Saturday, January 30, 2021
Big Tech Is Controlling What You See Online
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Friday, January 29, 2021
Former Navy SEAL: The Miseducation Of Antony Blinken
Former Navy SEAL: The Miseducation Of Antony Blinken
Authored by Kenny MacDonald via The Libertarian Institute,
On January 19th, the US Senate held confirmation hearings for Joe Biden’s Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken. Blinken has a reputation on both sides of the aisle for being exceptionally qualified for the job of America’s top diplomat, which is surprising considering he was on the wrong side of every major foreign policy blunder of the last 20 years; Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
When Senator Rand Paul asked Antony Blinken what lessons he has learned from his disastrous foreign policy record in Libya and Syria, Blinken replied that after "some hard thinking" he’s proud that he has done "everything we possibly can to make sure that diplomacy is the first answer, not the last answer, and that war and conflict is our last resort."
Of course war is the last resort. Even the most hawkish war criminals would agree that war is the last resort. But the question is, war is the last resort to accomplish what? If war is the last resort to get a country to fully capitulate to Washington’s demands then eventually the US will be at war with everyone. To Blinken, war as the last resort can only be understood in the same way a mugger considers shooting his victim as a last resort to stealing their wallet.
Via the APBlinken displayed his hubris a few minutes later when he said, "The door should remain open" for Georgia to join NATO under the justification of curbing Russian aggression.
Rand Paul informed Blinken, "This would be adding Georgia, that’s occupied [by Russia], to NATO. Under Article 5, then we would go to war."
Senator Paul is right. According to Washington, Russia has been occupying 20 percent of Georgia since 2008. Under the principle of collective defense in Article 5 of NATO, the US would be obligated to treat Russia’s occupation of the country of Georgia the same way the US would treat a Russian occupation of the US state of Georgia. That sounds like a recipe for war. But don’t worry, peaceniks, Antony Blinken has assured us that war is the last resort!
Blinken’s framing of the issue exposes his disingenuous approach. Russian aggression is a term used by Washington insiders to describe a Russian reaction to western aggression. Blinken knows that the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia was not Russian aggression, he calls it that because it suits his agenda and the American press is dependably ignorant enough to not ask questions.
In the 2008 war, Georgia was the aggressor against the South Ossetians, a people who are ethnically distinct from Georgians, and who have never—not even for one day—considered themselves a part of Georgia. The Ossetians have a history of Russian partiality; they were among the first ethnic groups in the region to join the Russian Empire in the 19th century and the USSR in the 1920s. Today, ethnic Ossetians straddle both sides of the current Russian border, and they are more aligned with the Russian government than with the Georgian government.
When Georgia gained sovereignty from the former Soviet Union in 1991, South Ossetia declared its independence. In response, Georgian forces invaded South Ossetia, initiating an armed conflict that killed more than 2,000 people. In 1992, a ceasefire agreement was signed in Sochi between Georgia, Russia and South Ossetia, which created a tripartite peacekeeping force led by Russia. Although the international community never acknowledged South Ossetia’s independence, they have enjoyed political autonomy since the 1992 Sochi agreement.
The Sochi agreement held up until Georgia’s ultra-nationalist President Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in the 2003 western-backed bloodless “Rose Revolution” coup-d’etat. The pro-western President Saakashvili advocated joining the EU and NATO, and insisted on asserting Georgian rule over South Ossetia. U.S. President George Bush supported the new Georgian president’s effort to bring Georgia into NATO, which for Russia would mean bringing a hostile military up to its border. In 2006, President Saakashvili offered South Ossetia autonomy in exchange for a political settlement with Georgia. A referendum was held, and the South Ossetian people overwhelmingly reaffirmed their desire for independence from Georgia.
In August, 2008, After exchanging artillery fire with South Ossetia, Georgia invaded South Ossetia’s capital city of Tskhinvali, killing 1,400 civilians and 18 Russian peacekeepers. Georgia’s attack triggered a Russian invasion into South Ossetia and Abkhazia (another breakaway region) to restore stability and protect peacekeeping forces.
Important video where @RandPaul questions Biden's proposed Secretary of State Antony Blinken about his endless, repeated support for regime change wars -- in Iraq, Libya, Syria -- and how Blinken never learns from his "mistakes". From @richimedhurst: https://t.co/OGTIkhP2Sw
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 26, 2021
Russia is by no means innocent—they used disproportionate force attacking targets inside Georgia—but only a Russophobic shill would conclude that this war was somehow caused by Russian aggression. The idea that Russia had no business intervening is laughable. Under the 1992 Sochi agreement, Russia took charge of a peacekeeping coalition to help prevent exactly the scenario that happened in the summer of 2008.
If George Bush had succeeded in bringing Georgia into NATO, the United States may have been dragged into war with Russia in 2008. Antony Blinken claims that NATO membership deters Russian aggression, but does he really believe that Russia would have been deterred from intervening to protect its own peacekeeping force? Does Blinken believe that Georgia—backed by the U.S. military—would have acted more cautiously in South Ossetia, or is it more likely they would have been bolder?
It’s undeniable that it is in Russia’s best interest to have pro-Russian countries on its borders. But pretending as if Russia is going to march into Tbilisi and reabsorb the entire country of Georgia into Russia is a level of paranoia that should disqualify anyone from having an opinion on the subject. The military conflict in Georgia is about the two breakaway regions and their right to self determination. Russia’s self interest happens to align with the wishes of the people in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. By supporting Georgia, America—the champion of democracy and self determination—has adopted the position that South Ossetians didn’t really mean to repeatedly choose independence when given the option. This is a situation where America’s professed values are diametrically opposed to its policy of countering Russian influence everywhere on the map.
Antony Blinken should pause to consider if America’s policy objectives are worth fighting a war for. Is it worth confronting Russia in South Ossetia? Was it worth confronting Russia over Crimea and the Donbas in Ukraine? Is it a good idea to withdraw from the INF Nuclear Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty? Should we have spent the last 30 years marching NATO—a military alliance hostile to Russia—right up to the doorsteps of Russia? Is any of this really making us safer?
Blinken has bought into his own propaganda. To Blinken, regardless of the stubborn details of history, every conflict on Russia’s border is simply Russian aggression. Washington’s solution is the expansion of NATO, which Russia describes as “NATO encirclement.” This is an unacceptable military threat to Russia, who has a deep distrust of western intentions due to a long history of western invasions into Russia. Antony Blinken still lives in a bipolar world in which the United States and Russia are existential threats to each other’s existence. Every conflict and every alliance is only viewed through the lens of the New Cold War crusade against Russia. This maniacal crusade could thrust America in the unthinkable abyss of nuclear war.
Rand Paul got his answer, Antony Blinken learned nothing from all his mistakes! The danger isn’t merely resorting to war too early, the danger is in sticking our noses in conflicts that we have no business being in. War should be the last resort to defending America’s people and it’s homeland from foreign invasion; it should not be the last resort to enforcing America’s utopian vision on the world, and it certainly shouldn’t be the last resort to prevent an ethnic group in the South Caucasus—that almost no American has ever heard of—from the right to self-determination.
Kenny MacDonald is a former Navy SEAL and Afghanistan War veteran. He is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in history. Youtube Channel. Medium. Facebook.
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Quadruple Diapering?
Guest Post by Eric Peters
Insanity tends to worsen when i’s normalized. So it’s not surprising to hear that the day after it was suggested by the “experts” at Virginia Tech that people should triple-down on the wearing of the Holy Rag, four of them would be even better.
Which tells you something about the efficacy of just one – especially if it’s literally just a rag, a “face covering” as required by the various “mandates” – i.e., rules by decree – that Americans now live under.
Don’t “face coverings” – “masks,” as they are generally styled – work? Isn’t that what those insisting on them have been saying all this time; that is to say, after Pope Fauci XVII said they don’t work?
Then said they do?
The double-diaper (now triple and even quadruple diapering – per the “recommendation” of a Dr. named Scott Segal at Wake Forest Baptist Health in NC) injunctioning – if that’s a word – tells us the single diaper most people have been wearing like a kind of Facial Codpiece all these many months does not work. Which of course is self-evident given the fact that “the spread” hasn’t stopped, even in countries like Great Britain that have been militantly forcing everyone to wear a Facial Codpiece all the time and everywhere.
In other words, they lied to us – again!
As Pope Fauci admitted he did when he said the Facial Codpiece was “theater” and didn’t work – before he changed his mind and now expects us to believe him – or at least obey him.
Mitt Romney – the “Republican” who invented forcing people to buy health insurance – has been a fashion leader when it comes to double-diapering. He obviously believes two diapers are better than one and in that case, surely three – even four.
“If you put three or four masks on,” says Segal “it’s going to filter better because it’s more layers of cloth.”
The problem, of course, is that these diapers or Facial Codpieces – “masks,” if you insist on dignifying them with that title – do not work, even in multiples, for the same reason that you can’t make a water-tight canoe out of bug screens.
If they did, why haven’t double-quadruple diaper activists like Segan been triple and quadruple diapering before all-of-a-sudden? Isn’t he a doctor? Shouldn’t he know how many diapers it takes to “stop the spread”?
Apparently, not.
So just wear another one.
To show just how much insanity they can get people to buy into. It’s a modern Milgram Experiment, which was a 1960s attempt to see just how easy it was to get most people to do crazy – and evil – things, provided an Authority told them to do the crazy and evil things.
Show them a white coat or a name badge with a title – Dr. Mengele, for instance – and many will do almost anything.
And just wait, anal swabbing is coming. The Chinese are literally expecting people to bend over to “stop the spread” and in all probability, Americans will do it willingly once they are told to do so.
Aren’t you proud to be an American? Where at least you know you’re free?
Leaving aside for the moment the evil absurdity of demanding that people who aren’t sick pretend they are – as has actually been demanded by a Gesundheitsfuhrer in North Carolina – if the government weren’t playing us for fools, a “facial covering” or “mask” – however many – wouldn’t cut it.
OSHA – the Occupational Safety & Health Administration – does not ok people walking around with cantaloupe halves on their heads in hard hat zones. If you enter a bio-hazard suite, a bandana over your face isn’t going to pass muster, either.
So why is it that a “mask” or “facial covering” which literally can be nothing more than a “mask” or “facial covering” meets the criteria to walk within a store even though such a device prevents the passage of viral particles as effectively as bug screen keeps a canoe water tight?
The answer is as obvious as the average American’s reluctance to come to terms with it.
The “mask” or “facial covering” isn’t meant to keep you from getting or giving a sickness – one that doesn’t kill 99.8-something of the population even if they do get sick. Rather, it is a device meant to demoralize and isolate you – if you are among the few who refuse to put one (or several) on – and to render the majority who do put them on an anonymized collective of pathetic serviles who do as they are told.
And look it.
There is some good news, though. A revolt against this revolting business is developing. It’s based on the flash mob idea. If you want to feel a little better about your fellow Americans, check these people out. No doubt, the video will be pulled by the tube but there are always alternatives.
The Freaks and Tyrants haven’t won yet.
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Judge slaps hand of FBI lawyer for 'most egregious' FISA abuse ever
A federal judge in Washington on Friday slapped the hand of a former FBI lawyer who altered a key piece of evidence that enabled the Obama administration to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign to advance its now-debunked Russia-collusion claim.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a sentence of 12 months probation to Kevin Clinesmith, who confessed to altering an email to make it falsely state that Trump 2016 campaign aide Carter Page did not work with the CIA.
Clinesmith admitted making a false statement, a felony offense that carries a term of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Boasberg argued Clinesmith already had been punished because he had lost public and professional "standing" due to the high-profile nature of the case.
However, the Washington, D.C., Bar Association, which has the power to remove his law license, still lists Clinesmith as an "active" lawyer in "good standing," reported Paul Sperry for Real Clear Investigations.
Clinesmith's actions fueled the Barack Obama administration's effort to undermine Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and his presidency through the charge of colluding with Russia to win the election.
FISA court Judge James E. Boasberg. Appointed to prior federal court position by former President Obama
Clinesmith displayed personal bias when Trump was elected, stating "the crazies won finally" and calling Vice President Mike Pence "stupid." He said "Viva la resistance" in reference to the "resistance" effort to undermine Trump.
Sperry reported Washington establishment figures have downplayed Clinesmiths' actions, insisting he wasn't part of any conspiracy.
"They argue Kevin Clinesmith’s crime of altering a CIA document to obscure the fact that former Trump campaign aide Carter Page worked for U.S., not Russian, intelligence was a rare lapse in judgment by an overworked bureaucrat," Sperry explained. "It was not, his apologists say, part of any broader conspiracy to conceal exculpatory information from surveillance court judges, who never learned of Page’s history with the CIA before approving FBI warrants to wiretap him as a suspected Russian agent."
But court papers show Clinesmith's offenses, "which some civil libertarians call the most egregious violation and abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act since it was enacted more than 40 years ago," show he knew all along about Carter Page's cooperation with the U.S. government. And his supervisors in the FBI bureaucracy also knew it.
FoxNews.com reported Clinesmith was sentenced to 400 hours of public service along with probation.
His was the first, and, so far, only criminal case known to have arisen from special counsel John Durham's review of the origins of the Obama administration's Russia-collusion probe.
Clinesmith altered an email in which Page stated he had worked with U.S. intelligence agencies to falsely state that he had not. Prosecutors wanted Clinesmith to spend at least some time behind bars.
Sperry said some information about the case is surfacing because of a lawsuit filed by Page against Clinesmith and the FBI for $75 million in damages.
Page and his attorneys argue that the FBI obtained his electronic communications, both written and oral, based on fraudulent warrants in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.
Sperry reported the evidence of Clinesmith's hatred of President Trump was kept "safe with his chain of command."
Lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok infamously vowed in a text to his FBI lawyer paramour, Lisa Page, to "stop" Trump from becoming president. A week later, the two discussed devising an "insurance policy" in the event Trump won. Also, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Sperry pointed out, discussed "covertly" wearing a wire to record the president in the Oval Office in an effort to remove him from office through the 25th Amendment.
Clinesmith admitted he intended to make it appear Page had not assisted the CIA when he had.
But Clinesmith had claimed he never intended to deceive anyone.
The fact that Page had been a CIA source undercut the premise that he was a Russian agent, which the Obama administration used to make its case that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Kremlin.
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Thursday, January 28, 2021
Two-thirds of nursing homes say they will be forced to close within a year
(THE BLAZE) – A recent survey of nursing homes found that more than 65% say they will no longer be in business by this time next year due to the added costs brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report.
The 19th reported that according to a survey conducted by the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, "about 90 percent of nursing homes are operating at a loss or less than a 3 percent profit margin, and more than 65 percent said they will be forced to close within the year due to overwhelming pandemic-related costs."
Long-term care facilities are being crippled by the ongoing need for additional staff, personal protective equipment, and testing costs while residency — and therefore revenue — has gone down.
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Who in D.C. will champion small businesses?
Small businesses, which still account for nearly half of our country's economic output, are the backbone of our economy. They are hurting now like never before. This problem started well before COVID-19. Anyone who has driven down the main street of any small town in America has seen the boarded-up storefronts and the for-sale signs. This doesn't just hurt the business owners; it devastates communities. COVID-19 took this ongoing problem and drove it to a crisis level. Between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020, about 30% of U.S. small businesses closed, while total small-business revenue decreased by 31%, according to Economic Tracker. During the same period, the stock market boomed, and multinational corporations continued to thrive.
The demise of the small-business sector and the gutting of so many of our communities have played a huge role in the political unrest we have in America. To fix the problem, those in power – who have thrived the past few years – must think deeply about the fundamental unsustainability of the growing chasm between huge, multinational businesses and the rest of America.
You would think this problem would be at the top of the Washington agenda, but it's barely discussed. That's because big business bought a monopoly on the Washington conversation a long time ago. We don't have a lot of corruption in the "grease the congressman with a bag of cash" sense – although we have had some of that. What we have is actually harder to fix. We have a culture so thoroughly dominated by a big-business perspective that even today, after all the turmoil the country has been through, there is little self-reflection on how we could change Washington to benefit more of our fellow citizens.
Huge, multinational companies open offices in Washington with the express purpose of shaping the policy agenda. They also fund the trade associations, lobby shops, public relations firms and news publications that dominate our capital. A majority of departing members of Congress now go to work in this booming influence industry. The result is a corporate culture in Washington closely attuned to a big-business worldview, increasingly out of touch with anything else.
What we need now more than ever is a Main Street policy agenda in Washington. What would this agenda look like? Here's a start:
Minimum Wage
There is a sound free market argument against minimum wage regulations. In the absence of regulation, wages would be set by the market, based on the supply and demand of labor in a given field. Artificial constraints on this market can lead to fewer jobs, and artificial increases in automation can reduce labor demand. However, if we are going to have a minimum wage, why should it be the same for all businesses and in all places?
The cost of living in New York City or San Francisco is double that of many small towns. Similarly, giving small businesses more wage flexibility than multinational corporations with billions in profits makes sense. Why should a deli owner in a small town who needs help for a few hours a day at the cash register face the same minimum wage as Goldman Sachs? Nobody thinks this makes sense, but it's not even debated in Washington.
Of course, huge companies such as Amazon, Target and Walmart support President Joe Biden's proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to $15. Many of those companies already pay a $15 minimum wage. Hiking the national minimum won't hurt them. In fact, they will benefit from the added drag to their small-business competition. There's an easy solution here, but you won't hear it mentioned in Washington. Why not a progressive minimum wage pegged to the local cost of living and the size of the company in question? It's not too much to expect Amazon or Walmart to pay employees a livable wage, so maybe they should be at $20 or more, and small businesses, on the other hand, could be at a lower level.
Tax Rates
Why do we have a progressive tax code for individuals but a flat tax for corporations, regardless of size? In fact, we have a regressive tax structure for business. Most very small businesses operate as limited liability companies, meaning their income is passed through to the owners and then taxed at individual tax rates often higher than the corporate rate paid by huge public companies. Former President Donald Trump eased this burden by allowing a 20% deduction for LLCs' business expenses. Biden is proposing to eliminate this deduction. He should keep it in place, at least for the smaller LLCs. Biden is also proposing to increase the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Why not lower the rate for small businesses, or at least keep it where it is?
Small businesses struggled through the pandemic while big businesses thrived. This is a great time to start distinguishing between these entities for tax purposes. Big businesses are famously adept at structuring their operations to minimize their taxes, regardless of the rates in place. Small businesses do not have the same capabilities. Adding a progressive element to the way we tax business would mitigate this big-business advantage. Disparate tax treatment based on the size of the company is justified by any measure.
It's popular these days to bemoan the rise of populism. It's not popular to debate the root causes driving our populist politics. Why are people upset with our leaders and our institutions? There isn't a lot of debate about that. The truth is people are frustrated because our system is not working for them. The current debates over taxes and wages are representative of this dynamic. Nobody in Washington is truly advocating for Main Street. Right now would be a great time to start.
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America grows sick on a diet of propaganda and political theater
There is a scene in Peter Jackson's film "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" when Bilbo Baggins and his dwarf companions stand at the entrance to Mirkwood Forest, through which they must travel to reach their destination. Once lush, green and verdant, Mirkwood has become infested with evil. Bilbo hesitates to enter, saying, "This forest feels … sick."
This country feels … sick.
Even the briefest foray into social media, editorial commentary or what passes for "news" makes it abundantly clear: America is sick. She is sick because her people have been fed a steady diet of propaganda, political theater and lies. This has become so extreme and so widespread of late that it is literally infecting every aspect of American society and turning ordinary Americans against one another.
I wrote about this two weeks ago, and – as difficult as that seems – conditions have worsened considerably since.
We'll start with the most recent: What happened on Jan. 6 was not an "insurrection." There was no serious attempt to "overthrow" the United States government. Was there a riot? Yes. Was it deliberately disruptive of government business? Definitely. But an attempted coup? Ridiculous on its face.
We've seen plenty of riots in state capitols in recent years. Have these been called "insurrections" or attempts to overthrow state governments? No. To the contrary, they have been lauded as examples of "democracy in action," as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
Washington, D.C. – including the Capitol itself – has endured no small amount of violence in the past year and earlier (including massive unrest four years ago when Donald Trump was inaugurated). And the Capitol violence three weeks ago was caused by a small number relative to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who converged on Washington to make their voices heard peacefully.
But it has become necessary to call it an "insurrection" to justify the political theater taking place now.
First and foremost, of course, is the attempt by Democrats in Congress to impeach Trump for "inciting insurrection." Most people won't read the full text of Trump's speech that day. It was vintage Trump, confrontational and full of braggadocio, but in it, he explicitly told his supporters to "peacefully and patriotically" make their voices heard.
But no "insurrection" means no "incitement," and that would mean no impeachment.
The article of impeachment is itself a charade. As Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul stated on the Senate floor – and to which 44 other Republican senators agreed – the Constitution simply does not authorize Congress to take the action contemplated by an impeachment trial against a private citizen. Only a sitting president can be "removed," and Donald Trump is no longer the president of the United States. Further, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that Chief Justice John Roberts will not preside over an impeachment trial in the Senate – another blow to those who claim that such a "trial" on the House's single impeachment charge is legitimate. Finally, the 44 GOP senators who voted in favor of Paul's procedural motion prove that the 50 Democratic senators will not get the additional 17 Republicans they need for a two-thirds majority to convict.
So, the impeachment shtick isn't about removing a man who is already gone, and it isn't really about getting a conviction either. It's more – and more extreme – political theater. If that's not bad enough, the country is also struggling to recover from months of COVID lockdowns. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio described the impeachment charge as "stupid" and a waste of time.
And it gets much worse. The target of the "insurrection" propaganda campaign is not so much Donald Trump as it is the 74 million-plus people who voted for him.
Americans were stunned when Hillary Clinton referred to only half of Donald Trump's supporters as a "basket of deplorables" in 2016. But Trump had millions more supporters in 2020, and now all of them are being demonized by Democrats and their mouthpieces in the media as threats, as "seditionists" and "white supremacists" who need to be "deprogrammed," "reprogrammed," imprisoned in "reeducation camps" or subjected to "Nuremburg trials."
These are not isolated remarks by fringe elements; they are comments made by "mainstream" Democratic voices: Washington Post correspondent Eugene Robinson, media darling Katie Couric, MSNBC anchor Don Lemon, actor Jon Cryer, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Comments on these articles and tweets – made by non-famous, left-leaning Americans – are even worse.
This is beyond political difference. It is a sickness.
Conservative commentators Dennis Prager and Tucker Carlson have warned that the reckless hyperbole risks spilling over into reality. Prager opined this week that a population deceived into thinking that a political candidate is a murderous dictator will turn a blind eye to, and even support, election fraud, which only benefits those inclined to commit it. Carlson took the left to task in his opening monologue Tuesday evening for relentlessly smearing innocent Americans, like bullies baiting their victims to – finally – throw a punch. The point Carlson made, emphatically, is that eventually, even the most peaceable and law-abiding person will retaliate in the face of baseless accusations and unfair treatment, contributing to a destructive cycle that threatens the fabric of society.
The political and cultural elites in this country consider themselves uniquely qualified to lead. But true leaders behave in ways that demonstrate their concern for the health of the organizations and people under their charge. They do not exploit differences and foment discord for their own personal aggrandizement.
I'm not seeing much true leadership now.
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Leaked evidence shows John Sullivan admitting to posing as Trump supporter while being let inside Capitol building
(Natural News) Leaked screenshots from director of Insurgence USA John Sullivan’s Discord server reveal that the far-left activist was let inside the Capitol building by law enforcement on Jan. 6 after dressing himself in a “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) costume.
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The Most Important COVID Research Is a Fake Investigation
Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.
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'We're doing the right thing': Maricopa County announces it will audit its 2020 election equipment
Board votes unanimously to bring in outside groups to conduct audit.
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Facebook Oversight Overturns Four Out Of Five Cases In Victory For Free Speech
Facebook Oversight Overturns Four Out Of Five Cases In Victory For Free Speech
Facebook's Oversight Board - comprised of 20 journalists, politicians and judges from around the world - has overturned four out of five cases in which the social media giant removed posts for violating its policies on hate speech, violence or other issues, according to NBC News.
The first-ever rulings do not include whether or not to overturn former President Trump's account in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, which the oversight board will consider in the weeks ahead.
Facebook says it will abide by the board's decisions.
Formed last year and tasked with passing judgement on decisions made by the social media giant's overwhelmingly liberal moderators, the Oversight Board claims total independence - and based on Thursday's rulings - appears to favor free speech over woke activism.
"For all board members, you start with the supremacy of free speech," said board member Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of the Guardian. "Then you look at each case and say, what's the cause in this particular case why free speech should be curtailed?"
The first round of cases involved posts which were removed for violating policies. Not only were 80% of them overturned, the board called on Facebook to provide users with greater clarity over its policies and how it plans to enforce them, according to the report.
The cases (via NBC News):
In the first case, Facebook had removed a post from a user in Myanmar who appeared to disparage Muslims as psychologically inferior. While the company decided that the post violated its policy, the board ruled that terms used "were not derogatory or violent."
"While the post might be considered pejorative or offensive towards Muslims, it did not advocate hatred or intentionally incite any form of imminent harm," the board wrote.
In the second case, a user posted a term to describe Azerbaijanis that Facebook interpreted as a slur. The board similarly ruled that "the context in which the term was used makes clear it was meant to dehumanize its target," and upheld Facebook's decision.
The third case pertained to nudity: the board overturned Facebook’s decision to remove an Instagram post from a user in Brazil intended to raise awareness about breast cancer. The post included five photographs that showed women’s nipples, which the board declared permissible in light of Facebook’s own policy exception for “breast cancer awareness.”
The fourth case pertained to violence: One user quoted Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist who is on Facebook’s list of “dangerous individuals.” Facebook policy states that quotes attributed to such individuals are an expression of support for that individual unless otherwise stated. But the board said the quote “did not support the Nazi party’s ideology or the regime’s acts of hate and violence.”
The fifth and final case pertained to misinformation: Facebook had removed a post from a user in France that falsely claimed a cure for Covid-19 existed and criticized the French government for failing to make it available. Facebook said the post could lead people to ignore health guidance or attempt to self-medicate.
The board, considering the context of the user's post, argued that the user was “opposing a governmental policy and aimed to change that policy,” and that his post would not lead people to self-medicate since the combination of those medicines was not available without a prescription.
Is this the beginning of the un-wokening? Only time will tell.
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Biden 'actively looking' at mandatory COVID tests for domestic flights
(Image courtesy Pixabay)
By Colby McCoy
Daily Caller News Foundation
The Biden administration is “actively looking” into implementing mandatory COVID-19 testing for domestic flights, a senior official told reporters Tuesday.
There are “conversations that are ongoing and looking at what the types and locations of testing might be… We’re actively looking at it,” Dr. Marty Cetron, director for the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said when asked whether the Biden administration would implement a testing requirement for domestic travel, Reuters reported.
Last week, Biden asked U.S. agencies for recommendations to “impose additional public health measures for domestic travel,” including the mandatory COVID-19 testing requirement for all domestic travelers, Reuters reported.
“We realize that there’s been a dramatic evolution and increase in both testing platforms and testing capacity. I think this is a really important part of our toolkit to combat this pandemic,” Cetron said to reporters.
The measure would be far from unprecedented as the CDC has already put testing requirements in place for international travel, requiring all persons two-years of age or older to test negative for coronavirus within three days of their travel date or to have previously recovered from the disease with documented proof, Reuters reported.
“Now is not the time to travel, but if you must, be safe and follow the CDC guidelines” CDC director Rochelle Walensky told reporters at a Wednesday press briefing.
Walensky’s plea for Americans to avoid traveling unless absolutely necessary is consistent with the Biden’s administration’s wider strategy to curtail the spread of COVID, particularly international travel restrictions.
On Jan. 26 CDC Traveler Health reminded Americans in a tweet to avoid travel as it increases one’s risk of contracting the disease.
Travel increases your chance of getting and spreading #COVID19. If you must travel, check the COVID-19 level at your destination and take steps to protect yourself and others before, during and after travel: https://t.co/SBxTlr2uJa pic.twitter.com/va4OsOsqRL
— CDC Travel Health (@CDCtravel) January 26, 2021
The CDC has reportedly discussed a potential domestic testing requirement with airline officials, leading to widespread angst as consumer demand for airline travel remains low, Reuters reported.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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Whitehead: Enemies Of The Deep State - The Government's War On Domestic Terrorism Is A Trap
Whitehead: Enemies Of The Deep State - The Government's War On Domestic Terrorism Is A Trap
Authored by John Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“This is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don’t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends. What characteristics are we looking for as we are building this profile of a potential extremist, what are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians, what is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who is pro-life? [The proposed legislation could create] a very dangerous undermining of our civil liberties, our freedoms in our Constitution, and a targeting of almost half of the country.”
- Tulsi Gabbard, former Congresswoman
This is how it begins.
We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.
In the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, “domestic terrorism” has become the new poster child for expanding the government’s powers at the expense of civil liberties.
Of course, “domestic terrorist” is just the latest bull’s eye phrase, to be used interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist,” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.”
Watch and see: we are all about to become enemies of the state.
In a déjà vu mirroring of the legislative fall-out from 9/11, and the ensuing build-up of the security state, there is a growing demand in certain sectors for the government to be given expanded powers to root out “domestic” terrorism, the Constitution be damned.
If this is a test of Joe Biden’s worthiness to head up the American police state, he seems ready.
As part of his inaugural address, President Biden pledged to confront and defeat “a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism.” Biden has also asked the Director of National Intelligence to work with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in carrying out a “comprehensive threat assessment” of domestic terrorism. And then to keep the parallels going, there is the proposed Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021, introduced after the Jan. 6 riots, which aims to equip the government with “the tools to identify, monitor and thwart” those who could become radicalized to violence.
Don’t blink or you’ll miss the sleight of hand.
This is the tricky part of the Deep State’s con game that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.
It follows the same pattern as every other convenient “crisis” used by the government as an excuse to expand its powers at the citizenry’s expense and at the expense of our freedoms.
As investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald warns:
“The last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’ that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago. This New War on Terror—one that is domestic in name from the start and carries the explicit purpose of fighting ‘extremists’ and ‘domestic terrorists’ among American citizens on U.S. soil—presents the whole slew of historically familiar dangers when governments, exploiting media-generated fear and dangers, arm themselves with the power to control information, debate, opinion, activism and protests.”
Greenwald is referring to the USA Patriot Act, passed almost 20 years ago, which paved the way for the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.
Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since Sept. 11, 2001.
Some members of Congress get it.
In a letter opposing expansion of national security powers, a handful congressional representatives urged their colleagues not to repeat the mistakes of the past:
“While many may find comfort in increased national security powers in the wake of this attack, we must emphasize that we have been here before and we have seen where that road leads. Our history is littered with examples of initiatives sold as being necessary to fight extremism that quickly devolve into tools used for the mass violation of the human and civil rights of the American people… To expand the government’s national security powers once again at the expense of the human and civil rights of the American people would only serve to further undermine our democracy, not protect it.”
Cue the Emergency State, the government’s Machiavellian version of crisis management that justifies all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security.
This is the power grab hiding in plain sight, obscured by the political machinations of the self-righteous elite. This is how the government continues to exploit crises and use them as opportunities for power grabs under the guise of national security. Indeed, this is exactly how the government added red flag gun laws, precrime surveillance, fusion centers, threat assessments, mental health assessments, involuntary confinement to its arsenal of weaponized powers.
The objective is not to make America safe again. That has never been the government’s aim.
Greenwald explains:
“Why would such new terrorism laws be needed in a country that already imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world as the result of a very aggressive set of criminal laws? What acts should be criminalized by new ‘domestic terrorism’ laws that are not already deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because—just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws—their real aim is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition.”
So you see, the issue is not whether Donald Trump or Roger Stone or MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell deserve to be banned from Twitter, even if they’re believed to be spouting misinformation, hateful ideas, or fomenting discontent.
Rather, we should be asking whether any corporation or government agency or entity representing a fusion of the two should have the power to muzzle, silence, censor, regulate, control and altogether eradicate so-called “dangerous” or “extremist” ideas.
This unilateral power to muzzle free speech represents a far greater danger than any so-called right- or left-wing extremist might pose.
The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.
Yet where many go wrong is in assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or challenging the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.
Eventually, all you will really need to do is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.
The groundwork has already been laid.
The trap is set.
All that is needed is the right bait.
With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents have been busily spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state.
It’s the American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.
What’s more, the technocrats who run the surveillance state don’t even have to break a sweat while monitoring what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, how much you spend, whom you support, and with whom you communicate. Computers by way of AI (artificial intelligence) now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarks, all of which is carefully recorded, documented, and stored to be used against you someday at a time and place of the government’s choosing.
For instance, police in major American cities have been using predictive policing technology that allows them to identify individuals—or groups of individuals—most likely to commit a crime in a given community. Those individuals are then put on notice that their movements and activities will be closely monitored and any criminal activity (by them or their associates) will result in harsh penalties.
In other words, the burden of proof is reversed: you are guilty before you are given any chance to prove you are innocent.
Dig beneath the surface of this kind of surveillance/police state, however, and you will find that the real purpose of pre-crime is not safety but control.
Red flag gun laws merely push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.
This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.
For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.
Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.
According to one FBI latest report, you might also be classified as a domestic terrorism threat if you espouse conspiracy theories, especially if you “attempt to explain events or circumstances as the result of a group of actors working in secret to benefit themselves at the expense of others” and are “usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.”
Additionally, according to Michael C. McGarrity, the FBI’s assistant director of the counterterrorism division, the bureau now “classifies domestic terrorism threats into four main categories: racially motivated violent extremism, anti-government/anti-authority extremism, animal rights/environmental extremism, and abortion extremism.”
In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly.
Again, where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.
In fact, U.S. police agencies have been working to identify and manage potential extremist “threats,” violent or otherwise, before they can become actual threats for some time now.
In much the same way that the USA Patriot Act was used as a front to advance the surveillance state, allowing the government to establish a far-reaching domestic spying program that turned every American citizen into a criminal suspect, the government’s anti-extremism program renders otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist.
In fact, all you need to do these days to end up on a government watch list or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is use certain trigger words (like cloud, pork and pirates), surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, limp or stutter, drive a car, stay at a hotel, attend a political rally, express yourself on social media, appear mentally ill, serve in the military, disagree with a law enforcement official, call in sick to work, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, appear confused or nervous, fidget or whistle or smell bad, be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun (such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane), stare at a police officer, question government authority, or appear to be pro-gun or pro-freedom.
Be warned: once you get on such a government watch list—whether it’s a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, a dissident watch list, or a red flag gun watch list—there’s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there.
You will be tracked wherever you go.
You will be flagged as a potential threat and dealt with accordingly.
This is pre-crime on an ideological scale and it’s been a long time coming.
The government has been building its pre-crime, surveillance network in concert with fusion centers (of which there are 78 nationwide, with partners in the corporate sector and globally), data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics (in which life experiences alter one’s genetic makeup).
If you’re not scared yet, you should be.
Connect the dots.
Start with the powers amassed by the government under the USA Patriot Act, note the government’s ever-broadening definition of what it considers to be an “extremist,” then add in the government’s detention powers under NDAA, the National Security Agency’s far-reaching surveillance networks, and fusion centers that collect and share surveillance data between local, state and federal police agencies.
To that, add tens of thousands of armed, surveillance drones and balloons that are beginning to blanket American skies, facial recognition technology that will identify and track you wherever you go and whatever you do. And then to complete the picture, toss in the real-time crime centers being deployed in cities across the country, which will be attempting to “predict” crimes and identify so-called criminals before they happen based on widespread surveillance, complex mathematical algorithms and prognostication programs.
Hopefully you’re starting to understand how easy we’ve made it for the government to identify, label, target, defuse and detain anyone it views as a potential threat for a variety of reasons that run the gamut from mental illness to having a military background to challenging its authority to just being on the government’s list of persona non grata.
There’s always a price to pay for standing up to the powers-that-be.
Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, you don’t even have to be a dissident to get flagged by the government for surveillance, censorship and detention.
All you really need to be is a citizen of the American police state.
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Revenge: An Internet Mob Is Turning The Stock Market Into “A Video Game”, And The Establishment Is Freaking Out
Retail investors have banded together to turn over the tables on Wall Street, and it has created a wild frenzy that is making headlines all over the globe. Unprecedented short squeezes have pushed the share prices of GameStop, AMC, Macy’s and BlackBerry to insane heights, and prominent voices in the financial world are complaining that trading in those stocks has become completely divorced from the fundamentals. In fact, these young retail investors are actually being accused of turning the market into “a video game”. Infamous investor Michael Burry, who made crazy amounts of money betting against the housing market during the last financial crisis, even had the gall to claim that recent trading in GameStop was “unnatural, insane, and dangerous”.
Of course Burry is right, but the truth is that the entire market has been transformed into a giant casino and has been “unnatural, insane, and dangerous” for a very long time.
If the entire market fell 50 percent tomorrow, stock prices would still be overpriced.
So it is more than just a little bit hypocritical for the Wall Street establishment to be complaining about GameStop when they have been gaming the system for years.
Ultimately, GameStop is not a good long-term investment. Most people download video games these days, and so a brick and mortar retail chain that sells physical copies of video games shouldn’t be attractive to anyone.
GameStop lost money last year, and they will lose money again this year.
But a group on Reddit known as “WallStreetBets” noticed that some big hedge funds had taken ridiculously large short positions against GameStop, and they sensed an opportunity. They realized that if they all started to buy GameStop all at once, it would likely create a short squeeze of epic proportions.
And that is precisely what has happened.
A year ago, a single share of GameStop was going for about four dollars.
At the beginning of the month, GameStop was sitting at $17.25.
On Wednesday, it closed at $347.51.
In addition to making huge profits, the investors on “WallStreetBets” also wanted to get revenge on the big hedge funds for all the evil things they have done in the past.
Every great story needs a great enemy, and in this case the great enemy is a hedge fund called Melvin Capital…
Melvin Capital, the $12.5 billion hedge fund founded by Gabriel Plotkin, was one of the main targets of the Reddit campaign, after an SEC filing revealed that the fund had a large short position in GameStop.
‘By the end of the week (Or even the end of the day), Plotkin is going to have less than a college student 50k in debt who works part time at starbucks,’ one Reddit user wrote on Wednesday morning.
Nobody knows for sure how much money Melvin Capital has lost, but it appears to be in the billions…
CNBC could not confirm the amount of losses Melvin Capital took on the short position. Citadel and Point72 have infused close to $3 billion into Gabe Plotkin’s hedge fund to shore up its finances. On Wednesday’s “Squawk Box,” Sorkin said Plotkin told him that speculation about a bankruptcy filing is false.
Melvin Capital has supposedly closed all of their short positions in GameStop now, but not everyone is buying that claim.
In any event, the crowd on WallStreetBets intends to continue to drive up the prices of GameStop, AMC, Macy’s and Blackberry for the foreseeable future.
Eventually, each of those mini-bubbles will collapse, but for now the big short sellers are squealing in pain.
Needless to say, the large hedge funds have been reaching out to their “friends” for help, and the SEC just released a statement which indicated that they are watching developments closely…
We are aware of and actively monitoring the on-going market volatility in the options and equities markets and, consistent with our mission to protect investors and maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, we are working with our fellow regulators to assess the situation and review the activities of regulated entities, financial intermediaries, and other market participants.
And White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters just a few hours ago that the White House is “monitoring” the situation.
But what is there to “monitor”?
All is fair in love and investing, and the retail investors of “WallStreetBets” caught some big hedge funds with their pants down and punished them for it.
After everything that big hedge funds have gotten away with over the years, many would argue that a little bit of revenge was definitely in order.
But Wall Street has never seen anything like this before.
Retail investors are supposed to be small fish that get eaten alive by the bigger fish, but now technology has changed the rules of the game…
The way people trade stocks has been upended by the rise of no-fee apps like Robinhood. That technology has democratized investing, giving armchair investors far removed from traditional banks free access to sophisticated trading instruments, like options.
You could pay an analyst to tell you what stocks to buy, or you could create a Reddit account and follow forums like WallStreetBets. Millions of young people are opting for the latter, which is partly why the sudden surges in GameStop and AMC have caught Wall Street veterans by surprise.
Nobody should shed a tear for the short sellers.
They have made obscene amounts of money over the years by manipulating the markets and by preying on weak companies.
Now an Internet mob is preying on them, and many that are involved believe that revenge is a dish best served cold.
If you can’t handle the pain, don’t play the game.
In the end, this entire farce of a market is going to utterly collapse anyway. So the truth is that very few are going to get out of this thing unscathed.
Since the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, investors have seen their portfolios increase in value by trillions of dollars, but this bubble only exists because of unprecedented manipulation by the Federal Reserve and others.
Now a relatively small group of retail investors is manipulating stock prices to punish a couple of hedge funds and everyone is in an uproar over it?
What a joke.
Our financial markets are fraudulent, and they have been for many years.
Nobody should be accusing retail investors of turning the stock market into “a video game”, because the Federal Reserve already did that a long time ago.
***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***
About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2021
The Flip Flopping Anthony Fauci, Part 3: School Openings, Vaccines, Urging Calm, and “No one could do better”
I originally intended to compile some Fauci sins into a single article. The list then became long enough two separate into two articles. Eventually, I had to splice it all into a trilogy of unscientific and politically-motivated buffoonery.
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The Flip Flopping Anthony Fauci, Part 2: Mass Gatherings, Projected Deaths, Herd Immunity, and Santa Claus
If you didn’t get a chance to read Part 1 of what is looking increasingly like a never-ending series, be sure to brush up on some of Fauci’s other big lies and contradictions. You can find Part 1 right HERE. Otherwise, on with the second installment of this list.
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The Flip Flopping Anthony Fauci:, Part 1: Travel Bans, Masks, Asymptomatic Spread, and Hydroxychloroquine
My first memory of the term “flip flop” came from a 2004 JibJab video. For those old enough to recall, JibJab released a cartoon sung by presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. In one of the verses, Cutout Bush accuses Cutout Kerry of a common dig used against the latter.
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The Flip Flopping Anthony Fauci, Part 4: PCR Tests, Defining Vaccines, Vaccines Are Safe, And Choosing A Vaccine
Guest Post by Parker Beauregard
The American public continues to be swindled and hoodwinked by the medical establishment. As I have written before, there are only two possible explanations for it at this point: Either people like Anthony Fauci are genuinely bad at their jobs or they are intentionally misleading this country in the hopes of securing greater control over them. I see no plausible third explanation.
Anyways, with a heavy sigh, let’s dive into Part 4. For more misdirections, lies and fatal flip flops, be sure to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
PCR TESTING AND AMPLIFICATION CYCLES
On the day coinciding with the inauguration of Joe Biden (Wednesday, January 20th), the World Health Organization belatedly announced its long-known recognition that the process for deriving a positive Covid test was flawed. The science hasn’t changed one iota, but Trump is out of the White House so the need to artificially inflate case numbers no longer exists.
To be sure, the realization that cycle thresholds are way too high to be of use isn’t new information. Back in July, Fauci himself appeared on a podcast stating as much (every time we source Fauci, he is somewhere new – a podcast, a radio show, the White House pressroom, television, this guy is everywhere). Among other things, Fauci said this about PCR testing, amplification cycles, and thresholds:
“If you get a cycle threshold of 35 or more…the chances of it being replication-competent are miniscule…you almost never can culture virus from a 37 threshold cycle…even 36…it’s just dead nucleoids, period.”
It wasn’t just Fauci; in August last year even the New York Times ran a piece stating that as many as 90% of certain positive cases were nothing more than over-amplified genetic material that posed no threat to the individual being tested or to the greater public in terms of transmission. A peer-reviewed study in September found that 30 cycles was sufficient to produce information. Of course, Covid couldn’t have been used to scare people if, instead of 500,000 new cases the number was only 50,000.
Everyone in the medical community and the media knew that the exaggerated cycle would produce inaccurate results, yet the CDC continued to publish several recommendations stating the cycle threshold should remain at 40 while every television broadcast station displayed banners of knowingly flawed tallies of both case counts and deaths (another issue altogether).
Despite persistent lies from Fauci et al surrounding testing – even in the face of published, printed, and knowable information – the general public and media continued to push the weaponized narrative in the hopes of ousting the 45th president. At this point, the charade is so obvious, and the left is emboldened, that they don’t even care about the optics with the newly released new guidelines about PCR testing. It coincided with Biden’s inauguration? They must laugh at how ignorant and stupid most Americans are.
IT’S A VACCINE
Ask any family member at your next restricted gathering or any colleague on your next Zoom meeting what Big Pharma has produced in record time to combat the spread and effect of Covid. They will invariably answer “the vaccine.” Yes, the public is stoked about a vaccine.
But language is important. Is it a vaccine? Or, is it merely a novel therapeutic? Consider a few clinical definitions.
In order to be considered a vaccine, Merriam-Webster sets the parameters as:
“a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease.”
Based on that definition, the Pfizer and Moderna creations are not vaccines per se. Right? There is no actual genetic material from the Covid strain. Instead, these vaccines, according to the available descriptions, were designed to trigger an autoimmune response without using actual bits of the virus. It works by relying on mRNA to generate a response to build specific proteins that can combat the virus when it is detected in a person and mitigate the response (i.e. how sick one gets). It’s interesting technology, and the first ever approved approach for humans with potentially great implications in the fight against other diseases, but it doesn’t seem accurate to call it a vaccine.
Just to drive this point further in, the latter half of Merriam-Webster’s definition establishes that a vaccine increases immunity to a particular disease. This is also in dispute. According to practically every major news outlet, the vaccine is not yet known to prevent the spread. Articles attesting to that can be found here, here, and here. Even the CEO of Pfizer said as much.
A therapeutic, on the other hand, can be described simply as dealing with the treatment of a disease. As the so-called vaccine is most effective at reducing symptoms, this seems a much more appropriate terminology. All of this explains why masks are still required for a supposedly immunized population. Perhaps this is the first-ever virus that survives on asymptomatic spread from protected populations, or have we perhaps been misled into the nature of the inoculation program?
VACCINES ARE SAFE
Sticking with the terminology of “vaccine” for the purpose of linguistic agreement with cited sources, we now call into question the safety of vaccines produced in record time. As the United States planned on introducing the first few million doses of Covid vaccines back in December, Dr. Fauci went on MSNBC saying the following:
“We know it’s safe, because if you look at the process that it’s gone through for the determination of whether it’s safe, as well as if it’s efficacious, was a clinical trial involving 44,000 people.”
As before, I want to rely on definitions, because Fauci’s words convey a certain meaning to the lay public that contrast with the real meaning of the words. The book definition of safe is “free from danger” or “not exposed to a threat.” To the best of my knowledge, there is no specific medical definition for the word safe. Therefore, we have to take this definition broadly and apply it specifically to vaccines. Are the vaccines “free from danger” or not exposing anyone “to a threat”?
If left-wing news outlets are willing to report on vaccine-attributed deaths, then the unequivocal answer must be yes.
There are several news stories indicating that the Covid vaccines being foisted upon a panicked public are not entirely without risk. Shocker, I know.
According to a report from Bloomberg, the entire country of Norway was going to revisit their vaccination policy after upwards of one out of one-thousand vaccinations resulted in death. The article explains that at least 29 people have already succumbed to the direct effects of receiving an injection. They were rethinking administering the vaccine to those over 80 years of age.
There is also concern over the Moderna vaccine as well. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that a higher-than-usual number of severe reactions occurred, which raised the specter of fully one-tenth of the entire state of California’s Moderna batches coming under scrutiny. Without a definitive link yet, baseball legend and non-asterisked home run king Hank Aaron died 18 days after receiving the Moderna vaccine. He will be mentioned only because of his fame; how many others will not?
Most alarming is that health officials in China – yes, China of all places – are arriving at similar conclusions, particularly in vaccinating the elderly. Chinese health officials are stating that countries like Norway that have been hard hit should consider suspending the mRNA vaccine until more information is given. If a country like China, which has stonewalled the entire recovery process of this pandemic for over a year and used to regularly force abortions on women and/or destroy their babies, is acknowledging it might be dangerous to administer vaccines, they might be worth listening to.
Now, this article would be remiss if it glossed over the fact that the overwhelming number of vaccine recipients – as of Biden’s inauguration the figure stands at almost 20 million in the United States (an updated tracker can be found here) – have not endured significant side effects. Of course, in much the same way that there is still a lot we do not know about the efficacy of the vaccine, we likewise do not know everything about long-term side effects. The greatest observation that can be made is that if the Covid survival rate of 99.998% in the young population is worth shutting down the American economy, then observable negative outcomes from the vaccine are fair play.
CHOOSING A VACCINE
In early January, Bustle magazine ran a headline titled “This Is Why You Can’t Choose Which COVID-19 Vaccine You’ll Get.” Citing shortages as the main reason, it resigned its readers to accepting a stab at hospitals with whatever was on hand. Honestly, this makes sense. In an effort to maximize distribution efforts, it would be costly and ineffective to provide vials from both producers. Transportation, distribution, storage, and a variety of other factors preclude the initial option for choice.
That being said, does anyone really believe that Fauci faced equal limitations? A week prior to the Bustle article, Fauci was announcing to the world that he would be receiving the Moderna vaccine. Perhaps he was supporting the company to which he has several ties? Either way, by selecting the Moderna vaccine, he was effectively making a choice the regular American was told they were not. This might not be a flip flop, but it certainly exemplifies elitism.
The reason this strikes a nerve is that in the same Breitbart article it is noted that Mike Pence, Joe Biden, and other officials received the Pfizer vaccine. Does anyone believe for a minute that their injections were randomly assigned?
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