Never Forget, Never Forgive


Elon Musk-tweet-10March2024-Trying to help people understand

strongElon Muskstrong-tweet-10March2024-Trying to help people understand

strongElon Muskstrong-tweet-10March2024-Trying to help people understand

 

The So Called Experts promised Peace with Gaza-the Jews got Death

The Karens, Criminals, Narcissistic Megalomaniac Nannycrats and Naughty Beasts want ‘Pandemic Amnesty’

Then you have the “EVIL Vaxers” and their Zombies

If Only You Had Listened:

http://palmtreeofdeborah.blogspot.com

A Prophet For His Time

18 Marcheshvan 5784 02November2023  http://palmtreeofdeborah.blogspot.com/2023/11/a-prophet-for-his-time.html

 

Today is the 33rd yahrzeit of Rabbi Meir David Kahane,  ztz”l, Hy”d.  When HKB”H chose to take me as His daughter, He appointed for me the best teacher of Torah available to me, Rabbi Kahane, even though it was already seven years after his passing.  I learned from his books as well as directly from his son, Rabbi Binyamin Kahane, ztz”l, Hy”d, and his students, primarily Menachem Gottlieb, Lenny Goldberg, Rabbi Levi Chazan and Rabbi Yehudah Richter.

 

I thank HKB”H with all my heart for the men and women (Rebbetzin Libby Kahane and Rebbetzin Talya Kahane, ztz”l, Hy”d) who carried on his legacy so that I and so many others, my own children and grandchildren included, could benefit from his Torah wisdom, his commitment to the Truth, and his fearless defense of it in every realm of his life.

 

How ironic that a man who has come to symbolize to the world a voice and face of “hatred,” was, in fact, filled to his very depths with an overwhelming and completely unselfish love – for his G-D and for his people, to the point that he sacrificed his very life for both.  As everyone today must admit (and many do) “Kahane was right!”  He was a prophet for his time, a prophet for OUR time…

 

Rabbi Meir Kahane H”YD – Election Promotion Film 1988

 

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I think this 2002 tribute that I wrote on the occasion of Rabbi Kahane’s 12th yahrzeit remains relevant, so I am reposting it here.  The only thing I would add is that we should not view ourselves as eternally bereft because every generation has its own Mashiach ben Yosef and we are destined in our days to welcome the one who will complete the task.

 

12TH YAHRZEIT OF RABBI MEIR DAVID KAHANE ZT”L HY”D
We Could Have Had Kahane, But We Chose Arafat

 

On the occasion of HaRav Meir Kahane’s twelfth yahrtzeit, I humbly and respectfully offer the following essay in thanks and appreciation for the Torah that I learned from his writings. His memory is certainly a blessing for me and so should it be for all Am Israel.

 

On one of the videos of Rav Kahane which I had the privilege of viewing at the yeshiva which he established in Yerushalayim, he made the following statement: “You have a choice. You can have here Kahane or Arafat. If you don’t want Kahane, you will get Arafat.” And as the saying goes, “Today, everyone knows that Kahane was right.”</i

 

From our inception as a nation until now, we have had only one choice…blessing or curse. Once we accepted the Torah, it was a given that we would certainly fulfill it as we pledged to do, but by which course? Willingly, out of love and obedience? Or, G-d forbid, by force of punishment and through terrible suffering and fear?

 

This is the picture of Redemption-in-Haste or Redemption-in-its-Time, a subject which figured prominently in Rav Kahane’s writings. Many of the Rabbi’s students believe that he was Mashiach ben Yosef. But we know from our sources that it was not a given that Mashiach ben Yosef would have to die. We also know that Mashiach ben Yosef can be both a person and a process, but if so, it would be plausible to assume that their fates would be interwoven. Can a case be made for this idea? I offer the following for your consideration.

 

The State of Israel, from it’s beginnings as a yishuv, was not recognized by his brothers, the majority of world Jewry, because he appeared too much like an “Egyptian.” The mostly secular Zionists were not at all what religious Jews expected to see as the hand of G-d restoring Zion. However, in time, it became clear to most that the return to the Jewish homeland would uniquely provide for the physical survival of the Jewish people just as Yosef had done during the famine in Egypt. Just as Yosef’s going down into Egypt eventuated in the nurturing of the family of Ya’akov into a nation of millions, so has the State of Israel uniquely provided for the Jewish people to return to its homeland and renew itself as a nation. But it has provided for something else as well, something which might not appear to be so desirable at first glance, but which was altogether necessary. It has uniquely provided for the re-emergence and re-identification of the mixed multitude—the Erev Rav.

 

“The Divrei Chayim writes:

 

Any kindness performed by the ‘mixed multitude’ (eirev rav) is done for their own benefit. We clearly see that the rabbis, chassidim, and laymen of this generation, for the most part, descend from the eirev rav (due to our many sins), and they want to rule over the masses. All of their deeds are done for their own benefit, to receive honor or monetary gain. Therefore, one should not associate with them, only with those who truly serve G-d and sacrifice themselves for His name, not for their own selfish gains. (VaYakhel) ” [Eim Habanim Semeichah, p.50]

 

Only with the reappearance of Yosef, would we be able bring the Erev Rav out into the open.  (And how the Erev Rav bark and bite and foam at the mouth whenever Kahane is in sight or hearing.) Mashiach ben Yosef is what makes it possible for Amiel Vardi to go out on the Sabbath and help Arabs harvest olives near Itamar. When threatened by Jewish residents of the area with warning shots, what was his response? Did he tell them that he was a fellow Jew? According to the newspaper report, Vardi said: “I am an Israeli. If you go on shooting, you will hit an Israeli.” The process of Mashiach ben Yosef is what makes it possible this week for a leading newspaper to refer to young residents of the Shomron as “skinheads in tzitziot” and for the politicians to “regret” the desecration of Shabbat for the dismantlement of Jewish homes and synagogues while warning about the threat halacha poses to the “rule of law.”

 

As Divrei Chayim says, “…they want to rule over the masses…” and as such they think they will kill Yosef and thereby destroy the Jews forever. Little do they know that this only hastens their own demise. They were only able to kill Rav Kahane because he was the last chance for Redemption-in-Haste. If he had been able to bring about the advent of Mashiach ben David through the democratic process of elections, Mashiach ben Yosef did not have to die—not Rav Kahane and not the State of Israel. But because of our many sins, we did not merit it and so Mashiach ben Yosef did die and so Mashiach ben Yosef will die, only to be resurrected by the hand of Mashiach ben David as the renewed Kingdom of Israel in the future.

 

It is no coincidence that the Persian Gulf War was launched only weeks after Rav Kahane’s cruel assassination. For the first time in the history of the modern State of Israel, the Jews failed to take the responsibility and initiative to defend themselves against an aggressor. The government in power was paralyzed by inaction as its people sat shaking in fear in sealed rooms with gas masks over their faces. Hints of things to come. Little did we know then that Rav Kahane’s removal paved the way for the Oslo death machine to roll into place. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

G-d, in His mercy, allowed us the comfort of Rav Binyamin Kahane’s words of truth and sanity to sustain us for a few more years, but our fate was already sealed. And since we did not listen and heed and act when it was time for such things, what have we arrived at today?

 

Today, we have the false messiah Effi Eitam heading the equally false religious-Zionist party Mafdal. When Effi Eitam rose so quickly to public prominence shortly after leaving the army on “principle,” it was legitimate to examine his words and actions and to determine what role he would play in our continuing drama. The favorable play given to his in-depth and detailed interview in Ha’aretz just as he took control of the NRP should have been a clue. Only after I heard him speak in English telling an audience of his supporters why the new security fence was a good and desirable thing was it clear to me that he had been planted by the evil regime as a decoy, a bone thrown to the religious public to make them think that they still had a voice in the government. What dupes we can be!

 

But Kahane was too extremist, so now we have Effi Eitam, a tranquilizer to calm us as we are herded like the faithless sheep we are straight to the spiritual slaughter…or so they think. As Redemption-in-its-Time progresses, the dawn is lightening on the horizon ever more and with the additional light, we are seeing more clearly than ever.

 

What happened at Pesach this last year? We are keenly aware that something happened. There was a shift of some sort in our reality. Suddenly, the army was back in Shechem and Hevron and even Aza! But, if these are the birthpangs of Mashiach that we are suffering through, where are we in the birth process? If we have taken the upper hand against our enemy, the Arabs, why do we not see more success?

 

We are facing a double enemy—a two-headed monster. The Erev Rav work hand-in-hand with the Arabs against us. People were getting too close to the light—too close to seeing the truth of our situation, so the battle shifted to a different realm. Tactics were changed, that’s all. Without stopping terror completely, the emphasis began to be placed in the political arena. I would suggest to you that the Arabs and Amalek have formed an alliance while Eisav has allied itself with the Erev Rav, so that all of our traditional enemies hover over the faithful of Hashem waiting for the opportunity to make the thrust that will finish us off for good.

 

Amalek is not only to be found among the indigenous peoples of the region, but as our history has proven time and again, it exists among the people of Europe. Is it any wonder that the EU is so very supportive of the so-called Palestinians?

 

And as for Eisav, he whom our sages told us was Edom/Rome and represents the Christian world, America stands as the prime representative and inheritor of that title. The so-called Christian Zionists are enamoured with the State of Israel and its leaders and politicians. They have regular love-fests, both here and abroad, where they all heap love and admiration on each other. The Erev Rav call for the West’s support because “we are a democracy just like you.” And the West responds, “We must support Israel because it is a democracy just like us. We share a Judeo-Christian heritage.”

 

When we will have become thoroughly and completely Americanized, G-d forbid!, we will have ceased to be the unique and treasured nation of G-d. Today, the only thing that has so far prevented this is the continuing war for physical survival. A ‘blessing’ in disguise. This is a battle on another front and we are fighting them all simultaneously—fighting for both physical and spiritual survival. While Amalek/Ishmael kill our bodies, Eisav/Erev Rav want to destroy our very souls. We should cease to be Jews and become democracy-worshiping Israelis instead.

 

An important lesson was taught this past Shabbat, but how many are willing to learn? We can only hope that Rav Kahane did not foresee the depths to which we would sink in our degradation at the hands of the Erev Rav. The lauded IDF stands today in disarray because soldiers were coerced by their commanders into violating the Shabbat through lies and subterfuge. As the Divrei Chayim says, “…they want to rule over the masses…”

 

One young soldier in a Nachal Chareidi unit, those established to enable fervently religious young men to serve in the army without compromising their religious principles, is not surprised. He tells of his chagrin at hearing the commander’s opening speech to the new recruits in which he informs them that the army is the means by which they will be mainstreamed into Israeli society. And this is no secret, that the army serves the regime as it’s change agent. Newspapers regularly report this aim at every opportunity they take to fault the chareidi public for not meekly acquiescing to self-annihilation.

 

The vaunted Jewish army which accepts goyim and attempts to turn them into faux-Jews through their own conversion courts and who allows 7,000 Christians to take their oath of allegiance on the Christian Bible; who, despite the pleas of hesder yeshiva rabbis, has begun mixing men and women in combat units and who brags to the world that their purity and morality rests on the fact that Jewish young men were sacrificed to save the lives of Arab women and children who by some accounts assisted and aided the terrorists in their midst. If we’d had our eyes wide open, we would not be so surprised.

 

The Arabs want to kill our bodies and we know this because we are bleeding and dying and burying our dead. We see the wounded and cover the graves and we know we have an enemy. Rav Kahane wanted us to understand that we have another enemy, no less lethal. He called it a modern-day Hellenism and the Erev Rav leads the way to spiritual destruction at their hands

 

How appropriate it is that we find ourselves at this occasion coming into the weeks just prior to Chanukah, that very holiday which commemorates our battle and victory over the Hellenists—the battle to remain loyal to our Holy Torah! And the purification of the Beit Hamikdash stands at the center of that story.

 

Denial of the Torah and our destruction as a unique nation are the goals which drive our enemies. Our identity and the realization of our destiny is bound up with one particular spot of earth which lies atop Har HaMoriah and this is not only our heart—our lifeblood—but the key to the end of everything.

 

From the beginning, the Zionists were not interested in keeping the Old City of Jerusalem. In recent years, stories have been written in the papers about how the city could have been taken in 1948, but certain orders never came. And of course, everyone knows, to our shame, how the Defense Minister gave over the Mount to the Arabs in 1967. We can follow the whole sad, sorry story right up until today when Jews are not even allowed to set foot upon Har Habayit. Those with limited vision wonder how it is that the Israeli government is so afraid of Arab reaction that it would not enforce its own laws regarding freedom of access to religious holy sites there.

 

Mashiach ben Yosef is both dead and dying. If we had any doubts, the destruction and continuing desecration of Kever Yosef is testimony to the truth of it. What stands between us and our holiest place in this world? When one looks, he sees the WAKF guards and the Israeli police. They work together hand-in-glove and anyone who has ever ascended to Hashem’s holy place knows how chummy they are together. They have much more in common with each other than they do with the religious Jews who go up to present themselves before Hashem.

 

The evil regime which is in the hands of the Erev Rav has common cause with the Amalekim and Ishmaelim and together with Edom/Rome/Am-reika, they intend to see the establishment of a Palestinian State with the Old City of Jerusalem as its capital, an event, thank G-d!, which will never come about, but they don’t yet know that. The only thing they fear is that Jews will come into possession of Har Habayit and begin to build a Temple there. This is why they must see to it that the Arabs remain in control and possession of it at all costs. This is why they stood by while the Mount was plundered and raped. This is what ensures their own survival, or so they think.<

 

The fact is that their power is in some mystical way tied to their control of Har Habayit. Our Sages have taught us that the Ishmaelim would have control of it for 1300 years in the merit of brit milah. How this enables the Erev Rav, I do not understand, but one thing I highly suspect is that the bulging and crumbling of the supporting walls is a sign to us that their power is crumbling as well. The best experts on the subject have said that it is no longer a question of “if,” but only “when” the wall will fall. And newspapers have been quick to point out that the Israeli government will reap the blame if anything goes wrong there. How ironic can it be that in their attempt to wipe out every vestige of evidence of our right to the place, it would only bring it down on their own heads.

 

Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook wrote in Torat Eretz Israel, p. 283:</i

 

“When people approach me with this proposition [to rebuild the Temple], I say: …Just as there is a precept to build the Temple, there is a sequence to its fulfillment. The Gemara says, “Israel was commanded with three precepts when they entered the Land: To appoint a King; to annihilate the seed of Amalek; and to build Hashem’s chosen house. And the Gemara continues, And how do I know which comes first? You have to say raise up a King. And how do I know whether to build the Temple first, or to annihilate the seed of Amalek? You have to say first annihilate the seed of Amalek. The Gemara is speaking of the initial entry into the Land and of the construction of the first temple, but the Rambam decides that this is generally true. ‘Israel was commanded with three precepts upon entering the Land…the King’s appointment precedes the war with Amalek, and the annihilation of Amalek precedes the building of the Temple.’ This is a clear order not a haphazard arrangement.”

Recently, I wrote an essay describing the idea that history is not so much linear as it is circular. If we look at these three in a circular fashion, we see that the Temple precedes appointing a king. This shows us that before Mashiach ben David will come to power, the Arabs and the Erev Rav will lose control of Har Habayit. We begin with Akeidat Yitzchak atop Har HaMoriah and end with the Beit Hamikdash HaShlishit.

 

Har Habayit is the key as Chanuka reminds us. It is the key to remaining Jewish; to remaining true to Torah; to retaining possession of the land; and to bringing in the final redemption. What else can we understand from Chanuka? That our mitzva is to publicize the miracle of lights with Light.

 

In this time in which we are suffering the death of Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David has not yet been revealed to us, what can we do? Each person must strengthen himself and those within his realm of influence. Look for the light of redemption that is breaking through in many places and reflect it out into every dark corner. Look for G-d’s hand in every event of our lives and make it known to as many as you can.

 

Hashem is seated on His high and lofty throne. He is in complete control and His plan will be accomplished. The important thing is that we not despair and doubt this great Truth, but that we encourage ourselves and each other with the knowledge that even now Hashem reigns and that “[His] testimonies are exceedingly trustworthy about [His] House, the sacred dwelling—….” (Psalm 93)

 

“Some with chariots, and some with horses, but we—in the Name of Hashem, our G-d, we call out. They slumped and fell, but we arose and were invigorated. Hashem save! May the King answer us on the day we call.” (Psalm 20)

 

Devash
15 Marcheshvan 5763

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It is said that Mashiach lives in every generation, waiting patiently for the message that the time has come to reveal himself.

…the Gemara (Sanhedrin 98a) describes an encounter between Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi and Eliyahu HaNavi, during which Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi asked Eliyahu this exact question:

Said Rabbi Yehoshua to Eliyahu: “When will Mashiach come [i.e. reveal himself]?”

Said he: “Why don’t you go and ask him?”

“And where is he to be found?”

“He sits among the lepers at the gates to the city of Rome.”

“How will I know which one is him?”

“You will see,” said Eliyahu, “that the other lepers remove their bandages and clean their wounds all at once, while Mashiach removes them one at a time.”

Rabbi Yehoshua went. He said, “Shalom Aleicha – Peace to you my teacher, my mentor.”

“Peace to you, son of Levi.”

“When are you coming?” asked R’ Yehoshua.

Mashiach said: “Today.”

Later, R’ Yehoshua once again met Eliyahu. “Nu – Did you find Mashiach?”

“Yes. He lied to me. I asked him when he was coming, and he told me, ‘Today,’ [yet he never came!].”

Said Eliyahu, “Today – if you will heed My voice.”  (Tehillim/Psalms 95:7)

 

The events we are living today are preparing the way for an entire nation to heed the words of Mashiach ben Yosef and follow his lead.  That is the silver lining (and the purpose) for all that we are enduring.

 

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Defy Divine commandments at your own peril; abide by the Divine guidance or risk courting your own downfall.

SEE: Purim for Cats

Psalm 20:7 These trust in chariots and these in horses, but we call on the name of HASHEM our God.

תהילים פרק כ

 ח: אֵ֣לֶּה בָ֭רֶכֶב וְאֵ֣לֶּה בַסּוּסִ֑ים וַֽאֲנַ֓חְנוּ בְּשֵׁם־יְהוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֣ינוּ נַזְכִּֽיר׃

Quoth the Raven

“At the beginning of summer, when the “young ravens” leave the nest. Although already grown, the young are incapable of finding food, and since they have a voracious appetite, their parents fly to and fro in search of food for them, the air being filled with their cries, and hence the description: “He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry” (Ps. 147:9). These young ravens cry, as it were, to God to satisfy their hunger, as it says in Job (38:41): “Who provideth for the raven his prey, when his young ones cry unto God…?”

Source:


Haytham Algosaibi-tweet-15November2023-Defy Divine commandments at your own peril
Defy Divine commandments at your own peril; abide by the Divine guidance or risk courting your own downfall.

 

Haytham Algosaibi-tweet-15November2023-Defy Divine commandments at your own peril

Haytham Algosaibi-tweet-15November2023-Defy Divine commandments at your own peril

 

 

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The Sin of the Golden Calf is Still With Us

 

21 Adar Alef 5784  01 March 2024 https://palmtreeofdeborah.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-sin-of-golden-calf-is-still-with-us.html
Erev Shabbat Kodesh
Parashat Ki Tisa

 

From the Stone Edition Chumash Commentary on Parashat Ki Tisa

 

…the original intent in making the calf was not to worship it as a god, …the initiators of the project were the Eirav Rav, and …only an infinitesimal proportion of Jews actually worshiped it.  However, the sin was most grievous, nonetheless.  As is clear…, there were Jews, few though they were, who were guilty of idolatryThe rest of the people did not resist the Eirav Rav or the Jewish worshipersThis constituted either silent acquiescence or lack of faith, which was a condemnation of the nation as a whole.

Can anyone else see that we are still repeating the sins of the past instead of rectifying them???  Hashem yerachem!

~ SHABBAT SHALOM ~

 


This is exactly what a coup looks like


Caroline Glick-tweet-3March2024-This is exactly what a coup looks like

– דחיית הגשת תוכנית לכיבוש רפיח (נצחון) לקבינט ע”י הרמטכ”ל,

– בגידתו של גלנט בקואליציה,

– נסיעתו החתרנית של גנץ לוושינגטון,

– חידוש מרד קפלן,

– התדרוך של ברק שצריכים בחירות עד יוני כדי להקים מדינה פלשתינית,

– הודעת ליברמן הבקר שצריכים בחירות עכשיו.

ככה בדיוק נראית הפיכה.

Translated from Hebrew by

– Postponing the submission of a plan for the occupation of Rafah (Victory) to the Cabinet by the Chief of Staff,
– Gallant’s betrayal of the coalition,
– Gantz’s subversive trip to Washington,
– renewal of the Kaplan Rebellion,
– Barak’s briefing that elections are needed by June to establish a Palestinian state,
– Lieberman’s announcement that elections are needed now.
This is exactly what a coup looks like.

Caroline Glick-tweet-3March2024-This is exactly what a coup looks like

Caroline Glick-tweet-3March2024-This is exactly what a coup looks like

 

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Why won’t Muslim countries accept Palestine Refugees ?


Faerie-tweet-3March2024-Why won’t Muslim countries accept Palestine Refugees ?
Why won’t Muslim countries accept Palestine Refugees ?

Faerie-tweet-3March2024-Why won't Muslim countries accept Palestine Refugees?

Faerie-tweet-3March2024-Why won’t Muslim countries accept Palestine Refugees?

 

 


New York City-WOLPalestine with Hand Grenade


Canary Mission-tweet-3March2024-New York City-WOLPalestine with Hand Grenade
A mob of anti-Israel protesters in Times Square on Saturday blocked an NYPD vehicle carrying a bomb squad sent to investigate after an Uber driver noticed that someone left a grenade in his back seat. When @WOLPalestine protesters declare, “By Any Means Necessary,” believe them.

Canary Mission-tweet-3March2024-New York City-WOLPalestine with Hand Grenade

Canary Mission-tweet-3March2024-New York City-WOLPalestine with Hand Grenade

 

 

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Comment: T. Belman. At its core is the belief that peace is possible rather than the belief that there will never be peace. The left has long believed that what is necessary is to improve the living standards of the “Palestinians” in order to acheive peace. This a fantasy, not reality. There will never be peace.

The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune-logo https://jstribune.com/

The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune-logo https://jstribune.com/

The Intelligence Failure of October 7 – Roots and Lessons

by Amnon Sofrin November 2023 https://jstribune.com/sofrim-the-intelligence-failure-of-october-7-roots-and-lessons/

Hamas troops break down the Gaza border fence on October 7, allowing Gazans to cross into Israel. Photo credit: REUTERS.

Hamas troops break down the Gaza border fence on October 7, allowing Gazans to cross into Israel. Photo credit: REUTERS.

Hamas’ sudden attack on the kibbutzim and the towns neighboring the Gaza Strip caught the IDF and the country by total surprise. During the first 24 hours, beginning at 6:30 in the morning of October 7, the Hamas Nukhba (name of the commando troops, means “elite”) and those who came in with them conquered and held an area of about 4-5 kilometers depth inside Israel, and in places penetrated well beyond that. The lack of any forewarning accounted also for the confused and disorganized, albeit often individually heroic, actions of the military and the police throughout the day.

 

What went wrong? How could Israel’s intelligence community have failed to “ring the bell”? To understand we have to analyze both the failure at the strategic level of analysis and the collapse at the tactical level of collection and detection.

The strategic level

Hamas’ leaders planned the attack over a long time and at an impressively high level of secrecy. We presume, based on what we know at this stage, that the planning for this operation began in 2021 and was carried out by Hamas leaders in Gaza Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar with a small group of people. The planning was very detailed; each unit was assigned a specific mission with files prepared for each targeted community and military base.

 

While the Hamas units had no prior idea as to what their mission would be before the morning of the attack, they were trained on generic models of an Israeli kibbutz as well as on models of Israeli tanks, bases and other targets. They were also studying the points of penetration above ground, once the attack tunnels system (of which there were more than 30 in 2014) were put out of use. And yet these activities went on without setting off alarms on the Israeli side.

 

At the strategic level of analysis in the Israeli intelligence community, as well as among the political decision makers and the highest military echelon, a widely-held groupthink took hold: namely, that Hamas was adapting to the duties of governance. Thus, Israel was willing to make sure that the economic situation in the Gaza strip would improve – by allowing the monthly delivery of money from Qatar (in suitcases – since the Palestinian Authority blocked the use of the banking system for these transactions); and by allowing more people from Gaza to work in Israel. The governing assumption, which seemed to be confirmed by events, was that Hamas’ leadership would have no incentive to launch a new confrontation with Israel since it would continue to focus on improving the lives of Gaza residents.

 

Moreover, the prevailing belief was that the Hamas leadership was deterred from new attacks after suffering what the IDF claimed, perhaps too conveniently, were serious losses inflicted by the Israeli Air Force during the fighting in May 2021. This groupthink seemed to be reaffirmed when Hamas chose twice, in August 2022 and again in May 2023, to stay out of the fighting when the IDF attacked leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, leading to short rounds of fighting. Hamas did not interfere, and Israel’s decision makers saw this as confirmation that Hamas was deterred and had no incentive to launch another major confrontation with Israel, at least for some years (given that seven years had passed between the fighting in 2014 and the Hamas rocket attacks in 2021).

 

Another aspect of the intelligence failure – which wove together the strategic level of analysis and the tactical level of collecting and assessing Hamas’ military capabilities – was the lack of knowledge and understanding of the remarkable improvement in Hamas’ ability to launch such an organized and coordinated attack, and the nature of the simple but effective devices it acquired – with help from Iran – in order to overcome Israel’s defenses.

Hamas troops burn an Israeli tank on October 7, 2023. Photo credit: IMAGO/APAimages via Reuters Connect.

Hamas troops burn an Israeli tank on October 7, 2023. Photo credit: IMAGO/APAimages via Reuters Connect.

The tactical level

To understand this failure it is necessary to revisit Israel’s growing tendency to rely on its well-established technological advantages. The surveillance system deployed along the border was based on a range of remote-controlled sensors – ground radars, cameras, and so-called “see and shoot” systems – which gathered the information and transmitted it backwards to a control room manned by young and skilled soldiers, often female. Each one of them was an expert on the territory on which she was focused.

 

Some of these soldiers sense that what was happening was unusual, watching Hamas activists training on Israeli models. They reported to their commanders: but the latter, until very late in the day, did not pay much attention to these reports, since the belief was “Hamas is deterred.” (On October 6, there was a sense at the high command and in the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, that something was up, but very limited actions were taken and there was no expectation of an early morning attack the next day).

 

Moreover, the sensors deployed along the border lines were well recognized by Hamas’ intelligence gathering, and since they were remote-controlled they were very vulnerable to attack by relatively simple means, such as explosive devices or hand grenades dropped from small drones. The IDF’s Gaza Division, deployed along the border, relied also on the complex obstacles built all around Gaza Strip border and considered it to be impassable. With three of the observation balloons down for a variety of reasons, the IDF was all the more easy to blind on the day of the attack.

Member of Hamas’s Nukhba unit on October 7, captured by a surveillance camera in Kibbutz Alumim, Israel. Photo credit: South First Responders/Handout via REUTERS.

Member of Hamas’s Nukhba unit on October 7, captured by a surveillance camera in Kibbutz Alumim, Israel. Photo credit: South First Responders/Handout via REUTERS.

The Attack

Hamas gathered information over a long time. They knew exactly which sensors were observing which areas. They followed the IDF’s units’ reactions to specific provocations – how long it took to reinforce the area, on what roads reinforcements were moving, and other relevant patterns of deployment. They learned, through workers from Gaza who collected such information for them, about possible points of entry to military bases and civilian communities.

 

On October 7, early in the morning, the Nukhba of Hamas were called and briefed on their real missions. Each unit was equipped with a large amount of weapon systems and ammunition, food and water that were meant to enable them to stay inside Israel for a long time. At the opening phase they neutralized the communication systems connecting the sensors to the control center by using drones that attacked the surveillance posts with hand grenades and bombs. The control centers were blinded and could not tell where the breaks through the physical obstacle were taking place. In order to isolate the area and prevent reserve units from getting there, they landed activists using paragliders that set blockades on the main roads leading to the area.

 

The Hamas troops then broke into the Gaza Division Headquarters, close to the border, and cut off all communications from there. The Division commander, besieged within the base (with his family), could not communicate with other units, nor with his superiors (or with Air Force assets). Thus the higher echelons – the Southern Region Command HQ in Beersheva and the GHQ in Tel Aviv – were not at first fully aware of the extent of the attack and were relying on civilian calls for help to understand where the Hamas invaders were carrying out their bloody massacres.

Israeli soldiers in a newly-built surveillance and situation room opened in a new location. On October 7, Hamas destroyed their former base in Nahal Oz, killing at least 14 female soldiers and taking others captive. Photo credit: ISRAELI ARMY HANDOUT via REUTERS.

Israeli soldiers in a newly-built surveillance and situation room opened in a new location. On October 7, Hamas destroyed their former base in Nahal Oz, killing at least 14 female soldiers and taking others captive. Photo credit: ISRAELI ARMY HANDOUT via REUTERS.

Conclusions

Since the groupthink about Hamas being deterred prevailed at the higher echelons, the operational and tactical levels were also under that impression. They relied too much on the technology – the huge and sophisticated barrier, which cost 3 billion shekels (about 850 million dollars) to build, the surveillance systems and remote-controlled fire centers. At worst, they assumed that a few Hamas activists, at most, would try to cross the border and abduct a soldier or a resident to negotiate the release of people imprisoned in Israel (as happened in 2006 in the case of the soldier Gilad Shalit). The assumption was that if that were to happen, they would receive ample early warning sufficient to thwart such an attack.

 

Nobody within the Israeli intelligence community had the imagination to believe Hamas would be able to carry out such a complicated and coordinated attack and to succeed in killing so many people and abducting 240 hostages, carrying them to Gaza. If at all, such plans and capabilities were ascribed to the Radwan Force – Hizbullah’s equivalent (and role model) of Hamas’ Nukhba. IDF training exercises did have such Hizbullah scenarios. But the notion that Hamas would be capable of carrying out a massive attack was not given serious consideration.

 

The intelligence failure of October 7, 2023 had a predecessor 50 years and one day earlier, on October 6, 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack. Both failures can be traced to Israel’s penchant for groupthink.

  • In the groupthink assumptions of 1973, the military command firmly believed and asserted that the Egyptian Army would not launch a war with Israel before 1975, as long as they were not equipped with attack aircraft and missiles that would enable them to hit targets In Israel. This assumption was not updated by new information, as detailed in Amir Oren’s description of the 1973 intelligence failure in these pages. In 2023, the groupthink assumption was that Hamas was deterred and had no incentive to launch a large confrontation with Israel.
  • Strategic level groupthink in both cases caused the military command to ignore warning signs at the tactical levels. In 1973 observation teams deployed along the Suez Canal reported irregular activities of the Egyptian forces on the west bank of Suez Canal, but these reports were rejected at the Southern Region Command’s Intelligence Department as well as at the Research and analysis division of military intelligence HQ in Tel Aviv. They were explained away as related to a planned large-scale drill of the Egyptian Army. Likewise, in 2023, the young women soldiers at the observation centers reported Hamas’ intensified training on the models of an Israeli kibbutz and an Israeli tank. There were also reports of individual operators at 8200, Israel’s signal intelligence unit, who raised similar indicators and were similarly ignored.

 

Israel’s intelligence technologies and overall capabilities have improved enormously in the 50 years since Yom Kippur 1973. But the intellectual failure in both cases was similar. The results this time were in many ways more tragic than those of the Yom Kippur War.

 

Amnon Sofrin was a career IDF officer, with the rank of brigadier general. Most of his service was in the intelligence branch. He later served as the head of the intelligence directorate of Israel’s External Security Service, the Mossad.

 

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Israeli Parliament Members Break Down After Watching Videos of Hamas Atrocities on October 7

“I can’t talk about the content, I can’t talk about the feelings. Just one sentence: never forget and never forgive.”

Posted by 1November2023 https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/11/israeli-parliament-members-break-down-after-watching-videos-of-hamas-atrocities-on-october-7/

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/11/israeli-parliament-members-break-down-after-watching-videos-of-hamas-atrocities-on-october-7/

Members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, broke down in tears, and one fainted as they watched a 45-minute video of the brutality Hamas unleashed on Israelis on October 7.

Members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, broke down in tears, and one fainted as they watched a 45-minute video of the brutality Hamas unleashed on Israelis on October 7.

 

They likely saw videos shown to journalists:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

raz_sauber-tweet-1November2023-Knesset-45-minute-video-that-reveals-the-atrocities-committed-by-Hamas

raz_sauber-tweet-1November2023-Knesset-45-minute-video-that-reveals-the-atrocities-committed-by-Hamas

raz_sauber-tweet-1November2023-Knesset 45-minute video that reveals the atrocities committed by Hamas-2

raz_sauber-tweet-1November2023-Knesset 45-minute video that reveals the atrocities committed by Hamas-2

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SOVEREIGNTY-logo https://www.ribonut.co.il/

SOVEREIGNTY-logo https://www.ribonut.co.il/

Do Not Weep. Lead

2November2023 https://www.ribonut.co.il/BlogPostID.aspx?BlogPostId=839&lang=2

Israel’s triumphant blow over the enemy must be not only military, but also in the place most painful for it, the loss of the land that the enemy mistakenly imagined belonged to him. It is time for sovereignty.

Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar

Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar

Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar


Let us begin with four basic insights, axioms that we must instill in our consciousness:

 

Axiom 1: Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PLO) are one. Both organizations share the same aspirations, the same means, the same rhetoric, the same religion, and the same Koran.

Axiom 2: The world is hypocritical and loves Jews only when they are wallowing in their own blood. The moment that Jews rise and fight for their lives, they lose international legitimacy.

Axiom 3: Evolution in the Middle East dictates that the weak has not, does not, and will not survive.

Axiom 4: The State of Israel was not established to ensure the survival of the Jewish people, but for a much more profound and substantive purpose, to bring divine justice to the world.

We must act on the basis of these four fundamental insights.

 

There is no logic to decide to strike only in Gaza because the catastrophic disaster that took place on Simĥat Torah originated in Gaza. The Israeli strike should be painful and severe in the places that are the most painful for the enemy. Only then will they bow their heads and understand that the Jewish people are not to be trifled with.

 

The most powerful blow we can deliver to the enemy is the loss of territory.

The application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley is not only a matter of historical and moral justice of the highest order,  but also a decisive and triumphant blow against terrorism.

 

In order to implement this obvious step, there is no need for war, but a courageous decision by a courageous government and a courageous Knesset that understands the profound justice of the Jewish people living in its G-d given Biblical land.

 

Members of Knesset, government ministers, and Prime Minister, come to your senses!

Do not go out to the media weeping and stunned after witnessing the horrors during the screening in the Knesset. Why were you surprised by these sights? Was it new for you? If so, you are divorced from reality.

 

Reality in its entirety cries out that if we don’t wake up, we are striding toward sights like these G-d forbid. So emerge from viewing these horrors with a clear and strong decision to respond to the enemy in a language that it understands.

 

The 217 trucks of humanitarian aid whose entry into Gaza you are enabling, are indications of weakness. These attest to the fact that the enemy’s lives are more precious to you than the lives of the hostages.

 

The reality in which the current government, which witnessed the horrors and vowed revenge, is still debating whether to commit the folly of transferring more money to the Palestinian Authority that funds terrorism, is a delusional reality.

 

Is there a reasonable person who believes this is the way that security can be achieved and that these are the Middle Eastern codes through which we can accomplish anything?

 

The time arrived long ago to change direction, to forsake the path of concessions, allowances, grants, and delusional hopes that our enemies will be on our side.

 

Now, when ever expanding circles have opened their eyes and seen the evil and the horror, we must instill fear and terror in our enemies with every means at our disposal. The first and most painful of these means is restoring the land back to Jewish hands  and applying Israeli sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza as well.

 

Leaders of Israel, do not wait for another black Shabbat to internalize this necessity. Apply sovereignty, settle the land, instill in the people a pioneering spirit, and learn from our wonderful people what determination, national pride, mutual responsibility, and striving for victory means.

 

With courage and unpredictability, we will also gain the appreciation of the United States and European countries. This is your great hour to prove leadership:  apply sovereignty!

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Sabrina Maddeaux: I watched Hamas hack innocents to death. The worst part was their glee

Screened footage showed literal streams of blood, hacked off arms and legs, and an infant missing part of its skull, brain leaking out

Sabrina Maddeaux

Published Nov 06November2023  •  Last updated 06November2023  • https://nationalpost.com/opinion/sabrina-maddeaux-i-watched-hamas-hack-innocents-to-death-the-worst-part-was-their-glee

 

A woman cries during the funeral of Israeli Col. Roi Levy at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. Col. Roi Levy was killed after Hamas militants stormed from the blockaded Gaza Strip into nearby Israeli towns. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

A woman cries during the funeral of Israeli Col. Roi Levy at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. Col. Roi Levy was killed after Hamas militants stormed from the blockaded Gaza Strip into nearby Israeli towns. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

 

Over the span of 43 minutes, I watched 138 humans be murdered or witnessed their corpses, many brutalized beyond recognition and others clearly tortured, in the direct aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel.

 

That’s 3.2 bodies per minute— and less than 10 per cent of the more than 1,400 people killed that day.

 

The Consulate of Israel in Toronto screened the footage, taken from a mix of body cameras, dashboard cams, CCTV tapes, and victims’ cell phones, some used by Hamas to record and livestream their sadism, for a small group of media on Monday. Not everyone made it through the full 43 minutes, with others moved to tears and outbursts of emotion.

 

There were babies. Toddlers. So many children of all ages. Young men and women dressed for a music festival, not the wanton slaughter that saw their bloodied bodies piled atop one another in scenes reminiscent of some of the Holocaust’s worst images.

 

Parents. The elderly. A dad who, attempting to hide from Hamas attackers with his sons, all three of them still in their underwear, was blown up by a grenade in front of his children. The two young boys, covered in blood, crying, throwing themselves on the ground in grief, as a Hamas gunman raids the family’s fridge and takes a swig of soda. One of the sons’ panicked voice as he realizes he can no longer see out of one eye.

 

The man’s wife as kibbutz security bring her to identify her husband’s remains. The moment she literally collapses and has to be dragged away from the scene, thrashing wildly, her legs folding under her like every bone had simply vanished from her body.

 

A family attempting to decipher whether the burned remains in front of them, skirt hiked up above bare genitals, is the loved one they’re looking for.

 

The literal streams of blood, the hacked off arms and legs, the infant missing part of its skull, brain leaking out. The dog shot over and over again as its limbs splay in every direction until they don’t anymore. Mickey mouse pyjamas on a young corpse, skull fragments on floors, victims shot point blank. So much blood.

 

But none of what I’ve detailed so far was the worst part of those 43 minutes. The worst part was the glee.

 

The pure jubilation of Hamas terrorists as they filmed themselves killing and torturing; their excited voices bragging about their atrocities. The videos of them playing with victims’ heads with their feet, and excitedly shooting out the tires of a kibbutz’s ambulance before massacring its residents.

 

I’ll never forget the gore, but it’s the look of euphoria and pride in the terrorists’ eyes, cheering for the cameras as if they were the ones partying at a music festival that day, that will haunt me.

 

In the videos, Hamas attackers did not behave as soldiers or freedom fighters. They hunted their victims in their homes like serial killers in a horror film, peering through blinds, slashing through screen doors with knives, following families wherever they tried to run or hide. If they couldn’t find them, they’d use lighters to make sure fire did. They toyed with their victims’ lifeless bodies. They kept trophies, both physical and digital.

 

It’s unimaginable that anyone could watch this and still equate what happened on Oct. 7 to resistance or war. I’ve seen war footage; this was not that. These were terrorist attacks targeted at civilians and mass shootings of innocents. Hamas was indiscriminate in their cruelty, killing not for cause, but for pleasure.

 

I don’t know if the full footage will ever be made public, but if it ever is, every single Canadian should watch it to understand how far beyond any conceivable rules of engagement Hamas went, why this time was different, and why it must never, ever happen again.

 

National Post

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Riding the charidee train

by Rivka Levy   28December2023  https://thinkforyourselfpublishing.com/riding-the-charidee-train/#top

A couple of days ago, I got this email – even though I barely sign up for anything and I have no idea how they got my details.

Donation email IDF 910th Battalion

Donation email IDF 910th Battalion

====

Hmm.

No website…. no registered charity number…

But I click the link and it takes me to the donation platform Rayze.it, and this strange message:

Donation email IDF 910th Battalion-donation platform

Donation email IDF 910th Battalion-donation platform

====

I’m not an expert on what brigades and battalions there are in the IDF.

 

Please, feel free to write to me and tell me exactly what this ‘910th Battalion’ is, because on the Wiki page listing the IDF’s brigades it’s not mentioned at all.

Maybe it’s real, maybe it’s not.

Point is: I have no idea.

====

So then, I start scooting around to see who exactly is running this slick marketing campaign for the 910th Battalion.

Scrolling down that same page on the Rayze-it platform, I get to this:

Donation email IDF 910th Battalion-Rayze-it platform

Donation email IDF 910th Battalion-Rayze-it platform

====

They apparently already raised more than $16k….

But who are they?

 

And what is the connection to ‘EZRAT ACHIM’?

 

Apparently, EZRAT ACHIM is this organisation, being run out of Bet Shemesh.

 

Again, I don’t know if this is real, legit, or not – take a look at their ‘War support‘ tab and see just how much expensive military gear seems to be cropping up in those pictures…

 

The point is – the POINT IS – so many organisations have just jumped on to ‘the war’ to tap into all that fundraising ‘good vibe’ that is currently washing all over the place.

 

And probably, at least some of them are very good and ‘legit’.

 

But I would caution you to be extremely careful about where your money is really going.

====

While we’re on the subject….

 

How much of the extra $1 billion + that was raised by the beginning of December by places like the ‘Jewish Joint’ and the ‘Jewish Federations of North America’ – how much of that do you think actually got to soldiers who need equipment, and evacuees who are stuck in hotels while their livelihood went down the pan?

 

If you check out the JDC’s page on their war effort for Israel…. it doesn’t really answer that question.

 

At all.

====

If you go to the Wayback Machine HERE and click through the ‘evolution’ of that fundraising page since October 7th – it still doesn’t really answer the question of where did all that extra money actually go?!?

 

This is a screenshot from November 20, 2023, where the JDC talks about what they were going to do with all that extra cash being so generously donated by the Jews of North America:

 

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee fundraising page-20November2023

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee fundraising page-20November2023

====

Maybe, all this happened and I just have totally, absolutely no idea about it.

Set me straight, tell me all about your first-hand experiences of how this money got to those who really need it.

 

Because in my small dalet amot, I am seeing none of this happening around me.

 

What I AM seeing is amazing local volunteer efforts, with so many people giving their time, effort and money directly to the people who need it.

 

But nothing to do – at all – with the JDC.

====

Here’s their ‘Israel Emergency fundraising page’ from today:

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Israel Emergency fundraising page

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Israel Emergency fundraising page

====

Does this sound like a ‘billion dollars’ worth to you?

Does it sound like most of this stuff even went specifically to the people directly involved in the atrocity of October 7th?

 

Where was the government funding in all this – or are we meant to believe that those 8,300 ‘traumatised children and parents’ were only getting therapy funded by the JDC and nobody else?

 

Compare and contrast with the screenshot from November – you can see for yourself, they raised funds for one thing, and then basically spent most of those funds on stuff they were already doing.

 

(If, at all.)

====

OK, we’ll stop there.

If our precious soldiers don’t have the equipment they need – let them come home already!

And let this most corrupt of corrupt, failed States find a different way to ‘solve’ the Hamas problem it created itself – with yet more of our taxpayers’ money.

 

And is continuing to support, by sending more humanitarian aid to Gaza, (including things like steel girders….) which Hamas just steals anyway.

 

So the Hamas has the strength and ‘energy’ they need to continue fighting against our poor soldiers.

====

Personally, I have a way, way better place to be putting my charity money.

It’s going to poor families who are learning Torah mamash lishma.

 

It’s going to keep the lights on at the shul down on Ido HaNavi.

 

It’s going to buy clothes for girls who can’t afford new skirts.

 

And it’s going, most of all, to try to ‘sweeten the judgments’ on our poor, battered nation, so that our soldiers can come home, the evil will fall – and no other precious Jew has to be killed or injured, on the path to geula.

 

BH, I will tell you more about that soon.

====

While I was typing this up, my newly-married daughter called me from the supermarket.

 

She was totally shocked at how much money she just spend – even in Osher Ad – to buy basic groceries for a week.

 

I don’t know what’s happening by you, but here in Israel, a lot of the food prices are starting to shoot up in a very alarming way.

 

I really am starting to fear for large families who don’t have a lot of cash, about how they can continue to buy even basic staples for their kids.

 

In this failed State that spends 60-100 billion a year on a useless army, that apparently can’t predict or stop massive ‘terrorist attacks’, can’t provide soldiers with even basic stuff like helmets and waterproof tents, and apparently also can’t give the families of reservists even basic financial help so they don’t implode while the husband and father is away fighting its wars for them….

 

I am feeling more and more like there needs to be a huge, massive re-organisation of priorities, even if Moshiach takes another few decades to show up, God forbid.

====

Make sure the kids have enough food – every single kid in the country.

 

Make sure the ‘holocaust survivors’ – many of whom are also used as fundraising fodder, in such a disgusting way – are cared for with dignity.

 

Stop spending all the money on hitech ‘start-ups’ that are just excuses to funnel taxpayers’ money from the poor to the super-rich-and-still-grasping-for-more people who run the show here – and everywhere else in the world.

 

All this ‘yuck’ just continues, until the small people stop buying into this warped paradigm, and start really, really calling out to Hashem to save us from the evil.

 

That’s our main job right now – it’s our only real option.

 

And boy, do we need to get on with doing that.

 

====

PS: This is a list of all the ‘official’ dead and wounded from the Gaza operation so far.

 

It’s already at well over a thousand…. 160+ dead, and well over 800 wounded.

 

We really need our soldiers back home, and out of the death trap that’s been carefully prepared for them by the same people who ‘let’ October 7 happen (at best….)

 

And someone else just sent me THIS interesting story, about Pfizer using wounded soldiers in Gaza for more medical experiments with zero informed-consent.

 

Sigh.

Tatty, come and rescue us all already. Please.

Reader’s Comments:

Avigail says:

Hi Rivka,

I don’t give to any American Jewish Fundraisers nor do i respond (usually) to the rash of emails that come after an emergency situation. They are playing on people’ emotions. I go directly to the source.
Most organizations that operate on donations have web sites. Supporting the organizations that you personally know something about is the safest bet that your donation money is going to good ground. I try my best to do away with the middleman. I am not especially trustful of the American Jewish fundraising organizations, esp when the CEO’s get a 6 digit salary, or more. I feel if they can afford to pay their CEO that much, they really don’t need my pittance. I don’t want to offend anyone, however, there are ways to check out an organization to see where there donation money’s go. Charity Navigator is a great source for checking out the financial statements, CEO salary, source of income, etc. I have often wondered if there is something like this site in Israel. The only time Charity Navigator has info on Israeli funds is if the organization has offices in the US, from my experience.

 

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Update from the Rav

by Rivka Levy   2November2023 https://www.thinkforyourselfpublishing.com/update-from-the-rav-2/

Just cutting and pasting this from ravberland.com.

It’s very powerful, from October 31, 2023, before the 16 soldiers were killed yesterday.

 

The Rav is the only source of ‘news’ I trust, at this point.

From HERE.

====

Moreinu HaRav Eliezer Berland Shlit”a’s pained cry to say Tehilim for the protection of the Jewish people, especially now as our soldiers enter Gaza on the ground:

Now I read the Rambam [Hilchot Ta’aniot 1:1-3]:  It is a positive Torah commandment, that all those who say Tehilim are fulfilling a positive Torah commandment, because now it is “a time of stress for Jacob, but he will be saved from it” (Yirmiyahu 30:7).

 

50,000 soldiers enter Gaza now.  Every day, they progress only 100 meters.  More than 100 meters isn’t possible.

====

Already there are two seriously injured.

In the merit that girls took onto [themselves to dress] modestly, and to lengthen their dresses, in the meantime not a single soldier has been killed.

This is something that is above the natural order, itself these are miracles, but this will take a half-year if we progress only 100 meters.  This will take a half-year, and people don’t have a home — 130,000 people without homes, without parents.  The parents were taken — turned into ashes, like in Auschwitz, that they were turned into ashes.

 

It is impossible to even find the DNA, because the ashes became mixed with bricks and boards, and in cars people were burned.

====

Everyone fled to cars; then they poured gasoline on them.

They prepared gasoline and ignited all the cars.  Everyone turned into ashes, 300-1000 people turned into ashes.  300 turned into ashes, 300 were murdered at the party, and 300 are captives.

 

The Radbaz writes in Siman 40 that being captive is worse than death, because it’s impossible to know who they are torturing — the soldiers are certainly being tortured terribly.

====

So now we are found in a positive commandment.

Every letter of Tehilim that we say now is a positive Torah commandment.

Because now is “a time of distress for Jacob, but he will be saved from it.”  To scream and to blast Chatzotzrot (a type of trumpet prescribed by the Torah).  We need Chatzotzrot with Shofars, that trouble will not come onto the congregation, as it says, “Against an enemy who oppresses you , you shall blast Chatzotzrot” (Bamidbar 10:9).

====

That for three days it was impossible to retake the kibbutzim.

The government abandoned everything. 

 

People called for help, the soldiers progressed, but it was impossible to enter, because in every kibbutz there were 500 terrorists, endless terrorists.  It took three days to retake the kibbutzim — instead of protecting them to begin with.

====

They called, said that 5,000 men were crossing the fence.

There’s no fence, the most sophisticated fence in the world which cost 50 billion dollars.  If they would have given 100,000 shekels to some yeshiva, then the whole world is horrified — “those leeches, those blood-suckers,” Lapid goes out of his mind. 

 

And here they spent 50 billion on a fence of paper.  If they had made a fence of paper, of cardboard, that would have been a lot better.

There’s no remnant of the fence.

====

Now it is “a time of distress for Jacob” — there’s no government.

People waited forty hours for the army to come, and they didn’t come. 

 

In the meantime, they burned everyone alive.

 

There’s no houses, nothing.  It’s possible to build a house in a day. 

 

Five people are sleeping in a room of a square meter.  They don’t give them food, don’t give them anything — such a government has never arisen since the creation of the world, that in this way are abusing people who went through a holocaust.

====

The children are orphans, either there’s no father or no mother, or both are lacking, have already been turned to ashes.

This is obligatory for each person to know, that now is “a time of distress for Jacob,” and we are obligated from the Torah — like the Rambam says, that this is from the Torah — to say every moment another chapter of Tehilim, and another chapter of Tehilim.

====

Because now they are afraid that they’ll launch a million missiles.

They have maybe 100,000 missiles.  Egypt doesn’t care, it’s happy.  And the entire strip is full of missiles, they are shooting missiles without end.  Outside of Jerusalem, where missiles are not reaching here, because we are exactly in the middle of Israel, the furthest from Gaza, the furthest from Lebanon.

 

The entire north is under missile fire, the entire south is under missile fire; Kissufim is under missile fire.

====

And this is one of the ways of repentance, that at “a time of distress for Jacob,” you need to feel the pain of the Jewish people.

— 130,000 people without houses, without apartments, with clothes — they fled in nightgowns.

We see the Jewish people in distress, then everyone needs to say Tehilim.  And girls who can say three books of Tehilim, this is above everything.

====

Bachurim [young men] should smash their Xiaomi, because the Xiaomi is bringing on all the calamities.

They see pictures of nudity, then immediately 1,000 soldiers are killed at that moment.  We are every moment in the danger that 1,000 soldiers will be killed.

 

Because Hamas said that they are 40,000; really, they are 100,000, all of them armed with the most up-to-date weaponry, because Iran gave them the most up-to-date weaponry.

====

And even though we here in Jerusalem are the most protected — Jerusalem protects us, but we need to pray for all the Jewish people.

This is from the Torah, to feel the pain, that we are like in a holocaust.

====

This is all because they beat up [worshippers in Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur].

Baruch Hashem, they saw prayer in public in Dizengoff Square, it’s possible to pray.  A thousand girls came to pray.  Then [Tel Aviv mayor] Ron Huldai went out of his mind: A thing such as this, all Tel Aviv is praying all of a sudden — they gave them a murderous beating.

 

Right after this, they paid.  After ten days, they paid — unfortunately — a price that was too high.

And those who ascended to the Garden of Eden, these were Tinikot Shenishbu [like children taken captive and raised by gentiles and who don’t know not to sin].

==

They beat them up on Yom Kippur, and there are those did not fast at all.

In Be’eri, maybe five people fasted.  Now they admit everything; they said that everything is because they didn’t fast on Yom Kippur.

 

A person full of transgressions at least should fast once a year.

====

Across the road, it’s all Hamas.

Today all the Arabs are Hamas, all of them are with weapons, missiles, cannons.  We’re without anything, we have nothing, like it was in Egypt, that when when they left, [the Egyptians] came with tanks, 600 chariots — we are obligated to say Tehilim at least.

====

If people don’t scream and shout, and [instead] say that this happened by chance — this is cruelty.

If people see that everyone is in mortal danger, and don’t say Tehilim, the Rambam says that this is the cruelest person that can be.  This is cruelty not to say Tehilim — this is cruelty.  One needs to finish three book of Tehilim every day.

This person who doesn’t pray — this is mamash cruelty, because he caused soldiers to die.

====

And there will be another calamity, and another calamity, because it’s impossible to know, because in Germany, they said, “This is the last calamity.”  Every moment, they are ready to add another calamity to the calamities, to vanquish us. 

The Germans want to conquer all the Land of Israel anew — this is all so that we will repent.

 

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More hints from the Rav

by Rivka Levy  30

Shavua Tov!

‘Weird world’ is continuing in Israel at the moment, with most of the population walking around in a semi-depressed state (at best….) because of what’s going on in Gaza.

 

The Rav didn’t come out for prayers over Shabbat, because he didn’t feel well.

BH, he will have a speedy recovery – please pray for Rav Eliezer ben Ettia to have a total refuah shleimah.

It’s not the first time – at all – that when the nation approaches some sort of serious crisis point, somehow it all gets ‘sweetened’ – as the Rav’s health takes a serious nose-dive.

 

BH, it won’t get to that again.

 

Bezrat Hashem.

====

In the meantime, lots of interesting stuff from last week’s bunch of shiurim, brought down in Shivivei Or 1043.

I translated the bits that most took my eye….

 

Have a read, think for yourself what is really going on here.

It seems to me that more and more people are calling out the lies all over the place….

We are not yet at the place where that’s translating into things changing tachlis on the ground. But geula comes riding slowly on a donkey, where one person, then another person, than another person, wakes up, and stops participating in ‘the world of lies’.

 

Until one day, we wake up and it’s simply imploded all by itself.

Hopefully, with no more of our young men getting their limbs blown off, or losing their lives.

(We already covered the idea that all the psychos ‘cheerleading’ for war, war, and yet more war, are literally insane…. we don’t need to belabor that point.)

====

Excerpt from Shiur given on Motzae Shabbat, October 23, 2024 at the Beit HaRav.

(The shiur is based on the teachings of the Pele Yoetz.)

A person doesn’t get married for the ‘yetzer hara’ (evil inclination).

Whoever gets married for their yetzer hara – it’s forbidden to go to their wedding.

 

The Rebbe (Rebbe Nachman) says on page 52[1] that it’s forbidden to go to the wedding, because the whole wedding is being done for the yetzer hara.

====

[The following comes from the Pele Yoetz, which the Rav reads out to the audience.]

 

This is more terrible than a person who slaughters children.”[2]

 

If a person slaughters his child, he doesn’t do anything [compared with bringing children to the world whilst in a state of lustfully serving the yetzer hara].

 

But, if he trains [his child] to serve the yetzer hara…

====

All the masons, the bonim chofshim (freemasons), their ‘symbol’ is the Beit HaMikdash (Temple).

They want to make a new religion, that the Beit HaMikdash will be in Jerusalem, and each person will do whatever he wants.

 

Everyone will come to ‘pray’, and everyone will just do whatever they want. And their whole goal is make a new religion, and the Beit HaMikdash will be at its centre – but each person will do whatever they want to do.

 

Everyone can come to their Beit HaMikdash to pray – an Arab, a notzri, it doesn’t matter. An Indian, someone from India, from China, Thailand, Nepal, Tibet, everyone – all the nations united under a single ‘Beit HaMikdash’.

 

And this is the symbol, of the Beit HaMikdash.

====

And even, even B.B. is a member there.

Everyone is a hever (member, but can also mean ‘friend’). Biden is a member.

 

They have protection.

Whoever is a member, so they work with the courts so that nothing should be done to them.

 

He can steal, kill – whatever he wants.

 

(So now, everyone should go and become a member of the bonim chofshim…. Everyone.)

====

[Watch the first couple of minutes of this interesting video of our dear PM addressing congress back in 2011…. and how chummy he obviously is with the then VP….Joe Biden… who obviously ‘crosses’ himself as he’s being addressed. We are so used to ‘weird’ from Joe Biden, this probably no longer registers on the ‘weird’ scale. But it’s still weird.]

Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu Speech at the Joint Session of Congress – May 24, 2011

====

[Skipping quite a bit]

So now, we are asking everyone, that on the night of Nital (xmas eve), not to hang around on the streets, and to be careful….

Because now, the Hamas, in another little while, will already get to Jerusalem.

Because the plan was for the Hamas to get to Ashdod. This was the plan of the medina.

 

That by way of this, they would pull the ‘right’ down. Everything was planned.

 

They went through all the security teams, from all the kibbutzim, and took their weapons away from them.

 

They sent them [i.e. The army units usually stationed on the border] to Huwara, they sent them to here, they emptied out the whole army.[3]

====

And those that came, they didn’t give them guns.

They told them, we don’t have the key to the armoury….We need to do a list – to give out [the guns] according to the list.

 

And like this, they dragged it out for two days, three.

 

They only got to Kissufim on the fourth day, in the morning. And the earliest they got there was 10pm at night (i.e. Motzae Simchat Torah), after they’d already slaughtered a thousand young men and a thousand young women.

 

All this was planned.

====

Now, they publicised that everything was planned, down to the smallest exact details, which day, and everything.

Everything was exact. Everything was exact. It wasn’t ‘stam’ (happenstance). Everything was exact, with the greatest degree of precision.

 

Mamash, like it was by the [….], where everything was also done precisely.

 

That’s how they managed to get six million to ‘ascend’ on the fire.

 

And now, 1,500 went up on the fire, and 400 soldiers, just in order to reconquer the kibbutzim from the Hamas.

====

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Of Likutey Halachot, Orach Chaim, Part 3 – written by Rabbi Natan Sternhartz.

[2] See Pele Yoetz, letter zayin, ‘Zugot’ (couples).

[3] In a footnote to this comment in the Shivivei Or Newsletter, the editor explains that in a seperate shiur, the Rav spoke about how shlichim from Chabad went around to army bases in the South during Sukkot with arbeh minot to have soldiers shake the lulav, etc, and they found that there were hardly any soldiers on the bases.

====

PS: I just found THIS article on ‘Freemasonry Watch’…. very, very interesting.

 

The whole site is very interesting, but the article linked to above explains a lot of the stuff I’m also tripping over, from different angles, about who is really running our little patch of the world.

 

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https://www.jpost.com/

‘The goal was a massacre of Tel Aviv’: Hamas’s full plan for October 7 revealed

As the horrors of October 7 unfolded, Hamas sought to initiate a second stage to their attack, which would have seen attacks on Tel Aviv and Dimona.

By MAARIV ONLINE
MARCH 26, 2024 02:23 Updated: MARCH 26, 2024 07:48  https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793710<   In an interview with KAN to promote his new book, Ilan Kfir claimed that Hamas had an operative plan to reach the heart of Tel Aviv on October 7, but was ultimately thwarted. The veteran journalist published "Gaza Division Conquered," in March, the first book published in Hebrew about the October 7 massacre.

 

“Today the picture is much clearer than it was on October 7. Hamas was not satisfied with the phase one plan – but the test was if the phase one plan was successful, they would go on to phase two – and it was prepared with large forces ready on standby and prepared to set off at noon. At the heart of the plan was a breach in two areas, in the north as well as in the south and east, towards Dimona, which was singled out by the group as a very central target. The goal of the operation would have been a raid on Tel Aviv. They marked several focal points in the city that were expected to be crowded in the afternoon and evening in order to carry out a mass massacre in the city,” the author stated.

 

“Whoever from Hamas was planning to arrive in Tel Aviv and the north would have been forces with the mental willingness to commit suicide, because they knew they had no chance of returning from there. It was a plan that was formulated and in very advanced stages,” Kfir said.

 

Hamas sought to initiate second phase on October 7

“Towards noon on October 7, when Sinwar and his central command realized that they had achieved success above and beyond what was expected, an order was given to the forces of phase two to set off. Here, they encountered a big surprise because unlike in the morning – when the fence was broken and there was minimal IDF presence in the area – there was already an assessment and a huge influx of forces into the Nevatim area where a large blockade was carried out. There is no doubt that if Hamas had carried out its second phase, the trauma and disaster on October 7 would have been doubled.”

 

Kfir hypothesized that had “Sinwar believed that if an attack on Tel Aviv and Dimona were reported in the news, Hezbollah in the north and the other terrorist organizations in Judea and Samaria would also attack. This is a diabolical plan, and if it had succeeded, the reality would have been many times worse.”

 

He also said that “maps found with terrorists indicated that they intended to reach Kiryat Gat. After that, a plan was discovered by a certain force to attack Shikma Prison in Ashkelon and release terrorists. Another plan was to attack the Hatzerim air base. All this testified to Sinwar’s pretensions of carrying out something that had never before been done.”

 

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They left each kibbutz with just one gun

by Rivka Levy 19November2023   https://www.thinkforyourselfpublishing.com/they-left-each-kibbutz-with-just-one-gun/

Shavua Tov!

I am continuing to post up excerpts of the Rav’s recent shiurim from the last 3 weeks here.

They are giving way more info than you’ll find anywhere else, about what really happened here on October 7.

Here’s the latest excerpt.

====

Excerpt of shiur Thursday night, 27 Tishrey, to the ‘Mifal HaTorah’ – second shiur

Now [during the war] we need to say tehillim.

Bachorim are going, the young men who went out to save us allwere all killed. All those who went out to rescue us were killed.

The army didn’t even try to approach the area. The Kibbutz was full of terrorists, 1500 terrorists. In Be’eri, 500 terrorists. And in Kerem Shalom, 300 terrorists.

Three people (i.e. soldiers) stood against 300 [terrorists].

====

[Before this happened]

The State took away their guns.

After all, the […] are so stupid, they are such reshaim, they are such Amalekim – all the […], that three months before that Shabbat, they took away all the guns.

 

They took them!

They didn’t leave anything, just one gun per Kibbutz. One gun, with 50 bullets.

 

Now, a person has one gun, and 300 terrorists show up. So, he fires one bullet, two bullets, and they fire back at him…

Simply [the whole massacre on SimchaTorah happened because] there were no guns.

There were no guns!

====

OK, [so they asked] can we have guns?!

And they were told:

Wait a minute, we need more consultation.

 

But bring more guns, already – that’s how he asked the senior head of the police there. Can we distribute the guns? Can they be distributed, already?

 

He told [the authorities] we have already started distributing them.

[And the commander said] Wait a minute! We need to do this with yishuv ha’daat (a settled mind). We can’t just to this stam, like this. It’s not Shuvu Banim here, crazy people. Here, we are normal people.

====

They took away all the guns, from all the kibbutzim, and all the moshavs.

There are no guns.

They left a single gun to each whole kibbutz, with around 50 bullets. And now, 500 [terrorists] enter. In Be’eri, 500 terrorists came in.

 

It was impossible to approach [the kibbutz]. Whoever comes close, they immediately fire on them.

So, three soldiers decided to break through the machsomim (army checkpoints) – three soldiers!

====

All day long, they tell more stories, that three soldiers managed to get into one of the kibbutzim there, they stood at the gate, and they fired at the terrorists. They fired. And the terrorists fired back at them. And they fired back in return – until all the terrorists ran away.

Like this, they liquidated around 15 terrorists, and then the terrorists ran away.

The terrorists fired at them, but didn’t injure them. Until today, they don’t know why.

====

These [the three soldiers] decided  that they were going to enter [to save the kibbutz] – against the army, against the police.

The army didn’t give permission, because there are 500 terrorists there, what can you do, against 500 terrorists?!

 

It needs to come from the air, [the attack] needs to come from the moon, from Mars. We need to come with parachutes, wait! We need to plan it! We’ll come in another week…

In the meantime, another 1,000 young people were killed, another 1,000 children.

====

So, we need to know that these […] are Amalekim, mamash.

This is a reincarnation of Amalek.

And the Rabbi of Brisk said this, that ultimately, they will give everything to the Arabs.

Instead of blowing up Tehran, they will blow up Tel Aviv.

Because ‘you are robbers!’

What are you talking about?! Tel Aviv was built next to Yaffo!

[They will say] Yaffo belongs to the Arabs, Tel Aviv was [built] on the grounds of Yaffo.

So they will blow it up.

====

More and more of the first-hand stories are also coming out about what happened that day, from eyewitnesses.

Of course, not in our state-run propaganda news.

But if you go HERE, [https://www.october7.org/] you’ll find a site in English called Eyewitness and first-hand stories from the massacre in Israel, October 7.

It’s not snuff movies, God forbid, but it’s full of people (survivors) just telling their stories, including some videos and pictures they took of what was going on at the Super Nova party when they were hiding in bushes, or in the kibbutzim in their safe rooms.

For anyone who is interested in piecing together the truth, it’s a very valuable resource.

And for anyone dealing with anti-Semites trying to claim that the slaughter of innocent Jews is all ‘fake news’ – it’s also a very valuable resource.

====

There are hints coming out here that the hostage situation is about to be resolved, but not in the way most of us were praying for.

Remember, even when things are very painful, they are all being orchestrated from Above, for the greater good.

And this time, nobody is about to forgive and forget what has gone here.

Very soon, all the truth will come out – and those responsible will be unmasked.

May it happen very soon, before any more good Jews lose their lives, God forbid.

Amen.

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IDF had concrete intel of imminent invasion and did nothing

26February2024 | Ticker, Virtual Jerusalem, https://virtualjerusalem.com/idf-had-concrete-intel-of-imminent-invasion-and-did-nothing/

 

Army intel was notified that hundreds if not thousands of Hamas terrorists switched to Israeli SIM cards at midnight on October 7

Multiple media resources report what has been kept under strict censorship till now. IDF army intelligence was notified that the Gazan cellular SIM cards had been suddenly replaced with Israeli SIM cards, a clear indication along with all the other reports, that a surprise invasion was planned.

And yet, according to reports, nothing was done and the political leadership was not notified.

 

This latest evidence contributes to the existence of anti-democratic forces in the IDF, intelligence, and security services that intentionally did nothing despite clear evidence of abnormal terrorist activity. In no case, it appears, the political echelon was notified. All of this darkly suggests that there was a conspiracy within the IDF and other agencies to allow a lapse that would ruin forever Benjamin Netanyahu’s reputation as Mr. Security.

 

In recent days, an extremely well-funded ad campaign sought to blame all on Bibi, because he was the head. But it seems to be backfiring as Netanyahu oversees the military and diplomatic campaigns with inimitable clarity and courage.

Unraveling October 7: Accountability Beyond Political Blame

The aftermath of the October 7 catastrophe has unfurled a narrative steeped in blame and political finger-pointing, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at its center. However, a closer examination reveals a more complex and disconcerting reality. It has become increasingly evident that the true failure lies not with Netanyahu personally but with a breakdown in communication and perhaps intentional obfuscation by elements within the military intelligence, the internal security agency, and possibly the Air Force. This disturbing scenario suggests a deliberate attempt to undermine the political echelon, using a horrific national tragedy as leverage in the broader context of protest against judicial reform and replacement of a democratically elected government not to the liking of the insurrectionists.

 

The notion that sections of the military and security apparatus may have withheld critical information from the government, and Netanyahu specifically, points to a deep-seated and deep disturbing issue within Israel’s security and governance structures. Such actions, if proven true, represent not just a failure of protocol but a direct challenge to the democratic oversight of the military by the elected government. This is a grave concern that transcends political affiliations and calls into question the integrity of the institutions tasked with national defense. It must be investigated to the end, and violators punished accordingly.

The Urgent Need for Investigation and Reform

  1. Comprehensive Investigation: There must be a thorough and transparent investigation into the conduct of military intelligence, the internal security agency, and other relevant bodies leading up to and during the events of October 7. This investigation should aim to uncover the extent to which information was withheld and the motivations behind such decisions.
  2. Accountability Measures: Should the investigation reveal intentional acts of subversion against the government’s authority, severe consequences must follow. This includes not only legal action against individuals involved but also systemic reforms to prevent future occurrences.
  3. Oversight and Transparency: Enhancing the mechanisms for oversight of military and security agencies by civilian authorities is crucial. This might involve reforms in how intelligence is reported to the government, ensuring that no single entity or group within the military can unilaterally decide to withhold vital national security information.
  4. Public Discourse: The Israeli public deserves a candid discussion about the balance between military autonomy and democratic oversight. This conversation is essential for maintaining public trust in both the government and the military, particularly in times of crisis.

The events surrounding October 7 and their aftermath have underscored a critical vulnerability in Israel’s security and political framework. Addressing this issue requires a commitment to transparency, accountability, and reform. It is not about absolving Netanyahu of personal blame. It’s about safeguarding the democratic principles that underpin Israel’s governance.

 

As Israel navigates these challenges, the need for unity and commitment to the nation’s democratic integrity has never been greater. Blaming Netanyahu is just a cover for those who have no shame and limits to advance their subversive political agenda.

 

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Why Benny Gantz is very afraid of an ‘effective’ commission of inquiry


Yossi Baum-tweet-7January2024-Why Benny Gantz is very afraid of an *effective* commission of inquiry

מדוע בני גנץ חושש מאוד מוועדת חקירה *אפקטיבית*

מפני שוועדת חקירה כזו, עשויה לשאול אותו שאלות מביכות בכמה וכמה נושאים. הנה חלקם, על קצה המזלג:

1. כשר ביטחון אסף נשקים מכיתות הכוננות בעוטף עזה ובצפון. אלוף פיקוד הדרום באותה עת היה אלמוני בשם הרצי הלוי, אגב.

2. כשר ביטחון אישר הכנסת עשרות אלפי פועלים עזתים לישראל. בסבירות גבוהה חלקם לפחות העביר מידע חשוב לחמאס לקראת הטבח ב7 באוקטובר.

3. כשר ביטחון אישר לארה”ב העברת מאות אלפי פגזים מהרזרבות בישראל (שישראל ‘בונה’ עליהם בעת חירום) לאוקראינה, ללא הצטיידות מיידית בהתאם

4. כרמטכ”ל קיצץ מכוח הצבא 600 טנקים (האלוף בריק, ראו ציוצים קודמים)

5. עשויה להיבחן גם תזת ה”סיכנתי חיי חיילים בגולני מטעמים ‘מוסרים'” והשלכותיה על רוח הלחימה בצה”ל ועל יכולת ההרתעה.

6. מה הוא ידע על בלוני ולווייני התצפית של צה”ל המכוונים לעזה, שלא תוחזקו וממילא לא פעלו ביום הטבח.

7. בזמן כהונתו כרמטכ”ל הועברה טייסת מסוקי הקוברה של צה”ל לירדנים חינם אין כסף, בהוראת אובאמה. בדיוק מה שהיה חסר בשבת השחורה.

8. כמי שהעלים מהקבינט ב’צוק איתן’ את מצב המנהרות מעזה לישראל, מה עוד הוא ידע או לא ידע, על המנהרות שחמאס חופר בעזה?

9. מאחר ומרבית ההכנות לטבח נעשו בתקופתו כשר ביטחון, מה הוא ידע או לא – על הכנות אלו?

10. יתכן גם שהוועדה תרצה לברר כיצד ומדוע מינה כמה מגורמי המפתח שאחראים ישירות לטבח. כמו:

* אהרון חליוה, שגנץ אישר את מינויו לראש אמ”ן. חליוה גם סגר את יחידת ‘חצב’ שאוספת מודיעין ממקורות גלויים.

* הרצי הלוי, אין צורך להכביר במילים. גנץ עשוי להזדקק להסביר מה היה כה דחוף למנותו בממשלת מעבר.

* יתירה מכך, הוא גם יצטרך להסביר את פשר המסמך שאישר את “דחיפות” המינוי, מסמך שלא הוכן ע”י אמ”ן אלא ע”י פקיד שלו…

* גם אלופי פיקוד הדרום, אלעזר טולדנו וירון פינקלשטיין, שתחת פיקודם הכין חמאס את הטבח, מונו על ידו.

שורה תחתונה: הרבה הרבה חמאה על ראשו של גנץ. לא ייפלא, אם כן, שגנץ עשה מעשה שלא ייעשה,

כשבמקום לגנות את הרמטכ”ל שמינה בעצמו את הוועדה שתחקור אותו – הוא מגבה אותו, ותוקף את המגנים.

מקורות:

Because such an investigative committee may ask him embarrassing questions on several topics.
Here are some of them, at the tip of the fork:
1. As the Minister of Defense collected weapons from the standby units in the Gaza Envelope and in the north.
The commander of the Southern Command at that time was an unknown named Hertzi Halevi, by the way.2. As the Minister of Defense approved the bringing of tens of thousands of Gazan laborers to Israel.
It is highly probable that at least some of them passed important information to Hamas in preparation for the massacre on October 7.3. As the Minister of Defense, the US has approved the transfer of hundreds of thousands of shells
from the reserves in Israel (which Israel ‘builds‘ on during an emergency) to Ukraine, without immediate equipping accordingly.4. As Chief of Staff, he cut 600 tanks from the army (General Brik, see previous tweets)5. The thesis “I risked the lives of soldiers in the Golani for ‘moral’ reasons”
and its implications for the fighting spirit in the IDF and the ability to deter may also be examined.6. What did he know about the IDF’s observation balloons and satellites aimed at Gaza,
which were not maintained and in any case did not operate on the day of the massacre.7. During his tenure as Chief of Staff, the Cobra helicopter squadron of the IDF was
transferred to the Jordanians for free, no money, on Obama’s orders. Exactly what was missing on Black Saturday.8. As someone who revealed to the cabinet in ‘Tzuk Eitan’ the condition of the tunnels from Gaza to Israel,
what else did he know or not know about the tunnels that Hamas is digging in Gaza?9. Since most of the preparations for the massacre were made during his time as Minister of Defense,
what did he know or not – about these preparations?10. It is also possible that the committee would like to find out how and
why it appointed some of the key factors that are directly responsible for the massacre. same as:* Aharon Haliva, whom Gantz approved as head of the AMN. Haliva also closed the ‘Hatsev’ unit
that collects intelligence from open sources.* Harzi Halevi, there is no need to say much. Gantz may need to explain what was so urgent
about appointing him to a transitional government.* Moreover, he will also have to explain the meaning of the document that
confirmed the “urgency” of the appointment, a document that was not prepared by Amman but by his official…* The commanders of the Southern Command, Elazar Toledano and Yaron Finkelstein,
under whose command Hamas prepared the massacre, were also appointed by him.Bottom line: lots and lots of butter on Gantz’s head. It would not be surprising, then,
that Gantz did something that should not be done, when instead of condemning
the Chief of Staff who himself appointed the committee to investigate him – he backs him up, and attacks the defenders.Sources:
https://www.mako.co.il/news-military/2020_q3/Article-6e4c19c1a684471026.htm
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/news/527513/
https://mida.org.il/2023/11/30/
https://twitter.com/HmyMzh/status/1743740794576470087
https://www.telecomnews.co.il/
https://www.idf.il/
https://twitter.com/IsraelGaley/status/1693984298318323833

Yossi Baum-tweet-7January2024-Why Benny Gantz is very afraid of an effective commission of inquiry

Yossi Baum-tweet-7January2024-Why Benny Gantz is very afraid of an effective commission of inquiry

 

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Victory for Israel- Update # 1

1November2023 https://www.ribonut.co.il/BlogPostID.aspx?BlogPostId=838&lang=2

The chain of news reports in these days of war, require a few quick responses to some events, statements and headlines.

Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar

Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar

Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar


Jewish labor

In recent weeks, since the black Shabbat, we have learned that we must go back to Jewish labor. It will fortify us, keep us safe in the villages and cities and reduce our terrible dependence on hostile, foreign hands.

 

It has been proven beyond any doubt that the Arabs who worked in the Gaza envelope acquired and transferred such precise military and civilian information that the despicable murderers came with accurate lists of the members of every family and after breaking into their homes, if they knew that there was another child, they demanded to know where he was.

 

It is inconceivable for us to put ourselves into such a situation again. We must protect our people and our Land and keep this danger far from us. We should begin by training our sons and daughters for work in the fields, in construction, driving, medicine, pharmacy, cleaning, gardening, etc. For this, we must even now establish vocational colleges to train the youth for this work.

 

But primarily, we must instill in the young generation the great honor that has fallen to them to be those who build this Land with their own hands, we must make clear to them the value and importance of Jewish labor as it was since the early days of Zionism.

 

And now, in wartime, we must act to mobilize all yeshiva students and students in colleges and pre-military academies that are not already mobilized for military service, for the holy work of strengthening the Land and the state.

 

Zionism always championed Jewish labor, for paving roads and work in the orchards. It was and still is pure patriotism. Now, it is also the order of the hour!

Danino

Ariel Danino is held in administrative detention. Why? What is his sin? It is difficult to know.

As we know, there is no legal process for administrative detention, there is no need to present evidence or witnesses. The reasonable person is most likely convinced that of course, it is done to a person who was a danger to the state, and his sin is more severe because it was done during wartime, but it is we should all  know the truth:

 

Ariel Danino works for news site Hakol HaYehudi -“The Jewish Voice”; he collects information on dangerous activities of Arabs, conducts investigations to help the system take care of failures. Ariel warns of the enemy’s  activity in sabotage, which is sometimes carried out disguised as civil activity. He makes his voice heard every way he can and his cry is the painful cry of the entire people. Now, it is our turn to cry out for him. Release Ariel immediately! Those who arrested him  are confused!

Shaul Mofaz

Former Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz “is proud of the expulsion from Gush Katif”, so he says, and even adds an explanation. Mofaz is convinced that if the expulsion had not been carried out, the residents of Gush Katif would have been slaughtered like those in the Gaza Envelope. And because he indeed cares for them so much, he mobilized himself for the task of expelling them from their homes. So very touching.

 

Let’s take another small logical step. According to the Mofaz school of thought, all of the kibbutzim and farming communities of the Gaza Envelope should also be expelled, since if only they had not been there, they would not have been slaughtered in the Hamas terror attack on Simhat Torah. But this is not enough. Why stop with the communities of the Envelope? If we expel all the Jews from Jerusalem, there would not be any terror attacks in Jerusalem and maybe we should adopt the slogan, “No Jews, no terror attacks” according to this logic, where would Mr. Shaul Mofaz go?

 

Mr. Mofaz, as a security person who worked many years alongside the pioneers in Judea and Samaria, you should know exactly why Jews settled precisely in Gush Katif. Out of a pioneering spirit and willingness to serve as a security belt for the entire country, just as the residents of the Gaza Envelope do, who defend Jewish villages with their presence.

 

Even the ordinary citizen without a high military rank understands quite well that without holding onto the land, our security is abandoned, and the deeper and stronger this hold is, the stronger and more stable is our security. Since the Six Day War, Israel has been pursued a policy of withdrawals and uprooting again and again and the longer Israel behaves this way, the more she loses the safety and security of her citizens.

 

Here is inevitable conclusion: Abandoning parts of the Land of Israel to foreigners brings disasters upon us. The correction is to restore Israel’s control over Gaza first. And afterward, over all of Judea and Samaria.

Thanks to the Security Forces

We must give many thanks to the soldiers and all members of the security forces for endangering their lives for the survival of the People and the Land in all of its parts, in the North, the South and the Center.

 

In Judea and Samaria as well, they are doing wonderful and vigorous work that is so effective that until now, more than a thousand terrorists have been caught and arrested and about a hundred have been eliminated. Good job! To our fighters, our soldiers and commanders. May G-d bless you and bring you success.

Haim Ramon

Haim Ramon spoke out vigorously in an interview that he gave to Maariv, which was published last Sabbath eve: “A Covenant with Satan. On the altar of the dream to annex Judea and Samaria Netanyahu and the Right sold their souls to Hamas when they stopped all attempts to topple the  terror regime in the Gaza Strip”.

 

Let’s clarify things: The Right, which desires sovereignty, does not want the same terror authority in power that the Left brought from Tunisia to rule over Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The wise and alert Right knows well that there is no fundamental difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. They both desire to destroy Israel. One does it with clear language and hate-filled, murderous eyes and the other does it with a suit and tie and polished English, which deceives the entire world and even some of us, and because of this he is even more dangerous.

 

The fact that until now, the government of Israel has not found within itself the strength to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria is what brought about the endless disasters culminating in the events of Simhat Torah.

 

Let’s, just for a moment, imagine where road of terror ultimately leads. Let’s imagine giving up, G-d forbid, Judea and Samaria and going back to the 67 lines (Auschwitz borders, as the late Abba Evan called them). Is there any reasonable person who thinks that our security situation would have been better? Will the Palestinian covenant, which calls for the destruction of Israel and establishing a Palestinian state from the River to the Sea, ever change? Would they give up Jaffa, Acre, Ramla and Lod?

 

Enough of this delusion! If we do not open our eyes now, we will very quickly find that the next murderous pogroms are already on the way G-d forbid.

Concluding Words

Thank G-d, most of the people in Israel are mentally and emotionally healthy, our soldiers are healthy in mind and spirit. They understand well the overt tendency of the Arabs, they see what they are capable of inflicting upon us. We have already learned that in the Middle East, it is dangerous to speak “European”. We must speak the language of the Bible. “To you I will give this Land!”

 

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JerusalemCats Comments: Israel like Russia needs to “Sanction Proof” it’s economy from the G7 and work with the BRICS Countries like India

Israeli MKs discuss overcoming US ‘settler’ sanctions

“We’re talking about simple families that work in agriculture. We must defend their right to live,” Likud lawmaker Amit Halevi told JNS.

https://www.jns.org/israeli-mks-discuss-overcoming-us-settler-sanctions/

 

(February 15, 2024 / JNS) Israeli lawmaker Amit Halevi (Likud) summoned an urgent meeting of the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee on Wednesday to explore ways Jerusalem can come to the aid of citizens who face international sanctions.

 

On Feb 1., U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order sanctioning “persons undermining peace, security and stability” in Judea and Samaria, citing “high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages and property destruction.”<

 

The White House named four Israelis as the targets of sanctions: Yinon Levi of Meitarim Farm; David Chai Chasdai of Givat Ronen; Einan Tanjil of Kiryat Ekron; and Shalom Zicherman of Mitzpe Yair.

 

Biden’s “unacceptable” decision to levy sanctions was “not only unfriendly, but also unfair,” Halevi told JNS, noting that Israel takes “very strong—maybe more than needed” action against lawbreakers, “especially against the settlers in Judea and Samaria, unfortunately.”

 

Of the four, only Chasdai has ever run afoul of Israeli authorities. In 2023, he was sentenced to four months of administrative detention following his alleged participation in a riot in the Samaria town of Huwara.

 

However, fearing being cut off from the U.S. financial system, several Israeli banks have moved to proactively freeze the accounts of some of the sanctioned individuals, as well as their spouses.

 

“At the end of the day, it is a diplomatic [matter],” Tali Keisar, deputy supervisor of banks at the Bank of Israel, told lawmakers on Wednesday. “The Israeli banking system cannot be perceived as circumventing sanctions. This would harm the market and the economy.”

 

The committee meeting, which was also attended by representatives of the state, banks and the families harmed by the sanctions, focused on finding a solution.

 

“If the issue cannot be solved through political channels and if the regulator, the Bank of Israel, does not put out clear instructions, we suggest a new law. In these cases—when there are sanctions of foreign state of Israeli citizens— we must back those citizens,” said Halevi.

 

“Even according to the Biden presidential instruction, it’s not [required] that the Levi family, for example, should die of starvation,” he continued.

 

Sapir Levi told the committee that the family has been unable to purchase groceries and diapers for their children since Bank Leumi blocked a joint account with her husband earlier this month.

 

“We’re not talking about sanctions against businessmen that have billions, like [Roman] Abramovich, because he did business with Russia; we’re talking about simple families that work in agriculture. We must defend their right to live,” said Halevi.

 

One of the options suggested by coalition lawmakers entails the government providing affected families with an open-ended loan for the duration of the sanctions against them.

 

Halevi noted that Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have, since the start of the war with Hamas, often urged Israel to take into account the rights of “uninvolved” civilians in Gaza.

 

“Let’s leave the question of whether Gazans are really not involved; this is another issue. But what about this principle?” charged Halevi.

 

During Wednesday’s summit, Committee chairman David Bitan and Moshe Passal, both of the ruling Likud Party, warned that “tomorrow,” Biden could decide to impose sanctions on all 500,000-plus Jews in Judea and Samaria, or on all Israeli soldiers who enter Rafah in Gaza.

 

On Tuesday, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman blasted the Biden administration’s sanctions of Jews in Judea and Samaria as a “disgrace” that could potentially apply to anyone who opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.

 

“So anyone who the State Department feels is hostile to creating a Palestinian terror state could wake up one morning and find his funds frozen at his local bank!” Friedman tweeted.

 

“Not only is this an unlawful interference in another nation’s internal politics (and a key ally to boot!) but it illegally punishes Israelis for exercising their free speech,” the ambassador claimed, calling the move a “remarkable betrayal” of the Jewish state.

 

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Honenu to defend Israelis sanctioned by US administration

Honenu announced that its attorneys had sent a “warning letter” to the Bank of Israel demanding that the Israelis’ bank accounts be unfrozen.

https://www.jns.org/honenu-to-defend-israelis-sanctioned-by-us-administration/

 

(February 15, 2024 / JNS) The Honenu lawyer’s collective, which represents Israelis sanctioned by the Biden administration for “undermining peace” in Judea and Samaria, on Tuesday filed a complaint with local regulatory authorities as the first step in a legal battle aimed at having the sanctions removed.

 

Honenu retained Dr. J. Weinroth & Co. Law Office, which has also defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the past, to represent “the heroic farmers who are suddenly forced to think about how to transfer 100 shekels to the babysitter or how to get gas,” the group said.

 

Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order targeting “persons undermining peace, security and stability” in Judea and Samaria, citing “high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages and property destruction.”

 

The White House named four Israeli Jews as the targets of sanctions: Yinon Levi of Meitarim Farm; David Chai Chasdai of Givat Ronen; Einan Tanjil of Kiryat Ekron; and Shalom Zicherman of Mitzpe Yair.

 

Faced with the prospect of being cut off from the U.S. monetary system, Bank Leumi—Israel’s largest bank—subsequently informed Levi that his accounts would be suspended. Chasdai had his account at the state-owned Postal Bank frozen, while reports indicated that Tanjil’s and Zicherman’s accounts at Bank Hapoalim would follow shortly.

 

On Wednesday, Honenu announced that its attorneys had sent a “warning letter” to the Bank of Israel on behalf of the four families, demanding that the supervisor order the three financial institutions to “immediately remove all restrictions that were imposed on the bank accounts of the farmers.”

 

In the letter, Honenu stressed that Israeli banks have discretionary powers in individual cases and must examine the “unique and particular circumstances” of their customers before acting upon sanctions imposed by foreign countries.

 

Honenu vowed to “stand alongside these heroes who were hurt by the visceral hatred for the settlement” of Judea and Samaria.

 

“Our appeal to the supervisor is the first action within the framework of the legal procedures that we intend to take, as long as the cardinal damage is not rectified,” the organization said.

 

On Tuesday, attorney Marc Zell announced he would be filing a lawsuit against the U.S. government, the Department of Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State.

 

The suit will challenge the legality of Biden’s executive order, which was issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the National Emergencies Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act.

 

The suit is currently being drafted, and is expected to be filed within a couple of weeks. Zell is currently speaking to any potential plaintiffs.

 

Also this week, Israeli lawmaker Amit Halevi summoned a meeting of the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee on Wednesday to explore ways Jerusalem can come to the aid of citizens who face sanctions.

 

“If the issue cannot be solved through political channels and if the regulator, the Bank of Israel, does not put out clear instructions, we suggest a new law. In these cases—when there are sanctions of foreign states of Israeli citizens—we must back those citizens,” Halevi told JNS.

 

One of the options suggested by coalition lawmakers during the committee meeting on Wednesday entails the Israeli government providing an open-ended loan to affected families.

 

“We’re not talking about sanctions against businessmen that have billions, like [Roman] Abramovich, because he did business with Russia; we’re talking about simple families that work in agriculture. We must defend their right to live,” said Halevi.

 

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Biden sanctioning Itamar Ben Gvir


Caroline Glick-tweet-26February2024-Biden sanctioning Itamar Ben Gvir
The Biden administration is telling the media that it is considering sanctioning Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. They keep this up they will have no influence on Israel whatsoever.
kann_news-tweet-25February2024-

בממשל האמריקני בוחנים להטיל סבב סנקציות נוסף על ישראלים המעורבים, לטענתם, באלימות כלפי פלסטינים – כולל השר בן גביר או גורמים בעוצמה יהודית |

@AmichaiStein1 עם הפרטים

#חדשותהערב

Translated from Hebrew by

The American administration is considering imposing another round of sanctions on Israelis who, according to them, are involved in violence against Palestinians – including minister Ben Gabir or elements of Otzma Yehudit | @AmichaiStein1 with the details
#חדשותהערב

Caroline Glick-tweet-26February2024-Biden sanctioning Itamar Ben Gvir

Caroline Glick-tweet-26February2024-Biden sanctioning Itamar Ben Gvir

 

 

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JerusalemCats Comments: Israel needs to copy what Russia did against the US Sanctions especially with Banking before it is to late. To Paraphrase German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller. “First they came for the “Settlers”, Then they came for the “Rightist”, Then they came for You.”
The Bank of Israel and the Banking regulators need to copy what the Russian Banking System did under sanctions and isolate the Israeli Banks from US Sanctions. Israel needs to require all Credit Card Processing be done in Israel; Israel needs to find an alternative to SWIFT, Israel need to get its Foreign Currency Reserve Exchange Account out of the U.S. The Bank of Israel and the Knesset need to change the regulations and the laws so that Banks cannot freeze Accounts because of US Sanctions. Israel needs to use a 3rd Country such as India to Process Dollar Transactions, Checks from the US. Join BRICS

Biden sanctions Israeli Iron Dome Company


David M Friedman-tweet-28February2024-Biden sanctions Israeli Iron Dome Company
This may be the dumbest move yet by the Biden Administration — sanctioning an Israeli company which is the only manufacturer of a key component of Iron Dome. Who needs BDS when antisemites have the US State Department?!!!

David M Friedman-tweet-28February2024-Biden sanctions Israeli Iron Dome Company

David M Friedman-tweet-28February2024-Biden sanctions Israeli Iron Dome Company

 

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The congressional reaction to Biden’s sanctions of Israel

February 29, 2024

https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-colleagues-to-biden-rescind-directives-punishing-undermining-israelis

Cotton, Colleagues to Biden: Rescind Directives Punishing, Undermining Israelis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Caroline Tabler or Patrick McCann (202) 224-2353
February 29, 2024

Cotton, Colleagues to Biden: Rescind Directives Punishing, Undermining Israelis

Washington, D.C. — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), along with Senators Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), Ted Budd (R-North Carolina), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Bill Hagerty (R-Tennessee), Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), Rick Scott (R-Florida), Katie Britt (R-Alabama), and Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska), today sent a letter to President Biden urging him to rescind his February 1 executive order and February 8 memo that are intended to undermine Israel.

In part, the senators wrote:

“Your February 1 EO grants the State Department broad authority to arbitrarily punish Israelis in Judea and Samaria, with no defined standards for determining when sanctions are warranted. Under the guise of ‘peace, security, or stability of the West Bank,’ it appears the State Department can punish arbitrarily any Israeli it wants. Yet, the State Department hasn’t acted against the Palestinian Authority, which makes ‘pay to slay’ payments to terrorists for murdering innocent Israeli families.”

Full text of the letter may be found here and below.

February 29, 2024

President Joseph R. Biden

The White House,

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20502

President Biden,

We write regarding your February 1, 2024 Executive Order 14115 and February 8, 2024 National Security Memorandum 20 undermining Israeli operations against Hamas in Gaza. Both documents undercut our most valuable alliance in the Middle East. We call on you to rescind both documents and to sanction terrorists and their supporters instead of their victims.

Your February 1 EO grants the State Department broad authority to arbitrarily punish Israelis in Judea and Samaria, with no defined standards for determining when sanctions are warranted. Under the guise of “peace, security, or stability of the West Bank,” it appears the State Department can punish arbitrarily any Israeli it wants. Yet, the State Department hasn’t acted against the Palestinian Authority, which makes “pay to slay” payments to terrorists for murdering innocent Israeli families. Nor has the State Department taken significant action to counter the surge in Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank, which increased by 350 percent in 2023, including 300 shooting attacks.

Your February 8 memorandum similarly—and falsely—implies that Israel is committing mass war crimes in its campaign against Hamas and threatens to cut off aid unless Israel meets arbitrary deadlines for providing “assurances” regarding international humanitarian law. Yet, we already have rules requiring aid recipients to comply with applicable law and in line with American interests. Moreover, Israel has provided ample evidence of the steps it takes to avoid civilian casualties, which Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council, John Kirby, acknowledged publicly.

You should immediately rescind both your February 1 order and February 8 memorandum. Further, please provide Congress no later than March 15 with a full explanation of what evidentiary basis and processes are intended to be employed when choosing to sanction Israelis while ignoring the serious crimes committed by the Palestinian Authority.

We appreciate your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

 

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Biden is throwing the Jewish state under the bus


Caroline Glick-tweet-6March2024-Biden is throwing the Jewish state under the bus
It’s official. Biden is throwing the Jewish state under the bus and going all in with the jihadist murderers and rapists.
RNC Research-tweet-5March2024-There’s gotta be a ceasefire because Ramadan
BIDEN: “There’s gotta be a ceasefire because Ramadan — if we get into a circumstance where this continues through Ramadan, Israel and Jerusalem, then you got — it could be very, very dangerous.”

Caroline Glick-tweet-6March2024-Biden is throwing the Jewish state under the bus

Caroline Glick-tweet-6March2024-Biden is throwing the Jewish state under the bus

 



Shelley G-tweet-15March2024-US Stalling Munitions Shipments
🚨US Stalling Munitions Shipments as Full Blown Conflict with Hezbollah, Rafah Offensive Looms🚨

Israeli officials say the US has stalled aid, which U.S. officials deny, as evidence the relationship between the two allies is growing increasingly strained.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/senior-israeli-official-us-slow-walking-aid-us-disputes/story?id=108107192

Shelley G-tweet-15March2024-US Stalling Munitions Shipments

Shelley G-tweet-15March2024-US Stalling Munitions Shipments

 

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The US and the UK cannot be trusted.

 

By Ted Belman  5November2023  https://www.israpundit.org/the-us-and-the-uk-cannot-be-trusted/

Israel owes its existence, not to Britain nor the US, but to Stalin.

Alex Markovsky wrote in For Israel, Failures Never Learned and Lessons for Today

“In 1947, Arab countries rejected a UN plan to partition the British mandate in Palestine into two states. Armed with British weaponry and guided by British officers, Arabs were convinced they could claim the entire territory by military triumph. If not for comrade Stalin, who supplied the Jews with weapons via Czechoslovakia and dispatched hundreds of seasoned Soviet officers and generals of Jewish heritage to Palestine, all of whom played a pivotal role in the formation, organization, and leadership of the Israeli army, including the air force, Israel would not exist.”

This support was short-lived but enough to get Israel through the War for Independence.

Neither the British Foreign Office nor the US State Department expected Israel to be victorious. Britain for its part, prevented Jewish immigration after WWII and did its utmost to confiscate all guns in the possession of the Irgun and other resistance groups and turned over all such weapons and her police stations to the Arabs when she departed. The US did its part by placing an arms embargo on Israel which was instituted before the war and lasted til the ‘67 War. Both expected Israel to lose and saw their interests as aligning with the Arabs and their oil.

 

In The 100 Year Betrayal of Israel by the West, I listed most of the betrayals, by Britain and the US, of which there were many, but did not go into their motivations.

 

The primary reason Britain published the Balfour Declaration was to influence American Jews to get the US to enter the war and Soviet Jews to keep Russia in the war.

 

After the end of WWI, Britain recalibrated her interests and came down decidedly on the sides of the Arabs as the above article attests.

 

Britain created the Mandate system in order to maintain her influence in the Middle East without being considered as a colonizer which was going out of style. In her role as Trustee under the Mandate she violated her duty to the Jews, the beneficiary, in every way possible. It is for this reason that Jewish resistance did its utmost after WWII to end the Mandate.

 

In The West should make amends to the Jewish people for this historical injustice. I highlighted how Britain put pre-state Israel at a disadvantage by actively preventing Jewish immigration.

 

This article highlights the fact that after WWII, Britain embraced ethnic homogenization in redrawing Europe’s borders and partitioning India as the path to peace. Der Spiegel reported;

“The centre-piece of this programme was an attempt to achieve the ethnic homogenization of the state, to ensure as close a match as possible between its ethnic and political borders.”

But she did the opposite in Palestine.

“But there was no attempt to move Muslims. Just the opposite. The United Nations created UNRWA to preserve the status of the “refugees” as it newly defined them. The rest as they say is history.”

Even the UNGA Res 181, passed in 1947, called the Partition Plan, was in violation of the Mandate which designated all the land for the Jewish homeland.

Though Britain ended the Mandate by leaving, she was hoping to return. Geoffrey Clarfield, explained, in a CIJR webinar, about the British Plan to Conquer the Jewish State in the 1950’s.

“Britain had led and financed the Arab Legion, which was managed by active British officers, in 1948 which allowed Jordan to conquer East Jerusalem and occupy Judea and Samaria. Britain begrudgingly recognized the state of Israel, exchanged ambassadors but was clearly on the side of the Arab League.”

 

“Thereafter Britain developed a secret military plan JOI 27 under the pretext of acting on its defence pact with Jordan to attack the Israel air force by air, wipe it out and send in ground-troops to consolidate the destruction of the seven year old or eight year old Jewish state.”

In The Failed British Double-Cross of Israel, Edward N. Luttwak expanded on this.

“…the British … were determined to remain in Palestine, contrary to their representations to the Jewish leaders and the U.N. In fact, they had worked out an operational plan to do exactly that: would plead for British protection, thereby ensuring the prolongation of British rule.

 

“Two bundles of heretofore overlooked documents prove that Avraham Stern was right in not trusting British declarations that they would end the Mandate and allow the Jews to establish a state, even within the shrunken borders envisioned by the U.N.

 

“First, there are the “Operation Cordage” documents, which envisaged a terrorist attack on Israel that would provoke Israeli retaliation against the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The Israeli response would allow Britain to activate its commitment to defend the Hashemite Kingdom under the 1946 Treaty of London. This would provide the excuse for the British to launch all-out air attacks by the Royal Air Force from its Cyprus base and by the Fleet Air Arm from carriers, in order to destroy all Israeli air force and army bases, headquarters, and depots. “

Operation-Cordage

Operation-Cordage

“The other set of documents describes the U.S.-U.K. Plan Alpha worked out in 1955 by Francis Russell of the U.S. State Department and the leading Arabist of the British Foreign Office, Evelyn Shuckburgh (who would suffer acute stomach pains whenever forced to concede a very rare audience to Israel’s ambassador). Presented by Prime Minister Anthony Eden in his November 1955 Guildhall speech, Alpha would detach the Negev—yes always the Negev—from Israel to give it to Egypt—which was still then, if not for long, “British Egypt,” complete with army and air force Canal-side bases, garrisoned by 70,000 British troops.

U.S.-U.K. Plan Alpha

U.S.-U.K. Plan Alpha

This document is dated Aug 2, 1955. The full documents are available on TABLET.

On July 26, 1955 Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and that changed everything.

Clarfield writes:

“Britain strengthened its diplomatic and military promises to Jordan, all on the assumption that it would help them in their secret plan to reconquer Israel.

“As one of the reports put it:

 “The Committee agreed that …it was important to keep Jordan cooperative at least until the situation in the Middle East subsequent to the Suez canal problem being solved, was clear.

“Simply understood this meant keep the alliance with Jordan strong, promise them the moon, invade Egypt, bring Nasser to his knees and then destroy the Jewish state by waiting for them to respond to the periodic cross border terrorist attacks from Jordanian territory that had been going on and off since 1948.”

“Almost at the same time that these plans were being developed the British Cabinet and the British High Command were also cooking up their plan to invade Egypt, destroy Nasser and reassert their power over the Suez Canal as Nasser had nationalized it. This plan never changed its name and was called Operation Musketeer.

“Whether they named it that because they wanted to go in with the French, the plan finally included the Israelis at the request of the French as the Israelis were receiving or about to receive Mystere Jets from France, as the Americans and the British refused to sell Israeli fighter jets.

“Throughout the planning and implementation stages of Musketeer a never changing priority was British bombing of Egyptian airfields in the Suez canal. This was so central to their battle strategy that they believed British and French ground troops would only intervene when the Egyptians totally lost their air power.

“The British very much insisted that the French do not sell Israel jets at this time. Musketeer in the early days never allowed for the remote possibility of Israeli participation but the French soon changed that.

“What the British feared was an Israeli attack on Jordan when France and Britain were to be tied up in Suez. The British high command spun many scenarios about what these Israelis might or might not do and what would be the appropriate British response.

“Eden would only go in with three Musketeers if he was promised that the British imagined Israeli invasion of Jordan would not happen and, the Israelis had to promise the British and French that this would not happen.”

Ben Gurion promised and the invasion of Egypt by Britain, France and Israel, began on Oct 29. 1956 and the invasion of Israel was shelved.

 

All for naught as Eisenhower sent them packing.

In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization was formed to liberate Palestine through armed struggle. But it took years for the notion of a Palestinian people to crystalize. In 1967, they were not recognized as such, nor were they considered a party to the conflict. Security Council Resolution 242 passed after the ’67 war, made no mention of them.

 

Since when did the Palestinians become entitled to a state? traces the role of all US administrations in creating a Palestinian state for a non-existing people. In 1982, the US went so far as to save Arafat and his 40,000 terrorists from certain destruction in Beirut and ferry then to Tunisia for safe keeping. Pres Clinton made certain that Arafat and his gang of terrorists were accepted into Israel as part of the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords have been trouble for Israel ever since.

You might ask yourself, why in the world would the US do that? Why indeed.

Starting with the Rogers Plan of 1969, the US has been at the forefront of creating a Palestinians state and no amount of Black Septembers, plane high jackings, Munich Massacres and terrorizinhg lebanon and Israel from Southern Lebanon detered them. Then after Oslo, no amount of intifadas could likewise deter the them.

How do you explain that?

Similarly, the US is ignoring the support extended to Hamas by the PA. The PA and Iran, it seems can do no wrong.

Fast forward to today. Is the US for Israel or agin it?

Apparently, the US is still working to ensure the creation of a Palestinian state.

Blinken recently advised the Senate

“At some point, what would make the most sense would be for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza,”

To date, the Biden administration has supported Israel’s right of self-defense providing it is exercised in compliance with International law.

At the same time it has insisted that Israel:

Allow humanitarian assistance to enter Israel from Egypt, currently in excess of 100 trucks per day,
Restore the internet to Gaza.
Restore the flow of water into Gaza.
Refrain from arming its own citizens
Allow for a pause in the fighting which Israel has so far rejected.

With every demand the Biden administration imposes on Israel, it makes it more difficult to achieve victory and ensures more Israeli lives will be lost in doing so.

The reason Israel is so compliant is because she is dependent on US resupply of munitions and the US is controlling the resupply to make certain that Israel remains dependant on her.

The only reason the US is letting Israel crush Hamas is because she wants to instal the PA as ruler in Gaza and thereby usher in the two-state solution.

On October 20th , Caroline Glick wrote:

“In nearly every statement and speech U.S. President Joe Biden gave during his brief sojourn in Tel Aviv, he insisted that Hamas does not represent the Palestinians and that the Palestinian Authority is their true representative. The P.A., the president insisted, does not share Hamas’s goal of eradicating the Jewish state and the Jewish people. Biden foresees a future where the P.A. is in charge of the Gaza Strip, and Israel agrees to a Palestinian state in Gaza, as well as in Judea and Samaria.”

This will never happen. Israel is not shedding its blood in order to install the PA in Gaza.

Martin Sherman put it best in Gaza: The tragically belated death of a “conception”

“Clearly, the only way Israel can ensure who governs Gaza is to govern it itself. Moreover, the only way Israel can govern Gaza without imposing its rule on “another people”, is to remove that “other people” from the confines of Gaza, over which it is obligated to rule. Up until October 7th, it was possible to conceive of this being conducted in a non-coercive manner by economically induced emigration. Lamentably, that possibility has been overtaken by events. Now, such an exodus must be implemented coercively and rapidly.”

And he is not alone in thinking so. Jewish communities around the world call for Jews to settle Gaza and Amb. Friedman: No to 2-states; Yes to Israeli Sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and Make Gaza Israel again

 

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JewishPress-Logo

Biden, Democrats Turning from Israel’s Allies to Adversaries

By David Israel – 6 Kislev 5784 – November 19, 2023 https://www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/biden-democrats-turning-from-israels-allies-to-adversaries/2023/11/19/

SEE: US embargo of Israel during Protective Edge was total

Politico reported on Saturday that “Democrats’ unequivocal support for Israel’s military has been eroding in recent weeks,” beyond the familiar anti-Israeli position of the progressives in the House. Citing one Democratic Senator and one Congress Member, Politico revealed that “Democrats in the House and Senate are discussing how to create conditions for future military aid to Israel.”

 

Politico reported in a separate story (Biden orders top aides to prepare reprimands for violent Israeli settlers in West Bank) that “President Joe Biden directed top officials to prepare visa bans and sanctions for extremist Israeli settlers attacking and displacing Palestinians in the West Bank.”

 

The Cabinet memo circulated on Friday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday, ordered them “to develop policy options for expeditious action against those responsible for the conduct of violence in the West Bank.”

 

Shortly after the Hamas attack, the Israeli government imposed a closure on the Palestinian Authority and barred entry for its residents, which included more than 100,000 Arab day workers. The decision also affected tens of thousands of PA Arabs with US citizenship. There’s no telling how many of them are Hamas sympathizers, nor does anyone in Israel have the time and resources to find out. It’s war, and you don’t take chances.

 

For that, Biden wants Israel to be punished.

According to Politico (Democrats in Senate, House discuss conditioning military aid to Israel), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) hosted a lunch on Wednesday for Senate Democrats where Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, shared with them his take on the war in Gaza. Tom Friedman and Dennis Ross were in the meeting as well.

BERNIE ON THE WARPATH

On Sunday morning, Sanders tweeted: “The Netanyahu government, or hopefully a new Israeli government, must understand that not one penny will be coming to Israel from the US unless there is a fundamental change in their military and political positions.”

 

Sanders released a memo titled, “Sanders Calls for Conditioning Aid to Israel Amidst the Growing Crisis in Gaza and the West Bank.” He acknowledged that “Hamas has made clear, before and after October 7, that its goal is to destroy Israel. Under those circumstances, Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself.”

And then launched into the following tirade:

“While Israel has the right to go after Hamas, Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government does not have the right to wage almost total warfare against the Palestinian people. That is morally unacceptable and in violation of international law. Displacing 1.6 million people from their homes, cutting off food, water, medical supplies, and fuel, and killing some 12,000 Palestinians – nearly half of whom are children – is in violation of every code of human decency. It must stop.”

 

The good Senator did not offer a solution to how exactly should Israel go after Hamas while not harming civilians in Gaza when Hamas surrounds itself with civilian human shields. He doesn’t offer a solution because he couldn’t care less.

 

In the past, we tended to belittle the influence Senator Sanders had on the more grownup Democrats who stood firmly in Israel’s corner, except, of course, when it came to the Iranian atomic program and the 2-state solution. But these days, the Sanders virus is spreading.

$14.3 HERE, $14.3 THERE ADDS UP TO SERIOUS MONEY

The Republican Jewish Coalition last week released this statement: “Democrat Senators – including Jacky Rosen (NV), Bob Casey (PA), Jon Tester (MT), Tammy Baldwin (WI), and Sherrod Brown (OH) – denied Israel the support it desperately needs at this perilous time. The Jewish community and pro-Israel supporters across the country expect moral clarity and righteous leadership from their elected officials – today, Senate Democrats failed.”

 

Clarification: the Democrats in the Senate blocked a rather haphazard move of House Speaker Mike Johnson to take $14.3 out of the IRS budget and award it to Israel. The calculated cost of this move was around $28 billion in uncollected IRS debt. It wasn’t a good bill, it was mostly for show, and it was dead on arrival. But the swift readiness of the Democrats to kill it, instead of negotiating an alternative extra-budgetary support to Israel, is telling.

HELPING HAMAS REEMERGE FROM HELL

The Sanders memo continued: “The US provides $3.8 billion a year in aid to Israel and the Biden administration wants $14.3 billion more (it doesn’t – DI). The Netanyahu government, or hopefully a new Israeli government, must understand that not one penny will be coming to Israel from the US unless there is a fundamental change in their military and political positions.”

 

Sanders repeats at every opportunity his wish that the Netanyahu government be toppled. One can only hope that the Biden government comes down first.

 

In any event, here are Sanders’s conditions, and, remember, this time around these anti-Israel ideas are shared by a growing number of Democrats in both houses:

  • An end to the indiscriminate bombing which has taken thousands of civilian lives and a significant pause in military operations so that massive humanitarian assistance can come into the region. This, in reality, means that Israel must lose the war on Hamas to qualify for continued US aid through 2028 (and who knows what happens then).
  • The right of displaced Gazans to return to their homes. What homes? There are very few upright-standing buildings in Gaza City. For the displaced Gazans to return home would require a massive investment of tens of billions of dollars, which is not currently forthcoming.
  • No long-term Israeli re-occupation or blockade of Gaza. Or, more simply put, an opportunity for Hamas to recuperate and resume its holy war to annihilate every living Jew (including Bernie Sanders).
  • An end to settler violence in the West Bank and a freeze on settlement expansion. Without, of course, an end to the repeated attempts by Arab terrorists to murder Jews in Judea and Samaria – the count stands at 38 since January 2023.
  • A commitment to broad peace talks for a two-state solution in the wake of the war. Or, let’s apply once more the plan that has been drowned in blood by Jew-hating Arabs since 1936. And it’s such a sensible plan, too. Let the two nations live in two separate countries. The only part not considered is the Arabs’ unrepressed need to kill Jews. Such a pity.

I don’t envy Bibi Netanyahu this week (or any other week). He is facing a well-financed, well-organized “free the hostages at any cost” movement at home aimed at jeopardizing the war on evil; and another unyielding coalition of Democrats, starting with President Biden and going who knows how deep into the ranks of Democrats on the Hill, also aimed at jeopardizing the war on evil.

Please, God, don’t let evil win.

 

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gellerreport-com-logo-Pamela-Geller is the founder, editor and publisher of The Geller Report and President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).

Biden Regime Refuses Israeli Request for Vital Apache Attack Helicopters

By Pamela Geller – on 26December2023 https://gellerreport.com/2023/12/biden-regime-refuses-israeli-request-for-vital-apache-attack-helicopters.html/

 

Israel is on the front lines of the global jihad. She is the thin blue line that keeps jihadi terror at bay against the West. Look at how Islamic terror proxies are turning major cities in the West (USA and Europe) into war zones. Denying Israel cripples the West’s war in defense of freedom and Western civilization. This will come back to bite us – in spades.

US rejects Israeli request for vital Apache attack helicopters

The IAF currently has only two squadrons of the vitally-needed air asset, and they are being flown around the clock to support troops in the field.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
https://worldisraelnews.com/biden-admin-rejects-israeli-request-for-apache-helicopters/

 

The United States has rejected an Israeli request for Apache attack helicopters to help its forces fight Hamas during the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, but the answer may not be final, Ynet reported Tuesday.

 

The IDF asked the Pentagon if it could purchase the choppers a few weeks ago, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also pressed his American counterpart, Lloyd Austin, for them, when the Secretary of Defense visited Israel last week, said the news site.

 

“Security sources” told Ynet that Israel is not taking “no” for an answer and that the Americans have not put a decisive kibosh on the acquisition.

 

The IAF currently has only 48 of these aircraft, which are being flown around the clock to support troops in Gaza and conduct airstrikes to deter Hezbollah terrorists in the north. They are so vitally needed that overage pilots in their fifties have been called out of retirement to fly combat missions so that the regular pilots and active reservists can rest a little more.

 

There is one squadron each of the AH-64A and D varieties, which have already been decommissioned in the U.S. as their Boeing manufacturer has gone on to produce the faster, stronger, AH-64E that has improved avionics, radar and other systems. The IAF has mulled for years whether to invest in the E version or wait for an even more advanced attack helicopter that won’t be on sale until the early 2030s.

 

The decision to go with 20 of the currently available Apache E’s was reportedly made in May, but none had yet been ordered. At the time, the idea was not to add another squadron but replace the oldest aircraft, for which it is very difficult to find spare parts anymore. Considering current circumstances, the phase-out may be drawn out over a longer period of time.

 

Israel is a specialist in upgrading its air fleet, both jets and helicopters, considering their steep cost. It has overhauled its Apaches over their decades of service with new radar and other systems. At least a quarter of its fleet also now boasts the most advanced, Spike precision missile system, designed by leading Israeli defense company Rafael. This system allows the pilot to fire at targets up to 30 kilometers away.

 

The war has proven that the IDF cannot simply rely on its large fleet of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles, which had taken over much of the surveillance and even operational support duties in recent years that helicopters had done in the past.

 

As a squadron commander explained to Israel Hayom in an interview early this year, long before the October 7 Hamas invasion that set off the current conflict, “There is a big difference when there is a combat soldier in the cockpit, and many times the soldier is needed, certainly the more complex the plan, when the weather is more challenging, when the fighting is more complicated, and you have to assist closely… and understand exactly what is required of you and what the mission is.”

 

The U.S. has been diligent in providing Israel with tens of thousands of other armaments since the start of the war on October 7, such as artillery shells, ammunition, guided missiles, spare parts, and even aircraft. The White House also circumvented Congress earlier this month to approve the immediate sale of $106 million worth of tank shells to help the IDF, something it is allowed to do on an emergency basis for its allies.

 

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The results-Fatah


hanan_green-tweet-20November2023-Regavim’s new map

חשיפה: המפה החדשה של רגבים מפחידה אפילו למי שיודע ומכיר את תופעת הבתים הבלתי חוקיים שבונים הפלסטינים ביו”ש.

ראיתם איך המחבלים חצו את הגדר בעוטף עזה ויצאו לטבוח בנו? כך התוכנית המסוכנת שביצעה הרשות הפלסטינית על השולחן ובגאווה, תוך התעלמות בוטה של ממשלות ישראל, מסכנת את מדינת ישראל.

הבוקר בישראל היום

Translated from Hebrew by

Disclosure: Regavim’s new map is scary even for those who know and are familiar with the phenomenon of the illegal houses that the Palestinians are building in the West Bank.

Did you see how the terrorists crossed the fence in the Gaza Strip and went out to slaughter us? Thus the dangerous plan carried out by the Palestinian Authority on the table and with pride, while blatantly ignoring the governments of Israel, endangers the State of Israel.

This morning in Israel today

hanan_green-tweet-20November2023-Regavim's new map

hanan_green-tweet-20November2023-Regavim’s new map

 

wraps Israel 2023-עוטף ישראל 2023

wraps Israel 2023-עוטף ישראל 2023

 

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The result-Hamas controls Judea and Samaria!


Israel-tweet-25November2023-Hamas executed Palestinians in West Bank
Last night, Hamas terrorists executed two Palestinians in the West Bank on suspicion of cooperating with Israel.

They hung their bodies on an electric pole and a Palestinian mob abused the bodies, filmed themselves and then uploaded the footage to social media.

Barbaric.

Israel-tweet-25November2023-Hamas executed Palestinians in (West Bank) Judea and Samaria

Israel-tweet-25November2023-Hamas executed Palestinians in (West Bank) Judea and Samaria

 

 

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Terror Tunnels in Jerusalem


yedidya_epstien-tweet-4March2024-Terror Tunnels in Jerusalem

שוב נרדמים במשמרת?

תחת הכותרת: “מנהרות בירושלים לאן הן מובילות” עיתונאי ממזרח ירושלים

תיעד את עצמו נכנס למנהרות הנראות חפורות בתוך בית במזרח ירושלים.

פניתי למשטרה לקבל תגובה לבנתיים לא הגיבו.

Translated from Hebrew by

Falling asleep on shift again?
Under the title: “Tunnels in Jerusalem where do they lead” a journalist from East Jerusalem documented himself entering tunnels that appear to have been dug inside a house in East Jerusalem.
I contacted the police to get a response, but so far they have not responded.

 

yedidya_epstien-tweet-4March2024-Terror Tunnels in Jerusalem

yedidya_epstien-tweet-4March2024-Terror Tunnels in Jerusalem

 

 

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Hamas is the UN


Matthew Foldi-tweet-25November2023-Hamas is the UN
Hamas terrorist ID next to his UN ID badge

American taxpayers fund this

Matthew Foldi-tweet-25November2023-Hamas is the UN

Matthew Foldi-tweet-25November2023-Hamas is the UN

 

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zerohedge-com-logo

Hamas Rejects Major Ceasefire Offer Until Israel Withdraws From Gaza

by Tyler Durden, 23January2024 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hamas-rejects-major-ceasefire-offer-until-israel-withdraws-gaza

 

There are widespread reports emerging Tuesday that Hamas has rejected the major Israeli offer of a 2-month pause in fighting, which is being widely called the most significant and far-reaching ceasefire plan since the Gaza war began. The jihadist militant group is reportedly demanding that all Israeli forces first withdraw from Gaza for the plan to be possible.

 

However, Israeli media has also said that talks may still be underway despite the early reporting that Hamas has rebuffed the plan. The Jerusalem Post cautions, “Senior Israeli officials on Tuesday told Israeli media that the Qatari and Egyptian mediators have not notified them of Hamas’s rejection of the two-month cease-fire deal proposed by the Israeli government.”

 

The proposed deal includes multiple phases at the end of which all remaining hostages held in Gaza would be released. There’s believed to still be over 130 captives.

 

We previously detailed some aspects of the plan, but it has since emerged through Egyptian negotiators speaking to the Associated Press that along with returning Palestinian prisoners in exchange, Hamas leaders in the Strip would be given safe passage to relocate to other countries.

 

According to Tuesday reports, “But Hamas rejected the proposal, insisting that no more hostages will be released until Israel ends its offensive and withdraws its forces from Gaza entirely,” an unnamed official said.

 

Neither side has publicly commented as of Tuesday morning, but fighting has continued raging particularly in and around the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

 

John Kirby last week: “We don’t believe a ceasefire is gonna benefit anybody but Hamas”

[EDD:…]
Israeli officials on Monday were cited as saying their outlook remains “cautiously optimistic.” Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk is in Egypt working with Qatar and other parties on hammering out the deal. According to more of the details via Axios:

  • Under the proposed deal, Israel and Hamas would agree in advance on how many Palestinian prisoners would be released for each Israeli hostage in each category and then separate negotiations on the names of these prisoners would take place, the officials said.
  • The Israeli officials said the proposal includes Israel redeploying Israeli Defense Forces so that some would be moved out of main population centers in the enclave and allowing a gradual return of Palestinian civilians to Gaza city and the northern Gaza strip as the deal is being implemented.
  • The Israeli officials said the proposal makes clear Israel will not agree to end the war and will not agree to release all 6,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.

The Israelis have yet to promise that will halt all military actions, but targeting would likely become more focused and smaller in scale. In the November deal, which included a successful ceasefire that held for a week, hundreds of Palestinians were freed from Israeli prisons.

 

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Arutz Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

We are winning, despite the media failing us once again

It is the tiny disconnected far left elites in the media, universities, and Jewish-progressive foundations who have tremendous influence on IDF senior officials and career government staff, many of them retired failures, and want us to repeat their terrible mistakes. Op-ed.

Avi Abelow / 16January2024 / https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/383661

 

Senior leadership of IDF and Shabak are now “advising” the government to allow Arab Muslim workers from Judea and Samaria to work in Jewish communities throughout Israel again as well as advising the government to strengthen the Palestinian Authority.

 

Many Israelis are in shock, because that was the exact “expert” advice they gave about allowing Gaza workers to work in Israel and giving Hamas money, to help them out economically and prevent terror. In the end, the massacre on Oct. 7th proved that theory tragically wrong. In the end, Gazan workers acted as spies, took part in the massacre, and celebrated with the whole Gazan population as the massacre was taking place. Israelis are in shock that the defense establishment is still stuck with the flawed strategic thinking of Oct. 6th!

 

If you ask me, every single one of the persons holding senior IDF and intelligence positions should have been fired on Oct. 8th for dereliction of duty. Yet, they are still in their positions pushing the same failed strategy as before the Oct. 7th massacre.

 

Now, I want to dig a little deeper, so please follow this timeline of events…

 

First the defense and media establishment claimed that withholding money from Hamas would lead to terror.

 

After Oct 7th the media establishment then blamed Netanyahu’s giving money to Hamas for what led to the horrific massacre.

 

Today the defense and media establishment claim that withholding money from the Palestinian Authority will lead to terror. (By the way, the only one standing and blocking this like a wall, stopping all payments to the Palestinian Authority, is Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich).

 

Do you think the defense and media establishment have learned their lesson?

Wait, that’s not all…

Here is another example…

The defense and media establishment pushed for Netanyahu to release 1,000+ terrorists so that Hamas would release Gilad Shalit, because Netanyahu was against it. He then agreed to it, after the tremendous media campaign, marches and protests, with the support of defense “experts” in the security establishment. Sinwar was one of those releassed.

 

After the Oct. 7th massacre, led by many of those terrorists released in the Shalit deal, the media establishment shamed Netanyahu for releasing the terrorists in the Shalit deal.

 

Today, the same retired elites of the defense establishment and media establishment are pushing for Netanyahu to stop the war and release as many terrorists as necessary for Hamas to free the captives.

 

You think our defense “experts” and media establishment have learnt anything?

 

Why stop there!!!

In 1993, the defense and media establishment supported recognizing the biggest Jew-hating arch-terrorist, Yassar Arafat, as a “peace” partner, pushing us to give away our land and give his army of terrorists guns!

 

Half the country, the right-wing of course, protested in the streets screaming that it would bring terror upon Israel, which it did. The defense and media establishment called us “enemies of peace” and delegitimized our communities and voices.

 

In 2005, this same defense and media establishment then supported the disastrous Gaza “disengagement”, which meant destroying 21 thriving Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip and expelling close to 10,000 Jews from their homes.

 

Half the country, the right-wing of course, protested in the streets screaming that it would bring even more terror upon Israel, including rockets on Ashkelon and massacred in Israeli communities, which it did. The defense and media establishment once again called us “enemies of peace” and delegitimized our communities and voices.

 

Today, the retired defense “experts” and media establishment are now blaming Netanyahu and the right-wing for the Oct. 7th massacre, calling to end the war and to bring down this government in the middle of the war in order to have new elections.

 

You think our defense “experts” and media establishment have learnt anything? The answer is a resounding No.

They are the most untrustworthy voices in the Jewish state of Israel for decades, demoralizing the nation and 100% responsible for creating the public pressure that led to the disastrous diplomatic and defense catastrophic decisions that paved the way for Hamas to commit the Oct. 7th massacre and take our people captive!

 

Ultimately, the IDF military and intelligence leaders are supposed to provide the advice, and leadership, to win wars and protect civilians from any harm, and they have consistently failed at this due to a misreading of reality, thinking that their duty is to “manage a conflict”, and manage an enemy population, instead of defeating a murderous enemy.

But, do not despair, there is an undercurrent of optimism in our reality today.

 

More than ever before in modern history, the Jewish people, especially in Israel, are very much united. It is only the tiny disconnected elites of the far left, who run the media, the universities, the major Jewish-progressive foundations that have tremendous influence on IDF senior and has-been (and more often than not, failed) retired officials, and career government staff, who have been leading the Jewish people to destruction for the past few decades.

 

And those days are coming to an end.

IDF soldiers pray / פלאש 90

IDF soldiers pray / פלאש 90

Thankfully, the Jewish people in Israel are more united than ever, more Jewishly identified as a collective than ever before, and, as a whole, seeing the truth about our reality more than ever before, despite the demoralizing establishment media who have begun saying that we have lost the war and should give up, with all signs pointing to the contrary.

 

And the good news is, that this time, we will win! We will beat our external enemies and we will beat the tiny minority of our leftist elites as well. It might seem impossible and daunting, but it is happening. That is why they are so scared and calling for new elections in the middle of a war, despite the fact that a majority of the Israeli public supports ending this war with a clear victory that allows Israel to remain in full control of the Gaza strip.

This is making the defense and media establishment go crazy. A good sign that we are winning!

 

All one has to do is see the spiritual revolution going on around us today in Israel, on so many levels. It is that spiritual revolution that is our true salvation, and it is unbelievable!

It is all up to us together with the one above. Do not forget it – we are winning!!!

Am Yisrael Chai!!!

 

Avi Abelow is the host of the Pulse of Israel daily video/podcast (PulseofIsrael.com) and the CEO of 12Tribe Films Foundation. After working as a change management consultant for Accenture in NYC and opening up their Israel office in Tel Aviv, Avi then produced the acclaimed movie “Home Game” about Gush Katif. Due to the success of “Home Game” worldwide, Avi made a career change to dedicate his time to using media, videos and social media to promote the politically incorrect truth about Israel, the Jewish people and the freedom-loving world. Today, Avi also is the Director of 12Tribe Films which manages IsraelUnwired.com.

 

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https://www.jpost.com/

We can’t become addicted to America – opinion

Every American aircraft carrier that approaches our region exacerbates that concern, as, despite all the talk of shared values, not all of our interests align with those of our friend across the sea.

By YEHUDIT KATSOVER, NADIA MATAR 14NOVEMBER2023 https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-773092

 

Our great friend, the United States, is worrisome, and to the extent that these days, the manifestations of its friendship in the military realm are deepening, that worry is gradually intensifying.

 

Every American aircraft carrier that approaches our region exacerbates that concern, as, despite all the talk of shared values, not all of our interests align with those of our great friend across the sea.

 

In that reality, the more the military power from the United States in our region increases, the more Israel’s ability to stand on its principles and safeguard its security and diplomatic interests, decreases.

 

A blatant example of this is the pressure currently being exerted on the Israeli government, even before the battle in the South has ended, to position the Palestinian Authority, in one form or another, as the alternative government to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

 

The ostensible legitimacy for an American demand of that kind in the Gaza Strip is liable to get stronger when a similar demand is made regarding Judea and Samaria. We will, once again, find ourselves under immense American pressure to establish a Palestinian state in the heartland of the country and the South. We will be pressured to relinquish territories of our homeland, and once again, it will be ingrained in the consciousness of the Arab world that, ultimately, Israel was defeated.

Strategic depth is our most crucial interest

The dangerous idea of partitioning the land and establishing a terrorist state in its heart was a concept that appeared to have been removed from the negotiating table. Sadly, however, it is being reincarnated, and the search has already been renewed for the latest “moderate” Palestinian, with or without a tie, and with or without a prison uniform. As a result, names from the blood-soaked terrorist past, among them, Mohammed Dahlan and Marwan Barghouti, are resurfacing as partners suitable for leadership in the post-Sinwar era.

 

Is it reasonable that, for the sake of this absurd idea, our sons and daughters are fighting and sacrificing their lives in heroic battles in the Gaza Strip?

 

The most crucial interest that Israel must maintain for the security of its citizens is strategic depth. This is the only way to create a realizable and sustainable defense. Without it, Judea and Samaria will be like Gaza but even worse, threatening Kfar Saba, Herzliya, Netanya, and Azrieli with the same atrocities we experienced in Kibbutz Be’eri and Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7.

 

Alongside the appreciation for the support that it provides us, we must remember that wherever the United States sought to impose its political will, it failed. This was the case in Egypt, Libya, Iran, and Afghanistan. We do not have an extra state in which to conduct another experiment of that kind. Israel will not be the next.

 

The true American interest is a strong Israel. A strong Israel constitutes a secure democratic axis, and its weakening will not help the Americans in their struggle against the Sunni and Russian efforts to supplant them from the Middle East.

 

Weakening Israel would be immediately translated by our neighbors, who are also allies of the United States, as American betrayal in times of trouble, resulting in their turning to other allies.

 

During the first 10 months of the current Netanyahu government, the American administration did everything it could to weaken Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was boycotted: Talks were held with the heads of the Israeli opposition and Israeli President Isaac Herzog was turned into a bypass axis to Netanyahu, among other things. This, in turn, weakened Israel and its regional standing, essentially leading to the October 7 massacre.

 

It is undeniable that Israel needs the United States in the diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and security arenas, but all of these are not enough to cause it to capitulate to every demand that comes from Washington. The United States would prefer to see a strong and resolute ally, one that stands up for its interests, even against the White House.

 

Just as in the past, the leaders of Israel knew how to stand up to American presidents on critical issues, like sovereignty in the Golan Heights and east Jerusalem, the bombing of the Iraqi reactor, and even the establishment of the State of Israel, so too, the leaders of Israel need to stand up to the Biden administration. They must make it clear that Gaza will be under exclusive Israeli control, there will be Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, and the entire territory until the Litani River will be clear of Hezbollah terrorists. Only steadfastness of that kind will safeguard our security and preserve our regional standing.

 

The writers are co-chairs of the Sovereignty Movement.

 

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shuvubanim-international-logo https://ravberland.com

shuvubanim-international-logo https://ravberland.com

“The Whole World Regrets that Hitler Didn’t Finish Off the Jews” – R’ Eliezer Berland Shlit”a

By David Simcha 21November2023  https://ravberland.com/the-whole-world-regrets-that-hitler-didnt-finish-off-the-jews-r-eliezer-berland-shlita/

Why was Shimshon turned over to the Philistines?

Why did Shimshon kill every day a thousand Philistines in Gaza?

How did the Philistines attack Israel and in their audacity call Shimshon a savage (Pere Adam) when he fought back?

What miracle occurred for Shimshon?

The holy of words of Moreinu HaRav Eliezer Berland shlit”a:

Shimshon HaGibor was the greatest hero.  He would go to Gaza every day; he would kill a thousand of their soldiers, a thousand Hamas-niks.  It was impossible to harm him, so they decided to have him handed over.  They brought 3,000 soldiers [of Israel] to hand him over.  They said to Shimshon, “You know that we are under the Philistines.  Today Hamas rules here!  Who rules here?  Hamas!”

Today the Philistines rule over us; the Philistines today are Hamas!

They asked Shimshon: Why do you do this, every day killing a thousand of their men?

Shimshon answered: They took my wife – what can I do?

Freedom of expression – today in England they are holding protests in support of Hamas [saying]: Hamas are right, killing Jews is totally legitimate.  Since Hitler, the law still has not been repealed [that killing Jews is legitimate].  Hitler said that to kill a Jew is the greatest mitzvah.  Mainly this is in England, where they remain with the laws of the past.  They are conservative; they don’t change laws.  So we see that they are siding with Hamas, screaming, “Death to the Jews,” and the British government supports it; they are in favor of it.

 

They ask them why, what’s the meaning of this?

[The English answer:] This is the law from seventy years ago.

The same thing with Shimshon.  They asked him: Why do kill them?  This is against international law.  What are you doing to them?  They are poor people, oppressed.  What do you want from them?

Okay, so three thousand came to capture Shimshon.  Shimshon said to them: Don’t do anything to me.  Just don’t touch me.  I’ll hand myself over alone.  Swear to me.  I want you to swear to me an oath, lest you harm me.

 

And they said to him: No, we have come to arrest you.  “[They said to him, ‘No, rather we will only arrest you and give you over into their hand; but we will surely not put you to death.’  So they bound him with two new ropes] and brought him up from the rock” [Shoftim 15:13).  They put him on the top of the rock, three hundred meters high.

 

The Philistines are blowing shofars, trumpets, “We won, we won.  We have caught the savior of Israel, the greatest strongman.  What bandits these Jews are.  All of them are bandits, a people of murderers.”  Hitler said: I’m not willing to live together with them.  It’s impossible.  They just murder day and night.  We Germans are refined, [saying politely] “Bitte schon, Danke schon (you’re welcome, thank you very much)” all day.  They [the Germans] don’t come close to a person, never touch a person, only caress everyone.

 

They said, “Those Jews, those murderers, this will be their end.”  In the end, Germany fell; the poor thing, it fell.  Then they said, “Who made us fall?  The Jews!”

 

Those Jews who remained [are guilty]? – how many Jews remained already?  10,000 Jews?

Yes, they brought the Americans, brought the Russians, brought the English, brought the French.  We lost because of the Jews, because we left a few Jews alive.

 

Hitler said if a single Jew remains, a single baby, we’re lost.  There are no stubborn and murderous [people] like the Jews.  The whole world believes in this until this day.  Now there were attacks on Jews in the airport at Dagestan.  Some thousand Muslims attacked an airplane.[1]

 

So Shimshon found a fresh jawbone of a donkey – [“He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and stretched out his hand and took it.]  He struck down [a thousand people] with it” (ibid. 15).  “Wow, Master of the Universe, what a savage!  Wow, how did we come across such a savage!”

 

“Shimshon then said, ‘With the jawbone of a donkey, heap upon heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck down a thousand men!’” – every blow, a thousand men.  “When he finished speaking” – suddenly he faints from thirst.  He hasn’t drunk already for three days.  “And he cast the jawbone from his hand and he called that place Ramat-Lechi.”  There is a Ramat-Lechi in Beit Shemesh.  There is Ramat-Lechi; all of this is in the same area.

 

“He was very thirsty and called to Hashem, saying, ‘You have given into the hand of Your servant this great salvation, and now would I die from thirst?’”  Will this be my end after I struck down a thousand men?

 

Then the tooth [in the jawbone] split open and a spring came out of there, from the hole that was in the tooth, from the “hollow,” which is the hole.  “And God split open the hollow that was in the jawbone, and water came forth from it” — some flowing water, “and he drank” – cold water, cold like ice, “and his spirit was returned to him and he was revived.”

“Therefore, that place is called En-Hakkorei [Spring of the Caller],” and there Shimshon called to Hashem, and Hashem created for him a new spring, the spring of the jawbone.

“And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years” – twenty and another twenty is forty.  For another twenty years, they had fear of Shimshon.

====

[1] In late October this year, a horde of Muslims stormed a hotel and airport in Makhachkala, Dagestan, a Muslim area in Russian, in search of Jews, upon hearing that a flight from Tel Aviv was arriving in the city.

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http://palmtreeofdeborah.blogspot.com

“THEY MUST GO”

6 Kislev 5784  19November2023 http://palmtreeofdeborah.blogspot.com/2023/11/they-must-go.html

The news of note today is this very open and accelerating mini-war the United States is intent on waging against private Israeli citizens.  Since the beginning of Oslo (1993), well, not the beginning of the plan, but the beginning of its implementation, the United States has been monitoring and micromanaging what I call a “mini-war” against “Jewish” terrorism in Eretz Yisrael.  Since no such thing exists, the CIA and the Shin Bet had to manufacture it.

 

The first Jewish “terrorist” to be taken out (1990) was the head of that most dangerous of terror organizations called Kach, Rabbi Meir Kahane’s political party in Israel.  I’ll concede they might have had a point here.  Rabbi Kahane, a courageous and faith-filled scholar-warrior like King David who was having great success inculcating true Jewish values into a new generation, not only inspired terror in the hearts of the murderous Arab enemy, but the enemy ensconced in Washington, D.C., too.

 

A few years later, intent on shoving the Oslo debacle down the throat of our nation, a set-up of Dr. Baruch Goldstein (1994), who was lured into and then locked inside a room with murderous Arabs armed with axes, was used to create the myth of Jewish “terrorism.”  In an impossible effort to save his own life, he managed to kill over a score of Arabs who, only days before had been chanting “Death to the Jews.”  A doctor who was known for his humanitarianism as a physician was literally demonized, much the same as Rabbi Kahane before him and like Yigal Amir after him.

 

The assassination of Yitzchak Rabin (1995) was perhaps the most daring attempt to silence any opposition to capitulation to the American overlord. It was another set-up to smear the religious-settler public.  Then seeing that the son, Binyamin Ze’ev Kahane, was following in his father’s footsteps (Kahane Chai), they took him out along with his wife, and then followed Yehuda Ben Yosef (2003).

 

How many others since then, I’ve lost track, but I know 15-year-old “Hilltop Youth” Ahuvia Sandak was one of the more recent ones.  The entire group of them are at mortal risk.  Basically, anyone the US State Department and/or the CIA with the cooperation of the evil Erev Rav regime deems a threat to the full implementation of their wicked plans against Israel (which is nothing less than a war on God), will be eliminated.  Sometimes it’s an “accident” or “friendly fire,” but mostly they use Arabs or set it up like it’s an attack by Arabs.  They call it the “Cycle of Violence.”

 

Thanks to the retention of the British Mandate practice of Administrative Detention, Jewish citizens of the Democratic State Repressive Regime of Israel, can be arrested without charge, without the advice or representation of an attorney, without trial and for an unspecified period of time.  This has proved to be a very useful weapon in their arsenal against “the Settlers, the Hilltop Youth, the Jewish extremists, the Jewish terrorists” – well, let’s just call it like it is – ALL 500,000 of the Jewish residents of Yehudah v’Shomron!!!

 

And now, thanks to Rabbi Eliezer Melamed and the Rabbis of the Shomron who have done nothing to bring him to justice for his crime of establishing a base of avodah zarah inside the Jewish settlement enterprise there, that Christian Base of Operations (HAYOVEL) has now been publicly outed as a nest of spies visited regularly by high Washington officials and “connected” directly to the United States State Department.

 

This revelation comes at the very moment that Washington’s War on the Settlers has come out forcefully into the open.

Biden Says Two-state Solution Must Follow Israel-Hamas War, Slams ‘Extremist’ West Bank Settlers  October 25, 2023

 

PM pans West Bank attacks by ‘handful of extremists,’ says they’re not representative

Hours after issuing first public statement on settler violence since war’s outbreak, Netanyahu appears to downplay the issue, saying Biden’s concerns are ‘baseless’
November 9, 2023

 

Jewish Extremist Violence in the West Bank Could Trigger a Second Front
November 16, 2023

 

U.S. Prepared to Issue Visa Bans on Israeli ‘Extremists’ Attacking Palestinians in West Bank, Biden Says
The move, which President Biden revealed in a Washington Post op-ed, is the most significant punitive measure taken by his administration toward Israel since assuming power    November 19, 2023

 

“As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority, as we all work toward a two-state solution,” Biden wrote in the Washington Post.

 

Well, you get the idea.  Just google “settler violence” and you get pages and pages like this.  The campaign is really ramping up now.

 

So, yeah, here we are again, right back to the same issue. Any Jew whom they perceive as standing between them and their “Peace” (read Piece) goals is an enemy to be annihilated. When will we ever learn to view them the same way?  Because this is the truth: every Torah-loving, Torah-abiding Jew is a threat to them, as they are to us!  They are ultimately at war with God!  If we want to live in real peace in our land, THE AMERICANS (along with the murderous Arabs),…

 

“THEY MUST GO!!!”

Rabbi Meir Kahane – They must go

 

US out

US out

 

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Pop quiz!


Hillel Fuld-tweet-5November2023-
Pop quiz!

What do the following years have in common?

1937, 1947, 1967, 1991, 2000, 2001, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2019, 2020.

A: The years Israel accepted a peace treaty with its neighbors and offered concessions, painful concessions for peace.

B: The years the Arabs rejected a peace treaty with Israel because they don’t want peace with Israel. They want no Israel.

C: All of the above.

“But… but… They want peace! They want a state. They want freedom. They want independence.”

No problem, just don’t let the objective historical facts confuse you.

Hillel Fuld-tweet-5November2023-Pop quiz

Hillel Fuld-tweet-5November2023-Pop quiz

 

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Arutz Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

The Monaco Solution-Hamas and the PA have no place in Post-War Gaza

The Monaco solution is a practical model for those interested in genuine peace that is sustainable. It provides for self-government, independence and sovereignty, as well as, security for all parties concerned.

Leonard Grunstein
26January2024, https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/384205

 

The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the ‘West Bank’ and the Gaza Strip, signed in Washington, D.C., on September 28, 1995 (known as Oslo II), formally ended even the pretense of the so-called ‘occupation’.

 

Lest there be any misunderstanding, the Palestinian Authority (PA) admitted this inconvenient fact in UN documents such as the recent 2023 UNESCO World Heritage Site designation relating to Jericho and in connection with UN aid regarding its property tax system in 2010. They describe the period from 1967-1994 (!) as the so-called “occupation period”. Indeed, the property tax documents expressly notes “After the occupied Palestinian territory was transferred to the sovereignty of the National Authority [PA], direct taxes and local taxes fell under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.”

 

Oslo II provides for self-government in the areas assigned to the PA and critical and essential security arrangements. This included Gaza, which was subsequently taken over by Hamas. Oslo II also includes extensive demilitarization requirements. Thus, while Oslo II provides for the PA to have a police force, other armed forces were not permitted.

 

Article XIV expressly provides:

 

“…no organization, group or individual in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip shall manufacture, sell, acquire, possess, import or otherwise introduce into the West Bank or the Gaza Strip any firearms, ammunition, weapons, explosives, gunpowder or any related equipment.”

 

Article XV requires the parties to:

 

“take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities directed against each other, against individuals falling under the other’s authority and against their property, and shall take legal measures against offenders.”

 

Had the PA and Hamas honored this milestone Agreement in good faith and kept the peace as intended, then what is commonly referred to as a two-state solution would have been implemented long ago.

 

Consider, for example, a similar model peace and security agreement involving France and Monaco, which has worked in practice for more than a century. Under the Franco-Monegasque Treaty of 1918, which was formally noted in the Treaty of Versailles, Monaco was recognized as a sovereign and independent state. However, it was France that was responsible for the defense of Monaco. France patrols the sea adjacent to and airspace above Monaco. The only security forces within Monaco are the police force and the Prince’s Guard; Monaco otherwise has no armed forces.

 

The foreign relations of Monaco are the responsibility of a Minister of State, who is a French citizen appointed by the Prince from among several senior French civil servants proposed by the French government. The cordial relations between the two states were further deepened in 2017 with the signing of a general security agreement.

 

The Monaco solution is a practical model for those interested in genuine peace that is sustainable. It provides for self-government, independence and sovereignty, as well as, security for all parties concerned, especially against foreign threats.

 

Just imagine if Hamas landed on Monaco’s beaches, took over Monaco and committed an October 7th invasion of France, brutally murdering French citizens, carrying out horrible atrocities and kidnapping French women and children and abusing them. It would be absurd to believe France would hesitate to use overwhelming force to eradicate Hamas and attempt to save the hostages. Is there any doubt that France would be morally justified in doing so, as well as, duty bound under its Treaty with Monaco to come to its defense?

 

In essence, Oslo II established a similar structure for Gaza as the Monaco solution. However, unlike Monaco, Gaza under the PA and then Hamas was not genuinely interested in living side by side in peace with Israel.

 

The PA was in charge at the beginning and entered into the 2005 Disengagement Agreement noted below. Hamas took over in 2007 and it might fairly be viewed as a foreign oppressive regime. It is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and effectively an agent of the terrorist Iranian Regime. Even its leadership resides in Qatar, a foreign country. Other than wielding locals as pawns in a war against Israel, it has no interest in developing Gaza for the benefit of those living there.

 

Hamas’ raison d’être is seeking the elimination of Israel and the extermination of Jews, as a part of a grand scheme to conquer the west and eliminate Christians and other non-Muslims. As outlined below, its leaders view Gaza merely as a secure base of operations against Israel.

 

The PA is not much better. As Arafat stated, in his infamous speech in a Johannesburg Mosque, when he attended the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa, on May 10, 1994, the Jihad (Islamic Holy War) would continue and Jerusalem was not for the Palestinian Arab people, it was for the entire Muslim nation the Ummah). He also declared that the original Oslo Agreement of 1993 was nothing more than a temporary truce and his goal was to take all of Israel, starting with Jerusalem. He even said he was in need of the Moslems in the mosque audience to join as warriors of Jihad.

 

Abbas, Arafat’s deputy and then successor, has a long history of paying lip service to peace in discussions with US interlocutors and then laughing it off when addressing another audience. Thus, for example, Abbas said in an interview with the London-based Qatari daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi that he would not give in to the American and Israeli demand to stop payments to the families of prisoners and martyrs, calling them “fighters” and underlining his obligation to them. At the July 23, 2018 Ramallah ceremony, which was to honor prisoners, Abbas conferred medals on the families of the “martyred prisoners” and on the released prisoners, and said:

 

“We will neither reduce nor prevent [payment] of allowances to the families of martyrs, prisoners, and released prisoners, as some seek, and if we had only a single penny left, we would pay it to families of the martyrs and prisoners.”

 

He went on to stress:

 

“From our standpoint, the martyrs and prisoners are stars in the firmament of the Palestinian people’s struggle, and take priority in every matter. In 1965, a few days after the outbreak of the Palestinian revolution, the first mission undertaken by the martyr late president Yasser Arafat was to establish an institution to care for the families of the martyrs and the mujahideen of Palestine – for they are the pioneers and must be cared for, and we will care for them.”

 

He also expressed his deep appreciation for the activity on the prisoners’ behalf, and noted that it “paves the way for the liberation of Palestine.”

 

Is it any wonder that even the State Department reportedly determined that the PA had “not taken proactive steps to counter incitement to violence against Israel” and the “incitement to violence and glorification of terrorism occur in public statements and social media posts by PA officials and politicians, in official media broadcasts and social media outlets, and in school textbooks”.

 

Abbas’ deputy chairman at the PLO brazenly admitted that the PA security forces fight alongside terrorists against Israel and that they are all one.

 

It is also important to note that the PA reportedly does not have complete control over the areas it governs. Armed groups form rival factions, including Hamas, PIJ and others rein free. They are responsible for terrorist attacks on Israel and lawlessness, including in Jenin and Nablus. How can Abbas be trusted to govern Gaza or prevent it from reverting back into a terrorist state again? Moreover, as noted above, Abbas glorifies terrorists and rewards them financially under the PA Pay to Slay program. He also continues to block general elections for the PA, arrests and intimidates his political opponents, refuses to share power with others and muzzles freedom of expression.

 

We must also not forget the glaring failures of the past, which resulted from delusional fantasies that ignored facts like those summarized above. Remember that despite the fact that the PA utterly failed to honor Oslo II and even unleashed a new wave of terrorism directly contrary to the terms of the agreement, at the urging of the US, in a fool-hardy attempt to promote the ultimate goals of Oslo II notwithstanding PA willful defaults, a grand experiment was instituted. Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005. For all intents and purposes peace should have been achieved then.

 

As the wise Charles Krauthammer, Z”L wrote, “…Israel evacuated Gaza completely. It declared the border between Israel and Gaza an international frontier. Gaza became the first independent Palestinian territory in history. Yet Gazans continued the war…Why? Because occupation was a mere excuse to persuade gullible and historically ignorant Westerners to support the Arab cause against Israel. The issue is, and has always been, Israel’s existence. That is what is at stake.”

 

However, predictably, the Gaza experiment turned out to be a catastrophic failure, as most recently evidenced by the October 7th Hamas invasion of Israel and the murderous massacre, unspeakable atrocities and horrible kidnappings it committed. Evil Hamas is an antisemitic, racist, misogynistic, ant-LGBTQ, tyrannical and oppressive regime. Ever since 2007, when it took over governing Gaza, it has been in a perpetual state of war with Israel. Hamas and its terrorist cohorts, backed by the Iranian Regime, have also succeeded in infiltrating areas controlled by the PA in Judea and Samaria.

 

Moreover, the PA also continues to flout its obligations under Oslo II. Indeed, instead of curtailing terrorist activity against Israel, it actually encourages and rewards it, under its notorious ‘Pay to Slay’ program. Neither Hamas nor the PA has reformed and each continues to maintain school systems that are virtual factories of Jew hatred. All this in spite of pledges to reform and funding conditioned on that reform.

 

Yet, regardless all these undeniable failures, there are still some in the Biden Administration who express a fanciful vision for a post-war Gaza that is nothing more than a re-heated version, with some possible window dressing, of Gaza pre-October 7th.

 

It’s well past time to wake up and recognize that no matter how well intentioned, the Gaza post-2005 experiment was a fiasco.

 

It is perilous to ignore this fact. Not only did it not lead to a lasting peace, but by the US and EU ignoring, excusing or condoning malign actions by Hamas and the PA and even continuing to reward the terrorist regimes, directly or indirectly, with funding despite their malevolent deeds, it can fairly be said that they too bear some responsibility for October 7th.

 

Undeterred by all of the foregoing, Secretary of State Blinken reportedly nevertheless took up the matter of post-war governance in Gaza with PA president Abbas, who expressed his desire to take over Gaza. The absurdity of this initiative is risible. After all, Gazans had rejected PA rule in 2007 and polls showing Hamas candidates would likely also beat Abbas and his Fatah party, if an election were held on Abbas’ home turf in the PA controlled areas. It would appear that Blinken previously did pay lip service to the issue when he noted, an

 

“effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority” was needed to govern Gaza. Parenthetically, he just as well could have added for the PA controlled areas too.

 

However, did Blinken take up what was required in detail with Abbas?

 

-Indeed, did he tell Abbas that he must not make the Pay to Slay payments he promised to Hamas terrorists or their families or anyone else for that matter?

 

-Did he tell Abbas that he had to clean house and eliminate Hamas and PIJ operatives in the areas the PA controlled?

 

-Did he discuss what was required to reform the PA/UNWRA school system, including firing those teaching Jew hatred, eliminating antisemitic materials and revising the curriculum to acknowledge the existence and legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel and teach respect for Jews, Christians and those of other non-Muslim faiths?

 

-Did he demand that Abbas finally amend the PLO Charter to recognize Israel and do so under PA law?

 

-Did he demand the repeal of the Pay to Slay law, as well as, the law prohibiting land sales to Jews?

 

-Did he call out Abbas for his Temple denial and Holocaust denial?

 

-Did he insist that Abbas talk about all of this in a speech broadcast not only in English but also in Arabic to his people and lay out the vital need for these reforms and the steps that would be taken to implement them?

 

=Beyond talk alone, what are the tangible consequences for the PA’s misfeasance and malfeasance?

 

-When will aid payments to the PA be cut off until these essential reforms are achieved?

 

None of the reports of the meeting speak about any of this. It appears that there is no genuine belief that any of these necessary reforms can ever be achieved. Yet the virtue signaling and pious pronouncements continue without any appreciation that they not only serve no useful purpose; but, even embolden wrongdoers, because of the lack of any true accountability and tangible consequences for malign activities. Delusions are what enabled the Gazan terrorist state to be created in the first place and after its catastrophic failure why risk repeating the same fatal mistake.

 

In reality there is no substantive difference between Hamas and the PA led by Abbas.

 

Neither has accepted the existence of Israel and the PA hasn’t tangibly demonstrated its abhorrence of Hamas’ atrocities. Indeed, Abbas has actually committed to paying the Hamas terrorists, who perpetrated the atrocities, ‘Pay to Slay’ rewards of millions of dollars.

 

It’s also reported that Abbas’ party Fatah bragged about its own participation in the atrocities. Murderous terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7th had PA pay-slips in their pockets.

 

The streets of PA controlled areas witnessed rallies in support of Hamas, glorifying their despicable misdeeds. The muted condemnation by Abbas of Hamas’ outrages on October 7th are reportedly only spoken in private and not publically and are qualified by falsely referring to targeting of civilians by both sides, as opposed to just by Hamas.

 

Beyond that it is reported that one of the leaders of the PA, in talks with the US on a plan to run Gaza after the Hamas war has been insisting that the goal of fully defeating Hamas is unrealistic and that instead Hamas should join the PA under a new governing structure. PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh reportedly revealed his preferred outcome of the Hamas war would be for Hamas to become a junior partner under the broader PLO.

 

In Gaza, Hamas terrorists felt comfortable publicly parading their hostages and showing videos of their atrocities. The sadistic murderers were treated as heroes. Celebrations over the massacre also broke out in the PA controlled areas. The PA has not reined in terrorists operating from the PA controlled areas against Israel. In addition, Fatah calls for everyone with a weapon to join in committing terrorist attacks.

 

In a recent interview, Khaled Mashal, a leader of Hamas, outright rejected the two-state solution.

 

He caustically noted how they keep pulling out the old merchandise of the two-state solution. He went on to say that there is a consensus among Palestinian Arabs that they were entitled to all of the existing land of Israel. He defined it as from the Jordan River to Mediterranean Sea and in the north from Rosh Hanikra to the south, Eilat and the Gulf of Aqaba.

 

He was very clear, no recognition of Israel, rather the elimination of Israel. He noted that this concept, embodied in the slogan ‘from the river to the sea’, is chanted in western capital cities by the Americans, western public and students.

 

Mashal said that October 7 has renewed this dream and hope and shown that it is a realistic idea, not merely a dream. He went on to discuss how Hamas coming to power was a necessity, in order to serve the people and to protect what he referred to as ‘the resistance’, meaning the goal of conquering all of Israel. It provided a political and administrative cover in all the Palestinian Arab institutions and gave the resistance a free hand to operate.

 

He noted that Hamas used its rule of Gaza to build up the resistance, including weapons, weapons production, planning, training and the tunnels, while its backs were safe. In this regard, he even took a swipe at the PA, noting Hamas operated without any security coordination with Israel as required under Oslo II and there was no PA in Gaza to persecute Hamas.

 

Both Israel and Egypt have made clear that neither wants to run Gaza. Indeed, Israeli Defense Minister Gallant said Israel would not retain governance of Gaza after Hamas was eliminated. He offered, “The third step will be the creation of a new security regime in the Gaza Strip, the removal of Israel’s responsibility for day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip…”

 

The only way to have an alternative to the repugnant Hamas and PA terror regimes is to organize one.

 

Responsible parties must be identified and supported to create a way out of this moral morass. They cannot resemble in any way the tyrannical, kleptocratic, antisemitic, anti-Christian and anti-American Hamas regime, which on October 7th, not only murdered and committed atrocities against Israelis, Americans and others, but also murders and oppresses its own people.

 

It begins with the Biden Administration stopping to circumvent the Taylor Force Act. By failing to cut off any support for Pay to Slay, the Administration is, in effect, financially rewarding the murder of over 30 Americans and kidnapping of others held hostage. We also must not forget that as recently as November 6, 2023, an Israeli-American policewoman in Jerusalem was murdered by a terrorist, as well as the other thousands of Israelis, Americans (like Taylor Force ob”m and Malki Roth z”l) and others who have been murdered or injured by terrorists originating from the PA controlled areas, over the years.

 

There is a reason why the Taylor Force Act was adopted and the lack of a serious enforcement effort under the Act is inexplicable. In a time when an unequivocal demonstration of moral clarity is critical, the failure to enforce the relevant and most cogent provisions of the Taylor Force Act is inexcusable.

 

The Biden Administration must also desist from interfering with Israel’s sacred mission of eradicating the evil that is Hamas and its cohorts, in Gaza and elsewhere. Israel is conducting a just war and doing so in compliance with the laws of war.

 

October 7th demonstrated in no uncertain terms that the status quo, delusions about a peace process and two-state solution and the Biden Administration’s appeasement policies are an abject failure.

 

There’s a reality that’s inescapable. Israel, America’s loyal and invaluable ally and friend, exists in a hostile environment made all the more dangerous by the current Administration’s pandering to the terrorist regime in Iran and its proxies, as well as the PA. Virtue signaling for domestic consumption and mixed messaging only serves to embolden the terrorists. It’s time to be clear and unequivocal not only in general support of Israel and its mission to eradicate evil Hamas, but also in detail so as to avoid any ambiguity or misunderstanding.

 

Hamas’ goal was not just to massacre 1,200 Israelis, Americans and others, but also to destroy Israel and massacre Jews. As noted above, the elimination of Israel is also the goal of Abbas’ PLO and by extension the PA. It’s also the stated goal of the axis of evil, led by terrorist Iranian regime, backing Hamas, as well as its other proxies, as demonstrated by the Houthis firing ballistic missiles against Israel and the rockets fired by Hezbollah. They also threaten America, which they derogatorily refer to as the ‘Big Satan’ (Israel’s referred to as the ‘Little Satan’), Christians and other non-Muslims.

 

Peace is possible with a former enemy that wants peace; it’s not possible with a current enemy that doesn’t desire it. So long as the PA doesn’t truly recognize Israel in word and deed, insists on retaining Hamas and actually supports Israel’s destruction, it cannot be a true peace partner.

 

The Biden Administration must recognize that there’s no chance for peace with the current PA regime or Hamas. A hybrid formulation or less than totally changed PA, under new leadership genuinely committed to pursuing and promoting peace with Israel is just a transparent artifice, a proverbial distinction without difference or merit. The US must accept that the PA is not the answer and move on and seek other real alternatives.

 

The major goal of this defensive war by Israel is to ensure that evil Hamas is totally defeated, free the hostages, assure there is no longer any threat of missiles or rockets being fired into Israel and enable the hundreds of thousands of Israelis evacuated from southern and northern Israel to be able to return safely to their homes. Gaza must be totally demilitarized and security protocols must be but in place that prevent rearming, rebuilding tunnels or the pursuit of any war or terrorism against Gaza’s neighbors, Egypt and Israel.

 

Until then there must not be any equivocation or ambiguity about the US’s support for Israel and its moral imperative to prosecute its defensive war against evil Hamas to conclusion and to achieve the legitimate war aims outlined above. May Israel succeed in its sacred mission and may the valiant solders of the IDF and the hostages be returned home safely.

 

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globes-co-il-logo

Bank Leumi blocks UNRWA bank account

UNRWA credit: Anas-Mohammed Shutterstock

UNRWA credit: Anas-Mohammed Shutterstock

 

4February2024 6  https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-bank-leumi-blocks-unrwa-bank-account-1001469418#utm_source=RSS
Roi Weinberger

 

The Israeli bank has written to the UN Palestinian refugee agency saying it was seriously concerned that money from the account was reaching terrorist groups.

 

Bank Leumi (TASE:LUMI) has informed the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees that it has blocked its bank account, after it was revealed that 12 of its employees took part in the massacres by Hamas on October 7. Following the revelations the US, Germany, EU, UK and other countries halting their funding for UNRWA.

 

Bank Leumi said that it had identified unusual activity that has generated alerts in the compliance mechanisms of the bank’s risk management systems. Bank Leumi wrote to UNRWA explaining that recently, many money transfers have been identified in the account, in a way that does not allow the bank to trace their source and final destination. Leumi said it had demanded explanations from UNRWA representatives, but they had been unable to provide satisfactory explanations. Since such explanations have not been received, the Israeli bank said it had become seriously concerned that the money from UNRWA’s account was reaching terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.

 

UNRWA’s annual budget currently stands at $1.2 billion, which comes mainly from donations. As of this moment, regardless of Leumi’s decision, about 75% of UNRWA’s budgets have been suspended, following the decisions of donor countries that have already announced the halting of funding.

 

Bank Leumi declined to comment further.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on February 4, 2024.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.

 

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jns-org-logo

IRS urged to suspend nonprofit status of UNRWA American charitable arm

“It is no longer debatable; UNRWA is Hamas,” wrote the International Legal Forum and the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

David Swindle https://www.jns.org/irs-urged-to-suspend-nonprofit-status-of-unrwa-american-charitable-arm/

 

(February 1, 2024 / JNS) Daniel Werfel, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, received a joint letter calling for the suspension of the charity certification for a top funder of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, better known as UNRWA.

 

UNRWA USA is an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides support for humanitarian work associated with the U.N. agency.

 

“It is no longer debatable; UNRWA is Hamas. Nor is it merely a ‘few rotten apples’ as some politicians and pundits have tried to suggest,” wrote the International Legal Forum and the National Jewish Advocacy Center. “The entire organization is a systematic incubator of hate, incitement and terror.”

 

Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, told JNS that the groups were “requesting in light of the recent evidence connecting UNRWA staff to the Oct 7 Hamas attacks and suspension of funds by a growing number of countries, including the U.S., that the exempt tax status of UNRWA USA be immediately suspended, pending an investigation, and then revoked.”

 

Ostrovsky told JNS, “At $3.8 million, UNRWA USA is the largest private donor to UNRWA in the United States.”

 

The letter stated that “providing support for an organization that incites and commits murderous violence while harboring members of U.S. designated terrorist groups that specialize in killing Jews and that call for Jewish genocide is obviously against both the law and public policy. UNRWA does all of those things, and UNRWA USA supports them.”

 

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The Karens, Criminals, Narcissistic Megalomaniac Nannycrats and Naughty Beasts want ‘Pandemic Amnesty’

zerohedge-com-logo

No, There Will Not Be Any “Pandemic Amnesty”

BY TYLER DURDEN 03November2022 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/no-there-will-not-be-any-pandemic-amnesty

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

Nothing is Forgotten, Nothing Will Be Forgiven.

On the very first day of this year I wrote that the pandemic was over and that only the most brainwashed true believers would cling to the absurd narratives that enabled it. Since then, all of it has been exposed to be falsehoods, cluelessness and lies:

  • Vaccines were never tested or proven to stop transmission.
  • The fatality rate was around 0.005%
  • Ivermectin worked
  • Masks don’t
  • Lockdowns did more damage than good

…and the final straws for the credibility of all involved:

  • This thing came out of a lab, and
  • There is significant credible evidence of vaccine injuries and death

Innumerable careers, reputations and lives have been destroyed in order to enforce a completely debunked narrative as truth. The mainstream media, Big Tech, governments at all levels, neo-liberal glee clubs like the WEF, all coordinated to gaslight the entire population of the world that we were facing existential annihilation, and would have to henceforth trade in our civil rights to these authorities to escape it.

 

The economic damage is only now beginning to be felt in runaway inflation with central banks powerless to contain it, at risk of destroying what’s left of the economy.

 

We don’t need to enumerate the litany of injustice, ridicule and persecution  anybody who tried to counter these absurd narratives had to endure. Lost friends, family, jobs, position, businesses, cancelations, deplatformings – all of it.

 

So it is unsurprising, now that the edifice is crumbling, that those who piled on to the persecutions, those who feathered their nest being “on the right side of history”, seeing that it’s all turning to dust in realtime, are starting – one and all – to back away from their role.

 

Now the name of the game is to distance oneself from the most intense and virulent outbreaks of mass formation psychosis in recorded history:

Clifton Duncan-tweet-31October2022-You can fuck right off with this shit

Clifton Duncan-tweet-31October2022-You can fuck right off with this shit

There are many who were up to their eyeballs in this who will now try to frame themselves as “the voice of reason” who was trying to introduce some rationality into the conversation.

 Mark Jeftovic, The C̶r̶y̶p̶t̶o̶ ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-10July2022-We’re into the truly nauseating phase now

Mark Jeftovic, The C̶r̶y̶p̶t̶o̶ ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-10July2022-We’re into the truly nauseating phase now

Mark Jeftovic, The C̶r̶y̶p̶t̶o̶ ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-09February2022- every sociopathic zealot who wanted to literally wreck your life for non-compliance

Mark Jeftovic, The C̶r̶y̶p̶t̶o̶ ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-09February2022- every sociopathic zealot who wanted to literally wreck your life for non-compliance

 

Don’t believe them.

Nuremberg trials

Nuremberg trials

“Sooner or Later Everyone Sits Down to a Banquet of Consequences”

If the globally botched pandemic response accomplished one thing, it was to open many people’s eyes to how obsolete and ill equipped our current institutions are for handling a global crisis in this new, decentralized, multi-polar world.

 

While these insular elites believed they had Divine Right to “re-imagine” every aspect of our lives for some grandiose Great Reset, it’s these sclerotic, self-serving institutions they inhabit who are going to get their asses re-imagined. With a vengeance.

 

Here’s what you can do to reclaim your life, and take your power back from those who abused it and used their positions against you:

  1. Vote out any politician who imposed lockdowns or vaccine mandates – regardless of party affiliation. At least the ones who doubled down on them after it became clear how destructive and ineffective they were.
  2. Cancel all paid subscriptions to the mainstream media – you’re better off supporting the many independent outlets and those doing real journalism and providing high-signal content.
  3. Advocate for defunding state-run media apparatuses: NPR in the US, CBC in Canada, BBC in the UK, et al
  4. De-Google-fy your life: Start looking at alternatives to Big Tech. There are other search engines like Duck, Facebook is quickly becoming irrelevant, Twitter may be fun for awhile longer given the meltdowns over the Musk takeover.
  5. Don’t hire or do business with Covid fanatics. If you’re hiring or scouting vendors, check their socials: were they demonizing lockdown skeptics? Hashtagging “#Freedumb”? (Better start scrubbing those timelines, mofos)
  6. Buy Bitcoin. Yes, I’m shilling BTC because Bitcoin is the global opt-out – stacking sats is calling b/s on everything. 

Eva Vlaardingerbroek-tweet-01November2022-You can put that pandemic amnesty where the sun don’t shine

Eva Vlaardingerbroek-tweet-01November2022-You can put that pandemic amnesty where the sun don’t shine

There will be no pandemic amnesty. More likely, by the time this is all over, there will be pandemic tribunals.

*  *  *

Mark E. Jeftovic is the CEO of easyDNS, co-founder of Bombthrower Media, author and investor. Sign up for The Bombthrower mailing list to get updates straight into your inbox and get a free copy of The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto while you’re at it. Follow me on GettrTelegram or Twitter.

JerusalemCats Comments: Take a page out of History. Hang the Basters!

Nuremberg trials hanging

Nuremberg trials hanging

These are people that want to be forgiven for a Nazi and Stalinist Holocaust of the World that listened to these Mad Men. Of stead of the industrial holocaust of the Nazi German Holocaust of the Death Camps of Europe the Mad Men just sent an untested “Vaccine” that they knew would kill. They lied and used Israelis as Lab Rats and the Israel “Ministry of Health” did their best to kill as many Religious Jews as possible as they did in the 1950 and 1960s with the X-Ray “treatments” of Sephardi Jewish Children..

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zerohedge-com-logo

Watch: COVID Authoritarians Want Forgiveness – Here’s Why They Don’t Deserve It

by Tyler Durden, 31October2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/watch-covid-authoritarians-want-forgiveness-heres-why-they-dont-deserve-it<

Do authoritarians deserve a chance to be treated with grace and forgiveness?  The question is circulating regularly these days in the wake of the complete failure of covid pandemic response and the victory of the anti-mandate movement.  The answer relies on a series of counter-questions based on logic and predictable outcomes.  It’s the kind of discussion that covid cultists don’t want to have; they just want everyone to forget because they now have something to lose politically

Scott Galloway, Professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and member of the World Economic Forum’s “Global Leaders Of Tomorrow” list, is one of the cultists that now wants to be given a free pass as he debates the issue on Real Time with Bill Maher.

 

Eric Abbenante-tweet-28October2023- I wanted a harsher lockdown policy

Eric Abbenante-tweet-28October2023- I wanted a harsher lockdown policy

 

The question that we need to ask Galloway is:  How forgiving was he when confronted with people who opposed his authoritarianism?  Galloway was rabidly pro-mandate.  He consistently called for harsher punishments for people refusing to comply and he demanded that the unvaccinated be treated as second tier citizens banned from places of business.  As he argued in his blog titled ‘Half Of America Has Its Head Up Its Ass. It’s Time For A Vaccine Mandate’:

“Enough already. Federal law should require any citizen who wants to cash a government check, use public transport, or enter a place of business to show proof of vaccination…”

Galloway cited the ever present inflated CDC data on covid deaths in America as the justification for his authoritarian position.  Of course, data was available not long after the spread of covid indicating that the Infection Fatality Rate of the virus was a tiny 0.23% and that 99.8% of the population (including the unvaccinated) had nothing to fear.  Not only that, but the CDC has recently and quietly published information showing that around 95% of people who died with covid also had one or more comorbidities and 75% had at least four – Meaning, if you did not have multiple comorbidities your chances of dying from covid were incredibly small.

Do Galloway and those like him deserve a clean slate?  No, they don’t, and here’s why…

No Apologies

We hear many covid authoritarians talk about forgiveness but very few of them actually apologize for their behavior.  Galloway calls for “grace”, perhaps trying to appeal to the Christian notion of “turning the other cheek.”  He admits he was wrong on the mandates (because the data forces him to), but he doesn’t actually apologize for his behavior.  In fact, he excuses his behavior and the behavior of leftist politicians as them doing the best they could do given the imperfect information they had at the time.  This is a common tactic of misdirection.

Mandates-Love1_0

Mandates-Love1_0

 

As noted above, within months of covid becoming active in the US, the data was already available showing that the virus was not a legitimate threat.  So the claim that their information was “the best they had at the time” does not hold water.  There was more than enough evidence to warrant opposition to unconstitutional policies (frankly, even if covid had been more deadly it doesn’t justify violations of the Bill of Rights).  Millions of Americans tried to explain the truth to those panicking over covid, and they chose not to listen, calling us “selfish conspiracy theorists.”

But the greatest trespasses were among those analysts and “influencers” who used covid as an opportunity for political gain, knowing that there was information that debunked government and media spin.  The worst people are those that have no intention of making amends because they plan to try again.  People who do wrong and refuse to give a legitimate apology are the kinds of people that are likely to commit similar offenses in the future.

Mad With Power

The covidians were primarily from the left side of the political spectrum and wherever leftists were most concentrated is where the most egregious violations of liberty took place.  The political left went absolutely mad with power, with a large number of Democrats supporting Orwellian controls to punish people refusing to submit to the mandates.

Dems-Covid-1

Dems-Covid-1

There were calls to fine the unvaccinated, imprison people who question the vaccine, put the vaccinated on home lockdown and even take away their children.  In some states, like New York, there was active legislation put forward to create detention facilities for people that did not comply (covid camps).  That is some serious Stalinist behavior and we are still waiting for it to be addressed and for certain political leaders to be punished.

As the old saying goes: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”  We have now seen the character of the political left.  We have seen the character of people like Galloway, and they have been found untrustworthy.

It Can And Will Happen Again

The covid event was really a litmus test for authoritarian tendencies in the US.  At least half the public failed that test miserably.  We may not see another pandemic agenda in our lifetimes, but that doesn’t really matter.  There will be many other opportunities in the future for ignorant people and sociopathic people to act out on their darker impulses.  It is important to make a note of how the individuals around us behave when they think it’s safe to be evil, and we must remember who they are.  These are not people that should be given “grace” or trust down the road when the next crisis strikes; they have shown themselves to be unworthy of that.

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theepochtimes-com-logo

No Amnesty for Lockdowners

Jeffrey A. Tucker 01November2022 Updated: 02November2022  https://www.theepochtimes.com/no-amnesty-for-lockdowners_4834331.html
Commentary

Now that we can talk to our friends and neighbors about it, the reality is sinking in. What our public health experts and politicians did to this country was egregious. Inspired by the totalitarian lockdowns in Wuhan, China, and urged to replicate that policy by the World Health Organization in a report that Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institutes of Health approved, all constitutional rights were thrown out by the government.

 

The churches were shut. The schools were closed, in some places for as long as two years, thus sacrificing the education of a whole generation. We faced restrictions on house parties. We couldn’t visit the elderly in homes, not even their sons and daughters who were paying the rent. There were even restrictions on travel between states: Quarantine rules made it impractical.

 

Health authorities specifically demanded the need to close all venues where people congregate. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Once people were allowed to crawl out from their domestic holes, they were forced to mask up (even though we had zero evidence that this would achieve anything!) and eventually get vaccine shots that everyone said would end the pandemic but obviously didn’t.

 

It’s been nearly three years of imposed hell. We now live with the after-effects, including terrible inflation, learning loss, drug addiction, rising crime, cultural nihilism, and wholly justified public fury, which are driving the Democrats to doom on Nov. 8 because it was the Democrats who leaned in and perpetuated all these policies long after they obviously failed.

 

So sure, people are upset. The right answer would be for our health authorities and politicians to apologize and beg for forgiveness. But nothing like that has happened. They just keep on pretending that all of this was fine. There has been no repeal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s claimed power to quarantine you next time, and the Biden administration’s own pandemic planning scheme is to prohibit states from opting out the next time around.

 

So let’s discuss Emily Oster’s piece in The Atlantic in which she claims that everyone needs to immediately comply with some kind of amnesty that she has declared. We’re supposed to forget it all and move on. And why is this? Because, she says, there was so much uncertainty. They just didn’t know about the virus. It was the fog of war, after all, and everyone did their best.

 

“We didn’t know,” she wrote, and then kept invoking the supposed “uncertainty” of the times, a word she deployed five times. Why, if she (or they) were so uncertain, did they so quickly decide to wreck all liberty in the United States? The so-called precautionary principle would suggest that government should undertake no such policy because of the obvious harms it would impose. They did it anyway.

 

Here’s the problem. This is complete rot. We knew from February 2020 of the risk stratification of the disease’s serious outcomes. It was in all the papers. We had the data. We knew from the Diamond Princess experience in February 2020 that there were no deaths of those younger than the age of 70 on the ship. That comported with every bit of information we had at the time. Based on what we knew at the time, there was absolutely no case for locking down at all and every reason to not do this.

 

For that matter, Oster could have merely read the news. MSNBC on Jan. 30, 2020, reported that Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, formerly Barack Obama’s health adviser, said: “Everyone in America should take a very big breath, slow down, and stop panicking and being hysterical. We are having a little too much histrionics on this.”

 

On March 4, 2020, Slate reported: “There are many compelling reasons to conclude that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is not nearly as deadly as is currently feared. But COVID-19 panic has set in nonetheless. … Allow me to be the bearer of good news. These frightening numbers are unlikely to hold. The true case fatality rate, known as CFR, of this virus is likely to be far lower than current reports suggest.”

 

On the same day, Psychology Today reported: “Yes, this virus is different and worse than other coronaviruses, but it still looks very familiar. We know more about it than we don’t know. … It’s scary to think that an invisible enemy is out there to make you sick. But your doctor is not panicking, and you don’t need to, either.”

 

We can even turn to Fauci himself, who wrote as follows on Feb. 28, 2020, in the New England Journal of Medicine: “The overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1 percent) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10 percent and 36 percent, respectively.”

 

On March 17, 2020, legendary epidemiologist John Ioannidis broke it all down: “The current coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco. … One of the bottom lines is that we don’t know how long social distancing measures and lockdowns can be maintained without major consequences to the economy, society, and mental health. Unpredictable evolutions may ensue, including financial crisis, unrest, civil strife, war, and a meltdown of the social fabric. At a minimum, we need unbiased prevalence and incidence data for the evolving infectious load to guide decision-making.”

 

Wow, talk about prophetic! All of that happened. He knew this not because he was clairvoyant, but because he has a working brain. You can’t just shut down society without egregious consequences that affect health, economics, social relations, and so much more. In other words, authorities acted with extreme measures that were in no way justified by the data and did so with measures they knew for sure would massively damage the social fabric.

 

For that matter, we’ve known about the damage of lockdowns since they were first pushed in 2005–06. Famed epidemiologist Donald Henderson warned that such measures would turn a manageable pandemic into a catastrophe!

 

So here we are, living amid catastrophe. There are no apologies. There’s only coverup. Now, you might ask the following: Why, if the mainstream media from late-January through mid-February 2020 were counseling calm and urging against lockdown frenzy, and even Fauci was saying that we didn’t need a vaccine to get out of this pandemic, was there a sudden shift? What new evidence came in that caused Fauci, along with his minions and inner circle, to surround Trump in early March 2020 and demand that he greenlight the lockdowns?

 

Why did this happen? I have my own theories, but they’re only that. My suspicions are that 1) Fauci and his gang believed that they were culpable for the pandemic due to the National Institutes of Health’s funding of the Wuhan lab and so pushed the lockdowns in the hope of stopping the spread or just causing a chaotic diversion of attention, and 2) getting Trump to wreck the economy would be the surest path to unseating him in the November 2020 election. On the second point, it so happened that the manufactured disease panic allowed changes in absentee voting rules that ultimately led to Trump’s defeat.

 

Now, you could call this a conspiracy theory. I sincerely hope it isn’t true because it would be a scandal for the ages. And perhaps I’m wrong here, and there’s some other reason for the egregious actions that wrecked millions of businesses and lives. I would like to know what it is. But as for Oster’s excuse that we just didn’t know—that we believed that the virus was worse than it was, that masks would stop the spread, and so on—that claim is utterly baseless. So, too, does her demand for “amnesty” for the lockdowners fall flat.

 

We knew. We knew for sure, based on existing data what the nature of the threat was, and we knew for sure, based on historical experience and common sense, the deep damage that would be caused by the lockdowns. The plea of ignorance here simply doesn’t hold up to any evidentiary standard.

 

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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naturalnews-com-logo

Moms for Liberty says NO AMNESTY for covid tyrants who committed “crimes against children”

04November2022 by: https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-11-04-moms-for-liberty-no-amnesty-covid-tyrants.html

This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

Children School Pandemic-Mask-Hand Sanitizer

Children School Pandemic-Mask-Hand Sanitizer

(Natural News) In response to American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten’s endorsement of The Atlantic for demanding “amnesty” for covid criminals, Moms for Liberty co-founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice are saying no way.

 

In a statement to the independent media, Descovich and Justice explained that Weingarten endorsed the Atlantic piece because she knows that she herself is one of the criminals who deserves to be punished for her crimes against children.

 

“No amnesty for the people that committed crimes against children,” Justice is quoted as saying to Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow on SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Daily. (Related: Remember when Weingarten decided to remove her face muzzle during a speech in violation of local mandates because supposedly nobody could hear her?)

 

“Of course Randi Weingarten [president of American Federation of Teachers] wants to forgive and forget everything that happened during COVID, because she was a key player,” Descovich added to the conversation.

 

“She kept schools closed. What unions did to children for over a year, in some places, and continuing in some places, between forced masking, quarantining for weeks and months on end, to these children – it is not easily going to be forgotten.”

Weingarten’s abuse of children “destroyed their lives,” Moms for Liberty says

For two years, America’s school children were forced to wear covid veils (face masks), stay away from their peers, and live under the heavy boot of medical tyranny – all because of tyrants like Weingarten who thought they would get away with it.

 

“It destroyed children’s lives,” Descovich says.

 

“The trajectory for children that lost two years of education, when you look at the NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress] scores, you know, chances are a lot of these kids are not going to be able to graduate and their future is dismal because of women like her. So of course she wants to put it behind us and forget everything that has happened, but parents are not going to be able to do that very easily.”

 

What Descovich is referring to, here, is something called the Nation’s Report Card, which shows that scamdemic-related school closures led to children’s reading and math scores plummeting to the lowest levels in American history.

 

“The truth of the matter is – you know, Tina said they won’t be able to graduate,” Justice interjected. “The truth is they probably will, because the metrics are being changed, and they’re making it easier and easier to graduate.”

 

“We have, you know, declining student engagement, declining attendance, declining achievement scores, and yet graduation rates have never been higher. And so that just shows you this is a system that’s very intent on protecting itself. The union is very invested in protecting the system, and they want you to focus on what I like to call the alphabet soup: The CRT / SEL / DEI, ‘If only children felt safe and valued, if only this, if only that, then they could learn.’”

 

In other words, children in America are no longer learning reading, writing, and arithmetic, and are instead getting a steady diet of LGBT indoctrination, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” reprogramming, and various other anti-white, anti-American propaganda.

 

Together with the National Education Association (NEA), the AFT has reportedly pulled in some half a billion dollars in dues, nearly all of which ends up going towards far-left political causes.

 

“They are promoting radical progressive ideology in this country – they are so far away from their core issue of public education,” Descovich added about these two groups.

 

The latest news about the push for justice against the covid criminals can be found at Plague.info.

Sources for this article include:

NaturalNews.com

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com

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Doc Anarchy-logo

Doc Anarchy

You want amnesty? We want reparations.

There will be no forgiveness without repentance

15February2023  https://docanarchy.substack.com/p/you-want-amnesty-we-want-reparations

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”

  • Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Do you remember those videos of people dying in the streets of China in the early days of covid?

Something smelled wrong. As a medical professional, I have seen people in rough shape. Heart attacks, strokes, overdoses, and so on.

 

With the exception of a massive pulmonary embolism, I have never seen anything drop a healthy-appearing, well-dressed man like the person below.

Covid-19 victim on the ground-China

Covid-19 victim on the ground-China

Furthermore, when people die, they don’t fall flat on their backs in a perfect anatomic position like they’re playing the planking game. Sudden death is ugly. You twitch. You roll. Your froth at the mouth. This was simply not believable.

 

Still, it was hard not to get swept up in the hysteria. It was everywhere. Mainstream doctors and journalists were repeating fake talking points, inflated infection fatality data, and bad science.

 

The people who were supposed to be in charge of the public response (Fauci and company) were giving us mixed messages. “Don’t buy masks!” one week and, “e all need masks!” the next. This was taking place in the face of historic shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE). I remember being taught how to sanitize an N-95 mask for reuse with some bleach water and a paper bag.

 

Treatments for covid-19 were rudimentary. We didn’t understand the full effects on the body well enough yet so mistakes were made. Ventilators were abused early and often. In some cases, satanic physicians threw patients on the ventilator to prevent them from aerosolizing covid.

 

Early treatment was disorganized. Azithromycin, hydroxychloroquine, and zinc became the go-to for those who were informed. Slowly over time, we got better.

 

But it was always one step forward and two steps back. While heroes like Dr. Zelenko created early treatment protocols, villains like Dr. Fauci said they would kill you. Doctors McCullough and Malone railed against the way we were treating patients. They were censored on social media and had their licenses challenged for their trouble.

 

In the end, mainstream medicine landed on the following foolproof strategy for treating covid: Stay at home and take Tylenol while you test yourself with a cheap home oximeter and come into the hospital when your oxygen drops below 92% one time. Then you’ll be admitted where you’ll sit in a dirty hospital bed eating seed oil chicken and watching CNN all day with another covid patient seemingly dying on the other side of the curtain. When you can’t tolerate nasal oxygen anymore we might try Bipap, but those are in short supply so here comes the ventilator. Oh, and when you die, your family can’t come to see you and you also can’t have a funeral.

 

This is not an exaggeration. I saw this exact series of events occur over, and over, and over.

Those who disagreed with the risk posed by covid, the idiocy of the proposed treatments, or the ridiculous social precautions were called science deniers. They were accused of trying to kill grandma.

 

In October, one covid hysteric had the audacity to request a pandemic amnesty. Emily Oster, the author, correctly points out that they were so wrong on so many different things. Turns out, actions do have consequences.

 

When they shut down “nonessential” businesses the ramifications were felt worldwide. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics knew this was the case. The French economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote about this phenomenon over 150 years ago in “What is Seen and What is Not Seen.”

 

The government mandated that certain people stayed home. They were not allowed to spend money on certain products. Businesses either closed entirely or had their revenue slashed due to a massive drop in demand (or supply in some cases). That is what is seen.

 

What is not seen, are the second and third-order effects of these decisions. You don’t see the young man who was saving for a can and can no longer buy it. You don’t see the used car dealer who was going to sell him that car and use the commission to buy his fiance an engagement ring. You don’t see the jeweler who was going to use that money to grow his 401K.

 

This basic principle was completely ignored and swept aside in favor of “free” money printed by the Federal Reserve.

Mask mandates and social distancing were next. Once lockdowns were lifted, mask mandates and social distancing fell into place.

 

There are countless videos of Karens and Kens screeching at passersby who casually strolled too close to their 6-foot safety bubble while walking down the street in the bright sunshine and breeze.

 

The 6-foot social distance stickers every store had to install still remain in place, to this day in many places. A relic of a bygone era. Restaurantors were forced to buy and install flimsy pieces of plastic between customers as if the aerosolized virus doesn’t equilibrate in the room as we all learned in Physics 101.

 

Those who chose not to comply were given fine after fine. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. They had their livelihood taken away because they refused to comply with the asinine dictates of the tyrants in the local and federal governments.

 

If you were unfortunate enough to have a family member or loved one die during covid, you know the cruelty these people were willing to force on you. Funerals were banned to maintain social distancing. Family members weren’t allowed in the hospital as their loved ones took their final breath before being ventilated for the rest of their lives.

 

Grandmothers were locked up in nursing homes and told not to leave their rooms. For months these people were not allowed to see their children, grandchildren, spouses, and friends. Their entire lives were disrupted. They didn’t ask for that.

You will never get that lost time back.

 

Despite no good science supporting their use, masks became the great hope. If you simply wore this poorly fitted piece of fabric made in China that you shoved in your pocket, we could beat this virus.

 

Never mind the fact that medical professionals are taught how to properly don and doff PPE so as not to contaminate themselves or those around them. Surely, your pocket is plenty clean enough.

 

Do you think it’s possible that untrained people could get some covid particles on their mask, put that mask in their pocket and contaminate the entire mask, and then put it back on their face later, thereby infecting themselves with covid?

 

I’m not even going to get into double masking. That was nothing more than a final gasp to stay relevant from a sad, sorry man losing his grip on power. I won’t hold my breath on Fauci being punished for his myriad lies to the American public.

 

In September 2021, President Biden began the federal vaccine mandates. This elevated covid tyranny to a whole new level. It gave businesses and individuals the ability to legally discriminate against others on the basis of unproven medical therapies.

 

History is not on the side of those who pushed the vaccine mandates. Turns out, Big Pharma isn’t as truthful as we wished. Their vaccines aren’t as effective as they claim. Turns out, they aren’t even safe.

 

Despite the mountains of evidence against the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines, these were used as the basis for countless layoffs. People had their lives ruined because they didn’t want an experimental therapy to prevent a cold.

 

Broadly, you can break the country into two groups: covid hysterics and covid skeptics. Certainly, there are crazies on both sides. We can safely ignore those people.

 

Covid hysterics bought into mask mandates, vaccines, and lockdowns. They were willing to go along with, or actively enforced, these dictates.

 

Covid skeptics may have bought into some part of these but didn’t buy the entire narrative they were being fed. Ironically, if you agreed with the covid hysterics on 2/3 of their policy decisions, that remaining 1/3 made you a heretic.

 

After 3 years of covid, we are not in a good place. It is becoming more and more clear that the covid skeptics were more correct more often, especially on the important things.

That leaves us with the question: what do we do now?

One side (average citizens) was systematically oppressed by a more powerful group of people with a monopoly on the use of force (government). I would go as far as to call it abuse.

 

One critical part of our justice system is punishment or justice. Another critical part is reform. The last part is reparations. In order for there to be any covid amnesty, these three factors must be met. Here is my proposal:

  1. Punishment for those who committed covid tyranny
    1. Lockdown government officials stripped of office
    2. Lockdown governors, government officials, and “public servants” are held liable for their decisions through civil lawsuits
    3. Big Pharma is held liable for their products via civil and criminal lawsuits- this would require revoking their EUA
  2. Reform to our current system
    1. Revoke the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 which grants vaccine manufacturers broad protections and distorts the healthcare economy
    2. Punish lawmakers who create and support unconstitutional legislation
      1. If you create a law violating the 1st amendment you are open to civil lawsuits, for example
    3. Break up the American Medical Association and other credentialing agencies
      1. This would expand the marketplace of ideas within the medical community and greatly increase the supply of physicians, as well as the quality of care
  3. Reparations for those harmed
    1. Restore all lost jobs with 50% back pay, plus 10% contribution to Roth IRA
      1. This would make up for lost opportunity cost, as well as any financial hardship encountered by the federal mandates
    2. Refund all fees and fines levied by covid hysterics and government tyrants, plus 50% of the total amount for damages

We can never go back in time and change the past. If you banned your own children from attending Thanksgiving because they didn’t get a vaccine, you will have to live with it.

 

We can fix it going forward. This list is a good place to start. If you want Amnesty, start with repentance.

A nation cannot function when it’s this fractured. Battle lines have been drawn. We have seen what people are willing to say or do to their fellow citizens in order to have a little piece of mind.

If I find myself in a foxhole, I pray the person in there with me doesn’t have a mask on.

JerusalemCats Comments:

Perhaps the mainstream media is suddenly realizing that they may have to face some payback for their covid zealotry?  “We didn’t know! We were just following orders!”  It all sounds rather familiar.

Doctors, have you recommended that people take the Covid-19 Vaccine? You need to DO THE RIGHT THING!

This is what “We were just following orders!” will get you:

Option 1: Nuremberg trial and execution

Nuremberg trials

Nuremberg trials

Nuremberg trials hanging

Nuremberg trials hanging

Option 2: Hunt them Down and Kill them.

In a Saigon street, on February 1, 1968, during the North Vietman's Tet Offensive, South Vietnam’s police chief raised a gun to the head of a handcuffed Vietcong prisoner and abruptly pulled the trigger.

In a Saigon street, on February 1, 1968, during the North Vietman’s Tet Offensive, South Vietnam’s police chief raised a gun to the head of a handcuffed Vietcong prisoner and abruptly pulled the trigger.

Option 3: Hunt them Down and Eat them.

Cat eating meat

Cat eating meat

Cat eating meat

Cat eating meat

Canaan Dog

http://www.thepetowners.com/breed/Canaan-Dog.html

The Canaan Dog is Israel's national dog

The Canaan Dog is Israel’s national dog

Introduction

The Canaan Dog is Israel’s national dog and although not everyone is familiar with the breed it is hardly surprising because they are among the rarest dogs on the planet. They are medium in size and boast having a distinctive wedge-shaped head. These lovely dogs only recently arrived here in the UK where they were an immediate hit, but with this said anyone hoping to share their home with a Canaan Dog might have trouble finding a puppy because fewer than 3000 dogs are known to exist in the entire world.

History

The Canaan Dog boasts being one of the most ancient breeds to have been developed in the Middle East where they were bred to guard and herd flocks of sheep. Over time and as the Israelites left their lands, they took their dogs with them, but only the fittest and strongest of these dogs survived the often harsh conditions they worked in. The dogs earned themselves a good reputation and were soon used by many Bedouin tribes of the desert to guard their herds and camps, a job the Canaan Dog did supremely well.

In the thirties guard dogs were needed to protect the many isolated settlements that were set up in Israel and the Canaan Dog was the perfect candidate for the job. At the time, these dogs were semi-feral which meant they could tolerate the harsh conditions of the region and today, many of them can still be seen guarding Bedouin flocks in the desert.

The breed has only just very recently been exhibited at shows here in the UK and as such, the Canaan Dog remains very much an unknown. They are still considered to be one of the rarest breeds on the planet although more interest in these dogs will ensure that with careful and selective breeding, the Canaan Dog may well become a popular choice as companion and family pet both here in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

Prof. Magnus Soderland having lunch break with a colleague-LG

Prof. Magnus Soderland having lunch break with a colleague-LG

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lewrockwell-com-logo

If You Want Forgiveness, Emily, Here’s Your Program

By 03November2022 https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/11/karen-kwiatkowski/if-you-want-forgiveness-emily-heres-your-program/

Being lectured to, condemned, ridiculed and hated by elitist bullies is bad enough on a single day or for one issue.

 

This behavior went on for over two and a half years, for nearly a thousand days, in a thousand ways.  The economic, social, interpersonal, and educational costs associated with the idiotic mandates and unscientific policies will last a lifetime for many, and certainly shortened the lifetimes of many more.

 

The suggestion printed by the WEF-loving, pro-war lefties at The Atlantic is that they and their global team of unscientific lemming-like nanny-state bullies – just possibly – were a bit misinformed (not their fault) in 2020/21 regarding masking, untested genetic injections, and actual death rates, etc (not their fault).  This bully squad accepted without question the lies their government told them (not their fault).  They not only eagerly, but radically and angrily defended and promoted those lies (partly their fault).

 

They hope we understand that it wasn’t entirely their fault, and that they are still smart and educated.  They really just wanted to live and survive a flu-like disease with a death rate comparable to any other bad flu – and their nagging and incoherent jammering and name-calling was just so we also wouldn’t die – unless we refused the experimental free required shot and continued to live our lives and try and keep our businesses open, then if we died it was kind of funny to them.

 

Their excuse was fear, but in reality it was not fear at all, and nor was it hate although it looked like it. It was contempt from Day One.  Leftover contempt from the Trump era, pumped up and recirculated via a government over-response to a disease that now we understand to have been created via gain of function in a government lab by American scientists, including several who had close personal and professional relationships with Fauci. It was individual contempt, political contempt, and institutional contempt for the masses as demonstrated by the Gates Foundation and its compadres, the Democratic Party, and numerous government aligned institutions and industries.

 

Emily Oster wants us to forgive each other, but it isn’t hate they dished out to us.  If it had been, that hate might be forgiven.  If they hated us because they didn’t know any better – and now they don’t hate us anymore because they know better – well, that can be forgiven.

 

However, contempt is not something that can be “forgiven” by the formerly contemptible. Their contempt for us has nothing to do with us, and it isn’t our problem.  Their contempt for us should be eliminated – not by our “forgiveness” which is irrelevant – but by their own internal change, their own decisions, individually, that we are at least their equals, and quite possibly, in the case of the COVID policy fiasco, examples they could and should have followed, rather than condemned.

 

There are some steps that, if taken, would make me believe that they are serious. Oster has tossed out a veiled and somewhat worried request for a kind of “forgiveness” and tellingly she also used the word “amnesty.” She knows what we all know:  crimes were committed, and citizen trust in governing institutions and their university/media/industry cohorts has been broken and will not be easily restored.

 

Clearly, most people harmed by the myriad of bad policies and bad attitudes by the virulent anti-critical thinking crowd are no where near ready to forgive.  There could be a time for that after court cases are adjudicated, government bureaucrats fired, politicians kicked out of office, and the books and the science comes out from behind the shadows.  When the ghoulish merger of government and big Pharma and the medical institutions is destroyed, and we gain back the freedom we should have always had with regards to our health care decisions and actions, then there could be time for forgiveness.

 

I’d like to see a 12 step movement embraced and acted upon by people like Emily.  Addicts, like the The bullying anti-science left wing are addicts – they gave over personal responsibility to think and act soberly and fairly, to the thing they are addicted to – government centralized power and their own comfortable sense of superiority over people who disagree with them politically. To this end, I recommend that Emily Oster and all of her peers and allies:

  1. Admit they were powerless over their knee-jerk acceptance of government messaging, that their lives had become unmanageable, and yet they remained arrogant.
  2. Come to believe a Power greater than themselves could restore them to sanity – and that power is not the federal government or its associated bureaucracies and lackey institutions.
  3. Made a decision to turn their will and their lives over to the care of God as they understand God.
  4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of themselves, and their actions, beliefs and behaviors over the past 3 years.
  5. Admitted to God, to themselves and to another human being the exact nature of their wrongs.
  6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
  7. Humbly asked God to remove their shortcomings.
  8. Made a list of all persons they have harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
  9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
  10. Continued to take personal inventory and when they were wrong, promptly admitted it.
  11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve their conscious contact with God as they understood God, praying only for the knowledge of God’s will for them and the power to carry that out.
  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, they tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all their affairs.

 

I’d be happy if they simply looked into half of these 12 –  choose any six steps and go for it.  But I imagine that none of these steps is what Emily and her ilk had in mind.

 

Maybe when their icons are sitting in jail, having lied publicly one too many times, and having participated in mass murder, they will recognize their addiction, and seek to make a personal change.  With Covid, this group of almost a hundred million Americans demonstrated a thousand days of collapses in critical thinking, a thousand days of lockstep unwillingness to question authority, and a thousand days of animalistic rage and aggression toward those who displayed a healthy distrust of large, nontransparent and unaccountable organizations and institutions.

 

So far, none of this is being addressed.  No doubt we will suffer these kinds of freedom-destroying government-driven movements again, be the crisis a man-made disaster, a false flag, or an act of God.  Next time, however, the other hundred million of contemptibles among us might not take it lying down.

Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, farmer and aspiring anarcho-capitalist. She ran for Congress in Virginia’s 6th district in 2012.

Copyright © Karen Kwiatkowski

JerusalemCats Comments: Sorry Evil is NOT a 12 Step Program! Even Adult Children of Alcoholics don’t do that kind of Evil. They may kill themselves 50% of the time but they won’t do that kind of Evil, Especially to children.

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Hospitals See Most First Quarter Defaults Since 2011

by Tyler Durden, 04April2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/hospitals-see-most-first-quarter-defaults-2011

By Andrew Cass of Beckers Hospital Review

Bonds of eight hospitals lapsed in “impairment” – meaning they experienced covenant issues amounting to a technical or monetary default – in the first quarter of 2023, the highest number of hospitals disclosing default since 2011, Bloomberg reported March 31.

Hospitals' Financial Challenges

Hospitals’ Financial Challenges

 

Only one hospital disclosed default in the first quarter of 2022, according to the report.

The data comes from Municipal Market Analytics. Lisa Washburn, the organization’s managing director, told Bloomberg that an unusual aspect of the impairments is some are coming from large, highly-rated systems.

 

“Some of the unusual parts about the impairments that we’re seeing is that they are coming from sometimes large, highly-rated systems,” she said in an interview. “That’s actually something that struck us at the beginning of the year when it started to happen because you wouldn’t expect normally to see covenant breaches happening for an A-rated system.”

 

Ms. Washburn said that is due to a combination of negative investment returns in 2022, federal COVID-19 relief funds drying up and rising costs, particularly labor, according to the report. She added that a backlog of patients who need to move to nursing homes but cannot due to staffing shortages also have affected finances.

 

“And now add to it that debt costs are higher,” she told Bloomberg.

 

Another source of pressure is competition for patients, Chris George, a senior managing director at FTI Consulting, told the publication

 

“You’re seeing a very slow evolution of care moving to an ambulatory setting,” he said.

 

“A lot of local hospitals, their biggest challenge is access to capital,” George told Bloomberg in an interview. “It’s going to be a tough year this year.”

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Democrats BEG for covid forgiveness after DESTROYING the lives of millions

02November2022 by: https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-11-02-democrats-beg-for-covid-forgiveness-after-destroying-the-lives-of-millions.html

This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

(Natural News) In anticipation of the coming Nuremberg 2.0 criminal trials that will seek the indictment of covid co-conspirators who mass murdered millions of people across the globe, Democrats are now begging for “amnesty,” hoping we will all forgive and forget what they did to the victims. The raw tyranny and authoritarian spite demonstrated by Democrats in their mad push for mandatory vaccines, cruel lockdowns of children and the economic destruction of small businesses is simply supposed to be waved away and forgotten, according to Emily Oster, writing for The Atlantic, a left-wing globalist propaganda mouthpiece.

 

Oster — who pushed for vaccines, social distancing and masks — claims that the people pushing all the covid tyranny simply didn’t know what they were doing.

 

In other words, they were all just following orders and should therefore be forgiven. This is the same excuse offered by Nazis in East Berlin, who begged for mercy after slaughtering innocent civilians who were merely trying to escape tyranny.

 

According to rigorous estimates published by Steve Kirsh, Ed Dowd and others, covid vaccines have already likely killed more than one million people in America alone. Globally, at least 20 million people have been killed by these vaccines, with billions facing disability due to vaccine injuries.

An epic backlash against the tyrants

The backlash against Oster’s article has been truly epic. Across the ‘net, pundits and truthers unleashed a backlash of fury against Oster and The Atlantic for daring to suggest that all their crimes against humanity should simply be forgotten and forgiven without even an apology from those who mercilessly pushed covid tyranny (and destroyed millions of lives in the process). John Nolte from Breitbart.com probably said it best in a recent article, stating:

 

There will be no forgiveness before there’s a reckoning for the mercenary liars who abused our elderly and children.

There will be no moving on before there’s justice for those who were bankrupted, fined, jailed, mourned alone, forced into lonely despair, and stripped of youth’s magic and irreplaceable moments.

 

Most of all, there will be no reprieve because you are not sorry; because given the opportunity, you will do it all over again; because you are vicious, heartless, mercenary, politically-driven bullies only asking for amnesty so you can catch us off guard the next time.

 

Nolte is correct. The left-wing covid tyrants — sometimes called covidians — have no remorse. They offer no apology. They are begging for mercy simply because they got caught abusing others, and they hope to never face the consequences for their own actions.

If you want forgiveness, here’s what needs to happen

We call for a legal and lawful process of investigating and indicting all those who pushed covid crimes upon the world, followed by prosecutions and due process court hearings. Nuremberg 2.0 needs to get under way so that the truth is told and those responsible are exposed for their crimes.

 

In addition, we suggest all the following actions:

 

1) A nationwide apology by all the media outlets who pushed covid lies, vaccine propaganda, mask nonsense and social distancing disinformation. Front page. Large font. Full admission of guilt.

2) The reinstatement of all the people fired for refusing masks, vaccines, etc., with full back pay.

3) The construction of a “COVID Wall of SHAME” monument specifically naming the criminals who are found guilty in taking part in this global covid conspiracy that targeted humanity. At the same time, we must also erect a “COVID Wall of HEROES” to publicly acknowledge those who told the truth, who stood up to tyranny and who saved lives by resisting the covid insanity. (Let’s start with Z for Zelenko…)

4) We need some guarantee that left-wing tyrants won’t try this again, because they are constantly seeking new ways to control people, destroy lives and achieve global depopulation. How can we be assured they aren’t already cooking up another nefarious toxin or pathogen to unleash upon the world?

I cover all this and more in today’s podcast via Brighteon.com:

– Democrats are begging for covid AMNESTY because they got caught
– But they have NO remorse, and they aren’t sorry. They are EVIL.
– Dems need to offer nationwide APOLOGY for covid tyranny, censorship and lies
– Those who were FIRED need to be reinstated with back pay
– All assets of vax pharma executives should be SEIZED
– Funds should be used to pay families of VACCINE VICTIMS
– We donate nearly $14K to California attorneys suing hospitals for covid murder
– Why God rewards those who pay it forward and don’t hoard money for themselves
– Eurozone inflation soars beyond 10% as Europe faces winter of collapse
– Nearly 40% of small businesses in USA can’t pay rent
– The US economy has been WRECKED by Biden and the Dems
– Important thoughts about FORGIVENESS – but only after apologies are given
– Which items still work after an EMP attack

Brighteon: Brighteon.com/de3a9e26-dd44-40b3-b594-8be16369a12e

Libsyn: Healthrangerreport.com/situation-update-nov-2-2022-democrats-beg-for-covid-forgiveness-after-destroying-the-lives-of-millions

Bitchute: Bitchute.com/video/6HtWeu3EUSoz/

Rumble: Rumble.com/v1r2t9w-situation-update-11222-democrats-beg-for-covid-forgiveness….html

Banned.Video: Banned.video/watch?id=636266333f5060081608dcc1

Hear the full episode here:

Situation Update, Nov 2, 2022 – Democrats BEG for covid forgiveness after DESTROYING the lives of millions

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Grunt Proof

Grunt Proof

Grunt Proof 09February2023

Hard facts for stubborn people:

  • 1. The NFL is woke AF, and invests heavily on keeping us fat and dumb on the couch forever
  • 2. NBA is literally owned by China
  • 3. FOX “news” is also controlled opposition and State Media. Everything on tv is
  • 4. If you complied at all with mandates, despite how tough you talk, you would have helped the Nazis.
  • 5. Genocides don’t just happen overnight. It takes years or decades of propaganda, spoiled, lazy, and compliant generations, for the right people to take over and start killing. And by then, it’s too late for anyone to stop it.
  • 6. Despite how crazy the rest of the world believes we are, there’s a reason there’s no black and white footage of Americans being put into Gulags or gas chambers.

#preparedlivesmatter

We the People-Today#preparedlivesmatter

We the People-Today
#preparedlivesmatter

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The Age Of Amnesia

by Tyler Durden, Dec 16December2022 https://www.zerohedge.com/political/age-amnesia

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The main defense of Anthony Fauci in his legal deposition this month was pretty simple: he forgot. He said that he couldn’t recall nearly 200 times and versions of that many more. He said that he was so busy running his huge agency plus shepherding vaccines that he couldn’t possibly remember this or that email implicating him in a censorship scheme. He gets thousands of emails a day and there is no reason to think any in particular would grab his attention.

 

It’s all a bit implausible because we saw him on TV several times a day for the better part of three years. He was the hard-working actor out there. I do TV and interviews several times per week but I try my best to throttle them back and turn many down simply because they truly drain away energy and focus from other work. In short, they are all-consuming. The notion that he neglected issues of message in favor of serious science is an incredibly obvious strain on credulity.

 

So what was the point of this line of answer? Yes, he wants to save his skin. No question about that. But it occurs to me that there is another point too. He wants to model for the nation and the world how to think about the whole of the last three years. His view is that everyone should forget about it.

 

You have surely noticed this happening ever since the opening following lockdowns and the rest. We are all just supposed to forget. We are supposed to move on. I’ve heard already a thousand times that we never had a lockdown. There seems to be little in the way of official memory of two years of school closures or the shutting of churches on holidays.

 

We are being told to forget about the medical mandates that displaced millions from their jobs. We had relatives die and we couldn’t attend their funerals but we are supposed to forget about all that. I see claims daily that the censorship never really took place or wasn’t that bad really, so we should shut up already.

 

What about all the politicians who violated stay-at-home orders, went on vacations or got hairstyles, or were photographed partying without a mask even as they imposed them on everyone else? Hey, mistakes were surely made but let’s not make too big a deal of it.

 

Indeed, it was amazing to me how the most egregious and global attacks on human liberty in the name of public health were very quickly memory-holed by the major media, which we now know was the answer to public health agencies themselves the entire time. We all stood by in shock and wondered if we were the crazy ones.

 

That, after all, is the whole point of Orwell’s Memory Hole, the invention of an alternative history of the recent past that contradicts our own memories and invites us to believe that we are crazy or obsessed or otherwise thinking about things that truly do not matter. This is why the Memory Hole was so important in Orwell’s book. It becomes a means by which the population is controlled in its thinking and therefore in its psychological capacity to resist the next round of impositions.

 

This is why cultivating a solid memory is so crucial to the preservation of the good and civilized life. The barbarians all around us are constantly inviting us to forget so that we do not learn lessons and do not apply the lessons we learn. Instead we become blank slates for the ruling class to write on daily and then we are more likely to believe them. Better to never learn lessons at all. If we must learn something, it should be along the lines that we need more control and more acquiescence in the future.

 

Movements that truly seek to prevent horrors of the past must also seek to preserve memory. This is why there are Holocaust Museums, for example, to help us understand experiences that were not ours but from which we can still learn. Indeed, this is the whole point of learning in general, to extract wisdom from people and events that have come before in order that we can be better prepared to build a future.

 

People who invite us to forget are more than likely up to no good. It’s not just that they want to replace a real narrative with a false one. They want history to start over at any given moment so that we are more easy to manipulate in the future.

 

Perhaps this is why basic memory skills have been so de-emphasized in early childhood education for so long. It’s a true tragedy because young people do have a remarkable capacity for memorization. They might lack the ability to think abstractly or process difficult strings of logic but they do have the mental power to hear and repeat, which is why a classical education puts so much emphasis on this and probably why modern education regards memorization as a waste of time.

 

The urge to forget plays out in strange ways in our time. When accounts are banned on YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook, so too are the archives of those accounts blown away so that we can longer access information about the recent past. That is intentional, otherwise the banning would be a mere blocking of new content. No, the whole point is to wipe out what we know or think we know.

 

This is one of the tragedies of the Trump ban on Twitter, for example. We lost a narrative record over years of important data points, making even writing the history of our times more difficult. So when the account came back, so too did our memories and then we could scroll through and verify a version of events that is closer to reality rather than the fake history we were being told to accept from on high.

 

We’ve been through almost three years in which powerful elites have done their best to wipe out history. I recall the chills I got down my spine when major media organs began putting trigger warnings on links older than a few months. The clear message was: this is no longer valid or reliable because things have surely changed. This is also why Fauci kept saying that the science has changed. It was a call for us to forget all the statements that contradict his latest statements.

 

In this way, we have entered into an age of amnesia with a ruling class that wants everyone to forget the wisdom of the past and even the events of recent history, to forgive but mostly to forget and move on like good little pawns in their game. Just do what we are told and forget everything else.

 

We can all resist this little game. We can access Archive.org and, more importantly, we can consult the wisdom of the ages through books and poetry and religious teachings. If civilization is to survive the onslaught, it will be because we choose to remember and act on those memories in defiance of every demand that we forget.

 

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Professor Lockdown Denies Ever Calling For Lockdown

by Tyler Durden, 06November2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/professor-lockdown-denies-ever-calling-lockdown

Authored by Will Jones via The Brownstone Institute,

 

In one of the more bizarre moments at the Covid Inquiry so far, Professor Neil Ferguson, the architect of Britain’s lockdown, today denied ever calling for the first national stay-at-home order – in the latest instance of lockdown backpedalling. 

 

The Mail  has more.

Professor Neil Ferguson’s terrifying March 2020 models warned that 500,000 Brits would die unless tougher action was taken to curb the virus’s spread.

 

It spooked Boris Johnson into adopting draconian restrictions that saw the country told they “must stay at home.” Vaccines — considered the only safe route out of the pandemic — were still months away from being deployed.

 

But Professor Ferguson, who quit his role as a SAGE adviser two months after being caught breaking social distancing rules to meet his married lover, today insisted he didn’t tell officials to plunge the country into a lockdown.

He told the UK COVID-19 Inquiry that the situation was “a lot more complex.”

The inquiry is in its second module, which is examining core UK decision-making and political governance.

Hugo Keith KC asked: “Do you feel that you did confine yourself to the provision of scientific advice, or did you become, despite your best endeavours, irrevocably involved in determination of policy?”

Imperial College London’s Professor Ferguson, nicknamed ‘Professor Lockdown’ for his infamous modelling, said it was a “difficult question to answer.”

He said: “I know I’m associated very much with a particular policy.

 

“But as you’ll be aware from the evidence I’ve given in my statement and statements of evidence, the reality was a lot more complex. 

“I don’t think I stepped over that line to say ‘we need to do this now.’

 

“What I tried to do was at times, which was stepping outside the scientific advisory role, to try and focus people’s minds on what was going to happen and the consequences of current trends.”

The epidemiologist drew heavy flak for his team’s modelling on the Covid pandemic. 

Professor Neil Ferguson modelling on the Covid pandemic

Professor Neil Ferguson modelling on the Covid pandemic

 

Their work suggested 500,000 Brits would die if nothing was done to stop the spread of the virus and there would be 250,000 deaths if two-thirds caught Covid.

 

Worth reading in full.

 

Ross Clark in the Spectator says that perhaps the most remarkable revelation from Professor Ferguson’s inquiry evidence is that “he spoke to and emailed Ben Warner at No. 10 on March 13th, three days before the Imperial paper [Report 9] was published.”

 

Warner was a data scientist brought into Downing Street by Dominic Cummings and whom Cummings later credited for inducing pandemic alarm in No. 10, so Ferguson contacting him directly beforehand is significant.

 

However, Clark notes that in his email to Warner,

Ferguson then stopped short of damning the Government’s policy of mitigation rather than suppression. In fact, if the Government decided to continue with mitigation, he wrote, ‘there is a rational basis to that decision which I would say the science supports.’ However, he added, the Government should make it clear how many people were likely to die.

 

“Intriguingly, Ferguson then went on to write: ‘This event is in the natural disaster category and the cure (e.g. massive social distancing, shutdowns) could be worse than the disease.’ In other words, he had at least considered the possibility that lockdowns could cause more damage than they were worth – but neither he nor anyone else seems to have tried to model this.”

Republished from DailySceptic

 

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Vaccines Could Impact Mortality and Risks of Other Diseases: Study

A recent review found non-live vaccines tend to increase a person’s risks of all-cause mortality, as well.

By Marina Zhang
8January2024 Updated: 10January2024 https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/vaccines-can-impact-long-term-survival-from-other-diseases-study-5559895

 

Apart from potentially preventing a particular disease, vaccines may cause persistent nonspecific effects that can affect a person’s lifetime survival.

 

In a review published on Dec. 26 in Vaccine, researchers found that non-live vaccines like influenza, COVID-19, hepatitis B, and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP) tend to cause adverse nonspecific effects (NSE), increasing a person’s risks of all-cause mortality and the potential risk of infections from diseases they are meant to protect against.

 

A live vaccine contains a weakened form of the pathogen, which is less virulent but capable of replicating in the body, thus mimicking the actual disease progression. Non-live vaccines use inactivated viruses, fragments, or genes of the pathogen to trigger an immune response without pathogen replication.

 

Live vaccines elicit a much stronger immune defense, typically requiring only one shot, while non-live vaccines result in a weaker response, often necessitating multiple shots.

 

So far, research has identified several non-live vaccines that cause adverse nonspecific effects, namely DTaP and Tdap, influenza H1N1, malaria, hepatitis B, inactivated polio, and COVID mRNA vaccines.

 

The Vaccine study singled out DTaP, influenza, malaria, hepatitis B, and COVID mRNA vaccines.

 

On the other hand, live vaccines such as the oral live polio vaccine (OPV), the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine for tuberculosis, and the smallpox vaccines all have beneficial nonspecific effects, according to the study.

 

“Live vaccines … elicit epigenetic alterations that train the innate immune system and increase immunity to unrelated infections. In opposition, non‐live vaccines may promote ‘tolerance’ that increases susceptibility to unrelated illnesses,” the authors suggested.

 

The study was primarily based on decades of work from Danish researchers Dr. Christine Stabell Benn and professor Peter Aaby.

 

“Our work is a tribute to their great scientific work that has not been recognized,” biologist Alberto Rubio-Casillas, one of the study’s authors, told The Epoch Times.

Non-Live Vaccines Are Like an ‘Ill-Prepared’ Army

“Historically, we’ve thought about the innate immune system as the first line of defense,” Dr. Benn told The Epoch Times.

It was thought that innate immunity could not store memory. To use war as an analogy, the immune system’s “army” could not learn from previous battles with pathogens. Adaptive immunity, on the other hand, could learn and be trained, forming antibodies to fight against the infection.

 

Therefore, for a long time, vaccines were evaluated based on their effects on the adaptive immune system, and antibodies were measured following vaccination.

 

But researchers in the Netherlands have since shown that the innate immune system can be trained. After vaccinating people with the BCG vaccines and harvesting some of the patients’ innate immune cells, researchers found that after vaccination, the innate cells exhibited a more robust immune response and demonstrated improved clearance of tuberculosis, as well as other bacteria and fungi when compared to patients’ prevaccination status.

 

However, the opposite was shown for non-live vaccines.

 

Thus, the innate immune system actually does learn something from its previous battles. This is called trained innate immunity.

 

Live vaccines, which mimic an actual disease, enhance the effectiveness of the innate immune system in defending against infections. Non-live vaccines, on the other hand, weaken the immune system’s ability to fend off infections.

 

In a TED talk, Dr. Benn compared infections to a competitive tennis match and live vaccines to a tennis coach. The tennis coach may change tactics and strategies, training the body to have “a wide variety of tricks” against the pathogen. Non-live vaccines, however, are like tennis ball machines that shoot out balls at a specific speed and spot. If a person only trains with a tennis ball machine, he or she will be less prepared for an actual match.

 

“So you may be ill-prepared and even worse off when a real opponent enters the court, and the balls start coming and hitting elsewhere than what you trained for,” Dr. Benn said.

Nonspecific Effects

Some vaccines result in positive nonspecific effects, but others may result in overall adverse nonspecific effects. The order in which vaccines are administered also factors in.

 

While non-live vaccines cause negative NSEs, administering a live vaccine after a non-live one neutralizes negative NSEs, Dr. Benn said.

This has been shown in studies evaluating the safety of measles vaccines, which are often given around the same time as DTP, a non-live vaccine. Studies have found that if the measles vaccine are given after the DTP vaccine, there is an overall positive effect, whereas if this order is reversed, then there is a negative effect.

 

“It seems that effects are strongest as long as the vaccine is the most recent vaccine,” said Dr. Benn.

 

Dr. Benn added that the BCG vaccine has long-term beneficial nonspecific effects “in spite of other vaccines being given afterwards.”

 

The DTaP vaccine has arguably the most evidence of adverse nonspecific effects. Girls who took the DTaP vaccine had a 50 percent higher risk of dying than boys who got it. Compared to girls who were DTaP-unvaccinated, vaccinated girls’ risk of dying was over 2.5 times higher.

 

Dr. Benn’s studies have generally shown that girls are at a greater risk of developing adverse nonspecific effects after being administered non-live vaccines.

 

Live Vaccines Replaced With Non-Live Vaccines

Non-live vaccines are increasingly replacing live vaccines. For example, live oral polio vaccines are no longer available on the U.S. market, and a non-live version is administered instead.

 

This substitution of live vaccines with non-live can pose potential health risks to the general immunity of the population, as the immune systems become less trained and potentially “lazy,” said Dr. Benn.

 

However, the main reason non-live vaccines are preferred over live vaccines is that they are believed to be safer for people with depleted immune systems.

 

Since a live vaccine causes mild disease in the body, people with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome can develop a disease from the injection and may die since their bodies are unable to clear infections. Conversely, non-live vaccines comprise only disease components, so they cannot induce disease.

 

In this aspect, Dr. Benn said that the “risk of getting the real disease with the live vaccines has been seen as a bigger threat than I think it deserves.”

 

Research suggests that people with weaker immune constitutions due to age or chronic disease may sometimes benefit from having their immune systems trained using live vaccines.

 

In one study involving hospitalized older patients randomized to get the BCG vaccine or a placebo, the incidence of disease among those who took the BCG vaccine was about half the incidence of disease in the placebo group.

Health Authorities Still Skeptical

Despite the evidence suggesting the potential superiority of live vaccines, Dr. Benn’s research has been largely unacknowledged by the mainstays of academia.

 

“In my interpretation, whereas most researchers now acknowledge nonspecific effects, the major health organizations are reluctant to accept our findings because [the findings] imply the possibility that some vaccines may sometimes be harmful. So it is easier just to dismiss the whole thing,” she said.

 

“The vaccine skeptics, on the other side, may find that our observations on non-live vaccines confirm their worst fears—vaccines can be harmful—but they may be more reluctant to accept the beneficial effects. And their focus on the negative effects may make the vaccine supporters take an even more rigid stance.”

 

Immunologists now largely agree that some vaccines cause nonspecific effects, but how these effects should be quantified remains controversial.

 

This is because the nonspecific effects of vaccines are dependent on context, whereas a vaccine’s specific effects are generally considered context-independent. For example, females may make more antibodies than males and younger people more than older, but most people still get some form of immunity.

 

“In contrast, because the nonspecific effects act on the broader innate and general immune system, they are dependent on other factors going on in the immune system … like other health interventions that can alter and modify the nonspecific effects,” Dr. Benn explained. Not everybody will have the same benefit, she added.

 

Additionally, pharmaceutical companies may be more reluctant to produce live vaccines because they are harder to culture and manufacture.

 

“If you have ever tried to bake with sourdough, it’s a little bit like live vaccines; they are very dependent on the temperature of the room, the water used to culture it, and so on,” said Dr. Benn.

 

“But basically, all the live vaccines I’m talking about—they have no patents anymore, they’re super cheap to produce, and it’s some of the cheapest vaccines we have to make.”

 

Vaccine Safety: NSEs Versus Adverse Events

Though live vaccines tend to cause positive NSEs, that is not to say they cannot potentially cause adverse events. NSEs are considered a separate entity from adverse events, Dr. Benn explained. According to her, in rare cases, live vaccines may induce the actual disease in some recipients, such as people born with gross defects in their immune systems or who have severe immunodeficiencies, like fulminant AIDS.

 

In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, live vaccines were likely not considered due to concerns about the formation of recombinant viruses when a vaccinated person comes into contact with the circulating viral strain.

 

However, despite their potential beneficial NSEs, the COVID vaccines may still be associated with adverse events due to the presence of highly toxic spike proteins, which studies now link to long COVID and vaccine injuries.

 

In the medical textbook “The Immune Response,” the authors wrote that, in isolated cases, live viral strains administered to individuals can regain virulence, causing disease in recipients. Additionally, there is a risk of contamination with other viral strains during manufacturing.

 

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Florida Grand Jury’s COVID Policy Report: Interventions “Not Administered Based on the Best Available Scientific Data”

The Grand Jury followed the science behind COVID policies…and found little trace of it to follow.

Posted by Leslie Eastman 5February2024 at 07:00am

 

Back in 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis asked the state Supreme Court to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate possible crimes and wrongdoings the pharmaceutical industry may have committed against the state’s residents related to the COVID-19 vaccine. The plan was to have the Grand Jury impaneled between 12 and 18 months to investigate allegations and evidence.

 

The Florida Grand Jury has issued its first report. It is a disturbing review of the willingness of public health professionals to cooperate and the lack of scientific rigor used in developing pandemic response plans.

 

The entire 33-page report offers a master class in the type of analysis thoughtful review regular citizens can engage in when considering important issues of the day: “In a way, this Grand Jury has allowed us to do something that most Americans simply do not have the time, access, or wherewithal to do: Follow the science.”

 

While the entire document is worth reading for anyone concerned about the impact of COVID-19 policy on the nation, I will hit a few highlights.

 

To begin with, the Grand Jury received little cooperation from those in the administration associated with public health matters. The panel cannot compel cooperation, but its absence during this process, especially from those associated with The Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is extremely disturbing.

“Unfortunately, not all our investigative efforts have been met with fulsome cooperation,” the grand jury report states. “Some prospective witnesses have elected not to testify, often citing potential professional or personal consequences arising from their involvement with the Statewide Grand Jury process.”

 

“Occasionally, prospective witnesses have raised concerns about the underlying fairness of this Body,” it adds.

 

None of the federal agencies involved in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines have been forthcoming with information, the grand jury has discovered, and the panel said it has no legal power to force the agencies to furnish information.

 

“The Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Army, among others, all had a substantial hand in the contracting, approval and distribution process for the COVID-19 vaccines at the center of our inquiry,” the report states. “These agencies have elected not to provide representatives to testify before this body, and federal law prohibits us from compelling their cooperation.”

In addition to the vaccine, the Grand Jury also weighed science related to the benefit of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs)…and found it wanting, especially in the area of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs).

“We have never had sound evidence of their effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the form of reliable RCTs that demonstrated statistically significant benefits,” it said.

 

The grand jury scathed health agencies and the federal government for “fail[ing]” to accurately inform Americans on masks.

 

“[They hid to] avoid the potential embarrassment of the public health advice they championed being invalidated by evidence,” it said.

 

The jury found the public was also mislead on “social distancing.” During the pandemic, many businesses and Americans were told to space people six feet apart.

 

“It is not nearly as important how far away people are from one another as it is whether they are in an interior or exterior environment and whether that environment is subject to adequate airflow,” the jury said.

 

On lockdowns, the grand jury found that their usage only “modest[ly]” benefitted the “affluent” who could afford to stay home at the expense of children and Americans through age 40.

The Grand Jury’s experience aligns with the congressional hearing in which master COVID-policy maker Dr. Anthony Fauci could not recall exactly what science the 6-foot rule was derived from.

 

The report also contained important facts which are familiar to Legal Insurrection readers but which were apparently ignored over the course of three years of pandemic mania.

  • Jurisdictions that enforced lockdowns “tended to end up with higher overall excess mortality.”
  • “There have always been legitimate questions around the impracticality of individual adherence to mask recommendations, but once it became clear that the primary transmission vector of SARS-CoV-2 was via aerosol, their potential efficacy was further diminished.”
  • Social distancing is not “nearly as important … as it is whether they are in an interior or exterior environment and whether that environment is subject to adequate airflow,” information that they said is still “missing from the CDC’s Social Distancing Guidelines.”

The best part of the report summed up the quality of the “science” used in establishing pandemic policy [highlights mine].

As for their effect on overall SARS-CoV-2 risk, we cannot ignore the fact that these NPIs were not administered based on the best available scientific data.

 

In fact, many public health recommendations and their attendant mandates departed significantly from scientific research that was contemporaneously available to everyone: Individuals, scientists, corporations and governments alike. Often this research was ignored by institutional policymakers. Occasionally it was even attacked.

It is a sad state of affairs when something as simple as following the science constitutes an act of heresy, but here we are.

 

Importantly, while some of these NPIs may have shifted risk to later in time or from one group to another or had some speculative efficacy against viral spread when used in perfect laboratory conditions, comparative evidence suggests they did not significantly change the overall risk profile presented by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in terms of excess death, especially once collateral consequences are taken into consideration.

In conclusion, the Grand Jury found little science to follow. Its next report will likely make for further fascinating and disturbing reading.

 

Here is an X-thread that offers a point-by-point analysis of this report.

 


Tracy Beanz-tweet-2February2024-First Interim Report
🚨READ: The first presentation of the FL Grand Jury investigating COVID.

Note: they state they aren’t finished yet.

I will offer perspective and thoughts once I’ve read this.

LINK: https://acis-api.flcourts.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/172e2f34-0a47-41fa-a92f-6fc5ad21b4c9/docketentrydocuments/b122c85c-d85a-439a-bdf5-d74e7a66f38f

 

Click to download PDF file Click to Download the report SC2022-1710 First Interim Report

 

Tracy Beanz-tweet-2February2024-First Interim Report

Tracy Beanz-tweet-2February2024-First Interim Report

 

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Pfizer and Moderna COVID Vaccines’ Efficacy Exaggerated, Effectiveness ‘Well Below’ 50 Percent, Researchers Say

A key problem with the clinical trial is that the definition of vaccinated and unvaccinated is unclear, the paper says.

 

By Marina Zhang
26February2024 Updated: 1March2024, https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/pfizer-and-moderna-covid-vaccines-efficacy-exaggerated-effectiveness-well-below-50-percent-researchers-say-5595590

 

Researchers allege that biases and manipulation of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine clinical data have exaggerated vaccine efficacy and underestimated vaccine adverse events.

 

While most clinical trials would evaluate the effects of a drug from the day it is administered, these COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are not being evaluated from the first day the vaccines are given. A later date is chosen, which inflates the vaccine’s perceived efficacy and safety, researchers say.

 

It could make an ineffective vaccine — a COVID vaccine with zero efficacy — have a perceived vaccine effectiveness of up to 48 percent, said researcher Raphael Lataster on Feb. 26, citing a paper authored by professor Peter Doshi from the University of Maryland and others.

 

Unclear Definitions of Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated

Mr. Lataster, associate lecturer at the University of Sydney, spoke at Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) Feb. 26 roundtable discussion on COVID-19 vaccines and public health messaging. He summarized findings from a collection of four commentaries published in a peer-reviewed journal, of which two were authored by him.

 

“We have found in the studies varying definitions of fully vaccinated and unvaccinated. Generally what we find is that they are ignoring COVID infections in the partially vaccinated,” Mr. Lataster said.

 

“In randomized trials, it is customary to define ‘time zero’ as the point in time, for each trial participant, when eligibility criteria are met, treatment is assigned, and follow‐up begins,” Mr. Doshi and another author wrote in one of the papers.

 

Instead, COVID cases in vaccinated individuals are only counted weeks after a person is vaccinated. In Pfizer’s clinical trials, a person is considered vaccinated and their COVID cases are counted a week after they received the second dose, whereas in Moderna’s clinical trials, a person is considered vaccinated two weeks after their second dose.

 

By substituting some of Pfizer’s phase 3 clinical data and defining a person as vaccinated or unvaccinated according to Pfizer’s criteria in the clinical trials, Mr. Doshi and his authors found that Pfizer clinical trial could inflate a vaccine with zero efficacy to 48 percent. Their finding was published in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice.

 

Additionally, they found that this hypothetical number could further inflate to 67 percent due to other real-life factors during vaccine rollouts.

 

As older people were more likely to get vaccinated early on due to being more at risk of infections, this may reduce the perceived vaccine efficacy.

 

However, people were getting vaccinated at the time when COVID cases were peaking and people were generating natural immunity to the virus. The subsequent decline in COVID cases coincided with increased vaccination rates, which would then inflate perceived vaccine efficacy, according to the paper.

 

Millions of Lives Saved Based on Modeling

The COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have been promoted to have saved millions of lives. However, Mr. Lataster said that those statements may not reflect what happened in real life.

 

Mr. Lataster has been invited to partake in a study reviewing whether the mRNA vaccines have saved millions of lives.

 

“There are many problems we found, over twelve issues with how the data is utilized and estimated. For one thing, it’s [based on] a model and the map is not the territory,” Mr. Lataster said. The study is currently unpublished.

 

He said that they have also been looking at verifying claims that COVID-19 vaccines reduced severe disease, hospitalizations, and deaths.

 

One of the problems that has been identified is that most of these studies do not define or have different definitions of what counted as a vaccinated person.

 

Significant Number of Unconfirmed COVID Cases

According to an FDA briefing document, Pfizer acknowledged “3410 total cases of suspected but unconfirmed COVID‐19 in the overall study population.”

 

These suspected cases were split almost evenly between the treatment and placebo groups.

 

The Pfizer vaccines were estimated to have over 90 percent vaccine efficacy because while 850 out of around 22,000 people in the placebo group contracted COVID, only 80 out of 22,000 vaccinated participants contracted COVID. This difference in proportion of COVID cases is how the researchers calculated the vaccine efficacy

 

However, if all of the suspected cases were indeed COVID-19 cases, having a similar proportion of COVID-19 cases between the treatment and placebo group “would have drastically brought down treatment efficacy estimates,” Mr. Lataster wrote in his commentary.

 

“In any case, you can argue that figure is well below the 50 percent required for approval,” Mr. Lataster said.

Underrepresented Adverse Events

While Pfizer and Moderna phase 3 clinical trials followed adverse events from the day of vaccine administration, they defined an individual as vaccinated only if several weeks had passed following vaccination.

 

Therefore, some of the adverse events that may have occurred soon after vaccination and would therefore be more strongly linked to vaccination would not be attributed to the vaccine, leading to underestimated adverse event rates.

 

Also, the recording of the adverse events is mostly reliant on unsolicited reporting by vaccine participants, especially for serious adverse events, according to Pfizer’s fact sheet for health providers. If the participant dies following the COVID-19 vaccine, the trial researchers may be unable to track this since they need reporting from the participants, according to Mr. Lataster.

 

COVID vaccination adverse event reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reports System show that more than 12 percent of deaths occurred on the day or the day after vaccination.

 

Furthermore, the placebo group was later given the COVID-19 vaccines, effectively “unblinding” them. This meant that researchers would be unable to compare the placebo and the vaccine group for potential long-term safety signals.

 

The Epoch Times reached out to Pfizer and Moderna for comments.

 

Marina Zhang
Author

Marina Zhang is a health writer for The Epoch Times, based in New York. She mainly covers stories on COVID-19 and the healthcare system and has a bachelors in biomedicine from The University of Melbourne. Contact her at marina.zhang@epochtimes.com.

 

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Truth or Consequences Covid-19: The Truth

 

Elon Musk-tweet-26September 2023-Have you heard dis information

Elon Musk-tweet-26September 2023-Have you heard dis information

 

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Federal Court Rules Against FDA Over Anti-Ivermectin Posts

By Zachary Stieber
2September2023 Updated: 4September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/federal-court-rules-against-fda-over-anti-ivermectin-posts-5485397

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) likely overstepped its authority when it told Americans to “stop” using ivermectin against COVID-19, a federal court ruled on Sept. 1.

 

“FDA can inform, but it has identified no authority allowing it to recommend consumers ‘stop’ taking medicine,”  U.S. Circuit Judge Don Willett wrote in the ruling.

 

The FDA has authority under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to convey information to consumers.

The FDA during the COVID-19 pandemic has issued multiple statements discouraging people from taking ivermectin against COVID-19.

 

Accompanied by a picture of a horse and a link to an FDA webpage on ivermectin, the agency wrote in one social media post: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

 

The page it linked to is titled, “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.”

See:  FDA Drops Ivermectin Truth (That We Knew All Along) | Facts Matter

Three doctors sued the FDA over its statements on ivermectin, arguing the agency cannot advise doctors on which drugs to prescribe.

 

Ivermectin is approved by the agency as an antiparasitic drug for both humans and animals.

Federal law gives the government immunity against legal actions, with some exceptions. One exception, known as ultra vires, is when an official acts outside their authority. Plaintiffs challenging the acts must show that the official was “acting ‘without any authority whatever,’ or without any ‘colorable basis for the exercise of authority,'” according to an earlier court ruling.

 

The FDA does have the authority to share data and facts, the parties agree. But they diverge on whether the FDA can issue recommendations on medical matters, such as treatments.

 

The FDA has claimed that the posts do not contain advice, stating in one brief that they were “informational statements” that “do not ‘direct’ consumers, or anyone else, to do or refrain from doing anything.” At the same time, the FDA acknowledged that the statements “provided recommendations” and “advise[d] consumers.”

 

“Despite these concessions, FDA never points to any authority that allows it to issue recommendations or give medical advice,” Judge Willett wrote.

 

“Rather, FDA argues that some posts included a hyperlink that leads to the update. The update, in turn, directs consumers to “[t]alk to your health care provider.” But not all of the social-media posts included such a link. And even for those posts that did include a link, the posts themselves offer advice, not mere information.”

 

The update itself is problematic because of its title, “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19,” the judge said. Even though it later says that people can take ivermectin if prescribed by a health care provider, “the trailing qualifier does not lessen the opening instruction’s imperative character,” he said.

Exposing the FDA’s Orwellian Lie About Ivermectin | CLIP | Facts Matter

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown ruled against the doctors in 2022, finding that doctors had not proven an exception to sovereign immunity and that there was no indication the FDA acted outside of the authority conferred by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
Click to download PDF file Click to Download the Ruling fifth-circuit-ruling-in-ivermectin-case

Judge Brown erred on the second point as well, according to the new ruling.

“Nothing in the Act’s plain text authorizes FDA to issue medical advice or recommendations,” Judge Willett said.

The judge, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, was joined by U.S. Circuit Judges Edith Brown Clement and Jennifer Walker Elrod.

 

Judges Willett and Brown were appointed under President Donald Trump. Judges Clement and Elrod were appointed under President George W. Bush.

 

The appeals court panel remanded the case back to Judge Brown to decide on whether the doctors have standing. The ruling followed oral arguments before the panel.

 

Dr. Robert Apter, one of the plaintiffs, called the ruling “a big win for doctors and for patients!”

“This case has broad implications for protecting the practice of medicine from unlawful interference by the FDA,” added Jared Kelson, a lawyer at Boyden Gray who is representing the plaintiffs. “It’s about ensuring that federal agencies act only within their statutory authority. The FDA crossed a bright line here.”

The U.S. government has not yet reacted to the ruling.

 

Zachary Stieber
Author (Reporter)

Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news.

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Doctor: Pharmacists Continuing to Refuse Ivermectin Prescriptions, Raising Ethical Concerns

COVID Treatments & Remedies
Matthew Lysiak
1September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/doctor-pharmacists-continuing-to-refuse-ivermectin-prescriptions-raising-ethical-concerns-5485148

 

The continued refusal of pharmacists nationwide to fill prescriptions for controversial COVID medications has raised questions over medical autonomy and who ultimately has control over patient care, according to a prominent doctor.

 

Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, a practitioner and founder of Coalition of Health Freedom, told The Epoch Times that many pharmacists nationwide are still refusing to fill prescriptions issued for ivermectin issued to patients for the treatment of COVID, despite statements from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) affirming that right to doctors.

 

“This needs to come to an end. In telling my patients what medicines they can and cannot have access to, we effectively have a large group of pharmacists practicing medicine without a license,” said Dr. Bowden. “They have no accountability for this yet they are allowed to dictate patient care.”

 

“I see it every single day. Enough is enough,” Dr. Bowden added.

Ivermectin has been around for decades but became the center of controversy in 2020 after medical opinion became divided over its effectiveness as a treatment for COVID. In the aftermath, many pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions for the medication.

 

By 2023, the issue had made its way into a courtroom when on Aug. 8 a lawyer representing the FDA confirmed that doctors were free to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID.

 

“FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID,” Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

 

The government lawyer made the statement in defense of the FDA’s repeated calls for people to not take ivermectin for COVID. The FDA on Aug. 21, 2021, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

 

On Aug. 17, the FDA issued clarification, this time stating that while it had approved ivermectin for certain uses in humans and animals, it had not issued any statement affirming the safety or effectiveness of the drug for treating COVID. However, the agency again affirmed that it would be left to individual doctors whether or not to prescribe the medication for the treatment of COVID.

 

“Health care professionals generally may choose to prescribe an approved human drug for an unapproved use when they judge that the unapproved use is medically appropriate for an individual patient,” the FDA said.

 

The National Institutes of Health COVID-19 treatment guidelines recommend against using ivermectin for COVID treatment, citing a purported lack of evidence supporting its effectiveness. Other studies have found ivermectin to be effective.

 

Dr. Bowden, who is one of three plaintiffs in the case, had hoped the FDA’s acknowledgment would have put an end to the objections at the pharmacist counter. However, earlier this week another one of her patients who she had been treating was refused service. Complicating the situation, the patient was elderly and couldn’t easily access other options and in the time it took to find a pharmacy that would honor the prescription the patient’s health began to deteriorate, according to Dr. Bowden.

 

“It’s hard to believe, but pharmacists are still blocking these potentially life-saving medications,” said Dr. Bowden. “The pharmacist didn’t talk to the patient and won’t know if the patient lives or dies yet had control of his care.”

 

Dr. Bowden believes that in most cases individual pharmacists aren’t the ones to blame, and are often carrying out orders from corporate leadership. However, claims to have seen examples where pharmacists prevented her patients from getting their medication as a result of their own “personal agenda.”

 

“It’s an outrage. I would have thought we were beyond this but it continues to happen,” said Dr. Bowden.

If this newfound power isn’t checked, it could lead down a slippery slope that diminishes patient’s rights, according to Dr. Bowden.

 

“Prior to COVID, I never had a pharmacist refuse a prescription. This is a new phenomenon and it needs to come to an end. This is going beyond their role and it’s a dangerous trend,” said Dr. Bowden.

 

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), believes that the widespread denial of ivermectin could have resulted in untold COVID deaths.

“The doctors I’ve been dealing with and talking to for years now, they believe that probably hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their lives because they were denied early treatment and they were denied because the FDA sabotaged, for example, ivermectin,” Mr. Johnson told FOX News on Aug. 11.

 

“We are going down a very dangerous path, but it’s a path that is being laid out and planned by an elite group of people that want to take total control over our lives, and that’s what they’re doing bit by bit,” he added.

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‘FDA Is Not a Physician’: Appeals Court Sides With Doctors on Ivermectin for COVID-19

COVID Treatments & Remedies
Matthew Lysiak
2September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/fda-is-not-a-physician-appeals-court-sides-with-doctors-on-ivermectin-for-covid-19-post-5485494

 

A federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled on Friday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had overstepped its authority in their ruling that three doctors will be able to move forward with their lawsuit over the use of ivermectin off-label to treat COVID-19.

 

Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, one of three doctors who initially filed the petition, trumpeted the ruling as a victory for not only the truth, but patient rights.

 

“The FDA misled the public into thinking it has more authority than it does,” Dr. Bowden, a practitioner and founder of Coalition of Health Freedom, told The Epoch Times. “This decision confirms that the FDA is not your doctor and has no authority to tell doctors how to practice medicine.”

 

Judge Don Willett wrote for the three person panel that also included Jennifer Walker Elrod and Edith Brown Clement. “The Doctors have plausibly alleged that FDA’s Posts fell on the wrong side of the line between telling about and telling to.”

 

“FDA is not a physician. It has authority to inform, announce, and apprise—but not to endorse, denounce, or advise. The Doctors have plausibly alleged that FDA’s Posts fell on the wrong side of the line between telling about and telling to. As such, the Doctors can use the APA to assert their ultra vires claims against the Agencies and the Officials.”

 

The anti-ivermectin messaging put out by FDA officials also drew the ire of Judge Willett, who wrote that “Left unmentioned in most of that messaging: ivermectin also comes in a human version. And while the human version of ivermectin is not FDA-approved to treat the coronavirus, some people were using it off-label for that purpose.”

 

In the ruling social media posts made by the agency were cited as evidence, citing that “Even tweet-sized doses of personalized medical advice are beyond FDA’s statutory authority,” he wrote.

 

The FDA on Aug. 21, 2021, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

 

The National Institutes of Health COVID treatment guidelines recommend against using ivermectin for COVID treatment, citing a purported lack of evidence supporting its effectiveness. Other studies have found ivermectin to be effective.

 

The lawsuit was initially filed in June 2022 by Dr. Bowden, Drs. Robert L. Apter, and Paul E. Marik for interfering with both their authority to prescribe an approved medication and the doctor-patient relationship. All three alleged their reputations were harmed by the FDA campaign. Dr. Bowden lost admitting privileges at a Texas hospital while Dr. Marik alleged he lost his jobs at a medical school and at a hospital for promoting the use of ivermectin.

 

The ruling comes as a blow to the FDA. The agency had argued that the case should not be allowed to move forward, claiming that the complaints didn’t overcome the FDA’s “sovereign immunity,” which protects government entities from many civil lawsuits regarding their responsibilities.

 

The FDA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The refusal of pharmacists nationwide to fill prescriptions for ivermectin has become a hot-button issue, raising questions over medical autonomy and who ultimately has control over patient care.

 

Ivermectin has been around for decades but became the center of controversy in 2020 after medical opinion became divided over its effectiveness as a treatment for COVID. In the aftermath, many pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions for the medication.

 

On Aug. 8 a lawyer representing the FDA confirmed that doctors were allowed to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID.

“FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID,” Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

 

FDA Detects Serious Safety Signal for Covid Vaccine Among Kids

Dr. Bowden claims that despite the endorsement from the FDA, the practice of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for ivermectin continues.

 

“This needs to come to an end. In telling my patients what medicines they can and cannot have access to, we effectively have a large group of pharmacists practicing medicine without a license,” said Dr. Bowden told the Epoch Times on Friday. “They have no accountability for this yet they are allowed to dictate patient care.”

 

“I see it every single day. Enough is enough,” Dr. Bowden added.

 

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FDA loses its war on ivermectin and agrees to remove all social media posts and consumer directives


Mary Talley Bowden MD-tweet-22March2024-FDA loses its war on ivermectin
🚨BREAKING:
FDA loses its war on ivermectin and agrees to remove all social media posts and consumer directives regarding ivermectin and COVID, including its most popular tweet in FDA history.

This landmark case sets an important precedent in limiting FDA overreach into the doctor-patient relationship.

Thank you @BoydenGrayPLLC for your excellent counsel. @drpaulmarik1 @RobertApter1 @Covid19Critical

Mary Talley Bowden MD-tweet-22March2024-FDA loses its war on ivermectin

Mary Talley Bowden MD-tweet-22March2024-FDA loses its war on ivermectin

 

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FDA Has ‘Gone Rogue’ in Its Approval of New COVID-19 Boosters: Dr. Robert Malone

Dr. Malone accused the FDA of flouting its own rules and “going rogue” by green-lighting updated COVID-19 vaccines with limited clinical trial data.

Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas on Aug. 5, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times)

Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas on Aug. 5, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times)

By Tom Ozimek and Joshua Philipp
13September2023 Updated: 15September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/fda-has-gone-rogue-by-approving-covid-19-boosters-without-clinical-trials-dr-robert-malone-5490314

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has “gone rogue,” according to virologist Dr. Robert Malone, who accused the federal agency of sacrificing its own rules and regulations with its decision to recommend the latest batch of COVID-19 boosters, which only have limited clinical trial data attesting to their efficacy and safety.

 

Dr. Malone made the remarks in an interview with EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program on Sept. 11, the day that the FDA cleared new COVID-19 vaccines in a bid to counter the waning effectiveness of the currently available shots.

 

“It’s difficult to conclude anything other than the FDA is no longer feeling bound by their own rules and regulations,” Dr. Malone said. “The term is—they’ve gone rogue.”

 

Dr. Malone said the lack of human clinical trial data demonstrating effectiveness and safety of the updated vaccines should have precluded their approval by the FDA.

 

He said that, essentially, the FDA authorized the new vaccines on the premise that “neutralizing antibodies as detected in mice and their cross-reactivity are correlative protection,” which he said “is a lie, there are no established correlates of protection for SARS-CoV-2.”

FDA officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

See: CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Meet on COVID-19 and Vaccines

The agency cleared Moderna’s and Pfizer’s newest mRNA vaccines on Sept. 11 without analyzing data from any human trials.

 

In a statement announcing its approval, the FDA said that the decision was supported by its evaluation of “manufacturing data” from vaccine producers and “non-clinical immune response data on the updated formulations including the XBB.1.5 component.”

 

The benefit-risk profile of earlier versions of the vaccines is “well understood,” the FDA claimed, adding that the similar manufacturing process for the updated vaccines “suggests that the vaccines are a good match for protecting against the currently circulating COVID-19 variants.”

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) followed with its own recommendation on Sept. 12, urging nearly all Americans to get the new vaccines. The shots will be available to children as young as 6 months old this month.

Dr. Robert Malone: The Coordinated Propaganda Narrative Around COVID-19 | CLIP

 

The new vaccines target XBB.1.5, a sub-type of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the disease COVID-19. However, the XBB.1.5. subvariant has already largely been displaced by newer strains of the quickly evolving virus, including EG.5, according to the CDC.

 

While FDA documents show the agency did not include any trial data in its review of the new shots, data from a Moderna trial was considered by the CDC before it issued its recommendation. The trial featured just 50 people receiving a new shot, and found the vaccine induced levels of neutralizing antibodies that authorities said would protect against COVID-19. One of the 50 people suffered a vaccine-related adverse reaction.

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo in Tampa, Fla., on Oct. 15, 2022. (York Du/The Epoch Times)

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo in Tampa, Fla., on Oct. 15, 2022. (York Du/The Epoch Times)

 

‘Lot of Red Flags’

“There’s essentially no data,” Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said at a recent news conference, where he suggested that people might be better off passing on the new round of shots.

 

“Not only that, but there are a lot of red flags,” Dr. Ladapo added, while pointing to studies finding that the effectiveness of the vaccines turns negative over time.

 

“There’s been no clinical trial done in human beings showing that it benefits people, there’s been no clinical trial showing that it is a safe product for people.”

 

He also noted that studies have linked previous versions of the COVID-19 vaccine to cardiac problems such as heart inflammation.

 

“It’s truly irresponsible for FDA, CDC, and others to be championing something … when we don’t know the implications of it,” Dr. Ladapo said.

 

Asked to comment on Dr. Ladopo’s remarks, Dr. Malone pointed to a growing body of studies that show negative vaccine effectiveness, which he said suggests that, in the risk-benefit analysis, “there’s no discernible benefit, or there’s negative benefit, but there’s clearly risk.”

‘Most Americans Take Them’

While acknowledging the current vaccines’ waning effectiveness, CDC Director Mandy Cohen penned an op-ed in The New York Times on Sept. 13, in which she called the updated COVID-19 vaccines “one of the most effective tools in combating the virus.”

 

“Covid-19 vaccines are the best way to give the body the ability to keep the virus from causing significant harm. Extensive studies and real-world experience have shown that they are safe and they work,” she wrote. “And most Americans take them.”

 

Dr. Cohen said the vaccines were put through extensive clinical trials before they were introduced in 2021 and “since then, their safety has been intensely monitored.”

 

She didn’t address criticism, such as the little trial data that’s been made available.

 

That FDA and CDC moves have been questioned by a number of doctors. Dr. Paul Offit, an FDA adviser, suggested to the UK’s Daily Mail that younger, healthy people who have already been vaccinated don’t need one of the new doses.

 

“We are best served by targeting these booster doses to those who are most at risk of severe disease,” such as people older than 75, Dr. Offit said. “Boosting otherwise healthy young people is a low-risk, low-reward strategy.”

 

In his remarks at the news conference, Dr. Ladapo asked people to make decisions based on their “resonance of truth” rather than depending on “very educated people telling you what you should think.”

 

“When they try to convince you to be comfortable and agree with things that don’t feel comfortable and don’t feel like things you should agree with, that’s a sign … And I encourage you and certainly beg and hope that you do listen to it, because it will serve you right,” he said.

 

A January–July 2023 study that analyzed data from 33 California state prisons found that individuals who received new COVID-19 booster shots were more likely to contract COVID-19 compared to those who didn’t receive the jabs.

 

The infection rate among the group that received the bivalent booster shots came in at 3.2 percent—higher than the 2.7 percent among the unvaccinated.

 

Late last month, the CDC conceded that the new BA.2.86 strain can cause infection even among people who have previously been vaccinated against COVID-19.

 

“The large number of mutations in this variant raises concerns of greater escape from existing immunity from vaccines and previous infections compared with other recent variants,” the agency said in its assessment.

 

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly described clinical trials for the new COVID-19 vaccines. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

 

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British Court Rules That Competent & Conscious Patient Can Be Denied Life-Sustaining Treatment Against Her Will

by Tyler Durden, 04September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/british-court-rules-competent-conscious-patient-can-be-denied-life-sustaining-treatment

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In my torts class, I often compare the different approaches and doctrines in the United States and the United Kingdom.

One of the most pronounced is the position and authority of physicians on issues like consent and malpractice. This week produced a particularly striking example.

 

British doctors are seeking to take a 19-year-old critically ill female patient off the intensive care despite her objections and those of her parents.

 

Unlike most such cases, the woman known only as “ST” is conscious and communicative.

Yet, the doctors argue that she is not being realistic about her chances of survival from a rare disorder.

Now a British court has agreed and ordered that she can be placed on end-of-life care against her will.

ST is suffering from a rare genetic mitochondrial disease that is progressively degenerative. The case has similarities to that of Charlie Gard, an infant who was removed from life support at the insistence of doctors despite objections from the parents. The Gard family was seeking to take Charlie to the United States for experimental treatment.

 

ST has been in the ICU for the past year, requiring a ventilator and a feeding tube. She also requires regular dialysis due to chronic kidney damage from her disease.

She wants to be allowed to travel to Canada for an experimental treatment but the doctors oppose the plan and say that she is not accepting the realities of her terminal illness.

They say that she is “actively dying” without any hope of resuming life outside of intensive care.

Her deeply religious family have spent their entire life savings on her care and has complained that a “transparency order” requested by the hospital barred their ability to give details on the case to help raise public funds.

 

What is so remarkable about this case is that it is not an infant or a comatose patient.

The court found that ST “is able to communicate reasonably well with her doctors with assistance from her mother and, on occasion, speech therapists.”

 

Moreover, two psychiatrists testified that she is mentally competent to make decisions about her own care.

Despite all the difficulties which currently confront her, ST is able to communicate reasonably well with her doctors with assistance from her mother and, on occasion, speech therapists. Over the course of the last week she has engaged in two separate capacity assessments. I heard evidence from two consultant psychiatrists whose conclusions in relation to her capacity in both domains are set out in full written reports. . . .

 

She has been described by those who know and love her as “a fighter”. That is how she sees herself. At the heart of the issues in this case is what ST and her family perceive to be a ray of hope in the form of an experimental nucleoside treatment outside the United Kingdom which might offer her hope of an improved quality of life, albeit a life which is likely to end prematurely in terms of a normal life expectancy. She has told her doctors that she wants to do everything she can to extend her life. She said to Dr C, one of the psychiatrists who visited her last week, “This is my wish. I want to die trying to live. We have to try everything”. [Court’s emphasis] Whilst she recognises that she may not benefit from further treatment, she is resistant to any attempt to move to a regime of palliative care because she wants to stay alive long enough to be able to travel to Canada or North America where there is at least the prospect that she may be accepted as part of a clinical trial. . . .

 

ST is well aware that she has been offered a very poor prognosis by her doctors. She acknowledges that they have told her that she will die but she does not believe them. She points to her recovery from previous life-threatening episodes whilst she has been a patient at the intensive care unit. She believes she has the resilience and the strength to stay alive for long enough to undergo treatment abroad and she wishes the court to acknowledge her right to make that decision for herself.

Nevertheless, the judge found that she is mentally incapable of making decisions for herself because “she does not believe the information she has been given by her doctors.” 

 

The court appears to reject her ability to make this decision because she is making the wrong decision:

In my judgment . . . ST is unable to make a decision for herself in relation to her future medical treatment, including the proposed move to palliative care, because she does not believe the information she has been given by her doctors. Absent that belief, she cannot use or weigh that information as part of the process of making the decision. This is a very different position from the act of making an unwise, but otherwise capacitous, decision. An unwise decision involves the juxtaposition of both an objective overview of the wisdom of a decision to act one way or another and the subjective reasons informing that person’s decision to elect to take a particular course. However unwise, the decision must nevertheless involve that essential understanding of the information and the use, weighing and balancing of the information in order to reach a decision. In ST’s case, an essential element of the process of decision-making is missing because she is unable to use or weigh information which has been shown to be both reliable and true.

Accordingly, the court ruled that decisions about ST’s further care should be determined by the Court of Protection based on an assessment of her best interests. Her “best interest,” according to the doctors, is to die.

Thus, the courts have declared that ST cannot choose to continue life-extending treatment and can be forced into palliative care against her will.

The logic of the decision is chilling.

The court is told that ST has cognitive and communicative abilities to make such decisions. However, because the court disagrees with her desire to continue to fight to live, she is treated as effectively incompetent. 

It seems like the judicial version of Henry Ford’s promise that customers could pick any color car so long as it is black.

Here is the opinion: In the Matter of ST

 

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Higher Incidence of COVID-19 Found Among Consistent Mask-Wearers: Study

Some mask wearers were found to have up to 40 percent higher incidence of infection, contradicting earlier studies and opposing the narrative of mask mandates.

By Naveen Athrappully 27November2023 Updated: 29November2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/study-finds-higher-incidence-of-covid-19-among-consistent-mask-wearers-5536488

 

People who wore protective masks were found to be more likely to contract COVID-19 infections than those who didn’t, according to a recent Norwegian study.

 

The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection on Nov. 13, analyzed mask use among 3,209 individuals from Norway. Researchers followed them for 17 days, and then asked the participants about their use of masks. The team found that there was a higher incidence of testing positive for COVID-19 among people who used masks more frequently.

 

Among individuals who “never or almost never” wore masks, 8.6 percent tested positive. That rose to 15 percent among participants who “sometimes” used masks, and to 15.1 percent among those who “almost always or always” wore them.

 

Adjusting for factors such as vaccination status, the study determined that individuals who sometimes or often wore masks had a 33 percent higher incidence of COVID-19, compared to those who never or almost never wore masks. This jumped to 40 percent among people who almost always or always wore them.

 

However, adjusting for “differences in baseline risk over time,” the risk of wearing masks turned out to be “less pronounced,” with only a 4 percent higher incidence of infection among mask-wearers.

 

“The results contradict earlier randomized and non-randomized studies of the effectiveness of mask-wearing on the risk of infection,” the researchers wrote.

 

“Most of these studies reported that wearing a face mask reduces the risk of COVID-19 infection. Some observational studies have reported manyfold reductions while one community-based randomized trial failed to demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in infection risk and one cluster randomized community trial found only a modest reduction.”

 

The researchers pointed out a major limitation of their study: Individuals who used masks may have done so to protect others from their own infection. This could explain the “positive association between risk of infection and mask usage.”

 

Behavioral differences and the fact that the survey was based on self-reporting could also contribute to bias, it stated.

There’s also a possibility that mask wearers felt safe while wearing masks and thus didn’t follow other regulations such as social distancing, which raised their risk of contracting COVID-19, the study said.

 

“Our findings suggest that wearing a face mask may be associated with an increased risk of infection. However, it is important to note that this association may be due to unobservable and non-adjustable differences between those wearing and not wearing a mask,” the researchers stated.

 

“Therefore, caution is imperative when interpreting the results from this and other observational studies on the relationship between mask-wearing and infection risk. Recommendations to wear face masks in the community are largely informed by low certainty evidence from observational studies.”

 

Researchers called for more trials and studies to gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of wearing masks against transmission of respiratory pathogens.

 

The study was fully funded by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It reported no conflicts of interest.

Masking Mandates

The new study comes at a time when some regions in North America are reinstating mask mandates amid a reported increase in COVID-19 cases.

 

At the beginning of November, many regions in the Bay Area issued masking rules in health care settings ahead of the respiratory disease season, when infections such as COVID-19, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus are expected to spread.

In the state of California, San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa, Napa, Sonoma, and Solano issued masking mandates, with the rules remaining in effect until next March or April.

 

While in some places only staff and workers of a health care facility are required to wear masks, others require patients and visitors to wear masks as well.

Rosemary Hills School in Maryland announced in September that it distributed KN95 masks to students and teachers while mandating masking for at least 10 days after three students from a classroom tested positive for COVID-19.

 

A month earlier, school officials with the Kinterbish Junior High School in Cuba, Alabama, asked students, employees, and visitors to wear masks “due to the slow rise of COVID cases in the area.”

 

Seven hospitals in Canada reinstated mask mandates last month to “help prevent transmission of COVID-19.”

 

In British Columbia, Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry announced that health care workers, volunteers, and visitors would be required to wear “medical” masks in all public health care facilities starting on Oct. 3.

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing masks to counter COVID-19. “Masking is a critical public health tool and it is important to remember that any mask is better than no mask,” it said in an August 2021 update.

 

Certain states have already made it clear that mask mandates wouldn’t be allowed. In August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in an X post that there would be “NO mask mandates in Texas.”

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo highlighted the issue of the ineffectiveness of masking policies.

 

“What do you call re-imposing mask policies that have been proven ineffective or restarting lockdowns that are known to cause harm? You don’t call it sanity,” he said in a post on X. “These terrible policies only work with your cooperation. How about refusing to participate.”

 

Several studies have questioned the use of masks to prevent viral transmission. A review published in late January at the Cochrane Library that analyzed 78 randomized controlled trials found that they didn’t show “a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks.”

 

In an interview with the Brownstone Institute in February, Tom Jefferson, a senior associate tutor at the University of Oxford and lead author of the study, pointed out that there hasn’t been a “proper trial” of masks whereby a huge, randomized study was done to check their effectiveness. Instead, some experts overnight began to perpetuate a “fear-demic.”

 

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What Some Call “Anti-Science” Is Just Anti-Authoritarianism

by Tyler Durden, 20october2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/what-some-call-anti-science-just-anti-authoritarianism

Authored by Alex Washburne via The Brownstone Institute,

 

What is up, What is down?

What is up, What is down?

Sometimes it feels as if we’re living in a dizzying house of narrative mirrors and anyone sincerely interested in walking the true path through the world risks being unable to see the true path as they get trapped in our horrific hall of insincere reflections.

 

The truth of any given matter, the objective facts and consilient theories, seems to matter less than the ability of an idea or narrative to reflect back to people what they wish to see. Our marketplace of ideas incentivizes manufacturing narrative mirrors that provide epistemological narcissists an opportunity to view themselves in a favorable light and secure a foothold in media outlets that have devolved from curators of our frontal lobe to antagonists of our amygdala.

 

Speaking of epistemological narcissists and narrative mirrors, let’s talk about Peter Hotez and his narrative of a growing “Anti-Science” movement.

 

Peter Hotez self-identifies as a scientist and appears to spend most of his time running around predominately liberal media outlets, using his stature as “The Scientist” to misrepresent, demean, and cry “disinformation” on information, worldviews, and even scientific theories that differ from his own. Any scientist who disagrees with Dr. Hotez and his outrageous, inhuman, insensitive, and irrational proclamations is blocked and ridiculed. While truth may bounce off Hotez like bullets off of Thanos, it appears our disagreements have successfully penetrated the armor of Dr. Hotez’s ego and a new ego-defense is materializing.

 

Now, Dr. Hotez claims that there is “an Anti-Science movement,” a cultural and political boogeyman that is out to undermine science and target scientists. I have little doubt he would love to snap his fingers and make what he views as “Anti-Science” people, beliefs, and institutions disappear in an act of anti-heroic benevolence for the world.

 

The whole notion of “Anti-Science,” however, is a narrative. It is not a physical object like “anti-matter” or “antigen” nor is it a process like “antibody maturation” nor an objective and diagnosable clinical condition like “antisocial personality disorder.” “Anti-Science” is nothing but an attempt to name a thing that Hotez sees, but he views our political world from a far-off silo and lives in a hall of mirrors of his own design. As a consequence of Hotez’ distance from the people and patterns he’s labeling “Anti-Science,” the thing he sees is not a thing that exists in our shared, objective universe.

 

To understand what Hotez sees, why he sees it, and why it’s not a thing in our universe, we have to provide, to the best of our ability, a minimal and objective set of historical facts that can reproduce what he sees. I hypothesize one can synthesize Hotez’ toxic worldview by following the 7-step recipe below:

  1. History of Scientists-Being-Right: Have serious scientific issues over which there is a legitimate consensus, like climate change or evolution, become politically divisive flashpoints.
  2. Socially and Politically Siloed Scientists: Slowly, imperceptibly, increase the political biases of the composition of scientists while having scientists spend more and more time in their social circle.
  3. A Scientific Emergency: Introduce an emergency that requires scientific interpretations to decide effective public policy (COVID-19 pandemic), resulting in an unprecedented surge in the political power and influence of scientists.
  4. Scientists with State Power: Have some scientists in unelected positions of power (e.g. Fauci and Collins) use the power of the State to silence critics and preferentially amplify the theories, papers, and implied policies they prefer.
  5. Uncritical Media: Have media with a long mutualistic history of using scientists to certify narratives and manufacture consent in exchange for providing scientists expanded narrative reach, and, through a mix of market forces and established social norms, have these media “trust the experts” and give them relatively uncritical coverage.
  6. History of Disinformation: Record a true history of disinformation, especially concerning scientific issues like oil and gas companies sowing doubt about climate change (while privately acknowledging it’s true).
  7. Diversity of Belief and Freedom of Speech: Have all of the above occur in a society that safeguards civil liberties, allowing people to speak up, criticize those in power, and advocate for their own position in public fora.

If these seven criteria are met, I believe someone like Peter Hotez will be a nearly inevitable social consequence. The simple explanation is that the criteria above polarized scientists (1) without them knowing they are polarized (2), gave them an opportunity (3) to exercise somewhat unchecked State power (4), and gave them media power (5) to suppress dissent by calling it “disinformation” (6).

 

The first six steps of this recipe create an authoritarian ethos in scientists – Trust the Science, Follow the Science – and compel them to act on these politically ethnocentric and authoritarian impulses with few checks and balances except for popular discontent. Inevitably, the siloed and politically biased composition of scientists will result in policies that sow massive discontent (lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine mandates). When we add the 7th ingredient of the recipe, people exposed to an authoritarian bunch of scientists brushing aside their humanity, their political rights, and their distinct value systems will express their discontent. The people expressing discontent will correctly identify the scientists as the people and groups of scientists as the syndicate that corrupted the public policy process through unfair, undemocratic, and intolerant tactics, and the people will speak their minds at these scientists – like Hotez – in public fora.

Boston Tea Party From Wikipedia

Boston Tea Party From Wikipedia

Scientific authoritarianism is not many Americans’ cup of tea.

The Hotez’s will need to be fermented in this social and media concoction of authoritarianism within grasp hindered by legitimate public criticism for some time. Eventually, they will need a narrative to brush away that public resistance so they will create an ego-defensive narrative that positions them as heroes, Scientists as Saviors (scientific saviorism). Hotez and others have somewhat of a manic pixie dream scientist view of themselves – the scientists who are apolitical heroes of infinite cultural latitude exist only in their imaginations to serve their fantasies of grandiosity and benevolence. They sincerely believe that if science says X is effective at reducing one disease then all of society ought to Follow the Science to adopt X, mandate X, do whatever it takes to make X ubiquitous and thank scientists for X. Of course, the tricky thing about society is that it is comprised of humans, a vast anthropological mosaic of beliefs and value systems, and there are other beliefs and value systems that believe we ought to do Y.

 

Science has become a central pillar of the Saviors’ self-identity and so they don’t distinguish between science (the objective and often messy process of fairly evaluating many competing ideas) and the authoritarian actions of scientists. As the Toxic Hotez nears completion from cooking in a vat of legitimate public criticism for their scientific ethnocentrism, they will conceive a global conspiracy targeting science and scientists, a monstrous “Anti-Science” that demands even more power and legal protection of scientists, even stronger measures to police disinformation. As they look at the restored image of Scientists as Saviors in this narrative mirror, they will descend even further into madness.

 

Indeed, it is madness because what Hotez views as “Anti-Science” does not exist, it is not a good reflection of reality but rather a story told from pride and ego-defense. Hotez, a set of scientists closely connected with the heads of the NIH, NIAID, and other global health science funders (none of them democratically elected), and even the funders themselves ate the forbidden fruit of authoritarianism. Many before Hotez have tasted authoritarianism, and the results are predictable. The Scientists who grabbed the reigns of society during the pandemic and steered it with insensitive ambition are experiencing not a novel monstrosity but an age-old and dignified human response called “Anti-Authoritarianism.”

Some – not all – scientists acted like authoritarians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some – not all – scientists rallied around models from the most powerful and well-funded scientific groups at the start of the pandemic, even if their models were clearly wrong. When some scientists like John Ioannidis spoke up about the shortcomings of models that were guiding policy, the politically siloed scientists reacted with vitriol and social power that could crush careers in scientific institutions. The informal social control of scientists suppressed diverse views and resulted in science not shared.

 

So some – not all – scientists became very vocal in advocating for lockdowns despite the policy being inhumane and a clear violation of civil liberties, such as when fellow scientists Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Sunetra Gupta wrote the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) arguing that lockdowns were likely to cause harm and that all-cause mortality and morbidity could be reduced by focusing our protection and helping those with high risk of severe outcomes receive the best preventative support and treatment we could muster. The GBD was an alternative policy proposal that was also grounded in science and it differed in its moral calculus and focus on all-cause mortality. The GBD was assisted by a group whose beliefs aligned with the policies and ideas therein – the American Institute for Economic Research. That group was said to be a libertarian think tank.

 

There was just two problems with the Great Barrington Declaration: it was supposedly aligned with a group whose political preferences are anathema to many liberal scientists and it conflicted with the policies preferred by major science funders. A difference of political opinion also grounded in science and reason shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but for some reason it was. Major science funders, most of all the head of NIAID Dr. Anthony Fauci and the head of NIH Francis Collins, strongly believed that a better policy was to contain the virus – not mitigate its impacts – and hold off infections until vaccines arrived. The cost-benefit analysis of Fauci et al. differed from the GBD in that it prioritized only COVID mortality; costs were ignored and benefits assumed. Science, however, can’t decide which policy is better. The choice of what we ought to do is a problem as old as humanity, it is ethics and politics, religion, and morality. Thankfully, that’s why our system of government has a constitution and system of laws that provide us procedures for choosing policies even when equally good people disagree.

Constitutions and procedures be damned.

Drs. Fauci and Collins, both unelected and consequently not able to be unseated in an election, demanded a “devastating take-down” of the Great Barrington Declaration. They used their positions of immense scientific power to prod and poke and goad scientists who depend on Fauci and Collins for funding into action, generating a flurry of articles and media appearances calling the Great Barrington Declaration “fringe” and thereby imposing even stronger informal social control on scientists than that displayed during Ioannidis’ chapter of this saga. If you agreed with the GBD, you too were considered “fringe,” you were considered a “far-right Trump-supporting Libertarian.” That shouldn’t be a dis-qualifier in a sane scientific society, but such an accusation carries significant career costs in our politically siloed body of scientists.

Prof. Gavin Yamey MD MPH-tweets-2021-2022

Prof. Gavin Yamey MD MPH-tweets-2021-2022

The anti-GBD rhetoric among some scientists with close ties to Fauci and Collins has continued to this day.

After lockdowns, there were mask mandates and vaccine mandates. If you spoke up against vaccine mandates, whether your reasoning was scientific, religious, or political-philosophical, many scientists believed your speech should be labelled “disinformation.” Scientists, with the immense narrative power granted to them during this emergency, succeeded in labelling a great deal of information as “disinformation,” including scientific information such as early findings that immunity to COVID – including vaccine-induced immunity – may wane.

 

So some – not all – scientists did indeed fight too hard in our democratic society and their insensitive need to have everything their way risked tearing the delicate fabric of our society. They tried to force policies on people that conflicted with people’s beliefs, values, or even constitutional rights. Many people are predictably not happy about that. People spoke up and advocated for their beliefs as they are free to do in our society.

 

Some scientists tried to push back harder by saying that masks, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and school closures were what The Science demanded. People, including many scientists like myself, then focused their criticism at this small band of authoritarians calling themselves The Science and interfering with our country’s representative and more inclusive policy process.

 

As people revolted to these Scientists’ undemocratic policies, our elected officials took note. Our democratic republic of states was a checkerboard of policies where not everyone Followed the Science, exactly as our laboratory of democracy was intended to be, but many scientists share the political belief that states’ departures from One Policy was immoral and unscientific (one and the same, in the ethical doctrine of The Science) and that the federal government should decide most things. Incidentally, the federal government is also a hub of scientific power with science-led agencies like the CDC, NIH/NIAID, and so concentrating power in the federal government would benefit scientists whereas letting states chose policies would put the decisions about public health closer to the people and their local elected representatives..

 

There was tension between the people, our local representatives, our federal representatives, and the Scientists. There was litigation challenging scientists’ suppression of speech, including Missouri v. Biden where plaintiffs include GBD authors were claiming Drs. Fauci and Collins infringed upon their freedom of speech by censoring these scientists and their sincerely held scientific and science-policy beliefs. There were court cases about masks on a plane that challenged the federal government’s deference of public health policy authority to unelected scientists. There were arguments aplenty, and scientists like Drs. Fauci or Hotez who felt they were lionized during the pandemic, who underwent an apotheosis to scientific authoritarianism in their pursuit of scientific saviorism, are now being bombarded by criticism from people, counties, states, elected representatives, and even scientists.

 

To make matters worse, one of the most consequential conflicts of interest in human history lurked beneath the surface. The virus that triggered the emergency was most likely a laboratory accident from a laboratory that received funding from these same heads of health science funding, Drs. Fauci and Collins. In fact, Peter Hotez himself subcontracted work to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It’s within the realm of possibility the NIAID money Hotez sent to Wuhan could’ve bought the exact pipette or restriction enzymes that caused the pandemic. That’s a conflict of interest when it comes to deciding policies to mitigate the harms of this likely research-related accident.

 

Even without knowing the virus emerged from a lab, the mere fear they could be responsible for a global pandemic causing millions of deaths could reasonably be sufficient to cause scientists like Fauci and Hotez to exert undue influence on science and public health policy. Fears of a lab origin could explain why lab origin theories were branded as “conspiracy theories” with support from Drs. Hotez, Fauci and other health-science funders and the scientists close to them (Andersen, Holmes, Garry, etc).

 

Fears of a lab origin could explain why this syndicate of scientists prioritized reducing COVID mortality through extreme measures like lockdowns instead of drawing on decades of public health science by acknowledging competing risks, encouraging participation from anthropologically diverse people whose policies are being decided, and managing the more conventional all-cause mortality and morbidity instead of implementing a myopic focus on COVID.

 

The latter policy, incidentally, was that proposed by the GBD, none of whose authors were engaged in risky virological work in Wuhan and all of which had clear heads and sound arguments. Fears of a lab origin could plausibly lead scientists, concerned of their moral failings in possibly causing a pandemic, to desperately need a scientific saviorism success story like vaccines to balance the scales saving as many millions of lives as the millions of deaths they may have caused, leading them to label scientists’ divergent views on costs and benefits of vaccines as “disinformation.” The Wuhan COI could easily affect the observed irrational need to censor opposing views.

 

When we look at the pandemic history and our post-pandemic society from a more objective, less conflicted lens closer to the bodies of us innocent and diverse people Hotez labels “Anti-Science” from his siloed distance, we don’t see anything like “Anti-Science.” Instead, we see scientific authoritarianism and a predictable bipartisan anti-authoritarian response that even many scientists (including liberals like myself) support. Drs. Hotez and Fauci were authoritarians and now they are being challenged by the indomitable public that is reminding everyone who is in charge. As these authoritarians amongst us are being unseated from power, they create all manners of conspiracy theories and alternative narratives in a desperate effort to find purchase. If they can’t secure their newfound power, at least they may protect their reputations by casting their opponents as evil.

 

“Anti-Science” is thus not a real thing, nor is it sufficiently widely observed to warrant the dignity of being called a social construct. Anti-Science is an ego-defensive figment of Dr. Hotez’s authoritarian imagination, it is an effort to recenter The Science – the syndicate of scientists who attempted to center their own scientific paradigms and their own policy perspectives as if they were universally true and not merely political beliefs or value statements, possibly heavily conflicted ones – as deserving of power, sympathy, defense, and trust. Dr. Hotez is staring at the narrative mirrors the public uses to show him the monster he’s become, he is seeing a horrific – and true – reflection of scientists like him during the pandemic, and he is desperately trying to restore the image of himself from the current fallen general of an epistemological banana republic, back to the lionized Science and the Scientific Saviors we Followed. Hotez uses Anti-Science as an armor and an excuse to bypass a critical self-examination of the possible insensitivity and undemocratic behavior of he and his scientific savior colleagues during the pandemic.

 

The best way to assess whether a thing is objective or subjective is to ask different people if they see the same thing. That’s science. Of course, for things that hurt people like micro aggressions and the likes, it may help to ask the victims if it exists as they should experience the concentrated effects of the thing. I am a scientist, I was involved in both science and public policy during COVID, and yet I don’t see any horror of “Anti-Science” along my path in this narrative house of horrors.

 

Sure, I’ve seen disagreements in the public melee. I remember the history of disinformation on climate science, tobacco, and even Russian disinformation on all things, but that is not the thing Hotez describes and there isn’t generality other than institutions protecting their self-interests not because they are “Anti” anything but because they are “Pro” self and sometimes science reveals information that hurts a business’s bottom line. I’ve also seen companies act the same way when competitors enter the market, so past conflicts have nothing to do with science specifically. I’ve even been attacked, and even attacked for my science, but mostly I’ve been attacked by other scientists (including Hotez) who disliked the political implications of my findings. The Scientists who attacked me all form a relatively small, insular network of people closely connected with NIAID, NIH, or EcoHealth Alliance. While I was a researcher in the same wildlife virology community as EcoHealth Alliance, I didn’t conduct gain-of-function research, I didn’t subcontract work to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and I have maintained objectivity by critically evaluating the facts of the matter even where they inconveniently point to scientists’ mismanagement of risks. I’ve found flaws in Science papers and used my expertise to uncover evidence consistent with SARS-CoV-2 being a research product of EcoHealth Alliance’s pre-COVID research proposals.

 

I critically examined early case data, found evidence of large pools of unascertained cases consistent with a lower-severity pandemic and was told that my science risked “upsetting public health policy.” I argued otherwise, helped in part by my brilliant wife who has a PhD in public health policy. I argued that the only way sincere science and rigorous analyses could “upset public health policy” would be if public health policy were unscientific, if scientists were usurping the public’s seats in the policy process, centering Scientists, their belief systems, their value systems, and their institutions at the expense of decentering a larger, more diverse public. I found evidence that corroborated the Great Barrington Declaration’s cost-benefit analysis, and I shared that evidence privately with policymakers without grabbing the reigns and forcing them to choose any one policy.

 

As a scientist who maintained independence, who presented evidence without invading the deliberative jury or the policy process, I see scientists who became intolerant, petulant authoritarians; I don’t see “Anti-Science” as anything other than a reflection of Hotez grappling with the legitimate criticisms of his and his colleagues’ improper authoritarian scientific conduct before, during, and after the pandemic.

 

Far from being “anti-scientific,” the anti-authoritarianism unseating Hotez as one of the hallmarks of a true scientist and it is a hallmark of the people our republic. You don’t have to be an expert historian or anthropologist to recall that Americans went to war with the British because my ancestors despised authoritarians ruling without representation.

 

Throughout the pandemic, many members of the public have been better scientists than many prominent scientists. Members of the public and independent scientists have resisted convenient explanations when the data did not support them, such as the claim that lockdowns are indisputably wise policies when the public knew that lockdowns carried costs that were not being considered by scientists like Hotez on MSNBC.

 

Members of the public and independent scientists have rightfully questioned the efficacy of masks, and only years later are their hunches about the low efficacy or possible inefficacy of masks as a public health policy becoming known by scientists.

 

Members of the public and independent scientists questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccines, especially at reducing the risk of infection in the long term, and slowly, only after being labelled as “disinformation,” we are obtaining evidence of myocarditis, vaccine evasion in Provincetown, and more. Our citizenry has proven brilliant and remarkably agile, and predictably anti-authoritarian.

 

Hotez calls anyone – even scientists – assessing possible costs and estimating the true benefits of vaccines as “anti-vax.” It’s not “anti-vaccine” to err on the side of caution, to help doctors maintain their Hippocratic oath by ensuring benefits of a treatment or vaccine exceed the risks on a case-by-case basis (in science, we call this “individualized medicine”).

 

On the contrary, supporting systems that shake down and test hypotheses of vaccine safety and efficacy is one of the most pro-vaccine things we can do as it will inspire trust in vaccines that survive the gauntlet of scientific cross-examination. It is both pro-vax and pro-science to question the safety and efficacy of treatments, even those that have passed clinical trials, because that process of shaking down the answers gives us more confidence in the treatments we use and the science we’ve settled on. How many treatments have passed clinical trials only to be later discovered to have intolerable side effects? Would Hotez prefer “science” not uncover such later-discoverable complications?

 

Similarly, it is not “Anti-Science” to question the policies recommended by scientists or to investigate the possibility that scientists caused a pandemic. What Hotez calls “Anti-Science” is the core of science itself: an independence of mind, a diversity of perspectives, and an anti-authoritarian proclivity that conflicts with the interests of authoritarians masquerading as scientists. It is this independence and anti-authoritarianism that inspires confidence in science as well as democratic society, not the toxic ramblings of a scientific authoritarian as he’s unseated from power.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Alex Washburne is a mathematical biologist and the founder and chief scientist at Selva Analytics. He studies competition in ecological, epidemiological, and economic systems research, with research on covid epidemiology, the economic impacts of pandemic policy, and stock market response to epidemiological news.

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Malice Aforethought on the COVID-19 Pandemic: “This is a global coup d’etat and intentional mass murder.” Dr. Mike Yeadon

By Dr. Mike Yeadon
Global Research, 11September2023
Mark Taliano 10September2023

Malice Aforethought on the COVID-19 Pandemic: “This is a global coup d’etat and intentional mass murder.” Dr. Mike Yeadon

 

***

A message written to a trusted campaigning friend, who is struggling to accept that what is happening is intentional. It is indeed a big step to move from justifiable criticism of presumed incompetent politicians and industrialists to putting the pieces together in such a way that they can point only to intentionality. See what you think.

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Dear X,

I find that attempting to put all the information together in such a way as to allow for the whole even to be benign or at least not wholly malevolent is impossible.

 

That’s because, as you’ve no doubt heard me say, I believe it is malevolent!

I too struggled early on, arguing “surely they must have known this!?” Etc.

Once I allowed for the possibility that all the bad things were intentional, I find all the rest falls into place. Obviously that alone doesn’t prove that it was intentional.

 

Some early clues to intentionality are the coordinated responses of scores of governments to the alleged pandemic: lockdowns, masking, mass testing of the well, the misapplication of PCR-based techniques to bulk testing of clinical samples, selective business & school closures, border restrictions etc.

 

Not a single country had any of this as a core part of their own pandemic preparedness plan.

Even the WHO’s scientific evaluation of NPIs concluded none of them worked & the only changes worth a dime were asking those with symptoms to remain at home until recovered & to increase the frequency of hand washing (because the route of transmission wouldn’t initially be known for sure).

 

I argued at the time that the only way all the countries could have adopted all these useless yet damaging & costly NPIs is if there was supranational coordination.

 

Whether that from WHO, WEF, etc., I don’t know. But illegitimate in any case.

We now know that they knew that imposing these restrictions would save nobody, yet the negative consequences would be devastating, even lethal for some, who would no longer have access to the medical care they needed. Additionally, the use of furlough was obviously going to be enormously damaging to sovereigns who were already borrowed to the hilt.

 

I note the widespread adoption of an American term, furlough, into public discourse. In U.K. we never previously used the term. Nobody remarked on its arrival, which telegraphed the leading role played by Americans.

 

Then we have the imposition of radically altered medical protocols.

Because of my long exposure to matters respiratory, I knew immediately they began panicking about needed 30,000 mechanical ventilators that something truly demonic was at hand. It’s never appropriate, in a patient with an unobstructed airway & an intact chest wall to sedate, intubate and ventilate them. Mechanical ventilation is certainly a marvellous, life-saving thing, but it comes with serious risks to the frail patient, in the form of ventilator acquired pneumonia, lung injury from use of pressure to inflate the lungs and more. The appropriate treatment would be an oxygen mask, single, low dose benzo, a cup of tea and a biscuit and a caring hand upon an arm.

 

In the USA as well many, once in this vulnerable state, were given remdesivir & not given total, intravenous nutrition. In most cases it was just a matter of time before they died.

 

In care homes, there was indiscriminate use of inappropriately high doses of midazolam and morphine. Not only high doses but repeatedly given to their elderly charges. They’d been told to do it by the highest medical authorities in the land and so few questioned it.

 

My PhD by coincidence was in this area, the effect of opiates on respiratory function. The discovery of multiple opiate receptors raised the possibility that it might be possible to invent receptor selective ligands that would relieve pain with reduced respiratory depression. Unfortunately, both are mediated primarily by mu opiate receptors, both centrally and in the periphery.

 

The combination of opiate agonists and benzodiazepines is contraindicated in patients unless close monitoring (for signs of respiratory depression) was in place.

 

It isn’t & cannot be in a care home. They too were murdered in large numbers. 

Finally, in the community, the family doctors were cautioned not to prescribe antibiotics in cases of covid “because antibiotics cannot treat viral illnesses”. It’s well known that what is usually termed secondary bacterial infection is generally what actually leads to death in this situation. However, the records show that prescriptions for antibiotics for suspected bacterial infection of the lungs fell by 50% & large numbers of people died avoidable deaths (and rather horrible deaths, too).

 

It’s not possible to regard all of this evidence without concluding that malice aforethought was at work here. It’s literally diabolical, what they did.

 

How it was done with so little pushback still confuses me. I do know that from the late-1990s right through late-2019, there was a sequence of tabletop simulations of global pandemic scenarios & bioterrorism scenarios, which allowed the perpetrators to hone their craft in the responses & control measures imposed. I believe some of these were translated onto the ground, giving emergency response team a chance to form & to rehearse what most of them thought were appropriate, given the fictional set up, though this is speculative.

 

Then we come to the “vaccines”. Given a career in pharma and biotech, I knew that it was impossible to create a vaccine in under 5-6 years if they were going to demonstrate clinical safety and hone manufacturing to yield the customarily high quality manufacturing necessary to produce tightly defined final drug product. If the latter if not done, it’s pointless doing the former, because what would otherwise be injected wouldn’t be what had been used in the clinical trials.

 

In other words, if there was a need for a new vaccine, you would never even contemplate running such a program, because no pandemic in history lasts a fraction of the minimum time necessary to create a safe and effective new vaccine.

 

Yet they went ahead. This too is malevolent, let alone the extraordinary lying, censorship & smearing of dissenters.

Given my entire career used “rational drug design” principles to design and test molecules, I was able to put myself in the shoes of the designers of the jabs.

 

There are several, completely obvious safety issues built into these products.

One is the axiomatic induction of “autoimmune” responses, regardless of which antigen was selected.

The next was choice of antigen, where no one would pick spike protein, because it was highly likely to be directly toxic, it’s subject to the most rapid mutation (so a vaccine might lose efficacy) & also it’s the least different from human proteins (and so might trigger bystander attacks on even somewhat similar self proteins).

 

Yet all four leading players chose this antigen. What a coincidence! I’d have called up my peers in the other companies to endure we didn’t do that. That’s because it would be highly undesirable to have common risks to all programs.

 

On formulation, the mRNA-based products both selected LNPs to encapsulate their message. Yet there was industry knowledge that these not only travel all over the body including into the brain but that they accumulate in the ovaries.

 

Yet, knowing this, the companies & regulators went ahead and then others compounded the toxicity risk by recommending these injections in pregnant women and children.

 

I was still slow to piece together all this evidence of carefully thought out harms. But eventually I got there and have been speaking in what many regard as extreme terms ever since.

 

I’m afraid there’s no hiding from the reality that this is a global coup d’etat and intentional mass murder.

Worse, we see the encroachment of surveillance technology and legal powers to introduce digital ID & CBDC as well as to eliminate cash.

 

It’s not difficult to come up with scenarios where presentation of digital ID will become mandatory.

*

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Dr. Michael Yeadon, PhD, was Formerly Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer Allergy & Respiratory at Pfizer Global R&D. He holds Joint Honours in Biochemistry and Toxicology and a PhD in Respiratory Pharmacology. He is an Independent Consultant and Co-founder & CEO of Ziarco Pharma Ltd.

 

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The Great Demoralization

By Jeffrey A. Tucker

26September2023 Updated: 26September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/the-great-demoralization-5498920

 

Commentary

On March 6, 2020, the mayor of Austin, Texas, canceled the biggest tech and arts trade show in the world, South-by-Southwest, only a week before hundreds of thousands were to gather in the city.

 

In an instant, with the stroke of a pen, it was all gone: hotel reservations, flight plans, performances, exhibitors, and all the hopes and dreams of thousands of merchants in the town. Economic impact: a loss $335 million in revenue at least. And that was just to the city alone, to say nothing of the broader impact.

 

It was the beginning of U.S. lockdowns. It wasn’t entirely clear at the time—my own sense was that this was a calamity that would lead to decades of successful lawsuits against the Austin mayor—but it turned out that Austin was the test case and template for the entire nation and then the world.

 

The reason was of course COVID but the pathogen wasn’t even there. The idea was to keep it out of the city, an incredible and sudden fallback to a medieval practice that has nothing to do with modern public health understanding of how a respiratory virus should be handled.

 

“In six months,” I wrote at the time, “if we are in a recession, unemployment is up, financial markets are wrecked, and people are locked in their homes, we’ll wonder why the heck governments chose disease ‘containment’ over disease mitigation. Then the conspiracy theorists get to work.”

 

I was right about the conspiracy theorists but I had not anticipated that they would turn out to be right about nearly everything. We were being groomed for extended national and global lockdowns.

 

At this point in the trajectory, we already knew the gradient of risk. It was not medically significant for healthy working-age adults (which still to this day the CDCs does not admit). So the shutdown likely protected very few if anyone.

 

The extraordinary edict—worthy of a tin-pot dictator of a dark age—completely overrode the wishes of millions, all on the decision of one man, whose name is Steven Adler.

 

“Was the consideration between maintaining that money, effectively rolling the dice, and doing what you did?” asked Texas Monthly of the mayor.

 

His answer: “No.”

Clarifying: “We made a decision based on what was in the best health interest for the city. And that is not an easy choice.”

 

After the shocking cancellation, which overrode property rights and free will, the mayor urged all residents to go out and eat at restaurants and gather and spend money to support the local economy. In this later interview, he explained that he had no problem keeping the city open. He just didn’t want people from hither and yon—the dirty people, so to speak—to bring a virus with them.

 

He was here playing the role of Prince Prospero in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” He was turning the capital city of Texas into a castle in which the elite could hide from the virus, an action that also became a foreshadowing of what was to come: the division of the entire country into clean and dirty populations.

 

The mayor further added a strange comment: “I think the spread of the disease here is inevitable. I don’t think that closing down South Bay was intended to stop the disease from getting here because it is coming. The assessment of our public health professionals was that we were risking it coming here more quickly, or in a greater way with a greater impact. And the longer we could put that off, the better this city is.”

 

And there we have the “flatten the curve” thinking at work. Kick the can down the road. Postpone. Delay herd immunity as long as possible. Yes, everyone will get the bug but it is always better that it happens later rather than sooner. But why? We were never told. Flatten the curve was really just prolong the pain, keep our overlords in charge as long as possible, put normal life on hold, and stay safe as long as you can.

 

Prolonging the pain might also have served another surreptitious agenda: let the working classes—the dirty people—get the bug and bear the burden of herd immunity so that the elites can stay clean and hopefully it will die out before it gets to the highest echelons. There was indeed a hierarchy of infection.

 

In all these months, no one ever explained to the American public why prolonging the period of non-exposure was always better than meeting the virus sooner, gaining immunity, and getting over it. The hospitals around the country were not strained. Indeed, with the inexplicable shutdown of medical services for diagnostics and elective surgeries, hospitals in Texas were empty for months. Health care spending collapsed.

 

This was the onset of the great demoralization. The message was: your property is not your own. Your events are not yours. Your decisions are subject to our will. We know better than you. You cannot take risks with your own free will. Our judgment is always better than yours. We will override anything about your bodily autonomy and choices that are inconsistent with our perceptions of the common good. There is no restraint on us and every restraint on you.

 

This messaging and this practice is inconsistent with a flourishing human life, which requires the freedom of choice above all else. It also requires the security of property and contracts. It presumes that if we make plans, those plans cannot be arbitrarily canceled by force by a power outside of our control. Those are bare minimum presumptions of a civilized society. Anything else leads to barbarism and that is exactly where the Austin decision took us.

 

We still don’t know precisely who was involved in this rash judgment or on what basis they made it. There was a growing sense in the country at the time that something was going to happen. There had been sporadic use of lockdown powers in the past. Think of the closure of Boston after the bombing in 2013. A year later, the state of Connecticut quarantined two travelers who might have been exposed to Ebola in Africa. These were the precedents.

 

“The coronavirus is driving Americans into unexplored territory, in this case understanding and accepting the loss of freedom associated with a quarantine,” wrote the New York Times on March 19, 2020, three days after the Trump press conference that announced two weeks to flatten the curve.

 

The experience on a nationwide basis fundamentally undermined the civil liberties and rights that Americans had long taken for granted. It was a shock to everyone but to young people still in school, it was utter trauma and a moment of mental reprogramming. They learned all the wrong lessons: they are not in charge of their lives; someone else is. The only way to be is to figure out the system and play along.

 

We now see epic learning loss, psychological shock, population-wide obesity and substance abuse, a fall in investor confidence, a shrinkage of savings reflecting less interest in the future, and a dramatic decline in public participation in what used to be normal life events: church, theater, museums, libraries, fairs, symphonies, ballets, theme parks, and so on. Attendance in general is down by half and this is starving these venues of money. Most of the big institutions in large cities like New York, such as Broadway and the Met, are on life support. The symphony halls have a third empty seats despite lowering prices.

 

It seems remarkable that this three-and-a-half year-long war against basic liberty for nearly everyone has come to this. And yet it should not be a surprise. All ideology aside, you simply cannot maintain much less cultivate a civilized life when governments, in combination with the commanding heights of media and large corporations, treat their citizens like lab rats in a science experiment. You only end in sucking away the essence and vibrancy of the human spirit, as well as the will to build a good life.

 

In the name of public health, they sapped the will to health. And if you object, they shut you up. This is still going on daily.

 

The ruling class that did this to the country has yet to speak honestly about what transpired. It was their actions that created the current cultural, economic, and social crisis. Their experiment left the country and our lives in shambles. We’ve yet to hear apologies or even basic honesty about any of it. Instead, all we get is more misleading propaganda about how we need yet another shot that doesn’t work.

 

History provides many cases of a beaten down, demoralized, and increasingly poor and censored majority population being ruled over by an imperious, inhumane, sadistic, privileged, and yet tiny ruling class. We just never believed we would become one of those cases. The truth of this is so grim and glaring, and the likely explanation of what happened so shocking, that the entire subject is regarded as something of a taboo in public life.

 

There will be no fixing this, no crawling out from under the rubble, until we get something from our rulers other than public preening about a job well done, in ads sponsored by Pfizer and Moderna.

From the Brownstone Institute

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

 

Jeffrey A. Tucker
Jeffrey A. Tucker is the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press, as well as 10 books in five languages, most recently “Liberty or Lockdown.” He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He writes a daily column on economics for The Epoch Times and speaks widely on the topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

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US Nursing home data shows clearly that the COVID vaccines were a disaster for the elderly; they increased the risk of dying from COVID

I’m going to drill into more detail on this analysis of the CDC “gold standard” database which shows that the vaccines were a huge failure. There is no way to put a positive spin on this.

Steve Kirsch
7September2023 https://kirschsubstack.com/p/us-nursing-home-data-shows-clearly-83f

COVID dead: survived odds ratio vs. week ending 6December2020 (at arrow)

COVID dead: survived odds ratio vs. week ending 6December2020 (at arrow)

Figure 1. The US Nursing Home Data shows that the vaccines were a huge failure. The orange line represents the risk of dying from COVID. It’s an odds ratio relative to the odds on 12/6/20 which is the point right before the vaccines rolled out. The choice of the reference simply affects where OR=1 (the right hand legend). Any other point would show the exact same curve. As you can see, the odds ratio of dying (died from COVID:survived COVID infection) goes up from the trendline after the primary shots and after the booster shots. The only thing that did reduce death from COVID is when Omicron became the primary strain in late December 2021. The vaccines were a huge mistake because they significantly depressed people’s immune system. The blue bars are COVID cases just to show the risk of death is not related to cases going up or down. This was added to the chart to debunk Professor Morris’s claims that the IFR goes up when cases go down. Not true. As you can clearly see from this chart, the IFR spiked starting around 2/14/21, after cases had stabilized.

Executive summary

The US Nursing Home data is the “gold-standard“ record level data for what happened in nursing homes after the COVID vaccine rolled out.

 

The signal from this data is clear and unambiguous: both the primary series and booster COVID vaccines increased the risk of death from COVID. The bivalent vaccines did absolutely nothing for the elderly (at least it didn’t make things worse, but it didn’t make things better).

 

The two things that reduced the infection fatality rate (IFR) were:

  1. Natural immunity (everyone had had COVID one or more times)
  2. The arrival of the much less deadly Omicron strain as the dominant strain in late December 2021

We can see both effects very clearly in the data shown in Figure 1 above.

This is why the CDC isn’t touting this database as proof that the vaccines work. Neither is anyone on the pro-vax side of the narrative despite the fact that this data has been in public view for 2 years now.

 

So since nobody from their side wanted to analyze the data, I thought it would be a good idea if someone from our side took a look.

 

The reason why they never wrote about this to prove their case is that it shows the opposite. The so-called “misinformation spreaders” have been right all along: the vaccine clearly significantly increased the risk of an elderly person getting COVID for around 4 months. This is a huge problem because this was the time when the vaccine was supposed to be most effective (since we now know from FOIA requests that the FDA knew that the vaccine protection waned after 4 months).

 

Health officials claimed the vaccine could reduce risk of death by 10x. It’s right here in this tweet from an Australian government health authority NSW Health on August 17, 2021:

Estimated effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines

Estimated effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines

The data they never told us about (the US Nursing Home data) shows a completely different story: it did the opposite and increased the risk of death by as much as 1.6 times higher odds of dying.

 

The attempts to attack my analysis, to date, are addressed here. They are weak hand-waving arguments with no evidentiary support. At no time did anyone ever justify their arguments with any numbers derived from the data. None of the attackers will publish their “correct” analysis of this data or their investigations showing anomalies.

 

The fact is that this is “gold standard” data. It doesn’t get any “closer to the source” than this. There were over 2M records to analyze from over 15,000 elderly care facilities in the US. These are large numbers and the effect size was huge.

 

The Fisher exact p-value for the 1.7 OR peak on 2/28/21 is 2.6e-109 and the Z-score for the odds ratio is 23.53. In other words, this difference didn’t happen because I cherry picked a result or it happened by chance. It was caused by something. If it wasn’t the vaccine, what caused this statistically significant difference in the rate of death from the virus (it was the same variant as before the vaccines rolled out).

 

Equally important is that Apple Valley Village had a 0% death rate from COVID prior to the vaccine rollout: 26 infections and not a single death. Just 3 weeks after the week of the shots, they had 90 COVID infections which resulted in 28 deaths from COVID. My hypothesis can easily explain that. Theirs cannot. So you can throw all the FUD you want at the Nursing Home data, but the bottom line is that this one anecdote is very powerful because it is verifiable in the database and with employees, but it cannot be explained how the death rate in this nursing home suddenly got at least 9X worse after the shots rolled out that should have made the death rate 10X better. That is a 70X swing. This is why Professor Morris simply ignores this because he cannot explain it. In science, you can’t ignore data you don’t like. You have to be able to explain it or admit you cannot. Morris does neither.

 

Don’t you find it strange that this data has been publicly available for two years now and not a single pro-vaccine advocate has analyzed it and is touting it as “proof” the vaccines work?

At this point, the medical community has a choice: embrace the data and admit you were wrong or try to fight it.

History will not look kindly on attempts to dismiss this data.

The first rule of holes: if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

They are in a big hole. What will they do now?

Data availability

Code: You can find everything in my github repo here.

Nursing home data: You can download the data from my repo or directly from CMS.

Now, where are the repos of others who have analyzed this data? They do not exist as far as I know. How is that possible? Why can’t we see their work?

Key documents

Preparing for COVID-19 in Nursing Homes shows that the policy in effect on November 20, 2020 and beyond was to test all new admissions into nursing homes and anyone who is symptomatic. I verified this practice was followed by talking to people who work in the nursing care homes. So the claim that people who transferred into nursing homes didn’t get tested is without evidentiary support.

 

Boosters were rolled out starting on September 20, 2021. See: Nursing homes charging ahead to administer COVID-19 vaccine booster shots

The bivalent booster was first available in the United States nearly one year later on September 1, 2022.

Nursing homes site of 40% of US COVID-19 deaths shows that nursing homes are ground zero for the vaccine. If it doesn’t work there, it is a failure.

What I found

Everything is summarized in the Executive Summary at the start.

The key point is that, in aggregate, when compared to pre-vax infection fatality rates, the odds of death climbed for months after the vaccines were delivered when they were “supposed to” have fallen like a rock. In particular the odds of death ( deaths from covid:survivors from COVID) increased post-vaccine. So did the absolute risk reduction; it went south which means the vaccines increased your risk of death. In short, the vaccine made things worse. The reference point chosen (the week prior to vaccine rollout) is immaterial; the slopes all went the wrong way. There is no doubt about this. This is a huge failure of the vaccine.

 

In addition, the virus has mutated to Omicron which isn’t killing anyone. Boosters are silly. They should be ashamed of themselves for pushing this when there clearly isn’t a problem.

Cases and deaths in US nursing homes

Cases and deaths in US nursing homes

This is a graph of the cases and deaths. The deaths are offset by 1 week from the cases with a .99 cross correlation coefficient. So in computing the IFR, OR, and ARR this is taken into account. Note that COVID ceased to be a problem for the elderly after 3/24/22. Even if the vaccines worked, it’s nonsensical to keep using them due to the unknown risk especially now when the “benefits” (which are negative) are known.

Could this analysis be wrong? Could the vaccine have saved lives?

No. Anecdotes like Apple Valley Village (mentioned above) are unexplainable.

The Pfizer Phase 3 clinical trial had more all-cause deaths in the treatment group than the placebo group, but the numbers were too small to be statistically significant. So the trials provide no visibility into the death “benefit.”

 

There are many others who have pointed out issues with the vaccines including this amazing video by John Beaudoin and the 1,200 articles I’ve written on my Substack.

Why did this happen?

Is there a biological basis for how the vaccine can make things worse? Yes!

The vaccine damages your immune system. See this article by Igor Chudov for a clinical trial done on kids with healthy immune systems.

Previous articles

See:

  1. US nursing home data shows clearly that the COVID vaccines made the elderly MORE likely to die from COVID. Whoops!
  2. UPenn Professor Jeffrey Morris tries to discredit me and fails…badly, very badly

The attempts to discredit the data and/or analysis

Here are the attempts to discredit my analysis of this data. At no point do any of these people point to the “correct” analysis showing that the data shows the vaccines reduced the death rate. Nor do any of the attacks actually have any numbers. They are all hand-waving attacks with no evidentiary support. The attack is in bold, the responses follow.

  1. You’re cherry picking your analysis window. The reference point in computing the OR and the ARR is completely arbitrary. I simply chose the most logical point: the week ending 12/6/20, which is just before the vaccines were publicly available for the elderly. Pick any other point and you’ll see that the OR increases and the ARR decreases. This is a stupid attack.
  2. This is a CFR, not an IFR. Technically true, but practically speaking, this is as close to the IFR as you will ever get in real life. If it makes you happy, simply replace all instances of IFR with CFR. It doesn’t change anything. Nursing homes were required to test all incoming patients for COVID and they tested anyone who was symptomatic. None of this changed throughout the period. These rules were in effect well before the vaccines rolled out.
  3. Odds ratios can be unstable. Yes, but not in this case.
  4. Apple Valley Village (AVV) was cherry picked. It’s not typical. First of all, I have insider information from only 5 nursing homes. So I picked it out of the 5 because it was one of 3 where I had insider information. Also, they had enough COVID deaths to make it interesting. And it was in a state where I had access to the death records. So AVV was the only nursing home where I had a complete 360 degree view of an “interesting” case: 1) in the Nursing database, 2) had access to the death records, 3) had inside access to an employee, and 4) had enough cases. So to cherry pick, you have to start with a bunch of cherries. I had 5, but only 1 with full info. Not cherry picked. And besides, even if I had the same info for all 15,000 facilities, they all should be explainable. When I asked Professor Morris to explain my real world example, he refused to offer an explanation and instead accused me of “cherry picking.” Is that how science works? When you can’t explain the observation, you accuse the other person of cherry picking? They can’t explain this data; it doesn’t fit their hypothesis. That’s the problem.
  5. AVV deaths were due to the COVID wave in January 2021. The facilities were overwhelmed; that’s why the death rate rose. No, the numbers don’t work out for you. The IFR for AVV was less than 1 in 30 before the vax. If the IFR remained flat, the 90 infections should have led to 3 deaths. But since the vaccine reduces death by 10X like NSW Health says, there should be 0 deaths. That wouldn’t overwhelm any system. How were there 30 deaths??And why aren’t you giving me any anecdotes supporting your hypothesis? Is that because there aren’t any?
  6. Your IFR is bogus because people could be transferred into the nursing home without being tested. Preparing for COVID-19 in Nursing Homes shows that the policy in effect on November 20, 2020 and beyond was to test all new admissions into nursing homes and anyone who is symptomatic. So the claim that people who transferred into nursing homes didn’t get tested is without evidentiary support.
  7. Infections went way down after the vaccines rolled out. If infections are falling the IFR can appear to be falsely inflated. Yes, that’s true if you don’t time offset the cases to match the deaths. I did a cross correlation between delayed cases (using current month and the 2 previous months) and achieved an r=.996 using weights .2, .6, and .2 which was designed specifically not to “overfit” the data. With that correction to cases, case rates can be falling or rising and the IFR will be relatively stable.
  8. When case rates are low, the IFR calculation can be inaccurate because ratios can be all over the place if infections are low; the law of large numbers no longer applies. My analysis focuses on the aggregated US data where this is not a problem. The p-values are absurdly small and the effect size is huge. And for the primary and booster shots, there was a clear cause and effect. Everything looked the way we expected it to look. If you have a specific issue that disqualifies the data, you need to show me exactly what it is with data and statistics, not a hand-waving argument.
  9. You don’t understand probability. Then why not show your analysis of the data?
  10. You didn’t disclose the disclaimer listed on the CMS website about why infections can be greater than cases. The disclaimer contains handwaving arguments with no evidentiary support that conflicts with what I know to be the case, e.g., nursing homes test incoming residents for COVID. There may be some exceptions, but the burden is on the challengers to show this effect is both real and significant. Hand-waving arguments don’t cut it.
  11. Cases come before deaths. You need to offset them to compute an accurate IFR. if cases are dropping, the time lag makes the OR computed on the same week exaggerated (makes it look more deadly even when it isn’t. I did that. If you think I got it wrong, show us your analysis.
  12. Why are you focusing on the US data? How do you explain the data in Sweden? Attempts to change the topic won’t work.
  13. Some facilities didn’t report deaths. Where is the evidence of this? There are certainly facilities who reported no deaths, but that could be because there weren’t any. Where is the proof that this attack changes the outcome?
  14. The PCR test is inaccurate. Yes it is, but that bias uniformly affected all reports and you cannot discredit this analysis by modeling this effect. If you can, show the analysis.
  15. Not everyone was tested for COVID. Agree. Only symptomatic cases were tested. This doesn’t change the results. If it does, show us.
  16. Some sites had more deaths than cases. If you filter these out, it doesn’t change the outcome.

If you want to read Professor Morris’s critique in his own words, you can find it here. Here are the quick answers to each item.

  1. I only need a consistent measure of the IFR. The fact that some cases and deaths aren’t reported is immaterial. It is the directionality that is key.
  2. The IFR came down when Omicron rolled out. It also comes down steadily as more people are infected and gain natural immunity. There is a survivor effect as well: the vulnerable die off. There is no evidence whatsoever linking the vaccine to the slow drop in IFR. If it was the vaccine, it would drop shortly after injection and it doesn’t.
  3. I only look at periods post primary vax and booster. These are not cherry picked. These are the areas of interest. If the vaccine worked, you’d see an immediate effect which wears off after 4 months. There’s no benefit there.
  4. I now lag the cases with a r-.996 between the lagged cases and deaths. The lag is 0, 1 week, and 2 weeks and gives that r value.
  5. The vaccine should have dropped the OR below the trendline. It went the wrong way. No spinning required. It’s obviously a problem.
  6. Natural immunity and survivor bias are constantly driving down the trendline shown. Omicron came on quickly and you can see it immediately drive down the OR line in late Dec 2021.
  7. I dismiss the effect of vaccination because 1) post vax, the rates went up and 2) there was a study recently done confirming that the vaccine damages your immune system, and 3) the Cleveland Clinic study confirmed that the more vaccines you got the weaker your immune system becomes thus explaining the higher rates of COVID in the vaccinated. If you have a better explanation for 2 and 3, let’s hear it.

I found his arguments lacking in any data or numbers to back them up. And he completely failed to explain AVV; he wouldn’t even attempt it.

 

I also invited him to submit to me his anecdote of a success case where the IFR in the nursing home dropped by 9X or more. I’d love to see it. After all, there should be hundreds of such homes. Can he name one?

The NSW government promised the OR would drop like a lead balloon

As noted above, the NSW Health authority claimed that risk of death drops by 10X. I’d love to see how the OR of death goes to .1 after the vaccine. Where is the data?

Where is their analysis of the CMS Medicare data?

This is gold standard data. They should be touting it. It’s been up for 2 years. Nothing. Not a peep. Nobody touched it. It’s basically a third rail for the narrative.

 

40% of the COVID deaths were in US nursing homes, so this is the #1 demographic to examine. The data was there. Why did they ignore it?

If there is a mortality benefit, where is the benefit curve post-vax and why is this kept hidden?

Where is their curve of the odds ratio of death from COVID post vaccine?

I haven’t seen it anywhere.

I asked Professor Morris for the correct IFR since he claims mine is wrong. He could not provide it.

If he doesn’t know the correct numbers, how can he know my numbers are wrong?

For more info

See my previous article where it talks about the only paper published referencing this data

See also my Twitter post:

 

Steve Kirsch-tweet-7September2023-US Nursing Home data from the CDC shows the COVID vaccines were a huge failure

Steve Kirsch-tweet-7September2023-US Nursing Home data from the CDC shows the COVID vaccines were a huge failure

Summary

The vaccines made things worse for the very population that it was supposed to help.

 

That’s why nobody ever published a favorable analysis of the US Nursing Home Data even though it has been out for 2 years.

 

The vaccines shouldn’t be used by anyone, especially those with a compromised immune system. It damages your immune system. People with a damaged immune system will be left with an even more damaged immune system.

 

When will the medical community acknowledge they made a huge mistake?

 

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Some COVID Vaccines Produce ‘Unintended Immune Response’ in Recipients: Study

The COVID vaccines were fundamentally faulty, revealed researchers, as they reworked the synthetic mRNAs to prevent further harmful responses.

By Naveen Athrappully
8December2023 Updated: 16December2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/some-covid-vaccines-produce-unintended-immune-response-in-recipients-study-5543951

 

Researchers in a landmark new study have discovered a sequence within the Pfizer mRNA vaccine that produces an “unintended immune response” in the body, which experts are calling a massive “developmental and regulatory failure.”

 

Synthetic Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA), such as that used in Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, enables the body to create a specific spike protein mimicking SARS-CoV-2. The body reacts to the foreign protein and generates protective immunity, which theoretically neutralizes the real virus when it enters the body.

 

“Researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit have discovered that the cellular machinery that ‘reads’ mRNAs ‘slips’ when confronted with repeats of a chemical modification commonly found in mRNA therapeutics. In addition to the target protein, these slips lead to the production of ‘off-target’ proteins triggering an unintended immune response,” said a press release for the study published in Nature on Dec. 6.

 

The MRC team redesigned the mRNA vaccine to prevent further harmful immune responses from the spike proteins.

“The researchers identified that bases with a chemical modification called N1-methylpseudouridine—which are currently contained in mRNA therapies—are responsible for the ‘slips’ along the mRNA sequence.”

 

When the MRC team collaborated with researchers from the Universities of Kent, Oxford, and Liverpool, they found an unintended immune response occurred in one-third of the 21 patients in the study who were inoculated with the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.

Re-Engineering mRNA

 

The team reengineered the error-prone genetic sequences in the synthetic mRNA to avoid these unintended and “off-target” effects.

 

“We can remove the error-prone code from the mRNA in vaccines so the body will make the proteins we want for an immune response without inadvertently making other proteins as well. The safety concern for future mRNA medicines is that misdirected immunity has huge potential to be harmful, so off-target immune responses should always be avoided,” said Dr. James Thaventhiran from the MRC team, who is also a practicing clinician at Addenbrooke’s hospital.

 

Biochemist Professor and MRC team member Anne Willis said that the redesigning work presents “both a concern and a solution for this new type of medicine.”

 

Ribosomes in cells produce proteins from natural and synthetic mRNAs, and a precise positioning of the ribosome on the mRNA is needed to make the right proteins. The ribosome ‘reads’ the mRNA sequence three bases at a time, and any tiny deviation that happens here “massively distorts the code and the resulting protein,” said the Cambridge press release.

 

When the ribosome misreads the mRNA and ends up with unintended amino acids, the mutation is known as a frameshift.

“When the ribosome is confronted with a string of these modified bases called N1-methylpseudouridine in the mRNA, it slips around 10% of the time, causing the mRNA to be misread and unintended proteins to be produced—enough to trigger an immune response. Removing these runs of N1-methylpseudouridine from the mRNAs prevents ‘off-target’ protein production.”

 

This research was funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome LEAP R3 program, and supported by the NIHR Cambridge BRC. As for competing interests, two of the authors in the study are inventors on a pending patent application (2305297.0) related to mRNA technology.

Fundamental Failure

Although the MRC team insisted that the unintended immune responses were found to have no ill effects, expert responses to the study claimed the safety concern revealed a more fundamental failure of the scientific and regulatory communities in approving the COVID mRNA vaccines.

 

“The formation of these off-target proteins is not disclosed in the package insert for COMIRNATY,” said a commentary on the study published in ResearchGate. “The finding that unintended proteins may be produced as a result of vaccination is sufficient cause for regulators to conduct full risk assessments of past or future harms that may have ensued.”

 

Authors said that according to WHO guidelines for mRNA vaccines, “manufacturers should provide details of ‘unexpected ORFs’ (Open Reading Frames),” referring to cellular modification on a DNA level.

 

“Given that this study was conducted under the auspices of the United Kingdom Government, we must assume UK regulators, manufacturers, and international regulatory agencies, including FDA, were apprised of the data many months ago.

 

“We await their account of what steps they have taken to investigate why the formation of off-target proteins was not discovered sooner, what toxic effects they may have caused, and what steps they are taken to prevent harm in the future and to inform the public of these findings.”

 

The Epoch Times reached out to Pfizer, Moderna, the FDA, and the CDC for comment.

Social Responses

 

In a Dec. 6 post on X, Dr. Jonathan Engler said: “This is devastating. A design flaw in the mRNA injections results in them making random proteins which will be massively pro-inflammatory. Because the product is distributed throughout the body, this happens everywhere. This likely explains the huge variety of immune disorders reported in association with these products.”

 

Supporters of the study claimed that critics were making an issue unnecessarily.

“Frameshifts are uncommon but naturally occurring events in, for example, viral infections,” said Edward Nirenberg, a medical publisher. “These give rise to protein products that can also be targeted by the immune system.”

 

“Coronaviruses have evolved to require frameshifting as part of their replication cycle to make their proteins.”

 

Immunologist Marc Veldhoen said in an X Post: “Some well-known anti-vaxers are making claims that the ribosome slip/frameshift causes a stop codon to be missed and an own mitochondrial protein to be made, risking autoimmunity. It´s important to know that the mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines do not contain other protein codes.”

 

Emergency Physician Kashif Pirzada MD said in an X post: “This is a big deal. Novavax produces much milder reactions in people compared to the mRNA shots, and also presents a more conventional protein-based vaccine option in our polarized information environment. I usually get floored by the mRNA shots, not so with Novavax.”

 

Novavax is “probably” the safest COVID-19 vaccine compared to other brands, according to cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, who added that he still would not recommend the shot due to high cardiac risks posed by COVID vaccines.

 

The three major classes of COVID-19 vaccines are mRNA, vector, and protein subunit vaccines. The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines use mRNA technology, while AstraZeneca and Janssen come under the vector category. Novavax is a protein subunit vaccine.

 

There are multiple studies pointing to people suffering from adverse events after being vaccinated.

 

An October study suggested that COVID-19 vaccines could trigger rheumatic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases that involve inflammation manifesting in the joints, tendons, bones, and muscles due to an unknown cause. This includes conditions like arthritis, vasculitis, lupus, and adult-onset Still’s disease.

 

Research has shown that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines can reduce a beneficial gut bacteria called Bifidobacteria, the presence of which is associated with higher immunity against pathogens and cancer.

 

In a recent interview with the “American Thought Leaders” program, clinical pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole said that DNA contamination in some of the mRNA vaccines could be linked to a rising incidence of cancers, micro-clotting, and autoimmune diseases.

 

Naveen Athrappully
Author
Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times.

 

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Study Finds Signs of Heart Injury in Vaccinated People Without Chest Pain

The study results ‘suggest that mild asymptomatic myocardial inflammation could be more common than we ever expected,’ one doctor said.

By Zachary Stieber

27September2023   Updated: 28September2023  https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/study-finds-signs-of-heart-injury-in-asymptomatic-vaccinated-people-5498717

People who received a COVID-19 vaccine had higher levels of a glucose analogue than unvaccinated people, suggesting heart inflammation, according to a new study.

 

Researchers in Japan compared 700 vaccinated people with 303 unvaccinated people. None experienced cardiac symptoms.

Researchers analyzed results from positron emission tomography and computerized tomography (PET/CT) scans that analyzed the uptake of fluorodeoxyglucose F18 (FDG), a glucose analogue and marker of inflammation, in the body.

 

Researchers found that people vaccinated with a Moderna or Pfizer vaccine had higher levels of FDG in the heart, liver, and spleen than unvaccinated people.

 

The higher levels of heart FDG remained when stratifying the patients by various factors, such as age, except for people who were tested more than 180 days after vaccination.

 

The higher FDG levels represent heart inflammation, Dr. Takehiro Nakahara of the Keio University School of Medicine’s Department of Radiology and co-authors wrote. The levels could just indicate minor inflammation, they said, pointing to a cardiac MRI study that found that post-vaccination heart problems were less severe than those experienced after COVID-19.

 

“Even though vaccinated patients in this study showed elevated myocardial FDG uptake on PET/CT up to 180 days after vaccination, this could result from relatively minor inflammation and may not represent severe myocardial abnormalities,” they said.

 

The study was published by the Radiological Society of North America. Some authors disclosed grants from pharmaceutical companies, including Nihon Medi-Physics. The authors said they received no funding for the retrospective study.

 

Moderna and Pfizer didn’t respond to requests for comment.

FDA Detects Serious Safety Signal for Covid Vaccine Among Kids

 

Editorial

In an editorial also published by Radiology, Dr. David Bluemke said the results of the study were compelling. He noted that researchers examined some potential confounders and the results held up. However, researchers didn’t test heart function.

 

“Unfortunately, no myocardial enzyme analysis was available, and cardiac function was not available. In addition, the authors did not scrutinize the oncologic histories and treatments of their patient groups,” wrote Dr. Bluemke, professor of radiology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and editor emeritus of the journal.

 

He also noted that retrospective studies are more prone to bias, with unknown factors, including why some patients receive a vaccine and some don’t.

“The results are intriguing but unfortunately incomplete,” Dr. Bluemke said.

 

Heart inflammation is a known side effect of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It can be deadly. The most common symptom is chest pain.

 

None of the patients analyzed in the study reported chest pain, although some reported noncardiac symptoms such as fever and a sore arm.

 

The study results “suggest that mild asymptomatic myocardial inflammation could be more common than we ever expected,” according to Dr. Bluemke. He said vaccine manufacturers may look to change their vaccines or delivery systems with the aim of reducing the inflammation.

Others Weigh In

Dr. Sanjay Verma, an American cardiologist who wasn’t involved in the research, told The Epoch Times in an email that the increased FDG in vaccinated patients tested before and after receiving a vaccine “does suggest that vaccination rather than underlying inflammation alone is playing a causal role in the increased FDG uptake after vaccination.”

He said the study adds to other research and his own experience with patients, showing the need for doctors to understand that heart problems after COVID-19 vaccination can result in symptoms other than chest pain, including fatigue and shortness of breath.

 

“It is imperative that medical professionals broaden their scope of what symptoms they identify as potentially related to heart damage after COVID-19 vaccination,” Dr. Verma said.

Early detection means earlier treatment, which can lead to quicker recovery, according to the doctor.

 

Both Dr. Verma and Dr. Andrew Bostom, a U.S. heart expert who also reviewed the paper, said the findings were preliminary because there were no signs that the FDG levels resulted in health issues.

 

“If the investigators can show the PET findings predict hospitalizations for heart failure or cardiac arrhythmias or sudden cardiac death, upon prospective follow-up, that would [be] much more interesting,” Dr. Bostom told The Epoch Times via email.

Retrospective studies examine medical records, while prospective studies track patients for a period of time.

 

The study went over scans performed in adult patients between November 2020 and March 2022. The population before exclusions was about 9,400. Researchers excluded many of the patients, including patients who received more than two doses of a vaccine, patients with a history of COVID-19, and patients who underwent cardiac surgery.

 

Dr. Nakahara didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The researchers said one limitation of the study is that it was retrospective.

“A prospective study would be needed to validate the findings of this study including comparisons with cardiac enzyme, cardiac functions and non-mRNA vaccination,” they wrote.

 

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology.

 

A prospective study of 54 participants, published in Radiology earlier this year, found increased FDG uptake in two COVID-vaccinated people who suffered acute myocarditis but normal levels in vaccinated people who didn’t. The study duration was only two months.

FDG Testing

The FDG testing has, for years, been used to detect cardiac sarcoidosis, an inflammatory heart disease. It has increasingly been used to detect myocarditis and a related condition, pericarditis, in lieu of or with cardiac MRIs.

 

Some research has found that F-FDG testing produced results similar to the MRIs, although other papers have concluded that the testing was inferior.

 

The testing involves injecting a tracer, or a drug, and imaging with the PET scan to measure levels of fluorodeoxyglucose. CT scans are sometimes done to supplement the PET scans.

 

The testing can detect problems overlooked or unclear in other scans. It’s “much more sensitive than other imaging modalities like echocardiogram and cardiac MRI in identifying myocardial ischemia or injury,” Dr. Verma said.

 

The testing has been used in the past to detect heart inflammation in people who had COVID-19, in addition to the vaccinated people.

 

Zachary Stieber
Author (Reporter)

 

Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news. Contact Zachary at zack.stieber@epochtimes.com

 

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They Suffered Myocarditis After COVID-19 Vaccination. Years Later, Some Still Haven’t Recovered.

By Zachary Stieber, Lia Onely | 20September2023 Updated: 21September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/they-suffered-myocarditis-after-covid-19-vaccination-years-later-some-still-havent-recovered-5478652

 

Under pressure from the military and his mother, Jacob Cohen was feeling increasingly cornered.

 

Mr. Cohen did not want to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. He knew the shots had not been available for long. He was worried about their safety.

 

While Mr. Cohen initially resisted receiving a shot, he faced restrictions such as being forced to remain on base while vaccinated soldiers left. He was also pressured by military commanders, who scheduled a vaccination appointment for him and contacted his mother as part of a multipronged campaign.

 

“They told me, ‘Come on. It’s your mother. She’s crying. She’s worried. What wouldn’t you do for her?'” Mr. Cohen, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym because of concern about repercussions for going public, told The Epoch Times.

 

“I didn’t want to take the vaccine. I didn’t believe in it,” he said. But he wanted to appease his mother. “I would do anything for her.”

 

Mr. Cohen received his first shot, manufactured by Pfizer, on Sept. 22, 2021. He was 21.

 

Two weeks later, he was awakened by a sharp pain at 3 a.m.

 

“I felt like my heart was trying to get out of my chest,” Mr. Cohen said.

 

The soldier has felt pain before. “I never felt something like this,” he said.

 

Mr. Cohen went with a friend to the hospital, where he was placed in quarantine because he wasn’t fully vaccinated. Thirty minutes ticked by.

 

“I felt like it was the first time in my life I actually started seeing flashbacks of things that I did in my life—I felt like I was truly dying,” Mr. Cohen said.

U.S. Army soldiers prepare Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines at the Miami Dade College North Campus in North Miami on March 9, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images

U.S. Army soldiers prepare Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines at the Miami Dade College North Campus in North Miami on March 9, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images

 

U.S. Army soldiers prepare Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines at the Miami Dade College North Campus in North Miami on March 9, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Doctors finally came in and ran tests. They diagnosed Mr. Cohen with perimyocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle and the tissue around the heart.

 

They said Mr. Cohen was lucky. If he had come just a little later, he would have needed open heart surgery.

 

He spent three days in the hospital, taking medication and pills. When he was discharged, he was told not to engage in any physical activity for at least six months. He also needed to report for regular checkups and take a pill every day.

 

Six months after leaving the hospital, Mr. Cohen’s cardiac MRI showed concerning results. His heart still hadn’t recovered.

 

Doctors gave him more pills.

 

“They told me maybe I will need them for the rest of my life,” Mr. Cohen said.

 

The military marked him as unable to serve for the rest of his life, and released him.

 

To this day, he suffers.

 

“I’ve been feeling, I’m not sure if it’s trauma or something, but it feels sometimes like a sting there, a short sharp pain,” Mr. Cohen said.

I did a lot of physical things, which now I can't afford... to do amymore. - Jacob Cohen (pseudonym). military personnel

I did a lot of physical things, which now I can’t afford… to do amymore. – Jacob Cohen (pseudonym). military personnel

He’s also unable to do all he used to do before.

 

“I was training. I was playing soccer. I did a lot of physical things, which now I can’t afford … to do anymore,” Mr. Cohen said.

‘Continued Pain’

Dr. Adam Hirschfeld was among the first people to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States

 

The orthopedic surgeon was motivated by a desire to prevent his patients from becoming sick.

 

“I didn’t want to put any of my patients at risk,” Dr. Hirschfeld told The Epoch Times.

 

He received a Moderna primary series, composed of two doses, in January 2021. He was 36.

 

Three days after the second shot, Dr. Hirschfeld felt discomfort in his chest and numbness in his left arm.

 

A cardiac MRI confirmed evidence of heart inflammation. Dr. Hirschfeld was prescribed medicine and discharged two days later.

 

Dr. Hirschfeld has since undergone about a dozen electrocardiograms, another half a dozen echocardiograms, and a follow-up cardiac MRI.

 

“I went from being completely healthy—no issues, no medications—to seeing 10 different doctors in the blink of an eye,” Dr. Hirschfeld said.

 

The follow-up MRI, conducted about 18 months after the vaccinations, showed normal cardiac function.

I went from being completely healthy-no issues, no medications-to seeing 10 different doctors in the blink of an eye. - Dr. Adam hirschfeld, orthopedic surgeon

I went from being completely healthy-no issues, no medications-to seeing 10 different doctors in the blink of an eye. – Dr. Adam hirschfeld, orthopedic surgeon

But Dr. Hirschfeld still experiences pain.

 

“I have continued chest pain on the right side, and then I have neuropathic type pains in my neck and shoulder areas,” he told The Epoch Times. “I have it when I wake up, and it’s there when I go to sleep.”

 

The suffering affects the doctor physically and mentally.

 

“Having chest pain every day for two and a half years is very disconcerting,” he said.

 

Pfizer and Moderna didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Shots Cleared; Cases Appear

Mr. Cohen lives in Israel. Dr. Hirschfeld lives in the United States.

 

The first myocarditis cases after COVID-19 vaccination were reported in those countries in January 2021. Only a few weeks had elapsed since authorities cleared and recommended the shots for large portions of the population, including many young, healthy people.

A man receives the first dose of a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in Meitar, Israel, on March 9, 2021. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)

A man receives the first dose of a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in Meitar, Israel, on March 9, 2021. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)

 

A man receives the first dose of a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in Meitar, Israel, on March 9, 2021. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)

At first, authorities hid reports of myocarditis from the public. Israel first acknowledged there was a likely link between the shots and the inflammation. The United States finally followed in June 2021, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said there was a “likely association.”

 

Even after the association was made public, officials and many experts claimed that the myocarditis cases were mild. Most patients were hospitalized, authorities acknowledged, but they said patients could expect to recover without treatment and with rest.

 

The myocarditis is “rare but mild,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director at the time, said on “Good Morning America” on June 24, 2021.

 

Dr. Walensky said the cases were “self-limited,” or didn’t require treatment to resolve.

Then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky speaks to reporters at a COVID-19 mass vaccination site at Hynes Convention Center in Boston on March 30, 2021. (Erin Clark-Pool/Getty Images)

Then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky speaks to reporters at a COVID-19 mass vaccination site at Hynes Convention Center in Boston on March 30, 2021. (Erin Clark-Pool/Getty Images)

Then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky speaks to reporters at a COVID-19 mass vaccination site at Hynes Convention Center in Boston on March 30, 2021. (Erin Clark-Pool/Getty Images)

Dr. Jeremy Faust, editor-in-chief of MedPage Today and a teacher at Harvard Medical School, on Twitter two days later described the cases as “self-limited troponinemia,” or elevated troponin levels that would resolve on their own. Troponin is a protein in the heart that’s a marker of heart injury.

 

Those claims were already wrong at the time, based on case reports alone.

 

A previously healthy 24-year-old man in Massachusetts, for example, experienced chest pain so serious that he went to an emergency department, doctors reported on May 18, 2021. He was eventually discharged with a prescription for a beta-blocker and anti-inflammatory drugs and told not to engage in strenuous activity for three months.

 

Another early case involved a previously healthy 16-year-old boy in California who experienced “stabbing chest pain” and went to the emergency department for help. He described the pain as 6 to 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. The symptoms prompted doctors to admit him to intensive care. He spent six days in the hospital before being discharged.

 

Like many early case reports, no follow-up data were reported, making it impossible to say that the cases had fully resolved.

 

“Unless you’ve experienced it individually, you can’t tell somebody that their case was mild,” Dr. Hirschfeld said. “If you have elevated troponin, that’s your cardiac muscle breaking down.

 

“That’s something that’s permanent. And so to tell me that my cardiac muscle breaking down is mild is pretty insulting.”

Unless you've experienced it individually, you can't tell somebody that their case was mild. - - Dr. Adam Hirschfeld, orthopedic surgeon

Unless you’ve experienced it individually, you can’t tell somebody that their case was mild. – – Dr. Adam Hirschfeld, orthopedic surgeon

Signs of persistent symptoms appeared in the literature before long. U.S. military researchers, for instance, stated on June 29, 2021, that seven of 23 patients continued to have chest discomfort weeks or even months later. Dire outcomes were known even earlier. Two deaths were reported to U.S. authorities in February 2021, while another two were reported in Israel in the spring. Both of the Israelis who died were previously young and healthy.

Professional Biker Affected

Kyle Warner was a professional mountain bike racer when he received his first COVID-19 vaccine in May 2021. He completed a primary series the following month.

 

Mr. Warner, who lives in the western United States, teaches older people and wanted to protect them from COVID-19. The CDC and others promoted the idea that the vaccines curbed or even prevented transmission based on observational data.

 

“The sentiment was these are safe and effective. If you get them, you don’t need to wear a mask anymore, and you can’t transmit COVID or catch COVID,” Mr. Warner told The Epoch Times. “I spend quite a bit of time around older people and help them learn.

 

“I wasn’t necessarily afraid of COVID myself. Not that I did respect it, but I wasn’t worried it was going to kill me,” he added. “But I was worried about getting someone else sick, especially when I’m with our older clients.”

A woman receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Corona High School gymnasium in Corona, Calif., on Jan.15, 2021. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

A woman receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Corona High School gymnasium in Corona, Calif., on Jan.15, 2021. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

A woman receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Corona High School gymnasium in Corona, Calif., on Jan.15, 2021. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

Mr. Warner was diagnosed with myopericarditis after COVID-19 vaccination and was hospitalized.

 

After being discharged, Mr. Warner was bedridden for weeks.

 

“There’s points where I was unable to even get up out of bed without passing out or blacking out,” Mr. Warner told The Epoch Times. “It was really eye-opening. I felt like I went from being 28 years old to being 88 years old.”

 

Mr. Warner was diagnosed with myopericarditis and two other conditions—postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and mast cell activation syndrome—that others have also been diagnosed with following COVID-19 vaccination.

I felt like I went from being 29 years old to being 88 years old. - Kyle Warner, professional mountain bike racer

I felt like I went from being 29 years old to being 88 years old. – Kyle Warner, professional mountain bike racer

Hyperbaric oxygen, which has relieved some of Dr. Hirschfeld’s pain, helped bring Mr. Warner’s energy levels back up.

 

But the cyclist, who didn’t ride again until February 2022, still struggles with pain, especially when he exercises in the summer.

 

Mr. Warner utilizes a heart rate monitor, which he became familiar with in his racing career.

 

During a recent ride, Mr. Warner pushed himself, trying his hardest for four minutes. That sent his heart rate up to 189 beats per minute—the highest since the injury.

 

“I did OK, but then the next few weeks, I had a kind of a lingering chest pain and tightness. And about four days after, it was pretty significant where I was having a hard time sleeping and my heart felt like it was palpitating every once in a while, and then—even more than a week later—I still had a little bit of chest tightness and pain,” Mr. Warner said.

 

“It kind of scared me because it’s been well over a year since my last treatment with hyperbaric and I’m still dealing with it. And when I do try to push myself harder, then I have to pay for the next few days to a week.

 

“Back in the day, I would be able to do that with no problem at all.”

 

Doctors who have spoken to Mr. Warner have told him that when his heart becomes stressed, it signals his immune system to attack and inflame it.

 

He tries to keep his heart rate under 160 beats per minute.

A man monitors his heart rate using a fitness tracker. (ThamKC/Shutterstock)

A man monitors his heart rate using a fitness tracker. (ThamKC/Shutterstock)

A man monitors his heart rate using a fitness tracker. (ThamKC/Shutterstock)

14-Year-Old Rushed to Hospital

Aiden Ekanayake woke up in the middle of the night.

 

“Every breath deeper in was like knives in my chest,” Aiden, who is from Georgia, said during a podcast appearance.

 

It was June 12, 2021, two days after Aiden received a second shot of Pfizer’s vaccine. He was 14.

 

Aiden was able to fall asleep through shallow breathing, but was soon awakened. He went to his mother, who rushed him to the hospital.

Every breath deeper in was like knives in my chest. - Aiden Ekanayake, student

Every breath deeper in was like knives in my chest. – Aiden Ekanayake, student

Tests revealed abnormalities. Aiden was taken to the acute cardiac unit, where more tests confirmed that the vaccine was the cause.

 

Aiden spent four days in the hospital. After being discharged, he was inactive for more than four months.

 

“I don’t know where they get this ‘two days and you’re done, you’re good.’ That’s a crock of [expletive],” Emily Ekanayake, Aiden’s mother, told The Epoch Times.

 

Ms. Ekanayake had read early studies from Israel that found an elevated risk for myocarditis among young males who had received the Pfizer vaccine, but concluded with her son that the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks.

 

“I was really scared of COVID,” Ms. Ekanayake said.

 

Aiden said he wanted to get vaccinated to help protect himself and his brother, both of whom have asthma.

 

Aiden’s doctor also recommended the shot. Shortly before Aiden was vaccinated, the CDC director said the agency found no safety signal for myocarditis. U.S. officials cleared and recommended the vaccine to virtually all children aged 12 to 15, after initially only making it available to those 16 and older.

Aiden Ekanayake in a hospital in June 2021. (Courtesy of Emily Ekanayake)

Aiden Ekanayake in a hospital in June 2021. (Courtesy of Emily Ekanayake)

Aiden Ekanayake in a hospital in June 2021. (Courtesy of Emily Ekanayake)

Aiden eventually resumed exercise after being cleared by a cardiopulmonary stress test.

 

The result of the test was “probably more like that of an old man,” Ms. Ekanayake said. “His CO2 was low. He wasn’t able to run much. He’s got a lot of work in that way to go still. But he does like walking.

 

“I still worry about strenuous activity. I can’t help it. I don’t know that that will ever go away.”

‘Half a Human Being’

Alon was a competitive swimmer who trained every single day before he received his Pfizer vaccine.

 

But in addition to the round trip to get to the pool, the Israeli boy needed to stand in line to take a test for COVID-19.

 

School also was an issue. Fellow students would often get sick, triggering a quarantine of those who weren’t vaccinated.

It's like putting a child in prison for doing no wrong. - Mother of Alon, vaccinated child

It’s like putting a child in prison for doing no wrong. – Mother of Alon, vaccinated child

“There was no chance to arrive to school and not be informed the next day that someone is sick and you [need to] be in quarantine,” Alon’s mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of professional repercussions, told The Epoch Times. “It’s impossible. It’s like putting a child in prison for doing no wrong.”

 

Alon’s mother saw vaccinated people become sick despite the vaccine, erasing her belief that the shot protected people. But she heard little about possible side effects and decided that the benefits, including keeping her son in school, meant he should receive the shot.

 

“He was tired of the quarantines and tests,” she said.

Students are tested for COVID-19 at Brandeis Elementary School in Louisville, Ky., on Aug. 17, 2021. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

Students are tested for COVID-19 at Brandeis Elementary School in Louisville, Ky., on Aug. 17, 2021. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

Students are tested for COVID-19 at Brandeis Elementary School in Louisville, Ky., on Aug. 17, 2021. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

The first shot was injected on Dec. 3, 2021; the second shot was on Dec. 24, 2021. Alon was 9.

 

A few days later, Alon fell into a deep sleep.

 

“It was scary,” Alon’s mother said.

 

Doctors ran tests, including checking his heart. They couldn’t discern what was awry.

 

“The child is not functioning,” Alon’s mother said. “He was like half a human for the whole month.”

 

The breakthrough came when Alon said, “My heart hurts.” Fresh testing revealed myocarditis. It was induced by the vaccination, doctors concluded.

 

Alon spent the night at the hospital before being discharged. He returned a week later with chest pain. Tests showed normalization.

 

Alon suffered from other problems over the months that followed. He lost his sight. His leg swelled. His lymph nodes became enlarged.

 

Follow-up visits found no heart problems. The other symptoms eventually resolved and Alon was cleared to resume sports. He plays for hours each day. But nearly two years later, he still suffers.

 

“He has periods when his heart hurts,” Alon’s mother said. “Sometimes for a few months, everything is fine. And then suddenly, it comes back.”

 

She has opted to take her son to the doctor only when emergencies arise. Any time he sees a doctor, he becomes sick. And he refuses to take any more blood tests.

 

“Maybe it is a sore muscle there. The heart is normal and suddenly, it is very tight for a few seconds,” Alon’s mother said. “It goes away. We avoid tests of any sort. If I don’t feel it’s life and death, I don’t take him to the doctor.”

Worst Pain in His Life

Ben Cutler loved to go to the gym. He worked out five days a week.

 

Because he didn’t want to become infected by the new Omicron variant, Mr. Cutler received a Moderna booster shot on Dec. 14, 2021. He was 26.

 

The next day, Mr. Cutler began to experience symptoms such as fatigue. He went to sleep early, but at 2:30 a.m., he was startled awake.

Ben Cutler on Nov. 21, 2021, before he received a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster shot. (Courtesy of Ben Cutler)

Ben Cutler on Nov. 21, 2021, before he received a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster shot. (Courtesy of Ben Cutler)

Ben Cutler on Nov. 21, 2021, before he received a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster shot.

Ben Cutler in a hospital in Massachusetts on Dec. 19, 2021, after suffering COVID-19-vaccine-induced myopericarditis. (Courtesy of Ben Cutler)

Ben Cutler in a hospital in Massachusetts on Dec. 19, 2021, after suffering COVID-19-vaccine-induced myopericarditis. (Courtesy of Ben Cutler)

 Ben Cutler in a hospital in Massachusetts on Dec. 19, 2021, after suffering COVID-19-vaccine-induced myopericarditis. (Courtesy of Ben Cutler)

“I woke up and have never felt so terrible in my life,” Mr. Cutler wrote in a summary of his experience.

 

After several days of trying to sleep the pain away, a family member convinced the Massachusetts resident to go to the hospital.

 

Doctors ran tests and found troponin-T levels almost 90 times the normal maximum levels.

 

Mr. Cutler was diagnosed with myopericarditis. He was eventually dischargedbut his ordeal wasn’t over.

 

“It was good that I could work from home. And I could start working at 7 or 8 a.m. and then work until like 2ish and then just lay on my couch for like seven hours,” Mr. Cutler told The Epoch Times.

 

Ben Cutler estimated that he lost 25 pounds while spending hundreds of hours in pain on his couch in extreme pain.

Ben Cutler estimated that he lost 25 pounds while spending hundreds of hours in pain on his couch in extreme pain.

Mr. Cutler estimated he spent hundreds of hours in pain on his couch. His pain was often 5 on a scale of 5. He lost 25 pounds.

 

A 10-minute walk to the grocery store, Mr. Cutler said, would have been the only exercise he could manage in a day. He described having to “budget” his energy.

 

After about two months, his condition started to improve. The pain dropped to 3s on some days. Then 2s. Then zeros.

 

By the end of April 2022, Mr. Cutler was able to begin lifting weights again. A follow-up cardiac MRI revealed a small fibrosis, or scar, but he feels he has recovered.

 

“I haven’t been having any major issues,” he said. “Everything’s pretty good.”

Evidence Builds

The stories bolster the growing body of evidence that has found a significant portion of people who suffer vaccine-induced myocarditis are affected for months or years, if they survive.

 

U.S. researchers who followed up with 15 children hospitalized with myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination revealed on Aug. 10, 2021, that four of the patients had “persistent symptoms.” Other U.S. researchers announced on Nov. 1, 2021, that seven of 54 young patients who suffered myocarditis after vaccination still experienced symptoms, including chest pain.

 

47% Nearly half of myocarditis patients who responded to a U.S. government survey said they continued to experience symptoms months after COVID-19 vaccination.

47% Nearly half of myocarditis patients who responded to a U.S. government survey said they continued to experience symptoms months after COVID-19 vaccination.

Nearly half of myocarditis patients who responded to a U.S. government survey said that months after COVID-19 vaccination, they continued to experience symptoms, including chest pain, government researchers said on Sept. 21, 2022. Meanwhile, 35 percent of 28 young myocarditis patients followed up with at least 61 days after COVID-19 vaccination reported continued symptoms such as shortness of breath, Hong Kong researchers said on Sept. 23, 2022.

 

“Although post-COVID-19 vaccination myocarditis has a favorable prognosis and is considered curable, it may leave abnormalities in the myocardium, as observed in this case; it may therefore be premature to declare it as a complication with a good prognosis,” Japanese researchers said in 2022.

 

More recent data have shown that some patients still haven’t recovered.

 

That includes 23 percent of 60 people who told the CDC that at least one year after being diagnosed with myocarditis, they were still experiencing chest pain.

 

Other papers have found that even when symptoms abate, follow-up testing reveals abnormalities.

Cars line up for a mass COVID-19 vaccination event in Denver on Janu. 30, 2021. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

Cars line up for a mass COVID-19 vaccination event in Denver on Janu. 30, 2021. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

Cars line up for a mass COVID-19 vaccination event in Denver on Janu. 30, 2021. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

Heart scars were detected in cardiac MRIs conducted seven to eight months after the myocarditis diagnoses, Israeli researchers said on March 23, 2022. U.S. researchers described similar results in a study published around the same time. Other U.S. researchers who imaged 15 adolescents at least 76 days after they were discharged from a hospital found persistent late gadolinium enhancement in 80 percent of the patients.

 

Researchers often use abnormal levels of late gadolinium enhancement as an indication of heart scarring.

 

In myocarditis cases before the pandemic, the enhancement was often a sign of poor outcomes such as heart transplantation or death.

 

“It’s going to be a small percentage of the people that recovered from myocarditis, but some of them could be in for longer-term problems and morbidity, and some of them may develop actual disability,” Dr. Andrew Bostom, a U.S. heart expert, told The Epoch Times.

 

While most patients experienced “mild myocarditis, which is mostly gone, it’s true that scars can remain, because it’s an inflammation of the heart muscle,” Dr. Yehuda Adler, a member of the Israeli Ministry of Health’s National Council for Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases, told The Epoch Times. “I’m definitely following these people even today, two years later, and I’ll continue to follow them.”

 

Not all patients have persistent symptoms or abnormalities. Some have seen a full resolution of their symptoms, combined with no abnormal signs in follow-up testing.

 

Dr. Rabea Asleh, director of the heart failure unit and the cardiovascular research center at the Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, said his team is also following patients to make sure they’re OK.

 

He told The Epoch Times that all but one of his patients have stopped experiencing symptoms.

 

“If this has any clinical significance regarding the flare-up of the disease later on or the deterioration in function after a few years, we do not know,” Dr. Asleh said, “but deterioration in function after a few years is unlikely.”

 

Dr. Bostom said he wasn’t so sure. “One thing that I’m certain of is that the jury is out,” he said. “We need to collect a lot more information and see how people are really doing long term, particularly the young people.”

Questionable Pressure

Many young people received COVID-19 vaccines under pressure, such as Mr. Cohen.

 

Israeli military authorities punished the unvaccinated with actions ranging from taking away their leave to making them wear a special vest and isolate in their quarters.

Military personnel receive a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a military base in Rishon Lezion, Israel, on Dec. 28, 2020. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

Military personnel receive a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a military base in Rishon Lezion, Israel, on Dec. 28, 2020. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

Military personnel receive a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a military base in Rishon Lezion, Israel, on Dec. 28, 2020. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is a population of young and healthy soldiers, in whom COVID is mild and transient, and there is no justified reason to vaccinate them,” Dr. Yoav Yehezkelli, a specialist in internal medicine and medical management, said on Facebook. “Vaccinating the soldiers was not only folly but a lack of professionalism and a violation of medical ethics.”

 

This is a population of young and healthy soldiers, in whom COVID is mild and transient, and there is no justified reason to vaccinate them. - Yoav Yehezkeilli, specialist

This is a population of young and healthy soldiers, in whom COVID is mild and transient, and there is no justified reason to vaccinate them. – Yoav Yehezkeilli, specialist

 

Others, like Alon, faced repeated interruptions to their daily lives if they didn’t receive a vaccine, despite evidence suggesting that post-infection immunity is broad and superior to that from vaccination.

 

CDC studies later found that the immunity that develops following recovery, known as natural immunity, was better than vaccination against the Delta and Omicron virus variants.

 

Top U.S. officials made false claims about vaccine effectiveness, such as claiming vaccinated people couldn’t become sick or transmit the virus, in their bid to convince fence-sitters to get vaccinated.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of health policy at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. (Tal Atzmon/The Epoch Times)

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of health policy at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. (Tal Atzmon/The Epoch Times)

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of health policy at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. (Tal Atzmon/The Epoch Times)

“You can’t make that logical leap even in December of 2020. And yet, they made that logical leap,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of health policy at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”

 

“They premised their policy recommendations—the vaccine passports, the mandates, the coercion, and also the gaslighting of people who are actually vaccine-injured, on this idea that we have to get a sufficient fraction of the population vaccinated for the disease to go away.”

 

The hype around the vaccines led to a number of U.S. universities to mandate them, even after researchers concluded that booster mandates were unethical, in part because they were associated with more serious adverse events than hospitalizations caused. The federal government also imposed mandates on the military, workers, contractors, and private health care facilities.

 

The White House has defended the mandates.

 

“Our administration’s vaccination requirements helped ensure the safety of workers in critical workforces including those in the healthcare and education sectors, protecting themselves and the populations they serve, and strengthening their ability to provide services without disruptions to operations,” it said in a recent statement.

Common Symptoms and Treatments

Nearly all people who develop myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination suffer from chest pain, doctors have found.

 

A meta-analysis of reports describing 200 cases, for instance, found that 98 percent of patients presented with chest pain. Fever and difficulty breathing were also common symptoms.

 

Patients often suffer symptoms within a week of vaccination, according to case reports, surveillance databases, and patients.

 

Early detection and treatment can be critical to prevent further deterioration. Exercise restrictions are imposed on most patients until they pass a cardiac stress test.

 

The point of the test is to detect lingering problems in a controlled setting, in which the patient exercises at less than maximum capacity, Dr. Anish Koka, a U.S. cardiologist, told The Epoch Times. Problems detected on the test may preclude participation in competitive sports and may require invasive therapies such as defibrillator placement.

 

Some health officials and doctors have said the myocarditis resolves without treatment, but many patients have received drugs.

 

Colchicine, typically used to treat gout, has been favored by many doctors.

 

Mr. Cohen was initially prescribed colchicine. He was directed later to daily take Tritace, an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor that’s meant to treat hypertension following serious problems such as heart failure.

 

Mr. Cutler took aspirin for two weeks. He replaced colchicine with ibuprofen after experiencing back pain.

 

Other treatments include intravenous immunoglobulin, a pooled antibody; beta-blockers; anti-inflammatory medications such as methylprednisolone; and rampiril, another angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor.

Treatments for myocarditis include methylprednisolone. (Felipe Caparros, GeorgiosKostomitsopoulos, George Martin Studio/Shutterstock)

Treatments for myocarditis include methylprednisolone. (Felipe Caparros, GeorgiosKostomitsopoulos, George Martin Studio/Shutterstock)

Treatments for myocarditis include methylprednisolone. (Felipe Caparros, GeorgiosKostomitsopoulos, George Martin Studio/Shutterstock)

Treatments for myocarditis include colchicine. (Felipe Caparros, GeorgiosKostomitsopoulos, George Martin Studio/Shutterstock)

Treatments for myocarditis include colchicine. (Felipe Caparros, GeorgiosKostomitsopoulos, George Martin Studio/Shutterstock)

Treatments for myocarditis include colchicine. (Felipe Caparros, GeorgiosKostomitsopoulos, George Martin Studio/Shutterstock)

Treatments for myocarditis include  ibuprofen. (Felipe Caparros, GeorgiosKostomitsopoulos, George Martin Studio/Shutterstock)

Treatments for myocarditis include  ibuprofen. (Felipe Caparros, GeorgiosKostomitsopoulos, George Martin Studio/Shutterstock)

Treatments for myocarditis include  ibuprofen. (Felipe Caparros, GeorgiosKostomitsopoulos, George Martin Studio/Shutterstock)

‘Ignored’

Several common themes link the myocarditis patients who are speaking out. That includes the feeling that they were tricked into receiving the shots.

 

“You start to realize that basically the authorities, first of all, they knew about these possible side effects. They just chose not to disclose it, or disclose it only in the few websites in the small letters,” Mr. Cohen said.

 

Mr. Warner recounted growing up on welfare and coming to see the government as being there to help him. He now views parts of the government as corrupted by financial incentives, including the kickbacks it allegedly received from Moderna.

 

Patients also feel abandoned.

You Start to realize that basically the authoritites first of all, they knew about these possible side effects. They just chose not to disclose it. - Jacob Cohen (pseudonym). military personnel

You Start to realize that basically the authoritites first of all, they knew about these possible side effects. They just chose not to disclose it. – Jacob Cohen (pseudonym). military personnel

“A lot of us are still dealing with significant issues that I think are being ignored,” Dr. Hirschfeld said.

 

It hasn’t helped that U.S. authorities, who have aggressively promoted the vaccines, have refused to provide compensation to many sufferers or otherwise assist them.

 

Just three people who suffered post-vaccination myocarditis have been compensated by U.S. authorities, who are responsible for compensation because the vaccine manufacturers are shielded from liability. The highest payout was just $3,957.66.

 

Both Ms. Ekanayake and Mr. Cutler applied for compensation, but still haven’t heard back. While the bulk of Aiden’s medical bills were covered by insurance, his parents have still had to pay close to $10,000 out of pocket. Mr. Cutler paid about $5,000 due to high deductibles.

 

An enormous backlog of applications remains, and some who have been diagnosed with vaccine injuries have been denied.

 

The myocarditis patients largely spoke about receiving the support of family and friends as they recovered. But not all.

 

“I was disowned by many of my friends for speaking out about this early on,” Mr. Warner said. “It’s been interesting to see so many of them come back around and apologize to me.”

 

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Nearly 1 in 3 COVID-19 Vaccine Recipients Suffered Neurological Side Effects: Study

The people included in the study suffered from headaches, tremors, muscle spasms, insomnia, sleepiness, vertigo, and difficulty in concentration.

By Naveen Athrappully
10/30/2023 Updated: 11/1/2023

 

Almost a third of individuals who received a COVID-19 vaccine suffered from neurological complications including tremors, insomnia, and muscle spasms, according to a recent study published in the journal Vaccines.

 

study analyzed 19,096 people who received COVID-19 vaccines in Italy in July 2021, out of which 15,368 had taken the Pfizer vaccine, 2,077 had taken the Moderna version, and 1,651 took the AstraZeneca version.

 

While both Pfizer and Moderna are mRNA vaccines, AstraZeneca, being an adenovirus vaccine, uses a different mechanism to trigger the immune response.

 

The study found that about 31.2 percent of vaccinated individuals developed post-vaccination neurological complications, particularly among those injected with the AstraZeneca jab. Different vaccines had a different “neurological risk profile.”

 

The neurological risk profile of the AstraZeneca vaccine included headaches, tremors, muscle spasms, insomnia, and tinnitus, while the risk profile of the Moderna vaccine included sleepiness, vertigo, diplopia (double vision), paresthesia (a feeling of numbness or itching on the skin), taste and smell alterations, and dysphonia (hoarseness or loss of normal voice). None of the subjects were hospitalized or died.

 

As to Pfizer vaccines, researchers found “an increased risk” of cognitive fog or difficulty in concentration.

AstraZeneca Risks

More than 53 percent of individuals who took an AstraZeneca shot suffered from headaches, which usually lasted for one day. Over 13 percent developed tremors, which typically reverted after a day as well.

 

Insomnia was reported among 5.8 percent of AstraZeneca recipients. However, the study notes that researchers were unsure whether the individuals actually developed insomnia or had a “misperception of their sleep quality due to vaccination stress.”

 

Tinnitus was reported by 2.7 percent of the people who took AstraZeneca shots. Tinnitus is a condition in which an individual hears ringing or other noises which are not caused by an external sound.

 

All these health complications had a higher risk of occurring after taking the first dose of the vaccine.

The study speculated that complications related to the AstraZeneca vaccine are attributable to two factors. “Firstly, the nature of the vaccine, which is a modified adenovirus vector that results in significant and persistent systemic immune activation; secondly, individual vulnerability related to a predisposing biology.”

 

Delve into the Untold Stories Surrounding COVID-19 Vaccines | Crossroads

Moderna and Pfizer Risks

Sleepiness was found in 39.7 percent of those who took Moderna jabs, with the condition usually lasting for a week. It suggested that there “could be a strict relationship between the development of sleepiness and immune responses to vaccine/infection.”

 

The study cited a “fascinating hypothesis” which suggests that influenza vaccines may lead to “the selective immune-mediated destruction of orexin-producing neurons, which is T-cell-mediated neuronal damage, thus triggering narcolepsy.”

 

Narcolepsy is a condition in which the brain is unable to control the ability to sleep or stay awake.

 

“Considering that the same can occur for COVID-19 vaccines, future investigations monitoring the new-onset hypersomnia findings in vulnerable individuals are urgently needed.”

 

Hypersomnia is the inability to stay awake and alert during the daytime, even though the person may have had plenty of sleep during the night.

 

About 15.9 percent of people who received Moderna shots had vertigo, a sensation which makes the individual feel that they or their surrounding environment is moving or spinning. It typically lasted for a day.

 

Paresthesia—a feeling of numbness or itching on the skin for no apparent reason—was reported in 14.5 percent of Moderna vaccine recipients, which went away after a day.

 

Among the people who received a Moderna jab, 2.7 percent reported diplopia, also known as double vision, which also lasted for about a day. “Symptomatic people showed an increased risk to develop diplopia after the second dose, as if a reactivation of the immune response was necessary to trigger diplopia.”

 

Meanwhile, about 6.4 percent of Pfizer vaccine recipients reported suffering from cognitive fog, with the condition usually reversing in a week.

 

“Brain fog is a type of cognitive impairment that presents as a ‘foggy brain state’, including a lack of intellectual clarity, difficulty with concentration, mental fatigue and anxiety,” the study said.

 

“Hypotheses including systemic inflammation crossing the blood–brain barrier, neuroinflammation after viral infection leads and microglial activation are emerging as explanations of this phenomenon in COVID-19 patients. An alternative speculation is that symptomatic people may have a subclinical cognitive dysfunction before vaccination, and that vaccination is a trigger.”

Females Highly Affected

The study found that females faced an “increased risk of developing neurological complications” following COVID-19 vaccination. “Our findings are in line with those of a recent study that revealed that several factors, including the female sex, were associated with greater odds of adverse effects,” it said.

 

The researchers suggested that greater female susceptibility to the vaccines’ neurological complications may be due to “genetic and hormonal factors.”

 

Females have two X chromosomes while males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. As the X chromosome “contains the most prominent immune-related genes in the human genome,” it can also cause “stronger inflammatory immune responses,” the study said.

 

Moreover, a primary female sex steroid called estradiol triggers a specific immunity process to produce “antibodies against infections.”

 

The study also raised concerns about comorbidities. In medical parlance, comorbidity describes the existence of more than one disease or condition in a body at the same time, which may or may not interact with one another.

 

“The evidence that immune system dysfunctions (allergies/immunodeficiency disorders) are frequently reported in our symptomatic group is more than a chance occurrence,” researchers said.

 

Comorbidities were present in 47.6 percent of the AstraZeneca vaccine recipients, 38.8 percent of those who took Moderna jabs, and 41.5 percent of individuals who received Pfizer shots, the study said.

 

In the AstraZeneca group, both allergies and non-neurological diseases were reported. “A history of antitumoral and anticoagulant drugs was more frequent in this population,” the study said.

 

Among Moderna and Pfizer recipients, allergies were “more frequently” observed. While some people who took Moderna had a prior history of neurological diseases and transfusions as well as previous COVID-19 infection, those who received Pfizer vaccines had a history of immunodeficiency disorders.

 

Even though the study detailed neurological complications arising from COVID-19 vaccination, it admitted to certain limitations.

 

“Firstly, our results should be interpreted with caution because of a possible overestimation of neurological events resulting from the self-reported symptoms,” it said.

 

“Secondly, we evaluated the risks associated with the first and second doses of the vaccine; however, the data concerning the second dose were limited, thus representing a potential bias in the study.”

 

While admitting its limitations, the study concluded that “clinicians should be aware that several neurological complications may commonly occur after COVID-19 vaccines.”

 

“Caution should be used when administering COVID-19 vaccines to vulnerable people, such as to those who suffer from allergies,” the study stated. “We strongly believe that our findings are relevant for public health regarding the safety of vaccines in a large cohort.”

 

The Epoch Times reached out to Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca for comment.

Additional Neurological Findings

Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough wrote about the study discussing neurological effects following COVID shots in an article on Substack.

 

“A shocking 31.2 percent of respondents to this large dataset sustained neurologic injury after two injections with verified data in health registries,” he wrote. “Most of the risk estimates indicate the safety profile is unacceptable. It is alarming that all neurological societies to date still recommend COVID-19 vaccines and none have issued safety warnings on the products.”

 

Dr. McCullough explained that an excess risk of 20 percent or greater is considered “clinically important.”

Multiple other studies have found evidence of COVID-19 vaccines being linked to neurological complications. Back in October 2021, a study published in the Neurological Sciences journal stated that the “most devastating neurological post-vaccination complication is cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST).”

 

CVST occurs when a blood clot develops in the venous sinuses of the brain. This blocks the blood from draining out of the brain, eventually resulting in the blood leaking into brain tissues and forming a hemorrhage, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

 

The study found that CVST was “frequently reported in females of childbearing age,” generally among those who took an adenovector vaccine. Individuals who received mRNA vaccination were reported to have Bell’s palsy, in which facial muscles weaken or enter into paralysis.

 

A November 2022 study in Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports made similar findings, stating that there is “a greater than expected occurrence of severe neurological adverse events.”

 

Dr. McCullough cited this study in an article the following month.

“Because the vaccines contain lipid nanoparticles loaded with genetic material that code for the damaging Spike protein, each patient faces a Russian Roulette of whether or not the nervous system will be hemodynamically showered with the damaging vaccine particles,” he wrote.

 

Despite studies suggesting the risk of medical complications, some experts continue to advise people to get COVID-19 jabs. According to John Hopkins Medicine, both Pfizer and Moderna are “highly effective in preventing serious disease, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19.”

 

It recommended people to get a COVID-19 shot as “we believe that their benefits outweigh their risks,” Johns Hopkins Medicine said.

 

According to a position statement from the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) issued in 2021, the organization recommended COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care employees and supported vaccinations for children under the age of 12.

 

Naveen Athrappully
Author
Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times.

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Young adults who took 4 COVID vaccines are 256% more likely to die, especially from TURBO CANCERS

03December2023 // Lance D Johnson // https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-12-03-young-adults-four-vaccines-256-percent-die.html

England and Wales Excess Adj-deaths vs 2010-2019 trend for Cancer

England and Wales Excess Adj-deaths vs 2010-2019 trend for Cancer

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), the official reporting department of the United Kingdom, quietly published a data set that shows appalling mortality rates in young adults who took four Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines. The ONS data tracks deaths by vaccination status from April 1, 2021, to May 31, 2023.

From January to May 2023, young adults aged 18 to 39 who were vaccinated four times up until that point were 256 percent more likely to die compared to their unvaccinated peers. In February 2023, the quadruple vaccinated were 318 percent more likely to die of any cause compared to unvaccinated people.

 

Cancer deaths skyrocket in young adults across the UK since COVID jab rollout

One of the most alarming trends is skyrocketing cancer rates among young people. Fatal cancer rates exploded among U.K. teenagers and young adults who were vaccinated with spike protein mRNA. The 2022 ONS data shows a sudden rise in cancer deaths for the 15 to 44 age group. These cancer rates are well above the norms established from 2010-2019. They include:

 

  • A 28 percent increase in fatal breast cancer rates in women.
  • A 35 percent and 12 percent rise in brain cancer deaths among men and women, respectively.
  • A 55 percent and 41 percent increase in colon cancer deaths among men and women, respectively.
  • A 60 percent and 55 percent spike in cancer death rates among men and women, respectively, in cancers “without site specification.”
  • A 60 percent and 80 percent rise in pancreatic cancer deaths among men and women, respectively.
  • A 120 percent and 35 percent jump in fatal melanomas among men and women, respectively.

 

England and Wales Excess Adj-deaths vs 2010-2019 trend for Cancer

England and Wales Excess Adj-deaths vs 2010-2019 trend for Cancer

 

Dr. Harvey Risch, a professor emeritus of epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and the Yale School of Medicine has noticed the alarming trend. He said that the number of “turbo cancers” is skyrocketing ever since the launch of Operation Warp Speed.

 

“What clinicians have been seeing is very strange things,” said Risch during an interview for EpochTV. “For example, 25-year-olds with colon cancer, who don’t have family histories of the disease – that’s basically impossible along the known paradigm for how colon cancer works – and other long-latency cancers that they’re seeing in very young people.”

 

Risch and his colleagues are seeing young people suffer through re-manifestation of cancers that usually take many years to form after they had been surgically removed.

 

“Those are the initial signals that we’ve been seeing, and because these cancers have been occurring to people who were too young to get them, basically, compared to the normal way it works, they’ve been designated as turbo cancers,” Risch explained.

 

Mortality rates skyrocket for young people who took 4 COVID jabs

In January 2023, the mortality rate per 100,000 person-years was 31.1 for the unvaccinated cohort. For individuals who took one COVID jab, mortality rates were much higher – 53.3 per 100,000 person-years. For the quadruple vaccinated, the rate was a shocking 106 per 100,000 person-years.

 

The average mortality rate per 100,000 person years from January to May was 26.56 for unvaccinated young adults and 94.58 per 100,000 person years for quadruple vaccinated young adults – a stark contrast.

How much more likely 4 Dose Vaccinated 18-39 Die

How much more likely 4 Dose Vaccinated 18-39 Die

 

A similar pattern was observed for adults aged 40 to 49. For every single month since the beginning of 2023, adults in this age group who were vaccinated with one or four doses were significantly more likely to die than their unvaccinated peers. January 2023 mortality rates were the worst for individuals who received either one or four COVID jabs, with a mortality rate per 100,000 of 411.3 and 258.5, respectively. In contrast, the unvaccinated saw a mortality rate of just 144.5 per 100,000.

 

The unvaccinated, having withstood aggressive coercion, abuse, and threats to their lives and livelihoods, are faring the best over the long haul, even after putting up with the stress, the lies, and abuse for the past three years.

How much more likely 4 Dose Vaccinated 40-49 Die

How much more likely 4 Dose Vaccinated 40-49 Die

 

Sources include:

 

NewsAddicts.com 1

 

ONS.gov.uk

 

NewsAddicts.com 2

 

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Amish Paradise?

The Amish have discovered the fountain of youth

Doc Anarchy
17July2023 ∙ Paid https://docanarchy.substack.com/p/amish-paradise

 

Turns out, the Amish are healthy people. For some reason, this made national headlines, despite everyone with a functioning brain knowing this to be true.

 

The reason this story blew up is Steve Kirsch’s testimony to the Pennsylvania State Senate a few weeks back. In his testimony, he argued that the Amish were an excellent control group for the vaccinated vs unvaccinated populations. We’ll cover that later in the article.

 

That same testimony is what I have repeatedly found as the source of the claim that the Amish have zero autism, very little chronic disease, and very little cancer.

 

Let me start by saying, I haven’t been able to find the actual study. I searched for quite a while and the only thing I could find was this article by The Vigilant Fox . If you aren’t reading Fox’s work, you should.

Amish Healthcare

Everyone knows the Amish have some peculiar lifestyle traits. They follow strict rules as to what they can and cannot do, live far away from modern civilization, and have a tight-knit community.

 

Turns out, healthcare isn’t something they are forbidden from accepting. They are welcome, and in some cases encouraged, to seek medical care when needed.

 

The difference between the Amish and the average American is the Amish seek medical care when they actually need it. Before going to the doctor they seek guidance from elders and other experienced people in the community. They prefer to try natural remedies or home remedies before medicine. They give the body time to heal whatever ails it first.

 

If the body cannot heal itself and the natural remedies don’t work, they seek medical care from modern healthcare practitioners.

 

Compare this to the average American who goes to the hospital every time they stub their toe, blasted with X-rays, put on antibiotics, and then transferred to Hospice.

 

Yes, that’s an exaggeration. But the healthcare utilization rate in most of America is off the charts. Simply staying away from modern healthcare is a good way to extend your life. That means fewer unnecessary tests, a healthier environment, and less risk of medical error.

 

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1 to 2 Cups of Coffee May Inhibit COVID Infection: Study

That morning cup of Joe may do more than perk you up for the day; it could protect against infection from different COVID variants.

By George Citroner
16December2023 Updated: 18December2023 | https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/1-to-2-cups-of-coffee-may-inhibit-covid-infection-study-5540852

 

Your coffee habit may be doing double duty: jumpstarting your mornings and providing COVID-19 protection, according to a recent study.

 

New research reveals that coffee, enjoyed worldwide for its signature fragrance and flavor, may fend off illness by preventing SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from attaching to cells.

Coffee—Regardless of Brew—Lowers Risk

Previous research shows that a diet rich in polyphenols (compounds in plants with antioxidant properties) may boost immune function and reduce the risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms. A recent study published in Cell & Bioscience went further and examined whether drinking coffee, which contains polyphenols, could also reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection.

 

Researchers conducted lab testing of human cells and a trial with 64 participants infected with a SARS-CoV-2 pseudo-virus.

The lab tests found that coffee inhibited multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants by preventing viral binding to the ACE2 receptor on cells and reducing the activity of proteins linked to severe illness.

 

“Put simply, it kept the virus from getting the foothold needed to cause infection,” Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, a board-certified internist, author, and director of the Practitioners Alliance Network, and not associated with the study, told The Epoch Times.

 

In the human trial, one to two cups of coffee daily inhibited infection across variants, including delta and omicron. The effect was consistent for various coffee types, including ground, instant, caffeinated, and decaffeinated.

 

The authors suggested coffee could be an effective dietary strategy to prevent COVID-19.

Coffee Tied to Reduced Risk in Prior Large Study

The new study had human participants but adds to evidence from a much larger 2021 Northwestern University study.

Researchers analyzed data from the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database, entailing the dietary behaviors of almost 38,000 people between 2006 and 2010 to determine if their past diet impacted their COVID-19 infection risk in 2020.

 

They found that drinking at least one cup of coffee per day was linked to a 10 percent lower risk of COVID-19 infection compared to lower daily coffee consumption.

 

Additionally, the study found that eating vegetables was also associated with lower infection risk; about ¾ cup of non-potato vegetables daily appeared protective. However, researchers also discovered that less than half a daily serving of processed meat (but not red meat) increased the risk of COVID infection.

Coffee’s Other Health Benefits

The following are three significant health benefits already associated with drinking coffee:

“So this is more of the data that supports enjoying your coffee,” Dr. Teitelbaum said.

Easy but Powerful Ways to Boost Immunity

Though coffee may offer protection, there are more powerful ways to prevent COVID-19, according to Dr. Teitelbaum.

 

In households where somebody gets the disease, only 1 in 6 other members will also catch it on average, though that rate was  2 in 5 for the higher for the more infectious omicron variant. Dr. Teitelbaum said low transmission rates in households show that immunity is far more important than viral exposure. In other words, it’s not the disease that matters so much as the health of the person exposed to it.

 

Three effective ways to easily boost the immune system include the following:

 

1. Take Vitamins

Deficiencies in immunity-influencing vitamins A, C, D, and E and zinc can increase susceptibility to infections. Dr. Teitelbaum recommends a multivitamin plus elderberry and zinc supplements. “These dramatically improved immunity,” he said.

 

2. Stay Hydrated

“The part of the immune system that initially fights COVID is like our Navy,” Dr. Teitelbaum said. “It works poorly in dry dock.”<

 

Research shows dehydration can reduce disease-fighting capability. But don’t reach for sugar-sweetened drinks. “The amount of sugar in one can of soda or orange juice can decrease immune function by 30 percent for three hours,” Dr. Teitelbaum said.

 

3. Get Enough Sleep

Inadequate sleep substantially reduces our ability to fight illness. The optimal sleep duration is seven to eight hours nightly for most adults, nine to 10 for teenagers, and 10 or more for school-aged children.

 

While offering potential benefits, excessive coffee intake (over four cups a day) can cause adverse effects like insomnia, rapid heartbeat, and tremors. It’s important to moderate coffee consumption and avoid adding excessive sugar, as this increases obesity and diabetes risks.

 

George Citroner
Author
George Citroner reports on health and medicine, covering topics that include cancer, infectious diseases, and neurodegenerative conditions. He was awarded the Media Orthopaedic Reporting Excellence (MORE) award in 2020 for a story on osteoporosis risk in men.

 

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Florida Doctor Reinstated After Losing Board Certification for Criticizing COVID-19 Vaccines

With money raised for legal fees, physician plans to help medical students under pressure to submit to ‘woke’ ideology

Dr. John Littell speaks at a press conferencein Kissimmee, Fla., on Oct. 13, 2022, about people he says were injured by COVID-19 vaccines and government-recommended treatment protocols for the disease. (Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times)

Dr. John Littell speaks at a press conferencein Kissimmee, Fla., on Oct. 13, 2022, about people he says were injured by COVID-19 vaccines and government-recommended treatment protocols for the disease. (Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times)

By Natasha Holt
2September2023 Updated: 3September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/florida-doctor-reinstated-after-losing-board-certification-for-criticizing-covid-19-vaccines-5480957

 

A Florida physician known for being outspoken about COVID-related topics has regained his board certification that was stripped because he publicly criticized COVID vaccines.

 

Now, Dr. John Littell is moving forward from the experience with plans to help future physicians defend themselves when disciplined for voicing viewpoints that are not in the majority, he told The Epoch Times.

 

Dr. Littell, a longtime family physician in Ocala and a medical school professor, began posting videos sharing his thoughts about COVID-19 testing, treatments, and vaccines early in the pandemic. He was frustrated to find his content often was pulled down from his YouTube channel.

 

But he fought against what he saw as censorship by moving the content to other platforms, such as Rumble, he said.

Then, in January 2022 and again five months later, he received warning letters from the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM), the organization that issued his certification for his medical specialty.

 

The letter stated that his videos on YouTube and Rumble spread “medical misinformation” and could put his board certification in jeopardy, he said.

See:  YouTube’s New Policy: Censor Americans Who Disagree With World Health Organization | Facts Matter

The ABFM declined to comment on the matter because the board’s “policy indicates we are unable to comment about professionalism cases,” an unidentified spokesperson said in an email to The Epoch Times.

 

The ABFM is the third largest of the 24 boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties. More than 100,000 family medicine doctors are certified by the board, according to its website.

Protesters concerned about treatment of people who died while being treated for COVID-19 stand outside a board meeting at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., on Feb. 21, 2023. (Courtesy of Tanya Parus)

Protesters concerned about treatment of people who died while being treated for COVID-19 stand outside a board meeting at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., on Feb. 21, 2023. (Courtesy of Tanya Parus)

To keep their certification, physicians must uphold the board’s ethical standards and “guidelines for professionalism, licensure, and personal conduct,” the website states.

 

In letters from the board, Dr. Littell was told his public statements violated those guidelines. Dr. Littell responded to the letters and continued to speak publicly and post videos about the subjects, he said.

 

Months later, when he didn’t hear back, he said he thought the threat was gone.

“I was very happily under the radar,” he said.

 

Exposing the FDA’s Orwellian Lie About Ivermectin | CLIP | Facts Matter

Outrage Over Ivermectin

 

That changed after he was escorted out of a Sarasota Memorial Hospital board meeting in February for approaching a board member behind the dais. He wanted to thank the board member, he said, for letting him speak at the meeting. He didn’t realize that move would be seen as inappropriate, he said. 

 

Though he’s cared for many patients in hospitals, he’d never attended a hospital board meeting, let alone a contentious one, he said.

 

That day, medical freedom activists filled the boardroom to speak against the public hospital’s policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many were angry their loved ones were denied the opportunity to try ivermectin, an antiparasitic for humans and animals widely used by some in treating COVID-19, and other treatments.

 

Dr. Littell spoke cordially to board members from the podium, an Epoch Times reporter confirmed. He told board members how treating patients with ivermectin had been his key to success in helping them recover. And he praised hospital personnel for their work during the pandemic.

 

Shortly after that, security guards escorted him outside.

Retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn, who served briefly as national security advisor for former President Donald Trump, attended a board meeting of Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., on Feb. 21, 2023 (Chris Nelson for The Epoch Times)

Retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn, who served briefly as national security advisor for former President Donald Trump, attended a board meeting of Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., on Feb. 21, 2023 (Chris Nelson for The Epoch Times)

A video of Dr. Littell’s removal from the meeting by security guards was posted to social media and received millions of views and media coverage. And that thrust him back in the spotlight as a doctor vocal about COVID-19 policies.
“I had a target on my back,” he said.

He questioned whether someone else would have been removed for the same reason.

 

Many doctors have faced consequences for questioning the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines and for advocating for the use of medicines such as ivermectin in the treatment of the disease.

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wrote in one social media post about ivermectin: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” It linked to a page entitled “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.”

 

Three doctors sued the FDA over the statements, saying it had no power to tell doctors which drugs to prescribe.

On Sept. 1, a federal court ruled that the agency likely overstepped its authority when it told Americans to “stop” using ivermectin against COVID-19. The FDA can inform, but has “no authority” to recommend consumers “stop” taking medicine, U.S. Circuit Judge Don Willett wrote in the ruling.

Accused of ‘Spreading False’ Information

The month after Dr. Littell spoke in Sarasota, the board sent a letter saying he’d been de-certified for “spreading false, inaccurate, and misleading materials about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccination, and treatment and mitigation of the virus,” The Epoch Times confirmed.

 

A letter reviewed by The Epoch Times stated that if Dr. Littell appealed the decision within 20 days, he would continue to be represented by the board, pending a review of his case by the professionalism committee of the ABFM board of directors.

 

The reason for the decision to review his record was because of his past suggestions the COVID-19 vaccine was a product of genetic engineering, causing deaths in children and causing the rise of the Delta variant, the letter indicated. It also referenced “false” statements made by Drs. Ryan Cole and Robert Malone, who spoke at a medical freedom conference Dr. Littell organized in October 2022.

 

In the letter, the board also criticized Dr. Littell for “offering to provide medical exemptions from vaccination” to patients across the country and “publicly comparing the U.S. public health system’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic to Nazi Germany.”

 

After receiving the troubling letter, Dr. Littell sought the help of attorney Jeff Childers, a business attorney in Gainesville, Florida. Since the COVID-19 lockdowns began, Mr. Childers has become active in lawsuits around the country related to medical freedom. He authors a daily blog called Coffee and Covid, which started by chronicling COVID-19 issues and now tracks other social and political issues, as well.

 

Mr. Childers crafted a 64-page appeal to the board, dissecting every accusation made against Dr. Littell, an Epoch Times reporter confirmed. And as word of the threat to Dr. Littell’s board certification spread—a move that would prevent him from practicing medicine—medical freedom activists rose up to take his side.

Florida attorney Jeff Childers. (Amber Bertrand for The Epoch Times)

Florida attorney Jeff Childers. (Amber Bertrand for The Epoch Times)

A GiveSendGo.com campaign was started to collect donations to fund his legal fees. More than 6,400 people donated almost $255,000. And more than 1,900 pledged to pray for Dr. Littell.

 

The Global Covid Summit, an international group of doctors focused on medical freedom in COVID-19 treatment, sent a letter signed by 169 doctors to the ABFM in support of Dr. Littell. In the letter, they argued that the board was false in every accusation made against Dr. Littell.

 

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo also voiced support for Dr. Littell.

“What they’re doing is being a bully,” he said in an interview with The Floridian. “It’s not going to age well.

“I read the letter from the Board, and it’s dripping with political animosity.”

Both Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Dr. Littell’s congresswoman, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) sent letters in his defense to the board, Dr. Littell said.

 

“I’ve got to believe it’s not in the dozens, but probably in the hundreds of people who called and sent letters to the American Board of Family Medicine,” Dr. Littell said. “I never asked them to, but that is what was happening.”

 

In July, Dr. Littell received word that the board had reviewed his case and retroactively de-certified him for three months, from March 16 to June 16. He never stopped seeing patients.

 

“It’s like a slap on the wrist so they’d feel good about it, but wouldn’t, presumably, have to face any legal action,” he said.

His attorney agreed.

“They did it in a very face-saving way,” Mr. Childers said.

But ultimately, he’s pleased with the decision.

“We were really surprised and gratified that we were able to achieve that result,” Mr. Childers said.

Dr. Littell credits it to being “a God thing” that he was able to keep caring for patients and face a decertification period only retroactively.

 

“If they had said I was decertified, I would not have been able to do what I was doing. I mean, especially with the hospital care patients. I could have gotten into big trouble.”

 

He still may face consequences for having the blemish on his record, he said. He’ll have to report it to the hospitals at which he works and explain what happened, he said.

 

“Every time I go up for privileges with a hospital or any other institution, they’re going to say, ‘Well, has your license ever been suspended or revoked, and has your board certification ever been revoked?’ So, it’s still an issue. It’s not like you can just forget about it.”

 

He’s been advised by some other doctors, such as cardiologist Peter McCullough, to pursue legal action for the disciplinary measure they feel was wrong, he said.

Continuing to Speak Out

Dr. Littell continues to speak out about the same topics. So he suspects he’ll face retribution again, he said.

“The way I read the letter, it’s sort of like a warning,” Dr. Littell said.

The board, he said, seemed to be sending the warning, “If you act up again, we know it’s a privilege to have this board certification, and it can be removed at any time.”

And the next time, the punishment is likely to escalate.

“The implication is that if it happens again, it’s going to be more than just three months,” Mr. Childers said.

Around the country, a slew of doctors had board certifications removed and licensure threatened for sharing their COVID-related opinions.

 

“Most people would probably be surprised to find out there’s a lot of this going on, now that the pandemic is over,” Mr. Childers said. “From what I’ve heard, there’s probably more challenges to doctor licensing right now than at any other time.”

 

But because most doctors aren’t vocal about receiving discipline, it’s hard to know exactly how often it’s occurring, he said.

Doctors who have been active on social media seem to be targeted more often by medical authorities, he said.

Dr. Peter McCullough speaks in the Mississippi capitol building on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events. (Courtesy of Charlotte Stringer Photography)

Dr. Peter McCullough speaks in the Mississippi capitol building on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events. (Courtesy of Charlotte Stringer Photography)

Doctors who were not actively posting their thoughts about COVID-19 on social media “should feel very confident that if they follow a similar approach to what Dr. Littell did, they could hope for a good result at this point,” he said.

 

Obtaining good legal advice is key, he said. It also helps to spread the word.

“All too often doctors either ignore these kinds of letters until it’s too late because they’re embarrassed, or they try to handle it on their own,” he said.

 

“It’s important that people know when this happens. And if they’ll let folks know, they’ll find that they get a lot of support.”

Dr. Littell has no plans to keep quiet about what he feels went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic

“I’m not letting up,” he said.

He’s organizing his third annual medical freedom summit in November called “Food, Family & Medical Freedom” in Ocala, Florida at the World Equestrian Center.

Helping Future Doctors

He intends to use the remaining money donated to his legal fund to help others respond to similar licensure problems, especially threats faced by medical students, he said.

 

He’s trying “to come up with a legal, legislative, and public relations strategy that helps future physicians,” he said. When they see practicing doctors disciplined and “raked over the coals” for speaking out about medical freedom issues, it deters good people from pursuing a degree in medicine, he said.

 

“I would like the medical freedom fighters, as I’m calling them, to create a sanctuary for pre-med, especially, and medical school students.”

 

“Early on, even in the colleges, they weed out the physicians who dare to question the narrative or challenge it,” he said, of those who insist that doctors decrees made by federal health agencies.

 

But asking questions and challenging prevailing thought is important to the goal of continually improving medical treatments, he said.

 

“And that intellectual curiosity is what we’re so desperately lacking now in medicine, and in most professions.”

He also envisions the network expanding to help connect like-minded educators in colleges, universities, and medical schools to share their ideas without fear of being in opposition to “woke” ideology, he said.

 

He hopes to see that network push back against “lockstep mentality” and help students who are suffering because of it.

Medical students taught by Dr. Littell often tell him how difficult it is to be entering the field of medicine at this time, he said.

 

One student told him that his second-year class was forced to be vaccinated for COVID-19, he said. Classmates were told by their university they’d be “thrown out” of medical school in two weeks if they didn’t comply, Dr. Littell said.

Medical freedom activists upset about COVID-19 vaccines and other issues gather to voice concerns to lawmakers on the first day of the Florida Legislature's annual regular session at the Capitol in Tallahassee on March 7, 2023. (Courtesy of Justin Harvey)

Medical freedom activists upset about COVID-19 vaccines and other issues gather to voice concerns to lawmakers on the first day of the Florida Legislature’s annual regular session at the Capitol in Tallahassee on March 7, 2023. (Courtesy of Justin Harvey)

The student told him that, although more than half the class didn’t want the vaccine, they felt they had no other option, Dr. Littell said. Weeks later, the mandate was lifted. But it was too late—many students already had submitted to getting the shot they didn’t want.

 

“It’s like they [university officials] were playing games,” he said. “And the students didn’t know any better.

“They just don’t have enough support,” Dr. Littell lamented. “They want to say things, but they’re afraid they’re going to get disciplined if they speak out.”

 

He sees bringing people together to unite in their pushback against prevailing opinions as a revolutionary concept.

“It’s really no different than what our Founding Fathers did,” Dr. Littell said. “They realized that they were victims of repression. But there also were people comfortable with the status quo. That’s what is in our medical schools right now and is what we all need to fight against.

 

“People should be allowed to question and use their God-given intellect, and not be censored or disciplined for doing so.”

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.

Natasha Holt
Author
Natasha Holt studies journalism at a Florida university with plans to pursue a career in media and law. A seventh-generation Floridian, she digs into a wide range of issues in her home state, with a focus on the people, places, and ideas that make America great. When she’s not on assignment, she enjoys ranch life, training and caring for her family’s horses and competing in dressage.

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People Rarely Transmit COVID-19 Before Experiencing Symptoms: Lancet Study

by Tyler Durden, 06September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/people-rarely-transmit-covid-19-experiencing-symptoms-lancet-study

 

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

 

In a blow to the COVID-19 “silent spreader” narrative that has been used to push for universal masking, including controversially among schoolchildren, a recent study published in The Lancet suggests that people who are non-symptomatic rarely have the ability to infect others.

 

Silent transmission is the idea that those who are infected with COVID-19 but show no symptoms can still spread the virus to other people.

 

While all relevant studies show that presymptomatic and asymptomatic “silent spreaders” account for some proportion of infections in other people, the degree of silent transmission is less clear.

 

A number of early studies—in some cases affected by limitations that may have led to their proportion of presymptomatic transmission to be “artifactually inflated”—suggested that silent transmission accounted for around half of secondary infections, or even more.

 

The early studies led public health authorities to argue that everyone should wear a mask at all times when out in public or crowded places. This, in turn, helped drive draconian universal masking policies, including in schools, in a bid to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

 

For instance, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), initially discouraged universal mask-wearing early in the pandemic but later did a U-turn.

 

Initially, “we didn’t realize the extent of asymptotic spread,” Dr. Fauci said in July 2020, adding that later, “we fully realized that there are a lot of people who are asymptomatic who are spreading infection.”

 

So it became clear that we absolutely should be wearing masks consistently,” Dr. Fauci said at the time.

But new research calls into question the significance of the threat of silent transmission, which comes as COVID-19 cases are on the rise in America, driving what some are calling a renewed pandemic “hysteria” and calls for a fresh round of restrictions, including mask mandates.

‘Very Few Emissions’ Before Symptom Onset

The new study, published in the August issue of The Lancet’s Microbe journal, shows that people who are sick with COVID-19 but don’t show any symptoms have a limited ability to spread the virus to other people.

 

Participants in the British study, which was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London, were unvaccinated healthy adults aged 18-30 who were intentionally infected with COVID-19.

 

The subjects were monitored under controlled circumstances while self-reporting symptoms three times per day, and researchers collected nose and throat swabs from them daily, checking for the presence of the virus.

 

The researchers also tested the inside of masks worn by the participants, checked their hands, and examined the air and surfaces of rooms that the subjects were kept in for a minimum of 14 days.

Ultimately, the researchers found that less than 10 percent of the viral emissions from infected participants took place before the first symptoms emerged.

 

Very few emissions occurred before the first reported symptom (7%) and hardly any before the first positive lateral flow antigen test (2%),” the authors of the study wrote.

 

The new study—which takes the form of a rigorous, controlled “challenge study” rather than the earlier modeling studies that relied on subjective inputs and assumptions of researchers—contradicts earlier research that set the tone for much of the prevailing narrative. That early research appears to have inflated the perceived threat of presymptomatic spread.

 

The latest study, suggesting that silent transmission is far less significant, comes amid a growing drumbeat of alarm as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are on the rise—along with calls in some circles for renewed restrictions.

 

By contrast, many are calling for cool heads to prevail—or are urging civil disobedience if lockdowns or other mandates are reimposed.

‘Artifactually Inflated’?

Some early studies, such as one published in August 2020 called “Temporal Dynamics In Viral Shedding and Transmissibility of COVID-19,” suggested that people who were presymptomatic or asymptomatic accounted for a large proportion of secondary infections.

 

This particular study estimated that 44 percent of secondary cases were infected during the presymptomatic stage, while concluding that “disease control measures should be adjusted to account for probably substantial presymptomatic transmission.”

 

The authors of the study admitted that it had several limitations, however, including potential “recall bias” that may have tended towards a delay in recognizing first symptoms.

 

The incubation period would have been overestimated, and thus the proportion of presymptomatic transmission artifactually inflated,” meaning that the study may have exaggerated the proportion of people who spread the virus before showing symptoms, they said.

 

Another study from July 2020 called “The Implications of Silent Transmission for the Control of COVID-19 Outbreaks” went even further, suggesting that people were most infectious during the presymptomatic phase and concluding that silent transmission was the “primary driver of COVID-19 outbreaks and underscore the need for mitigation strategies, such as contact tracing, that detect and isolate infectious individuals prior to the onset of symptoms.”

 

That study relied on a range of assumptions and models, with different presymptomatic, asymptomatic, and symptomatic transmission rates calculated based on a complex mathematical model from another study.

 

Findings from earlier studies like the ones cited above led public health officials to argue that silent spreaders were a big factor in COVID-19 transmission and so to recommend that everyone should mask up.

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COVID-19 Vaccines Revealed as ‘Neither Safe, Nor Effective’: Watchdog

The vaccines were hastily approved through an ‘interim order’ that enabled pharma companies to bypass approved procedures.

Canada

By Naveen Athrappully
17September2023 Updated: 18September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/covid-19-vaccines-revealed-to-be-neither-safe-nor-effective-watchdog-5492986

 

COVID-19 vaccines were authorized in Canada during 2020 and 2021 without being subjected to the country’s safety tests as required under established drug regulations, an accountability watchdog revealed.

 

An investigation into COVID-19 vaccines found that they were “neither safe nor effective,” according to the nonprofit organization National Citizens Inquiry (NCI). The organization published a report on Sept. 14 detailing the flawed mechanism through which the vaccines were granted “approval” in Canada.

 

“It is important to understand that the COVID-19 vaccines were never approved under the traditional approval process for drugs in Canada,” the report states (pdf). Instead, Health Canada, the federal agency responsible for national health policy, approved the vaccines through an alternative authorization process—an interim order.

 

“Under the alternative authorization process, the necessity to establish the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines through an objective manner appears to have been set aside,” the report states.

 

Canada’s Food and Drug Regulations require that a drug can only be approved in the country after its safety and effectiveness are demonstrated to the minister of health. Then, the minister considers whether the benefits outweigh the risks, following which, approval is granted.

 

Instead of following regulations, the minister of health sanctioned an interim order on Sept. 16, 2021, which exempted all COVID-19 vaccines from normal review and approval. This provision usually allows the minister to override normal regulations in situations of “significant risk” to health, safety, or the environment.

See: Study Found Unsettling Results in Children Vaccinated Against COVID-19

In Canada, four COVID-19 vaccines were authorized by the health agency under an interim order—Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Janssen, and AstraZeneca.

 

The report notes that under the order, vaccines were authorized under a “subjective test.” In this situation, authorization is granted by simply proving that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks.

 

“This cannot be an appropriate standard for approving a drug that the Government intends to administer to the entire population. It is difficult to conceive of a less-scientific test for drug authorization than that found in the Interim Order,” the report states.

A child receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Fairfax County Government Center in Annandale, Va., on Nov. 4, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A child receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Fairfax County Government Center in Annandale, Va., on Nov. 4, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Moreover, the order made sure that the vaccine authorizations couldn’t be revoked even under evidence that they were unsafe and ineffective. Once an interim order is issued, the typical Food and Drug Regulations don’t apply.

 

The order thus exempted manufacturers from having to effectively demonstrate “objective evidence of safety and effectiveness” of their COVID-19 vaccines.

 

“The result was that while chief medical officers across the country repeatedly assured Canadians that the COVID-19 vaccines were ‘safe and effective’—the general Canadian population had no understanding that their authorization process had not required objective proof of safety nor efficacy,” the report states.

‘Not Safe for Human Use’

The NCI report was supported by cardiologist Dr. Peter A. McCullough. “Excellent work @Inquiry_Canada with exhaustive testimony and evidence review. Conclusion: all COVID-19 vaccines unsafe for human use and must be removed from the Canadian market immediately to protect the public,” he wrote in a Sept. 16 post on X.

Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas on Aug. 5, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times)

Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas on Aug. 5, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times)

Dr. McCullough recently asked European lawmakers to take COVID-19 vaccines off the market due to concerns about illnesses such as heart inflammation, blood clots, and neurological diseases.

 

“COVID-19 vaccines and all of their progeny and future boosters are not safe for human use. I implore you, as a governing body, European Medicines Agency, to apply all pressure and due urgency to remove the COVID-19 vaccines from market,” Dr. McCullough said in Sept. 13 testimony to the European Parliament.

 

The NCI report comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved new COVID vaccines on Sept. 11 for children as young as 6 months old.

 

“Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” Dr. Peter Marks, a top FDA official, said in a statement.

 

However, many experts have questioned the push for new vaccines. Earlier this month, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo criticized the updated vaccines.

 

“We all know there’s a new vaccine that’s coming around the corner, [a] new mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. And there’s essentially no evidence for it,” he said during a press conference.

 

“There’s been no clinical trial done in human beings showing that it benefits people, there’s been no clinical trial showing that it is a safe product for people. And not only that, but then there are a lot of red flags.”

 

Dr. Ladapo said that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have “caused cardiac injury in many people.”

Not Actually ‘Interim’

Canada’s interim order for COVID-19 vaccines “has become permanent,” according to the NCI report. An interim order typically only lasts for one year. In March 2022, the order was replaced with permanent regulations, which codified the “subjective authorization” of the vaccine.

 

“Thus, under the permanent test, Health Canada no longer has to be swayed by urgency, but simply by the public health need related to COVID-19. In this way, it seems that so long as COVID-19 is a circulating virus, Health Canada must authorize any vaccine for which there is an argument to support the conclusion that its benefits outweigh its risks,” the report states.

 

“In effect, we fear that there will never be a need for COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers to prove [the] safety or efficacy of their products.”

 

NCI also alleged there was a “conflict of interests” while approving the COVID-19 vaccines, with the government being involved.

 

The Epoch Times reached out to Health Canada for comment but didn’t receive a reply by press time.

Political Interests, Letter to Trudeau

Canada usually doesn’t allow drugs to be imported into the country unless approved by Health Canada. However, the interim order allowed the unapproved COVID-19 vaccines to be imported “as long as the Canadian Government was the purchaser,” according to the report.

 

This pre-purchasing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines were done to make sure that they were available for dissemination as soon as they were authorized.

 

“This created a tremendous conflict of interest,” the report states.

“Once the vaccines were purchased, imported and ready for distribution, the Government of Canada would have suffered significant political blowback if it was unable to authorize them. Thus, it needed to authorize the COVID-19 vaccines, and it needed to do it quickly.

 

“The Government of Canada ordered the vaccines, imported them, created new regulations to authorize them, and then took significant measures to convince and coerce every Canadian to take multiple doses. The political stakes were high, and the federal government had every motivation to get the vaccines authorized, regardless of their actual efficacy or safety.”

 

On Sept. 14, the NCI sent a letter (pdf) to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau highlighting the issue of COVID-19 vaccine approval.

 

“Canadians are relying on representations as to the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines,” which Health Canada has never determined, the letter said. “Some might draw the conclusion that the misrepresentation to Canadians of proven safety is intentional, made while knowing it to be false and intending it to be relied upon.

 

“As a matter of common sense, the objective falsity of the ‘proven safe’ claim brings into question the basis for informed consent to the administration of the injections, creating potentially enormous liabilities.”

 

In the current context, the organization pointed out that the population immunity has increased along with the latest variants being “milder.”

 

“In the face of your government’s reported intention to promote booster injections in coming months, the urgency now lies in telling the truth to Canadians and taking corrective action,” the letter reads.

 

The NCI asked the prime minister to withdraw COVID-19 vaccines “until the normal rigorous evaluation can be completed” and to reinstate the traditional objective test for safety.

 

Naveen Athrappully
Author
Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times.

 

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Pfizer-Funded Study Shows Poor Effectiveness for COVID-19 Vaccine in Young Children

Three doses of the Pfizer vaccine provided little protection against emergency room visits, urgent care encounters, or outpatient visits.

By Zachary Stieber
21September2023 Updated: 21September2023 COVID Vaccines  https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/pfizer-funded-study-shows-poor-effectiveness-for-covid-19-vaccine-in-young-children-5495181

 

A new study funded by Pfizer found the company’s COVID-19 vaccine did not perform well in children under 5.

 

Children aged 6 months to 4 years are supposed to receive three shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The number was increased from two when early testing showed little effectiveness.

 

Three doses of the Pfizer vaccine provided little protection against emergency room visits, urgent care encounters, or outpatient visits, according to the new study.

 

Researchers with and funded by Pfizer analyzed records from Kaiser Permanente Southern California. They included patients who tested for COVID-19 at an emergency department, urgent care, or outpatient setting along with being diagnosed with acute respiratory infection. The date range was July 23, 2022 through May 19, 2023.

 

Positive cases were those with a positive test result. Controls tested negative and had no evidence of prior infection in the past 90 days. Children were only counted as vaccinated if they received a second or third shot two or more weeks before being exposed to COVID-19. Children were excluded if they only received one dose, received any doses from a different company, or did not follow the recommended dosing schedule.

 

After adjusting for factors such as age and sex, researchers estimated just 12 percent effectiveness against medically-attended encounters for children who completed the three-dose primary series.

See: Study Found Unsettling Results in Children Vaccinated Against COVID-19

Confidence intervals crossed well over one, indicating that the effectiveness might actually be worse or even negative.

 

The effectiveness was estimated to be higher, or 44 percent, for children who received two doses of the regimen

 

Researchers speculated that the difference stemmed from more immune-evasive virus variants becoming dominant in the United States by the time children received a third dose.

 

“Updated vaccines will likely be needed to maintain protection against contemporary Omicron strains in young children,” they wrote.

 

The study was published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

 

Sara Tartof, the study’s corresponding author and an employee of Kaiser Permanente Southern California, did not answer questions, including why researchers included those with two doses but not those with one dose.

 

Pfizer did not return a request for comment.

A child receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Fairfax County Government Center in Annandale, Va., on Nov. 4, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A child receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Fairfax County Government Center in Annandale, Va., on Nov. 4, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Key Problems

 

FDA Detects Serious Safety Signal for Covid Vaccine Among Kids

 

Among the key problems with the research were only including children who were diagnosed with acute respiratory infection (ARI), Dr. Robert Malone, who was not involved in the research, said.

 

That “may predispose to young children that lack a primary care physician/pediatrician,” Dr. Malone, who helped invent the mRNA technology Pfizer’s vaccine utilizes, told The Epoch Times via email.

 

“Likewise, the control group of non-vaccinated with ARI will also have selection bias. These intrinsic study biases make the relevance of the measured outcome to the general population quite problematic.”

 

Another issue is using positive results on polymerase chain reaction testing as the metric for having COVID-19, given the false positives the testing brings, Dr. Malone said. Some patients who tested positive may actually have another virus, such as influenza, he said.

Need a Trial

Pfizer’s vaccine was authorized for children despite unreliable efficacy estimates against infection, and no efficacy estimates against severe disease.

 

The newly reported results are based on a test-negative design, which is inappropriate for measuring effectiveness, said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of health policy at Stanford University.

 

“The design starts with children who are already seeing a doctor and then makes strong and unsupportable statistical assumptions to derive the probability of seeing a doctor for vaccinated and unvaccinated children,” Dr. Bhattacharya, who was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times via email.

 

“What is needed to answer this question without bias is a randomized control trial. I am shocked that the FDA has not asked Pfizer and Moderna to conduct such a study,” he added.

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared Pfizer’s shot on the basis of immunobridging, or comparing antibody levels in children after vaccination with levels in adults after vaccination.

 

Antibodies are believed to protect people against COVID-19.

 

The authorization has been the subject of protests, including a complaint that said the FDA violated its own standards with the clearance.

 

The FDA this month cleared new vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna for children. The only trial data was from 50 people aged 12 or older who received Moderna’s shot. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended the shots to all people aged 6 months and older.

CDC Data

CDC data presented on Sept. 12 showed that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines failed to provide much protection to young children.

 

One dose of Pfizer’s vaccine provided just 8 percent protection against emergency room and urgent care visits beyond 13 days, while two doses provided a peak of 44 percent protection, according to the data (pdf).

 

A third dose provided 71 percent protection between 14 and 59 days, but the shielding plunged to 16 percent after two months.

 

A two-shot primary series of Moderna’s shot initially provided 46 percent protection. That shielding dropped even lower, to 24 percent, beyond 60 days.

 

The World Health Organization considers 50 percent as adequate effectiveness for vaccines.

 

A single dose of a bivalent shot, introduced in the fall of 2022, boosted protection to 61 percent, but no estimates were available over time and the estimate was based on just eight vaccinated patients who tested positive.

 

“This imprecision indicates that the actual [effectiveness] could be substantially different,” the CDC said.

 

Zachary Stieber
Author (Reporter)
Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news.

 

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Undeniable Severe Injuries After HPV Vaccination

The HPV Vaccine: A Golden Shield or a Double-Edged Sword? (Part 2)

A collection of documented evidence is presented for serious injuries associated with Gardasil. Their existence is undeniable.

By Yuhong Dong
18September2023 Updated: 28September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/undeniable-severe-injuries-after-hpv-vaccination-5345294

 

Dear Readers, I would like to sincerely apologize for not being able to continue this series for about two months due to being called for another urgent and important assignment. Now I am back to this series. Dr. Yuhong Dong

In this series, “The HPV Vaccine: A Double-Edged Sword?” we will provide a collection of documented evidence of death and serious injuries associated with Gardasil. Their existence is undeniable. We will also analyze the potential mechanisms for serious adverse events and disclose important facts about the vaccine. We will conclude with a discussion about the underlying root causes for the phenomena behind the HPV vaccines and will provide recommendations for key stakeholders.

 

Previously, in Part 1 of this series, we presented documented evidence of death cases in young girls or boys with undeniable association with Gardasil.

 

In Part 2, we present documented evidence of non-fatal but severe injuries in children who were healthy and lost their ability to live normally after receiving the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine—believed to be one of the most effective vaccines developed to date.

Gardasil was launched in the United States, Germany, and Denmark in 2006 and in Australia in 2007.

 

The following cases were documented by doctors, medical papers, and filmmakers. Their diligent work allows us to be able to put them together and systematically analyze the mechanisms of injury associated with the HPV vaccines.

‘Our Paula Is Gone’

Paula Aldea was a normal, healthy young girl. Since taking the HPV vaccine, she can no longer walk and now relies on a wheelchair. “Our Paula is gone,” her father said.

 

According to The Epoch Times documentary “Under the Skin,” on May 26, 2022, Paula received her first HPV vaccination. On June 25, she called her father at 10:25 a.m., crying at a bus stop and needing him to quickly come to get her—she could no longer feel her legs.

 

The pain in her back became unbearable, and then her back went numb. Paula and her father went straight to the emergency room and after some chiropractic exercises, she was told she’d be fine in a few hours and was sent home. At 3:00 p.m. her mother called her father and said, “Come home immediately. Paula doesn’t feel anything from her body anymore.”

 

“There was this pain. I think it was the worst pain I’ve ever had. And then this numbness—you just don’t realize it. You can’t walk, but you don’t think about it: What will the future be like? What will it be like now? Even when they said I had to stay in the hospital, I thought why?” said Paula.

 

Paula’s mother recalls, “When Paula was lying in her bed, the senior physician came and asked if she had had an infection recently. And we could deny that. She had neither a stomach bug nor a flu-like infection. Paula was always very healthy.”

 

“The next question was whether she had been vaccinated. And there it clicked—yes, she has been vaccinated. Everywhere we went to doctors, the second or third question was, ‘Did you have a vaccination recently?’” her mother said.

 

The damage has been officially recognized by authorities as caused by the HPV vaccine. Paula receives a monthly payment from welfare. Her inability to walk is likely caused by the severe attack of immune cells on the myelin layer of the spinal cord, which is an autoimmune response.

 

Paula is not a single case—she may even be the tip of the iceberg. There are numerous cases of disabilities, including an inability to walk or to see, following Gardasil injection.

A 16-Year-Old American Girl Now Blind

In 2010, Dr. Frances DiMario Jr. from the pediatrics department at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut, along with Drs. Mirna Hajjar and Thomas Ciesielski from the neurology department at Hartford Hospital, reported a case with a similar level of severity after HPV vaccination, in the Journal of Child Neurology.

Read More: HERE

 

Yuhong Dong

Author (M.D., Ph.D.)

 

Yuhong Dong, M.D., Ph.D., is a senior medical columnist for The Epoch Times. She is a former senior medical scientific expert and pharmacovigilance leader at Novartis Headquarters in Switzerland, and was a Novartis award winner for four years. She has preclinical research experience in virology, immunology, oncology, neurology, and ophthalmology, and also has clinical experience in infectious disease and internal medicine. She earned her M.D. and a doctorate in infectious diseases at Beijing University in China.

 

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FDA, CDC Hid Data on Spike in COVID Cases Among the Vaccinated: Documents

By Zachary Stieber
3September2023 Updated: 3September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/fda-cdc-hid-data-on-spike-in-covid-cases-among-the-vaccinated-documents-5483439

 

COVID-19 cases among vaccinated seniors soared in 2021, according to newly disclosed data that was acquired by U.S. health agencies but not presented to the public.

 

Humetrix Cloud Services was contracted by the U.S. military to analyze vaccine data. The company performed a fresh analysis as authorities considered in 2021 whether COVID-19 vaccine boosters were necessary amid studies finding waning vaccine effectiveness.

 

Humetrix researchers found that the proportion of total COVID-19 cases among the seniors was increasingly comprised of vaccinated people, according to the newly disclosed documents.

 

For the week ending on July 31, 2021, post-vaccination COVID-19 cases represented 73 percent of the cases among people 65 and older, the company found. The elderly were 80 percent fully vaccinated at the time.

 

Breakthrough infection rates were higher among those who were vaccinated early, the researchers found. They estimated that the rates were twice as high in those who had been vaccinated five to six months prior, when compared to people vaccinated three to four months before.

 

The breakthrough cases started in January 2021, according to the data.

See: Kevin McKernan Talks COVID Vaccine DNA Contamination, the Monkey Virus SV40 Promoter, and What’s Actually in the Vaccines

Protection against hospitalization was also fading, researchers discovered.

In the week ending on July 31, 2021, 63 percent of the COVID-19 hospitalizations in seniors were among the fully vaccinated, according to the documents. The same pattern of weaker protection among people who were vaccinated early was found.

 

It’s Really Happening: Vaccine and Mask Mandates, Contact-Tracing RETURN

 

Researchers calculated that the vaccine effectiveness (VE) against infection was just 33 percent while the effectiveness against hospitalization had dropped to 57 percent.

 

Seniors who previously had COVID-19 and recovered were more likely to avoid hospitalization, the researchers also found. Risk factors included serious underlying conditions such as obesity and being in the oldest age group, or older than 85.

 

The cohort analysis was completed on 20 million Medicare beneficiaries, including 5.6 million seniors who received a primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine.

 

“Our observational study VE findings show a very significant decrease in VE against infection and hospitalization in the Delta phase of the pandemic for individuals vaccinated with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine for those 5–6 months post vaccination vs. those 3–4 months post vaccination,” Dr. Bettina Experton, Humetrix’s president and CEO, said in a Sept. 15, 2021, email to top U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials.

 

Humetrix also found that among the beneficiaries, there had been 133,000 cases, 27,000 hospitalizations, and 8,300 intensive care admissions among the fully vaccinated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Dr. Experton disclosed that Humetrix shared the data with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in August 2021.

 

“It would have been nice to know [the military] was conducting this prior to now. Also might have been nice for CDC to share the data,” Dr. Peter Marks, one of the FDA officials, told colleagues in response.

 

“This is more worrisome than the other data we have in my opinion,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s acting commissioner at the time, said in reply.

 

The presentation and emails were obtained by the Informed Consent Action Network, a nonprofit that seeks to provide transparency around medical issues, through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

 

“It is hard to see this as anything other than a failure of our health authorities to assess, share, make public, and act upon valuable, real-world data in the midst of a so-called pandemic,” Del Bigtree, founder of the network, told The Epoch Times via email. “And without FOIA, the public likely would never be made aware of these failures which, of course, allows them to be perpetrated again and again.”

 

The FDA and CDC declined to comment.

Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health at the time, wrote in a separate email obtained through FOIA that the results of the study provided “pretty compelling evidence that VE is falling 5–6 months post vaccination for both infection and hospitalization for those over 65.”

 

He added, “Even for those 3–4 months out there is a trend toward worsening VE.”

The CDC, FDA, and National Institutes of Health did not share the data with the public as they considered whether to clear and recommend COVID-19 vaccine boosters.

 

The CDC held a meeting with its vaccine advisers on Aug. 30, 2021. During the meeting, CDC officials went over emerging data on waning vaccine effectiveness. But the military study was not included.

 

The FDA held a similar meeting on Sept. 17, 2021. The CDC participated. The Humetrix analysis was also not presented during that meeting.

 

Both agencies have aggressively promoted COVID-19 vaccines throughout the pandemic, including hyping them as strongly protective against severe disease even after their own data have suggested that is not the case.

 

The CDC did present (pdf) data from COVID-NET, one of its systems, that showed effectiveness against COVID-19-associated hospitalization was falling among the elderly since the emergence of the Delta variant but that data still showed 80 percent effectiveness.

Click to download PDF file Click to Download the data from COVID-NET CDC-Framework for booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines-30August2021

The presentation also included data from outside researchers and Israel that estimated the protection during the Delta era against infection ranged from 39 percent to 84 percent and that the effectiveness against hospitalization ranged from 75 to 95 percent.

 

The FDA ended up clearing a Pfizer booster for many Americans. The CDC advised most people to receive it. The agencies later expanded booster clearance and recommendations to virtually all Americans aged 5 and older, with Moderna’s shot as another option. Authorities have since replaced the old shots due to their lack of durability, and are preparing to roll out another slate of shots this fall.

 

Zachary Stieber
Author (Reporter)

Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news.

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Forensic Analysis of Deaths in Pfizer’s Early mRNA Vaccine Trial Found Significant Inconsistencies

Researchers are calling into question Pfizer’s early trial data on its original COVID-19 vaccine after a forensic analysis revealed significant problems.

By Megan Redshaw
11September2023 Updated: 12September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/forensic-analysis-of-deaths-in-pfizer-biontechs-early-mrna-vaccine-trial-show-significant-inconsistencies-5487136

 

A group of researchers are calling into question Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s early trial data on its original COVID-19 vaccine after a forensic analysis revealed significant inconsistencies between data in the companies’ six-month interim report and publications authored by Pfizer/BioNTech trial site administrators.

Trial subjects vaccinated with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine experienced a 3.7 times increase in cardiovascular deaths compared to placebo controls—a “significant adverse event signal” not disclosed by Pfizer

The preprint, published on Sept. 4, showed trial subjects vaccinated with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine experienced a 3.7 times increase in cardiovascular deaths compared to placebo controls—a “significant adverse event signal” not disclosed by Pfizer when the vaccine was authorized for emergency use. In addition, the analysis found numerous instances where Pfizer/BioNTech attributed potential vaccine-associated deaths to other causes and undermined vaccine safety data.

Clinical Trial ‘Cause of Death’ Unsupported by Documentation

Researchers from the DailyClout Pfizer/BioNTech Documents Investigations Team assessed data from Pfizer’s original phase two/three clinical trial involving 44,060 subjects equally divided into two groups. One group received a dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, and the other received a placebo. As part of their analysis, researchers reviewed the cause of death forms (CRFs) of 38 trial subjects who died during the study period from July 27, 2020, to March 13, 2021, the end date of the clinical trial.

 

They found that 14 of the 38 deaths—more than one-third of deaths—resulted from cardiovascular events, accounting for the difference between the 21 deaths in the vaccination arm compared to the 17 deaths in the placebo arm. In numerous cases, researchers found that documentation did not support the cause of death diagnosis or allow one to rule out the possibility of a cardiovascular event with an autopsy.

 

“In general, our review of the CRFs found them to be lacking in detail and extremely difficult to interpret and develop a good timeline of events,” researchers wrote. “Often, a subject’s pre-trial clinical history was absent. Absent also were results of the extensive array of medical testing carried out at the pre-trial screening and at other regularly scheduled visits.”

 

Absent test results included complete blood counts, metabolic tests, pregnancy tests, COVID-19 tests, a comprehensive list of active medications, and other tests that would have provided clarity on a subject’s overall health. Although more detailed clinical data on the trial subjects exists, the researchers said it is being withheld. Given the limitations of what Pfizer provided, the researchers said the information in the CRFs was often insufficient to support the investigator’s conclusions regarding the cause of death.

 

The researchers also noted frequent communications between Pfizer/BioNTech physicians and trial site medical staff about the CRFs, some of which were over 400 to 900 pages.

Pfizer Used Earlier Data Cutoff and Unblinded Control Group

According to the analysis, Pfizer excluded the 38 deaths from information provided to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during its December 2020 meeting where its vaccine advisory panel was considering whether to authorize the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use.

 

When Pfizer/BioNTech submitted its application for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on Nov. 20, 2020, to the FDA, the application described clinical trial results using a cutoff date of November 14, 2020, even though the end date of the trial was March 13, 2021. Researchers said the earlier cutoff date concealed mortality data from the clinical trial.

 

“Both Pfizer presenters and the FDA committee failed to ask for and review deaths that occurred in the clinical trial participants after the data cutoff. As a result, they missed a more than three-fold increased risk of cardiovascular death with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine,” cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told The Epoch Times in an email.

 

“If the FDA presentation with core slides had been presented with accurate, updated data, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine should not have been approved because of safety concerns,” he added.

 

Twenty weeks into the clinical trial on Dec. 11, 2020, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine received EUA from the FDA, and the agency allowed Pfizer to unblind its control group. Unblinding occurs when study participants are told whether they received a vaccine or a placebo, and placebo subjects are permitted to get vaccinated. All but a few chose to receive the vaccine.

 

All subjects continued to be followed for 24 months and deaths were reported to Pfizer/BioNTech. Pfizer called the period from Dec. 11, 2020, to Jan. 24, 2021, the “open-label follow-up period” without explanation, and the period from Jan. 25, 2021, to the end date of the trial, March 13, 2021, as the cutoff date for the six-month interim report. According to the analysis, this made it easier to conceal deaths potentially linked to the vaccine.

 

A comparison of the number of deaths during the 33-week study period found no considerable difference between the deaths in the vaccinated versus the placebo groups for the first 20 weeks. After week 20, when participants in the placebo group were unblinded and vaccinated, deaths among the remaining unvaccinated cohort of this group slowed and then plateaued, while deaths in vaccinated subjects continued at the same rate. These inconsistencies were not explained by Pfizer/BioNTech or reported to the FDA, according to the analysis.

Vaccinated Placebo Group Death Cases Used to Obscure Trial Data

Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that 462 subjects (pdf) in the placebo group received a dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, with deaths reported attributed to the unvaccinated control group, and the analysis identified numerous instances where Pfizer/BioNTech undermined potential vaccine-related deaths or used complex terms to obscure trial data.

 

For example, a 65-year-old male with a medical history of pulmonary fibrosis and hypertension was in the trial’s placebo arm. He received doses 1 and 2 of the placebo on Sept. 30, 2020, and Oct. 21, 2020, respectively. After Pfizer/BioNTech unblinded the trial, he received his first dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 23, 2020. Five days later, on Dec. 31, 2021, he reported symptoms of COVID-19 and was admitted to the hospital.

 

While hospitalized, he became hypoxic and was intubated. Efforts to treat him failed, and he died on Jan. 11, 2021. Pfizer’s six-month interim report lists the subject as a “discontinued subject” and classified the death as a placebo death with COVID-19 as the secondary cause of death. The researchers said the subject should have been discontinued from the clinical trial entirely because he received a “non-study COVID-19 vaccine.”

 

Another trial subject, a 53-year-old male with a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and “stress-related myocardial infarction,” died suddenly from “cardiopulmonary arrest” less than two months after receiving his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. According to the analysis, the trial site’s medical monitor listed the cause of death as “cardiopulmonary arrest related to myocardial infarction.” Days later, Pfizer/BioNTech told the trial site that multiple causes of death could not be entered on the CRF and requested that “related to myocardial infarction” be deleted.

 

When the medical monitor wouldn’t alter the entry’s wording, Pfizer/BioNTech overrode the trial site and changed the cause of death to “cardiopulmonary arrest,” omitting “myocardial infarction” as a secondary cause of death. Pfizer/BioNTech did not explain why a specific diagnosis of a serious adverse event was later changed to something undefined.

 

Another vaccine subject died within three days of receiving his first Pfizer vaccine dose. The medical examiner attributed the death to the progression of atherosclerotic disease, and Pfizer listed the cause of death in its six-month interim report as “atherosclerosis.”

 

However, atherosclerosis was not documented in the subject’s CRF as a comorbidity of the patient, nor did the subject’s CRF include the pre-screening portion of comorbidities that would have shown whether the subject had a history of atherosclerosis. Furthermore, an autopsy would have confirmed whether the subject died from atherosclerosis, but autopsy results were unavailable. The subject’s death was attributed to an underlying disease, yet the researchers said there is “no basis for ascribing the subject’s death to advanced atherosclerosis or concluding that the death was unrelated to the vaccine” when the subject died “within a day or two” of vaccination.

 

Another subject died 76 days after receiving the first placebo dose. The primary cause of death was first listed as diabetes mellitus based on the subject’s medical history. Yet the diagnosis was revised several times, despite the “presence of very high blood glucose levels,” until COVID-19 pneumonia was listed as the secondary cause of death. In addition, the subject was HIV positive with an HIV RNA load over the acceptable limit for inclusion in the trial.

 

“The FDA should review these data immediately in addition to the mounting safety data and peer-reviewed manuscripts on vaccine injuries, disabilities, and deaths and move swiftly to remove all COVID-19 vaccines from the market,” Dr. McCullough said.

FDA and Pfizer Attempted to Hide Health Outcomes of Trial Participants: Preprint Researchers

When Pfizer/BioNTech filed its EUA in November 2020, the FDA didn’t make the application containing clinical data available on its website for the general public or the medical community to evaluate until Dec. 11, 2020. Although an article was published on Dec. 10, 2020, in The New England Journal of Medicine disclosing the interim results of the trial, it was authored by the trial site administrators who were “intimately aware of the trial’s findings,” researchers said.

 

The following year, in September 2021—after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine had received EUA—the same trial site administrators published another paper in The New England Journal of Medicine on the safety and efficacy of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine through six months.

 

With the “knowledge and approval” of the FDA, the preprint researchers said Pfizer and the FDA had no plans to disclose the clinical trial data that formed the basis of EUA for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for 75 years, including the health outcomes of the 44,060 subjects who participated in the original trial. It wasn’t until the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency filed a FOIA lawsuit to obtain the original clinical trial data involved in the licensing of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine that data was made available and the problems with the initial clinical trial were revealed.

 

Release of the data to the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency site began early in June 2022 and was projected to take eight months to complete. They have taken much longer than estimated and documents continue to be downloaded.

 

“Had it not been for the successful court case brought by the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, no one outside of the Pfizer and BioNTech corporations would have had the opportunity to investigate the original data generated by this clinical trial and none of the discrepancies reported here would have been revealed,” they added.

 

The researchers said their analysis provides evidence the decision to authorize the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine as a safe and effective means of controlling the pandemic was not an “informed decision based on an unbiased, thorough, and transparent evaluation of the evidence.”

 

Despite early warning signals and other reported adverse events in the post-marketing of mRNA vaccines, the Pfizer vaccine has not been removed from the market and has been approved for the nation’s youngest children. At the very least, the researchers said they hope their analysis will inform physicians and other medical professionals of the dangers of the mRNA vaccines so that they can better advise their patients on the personal risks compared with the benefits of getting vaccinated. “This would return healthcare decisions back to individuals and their medical providers where it belongs.”

 

The Epoch Times has contacted both Pfizer and the FDA for comment and has not yet received a response.

Author (J.D.)

Megan Redshaw is an attorney and investigative journalist with a background in political science. She is also a traditional naturopath with additional certifications in nutrition and exercise science.

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Medical Examiner’s Office source: Only 1 to 2 percent of ‘COVID deaths’ were really COVID

By Selwyn Duke
24September2023
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/medical_examiners_office_source_only_1_to_2_percent_of_covid_deaths_were_really_covid.html

 

“Only one to two percent” of deaths officially labeled as caused by COVID actually were induced by the disease. The rest were labeled as COVID but actually had other causes.

 

So said an individual I spoke to recently, who I’ll keep anonymous, about the deceased people processed by this individual’s medical examiner’s office. I won’t reveal much about this person, who I’ll call “ME,” except to say that ME is highly trained and qualified and works at a major medical examiner’s office in New York State.

 

ME’s information is not revelatory. We’ve heard from many sources that COVID numbers have been inflated. Personally speaking, I also talked a couple of years ago to an employee at a NY hospital who told me, casually and as a matter of course, “They’re lumping all the flu cases in with COVID.” But it’s especially noteworthy and newsworthy when the information comes from someone such as ME, who’s highly trained, in a position to know and who reveals such striking numbers.

 

I pressed ME on his (I’ll use the masculine pronoun generically here; this doesn’t imply that ME is male or not so) claim. “You’re not exaggerating?” I asked. ME confidently reiterated his assertion: Many deaths his office evaluated were attributed to COVID — but “only one to two percent” actually were.

 

What were the real causes? ME mentioned ischemia, myocardial infarction (heart attack) and complications from diabetes as major culprits. He also said that there were a large number of suicides — presumably another negative secondary effect of the lockdowns and other irrational COVID policies — though these were not labeled as COVID deaths at his office.

 

ME did state, however, that sometimes a person will have died from something wholly unrelated to COVID — he mentioned a motorcycle accident case as an example — and his office will list the decedent as having been “COVID positive” (not a COVID death, though), even though he wasn’t, because this would enable the deceased’s family to receive financial aid for the funeral.

 

Related to this, ME mentioned how not only were hospitals getting more money from the government if a patient was labeled COVID-positive, but that he believed funeral homes were also receiving funds for processing COVID-positive decedents, though he was unsure on this point.

 

Obviously, however, the monetary carrot will always corrupt a system: As is said, what you fund, you get more of.

 

ME doesn’t approve of the dishonesty at his office, of the gross manipulation of COVID numbers. But ME also mentioned that his role isn’t to sign the death certificates; it’s to provide the office itself with accurate information derived from his evaluation of decedents. As for the people who run things at this medical examiner’s office, ME wasn’t very impressed, describing them as fools (though ME used a different but synonymous term).

 

Lastly, ME mentioned something I’ve long pointed out: While with the flu, for example, the mortality counter is reset every year, this isn’t done with COVID. Rather, authorities keep a running count, continually adding on to the previous years’ numbers, so that the disease’s mortality appears especially frightening.

 

So what are America’s actual COVID numbers? Can ME’s one-to-two-percent estimate be extrapolated to our whole country? We don’t know. What’s for certain is that COVID has been grossly mismanaged and mischaracterized by people who would sententiously scold “Follow the science!” but were themselves following money and politics. In the process, this medical/scientific establishment has perhaps permanently discredited itself — and never was reputational destruction more richly deserved.

 

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They control you by Fear Porn Propaganda

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<h1>A Climate Of Fear

by Tyler Durden, 01October2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/climate-fear

Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times,

The medical, media, and political elites’ focus has shifted from facts to fomenting and magnifying fear.

In Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address in 1933, the new president told a nation in the depths of the Great Depression that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

 

Those words were true and rightfully spoken at that time. Roosevelt knew that fear is a powerful emotion that limits our ability to reason, act wisely, and work together. It’s also an emotion that’s contagious and not easily diminished or dissipated.

 

The Power of Fear to Fragment Society

Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s words are even more applicable today.

On a personal level, decisions made under the emotional duress of fear are rarely the best ones and often the worst. Fear can bring out the best in us, but can often bring out the worst. That’s more likely to occur the more fragmented a society becomes. Fear among different groups of people creates an us-versus-them context in the minds of individuals, or even an “every-man-for-himself” attitude, which pits one group against another or even each of us against each other.

 

Now elevate that sense of fear to the level of the national electorate. A people or a nation that’s paralyzed with fear makes rash decisions based on their fears of what could happen, not necessarily what the current situation truly is. When that happens, a society can quickly degenerate, where our base instincts determine our behavior in a law-of-the-jungle social environment.

 

Roosevelt knew this, as do our leaders today. The difference is that today, rather than seeking to dispel fear, our political and media elites create it, expand it, and revel in it. Rather than promote hope and strength of character in us, in a Roosevelt- or even a Reagan-like fashion, they traffic in fear and its fellow traveler social division in order to fragment our society.

 

It’s the old but effective divide-and-conquer strategy, and sadly, it works far too well. The mechanism for divide and conquer is the constant drumbeat of the Big Lie, which is also a tried and true method for controlling society. It was first practiced and perfected by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany using the mass media, but has been successfully used by the USSR and every other communist and dictatorial regime in the world since the 1930s.

Social Media Is Magnitudes More Powerful Than Legacy Media

The difference today is the massive and pervasive presence of social media. Its reach and social saturation throughout society are magnitudes greater than have ever been possible before. What’s more, our political and media elites create and exaggerate fear without even mentioning the word. “Fear” is driven into our collective psyches under the guise of our government keeping us “safe,” while demonizing anyone who challenges that narrative.

 

The repetition by the media and the pharmaceutical industry of how to stay safe from COVID-19 always involves more drugs and less freedom. That’s by design. The elites that run society know that once enough of our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and others with whom we interact become more fearful than rational, they’re easily manipulated and divided into confrontational groups.

 

Does that sound like a conspiracy theory?

Yes, it probably does, but it’s also how the Stasi, the East German security agency, turned virtually every neighbor into an informant. The result was that people were fearful of doing anything that could be construed as being against the communist East German government. In light of what we’ve been through the last three years—and what looks to be on the horizon—the conspiracy theory accusation has lost its sting.

From Conspiracy Theory to Fact

Recall, for example, how those who received the COVID-19 vaccine turned against those who remained unvaccinated. The contrast and social division couldn’t have been clearer or more deliberate. Vaccinated people were characterized by the media and government agency spokespeople as selfless, smarter, and better human beings than those who refused the vaccine.

 

On the flip side, the “anti-vaxxers,” as they came to be called, were publicly derided by the medical, pharmaceutical, media, and government elites. They were accused of being low-intelligence conspiracy theory nuts who wouldn’t or couldn’t “follow the science,” even when they followed the science from experts such as Robert Malone, one of the inventors of the mRNA technology, and other medical doctors in Europe and Asia, including former Pfizer Vice President Dr. Michael Yeadon, all of whom were de-platformed from mainstream media and social media.

 

In fact, any “alternative” remedy to the experimental and highly dangerous mRNA vaccines, such as ivermectin, was summarily dismissed, even though nations that used ivermectin had the lowest mortality rates. As noted above, many media personalities and even medical experts with contrary opinions were silenced, shamed, and shunted into professional oblivion, being substituted by compliant replacements. That practice continues to this day, with Russell Brand being the latest example of being de-monetized by YouTube.

 

In light of vaccine injuries and deaths, and the staggering profits that vaccines have delivered to the pharmaceutical industry, the number of people who believe the mainstream media, the government, and in the vaccines, is much smaller today than three years ago.

 

Conspiracy theory narratives have become conspiracy facts.

The Endgame of Fear

So, what’s the endgame of promoting and enforcing a climate of fear throughout society?

 

It’s simple. Fearful people are far more compliant and, therefore, are easily controlled, pacified, monitored, and dehumanized. Next thing you know, we’ll all be eating bugs and liking it.

 

The antidote to fear, of course, is freedom and access to real and contrary information so that each person can make up his or her own mind. The encouragement, enablement, and empowerment of private individuals to exercise informed judgment about their health and their livelihoods are also part of the solution. A vibrant, thinking, and active society of informed individuals isn’t nearly as vulnerable to the polarizing climate of fear our elites are foisting upon us.

In short, to live in fear is to live in bondage.

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Israeli Ministry of Health Mask Fear Porn Propaganda

JerusalemCats Comments: This is the only mask you need.

Friday the 13th Horror Movie, Jason Yoorhees

Friday the 13th Horror Movie, Jason Yoorhees

Friday the 13th Horror Movie, Jason Yoorhees

Friday the 13th Horror Movie, Jason Yoorhees

From the propaganda site called Arutz 7

Arutz Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

Is COVID coming back? Health Ministry recommends masks

Ministry of Health recommends that people at high-risk use a mask in closed places to minimize the risk of infection.

Israel National News
13September2023, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/376923

 

The Ministry of Health said on Tuesday evening that there is a moderate increase in the number of people hospitalized from coronavirus in Israel.

 

“The ministry constantly monitors the morbidity trends and variants of the coronavirus and, as of this moment, a moderate increase in the number of hospitalized patients is evident in Israel. Both in Israel and in the world, there are a number of variants that cause morbidity,” it said.

 

Ahead of the holidays and as a result of the increase in morbidity, the Ministry of Health recommends that if a person is in a high-risk group or wishes to reduce the risk of infection, use of a mask in closed places with many people is advised.

It is also recommended that a mask be used when meeting with people who are in high-risk groups.

The Ministry of Health stated that it is important for a patient with symptoms to remain in isolation until the symptoms pass, and added that if a sick person needs to go outside, it is recommended that he wear a mask.

 

It was also noted that “it is important to maintain awareness and be tested at home for early detection when there is a suspicion of illness. The ministry is preparing to provide dedicated vaccines against the new subvariants in the near future.”

 

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CDC Data Show COVID Hospitalizations on the Decline

After multiple weeks of increasing COVID-19 hospital admissions, federal data shows that the figure is now falling.

By Jack Phillips

26September2023 Updated: 28September2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/cda-data-show-covid-hospitalizations-on-the-decline-5499008

 

After multiple weeks of increasing COVID-19 hospital admissions, federal data show that the figure is now falling.

 

In the week ending Sept. 16, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show hospitalizations are down 4.3 percent. The number had been increasing since July, although the CDC’s historical trends shows that hospitalization numbers were relatively low compared with previous increases in the virus—notably compared with a prior “surge” that occurred in the summer of 2022.

 

Meanwhile, the latest figures show that emergency department visits are down 19.3 percent and test positivity is down 1.6 percent. Deaths are up by about 12.5 percent, the data show, but that figure is also relatively low when compared with previous years.

 

The EG.5 variant, which has been dubbed Eris, accounts for about 24.5 percent of all cases, according to the CDC’s variant tracker. FL.1.5.1, known as Fornax, is estimated to be responsible for about 13.7 percent of COVID-19 infections, the CDC figures show.

 

About a month ago, amid a steady rise in hospitalizations, some health officials suggested that it doesn’t appear to be as bad as before.

 

“Looking at that graph [of] hospitalizations, even though it’s on an upward trend, that’s still lower than it was last year at this time,” Dr. John Segreti, an epidemiologist and the medical director of infection control and prevention at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told ABC News. “The fact that the numbers are going up fairly slowly, I think is a good sign.”<

See: California Bill Punishing Doctors for Spreading COVID ‘Misinformation’ Quietly Repealed: Laura Powell

Responding to the figures last month, Dr. Shira Doron, chief infection control officer for Tufts Medicine, said that the recent “upswing is not a surge; it’s not even a wave.”

 

“What we’re seeing is a very gradual and small upward trajectory of cases and hospitalizations, without deaths really going along, which is great news,” the doctor added.

 

Last week, the Biden administration announced it would use $600 million to produce new COVID-19 tests that it will send out for free to people who order them via the U.S. Postal Service.

 

Twelve manufacturers that employ hundreds of people in seven states from California to Maryland have been awarded funding and will produce 200 million over-the-counter tests to replenish federal stockpiles for government use, in addition to producing enough tests to meet demand for tests ordered online, the Department of Health and Human Services said.

 

Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, said that though some portions of the public may be tired of the pandemic and its implications, at-home testing remains a key way to slow the spread of new cases.

 

“Whether or not people are done with it, we know the virus is there, we know that it’s circulating. We know, if past is prologue, it’ll circulate to a higher degree and spread, and cases will go up in the fall and winter seasons,” Ms. O’Connell said. “Anticipating that that would be true again, or something similar, we want to make sure the American people have these tools.”

 

 

Mandates?

The publication of the new data comes after a handful of hospitals, county governments, and a small number of schools and colleges mandated mask requirements starting in August. The CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) again recommended new COVID-19 booster shots for anyone aged six months and older earlier this month.

 

And several Bay Area health agencies in California announced last week that mandatory masking would return to hospitals and health care settings for the fall and winter months.

People, some still wearing masks, ride a subway in Brooklyn in New York City, on May 11, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

People, some still wearing masks, ride a subway in Brooklyn in New York City, on May 11, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Contra Costa, Sonoma, Alameda, and San Mateo counties issued mask orders for health care staff in hospitals and other care facilities. The orders start on Nov. 1 and last until April 30, 2024, officials said, citing recent increases in COVID-19, influenza, and other respiratory viruses that are typically commonplace during the colder months, according to statements and local media reports.

 

“Each year we see that higher rates of influenza, COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses that can cause severe respiratory infections occur annually between late fall and spring,” Dr. Karen Smith, the Sonoma County interim health officer, said in a statement.

 

Contra Costa Health Services CEO Anna Roth, meanwhile, the Northern California county’s board of supervisors last week that the mandate will be enacted, according to local media reports.

 

“We are issuing the health order today around masking for high-risk facilities, health care facilities specifically,” Ms. Roth stated, according to a local CBS affiliate station. “So again, masking in hospitals, masking in skilled nursing facilities, masking in high-risk facilities.”

 

Mask mandates have already been in effect at hospitals in San Francisco. The city is already enforcing year-round masking for health care staffers, visitors, and patients, reported the San Francisco Chronicle. Officials in Santa Clara County, which encompasses much of Silicon Valley, already set a mask mandate back in March.

 

Jack Phillips
Author (Breaking News Reporter)
Jack Phillips is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in New York. He covers breaking news.

 

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Dear fully vaccinated: The newly approved COVID shot is NOT a booster – it is literally a new (untested) vaccine

15September2023 // Ethan Huff // https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-09-15-new-covid-shot-not-booster-kathy-hochul.html

 

If you already previously got “vaccinated” and “boosted” for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), congratulations: you accomplished absolutely nothing except for the destruction of your immune system because the latest circulating COVID “variants” are no match for anything other than the newest COVID jabs to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

 

This is basically what New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told her constituents this week following the FDA’s decision to approve and emergency use authorize (EUA) the “updated” COVID jabs from Pfizer and Moderna.

 

According to Hochul, all previous COVID injections are ineffective against newer variants like Omicron XBB.1.5. As such, the fully vaccinated will need to head on down to the clinic once again to take these latest Big Pharma shots if they hope to stay protected this fall and winter.

 

“It is literally a new vaccine,” Hochul said, delivering that line in her best “valley girl” voice. “It is not a booster shot. It is not an enhancer. It is a new vaccine designed to attack the new variants.”

 

Put another way, Hochul is basically saying that Operation Warp Speed did nothing, and that now everyone must get jabbed once again if they wish to survive COVID 2.0.

 

(Related: Did you know that Kathy Hochul wants to ban gas stoves in the state of New York because of “global warming?”)

 

Hochul: Refusing to take newest COVID jabs means you’re selfish

If that message alone is not enough, Hochul went on to state that this is all no big deal because Americans have already been getting jabbed again and again since the beginning.

 

“We’ve done this since March 2020 – no reason to stop now,” Hochul said, trying to be funny. “Don’t think about just yourself.”

 

“Tell everybody: Don’t rely on the fact that you had a vaccine in the past – it will not help you this time around,” she further emphasized. “Even for healthy adults, COVID is serious – you don’t want to get it.”

 

In other words, do not be upset that you already took two, three, four, or even more COVID jabs because the government promised you would be protected, only to have that protection disappear in an instant because oopsie. No, you should instead just shut up, stop being selfish and just get jabbed again, according to Hochul.

 

Playing the part of bureaucrat doctor, even though she is barely qualified to run a hot dog cart, Hochul promised New Yorkers that if they will just agree to take this new shot, then that will be the end of getting COVID jabbed – for now, anyway.

 

“I will be getting my vaccine very soon,” Hochul promised unconvincingly. “This news is coming at a perfect time. My team just got off a call with the FDA confirming the COVID vaccine is on its way to New York.

 

“The updated vaccine guards against the newer COVID strains because it was built off the Omicron … variant – that’s what we’re calling it. It’s really a customized vaccine … We’re waiting to find out what age groups the FDA and CDC are recommending should get the shot … You only need one, no more double doses, and again, this will be starting here in New York on Friday.”

 

Hochul would end her propaganda speech by reiterating the same tired lie that “the vaccine has always been the best way to protect yourself and your community against COVID-19,” even though she said earlier in the speech that “the vaccine,” referring to the old vaccines, have failed.

 

Want to keep up with the latest news about what becomes of folks who take the newly approved COVID jabs from Pfizer and Moderna? You can do so at Vaccines.news.

 

Sources for this article include:

 

TheGatewayPundit.com

 

NaturalNews.com

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The Medical Industrial Complex is at it again

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Mayo Clinic Nukes Hydroxychloroquine Information Page After People Take Notice

by Tyler Durden, 28September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mayo-clinic-nukes-hydroxychloroquine-information-page-after-people-take-notice

 

One day after the Mayo Clinic’s endorsement of Hydroxychloroquine was highlighted for use in Covid-19 patients, they scrubbed the page and then blamed a 3rd party vendor for supplying the information.

Hydroxychloroquine

Hydroxychloroquine

 

The original page read: “Hydroxychloroquine may be used to treat coronavirus (COVID-19) in certain hospitalized patients,” which was highlighted various people and oulets, including ZeroHedge, and former Trump official Peter Navarro.

zerohedge-tweet-25September 2023-Seriously running out of conspiracy theories

zerohedge-tweet-25September 2023-Seriously running out of conspiracy theories

Now, the Mayo Clinic redirects people to a “safe” page.

 

Of course, pro-vax (we assume) outlets pounced on the fact that this information has been there since at least May of 2020.

 

Which means… by the transitive properties of woke outrage, the Mayo clinic has been spreading misinformation for three years? Cancel them!

 

One day after Mayo Clinic's endorsement of Hydroxychloroquine was highlighted here, they scrubbed the page

One day after Mayo Clinic’s endorsement of Hydroxychloroquine was highlighted here, they scrubbed the page

 

Meanwhile, an analysis of dozens of studies on Hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19 reveals a 72% lower mortality risk when taken early, and a 41% lower mortality risk when given early into hospitalization (when both HCQ and Ivermectin are known to be less effective vs. at first symptoms).

All 16 HCQ COVID-19 mortality early treatment results

All 16 HCQ COVID-19 mortality early treatment results

 

All 16 HCQ COVID-19 hospitalization early treatment results

All 16 HCQ COVID-19 hospitalization early treatment results

Data via https://c19hcq.org/meta.html

 

See the full study results here…
Click to download PDF file Click to Download the Study HCQ for COVID-19: real-time meta analysis of 409 studies

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BRICS


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BRICS

The collective of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa is seeking to expand its ranks at the upcoming BRICS summit. Subsequently, with discussion over a developing currency to combat the US dollar, multi-polarization feels entirely within reach.

BREAKING: Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and UAE to join BRICS on January 1st, 2024.

BRICS SummitSource: brics2021.gov.in

BRICS Summit
Source: brics2021.gov.in

What is BRICS and its Purpose?

Michael William G.

25September2023 https://watcher.guru/news/what-is-brics-and-its-purpose-2

What is BRICS and its Purpose? : Comprehensive Guide

BRICS, an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, is a group of major emerging economies that have come together to challenge the dominance of the United States and its Western allies in the global order.

The bloc was founded in 2009 as an informal club to provide a platform for its members to assert their influence and promote economic cooperation.

This article will explore the history, purpose, and key facts about BRICS, shedding light on its significance in the international arena.

Also read: BRICS: The Beginning of the End for the US Dollar?

Understanding BRICS

BRICS is no formal multilateral organization like the United Nations or the World Bank.

Instead, it functions as a forum for dialogue and collaboration among its member nations.

The heads of state and government of the member countries convene annually, with each nation taking up a one-year rotating chairmanship of the group.

The primary focus of BRICS is strengthening economic cooperation, increasing multilateral trade, and fostering development among its members.

Also read: BRICS: UAE Navigating New Alliance & US Relations

History of BRICS

The term BRIC was first coined in 2001 by Jim O’Neill, the then chief economist of Goldman Sachs, in a research paper that highlighted the growth potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

These four countries were identified as emerging economies with significant economic clout and the potential to reshape the global economic landscape.

2009 South Africa joined the group, and the acronym was expanded to BRICS.

The Goldman Sachs BRIC Thesis

The concept of BRICS originated from the Goldman Sachs BRIC thesis, which asserted that these emerging economies would become significant global players.

The thesis emphasized the rapid economic growth, large populations, and abundant natural resources of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

It predicted that these countries would outperform traditional Western powers regarding GDP growth and investment opportunities.

Closure of Goldman’s BRICS Fund

Despite the initial optimism surrounding the BRIC thesis, Goldman Sachs closed its BRICS fund in 2015 due to the economic challenges some of the member countries face.

This move raised questions about the sustainability and long-term viability of the BRICS concept.

However, the group continued to exist as a forum for cooperation and collaboration among its member nations.

What Countries are in BRICS?

The founding members of BRICS are Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa joined the group in 2010, expanding the acronym to BRICS.

Together, these countries account for more than 40% of the world’s population and a quarter of the global economy.

Despite its smaller economy and population, South Africa plays a vital role in representing Africa and strengthening the group.

What is BRICS and its Purpose?

What is the main function of BRICS?

BRICS primarily serves as a platform for member nations to collaborate on economic, trade, and development matters.

The bloc aims to foster mutually beneficial partnerships and reduce dependence on traditional Western powers.

BRICS nations, united, can secure improved trade deals, foster investments, and tackle shared challenges effectively.

BRICS Currency and Its Purpose

One of the key discussions within BRICS has been the possibility of establishing a common currency for the bloc.

While this idea is still in the early stages of exploration, it holds the potential to enhance economic integration and facilitate trade among the member nations.

A common currency could reduce transaction costs, minimize exchange rate volatility, and promote greater financial cooperation within the bloc.

What is BRICS Currency Backed By?

The concept of a BRICS currency raises questions about its backing and stability.

We haven’t determined the specifics of a potential BRICS currency, but it would likely rely on member nations’ economic strength and stability.

The backing could include a combination of foreign reserves, gold reserves, and the overall economic performance of the bloc.

Also read: BRICS Currency a Driving Factor for Membership Interest

Potential Expansion of BRICS

BRICS has attracted interest from several countries seeking to join the group.

More than 40 nations, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia, aspire to join the bloc.

These nations see BRICS as an alternative to Western-dominated global organizations, aiming for benefits like development finance and trade.

The Bottom Line: What is BRICS and its Purpose?

In conclusion, the BRICS, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, is an influential group of major emerging economies aiming to challenge traditional Western powers’ dominance in the global order.

While it is not a formal multilateral organization, BRICS serves as a platform for dialogue and cooperation among its members.

The bloc primarily focuses on economic cooperation, trade, and development.

As the world continues to evolve, BRICS holds the potential to reshape the global economic landscape and foster a more balanced and inclusive international order.

 

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BRICS Officially Agrees To End Use Of US Dollar

Vinod Dsouza
26August2023  https://watcher.guru/news/brics-officially-agrees-to-end-use-of-us-dollar<

 

The BRICS alliance has called for the abandonment of the US dollar for international trade at the summit in Johannesburg. BRICS will officially end reliance on the US dollar for global trade settlements moving forward. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed that the bloc collectively decided to abandon the US dollar with no opposition.

 

BRICS will now continue promoting their respective local currencies for cross-border settlements and strengthening their native economies. The move will pave the way for a paradigm shift in the global economy and reshape the political landscape. Bilateral ties with other countries will be reworked, and the US dollar will face stiff competition in the long run.

Also Read: BRICS: Is Chinese Yuan a Growing Threat to the U.S. Dollar?

 

Watcher.Guru-tweet-24August2023-BRICS to officially abandon US Dollar for trade settlements

Watcher.Guru-tweet-24August2023-BRICS to officially abandon US Dollar for trade settlements

 

BRICS Steps Away From The US Dollar

The BRICS bloc announced that it wants to end dependency on the US dollar to promote their local currencies. The dollar’s debt factor also played a role in abandoning the USD. We will increase “payment options and reduce our vulnerability,” holding the dollar as reserves, said Brazil’s President Lula da Silva.

Also Read: BRICS: China Targets U.S., Says America Is Obsessed With Hegemony

BRICS will also convince other developing countries to trade in local currencies and not the US dollar. The greenback will slowly fade away from the international stage, making the debt ceiling crisis in America worsen. Read here to learn about the 10 financial sectors that will be impacted if the US dollar is no longer used for global trade.

 

Watcher.Guru-tweet-24August2023-Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and UAE to join BRICS

Watcher.Guru-tweet-24August2023-Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and UAE to join BRICS

Also Read: BRICS Developing Effective Mechanisms for Global Financial Control

In addition, six new countries will join BRICS, further strengthening the alliance. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran will be members of the bloc. Five of the six countries are oil-producing nations and could change the way the world trades in the coming years.

 

In conclusion, the US dollar is in a ‘do or die‘ situation after the BRICS called to stop trading in the USD. The dollar could be on the path of decline if the ideas of the BRICS play out as planned.

 

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BRICS Nations Buy Massive Amounts of Gold to Back the New Currency

Vinod Dsouza

10July2023  https://watcher.guru/news/brics-nations-buy-gold-to-back-new-currency

he BRICS alliance plans to launch a new currency backed by gold, reported RT News a month ahead of the summit. Russia has reportedly briefed the bloc on the importance of pegging the soon-to-be-released currency to gold. The move could make it easier to take on the U.S. dollar and challenge its global reserve status. The next BRICS summit will be held in South Africa in August and the formation of a new currency will be laid out.

Also Read: BRICS: India Saves $7 Billion by Ditching U.S. Dollar For Oil Trade

BRICS to Back The New Currency With Gold

The yet-to-be-launched BRICS currency could be backed by gold and the bloc of five nations are stockpiling the precious metal. In the last 18 months, the BRICS nations have increased their gold buying expenditure to end reliance on the U.S. dollar.

Also Read: 6 New Countries To Join BRICS Alliance in August Summit

The World Gold Council published a report saying that China purchased 102 tonnes of gold. Russia has purchased 31.1 tonnes of precious metal in the last six months. In addition, India added 2.8 tonnes to its gold reserves in 2023, for the first time in more than a year. India accumulated gold for several months and could add more by the end of the year.

 

The move puts the U.S. dollar in jeopardy as gold could be used as collateral and not the USD. The BRICS alliance could rely more on gold and completely end reliance on the U.S. dollar. If many more countries join the bloc, the new BRICS currency could be the preferred choice for cross-border transactions.

Also Read: BRICS: 130 Countries Move Towards CBDC Currency, US Dollar in Jeopardy

Gold is considered a safe investment and has a slim chance of collapsing than the U.S. dollar. The greenback is now a risky asset as it comes with the dangers of debt. If the debt ceiling crisis worsens, it could cause a domino effect of financial problems in developing countries. Therefore, a handful of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, are looking to stay away from the U.S. dollar for global settlements.

 

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BRICS Could Potentially Become Global Currency

Vinod Dsouza
8June2023  https://watcher.guru/news/brics-could-potentially-become-global-currency

The BRICS alliance will launch a new currency in the next summit in August 2023 held in Cape Town, South Africa. The five blocs of nations Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa will combinedly decide the formation of the currency. The yet-to-be-released tender will be pushed into the global stage to settle cross-border transactions among like-minded nations. The goal is to end reliance on the U.S. dollar and usher in a new era in the financial sector.

 

Even before its launch, around 41 countries have expressed interest to join BRICS and accept the currency. While 19 countries have formally sent applications to join BRICS, the others have informally expressed desires to enter the bloc. South African BRICS ambassador Anil Sooklal confirmed that the alliance could soon expand becoming BRICS+.

Also Read: Europe Might Get Ready To Accept BRICS Currency

BRICS Currency Could Go Global, Dethrone the U.S. Dollar

Leading economist Alexis Habiyaremye from the University of Johannesburg said that the BRICS currency could dethrone the U.S. dollar. The economist said that the U.S. dollar added a burden to the economies of developing countries through debt accumulation. The U.S. pressing sanctions aggravated the situation making their local economies come to a standstill.

Also Read: Saudi Arabia To Challenge U.S. Dollar’s Supremacy by Funding BRICS Alliance

Things could get better with the launch of the currency as the U.S. will have no control over their economies. If the BRICS currency gains widespread acceptance, the U.S. dollar will lose supply and demand on the global stage. The development could make the new tender acceptable and countries could sideline the USD in the coming years.

 

“In terms of economic weight, The BRICS currency has a real prospect of becoming a global currency if members commit to increasing trade exchange between themselves,” he said. The economist added, “Introducing a new currency if it were to be used effectively and systematically for all trade transactions between BRICS countries, would alleviate the burden on these countries to finance the exorbitant privilege.”

 

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How BRICS Eliminated US Influence in the Global South

Joshua Ramos
8June2023  https://watcher.guru/news/how-brics-eliminated-us-influence-in-the-global-south

 

The past few months have seen the economic bloc continue to grow and establish a new global power balance. Subsequently, through a myriad of factors, it is undeniable that BRICS has all but eliminated US influence in the global south. A development that has opened the door to the undeniable growth of the alliance.

 

Yet, the elimination of American influence was not solely a victory for the BRICS collective. Alternatively, it was the development of decades worth of resentment toward the ideals of the United States. More importantly, it was the culmination of the status quo that has long affected the region negatively.

The BRICS Movement

In recent statements, South African Ambassador Anil Sooklal discussed the state of the BRICS bloc. Specifically, addressing opposition to the collective. Interestingly, he stated, “BRICS is not a group of countries that is in opposition to any particular grouping.”

 

Additionally, Sooklal told Newsweek about the group’s desire. Noting the bloc’s hope “of reforming the global governance architecture, to make it more inclusive, more equitable, and more just and fair, which many of us continue to feel that it’s not.”

 

That sentiment is what has driven the expected growth of the BRICS bloc over the last several months. Indeed, it is what has driven more than 20 countries to submit their membership requests to join the bloc ahead of its annual summit. Subsequently, the opposite of ideology is how BRICS has all but eliminated the US influence on the global south.

 

“We see an erosion of the global multilateral architecture,” Sooklal added. “Unilateral measures, unilateral sanctions becoming the norm of the day, an uneven global architecture, and countries wanting to have a greater say in terms of how the new evolving global order pans out.”

 

Conclusively, Sooklal noted these factors as attracting “countries from the global south who increasingly want to identify with the BRICS group.” Additionally, noting, “the attractiveness of BRIS is that it articulates the challenges that countries from the Global South continue to face in a very unequal world. A world that vastly changed over the last 80 years since the founding of the U.N. System.”

 

Alternatively, the Secretary General of the India-China Economic and Cultural Council, Mohammed Aqib, adds another interesting aspect. Specifically, he told Newsweek that it is less about the potential that makes the bloc attractive. Instead, it is an ultimate goal.

 

“It is the quest for multilateralism stand breaking the hegemony of the West which is driving countries to join BRICS.”

The US Role

Indeed, the growth of BRICS and the elimination of US influence on the Global South are byproducts of efforts from countries like Russia, India, and China. However, it is also a byproduct of decades worth of actions taken by the United States.

 

Amid the battle for international influence, Saqib stated that “the USA is turning BRICS into a geopolitical tool to contain China, coercing, coaxing, and threatening countries to somehow fail BRICS.” Subsequently, this perspective has driven the growth of the BRICS. As many have observed its potential, they have first observed what its potential means for Western dominance.

 

That kind of perspective only grew with the Western sanctions placed on Russia. Specifically, this set out to once again weaponize the global finance sector. It saw the United States and its allies tell countries who they could do business with, by limiting access to the currency they controlled.

 

Thus, the quest for greater de-dollarization took hold. Saqib noted, “De-dollarization will save countries from currency terrorism or sanctions and also offer fair terms of trade and influence of the West.”

 

Interestingly, these actions are an effort to create a multipolar order. Moreover, they have created an opportunity for nations that have long felt under the heel of the West, to stand shoulder to shoulder. This quest for an equal playing field is led by the actions of Russia and China, driven by the US itself.

 

The upcoming BRICS summit will surely allow discussion of potential expansion and an alternative currency. It will feature more than 20 nations discussing their potential entry. And it will be another indication that the BRICS countries have driven US influence from the global south entirely. Yet, the US certainly has a part to play in that.

 

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BRICS New Development Bank Now Offers Loans in Local Currencies Instead of US Dollar

Vignesh Karunanidhi
23April2023 https://watcher.guru/news/brics-new-development-bank-now-offers-loans-in-local-currencies-instead-of-us-dollar

 

The US dollar has been losing its role in global trade. When the pound sterling lost its value during WWI and WWII, the US dollar was established as a global reserve currency. However, global nations are slowly steering away from US dollar reliance.

 

Now The New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS group has begun to offer loans in local currencies. This is according to the latest report from Natural News,

 

Watcher.Guru-tweet-23April2023-BRICS New Development Bank now offers loans in local currencies

Watcher.Guru-tweet-23April2023-BRICS New Development Bank now offers loans in local currencies

 

BRICS group motive to ditch the use of US dollar

The move to offer loans in local currencies is to steer away from the US dollar’s dependency. The plan to offer the loan was reportedly confirmed by NDB President Dilma Rousseff. She also stated that the bank aims to provide 30% of the loans in the local currencies of member nations.

 

Rousseff recently stated this in an April 14 interview with CGTN regarding the move. “It is necessary to find ways to avoid foreign exchange risk and other issues such as being dependent on a single currency, such as the U.S. dollar.”

Also read: BRICS: Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Discuss OPEC+ Deal

She also stressed during the interview that providing 30% of the loans in the local currencies of BRICS member countries will also help the countries avoid exchange rate risks and finance shortages.

 

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BRICS: Ministers Say Global Order is Rebalancing from Western Dominance

Joshua Ramos
4June2023  https://watcher.guru/news/brics-ministers-say-global-order-is-rebalancing

 

BRICS foreign ministers are meeting in Cape Town over the next two days, where they have stated the global order is rebalancing away from Western dominance. Moreover, South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, discussed the collective vision for “global leadership,” amidst a fractured world.

 

Ministers from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa were in attendance. Subsequently, they spoke about the turning tide of the global power balance. Stating that the BRICS nations need to assure the multipolar order of the current world.

BRICS Nations Speak of Rebalanced Global Order

The BRICS nations have undoubtedly grown in prominence thus far in 2023. Indeed, nations have sought to join the collective that has proven to be a growing alternative to the G7 countries. With a combined population of over 3.2 billion, and making up 40% of people on the planet, BRICS have proven to be attractive to developing countries.

 

Nevertheless, in the meeting taking place today, the BBC reported the BRICS foreign ministers’ sentiments that the global order is rebalancing away from Western dominance. Specifically, Indian Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar discussed the necessity for the collective to “send out a strong message that the world is multipolar, that it is rebalancing, and that old ways cannot address new situations.”

 

“At the heart of the problems we face is economic concentration that leaves too many nations at the mercy of too few,” he added. Additionally, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Viera shared their vision of the bloc. Specifically, describing it as an “indispensable mechanism for building a multipolar world order that reflects the devices and needs of developing countries.”

 

As the BRICS summit is set to arrive in a few months, the potential expansion of the bloc will be a vital talking point. Moreover, more than 20 nations have already reportedly submitted membership applications to join the bloc. The bloc continues to maintain its focus on challenging Western dominance. Subsequently, countries tired of the political stranglehold of the West are flocking.

 

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BRICS Alliance Promoting Native Currency Before Launching New Tender

Vinod Dsouza
2May2023 https://watcher.guru/news/brics-alliance-promote-native-currency-before-launching-new-tender

 

BRICS countries are promoting their native currency before launching a new tender in August 2023. The next BRICS summit will be held in South Africa and the BRICS nations Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa will launch a new currency to settle international trade. The nations aim to remove the U.S. dollar from its global reserve status and overthrow the existing financial order.

 

China is making use of the timeline by asking other developing nations to settle trade using the Chinese Yuan. In Q1 2023, the Chinese Yuan was the most traded currency in Russia overtaking the U.S. dollar. In addition, France settled an LNG gas trade with China by paying in the Chinese Yuan, ending the reliance on the dollar.

 

Also Read: 5 Arab Nations Ready To Join BRICS Alliance

 

On the other hand, India has asked developing countries to settle trade in the Rupee instead of the U.S. dollar. India reached out to countries that don’t have the U.S. dollar in reserve to pay for international trade, reported Bloomberg. The Reserve Bank of India allows 18 countries to pay with the Rupee instead of the dollar. Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Singapore are among the list of nations that India wants to trade with using its native currency Rupee.

 

Also Read: BRICS Countries Buying Large Amounts of Gold To Topple the U.S. Dollar

BRICS Alliance Promotes Native Currency

South Africa’s BRICS ambassador, Anil Sooklal said that the block of nations must prioritize native currencies over the U.S. dollar. The development is the stepping stone to replace the dollar before they launch a new currency in August this year. In conclusion, the BRICS alliance of nations has already begun using their native currency for trade than the dollar.

 

Also Read: Will Canada & Mexico Join BRICS To Eliminate U.S. Dollar’s Dominance?

National currencies should be increasingly used by the BRICS states not only in trade but also in investments and other transactions. Only this way can the foundation for the single BRICS currency be created,” he said to Tass News.

 

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10 ASEAN Countries To Accept BRICS Currency

Vinod Dsouza
7June2023  https://watcher.guru/news/10-asean-countries-to-accept-brics-currency

ASEAN bloc of countries leaders Source: Reuters

ASEAN bloc of countries leaders Source: Reuters

The ASEAN bloc of countries is looking to deepen ties with BRICS and accept the new currency for cross-border transactions. ASEAN nations recently agreed to ditch the U.S. dollar for global trade and are currently settling payments with native currencies. The leaders of the 10 Southwest Asian nations agreed to sideline the U.S. dollar and promote local currencies instead. Therefore, the dollar usage for international trade is reduced giving native currencies a boost in the global markets.

 

Also Read: Europe Might Get Ready To Accept BRICS Currency

The 10 ASEAN countries recently signed a declaration to stop using the U.S. dollar similar to the BRICS alliance. The countries in the ASEAN bloc include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

 

While ASEAN has no plans to launch a new currency, they are dependent on BRICS to release a new tender. When the soon-to-be-released currency makes its way on the global stage, the ASEAN bloc could be the first to accept it. The bloc is moving to maintain ties with BRICS and begin to usher in a new era in the global financial markets.

 

Also Read: Saudi Arabia To Challenge U.S. Dollar’s Supremacy by Funding BRICS Alliance

ASEAN Alliance Could be the First to Accept BRICS Currency

The official declaration signed by ASEAN leaders states that the U.S. dollar will be reduced to secondary status for global trade. The goal is to strengthen bilateral and multilateral payment activities among each other for imports and exports. The proximity of borders helps ASEAN to settle trade faster and more smoothly.

 

Apart from ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is also aiming to end reliance on the U.S. dollar and accept BRICS. Read here to know more details on why GCC wants to challenge Western financial dominance.

 

Also Read: BRICS: 16 Asian Countries Move to Ditch the U.S. Dollar

“We adopted the ASEAN Leaders Declaration on advancing regional payment connectivity and promoting local currency transaction to foster bilateral and multilateral payment connectivity arrangements to strengthen economic integration by enabling fast, seamless, and more affordable cross-border payments across the region,” the declaration read.

 

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24 Countries Ready To Accept BRICS Currency

Vinod Dsouza
2May2023 https://watcher.guru/news/24-countries-ready-to-accept-brics-currency

 

A total of 24 countries are interested in accepting and trading with BRICS currency when it launches on the International stage. The group of developing countries is moving to bypass the U.S. dollar to settle global trade. The dollar’s dominance could weaken if the BRICS currency gains prominence, giving Eastern nations more financial power than the United States.

 

South Africa’s BRICS ambassador Anil Sooklal said that 19 countries have shown their interest to join the alliance, reported Bloomberg. Sooklal confirmed that 13 countries have formally sent applications to join the BRICS alliance. He added that five other countries have informally requested to be a part of the block.

 

Also Read: BRICS Alliance Promoting Native Currency Before Launching New Tender

BRICS comprises five countries Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Therefore, a total of 24 countries are participating to dethrone the U.S. dollar from its global reserve status.

24 Countries Interested In BRICS Currency

The countries that have shown interest to join the BRICS alliance are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, Bahrain, Indonesia, Algeria, and Iran. Also, two unnamed countries from East Africa and one from West Africa have sent their applications, according to the ambassador.

 

The development shows that a handful of countries are interested to trade in the BRICS currency. The nations want to move away from the U.S. dollar and end American financial supremacy. The dollar comes with a risk of debt that could wreak havoc on local currencies if the U.S. slips into a recession.

 

Also Read: BRICS Countries Buying Large Amounts of Gold To Topple the U.S. Dollar

If more countries ditch the dollar, the U.S. will have no means to fund its deficit, making the dollar weak. This could make the soon-to-be-released BRICS currency gain prominence in the new financial world order.

 

If nations around the world settle for trade with the BRICS currency, the dollar’s value could plummet. Therefore, the fate of the U.S. dollar will be decided in the next BRICS summit.

 

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Europe Might Get Ready To Accept BRICS Currency

Vinod Dsouza

4June2023  https://watcher.guru/news/europe-ready-to-accept-brics-currency-u-s-dollar

 

A whirlwind of changes is taking place in the global financial markets threatening the superiority of the U.S. dollar. A handful of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe are looking to end reliance on the dollar and promote BRICS or their native currencies. Iraq banned the U.S. dollar in May, posing a hefty fine and jail term for anyone trading with the USD.

 

The Iraqi government banned entities from initiating business transactions with the U.S. dollar. Iraq aims to control the fluctuating black market exchange rate, that plagues the country for decades. The move is also positioned to strengthen the usage of the Iraqi Dinar in the Forex markets.

 

Offenders who trade in the U.S. dollar will face a penalty of up to 1 million Iraqi Dinar. Repeat offenders will also face a jail term of one year and have their business licenses overturned.

Also Read: Saudi Arabia To Challenge U.S. Dollar’s Supremacy by Funding BRICS Alliance

After Iraq Bans U.S. Dollar, Europe Could Accept BRICS Currency

The South African BRICS ambassador Anil Sooklal confirmed that European countries have expressed interest to join the BRICS alliance. Sooklal did not reveal the names of the European nations but hinted that a global financial change is brewing. According to recent developments, all arrows point towards France and Belarus showing interest to join BRICS.

Also Read: BRICS: What Happens if Mexico Joins the Alliance?

France settled an LNG gas trade with China by settling the cross-border transaction with the Chinese Yuan in March. French President Emmanuel Macron also called for the European Union to distance itself from the U.S. dollar.

 

Watcher.Guru-tweet-29March2023-China and France complete first LNG gas trade using Chinese Yuan

Watcher.Guru-tweet-29March2023-China and France complete first LNG gas trade using Chinese Yuan

 

In addition, Macron repeatedly hit out against the dollar calling it a “great risk” to continue trading with it. The dollar comes with the risk of debt that could spell trouble to nations holding it as reserves.

 

Also, the Eastern European country Belarus is interested to join BRICS and trade with the new currency. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko suggested ideas to create a new economic union with zero restrictions with BRICS. If a barrier-less trade among BRICS countries takes shape, the U.S. dollar could be dethroned from the global reserve currency.

 

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Saudi Arabia To Challenge U.S. Dollar’s Supremacy by Funding BRICS Alliance

Vinod Dsouza

01June2023  https://watcher.guru/news/saudi-arabia-challenge-us-dollar-funding-brics-alliance

 

The oil-rich Saudi Arabia formally sent its application to join the BRICS alliance, reported Bloomberg. The South African BRICS ambassador Anil Sooklal confirmed that five Middle Eastern countries have shown their interest to join the bloc. The five countries are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, and Algeria. The nations export millions of oil barrels to the West every year settling transactions in the U.S. dollar.

 

Talks are in progress with Saudi Arabia looking to fund the BRICS bank, commonly called The New Development Bank (NDB). If the BRICS alliance accepts Saudi’s funding, it could usher in a new era of financial dominance with constant cash flow from the oil-rich nation. Saudi Arabia funding of the BRICS bank poses a challenge to the U.S. dollar’s supremacy as the global reserve currency.

 

Also Read: BRICS: China Does Not Want the Chinese Yuan To Replace U.S. Dollar as Reserve Currency

BRICS: Saudi Arabia Challenges U.S. Dollar’s Global Currency Status

The BRICS bank President Dilma Rousseff said on Tuesday that the alliance is keen on receiving funds from Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the decision to allow Saudi cash flow for NDB will be jointly taken by the bloc of nations at the next summit in South Africa in August.

 

Also Read: What Happens to the U.S. Dollar if BRICS Launch New Currency?

 

“As a former president of a developing country, I know how important multilateral banks are. And how much of a challenge it is to obtain finance or to raise funds on the scale needed to address social and economic challenges in our countries,” said Rousseff.

 

Rousseff stated that the BRICS bank aims to fund projects in local currencies thereon and not the U.S. dollar. The development could end reliance on the U.S. dollar and strengthen the BRICS currency on a global scale. Nonetheless, the dollar’s dominance is being chipped piece-by-piece as we know it and could make way for a new financial order.

 

Also Read: After BRICS, 10 ASEAN Countries Ditch The U.S. Dollar

 

BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Nearly 25 countries have shown their interest to join the alliance. BRICS could soon turn to BRICS+ if more countries are allowed to enter the bloc and become financially more powerful.

 

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BRICS: Saudi Arabia & India’s New Energy Deal a ‘Game Changer’

Joshua Ramos
20September2023 https://watcher.guru/news/brics-saudi-arabia-indias-new-energy-deal-a-game-changer

 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with Crown Prince Of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with Crown Prince Of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud

Source: Nikkei Asia

The two BRICS countries, Saudi Arabia and India, have signed a new energy deal that has certainly been labeled a “game changer.” Moreover, the two nations have already agreed to expand economic ties. The decision arrived after Saudi Arabia was invited to join the bloc at last month’s 2023 economic summit.

 

The economic alliance saw six countries join its ranks in its first expansion effort since its inception. Saudi Arabia joined the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Argentina as part of key expansion efforts. Subsuenqlety’s deals with India show the fruit of that decision.

Also Read: BRICS Influence in Oil Sector Grows, Puts US Dollar in Danger

Saudi Arabia and India Sign New Energy Agreement Labeled a “Game Changer.”

The growth in economic ties between Saudi Arabia and India has been a notable development. Specifically, the two BRICS nations have seen their economic integration lead to agreements that could have massive implications. That trend has continued once again today.

 

Indeed, the BRICS nations of Saudi Arabia and India have signed a new energy agreement that has been labeled a “game changer.” Moreover, the deal will see the former aid India in its energy transition. The country’s Power and Energy Minister, R.K. Singh, noted that it could be of immense importance in the near term.

Also Read: Economist Predicts Tradig Ending to US Dollar

Specifically, both countries have signed a memorandum of understanding on energy cooperation. The deal has placed its emphasis on energy efficiency as well as renewable energy and green hydrogen. Subsequently, it has directed both nations toward energy efficiency, with a grid interconnected between the two nations.

 

“The advantage will be that renewable energy will be available around the clock because they are in different time zones, so the sun always shines in different time zones,” Singh told Arab News. “It is a game changer. The cost of electricity will come down for the entire region, for the entire Middle East, for our subcontinent, and also for Southeast Asia.”

 

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BRICS: What Happens if Mexico Joins the Alliance?

Vinod Dsouza

01June2023  https://watcher.guru/news/brics-what-happens-if-mexico-joins-the-alliance

 

Mexico is among the 19 countries that have expressed interest to join BRICS but has not formally sent its application, reported Bloomberg. If Mexico officially applies to join the BRICS alliance, the move could cause a paradigm shift in cross-border transactions.

 

The move could impact its relations with other countries, including its neighboring counties the United States and Canada. The U.S. dollar’s global status could be challenged and put to the test if Mexico accepts the upcoming BRICS currency.

 

Also Read: BRICS: China Does Not Want the Chinese Yuan To Replace U.S. Dollar as Reserve Currency

What Happens If Mexico Joins the BRICS Alliance & Accepts the New Currency?

Mexico’s alignment with BRICS could alter the geopolitical dynamics in the North and Latin American region. It may result in the reconfiguration of alliances and partnerships, potentially impacting Mexico’s relationships with other countries, particularly those outside BRICS. The move could also lead to closer ties with BRICS members and reshape global power dynamics.

 

Also Read: What Happens to the U.S. Dollar if BRICS Launch New Currency?

 

In addition, Mexico accepting BRICS currency for international trade could pave the way for Latin American countries to cut ties with the U.S. dollar. The BRICS currency could capture the Latin American markets making other nations end reliance on the U.S. dollar.

 

Mexico’s participation might be an important gateway for the BRICS currency to access and trade in the Latin American markets. The move might extend to areas such as diplomacy, security, and cultural exchanges, fostering closer relationships among the participating nations.

 

However, Mexico has not joined the BRICS alliance currently and is partnered with the United States and Canada through NAFTA. A decision to be a part of the bloc through BRICS+ is yet to be decided by the government.

 

BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The next summit will be held in South Africa in August, where members will decide on the formation of a new currency.

 

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BRICS: Here’s a Full List of Countries That Wants To Join the Alliance

Vinod Dsouza
11May2023  https://watcher.guru/news/brics-full-list-of-countries-that-want-to-join-alliance

 

BRICS was created on June 16, 2019, and it compromises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The alliance is taking on the U.S. dollar with plans to launch a new currency to settle payments for international trades. The move is attracting other Eastern countries into the bloc as they want to end reliance on the dollar and promote native currencies.

 

In addition, developing nations from Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia are ready to join the BRICS alliance. In this article, we will highlight how many countries have shown their interest in joining the BRICS bloc.

 

Also Read: Middle East Countries Look To Join BRICS Alliance

Full List of Countries That Have Shown Interest in Joining BRICS

Discussing the expansion of BRICS to BRICS+ is currently underway and could be decided in the next summit on August 2023. The countries that have shown interest in joining BRICS are:

Algeria
Argentina
Bahrain
Egypt
Indonesia
Iran
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Afghanistan,
Bangladesh
Belarus
Kazakhstan
Mexico
Nicaragua
Nigeria
Pakistan
Senegal
Sudan
Syria
Thailand

Tunisia
Turkey
Uruguay
Venezuela, and
Zimbabwe.

Among all the nations, Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have formally applied to join the BRICS alliance. The other nations have only expressed their interest in joining the BRICS bloc.

 

Also Read: 24 Countries Ready To Accept BRICS Currency

The next BRICS summit will be held in Cape Town, South Africa in August 2023. The five-nations bloc will combinedly decide on the launch of a new currency to settle global trade. The development has placed the U.S. dollar on the back foot as the world will rely less on the greenback. The move could add further pressure on the dollar sending it on a path of decline.

 

However, the Federal Reserve plans to challenge BRICS by launching a new FedNow payment service. FedNow will be an instant money transfer platform and banks and leading financial institutions will adopt the new financial technology. Read here to know how FedNow plans to take on the yet-to-be-released BRICS currency and stunt its growth.

 

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G7 Vs BRICS – Off To The Races

by Tyler Durden, 25March2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/g7-vs-brics-races

Authored by Scott Ritter via ConsortiumNews.com,

An economist digging below the surface of an IMF report has found something that should shock the Western bloc out of any false confidence in its unsurpassed global economic clout…

G7 leaders meeting on June 28, 2022, at Schloss Elmau in Krün, Germany. (White House/Adam Schultz)

G7 leaders meeting on June 28, 2022, at Schloss Elmau in Krün, Germany. (White House/Adam Schultz)

Last summer, the Group of 7 (G7), a self-anointed forum of nations that view themselves as the most influential economies in the world, gathered at Schloss Elmau, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, to hold their annual meeting. Their focus was punishing Russia through additional sanctions, further arming of Ukraine and the containment of China.

 

At the same time, China hosted, through video conference, a gathering of the BRICS economic forum. Comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, this collection of nations relegated to the status of so-called developing economies focused on strengthening economic bonds, international economic development and how to address what they collectively deemed the counter-productive policies of the G7.

 

In early 2020, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov had predicted that, based upon purchasing power parity, or PPP, calculations projected by the International Monetary Fund, BRICS would overtake the G7 sometime later that year in terms of percentage of the global total.

 

(A nation’s gross domestic product at purchasing power parity, or PPP, exchange rates is the sum value of all goods and services produced in the country valued at prices prevailing in the United States and is a more accurate reflection of comparative economic strength than simple GDP calculations.)

 

Then the pandemic hit and the global economic reset that followed made the IMF projections moot. The world became singularly focused on recovering from the pandemic and, later, managing the fallout from the West’s massive sanctioning of Russia following that nation’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

 

The G7 failed to heed the economic challenge from BRICS, and instead focused on solidifying its defense of the “rules based international order” that had become the mantra of the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.

Miscalculation

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an ideological divide that has gripped the world, with one side (led by the G7) condemning the invasion and seeking to punish Russia economically, and the other (led by BRICS) taking a more nuanced stance by neither supporting the Russian action nor joining in on the sanctions. This has created a intellectual vacuum when it comes to assessing the true state of play in global economic affairs.

U.S. President Joe Biden in virtual call with G7 leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Feb. 24. (White House/Adam Schultz)

U.S. President Joe Biden in virtual call with G7 leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Feb. 24. (White House/Adam Schultz)

It is now widely accepted that the U.S. and its G7 partners miscalculated both the impact sanctions would have on the Russian economy, as well as the blowback that would hit the West.

Angus King, the Independent senator from Maine, recently observed that he remembers

“when this started a year ago, all the talk was the sanctions are going to cripple Russia. They’re going to be just out of business and riots in the street absolutely hasn’t worked …[w]ere they the wrong sanctions? Were they not applied well? Did we underestimate the Russian capacity to circumvent them? Why have the sanctions regime not played a bigger part in this conflict?”

It should be noted that the IMF calculated that the Russian economy, as a result of these sanctions, would contract by at least 8 percent. The real number was 2 percent and the Russian economy — despite sanctions — is expected to grow in 2023 and beyond.

 

This kind of miscalculation has permeated Western thinking about the global economy and the respective roles played by the G7 and BRICS. In October 2022, the IMF published its annual World Economic Outlook (WEO), with a focus on traditional GDP calculations. Mainstream economic analysts, accordingly, were comforted that — despite the political challenge put forward by BRICS in the summer of 2022 — the IMF was calculating that the G7 still held strong as the leading global economic bloc.

 

In January 2023 the IMF published an update to the October 2022 WEO,  reinforcing the strong position of the G7.  According to Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, the “balance of risks to the outlook remains tilted to the downside but is less skewed toward adverse outcomes than in the October WEO.”

 

This positive hint prevented mainstream Western economic analysts from digging deeper into the data contained in the update. I can personally attest to the reluctance of conservative editors trying to draw current relevance from “old data.”

 

Fortunately, there are other economic analysts, such as Richard Dias of Acorn Macro Consulting, a self-described “boutique macroeconomic research firm employing a top-down approach to the analysis of the global economy and financial markets.”

 

Rather than accept the IMF’s rosy outlook as gospel, Dias did what analysts are supposed to do — dig through the data and extract relevant conclusions.

 

After rooting through the IMF’s World Economic Outlook Data Base, Dias conducted a comparative analysis of the percentage of global GDP adjusted for PPP between the G7 and BRICS, and made a surprising discovery: BRICS had surpassed the G7.

 

This was not a projection, but rather a statement of accomplished fact:

BRICS was responsible for 31.5 percent of the PPP-adjusted global GDP, while the G7 provided 30.7 percent.

Making matters worse for the G7, the trends projected showed that the gap between the two economic blocs would only widen going forward.

G7 vs BRICS - GDP as a share of Global Total 1995 -2025

G7 vs BRICS – GDP as a share of Global Total 1995 -2025

The reasons for this accelerated accumulation of global economic clout on the part of BRICS can be linked to three primary factors:

  • residual fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic,
  • blowback from the sanctioning of Russia by the G7 nations in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a growing resentment among the developing economies of the world to G7 economic policies and
  • priorities which are perceived as being rooted more in post-colonial arrogance than a genuine desire to assist in helping nations grow their own economic potential.

Growth Disparities

It is true that BRICS and G7 economic clout is heavily influenced by the economies of China and the U.S., respectively. But one cannot discount the relative economic trajectories of the other member states of these economic forums. While the economic outlook for most of the BRICS countries points to strong growth in the coming years, the G7 nations, in a large part because of the self-inflicted wound that is the current sanctioning of Russia, are seeing slow growth or, in the case of the U.K., negative growth, with little prospect of reversing this trend.

 

Moreover, while G7 membership remains static, BRICS is growing, with Argentina and Iran having submitted applications, and other major regional economic powers, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, expressing an interest in joining. Making this potential expansion even more explosive is the recent Chinese diplomatic achievement in normalizing relations between Iran and Saudia Arabia.

 

Diminishing prospects for the continued global domination by the U.S. dollar, combined with the economic potential of the trans-Eurasian economic union being promoted by Russia and China, put the G7 and BRICS on opposing trajectories. BRICS should overtake the G7 in terms of actual GDP, and not just PPP, in the coming years.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for mainstream economic analysts to reach this conclusion. Thankfully, there are outliers such as Richard Dias and Acorn Macro Consulting who seek to find new meaning from old data.

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Watch: G7 Vs BRICS By GDP (1992-2028)

by Tyler Durden, 31July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/watch-g7-vs-brics-gdp-1992-2028

 

Fifty years ago, the government finance heads from the UK, West Germany, France, and the U.S. met informally in the White House’s ground-floor library to discuss the international monetary situation at the time. This is the origin story of the G7.

 

This initial group quickly expanded, adding Japan, Italy, and Canada, to solidify a bloc of the biggest non-communist economies at the time. As industrialized countries that were reaping the benefits of the post-war productivity boom, they were economic juggernauts, with G7 economic output historically contributing around 40% of global GDP.

 

However, as Visual Capiutalist’s Pallavi Rao details below, the more recent emergence of another international group, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), has been carving out its own section of the global economic order.

This animation from James Eagle uses data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and charts the percentage contribution of the G7 and BRICS members to the world economy.

Specifically it uses GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) using international dollars.

Click to Play

BRICS Economies Surpass G7 in Global GDP Share

Charting the Rise of BRICS vs. G7

The acronym “BRIC”, developed by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill in 2001, was used to identify four fast-growing economies in similar stages of development. It wasn’t until 2009 that their leaders met and formalized their relationship, later inviting South Africa to join in 2010.

 

ℹ️ Russia was at the time also a member of the G7, then the G8. It was invited to join in 1997 but was expelled in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea.

 

While initially banded together for investment opportunities, in the last decade, BRICS has become an economic rival to G7. Several of their initiatives include building an alternate global bank, with dialogue underway for a payment system and new reserve currency.

Below is a quick look at both groups’ contribution to the world economy in PPP-adjusted terms.

BRICS vs. G7 Global GDP Share

BRICS vs. G7 Global GDP Share

 

A major contributing factor to BRICS’ rise is Chinese and Indian economic growth.

 

After a period of rapid industrialization in the 1980s and 1990s, China’s exports got a significant boost after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. This helped China become the world’s second largest economy by 2010.

 

India’s economic rise has not been quite as swift as China’s, but by 2022, the country ranked third with a gross domestic product (PPP) of $12 trillion. Together the two countries make up nearly one-fourth of the PPP-adjusted $164 trillion world economy.

 

The consequence of using the PPP metric—which better reflects the strengths of local currencies and local prices—is that it has an outsized multiplier effect on the GDPs of developing countries, where the prices of domestic goods and services tend to be cheaper.

 

Below, we can see both the nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP of each G7 and BRICS country in 2023. Nominal GDP is measured in USD with market-rate currency conversion, while the adjusted GDP uses international dollars (using the U.S. as a base country for calculations) which better account for cost of living and inflation.

Nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP of each G7 and BRICS country in 2023

Nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP of each G7 and BRICS country in 2023

 

By the IMF’s projections, BRICS countries will constitute more of the world economy in 2023 ($56 trillion) than the G7 ($52 trillion) using PPP-adjusted GDPs.

How Will BRICS and G7 Compare in the Future?

China and India are in a stage of economic development marked by increasing productivity, wages and consumption, which most countries in the G7 had previously enjoyed in the three decades after World War II.

 

By 2028, the IMF projects BRICS countries to make up one-third of the global economy (PPP):

Nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP of each G7 and BRICS country 2028 projected

Nominal and PPP-adjusted GDP of each G7 and BRICS country 2028 projected

 

BRICS vs. the World?

The economic rise of BRICS carries geopolitical implications as well.

Alongside different political ideals, BRICS’ increasing power gives its member countries financial muscle to back them up. This was put into sharp perspective after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, when both China and India abstained from condemning the war at the United Nations and continued to buy Russian oil.

 

While this is likely concerning for G7 countries, the group of developed countries still wields unparalleled influence on the global stage. Nominally the G7 still commands a larger share of the global economy ($46 trillion) than BRICS ($27.7 trillion). And from the coordination of sanctions on Russia to sending military aid to Ukraine, the G7 still wields significant influence financially and politically.

 

In the next few decades, especially as China and India are earmarked to lead global growth while simultaneously grappling with their own internal demographic issues, the world order is only set to become more complex and nuanced as these international blocs vie for power.

 

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NATOstan Robots Versus the Heavenly Horses of Multipolarity

Pepe Escobar

29August2023 https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/08/29/natostan-robots-versus-the-heavenly-horses-of-multipolarity/

 

The entire West is waiting at the room at the station with black curtains – and no trains.

Join us on TelegramTwitter, and VK.

We will all need plenty of time and introspection to analyze the full range of game-changing vectors unleashed by the unveiling of BRICS 11 last week in South Africa.

 

Yet time waits for no one. The Empire will (italics mine) strike back in full force; in fact its multi-hydra Hybrid War tentacles are already on display.

 

Here and here I have attempted two rough drafts of History on the birth of BRICS 11. Essentially, what the Russia-China strategic partnership is accomplishing, one (giant) step at a time, is also multi-vectorial:

– expanding BRICS into an alliance to fight against U.S. non-diplomacy.

– counter-acting the sanctions dementia.

– promoting alternatives to SWIFT.

– promoting autonomy, self-reliance and instances of sovereignty.

– and in the near future, integrating BRICS 11 (and counting) with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to counter imperial military threats, something already alluded to by President Lukashenko, the inventor of the precious neologism “Global Globe”.

 

In contrast, the indispensable Michael Hudson has constantly shown how the U.S. and EU’s “strategic error of self-isolation from the rest of the world is so massive, so total, that its effects are the equivalent of a world war.”

 

Thus Prof. Hudson’s contention that the proxy war in Ukraine – not only against Russia but also against Europe – “may be thought of as World War III.”

 

In several ways, Prof. Hudson details, we are living “an outgrowth of World War II, whose aftermath saw the United States establish international economic and political organization under its own control to operate in its own national self-interest: the International Monetary Fund to impose U.S. financial control and dollarize the world economy; the World Bank to lend governments money to bear the infrastructure costs of creating trade dependency on U.S. food and manufactures; promoting plantation agriculture, U.S./NATO control of oil, mining and natural resources; and United Nations agencies under U.S. control, with veto power in all international organizations that it created or joined.”

 

Now it’s another ball game entirely when it comes to Global South, or Global Majority, of “Global Globe” real emancipation. Just take Moscow hosting the Russia-Africa summit in late July, then Beijing, with Xi in person, spending a day last week in Johannesburg with dozens of African leaders, all of them part of the new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): the G77 (actually 134 nations), presided by a Cuban, President Diaz-Canel.

 

That’s the Russia-China Double Helix in effect – offering large swathes of the “Global Globe” security and high-tech infrastructure (Russia) and finance, manufactured exports and road and rail infrastructure (China).

 

In this context, a BRICS currency is not necessary. Prof. Hudson crucially quotes President Putin: what’s needed is a “means of settlement” for Central Banks for their balance of payments, to keep in check imbalances in trade and investment. That has nothing to do with a BRICS gold-backed supra-national currency.

 

Moreover, there will be no need for a new reserve currency as increasingly more nations will be ditching the U.S. dollar in their settlements.

 

Putin has referred to a “temporary” accounting unit – as intra-BRICS 11 trade will be inevitably expanding in their national currencies. All that will develop in the context of an increasingly overwhelming alliance of major oil, gas, minerals, agriculture and commodities producers: a real (italics mine) economy capable of supporting a new global order progressively pushing Western dominance into oblivion.

 

Call it the soft way to euthanize Hegemony.

All aboard the “malign China” narrative

Now compare all of the above with that piece of Norwegian wood posing as NATO secretary-general telling the CIA mouthpiece paper in Washington, in a unique moment of frankness, that the Ukraine War “didn’t start in 2022. The war started in 2014”.

 

So here we have a designated imperial vassal plainly admitting that the whole thing started with Maidan, the U.S.-engineered coup supervised by cookie distributor Vicky “F**k the E” Nuland. This means that NATO’s claim of a Russia “invasion”, referring to the Special Military Operation (SMO) is absolutely bogus from a legal standpoint.

 

It’s firmly established that the spin doctors/ paid propagandist “experts” of Atlanticist idiocracy, practicing an unrivalled mix of arrogance/ignorance, believe they can get away with anything when it comes to demonizing Russia. The same applies to their new narrative on “malign China”.

 

Chinese scholars which I have the honor to interact with are always delighted to point out that imperial pop narratives and predictive programming are absolutely useless when it comes to confronting Zhong Hua (“The Splendid Central Civilization”).

 

That’s because China, as one of them describes it, is endowed with a “clear-minded, purposeful and relentless aristocratic oligarchy at the helm of the Chinese State”, using tools of power that guarantee, among other issues, public safety and hygiene for all; education focused on learning useful information and skills, not indoctrination; a monetary system under control; physical assets and the industrial capacity to make real stuff; first-class diplomatic, supply chain, techno-scientific, economic, cultural, commercial, geostrategic and financial networks; and first-class physical infrastructure.

 

And yet, since at least 1990, Western mainstream media is obsessed to dictate that China’s economic collapse, or “hard landing”, is imminent.

 

Nonsense. As another Chinese scholar frames it, “China’s strategy has been to let sleeping dogs lie and let lying machines lie. Meanwhile, let China surpass them in their sleep and cause the Empire’s demise.”

Poisons, viruses, microchips

And that bring us full circle back to the New Great Game: NATOstan versus the Multipolar World. No matter the evidence provided by graphic reality, NATOstan in advanced seppuku mode – especially the European sector – actually believes it will win the war against Russia-China.

 

As for the Global South/Global Majority/”Global Globe”, they are regarded as enemies. So their mostly poor populations should be poisoned with famine, experimental injections, new modified viruses, implanted microchips as in BCI (Brain Computer Interface) and soon NATO As Global Robocop “security” outfits.

 

The coming of BRICS 11 is already unleashing a new imperial wave of deadly poisoning, brand new viruses and cyborgs.

The imperial master issued the order to “save” the Japanese seafood industry – a few scraps as quid pro quod for Tokyo acting as a rabid dog in the imperial Chip War against China, and dutifully pledging alliance at the recent Camp David summit side by side with the South Korean vassals.

 

The EU vassals, in synch, lifted Japan food import rules just as Fukushima nuclear wastewater was to be pumped into the ocean. That’s yet another instance of the EU continuing to dig its own grave – as Japan is set to suffer a Typhoon Number Ten type of blowback.

 

Radiation spread across the world through the Pacific will breed endless cancer patients around the world and simultaneously destroy the economy of several small island nations relying heavily on tourism.

 

In parallel, Sergey Glazyev, Minister of Macroeconomics at the Eurasian Economic Commission, part of the EAEU, has been among the very few warning about the new trans-humanist frontier: the Nanotechnology Injection craze ahead – something quite well documented in scientific journals.

 

Quoting Dr. Steve Hotze, Glazyev in one of his Telegram posts explained what DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has been doing, “injecting nanobots in the form of graphene oxide and hydrogel” into the human body, thus creating an interface between nanobots and brain cells. We become “a receptor, receiver and transmitter of signals. The brain will receive signals from the outside, and you can be manipulated remotely.”

 

Glazyev also refers to the by now frantic promotion of “Eris”, a new Covid variety, named by the WHO after the Greek goddess of discord and enmity, daughter of the goddess of night, Nykta.

 

Those familiar with Greek mythology will know that Eris was quite angry because she was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Her vengeance was to plant at the feast a golden apple from the gardens of Hesperides with the inscription “Most Beautiful”: that was the legendary “apple of discord”, which generated the Mother of All Catfights between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. And that eventually led to no less than the Trojan War.

In the White Room, with black curtains

It’s oh so predictable, coming from those “elites” running the show, to name a new virus as a harbinger of war. After all, The Next War is badly needed because Project Ukraine turned out to be a massive strategic failure, with the cosmic humiliation of NATO just around the corner.

 

During the Vietnam War – which the empire lost to a peasant guerrilla army – the daily briefing at the command HQ in Saigon was derided by every journalist with an IQ above room temperature as the “Saigon follies”.

 

Saigon would never compare with the tsunami of daily follies offered on the proxy war in Ukraine by a tawdry moveable feast at the White House, State Dept., Pentagon, NATO HQ, the Brussels Kafkaesque machine and other Western environs. The difference is that those posing as “journalists” today are cognitively incapable of understanding these are “follies” – and even if they did, they would be prevented from reporting them.

 

So that’s where the collective West is at the moment: in a White Room, a simulacrum of Plato’s cave depicted in Cream’s 1968 masterpiece, partly inspired by William Blake, invoking pale “silver horses” and exhausted “yellow tigers”.

 

The entire West is waiting at the room at the station with black curtains – and no trains. They will “sleep in this place with the lonely crowd” and “lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves”.

 

Outside in the cold, long distance, under the sunlight, away from the moving shadows, across roads made of silk and iron, the Heavenly Horses (Tianma) of the multipolar world gallop gallantly from network to network, from Belt and Road to Eurasia and Afro-Eurasia Bridge, from intuition to integration, from emancipation to sovereignty.

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Escobar: Putin And The Magic Multipolar Mountain

by Tyler Durden, 08October2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-putin-and-magic-multipolar-mountain

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

 

There was a whiff of Thomas Mann’s ‘The Magic Mountain’ at the 20th Valdai annual meeting this week at a hotel over the gorgeous heights of the Krasnaya Polyana. north-west of the picturesque resort Sochi.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chairman of Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs journal Fyodor Lukyanov attend a plenary session as part of the 20th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club titled "Fair Multipolarity: How to Ensure Security and Development for Everyone" in Sochi, Krasnodar region, Russia. © Sputnik / Григорий Сысоев

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chairman of Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs journal Fyodor Lukyanov attend a plenary session as part of the 20th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club titled “Fair Multipolarity: How to Ensure Security and Development for Everyone” in Sochi, Krasnodar region, Russia. © Sputnik / Григорий Сысоев

 

But instead of a deep dive into the lure and degeneracy of ideas in an introverted community in the Swiss Alps on the eve of the First World War, we immersed ourselves in powerful new ideas expressed by a community of Global Majority intellectuals on the possible eve of a psycho neocon-intended WWIII.

 

And then, of course, President Putin intervened, striking the plenary session like lightning.

This is an unofficial Top Ten of his address, before the Q&A which was characteristically engaging:

“I even suggested joining NATO for Russia. But no, NATO does not need such a country (…) Apparently, the problem is geopolitical interests and an arrogant attitude towards others.”

“We never started the so-called war in Ukraine. We are trying to end it.”

“In the international system, lawlessness reigns supreme.”

“This is not a territorial war. The issue is much broader and more fundamental: it is about the principles on which a new world order will be built.”

“The history of the West is a chronicle of endless expansion, and a huge financial pyramid.”

“A certain part of the West always needs an enemy. To preserve the internal control of their system.”

“Perhaps [the West] should check its hubris.”

“That era [of Western domination] is long gone. It’s never coming back.”

“Russia is a distinct civilization-state”.

“Our understanding of civilization is quite different. First, there are many civilizations. And none of them is better or worse than the other. They are equal, as expressions of the aspirations of their cultures, their traditions, their peoples. For each of us it is different.”

On The Road to “Asynchronous Multipolarity”

The theme of Valdai 2023 was, most appropriately, ‘Fair Multipolarity’. The key axes of discussion were presented in this provocative, detailed report. It’s as if the report had prepared the stage for Putin’s address and his carefully crafted answers to the questions from the plenary.

 

The concept of multipolarity in the Russian space was first articulated by the late, great Yevgeny Primakov in the mid-Nineties. Now, the road to multipolarity is based on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s concept of “strategic patience”.

 

In a crisscrossed cornucopia of nation-states, larger blocs, security blocs and ideological historic blocs, we’re now deep into mega-alignments – even as the political West cultivates its universalist ambitions. The Eurasian “non-bloc” is in fact a mega-alignment, as much as the revitalized Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which finds its expression in the G77 (actually formed by 134 nations).

 

The ideal path to follow might be horizontalism – in a Deleuze-Guattari sense – where we would have 200 equal nation-states. Of course the collective West won’t allow it. Andrey Shushentov, Dean of the School of International Relations at MGIMO University, proposes the notion of “asynchronous multipolarity”. Radhika Desai of Manitoba University proposes “pluripolarity” – borrowing from Hugo Chavez.

 

The risk, as expressed by Turkish political scientist Ilter Turan, is that by trying to build a replica of the present system via, for instance, BRICS 11, we may be racing towards a parallel system that simply cannot organize itself as the leader of a new order. So, a clearly possible outcome is a bipolar system – considering the impossible convergence of common values.

 

At the same time, a South-east Asian perspective, expressed by the President of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, Pham Lan Dung, points to what is really relevant for middle and small countries: everything should proceed on the basis of South-South friendships.

The BRICS Bank: It’s Complicated

In one of the key panels on BRICS as a prototype of a new international architecture, the star of the show was Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr, who drew on his vast former experience at the IMF and as Vice-President of the NDB – the BRICS bank – for a realist presentation.

 

The key problem of the NDB is how to maintain unity while navigating power politics and reaching the upcoming stages of de-dollarization.

 

Batista outlined how a new international financial architecture may imply a future common currency. He stressed the success of implementing two practical experiments: a BRICS monetary fund (called the Contingent Reserve Agreement, CRA) and a multilateral development bank, the NDB.

 

Progress though “has been slow”. The monetary fund “has been frozen by the five Central Banks”, and must be expanded. Links with the IMF “must be severed”, but that incurs “fierce resistance” by the five Central Banks of BRICS members (and soon there will be 11).

 

Turning the NDB around will be a Sisyphean task. Disbursement of loans as well as project implementation have been “slow”. The US dollar “is the unit of account for the bank” – which in itself is counter-productive. The NDB is far from being a global bank: only three countries so far have joined. Current NDB President Dilma Rousseff has only two years to turn it around.

 

Batista remarked how the common currency idea first came from Russia, and was instantly embraced by Lula when he was Brazil’s President in the 2000s. The R5 concept – the currencies of all current five BRICS members start with a “R” – may endure; but now that will have to expand to R11.

 

The first substantial step ahead, after revamping the NDB, should be a currency from an issuing bank backed by bonds guaranteed by member countries, freely convertible, with currency swaps denominated in R5.

 

A healthy prospect is that Russia will appoint the next bank President starting in 2025. So the way forward substantially depends on Russia and Brazil, Batista emphasized. At the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in south-west Russia next year, “a key decision should be made”. And during the Brazilian BRICS presidency in 2025, “the first practical steps should be announced”.

Looking For a New Universality

Almost all panels at Valdai focused on how to develop an alternative system, but the two main themes were inevitably the lack of democracy in current international institutions and the weaponization of the US dollar. Batista correctly observed how the US itself is the main enemy of the US dollar when using it as a weapon.

 

At the Q&A, Putin addressed the key issue of economic corridors. He noted how BRI and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) might have different interests: “Not true. They are harmonious and complement each other”. This is reflected in how they are geared to “ensure new logistic routes and industrial chains”, and all that “complemented by the real productive sector”.

 

Going forward, there’s a pressing need to coin a new terminology for this emerging new “universality” – even as nations continue to behave most often by following national interests.

 

What’s clear is that the collective West’s “universality” is not valid anymore. A remarkable panel on ‘Russian Civilization Through the Centuries’ showed how the notion of “universality” actually entered Western civilization through St Paul – after his Damascus moment – whereas the Indian notion of equilibrium inbuilt in the Upanishads would be way more appropriate.

 

Still, we are now in hot debate over the notion of the “civilization-state”, as configured mostly by India and China, Russia and Iran.

 

Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of the iconic General, expanded on the French notion of universality, embodied in the much-quoted slogan “liberté, egalité, fraternité” – not exactly upheld by Macronism. He made a point to stress he was the “sole representative of France” at Valdai (only a handful of European academics came to Sochi, and no diplomats).

 

De Gaulle reminded everyone how Saint Simon was a Russophile and how Voltaire corresponded with Catherine the Great. He alluded to the deep Franco-Russian cultural ties; a “shared community of interests”; and “the bond of Christianity”.

 

In contrast, crucially, “the US never accepted that Russia could develop under a different model”. And now that is illustrated by “how little today’s intellectual elites in the West know about Eurasia.”

 

De Gaulle emphasized the “tragic mistake is to see Russia through Western eyes”. He invoked Dostoevsky as he lamented the current “destruction of family values” and “existential void” inbuilt in the process of manufacturing consent. He pledged to “fight for independence”, just like his grandfather, under the seal of “faith, family and honor”, and stressed “we must rethink Europe”, inviting “war profiteers to come to Russia”.

Top of The Hill: a Cathedral or a Fortress?

Beyond Valdai, and especially throughout the crucial year of 2024 – while Russia holds the presidency of BRICS – there will be much further discussion about “poles” of ancient civilizations. A broad coalition of states that support multipolarity actually do not support the “civilization” concept; instead, they support the notion of people sovereignty.

 

It was up to Dayan Jayatilleka, former Sri Lankan plenipotentiary ambassador to Russia, to come up with a brilliant formulation.

 

He showed how Vietnam faced a proxy war against the hegemon successfully – “using 5,000 years of Vietnamese civilization”. That was “an internationalist phenomenon”. Ho Chi Minh took his ideas from Lenin – while enjoying full support from students in the US and Europe.

 

Russia might therefore learn from the Vietnamese experience how to conquer young hearts and minds across the West for its quest towards multipolarity.

 

It was clear to the overwhelming majority of analysts at Valdai that the concept of Russian civilization is an “existential challenge” to the collective West. Especially because it includes, historically, the radical universality of the Soviet Union. Now is time for Russian thinkers to work hard on refining the internationalist aspect.

 

Alexander Prokhanov came up with another startling formulation. He compared the Russian dream with a cathedral on the top of a hill, whereas the Anglo-Saxon dream is a fortress on the top of the hill, engaged in constant surveillance. And if you misbehave, you “will receive some Tomahawks”.

 

The conclusion: “We will always be in conflict with the West”. So what? The future, as I discussed off the record with Grandmaster Sergey Karaganov, one of the founders of Valdai, is in the East.

 

And it was Karaganov who arguably posed the most challenging question to Putin. He stressed how nuclear deterrence does not work anymore. So should we lower the nuclear threshold?”

 

Putin replied, “I am well aware of your position. Let me remind you the Russian military doctrine has two reasons for the possible use of nuclear weapons. The first is if nuclear weapons are used against us – as retaliation. The response is absolutely unacceptable for any potential aggressor. Because from the moment a missile launch is detected, no matter where it comes from – anywhere in the world’s oceans or from any territory – in a retaliatory strike, so many, so many hundreds of our missiles appear in the air that no enemy will have a chance of survival, and in several directions at once.”

 

The second reason is “a threat to the existence of the Russian state even if only conventional weapons are used.”

 

And then came the clincher – actually a veiled message to the characters whose dream is “victory” via a first strike: “Do we need to change that? Why? I see no point. There’s no situation when something can threaten the existence of the Russian state. No sane person would consider the use of nuclear weapons against Russia.

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BRICS On The March

by Tyler Durden, 30June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/brics-march

Via GEFIRA,

More and more countries have aspired to belong to BRICS since 2009, but none from the West.

The BRICS countries represent 40% of the world population and 25% of the global GDP.

 

Thanks to BRICS, China can impose its vision of international cooperation and Russia can show that it will not be isolated on the stage of global players.

 

The group is a thorn in the side of the Americans all the more so that a dozen other developing countries (marked in orange on the map below) want to join the current five countries of the alliance (red).

Proposed BRICS Expansion map

Proposed BRICS Expansion map

Source: Silkroadbriefing

 

What America certainly doesn’t like is the fact that French President Macron communicated the other day his interest in attending meetings of the alliance. France in BRICS would be a trigger for profound changes in the geopolitical landscape. We bet that Turkey can also join soon, which, like the case of France, will weaken the importance of the UN as a purely Anglo-Saxon project and that of NATO. Indeed, the BRICS countries are against the UN’s attempts to link the issues of climate with the issues of security, and France in BRICS can return to the de Gaullean concepts of foreign policy outside NATO.

 

A challenge to cohesion in BRICS is the large disparity in countries’ capacities (in favor of China) and the members’ focus on cooperation with the PRC, which results in a smaller number of relationships among the other partners. However, the main factor that has weakened the BRICS in recent years is the deterioration of relations between the largest member states, China and India, since 2017. Border and trade disputes culminated in the clashes on the Ladakh border in June 2020, which almost led to the cancellation of the BRICS summit in the same year and prompted India to deepen cooperation with the United States and the EU.

 

Now, the West’s involvement in the war in Ukraine is reviving anti-Western sentiments, not only in the BRICS countries.

 

Indeed, it is clear to more and more countries that the war was provoked by NATO’s excessive expansion.

 

The BRICS politicians also want to fight inflation whose cause they perceive not in the Russian attack but in the Western sanctions.

 

Whether you are pro-Western, pro-Russian, or in favor of the New Silk Road, it is better for all of us to live in a multi-polar world rather than to have all the strings pulled on the Potomac.

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BRICS Will Change The World… Slowly

by Tyler Durden, 25September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/brics-will-change-world-slowly

Via VoiceFromRussia.ch,

 

BRICS, the organization that is hardly noticed in the West, more than doubled its membership at the end of August – something is happening.

BRICS 25th Summit Leaders

BRICS 25th Summit Leaders

 

Introduction

It seems to be more a rule than an exception that the most important changes in the history of financial systems either go completely unnoticed or the vast part of the public – including financial experts and investors – does not grasp the importance of such transformations.

 

There are several examples for this claim: On December 23, 1913 the Senate passed and President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act. The FED being as “federal” as “Federal Express”, a private bank whose shareholder register is not open to the public, rules the world since 1913. The date of December 23 was wisely chosen since the public and most politicians were too engaged in Christmas preparations to realize that this event would change the order of America and then the world forever.

 

When Richard Nixon, on August 15, 1971, “temporarily” closed the gold window, the Sunday afternoon TV shows got interrupted – among else the TV series “Bonanza” – to inform the American people of his decision. Although, this event was called the Nixon Shock, people did not seem to grasp the importance of this deed.

 

Lastly, the famously brilliant Henry Kissinger managed to make a deal with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in 1974, which gave the US unlimited financial and, therefore, geopolitical power by creating the Petrodollar, banishing the danger stemming from a U.S. dollar that was backed by nothing, by backing it with U.S. military might in exchange for nearly unlimited investments in U.S. bonds.

 

Now, on August 22, BRICS, an organization, which does not gather a lot of attention in the Western media, announced that, apart from the five countries, whose initials gave it its name (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), BRICS welcomed six new members (Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) to join BRICS by January 1, 2024; therefore, BRICS becoming BRICS 11.

 

In this article, let us first quickly look at some facts & figures of BRICS 11. Then, we shall explore the history of the current financial system and it’s becoming in detail in order to appreciate its importance to U.S. power in the period from World War II to the present. Then we shall look at the way the U.S. abused the inherent privileges of this system, which is one reason that led to the current rise of BRICS. Finally, we shall try to answer the question whether the events of August 2023 have the potential to change the world or whether it will be one more fruitless endeavor of emerging market nations to stand-up against the Collective West.

Origin of BRICS

The term BRIC was coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill in a 2001 paper where he explained the future economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

 

In 2006, the BRIC countries met for the first time on the fringes of the UN-General Assembly in New York. A first formal meeting took place in Yekaterinburg in 2009. The aim of this initially loose community was to improve cooperation among its members. In 2010, South Africa joined, which means that this organization has since been called BRICS. This August the number of its members more than doubled and we shall call it now BRICS 11.

Figures

With regard to the most important economic indicators such as population, GDP (PPP), oil, natural gas and gold production, naked figures show that BRICS 11 is much stronger with regard to any of these indicators than G7 (Table 1).

BRICS vs. G7 Global Statistics

BRICS vs. G7 Global Statistics

 

These figures on their own should be a wake-up call to all the people, experts, politicians and investors who still seem to believe that it is sufficient to judge the financial world from a pure western perspective.

 

There are a few points I would like to draw the attention to of the readers regarding the way these naked figures could and should be read and interpreted. However, I am fully aware that I can only give you a glimpse at the reality and this exercise herein is of a very limited nature indeed.

 

Regarding GDP, I use purchase power adjusted figures. Why? – If you use the U.S. dollar as a tally to measure GDP, ask yourself the simple question: If I want to measure financial punch, does it matter whether, e.g., a Big Mac costs twice as much in U.S. dollar terms in one place than in the other? – In my opinion it does. The Big Mac Index should be reason enough to use PPP-adjusted figures when comparing GDP figures. The reason that Western outlets use the non-adjusted figures is pure marketing masking the debasement of the U.S. dollar and appearing stronger than one is – propaganda.

 

Regarding oil production figures, we should consider the following facts when assessing them: Firstly, although the U.S. is still the largest oil producer in the world with a share of about 18% of world production, the U.S. are also the largest oil consumer, using-up more than 20% of world consumption. Therefore, the U.S. are at this time not even able to cover their own consumption. Secondly, the large oil-producing members of BRICS 11 have a big influence – or better – control over OPEC. Therefore, BRICS 11 will also rule OPEC and, therefore, control the price and distribution of oil, which has not been given the nick name “Black Gold” without good reason. Thirdly, the production cost of U.S. oil are about 2.5 times higher than the production cost of Saudi oil.

 

Regarding natural gas one should note, that with the accession of Iran into BRICS, the two largest natural gas producers worldwide are joint members of BRICS: Russia and Iran. The largest non-BRICS gas producer is the (still) U.S. allied Qatar. BRICS is, therefore, also a powerhouse regarding natural gas indeed.

 

Regarding gold, it should shortly be mentioned that China and Russia are number 1 and 2 respectively regarding global gold production. Gold I mention in here since there is a rather good chance that – somewhere in the future – gold will again play a major role in future money systems, being the only manner to discipline central bankers who basically only did one thing since 1914 – printing money, debasing the U.S. dollar and cynically claiming to protect the currency. There are a lot of people in the West who actually claim that gold is a pet rock. These people do not understand the history of the past 4’000 years where gold was always king. The mere fact that Nixon abolished the gold standard in order to avoid bankruptcy is not a good argument against gold, but should be one in its favor.

 

Bretton Woods

In order to grasp the importance of the rather swift developments around BRICS and the rationale behind it, we shall look at the present system of the financial corset so imposed by the U.S. on the rest of the world. How did the U.S. achieve such dominance, how the hegemon behaved since, and finally the probability of a change of the system.

 

In 1944, the Americans reached the pinnacle of their power. They dominated the war effort together with the Russians, possessed 22,000 tons of gold, and the American industry produced 70% of the world’s manufactured goods. That is how complete dominance looks like: Military dominance, industrial dominance and gold – he who has the gold makes the rules. 

 

On top of these facts, the Americans – as ever – being the undisputed masters of marketing, persuaded the Europeans to believe that it was actually the U.S. who liberated Europe from the evil Mr. Hitler. This was a diplomatic master stroke since cold facts and figures clearly showed that the Russians bore the largest chunk liberating Europe from the Nazis. The Russians decimated the German Wehrmacht in the East and – in this endeavor – killed around 5 times more German soldiers than all western allies together at the western front. This very ability of marketing and deception by the United States would serve them well until the present day.

 

Against such an overwhelming power, based on the three pillars of military might, industry and gold, the entire rest of the world – whether friend or foe – did not stand a chance to have any influence worth mentioning on influencing US intentions.

 

The Bretton Woods system was thus an emanation of absolute U.S. power and not – as portrayed in history books – a mechanism negotiated by the victorious powers of World War II in an atmosphere of friendly partnership.

 

Bretton Woods also sealed the demise of the British Empire by giving the Americans absolute power through pegging the currencies of 44 member states to the U.S. dollar, which in turn came out as the only currency of the world backed by gold.

 

The British Empire on which the sun finally set, proposed a system that involved the introduction of an international settlement currency called the Bancor. This idea by John Maynard Keynes foresaw the Bancor being used as an international unit of account to which participating currencies would have been pegged. The value of the Bancor itself was to be backed by gold. The gold-backed Bancor would have served as the unit of account. A fair system giving a chance to countries with merit, leading to a multipolar world. However, a multipolar world was the last thing the Americans intended to build – they wanted to become the hegemon and achieved their goal; the British had not a snowball’s chance in hell with their – in my opinion – great idea.

 

The Bretton Woods system gave all member states the contractual right to exchange the U.S. dollar they held for physical gold at a fix rate of U.S. dollar 35 per ounce of gold. Therefore, the Bretton Woods system should have forced the Americans to behave fiscally disciplined so that all member countries would keep confidence in the U.S. dollar believing that the U.S. dollar was indeed as good as gold.

 

The Americans, however, as the world power and hegemon, did not care one iota about the interests of their partners and, starting in the 1960s, printed more and more U.S. dollars to finance the Vietnam War and the Great Society project initiated by President Johnson. Both, the costs of the Vietnam War as well as the Great Society Project, the largest social program of the USA up to that time, whose main goal was to completely eliminate poverty and racial injustice, got completely out of hand.

 

The French were the first to realize that the U.S. dollar was losing value due to American money printing and began to exercise their contractual right to exchange their U.S. dollars for physical gold. Others followed suit. The Americans’ huge gold hoard melted away like butter in the sun. While the USA had more than 22,000 tons of gold at the end of the war, it was only over 8,000 tons in 1971.

 

On August 15, 1971, all major television stations in the U.S. interrupted their Sunday afternoon programming and President Nixon addressed the nation. He claimed that the speculators were waging an all-out war against the U.S. dollar and that he had thus ordered the U.S. dollar to be defended against these speculators. He informed the American people that he had instructed the treasury that the convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold be temporarily suspended.

 

This all sounded very patriotic, but it was a complete lie. The speculators Nixon decried were actually member states of the Bretton Woods system who had realized that the Americans had ripped them off and were merely exercising their contractual right to exchange a debasing U.S. dollar for gold as stipulated in the Bretton Woods agreements. Nixon thus committed nothing less than breach of contract. The members of Bretton Woods were cheated and left sitting on their paper dollars being barred from getting their contractually stipulated gold.

Petrodollar – an exorbitant privilege

The deceived members of Bretton Woods decided not to hand over a declaration of war to the Americans, but kept silent like sheep and made a fist in their pockets. They probably believed that the Americans had dug their own grave by breaking the treaty.

 

However, they had not reckoned with the brilliant Henry Kissinger. The man was sent by Richard Nixon on Mission Impossible to save the Dollar. Kissinger convinced Saudi King Faisal to sell his oil exclusively in U.S. dollars and to invest the proceeds in American government securities. In return, smart Henry promised Faisal military protection. Other countries and commodities followed. Like Houdini, Kissinger freed the U.S. from a dire situation by making the impossible possible. Mission accomplished: The Petrodollar was born.

 

Now, if almost the entire world uses a single currency – the U.S. dollar – for almost all trading activities, all countries are obliged to hold this currency in reserve to pay their bills. These countries do not hold the reserves in cash, but invest them in American government securities to earn a return on their reserve holdings. In this way, the Americans managed to create the largest bond market in the world. It should be noted that the U.S. dollar is a product like any other, whose price is subject to the law of supply and demand. The U.S. dollar is not bought because it is a good investment in itself nor do most buyers purchase American products. No, U.S. dollars are required in order to buy nearly any product around the globe. This unjustifiably strengthens the price of the U.S. dollar. Why unjustifiably? – Other countries need to produce something worth buying that will hold up in the world market to keep their currencies valuable – the U.S. do not.

 

If now the whole world has to hold U.S. dollars and holds them in American government securities, the American government finances itself very cheaply because the price of American bonds does not depend on the strength of the American economy, but is based on compulsory buying due to the Petrodollar system – ingenious.

 

To put it bluntly, the U.S. could thus afford everything for over 50 years, because the bills were paid by others. Imagine a guy who goes shopping with a credit card that has not limit. He has a big mouth, buys everything he wants and never pays the credit card bill, but owes the money to those who sell him the goods, the latter never getting paid but receive an IOU only.

 

Only due to this – for the U.S. – brilliant system were the Americans able to increase their deficits to levels which can only be described as mind boggling: When Roland Reagan took office, US-debt was below 1 trillion, now it stands at over 33 trillion. Any other nation would have collapsed since nobody would dare to put money in such a black hole – but the whole world has to keep buying U.S. dollars due to the Petrodollar system. So, now we know how the U.S. could cultivate a lifestyle at the expense of others for over 50 years that in no way correlates with the performance of its economy. This great lifestyle is based only on the compulsion of the rest of the world to hold U.S. dollars. Giscard d’Estaing called this advantage an exorbitant privilege – rightly so.

Petrodollar, a geopolitical power tool abused by the U.S.

When it came to maintaining their privilege, the U.S. showed little squeamishness if anyone dared to break away from the Petrodollar regime. In recent history, two examples may be mentioned. We all remember the second Iraq war, when it was claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that this put the USA in danger. Despite a unambiguous report from the UN that there were no weapons of mass destruction or even a single hint that they existed, the Americans attacked Iraq anyway in order to rid the world of the evil Saddam Hussein and bring peace and freedom to the Iraqis. A big lie. Weapons of mass destruction were not to be found in Iraq; half a million civilians were killed – their relatives were certainly thrilled about this kind of democratic gift that the U.S. forced upon them. The reason for the Iraq war was a different one: the Petrodollar. Saddam Hussein – we don’t need to dwell on his qualities as a human being here – wanted to sell his oil not only in U.S. dollars but also in Euros. That was his death sentence. Anyone who claims otherwise is either ill-informed, naive or lying. The facts are on the table.

 

President Gaddafi ruled Libya with a strong hand for decades. He made Libya the richest country in Africa with an excellent infrastructure. Whether Colonel Gaddafi was a do-gooder or not is also not a topic of this discussion. Gaddafi also had a plan to get away from the U.S. dollar: He wanted to create the Gold Dinar to free Africa from the shackles of the Petrodollar. This, too, did not go over well with the Americans. The result was a dead Gaddafi and a completely destroyed country.

 

These two examples bring us to the geopolitical might the U.S. draws from the Petrodollar.  It is important to know that only the U.S. Federal Reserve can actually hold U.S. dollars. Every bank in the world that offers U.S. dollar accounts ultimately only has a booking entry for a U.S. dollar amount and a contractual claim against the US central bank. This also explains that any payment made in U.S. dollars goes through the U.S. Thus, the Americans can single-handedly cut off any party – be it a country or an individual – from the U.S. dollar or freeze or seize a party’s U.S. dollars holdings.

 

The U.S. has been using this tool systematically since World War II with countries deemed worthy of being punished or destroyed economically, e.g., the U.S. sanction Cuba for over 60 years or Iran for over 40 years.

 

This use of force was justified by the USA with flimsiest arguments like communism, terrorism, war crimes etc. Whether the accusations were or are true or not, is completely irrelevant, because the judge sits in the U.S. and the legal basis is force. Depending on the decade you live in, you gets the label of communist, terrorist, drug dealer if you have the audacity to disagree with the hegemon. And the lapdogs such as the European “rulers” agree with the empire and serve as its willing assistants.

 

When the Americans impose such sanctions, they regularly threaten any party that does business with the sanctioned party with sanctions as well. These so-called secondary sanctions work since most international business is transacted in U.S. dollars and the respective companies – banks, commodity buyers, industrial suppliers – have no choice, but to comply.

 

A lot of people in the world are of the opinion that the U.S. are not behaving fairly towards the rest of the world and completely abuse their exorbitant privilege they possess with the Petrodollar.

 

This concludes our journey into the world of the Petrodollar and brings us to the reasons why BRICS want to say goodbye to the U.S. dollar, as the U.S. has overstepped the mark. After the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the West, led by the U.S., not only slapped Russia with a flurry of sanctions that has no equal in history, but also froze the foreign currency reserves of the Russian Central Bank. Shortly thereafter, discussions began as to what the West intended to do with the funds. After the freeze, the robbery is now being discussed.

 

I strongly believe that with the freezing of the reserves of the Russian Central Bank, the U.S. triggered a reaction they did not expect. Huge nations like India and China became suddenly concerned that the freezing of Russian Central Bank assets set a precedent and could also happen to them, especially in the more than tensioned geopolitical situation of today where anybody who cares can easily observe that the strategy of weakening Russia is only a pre-course of the battle the U.S. will lead against China. This is also the reason that BRICS seems to speed-up the process. Apart from the current 11 members of BRICS around 40 further nations applied to join.

The trigger for the attack on the petrodollar

This concludes our journey into the world of the Petrodollar and brings us to the reasons why BRICS want to say goodbye to the U.S. dollar, as the U.S. has overstepped the mark. After the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the West, led by the U.S., not only slapped Russia with a flurry of sanctions that has no equal in history, but also froze the foreign currency reserves of the Russian Central Bank. Shortly thereafter, discussions began as to what the West intended to do with the funds. After the freeze, the robbery is now being discussed.

 

I strongly believe that with the freezing of the reserves of the Russian Central Bank, the U.S. triggered a reaction they did not expect. Huge nations like India and China became suddenly concerned that the freezing of Russian Central Bank assets set a precedent and could also happen to them, especially in the more than tensioned geopolitical situation of today where anybody who cares can easily observe that the strategy of weakening Russia is only a pre-course of the battle the U.S. will lead against China. This is also the reason that BRICS seems to speed-up the process. Apart from the current 11 members of BRICS around 40 further nations applied to join.

Consequences

We have now seen that the might of the U.S. and the fate of their economic well-being very much hinges on the Petrodollar and that the American leadership is very well aware of this fact, crushing anybody who dares not to use the U.S. dollar in international trade.

 

In my opinion, however, the U.S. government misjudges its own leverage to put fear into other nations at this time. The Petrodollar system only works as flawlessly as it did in the past as long as the U.S. were able to control the world with mere threats, which were – once in a while – kinetically executed as it was the case with Iraq and Libya. However, the embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan did not help the U.S. to be seen as the military force they like to portray. The loss of influence over Saudi Arabia and Iran is a painful geopolitical sign for U.S. foreign policy. The peace reached between Saudi Arabia and Iran and then between Saudi Arabia and Syria is not only an economic disaster to the U.S. regarding oil, but a geopolitical catastrophe regarding U.S. influence in the Middle East. With these peace makings, the U.S. have been deprived of their ability to play out the strategy of divide et impera since the U.S. cannot manipulate these countries anymore and it seems that the U.S. are not feared anymore. As a group the middle east nations became too powerful and do sell their commodities in other currencies other than the U.S. dollar – a scenario which was completely unthinkable just a few years ago.

 

BRICS 11 will have one immediate consequence: Their members will not use the U.S. dollar when trading among each other. This is a huge problem for the U.S. since these countries will reduce their U.S. dollar holdings and therefore, the refinancing of the U.S. budget becomes a problem, leading to higher interest rates, which will in turn lead to higher inflation and a further debasement of the U.S. dollar because what cannot be raised in the international markets has to be printed.

 

The much-discussed introduction of a new settlement currency based on gold within BRICS is not a necessary element to de-dollarization. Such introduction faces substantial hurdles also due to the heterogeneity of the BRICS members. However, the consequences for the U.S. dollar will be immediate and problematic to the U.S.

 

We explained the vast power of the United States since World War II. It is in my opinion a myth that the U.S. hegemony is based on its military might. Far more important is their financial hegemony which – at least until now – allowed the U.S. to more or less control the world with a relatively small army and 9 aircraft carrier groups who regularly, as a show of force, bomb the hell out of small countries which do not have air forces or air defense systems to stand a chance against U.S. force. The whole U.S. power is based on the Petrodollar – that is my belief.

Conclusion

There are authors who predict a quick demise of the Petrodollar and, therefore, of the American financial hegemony, which in turn will lead to the demise of the U.S. as the undisputed geopolitical world leader. Fact is, that a substantial part of the world will avoid using the U.S. dollar in trade. This development has already started. Therefore, the trend is set. However, it is in my opinion impossible to make any prediction as to the speed and timing of this trend. The proclaimed goal of BRICS and other organizations of the Global South, such as SCO, EEU, the Arab League and OPEC is to build a multipolar world. This seems to be a realistic goal. However, one should also take into consideration, that the larger these organizations become, the more heterogeneous they become and the difficulty of implementation of a common course of action will rise in line with the number of the respective members. Lastly, I would like to draw the attention to one historical fact a lot of people are not aware of. When the U.S. were at the peak of their might and forced Bretton Woods on the rest of the world, it still took 12 years until the U.S. dollar overtook the British pound in international trade in 1956. Some trends may be irreversible – but they take time.

*  *  *

This article appeared in English in the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report by Swiss financial expert Marc Faber and in abbreviated form on September 21, 2023 in the print edition of Weltwoche and on Weltwoche Online in German.

 

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BRICS Backlash: Huge Growth In China’s Aircraft Industry Is Flying Under The Radar

by Tyler Durden, 26June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/brics-backlash-huge-growth-chinas-aircraft-industry-flying-under-radar

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Let’s discuss Lyn Alden’s thought provoking Tweets on China’s aircraft industry.

Under the Radar

Lyn Alden-tweet-17June2023-Around the margins

Lyn Alden-tweet-17June2023-Around the margins

Lyn’s Tweet got me thinking about US exports in general.

United States Top 10 Exports

  1. [Petroleum Products] Mineral fuels including oil: US$378.6 billion (18.4% of total exports)
  2. Machinery including computers: $229.6 billion (11.1%)
  3. Electrical machinery, equipment: $197.7 billion (9.6%)
  4. Vehicles: $134.9 billion (6.5%)
  5. Aircraft, spacecraft: $102.8 billion (5%)
  6. Optical, technical, medical apparatus: $99.1 billion (4.8%)
  7. Gems, precious metals: $92.5 billion (4.5%)
  8. Pharmaceuticals: $83.5 billion (4%)
  9. Plastics, plastic articles: $83.3 billion (4%)
  10. Organic chemicals: $51.1 billion (2.5%)

The above list represents 2022, from United States Top 10 Exports

Biden Policy Impact

  • Biden energy policies would kill #1, and curtail # 9 and #10.
  • Bidens restrictions on sensitive machinery and chips will reduce #2, #3, #5, and #6 exports to China and Russia.

China itself seeks to curtail #4 and #5. What remains are gems, precious metals, and pharmaceuticals.

 

I am surprised grain exports are not in the top 10. But as Biden has riled China on a number of fronts, it has increasingly turned to Brazil.

 

That’s just a shift though. The US will just export elsewhere, but perhaps it creates some friction losses.

Airbus widens its lead over Boeing in China 

Meanwhile, please note Boeing’s China Orders Dry Up on US Tensions in Boost for Airbus

Boeing missed out on a 40-plane deal in September, following an even bigger hit in July, when China ordered nearly 300 Airbus aircraft worth about $37 billion at sticker prices. The misses reinforce how simmering US-Sino political tensions continue to complicate the dealmaking landscape for Boeing, which is also still waiting for its 737 Max to fly again in China.

 

Boeing, which hasn’t signed a major plane deal with China since 2017, took the unusual step of issuing a statement after the July Airbus order was announced.

The above article is from October 2022. Here’s an article from April of 2023.

Airbus Widens its Lead Over Boeing in China With Plans for Second Finishing Line.

Airbus announced plans Thursday for a second final-assembly line in China, the latest sign that it has a lock on the key aviation market over rival Boeing.

 

The announcement came as part of a state visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to China. The signing of the agreement by Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury was witnessed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and by Macron.

 

It will add another line to the final-assembly facility that Airbus opened in Tianjin, China, in 2008, which has put the final touches on 600 A320 aircraft to date.

 

Airbus (EADSF) operates four assembly sites around the world but it forecasts that China’s air traffic in particular will grow 5.3% annually over the next 20 years, significantly faster than the world average of 3.6%.

 

This will lead to a demand for 8,420 passenger and freighter aircraft between now and 2041, representing more than 20% of the world’s total demand for new aircraft, Airbus predicts.

By 2041, if not much earlier, I side with Lyn Alden on aircraft.

However, I don’t expect the BRICs idea will ever amount to much, quickly, if ever.

What About the BRICs?

Going Underground-tweet-16June2023-Almost 20 countries have applied to join BRICS

Going Underground-tweet-16June2023-Almost 20 countries have applied to join BRICS

Weaponizing the US Dollar

It’s easy to understand the BRIC backlash. What Does China Do With a Dollar That’s No Longer Risk Free? Buy Gold?

 

That’s the question I asked in 2022 and there is still no clear answer.

 

Michael Pettis commented “As you know, the hard part of reducing the US dollar component of your reserves is figuring out what the alternative should be, and with such high and growing reserves (once you include the indirect reserves at the state-owned banks) that is a very difficult question to resolve.

 

Talk is cheap and there is plenty of talk. I see it every day on Twitter.

But Brazil, Russia, India, China and whatever countries have nothing in common. The Yuan does not float, and there is no grounds for any trust in any common currency.

 

The idea of a gold-backed yuan is laughable. China has capital controls and imprisons anyone who speaks out against its policies, hardly the foundation of a currency that inspires trust.

Brazil’s President Calls for End to US Dollar Trade Dominance, So What?

On April 1, I commented Brazil’s President Calls for End to US Dollar Trade Dominance, So What?

Dollar Weaponization Expands – FDIC Message to Foreign Depositors Is Don’t Trust the US

On May 13, I noted Dollar Weaponization Expands – FDIC Message to Foreign Depositors Is Don’t Trust the US

There is increasing reason to mistrust the dollar. But why anyone should trust a Russia-China sponsored currency.

 

There is no trust anywhere. If Russia or China offered a gold backed BRIC would you buy that or would you just buy gold?

Trade is Not Between Countries

Importantly, trade is between individuals, not countries.

 

A Brazilian exporter to China needs the Brazilian Real or US dollars not a BRIC.

 

The Brazilian government can call for the end of dollar dominance but so what? What is the incentive for a Brazilian soybean exporter to use a BRIC?

 

Weaponing the dollar was a huge mistake. But the path to when and how that matters is unclear. Why trust any fiat currency?

In Two Years, China More Than Doubles the US on Car Exports, Catches Germany

Meanwhile, please note In Two Years, China More Than Doubles the US on Car Exports, Catches Germany

Expect the same for aircraft. It’s only a matter of time.

*  *  *

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What Are The BRICS Planning With August 22nd Durban Accords?

by Tyler Durden, 14August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/what-are-brics-planning-august-22nd-durban-accords

Authored by Peter Reagan at Birch Gold Group,

In my first explainer about the BRICS nations, you met the players and you know why their decisions affect the global economy. But why do their decisions affect us?

 

You need to understand that first – before the August 22nd Durban Accords will make any sense. (But once you do understand, you’ll be astonished…)

 

Professor Reagan’s class is now in session!

Global trade runs on U.S. dollars

Since World War II, the U.S. dollar has enjoyed the role of global reserve currency. You may have heard those words before – here’s what they mean…

 

Worldwide, when companies or nations transacting with one another don’t share a common currency, they use U.S. dollars. When a Chilean copper mine sells tons of raw ore to a Canadian refiner, they invoice (and get paid) in U.S. dollars.

 

Obviously, most nations don’t have a common currency (the exception is the Euro zone). So the use of dollars for international trade is simply huge, approximately 85% of the global total.

 

So the world relies on dollars to do business. That’s a great deal for us! That means, for example, that deficit spending and newly-printed money always have a home somewhere in the world. Simply because the world has to have dollars.

 

Like I said, that’s a great deal for the nation that exports dollars. It’s not such a great deal for everyone else…

“It’s our currency, but it’s your problem”

In 1971, President Nixon ended the convertibility of dollars to gold.

The rest of the world, to put it mildly, went nuts. The gold standard was supposed to prevent inflation – but it hadn’t (primarily because American citizens weren’t allowed to swap dollars for gold since 1933).

 

Absent a gold standard, how was the U.S. going to guarantee the value of the dollar? When challenged with this question by his counterparts at a G-10 meeting in Rome, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally astounded his audience by proclaiming:

“The dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.”

With no restraint on money-printing, the U.S. went on to make a whole lot more dollars… Take a look at this chart. The blue line indicates total dollars (M2, a measure of money supply) and the red line indicates purchasing power, which has declined 86.6% over the decades:

FRED graph M2 vs Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers

FRED graph M2 vs Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers

 

So, along with dollars, the current system exports inflation, too. 

That’s what Connally meant when he said it was their problem.

Well, the rest of the world has just sucked it up for the last 50 years, right? Why are things different now?

Weaponizing the dollar

Whether it’s marketed as a “peacekeeping operation” or a “police action,” going to war is ruinously expensive at best. Therefore, the U.S. historically uses financial sanctions as a “non-kinetic” method of dissuading behavior not in line with U.S. interests.

 

Simply because the world has to have dollars, as I explained above, whoever controls the dollar also has an outsized impact on the global economy. When the U.S. uses financial sanctions against another nation, we call that “weaponizing the dollar.”

 

Now, this has been going on for decades. Cuba, for example, has been sanctioned for over 60 years! Iran, for more than 40 years. In some sense, weaponizing the dollar is business as usual for the U.S. So it came as no surprise when, in 2022, the U.S. did it again.

 

In response to the invasion of Ukraine, the White House froze the Russian central bank’s $300 billion in U.S. dollar assets. A stroke of Joe Biden’s pen rendered them completely worthless. In addition, the Russian economy was shut out of SWIFT, the international money transfer system.

 

The results of this “shock and awe” economic warfare were underwhelming. The Russian economy failed to collapse – instead, they kept up business as usual, taking payment in yuan or rupees or gold instead of dollars.

 

And there are other consequences. As Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine wrote back in March of 2022:

But every time the U.S. and its allies kick a country off this system, it goes and finds other [methods] to use to trade. And other countries, countries that have not been kicked off the main network but who are not necessarily aligned with the U.S. in every way, think that the main network looks a bit less attractive… For another thing, the main system is visibly a tool of political power, and if you are not aligned with the U.S. you might worry about one day being kicked off the system yourself. So you get more interested in trying out alternative systems now, before you need them. And so kicking Russia out of the dollar-based international financial system makes it more likely that that system will be replaced, over time, by something else.

the system is weakened each time it exercises its power. [emphasis added]

That’s what the Durban Accords on August 22nd are about – Levine’s “something else.”

August 22nd may mark the beginning of the end of “business as usual”

You’ve seen that the BRICS nations cannot be ignored. Note that two of the five core members (Russia and China) are historically rivals of U.S. geopolitical dominance.

 

Both nations have been actively signing “bilateral trade agreements” with other nations – meaning they can buy and sell from one another in their own currencies, rather than using the dollar as an intermediary. But the whole reason a global reserve currency exists is to make international trade less cumbersome.

 

So the Durban Accords are an agreement, presumably to be announced on August 22nd, to launch a new, international currency backed by commodities. “Backed by commodities” is important – because it’s the easiest way for a new currency to gain credibility. Think about it – what currency in existence today derives its value from anything other than hope?

 

This new BRICS currency would allow participating nations to circumvent U.S. financial sanctions – and to avoid the problem of dollar inflation. (In other words, “our currency” is about to become “our problem”).

 

Initially, my sources indicate the BRICS currency could be backed by commodities produced and traded by BRICS nations – things like oil, industrial metals and grain – or, more likely, gold.

 

Backing their new currency with gold would be an obvious move for the BRICS. China and Russia are, respectively, the world’s #1 and #2 gold-mining nations (South Africa and Brazil are #13 and #14, respectively). Both China and Russia already have sizable official gold reserves (6th and 7th largest in the world).

 

That, in essence, is what the Durban Accords are all about:

  • An alternative to U.S. global financial dominance
  • A method of avoiding the weaponized U.S. dollar
  • A way of avoiding inflation caused by excessive dollar-printing
  • A means of simplifying and streamlining the bilateral trade agreements already in place

The Durban Accords may mean the first viable, useful alternative to the U.S. dollar.

And that’s why this is a very big deal.

P.S. On July 7, the Russian state-run media outlet RT confirmed the goal of the Durban Accords was to launch a “new trading currency backed by gold.”

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Escobar: The Russia-Global South Connection – Africa As Strategic Partner

by Tyler Durden, 29July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-russia-global-south-connection-africa-strategic-partner

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

The second Russia-Africa summit, this week in St. Petersburg, should be seen as a milestone in terms of Global South integration and the concerted drive by the Global Majority towards a more equal and fair multipolar order.

Flags promoting the second Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum are pictured outside St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg-Peter Kovalev TASS

Flags promoting the second Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum are pictured outside St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg-Peter Kovalev TASS

The summit welcomes no less than 49 African delegations. President Putin previously announced that a comprehensive declaration and a Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Action Plan all the way to 2026 will be adopted.

 

Madaraka Nyerere, the son of Tanzania’s legendary anti-colonial activist and first President, Julius Nyerere, set the context, telling RT that the only “realistic” way for Africa to develop is to unite and stop being an agent for foreign exploitative powers.

 

And the path towards cooperation goes through BRICS – starting with the crucial upcoming summit in South Africa, and the incorporation of more African nations into BRICS+.

Nyerere’s father was a very important force behind the Organization of African Unity, which later became the African Union.

 

South Africa’s Julius Malema succinctly expanded the geoeconomic concept of a united Africa: “They [neocolonial powers] thrive on the division of the African continent. Can you imagine the minerals of the DRC combined with the minerals of South Africa, and with a new currency based on the minerals? What can we do to the dollar? If we become a United States of Africa, with our minerals alone, we can defeat the dollar.”

No humanitarian nature, no deal

The Russian-African Conference of the Valdai Club functioned like a sort of final expert watch synchronization in the run-up to St. Petersburg. The first session was particularly relevant.

 

That came after the publication of a comprehensive analysis by President Putin of Russia-Africa relations, with a special emphasis on the recently collapsed grain deal involving the UN, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine.

 

Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Russian Federation Council, has stressed how “Ukraine, Washington and NATO were interested in the grain corridor for sabotage”.

In his Op-Ed, Putin explained how, “for almost a year, a total of 32.8 million tons of cargo were exported from Ukraine under the ‘deal’, of which more than 70% went to high-and above-middle-income countries, including the European Union, while countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia, as well as Yemen and Afghanistan accounted for less than 3% of the total volume – less than one million tons.”

So that was one of the key reasons for Russia to leave the grain deal. Moscow published a list of requirements which would need to be fulfilled for Russia to reinstate it.

 

Among them: a real, practical end to sanctions on Russian grain and fertilizers shipped to world markets; no more obstacles for banks and financial institutions; no more restrictions on charter of ships and insurance – that means clean logistics for all food supplies; restoration of the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline.

 

And a particularly crucial item: the restoration of “the original humanitarian nature of the grain deal.”

 

There’s no way the collective West subjected to the Straussian neocon psychos who control US foreign policy will fulfill all or even some of these conditions.

 

So Russia, by itself, will offer grain and fertilizers free of charge for the poorest nations and contracts for grain supply at normal commercial terms for the others. Supply is guaranteed: Moscow had the biggest grain harvest ever during this season.

 

This is all about solidarity. At the Valdai session, a key discussion was around the importance of solidarity in the struggle against neo-colonialism and for global equality and justice.

 

Oleg Ozerov, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and Head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, stressed how European “former” partners persist on the one-way track of shifting blame to Russia as Africa is “acquiring agency” and “denying neo-colonialism.”

 

Ozerov mentioned how “France-Afrique is collapsing – and Russia is not behind it. Russia is ensuring that Africa acts as one of the powers of the multipolar world”, as “a member of the G20 and present in the UN Security Council.” Moreover, Moscow is interested to expand Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) free trade deals towards Africa.

Welcome to Global South “multi-vector” cooperation

This all spells out a common theme in the Russia-Africa summit: “multi-vector cooperation”. The South African perspective, especially in the light of the raging controversy over Putin’s non-physical presence in the BRICS summit, is that “Africans are not taking sides. They want peace.”

 

What matters is what Africa brings to BRICS: “Markets, and a young, educated population.”

 

On the Russian bridge to Africa, what is needed, for instance, is “railways along coastlines”: connectivity, which can be developed with Russian assistance, much as China has been investing widely across Africa under BRI projects. Russia, after all, “trained many professionals across Africa.”

 

There’s a wide consensus, to be reflected in the summit, that Africa is becoming an economic growth pole in the Global South – and African experts know it. State institutions are becoming more stable. The abysmal crisis in Russia-Western relations ended up boosting interest in Africa. No wonder that’s now a national priority for Russia.

 

So what can Russia offer? Essentially an investment portfolio, and crucially the idea of sovereignty – without requesting anything in return.

 

Mali is a fascinating case. It goes back to investments by the USSR training the workforce; at least 10,000 Malians, who were offered first-class education, including 80% of their professors.

 

That intersects with the terrorism threat of the Salafi-jihadi variety, “encouraged” by the usual suspects even before 9/11. Mali holds at least 350,000 refugees, all of them unemployed. France’s “initiatives” have been deemed “totally inefficient”.

 

Mali needs “broader measures” – including the launch of a new trading system. Russia after all taught how to set up infrastructure to create new jobs; time to fully profit from the knowledge of those trained in the USSR. Moreover, in 2023 over 100 students from Mali are coming to Russia on state-sponsored scholarships.

 

As Russia makes inroads in French-speaking Africa, former “partners”, predictably, demonize Mali’s cooperation with Russia. With no avail. Mali has just dropped French as its official language (that has been the case since 1960).

 

Under the new constitution, passed overwhelmingly with 96.9% in a June 15 referendum, French will be only a working language, while 13 national languages will also receive official language status.

 

Essentially, this is about sovereignty. Coupled with the fact that the West, as recognized from Mali to Ethiopia – the only African nation never colonized by Europeans – is losing moral authority across Africa at astonishing speed.

 

Multitudes in Africa now understand that Russia actively encourages freedom from neocolonialism. When it comes to geopolitical capital, Moscow now seems to enjoy all it takes to build a fruitful, Global Majority-centered strategic partnership.

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Russia Seeks To Work With Africa To Weaken Dollar As Putin Hosts Summit

by Tyler Durden, 27July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/russia-seeks-work-africa-weaken-dollar-major-summit-opens

 

Talk of de-dollarization has long been in the air, particularly in the lead-up to BRICS nations gathering in South Africa in August, with the question high on the agenda.

 

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Wednesday issued a direct, provocative challenge to Washington and its dollar dominance, asserting that Moscow will work with African leaders to weaken the US dollar.

 

Zakharova, per remarks cited in RIA Novosti, denounced the United States’ using it as a tool for global hegemony, and as “a means of realizing its aggression.” The foreign ministry comments came just ahead of the high-level summit of African leaders set to be held in St. Petersburg at the end of this week.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Russian President Vladimir Putin

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Russian President Vladimir Putin

 

African leaders have begun arriving in Russia Wednesday for what is the second Russia-Africa summit since 2019, set to kick off Thursday and go through Friday.

 

Proposals for ending the Ukraine conflict will be discussed, but also alternatives in the wake of the collapse of the UN-backed Black Sea Initiative grain deal.

 

While President Putin is also hosting individual meetings with key head of states such as the Ethiopian and Egyptian leaders, there’s a degree of disappointment given the low attendance this year, clearly a result of the Ukraine crisis and the West’s pressure campaign and sanctions against Moscow.

 

The Associated Press noted that “the number of heads of states attending shrank from 43 then to 17 now because of what the Kremlin described as a crude Western pressure to discourage African nations from attending it.”

 

In light of this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has highlighted “unconcealed brazen interference by the U.S., France and other states through their diplomatic missions in African countries, and attempts to put pressure on the leadership of these countries in order to prevent their active participation in the forum.”

 

“It’s absolutely outrageous, but it will in no way prevent the success of the summit,” Peskov told reporters.

 

Russia in South Africa-tweet-26July2023-Official delegations from African countries

Russia in South Africa-tweet-26July2023-Official delegations from African countries

 

However, many more countries will be represented even if not through their heads of state, with the Kremlin underscoring that 32 other African countries will send senior government officials or their ambassador for the major summit, which Putin will oversee.

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Escobar: BRICS 11 – Strategic Tour de Force

by Tyler Durden, 27August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-brics-11-strategic-tour-de-force

 

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Chinese President Xi Jinping defined all the major decisions embedded in the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa as “historic”. That may be seen as an understatement.

 

BRICS Summit South Africa 22August2023

BRICS Summit South Africa 22August2023

It will take time for the Global South, or Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright President Lukashenko), not to mention the stunned collective West, to fully grasp the enormity of the new strategic stakes.

 

President Putin, for his part, described the negotiations on BRICS expansion as quite difficult. By now a relatively accurate picture is emerging of what really went down on that table in Johannesburg.

 

India wanted 3 new members. China wanted as many as 10. A compromise was finally reached, with 6 members: Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Argentina and Ethiopia.

 

So from now on it’s BRICS 11. And that’s just the beginning. Starting with the rotating Russian presidency of BRICS on January 1, 2024, more partners will be progressively included, and most certainly a new round of full members will be announced at the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in October next year.

 

So we may soon progress to BRICS 20 – on the way to BRICS 40. The G7, for all practical purposes, is sliding towards oblivion.

 

Bur first things first. At that fateful table in Johannesburg, Russia supported Egypt. China went all out for Persian Gulf magic: Iran, UAE and the Saudis. Of course: Iran-China are already deep into a strategic partnership, and Riyadh is already accepting payment for energy in yuan.

 

Brazil and China supported Argentina, Brazil’s troubled neighbor, running the risk of having its economy fully dollarized, and also a key commodity provider to Beijing. South Africa supported Ethiopia. India, for a series of very complex reasons, was not exactly comfortable with 3 Arab/Muslim members (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt). Russia assuaged New Delhi’s fears.

 

All of the above respects geographic principles and imprints the notion of BRICS representing the Global South. But it goes way beyond that, blending cunning strategy and no-nonsense realpolitik.

 

India was mollified because Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at the table in Johannesburg negotiating on behalf of President Putin, and highly respected by New Delhi, fully understood that a new, single BRICS currency is a long way away. What really matters, short and medium term, is expanding intra-BRICS trade in their national currencies.

 

That was stressed by New Development Bank (NDB) president Dilma Rousseff in her report to the South African summit hosts – even as Brazilian President Lula once again emphasized the importance of setting up a work group to discuss a BRICS currency.

 

Lavrov understood how New Delhi is absolutely terrified of secondary sanctions by the US, in case its BRICS role gets too ambitious. Prime Minister Modi is essentially hedging between BRICS and the completely artificial imperial obsession embedded in the terminology “Indo-Pacific” – which masks renewed containment of China. The Straussian neo-con psychos in charge of US foreign policy are already furious with India buying loads of discounted Russian oil.

 

New Delhi’s support for a new BRICS currency would be interpreted in Washington as all-out trade war – and sanctions dementia would follow. In contrast, Saudi Arabia’s MbS doesn’t care: he’s a top energy producer, not consumer like India, and one of his priorities is to fully court his top energy client, Beijing, and pave the way for the petroyuan.

It Takes Just a Single Strategic Move

Now let’s get into the strategic stakes. For all practical purposes, in Eurasian terms, BRICS 11 is now on the way to lord over the Arctic Sea Route; the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC); BRI’s East West Corridors; the Persian Gulf; the Red Sea; and the Suez Canal.

 

That blends several overland corridors with several nodes of the Maritime Silk Roads. Nearly total integration in the Heartland and the Rimland. All with just a single strategic move in the geopolitical/geoeconomic chessboard.

 

Much more than an increase of BRICS 11 collective GDP to 36% of the world’s total (already larger than the G7), with the group now encompassing 47% of the world’s population, the top geopolitical and geoeconomic breakthrough is how BRICS 11 is about to literally break the bank on the energy and commodities market fronts.

 

By incorporating Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, BRICS 11 instantly shines on as an oil and gas powerhouse. BRICS 11 now controls 39% of global oil exports; 45.9% of proven reserves; and at least 47.6% of all oil produced globally, according to InfoTEK.

 

With BRICS 11 possibly including Venezuela, Algeria and Kazakhstan as new members as early as in 2024, it may control as much as 90% of all oil and gas traded globally.

 

Inevitable corollary: operations settled in local currencies bypassing the US dollar. And inevitable conclusion: petrodollar in a coma. The Empire of Chaos and Plunder will lose its free lunch menu: control of global oil prices and means to enforce “diplomacy” via a tsunami of unilateral sanctions.

 

Already in the horizon, direct BRICS 11-OPEC+ symbiosis is inevitable. OPEC+ is effectively run by Russia and Saudi Arabia.

A ground-shaking geoeconomic reorientation is at hand, involving everything from routes plied by global supply chains and new BRICS roads to the progressive interconnection of BRI, the Saudi Vision 2030 and massive port expansion in the UAE.

 

By choosing Ethiopia, BRICS expands its African reach on mining, minerals and metals. Ethiopia is rich in gold, platinum, tantalum, copper, niobium and offers vast potential in oil and natural gas exploration. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, incidentally, are also involved in mining.

 

This all spells out fast, progressive integration of North Africa and West Asia.

How Diplomacy Goes a Long Way

The BRICS 11 Shock of the New, in the energy sphere, is a sharp historical counterpoint to the 1973 oil shock, after which Riyadh started wallowing in petrodollars. Now Saudi Arabia under MbS is operating a tectonic shift, in the process of becoming strategically aligned with Russia-China-India-Iran.

 

Diplomatic coup does not even begin to describe it. This is the second stage of the Russian-initiated and Chinese-finalized rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, recently sealed in Beijing. The Russia-China strategic leadership, working patiently in synch, never lost sight of the ball.

 

Now compare it with collective West’s “strategies”, such as the G7-imposed oil price cap. Essentially the G7 “coalition of the willing” self-imposed a price cap on Russian crude imported by sea. The result is that they had to start buying way more oil products from Global South nations which ignored the price cap and duly increased their purchase of Russian crude.

 

Guess who are the top two: BRICS members China and India.

After wallowing in several stages of denial, the collective West may – or may not – realize it’s a fool’s dream to attempt to “de-couple” the West-ruled part of the global economy from China, whatever is spewed out by Washington.

 

BRICS 11 now shows, graphically, how the “Global South/Global Majority/”Global Globe” is more non-aligned with the West than anytime in recent history.

 

By the way, the president of the G77, Cuban leader Diaz-Canel, was at the BRICS summit representing the de-facto new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): the G77 actually incorporates no less than 134 nations. Most are African. Xi Jinping in Johannesburg met in person with the leaders of most of them.

 

The collective West, in panic, regards all of the above as “dangerous”. So the last refuge is, predictably, rhetorical: “de-coupling”, “de-risking”, and similar idiocies.

 

Yet that may also get practically dangerous. As in the first ever trilateral summit in Camp David on August 18 between the Empire and two Asian vassals, Japan and South Korea. That may be interpreted as the first move towards a military-political Asian NATO even more toxic than Quad or AUKUS, obsessed to simultaneously contain China, Russia and the DPRK.

The Collective Outstripping of the Global North

The UN lists 152 nations in the world as “developing countries”. BRICS 11 is aiming at them – as they outstrip the Global North on everything from population growth to overall contribution to global GDP growth measured by PPP.

 

In the past 10 years since the announcement of BRI first in Astana and then in Jakarta, Chinese financial institutions have lent nearly $1 trillion for infrastructure connectivity projects across the Global South. The upcoming BRI forum in Beijing will signal a renewed drive. That’s the BRI-BRICS symbiosis.

 

In the G20 last year, China was the first nation to lobby for the inclusion of the 55-member African Union (AU). That may happen at the G20 summit next month in New Delhi; in that case, Global South representation will be close to parity with the Global North.

 

Claims that Beijing was organizing a malign conspiracy to turn BRICS into a weapon against the G7 are infantile. Realpolitik – and geoeconomic indicators – are dictating the terms, configuring the Shock of the New: the G7’s irreversible irrelevance with the rise of BRICS 11.

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Luongo: BRICS Summit Proves Geography Trumps Currency

by Tyler Durden, 03September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/luongo-brics-summit-proves-geography-trumps-currency

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

 

The 3-ruble commemorative silver coins that read "A Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State in Ufa" and "A Meeting of the BRICS Heads of State in Ufa", June 26, 2015. On June 22, 2015, the Central Bank of Russia issued the coins for the July SCO and BRICS summits in Ufa. [Photo/CFP]

The 3-ruble commemorative silver coins that read “A Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State in Ufa” and “A Meeting of the BRICS Heads of State in Ufa”, June 26, 2015. On June 22, 2015, the Central Bank of Russia issued the coins for the July SCO and BRICS summits in Ufa. [Photo/CFP]

The older I get the more time I spend asking the question, “Why does someone want me to know this?” Our media is so compromised that questioning the editorial bias of every issue is a full time job.And I know that it is done on purpose to distract us from the real issues in some instances while advancing an agenda in others.In 2023, the topic of de-dollarization has been all the rage. It’s been a non-stop barrage of hype and hyperbole. The din of de-dollarization talk became so loud in the lead up to the recent BRICS Summit that it drowned out what was really on the agenda for those few days.This talk came from all sides, from the BRICS leaders themselves as well as the western press dominated by both British and Davos interests.People fell all over themselves talking up the “BRICS gold-backed currency” trying to edge each other out in being ahead of the curve on this issue. After a while it became another moment to ask who benefits from all of this amplification?I’ve been writing about these things for years, knowing that those who control the production of commodities would ultimately get tired of the wealth extraction schemes operated by the financialization masters in New York, London, and Zurich.It was only a matter of time before they would make their move.

And I can tell you for real that I’ve never been amplified on any subject like this until such time as people in Moscow, Brussels and Beijing wanted this commentary out there.

 

Don’t take this for grousing, because it isn’t. It’s just an observation born of years of experience. I’ve come to understand what a lack of amplification means; that this is the story no one wants to be told.

 

So, this begs the question, why do they want it told now?

In many ways this is how I know I’m usually on the right track with respect to a particular issue. It’s my forever internalizing the baseball great Wee Willy Keeler who famously said that baseball is an easy game, “Just hit ’em where they ain’t.”

 

So, a lot of important someones wanted us to know about de-dollarization this year.

They had their reasons to promote this concept. And, as always, it has to do with influencing global capital flow while distracting the commentary from what was really on the agenda.

 

For Davos de-dollarization is just another attack vector on the United States.

By playing up the problems the US has domestically as well as geopolitically they create uncertainty. Capital hates uncertainty.

 

Throw in a purposefully-belligerent and incompetent “Biden” administration and you have a perfect cocktail of uncertainty which keeps capital markets globally distrustful of both the near-term policy mixed with the long-term trends.

 

Conclusion? The US is FUBAR.

[EDD:  FUBAR is a military acronym that stands for “Fucked Up Beyond Any Repair or All Recognition“. ]

Russia is at war with the West, so, of course, Vladimir Putin will talk his book on de-dollarization. He is the point man on the BRICS being “anti-dollar.”

 

There’s only this one little problem with all of this: The US dollar itself and the lack of alternative infrastructure for ditching it. Despite all of the jawboning and, frankly, propaganda on this subject, the reality is far, far different.

 

While everyone is talking de-dollarization, the real currency losing it’s position in global trade is the euro. But no one is talking about de-eruoization. I guess it doesn’t roll off the tongue as well?

 

According to the latest data from the SWIFT RMB Tracker, there is no currency that has lost more ground in global trade than the euro. In just over two years the euro has fallen from 39.5% of global payments outside the euro-zone to just 13.6%.

Global Payments Outside Euro zone-August 2023

Global Payments Outside Euro zone-August 2023

The dollar absorbed most of those payments with the British pound, Japanese yen and, yes, the Chinese renminbi taking up the rest.

 

So, the great distraction about de-dollarization is, in part, about paying no attention to the rapid demise of the euro and the emerging sovereign bond crisis that ECB President Christine Lagarde works everyday to paper over.

 

I’ve talked about this so much people are getting sick of it. (HereHereHere, and Here)

Eventually, however, no matter how hard they try to game the math, paint the tape and make deals to keep up appearances, markets are simply smarter than central planners.

 

So, with this in mind I fully expect over the next couple of months for the bond vigilantes to return with a vengeance now that Jerome Powell has everyone’s attention. He can further up his street cred with another 25 basis point raise in September, but honestly, he may not have to.

BRICS in the Wall

But, back to the BRICS. If de-dollarization wasn’t the point of the Summit this year, then what was?

Expansion.

And not just expansion for the sake of expansion, but geographically strategic expansion.

The BRICS formally added six countries — Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia. They could have added others and almost added Algeria if not for a last-minute veto by India on behalf of France.

 

Algeria is symbolic of the fight between Italy and France for access to African oil and gas. There can be no Ital-exit from the EU without Italy minimizing France’s influence in North Africa, shoring up its energy needs as collateral for a return to the lira.

 

Thankfully, with the help of Russia and China, the Africans are taking care of the Italians’ French Problem all on their own.

If there is one common theme beyond the geography (more on that in a bit) with all six of these countries it is their relationship with the supposedly former British empire. From the Arab states and Egypt to those that defied the Brits in the past — e.g. Iran and Argentina — these additions represent a power shift that is profound.

 

One look at the world map should make this point crystal clear.

BRICS Map-Post 2023 Summit

BRICS Map-Post 2023 Summit

 

Countries in Red are members of the alliance. Those in green have formally applied for membership and yellow are those that have openly expressed interest.

 

But it is the 5 countries clustered around the center of global trade that should grab your attention.

Because all talk of a BRICS common currency are nothing more than theatre if there isn’t a fully developed alternative financial supply chain to capture the profits and minimize currency risks and friction for all the members.

Taking them one by one let’s discuss.

Iran

So, let’s start with the easy one. Iran, in my book, has been the “I” in BRICS for years. Because with India constantly keeping everyone off-balance, much like Erdogan in Turkey, that incentivized Russia and China to invest heavily in Iran, as a counterpoint, making it the key to both China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Russia’s long-desired International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

 

India dragged their feet for so long on their contracted work on the Iranian port at Chabahar, that Iran nullified the contract, handed it to China, who then finished the work in less time than it took for Iran to get India on the phone to complain about it.

 

This is the kind of pivot that gets results. China and Russia have pledged hundreds of billions in investment and sales to Iran, supporting them after Former President Trump tore up the JCPOA and put on sanctions which didn’t work, unless Trump’s goal was to ensure what has transpired since.

 

This is further proof Trump doesn’t play 4-d chess.

Both the ports at Chabahar and Bandar Abbas now serve to get Asian trade, especially coming from Russia, exits beyond the choke points around the Mediterranean, Red, and Black Seas.

 

So, Iran was always going to be the first country added to the bloc. It quickly put India on notice to stop playing games.

Saudi Arabia

Adding Saudi Arabia and the UAE weren’t on anyone’s radar back during the Trump Interregnum, because Trump understood how important the Saudis were to the US maintaining its presence in the region.

 

The problem for Trump was that the Saudis knew he wasn’t a long-term solution in the US. All during his presidency events occurred that trace a line straight back to Obama’s foreign policy. Undermining Trump was the sole focus of Obama’s shadow government, especially our relationship with the Saudis.

 

With the successful intervention by Russia in Syria, and their own disastrous results in the War in Yemen, it was only a matter of time before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) came to his senses.

 

Saudi Arabia’s future was with the BRICS not the remnants of the British empire. As an aside here, I talk about Neocons all the time and the best way to think of them, beyond their hatred of pretty much the rest of the world, is to see them as the inheritors of the British empire’s foreign policy.

 

The US adopted this foreign policy a century ago under Woodrow Wilson (see my podcast with Richard Poe). Since then it’s been the one thing, aside from ruinous spending, that unites the Uniparty on Capitol Hill. Empire or bust. Looking at the ruin of our finances and domestic politics, “Bust” was the obvious outcome.

 

Saudi Arabia had no other option than to go along with its OPEC+ partner, Russia, if MbS wants the country to survive the end of its oil reserves.

UAE

The UAE addition is definitely part of the currency discussion. Dubai and Abu Dhabi have rapidly become centers for strategic commodities trading with very successful and deepening gold and oil trading. Dubai has its own crude oil benchmark. Even Moscow doesn’t have one of those (yet).

 

As Vince Lanci and I talked about at length in a recent appearance on Palisades Gold Raio (parts and II here), in order to even talk about some form of gold-backed trade settlement system, there has to be a deep and liquid supply chain and financial industry in place to facilitate both that settlement and minimize the storage risks to gold and currency risks of the alliance members trading bilaterally without the dollar as the intermediate.

 

So, adding Dubai as one node in that network outside of China’s control was important to building trust there. Having multiple exchanges, vaults, and refineries simplifies everything. And, with that, minimizes the ‘convenience premium’ of using the US dollar and maximizing members’ use of local currencies with gold acting as the universal trust layer and a blockchain for back office and auditing functions.

 

So, first, you add the financial center, then you start really talking the whole “Gold-Backed BRICS Currency.” Order of operations matters folks.

 

The UAE was necessary to get India to even consider going along with Russia and China on this idea, which is why the UAE dirham will be the settlement currency between India and Russia on oil sales, and not the ruble. It both creates validity for a third party while also keeps India free from directly contravening US sanctions on buying Russian energy.

Argentina

It shouldn’t be underestimated how much the IMF and European corruption have wreaked havoc in Argentina over the years. This is another resource-rich country that has been kept under constant upheaval which now has the opportunity, like Egypt, to get out from underneath the IMF’s thumb, depriving vulture capitalists all across the west the opportunity to plunder the country one more time.

 

Adding Argentina should see the development money necessary to build out its significant shale reserves at Vaca Muerta make its way into the country. This stabilizes its foreign exchange reserves and access to the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) gives it an alternative to the IMF loan sharks.

 

The upcoming elections could quickly become a referendum on IMF requirements and capital controls.

Egypt and Ethiopia

Egypt is a fascinating turn of events, because Egypt’s financial weakness was the very thing to create a strategic opportunity for Russia and China to make President Al-Sisi a great offer. Use our New Development Bank and stiff the International Monetary Fund if they won’t negotiate a debt write-down.

 

Like what’s in front of Argentina, Egypt now has leverage in negotiations they didn’t have before.

Either way the IMF loses here, because Egypt has an alternative lender it can force a write-down by the IMF for the first time ever or they can just default. China is already willing to forgive $8 billion in Egypt’s debt while the IMF is holding fast only to restructuring.

 

And if you think Egypt doesn’t have this leverage here let’s not forget that the Suez Canal still handles 12% of global trade daily. The BRICS bloc now have a political ally that controls the Suez.

 

With Ethiopia, along with Russia’s deft diplomacy with both Eretria and China’s with Djibouti where they have port access, the BRICS now has effectively unfettered access to the Red Sea. The pressure will mount for Eretria and Djibouti to make peace with Ethiopia, thus opening up trade in eastern Africa.

 

Access to or circumventing the historic chokepoints to global trade has been a long-held goal of both Russia and China. And it looks like with these additions to the BRICS bloc, they have finally achieved that.

Meet the New Boss?

In my last article on geopolitics, I brought up the importance of physical collateral for the future of the West’s financial dominance, especially that of Europe. The main reason why I keep harping on why Europe is in such trouble is because it’s obvious now that those with physical collateral, including the US, are no longer interested in selling that collateral to a colonial-minded Europe at cut-rate prices.

 

Russia, under Putin, was happy to court the EU as energy partners because he thought it would secure Russia’s future from potential war with Europe. He was willing to sell Europe cheap gas to maximize the total profit to Russia, not directly measurable in things like GDP or trade balances.

 

Some capital is political. Some profits are social, despite crappy Marxist commentary to the contrary.

This is why he went along with Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plea to build Nordstream 2, knowing it would incense the US/UK Neocons.

 

The peace dividend to Russia was just too big not to make a run at. Merkel’s betrayal of Putin over NS2 and the Minsk agreements are why we are in the mess we’re in today.

 

The Neocons struck geopolitical gold with blowing up Nordstream, depriving Germany and France of much needed gas. Things are so bad in Germany that they are now quietly dismantling their wind farms to rebuild coal-fired plants, going back to the one energy source they have in abundance in Europe.

 

Now Africa is in revolt against France. Last month it was Niger. This month it is Gabon. There is no way France can respond to all of these revolts on their own. They need outside intervention and it doesn’t look like it’s coming.

 

Queen Warmonger Vicky Nudelman went to Niger and was rebuffed. Reports are now circulating that she and her staff were caught completely by surprise with events in Africa and had no solutions, offers or even credible threats to bring to bear.

Pretoria was well aware of Nuland’s hawkish reputation, but when she arrived in Pretoria, the official described her as “totally caught off guard” by winds of change engulfing the region. The July putsch that saw a popular military junta come to power in Niger followed military coups in Mali and Burkina Faso that were similarly inspired by mass anti-colonial sentiment.

 

Though Washington has so far refused to characterize developments in the Nigerien capital of Niamey as a coup, the South African source confirmed that Nuland sought South Africa’s assistance in responding to regional conflicts, including in Niger, where she emphasized that Washington not only held significant financial investments, but also maintained 1,000 of its own troops. For Nuland, the realization that she was negotiating from a position of weakness was likely a rude awakening.

If you map Nuland to the UK/US Neocons who are not necessarily aligned with Davos then this report should shock you, because it tells us that neither are capable of moving into the power vacuum left by these juntas seizing power.

 

It says, with little equivocation, that all of the colonial powers of Europe are paper tigers. What started in Burkina Faso and Mali is spreading like wildfires set by Climate Change arsonists in Canada across Africa.

 

French President Emmanuel Macron can only scream impotently in Paris, Nuland can shake her fist screaming, “You’ll rue the day…,” and the US Dept. of Defense stands by and says exactly nothing.

 

At the same time clashes between Syrian Arab Army troops and US occupying forces east of the Euphrates River are back under the headlines.

Do you get the picture yet?

The fight for physical collateral is dovetailing perfectly with capturing control of the major trade routes. While the UK and their Neocon quislings are hell bent on starting WWIII over Ukraine, c.f. drone strikes on Russia’s Pskov airport from Latvia, the BRICS bloc understands that their best course of action is to continue building new relationships, networks, and pressuring the centuries-old colonial networks that have financed their power.

 

Staying out of a direct hot war simply makes good strategic sense. Attrition is a bitch, energetically.

Now they are being forced to expend their seed capital built up over these centuries on influencing events to their liking, and it’s clear they really don’t have the resources to do so for very long.

 

Against that backdrop, de-dollarization is the least of their worries.

It will be the thing that grinds away in the background, like Powell’s shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet, and will just emerge out of these events.

 

The choice the West is now facing is at what point do they stop fighting this and finally come to the negotiating table. Some factions, like the US military and the banking sector, have already made their intentions clear.

The others? Not so much.

When facing extinction, that’s when you find out where someone’s true loyalties are.

*  *  *

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‘If You Love Your Children, Flee The State’: California GOP Lawmaker

by Tyler Durden, 16June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/if-you-love-your-children-flee-state-california-gop-lawmaker

 

A California state senator has urged parents to “flee” the state if they “love their children” in response to what he calls alarming language in a new gender identity bill.

CA rep Wilson

 

Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita) is one of two lone Republicans on the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee , and has served in the state legislature for 11 years, according to the Daily Signal, who notes that he was the lone voice warning against language in the bill, AB 957, which was amended on June 5 by a Democratic senator to rewrite the state’s Family Code to list “gender affirmation” alongside a child’s need for “health, safety and welfare.”

CA Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita)

CA Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita)

Rep. Scott Wilk (R)Under AB 957, introduced by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D) and co-authored by Sen. Scott Weiner (D), a parent could lose custody of their child for not “affirming” their claims about gender identity.

 

“I’m now in year 11 in the state legislature, and all the time we’re proposing policies to protect children. After 11 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to start protecting parents.

That’s just not happening.

 

I’ve been here and witnessed a full frontal assault on charter schools, taking away parents’ choice in how their children are going to be educated to the detriment particularly of children of color.

 

In recent years, we have put government bureaucrats between parents, children, and doctors when it comes to medical care—and now we have [AB 957] where if a parent does not support the ideology of the government, [children are] going to be taken away from the home…” -Scott Wilk

I  was born and raised in this state. I love this state, but I’m not going to stay in this state. It’s just too oppressive and I believe in freedom and so I’m going to move to America when I leave the legislature,” Wilk continued.

Watch:

Tony Kinnett-tweet-14June2023- Sen Scott Wilk warns parents to flee his own state

Tony Kinnett-tweet-14June2023- Sen Scott Wilk warns parents to flee his own state

In response to the outrage, a spokesperson for Sen. Wilson tried to downplay concerns, saying “It’s not saying [affirmation] is the most important factor or determining factor. It’s one of many factors that the judge should consider while working out a custody agreement.”

 

Sure…

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A ‘Traumatic Fight For Survival’: The Demise of San Francisco Should Concern All Americans

by Tyler Durden, 25July2023 –  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/traumatic-fight-survival-demise-san-francisco-should-concern-all-americans

Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

San Francisco is a dangerous place to live. If in doubt, let me point you in the direction of Darren Mark Stallcup. An artist by day, a fentanyl citizen journalist by night, the young man recently made a shocking video documenting life in San Francisco.

Homeless people gather near drug dealers in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco

Homeless people gather near drug dealers in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco

Homeless people gather near drug dealers in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, Calif., on Feb. 22, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

 

A resident of the Tenderloin, a drug-infested neighborhood overrun with crime, Stallcup describes himself as a witness to a “zombie apocalypse” and “fentanyl genocide.” Every morning, he must navigate his way through sidewalks littered with needles, human waste, and even dead bodies. He describes “Frisco” as “a fourth world country within a first world country.”

 

Living in San Francisco has been a wild ride,” Stallcup tells me. He has “personally witnessed the city go from being a cultural capital to the technological capital to the fentanyl capital. After the massive tech exodus, led by Elon Musk, San Francisco lost billions in tax revenue.”

 

According to Stallcup, “Local leaders who gained an appetite from tech tax money soon found themselves desperate to quench their newfound appetite for money. The only other way for them to achieve this was to enable the homeless-industrial complex by allowing fentanyl to plague our community and corrupt various nonprofits and organizations.”

 

For Stallcup, his mornings and nights begin and end in an eerily similar manner: opening and closing his eyes to the sounds of people screaming for their lives and ambulances speeding by, sirens blaring.

 

“Sleep,” he says, “is very difficult to come by, especially living in the Tenderloin, where my apartment building has been broken into multiple times.”

 

“It’s traumatic, to say the least, a fight for survival,” he adds. Quite literally, a fight for survival. On more than one occasion, Stallcup has had to fight off burglars with his own bare hands.

 

Stallcup’s apartment building is surrounded by bodies (dead and barely alive), inordinate amounts of litter, tents, and an array of drug-related accouterments.

 

“Every morning, I go out and count the bodies,” he says, “sometimes giving them a small love tap just to see if they are alive.”

It’s “Groundhog Day” meets “The Road.” Early in the morning, white vans come by his place and stack the bodies on multiple layers of metallic trays. Welcome to modern-day America.

 

“This humanitarian crisis,” says Stallcup, “is a fentanyl genocide.”

He’s right. It is. In San Francisco, a person dies of a fentanyl overdose every 10 hours.

Theft, rape, and murder is rampant,” Stallcup tells me, “with mom-and-pop shops under attack every day.” Grocery stores are ransacked dry. Cars and apartments are broken into regularly.

Who’s to blame? I ask.

“I truly believe that I am witnessing the collapse of the Western civilization,” he replies, and he believes that it’s because of corruption and people “who profit from the chaos.”

 

Stallcup is particularly critical of the city’s mayor, London Breed. And for good reason. Her leadership skills have been seen as, for lack of a better word, anemic.

 

Stallcup isn’t the only disillusioned San Franciscan. As I write this, a number of major retail stores, including the likes of Whole Foods, Old Navy, and Nordstrom, are shutting up shop and moving elsewhere. In fact, since 2019, according to a recent San Francisco Standard report, nearly 50 percent of the stores in the city’s downtown shopping district have closed.

 

Who can blame them?

According to Fox News, even the city’s richest neighborhoods are being plagued by “smash and grabs, robberies, burglaries, and open-air drug use.” As Tracy McCray, San Francisco Police Officers Association president, noted, “The problems in the Tenderloin have escaped the Tenderloin.”

 

They most certainly have. To compound matters, gangs of youths, baseball bats in hand, are reportedly tormenting mothers and nannies, mugging them on their daily school run.

 

Last month, in Noe Valley, once a “charming, family-friendly neighborhood,” 11 phone robberies occurred. These robberies, according to the Telegraph, “are believed to have been carried out by the same gang who are targeting women picking up children from school.”

One woman was allegedly assaulted with a baseball bat, while another woman was punched in the face.

 

It’s hard to believe that, less than two years ago, San Francisco was named the 15th safest city in the world—yes, 15th. Today, as is clear to see, the city has become increasingly unsafe for all citizens. Viewed as a “liberal city,” San Francisco is, first and foremost, a U.S. city. Its demise should sadden all readers, regardless of their politics.

 

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or Zero Hedge.

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Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. is giving up two Major San Francisco hotels, Westfield is giving up San Francisco Centre and 60 Spear Street Sells At 66% Off. The CRE Doom Loop Accelerates as San Francisco has gone to Hell! “Well done, Democrats. You’ve effectively transformed a once-thriving city into a hellhole. “

Why would they give up on a loan that is due in 6 months, June 05, 2023 due November 2023?
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Park Hotels Makes “Difficult” Decision To Stop Paying San Fran CMBS Loan, Citing “Concerns Over Street Conditions”

by Tyler Durden, 06June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/park-hotels-makes-difficult-decision-stop-paying-san-fran-cmbs-loan-citing-concerns-over

 

Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. announced Monday that it ceased making payments on a $725 million CMBS loan which is scheduled to mature in November 2023. The loan is secured by two of its San Francisco hotels that it plans to remove from its portfolio.

 

The hotels in focus are the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square and the 1,024-room Parc 55 San Francisco.

“The Company intends to work in good faith with the loan’s servicers to determine the most effective path forward, which is expected to result in ultimate removal of these hotels from its portfolio,” Park wrote in a statement. 

 

San Francisco Downtown

San Francisco Downtown

You won’t be shocked by Park CEO Thomas Baltimore’s statement on why it’s a “necessary decision to stop debt service payments on our San Francisco CMBS loan”:

“After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park’s stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market. Now more than ever, we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges – both old and new: record high office vacancy; concerns over street conditions; lower return to office than peer cities; and a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027 that will negatively impact business and leisure demand and will likely significantly reduce compression in the city for the foreseeable future.”

Baltimore said removing the two hotels will “substantially improve our balance sheet and operating metrics.”

 

And there it is, a large real estate investment trust focused on hotel properties, with over 29,000 rooms in prime U.S. markets, abandoning San Francisco.

 

Park’s announcement comes days after San Francisco’s Mayor, London Breed, makes major U-Turn to fund police after an explosion in crime has forced companies to leave the crime-ridden town.

 

Well done, Democrats. You’ve effectively transformed a once-thriving city into a hellhole.

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CRE Doom Loop Accelerates As Westfield Abandons Largest San Fran Mall, Stops Paying $558 Million Loan

by Tyler Durden, 13June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/cre-doom-loop-accelerates-westfield-abandons-largest-san-fran-mall-stops-paying-558-million

Downtown San Francisco has been dealt another blow after Westfield and its partner Brookfield Properties made the “difficult decision” to stop payment on a $558 million loan for the metro area’s largest shopping mall after “challenging operating conditions,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

 

“For more than 20 years, Westfield has proudly and successfully operated San Francisco Centre, investing significantly over that time in the vitality of the property. Given the challenging operating conditions in downtown San Francisco, which have led to declines in sales, occupancy and foot traffic, we have made the difficult decision to begin the process to transfer management of the shopping center to our lender to allow them to appoint a receiver to operate the property going forward,” Westfield said. 

 

The mall at 865 Market St has multiple lenders tied to its commercial mortgage-backed securities. Those lenders weren’t disclosed. The receiver determines what happens to the mall next, but during a retail foreclosure, the property usually stays open.

 

Westfield San Francisco Centre

Westfield San Francisco Centre

 

This comes after Nordstrom, which occupies 312,000 square feet in the mall, isn’t renewing its lease in August after nearly four decades of operations. When Nordstrom closes, the mall only be 55% leased, well below the average 93% of other Westfield malls across the US.

 

Bloomberg obtained a letter to employees from Jamie Nordstrom, the retailer’s chief stores officer, who said the closing of Nordstrom is due to a slump in sales because of lower foot traffic, adding “dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years.” We suspect Nordstrom is referring to the out-of-control crime…

 

Westfield recently blamed “unsafe conditions” and “lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity” in the downtown area for Nordstrom’s departure. It also said the mall’s poor performance and crime-ridden surrounding area is an anomaly versus its other properties nationwide.

 

Westfield and Nordstrom’s exodus comes one week after Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. ceased making payments on a $725 million CMBS loan secured by two of its San Francisco hotels.

 

Park Hotels also blamed crime in the downtown area, and “San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges.”

 

In the past several months, retailers, including Whole Foods, T-Mobile, and many other stores, have closed up shop after progressive city leadership fails to enforce law and order. San Francisco’s CRE meltdown is only accelerating, and the latest property foreclosures of major hotels and malls might be the start and could stymie any economic recovery.

 

Meanwhile, the city is also grappling with the tech downturn and regional banking crisis that saw the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank. Another segment of the CRE market faltering is office, where vacancies are high as companies like Salesforce Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. are reducing square footage.

 

The departure of companies and CRE meltdown prompted San Francisco’s Mayor, London Breed, to recently make a U-Turn to fund police after years of promoting the defund the police movement.

 

Congrats, Democrats, You’ve effectively transformed a once-thriving city into a hellhole. Now watch it implode.

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Downtown San Fran Office Tower Sells At 66% Off As CRE Crisis Claims Another Victim

by Tyler Durden, 13August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/downtown-san-fran-office-tower-sells-66-haircut-cre-crisis-accelerates

Understanding the backdrop of the crime-ridden progressive metro area of San Francisco, alongside the mass exodus of businesses and residents, and the record-high vacancy rate of office towers, we asked a very important question earlier this summer: What are office buildings worth?

 

We quickly found out in June that one downtown San Francisco office building sold for roughly 70% less than its previously estimated value, an ominous sign of what would come as the commercial real estate market dominos appear to be falling.

 

Now Sixty Spear St., an 11-story building that is 30% occupied and is expected to be entirely vacant by summer 2025, has been sold to Presidio Bay Ventures for $40.9 million, about a 66% discount versus the most recent assessed property value of $121 million, according to local media SFGATE.

60 Spear Street San Francisco CA 94105

60 Spear Street San Francisco CA 94105

We acknowledge the formidable challenges that confront San Francisco,” Cyrus Sanandaji, founder and managing principal of Presidio Bay, who is now the office tower’s proud new owner. He remains a bull on the San Francisco office market and wants to expand the building’s square footage from 157,436 to 170,000 square feet and transform it into a “Class-A trophy office building with exceptional design and hospitality-driven amenities.”

 

All we have to say to Sanandaji’s CRE bet is good luck. The crime-ridden metro area covered in poop must come to terms with City Hall’s horrendous progressive policies that have entirely backfired and led to an exodus of businesses and people. Until Mayor London Breed can instill law and order once more — the ability for the downtown area to thrive once more will remain challenging.

 

Marc Benioff, the chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city’s largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, warned last month that the metro area is in danger. He offered a grim outlook: The downtown area is “never going back to the way it was” in pre-Covid times when workers commuted to offices daily.

“We need to rebalance downtown,” Benioff said, adding Breed needs to initiate a program to convert dormant office space into housing and hire additional law enforcement to restore law and order. 

… and documenting how the downtown area has rapidly transformed into a ghost town is Youtuber METAL LEO, who walks around with a video camera, revealing empty stores, malls, and towers.

Besides Sixty Spear, SFGATE provided data on other recent tower transactions:

The 13-story 180 Howard St. building, known for being the headquarters of the State Bar of California, sold for about $62 million after being expected to sell for about $85 million.

The offices at 350 California St. reportedly sold for roughly 75% less than its previously estimated value in May, and the 22-story Financial District edifice mostly sits empty. Just a few weeks later, nearby 550 California changed hands for less than half of what owner Wells Fargo paid for the building in 2005.

Things are so bad that some building owners are just walking away from properties:

And defaulting…

As the CRE crisis spreads, remember last week: Baltimore Sun Editorial Board Tells Everyone ‘Keep Calm’ Amid CRE Panic … this will only mean bad news for commercial real estate-small banks that could threaten financial stability and either cause a recession or make a recession more severe.

 

If you’re curious where we could be in the CRE crisis cycle, a recent analysis by CoStar Group shows 55% of office leases signed before the pandemic that were active during Covid haven’t expired, meaning vacancies will continue to rise.

 

Here’s what could be next: The collapse of WeWork will only cause more pain for CRE markets nationwide. The coworking company occupies 16.8 million square feet across the US. 

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Downtown San Francisco Becomes A Ghost Town As Major Retailers Flee

by Tyler Durden, 08May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/downtown-san-francisco-becomes-ghost-town-major-retailers-flee

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Retailers abandon downtown San Francisco in droves. Nordstrom is the latest, signaling  the death of the area…

downtown SF retail closures

downtown SF retail closures

 

That image from the Tweet below is from April 29. Since then, there have been more closures…

San Francisco Chronicle-tweet-29April2023-biggest merchants and beloved small businesses shuttered in downtown San Francisco

San Francisco Chronicle-tweet-29April2023-biggest merchants and beloved small businesses shuttered in downtown San Francisco

Nordstrom closes two stores and Saks Off 5th says goodbye as well.

 

San Francisco Chronicle-tweet-03May2023-Nordstrom will close two downtown locations

San Francisco Chronicle-tweet-03May2023-Nordstrom will close two downtown locations

Walgreens and Whole Foods Leave

Greg Gallagher-tweet-2May2023-Walgreens announces another store closure in San Francisco

Greg Gallagher-tweet-2May2023-Walgreens announces another store closure in San Francisco

San Francisco’s Dying Downtown

The San Francisco Standard says Nordstrom’s Exit From San Francisco Calls Downtown Mall’s Future Into Question

The Nordstrom at Westfield will close at the end of August, the company confirmed on Tuesday. The retailer’s exit will leave a gaping vacancy that could be very difficult to fill: the store sprawls across 312,000 square feet and five floors. A Nordstrom Rack across the street is also slated to close in July.

Less than a month ago, a nearby Whole Foods abruptly shuttered, citing employee safety concerns. The Whole Foods had made regular emergency calls since it opened in March 2022 for a mix of medical crises, assaults and other incidents; in September of last year, a man fatally overdosed in a bathroom at the grocery store.

Last week, a Walgreens store next to Westfield mall was the scene of a fatal shooting after a private security guard allegedly shot a shoplifter.

So far this year, police have responded to 74 reports of petty thefts, 54 fights and 30 grand thefts in the area.

Call Out the Guard

Zerohedge comments Gov. Newsom Activates National Guard And Highway Patrol To Combat San Francisco’s Drug Crisis

Gov. Gavin Newsom has called up the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard to combat San Francisco’s out-of-control open-air drug market as parts of the progressive-run city descend into chaos.

According to ABC7 News, CHP officers will be deployed across Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, while guardsmen will run intelligence analysis operations behind the scenes. The governor brought the two agencies together as the drug-related deaths in the city jumped 41% in the first quarter.

San Francisco Ghost Town

Brian Altano-tweet-03May2023-San Francisco become a ghost town in real time

Brian Altano-tweet-03May2023-San Francisco become a ghost town in real time

“It’s been completely surreal watching a major city like San Francisco become a ghost town in real time. Tons of restaurant and business closures. Way less commuters. Empty buildings everywhere. All the tech companies bounced and people got priced out. Just a hollow city now.”

Q&A on the Exodus

MishGEA-tweet-04May2023-don't people want to live there

MishGEA-tweet-04May2023-don’t people want to live there

 

Other than A through F downtown San Francisco is a great place to be.

*  *  *


 

Andrew Wong 🇺🇸-tweet-18April 2023-This is one way to defund Jeff Bezos

Andrew Wong 🇺🇸-tweet-18April 2023-This is one way to defund Jeff Bezos

 

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“There’s Poop Everywhere”: San Francisco’s Office District Not Only A Ghost Town, It’s Also Covered In Sh*t

by Tyler Durden, 25May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/theres-poop-everywhere-san-franciscos-office-district-not-only-ghost-town-its-also

Urban Alchemy employees pick up trash while people gather belongings in the Tenderloin neighborhood. | Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Urban Alchemy employees pick up trash while people gather belongings in the Tenderloin neighborhood. | Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Everyone knows that San Francisco is the nation’s largest public toilet – requiring the city to employ six-figure ‘poop patrol’ cleanup team, however a new report from the city Controller’s Office really puts things in poo-spective.

SF Feces Query

SF Feces Query

For starters, feces were found far more often in commercial sectors, covering “approximately 50% of street segments in Key Commercial Areas and 30% in the Citywide survey,” second only to broken glass as can be seen in the ‘illegal dumping’ section.

SF Feces moder

SF Feces moder

If you’re wondering about the city’s fecal methodology, look no further than a footnote on page 43;

Feces also includes bags filled with feces that are not inside trash receptacles. Feces that are spread or smeared on the street, sidewalk, or other objects along the evaluation route are counted. Stains that appear to be related to feces but have been cleaned are not counted. Bird droppings are excluded.

As far as where most of the poo is found, Nob Hill takes the top spot, followed by the Tenderloin and The Mission districts.

Feces Observed in SF Neighborhoods

Feces Observed in SF Neighborhoods

Via the San Francisco Standard

It’s terrible; this street is covered,” Tenderloin resident Joe Souza told The San Francisco Standard earlier this month. “There’s poop everywhere. You always see it along the wall and in front of the garage there.”

Percentage of Evaluation with Feces by Neighborhood

Percentage of Evaluation with Feces by Neighborhood

Meanwhile, nearly 2/3 of key commercial routes reported moderate to severe street litter, vs. 41% of the citywide streets struggling with the same problem.

San Francisco’s Streets Are Filthy. A New Survey Shows Just How Dirty

San Francisco’s Streets Are Filthy. A New Survey Shows Just How Dirty

Via the San Francisco Standard

As the San Francisco Standard reports;

San Francisco’s commercial and residential streets are also highly tagged up, with every neighborhood except one—Visitacion Valley—reporting high levels of graffiti last year. The issue is once again worse in commercial areas, of which 71% said they had severe or moderate graffiti.

A Clean City team in the Tenderloin power washes the sidewalk on Hyde Street in San Francisco. | Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

A Clean City team in the Tenderloin power washes the sidewalk on Hyde Street in San Francisco. | Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

“In terms of actual counts of graffiti observed, there were about 10 times (160,000 vs. 16,000 respectively) as many instances of graffiti reported in the Key Commercial Areas survey in comparison to the Citywide sample,” the report said.

 

And San Francisco’s favorite cleanliness fixation, human or animal feces, continues to be a sore spot for the city: Almost half of the surveyed commercial areas observed feces. Citywide, that figure was just 30%.

*  *  *

San Francisco’s poopocalypse comes amid a staggering commercial office vacancy rate as a combination of pandemic-era work-from-home policies, and people fleeing the city’s notorious violence and poo-covered streets have made the once-thriving city into a ghost town.

jason-tweet-23May2023-This used to be gridlock-now it’s a ghost town-SF

jason-tweet-23May2023-This used to be gridlock-now it’s a ghost town-SF

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Some Parts Of America Are Already On The Verge Of Being Ungovernable As Rampant Lawlessness Spreads Like Wildfire

by Tyler Durden, 15August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/some-parts-america-are-already-verge-being-ungovernable-rampant-lawlessness-spreads

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

In order for a civilized society to function, most people have to willingly follow the rules of that society.  If that happens, law enforcement authorities can deal with the few that choose to be lawless.

For generations, that is how things worked in America

There was a high standard of morality among the general population, and so the police were able to successfully handle the few bad apples that insisted on breaking the law.

 

But now everything has changed.  As a result of decades of extreme moral decay, lawlessness is rampant and there are vast multitudes of young people that openly flaunt the rules of our society.  In fact, there are already some areas of the country that are literally on the verge of being ungovernable.

Systematically looted the Nordstrom store at the Westfield Topanga mall

Systematically looted the Nordstrom store at the Westfield Topanga mall

 

A perfect example of what I am talking about happened in southern California on Saturday.

 

Dozens of lawless young thieves systematically looted the Nordstrom store at the Westfield Topanga mall, and they were able to get away with tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise

Shoppers at the Westfield Topanga mall in Canoga Park were in for quite a shock when dozens of thieves ransacked the Nordstrom inside the mall on Saturday, Aug. 12, smashing displays and stealing an estimated $60,000- $100,000 worth of merchandise, authorities said.

The Los Angeles Police Department responded to the mall at around 4 p.m. after hearing reports that between 20 and 50 people ran through the Nordstrom grabbing merchandise, leaving some on the ground and taking armfuls with them.

When I was growing up, this sort of thing simply did not happen.

 

But now we are seeing mobs of looters go haywire all over the nation on a regular basis.

This heist was obviously well coordinated, and not one of the thieves even showed a shred of remorse.

Topanga Mall Nordstrom Robbery 60-100k Stolen

Apparently these young people are not exactly languishing in poverty, because a BMW and a Lexus were among the getaway vehicles that they used…

After grabbing between $60,000 and $100,000 worth of goods, the crew fled in several cars including a BMW and a Lexus, cops said.

At least one guard was doused with bear spray — which causes violent eye and respiratory irritation in humans. The guard was treated by paramedics.

How are we supposed to respond to this?

 

As I stated earlier, we are seeing robberies of this nature so often now.

 

Several days earlier, dozens of  young people looted the Yves Saint Laurent store in Glendale

Earlier this week a high-end designer store in Glendale, California was looted by dozens of people in another flash mob burglary on Tuesday.

At least 30 suspects “flooded” the Yves Saint Laurent store in The Americana at Brand Tuesday afternoon and stole clothing and other merchandise before fleeing on foot and leaving the location in numerous vehicles, said police in a statement.

The total loss is estimated to be approximately $300,000.

Some people attempt to downplay the severity of these crimes by saying that these big corporate retailers can afford the losses they are experiencing.

No, they can’t.

Overall, U.S. retailers will lose more than 100 billion dollars due to theft this year alone.

 

This has become a major national crisis, and as J. Lee Grady has aptly pointed out, we truly have become “the land of the free-for-all”…

You’ve probably seen the videos of thieves filling trash bags with stolen merchandise from CVS or walking out of Home Depot or Wal-Mart with armloads of tools, laptops, detergent and athletic shoes they didn’t pay for. We used to call this shoplifting, and it was a crime. Today, it’s known as “inventory shrinkage”—and it costs retailers billions of dollars in losses. But many soft-on-crime politicians are treating criminals like victims and allowing the crime wave to grow.

Some retailers are locking items behind glass cases, but that hasn’t stopped brazen criminals who just smash and grab. Other retailers actually warn employees not to try to stop thieves—and they will even fire an employee for confronting a shoplifter. Welcome to the USA in 2023: We were once known as the land of the free; now we are the land of the free-for-all, where criminals can take whatever they want from store shelves knowing that no one will stop them.

A lot of of this theft is being fueled by the worst drug crisis in the entire history of our nation.

 

Today, vast stretches of the city of Los Angeles have been transformed into giant homeless encampments that are filled with “zombie-like residents smoking drugs”

Shocking new photos lay bear the devastating homeless crisis tormenting downtown LA – where filthy ramshackle tent cities are plagued by zombie-like residents smoking drugs, while others hawk stolen goods on street corners.

There are currently an estimated 42,260 people sleeping rough in the City of Angels – a startling 10 percent rise compared to just last year, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported.

Just this week, it emerged that the city had resorted to sending mobile teams with oxygen cylinders to Skid Row in a desperate bid to prevent overdoses amid its crippling opioid crisis.

The same thing is happening in San Francisco.

In fact, conditions have become so dangerous in downtown San Francisco that federal employees that work at “the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building” are being told to work from home for the foreseeable future

Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advised hundreds of employees in San Francisco to work remotely for the foreseeable future due to public safety concerns outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street.

The imposing, 18-story tower on the corner of Seventh and Mission streets houses various federal agencies, including HHS, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the office of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. The area is also home to one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets, where dozens of dealers and users congregate on a daily basis.

I find it perfectly fitting that “one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets” is operating right outside of a giant office tower named for Nancy Pelosi.

 

Politicians such as Pelosi have been making horrendously bad decisions for decades, and that has been a major factor in getting us to this point.

 

We are truly reaping what we have sown, and what we are currently experiencing is just the beginning.

Eventually, conditions will deteriorate so dramatically in our core urban areas that our leaders will be forced to implement extreme measures in a desperate attempt to restore order.

 

But ultimately you can’t govern vast numbers of people that have no intention of being governed.

The fabric of our society really is coming apart at the seams, and we are going to see things happen in the years ahead that will completely shock all of us.

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Target To Shutter Nine Stores In Major Cities After Being Targeted By Violence, Theft

by Tyler Durden, 27September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/target-shutter-nine-stores-major-cities-after-being-targeted-violence-theft

 

Retail giant Target on Tuesday announced the closure of nine stores in major cities across the US, citing violence, theft and organized retail crime. The news comes on the heels of a warning from the company that lost or stolen inventory has created a $500 million dent in profitability this year.

We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” the company said in a press statement. “We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all.”

According to CNBC, the company will close one store in Harlem, two stores in Seattle, three stores in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area, and three more in Portland, Oregon.

Target stores set to close in October 2023

Target stores set to close in October 2023

 

According to CNBC, Target, which has nearly 2,000 stores in the U.S., has been outspoken about organized retail crime at its stores. It has said theft has driven higher levels of shrink, an industry term used to describe losses from goods that were damaged, misplaced or stolen.

 

With today’s announcement, Target also stands apart in its decision to both shutter stores and to explicitly blame that decision on retail crime.

 

When asked in May if the company planned to close stores due to crime, CEO Brian Cornell said “We do not want to close stores. We know how important our stores are. They create local jobs, they generate taxes, they’re very important for those local shoppers, and they play a critical role in communities across the country.”

 

We’ll continue to do everything in our power to keep our doors open,” he added. “At the same time, we’ll be closely monitoring the safety of our team and guests as well as the financial impact to our business as we determine the right path forward at Target.”

 

Target also noted in its Tuesday release that the company supports the passage of the ‘Combating Organized Retail Crime Act,’ which proposes stiffer penalties for theft offenses, and calls for a change in the threshold which must be met by prosecutors before bringing federal theft cases. The Act would also provide retailers with a formal venue to trade information with each other, and law enforcement, through a proposed Organized Retail Crime Coordination Center.

 

Nine states have passed similar laws since 2022 (six so far this year), which have been supported by retailers and trade associations.

 

This goes way beyond just crime…

Target’s plight uncovers more layers of operational decay. The company’s struggles, spanning over a year, include an alarming buildup of unsold inventory, backlash against its Pride merchandise collection, and an evident pullback in consumer expenditure on non-essential items such as apparel and home goods.

 

In an uncharacteristic admission during an earnings call in August of last year, the company – alongside other retailers, highlighted the unexpected blow to profits caused by higher markdowns, along with desperate attempts to offload unpopular merchandise. A surge in inventories predictably correlates with a rise in shrink, leaving a dent in the retail margins, a situation previously unmentioned by Target in the last two decades.

 

Meanwhile, the introduction of locked cases for merchandise, hiring of third-party guard services, extensive training for store leaders in de-escalation tactics, and considerable investment in cyber defense to counteract fraud and organized crime have failed to make a meaningful difference.

 

“Despite our efforts, unfortunately, we continue to face fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully,” the company said in the release.

A looter rob a Target store

A looter rob a Target store

 

Target’s announcement, aligning with the release of the National Retail Federation’s latest National Retail Security Survey, sheds light on the nebulous shrink data. Despite a surge to $112 billion in 2022 from $93.9 billion the previous year, the shrink impact on retail bottom lines mirrors past patterns, with an average annual increase from 1.44% in 2021 to 1.57% in 2022.

 

In the wake of store closures across major cities, Target joins the ranks of Walmart, Nordstrom, and Walgreens Boots Alliance, which are all experiencing similar pain.

 

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Bob Hope Says Democrats Are Like Zombies

 

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Democrat-run metro cities overrun with ZOMBIE DRUG “TRANQ” that’s cooked down into powder form and mixed with heroin and fentanyl – eats human flesh

21May2023 by:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-05-21-democrat-run-metro-cities-overrun-with-zombie-drug-tranq.html

This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

(Natural News) Just take a stroll down any metropolitan street in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, or New York City, and you will feel like you just stepped onto the movie set of “World War Z.” There are actual zombies roaming the streets, sleeping standing up, and moaning from the flesh-eating disorder they have from taking a pet tranquilizer that eats human flesh (they thought they were just smoking fentanyl and crack). The zombie drug “tranq dope,” also known by veterinarians as xylazine, is now frequently used by drug dealers to “cut” other drugs (spread them out so they make more money), while further complicating the drug addiction nightmare for users.

Zombie drug tranq infiltrating heroin, fentanyl, counterfeit prescription pills, and sedatives

Just as one may have thought the illicit drug supply couldn’t get any more dangerous and deadly, it did. Many drug dealers use baby laxatives to cut cocaine and crack so they can make it look like there’s more to buy and use, and double or triple their profits. The side effects for drug users boiled down to a bad case of the runs, and then whatever else happens to the heart, brain, and cleansing organs from the continued drug use.

 

Now there is xylazine, a drug used by veterinarians and fellow surgeons for anesthesia, sedation, muscle relaxation, and analgesia. Doesn’t sound so bad for drug addicts, but the drug wasn’t made for humans, but mainly cattle, horses, and other mammals. Turns out, it’s too dangerous to use on humans because it causes dangerously low blood pressure, critically low heart rates, and wait for it… a disorder that eats away at the flesh.

 

Also, because xylazine is a non-opioid sedative, it’s also not a “controlled substance” in the USA, and NARCAN does not work as an anecdote to save people from overdosing, like it can with heroin or fentanyl. Xylazine cannot be purchased without a veterinary license, so how are so many drug dealers getting a hold of it to use to cut street drugs?

DEA puts out safety alert about “widespread threat” of fentanyl cut with xylazine in 1/4th of all fentanyl powder sold in America‘s socialist cities

The DEA is warning of a “widespread threat” of fentanyl cut with xylazine, the “zombie drug” that is stolen from veterinary clinics and mixed with other street drugs. Xylazine is ultra-deadly and can eat away at human flesh when consumed or smoked. Also, the fentanyl anecdote NARCAN does not work to save people from xylazine overdose.

 

About one-fourth of all fentanyl powders sold on the streets is now laced/mixed with the zombie drug, warns the DEA.

 

Xylazine causes CNS depression, respiratory depression, heart rate slow down, and death. This veterinarian drug for putting animals under for surgery is being taken in pills and smoked by druggies in Democrat-run metropolitan cities and it’s eating their flesh. Drug dealers are mixing this with fentanyl and people don’t know, and NARCAN won’t save them from this. It’s like a real-life scene from the Walking Dead show. Will these zombies still be able to vote for Biden in 2024, for more free money and new crack pipes for smoking Tranq?

 

Tranq gives it’s users leper-looking sores and can result in amputation of limbs. When combined with fentanyl the chances of death skyrocket from just one use. Many druggies die the first try, and most don’t even know they’re getting xylazine at all. The Democrats in DC like this, because it’s part of the depopulation program, along with Covid vaccines and open borders.

 

Tune your internet dial to NaturalMedicine.news for more tips on how to use natural remedies for preventative medicine and for healing, instead of succumbing to Big Pharma for toxic injections that spread disease and disorder.

Sources for this article include:

TheGatewayPundit.com

NaturalNews.com


 


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DEA Warns ‘Zombie Drug’ Hitting US Streets, Set To Worsen Overdose Crisis

by Tyler Durden, 24March2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dea-warns-zombie-drug-hitting-us-streets-set-worsen-overdose-crisis

President Biden’s efforts to end a nationwide drug crisis, which he promised to end during the 2020 election campaign, may face further challenges as the Drug Enforcement Administration issued an alert on Monday regarding a new concoction of fentanyl and a veterinary tranquilizer hitting American cities and towns.

“Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram wrote in an alert on Monday. 

 

The alert continued, “DEA has seized xylazine and fentanyl mixtures in 48 of 50 states. The DEA Laboratory System is reporting that in 2022 approximately 23% of fentanyl powder and 7% of fentanyl pills seized by the DEA contained xylazine.” 

DEA HQ-tweet-20March2023-𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐂 𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄𝐓𝐘 𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐓

DEA HQ-tweet-20March2023-𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐂 𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄𝐓𝐘 𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐓

When combined, xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer, also commonly known as “tranq,” and fentanyl make drug overdoses even deadlier because the opioid overdose antidote, naloxone, also known as Narcan, won’t reverse its effects.

 

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses between August 2021 and August 2022. About two-thirds of the deaths involved synthetic opioids.

Overdoses are the leading cause of death among the young in the US

Overdoses are the leading cause of death among the young in the US

 

The grim statistics are a significant concern for the Biden administration, who promised to end the drug crisis during the 2020 election campaign. But with open borders and record amounts of migrants flooding into the US, it’s no wonder the drug crisis is worsening.

 

Some have warned the proliferation of fentanyl, and surging overdose-related deaths nationwide should be designated as a “weapon of mass destruction.”

“In spite of all their effort and the best intentions of the administration, the fentanyl crisis is getting tremendously worse and threatening an entire generation of young people.

 

“Criminal cartels in Mexico and China are continuing to act with impunity. We need greater enforcement powers and more accountability from our own government,” Jim Rauh, founder of Families Against Fentanyl, an advocacy group, told FT last month. 

The DEA’s new alert of xylazine-laced fentanyl (some have called it the “zombie drug”) should concern all Americans because it renders Narcan useless.

[EDD: Tweets to Graphic to Post.]

 

 

HARD FACTOR-tweet-01March2023-Hot new drug Tranq is causing people's skin to fall off

HARD FACTOR-tweet-01March2023-Hot new drug Tranq is causing people’s skin to fall off

 

 

 

Brandon Farley-tweet-3March2023-Today In Portland a Fentanyl Junkie Obstructs Driveway

Brandon Farley-tweet-3March2023-Today In Portland a Fentanyl Junkie Obstructs Driveway

 

 

 

1r0nm41d3n-tweet-01March2023-Dude is tweaking hard and could this be a tranq sore

1r0nm41d3n-tweet-01March2023-Dude is tweaking hard and could this be a tranq sore

 

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Olive Garden Owner Warns: “Decline In Fine Dining” As Wealthy Americans Trade Down To Cheap Booze

by Tyler Durden, 22September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/olive-garden-owner-warns-decline-fine-dining-wealthy-americans-trade-down-cheap-booze

 

Sentiment continues to turn negative for the US consumer as the latest warning sign comes from a multi-brand restaurant operator with more than 1,900 full-service locations nationwide. During a Thursday morning conference call, the management team warned Wall Street analysts about “softness” among wealthier households.

 

Darden Restaurants CEO Rick Cardenas said, “We are seeing a little softness versus last year with household incomes above $125,000, and that primarily affects our Fine Dining brands, but it does affect all of our brands.” 

 

The multi-brand restaurant operator owns Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, and five other brands with more than 1,900 locations nationwide.

Darden Restaurants Brands

Darden Restaurants Brands

 

Cardenas offered more clues about waning consumer spending habits at restaurant locations:

“Now, this could be because the increase in luxury travel, particularly international travel, which you’ve heard a lot of people talk about, but as I’ve said before many times, there is a tension between what people want to pay and what they can afford, and they’re going to continue to seek value, not always about low price. They’re making tradeoffs, and food away from home is one of the most difficult things they can give up.”

Darden’s CFO told analysts that a decline in fine dining has been due to customers opting for lower-priced wines and other beverages over the past year:

“The decline in Fine Dining, part of that is driven by incremental costs they have year-over- year. Their pricing is starting to catch up. But also, there was some negative mix. On a one- year basis, there was a lot of negative mix on alcohol. When we look at what’s happening with — at Fine Dining, there is trading down to lower-priced wines and other alcohols on a one-year basis.” 

Darden’s exec team offered a cautionary view on wealthier customers amid a period of high credit card debt and depleted savings for consumers. The $2 trillion in excess savings from the Covid crisis has been all but depleted, according to according to JPM calculations.

Personal Savings vs Credit Card Debt 2016-2023

Personal Savings vs Credit Card Debt 2016-2023

 

The latest slide in consumer credit suggests folks are finally tapped out.

Revolving Credit Monthly Change 2000-2023

Revolving Credit Monthly Change 2000-2023

 

Meanwhile, with average credit card interest rates rising above 22% to a new record high…

Credit Card Interest Rate September 2023

Credit Card Interest Rate September 2023

 

And now that repayment of student loans has officially resumed, it will likely cause a $15.8 billion headwind for consumers every month.

 

The days of $80 steaks and $25 martinis might be over for now.

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This does not even include Local, County and Employer Labor Taxes.

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California Is The Most Costly State For Starting A Business

by Tyler Durden, 10August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/california-most-costly-state-starting-business

Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times,

Some of the people I admire most are small-business owners. One example that comes to mind is an auto shop guy who takes special care of his customers, never cheating them. Another runs a small restaurant with special attention to cleanliness. A third owns a gift store and always is walking around, straightening the merchandise on the shelves, interacting with customers.

Stacy Dean stands inside the restaurant she owns, the Kopper Kettle, in Yucaipa, Calif., on July 10, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Stacy Dean stands inside the restaurant she owns, the Kopper Kettle, in Yucaipa, Calif., on July 10, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

In addition to making a profit by keeping customers happy, these entrepreneurs must pay taxes and comply with numerous multiplying government mandates, restrictions, and regulations.

 

A new study found these crucial foundational businesses of our economy have it the hardest in California compared to the other 49 states. The ratings come from Venture Smarter, which provides services to small businesses. The ratings show how hard it is to start up a business.

The best 10 states:

1. Wyoming

2. Florida

3. South Dakota

4. Montana

5. Alaska

6. Colorado

7. Utah

8. Vermont

9. Georgia

10. New Hampshire

You’ll notice these are the states that score highest on other rankings, such as tax rates and the number of regulations. An anomaly is Colorado, which is run by a Democratic governor, Jared Polis, who favors low taxes.

 

By contrast, the worst states generally also are on other lists of most difficult business and tax climates.

The worst 10 states:

51. California

50. New York

49. Delaware

48. New Jersey

47. Massachusetts

46. Maine

45. Alabama

44. West Virginia

43. Missouri

42. Arkansas

41. Washington

Anomalies are Alabama, West Virginia, Missouri, and Arkansas, which generally score higher on other measures of business friendliness.

 

Delaware is President Biden’s home state and a tax haven for large corporations—but not small businesses.

California Business Startup Cost: $1,950

The startup cost in taxes and fees in the first year for a California business is a hefty $1,950. That’s almost up to New York’s highest cost of $1,985. By contrast, in Wyoming it’s just $160. Lowest is $50 in Mississippi.

 

A spokesperson for Venture Smarter told Value Walk: “Forming a limited liability company (LLC) in Wyoming can be a great way to protect your assets. The state is one of the most business-friendly states in America, and forming a limited liability company is relatively easy.

 

“Creating an LLC in Florida is also an easy process, whether it is your first time, or you are an experienced entrepreneur. … An LLC is a business entity designed to protect its owners from being held personally liable for business-related debts and LLCs have gained popularity because they offer a lot of flexibility for their owners.”

 

These are startup costs. The rankings don’t include such costs as rent, electricity, insurance, etc., which of course are much higher in California than elsewhere.

ALEC-Laffer Rank: 45th

The Venture Smarter rankings are similar to others. One of the best is the 2023 ALEC-Laffer “Rich States, Poor States” rankings by the American Legislative Exchange Council and economist Arthur Laffer.

 

California ranked 45th of the 50 states. It scored worst on income tax progressivity. That top rate of 13.3 percent just digs in and forces rich people from the state. But the 9.3 percent paid by the middle class is the worst in the country for that economic group.

 

On this report card, California also suffered Cumulative Net Migration—people leaving for other states—of 1,551,510 from 2012-21. That was second worst after New York, which lost 1,778,252.

2024 Tax Slam

It’s just going to get worse in 2024. The Wall Street Journal reported Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill “that raises the top marginal income-tax rate on the sly. High earners won’t know what hit them until it does.” That was Senate Bill 951.

 

“The bill funds an expansion of the state’s paid family leave benefit by removing the $145,600 wage ceiling on the state’s 1.1% employee payroll tax. … This means that in 2024 California’s top marginal tax rate will increase to 14.4% from 13.3% for workers making more than $1 million. Those making between $61,214 and $312,686 would pay 10.4%. So California’s upper-middle class will pay more than millionaires in almost every state save New York, New Jersey and Hawaii.”

 

Moving to a place with no state income tax, such as Wyoming, Florida, and South Dakota – the top three states for starting an LLC, as listed above – is looking even more attractive for small business owners. And the rest of us.

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The Psychology Of Inflation: What Makes You Say, “No Way Am I Paying That”?

by Tyler Durden, 28September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/psychology-inflation-what-makes-you-say-no-way-am-i-paying

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

 

Value varies. Invest in what’s valuable.

Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock

Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock

 

It’s a well-recognized human bias to feel losses more acutely than gains. Perhaps something similar occurs with inflation. As essentials soar in cost–i.e. non-discretionary expenses such as shelter, food at home, utilities, childcare, healthcare insurance, etc.–our only response is sighing resignation: yes, it’s a ripoff but there’s little we can do about it without making major changes in our lives.

 

Discretionary purchases are a different matter. The pleasures gained by the purchase are significant enough to be worth the financial cost. But at some point–a point that varies with each individual–the cost is so high that the pain of that expense outweighs the pleasure of the purchase.

 

This may explain why the public mood is sour despite the rosy statistics of economic expansion. The experiential gains of abstract economic stability do not outweigh the acute pain caused by soaring costs for pleasures that were far more affordable just a few short years ago.

 

Put another way: economically speaking, what is unseen statistically may have more impact that what is seen. So GDP is rising, blah-blah-blah, but can you believe I just paid $56 for a nothing-special breakfast for two people?

 

You see and hear these experiential leverage points all the time now: if you take a moment to observe the shoppers in the meat aisle, you see many lookie-loos: people go to the “sale” cooler for steaks, look at the price, shake their heads and walk to the discount bin to paw through what little is left.

 

Or you hear another shopper mutter, “I’m not paying that!” after glancing at the price.

Even well-off retirees are appalled when a fast-food meal that a few years ago would have been covered by a $20 bill now requires a $20 and a $10.

 

Millions of households have canceled cable TV service due to the soaring costs and marginal quality of the offerings. “Basic cable” that provided low-cost access to local channels has vanished, replaced by a “basic premium (of course) service” that costs four times more.

 

As long as the credit card had plenty of spending power, people didn’t seem to feel any pain as costs soared. $400 per day for a nothing-special room in a nothing-special resort, no problem. $100 to change the oil in the car, no problem. And so on.

 

But once the funds available for discretionary spending dry up, sensitivity to financial pain increases.

But just as consequential as availability of discretionary funding is the internal measure of value. The well-off retiree can easily afford the fast-food meal, but the pain exceeds the pleasure because the meal simply isn’t worth the price.

 

The perception of value varies significantly. Time, place and individuals all vary. What seems costly in one circumstance may offer high value to someone else. But if we plot all these unseen data points, we sense a change in the tide: a great many discretionary purchases are no longer worth the cost.

 

Conservative pundit David Brooks recently illustrated these nuances by expressing his discontent with a $78 tab for a meal at an airport restaurant. His online post suggested that his $78 bill for a hamburger meal was an example of why Americans were discontented with the economy.

 

It was soon revealed that the burger meal was $18 and the balance was comprised of three whiskeys at $20 each. Mr. Brooks apparently felt the price of the three whiskeys exceeded the value of the three whiskeys, but one wonders why he ordered whiskeys two and three if he was so disenchanted with the price of the first one.

 

This introduces two other psychological factors in inflation: sudden price increases catch our attention, and so they are more likely to trigger an experiential leverage point. The same can be said of serial increases in the cost of services that were previously stable: when the cable TV or utility bill rises inexorably month after month, we notice this and begin considering actions to reduce or eliminate this expense.

 

The other factor is we like to whine, as if low prices are an entitlement and we’ve somehow been robbed of something we’re entitled to. But value is conditional and contingent. In some cases, we simply can no longer afford the service or product. In other cases, the value has diminished as the cost has risen, or the cost has risen to the point it far exceeds the value.

 

Having lived on the margins most of my life, frugality was not an option, it was a pressing necessity. It is now a habit and a free-standing value independent of how much money I earn or have. So paying $100 to have the oil in my Civic changed is off the table. We change the oil ourselves, just as we’ve done for decades.

 

Acute sensitivity to value and price has its rewards. When we do splurge, we do it not out of habit but to reap the gains of some purchase that is well worth the monetary price.

 

Unlike jetsetters like Mr. Brooks, I can count the number of meals I’ve bought in airports on one hand, and several of those were voucher meals due to delayed flights. Earlier this year, I had a highly enjoyable airport restaurant meal that was worth a great deal more than the price. It was late, and there was only one restaurant still open. It was crowded, and I felt fortunate to get a table. I’d just left my wife in the post-surgery recovery ward of the hospital, grateful she was OK, and I was drained by a very long day of uncertainties.

 

The hamburger meal and draft beer cost $35. That was a splurge for me but memorably valuable in that time and circumstance. I was grateful to have something to eat, grateful to the overworked servers and for everything good that had happened that day. I remembered my own job serving the public, and how much a decent tip meant. 50 years later, I still recall the rare decent tips. I handed the server a $20 tip, it wasn’t much, but it expressed “thank you.”

Value varies. Invest in what’s valuable.

*  *  *

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California Defaults On $18.6 Billion In Debt, Saddling Employers With The Expense

by Tyler Durden, 08May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/california-defaults-186-billion-debt-saddling-employers-expense

California’s recent decision not to pay back some $20 billion borrowed from the federal government to cover unemployment benefits during the pandemic will fall on the shoulders of employers, according to experts.

 

“The state should have taken care of the loans with the COVID money it received from the government in 2021,” said Marc Joffe, policy analyst at the Cato Institute—a public policy think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., in a statement to the Epoch Times.

 

In the state’s proposed 2023-2024 budget, $750 million was allocated to start paying down the loans, until Governor Gavin Newsom nixed the provision in early January, leaving businesses in the state responsible for the loans, as mandated by federal regulations – so that the federal unemployment tax rate of .6 percent will increase by .3% per year starting in 2023 until the loan is extinguished.

 

California is just not really an employer-friendly state,” said Joffe. “This one thing will not be a difference between a business remaining open or closing, but it’s just another burden on top of the many burdens the state puts on employers.

 

In total, 22 states borrowed money for unemployment insurance from the federal government. All but four, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and New York, have paid back their debts – with California owing the most by far at $18.6 billion as of May 2, followed by New York at $8 billion, Connecticut at $187 million and Colorado at $77 million, according to data from the US Treasury.

 

More via the Epoch Times,

Initially, the state borrowed from its reserves to pay the benefits, but after exhausting its coffers borrowed to cover expenses, analysts said.

 

Exacerbating the situation were unprecedented levels of fraud occurring across the state, due to limited oversight and antiquated computer systems, according to Lee Ohanian, professor of economics at the University of California–Los Angeles.

 

Analytics firm LexisNexis estimated the total cost of the fraud at $32.6 billion.

Investigations have since uncovered that illegitimate unemployment benefits payments were paid to convicted felons, with one address receiving 60 separate fraudulent payments.

 

Fraud is a persistent issue historically with the program, and a $2 million federal grant in 2013 sought to address the issue with new computer software systems.

 

The upgrade successfully stopped instances of fraud, but further improvements stopped with the end of the grant in 2016, reportedly due to the agency’s reluctance to take on the annual expense for the third-party service.

They were penny wise and pound foolish,” Ohanian told The Epoch Times.

At a cost of $2 million annual investment, the program would have cost $14 million to operate since it was terminated.

 

“Sadly, this is just a trifecta of bad decisions,” Ohanian said. “The [Employment Development Department] made a bad decision to not renew its lease for the fraud detection software, the state government took out a loan and chose to welch on the debt—which is outrageous—and now businesses are repaying more in taxes for the incredibly unwise decisions and mistakes of the state government.”

 

Reports that the state is seeking forgiveness from the federal government were met with resistance by policy experts, including Ohanian.

 

We’ve made a lot of bad decisions and we expect the rest of the country to pay for it,” he said. “It also raises questions about the future: If the state is going to default on the $20 billion federal loans, how safe are municipal bonds from California?”

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Coming to your city:

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Mexican TV Spots Cartel Wielding Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher In Border Town Near Texas

by Tyler Durden, 01June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/mexican-tv-spots-cartel-wielding-anti-tank-rocket-launcher-border-town-across-texas

The Mexican government has been waging war against drug cartels for over a decade with limited success. These cartels illegally procure modern military equipment from Western countries, making the fight comparable to those in Middle Eastern warzones.

 

On Wednesday, Mexican TV channel Milenio published an article titled “Mexican cartels prepare for a war; they have military grade ROCKET LAUNCHER” that shows a video of a Gulf Cartel (Cartel Del Golfo, CDG) member carrying a “military-grade grenade launcher during a checkpoint in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.”

Mexican Drug Cartel Wielding FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher

Mexican Drug Cartel Wielding FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher

 

Milenio’s Azucena Uresti identified the rocket launcher as a Raytheon-made FGM-148 Javelin. She noted the rocket launcher on the black market fetches anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000.

Translated from Spanish by

#AzucenaALas10 | In #Tamaulipas, an alleged member of the Gulf Cartel was recorded carrying one of the most exclusive and powerful weapons, a “javelin”, which has been used during the invasion of Ukraine with a value of between 20,000 and 60,000 dollars

Azucena-Uresti-tweet-31May2023-AzucenaALas10 In Tamaulipas-Gulf Cartel was carrying a javelin Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher

Azucena-Uresti-tweet-31May2023-AzucenaALas10 In Tamaulipas-Gulf Cartel was carrying a javelin Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher

 

 

After further review, the rocket launcher might be an AT-4, a Swedish-made disposable anti-tank launcher, which was also sent to Ukraine with Javelins. Nevertheless, these military-grade weapons are turning up in Mexican border towns during the worst US southern border crisis in history.

Matamoros directly borders Brownsville, Texas.

Matamoros, Mexico borders Brownsville, Texas

Matamoros, Mexico borders Brownsville, Texas

 

But don’t worry because the Biden administration repeatedly states everything is fine on the border.

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Southern Border Cameras Capture Heavily Armed Cartel Illegally Entering US

by Tyler Durden, 10August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/cameras-detect-heavily-armed-cartel-cross-us

A little over two months ago, the Mexican TV channel Milenio published shocking footage of a cartel member wielding a “military-grade grenade launcher” in Matamoros, a city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas that borders Brownsville, Texas.

Mexican Drug Cartel Wielding FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher

Mexican Drug Cartel Wielding FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher

 

Now Fox News border correspondent Bill Melugin has obtained frightening images of heavily armed cartel members with body armor crossing into Texas last weekend.

“Per law enforcement source, a group of suspected cartel gunmen armed with rifles & body armor were seen on cameras crossing illegally into the Fronton, TX area in the RGV Saturday night,” Melugin said on “X,” formerly known as Twitter. 

Melugin said a tactical unit under Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) was immediately deployed to the area after cameras detected the armed cartel members entered the US illegally.

“Elite Border Patrol BORTAC agents were called out & searched area, but found nobody,” he said. 

Bill Melugin-tweet-8August2023-NEW: Per law enforcement source, a group of suspected cartel gunmen armed with rifles & body armor were seen on cameras crossing illegally into the Fronton, TX area in the RGV Saturday night. Elite Border Patrol BORTAC agents were called out & searched area, but found nobody.

Bill Melugin-tweet-8August2023-NEW: Per law enforcement source, a group of suspected cartel gunmen armed with rifles & body armor were seen on cameras crossing illegally into the Fronton, TX area in the RGV Saturday night. Elite Border Patrol BORTAC agents were called out & searched area, but found nobody.

Here’s an example of a BORTAC agent that was dispatched. They look like Tier 1 Special Forces operators.

Border Patrol Tactical Unit BORTAC agent

Border Patrol Tactical Unit BORTAC agent

The Biden administration has gone out of its way to downplay the crisis at the southern border ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle.

 

On Tuesday, Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan provided The National Desk’s Scott Thuman with a dose of reality about the true nature of the border crisis:

“First of all, I think what it represents in this administration is not being honest with the American people. I learned a long time ago that the intentional omission of a material fact is the same thing as a lie. They’re using a sleight of hand like a good magician to get us to focus on only what’s happened in our Southern border.

“Meanwhile, what they’re not telling you is what’s happening across the nation. This fiscal year, we’re on track for over 3 million nationwide encounters. That’s a 360% increase from when they took over in the past 29 months.”

Morgan explained how the Biden administration is lying about the crisis:

“Second to that is what’s very, very important is what they begin to do is divert those that we’re previously entering in between the ports of entry.

“They’re simply diverting them to the ports of entry and then they’re claiming victory. In reality, it’s a big shell game.”

In recent Congressional testimony, Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies warned:

“[T]his massive new population of needy foreigners will burden and transform [Americans’] communities without their say-so.” 

Seeing cartel members brandishing RPGs and some crossing into the US heavily armed, one has to question if America’s southern border under Biden is on the verge of falling.

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Allstate Drops California; Will Not Write New Insurance Policies Over Wildfires, Construction Costs

by Tyler Durden, 04June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/allstate-drops-california-will-not-write-new-insurance-policies-over-wildfires

Insurance giant Allstate has stopped writing new policies for homeowners, condominiums and commercial structures, citing wildfires, higher costs of construction and higher reinsurance premiums, the SF Chronicle reports.

Firefighters work to control a fire as flames from the County Fire jump across Highway 20 near Clearlake Oaks, California, on July 1. Credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images

Firefighters work to control a fire as flames from the County Fire jump across Highway 20 near Clearlake Oaks, California, on July 1. Credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images

 

The company, the fourth largest casualty insurance provider in the state in 2021, said the pause on new policies was “so we can continue to protect current customers,” according to spokeswoman Brittany Nash in an email to the outlet.

 

The cost to insure new home customers in California is far higher than the price they would pay for policies due to wildfires, higher costs for repairing homes, and higher reinsurance premiums,” she wrote in a follow-up email on Friday.

The cost of rebuilding has increased with inflation, but Allstate can’t adjust prices quickly due to state regulation, Nash wrote.

 

The pause began last year but appeared to receive only a passing mention in industry publications. The Chronicle learned of the development this week, after reviewing an Allstate rate increase request to the California Department of Insurance. -SF Chronicle

The move follows a similar measure by State Farm – the largest property and casualty issuer in the state – which announced in late May that it would stop issuing new homeowner policies, citing inflation, wildfires and rising reinsurance costs.

 

The Chronicle suggests that the decision by both companies suggests there may be insurance industry woes in the state that are more severe than the public is aware of.

 

“State Farm is unusual in that it announces such underwriting actions. It is not required by law and most insurers do not,” said Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, an association of insurers, in an email to The Chronicle over the weekend.

 

Frazier told the outlet on Thursday that the only required public disclosure is when insurers ask the California Department of Insurance for rate increases.

 

In recent years, AIG and Chubb, which insure higher-end homes, have pulled coverage in some areas of the state.

Consumer advocates have noted that there are still more than 100 insurers doing business in California, even as many big names pull out.

 

But homeowners in high-risk fire areas may have a harder time finding coverage, leading to more usage of the FAIR Plan, a state-offered “insurer of last resort” meant as a temporary safety net that covers only fire insurance and generally costs more than other plans. 

 

Many insurance companies have already stopped renewing policies in fire-prone areas after fires in 2017 and 2018 devastated communities and resulted in large payouts. -SF Chronicle

Would this be happening if California’s leadership had spent the last several decades clearing dead brush and reducing the state’s wildfire risk?

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Wildfire Smoke and COVID-19

https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/covid-19/wildfire_smoke_covid-19.html

Wildfire smoke and Covid-19

Wildfire smoke and Covid-19

 

Wildfire smoke can irritate your lungs, cause inflammation, affect your immune system, and make you more prone to lung infections, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, preparing for wildfires might be a little different this year. Know how wildfire smoke can affect you and your loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic and what you can do to protect yourselves.

 

Prepare for wildfires.

 

Take actions to protect yourself from wildfire smoke during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • The best way to protect against the potentially harmful effects of wildfire smoke is to reduce your exposure to wildfire smoke, for example, by seeking cleaner air shelters and cleaner air spaces.
  • Limit your outdoor exercise when it is smoky outside or choose lower-intensity activities to reduce your smoke exposure.
  • NIOSH-approved N95 respirators can provide protection from wildfire smoke and from getting and spreading COVID-19.

Keep in mind that while physical distancing guidelines are in place, finding cleaner air might be harder if public facilities such as libraries, community centers, and shopping malls are closed or have limited their capacity.

 

Create a cleaner air space at home to protect yourself from wildfire smoke during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Use a portable air cleaner in one or more rooms. Portable air cleaners work best when run continuously with doors and windows closed.
  • If you use a do-it-yourself box fan filtration unit, never leave it unattended.
  • During periods of extreme heat, pay attention to temperature forecasts and know how to stay safe in the heat.
  • Whenever you can, use air conditioners, heat pumps, fans, and window shades to keep your cleaner air space comfortably cool on hot days.
  • If you have a forced air system in your home, you may need to speak with a qualified heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) professional about different filters (HEPA or MERV-13 or higher) and settings (“Recirculate” and “On” rather than “Auto”) you can use to reduce indoor smoke.
  • Avoid activities that create more indoor and outdoor air pollution, such as frying foods, sweeping, vacuuming, and using gas-powered appliances.

 

Know the difference between symptoms from smoke exposure and COVID-19.

  • Some symptoms, like dry cough, sore throat, and difficulty breathing can be caused by both wildfire smoke exposure and COVID-19.
  • Learn about symptoms of COVID-19. Symptoms like fever or chills, muscle or body aches, and diarrhea are not related to smoke exposure. If you have any of these symptoms, the CDC COVID-19 Self-Checker can help you determine whether you need further assessment or testing for COVID-19. If you have questions after using the CDC COVID-19 Self-Checker,  contact a healthcare provider.
  • If you have severe symptoms, like difficulty breathing or chest pain, immediately call 911 or the nearest emergency facility.

 

People with COVID-19 are at increased risk from wildfire smoke during the pandemic.

People who currently have or who are recovering from COVID-19 may be at increased risk of health effects from exposure to wildfire smoke due to compromised heart and/or lung function related to COVID-19.

 

Know whether you are at risk from wildfire smoke during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some people are more at risk of harmful health effects from wildfire smoke than others. Those most at risk include:

  • Children less than 18 years old
  • Adults aged 65 years or older
  • Pregnant women
  • People with chronic health conditions such as heart or lung disease, asthma, and diabetes
  • Outdoor workers
  • People who have lower socioeconomic status, including individuals experiencing homelessness or those who have limited access to medical care
  • People who are immunocompromised or taking drugs that suppress the immune system

 

Know what to do if you must evacuate.

  • Pay attention to local guidance about updated plans for evacuations and shelters, including potential shelters for your pets.
  • Whether you decide to evacuate or are asked to evacuate by state or local authorities, evacuate safely.
  • When you check on neighbors and friends before evacuating, be sure to follow social distancing recommendations (staying at least 6 feet from others) and other CDC recommendations to protect yourself and others.
  • If you need to go to a disaster shelter, follow CDC recommendations for staying safe and healthy in a public disaster shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Stay informed. Know where to find information about air quality and COVID-19 in your area.

 

Additional Resources

For more information about COVID-19,  go to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

 

For more information about the health effects of wildfire smoke and reducing exposure to it:

For more information on air quality, wildfire information, smoke forecasts, and vulnerable populations:

 

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Indoctrination, Intimidation & Intolerance: What Passes For Education Today

by Tyler Durden, 10August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/indoctrination-intimidation-intolerance-what-passes-education-today

 

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning.”

– Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes

This is what it means to go back-to-school in America today.

 

Instead of being taught the three R’s of education (reading, writing and arithmetic), young people are being drilled in the three I’s of life in the American police state: indoctrination, intimidation and intolerance.

[EDD:

Lisa M. Love, M.Ed.-tweet-14July2021-There are times when we need to make sure students are doing things a very specific way, but that’s probably much less often than we realize. What are your thoughts?

Lisa M. Love, M.Ed.-tweet-14July2021-There are times when we need to make sure students are doing things a very specific way, but that’s probably much less often than we realize. What are your thoughts?

…]

Indeed, while young people today are learning first-hand what it means to be at the epicenter of politically charged culture wars, test scores indicate that students are not learning how to succeed in social studies, math and reading.

 

Instead of raising up a generation of civic-minded citizens with critical thinking skills, government officials are churning out compliant drones who know little to nothing about their history or their freedoms.

 

Under the direction of government officials focused on making the schools more authoritarian (sold to parents as a bid to make the schools safer), young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.

 

From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment he or she graduates, they will be exposed to a steady diet of:

  • draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior,
  • overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech,
  • school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students,
  • standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking,
  • politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them,
  • and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.

This is how you groom young people to march in lockstep with a police state.

 

As Deborah Cadbury writes for The Washington Post, “Authoritarian rulers have long tried to assert control over the classroom as part of their totalitarian governments.”

 

In Nazi Germany, the schools became indoctrination centers, breeding grounds for intolerance and compliance.

 

In the American police state, the schools have become increasingly hostile to those who dare to question or challenge the status quo.

 

America’s young people have become casualties of a post-9/11 mindset that has transformed the country into a locked-down, militarized, crisis-fueled mockery of a representative government.

 

Roped into the government’s profit-driven campaign to keep the nation “safe” from drugs, disease, and weapons, America’s schools have transformed themselves into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, strip searches and active shooter drills.

 

Students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.

 

Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oreganobreath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.

 

Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water, in some cases getting them expelled from school or charged with a crime.

 

Not even good deeds go unpunished.

One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.

 

Having police in the schools only adds to the danger.

Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers (a.k.a. school resource officers) to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.

 

Indeed, the growing presence of police in the nation’s schools is resulting in greater police “involvement in routine discipline matters that principals and parents used to address without involvement from law enforcement officers.”

 

Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.

 

In the absence of school-appropriate guidelines, police are more and more “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”

 

Not even the younger, elementary school-aged kids are being spared these “hardening” tactics.

On any given day when school is in session, kids who “act up” in class are pinned facedown on the floor, locked in dark closets, tied up with straps, bungee cords and duct tape, handcuffed, leg shackled, tasered or otherwise restrained, immobilized or placed in solitary confinement in order to bring them under “control.”

 

In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids—some as young as 4 and 5 years old—for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums.

 

Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.

Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers in the nation’s public schools.

 

This is what happens when you introduce police and police tactics into the schools.

Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.

 

For example, a middle school in Washington State went on lockdown after a student brought a toy gun to class. A Boston high school went into lockdown for four hours after a bullet was discovered in a classroom. A North Carolina elementary school locked down and called in police after a fifth grader reported seeing an unfamiliar man in the school (it turned out to be a parent).

 

Police officers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill in an effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actual shooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst into classrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.

 

These police state tactics have not made the schools any safer.

The fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated like hardened criminals: handcuffed, arrested, tasered, tackled and taught the painful lesson that the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) doesn’t mean much in the American police state.

 

So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now—the children growing up in these quasi-prisons—but for the future of this country?

 

How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?

 

Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when, for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?

 

As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, we must start by running the schools like freedom forums.

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The Suffering Is Off The Charts

by Tyler Durden, 02June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/suffering-charts

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Things have taken a turn for the worse.  In recent months, economic activity has been dropping all over the nation, and that decline appears to be accelerating.  We just learned that gross domestic income has now fallen for two quarters in a row, and the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has now been plummeting for 13 consecutive months.  Unfortunately, when economic conditions deteriorate it is the people at the low end of the economic pyramid that get hit the hardest.

 

Thanks to our rapidly rising cost of living, we are seeing a dramatic explosion in the number of “working homeless” that are living out of their vehicles on a daily basis even though they are currently employed.

In particular, the RV “communities” that are springing up from coast to coast are starting to get quite a bit of attention

The owner of a party bus company, Rikers Island prison guards and an Amazon worker are just some of the eclectic bunch who have formed a community of ‘working homeless’ people living out of RVs in the Astoria section of Queens, New York.

 

Similar communities have formed across the US from New England to California where people have chosen a nomadic lifestyle amid a national cost of living crisis.

Most of these people get up and go to work in the morning.

In fact, the Daily Mail spoke to one man that actually “works for a New York City hospital”

Resident Paul Reevers described himself as ‘working homeless.’ He said that he has a job but the rent went up too high and he could not longer to afford a an apartment.

 

Reevers, who works for a New York City hospital, said that he took out a loan and bought his RV.

If you work at a hospital, you should be able to afford a place to live.

 

But this is our country now.

We are absolutely destroying the middle class, and as a result we now have a massive homelessness crisis on our hands

Insider Monkey, a finance website, revealed a list of the top 30 cities worldwide with the highest homeless population. Notably, a handful of the US cities on the list are governed by progressive leadership, which may not surprise readers. While it is evident that some unfortunate individuals are facing homelessness, a trend exacerbated by recent inflationary pressures and a drug addiction crisis, some liberal policies have enabled others to sustain their nomadic lifestyles with taxpayer funds.

 

Insider Monkey found New York City is number 5 on the list, with a homeless population of about 69,000. Next is Chicago, at number 7 with 65,611. Washington, DC, is number 8 with 57,416, Los Angeles number 13 with 41,980, and San Fransisco number 14 with 38,000.

No matter what you or I are facing right now, at least we aren’t sleeping in the streets.

 

So we should count our blessings.

Hunger is also rapidly growing all over America.  Right now, record numbers of people are coming for help at one food bank in the Seattle area

Since March, the food bank has broken its record three times for the highest number of people served in a day since 2019, when the organization started allowing three visits a month. More and more, people like Jones who haven’t been to the food bank in years, are showing up, Christian said.

 

“That’s hard on them; they felt they had moved above the poverty line, got some stability but, ‘Here it is 2023 and here I am back in the food line asking strangers for help,’” Christian said.

And in Boston, the line for food on one recent weekend morning “stretched the length of two football fields”

The line outside Boston’s American Red Cross Food Pantry on a recent Saturday morning stretched the length of two football fields.

 

The number of people filing into the red-brick industrial-zone warehouse on some days now exceeds the worst periods of the pandemic economic crisis and in April it had the second highest monthly traffic since it opened in 1982, according to David Andre, the director.

We are witnessing so much suffering all over the country right now.

And there are so many more people that are living right on the edge of disaster.

 

According to one recent survey, approximately 38.5 percent of U.S. adults experienced “some form of difficulty in covering expenses between April 26 and May 8”

A large swath of American consumers are facing financial hardship as they grapple with elevated living costs, record-high credit card use, and two years of negative real wage growth. This perfect storm could decimate financially fragile households in the next downturn.

 

As many as 89.1 million American adults (or about 38.5%) were found to experience some form of difficulty in covering expenses between April 26 and May 8, according to Bloomberg, citing new data from the Household Pulse Survey. This is up from 34.4% in 2022 and 26.7% during the same period in 2021.

Of course this is just the beginning.

As I keep warning my readers, things will eventually get much worse.

 

And finally, whatever happens in Washington is not going to fundamentally alter our long-term trajectory, and that means that much more suffering is coming in the days ahead.

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US Suicide Rates Hit Record High of Nearly 50,000 in 2022, Provisional CDC Data Show

 

Silhouette of depressed man sitting on walkway of residence building (Aonprom Photo/Shutterstock)

Silhouette of depressed man sitting on walkway of residence building (Aonprom Photo/Shutterstock)

By Katabella Roberts
11August2023 Updated: 22August2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/us-suicide-rates-hit-record-high-of-nearly-50000-in-2022-provisional-cdc-data-show-5458976

 

Suicide rates soared to the highest number on record in 2022 as nearly 50,000 Americans took their own lives, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Aug. 10.

 

The latest report suggests a notable increase in suicides since 2021 following two consecutive years of modest declines in 2019 and 2020.

 

According to the CDC’s provisional data, an estimated 49,449 Americans committed suicide in 2022, or nearly 15 deaths for every 100,000 people, up 2.6 percent from 48,183 deaths by suicide in 2021, and surpassing the peak of 48,344 in 2018.

 

Previously in 2019 and 2020, the suicide rate fell to 47,511 and 45,979 respectively, according to the CDC, although it is unclear exactly what prompted the decline.

 

Suicide is now the eleventh-leading cause of death in the United States, compared to 2020 when it was the twelfth-leading cause, the latest data suggest.

 

The latest figures—which are based on death certificates received by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and may change—show that America is facing a growing mental health crisis, according to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra.

 

“Nine in ten Americans believe America is facing a mental health crisis. The new suicide death data reported by CDC illustrates why. One life lost to suicide is one too many. Yet, too many people still believe asking for help is a sign of weakness,” Mr. Becerra said. “The Biden-Harris Administration is making unprecedented investments to transform how mental health is understood, accessed, and treated as part of President Biden’s Unity Agenda. We must continue to eliminate the stigmatization of mental health and make care available to all Americans.”

 

According to the latest CDC report, men accounted for approximately 79 percent of the total number of suicides in 2022, although rates increased among both males and females at 3.8 percent among American women, and 2.3 percent among American men.

 

The largest increase in suicides was seen among older adults, according to the CDC.

Youth Mental Health Crisis Deepening Due to Pandemic Policies: Study

 

Rates Increased Among Older Adults

Among Americans ages 45 to 64 there was a 6.6 percent increase in suicides, the data show. In those older than 65, the CDC reported an 8.1 percent increase year-on-year.

 

Many middle-aged and elderly people experience problems like losing a job or losing a spouse. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer, said it was important to reduce stigma and other obstacles to them getting assistance.

 

Meanwhile, among the racial and ethnic groups the CDC tracks, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders had the largest increase in suicide in 2022, with a 15.9 percent rise, the CDC data show.

 

Multiracial individuals saw suicide rates increase by 7.9 percent while rates rose 5.7 percent among Asians and 3.6 percent among black or African Americans.

 

However, the CDC noted a decline in suicide rates among American Indians/Alaska Natives, where suicide rates declined 6.1 percent year on year.

 

The health agency also noted a decline in suicide rates among individuals aged 10–24, approximately 8.4 percent.

While it is unclear what prompted the rise in the number of suicides among Americans, experts have said the increase could be driven by a multitude of factors such as increasing rates of depression and the limited availability of mental health services.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, which for many led to job losses, financial instability, isolation, and loneliness, may have also played a role.

Pandemic Prompts Anxiety, Depression

A March 2023 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that by early 2021, 4 in 10 adults reported symptoms consistent with anxiety and depression over the course of the pandemic, although that figure dropped to approximately 3 in 10 adults as the pandemic continued.

 

Deb Stone, a behavioral scientist at the CDC Injury Center, told The Washington Times earlier this year that suicide rates might be stable or even decline during a disaster, and rise afterward, “as the longer-term sequela of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among populations struggling with preexisting inequities.”

 

Meanwhile, a poll conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and published last month found that the majority of Americans (82 percent) are still not familiar with or have not heard of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a resource aimed at helping people in mental health, substance use, and suicide crises get connected to the support they may need.

 

Final data from the CDC on suicide rates will be available later this year.

“Today’s report underscores the depths of the devastating mental health crisis in America. Mental health has become the defining public health and societal challenge of our time. Far too many people and their families are suffering and feeling alone,” said U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

 

“These numbers are a sobering reminder of how urgent it is that we further expand access to mental health care, address the root causes of mental health struggles, and recognize the importance of checking on and supporting one another,” he added.

 

As part of its effort to combat the rising suicide rate among Americans and address the nation’s mental health crisis, the Biden administration has announced a string of initiatives aimed at lowering and preventing such deaths, including its National Suicide Prevention Lifeline that launched last year allowing anyone in the United States to dial 988 to reach mental health specialists.

 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. If you or someone you know is experiencing a crisis or is considering suicide, has mental health issues, or is engaging in substance abuse, dial or text the U.S. Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 to speak with a counselor. If you’re in the UK, call the Samaritans at 116123.

 

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New study warns that declining health standards in the U.S. causing “a crisis of early death”

30August2023 // Arsenio Toledo // https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-08-30-declining-health-standards-crisis-early-death.html

 

A recent study has found that the United States is experiencing what leading researchers call “a crisis of early death.”

 

The study, done by researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), found that more than one million deaths in the U.S. – including many young and working-age adults – could be avoided each year if the country had similar mortality rates to other developed nations.

 

The researchers noted that, in 2021, the U.S. had 1.1 million excess deaths which could have been averted, with the excess deaths referred to as the country’s “Missing Americans” because these deaths reflect people who would still be alive if the U.S. death rate was equal to its peers. (Related: Government to blame sudden death epidemic on long COVID and climate change, says Ed Dowd.)

 

“The number of Missing Americans in recent years is unprecedented in modern times,” said study lead and corresponding author Jacob Bor, a BUSPH associate professor of global health and epidemiology, in a media release accompanying the publishing of the study.

 

The researchers analyzed mortality trends in America from 1933 to 2021 and then compared the results with age-specific mortality rates from “peer nations, including Australia, Canada, Japan and 18 nations in Europe.

 

The findings showed that America had lower mortality rates than peer nations during World War II. By the 1960s and 1970s, America’s mortality rates were similar to peer nations. But by the 1980s, the U.S. began a four-decade-long trend of accelerating excess deaths, reaching 622,534 excess deaths in 2019, nearly 1.01 million excess deaths in 2021 and over 1.09 excess deaths in 2021.

 

According to the study, nearly 50 percent of all Missing Americans in 2020 and 2021 were under the age of 65 – this means that nearly half of the excess deaths in the U.S. were from working-age Americans and even youths.

 

“Think of people you know who have passed away before reaching age 65. Statistically, half of them would still be alive if the U.S. had the mortality rates of our peers,” said Bor. “The U.S. is experiencing a crisis of early death that is unique among wealthy nations.”

 

Declining healthcare system mainly responsible for excess deaths

While Bor and the other researchers acknowledge that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic likely contributed to a sharp spike in mortality in the U.S., the research does not acknowledge the role vaccines may have played. Instead, Bor and his associates point to the general decline in health standards in the U.S. as the main culprit.

 

“The U.S. was already experiencing more than 600,000 Missing Americans annually before the pandemic began, and that number was increasing each year,” said Bor. “There have been no significant policy changes since then to change this trajectory.”

 

“We waste hundreds of billions each year on health insurers’ profits and paperwork, while tens of millions can’t afford medical care, healthy food or a decent place to live,” said study senior author Steffie Woolhandler, a distinguished professor at the School of Urban Public Health at Hunter College, City University of New York. “Americans die younger than their counterparts elsewhere because when corporate profits conflict with health, our politicians side with the corporations.”

 

Study co-author Andrew Stokes, a BUSPH assistant professor of global health, said that the findings raise a number of urgent questions that need to be addressed in future research. “Which geographic areas are disproportionately responsible for the Missing Americans, and what were their causes of deaths? Answers to these questions may help to clarify policy solutions,” he noted.

 

Learn more about the American healthcare system and how it continues to disappoint many in the country at Medicine.news.

 

Watch this clip from “The HighWire” as host Del Bigtree and investigative journalist Jefferey Jaxen discuss how excess deaths are also surging in other countries like the United Kingdom.

 

EXCESS DEATHS HIT RECORD LEVELS

 

This video is from the channel The HighWire with Del Bigtree on Brighteon.com.

 

More related stories:

Scott Schara: Medical system didn’t value people’s lives during COVID-19 pandemic – Brighteon.TV.

 

Most major medical bills are grossly INFLATED by Big Pharma just to see who is gullible enough to pay them without question.

 

Dr. Jane Ruby STAT: Government protects killer doctors by granting them blanket immunity – Brighteon.TV.

 

America’s top 20 nonprofit hospitals received over $23 billion in COVID-19 payments (while killing or injuring millions of people).

 

Americans continue to suffer as hospitals refuse to be transparent about their prices.

 

Sources include:

 

StudyFinds.org

 

BU.edu

 

WorldHealth.net

 

Brighteon.com

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“Arbitrary… Outdated!” – Yellen Outraged After Fitch Cuts USA’s AAA-Rating

by Tyler Durden, 02August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/fitch-cuts-usas-aaa-rating-cites-fiscal-deterioration-erosion-governance

Update (1750ET): Treasury Secretary Yellen is pissed, calling the downgrade “arbitrary” and “outdated.”!

I strongly disagree with Fitch Ratings’ decision. The change by Fitch Ratings announced today is arbitrary and based on outdated data. Fitch’s quantitative ratings model declined markedly between 2018 and 2020 – and yet Fitch is announcing its change now, despite the progress that we see in many of the indicators that Fitch relies on for its decision. Many of these measures, including those related to governance, have shown improvement over the course of this Administration, with the passage of bipartisan legislation to address the debt limit, invest in infrastructure, and make other investments in America’s competitiveness.

 

Fitch’s decision does not change what Americans, investors, and people all around the world already know: that Treasury securities remain the world’s preeminent safe and liquid asset, and that the American economy is fundamentally strong.

 

Over the past few years, the United States has undergone a historically fast economic recovery from a deep recession. Today, the unemployment rate is near historic lows, inflation has come down significantly since last summer, and last week’s GDP report shows that the U.S. economy continues to grow. The American economy remains the world’s largest and most dynamic economy, with the deepest and most liquid financial markets in the world. To build on this, President Biden and I have been focused on making critical investments in our country’s core economic strength and productive capacity. 

 

President Biden and I are committed to fiscal sustainability. The most recent debt limit legislation included over $1 trillion in deficit reduction and improved our fiscal trajectory. Looking forward, President Biden has put forward a budget that would reduce the deficit by $2.6 trillion over the next decade through a balanced approach that would support investments for the long-term.” 

Perhaps she should read this…

Federal Debt Held by the Public 1900 - 2053

Federal Debt Held by the Public 1900 – 2053

 

Bidenomics for the win…

zerohedge-tweet-1August2023-Yellen Says Fitch Downgrade Based on Outdated Data

zerohedge-tweet-1August2023-Yellen Says Fitch Downgrade Based on Outdated Data

We wonder how the Vice President feels about this…

zerohedge-tweet-1August2023-Kamala: First of all, it’s two letters

zerohedge-tweet-1August2023-Kamala: First of all, it’s two letters

*  *  *

In the middle of the debt-ceiling ‘crisis’ in May, with Fitch, Moodys and DBRS all threatening to do what S&P boldly did in 2011 and downgrade the US should the debt ceiling crisis lead to a technical default, China’s leading rating agency, China Chengxin International Credit Rating decided not to wait, downgrading the USA’s rating by one notch, to AA+ from AAA, citing high inflation and the widely watched debt-ceiling stand-off.

 

Today, Fitch decided to get off the pot and join S&P and Chengxin, downgrading USA’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’.

 

US Dollar Downgraded

US Dollar Downgraded

 

Key Rating Drivers

Ratings Downgrade: The rating downgrade of the United States reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions.

 

Erosion of Governance: In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025. The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management. In addition, the government lacks a medium-term fiscal framework, unlike most peers, and has a complex budgeting process. These factors, along with several economic shocks as well as tax cuts and new spending initiatives, have contributed to successive debt increases over the last decade. Additionally, there has been only limited progress in tackling medium-term challenges related to rising social security and Medicare costs due to an aging population.

 

Rising General Government Deficits: We expect the general government (GG) deficit to rise to 6.3% of GDP in 2023, from 3.7% in 2022, reflecting cyclically weaker federal revenues, new spending initiatives and a higher interest burden. Additionally, state and local governments are expected to run an overall deficit of 0.6% of GDP this year after running a small surplus of 0.2% of GDP in 2022. Cuts to non-defense discretionary spending (15% of total federal spending) as agreed in the Fiscal Responsibility Act offer only a modest improvement to the medium-term fiscal outlook, with cumulative savings of USD1.5 trillion (3.9% of GDP) by 2033 according to the Congressional Budget Office. The near-term impact of the Act is estimated at USD70 billion (0.3% of GDP) in 2024 and USD112 billion (0.4% of GDP) in 2025. Fitch does not expect any further substantive fiscal consolidation measures ahead of the November 2024 elections.

 

Fitch forecasts a GG deficit of 6.6% of GDP in 2024 and a further widening to 6.9% of GDP in 2025. The larger deficits will be driven by weak 2024 GDP growth, a higher interest burden and wider state and local government deficits of 1.2% of GDP in 2024-2025 (in line with the historical 20-year average). The interest-to-revenue ratio is expected to reach 10% by 2025 (compared to 2.8% for the ‘AA’ median and 1% for the ‘AAA’ median) due to the higher debt level as well as sustained higher interest rates compared with pre-pandemic levels.

 

General Government Debt to Rise: Lower deficits and high nominal GDP growth reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio over the last two years from the pandemic high of 122.3% in 2020; however, at 112.9% this year it is still well above the pre-pandemic 2019 level of 100.1%. The GG debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to rise over the forecast period, reaching 118.4% by 2025. The debt ratio is over two-and-a-half times higher than the ‘AAA’ median of 39.3% of GDP and ‘AA’ median of 44.7% of GDP. Fitch’s longer-term projections forecast additional debt/GDP rises, increasing the vulnerability of the U.S. fiscal position to future economic shocks.

 

Medium-term Fiscal Challenges Unaddressed: Over the next decade, higher interest rates and the rising debt stock will increase the interest service burden, while an aging population and rising healthcare costs will raise spending on the elderly absent fiscal policy reforms. The CBO projects that interest costs will double by 2033 to 3.6% of GDP. The CBO also estimates a rise in mandatory spending on Medicare and social security by 1.5% of GDP over the same period. The CBO projects that the Social Security fund will be depleted by 2033 and the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (used to pay for benefits under Medicare Part A) will be depleted by 2035 under current laws, posing additional challenges for the fiscal trajectory unless timely corrective measures are implemented. Additionally, the 2017 tax cuts are set to expire in 2025, but there is likely to be political pressure to make these permanent as has been the case in the past, resulting in higher deficit projections.

 

Exceptional Strengths Support Ratings: Several structural strengths underpin the United States’ ratings. These include its large, advanced, well-diversified and high-income economy, supported by a dynamic business environment. Critically, the U.S. dollar is the world’s preeminent reserve currency, which gives the government extraordinary financing flexibility.
Economy to Slip into Recession: Tighter credit conditions, weakening business investment, and a slowdown in consumption will push the U.S. economy into a mild recession in 4Q23 and 1Q24, according to Fitch projections. The agency sees U.S. annual real GDP growth slowing to 1.2% this year from 2.1% in 2022 and overall growth of just 0.5% in 2024. Job vacancies remain higher and the labor participation rate is still lower (by 1 pp) than pre-pandemic levels, which could negatively affect medium-term potential growth.

 

Fed Tightening: The Fed raised interest rates by 25bp in March, May and July 2023. Fitch expects one further hike to 5.5% to 5.75% by September. The resilience of the economy and the labor market are complicating the Fed’s goal of bringing inflation towards its 2% target. While headline inflation fell to 3% in June, core PCE inflation, the Fed’s key price index, remained stubbornly high at 4.1% yoy. This will likely preclude cuts in the Federal Funds Rate until March 2024. Additionally, the Fed is continuing to reduce its holdings of mortgage backed-securities and U.S. Treasuries, which is further tightening financial conditions. Since January, these assets on the Fed balance sheet have fallen by over USD500 billion as of end-July 2023.

 

ESG – Governance: The U.S. has an ESG Relevance Score (RS) of ‘5’ for Political Stability and Rights and ‘5[+]’ for the Rule of Law, Institutional and Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption. Theses scores reflect the high weight that the World Bank Governance Indicators (WBGI) have in Fitch’s proprietary Sovereign Rating Model. The U.S. has a high WBGI ranking at 79, reflecting its well-established rights for participation in the political process, strong institutional capacity, effective rule of law and a low level of corruption.

 

Additionally, they warn that the following could lead to more negative ratings actions…

  • Public Finances: A marked increase in general government debt, for example due to a failure to address medium-term public spending and revenue challenges;
  • Macroeconomic policy, performance and prospects: A decline in the coherence and credibility of policymaking that undermines the reserve currency status of the U.S. dollar, thus diminishing the government’s financing flexibility.

All hail Bidenomics.

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It’s Mourning In America

by Tyler Durden, 22July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/its-mourning-america

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Now that America has been transformed from a high-trust social order into a low-trust social order, there’s no going back.

The Wizard of Oz - Behind the Curtain

The Wizard of Oz – Behind the Curtain

The birth of financialization in the early 1980s was morning in America because finance– the collateralization of previously low-risk assets and the resulting explosion of credit and leverage–gooses demand and asset valuations.

 

Now that we’ve at long last reached the demise of financialization, it’s mourning in America as the hyper-stimulation has reached its zenith and is beginning its inevitable end-game of uncontrolled implosion. The hyper-financialization of American life has fatally distorted the nation’s production, politics, values and social order.

 

Regardless of our political persuasion, we’re all mourning for what’s been lost to either decay or erosion, both of which are so gradual that we cannot discern the full extent of the damage. We sense it, though, and this fuels the nation’s distemper.

 

The decay, erosion and distemper remind me of a quote from French author Michel Houellebecq:

“I have the impression of being caught up in a network of complicated, minute, stupid rules, and I have the impression of being herded towards a uniform kind of happiness, toward a kind of happiness that doesn’t really make me happy.”

Substitute con for happiness and we have an insight into the source of mourning in America: we’re being conned 24/7, on every level and in every nook and cranny of the economy and society.

 

The key to any good con is to persuade the mark (victim) that it’s not a con. The most direct approach is to claim the con is true, factual, etc. Once this claim starts unraveling, then the con switches to an alternative reality that has enough shreds of credibility to be plausible.

 

This is why so many confuse the con and propaganda. Both are self-serving, of course, as the goal of propaganda is to generate compliance and conformity in the populace by constructing an emotionally compelling context that is both appealing and plausible. Those spewing the propaganda do so to secure their power and further their own self-serving agenda.

 

For example, that we’re all enjoying unprecedented prosperity in the best of all possible worlds. Look at all the low-quality rusting junk we can buy from manufacturers in totalitarian nations at low, low prices–wow! It doesn’t get any better than this. Stainless Steal (February 26, 2023).

 

The difference is that those spewing propaganda can be true believers in whatever cause is being pushed. In most cases, propaganda is issued by cynical, manipulative sociopaths who are merely hired guns for whomever seeks all the advantages of persuading people that enriching and empowering the few at the expense of the many is not only allowable, it’s the right thing, the only option, etc. But propaganda works best when it converts the previously uncommitted or apathetic into true believers, much like a religious conversion.

 

A con, on the other hand, is a swindle, a fraud, a bezzle, that takes advantage of the mark’s naive trust. This trust might be in a blood relative, a friend, an enterprise, an organization or an institution. The con exploits this trust to defraud or break the mark into an unknowing patsy.

The fundamentals of the con are:

1. The gains are guaranteed, i.e. low risk.

2. The benefits are exaggerated while the costs and consequences are left unsaid.

Here’s the metaphor the con presents: I’m leading you to a glorious fruit tree loaded with ripe fruit. All you have to do is harvest as much as you want.

 

Since we’re all still hunter-gatherers in Wetware 1.0, this greatly appeals to us. We’re inherently risk-averse and greedy to exploit windfalls, and the con promises us near-zero risk and one windfall to stripmine after another. It’s irresistible.

 

The con always has an end date, when the mark discovers they’ve been fleeced. Trust is destroyed, and the mark, bitterly enlightened to their own credulity, laziness and greed, vows to never fall for such a con again.

 

The higher-order con never lets trust be completely destroyed. Instead, the con-man either rushes to console the mark and apologize for the unexpected loss, (Jeez, this never happened before–it must have been a glitch in the Matrix), or the con-man brazenly blames the victim for misjudging the situation and failing to take advantage of the unbeatable deal.

You blew it, pal, I can’t help you with that. But hey, since I’m such a nice guy, and you’re deserving of a second chance, I’m gonna let you in on another deal, not quite as good as the one you blew, but still a gem.

 

This is America in a nutshell: a continuous cacophony of cons. This is why trust in institutions such as the media, corporations, political interest groups, government and education are in free-fall, along with social trust in our fellow Americans. Every node of power is dominated by people out to maximize their personal gains at the expense of the public, customers, voters, members, students, etc.

Listen, kid, you’re gonna be on Easy Street if you go borrow $120,000 and give it to us for a college diploma. You’ll be set for life, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel once you pony up the dough and we give you the paper. Don’t be a chump, kid, you gotta look out for yourself, and we’re trying to help you here.

 

This medication is safe and non-addictive, you’re gonna feel a lot better as soon as you start taking it. Here’s ten pages of side-effects, but don’t worry about all that, it’s just boiler-plate. We’re here to help you, pal, and the $27,000 a month cost is mostly on the government, so it’s a slam-dunk win for you.

 

Gee, I’d like to answer your questions about the district budget, employee salaries and overtime, it must be in this 293-page annual statement somewhere. You can buy a copy for only $25.

And so on, in an endless profusion of self-serving cons. Ernest academics ponder this decay and propose all sorts of scholarly possibilities, while never mentioning the obvious source: every node of power in America is hopelessly corrupt, covering its cons with tsunamis of propaganda aimed at “trust-building” among “stakeholders,” whipping up the conned faithful, cherry-picking evidence to string along the marks just a little longer, and pointing to the long history of the institution as trustworthy–a reputation that is being pillaged to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

 

it wasn't influence-peddling

it wasn’t influence-peddling

 

The most successful cons divert attention from the con-men to some other group of marks / victims. You got fleeced because of them. The fact that everyone outside the nodes of power has been fleeced is left unsaid, as this realization might generate a common cause of the marks against those benefiting so richly from the cons.

 

It was fun while it lasted, exploiting the supercharged-cons of hyper-financialization and hyper-globalization, but those cons have been tapped out and there are no replacements.

 

It’s tough recognizing that we’ve been credulous, naively trusting, and greedy for low-risk riches. Every one of the countless skims, scams and cons has exploited our willingness to trust and our self-interest in easy wealth.

 

Now that America has been transformed from a high-trust social order into a low-trust social order, there’s no going back.

US Social Trust

US Social Trust

 

This is why it’s mourning in America. Trust can only be rebuilt slowly, first by opting out of all the self-serving cons and then re-establishing trust at the local level.

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The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

By Steve McCann
30May2023 https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/05/the_decline_and_fall_of_the_american_empire.html

 

A cursory examination of history reveals that the United States is mired in the same process that precipitated the collapse of the great empires of the past.  The foibles and failures of human nature and their impact on the rise and fall of empires is amazingly consistent and the end result always inevitable.  Can this nation avoid a similar fate?

 

Empires are defined as great military and economic powers encompassing large occupied or controlled land areas.  Although they vary greatly, they average around 250 years in duration.  The United States will be celebrating its 250th anniversary in 2026.

 

In 1976, Sir John Glubb, a distinguished British diplomat and general, wrote an essay on the fate of empires throughout history.  He enumerated, based on 3,000 years of historical data, the six various stages in the rise and fall of empires.

 

These stages and how they apply to the United States are as follows:

  • The Age of Pioneers       (The Revolutionary War and the founding of the Nation)
  • The Age of Conquests    (The Western Expansion to the Pacific Ocean)
  • The Age of Commerce   (Industrialization and evolution of a dominant middle class)
  • The Age of Affluence     (The meteoric rise of the standard of living in the 20th Century)
  • The Age of Intellect        (Global domination in the arts, medicine and technology)
  • The Age of Decadence   (For 30+ years America has been increasingly mired in this age )

The Age of Decadence is marked by debauchery, defensiveness, pessimism, materialism, a significant weakening of religion, frivolity, a welfare state, and a massive influx of unassimilated foreigners.  These symptoms of national decadence are the end product of long periods of prosperity and power, love of wealth and status, and self-obsession by the ruling elites leading to fateful government corruption and instability.

 

Sir John Glubb is definitive in stating that in all ancient and modern fallen empires, “there does not appear to be any doubt that money is the agent which causes the decline of strong, brave and self-confident people.”

 

An examination of various empires from the Persian Empire to the Roman Empire to the British Empire confirms Glubb’s hypothesis that pursuit and accumulation of money or wealth is the portal through which power over the masses is achieved.  The amassing of wealth and thus power evolves into a quasi-religion that over time triggers the descent into the age of decadence and corruption that inevitably leads to the collapse and conquering of empires by their external enemies.

 

In the early stage of the age of decadence, materialism becomes a driving force in society, inducing many in the upper classes to indulge in excessive, often conspicuous consumption as an absurdly wealthy elite emerges.  Far too many societal elites and non-elites become convinced that increased consumption and social status is the key to happiness, but in its pursuit they become demonstrably more pessimistic and less happy and fulfilled.

 

The search for happiness and fulfillment leads to imprudence and voyeurism becoming central to the culture.  Unhappy people searching for diversion became fixated on celebrities and captive to evolving voyeurism.  And voyeurism takes on a more sinister aspect as people in both ancient and modern empires become increasingly desensitized to graphic images and willing spectators or participants in violence and debauchery.

 

Debauchery is an oft-recurring theme in the demise of empires.  Societies develop an abnormally immature obsession with sex.  An obsession that requires increasing deviancy to satiate coupled with concurrent abuse of children and the marginalization and exploitation of women.  Meanwhile, the use of drugs and alcohol expands exponentially.  Debauchery is a symptom of the absence of meaning in people’s lives leading to the self-destruction of society and concomitantly a loss of a sense of duty and patriotism.

 

Other symptoms common among many empires in the last stages of decline include:

  • Massive and growing disparities between rich and poor and an undisciplined and over-extended military.
  • An intensification of internal political hatreds and a corresponding inability to reconcile in order to save the empire.
  • An ever increasing level of self-serving corruption and patronage among the ruling class.
  • A massive influx of unassimilated foreigners whose allegiance and cultural ties are  with their native lands and not the host nation and who do not feel obligated to defend the empire.
  • Severe financial and economic crises linked to the unending debasement of the currency.
  • An ongoing and irreversible decline in monotheistic religions that emphasize self-sacrifice, temperance, a sense of duty as well as honor and integrity.

Additionally, while the decline of empires is precipitated by internal factors, the final collapse is marked by defeat at the hands of powerful external enemies.  The United States is presently facing an implacable and powerful external enemy, Communist China.  A foe this nation’s elites, in their self-indulgent pursuit of wealth, essentially created by willfully intertwining the American economy with a ruthless and dictatorial communist regime.

 

Unfortunately, the vast bulk of the American citizenry is not aware of the historically precarious situation this nation finds itself.  Nor are they aware that the policies and actions of the Marxist controlled Democrat party over the past 20 years is a window into what will happen to this nation if they continue in power.  Another four to eight years of Democrat Party rule will permanently embed:

  • Unchecked corruption in government and America’s corporations and institutions.
  • The ongoing debasement of the currency, uncontrolled spending and economic instability,
  • The continued massive influx of unassimilated foreigners,
  • The intensification of political animosity and the persecution of any political opposition,
  • An undisciplined, ideologically driven and feckless military incapable of confronting China,
  • Drug-addled and crime-ridden dystopias in America’s major urban and suburban areas,
  • Continued and accelerated mainstreaming of decadence and sexual debauchery

As the last three years have amply proven, decadence and sexual debauchery will continue apace.  All forms of deviancy, including but not limited to pedophilia, will be forcefully mainstreamed.  Religious liberties will be denigrated and curtailed.  Infanticide and state-sponsored euthanasia will be legalized.  Materialism and voyeurism will become the new state religion.  And virtually all drugs will be legalized and easily available.

 

As the United States descends into insolvency, societal chaos and upheaval, Communist China, with which the Democrat party is intertwined, will actively abet and promote the dissolution of this country as it will be waiting vulture-like to feast on the carcass.

 

The inevitable can perhaps be mitigated if a significant majority of the populace acknowledges the current plight of the nation and initiates a return to the nation’s founding Judeo-Christian principles.  Additionally, it is imperative that either Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis wins in November of 2024 and for a populist Republican Party to control both the presidency and Congress for a minimum of two presidential terms.

 

Republican primary voters must also acknowledge reality and not be captive to cultlike sycophancy for either Trump or DeSantis.  They need to ask themselves: who can win against a corrupt and devious Democrat party reliant on voter fraud and manipulation in the battleground states of Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania?  Who has the coattails to assure the capture of both Houses of Congress?  And can that person can either serve a second term or make certain another Republican will win in 2028?

 

It is not hyperbole to say the upcoming election cycle is the most determinative in American history.  If the Republicans fail to win the presidency and Congress in 2024, this nation will have passed the point of no return and a new chapter in the annals of the decline and fall of great nations will be written.

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Victor Davis Hanson: A Culture In Collapse

by Tyler Durden, 09January2024 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/victor-davis-hanson-culture-collapse

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

 

In the last six months, we have borne witness to many iconic moments evidencing the collapse of American culture.

 

The signs are everywhere and cover the gamut of politics, the economy, education, social life, popular culture, foreign policy, and the military. These symptoms of decay share common themes.

 

Our descent is self-induced; it is not a symptom of a foreign attack or subterfuge. Our erosion is not the result of poverty and want, but of leisure and excess. We are not suffering from existential crises of famine, plague, or the collapse of our grid and fuel sources. Prior, far poorer, and war-torn generations now seem far better off than what we are becoming.

 

What is happening to us is not due to an adherence to a too strict conservative tradition but is almost exclusively the wage of the progressive project.

 

In short, we are seeing fissures that America has not experienced in our cultural history since the Civil War. The radical Left apparently feels such chaos, anarchy, and nihilism are necessary to topple past norms and customs and thereby adhere to a socialist, equity agenda that no one in normal times would stomach.

 

Some of the decay is existential and fundamental; some anecdotal and illustrative. But either way, while decline came about gradually over decades, its sudden and abrupt chaos during the three years of Biden’s presidency has shocked Americans.

Financial Implosion

As long as interest rates were de facto zero, both parties ran up gargantuan debt. Now the national debt has hit $34 trillion. But two odd things have also happened under the Biden administration that are beginning to undermine the very existence of the U.S. financial system:

 

1) Interest rates have soared from de facto zero and are on a trajectory to 5.5%—meaning that the interest on the debt, in theory, in the not too distant future will require 20 percent of the annual budget, squeezing out both entitlements and defense.

 

2) Yet the upcoming rendezvous with economic Armageddon has not slowed a Biden administration intent on borrowing nearly $2 trillion in the current fiscal year.

The public is baffled: is the Left playing chicken with us? Is the strategy to “gorge the beast,” thereby demanding even higher federal taxes, which, combined with many state taxes, now exceed 50 percent of one’s income?

 

Is the goal massive “redistribution” by ensuring “equity” by gouging the middle class and rich? Or is the left’s goal more nihilistic: to force a remedy for insolvency by ensuring high inflation, renouncing government debt, or government appropriation of private capital?

Military Crises

Americans have lost deterrence abroad.

Confusion reigns among the public over why the Biden administration fled from Afghanistan, leaving behind billions of dollars of munitions and equipment in the hands of Taliban terrorists. Why did it allow a Chinese spy balloon to traverse the continental U.S. with impunity?

 

And why did Biden signal to Russia when preparing an invasion of Ukraine that our reaction would depend on the magnitude of Putin’s offensive? Why has military recruitment cratered, shorting the Pentagon of thousands of soldiers?

 

Why do Iranian proxies attack almost daily U.S. installations abroad and ships in the Red Sea, apparently without fear of reprisal? Why did Hamas slaughter Israelis on October 7? What explains our indifference or ennui?

 

Is the answer a deliberate effort to curb supposed American “arrogance” by once more leading from behind? Are we rebooting the Obama Administration’s bankrupt idea of empowering an Iranian crescent from Teheran to Damascus to Beirut to Gaza to ensure “creative tension” between Israel and the moderate Arabs and Persian-led theocratic Shiites?

 

Why do our officer classes rotate in and out of lucrative military consultantships, lobbying billets, and board membership on corporate defense contractors—as if their innate talents rather than their lifelong contacts with current serving procurement officers earned their exorbitant fees?

 

Why did our retired four stars with disdain violate the uniform code of military justice by serially and publicly trashing the commander in chief? Why has the Pentagon revolutionized the entire system of recruitment, promotions, and tenure in the armed forces by predicating them in large part on race, gender, and sexual orientation rather than merit or battlefield efficacy? Did we learn anything from the old Soviet commissariat system? Would we prefer to lose a war by promoting equity than win one by ensuring liberty?

 

Why did the top brass go after supposedly “insurrectionist” white males (who died at twice their demographics during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan) in the military, only to discover from their own internal investigations that no such cabal of “domestic terrorists” existed, and only to drive out thousands more of the maligned by stupidly requiring COVID vaccinations from those with naturally acquired immunity?

 

In sum, the U.S. will either undergo a post-Vietnam-like revolution in the military or, in late Roman imperial fashion, our armed forces will be unable to defend the interests or indeed, the very safety, of the U.S.

Race

Why, when so-called non-white ethnicities and races were achieving parity with or exceeding the majority population in per capita income and when racial intermarriage was commonplace, did we blow up the values of the civil rights movement and revert to precivilizational tribalism? Who were the sophists who convinced us that racially segregated dorms, safe spaces, and graduations, or using race as an arbiter of admissions and hiring, were not racist?

 

When did we lump together an entire cadre of diverse ancestries, ethnicities, religions, politics, classes, and values and dub them all “white,” and then smear them collectively in stereotypical fashion? When did we calibrate race as the chief determinative factor in our identities? Have we become premodern tribal people—feuding clans right out of the Norse sagas, ghosts of the Balkans nursing ancient grievances and hatreds? Since when in history has a nation’s “diversity” ever been preferable to its “unity”?

The Sexes

Did anyone in, say, 2004 believe that in just twenty years, the Left would try to mainstream the previously rare medical malady of gender dysphoria into a transgendered civil rights issue by insisting on three rather than two sexes?

 

Would anyone have believed that leftists, gays, and feminists would have done their best to destroy a half-century of female athletic achievement by allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports and thereby erase the record performances of three generations of women?

 

Would anyone have believed that a feminist and accomplished swimmer like Riley Gaines would be cornered, swarmed, threatened, and barricaded in at a university for the crime of daring to state the obvious: that transgendered women are still, in terms of their musculoskeletal physiques and frames, males and thereby have no business competing in women’s sports?

 

Would anyone have believed that a gay senate aide would have engaged in passive, unprotected sex in a public and hallowed Senate chamber, filmed in graphic detail his act of sodomy, had it circulated among friends and social media, and then, when outrage followed, claimed victimhood by accusing those offended of being homophobic toward him and his active homosexual partner?

Lawlessness

We are witnessing the steady erasure of jurisprudence, both civil and criminal. Does the law as we knew it a mere decade ago still exist? Massive looting with impunity is now largely exempt from justice in our major blue-state cities. In Compton, a van slams into a Mexican bakery as waiting crowds swarm, loot, and destroy the business. And for what? Some free pies and cakes? Or the nihilist delight in ruining the livelihood of a hardworking family business?

 

Such smash-and-grabs rob stores of billions of dollars in revenue each year. Can we even comprehend that employees and security guards are now ordered to stand down, as if the apprehension of such thieves might in some way seem illiberal or racist?

 

Does anyone even care that pro-Hamas protestors—many in America as guests on green cards and student visas—shouted support for the October 7 massacre of Jews, screamed for the destruction of Israel and the Jews in it, shut down the Manhattan and Golden Gate Bridges, defiled the Lincoln Memorial and White House gates, and disrupted Christmas celebrations in our major cities with complete exemption? Is storming the California legislature, and disrupting it in session, now a felony in the manner of those convicted after January 6, or do we have two sets of laws, dependent on ideology, race, and party affiliation?

 

In one of the most chilling videos in memory, Las Vegas Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus was recently violently attacked by an unshackled career felon defendant (with three prior violent felony convictions and facing additional new felony counts). The assailant, Deobra Redden, leaped over the justice’s bench with ease and began beating her and pulling her hair before two bailiffs, with great difficulty, managed to restrain him. Why was Redden out on parole given his violent record, and why was he not shackled given his toxic past? His self-admitted effort to kill the judge, his ability nearly to pull it off, and the record of past leniency accorded him are a commentary on a sick society.

 

But then again, in our major cities, George-Soros-subsidized prosecutors have all but destroyed civil society. They have been systematically releasing felons with violent criminal records on the same day they are arrested, freeing convicted felons early from prisons and jails, and sabotaging the law by arbitrary enforcement on the grounds that it is inherently either unfair or racist.

 

The post civilization civil bookend to that precivilizational subterfuge was a systematic legal effort, for the first time in American history, to remove in an election year the leading primary and general election candidate Donald Trump from various state ballots. The Soviet-like charge was that he was guilty of “insurrection,” a crime he has never been charged with, much less convicted of. Meanwhile, three state prosecutors and one special federal counsel—all leftists and some previously bragging in their own election campaigns of their intention to destroy Trump—have charged candidate Trump with an array of felonies. The vast majority of Americans agree Trump would never have been so charged had he just not sought to seek reelection—or had been a liberal Democrat.

Education

In ancient times, the President of the Harvard Corporation was a signature scholar and intellectual, befitting Harvard’s own self-regard as the world’s most preeminent university. No longer.

 

Now-resigned president Claudine Gay’s meteoric career was based on a flimsy record of a mere 11 articles—the majority of them plagiarized. Her entire career was fueled by the tired pretext that the privileged Gay was somehow deserving of special deference given her race and gender.

 

Confronted with such corruption, the Harvard Corporation, its legal team, and 700 faculty sought to downplay Gay’s intellectual theft. Indeed, they smeared her critics as racist—only then to deal with her new billet as a professor of Political Science with a long record of plagiarism that was exempt from the sort of punishments dealt out to students and faculty for less egregious defenses.

 

How did Ivy League degrees so quickly become mostly certifications of ideological and woke orthodoxy? Or is it worse than that? Does a Stanford history major or Yale literature graduate know anything, respectively, about the Civil War or Shakespeare’s plays? Do they even know that we, the public, know that they don’t know?

 

Was Elizabeth Warren really Harvard’s first law professor of color? Was Claudine Gay truly an impressive and respected scholar of political science? Are the governing members of the Harvard Corporation the nation’s best and brightest?

 

How in less than five years did our elite universities destroy meritocracy, abolish SAT requirements, require DEI oaths and pledges, and mirror the worst commissariat institutions of the old Warsaw Pact nations and Soviet Union? How and why these elite universities blew themselves up in a mere decade will baffle historians for decades to come.

The End of Sovereignty

The Biden administration has shattered federal immigration law, as some 10 million illegal entries will have crossed unlawfully and with impunity in the first Biden term—all by intent. The southern border is not merely porous; it no longer even exists.

 

Did the Left want new constituents? New entitlement recipients to grow government and raise taxes on the clingers and deplorables?

 

Did it want a larger DEI base to replace the steady exodus of non-whites from left-wing agendas? Does it shun sovereignty, preferring a global village without arbitrary borders? Do these utopians in Malibu and Martha’s Vineyard similarly feel their own yards and grounds need no walls, no barriers, and no boundaries to deny the underprivileged their rights to enjoy what the predatory classes possess?

 

In this new America of ours, Joe Biden is hale and savvy, while Hunter did nothing wrong.

Our heroes are Dylan Mulvaney, Gen. Rachel Levine, and the two Sams, Bankman-Fried and Brinton.

In today’s America, Karin Jean-Pierre is truthful, while Alejandro Mayorkas is honest. An innocent and saintly George Floyd was randomly murdered; his death proof of systemic police racism. And defunding the police brought calm and quiet, in the way our border is secure and the homeless are mere victims.

 

Dr. Jill is an impressive academic. Oprah and LeBron are the downtrodden and victimized. Gen. Mark Milley is a brave maverick, and so is Adam Schiff. The flight from Afghanistan marked a brilliantly organized retreat.

 

The Chinese balloon really did not take too many pictures of sensitive areas. January 6 was an armed insurrection, preplanned by fiery conspirators and revolutionaries. Ashli Babbitt deserved to be blasted in the neck for entering a broken window.

 

Kamala Harris is a wordsmith. Russian collusion really happened. So did Russian laptop disinformation. Christopher Steele’s dossier was mostly true, in the fashion of Claudine Gay’s dissertation and Barack Obama’s memoir. And 51 former intelligence authorities bravely came forward to offer their expertise in certifying that Hunter’s laptop was cooked up in Moscow.

 

With all this, what do we think the Iranians, Putin’s Russians, the communist Chinese, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas now think of the United States?

 

That we are the nation that won World War II or fled from Afghanistan? Did the eight million who broke our laws and simply walked across our border respect us, fear us, admire us, or come here to manipulate and use us? Did Hamas appreciate the hundreds of millions of dollars we gave them, in the same way Iran was friendlier after we lifted the sanctions?

 

In sum, American civilization has been turned upside down, and we have a rendezvous soon with the once unthinkable and unimaginable.

 

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Efforts to Protect US Intensify Amid Global Shift From Dollar

Calls from Congress and state houses to the private sector for out-of-the-box thinking, such as repegging the currency to gold or declaring precious metals to be legal tender, are growing.

An illustration of the U.S. dollar linked to gold. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

An illustration of the U.S. dollar linked to gold. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

By Alex Newman | 22August2023 Updated: 23August2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/efforts-to-protect-us-intensify-amid-global-shift-from-dollar-5451294

 

With inflation plaguing the economy as the U.S. dollar is increasingly being sidelined in international trade, potentially even at risk of losing its status as the global reserve currency, lawmakers in Washington and state capitals are touting gold and precious metals as the solution.

 

From congressional efforts that would once again back the U.S. dollar with gold to state-level initiatives to facilitate commerce in precious metals, proposals are proliferating. Some have already advanced.

 

Private-sector players are getting in on the action, too, arguing that gold can be a defense against economic calamity as foreign governments and central banks stockpile record amounts of precious metals.

 

In a series of interviews with The Epoch Times, state and federal lawmakers working to restore gold as money argued that this was the best way to defend the dollar, stabilize the economy, rein in government spending, and protect U.S. interests.

 

A bill introduced in Congress this year by U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), dubbed the Gold Standard Restoration Act (H.R. 2435), would redefine the dollar in terms of a fixed weight in gold. The legislation would also require authorities to exchange paper currency for gold.

U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) introduced the Gold Standard Restoration Act (H.R. 2435) this year. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) introduced the Gold Standard Restoration Act (H.R. 2435) this year. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

“How can you look at a country that’s 32 trillion in debt with out-of-control spending and think it’s the right standard to go by?” Mr. Mooney asked in a phone interview with The Epoch Times, warning of peril ahead for the dollar if its gold backing was not restored.

 

“Returning to the gold standard would bolster domestic and international confidence in the U.S. dollar because its value would be tied to something of actual worth, not just the ‘full faith and credit’ of the U.S. government,” added Mr. Mooney, who has been sounding the alarm throughout his political career. “This would preserve the U.S. dollar’s global reserve status.”

 

Meanwhile, in Texas, lawmakers concerned about the stability of the dollar and the U.S. economy are working to facilitate commerce in gold through the Texas Gold Depository.

 

“You have to look at history,” said Texas Rep. Mark Dorazio, a Republican who introduced the bill to facilitate intrastate trade in gold. “Over the last 6,000 years of history, gold and silver have kept their value and served as the standard.”

 

“It is the go-to in economic crisis and instability—everyone knows you go to gold,” the lawmaker told The Epoch Times in a phone interview.

 

“Everybody I talk to likes the idea of using our depository to conduct business,” he added. “Plus it would make money for the state. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

A worker polishes gold bullion bars at the ABC Refinery in Sydney on Aug. 5, 2020. Gold prices hit $2,000 an ounce on markets for the first time on Aug. 4, 2020. (David Gray/AFP via Getty Images)

A worker polishes gold bullion bars at the ABC Refinery in Sydney on Aug. 5, 2020. Gold prices hit $2,000 an ounce on markets for the first time on Aug. 4, 2020. (David Gray/AFP via Getty Images)

Ron Paul, a longtime champion of the gold standard and sound money who spent decades in Congress attempting to draw attention to the issue and wrote a best-selling book called “End The Fed,” told The Epoch Times that gold is likely to play a major role in the future.

 

As what he called the “Mickey Mouse” dollar continues to lose dominance, “something will have to replace it, [and] now we are seeing that,” he said, warning that “the Chinese are buying a lot of gold.”

 

Dr. Paul ridiculed the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights and emerging central bank “digital” currencies without inherent value as potential alternatives, saying something tangible such as gold is what’s needed.

 

“If there’s a digital currency that is truly backed with gold, that might be helpful,” he said.

Ultimately, Dr. Paul said he would repeal legal tender laws, abolish the Federal Reserve, and allow the market to decide what should be used as money.

 

“Gold and silver became money spontaneously thousands of years ago, and metals have worked well,” he said, praising state and federal efforts on precious metals. “We need sound money.”

 

Despite his pessimism about the economy, Paul, who gained national prominence during his runs for president, celebrated the growing number of states declaring gold and silver to be legal tender.

 

“The Constitution is very much on their side,” he said.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is a longtime champion of the gold standard. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images)

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is a longtime champion of the gold standard. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images)

Among other benefits, this can facilitate trade in precious metals by removing sales taxes and eliminating other obstacles, he said.

“This is a silent revolution going on at the grassroots level, passing legislation on this,” Paul said, adding that gold could protect countries, states, and even individuals. “That is a help in changing attitudes.”

 

As government debt and inflation continue to grow amid moves by U.S. adversaries to displace the dollar, interest in precious metals will continue to expand, multiple experts told The Epoch Times.

What Happened to Gold?

Until about 50 years ago, the U.S. dollar was still officially backed by gold. Because other currencies were mostly exchangeable for dollars on demand, the global monetary system was in effect underpinned by gold—at least in theory.

Infographic: One Dollar GraphAn illustration of the decline in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar over the past century. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

Infographic: One Dollar Graph
An illustration of the decline in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar over the past century. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

In fact, for thousands of years, precious metals have served as money. Economists say this is because they are durable, portable, scarce, and inherently valuable.

 

But with a series of major policy changes, beginning with the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 followed by a 1933 executive order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt limiting gold holdings, that began to change.

 

Under the leadership of President Richard Nixon, the U.S. government formally severed the dollar’s final link to gold in 1971, ending the ability of even foreign powers to exchange their dollars for gold.

 

That was a turning point. Conventional wisdom holds that the move by Nixon resulted in the end of the gold standard forever as most of the world was suddenly plunged into what is known as a “fiat” monetary system. Fiat means the currency has value by government edict, rather than any inherent value.

 

Economist John Maynard Keynes famously referred to the metal as a “barbarous relic,” a view that has proliferated in academia and in central banking circles.

 

But the world is now facing escalating economic and monetary turmoil. Just last week, Fitch downgraded U.S. debt in a historic blow as debt levels surge and the purchasing power of currencies worldwide plummets.

 

The problems with the dollar are growing. As reported in May, U.S. adversaries such as the Chinese Communist Party are actively working to reshape the global monetary system and replace the dollar.

 

Even traditional U.S. allies such as France and Brazil are now doing international deals in other currencies.

Multiple experts explained that Biden administration and Federal Reserve policies were contributing to the trend through high spending and loose monetary policy blamed for inflation.

 

Calls for major monetary reform at the international level have been steadily growing for decades, and have ramped up further in light of current events.

 

Numerous world leaders and central bankers, including the People’s Bank of China, have proposed an international reserve currency to displace the dollar, and senior U.S. policymakers have even flirted with the idea publicly.

People walk past a currency exchange shop in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 23, 2023. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

People walk past a currency exchange shop in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 23, 2023. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

But in the United States, more traditional options for drastic reforms involving metals are being explored, too. Indeed, developments are causing many experts and lawmakers to take a fresh look at the “barbarous relic.”

 

At the same time, reports that authorities in the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will consider a gold-backed currency are fueling interest in monetary metals worldwide.

 

Non-Western central banks are buying gold in record quantities, according to the World Gold Council, and analysts expect that demand to remain strong.

 

“We think this trend of central bank buying is likely to continue amid heightened geopolitical risks and elevated inflation,” Swiss bank UBS said in a note to clients in late May.

Gold Standard to the Rescue?

Several congressional Republicans who spoke with The Epoch Times pointed to current events to highlight what they say is the urgency of legislation to protect the dollar by once again tying it to gold.

 

Mr. Mooney of West Virginia, the chief sponsor behind the “Gold Standard Restoration Act,” explained that severing the link between the dollar and gold has produced extreme spending, inflation, and other problems.

 

“We need to learn from history,” he told The Epoch Times. “When President Nixon unfortunately took us off the gold standard, it made everything worse. He claimed at the time it was going to control inflation, but the opposite occurred.”

 

“It was a huge mistake,” continued Mr. Mooney, who introduced the bill in the last Congress as well. “Inflation is still out of control to this day.”

 

Because the dollar is no longer tied to gold, and because the federal government is rapidly losing the trust of Americans and people worldwide, the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency is at risk, he said.

 

“They keep playing monetary games at the Fed, with borrowing and printing money, and that makes the dollar less stable and more susceptible to international competition,” the congressman warned, adding that the Chinese Communist Party is taking full advantage.

In 1913, The Federal Reserve Act established the Federal Reserve System as the central bank of the United States. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

In 1913, The Federal Reserve Act established the Federal Reserve System as the central bank of the United States. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

But eventually, change may be forced upon the United States.

“If we get to the point where we literally can’t pay our debts anymore—where we default on our loans—it would force some fiscal restraint in our country, but it would also jeopardize the dollar and give a great opportunity for communist China and other countries to not use the dollar anymore as the standard,” he said.

 

Mr. Mooney also pointed to increasingly erratic U.S. foreign policy such as the Afghanistan withdrawal “debacle,” saying other governments were now reconsidering whether the United States is truly as stable as previously believed.

 

Aside from restoring the gold standard, Mr. Mooney said it was imperative for the U.S. government to come up with a plan to control spending. “Democrats have absolutely no plan to do that,” he said.

 

He also warned that if current trends continue, economic disaster is a certainty.

“I can’t tell you what the exact limit is, but I never thought we’d be able to get this far,” he said, blasting the $5 trillion in new debt added under the current administration as “totally irresponsible.”

 

The only answer is to get back to a real standard where the dollar is backed by gold, he said. “If we got back to the gold standard, at least we would have a restriction there in terms of government spending,” Mr. Mooney added.

The National Debt Clock in New York City on July 7, 2023. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

The National Debt Clock in New York City on July 7, 2023. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Another co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), also warned about the consequences of allowing the dollar to be debased.

 

“If our currency continues to suffer from rampant inflation, and our wealth and retirement become less and less valuable, Americans can thank [President] Joe Biden for printing more money out of thin air,” he told The Epoch Times.

 

“H.R. 2435 would protect families and businesses against Biden’s spending sprees by repegging the dollar to a fixed weight of gold at market price,” Mr. Gosar concluded.

 

Numerous other lawmakers have supported the general proposition as well. Commenting on the Federal Reserve’s efforts to bring in a Central Bank Digital Currency, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also touted gold.

 

“We should go back to the gold standard, not digital currency payment systems. Hard pass,” she wrote on Twitter in April.

State-Level Gold Initiatives

Lawmakers and analysts told The Epoch Times that currently there is little chance of President Biden signing such measures into federal law. That could change under the next president as the economic situation deteriorates, however.

 

But at the state level, initiatives to expand the use of gold are proliferating nationwide. In recent years, multiple states have even passed laws declaring gold and silver to be “legal tender,” in line with Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution.

 

In Texas, lawmakers are making some of the biggest moves yet.

In 2015, the state approved the creation of the Texas Bullion Depository, which, among other functions, stores precious metals for clients.

 

Now, a growing coalition of lawmakers and experts are working to use the institution to facilitate trade within Texas using precious metals.

Texas Rep. Mark Dorazio. (house.texas.gov)

Texas Rep. Mark Dorazio. (house.texas.gov)

The idea was first hatched about 3 years ago, Texas Republican Rep. Mark Dorazio told The Epoch Times, as lawmakers gathered to discuss solutions to “out-of-control overspending by the federal government” and “the people of Texas being taken advantage of through inflation.”

 

“The question really was, ‘How can we protect Texans from the federal government?’” the lawmaker said. “That’s where this idea came from.”

 

“I’ve always been interested in silver and gold because of the stability they provide,” he added, noting that gold has remained stable and preserved its value for over 5,000 years, going back to the Bible’s Book of Genesis.

 

Recent inflation as well as banking collapses and bailouts have only added urgency to the issue as Texans grow increasingly concerned about their retirements and pensions, explained Mr. Dorazio.

 

China’s and Russia’s ongoing purchases of gold also suggest Texas must take the issue seriously, he said.

The goal is for Texans to be able to use a debit card-style system allowing them to transact and make payments using their gold deposits at the state depository at merchants around the state.

 

Mr. Dorazio credited economic warfare expert Kevin Freeman with the idea, but other experts as well as multiple lawmakers also played a role.

 

“This bullion bill would give everyday folks on the street the opportunity to own gold or silver and, when they need to liquidate or transact business, they can do it, just like they would with a credit card, with any vendor,” Mr. Dorazio said. “The depository would just deduct that amount in gold from the holder’s account. The merchant never even knows, they just get paid.”

A man shops at a grocery store in Houston on Dec. 18, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

A man shops at a grocery store in Houston on Dec. 18, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Eventually, Mr. Dorazio and others behind the effort hope that Texas’s new system can be expanded and potentially even serve as a model for other states and countries.

 

“When this came to me, I said, ‘We’ve got to push this thing,’” he continued. “We pushed it hard.”

The bill did not pass in this year’s session. However, Mr. Dorazio and other lawmakers intend to file what they say is an improved bill in several different committees next year, “and I think we’re going to get it passed.”

 

Mr. Freeman, the economic warfare expert Dorazio credited with the concept, told The Epoch Times that the move by Texas would have benefits for all Americans.

 

“If passed into law, this becomes a safe haven for those who want to buy, hold, and even spend precious metals,” he said, pointing those who would like to learn more to TransactionalGold.com.

 

“This effort would strengthen our financial system and as a result actually help the dollar by adding gold and silver to America,” he said.

 

Numerous state legislators who spoke with The Epoch Times expressed an urgent desire to pursue similar solutions for their states.

 

Another prominent lawmaker embracing gold is Republican Rep. Ken Ivory of Utah. Even as he sees a “fiscal and monetary earthquake on the horizon,” his state is especially vulnerable as a significant portion of its budget comes from the federal government.

 

“The big concern we have is the most vulnerable people in Utah are dependent on federal funds that the [Government Accountability Office] and the [Congressional Budget Office] both tell us are unsustainable,” he said. “We need to figure out as states how to end that dependence and really find a stable system for caring for people in Utah.”

The Utah State Capitol building in Salt Lake City. (Scott Catron/CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

The Utah State Capitol building in Salt Lake City. (Scott Catron/CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

While Utah is consistently regarded as one of the best-managed states, Mr. Ivory said, “it doesn’t matter how diligent we may be, because it’s like we’re on a treadmill going the wrong direction as they continue to inflate the money—they just keep printing money—and so even as one of the best-managed states, we are still losing ground.”

Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory. (Utah House of Representatives)

Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory. (Utah House of Representatives)

Mr. Ivory is one of a growing number of lawmakers across America who see major economic turmoil ahead that is “going to devastate the most poor and vulnerable,” the lawmaker told The Epoch Times in a phone interview, referencing debt, deficit, and the accelerating de-dollarization trend.

 

“It will be terrible for everyone,” he continued, “but the most vulnerable will pay the most.”

Citing military leaders, Mr. Ivory also called the looming economic trouble one of the most significant threats to national security.

As such, it is time to begin “contingency planning,” he said.

The Utah legislature is not currently in session, but Mr. Ivory and other state officials are already working on legislation for 2024 that will give the state treasurer the authority to hold gold and silver.

 

“We also want to do more of what Texas has done, starting with the [gold] bill that did not pass as a template for Utah,” he said.

Private Sector and Individuals

Even without action from authorities, individuals and the private sector can also play a role in protecting themselves from trouble with the dollar, experts in economics and the metals industry told The Epoch Times.

 

Charles Nenner, a prominent trends forecaster and economic analyst, recommended diversifying investments as a way for individuals to protect their own wealth and savings.

 

People should “move as many assets as they can out of the dollar since the U.S. dollar is very vulnerable,” he said, suggesting that the loss of confidence in the dollar was part of a broader “super cycle” involving the end of U.S. global dominance.

 

University of Bayreuth Honorary Economics Professor Thorsten Polleit, who serves as chief economist at Degussa, Europe’s largest precious metals trading house, also recommended diversification out of fiat currencies for investors and companies.

 

“I think that the official fiat currencies—U.S. dollar, euro, Chinese Renminbi & Co—will see their purchasing power erode over time,” he told The Epoch Times. “So people and businesses should not rely on the ‘stability’ of fiat currencies, but to minimize their money holdings.”

 

“In addition, people should diversify their assets: hold physical gold and silver, invest in a globally diversified stock portfolio; and don’t put your money in money market funds and bonds,” he added, suggesting investment for the long-term.

A one-kilo Swiss gold bar and gold U.S. dollars coins in Paris on Feb. 20, 2020. (JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)

A one-kilo Swiss gold bar and gold U.S. dollars coins in Paris on Feb. 20, 2020. (JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)

Ultimately, Mr. Polleit said many of the political and economic problems facing not just the United States but the world could be traced back to “state monopolized money, or fiat money.”

 

“The solution is a return to a ‘free market in money’: Ending the state’s money production monopoly by giving people the freedom to choose the kind of money that suits their needs best,” he said, adding that people would likely choose gold as it has “always been the finest money available in human history.”

 

One Utah-based company, Goldback Inc., is working to circulate gold in the market already by turning the metal into notes with 1/1,000 of one ounce of gold in them to be spent at willing businesses.

 

“We are really focused on helping people use gold as money,” Goldback CEO Jeremy Cordon told The Epoch Times, adding that over 1,000 businesses already accept Goldbacks and the number of participating merchants is growing fast.

 

The biggest barrier to more widespread use of gold in commerce at the moment is sales taxes charged on precious metals in various states, including even some conservative states, he continued.

 

“I think it’s great that state legislators are paying more attention to these precious metals laws,” Mr. Cordon continued, adding that the firm is tracking legislation nationwide. “We are seeing a huge uptick in action on the congressional side, too.”

 

“A lot of these lawmakers know people are starting to use gold as money as part of the de-dollarization environment we’re in, and that is going to continue,” he said, calling it “encouraging” that more and more states were acting on the issue.

 

Neither the Federal Reserve Board nor the U.S. Treasury responded to requests for comment.

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The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates [Infographic]

Niall McCarthy Former Contributor
Data journalist covering technological, societal and media topics
2February2017 https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/02/02/the-countries-with-the-most-stem-graduates-infographic/?sh=5ad012e5268a

 

Since the turn of the century, China has experienced a revolution in third level education. It has outstripped both the United States and Europe in graduate numbers and as of 2016, it was building the equivalent of nearly one university per week. That progress has caused a massive shift in the world’s population of graduates, a population the U.S. used to dominate. Last year, India had the most graduates of any country worldwide with 78.0 million while China followed close behind with 77.7 million. The U.S. is now in third place with 67.4 million graduates, and the gap behind the top two countries is widening.

 

Some estimates see the number of Chinese graduates aged between 25 and 34 rising 300 percent up to 2030 compared to just 30 percent in the U.S. and Europe. According to the World Economic Forum, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) has become a pretty big deal in China’s flourishing universities. In 2013, 40 percent of Chinese graduates finished a degree in STEM, over twice the share in American third level institutions.

 

STEM graduates have become a vital cog in the wheel of global prosperity and unsurprisingly, China is leading the way. The World Economic Forum reported that China had 4.7 million recent STEM graduates in 2016. India, another academic powerhouse, had 2.6 million new STEM graduates last year while the U.S. had 568,000.

*Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)

The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates

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FALL OF AMERICAN EMPIRE AND DESCENT INTO A NEW DARK AGES

Administrator    Posted on May 31, 2023   https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/05/31/fall-of-american-empire-and-descent-into-a-new-dark-ages/

“The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and, instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigor of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians.” — Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 38 “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West”

Cole Thomas - The Course of Empire Destruction 1836

Cole Thomas – The Course of Empire Destruction 1836

 

“After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.” — Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 71 “Four Causes of Decay and Destruction.”

 

The moniker of my website originated from a quote by David Walker, then Comptroller General of the U.S., in 2007. I wholeheartedly endorsed Walker’s viewpoint and become politically active in trying to get Ron Paul elected as president in 2008 and 2012. It was a fruitless effort, as the uni-party in Washington DC, controlled by the dark forces of the Deep State, do not allow men and women who truly want to reduce the size and scope of government to ever get elected. His warning sixteen years ago is a perfect example of being right but being early. When talking about the decline of empires, you are really deliberating about a process, not an event. The Roman Empire did not fall on a specific day due to a specific cause. It collapsed in stages over hundreds of years due to numerous reasons, each triggering events which compounded upon each other and ultimately led to the final collapse.

 

Walker said, “The US government is on a “burning platform” of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon.” He believed we were resting on the laurels of being the sole superpower, as our empire built on debt was slowly and methodically crumbling. He cited three reasons for the fall of the Roman Republic that resonated in 2007 regarding the American Empire (formerly a republic):

  • There has been a decline in moral values and political civility at home. Examples include the devaluation of life, greater self-centerdness by individuals and increased partisanship and ideological divides in Congress.
  • We now have an overextended military around the world. While the US military is unmatched as to its capabilities, it is under stress and stretched very thin.
  • There is fiscal irresponsibility by the central government. Our debt ratios are set to increase dramatically when the baby boomers retire.

It’s almost humorous Walker was issuing these dire warnings when the 2007 annual deficit was $160 billion. At our current rate of debt accumulation, it takes only one month to reach $160 billion. In 2020 and 2021 it only took 20 days to accumulate $160 billion. The national debt in 2007 was $9 trillion, up from $5.6 trillion in 2000. Today it stands at $31.8 trillion. Interest on the national debt will approach $900 billion this year, exceeding defense spending.

 

Walker warned about our debt ratios skyrocketing when the baby boomers retired. Well, the debt to GDP ratio has doubled from 62% in 2007 to 124% today, and most boomers can’t even afford to retire. U.S. unfunded liabilities total $188 trillion. Personal debts total $25 trillion, with $1.8 trillion of student loan debt and $1.3 trillion of credit card debt. The fiscal irresponsibility of our government and its citizens is breathtaking, unsustainable, and ultimately fatal to our empire. Walker may have been early, but he certainly was not wrong.

Federal deficits trends Over Time-FY 2001-2022

Federal deficits trends Over Time-FY 2001-2022

 

The current Kabuki theater farce regarding the raising of the debt limit is a perfect example of how spineless politicians blatantly deceive the public, with the full support of the regime media, in proclaiming spending cuts and fiscal responsibility, when the CBO projections show the national debt growing to more than $50 trillion in the next ten years, as most of the spending is on automatic pilot. And this is before the coming recession/depression provokes the usual political response of fiscal stimulus, which will drive the debt higher.

 

Threats of government default, hysterical articles in the regime media, and last-minute deals are nothing but a show for the ignorant masses, while the true globalist agenda of one world order, where the peasants will own nothing and be happy, is rolled out at an accelerated pace. They know the fiscal sustainability of the western world is dire, therefore they are acting in a reckless manner, which imperils the world with a potential global war.

World Economic Forum-twet-19November2016-You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy. This is how our world could change by 2023

World Economic Forum-twet-19November2016-You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy. This is how our world could change by 2023

 

Walker’s first point about the decline in moral values and political incivility has reached civil war instigating levels of degradation, deviancy, and treasonous political activity. Not in Walker’s wildest dreams did he envision the grooming and trafficking of children, drag queen story hour for toddlers, pushing children to be mutilated and propagandized into believing they are the opposite sex, promoting deviancy, and having this degenerate behavior jammed down our throats by the government, corporations, and the media.

 

Destroying our culture, promoting abnormality and sloth, tearing the fabric of our society to shreds, encouraging lawlessness, looting and murder, and persecuting normal white Americans who dissent, is actively promoted, and funded by Soros, Gates, and the rest of the Davos – WEF globalist psychopaths. The devaluation of our lives was never more evident than during the covid plandemic, where the annual flu was weaponized to lockdown the world, create havoc and chaos, institute totalitarian measures to abscond with our liberties and freedoms, destroy the lives of vaxx dissenters, and ultimately destroy the lives of millions who obeyed and were injected with the untested, gene altering, spike producing, Big Pharma enriching concoction.

Covid-19 Protests-Free_Ohio_Now_Columbus

Covid-19 Protests-Free_Ohio_Now_Columbus

 

To put a Roman Empire slant on it, what has been wrought by Clinton, Obama, Comey, Wray, Brennan, Clapper, Pelosi, and their gaggle of treasonous co-conspirators since 2016 has marked our current day crossing of the Rubicon. Politics has always been a dirty game, but the machinations to bring down a duly elected sitting president, which continue to this day under the direction of Biden’s handlers, is reminiscent of the plots, coups, and murders as the Roman empire descended into corruption, madness, and deviant behavior.

 

The Durham report documented the unequivocal facts regarding the relentless coup attempt against Trump, but the complete coverup by the regime media and the toothless non-existent prosecution of the criminal Deep State characters involved in this treasonous act proves there no longer is a representative government looking out for the citizens of this country. We are a corporate fascist oligarchy, ruled by the few, for the few. We are nothing more than serfs, peasants, and useless eaters to the ruling class, as they continue to pillage and plunder what remains of the Treasury.

 

Walker thought our military was stretched thin in 2007, as the neo-cons had us fighting a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan to enrich the military industrial complex, based on false WMD claims and a fruitless effort to find our CIA created global terrorist mastermind – Osama bin Laden. Little did he know that twenty years after invading Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban, we would conduct a disastrous retreat and hand the country back to the Taliban, with a gift of about $10 billion in military hardware.

Taliban's new arsenal

Taliban’s new arsenal

 

“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” George Orwell, 1984

 

The defense budget in 2007, while fighting two wars, was $700 billion. Today the budget approaches $900 billion when we are supposedly not at war with anyone. With the Deep State firmly in control of both political parties, the arms dealers will always be swimming is your tax dollars, whether they are shipping their murderous wares to Zelensky, Israel, Taiwan, or any other country fighting our current mortal enemies – Russia, China, Syria, and Iran.

 

Mr. Walker was naïve in his assessment about the U.S. military’s strength. Winning wars to protect America has never been the goal. War is big business and keeps the politicians on both sides of the aisle satiated with political donations (aka bribes). The ruling class had no issue using a few hundred thousand poor patriotic useless eaters as cannon fodder in Iraq and Afghanistan to further enrich themselves. But it is much easier to create chaos and war in other countries and let their poor suckers die for a forlorn false cause, while providing weapons to both sides. I wonder if Walker was blindsided by Obama’s creation of wars in both Libya and Syria in 2011.

 

We killed Ghaddafi and left Libya a smoking chaotic ruin, with Islamic terrorists running rampant. Obama created ISIS so we had a reason to destroy Syria and Assad. Russia obliterated ISIS and has successfully kept Assad in power, infuriating the neocons and provoking the next move on the global chessboard. All the NPC Ukrainian Flag waving dolts who believe everything the regime media regurgitates, as instructed by their masters, are clueless as to why Biden and his neocon handlers are pushing us towards a direct conflict with Russia. Obama, Clinton, Victoria Nuland, John Brennan, McCain, Graham, and a slew of other Deep State lackeys overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine in 2014, because he was friendly towards Russia, initiating a domino effect in the Ukraine which has left us at the doorstep of World War III.

State flag of Ukraine carried by a protester to the heart of developing clashes in Kyiv, Ukraine. Events of February 18, 2014.

State flag of Ukraine carried by a protester to the heart of developing clashes in Kyiv, Ukraine. Events of February 18, 2014.

 

The Roman economy was basically a rapine economy. Like all slave-owning societies, Rome had no middle class, a debased currency, and no export production – it lived by conquests, slave trade, and plundering the conquered provinces. Such economies can exist only as long as they expand; when the expansion ends, downfall is inevitable. See any resemblance to the American economy? When the Fed stops printing, it all comes crashing down. By the third century their currency was worthless, and a barter economy sprung to life.

 

By 451 AD the empire was bankrupt, taxes were 40% to 60%, and there was nothing left in the coffers to pay the military or keep the infrastructure from crumbling. The barbarians applied the final blow with the sacking of Rome, and the Dark Ages were born. Slavery and serfdom were the fate of Roman peasants. The collapse of Mediterranean trade meant the collapse of papyrus imports, and the means of writing disappeared. Literacy dissipated. The Roman civilization was kept alive only in churches and monasteries, which could afford parchment and vellum. What will the bankruptcy of the American empire entail and how will the city dwelling welfare recipients’ fare? My guess is not very well.

Heinrich Leutemann,-Rome's plundering by the vandals (c.1860–1880)

Heinrich Leutemann,-Rome’s plundering by the vandals (c.1860–1880)

 

Just as the Romans became fat and happy, enjoying the fruits of efforts, innovation and sacrifices put forth by prior generations, Americans have grown to believe they are the richest, freest, and most powerful nation on earth. They believe it is their privilege to rule the world. Just as the Romans hired mercenary armies to fight their wars because it was beneath their citizens to defend their vast empire, the U.S. used paid mercenaries (Blackwater) in Iraq and Afghanistan to fight their wars. Now we just outsource the dying to Ukrainians, Libyans, Syrians, and Somalis, while providing them the weapons, technology, and logistics to wage endless war on our behalf.

IRAQ-LIBYA-YEMEN-SYRIA-before-after US intervention

IRAQ-LIBYA-YEMEN-SYRIA-before-after US intervention

 

Next up will be the Taiwanese, as we provoke China into our next war. As documented earlier, the fiscal trajectory of our empire is on a course towards Armageddon, and the tens of billions in weapons being handed to the most corrupt nation on earth – Ukraine – is simply insane. Biden acts like a Roman emperor dictator (with dementia) during the final stages of Rome’s collapse, while the feckless politicians in the House & Senate sit idly by, cheering on our descent into national bankruptcy.

 

The final collapse of the Western Roman Empire was mainly triggered by the weakness of its late-stage emperors, failure of its civil administrators, disease, epidemics, and the unceasing invasion of its lands by the barbarian Visigoths and Vandals. Military failure and monetary weakness were the final nails in the coffin. The parallels with the American empire’s late stages are uncanny.

Joe Biden-child sniffing fool

Joe Biden-child sniffing fool

 

Can anyone conceive of a weaker emperor than Dementia Joe Biden? He is a low IQ, lying, corrupt to his core, bumbling, child sniffing fool, acting on behest of the Deep State and their globalist cabal. His administration is crawling with deviants, dopes, and those seeking the destruction of our country. The barbarian hordes are streaming across our southern border and being ushered into communities across the country by government sanctioned flights and bus rides. These mostly male Hispanics, Haitians, Somalis, Muslim terrorists, and Chinese nationals are not going to strengthen our country, but contribute greatly to its fall. But at least the ruling class will have maids and gardeners, while Big-Agra will have cheap labor to pick their crops.

The Longest Welfare line in the World

The Longest Welfare line in the World

 

Edward Gibbon’s discernment that the number one cause for the ruin of Rome was “The injuries of time and nature”, is more profound than it might seem. Its ability to be sustained for almost one thousand years is remarkable, but as with all large entities it succumbed to entropy, currency debasement, deviancy, corruptibility of its ruling class, and apathy of its citizenry. Everything trends towards disorder, chaos, and ultimately collapse. Pleasure without pain, glory without sacrifice, indolence without work, degeneracy disguised as creativity, and treason portrayed as politics, led to a slow spiraling disintegration of their society and culture over the course of centuries.

 

These exact same characteristics are rearing their ugly head in the late stages of the American Empire decline. It is fascinating that Roman historian Tacitus was documenting traits of a declining nation state during the first century, while it took until the fifth century for the Western Roman Empire to finally collapse. The timing of the downfall is always in doubt, as grains of sand are added to the pile until entropy wins and all comes crashing down.

Invasions of the Roman Empire

Invasions of the Roman Empire

 

“You have not tasted servitude. There is no land beyond us and even the sea is no safe refuge when we are threatened by the Roman fleet. We are the last people on earth, and the last to be free: our very remoteness in a land known only to rumor has protected us up till this day. Today the furthest bounds of Britain lie open—and everything unknown is given an inflated worth. But now there is no people beyond us, nothing but tides and rocks and, more deadly than these, the Romans. It is no use trying to escape their arrogance by submission or good behavior. They have pillaged the world: when the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy, if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of ’empire’. They make a desolation and call it ‘peace” Tacitus

American Flag in Tatters

American Flag in Tatters

 

It’s as if Tacitus lived among us today. His description fits perfectly in describing the psychopaths controlling the U.S. Empire, along with most of the western world, as they rape, pillage, plunder, and desolate foreign lands in the name of freedom and call it peace keeping. The U.S. Empire is willing to fight Putin until the last Ukrainian is dead on the battlefield. How noble. Slaughter and seizing natural resources under false pretenses (WMD) are hailed as spreading democracy to third world countries.

 

It took the Roman Empire about 1,000 years to fall. The British Empire fell in approximately 300 years. The United States has been around for 234 as a nation, but only an empire since 1946, a mere 77 years. Has the advancement of technology, speed of communications, monetary manipulations, and level of military firepower coalesced into accelerating the demise of empires? It certainly appears so, as the American Empire is on course to fall by the end of this Fourth Turning, within the next ten years.

 

It is commonly believed the Dark Ages began with the fall of the Roman Empire. Of course, the definition of the Dark Ages has been debated for centuries, with the time frame sometimes set from 500 AD to 1000 AD, and sometimes until 1500 AD. They overlapped with the Middle Ages and some scholars contend they weren’t even that dark. I find it interesting as we enter a new Dark Ages, the regime media is busy writing articles contending the previous Dark Ages weren’t so bad after all.

 

The level of gaslighting produced on a daily basis by the propaganda peddlers doing their assigned task of keeping the masses ignorant and confused, is beyond the comprehension of average Americans trying to make a living and trusting their government. In reality, the Dark Ages coincided with the cultural decay and decadence of Rome in its late stages, as the vices of gluttony, lust and greed became the root of their civilization and functioned as chains enslaving and weighing down their culture.

The Dark Ages by JonasDeRo

The Dark Ages by JonasDeRo

https://www.deviantart.com/jonasdero/art/The-Dark-Ages-312263111

During the glory days of the Roman Empire, they achieved tremendous advancements in the areas of science, literature, philosophy, government, and architecture. The fall of the empire left a vacuum in these areas for centuries. The death of a culture is not an easy event to recover from. Record keeping during the Dark Ages was minimal, leaving historians in the dark as to what happened. After the fall, feudalism emerged, and the Catholic Church gained increasing power.

 

The intermingling of the church and state contributed to the lack of cultural advancement. The uneducated peasants were fearful and superstitious, living lives of subsistence and want. The Renaissance Age of enlightenment, which followed the Dark Ages, provided the inverse paradigm to the Dark Ages. Italian scholar Petrarch, who lived in the 14th century referred to the time period as ”those men of intellectual prowess as living cloaked in darkness”.

 

I would contend we have already entered a new Dark Ages, based upon the collapse of our culture, ignorance of the masses, failure of our educational system, celebration of deviancy, lack of civility, and lawlessness in our cities. Most Americans would scoff at the notion we have already entered a new dark age. Everyone (including the desperately “poor” illegal aliens swarming across our border) has a super-computer phone in their hands 24/7. Every piece of knowledge ever conceived is available at our fingertips through the internet.

 

We spend tens of thousands of dollars per student per year in our public schools to educate our children. Our universities are world renowned. We are the wealthiest nation in history. We have tens of thousands of laws, regulations, and rules, to keep us safe. And supposedly, the American dream is attainable by everyone born in this country. Sounds like we should be living in a new age of enlightenment. But nothing could be further from the truth. Mistaking technological advancement and passage of laws with cultural and societal advancement is a complete fallacy, as described by Albert Einstein and Aldous Huxley almost a century ago:

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” Albert Einstein

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” Albert Einstein

 

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means

In case you haven’t noticed, our culture has descended into the gutter, societal norms which kept the country relatively cohesive since its inception are being attacked and obliterated by deviants and degenerates, and any semblance of a unified vision of what America stands for is actively being destroyed by the globalist Davos crowd seeking to implement their Great Reset agenda of technocratic control over the lowly peasants, while they feast, plunder and pillage the planet – the true psychopath barbarian billionaire horde.

 

The perversion of normalcy into glorifying pedophiles, drag queens, transgender freaks, drug addict felons, race hustlers, and organizations promoting lawlessness, looting, and killing, while persecuting and prosecuting normal, hard-working, civilized white people has left the country on the brink of chaos. Technology has done nothing but make us dumber, distracted and easily manipulated by the Bernaysian masters of manipulation.

 

Multiple generations have now been socially indoctrinated by government schools to obey, emote, believe, and fear whatever (Covid) and whoever (Putin) they are commanded to fear. What they are not taught is how to think critically, question everything, and make their own decisions based upon actual facts. Test scores in reading, writing and math are at all-time lows. The solution is to continually lower the standards and never hold anyone accountable for results.

 

We are a nation of morons led by a cadre of psychopaths. Children are encouraged by their parents and doctors to cut off their breasts and penises due to peer pressure and deviants controlling the schools and media. Groomers make toddlers watch transgender freaks perform sex acts on stage. Library books for 8-year-olds describe anal sex, masturbation, and other perverted acts.

 

Matt Walsh-tweet-4October2022-I believe that gender ideology

Matt Walsh-tweet-4October2022-I believe that gender ideology

Statues portraying our history are torn down by mobs, while what passes for art and architecture today is perverted, frivolous and inconsequential. There are no masterpieces of literature created in our rotting society. The only thing that matters is monetizing content and number of eyeballs. Quality is non-existent, overridden by quantity and replaceability. Movies and television programs are created by untalented hacks, responding to focus groups, and required to insert the required racial and homosexually woke storylines into every program.

 

There are no Godfathers or Casablancas being produced. There are no novelists writing masterpieces on par with Steinbeck or Hemingway. But we do have Cardi B belting out her best-selling song WAP (acronym for Wet-Ass Pussy) and Sports Illustrated with transgender and obese swimsuit models. Based on TV commercials, 90% of Americans are either black, in an interracial relationship, gay, or transgender. We are an epically unserious society. Anyone observing America and most of the western world in an impartial manner would have to conclude we are already living in a new Dark Age of ignorance, superstition, and degradation, even before the final collapse of empire.

Hank Willis Thomas Sculpture Honoring Martin Luther King Jr on Boston Common

Hank Willis Thomas Sculpture Honoring Martin Luther King Jr on Boston Common

 

While doing research on the Dark Ages I was surprised to stumble across some climate related information which puts the current hysterical climate change narrative in perspective. The current war on CO2, cow farts, petroleum powered vehicles, farmers, and human beings living in peace, is nothing more than an agenda to depopulate the planet, make our lives miserable, and further enrich those controlling the narrative, flying on private jets, vacationing on enormous yachts, and living in 50 room mansions in the Hamptons.

 

The green agenda is built on taxing you more, with zero impact on climate, while virtue signaling success. Meanwhile, the sun and power within our earth’s core will dictate our climate, despite all fruitless manmade efforts to have an impact. George Carlin’s The Planet is Fine diatribe captures the hypocrisy of humans thinking they matter at all when it comes to the planet.

“The planet is fine; the people are fucked! The planet isn’t going anywhere; we are! We’re going away! Pack your shit, folks! We’re going away and we won’t leave much of a trace either, thank God for that.”George Carlin

Solar Cycles-Brey and Eddy Solar Cycles

Solar Cycles-Brey and Eddy Solar Cycles

 

As you can discern, Rome flourished during a warming period and the Dark Ages coincided with a cooling period. Neither was due to human activity, petroleum products, not recycling enough, or cow farts. It was due to solar and volcanic activity, which may have gone hand in hand in creating the dynamics that made the Dark Ages dark. The Little Ice Age coincided with the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715 when sunspots were at a minimum. Major volcanic eruptions in the 13th century, dimming sunlight across the planet also contributed to the cooling of the planet.

 

It seems recent studies of ice cores by real scientists confirm the period around 536 AD may have been the worst time to live on our planet in history. A cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland in 536 AD   spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere, producing a mysterious fog plunging Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. Snow fell during the summer in China. Two other massive eruptions followed, in 540 and 547. The repeated blows, followed by Bubonic plague, plunged Europe into economic stagnation that lasted until 640.

Natural disasters on European society

Natural disasters on European society

 

Humans will always be at the mercy of Mother Nature, the sun, and the volcanic activity within the bowels of our planet. Taxes, recycling, and electric cars won’t have one iota of impact on the future of the planet. The impact of little or no sun over the course of years led to crop failures, famine and plague, bathing sixth-century Europe in darkness and despair. Crops cannot grow without sun. Hunger and lack of vitamin D left the populations susceptible to disease. The bubonic plague killed half the inhabitants of the Eastern Roman Empire during these dark days, hastening its collapse.

 

With no wheat, there was no bread, a staple of the diet in those days. The people of Europe were occupied with survival, living a brutish existence, leaving little time for cultural advancement. The trials and tribulations documented throughout history are determined by a combination of controllable human actions and uncontrollable natural causes.

Under dark skies, St Augustine brings a message of Christian hope to 6th-century King Ethelbert of Kent. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

Under dark skies, St Augustine brings a message of Christian hope to 6th-century King Ethelbert of Kent. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

 

Under dark skies, St Augustine brings a message of Christian hope to 6th-century King Ethelbert of Kent. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

Our helplessness at the hands of nature happens every day across the globe, with the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami deadly reminders of our vulnerability and powerlessness. We already know Schwab, Soros, Gates, Tedros, and the rest of the Great Reset New World Order cabal are actively attempting to bring down the American Empire and replace it with a global oligarchy, where we own nothing, and they own it all. Using climate change as their cudgel, they are already conducting a war on farmers, purposely restricting the output of food for the masses.

 

Combined with rampant raging central bank created inflation across the world, wars being conducted in breadbasket regions of the globe, and extreme drought conditions in key agricultural regions, the landscape is already in the danger zone. With Mexico’s Popocatépetl volcano showing signs of a major eruption, and hundreds of other dormant volcanoes around the world capable of eruptions on par with the 536 AD eruption, it’s only a matter of when, not if. Many scientists postulate the Sun has entered into the modern Grand Solar Minimum (2022–2053) that will lead to a significant reduction of solar magnetic field and activity like during Maunder minimum, leading to noticeable reduction of terrestrial temperature. We have zero control or influence over these events.

AMECAMECA, MEXICO - MAY 23: Popocatepetl volcano spews incandescent material as seen from Paso de Cortés on May 23, 2023 in Amecameca, Mexico. The second highest volcano in the country increased its activity while Mexican authorities raised the alert to yellow phase 3. Popocatepetl volcano caused the fall of ashes in different municipalities in Puebla, Estado de Mexico and Mexico City. Mexican army has spread forces as a preventive measure while the 3 levels of government are in coordination to observe the activity of the volcano and the situation in the surroundings. (Photo by Cristopher Rogel Blanquet/Getty Images)

AMECAMECA, MEXICO – MAY 23: Popocatepetl volcano spews incandescent material as seen from Paso de Cortés on May 23, 2023 in Amecameca, Mexico. The second highest volcano in the country increased its activity while Mexican authorities raised the alert to yellow phase 3. Popocatepetl volcano caused the fall of ashes in different municipalities in Puebla, Estado de Mexico and Mexico City. Mexican army has spread forces as a preventive measure while the 3 levels of government are in coordination to observe the activity of the volcano and the situation in the surroundings. (Photo by Cristopher Rogel Blanquet/Getty Images)

 

Quotes from Tacitus nearly 2,000 years ago are proof human nature never changes and the cycles of history repeat themselves across empires. Biden’s illegal executive orders, disregard of the Constitution, and blatant corruption, along with the regime media suppressing legitimate dissent about Fauci’s lies, Pfizer’s falsification of trial data, and the FDA colluding with Twitter to censor doctors, fit perfectly into Tacitus’ view of the world.

“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” Tacitus

“If you would know who controls you see who you may not criticize.” Tacitus

 

CORONAVIRUS-BIDEN-FAUCI

CORONAVIRUS-BIDEN-FAUCI

 

The traitorous acts of Obama, Biden, Clinton, Comey, Brennan and the entire FBI and CIA complex in conducting a coup against a duly elected president and then covering up their treason with the full cooperation of the regime media was and still is an audacious crime. These crimes are fully detailed in the Durham Report and on Hunter Biden’s laptop, but no one will go to jail, because half the country supports the crime the other half is apathetic and uninterested, and our elected leaders are in on it. Two thousand years and nothing changes.

 

“Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.” Tacitus

“The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more and tolerated by all.” Tacitus

spies who lie

spies who lie

 

The American Empire is displaying all the worst attributes of Rome in its death throes, as the oligarchy grows more audacious, knowing they are illegitimate, but unconcerned with being brought to justice because they control the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government. They fear no one and dare the peasants to try and stop them. The oligarchs provoke crisis, chaos, fear, and strife. They hide in the shadows, functioning as an invisible governing power, manipulating the minds of the masses, in their psychotic belief they can control and rule the world because they are superior in intellect, integrity, and ability to envision the future.

 

This relatively small circle of psychopaths, who have gotten the empire into this mess, grow ever more powerful as they lead us on a path to disaster. Their hubris and an arrogant disregard for the wishes of the people, belief in their own invincibility, and not fearing any retribution for their crimes of treason, leave them at the top of a crumbling empire – so they will have the farthest to fall.

 

Everything about our empire is unsustainable. Ultimately it will collapse financially under the weight of its unpayable debts. With psychopaths running the show who believe they can win a two front war against Russia and China, we will be lucky if our empire isn’t just a pile of smoldering ruins when they are done with it. There is absolutely no way to vote ourselves out of this because the Deep State counts the votes.

 

The dissenters are not united enough to shoot our way out of this. You can run, but you can’t hide from the impact of the coming collapse. The unknown ingredient to this toxic mixture of death is nature’s influence. If a volcanic eruption, or several volcanic eruptions on par with the 536 AD occurrence, were to happen concurrently with economic collapse, the earth’s population of 8 billion would be drastically reduced in short order.

Amish Community: The Caretakers Of The Earth

Amish Community: The Caretakers Of The Earth

 

At this point, the best we could hope for is a relatively non-violent collapse where the critical thinking self-reliant people would migrate to rural regions and learn to live off the land again. The simple life of thriving day to day based on your own efforts, along with the efforts of your small homogeneous community, is the likely destiny for millions. No one is coming to save us. We’ll have to save ourselves. We happened to be born at a juncture of history where a Fourth Turning crisis ended an empire. We didn’t choose our fate, but we need to prepare and make the best of our situation.

 

I find nothing more appropriate to visually represent our clownworld empire falling than a picture of a dwarf clown, smoking a cigarette while holding a bouquet of wilted flowers in the pouring rain in front of a defunct circus tent. If the clown shoe fits, wear it. The season is turning.

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven

 – Turn! Turn! Turn! The Byrds

Sad Clown

Sad Clown

 

The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity. The Western saecular rhythm – which began in the mid-fifteenth century with the Renaissance – could come to an abrupt terminus. The seventh modern saeculum would be the last. This too could come from total war, terrible but not final. There could be a complete collapse of science, culture, politics, and society. Such a dire result would probably happen only when a dominant nation (like today’s America) lets a Fourth Turning ekpyrosis engulf the planet. But this outcome is well within the reach of foreseeable technology and malevolence.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

 

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Martin Armstrong On “The Coming Dark Age”

by Tyler Durden, 21September2016 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-20/martin-armstrong-coming-dark-age

Submitted by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,

 

Question:

Over the years you have made several comments about directional changes and have alluded to the idea that a crossroads is coming in that we will either enter another Dark Age or we will see the light towards greater liberty and freedom. More recently, you mentioned the year 2032 as a critical year in this regard.

 

In addition, you have mentioned that Trump winning the election would postpone the inevitable chaos, but that HRC winning would speed it along.

 

In terms of the distal effects of the November election on 2032, does either Trump or Clinton winning increase the likelihood of entering a Dark Age over something more hopeful? Should we be attempting to kick the can down the road or should we get it over with?

 

Wild Tree - Dark Age

Wild Tree – Dark Age

 

Answer:

Hillary is just corrupt and rotten to the core. She represents everything that is wrong with our political economy. Politicians no longer care about the people. Every election promises “change” in some variation.

 

Obama - Change we can believe in

Obama – Change we can believe in

 

That is admitting something is broken, but it always comes down to the same thing – it’s just about them.

 

Mark Twain - If voting made any difference they would not let us do it

Mark Twain – If voting made any difference they would not let us do it

Indeed, it was Mark Twain who put it best during the last century: “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” We must understand that this has been an age old battle between the rulers and the people. In Athens where Democracy was born, they constantly fought to seize power back and even made Pericles stand trial. Government has always sought to bribe the people creating a welfare state. The Romans knew that the way to power was to promise everything but give them bread and circuses (sport games) and they could maintain power. It was Decimus I?nius Iuven?lis, commonly known as Juvenal, who was a Roman poet active in the late 1st and early 2nd century AD that wrote that phrase:

 

… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses

 

[…] iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. […]

 

(Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81)

 

Nothing has changed. Many people can name every person on some sports team but cannot name their political minister, congressman, or whatever lofty title they call themselves. The judge in a courtroom demands to be called “honorable” as do all public servants. They make a mockery of the very word.

 

Athens - AR Tetradrachm 510-505BC (17-35 grams)

Athens – AR Tetradrachm 510-505BC (17-35 grams)

 

We are approaching the grave danger of a Dark Age beginning from the aftermath of 2032. Hopefully, I will be gone by then and will not have to face this horrible event. Yet Dark Ages are reoccurring events throughout history and in all cultures. The Greeks endured their between the Homeric Age that marked the end of the Mycenaean civilization around 1100 BC, to the first signs of the Greek cities (poleis) rising again in the 6th century BC (508–322 BC). It was during the 9th century BC (900-801BC) that we begin to see the rise of great cities outside of Greece including Carthage, which was founded by the Phoenicians.

 

Japan went through its Dark Age, which also lasted about 600 years and the same impact was endured in Europe with the collapse of Rome in 476AD. Dark Ages seem to come in units of 3 so they are 300 or 600 years. The cause is always political corruption.

 

Japanese Debasement 760-958AD

Japanese Debasement 760-958AD

 

In the case of Japan, each new emperor devalued the money in circulation with a decree that it was worth 10% of his new coins. There was no intrinsic value since they were bronze or iron. This process led people NOT to hoard money. Chinese coins were sought after since they would not be devalued. Eventually, nobody would accept Japanese coins and they ceased to be issued for 600 years. People used Chinese coins or bags of rice.

 

Roman Follis 295-348AD

Roman Follis 295-348AD

 

The Roman Monetary Crisis that saw silver vanish by 268AD, was naturally followed by an attempt to restore the monetary system. A new bronze coin was introduced in 295AD known as the Follis. Again, one 52 year cycle saw its collapse from over 16 grams to under just 2 grams.

Zenonis

Zenonis

By the time you come toward the very end of the Roman Empire, you rarely find any bronze and when you do, it is less than an American penny. Coinage is debased because of the corruption in government. Those who think restoring the gold standard would do anything are wrong. Such monetary reforms appear repeatedly throughout history with little lasting impact. The system as we know it is always doomed to failure simply because we are satisfied as a whole with bread and circuses and let politicians run wild in their greed. Hillary is the example for everyone to see.

 

I will gather all the accounts and this is on my bucket-list of books to complete. We do have a choice. We can understand what is coming and WHY, and perhaps take that first step out of darkness and move into the light of a realistic political system that ends the bribing of citizens and this eternal battle of political corruption. We need a REAL democracy without career politicians. Only then can we hope to advance as a society.


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The Three Stages Of Empire

by Tyler Durden, 21September2016 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-21/three-stages-empire

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

I consider it self-evident that we are in the third and final stage of self-serving Imperial decay.

 

Though Edward Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century CE to the Third is not specifically on the rise and fall of empires, it does sketch out the three stages of Empire.

 

Here is the current context of the discussion of Imperial lifecycles: the U.S. defense budget is roughly the same size as the rest of the world’s defense spending combined:

 

US Defense budget

US Defense budget

 

Luttwak describes the first stage of expansion thusly:

 

“With brutal simplicity, it might be said that with the first system the Romans of the republic conquered much to serve the interests of the few, those living in the city–and in fact still fewer, those best placed to control policy.”

 

The second stage spread the benefits of Empire much more broadly:

 

“During the first century A.D., Roman ideas evolved toward a much broader and altogether more benevolent conception of empire… men born in lands far from Rome could call themselves Roman and have their claim fully allowed, and the frontiers were efficiently defended to defend the growing prosperity of all, and not merely the privileged.”

 

The third stage is one of rising inequality:

 

“In the wake of the great crisis of the third century, the provision of security became an increasingly heavy charge on society, a charge unevenly distributed, which could enrich the wealthy and ruin the poor. The machinery of empire now became increasingly self-serving, with its tax collectors, administrators and soldiers of much greater use to one another than to society at large.

 

That line describes the American state and central bank perfectly. The burdens of an increasingly self-serving hierarchy are falling most heavily on the middle and upper-middle class, while bread and circuses (i.e. Medicaid-paid opiates) are freely distributed to the restless masses to distract them from the immense concentration of wealth and power at the top of the pyramid:

 

The Global Wealth Pyramid

The Global Wealth Pyramid

 

At some point, Collapse Is Cheaper and More Effective Than Reform (November 5, 2015). The third stage Luttwak describes can be broken down into a chart of the Lifecycle of Bureaucracy, for every Imperial Project is ultimately the combination of a vast concentration of wealth/power and the sclerosis of self-serving bueaucracies that serve themselves rather than society at large:

 

Lifecycle of Bureaucracy

Lifecycle of Bureaucracy

 

I consider it self-evident that we are in the third and final stage of self-serving Imperial decay. That said, we don’t have to follow that trajectory; we can fashion a much better future outside the status quo, as I outline in A Radically Beneficial World.

 

* * *

 

If you find value here, please consider becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com. My new book is #5 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book’s website.

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END GAME FOR THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

Administrator Posted on 27August2023 https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/08/27/end-game-for-the-american-empire/

 

Thomas Paine Quote: The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance

Thomas Paine Quote: The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance

Living through the late stages of an empire in decline, coming unhinged, flailing about in a death throes of debt, depravity and denial, is not a pleasant experience. But, it is just the cycle of history playing out once again, with the name of the empire changed, different villains and fools, civil and international strife, and a debt default to end all debt defaults. As the chart below portrays, the existing social order, controlled and dominated by America since the beginning of the 20th Century, is rapidly hurtling towards its demise, to be swept away by a tsunami of debt default, social chaos, and global war. That’s how Fourth Turnings roll.

The Archetypical Big Cycle-Dalio-Cycle

The Archetypical Big Cycle-Dalio-Cycle

I know the ignorant masses choose the ostrich method of keeping their heads buried in the sand, but that will not save them from the consequences of actions taken and not taken over the last fifty years by the political and business leaders installed by wealthy globalist psychopaths bent on controlling the world and reaping the riches from their despicable efforts.

Stick your head in the sand

Stick your head in the sand

I believe Ray Dalio‘s chart of the changing world order is accurate as to where we stand in the cycle, even though he is one of those global elitists. The beginning of the decline can be pegged to the start of the 21st Century, with the dot.com crash and 9/11 ushering in an astronomical increase in debt, money printing, and despotism, as each crisis created by debt and money printing was met with the “solution” of more debt and money printing. With interest on the national debt about to surpass $1 trillion per year and unfunded future debt obligations exceeding $200 trillion, there is no way out. The American economic system will implode in a matter of a few years.

 

The internal conflict since the election of Trump in 2016 and the subsequent coup, election fraud, scamdemic, and now unwarranted un-Constitutional persecution of Trump, leaves the country on the brink of civil war. I know the regime media and distracted masses scoff at the possibility of civil war, but the same was true in 1859. There are a lot of rightfully angry people in this country with a seething rage for those who have destroyed this country for their own gain. The 2024 election sure seems like a spark that could ignite this powder keg, and the 300 million weapons owned by the angry people are waiting to be put to proper use.

Tree Of Liberty by StephenBarlow

Tree Of Liberty by StephenBarlow

https://www.deviantart.com/stephenbarlow/art/Tree-Of-Liberty-476474101

I believe we are already in the midst of stages 16 – Loss of Reserve Currency and 17 – Weak Leadership. The American empire initiated war in the Ukraine has set in motion the demise of the USD as the reserve currency of the world, ending its seventy seven year reign as the one and only settlement currency for global trade. Biden, the weakest, dumbest, most corrupt, illegitimate president in the history of our country, has succeeded in pushing Russia, China, India, Brazil, and now the Middle East and South American oil producers towards an economic alliance which will accelerate the demise of the USD.

 

Biden, as the puppet of evil globalist forces, has encouraged an invasion of our southern border by barbarian hordes, has destroyed our economy, flaunted the Constitution, and has set us on a path towards global conflict. He makes James Buchanan and Jimmy Carter look like Mount Rushmore candidates compared to his “accomplishments”. They were just ineffective and weak. He is corrupt, evil and destructive. 2024 would be the sixteenth year of this Fourth Turning, right in the wheelhouse of civil war, revolution, and global conflict. We have entered the endgame and now it’s just a matter of how much destruction, death, and retribution will be required to achieve a new world order better than what we have today. Not winning is not an option.

"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately"-Benjamin Franklin

“We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately”-Benjamin Franklin

 

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Hidden Fragility – What Happens When The Electricity Is Off For Three Days?

by Tyler Durden 19October2016 https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-19/hidden-fragility-what-happens-when-electricity-three-days

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

 

What happens when an electricity dependent society and economy has an extended loss of electrical grid and communications?

One of the hidden realities of modern life is its fragility. For example, few people are aware of the precariousness of the supply chain that refills gasoline/petrol stations around the world every few days.

 

A new book, When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation explores the fragilities of our truck-dependent supply chains.

 

Longtime correspondent Bart D. (Australia) recently experienced a multi-day regional loss of electricity. His first-person observations help us understand what breakdowns in energy are like on the ground.

 

* * *

 

Observations of life in an extended power failure by Bart D. (Australia)

 

South Oz is continuing with its streak of extreme weather. The latest being our encounter with what’s being described as a category 2 ‘hurricane’ with the added bonus of a severe front preceding it that produced many low-grade tornados. A score of major power transmission towers were twisted off their footings, 80 000 lightning strikes fried out a lot of ‘secondary’ electricity infrastructure … 40% of power that is usually being generated from wind had to be shut down due to extreme winds and base load backup generators failed in many locations (including my region).

 

Power ‘gradually’ returning after blackout plunged state into darkness

 

End result … entire state without electricity for a day and a half. Some regions, including my home region, (about the size of the state of Tasmania) were without electricity for 3 nights and 2.5 days.

 

It was a fascinating opportunity to observe firsthand what happens when an electricity dependent society and economy has an extended and complete loss of electrical grid and communications.

 

Key observations for my local area are:

 

1. Many people have small petrol generators thanks to our lovely coastal wilderness and a preoccupation with Glamping (Glam Camping)

 

2. Very few people had a store of petrol at home more than 5 to 10 litres. (usually kept for use in lawn mowers, brush cutters, chainsaws). Some owners of small boats had up to 20 litres on hand.

 

3. When the electricity goes out … the pumps at fuel stations don’t work. To my great surprise, only 1 fuel station in my nearest city of about 14 000 population had (or quickly acquired) a back-up generator to work their fuel pumps. There was a 3 hour wait for customers to get from back of queue to the pumps … and a ridiculous show of ‘bulk buying’ where people didn’t just take fuel that they personally needed; they showed up with between 3 and 8 X 20 litre (5 gallon) fuel cans as well as filling their cars. Hopefully the canned fuel was distributed among family and friends. (My assertion is that the owners of the station should have rationed fuel to 40 litres per customer to keep the que moving faster and to make sure everyone had some, rather than creating an ‘all or nothing’ situation)

 

4. Due to the difficulty with getting hold of petrol after the blackout started … almost everyone with generators at home could only run them for a few hours over the course of the entire blackout. Even then, the small camping gensets usually lacked the capacity to run large modern refrigerator/freezers. So … most people lost the contents of their fridges by the end. Due to cold weather, at least freezers stayed cold for the most part.

 

5. Big shops had their own gensets … but they can’t power the banks of chillers for meat and dairy … so these items became unavailable by the evening of the blackout starting.

 

6. The full loss of grid, grid back-up and other smaller backups caused telecommunications and data transmission to practically cease. This meant limitations of EFTPOS in stores. Banks were shut, ATM’s didn’t work and some shops that were open could only take cash. Generally though, everyone muddled through the sketchy electronic payment systems one way or another. Internet access failed for the most part. Social media pretty much collapsed … my two daughters though their social lives were over. I didn’t miss it. My wife found more time to do other things too.

 

7. The items that disappeared from the shelves fast, and were tricky to find after 24 hours without power were : Bread, D cell batteries, 6 volt square batteries, matches, heat beads, butane gas cans, fresh meat, sandwich meats, cheeses. (not sure about bottled water – most here have rain tanks anyway). Everything else seemed fine, although fresh fruit and veg got limited after 48 hours.

 

8. In hardware/camping stores that managed to open: bottled LPG quickly sold out as did BBQ’s, camp stoves, camp lights and batteries to run them. Most here have a gas BBQ at home, but if you didn’t already have a full bottle of gas … it was very hard to get a replacement after 48 hours.

 

9. No one here knows how to use a road intersection properly when the traffic lights are out! I think this helped create major gridlock in the states capital but was even noticeable here at my much smaller regional city with just one such intersection containing lights. (public education urgently required on this)

 

10. The number of back-up gensets at critical locations (including hospitals and communications systems) that failed was disturbing. There needs to be a major inquiry into why the back-ups on critical services failed. This nearly caused a shutdown of mains water supply as our water is pumped out of aquifers and has to be lifted to storage tanks high up in the hills. More of a problem for sanitation than drinking, as rain tanks are common here.

 

11. Then there were a few people like me … I ran my big ‘workshop’ genset 7 hours a day (hour in the morning, hour at lunch time, 4-5 hours in the evening) and was burning about 7 litres of fuel a day in doing so. My home fuel reserve meant I could run at that extravagant level for a month if need be, or supply others who fell short. We ran refrigerators, lights and TV almost ‘as usual’ and offered to charge anyone’s batteries who needed it and supplied a small camping gas burner, full cylinder of gas and a good battery powered camping light to my parents-in-law who were seriously underprepared. The rest of my small home town (located 20km from a regional city) was rather dark and quiet for the three nights (in part due to the lack of pre-stored fuel to run camping gensets).

 

12. We have a gas stove in our kitchen, with bottled LNG that lasts 3 -5 months in normal use, so cooking was as normal for us. Since we didn’t try to use the gas to also heat washing/bathing water it would have lasted for the usual amount of time.

 

13. When most were having cold showers, no showers, wasting their BBQ gas to heat pots of water or crowding into friends and relations who had LNG hot water systems in their houses … our family had hot baths by candle light in huge volumes of wood heated water. (Picture of my old wood heater below.) It is very efficient, made in the 1940’s I think, but possibly much older. The inner bowl is copper and absorbs heat from a small fire lit behind the square opening in front. It can boil 70 litres in 20 minutes from a cold start, or 15 minutes for a refill of water once it’s already been going a while.

 

Wood fired water boiler

Wood fired water boiler

 

14. Apart from the fuel distribution fiasco everything remained orderly, people remained calm and helpful and life went on. Strangers were a lot chattier with other strangers than usual … which is good to see. I saw examples of shops extending ‘unsecured credit’ for small amounts of basic food items to people who had no cash on them and whose cards didn’t work. No looting, no “Law Enforcement” out making trouble and plenty of sharing and cooperation.

 

15. Although about a quarter of houses have solar panels or solar thermal hot water where I live … none of it worked as it’s all grid connect AND doesn’t work under the heavy cloud/rain/cold of a 3 day storm.

 

I’ve been thinking about getting ‘stand-alone’ solar power (ie connected to my own batteries) since they closed the big coal fired station in the north of my region, (and the price of these systems has become quite affordable). Our region is at ‘the end of the line’ of our state grid now and I expect regular outages this summer when hot, calm conditions prevail that reduce our wind generation output at the same time as spiking power use for air conditioners. Our electricity now has to travel up to 1600km (1000 miles) from the state of Victoria to reach us when the windmills aren’t working here!

 

* * *

 

Thank you, Bart, for sharing your observations. The resilience (or lack thereof) of complex systems is difficult to assess until there are atypical strains placed on the system.

 

What seems effortlessly resilient on average days can break down dramatically if redundancies, proper maintenance and crisis response have been stripped from the system by incompetence, budget cuts and/or the self-serving priorities of managers and employees.

 

As a result, we only discover systems have become fragile and brittle in crisis, when it’s too late to restore resilience.

 

Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock

Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock

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Dear America, Rest Up For What’s Coming When Normies Awake!

by Tyler Durden, 07August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dear-america-rest-whats-coming-when-normies-awake

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Normies Awake!

“The West can’t do diplomacy in general, it can’t run its cities or countries except into the ground, its high-tech projects fail almost as a rule, its infrastructure is crumbling, its economies are crumbling, and all public policies seem to have a civilizational suicide as a final goal.”

– Gaius Baltar

So-called Normies might be musing, this month of approved mental languor, whether the mighty efforts to suppress news of all kinds, about everything, have concealed the true tendings of our wayward country – leading them to wonder whether it is even possible to be a Normie in such an abnormal time and place.

 

So-called Normies might be musing, this month of approved mental languor, whether the mighty efforts to suppress news of all kinds, about everything, have concealed the true tendings of our wayward country – leading them to wonder whether it is even possible to be a Normie in such an abnormal time and place.

Peasants Will Be Out With Pitchforks

Peasants Will Be Out With Pitchforks

What news is suppressed?

That the USA is worse than dead broke.

That the people were poisoned, apparently on-purpose.

That the spectral “Joe Biden” sold out our country.

That the war we started in Ukraine, on purpose, for no good reason, is about to be lost, and with it our standing around world.

That there actually is such a criminal organism as the Blob at large in our government, responsible for the astounding abnormality immersing us.

 

But never mind all that… for now, just go see Barbie. Have a clam roll, a dip in the ocean, another margarita…. September will be here soon enough.

 

Eventually, the official perversion of money – especially of borrowing an awesome lot of it with no intention of ever repaying – leads to the unhappy circumstance of money disappearing until nobody has any money. And by such, the broke-ness of the government transmogrifies to a whole land full of broke people. Many banks go broke as well. Even the high-fliers who hoarded things that purport to represent money go broke. Then, nobody has the means to buy anything. Businesses that can’t sell anything stop being businesses. After a while, no activity is meaningful except grubbing in the soil to grow some food, or stealing it from those who grubbed and grew it. By then, you can barely even call it a society.

 

By September, we’ll have some idea where all that is heading. The bond market is wobbling because the government can’t stop increasing its spending. America issues more and more bonds to borrow ever more money, but to the world’s bond-buyers (a.k.a. lenders), what used to be considered virtually risk-free now looks like a bad bet. So, the enticement to buy, which is called the interest rate, has to go up. But as it goes up, the cash value of existing bonds goes down (who wants the older bonds when the newer ones pay more?)

 

The holders of bonds are mainly big institutions: banks, pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds (other countries). They put their large holdings into bonds because in normal times they are safe and dependable investments. But these are abnormal times. When the value of their bonds goes down a lot, the value of their reserves goes down. And when those reserves get reduced too much in relation to the institutions’ liabilities (what they owe), the institutions go bankrupt. When that happens, the people who are vested in those institutions lose their money, too, and end up having to sell stocks and other property to meet their obligations. This ends up looking like what we call “a crash.” It will get Normies’ attention.

 

How’s it going with the poisoning of America? Since Elon Musk bought Twitter (now “X”), the app has developed a beefed-up immune system against censorship aimed at it by the FBI, CIA, DHS, and the White House. Twitter is once again a popular medium of information exchange, where news flows pretty freely these days. Even news of previous censorship and cancellation is getting out – and with interesting possibilities for consequences.

Mary Talley Bowden MD-tweet-6August2023-On 11/17/21, I posted 25 Tweets saying "Vaccine mandates are wrong" w/screenshots of patient testimonials. Days later, Houston Methodist, 1st in the country to mandate the vaccine, notified the Houston Chronicle that my privileges were suspended for spreading "dangerous misinformation."

Mary Talley Bowden MD-tweet-6August2023-On 11/17/21, I posted 25 Tweets saying “Vaccine mandates are wrong” w/screenshots of patient testimonials. Days later, Houston Methodist, 1st in the country to mandate the vaccine, notified the Houston Chronicle that my privileges were suspended for spreading “dangerous misinformation.”

The many brave doctors who questioned the “vaccine” story, are being heard now. Other entrepreneurial analysts on Twitter — e.g., Edward Dowd, The Unity Project, “The Ethical Skeptic,” “Chief Nerd”— regularly publish data and charts showing America and the rest of the world just how much damage the mRNA shots did to millions of people, how many have been disabled and killed by them. By September, the awareness of what has been done, and the psychopathic degree of official lying about it, could pass that threshold beyond which everybody knows and the great crime is revealed. Expect a major American political attitude adjustment.

 

There is surely enough publicly-seen evidence to make an impeachment case against “Joe Biden.” The process seems to move slowly, given the traditional lassitude of Congress, but momentum is building as all these other national fiascos careen toward criticality due to abysmal executive leadership. That evidence shows the Biden Family engaged in an international racketeering scheme to peddle “JB’s” influence when he was vice-president. That’s bribery and the very word is in the short passage of our Constitution describing the grounds for sacking a high official.

 

Rep. Comer’s House Oversight Committee has already dug up voluminous suspicious activity reports in Biden family bank accounts and has promised more, including information of offshore hidden accounts. Jim Jordan’s preliminary impeachment inquiry has drawn up its first witness list which includes the shadowy “JB” aide Michael Carpenter, and the slippery Trump impeachment “whistleblower,” CIA agent Eric Ciaramella — who essentially accused Mr. Trump of attempting to look into the very bribery crimes of the Biden family lately exposed, a pungent irony. When the impeachment process gets underway in earnest this fall, I expect “Joe Biden” will resign, leaving Ms. Harris to be managed by the shadow-president Barack Obama. That in itself will become a crisis of its own.

 

Our country has vested its prestige and treasure — but not our blood, at least yet — in the preposterous Ukraine proxy war, completely misjudging every element of it. The Russiaphobia of so many Blob officials was amplified by their own dishonest efforts to blame Russia for all the self-created ills of our own national life. The dirty secret of the Ukraine war is that we are no longer in control of events. The Russians are going to settle things there and that poor palooka of a country will be wrested back into their traditional sphere-of-influence, no more to be a troublemaker. I doubt that our puppet, Mr. Zelensky will be in power by Halloween. NATO will cease to exist and each nation of Europe will then struggle to settle its own sovereign hash without much of an industrial economy left. Expect governments to fall.

 

In the meantime, enjoy the clam rolls, the surf, the corn-dogs at the fair, and all the other blessings of languorous August. Rest up for what’s coming when Normies awake!

*  *  *

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FAKE CLIMATE NARRATIVE IS EASILY DEBUNKED

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Posted on September 20, 2023 https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/09/20/fake-climate-narrative-is-easily-debunked

ZeroHedge emphasis added https://www.zerohedge.com/political/quinn-fake-climate-narrative-easily-debunked

Anyone capable of critical thought knows this entire globull warming/ climate crisis/ health emergency narrative is false, contrived by the ruling elite/globalist cabal billionaire class as a further means to gain control, increase their already ungodly wealth, tax us into oblivion, lock us down in their 15 minute cities, and dole out our daily allotment of bug protein.

 

Their narrative is filled with lies, misinformation, and holes so big you can drive a Tesla through them. They have faked the temperature data for decades. CO2 is not a pollutant. Eating meat is not destroying the planet. Cows farting is not ruining our environment. Of course, Chris Christie farting may be harming the planet. This fake narrative is dutifully spewed by the corporate regime media 24/7, as they are funded by Gates, Soros, and the WEF to do so. Lies, lies and more lies.

 

ANCIENT WISDOM Only a fool believes that electricity used for air conditioning harms the planet, but electricity used to charge a Tesla does not.

ANCIENT WISDOM Only a fool believes that electricity used for air conditioning harms the planet, but electricity used to charge a Tesla does not.

 

The foolishness of the drivel they expect us to swallow is beyond the pale. They want to put oil companies and coal companies out of business because fossil fuels are evil. They are purposely attempting to drastically reduce our energy output, which means less electric power. But they also want to force everyone to drive an electric vehicle. And they won’t allow nuclear power plants to be built. These insane beliefs are ridiculous. Only low IQ willfully ignorant NPCs could believe them. More than half the population [of the Global North/NATO] apparently fall into this category.

 

Wind and solar are polluting, environmentally damaging and inefficient. They push solar, while at the same time push geo-engineering to block the sun, to cool the planet. This idiocy speaks volumes to what these people running the show think about the intellectual capacity of the masses. They believe we are sufficiently dumbed down, distracted, and apathetic to implement their agenda through constant propaganda, fear mongering, and threats. They want to own everything, while you own nothing. It’s nothing but a show and they will keep it going until we do something about it.

 

Greta Thunberg Poses for the Cameras Amid Arrest

Greta Thunberg Poses for the Cameras Amid Arrest

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Once Trust Has Been Lost, There’s No Going Back

by Tyler Durden, 08May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/once-trust-has-been-lost-theres-no-going-back

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Now that the overlapping crises are upon us and the banquet of consequences is being served, we’ll see just who our elites and leadership really are.

 

The erosion of trust doesn’t require intent, it only requires the blind pursuit of self-interest above all else. Trust is fundamentally reciprocity and honesty: to build trust, we must each perform our agreed-upon responsibilities and be truthful about our performance and actions.

US Social Trust

US Social Trust

Lies, obfuscation, misdirection and the sins of omission are all Kryptonite to trust. Those who put the pursuit of self-interest above all else like to think they can finesse their greed by omitting the truth rather than presenting a fabrication / lie. But being social animals whose survival ultimately rests on trust, humans are keenly sensitive to the difference between the truth / honesty and self-serving prevarications such as the sins of omission.

 

America’s elites and those living large in protected fiefdoms have persuaded themselves that their relentless pursuit of self-interest has no cost or consequence. Conveniently ignoring Adam Smith’s volume on the moral foundations needed to support capitalism, they think “the invisible hand” of the market is nothing more than a feeding frenzy of self-serving greed, and so their relentless pursuit of self-interest will somehow magically transform their looting and free-riding into a stable economy and society.

Share of Total Net Worth of the Middle Class

Share of Total Net Worth of the Middle Class

 

This is why trust has been lost in America. Everyone with any hold on power uses that power solely to benefit themselves and their cronies, under the tissue-thin guise of “serving the public” (or even more egregiously, “doing God’s work”–please hand me a barf-bag…).

 

When everyone is issuing an endless spew of BS to cover their own self-enrichment, trust is eroded and then lost. When everyone with any shred of power is scrambling to free-ride the system to serve their private interests above all else, the system itself can no longer be trusted.

 

This is why institutions have lost public trust. Those happily ensconced in a politically powerful fiefdom can increase their private gains at the expense of the public interest without any worries that the public can ever make it through the complexity thickets they’ve erected to ring-fence their fiefdom.

 

The elites rig the system behind flimsy legal screens and declare the system one of “endless opportunity” without mentioning some are more equal than others. Markets are rigged, politics is theater and those in the know gloat as their personal fortunes expand like clockwork.

Share of Total Net Worth of the Top 1 Percent

Share of Total Net Worth of the Top 1 Percent

 

All of this is betrayal of the public trust and the public interest, and betrayal has a cost and consequence: trust is lost. Betrayal hurts because we believed the pretenses and promises of the lying, cheating prevaricator. Once the truth seeps out, we’re done with the liar / free-rider / self-serving BSer.

 

This is where we are: trust has been lost and there’s no going back. As the first chart above illustrates, social trust–our willingness to trust strangers–has declined for decades. There are many threads in this decline, but one is that everyone has transmogrified into a scammer or grifter, trying to extract something from us while giving us nothing in return except empty promises, phony gratitude or the pretense of reciprocity.

 

What exactly is the difference between the beggar with a phony story, a politician “explaining” a new junk fee or a private-sector elite rigging the system to benefit their enterprise? There is no difference. All are masking their pursuit of self-interest behind a phony story. The beggar’s story of needing $10 for gas is obviously threadbare; so too are the stories of pickpocketing “leaders” and SillyCon Valley monopolists.

 

As the chart below shows, the middle class that once trusted markets, institutions and civic leaders has seen its share of the national wealth decline as the top 1%’s share increased. Wealth wasn’t “grown,” it was transferred. Eventually “investors” finally accept they’re nothing but marks for the financial elite to skim and scam and so they exit the fake 3-card-monte “market.” The skimmers and scammers, bereft of marks, whine and beg for a return to the good old days when they could exploit all the trusting marks.

Percentage household financial assets in stocks 1950 -1985

Percentage household financial assets in stocks 1950 -1985

 

Those who have looted the public trust for their own private gain now decry the loss of trust. Their tears are as fake as all their other stories. What they mourn is the marks awakening to their endless skims and scams, and the opting out of those who’ve finally had enough.

 

Everything’s gone so well that those with wealth and power have been able to pretend to be fantastic. But now that the overlapping crises are upon us and the banquet of consequences is being served, we’ll see just who our elites and leadership really are.

Overlapping Crises: "Solutions" Are Now Mutually Reinforcing Problems

Overlapping Crises: “Solutions” Are Now Mutually Reinforcing Problems

 

Pretending will no longer work, and all the self-serving prevarications in the world will no longer shield us from the consequences of a society stripped of public trust.

When things go wrong in life, that is when it shows who you are. When things go well, everyone can pretend to be fantastic.

When things go wrong in life, that is when it shows who you are. When things go well, everyone can pretend to be fantastic.

 

Once trust has been destroyed, there’s no going back.

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The Extinction Event Hitting Corporate Media…

by Tyler Durden, 12May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/extinction-event-hitting-corporate-media

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

MSM went “all-in” on a discredited COVID narrative.

Since the pandemic I’ve been saying that confidence in the mainstream, corporate press has been irreparably damaged. After four years of non-stop Trump Derangement Syndrome so intense that even some liberals were wondering if the press had gone overboard on editorializing – Covid hit, and a lot of normies now see the MSM for what it really is: agitprop and brainwashing.

 

Cancel culture and censorship reached such absurd levels that we started to see an exodus of high profile reporters (Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, et al) exiting corporate news outlets and setting up on their own, after they committed the sin of colouring outside the lines of establishment precepts.

The MSM went all-in in Covid, but every core tenet of the Covid narrative has since fallen apart:

  • This thing came out of a lab
  • Ecohealth and Fauci are up to their asses in it
  • The lockdowns did more damage than anything else, and
  • Everybody was forced to take a vaccine that not only doesn’t work but also seems to be the common denominator in an excess fatality rate that exceeds the pandemic itself.

Not good.

Russian TV test Pattern

Russian TV test Pattern

 

With the tempo being set by numerous media collapses, especially by overtly “woke” ones: Buzzfeed’s bankruptcy, Vice circling the drain – and television viewership plummeting, the stage was set for a few key moments that will be remembered as defining the extinction level event rolling through corporate media:

#1) The Rise of Dark Carlson

After Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, the number 1 pundit on television with the highest viewership today, he didn’t go to a rival network (Newsmax offered him $25 million), he decided to take his own show out on Twitter.

 

Mark Jeftovic, The ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-9May2023-This is a defining moment in the extinction event

Mark Jeftovic, The ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-9May2023-This is a defining moment in the extinction event

Apparently, on his own, not part of any deal with Elon Musk, Carlson is just letting it all hang out. In one of his first installments, he called into question the 9/11 narrative (Why did Building 7 just fall into its own footprint for no reason?). It prompted one observer to coin the term “Dark Carlson” for what is transpiring via this channel.

#2) The Schism of RFK Jr. coverage

RFK Jr, having thrown his hat into the ring to challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, immediately drew fire from the MSM, having unilaterally decided that anything RFK says is automatically “misinformation” (see the closing remarks on “rhetorical circularity”, below).

RFK Jr, for his part, created an account on Nostr.

Mark Jeftovic, The ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-11May2023-Nothing epitomizes the Industrial Age vs Network Era

Mark Jeftovic, The ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-11May2023-Nothing epitomizes the Industrial Age vs Network Era

Nostr is a fast growing decentralized social media network, contrast with Twitter – which is governed by the vagaries and whims of whomever owns it – Nostr is decentralized at the server level to relays (which anybody can run) at the the account level to individual users. This protocol is spreading like wildfire and it’s beyond censorship.

 

The juxtoposition between a sclerotic,  industrial era, mediocre network clutching their pearls over RFK’s “misinformation” and RFK showing up on Nostr tells us a lot.

 

While this is not seen as much of a big deal yet, this is a signal worth paying attention to.

#3) CNN’s disastrous town-hall with Trump

I didn’t watch it, and when you look at the reporting on it, both left and right traditional outlets are declaring victory – but the reality is that CNN pulled the plug on it 20 minutes earlier than scheduled (ten key moments here).

 

Love him or hate him, Trump draws attention and viewers unlike any other personality – and the fact that CNN drew the curtain early signals one thing: it was a disaster for the network and probably didn’t hurt Trump. After deftly manipulating a hostile media and leveraging social media cunning to win the presidency in 2016, it doesn’t look like the MSM has learned much.

When the media falls, so does the system it supports

When the Soviet Empire fell in 1989 – 1990, anybody predicting it even months earlier would have been ridiculed. When it happened it took everybody by surprise (even the CIA) and unfolded at astonishing speed (Victor Sebestyen’s Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire covers it brilliantly).

 

Things move even quicker today – where we are in the early innings of what will possibly be the final financial crisis of the fiat money system.

 

In another great book about Late Stage Communism,  “Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More“, Alexey Yurchak chronicles the hyper-normality that saturated the zeitgeist during “the last Soviet Generation”. The “Dead Irony” chapter outlines the ingenious forms of unauthorized humour.

 

A contemporary parallel is when you come across a Twitter account that exhibits such over-the-top support for All The Latest Things™ that you can’t tell if its satire or not. That is a type of performative dissidence called “Stiob” (unless it’s real).

Ann lesby PhD

 

(It’s parody)

Yurchak’s examination of “the hegemony over meta-discourse” and it’s disintegration ring eerily familiar to those keeping score today. One example is what he called “rhetorical circularity”: in our case it means that anything the MSM refuses to cover is “misinformation”, because there are no MSM citations to support it.

 

As I frequently comment, we’re in Late Stage Globalism. While many view Covid as the gateway to a “Great Reset” technocracy – it looks to me like it was instead, the a-c-c-e-l-e-r-a-t-i-o-n event of the millennia.

 

I’m not an accelerationist and the elites are certainly still pushing hard for that WEF-style authoritarianism.

 

But I’m just an observer and I’m here to tell you, that is what’s happening. Given the nature of technological compounding (“Future Shock”, as Alvin Toffler called way back in 1970), accelerationism is somewhat baked in and we just have to watch the implosion of corporate media (not to mention the self-destruction of Woke capitalism) to know it is happening.

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While Israel is secure and forever, who will have a ‘Sweet Year’?

rivka-levy-com-logo

The ‘sweetening’ begins

18September2023 https://rivkalevy.com/the-sweetening-begins/

I just got off the phone with my husband, waiting in some airport in Poland to get back to the Holy Land.

He told me the border crossings today have been brutal. [Both the Poles and the Ukrainians are rabid Antisemites]

People standing in the sun for hours and hours, on a fast day, and lots of people fainting.

There are still some massive, ongoing tests of emuna and middot going on, and every single person who went to Uman this year, with maximum mesirut nefesh, has sweetened the harsh decrees for all of us.

 

Of course, the same people who are still going on about ‘safe and effective’ are EXACTLY the same people still dissing the kibbutz in Uman on Rosh Hashana, and calling the people who went ‘idol worshippers’ and ‘retarded’, amongst many other choice words.

Do the experiment for yourself.

Take a look at who the most vehement ‘anti-Uman’ people are, the worst ‘anti-Rav’ people, and then go and see what they were saying about ‘safe and effective’ [Covid-19 vaccine is not ‘safe and effective’]

It’s probably not a total 100% match up – but I guarantee, it’s approaching it.

====

In the meantime, here’s some good news I got sent, still unverified, but from a trustworthy source:

The Rav said that there is no din.

The pain endured by not getting to Uman will be instead of much pain that the Jewish people were meant to endure this year.

And the war in which all the nations will go against Israel will either not happen, or if it will happen and no Jewish family will get hurt, and there will be an earthquake in Israel like there was in Morocco (which will destroy the enemies of Israel).

The Rav was felt on Rosh Hashanah in Uman and Uman was felt by the Rav in Yerushalayim.

The Rav’s minyan was packed in the kloiz in Uman and the Rav’s minyan was packed in the Olam in Yerushalayim.

We were all together and felt tremendous tikkunim and cancellation of judgements.

====

This is the ‘vibe’ I’ve been getting so far about Rosh Hashana, too, even though it seems a little incredible, if I’m honest.

That somehow, stuff got ‘sweetened’ again, and all the evils’ plans are going to some how fall through again, BH – as we’ve seen happen so very many times already, over the last few years.

 

At least, for the people who are making even in a tiny bit of sincere teshuva, and making some small effort to stay within the circle of the True Tzaddikim – as we saw recently in Essaouia, in Morocco.

 

For everyone else…. I really don’t know still, how all this is meant to play out.

Mass teshuva at the last minute, once the penny finally drops?

Let’s hope so.

====

I will keep you updated as and when I hear more.

But in the meantime, it’s nice to have some ‘good news’ to share here.

Because we are still heading into choppy waters, at least in the short term.

 

And we still need to make every effort to keep doing our hitbodedut, making our teshuva, saying our Tikkun HaKlalis and paying our tzedaka, to get the evil decrees to carry on evaporating.

 

At least, in our own little corner of the world.

====

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While Israel is secure and forever, peril faces American Jewry

Arutz Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

Judea-Samaria Is forever, but Modern Orthodoxy in America is not

While Israel is secure and forever, peril faces American Jewry. Not only are non-Orthodox rapidly self-destructing and disappearing, but these fault lines extend into “Modern Orthodoxy”. Op-ed.:

Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer


15August2023, 1:00 PM (GMT+3)  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/375594

Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer is Senior Contributing Editor at The American Spectator, Vice President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, was adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools for nearly twenty years, and is Rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California.

 

News Item: “Australia to Resume Use of Term ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’

Australia? They occupy land belonging to aborigines.

 

OK, who’s next? Biden living on occupied Delaware Indian territories?

 

What “The World” says about Israel does not matter. Through 75 years of Israel, and 50 before, G-d’s miracles have predominated despite enemies afar and snakes within. Like the Babylonian, Mede, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine empires, those enemies have met their fate, and Israel grows only stronger.

 

Israel exists by different rules of nature. By all odds, it never should have emerged. Hebrew was going the way of Latin and Celtic. The name “Israel” was supplanted by “Palestine.” Two thousand years of Exile persuaded the world we were consigned to be “Wandering Jews.” They even mockingly named a plant for our disgrace.

 

Then the worst anti-Semites helped midwife Israel. Stalin voted for it. The world center of Jew hatred, the United Nations, legitimized it. It was too small to survive, so G-d hardened the Arabs’ hearts, and their wars expanded Israel into the Negev, Galilee, and Judea-Samaria. Even before 1948, virulently anti-Semitic Poland miraculously helped build the Jewish armed resistance, arming and training all three underground groups — the Haganah, the Irgun, and the Lechi — until Hitler arrived. Communist Czechoslovakia emerged to arm Israel when America demurred. The Italian Mafia, controlling Manhattan and Jersey docks, helped run arms to Israel when Truman embargoed. Miracles.

 

-In 1956 during the Suez crisis, France was Israel’s champion while Eisenhower was hostile. In 1967, France reneged, so Israel found post-Eisenhower America ready. And Israel sailed away two years later with the five French gunboats she had paid for but that DeGaulle would not release. C’est la vie. When he was needed in 1973, Nixon — of all people — stepped in, even as his Vice President Agnew was pleading nolo contendre on the exact day the arms shipments to Israel were authorized.

 

-Israel survived the Ford-Kissinger “Reassessment,” the anti-Semitic Jimmy Carter, Reagan’s condemnations of Israel’s conduct of the 1982 war and of Begin’s bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, George Bush and James Baker, Clinton hosting Arafat more than any other White House visitor and inducing Ehud Barak to offer Arafat parts of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount; Obama, Biden, Hillary, and Kerry, and aspects of Trump’s “Deal of the Century” that would have compromised Jewish sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria.

 

-The Obama-Biden-Kerry refusal to veto UN Security Council resolution 2334 in December 2016 ultimately proved meaningless as, only months later, Trump — of all people — arrived to recognize Jerusalem as capital, move the embassy, recognize Golan sovereignty, and recognize the legality of Jewish communities throughout Judea and Samaria.

 

-Israel has prospered by G-d’s miracles. Peres preached a vision of “Palestine” as a Maui or Tahiti. The “Palestinians” helped clarify reality by bus-bombing Bibi to a miracle election victory. Bibi then broke faith at the Wye Conference, so G-d replaced him with Ehud Barak. Barak unilaterally handed over South Lebanon to become a Hezbollah stronghold and tried giving away parts of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount so G-d gave him an Intifada that exposed his military incompetence, and replaced him with Sharon.

 

-After Sharon broke his pledges to voters and perfidiously imposed a national catastrophe on 8,500 Jews in Gush Katif, he turned next to ceding Judea and Samaria. Instead, he sustained a debilitating stroke. He recovered, got a second chance perhaps by merit of his 1950’s Unit 101 and his Yom Kippur War heroism, but he had learned nothing. He sustained another stroke so massive that his plans and he ended for good.

 

-Ehud Olmert — now revealed as a crook, prisoner, and villain who urges countries to withhold support from Israel — followed and tried actualizing the give-away. He was stopped by a Hezbollah kidnaping that launched a war he proved incapable of waging, alongside his hapless “Defense Minister,” a Labor Party union hack. When Netanyahu returned, he had learned never to cede Judea and Samaria.

 

So, although Zionists must advocate passionately for Israel, it kind-of does not matter except for fulfilling one’s duty to G-d and His Torah, land, and people. With some 350,000 Jews now living in eastern communities of Jerusalem that were liberated from Arab occupation in 1967 and more than 500,000 in the rest of Judea and Samaria — totaling 850,000 Jews — and recognizing the logistical mess the Israeli government encountered in relocating, resettling, and reemploying 8,500 Jews from Gush Katif (one percent of 850,000) in 2005, it is clear the “Two-State Solution” never will happen, no matter what anyone says or does. One million Jews cannot be forcibly uprooted and relocated. Indeed, Israel now is reversing the 2005 Gush Katif surrender by restoring Chomesh and other communities in Northern Shomron.

 

Chief Rabbi Yitzchak HaLevi Herzog said in the 1940’s, when he refused to relocate temporarily from Eretz Yisrael as Hitler’s Gen. Erwin Rommel approached the Holy Land during his North Africa campaign, that the Tanakh (Bible) and all of Judaic theology speak of only two destructions. There will not be a third Churban (catastrophe).

 

One should not be nonchalant about threats of America reducing aid to Israel. But one should not lose sleep over it either. When a parent threatens to cut off a college-age son or daughter financially, that worries the child. But once the child becomes a successful entrepreneur, professional, TikTok Influencer, or $350,000-a-year Israeli Supreme Court justice, that threat evaporates.

 

Israel is that matured entity. Yoram Ettinger has shown that Israel is a better financial and military value to America than vice-versa. Several recent influential think pieces have made the argument that Israel even can benefit from living without American aid — if it comes to that. In time, Israel would actualize Moshe Arens’s dream and create its own jet fighters, and Americans would lose restrictive influences. India will buy. Finland will buy. Arabs will buy. The whole world will buy. They do now.

 

Miracles. All fears that Arab birthrates would imperil Israel’s Jewish demographic majority have been vanquished. A million Jews from the former Soviet Union arrived. Jews from France, Argentina, Ethiopia came — always some anti-Semitic eruption to augment Israel’s population. Even the miracle of 850,000 Jews arriving in the 1940’s and 1950’s as Arab countries secured Israel’s Jewish demographic majority forever and laid the groundwork for Edot HaMizrach (Sephardic Jews) to save Israel from the godless Marx-inspired Ashkenazic elite who had laid the foundation for a secular socialist society whose last entrails are found at Tel Aviv restaurants on Tisha B’Av. The Opposition’s perpetual protests reflect they have lost; otherwise, they would be celebrating.

 

Australia? Kangaroos, the Koala, the Wallaby. They don’t matter. Neither do Canada, England, France, Russia, America, anyone.

 

While Israel is secure and forever, peril faces American Jewry. Not only are non-Orthodox rapidly self-destructing and disappearing, but these fault lines extend into “Modern Orthodoxy”:

 

1. At least 33-40 percent or more of American “Jews” are not Jews. American Orthodox rabbinic and lay institutions are terrified to reveal they know this and its ramifications. All practicing American rabbonim (Orthodox rabbis) know they secretly undertake lineage investigations before conducting weddings for anyone not engaged in their communities because odds are that one or both prospective spouses is not Jewish. For that same reason — encountering “Jews” who are not Jews — they turn away even relatives of paid synagogue members from being buried in their shul cemeteries and from having their kids “bar- or bat-mitzva’d.”

 

American rabbonim regularly encounter people who tell them they or their spouse is “Jewish,” or their child is marrying someone “Jewish,” even though the rav knows the person is a “Marilyn Monroe convert.” Because the Orthodox Union and Rabbinical Council of America, terrified to offend members and donors, deliberately evade the issue and stopped educating the public years ago, many Jewish parents affiliated with O.U. shuls and RCA rabbonim have evolved to accept when their boys marry non-Jewish and tell them “Mom, she’s doing a conversion with a reform/conservative rabbi, so it’s OK and you will have Jewish grandchildren, and don’t write me out of your will.” Jewish parents no longer feel stigma: “Well, Rabbi, at least she is undergoing some kind of conversion. Right?”

Wrong.

The local syngogue raibbi is afraid to speak the Truth because he may get fired. He rationalizes: “If I tell them the hard truth, they will fire me, and then what will become of the shul?” (Answer: They will hire someone else with the exact same skills-set but more docile.) Tragically, the RCA and OU, who cannot be fired by local congregants but fear donors, also resist speaking the Truth. That is the meaning of Exile. The lesson for Israel: Jews vigilantly must guard against similar erosion in Israel’s Law of Return and Grandparent Clause. The toxicity poisoning American “Judaism” must not attain a foothold in Israel. This is Judaic life-or-death.

 

2. Secondly, mainstream American Modern Orthodox institutions proceed with contempt-of-court toward their own Poskim (Torah Authorities) and fear speaking with clarity on issues regarding the pernicious pretense of “Open Orthodoxy.” The “Maharat” Academy (“Yeshivat Maharat”), which contravenes Judaism and ordains “Orthodox women rabbis” (“Maharats”), now proudly and publicly endorses lesbian marriage, even among their own Maharat “Yeshiva” students. Yes, “Orthodox women rabbis” in lesbian marriages.Other “Maharats” advocate for transgender legislation, claiming they speak for Orthodox Judaism. Such “Maharats” amplify the disgrace; one is “Rabbi in Residence” at Missouri’s Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion. Another is a professor of Feminism at the seminary for “Reform Rabbis,” where she is proud to be called “Rabbi.”

 

The Orthodox Union asked their Poskim to pasken (Judaically rule) on whether “women rabbis” may serve O.U. congregations, and their revered Torah Authorities unanimouslypaskened in an extended learned Teshuvah (Responsum) in February 2017 — more than six years ago — that women rabbis are absolutely forbidden. Yet, to this very day, there are O.U. congregations in public contempt of their own rabbinic judges, and Orthodox Union knows it — because allknow it, because it is so public — and yet O.U. has not implemented the very rabbinic ruling it sought. That is contempt of court.

 

Even so, the same O.U. “boldly” lectures Israelis on how to deal with their courts. Nor does Rabbinical Council of America conscientiously enforce its own explicit requirement: “. . . [W]e cannot accept either the ordination of women or the recognition of women as members of the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title.” Indeed, RCA even has bumbled into becoming a back-door vehicle for “Open Orthodoxfemale and male rabbis to gain legitimacy.

 

And the third “pillar” of American Modern Orthodoxy, Yeshiva University, now has a “Vice Provost for Values and Leadership” who leverages her YU status to legitimize “Maharat women rabbis” in a number of venues. The university’s Cardozo Law School awarded Jimmy Carter their “International Advocate for Peace” award, and 21 of their faculty signed a letter opposing Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court. Cardozo even has mandated that all students must take a course in critical race theory to graduate.

 

How far YU has descended from Presidents Rav Bernard Revel, Rav Samuel Belkin, and Rav Norman Lamm of blessed memory and the overriding spiritual leadership of HaRav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik!

 

Greater Israel is safe and secure forever. American Modern Orthodoxy?

 

To receive Rav Fischer’s Weekly Extensive Torah Commentaries or to attend any or all of Rav Fischer’s weekly 60-minute live Zoom classes on the Weekly Torah Portion, the Biblical Prophets, the Mishnah, Rambam Mishneh Torah, or Advanced Judaic Texts, send an email to: shulstuff@yioc.org

 

Rav Fischer’s recent hour-long interview on a range of pressing contemporary Jewish issues, ranging from the “Palestine” Myth to apostate Jewish leftists and their like-minded reform rabbis to the weakness of pro-Israel campus Jews who root their advocacy in Victimology instead of Jewish strength, can be found here.

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https://www.jpost.com/

J’accuse: US Jewish leadership is failing to defend the community – opinion

The Jewish establishment left us practically defenseless in the face of this new mutant strain, and that is why – I know it’s a serious charge – we are in this awful situation.

By CHARLES JACOBS Published: 2JUNE2023 https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-744853

OPEN LETTER published January 13, 1898, in ‘L’Aurore’ by Emile Zola in response to the Dreyfus Affair, in which Zola addressed French president Félix Faure and accused his government of antisemitism. (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

OPEN LETTER published January 13, 1898, in ‘L’Aurore’ by Emile Zola in response to the Dreyfus Affair, in which Zola addressed French president Félix Faure and accused his government of antisemitism. (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

 

It might not have been the kindest thing during my trip to the Holy Land to tell Israelis, who were just bombarded by 1,500 Islamic Jihad rockets and are stuck in the excruciatingly painful fracas over judicial reform, that American Jewry’s house is on fire and that the Jewish establishment there is failing to subdue the flames.

 

But that was the theme of my talk at Jerusalem’s Begin Center last Monday. It was a book launch for the just-published collection of essays Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership, which I co-edited with Avi Goldwasser.

 

Indeed, antisemitism in the US is careening out of control. According to the FBI, Jews are more likely the targets of hate crimes than Blacks, Latinos, transgenders, and Muslims combined. Nearly every Jewish institution has security, many with armed guards. This is not the country we grew up in.

 

Antisemitism in the US: Where is the assault against American Jews coming from?

The assault – ideological and increasingly physical – comes simultaneously from four major ideological camps.

 

Who are our adversaries? First, the white nationalists who attack us based on that older Jew-hatred we’re familiar with. Today, they update their classic picture of the Jew as conniving, greedy, powerful behind the scenes, with the charges that we are the ones who invented multiculturalism and are the ones behind the rising tide of Third World immigration that they believe will remake America.

 

Religious leader Louis Farrakhan gives the keynote speech at the Nation of Islam Saviours' Day convention in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. February 19, 2017. (credit: REUTERS/REBECCA COOK)

Religious leader Louis Farrakhan gives the keynote speech at the Nation of Islam Saviours’ Day convention in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. February 19, 2017. (credit: REUTERS/REBECCA COOK)

 

Second: Black racists – including Black academics, politicians and followers of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Many believe Farrakhan’s lie that the Jews were the masters of the Black slave trade. More recently, Blacks are taught that the Palestinians are just like them: oppressed “people of color.”

 

Third: radical Muslims, many from antisemitic cultures, who carry an ancient religious hatred and are further inflamed by their tribal support of Palestinians. In American mosques, imams preach hatred of Jews. Muslims have attacked Jews on America’s streets.

 

The fourth camp consists of anti-Israel radical progressives who now include the most energized segments of the Democratic Party – the Squad. Israel, they preach, is a racist/apartheid state where Jews oppress indigenous, innocent, indigent and, importantly, darker-skinned peoples. This narrative has grown over four decades into support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Recently, progressives supported Nakba Day rallies in more than 35 American cities.

 

All of this did not happen overnight. It built up over about four decades, slowly.

 

The book, which has received praise from Dennis Prager, Daniel Pipes, Leil Leibovitz, Ken Levin and Gil Troy, is a collection of 22 essays (an expansion of an original set published in White Rose Magazine, published by Karen Lohman Bloch).

 

Some pieces are by prominent thinkers and writers – Alan Dershowitz, Jonathan Tobin, Morton Klein, Thane Rosenbaum, Caroline Glick and Richard Landes – who analyze our situation and explain how and why Jewish leaders are failing us. Other essays are by unsung Jewish activists who document the incompetence, the ignorance, even, yes, the perfidy of their local Jewish leaders who refuse to stand up and fight back, or worse, who misguide us about our actual situation.

 

By “the failing Jewish establishment,” we mean the legacy organizations: the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Community Relations Councils, the Federations, along with most of the Rabbinate. The lone exception among legacy groups is the Zionist Organization of America, led by the courageous and indefatigable Morton Klein. The other groups that are bravely fighting our adversaries – CAMERA, StandWithUs, Club Z, Endowment for Middle East Truth, Aish HaTorah, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Students Supporting Israel, and more – were launched as grassroots groups, precisely because the Jewish establishment was failing.

 

As our writers describe, the Jewish establishment first failed to intervene against the media defamation of Israel. It then failed to stop harassment and intimidation of Jews on campus. It now is failing to stop anti-Israel education in America’s public high schools, exploding across the nation via ethnic studies curricula and critical race theory. Finally, it failed to recognize the long-term threat of the growing radicalization of the historically moderate American Muslim community.

 

My talk described how this happened. I used examples from my experience as a Boston Jewish activist who helped lead grassroots Jews to resist. As the essayists describe, the Boston experience is mirrored across the country – and in Canada.

 

WHAT HAPPENED to the West’s Jews? As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explained, antisemitism is a virus that morphs predictably: Whatever is any society’s worst sin, that is what the Jews are charged with. In the religious epoch, Jews were the killers of the Christian God. When race “science” – eugenics – was all the rage, Jews were racial vermin. In capitalist societies, the Jews were hated as communists; in communist societies, we were despised as capitalist exploiters. When having a nation-state was the way normal people expressed their values, Jews were cursed as rootless cosmopolites. And so today, when globalism and internationalism are the reigning virtues, Jews are cursed for their state.

 

Once we were tainted, stripped of having the moral high ground – which, for a while, the guilt and shame from the Holocaust provided – all hell could be loosed against us. Well, the virus mutated into anti-Israelism, or Palestinianism, and Jews worldwide are tainted as oppressors. The “new antisemitism” pierced our post-Holocaust shield.

 

The Jewish establishment left us practically defenseless in the face of this new mutant strain, and that is why – I know it’s a serious charge – we are in this awful situation.

 

To make matters worse, a new “woke-progressive” ideology that is undeniably and inevitably anti-Jewish has defeated classical liberalism in many key institutions and has become an accelerant to the mounting antisemitism.

 

Classic liberalism believes in equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion and/or sexual orientation. It welcomed and supported Jewish life in America. The new ideology – which goes by many names: woke, progressivism, political correctness, intersectionality, etc. – insists instead on equal results. If there are fewer Black or Latino lawyers proportional to their numbers in society than there are white or Jewish lawyers, that proves that society is unjust and racist. Those who achieved success did so by exploiting the underachieving minorities. Success in life is proof that you have oppressed or have benefited by the oppression of Blacks, Latinos, women, homosexuals, etc. As Jews are among the most successful, we are by implication the biggest oppressors.

 

And all of this ideology is being taught in American public schools. Its principles are required in law schools, medical schools, corporate boards. Fewer and fewer Jews are getting into Ivy League schools, fewer are being hired by corporations, and fewer are sitting on boards of philanthropies.

 

The Jewish establishment is now fully trapped. It put all our eggs into the imploding liberal basket. It made alliances with all the minority groups, and now these very groups have turned on us and have become Palestinianists and antisemitic. Our leaders are flummoxed and confused. They need to be pressured, convinced, humiliated and shamed to do a massive rethink.

 

To help organize grassroots activists to challenge and change our leadership, we created The Jewish Leadership Project (www.jewishleadershipproject.org). Our book prescribes steps that our leaders must take to stem the tide of animus.

We are in danger at a watershed moment. But we are an accomplished community, with very talented individuals. We can and must find proud, brave and competent leadership to secure a better Jewish future.

 

The writer is a longtime Jewish and human rights activist, speaker and writer, who today is president of The Jewish Leadership Project. charlesjacobs123@gmail.com

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Jerusalem Cats Comments: How can you raise Jewish Children without a good Jewish Education?

See: The Jewish People Policy Institute-Raising Jewish Children 2017

“One factor which the majority of research and, hence, policy planning in the field of Jewish education has not paid sufficient attention to is social networks. Our research shows that American Jews may say they feel disconnected from other Jews; yet, they are actually influenced by their Jewish social circles. Similarly, educators have tended to emphasize the role of parents in making educational decisions for their child and overlooked the importance of Jewish social networks in motivating children to continue their Jewish education. Our research shows that Jewish friends and social networks, especially during the teen years, influence decisions to attend Jewish schools and Jewish educational programs. This new understanding of the power of social networks suggests that the direction of influence in the teen years is from friendships to education to family involvements. A strong Jewish social network in the teen years is a predictor of college friends and choice of Jewish marriage partners.”

Jerusalem Cats Comments: How can you raise Jewish Children without Jewish peers? If you want Jewish teenagers then you need to raise then with Jewish Peers in a Jewish Schools and in a Jewish State with Jewish Holidays and a Jewish Week.

Nefesh B'Nefesh: Live the Dream US & CAN 1-866-4-ALIYAH | UK 020-8150-6690 or 0800-085-2105 | Israel 02-659-5800 https://www.nbn.org.il/ info@nbn.org.il

Nefesh B’Nefesh: Live the Dream US & CAN 1-866-4-ALIYAH | UK 020-8150-6690 or 0800-085-2105 | Israel 02-659-5800 https://www.nbn.org.il/ info@nbn.org.il

Even the most secular teenager in Israel has a better Jewish education then anyone outside of Israel.

 To quote the study:

“When Jews lived in societies in which they had a lot of contact with each other (and very little with non-Jews) they and others usually thought of themselves as “born into” Jewishness. Jews amassed ethnic social capital through daily experience, in the form of ethnic languages, food, music, stories, texts, arts and culture, religion and rituals. These individuals who shared ethnic social capital also tended to value similar things, and to feel an affinity for each other.”

You can only do this in Israel.

“In terms of predicting adult Jewish connections, statistical studies show that every year past the bar mitzvah year “counts” more than the year before. Receiving formal Jewish education from age 16 to 17 more accurately predicts adult Jewish connectedness than receiving formal Jewish education from age 15 to 16. Quantitative and qualitative research suggest that having mostly Jewish friends in high school is a motivator for continuing formal and informal Jewish education and a predictor for marrying or partnering with a Jew and forging strong Jewish connections. Conversely, when teenagers stopped attending Jewish schools after bar and bat mitzvahs, both they and their parents (in separate interviews) reported that their family Jewish observances and activities such as Shabbat service attendance gradually declined.”
“This is a growing group. Successive studies have underscored the fact that in 1960, 77 percent of American women and 65 percent of men below the age of 30, had accomplished the five sociological milestones of adulthood–”completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child.” Today, fewer than half of women and one-third of men fit that fully adult profile The proportion of Americans aged 25 to 34 who have never been married exceeds those married. The Jewish identity gains that result from a Jewish education during the teenage years are significantly undermined when young American Jews remain single for a decade or longer after college. These young American Jews between the ages of 22 to 35 require programs tailored to their distinctive form of Jewish attachment.”

When Jewish education succeeds, it is most often a story of the more, the more.

Jewish education is part of the ongoing building of Jewish social capital. No one educational strategy provides a permanent Jewish inoculation for all Jews, but all educational strategies work best when they include the reinforcement of a social network.”

“But for some Jewish populations who miss these serendipities, the story is more like, the less the less. Some Jews are geographically isolated in childhood, and have few Jewish friendship circles, and do not get sent to Jewish camps that might enrich their Jewishness on many levels [What about a Jewish Day School or Full Time Yeshiva Program of stead of Public School?]. Some are the children of weakly identified Jewish parents; some of these Jewishly “impoverished” families, in terms of Jewish social capital, are intermarried families, especially where the mother does not identify as a Jew. Weak Jewish identification often gets worse with each generation that is remote from Jewish social networks and Jewish education, creating a cycle of poor Jewish social capital.”

According The Pew Research Religion and Public life project : Orthodox Jews are more likely than American Jews of any other denomination to have traveled to Israel; 77% have done so, followed by 56% of Conservative Jews, 40% of Reform Jews and 26% of those who have no denominational affiliation.

From aish.com INFOGRAPHIC: Will Your Grandchildren Be Jewish?

Are American Jews facing an existential threat?

by and Published: June 10, 2017 http://www.aish.com/jw/s/INFOGRAPHIC-Will-Your-Grandchildren-Be-Jewish.html
Click to download PDF file  Click to Download the PDF version Will Your Grandchildren be Jewish-aish

 


From aish.com INFOGRAPHIC: Will Your Grandchildren Be Jewish?TOP
Infographic: Survey of Jewish Americans
Infographic: Survey of Jewish Americans

Infographic: Survey of Jewish Americans

Infographic: Survey of Jewish Americans

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pewresearch-org-logo

Pew:What happens when Jews intermarry?

By and
November 12, 2013 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/11/12/what-happens-when-jews-intermarry/

 

American Jews have been debating the impact of intermarriage for decades. Does intermarriage lead to assimilation and weaken the Jewish community? Or is it a way for a religion that traditionally does not seek converts to bring new people into the fold and, thereby, strengthen as well as diversify the Jewish community? The new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews did not start this debate and certainly will not end it. However, the survey’s findings on intermarriage, child rearing and Jewish identity provide some support for both sides.

 

For example, the survey shows that the offspring of intermarriages – Jewish adults who have only one Jewish parent – are much more likely than the offspring of two Jewish parents to describe themselves, religiously, as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. In that sense, intermarriage may be seen as weakening the religious identity of Jews in America.

 

Yet the survey also suggests that a rising percentage of the children of intermarriages are Jewish in adulthood. Among Americans age 65 and older who say they had one Jewish parent, 25% are Jewish today. By contrast, among adults under 30 with one Jewish parent, 59% are Jewish today. In this sense, intermarriage may be transmitting Jewish identity to a growing number of Americans.

 

Surveys are snapshots in time. They typically show associations, or linkages, rather than clear causal connections, and they don’t predict the future. We do not know, for example, whether the large cohort of young adult children of intermarriage who are Jewish today will remain Jewish as they age, marry (and in some cases, intermarry), start families and move through the life cycle. With those cautions in mind, here’s a walk through some of our data on intermarriage, including some new analysis that goes beyond the chapter on intermarriage in our original report. (We would like to thank several academic researchers, including Theodore Sasson of Brandeis University, Steven M. Cohen of Hebrew Union College and NYU Wagner, and Bruce Phillips of Hebrew Union College and the University of Southern California, for suggesting fruitful avenues of additional analysis.)

 

First, intermarriage is practically nonexistent among Orthodox Jews; 98% of the married Orthodox Jews in the survey have a Jewish spouse. But among all other married Jews, only half say they have a Jewish spouse.

 

In addition, intermarriage rates appear to have risen substantially in recent decades, though they have been relatively stable since the mid-1990s. Looking just at non-Orthodox Jews who have gotten married since 2000, 28% have a Jewish spouse and fully 72% are intermarried.

 

Also, intermarriage is more common among Jewish respondents who are themselves the children of intermarriage. Among married Jews who report that only one of their parents was Jewish, just 17% are married to a Jewish spouse. By contrast, among married Jews who say both of their parents were Jewish, 63% have a Jewish spouse.

 

Pew 2013 jewish identity by generation

Pew 2013 jewish identity by generation

 

Among Jews, the adult offspring of intermarriages are also much more likely than people with two Jewish parents to describe themselves religiously as atheist, agnostic or just “nothing in particular.” This is the case among all recent generations of U.S. Jews.

 

For example, among Jewish Baby Boomers who had two Jewish parents, 88% say their religion is Jewish; hence, we categorize them as “Jews by religion.” But among Baby Boomers who had one Jewish parent, 53% describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or having no particular religion, even though they also say they consider themselves Jewish or partially Jewish aside from religion; they are categorized as “Jews of no religion” in the table. Far fewer Jewish Baby Boomers who had two Jewish parents (12%) are Jews of no religion today.

 

A similar pattern is seen among Jewish Millennials: 51% of Millennials who have one Jewish parent are Jews of no religion, compared with just 15% of Millennials who had two Jewish parents.

 

Summing this up, it appears that the share of Jews of no religion is similar – and relatively low – among recent generations of Jews with two Jewish parents. It is much higher (and also fairly similar across generations) among self-identified Jews with only one Jewish parent.

Pew 2013 Jewish Intermarriage one parent

Pew 2013 Jewish Intermarriage one parent

But it is also important to bear in mind that the percentage of Jewish adults who are the offspring of intermarriages appears to be rising. Just 6% of Jews from the Silent Generation say they had one Jewish parent, compared with 18% of Jewish Baby Boomers, 24% of Generation X and nearly half (48%) of Jewish Millennials. The result is that there are far more Jews of no religion among younger generations of Jews than among previous generations, as shown in the survey report.

 

When we look at all adults who have just one Jewish parent – including both those who identify as Jewish and those who do not – we see that the Jewish retention rate of people raised in intermarried families appears to be rising. That is, among all adults (both Jewish and non-Jewish) who say they had one Jewish parent and one non-Jewish parent, younger generations are more likely than older generations to be Jewish today.

 

For example, among U.S. adults ages 65 and older who had one Jewish parent, 25% are Jewish today (including 7% who are Jews by religion and 18% who are Jews of no religion), while 75% are not Jewish (meaning that they currently identify with a religion other than Judaism or that they do not consider themselves Jewish in any way, either by religion or otherwise). Among adults younger than 30 who have one Jewish parent, by contrast, 59% are Jewish today, including 29% who are Jews by religion and 30% who are Jews of no religion.

Pew-2013-Jewish Intermarriage younger generation

Pew-2013-Jewish Intermarriage younger generation

Finally, it has often been assumed that Jewish women are less inclined to intermarry than are Jewish men. As Bruce Phillips, a sociologist at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, has written: “In American popular culture, intermarriage has been the [domain] of Jewish males. Starting with ‘Abbie’s Irish Rose’ and ‘The Jazz Singer’ following the turn of the century through ‘Bridget Loves Bernie’ and the ‘Heartbreak Kid’ in the early 1970s to ‘Mad About You’ in the 1990s, the plot is about a Jewish married man in love with a stereotypical [non-Jewish woman].”

 

But our survey finds that Jewish women are slightly more likely to be intermarried than Jewish men. Among the married Jewish women surveyed, 47% say they have a non-Jewish spouse. Among the married Jewish men, 41% say they have a non-Jewish spouse.

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JerusalemCats Comments:

The real test is will they make Aliyah?

According to Pew “A Portrait of Jewish Americans”(2013) ”The Jewish Population went down from 5.2 Million in 2000 to 4.2 Million +/- 3% today” http://www.pewforum.org/2016/03/08/comparisons-between-jews-in-israel-and-the-u-s/ The US has an 85% intermarriage rate for secular Jews vs. 2% for Israel.
Relatively few Israeli Jews identify with either Conservative (2%) or Reform (3%) Judaism.

Pew-2016-03-08-Israel Reform Essay static identify

Pew-2016-03-08-Israel Reform Essay static identify

Arutz Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

Almost half of American ‘Jews’ actually are not Jewish

Reform leader Rick Jacobs travels the USA proudly proclaiming that “interfaith families are now the majority of the movement.” Op-ed.

Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer 8June2023, 1:12 PM (GMT+3)  http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/372504

The recent Israel-bashing, Jew-hating graduation speech by a “Palestinian Arab” at CUNY Law School made national news. The Zionist Organization of America took the lead, as it almost always does among the Presidents’ Conference “major” Jewish organizations, in fighting back. ZOA demanded that the CUNY Law den of corruption be defunded by New York State, that the administrators who approved and facilitated the Nazi-like speech be fired, and that the Jew-hater graduate be denied a New York State Bar license to practice.

 

Amazingly, that lowest-tier (ranked #154, among the lowest 20% in the country) school’s so-called “Jewish Law Student Association” praised the speaker’s vicious anti-Zionist venom and lies. Their pathetic self-hate appears here in its entirety. That self-flagellating screed is so warped that one initially would suppose it a forgery, impossible to be authored by Jews even in a world of self-hating Jewish apostates like George Soros, Bernie Sanders, and Ben & Jerry.

 

That document helpfully demonstrates that almost half the people in America who call themselves “Jews” are in fact not Jews.

 

The numbers:

 

Much of current American “Jewish” demographic data emanate from a landmark Pew report. Pew asked interviewees to self-identify. If someone told Pew’s pollster he or his parents are or were “Jewish,” Pew took it as gospel.

 

But who really is a Jew? Through 3,300 years of Judaism until 1983, the only definition of a “Jew” was to be born to a Jewish mother or to convert to Judaism by accepting and undertaking the laws (halakhah) and traditions (mesorah) of Judaism completely and unequivocally, and affirming total belief that every word in the Torah is true and the word of G-d spoken to Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher).

 

On March 15, 1983, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the “Reform” movement’s body of rabbis, passed an unprecedented resolution that declared hundreds of thousands, perhaps one million or more, of non-Jews to be ”Jews.” Prepared by a committee on patrilineal descent entitled “The Status of Children of Mixed Marriages,” the CCAR resolution stated that “we face, today, an unprecedented situation due to the changed conditions in which decisions concerning the status of the child of a mixed marriage are to be made.”

 

Contrary to thousands of years of unbroken Jewish practice and tradition — which even Reform acknowledged as binding through its first 150 years — the resolution overnight accepted the children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers as “Jewish” if the parents nominally would claim they would rear the child that way. Obviously, such a claim by a Jewish spouse who marries a non-Jew has no meaning.

 

The “Reform” movement’s body of congregational temples is the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism), and their president, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, now travels the country proudly proclaiming that “interfaith families are now the majority of the movement.” (See embedded link at page 9, lower left column.)

 

Rabbi Jacobs’s assertion that the majority of “Reform”-affiliated families today are headed by a Jewish and non-Jewish intermarried spouse substantiates the underlying math. Let’s say there are 200 married congregants at the “Reform” Temple, comprising 100 marriages, and 60 of the marriages (the majority, which Jacobs asserts) are intermarriages. That means, outright, that at least 60 of those 200 in the temple are non-Jewish under any definition. They alone comprise 30 percent. Beyond that, among their 60 “Jewish” spouses, a certain number of them also are non-Jewish. Many of those “Jewish” spouses are children of outright non-Jewish mothers who intermarried with Jews, and who after 1983 (40 years ago) reared them “patrilineally” as though Jews — although they are not and never were. Others among those 60 are the children of “Jewish” mothers who “converted to Judaism” like Marilyn Monroe via a heterodox rabbi, which means those mothers also were non-Jewish. Some 10-20 (could be more, could be fewer) of the 60 “Jewish” intermarried spouses in our sample thus actually are not Jewish either. So we have 70-80 non-Jews among every 200 “Reform Jews.” That is 35-40 percent.

 

Even non-Orthodox Conservative rabbis regard large swaths of Reform “converts” to be non-Jewish because many such “converts” never immersed in a mikveh ritual body of water. Thus, the numbers of outright non-Jews in our 200-person hypothetical sample of Year 2023 “Reform” households stand at 70-80 non-Jews or 35-40 percent “of the movement.” These non-Jewish families, in turn, then have their own children for the next generation.

 

Inasmuch as “Reform’s” patrilineal policy now is 40 years extant — two generations — the numbers of outright non-Jewish “Reform” “Jews” today, among “Reform” Jews born since the 1980s, well exceeds 40-50 percent. (By contrast, older Reform Jews who were born and grew up well before the 1983 “patrilineal” tsunami and before Jews started marrying non-Jews at record highs — say, people over age 60 — would number a markedly higher percentage of actual Jews.)

 

Pew reports that “Reform” Jews comprise 37 percent of American Jewry, with “Conservative” Jews at 17 percent, and Orthodox at 9 percent. Pew’s Orthodox numbers manifestly are incompatible with reality in terms of proportion of actual Jews, but the numbers could be correct based on Pew’s fanciful maximizing of Jewish demographics.

 

Pew is not to blame; they survey people’s stated opinions and do not present as rabbinic authorities. Beyond this,

 

Pew says that another 32 percent of Jews claim no religious affiliation whatsoever, so their numbers stand to be less Judaic than even “Reform’s” population. Worded in another chart, Pew declares that 27 percent of American “Jews” report “no religion.” Among that group, we may expect many authentic Jews, too —Jewish-born apostates like George Soros, Bernie Sanders, and the Ben & Jerry’s founders. Even so, the numbers reflect huge numbers of non-Jews erroneously self-reporting in that group as “Jews.”

 

If “Reform” Jews are 37 percent, and Jews of “no religion” are 27 percent, that means approximately one-third of all reported American “Jews” plainly are not Jews. These are the data, conservatively interpreted. Thus, the highly generous census reports of 7.5 million “Jews” now in America, suggesting preposterously a 25 percent increase from the 6 million of the 1970s despite half a century of rife assimilation and intermarriage, actually more accurately are 4.5 to 5 million Jews.

 

Pew says Orthodox Jews are 9-10 percent of an American “Jewry” numbering 7.5 million. That would approximate 750,000 Orthodox Jews in America. However, if there are 750,000 Orthodox Jews in America but only amid a more realistic 4.5 million-person community, that then doubles the Orthodox percent of American Jewry to at least one-sixth or 16.66 percent. Similarly, if there are 750,000 Orthodox Jews among a slightly larger population of 5 million, that puts the Orthodox percent of American Jewry at 15 percent.

 

Moreover, Orthodox Jews regularly get undercounted in these surveys because they are harder to count — for practical logistical reasons. For example, “Reform” “converts” are especially eager to answer the phone and respond to such surveys as “Jews by Choice.” By contrast, Orthodox Jews do not want to be bothered. Haredim and Modern Orthodox have less interest in taking the call or remaining on the phone. Many such calls are made on weekends, to maximize reaching survey targets at a time of week when they will agree to answer long polling surveys. However, Orthodox Jews do not touch the phone on Shabbat, except in cases of life or death, and that makes them unreachable most of Friday and Saturday.

 

Notably, when the World Zionist Congress (WZC) conducted elections in March 2020 for delegates to their quadrennial international convention, “Reform” Judaism and their left-wing cohort won 40 or so seats, “Conservative” Judaism won 20 or so seats, and Orthodoxy and their conservative (political, small “c”) allies won 70 or so seats. Although those numbers were not a scientific population survey but a voluntary affirmation of Jewish affiliation in the context of Zionist engagement, the WZC numbers, by which Orthodox Jews and their conservative (small “c”) cohort so overwhelmingly outvoted the combined non-Orthodox and progressive left, expose the Pew errors that put the Orthodox at only 9 percent of the community. Politics and energy can explain variations in free elections, as can community cohesion, organizing, and “get-out-the-vote” dynamics, but WZC free-election results that so profoundly contradict Pew numbers underscore that Orthodoxy comprises substantially more than 9 percent of authentic American Jewry.

 

Pew explains how they count Jews. For example:

 

People are categorized as “Jews of no religion” if they answer a question about their present religion by saying they are atheist, agnostic or have no religion in particular; and they say they had a Jewish parent or were raised Jewish; andthey consider themselves Jewish in some way aside from religion, such as ethnically, culturally or because of their family background.…

 

Combining 5.8 million adult Jews (the estimated size of the net Jewish population in this survey) with 1.8 million children (living in households with a Jewish adult and who are being raised Jewish in some way, including those who are being raised both Jewish and in another religion) yields a total estimate (rounded to the nearest 100,000) of 7.5 million Jews of all ages in the United States, or 2.4% of the total U.S. population.

 

In this report, as in the 2013 study, children are treated differently from adults: Children who are being raised as Jewish and in some other religion are included in the Jewish population estimate, while adults who identify as Jewish and some other religion are not. This accounts for the uncertainty inherent in projecting how children will identify when they grow up; some children who are raised as Jewish and another religion go on to identify, in adulthood, solely as Jewish.

 

In sum, at least 33-40 percent — and probably much more — of self-reporting American “Jews” are not Jews, with ever-higher numbers and percentages of “false Jews” among those born each decade since the 1980s and particularly in the past 20 years.

 

The ramifications are enormous. When the media report that 25 percent of American Jews oppose Israel or support BDS or regard Israel as “apartheid” or support “Palestinian” demands that Israel hand them Judea and Samaria, we gain new clarity that overwhelming numbers of those hostile respondents include the core of self-identifiers who are not actually Jews to begin with. They simply are not Jews. These are the “Jews” of J Street, Jewish Voice for Palestine, and the CUNY “Jewish Law Student Association.” Like the Erev Rav (Mixed Multitude) who built the Golden Calf in the Sinai Desert, these are the non-Jewish Fifth Column in our midst.

 

Likewise, when pollsters state that 70 percent of American Jews vote Democrat and 30 percent Republican, know that the divide among actual Jews towards Democrat liberalism probably lies more along the lines of 55-45 percent, more akin to Catholic voting patterns.

 

Judaism is not and never has been transmitted by blood, genes, DNA; contrarily, patrilineal bloodlines were among the ways Hitler and the German Nazis defined Jews.

 

No Orthodox congregational rabbi in America today will agree to conduct a marriage for a couple who have no prior affiliation with the rabbi’s community until that rabbi independently has verified that both prospective spouses actually meet the classic normative 3,000-year definition of “authentically Jewish.” Even the most theologically flexible Modern Orthodox congregations now require new families seeking to have their child bar– or bat-mitzva’d at the synagogue to document that the mother authentically was Jewish when the child was born or that the child properly was converted to Judaism consonant with the classic normative standard

 

Indeed, Orthodox synagogues will not even allow people to purchase gravesite plots in their cemetery sections until prospective buyers can prove unequivocally that they (or the deceased whom they wish to inter) meet Judaism’s classic definition of Jewish. As a result, intermarried couples ultimately cannot lie side-by-side for eternity in Orthodox sections of cemeteries, nor can the children of a Jewish father and non-Jewish birth mother be buried in a family plot with their father in a cemetery’s Orthodox section.

 

They can always find a BDS graveyard at Ben & Jerry’s.

 

Adapted by the writer, Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, for Arutz Sheva from a version of this article that first appeared here in The American Spectator.

 

To receive Rav Fischer’s Weekly Extensive Torah Commentaries or to attend any or all of Rav Fischer’s weekly 60-minute live Zoom classes on the Weekly Torah Portion, the Biblical Prophets, the Mishnah, Rambam Mishneh Torah, or Advanced Judaic Texts, send an email to: shulstuff@yioc.org

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Arutz Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

Ben Shapiro: Most US Jews aren’t Jewish in their identity

In an extensive interview with INN, Ben Shapiro warns of the dangers of progressive ideology,


20July2022 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/356856
   

American conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro was in the Israel National News-Arutz Sheva studio for a very special interview that touched on many topics.

When asked if liberals and progressives are “the enemy,” Shapiro told former Israel Hayom editor-in-chief Boaz Bismuth: “I don’t think that liberals and progressives are the enemy as people but I think that the ideas of liberals and progressives are extraordinarily destructive to the social fabric in the United States.”

 

“In order to have a functioning country you have to have a common philosophy, you have to have a common culture, and you have to have a common history. Progressives in the United States are fighting against all three of these things,” he says.

Shapiro explains that to have a culture, a nation has to have a set of values or ideals.

“When it comes to the culture of the United States that sort of requires you to at least speak the same language. You have to speak in terms of facts. And in the United States you have open debate over whether men and women exist caused by the left. It’s going to be tough to have a conversation with people when words have no meaning. When it comes to history, the left in the United States believes that the history of the United States is an unending series of calamities filled with brutality and evil. And again, you can’t have a nation built that way,” he says.

 

“The ideas of progressives are extraordinarily dangerous to the social fabric in any country,” he adds.

Is is possible today for progressivism and conservatism to go hand-in-hand as was the case at times in the 20th century?

“The idea that the right and left can’t have a conversation anymore that is a new thing,” Shapiro says. “The idea that if you are on the left you literally can’t get in the same room with somebody on the right and have an open conversation without attempting to wreck the person on camera, that’s a major problem.”

 

He sees a bleak future if “traditional liberals” continue to take their marching orders from the radical left and move increasingly away from the center-left of the political spectrum, where they used to reside.

 

“The future of the United States rests not on whether people like me speak. It’s really more on whether traditional liberals, people who disagree with me on taxes, on healthcare, whether those people are willing to tell the hard left it’s still important to have a conversation with people like me, or whether they decide they would rather get their policy done by working with the people on the left and then shutting the door on everybody else. A lot of liberals have been intimidated into believing that if they even have a conversation with people on the other side of the isle, this makes them bad. It’s more important to get done what they need to get done in terms of ramming the United States to the left, even if that means ending debate before it begins.”

 

Shapiro recalls that he entered into political commentary because of defending Israel. He was a philosophy major at UCLA and saw an editorial comparing former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Adolf Eichmann.

“I walked into the [newspaper] office and starting writing a column that turned into a syndicated column that turned into a career,” he says.

The left has only become even more anti-Israel since then, he notes.

“The left in the United States has now been taken over by a sort of ideology that suggests that anything that is successful must be inherently discriminatory and because Israel is successful it’s more discriminatory. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the left’s ideas on Israel began to shift immediately upon Israel winning the Six Day War. Until then Israel was the darling of the left,” Shapiro says.

 

“What I’m worried about is the rising generation tends to be more progressive. What we’ve watched is that these people tend to come into jobs and then restructure the job. They tend to come into their companies and restructure the company around them. It’s not that they come into institutions and these institutions civilize them, which is normally the way people grow up instead.”

 

He also believes that many pro-Israel students on American campuses don’t know how to defend Israel or are intimidated by their progressive believes.

“The number of people on campus who care about Israel is very low and the people who defend Israel don’t know how to do it. They tend to be very shy about defending Israel, specifically because in order to defend Israel you have to defend principles a lot of people on the soft left are uncomfortable with. You have to defend nationalism, you have to defend religion,” Shapiro says. “Israel is losing the left in America but I don’t think that has to do with Israel. That has to do with the left, the left has gotten significantly more radical over time. The left in America is starting to look a lot like Jeremy Corbyn’s left in Great Britain.”

 

On the topic of transgender people, Shapiro believes it is part of “secularism as a religion.”

“Gender dysphoria is an actual psychological condition. It’s in the DSM 5. What the left has decided is that if you believe you are a member of the opposite sex, we all have to treat you as a member of the opposite sex, and in fact you are a member of the opposite sex. Once a society decides that standards of actual truth – the meaning of words – it’s gone too far, transgender ideology is violative of biology, it’s violative of reason, it’s violative of basic language,” he says. “What that is in the end is an attempt to cudgel you into joining a particular cult. You have to have skin in the game and the way you demonstrate you have skin in the game is by saying nonsensical things over and over… If you see secularism as a religion, and saying your pronouns as a ritual, then it makes a lot more sense than than the idea that men can be women and women can be men.”

 

There’s an instinctive human drive to reject all this stuff because it’s the evidence of your own eyes. Don’t reject the evidence of your own eyes in the name of ridiculous gender ideology that the left likes to propose as a measure of equality.”

Shapiro sees modern liberalism as alienating traditional liberals and increasingly pushing them to the right.

“You’re seeing liberals being driven into the conservative camp, people like Elon Musk [who] is not a conservative. He’s been driven into the arms of people on the right simply because the left has decided that if you are not willing to repeat all these mantras you can’t sit at the the table. If you shrink your table enough there won’t be a lot of people at your table anymore.”

 

If progressives don’t believe in “In G-d We Trust”, as it says on American money, who do they trust?

“The government, the experts, you trust the experts always. And if the experts blow it, you trust them even more. It’s an amazing double down that they’ve done,” Shapiro explains.

 

“The experts failed on all of these things that they said that they could fix and simultaneously they told you that your moral system is wrong and they’re the experts on morality as well. You wonder why people are ticked off – that’s why people are ticked off. But they have no capacity to really see it.”

 

For him, this is more evidence that progressive political elites are out of touch with ordinary Americans.

“There’s a major disconnect between the political class on the left [in the United States] and the people they’re purporting to represent,” he says.

He sees certain parallels with Israeli society.

“It’s a mistake to treat any population in a free society as though it’s incapable of getting ahead. From what I’ve seen in Israel, there’s a mistake that the Israeli government has recently been making a lot in its treatment of the Arab population as though affirmative action and more social spending is necessary and just and good because it’s somehow going to create layers of of success in Arab populations in Israel. I doubt it’s going to work for any population, whether you’re talking about Arabs in Israel, whether you’re talking about Black and Hispanic Americans, you have to treat everybody by the same rules and the same rules of success apply literally everywhere. If you get a job, if you get an education, you do these things, you’re going to be successful in a free society, and that’s true in Israel as well for Arabs who have all the same rights that Jews do in in the State of Israel with regard to these things.”

 

When asked about why Jews in America vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats, even after the presidency of Barack Obama and anti-Israel Squad Democrats in Congress, he notes that “this is the number one question that I always get asked on college campuses.”

 

“The answer is most [American] Jews are not particularly Jewish in identity. If you ask a Jew what’s your core identity they’ll say you know I like social justice and I’m very concerned with the issues of the world –Tikkun Olam – but not in the actual traditional sense,” he says.

 

“The idea is that most Jews in the United States are not religious. What [they] really are is a secular leftist who really doesn’t believe in G-d but feel some sort of very basic cultural solidarity that focuses on a particular history with with bagels and and locks and all the rest of this that’s not going to give you any sense of identity with the State of Israel. This is a big mistake that a lot of Republican politicians make with the Jewish population in America. They’ll go to a Reconstructionist synagogue and they’ll talk about Israel as though this is going to be a resonant issue. Israel is like number 15 on the list for these folks and even when it comes to Israel, they think of Israel in the same way that secular leftists think of Israel on the very progressive left.”

 

He notes that if you look at the voting patterns of Orthodox Jews in America, around 85 to 90 percent vote Republican and the less religious Jews get, the bigger the percentage of Jews voting Democratic gets.

 

“Are you talking about ethnically Jewish voters, or are you talking about self-identified Jews, or are you talking about people who actually practice Judaism? People who actually practice Judaism tend to care a lot about Israel. People who don’t practice Judaism don’t tend to care a lot about Israel. It’s not really a mystery.”

 

“There are lots of Jews who are not Zionists in the United States. For them it’s actually sort of embarrassing. The reason that a lot of progressive Jews identify as Jewish is just so that they don’t have to identify as white because if you’re white in the United States then this means that you’re part of the oppressor class but if you say that you’re a progressive Jew then you can dissociate from the rest of the Jews and you can say but I’m the good Jew.”

 

In terms of the 2024 US presidential election, Shapiro, who famously as a conservative did not vote for Trump in 2016, says he hopes that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis get the Republican nomination and not Trump.

 

Shapiro says DeSantis is “terrific. He’s wonderful.” Although he also praises Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and hopes they are primary candidates.

 

“There are a bunch of candidates I think are really good on the right side of the aisle. I think that Donald Trump has an enormous amount of baggage. I think that he would have the toughest time beating a Democrat.”

 

When asked if he believes the 2020 election was stolen as Trump claims, he replies:

“You can talk about how the election rules were were biased, you can talk about the mail in ballots. Were ballots falsified on mass? No. The the evidence is just not there for that. Donald Trump’s own people did not allege that in court. He alleges it now. The evidence again is not present for that. There are a lot of things that can be said about the way the election was conducted, again a lot of the rules changed because of COVID, some of those rule changes were really problematic legally speaking… but the the idea that hundreds of thousands of ballots were fabricated on behalf of Joe Biden or that a bunch of pro-Trump ballots just got dumped in a river somewhere. There’s no evidence to that effect that i’ve seen whatsoever.”

 

In terms of the upcoming Israeli elections in November, Shapiro says that if former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns as prime minister, he feels that it’s good news for the country.

 

“The coalition government that was established simply in opposition to Prime Minister Netanyahu was obviously going to fall apart. It was only a question of when it was going to fall apart, literally the only thing holding it together was how much people disliked Benjamin Netanyahu. There’s been this this sort of log jam at the top of Israeli politics for a long time and it’s been exacerbated by of course the prosecutions of Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he says. “If Israel wishes to be governed in any way it’s got to be governed on the basis of an agenda and the agenda can’t just be we don’t like Bibi Netanyahu.”

TOP


https://www.jpost.com/

70% of secular Jews in the US, 50% in Europe married to non-Jews

The issue of intermarriage, viewed as a complex reality of Jewish life, prompts questions about how communities should treat the resulting children.

By ZVIKA KLEIN
Published: AUGUST 1, 2023 11:00 Updated: AUGUST 1, 2023 14:05 https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-753223

 

A dramatic new report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) has delved into the world of Jewish intermarriage rates, shedding light on a key concern among Jewish leaders and policymakers worldwide. The report, titled “Intermarriage of Jews and non-Jews: the global situation and its meaning,” examines intermarriage prevalence across countries covering over 95% of the global Jewish population. Moreover, it contextualizes the data with Jewish fertility rates to gauge the threat of intermarriage to Jewish community sustainability around the globe.

 

Dr. Daniel Staetsky, Senior Research Fellow and Director of JPR’s European Demography Unit, authored the comprehensive report, bringing to the forefront some compelling insights about intermarriage in Jewish communities. Among the key findings are:

1. Global intermarriage prevalence: The report reveals that the overall prevalence of intermarriage stands at 26% worldwide. However, a stark distinction emerges between Israel, where intermarriage is relatively low at 5%, and the Jewish Diaspora, where it reaches 42%.

 

2. Impact of traditionalism: The report establishes that Jewish populations with the lowest intermarriage levels exhibit the highest levels of traditionalism. Religiosity and strong connections to Jewish heritage seem to serve as powerful deterrents to intermarriage.

 

3. Intermarriage in Europe and the US: Secular or ‘Just Jewish’ Jews in Europe and the US show the highest prevalence of intermarriage. Nearly 70% of secular Jews in the US and almost 50% in Europe are married to non-Jews.

 

4. Factors influencing intermarriage: The report suggests that factors like the availability of suitable Jewish partners play a relatively smaller role compared to traditionalism when comparing intermarriage rates across different countries.

 

5. Diverse patterns in Europe: Contrary to a single European pattern, the report reveals that the highest (Poland) and lowest (Belgium) intermarriage rates among Diaspora communities are found in Europe.

 

6. American Jews and intermarriage: Although often associated with high intermarriage rates, American Jews actually occupy a middle position in the global spectrum of intermarriage prevalence.

 

7. Interplay of intermarriage and fertility: While intermarriage rates have increased over time in the US, the report observes that this trend is somewhat offset by the growing Haredi and Orthodox populations. In Europe, the situation appears more stable over time.

 

8. Fertility: The report highlights that the impact of intermarriage on Jewish population trends today is overshadowed by the significance of fertility rates. Low fertility is a major concern for Jewish communities in the Diaspora, while Israel remains an exception with relatively high fertility rates.

 

Understanding demographic processes and trends in community development

Dr. Jonathan Boyd, JPR’s Executive Director, emphasized the importance of this report’s findings: “Understanding demographic processes and trends is an essential component of community development work, and is all-too-often overlooked when planning for our shared future.”

 

The report paints a nuanced picture of intermarriage, indicating that it is not a monolithic phenomenon. Instead, it varies significantly across regions and is strongly influenced by traditionalism and religiosity within Jewish communities. While intermarriage is often perceived as a potential threat to the sustainability of Jewish communities, the report highlights that low fertility rates represent a more pressing challenge.

 

By placing intermarriage in the context of fertility, the report calls for a more comprehensive approach to address demographic concerns. Policymakers and community leaders are urged to consider the impact of both intermarriage and fertility rates when devising strategies for community development and engagement.

 

For Jewish communities, the report’s findings serve as reference material for critical policy discussions. The issue of intermarriage, viewed as a complex reality of Jewish life, prompts questions about how communities should treat the consequences of intermarriage, including incorporating the offspring and spouses of intermarried Jews into communal activities.

 

Moreover, a policy scenario emphasizing the revival of traditionalism and increasing the volume of traditional practices warrants exploration. Jewish communities can look to the example of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities, which foster in-marriage through international matchmaking and migration, and consider how such methods can be adapted to enhance the availability of Jewish partners.

 

Additionally, fostering inclusivity and exploring the role of Jewish institutions in supporting and encouraging fertility in the Diaspora are essential components of community development. Acknowledging demographic realities and trends is crucial for ensuring a vibrant and sustainable Jewish future.

TOP

ADL’s WAR to censor Twitter and Jews

zerohedge-com-logo

UPDATE:

Elon Musk Reveals “Extremely Powerful” ADL CEO Sought To Shake Him Down For Donations

by Tyler Durden, 07September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/elon-musk-reveals-extremely-powerful-adl-ceo-sought-shake-him-down-donations

Update: The ADL is now fundraising off this scandal and telling donors they’re under threat due to Musk’s criticisms!

 

Ashley St. Clair-tweet-6September2023-In case you were skeptical of the ADL’s grift

Ashley St. Clair-tweet-6September2023-In case you were skeptical of the ADL’s grift

 

DailyWire’s Ben Shapiro summed things up succinctly:

“Elon Musk is now at war with the Anti-Defamation League, a progressive interest group that proclaims it is speaking in the name of Jewish causes. And like a lot of these progressive interest groups, they are interested in removing advertising revenue from sources where they can’t control the speech.

 

Musk posted on X saying the ADL has been trying to kill his platform by falsely accusing him of being anti-semitic, and that If this continues, he’ll have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the Anti Defamation League.

 

Elon Musk happens to be correct about all of that, which is why it’s very important that if you’re an advertiser and you are looking at platforms to advertise on, you probably should be looking at free speech platforms like X – otherwise X will revert back to type and it’s going to do the same kind of crap that Facebook and YouTube have done in censoring material.”

Ben Shapiro-tweet-6September2023-Anti-Defamation League-progressive interest group

Ben Shapiro-tweet-6September2023-Anti-Defamation League-progressive interest group

 

 

Musk agreed:

Elon Musk-tweet-7September2023-Accurate

Elon Musk-tweet-7September2023-Accurate

*  *  *

As InformationLiberation.com’s Chris Menahan detailed earlier, Twitter/X owner Elon Musk revealed on Wednesday that Jonathan Greenblatt, the “extremely powerful” CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, sought to shake him down for donations just like he did to Adidas, the Brooklyn Nets and Kyrie Irving.

 

“Andrew Ross Sorkin asks Jonathan Greenblatt if he was seeking to have a role at X or shaking @elonmusk down for donations to the ADL (like he did to Adidas and the Brooklyn Nets) and he responds by saying that’s an ‘anti-Semitic trope,’ ” Greg Price tweeted along with a clip of Greenblatt’s latest appearance on CNBC.

 

“Because the answer is ‘Yes!’ regarding seeking donations, hence JG’s refusal to answer the question,” Musk responded. “JG instead went on the attack, implying that Sorkin, despite being Jewish, is somehow an anti-Semite just for asking a basic conflict-of-interest question!”

 

Elon Musk-tweet-6September2023-Because the answer is Yes regarding seeking donations

Elon Musk-tweet-6September2023-Because the answer is Yes regarding seeking donations

 

 

“I love how ADL overlord Jonathan Greenblatt says the ADL is just a little ‘nonprofit in New York’ with no power as if they didn’t lead a pressure campaign that squeezed $60 billion from Meta’s market cap for not complying with their demands,” Ashley St. Clair commented in response to Greenblatt’s CNBC appearance. “ADL has been operating mafia-style for ideological compliance for decades!”

 

“Exactly!” Musk said. “The ADL is extremely powerful in the west, as demonstrated by our massive drop in US advertising, while Asia advertising has actually grown slightly.”

“Jonathan at ADL kicked off a massive Twitter boycott campaign less than a week after the acquisition closed,” Musk said in another post.

 

“Literally nothing had changed about the site. Our US revenue is still 60% down from that campaign, but slowly improving.”

 

Elon Musk-tweet-6September2023-Jonathan at ADL kicked off a massive Twitter boycott campaig

Elon Musk-tweet-6September2023-Jonathan at ADL kicked off a massive Twitter boycott campaig

 

Read More… HERE

zerohedge-com-logo

“I Don’t Believe In Cancel Culture” – ADL CEO Fumes At Suggestion He Was ‘Shaking Down’ Musk For Money

by Tyler Durden, 06September2023 –
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/adl-ceo-jonathan-greenblatt-elon-musk-inciting-violence-against-jewish-people-criticizing

 

The Musk vs ADL (and the censorship industrial complex) battle escalated further this morning with the X/Twitter owner highlighting a new article from Newsweek saying that “ADL Has Lost Its Way”:

Elon Musk-tweet-6September2023-Good article

Elon Musk-tweet-6September2023-Good article

See: The ADL Has Lost Its Way. Elon Musk Is Right to Stand Up to Its Censorship

“The ADL taught me that nastygrams from Jew haters were just the price we pay for liberty, worthy of being filed and forgotten,” writes Ron Coleman in the op-ed.

“This is not Weimar Germany; it is America. We have a First Amendment, we have civil rights, we have a working democracy.

That is part of the good we have done.

Screenshot-Newsweek-The ADL Has Lost Its Way

Screenshot-Newsweek-The ADL Has Lost Its Way

 

“But” Coleman explains, “the ADL no longer believes this…”

“It has become part of a great online censorship machine that is being exposed day after day as an anti-free speech enterprise.”

The following clip suggests just that…

Awkward-Mama-tweet-2September2023-I CAUGHT the ADL discussing how they attempt to influence Elon Musk

Awkward-Mama-tweet-2September2023-I CAUGHT the ADL discussing how they attempt to influence Elon Musk

As Coleman concludes:

“The ADL’s efforts to censor Twitter confirms what we have known for years: Not only is today’s ADL not doing the world some good. It is doing something much worse. How much longer will we be allowed to say so?”

Greenblatt then appeared on CNBC this morning to respond to Musk’s threats.

He got his initial talking points in without much push back from the anchors:

  • rising anti-semitism everywhere,
  • Musk allowing “hardened anti-semites” back on the platform,
  • Greenblatt seemed to walk back his views on free-speech (“hate speech is the price of free speech”),
  • and said that he didn’t think Musk was anti-semitic or Twitter as a platform was anti-semitic,
  • but ended by framing the victim narrative: “let’s be clear here, this is the wealthiest man in the world running one of the most powerful media platforms on the planet… and we’re a non-profit, here in New York, so I think figuring out who has the power in this relationship… is pretty clear to me.”
ADL CEO responds to legal threats from Elon Musk

ADL CEO responds to legal threats from Elon Musk

 

But then things turned just a little more contemptuous as Andrew Ross Sorkin dropped a bombshell and asked the ADL CEO:

“Were you seeking to have some kind of either role at Twitter or any kind of donations made or other things?”

“No…” Greenblatt exclaimed.

“I only say that because there have been folks who’ve looked at these situations and felt they were being shaken down,” Sorkin said.

To which Greenblatt immediately played a ‘card’:

“Look, I think, let me be honest about that. I think it is [a] sort of anti-Semitic trope to suggest when Jewish people express a degree of outrage over antisemitism, that somehow that’s a shakedown because Jews are greedy. That sounds to me… I’m not saying you believe that…”

Sorkin swiftly interrupted to defend himself…

“I’m Jewish, so I’m not even trying to…” Sorkin said. 

“I’m just saying that that occasionally you hear the critique among not-for-profits in certain cases that are involved in certain causes that talk to companies and you hear it from leaders who say, ‘I feel like…'”

Greenblatt then dropped the biggest load of bullshit yet:

“I hear that, but my view on all of this, we talked about this before on the show… I don’t believe in cancel culture, I believe in counsel culture… What we’ve tried to do over the years with Twitter, with YouTube, with Facebook and all of its platforms, with Reddit, with Discord, I can go on and on, is to work with them, to make those platforms better,” Greenblatt said.

“Better” by who’s defintion? “Better” by having voices silenced that do not fit the establishment narrative (and that have nothing at all to do with anti-semitism)?

 

“I’m trying to understand what led to this – whatever is happening here. That was why I asked that question,” Sorkin asked.

“Well, I think Elon’s a complicated person, I can’t explain what prompted those tweets,” Greenblatt said, adding that “Jewish people are vulnerable” and that Twitter should not be “amplifying or intensifying anti-Jewish hate.”

Watch the full interview below:

ADL’s Joel Greenblatt discusses Twitter on CNBC

Michael Shellenberger was quick to point out the ADL CEO’s propaganda…

 

Michael Shellenberger-tweet-6September2023-Experts have debunked you for decades

Michael Shellenberger-tweet-6September2023-Experts have debunked you for decades

[EDD: See the Rebuttal to ADL’s Joel Greenblatt below from Public HERE and HERE]

 

And here is @MarioNawful debunking some of Greenblatt’s lies:

1) He claimed that Elon brought and amplified anti-semitism and hate speech back to the platform.

This is NOT TRUE. The 𝕏 Safety team shared that an independent assessment by Sprinklr found that hate speech impressions on 𝕏 “to be 0.003% compared to Twitter’s estimate of 0.012%.”

2) Greenblatt claimed ADL is NOT publicly or privately talking to advertisers.

BUT shortly after, said, “It is true we did call for a pause back in November, after the acquisition and since then” and in a previous interview he stated “if it remains a hellscape the advertisers won’t take part in [Twitter]”

3) Greenblatt said the ADL is a SMALL non-profit in NY.

NOT TRUE. The ADL is an influential organization with over 100 years of history, and according to the ADL’s 2021 tax filings, the organization’s total revenue was $101 million with a balance sheet of $238 million.

They ALSO received millions of dollars of indirect government funding via grants to groups in which the ADL has special interests.

4) Greenblatt says the ADL works WITH other social media platforms, including Facebook.

We saw in the Politico article that Elon Musk posted that the ADL indirectly CONTROLS what can be posted on Facebook.  

Doesn’t seem like the meeting with X CEO Linda Yaccarino went as well as Greenblatt is making it out to be.

 

As InformationLiberation.com’s Chris Menahan detailed earlier, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Tuesday responded to Twitter/X owner Elon Musk’s criticism of their aggressive pro-censorship ad boycott campaigns by accusing him of “engaging with a highly toxic antisemitic campaign” which will incite violence against Jewish people.

ADL-CEO Jonathan Greenblatt

ADL-CEO Jonathan Greenblatt

 

From Haaretz, “ADL Hits Back at Elon Musk for Engaging With ‘Highly Toxic Antisemitic Campaign’ “:

[EDD: Only the Foreign Press reads this Yellow Commie Lying Rag]

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Tuesday issued his first public comments after an antisemitic social media campaign spearheaded by X chairman Elon Musk targeted his organization.

 

“It is profoundly disturbing that Elon Musk spent the weekend engaging with a highly toxic antisemitic campaign on his platform – a campaign started by an unrepentant bigot that then was heavily promoted by individuals such as white supremacist Nick Fuentes, Christian nationalist Andrew Torba, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and others,” Greenblatt said.

 

Musk had defended himself against allegations of antisemitism, all while he and several of his prominent far-right supporters accused the ADL of fomenting antisemitism in an act of explicit victim-blaming. Musk further threatened to take legal action against the Jewish anti-discrimination organization, accusing it of being behind the company’s $22 billion drop in value after advertisers fled en masse over the proliferation of hate speech on the platform following his takeover.

 

Greenblatt noted that the campaign “manifested in the real world when masked men marched in Florida on Saturday brazenly waving flags adorned with swastikas and chanting ‘Ban the ADL.’ “

 

“But to be clear, the real issue is neither ADL nor the threat of a frivolous lawsuit. This urgent matter is the safety of the Jewish people in the face of increasing, intensifying antisemitism,” he continued.

 

The ADL CEO charged Musk with engaging with and elevating these antisemites at a time of unprecedented spikes in antisemitism targeting Jewish institutions and private residential communities.

 

“And so, this behavior is not just alarming nor reckless. It is flat out dangerous and deeply irresponsible. We need responsible leaders to lead, to stop inflaming hatred and to step back from the brink before it’s too late,” Greenblatt added.

Musk can probably add this inflammatory rhetoric to his lawsuit against the ADL.

Without a doubt, the time when the most “unprecedented spikes in antisemitism targeting Jewish institutions” occurred was in 2017 after Trump’s election when over 245 bomb threats were called into Jewish community centers throughout America.

 

The ADL used the threats to harangue President Trump for “emboldening anti-Semites” and legislation was passed as a result of lobbying from the ADL to increase funding and security grants to Jewish groups.

 

ADL-tweet-22December2020-Doubling non-profit security grants

ADL-tweet-22December2020-Doubling non-profit security grants

 

It turned out nearly all of the JCC bomb threats were carried out by “18 year old” Israeli-American Michael Ron David Kadar, who was found to have a bitcoin wallet worth millions of shekels (a few copycat threats were called in by African-American Juan Thompson).

The teen arrested for JCC bomb threats

The teen arrested for JCC bomb threats

Zero photographs of Kadar’s face were ever released.

Kadar was found guilty in Israel in June 2018 for the bomb threats and sentenced to ten years in prison.

 

In 2019, evidence was dug up by geneticist Franklin Stahl, Ph.D., a member of the National Academy of Science, suggesting that Kadar’s Israeli mother, Dr. Tamar Kadar, who is a chemical weapons researcher at the Mossad-operated Israeli Institute for Biological Research, may have been the real culprit behind the calls.

 

Stahl reported that Kadar, who evidence indicates was actually 27 years old and not 18 years old at the time of his arrest, was nothing more than a fall guy.

 

Additionally, Kadar appears to have been freed from prison by Israel and allowed to travel back to America only to be arrested and jailed on a weapons charge in Illinois.

 

Kadar’s story completely fell off the map shortly after it was uncritically reported in 2017 and the ADL refused to remove his hoax calls from their list of “anti-Semitic incidents” for 2017.

 

The ADL never apologized to Trump or his supporters for smearing them for supposedly inciting these (hoax) bomb threats and never offered to give back the money they got from Congress due to hyping the threats.

“The new information does not change our view that the bomb threats against Jewish institutions were anti-Semitic and harmful to the communities targeted,” the ADL said in a press release after Kadar’s arrest.

 

“No matter who placed the calls or why the calls were placed, the outcome was the same: they instilled fear and disrupted communities across the country.”

This battle – between Musk and the activist censors – is far from over.

 

TOP


newsweek-com-logo

The ADL Has Lost Its Way. Elon Musk Is Right to Stand Up to Its Censorship | Opinion

Ron Coleman, litigation partner, the Dhillon Law Group
On 9/5September2023 https://www.newsweek.com/adl-has-lost-its-way-elon-musk-right-stand-censorship-opinion-1824691

 

As a young law student back in in 1987, I read an article about “human rights violations” being perpetrated by Israel in the National Law Review. Never a shrinking violet, I dashed off a letter to the editor in protest. A couple of days after it was printed, two letters arrived in my law school mailbox, both of them antisemitic and threatening. I was a bit spooked, so I called the Chicago office of the Anti-Defamation League.

 

A fellow named Michael Lieberman invited me to come in, and when I showed him the letters, he recognized one of the authors, a known crank with many disturbing qualities by the name of Anthony Martin-Trigona. The man is a serial litigant who has by now filed over 250 political lawsuits, but he was also essentially harmless, Michael explained. ADL would “file” my letters. Case closed.

 

Back then, the ADL adhered to the values America was founded upon. It existed to protect Jews from attacks and did so within the confines of free speech values, albeit with a liberal slant. I know because after my encounter with ADL in 1987, I volunteered as an ADL legal intern. It was fun, and I did believe I was doing good. Everyone believed that. And it was true.

 

The ADL taught me that nastygrams from Jew haters were just the price we pay for liberty, worthy of being filed and forgotten. This is not Weimar Germany; it is America. We have a First Amendment, we have civil rights, we have a working democracy. That is part of the good we have done.

 

But the ADL no longer believes this. It has become part of a great online censorship machine that is being exposed day after day as an anti-free speech enterprise.

 

Elon Musk

Elon Musk

Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, Elon Musk attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre on June 16, 2023 in Paris, France. Chesnot/Getty Images

 

The national ADL, like the ACLU, the NAACP, and other formerly “apolitical” civil rights groups, is now merely a tax-exempt cadre of the national Democratic Party. Anyone paying any kind of attention knows this. And as the Democratic Party has moved further into the fringes of Left-wing lunacy, the ADL has moved with it—whether a Jewish “antidefamation” issue is at stake or not. The party requires it.

 

So it should come as no surprise that “X” (Twitter) CEO Elon Musk is now claiming the ADL has engaged in relentless efforts to delegitimize X, falsely smearing the platform and its owner for providing an antisemitic haven for “hate speech.” Per Musk, the ADL has gone so far as to lean on advertisers not to do business there. No shrinking violet himself, Musk has gone as far as threatening to sue the ADL for defamation. Naturally, Musk’s objections to being defamed “just prove” that Musk “really is” an antisemite.

 

I, too, am (still) not much of a shrinking violet, and like Musk have not hesitated to express my view that the ADL has lost its way. As an Orthodox Jew, I want people—especially American conservatives—to know that the ADL does not speak for all Jews. And I want to draw attention to the fact that the ADL is largely silent when national figures and institutions aim nasty rhetoric and resentment at the most visible Jews, or what we call in my house “the Jewiest Jews.”

 

The ADL has let our community down so many times that its silence is not even a letdown anymore. All but the most institutionally constrained Orthodox Jews openly reciprocate the contempt the ADL seems to harbor for traditional Judaism, its values, and its people. The widespread belief in my community is that ADL does not object to public expressions of hatred and fear of Orthodox Jews because the assimilated Jews that run the place share those sentiments themselves.

 

My own disdain for the formerly righteous ADL reached a peak a few years ago, when I learned just how far its commitment to leftist dogma went. I encountered it as part of my work as a lawyer who does both defamation and free speech litigation. Trying to get my arms around the ways smear groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center go about deplatforming disfavored personalities, I kept bumping into the same rogue’s gallery, and ADL was, far more often than not, part of the pro-censorship coalition.

 

Today’s ADL operates hand in hand with other formerly august institutions such as the SPLC and CAIR, dedicated to the proposition that all speech is not created equal. Having failed to persuade, the Left is now committed to censorship. And as state and federal governments get in on the act, the ACLU and other self-described champions of civil liberties are silent, or even cheer them on.

 

This betrayal is especially disappointing in a Jewish organization. Fearless dissent was once held up as a Jewish value. Now, it’s deemed a sin worthy of banishment from the camp of humanity in the new order the ADL serves.

 

The ADL’s efforts to censor Twitter confirms what we have known for years: Not only is today’s ADL not doing the world some good. It is doing something much worse.

How much longer will we be allowed to say so?

Ron Coleman is litigation partner in the Dhillon Law Group’s metropolitan New York office. He has been recognized by Jewish and other organizations for his public interest work on behalf of free speech and religious liberties and his support of Jewish institutions and causes. He is also active on Twitter at @roncoleman and hosts a weekly podcast which can be found at www.coleman-nation.com.

 

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

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Judge fines ADL $10.5 million in Colorado defamation suit

By J. Correspondent | 12May2000  https://jweekly.com/2000/05/12/judge-fines-adl-10-5-million-in-colorado-defamation-suit/

DENVER — A civil lawsuit that began with a neighbors’ dispute over garden plants and fighting dogs has ended in a judgment against the Denver-based chapter of the Anti-Defamation League — and what is believed to be the largest defamation judgment ever awarded in a Colorado trial.

 

On April 28, a 12-member jury in U.S. District Court here sided with the plaintiffs, William and Dorothy Quigley of Evergreen. The Quigleys had sued the Mountain States chapter of the ADL and that chapter’s director, Saul Rosenthal.

 

The jury awarded the Quigleys damages, mostly punitive, of $10.5 million — a figure that astonished defendants and plaintiffs alike in the drawn-out and complex case.

 

The jury found that several public statements made in 1994 by Rosenthal on behalf of the ADL defamed the Quigleys and resulted in actual and punitive damages.

 

Rosenthal said the ADL would appeal the decision.

“We were shocked and very surprised at the result,” Rosenthal said. “We’re very surprised at the way the jury saw the evidence they did. I think the overall reaction within ADL and, from what I’m hearing, in the community, is complete disbelief that this kind of result has taken place.”

 

Jay Horowitz, the Quigleys’ attorney, said his clients were pleased with the outcome of the litigation.

“We did not expect a verdict of this size,” Horowitz said.

The dispute began in late 1994 when the Quigleys, residents of Jefferson County near Evergreen, were accused by their Jewish neighbors, Mitchell and Candace Aronson, of plotting against their family for anti-Semitic reasons.

 

The dispute apparently began over such trivial matters as fights between their dogs and allegations of stolen ornamental plants. It intensified into an incident in which Candace Aronson believed that William Quigley intended to run over her with his car.

 

As the dispute grew more heated, the Aronsons began listening to cordless telephone conversations of the Quigleys, which they managed to overhear with a police scanner and later recorded.

 

After consulting with the ADL, the Aronsons later told area media of overhearing their neighbors tell crude anti-Semitic jokes and make comments that the Aronsons took to be threats against their family.

 

The Quigleys denied that the threats were ever meant to be serious. Rosenthal’s comments about the Quigleys, made on behalf of the Aronsons after the Denver ADL agreed to state their case publicly, formed the basis of the Quigleys’ defamation lawsuit.

 

Some of the comments, repeated over and over in numerous media accounts, shocked members of the Colorado Jewish community. In various conversations, the Quigleys refer to attaching images of oven doors to the Aronsons’ house, of burning their children and of wishing their Jewish neighbors had been blown up in a terrorist attack in Israel.

 

Throughout the various twists and turns of the case, the Quigleys insisted that such comments were made in jest and never constituted genuine threats.

 

Over the next five years, the case would become a labyrinth of criminal charges filed and later withdrawn, civil lawsuits and counter- suits.

 

Other developments in various stages of the case:

*It was determined that the electronic eavesdropping used by the Aronsons was legal at the time, although soon afterward outlawed by both federal and state statutes. The only charges that the April 28 verdict did not support were those related to the ADL’s alleged violation of the Federal Wiretap Act.

 

*William Quigley pleaded no contest to a reckless driving charge after driving his car in an allegedly menacing manner in Candace Aronson’s direction.

 

*Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas withdrew the ethnic intimidation charges he initially filed against the Quigleys and paid them an out-of-court settlement of $75,000.

 

*The Quigleys sued the Aronsons and the ADL for depriving them of their civil rights. The Aronsons settled for a non-cash settlement, but the ADL and the Quigleys were unable to reach an out-of-court settlement, leading to the most recent trial.

 

On April 28, the jury found most of the charges leveled by the ADL, based on the tapes, to be “not substantially true.”

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Elon, it’s not only the ADL

by globalintelhub, 08September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-09-08/elon-its-not-only-adl

 

Global Intel Hub — The world is watching self-appointed Hero of the Planet as if right out of a Marvel flick, Elon Musk, fight the forces of evil currently ‘in control’ of Planet Earth.  This is clearly not about blue vs. red, or right vs. left – it’s about Good vs. Evil.  It often seems like Evil will win by default, because it’s well funded and they spend billions on advertising where as the white hats largely work in the shadows, un-credited (because if they show their faces, they would be targeted).  But who are the white hats, and grey hats, and dark hats?

 

Who is behind the Censors, the Trolls, the Bots, the PsyOps?  We know some of them:

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) are nongovernmental organizations, their leaders say. When they demand more censorship of online hate speech, as they are currently doing of X, formerly Twitter, those NGOs are doing it as free citizens and not, say, as government agents. But the fact of the matter is that the US and other Western governments fund ISD, the UK government indirectly funds CCDH, and, for at least 40 years, ADL spied on its enemies and shared intelligence with the US, Israel and other governments.  The reason all of this matters is that ADL’s advertiser boycott against X may be an effort by governments to regain the ability to censor users on X that they had under Twitter before Musk’s takeover last November. Internal Twitter and Facebook messages show that representatives of the US government, including the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the UK government, successfully demanded Facebook and Twitter censorship of their users over the last several years.

We’ve been covering this topic of the toxic “Bot Patrol” trying to negatively influence the minds of youths and other ‘truth seekers’ who are new to alternative information, 1 2 3 and 4.

 

We have shown in these articles, substantial circumstantial evidence, that at least some of these bots are paid CIA/ Military trolls as part of a PsyOps program.  Some of them are paid by private groups, NGOs, etc. but in any case, we have shown that they are paid bots, because you can’t grow millions of followers without a) spending money or b) an influencer or c) the platform (X) is giving you free promotion for a government troll in exchange for something else (i.e. don’t sue me.. or give me information on my competitors).

 

X seems to be the bot platform of choice for some reason, and although Elon is taking huge steps by suing the ADL, there still remains a huge quantity of toxic troll bots on the platform, many of which are claimed to be Satanic, as part of a mass hypnosis ritual.  These bots don’t seem to be so widely proliferated on Free Speech platform Gab.  And the ADL is the tip of the iceberg, although it remains the most aggressive public actor, in spreading threats of violence against targeted racial groups (such as the Palestinians, for example) and “Supremacism” backed by lawyers and donors with deep pockets.

 

As pointed out by Free Speech advocate Andrew Torba, it isn’t so simple like suing the ADL:

X is built on the rails of multiple third-party services including, but not limited to the Google Cloud infrastructure among others. X has had a partnership with Google Cloud since 2018, and Bloomberg reports that this collaboration has incurred annual expenses ranging from $200 million to $300 million for the company. Jonathan Greenblatt has openly bragged about the ADL’s partnership with Google, YouTube, Facebook, and X, going so far as to change the algorithms of these companies to meet their demands.  With one phone call to Google the ADL can cripple X. If Google pulls the plug on the cloud hosting deal massive parts of X’s critical infrastructure will be down for a long time, possibly the entire platform would be taken offline with one click. We saw this happen in 2020 with Parler when Amazon AWS pulled the plug and the platform was taken offline. They were never able to fully recover and recently shut the platform down completely after it sold to a third-party.  Going after the cloud hosting providers is just the start for the ADL’s ability to utterly destroy X. Next come the app store bans.

The one thing Elon has in his favor is deep pockets and a huge following of like minded individuals.  But it’s not only the ADL, there is a ‘dark net’ of groups that utilize NGOs, corrupt government offices, private organizations, secret societies, and other agent provocateurs that are aggressively trying to control the minds of the masses.  This network is so pervasive, it literally shows up in all parts of society, even the Smithsonian has been caught hiding bones of Giants and other historical evidence that doesn’t fit into the narrative they want to portray.  In the below chart, you can see the ADL, while a major node in the network, is only one node of many:

The dark net of groups

The dark net of groups

 

This chart was made by Dr. John Coleman, who once worked for the intelligence apparatus before becoming a whistleblower.  He has what’s known as HUMANINT or Human Intelligence.  As a spymaster, he saw the secret dealings of the Elite, and how they used governments and intelligence agencies to do their dirty work.  In the case of the ADL, it’s mostly character assassinations, and defeating lawsuits – in the case of some of their victims, they can be sued into bankruptcy, with the only hope of giving up their project and sacrificing their morals.

 

Ironically, we obtained a free PDF copy of the work from CIA.gov –

Coleman.-.CONSPIRATORS.HIERARCHY.-.THE.STORY.OF.THE.COMMITTEE.OF.300.R

So, Elon, if you are going to go after the ADL, it’s just one of the arms of the 100 arm Octopus, if you want to kill the beast, you’ll have to cut off the head.

 

Try out Gab.com The Home of Free Speech and Freedom!  If you want to support Free Speech, support Gab via Gab.VCCross.com

Invest In Gab Free Speech

Invest In Gab Free Speech

 

Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors.

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White House And Dark Money NGO Hype Hate Crisis To Demand Censorship

The Center for Countering Digital Hate and corporate news media are weaponizing accusations of antisemitism to advance political and financial agendas

Alex Gutentag
29August2023 ∙ Paid  https://public.substack.com/p/white-house-and-dark-money-ngo-hype

President Joe Biden, Elon Musk, and Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) (Getty Images)

President Joe Biden, Elon Musk, and Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) (Getty Images)

Hate and antisemitism are sharply increasing, say the Biden administration, journalists, NGOs, and the FBI. Groups like the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a British nonprofit, claim that censorship is the only way to combat this crisis.

 

In July, Biden announced a new agenda to fight rising antisemitism, which includes enforcing more censorship of hate speech. The White House is now “[calling] on Congress to hold social media platforms accountable for spreading hate-fueled violence.”

 

The CCDH has successfully pressured advertisers into boycotting Twitter (now called X) in an effort to force the company into restoring the “content moderation” policies it had in place before Elon Musk purchased it. In a report published on June 1, the CCDH found that “Twitter fails to act on 99% of hate posted by Twitter Blue subscribers.” Since the CCDH started its pro-censorship campaign, Twitter/X has lost 60-70% of its total advertising revenue.

 

“The Twitter blue tick used to be a sign of authority and authenticity, but it is now inextricably linked to the promotion of hate and conspiracism,” said the CCDH’s CEO Imran Ahmed, who says he started his group after online radicalization led a man named Thomas Mair to kill former British MP Jo Cox. “Our society has benefited from decades of progress on tolerance, but Elon Musk is undoing those norms at an ever-accelerating rate by allowing hate to prosper on the spaces he administers.”

 

But there is not adequate data to support these claims. Though media outlets promoted the CCDH “report” about hate speech on Twitter/X, it was comprised entirely of a blog post less than 900 words long, based on a review of a scant 100 Tweets. By comparison, 500 million Tweets are sent every day.

 

The CCDH “report” showcases ten examples of racist and antisemitic posts, but it does not make the other 91 Tweets it supposedly analyzed available. Of these ten examples, seven of them had fewer than 50 “likes,” and two had only about 50 views. Three of the accounts featured in the report have since been suspended, but the CCDH has not updated its findings.

 

The CCDH’s disinformation and censorship advocacy should not blind us to real-world hatred. It is true that, according to data from the FBI, hate crimes and incidents are increasing, particularly antisemitic incidents. It is also true that physical assaults on Hasidic Jews in New York City have reached their highest levels in years. Like many Jewish people and other observers, I am disturbed by this trend.

 

At the same time, we should be evidence-based and make sure people know that, according to the Anti-Defamation League, violence motivated by antisemitism killed a single person in 2022. While all murders are a tragedy, it’s worth noting that the victim was not, in fact, Jewish, and the perpetrator had a history of violence unrelated to antisemitism.

 

And even while hatred and violence against Hasidic Jews is a real issue in New York City, there is no credible evidence to suggest that antisemitic speech on platforms like Twitter/X causes this violence. As Liel Leibovitz pointed out in Tablet, the New York Times has published several articles criticizing the Orthodox community based on misleading or exaggerated claims, so it can easily be argued that the paper of record is itself guilty of promoting hatred toward religious Jews. But no one is calling for the New York Times to be censored, nor should they.

 

Although the FBI states that antisemitic attacks are “driven by a belief in the superiority of the white race,” data from Americans Against Antisemitism shows that 97% of antisemitic assaults in New York City from 2018-2022 were perpetrated by other minorities.

 

There are also many complex factors behind increasing hate crimes and antisemitic incidents. Violence, in general, is rising. Writing in City Journal earlier this month, Kenny Xu explained that “FBI data show that many races were affected by the recent nationwide increase in violence. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of black victims of homicide rose by 28%, while the number of white victims grew by 16%.” This suggests that an uptick in hate crimes may be related to the fact that the overall rate of violence has increased.

 

Like the CCDH, the NGO Stop AAPI Hate is also, according to Xu, “using questionable data, precut to fit their preferred narrative.” Rather than attempting to address the actual policies and issues that have led to growing violence against Asians and Hasidic Jews, NGOs and the FBI are lumping local problems of crime and public safety together with non-violent and ill-defined hate “incidents” or “offenses.”

 

Bomb threats against synagogues and physical assaults are serious matters that the FBI must investigate and work to prevent. However, the vast majority of the antisemitic hate offenses the FBI tracks through its Crime Data Explorer are incidents of intimidation or of property damage and vandalism.

 

While these incidents are concerning, it is important to note that intimidation is often determined through self-reporting and is subject to concept creep, which is exacerbated by the tendency of younger generations to define harm much more expansively than older ones. As Xu pointed out, illusions of increasing hate can easily be created through self-report systems. The more panic is drummed up about hate, the more likely it is that people will submit hate incident reports.

 

In several back-and-forth emails with Public, the FBI declined to provide the specific data the White House had used to source its claim that Jews “are the victims of 63% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes.” Wrote an FBI spokesperson in a response to Public, “We do not comment on figures provided by other entities.”

 

Regardless of whether or not antisemitism is increasing, neither the White House nor the FBI provided any proof that antisemitic incidents were tied to social media. After decades of research and debate, there remains little good evidence that consuming hateful material, whether in the form of books, videos, or social media posts, causes people to act violently in the real world. It is specious to attribute violent behavior to something a person watched or read rather than to some other factor. For example, mental illness more than politics may have led Thomas Maier to kill MP Jo Cox.

 

Censorship will never be a viable solution for combating hate. The left-liberal consensus used to be that censoring hate speech was not only a violation of civil liberties but was also counterproductive. Prohibiting people from speaking openly can backfire by pushing them into echo chambers where hateful ideas will not be challenged and where extremism can flourish.

 

Censorship will not protect Jewish people and other minorities; it will endanger them. The Biden Administration and the CCDH are cynically exploiting the real and complex problem of antisemitism to push a misleading political narrative and to strongarm social media platforms into restricting speech online. Why are non-profits and politicians trying to force Twitter/X into a new censorship regime, and why have liberals abandoned the principles of free speech (even for ideas we loathe) — a principle that has guided democracies for centuries?

Censorship Makes Hate Worse

MIT linguist Noam Chomsky

MIT linguist Noam Chomsky

“It is a poor service to the memory of the victims of the holocaust,” wrote MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, “to adopt a central doctrine of their murderers.”

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Government Intel And Security Agencies Behind NGO Demands For More Censorship By X/Twitter

Groups leading the advertiser boycott of X/Twitter receive money from and have a history of spying for governments

Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger
5September2023 ∙ Paid https://public.substack.com/p/government-intel-and-security-agencies

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO, ADL; MP Damian Collins, CCDH Advisory Board Member; Sasha Havlicek, CEO of ISD

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO, ADL; MP Damian Collins, CCDH Advisory Board Member; Sasha Havlicek, CEO of ISD

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO, ADL; MP Damian Collins, CCDH Advisory Board Member;  Sasha Havlicek, CEO of ISD

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) are nongovernmental organizations, their leaders say. When they demand more censorship of online hate speech, as they are currently doing of X, formerly Twitter, those NGOs are doing it as free citizens and not, say, as government agents.

 

But the fact of the matter is that the US and other Western governments fund ISD, the UK government indirectly funds CCDH, and, for at least 40 years, ADL spied on its enemies and shared intelligence with the US, Israel and other governments.  The reason all of this matters is that ADL’s advertiser boycott against X may be an effort by governments to regain the ability to censor users on X that they had under Twitter before Musk’s takeover last November.

 

Internal Twitter and Facebook messages show that representatives of the US government, including the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the UK government, successfully demanded Facebook and Twitter censorship of their users over the last several years.

 

ADL is waging a very similar campaign against X/Twitter that it successfully waged against Facebook in 2020. In just three days, 800 companies, including $129 billion consumer products giant Unilever, withdrew tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue from Facebook until it agreed to ADL’s censorship demands. “The Facebook caved to far-left pressure groups and now allows them to silently dictate policy in exchange for ad money,” said Musk yesterday. “That is the relationship they’ve had with X/Twitter for many years. Presumably, they have that with all Western search or social media orgs.”

 

It’s possible that there has been an increase in hate on X since Elon Musk bought the company. With greater free speech policies comes the possibility of more offensive speech, including racist or antisemitic speech. Bigotry does exist, and it should be challenged.

 

But there is no good evidence of that. Public has debunked claims by ISD and CCDH of an increase. And researchers have repeatedly debunked ADL’s claims of rising antisemitism for years. In 2009, an Israeli filmmaker found that ADL could not support its claims of an antisemitism crisis. Wrote NPR in a review of the film, “When he presses ADL staffers for evidence to back up their claims of a sharp spike in North American anti-Semitism in 2007, they can offer only wan transgressions…”

 

Eleven years later, Liel Leibovitz noted in Tablet that ADL had, for a report, “counted hundreds of threatening calls to Jewish community centers made by a mentally troubled Israeli teenager. You had to read the report’s fine print to learn that the number of violent attacks against Jews that year had actually decreased by 47%.”

 

ADL, ISD, and CCDH have not presented any good evidence that offensive speech online directly causes “hate-motivated violence,” nor that censorship prevents it. Moreover, last week Public reviewed evidence suggesting that the best way to combat hate speech is through open and public debate, which allows people to change their minds, not censorship.

 

ADL’s main goal is supposed to be stopping “the defamation of the Jewish people,” but the organization is using the legacy of antisemitism and the Holocaust to justify unrelated censorial advocacy work. This is exploitative, and it is defamatory to say that Jews, in general, need and favor censorship. Many Jews on both the left and the right have argued that ADL does not represent their interests. By claiming to speak for all Jewish people while demanding highly unpopular policies, the ADL may be inadvertently driving antisemitism.

 

As troubling as these highly partisan ideological biases are, what’s most dangerous are the past and present ties between ADL, ISD, CCDH, and governments, particularly security and intelligence organizations, which we detail below. Neither ADL, ISD, nor CCDH have responded to multiple requests for more information or an interview.

 

While we have yet to uncover documented proof of a conspiracy by the intelligence and security agencies of the US and British governments to censor citizens, there is sufficient evidence to merit an investigation by members of Congress and the British Parliament.

ADL’s Spying For Governments

FBI Director Robert Mueller gives the keynote speech at the Anti-Defamation League's 2005 National Commission Meeting November 3, 2005 in New York City. Mueller, who was joined by UN Ambassador John Bolton, spoke on terrorism, extremism and other global topics that are the centerpiece of this years ADL National Commission Meeting. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

FBI Director Robert Mueller gives the keynote speech at the Anti-Defamation League’s 2005 National Commission Meeting November 3, 2005 in New York City. Mueller, who was joined by UN Ambassador John Bolton, spoke on terrorism, extremism and other global topics that are the centerpiece of this years ADL National Commission Meeting. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

 

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