1424: Guidepost

Key factors contributing to the current heightened threat environment include:

The proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions:

For example, there is widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19. Grievances associated with these themes inspired violent extremist attacks during 2021.

Malign foreign powers have and continue to amplify these false or misleading narratives in efforts to damage the United States.

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:11

Winnipeg General Strike '' 1919This year's MayWorks Ottawa 2019 theme is Toppling the System: 100 years of the working class resistance and the arts. 2019 marks the centenary of the Winnipeg General Strike, the largest and most influential strike in Canadian history. MayWorks Ottawa will pay tribute to the workers involved in this strike through education and the arts.

The photo of strikers tipping a streetcar is an iconic image from the strike and has become symbolic of working class struggles in general, as well as inspiring the theme and imagery for MayWorks 2019. The action had a deeper significance at the time in that the streetcar was being operated by a scab (a strike-breaker).

''Angry at the strike-breakers hired to operate the transit system in place of the striking employees, several people in the crowd began rocking the car from side to side. Unable to tip it over entirely, they set it on fire,'' reports CBC. ''Soon, military personnel from the Fort Osborne Barracks arrived, along with machine gun units who marched into the melee, which had spread into what became known as Hell's Alley'... When the brawl ended, two people '‹had died and 35-45 people, both strikers and police, had been injured. The day became known as ''Bloody Saturday.''''

The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 was one of the most influential strikes in Canadian history, and led to future labour reforms. Massive unemployment and inflation, dismal wages and working conditions, and the success of the Russian Revolution all contributed to labour unrest at the time.

''Never have the workers of Winnipeg had so much confidence in their cause as today. Never has there been such unanimity as to absolute necessity of settling once [and] for all the two points at issue, namely: 1. The right to collective bargaining, and 2. The right to a living wage.''

'' Western Labor News, May 21, 1919 (Winnipeg) Collective TiltBy Adam Ashby GibbardArtist statement: The design of the piece follows some aspects of Russian Avant Garde, the prominent art style in Russia during the Russian Revolution. Blue to represent authority/government and is the central focal point. Yellow as the impact of the crowd on the streetcar. Red circles as people's individuality coming together into a red column, angled with the tilt of the streetcar. The collective becoming a force large enough to destabilize something otherwise immobile, much like the government.

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:08

The Facebook and Instagram logos displayed on a smartphone with the Meta Platforms logo pictured in the background.

Igor Golovniov | SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images

Meta has said it is considering shutting down Facebook and Instagram in Europe if it can't keep transferring user data back to the U.S.

The social media giant issued the warning in its annual report last Thursday.

Regulators in Europe are currently drawing up new legislation that will dictate how EU citizens' user data gets transferred across the Atlantic.

Facebook said: "If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and we are unable to continue to rely on SCCs (standard contractual clauses) or rely upon other alternative means of data transfers from Europe to the United States, we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe."

The company added this "would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations."

"Meta cannot just blackmail the EU into giving up its data protection standards," European lawmaker Axel Voss said via Twitter, adding that "leaving the EU would be their loss." Voss has previously written some of the EU's data protection legislation.

A Meta spokesperson told CNBC on Monday that the company has no desire and no plans to withdraw from Europe, adding it has raised the same concerns in previous filings.

"But the simple reality is that Meta, and many other businesses, organizations and services, rely on data transfers between the EU and the U.S. in order to operate global services," they said.

The European Commission did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

In August 2020, Ireland's Protection Commission sent Facebook a preliminary order to stop transferring user data from the EU to the U.S., according to a report from The Wall Street Journal that cited sources familiar with the matter.

"The Irish Data Protection Commission has commenced an inquiry into Facebook controlled EU-US data transfers, and has suggested that SCCs cannot in practice be used for EU-US data transfers," Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of global affairs and communications, said in a blog post at the time.

"While this approach is subject to further process, if followed, it could have a far-reaching effect on businesses that rely on SCCs and on the online services many people and businesses rely on," he added.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission is expected to issue a final decision in the first half of 2022.

If SCCs can't be used as the legal basis for transferring data, Facebook would have to silo off the majority of the data it collects on European users. The DPC could fine Facebook up to 4% of its annual revenue, or $2.8 billion if it failed to comply.

Court rulingIn July 2020, the European Court of Justice ruled the data transfer standard between the EU and the U.S. doesn't adequately protect European citizens' privacy.

The court, the EU's highest legal authority, restricted how U.S. firms could send European user data to the U.S. after concluding EU citizens had no e¬ective way to challenge American government surveillance.

U.S. agencies such as the NSA can theoretically ask internet companies like Facebook and Google to hand over data on an EU citizen and that EU citizen would be none-the-wiser.

The ECJ ruling came after Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems filed a lawsuit in light of the Edward Snowden revelations arguing that U.S. law did not offer sufficient protection against surveillance by public authorities. Schrems raised the complaint against Facebook which, like many other firms, was transferring his and other user data to the U.S.

The court ruling invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield agreement, which enabled firms to send EU citizen's data across the Atlantic. As a result, companies have had to rely on SCCs.

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:08

Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, speaks at a press conference on the Monetary Policy Report at the Bank of England on Feb. 3, 2022 in London, England.

Dan Kitwood | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The governor of the Bank of England has sparked serious backlash after telling Britons they should not ask for a pay raise this year, even as the country grapples with its greatest cost of living crisis in decades.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and workers unions have been among those to decry Andrew Bailey, who last week said that employees should not pressure their bosses into boosting wages as the economy needs time to recalibrate amid soaring inflation.

Speaking to the BBC hours after the central bank imposed back-to-back interest rate hikes, the governor said businesses should assert "restraint" in pay negotiations to help battle 30-year high inflation.

When asked by the BBC whether the Bank was asking workers not to demand big pay rises, Bailey said: "Broadly, yes."

He said that while it would be "painful" for workers, some "moderation of wage rises" is needed to prevent inflation from becoming entrenched.

Why Bailey is backing lower wagesBailey's comments correspond with the economic theory that rising wages lead to higher inflation.

As wages go up, so too does the cost of producing goods and services, leading companies to charge consumers more, thereby inflating living costs. In an already inflationary environment, that could lead to a vicious circle known as the "wage-price spiral" '-- a phenomenon that Britain experienced in the 1970s.

Such concerns prompted the Bank to raise interest rates to stem inflation, which is forecast to hit 7.25% in April, and bring it closer in line with its 2% benchmark. But the governor's comments suggest that employees should be proactive, too, to avoid further escalation.

"In the sense of saying, we do need to see a moderation of wage rises. Now that's painful. I don't want to in any sense sugar that, it is painful. But we need to see that in order to get through this problem more quickly," Bailey said.

Outcry as soaring living costs biteHowever, the governor's comments were seen as grossly insensitive, not least because his latest annual pay packet was worth over £575,000 ($777,115) '-- 18 times the U.K. average for a full-time employee.

Britain is currently battling soaring living costs, with household finances already stretched and post-tax incomes forecast to fall 2% this year.

A spokesperson for Boris Johnson rejected Bailey's calls for wage restraint, saying it's not the government's role to "advise the strategic direction or management of private companies."

Meanwhile, unions across the country hit out at what they saw as Bailey's tone-deaf comments.

"Telling the hard-working people who carried this country through the pandemic they don't deserve a pay rise is outrageous," said Gary Smith, general secretary of the pan-industry GMB trade union.

"According to Mr Bailey, carers, NHS workers, refuse collectors, shop workers and more should just swallow a massive real-terms pay cut at the same time as many are having to choose between heating and eating."

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:07

Kelly Brown : Pfizer added new and peculiar items deep in its business risk disclosures re: clinical trial data, today in its Q4'... https://t.co/yDNi38oICW

Tue Feb 08 19:31:08 +0000 2022

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:07

Former New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet, shown here in a photo from 2017, said Tuesday he accepted blame for an editorial that falsely linked a graphic from former Gov. Sarah Palin's political action committee with a mass shooting in Arizona. He testified during Palin's defamation suit. Larry Neumeister/AP hide caption

toggle caption Larry Neumeister/AP Former New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet, shown here in a photo from 2017, said Tuesday he accepted blame for an editorial that falsely linked a graphic from former Gov. Sarah Palin's political action committee with a mass shooting in Arizona. He testified during Palin's defamation suit.

Larry Neumeister/AP The former top editor over the New York Times opinion sections, James Bennet, testified on Tuesday that he accepted full blame for a passage in a June 2017 editorial that wrongly linked former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's political action committee to the deadly mass shooting in Arizona that left a Democratic congresswoman critically wounded.

The editorial inspired Palin to file a defamation lawsuit against The Times and Bennet that has lasted for more than four-and-a-half years.

"This is my fault," Bennet testified. "I wrote those sentences and I'm not looking to shift the blame to anyone else. I just want that for the record."

Asked if he was formally reprimanded, Bennet revealed that he apologized and took full responsibility for the errors to the New York Times Co. board of directors. The editorial was corrected the day after it was first posted. But Bennet conceded he had not apologized directly to Palin, although he testified he sought to do so unsuccessfully by commenting to a CNN reporter.

Bennet proved deliberate and measured on the stand. He also appeared well coached, often answering only "yes" or "no." Attorneys for The Times have characterized his actions as an "honest mistake."

Yet Palin's lead attorney, Shane Vogt, circled Bennet like a prizefighter, offering none of the niceties afforded earlier witnesses from the newspaper, and jabbing him over failures to research his claims carefully. Over the course of the trial, Vogt explored the involvement of other journalists on the editorial page, but always returned to Bennet's role.

The trial, playing out in a federal courtroom in downtown Manhattan, offers a lurching seminar in libel law, journalism ethics, and the finer and sometimes ugly details of putting out a daily newspaper. Much of the questioning focused on who commissioned, wrote, researched, edited, reviewed, and approved the editorial itself - and what happened as it became increasingly clear the editorial's language about Palin was wrong.

And yet much of the sparring between Palin's attorneys and those for the Times and Bennet centered on the former editor himself - what he could reasonably be expected to have known, what he could reasonably be expected to have read, and the degree to which his professional and family ties could be wielded against him.

The Times editorial, titled "America's Lethal Politics," was posted late on the day of a shooting that almost took the life of Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana. It made a sweeping argument for greater gun control and warned of the dangers of heated political rhetoric.

The piece folded in the left-wing politics of Scalise's shooter with the earlier Arizona shooting, which killed six people and grievously wounded then-U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, a Democrat. The Times editorial said that Palin's political action committee had created a graphic of gun cross-hairs over Gifford and other Democratic lawmakers in a fundraising pitch; Bennet's revisions led to a line that "the link to political incitement was clear."

In fact no such connection had been found, as an ABC News story that the editorial linked to reported. And the targeting symbols were placed over congressional districts, not lawmakers themselves, as the editorial wrongly implied.

Accused of clinging to a 'narrative' despite the factsThe statements raised concerns inside the newsroom and fueled public outrage. The next day, the Times corrected the editorial twice. Bennet tweeted out an apology via the editorial page's Twitter account. Nonetheless, Palin filed suit almost immediately.

In his opening statement to jurors last week, Vogt argued that Bennet developed a narrative involving the former governor at the outset "and stuck with regardless of what was presented to him, regardless of what research he had. He had his narrative and he stuck with it."

Vogt and his colleague Kenneth Turkel sought to use Bennet's former job as editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to suggest animus against Palin. They pointed to blog posts on the magazine's site The Wire, in which opinion journalist Andrew Sullivan wrote caustically about Palin. Bennet said he could not remember reading specific Sullivan's pieces, or coverage of the shooting in Tucson that knocked down any connection of the shooter to ads from Palin's political action committee. Vogt highlighted the contrast between Bennet's efforts to pin down the facts once objections arose after the publication of the editorial, rather than before.

Palin's defamation suit is not only dramatic but rare: such cases are normally dismissed or resolved with a settlement. Media and First Amendment attorneys say they have concens about the implications for the ability of the press to give tough scrutiny to public figures. Yet some legal scholars say current precedent makes it hard to force the media to take responsibility for their mistakes. Bennet is set to testify again on Wednesday; Palin's own testimony is expected subsequently.

A rush to publish became a self-inflicted wound There were so many moments at which the false claim could have been forestalled. And it was a doubly self-inflicted wound, the false language inserted by Bennet late in the game, but also completed in a rush to meet a self-imposed deadline so the editorial could be posted online on the night that Scalise was shot and printed in the next morning's newspaper. Bennet testified he had initially sought to write notes to guide his editors' approach but decided to re-write the editorial significantly in order to get the piece in on time.

"If you don't weigh in on the day of a major event, you're really behind the curve in terms of being a daily newspaper and being current," the Times' Elizabeth Williamson, who wrote the original draft of the editorial, testified last week.

Editorial pages typically have earlier deadlines than the front pages of news sections because they are less likely to be addressing unfolding events. Yet Bennet has testified he was urged by A.G. Sulzberger, now the paper's publisher, to disrupt conventional practices.

Even so, the image emerged of a team of journalists who cared deeply about getting the facts right and presenting them fairly, though they were charged with crafting pieces reflecting the unsigned opinion of the newspaper as an institution. (The opinion and news departments of the paper operate separately.)

Linda Cohn, at the time an editor in the opinion section who was involved in the editing process, was asked who ultimately was responsible for fact-checking it. She replied that it starts with the writer: "Reporting is in a way a form of fact-checking."

"Everyone who reads it, up through the copy editor, has some role," she added. "It's a shared responsibility."

It was clear throughout the days of testimony how badly the journalists felt when they registered the editorial was not accurate or fair to Palin. Cohn described feeling "horrible." Williamson testified that Bennet was "crestfallen."

A practice never to say "sorry" Palin's attorneys sought to portray Bennet as a paragon of the establishment, confirming that he was validated by some of the nation's leading institutions. He earned top marks at St. Albans' preparatory school in Washington, D.C. and Yale University, and got internships in the 1980s with a Democratic senator and The New Republic. Bennet also acknowledged campaigning for several weeks in 2010 for his brother, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado.

After a series of controversies, James Bennet left the newspaper in June 2020.

At the end of Tuesday's questioning, Bennet was asked why the paper had not formally apologized to Palin. No such contrition appeared in print or on its website, even after a correction was appended the day after it was first posted.

Bennet noted that he had attempted to issue an apology to Palin through CNN reporter Oliver Darcy; that element was removed from his response by the newspaper's PR staff. Then Bennet explained a practice by the newspaper that may not make sense to non-journalists, or those serving on the jury, for that matter.

"That policy was not apologizing for corrections," he testified Tuesday. "It was a long-standing policy although one of which I was unaware until after this." He said that a ritual expression of regret on each mistake would render them meaningless.

"The feeling of the standards editors, I think, was that of course The Times regrets its errors," Bennet explained. "They're correcting them. That's an extremely painful thing for the journalists and is an expression of regret."

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:06

Facebook's shrinking market cap could hold one upside for the tech giant: the possibility of skirting new antitrust liability.

The company, recently renamed Meta, closed with a market cap below $600 billion on Tuesday for the first time since May 2020. The stock fell 2.1%, bringing it to a market cap of $599.32 billion.

The $600 billion market cap figure also happens to be the number House legislators picked as the threshold for a "covered platform" under a package of competition bills designed specifically to target Big Tech. If Meta were to remain below that threshold, it could avoid the additional hurdles the bills would install for how it can conduct its business and make deals, while its larger peers like Amazon, Alphabet, Apple and even Microsoft become subject to the rules.

Facebook Chief Executive Officer and founder, Mark Zuckerberg, leaving the Merrion Hotel in Dublin after meeting with Irish politicians to discuss regulation of social media, transparrency in political advertising and the safety of young people and vulnerable adults. On Tuesday, April 2, 2019, in Dublin, Ireland.

Artur Widak | NurPhoto | Getty Images

It could take quite some time for any of the bills to become law, if that happens at all. The language could still be amended, and even as originally written, the bills would continue to apply to the platforms for a period of time after they fall below the market cap threshold. One Senate bill that recently passed through the Judiciary Committee actually uses a lower market cap threshold than its House companion, at $550 billion.

Still, the milestone points to one of the challenges of crafting laws that target the tech industry. In addition to making sure the bills are not solving for outdated challenges by the time they pass, legislators must try to encompass a select group of companies.

One bill that could significantly impact Meta, if it's considered a covered platform by the time it passes, is the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act. The bill, originally introduced by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., with a counterpart introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., would make it harder for covered platforms to acquire young potential rivals.

Stock picks and investing trends from CNBC Pro:Facebook is already fighting an antitrust lawsuit under existing law from the Federal Trade Commission that alleges it used its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to maintain monopoly power. If this new bill were to become law and Meta were subject to it, it could make it even harder for the company to make similar acquisitions in the future.

The House version of the bill says that when federal regulators designate a platform as covered by the law, the company must have net annual sales or market cap of $600 billion, adjusted for inflation, at that time or during the prior two years of the designation or lawsuit brought under the act.

The Senate version says the market cap for a covered platform should be based on a "simple average of the closing price per share of the common stock issued by the person for the trading days in the 180-day period ending on the date of enactment of this Act."

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:05

A group of four progressive lawmakers '-- Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) '-- sent letters to several federal agencies on Wednesday calling for an end to their use of Clearview AI's controversial facial recognition system.

The letter was sent to the Departments of Justice, Defense, Homeland Security, and the Interior. All four agencies were identified in an August 2021 report from the General Accounting Office as using Clearview for ''domestic law enforcement'' purposes.

''Clearview AI's technology could eliminate public anonymity in the United States,'' the letter reads, describing the system as ''capable of fundamentally dismantling Americans' expectation that they can move, assemble, or simply appear in public without being identified.''

The same four lawmakers had previously introduced legislation that would bar federal law enforcement from using facial recognition technology entirely and add new restrictions for state and local police departments using the technology.

Clearview AI is unique among facial recognition vendors because of its internal database of identified faces, many of them scraped from Facebook, YouTube, and other social networks. The resulting system gives Clearview the power to identify many targets on sight but has made it the subject of ongoing legal actions in America, France, Australia, and other countries. Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That has previously said more than 2,400 police agencies have entered into contracts with the company.

The letter adds to ongoing pressure on federal agencies to drop facial recognition systems entirely. On Monday, the director of the General Services Agency (GSA) told The Washington Post the agency is ''committed to not deploying facial recognition'... until rigorous review has given us confidence that we can do so equitably.'' Still, other agencies are planning to expand their use of the technology once it is more adequately tested.

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 15:59

A recent report by Daniel Horowitz at The Blaze on the Department of Defense manipulating epidemiological data after the initial data for 2021 revealed a MASSIVE increase, by 988%, in doctor visits by US military members in 2021.

What happened in 2021? Could it be the mandatory COVID vaccines?

Hat Tip Canncon

The initial data was presented during Sen. Ron Johnson's five-hour hearing on a ''COVID-19: Second Opinion'' by Ohio attorney Thomas Renz, who has been representing clients suing the vaccine mandates.

TRENDING: HERE'S THE LIST: 1,000 Different Studies Show Extensive Evidence of COVID-19 Vaccines Adverse Events

In response to the report, the US military claimed the five previous years were plagued by a giant clitch.

According to the Department of Defense, the actual number of doctor visits and ambulatory care in the military is at least TEN TIMES higher than was being reported since 2016!

The US military then provided this ''corrected'' chart.

So the US military in fiscal years 2019 to 2021 was over $680 billion per year. Yet, the US military could not compile a list of doctor visits for the past six years?

What the US military is admitting is that their numbers were off by 18 million a year in the number of doctor visits.

Could the US military really be this inept? Or are they covering up the actual COVID vaccine incidents?

And then there's this'... There are 1.3 million serving Active Duty in the US military today. So does that mean the average doctor visit, disease, and injury is 10 per year for our military men and women? Seriously?

This is a massive scandal. Heads should roll!

Via The Blaze:

There is undoubtedly a public health and national security crisis in the military, and the Pentagon's reaction only seems to be concerned with exonerating the vaccine, not fixing its own alleged problem.

It's now certain that the military's health surveillance system '-- DMED '-- showed a massive increase in sickness and injury diagnoses in 2021 over previous years, particularly in the neurological, cardiovascular, oncological, and reproductive health categories. The military, in a very terse and cryptic statement to PolitiFact last week, admitted as much, but claimed without any further explanation that the data in the system accessed by several military doctors working with attorney Thomas Renz was only a ''fraction'' of the true numbers that existed. In the words of the Pentagon spokesman, it was a ''glitch in the database.'' Where those true numbers existed, why they weren't in the system for five years, what exactly was in the system, and why the 2021 numbers were accurate according to the DOD account remain a mystery.

However, one by one, the military public health officials have been adding back random numbers to the 2016 through 2020 codes. I'm told by Renz and two of the whistleblowers that throughout the past week, they have queried the same data again, and in most of the ICD categories, they have found that the numbers from 2016 through 2020 were ''increased'' exponentially to look as though 2021 was not an abnormal year. This has been done without any transparency, any press release, any statement of narrative, and sloppily in a way that makes the already unbelievable narrative simply impossible to believe.

In addition to believing that every epidemiological report for five years was somehow completely tainted with false data '-- including during the first year of the pandemic itself '-- we would have to believe that the minute they discovered this from Renz, they suddenly discovered the exact numbers. A five-year mistake fixed overnight!

Read the rest here.

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 15:55

Medic with face mask.

Haris Mulaosmanovic / EyeEm | EyeEm | Getty Images

Aside from the obvious physical impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, health professionals have told CNBC that many people are struggling with the immense emotional and societal changes it has brought. What's more, they're finding it hard to adapt to a "new normal" now that lockdowns are starting to ease.

Many psychologists and psychiatrists have reported an influx of people seeking mental health support during the pandemic, with the unprecedented global health crisis causing an increase in anxiety and depression as well as exacerbating existing mental health conditions.

"I have never been as busy in my life and I've never seen my colleagues as busy," Valentine Raiteri, a psychiatrist working in New York, told CNBC.

"I can't refer people to other people because everybody is full. Nobody's taking new patients ... So I've never been as busy in my life, during the pandemic, and ever in my career," he said, adding that he's also seen an influx of former patients returning to him for help.

Raiteri said that many of his patients are still working remotely and were isolated, with many feeling "disconnected and lost, and they just have this kind of malaise."

"That is really hard for me to do anything about," he said, noting: "I can't make the pressures disappear. I can always treat the illness that it provokes."

A daughter visiting her quarantined mother during a Covid lockdown.

grandriver

Numerous studies on the impact of Covid on mental health have been carried out. One study, published in The Lancet medical journal in October, looked at the global prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders in 204 countries and territories in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.

It found that mental health dramatically declined in that year, with an estimated 53 million additional cases of major depressive disorders and 76 million additional cases of anxiety disorders seen globally. Women and younger people were found to be affected more than men and older adults.

AnxietiesAs the pandemic really took hold in the spring of 2020, there was little understanding of how long the pandemic would last. Psychologists say there was a surprising amount of resilience during the first few months of the virus' outbreak, particularly when many countries went into unprecedented lockdowns.

Raiteri said that over time, however, the loss of daily social contact started to take its toll.

"There's definitely a huge mental health impact from a long period of uncertainty and change that's left people very isolated and not sure how to connect. Just being out in public and interacting in a very casual way with strangers or mild acquaintances, that's very regulating, and norm-creating and reality affirming."

When we stop getting those signals, Raiteri said, "our internal voices become stronger and it becomes harder and harder to self regulate."

That created a "big pressure cooker, especially for people who already have a vulnerability," he said.

Natalie Bodart, a London-based clinical psychologist and head of The Bodart Practice, told CNBC that the pandemic meant that many people had to confront issues in their life that they'd been able to avoid before, such as alcoholism, relationship issues, isolation and loneliness.

"Our day to day lives serve as great defense mechanisms, we have lots of distractions that help us to avoid things, for good and for ill," she said.

"For example, we have had younger people that have come to us and said, 'now that I'm not doing my very sociable busy job anymore, I realize I've got a problem with alcohol.' And why is that? Well, that's because it can't be covered up anymore by the fact that their work demands that they socialize and drink a lot. Or, people who have been in relationships where they don't see that much of their partner, so it works, it functions, but then you're stuck at home with that person and suddenly realize, actually, there's a lot of things coming out that we just haven't confronted or haven't realized."

For some people, particularly those with acute social anxiety, Covid lockdowns provided the perfect cover, however.

"For many people, they work really hard, pushing themselves to interact more with other people to socialize more, and Covid just meant that they didn't have to do that anymore. So they were talking about this huge sense of relief," Leigh Jones, a clinical psychologist and the co-founder of Octopus Psychology, told CNBC.

"But although they were kind of delighted when it first happened, then [they were] being really worried about facing people again. And that's been a kind of across the board, people with social anxiety, people with personality disorder, who are avoidant of other people, because ... it wasn't so much the isolation that was difficult. It was the getting back out there," said Jones, who works with both public and private patients in Leeds and Bradford in northern England.

"For practically everybody I see, Covid has had some kind of impact," she said, noting she has other patients "who have huge issues around feeling very, very vulnerable to harm or illness" or contagion.

"Obviously, for them, this has been their worst nightmare," she said.

TraumaTo date, there have been over 400 million Covid cases around the world and over 5.7 million deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Restrictions on social contact have prevented millions of people from sharing not just milestones like births and weddings with family and friends, but also final moments with loved ones, with many unable to hold or attend funerals during the strictest points of lockdown.

Jones noted that she had concerns over the loss of "rituals" associated with death. "I do really worry about the impact on grieving, because we have rituals for a reason, which is to help us process the loss and the grief," she said.

Cemetery workers in protective gear bury people who died of causes related to Covid-19 at Novo-Yuzhnoye Cemetery in Omsk, Russia.

Yevgeny Sofiychuk | TASS | Getty Images

Katherine Preedy, a clinical psychologist based near London, told CNBC that she is seeing "a lot of trauma, either people who've lost people due to Covid" or have experienced other traumatic situations such as not being able to visit sick or dying relatives because of restrictions.

"This is a whole generation [that's been affected by Covid], it's two years of our lives, I think this will have a big impact. There may be first responders, people in hospitals, who are still very much in that survival mode, and then, there's obviously the emotional impact on people, whole industries being lost, the health [impact]."

She noted that mental health professionals are also under pressure to help a greatly increased number of patients.

"We're a nation that's traumatized and under stress; the whole world is under trauma and stress, which means we, like the people we work with, have fewer resources to draw on and have to work a bit harder to make sure we're looking after ourselves," she continued.

Milestones lostBereavement, isolation, uncertainty and loss '-- a loss of freedoms, relationships and moments that can't be relived and retrieved '-- are just some of the issues that have affected many people during the pandemic. Psychologists say that while the pandemic may be in its "endgame" phase now, the mental health impact of Covid could be felt for years.

Alex Desatnik, a consultant clinical psychologist in the U.K. working with adults and children, told CNBC that he believes it will take "at least a generation" to resolve the damage to many young people caused by missed milestones and experiences crucial for development.

"Kids who grew up in this state, in this condition, and those things that they were deprived of, they will take this with them through life. I hope that as a society we will do as much as we can to compensate for what happened, and is still happening, actually," he said.

"You are a 15-year-old teenager only once," he said. "Everything we know about brain development, physical development, emotional development, with each age there is a unique window of opportunities" in which to grow, learn and develop, he said.

Milestones linked to age and development are, once passed, tricky to go back and "repair" Desatnik noted.

The new normal?The advent of Covid vaccines has heralded what we all hope is the beginning of the end of the pandemic, despite new variants like omicron posing challenges to the shots that have been developed. The threat of a new mutation that could pose a more severe risk to health is also a concern.

For now, however, most developed nations with widespread vaccination coverage, and booster programs, are reopening and getting back to normal, or a "new normal" '-- perhaps one in which routine mask-wearing and Covid testing are a part of our lives for the foreseeable future.

Shoppers wearing face masks as a preventive measure against the spread of Covid-19 seen walking along Oxford Circus in London.

SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images

Bodart noted that "one thing we're maybe confronting now at this stage in the pandemic, in my opinion, is this sense that we're not really going back, we're not going back to how things were."

"We've kind of got into this very hybrid living situation now, where companies and most places ... seem to be accepting that this hybrid situation is going to be continuing. So there's a bit of a strange feeling about that '-- how does that feel? To know that life has, sort of, changed now? And maybe for many people of a particular generation, this is the first major life transition of that kind that's come about," she noted.

The pandemic had offered an opportunity for people to look within and to confront personal issues and problems, and has forced many to do so. There can even be positive outcomes to that, Bodart said.

"I think for some people, they have gone back to things that they needed ... things have opened up a bit and so that's been very helpful," she said.

"But maybe for other people, if they've been put in touch with something, they've become aware of something, then you can't really bury that again. That's going to be something that you then have to work through and address, and maybe that's a good thing."

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 15:24

Homelessness in the Bay Area has become such a problem people are being urged to give their spare rooms over to the homeless.

Some charities have urged local families - who are sick of seeing the homeless crisis on their doorsteps - to do something about it personally by taking unhoused people into their own homes and spare rooms - and some schemes have little to no compensation.

Christi Carpenter, executive director of East Bay nonprofit Safe Time, which places homeless families and college students in spare bedrooms for one-to-six months, told Mercury News: 'This is something that someone can do when they just feel that despair of 'oh my gosh, I just can't stand seeing these poor people on the streets near my home.'

Since 2017, the group has made more than 60 placements. There are an estimated 30,000 homeless in the five-county Bay Area - which are comprised of the East Bay, North Bay, South Bay, Peninsula and the city of San Francisco regions.

The mayor of the Richmond, located in the East Bay county of Contra Costa about 20 miles from downtown San Francisco, has set up a program to match homeless people with local landlords who have empty apartments.

Funded by private donations, it will pay the landlords a year's rent up front to encourage them to forgo the usual credit, employment and background checks for tenants.

'That's the carrot,' Mayor Tom Butt told DailyMail.com, adding that they were paid the market rate.

'But we have had some landlords come forward and offer it lower, as they want to participate.'

Asked whether people expressed concern about the potential dangers of welcoming homeless people into their homes or apartments, he insisted that people care more about the plight of unhoused people and the homeless camps.

'They are more concerned with the homeless camps,' he said. 'People want to see solutions, and want to be part of the solution.'

He also claims he has not faced any concerns about the tenants from those housing them, because as the apartments were lower end in the first place - so they would always attract renters with less secure and affluent circumstances.

Richmond Mayor Tom Butt (right) insists people in his city located 20 miles from San Francisco were more concerned about helping the homeless than the potential dangers of taking in a homeless person - but Richie Greenberg (left) slammed the scheme as 'creepy'

Homeless people are seen on the streets of San Francisco on January 23, as the mayor declares a state of emergency and a crop of new schemes to provide housing are promoted

A tent encampment is seen in the Tenderloin section of San Francisco on January 23

Drone footage shows lines of people sitting outside a shelter in San Francisco on January 18

Zach Stein and his wife housed a young woman for three months in 2020 through Safe Time, putting her up in their Bay Area home in the city of Albany.

'In some ways, it was really weird,' he said.

But they intend to do it again, once their newborn is older - explaining that they were able to buy their house because they inherited money, and they want to share that good luck with those less fortunate.

'Being in a position to do that, especially in a place like the Bay Area, it felt really important to us to find ways to open that up.'

Another group, the Homecoming Project, houses former prisoners - paying homeowners in Alameda and Contra Costa counties $30 a day to house someone in a spare bedroom for six months.

Each former inmate is matched with a case manager to help them find a job and save money for a permanent home. Sex offenders aren't eligible.

'When we first started talking about this project people thought we were crazy. You're going to put somebody from prison into somebody's house?' said Aishatu Yusuf, vice president of innovation programs at Impact Justice, which runs the project.

But the nonprofit has housed nearly 70 people so far, none of whom have gone back to jail or prison.

And on Thursday, the San Francisco department of homelessness will hold a seminar to encourage landlords to rent out their homes for the homeless, with the local government picking up the tab.

The schemes are just the latest attempt to solve San Francisco's homeless problem, which in December forced Mayor London Breed to declare a state of emergency. Over 8,000 people are currently believed to be homeless in the city - up from 5,600 a decade ago.

However, not everyone is happy with the solution.

Richie Greenberg, the only Republican to challenge Breed and her fellow Democrats in the 2018 special election, told DailyMail.com the schemes were a publicity stunt and downright 'creepy.'

'The sheer number of people, and the reasons behind them being homeless, means it won't have an impact,' he said.

Greenberg, a small business advisor, said that because the majority of the homeless were mentally ill or drug addicts, they would not be assisted by the programs.

What was needed, he said, was more facilities for drug rehabilitation and a way of caring for the mentally ill so they did not harm themselves or others.

A drug user lights up on the streets of San Francisco on January 22

A woman injects herself with drugs in broad daylight in the streets of San Francisco on January 22

Drug use is rampant among the homeless in San Francisco, and the addicts will not be helped by the new schemes

He said the idea of individuals opening up their doors for the common good was not new - especially in San Francisco - but it was not a long-term, scalable solution.

'This is not a new idea - it's been floated for many years,' he said. 'Particularly in San Francisco - it goes back to freedom, and the summer of love, and hippies and communal houses, with strangers crashing on your couch.

'It's not an unheard of concept. But we're not talking about flower children. Now it gets a bit absurd.'

Greenberg continued: 'A very high percentage of San Francisco's homeless people are homeless because they are addicted to drugs or mentally ill. So the number of candidates is going to be quite limited.

'It won't be the mentally ill or drug addicts, who account for around 60-70 percent.'

He said the proposal was 'unrealistic'. 'Secondly, it's creepy,' he said.

'If you are looking for a room mate, that's one thing - you can check references, and talk to people at their previous places. But these are not that kind of people. A lot are down on their luck.'

Back in Richmond, Mayor Butt, 77, joined forces with the Rotary Club to match unhoused people with local landlords - and has already placed a family of six, including four children, who were living in an RV encampment.

'I got disgusted at throwing all this money at the problem without any thought of the end result,' Butt told DailyMail.com.

'I had access to some funding and thought, I can't solve the whole problem. But I can move people out of RVs and tents into apartments.

'So I partnered with the local Rotary Club, and they pivoted to prioritizing people in housing, rather than showers for camps.'

Butt said he had to 'provide some kind of incentive to landlords,' and so he is paying the year's rent up-front.

Richmond's homeless issue is comparatively small, with estimates of between 300 and 1,000 homeless people. Butt believes it is closer to the lower end of the scale.

'The big picture is that there are 160,000 homeless people in California, and unless we do something different, there will still be 160,000 ten years from now.

'If you take those 160,000 and multiply that by the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment, the cost is $1 billion.

'California's state budget is $300 billion a year. So for less than one percent of the annual state budget, you have provided housing for all.'

Asked what he would say to those who argue his plan would encourage homeless to flock to California from other states, in search of free housing, he said it was a risk they could 'work out' if it happened.

'None of the things that are happening now are working,' he said.

'None have an end game. They are just throwing money at it.

'Last year, in Richmond, we spent $1.5 million just servicing homeless camps - with that money, we could have bought 77 one-bed or studio apartments.

'We're the richest country in the world, and California brags about being the fifth largest economy.

'But if we can't sort this out, we're lame.'

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 15:02

Robert Peter Kadlec[1] is an American physician and career officer in the United States Air Force who served as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services (Preparedness and Response) from August 2017 until January 2021.

Early life [ edit ] Kadlec graduated with a B.S. from the United States Air Force Academy in 1979, an M.D. from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in 1983, and an M.A. from Georgetown University in 1989.[2]

Career [ edit ] Kadlec spent 26 years as a career officer and physician in the United States Air Force. In the White House Homeland Security Council, Kadlec was Director for Biodefense and Special Assistant to President George W. Bush for Biodefense Policy from 2007 to 2009.[2][3]

Kadlec was Deputy Staff Director for the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when he was nominated by President Donald Trump to become Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), an office within Health and Human Services.[4] Kadlec was confirmed for this position by the United States Senate on August 3, 2017,[5] by voice vote.[6]

Office of Preparedness and Response [ edit ] In January 2018, Kadlec testified to the U.S. Congress that the US was dangerously unprepared for a pandemic.[7] Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kadlec had heavily focused the office on preparing for a response to bioterror attacks, a choice that was later scruntinized.[8] From January through March 2020, Kadlec and his team focused on evacuating U.S. nationals from cruise ships and countries hard-hit by the pandemic; Kadlec's defenders said that this focus was necessary to protect Americans, while detractors criticized him for missing opportunities to prepare for pandemic COVID-19 in the United States.[8]

In April 2020, Kadlec demoted federal scientist Rick Bright, removing him from his position as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and reassigning him to a lower post at the National Institutes of Health. The following month, Bright filed a wide-ranging whistleblower complaint against Kadlec and several Trump administration officials.[9][8] Bright asserted that Kadlec ousted him retaliation for his "insistence" that the federal government focus resources on "safe and scientifically vetted" responses to the COVID-19 pandemic rather than "technologies that lack scientific merit" such as the use of hydroxychloroquine, which had been pushed by the Trump administration.[8] Bright also alleged that in January 2020, Kadlec had delayed acting to obtain face masks, testing swabs, and other materials for which there was later a shortage.[8] Supporters of Bright and supporters of Kadlec each accused the other "of preferential treatment for favored contractors and inappropriate spending decisions."[8] HHS denied that Bright had been retaliated against, but the Office of Special Counsel recommended Bright's reinstatement as BARDA chief,[8][9] finding a "substantial likelihood of wrongdoing" in his ouster.[9]

Emergent BioSolutions controversies [ edit ] Before being appointed by Trump as Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in 2017, Kadlec previously was a consultant for Emergent BioSolutions, a U.S. biotechnology company, and was part-owner of a company related to its founder; he did not disclose these facts in Senate nomination forms during his 2017 confirmation process.[10] Kadlec's company RPK Consulting had provided consulting services to Emergent until 2015.[11] Soon after taking office, Kadlec pushed to increase the government's stockpile of smallpox vaccine from Emergent BioSolutions, and HHS ultimately awarded a 10-year, $2.8 billion single-source contract to the company to purchase its smallpox vaccines at twice the previous price.[10][12] While renewal of the contrast was initial sought on modest terms, Kadlec's office finalized the deal with double the term length (10 years instead of 5 years) and double the number of doses per year (to 18 million). This raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest.[8][10]

After 15 million Janssen COVID-19 vaccines were ruined due to an error by Emergent BioSolutions (who held a contract to manufacture the vaccines at a Baltimore production facility), a congressional investigation was launched "into whether Emergent used ties to the Trump administration to get billions of dollars in federal contracts despite a history of failing to complete contracts" as well as concerns about "inadequate staff training, persistent quality-control issues, and the company's 'unjustified' 800% price increase for an anthrax vaccine" purchased by the government.[13][11] The inquiry, launched by the Democratic chairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and Select Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, focused in part on Kadlec's role; in a letter, the chairs of the committee wrote that Kadlec "appears to have pushed for" the $628 million award to Emergent to develop the factory "despite indications that Emergent did not have the ability to reliably fulfill the contract."[13][11]

References [ edit ] ^ Commencement Exercises. Bethesda, Maryland: The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences School of Medicine. May 21, 1983 . Retrieved 2021-06-27 . ^ a b "Robert Kadlec, MD, MS". Stanford Medicine . Retrieved 7 August 2017 . ^ "Facing 21st Century Public Health Treats : Our Nation's Preparedness and Response Capabilities, Part 1 Statement of Robert Kadlec, MD, MTM&H, MS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response" (PDF) . Help.senate.gov . Retrieved 15 June 2019 . ^ "President Donald J. Trump Announces Key Additions to his Administration". whitehouse.gov. July 10, 2017 . Retrieved 7 August 2017 '' via National Archives. ^ Ault, Alcia (August 3, 2017). "HHS Picks". MedScape . Retrieved 7 August 2017 . ^ PN744 '-- Robert P. Kadlec '-- Department of Health and Human Services, Congress.gov. ^ "Inside Operation Warp Speed's $26b sprint for a vaccine". Australian Financial Review. 2020-11-10 . Retrieved 2021-04-22 . ^ a b c d e f g h Diamond, Dan. "Colleagues paint a mixed picture of ousted vaccine chief". POLITICO . Retrieved 2021-04-14 . ^ a b c Nicholas Florko, Trump administration fires back at ousted vaccine expert as he testifies on his role in U.S. coronavirus response, Stat News (May 14, 2020). ^ a b c Jon Swaine, Robert O'Harrow Jr. & Aaron C. Davis (May 4, 2020). "Before pandemic, Trump's stockpile chief put focus on biodefense. An old client benefited". Washington Post. ^ a b c Mendez, Rich (2021-04-20). "Congressional investigation launched into Emergent BioSolutions' federal vaccine contracts". CNBC.com . Retrieved 2021-04-22 . ^ Flax, Debra (2019-09-03). "HHS awards 10-year contract to Emergent BioSolutions for smallpox vaccine". Homeland Preparedness News . Retrieved 2019-10-05 . ^ a b Mole, Beth (2021-04-22). "Contractor that ruined 15M doses of J&J vaccine hiked price of another by 800%". ArsTechnica . Retrieved 2021-04-22 . External links [ edit ] Biography at U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesAppearances on C-SPAN"National Biodefense Strategy: Protect the Nation Against all Biological Threats," by Dr. Robert Kadlec, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.Videos: "Dr. Robert Kadlec: ASPR Next" on YouTube "Dr. Robert Kadlec: National Biodefense Strategy" on YouTube "Dr. Robert Kadlec: The Evolution of Project BioShield" on YouTube21st Century Germ Warfare, by LtC Robert P. Kadlec (Air War College, Studies in National Security No.3, Sep 1998)

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 14:47

In Chicago, back in August 2019, federal agencies conducted a mock drill to see how the nation would handle a pandemic, specifically a deadly global outbreak with no known cure. The exercise pointed to a number of national shortcomings, including an insufficient amount of medical supplies.

It is called the 'Crimson Contagion 2019 Functional Exercise' and is marked not for distribution. The New York Times was the first to report and publish it.

This was an exercise about the flu, not the coronavirus, but the document points to specific problematic areas for a hypothetical outbreak that, prophetically, begins in China and lands in Chicago.

On August 13, in Illinois and 11 states from Arizona to Connecticut, federal, state and local officials began the four-day exercise.

The Scenario:

A large-scale outbreak of novel influenza begins in China andquickly spreads, first detected in Chicago in the U.S. and grows to pandemicproportion by human-to-human contact.

Stockpiled vaccines, per the exercise, are not a direct match tocontain the virus.

Involved in the national test were:

19 federal agencies12 states74 local health departments87 hospitalsAccording to the report, officials at the National Security Council in the White House were briefed during the exercise.

Among the key findings:

Insufficient federal funding sources for a severe influenza pandemicConfusion on how to apply the Defense Production ActThe current medical supply chain and production capacity could not meet the demandGlobal manufacturing would be unable to meet the domestic demand for personal protective equipment and ancillary suppliesDr. Allison Arwady was intimately involved in the exercise and ratcheted up Chicago's preparedness as a result. She had no comment on whether the feds took the same actions the city did.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot was blunt in a telephone briefing with reporters.

''It is clear to me the federalgovernment will not help us,'' she said. ''They are not the cavalry.''

The Chicago Department of Public Health, the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, as well as the state Health Department and Emergency Management Agency, took part in the exercise.

Though both the report and Dr. Arwady commend many federal agencies for working together and devising response strategies, the pandemic exercise predicted dire consequences--110 million illnesses, 7.7 million hospitalizations and 586,000 deaths, all in the U.S. in the absence of a coordinated national response.

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 14:44

American computer businessman and far-right activist (born 1961)

Ronald Keeva Unz (; born September 20, 1961) is an American technology entrepreneur, political activist, writer, and publisher. A former businessman, Unz became a multi-millionaire in Silicon Valley before entering politics.[1] He unsuccessfully ran for governor as a Republican in the 1994 California gubernatorial election and for U.S. Senator in 2016. He has sponsored multiple propositions promoting structured English immersion education as well as campaign finance reform and minimum wage increases.

He was publisher of The American Conservative from 2007 to 2013, and since 2013 has been publisher and editor of The Unz Review, a website which describes itself as presenting "controversial perspectives largely excluded from the American mainstream media."[2] The website has been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League as hosting racist and antisemitic content,[3] and the Southern Poverty Law Center which has labeled it a white nationalist publication.[4] Unz has also drawn criticism for funding VDARE and other writers that critics have termed white supremacist.[5]

Early life and career [ edit ] Ronald Keeva Unz was born in Los Angeles, California, on September 20, 1961,[6] to a Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant, and raised in a Yiddish-speaking household in North Hollywood.[7][8][1] His mother, Esther-Laio Avrutin, met his father on an airplane heading for Israel. A professor from the latter briefly became her lover when visiting her on a few occasions in Los Angeles. She unilaterally decided to have a child with him, but Unz's father was already married and his wife opened a letter from Avrutin telling him about her pregnancy. Avrutin was an anti-war activist,[8] who raised her son as a single mother, but he was given his father's surname and Avrutin soon moved back to her family's home after her son's birth.

Unz has said that his childhood as a fatherless child in a single-parent household which was on the dole, was a source of "embarrassment and discomfort".[8] He attended North Hollywood High School and, in his senior year won first place in the 1979 Westinghouse Science Talent Search.[7] He attended Harvard University, graduating in 1983 Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and ancient history.[6][9] He then took graduate courses in physics at the University of Cambridge and began a Ph.D. at Stanford University before abandoning the program.[8][9]

Unz worked in the banking industry and wrote software for mortgage securities during his studies. In 1988 he founded the company Wall Street Analytics in New York City, moving it Palo Alto, California, five years later.[8][9] In 2006 the company was acquired by the ratings firm Moody's.[10]

Political career [ edit ] Unz made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination in the 1994 California gubernatorial election, challenging incumbent Pete Wilson. He ran as a conservative alternative to more the moderate Wilson and was endorsed by the conservative California Republican Assembly.[11] He came in second place to Wilson, receiving 707,431 votes (34.3 percent).[12] Newspapers referred to Unz's candidacy as a Revenge of the Nerds and often quoted his claim of a 214 IQ.[13][11][1][9]

In 1998, Unz sponsored California Proposition 227, which aimed to change the state's bilingual education to an opt-in structured English-language educational system. It was approved by the voters[14] despite opposition from language education researchers.[15][self-published source? ] Proposition 227 did not seek to end bilingual education since special exemptions were made for students to remain in an English immersion class if a parent so desires. However, there were limits (such as age restrictions) for the exemptions, and there were provisions to discipline teachers that refused to teach solely or predominantly in English.[16] Proposition 227 was approved in 1998, but repealed by Proposition 58 in 2016. In 2002, Unz backed a similar initiative, the Massachusetts English Language Education in Public Schools Initiative,[17] which was approved by 61.25% of the voters.[18] He also supported ballot initiatives in other states including Arizona Proposition 203, Colorado Amendment 31, and 2002 Massachusetts Question 2.[19][20]

In early 1999, Unz introduced a campaign-finance reform ballot initiative known as the California Voters Bill of Rights (Proposition 25).[21] Co-sponsored by California Democrat Tony Miller and endorsed by Senator John McCain,[22] the proposal would have required campaign contributions greater than $1,000 to be declared online within 24 hours, limited individual contributions to $5,000, banned corporate contributions to candidates, and permitted statewide candidates to raise funds only within 12 months before an election.[23][24] In late 1999 Unz briefly entered the U.S. Senate race to challenge incumbent Dianne Feinstein,[25] declaring his candidacy in October[22] and dropping out by December to focus on fundraising for Proposition 25, which was ultimately defeated in the March 2000 primary election.[26][27]

In 2012 and 2014, Unz worked on a ballot initiative to raise the Californian minimum wage from $10 to $12, but his campaign failed.[28][29] His proposal was supported by economist James K. Galbraith.[28]

In 2016, Unz organized the "Free Harvard, Fair Harvard" campaign, a slate of five candidates campaigning for spots on the Harvard Board of Overseers, the governing board of Harvard University. The slate included himself, journalist Stuart Taylor Jr., physicist Stephen Hsu, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, and lawyer Lee C. Cheng. The campaign sought for tuition fees at Harvard to be abolished and for greater transparency in the admissions process.[30][31][32] None of the five candidates were elected to the 30-person board.[33][34]

Unz campaigned on a Republican ticket in California in the 2016 primaries for election to the US Senate intending to succeed Democrat Barbara Boxer.[35] Having previously supported immigration, he now proposed it "should be sharply reduced, probably by 50% or more."[36] Though not hoping to win the nomination, he put himself forward in an attempt to challenge the then proposed repeal of Proposition 227.[35] He was endorsed by former U.S. Representative Ron Paul.[37] In the final result, he gained 64,698 votes (1.3%).[38]

Writing and publishing [ edit ] An investor in The American Conservative, he was its publisher from 2007 to 2013.[39] He also contributed opinion articles on topics such as immigration, the minimum wage, and urban crime.[19] In an email leaked to National Review magazine, editor Daniel McCarthy wrote that Unz was acting as if he was the editor of The American Conservative and threatened to resign if the publication's board did not support him over Unz.[40]

In 2012 Unz published an article in The American Conservative entitled "The Myth of American Meritocracy". He argued Ivy League universities held an unspoken admissions quota for granting spots to Asian/Asian American applicants an Asian quota similar to earlier Jewish quotas, and that Jewish students are over-represented than merit would suggest, which he claimed was caused by unconscious Jewish bias among administrators.[41][42] [43] The article said that the ''massive apparent bias'' could be attributed to Jewish administrators at those universities.[44][45] His argument for existence of Asian race-based quota was reproduced in a subsequent New York Times special debate feature, "Fears of an Asian Quota in the Ivy League".[46][47] Unz's admissions analysis was contested by academics at Yale, who showed that his data "grossly underestimates the proportion of Asian-Americans".[48] Unz's writings on Ivy League admissions were praised by David Duke who said it confirmed Harvard was "now under powerful Jewish influence". Antisemitic conspiracy theorist Kevin B. MacDonald said it was similar to his own view that Jews are "at odds with the values of the great majority of non-Jewish White Americans."[42][45]

Unz also compiled the Unz Archive (UNZ.org), a searchable online collection of periodicals, books, and video, that by 2012 held around 25,000 issues of over 120 publications, including The American Mercury, The Literary Digest, Inquiry, Collier's, Marxism Today, New Politics, and various pulp fiction and romance magazines.[49][50][51] Nick Gillespie of Reason called it "one of the Web's great archive projects".[50]

The Unz Review [ edit ] In November 2013, Unz launched the website The Unz Review for which he serves as editor-in-chief and publisher.[42] Intended as an outlet for non-mainstream opinion formers, by 2016 Paul Craig Roberts and Norman Finkelstein had contributed to the site.[52]

The Unz Review describes itself as a presenting "controversial perspectives largely excluded from the American mainstream media."[2] Unz says he mostly posts articles that have already been published, and "I don't even read most of the articles I publish, and I certainly don't edit them. I'm busy."[45] It has been described by the Associated Press as "a hodgepodge of views from corners of both the left and right"[53] and by the New York Times as "far right".[54] According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in 2014, the webzine is an "outlet for certain writers to attack Israel and Jews".[42] Cathy Young in The Federalist called it "eclectic; but much of this eclecticism is a mix of far-right and far-left anti-Semitic crackpottery".[52] The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled it a white nationalist publication.[4] In 2016, a research fellow at the ADL said "I haven't seen Ron Unz write anything anti-Semitic himself, but he really gives a platform to anti-Semites."[45] The ADL and others criticized Unz for a $600,000 grant for research in evolutionary biology to Gregory Cochran, a professor who argued that homosexuality may be caused by a "gay germ."[45] Ralph Nader, while running with Unz for Harvard board of overseers called him "a very nuanced guy. He should not be stereotyped as a lot of the world of identity politics does."[55]

The Unz Foundation, of which he is president, has donated to individuals and organizations which are alleged by the ADL to have published or expressed opinions that are antisemitic or, in the case of Norman Finkelstein, are anti-Israel. In 2009, 2010 and 2011, it gave Paul Craig Roberts $108,000, $74,000 to Philip Giraldi, $75,000 to Finkelstein, $80,000 to CounterPunch and $60,000 to Philip Weiss, co-editor of the Mondoweiss website.[42][56] In addition, the Unz Foundation has given grants to Alison Weir, founder of If Americans Knew.[42] He has donated tens of thousands of dollars to VDARE, which he admits is a "quasi-white nationalist" website, but has said "they write interesting things".[57][5][58]

In 2017, The Unz Review received public attention when former CIA operative Valerie Plame was criticized after tweeting an article by a columnist, counter-terrorism specialist Philip Giraldi, titled "America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars" published in the webzine.[59][60]

Since their 2014 article, the ADL commented in October 2018 that Unz "has embraced hardcore anti-Semitism", "denied the Holocaust", and "endorsed the claim that Jews consume the blood of non-Jews", referring to blood libel.[3] In July 2018, in articles for The Unz Review, he wrote about the claims in the Czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford's The International Jew. Ford's work, a series of antisemitic pamphlets published in the 1920s, appeared to Unz to be "quite plausible and factually-oriented, even sometimes overly cautious in their presentation."[3] He partly accepted the standard consensus on the Protocols but believes they were assembled by "someone who was generally familiar with the secretive machinations of elite international Jews against the existing governments... who drafted the document to outline his view of their strategic plans."[3]

In August 2018, Unz made use of Holocaust denial arguments and wrote, "I think it far more likely than not that the standard Holocaust narrative is at least substantially false, and quite possibly, almost entirely so."[3] That same year, The Unz Review published material written by Holocaust denier Kevin Barrett,[61][39][62][63] while Unz himself defended David Irving, who lost his libel case against Deborah Lipstadt. Unz also implied that Mossad was involved in the murders of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.[39]

In 2016, Unz self-published The Myth of American Meritocracy and Other Essays, a hardcover collection of most of his writings, including nearly all of his print articles.[58]

References [ edit ] ^ a b c Hornblower, Margot (June 8, 1998). "The Man Behind Prop. 227". CNN . Retrieved June 9, 2018 . ^ a b "Indiana U says it can't fire prof who made 'racist, sexist and homophobic' remarks". CBC Radio. November 25, 2019 . Retrieved November 9, 2021 . ^ a b c d e "California Entrepreneur Ron Unz Launches a Series of Rhetorical Attacks on Jews". Anti-Defamation League. October 4, 2018 . Retrieved November 30, 2018 . ^ a b Gais, Hannah (January 19, 2021). "Meet the White Nationalist Organizer Who Spewed Hate Against Lawmakers". Southern Poverty Law Center. ^ a b Krantz, Laura (April 16, 2016). "Harvard critic faces scrutiny on donations". Boston Globe . Retrieved November 30, 2018 . ^ a b Willis, Doug (May 1, 1994). "Ron Unz - Science prodigy turns into candidate" . The Press-Enterprise. Riverside, CA. Associated Press. p. A16 '' via NewsBank. ^ a b Foster, Douglas (November 24, 1999). "Being Ron Unz". LA Weekly. ^ a b c d e Miller, Matthew (July 19, 1999). "Man With a Mission: Ron Unz's Improbable Assault on the Powers That Be in California". The New Republic. Vol. 221. pp. 24''29. ISSN 0028-6583 '' via NewsBank. ^ a b c d Bruni, Frank (June 14, 1998). "The California Entrepreneur who Beat Bilingual Teaching". The New York Times. ^ "Moody's Corporation Acquires Wall Street Analytics". MWSA News. Moody's Corporation. December 18, 2006. Archived from the original on October 28, 2007 . Retrieved September 14, 2013 . ^ a b Wallace, Amy (May 8, 1994). "Unlikely Path Led to Wilson Foe's Far-Right Challenge '' Politics: A computer 'genius' with a passion for Greek philosophy, Ron Unz has set out to jolt the GOP". The Los Angeles Times . Retrieved December 24, 2020 . ^ "1994 Statement of Vote". California Secretary of State. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008. ^ Reeves, Phil (May 17, 1994). " 'Nerds' seek revenge in Californian poll: Apathy marks the run up to the contest for governor". The Independent . Retrieved December 24, 2020 . ^ Arguments in favor of 1998 California Ballot Proposition 227 ^ "Notes by Steve Krashen on the Unz Attack". February 9, 1998. Archived from the original on March 20, 2006. ^ Crawford, James (2000). At War with Diversity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. ISBN 1-85359-505-5. ^ Tench, Megan (November 3, 2002). "Heated battle over English immersion intensifies" . Boston Globe. p. B.6 . Retrieved March 10, 2018 '' via pqarchiver.com. ^ Galvin, William Francis. "Statewide Ballot Questions '-- Statistics by Year: 1919 - 2018". sec.state.ma.us. Archived from the original on April 9, 2021. ^ a b Medina, Jennifer (November 26, 2013). "Conservative Leads Effort to Raise Minimum Wage in California". The New York Times. ^ Haver, Johanna J. (2013). English for the Children: Mandated by the People, Skewed by Politicians and Special Interests. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education. ISBN 9781475802023. ^ Streisand, Betsy (April 26, 1999). "A one-man band's new song". U.S. News & World Report. Vol. 126, no. 16. p. 42. ^ a b York, Anthony (October 5, 1999). "Feinstein gets a challenger". Salon.com. ^ Wood, Daniel B. (April 6, 1999). "Pruning California's political money tree". The Christian Science Monitor. ^ Purdum, Todd S. (March 25, 1999). "California Republican Tries Altering Campaign Finance". The New York Times. ^ "Millionaire GOP-er backs wage boost". Politico. Associated Press. January 11, 2014. ^ Gledhill, Lynda (December 1, 1999). "Unz Bows Out of U.S. Senate Race". The San Francisco Chronicle. p. A3 '' via NewsBank. ^ Wood, Daniel B. (March 9, 2000). "With initiatives, California tilts conservative". The Christian Science Monitor. ^ a b Patterson, Robert. "The Missing Plank of the GOP Platform". The Natural Family . Retrieved June 16, 2018 . ^ Abramsky, Sasha (April 8, 2014). "What If the Minimum Wage Were $15 an Hour?". The Nation . Retrieved May 29, 2018 . ^ Saul, Stephanie (January 14, 2016). "How Some Would Level the Playing Field: Free Harvard Degrees". The New York Times. ^ Adamczyk, Alicia (January 15, 2016). "Group Says Harvard Tuition Should Be Free for All Students". Time. Archived from the original on January 17, 2016. ^ Gerstein, Josh (May 19, 2016). "Ralph Nader declares war on Harvard". Politico. ^ DeCosta-Klipa, Nik (May 23, 2016). "Ralph Nader fails in bid to be elected to Harvard board". Boston.com. ^ Gerstein, Josh (May 23, 2016). "Nader bid for Harvard board comes up short". Politico. ^ a b Wildermuth, John (April 17, 2016). "Ron Unz's U.S. Senate race raises concerns of splintered GOP vote". San Francisco Chronicle . Retrieved April 19, 2019 . ^ Krikorian, Mark (May 27, 2016). "Ron Unz, Immigration Convert". National Review . Retrieved April 19, 2019 . ^ Cadelago, Christopher. "Ron Paul endorses Ron Unz for California's U.S. Senate seat". The Sacramento Bee. ^ "California Primary Results, June 7". The New York Times. September 29, 2016 . Retrieved April 19, 2019 . ^ a b c Sixsmith, Ben (September 15, 2018). "The curious case of Ron Unz". The Spectator . Retrieved April 19, 2019 . In June, Unz published an essay saluting the 'remarkable' historiography of David Irving. In his legal fight against the historian Deborah Lipstadt, Unz wrote, Irving's work was analysed 'line-by-line, footnote-by-footnote' by historians who 'came up empty'. Readers of expert witness Richard J. Evans's report on Irving's scholarship will know this to be false. Unz followed this essay with an approving appraisal of the Nazis' treatment of France that never once mentioned their millions of murders in Central and Eastern Europe, long articles implicating Mossad in the killings of John and Robert Kennedy and a series of analyses of Jewish history which concluded that Judaism entails 'the enslavement or execution of all non-Jews', that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is 'a classic of political thought', that the Holocaust almost certainly did not take place in a recognisable form and that anti-Semitism has in general been well-founded. ^ Woodruff, Betsy (August 1, 2013). "The American Conservative, Unfused?". The National Review . Retrieved April 19, 2019 . ^ Scheer, Jacob (August 1, 2018). "The American Jewish Affirmative Action About-Face". Tablet . Retrieved November 10, 2021 . {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) ^ a b c d e f "Ron Unz: Controversial Writer and Funder of Anti-israel Activists". Anti-Defamation League. January 20, 2014 . Retrieved June 13, 2018 . ^ Pinker, Steven (September 4, 2014). "The Trouble With Harvard". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. ^ Ingall, Marjorie (February 2, 2018). "Alt-Right Publication Accuses Jews of Attempting to Indoctrinate America's Young Via Subversive Children's Books". Tablet Magazine. Archived from the original on November 23, 2020 . Retrieved March 4, 2021 . ^ a b c d e Wilson, Phil (April 25, 2016). "Controversial English-only crusader sets his sights on California's Senate race". Los Angeles Times. ^ Lubin, Gus. "It's Pretty Clear That The Ivy League Discriminates Against Asians". Business Insider . Retrieved November 11, 2021 . ^ Friedersdorf, Conor (December 21, 2012). "Is the Ivy League Fair to Asian Americans?". The Atlantic . Retrieved November 11, 2021 . {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) ^ "UP CLOSE: What's next for affirmative action?". Yale Daily News. September 22, 2014 . Retrieved March 4, 2021 . ^ Bates, Stephen (Spring 2012). "The Periodical Table" (PDF) . The Wilson Quarterly. 36 (2): 15. ^ a b Gillespie, Nick (October 3, 2012). "Why The Internet is Great or, "The Influence of Encounter" and UNZ.org". Reason.com. ^ Wood, Mike (April 18, 2012). "Learning about our tradition". Solidarity. No. 242. p. 10. ^ a b Young, Cathy (April 14, 2016). "You Can't Whitewash The Alt-Right's Bigotry". The Federalist . Retrieved November 30, 2018 . ^ Oxford, Andrew (September 21, 2017). "Ex-CIA agent sparks Twitter controversy by sharing commentary on Jews". AP News. Associated Press. ^ "Why White Supremacists Are Chugging Milk (and Why Geneticists Are Alarmed)". The New York Times. October 17, 2018. Archived from the original on October 17, 2018 . Retrieved November 10, 2021 . ^ Gerstein, Josh (May 19, 2016). "Ralph Nader declares war on Harvard". Politico. ^ Elder of Ziyon (December 12, 2013). "New York Times, Others Praised Anti-Semitic and Slanderous Article". The Algemeiner . Retrieved April 21, 2019 . ^ Duehren, Andrew M; Thompson, Daphne C (April 16, 2016). "Overseers Candidate Donates to 'Quasi-White Nationalist' Group". The Harvard Crimson . Retrieved April 19, 2019 . ^ a b Rosenberg, John S. (April 26, 2016). "The Quiet Campaign". Harvard Magazine . Retrieved December 2, 2020 . ^ Tatum, Sophie (September 22, 2017). "Ex-CIA operative apologizes for tweet". CNN . Retrieved November 30, 2018 . ^ Kirchick, James (September 25, 2017). "Valerie Plame's Real Blunder". Tablet . Retrieved May 20, 2019 . ^ Ross, Alexander Reid (March 14, 2019). "World News". Haaretz.com . Retrieved November 10, 2021 . ^ "Following Sacha Baron Cohen's speech, here is ADL's short list of social media accounts that should have been removed long ago". Anti-Defamation League. November 25, 2019 . Retrieved November 10, 2021 . ^ "Ron Unz - L'Observatoire du conspirationnisme". Conspiracy Watch | L'Observatoire du conspirationnisme (in French). November 8, 2021 . Retrieved November 10, 2021 . Further reading [ edit ] Crawford, James (1997). "The Campaign Against Proposition 227: A Post Mortem". Bilingual Research Journal. 21 (1): 1''29. doi:10.1080/15235882.1997.10815599. William, Ryan (2002). "The Unz Initiatives and the Abolition of Bilingual Education". Boston College Law Review. 43 (2): 487''519. External links [ edit ] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ron Unz . Official website The Unz ReviewRon Unz at BallotpediaAppearances on C-SPAN

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 14:25

Consumer prices surged more than expected over the past 12 months, indicating a worsening outlook for inflation and cementing the likelihood of substantial interest rate hikes this year.

The consumer price index for January, which measures the costs of dozens of everyday consumer goods, rose 7.5% compared to a year ago, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

That compared to Dow Jones estimates of 7.2% for the closely watched inflation gauge. It was the highest reading since February 1982.

Stripping out volatile gas and grocery costs, the CPI increased 6%, compared to the estimate of 5.9%. Core inflation rose at its fastest level since August 1982.

The monthly CPI rates also came in hotter than expected, with headline and core CPI both rising 0.6%, compared to the estimates for a 0.4% increase on both measures.

Stock market futures declined following the report, with rate-sensitive tech stocks hit especially hard. Government bond yields rose sharply, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury note touching 2%, its highest since August 2019.

Markets also got more aggressive in pricing rate hikes ahead.

The chances of a 0.5 percentage point Fed rate hike in March rose to 44.3% following the data release, compared to 25% just before, according to CME data. Chances of a sixth quarter-percentage-point hike increased to about 63%, compared to about 53% before the release.

"With another surprise jump in inflation in January, markets continue to be concerned about an aggressive Fed," said Barry Gilbert, LPL Financial asset allocation strategist. "While things may start getting better from here, market anxiety about potential Fed overtightening won't go away until there are clear signs inflation is coming under control."

Food, shelter costs up sharplyThe inflation numbers come at a crossroads for the U.S. economy, with 2021's rapid growth pace expected to slow this year as fiscal and monetary stimulus fades. Growth is still expected to be above-trend, though sharper rate increases from an inflation-fighting Fed could prove troublesome.

On a percentage basis, fuel oil rose the most in January, surging 9.5% as part of a 46.5% year-over-year increase. Energy costs overall were up 0.9% for the month and 27% on the year.

Vehicle costs, which have been one of the biggest inflation contributors since it began surging higher in the spring of 2021, were flat for new models and up 1.5% for used cars and trucks in January. The two categories have posted respective increases of 12.2% and 40.5% over the past 12 months.

Shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the total CPI number, increased 0.3% on the month, which is the smallest gain since August 2021 and slightly below December's increase. Still, the category is up 4.4% over the past year and could keep inflation readings elevated in the future.

Food costs jumped 0.9% for the month and are up 7% over the past year.

That combination of higher food and housing prices "underlines our view that a rapid cyclical acceleration in inflation is underway and, with labor market conditions exceptionally tight, it is unlikely to abate any time soon," wrote Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.

"While we still expect more favorable base effects and a partial easing of supply shortages to push core inflation lower this year, this suggests it will remain well above the Fed's target for some time," he added.

The burst in inflation has muted the sizeable earnings growth workers have seen. Real average hourly earnings rose just 0.1% for the month, as the 0.7% monthly gain in wages was almost completely wiped out by the 0.6% inflation gain.

A separate report Thursday showed that weekly jobless claims totaled 223,000 for the week ended Feb. 5, a decline of 16,000 from the previous week and below the 230,000 estimate. It was the lowest total since Jan. 1.

Continuing claims, which run a week behind, held at 1.62 million. The total of those receiving benefits under all programs rose slightly to about 2.1 million, according to Labor Department data through Jan. 22.

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:55

In yet another delay, a Federal Judge issued an order that changes the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) release schedule for the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that requires the agency to begin turning over all of the 450,000-plus documents that were analyzed in its decision to approve Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine.

On Wednesday, Texas Northern District Judge Mark Pittman made the decision after the group behind the FOIA request, Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, filed a joint status report that reached an agreement with the government on how fast the documents will be produced.

The FDA had originally asked for 75 years, but Judge Pittman shot down the ridiculous request in January, setting a schedule that would see the documents turned over in a matter of months.

The original timeline for the documents to come out required the FDA to release over 12,000 documents on January 31st and 55,000 every 30 days after that, which would have taken a total of about 8 months. Thankfully, the new schedule does not prolong the overall timeline, but it does backload it significantly, leaving the information in the hands of an agency that has been deceptively hiding information for months and actively attempting to cover its own ass.

TRENDING: HERE'S THE LIST: 1,000 Different Studies Show Extensive Evidence of COVID-19 Vaccines Adverse Events

Editors note: After publishing, Public Health and Medical Proffessionals for Transparency confirmed that the FDA has indeed released ~12,000 pages of CRF files through the FOIA request, meeting the January 31st deadline '' A previous version of this post stated that the FDA was able to surpass the deadline without producing the required documents, and that the overall timeline would be delayed by about 30 days, but PHMPT also confirmed that all documents will be released on schedule, taking about 8 months.

Instead of 55,000 pages a month starting March 1, the FDA now will only be required to release 10,000 pages, with another 10,000 following on April 1st.

Keep in mind that on the original timeline, the FDA would have produced over 122,000 documents by that time '' with this, the number is only 20,000.

Beginning in May, the FDA is required to produce 80,000 additional pages for the next three months, one due May 2, one due June 1, and one due July 1, before ramping back down. On August 1st, another 70,000 pages will be required, with 55,000 coming on the first of each month after that, until all documents are released.

By November, all of the information should be public, which is on-line with the original timeline.

The schedule change comes just days after Pfizer filed a motion that asked the judge to allow the vaccine manufacturer to interfere in the release of the data by making its own redactions to the documents to go alongside the FDA's redactions, but no decision has been reached by Judge Pittman on that matter as of yet.

COVID COVER-UP: Pfizer INTERFERES Just Days Before Massive FOIA Vaccine Data Drop, FDA Claims The Vaccine Manufacturer Must Help Review and Redact Documents Before Public Release

One thing is for sure, the FDA does not want these documents to get out to the public; from lawsuits '' to ridiculous requests '' to getting the vaccine maker to interfere in the American public's right to know under the constitution, the Fauci-backed FDA is doing everything it can to bury this information and never let it see the light of day.

If the documents were anything like the ones the FDA was forced to release in November, it's no wonder why.

Court Orders FDA To Comply With FOIA and Release Information On Pfizer Vaccine '' First Batch of Documents Shows Over 1,200 Vaccine Deaths WITHIN FIRST 90 DAYS

Start the clock, yet again. Bombshells should be incoming on March 1st'... nukes coming in May.

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:48

Bulk-buying habit is expected to stick as people eat more at home, supply remains uncertain and inflation rears up. Retailers and producers are shifting operations as a result.

Alexis Abell recently walked out of a BJ's Wholesale Club outside Buffalo, N.Y., with 24 boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, a box of 50 frozen mozzarella sticks, a 40-pound bag of basmati rice and a 12-can pack of garbanzo beans.

''I don't want to be in a position again where I can't get something,'' says Ms. Abell, a 41-year-old mother of five, who was laid off from her retail job at a quilt shop in 2020 and decided not to return to work.

She...

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Alexis Abell recently walked out of a BJ's Wholesale Club outside Buffalo, N.Y., with 24 boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, a box of 50 frozen mozzarella sticks, a 40-pound bag of basmati rice and a 12-can pack of garbanzo beans.

''I don't want to be in a position again where I can't get something,'' says Ms. Abell, a 41-year-old mother of five, who was laid off from her retail job at a quilt shop in 2020 and decided not to return to work.

She estimates her family is now spending about 25% more a week on food and staples than before the pandemic, and she is buying more than twice as much of some staples and household supplies.

''The stimulus money is gone, but we've gotten used to having more on hand and I'm cooking more at home, so I expect this to continue,'' she says.

Retailers and analysts predicted that the bulk buying in the early days of the pandemic, when supplies of many goods were constrained, would subside once people returned to work, stores were able to restock and vaccinations became widespread. Instead, Americans continue to stockpile food and household goods.

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Many are spending more time at home and remain uncertain about product availability. Some have moved from tight-spaced apartments in cities to more spacious suburban homes, and inflation is spurring a search for savings by buying in bulk.

After more than 20 years of steady but slow sales growth, sales at bulk retailers Costco Wholesale Corp., Walmart Inc.'s Sam's Club and BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings Inc. rose 26.6% in dollars and 18% in volume during the fourth quarter of 2021 compared with the same quarter of 2019, according to IRI, far greater than any other type of retail including dollar stores, grocery, drugstores and mass merchants.

Their pre-pandemic performance reflected many other trends, such as a surge in just-in-time consumption, in which many Americans destocked their pantries and ordered everything from Q-tips to frozen pizza on-demand. After the financial squeeze of the 2008 recession, more consumers stopped accumulating stockpiles of stuff, preferring to buy less more frequently, and keep more cash on hand. Technological advances made quick deliveries an easy option.

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Now, the return of bulk shopping is forcing changes at retailers, consumer-products manufacturers and appliance makers.

''Consumers who experienced the harsh reality of pandemic shortages made permanent changes,'' says Bob Nolan, senior vice president of Demand Science at food giant Conagra Brands Inc. ''They didn't just stock up that week, but they said to themselves, even if subconsciously, 'That's not going to happen to me again.' ''

Research firm IRI, which tracks consumption of household goods, shows average annual growth in sales by volume of food and beverages was 3% in 2020 and 2021, compared with just 0.5% average annual growth for the prior 10 years. Consumers are also buying larger package sizes: average volume per unit was up 2.1% last year compared with average sizes in 2019, IRI figures show. Consumption is likely to decline this year from last year, IRI forecasts, but it says levels of food and household goods consumption will still be double pre-pandemic levels.

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''Even if somebody waves a magic wand and makes Covid go away completely, we still expect elevated consumption in the home because people are accustomed to working from home, and hybrid work is here to stay,'' says Krishnakumar Davey, president of client engagement at IRI.

Product shortages, while not as severe as 2020, have gotten worse during the Omicron outbreak and are acute in some categories. Food and beverage products overall were 85% in stock for the week ended Jan. 30, compared with stock levels of 93%-95% pre-pandemic, IRI figures show, with shortages in categories like sports drinks (77% in stock), frozen baked goods (79%) and frozen snacks (81%) more severe.

It is human nature to accumulate extra supplies during times of uncertainty, says Ayelet Fishbach, professor of behavioral science and marketing at University of Chicago Booth School of Business. ''Psychologically, the cost of underconsumption appears higher than overconsumption,'' she says. ''We are more upset about not getting our cereal box than having an extra box left over and having to throw it away.''

The majority of new members at Sam's Club, where membership hit a record in the third quarter of 2021, have been young millennial families, says Megan Crozier, Sam's chief merchant. The new clientele has prompted Sam's to shake up its product mix, expand its mobile-app technology and roll out curbside pickup for online orders.

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In focus groups, customers said they wanted higher quality goods, including healthier ingredients and clearer labeling. In response, Sam's removed 475 items from its product mix in July 2020. It reformulated nearly 600 products and launched 650 new items. When customers complained that its private label beer-battered cod was ''not crispy enough,'' Sam's worked with its fish supplier to change the recipe and packaging and relaunched the product last spring.

Sam's canceled orders for product categories that members said they didn't need at the beginning of the pandemic, including jewelry, televisions and apparel, and focused on what consumers said they wanted: frozen pizza, ice cream, canned goods, paper towels, cleaning products and meat.

Jenn Gerlach, a 32-year-old mother in Detroit, says she started stocking up at Sam's once her family started eating most meals at home early in the pandemic. Concerned about shortages and rising prices, she is continuing to buy in bulk.

''Whatever's on sale, if I find it I will stock it,'' says Mrs. Gerlach, who estimates she spends $200 to $300 a week on groceries, up from $150 in the past. ''Buying food in bulk at stores like Sam's helps keep the cost down and allows us to keep our stockpile up.''

At the height of the pandemic, Americans ate 88% of their meals at home, according to retail research firm NPD Group, up from 83% pre-pandemic. Meals eaten at home have since leveled off to about 85%, but the 2 percentage point increase from 2019 levels is equivalent to an estimated 2.9 billion meals and snacks per quarter, NPD says.

Conagra, which makes frozen meals under its Birds Eye, P.F. Chang's and Marie Callender's brands, has seen demand skyrocket for many of its frozen dinners. It increased production of Marie Callender's pot pies by 25% to 200 million units in October 2020. It added a new production line at its factory in Russellville, Ark., hiring an additional 50 people. Sales of large-size pot pies for multiple people have been driving the retail growth, the company says, with sales up 24.6% in 2021 compared with two years ago.

''We thought we'd have a lull in demand because people bought so much initially. But the reality is [consumers] have established a new inventory level,'' and want more items stocked in their freezers, says Conagra's Mr. Nolan.

Kraft Heinz Co. is installing a new production line for its macaroni and cheese cups that will result in a ''significant increase in capacity'' by the end of the first quarter of this year, the company says. Bulk sales of macaroni and cheese far outpace sales of smaller sizes: Unit sales of its 18-box package, available at club stores, grew 40% in 2021 over 2020, while sales of Kraft's single boxes actually declined.

Hailey Matuozzi, a 35-year-old science teacher from Merrick, N.Y., used to grab breakfast on the go and buy lunch at the high school where she taught. But after taking a leave during the pandemic to stay home with her two children, she finds herself cooking at home and ordering extra supplies so she doesn't get caught when products aren't on shelves.

''If I see pancake mix, I buy four boxes to just make sure I have them,'' says Ms. Matuozzi, who ordered 40 yogurt pouches for her kids last week. ''I want to have a month or two of supplies on hand.''

She turned an IKEA storage cabinet in her sunroom into a second pantry and is now shopping for a second refrigerator.

Last year, sales of chest freezers in the U.S. more than doubled to 1.714 million units from 768,600 in 2019, according to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. Refrigerator sales rose to 12.8 million units in 2021, up from 11.1 million units in 2019.

In spring 2020, executives at LG Electronics USA Inc., the North American subsidiary of the Korean appliance giant, were mystified by the unexpected spike in demand for its 20-cubic-foot top freezer refrigerator models, which are normally purchased for apartments. Customer survey data showed people were buying the units as second refrigerators, often putting them in their garages or basements.

By summer 2020, LG had sold out of the units and needed to rev up production quickly, says William Kwon, senior product manager at LG. The company filled demand initially by switching over an assembly line for a different model at its Mexico factory. By that summer, the company decided to permanently increase capacity, hiring more than 500 new workers for its Mexican plant and adding a new production line.

LG more than doubled the model's capacity in 2021 and plans to expand capacity again this year. It expects to finally be able to meet demand for the units by summer 2022, Mr. Kwon says. ''We truly believe the pandemic is not just a one time thing but that consumers have changed their behavior in their home,'' he says.

Alex Litinetsky, the chief operating officer of Banneton Bakery, was thrilled when Sam's Club asked the Swedesboro, N.J., company to step up production of breakfast Danishes in the spring of 2020.

Demand for breakfast foods at home was rising since people were no longer buying food on their way to work or school. Sam's, which buys the frozen pastry dough from Banneton and then bakes and packages the pastries, needed to aggressively increase its inventory for customers who were now buying multipacks.

Banneton shifted the output normally for restaurants, casinos and cruise ships'--which had evaporated in the pandemic'--into products for retail, but still needed to scale up. ''There were several waves along the way when people were stocking up with anything they could get their hands on, and we couldn't keep up with orders,'' Mr. Litinetsky says.

A previously planned major factory expansion was under way. Banneton added new milk, flour and butter suppliers, and it tripled its workforce so that three shifts could work around the clock. The company boosted salaries, eventually to $17 an hour from $10 in 2019, to compete for labor. Banneton is planning another expansion this March to add cold storage, doubling the footprint of its plant.

Mr. Litinetsky believes consumers will keep buying in bulk now that they're used to it. ''Once people get a taste for better quality food they will continue to seek it out,'' he says.

Write to Lisa Bannon at lisa.bannon@wsj.com

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:43

As space agencies launch new telescopes, rovers and probes to look for habitable planets and alien life beyond Earth, a British priest has been helping Nasa to understand how the discovery of extraterrestrials would change the way we see the universe.

The Rev Dr Andrew Davison, a priest and theologian at the University of Cambridge with a doctorate in biochemistry from Oxford, is among 24 theologians to have taken part in a Nasa-sponsored programme at the Center for Theological Inquiry (CTI) in Princeton in the US to assess how the world's major religions would react to news that life exists on worlds beyond our own.

The Times has seen a copy of his book, Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine, due to be published next

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:36

Peter John Sloly OOM (born 5 August 1966) is a Canadian police officer who has served as the chief of police with the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) since 28 October 2019. Prior to joining OPS, Sloly was a member of the Toronto Police Service (TPS) for 27 years, including as a deputy chief of police from 2009 to 2016. Prior to his police career, Sloly played soccer, including for the Canada men's national team in 1984.

Early, personal life and education [ edit ] Sloly was born in Kingston, Jamaica and moved to Scarborough at the age of ten.[1] He lives in Ottawa with his wife and two children, a daughter and son.[2][1]

He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from McMaster University in 1989 and a Master of Business Administration from York University's Schulich School of Business in 2004.[3][4] Sloly also earned a Criminal Justice Certificate from the University of Virginia, an Incident Command System Certification from the Justice Institute of British Columbia, the Major City Chief's Police Executive Development Program, University of Toronto's Rotman Police Executive Leadership Program and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.[2]

Soccer career [ edit ] He is also a former soccer player who earned one cap for the Canadian national side against Egypt in a friendly match on 2 November 1984.[5] He also played with the Canada men's national under-20 soccer team in the 1985 FIFA World Youth Championship.[6] In 1986, he played in the National Soccer League with Toronto Blizzard.[7] In 1987, he played for North York Rockets in the Canadian Soccer League.[8]

He was the recipient of the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame's Brian Budd Award in 2011.[9]

Police career [ edit ] Toronto Police Service [ edit ] After retiring as a soccer player, Sloly joined the Toronto Police Service in 1988,[10] where he served for 27 years. He was named deputy chief for Divisional Policing Command and Operational Support Command on 22 September 2009.[11]

In 2015, he was a candidate to succeed outgoing police chief Bill Blair, but was passed over in favour of Mark Saunders.[12][13]

In January 2016, Sloly gave a speech criticizing the size of the police budget as excessive, in which he said: "Until policing stops being focused and driven on that reactive enforcement model, it will continue to be exponentially costly." His comments were criticized by the Toronto Police Association and were viewed as a criticism of Chief Saunders.[14]

On 10 February 2016 it was announced that Sloly had resigned as deputy chief and that he had approached the Police Services Board several months prior with a request that he be released from his contract, which was to have ended in December 2017.[11][15]

Consulting [ edit ] On 28 April 2016 Sloly was hired by Deloitte Canada to serve as a consultant handling risk and forensic practices projects.[16]

Ottawa Police Service [ edit ] In August 2019, it was announced that he would become Chief of the Ottawa Police Service, effective 28 October 2019.[17]

Honours [ edit ] Member promoted Officer of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces'‰[2][18]Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal'‰[2][18]Police Exemplary Service Medal'‰[2][18]United Nations & Canadian Peacekeeping Medals'‰[2] '-- UNMIK Kosovo[1]References [ edit ] External links [ edit ] Player profile at CanadaSoccer.comPeter Sloly '' FIFA competition record (archived)The Governor General of Canada > Honours > Find a Recipient > Peter SlolyPeter Sloly's biography at Toronto Police Service

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Archived Version

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:12

8 February 2022

W Series announces that a team owned by former racing driver and Olympic champion Caitlyn Jenner will compete in the 2022 seasonAmerican Jenner was hailed as 'the world's greatest athlete' by Time magazine after winning the decathlon at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada, by setting a third straight world record. Now, the athletic icon will go for W Series gold when her Jenner Racing team contests W Series' third season, which consists of Formula 1 support races at eight Grand Prix weekends, starting in Miami, USA, in May. W Series had a global reach of more than half a billion viewers in 2021 when it began its partnership with F1 '' the world's premier motor racing series.

In her role as team principal, Jenner will oversee the day-to-day running of her Jenner Racing team. Driver line-up, car livery, and the acquisition of sponsors who are aligned with her mission of promoting women in sport and creating a platform for them in motorsport, will be first on her agenda. Last week, 15 prospective drivers from around the world '' including seven from the Americas '' attended a W Series test at the Inde Motorsports Ranch, Arizona, USA. W Series' driver line-up for the 2022 season will be announced in due course.

Jenner is no stranger to motorsport or F1 having first won a celebrity race at the Long Beach Grand Prix, California, USA, in 1979. That victory over 10 laps rekindled a childhood love of racing and cars, and less than a year later Jenner debuted as a professional racing driver at the iconic 24 Hours of Daytona race as part of Jim Busby's team.

Jenner went on to compete professionally in the IMSA Camel GT Championship as a factory driver for the Ford Motor Company and Jack Roush for the next six years, making a total of 57 starts. After a near victory and a second-placed finish at the 24 hours of Daytona, Jenner came back in the 1986 12 Hours of Sebring alongside co-driver Scott Pruett, to whom Jenner would finish runner-up in the championship that year.

Catherine Bond Muir (Chief Executive Officer, W Series) said:''W Series exists to promote women in motorsport, believing that they can compete equally with men if given the same opportunities. We are determined to give females a platform and a pathway to succeed in our sport, and when I first met Caitlyn Jenner, it was clear that she is as committed to that mission as all of us at W Series are. She has performed at the highest level in sport, is a proven winner and a complete petrol-head, and I know that her passion for sport and motorsport will inspire everybody at W Series. We continue to rethink racing and I am excited to see how the Jenner Racing team performs this season. With one of the world's greatest athletes supporting them, the sky is the limit.''

Caitlyn Jenner (Team Principal, Jenner Racing) said:''As a believer in fair competition, a lover of motor racing, and a supporter of all women in sport from the grassroots to elite level, W Series ticks every box for me and is a fusion of the different aspects of my career. A championship dedicated to inspiring young girls and giving women the chance to succeed in roles throughout what has traditionally been a male-dominated industry, W Series is changing the face of motorsport. As the series continues its rapid expansion with a truly international cast of drivers and races, this was the perfect time to come on board. W Series had a global reach of more than half a billion viewers in 2021, and I am going out to the market to acquire sponsors that align with mine and W Series' joint missions.

''I watched on with great excitement last year when W Series made its American debut in Austin, Texas, USA, where its drivers entertained 400,000 fans over the weekend at the Circuit of the Americas. In May, I will be beaming with pride when my Jenner Racing team starts its bid for W Series glory on motor racing's greatest stage at the first race of season three in Miami, USA, in support of Formula 1. As has always been the case, I'm in it to win it.''

Hear more from Caitlyn Jenner on her new Jenner Racing team here.

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 12:55

Shanghai Microelectronics was one of 33 Chinese entities added to an export watch list by the US Commerce Department on MondayRed flag is a setback as China is currently unable to make advanced chips, such as those used in the latest smartphones Ann Cao and Che Pan in Beijing Published: 11:00pm, 8 Feb, 2022

Updated: 11:53pm, 8 Feb, 2022

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 12:55

The Democrats' Congressional leaders are increasingly feeling the pressure to support a ban on lawmakers' actively trading stocks.

And finally, it look like they're starting to cave.

Not long after Nancy Pelosi came forward to express support for a trading ban despite being the poster child for lawmakers who supplement their income with day trading, her counterpart in the Senate, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, has also hopped on the bandwagon.

According to a report in Punchbowl News, Schumer has officially thrown his weight behind a ban on trading single-name stocks by lawmakers in both the House and the Senate.

NEW - SCHUMER says he wants to see a stock trading ban get done.

'-- Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 8, 2022Over the past two years, pressure on lawmakers to adopt a ban on stock trading has intensified - and it's not just Congress: a trading scandal over at the Fed led to several senior Fed officials essentially being fired by Chairman Jerome Powell after the media picked up on financial disclosure forms detailing their trading. Late last year, the SEC also adopted tighter rules governing when corporate insiders can sell their company's stock.

Even rabid liberal and former Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich has insisted that Democrats now have enough "momentum" to make a trading ban a reality.

In December, Nancy Pelosi dismissed banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks.In January, she reversed course following immense public pressure.

We have momentum, folks. We can ban this corruption once and for all.

Let's keep the pressure on. pic.twitter.com/CEqF96e9pN

'-- Robert Reich (@RBReich) February 2, 2022Of course, as Reich continued, it's not just the Democratic leadership that trades; Senators from both parties, traded in 2021 as Newsweek reports.

But how do Republicans feel about this? As it happens, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been aggressively pushing for a ban on lawmakers trading individual stocks (joined by - of all people - freshman Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff).

Reports about lawmakers trading resulted in memes like the following image of Pelosi on her cellphone and a handful of other images, many showing Pelosi on the phone either on Capitol Hill or during the Congressional baseball game.

SCHUMER WANTS TO PASS LAWMAKERS STOCK TRADING BAN: PUNCHBOWL(Move the shares into another account.) pic.twitter.com/6ebm8QEnXr

'-- NOD (@NOD008) February 8, 202276% of voters across the political spectrum believe members of Congress and their spouses shouldn't be allowed to trade stocks while in office, including nearly 78% of Republicans and 80 percent of Independents.

Last month, McCarthy and Ossoff introduced a ball barring trading in single-stock names. before that, more than two dozen Dem and GOP lawmakers signed a letter to the Democratic Congressional leadership urging them to support a trading ban.

What's more, the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act has been endorsed by several leading ethics reform groups, including the Project on Government Oversight, the National Taxpayers Union, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, FreedomWorks, and Issue One.

The law would require all Members of Congress, their spouses and their dependent children, to put applicable investments into a qualified blind trust or divest them within 120 days after the law is enacted. In the future, newly elected lawmakers, their spouses and their dependent children would be required to do the same within 120 days of assuming office. Covered investments that cannot be moved into a blind trust must be divested

Readers can find the full bill below:

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 12:54

Del Bigtree : BOMBSHELL: Whistleblower describes LAB LEAK at WUHAN and CIA involvement. https://t.co/FWeRGXxZcE

Mon Feb 07 12:34:45 +0000 2022

Dianna Fry : @delbigtree Unfortunately, getting anywhere with Democrats, such as Sen,. Gary Peters and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, isn'... https://t.co/yav8ppbIsD

Thu Feb 10 00:45:08 +0000 2022

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 12:26

One thing is clear about the revelation of the 2021 military epidemiological data and the military's response to it: There is undoubtedly a public health and national security crisis in the military, and the Pentagon's reaction only seems to be concerned with exonerating the vaccine, not fixing its own alleged problem.

It's now certain that the military's health surveillance system '-- DMED '-- showed a massive increase in sickness and injury diagnoses in 2021 over previous years, particularly in the neurological, cardiovascular, oncological, and reproductive health categories. The military, in a very terse and cryptic statement to PolitiFact last week, admitted as much, but claimed without any further explanation that the data in the system accessed by several military doctors working with attorney Thomas Renz was only a ''fraction'' of the true numbers that existed. In the words of the Pentagon spokesman, it was a ''glitch in the database.'' Where those true numbers existed, why they weren't in the system for five years, what exactly was in the system, and why the 2021 numbers were accurate according to the DOD account remain a mystery.

However, one by one, the military public health officials have been adding back random numbers to the 2016 through 2020 codes. I'm told by Renz and two of the whistleblowers that throughout the past week, they have queried the same data again, and in most of the ICD categories, they have found that the numbers from 2016 through 2020 were ''increased'' exponentially to look as though 2021 was not an abnormal year. This has been done without any transparency, any press release, any statement of narrative, and sloppily in a way that makes the already unbelievable narrative simply impossible to believe.

In addition to believing that every epidemiological report for five years was somehow completely tainted with false data '-- including during the first year of the pandemic itself '-- we would have to believe that the minute they discovered this from Renz, they suddenly discovered the exact numbers. A five-year mistake fixed overnight!

Just take a look at the following statement given to the Epoch Times, the only other public comment delivered by an authorized Pentagon spokesman:

''Comparing the DMED database to the source data contained in DMSS, AFHSD discovered that the total number of medical diagnoses from 2016-2020 that were accessible in DMED represented only a small fraction of actual medical diagnoses for those years. In contrast, the 2021 total number of medical diagnoses were up to date in DMED. Comparison of 2021 to 2016-2020 resulted in the appearance of significant increased occurrence of all medical diagnoses in 2021 because of the under-reported data for 2016-2020. AFHSD has taken DMED offline to identify and correct the root-cause of the data corruption,'' said Maj. Charlie Dietz.

That's it! They are only concerned with downplaying any potential culpability of the vaccine, not explaining how they were flying blind, according to their official narrative, on such an important endeavor for so many years. Just consider the fact that at last week's meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), officials revealed that they have been monitoring vaccine safety data from the DOD, among other places.

CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met and presented this slide that indicates they have been monitoring DOD data the entire time. According to DOD, we are to believe the data was screwed up for 6 yearspic.twitter.com/KVFbPKlFby

'-- Daniel Horowitz (@Daniel Horowitz) 1644009124 You know what that means? The CDC was looking at data for months that showed insane safety signals and did nothing about it, and somehow nobody in HHS or the DOD all along thought the data was a ''glitch.''

Moreover, the DOD's new data (as presented on Renz's website) that was somehow updated so quickly is impossible to believe for a number of other reasons. Take a look at the top-line number of ICD codes in 2016-2020, as reflected in the data before the DOD tampered with it to input the new updated numbers.

Here is the original data of total annual outpatient diagnoses in DMED before the Pentagon changed it:

And here is the top-line tally for 2016-2020 based on the new numbers added:

This is a bar graph presentation from Thomas Renz contrasting the 2016-2020 total outpatient ICD diagnosis codes in the military before the DOD change and after the change. As you can see, during a typical year, there were about 2 million diagnosis codes, jumping almost tenfold in 2021. However, based on the changes made last week, 2021 is exactly in line with every other year (even though 2021 remains slightly lower; the data does not include numbers from December).

Here's the problem with such an alleged presentation of the data. Putting the vaccines aside, the DOD's ''new'' model would literally erase the existence of COVID off the face of the planet as if we never had the biggest pandemic of our lifetime. Even if the vaccine never caused a single doctor's visit, COVID alone had to increase the codes. Yes, the military is generally very young, and deaths and hospitalizations were relatively low, but it's impossible to believe that especially during the vicious Delta outbreak since the summer, there was no increase in COVID-related doctor's visits. Just long COVID alone had to register a meaningful increase. Ironically, the Biden administration is forcing a vaccine mandate for a virus that, according to this alleged new data, didn't cause even a 1% increase in baseline outpatient doctor's visits this year!

The data originally reflected on DMED that was downloaded by the whistleblowers a few weeks ago makes much more sense because it accommodates both COVID and vaccine injury, which would explain the unprecedented increase. Now, obviously, COVID alone can't explain all the increases, because some of the specific data points presented have already been associated with the vaccine injury, per VAERS and other studies, as opposed to the virus.

More fundamentally, it is simply ludicrous to suggest that there are this many diagnoses in the military in a given year. All active-duty soldiers have to be medically screened. Obesity, diabetes, and heart conditions are very rare, and the population is generally very young. If we really have over 20 million diagnoses every year in the military (consisting of about 1.4 million active-duty personnel), there is something seriously wrong, and that in itself is a huge story.

Let's drill down to some specific ICD codes to drive home this point.

Take a look at the data for nervous system diagnoses before the numbers were altered:

Now look at the new numbers:

We are to believe that there was ZERO increase in the year of the Delta pandemic as well as what we already know from the civilian world about vertigo and migraines following the shots? We were all shocked by the percentage increase, but to say there was no increase whatsoever defies any expectation. Moreover, we are to believe that there are nearly 1 million nervous system diagnoses in the military every year in a fighting force of 1.4 million?

To further explore this point, let's look at the number of pulmonary embolism diagnoses before and after the DOD ''fixed'' the data. Blood clotting in the longs is a clear consequence of the spike protein, which sticks to CD-147 receptors on blood vessels.

Here are the numbers before:

And here are the numbers after the DOD alteration:

While even the ''revised'' numbers do show some degree of increase, it is not enough to account for the unprecedented nature of both COVID and the COVID vaccines. But the more serious issue is how can a military of healthy young people have such a high baseline of pulmonary embolisms every year? One estimate of pulmonary embolism prevalence in the U.S. is between 60 and 70 per 100,000 per year. But that is almost exclusively in the elderly and sicker population. Soldiers 20 to 25 years old don't exactly get pulmonary embolisms. So even accounting for the fact that these are diagnosis codes and not unique individuals (some might have had a few visits in a year), the numbers are way too high.

Finally, it's important to note that the DOD is so overprotective of the vaccine that it revised numbers to show zero increase in ailments that are universally understood to have increased '' at least to some extent '' because of the vaccine. Although they were smart enough to still show a baseline increase in myocarditis (everyone knows that), the new numbers would indicate zero increase for pericarditis.

Here is the original data queried by the whistleblowers:

And here is the new data, which seem to indicate no unusual increase, even if we add in the missing month for 2021:

The silence both from the media and congressional members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees is astounding. One of two things is true: Either there was mass vaccine injury in the military, or our military has been very unhealthy and the Pentagon completely lost control over epidemiological surveillance of these health issues for years. Either way, this is the story of the year.

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 12:20

The Freedom Convoy has occupied Ottawa for almost two weeks now, but it's not just protesters in the capital '-- some have brought children along for the ride.

Ottawa Police Services Deputy Chief Steve Bell revealed in a press conference on February 8 that about 25% of the 418 trucks encamped in Ottawa have "children living in them."

Bell says the discovery was made through "intelligence," and that the children within the occupation "could be at risk during a police operation."

Police are working with the Children's Aid Society to ensure the children's "welfare and safety."

Bell says their message to demonstrators remains the same: "Don't come. And if you do, there will be consequences, including financial consequences for your illegal and unlawful behaviour."

Since the beginning of the protest, Bell says Ottawa police have issued over 1,300 tickets, made 22 arrests and are looking into 79 ongoing criminal investigations.

Bell says that "many of the remaining demonstrators are highly determined and volatile," and they have recently seen an increase in aggression toward police, including a group of protesters who "swarmed" multiple officers.

He also stressed that the threats are not only coming from within Ottawa. With the help of Ohio police, an individual who was placing "fake threats" to "deceive and distract" emergency services was arrested on Monday, while other protesters attacked and "swarmed" officers.

"We've seized fuel and cut off material, financial and logistical support to occupation."

Bell says they have managed to tow and seize some vehicles, but they are experiencing resource and operational issues when it comes to acting further.

"We know that some demonstrators have indicated a desire to leave. In some cases, they're blocked in by other vehicles, and where possible, we're working to facilitate their departure," he says.

To combat their lack of resources, Bell says they need "1,800 officers and civilian personnel" to bring a "safe end to this occupation."

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 11:49

Stephanie Marquis sits in her Mazda3 in Olympia, Wash., frustrated by her in-car infotainment system which stopped working recently. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Marquis)Drivers of certain vehicles in Seattle and other parts of Western Washington are shouting at their car radios this week. Not because of any particular song or news item that's being broadcast, but because an apparent technical glitch has caused the radios to be stuck on public radio station KUOW.

The impacted drivers appear to all be owners of Mazda vehicles from between 2014 and 2017. In some cases the in-car infotainment systems have stopped working altogether, derailing the ability to listen to the radio at all or use Bluetooth phone connections, GPS, the rear camera and more.

According to Mazda drivers who spoke with GeekWire, and others in a Reddit thread discussing the dilemma, everyone who has had an issue was listening to KUOW 94.9 in recent weeks when the car systems went haywire.

KUOW sounded unsure of a possible cause; at least one dealership service department blamed 5G; and Mazda told GeekWire in an official statement that it identified the problem and a fix is planned.

''I see the Mazda symbol, like it's coming on,'' said Stephanie Marquis of Olympia, Wash., who was sitting in her car trying to get her dashboard screen to work. ''It just keeps rebooting. Now it's black. It's like it's trying to turn on but it won't turn on.''

Marquis, who works in public affairs for the State of Washington, was driving her 2015 Mazda3 hatchback from a friend's house two and half weeks ago when the problem started. She had been listening to KUOW '-- even though Tacoma's KNKX is her usual station.

The rebooting infotainment system in Stephanie Marquis' Mazda. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Marquis)Her car has 47,000 miles on it and she's loved it so far. But now she can't use the system to make calls while driving. She took her frustration over to the Reddit sub-group r/mazda3, and started a thread titled, ''Anyone else have their radio corrupted by a signal from 94.9?''

Others indeed have, according to the discussion. And Mazda dealerships in Olympia, Seattle and Lynnwood, Wash., are among those stymied by the problem.

A person who picked up the service line at Mazda of Seattle in the University District said inquiries would have to be directed at Mazda's corporate offices, and that the dealership couldn't speak to the issue.

Asked if the dealership had been hearing from a lot of vehicle owners, the employee chuckled and said, ''We are.''

Marquis said she took her car to the dealer in Olympia and was told the problem may be related to KUOW ''switching to 5G.'' She called Mazda's corporate offices and was on hold for over an hour before a rep told her he would look into it and call her back. She never heard back.

''I called the dealer and they told me the exact same thing,'' Reddit user MillionDollarSticky replied.

'We live in Western Washington, everybody listens to public radio here!'

Reddit user myalternatelife reported a stuck system in a 2015 Mazda3.

''My infotainment unit has been perpetually restarting as of last week, and it's usually dialed to KUOW 94.9,'' myalternatelife wrote. ''I took my car to the shop this morning and they mentioned ~50 customers are currently in the same situation, all stuck on KUOW.''

A representative for Mazda North American Operations issued a statement to GeekWire on Monday night that mentioned nothing about 5G, the switch from 3G cellular networks, and how any of it might be connected to connected cars.

''Between 1/24-1/31, a radio station in the Seattle area sent image files with no extension, which caused an issue on some 2014-2017 Mazda vehicles with older software,'' the Mazda statement said. ''Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) has distributed service alerts advising dealers of the issue.''

The statement goes on to say that ''dealers are currently experiencing parts delays due to shipping constraints'' and that MNAO plans to ''support impacted customers with replacement parts. These customers should contact their local Mazda dealer who can submit a goodwill request to the Mazda Warranty department on their behalf, order the parts, and schedule a free repair when the parts arrive.''

The Mazda representative did not reply to GeekWire's follow-up questions about what actually malfunctioned in these vehicles and what parts would need to be replaced. Update, Feb. 9, 8:50 a.m. PT: Mazda confirmed that the connectivity master unit is the part that will need to be replaced.

Jay Janette of Seattle and his malfunctioning 2016 Mazda CX5. (Photo courtesy of Jay Janette)Jay Janette, an architect in Seattle, took his 2016 Mazda CX5 to a dealership in Lynnwood, and before he could even finish describing the issue, the technician asked, ''Do you listen to NPR?''

Janette's infotainment system keeps trying to reboot, icons pop up and go away, and the radio has been stuck on KUOW.

''It's fine because I listen to that station quite a bit,'' Janette said. ''At this point I think it's almost a safety issue. I don't have my backup camera or my navigation system. It's just weird.''

Janette did say that before the glitch he did switch the KUOW HD signal that he was listening to in the car. He's got a service appointment for an oil change this week.

''I've had it for six years,'' he said. ''Maybe it's time to trade it in and look for something different.''

The interior of a 2016 Mazda6. (Mazda USA Photo)Tony Meyer of Tumwater, Wash., reported the same problem with his 2016 Mazda6. During a trip to do some shopping he was listening to KUOW when the system ''started acting wonky and just started a reboot.''

He thought turning off the car and restarting it would clear things. It didn't. A trip to his dealer got him a similar theory about 5G '-- an issue that has been in the news of late because the Federal Aviation Administration is worried about how the signals could impact airplane safety.

A few days ago while driving, Meyer's backup camera came on and displayed a frozen image while he was driving down the road.

''It cleared and all of a sudden it started functioning, so I changed the channel [on the radio], and I thought, hey, maybe somehow this has gotten fixed by itself,'' Meyer said. ''The next day I started the car and it's right back to constantly rebooting.''

(KUOW Image)KUOW has definitely heard from some listeners who want to know what the station's signal did to their cars.

''We've gotten some feedback from listeners who say, 'I listen to KUOW a lot anyway, but '... I can't change the station!''' News Director Gigi Douban told GeekWire.

Operations Director Dane Johnson, who oversees the day-to-day technical and facility needs of KUOW and its media products, said Monday that he didn't know much about what was causing the car problems.

''But we do have engineers from Xperi and All In Media with direct access to our transmitters and data servers to try and work out the issue. So far I have only heard of Mazdas having a problem,'' Johnson said.

Xperi makes connected-car technologies for infotainment systems, including HD Radio, which is available in Mazdas. Xperi did not reply to GeekWire's inquiry Tuesday about what went wrong with KUOW and Seattle-area Mazdas or what it was working on to fix things.

Johnson said he was aware of Mazda's theory about the faulty image and said the only image KUOW provides is its logo. He said the 5G theory is off base.

''5G is just a cell standard,'' Johnson said. ''When they talk about cars and a 5G vs. 3G issue it's cars that have an actual cell receiver in them and are on a service like AT&T that may have problems if that provider sunsets 3G. It has nothing to do with broadcast terrestrial service.''

Along with being Mazda drivers, everyone who spoke to GeekWire was a loyal public radio listener. The glitch wasn't going to change that.

''We live in Western Washington, everybody listens to public radio here!'' Janette said.

Marquis said the experience isn't going to make her switch to commercial radio '-- when she can actually switch stations again.

''It might make me think about buying another Mazda,'' she said.

Update, Feb. 9, 8:15 a.m. PT: A few readers pointed out that this isn't the first time Mazda has had an issue with a signal coming through its infotainment system. Check out this story on another mystery, involving radio host Roman Mars, his podcast ''99% Invisible,'' and a Mazda driver.

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Wed, 09 Feb 2022 13:44

Why on Earth Does George Soros Want Xi Jinping to Go? P 08.02.2022 U F. William Engdahl

Mister ''Open Society,'' George Soros, the symbol of globalist regime change Color Revolutions since the 1980s, has just signaled that he and his globalist circles have targeted China's President Xi Jinping for what looks a lot like regime change. On the surface, Soros' latest sharp critique of Xi and his management of China's economy seems bizarre. For all his nice words about promoting open societies and democracy, Soros' ''philanthropy'' has supported some of the most closed and corrupt leaders, such as Boris Yeltsin in Russia in the 1990s or Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine after the 2014 US coup. Could it be that Soros is now signaling a decision by a major faction of the globalist powers that be, to end their support of Xi in favor of other rival factions?

In remarks at the Stanford University Hoover Institution conference, ''China on the Eve of the Winter Olympics: Hard Choices for the World's Democracies,'' the 91-year-old Soros delivered extremely harsh remarks on Xi. He reviewed the history of China's communist leaders since Mao, whom he calls a catastrophe for China, through to Mao's rival, Deng Xiao Peng, who opened China to western investment in the 1980s. Soros describes Deng in glowing terms: '''...Deng Xiaoping, who recognized that China was woefully lagging behind the capitalist world'...He invited foreigners to invest in China, and that led to a period of miraculous growth that continued even after Xi Jinping came to power in 2013.''

Hard Critique of Xi

Deng's successors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, were careful not to violate the opening up market economic success initiated by Deng. However after Xi Jinping took power in 2012, Soros notes, ''Since then, Xi Jinping has done his best to dismantle Deng Xiaoping's achievements. He brought the private companies established under Deng under the control of the CCP and undermined the dynamism that used to characterize them. Rather than letting private enterprise blossom, Xi Jinping introduced his own 'China Dream' that can be summed up in two words: total control. That has had disastrous consequences.''

Soros identifies what he calls a sharp internal factional struggle inside the CCP: ''Xi Jinping has many enemies. Although nobody can oppose him publicly because he controls all the levers of power, there is a fight brewing within the CCP that is so sharp that it has found expression in various party publications. Xi is under attack from those who are inspired by Deng Xiaoping's ideas and want to see a greater role for private enterprise.'' The key date he notes is the October CCP Party Congress, where Xi plans to break the two-term limit on Chinese presidents set by the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.

Internal Factional Wars?

According to SinoInsider, a New York-based China political risk consultancy which specializes in analysis of internal factions within the China CCP elites, since he came to power in 2012, Xi has moved to consolidate unrivalled power over opposing factions, the most formidable opposition being that of Jiang Zemin and the so-called Shanghai Group, as well as many so-called princelings'' sons and daughters of former high ranking officers and officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from the 1949 era of the revolution. This faction war, they say, is behind Xi Jinping's crackdown on select Chinese private giant companies such as Jack Ma's Alibaba Group.

According to Japanese senior journalist, Katsuji Nakazawa, who was chief China correspondent for Nikkei, ''One source familiar with Chinese politics said that the interest groups targeted by Xi include tech giants such as Ant Group, Alibaba Group and Didi, major property developers such as China Evergrande Group and Fantasia Holdings Group, as well as the tutoring school industry. This cluster of private companies tends to be close to the politicians who pretend to obey Xi but secretly hold grudges; the companies often financially back such political forces. Among these forces is the Shanghai clan, led by former President Jiang Zemin and his close aide, former Vice President Zeng Qinghong. They maintain strong influence in political and bureaucratic circles that move the economy.''

If this is accurate, it would suggest that in order to decapitate his internal rivals, Xi has risked plunging China's economy, especially its bloated real estate sector with its huge debts, into what seems to be in an uncontrolled collapse that could bring China into a real economic depression just before his critical October 20th Party Congress where he clearly seeks an unprecedented third term.

Ominous New Tone

This is apparently the background that Soros clearly references in his remarks at Hoover Institution. He states, ''China is facing an economic crisis centered on the real estate market, which has been the main engine of growth since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013. The model on which the real estate boom is based is unsustainable. People buying apartments have to start paying for them even before they are built. So, the system is built on credit. Local governments derive most of their revenues from selling land at ever-rising prices.''

In his Hoover remarks, Soros also refers to the grave issue of ongoing demographic collapse in China which is ending the previous pool of low wage labor that spurred the dramatic growth of the past thirty years. He claims, ''the actual population is about 130 million lower than the official figure of 1.4 billion. This is not widely known, but it will aggravate the real estate crisis, produce labor shortages, fiscal strain and a slowdown in the economy.''

And making Xi's situation more precarious, Soros notes that far from the brilliant success praised two years ago by WHO and others of the XI covid strategy, there is the debilitating impact on the economy of Xi's heralded ''zero tolerance'' covid lockdown strategy that is closing entire cities such as Xi'an, and the huge container port city, Tianjin.

Soros' concluding words are ominous and foreboding about Xi Jinping's prospects: ''Given the strong opposition within the CCP, Xi Jinping's carefully choreographed elevation to the level of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping may never occur. It is to be hoped that Xi Jinping may be replaced by someone less repressive at home and more peaceful abroad. This would remove the greatest threat that open societies face today and they should do everything within their power to encourage China to move in the desired direction.'' Can it be that powerful circles in the globalist elite have concluded that Xi is no longer useful to their agenda?

The Hoover Institution speech is not the first time Soros has been critical of China of late, though it is far the most explicit in advocating an end to the Xi rule. In a September 6, 2021 Wall Street Journal OpEd, Soros wrote a sharp rebuke of fellow Wall Street investor BlackRock for its recent decision to open a Chinese mutual fund: ''It is a sad mistake to pour billions of dollars into China now. This is likely to lose money for BlackRock customers and, more importantly, harm the national security interests of the US and other democracies.'' Soros went on to say, ''The BlackRock Initiative threatens the national security interests of the US and other democracies because money invested in China will help advance President Xi's regime, which is repressive at home and aggressive abroad'... He is intensely nationalistic and he wants China to become the dominant power in the world. ''

The fact that so influential a globalist as George Soros openly calls for the end of the Xi era suggests that a major faction within the Western globalists has decided to do whatever possible to bring a more ''pliable'' leadership in Beijing. Globalists at the level of Soros or Schwab do not make major interventions impulsively. The fact Soros is doubling down in his attacks directly on Xi suggest that a very powerful group of the Davos Great Reset green agenda have decided that Xi has become an obstacle to their dystopian agenda to eliminate the nation state everywhere, including China and USA.

Could it be that a nationalist Xi Jinping, who has declared intent in recent months to annex Taiwan by force if necessary, after forcefully ending the Sino-Anglo HongKong treaty in 2020, is endangering the entire globalist Davos Great Reset agenda? Soros is an Agenda Contributor of Schwab's World Economic Forum and frequent guest to Davos. His son, Alexander Soros, is the Deputy Chair of the Open Society Foundations and one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders of 2018. Moreover Soros' decades of funding Color Revolutions since the 1980's arguably have advanced the end of the nation-state through collapsing regimes everywhere from the Soviet Union in 1991 to the Arab Spring in 2011 and Ukraine in 2014. Could it be that the Davos circles around Soros have decided to actively join the party rivals of the CCP to help topple Xi?

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine ''New Eastern Outlook''.

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Wed, 09 Feb 2022 09:03

Americans tuning in to the Super Bowl on Sunday will be inundated with ads from cryptocurrency companies, including the trading platform FTX, which plans to give away millions of dollars in bitcoin.

FTX has spent heavily on sports partnerships to try to make itself a brand name in crypto, including an ad with NFL star Tom Brady, a sponsorship with Major League Baseball and a $135 million deal to rename the Miami Heat's stadium the FTX Arena.

Co-founder and chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried, who recently moved FTX's headquarters from Hong Kong to the Bahamas, says the ads are as much about courting U.S. regulators as getting customers to download its trading app.

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''We want to make sure that we're painting, hopefully, a healthy image of ourselves and the industry,'' said Bankman-Fried, 29, who has a net worth of more than $24 billion, according to Forbes. ''We're optimistic that we're going to be able to grow our U.S. business '-- a lot of that is working with U.S. regulators on bringing new products to market.''

Matt Damon, Jimmy Fallon and the celebrity-cryptocurrency industrial complex

The crypto industry includes virtual currencies such as bitcoin and Ether, as well as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, that can provide proof of ownership for assets such as digital images or weapons within video games. Both cryptocurrencies and NFTs are built using an information-storing technology called blockchain.

It's also notoriously volatile. The global market for crypto exploded to a $3 trillion market capitalization late last year, fueled by the popularity of NFTs, which can be used as profile pictures or collectible art. A downturn in January wiped out a massive amount of wealth, but it has since rebounded to a $2 trillion market cap, according to CoinMarketCap.

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FTX competes with better-known exchanges such as Coinbase, which allows users to buy and trade cryptocurrencies. But FTX makes most of its revenue outside the United States, on a riskier subset of crypto derivatives trading, although some American traders evade the ban on offshore exchanges such as FTX or Binance. The United States currently does not offer licenses for crypto derivatives exchanges. FTX's American affiliate, FTX US, is licensed as a crypto exchange.

''The U.S. is an important global hub. What happens in the U.S. tends to reverberate around the world quite a bit,'' said Bankman-Fried, who is testifying before Congress on Wednesday about risks and regulations around digital assets. He testified before Congress for the first time in December at a hearing on financial innovation, where executives argued for light regulation.

The industry's stupefying growth has raised concerns about the lack of protections for consumers and the lack of oversight on systemic financial risks, even as celebrities, influencers and investors hype crypto as a means for economic empowerment.

Crypto executives debut on Capitol Hill, urging light regulation of their booming industry

Bankman-Fried said lawmakers have shown ''a ton of appetite'' to develop a U.S. crypto policy. During the House Financial Services committee hearing in December, when Bankman-Fried testified, he said he heard significant interest in ''making sure that we had sufficient customer protections against systemic risk, but also that the U.S. was a competitive place for the industry.''

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Bankman-Fried attended meetings in D.C. last week before the upcoming hearing was announced. His visit was ''trying to inform people as best I can and be a resource.''

The broader crypto sector has been dramatically increasing its spending on lobbying and political activities since losing a bid last summer to strip new industry reporting requirements from the Senate infrastructure package. In one of the latest moves, a group of top executives that includes FTX's CEO of digital markets, Ryan Salame, formed a super PAC aiming to spend $20 million in the midterm elections on electing crypto-friendly candidates.

Sixteen percent of Americans say they have personally invested in, traded or used cryptocurrencies, according to a Pew Research Center survey from September.

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Some of FTX's competitors are also expected to advertise during the Super Bowl. Coinbase Global and the Canadian exchange Bitbuy will also advertise, according to the Wall Street Journal.

FTX raised $400 million in January at a $32 billion valuation, doubling its estimated worth in six months. The latest round of investors included venture capital firms such as SoftBank and Tiger Global Management, the crypto venture firm Paradigm, as well as the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board.

Bankman-Fried, who spoke by Zoom from his office in the Bahamas, said the goal of FTX's sports partnerships is less about persuading consumers to start accounts with FTX than on branding.

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''It's going to impact how we're thought about and framed for a long time,'' he said.

FTX's own studies have shown some impact from the ads. The company found higher brand awareness in Houston and Atlanta, home to the two teams in the 2021 World Series, where FTX did a major ad push, as well as Miami, where the arena is located. The company said it doubled its number of U.S. users in the final quarter of last year.

FTX's Super Bowl ad plays on people's fear of missing out on wealth creation from the crypto industry.

''It certainly hasn't been the best last two months for the digital asset industry, but overall it has been pretty much the best performing sector over the last year,'' Bankman-Fried said.

Crypto collapse erases more than $1 trillion in wealth, forcing a reckoning for everyday investors

The FTX ad promises to give bitcoin to four winners, equivalent to the time that the ad is shown during the second half of the game. If the ad appears at 9:45 p.m., for example, each winner will get 9.45 bitcoin.

Tory Newmyer contributed to this report.

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Tue, 08 Feb 2022 16:17

The state of Michigan closed down a bridge from Detroit to Canada in the midst of trucker-led protests over COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Truckers and other individuals started congregating on the Ambassador Bridge on Monday night. The busy crossing connects Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, Michigan.

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) wrote on Twitter on Monday evening that it had closed the crossing to Canada.

At the same time, the Windsor Police Service wrote Tuesday that the bridge was reopened to traffic. However, MDOT's Detroit Office confirmed Tuesday the crossing remains closed on the U.S. side, calling on travelers to use the Port Huron crossing.

UPDATE: Other on I-75Location: Both Directions I-75 at Bridge to CanadaEvent Type: OtherCounty: WayneEvent Message: BRIDGE TO CANADA IN DETROIT IS CLOSED. USE PORT HURON@Modernize75

'-- MDOT '' Metro Detroit (@MDOT_MetroDet) February 8, 2022

Canada sends 75 percent of its goods exports to the United States, and the bridge usually handles around 8,000 trucks a day.

''We got sent here to send a message and the message isn't getting through,'' Ottawa protest spokesman Tom Marazzo told reporters on Monday about the bridge convoy, according to the Reuters news agency.

And Tuesday marked the 12th straight day of the ''Freedom Convoy'' in Ottawa, Canada's capital, as local officials this week attempted to take more drastic action against the trucker-led convoy by seizing their fuel. A judge also issued an order temporarily banning horn honking.

Canada's embattled prime minister, Justin Trudeau, on Monday evening said that ''Canadians have the right to protest, to disagree with their government'' but claimed that the Ottawa trucker protest has gone too far.

Protesters in Ottawa as demonstrations against COVID-19 mandates and restrictions continue, on Feb. 7, 2022. (Jonathan Ren/The Epoch Times)''But let's be clear: They don't have the right to blockade our economy, or our democracy, or our fellow citizens' daily lives. It has to stop,'' he wrote. Several protesters online then accused Trudeau and his government of blocking the Canadian economy with vaccine mandates and passports.

Trudeau appeared in the public for the first time in about a week after he said he was infected with COVID-19, the illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

The protesters have said they won't leave until all COVID-19 vaccine mandates are removed across the country. The movement, which is spreading to other countries, was initiated over a policy that stipulated mandatory vaccinations for Canadian truckers who cross into the United States.

The Epoch Times has contacted MDOT for additional comment

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter at The Epoch Times based in New York.

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Source: The Intercept

Tue, 08 Feb 2022 15:50

Foto: Reprodu§£o/Agªncia EFE

Estava no caixa do supermercado quando comecei involuntariamente a ouvir: ''Esse pessoal n£o quer trabalhar, s" quer ficar na rua, pedindo. J ofereci dez reais para um menino desses a­ lavar meu carro e ele n£o quis''. Era uma senhora que acabara de ser abordada, ali dentro, por um adolescente. Ela falava alto e olhava ao redor procurando valida§£o para sua indigna§£o: o jovem, um rapaz negro e com as roupas muito sujas, pediu que ela pagasse um pacote de biscoito para ele, que permanecia por perto, constrangido, esperando que outra pessoa o ajudasse.

Mas como assim algu(C)m com aquele aspecto, aquela cor e aquele grau de pobreza, negava a sacrossanta bondade da classe m(C)dia, traduzida ali em dez reais?

('...)

Lembrei desse epis"dio, presenciado na v(C)spera do ºltimo Natal, em Recife, quando li o tweet comemorativo do prefeito do Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, sobre o fato de a fam­lia de Mo¯se Kabagambe passar a gerenciar o quiosque no qual o rapaz foi barbaramente assassinado com vrias pauladas no dia 24 de janeiro.

''E a melhor not­cia: a fam­lia passa a ser a nova concessionria do quiosque! N£o banaliza§£o da barbrie!''

Em resposta, diversas pessoas aplaudiram a atitude.

Era justamente a banaliza§£o da barbrie que acontecia ali, e n£o s": era tamb(C)m, e mais uma vez, a banaliza§£o do sofrimento, da trag(C)dia e do trauma comuns no interior das popula§µes negras.

Percebam: para ''reparar'' a dor e o racismo enfrentados n£o s" pela fam­lia do jovem assassinado, mas pelas popula§µes africanas que penam para conseguir um emprego no Brasil, a prefeitura decidiu oferecer como presente a pr"pria cena do crime.

Eu n£o consigo pensar em outra palavra, sen£o perversidade, para definir essa opera§£o. Isso n£o s" pelo fato de a fam­lia, ao gerenciar o quiosque/memorial beira-mar da Barra da Tijuca, ter que conviver diariamente com o espa§o no qual o mo§o de 24 anos foi trucidado. Perverso tamb(C)m (C) o estado, aqui representado pela prefeitura do Rio, se comportar como uma esp(C)cie de grande benfeitor ao vender enfrentamento ao racismo quando na verdade est alimentando o mesmo.

Trauma, dor, sofrimento psicol"gico e questµes de ordem emocional ou mental s£o raramente associadas gente preta (e principalmente gente preta e pobre) quando est£o atrelados a cuidado, colo, acolhimento. Afinal, somos pessoas fortes, resilientes, guerreiras, que d£o conta de tudo. ‰ uma perspectiva tamb(C)m internalizada, vista antes como m(C)rito, e reproduzida entre n"s pessoas negras, como h pouco foi visto no caso de Natlia, no BBB, quando ela falou que a escravid£o estava baseada na ''eficiªncia'' de pretos e pretas para o trabalho.

O que parece a princ­pio elogio guarda tamb(C)m um tra§o sombrio: se nosso valor est somente em nossa for§a, os outros aspectos que tamb(C)m nos humanizam '' emo§µes, necessidades, sonhos, medos, desejos '' s£o minimizados ou apagados. No limite, somos "timas mquinas ou eficientes burros de carga. Dificilmente, no imaginrio comum, a clssica mocinha frgil que desmaia e precisa de amparo, cuidado e prote§£o ser uma garota negra.

‰ dentro dessa l"gica que reside a possibilidade de, sem qualquer constrangimento, oferecer para a fam­lia de Mo¯se a cintilante chance de trabalhar e gerenciar o local no qual o congolªs foi assassinado. N£o basta que Lotsove Ivone, m£e do rapaz, ou Kevin, seu irm£o de sete anos, convivam para sempre com as imagens nas quais vemos o jovem sofrer mais de 30 pauladas. Tamb(C)m poder£o, cada um a seu modo, ela com o cora§£o da m£e, ele com o cora§£o de menino, imaginar in loco o sofrimento de Mo¯se e a selvageria dos brasileiros que o mataram. Ah, mas eles s£o fortes. Foram mais de 30 pauladas. Ah, mas eles aguentam. Mais de 30 pauladas. Ah, mas eles s£o guerreiros. Mais de 30 pauladas.

Mas eles aguentam.

Protesto no Rio pediu justi§a pelo assassinato do congolªs.

Foto: Reprodu§£o/Agªncia EFE

Al(C)m disso '' e foi por conta dessa quest£o que lembrei do jovem pedinte no supermercado '', h no imaginrio ultra classista e racista brasileiro a cren§a de que pessoas em situa§£o muito vulnervel devem aceitar qualquer coisa ofertada. ‰ a l"gica da ''m£ozinha'', do ''agrado'', algo que vai n£o s" ajud-las a sair, ainda que temporariamente, de uma condi§£o muito dif­cil, mas ainda propaga aos quatro cantos o quanto n"s, que oferecemos a ajuda, somos muito bons.

‰ aquela hist"ria: brasileiro adora caridade, mas detesta pol­tica pºblica de combate fome. Curte distribuir, vez ou outra, uma cesta bsica, mas chamava o ''finado'' Bolsa Fam­lia de ''bolsa esmola''. O que importa se a mortalidade infantil no Nordeste caiu quase 50% entre 2000 a 2014 gra§as a a§µes do estado, como mostra este estudo, se podemos culpabilizar pessoas miserveis pela pr"pria condi§£o? Se algu(C)m n£o precisa da minha ''ajudinha'', caem as chances de que eu me torne her"i, ou, pelo menos, de que eu consiga explor-la em benef­cio pr"prio.

Quase 100% dos congoleses que buscaram refºgio no Brasil e vivem no Rio de Janeiro moram em favelas e/ou vivem sob a press£o de muita pobreza. Vrios tªm boa forma§£o escolar e/ou t(C)cnica '' s£o pedagogos, fot"grafos ou trabalham com informtica, como mostra essa boa mat(C)ria da BBC Brasil. Mas, na Repºblica das Mil­cias, a qualifica§£o destes africanos fala mais baixo que a cor e a origem de todos eles. Assim, por causa do nosso racismo e xenofobia recalcados, a maioria desses refugiados trabalha aceitando pagamentos baix­ssimos. No texto da BBC, a coordenadora do Programa de Atendimento a Refugiados da Critas RJ, Aline Thuller, conta que muita gente oferece a eles algo como R$ 35 por servi§os de faxina que custam em m(C)dia R$ 200 a diria. Tamb(C)m (C) comum que ofere§am apenas casa e comida como pagamento.

‰ por isso que h dois erros fceis nas cr­ticas sobre o caso quiosque/fam­lia de Mo¯se: o primeiro (C) dizer simplesmente que, se ''eles aceitaram'' a suposta benesse de Paes, n£o h o que discutir; o segundo (C) criticar o grupo justamente por ter topado a futura tarefa. O racismo continua prevalecendo em ambos os olhares.

Em um contexto de super-explora§£o e estigmatiza§£o, agravados pela trag(C)dia da covid-19, (C) muito compreens­vel que m£e, irm£os e amigos de Mo¯se queiram gerenciar um dos quiosques (localizados, segundo diversos relatos na imprensa e nas redes, em reas de atua§£o das mil­cias). Vocª diria n£o chance de cuidar de seus filhos e de si um pouco mais dignamente? Uma dignidade que se traduz, por exemplo, em um almo§o melhor, um aluguel pago ou um sapato em boas condi§µes de uso? Sintetizando: uma dignidade que afaste vocª e eles das chances de linchamento?

Mas, entre escolher a extrema vulnerabilidade ou alguma estabilidade trabalhando onde um irm£o meu foi assassinado, h alguma outra op§£o?

O problema n£o est no aceite da fam­lia. O problema est na oferta.

Ela (C) a tradu§£o da falta de cuidado usual, hist"rico, com quem cometeu o erro de nascer preto demais e, no caso de Mo¯se, de nascer preto, africano e vir morar no Brasil. Dizer que eles ''podiam escolher'' e n£o topar o projeto significa entender, repito, que poderiam optar entre a estabilidade que poder£o encontrar gerenciando o quiosque/memorial ou os subempregos que, no final, levou um deles ao espancamento brbaro e morte. A l"gica liberal da ''escolha'' n£o cabe aqui e us-la como argumento s" demonstra nossa dificuldade de compreens£o do que significa ser um subcidad£o nesse pa­s.

Em meio aos protestos, prefeitura do Rio apresentou projeto para transformar os quiosques da Barra em um memorial dedicado ao congolªs assassinado e cultura africana.

Foto: Prefeitura do Rio/Divulga§£o

Marketing da solidariedade‰ preciso dizer que, segundo o secretrio municipal da Fazenda, Pedro Paulo Carvalho, os quiosques Biruta e Tropiclia ser£o transformados, em repara§£o fam­lia, em um memorial dedicado n£o apenas ao congolªs morto, mas cultura africana (a fam­lia ir gerenciar apenas um deles, justamente o Tropiclia).

Nas redes, a prefeitura divulgou que a parceria com a operadora Orla Rio ''vai criar um lugar de homenagem e gerar empregos para pessoas refugiadas''. Ainda segundo o anºncio, o espa§o ter ''dan§as t­picas'', comidas e outras manifesta§µes culturais congolesas. Segundo a assessoria de imprensa do "rg£o, ser firmada uma parceria com o Sesc e o Senac, prefeitura, Orla Rio e organiza§µes sociais para criar um programa de capacita§£o para que os imigrantes atuem na rea da gastronomia (apesar, (C) bom lembrar, do fato que vrios deles j chegarem ao Brasil com qualifica§µes profissionais).

No ºltimo sbado, dia 5, quando aconteceram protestos pedindo justi§a para Mo¯se e ainda por pessoas como Durval Te"filo (morto por um vizinho que o ''confundiu'' com um bandido), o projeto arquitet´nico j foi divulgado: nele vemos os espa§os encimados por bandeiras da Repºblica Democrtica do Congo, al(C)m de uma imagem de Mo¯se e guarda-s"is com estamparia africana. Nos quiosques, h equipamentos de lanchonete, como vitrines expositoras de alimentos. Tudo muito bonito e organizado, tudo bastante vendvel para redes nacionais e internacionais, de modo que o fato de o crime ter acontecido dia 24 de janeiro, mas ter ganhado o debate pºblico dias depois, soa como mero detalhe.

Segundo o advogado da fam­lia, Rodrigo Mondego, o projeto do quiosque/memorial n£o (C) uma repara§£o em si porque n£o vem de quem tem responsabilidade objetiva sobre o ocorrido. Ele informa que uma a§£o estudada (C), atrav(C)s da defensoria pºblica, pedir a responsabiliza§£o civil por parte dos responsveis pelo crime, que teriam que indenizar a fam­lia. Rodrigo tamb(C)m diz que a ºltima aceitou gerir o quiosque/memorial por se tratar de uma homenagem a Mo¯se. Os familiares de Mo¯se foram procurados, mas n£o responderam s mensagens e liga§µes. Entendemos o fato e que esse momento de dor e luto vem sendo atravessado, ainda, por uma s(C)rie de pedidos de entrevistas.

Sim, (C) importante e simb"lico que se crie um lugar que n£o deixe esquecer o que aconteceu ali, que n£o apague da mem"ria o quanto desumanos e racistas n"s podemos ser. Tamb(C)m (C) importante que esse lugar n£o signifique apenas dor, mas tamb(C)m futuro e possibilidades, por isso (C) louvvel por parte da prefeitura que apenas pessoas refugiadas possam trabalhar ali '' torcemos que em condi§µes legais e dignas.

Yvonne, m£e do congolªs Mo¯se Kabagambe, fala durante ato em mem"ria de seu filho no Rio.

Foto: Tomaz Silva/Agªncia Brasil

Mas falamos de outra coisa, e n£o somente de um memorial, quando nesse bojo se inclui o convite para que a pr"pria fam­lia da pessoa linchada no local venda gua, cerveja e caipirinhas ou quaisquer outros produtos no espa§o onde ocorreu a selvageria. ‰ medonho e descuidado. Ou melhor '' volto ao adjetivo '', (C) perverso. procura de respostas rpidas para uma quest£o t£o delicada, mais uma vez se ofereceu o que parecia uma solu§£o fantstica, principalmente para o marketing da solidariedade que quer fazer acreditar que o Rio de Janeiro apenas continua lindo.

Atualmente coordenando um estudo que trata de racismo e sofrimento, o psicanalista e pesquisador ‰rico Andrade, da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, diz que a solu§£o do caso n£o pode ser simplesmente ofertar o esp"lio da dor para pessoas negras que s£o constrangidas a aceitar o gesto. ''No [quiosque] Tropiclia, o racismo ganhou mat(C)ria, corpo, sangue, mas o modo como o poder pºblico vem tratando o caso mostra outra faceta do racismo: os ouvidos tapados para o que dizem os movimentos negros, os intelectuais negros, a comunidade negra. O racismo (C) estrutural porque ele (C) um sistema que opera todas as a§µes da sociedade: desde a violªncia expl­cita violªncia simb"lica e o in­cio do seu combate passa pela possibilidade das pessoas negras protagonizarem as suas escolhas sem que sejam obrigadas ou constrangidas a seguirem a l"gica que muitas vezes (C) a responsvel por as levarem para a terra da qual nunca foram proprietrias em vida.''

Lotsove Ivone, que vive em Madureira, h pouco mais de 20 quil´metros da Barra da Tijuca, trabalha h anos como trancista, embelezando cabelos . Veio para o Brasil em 2014 fugindo de uma guerra civil que j fizera desaparecer o pai de seus filhos, al(C)m de outros parentes. Que demais op§µes foram dadas para ela? Abrir um sal£o, por exemplo? Quais as op§µes para seus filhos? Em uma cidade como o Rio, a ºnica possibilidade de trabalho para a fam­lia era mesmo no quiosque onde um dos seus foi morto? O que faziam, em que trabalhavam e o que queriam estas pessoas (que tentaram escapar do sofrimento em seu pa­s) antes de Mo¯se ser assassinado?

Certamente, o sonho de nenhum deles era gerenciar um espa§o que s" nasceu a partir do sofrimento e morte de um dos seus. ‰ frescura perguntar quais eram os sonhos desses imigrantes? ‰ frescura gente negra e pobre escolher o que quer? ‰ frescura gente negra e pobre ter vontades e sonhar?

Quero finalizar o texto com outro homem negro vindo, assim como Mo¯se, da Repºblica Democrtica do Congo, o professor e antrop"logo Kabengele Munanga. Ficou famosa uma entrevista sua na qual ele diz que o racismo (C) o crime perfeito. N£o consigo deixar de pensar como a entrega do espa§o do sofrimento para ser cuidado pela pr"pria fam­lia do jovem morto (C) um grande exemplo desse crime que ele expµe: resultado de uma diferen§a tornada em desigualdade, de uma pol­tica neoliberal que costuma morder muito e s vezes soprar um pouco, o novo destino da fam­lia (C) aplaudido fortemente, capitalizando gestµes e pol­ticos. ‰ uma das faces silenciosas e perfeitas desse mecanismo: eu ganho cr(C)ditos e saio bem na foto quando, supostamente, alivio a dor dos outros '' mas (C) uma dor, percebam, que muitas vezes eu mesma provoquei.

('...)

Algumas entre as muitas perguntas fundamentais sobre o caso e o que efetivamente a prefeitura do Rio deve apurar e publicizar, mesmo que renda poucos likes nas redes:

Quem foram os guardas municipais que se negaram a ajudar o congolªs apesar de terem sido avisados do que acontecia por uma auxiliar de servi§os gerais?Por qual raz£o estes agentes pºblicos n£o prestaram socorro?Como a prefeitura vai atuar na forma§£o racial destes agentes, vrios deles tamb(C)m negros?Quais as medidas para aumentar a empregabilidade de refugiados que j tªm qualifica§£o profissional e hoje recorrem ao subemprego?Para saber mais sobre pesquisas em saºde mental e pessoas negras: o

estudo de Marizete Gouveia Damasceno e Valeska M. Loyola Zanello, de 2018, fez um apanhado da produ§£o bibliogrfica nos 15 ºltimos anos at(C) a publica§£o da pesquisa. Em um trecho do resumo, elas escrevem: ''opress£o, agress£o e violªncia s£o prticas que afetam a saºde mental da pessoa alvo ('...) O objetivo geral desta revis£o sistemtica foi encontrar na literatura cient­fica brasileira estudos sobre o impacto do racismo na saºde mental de negros no Brasil; o objetivo espec­fico foi verificar a contribui§£o da Psicologia nesse t"pico. Foram realizadas buscas nas plataformas SciELO e Lilacs, referentes ao per­odo de 1999 a 2014, as quais retornaram 509 artigos, que foram filtrados segundo crit(C)rios definidos. Dezenove artigos foram considerados relevantes para anlise, mesmo n£o tratando exclusivamente do impacto do racismo na saºde mental''. As autoras concluem que o tema, apesar de dizer respeito maioria da popula§£o brasileira, tem baixa produ§£o acadªmica no Brasil, pouca contribui§£o da Psicologia e menos ainda das demais disciplinas relativas aos Centros de Assistªncia Psicossocial (CAPS), espa§os de assistªncia pºblica saºde mental frequentados majoritariamente pela popula§£o negra de baixa renda.Atualiza§£o, 8/2, 12h38: Este texto foi atualizado para mencionar que a fam­lia de Mo¯se foi procurada, mas n£o respondeu os pedidos de entrevista.

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Mon, 07 Feb 2022 15:38

By Michael Every of Rabobank

I have repeatedly stressed how ridiculous it is to look at US jobs data when they are just estimates of the small monthly delta of a very large number strained through an algorithm and seasonal adjustments. The ADP report saw a shock fall in jobs, then non-farm payrolls --whose methodology the ADP uses!-- saw a shock surge. Yet the adjustment was far larger than normal despite more unadjusted jobs lost as the Great Resignation continues and the working week shrinking. Worse, there were vast backward revisions for years. The million jobs created last summer now happened this winter. Economic history was just rewritten '' and we are supposed to take it seriously.

Regardless, a Fed policy error is now baked in'...unless what went up in January comes down equally stupidly in February right before the FOMC has to pull the trigger pointed at its own head. Yet how can they not when ultra-easy fiscal and monetary policy, against a backdrop of supply chains now offshore (because ''it's cheaper''), or dominated by oligopolies or monopolies (because ''it's cheaper''), ends up with everything being more expensive? The market response, based on the yield surge we are seeing so far, is going to be very messy.

Bloomberg jumped the gun(s) Friday with a headline saying Russia's invasion of Ukraine had started. Not yet. However, we still have an escalating military build-up. The US variously claims war could start as soon as today(!) and would see up to 50,000 Ukrainian casualties vs. just 4,000 soldiers for Russia, and 5 million refugees fleeing to the EU: Kyiv would fall in 72 hours. The US also believes Russia will hold a nuclear drill to coincide with an invasion to warn the world not to intervene: but some, like the Ukrainian government, are more upbeat; and some believe the US is only saying this to pressure Ukraine into surrendering '' as more US troops arrive in the EU.

Germany's Bild has even wilder claims that Russia plans to invade, rig a referendum, and absorb Ukraine '' with internment camps for any resistance. This is hard for markets to believe: camps in eastern Europe - when has that ever happened? Yet China's Olympics, where a Dutch journalist was dragged off air on live TV, had a Uyghur light its Olympic flame, which as the NBC anchor stated live is ''quite provocative. It is a statement from the Chinese president, Xi Jinping'... It is an in-your-face response to Western nations, including the US, who have called the Chinese treatment of that group genocide.'' It also demonstrates Western markets and businesses don't respond to such allegations after the fact, let alone before. And when they do get involved, it is to point fingers at the West. Ben & Jerrys tweeted: ''You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. We call on President Biden to de-escalate tensions and work for peace rather than prepare for war. Sending thousands more US troops to Europe in response to Russia's threats against Ukraine only fans the flame of war.'' There are no Vegetius fats in their products, and on-line responses are that their newest flavour is ''appease-mint'', now with ''added Neville Chamberlain''. In short, don't look to the hobby horse cavalry of Western businesses/markets to react unilaterally even if we were to see internment camps. 'Market forces' don't work when morality costs money rather than making it. Realpolitik rules.

Which is why Russia and China announced an historic ''no limits'' alliance: politics, military, economics, trade (with a new 30-year deal for gas delivery, and Russia allowing all its regions to export grain to China for the first time), tech, space, and finance (to work around US sanctions) aimed at a new world order. China hence backs Russia's security demands that NATO must be rolled back, and Russia is supporting China over Taiwan. The US now faces a two-front military challenge from an economic alliance loaded with arms and resources across two claimed 'spheres of influence': Europe/the Caucuses, and Asia-Pacific. It will need far more support in both, e.g., Russia is already now able to send troops from the Chinese border to Ukraine. Pointedly, the US National Security Advisor has already said that China would ''end up owning some of the costs'' if Russia invades Ukraine.

For those who like to ignore guns to others' heads, also note the official Russian statement deliberately subverts the West in saying: '''...democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States, and'...its promotion and protection is a common responsibility of the entire world community... A nation can choose such forms and methods of implementing democracy that would best suit its particular state, based on its social and political system, its historical background, traditions and unique cultural characteristics. It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their State is a democratic one'...Russia and China as world powers with rich cultural and historical heritage have long-standing traditions of democracy, which rely on 1,000 years of experience of development, broad popular support and consideration of the needs and interests of citizens.'' So, both are now democracies, while the elitist West says it needs multiparty elections, the rule of law, press freedom, and not poisoning the opposition.

That new claim --and Mother-Russia-and-apple-pie stuff about peace, cooperation, growth, and the UN-- is to sell the alliance to the world and to Western markets/businesses. Indeed, Wall Street's logical thought progression is likely to be:

20 years ago: Keep investing there and they will become like us!5 years ago: Keep investing there though they haven't because we don't believe Cold Wars!This year: Keep investing there because if we don't we might see a hot war!And, given the relative scale of the two camps and the single-minded determination of one's state-business nexus vs. the vacillation of the other's, one could also add:

5 years from now: Keep investing there because we have become more like them!As I warned back in 2017, we are in a Cold War: this time between liberal(ish) democratic oligarchic financial capitalism with asset bubbles, and authoritarian ''democratic'' oligarchic state-capitalism with asset bubbles. Perhaps that lowest common denominator is why Wall Street does not see this will bite them. Yet bite them it will '' or the concept and geography of 'Western' will not mean much long term/in as many places.

The US is already trying to decouple in fits and start, and this will only speed up; Sweden is reopening a Cold War anti-Russian fake news unit; and Der Spiegel reports Germany will now designate China as a ''systemic rival'' rather than competitor.

Yes, Western firms will say: ''We need a foot in both camps.'' But that was where they needed to be five years ago when all we had was a trade war. In a Cold War, playing both sides won't play well with politicians if firms' profits/vulnerabilities mean losses for 'The West'. In a hot war, things will be far worse. And if we see the camps Bild is talking about, even more so and even faster.

Yes, Wall Street will say: ''Yummy, appease-mint!'' Yet a Cold War means some capital controls will come in, and capital won't. In a hot war, things will be far worse. And if we see the camps Bild is talking about, even more so and even faster.

Or maybe the West will see the rift instead. French President Macron goes to Moscow to talk to Putin again today, saying in advance that: he is optimistic he can secure a de-escalation; Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine, but wants to ''reforge'' relations with NATO; and while ''The security and sovereignty of Ukraine or any other European state cannot be a subject for compromise, it also legitimate for Russia to pose the question of its own security'... We must protect our European brothers by proposing a new balance capable of preserving their sovereignty and peace. This must be done while respecting Russia and understanding the contemporary traumas of this great people and nation.''

What new balance? Does Macron think he can somehow flip Russia's geostrategy (despite valid questions over how the two new friends really trust each other)? How much of Europe's current security framework is he offering to de-escalate to try? As Romania asks for US F-35s, which NATO members will have to disarm? Munich, Yalta, and Potsdam will spring to said NATO members' minds as they watch their security debated over their heads, just as the EU recently saw its debated just between Russia and the US.

We are in the crazy position now where, even against the backdrop of currently volatile markets, and flapping central banks, it may be easier to predict what the long-run cost of borrowing and key FX rates in Europe will be than which political geographies will be party to them!

Years ago, I argued history showed the unsustainable nature of Western capital funding a rival bloc's military development while China and Russia sell their output to the West for dollars that are recycled to finance the US military. The unhappy breakdown of that contemporary echo of the pre-1914 UK-German dynamic should now be abundantly clear, even to the most somnolent and solipsistic.

Future historians will look back at the recent announcement of a Russian-Chinese alliance as a 21st century turning point. Markets would be wise to do the same, even as they focus on what is likely to be an historic policy error by central banks.

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Mon, 07 Feb 2022 15:29

Feb. 7, 2022, 9:30 a.m.

''We counted all the native advertisements between 2014 and 2019 we could find from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.''

Mainstream news media outlets have, in recent years, begun to create advertisements that look like news articles on their websites and on social media. My research raises questions about whether this modern form of advertising might influence those outlets' real journalism.

These specific advertisements are called ''native advertising,'' but are also tagged as ''sponsored content,'' ''partner post'' or other labels consumers don't understand. They look like news articles, with headlines, photos with captions and polished text. But they are really ads created by, or on behalf of, a paying advertiser.

With declining revenue from traditional display advertising and classified ads, news outlets are increasingly relying on native advertising '-- a sector in which U.S. spending was expected to reach $57 billion by the end of 2021.

Fashion and entertainment companies buy native advertising. So do corporations that produce products with potentially significant environmental or health connections, such as fossil fuels, opioid medications and cigarettes '-- including in attempts to counter negative news coverage.

Deceiving audiencesIn one example from spring 2021, Philip Morris International, the tobacco company, ran a native advertising campaign across many media outlets, including The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Washington Post.

The ads complained about the ''disinformation campaigns that muddy the truth'' regarding the benefits of vaping products while themselves muddying the truth.

In the past, the tobacco industry sought to manufacture public uncertainty about the harms of its products. This time, Philip Morris is using a practice that media critics say is deceptive and media scholar Victor Pickard calls ''subterfuge '... creating confusion between editorial and advertising content,'' to make claims about the benefits of its products.

These advertisements that look like real news are labeled as ads, as required by the Federal Trade Commission. But research studies have repeatedly shown that those labels are largely ineffective at helping readers distinguish between the two types of content.

Made by journalistsMany media companies have created content studios, separate from their newsrooms, to create native advertising on behalf of corporate and special interest groups. While newspapers traditionally had ad departments that designed and mocked up advertisements for their clients, today's native ads are in the form of a ''story'' that often does not focus on '-- and sometimes does not even mention '-- its sponsor in order to resemble the seemingly objective journalism it imitates.

Sometimes those efforts have the help of intermediaries such as so-called ''product marketing'' teams that work between the newsroom and studios. A former ''creative strategist'' at The New York Times says that arrangement allows publishers ''to skirt the implication that news staff work directly with brands to craft commercial content.'' In other cases, journalists write for both the newsroom and their publisher's content studio.

Because native advertising typically has no bylines, most people are unaware that advertisements may be created in such close connection with mainstream newsrooms. Former employees, including a former executive editor of The New York Times, say most publishers are not transparent about it with their audiences. One digital journalist told researchers, ''Some people will say the ad is labeled so it's not bad. That's crap '... the unsophisticated won't get it and then they'll click on something meant to look exactly like a story. That's a problem.''

Disappearing disclosuresWhen native ads are shared on social media, they're often distributed in ways that further confuse or deceive audiences.

The Wall Street Journal, for instance, has retweeted posts from its Custom Content studio from the same Twitter account that promotes its news content. While this particular retweet disclosed the commercial nature of the original tweet, this is not always the case.

More than half the time, the FTC-required advertising disclosures disappear when the content leaves the publisher's website and is shared on Facebook and Twitter. For example, when I recently shared an American Petroleum Institute native ad on Twitter, the disclosure disappeared '-- ea violation of the FTC's labeling mandate.

I believe it is the responsibility of publishers, not consumers, to ensure that sponsored content is accurately labeled when shared online. Otherwise, people will amplify undisclosed commercial content they think is genuine news.

Suppressing news coverage?I have another concern about this type of potentially deceptive advertising. Since as early as 1869, anecdotal evidence has indicated that reporters are hesitant to write about advertisers that are lucrative to their news outlet. My recent research with digital advertising scholar Chris Vargo signals that similar concerns may occur with this new form of advertising.

We counted all the native advertisements between 2014 and 2019 we could find from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, by looking at native ads those news outlets posted on Twitter and with a custom search process we built on top of Bing. We noted what dates the native ads were published and what company sponsored them.

We also used the GDELT database, which collects online news stories from those three outlets and many other mainstream, partisan, and emerging news sites across the U.S. In that data, we noted the number and dates of news stories naming major companies.

We found 27 companies for which there was enough information in both data sets to make a meaningful connection. For each of those 27 companies, we charted how many mentions they had in news stories over time, and compared those time periods with the timing of that company's releases of native advertising.

We found that for 16 of the companies, news coverage noticeably decreased after a native advertisement was published. For just three companies, news coverage noticeably increased after a native ad was published.

These results suggest that advertiser-driven ''news'' stories '-- written and approved by paying sponsors '-- often go unchallenged.

For example, Wells Fargo '-- a multinational financial services company plagued by a litany of scandals, such as deceiving customers with fake bank accounts '-- engaged the content studios of The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to create nearly a dozen native ads. One, created by The Washington Post's BrandStudio, touted how Wells Fargo was investing in a cleaner environmental future. If it had been a real news article, it would have reported that the company was also financing the controversial underground oil transport system, the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Our study found statistically less reporting on Wells Fargo not only within those three elite news organizations but across all U.S. online media following the native advertising campaigns.

Native ads are potentially very deceptive to consumers in their content, their presentation, and how they are shared on social media. Our research does not prove a direct connection, but when we add it to the anecdotes that news management discourages stories critical of important advertisers, we also wonder about the power of native ads over journalists' supposedly independent decisions regarding what to cover and when.

Michelle A. Amazeen is associate professor of mass communication at Boston University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

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Mon, 07 Feb 2022 13:43

In New York City in 1920 '-- nearly two years into a deadly influenza pandemic that would claim at least 50 million lives worldwide '-- the new year began on a bright note.

''Best Health Report for City in 53 Years,'' boasted a headline in the New York Times on Jan. 4, 1920, after New York had survived three devastating waves of the flu virus. The nation as a whole, which would ultimately lose 675,000 people to the disease, believed that the end might finally be in sight.

Within a few weeks, however, those optimistic headlines began to change. Before the end of the month, New York City would experience a surge in influenza cases. Chicago and other urban centers reported the same.

'The 1918 flu is still with us': The deadliest pandemic ever is still causing problems today

Residents should prepare themselves for an ''influenza return,'' New York City health commissioner Royal S. Copeland warned. He predicted that the virus variant responsible for the surge would be milder and that those who had fallen ill the previous year would be immune. He was wrong, at least in part: While many places worldwide did not see a fourth wave of the great influenza pandemic, several metropolises '-- including New York City, Chicago and Detroit '-- had another deadly season in store.

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As the coronavirus pandemic creeps into its third year, and the death toll in the United States reaches 900,000, the 1918 influenza pandemic can offer some insight into how this chapter of history might draw to a close. But an ''ending,'' when it comes to viruses such as these, is a misleading word. Eventually, experts say, the novel coronavirus is likely to transition from a deadly and disruptive pathogen to a milder, more seasonal nuisance.

In the meantime, though, the country's experience a century ago suggests that we could be in for a lot more pain '-- especially if we let our guard down.

The 1918 flu lasted far beyond 1918. Two years after it began, just as officials such as Copeland were declaring victory and cities were easing restrictions, a fourth wave hit parts of the country, bringing punishing caseloads that pushed some hospitals to the brink of collapse and left many more Americans dead.

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The virus did not seem so menacing when it began: The first wave in the spring of 1918 was relatively mild. But it returned with a vengeance in the fall, probably having mutated. That second wave burned through patients around the world. Street cars were converted into hearses, and priests collected bodies with horse-drawn carriages.

During the second wave alone, more Americans were killed by the flu than died in the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined.

A killer flu was raging. But in 1918, U.S. officials ignored the crisis to fight a war.

The flu pandemic seemed to affect young people in particular, for reasons that historians and scientists are still debating. When the first recorded cases arrived, World War I was raging, and the cramped conditions of the trenches meant that the virus could pass rapidly from soldier to soldier, and the conditions in field hospitals often hastened the spread. Other experts have suggested that people in their 20s and 30s were less likely to have prior immunity to similar flu viruses.

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Regardless, the virus alone lowered life expectancy in the United States by more than 12 years. As many as 10 percent of all young adults living through the time of the flu pandemic may have died of it, according to historian John M. Barry in his book ''The Great Influenza.''

By the winter of 1919-1920, Americans were weary of the limitations on daily life. Nearly all of the public health restrictions '-- such as mask-wearing, social distancing and the closure of schools and churches '-- had been lifted. A hasty return to public gatherings led to an increase in case numbers. Politicians either blamed people's carelessness for the reemergence of the virus or downplayed the seriousness of it.

The fourth wave was not front-page news in the way that prior spikes had been. The coverage was often relegated to small paragraphs deep inside newspapers, reporting thousands of new cases on a weekly or even daily basis. By February 1920, there was an epidemic in a state prison in New Jersey, and some courts were forced to halt proceedings because of illness.

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One physician wrote a letter to the editor in the New York Times in the winter of 1920, begging people to avoid ''needless exposure to influenza'' through unnecessary social contact. The doctor warned that anyone who visited someone who was ill was then ''capable of spreading the disease to any number of others who might have escaped, thereby putting an extra drain upon the already overburdened hospitals, nurses, and doctors.''

In this excerpt from a 2010 documentary, Americans share what it was like to live through the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million worldwide. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)But if the fourth wave failed to generate the kinds of headlines and fear of its predecessors, it wasn't for a lack of lethality. In New York City, more people died in the period from December 1919 to April 1920 than in the first and third waves, according to a research paper on influenza mortality in the city. Detroit, St. Louis and Minneapolis also experienced significant fourth waves, and severe ''excess mortality'' was reported in many counties in Michigan because of the flu.

Ben Franklin's bitter regret that he didn't immunize his 4-year-old son against smallpox

Local governments' public health interventions actually may have contributed to the fourth wave by limiting the virus's spread in prior waves. Letting the virus run rampant, however, would not have been advisable either, said Wan Yang, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University and an author of the paper on New York City influenza mortality. ''More infection could also lead to more mutation, so that could generate a new virus variant that can then erode your prior immunity, so it's an interplay depending on how the virus is going to evolve, which is really unpredictable,'' Yang said.

Influenza viruses and coronaviruses are genetically different, so it's not possible to make a one-to-one comparison with the 1918 pandemic. Yang noted that the novel coronavirus appears to mutate far faster than the 1918 influenza virus. Management of the current pandemic also has benefited from many scientific developments that were not available a century ago, including more-sanitary hospital conditions, better access to clean water, and '-- perhaps what is most notable '-- a vaccine.

Mandatory immunization for the military: As American as George Washington

Still, we can get a glimpse into our future by looking at the past. The 1918 flu virus, after lingering in a deadly form for more than two years, eventually grew milder. Now it is ''part of every seasonal flu we have,'' said Ann Reid, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, who helped sequence the genome of the 1918 influenza virus in the 1990s. Her research found that some genetic aspects of the 1918 virus continued to be present in new outbreaks, including pandemics in 1957 and 1968. People with immunity to the 1918 virus were therefore likely to have some protection from its genetic cousins.

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''Eventually, everyone in the world will have some base level of immunity to this coronavirus, so even when it mutates into a new strain, people won't be entirely vulnerable to it,'' Reid said.

The best we can hope for with the current pandemic is an evolution that is to the flu virus's. ''I think it's going to stay,'' Yang said of the novel coronavirus. ''I don't think elimination is feasible or even realistic at this point. Hopefully we can live more peacefully with this virus.''

As the world enters a third year of the coronavirus pandemic, people wonder when and how it will end. History offers important lessons. (Joy Yi/The Washington Post)

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 15:49

Danny De Urbina : Psaki tries and fails miserably at gaslighting on hero Canadian truckers'-- dismissing their MASSIVE protest as "spor'... https://t.co/MPZbhn1d2Z

Tue Feb 08 20:16:17 +0000 2022

Gary Babs : @dannydeurbina The truckers just show the ignorance of the 10% of truckers who are not vaccinated. https://t.co/LgCQYW5aRO

Thu Feb 10 15:40:43 +0000 2022

Carolina Gal : @dannydeurbina Psaki is correct. FYI: These truckers are just 10% of the workforce. 90% of Canadian truckers are v'... https://t.co/kSjPxAP31Y

Thu Feb 10 15:24:15 +0000 2022

Heather Morgan 🇺🇸🇨ðŸ‡...🇸ðŸ‡>> : @dannydeurbina She kept saying ''vaccine requirements'' and not ''mandates'' '... Very significant in the magic spell they continue casting

Thu Feb 10 15:19:15 +0000 2022

Valorie Zurian : @dannydeurbina "We support the right of freedom of speech and protest?" Catch me up...when did this happen???

Thu Feb 10 14:58:21 +0000 2022

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 15:27

Michael P Senger : Amazing compilation of media elites denouncing Canada's Freedom Convoy. ''Sedition. Insurrection. A threat to democr'... https://t.co/HD8E03DdHg

Wed Feb 09 17:44:28 +0000 2022

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Thu, 10 Feb 2022 11:56

Grand Jury Day 1: Attorney at Law Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, Germany, Opening Statement, 5 January 2022 (18 mins) Transcript (links contained within the text below are our own)

Good aftenoon.

My name is Reiner Fuellmich and it is my pleasure to serve as one member of a group of distinguished international attorneys and lawyers who have been collaborating on this very important case for many months now.

This case involving the most heinous crimes against humanity committed under the guise of a ''corona pandemic'' on a global scale looks complicated only at first glance. But when you put together all those pieces '' all those little pieces of the puzzle, as we will do this for you with the help of many renowned experts and other witnesses during this proceeding '' you will see four sets of facts.

One, there is no corona pandemic but only a PCR test plandemic fuelled by an elaborate psychological operation designed to create a constant state of panic among the world's population. This agenda has been long planned '' its ultimately unsuccessful precursor was the swine flu some 12 years ago '' and it was cooked up by a group of super rich psychopathic and sociopathic people who hate and fear people at the same time, have no empathy, and are driven by the desire to gain full control over all of us, the people of the world. They are using our governments and the mainstream media, both of which they literally own, to convey their panic propaganda 24/7.

Two, the virus itself can be treated safely and effectively with vitamin C, D, zinc etc and also with off-label use of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine etc. But all these, not alternative methods of treatment but, real methods of treatment were banned by those who are using the guise of this plandemic to push their ultimate goal which is to get everyone to receive the, as we will show in this proceeding, not only ineffective but highly dangerous '' yes lethal '' experimental injections.

Three, the same people who made the swine flu, which ultimately turned out to be a mild flu, into a pandemic 12 years ago '' by first changing the definition of what a pandemic is and then, creating panic '' created this corona pandemic.

The swine flu was their first real attempt at creating a pandemic. And just as one of its purposes then was to divert our attention from the blatantly fraudulent activities of their financial industry '' more aptly to be called a financial mafia which had become visible through the Lehman crisis '' this is also one of their major purposes of this corona pandemic now.

Had we taken a closer look then, during the Lehman crisis, instead of blindly believing our government's promises that the perpetrators of those financial crimes will be held liable, we would have seen then that they had been looting and plundering our public coffers for decades. And we would have seen that our governments are not our governments anymore, rather, they have been taken over by the other side through their main platform the World Economic Forum which had started to create their own global leaders through their Young Global Leaders program as early as 1992. Two of the first graduates being Angela Merkel and Bill Gates. And we would have understood, already then, what we will show you now through this proceeding '' these financial crimes went unchallenged by our politicians because they are aiding and abetting those who commit them and profiting from these crimes.

Four, ultimately however, we will show to you '' the jury '' that the other side's main purpose is to gain full and complete control over all of us. This involves the finalisation of their looting and plundering by deliberately destroying our small and medium-sized businesses, retail businesses, hotel and restaurants so that platforms such as Amazon can take over.

And this involves population control which, in their view, requires both a massive reduction of the population and manipulating the DNA of the remaining population with the help, for example, of mRNA experimental injections.

But it also requires, in their view, the deliberate destruction of democracy, of the rule of law and of our constitutions through chaos so that ultimately we will agree to losing our national and cultural identities and instead will accept: a one world government '' under the UN [United Nations] which is now under the full control of them and their World Economic Forum '' a digital passport through which each and every move is monitored and controlled and one digital currency which we will only be able to receive from one world bank, theirs of course.

At the conclusion of the case and after you have heard all the evidence, we are confident that you will recommend indictments against all six putative figurehead defendants: Christian Drosten of Germany; Anthony Fauci of the United States; Tedros of the World Health Organisation; Bill Gates; BlackRock and Pfizer.

Ladies and gentlemen, this case is about a long-planned agenda of a group of ultra-rich people and their financial mafia based in the City of London and on Wall Street, to use a pseudo-pandemic as the guise behind which '' while our attention is on the pandemic '' they want to complete their decades-long efforts to gain full and complete control over all of us.

There are numerous platforms on which this group has been meeting and discussing this agenda. But the most important one is that of the World Economic Forum which was invented in 1971 by, a then 33-year-old, Klaus Schwab. Its members are: a thousand global corporations with at least 5 billion US dollars in annual sales; politicians; media representatives; scientists; and, other so-called high-profile personalities. They meet once a year in Davos but there are other such meetings for example, in China.

And since 1992 they have created and presented to us their own group of political leaders for the world. Among the first graduates, as I mentioned before, are Angela Merkel and Bill Gates in 1992. Others are: Sebastian Kurz, up until recently chancellor of Austria; Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada; Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand; Francois [Emmanuel] Macron, president of France; and, many, many more.

This group, which is now called the ''Davos Clique,'' is openly '' the publication 'The Great Reset' by Klaus schwab is one of the most important sources for this information '' promoting the shifting of the world's assets to this group of super-rich people so that in 2030 ordinary people ''will own nothing and be happy'' as it explicitly states there, under their one world government with a digital currency given to us by their one world bank and they're also openly promoting '' in close cooperation with people like the putative defendant Bill Gates, the Rockefellers and others '' the drastic reduction of the world's population and the manipulation of the remaining population's DNA all the way into transhumanism.

Their most important goal is, however, the controlled, by them of course, implosion of the completely looted financial system and simultaneous introduction of a digital currency issued by one world bank, controlled by them, and, just as important, the introduction of a world government under the UN, which has come under their full control in 2019. For this purpose, they have made concrete plans for this corona plandemic since at least the spring of 2001, operation ''Dark Winter,'' followed by:

Another such rehearsal the ''Lockstep'' exercise by the Rockefeller foundation in 2010; and finally, ''Event 201'' in October of 2019 in New York sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Members of the jury, we will call a number of different highly renowned expert witnesses from all walks of science, but also witnesses who will testify to the damage that they suffered as a result of getting the experimental injections, in this trial.

After our opening statements we will start off, in a week from now, by calling:

a former member of the US military, James Bush, who participated in operation Dark Winter in 2001; former members of the British intelligence services Brian Gerrish and Alex Thomson; and investigative journalists Whitney Web and Matthew Ehret; former World Health Organisation employees and advisors Dr. Sylvia Behrend and Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger. They will explain to us the historical and geopolitical background of what we are confronted with. And they will show to us how this agenda has been planned for at least 20 years start starting with operation Dark Winter in 2001 and, some 10 years later, the Lockstep Scenario by the Rockefeller Foundation, ending with the dress rehearsal Event 201 in October of 2019. In the end they will explain how, when there were no cases which they needed to declare a public health emergency of international concern, they created them by having defendant Drosten invent the story of asymptomatic infections, which don't exist, and how this PCR test can detect, through mass screening of perfectly healthy people, those who are infected is a lie, as we will show.

We will continue with the next group of witnesses:

Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, an experienced lung specialist and former member of the German Bundestag and the Council of Europe, who managed to expose the other side's first attempt at a pandemic, the swine flu of 12 years ago, as a mild flu; Professor Ulrike K¤mmerer, biologist from W¼rzburg University; Dr Mike Yeadon former Vice President of Pfizer; Dr Sylvia Behrend; Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger; Professor Dolores Cahill of Dublin University; Professor Antonia Gatti from Italy; Professor Berkholtz from Germany. These experts will explain to us what is behind the legend of the Wuhan wet market outbreak. They will show that: the virus is no more dangerous than the common flu; the PCR test cannot tell us anything about infections but is the only basis for all anti-corona measures including the ultimate measure the so-called ''vaccines''; and, the so-called ''vaccines'' are not only ineffective but extremely dangerous.

Regardless of the natural or man-made origin of the virus, our immune system is perfectly well capable of dealing with the virus as evidenced by an infection fatality rate of between 0.14 and 0.15, or even less, percent. There was no excess mortality anywhere until the experimental injections started. There were not even any cases in early 2020, however they needed cases in order to declare a public health emergency of international concern as this was the only basis on which it would be possible, according to their own made-up rules which all governments of the member states of the world health organization had agreed to, to use untested new drugs '' the experimental injections '' on people.

After a first failed attempt at announcing this public health emergency of international concern because there were no cases, they tried again in late January of 2020 '' after they had created cases with the help of that now infamous Drosten PCR test '' and announced this public health emergency of international concern two weeks later. We will hear from these experts that these cases were almost all false positive test results, nothing else.

The next group of experts are:

Dr Thomas Binder from Switzerland; Dr Bryan Ardis from Texas; Dr. Shankara Chetty from South Africa Dr Wolfgang Wodarg from Germany; and, John O'Looney undertaker from England. These experts will tell us how right from the start we were witnessing a deliberate, completely senseless banning of normal, effective and safe methods of treatment of respiratory diseases. And instead, a mandate of treatments that must now be considered serious medical malpractice '' intubation, remdesivir, midazolam. John O'Looney will explain how he first, believing the other side's allegations about a pandemic, even helped the BBC in pushing their panic propaganda until he realised how under the guise of the pandemic people were intentionally being killed.

We will then call the next group of experts including:

Professor Alexandra Henrion-Caude from France; Dr Mike Yeadon; Professor Sucharit Bhakdi from Germany; Professor Luc Montagnier from France; Dr. Vanessa Schmidt-Kruger from Germany; Dr Robert Malone inventor of the mRNA vaccine technique from the US; and, Professor Arne Burkhardt pathologist from Germany. They will show us that: while the virus did not cause any excess mortality it has a survival rate of 99.97 percent; the shots are now killing people and have been causing excess mortality of up to 40, since September, as a result of a poisoning with the spike protein and of shutting off our immune system. Dr. Mike Yeadon will tell us how a group of scientists has even found concrete evidence that the makers of the vaccines are experimenting with lethal dosages to see how the lethal side-effects can be manipulated in such a way that the population will not immediately understand what is happening.

The next group of experts will explain to us how it could have come to this. This group includes:

Professor Mattias Desmet from Belgium; Dr. Ariane Bilheran from France; Dr Merideth Miller from the US; Professor Harald Walach from Germany; and, Stefan Cohen employee of the German Department of the Interior. These experts will walk us through how the other side, after having established the public health emergency of international concern, in quick succession introduced us to the lockdown, the nonsensical and dangerous mask mandates, and the very harmful, both physically and psychologically, social distancing until they arrived at their ultimate goal '' the ineffective and dangerous even lethal injections. And they will explain to us in detail how our acquiescence to all this was made possible through a gigantic psychological operation whose panic message we kept receiving through the mainstream media and our politicians', both owned by the other side, relentless propaganda.

The next group of experts includes:

Leslie Manukian a former investment banker from the US; Naomi Wolfe, journalist and author from the US; Ernst Wolff a German economist; Professor Christian Kreiss German economist; Professor Holger Reichel a German economist; and, Marcus Kroll a German economist. This part of the proceeding will have these experts explain to us in great detail about the intentional destruction of our economies and how the other side is working on a controlled crash of the financial system to both: get away with the crimes that they have already committed over the past decades '' looting and plundering our public coffers until there's nothing left '' and, to introduce a one world bank and digital currency plus digital passport.

The final group of experts include:

Matthew Ehret an investigative journalist from Canada; Vera Sharav a holocaust survivor; Ilana Rachel Daniel from Israel; Rabbi Smith from New York; Patrick Wood an expert on technocracy from the US; Avital Livny from Israel. This final part of the investigation will have these experts tell us how an important part of the other side's agenda has to do with population control, or rather eugenics. After World War II eugenics had a bad name '' Julian Huxley who founded the UNESCO set. But he and the very large group of people who supported the idea of eugenics would soon be able to continue with their efforts in this direction he openly explained. The parallels between what happened then 80 years ago and what is happening now shall not be ignored. Vera Sharav will remind us of this.

After you have heard all the evidence, we have no doubt that you will recommend indictments against all our putative defendants for crimes against humanity.

Thank you.

Further Resources

During the Opening Session of the Grand Jury aired live on YouTube, HERE, the following gave their opening statements:

Judge Rui da Fonseca e Castro, Portugal (opening remarks) Attorney at Law Deana Pollard Sacks, USA If the Opening Session (Day 1) of the Grand Jury is removed from YouTube you can watch it on Odysee HERE.

Logistic support is provided to the proceedings by the Berlin Corona Investigative Committee: website (German) or website (English).

More information about the proceedings can be found on the Grand Jury's website: www.grand-jury.net

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 11:32

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Archived Version

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 15:34

Don't let anyone tell you that Trumpism isn't contagious. Look at what's going on in Canada now, and it's spreading around the world. Via CNN:

"In Canada, thousands of protesters joined the anti-vaccine trucker demonstrations that began a week ago from western Alberta to Quebec, it is adding to chaos on the streets. The police chief is calling it a nationwide insurrection driven by madness. Paula Newton is in Ottawa. What do these demonstrators want?" Brianna Keilar said on CNN New Day.

"This started out as a trucking protest, right. They had to get vaccinated, a vaccine mandate not just for Canada but the United States so they could cross the border," Paula Newton reports.

"But it touched a nerve, Brianna, in a loud minority here in this country, that are just fed up with all the restrictions. When we start hearing that language, look, they're saying what's happening now, two weekends. It's been going on over 10 days, spreading across the country in fits and starts. It is here in Ottawa, Brianna, where you have certainly the epicenter. Residents here and city officials are calling this an occupation, not a protest anymore.

"The truckers are digging in. And they have a lot of support behind them. There have been fire, as you can imagine, meetings virtually. The police services board chair saying this was essentially an insurrection driven by madness. I want you to hear from the police chief and how he responded."

The oath of office -- I and my office swore never intended to deal with a city under siege, a threat to our democracy, a nationwide insurrection driven by madness. There is no concrete plan for such a scenario as you have described.

"You know, the police chief has gotten reinforcements. He thinks perhaps it might take the military, Brianna, if you can imagine, to help solve this problem in Ottawa. I spoke to the defense minister's staff. They said there is no intention to do that. Here's the problem, though. How do you remove those big rigs? "

She said they are right in front of Trudeau's office, and that legislators have to pass the protest every day when they go to work.

Sikhs, who make up the majority of Canadian truckers, are speaking out.

Gagan Singh is the spokesperson for the United Truckers Association in B.C. and says key issues are not being talked about.

''It's all about safety and pay structure for the truckers. This is kind of a small thing. Yes, people unite on something. But the background is people are upset about a lot of other issues and those issues are not being represented by those folks.''

Singh adds the majority of South Asians are vaccinated, as many efforts were put in place to encourage vaccination among the community.

Live now, Germany is mobilising for a huge Europe Truckers for Freedom. let the world know and offer support. Many European countries are starting their caravans now. rt and follow us for more videos pic.twitter.com/Goa1zUOMQi

'-- TruckersForFreedom (@Truckers4Freedm) February 7, 2022

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Mon, 07 Feb 2022 15:33

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