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Covid Medical insanity, as described by an MD

By Matt Bettag, MD | August 6, 2021

When did the world become insane? What is the reason for it? Big Brother? Depopulation? Or people in love with control?

I don’t know and it’s driving me nuts. But I’ve decided I’m tired of complaining about it to my friends and family and I’m willing to put my name on the line. If the woke culture wants to ruin me for speaking the truth, I guess I might as well just get it over with now.

I have been a physician for 24 years, a practicing ENT for 19 years. I have never before seen the medical establishment just stop thinking. Insanity is the new rule, and common sense cannot even be discussed.

From the beginning, 15 days to “flatten the curve,” I was shocked. We had never done this before, but perhaps this virus was really bad, so I gave the government the benefit of the doubt.

Then came Fauci.

He initially said social distancing didn’t work, and masks were largely ineffective.

But by late March, he pronounced both masking and social distancing necessary. Weird… red flag.

What? So now I am alarmed.

I started researching the utility of masks. There were very good articles I found — one out of a respiratory center in Chicago, and another a good dental review. I bookmarked both of them. Less than a month later, the dental website was down, replaced by a text saying basically that their information is now irrelevant because of COVID. The Chicago article also had a disclaimer that previously wasn’t there saying people shouldn’t use their article politically. What? Don’t use a scientifically derived article to make a scientifically based decision on the utility of masks? What the hell is going on?

Next comes PCR testing. Let’s conveniently jack up the PCR Magnification cycles to 40+, resulting in a 90–97% false positive rate.

Then, let’s start testing all elective surgery, asymptomatic exposures, and hospitalized patients with this fake test to artificially increase the Covid numbers.

In addition we will reimburse hospitals greatly for any diagnosed COVID admissions and ICU visits.

Oxygen doesn’t work; go home until you get worse. Oh, and bring your family and friends with you; they’ll need testing.

Steroids were advised against early on, which made no sense, because they do decrease inflammation and in ENT have been used widely for viral illness.

Next we find a few weeks later the secret drug to treat COVID: steroids. What?

Hydroxychloroquine HCQ—suddenly not safe, even though it has been used for decades worldwide with a great safety profile, but not anymore. Mention it, and you are a lunatic.

The same went for all other proven therapeutics, such as ivermectin and vitamin D.

Vaccines? “I wouldn’t trust anything president Trump made.” That was Kamala Harris back in the fall.

Now if you don’t get vaccinated, you don’t care about other people, and you wanna watch people die.

Oh, and by the way, we should vaccinate everyone, including those who previously had COVID, pregnant women, and small children.

What about VAERS? That’s the open record report system that the CDC has made almost unnavigable. It’s slowly crept up and showed up to 12,000 deaths coincident with the vaccine. Then dropped to 6,000, only to come back up to 10,000 and now back to 12,000–Just a little glitch from our trustworthy government.

There are reports that the numbers could be ten times or more as high, and perhaps the CDC is misclassifying deaths to hide them. But let’s trust the government; they’ve been so good thus far.

Now the latest lie: “the delta variant, is surging because of the unvaccinated.”

Ignore the data from other countries that have very high vaccine rates but high spiking cases, and ignore the data from other countries that have low vaccine rates and almost no COVID.

As a matter fact, let’s not even look at Sweden, who essentially didn’t do lockdowns or masking, has a low vaccination rate, and has almost zero COVID.

I have never lived in the world like this, where open medical dialogue is completely suppressed and there is only one party line.

I thought the left was always talking about how we shouldn’t bully people, and we need to have “dialogue.” Well… let’s start.

The media and the government need to do their job and start opening dialogue to the other side. If we are crazy, it will come out.

If we are right, and the data show that to be the fact, then a large apology is warranted.

August 6, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

On Quebec and its “Vaccine Passport”

By Maximilian Forte | Zero Anthropology | August 5, 2021

Since the Government of Quebec under Premier François Legault decided to jump the gun today and announced the coming of “vaccine” certification on September 1st, possibly in response to the opposition’s demand for always harsher measures, I decided to post these extracts from my larger work earlier than planned. As always, the imitation of Americans is instant in Canada—this comes in the same week that New York City imposed its own “vaccine” certification system. In fact the Liberal Party in opposition added a cruel and perverse twist to the naming of the vaccine passport, calling it a “Freedom Passport”. Without the passport, no freedom, hence the indefinite suspension of the constitutional rights of a select group of Canadians, discriminated against on the basis of their health status. This must also mean that workers in “non-essential services” (does that include political parties?) will be mandated to get injected, or else be fired. A “vaccine passport” is thus also mandatory “vaccination” at the same time. Bruised by many months of lockdowns, private businesses are required to not only collaborate with the state, and agree to reduce their revenue by refusing customers, they also agree to be effectively deputized as the state’s auxiliary police service. Where under Canadian law it is stated that citizens are required to involuntarily divulge their private health information to strangers, it is not known, nor did Legault at any point cite any legal support (let alone scientific support) for this measure. We need to further analyze this obvious slide into full-fledged dictatorship, which uses a “pandemic” as a convenient cover and as a gold mine for imposing always more authoritarian measures.

Health Discrimination in Quebec

The Government of Quebec began planning to penalize the “vaccine hesitant,” by removing from them the freedom to access “non-essential services,” as defined by the government (Manitoba is also following). This is clearly a case of shaming and stigmatizing, and the invention of a threat from those who are officially libelled as a dangerous Other. Having invented a vaccine passport (in the works for several months), for which at first the government claimed there was no use, now the government reveals its intended use: to segregate the public and pressure people to allow themselves to be injected, preemptively blaming them for any rise in “cases” given spreading variants (to which the vaccinated are also clearly vulnerable, and which they can spread). The passports, using QR codes, were easily hacked in a trial, thus the system would further breach person’s private data. The federal government of Canada has not gone so far—since vaccine passports are discriminatory, divisive, and force people to reveal their personal health data—but is reportedly considering mandatory vaccination for all federal employees. Quebec Premier Legault, citing the flimsiest of evidence of increased infections (blamed on the unvaccinated, without any evidence) announced on August 5, 2021, that “vaccine passports” would indeed go into effect on September 1st. The “science” behind this, needless to say, is more akin to magic.

There has also been resistance to vaccine passports internationally, not just on the streets of Europe in massive weekly protests that the media refuse to cover, but also from the WHO. In the UK a parliamentary committee concluded that the scientific case for certification has not been made, that passports are discriminatory on prohibited grounds for discrimination, that there are valid concerns for privacy and data protection, and that such passports have “the potential to cause great damage socially and economically”. However, as noted by the Security and Policing Subgroup that advises the UK government, “Once the majority of the population is vaccinated, the exclusion of individuals who refuse vaccination may have public support” (SPI-B, “Lifting Restrictions: Security and Policing Implications,” February 10, 2021, p. 7)—thus one ostensible aim of mass vaccination is precisely to facilitate discrimination against the resistant. One report from France painted a complete picture of devastation wrought by the introduction of this certification regime, where citizens now have to qualify to enjoy inalienable human rights.

Vaccine certification is coercive, placing people under duress and violating free and informed consent; it is also entirely redundant and unnecessary if public health is really the issue. To be clear: vaccine certification is not a health or medical issue, it is political. Anything concerning inclusion/exclusion, controlling population mobility, borders, and passports, is by definition part of the political domain of the state. Highlighting the politics of vaccine passports, even the acute partisanship of the politics involved, witness Democrats in the US who applaud the entry of unvaccinated migrants from Central America, and yet simultaneously call for the exclusion of unvaccinated Americans from universities, schools, workplaces, and entertainment venues.

What is usually overlooked is that such a system of vaccine certification means the removal of basic rights for everyone in Quebec who is required to furnish proof of official approval to enter whichever establishment (a minor change in the app can change the range of access immediately): the right to participate in civic life is thus abrogated, rendering citizenship provisional and tentative. At a very minimum, this expands the already vastly expansive range of regulations that exist at all levels of government in Quebec, a multiplication of powers of oversight and surveillance that render personal autonomy fictitious. When people comply with this, they agree that all aspects of their everyday behaviour are now subject to licensing.

Testing the Logic of the Passport

Examine the logic of the Quebec government’s decision. For this purpose I will use a semi-fictionalized example based on elements of my own routine, and for this purpose the reader will need to assume that the person in question has not been vaccinated. Let’s begin: schools are declared essential services, so there will be no vaccine discrimination when accessing them. Professor X teaches at a university in Montreal, but does not live in the city. To get to that university, Professor X spends 1.5 hours on a heavily packed train. In the train station itself in Montreal, there is a sandwich and coffee bar, in the middle of masses of people swirling around it—there is no feasible way of barring entry, since it has no walls and no door. After the train station, Professor X switches to a crowded Metro system. He arrives at his campus’ Metro stop, and shuffles in a massive throng of people to go up escalators. Then he squeezes into a packed elevator. He arrives at a packed classroom with no windows and poor ventilation. Class lasts three hours. That is just part of the work for that day. After all is done, on his way out of Montreal, he decides to stop at a restaurant near the campus, to have a bite alone—and it is there where he is barred entry.

(Not only that: within the very same building where Professor X teaches and has his office, there are two cafes and a pub—one of the cafes has only two walls—presumably, he will be denied access to services within the same building and among the same people to which he delivers his service.)

Everywhere else, he has been inside of crowds, for many hours, but suddenly when it comes to having a burger off campus, no, that is just too much. Why? Because the “vaccinated,” benefiting from a “vaccine” that keeps them “safe,” still need to be protected from the unvaccinated. Never has such a low bar of immunity been set for a “vaccine”. The vaccinated ought to be wondering exactly what was squirted into their veins that fails to make them immune to the unvaccinated. As for the unvaccinated, they will be protected from dangerous restaurants, but somehow they will also be safe among thousands of people in buildings that are like stacks of cruise ships. The vaccinated will be protected both inside the restaurant, and inside the train station, yet Professor X cannot have a burger in the restaurant, but he can have a sandwich in the train station. The virus understands these nuanced differences and respects the government’s finicky little dividing lines.

What is to be done to people working in “non-essential services,” who are themselves unvaccinated? Are they to be laid off? How is access regulated to establishments that offer a mix of both “essential” and “non-essential”? Will guards with QR code scanners be posted in each aisle? Meanwhile, all “non-essential services” will presumably need to dedicate personnel to stand guard at entrances and scan the QR code of each single person seeking entry to the establishment. There will be lines of people—people lining up like compliant little toddlers, shifting from foot to foot, and repeating this for each store they visit. The security theatre we found in airports all these years, will now be everywhere: every “non-essential” store will have to become a security clearance point, like in an airport.

If the Quebec government’s aim was to increase exasperation, add to confusion, multiply divisions among people, expand bureaucracy, violate the right to privacy, securitize daily life, openly signal politicians’ lust for total power, effectively suspend civil rights and nullify the defining rights of citizenship, and to maximize distrust of the authorities, then this strategy is refined beyond measure. Success is assured, unquestionably.

Medical Apartheid

It’s an “exotic” word, so of course “educated” Canadians working in the media will struggle with it. Some in the Canadian media take umbrage at anyone calling such a pass-based system of discrimination, “apartheid”. They think that “apartheid” is a holy word, that is racially exclusive property belonging to a specific people. To call one act of discrimination by the same word used for another act of discrimination, somehow “cheapens” and “diminishes” that other discrimination. In other words, there is “good discrimination” which is to be applauded (“vaccine passports”) and then “bad discrimination” (which only became bad in Canada when it was politically convenient). Yet, what is the essence of apartheid? Two of the three definitions listed by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language state: “A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups” and “The condition of being separated from others; segregation”. Separation, segregation, discrimination—linking “vaccine passports” with apartheid is all the more warranted when we recognize the fact that targeted Others are forced to contain their movements within what is allowed by a pass. In both cases, the pass is associated with a certain biological property, whether it is skin colour or one’s health status.

Canada, at an official level, likes to celebrate itself as place where diversity and inclusivity reign, and where we face the injustices of the colonial past. This is very convenient, as a distraction. It is a stance that distracts from the new injustices being perpetrated in the immediate present, right under everyone’s nose.

Medical apartheid is precisely the kind of regime we would expect in a Health Security State as discussed extensively by Giorgio Agamben. Writing specifically about “vaccine passports” (or the Green Pass in the case of Italy) in a recent article which, translated from Italian, is titled “Second-Class Citizens,” he explains:

As happens every time a despotic emergency regime is established and constitutional guarantees are suspended, the result is, as happened with the Jews under fascism, the discrimination of a category of humans, who automatically become second-class citizens. This is the aim of the creation of the so-called green pass. That it is a discrimination based on personal beliefs and not an objective scientific certainty is proved by the fact that in the scientific field the debate is still ongoing on the safety and efficacy of vaccines, which, according to the opinion of doctors and scientists who there is no reason to ignore, they were produced quickly and without adequate testing.

Despite this, those who stick to their free and well-founded belief and refuse to be vaccinated will be excluded from social life. That the vaccine is thus transformed into a sort of political-religious symbol aimed at creating discrimination among citizens is evident in the irresponsible declaration of a politician, who, referring to those who do not get vaccinated, he said, without realizing that he was using a fascist jargon: “we will purge them with the green pass”. The “green card” constitutes those who do not have it in bearers of a virtual yellow star.

This is a fact whose political gravity cannot be overstated. What does a country become in which a discriminated class is created? How can one accept living with second-class citizens? The need to discriminate is as old as society and certainly forms of discrimination were also present in our so-called democratic societies; but that these factual discriminations are sanctioned by law is a barbarism that we cannot accept.

(Thanks to Robin Monotti for the translated text.) For more, see Agamben’s “Bare Life and the Vaccine”.

Such a certification regime—let us be absolutely clear about this—is authoritarian for everyone. It is not authoritarian just for the “unvaccinated” alone. Everyone who abides by such a system, agrees to furnish documentary proof to gain access to what was previously free and open to them. They thus agree to concede access, on grounds arbitrarily decided by the state. What was previously taken for granted, is now the focus of heightened securitization. This is effectively the abolition of the very concept of everyday life, for everyone.

To end on a personal note, this is an exceptionally depressing time in which I find myself. From the start, I suspected that our summer here of lessened restrictions was just a brief interim period, the carrot dangled in front of the mule before the stick struck our hindquarters again. Never have I personally witnessed such a dark curtain of fascism pulled across a society, and with such insignificant protest, and to the cheers of fake opposition parties and even faker media. Nobody will see this, thanks to ever widening censorship. I knew this was just the beginning of much worse to come, and this newest measure is itself an open door to a permanent “pandemic” of authoritarianism, fear, and the abolition of anything that can meaningfully be called society. It has come to pass, things have finally fallen apart.

August 5, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Pro-Israel group secures ‘stunning’ victory in US primary election

MEMO | August 5, 2021

US Shontel Brown on 1 August 2021 [Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images]The Democratic primary election in the US state of Ohio on Tuesday saw pro-Israel Shontel Brown defeat progressive Nina Turner in a hotly contested race that has left a bitter after taste. It’s alleged that votes were tipped in favour of Shontel with outside money poured in by the pro-Israel Political Action Committee (PAC) Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI).

According to research group tracking money in US politics, OpenSecrets, DMFI, one of many pro-Israel Super PAC, raised nearly $6.5 million in funds to back their preferred candidate.

It’s claimed that DMFI, which has multiple ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), spent more than $1.9 million on TV ads, digital ads, and mailers that were either pro-Brown or anti-Turner. American news agency, Brick House publication reported that this sum is more than the $1.7 million than the Brown campaign had disclosed spending on the race as of its final spending filing, which covers through July.

In her concession speech, Turner blamed what she called “evil money”, which is thought to be a reference to the outside spending in the race from DMFI and other groups that secured her defeat in a close primary.

Ohio’s 11th congressional district is a safe Democrat seat which means that Brown, favoured by pro-Israel right-wing members of her party, is the likely candidate to become  a member of Congress for Ohio. The election was triggered by the resignation of Marcia Fudge, who has been appointed to the position of housing secretary by President Joe Biden.

Turner is an outspoken progressive who came to national prominence as a Bernie Sanders surrogate. She was predicted to win the race. But her surprise defeat has left a bitter after taste. “I am going to work hard to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen to another progressive candidate again,” she said. “We didn’t lose this race, evil money manipulated and maligned this election.”

Like fellow progressives within the Democrat party, Turner has called for conditioning US aid to Israel to “align with significant advances in human rights,” while Brown has said she supports continuing to give Israel $3.8 billion annually in military aid without any strings under a $38 billion aid package approved by former US President Barack Obama in 2016.

Brown thanked her “Jewish brothers and sisters” during her victory remarks, according to a report in the Haaretz. She described how her 2018 trip to Israel gave her insight into the importance of the US-Israel relationship.

Following Brown’s victory, DMFI congratulated the councilwomen saying that it was a “stunning upset” and that the pro-Israel group was “proud to have supported her successful campaign.”

August 5, 2021 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Israel’ Dared to Bomb Only Barrens: Balance of Deterrence with Hezbollah Still Valid

Al-Manar | August 5, 2021

Although the latest Zionist aerial aggression on Lebanon is considered unprecedented since the all-out war in 2006, scrutinizing it thoroughly can indicate clearly that the enemy could break the rules of engagement on the Lebanese borders.

Two out of three anonymous missiles, which were fired on Thursday at noon from Lebanon, fell in the barrens of the settlement, Kiryat Shmona, and caused a major fire.

In response, the Zionist artillery bombed immediately an open area in Al-Khiyam plain as well as barrens of other villages.

However, the Zionist circles considered that the response was not up to the challenge, so the enemy decided to escalate the situation.

The Israeli air force decided to participate in the aggression, launching overnight air raids on Al-Mahmoudiyeh barrens as well as other open areas.

Meanwhile, Zionist military circles stressed that the occupation entity is not interested in escalating the confrontation on the borders with Lebanon, adding that this explains why the Israeli air strikes on Lebanon targeted only barrens.

Thus, the enemy did not dare to strike other than barrens during its aggression on southern Lebanon, and the balance of deterrence on the borders, maintained by Hezbollah is still valid.

August 5, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Washington’s Terrorist Friends: Prominent Americans Continue to Support a Murderous Cult

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 5, 2021

One might ask if Washington’s obsession with terrorism includes supporting radical armed groups as long as they are politically useful in attacking countries that the US regards as enemies? It is widely known that the American CIA worked with Saudi Arabia to create al-Qaeda to attack the Russians in Afghanistan and the same my-enemy’s-enemy thinking appears to drive the current relationships with radical groups in Syria.

Given the fact that Iran continues to be the Biden Administration’s enemy du jour, it is perhaps not surprising to observe that the US also supports terror groups that are capable of attacking targets in the Islamic Republic. To that end, recently a number of former senior government officials and politicians were involved in cultivating their relationships with the Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK), which held its most recent annual international summit in Paris for three days starting on July 10th. The event was online due to French COVID prevention guidelines and the featured speaker was Michele Flournoy, former US undersecretary of defense for policy under President Barack Obama. Flournoy was once considered a front runner to be President Joe Biden’s defense secretary and she currently heads a consulting firm WestExec Advisors that she co-founded with current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken which has had considerable influence over staffing and other issues in the White House. In her talk, she accused Iran of posing a danger to the security of the Middle East, the United States, and to its own people, elaborating how “Since 1979, every US administration has had to deal with the threat posed by Iran’s revolutionary regime and the Biden administration is no different. Iran is one of the most urgent foreign policy issues on the president’s desk.” She called for an “internal regime change” in the Islamic Republic.

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers also spoke before the online gathering. Speakers included House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Democratic Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Also participating were Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida and both Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. Former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile also spoke as did former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said that the MEK should be “blessed and protected.”

The summit self-described as “the largest-ever online international event dedicated to liberating Iran” with the objective of “inciting uprisings against the government in the Islamic Republic.” Though it would be charitable to suggest that the congressmen and former officials were largely involved to pick up the generous fees paid to speakers, it must also be noted that knowledge of MEK and its history is readily available on the internet and elsewhere. Flournoy in particular should have known better but even she, after the fact, claimed implausibly that she did not know that she was speaking to a former terrorist group that had killed Americans.

It should also be observed that the participating Congressmen all have extremely close ties to Israel and its domestic lobby, which have been assiduous in their efforts to vilify Iran as America’s designated enemy. To be sure, no one at the summit even mentioned Israel’s use of MEK operatives to carry out assassinations of scientists and sabotage operations inside Iran.

MEK is a curious hybrid creature in any event in that it pretends to be an alternative government option for Iran even though it is despised by nearly all Iranians. It is considered to be both irrelevant and ineffective but Iran hatred is so prevalent that it is greatly loved by the Washington Establishment which would like to see the Mullahs deposed and replaced by something more amenable to US and Israeli worldviews.

MEK is run like a cult by its leader Maryam Rajavi, with a number of rules that restrict and control the behavior of its members. One commentary likens membership in MEK to a modern-day equivalent of slavery. A study prepared by the Rand corporation for the U.S. government conducted interviews of MEK members and concluded that there were present “many of the typical characteristics of a cult, such as authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse and limited exit options.”

The group currently operates out of a secretive, heavily guarded 84 acre compound in Albania that is covertly supported by the United States intelligence community, as well as through a “political wing” front office in Paris, where it refers to itself as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). MEK is financially supported by Saudi Arabia, which enables it to stage events in the United States and in Europe where it generously pays politicians to make fifteen-minute speeches praising the organization and everything it does. It’s bribing of inside the Beltway power brokers and its support by Israel proved so successful that it was removed from the State Department terrorist list in 2012 by Hillary Clinton even though it had killed Americans in the 1970s.

As indicated above, MEK made the transition from terrorist group to “champions of Iranian democracy” by virtue of intensive lobbying of Iran haters. A Guardian article also describes how “A stupendously long list of American politicians from both parties were paid hefty fees to speak at events in favor of the MEK, including Rudy Giuliani, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Elaine Chao and former Democratic party chairs Edward Rendell and Howard Dean – along with multiple former heads of the FBI and CIA. John Bolton, who has made multiple appearances at events supporting the MEK, is estimated to have received upwards of $180,000. According to financial disclosure forms, Bolton was paid $40,000 for a single appearance at the Free Iran rally in Paris in 2017.”

It apparently has never occurred to the congressmen and senior officials that the MEK group had a whole lot of history before it appeared on the scene in Washington and began buying American politicians. MEK, which consisted of a group of dissident students having Marxism inspired anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist roots, had a bloody falling out with the Iranian revolution leaders in 1979, forcing it to resettle at Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad. It was protected by Saddam Hussein and used to carry out terrorist attacks inside Iran. It was also fiercely anti-American beginning back in the 1970s when it was still in Iran, to include attacks on US businesses and denunciations of the United States presence in Iran under the Shah. In 1979 it supported executing the US Embassy hostages rather than negotiating their release. One of its songs went “Death to America by blood and bonfire on the lips of every Muslim is the cry of the Iranian people. May America be annihilated.”

Within the US government, MEK was notorious for its assassination of at least six US Air Force officers and civilian defense contractors. One particularly audacious ambush in which two air force officers were murdered by MEK while being driven in from the airport was reenacted for each incoming class at the Central Intelligence Agency training center in the late 1970s to illustrate just how a perfectly executed terrorist attack on a moving vehicle might take place.

Given how currently nearly every news cycle includes stories about fake news on social media, it is surprising that MEK is never mentioned. Its current Albanian operational center uses banks of computers manned by followers, some of whom are fluent in English, who serve as bots unleashing scores of comments supporting regime change in Iran while also directing waves of criticism against any pro-Iranian pieces that appear elsewhere on social media, to include Facebook and Twitter. By one account, more than a thousand MEK supporters manage thousands of accounts on social media simultaneously. The objective of all the chatter is to convince the mostly English-speaking audience that there is a large body of Iranians who are hostile to the regime and supportive of MEK as a replacement.

It is an indisputable fact that over the past ten years, members of both major parties in Congress have either traveled to the group’s compound in Albania or spoken via video messages or live appearances in exchange for hefty speaking fees. The support provided by prominent officeholders and policymakers to include effusive praise of a terrorist group that is viscerally anti-American and has killed US officials is a disgrace. It is also a symptom of deeper problems in terms of how our foreign policy has been developed through the ascendancy of special interests. That America’s Iran policy should lead to praise of a radicalized extremist cult that is funded by authoritarian Saudi Arabia and politically supported by apartheid Israel ignores US actual interests at our peril.

August 5, 2021 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon documents reveal DOD bullies forcing movie and TV producers to accept their ‘assistance’

By Tom Secker | RT | August 5, 2021

For the first time, the US military’s central office for dealing with Hollywood has re-leased internal reports on its operations, revealing how the Department of Defense strong-armed the industry to achieve its propaganda goals.

The reports were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request and offer a rare glimpse inside the DOD’s main entertainment liaison offices at the Pentagon, which oversees the individual branch offices in Los Angeles run by the Army, Navy, Air Force and others. The reports cover approximately two years of activities and illustrate just how aggressive the DOD can be when dealing with film and TV producers, as well as their involvement with some of the biggest-name filmmakers in Hollywood.

The sheer range of products mentioned in the documents as having gained assistance from the US military is staggering, from Navy-assisted episodes of Cake Boss and the Great Food Truck Race to the Disney sci-fi fantasy A Wrinkle in Time. Numerous other films are listed, including blockbusters like Captain Marvel, Top Gun: Maverick and Transformers: The Last Knight.

On Captain Marvel the DOD and US Air Force provided research trips to military bases, filming access at several military locations, and extensive promotional help including an Air Force recruitment campaign that tied into the film. The documents also reveal how the two co-directors of the movie, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, paid a visit to the Pentagon just before the film’s release.

One document notes, “During their visit they attended office calls and had lunch with Air Force leaders. They also participated in a professional development session” for Air Force and DOD public affairs officers, showing just how integrated the military-Hollywood relationship has become.

The files also confirm the military’s support on the final season of Homeland, though only after the “major problems noted in scripts” were resolved by the showrunner making “significant edits to the problematic areas.” The result was a show that preempted the false story that the Russian government had been funding Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, and played up fears about what will happen when the US finally withdraws from the country.

The Pentagon also worked on smaller films such as The 15:17 to Paris, a Clint Eastwood-directed retelling of how three Americans, including two servicemen, tackled a gunman on a train from Amsterdam to Paris in 2015. One entry in the reports records how they received “a long list of things that the film makers hope to obtain from us” but the DOD only approved support after ensuring that they could “create enough military portrayal to justify use of our assets.”

Beefing up the military’s presence in films, and the role of military characters in the unfolding storylines, is a key aim of the DOD’s Hollywood offices, but they don’t always get what they want. Christopher Nolan approached them about providing Osprey and Chinook aircraft for use in Tenet, and the National Guard and Air Force “indicated interest if military characterizations are rewritten emphasizing military mission.”

A few weeks later, it seems that Nolan simply stopped responding to the military’s phone calls, with one update commenting, “Likely cause is that producer/director were reluctant to make changes needed to gain DOD support.” This echoes what happened on Interstellar, Nolan’s previous sci-fi epic. Reports from the Navy’s Hollywood office record how he approached them about potential support, but the relationship broke down after he refused to share his script with Navy officials, having clearly learned from the extensive rewrites the military demanded on Man of Steel.

At the other end of the Hollywood scale is Tom Hanks, who has worked with different US government agencies throughout his career, from the CIA on Charlie Wilson’s War to Homeland Security on The Terminal, as well as several military-supported productions. Hanks’ name comes up multiple times in the documents, as the DOD provided help to his historical war film Greyhound, as well as his forthcoming post-apocalyptic drama Finch.

The strict criteria that the military apply when deciding whether to support a production results in a high number of rejections, which can have the effect of killing a movie or TV show. Among the rejections detailed in the documents are “documentaries about Vladimir Putin and about the trials at Guantanamo Bay” and a film about the Bermuda Triangle, where the DOD were “Not impressed by the quality of the writing nor the story itself.” Neither the Bermuda Triangle film nor the Gitmo documentary appear to have been made.

Other movies that were turned down include Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse as well as Rob Reiner’s Shock and Awe, in the latter case because “premise is how the WH & DoD (mainly the WH) claimed that Bin Laden and Hussein conspired to create the 9/11 attacks, and fabricated evidence of Saddam collecting materials to fabricate nuclear weapons to use against the U.S. and its allies.”

Likewise, a feature-length documentary about Operation Eagle Claw – the failed attempt by US special forces to rescue some of the hostages held in Iran – was turned down after their request was forwarded to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, highlighting how high-up policy wonks are sometimes part of the decision-making process. This documentary also appears to have fallen by the wayside, unable to be produced due to the Pentagon’s censorious approach to pop culture.

However, the most egregious censorship revealed by the new documents came on the 2019 CBS drama series The Code, about Marine Corps lawyers prosecuting and defending cases brought under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Code was initially made without any military input, because the producers wanted to explore topics of which the DOD wouldn’t approve.

In the opening episodes the cases handled by the lawyers include a Marine-turned-congressman who is accused of murdering an Iraqi civilian execution-style, and the fallout from a Marine killing a Spanish citizen while drunk driving. Meanwhile, the widow of a murdered Marine decides to sue the Corps and challenge the Ferris Doctrine – a law that prevents people from suing the US military based on events that happened while on active duty.

These are precisely the sort of storylines that the DOD routinely removes from scripts for shows they support, such as NCIS and Hawaii Five-0. The documents record how on an NCIS: New Orleans episode they “Took issue with the latest NCIS NOLA script, in which a team of former U.S. Army rangers are portrayed as ‘killers for hire’.” An update days later reports that, “Filmmakers responded by saying they are working to remove all references to killers having been affiliated with U.S. Army Rangers.”

But this wasn’t possible on The Code, because the producers resisted numerous efforts by the military to get involved and have influence over the scripts. As the reports detail, “The showrunner turned down several offers of assistance by the Marine Corps Entertainment office during production.” An investigation by Task & Purpose found that the Marines kept trying to insert themselves into the production of The Code, but as one official put it, they were “essentially told to f-ck off” by the showrunners.

The documents go on to note that – somehow – Marine Corps leadership got hold of the early episodes of The Code before they’d aired. They were “displeased enough that they communicated what they saw as serious shortcomings in the depiction of the Marines.” The Corps imposed themselves on the production, and as a result, “CBS Television has indicated a desire to correct the problems in future episodes by accepting DoD assistance.”

The upshot of this was that the show took a turn and abandoned the controversial storylines of its earlier episodes, including the lawsuit around the Ferris Doctrine – though the suit is abandoned not due to pressure from the military brass, but so that the widow can embark on a romantic relationship with one of the key witnesses.

A few months later The Code was cancelled, having given up on the only thing that made it stand out in a crowded marketplace of criminal and legal procedurals. In essence, the DOD sabotaged a TV show because they didn’t like its politics.

While the likes of Christopher Nolan are powerful enough to sometimes resist the military’s overtures and manipulations, the DOD’s hostile takeover of Hollywood is gathering pace due to these aggressive, domineering tactics.

Tom Secker is a British-based investigative journalist, author and podcaster. You can follow his work via his Spy Culture site and his podcast ClandesTime.

August 5, 2021 Posted by | Film Review, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

German Pathologist: Fatal Consequences of Vaccinations Underestimated

German pathologists like Schirmacher dare to question the official script on vaccine safety
21 Wire | August 4, 2021

Dr. Peter Schirmacher, who serves as Director at the Pathological Institute of the University of Heidelberg, is sounding the alarm on fatal vaccine injuries after performing over forty autopsies on people who had died within two weeks of receiving their COVID shot.

The German daily, Augsburger Allgemeine, reports:

“Schirmacher assumes that 30 to 40 percent of them died from the vaccination. In his opinion, the frequency of fatal consequences of vaccinations is underestimated – a politically explosive statement in times when the vaccination campaign is losing momentum, the Delta variant is spreading rapidly and restrictions on non-vaccinated people are being discussed.”

Right on cue, a flurry of criticism has moved on Schirmacher, including from inside Chancellor Merkel’s administration, calling his findings “incomprehensible.”

Schirmacher, who also leads a state-subsidized autopsy project on people who have ‘died from Covid-19,’ recently expanded his work to include the autopsies on people who died after being vaccinated.

Germany’s Federal Association of German Pathologists has stepped up to defend Schirmacher, supporting the urgent need to perform more autopsies on deceased vaccinated people.

August 5, 2021 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Dr. Stella Immanuel sues CNN for $100 Million after being vindicated on Hydroxychloroquine

Big League Politics | July 31, 2021

Dr. Stella Immanuel, the pro-hydroxychloroquine doctor who was derided by the fake news media for attempting to save lives near the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, is striking back against CNN.

Immanuel has launched a $100 million lawsuit against CNN and host Anderson Cooper for what she believes were false and defamatory statements made against her character.

“In an effort to vilify, demonize and embarrass President [Donald] Trump, Cooper and CNN published a series of statements of fact about Dr. Immanuel that injured her reputation and exposed her to public hatred, contempt, ridicule, and financial injury,” the lawsuit stated. It was filed in federal court on July 27.

Immanuel said that she believes Cooper and CNN “effectively caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands whose lives would have been spared if they had been treated early with HCQ.”

Big League Politics has reported on the suppressed science showing that hydroxychloroquine can effectively treat COVID-19:

“A new study has demonstrated that treating COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine makes patients 84 percent less likely to be hospitalized.

The study is set to be published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents in December. It has determined that “low-dose hydroxychloroquine combined with zinc and azithromycin was an effective therapeutic approach against COVID-19.”

The doctors came to their conclusions after treating 141 coronavirus patients with hydroxychloroquine for five days. They compared them with a control group of 377 coronavirus patients who did not receive hydroxychloroquine as a treatment. They found that “the odds of hospitalization of treated patients was 84% less than in the untreated patients.” Only one patient from the group treated with hydroxychloroquine died while 13 people died in the other group…

The elites are suppressing hydroxychloroquine because they want the public to feel helpless against the virus. They never intend to give the public their liberties back, hoping that the public will accept a “new normal” of globalism and technocracy.“

A victory for Immanuel in court would be a powerful rebuke to the propaganda machine set up to maximize profits for Big Pharma and demonize whistleblowers who actually want to help patients.

August 5, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

It’s not too late to say No

By Elephant City | TCW Defending Freedom | August 5, 2021

ON July 29, the mainstream media in the United States admitted that the vaccines had failed. Not in so many words, but they might as well have. The Washington Post concluded: ‘It’s hard to do, but we have to become comfortable with coronavirus not going away.’

What changed?

Well, to start with, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a report showing that fully vaccinated people transmit the virus and carry viral loads similar to those unvaccinated. This was hard on the heels of data from Israel, the UK, Iceland and Gibraltar showing that high vaccination rates did nothing to prevent widespread Covid outbreaks.

Of course, for those who get their information from non-mainstream sources, this comes as no surprise. We’ve watched the narrative turned on its head in just a few short months. To refresh your memory, here’s the evolution:

April 2021

Vaccines are 92 per cent effective against infection and 100 per cent effective at preventing serious disease. They are safe. Get your shots and you’re good for life.

June 2021

There are rare breakthrough cases, but the vaccines still protect against serious disease. There are very rare complications, but the vaccines are generally safe. Get your shots and you’re good for life.

Early July 2021

The variants are causing breakthrough cases. The vaccines generally protect against serious illness. The vaccines cause myocarditis and other serious complications. Efficiency wanes after several months but you don’t need a booster.

Late July 2021

Variants cause breakthrough cases and vaccinated people carry high viral loads. The vaccines may protect against the most severe cases. The vaccines cause myocarditis, GBS and several other serious complications. The most vulnerable and the elderly will need booster shots.

If the present trend lines continue, what’s next?

How about: Vaccines make it more likely you’ll contract Covid. If you are infected, vaccines make it more likely that you will suffer serious illness or die. The vaccines cause life-changing injuries in many people. You will need booster shots every few months.

If you’re still considering taking a vaccine, you should think carefully about what you’re getting into. When you take a Covid vaccine, you’re taking the first step down a path. With each step down the path, it gets harder to retreat. We know that there’s a point of no return. Once you cross it, you’ll be entirely dependent on regular Covid vaccines for life and you’ll be stuck between a rock and a hard place: If you don’t get your shots every few months, you’ll die from the latest variant as soon as the antibody bump from your last shot wears off. But, if you keep taking the shots, your body will slowly (or not so slowly) become riddled with micro-thrombi (blood clots), and that condition will kill you in a few years. We don’t know where the point of no return is, but we do know this: The sooner you bale out from the vaccine path, the better your chance of being able to return to natural health and immunity.

Most importantly, think about what this means for your children. If there’s a one in 100 chance of serious adverse events for the mRNA vaccines, do you want your child to face two shots a year for the rest of his/her life? And what if the chance of serious complications is additive?

It’s not too late to say No.

August 5, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Baylor Professor Calls for Prosecution of Criticism of Fauci and Other Scientists as Hate Crime

By Jonathan Turley | August 4, 2021

Physicist Richard P. Feynman once said “Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.” Feynman’s statement captures how science depends upon constant questioning and challenging of assumptions. Yet, what is healthy debate to some is criminal dissent to others. Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology at Baylor College of Medicine is calling for federal hate-crime protections to be extended to cover criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci and other scientists. The frequent MSNBC and CNN guest wants Congress to expand hate crimes to “scientists currently targeted by far-right extremism in the United States.”

In a July 28 paper in Plos Biology titled “Mounting Antiscience Aggression in the United States,” Hotez encourages Congress to focus on the “band of ultraconservative members of the US Congress and other public officials with far-right leanings are waging organized and seemingly well-coordinated attacks against prominent US biological scientists.”

Hotez insists that it is not enough to support such science but to criminalize attacks on their research. This suggestion is just one of a number of ideas briefly put forward to support scientists but it is the most chilling. Referring Nazi and fascist movements in history, Hotez argues that good science requires cracking down on the right. He concludes:

“As Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once pointed out, neutrality or silence favors the oppressor. We must take steps to protect our scientists and take swift and positive action to counter the growing wave of far-right antiscience aggression. Not taking action is a tacit endorsement, and a guarantee that the integrity and productivity of science in the United States will be eroded or lose ground.”

The federal hate crime laws focus on basis of a person’s characteristics of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. We have seen calls for adding professions like police officers, which I also opposed. As with police officers, the inclusion of such professions would have a direct and inimical impact on free speech in our society. Indeed, it would create a slippery slope as other professions demand inclusion from reporters to ministers to physicians. Hate crimes would quickly apply to a wide array of people due to their occupations.

What is most striking about the Hotez article is its lack of analytical balance. He rages against the right without even acknowledging how social media companies have already enforced a massive censorship program that bars even reporting the results of public clinical trials or repeating CDC positions on vaccinations. For a year, Big Tech has been censoring those who wanted to discuss the origins of pandemic and those who suggested the lab theory were attacked as right-wing conspiracy theorists. It was not until Biden admitted that the virus may have originated in the Wuhan lab that social media suddenly changed its position. Facebook only recently announced that people on its platform will be able to discuss the origins of Covid-19 after censoring any such discussion.

Many of us have criticized the hateful rhetoric on both sides of our politics. However, there remain important debates over not just the underlying science relating to Covid-19 but the implications of such science for public policies. Criminalizing aspects of that debate would ratchet up the threats against those with dissenting views, including some scientists. That would harm not just free speech but science in the long run.

August 4, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Double jabbed? That’s no protection from the Covid Cops

By Bridget Jones | TCW Defending Freedom | August 5, 2021

LAST week I had a house call by a Covid officer to check compliance with post-holiday quarantine following my return from the Balearics. After a lovely holiday in a destination on the green list which later turned amber, my punishment consisted of ten days’ forced isolation in three rooms (including lavatory) covering 500 square feet and no outside space.

As an unvaccinated Untouchable, I looked on in envy at my double-poked friends who returned to London being able to move about freely and my travel companion who’d be showing off her tan. I wistfully imagined the glamorous parties they’d be attending whilst I’d be limited to surfing murder mystery reruns on ITV with a slightly acidic bottle of rose.

But be careful what you envy, ladies . . .

Two such double-jabbed friends, both travelling back to the UK from amber list countries, Spain and Denmark, on different budget airlines, were pinged and ordered to self-isolate on their return. It turned out someone on both of their flights had tested positive for the virus.

Now, neither of them is dumb enough to have the NHS track and trace app but their details were taken from the forms they were required to complete to board the planes bound for home.

So it turns out that getting the poke is no guarantee of regaining your freedom at all, and definitely not any kind of insurance policy for risk-free travel abroad. This was in spite of the fact that both of them, having taken tests within 48 hours of boarding and on day 2 after landing in UK arrivals, tested negative for the virus. The one returning from Denmark was fortuitously pinged after day 2, which she interpreted to mean that her isolation could be shortened to 7 days. Both friends were also required to take a test on day 8 of isolation (so in her case after it was over), and unlike myself, their Untouchable counterpart, could not do a day 5 test to get out early for good behaviour.

Everyone keeps telling me that as of August 16 the double-vaccinated will be able to move around freely regardless of whether they have been pinged. But as in this context ‘pinged’ refers to the app presumably the new freedom pass will not apply to the situation both of my friends found themselves in. Such is the absurdity that will prevail in the approaching mid-month holiday peak that there will be no way to ascertain whether it is worth travelling to a green-list rock in the Atlantic or going the whole hog and risking a turn from amber to red, with consequent pay-to-play prison sentence on return.

I wonder whether the government (which I no longer spell with a capital ‘G’ as I do not recognise its legitimacy) justifies all of this on the premise that people who dare to go on holiday must be treated as putrid receptacles of contagion and thereby do penance for their hubris.

Just like me, my vaccinated friends are sitting at home this week, watching the tan fade and bingeing on Thai food delivered in a box whilst staring at some dystopian feminist melodrama on Channel 4 for human company. My Danish friend lives in a 350 square foot studio flat in Notting Hill but at least she has a balcony on which to smoke and sunbathe; otherwise I don’t know what she would do as in such a small space confinement is unbearable.

Not for her dressing up to visit Tesco Express or setting a playlist to walk in the park; no stolen glances at the hot barista on the morning coffee run. The Covid gods have spoken, and her sentence is to wake up every day in the fiery furnace of quarantine to be purified until such time as she may be released by her gracious overlords.

Lots of articles have been written recently about the pingdemic and I daresay most employees who can’t work from home are delighted to get a ping. These serfs will doubtless not be looking forward to August 16 (another ‘freedom day’), and were I one of them I would consider coming up with a strategy to deal with the impending fall-out. An efficient tactic could be the collection of bulk quantities of LF tests to multiply potentially positive results and, via photographic replication, establish a vault of templates for passing around when needed.

I digress. Back to being stalked by the Covid marshal. He knocked at the door twice, politely, and when I opened it he met me with sheepish eyes over a medical mask to request proof of ID. You can never be too careful in verifying the identity of someone who answers their own door during a spell of quarantine.

Neither of my vaccinated friends who were told to self-isolate received a visit from the NHS.  I have now started quite feeling special that someone actually cared enough to check up on me.

Come to think of it, I should have invited the Covid marshal in for a drink . . .

August 4, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Toxic Horror Show Geelong Grid Backup Battery Fire Finally Extinguished

By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | August 3, 2021

Imagine if people were crazy enough to install these difficult to extinguish battery incendiary devices in their homes or automobiles, or near populated areas. Imagine what such foolishness could do to insurance premiums, once companies catch on to the risk of batteries acting as potent initiators and accelerants in house fires, or realise they might have to unexpectedly cover the cleanup cost of adjacent homes and gardens contaminated with poisonous residues from the battery smoke.

Blaze at Tesla Big Battery extinguished after three days

By Lucy Battersby and Cassandra Morgan
Updated August 2, 2021

Fire crews have extinguished a blaze at Victoria’s new Tesla Big Battery, the largest lithium-ion battery in the country, after taking more than three days to bring it under control.

One of the Tesla megapack batteries at the site in Moorabool, near Geelong, caught fire during testing shortly after 10am on Friday.

The Victorian Big Battery, with a capacity of 300 megawatts and 450 megawatt-hours, is three times bigger than the initial size of billionaire Elon Musk’s Tesla big battery built in South Australia in 2017.

…

The authority said that, because of the nature of the fire – a 13-tonne battery – firefighters couldn’t put water on it or employ ordinary suppression methods. Instead, they had to let it “burn out” and wait for the container to cool down enough to open its doors.

…

Authorities had warned of toxic smoke billowing from the site on Friday. Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority has been monitoring air quality at the site over the weekend, and determined it was “good” by Monday afternoon.

…

Read more: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/blaze-at-tesla-big-battery-extinguished-after-three-day-battle-for-control-20210802-p58f6x.html

At the very least in my opinion these batteries should be sited well away from densely populated areas, and the practice of storing large batteries near or inside homes should cease. As political vanity causes grid scale battery packs to grow in size, the potential for long term harm to anyone unlucky enough to breath the smoke or eat produce grown in battery smoke fallout contaminated soil will also rise.

August 4, 2021 Posted by | Environmentalism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

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