Indian authorities have reportedly given an ultimatum to US social media platforms, threatening jail time for their local employees if the companies continue to ignore official takedown requests against “damaging” information.
Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter have each received written notices warning their employees could face arrest should the requests be ignored, in some cases citing specific India-based staff by name, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing “people familiar” with the matter.
The reported warnings come as New Delhi faces down Big Tech platforms amid a wave of heated protests over controversial agricultural bills, which have drawn thousands of farmers to rally in the Indian capital, at times descending to violent clashes with security forces. While the government has long wrangled with the social media platforms, the threats of arrest mark a sharp escalation of pressure.
In early February, Twitter blocked access to a litany of accounts for Indian users, among them lawmakers, news outlets, journalists and political commentators. Though the platform quietly reversed those bans some 12 hours later, AFP reporter Bhuvan Bagga, citing a government source, noted the move followed an order from India’s IT ministry to block hundreds of accounts it accused of spreading “factually incorrect” claims and “inflaming passions” around the farmer protests.
The ministry responded harshly to Twitter’s sudden reversal, threatening “penal action” should it continue to rebuff the government’s takedown requests. The warning appears to have worked, as Twitter reinstituted many of the bans within days, though refused to re-block “accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians.”
A Facebook spokesperson told the Journal the platform complies with takedown and data requests “in accordance with applicable law and our terms of service,” while its subsidiary WhatsApp said it abides by the orders only when they are consistent with “internationally recognized standards” of human rights and due process. Twitter, meanwhile, was more defiant, insisting it would “continue to advocate for the fundamental principles of the Open Internet.”
As Big Tech firms seek their way into India’s massive market, the country recently imposed new rules to govern social media platforms, requiring them to appoint India-based representatives to coordinate with law enforcement and government agencies. The restrictions can also compel sites to scrub content the state believes to undermine national security or public order. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the minister of electronics and information technology, argued the rules would force the companies to be “more responsible and more accountable,” after previously blasting sites like Twitter for “double standards” in enforcing their policies.
Twice in the last six weeks, warnings were issued about imminent, grave threats to public safety posed by the same type of right-wing extremists who rioted at the Capitol on January 6. And both times, these warnings ushered in severe security measures only to prove utterly baseless.
First we had the hysteria over the violence we were told was likely to occur at numerous state capitols on Inauguration Day. “Law enforcement and state officials are on high alert for potentially violent protests in the lead-up to Inauguration Day, with some state capitols boarded up and others temporarily closed ahead of Wednesday’s ceremony,” announcedCNN. In an even scarier formulation, NPR intoned that “the FBI is warning of protests and potential violence in all 50 state capitals ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.”
The resulting clampdowns were as extreme as the dire warnings. Washington, D.C. was militarized more than at any point since the 9/11 attack. The military was highly visible on the streets. And, described The Washington Post, “state capitols nationwide locked down, with windows boarded up, National Guard troops deployed and states of emergency preemptively declared as authorities braced for potential violence Sunday mimicking the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of pro-Trump rioters.” All of this, said the paper, “reflected the anxious state of the country ahead of planned demonstrations.”
But none of that happened — not even close. The Washington Postacknowledged three weeks later:
Despite warnings of violent plots around Inauguration Day, only a smattering of right-wing protesters appeared at the nation’s statehouses. In Tallahassee, just five armed men wearing the garb of the boogaloo movement — a loose collection of anti-government groups that say the country is heading for civil war — showed up. Police and National Guard personnel mostly ignored them.
All over the country it was the same story. “But at the moment that Biden was taking the oath of office in Washington, the total number of protesters on the Capitol grounds in Topeka stood at five — two men supporting Trump and two men and a boy ridin’ with Biden,” reportedThe Wichita Eagle (“With Kansas Capitol in lockdown mode, Inauguration Day protest fizzles). “The protests fizzled out after not many people showed up,” reported the local Florida affiliate in Tallahassee. “The large security efforts dwarfed the protests that materialized by Wednesday evening,” saidCNN, as “state capitols and other cities remained largely calm.”
Indeed, the only politically-motivated violence on Inauguration Day was carried out by Antifa and anarchist groups in Portland and Seattle, which caused some minor property damage as part of anti-Biden protests while they “scuffled with police.” CNN, which spent a full week excitedly hyping the likely violence coming to state capitols by right-wing Trump supporters, was forced to acknowledge in its article about their non-existence that “one exception was Portland, where left-wing protesters damaged the Democratic Party of Oregon building during one of several planned demonstrations.”
Completely undeterred by that debacle, Democrats and their media spokespeople returned with a new set of frightening warnings for this week. The date of March 4 has taken on a virtually religious significance for the Q-Anon movement, announced NBC News’ Ben Collins, who was heard on NPR on Thursday speaking through actual, literal journalistic tears as he recounted all the times he called Facebook to plead with them to remove dangerous right-wing extremists on their platform(tears commence at roughly 7:00 minutes in). Valiantly holding back full-on sobbing, Collins explained that he proved to be so right but it pains and sorrows him to admit this. With his self-proclaimed oracle status fully in place, he prophesized that March 4 had taken on special dangers because Q-Anon followers concluded that this is when Trump would be inaugurated.
This is how apocalyptic cult leaders always function. When the end of the world did not materialize on January 6, Collins insisted that January 20 was the day of the violent reckoning. When nothing happened on that day, he moved the Doomsday Date to March 4. The flock cannot remain in a state of confusion for too long about why the world has not ended as promised by the prophet, so a new date must quickly be provided with an explanation for why this is serious business this time.
This March 4 paranoia was not confined to NBC’s resident millennial hall monitor and censorship advocate. On March 3, The New York Times warned that “the Capitol Police force is preparing for another assault on the Capitol building on Thursday after obtaining intelligence of a potential plot by a militia group.” All this, said the Paper of Record, because “intelligence analysts had spent weeks tracking online chatter by some QAnon adherents who have latched on to March 4 — the original inauguration date set in the Constitution — as the day Donald J. Trump would be restored to the presidency and renew his crusade against America’s enemies.”
These dire warnings also, quite predictably, generated serious reactions. “House leaders on Wednesday abruptly moved a vote on policing legislation from Thursday to Wednesday night, so lawmakers could leave town,” said the Times. We learned that there would be further militarization of the Capitol and troop deployment in Washington indefinitely due to so-called “chatter.” NPRannounced: “The House of Representatives has canceled its Thursday session after the U.S. Capitol Police said it is aware of a threat by an identified militia group to breach the Capitol complex that day.”
Do you know what happened on March 4 when it came to violence from right-wing extremists? The same thing that happened on January 20: absolutely nothing. There were no attempted attacks on the Capitol, state capitols, or any other government institution. There was violent crime registered that day in Washington D.C. but none of it was political violence by those whom media outlets warned posed such a grave danger that Congress has to be closed and militarization of Washington extended indefinitely.
Perhaps the most significant blow to the maximalist insurrection/coup narrative took place inside the Senate on Thursday. Ever since January 6, those who were not referring to the riot as a “coup attempt” — as though the hundreds of protesters intended to overthrow the most powerful and militarized government in history — were required to refer to it instead as an “armed insurrection.”
This formulation was crucial not only for maximizing fear levels about the Democrats’ adversaries but also, as I’ve documented previously, because declaring an “armed insurrection” empowers the state with virtually unlimited powers to act against the citizenry. Over and over, leading Democrats and their media allies repeated this phrase like some hypnotic mantra:
But this was completely false. As I detailed several weeks ago, so many of the most harrowing and widespread media claims about the January 6 riot proved to be total fabrications. A pro-Trump mob did not bash Office Brian Sicknick’s skull in with a fire extinguisher. No protester brought zip-ties with them as some premeditated plot to kidnap members of Congress (two rioters found them on a table inside). There’s no evidence anyone intended to assassinate Mike Pence, Mitt Romney or anyone else.
Yet the maximalist narrative of an attempted coup or armed insurrection is so crucial to Democrats — regardless of whether it is true — that pointing out these facts deeply infuriates them. A television clip of mine from last week went viral among furious liberals calling me a fascism supporter even though it did nothing but point out the indisputable facts that other than Brian Sicknick, whose cause of death remains unknown, the only people who died at the Capitol riot were Trump supporters, and that there are no known cases of the rioters deliberately killing anyone.
(Two FBI operatives have since anonymously leaked that it is looking at a “suspect” who may have engaged with Sicknick in a way that ultimately contributed to his death. But nothing still is known; Sicknick’s mother claims he died of a stroke while his brother says it was from pepper spray; and all of this is worlds away from the endlessly repeated media claim that a bloodthirsty pro-Trump mob savagely bashed his head in with a fire extinguisher.)
What we know for sure is that no Trump supporter fired any weapon inside the Capitol and that the FBI seized a grand total of zero firearms from those it arrested that day — a rather odd state of affairs for an “armed insurrection,” to put that mildly. In questioning from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Thursday’s hearing, a senior FBI official, Jill Sanborn, acknowledged this key fact:
(The “one lady” who died referred to by this FBI official was Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed Trump supporter who was killed when she was shot point blank in the neck inside the Capitol on January 6 by an armed Capitol Police Officer).
The key point to emphasize here is that threats and dangers are not binary: they either exist or they are fully illusory. They reside on a spectrum. To insist that they be discussed rationally, soberly and truthfully is not to deny the existence of the threat itself. One can demand a rational and fact-based understanding of the magnitude of the threat revealed by the January 6 riot without denying that there is any danger at all.
Those who denounced the excesses of McCarthyism were not insisting that there were no Communists in government; those denouncing the excesses of the Clinton administration’s attempts to seize more surveillance power after the Oklahoma City court bombing were not denying that some anti-government militias may do violence again; those who objected to the protracted and unhinged assault on civil liberties by the Bush/Cheney and Obama administrations after 9/11 were not arguing that there were no Muslim extremists intent on committing violence.
The argument then, and the argument now, is that the threat was being deliberately inflated and exaggerated, and fears stoked and exploited, both for political gain and to justify the placement of more and more powers in the hands of the state in the name of stopping these threats. That is the core formula of authoritarianism — to place the population in a state of such acute fear that it acquiesces to any assertion of power which security state agencies and politicians demand and which they insist are necessary to keep everyone safe.
There is, relatedly, a massive political benefit from convincing the population that the opponents and critics of those in power do not merely hold a different ideology but are coup plotters, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. That is the same political benefit that accrued from trying to persuade the population that adversaries of the Democratic Party were treasonous Kremlin agents. The more you can demonize your opponents as something monstrous, the more political power you can acquire.
And as Democrats and liberals now gear up to demand a new War on Terror, this one domestic in nature, it should be no surprise that the rhetorical leaders of their effort now are the same lowlife neocon and Rovian slanderers — Bill Kristol, David Frum, Steve Schmidt, Nicolle Wallace, Rick Wilson — who demonized everyone who questioned them as part of the first War on Terror as traitors and terrorist-lovers and subversives. It is not a coincidence that neocons are leading the way now as liberals’ favorite propagandists: they are the most skilled and experienced in weaponizing and exaggerating terrorism threats for political gain and authoritarian power.
Ultimately, if this “armed insurrection” and threat of domestic terrorism are so grave, why do media figures and politicians in both parties — from Adam Schiff to Liz Cheney — keep lying about it and peddling fictions? Politicians and media figures do that only when they know that the threat, in reality, is not nearly as menacing as they need it to be to fulfill their objectives of political gain and coercive power.
The Governor of TX announced he’s opening up The Lone Star State 100%, enraging the mainstream media. The motivation may be political, but numbers don’t lie. Del breaks down the data on three key states, California, New York, and Florida, to reveal what possibly led Gov. Abbott to make such a controversial decision.
“THIS COULD HAVE SAVED 450,000 LIVES”
ER doc, Richard Bartlett, made waves last year with a viral video about his incredible success treating #Covid19 patients with a common asthma inhalant. After being vilified by the media and Fauci himself, recent studies, including one out of Oxford University, have validated his claim, stating that 90% of hospitalizations could have been avoided with this simple, early treatment.
Iraqi resistance groups have announced a new phase of resistance against US forces in the country, vowing “confrontation with occupiers until the liberation of Iraq.”
“The resistance sees confrontation as the only option that guarantees the freedom, dignity of this country after exhausting all the means that others have bet on with the occupation,” the coordinating body for the Iraqi resistance factions said in a statement on Thursday, according to the Iraqi media.
“We are facing a new page from the pages of the resistance, in which the weapons of the resistance will reach all the occupation forces and its bases in any part of the homeland,” they said.
Hailing the recent attacks against the “occupation forces”, the statement added that “the resistance has the legal and national right and popular support for all of that, but will not target diplomatic missions.”
“The Iraqi resistance is an Iraqi decision, and its choice is the choice of the Iraqi people, and it will continue circumstances and sacrifices until Iraq is liberated from the filth of the occupation,” it said.
The statement came a day after 10 Grad rockets struck the Ain al-Assad air base hosting American forces in the western Iraqi province of Anbar. The incident led to the death of two American contractors and injured as many as six people. It also resulted in material damage to both parts of the outpost.
An informed security source told Press TV that eight of the projectiles struck the “American part” of the base, while two hit the section that is assigned to the US-led coalition.
The raid was conducted days after the US military targeted the positions of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), known as Hashd al-Sha’abi, on the Iraqi-Syrian border, where they were engaged in fighting the remnants of the Daesh terrorist group.
Elsewhere in the Thursday statement, the Iraqi resistance termed as “traitorous” any party that stands as an obstacle against the path of resistance and its constant choice in confronting and expelling the occupier.
“It is the right of the resistance, rather its duty, not to pay attention to such bodies, but rather to prevent it by all means from hindering its strikes against the occupation,” they said.
Forbes magazine reported on Wednesday that the United States will likely deploy the Avenger air defense system in Syria and Iraq to support US forces in the face of the growing drone threat.
US military bases and diplomatic missions in Iraq have been repeatedly targeted in recent months as anti-US sentiments run high in the Arab country since the US assassination of Iran’s legendary anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the PMU, last year.
The two anti-terror commanders were targeted along with their companions in a drone strike authorized by former US president Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.
The Wednesday attack against the US-led occupation forces targeted the same air base that Iran openly attacked on January 8, 2020 as part of its retaliation for the Soleimani assassination, which also prompted the Iraqi lawmakers to push for the expulsion of the US-led foreign forces from their country.
US President Joe Biden has extended Executive Order 13692 signed by Barack Obama in 2015, declaring Venezuela as “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the North American country. The renewal of the order was signed on Tuesday, March 2 and published this Wednesday and maintains that the measure will continue after March 8, the date on which the document turns six years old.
“The situation in Venezuela continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. Therefore, I have determined that it is necessary to continue with the national emergency declared in Decree 13692 with respect to the situation in Venezuela,” says part of the document that Biden sent to the Congress of his country to continue with the suffocation campaign against million of Venezuelans.
The new US president considers that the “threat” raised in 2015 “has not improved” with respect to Venezuela, which is why he decided to extend the sanctioning mechanism against the South American country.
The Executive Order that paved the way for more sanctions
After Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13692, the way was open for a series of sanctions and coercive measures to be imposed against the Venezuelan people.
Thus came Executive Order 13808, of August 24, 2017, which prohibits the direct or indirect purchase of securities from the Government of Venezuela.
Then Executive Order 13827, of March 19, 2018, was imposed, which prevents all transactions related to the issuance and use of any type of electronic money. That same year, Executive Order 13835 was issued, with which the prohibitions on transactions or refinancing operations of the Venezuelan debt are intensified.
On November 1, 2018, Executive Order 13850 was issued, which blocks assets and prohibits transactions by persons operating in the gold sector. Executive Order 13857, of January 25, 2019, designated Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), its subsidiaries and associated entities as subject to sanctions by the United States, blocking the main source of revenues for the Venezuelan economy.
One of the last sanctions was issued through Executive Order 13884, of August 5, 2019, which transforms the coercive measures into an “embargo” and authorizes the application of secondary sanctions against companies or countries that have commercial relations with Venezuela.
In a recent visit to Venezuela by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the effects of sanctions on human rights, Alena Douhan, a preliminary report was made public labeling sanctions as criminal and urging the lifting of all sanctions. A few days before, the US Government Accountability Office issued a report recognizing the negative effects of US sanctions on Venezuelan economy and on human rights.
Here is the full text of Joe Biden’s letter:
CONTINUATION OF THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY WITH RESPECT TO VENEZUELA
On March 8, 2015, the President issued Executive Order 13692, declaring a national emergency with respect to the situation in Venezuela, including the Government of Venezuela’s erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and human rights violations and abuses in response to antigovernment protests, and arbitrary arrest and detention of antigovernment protestors, as well as the exacerbating presence of significant government corruption.
The President took additional steps pursuant to this national emergency in Executive Order 13808 of August 24, 2017; Executive Order 13827 of March 19, 2018; Executive Order 13835 of May 21, 2018; Executive Order 13850 of November 1, 2018; Executive Order 13857 of January 25, 2019; and Executive Order 13884 of August 5, 2019.
The circumstances described in Executive Order 13692, and subsequent Executive Orders issued with respect to Venezuela, have not improved, and they continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. Therefore in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13692.
This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.
A few weeks ago I asked a fire fighter friend how they extinguish electric vehicle battery fires.
He said “Oh you mean like a Tesla or something? The answer is you can’t. You cordon off the area, and spray a fine mist of water on the fire to try to keep the temperature down until it finishes burning. Takes a few days until it is safe”.
The problem is, besides being highly flammable, lithium is literally the lightest metal. At atomic number 3, it is the first element in the periodic table which is a solid. The two previous elements, hydrogen and helium, are both gasses.
Lithium is so light, it floats on water (lithium density 0.543, half the density of water). Lithium is entirely happy to blaze away while sitting on the surface of a puddle of water.
So if you try to smother a lithium fire with sand, the sand sinks to the bottom, and the lithium floats on top.
Lithium melts at 180C / 356F, and burns at 2000C / 3632F – almost more than hot enough to melt steel, more than hot enough to destroy most composites and metals like aluminium.
The fumes from a burning lithium fire are highly toxic, capable of causing death or long term dementia like brain injuries – so you need to keep members of the public at a safe distance. Fire fighters need to wear respirators if they approach the flame.
There are chemical extinguishers, but my fire station friend didn’t seem to think much of them, at least not for large lithium fires.
I guess you might be able to smother a large lithium fire by dropping a Chernobyl style sarcophagus made of steel on top of it, or possibly made of some other material which could handle the heat. Then you could fill the sarcophagus with an inert gas like Argon, or just wait for the oxygen to run out. But equipping fire departments with a sarcophagus device large enough to smother an EV fire, and the equipment required to deploy it, would be an expensive exercise.
What does your fire department do when they have to extinguish a large lithium fire? I’d love to know, so I can tell Australian fire departments. Cordon off the area and spray a mist of water at the fire for a few days would be a serious inconvenience or worse, if the burning vehicle was say blocking an important road junction, on the high street, or in someone’s residential or workplace garage or workshop.
It’s unacceptable that the EU is pushing big brother authoritarianism on its member states via vaccine passports. French President Emmanuel Macron should stay true to his word and take a stand against this nanny statism.
After all, Macron couldn’t have been more clear when he said in a national address last November that Covid-19 vaccines would not be mandatory. And that’s exactly as it should be.
No one should have the right to dictate what substances you inject into your body – and especially not the state. The rights of the collective end where the rights of the individual begin, and that’s precisely with one’s own physical being. If someone is worried about catching Covid-19, then they have every right to get vaccinated in the interests of self-protection, but no one should have any ability to impose it on anyone else.
Given the debate over the duration of any Covid-19 antibodies, it’s unclear exactly how often people are going to have to pump any vaccine into their body. Will it be every few months? Once a year?
Nor is it clear exactly how the virus will mutate in future, or how fast Covid-19 could become just another banal seasonal virus floating around out there. For those who are in good health, with no pre-existing medical issues, they may consider the injection of a vaccine to be worse than contending with the virus itself. And they should have every right to make that choice.
Yet we’re now being told that the European Commission will table a vaccine passport concept this month, effectively suppressing individual choice over inoculation. It would be required for travel within the European Union or to avoid quarantine upon arrival.
Some countries have already adapted the concept for use on their own territory in the form of a ‘green pass’ required for access to venues such as gyms, theaters, concert venues, movie theaters, and restaurants. The idea seems to have initially taken hold in Israel, where people have to flash a digital pass showing proof of vaccination everywhere they go in order to have any semblance of a normal life.
Now everywhere from Paris to New York, authorities are considering the idea of people having to show that they’ve taken either the vaccine or, alternatively, proof that they’ve had a giant Q-Tip shoved up their nose within the last three days, and have tested negative for Covid.
Any such banalization of Covid PCR testing as a prerequisite for daily living means that every few days, people would have to line up at a testing facility – possibly for hours, given how relatively few PCR testing facilities exist in some countries – all just to prove that they don’t carry this particular virus. The idea is absolutely absurd. Because what about the next virus that overwhelms hospitals, as French newspaper titles suggested already occurred here in France in 2018, in 2017, in 2016 and in 2015? In fact, it seems like there’s barely a flu season that goes by during which French hospitals aren’t overwhelmed.
And yet, the flu shot has always been optional. Every year here in France and in North America, there’s a massive annual push for everyone to run out and get the seasonal flu shot regardless of personal circumstance or susceptibility. The notion of sacrificing domain over one’s own body – which is about the only thing that we ultimately control in our time on this planet – under the pretext of the greater collective has long been the propaganda imposed on society annually for years, even as some doctors privately advise patients who aren’t at risk not to bother with it.
Once freedom is taken away, it’s rarely ever restored – particularly if the populace has grown resigned, complacent, or indifferent. Covid-19 vaccine passports or territorial green passes could very well lead to more impositions that hijack personal autonomy. Because what exactly is stopping any creeping authoritarianism once states accept that they can force individuals into a system whereby everyday life is impossible unless they jump the hoops and tick the boxes dictated by the state?
Covid-19 is just one virus. But what about next year’s flu? Is that going to be added to the vaccine passport, as well, given that every year it seems to overwhelm hospitals? It’s just too tempting for governments not to throw more bricks onto a foundation like a passport or pass that they’ve already created and that citizens have already accepted, lest they find themselves effectively banned from everything that they used to take for granted in their daily life.
In the extreme, such access passes could slide toward something like China’s digital social credit system, introduced in 2014, that pegs everyday access to things like travel and public sector employment to points earned or lost in relation to professional and personal interactions, court records, financial and physical health.
If the European Commission insists on Covid vaccination passes, then it’s up to Macron to keep his promise to voters and safeguard individual French citizens’ right of personal autonomy. Even if that means pulling France out of the European Union.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France. Her website can be found at rachelmarsden.com
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently published a February 2020 MMWR report entitled “Decline in COVID-19 Hospitalization Growth Rates Associated with Statewide Mask Mandates — 10 States, March–October 2020.” This report focused on 10 sites that had been included in the Covid-19 Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network.
This CDC report described a decrease in hospitalization rates of growth of up to 5.6% in adults (18-65 years old) and attributed this to the use of masking and/or the introduction of mask mandates in the various sites. These rates were compared to those obtained from a 4-week period of time prior to the introduction of mask mandates. In so doing, and by way of regression analysis, the reduced rates of hospitalization were attributed to the introduction of statewide mask mandates.
Firstly, the initial publication by the CDC (February 5/February 12th, 2021) was plagued with important inaccuracies that were then fortunately addressed in an updated erratum(February 26th 2021). We applaud the CDC for taking the steps required to correct these errors. Reporting done by the CDC, which is generally considered as the premier public health agency in the US, must be of the highest quality, particularly since advice rendered by the CDC is also relied upon worldwide.
En face, CDC’s conclusion on mandates might appear to make sense unless one is familiar with the scientific data pertaining to the ineffectiveness of masking for prevention of the spread of Covid-19 (e.g. references 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15) in which case the findings in fact contradict most of what is now known. The CDC’s conclusion might have made more sense if the real-world evidence we have about mandates did not actually exist (e.g. references 1, 2, 3, 4).
Does the CDC really think that masks prevent the wearer from getting Covid, or from spreading it to others? The CDC admits that the scientific evidence is mixed, as their most recent report glosses over many unanswered scientific questions. But even if it were clear – or clear enough – as a scientific matter that masks properly used could reduce transmission, it is a leap to conclude that a governmental mandate to wear masks will do more good than harm, even as a strictly biological or epidemiological matter. Mask mandates may not be followed; masks worn as a result of a mandate may not be used properly; some mask practices like double masking can do harm, particularly to children; and even if a mask mandate results in some increased number of masks being worn and worn properly, the mandate and the associated publicity may reduce the public’s attention to other more effective safeguards, such as meticulous hygiene practices.
Thus, it is not surprising that the CDC’s own recent conclusion on the use of nonpharmaceutical measures such as face masks in pandemic influenza, warned that scientific “evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission…” Moreover, in the WHO’s 2019 guidance document on nonpharmaceutical public health measures in a pandemic, they reported as to face masks that “there is no evidence that this is effective in reducing transmission…” Similarly, in the fine print to a recent double-blind, double-masking simulation the CDC stated that “The findings of these simulations [supporting mask usage] should neither be generalized to the effectiveness … nor interpreted as being representative of the effectiveness of these masks when worn in real-world settings.”
Just look at the data from Jonas F. Ludvigsson that is emerging from Sweden in children 16 years old and under when preschools and schools were kept open and there were no face masks though social distancing was fostered. The result was zero (0) deaths from COVID-19 in 1.95 million Swedish children across the study period. The number of infections was exceedingly low, the number of hospitalizations was exceedingly low, and there were no deaths in children with COVID-19, all this despite not wearing masks due to no schoolwide mask mandate. Is this merely a perfunctory and legally prudent warning by the CDC that “your mileage may vary?” Or is it more like a hot mutual fund telling you that “past performance is no guarantee of future results.” What is the CDC really trying to say about face masks and why so much confusion?
We have reservations about the methodology employed and conclusions drawn in the CDC double mask study which we will address in a separate discussion but again their disclaimer as noted above: “The findings of these simulations should neither be generalized to the effectiveness … nor interpreted as being representative of the effectiveness of these masks when worn in real-world settings” seeds thoughts of doubt in relation to the value of this report. Why then, would the CDC even bother to publicize these findings? What is the public health impact? What is the benefit?
Moreover, the CDC even indicated in the double mask study that there are harms e.g. impediments to breathing, due to double masking. Indeed, the harms (e.g. reference 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) are very real when face masks are used yet are often dismissed and not even discussed by the media medical establishment or government bureaucrats.
In relation to this, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the NIAID created appreciable confusion by initially suggesting and encouraging the use of double masks instead of one. Dr. Fauci then reversed his statements on the use of double masks. Dr. Fauci’s advisories took on a form of double peak which has an appearance of randomness or worse, capriciousness. This can only distort the desperately needed advice by the public at large; unsound advice can be very damaging on several levels. This random form of advice-giving was not reflective of a single event. For example, while touting vaccines as the only way for society to emerge back to normal from the pandemic, Dr. Fauci is now advising that in fact, even with vaccinations, people should still not attend public gatherings and restaurants, and that such restrictions could be in place until end of 2021. While changes in advice are required when new data emerge, we hold that this was definitely not the case with respect to masking (or vaccination for that matter).
Below are the main scientific shortcomings or analytical ambiguities in the CDC’s most recent MMWR report on mask mandates:
The CDC’s main evidence, a regression study based on selected sites in ten states with masking mandates from March through October 2020, did not include the four-month period from November through February 2021 (which might have controlled for other possibly contributing factors such as sunlight and vitamin D) and did not appear to take into account the possible effects of such factors as school closures or changes in social distancing practices. We point out that during the period of March 22, 2020 to October 12, 2020 this is actually representative of the spring, summer and early fall seasons when outdoor activity increases. Of course, this leads to more exposure to sunlight with the attendant generation of active vitamin D metabolites, while at the same time there are marked reductions in confinement within enclosed spaces which would necessarily reduce the opportunities for transmission of disease. A more stringent approach to the analyses, including the use of all available data (i.e. not excluding a full 4-month period of time), might have led conceivably to a conclusion that there was in fact no significant effect of mask mandates on disease or case rates. And in concert with the CDC’s disclaimers noted above, the CDC indicated in their own report that the conclusions described in the study in favour of masking were, at best, only moderately reliable.
The CDC analyzed changes in hospitalizations, but did not compare infection, disease, or death rates between states with and without masking mandates. Available evidence of that nature suggests that the course of the pandemic was not affected by state masking mandates.
The CDC used a least squares fit regression analysis (OLS) (using “x” as mask wearing and the dependent/outcome to the “y” variable which is the number of Covid cases) despite the fact that simple regression is not the optimal approach and, we believe, should be replaced with Orthogonal Distance Regression (ODR) which would yield more reliable findings.
Based on the reporting, it appears that the CDC’s regression analysis was based on data from limited sites within a state, and not the entire state.
The CDC report failed to address/discuss recent potent research data based on high-quality case-controlled analyses, as well as a high-quality Danish randomized controlled trial study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine which found no statistically or clinically significant impact of mask-use in regard to the rate of infection with SARS CoV-2, or a recent NEJM publication (prospective cohort CHARM study) where researchers studied SARS-CoV-2 transmission among Marine recruits at Parris Island (n=1,848) who volunteered, underwent a 2-week quarantine at home that was followed by a second 2-week quarantine in a closed college campus setting. The predominant finding was that despite the very strict and enforced quarantine, including 2 full weeks of supervised confinement and then enforced social distancing and masking protocols, the rate of transmission was not reduced and in fact seemed to be higher than expected, despite the strong experimental design and the rigor associated with carrying out the study.
The CDC report does not address and contextualize substantial “real world” experience showing that adding mandates where there is already substantial mask wearing has little effect, and that mask mandates that were followed can be correlated with increased case counts (e.g. references 1, 2, 3, 4). This obviously may not be cause and effect, but the same criticism can be levied against correlations or regressions going in the opposite direction.
Based on our assessment of this CDC mask mandate report, we find ourselves troubled by the study methods themselves and by extension, the conclusions drawn. The real-world evidence exists and indicates that in various countries and US states, when mask mandates were followed consistently, there was an inexorable increase in case counts. We have seen that in states and countries that already have a high frequency of mask wearing that adding mandates had little effect. There was no (zero) benefit of adding a mask mandate in Austria, Germany, France, Spain, UK, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy, and states like California, Hawaii, and Texas. Importantly, we do not ascribe a cause-effect relationship between the implementation of mask mandates and the rise in case rates, but we also demand the same approach when it comes to claiming some sort of causal relationship between the introduction of mask mandates and likely claims by the CDC that their findings could support their implementation countrywide.
We think that inclusion of such evidence on the failures of masks mandates globally and states within the US would have made for more balanced, comprehensive, and fully-informed reporting. Specifically, when we consider the evidence on mask mandates, “in states with a mandate in effect, there were 9,605,256 confirmed Covid-19 cases, which works out to an average of 27 cases per 100,000 people per day. When states didn’t have a statewide order—including states that never even had mandates, coupled with the period of time states with mandates still didn’t have a mandate in place—there were 5,781,716 cases, averaging 17 cases per 100,000 people per day. In other words, protective-mask mandates have a poor track record insofar as fighting this pandemic. States with mandates in place produced an average of 10 more reported infections per 100,000 people per day than states without mandates.” The blind acceptance of the current unsupported dogma has become so entrenched that if cases do go up, the experts wedded to the universal use of masks then claim that this is good news and infer that the masking mandate prevented even more cases from occurring. This is a fine example of tautology and defies reason. We are very troubled by this type of scientific reporting and inference, for it is based on assumptions, supposition, and speculation.
Masks for the general population as they are currently used (surgical masks and the cloth masks), are ineffective (particularly when used without other mitigation) and the body of evidence (see AIER) is clear. A recent op-ed in the Washington Post spoke to mask wearing by everyone during the 1918 flu pandemic, with the conclusion that masks were useless. We embrace fully the contention by Klompas in the NEJM that “what is clear, however, is that universal masking alone is not a panacea. A mask will not protect providers caring for a patient with active Covid-19 if it’s not accompanied by meticulous hand hygiene, eye protection, gloves, and a gown. A mask alone will not prevent health care workers with early Covid-19 from contaminating their hands and spreading the virus to patients and colleagues. Focusing on universal masking alone could, paradoxically, lead to more transmission of Covid-19 if it diverts attention from implementing more fundamental infection-control measures.” We are particularly alarmed by the harms of masking and the failure by top US agencies and leadership (as well as the media and ‘media’ medical experts) to discuss or highlight harms in any discourse on masking.
We end by imploring the CDC to take our critique in the spirit in which it was generated. We welcome continued, rigorous scientific examination of these important societal lockdowns, school closures, and masking and broader mask mandate issues by CDC and others. We are entirely willing to consider any evidence that contradicts what we have seen which suggests that societal lockdowns and school closures are not effective, and as presented here, suggests that mask mandates are ineffective. Most importantly, to maintain the validity of scientific research as a tool, and the public’s confidence in such research, reports on the results of such research should more comprehensively address the weakness or ambiguities that exist, as well as the conclusions the reporting agency supports.
Trusting the science means relying on the scientific process and method and not merely ‘following the leader.’ It is not the same as trusting, without verification, the conclusory statements of human beings simply because they have scientific training or credentials. This is especially so if their views and inquiry have become politicized. Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard’s Medical School has recently commented on the present Covid-19 scientific and research environment by stating, “After 300 years, the Age of Enlightenment has ended.”
Sadly, we must agree, that it’s not just that the age of enlightenment has come to an end, but indeed, that the science itself has been politicized and severely corrupted.
Contributing Authors
Paul E Alexander MSc PhD, McMaster University and GUIDE Research Methods Group, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada elias98_99@yahoo.com
Howard C. Tenenbaum DDS, Dip. Perio., PhD, FRCD(C) Centre for Advanced Dental Research and Care, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Faculties of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Ramin Oskoui, MD, CEO, Foxhall Cardiology, PC, Washington, DC oskouimd@gmail.com
In my current series of articles, I’ve taken apart the Ebola and Zika hoaxes.
Now I take you back to the summer of 2009, when the CDC and the World Health Organization were hyping the “deadly H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic.”
They were, of course, also urging people to take the new Swine Flu vaccine. On that subject, here is an excerpt from Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense (3/27/20):
“For example, [Dr. Anthony] Fauci once shilled for the fast-tracked H1N1 influenza (‘swine flu’) vaccine on YouTube, reassuring viewers in 2009 that serious adverse events were ‘very, very, very rare.’ Shortly thereafter, the vaccine went on to wreak havoc in multiple countries, increasing miscarriage risks in pregnant women in the U.S., provoking a spike in adolescent narcolepsy in Scandinavia and causing febrile convulsions in one in every 110 vaccinated children in Australia—prompting the latter to suspend its influenza vaccination program in under-fives.”
However, that is only half the Swine Flu story. The other half—which involves an astounding hoax—was surely something Fauci was aware of at the time.
Fauci was, in fact, recommending a highly dangerous vaccine for protection against AN EPIDEMIC THAT DIDN’T EXIST AT ALL.
His friends and professional colleagues at the CDC were creating the hoax.
Let me run it down for you.
In the summer of 2009, the CDC was claiming there were thousands of Swine Flu cases in the US. But behind these statistics lay an unnerving secret. A major crime, considering the CDC’s mandate to report the truth to the American people:
Secretly, the CDC had stopped counting cases of Swine Flu.
What? Why?
CBS investigative reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, discovered the CDC secret; and she found out why.
The routine lab testing of tissue samples from the most likely Swine Flu patients was coming back, in the overwhelming percentage of cases, with: NO SIGN OF SWINE FLU OR ANY OTHER KIND OF FLU.
Attkisson wrote an article about this scandal, and it was published on the CBS News website. However, the next, bigger step—putting out the story on CBS television news—was waylaid. No deal. And CBS shut down any future investigation on the subject. Attkisson’s article died on the vine. No other major news outlet in the world picked up her article and ran with it deeper into the rabbit hole.
Here is what Attkisson told me when I interviewed her:
Rappoport: In 2009, you spearheaded coverage of the so-called Swine Flu pandemic. You discovered that, in the summer of 2009, the Centers for Disease Control, ignoring their federal mandate, [secretly] stopped counting Swine Flu cases in America. Yet they continued to stir up fear about the “pandemic,” without having any real measure of its impact. Wasn’t that another investigation of yours that was shut down? Wasn’t there more to find out?
Attkisson: The implications of the story were even worse than that. We discovered through our FOI efforts that before the CDC mysteriously stopped counting Swine Flu cases, they had learned that almost none of the cases they had counted as Swine Flu was, in fact, Swine Flu or any sort of flu at all! The interest in the story from one [CBS] executive was very enthusiastic. He said it was “the most original story” he’d seen on the whole Swine Flu epidemic. But others pushed to stop it [after it was published on the CBS News website] and, in the end, no [CBS television news] broadcast wanted to touch it. We aired numerous stories pumping up the idea of an epidemic, but not the one that would shed original, new light on all the hype. It was fair, accurate, legally approved and a heck of a story. With the CDC keeping the true Swine Flu stats secret, it meant that many in the public took and gave their children an experimental vaccine that may not have been necessary.
So… fake pandemic, CDC crimes, and a damaging vaccine.
But that wasn’t end of it. The CDC wanted to commit another crime. About three weeks after Attkisson’s findings were published on the CBS News website, the CDC, obviously in a panic, decided to double down. If one lie is exposed, tell an even bigger one. A much bigger one.
Here, from a November 12, 2009, WebMD article is the CDC’s response:
“Shockingly, 14 million to 34 million U.S. residents — the CDC’s best guess is 22 million — came down with H1N1 swine flu by Oct. 17 [2009].” (“22 million cases of Swine Flu in US,” by Daniel J. DeNoon).
Are your eyeballs popping? They should be.
Fast forward to 2020. Who in his right mind, armed with a little history, would believe anything the CDC is saying about COVID-19? The discovery of a new coronavirus. The case and death numbers, the accuracy of the diagnostic tests, the need for lockdowns and economic devastation, the safety and importance of a vaccine, the fear porn? Who would believe any of it?
And who would believe anything coming out of the mouth of Dr. Anthony Fauci?
I covered the Zika outbreak extensively in 2016. It was yet another fraud, and it collapsed under the weight of warnings to women to avoid pregnancy. Women wouldn’t obey in great enough numbers.
Basically, the official position was: an outbreak of microcephaly was occurring, worldwide, starting in Brazil. Babies were being born with smaller heads and brain damage. The cause was the Zika virus, carried by mosquitoes.
When I was exposing the lies, in 2016, I wasn’t questioning the existence of the Zika virus. Now, in 2021, I would be demanding proof that the virus had actually been isolated.
Here are excerpts from the many articles I wrote during the “Zika crisis”. There is more, much more to the story, but what I’m publishing here is enough to reveal the standard pattern of pandemic ops: pretend the “medical condition” is entirely the result of a germ; fake the exact cause; cover up ongoing government/corporate crimes.
EXCERPT ONE, 2016: There is no convincing evidence the Zika virus causes the birth defect called microcephaly.
Basically, Brazilian researchers, in the heart of the purported “microcephaly epidemic,” decided to stop their own investigation and simply assert Zika was the culprit. At that point, they claimed that, out of 854 cases of microcephaly, only 97 showed “some relationship” to Zika.
You need to understand that these figures actually show evidence AGAINST the Zika virus as the cause. When researchers are trying to find the cause of a condition, they should be able to establish, as a first step, that the cause is present in all cases (or certainly an overwhelming percentage).
This never happened. The correlation between the presence of Zika virus and microcephaly was very, very weak.
As a second vital step, researchers should be able to show that the causative virus is, in every case, present in large amounts in the body. Otherwise, there is not enough of it to create harm. MERE PRESENCE OF THE VIRUS IS NOT ENOUGH. With Zika, proof it was present in microcephaly-babies in large amounts has never been established.
But researchers pressed on. A touted study in the New England Journal of Medicine claimed Zika infected brain cells in the lab. IRRELEVANT. Cells in labs are not human beings. The study also stated that Zika infected baby mice. IRRELEVANT. Mice are not humans. And these mice in the lab had been specially altered or bred to be “vulnerable to Zika.” USELESS AND IRRELEVANT.
EXCERPT TWO, 2016: Millions of bees have just died in South Carolina, because Dorchester County officials decided to attack Zika mosquitoes from the air, from planes, with a pesticide called Naled.
The Washington Post reports, in an article headlined: “‘Like it’s been nuked’: Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes.”
“The county acknowledged the bee deaths Tuesday. ‘Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives,’ Jason Ward, county administrator, said in a news release. He added, according to the Charleston Postand Courier, ‘I am not pleased that so many bees were killed.’”
That’s the highest degree of outrage County Administrator Ward can muster? He’s not pleased?
If you want to dig further, you can discover that, despite assurances to the contrary, Naled, like other toxic organophosphate pesticides, harms humans as well. Organophosphates are neurotoxins. The original research was done in Germany, in the hunt for nerve-agent weapons.
And how about this? The cure for the problem causes the problem…
Naled, the organophosphate pesticide now being sprayed on Miami to kill “Zika mosquitoes,” has dire effects.
Reference: a 2014 study, “Neurodevelopmental disorders and prenatal residential proximity to agricultural pesticides: the CHARGE study.” [Environmental Health Perspectives, 2014 Oct;122(10):1103-9.]
Key quotes from the study:
“Gestational exposure to several common agricultural pesticides can induce developmental neurotoxicity in humans, and has been associated with developmental delay and autism.” [Emphasis added]
“We evaluated whether residential proximity to agricultural pesticides during pregnancy is associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or developmental delay (DD)…”
“Approximately one-third of CHARGE study mothers lived, during pregnancy, within 1.5 km (just under 1 mile) of an agricultural pesticide application. Proximity to organophosphates at some point during gestation was associated with a 60% increased risk for ASD [Autism Spectrum Disorders], higher for third-trimester exposures… and second-trimester chlorpyrifos [an organophosphate pesticide] applications…”
“This study of ASD strengthens the evidence linking neurodevelopmental disorders with gestational pesticide exposures, particularly organophosphates…”
The pesticide spraying affects pregnant mothers by raising the risk of neurological damage to their babies.
EXCERPT THREE: Here’s an “oops” Zika revelation:
“New doubts on Zika as cause of microcephaly.” ScienceDaily, 24 June 2016.
Source: New England Complex Systems Institute
“Brazil’s microcephaly epidemic continues to pose a mystery — if Zika is the culprit, why are there no similar epidemics in other countries also hit hard by the virus? In Brazil, the microcephaly rate soared with more than 1,500 confirmed cases. But in Colombia, a recent study of nearly 12,000 pregnant women infected with Zika found zero microcephaly cases. If Zika is to blame for microcephaly, where are the missing cases?”
FOUR: It makes far more sense to listen to what South American doctors are saying about the areas where birth defects are occurring. These would be doctors who actually care about what is destroying lives and the lives that are being destroyed.
We have such reports passed along to us, thanks to Claire Robinson of GM Watch. She is one of those people who still makes the profession of journalism mean something.
Here are quotes from her most recent article, “Argentine and Brazilian doctors name larvicide as potential cause of microcephaly.”
“A report from the Argentine doctors’ organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, challenges the theory that the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil is the cause of the increase in the birth defect microcephaly among newborns.”
“The increase in this birth defect, in which the baby is born with an abnormally small head and often has brain damage, was quickly linked to the Zika virus by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. However, according to the Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, a chemical larvicide [pesticide] that produces malformations in mosquitoes was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014. This poison, Pyriproxyfen, is used in a State-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitoes.” [Emphasis added]
“The Physicians added that the Pyriproxyfen is manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a Japanese ‘strategic partner’ of Monsanto. Pyriproxyfen is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the development process from larva to pupa to adult, thus generating malformations in developing mosquitoes and killing or disabling them. It acts as an insect juvenile hormone or juvenoid, and has the effect of inhibiting the development of adult insect characteristics (for example, wings and mature external genitalia) and reproductive development. It is an endocrine disruptor and is teratogenic (causes birth defects).”
“The Argentine Physicians commented: ‘Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added Pyriproxyfen to drinking water are not a coincidence, even though the Ministry of Health places a direct blame on the Zika virus for this damage.’”
“They also noted that Zika has traditionally been held to be a relatively benign disease that has never before been associated with birth defects, even in areas where it infects 75% of the population.”
“… The Argentine Physicians’ report…concurs with the findings of a separate report on the Zika outbreak by the Brazilian doctors’ and public health researchers’ organisation, Abrasco.”
“Abrasco also names Pyriproxyfen as a likely cause of the microcephaly. It condemns the strategy of chemical control of Zika-carrying mosquitoes, which it says is contaminating the environment as well as people and is not decreasing the numbers of mosquitoes. Abrasco suggests that this strategy is in fact driven by the commercial interests of the chemical industry, which it says is deeply integrated into the Latin American ministries of health, as well as the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organisation.”
“Abrasco names the British GM insect company Oxitec as part of the corporate lobby that is distorting the facts about Zika to suit its own profit-making agenda. Oxitec sells GM mosquitoes engineered for sterility and markets them as a disease-combatting product – a strategy condemned by the Argentine Physicians as ‘a total failure, except for the company supplying mosquitoes’.”
“…Abrasco added that the disease [microcephaly, other birth defects] is closely linked to environmental degradation: floods caused by logging and the massive use of herbicides on (GM) herbicide-tolerant soy crops – in short, ‘the impacts of extractive industries’.”
FIVE: In a recent greenmedinfo article—“What is the Zika Virus Epidemic Covering Up?” by Jagannath Chatterjee—the author traces other Gates-Brazil connections. For example:
“While investigating the procedures directed at pregnant women in the year 2015, shocking facts emerged. Acting as per a WHO [World Health Organization] decision to inject pregnant women with vaccines despite contraindications the Brazilian Government had allowed its pregnant women to become the equivalent of guinea pigs. Besides the tetanus vaccines (provided as Diphtheria Tetanus vaccines), the women had also received the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine in pregnancy. What is worse a DTaP vaccine was mandated for pregnant women in 2014. Citing a shortage of the DTaP vaccine the highly reactive [dangerous] DTP vaccine was also administered. Clearly huge risks had been inflicted on the unsuspecting women. None of these vaccines are known to be safe during pregnancy and the MMR and the DaPT/DPT vaccines are lapses that cannot be condoned. The rubella virus in the MMR vaccine and the pertussis component in the DPT vaccine are known to cause microcephaly…”
“The DTaP vaccine initiative to vaccinate pregnant women was financed by BMGF [Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation] funds…”
SIX: For example, every year in the US, there are 25,000 cases of microcephaly. And the literature is very clear about causes: any insult to the fetal brain during pregnancy can result in microcephaly. Severe malnutrition, falling down stairs, a blow to the stomach, a toxic street drug or medical drug or vaccine or pesticide, and so on.
SEVEN: For science bloggers who live in mommy’s basement and love the statements of the experts, try this. I’ll give you the full citation. Ready?
“Practice Parameter: Evaluation of the child with microcephaly (an evidence-based review)”; Neurology 2009 Sep 15; 73(11) 887-897; Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology and the Practice Committee of the Child Neurology Society.
Here’s the money quote:
“Microcephaly may result from any insult that disturbs early brain growth… Annually, approximately 25,000 infants in the United States will be diagnosed with microcephaly…”
Bang.
Let me take apart that quote. Microcephaly can result from any early insult to the brain. Any.
That could mean a highly toxic pesticide, for example. It could mean severe and prolonged malnutrition of the mother. It could mean a toxic substance injected into the mother—a street drug or a vaccine. It could mean a physical blow. It could mean a mother’s chronic high fever. And so on.
Moving on: 25,000 cases, not just once, but every year in the US, means what? Christopher Columbus actually brought the Zika virus to America in 1492, and it lay dormant for a very long time and then, in the modern age, exploded on the scene in the US?
No. 25,000 cases a year in the US means we’re being treated to an unsupported major bullshit story right now about the Zika virus.
That’s what it means.
EIGHT: Now we have a January 27, 2016, Associated Press story out of Rio, published in SFGate :
“270 of 4,180 suspected microcephaly cases confirmed.”
That’s called a clue, in case you’re wondering. Of the previously touted 4,180 cases of microcephaly in Brazil, the actual number of confirmed cases so far is, well, only 270. Bang.
But wait, there’s more. AP :
“Brazilian officials said the babies with the defect [microcephaly] and their mothers are being tested to see if they had been infected. Six of the 270 confirmed microcephaly cases were found to have the [Zika] virus.”
Bang, bang, bang. Out of all the microcephaly cases re-examined in Brazil, only six have the Zika virus. That constitutes zero proof that Zika has anything to do with microcephaly.
—end of my excerpts from 2016—
Getting the picture?
In 2015-16, the World Health Organization and the press whiffed on the Zika virus-microcephaly hustle.
But they re-grouped, analyzed their mistakes, and prepared a wall-to-wall messaging campaign for the next fake pandemic.
China would provide the model:
LOCKDOWNS.
House arrest of a major percentage of the global population. Economic devastation.
COVID.
As I’ve been demonstrating for the past year, the COVID story is as full of holes as Zika.
I had hoped to be able to announce today or tomorrow that the English language version of my book about covid-19, titled “Covid: why most of what you know is wrong”, would be out and available for purchase. The Swedish language version (titled “Varför det mesta du vet om covid-19 är fel”) came out last week and is available for purchase here. Unfortunately, Amazon, in a bizarre act of censorship, have decided that they will not be selling it on their platform. Here is what Amazon wrote to my publisher:
Hello,
We’re contacting you regarding the following book(s):
Covid: Why most of what you know is wrong by Sebastian Rushworth (AUTHOR) (ID: PRI-PVV8BRDXPZJ)
Due to the rapidly changing nature of information around coronavirus, we are referring customers to official sources for advice about the prevention or treatment of the virus.
Amazon reserves the right to determine what content we offer according to our content guidelines. Your book does not comply with our guidelines. As a result, we are not offering it for sale.
The first batch of U.S.-made HIMARS multi-launch missile systems arrived in the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanța and is now a part of the national army. The first to receive the new missile system is the 81st Tactical Operational Missile Battalion, deployed in Focșani, about 70 kilometers from the border with Moldova.
HIMARS artillery missile systems are designed to attack areas with a concentration of artillery systems, air defenses, transport nodes and other major targets that are within a 300-kilometer range. Considering Romania borders Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Hungary and Serbia, the country has no enemies within the scope of HIMARS, bringing to question why it purchased such systems. It is difficult to explain why such a powerful weapon is deployed in eastern Romania, 220 kilometers from the Moldovan city of Tiraspol and 270 kilometers from the ammunition depot in Cobasna in the separatist region of Transnistria – which is internationally recognized as a part of Moldova.
It must be noted that the U.S. approved the sale of 20 HIMARS launchers, worth $655 million, to Poland. Romania received 54 launchers, more than double the amount of Poland, showing that the U.S. is prioritizing the Black Sea as a point of pressure against Russia – more so than the Baltics. Whereas the German Navy are present in the Baltics and the British can reach the area with relative ease, the Black Sea is effectively a “Russian lake,” particularly after Russia’s 2014 reunification with Crimea. NATO member states Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania do not have the capabilities to challenge the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, hence why Washington is also cooperating with Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia.
But the question still remains – why would Bucharest need 54 HIMARS launchers, more than the American artillery brigade has, and more than 10% of all such systems in the Pentagon’s arsenal?
It is excessive fire power for an army that has only 70,000, personnel and does not have the means to redeploy heavy weapons at a great distance. According to Firepower, Romania is ranked only 41st globally for their military power.
Hypothetically, in a war situation, the 41st U.S. Artillery Brigade could borrow the Romanian HIMARS systems and transport them to Georgia or Ukraine. At the end of 2020, U.S. ground forces conducted exercises to prepare for a “hi-tech war” in Romania. In a few hours they managed to transport by air two HIMARS systems from Germany to the Kogâlniceanu Air Base and launch several rockets towards the Black Sea – there is little doubt that the imagined target was Russian forces when we consider that it is only 400 kilometers between the Romanian coast and Russia. Although this is 100 kilometers less than the range of the HIMARS system, according to Forbes, the exercises were “a message for Moscow” and a “rocket surprise” for Russian forces in Crimea.
The political-military situation in the region is becoming increasingly tense, with Moldova coming within range of American weapons and soldiers based in Romania. According to the Constitution, the Republic of Moldova is a neutral state, but decisionmakers in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau and their Romanian counterparts in Bucharest concluded a military cooperation agreement in 2013, which de facto subordinates Moldovan troops to the Romanian General Staff and allows Romanian gendarmes to maintain “public order” in the country. With Romania effectively controlling Moldova’s security and President Maia Sandu pivoting her country towards NATO and the European Union, Chisinau could be a willing participant in the West’s sustained campaign to pressure Moscow.
Analysts at the Pentagon-affiliated RAND Corporation are examining how U.S. troops could enter Moldova to participate in military exercises and not leave, using the pretext of the so-called Russian threat. American maneuvers and armament in Eastern Europe not only threatens Russia, but serves to ensure that Romania and Baltic States stay loyal to Washington and against Moscow.
If the U.S. is successful in stationing troops in Moldova, they would effectively have new access to the Black Sea via the Port of Giurgiulești on the Danube River. In addition, U.S. troops would be within touching distance of the 1,500-strong Operational Group of Russian Forces in Transnistria, whose responsibilities include maintaining peace and guarding several tons of military equipment and ammunition in Cobasna.
Although the HIMARS system cannot reach Russia from Romania, it is likely that these missiles are aimed against Russian forces maintaining peace in Transnistria. 54 HIMARS in Romania’s arsenal demonstrates an escalation by Bucharest as it is clear that the excessive number of units is not for defensive purposes, especially considering the country’s cordial relations with its neighbors.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | January 8, 2015
Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy stress their commitment to freedom of thought and democracy, but both cooperated with a CIA-organized propaganda operation in the 1980s, according to documents released by Ronald Reagan’s presidential library.
One document showed senior Freedom House official Leo Cherne clearing a draft manuscript on political conditions in El Salvador with CIA Director William Casey and promising that Freedom House would make requested editorial “corrections and changes” – and even send over the editor for consultation with whomever Casey assigned to review the paper. … continue
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I had hoped to be able to announce today or tomorrow that the English language version of my book about covid-19, titled “Covid: why most of what you know is wrong”, would be out and available for purchase. The Swedish language version (titled “Varför det mesta du vet om covid-19 är fel”) came out last week and is available for purchase here. Unfortunately, Amazon, in a bizarre act of censorship, have decided that they will not be selling it on their platform. Here is what Amazon wrote to my publisher:
Aletho News
Aletho News 