Censorship-happy Twitter suddenly concerned about ‘public conversation’ as Russia cracks down on illegal content
By Nebojsa Malic | RT | March 11, 2021
Twitter’s complaints about Russian regulators slowing down its traffic would be a lot more credible if the platform hadn’t been so eager to turn into a partisan echo chamber and place itself above the law in its own homeland.
On Wednesday, Russia began throttling Twitter as a way of pressuring the San Francisco-based company to remove over 3,100 posts found to be in violation of Russian law. Specifically, this includes 450 instances of child pornography and more than 2,500 incitements to underage suicide.
Twitter responded by saying it was “deeply concerned by increased attempts to block and throttle online public conversation.”
It’s more than a bit disturbing that Twitter considers child porn and calls to suicide “public conversation.” The former is illegal in the US as well, and both are against their own terms of service.
Twitter might argue that it’s based in the US and that the First Amendment of the American Constitution protects the free speech of everyone on their platform – except we all know that for them to do so would be the height of hypocrisy.
Back in May 2018, a US federal judge defined Twitter as a “designated public forum,” ruling that then-President Donald Trump has no right to block hostile users, not even from the official presidential account but from his personal one. That would violate the law, and “no government official is above the law,” argued Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald.
Judge Buchwald was curiously silent when Twitter decided it was above the law, banning Trump’s account while he was still the sitting president in January 2021, on the basis of how his tweets might be “received and interpreted.”
Trump’s tweets “must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence,” Twitter argued, citing his “pattern of behavior” to argue that they amount to “glorification of violence.”
Before removing the account and all its content altogether, Twitter – as well as Facebook and YouTube – outright deleted Trump’s video messages in which he called for his supporters to stay peaceful and respect law and order. Now that those are gone, the only narrative out there is the one pushed by mainstream media and Democrats, who claim Trump “incited insurrection” at the Capitol on January 6.
In the run-up to the 2020 US election, Twitter locked out the New York Post over a legitimate story about Hunter Biden and Ukraine; slapped a label insisting that massive changes to voting procedures were “safe and secure” – by sheer coincidence, in line with the effort to “fortify” the vote and ensure the “proper” outcome – and labeled any questions about the result as “disputed” before eventually banning those who asked them.
Twitter has since degenerated into a partisan echo chamber, where political trends are without exception the Democrat talking points of the day, often astroturfed by paid activists. Ostensibly a platform and not a publisher, their “What’s happening” sidebar editorializes constantly.
For example, earlier this week President Joe Biden seemed unable to remember the name or title of his defense secretary, who was standing right behind him. Through the lens of Twitter, that became the story of that one time Trump called the Apple CEO Tim Cook “Tim Apple,” as that’s what “people” were ostensibly talking about instead. Public square? More like loudspeakers blaring official propaganda from every lamppost.
They’re not the only Silicon Valley company to think itself above the law, or more powerful than entire countries. Witness the recent showdown between Facebook and Australia, in which Mark Zuckerberg sought to bully Canberra into abandoning plans to force online platforms to pay for news content. Perhaps Jack Dorsey is thinking he can do the same with Moscow.
Whatever the outcome of this showdown, don’t let anyone gaslight you into thinking it has anything to do with freedom of “online public conversation.” Free speech was a fundamental value of the American Republic, but that is manifestly no longer the case in the entity that has now replaced it, better known as Our Democracy. Silicon Valley supported this revolutionary change. It is now merely reaping what it has sown.
Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Telegram @TheNebulator
Get Jabbed for Covid and Die? No Life Insurance Benefits?
By Stephen Lendman | March 11, 2021
Mass-jabbing for covid is high-risk with no rewards, no protection as falsely claimed.
According to tapnewswire.com, many life insurance companies won’t honor their obligation if policyholders die from covid jabbing with experimental, unapproved drugs.
Pfizer and Moderna mRNA technology and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine received emergency use authorization, not FDA approval — because of inadequate testing and hazards these drugs pose.
Some insurance are accepting life insurance applications from jabbed individuals. Others refuse.
Policies may contain a clause to deny payouts if policyholders die from unapproved covid jabs.
It’s crucial to check to find out if perishing from covid jabbing invalidates life insurance coverage.
According to reports, some, likely most, may all insurers are delaying applications from individuals testing positive for covid — even if the test result is false which is highly likely.
Currently, life insurers are asking applicants the following questions:
Have you tested positive for covid?
Are you currently self-isolating?
Do you or have you had covid symptoms?
Have you had direct contact with someone diagnosed with covid?
The vast majority of positive PCR test results are false.
Individuals who’ve been ill from the common cold that passes most often in short order with no lingering side effects may be denied coverage.
Anyone considered high-risk for covid may be permanently denied it.
The same goes for individuals who’ve been ill from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or other diseases considered high-risk.
All of the above aside, protecting and preserving health demands rejection of experimental, high-risk, unapproved drugs for covid or anything else.
It’s our health, our choice, our lives, our welfare — our right to protect ourselves free from harmful government, media supported, mandates or recommendations.
There’s nothing safe and effective about hazardous drugs that risk irreversible harm when used as directed.
Separately according to the Wall Street Journal :
“America’s self-anointed virus experts and social-media giants are…silencing doctors with contrarian views in an apparent effort to shut down scientific debate.”
Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube et al are anti-social media censoring machines.
The same goes for gatekeeper Google.
They’re enemies of ordinary people everywhere, censoring content that diverges from the falsified official narrative.
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past,” Orwell explained.
He who controls the message controls groupthink, suppressing dissent, manipulating the public mind to reach consensus with the official narrative, wanting an obedient submissive public – distracted by bread and circuses.
Social and other major media operate as a collective Ministry of Truth.
Controlling the message is the defining feature of totalitarian rule — what Orwell called “reality control.”
We’re being manipulated by dark forces and their media press agents to self-inflict harm on the false promise of being protected.
Following their advice is hazardous to health and potentially lethal.
Feds Indict Own Informant As Gretchen Whitmer Kidnapping Case Unravels
By Eric Striker | National Justice | March 11, 2021
Federal prosecutors are charging a key informant in the case against a group of Michigan militia members who the FBI claims were plotting to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer last fall.
Stephen J. Robeson, a 58-year-old man from Wisconsin, was indicted on March 3rd by a grand jury for being a felon in possession of a .50 caliber sniper rifle. Robeson is known in political circles for his over the top violent rhetoric. He was recently exposed in court as a paid FBI asset that shows up to First and Second Amendment themed protests in the trademark “Boogaloo” Hawaiian shirt.
According to a report by Detroit News, Robeson was one of the main instigators behind the entrapment of members of the Wolverine Watchmen militia in a whimsical scheme to abduct Whitmer. The timing of the arrest was perceived in some circles to be a dirty political trick by federal agents wanting to create bad publicity for Donald Trump right before the 2020 election.
Court documents show that Robeson infiltrated the militia on orders of the FBI during a meeting of Second Amendment enthusiasts in Dublin, Ohio. It was at the Ohio meetup that, with heavy input from Robeson, more than a dozen men allegedly led by a mentally ill homeless man named Adam Fox began concocting their plan. Robeson then attended a subsequent tactical training camp in Northern Michigan that prosecutors say was in preparation for snatching Whitmer from her nearby vacation home.
Multiple informants and undercover agents were involved in pushing the defendants in the case to take part in the conspiracy as well as furthering it along. Robeson was singled out by Josh Blanchard, the defense attorney of Barry Croft, for using his material resources and heavy peer pressure to try and get the men to talk about storming Whitmer’s home and abducting her.
Generally speaking, FBI informants are given carte blanche to engage in crimes and dangerous activities. Most FBI informants are career criminals introduced into law-abiding political organizations in order to cause strife and gin up phony terror plots. Federal prosecutors are burning Robeson likely out of fear that he will burden their case at trial. While it may be a bit trickier, defense attorney’s can still call Robeson to the stand to undermine the Feds’ case even if they do not plan to use his testimony.
Last January, prosecutors were able to compel 25-year-old Ty Garbin to become a cooperating witness in exchange for a plea. This may be their best hope for salvaging the case.
Washington’s thirst for white terrorists has compelled the FBI and DoJ to lower their professional standards to an almost untenable degree. Representative Jamie Raskin, who is a Jewish activist, is ordering FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide a briefing on “white supremacists” in the police and military by this Tuesday, suggesting that government persecution of patriotic militia groups is about to intensify even further.
The case is scheduled to go to trial on October 12th.
Michigan health department hit with lawsuit over refusal to share nursing home data comparable to Cuomo’s cover-up
RT | March 11, 2021
A local reporter is suing Michigan’s health department after it denied repeat requests for its nursing home data amid the Covid-19 outbreak, piling pressure on the government as lawmakers demand a probe into its pandemic response.
Journalist Charlie LeDuff launched a Freedom of Information suit against the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, accusing the agency of withholding data linked to coronavirus deaths in nursing homes without legal basis.
“Not only does the public have the right to know this information, we have the need to know,” said LeDuff, who won a Pulitzer for his reporting for the New York Times in 2001 and later returned to local coverage in Detroit. “If we’re going to fix end-of-life care moving forward, it’s going to require a hard look at how the state’s policies treated our most vulnerable population.”
Represented by the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, LeDuff says numerous FOIA requests to the state government have been denied without justification. The first inquiry, submitted in late January, was rejected only an hour after it was submitted on grounds that it would divulge sensitive health records – an argument the journalist rejects.
While LeDuff said the state had previously published “certain statistical information” related to Covid-19 deaths, he argued it is lacking in transparency. He drew parallels to the New York state government, which has also come under fire for unwillingness to share its nursing home statistics.
“The need for transparency in this particular area has already been established, in another state, thanks to recent revelations that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration had intentionally withheld data from disclosure due to concerns about the resulting political fallout,” LeDuff’s complaint said, noting that he saw “significant similarities” between Cuomo’s policies and those of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Whitmer has also faced fierce criticism over her pandemic response, namely a directive early on in the outbreak that incentivized nursing homes to accept Covid-positive patients, despite the risk they posed to the facilities’ aging residents. Cuomo and several other Democratic governors imposed similar policies, which critics say contributed to thousands of unnecessary deaths in elderly populations most vulnerable to the virus.
Among the most vocal of Whitmer’s detractors is county prosecutor and former GOP state Senator Peter Lucido, who suggested on Monday that the governor could be slapped with criminal charges over her handling of nursing homes and “willful neglect of office.”
Whitmer later responded, castigating the prosecutor for “shameful political attacks based in neither fact nor reality” while insisting her administration “carefully tracked CDC guidance on nursing homes, and we prioritized testing of nursing home residents and staff to save lives.”
GOP lawmakers also called on Michigan AG Dana Nessel last week to investigate Whitmer’s nursing home policies in a formal letter to the state Department of Justice. Nessel, however, has signaled unwillingness to launch a probe, saying “bad policy” does not equate to “violations of the law.”
“I think oftentimes it is appropriate for the office to investigate. But not just when you say, ‘We don’t like what this policy is,’” she said of the request.
Whitmer’s administration was previously taken to court by Republicans alleging her “temporary” emergency pandemic powers had been extended indefinitely without approval from the legislature. While the state Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the governor, she simply sidestepped the decision by having her health director extend the orders instead, citing a legal loophole stemming from the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak.
Media Amplification of Forister’s Feeble Butterfly Science and Climate Fearmongering
By Jim Steele | Watts Up With That? | March 10, 2021
Last week the Guardian proclaimed Butterfly Numbers Plummeting in US West as Climate Crisis Takes Toll. Numerous media outlets flooded the internet with similar versions in response to the research article Fewer Butterflies Seen by Community Scientists Across the Warming and Drying Landscapes of The American West by lead author Dr. Matt Forister. For the factors examined, their research found climate change had the greatest statistical effect associated with changing butterfly populations. Warmer summer temperatures however had a positive effect, while warmer autumn temperatures had a negative effect. Of course, in an age where chicken little catastrophes sell, only warming fall temperatures and butterfly extinctions could promote a profitable climate crisis. Worse, the public was misled to assume “all” western butterflies were declining.
For example, a University of Arizona press release (home of Forister’s co-author) stated, “Western butterfly populations are declining at an estimated rate of 1.6% per year,… The report looks at more than 450 butterfly species.” However, the researchers only stated their databases “encompassed more than 450 species”. In reality their analyses addressed just 290 species of which only 182 or 40% of the 450 species exhibited declining populations. Another 106 species were stable or increasing, and 251 lacked sufficient data for analysis.
It’s expected that during any given decade various populations of a butterfly species will randomly increase in one area but decrease in another, but with no overall declines as recently reported for USA insects. So correctly, Forister et al. asked if a species’ population trend was restricted to a local area or widespread. To answer that they examined 3 independent datasets. The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) supplied their once‑a‑year butterfly counts, typically held around July 4th, of which only 72 different sites had the required 10+ years of data (average was 21 years) with which to determine a species’ abundance trend. A second data set came from Dr. Art Shapiro’s northern California bi-weekly surveys but covered only 10 sites from the San Francisco Bay area to the Sierra Nevada crest at Donner Pass. A third database used iNaturalist’s citizen science data that only provided flashy optics suggesting widespread coverage. Although iNaturalist is a great application that easily connects laypeople with experts for accurate identifications and determines the presence of a species in a given locale, it doesn’t provide trustworthy trend data.
To argue for widespread declines, a species had to be declining in at least two of their three datasets. Comparing trends in the NABA & Shapiro datasets, only 104 species exhibited declines in both. In other words, only 23% of the ballyhooed 450 species showed a possible widespread decline. However, when interviewed by the Washington Post for the article Butterflies Are Vanishing Out West. Scientists Say Climate Change is to Blame, Forister contrarily stated, “The influence of climate change is driving those declines, which makes sense because they’re so widespread”
Despite the real number of examined species, National Geographic still trumpeted 450 Butterfly Species Rapidly Declining Due to Warmer Autumns In The Western U.S. while shamefully ignoring the positive summer warming. Indeed Forister had reported, “locations that have been warming in the fall months have seen fewer butterflies over time”, adding an unsupported hypothesis that “fall warming likely induces physiological stress on active and diapausing stages, reduces host plant vigor, or extends activity periods for natural enemies.” But most butterfly species are no longer flying or laying eggs or feeding during the autumn. Instead, they have snuggled into relative safety from environmental changes to overwinter until the next flush of new springtime vegetation.
The larvae (caterpillars) of some declining species feed on grasses (i.e. Eufala Skipper and Sachem skipper), or herbs (i.e. Cabbage White or Sara Orange-Tip). But most grasses and herbs are dead or dormant by the end of summer. Other larvae of declining species feed on the young leaves or needles produced by trees in the spring (like Propertius duskywing or Western pine elfin). Autumn warmth has no effect on the “vigor” of dead or dormant food plants. Autumn temperatures are simply not critically important. Natural enemies like parasitic wasps typically evolved similar sensitivities to the same environmental cues as their caterpillar hosts and insect eating birds begin migrating south in August. Claiming global warming somehow selectively hurts butterflies but helps their enemies is a totally unsupported claim hurled far too often by those fabricating a climate crisis.
Disturbingly, Forister et al. simultaneously downplayed known benefits of summer warming, suggesting it only increased ‘butterfly visibility’ stating, “warming in the summer influences adult activity times directly and hence increases the probability of detection”. But to power their flight, butterflies sunbathe to raise their body temperature above ambient air temperature. Increased activity is needed for mating and finding host plants. Greater summer warmth also enables faster larval growth, which in some species enables an increased number of generations each year enabling larger summer populations (i.e. Monarchs). In other species like Edith’s checkerspot the caterpillars seek hotter surfaces to grow fast enough each summer and reach a required size allowing overwinter survival. Warmer summers benefit many species in many ways.
To my knowledge not one media outlet reported the summer benefits or the most telling conclusion of Forister et al. “Although our analyses point to warming fall temperatures as an important factor in insect declines, we acknowledge the multifaceted nature of the problem and how much remains to be understood about climate change interacting with habitat loss and degradation.”
If Forister et al. were truly trying to decipher the causes for observed butterfly declines, they should have at least adhered to the most basic scientific principle of controlling for known confounding factors. To blame climate change, confounding effects must be removed. But they were not. Thus, declining trends could be completely caused by insecticides and land use. And Forister was well aware of such important factors.
In a 2010 paper co-authored with Dr. Shapiro he found, “most severe reductions at the lowest elevations, where habitat destruction is greatest.” In a 2014 paper Forister concluded “Patterns of land use contributed to declines in species richness, but the net effect of a changing climate on butterfly richness was more difficult to discern.” In his 2016 paper he modelled negative effects of neonicotinoid insecticides. Listed as Forister’s 37th most declining species, the media highlighted the recent 99% decline of western Monarch butterflies. Yet the Monarch’s big killers are also land use change and herbicides, not climate change.
In the 1970s scientists discovered virtually all monarchs breeding east of the Rocky Mountains migrate to extremely small patches of high mountain forests in central Mexico. When that critical wintering habitat was logged, it opened the forest canopies removing its insulating effects. In January 2002, a storm brought cold rains followed by clear skies. Without the clouds’ greenhouse effect, or an insulating forest canopy, temperatures plummeted to 23°F (- 4°C). Millions of damp butterflies froze in place. Many millions more fell creating an eerie carpet of dead and dying butterflies several inches deep. Distraught researchers calculated 500 million butterflies died that winter, wiping out 80% of the entire eastern population. Similar cold events happened in 2004, 2010 and 2016.
In contrast, monarchs breeding west of the Rockies winter along the California coast to Baja where the ocean moderates temperatures and prevents freezing. Nonetheless those wintering populations also plummeted by 81% by 2014. Interestingly, tagging studies and genetics suggest California and Mexican wintering populations intermingle. Although it’s not clear if one wintering population contributes to the other, their abundance has fluctuated very similarly. In addition, a 1991 statewide study implicated land use as 38 overwintering sites in California were destroyed.
Herbicides severely reduced the monarch’s food plants, milkweeds. Adapted to colonizing open disturbed landscapes, milkweed species began invading the fertilized ground between rows of crops. As 1900s monarch populations boomed, farmers’ crops suffered. Milkweed competition reduced harvests of wheat and sorghum by 20% and most states declared milkweed a noxious weed. Attempts to eradicate milkweed by tilling only stimulated underground roots promoting more milkweed. The 1970s discovery that the herbicide glyphosate (i.e. Roundup) killed the whole plant, turned the tide against milkweed. When genetically modified herbicide‑resistant soybean and corn crops were developed in 1996, herbicide use dramatically increased, furthering the milkweeds rapid decline. That loss of milkweed now hinders monarch recovery. For monarch lovers, our best safeguard is planting more milkweed in our gardens. Likewise, we can plant butterfly friendly gardens for all species. On the bright side of climate change, warming could allow an added monarch generation.
Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus, authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism and a member of the CO2 Coalition
Biden’s awkward threat of retaliatory cyber attacks belies US uncertainty and insecurity on all things Russia
By Scott Ritter | RT | March 9, 2021
By leaking plans for “covert” cyber-retaliation against Russia, the Biden administration allows domestic political considerations to trump legitimate national security concerns by painting Russia as the all-purpose bogeyman.
In a front-page story, the New York Times disclosed that the Biden administration was planning a range of “clandestine” cyber-attacks targeting Russia, ostensibly in retaliation for Russia’s alleged role in masterminding the SolarWinds hack that continues to resonate across the United States. According to the Times, these attacks are expected to unfold over the course of the next three weeks and are “intended to be evident to President Vladimir V. Putin and his intelligence services and military but not to the wider world.” These attacks, the Times notes, will most likely be combined with other actions by the Biden administration, including additional economic sanctions against Russia, and actions to “harden” US government networks against future attacks.
Even as the Biden administration struggles to piece together a response to the SolarWinds breach, it must wrestle with a new cyber-attack targeting a vulnerability in Microsoft’s email systems that exposes the communications and cyber architecture of a whole host of US government and private clients. Unlike SolarWinds, the current attack is believed to have been carried out by “state actors” operating on behalf of China.
Seen together, the SolarWinds and Microsoft email intrusions represent a daunting challenge for Anne Neuberger, a former Director of Cybersecurity for the National Security Agency who was appointed to serve in the newly created position of deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies. Neuberger has been tasked with overseeing what Washington, DC calls a “whole of government response” to these events. It is a thankless task, one made even more so by the fact that any response she develops must assuage domestic political pressures as well as address any genuine cyber threat that may exist.
The plan of action described in the New York Times is remarkable on several levels. First and foremost, it assumes as fact a linkage between the Russian government and the SolarWinds cyber-attack. While the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) have released a joint statement which attributes the SolarWinds attack to “an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor, likely Russian in origin,” no evidence has been provided to sustain this allegation. For its part, the Russian government has denied any involvement in the SolarWinds attack.
While the Russian denial must be taken with a grain of salt–no one would expect the Russians to openly admit to carrying out such an attack–the Russian silence serves to illustrate the most disconcerting aspect of the New York Times’ story–that the Biden administration is openly telegraphing what it has said will be “clandestine” attacks targeting Russia.
Neuberger, a career veteran of the secretive world of cyber-sleuthing, is familiar enough with the lexicon of intelligence terminology to know that telegraphing your punch is–literally and figuratively–the antithesis of a “clandestine” activity. It should be clear to all who read the Times story that the intended target of the leak was not Vladimir Putin, his generals and/or his intelligence services. Rather, it was the domestic American consumer of news-based information. By injecting this tidbit of information into the news cycle, the Biden administration is prioritizing public posturing over any vestige of national security.
This does not mean that the US is incapable of sending Russia a clandestine slap on the wrist in retaliation for cyber-attacks it may or may not have conducted. According to some media reports, the NSA and Cyber Command possess the capability to deliver crippling cyber-based blows against the totality of the Russian state and economy, shutting down energy production, energy supply, financial, telecommunication, transport, military, and government networks at will. If ordered to do so, the NSA and Cyber Command could activate these tools in a selective fashion, targeting some or all of Russia. The announced clandestine strike would most likely not consist of a destructive attack on Russian networks, but rather a probe intended to let the Russian leadership know that the US was buried inside its networks, and as such able to shut things down at will.
If such a message were in fact to be sent, in the form of a clandestine (i.e., unannounced) cyber probe, then it might have the kind of consequences intended–Russian officials, having detected such an intrusion, would scale back their actions against US targets for fear of triggering a greater retaliation. The key to this kind of activity is that it is being done in the shadows, away from public scrutiny, never to be acknowledged by either party. By announcing its intention to conduct “clandestine” cyber retaliation, the Biden administration has nullified any potential gain it may have achieved if it had kept the actions truly covert in nature. Russia will continue to deny any role in the SolarWinds cyber event, and will either make public the US actions, thereby painting the US as the cyber aggressor, or just ignore the US actions altogether, leaving the US to either admit it did something, or to look as if what it did had no impact.
In its rush to attribute the SolarWinds cyber-attack to Russia without providing any evidence to back this assertion up, the Biden administration only feeds into the existing high level of Russophobia that permeates American society today. By telegraphing its intent to retaliate against Russia, the Biden administration has shown that it has allowed itself to be taken hostage by its own history of anti-Russian rhetoric.
Far from being a sign of strength, the actions of the Biden administration only underscore the extent to which it is prisoner to the fickle ignorance of an American public all too willing to accept at face value any narrative that paints Russia as the bogeyman. The subordination of legitimate national security interests to domestic politics is the most visible symptom of the impotence that has taken hold of the Biden administration when it comes to putting substance behind Joe Biden’s empty contention that “America is back.” As Tywin Lannister reminded the youthful Joffrey Lannister in G. R. R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords, “Any man who must say ‘I am king’ is no true king at all.”
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
COVID: To Governors who are re-opening your States—how to defeat the attacks against you
By Jon Rappoport | NoMoreFakeNews | March 10, 2021
Governors:
Talk to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He understands the game.
In December, his office issued an order to all state labs processing COVID PCR tests. They must now report “the number of cycles” they deploy in every test they perform. [1] [1a]
Roughly speaking, a cycle is a quantum leap which increases the sensitivity of the test. As readily asserted by Anthony Fauci, any test using more than 35 cycles is meaningless. [2] [2a]
—Not only meaningless, but laden with false-positive results. The patient is falsely claimed to be “infected.”
However, the FDA and the CDC, since the launch of the COVID PCR test, have been recommending using 40 cycles; and therefore labs have been following this advice. [3] [3a] [3b]
The outcome, in terms of falsely inflated case numbers, has been a disaster.
Furthermore, as reported by the New York Times, testing labs never tell the patient or the doctor how many cycles they use in running the PCR. [4]
Governor DeSantis understood the massive testing problem. That’s why his office, and his state department of health, ordered the labs to report “numbers of cycles.”
Armed with this background, you governors can meet and overcome challenges as you re-open your states. Why do I say this? Because the attacks coming your way will be based on three statistics:
The number of COVID cases in your state; the number of COVID deaths; and the number of COVID hospitalizations.
“Well, these numbers are rising. The governors must lock down again. Otherwise, they are contributing to disease and death.”
But you see, all three statistical categories depend on a positive PCR test. And since the test, improperly run, has resulted in huge numbers of false-positives, you can restore sanity and more accurate data by following Governor DeSantis’ lead.
Once your state labs report how many cycles they are using for each PCR test they run, you can reject any test that deploys over 35 cycles. You can eliminate vast numbers of false-positives, and when you DO…
The number of COVID cases, COVID deaths, and COVID hospitalizations in your state will decline, as they should.
And those who would attack you, based on those numbers, will have no ability to make their case.
In a nutshell, a vast fraud has been perpetrated on The People, and you can stop it.
You can restore sanity, re-open your states, and make the stranglehold of COVID restrictions a thing of the past.
Readers of this article: you can perform a valuable service by forwarding the article to the governor’s office in your state.
SOURCES:
[1] https://www.flhealthsource.gov/files/Laboratory-Reporting-CT-Values-12032020.pdf
[1a] https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/12/08/florida-forces-labs-to-report-number-of-pcr-test-cycles/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_Vy6fgaBPE (starting at 3m50s)
[3] https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download (page 37 (pdf page 38))
[3a] CDC-006-00019, Revision: 06, CDC/DDID/NCIRD/ Division of Viral Diseases, Effective: 12/01/2020; see: https://web.archive.org/web/20210102171026/https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download
[3b] CDC-006-00019, Revision: 05, CDC/DDID/NCIRD/ Division of Viral Diseases, Effective: 07/13/2020; see: https://web.archive.org/web/20200715004004/https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download
[4] nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
Distorting the Levelized Cost of Electricity
By Don Dears | February 16, 2021
The levelized cost of electricity was, for decades, an honest method for comparing the cost of electricity generated by different methods.
With the advent of wind and solar generation, there has been a continuing effort to demonstrate they are competitive with coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants.
Because the cost of electricity, based on LCOE calculations, for wind and solar were always higher than the cost of electricity from coal, natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) and nuclear power plants, efforts were made to adjust the LCOEs so that wind and solar would seem to be competitive.
It should be noted that the media would seize and promote any LCOE number, no matter how contrived, purporting to show that wind and solar were competitive with traditional methods for generating electricity.
An early attempt at “adjusting” LCOEs was done by Lazard.
A previous PowerForUSA article, Misleading Costs for Wind and Solar, showed how Lazard used contrived capacity factors (CF) to calculate LCOEs favorable to wind and solar.
The media, even the Wall Street Journal, fixated on these manufactured LCOEs to report that wind and solar were competitive with traditional methods for generating electricity.
Few, if any, reporters looked into how these LCOEs were calculated.
We now have history repeating itself.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) published a joint report on December 9, 2020, showing that LCOEs for wind and solar were competitive with traditional methods for generating electricity.
In its conclusion, the report said:
“Renewable energy costs have continued to decrease in recent years and their costs are now competitive, in LCOE terms, with dispatchable fossil fuel-based electricity generation in many countries.”
But the truth is buried in the report, where it said:
“With the assumed moderate emission costs of USD 30/tCO2, their costs are now competitive…”
In other words, wind and solar are competitive if fossil fuel power plants are penalized by using a $30 per ton charge for CO2 emissions.
The IEA and NEA report is misleading in at least two respects.
- First, its stated conclusion omits the fact that fossil fuel power plants are penalized by including a charge of $30/ton of CO2 in the LCOE calculation.
- Second, the tables in the report omit references that LCOEs for NGCC and coal-fired power plants include a $30 charge for CO2 emissions.
The end result is that reporters, and the media in general, can report that wind and solar are competitive with fossil fuel power plants … which is patently misleading.
Even so, none of the purported lower cost calculations ever account for the fact that wind and solar require backup or storage, which adds to their costs. These real costs are never included in LCOE calculations.
It could be concluded that the IEA and NEA are intentionally misleading the public by burying the facts deep in their report, and omitting them from the report’s conclusion.
The truth remains: Wind and solar are more expensive than coal-fired and natural gas power plants for generating electricity.
They are also unreliable and can’t provide electricity when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. Freezing temperatures and snow can result in blackouts.
Dr Scott Jensen Announces Candidacy for Governor of Minnesota
21st Century Wire | March 10, 2021
Over the last 12 months, one of the leading voices opposing pandemic hysteria has been former Minnesota state senator Dr. Scott Jensen. According to a press release obtained by the Minnesota Reformer, Jensen is expected to announce his candidacy for governor of the state next week.
Dr. Jensen, 66, a qualified physician, gained global popularity after appearing on national TV and coming out challenging the government response to COVID-19 and explaining how reactionary policies are out of proportion in relation to the actual risk posed by this seasonal coronavirus. His popular testimonials have since been serialized in thousands of video presentations online.
Jensen also questioned his state’s Department of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines regarding how deaths from COVID-19 were being recorded.
He also took on the official ‘consensus’ of politicians and the medical community and exposed the scandal of how hospitals had a financial incentive in declaring a patient a COVID “case”, as well as financial incentives for hospitals to needlessly place people on ventilators – a dangerous procedure which many do not survive.
Based on the adversarial tone of the Reformer’s report, it seems that the political and medical establishment are afraid of Jensen: “His status as a physician could give him credibility to attack Walz on the governor’s COVID-19 response, except by the fall of 2022 the pandemic is likely to have evaporated. And, Jensen’s comments about the pandemic will likely face intense scrutiny.”
According to the their report, Dr. Jensen has confirmed the announcement with the headline “Jensen Announces Run for Minnesota Governor” had indeed been drafted, and is set to be released on March 16th.
Some of the text of the release includes:
“He will elevate thoughtful discourse, engage in difficult conversations, and will not allow pandering groupthink to impede the vital contributions science can provide,” the release reads. “Scott is excited to embark on this journey and looks forward to meeting with his fellow Minnesotans across the state and restoring their hope and freedom.”
Jensen, a Republican, would be the first candidate to run against first-term Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Tim Walz.
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By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016
… What will almost never be talked about are the many very good reasons a person from the vast region stretching from Morrocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, have to be very angry at, and to feel highly vengeful toward, the US, its strategic puppeteer Israel, and their slavishly loyal European compadres like France, Germany and Great Britain. … Read full article
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