October 8th, 2020 • 3h 6m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
POTUS COVID
Trump just sent what may have been his most dangerous tweet yet - Alternet.org
Tue, 06 Oct 2020 13:17
President Donald J. Trump works in the Presidential Suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. Saturday, Oct. 3, 2020, after testing positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
On Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump sent a remarkably dangerous tweet announcing that he'll be leaving Walter Reed Medical Center later in the day after being admitted for COVID-19.
"I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M.," he said.
Then the tweet verged into truly dangerous territory, trampling on the administration health experts' extensive messaging campaigns warning people to take the extremely deadly virus seriously.
"Feeling really good!" he said. "Don't be afraid of Covid. Don't let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!"
I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don't be afraid of C'... https://t.co/fFk0atUvqI
'-- Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1601923041.0In case anyone needs a reminder, COVID-19 has already killed more than 210,000 people in the United States and 1 million people globally since the beginning of this year. This entirely new health threat is on pace to be the third most common cause of death in the United States this year, and its spread and severity has been sharply curtailed by the extensive and costly mitigation efforts the country has had to endure. It also can cause long-lasting and debilitating effects in individuals who survive it, and it can incapacitate people for weeks on end.
Now, even as many states are seeing record increases of infection, Trump is trying to undo so much of the work that has been done to warn people about the virus. It's likely to encourage his supporters to behave more recklessly and could arguably be his single-most dangerous tweet yet.
There's something particularly pernicious about his talk of the "really great drugs" he received while undergoing top-tier treatment that no one else in the country would get. Much of the country is still without health insurance, despite his promises to overhaul health care. And even if the treatments '-- many of the experimental and only marginally effective '-- were as good as he said, one of the dangers if people stop taking precautions around COVID-19 is that it will spread so quickly that health care systems will be overwhelmed. Under that scenario, which took hold in New York City in the spring, it may not matter much if existing treatments are effective as long as the hospitals are too burdened to administer them to everyone.
And of course, Trump may be acting extremely recklessly with his own health. As far as we can tell, he was only recently diagnosed with COVID-19, and many patients face their worst symptoms about seven to 10 days into the disease's course. Before then, they can often experience ups and downs. Reports suggest he is desperate to leave the hospital, perhaps for political reasons, so he may be acting against the best medical advice.
Medical professionals weighed in with dismay at the president's tweet:
@realDonaldTrump It's beyond irresponsible for the President of the United States to use his one experience with CO'... https://t.co/uGMNoBPALd
'-- Eugene Gu, MD (@Eugene Gu, MD)1601923395.0In the hundreds of #COVID19 patients I have taken care of, plus the multitudes of healthcare providers I have worke'... https://t.co/SpRKWumXqA
'-- Dr. Comilla (@Dr. Comilla)1601923391.0
President Trump is prescribed a third drug to combat his COVID-19 infection - MarketWatch
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 11:35
Published: Oct. 4, 2020 at 1:19 p.m. ET The president is currently being treated at Walter Reed hospital President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have contracted the coronavirus. Getty Images President Donald Trump, who recently tested positive for the coronavirus, is now being treated with dexamethasone, a type of steroid that is often used to treat severely ill COVID-19 patients.
As part of his care regimen so far, Trump has been treated with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.' REGN, -0.58% still-investigational antibody treatment, Gilead Sciences Inc.'s GILD, -1.81% remdesivir, supplemental oxygen at least once, and now dexamethasone, in that order, according to Dr. Sean Conley, Trump's physician.
Trump's team of doctors were hopeful that he could return to the White House as early as Monday.
During a news conference on Sunday morning, Conley confirmed for the first time that the president had received oxygen support, at least once, and that he had been started on dexamethasone on Saturday. Trump's oxygen saturation levels have fallen twice below 95%, which is considered the low-side of a normal reading.
''In response to transient low oxygen levels'...we did initiate dexamethasone therapy,'' Dr. Brian Garibaldi, director of the biocontainment unit at Johns Hopkins Medicine and one of the physicians on Trumps's care team at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, said during the news conference on Sunday. ''Our plan is to continue that for the time being.''
Since Trump tweeted Friday that he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the coronavirus, there has been conflicting information released from White House officials about the president's health, including the date of his last negative COVID-19 and when he began treatment.
Conley had initially said Saturday morning that Trump was diagnosed 72 hours ago, which would be Wednesday morning '-- about 36 hours before he disclosed his diagnosis, and that he had received the Regeneron experimental therapy 48 hours ago, which would be Thursday morning. A statement issued Saturday evening by the White House said Conley misspoke, and Trump had been diagnosed Thursday night and received the first infusion of the Regeneron drug on Friday.
Trump is also taking zinc, vitamin D, an acid reducer, melatonin and aspirin, according to Conley, who noted Saturday that Trump is on a five-day regimen of remdesivir.
Trump's diagnosis highlights one of the still challenging clinical elements of the COVID-19 pandemic, that there are few treatment options available for patients with COVID-19.
For people with severe forms of the disease, treatment can include convalescent plasma, the steroid dexamethasone, and/or remdesivir. Most of the available treatments for COVID-19 infections target severely ill patients who have been hospitalized. This includes remdesivir and convalescent plasma, which is gathered from people who have recovered from COVID-19 infections '-- both therapies have received emergency use authorization during the pandemic.
Dexamethasone is another option for hospitalized patients who are in need of oxygen support. The steroid, which is approved by the FDA for other indications, demonstrated in clinical trials in the U.K. that it can reduce mortality in some severely ill COVID-19 patients.
''Dexamethasone is a cheap, widely available, definitively effective therapy for patients on oxygen support in the hospital,'' Raymond James analyst Steven Seedhouse told investors in June. ''To be clear, it has no apparent benefit in patients not on oxygen or not hospitalized.''
For people with mild to moderate forms of the disease, there are no FDA-authorized or approved drugs, though two drug makers including Eli Lilly & Co. LLY, +0.63% and Regeneron recently shared promising results for a pair of still-investigational antibody-based treatments. Neither drug has been authorized or approved by the FDA at this time.
''There really aren't a lot of very effective therapies we have at this stage of the disease,'' said Dr. Steven Shapiro, chief medical and scientific officer at UPMC, a hospital system based in Pittsburgh, who is not involved in Trump's treatment. ''The thing that we know that is most effective right now are steroids. But that tends to work later in the disease when someone develops the pneumonia.''
Regeneron's REGN-COV2 and Lilly's LY-CoV555 are both being tested in clinical trials, for people with mild to moderate forms of the disease. Like convalescent-plasma treatments, these drugs also rely on antibodies, and both have shown so far that they help reduce viral load, based on interim data shared in the past month. Raymond James analysts predicted Friday morning that one of these investigational drugs would be prescribed to Trump.
That said, physicians have the discretion to prescribe medications that are not approved or authorized by the FDA for a specific use. This is called off-label prescribing, and it's common in the U.S. health care system. (One 2006 study estimates that one-fifth of U.S. prescriptions are off-label.)
Trump in May disclosed that he was taking the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine that he spent months promoting as a potential COVID-19 treatment. At that time it was being tested in clinical trials as both a treatment and to see if it could prevent infections in people who had been exposed to the virus. The FDA had granted the drug an emergency use authorization in March but revoked that authorization in June.
Health-care providers around the world have tested the efficacy of zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D and the antibiotic azithromycin to COVID-19 patients; however, none of those treatments has so far shown a clinical benefit, according to Shapiro.
''It's watching, waiting '... just supportive care, in general. Isolate,'' he said. ''Masks are really important. That is our vaccine right now. It's really good at preventing the spread. And if not entirely, it certainly will lower the dosage and make the disease less severe. So that's one lesson I think that everyone should learn from this.''
Regeneron antibodies in demand after Trump treatment, doctors seek more data | Article [AMP] | Reuters
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 10:26
Wed Oct 7, 2020 / 9:57 PM EDT
(Reuters) - Patients are asking to join clinical trials of antibody-based COVID-19 drugs after U.S. President Donald Trump was treated last week with an experimental therapy from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc, and on Wednesday he promised to make it free to Americans while touting its benefits.
Medical experts said more data is needed to assess the treatment's efficacy before wider use should be allowed.
Trump was discharged from the hospital late on Monday, just a few days after being diagnosed with COVID-19 that caused enough lung inflammation for blood oxygen levels to fall.
According to his doctor, blood tests on Monday detected infection-fighting antibodies, which a Regeneron spokesperson said were probably from the treatment.
The company said on Wednesday that it has submitted a request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an emergency use authorization (EUA) for its antibody combination.
In a video shot outside the White House, Trump credited the Regeneron therapy for his feeling much better than when he was first diagnosed and said he would push for EUAs of that treatment and others like it. He mistakenly said the drug was called Regeneron.
Regeneron's drug is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies - manufactured copies of antibodies that are one of the main weapons the immune system generates to fight infections.
The company so far has released some early data pointing to the promise of its therapy for COVID-19, and doctors were concerned Trump's treatment and subsequent promotion could put pressure on regulators
Dr. Gary Kleiner, a pediatric immunologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and investigator in a trial designed to see if Regeneron's antibodies can prevent coronavirus infection, said he has been approached by patients seeking the drug since last week.
Dr. Dirk Sostman, head of the research network at Houston Methodist Hospital, a trial site for Regeneron and Eli Lilly & Co antibody programs, said more patients are asking to participate in an antibody trial.
He was cautious about broader use without more data.
"All we have seen are very brief press releases ... so there is not much to go on," he said.
"The politics of the situation would suggest to me that the story could be Trump gets COVID ... then American technology fostered by the Trump Administration cures COVID," Sostman added. "I would think there would be pressure on regulators."
Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking on Monday on CNN, said he was "strongly suspicious" that Regeneron's drug has contributed to Trump's progress. "Obviously you can't prove that until you do a number of studies to show that it actually works," he said.
Doctors emphasized that the timeline for Trump's illness was not entirely clear. "If he is responding at a pace where he is truly much better, it is going to be due to the antibodies," said Dr. Edward Jones-Lopez, infectious disease specialist at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.
Giving the treatment to the president seems "a tacit endorsement by the federal medical bureaucracy for Regeneron's medicine, and we expect an EUA for the treatment of COVID in a matter of days," Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges said in a research note.
"Patients most likely to benefit from this treatment have a similar profile to President Trump, in that they had undetectable antibodies at baseline and were early in the course of disease," Regeneron spokeswoman Alexandra Bowie said in an emailed statement.
Regeneron has received $450 million from the U.S. government for up to 300,000 doses of the dual-antibody cocktail, and the company has said those supplies would be distributed free of charge.
Eli Lilly on Wednesday said a mid-stage trial testing its combination antibody therapy showed that it helped cut hospitalization and emergency room visits for COVID-19 patients and that it also planned to seek an EUA.
Shares of Regeneron, up nearly 6% so far this month, closed at $591.69 on Wednesday. Lilly's shares rose 3.4% on Wednesday to close at $148.96.
(Reporting by Deena Beasley; Editing by Peter Henderson, Bill Berkrot and Christopher Cushing)
Let Us Out!
Airports Begin Testing 'COVID Passport' That Will Record Whether Someone Has Been Vaccinated Before Travel '' Summit News
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 18:55
Over six thousand scientists and doctors have signed a petition against coronavirus lockdown measures, urging that those not in the at risk category should be able to get on with their lives as normal, and that lockdown rules in both the US and UK are causing 'irreparable damage'.
Those who have signed include professors from the world's leading universities. Oxford University professor Dr Sunetra Gupta was one of the authors of the open letter that was sent with the petition, along with Harvard University's Dr Martin Kulldorff and Stanford's Dr Jay Bhattacharya.
It declares that social distancing and mask mandates are causing 'damaging physical and mental health impacts.'
The petition, dubbed the Great Barrington Declaration after the town in Massachusetts where it was written, has been signed by close to 54,000 members of the public at time of writing, as well as over 2600 medical and public health scientists and around 3500 medical practitioners.
''Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal,'' it notes, adding ''Keeping these [lockdown] measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.''
''Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health,'' the declaration also declares.
It continues, ''The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular [heart] disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health '' leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden.''
''Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice,'' the declaration adds.
''Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal, it concludes, explaining that ''Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold.''
''Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home,'' it emphasises.
Finally, the declaration demands that normal life should resume, stating that ''Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.''
The declaration echoes President Trump's words earlier this week when he returned to the White House and asked Americans not to live in fear or let let the virus dominate their everyday lives:
pic.twitter.com/OxmRcZ5nUZ
'-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2020
The declaration dovetails with other research that has concluded lockdowns will conservatively ''destroy at least seven times more years of human life'' than they save.
Germany's Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Muller, has warned that lockdown measures throughout the globe will end up killing more people than the Coronavirus itself.
In an interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt, Muller warned that the response to the global pandemic has resulted in ''one of the biggest'' hunger and poverty crises in history.
Muller's comments come five months after a leaked study from inside the German Ministry of the Interior revealed that the impact of the country's lockdown could end up killing more people than the coronavirus due to victims of other serious illnesses not receiving treatment.
As we have previously highlighted, in the UK there have already been up to 10,000 excess deaths as a result of seriously ill people avoiding hospitals due to COVID-19 or not having their hospital treatments cancelled.
Professor Richard Sullivan also warned that there will be more excess cancer deaths in the UK than total coronavirus deaths due to people's access to screenings and treatment being restricted as a result of the lockdown.
His comments were echoed by Peter Nilsson, a Swedish professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at Lund University, who said, ''It's so important to understand that the deaths of COVID-19 will be far less than the deaths caused by societal lockdown when the economy is ruined.''
According to Professor Karol Sikora, an NHS consultant oncologist, there could be 50,000 excess deaths from cancer as a result of routine screenings being suspended during the lockdown in the UK.
In addition, a study published in The Lancet that notes ''physical distancing, school closures, trade restrictions, and country lockdowns'' are worsening global child malnutrition.
Experts have also warned that there will be 1.4 million deaths globally from untreated TB infections due to the lockdown.
As we further previously highlighted, a data analyst consortium in South Africa found that the economic consequences of the country's lockdown will lead to 29 times more people dying than the coronavirus itself.
Hundreds of doctors are also on record as opposing lockdown measures, warning that they will cause more death than the coronavirus itself.
Despite citizens across the world being told to observe the lockdown to ''save lives,'' numerous experts who are now warning that the lockdown could end up costing more lives are being ignored or smeared by the media.
World's first Covid passport will be trialled on flights from Heathrow this week | Daily Mail Online
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:18
Coronavirus passport trials are taking place at Heathrow this week to test technology to let people travel the globe without risk of being quarantined.
Passengers on United Airlines and Cathay Pacific are trying out an app called the CommonPass.
The phone software is a digital health pass which can hold a certified COVID-19 test status or show someone has been vaccinated in future in a way designed to satisfy various governments' different regulations.
It has been launched by non-profit trust Commons Project Foundation, part of the World Economic Forum, in the hope of it will end the days of flyers producing bits of paper, often in different languages.
The tech is very much at the trial stage using volunteers on flights between London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore under government observation.
But it is seen as a longer-term measure to allow air travel to return to something like pre-coronavirus levels.
However, it is reliant on Governments around the world accepting test results from 'certified' laboratories in other countries and allowing those with negative results to enter freely on their say-so.
Dr Bradley Perkins, chief medical officer of The Commons Project, said: 'Without the ability to trust COVID-19 tests '' and eventually vaccine records '' across international borders, many countries will feel compelled to retain full travel bans and mandatory quarantines for as long as the pandemic persists.
'With trusted individual health data, countries can implement more nuanced health screening requirements for entry.'
It comes as hopes for a UK airport testing breakthrough this week look set to be dashed after ministers decided to launch another review of the issue.
The aviation industry had hoped trials of new systems designed to cut travel quarantine times could begin as soon as tomorrow.
But Government sources said ministers were instead poised to launch a 'taskforce' to study the subject, delaying hopes of action for weeks.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said today: 'I will be making the announcement later today to Parliament but it involves a taskforce.
'So looking at the systems which would enable us to have testing.'
The new app lets you upload your Covid test securely to show different countries
The aviation industry had hoped trials of new systems designed to cut travel quarantine times could begin as soon as tomorrow. But Grant Shapps today said today he would launch a 'taskforce', delaying hopes of action for weeks
How CommonPass works: Step 1: Person gets tested at an approved lab in their home country, or gets vaccinated when one becomes available.
Step 2: Results are sent to a local or national registry database or a 'personal health record' like Apple Health or Google's CommonHealth app.
Step 3: App determines current entry rules for the destination, where the lab test was carried out and the result and whether the traveller meets the country's entry requirements.
Step 4: Person sees if they will be cleared to travel/enter their destination country.
Step 5: App generates a QR code that can be scanned by airline staff and border officials.
The pass works by passengers taking a test at a certified lab before uploading it to their phone. It generates a QR code that can be scanned by airline staff and border officials.
David Evans, Joint CEO of traveller pass company Collinson, said the app could be a gamechanger.
He added: 'As we come to grips with living with COVID-19, testing is the safest scientific method to reopen countries and borders.
'However, as each country looks to find the right solution to protect their citizens, we know that the ability to demonstrate the validity of testing done upon arrival or before departure is key to reopening borders.
'The Collinson and Swissport dedicated COVID-19 testing facility at Heathrow will support the CommonPass' trial by testing United Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways volunteers.'
Heathrow's Process Improvement Director Mark Burgess said: 'For some time now, Heathrow has been calling for the creation of a Common International Standard and cross-border pilots such as these could help governments across the world and the industry to unlock the benefits of testing in aviation.
'We're looking forward to reviewing the findings of these trials and using the learnings to support the recovery of an industry that provides so many jobs and economic opportunities globally.'
CommonPass says it adheres to tight privacy principles and is designed to protect personal data in compliance with relevant privacy regulations, including GDPR.
It was launched by the World Economic Forum and The Commons Project, in collaboration with a broad coalition of public and private partners around the world
Passengers will be able to show the digital passport to authorities to give them assurance
Heathrow Airport is one of the locations for the testing of the new digital pass
Chaos as just 63 per cent of 16,000 virus carriers are traced The search for nearly 16,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus but were missed due to a computer glitch yesterday remained mired in confusion.
Test and trace staff are still battling to catch up with the enormous backlog caused by officials opting to use an inadequate computer programme.
Downing Street said 63 per cent of the positive cases had been contacted by 9.30am yesterday.
But staff said there were still major problems with the system.
One source added that a single household had been contacted 75 times over the weekend.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted in the Commons he was unable to confirm how many people had been affected by the blunder.
Labour asked how many of the estimated 48,000 contacts had now been traced, but Mr Hancock said the number would not be known until all those missed had been contacted.
Meanwhile, charity boss Mark Adams told MPs and peers care home testing is stuck in the 'Dark Ages' with residents and staff waiting up to ten days for results.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus heard the testing system has 'gone backwards' since summer, putting thousands of residents at risk.
Boris Johnson is understood to have asked ministers and officials to conduct a 'rapid review' into the feasibility of using testing to ease restrictions on travellers.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Health Secretary Matt Hancock are expected to lead the review, which will study the way other countries use testing to reduce quarantine times, and assess whether the UK has the capacity to follow suit.
The new body will also look at ways to breathe new life into the vital aviation sector.
Industry leaders are pushing for travellers to be tested at the airport and then re-tested a few days later in order to cut the current 14-day quarantine time which is crippling the sector and wrecking families' travel plans.
But a Government source said pressure on testing capacity meant ministers were likely to focus on a single-test solution, with travellers asked to quarantine for five or eight days before being tested.
They defended the controversial quarantine regime, saying as many as 10 per cent of new cases in the UK over the summer are thought to have been brought in from abroad.
The decision to launch a review will dismay the aviation industry, which has been campaigning for the change for months, and which has offered to trial its own systems.
It also comes as a blow to the Mail's Get Britain Flying campaign, launched last month to encourage the Prime Minister to lift the 'closed' sign hanging over the UK.
But a Government source last night insisted that the launch of the taskforce was a sign that ministers were finally taking the issue seriously.
'Everyone gets the importance of international travel to the economy and business, and to people's lives '' that is why it is being looked at,' the source said.
'But we also have to recognise the constraints on testing capacity and come up with the most effective solution. That will take a little time.'
A Department for Transport spokesman insisted there was no delay over plans for airport testing, adding: 'As we've been clear, work is ongoing with clinicians and health experts on the practicalities of using testing to reduce the self-isolation period for international arrivals.'
The move comes amid growing Tory disquiet over the tough travel policy which requires people to quarantine for 14 days if arriving from a 'hotspot' country.
Italy, Sweden and Greece face possible restrictions later this week.
Meanwhile, a new study yesterday suggested that fewer than 1 per cent of air passengers test positive after seven days in quarantine.
Research commissioned by Air Canada and carried out by McMaster Health Labs and the University of Toronto, suggests a two-test regime could be a safe alternative.
Some 13,000 travellers arriving into Toronto Pearson International Airport were tested on arrival, and had a second swab after seven days in quarantine.
Fewer than 130 tested positive, with 80 per cent of cases picked up on arrival '' suggesting a single-test could detect most cases.
The rest '' a mere handful '' were picked up seven days later.
Coronavirus: Health experts join global anti-lockdown movement - BBC News
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:06
Image copyright Getty Images Thousands of scientists and health experts have joined a global movement warning of "grave concerns" about Covid-19 lockdown policies.
Nearly 6,000 experts, including dozens from the UK, say the approach is having a devastating impact on physical and mental health as well as society.
They are calling for protection to be focused on the vulnerable, while healthy people get on with their lives.
The declaration has prompted warnings by others in the scientific community.
Critics have pointed out:
a more targeted approach could make it difficult to protect vulnerable people entirely the risk of long-term complications from coronavirus mean many others are also at riskBut the movement - known as the Great Barrington Declaration - mirrors some of the warnings in a letter signed by a group of GPs in the UK.
Sixty-six GPs, including TV doctors Dr Phil Hammond and Dr Rosemary Leonard and a number of medics who have held senior roles at the British Medical Association, have written to the health secretary, saying there is insufficient emphasis on "non-Covid harms" in the decision-making.
What is the Great Barrington Declaration?The movement started in the US.
And the declaration has now been signed by nearly 6,000 scientists and medical experts across the globe as well as 50,000 members of the public.
The UK-based experts who have signed it include:
Dr Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford UniversityNottingham University self-harm expert Prof Ellen Townsend Edinburgh University disease modeller Dr Paul McKeigueThey say keeping the lockdown policies in place until a vaccine is available would cause "irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed".
The health harms cited include:
lower childhood vaccination rates worsening care for heart disease and cancer patientsAnd they point out the risk from coronavirus is 1,000 times greater for the old and infirm, with children more at risk from flu than Covid-19.
As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all - including the vulnerable - falls, they say.
And this would be a much more "compassionate" approach.
The declaration recommends a number of measures to protect the vulnerable, including regular testing of care-home workers, with a move as far as possible towards using staff who have acquired immunity.
Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered, it says.
And when possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside.
Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick, should be practised by everyone.
But:
young low-risk individuals should be allowed to work normallyschools and universities should be open for in-person teachingsports and cultural activities could resume and restaurants reopen What do other experts say?While clearly "well intentioned", the declaration has profound ethical, logistical and scientific flaws, University of Leeds school of medicine associate professor Dr Stephen Griffin says.
The vulnerable come from all walks of life and deserve to be "treated equally".
And "long Covid" is reported to have left even people mild infections with problems such as fatigue and joint pain for months.
University of Reading cellular biology expert Dr Simon Clarke, meanwhile, says whether herd immunity is even achievable remains unclear.
"Natural, lasting, protective immunity to the disease would be needed," he says.
"And we don't know how effective or long-lasting people's post-infection immunity will be."
Some say the most likely scenario is immunity is not long-term but future reinfections then become milder.
Excel: Why using Microsoft's tool caused Covid-19 results to be lost - BBC News
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:18
By Leo KelionTechnology desk editor
Published duration 2 days ago
The badly thought-out use of Microsoft's Excel software was the reason nearly 16,000 coronavirus cases went unreported in England.
And it appears that Public Health England (PHE) was to blame, rather than a third-party contractor.
The issue was caused by the way the agency brought together logs produced by commercial firms paid to analyse swab tests of the public, to discover who has the virus.
They filed their results in the form of text-based lists - known as CSV files - without issue.
PHE had set up an automatic process to pull this data together into Excel templates so that it could then be uploaded to a central system and made available to the NHS Test and Trace team, as well as other government computer dashboards.
The problem is that PHE's own developers picked an old file format to do this - known as XLS.
As a consequence, each template could handle only about 65,000 rows of data rather than the one million-plus rows that Excel is actually capable of.
And since each test result created several rows of data, in practice it meant that each template was limited to about 1,400 cases.
When that total was reached, further cases were simply left off.
For a bit of context, Excel's XLS file format dates back to 1987. It was superseded by XLSX in 2007. Had this been used, it would have handled 16 times the number of cases.
At the very least, that would have prevented the error from happening until testing levels were significantly higher than they are today,
But one expert suggested that even a high-school computing student would know that better alternatives exist.
"Excel was always meant for people mucking around with a bunch of data for their small company to see what it looked like," commented Prof Jon Crowcroft from the University of Cambridge.
"And then when you need to do something more serious, you build something bespoke that works - there's dozens of other things you could do.
"But you wouldn't use XLS. Nobody would start with that."
Speaking in the House of Commons, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock suggested that the problem had emerged as a result of PHE using a "legacy system" and a decision had been taken two months ago to replace it.
image copyright Parliament TV
image caption Mr Hancock acknowledged the flaw without going into the specifics of why an old Excel file format had been usedPresumably, however, this specific problem had not been spotted. Otherwise PHE would have realised that the flaw would come into effect before the upgrade was complete.
Mr Hancock was challenged to put other relevant data-process diagrams into the public domain, so other hidden failings in the government's digital apparatus could be found.
But while the minister said he would see what was possible, he added: "The challenge of a maximum file size error is that it wouldn't necessarily appear on those sorts of flowcharts."
PHE is confident that test results were not missed until last week, because of the flaw.
And in its defence, the agency would note that it caught most of the cases within a day or two of the records slipping through its net.
image copyright Getty Images
image caption The glitch did not prevent patients getting their results, but delayed contact tracers from seeing the detailsBut Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said lives had still been put at risk because the contact-tracing process had been delayed.
"Thousands of people [were] blissfully unaware they've been exposed to Covid, potentially spreading this deadly virus at a time when hospital admissions are increasing," he told the House of Commons.
"This isn't just a shambles. It's so much worse."
To handle the problem, PHE is now breaking down the test result data into smaller batches to create a larger number of Excel templates. That should ensure none hit their cap.
But insiders acknowledge that the current clunky system needs to be replaced by something more advanced that excludes Excel, as soon as possible.
Operation Moonshot: What do the leaked documents say? | The BMJ
What is a digital passport?
Testing for access to certain spaces features heavily in the documents, with reference to “immunity/virus free passports,” likely to be available through an app. The plans say that testing could be used to “give people assurance that, at least for a limited time, they are unlikely to have the virus and are at low risk of transmitting it to others.”
They say, “A negative test result (or potentially a positive antibody result) may inform not just whether you could attend an in-patient appointment, but if you go to work that day, access a venue, get on a flight or visit an elderly relative.” The documents also point to a “significant expansion” of testing funded and delivered by the private sector, such as in football stadiums to allow access.
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 12:54
Operation Moonshot is the name of the UK government's newly proposed covid-19 mass testing scheme. The plan, revealed by The BMJ,1 involves an expansion of testing from the current hundreds of thousands of tests each day to 10 million a day by early 2021. But how does the government propose to do this?
How will testing increase between now and early 2021?The documents show a proposed three stage rollout. They state that the UK will carry out between 200'000 to 800'000 tests a day between September and December 2020. This might break down to:
200'000 tests a day on people with symptoms,
100'000 a day on people without symptoms in local areas to suppress outbreaks,
250'000 a day on people without symptoms in the NHS and care homes, and
100'000 a day through national prevalence studies.
From December the plans propose increasing daily capacity to between two and four million. This would involve mass testing of all homes in local areas or whole cities when prevalence rises (430'000 tests a day), testing high contact professions such as teachers every week (100'000 a day), and testing people to allow them to enter high risk settings, such as visitors to hospital and care homes.
The plan then states that there would be ''full rollout'' in early 2021 to 10 million tests a day, to ''enable people to return to and maintain normal life.'' At this stage, weekly testing would be made available progressively to the whole population to allow people to go to high risk events by using a ''digital passport'' to show they have tested negative for the virus.
How will testing capacity be increased?The documents talk about ''buying large scale capabilities'' from partners such as the drug company GSK to ''build a large scale testing organisation.'' However, under ''potential partners for increasing laboratory capacity'' the documents list only the company AstraZeneca. Under logistics and warehousing, the documents list potential partners as Boots, Sainsbury's, DHL, Kuehne+Nagel, G4S, and Serco. Under workforce are listed universities, the Society of Microbiologists, and the British Society of Immunology.
Alongside mainly commercial partnerships, the documents also state that a number of new tests and technologies would need to be used, including some that do not yet exist.
''Delivering testing at the scale and level of ambition set by the prime minister is likely to mean developing, validating, procuring, and operationalising testing technology that currently does not exist,'' the plans state. Lower sensitivity testing for ''screening/enabling purposes'' could also be used, with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing then used to ''confirm positive results or in situations where accuracy is needed for highest risk individuals.''
Testing technology listed in the documents includes qrt-PCR, Endpoint PCR, LAMP, LamPORE, lateral flow antigen test, and whole genome sequencing. Two of these tests'--lateral flow antigen tests and LAMP'--are listed as having a ''lower sensitivity'' of between 80% and 100%.
Where will people get tested?The documents propose venues such as general practices and pharmacies, workplaces and schools, and community based local testing sites.2 Testing may also be carried out on site at events before people can enter.
Are there any plans to get the public on board?The documents show that there have been discussions over how to incentivise people to be tested. They point to enforcing testing ''via a sanction-based model'' or through ''offering individuals opportunities/access from being tested,'' such as being able to attend events.
What is a digital passport?Testing for access to certain spaces features heavily in the documents, with reference to ''immunity/virus free passports,'' likely to be available through an app. The plans say that testing could be used to ''give people assurance that, at least for a limited time, they are unlikely to have the virus and are at low risk of transmitting it to others.''
They say, ''A negative test result (or potentially a positive antibody result) may inform not just whether you could attend an in-patient appointment, but if you go to work that day, access a venue, get on a flight or visit an elderly relative.'' The documents also point to a ''significant expansion'' of testing funded and delivered by the private sector, such as in football stadiums to allow access.
Do the documents acknowledge any concerns?Yes, although not in great detail. In reference to the non-PCR tests, it is repeatedly noted that ''new types of test are likely to be less accurate [than PCR], introducing some level of risk.'' In terms of how testing would affect behaviour, the documents say that regular testing ''might make people behave in safer ways, by building covid-safe routines into their daily lives, or less safely by giving false a degree of comfort.''
However, the documents also say, ''We will need to take some risks, experiment and evaluate carefully, and find out what works and what does not.''
How will the £100bn be spent?This figure is mentioned only briefly in the documents. They state that ''opening up the economy'' and allowing the population to ''return to something closer to normality'' would cost ''over £100bn to deliver.'' The figure is not broken down.
What reason does the government give for Moonshot?The documents state that the objective of the mass testing programme is to ''utilise the full range of testing approaches and technologies to help reduce the R rate, keep the economy open and enable a return to normal life.'' They say that Moonshot has been described by the prime minister as the ''only hope for avoiding a second national lockdown before a vaccine, something that the country cannot afford.''
This article is made freely available for use in accordance with BMJ's website terms and conditions for the duration of the covid-19 pandemic or until otherwise determined by BMJ. You may use, download and print the article for any lawful, non-commercial purpose (including text and data mining) provided that all copyright notices and trade marks are retained.
https://bmj.com/coronavirus/usage
NYC business owner: 'Explosion' of trash another struggle to deal with | Fox Business
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 12:36
Among several issues business owners have to deal with, excessive trash clean up is another one, New York City business owner Debbie Weiner said on Thursday.
''I came in just before 8 o'clock and when I got there it was just garbage from the left all the way to the right where the outdoor dining is -- and it wasn't just garbage, it was everywhere as if there was an explosion of garbage,'' the owner of Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery told "Fox & Friends."
''Recyclables, just any kind of food, there was a bed frame, it was a mess,'' Weiner said.
RESTAURANT INDUSTRY LEADER: CORONAVIRUS AID URGENTLY NEEDED TO BATTLE 'FIGHT OF OUR LIVES'
Meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened to slash state funding to New York City if it doesn't increase efforts to tamp down on crime and clean up trash in the midst of a pandemic, even offering to send in the National Guard to help.
The tall order from the state's Democratic governor was announced Tuesday at a press conference, where Cuomo expressed concerns about the uptick in gun violence and crime, taking a swipe at the city's mayor, Bill de Blasio, without specifically naming him.
Garbage is thrown across the sidewalk waiting for the garbage disposal to come along and remove it. (iStock)
"The crime problem in New York City is real. Denial is not an option," Cuomo said, adding that "if jurisdictions don't resolve police/community issues and redesign public safety," he would take away the city's funding allotted to help with recovery efforts due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The warnings are part of a larger initiative unveiled Tuesday called "New York City Stabilization and Recovery Program."
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Weiner said that she does not know where the trash came from but it was a ''residential matter,'' meaning it was not trash that belonged to her business. Weiner said that since city services had not picked up the trash per her request, she had to clean it up.
''I don't know if it was from the left side of the building or the right side or a combination because now with the outdoor dining, it is sort of like where do business owners and the residents put their garbage? And it looked like someone had gone through it or had illegally dumped,'' Weiner said.
Weiner went on to say that she believes it's a "continuation of the trickle-down effect from this pandemic," including budget cuts in sanitation and the police.
''People, businesses, There's more homelessness. People are desperate, and that trickle-down effect is just now, again, another element of what business owners have to contend with on top of, you know, the food costs, rent, paying staff. Now we have garbage not really being picked up,'' she added.
Fox News' Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
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California governor's office tells diners to wear masks 'in between bites' | Fox News
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:01
Published October 06, 2020
Last Update 21 hrs ago
Masks have become fierce topic of debate across countryThe office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom has told residents in the Golden State that if they go out to eat, they should be wearing a mask ''in between bites'' to protect themselves from COVID-19.
''Going out to eat with members of your household this weekend?'' an Oct. 3 tweet from the governor's office says. ''Don't forget to keep your mask on in between bites.''
'SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL' BROADCASTERS 'COMPELLED' BY CALIFORNIA OFFICIALS TO WEAR MASKS, AL MICHAELS SAYS
For emphasis, the tweet shows an image of someone at a dining seat wearing a mask, then not wearing a mask while taking a bite, and then putting the mask on again.
However, the image then advises people to "minimize the number of times you take your mask off."
California has allowed limited indoor dining to resume in a number of counties. San Francisco allowed indoor dining last week at 25% capacity.
WEAR A MASK DURING SEX, SKIP KISSING, CANADA'S TOP DOCTOR SUGGESTS
California has had more than 800,000 cases and more than 16,000 deaths due to the virus.
Numerous health experts have said that masks can reduce the spread of the virus, but when it is appropriate or possible to wear a mask is frequently a topic of debate.
Broadcasters for ''Sunday Night Football'' were ''compelled'' by officials in Santa Clara, Calif., to wear masks while commenting on the NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles.
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Meanwhile, Canada's top doctor last month suggested people wear a mask during sex to protect themselves from the virus, and also avoid kissing.
Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a reporter covering U.S. and European politics for Fox News.. He can be reached here. Load more..
Netherlands Sets New Covid-19 Record For 5 Days In A Row
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:06
ToplineThe Netherlands has posted record figures for new coronavirus infections every day since Monday, a surge that Dutch officials are calling ''downright terrible'' as the country joins much of Europe in grappling with a second Covid-19 wave.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte leaves his hotel for the EU Summit on July 20, 2020 in Brussels, ... [+] Belgium.
Getty Images Key FactsThe Netherlands saw 2,777 new coronavirus infections on Friday and 2,544 on Thursday, Reuters reported, almost double its previous record of 1,394 cases, which was set during the height of the country's April surge.
Cases in the Netherlands have risen gradually since early August, weeks after the country reopened restaurants and lifted the light restrictions it set during the spring, but the country is now watching a rapid uptick in cases and hospitalizations.
Between September 15 and 22, the country's weekly case count soared by more than 60%, and the percentage of positive coronavirus tests jumped from 3.9% to 6.1%, above the 5% benchmark the World Health Organization considers controlled.
Dutch bars, restaurants, schools and gyms are still open and, unlike in most European countries, the Netherlands has resisted calls to require face masks in crowded public spaces, arguing that they are not effective if people use them incorrectly.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte plans to roll out new restrictions to control the virus' spread next week, though he did not elaborate on these new rules.
Big Number6,287. That's the total number of coronavirus deaths in the Netherlands, according to figures from the World Health Organization. Despite the recent uptick in cases, the country's daily death count is still fairly low, reporting fewer than 10 new fatalities per day.
Key BackgroundWhen coronavirus first hit the Netherlands in March, the country did not impose a full-blown lockdown like France or Italy. Instead, it kept stores open and allowed residents to leave their homes freely, opting only to close face-to-face businesses like restaurants and hairdressers. This ''intelligent lockdown'' system, which mirrored Sweden's controversial strategy, was designed to build up immunity to the virus among younger and less vulnerable residents. The Netherlands ultimately saw more per capita Covid-19 infections than some of its neighbors over the spring, but the country began reopening restaurants and schools when the virus began to subside in May. Now, as cases rebound significantly and businesses and schools remain open, the country is weighing new restrictions.
Crucial Quote''The figures look downright terrible,'' Prime Minister Rutte said Friday. ''In short, the situation is very worrisome and will force us to take extra measures.''
TangentThe Netherlands is not the only European country where coronavirus cases are rising. Spain and France are struggling with a second wave of the virus after their strict lockdowns were lifted over the summer, prompting both countries' governments to close restaurants in some areas and urge residents to stay home.
Further ReadingWhy Dutch lockdown may be a high-risk strategy (BBC)
Dutch Cooperation Made an 'Intelligent Lockdown' a Success (Bloomberg)
As Virus Cases Surge in Europe, Hospitalizations Lag. But for How Long? (New York Times)
Mask Muzzles and Herd Immunity
Thank you for wearing a mask and contributing toward herd immunity
Cloth masks: Dangerous to your health? -- ScienceDaily
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:09
The widespread use of cloth masks by healthcare workers may actually put them at increased risk of respiratory illness and viral infections and their global use should be discouraged, according to a UNSW study.
The results of the first randomized clinical trial (RCT) to study the efficacy of cloth masks were published in the journal BMJ Open.
The trial saw 1607 hospital healthcare workers across 14 hospitals in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, split into three groups: those wearing medical masks, those wearing cloth masks and a control group based on usual practice, which included mask wearing.
Workers used the mask on every shift for four consecutive weeks.
The study found respiratory infection was much higher among healthcare workers wearing cloth masks.
The penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% compared to medical masks with 44%.
Professor Raina MacIntyre, lead study author and head of UNSW's School of Public Health and Community Medicine, said the results of the study caution against the use of cloth masks.
"Masks are worn to protect from infection during pandemics and outbreaks, especially when there are no drugs or vaccines available for protection," Professor MacIntyre said.
"Masks are especially important for frontline doctors and nurses, as their protection from infection is key to maintaining the ability to tackle a pandemic effectively.
"We should be cautious about cloth mask use in healthcare settings, particularly high-risk situations such as emergency departments, intensive care, paediatric or respiratory wards."
Cloth masks remain widely used globally because they are a cheaper option especially in areas where there are shortages of protective equipment, including in Asian countries, which have historically been affected by emerging infectious diseases, as well as in West Africa, which was the epicentre of the recent Ebola epidemic.
The authors speculate that the cloth masks' moisture retention, their reuse and poor filtration may explain the increased risk of infection.
Professor MacIntyre, who has completed the largest body of clincial trial research on respiratory protection in health workers internationally, said emerging infectious diseases are not constrained within geographical borders.
"Effective controls of outbreaks and pandemics at the origin impacts us directly, so it is important for global disease control that the use of cloth masks be discouraged in high-risk situations," she said.
"Despite more than half the world using cloth masks, global disease control guidelines, including those from the World Health Organisation, fail to clearly specify conditions of their use.
"These guidelines need to be updated to reflect the higher infection risk posed by cloth masks, as found in our study."
Professor MacIntyre said the study's results pointed to the effectiveness of medical masks, in addition to the harm caused by cloth masks.
"Additional research is urgently needed to build on our study's findings."
The trial was a collaboration between researchers in Australia and the National Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology in Vietnam and was funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant.
A separate expert review by Professor MacIntyre published in the British Medical Journal earlier this month found that the lack of research on facemasks and respirators is reflected in varied and sometimes conflicting global policies and guidelines.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of New South Wales. Original written by Dan Wheelahan. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Danistan
Gel blasters declared imitation guns by SA Police following public shootings - ABC News
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:24
Gel blasters will be regulated like other firearms in South Australia from tomorrow, as police crack down on the weapons following a series of incidents causing injury.
Key points: Gel blasters will be treated as imitation weapons in SA Owners will need a licence and will be required to store the items like firearms It will be illegal to use them outside of venues such as paintball facilitiesAll owners and new purchasers of gel blasters will be required to have a licence and store the weapons like regular guns.
The weapons '-- which can be made to closely resemble assault rifles '-- will only be permitted to be used in licensed venues including paintball facilities.
SA Police today said a gun amnesty would be extended to include gel blasters until April 2021, for those who do not wish to keep the weapons or apply for licences.
Current owners have six months to obtain a licence but cannot use the weapons until they have one.
Superintendent Stephen Howard said the guns '-- also known as hydro-blasters '-- meet the definition of a firearm for the purposes of regulation.
He said there had been more than 180 reports involving the guns in the past two years, including the shooting of a 10-year-old girl at a playground by two men who were never found.
"Not only do they fire a projectile, but they also look like a firearm of a different category or class," Superintendent Howard said.
"People were committing crimes or doing stupid things with them '... we shouldn't wait for someone to be either killed or seriously injured due to an incident involving gel blasters."
A man was arrested after allegedly pointing a gel blaster at another car on Augusta Highway.(Supplied: SA Police)A man allegedly pointed a gel blaster at another car travelling at high speed on the Augusta Highway in the state's north last month.
Another victim sustained eye injuries when he was shot from a passing car north of Adelaide earlier this year.
Superintendent Howard said SA Police had a responsibility to protect the public from the threat of physical and psychological harm.
"A lot of people say these are toys, but they're not toys. These don't meet the definition," he said.
"You could threaten someone with a gel blaster, and the person would either be concerned, 'Am I going to get shot by a gel blaster or am I going to get shot by a real firearm?'"
Superintendent Howard said technical upgrades to gel blasters had made them more dangerous.
He said while the decision would impact retailers, police had foreshadowed today's move in February this year, when the importation of gel blasters was banned.
Plandemic
Ultimate Proof: Covid-19 Was Planned To Usher In The New World Order |
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 13:20
1. Medical Doctors Declare That The Pandemic Was PlannedA group of over 500 medical doctors in Germany called 'Doctors for Information' made a shocking statement during a national press conference: (1)
'The Corona panic is a play. It's a scam. A swindle. It's high time we understood that we're in the midst of a global crime.'
This large group of medical experts publishes a medical newspaper on 500,000 copies every week, to inform the public about the massive misinformation in the mainstream media.
They also organize mass protests in Europe, like the one on August 29, 2020 where 12 million people signed up and several millions actually showed up.
Why do these 500+ medical doctors say the pandemic is a global crime? What do they know, that we don't?
One of the many protests against the ''plandemic'' that you will not see in the mainstream media
2. Hundreds Of Spanish Medical Doctors Say The Pandemic Is PlannedIn Spain a group of 600 medical doctors called 'Doctors for Truth', made a similar statement during a press conference.
Doctors for Truth, Spain
'Covid-19 is a false pandemic created for political purposes. This is a world dictatorship with a sanitary excuse. We urge doctors, the media and political authorities to stop this criminal operation, by spreading the truth.' (2)
Germany and Spain are just two examples. Similar large groups of hundreds of medical experts exist in countries across the world.
In the USA a documentary called PLANDEMIC, which exposes COVID-19 as a criminal operation, is supported by over 27,000 medical doctors!
Why are these thousands of medical professionals worldwide saying the pandemic is a crime? What information do they have access to, that we are not getting from the mainstream media?
I invite you to look at the following facts with an open mind and then come to your own conclusions'...
3. In 2015 A Testing Method Was Patented For'... COVID-19In 2015 a 'System and Method for Testing for COVID-19' was patented by Richard Rothschild, with a Dutch government organisation.
Did you catch that? In 2015 '' four years before the disease even existed '' a testing method for COVID-19 was developed. (2B)
Take a deep breath and let that sink in for a while'...
4. Millions Of COVID-19 Test Kits Sold In 2017 And 2018As we know the new COVID-19 disease appeared in China towards the end of 2019. Therefore it was named COVID-19 which is an acronym for Corona Virus Disease 2019.
Data from the World Integrated Trade Solution, however, shows something astonishing:
''in 2017 and 2018 '' two years before COVID-19 '' hundreds of millions of test kits for COVID-19 were distributed worldwide.''
'Quick! Hide It!!'This baffling data was discovered by someone on September 5, 2020, who posted it on social media. The next day it went viral all over the world.
On September 6 the WITS suddenly changed the original designation 'COVID-19' into the vague 'Medical Test Kits'.
This is not allowed in trade, because you always have to be specific. There are many types of test kits for different diseases.
The fact that they removed the specification 'COVID-19', after this data became known worldwide, proves that they don't want anyone to know about it.
They however forgot to delete one detail: the product code for these 'Medical Test Kits' is 300215 which means: 'COVID-19 Test Kits'.
Their cover up came too late: this critical information was uncovered and is being revealed by millions worldwide. You can download a PDF that shows the original data of this website.
Two years before the outbreak of COVID-19 the USA, the EU, China and nations around the world started exporting millions of diagnostic test instruments for'... COVID-19, a disease that supposedly didn't even exist back then.
6. The COVID-19 'Project' Is Planned Until 2025The World Bank shows that COVID-19 is a project that is planned to continue until'... end of March 2025! So the intention is to continue it for another FIVE YEARS. (2C)
7. Anthony Fauci Guaranteed A Pandemic Within The Next Two YearsIn 2017 Anthony Fauci made a very strange prediction, with an even stranger certainty.
With complete confidence Fauci announced that during the first term of President Trump a surprise outbreak of an infectious disease would surely happen.
Here's what he said: (3)
''There is NO QUESTION there is going to be a challenge for the coming administration in the arena of infectious diseases.
''There will be a SURPRISE OUTBREAK. There's NO DOUBT in anyones mind about this.''
How could Fauci guarantee a surprise outbreak to happen during the first term of the Trump administration? What did he know, that we don't?
8. Bill And Melinda Gates Guaranteed An Imminent Global PandemicIn 2018 Bill Gates publicly announced that a global pandemic was on it's way that could wipe out 30 million people. He said this would probably happen during the next decade. (4)
Melinda Gates added that an engineered virus is humanities greatest threat and also assured this would hit humanity in the coming years. (5)
'A global pandemic is ON IT'S WAY. An ENGINEERED VIRUS is humanities greatest threat. This will happen in the NEXT DECADE.' '' BILL GATES, in 2018
Let their choice of words resound into your mind for a moment'...
They claim that the dense population of the world guarantees this imminent global pandemic.
But let's be honest: most of the earth is uninhabited. Just fly over America in an airplane and look out the window. You see empty space most of the time, with a few cities here and there. Most of the United States is still wide open and empty.
The same goes for the rest of the world.
Australia, Russia, India, China, America, Africa'... it's wilderness for the most part. Our planet isn't nearly as populated as Bill Gates wants us to believe. This world map shows it clearly'...
Most of the earth is totally void of any human presence. So the idea that the world is vastly overpopulated and is therefor bound to give rise to an imminent global pandemic is a lie.
[The powers that shouldn't be also use this excuse to justify a reduction in the world's population '' i.e. depopulation.]
The Gates also claimed that air travel was sure to create a global pandemic. But countless people have been traveling in airplanes the past century.
Did that give rise to constant outbreaks of global pandemics? Of course not!
Their arguments why they guaranteed a global pandemic in the next few years are lies. So what is their real basis to make such guaranteed predictions?
9. Practicing For A PandemicA few months before the outbreak, Bill Gates '' the world's nr 1 vaccine dealer '' organized an event in New York City. Guess what the event was all about? It was a 'coronavirus pandemic exercise'.
Yes, you read that right:
Bill Gates organized a coronavirus pandemic exercise, right before it happened!
On the large display in the auditorium, you see the text printed: 'We need to prepare for the event that becomes a pandemic.' This pandemic exercise was called Event201 and took place in October 2019, literally right before the outbreak.
Their conclusion was that all of humanity must be vaccinated'...
10. Excitement About Selling Vaccines In The Next YearShortly after this 'exercise for a coronavirus pandemic' Bill Gates tweeted:
''I'm particularly excited about what the next year could mean for one of the best buys in global health: vaccines.'' '' Bill Gates, Dec. 19, 2019
Think about this: the world's nr 1 vaccine dealer guarantees a global pandemic to occur in the next few years, and his wife said we should all fear an engineered virus that is 'on its way'. Then they organize an exercise for an imminent global pandemic and say vaccines will be the only solution. Next Bill Gates tweets how excited he is about selling vaccines in the next year. Immediately after that, the announced pandemic breaks out.
Indeed, right away Bill Gates proclaims that the only solution for humanity is to buy his vaccines'...
11. 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic Predicted In 2013Back in 2013 a musician wrote a song called PANDEMIC. In his lyrics he described a global pandemic that kills millions, shuts down economies and gives rise to riots.
His song literally described in great detail what we are seeing in our world today, seven years later.
He even mentioned the exact year of the pandemic: 2020, and the specific type of virus: a coronavirus. (6)
This is a line in his lyrics from 2013:
'2020 combined with CoronaVirus, bodies stacking.'
This song also predicted the riots that are now raging throughout America:
'The State is rioting, using the street outside. It's coming to your windows.'
How could this musician have known in 2013 that a coronavirus pandemic would break out in 2020, and that during this pandemic riots would erupt? He explains:
'I did research back in 2012, and read the so called ''conspiracy theories''. You know, those investigations the media doesn't want us to look into. According to those theories pandemics were bound to happen in the decade of 2020 '' 2030. So I wrote the song Pandemic about it.'
12. Global Preparedness Monitoring Board In Sept. 2019: 'Get Ready For A Global Coronavirus Pandemic'In September 2019 '' also right before the outbreak '' the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board released a report titled 'A World At Risk'.
It stressed the need to be prepared for'... a coronavirus outbreak!
On the cover of the report is the picture of a coronavirus and people wearing face masks.
In the report we read the following interesting paragraph:
'The United Nations (including WHO) conducts at least two system-wide training and simulation exercises, including one for covering the deliberate release of a lethal respiratory pathogen.'
Did you catch that?
They have been practicing for a deliberate release of a lethal respiratory pathogen.
13. Outbreak From China Announced
In 2018 The Institute for Disease Modeling made a video in which they show a flu virus originating in China, from the area of Wuhan, and spreading all over the world, killing millions. They called it 'A Simulation For A Global Flu Pandemic.' That is exactly what happened, two years later.
Why did they say it would come from China? Why not Africa, where far more diseases are present? Or why not South America? Or India? How could they know there would be a flu virus coming from China and even show Wuhan as the originating area, that would infect the whole world?
Was This Coronavirus Engineered?Where did the virus come from? One of the world's leading experts in bioweapons is Dr. Francis Boyle. He is convinced it originated from a bioweapon lab in Wuhan, the Bio Safety Lab Level 4.
This facility is specialized in the development of'... coronaviruses!
They take existing viruses and 'weaponize' them, meaning they make them far more dangerous, to be used as a biological weapon.
In the following two minute video clip you see a spokesperson for the Trump administration, bioweapon expert Dr. Francis Boyle and president Trump talk about how this virus came from the lab in Wuhan.
Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese virologist (MD, PhD) fled the country, left her job at a prestigious Hong Kong university and became a whistleblower. She appeared on British television where she claimed SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, was created by Chinese scientists in a lab '' and she offered evidence to support her claims. You can read more on the subject HERE.
Now comes the most interesting part:
14. In 2015 Anthony Fauci Gave This Very Lab 3,7 Million Dollars.Figure this: the same man who guaranteed a surprise outbreak of a virus in the next two years, gave almost 4 million dollars to a lab that develops coronaviruses.
In the short clip below you can see a journalist ask president Trump about this grant given by Fauci to the Wuhan lab.
There are however more options in Wuhan where this virus could have originated from. Some believe it came from the Wuhan Virology Institute, where they also work on weaponizing coronaviruses.
15. Chinese Biological Experiments To Infect Humans With Coronavirus Exposed In 2015 By Italian State MediaFive years ago, Italian state owned media Company, RAI '' Radiotelevisione Italiana, '' exposed dark efforts by China on viruses.
The video, which was broadcast in November, 2015, showed how Chinese scientists were doing biological experiments on a SARS connected virus believed to be Coronavirus, derived from bats and mice, asking whether it was worth the risk in order to be able to modify the virus for compatibility with human organisms.
Below is a transcription of the Italian broadcast translated in English:
Chinese Biological Experiments
Chinese scientists have created a pulmonary supervirus from bats and mice only for study reasons but there are many questionable aspects to this. Is it worth the risk? It's an experiment, of course, but it is worrisome.
It worries many scientists: It is a group of Chinese researchers attaching a protein taken from bats to the SARS virus, Acute Pneumonia, derived from mice.
The output is a super coronavirus that could affect humans. '' (Source here, were you can read more)
16. Movies Predicted The Coronavirus PandemicPredictive programming is the process of informing the population about events that are soon to occur.
The past years several movies and television series were produced, about'... a global coronavirus pandemic!
The film 'Dead Plague' depicts a global pandemic with a coronavirus and even mentions hydroxychloroquine as the cure.
Another film called 'Contagion' shows how a coronavirus spreads globally with social distancing, face masks, lock-downs, washing of hands etc. as a result.
Literally everything we see now, is predicted in detail in these movies.
17. Pandemic Depicted During Olympics Summergames In 2012Talking about predictive programming: during the opening show of the Summer Olympics in 2012, a coronavirus pandemic was played out for the eyes of the whole world.
Dozens of hospital beds, large numbers of nurses becoming puppets of a controlling system, death lurking about, a demonic giant rising up over the world, and the whole theatre was lit up in such a way that seen from the sky it looked like a coronavirus.
Why did the Olympic Games show a coronavirus pandemic, in their opening show?
18. Worldwide Lockdown Predicted In 2008
The author and investigator Robin de Ruiter predicted in 2008 that there would come a global lockdown.
He said the purpose of this would be to create a new world of authoritarian control.
Because much of what he wrote back in 2008 is now happening right in front of our eyes, this book has been republished.
19. Journalists Predicted Planned PandemicIn 2014 the investigative journalist Harry Vox predicted a planned global pandemic and said why the 'ruling class' would do such thing:
'They will stop at nothing to complete their toolkit of control. One of the things that had been missing from their toolkit is quarantines and curfews. The plan is to get hundreds of thousands of people infected with it and create the next phase of control.' (7)
20. 'Scenario For The Future'This renown researcher refers to a famous document by the Rockefeller Foundation in which everything we see happening now is literally predicted in great detail: the global pandemic, the lock-downs, the collapse of the economy and the imposing of authoritarian control.
It's all described with terrifying accuracy'... ten years before it happened!
The document is titled 'Scenario for the Future of Technology and International Development'. (9)
That says it all: a scenario for the future. It has a chapter called 'LockStep' in which a global pandemic is reported as if it happened in the past, but which is clearly intended as a rehearsal for the future.
Rockefeller Foundation's Operation Lockstep: 'Under The Guise Of A Pandemic, We Will Create A Prison State'
The 'Scenario for the Future' continues with comparing two different responses to their predicted pandemic: the USA only 'strongly discouraged' people from flying, while China enforced mandatory quarantine for all citizens.
The first response is accused of spreading the virus even more, while the imposing of a suffocating lock-down is praised. Then it goes on to describe the implementation of totalitarian control:
''During the pandemic, national leaders around the world flexed their authority and imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets.''
Clearly the flexing of authority is the desired response. But it gets worse, according to this 'Scenario of the Future':
'Even after the pandemic faded, this more authoritarian control and oversight of citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified.'
'In developed countries, this heightened oversight took many forms: biometric IDs for all citizens, for example, and tighter regulation of key industries whose stability was deemed vital to national interests.'
Handbook For Global ControlNow that the announced pandemic is indeed here, the same Rockefeller Foundation came forward with step two: a handbook on how to implement new control systems during this pandemic. Only when all the required control networks are in place, can the world open up again.
When you combine the two Rockefeller documents, you see the plan:
1) First they announce a global pandemic with a coronavirus and say what it should lead to: a whole new level of authoritarian control. 2) Secondly they give practical steps on how to apply this control system.
These are illustrations and quotes from their guide:
'Digital apps and privacy-protected tracking software should be widely used to enable more complete contact tracking.'
'In order to fully control the Covid-19 epidemic, we need to test the majority of the population on a weekly basis.'
According to their 'Scenario of the future' the entire world population should get a digital ID that indicates who has received all the vaccines. Without sufficient vaccinations, access to schools, concerts, churches, public transport etc. will be denied.
Now in 2020 that is exactly what Bill Gates and many governments are calling for.
21. Bill Gates Negotiated $100 Billion Contact Tracing Deal With Democratic Congressman Sponsor Of Bill Six Months BEFORE Coronavirus PandemicThe shocking revelations were unveiled on the Thomas Paine Podcast and the Moore Paine Show on Patreon by the two investigators.
nine months after the meetings with the Gates Foundation in Rwanda '-- Bobby L. Rush, a Democrat from Illinois, introduced the $100 BILLION H.R. 6666, the COVID-19 Testing, Reaching and Contacting Everyone (TRACE) Act.
Everyone's Contacts Must Be CheckedIn a leaked government video (10) we see a conversation between former American president Bill Clinton and Andrew Cuomo, the governor of the state of New York.
They discuss how to set up a large control system to test the entire population and check all their contacts. They discuss how to build an army to carry out this control system.
A Whole New Level Of Global ControlBill Gates also made it clear that only people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 should be allowed to travel, go to school, attend meetings and work. (11)
Digital vaccine ID's are already being developed (12) and Gates has a patent on the technology that makes it possible to trace an individual's body anywhere. This technology is called WO2020-060606 (13).
Also very interesting to note: An Enzyme Called LUCIFERASE Is What Makes Bill Gates Implantable Vaccine Work
In addition, Gates wants to set up a global monitoring network, which will track everyone who came into contact with Covid-19 (14).
The Plan: Inject Mankind With DNA Altering VaccineThe famous investigative journalist Anthony Patch did years of research concerning the plans to control the world, by means of created pandemics and mandatory vaccines. During an interview in 2014 this researcher predicted the following:
'They will release a man-made coronavirus. As a result the people will demand a vaccine to protect them. This vaccine will add a third strain of DNA to a persons body, essentially making them a hybrid.
'Once a person is injected, almost immediately their DNA undergoes a transformation. This genetic change will cause people to loose the ability to think for themselves, without them even being aware this happened. Thus they can be controlled easier, to become slaves for the elite.'
Of course that sounds insane and it is insane indeed. Yet we have to be aware that this professional investigator is no fool. He has done years of research and this is what he discovered over the years.
We must be careful not to reject sound knowledge, based on years of research, simply because of our own lack of insight in these topics.
20 Years Of Research Say: The Vaccine Will Change Our DNADoctor Carrie Madej directed two large clinics in Georgia, before she went to the Dominican Republic to do humanitarian work. She studied DNA and vaccines for the past twenty years and made an urgent video in which she warns that there is a plan to inject humanity with very dangerous vaccines for Covid-19.
The purpose of these new vaccines will be twofold:
1) reprogram our DNA and make us hybrids that are easier to control.
2) connect us to artificial intelligence through a digital vaccine ID, which will also open a whole new realm of control.
This medical expert says she has observed multiple times how diseases were spread over populations by air craft. Because of satefy reasons she is not able to share more details about this in public.
Depopulate The Earth By Means Of Organized EpidemicsDr. John Coleman is a famous Intelligence Officer from the CIA who wrote a book titled 'The Committee of 300'.
In it he explains how secret societies manipulate governments, health care, food industries, the media and so on. This book can be found on the website of the CIA. (15)
One of the primary goals of the many secret societies, that control governments and the media, is to depopulate the earth.
You can find a list of 32 'elites' who support and promote (according to their own claims) depopulation HERE.
Dr. Coleman says the following about their strategy:
'At least 4 billion useless eaters shall be eliminated by the year 2050 by means of limited wars and organized epidemics of fatal rapid acting diseases'...' '' DR. JOHN COLEMAN, CIA INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
Maintain Humanity Under 500,000,000In 1980 a granite monument was erected in Georgia, called the Guidestones. A set of 10 guidelines is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient language scripts.
The first guideline goes as follows:
1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
The CIA officer Dr. Coleman revealed that one of their methods to 'maintain humanity' is to cause 'organized epidemics of fatal rapid acting diseases'.
Using Vaccines To Reduce HumanityDuring a TED talk Bill Gates echoed this goal, when he literally said that new vaccines can be used to reduce the world's population with 10 '' 15%! (16)
'There are now 6.7 billion people on earth and soon there will be 9 billion. However, we can reduce that number by ten to fifteen percent if we do a good job with new vaccines, health care and birth control'. '' BILL GATES, VACCINE DEALER
Covid19 Vaccine For Population Control?Mike Adams is a published food scientist, author of the popular science book Food Forensics and founder of ISO-accredited CWC Labs.
Years ago he said the following:
''An engineered bioweapon will be released in population centers. There will be calls for massive government funding for the vaccine industry to come up with a vaccine. Miraculously, they will have a vaccine developed in record time. Everyone will be required to line up and take this vaccine shot.''
There is indeed a release of an engineered bioweapon, followed by a vaccine mandate, massive government funding for the vaccine industry and a vaccine that is being developed in record time.
The rest of his message is that this vaccine will slowly begin to kill millions '' if not billions '' of people over the course of a few years. It will be a kill-switch vaccine, designed to reduce the world's population.
SUMMARY: WAS THE PANDEMIC PLANNED?Thousands of medical doctors call the pandemic a global crime, and a world dictatorship with a sanitary excuse.
Two years before Covid-19 came to the global scene, the European Union, the USA, China and other nations suddenly started exporting tens of millions of test kits for Covid-19.
In 2013 a musician predicts a global pandemic with a coronavirus and says this will happen in 2020. He knew this because of personal investigation of so called 'conspiracy theories'.
In 2017 Anthony Fauci guaranteed a surprise outbreak of an infectious disease during the first term of the Trump administration.
Right before the outbreak of a coronavirus pandemic, Bill Gates organized a global coronavirus pandemic exercise: Event201.
Right before the outbreak the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board told the world to be ready for a coronavirus pandemic.
In 2018 the Institute for Disease Modeling announced a global pandemic with a flu virus, originating in China in the area of Wuhan.
In 2018 Bill and Melinda Gates announced that in the coming years there would be a global pandemic of an engineered virus.
The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was created in the Bio Safety Lab Level 4 in Wuhan, which received millions of dollars from Anthony Fauci.
Several movies depicted the coronavirus pandemic with great detail, and even mention hydroxychloroquine as the cure.
The Summer Olympics in 2012 played a pandemic of a coronavirus during their opening show.
The investigative journalist Harry Vox predicted in 2014 that a global pandemic would be caused, so the 'ruling class' could implement a higher level of authoritarian control.
The investigative journalist Anthony Patch predicted a global pandemic with a man made virus, that would be used to force a DNA altering vaccine on humanity.
Dr. Carrie Madej studied DNA and vaccines for decades and says the plan is to use the Covid-19 vaccine to start the process of transhumanism: reprogramming the human DNA.
The CIA officer Dr. John Coleman studied secret societies and says their goal is to depopulate the earth by means of organized pandemics of fatal rapid acting diseases.
In the state of Georgia a huge monument was erected in 1980 with ten guidelines for humanity, in eight languages. The first of these 'Ten Commandments' is that humanity needs to be reduced to half a billion people.
Bill Gates said during a TED talk that new vaccines can be used to reduce the world's population with 10-15%.
The 'health ranger' Mike Adams predicted years ago what we see happening now: the release of an engineered bioweapon, followed by a vaccine mandate, massive government funding for the vaccine industry and a vaccine that is being developed in record time. He also predicted that this vaccine will kill innumerable people over the course of a couple of years.
In 2010 the Rockefeller Foundation published the 'Scenario for the future'...' in which they describe a coming global pandemic, that should result in the implementation of authoritarian control over the people, which will then intensify after the pandemic.
In 2020 they publish a handbook on how to create this world of control, with a step by step guide. They say life cannot return back to normal, until the world has become 'Locked Down' with this top down control from authoritarian governments.
We indeed see that Bill Gates and many others worldwide are right away seizing control in unprecedented ways, with enforcing vaccine ID's, microchips that will be implanted into people, mandating the wearing of face masks, social distancing, forced lock-downs, extreme contact tracing, and so on.
Part of this top down control is extreme censoring of every single voice from doctors, scientists or other experts that criticize what is going on.
All Predictions Were Done Shortly Before It HappenedNote that every single prediction of this pandemic was announced a few years or even months before it happened. That is significant.
Gates and Fauci lie to their audience when they say 'history tells us this will happen', but there is no historic basis for guaranteeing a global coronavirus pandemic to occur within a few months or years.
Never in history did anything like this occur, on such a global scale.
The fact that such a historically unique event was predicted in great detail '' by movies, shows, investigators, medical doctors, those who finance labs that develop these viruses, those who earn billions from these pandemics, those who want to create a whole new level of control in our world, etc. '' shows it was planned.
Are There Signs That The Pandemic Is Being Manipulated?So far we have looked at indications that the pandemic was planned beforehand. If it is indeed orchestrated, then that should also be obvious during the pandemic. A planned pandemic is also a controlled pandemic.
The Plan To Control The WorldYou may have heard the word 'globalists' before, but for those who aren't familiar with it: these are people around the world who plan to create one global government, so they can have total global control over health, religion, finances '' everything.
Main players in this are the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and many others.
They recently came together in an event called DAVOS, where they expressed how the pandemic will be used to deploy their plans.
Here are some of the statements they made: (18)
'Now is the historic moment in time, not only to fight the virus, but TO SHAPE THE SYSTEM. The pandemic represents a window of opportunity to RESET OUR WORLD.
The world must act jointly and swiftly to REVAMP ALL ASPECTS of our societies and economies, from educational to social contacts and working conditions.
EVERY COUNTRY, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be TRANSFORMED.' '' Klaus Schwab, Funder of the World Economic Forum
A major leader of gobalism, is the World Economic Forum, founded by Klaus Schwab. He created a 'spinning wheel' with all their objectives. On it we can see the following three 'projects': Covid19 followed by Global Governance, and Internet Governance.
Good read: The Response To Coronavirus Is The New World Order / Agenda 2030
Nobody Wants These OrganizationsNot a single human on the earth has voted for these organizations to even exist, let alone take full control of our lives, families, communities, jobs, health, industries, etc. Yet they present themselves as our 'world leaders' who are planning our entire future.
The World Health Organization presents itself as the global boss over our health, without anyone of us having chosen for them.
They apply a tyranny in mainstream media and social media, where no expression of medical or scientific expertise is allowed, unless it is in line with the guidelines of this 'World' organization.
Tens of thousands of medical doctors and scientists have been censored all over the world, by Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. Why? Because these social media giants state that ONLY what the World health Organization says, is true.
All of humanity must submit to these people who have positioned themselves over all of us, without ever asking our opinion or even consulting with other medical experts.
In fact, every single medical expert speaking out against their decisions is censored.
This means complete loss of medical freedom, loss of freedom of speech, loss of true science, loss of true journalism and an imposing of dictatorships by organizations that nobody voted for, lead by people nobody wanted and yet they simply seize ownership of our world.
They are the big fat mean bully on the playground, that plays boss over everyone.
World Health Organization Is Run By A TerroristThe head of the Word Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is a member of a violent revolutionary communist party in Ethiopia, Tigray People's Liberation Front. (19)
The Department of Homeland Security clearly states:
''The TPLF qualifies as a Tier III terrorist organization'... on the basis of its violent activities'...''
Let this get through to you: the man directing the World Health Organization is literally a communist terrorist, who has been involved in murdering thousands of innocent people, trying to impose communism on Ethiopia.
And this man is bullying the entire world, telling all of us what we can and cannot do, censoring every medical professional who has a different opinion, demanding blind obedience from all of humanity, while imposing mandates to be vaccinated by their number one financial sponsor: Bill Gates.
Is this the world you want to live in, from now on?
More And More Pandemics, Untill Mankind SubmitsThese globalists even threaten humanity with more suffering, if we don't submit to their total control. Prince Charles recently joined DAVOS and publicly stated:
''There will be more and more pandemics, if we don't do 'the great reset' now.'' (18)
Bill Gates already calls this 'pandemic one' and is talking about 'pandemic two and three'.
The investigator who back in 2013 predicted a coronavirus pandemic to occur in 2020, followed by riots, said the plan is to create series of pandemics during 2020-2030.
This decade is the selected timeframe to turn the world into one big banana republic, run by mad powerhungry men, who depopulate the earth, and enslave the rest of humanity.
They are planning to cause as many pandemics as needed, in order to break the back of humanity, until everybody submits to their global control.
Are you beginning to understand why more than 500 medical doctors from Germany, 600 doctors from Spain, thousands of medical experts from the USA and many more all over the world are calling this pandemic a 'global' crime'?
Leaders Of Catholic Church Warn HumanityAn archbishop and several cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church wrote a letter to humanity, to warn us for gloval tyranny under the guise of Covid-19.
This is an excert of this historic message, that has been translated in many languages and was sent to leaders all over the world. (20)
''We have reason to believe, on the basis of official data on the incidence of the epidemic as related to the number of deaths, that there are powers interested in creating panic among the world's population with the sole aim of permanently imposing unacceptable forms of restriction on freedoms, of controlling people and of tracking their movements. The imposition of these illiberal measures is a disturbing prelude to the realization of a world government beyond all control.''
Is There Hope? What Can We Do?Is there any hope for our future, or are we surrendered to the merciless hands of these wicked mega-billionaires who want to depopulate the earth and seize total control over humanity?
Yes, there is hope. The future is brighter than we can even imagine!
This is not a doom and gloom scenario, but a wake up call for humanity to stop blindly believing the mafia-media and perverse politicians, and rise up as one for a future of freedom.
I invite you to join a unique and historic movement of Global Freedom Fighters, who will lead humanity into a new era of hope, restoration and more freedom than we have ever known.
Source: StopWorldControl.com / References:
1: German group of Doctors For Information
2: Spanish group of Doctors For Truth
2B: Richard Rothshild patented a testing method for COVID-19 in 2015
2C: World Bank shows planned end date of project COVID-19
3: Fauci guarantees an outbreak with the next two years.
4: Bill Gates announced a global pandemic
5: Melinda Gates says humanities greatest threat is an engineered virus
6: Lyrics of 2013 song that predicted coronavirus pandemic in 2020
7: Harry Vox predicted the global pandemic
8: Robin de Ruiter predicted lockdowns
9: Scenario for the future described global pandemic
10: Andrew Cuomo talks with Bill Clinton about authoritarian control
11: Bill Gates talks about a digital ID to control people
12: Linking vaccines to a digital ID
13: Gates has pattent on technology to trace a body anywhere
14: Gates wants a global monitoring system
15: Download the book of CIA officer Coleman
16: Gates talks about reducing world population using vaccines
17: Tens of millions of Covid-19 test kist were exported by the EU, USA, China etc in 2017 and 2018
18: DAVOS and the gathering of the globalists
19: The head of the World Health Organization is member of violent terorrist group
20: Letter from archbishop and cardinals to humanity
Ultimate Proof: Covid-19 Was Planned to Usher in the New World Order
Vaccines and such
Exclusive: Moderna vaccine trial contractors fail to enroll enough minorities, prompting slowdown | Article [AMP] | Reuters
Tue, 06 Oct 2020 13:22
Tue Oct 6, 2020 / 7:15 AM EDT
CHICAGO CHICAGO (Reuters) - Private contractors hired by Moderna Inc to recruit volunteers for its coronavirus vaccine trial failed to enroll enough Black, Latino and Native American participants to determine how well the vaccine works in these populations, company executives and vaccine researchers told Reuters.
To make up for the shortfall, Moderna slowed enrollment of its late-stage trial and instructed research centers to focus on increasing participation among minority volunteers, the company said. The effort is being bolstered by academic researchers who have longstanding relationships with organizations in Black and other minority communities.
Five investigators working on the Moderna trial said in interviews that commercial site investigators quickly filled a large portion of the 30,000-person study with mostly white volunteers.
But COVID-19 infects Blacks in the United States at nearly three times the rate of white Americans, and they are twice as likely to die from the virus, according to a report by the National Urban League and other studies.
And communities of color count prominently among healthcare workers and populations at high risk of COVID-19 complications, making them among the first likely to be eligible for a new vaccine, experts said.
Dr. Paul Evans, chief executive of Velocity Clinical Research in Durham, North Carolina, whose company was hired to test the Moderna vaccine at five sites, said efforts to enroll volunteers from diverse backgrounds to provide proper population balance is ''notoriously difficult'' in any clinical trial.
"If there's a problem with recruiting minorities, and there is, you can't fix that overnight," he said.
Black Americans made up only about 7% of the trial as of Sept. 17. That should be closer to 13% to reflect the actual U.S. population.
During the last two weeks of September, Moderna said it increased the proportion of Black enrollment, but declined to provide details.
Increased trial participation could help address distrust between communities of color and the medical industry after years of underrepresentation in pharmaceutical research, historical horror stories of medical experimentation without consent, and socioeconomic and health access inequities, vaccine experts and public health officials say.
One-fourth of Moderna's 100 trial sites are run by academic centers that are part of the National Institute of Health's (NIH) COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network (CoVPN), while the rest are largely commercial subcontractors. A contract research organization called PPD was hired by Moderna to oversee the trial sites.
"We are essentially making up" for the commercial sites, said one CoVPN investigator not authorized to speak publicly.
Dr. Larry Corey, co-leader of CoVPN, said the NIH has invested in clinical trial sites with outreach programs staffed by doctors and nurses with ties to minority communities.
"That's not something that is part of the business model of commercial research organizations," Corey said.
Moderna is one of the furthest along in the U.S. race for a vaccine seen as essential to ending a pandemic that has claimed over a million lives worldwide. It received more than $1 billion in government funding to develop and produce its candidate, and another $1.5 billion to supply it to the American public.
ENTRENCHED BARRIERS, VACCINE HESITANCY
PPD referred requests for comment to Moderna. But two of the commercial firms said they had received overwhelming trial participation interest from white volunteers. Several researchers said they struggled to overcome the entrenched barriers that traditionally limit minority enrollment.
Moderna planned from the start to recruit a racially diverse group of volunteers, Chief Executive Stephane Bancel told Reuters. The results were decidedly mixed, and recruitment at some underperforming sites was halted, he said.
On Moderna's website, as many as 17 of the 100 participating trial sites are listed as active but not recruiting, without listing a reason.
Bancel said the enrollment slowdown, announced in early September, will not keep the company from seeking emergency use authorization (EUA) for its vaccine in the United States, provided initial results show it to be safe and effective.
Moderna could seek an EUA for inoculating high-risk groups such as healthcare workers as early as November.
The company said it will provide complete data on the more diverse trial group in its formal application seeking commercial approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration next year.
Even with that approval, there are likely to be hurdles to convincing Black Americans to take the vaccine.
According to a Pew Research Center survey released in September, only 32% of Black adults said they would definitely or probably get a COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 52% of white adults, 56% of Hispanics and 72% of Asian Americans.
Some trial investigators attributed the minority recruitment shortfall in part to the demands of testing a coronavirus vaccine at unprecedented speed.
"It essentially was becoming first-come, first-served, and it was skewing towards not getting enough minorities,'' said Dr. Rambod Rouhbakhsh, a lead researcher at the MediSync Clinical Research Hattiesburg Clinic in Petal, Mississippi, a commercial site hired by PPD for the Moderna trial.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui, who runs the U.S. Operation Warp Speed program that has funded Moderna's vaccine and others, joined a virtual town hall last week organized by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push coalition in Atlanta.
He told Black leaders that minority enrollment in Moderna's trial had fallen short and appealed for help in encouraging volunteers from the community.
''Developing a vaccine that is not used in a fraction of the population is the same as having no vaccine," Slaoui said. "It is absolutely useless.''
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
Report suggests 2013 meeting between Gates, Epstein helped create longterm vaccine projects | News | LifeSite
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:52
PETITION: No to mandatory vaccination for the coronavirus! Sign the petition here.
October 6, 2020 ( LifeSiteNews) '' Deceased convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein attended a 2013 meeting with Bill Gates and may have been instrumental in establishing connections between Gates and a think tank involved in the production of vaccines, according to a recently published investigative report by DN Magasinet (commonly referred to as DN), Norway's third-largest newspaper.
''They came to my Residence with their respective delegations. Bill Gates and Epstein arrived together, followed by the others. I made an introduction on the European system for controlling medicines,'' Thorbj¸rn Jagland, a former Prime Minister of Norway and Former Nobel Committee chair told the newspaper via email.
''Also present were representatives of the think tank International Peace Institute (IPI), who later that year partnered with Gates' foundation in the fight against polio,'' the newspaper reports.
Jagland explained that ''Bill Gates and IPI had entered a collaboration to provide polio vaccines to the vulnerable tribal areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan.'' But the DN report notes that ''[at] the time, IPI didn't have a relationship with Gates. The first grant came a few months later, in October 2013.''
At the time of the meeting Gates was considered to be a potential recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize because of his work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
DN says that it ''has spoken to a number of sources familiar with the meeting in Strasbourg, and has reviewed documentation that ties Epstein to the meeting'' and that, according to their sources, ''Epstein, who knew Gates, was the person that introduced the billionaire to IPI.''
''The meeting, where IPI introduced Gates to a polio eradication project, was to be very successful. Later the same year, Gates' foundation granted IPI 2.5 million dollar[s]. Since then, an addition 6 million dollars has followed, according to the foundation. The most recent grant was earlier this year, with an additional 250,000 dollars,'' the DN report notes.
Epstein was arrested and officially charged in July 2019 with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors in a high-profile case that was believed to implicate many prominent figures around the world. He then allegedly killed himself in his cell at New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in August 2019.
Epstein was previously accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls in Florida in 2007. He avoided federal prison by striking a deal with state authorities that resulted in him being sentenced to 13 months in a county jail and registering as a sex offender.
Curiously, as recently as December 2019, Jagland claimed to have never had any contact with Epstein.
Last year DN wrote to Berit Reiss-Andersen, the current chair of the Nobel committee, asking if any of the committee (of which Jagland is still a member) had ever had contact with Epstein.
''I passed DN's questions to Jagland and he answered in the negative on any contact with Epstein,'' Reiss-Andersen told DN.
''Yesterday, Jagland explained there was a misunderstanding, which I accept. Naturally, it's unfortunate that I gave an answer that turns out not to be correct,'' she continued before adding that ''it is obviously unfortunate that DN was misinformed.''
Jagland explained his original claim that he had never met Epstein by saying: ''I had in mind DN's crazy and absurd conspiracy theory that I had had dinner with this person in Paris in June. There might have been a misunderstanding, which I take full responsibility for, and apologise.''
In September 2019 Gates told the Wall Street Journal that, although he had met Epstein, he ''didn't have any business relationship or friendship with him.''
In October 2019 the New York Times reported that ''[in] fact, beginning in 2011, Mr. Gates met with Mr. Epstein on numerous occasions '-- including at least three times at Mr. Epstein's palatial Manhattan townhouse, and at least once staying late into the night, according to interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the relationship, as well as documents reviewed by The New York Times.''
In November 2019 Gates told the New York Times DealBook conference that he had ''made a mistake in judgment'' by spending time with Epstein and that he ''thought that that those discussions would lead literally to billions of dollars going to global health.''
''Turned out that was a bad judgment, that was a mirage, none of that money ever appeared,'' Gates said.
DN's report says that The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation responded to inquiries stating that ''The foundation has never had any financial dealings with Epstein.''
''We work with the International Peace Institute, a grantee that supports our efforts to improve health in Pakistan and Afghanistan,'' they told the Norwegian newspaper.
But the DN report then notes that ''IPI has several links to Epstein, including through a donation of 375,000 dollars from one of his foundations. Several press releases from Epstein's organisations are about the partnership with the think tank.''
In April this year, while speaking about the coronavirus crisis and international lockdowns, Gates told the Financial Times that ''normalcy only returns when we've largely vaccinated the entire global population.'' During the interview Gates interrupted his own reflections on the wide-ranging impacts of the coronavirus crisis, saying ''you don't have a choice,'' although it is unclear exactly what he meant by the comment.
Also in April 2020, Gates speculated, ''Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.''
Longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of Trump's top pandemic advisors, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said in April 2020 he thought it was ''possible'' that one day Americans may have to carry certificates showing they are immune to the coronavirus.
''I think it might actually have some merit under certain circumstances,'' he said.
A number of other leading global figures, such as former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, have called for the creation of digital IDs to track ''disease status'' as part of the plans for responding to the coronavirus crisis.
A December 2019 article in Scientific American reported that research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for embedding vaccine records ''directly into the skin'' of children came about due a direct request from Gates.
''Along with the vaccine, a child would be injected with a bit of dye that is invisible to the naked eye but easily seen with a special cell-phone filter, combined with an app that shines near-infrared light onto the skin. The dye would be expected to last up to five years, according to tests on pig and rat skin and human skin in a dish.''
The development of this idea, which the article proudly noted avoids using ''iris scans'' that might violate privacy, was ''funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.'' It ''came about because of a direct request from Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates himself, who has been supporting efforts to wipe out diseases such as polio and measles across the world.''
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., nephew of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy and an American environmental attorney and author, has been outspoken in outlining reasons for concern about various vaccine projects, including those that receive funding from Gates. Kennedy has been raising awareness about children injured by vaccines since before the coronavirus outbreak.
In an April 9, 2020 article, Kennedy wrote: ''Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft's ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.''
In a recent online debate on mandatory vaccinations Kennedy pointed out that a significant percentage of participants in a recent trial for a leading coronavirus vaccine have been hospitalized.
Kennedy also noted that several of the coronavirus vaccine developers, a number of which have received funding from Gates, have been forced to pay billions of dollars in criminal penalties related to their medical products.
''It requires a cognitive dissonance for people who understand the criminal corporate cultures of these four companies to believe that they're doing this in every other product that they have, but they're not doing it with vaccines,'' Kennedy said.
Last month the World Health Organization (WHO) linked polio outbreaks in Africa to oral polio vaccines. Gates is one of the leading global funders of oral polio vaccines in Africa and around the world, with Devin Thorpe, a collaborator with Gates on polio related initiatives writing in Forbes last year that Gates has ''personally [driven] the development'' of new oral polio vaccines and plays a ''strategic role beyond funding.''
Trump Says FDA Pulled 'Political Hit Job' With Vaccine Rules
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 11:47
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Regeneron antibodies in demand after Trump treatment, doctors seek more data | Article [AMP] | Reuters
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 10:26
Wed Oct 7, 2020 / 9:57 PM EDT
(Reuters) - Patients are asking to join clinical trials of antibody-based COVID-19 drugs after U.S. President Donald Trump was treated last week with an experimental therapy from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc, and on Wednesday he promised to make it free to Americans while touting its benefits.
Medical experts said more data is needed to assess the treatment's efficacy before wider use should be allowed.
Trump was discharged from the hospital late on Monday, just a few days after being diagnosed with COVID-19 that caused enough lung inflammation for blood oxygen levels to fall.
According to his doctor, blood tests on Monday detected infection-fighting antibodies, which a Regeneron spokesperson said were probably from the treatment.
The company said on Wednesday that it has submitted a request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an emergency use authorization (EUA) for its antibody combination.
In a video shot outside the White House, Trump credited the Regeneron therapy for his feeling much better than when he was first diagnosed and said he would push for EUAs of that treatment and others like it. He mistakenly said the drug was called Regeneron.
Regeneron's drug is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies - manufactured copies of antibodies that are one of the main weapons the immune system generates to fight infections.
The company so far has released some early data pointing to the promise of its therapy for COVID-19, and doctors were concerned Trump's treatment and subsequent promotion could put pressure on regulators
Dr. Gary Kleiner, a pediatric immunologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and investigator in a trial designed to see if Regeneron's antibodies can prevent coronavirus infection, said he has been approached by patients seeking the drug since last week.
Dr. Dirk Sostman, head of the research network at Houston Methodist Hospital, a trial site for Regeneron and Eli Lilly & Co antibody programs, said more patients are asking to participate in an antibody trial.
He was cautious about broader use without more data.
"All we have seen are very brief press releases ... so there is not much to go on," he said.
"The politics of the situation would suggest to me that the story could be Trump gets COVID ... then American technology fostered by the Trump Administration cures COVID," Sostman added. "I would think there would be pressure on regulators."
Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking on Monday on CNN, said he was "strongly suspicious" that Regeneron's drug has contributed to Trump's progress. "Obviously you can't prove that until you do a number of studies to show that it actually works," he said.
Doctors emphasized that the timeline for Trump's illness was not entirely clear. "If he is responding at a pace where he is truly much better, it is going to be due to the antibodies," said Dr. Edward Jones-Lopez, infectious disease specialist at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.
Giving the treatment to the president seems "a tacit endorsement by the federal medical bureaucracy for Regeneron's medicine, and we expect an EUA for the treatment of COVID in a matter of days," Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges said in a research note.
"Patients most likely to benefit from this treatment have a similar profile to President Trump, in that they had undetectable antibodies at baseline and were early in the course of disease," Regeneron spokeswoman Alexandra Bowie said in an emailed statement.
Regeneron has received $450 million from the U.S. government for up to 300,000 doses of the dual-antibody cocktail, and the company has said those supplies would be distributed free of charge.
Eli Lilly on Wednesday said a mid-stage trial testing its combination antibody therapy showed that it helped cut hospitalization and emergency room visits for COVID-19 patients and that it also planned to seek an EUA.
Shares of Regeneron, up nearly 6% so far this month, closed at $591.69 on Wednesday. Lilly's shares rose 3.4% on Wednesday to close at $148.96.
(Reporting by Deena Beasley; Editing by Peter Henderson, Bill Berkrot and Christopher Cushing)
'I Won't Be Used as a Guinea Pig for White People' - The New York Times
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:24
PITTSBURGH '-- The recruiters strode to the front of the room, wearing neon-yellow vests and resolute expressions. But to the handful of tenants overwhelmed by unemployment and gang violence in Northview Heights, the pitch verged on the ludicrous.
Would you like to volunteer for a clinical trial to test a coronavirus vaccine?
On this swampy-hot afternoon, the temperature of the room was wintry. ''I won't be used as a guinea pig for white people,'' one tenant in the predominantly Black public housing complex declared. Another said she knew of five people who had died from the flu shot. Make Trump look good? a man scoffed '-- forget it. It's safer to keep washing your hands, stay away from people and drink orange juice, a woman insisted, until the Devil's coronavirus work passed over.
Then an older woman turned the question back on Carla Arnold, a recruiter from a local outreach group, who is well-known to people in the Heights:
''Miss Carla, would you feel comfortable allowing them to inject you?''
Ms. Arnold, 62, adjusted her seat to face them down, her eyes no-nonsense above a medical mask.
''They already did,'' she replied.
The room stilled.
Recruiting Black volunteers for vaccine trials during a period of severe mistrust of the federal government and heightened awareness of racial injustice is a formidable task. So far, only about 3 percent of the people who have signed up nationally are Black.
Yet never has their inclusion in a medical study been more urgent. The economic and health impacts of the coronavirus are falling disproportionately hard on communities of color. It is essential, public health experts say, that research reflect diverse participation not only as a matter of social justice and sound practice but, when the vaccine becomes available, to help persuade Black, Latino and Native American people to actually get it. (The participation of Asian people is close to their share of the population.)
People of color face greater exposure to the virus, in part because many work in front line and essential jobs, and have high rates of diabetes, obesity and hypertension, all of which are risk factors for severe Covid-19. But even when those factors are accounted for, people of color still appear to have a higher risk of infection, for reasons researchers cannot yet pinpoint, said Dr. Nelson L. Michael, an infectious-disease expert at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
''Historically, we test everything in white men,'' said Dr. Michael, a member of the vaccine development team at Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership set up by the White House. ''But the disease is coming after people of color, and we need to encourage them to volunteer because they have the highest burden of disease.''
Now, academic researchers at trial sites like Pittsburgh's are turning to neighborhood leaders to attract more diverse pools of participants. The Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh sponsored an information webinar and the New Pittsburgh Courier, which has a large, African-American readership, published articles about the trial.
And in the Hill District, which contains the city's oldest Black neighborhoods, volunteers from the Neighborhood Resilience Project, a faith-based initiative that offers a food bank, clothing and a health clinic, are trying to reach people where the pandemic is raging in crowded, multigenerational homes.
The recruiters knock on doors and buttonhole neighbors. Sitting on worn sofas in small, close apartments, they address fears with respect and facts.
Image Carla Arnold, right, discussing volunteering for a coronavirus vaccine trial with Cecilia Goshay in Ms. Goshay's home. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Image Ms. Arnold handing out information on the vaccine outreach project. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Ms. Arnold carefully explained to the tenants her decision to participate in the trial for the vaccine being developed by Moderna, a company that has received pledges of $1.5 billion from the Trump administration for its effort.
''I am a proud African-American woman,'' she said. ''As African-Americans, we always seem to get less out of things that go on. I want us at the forefront of this. I want to make sure that Black people are represented. I'm going by faith that these people won't do to African-Americans what they did to us in Tuskegee. I'm holding them accountable.''
The hard resistance in the room wobbled. Pandemic experiences tumbled forth.
A granddaughter was sick with it. A woman knew a 24-year-old who had caught it, and it was beating him up. Covid had put a neighbor down the hall in a coma.
In frustration, a woman shouted: ''I asked paramedics why people here are getting sick, and they said, 'There's no social distancing.' But you can't social-distance in a place like this, everyone on top of each other.''
Ms. Arnold seized the moment. Go door to door with me, she pressed. Talk to folks about Covid-19 safety, about signing up for the vaccine registry.
The registry, a bank of people willing to be contacted about the clinical trials, does not commit you to getting the experimental vaccine, she added, only to being called by researchers.
''You're not going to be the guinea pig,'' the supervisor of the volunteers, Tyra L. Townsend, chimed in. ''White people are.''
That is because, she said, most of the vaccine trial registrants so far are white.
The room hesitated, perched on the precipice of decision-making. No firm commitments. But interest, definitely.
The recruiters said they would return to the Heights at 6 p.m. to begin knocking on doors.
Join us?
Science vs. scientistsBlack and Latino people, along with Native Americans, are being hit far harder by the coronavirus than white people are. A recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that from March through mid-July, people of color were five times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid-19 than their white counterparts and that through Aug. 4, the rate of death among Black people, relative to their share of the population, was at least twice as high. In Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, the Black population's rates of cases and hospitalizations have been almost as stark.
While Black people stand to benefit greatly from a coronavirus vaccine, surveys show that they are the group least likely to trust one. In a poll last month by the Pew Research Group, only 32 percent of Black respondents said they were likely to take it, compared with 52 percent of white respondents. Historically, Black people have been more hesitant than other groups to get vaccines, especially the flu shot, and are also far less likely to volunteer for medical research; one study showed their participation hovering at about 5 percent. They are 13 percent of the population.
The mistrust is built on present disparities as well as a long history of abuse. Studies show that Black people in the United States have less access to good medical care than do white people and their concerns are more likely to be dismissed. Notorious medical experiments on Black people continue to exacerbate suspicion. They include surgeries by Dr. J. Marion Sims, a 19th-century gynecologist, on enslaved Black women, the 40-year-long Tuskegee study, in which doctors deliberately allowed syphilis to progress in Black Alabama sharecroppers, and researchers' taking of cells without permission from Henrietta Lacks, an African-American cancer patient, in 1951.
''It's not the science we distrust; it's the scientists,'' said Jamil Bey, head of the UrbanKind Institute, a Pittsburgh nonprofit organization whose programs include virtual town halls on racism, the pandemic and vaccine trials.
Some public health experts said that the percentages of volunteers from various groups should replicate the disproportionate impact of the virus but that they hope at least to mirror the population so that about a third of participants are Black, Latino and Native American.
By mid-September, 407,000 people in the United States had enrolled in the vaccine trials through the website for the national Covid-19 Prevention Network, but only 11 percent identified as people of color.
Image The Rev. Paul Abernathy, a priest and the founder of the Neighborhood Resilience Project, at St. Moses the Black Orthodox Christian Church in Pittsburgh. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Trials for vaccines developed by the drug companies Moderna and AstraZeneca are being conducted at local sites across the country, including the University of Pittsburgh. In June, Dr. Elizabeth Miller, a co-director of the community engagement program for the university's Clinical and Translational Science Institute, reached out to local groups to help with recruitment.
At early meetings, Rev. Paul Abernathy, 41, an Orthodox Christian priest and Iraq War veteran who is Black, spoke up: The national strategy of radio commercials, online ads and church sermons was not enough to persuade people to enroll, he said. They needed to be pulled into conversation, one on one. And he had just the team to do so.
In 2011, Father Paul, as he is known locally, founded an organization that he recently renamed the Neighborhood Resilience Project. Run mostly by volunteers, it provides food, counseling, medical care and other services to the city's poorest neighborhoods. In April, in response to the pandemic tearing through those communities, his group trained volunteers to check on their neighbors. These ''community health deputies'' offered masks to young people hanging out on corners and picked up food and medicine for older people.
Why not have the deputies recruit for the vaccine trials? suggested Father Paul, a Pittsburgh native whose ancestry is African-American, Syrian and Italian-Polish. ''People trust folks who look like them, who know them,'' he explained.
For weeks, his offer languished, and the registry remained stubbornly white.
''Do they think we are unable to comprehend the vaccine information?'' Father Paul asked in exasperation.
In late August, as the deadline for enrollments approached, the researchers relented: Go for it.
ConversationsOn a recent morning, Father Paul's team climbed aboard a modest R.V. to fan out to some of Pittsburgh's struggling neighborhoods. ''There is a great deal that is against us,'' Father Paul said. ''And we have to be honest about that. Our community needs more than what we have. But with a good spirit and a willing heart, miracles can happen.''
They rolled through the streets, carrying backpacks full of bottles of water, bags of Cheez-Its and cards with contact numbers. Father Paul rode shotgun, wearing his clerical collar and trademark fedora. As the R.V. paused at traffic lights, people waved at him. ''How y'all doing?'' he shouted back.
Image The Neighborhood Resilience Project's R.V. making a stop in the Hill District in Pittsburgh. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Image Father Paul (in an orange vest), and Father Martie Johnson, Jr. (in a yellow vest) talked with residents both about the Covid vaccine trials and the traumatic impact of a recent shooting. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times At one stop, LaRay Moton, 61, a community health deputy, introduced Father Paul to her neighbors in the Bedford Dwellings, a public housing complex: Lori Strothers, 56, and her daughter Jayla, 26.
Then they learned that the vaccine was the reason for the priest's visit.
''It's scary,'' said the younger Ms. Strothers. ''You're being filled with unknown things. There's not enough data.''
''So how much data would you need to feel comfortable?'' Father Paul asked.
''I'm a visual person,'' she explained. ''I need to see it on paper.''
He turned to his deputies. ''Let's work to get spreadsheets to her,'' he said.
At a store in the housing complex's basement, stocked with free surplus and secondhand goods, the air was musty and the aisles tight and twisting, crammed with clothes, dishes, bicycles, books.
Almost unseen amid the clutter was the store's founder and proprietor, Effie Williams, 80, a tiny figure enthroned in her office chair.
Ms. Moton, the volunteer, knew better than to try to distract people who were shopping. Instead, she pitched to Ms. Williams, whom she wanted to help spread the word.
Ms. Moton is something of a community matriarch in the Bedford Dwellings. Earlier that day, she had been visiting older tenants, knocking loudly at every door and calling out: ''Put your face mask on, baby! You got company!''
Image Effie Williams, left, the proprietor of the Bedford Dwellings' ''free store,'' listened as Father Paul and Ms. Moton spoke about the Covid-19 vaccine trials. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Image Ms. Moton, left, and Father Paul prayed with Janice Jenkins in Ms. Jenkins's apartment in the Bedford Dwellings. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Then she had plopped herself down beside the tenants, asking about their chemotherapy and their blood pressure, deftly working up to flu shots and vaccine registries.
Now in the store, Ms. Moton launched into her spiel. ''I'm here to talk about wellness checks and Covid-19, '' she said to Ms. Williams. ''What are your thoughts about the vaccine?''
Ms. Williams cocked a dubious eyebrow.
Unruffled, Ms. Moton plowed ahead. She turned to two women who were minding young children and helping Ms. Williams with the store.
''What about you?'' Ms. Moton asked. ''Would you be interested in participating in the trial here in Pittsburgh?''
''I'm scared of side effects,'' Shaquala Miller, 29, said.
Father Paul stepped forward, explaining that so far, the only reported reaction was a temporary swelling at the injection spot. This trial was already in Phase 3. Phase 1, he explained, was ''high risk and low benefit.'' By the time Phase 3 rolled around, ''you've got low risk and high benefit.''
A handful of shoppers drew close. Father Paul cranked it up a notch.
''We want to make sure that the vaccine will get into our community and work for us,'' he said. ''I guarantee you it will be in other communities!''
''That's right!''
''Don't leave us out!''
''When is it starting?''
Ms. Moton practically shouted with glee: ''Now!''
Ms. Miller said tentatively: ''Maybe I'll sign up. Just as long as you know it's safe. I have three kids. ''
Ms. Williams suggested that Ms. Moton leave cards with the registry information in the store. And she decided to give the vaccine a try. ''I guess it doesn't bother me,'' she announced. ''I'm old.''
''I can help you register, Miss Effie,'' Ms. Moton offered.
And then in a low voice, she asked, ''Miss Effie, have you eaten today?''
Ms. Williams looked down at her lap.
Handing her a bag of Cheez-Its, Ms. Moton said, as she made a note: ''Don't you worry. I'll get that taken care of right away.''
One more trauma Image Father Paul and other volunteers in the R.V. on their way to seek vaccine trial volunteers. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times To Father Paul, Covid-19 is one more deadly trauma in a litany that has shaken Black neighborhoods. People come to his organization seeking food, health care and clothes and wind up talking about stabbings, overdoses, robberies, fires, domestic violence.
''I was seeing more PTSD in my community than I saw in Iraq,'' he said, referring to his yearlong tour of duty as a staff sergeant in 2003, during which he saw combat.
Upon his return, he became an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War and completed masters degrees in divinity and in public and international affairs. About six years ago, Father Paul began working with researchers from Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh to develop a manual for community development, informed by the sustained, incapacitating trauma so prevalent in the neighborhoods his group serves. Now, often summoned by the Pittsburgh police, Father Paul's volunteers arrive after a shooting or a stabbing to administer emotional first aid.
The weight of so many traumas on a community, he said, is in part what makes it so hard to ask for volunteers for the trials. Daily survival can feel so all-consuming that participating in an institutional research experiment seems utterly beside the point.
''We cannot talk about a vaccine without acknowledging these other epidemics,'' Father Paul said. ''Our kids aren't being educated, and food lines are longer. Hope is gone, too. So if you say to people, 'That makes volunteering for the vaccine trials more meaningful,' they will say: 'Are you kidding me? My house got shot at last night. And you really want to talk about Covid?'''
A change of plans Image A trauma response team, in orange vests, visited the Three Rivers Manor apartment complex, where a baby had been killed, offering ''trauma teddies'' and face masks. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times At 6 p.m., as promised, his teams returned to Northview Heights. But there would be no door-to-door vaccine pitches this evening.
A few nights earlier, during a gunfight, a stray bullet had pierced a wall of a nearby public housing complex, killing a 1-year-old baby as he slept in his crib. His two grieving grandmothers lived in Northview Heights.
Father Paul and his trauma response teams, wearing orange vests, had already been to the scene of the shooting the previous night. Orange tape marked the bullet holes. People peered at the teams through broken shade slats, and stared from stoops, turning away as they approached.
A woman who was sobbing and cursing beckoned. Her teenage stepson had also been killed over the weekend, and she wanted to let loose.
''I watched the officers try their hardest to save that baby!'' said the woman, who identified herself only as Tyffani, 44.
Father Paul held her hand. She bowed her head as he prayed. ''There is no prayer more powerful than the prayer of a broken heart,'' he said. ''Heal her in her brokenness and raise her up in peace.''
A bulwark had been breached. Neighbors who had watched warily began to accept comfort from the trauma teams, as well as masks and information cards.
Now, at Northview Heights, a balloon release to honor the grandmothers' grief had been hastily arranged for the evening.
Image Charniece Cabbagestalk, in yellow shirt, comforted Kamia Jones, center, whose 1-year-old grandson had been killed by a stray bullet. Ms. Cabbagestalk gave Ms. Jones a mask with the boy's picture on it. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Image Balloons released at a ceremony for the slain infant. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times More than 100 people, many carrying floating, bobbing bouquets of white and colored foil balloons, assembled on the sloping lawn next to the apartments. The weeping grandmothers, wearing T-shirts printed with the baby's smiling face, were swarmed by mourners. On the periphery, children played tag, and teenagers set off firecrackers.
Almost no one wore a mask.
''This is our culture of death '-- memorial sites, murals and balloon releases,'' said Father Paul. ''This is what we do. We don't even have to think about it.''
The teams' backpacks included cards with information about vaccine trials, as well as cookies and small stuffed animals.
''We ask parents if we can give their kids a teddy bear,'' explained Roxane Plater, a volunteer. ''The kid smiles, the parents ask what we do '-- and that's our opening.''
Ms. Plater scoped out the crowd. ''Do you need a mask?'' she asked. People looked startled, as if in a fog, and gratefully accepted one, or produced their own.
A domino effect unfurled: as more people put on masks, others pulled on their own. The teams offered cards with contacts.
The balloons were distributed, followed by keening, anguished speeches. A GoFundMe page for funeral expenses was announced. Then, all at once, flocks of balloons floated away, some tangling in trees and telephone wire, others sailing higher.
And, abruptly, the gathering was over.
As people walked away, Charniece Cabbagestalk approached a weeping grandmother of the dead baby and offered a black cloth mask imprinted with a photo of the woman's grandson. Since the pandemic began, Ms. Cabbagestalk has made more than 100 such masks as gifts for people whose loved ones died violently.
Father Paul shook his head sadly. ''A mask for Covid and violence,'' he said. ''Two pandemics hitting the Black community in one image.''
Progress Image Diane McCray, left, and John Burwell, community health deputies, talked to a woman waiting at a bus stop about the Covid-19 vaccine trials. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times By the following week, there were signs that the outreach efforts were helping. The portion of people of color in the Pittsburgh area in the vaccine registry had risen to 8 percent, from 3 percent. Because trial leaders can choose whom they finally enroll, they have been increasing the percentage of nonwhite subjects. Moderna reported that nationwide, as of Sept. 28, 26 percent of those enrolled were Black.
Dr. Miller, the University of Pittsburgh professor who coordinates outreach for the local vaccine trials, was elated. ''The community health deputies have been instrumental in communicating about the vaccine registry in authentic ways,'' she said.
During the week, the recruiters had confronted an array of questions.
Won't melanin protect me from Covid?
If you had Covid, can you go in the trial?
How do you know that white folks won't get one vaccine and Black folks another?
How do you know what they're putting in the Black vaccine?
At a weekly meeting over Zoom, the health deputies and the researchers reviewed a new script to help answer those questions.
Then Ms. Townsend, who trains volunteers, asked Ms. Arnold, the Northview Heights community health deputy, to speak about why she had decided to lead by example and get an injection.
Years ago, Ms. Arnold said, she was visiting her father, a prostate cancer patient, in the hospital. She saw drip bags attached to him, including one filled with yellow liquid. What's that? she asked. Platelets, she was told.
It was then that she learned that there weren't enough African-Americans in the blood donor base to help all the Black patients with cancer or sickle cell disease. That was when she began to donate blood.
''I was just trying to save him and other African-Americans,'' she said, ''because we didn't have a fair shot at getting better sooner.''
And now, she said, how could she ask people in the community to volunteer for the coronavirus vaccine trials if she hadn't done so herself?
''That's why I joined this vaccine study,'' Ms. Arnold said. ''So African-Americans can have a seat at the table.''
Image Neighborhood Resilience Project volunteers speaking to a resident at the Three Rivers Manor complex. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Round up the 'anti-vaxxers'? Enlist religious leaders? Bill Gates warns US needs to brainstorm ways to reduce 'vaccine hesitancy' '-- RT USA News
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:29
Billionaire software tycoon Bill Gates has urged the US to prepare for a Covid-19 vaccine rollout by deputizing trusted community leaders to ''reduce vaccine hesitancy,'' bemoaning the rapid spread of ''conspiracy theories'' online.
The Microsoft founder-turned-vaccine-evangelist painted a mostly rosy picture of a vaccine rollout getting ''rich countries'' back to normal by the end of 2021 in an interview during the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council on Tuesday.
However, with less than half of Americans saying they'd get a Covid jab '' even if paid $100 for it '' in a recent survey, Gates then focused his talk on enlisting the nation's ''trust network'' to overcome the skeptics.
Also on rt.com Bill Gates doubts FDA & CDC can be trusted on Covid & vaccines. Sure, let's trust a non-doctor billionaire who pays media instead Lamenting that ''vaccine hesitancy is in all countries and predates the pandemic,'' Gates suggested American health officials start ''thinking about which voices will help reduce the hesitancy, so we can get a level of vaccination that really has a chance of stopping'' the virus.
Gates provided the example of challenges the polio vaccine faced in some countries '' and the cunning lengths some were willing to go to get their populations jabbed.
In places like Nigeria we had to go to the religious leaders, talk to them, have them speak out, you know, vaccinate their children. So [it is about] understanding the trust network '' who is it that you view as an expert. Very few people can look at the formulation or data directly.
Coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci hinted back in June that he was already on the task, revealing the government had a PR blitz planned in which ''people [vaccine-hesitant Americans] can relate to in the community '' sports figures, community heroes, people that they look up to'' '' will spread the pro-vaccine gospel.
Gates had typically harsh words for both conspiracy theorists and the social media platforms he believes enable them, complaining that ''very titillating things'' like the notion that ''somebody intentionally made this virus, or that there's some conspiracy'' spread online ''so much faster than the truth, which is that it comes from a bat.'' Gates called on social media to ''slow down or annotate things that actually cause huge damage, like not wearing masks or not being willing to take the vaccine if it proves that it is this key tool to getting back to normal.''
Read more
While he stressed he wasn't suggesting Facebook and its peers go for ''the Chinese solution'' of telling companies what they must censor, the billionaire has previously called conspiracy theories about his funding of global vaccination schemes ''a big problem,'' and on Tuesday he slammed platforms for the absence of ''smart solutions'' to that problem.
Gates saved some barbs for the Trump administration, disparaging the government's preparation for and response to the pandemic, accusing it of creating a ''vacuum of leadership'' by pulling out of the World Health Organization. Among other failings, ''we didn't do [pandemic] simulations'' like some countries, he complained, referencing his now-famous 2015 TED Talk about the importance of comprehensive state-level planning for epidemics.
However, his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation actually staged one of the best-known pandemic simulations, Event 201, in conjunction with the World Economic Forum and Johns Hopkins University in New York last October. The barely-fictional scenario involved a deadly coronavirus originating in geese spreading around the world, devastating economies and triggering the imposition of strict behavioral controls while leaving a trail of 65 million bodies in its wake. The narrative was so close to the subsequent outbreak of the novel coronavirus that Johns Hopkins was forced to include a disclaimer on the event website.
Indeed, the US government has run several such simulations in conjunction with representatives of local governments, hospitals, and various other private sector interests over the years. ''Crimson Contagion,'' one such exercise held from January to August last year, predicted the US would respond in a chaotic and disorganized fashion to an outbreak, exposing weaknesses that were apparently not remedied in time for Covid-19. A 2017 Pentagon report similarly warned that a ''novel respiratory disease'' emanating from, among other places, a Chinese wet market could spread throughout the world, hurting the military's readiness and national security for as long as two years and prescribing correctives '' which apparently fell on deaf ears.
Gates has previously warned that the ''final hurdle'' to a vaccine-fueled return to normalcy is convincing the population to actually roll up their sleeves and take the jab(s), and the World Health Organization '' of which his foundation is the single largest funder, following the US' departure '' declared ''vaccine hesitancy'' one of the biggest threats to world health last year. The billionaire has stated he hopes to have seven billion humans vaccinated with whatever formula proves safe and effective, but has suggested a mandate would be counterproductive and actually increase resistance to vaccines.
Also on rt.com Take the jab or lose your job: Medical journal calls for a MANDATORY Covid vaccine, says 'noncompliance should incur a penalty' Gates is far from the only voice urging governments to soft-pedal their inoculation demands. Noting that a straight-up mandate would probably be challenged and nullified in court, a paper published earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine instead suggested at-risk populations be threatened with ''penalties'' like job loss for failure to get vaccinated. Australian PM Scott Morrison similarly had to walk back comments that vaccination should be ''as mandatory as possible'' after intense public outcry, and US President Donald Trump has promised the shot will be optional even as he tasked the military with delivering it.
Gates is funding the development of six leading Covid-19 vaccine candidates, and told the conference Phase III clinical trial data would be in before the year's end. Acknowledging ''we still don't know whether these vaccines will succeed,'' he nevertheless pooh-poohed Russian and Chinese vaccine development efforts, predicting that once 'his' '' the Western '' jabs were widely available at low cost, ''I doubt there will be a lot of Russian or Chinese vaccine going outside these countries.''
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Hollywood Stars Throw Party Honoring Dr. Fauci: 'Not All Heroes Wear Capes, You Are a Shining Example of That'
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:57
Hollywood celebrities are experts at handing out awards. On Monday, the stars put their skills to work by bestowing Dr. Anthony Fauci with the Federal Employee of the Year award in recognition of his work on the coronavirus White House Task Force.
Stars including Matthew McConaughey, Kumail Nanjiani, Sharon Stone, and Kristen Bell took turns praising Fauci during the virtual ceremony for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, which recognize federal government employees.
''I've said that not all heroes wear capes, you are a shining example of that,'' Matthew McConaughey said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. ''What a deserving award for you.''
Eugene Levy, the recent Emmy-winning star of Schitt's Creek, reportedly said, ''You have been the calming voice during the worst pandemic in 100 years, and you've been a hero to me and to millions and millions of Americans.'' (Levy is Canadian.)
The ceremony also featured appearances by Bono, Bryan Cranston, and Jeff Goldblum. News media personalities who attended include NBC' News' Andrea Mitchell; Katie Couric; and CBS News' Norah O'Donnell.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also paid tribute to Fauci, according to the Reporter. ''Most people got to know Dr. Fauci this year, but he's been battling disease for half a century. Dr. Fauci, I want to thank you for devoting your life to science and the facts and for always telling the truth, even during the hardest moments.''
Gates has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus, recently claiming that the president's travel ban made the pandemic worse because it ''seeded the disease here.''
Sharon Stone praised Fauci for his ''dignity.'' ''Thank you for showing us what dignity is like. Thank you for speaking truth to power. Thank you for being brave. Just, thank you.''
In recent weeks, Fauci has been sounded the alarm over the progress the U.S. is making on the coronavirus. During an appearance last month on ABC's
Good Morning America, he
said that the counrt is ''not in a good place,'' adding that it was ''very concerning'' that Florida was planning to reopen bars.
Exclusive: Moderna vaccine trial contractors fail to enroll enough minorities, prompting slowdown | Reuters
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:04
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Private contractors hired by Moderna Inc to recruit volunteers for its coronavirus vaccine trial failed to enroll enough Black, Latino and Native American participants to determine how well the vaccine works in these populations, company executives and vaccine researchers told Reuters.
FILE PHOTO: A sign marks the headquarters of Moderna Therapeutics, which is developing a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., May 18, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
To make up for the shortfall, Moderna slowed enrollment of its late-stage trial and instructed research centers to focus on increasing participation among minority volunteers, the company said. The effort is being bolstered by academic researchers who have longstanding relationships with organizations in Black and other minority communities.
Five investigators working on the Moderna trial said in interviews that commercial site investigators quickly filled a large portion of the 30,000-person study with mostly white volunteers.
But COVID-19 infects Blacks in the United States at nearly three times the rate of white Americans, and they are twice as likely to die from the virus, according to a report by the National Urban League and other studies.
And communities of color count prominently among healthcare workers and populations at high risk of COVID-19 complications, making them among the first likely to be eligible for a new vaccine, experts said.
Dr. Paul Evans, chief executive of Velocity Clinical Research in Durham, North Carolina, whose company was hired to test the Moderna vaccine at five sites, said efforts to enroll volunteers from diverse backgrounds to provide proper population balance is ''notoriously difficult'' in any clinical trial.
''If there's a problem with recruiting minorities, and there is, you can't fix that overnight,'' he said.
Black Americans made up only about 7% of the trial as of Sept. 17. That should be closer to 13% to reflect the actual U.S. population.
During the last two weeks of September, Moderna said it increased the proportion of Black enrollment, but declined to provide details.
Increased trial participation could help address distrust between communities of color and the medical industry after years of underrepresentation in pharmaceutical research, historical horror stories of medical experimentation without consent, and socioeconomic and health access inequities, vaccine experts and public health officials say.
One-fourth of Moderna's 100 trial sites are run by academic centers that are part of the National Institute of Health's (NIH) COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network (CoVPN), while the rest are largely commercial subcontractors. A contract research organization called PPD was hired by Moderna to oversee the trial sites.
''We are essentially making up'' for the commercial sites, said one CoVPN investigator not authorized to speak publicly.
Dr. Larry Corey, co-leader of CoVPN, said the NIH has invested in clinical trial sites with outreach programs staffed by doctors and nurses with ties to minority communities.
''That's not something that is part of the business model of commercial research organizations,'' Corey said.
Moderna is one of the furthest along in the U.S. race for a vaccine seen as essential to ending a pandemic that has claimed over a million lives worldwide. It received more than $1 billion in government funding to develop and produce its candidate, and another $1.5 billion to supply it to the American public.
ENTRENCHED BARRIERS, VACCINE HESITANCYPPD referred requests for comment to Moderna. But two of the commercial firms said they had received overwhelming trial participation interest from white volunteers. Several researchers said they struggled to overcome the entrenched barriers that traditionally limit minority enrollment.
Moderna planned from the start to recruit a racially diverse group of volunteers, Chief Executive Stephane Bancel told Reuters. The results were decidedly mixed, and recruitment at some underperforming sites was halted, he said.
On Moderna's website, as many as 17 of the 100 participating trial sites are listed as active but not recruiting, without listing a reason.
Bancel said the enrollment slowdown, announced in early September, will not keep the company from seeking emergency use authorization (EUA) for its vaccine in the United States, provided initial results show it to be safe and effective.
Moderna could seek an EUA for inoculating high-risk groups such as healthcare workers as early as November.
The company said it will provide complete data on the more diverse trial group in its formal application seeking commercial approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration next year.
Even with that approval, there are likely to be hurdles to convincing Black Americans to take the vaccine.
According to a Pew Research Center survey released in September, only 32% of Black adults said they would definitely or probably get a COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 52% of white adults, 56% of Hispanics and 72% of Asian Americans.
Some trial investigators attributed the minority recruitment shortfall in part to the demands of testing a coronavirus vaccine at unprecedented speed.
''It essentially was becoming first-come, first-served, and it was skewing towards not getting enough minorities,'' said Dr. Rambod Rouhbakhsh, a lead researcher at the MediSync Clinical Research Hattiesburg Clinic in Petal, Mississippi, a commercial site hired by PPD for the Moderna trial.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui, who runs the U.S. Operation Warp Speed program that has funded Moderna's vaccine and others, joined a virtual town hall last week organized by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push coalition in Atlanta.
He told Black leaders that minority enrollment in Moderna's trial had fallen short and appealed for help in encouraging volunteers from the community.
''Developing a vaccine that is not used in a fraction of the population is the same as having no vaccine,'' Slaoui said. ''It is absolutely useless.''
for-phone-only for-tablet-portrait-up for-tablet-landscape-up for-desktop-up for-wide-desktop-up
Hollywood is dead
All-star cast of favorite Austin film reunites for virtual fundraiser - CultureMap Austin
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 11:52
Twenty-seven years after the release of the Austin cult classic Dazed and Confused, a virtual reunion of the cast will support get-out-the-vote initiatives in Texas.
Two nonprofits, the Voto Latino Foundation and March for Science, are hosting a virtual table reading of Dazed and Confused on Sunday, October 11, at 6:30 pm. Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt will moderate a Q&A after the table reading.
Cast members scheduled to participate in the virtual table reading are Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, Jason London, Wiley Wiggins, Joey Lauren Adams, Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp, Rory Cochrane, Marissa Ribisi, Cole Hauser, Deena Martin, Esteban Powell, Christine Harnos, Michelle Burke, Mark Vandermeulen, Sasha Jenson, Jeremy Fox, Christin Hinojosa, Catherine Morris, and Nicky Katt.
To watch the table reading, you must make a donation at the event's ActBlue page.
''With a pandemic raging during an election year, this country should be investing in every possible measure to keep voters safe,'' Danny Friedman, managing director of Voto Latino, says in a statement.
''No one should be forced to choose between their health and their vote,'' Friedman adds. ''Unfortunately, the state of Texas does not allow COVID-19 to be used as a reason for mail-in voting. Voto Latino Foundation has registered 215,964 voters in Texas, and each one of them will be making their voices heard in November, despite the state's intransigence.''
Matt Tranchin, president of March for Science, says: ''Now more than ever, we need science-informed policies and practices to protect the public and defend our democracy. As a Texan who is not allowed to vote by mail during a pandemic because of our state's short-sighted election laws, it's a powerful reminder that we need elected representatives who will embrace science and listen to public health officials.''
The 1993 coming-of-age stoner classic, directed by Richard Linklater, was filmed in and around the city, and includes iconic spots like North Austin's Top Notch and the Violet Crown Shopping Center. The famous "party at the moontower" scene was shot at West Austin's West Enfield Park, while South Austin's Bedichek Middle School served as the film's high school.
Dazed and Confused also features a cast of young upstarts who have turned into some of Hollywood's brightest stars, including our very own Matthew McConaughey, who uttered his now-famous catchphrase: ''Alright, alright, alright.''
Hollywood Stars Throw Party Honoring Dr. Fauci: 'Not All Heroes Wear Capes, You Are a Shining Example of That'
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:57
Hollywood celebrities are experts at handing out awards. On Monday, the stars put their skills to work by bestowing Dr. Anthony Fauci with the Federal Employee of the Year award in recognition of his work on the coronavirus White House Task Force.
Stars including Matthew McConaughey, Kumail Nanjiani, Sharon Stone, and Kristen Bell took turns praising Fauci during the virtual ceremony for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, which recognize federal government employees.
''I've said that not all heroes wear capes, you are a shining example of that,'' Matthew McConaughey said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. ''What a deserving award for you.''
Eugene Levy, the recent Emmy-winning star of Schitt's Creek, reportedly said, ''You have been the calming voice during the worst pandemic in 100 years, and you've been a hero to me and to millions and millions of Americans.'' (Levy is Canadian.)
The ceremony also featured appearances by Bono, Bryan Cranston, and Jeff Goldblum. News media personalities who attended include NBC' News' Andrea Mitchell; Katie Couric; and CBS News' Norah O'Donnell.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also paid tribute to Fauci, according to the Reporter. ''Most people got to know Dr. Fauci this year, but he's been battling disease for half a century. Dr. Fauci, I want to thank you for devoting your life to science and the facts and for always telling the truth, even during the hardest moments.''
Gates has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus, recently claiming that the president's travel ban made the pandemic worse because it ''seeded the disease here.''
Sharon Stone praised Fauci for his ''dignity.'' ''Thank you for showing us what dignity is like. Thank you for speaking truth to power. Thank you for being brave. Just, thank you.''
In recent weeks, Fauci has been sounded the alarm over the progress the U.S. is making on the coronavirus. During an appearance last month on ABC's
Good Morning America, he
said that the counrt is ''not in a good place,'' adding that it was ''very concerning'' that Florida was planning to reopen bars.
2020
Schiff losing Armenians is HUGE
Hundreds protest outside L.A. Times over Armenian conflict coverage - Los Angeles Times
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 11:48
Hundreds of protesters blocked streets near the Los Angeles Times headquarters in El Segundo on Tuesday evening, the latest in a series of demonstrations by Armenians over the deadly conflict in the southern Caucasus region known as Nagorno-Karabakh and referred to as Artsakh by Armenians.
The protesters shut down Imperial Highway and Douglas Street about 6 p.m. Tuesday, with some chanting, ''Shame on the L.A. Times.''
One called out The Times for its lack of empathy toward the Armenian people and for ''publishing disinformation.''
At issue is an article published by The Times on Monday about a weekend protest by Armenian Americans.
The article quoted Armenian activists at length but also included a comment from Nasimi Aghayev, the consul general of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles.
He said: ''The racist and white supremacist propaganda promoted by Armenia and their allies, with which they intend to cash in on the already divisive environment and Islamophobic prejudices, must be condemned by everyone who believe that such dangerous bigotry and intolerance have no place in Europe, U.S. or anywhere else.''
The quote outraged some.
''The tone of the conversation in that article was shocking and unacceptable,'' said Burbank resident, UCLA junior and protester Nshan Blikian, 19. ''How was that allowed by the editors?''
The Times has received a protest letter from the Armenian National Assn.
Aghayev's quote also raised concerns from Alex Galitsky, communications director for the Armenian National Committee of America, Western Region.
Galitsky said he understood that The Times would want to seek out Azerbaijani perspectives for stories. But the government ''has openly expressed anti-Armenian rhetoric and hatred against us time and again.'' He added activists are seeking justice.
Blikian was also disappointed in the reporting by The Times in protest coverage over the weekend that described ''500 participants'' at a Hollywood rally. He said the number was much higher.
On Saturday and Sunday evenings, demonstrators rallied in front of the CNN building in Hollywood to demand more accurate news coverage of the events overseas. Activists also blocked traffic on sections of the 101 and 170 freeways over the weekend.
On Monday, a group of elected officials called on the Trump administration to intervene diplomatically in the conflict at a gathering at City Hall that included comments from the mayor and U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank).
Representatives from Los Angeles, Sacramento and Washington blame Azerbaijan and nearby Turkey, which supports the country, for inciting the violence that began Sept. 27 in the Nagorno-Karabakh region '-- referred to by Armenians as the Republic of Artsakh. The area is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but its population of about 150,000 is majority ethnic Armenian and historically Armenian. Azerbaijan's leaders maintain they have responded to incursions by the other side.
''As Armenians, we care very deeply about this part of the world, and we care very deeply about the slaughter of Armenian people,'' Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian said recently on the steps of City Hall. With the conflict now heading into a second week, there's fear the infighting could spark an all-out war, with the potential to draw in superpowers such as Russia and Turkey.
Kellyanne Conway Daughter Claudia Conway Isn't Your Hermione
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 12:55
Photo-Illustration: Megan Paetzhold. Photos: Getty Images/@claudiamconway/TikTok
For a while it was James Comey. Then it was Robert Mueller. For a brief moment, the internet's liberal pundits speculated that perhaps Melania Trump herself could be the truth-teller we need to stand up to Donald Trump. But one seemingly unhappy marriage isn't the basis for popular liberation and neither, it turns out, are two former directors of the FBI. The prayer candles and the rumor-mongering about the president's imminent downfall all came to nothing. The resistance '-- or at least, the faction that spends altogether too much of its time online '-- rode on in search of a new savior.
They've settled on Claudia Conway, the 15-year-old daughter of George and Kellyanne, counselor to the president. When Claudia announced on TikTok last weekend that her mother had tested positive for coronavirus , she also broke a major news story. One of the president's chief apologists had been brought low by her own daughter. Not only did Kellyanne have COVID-19, Claudia claimed, she'd lied to her own family about her diagnosis. The older Conway later confirmed her illness on Twitter, one of many now associated with the Trump White House outbreak.
In the following days Claudia returned to TikTok to ''clarify'' her original claim about her mother: Kellyanne wasn't lying, she now said, she really did test negative until finally she didn't. Kellyanne herself can be heard in one video shouting at her daughter. It's an uncomfortable scene, and a reminder that Claudia, for all her influence, isn't old enough to drive.
For journalists this sets up a dilemma. Claudia could potentially be a newsworthy figure: Kellyanne is loyal to Trump. Her husband George, is a Republican Never-Trumper. Claudia's erstwhile Twitter account and active TikTok thus offer an inside look into one of the most politically relevant households in the U.S. She's also a child, and possibly an unreliable narrator. Neither she nor the press is to blame for the fact that the White House has been an untrustworthy and reluctant source of information about the president's health. In the absence of credible leadership, we're left to rely on anyone with insight. But there's no way to verify the claims she makes on TikTok, either. She's said, for example, that Trump is doing much worse than he's admitted in public. This is plausible, but unless the president's health dramatically worsens we might never know if she's telling the truth.
For everyone else, the matter of Claudia seems a little less fraught. In time she may have become a celebrity anyway; her biography tipped her toward fame even before she'd accumulated over a million followers on TikTok. But once again, she's a child, and one who's posting from inside a tense and divided household. But there isn't always much empathy apparent in the way that the Twitter-addled respond to her stories. Nearly everything she posts generates a headline now '-- the New York Post has a running series dedicated to her ideological war on her parents. On Twitter, well-meaning people praise her for her bravery and repeat slogans about the power of teen girls.
Teen girls are fine. I used to be one, in the antediluvian times before TikTok, and accomplished nothing of note. But the liberal tendency to slot this particular teen girl into a pattern of hero-seeking behavior does no one any favors. This is the ''one cool trick'' approach to Trump, which hopes that one person or gesture can bring down the debaser-in-chief. Its hallmark is desperation, and a tendency toward empty gestures. (Remember the safety pins? The Drumpf hats? All that RBG apparel?) But a savior isn't coming. It wasn't Comey or Mueller; it won't be Claudia Conway, even if she did drive her mother out of the Trump administration. It won't even be Joe Biden. The times require a real political movement, preferably the kind that isn't so easily commodified.
As for Claudia herself, the real villains are her parents '-- yes, both of them. George is a rare species, a Republican with the common sense to abhor Donald Trump. But that's a low bar to clear, and the celebrity he revels in helped push his own daughter into the spotlight. It's not hard to understand why a teenage girl who disagrees with her famous parents might feel obligated to distance herself as publicly as possible. Journalists will still have to approach her with care, evaluating her claims as she makes them. Everyone else should back off, and grow up. This still isn't Harry Potter. Our salvation does not rest on a plucky YA heroine. That's your job, and it's going to take years.
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Scott Adams on Twitter: "Do it Pence! Do it!" / Twitter
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:54
Scott Adams : Do it Pence! Do it!
Thu Oct 08 02:19:48 +0000 2020
Stop Calling Mike Pence Homophobic | The Daily Caller
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 13:47
Vice President-elect Mike Pence's ''homophobia'' is perhaps this election's most noisome shibboleth. Pence is no defender of LGBT rights, but the evidence Trump's running mate is America's nastiest anti-gay politician is surprisingly thin.
(Full disclosure: I voted for Kaine, and my alarm at the incoming regime is literally sending me into exile.)
Gay pundits portray Pence as some 21st century Jesse Helms. To John Aravosis, he's a ''raging homophobe'' and Michelangelo Signorile lamented his ''blatant anti-LGBT extremism.'' Many LGBT Americans were disappointed moderator Elaine Quijano did not challenge Pence on his ''bigotry'' during the vice presidential debate.
But gay Democrats unfairly distort Pence's record with distractions '' and sometimes outright lies. Facing the most gay-friendly Republican nominee in history, the LGBT intelligentsia have engineered a phobic Frankenstein Veep to keep their minions from considering non-leftist alternatives.
Start with the most fabulously contrived lie about Mike Pence: that he supports ''conversion therapy,'' or in one grotesque iteration, that Pence ''advocated for public spending on conversion therapy in Indiana.'' (Bold in original.) The article's hyperlinks provide no support for the baseless charge.
Conversion (or ''reparative'') therapy noxiously tells people, including teens participating involuntarily, that navel-gazing, role-playing, and prayer can ''heal'' their homosexuality. I've been denouncing this fraudulent practice for a decade, since it doesn't work, misrepresents genuine religion, insults the integrity of queer experience, and tortures innocent youth.
But by definition, CONVERSION therapy (sometimes called ''reorientation therapy'') exploits the lie that homosexuality is a curable orientation, not some set of behaviors. A celibate reparative patient who remains drawn to the same sex is an utter failure to the conversion crowd. The ''ex-gay'' focus on orientation rather than behavior is why the phenomenon is so destructive.
Obviously a queer person can temporarily stop having sex '' or at least reduce their same-sex encounters. But the ''conversion'' model is devastating to participants and, in fact, to the entire gay community, because it causes Americans to think, ''they wouldn't be gay anymore if they only got some help.''
By contrast, an anti-HIV program helping gay men reduce or eliminate high-risk sexual activity seems almost quaint.
And that's what the people penning Mike Pence's Web site (I've seen no evidence he wrote it personally) referred to in 2000 when they said federal AIDS money should be redirected ''toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.''
Those 14 words are the only evidence Pence's detractors have proffered to show the man supports conversion therapy. But conversion therapy is about changing sexual orientations, not behavior. That's why we've been fighting it so hard!
Then there's the widespread claim that in 2006 Pence called being gay a choice, or '' as Signorile and others have quoted it '' ''a choice.''
Poppycock!
Even novice journalists don't treat paraphrases as quotes. Anything between quotation marks must have been literally spoken. Try, for fun, to find the phrase ''a choice'' in the only relevant section of Pence's speech that year:
''This debate today is not about discrimination. I believe that if someone chooses another lifestyle than I have chosen, that is their right in a free society.''
A tendentious but fair reading would interpret ''lifestyle'' as sexual orientation, thus allying Pence with the silly notion that people pick ''lesbian'' out of the sexuality catalog. A more generous reading, though, suggests ''lifestyle'' in the dictionary sense of ''habits, attitudes, tastes, moral standards, economic level, etc. that together constitute the mode of living.'' Under that denotation, gay people really do choose their lifestyle. Nobody is ''born that way'' loving show tunes or the LPGA.
But even a journalist who's sure Pence meant people select a sexuality at will must acknowledge the ambiguity '' and never snuggle a two-word invented phrase (''a choice'') between quotation marks as if Pence said it himself.
(By the way, Signorile and Aravosis would be well-advised to stop hyperlinking to articles that demonstrate their own deceit. Come on, make this a little challenging!)
Many complaints about Pence relate to dead issues like gay marriage and gays in the military that courts and Congress have settled, with dubious prospects for revival. It's possible given a few years of gay marriage normalcy that Pence's views would evolve like President Obama's did, and it's unfair to fossilize his defunct positions.
Finally, Pence's promotion of Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) attracted unflattering attention. I've already written about this subtle topic at length, but briefly: Pence did not try to help people refuse services to LGBT people as people. In fact, the notorious bakers and florists have repeatedly said they're happy to sell a lesbian a cookie or select a gay guy's corsage. They simply refuse to celebrate an EVENT solemnizing a union they consider unholy.
If I tried to buy a wedding cake for my straight cousin, they'd serve me whatever my own sexuality. But if my straight brother ordered a cake for MY same-sex wedding (dream on, Mom), they'd politely decline. Because they're not discriminating on sexual orientation, just '' pardon the wordplay '' on ceremony.
Perhaps the rectitude of Pence's protection of religious freedom would be more clear regarding a non-gay issue like Jewish remarriage
The people at my Orthodox synagogue observe Divine legislation with harsh consequences for the remarriage of a religiously un-divorced woman: a near-curse on the social and religious status of the descendants of that union for eternity. You probably don't understand, but that's almost the point '' you don't have to embrace Orthodox Judaism to agree that Indiana should not force a Jewish florist to succor a ceremony she believes would inflict spiritual carnage. (I'm not exaggerating here. Ask any Orthodox Jew.)
Now, on LGBT concerns, Pence is no Tim Kaine '' or Donald Trump. He is an Evangelical Christian with no doubt some old-fashioned, even off-putting attitudes. But not more than most Evangelical Republicans '' and many Southern Democrats until a few years ago, for that matter. People grow.
Which is my hope for Pence. For the first time in his life, he has a boss who operates at complete ease with LGBT people and has admirable instincts on gay issues. As Pence gets to know the country he serves, he may gain comfort with gay concerns, though pundits should holding him accountable if he says anything inaccurate or hurtful about LGBT lives. I intend to do so myself.
Criticism of Pence for lacunae on matters important to America's gay community '' he doesn't support a federal non-discrimination law, for example '' is also fair. But the chattering class has to stop '' right now '' abusing thin reeds of evidence to portray him as the most hateful kind of bigot.
I mean, some internet memes even assert Pence supports federal spending on electroshock therapy for gay teenagers.
Scapegoating Pence as some monster may help Democrats raise money and rally troops, but it's not what's best for the LGBT community. Why not instead cheer that he's on the most gay-friendly Republican ticket in American history? America's demagogue-elect achieved the White House by promiscuously bashing American subgroups '' Mexicans, Muslims, the disabled, veterans '' and inveighed against gays not a single time.
A dubious honor, I know, but a watershed moment nonetheless. Let's encourage Pence to learn about gay lives, enticing him with honey, not acid. That's how many once-hostile Democrats became LGBT allies. He's going to be the Vice President. Shouldn't we try for the same result with him?
David Benkof is Senior Political Analyst at The Daily Caller. Follow him on Twitter (@DavidBenkof) or E-mail him at DavidBenkof@gmail.com.
BLM
LeBron James walks off court during NBA Finals: 'Not a good look'
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 11:41
October 5, 2020 | 1:20am | Updated October 5, 2020 | 7:41am
LeBron James was the first Los Angeles Lakers player off the court Sunday night as the Miami Heat were putting the finishing touches on their Game 3 victory in the NBA Finals.
James led the Lakers with 25 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists but was clearly frustrated with a late foul call and the 20 Lakers turnovers that ultimately put the team in a hole early and cost them down the stretch.
James was seen leaving the floor with 10 seconds left and off to the side before the buzzer sounded and the game officially ended.
''This is not a good look,'' ESPN broadcaster Mark Jackson said of James.
Fans also noticed James going to the back early.
James addressed the issue after the game, saying he left in frustration and he thought the game was over.
Jimmy Butler finished with 40 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists to lift the Heat to a 115-104 victory and bring the Lakers' series lead to 2-1 in the Finals.
Miami needed all 45 minutes of Butler's play to get the victory as they were without Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic for the second straight night due to injuries. Butler was 14-for-20 from the field and 12-for-14 at the free-throw line.
@KingJames hey be a man and stay on the court with your team and take the loss like a man. You ran to the locker room like a child. That's why you're not the GOAT. You'll never the MJ. Not even close.
'-- x- Joe Muscarella (@joemuskie) October 5, 2020
Los Angeles committed 20 turnovers in the game, which resulted in 17 Heat points. Miami also had 13 turnovers, which resulted in 21 Lakers points. Miami also dominated the paint, which was something the Lakers had done in the previous game. Miami outscored them 52-34 inside the painted area.
Game 4 is set for Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET.
NBA Finals Game 2 Ratings Crash by 68%, Least Watched Finals Game in History
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:24
Both Game 1 and Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the L.A. Lakers and the Miami Heat have suffered the worst ratings crash in the league's entire TV broadcast history.
Despite the matchup including two of the league's biggest stars (LeBron James and Anthony Davis), Game 1 of the Finals on Wednesday was a huge ratings disappointment for the NBA.
Game 1 averaged only a 4.1 rating and 7.41 million viewers on ABC, ''comfortably the lowest rated and least-watched NBA Finals game on record (dates back to 1988),'' Sports Media Watch reported.
But if the league thought things might improve for Game 2, it had a bitter pill to swallow because the second in the series did even worse than the first.
Game 2 cratered with just 4.5 million viewers and a dismal 1. 9 in the ratings. This embarrassing showing was down 68 percent over Game 2 in 2019.
The 2020 Game 2 event now rates as the lowest ratings ever for an NBA Finals game. Until Friday, Wednesday's Game 1 was the lowest-rated in league history. So, it seems the Finals keep going down.
This horrific collapse should not be surprising after polls have found that many fans now believe that basketball is far too political.
A Sept. 2 Harris poll found that 39 percent of respondent who identified as sports fans felt that the league was too political. And another 19 percent said that they had turned off pro basketball because of the NBA's deep links to China.
The 2020 post-COVID season launched with the heavy-handed presence of the anti-American Black Lives Matter agenda.
All players, coaches and refs take a knee and lock arms during the national anthem before the Lakers-Clippers game. pic.twitter.com/eZ9RHE3eh7
'-- Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 31, 2020
For his part, OutKick's Jason Whitlock thanks LeBron James for personally destroying the NBA's popularity.
Killing the NBA's popularity in the US will be LeBron's legacy. Didn't have to be this way. Sad. Can't be the GOAT if you kill the game. #AirJordanForever https://t.co/vxK2m2e5D7
'-- Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) October 1, 2020
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
BLM EXPLAINEDThread by @SomeBitchIKnow on Thread Reader App '' Thread Reader App
Tue, 06 Oct 2020 12:41
Holy shit you guys, I'm sorry it has taken so long but I came across info I needed to verify, and I think I can now. I don't have anything written out, but I have all the info collected. But I need to tell y'all right now, because this is huge.
Black Lives Matter was not founded originally by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometti, and Patrisse Cullors. They became the faces of the movement and they retroactively created that story around them, but the movement itself IS a Communist movement.
This is corroborated by this article in the LA Times where MAH says he coined the phrase and it was later popularized by the three BLM "founders".
The exception to this is the story of Deray Mckesson, who is a rather famous activist who was a huge voice in the Ferguson era of BLM. He specifically does not mention Alicia, Patrisse, or Opal and instead credits the original tweet as the inspiration behind his version of BLM.
Here's an archive of Deray's Twitter from back in the day at the end of April 2015.
web.archive.org/web/2015042911'... His current Twitter is very different, but I looked at the URL on his archived Twitter and was curious, so I searched for it.
WetheProtesters.org has a planning team of three: Deray, Sam Swey, and Elzie.
WeTheProtesters has its own set of demands and campaigns. Most notable are Campaign Zero, the Activist Toolkit, the demands, and 'Stay Woke'.
wetheprotesters.org Campaign Zero is under the We The Protesters umbrella, and has its own set of ten goals, similar to the Sustainable Development Goals made by the United Nations.
One of the listed tools was a Resistance Manual, so I clicked to see what it was. And it's a wiki made on Wikimedia Commons that no longer pulls up. But... I found the archive on
Archive.org.
web.archive.org/web/2017091914'... There's a huge list of different initiatives and groups that collaborate all together. I haven't had really any time to go through any of this yet, as all of this was discovered today, but it's a huge lead. But... I did look at a couple of links that I recognized, and...
The first was the Action Alliance, which is also again a huge list of archived activist groups I'm going to look through shortly.
web.archive.org/web/2017091914'... But there are a few names on this list you're going to see again here very soon, so I'll point them out:
The Resistance Manual,
#Resist, RISE, Data for Democracy, and the Dream Corps.
web.archive.org/web/2017091914'...But back to the Resistance Manual and the subcategory Policing, followed by the Troublemaker's Guide. Principles for racial justice activists, hm?
This is done by the Catalyst Project. The second page of the manual, there's a nice long thank you note to all of the people involved. Named I recognized, big time.
collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/upl'... But first real quick, let's look at the board of advisors for the Catalyst Project. At the top is Nisha Anand.
"She focuses on anti-racist organizing..."
Remember when I told you anti-racist = Antifa?
If you forgot.. it does.
web.archive.org/web/2017091109'... Nisha was Director of Development at the Ruckus Society, did a few things in between of little consequence, then was Chief of Staff to Van Jones. Van Jones was the Special Advisor for Green Jobs to Barack Obama in 2009.
Here's Van gaslighting the hell out of the audience on CNN about Antifa vs. right wing agitators.
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos Same CNN that gave us this gem.
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos And this one.
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos And then had Cuomo and Lemon freaking out about polls like a couple of dorks.
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos But anyways yeah, THAT Van also works for CNN from time to time, worked for Barack Obama, and Nisha Anand worked for him for a while.
THEN the both worked on the Dream Corps together.
The Ruckus Society, which Nisha also worked at, was a big part of the WTO riots in 99, heavily involved with BLM in Ferguson, the noDAPL fiasco, and more. Funding comes from Tides, Ted Turner, etc.
To be continued... :) Hold please.
influencewatch.org/non-profit/ruc'... Back in 2017, the Dream Corps, Van Jones, and Nisha... along with NFL Players Coalition pushed for more radical activism in the NFL. This led to a lot of boycotts and angry fans and Collin Kaepernick's head getting wayyyy too big.
It's worth mentioning that a significant amount of money from George Soros is also funnelled into the Dream Project.
nlpc.org/2017/12/08/nfl'... Another name mentioned at the beginning of the Catalyst Troublemaker's Guide is Rachel Herzing. Rachel is a co-founder of Critical Resistance, which is a grassroots group trying to end the prison complex altogether. I mean... altogether.
truthout.org/authors/rachel'... As it stands, Rachel is very involved with the Open Society Foundation, writing many op-eds for the OSF as well as being a Soros Justice Fellow back in 2015.
opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/let-s-r'... I actually wrote about her in my "The Democrats Are Morons and George Soros Is Too" thread, which you can find here.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1275322'...Chiara de Blasio was arrested on May 31, 2020 for blocking traffic and was arrested after refusing to move.
The next day, Bill de Blasio gave a speech and said anarchist agitators had co-opted the protests.
''It is a small number of people. It is well organized."
You also had Hope Walz, daughter of Tim Walz (Minnesota's governor) gave rioters inside information about military activity, and Isra Hirsi, Ilhan Omar's daughter, sought suppliers for her rioting comrades in Minneapolis.
You also have Keith Ellison, current Attorney General of Minnesota, taking selfies while holding up the Anti-Fascist Handbook saying it would "strike fear into the heart of
@realDonaldTrump."
5/31/20 Jeremiah Ellison:
I also mention the article, "Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police" by Mariame Kaba. Also a Soros Justice Fellow.
web.archive.org/web/2020061902'... The case to abolish the police is made over and over again based on a single book by Alex Vitale called "The End of Policing."
Vitale produces no context to his numbers, nor any sources for his statistics.
Vitale also repeats the claim that police haven't had any success in curbing drug addiction in the U.S. He does not address the fact that in many cases, courts do not prosecute drug cases or mandate any type of treatment.
He also repeatedly mentions Larry Krasner and Chesa Boudin, who are both Soros district attorneys that are completely bought and paid for. But more on them in just a little bit.
lawenforcementtoday.com/eliminate-poli'...The Black Panther Party was founded by Huey P.Newton and Bobby Seale on October 15, 1966 and was one of the most controversial groups of the 60's. Newton and Seale were Marxists.
Back to Rachel Herzing and Critical Resistance...
CR was founded by Angela Davis, Rose Braz, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore.
Davis is a well-known Marxist.
She is active in the Occupy movements as well as won the Lenin Peace Prize. On March 5, 2020, Time Magazine named her 1971's Woman of the year.
time.com/5793638/angela'... Other Critical Resistance co-founder Ruth Wilson Gilmore is just about what you'd expect.
wikiwand.com/en/Ruth_Wilson'... They use a slogan which is actually a quote of Assata Shakur, "A wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down"
Assata being a notable member of the Black Power movement and the Black Liberation Army.
She was later found guilty of murder.
She was sentenced to life in prison, but escaped in 1979. She has been living in Cuba ever since.
Now here's where this gets interesting. Black Lives Matter is said to have really taken off during the Trayvon Martin verdict, right? And it all started with Alicia Garza's Facebook post. Or so they say. But the first mentions of
#BLM on Twitter are from this group.
I'm looking at the 3rd one, from FightSoulCities.
And for the record, Opal is the first of the trio to tweet BLM and doesn't do so until the 15th.
Fight for the Soul of Cities is a group based out of San Francisco "powered by the labor/community strategy center".
fightforthesoulofthecities.com/nocars/ One of their platforms is to BAN CARS from LA.
Funnily enough, Gavin Newsom just passed legislation saying that California would ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035.
FFSC called themselves a group with "An international vision for urban organizing whose frontline frame is: The Social Welfare State Not the Police State, the Environmental Justice State not the Warfare State."
They are a part of a group of organizations under The Strategy Center. The Strategy Center is currently trying to ban police officers from being on city busses. They call it transit racism.
thestrategycenter.org "Eric Mann was born 12/4/42 in Brooklyn NY into a Jewish home rooted in ''anti-fascist, working class, pro-union, pro-'Negro', internationalist, & socialist traditions.'' Both sides of his family were Jews who fled the Russian Empire during anti-Semitic pogroms of the early 1900s."
He was also a delegate to the UN during the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Eric Mann was also Patrisse Cullor's mentor for a decade while at the Labor Community Strategy Center.
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos So when she says here that she is a trained Marxist. Eric Mann is the one who trained her.
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos In an article written in 1969 for the Harvard Crimson, an interaction with Mann's group is described:
"Several slogans-including "Pig," "Fuck U.S. Imperialism," and "Imperialists Screw All Women" -were sprayed on walls of the building. -
-Rocks thrown by the band as they left broke several windows. One telephone was ripped out to prevent a student from notifying police."
thecrimson.com/article/1969/9'... Sound familiar? Not much has changed to be honest...
Even more worrisome, in 2010, Patrisse was part of a forum in Detroit where they discuss transformative organizing.
web.archive.org/web/2011122707'... "I have conversations with organizers who have these very progressive left politics independently. But then when they go in and do their organizing, they all of a sudden have this justification as to why they can't talk about socialism or ending the war or environmental justice."
"As we try and transform the structures and systems around people--through all the very good fights that we're doing--the assumption is that if you change the conditions around people, then that's going to allow people to change and to begin to lead good lives.-
"-But we're not immune from the toxicity of capitalism. It is a gamble to believe that simply changing the conditions around any of us is going to remove the toxicity of oppression from inside us."
"Transformative organizing is a powerful framework to ground and guide our work."
"Transformative organizing transforms the system itself and is in revolutionary opposition to the power structures of colonialism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism in its current form, which is imperialism."This was in 2010, mind you.
"Transformative organizing transforms the consciousness of people who participate in the process of building organizations, struggles, and movements.""Transformative organizing transforms organizers as they stand up to the Right, reach out to the people, & take on the system."
There are 7 Components:
1. Transformative organizing seeks radical social change through the strategy of building an international united front to challenge the U.S. Empire.
2. The transformative organizer is a conscious agent of change, a revolutionary educator with a plan to intervene in and make history.
3. Transformative organizing requires the leadership of society's most exploited, oppressed, and strategically placed classes and races.
4. Transformative organizing is produced by transformative organizations.
5. Transformative organizing becomes truly transformative in the course of battle.
6. Transformative organizing transforms the organizers.
7. Transformative organizing requires a transformative political program.
On August 14, 2017, Patrisse Cullors stated that they were fighting for equality. And that hate speech isn't protected by the first amendment.
Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos It is also worth noting that the Black Panthers used to hand out Mao's Red Book and made it required reading for their group.
And here's a 1998 interview with PBS with Angela Davis about the Black Panthers and Capitalism, etc.
marxists.org/history/usa/wo'... When asked in 2018, what skills were needed to build a movement, Patrisse said: " I went through a year-long organising programme" led by the LCSC. We read anything from "Marx, to Lenin, to Mao."
dazeddigital.com/politics/artic'... At the DNC this year Patrisse said, "Without the sea changes our movement recommended for the 2020 Dem platform, any claims to allyship and solidarity with our work to fight for Black liberation are for naught" in efforts to push the BREATHE Act.
dailywire.com/news/blm-takes'...TBC
So yeah. Also, Patrisse's boss and mentor Eric knows another familiar face very well. Bill Ayers, the co-founder of Weather Underground, who once included Sirhan Sirhan in his book dedication. S.S. was the man who assassinated RFK.
Ayers in 1970 was said to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy as: ''Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at.''
He gave that interview on 9/11/2001 btw.
web.archive.org/web/2018072721'... Ayers is married to also-crazy radical Barnardine Dohrn. They took legal guardianship of Chesa Boudin, whose parents were imprisoned after the 1981 Brinks robbery.
Boudin was elected district attorney for San Francisco and was sworn in on January 8, 2020. On January 10, he fired six prosecutors.On January 14, Boudin announced the first implementation of a primary caregiver diversion program authorized by SB394.
On January 22, he eliminated cash bail.
And it goes on and on....
CAC funneled money through ACORN, a now defunct charity organization that was caught in a Project Veritas sting about a decade ago.In another article in The Hill, Stanley Kurtz says he went through CAC records and found out that Obama and Ayers were partners.
"Barack Obama's first run for the Illinois state Senate was launched at a famous fundraiser and kickoff for the campaign at a 1995 gathering at the house of Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, says Kurtz."
thehill.com/blogs/pundits-'...In July of this year, Illinois speaker Michael Madigan was subpoenaed in efforts "seeking records on a former ComEd lobbyist and his consulting work for a tiny southwestern suburb."
Madigan is connected to Obama, Ayers, and Andrew Weissmann.
thegatewaypundit.com/2020/07/exclus'...That's about all I've got for this thread! I have a few more things of note that I couldn't tie together, so I'm just going to put them here at the end.
1. In the first days of the Ferguson protests, I noticed a URL at the bottom of a banner.
It's a revolutionist Communist website.
revcom.us Notice Ordower worked for ACORN back in the day. Wonder if he knows Ayers and Barack?
Also, looks like he's travelling again if he went to VA to protest at Chad Wolf's house.
Alicia Garza retweeted Millenial Activists United about getting paid. MAU also wrote on their Tumblr about getting paid. Very very detailed.
web.archive.org/web/2015052300'... This is from Charles Wade, who was later busted for sex trafficking.
A disgruntled activist posted the payout list after they didn't get any money.
Back when they were too stupid not to advertise this in the open.
Ordower getting grilled for money.
archive.vn/w0MTP Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos 3. Every time a kid dies and it's politicized, they try to go to the UN over it. Same with GF, even though he wasn't a kid.
aclu.org/blog/human-rig'... 4. The origin story for BLM is different everywhere you read it.
Here, Alicia came up with it after the verdict in summer 2013.
theguardian.com/world/2015/jul'... Here it's just following the killing but it didn't get popular until Ferguson.
web.archive.org/web/2020060908'... Here they take credit for it, even though they weren't first.
aim.org/special-report'... And here they say it happened in early 2012.
I honestly feel like it's a made up story they just go with and the details don't seem to matter. But it is super inconsistent. :P
blackpast.org/african-americ'... Anyways
THE END for now. :)
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JPMorgan Chase makes $30 billion commitment to help close America's racial wealth gap
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 10:25
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon speaks at the North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU) 2019 legislative conference in Washington, April 9, 2019.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
JPMorgan Chase is making a $30 billion commitment it says will help address U.S. wealth inequality, especially in traditionally underserved Black and Latino communities.
The bank's pledge is a combination of loans, investments and philanthropy over five years that it says goes beyond what it would do in the normal course of business. The goal, according to the firm's press release: To "drive an inclusive economic recovery, support employees and break down barriers of systemic racism."
Questions about racial inequality in the U.S. were triggered after the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer sparked weeks of protests across the country. The coronavirus pandemic also exposed the gap in circumstances and health outcomes faced by the Black community in particular, resulting in a far higher Covid-19 mortality rate than in the overall population.
"Systemic racism is a tragic part of America's history," said Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, in a statement. "We can do more and do better to break down systems that have propagated racism and widespread economic inequality, especially for Black and Latinx people. It's long past time that society addresses racial inequities in a more tangible, meaningful way."
Banks, which historically have contributed to inequality through now-banned practices including redlining, are hoping to be part of the solution to society's problems. Earlier, Bank of America and Citigroup each made $1 billion commitments to reduce inequality.
The great bulk of JPMorgan's dollar commitment is tied to housing. The New York-based bank says it will provide $14 billion in loans and investments to spur the creation of 100,000 affordable rental units in underserved communities.
The bank will also originate 40,000 home purchase loans for Black and Latino households, adding $8 billion worth of mortgages to its commitment. It will also help another 20,000 Black and Latino customers lower their mortgage payments with $4 billion in refinancings. That effort will include grants for down payments and closing costs, the bank said.
The bank said that the $12 billion in additional mortgages is calculated based on the firm's 2019 mortgage volume for minority communities, using that as a default rate for loans it would've made over the next five years.
JPMorgan said it would also provide 15,000 loans worth $2 billion to small businesses in Black and Latino neighborhoods and launch a new program to help coach entrepreneurs. It will also spend an additional $750 million with Black and Latino suppliers.
"I am heartened to see JPMorgan's specific, measurable commitments that we believe will address decades of systemic racism toward Black communities '' and will bolster the well-being of families across the country, as well as our collective economy," Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said in a statement.
JPMorgan also said it would give 1 million people in underserved areas access to low-cost bank accounts, in part by opening branches in low-to-moderate income communities.
With regard to its own workforce of 256,710, the bank said it would hold managers accountable for diversity targets by incorporating goals into compensation decisions.
Finally, the bank is providing $2 billion in philanthropy, extending and expanding a previous $1.75 billion, five-year pledge made in 2018.
Babylon Bee CEO Canceled From Chapel Speech At His Alma Mater - LaCorte News
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:22
Palm Beach Atlantic University canceled the Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon's planned speech and changed the venue for a scheduled interview from the school chapel to the library, citing the chapel's sacredness.
The story: Dillon, an alumnus at the university, was expected to make an appearance at the school chapel for a speaking event and an interview on Sep. 30. The day before the scheduled event, PBA Director of Alumni Relations Steve Eshelman sent an email to Dillon, informing him that they were moving the interview to the university's library. Eshelman also told him they were canceling his 5-minute speech.
In an email forwarded to Dillon by a faculty member, PBA Executive Vice President for Advancement Laura Bishop cited complaints on social media.
''We anticipated that an honest conversation like this could become passionate, and that emotions may run high. We did not want to compromise the sacredness of a chapel gathering, and, after heated exchanges on social media, it was decided that the Lassiter Rotunda of the Warren Library would be a more suitable venue for Mr. Dillon,'' Bishop wrote.
Dillon confirmed the news on Twitter.
Why? Students at Palm Beach Atlantic University, a Catholic school, argued that it was inappropriate for Dillon to be interviewed in the chapel because it was a ''sacred place.'' Dillon shared some of the remarks made about him on Twitter.
One student pointed to Dillon's post on Twitter where he described Black Lives Matter as a ''terrorist organization.'' The student also claimed that ''every LGBTQ student has been disrespected and degraded by his content.''
What was the interview about? Dillon told Campus Reform that the interview was meant to be ''lighthearted'' and focus on his time as a student at the university and his work as a Christian media entrepreneur. Among the prepared questions were: ''Did you have a favorite professor?'' and ''Humor can be a really subjective thing. Are there any [Babylon Bee] posts that you didn't think were great that got a huge response, or vice versa?''
What he's saying: ''The assumption that I would bring a Twitter discussion into chapel and stray from the subject matter I agreed to discuss was pretty uncharitable,'' he said. ''It seemed to me that it was an excuse'... what they wanted to do was cancel me without canceling me and appease everyone involved.''
Dillon noted that the school did not highlight specific examples of remarks or actions that would warrant a venue change. ''Bishop would not explicitly tell me what I'd said or done that made my presence in the chapel suddenly inappropriate. I told her that if I'm not welcome in their chapel, then I don't feel welcome on their campus,'' he said.
The apology: Laura Bishop and PBA President Debra Schwinn reportedly apologized to Dillon and said they wanted to correct their wrongs. Dillon, who has recently donated $300,000 in seed funding for a new master's program at the university, said he wants to see the school standing up to cancel culture.
Push back against cancel culture: ''If the university were to boldly and openly engage in the battle against cancel culture and take a clear stand against it, and back up people like me to the mob instead of doing exactly what the mob wanted them to do'... then I wouldn't have any qualms about donating to them in the future,'' Dillon said when asked about future donations.
If the university reinstates his interview in the chapel, it ''would send the message that I'm welcome there, and that it would right the wrong of how this was handled,'' he added. ''Cancel culture is a destructive disease, and Palm Beach Atlantic University is not immune to it. We need more backbone and less coddling in our Christian institutions. And we need it yesterday.''
LaCorte News.We're a news site that won't make you dumber
Build Back Better
The Covid-19 crisis is a chance to do capitalism differently | Coronavirus outbreak | The Guardian
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 12:53
T he world is in a critical state. The Covid-19 pandemic is rapidly spreading across countries, with a scale and severity not seen since the devastating Spanish flu in 1918. Unless coordinated global action is taken to contain it, the contagion will soon become an economic and financial one too.
The magnitude of the crisis requires governments to step in. And they are. States are injecting stimulus into the economy while desperately trying to slow the spread of the disease, to protect vulnerable populations, and to help create new therapies and vaccines. The scale and intensity of these interventions reminiscent of a military conflict '' this is a war against the spread of the virus and economic collapse.
And yet there is a problem. The intervention needed requires a very different framing from the one that governments have chosen. Since the 1980s, governments have been told to take a back seat and let business steer and create wealth, intervening only for the purpose of fixing problems when they arise. The result is that governments are not always properly prepared and equipped to deal with crises such as Covid-19 or the climate emergency. By assuming that governments have to wait until the occurrence of a huge systemic shock before they resolve to take action, insufficient preparations are made along the way.
In the process, critical institutions providing public services and public goods more widely '' such as the NHS in the UK, where there have been cuts to public health totalling £1bn since 2015 '' are left weakened.
The prominent role of business in public life has also led to a loss of confidence in what the government can achieve alone '' leading in turn to the many problematic public-private partnerships, which prioritise the interests of business over the public good. For example, it has been well documented that public-private partnerships in research and development often favour ''blockbusters'' at the expense of less commercially appealing medicines that are hugely important to public health, including antibiotics and vaccines for a number of diseases with outbreak potential.
On top of this, there is a lack of a safety net and protection for working people in societies with rising inequality, especially for those working in the gig economy with no social protection.
But we now have an opportunity to use this crisis as a way to understand how to do capitalism differently. This requires a rethink of what governments are for: rather than simply fixing market failures when they arise, they should move towards actively shaping and creating markets that deliver sustainable and inclusive growth. They should also ensure that partnerships with business involving government funds are driven by public interest, not profit.
First of all, governments must invest in, and in some cases create, institutions that help to prevent crises, and make us more capable to handle them when they arise. The UK government's emergency budget of £12bn for the NHS is a welcome move. But equally important is a focus on long-term investment to strengthen health systems, reversing the trends of recent years.
Second, governments need to better coordinate research and development activities, steering them towards public health goals. Discovery of vaccines will necessitate international coordination on a herculean scale, exemplified by the extraordinary work of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
But national governments also have a huge responsibility in shaping the markets by steering innovation to solve public goals, in the same way that has been done by ambitious public organisations such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) in the US, which funded what became the internet when it was solving the problem of getting satellites to communicate. A similar initiative in healthcare would make sure that public funding is geared to solving major health problems.
Third, governments need to structure public-private partnerships to make sure both citizens and the economy benefit. Health is a sector that globally receives billions from the public purse: in the US, the National Institute of Health (NIH) invests $40bn a year. Since the 2002 Sars outbreak, the NIH has spent $700m on coronavirus research and development. The large public funding going into health innovation means governments should govern the process to ensure prices are fair, patents are not abused, medicine supply is safeguarded and profits are reinvested back into innovation, rather than siphoned out to shareholders.
And that if emergency supplies are needed '' such as medicines, hospital beds, masks or ventilators '' the same companies benefiting from public subsidies in good times must not speculate and overcharge in bad times. Universal and affordable access is essential not just at national level, but at international level. This is especially crucial for pandemics: there is no place for nationalistic thinking, like Donald Trump's attempt to acquire an exclusive US licence for the coronavirus vaccine.
Fourth, it is time to finally learn the hard lessons of the 2008 global financial crisis. As companies, from airlines to retail, come asking for bailouts and other types of assistance, it is important to resist simply handing out money. Conditions can be attached to make sure that bailouts are structured in ways that transform the sectors they're saving so that they become part of a new economy '' one that is focused on the green new deal strategy of lowering carbon emissions while also investing in workers, and making sure they can adapt to new technologies. It must be done now, while government has the upper hand.
Covid-19 is a major event that exposes the lack of preparedness and resilience of the increasingly globalised and interconnected economy, and it certainly won't be the last. But we can use this moment to bring a stakeholder approach to the centre of capitalism. Let's not let this crisis go to waste.
' Mariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at University College London and author of The Value of Everything
Why Should You Rebuild the World with LEGO® Bricks? | Campaigns - LEGO.com US
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:00
Rebuild the World See the World through children's eyes. Time to begin your exploration. Rotate, zoom, travel and explore five different continents of the World Icon: the pink one is all about Places, yellow is full of Nature, green is where Vehicles roam, orange is full of Fantasy creatures and the grey one is all about Objects. Discover creations that children and families from all over the world have shared with us in the last months. If you feel inspired, you and your family can contribute to the World Icon by submitting your builds here.
Go explore!
Green New Dill
Avoiding a climate lockdown '' Mariana Mazzucato
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 12:53
The world is approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilisation will require dramatic interventions.
Mariana MazzucatoAs Covid-19 spread earlier this year, governments introduced lockdowns to prevent a public-health emergency from spinning out of control. In the near future, the world may need to resort to lockdowns again'--this time to tackle a climate emergency.
Shifting Arctic ice, raging wildfires in western US states and elsewhere, and methane leaks in the North Sea are all warning signs that we are approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilisation will require dramatic interventions.
Under a 'climate lockdown', governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban consumption of red meat and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling. To avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently.
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Interconnected crisesMany think of the climate crisis as distinct from the health and economic crises caused by the pandemic. But the three crises'--and their solutions'--are interconnected.
Covid-19 is itself a consequence of environmental degradation: one recent study dubbed it 'the disease of the Anthropocene'. Moreover, climate change will exacerbate the social and economic problems highlighted by the pandemic. These include governments' diminishing capacity to address public-health crises, the private sector's limited ability to withstand sustained economic disruption and pervasive social inequality.
These shortcomings reflect the distorted values underlying our priorities. For example, we demand the most from 'essential workers' (including nurses, supermarket workers and delivery drivers) while paying them the least. Without fundamental change, climate change will worsen such problems.
The climate crisis is also a public-health crisis. Global warming will cause drinking water to degrade and enable pollution-linked respiratory diseases to thrive. According to some projections, 3.5 billion people globally will live in unbearable heat by 2070.
Green transformationAddressing this triple crisis requires reorienting corporate governance, finance, policy and energy systems toward a green economic transformation. To achieve this, three obstacles must be removed: business that is shareholder-driven instead of stakeholder-driven, finance that is used in inadequate and inappropriate ways and government that is based on outdated economic thinking and faulty assumptions.
Corporate governance must now reflect stakeholders' needs instead of shareholders' whims. Building an inclusive, sustainable economy depends on productive co-operation among the public and private sectors and civil society. This means firms need to listen to trade unions and workers' collectives, community groups, consumer advocates and others.
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Become a Social Europe MemberLikewise, government assistance to business must be less about subsidies, guarantees and bailouts, and more about building partnerships. This means attaching strict conditions to any corporate bailouts to ensure that taxpayer money is put to productive use and generates long-term public value, not short-term private profits.
Conditioned bailoutsIn the current crisis, for example, the French government conditioned its bailouts for Renault and Air France-KLM on emission-reduction commitments. France, Belgium, Denmark and Poland denied state aid to any company domiciled in an EU-designated tax haven, and barred large recipients from paying dividends or buying back their own shares until 2021. Likewise, US corporations receiving government loans through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act were prohibited from using the funds for share buybacks.
These conditions are a start, but are not ambitious enough, either from a climate perspective or in economic terms. The magnitude of government assistance packages does not match firms' requirements, and the conditions are not always legally binding: for example, the Air France emissions policy applies only to short domestic flights.
Far more is needed to achieve a green and sustainable recovery. For example, governments might use the tax code to discourage firms from using certain materials. They might also introduce job guarantees at company or national level so that human capital is not wasted or eroded. This would help the youngest and oldest workers, who have disproportionately suffered job losses owing to the pandemic, and reduce the likely economic shocks in disadvantaged regions already suffering industrial decline.
Fixing financeFinance needs fixing, too. During the 2008 global financial crisis, governments flooded markets with liquidity. But, because they did not direct it toward good investment opportunities, much of that funding ended up back in a financial sector unfit for purpose.
The current crisis presents an opportunity to harness finance in productive ways to drive long-term growth. Patient long-term finance is key, because a 3-5-year investment cycle doesn't match the long lifespan of a wind turbine (more than 25 years) or encourage the innovation needed in e-mobility, natural-capital development (such as rewilding programmes) and green infrastructure.
Some governments have already launched sustainable growth initiatives. New Zealand has developed a budget based on 'wellbeing' metrics, rather than gross domestic product, to align public spending with broader objectives, while Scotland has established the mission-oriented Scottish National Investment Bank.
Along with steering finance toward a green transition, we need to hold the financial sector accountable for its often-destructive environmental impact. The Dutch central bank estimates that Dutch financial institutions' biodiversity footprint represents a loss of over 58,000 square kilometres of pristine nature'--an area 1.4 times larger than the Netherlands.
Entrepreneurial stateBecause markets will not lead a green revolution on their own, government policy must steer them in that direction. This will require an entrepreneurial state that innovates, takes risks and invests alongside the private sector. Policy-makers should therefore redesign procurement contracts to move away from low-cost investments by incumbent suppliers, and create mechanisms that 'crowd in' innovation from multiple actors to achieve public green goals.
Governments should also take a portfolio approach to innovation and investment. In the United Kingdom and the United States, wider industrial policy continues to support the information-technology revolution. Similarly, the EU's recently launched European Green Deal, industrial strategy and Just Transition mechanism are acting as the motor and compass for the '¬750 billion Next Generation EU recovery fund.
The window for launching a climate revolution'--and achieving an inclusive recovery from Covid-19 in the process'--is rapidly closing. We need to move quickly if we want to transform the future of work, transport and energy use, and make the concept of a 'green good life' a reality for generations to come. One way or the other, radical change is inevitable; our task is to ensure that we achieve the change we want'--while we still have the choice.
Republication forbidden: copyright Project Syndicate 2020, 'Avoiding a climate lockdown'
Space Force!
SpaceX wins contract to build missile tracking satellites for US military - CNET
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 11:58
A stack of SpaceX Starlink satellites being deployed in orbit.
SpaceX SpaceX is now in the business of building satellites that do more than beam broadband around the globe. Elon Musk's space company is one of two awarded a contract from the Space Development Agency (part of the US Department of Defense) to build four satellites each that can track missile threats from low-Earth orbit.
SpaceX will receive over $149 million for the job, while major defense contractor L3 Harris will receive over $193 million, SDA announced on Monday.
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The satellites will be developed around an infrared sensor with a wide field of view that can track even hypersonic missiles. The SpaceX satellite will be based around the guts of the Starlink satellite, but the sensor will come from another supplier, Space Development Agency Director Derek Tournear told SpaceNews.
L3 Harris will be producing the full satellites, including the sensor, in house.
SpaceX has already launched several hundred Starlink satellites on its way to eventually producing tens of thousands if its broadband mega-constellation is to meet the company's full ambitions.
The eight satellites will be part of the first generation of what the SDA calls "the tracking layer" and must be designed to interface with "transport layer" satellites being developed by Lockheed Martin and York Space Systems. Transport layer satellites communicate with tracking layer satellites and route the information they gather to where it's needed on Earth.
The companies will be required to deliver the satellites by September 2022, and if all works well, the US military could order up to 30 more of the tracking satellites to add to the system in the coming years.
First published on Oct. 6, 2020 at 9:16 a.m. PT.
Big Tech
Facebook Removes Trump's Post Where He Claims Covid-19 is Less Deadly Than Flu in Certain Populations After CNN Lobbies For Censorship of President
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:02
President Trump is 74 years old, slightly overweight and easily beat Covid-19 so he has a message for Americans: Don't let it dominate your life.
President Trump this week encouraged Americans to return back to their normal way of living, but the tech tyrants aren't having it and made moves to censor the President of the United States.
Facebook on Tuesday removed President Trump's post (screenshot below) where he claimed Covid-19 is less deadly than the flu after CNN lobbied to have his post removed.
TRENDING: VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: VP Mike Pence vs. Kamala Harris -- With Pelosi Biographer Susan Page as Moderator -- Live-Stream RSBN Video
CNN snitched on President Trump's post and Facebook immediately sprung into action and removed it for violating their guidelines on Covid.
This is Facebook's Covid-19 misinformation policy, per @nick_clegg.
And this is Trump's post this morning. pic.twitter.com/dqwJ4ytg7t
'-- Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) October 6, 2020
Facebook bowed to CNN's request.
This is election interference by CNN and Facebook.
The Covid lie must be kept alive in order to help Joe Biden win the election with mail-in ballot fraud and harvesting.
#BREAK Facebook has removed President Trump's post where he falsely claimed that Covid-19 is less deadly than the flu. https://t.co/dBnT7m7CO6
'-- Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) October 6, 2020
Twitter also censored President Trump's tweet on Covid-19 being less deadly than the flu.
Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!
'-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020
Update : President Trump called for section 230 to be repealed!
REPEAL SECTION 230!!!
'-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020
A couple weeks ago the CDC came out with updated numbers indicating as we noted in March that the China coronavirus is much like the flu:
CDC estimated survival rates by age:0 to 19: 99.997%20 to 49: 99.98%50 to 69: 99.5%70+: 94.6% https://t.co/9UrhHFqVhM
'-- Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) September 22, 2020
And last Friday, more than a half a year after our initial report in March, the WHO released new numbers that indicate that the China coronavirus has mortality similar to the flu: Umm what? The @who now estimates that 750,000,000 people have gotten the ro? Which, at 1 million death, would put the death rate at 1 in 750 (even with overcounting, etc) '' or 0.13%. That's the lowest estimate I've ever seen. Say it with me: IT'S THE FLU. pic.twitter.com/tDzHsTVw78
'-- Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) October 3, 2020
US legislators propose major antitrust reforms for big tech firms | US & Canada News | Al Jazeera
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 11:53
The US House of Representatives antitrust subcommittee's recommendations could lead to the breakup of major tech companies if they are approved by Congress.
By
Ben Brody and David McLaughlin
Bloomberg
A House panel proposed a series of far-reaching antitrust reforms to curb the power of U.S. technology giants including Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, the result of a yearlong antitrust investigation that found the companies are abusing their dominance.
The recommendations, contained in a 449-page report from the House antitrust subcommittee, represent the most dramatic proposal to overhaul competition law in decades, and could lead to the breakup of tech companies if approved by Congress.
''Companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons,'' the Democratic-led panel said. ''These firms have too much power, and that power must be reined in and subject to appropriate oversight and enforcement. Our economy and democracy are at stake.''
The report's most draconian recommendation is for Congress to consider legislation that would either prevent tech companies from owning different lines of businesses, which could lead to a breakup of the companies, or impose certain organizational structures on the companies.
The four large technology companies targeted in the report, Amazon, Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google, all fell slightly more than the overall market, which had dropped on news that President Donald Trump was suspending stimulus negotiations. Nasdaq stock futures held onto their declines.
Google fell 2.2% to $1,451.02, Apple dropped 2.9% to $113.16, Amazon fell 3.1% to $3099.96 and Facebook was down 2.3% to $258.66 at 4:12 p.m. in New York.
The goal would be to reduce conflicts of interest that come from competing with other companies that depend on the platforms to access users, according to the report.
''Their ability both to use their dominance in one market as negotiating leverage in another, and to subsidize entry to capture unrelated markets, have the effect of spreading concentration from one market into others, threatening greater and greater portions of the digital economy,'' the report said.
EU Lawmakers Ask Amazon's Jeff Bezos in Open Letter Whether Retailer Spies on Politicians
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 16:06
World13:53 GMT 07.10.2020(updated 13:54 GMT 07.10.2020) Get short URL
The development comes as the leaders of European trade unions asked the European Commission to investigate whether Amazon's activities targeting its employees are legal. The company has drawn harsh criticism over its treatment of workers during the coronavirus pandemic.
European legislators have written an open letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos demanding answers to the company's job offerings, which suggest that the e-commerce giant is spying on its employees. According to the now deleted job offerings, Amazon was looking for intelligence analysts to monitor various kinds of "threats" to Amazon. The list included '' geopolitical crises, protests '' but the company mostly focused on "labour organising", which appeared next to such categories as "terrorism" and "hate groups".
According to the job postings, candidates would also have to monitor "hostile political leaders". Among the preferred qualifications were French and Spanish languages skills suggesting that European employees could be Amazon's target.
In a letter to Jeff Bezos EU legislators said the company's job offerings caused great concern among them.
"Does Amazon's monitoring intentionally target trade unionists, Amazon workers, as well as political representatives (including ourselves) who could possibly express criticism of its activities? There are increasing warnings about your company's anti-union policy. On our continent, workers and trade unionists from several European countries testified that they experience pressures preventing them from organising, that their demands fall on deaf ears, and that they live under permanent fear of firings and the threat of unemployment"."We represent countries where democracy and freedom of expression cannot be challenged by any company '' not even by Amazon. We are its guarantors. The exponential growth of Amazon's profits since the beginning of the global pandemic does not allow you to exonerate yourself from respecting fundamental legal principles", EU lawmakers wrote in the letter.They legislators also said they were worried about the company monitoring "hostile political leaders" questioning whether Amazon had spied on members of the European Parliament.
"We also question the definition of 'hostile political leaders' described in the recent job posts hitherto mentioned. Who does it concern? Has Amazon already spied on Members of the European Parliament? Did it intend to?", the lawmakers wrote.The development comes as Vice reported last month that Amazon has a programme that allows it to spy on its employees' groups on Facebook.
Scandal Over Treatment of WorkersOnline shopping has become a necessity during the coronavirus outbreak and online retailers, including Amazon, have been the unspoken winners of the pandemic. According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, the company's CEO and founder has added $70 billion to his fortune this year. However, while most of the world's population was confined within their homes Amazon employees had to show up at work every day to ensure that customers get their orders. They have repeatedly complained that the company has not done enough to protect them during the pandemic citing a lack of protective equipment and failure to notify workers when their colleagues contracted the coronavirus.
(C) AP Photo / Graeme Jennings
Reports say almost 20,000 Amazon employees have contracted the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.
In Europe complaints against the company ended with the closure of Amazon's six warehouses in France after employees spoke with trade unions. After lengthy talks with workers' unions and promises to improve security the e-commerce giant reached an agreement and was allowed to reopen the warehouses.
"[The deal] shows how important it is to have a union voice when it comes to health and safety. These workers had the same concerns as workers everywhere: the pace of work made it impossible to maintain distance and there was no enforcement of any rules. They stood together and negotiated an agreement to fix these issues and enable the warehouses to reopen", said Christy Hoffman, general secretary for the international labour union UNI Global, commenting on the deal between Amazon and French workers.Amazon's employees in the United States were less successful than their European colleagues. Two people were fired after publicly criticising the company's safety and working conditions and although the company delivered on the promise and supplied workers with protective equipment, workers demands of hazard pay, improved sick leave policies, and an increase in hourly salary by $2 have not been met.
Commenting on protests in the United States an Amazon spokesperson said:
"The fact is that Amazon already offers what unions are requesting for employees '' industry-leading pay, a variety of benefits packages, and opportunities for career growth, all while working in a safe, modern work environment".As for the job offerings that were recently posted by the company, Amazon said they were "made in error" and that the job post was not an accurate description of the role.
Podcasting 2.0
Spotify is leaning on influencers to win the podcasting wars
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 12:16
Spotify has made its intentions clear: It wants to be the largest audio platform in the world'--not just music, audio.
Exclusive podcast partnerships have been a significant part of that effort, and while deals with the likes of the Obamas and Joe Rogan have received most of the attention (and controversy), less celebrated but no less important are Spotify's wooing of influencers to podcast and to do so using Spotify's tools and distribution.
''In order for us to continue our growth and our trajectory, we knew we wanted to broaden out what being an audio network really means,'' said Dawn Ostroff, Spotify's chief content officer, at Fast Company's 6th annual Innovation Festival. ''And podcasting, which is the fastest growing medium right now particularly among young people, was the natural next step.''
Over the past several months, Spotify has struck deals with influencers, including Rickey Thompson, Denzel Dion, Addison Rae, and Lele Pons. For Spotify and its podcast listeners (median age: 26 years old), leaning on the massive audiences of influencers is a way to tap directly into the Gen Z market and cut their entertainment clutter.
''It's hard to capture the attention of this youth generation,'' Ostroff said. ''Everything is on demand, so they can get everything anytime they want. And being able to stand out in that crowd and have an audience and have people want to either see or hear any particular person is a Herculean task these days.''
And for the influencers, signing deals with Spotify gives them the backing of a major platform to find new ways to connect with their audiences.
''[I wanted people to] get a glimpse into the other side of my life that people don't hear about or see,'' says Rae, who hosts the Spotify podcast Mama Knows Best with her mother. ''I feel like when it comes to content on other platforms [there's] no time for really learning about someone or getting in deeper in their mind. And a podcast is the perfect space for that.''
For Dion and Thompson, podcasting represents an opportunity to lean into the intimacy of the format.
''I feel like a lot of people hear things but they don't actually listen,'' says Dion, who co-hosts the podcast We Said What We Said with Thompson. ''But a podcast is where we strip down and really get into the tea of what's going on: How we feel mentally, physically, what's going on, and there are no distractions.''
''It's very therapeutic for me,'' Thompson added. ''I always look at Denzel like my therapist. And I feel in this podcast, a lot of people are going through what we've been through as well. We're like those best friends that you guys need.''
Spotify seems to be hitting on something, with its monthly active users engagement with podcast content growing at triple digits according to the company. Twenty-one percent of Spotify's 299 million users in the second quarter of 2020 engaged with podcast content.
''It's getting harder and harder to get the attention of the youth generation,'' Ostroff says. ''Having podcasting on our platform really fits where our audience is and we're able to also attract new people onto the platform with talent like Addison and Ricky and Denzel. They're really helping us bring on a larger audience.''
Prediction: Rogan free to air with mid-roll ads within a year
Ministry of Truthiness
AP Issues New Guidance for Reporters to Cover Up Leftist Violence
Sun, 04 Oct 2020 20:30
Mobs of violent left-wing kooks have been roaming the streets of American cities for months terrorizing residents, murdering Trump supporters, beating people to a pulp, shooting police officers, and assaulting people in their vehicles. But you wouldn't know any of this if you consumed news exclusively from the mainstream media because the mainstream media doesn't want you to know about it.
The Associated Press (AP) issues guidelines, closely adhered to by many journalists, dictating what words are politically correct at the time and what words to avoid. The AP issued new guidance on Wednesday telling journalists to avoid using the word "riot" when covering leftwing events and refrain from reporting on property destruction because, according to the AP, such reporting has been used in the past as a way to stigmatize protests against lynching and racial injustice. To the AP, it's not the job of journalists to report the news. It's the job of journalists to advance a left-wing narrative.
New guidance on AP Stylebook Online:Use care in deciding which term best applies:
A riot is a wild or violent disturbance of the peace involving a group of people. The term riot suggests uncontrolled chaos and pandemonium. (1/5)
'-- APStylebook (@APStylebook) September 30, 2020Focusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice, going back to the urban uprisings of the 1960s. (2/5)
'-- APStylebook (@APStylebook) September 30, 2020The AP dictates that "unrest" should be used instead of the word "riot" because it's less "emotional." The AP then points out how great the words "protest" and "demonstration" are because both words can technically refer to violent and peaceful gatherings alike and help gloss over the violence.
Protest and demonstration refer to specific actions such as marches, sit-ins, rallies or other actions meant to register dissent. They can be legal or illegal, organized or spontaneous, peaceful or violent, and involve any number of people. (4/5)
'-- APStylebook (@APStylebook) September 30, 2020Revolt and uprising both suggest a broader political dimension or civil upheavals, a sustained period of protests or unrest against powerful groups or governing systems. (5/5)
'-- APStylebook (@APStylebook) September 30, 2020The press is an absolute joke, a threat to free speech and democracy.
The Associated Press advises suppressing the truth about riots
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 12:57
October 6, 2020 | 7:51pm
Enlarge Image Burning debris in Portland, Oregon, following a Black Lives Matter protest last May. REUTERS
America's most influential media stylebook is discouraging the nation's newspapers from reporting on mass urban violence, on the grounds that writing about what's happening is ''stigmatizing.''
That's right: The Associated Press Stylebook, whose standards are followed by countless outlets, last week announced new guidelines around reporting on riots.
After a ''D'oh'' definition of ''riot,'' the guidance preached: ''Focusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice, going back to the urban uprisings of the 1960s.''
And never mind that increasing evidence suggests most violence can be pinned not on real Black Lives Matter protesters (radical though their agenda may be), but on mostly white Antifa provocateurs.
Many Americans are outraged at what they know of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor cases, among others. But far too many have used the chance to wreak destruction '-- in some cases, for months on end. Such opportunists aren't ''protesting'' any ''underlying grievance.''
AP suggests replacing ''riots'' with ''milder'' terms such as ''unrest.'' Give us a break.
Property destruction has a human toll. The Insurance Information Institute says the riots after Floyd's death have done well over $1 billion in damage. The unprecedented national destruction may lead to insurers excluding coverage for riot damage in the future '-- not that plenty of innocent small businesses aren't already finding their policies badly insufficient.
This destruction hits minorities hardest. People who've spent years toiling to build a business have had it all lost in a night.
In downtown Louisville, Ky., Fadi Faouri has slept in his store for 122 straight nights, trying to protect it from rioters and looters. ''Stuff is being damaged on a nightly basis, people are shooting at each other every night,'' he told The Post. ''Every night we have a new store that got looted. They break in, they take whatever and go. They walk away.''
The AP should know better: The news biz is about recounting the world as it is, not as how journalists want it to be.
UNICEF & 800,000 children: More than a "Mere Coincidence" - American Digital News
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:08
Post by @RavenRedPill Threadreader LINK
Google ''UNICEF & 800,000 missing children''. Global organizations have a peculiar pattern with the number 800,000 and missing or afflicted children. There are no more coincidences'... #SaveOurChildren.
What doesn't make sense is that in January 2018 the @UN reported that 800,000 children went missing in the Congo.
The following year in January 2019 @WHO announced that they were giving the measles vaccine to 800,000 children in the Congo. ???
Here are some more ''coincidences between global organizations and the number 800,000 with children.
@UNICEF decided [to] educate 800,000 children in Yemen by 2020 '....
In another instance @UNICEF reported their support to help Nigeria due to 800,000 children being forced to flee their region. unicef.org/media/media_81'...
Who's doing these consensus??
#SaveOurChildren800,000 children forced to flee violence in Nigeria and region '' UNICEFDAKAR/GENEVA/NEW YORK, 13 April 2015 '' Around 800,000 children have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the conflict in northeast Nigeria between Boko Haram, military forces and civilian se'... '-- Article LINKAgain '... this time right before the Covid hysteria, @UNICEF reports that 800,000 children have died from pneumonia '...weird. unicef.org/press-releases'...
One child dies of pneumonia every 39 seconds, agencies warn '-- Article LINKIn the Ukraine @UNICEF will respond to the urgent needs of '...800,000 children. K
unicef.org/appeals/ukraine
#SaveOurChildren
Ukraine Appeal Humanitarian Action for Children 2020 '-- Website LINKThe @UNICEF in the UK says that breastfeeding could prevent over 800,000 child deaths a year. That would mean UNICEF has data suggesting that many are dying a year from breastfeeding related situations alone. That's an astronomically high number '...
Another report about how @UNICEF have reportedly counseled 800,000 children in Yemen and Syria '...
help.unicef.org/brighter-futur'...
#SaveOurChildrenRamadan 2019 '-- Website LINKOh this one's great .. @UNICEF is literally asking people to buy vaccines for underprivileged children & they have a goal of vaccinated children in Pakistan. Guess how many? '.... 800,000.
unicef.org.au/give-a-gift/ch'...
#SaveOurChildrenThe Gift of Protection '' 350 Polio Vaccines Your gift will help protect children against polio, which is highly contagious and dangerous, but preventable. '-- Website LINK800,000 children were reported to have suffered from child abuse in Uganda. Of course @UNICEF got involved but instead of offering any real support -or even reporting on the matter, they donated 16 motorcycles. So are they racing the pedophiles? I'm confused.
#SaveOurChildrenThen @CBSNews shared a report by @UNICEF that 800,000 children die from accident every year. Globally, I'm sure that there are a lot more deaths than that, so why focus on that number? cbsnews.com/news/accidents'...
#SaveOurChildrenAccidents Kill 800,000 Kids Every Year UN: Drownings, Car Crashes, Poisonings Among Killers Of Children Around World '-- Article LINK#SaveOurChildrenA survey was conducted by @UNICEF in Kano, reporting that 800,000 children suffer stunted growth and poor diet. saharareporters.com/2019/12/20/800'...
Referring to a recent baseline survey conducted by United Nations Children's Fund at a one-day town hall meeting organized by KECCoHD in collaboration with UNICEF in Bichi, Muhammad revealed that plan'... '-- Article LINKIn 2011 @UNICEF reported that 800,000 children were kept home from school due to yellow fever in Ivory Coast. voanews.com/africa/unicef-'...
#SaveOurChildrenUNICEF Targets Yellow Fever in Ivory CoastThe United Nations Children's Fund is kicking off a yellow fever vaccination campaign in Ivory Coast despite growing instability and hostility to U.N. staff following a disputed presidential election'... '-- Article LINKIn 2016 in Europe, @UNICEF reported that they supported once again 800,000 children living in emergency situations with ''childhood kits''. mashable.com/2016/01/05/ref'...
#SaveOurChildrenYoung refugees struggle to hold on to their childhoodNearly one in four of the more than 1 million refugees and migrants who have arrived in Europe by sea this year is a child. '-- Article LINKIn 2003, @UNICEF reported that 800,000 Iraqi children have been orphaned, and that more would be abducted. english.alaraby.co.uk/english/indept'...
#SaveOurChildrenThe Iraq Report: Almost 800,000 Iraqi children orphanedThis week's round-up of under-reported news from Iraq focuses on'... '-- Article LINKAt this point the @UNICEF reports of exactly 800,000 is way too coincidental. Many of the reports aren't even consistent with the area's population. Nothing is adding up.
There's also various pictures throughout their galleries that have pedophile code swirls.
#SaveOurChildren' ' '
Vatican
The Spectator Index on Twitter: "VATICAN: Pope Francis says the coronavirus pandemic has shown the 'magic theories' of capitalism have failed and that the marketplace 'cannot solve every problem'" / Twitter
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 04:07
The Spectator Index : VATICAN: Pope Francis says the coronavirus pandemic has shown the 'magic theories' of capitalism have failed and th'... https://t.co/agVp8pgkvU
Sun Oct 04 21:00:01 +0000 2020
@Mannen40 : @spectatorindex We have always knew about it. What makes it diffrent when he say so?
Mon Oct 05 04:06:52 +0000 2020
Craig Alan : @spectatorindex He's a socialist
Mon Oct 05 04:03:37 +0000 2020
srinidhi y : @spectatorindex yoooo based pope??
Mon Oct 05 04:01:38 +0000 2020
Miguel Tovar : @spectatorindex The magic church
Mon Oct 05 04:01:22 +0000 2020
I Vote For America ðºð¸ : @spectatorindex Nah, its just Trump mucking it all up.
Mon Oct 05 03:59:47 +0000 2020
Julie Parker : @spectatorindex Sounds like the pope needs to stick with faith and praying and less time worrying about politics! That's not his area!
Mon Oct 05 03:55:41 +0000 2020
Chai_voila : @spectatorindex Capitalism is what sustains the Pope and his popedom. If there were no Capitalism where would they'... https://t.co/1X3ttTFgZD
Mon Oct 05 03:55:37 +0000 2020
Pope: Pandemic shows 'trickle-down' economic policies don't work | TheHill
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 11:39
Pope Francis Pope FrancisPope: Pandemic shows 'trickle-down' economic policies don't work Pope declined to meet with Pompeo Pompeo calls on Vatican to denounce China for human rights abuses MORE said on Sunday that the coronavirus pandemic shows that ''trickle-down'' economic policies don't work.
The pope signed an 86-page encyclical on human fraternity on Saturday in Assisi, in which he criticized trickle-down economics, Reuters reported .
Trickle-down economics is a conservative theory that suggests tax breaks and other incentives for the rich and businesses will benefit the entire society, by leading to more investment and job creation.
''There were those who would have had us believe that freedom of the market was sufficient to keep everything secure (after the pandemic hit),'' the pope said.
Pope Francis condemned the economic policy, calling it ''this dogma of neo-liberal faith'' that resorts to ''the magic theories of 'spillover' or 'trickle' ... as the only solution to societal problems.''
He said he instead promotes a theory that ''makes it possible for jobs to be created and not cut,'' according to Reuters.
The pope labeled the Great Recession crisis as a missed opportunity for economic change, saying it ended up creating ''increased freedom for the truly powerful, who always find a way to escape unscathed.'' He said society has to confront ''the destructive effects of the empire of money."
Pope Francis advocated for redistribution of wealth to help the poor and ''administer it for the good of all.'' But he added he was ''certainly not proposing an authoritarian and abstract universalism.''
The encyclical also delved into other topics like fraternity, immigration, the wealth gap, economic and social injustices, health care imbalances and political polarization.
Pope Francis has denounced trickle-down economics in the past calling it a scam in 2013.
''Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,'' Francis wrote in 2013.
''This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and na¯ve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system,'' he continued.
The coronavirus pandemic has rocked economies around the world as Johns Hopkins University has recorded more 34.9 million confirmed infections and more than 1 million deaths worldwide.
1000's of sealed indictments!
Mel Q ð¸ on Twitter: "Here are the latest pending sealed federal indictments... 203,495 sealed cases. 9,709 added in Sept. https://t.co/VvivDrk5ac Before 2017 the average number of indictments was around 1000 per year! Also note that each indictment can
Tue, 06 Oct 2020 18:18
Mel Q ð¸ : Here are the latest pending sealed federal indictments...203,495 sealed cases. 9,709 added in Sept.'... https://t.co/yaC6p5vVeX
Mon Oct 05 21:17:57 +0000 2020
Josephine Lynch : @littllemel I think it's bullish t that no high profile persons have been indicated. The demon rats wouldn't think'... https://t.co/WRv4h2E0KL
Tue Oct 06 18:13:51 +0000 2020
Creative Joseph : @littllemel What do we want? ARRESTS!When do we want 'em? Last year would have been nice, but how about RIGHT NOW!
Tue Oct 06 17:51:05 +0000 2020
Mauny Kaseburg : @littllemel @VincentCrypt46 Interesting that the NG was activated as of 10/30/2017. First CUE post 10/28.
Tue Oct 06 17:27:26 +0000 2020
Sam Park : @littllemel @theonlyrymac Why is it that where I live is the ONLY place without data? ð¤--
Tue Oct 06 17:23:38 +0000 2020
Clips
VIDEO-Hans Mahncke on Twitter: "Here's Meadows revealing that the president requested to declassify the documents that Devin Nunes asked for, which include the second and third Danchenko interviews. Of course you can always count on the Fox & Friends
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:40
Hans Mahncke : Here's Meadows revealing that the president requested to declassify the documents that Devin Nunes asked for, which'... https://t.co/HSOQUzIyko
Mon Oct 05 14:04:20 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Australia is increasingly moving cashless and concerns are emerging - YouTube
VIDEO-Crimes against Humanity - YouTube
VIDEO-CompoundBoss on Twitter: "Absolutely fucking disgusting. Treasonous media." / Twitter
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:16
CompoundBoss : Absolutely fucking disgusting.Treasonous media. https://t.co/X9ZecL21tC
Mon Oct 05 23:41:38 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Northern California Wildfire Dubbed A 'Gigafire' - YouTube
VIDEO-Bill Gates, John Bolton, and Satya Nadella speak at Wall Street Journal Summit in London - YouTube
VIDEO-De Blasio literally rounding up the Jews - YouTube
VIDEO-Gel blasters declared regulated imitation firearm - YouTube
VIDEO-Jane Fonda says coronavirus is 'God's gift to the left' because it could help Biden defeat Trump | Fox News
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:14
Actress Jane Fonda called coronavirus "God's gift to the left" because it allowed Americans to see President Trump isn't helping the working class.
The far-left star was busy urging Americans to vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden and said the upcoming election is a crossroads for the nation.
OKLAHOMA CORONAVIRUS HOSPITALIZATIONS HIT RECORD HIGH FOR STATE
''We are people who can help determine which way humanity goes. What a great gift, what a tremendous opportunity, we're just so lucky, we just have to use it with every ounce of intelligence and courage and wherewithal we have,'' Fonda said in a video published online.
"I just think COVID is God's gift to the left," Fonda continued. "That's a terrible thing to say. I think it was a very difficult thing to send down to us, but it has ripped the Band-Aid off who [Trump] is and what he stands for and what is being done to average people and working people in this country."
She continued, ''We can see it now, people who couldn't see it before, you know, they see it now and we have a chance to harness that anger.''
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has killed over 200,000 Americans and over one million people worldwide. It has also crippled the American economy and crushed many small businesses across the nation.
CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
Fonda has been controversial for years because of her far-left political leanings.
Many veterans of the Vietnam War still refer to the actress as "Hanoi Jane," recalling Fonda's disastrous trip to North Vietnam in 1972 when she was photographed on an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American pilots. Fonda has long since apologized for the incident.
VIDEO-Facebook Bans QAnon Accounts Across Platforms | NBC News NOW - YouTube
VIDEO-Sarah Silverman and other celebs get naked for voting PSA
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 10:36
October 7, 2020 | 7:39pm
Enlarge Image Sarah Silverman topless in a celebrity PSA about voting by mail.
It's the celebrity voting body.
A handful of Hollywood stars '-- including Mark Ruffalo and Sarah Silverman '-- got naked for a new PSA urging Americans to follow instructions when voting by mail to ensure their ballot counts.
''If you don't do exactly as I tell you, then your ballot could get thrown out,'' Silverman says, a hand covering each breast, in the video released Wednesday by nonpartisan organization RepresentUs.
The au naturel celebs remind voters what color pen to use and how to stuff their ballot into the envelope.
They also appropriately touch on so-called naked ballots, which required voters in 16 states to insert their mail-in ballots into two separate envelopes in order to be counted.
''Naked ballots '-- you don't want one of those!'' comedian Chelsea Handler exclaims.
Other stars making an appearance include Amy Schumer, Naomi Campbell, Josh Gad and Tiffany Haddish.
While the celebs proclaim that they're baring it all, the clip doesn't show any R-rated material: viewers only see the men from mid-chest and up and most of the ladies are shot from the shoulders up.
Ruffalo sums up the cringey clip best during his appearance.
''I know what you're thinking,'' he states, ''you're thinking, Ruffalo, put your clothes on.''
VIDEO-Austin City Council to consider using code enforcement officers for certain public safety calls | KXAN Austin
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 10:22
AUSTIN (KXAN) '-- Austin Code Enforcement officers could begin handling certain low-priority emergency calls and calls for service if approved by Austin City Council next week.
Council member Jimmy Flannigan is sponsoring the resolution, which specifically directs the city manager to ''identify and implement improvements to the Austin Code Department, and to identify relevant budget and fee amendments to reimagine public safety utilizing the Austin Code Department.''
He referenced studies on 911 calls in Austin, noting a large portion of these calls have ''no threat to property or life.'' He said utilizing an alternative service for these low-priority calls might be more cost effective.
''We might be able to have more folks out on the street. We might be able to have a different type of response,'' he said.
He thinks this resolution could help the Code Department function better, expand their duties and respond to more late-night parties, improper uses of a house as an event or wedding venue, or short-term vacation rental violations.
RELATED: Many calls about COVID-19 violations in Austin, few citations issued over the weekend''The moments where you need Code Enforcement don't fit neatly into the limited hours of service that department currently provides,'' he explained. ''By the time Code Enforcement shows up, the thing isn't happening anymore.''
The Code Department's current hours of operation are from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. After that, all service requests to 311 are referred to the police or fire departments until 7 a.m.
Flannigan said he's heard from officers who are frustrated with the current ''inefficiency of the system.''
''This bizarre duality where they both feel like they have to run from call to call to call to call, in this hyper intense environment, but so few of the calls really result in the type of response that they were needed for,'' he said.
This tension became especially apparent last weekend, after city data showed more than 170 calls to 311 about potential COVID-19 gathering violations on Saturday and Sunday. According to the city, the Austin Police Department's dispatch center took in at least 45 more.
The city said police responded to 17 of those calls, and firefighters responded to seven. The code department closed 74 calls, and according to their dashboard they went out and physically inspected around 25 of those calls.
INVESTIGATION: City of Austin releases partial list of businesses, bars hit with COVID-19-related violationsThe Code Department told KXAN investigators previously their department is currently responsible for ensuring proper signage is maintained and if the staff are social distancing and wearing masks. However, if it is a complaint related to business occupancy limits, customers not social distancing or customers not wearing face masks, the complaint is referred to other entities, like the fire department, police department or the city's public health department.
Flannigan said he is in communication with the Code Department about what changes could be implemented, if the resolution passes '-- including the suggestion to expand the hours where Code Enforcement officers are staffed.
Ken Casaday, president of the Austin Police Association, said he would support the use of Code Enforcement officers for certain types of calls to lessen the burden on officers. Still, he worries about Code Enforcement responding to burglar alarms and suspicious person calls, noting those calls can get out of hand quickly,
''It's fine, until it isn't,'' Casaday explained.
One 911 call analysis by AH Datalytics, paid for by the Austin Justice Coalition, showed officers spend a combined average of 25 hours, 20 minutes each day responding to burglar alarms. The study showed more than 95% of these calls were categorized as ''false alarms.''
''You might go to 50, and they are all false, but that 51st might be someone coming out and shooting at you,'' Casaday said. ''Those are 911 calls that need to be answered by police officers.''
If the resolution passes, he cautioned city staff to look carefully at which types of calls are delegated to the Code Department.
''I think there's a valid concern that we would be sending the wrong staff to the wrong call, and it certainly seems easier'... if you just have one gigantic department responding to everything,'' Flannigan said.
Yet, he argues that's just not the case, adding that the current budget doesn't allow for that. He suggested training Code Enforcement officers to ''triage'' a situation to determine if APD or EMS back-up would be needed on a call.
''If we can think about shifting how we might rebalance and have two departments staffed 24/7, each at a lower [rate] than the police is staffed now, you can start to see how to balance work,'' he said. ''If we do the math right, then it will actually be more affordable to the taxpayers because code enforcement is a more affordable function than policing.''
Council will vote on this proposed resolution at their meeting on Oct. 15.
When asked for a comment, a spokesperson for the city said, ''Austin Code does not comment on City Council items preemptively.''
VIDEO-Election 2020 - "America 1st" or "Build Back Better" - YouTube
VIDEO-Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT! https://t.co/uhLIcknAjT" / Twitter
Thu, 08 Oct 2020 00:12
Donald J. Trump : A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT! https://t.co/uhLIcknAjT
Wed Oct 07 21:49:39 +0000 2020
JD Johnston : @realDonaldTrump Your oompa loompa lookin' ass is crazy.
Thu Oct 08 00:12:29 +0000 2020
Vic Venus : @realDonaldTrump Looking good, Donny T! https://t.co/FUhoZfs056
Thu Oct 08 00:12:29 +0000 2020
Todd Croy : @realDonaldTrump Lol. Dr Dumbass just making shit up again ððð
Thu Oct 08 00:12:29 +0000 2020
ð¤, ð, ð§--, ð'¸, ð'º : @realDonaldTrump Dude... What is wrong with your skin? https://t.co/8frT0Jq7s4
Thu Oct 08 00:12:28 +0000 2020
Trumpdividesandchampionsracisim : @realDonaldTrump Did he have a stroke?
Thu Oct 08 00:12:28 +0000 2020
VIDEO-FBI, DOJ Hold Press Conference On 'Matter Of National Security' As Tension Mounts Over 'Russiagate' Inaction | Zero Hedge
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 15:52
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI will hold a press conference on Wednesday morning regarding a matter of "national security," which - according to Fox News, will be about the UK-based ISIS terrorists known as "The Beatles" - and not the ongoing Russiagate investigation, as some had initially speculated.
The pair of ISIS operatives will be coming to the United States within the next few weeks to stand trial over their alleged role in the torture and beheadings of US hostages in Syria. In 2015, a British-Kuwaiti militant dubbed "Jihadi John" - believed to be the executioner in the ISIS videos, was killed in a US drone strike.
Update: WaPo just reported that the two ISIS terrorists were charged in the deaths of US hostages.
BREAKING - Infamous #British #ISIS pair Alexanda Kotey & El Shafee Elsheikh (aka ''The Beatles'') are in the air, en route to the U.S.They'll stand charged in court in Alexandria VA later today. #Syria #Iraq pic.twitter.com/kdAsHqkFvM
'-- Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) October 7, 2020Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh are in U.S. military custody in Iraq. They were captured by a Kurdish-led militia in early 2018 but brought to Iraq last October.
The men have been accused of taking part in the kidnappings of international hostages, including journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and U.S. aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig. Kotey and Elsheikh have admitted their involvement in the kidnapping, sexual assault and death of Mueller in 2015. -Fox News
DOJ says two ISIS militants known as the ''Beatles'' are ''expected to arrive in the United States today in FBI custody on charges related to their participation in a brutal hostage-taking scheme that resulted in the deaths of four American citizens.''
'-- Eamon Javers (@EamonJavers) October 7, 2020Watch Live:
Department of Justice to Hold Virtual Press Conference on a matter of National Security.
The announcement of the press conference initially stoked speculation of some type of action in the ongoing Durham probe of FBI/DOJ conduct during and after the 2016 US election, following revelations that the Obama administration knowingly used fabricated information to target President Trump and his campaign, and that Hillary Clinton allegedly approved a plan to smear then-candidate Trump with Russia rumors.
Frustration has been mounting among Trump and his allies over a lack of progress, along with direct accusations that FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel are concealing evidence in the case.
BREAKING: FBI Dir Wray insisted IG redact Footnote 334 in IG report, which revealed the FBI had previously investigated Steele dossier's primary subsource Danchenko as a suspected Russian spy. Danchenko unnamed in footnote. Concealing note merely spared FBI added embarrassment
'-- Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) October 6, 2020In the last 24 hours, President Trump has made his discontent known, retweeting posts critical of inaction by Attorney General William Barr.
Perhaps officials will field questions over the Russiagate investigation? We won't hold our breath.
VIDEO - (11) Cliff Maloney on Twitter: "''Governor, if you hadn't stood against the lockdowns, we'd have no proof of just how useless they really have been.'' Is it normal to be standing alone in your office clapping at an online video? https://t.co
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 14:07
Cliff Maloney : ''Governor, if you hadn't stood against the lockdowns, we'd have no proof of just how useless they really have been.'... https://t.co/TeMMo8ZXwC
Tue Oct 06 20:49:09 +0000 2020
Rudy Munoz ðºð¸ Republican ðºð¸ MAGA KAG ðºð¸ : @LibertyCliff Praise the Lord for this governor we need more governors like her in each of our states many business'... https://t.co/PTXShjuXrE
Wed Oct 07 14:07:40 +0000 2020
Gary Tohill : @LibertyCliff Gov @KristiNoem is a great example of leadership vs dictatorship. She understands she is the leader o'... https://t.co/20cfYaKzQB
Wed Oct 07 14:07:06 +0000 2020
VIDEO-These are the questions Dr. Sanjay Gupta wants Trump's doctors to answer - YouTube
VIDEO-Rochester Police Captain tells it like it is.....Finally! - YouTube
VIDEO-CJTRUTH on Twitter: "Triggering the media every single day! Cuomo having a meltdown on CNN. https://t.co/E1nU99rUqG" / Twitter
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:17
CJTRUTH : Triggering the media every single day! Cuomo having a meltdown on CNN. https://t.co/E1nU99rUqG
Tue Oct 06 11:38:44 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Anoncat ''¸ð´ ' on Twitter: "BREAKING VIDEO: Trump salutes Marine One after taking his mask off. MSNBC calling it a ''Mussolini Moment.''CNN calling it ''something out of North Korea.'' https://t.co/Y9Q9cd7lrG" / Twitter
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:17
Anoncat ''¸ð´ ' : BREAKING VIDEO: Trump salutes Marine One after taking his mask off. MSNBC calling it a ''Mussolini Moment.''CNN calli'... https://t.co/660mgxezAT
Mon Oct 05 23:12:46 +0000 2020
VIDEO - NYC Orthodox community protests new coronavirus restrictions
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:12
October 7, 2020 | 1:39am | Updated October 7, 2020 | 8:23am
Hundreds of members of the Borough Park Orthodox community took to the streets Tuesday night, defying orders to disperse and lighting a fire in protest of new state-mandated restrictions imposed on area synagogues, schools and non-essential businesses over a COVID-19 surge.
One large crowd huddled closely together at the corner of 50th Street and 15th Avenue at about 9 p.m. as community activist Heshy Tischler ripped Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio over the order that shuts down schools completely and limits houses of worship to 10 people in certain COVID-19 hot spots.
Much of Borough Park is subject to those measures '-- the most restrictive '-- which also shutter non-essential businesses. The level of restrictions, broken down into three color-coded categories, is guided by coronavirus diagnosis data.
''It's called civil disobedience, we can fight back,'' Tischler told the crowd after tearing up his face mask. ''Do not allow them to torture you or scare you,'' he said, referring to the elected officials.
The closures must be made no later than Friday '-- though a spokesman for de Blasio tweeted that they would likely begin Thursday '-- and run for at least two weeks.
Councilman Kalman Yeger later showed up at another protest on 13th Avenue, according to Boro Park News.
There, the lawmaker told the crowd: ''We are not going to be deprived of the right that we have in America, like everybody else in America, the right to observe our religion.''
The protests swarmed in numbers later in the night, with demonstrators shutting down 13th Avenue to vehicular traffic.
Things also turned unruly when the crowd lit a rubbish fire after midnight at the intersection of 46th Street and 13th Avenue and chased away two city sheriff's deputies who responded.
The defiant crowd chanted ''Jewish lives matter'' as they held their ground.
At about 1:30 a.m., FDNY firefighters and cops put out the flames, to the dismay of the protesters.
A rubbish fire in Borough Park, Brooklyn, lit in protest of new state-mandated coronavirus restrictions in the neighborhood.
Joe Marino
A rubbish fire in Borough Park, Brooklyn, lit in protest of new state-mandated coronavirus restrictions in the neighborhood.
Joe Marino
A rubbish fire in Borough Park, Brooklyn, lit in protest of new state-mandated coronavirus restrictions in the neighborhood.
Joe Marino
Local activist Heshy Tischler rips up a surgical mask and joins a group of Hasidic men against Andrew Cuomo.
William Miller
Local activist Heshy Tischler rips up a surgical mask and joins a group of Hasidic men against Andrew Cuomo.
William Miller
Protesters in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
William Miller
Up NextIt looks as if Washington will soon have a King....
Earlier in the night, Yeger was among four local Jewish lawmakers who released a joint statement slamming Cuomo over the edict.
''We are appalled by Governor Cuomo's words and actions today. He has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities,'' said the statement from Yeger, state Sen. Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein and Councilman Chaim Deutsch.
''His administration's utter lack of coordination and communication with local officials has been an ongoing issue since the start of the pandemic, and particularly recently as we face this uptick.''
The lawmakers said that even though they represent COVID-19 hot-spot neighborhoods, the Cuomo administration had left them in the dark leading up to Tuesday's decision.
Also brought up by the legislators was Cuomo's choice to display PowerPoint images of New York's Jewish community gathering en masse during his Monday press briefing.
''Governor Cuomo's choice to single out a particular religious group, complete with a slideshow of photos to highlight his point, was outrageous.
''His language was dangerous and divisive, and left the implication that Orthodox Jews alone are responsible for rising COVID cases in New York State,'' the elected officials said.
Additional reporting by Carl Campanile
VIDEO-The COVID-19 Numbers Game: The "Second Wave" is Based on Fake Statistics - Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:04
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First published at 12:43 UTC on September 29th, 2020.
#pcrtest#covid#fakepandemicPCR tests are being misused to justify ongoing totalitarian lockdowns by complicit governments. The RT-PCR test is NOT a valid indicator of whether a person has SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) -- it identifies gene fragments of flu, the common cold (corona vi'...
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VIDEO-Ex-CIA Director John Brennan Runs to Jake Tapper - Slams DNI Ratcliffe for Releasing Documents Proving He Briefed Obama on Hillary's Russia Hoax Plans
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:00
Former CIA Chief John Brennan
DNI John Ratcliffe declassified documents on Tuesday revealing former CIA Director John Brennan briefed Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton's plot to 'stir up' a scandal to tie Trump to Russia in order to distract from her email scandal ahead of the 2016 election.
This declassification comes after Ratcliffe released a Russian intel assessment in which he asserted that Hillary Clinton hatched the Russia hoax in order to pin the DNC 'hacking' on President Trump.
''In late July 2016, US intelligence agencies obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against US Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians' hacking of the DNC. The IC does not know the accuracy of this allegation of the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggerations or fabrication,'' Ratcliffe wrote to Lindsey Graham.
The Obama-Biden White House was briefed on it by then-CIA Director John Brennan.
TRENDING: President Trump Authorizes Total Declassification of All Documents Related to Spygate, Hillary Email Scandal - WITH NO REDACTIONS
Brennan's handwritten notes were exclusively obtained by Fox News:
''We're getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED],'' Brennan notes read. ''CITE [summarizing] alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service,'' Brennan's notes read.
The notes state ''on 28 of July.'' In the margin, Brennan writes ''POTUS,'' but the entire section of the note is redacted.
''Any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign + Russia,'' Brennan's notes read.
The notes are heavily redacted, except in the margins, which reads: ''JC,'' ''Denis,'' and ''Susan.''
NEW: declassified @JohnBrennan notes from briefing @BarackObama per @DNI_Ratcliffe ''Alleged approved by @HillaryClinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify @realDonaldTrump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.'' pic.twitter.com/IiVb4XlGke
'-- Brooke Singman (@BrookeSingman) October 6, 2020
On Tuesday night John Brennan ran to Jake Tapper on CNN and attacked DNI John Ratcliffe for releasing the damning and incriminating documents.
John Brennan told Jake Tapper the Intelligence Community slammed DNI John Ratcliffe for the release. The former CIA Director then admitted the briefings took place. He suggested that there are more documents that explain his actions.
Ex-CIA Director John Brennan tells CNN the Intelligence Community sent investigative referrals about contacts between Trump 2016 campaign associates and the Russians, suggesting DNI John Ratcliffe release those to balance his ''selective'' declassifications pic.twitter.com/z7cADeqVVI
'-- Daniel Chaitin (@danielchaitin7) October 6, 2020
VIDEO-M3thods on Twitter: "Yep, @SidneyPowell1 said it... https://t.co/syYlSKEOcs" / Twitter
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 13:00
M3thods : Yep, @SidneyPowell1 said it... https://t.co/syYlSKEOcs
Tue Oct 06 23:16:32 +0000 2020
VIDEO-The New Censors - YouTube
VIDEO-MUST WATCH: Dr. Reiner Fuellmich: "Probably the Biggest Crime Against Humanity Ever Committed" - YouTube
VIDEO-Durham city council calls for federal reparations - YouTube
VIDEO-James Woods on Twitter: "Video proof is the great savior of democracy. Not so great for Democrats, however. Let's have a look... https://t.co/vw7JUrhf0Q" / Twitter
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 11:19
James Woods : Video proof is the great savior of democracy. Not so great for Democrats, however. Let's have a look... https://t.co/vw7JUrhf0Q
Tue Oct 06 20:30:07 +0000 2020
Jonnie Griswold : @RealJamesWoods Hey Mike,What's up with YOUR lies? President Trump has done more for our country in 3 and half yrs'... https://t.co/RZv9X3bYin
Wed Oct 07 11:17:03 +0000 2020
See Red America! : @RealJamesWoods Yet cities are burning down?? Screw Michelle Obama!
Wed Oct 07 11:16:53 +0000 2020
Brentwr : @RealJamesWoods This elections 'deplorables' moment? The disconnect with reality here is incredible
Wed Oct 07 11:16:22 +0000 2020
Jane L Stanley : @RealJamesWoods @SaltyCracker9 Micheal needs to understand their plan to destroy us is over. We see what these terrorist are doing.
Wed Oct 07 11:16:17 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Top International Epidemiologists Launch Petition for Focused Protections and an End to Lockdowns - YouTube
VIDEO-Biden's Bizarre Rant: 'I Learned How to Fight - They Called Me 'Shoe Leather' - They Could Beat Me Up But I Hurt Them in the Process' (VIDEO)
Wed, 07 Oct 2020 00:01
Joe Biden was back to his blundering self Monday night during a NBC News town hall.
Biden falsely claimed ''18,000 people got clemency'' while he was Vice President.
Actually, 18,000 were *denied* clemency while he was Vice President.
Joe Biden spoke gibberish and stumbled over his words all night.
TRENDING: Charges Filed Against Trans Elections Judge 'Erika' Bickford in Allentown, Pennsylvania -- Including Tampering with Ballots
At one point, Biden claimed his nickname growing up was ''shoe leather'' because he was a tough fighter.
Watch out, Corn Pop!
''And I learned out to fight. I got a nickname. They called me 'shoe leather' '' I was little but they could beat me up, but I hurt them in the process,'' said Biden
WATCH:
Joe Biden is back to his blundering self on the campaign trail. || via @RaymondArroyo #IngrahamAngle pic.twitter.com/8GHKHOT91D
'-- Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) October 6, 2020
VIDEO-Mark Finkelstein on Twitter: ""Don't put it on the screen! That's going to KILL people!" -- CNN's John Berman frantically orders producer not to show Trump taking off mask. #tcot #Trump #TrumpCovid19 #MasksSaveLives #Masks @JohnBerman @NewDay https:
Tue, 06 Oct 2020 13:22
Mark Finkelstein : "Don't put it on the screen! That's going to KILL people!" -- CNN's John Berman frantically orders producer not t'... https://t.co/uuoIrR8Oiy
Tue Oct 06 10:43:29 +0000 2020
Tonya Self : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay The President is outside, by himself. You're grasping at straws trying to find'... https://t.co/7ZN252KQph
Tue Oct 06 13:05:24 +0000 2020
Business End : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay He's alone, outside. Settle down Karen!
Tue Oct 06 12:59:33 +0000 2020
Leonardo : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay https://t.co/Il4k1JiGLn
Tue Oct 06 12:56:21 +0000 2020
Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay words don't mean a thing anymore.
Tue Oct 06 12:50:48 +0000 2020
Gambare : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay Uh. What happened to THE SCIENCE!
Tue Oct 06 12:24:11 +0000 2020
Sure Jan : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay LOL
Tue Oct 06 12:22:54 +0000 2020
Kaye ðºð¸ : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay @NewDay this is a damn parody. Minus the health professional, these lunatic'... https://t.co/8YSf4PKHGA
Tue Oct 06 12:21:55 +0000 2020
Old IDF SSG ð®ð± ðºð¸ '' : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay CNN, nuff said
Tue Oct 06 12:20:34 +0000 2020
GhostOAngie2 : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay Mask psychosis. ð¤£
Tue Oct 06 12:17:39 +0000 2020
Ava : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay CNN is truly fake news.
Tue Oct 06 12:13:40 +0000 2020
John Nyende : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay Yo the one gonna kill people with your toxic statements.
Tue Oct 06 12:00:33 +0000 2020
NOVEL CHRIS : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay The the 1 to talk with your very own Chris Cuomo @ChrisCuomo was walking aroun'... https://t.co/byE9Kt2W6O
Tue Oct 06 11:50:47 +0000 2020
Ricky Smolik : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay Grasping at straws now? You guys are pitiful!
Tue Oct 06 11:48:26 +0000 2020
ArmyMomto6 : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay He is alone on a balcony....he is following CDC guidelines. @CNN Needs to get a grip.
Tue Oct 06 11:40:51 +0000 2020
csbdr : @markfinkelstein @JohnBerman @NewDay ......no, it isn't.
Tue Oct 06 11:20:47 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Doctor explains why a Covid-19 patient would leave the hospital - YouTube
VIDEO-Introducing Kamala: Next in Line
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 13:16
About this episode:If Joe Biden wins in November, Kamala Harris would become Vice President after one of the most consequential and tumultuous elections in American history. Already a rising leader in the Democratic party, Harris would be the most significant player to help Biden manage a country in crisis, and a frontrunner to lead the ticket in 2024 should Biden not seek re-election.
Kamala: Next in Line goes inside the cross-cultural journey that led Harris from her humble roots to become the first African-American woman to represent California in the Senate and now the first African-American woman to be the Vice Presidential nominee for a major party. From Oakland to Howard University, California to Washington DC, experience her story as it has never been told before. This is an intimate and immersive dive into who Kamala is, what her critics say about her, and how she arrived at this moment. Hosted by MSNBC's Joy Reid, the show features exclusive interviews with those who know her best, painting a picture of a woman who has fought her way to the top at every turn.
Premieres October 5th.
Listen here:Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Castbox
VIDEO-UK HEALTH PASSPORTS - URGENT CRITICAL UPDATE - - YouTube
VIDEO-Tim Young on Twitter: "SAVAGE! Devin Nunes welcomes you to Schiff's "impeachment committee," and in 6 minutes, destroys EVERY losing strategy and lie that Schiff has pushed... https://t.co/rQVTS0Nwk4" / Twitter
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 12:39
Tim Young : SAVAGE! Devin Nunes welcomes you to Schiff's "impeachment committee," and in 6 minutes, destroys EVERY losing stra'... https://t.co/aEKWsPVC3l
Fri Oct 02 17:33:09 +0000 2020
Todd Baumgart : @TimRunsHisMouth @DonaldJTrumpJr Dear Donald Trump jr. Since we know all this now isn't there something else that c'... https://t.co/twNxav5hG8
Mon Oct 05 12:23:17 +0000 2020
VIDEO-Scalise: Coronavirus Testing on Capitol Hill Has Been Offered to Pelosi -- But She Turned It Down
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 12:22
Saturday on ''Fox & Friends Weekends,'' House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) revealed there had been a proposal to implement COVID-19 testing on Capitol Hill but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had turned down the offer.
Scalise verified a claim made by Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL), who earlier voiced his frustration with Pelosi's unwillingness to implement a testing regime.
''Congressman [Rodney] Davis is exactly correct,'' he said. ''These protocols have been out there and the testing capabilities have been out there for a long time. They were offered to the Speaker and she turned it down. And I think it's something that should have been in Congress for a few weeks now. But you know, ultimately, that's what the Speaker decided to do.''
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
VIDEO-Fire Destroys Huawei Factory in China - YouTube
VIDEO-Video: Largest Tort Case in History - German Lawsuit Against Unlawful Lockdowns: CDC States "Covid-19 Tests Don't Exist"
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 11:44
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______________in_PHI_nitti
______________Jasmine Hr1
Jasmine Hr2______________Tom Chittum Hr1
Tom Chittum Hr2______________Kevin Courtois
______________Dr Syberlux
______________Gary Larrabee Hr1
Gary Larrabee Hr2______________Kevin Courtois
______________Pravdaseeker Hr1
Pravdaseeker Hr2______________DECEMBER 2008
Tom Chittum
______________Crystal River
______________Stewart Swerdlow Hr1
Stewart Swerdlow Hr2______________Janet Swerdlow Hr1
Janet Swerdlow Hr2______________Dr. Robin Falkov Hr1
Dr. Robin Falkov Hr2Dr. Robin Falkov Hr3JANUARY 2009 ______________
Patriotlad
______________Patriotlad
______________Crystal River
______________Patriotlad
______________Dr. Robin Falcov
______________Patriotlad
FEBRUARY 2009
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Video: Largest Tort Case in History - German Lawsuit Against Unlawful Lockdowns: CDC States "Covid-19 Tests Don't Exist"
Posted By: Lion [Send E-Mail]Date: Sunday, 4-Oct-2020 14:18:48www.rumormill.news/155352
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https://youtu.be/2UQLqWJJ8AY
CDC STATES COVID19 TESTS DON'T EXIST '' CITED IN GERMAN LAWSUIT '' YET FAUCI/BIRX SHUT DOWN AMERICA
HopefulPublished 12 hours ago |
FULL VIDEO: ATTORNEY REINER FUELLMICH "COVID TESTS" SOLE PURPOSE IS TO CREATE FEAR.
CDC STATES COVID19 TESTS DON'T EXIST '' CITED IN GERMAN LAWSUIT ''"COVID19" TESTS BEING USED SOLELY TO CREATE FEAR.
EXCELLENT VIDEO '' FACTS OF COVID 19 SCAM '' GERMAN LAW - CITING AMERICA'S CDC STATEMENT'S THAT THE COVID-19 TESTS DON'T EXIST ''
PROVEN: PUBLIC DELIBERATELY LEAD INTO PANIC BY POLITICIANS AND MEDIA WITH VIRUS HYSTERIA
https://www.brighteon.com/cb101719-5bcf-4447-9298-887b8c2afbb9
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Articles In This ThreadVideo: Largest Tort Case in History - German Lawsuit Against Unlawful Lockdowns: CDC States "Covid-19 Tests Don't Exist" (views: 2018)Lion -- Sunday, 4-Oct-2020 14:18:48I embedded it - SO IMPORTANT! watch before it's wiped (views: 1015)jensingr -- Sunday, 4-Oct-2020 16:10:23Thank You (views: 147)Lion -- Sunday, 4-Oct-2020 17:31:51The Big Take Away From This Information (views: 591)Lion -- Sunday, 4-Oct-2020 18:09:36Covid tests - DNA harvesting (views: 589)jensingr -- Sunday, 4-Oct-2020 18:23:59CGI's Mike: This is NOT a good thing - Covid lie is the PROBLEM (views: 325)RumorMail -- Sunday, 4-Oct-2020 19:09:58Two Points From Sept 22, 2020 Post (views: 215)Lion -- Sunday, 4-Oct-2020 22:03:42
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VIDEO-China Moves Away From US Dollar, Ahead Of Digital Yuan | Zero Hedge
Sun, 04 Oct 2020 23:31
Authored by Shaurya Malwa via Decrypt.co,
In brief
China is reducing exposure to the US dollar amidst fears of massive inflation.
The country has sold over $109 billion worth of US bonds in the first half of 2020.
Its upcoming digital yuan is a contender to the US dollar's long-held global dominance.
China is likely to reduce its holdings of US Treasury bonds to just under $800 billion from the current level of more than $1 trillion, according to local news outlet Global Times.
A major reason for the reduced exposure is the record amounts of US dollars being printed by the country's Federal Reserve, leading to fears among investors and central banks of imminent inflation. Another is US President Donald Trump's repeated attacks on the Chinese administration, the report said.
Currently, China is the world's second-largest holder of US debts, but it has been reducing its holdings of US bonds in recent years. In the first half of 2020 alone, China sold an estimated $106 billion worth of US bonds - a 3.4% decline compared to 2019.
Xi Junyang, a professor at the Shanghai University in China was cited as saying that China is on track to reduce its holdings of US bonds from $1 trillion to $800 billion. But he added, ''China might sell all of its US bonds in an extreme case, like a military conflict."
Bitcoin critic and gold investor Peter Schiff agreed, tweeting, ''My feeling is that China will reduce its exposure by much more. It's also likely that other nations will do likewise."
If true this is very significant. In fact, my feeling is that China will reduce its exposure by much more. It's also likely that other nations will do likewise. That means the Fed is gonna need a much bigger printing press and Americans had better be prepared to really pay up! https://t.co/mcemxItX3o
'-- Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) September 3, 2020Schiff added, ''That means the Fed is gonna need a much bigger printing press, and Americans had better be prepared to really pay up.''
Rise of the yuanThe report added that many other countries might diversify their foreign exchange reserve assets to decrease the reliance on US-dollar assets. This would be in the hope of minimizing potential risks caused by US debt.
China's upcoming digital yuan will be a contender. Officially called the Digital Currency Electronic Payment, it will increase the accessibility and accountability of the yuan while increasing international trade on its wholly-digital system.
Experts have already said that the digital yuan may threaten the US dollar's status as the world's reserve currency. Now that it's getting ready for launch, China may not need the US dollar any more.
VIDEO-Tom Elliott on Twitter: "SUPERCUT! Dems give really terrible Coronavirus advice https://t.co/j9pTJr5Lw5" / Twitter
Sun, 04 Oct 2020 20:36
Tom Elliott : SUPERCUT!Dems give really terrible Coronavirus advice https://t.co/j9pTJr5Lw5
Wed Apr 01 16:21:19 +0000 2020
David Erik : @tomselliott Dems were too busy impeaching trump to give a shit about covid. Nancy ripped up the SOTU speech that'... https://t.co/C4jbmykW05
Sun Oct 04 20:34:20 +0000 2020
Janny Carlson : @tomselliott This should be mandatory watching for all Dems.
Sun Oct 04 20:34:05 +0000 2020
