Seeking Truth in a World of Propaganda. Links do not necessarily indicate agreement with stories or perspectives.
“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” - Plato
Watch the voting machine used in US swing states get hacked to rig an election. @Jhalderm, @UMich, and @nytimes demonstrate why every voting district needs an auditable paper ballot. Voting machines are *known* to be insecure. https://t.co/juvU7K3Qdl pic.twitter.com/prsrOGK17z
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 27, 2019
Depending on where you live, COVID-19 rules could be putting a damper on holiday festivities this year. California, for example, recently released a long list of killjoy rules for the holidays, which includes:1
|
Limiting get-togethers to a maximum of three households, including hosts and guests |
|
Dinner must be served outdoors |
|
Limiting the gathering to two hours or less |
|
Attendees may go inside for bathroom breaks but only if the restrooms are frequently sanitized |
|
Face coverings must be worn at all times and can only be removed, briefly, to eat or drink, or in the case of emergency medical needs such as using an inhaler or taking medication, or if feeling light-headed |
|
Non-household members must be spaced at least 6 feet apart in all directions |
|
Singing, chanting, shouting, physical exertion and the use of wind instruments are “strongly discouraged” |
|
Food and drink should be served in disposable containers and self-serve communal containers or shared utensils are not permitted |
|
Handwashing or hand sanitizing facility must be available and all attendees should use them frequently |
Should government be permitted to micromanage how and with whom you spend your holidays? As noted by A.J. Kay in a recent Medium article,2 “If safety requires us to indefinitely forfeit the most valuable parts of our lives, what exactly are we trying to save?”
That’s a question well worth asking. Just how great a price are you willing to pay for the illusion of safety? SARS-CoV-2 has a survival rate of 99.99% for those under the age of 40.3 Even people over the age of 60 who aren’t residents of nursing homes have a survival rate of 98.29%.4
Data5,6 also show the overall all-cause mortality has remained steady during 2020 and doesn’t veer from the norm — in other words, COVID-19 has not killed off more of the population than would have died in any given year anyway — yet residents in many areas are now told, in great detail, how they can and cannot celebrate their holidays. Is it worth it?
“This will be the final Thanksgiving for 2.8 million (the annual all-cause death toll) of our fellow Americans. It could be my last — or yours. That likelihood is significantly higher for our elderly loved ones, too many of whom will not have seen or hugged their family in nine months,” Kay writes.7
“The hard truth is that we do not know who will be around for Thanksgiving next November. What we do have is right now — this moment — today. We aren’t promised one second more …
We’ve already forgone countless once-in-a-lifetime events to mitigate a newly-minted definition of risk which takes only one variable into account. And have neglected to acknowledge that many of our seniors — the most vulnerable among us — don’t even want that kind of ‘safety’ because it costs precious moments with their families …
There’s only one ‘unsafe’ version of Thanksgiving for me and that’s failing to be present with my family, allowing weaponized shame and performative restrictions to keep us apart. God forbid one of us isn’t sitting at that table next year, I can’t imagine grappling with that regret. And if one (or all) of us get COVID, so be it.”
As reported by the Daily News,8 October 19, 2020, forced isolation due to COVID-19 concerns are hurting seniors who struggle with loneliness and depression at ever greater numbers.
The article features the story of Lezrette Hutchinson, a 64-year-old retiree in the West Bronx who in recent days is starting to find herself “heading to bed as early as 5 p.m., exhausted from a host of mounting frustrations,” such as “technological hurdles that came with virtual doctor visits” and “navigating the Social Security website.”
She’s also frustrated from “being alone in a one-bedroom apartment for the better part of seven months.” She’s grown sick and tired of talking to friends on the phone and feels demotivated to do much of anything, which is a hallmark sign of depression.
According to a report9,10 by the AARP and United Health Foundation, social distancing measures have led to an epidemic of loneliness, and this too has significant health and emotional risks. As noted in this report:11
“Defined as having few social relationships or infrequent social contact with others — social isolation is a public health crisis. Studies have found that social isolation can be worse for one's health than obesity, and the health risks of prolonged isolation are equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.12
For adults who have experienced social isolation during the current pandemic, half (50%) report this social isolation has caused them to lack motivation, slightly more than 4 in 10 (41%) say it has made them feel more anxious than usual and slightly more than a third (37%) report it has made them feel depressed.
Yet, only 11% of adults turned to a medical professional when feeling down or sad, and almost a third of adults 50+ reported that they did not look to anyone for support during the pandemic.
Among the 50+, almost a third of women (29%) report going as long as one to three months not interacting with others outside their home or workplace during the pandemic and are more likely to experience negative emotions than their male counterparts.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, women 50+ are more than twice as likely to report feeling overwhelmed (32% vs. 15% of men 50+), and more women than men 50+ report feeling anxious (46% vs. 36% of men 50+) and stressed (50% vs. 40% of men 50+).
Along with women 50+, the impact to low-income older adults (defined as those who have a household income less than $40K and are 50+) has also been greater compared to older adults with high incomes (defined as those who have a household income $75K+ and are 50+).
Four in 10 low-income adults 50+ report facing challenges accessing various resources during COVID-19, including a fifth who had challenges accessing food and a similar number who had challenges accessing healthcare services.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if many people, regardless of their age, would choose companionship over safety from a virus. For argument’s sake, ponder this question.
Which would you choose: Live all alone on an island for the rest of your life, knowing there’s no one around to infect you with COVID-19, or live surrounded by friends and family, knowing you’re taking your chances every time you get near each other?
I know what I choose. As noted in the AARP’s report, “it’s connections, companionship, and a sense of belonging that we need as humans.” Social connection is even more impactful at earlier ages, with poor social connections being strongly associated with poor health and depression among youth.13
So, before you cancel holiday plans with aging parents and grandparents this season, make sure that’s what they really want. Remember, this may be their last Thanksgiving, or their last Christmas. How do you want to spend that time and what memories do you want to make?
Handing out edicts, demanding we eliminate all the things that make life worth living in order to prevent the spread of a survivable virus that most people don’t even know they have unless they get tested is unconscionable and inhuman. But so is following these kinds of unconstitutional government edicts.
I have to say I’m surprised at the sheer number of people willing to surrender their constitutional rights and liberties in return for absolutely nothing. None of the measures — 6-foot social distancing, mask wearing, self-isolation and select business shut-downs — actually guarantee anyone’s safety. All we need is one infected person left in the world, and safety for all remains out of reach.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, loneliness had reached epidemic levels. In 2018, 54% of American adults (age 18 and older) reported feeling lonely. By January 2020, it was 61%,14 and now, nine months into the pandemic, we’ve reached 66%.15
And loneliness isn’t relegated to the elderly. According to the AARP report, people between the ages of 18 and 34 actually report the highest rates of isolation.16 In the 18 to 34 age group, 75% report feeling socially isolated, compared to 61% of those over 50.
Among those aged 18 to 34, 19% say they’ve gone as long as two to three months without interacting with another person, compared to 16% among those over the age of 35. Ten percent of 35- to 49-year-olds, 9% of 18- to 34-year-olds and 7% of those over 50 say they’ve not interacted with anyone outside their household or workplace since the pandemic began!
The impact of loneliness and social isolation is significant, and will undoubtedly be found to be far greater than the death toll of COVID-19 by the time everything is tabulated.
According to a 2019 study17 by the American Cancer Society that looked at data from 580,182 Americans, social isolation increases mortality from every cause. In other words, social isolation is deadly. Commenting on her team’s findings, public health researcher Kassandra Alcaraz told the American Psychological Association:18
"Our research really shows that the magnitude of risk presented by social isolation is very similar in magnitude to that of obesity, smoking, lack of access to care and physical inactivity.”
While it’s been referred to as “self-isolation” and sold as “staying safe at home,” the lockdowns can rightfully be likened to house arrest, especially in areas where people have only been allowed outdoors for an hour or two a day.
That this kind of self-isolation can be harmful to mental health should come as no surprise, considering psychologists have long known the effects solitary confinement has on prisoners. Even among prisoners, solitary confinement is the worst and most extreme punishment there is. As reported by Endgadget:19
“Take Robert King for example, who spent 29 years in solitary confinement. King spoke at a 2018 neuroscience conference about his experience and how it impacted his cognitive function. He described that, upon his release from prison, he had severe difficulty recognizing faces and had to retrain himself to understand what faces even were and how they worked.
He also had difficulty navigating even simple routes through a city without assistance. Turns out that when your universe is a 6-foot by 9-foot room for nearly three decades, there's not much need to keep your navigation skills sharp — or even much impetus to keep a firm grasp of reality.
‘For some prisoners … solitary confinement precipitates a descent into madness,’ Dr. Craig Haney, professor of psychology at University of California, Santa Cruz, told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights in 2012.
Prisoners may experience crushing bouts of anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, and panic attacks. ‘The conditions of confinement are far too severe to serve any kind of penological purpose,’ he concluded.
The reason this happens is because prolonged social isolation physically changes the shape and function of your brain. The hippocampus, the region responsible for learning and memory not only shrinks in size in response to long-term isolation, it loses its plasticity and may eventually shut down altogether.
At the same time the amygdala, which regulates your fear and anxiety response, goes into overdrive. And the longer the confinement lasts, the more pronounced these changes become — even after the inmate's eventual release."
Risk is an inevitable part of life, and for all of human history, mankind has accepted this. Now all of a sudden, we’re told we have to give up life in order to prevent the spread of a virus that poses no risk to the vast majority of people.
If safety requires us to indefinitely forfeit the most valuable parts of our lives, what exactly are we trying to save? ~ A.J. Kay
Is it worth it? Just how much are you willing to give up for this false sense of security? Are you willing to give up your family? Your friends? For how long? Are you willing to live in solitary confinement for the rest of your days? Because, believe me, the threat of infectious disease will never cease.
I believe the real threat right now is what we’re doing to sabotage the mental, emotional and physical health of people, especially our children, whose development is dependent on social interactions, physical contact and facial expressions. Between mask wearing and social distancing, I fear the impact on children in particular may be long-term, if not permanent.
But it’s clearly taking a cruel toll on the elderly as well, who are nearing the end of their lives anyway. If you knew your days were numbered, how would you want to spend them? Would your main concern be to prevent an infection that might speed up the inevitable, or would you want to spend whatever time you have left surrounded by those you love?
These are significant questions that will guide your choices and thus the course of your life, and they’re more pressing now than ever. So, choose wisely this holiday season, because whatever you choose, you’ll have to live with your choices.
The European Union is moving to ban end-to-end encrypted communication.
An EU council of ministers resolution spearheaded by French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of the conservative Austrian People's Party would mandate that apps such as Telegram, Signal, and WhatsApp provide European intelligence services with backdoor access in order to allow them to better monitor the conversations of their citizens.
Encryption is an important tool used by dissidents, journalists and privacy-conscious citizens around the world in an age of mass surveillance and strict social media censorship. Millions have started embracing the technology in the West as the rulers of the Anglosphere and Europe continue to lose public confidence and become more repressive.
The excuse being given for this effort is a spate of recent terrorist attacks in France and Austria committed by Islamic extremists. Rather than contend with the complex cultural, ethnic and immigration issues that lead to such violence, Macron, Kurz and the interests they represent see an opportunity to expand their eavesdropping power over their increasingly frightened population.
In recent years, laws passed by liberal governments under the guise of combating foreign Islamic terrorism have been utilized against citizens espousing nationalist, populist and dissident ideas, as well as adversarial political factions.
In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was founded after 9/11 to combat Al Qaeda operations domestically, but its unconstitutional powers today are largely focused on going after right-wing white men. The FBI's CIA-like power granted to them in the name of counter-terrorism lowered the bar for surveillance via the secret FISA court and was used by permanent bureaucrats to entrap and spy on members of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016.
Figures struggling with low approval ratings like Macron have a vested interest in being able to spy on protest movements like the Yellow Vests, who have largely been shut down by Facebook and forced to migrate to Telegram.
In pursuing these measures, Europe will be following the lead of the Five Eyes intelligence network (United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada), which last October put out a call for an international plan to end accessible encryption for ordinary citizens.
In their statement last month, the Department of Justice claimed they were concerned with the proliferation of child pornography over these apps. This rationalization rings hollow since the FBI's budget for combating child exploitation and pornography has remained stagnant over the years and they continue to allocate meager resources to even investigate the record number of reports they receive.
Countries that ban encrypted apps are currently derided by neo-liberal institutions in Europe for being oppressive.
Last January, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Russia's ban on Telegram following the app designer's refusal to provide a backdoor to aid in a terrorism investigation was a violation of free expression. Russia has since unbanned the app.
But litigation against a potential ban inside of Europe itself may not be as successful, according to the court's track record.
The ECHR exposed itself as a fraudulent propaganda tool when it ruled in 2019 that expressing skepticism on the "Holocaust" narrative is not a human right, while simultaneously affirming that Armenian genocide denial at the hands of the Turkish government is protected free speech.
Whatever comes of this EU effort, it's clear that the liberal elite's response to problems they create will be no different than what they criticize China or Russia for.
Global Research, November 11, 2020The Vaccine Reaction 9 November 2020
There’s been a lot of talk lately about whether or not the fast-tracked COVID-19 vaccine will in fact be safe and effective. While vaccine makers insist that any vaccine reaching the market will have undergone rigorous testing, the way trial protocols are designed suggests these vaccines may leave a lot to be desired.
As reported1 by Forbes contributor William Haseltine, a former professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, while Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have all published their vaccine trial protocols in a rare display of transparency, “close inspection of the protocols raises surprising concerns.”
In a nutshell, the trial designs are such that the vaccines will get a passing grade even if their efficacy is minimal. Of course, we must also consider vaccine side effects and I’ve also written several articles about mounting safety concerns.
COVID-19 Vaccine Trials Designed to Pass Efficacy Test
As noted by Haseltine, prevention of infection would typically be a critical endpoint of any vaccine trial. In other words, you want to ensure that when you take the vaccine, your risk of infection is significantly reduced.
However, when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, shockingly, preventing infection is not a criterion for success in any of these trials. The only criterion for a successful COVID-19 vaccine is a reduction of COVID-19 symptoms, and even then, the reduction required is minimal.
“We all expect an effective vaccine to prevent serious illness if infected. Three of the vaccine protocols—Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca—do not require that their vaccine prevent serious disease only that they prevent moderate symptoms which may be as mild as cough, or headache,” Haseltine writes,2 adding:
The pharmaceutical companies intend to do trials ranging from 30,000 to 60,000 participants. This scale of study would be sufficient for testing vaccine efficacy.
The first surprise found upon a closer reading of the protocols reveals that each study intends to complete interim and primary analyses that at most include 164 participants. These companies likely intend to apply for an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with just their limited preliminary results.
To get a “passing” grade in the limited interim analysis, a vaccine must show a 70 percent efficacy. However, again, this does not mean it will prevent infection in seven of 10 people. As explained by Haseltine:3
For Moderna, the initial interim analysis will be based on the results of infection of only 53 people. The judgment reached in interim analysis is dependent upon the difference in the number of people with symptoms … in the vaccinated group versus the unvaccinated group. Moderna’s success margin is for 13 or less of those 53 to develop symptoms compared to 40 or more in their control group.
The other vaccine makers are basing results on a similar protocol, where only a limited number of vaccinated participants are exposed to the virus to evaluate the extent of their symptoms.
Johnson & Johnson’s interim analysis will include results from 77 vaccine recipients who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, and if fewer than 18 of them develop symptoms of COVID-19, compared to 59 in the control group, the vaccine will be considered successful.
In AstraZeneca’s case, the interim analysis includes 50 vaccine recipients. The vaccine will be a success if 12 or fewer develop symptoms after exposure to SARS-CoV-2, compared to 19 in the 25-person control group.
Pfizer’s interim analysis is the smallest of the bunch, with just 32 vaccine recipients. Their success margin is seven or fewer vaccine recipients developing symptoms, compared to 25 in the control group. In the primary analysis, efficacy is set to about 60 percent, and at most, 164 volunteers will be included in that analysis.
Especially concerning are that those receiving the vaccine in these trials are young and healthy individuals who are not really at high risk of dying from COVID-19. This makes the results of these trials highly questionable in the far more vulnerable population of the elderly.
Trials Are Merely Testing Reduction of Common Cold Symptoms
As if that’s not eyebrow-raising enough, the minimum qualification for a “case of COVID-19” amounts to just one positive PCR test and one or two mild symptoms, such as headache, fever, cough or mild nausea. As noted by Haseltine, “This is far from adequate.”
All they’re doing is testing to see if this COVID-19 vaccine will minimize common cold symptoms. They are not actually ensuring the vaccine will prevent serious COVID-19 complications. Johnson & Johnson’s trial is the only one that requires at least five severe COVID-19 cases to be included in the interim analysis.
“One of the more immediate questions a trial needs to answer is whether a vaccine prevents infection. If someone takes this vaccine, are they far less likely to become infected with the virus? These trials all clearly focus on eliminating symptoms of COVID-19, and not infections themselves. Asymptomatic infection is listed as a secondary objective in these trials when they should be of critical importance. It appears that all the pharmaceutical companies assume that the vaccine will never prevent infection. Their criteria for approval is the difference in symptoms between an infected control group and an infected vaccine group. They do not measure the difference between infection and noninfection as a primary motivation,” Haseltine writes.4
Severe illness and death are also secondary objectives in these trials, and none of them include failure to prevent hospitalization or death as an important barrier to success. The increasingly disappearing common sense tells us that if the vaccine cannot reduce infection, hospitalization or death, then it cannot end the pandemic, which means everyone who takes the vaccine will be doing so in vain.COVID-19 Vaccine Participant Develops Neurological Symptoms, AstraZeneca Pauses Trial
Some COVID-19 Vaccine Trials Are Not Using Inert Placebos
In addition to all of that, some COVID-19 vaccine trials are using other vaccines as “placebo” rather than truly biologically inert substances such as saline, which effectively makes if far easier to hide any vaccine side effects. While Moderna is using a saline solution placebo,5 AstraZeneca is using injected meningococcal vaccine rather than a true placebo.6
Another way AstraZeneca is masking potential side effects is by administering the vaccine along with certain drugs. In one of its study arms, subjects are given acetaminophen every six hours for the first 24 hours after inoculation. The pain and fever reducer could potentially mask and downplay side effects such as pain, fever, headache or general malaise.
In addition to masking side effects, it is widely recognized among literate natural medicine physicians that using acetaminophen during acute viral infections is not a wise strategy as it impairs the immune response to fight the infection.
As reported by Wired:7
The press release for … results from the Oxford vaccine trials described an increased frequency of ‘minor side effects’ among participants. A look at the actual paper, though, reveals this to be a marketing spin …
Yes, mild reactions were far more common than worse ones. But moderate or severe harms—defined as being bad enough to interfere with daily life or needing medical care—were common too.
Around one-third of people vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine without acetaminophen experienced moderate or severe chills, fatigue, headache, malaise, and/or feverishness.
Close to 10 percent had a fever of at least 100.4 degrees, and just over one-fourth developed moderate or severe muscle aches. That’s a lot, in a young and healthy group of people—and the acetaminophen didn’t help much for most of those problems.
Two Trials Paused Due to Safety Concerns
On Sept. 6, 2020, AstraZeneca paused its Phase 3 vaccine trial due to a “suspected serious and unexpected adverse reaction” in a British participant.8 9 The company did not initially divulge the nature of the adverse reaction, but it has since been revealed the volunteer developed severe inflammation of the spinal cord, known as transverse myelitis.10 11
On Sept. 12, 2020, the British Medicines Health Regulatory Authority gave AstraZeneca the go-ahead to resume its Phase 3 trial in the U.K., after an independent review found it “safe to do so.”1213 According to an AstraZeneca spokesperson, the incident was a case of undiagnosed multiple sclerosis.14>
Days later, on Sept. 19, 2020, The New York Times reported15 a second case of transverse myelitis had occurred in the AstraZeneca trial. According to one expert consulted by the NYT, the occurrence represented a “dangerous pattern,” and that a third incidence might shut down the vaccine trial indefinitely.
AstraZeneca, however, claims the two cases are “unlikely to be associated with the vaccine,” and that there’s “insufficient evidence to say for certain that the illnesses were or were not related to the vaccine.”16 On Oct. 21, 2020, it was reported17 that one of the volunteers in AstraZeneca’s Brazilian trial had died from COVID-19 complications, but that the trial would continue anyway.
On Oct. 12, 2020, Johnson & Johnson halted its trial due to “unexplained illness” in one of its participants.18 19 Like AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson has kept mum about the details of the illness, saying “it’s important to have all the facts before we share additional information.”
Side Effects Are Commonplace
The fact that more trials have not been halted is surprising considering the rate of side effects20 occurring in perfectly healthy volunteers. As reported in “Gates Tries to Justify Side Effects of Fast-Tracked Vaccine,” after the first of two doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, 80 percent of Phase 1 participants receiving the 100 microgram (mcg) dose developed systemic side effects.21
After the second dose, 100% reported side effects ranging from fatigue (80 percent), chills (80 percent), headache (60 percent) and myalgia or muscle pain (53 percent).
Despite that, the 100-mcg dose was ultimately chosen to move on to Phase 3 trials.22 In the highest dosage group, which received 250 mcg, 100 percent of participants suffered side effects after both the first and second doses.23 Three of the 14 participants (21 percent) in the 250-mcg group suffered “one or more severe events.”
An Oct. 1, 2020, report24 by CNBC reviews the experiences of five participants in Moderna’s and Pfizer’s SARS-CoV-2 vaccine trials. One of the participants in Pfizer’s vaccine trial “woke up with chills, shaking so hard he cracked a tooth after taking the second dose.”
A Moderna trial participant told CNBC he had a low-grade fever and felt “under the weather” for several days after his first shot. Eight hours after his second shot he was “bed-bound with a fever of over 101, shakes, chills, a pounding headache and shortness of breath. He said the pain in his arm, where he received the shot, felt like a ‘goose egg on my shoulder.’ He hardly slept that night, recording that his temperature was higher than 100 degrees for five hours.”25
Two others reported similar side effects, and a third warned you would need to take a day off after the second shot. CNBC also noted that “as companies progressed through clinical trials, several vaccine makers abandoned their highest doses following reports of more severe reactions.”
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Notes
1 Forbes September 23, 2020.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Henryford.com Moderna COVE Vaccine Study.
6 Wired July 21, 2020.
7 Ibid.
8 AstraZeneca September 12, 2020.
9 STAT News September 8, 2020.
10 KHN September 14, 2020.
11 New York Times September 8, 2020 (Archived).
12 See Footnote 8.
13 STAT News September 12, 2020.
14 En.as.com September 21, 2020.
15 The New York Times September 19, 2020 (Archived).
16 Covid19vaccinetrial.co.uk Participant Information Sheet (PDF).
17 Reuters October 21, 2020.
18 JnJ.com.
19 Channel3000 October 19, 2020.
20 Observer October 20, 2020.
21 NEJM July 14, 2020 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2022483.
22 Neurology Live July 16, 2020.
23 Reporter.am July 14, 2020.
24 CNBC October 4, 2020.
25 Ibid.The original source of this article is The Vaccine ReactionCopyright © Dr. Joseph Mercola, The Vaccine Reaction, 2020
The word “coup” is being thrown about in American liberal media today, not because US liberals suddenly became uncomfortable with the fact that their nation constantly stages coups and topples governments around the world as a matter of routine policy, but because they are all talking about (you guessed it) Donald Trump.
To be clear, none of the high-powered influencers who have been promoting the use of this word actually believe there is any possibility that Donald Trump will somehow remain in office after January of next year after he loses his legal appeals against the official results of the election, which would be the thing that a coup is. There is no means or institutional support through which the sitting president could accomplish such a thing. This is not a coup, it’s a glorified temper tantrum. Trump will leave office at the appointed time.
The establishment narrative managers are not terrifying their audiences with this word because they believe there is any danger of a coup actually happening. They are doing it because it’s their last chance to use Trump to psychologically abuse their audiences for clicks.
Last year the Pacific Standard published a report on “Trump Anxiety Disorder” or “Trump Hypersensitive Unexplained Disorder,” which it describes as follows:
As the possibility of a Hillary Clinton victory began to slip away — and the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency became more and more certain — the contours of the new age of American anxiety began to take shape. In a 2017 column, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank described this phenomenon as “Trump Hypertensive Unexplained Disorder”: Overeating. Headaches. Fainting. Irregular heartbeat. Chronic neck pain. Depression. Irritable bowel syndrome. Tightness in the chest. Shortness of breath. Teeth grinding. Stomach ulcer. Indigestion. Shingles. Eye twitching. Nausea. Irritability. High blood sugar. Tinnitus. Reduced immunity. Racing pulse. Shaking limbs. Hair loss. Acid reflux. Deteriorating vision. Stroke. Heart attack. It was a veritable organ recital.
Two years later, the physiological effects of the Trump administration aren’t going away. A growing body of research has tracked the detrimental impacts of Trump-related stress on broad segments of the American population, from young adults to women, to racial and LGBT communities.
The results aren’t good.
“Trump Anxiety Disorder” has continued to feature in mass media stories to this day, right up until shortly before the election. The narrative has been that Trump is so horrible that he is somehow causing liberals to have psychological breakdowns with his awfulness.
What gets overlooked in these analyses, as is so often the case with human perception in general, is the means by which people are taking in the information that is making them so anxious — in this case the news media.
It is not Trump himself who’s been making people feel terrified of a tyrannical Russian agent ending democracy in America and ruling with an iron fist, it is years of shrieking, hysterical coverage about Trump from the mass media.
Without all the deranged and persistent fearmongering, driven by a disdain for Trump’s unrefined narrative management style and an insatiable hunger for ratings and clicks, it would never have occurred to Americans that they should be more terrified of this president than of any other shitty Reaganite Republican. The Russian collusion narrative which dominated most of Trump’s presidency turned out to be essentially nothing. The concentration camps, millions of deportations and armed militias driving non-whites out of the country that we were promised never came; he never even came anywhere close to Obama’s deportation numbers and his support from minorities actually went up. He hasn’t been any more warlike than his predecessors overall, and by some measures arguably less so. Most Americans actually reported that their lives had improved over Trump’s term before the pandemic hit.
If people had just been given raw information about Trump’s presidency, they would have seen a lot of bad things, but things that are bad in the same way all the horrible aspects of the most destructive government on earth are bad. They wouldn’t have known to be horrified and anxious and have headaches and irritable bowel syndrome. They would have handled themselves in about the same way they always handled themselves during the administration of a president they didn’t like.
Instead, they were psychologically terrorized. Made frightened, sick and traumatized by mass media pundits who only care about ratings and clicks, as was made clear when CBS chief Les Moonves famously said that Trump is bad for America but great for CBS. Dragged through years of Russia hysteria and Trump hysteria with any excuse to spin Trump’s presidency as a remarkable departure from norms, when in reality it was anything but. It was a fairly conventional Republican presidency.
— @caitoz
In reality, though most of them probably did not realize it, this is what Americans were actually voting against when they turned out in record numbers to cast their votes. Not against Trump, but against this continued psychological abuse they’ve been suffering both directly and indirectly from the mass media. Against being bashed in the face by shrieking, hysterical bullshit that hurts their bodies and makes them feel crazy, and against the unpleasantness of having to interact with stressed-out compatriots who don’t haven’t been putting up well with the abuse.
It wasn’t a “Get him out” vote, it was a “Make it stop” vote.
Meanwhile, another pernicious effect of making Trump seem uniquely horrible has been retroactively making his predecessors seem nice by comparison, which is why George W Bush now enjoys majority support among Democrats after years of unpopularity. Their depravity is hidden behind a media-generated wall labeled “NOT TRUMP”. And when Biden steps into office, his depravity will be hidden from view in the same way, neutering all mainstream opposition to his most deadly and dangerous actions.
__________________
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Poems For Rebels or my old book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
(Video screenshot)
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sent a "cease and desist" letter to a website that published evidence prior to the election that Detroit poll workers were trained to engage in and cover up vote fraud.
Nessel is contesting Big League Politics reporter Shen Trejo's reporting that poll workers bragged they were committing voter fraud in a variety of different ways, the Gateway Pundit reported.
Trejo, who says he witnessed vote fraud in Detroit, considers the AG's letter to be "witness intimidation" and fears it will be used as a pretext for criminal action.
In a later date Oct. 28 and received Nov. 9, Nessel cites two or three factual errors in Trejo's extensive reporting and demands that every article related to his #DetroitLeaks series be removed from the internet, the Gateway Pundit said.
Trejo reported Detroit poll workers were trained how to lie, how to handle ballot challenges from Trump supporters, told to call 911 on any challengers and to use COVID as an excuse to deny poll challengers access to viewing the ballots as they were being counted and tabulated. Even challenged ballots were to be processed as regular ballots.
Incoming State Rep. Steve Carra and Michigan activist Bob Cushman filed a successful lawsuit against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over the allegations that poll workers were being trained how to commit vote fraud.
The Gateway Pundit reported it has been approached by independent witnesses who confirm that the predictions by #DetroitLeaks before the election were accurate.
Poll workers for Wayne County/Detroit at the TCF Center in Detroit indeed refused challenges from poll challengers, used COVID as an excuse to deny access to review the process and tabulated challenged illegal ballots.
The AG's letter coincides with another round of social media purges in Michigan of Facebook groups documenting the allegations of voter fraud, the Gateway Pundit said.
The post Michigan AG threatens journalist exposing vote fraud appeared first on WND.
On Tuesday evening, the Washington Post wrote that USPS whistleblower Richard Hopkins 'admitted to fabricating' allegations of voter fraud, when he claimed in a Project Veritas video that he overheard a postmaster in Erie, Pennsylvania instructing postal workers to collect and backdate ballots received after election day.
Citing "people who spoke on the condition of anonymity," the Post now says that Hopkins - a Marine combat veteran - "signed an affidavit recanting his claims."
Hopkins, however, says he did not recant.
In a Tuesday night interview with Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe, Hopkins says he was intimidated and coerced by federal investigators with the USPS Inspector General's office.
"They were grilling the hell out of me," says Hopkins, adding "I feel like I just got played."
Hours after the Post's claim, O'Keefe tweeted a recording of Hopkins' interview with IG employee Russel Strasser.
"I am trying to twist you a little bit, believe it or not, because in that - your mind will kick in," said Strasser.
"Okay," says Hopkins.
"We like to control our mind," Strasser continues. "And when we do that, we can convince ourselves of a memory. But when you're under a little bit of stress, which is what I'm doing to you purposely, your mind can be a little bit clearer and we're going to do a different exerciser too, to make your mind a little bit clearer. So, but this is all on purpose."
"Roger," replies Hopkins.
"I am not scaring you. But I am scaring you," he continued.
At the end of the interview with O'Keefe, Hopkins says that he stands by his original claim. Meanwhile, O'Keefe says there is more coming tomorrow on this.
Watch:
RECORDING: Federal agents “coerce” USPS whistleblower Hopkins to water down story. Hopkins doubles down...
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 11, 2020
Agent Strasser: “I am trying to twist you a little bit”
“I am scaring you here”...” we have Senators involved...DOJ involved...reason they called me is to try to harness.” pic.twitter.com/tK2JPu6Wqm
Attorney and conservative commentator Mike Cernovich suggested the Strasser was employing 'an interrogation technique where the federal agent tries to use stress tactics to implant a false memory into the interview subject.'
Holy f*ck, this is an interrogation technique where the federal agent tries to use stress tactics to implant a false memory into the interview subject.
— Cerno (@Cernovich) November 11, 2020
You rarely get stuff like this on audio. https://t.co/WZHyXOKaqB
Earlier in the evening, Veritas posted a video of Hopkins explicitly saying "I do not recant."
Hopkins, meanwhile, has been placed on administrative leave without pay.
Richard Hopkins, a Combat Veteran and a marine with a daughter never asked to go public or for any of this. In the full interview released tomorrow, he said this harder than what he endured in Afghanistan.
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 11, 2020
The post office has placed him on non-pay status. pic.twitter.com/f054fa0D7I
O'Keefe said in a Tuesday night email "We are going to release such concrete evidence exposing your lies that you will all have eggs on your faces," adding "Stay tuned, these people have no clue what’s coming their way."
The Trump campaign has requested an emergency injunction in a federal lawsuit aimed at preventing the State of Michigan from certifying the results of last week's election until election officials can certify that only legally cast, on time, and legally observed ballots are included in the count. The campaign is alleging several types of fraud, misconduct, and invalidated ballots based on a number of reasons - including 'malfunctioning' vote counting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems.
The Tuesday night filing in the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan alleges, among other things, that officials prevented GOP challengers from observing the count, scanned "batches of the same ballots multiple times," illegally accepted and pre-dated late ballots, including from unmonitored drop boxes, and that election workers illegally duplicated ballots," according to a statement from the campaign. The lawsuit requeusts that the court toss all ballots not observed by a GOP election challenger who has been "allowed to meaningfully observe the process and the handling and counting of the ballot."
Absentee ballot removed for counting at TCF Center in Detroit, Nov. 4 2020 (photo: Kimberly P. Mitchell, Detroit Free Press)
The complaint includes "more than one hundred credentialed election challengers" who have provided "sworn affidavits" that they were prevented from reviewing the ballot count, or validate the legitimacy of absentee ballots. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is accused in the suit of failing to follow state election code, which allowed "fraud and incompetence to corrupt the conduct of the 2020 general election."
GOP challengers allegedly blocked and intimidated:
GOP election challengers demand to be let into the TCF Center in Detroit on Wednesday, Nov 4 2020
For reference, here's a video of people cheering as GOP poll watchers were thrown out of the TCF Center in Detroit as absentee ballots were counted.
Videos are leaking from inside TCF Center in Detroit showing them cheer as GOP poll watchers are being thrown out as absentee ballot counting is happening, the person filming this was made to delete it, democrat watcher outnumber republican by 3/1, corruption at the highest level pic.twitter.com/WqRPsAG6BS
— Don’t stop fighting 🇺🇸 ✊💪✌️ (@crystal78243104) November 4, 2020
Batches of ballots run through multiple times:
Multiple GOP challengers attested that "batches of ballots were repeatedly run through the vote tabulation machines," with one challenger saying she observed "a stack of about fifty ballots being fed multiple times into a ballot scanner counting machine." Another challenger claims they "observed a station where election workers were working on scanned ballots that had issues that needed to be manually corrected," adding "I believe some of these workers were changing votes that had been cast for Donald Trump and other Republican candidates."
When challengers did bring up issues with ballots, they were "ignored and disregarded," according to the complaint, with one claiming that "ballots with votes for Trump were separated from other ballots," and that when they raised challenges over ballot numbers which didn't match their envelopes, they were "disregarded and ignored by election officials," and the "ballots were processed and counted."
The filing also claims that ballots which could not be read by a machine were unlawfully duplicated out of the view of challengers, and weren't conducted by a bipartisan pair of election inspectors.
Faulty tabulation software:
The suit notes that in Antrim County, Michigan, voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems "were at fault" when they erroneously gave over 6,000 Trump votes to former Vice President Joe Biden. The 'error' - potentially affecting the same machines used in Wayne County - was blamed by Secretary of State Benson on a county clerk who failed to update certain "media drives."
Also noted were Dominion machine errors in Oakland County Michigan, which resulted in a Democrat being wrongly declared the winner of a commissioner's race by 104 votes - only to have their seat flip back to the rightful Republican candidate after the error was caught.
"These vote tabulator failures are a mechanical malfunction that, under MCL 168.831-168.839, requires a "special election" in the precincts affected," reads the filing.
Back-dated absentee ballots:
The filing also alleges backdating of ballots, after attorney and GOP challenger Jessica Connarn says she was told by a poll worker told her they were "being told to change the date on ballots to reflect that the ballots were received on an earlier date."
Connarn has provided a photograph of a note handed to her by the poll worker as evidence they were instructed to change the date so that absentee ballots received after 8:00 p.m. on Election Day would be counted.
Poll workers count absentee ballots for the city of Detroit at the TCF Center in downtown Detroit on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. (Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)
The Trump campaign also says that ballots were deposited in remote, unattended drop boxes which are "essentially equivalent to a polling place where a person can deposit a ballot," but "there is no validation that the individual deposing a ballot in the box is an individual who is qualified to cast a vote or to lawfully deliver a ballot cast by a lawful voter." The filing says that according to Michigan law, a remote ballot drop box "must use video monitoring of that drop box to ensure effective monitoring..."
Now we wait to see if over 100 affidavits and Trump Campaign attorney Thor Hearne are able to persuade a Michigan judge to halt certifying Joe Biden winner the state.
Meanwhile in Philadelphia...
BREAKING: list of Philadelphia Republican poll watchers put on “no-entry” list
— ELIJAH SCHAFFER (@ElijahSchaffer) November 10, 2020
From Philly Election Canvas: even @CLewandowski_ was put on it pic.twitter.com/nO6QZ8Y0va
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,
On March 12, 2020, the memo went out from the pen of Carter Mecher, bioterrorism expert at advising the Veterans Administration. It went out to public health officials and others from around the nation. Close the schools. Pull the trigger now. And it happened, and with it, civic freedoms we have long taken for granted – freedom to travel, operate businesses, go to the movies, even leave our homes – were taken away.
They shut the schools. Then it was like dominos falling, one by one. The businesses had to close so that people could watch the kids at home. The shopping centers had to close because otherwise the kids would just gather there. The churches too. Entertainment venues were shut. Even parks closed. The stay-at-home orders followed from the school closures. In many ways, the whole legitimacy of lockdown hinged on the merit of the school closure.
A small group of pro-lockdown scientists cheered, as their decade-and-a-half-old dream of conducting such a social experiment was finally becoming a reality.
The school closures had a disproportionate effect on working women. They left their jobs to care for the kids, attempting to help them navigate the strange new world of Zoom classrooms and do assignments via email. Men stayed working in jobs as the primary breadwinners.
As the Washington Post reports:
The pandemic recession [lockdowns] has been dubbed a “she-session” because it has hurt women far worse than men. The share of women working or looking for work has fallen to the lowest level since 1988, wiping out decades of hard-fought gains in the workplace.
On Friday, the Labor Department’s jobs report showed that the economy has gained back just over half of the jobs lost in March and April, but the situation remains dire for women. There are 2.2 million fewer women working or looking for work now than in January, vs. 1.5 million fewer men, according to the Labor Department data.
In nine months of this hell, one might suppose there would have been a clear test of whether and to what extent severe outcomes from catching the virus were really associated with school attendance. It has finally arrived, and the news is not good for the lockdowners.
It is by now obvious (and has been since February) that almost no children are in danger from the virus. The age/health gradient of the virus affects almost exclusively the elderly with comorbidities. The children might have been helpful in achieving good public health goals and burning out the virus, rather than losing almost a full year of quality schooling thus far, to say nothing of the trauma of mandatory masks and being taught that their friends are potentially pathogen-carrying enemies.
The kids would have been fine but what about the staff and adults? Does locking up the kids in homes really keep people safe and dial back the infectiousness and mortality associated with SARS-CoV-2? How might one test this? One simple way could examine the difference in disease outcomes between domestic environments in which kids are present versus those where they are not.
This seems like an obvious test. Finally just such a study has appeared, as released by the prestigious medical journal Medxriv: “Association between living with children and outcomes from COVID-19: an OpenSAFELY cohort study of 12 million adults in England.”
It is the largest study yet conducted (35 authors) of Covid risk to adults from contact with children, and it has a not-so-surprising conclusion, at least for those who have followed the science so far.
It discovered no increase in severe Covid-related outcomes for adults living with children. It demonstrated a small increase in infections but without bad outcomes. In fact, the study demonstrated fewer deaths associated with adults living with children at home than home without children.
To quote from the study directly:
This is the first population-based study to investigate whether the risk of recorded SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe outcomes from COVID-19 differ between adults living in households with and without school-aged children during the UK pandemic. Our findings show that for adults living with children there is no evidence of an increased risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes although there may be a slightly increased risk of recorded SARS-CoV-2 infection for working-age adults living with children aged 12 to 18 years. Working-age adults living with children 0 to 11 years have a lower risk of death from COVID-19 compared to adults living without children, with the effect size being comparable to their lower risk of death from any cause. We observed no consistent changes in risk of recorded SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe outcomes from COVID-19 comparing periods before and after school closure.
What does this imply?
Our results demonstrate no evidence of serious harms from COVID-19 to adults in close contact with children, compared to those living in households without children. This has implications for determining the benefit-harm balance of children attending school in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The wording seems a bit abstract, consistent with the genre of this style of writing. To put it in English, fear of bad Covid outcomes was never a good reason to shut the schools. Which is to say: this was a huge mistake. It is shocking to consider what has been lost, how the children have been treated, how brutalized are the parents who have paid so much in taxes or in private school tuition. It is robbery not only of money but also of education and the good life.
AIER has in general agreed with John Ioannidis’s claim from mid-March. These policies were put into place with no solid evidence that they would mitigate the virus or improve on medical outcomes.
From the beginning, the lockdowns were a policy in search of a rationale. In all these intervening months, none has been forthcoming. And we are only now seeing the solid research proving that the skeptics were correct from the beginning. The only question now is whether and when the “experts” that produced this astonishing failure will admit their error. Perhaps the answer is: when the media start reporting on it.