however, could actually make people more vulnerable. Any encryption backdoor may be a target for criminals. The information they access could threaten both national security and individual privacy. “Encryption makes us all safer,” said Snowden. “From families protecting photographs of their kids, to personal healthcare information, encryption keeps our private information private.” We all have private conversations that we don’t want overheard. Encryption backdoors would give malicious actors another way to access them.

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“Nothing in this case is proceeding as it should do.”

Assange to Get Same Judge Who Sided with US on Appeal (Lauria)

Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, the High Court judge who reversed an earlier court order to bar the U.S. from appealing Julian Assange’s medical issues, will preside over the substantive U.S. appeal hearing at the High Court next week. In January, lower court Judge Vanessa Baraitser refused the U.S. request to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher because of his high risk of suicide and the conditions of U.S. prisons. The U.S. applied to appeal that decision, which was granted by the High Court in July. The court allowed three of five grounds of appeal, excluding the matter of Assange’s health. The U.S. challenged that ruling and in an Aug. 11 High Court hearing, Holroyde overturned the earlier court decision, siding with the U.S. argument that Baraitser’s finding on Assange’s health could be appealed.

That will be the central argument in the two-day hearing beginning next Wednesday at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The U.S. says Assange is not too ill to be extradited and has accused him of being a malingerer. Joining Holroyde on the High Court bench will be Dame Judith Farbey, who remained silent during the Aug. 11 hearing. It is highly unusual for a judge who has already ruled in favor of one party to continue on the bench, according to Consortium News legal analyst Alexander Mercouris. In most cases, fresh judges would be brought in who have had no part in earlier rulings for either side.

After the Aug. 11 hearing, Mercouris said Holroyde’s “comments made it clear” that he would not be part of the appeal panel. “If he does turn up on the panel then that would be an extremely serious development,” he said, adding that it would be “open to legal challenge if he did.” It is not known at this time whether Assange’s lawyers will challenge Holroyde’s appointment to the case. After learning Holroyde would indeed oversee the hearing next week, Mercouris said it was “extremely disturbing news” and “very worrying. Nothing in this case is proceeding as it should do.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Soy Cuba

 

 

 

 

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Aug 262021
 
 August 26, 2021  Posted by at 9:21 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  83 Responses »


Vasily Polenov Christ among the teachers (doctors) 1896

 

67% Of UK Covid-19 Deaths Since February 2021 Were Vaccinated (DE)
McCullough: ‘The Vaccines Are Failing’ (CHD)
2 Things MSM Didn’t Tell You About FDA’s Approval of Pfizer Vaccine (CHD)
Comparing SARS-CoV-2 Natural Immunity To Vaccine-induced Immunity (Medrxiv)
Safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Setting (NEJM)
Real-World Study Links Pfizer Vax to High Risk of Myocarditis (MPT)
Delta Will Charge Unvaccinated Employees $200 Per Month For Health Plan (AP)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Bans Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates (TT)
New Zealand Could Be Split Into North And South Island Bubbles (G.)
Origins of SARS-CoV-2: Window Is Closing For Key Scientific Studies (Nature)
Early Wuhan COVID Samples Contained Genetically Modified Viruses (ET)
Tucker Carlson Warns “Elitist Dems” Want You To “Shut Up And Obey” (SN)
“I Was Living Like Scarface” (MPN)
“Leftie” Is Now A Slur In Working-Class Towns (G.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comment on the same Public Health England (PHE) briefing the Daily Sceptic addressed yesterday, saying “Calculating the vaccine effectiveness against Delta infection in the over-50s [..] gives a figure of just 15%..”

67% Of UK Covid-19 Deaths Since February 2021 Were Vaccinated (DE)

The latest Public Health England report on Covid-19 infections, hospitalisations, and deaths show that the Covid-19 injections do not work, and quite possibly make the recipient worse if exposed to the alleged Covid-19 virus due to the fully vaccinated population accounting for 21% of all infections but 58% of all Covid-19 deaths. PHE release a technical briefing on Covid-19 variants of concern every two weeks, and the 21st update released on the 20th August 2021 provides further proof; just as previous reports have, that the Covid-19 vaccines are in fact increasing the risk of hospitalisation and death, rather than reducing it by the 95% claimed by the vaccine manufacturers.

According to the report since the 1st February 2021 and the 15th August 2021 there have been 183,133 confirmed cases among the unvaccinated population, an increase of 32,079 on the last count made in the previous report where the confirmed figure was 151,054 up to the 2nd August 2021. There have also been 26,194 confirmed cases among people who had received a single dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, 21 days prior to their positive test, an increase of 2,176 on the last count made in the previous report where the confirmed figure was 24,018 up to the 2nd August 2021.

Confirmed cases among people who had received a single dose of a Covid-19 vaccine more than 21 days prior to their positive test total 62,763 up to the 15th August 2021. This is an increase of 17,674 on the previous report where the confirmed figure was 46,089 up to the 2nd August 2021. Finally, the latest report reveals that there have been 73,372 confirmed cases of the Delta Covid-19 variant among the fully vaccinated population, an increase of 26,364 on the last count made in the previous report where the confirmed figure was 47,008 up to the 2nd August 2021.

Read more …

Are we getting McCullough overkill?

McCullough: ‘The Vaccines Are Failing’ (CHD)

Why is the world experiencing such a “prominent outbreak” of the Delta variant when so many people have been vaccinated? Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough addressed those questions and more on the “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast.” New research shows people who are vaccinated against COVID are more susceptible to the Delta variant, said McCullough, pointing to a pre-print study by the prestigious Oxford University Clinical Research Group published Aug. 10 in The Lancet. The paper’s authors demonstrated widespread vaccine failure and transmission under tightly controlled circumstances in a hospital lockdown in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. The study found vaccinated people carry 251 times the load of COVID-19 viruses in their nostrils compared to the unvaccinated, the study found.

“They had an outbreak and they locked down the hospital where the workers could not get out,” said McCullough. “They were assiduously checking the workers and testing them for COVID, as well as doing sequencing.” The researchers found workers were still getting COVID during the lockdown period, said McCullough, and they were passing it to one another. The study’s big finding is their calculation of viral load, McCullough said: “This group had actually calculated viral load from oral and nasal secretions in the past. The viral load was 251 times that of the previous unvaccinated era where they had used the same methodology. So, they had previous workers and patients who had COVID-19 before any exposure to the vaccines. And now the vaccinated were carrying a massive viral load and passing it to one another.”

The efficacy for the Pfizer vaccine is measured as being anywhere from 17% to 42% effective. “These levels are far below the 50% regulatory standard to even have a vaccine on the market,” said McCullough. Regardless of the variant or the vaccine, McCullough said the bottom line is that “the vaccines are failing.”

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“If it doesn’t say Comirnaty, you have not been offered an approved vaccine.”

2 Things MSM Didn’t Tell You About FDA’s Approval of Pfizer Vaccine (CHD)

Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a biologics license application for the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine. The press reported that vaccine mandates are now legal for military, healthcare workers, college students and employees in many industries. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has now required the vaccine for all teachers and school staff. The Pentagon is proceeding with its mandate for all military service members.

[..] First, the FDA acknowledges that while Pfizer has “insufficient stocks” of the newly licensed Comirnaty vaccine available, there is “a significant amount” of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine — produced under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) — still available for use. The FDA decrees that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine under the EUA should remain unlicensed but can be used “interchangeably” (page 2, footnote 8) with the newly licensed Comirnaty product. Second, the FDA pointed out that the licensed Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine and the existing, EUA Pfizer vaccine are “legally distinct,” but proclaims that their differences do not “impact safety or effectiveness.”

[..] EUA products are experimental under U.S. law. Both the Nuremberg Code and federal regulations provide that no one can force a human being to participate in this experiment. Under 21 U.S. Code Sec.360bbb-3(e)(1)(A)(ii)(III), “authorization for medical products for use in emergencies,” it is unlawful to deny someone a job or an education because they refuse to be an experimental subject. Instead, potential recipients have an absolute right to refuse EUA vaccines. U.S. laws, however, permit employers and schools to require students and workers to take licensed vaccines. EUA-approved COVID vaccines have an extraordinary liability shield under the 2005 Public Readiness and Preparedness Act. [..] At least for the moment, the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine has no liability shield. Vials of the branded product, which say “Comirnaty” on the label, are subject to the same product liability laws as other U.S. products.

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices places a vaccine on the mandatory schedule, a childhood vaccine benefits from a generous retinue of liability protections. But licensed adult vaccines, including the new Comirnaty, do not enjoy any liability shield. Just as with Ford’s exploding Pinto, or Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, people injured by the Comirnaty vaccine could potentially sue for damages. And because adults injured by the vaccine will be able to show that the manufacturer knew of the problems with the product, jury awards could be astronomical.

Pfizer is therefore unlikely to allow any American to take a Comirnaty vaccine until it can somehow arrange immunity for this product. Here’s what you need to know when somebody orders you to get the vaccine: Ask to see the vial. If it says “Comirnaty,” it’s a licensed product. If it says “Pfizer-BioNTech,” it’s an experimental product, and under 21 U.S. Code 360bbb, you have the right to refuse. If it comes from Moderna or Johnson & Johnson (marketed as Janssen), you have the right to refuse. The FDA is playing bait and switch with the American public — but we don’t have to play along. If it doesn’t say Comirnaty, you have not been offered an approved vaccine.

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Vaccinated people are 13x more likely to get infected than those with natural immunity.

Comparing SARS-CoV-2 Natural Immunity To Vaccine-induced Immunity (Medrxiv)

Reports of waning vaccine-induced immunity against COVID-19 have begun to surface. With that, the comparable long-term protection conferred by previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear. Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational study comparing three groups: (1)SARS-CoV-2-naive individuals who received a two-dose regimen of the BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA BNT162b2 vaccine, (2)previously infected individuals who have not been vaccinated, and (3)previously infected and single dose vaccinated individuals. Three multivariate logistic regression models were applied. In all models we evaluated four outcomes: SARS-CoV-2 infection, symptomatic disease, COVID-19-related hospitalization and death.


The follow-up period of June 1 to August 14, 2021, when the Delta variant was dominant in Israel. Results: SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccinees had a 13.06-fold (95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination) occurred during January and February of 2021. The increased risk was significant (P<0.001) for symptomatic disease as well. When allowing the infection to occur at any time before vaccination (from March 2020 to February 2021), evidence of waning natural immunity was demonstrated, though SARS-CoV-2 naive vaccinees had a 5.96-fold (95% CI, 4.85 to 7.33) increased risk for breakthrough infection and a 7.13-fold (95% CI, 5.51 to 9.21) increased risk for symptomatic disease.

SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccinees were also at a greater risk for COVID-19-related-hospitalizations compared to those that were previously infected. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.

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New England Journal of Medicine. Israel study. Drowning in numbers.

“Vaccination was most strongly associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis, lymphadenopathy, appendicitis, and herpes zoster infection”

Safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Setting (NEJM)

Table S6 shows the effect of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the incidence of various adverse events. Infection substantially increased the risk of many different adverse events, including myocarditis (risk ratio, 18.28; 95% CI, 3.95 to 25.12; risk difference, 11.0 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 5.6 to 15.8), acute kidney injury (risk ratio, 14.83; 95% CI, 9.24 to 28.75; risk difference, 125.4 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 107.0 to 142.6), pulmonary embolism (risk ratio, 12.14; 95% CI, 6.89 to 29.20; risk difference, 61.7 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 48.5 to 75.4), intracranial hemorrhage (risk ratio, 6.89; 95% CI, 1.90 to 19.16; risk difference, 7.6 events per 100,000 persons;


95% CI, 2.7 to 12.6), pericarditis (risk ratio, 5.39; 95% CI, 2.22 to 23.58; risk difference, 10.9 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 4.9 to 16.9), myocardial infarction (risk ratio, 4.47; 95% CI, 2.47 to 9.95; risk difference, 25.1 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 16.2 to 33.9), deep-vein thrombosis (risk ratio, 3.78; 95% CI, 2.50 to 6.59; risk difference, 43.0 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 29.9 to 56.6), and arrhythmia (risk ratio, 3.83; 95% CI, 3.07 to 4.95; risk difference, 166.1 events per 100,000 persons; 95% CI, 139.6 to 193.2).

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About that same Israel study.

Real-World Study Links Pfizer Vax to High Risk of Myocarditis (MPT)

The Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was found to be associated with a threefold increased risk of myocarditis, according to a real-world case-control study from Israel. Vaccination had a strong association with an increased risk of myocarditis (risk ratio [RR] 3.24, 95% CI 1.55-12.44), as well as increased risks of lymphadenopathy (RR 2.43, 95% CI 2.05-2.78), appendicitis (RR 1.40, 95% CI 1.02-2.01), and herpes zoster infection (RR 1.43, 95% CI 1.20-1.73), reported Ran Balicer, MD, of Clalit Health Services in Tel Aviv, and colleagues.

However, in a separate cohort, infection with SARS-CoV-2 was associated with a higher risk of myocarditis (RR 18.28, 95% CI 3.95-25.12), as well as other cardiovascular complications, including acute kidney injury (RR 14.83, 95% CI 9.24-28.75), pulmonary embolism (RR 12.14, 95% CI 6.89-29.20), and intracranial hemorrhage (RR 6.89, 95% CI 1.90-19.16), the authors wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine. They noted that vaccination was “substantially protective” against anemia, acute kidney injury, intracranial hemorrhage, and lymphopenia. Balicer’s group examined data from the largest healthcare organization in Israel to compare incidence of adverse events among vaccinated individuals versus unvaccinated individuals, and estimated the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on these adverse events.

Participants in the vaccination cohorts were 16 years old and older, had been in the health organization for a full year, had no prior COVID-19 infection, and had no contact with the healthcare system in the last 7 days. Notably, populations with confounders, such as healthcare workers, long-term care facility residents, or people confined to their home for medical reasons, were excluded.

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As vaccinated people are 13x more likely to get infected than those with natural immunity. Logos.

Delta Will Charge Unvaccinated Employees $200 Per Month For Health Plan (AP)

Delta Air Lines will charge employees on the company health plan $200 a month if they fail to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a policy the airline’s top executive says is necessary because the average hospital stay for the virus costs the airline $50,000. CEO Ed Bastian said that all employees who have been hospitalized for the virus in recent weeks were not fully vaccinated. The airline said Wednesday that it also will stop extending pay protection to unvaccinated workers who contract COVID-19 on Sept. 30, and will require unvaccinated workers to be tested weekly beginning Sept. 12, although Delta will cover the cost. They will have to wear masks in all indoor company settings.

Delta stopped short of matching United Airlines, which will require employees to be vaccinated starting Sept. 27 or face termination. However, the $200 monthly surcharge, which starts in November, may have the same effect. “This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company,” Bastian said in a memo to employees. The surcharge will only apply to employees who don’t get vaccinated and won’t be levied for spouses or dependents, a Delta spokeswoman said. [..] Bastian said that 75% of Delta employees are vaccinated, up from 72% in mid-July. He said the aggressiveness of the leading strain of the virus “means we need to get many more of our people vaccinated, and as close to 100% as possible.”

“I know some of you may be taking a wait-and-see approach or waiting for full (Food and Drug Administration) approval,” he told employees. “With this week’s announcement that the FDA has granted full approval for the Pfizer vaccine, the time for you to get vaccinated is now.” A growing number of companies including Chevron Corp. and drugstore chain CVS announced they will require workers to get vaccinated after Monday’s FDA decision. United and Delta already require new hires to be vaccinated. Two smaller carriers, Hawaiian and Frontier, have said they will require either vaccination or regular testing for current employees. Other major U.S. airlines, including American and Southwest, said Wednesday that they are encouraging employees to get vaccinated but have not required it.

Read more …

“Vaccine requirements and exemptions have historically been determined by the legislature, and their involvement is particularly important to avoid a patchwork of vaccine mandates across Texas..”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Bans Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates (TT)

Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday announced an executive order banning COVID-19 vaccine mandates regardless of a vaccine’s approval status with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He also said he was adding the issue to the agenda for the current special session of the Texas Legislature. The order comes two days after the FDA granted full approval to the Pfizer vaccine. That raised questions about the fate of a previous Abbott order that prohibited vaccine mandates, but only for those under emergency authorization. Abbott’s latest order is simple, saying “no governmental entity can compel any individual to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.” The order preserves exceptions for places like nursing homes and state-supported living centers.

At the same time, Abbott asked lawmakers to consider legislation addressing whether state or local governments could issue vaccine mandates and, if so, which exemptions should apply. “Vaccine requirements and exemptions have historically been determined by the legislature, and their involvement is particularly important to avoid a patchwork of vaccine mandates across Texas,” Abbott said in a statement. Lawmakers are currently in their second special session, and time is limited to make progress on the 17-item agenda that Abbott previously announced. The House finally restored quorum last week after Democrats staged a nearly six-week protest of the GOP’s elections bill, and the current session is set to end Sept. 5.

Abbott’s last order regarding vaccine requirements, issued July 29, said “no governmental entity can compel any individual to receive a COVID-19 vaccine administered under an emergency use authorization.” While there is a new state law that acted as a backstop for Abbott’s previous order if a vaccine received full approval, it was not as sweeping as the order and left the door open to new mandates. There specifically appeared to be the fresh potential for cities, counties and school districts to require their employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. San Antonio Independent School District had already announced mandatory employee vaccinations, prompting a lawsuit from Attorney General Ken Paxton. District officials said Wednesday they will move forward with the mandate — despite Abbott’s latest order.

Read more …

Says the “Covid modeller”. Get a life.

New Zealand Could Be Split Into North And South Island Bubbles (G.)

A Covid-19 modeller has suggested New Zealand’s North and South islands could become separate bubbles as the country grapples with a coronavirus outbreak, although South islanders with hopes of being fully released from lockdown should not hold their breath just yet. New Zealand is battling to contain an outbreak of the Delta variant that swiftly led to a nationwide, level four lockdown – the highest setting – which has been extended until at least the end of the week. There are now 210 cases in the community. Auckland – the largest city, where the majority of cases have been detected – will remain in lockdown until the end of the month.


There have been no cases in the South Island, but the 20,000-strong list of close contacts linked to the current outbreak extends across both islands. Around 120 people, who were potentially exposed to the virus at locations in Auckland, are isolating in the South Island. Auckland could expect to stay in lockdown for a number of weeks , but a North Island and South Island split could make sense, Covid-19 modeller at the University of Auckland, Shaun Hendy, told TVNZ. “I think at this stage, a North Island and South Island split is probably what we’d be looking at,” Hendy said. In order for the alert levels to drop in the South Island, any wastewater tests would need to come back clear, Hendy said.

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Daszak gets another shot at whitewashing Daszak, and Nature provides a podium to do it on.

Origins of SARS-CoV-2: Window Is Closing For Key Scientific Studies (Nature)

Our group was convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) in October 2020. We have been the designated independent international members of a joint WHO–China team tasked with understanding the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Our report was published this March1. It was meant to be the first step in a process that has stalled. Here we summarize the scientific process so far, and call for action to fast-track the follow-up scientific work required to identify how COVID-19 emerged, which we set out in this article.

The window of opportunity for conducting this crucial inquiry is closing fast: any delay will render some of the studies biologically impossible. Understanding the origins of a devastating pandemic is a global priority, grounded in science. We, all the members of the international expert team, each submitted detailed, confidential statements to the WHO on potential conflicts of interest, including funding, collaborative studies, public statements and other issues around the origins of COVID-19 that could be perceived as conflicts. After the WHO had reviewed these, team members were appointed in their individual capacity, not as representatives of their employers.

So far, our mission has been guided by terms of reference agreed between the WHO and China in 2020, before our involvement1. These terms tasked us with making a detailed reconstruction of the early phase of the pandemic, beginning in Wuhan, China, where the first known cases were reported. Our mandate was to conduct a collaborative study with leading scientists in China to review data they had generated on the basis of initial questions from the WHO. We refined the generic list of questions described in the mandate into a detailed workplan described in the mission report.

Read more …

Bet this is also Daszak.

“We found genetic manipulation of the Nipah virus, which is more lethal than Ebola.”

Early Wuhan COVID Samples Contained Genetically Modified Viruses (ET)

Samples from early Wuhan COVID-19 patients show the presence of genetically modified Henipah virus, an American scientist has found. Henipah was one of the two types of viruses sent to China by Chinese-born scientists from a Canadian laboratory at the centre of a controversy over the firing of the scientists and collaboration with Chinese military researchers. It is not clear whether the virus found in the Chinese samples is related to the virus samples sent by the Canadian lab, which were shipped in late March 2019. The finding was confirmed for The Epoch Times by another qualified scientist.

The evidence was first found by Dr. Steven Quay, a Seattle-based physician-scientist and former faculty member at the Stanford University School of Medicine, who looked at early COVID-19 samples uploaded by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) shortly after China informed the WHO about the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. The samples from the patients, who reportedly were found to have an “unidentified pneumonia disease” in December 2019, were uploaded to the genetic sequence database, GenBank, on the website of the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH). Quay says that while other scientists around the world were mostly interested in examining the genome of SARS-CoV-2 in the samples uploaded by the WIV scientists, he wanted to see what else was in the samples collected from the patients.

So he collaborated with a few other scientists to analyze sequences from the samples. “We started fishing inside for weird things,” Quay told The Epoch Times. What they found, he says, are the results of what could likely be contamination from different experiments in the lab making their way into the samples, as well as evidence of Henipah virus. “We found genetic manipulation of the Nipah virus, which is more lethal than Ebola.” Nipah is a type of Henipah virus. [..] Documents released by the Canadian government state that the WIV’s intended use of the virus samples sent by Canada was “stock virus culturing,” which in simpler terms means storing the viruses while keeping them alive. Genetic manipulation would not be within the scope of this description.

Read more …

Worth watching.

Tucker Carlson Warns “Elitist Dems” Want You To “Shut Up And Obey” (SN)

Fox News host Tucker Carlson issued a stark warning Tuesday, emphasising that “we’re seeing now what happens when countries tolerate authoritarians, even for a moment” as people worldwide are being told to submit to increasingly draconian “rules” in the wake of the pandemic. Carlson noted “Has there ever been a clearer window into the society they’re trying to build? Our formerly middle-class nation now has a serf class. They’re the ones wearing the masks, being forced to take drugs they don’t want, being told not to communicate with one another, except through digital channels the Democratic Party controls.”


He continued, “We now have two groups of Americans, not a broad middle. The favored and the unfavored. The saved and the damned. The vaccinated and the unvaccinated. That’s how the architects of all this see the country.” Carlson also pointed to former NSA head Michael Hayden’s assertion that Trump supporters should be sent to Afghanistan to die. “That’s how contemptuous they feel about you,” Carlson noted, adding “Shut up and fetch another glass of Riesling, serf. And be sure not to breathe on me, or you’ll be deported.” “These are bad attitudes and are accelerating. How far can this go, you wonder?” he questioned. Carlson also described some of the insane policies being put into place in Australia and New Zealand, describing them as akin to North Korea.

Read more …

“Holy cow, I was living like Scarface…I was paying out anywhere between $300-400,000 per week to $5 million per week at times. All in cash.” Matthew Hoh, U.S. Marine Corps Captain and former State Department official

“I Was Living Like Scarface” (MPN)

The conflict in Afghanistan — for the U.S. at least — appears to be over. Essentially admitting defeat, American planes are beating a hasty and ignominious retreat from Kabul, with images of the withdrawal bearing a striking resemblance to those from the fall of Saigon 46 years previously. As the Taliban complete their takeover, many Americans are wondering what it was all about. For what, and on what, did the United States spend more than $2 trillion? A newly published study from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) — a U.S. government body — lays bare the waste and corruption of the whole affair, drawing parallels with famous satires such as “Catch 22” and “M*A*S*H*.” Uncompromising in its frankness, the 124-page report outlines the incompetence, venality and dark absurdity of the whole endeavor.

“When you look at how much we spent and what we got for it, it’s mind boggling,” one senior Department of Defense administrator admitted to SIGAR in 2015. Congress founded SIGAR in 2008 to provide neutral and objective oversight into the U.S.’ handling of Afghan reconstruction programs. The new report is the latest — and perhaps most critical — of 13 yearly offerings analyzing U.S. efforts in the country. At no point did the U.S. truly control all of Afghanistan. But officials in Washington wanted to see quantifiable results. In a region where American troops were barely able to leave their bases without being attacked, “cash spent” became one of the few concrete metrics commanders could report back with any accuracy. As the report concluded:

Perversely, because it was the easiest thing to monitor, the amount of money spent by a program often became the most important measure of success. A USAID official told SIGAR, ‘The Hill was always asking, ‘Did you spend the money?’…I didn’t hear many questions about what the effects were. Program budgets were massively expanded, often over the objections of USAID and others on the ground, who argued that inundating the country with dollars was not truly winning hearts and minds, and was a wasteful and ineffective strategy. There was no incentive to report on financial excesses, fraud or abuse, and barely any oversight over where the money was actually going. Contractors, NGOs and others who were aboard the seemingly endless gravy train also kept quiet as they stuffed their pockets with billions of dollars of public money.

MintPress spoke to a person who had been a central part of this bizarre story. Matthew Hoh was a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and an official with both the Department of Defense and the State Department, spending almost 12 years in the U.S. military and government focusing on Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2009, he resigned from his position in the State Department in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, over U.S. policy in the country. “The way to prove that you were doing your job was by spending money,” Hoh told MintPress, continuing: Money being spent on an institutional level was a metric of success. Somehow in the minds of the U.S. political leaders, in Iraq and Afghanistan, dollars spent equated to things being constructed and effective counterinsurgency [against the Taliban]…But the Taliban themselves were taking the money! The Taliban guys were doing the construction work. It was absolutely nuts!”

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I don’t have time for the very few.

“Leftie” Is Now A Slur In Working-Class Towns (G.)

In 2011, Sam Fender was, by his own admission, “a little stoner” who had flunked out of his A-Levels in his hometown of North Shields, living with his mother in a flat with black mould on the walls. A decade later, he’s one of the UK’s best and most successful singer-songwriters: his 2019 debut album Hypersonic Missiles went to No 1, he won a Brit award, and his knack for writing songs about 21st-century disaffections marked him out from cheerier peers such as Ed Sheeran and George Ezra. His second album Seventeen Going Under, a superb record that channels the sound of Bruce Springsteen and the War on Drugs into an examination of his family, youth and frailty, is out in October.

[..] You’ve also written about politics – Aye, from the new album, is probably the angriest song you’ve ever written.

Because of the polarity between the left and the right, I don’t feel I have an identity with politicians on either side. The left wing have abandoned the working classes, and with a lot of the left – I don’t want to sound like Piers Morgan when I say this – I feel like there is too much nitpicking and stupid fights, especially online. But I hate the Tories with a passion. I was raised to hate them, I still hate them, and I always will. They clearly know who they stand for and they don’t represent people like us. A quarter of the kids in working families in my region are in poverty. Nobody sticks their neck out for the north-east. The line in Aye – “I don’t have time for the very few” – that’s the one thing that always going to be my main gripe on this planet, the sheer disparity between the 1% and the rest of the world. These culture wars are valid wars that need to be fought – there’s a lot of bigotry, a lot of racism and homophobia. But in order to get the Tories out, you’ve got to start representing the working class people of this country.

The right are sitting back and laughing, sweeping up every election. Blyth Valley up here went Tory. It’s a shipbuilding town. That’s insanity. Working-class people up here think the Tories are on their side – which shows how completely the left have fucked themselves. I’ve had arguments with people who say Jeremy Corbyn’s a twat, regurgitating Daily Mail headlines that he’s a terrorist sympathiser. I’m like: how? Tell me in your own words. And they go, “Ah you’re just one of them lefties”. “Leftie” is now a slur in working-class towns – what happened there? It upsets me that we’re in a place where the media have so much control over these blokes who have grafted all their life in a system that would benefit them if someone like Corbyn was in.

Read more …

 

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New South Wales. New World Order.

 

 

 

 

 

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Aug 032021
 
 August 3, 2021  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  151 Responses »


René Magritte Man in a bowler hat 1964

 

Israeli Scientist Says Covid-19 Could Be Treated For Under $1/Day (JPost)
Necessity Of Covid-19 Vaccination In Previously Infected Individuals (Medrxiv)
Covid Vaccines: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (SPR)
Well, Duh. This Is Why It Was Stupid (Denninger)
When Things Don’t Add Up (Kunstler)
China Will Test All 12 Million Wuhan Residents (F.)
Millions Are Put Into Lockdown In China (DM)
Ratcliffe: COVID Lab Leak “Very Close To A Certainty” (ZH)
AOC Calls Fellow Democrats “Cowards” On The Eviction Moratorium (JTN)
Australians Getting Ready To Overthrow Tyrannical Government (BBee)

 

 

I knew it!

 

 

“99.999% survival vs 99.974% unvaxed. But they just say 25x higher chance of dying. Lmao. So vax increases your odds by .025%. Of surviving. Hmmmmmmmm”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1422202459036999687

 

 

How successful are the vaccines so far?

 

 

Why Macron insists on vaccine passports.

 

 

$1 a day is too cheap for political gain.

Israeli Scientist Says Covid-19 Could Be Treated For Under $1/Day (JPost)

Ivermectin, a drug used to fight parasites in third-world countries, could help reduce the length of infection for people who contract coronavirus for less than a $1 a day, according to recent research by Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer. Prof. Eli Schwartz, founder of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease at Sheba, conducted a randomized, controlled, double-blinded trial from May 15, 2020, through the end of January 2021 to evaluate the effectiveness of ivermectin in reducing viral shedding among nonhospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. Ivermectin has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration since 1987. The drug’s discoverers were awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine for its treatment of onchocerciasis, a disease caused by infection with a parasitic roundworm.

Over the years, it has been used for other indications, including scabies and head lice. Moreover, in the last decade, several clinical studies have started to show its antiviral activity against viruses ranging from HIV and the flu to Zika and West Nile. The drug is also extremely economical. A study published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Therapeutics showed that the cost of ivermectin for other treatments in Bangladesh is around $0.60 to $1.80 for a five-day course. It costs up to $10 a day in Israel, Schwartz said. In Schwartz’s study, some 89 eligible volunteers over the age of 18 who were diagnosed with coronavirus and staying in state-run COVID-19 hotels were divided into two groups: 50% received ivermectin, and 50% received a placebo, according to their weight. They were given the pills for three days in a row, an hour before a meal.

The volunteers were tested using a standard nasopharyngeal swab PCR test with the goal of evaluating whether there was a reduction in viral load by the sixth day – the third day after termination of the treatment. They were swabbed every two days. Nearly 72% of volunteers treated with ivermectin tested negative for the virus by day six. In contrast, only 50% of those who received the placebo tested negative. In addition, the study looked at culture viability, meaning how infectious the patients were, and found that only 13% of ivermectin patients were infectious after six days, compared with 50% of the placebo group – almost four times as many. “Our study shows first and foremost that ivermectin has antiviral activity,” Schwartz said. “It also shows that there is almost a 100% chance that a person will be noninfectious in four to six days, which could lead to shortening isolation time for these people. This could have a huge economic and social impact.”

Read more …

There is none: “Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination ..”

Necessity Of Covid-19 Vaccination In Previously Infected Individuals (Medrxiv)

Employees of the Cleveland Clinic Health System working in Ohio on Dec 16, 2020, the day COVID-19 vaccination was started, were included. Any subject who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 at least 42 days earlier was considered previously infected. One was considered vaccinated 14 days after receipt of the second dose of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine. The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection over the next five months, among previously infected subjects who received the vaccine, was compared with those of previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated, previously uninfected subjects who received the vaccine, and previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated.

Results Among the 52238 included employees, 1359 (53%) of 2579 previously infected subjects remained unvaccinated, compared with 22777 (41%) of 49659 not previously infected. The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among previously infected unvaccinated subjects, previously infected subjects who were vaccinated, and previously uninfected subjects who were vaccinated, compared with a steady increase in cumulative incidence among previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated. Not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study. In a Cox proportional hazards regression model, after adjusting for the phase of the epidemic, vaccination was associated with a significantly lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection among those not previously infected (HR 0.031, 95% CI 0.015 to 0.061) but not among those previously infected (HR 0.313, 95% CI 0 to Infinity).

Conclusions: Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before. Summary: Cumulative incidence of COVID-19 was examined among 52238 employees in an American healthcare system. COVID-19 did not occur in anyone over the five months of the study among 2579 individuals previously infected with COVID-19, including 1359 who did not take the vaccine.

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“..covid vaccines do not achieve mucosal immunity (in contrast to natural infection) and serum antibody levels (i.e. antibodies in the blood) decrease within months..”

Covid Vaccines: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (SPR)

The latest data from Israel, which has used primarily the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, indicates that vaccine effectiveness against Delta coronavirus infection and symptomatic (“mild”) disease has dropped from about 95% to about 40%, whereas effectiveness against hospitalization and severe disease (i.e. low blood oxygen levels) remains at 80% to 90% (see chart above). Importantly, in people who got vaccinated already in January 2021 (primarily the elderly), protection against infection and mild disease may already have dropped to near 0% (see chart above). Moreover, since the Delta covid outbreak is still accelerating in Israel, the effectiveness against hospitalization and severe disease may further decrease (due to lags in hospitalizations). (Update: New data from Hebrew University shows that protection against severe disease has already dropped to 80%; compared to the original 96%, this results in a five-fold increase in residual risk.)

In the UK, which has primarily used the AstraZeneca DNA adenovector vaccine, the latest estimate by researchers at University College London indicates an effectiveness against infection of about 20% and a total effectiveness against severe disease of about 60%. In very senior citizens, the effectiveness against severe disease may be even lower (due to a weaker immune response). (A substantially higher estimate by Public Health England, recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was based on outdated data from early June. Interestingly, the British government hasn’t updated its data on AstraZeneca vaccine effectiveness since June 13. Update: New data from PHE confirms that effectiveness against infection has dropped below 20%.)

The Israeli data shown above indicates that effectiveness against infection and mild symptoms decreases rapidly over time and reaches near-zero levels after about half a year. Most likely, this is because covid vaccines do not achieve mucosal immunity (in contrast to natural infection) and serum antibody levels (i.e. antibodies in the blood) decrease within months. Thus, the false promise of very high protection against “symptomatic infection”, found during official vaccine trials, was simply based on very high short-term serum antibody levels mimicking mucosal immunity. Conceivably, the pharmaceutical companies may even have known that this was just a (very lucrative) “flash in the pan” and not a lasting protective effect.

In contrast, protection against severe disease is achieved by lower serum antibody levels in combination with immunological memory (B cells) and cellular immunity (T cells). However, the Delta variant has already achieved partial immune evasion (as did Beta and Gamma, but not Alpha), and future coronavirus variants will likely achieve almost complete immune evasion. Thus, vaccine protection even against severe disease will likely further decrease due to new variants, or, in the very worst case, will turn into antibody-dependent disease enhancement (ADE), if high levels of non-neutralizing antibodies aggravate the infection. Indeed, this is what happened in the case of vaccines against SARS-1 and dengue fever.


Serum antibody levels after vaccination with Pfizer (blue) and AstraZeneca (red).

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An addendum to Vanden Bossche:

“There is no safe means of mass-use of non-sterilizing vaccines so long as transmission within the community does or is likely to exist.”

Well, Duh. This Is Why It Was Stupid (Denninger)

I warned everyone. Now even CNN is on it, although they (like SAGE) think we’re smarter than nature — and evolution. “They write that some variants that have emerged over the past few months “show a reduced susceptibility to vaccine-acquired immunity, though none appears to escape entirely.” But they caution that these variants emerged “before vaccination was widespread,” and that “as vaccines become more widespread, the transmission advantage gained by a virus that can evade vaccine-acquired immunity will increase.” In a word: Duh. I know I’ve been banging on this drum since Covid-19 started but it is no-less important today, especially in the context of holding people accountable for killing several hundred thousand Americans and the economic destruction they brought upon the nation.

To be sterilizing a vaccine must prevent infection. Since you never get infected you never replicate the virus and thus do not shed it. If you do not shed it the potential path of the viral life-cycle for that particular infection ends with you and thus you cannot pass on or cause a mutation. You are sterile against that disease; from the point of view of the virus you are a lifeless rock. Among commonly-used sterilizing vaccines are MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), Varicella (chicken pox), OPV (oral polio) and others. The only time that such a vaccine fails is when you do not build immunity (such as due to immune compromise.) This is extremely rare and the protection from such vaccines tends to be either decades-long or lifetime.

A vaccine that is not sterilizing permits the virus to infect you and replicate and as a result you can infect others. Technically it is not a vaccine at all (which by definition prevents infection); it is a prophylactic therapy. Such a “vaccine” instead acts to reduce or eliminate symptomatic disease. You don’t know you’re sick and you don’t get sick. You don’t go to the hospital and you don’t die. Unfortunately since you don’t know you’re sick but are infected and the virus is both replicating in you and shedding you are more-likely to spread the infection to others. All of the current Covid jabs are in this category and so is, for that matter IPV (injected polio vaccine — the original Salk discovery.) During the original vaccine trials in the summer and fall of 2020 they deliberately did not test any of the recipients for asymptomatic infections.

Only a person who developed a significant illness was tested. This has continued post roll-out with the CDC specifying that a close contact of a known case who was vaccinated did not need to quarantine or be tested until and unless they became symptomatic. They knew damn well, in other words, that the jabs were not sterilizing but did not want that data up for public debate because then those who have read history would be likely to make the connection to the present day and thus they did their level best to hide it. That has now blown up in their face with it being conclusively known that jabbed people in fact not only get infected but spread the virus to others. The problem with non-sterilizing vaccines is simply this: There is no safe means of mass-use of non-sterilizing vaccines so long as transmission within the community does or is likely to exist.

Ever. There are no exceptions. This was known to public health officials and virologists seventy years ago and is why the United States used both IPV (injected polio vaccine) and OPV (oral polio vaccine) in sequence for polio until the 1990s. OPV produced sterilizing immunity but IPV did not. OPV had a very small (but non-zero, about 1 in a million) risk of causing polio because it was a codon-deoptimized live virus which, on rare occasion, would mutate back to its virulent form in the human body. So to mitigate that risk you got IPV first in the US (to prevent systemic infection; this was non-sterilizing), then OPV which is sterilizing — that is, it prevents not only getting sick from polio but also replicating and shedding the virus, thus giving it to others along with preventing the promotion of mutations that WILL eventually escape the vaccine.

Had we done with polio what we’re doing now with Covid — IPV (non-sterilizing) use only with virus circulating in the United States — it is very likely the virus would have mutated, escaped the vaccine and killed millions in America.

Malone Arms race.

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“All that sound-and-fury for what? For vaccines that don’t work… and which, quite possibly, could leave you seriously ill, even dead?”

When Things Don’t Add Up (Kunstler)

The Covid 19 panic, which has been driving formerly civilized societies crazy for eighteen months, prompted the bringing-forth of The Science’s follow-up project: vaccines to stop the spread of the virus. Enter the scene, these vaxes did, like, a day-and-a-half after Covid-19 pirouetted onstage. Hmmmm. Could someone have been working on those vaxes backstage before the dread virus even premiered? Were patents issued for them pre-dating January, 2020? Seems so. But never mind that for now. The vaxes were rolled out to fanfares over a year ago and those moiling masses of America, the superfluous holders of bachelor’s degrees in Oppression Studies — for whom, sadly, the world had run-out of paying positions — lined up like kids at Santa’s throne in Macy’s on Black Sunday for their Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson jabs. Whew…! That was a close call!

Or was it? Naw, not even close, actually. Since now it turns out that the jabs don’t seem to work that well. The official story got murkier last week when the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported internally to staff (it leaked) that “fully vaccinated people might spread the Delta variant at the same rate as unvaccinated people.” Whoopsie…. In a Delta variant outbreak on Cape Cod last month, three-quarters of the infected were fully vaxed-up patients. The story got darker because The New York Times, the usually-reliable mouthpiece for The Science and his allies in “Joe Biden’s” public health bureaucracy, let slip that, “The Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and may be spread by vaccinated people as easily as the unvaccinated.”

Wuh-oh…! A worm the size of an Amtrak Acela train has turned in the myocarditic heart of our nation’s capital. Things have changed overnight — didn’t they see it coming? — and now the government is freaking out as it appears to have some serious ‘splainin’ to do — and right on the heels, too, of an hysterical month-long campaign to persuade the remaining unvaxed millions to submit to the needle, climaxed by threatening the obdurate “hesitants” with taking away their employment and ability to participate in commerce and social life. All that sound-and-fury for what? For vaccines that don’t work… and which, quite possibly, could leave you seriously ill, even dead?

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Chia uses nucleic acid amplification tests, not PCR.

China Will Test All 12 Million Wuhan Residents (F.)

Chinese authorities said Tuesday they will administer Covid-19 tests to all 12 million residents in Wuhan, where the first cases of Covid-19 were first reported, after the first local cases of infection by the highly contagious delta variant were reported in the city. On Monday, authorities confirmed three new delta variant Covid-19 cases in Wuhan, the first local cases since mid-May last year, Reuters reported. A city official told a news briefing that the city-wide testing was being done to screen out all asymptomatic infections and to ensure that everyone in the city was safe.


Besides Wuhan, China has detected new local infections in the nearby cities of Jingzhou and Huanggang, all of which have been linked to cases found in China’s Jiangsu province. The outbreak in Jiangsu was reportedly fueled by the delta variant which is believed to have entered the region from an infected passenger flying in from Russia. 414. That’s the total number of locally acquired Covid-19 cases China has reported since July 20, when the first infections in Jiangsu were reported. It’s unclear if all of these cases are delta variant infections.

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Zero covid is a bad idea.

Millions Are Put Into Lockdown In China (DM)

Millions of people have been placed back into lockdown in China as the country tries to contain its largest coronavirus outbreak in months with mass testing and travel curbs. The country reported 55 new locally transmitted coronavirus cases today as an outbreak of the fast-spreading Delta variant reached over 20 cities and more than a dozen provinces. The latest surge, which state media has labelled the ‘most extensive outbreak of Covid since Wuhan’, began when airport workers in Nanjing who had cleaned a plane that arrived from Russia later tested positive for the virus. Local governments in major cities including Beijing have now tested millions of residents, while cordoning off residential compounds and placing close contacts under quarantine.

While the number of cases is relatively small they are spread out across the country, prompting state media to compare it to the initial outbreak in Wuhan in 2019. The central city of Zhuzhou in Hunan province ordered over 1.2 million residents on Monday to stay home under strict lockdown for the next three days as it rolls out a citywide testing and vaccination campaign, according to an official statement. ‘The situation is still grim and complicated,’ the Zhuzhou government said. Beijing has previously boasted of its success in bringing domestic cases down to virtually zero after the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, allowing the economy to rebound.

But the latest outbreak, linked to a cluster in Nanjing where nine cleaners at an international airport tested positive on July 20, is threatening that success with more than 360 domestic cases reported in the past two weeks. In the tourist destination of Zhangjiajie, near Zhuzhou, an outbreak spread last month among theatre patrons who then brought the virus back to their homes around the country. Zhangjiajie locked down all 1.5 million residents on Friday. Officials are urgently seeking people who have recently travelled from Nanjing or Zhangjiajie, and have urged tourists not to travel to areas where cases have been found.

Meanwhile, Beijing has blocked tourists from entering the capital during the peak summer holiday travel season. Only ‘essential travellers’ with negative nucleic acid tests will be allowed to enter after the discovery of a handful of cases among residents who had returned from Zhangjiajie. Top city officials on Sunday called for residents ‘not to leave Beijing unless necessary’. The capital’s Changping district locked down 41,000 people in nine housing communities last week.

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No Democrat will listen.

Ratcliffe: COVID Lab Leak “Very Close To A Certainty” (ZH)

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe says that the lab-leak Covid-19 origin hypothesis isn’t just a “possibility,” but “more like a probability, if not very close to a certainty.” In a Monday Op-Ed, Ratcliffe excoriated China for rejecting new plans by the World Health Organization to investigate the lab-leak theory, which was “remarkable not only because of China’s continued belligerence, but also because the WHO was once complicit, caving to the CCP’s initial pressure to dismiss the lab leak theory and downplay the CCP’s coverup.” “I had access to all of the U.S. government’s most sensitive intelligence related to the pandemic. My informed opinion is that the lab leak theory isn’t just a “possibility,” at the very least it is more like a probability, if not very close to a certainty.

More than 18 months after the virus first leaked into the world, I still have not seen a single shred of scientific evidence or intelligence that the virus outbreak was a naturally occurring “spillover” that jumped from an animal to a human”. -John Ratcliffe Ratcliffe then notes that the CCP has gone to great lengths to ensure there is no “smoking gun,” and in fact – “every piece of evidence I have seen points to the pandemic’s origin being a leak out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).” The former DNI notes that classified intelligence has since been corroborated by public reporting with further details, yet “some in the media unwittingly helped the CCP in its disinformation efforts, dismissing the lab leak theory as a “conspiracy theory,” while Facebook affixed warnings of “false or misleading” to anyone who dared speak of it.”

Ratcliffe notes that before Trump left office, he tried to balance the need to protect intelligence gathering techniques with public disclosure – culminating in the State Department fact sheet which revealed that “several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and seasonal illnesses.”

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They could all have done this months ago, especially Pelosi, but also AOC.

AOC Calls Fellow Democrats “Cowards” On The Eviction Moratorium (JTN)

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling fellow Washington Democrats “cowards” for failing to extend a moratorium on evicting Americans during the pandemic, which after roughly 8 months of protection has put a reported 11 million Americans in jeopardy of losing shelter. “The House and House leadership had the opportunity to vote to extend the moratorium and there was, frankly, a handful of conservative Democrats in the House that threatened to get on planes rather than hold this vote,” Cortez said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We have to call a spade a spade. We cannot in good faith blame the Republican Party when House Democrats have a majority.”

The White House has said it didn’t have the authority to extend the moratorium past August 31 and asked Congress to address the issue legislatively. The House vote failed Friday. The Democrat-controlled Senate has yet to vote on the matter, but likely also does not have the votes. Ocasio-Cortez, is the official leader of House Democrats’ so-called squad, the conference’s most progressive wing. Fellow squad members Reps. Cori Bush, of Missouri, Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley, of Massachusetts, all slept just outside of the Capitol building this past weekend to protest the end of the ban.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi along with other key Democrat leaders have sent a letter to the White House asking it to make the order instead of Congress because they did not have the votes needed. “It is clear that the Senate is not able to [extend the ban], and any legislation in the House, therefore, will not be sufficient,” the letter reads. “Action is needed, and it must come from the administration.” The Senate is still in session, but the House is now out for the remainder of the summer. However, House members may be called back in to pass the $1 trillion infrastructure bill.

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“—Wait, Nevermind, Seems They Gave Up All Their Guns”

Australians Getting Ready To Overthrow Tyrannical Government (BBee)

Reports are coming in from the land down under that the people of Australia are getting ready to overthrow their tyrannical government—oh wait, they actually gave up all their guns. Amid the fears over the Delta strain of the virus, armed military members were patrolling the streets to make sure people were all at their correct address while helicopters and drones circled overhead to order people to go back inside if they ventured out at all in what the nation could only describe as some Orwellian nightmare. Many Aussies decided it was time to do something about the situation. “Blimey, this right here is a dog’s breakfast! No blokes gone walkabout since they brought in the military to cover us, shrimp on a barbie,” said a man who simply goes by Croc.


An American translator was found who told us that what Croc was saying was that the entire continent nation of 25 million people was living under martial law with no end in sight because a little over 900 people had died from coronavirus throughout the pandemic. “We were totally fed up with this and were all set to tell them Blokes and Sheilas to right buzz off, but then we remembered that we let the government have all our guns already,” Croc continued somberly. At publishing time, Australians were asking the aboriginals if they had any of those cool dart guns or at least some bevvies to make it through the lockdowns.

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Jul 292021
 
 July 29, 2021  Posted by at 9:19 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  111 Responses »


Paul Gauguin The Vision after the Sermon (Jacob wrestling with the Angel) 1888

 

The Vaccine Causes The Virus To Be More Dangerous – Malone (WR)
USA Today Scrubs Passage Suggesting Vaccinated May Spread More Virus (Becker)
California COVID Cases Rising In Most Heavily Vaccinated Counties (ZH)
Ruin Them (Denninger)
Pfizer Suggests Third Dose Of Vaccine ‘Strongly’ Boosts Protection (CNN)
Latest Data Show Efficacy Of Pfizer Vaccine Falls To 84% After 6 Months (ZH)
New US Mask Guidance Prompted By Evidence Vaccinated Can Spread Delta (G.)
CDC Head Says New Mask Guidance Could Help Tame Delta Outbreak In ‘Weeks’ (F.)
Gottlieb: US Will Be Through Delta Wave In 2 Or 3 Weeks (Hill)
US Reports More Than 100,000 New Coronavirus Cases (BNO)
Dr. Pierre Kory’s Medical Lecture for Physicians and Citizens of Malaysia (O.)
Omaha Doctor Sees Tremendous Success with Ivermectin as Early Treatment (TSN)
The Noble Lies of COVID-19 (Slate)
The Vaccine Aristocrats (Taibbi)
NIH Dumped Millions Into Chinese Entities To Study Infectious Diseases (DC)
Will Washington Stop China From Buying Up Farmland? (JTN)
Assange Attorney Accuses Ecuador Of Foul Play (RT)

 

 

A tour of more mainstream news today. If only because it makes clear we’re wasting so much time talking about whatever the narrative is, but what has already been well debunked. We need our focus. If you need three shots of something, it’s not a vaccine. Doesn’t even matter if in the end it works. Which in this case it doesn’t. We’re getting dragged back into conversations we should have long left behind.

 

 

Vanden Bossche

 

 

 

 

Fleming Delta

 

 

 

 

Weinstein Long term plan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take these 10 minutes. Yes, it’s Bannon, but at least he lets Malone speak.

The Vaccine Causes The Virus To Be More Dangerous – Malone (WR)

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It’s out.

USA Today Scrubs Passage Suggesting Vaccinated May Spread More Virus (Becker)

“NBC News, citing unnamed officials aware of the decision, reported it comes after new data suggests vaccinated individuals could have higher levels of virus and infect others amid the surge of cases driven by the delta variant of the coronavirus,” the USA Today reported in a passage that was later scrubbed from an article. A screenshot from the article and an online archive of the passage points out the surfacing evidence.The story from the USA Today drops the reference to NBC News, but nonetheless corroborates the news: “CDC says vaccinated people may transmit virus, recommends masks indoors.”


“CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said new data shows the delta variant, which accounts for more than 80% of the new infections in the U.S., behaves ‘uniquely differently’ from its predecessors and could make vaccinated people infectious,” the article notes. “Information on the delta variant from several states and other countries indicates that in rare occasions some vaccinated people infected with the delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and spread the virus to others,” Walensky said in announcing new guidance, which reverses a CDC recommendation in May. “This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendation.”

NBC News reported on the CDC guidance reversal on Monday. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Tuesday that fully vaccinated people begin wearing masks indoors again in places with high Covid-19 transmission rates,” NBC News reported. “The agency is also recommending kids wear masks in schools this fall.” “Federal health officials still believe fully vaccinated individuals represent a very small amount of transmission,” the report continued. “Still, some vaccinated people could be carrying higher levels of the virus than previously understood and potentially transmit it to others.”

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It’s fun to see them all bend themselves into pretzels to “explain” how they were not wrong when they were.

California COVID Cases Rising In Most Heavily Vaccinated Counties (ZH)

Some might have been surprised to see California on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s map of high-risk areas where the new federal indoor mask mandates must be obeyed. The Golden State was deemed more high risk than Texas. Indeed, scientists are finding that despite its high vaccination rates, California is seeing more COVID cases than it should. California and its big coastal cities have embraced vaccines in their effort to beat back the COVID pandemic. But a Bay Area News Group analysis shows that not only are cases rising fast, they are rising in areas where there are more fully vaccinated people. Some of these counties have both among the highest vaccination rates, and the highest new-case rates.

Notice that five of these counties have both a higher percentage of their eligible residents fully vaccinated and a higher average daily case rate than the statewide average. They include: LA, San Diego, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco. The five counties with falling case rates are Modoc, Glenn, Lassen, Del Norte, San Benito, and they, coincidentally, have below-average vaccination rates. As to what might be causing this, experts point to two things: the extraordinary ease with which the virus’ now-dominant delta strain spreads, and the fact that no vaccine offers complete protection.


“I am not so surprised that transmission rates are not neatly tracking immunization rates,” said Dr. Stephen Luby, a medical professor specializing in infectious diseases at Stanford University. “There are a number of issues that contribute to transmission,” Luby said. “In high density urban settings, for example, even with a higher level of vaccine coverage, there can still be a lot of exposure to unvaccinated folks and potentially to folks who are vaccinated but are asymptomatically shedding the delta variant.” Reports of the vaccines’ effectiveness against the delta variant have been mixed. In Israel, the Ministry of Health suspects the protection afforded by the Pfizer jab might be as low as 64%.

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“Unfortunately the so-called “public health” authorities have destroyed — not just damaged, but destroyed — their own credibility.”

Ruin Them (Denninger)

If you go into the hospital for any reason they test you. Why? Because if you’re positive they want their magic $13,000 Biden Money (formerly Trump money) if you’re on Medicare and Medicaid for treating a “Covid case.” Biden is still continuing this bull**** no matter why you’re there. Chest pain? Covid! Oh, never mind the heart attack. So are the “hospitalized” actually hospitalized for Covid or is Tennessee counting anyone in the hospital who tested positive irrespective of the reason for their admission? This particular game has been run since March of 2020 and nobody has put a stop to it because they’re making money from it — lots of money. Never mind that these jabs are not behaving like a vaccine. US Code: “The term “vaccine” means any substance designed to be administered to a human being for the prevention of 1 or more diseases.”

The data is that these jabs do not prevent disease. They also do not prevent transmission of disease. In fact they appear to, if you get a breakthrough case, make transmission more likely in that the Ct data from these miners shows equal or lower values on balance in the vaccinated cohort with one sample at Ct22! Reminder: The lower the Ct the more virus you have in your body. Now granted this is a small group — very small. But it is extremely concerning that the lowest Ct recorded among these cases was a fully-vaccinated person. Where is the data from the state labs and CDC on these “breakthroughs” and their Ct numbers generally? It’s not being reported. I bet you can guess why not without needing more than one guess.

This appears to be confirmed as something that does indeed happen by the reported “super-spreading” person who (1) was fully-vaccinated, (2) infected more than 60 other people and (3) most of those whom he gave it to were also vaccinated. He obviously was an extremely-efficient emitter of virus! The only remaining argument for the jabs is that they make a personal severe outcome less likely. Here the data is somewhat more-reassuring but the adverse effect profile of the shots is not reassuring at all, it is being deliberately glossed over, and as a result the question as to whether or not to take them is a deeply personal decision that must be informed by your personal medical status coupled with intentional deception on those advocating for the jabs.

How in the hell do you make an informed decision under those circumstances? Unfortunately the so-called “public health” authorities have destroyed — not just damaged, but destroyed — their own credibility. Tennessee’s Department of Health proved themselves liars with nothing more than public data. So have others. I have multiple reported sets of data from individual practices where the percentage of unvaccinated people presenting with Covid-19 symptoms is lower than the percentage of unvaccinated people in the population of that specific area. In other words the data is that the jabs not only do not prevent you from getting the virus at all but in fact may ENHANCE the risk of infection and this, incidentally, voids the argument that the jabs are a vaccine from a LEGAL standpoint.

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As soon as you talk about a third -or even a second- dose, you’re no longer talking about a vaccine.

Pfizer Suggests Third Dose Of Vaccine ‘Strongly’ Boosts Protection (CNN)

A third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine can “strongly” boost protection against the Delta variant — beyond the protection afforded by the standard two doses, new data released by Pfizer on Wednesday suggests. The data posted online suggest that levels of antibodies that can target the Delta variant grow fivefold in people 18 to 55 who get a third dose of the vaccine.Among people ages 65 to 85, the Pfizer data suggest that antibody levels that should protect against Delta grow 11-fold more than following a second dose.The data, which involved tests of 23 people, have not yet been peer-reviewed or published. It’s not clear if boosted antibody levels actually correlate to better protection, or if that extra protection is even needed.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the current vaccines protect people well against all the common variants. During a company earnings call on Wednesday morning, Dr. Mikael Dolsten, who leads worldwide research, development and medical for Pfizer, called the new data on a third dose of vaccine “encouraging.” “Receiving a third dose more than six months after vaccination, when protection may be beginning to wane, was estimated to potentially boost the neutralizing antibody titers in participants in this study to up to 100 times higher post-dose three compared to pre-dose three,” Dolsten said in prepared remarks. “These preliminary data are very encouraging as Delta continues to spread.” The data also show that antibody levels are much higher against the original coronavirus variant and the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa, after a third dose.


Separately, Pfizer and its partner BioNtech released new safety and efficacy data for their coronavirus vaccine Wednesday, and said it shows protection holds up for at least six months, although it may start to wane slightly towards the end of that time. The pre-print paper, posted Wednesday to the online server medrxiv.org, updates results from Pfizer’s trial involving 44,000 volunteers around the world. It found the overall efficacy was about 91% during the six months. Vaccine efficacy against severe Covid-19 was about 97%, the data show. The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed nor published in a journal.

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Again, not a vaccine. And do remember RRR vs ARR numbers.

Latest Data Show Efficacy Of Pfizer Vaccine Falls To 84% After 6 Months (ZH)

As pressure builds for the FDA to simply ‘get on with it’ and issue full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna jabs, it looks like the people responsible for deciding whether vaccines are safe and effective are finally coming around to the reality that those vaccines aren’t as effective against the delta strain as they had once hoped. Despite months of insisting that the opposite was true, the FDA has found that the efficacy of the jabs has fallen to 84% over six months, according to new data released Wednesday. Conveniently, STAT News, which broke the story about the data, reported that the lower efficacy would likely bolster Pfizer’s case for approval of a third dose.

Per the data, which has been released to outside scientists, the ongoing study, which enrolled more than 44K volunteers, found that the vaccine’s efficacy appeared to decline by an average of 6% every two months after administration. Efficacy peaked at more than 96% within two months of vaccination and slipped to 84% after six months. The overall efficacy against severe disease was a still considerable 97% (though that’s still not 100%). Unsurprisingly, STAT lined up a few talking heads to plug the numbers. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told STAT that the results were “very reassuring.” The potential need for booster shots is tied to the number of fully vaccinated people who develop severe disease, Offit said.


That number is just 3% lower after six months, suggesting two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine offers adequate protection. Earlier, Pfizer boosted its fiscal year revenue forecast for its vaccine business. Perhaps these data offer some insight into that decision. Of course, there’s reason to believe that number might be even lower than the 97%. Israel’s Ministry of Health recently found that the Pfizer vaccine is only 39% effective at combating delta, down from 64% according to earlier Israeli data intended to measure the efficacy against the delta variant. Pfizer is already shipping jabs to Israel, which is preparing to start doling out booster shots to residents deemed vulnerable to COVID. For whatever reason, the data released Wednesday doesn’t directly address the delta variant.

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Aka the vaccines don’t work. A spade, a spade.

New US Mask Guidance Prompted By Evidence Vaccinated Can Spread Delta (G.)

The CDC revised its mask guidance on Tuesday to recommend fully vaccinated Americans wear masks in “public indoor settings” with “substantial and high transmission”, a shift from its earlier guidance issued on 13 May, which said vaccinated individuals did not need to wear masks in most indoor settings. The move came as Joe Biden said requiring all federal workers to get a coronavirus vaccine is “under consideration” as the Delta variant surges in the US. Some local and state leaders, including New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, and the California governor, Gavin Newsom, have already announced such mandates for their government employees.

Walensky also spoke on Wednesday about the threat of Covid-19 to children. “If you look at the mortality rate of Covid, just this past year for children, it’s more than twice the mortality rate that we see in influenza in a given year,” she said. On Tuesday the CDC changed its advice and now recommends that fully vaccinated people living with vulnerable household members, such as those who are immunocompromised and children, wear masks in indoor public spaces. In addition, the agency recommended everyone in K-12 schools wear masks, “including teachers, staff, students and visitors, regardless of vaccination status”, Walensky said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

“In recent days I have seen new scientific data from recent outbreak investigations showing that the Delta variant behaves uniquely differently from past strains of the virus that cause Covid-19,” Walensky said on Tuesday, referring to scientists’ discovery of the Delta strain shedding as actively in breakthrough infections as it does in unvaccinated individuals, despite the rarity of breakthrough cases. For months Covid cases, deaths and hospitalizations were falling steadily, but the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus has fueled steep rises in case numbers, particularly among unvaccinated Americans and amid struggles with disinformation and resistance, particularly on the political right.

“Nobody wants to go backward but you have to deal with the facts on the ground, and the facts on the ground are that it’s a pretty scary time and there are a lot of vulnerable people,” Robert Wachter, chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told the Washington Post. “I think the biggest thing we got wrong was not anticipating that 30% of the country would choose not to be vaccinated.”

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Unfortunately, there are still plenty Americans who believe this nonsense.

CDC Head Says New Mask Guidance Could Help Tame Delta Outbreak In ‘Weeks’ (F.)

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CBS on Wednesday she believes the new mask guidance from her agency along with a rise in vaccinations could halt the current escalation of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. in “a couple of weeks,” though some critics are already expressing doubt that the CDC’s recommendations will be followed in the worst-hit places. Walensky appeared on CBS This Morning a day after her agency announced it was reversing course and recommending that all people wear masks—regardless of vaccination status—in parts of the country with “high” or “substantial” rates of transmission of coronavirus.


She touted the new guidance during her Wednesday interview as a crucial measure that follows new information about so-called breakthrough infections and has the potential to help with quickly mitigating the country’s current virus surge. “If we get people vaccinated who are not yet vaccinated, if we mask in the interim, we can halt this in just a couple of weeks,” said the CDC head. Walensky also said she hopes more stringent mask-wearing guidelines and other measures won’t be necessary in the coming weeks, but her agency “will follow the science.” “We can halt the chain of transmission,” Walensky said. “We can do something if we unify together.”

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What a coincidence. Also in weeks.

Note: Gottlieb is a Pfizer board member. But Delta waning will have nothing to do with their products.

Remember: “India, where Delta Variant began? Deaths down 92% since its May peak, cases down 91% since then, too. One of the lowest vaccination rates in the world, btw.”

Gottlieb: US Will Be Through Delta Wave In 2 Or 3 Weeks (Hill)

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb predicted early Wednesday that the United States could get through the worst of the delta variant surge of the coronavirus in a few weeks. “The bottom line is, the vaccine does not make you impervious to infection,” Gottlieb said during an appearance on CNBC. “There are some people who are developing mild and asymptomatic infections even after vaccination.” After acknowledging the delta variant of the coronavirus as “much more transmissible” than the first strain, Gottlieb questioned whether that fact should “translate into general guidance” on mask wearing and vaccine requirements in the United States.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to get enough bang for our buck by telling vaccinated people they have to wear masks at all times to make it worth our while. I think we’re further into this delta wave than we’re picking up. I think in another two or three weeks we’ll be through this.” Gottlieb added that the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) could have a “negligible impact” on public health and that federal officials should instead focus on more targeted messaging on guidance for high-risk areas. The CDC announced new guidance Tuesday recommending that vaccinated Americans wear masks while in crowded indoor environments in certain areas of the country where the delta variant has caused a major increase in cases.


The delta variant is now accounting for the majority of new cases in the United States, almost entirely among the unvaccinated. President Biden’s administration is facing increased pressure to get more people vaccinated and require federal workers, teachers and people who work in health care industries to be vaccinated as a condition of their employment. “If you are vaccinated in a high-prevalence area, in contact with virus, you think you might have the virus because you have mild symptoms of it, be prudent, get tested, maybe wear a mask especially if you are around a vulnerable person,” Gottlieb said on CNBC. “That should be bottom-line guidance we give.”

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On Tuesday. Be gone in weeks. And then they’ll praise the “vaccines” again. Damned if you do, doomed if you don’t.

US Reports More Than 100,000 New Coronavirus Cases (BNO)

More than 100,000 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the U.S. amid a rapid surge in hospital admissions and new calls from federal officials to wear a mask in public. Data from health departments across the U.S. showed that 106,084 new cases were reported, including a two-day backlog from Florida which occurs every Tuesday. It represents an increase of 73% from last week. The states reporting the most new cases are: Florida (38,321 for a three-day period), Texas (8,642), California (7,731), Louisiana (6,818), Georgia (3,587), Utah (2,882), Alabama (2,667), and Missouri (2,414). The rolling 7-day average for daily cases is 62,411, up from 12,648 a month ago.


The surge is accompanied by a rapid rise in hospital admissions, particularly in Florida, which reported the biggest one-day increase on record. Nearly 40,000 coronavirus patients are currently hospitalized across the U.S., well below the peak in January but an increase of nearly 11% in one day. Earlier on Tuesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky urged all Americans to wear a mask in public in high-risk areas. She said the new advice was based on evidence which shows that the Delta variant can spread among vaccinated people, even though the vast majority of people who become seriously ill are unvaccinated.

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He never gets tired.

Dr. Pierre Kory’s Medical Lecture for Physicians and Citizens of Malaysia (O.)

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Article’s a little incoherent, bu the idea is clear.

Omaha Doctor Sees Tremendous Success with Ivermectin as Early Treatment (TSN)

Physicians from around the United States continue to emerge, going public with their declaration of the benefits of ivermectin as an early onset, mild-to-moderate stage COVID-19 treatment. Most recently on KETV 7 Omaha, Dr. Louis Safranek came forth, declaring, “I typically use it in combination with other agents. But I do prescribe it for virtually all the patients who come to be, as part of a treatment regimen, which I think is effective for folks.” The Harvard Medical School graduate has been specializing in infectious diseases for four decades. Having treated nearly 200 COVID-19 patients at home and in the local hospitals here in Omaha, Nebraska, ivermectin is a key medicine tool in the medicine box targeting COVID-19.

TrialSite can assure that the National Institute of Health (NIH) formal policy in fighting the pandemic is to have a comprehensive mix of 1) safe and effective vaccines, 2) branded therapeutics, 3) generic repurposed therapeutics, and 4) sound and locationally relevant public health policy. Of course, industry bias has reared its ugly head in this pandemic as the NIH and the federal government have spent many billions on vaccines and novel investigational therapies while investing probably less than 5% of the portfolio investment in generic repurposed drugs—the NIH happens to be testing ivermectin now as part of the ACTIV-6 program.

In fact, Dr. Safranek shared that not one COVID-19 patient that he has treated with ivermectin and other regimens have ended up on a ventilator or dead. He reports out of about 200 patients, only one ended up hospitalized, making this a very high success. Here in the Midwest plains, Doctor Safranek had an 80-year old Omaha woman who survived two bouts of COVID-19, the second via a breakthrough infection. That is, she got infected even after being fully vaccinated. When she came to the doctor and he treated her with the anti-parasite, FDA-approved drug, she informed, “I was better the next day, not well but better.” She continued that while on the ivermectin regimen, “Each day, I got better, and now I am over it.”

Of course, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, isn’t about to administer its COVID-19 patients with ivermectin. Their position: “Further studies needed to be done to show Ivermectin has utility in the treatment of COVID-19,” reports UNMC Medical Director of Infectious Disease Dr. Mark Rupp. Of course, Dr. Rupp will administer remdesivir to hospitalized patients, even though the drug has some concerning safety signals and the World Health Organization (WHO), on no uncertain terms, declared the drug wasn’t effective based on the results of the Solitary study. UNMC also makes monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) available for the care of COVID-19 patients, and these have shown some promise but they are highly investigational.

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Nothing noble about them. Don’t try to make them that, Slate.

The Noble Lies of COVID-19 (Slate)

The fourth noble lie from government agencies and/or officials occurred more recently. On June 4, using data from February to March, the agency made the case that hospitalizations were rising in adolescents. It tweeted, “The report shows the importance of #COVID19 vaccination for adolescents.” That tweet spurred a great deal of media attention and concern. It was true that hospitalization rates had risen. However, at the time of the press coverage, hospitalization rates in this age group had already fallen again. Numerous commenters immediately pointed out that the “rise” in hospitalization statistic promoted by the CDC was out of date the moment it was highlighted and raised questions about why the CDC would promote a dated statistic, when the organization had access to up-to-date information.

This obvious error was compounded weeks later during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The committee met to discuss what we knew and did not know about heart inflammation, or myocarditis, that had been linked to mRNA vaccination, and most notable in young men who received the vaccine. During the course of the meeting, representatives of the CDC showed a model that claimed that vaccination of young adults was preferable to the disease itself. There were, however, several concerns with this model. First, it used rates of community SARS-CoV-2 spread that again were out of date. By the time of the meeting, the rates were lower, meaning the benefits of vaccination would be reduced, but the harms remain the same.

Second, it did not consider the risks separately for boys and girls, who appear to have substantially different risk of myocarditis (much higher in boys). Third, it did not consider any middle ground positions, such as only receiving one dose of the vaccine, which provides much of the benefit with far lower myocarditis risk. Instead, the CDC presented zero or two doses as the only options. Fourth, the modeling did not consider natural immunity—i.e., the vaccine’s risk to kids who already recovered from COVID-19 might be the same, but the benefits far lower (as these children have some natural immunity). Finally, the model did not consider the fact that young adults with preexisting medical conditions and those who are otherwise well might have different risk benefit profiles, as the former account for a disproportionate number of COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Together, these are all information choices made by government agencies and/or officials about vaccination of young adults. Amplifying out-of-date statistics and building a model to support vaccination that has questionable assumptions work to support rapid deployment of two doses of mRNA to all healthy kids aged 12 to 17. That may be the CDC’s policy pursuit, and one we are sympathetic to. However, distorting evidence to achieve this result is a form of a noble lie. Accurately reporting current risks to adolescents, and exploring other dosing possibilities, is part of the unbiased scientific exploration of data.

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I like Taibbi, but why does he have to vent an opinion about other people’s lives and choices? Does he simply not understand what he says?

I’m vaccinated. I think people should be vaccinated

The Vaccine Aristocrats (Taibbi)

On This Week With George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday, a bafflegab of Washington poo-bahs including Chris Christie, Rahm Emmanuel, Margaret Hoover, and Donna Brazile — Stephanopoulos calls the segment his “Powerhouse Roundtable,” which to my ear sounds like a Denny’s breakfast sampler, but I guess he couldn’t name it Four Hated Windbags — discussed vaccine holdouts. The former George W. Bush and Giuliani aide Hoover said it was time to stop playing nice. If you’re going to get government-provided health care, if you’re getting VA treatment, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, anything — and Social Security obviously isn’t health care — you should be getting the vaccine. Okay? Because we are going to have to take care of you on the back end. Brazile nodded sagely, but Emmanuel all but gushed cartoon hearts.

“You know, I’m having an out of body experience, because I agree with you,” said Obama’s former hatchet man, before adding, over the chyron, FRUSTRATION MOUNTS WITH UNVACCINATED AMERICANS: I would close the space in. Meaning if you want to participate in X or Y activity, you gotta show you’re vaccinated. So it becomes a reward-punishment type system, and you make your own calculation. This bipartisan love-in took place a few days after David Frum, famed Bush speechwriter and creator of the “Axis of Evil” slogan, wrote a column in The Atlantic entitled “Vaccinated America Has Had Enough.” In it, Frum wondered: Does Biden’s America have a breaking point? Biden’s America produces 70 percent of the country’s wealth — and then sees that wealth transferred to support Trump’s America. Which is fine; that’s what citizens of one nation do for one another… [But] the reciprocal part of the bargain is not being upheld…


Will Blue America ever decide it’s had enough of being put medically at risk by people and places whose bills it pays? Check yourself. Have you? I’m vaccinated. I think people should be vaccinated But this latest moral mania — and make no mistake about it, the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” PR campaign is the latest in a ceaseless series of such manias, dating back to late 2016 — lays bare everything that’s abhorrent and nonsensical in modern American politics, beginning with the no-longer-disguised aristocratic mien of the Washington consensus. If you want to convince people to get a vaccine, pretty much the worst way to go about it is a massive blame campaign, delivered by sneering bluenoses who have a richly deserved credibility problem with large chunks of the population, and now insist they’re owed financially besides.

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US banned gain of function, Fauci and Daszak exported it to China. Not a complicated story.

NIH Dumped Millions Into Chinese Entities To Study Infectious Diseases (DC)

The National Institutes of Health has doled out nearly $46 million in taxpayer funds to 100 Chinese institutions in the form of subgrants since the 2012 fiscal year to conduct research into infectious diseases, drug addiction, mental health and other scientific fields, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of federal spending data. The NIH’s ongoing funding of Chinese research institutions comes amid growing bipartisan concern in Washington D.C. over the fact that U.S. taxpayers support research in a country that has violated international health regulations, stonewalled a proper investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and that may be in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the NIH subagency led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, provided $6.6 million in taxpayer-funded subgrants to 27 of the Chinese entities, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to conduct research into allergies and infectious diseases, subgrant data pulled from USASpending.gov shows. One of the NIAID-funded subgrants, which involved the transfer of $428,000 to a Chinese government-owned institution in 2020 to conduct research into emerging mosquito and tick-based infections, states unequivocally that the U.S. will only receive the research, funded in part by U.S. taxpayers, upon approval by Chinese government authorities.


“Following testing for common pathogens, and then, after approval by the relevant authorities of the Chinese government, a subset of samples will be sent to Washington University in St. Louis for further analysis,” the subgrant description to the Chinese National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention reads.[..] Another NIAID-funded project provided $600,000 in subgrants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to conduct research that involved the genetic modification of bat-based coronaviruses.

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China 1/3, Bill Gates 1/3, Monsanto 1/3. American farmers: 0.

Will Washington Stop China From Buying Up Farmland? (JTN)

China’s effort to unseat America as the world’s economic superpower has a new tactic: It has bought up more than 200,000 acres of U.S. farmland. And while there is bipartisan support for legislation to slow down Beijing’s acquisitions, Democrats have added a new wrinkle. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), who is leading the legislative charge, says congressional Democrats have removed all references to the communist government of China in an amendment to an agricultural spending bill that originally prevented the Chinese Communist Party’s purchase of American farmland. “[O]ver the last decade, we’ve seen a huge increase in the acquisition of these kinds of assets — farming in particular — by the People’s Republic of China,” he said. “And that, to me, is just a direction that, while we can, we should do all we can to stop.”

With China purchasing the United States’ agricultural assets and becoming more ingrained in the U.S. economy, America might eventually “become dependent on Communist China for our agricultural production,” Newhouse warned. “We don’t want that to happen. We want to stop that in its tracks.” Only six states have agricultural restrictions on China, Newhouse said, “so this is something that I think is desperately needed in our country to prevent China, Communist China, from taking over our agricultural industry.” Newhouse added that the House Committee on Appropriations adopted the amendment through a unanimous voice vote, which is rare for two reasons: being unanimous and passing an amendment from the minority party.


“I think that that tells us that there’s concern across the board [over] the direction that people see China taking,” he said, adding that neither political party wants to see China taking over America’s critical assets, like it has with other countries. Democrats want to include North Korea, Iran, and Russia in addition to China in the amendment, Newhouse said. But North Korea has no money to buy farmland in the U.S., and the other countries haven’t purchased any land in recent years, unlike China.

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Apparently, revoking his citizenship is not final yet.

Assange Attorney Accuses Ecuador Of Foul Play (RT)

Ecuador has revoked Julian Assange’s citizenship, citing alleged inconsistencies with his naturalization documents. A lawyer for the imprisoned publisher claims the decision was made without due process. The WikiLeaks co-founder was informed that his citizenship had been nullified in a letter issued by Ecuador’s justice system, following a complaint issued by the South American nation’s Foreign Ministry. Ecuadorian officials claimed that Assange’s application for naturalization contained numerous inconsistencies, including different signatures, as well as possibly forged documents. Assange also failed to pay fees connected with his citizenship in the country, authorities alleged. Carlos Poveda, Assange’s lawyer, responded to the decision by accusing the Ecuadorian government of turning its back on due process.

The Australian was unable to contest the claims made against him because he is currently being “deprived of his liberty” and suffering from a “health crisis” while locked away at London’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, Poveda told AP. The lawyer complained a week earlier that it was “impossible” for his client to properly defend himself under the circumstances, and expressed hope that the case would not be “judged by ‘public opinion’” alone. Poveda said he will petition the government to clarify its decision on the matter. “More than the importance of nationality, it is a matter of respecting rights and following due process in withdrawing nationality,” he said.


Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry insisted that it had “acted independently and followed due process,” claiming that similar concerns about Assange’s citizenship had been raised by the previous government. Assange was granted Ecuadorian citizenship in January 2018, as part of an attempt by then-President Lenin Moreno to help the journalist safely leave the country’s embassy in London, where he had been seeking asylum since June 2012.

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Jun 242021
 


Edward Hopper Rooms by the sea 1951

 

The Jabs Must Be BANNED (Denninger)
Fully Vaccinated Israelis Exposed To “Delta” May Be Forced To Quarantine (ZH)
Israel Urges Parents To Vaccinate Kids Ages 12-15 (JPost)
WHO Official: Mask Mandates, Social Distancing Must Continue Indefinitely (SN)
Optimizing Decision-Making Processes in Times of COVID-19 (FIP)
More Than 2m Adults In England Have Had Long Covid For Over 12 Weeks (G.)
England Set to Drop Face Mask Rules After Huge Economic Impact Revealed (SN)
Pursuing Truth In Covid Drug Treatment Amid A Censored Media Landscape (Hecker)
Hillary Clinton Privately Warned France About Wuhan P4 Lab (HE)
Elephants’ 500km-Trek Across China Baffles Scientists (BBC)
High Court Delays as Assange Remains in Jail (Craig Murray)

 

 

 

 

 

 

“If you coerced some young person to get the jab and they get hammered you should forfeit your own children’s lives as you are the reason they got ****ed.”

The Jabs Must Be BANNED (Denninger)

… in those under 18 and strongly discouraged in healthy adults under 50. Those who promoted them in people under the age of 30 in addition must face justice. There was never any science supporting it on a risk:benefit basis. The CDC documents about 35 total Covid-related deaths in people under the age of 18 years all the way back to March of 2020. This table is utterly gob-smacking damnable and is what we get for “Warp Speed” — a litany of serious harms, many of which will wind up as deaths — more deaths in those under 18 than Covid caused.

The experience .vs. expected rate is anywhere from ten to one hundred times higher than “random chance” in those under 24 years old, and form 3-30 times higher in those under 30. If we presume that one in ten of these cases will eventually kill the person involved, which is likely conservative (the usual expectation is that half of these cases in the population generally that result in hospitalization eventually progress to heart failure and either a transplant or death within five years) these “side effects” will kill more people in the under-25 group than Covid has all the way back to the start of the pandemic. The others, who are not killed, will wind up with monstrous medical bills they will have to pay and some amount of permanent damage to their cardiac health.

This is from one side effect alone. Only those over 50 have an incidence of this result that is inline with expectations; everyone younger is either at or beyond the upper boundary. In addition this data is almost-certainly incomplete as VAERS is a non-mandatory system and thus does not capture all events. The degree of under-reporting is not able to be accurately bracketed but that it occurs is an absolute fact. Therefore these reports are floors, not ceilings, and as such must be taken as a lower boundary only, yet even in that context they demonstrate utterly unacceptable risk that, in any ordinary civil proceeding would lead to strict liability.

THESE SHOTS MUST BE IMMEDIATELY STOPPED FOR ALL HEALTHY PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 30 and strongly recommended against up to the age of 50 years unless the person receiving them has a serious morbid condition and has been tested negative for prior exposure to the virus itself. That the CDC delayed this meeting for “Juneteenth” ought to get people imprisoned; this is an immediate emergency action item and to postpone it was utterly indefensible.

Any college administration that continues to hold forth a “requirement” for these shots in students should have their children put up as collateral to face the same outcome as any of the students who die as a result of these jabs, with said bond being good for the next ten years since myocarditis often leads to heart failure with the next five years in people it strikes. If you coerced some young person to get the jab and they get hammered you should forfeit your own children’s lives as you are the reason they got ****ed.

Administration of these shots to a previously-recovered person under 50 is, on the strength of this data, gross negligence and, if they get hit, attempted manslaughter or, if the person ultimately suffers heart failure, actual manslaughter. And no, gross negligence is not covered by the “immunity” that HHS gave the vaccine manufacturers and health professionals; any person or organization administering such a shot to someone who is healthy and under 30 should be immediately sued as their so-called “protection” is presumptively void.

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Geert VanDen Bossche: FAQ updated: May 25, 2021

[#13 ]How can it be explained that in Israel it seems that the massive vaccination has almost stopped the pandemic and no dramatic effects are being observed over people that have been vaccinated?

It’s just a matter of weeks for a surge in Israel to occur due to resistance of the virus to vaccinal antibodies in vaccinees. I expect this surge to occur before summer.

Fully Vaccinated Israelis Exposed To “Delta” May Be Forced To Quarantine (ZH)

As concerns about the threat posed by the “Delta” variant, a mutant strain of COVID-19 first discovered in India that’s believed to be much more dangerous than rival strains, intensify, Israeli health officials have just been given the authority to quarantine pretty much anybody who is exposed to “Delta”, even if the individual is already fully vaccinated, Reuters reports. The heavy-handed decision comes after a warning by new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday over new outbreaks caused by “Delta” . Bennett complained that daily infections have been rising again in Israel after weeks of a low plateau credited to the country’s record mass-vaccination drive.

Under the updated Health Ministry directive, vaccinated or formerly infected people can be ordered to self-isolate for up to 14 days if authorities suspect they may have passed in “close contact with a carrier of a dangerous virus variant.” This could include having been passengers on the same plane, the ministry said, a possible dampener on Israel’s gradual opening of its borders to vaccinated summer tourists. Addressing the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said fines of “thousands of shekels” might be levied against Israeli citizens or residents who travel to countries blacklisted as high COVID-19 risks.

On June 16, the Health Ministry listed Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico and Russia as off-limits to Israeli citizens or residents unless they receive special permission. Some 55% of Israel’s 9.3MM population have received both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and a steep drop in cases had prompted most economic restrictions to be lifted. But just days earlier, Israel announced plans to start vaccinating teenagers between the ages of 12 and 15.

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There you go. Why bother about what the WHO says? What do they know anyway?

Israel Urges Parents To Vaccinate Kids Ages 12-15 (JPost)

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz and other relevant officials and experts, including transportation, interior and education ministers met Sunday night to decide on new measures to address the risk of increased morbidity following a number of coronavirus outbreaks at several Israeli schools. They agreed to task some additional 250 police officers to enforce isolation requirements for those returning from abroad, build a new testing complex at Ben-Gurion Airport and increase the number of testing stations, as well as carry out a communication campaign to foster awareness of the importance of respecting quarantine regulations among the public.


In addition, the authorities will investigate the gap between the number of violations of quarantine and the fines given, and will consider the position of parents whose unvaccinated children do not quarantine after returning from abroad. The ministers also confirmed that Israelis are not going to be allowed to fly to countries under travel ban – Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa, unless they obtain a special permission from the dedicated government committee. A further meeting to discuss the issues related to the coronavirus will be scheduled in the next few days.

Tucker WHO

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Sorry, bud, not going to happen.

WHO Official: Mask Mandates, Social Distancing Must Continue Indefinitely (SN)

A top WHO official says that mask mandates and social distancing should continue indefinitely in order to protect against new variants of COVID-19. The comments were made on Sky News by Special Envoy on Covid for the World Health Organisation (WHO). Dr David Nabarro. Nabarro suggested that there would be a long list of mutations of the Indian variant which would in some cases evade the protection offered by vaccines. “We will go from Delta to Lambda and then on to the other Greek letters, that’s inevitable, and some of these variants will be troublesome,” he said. “I’m basically saying variants are going to go on coming. That’s part of life, we need to pick them up fast, we need to move quickly if we see them in a certain location, we need to build the management of variants into what we call our Covid-ready strategy, which is going to be the pattern for the foreseeable future,” he added.


According to Nabarro, mask mandates and social distancing need to remain in place for the foreseeable future “as part of our defence” against COVID, particularly in regions which have high infection rates. As we highlighted earlier, England is set to drop all face mask rules on July 19 after it was revealed that they were having a massive negative impact on businesses and wiping billions off the economy. Several government advisers have called for coronavirus restrictions to continue forever, not just to defend against COVID, but also to fight influenza. Former Communist Party member and SAGE adviser Susan Michie said earlier this month that mask mandates and social distancing should continue “forever” and that people should adopt such behaviour just as they did with wearing seatbelts. It never ends.

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Referenced by Robert Malone.

Optimizing Decision-Making Processes in Times of COVID-19 (FIP)

The effectiveness of policymakers’ decision-making in times of crisis depends largely on their ability to integrate and make sense of information. The COVID-19 crisis confronts governments with the difficult task of making decisions in the interest of public health and safety. Essentially, policymakers have to react to a threat, of which the extent is unknown, and they are making decisions under time constraints in the midst of immense uncertainty. The stakes are high, the issues involved are complex and require the careful balancing of several interests, including (mental) health, the economy, and human rights. These circumstances render policymakers’ decision-making processes vulnerable to errors and biases in the processing of information, thereby increasing the chances of faulty decision-making processes with poor outcomes.

Prior research has identified three main information-processing failures that can distort group decision-making processes and can lead to negative outcomes: (1) failure to search for and share information, (2) failure to elaborate on and analyze information that is not in line with earlier information and (3) failure to revise and update conclusions and policies in the light of new information. To date, it has not yet been explored how errors and biases underlying these information-processing failures impact decision-making processes in times of crisis. In this narrative review, we outline how groupthink, a narrow focus on the problem of containing the virus, and escalation of commitment may pose real risks to decision-making processes in handling the COVID-19 crisis and may result in widespread societal damages.

Hence, it is vital that policymakers take steps to maximize the quality of the decision-making process and increase the chances of positive outcomes as the crisis goes forward. We propose group reflexivity—a deliberate process of discussing team goals, processes, or outcomes—as an antidote to these biases and errors in decision-making. Specifically, we recommend several evidence-based reflexivity tools that could easily be implemented to counter these information-processing errors and improve decision-making processes in uncertain times.

Tucker Robert Malone

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Hmmm. Not sure. Many healthy people also have “fatigue-related symptoms” due to lockdowns.

More Than 2m Adults In England Have Had Long Covid For Over 12 Weeks (G.)

More than 2 million adults in England have experienced coronavirus symptoms lasting over 12 weeks, government data suggests – double the previous estimate for long Covid. The study, one of the largest to date, found that people with ongoing symptoms tended to fall into two categories: those with respiratory symptoms, who often experienced more severe illness when they first got sick, and a second group with fatigue-related symptoms. Like previous studies, it found that women were more commonly affected and that the prevalence of ongoing symptoms increased with age. Researchers described the findings as “alarming”.

The React-2 study is a government-funded population surveillance study that uses finger-prick antibody tests from randomly selected adults in England to assess how far coronavirus has spread. Between September and February, 508,707 participants were also asked whether they thought they had had Covid and about the presence and duration of 29 different symptoms. The research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that 37.7% of those who had symptomatic Covid experienced at least one symptom lasting 12 weeks or more – equivalent to 2 million people – while 14.8% experienced three or more persistent symptoms.

“The scale of the problem is quite alarming,” said Prof Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University. “The results can’t tell us clearly how serious those symptoms were in terms of their effects on the patients’ lives. Some may not be very serious, but some of them certainly are, and these results clearly point out how vital it is to understand them properly and to provide adequate treatment and support services for the people involved.”

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“The Science”.

England Set to Drop Face Mask Rules After Huge Economic Impact Revealed (SN)

England is set to drop all face mask rules on July 19th after it was revealed that keeping such restrictions in place is costing the economy billions and will force many businesses to close. “The requirement to wear facemasks on public transport and in shops will be replaced with guidance advising people to wear masks in certain circumstances, rather than compelling them,” reports the Times. The decision follows the findings of an internal economic impact assessment produced by the government’s Events Research Programme which detailed the massive impact social distancing measures are having on businesses. Politico Playbook reveals that, “keeping any measures would cost the economy billions and see many businesses close.”


Specifically, indoor seated venues such as the arts, cinemas and business events would achieve just 59 per cent of their 2019 turnover if restrictions remain, costing them a whopping £4.88 billion over the next year. Even if the only remaining restriction kept in place is face masks, “The entire events industry would reach just 82 percent of its 2019 turnover. Indoor seated venues would get just 72 percent. Indoor non-seated just 65 percent. Outdoor non-seated venues would manage just 82 percent of their 2019 figure.” The events industry as a whole is bringing in only 60 per cent of normal revenue under the current restrictions, which will likely continue until July 19th.

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Gotta love her.

Pursuing Truth In Covid Drug Treatment Amid A Censored Media Landscape (Hecker)

Finally covering the story on COVID drug treatments that I wasn’t allowed to air on FOX. A look at why one Houston hospital has a dramatically lower COVID death rate than anywhere else and the ways the media skated around the facts at that hospital. [..] The death rate from COVID-19 is dramatically low at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, TX compared to other hospitals across the nation and the world. Despite Dr. Joseph Varon’s popularity on TV, news personalities avoid questions of why he’s having success treating his patients. As it turns out, he’s using drugs the WHO and CDC recommend against.

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Bioweapons.

Hillary Clinton Privately Warned France About Wuhan P4 Lab (HE)

In a leaked State Department cable from 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the Wuhan Institute of Virology could lead to “biological weapons proliferation concern.” The cable, obtained via Wikileaks, was sent from the State Department in June 2009 to all embassies in member nations ahead of the Australia Group plenary session in Paris, September 21-25, 2009. The Australia Group is an international export control forum organized to prevent the spread of technologies and research that could be used in chemical and biological weapons. All Five Eyes nations are members of the group, including the EU, India, Japan, and South Korea. China is not a member of the group.

The cable stated, “We believe it is important to focus on emerging chemical and biological technologies, trends in the trade of CBW-related goods and threats.” When it came to France, Secretary Clinton’s cable noted: “The U.S. believes participants would benefit from hearing about your experiences assisting China in setting up a Biosafety Level-4 (BSL-4) laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology from the export control and intangible technology transfer perspectives. We are particularly interested to know how China plans to vet incoming foreign researchers from countries of biological weapons proliferation concern.”

More broadly on the question of China’s biological weapons program, Secretary Clinton’s cable noted: “The U.S. believes AG members would be interested in any information you can share related to China and North Korea, specifically information related to: • China’s Institutes of Biological Products (locations in Beijing and Wuhan), to include overhead imagery analysis, if possible. • Your perceptions of the CBW proliferation activities by Chinese entities. • Your perceptions of Chinese government efforts to enforce its export control rules.”

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Is the matriarch disoriented?

Elephants’ 500km-Trek Across China Baffles Scientists (BBC)

Elephants are by nature fiercely intelligent beasts and experts who study them day in day out already know a great deal about them. And yet a herd of endangered elephants in China has completely dumbfounded scientists globally, while captivating an entire nation in the process. It’s not unusual for elephants to move small distances. But this herd has been lumbering its way across China for more than a year now. The elephants have now strayed almost 500km (310 miles), a mammoth trek from their original habitat. It’s thought that they started their journey last spring from Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in the southwest of the country, near the border with Myanmar and Laos.

They began moving north and in the last few months, the elephants have popped up in a number of villages, towns and cities. They’ve been seen smashing down doors, raiding shops, “stealing” food, playing around in the mud, taking a bath in a canal and napping in the middle of a forest. They’ve also been spotted hoovering up crops in their wake and moseying into people’s houses – on one occasion, lining up in a courtyard to drink water, successfully turning on a tap with their trunks. It is thought they have started to move south again, and were last spotted in Shijie – a town near the city of Yuxi.

It’s unclear whether they are headed back, or why they even embarked on this journey in the first place – the farthest known movement by elephants in the country. Or what might come next. “The truth is, no-one knows. It is almost certainly related to the need for resources – food, water, shelter – and this would make sense given the fact that, in most locations where Asian elephants live in the wild, there is an increase in human disturbances leading to habitat fragmentation, loss and resource reduction,” Joshua Plotnik, assistant professor of elephant psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York, told the BBC.

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Treatment of Murray is scandalous too, but nothing like Assange. John McAfee’s death is worrisome in this regard.

High Court Delays as Assange Remains in Jail (Craig Murray)

Julian Assange remains in a maximum-security jail, despite never being sentenced for anything but a long ago served spell for bail-jumping, and despite the U.S. government’s request for extradition having been refused. It is approaching six months since I was in court to hear the decision rejecting Assange’s extradition, and it was in the same week that Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser ordered Assange be kept in jail pending a U.S. appeal. Since then, the U.S. has submitted its appeal, which is somewhat intemperate in its efforts to discredit a number of highly distinguished expert witnesses at the hearing. The defense has submitted its response, including notice of points, where Baraitser found for the U.S. that the defense intend to counter-appeal.

Then for over three months — nothing. The High Court has not only not set a date for the U.S. appeal, it has not even indicated if the U.S. appeal meets the bar to be heard. There is some thought that the appeal lacks any arguable points of law and may be simply rejected. But the seemingly leisurely approach of the High Court to look at the matter is entirely inappropriate given that, in the meantime, an innocent man is suffering the most extreme form of incarceration available in the U.K. Assange’s status is that his extradition has been rejected. He ought not to be in jail at all, let alone in such harsh conditions. By contrast, I am sitting in my study despite being sentenced to eight months in jail. I am at liberty while the U.K. Supreme Court decides whether to hear my appeal.

My lawyers believe, from their contact with the court administrators, that it is entirely possible that the Supreme Court will decide on whether to take my appeal, within the four-week suspension of my jail sentence granted by Judge Lady Dorrian. This is because otherwise I might be imprisoned. Why can the Supreme Court potentially decide whether to hear my appeal so quickly due to the threat of imprisonment, when the High Court is taking six times or more as long to decide whether to hear the U.S. appeal, when an innocent man is already imprisoned? It makes no sense. It is not due to complexity: while of course Julian’s case is more important, any points of law at issue in the U.S. appeal are notably less complex than in my own appeal. To me, the only possible explanation is the determination of the state to keep Julian imprisoned at all costs.

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November 30, 2019.

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body; but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, & loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
~Hunter S. Thompson

 

 

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