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Myocarditis Risk Increases Up To 133-FOLD Following Covid Vaccination, Study Finds

By Will Jones | The Daily Sceptic | January 26, 2022

A study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has found that the risk of myocarditis (heart inflammation) after receiving an mRNA Covid vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) was dramatically increased across many age groups and was highest after the second vaccination dose in young men.

The study found myocarditis reports were highest after the second vaccination dose in males aged 12 to 15 years at 70.7 per million Pfizer doses, compared to an expected rate of 0.53 per million, amounting to a 133-fold increase; in males aged 16 to 17 years at 105.9 per million Pfizer doses, compared to an expected rate of 1.34 per million, amounting to a 79-fold increase; and in young men aged 18 to 24 years at 52.4 per million Pfizer doses and 56.3 per million Moderna doses, compared to an expected rate of 1.76 per million, amounting to a 30-fold and 32-fold increase respectively. The full results are shown in the table below and a selection are depicted in the chart above.

The study comprised a review of reports of myocarditis to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) that occurred after mRNA Covid vaccination between December 2020 and August 2021 in people over 12 years old. The researchers adjudicated and summarised the reports and compared the rates to expected rates of myocarditis using 2017-2019 data. For those under 30 they conducted medical record reviews and clinician interviews to investigate clinical presentation, test results, treatment, and early outcomes.

They found that out of 192,405,448 individuals receiving a total of 354,100,845 mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine doses during the study period, there were 1,991 reports of myocarditis to VAERS, of which 1,626 met their case definition of myocarditis. Among the 1,626 cases, the median age was 21 years and the median time to symptom onset was two days. Males comprised 82% of the myocarditis cases for whom sex was reported, and where timing was reported, 82% occurred after the second vaccination dose.

The charts showing myocarditis cases by age and symptom onset are shown below.

Oster et al 2022

Oster et al 2022

Regarding deaths, the researchers write:

Among persons younger than 30 years of age, there were no confirmed cases of myocarditis in those who died after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination without another identifiable cause and there was one probable case of myocarditis [in those who died] but there was insufficient information available for a thorough investigation. At the time of data review, there were two reports of death in persons younger than 30 years of age with potential myocarditis that remain under investigation and are not included in the case counts.

The authors note that a difference between vaccine-related myocarditis and virus-related myocarditis was that the former comes on more quickly; they also note that it appears to be milder:

The onset of myocarditis symptoms after exposure to a potential immunological trigger was shorter for COVID-19 vaccine-associated cases of myocarditis than is typical for myocarditis cases diagnosed after a viral illness. Cases of myocarditis reported after COVID-19 vaccination were typically diagnosed within days of vaccination, whereas cases of typical viral myocarditis can often have indolent courses with symptoms sometimes present for weeks to months after a trigger if the cause is ever identified.

The major presenting symptoms appeared to resolve faster in cases of myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination than in typical viral cases of myocarditis. Even though almost all individuals with cases of myocarditis were hospitalised and clinically monitored, they typically experienced symptomatic recovery after receiving only pain management. In contrast, typical viral cases of myocarditis can have a more variable clinical course. For example, up to 6% of typical viral myocarditis cases in adolescents require a heart transplant or result in mortality.

To what extent are these differences a reporting artefact, where adverse event reports are only made when a reaction occurs within days of a vaccination, but otherwise the link is unnoticed or dismissed?

The authors note that underreporting is likely, “given the high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination”, and therefore “the actual rates of myocarditis per million doses of vaccine are likely higher than estimated”.

Another recent study found post-vaccination myocarditis adverse events were underestimated by the VAERS definition.

A third recent study, from Oxford University, found that myocarditis risk following Covid vaccination was up to 14 times higher than that following COVID-19 infection. It has been suggested that that study underestimated the risk following vaccination. It should also be noted that since vaccination provides little protection against infection the idea that the risk following vaccination is instead of and not as well as the risk following infection is not sound.

Myocarditis is not the only serious side-effect of these vaccines, and the vaccines do not protect well against infection or transmission. This means it is increasingly clear that the current Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines do not have the efficacy and safety profile that would make giving them to children and young people worthwhile or ethical.

January 26, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Flawed CDC Study Wrongly Concludes COVID Vaccines Safe in Pregnancy

By Madhava Setty, M.D. and Jennifer Smith, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 25, 2022

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month recommended women who are pregnant, recently pregnant, who are trying to become pregnant now or who might become pregnant in the future get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The CDC made the recommendation after concluding, in a Jan. 7 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, that data support the safety of COVID vaccination during pregnancy.

By comparing COVID vaccination during pregnancy to those unvaccinated during pregnancy, the agency determined COVID vaccines were not associated with preterm birth or with delivering a child who was born smaller or less developed than expected, also known as small-for-gestational-age (SGA).

In this article, we examine flaws in the CDC study that led to the agency’s wrongful conclusion regarding COVID vaccines for pregnant women.

First, some background.

Including pregnant women in clinical trials

Pregnancy is a precarious time not just for the expectant mother but most importantly the developing fetus. Expectant mothers are advised not to drink alcohol or caffeinated beverages and not to eat raw foods such as sushi and deli meats.

A lot of medications are contraindicated during pregnancy including simple pain meds like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (Ibuprofen), antidiarrheals, decongestants, antihistamines, nasal sprays and expectorants.

Women are advised not to take these medications during pregnancy because they pose potential risks to the developing fetus.

For decades, expectant mothers have been considered a vulnerable group to be shielded from potential harms of research for the sake of their fetuses’ health.

In 1977, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued guidelines excluding pregnant women and women “with childbearing potential” from phase I and phase II clinical trials, where new drugs are tested for safety and efficacy.

This view stemmed, in part, from tragedies caused by two now-infamous drugs that were widely prescribed to pregnant women in the mid-20th century: thalidomide, which caused thousands of children around the world to be born with flipper-like limbs and other birth defects, and diethylstilbestrol, which was linked to higher rates of cancer in both mothers and the daughters born to them.

This view changed however in 1993, with the passage of the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act, which sought to increase gender and racial diversity in clinical trials.

Federal regulations currently require any study involving pregnant women to meet 10 criteria, including that, “where scientifically appropriate,” data first be collected on pregnant animals and non-pregnant human subjects to assess risk, and that any risk to mother or fetus be “the least possible for achieving the objectives of the research.”

Reproduction toxicity studies in animal models hinted at dangers early on

While the companies developing the COVID-19 vaccines have done preliminary studies in animals, their studies were limited to rodents. The vaccine makers did not conduct studies on non-human primates, recognized as the closest animal models to humans regarding genetics, physiology and behavior.

Nevertheless, Moderna’s own Assessment Report to the European Medicines Agency Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use on March 11, 2021, included a study for reproductive and developmental toxicology on female rats during gestation.

The report noted (page 50: Reproduction Toxicity) an increase in the number of fetuses with common skeletal variations of one or more rib nodules and one or more wavy ribs. Additionally, the number of pups born to vaccinated rats was lower than the number in the unvaccinated rats.

Most importantly, the authors explicitly stated, “In this study, no vaccine dose was administered during the early organogenesis [the period during embryonic development of an animal when the main body organs are formed], to address the direct embryotoxic effect of the components of the vaccine formulation.”

One month earlier, Pfizer reported in its Feb. 19, 2021, Assessment Report to the same committee that pregnant rats demonstrated a greater-than-2x increase in pre-implantation loss in exposed animals compared to controls.

The authors of the Pfizer report further stated (Page 50: Reproduction Toxicity) that “a very low incidence of gastroschisis, mouth/jaw malformations, right-sided aortic arch, and cervical vertebrae abnormalities” occurred in litters of exposed rats, and that these findings were within historical control data.

This finding brings up an important question: Why compare the incidence of these major congenital abnormalities with “historical” controls and not with the controls themselves?

As late as April 2021, the CDC still maintained there was limited data surrounding the safety of COVID vaccines for women who were pregnant or breastfeeding. The agency advised women who were pregnant or breastfeeding to consult with their physician before getting vaccinated.

But were obstetricians made aware of the potential safety signals appearing in animal models?

And how were physicians able to decide whether or not a COVID vaccine was appropriate for their pregnant patients if the CDC wasn’t offering any guidance at that time?

CDC’s latest study: a closer look at the details

Using data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink — a CDC vaccine safety monitoring system the public cannot access — the CDC study identified 46,079 pregnant women with live births and gestational age.

Of those, 10,064 (21.8%) received ≥1 COVID vaccine doses during pregnancy from Dec. 15, 2020, to July 22, 2021.

Nearly all (9,892, or 98.3%) of the pregnant women included in the study were vaccinated during the second or third trimester.

The authors found that among unvaccinated women, the rate of premature births was 7% compared to 4.9% in those who had received either one or both vaccine doses.

The rate of small-for-gestational-age in both vaccinated and unvaccinated mothers was equal (8.2%).

The authors thus conclude that “… receipt of COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy was not associated with increased risk for preterm birth or SGA at birth.”

5 flaws in the CDC analysis

On closer examination, we identified the following five deficits in the CDC study:

  • Cohorts were not well matched. There were greater than three times more African American women in the unvaccinated group than in the vaccinated group. The CDC acknowledges the African American race is a risk factor for preterm birth and may be as high as 50% greater than in white women.

There were also greater than 50% more mothers in the unvaccinated group classified as having inadequate prenatal care. Obesity, also a risk for preterm birth, was also overrepresented in the unvaccinated group (29% vs 23.9%) compared to the vaccinated.

  • No adjustment for mothers with a history of preterm birth of SGA. The authors did not address this potential confounder.
  • COVID infection, another potentially important confounder, was present in the unvaccinated group at a 25% greater incidence than in the vaccinated cohort (3.5% vs 2.8%). There was no mention of when in the pregnancy the infection was detected. Viral infections early in pregnancy are particularly deleterious to the developing fetus. This should have been an important risk factor to quantify independently, especially when establishing a risk-versus-benefit ratio of vaccination.
  • The CDC data indicate a 7.7% risk of preterm birth in mothers having received one of two vaccines. This represents a 10% greater risk than in unvaccinated pregnancies. This increased risk is not mentioned in the discussion. Moreover, the adjusted Hazard Ratio (aHR) in this population is given as 0.78, indicating a 22% risk reduction in preterm birth in vaccinated mothers, seemingly conflicting with the raw data. (A request for clarification from the corresponding author was not answered).
  • The most glaring deficit in the CDC analysis is the scarcity of vaccinated mothers who received a vaccine in the first trimester in this study. The risk of untoward outcomes (birth defects, miscarriages) in pregnancy is greatest during the first third of pregnancy, a time when crucial embryonic structures are developing. This is the period of time where maternal health is particularly important, and exposure to toxins, infections and certain medicines must be minimized or eliminated entirely if possible.

Only 172 of more than 10,000 (1.7%) vaccinated mothers in the study received a vaccine in the first trimester. The incidence of preterm birth and SGA were not mentioned in this small cohort because of limited numbers.

Nonetheless, the authors arrive at the stunning conclusion: “CDC recommends COVID-19 vaccination for women who are pregnant, recently pregnant (including those who are lactating), who are trying to become pregnant now, or who might become pregnant in the future (4) to reduce the risk for severe COVID-19–associated outcomes.”

CDC not required to provide access to its data or subject its analysis to peer review

The Vaccine Safety Datalink uses data reported from nine large healthcare organizations, serving only 3% of the U.S. population. The system collects electronic health data from each participating site.

This database is accessible only to researchers outside the CDC and only by request. Requests may be accommodated after a research proposal is submitted and approved by the Research Data Center of the National Center for Health Statistics.

CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports can, as in the case of the agency’s analysis of COVID vaccine safety in pregnant women, be based on data that is not necessarily publicly available.

The agency’s analyses are not subject to peer review. Nevertheless, the reports are often widely cited as the official scientific position.

Conclusions

The CDC’s determination that COVID vaccination is safe in pregnant women is unfounded.

Cohorts were poorly matched. There was an inexcusably low representation of women who were vaccinated early in their pregnancy in their analysis. This is a period where any exposure to medical interventions will have a greater potential for risk to the fetus.

Broadly recommending vaccination for all pregnant women including those who are trying to become pregnant is particularly unwarranted.

This report places the CDC’s purported commitment to its mission of disease control and prevention on full display. The agency’s conclusions arrive more than a full year after the CDC authorized COVID vaccinations and are based on retrospective data alone.

In other words, the CDC is willing (and apparently allowed) to make safety determinations only after the experimental vaccines have been widely and indiscriminately deployed.

This is a shocking departure from the higher standards of prudence that are demanded during pregnancy, a time where two lives are potentially at risk and poor outcomes can lead to a lifetime of potential consequences.

It should be noted that several of the authors of this study reported potential conflicts of interest.

One author reported institutional research funding from Pfizer, and another from Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. A third author has a career grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Madhava Setty, M.D. is senior science editor for The Defender.

Jennifer Smith, Ph.D. holds a doctoral degree in mIcrobiology and molecular cell sciences.

© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

January 26, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Bulgaria insists it’s a loyal NATO ally, but won’t send troops to Ukraine

RT | January 26, 2022

Bulgaria is a “loyal ally in NATO” and the alliance’s unity is the best response to the current crisis over Ukraine, Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said on Wednesday, amid conflicting reports on Sofia’s participation in the US military buildup in Eastern Europe.

Petkov’s government voted on Wednesday to follow the “Bulgarian strategy” of reducing tensions between NATO and Russia, including “absolutely all options for resolving this dispute by diplomatic means,” according to the state news agency BTA.

The strategy will be based on rebuilding the Bulgarian military, Petkov said. Defense Minister Stefan Yanev explained that the “top priority” will be investing in building a battalion combat team, a unit of around 1,000 soldiers.

Yanev would not comment on reports by Bulgarian National Radio that Sofia would not accept the deployment of 1,000 US soldiers on its soil, but would be fine with French troops instead. This was reported early on Wednesday by BNR correspondent in Brussels, Angelina Piskova, who quoted a “well-informed diplomatic source.”

The minister said such a thing has not been discussed on the political level, according to BNR.

Local media reported that Yanev also told lawmakers that Bulgarian soldiers won’t fight in Ukraine without parliamentary approval, which he “does not see coming.”

Earlier on Wednesday, CNN reported that Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania were in discussions with the US to accept 1,000 American troops each, as part of Washington’s effort to “reassure” NATO members in Eastern Europe and “deter” the alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine. The US intelligence has heralded such an invasion since late October, though Moscow dismissed it as “fake news.”

Speaking before the parliamentary defense committee on Tuesday, Yanev said that neither Russia nor anyone else is preparing to invade Bulgaria, and urged the lawmakers to “reduce tensions, stop reading the foreign press, and stop speculating.”

January 26, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russia unveils military plans in Latin America

Putin has agreed on a new collaboration with Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua

RT | January 26, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to develop partnerships in a range of areas, including stepping up military collaboration, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has announced.

Speaking on Wednesday in an appearance in front of the Duma – Russia’s parliament – Lavrov reported that Putin had talked recently with the leaders of the three Central American countries, and that they had agreed to work together to strengthen their strategic cooperation.

“President Putin held recent telephone conversations with his colleagues from these three governments, with whom we are very close and friendly, and they agreed to look at further ways to deepen our strategic partnership in all areas, with no exceptions,” Lavrov stated. He noted that Russia already has close relations with these countries in many spheres, “including military and military-technical.”

Asked about the prospects of increased military cooperation with the three countries, Lavrov answered, “for the immediate future, we are counting on regular meetings of the corresponding committees.”

Earlier this month, Moscow’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was asked about the possibility of sending troops to Latin America, and he refused to rule out the possibility. “It’s the American style to have several options for its foreign and military policy,” he said. “That’s the cornerstone of that country’s powerful influence in the world.”

“The president of Russia has spoken multiple times on the subject of what the measures could be, for example involving the Russian Navy, if things are set on the course of provoking Russia, and further increasing the military pressure on us by the US,” he went on. “We don’t want that. The diplomats must come to an agreement.”

United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan responded, noting that Russian military activity in Latin America had not been a point of discussion at recent security talks, but said that the US would act “decisively” if it did happen

Leaders from Russia and the US have been holding negotiations recently to attempt to de-escalate the situation around Ukraine, which Washington has accused Moscow of planning to invade. The Kremlin has denied that it has any aggressive intentions and has asked for written guarantees that NATO, the US-led military bloc, will not expand to Ukraine or Georgia, two countries that share borders with Russia.

January 26, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Lavrov Accuses the United States of Pushing Ukraine to Provocations against Russia

Al-Manar | January 26, 2022

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow did not want talks over Ukraine and its own security concerns to be made longer by including the European Union [EU] or the Organization of Security and Cooperation [OSCE] in Europe in them.

He made the comments to the State Duma or lower house of parliament.

Lavrov also reiterated Moscow’s stance that it would take unspecified “appropriate measures” if it did not receive a constructive answer from the United States and NATO on security guarantees it is demanding.

“Moscow will take appropriate measures to respond to the West’s negligence of Russian demands regarding security guarantees,” Lavrov said

Russia is expecting Washington to respond in writing this week to its proposals for guarantees.

Lavorv stated, “Moscow will not allow an infinite delay in discussions about security guarantees’ proposal”.

The Russian FM further said that “Washington is pushing Kiev to direct provocations against Russia,” asserting that the US “is trying to punish Russia and China, and the US apparatuses are provoking the two countries”.

He concluded by saying, “Washington and its European allies are doubling their efforts to contain Russia”.

January 26, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Satellite Images of Russia – A Puzzlement

By Walrus | Turcopolier | January 26, 2022

The Australian ABC has today posted an article syndicated from AP entitled “Here’s what sanctions the US could impose on Russia if it invades Ukraine”

This suggests, charmingly, that among other targets for sanctions, President Putins alleged partner might be a suitable victim.

However while Alina Kabaeva is most attractive, that is not the image that quite caught my eye.

This one: “A satellite image of a Russian troop build-up at Klimovo, Russia, 13 kilometres north of the Russia-Ukraine border.(Supplied: Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies)”

Google suggests this is one of a series referenced by a Radio Free Europe article “Military Buildup: New Images Capture Russian Armor Massing Near Ukraine”:

This provides helpful images of the aforesaid build up. With reference to these images, taken on January 19 2022, an amateur makes the following comments:

Image 1 – A full vehicle park at Yelnya, 150 miles from Ukraine. Two of the tanks have been running engines, they are the ones not covered by snow the rest are dead cold. What would one expect for daily vehicle checks for an active unit? Yelnya is an established base for at least seven years.

Image 2 and image 5 show an equipment store at Klimovo, some 30 kilometers from the Ukraine border. the comment on image 5 states: “Military equipment massed (I love that emotive word) at the Klimovo storage facility on January 19. Older imagery from Google Maps of the same location shows a fraction of the military vehicles present.“

This links to a google image of an empty facility which PROVES that massing has occurred.

There is just one problem; inspection of that location with Google Earth Pro shows that the ’empty” image date is 9/13/2014! Eight years ago.

I cannot comment on the other images, but I’m puzzled by what I’m seeing and how it supports the idea of a massive build up.

Could others please examine these images?

January 26, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

Populists on the right are now openly challenging Republican war lust

No more lockstep: conservatives aren’t afraid of being called names as they question America’s interest in Ukraine

BY JACK HUNTER | RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT | JANUARY 26, 2022

The fight on the right for what constitutes a conservative or Republican foreign policy continues. This time the battlefront is Russia and Ukraine.

That there is a fissure on this issue among conservatives is in a way, a big deal, showing that the “America First” restraint approach that garnered support among the base didn’t go away completely when power changed hands in Washington and its chief advocate, Donald Trump, left town. Unfortunately, many Republicans have gone back to form and are talking like it’s the post 9/11-era — as if Trump’s criticisms of George W. Bush’s wars and nation-building had no effect on their party whatsoever.

First up, habitually hawkish GOP Congressman Dan Crenshaw recently told Fox News that “there needs to be clear consequences for what (Russia does) because we’ve failed to deter and now you’re inviting conflict.”

Sounding like a Bush-Cheney-era neoconservative, Crenshaw added, “It’s a very bad situation and we’ve left ourselves without many options as a result.”

One doesn’t have to ponder long about what Crenshaw thinks of the military option.

Republican Congressman Michael McCaul had a similar message, telling CNN last week, “I don’t think we’re providing the deterrence necessary to stop Putin from invading Ukraine, the breadbasket of Russia.”

What kind of “deterrence” does McCaul want to see?

Republican Senator Joni Ernst also joined the hawks, telling CNN, “When it comes to pushing back against Russia, we need to show strength and not be in a position of doctrine of appeasement, which seems to be how President Biden has worked his administration.”

Popular Fox News personality Tucker Carlson apparently had enough of such talk, and cited both Crenshaw and McCaul’s interviews in his opening monologue last week and Ernst’s on Monday night. Carlson warned his viewers that the U.S. was being pushed toward a new war by the usual self-interested suspects, which included politicians, the media, and the defense industry.

“Those are our leaders, totally ignorant, just reading the script. It’d be nice to hear someone in the press corps, because it’s their job, ask the obvious follow up, which would be: Why exactly, Sen. Ernst, do you believe it’s so vital to send more lethal aid to Ukraine and to “go ahead and impose” more sanctions on Russia? Why? How would she answer that question?

We’ll never know how she’d answer, because no one in the media would ever ask her.

In last week’s monologue he cited prominent Democrats like Rep. Adam Schiff saying basically the same thing as Crenshaw and McCaul on Ukraine. “Oh, they’re all red in the face, but it’s not the usual partisan chorus. This is the entire choir. You just saw representatives from every faction in Washington, from Adam Schiff to Dan Crenshaw, not as different as they seem, and all the dummies in between. And all of them are promoting war against Russia on behalf of our new and deeply beloved ally, the government of Ukraine,” he mocked.

This week, suddenly more conservatives and Republicans began speaking out against the prospect of U.S. military action in the region.

“The United States should not be involved in any future war in Ukraine,” charged libertarian populist Republican Congressman Thomas Massie on Monday.

“The neocons/warmongers have spent years stoking the new cold war with Russia and have now brought us to the brink in Ukraine — this serves their own interests, and lines the pocket of the Military Industrial Complex with trillion$,” tweeted right-wing friendly Democrat and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. “Let’s not be sheep.”

Populist Republican U.S. Senate candidate and “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance tweeted on Monday, “Billions spent on the Kennedy school, grand strategies seminars, and the Georgetown school of foreign service has bought us an elite that’s about to blunder us into a Ukraine war.”

Veteran and Conservative Virginia State Rep. Nick Freitas on Sunday accused the Biden administration of potentially getting America into a war as a distraction, tweeting, “Another Foreign War… When you absolutely, positively, have to distract the general public from the failure of your domestic policies.”

Charlie Kirk, leader of the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, also weighed in, tweeting Monday, “You should be against going to War with Russia.”

Kirk added, “Why is the President of the United States willing to send Americans to die protecting European Sovereignty? If our NATO ‘Allies’ aren’t even willing to fund their obligations and surge their own troops to protect their borders, why should we?”

With a split senate and Democrats controlling the House and Executive Branch, what the U.S. does or doesn’t do in Ukraine is largely in President Biden’s hands. And obviously, being against a Democratic president’s wars is easier for Republicans than when their own party is sitting in the White House. This was apparent when Republicans felt emboldened to check President Obama on his Syria, and to some extent his Libya interventions.

But Americans are more tired of war than ever, which is why Trump’s views on global policing and nation building did so well with GOP voters. This may be more than just who holds all the marbles. With Republicans predicted to do well in the 2022 midterms and the potential for turning the tables in 2024, the base is critical, and where it stands on foreign policy could matter quite a deal in the near future. Will the GOP look more like George W. Bush or reflect what Donald Trump often said about war, even if he didn’t always follow through?

At a minimum the foreign policy temperature on the right is not exactly where it once was, and whatever impact “America First” continues to have on Republicans, it’s a long way from all of them uniformly accusing anyone in their party of “blaming America first’”for even daring to question U.S. foreign policy.

January 26, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Creating Records By Hiding The Past

Tony Heller | January 20, 2022

Almost all of the claimed climate records the press keeps touting were created by erasing the past – when weather was at least as extreme as it is now.

Also on Youtube

January 26, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

Walmart introduces vaccine passports in Quebec, will require the unvaccinated to be escorted by staff as they shop

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | January 25, 2022

Walmart has introduced a two-class vaccine passport system in the Canadian province of Quebec which restricts those without proof of vaccination to grocery and pharmacy products only and requires them to wait in a box before being escorted by staff as they shop.

Under the new rules, those who show proof of vaccination will be free to shop. Those who don’t show proof of vaccination will be told to wait in a blue box until a member of staff is available to escort them as they shop. This member of staff will then follow them around the store and make sure they don’t buy any prohibited goods.

The new restrictions were introduced in response to an expansion of Quebec’s vaccine passport rules which now require all stores with surface areas of 1,500 [sq. meters?] or more to demand that customers show a vaccine passport unless they’re shopping for groceries or pharmacy products.

This two-tier vaccine passport system has been blasted by store owners with many expressing concern about potential backlash from customers and their struggles to find staff to enforce this vaccine passport system amid ongoing labor shortages.

“Mainly, we’re disappointed, especially after being considered an essential business for two years,” Patrick Delisle, marketing director for the Canac hardware and construction chain, told the Montreal Gazette.

“We’ll need to tell clients we can’t serve them and, because of the delays it causes, there will be moments when it’s minus 30 outside and there could very well be 50, 60, or 75 people waiting in line,” Delisle added.

Delisle said Canac has hired GardaWorld security guards for each of its 31 stores and will be assigning one or two employees to the task of vaccine passport enforcement at each store. He estimates the cost of complying with the new rules will be a staggering $100,000 per week.

On Twitter, Walmart’s vaccine passport rules also faced mass pushback with “#BoycottWalmart” trending for several hours and Twitter users describing the measures as “cruel and humiliating” and the blue box as “a box of shame for the unvaccinated.”

The introduction of vaccine passports at Walmart and other big-box stores follows the Quebec government mandating vaccine passports in alcohol and cannabis stores last week.

This vaccine passport expansion is the latest example of how this technology, which was initially positioned as a way to slow the spread of the coronavirus, is being used to surveil the population and crush civil liberties.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already admitted that Omicron breakthrough infections in people who are fully vaccinated are “likely to occur” and Canada’s Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health (CCMOH) says that it’s still “gathering information on how well vaccines work against transmission.”

Despite these admissions from leading health authorities and groups, vaccine passport systems continue to expand and impose additional burdens on the unvaccinated.

Queensland recently announced similar rules that will allow essential businesses like grocery stores and pharmacies to introduce vaccine passports. In Italy, vaccine passports have been mandated in banks and post offices – a policy that could make it difficult to claim their pensions. And in Washington, vaccine passports have been combined with photo ID.

French President Emmanuel Macron went one step further in a recent interview where he acknowledged that he wants to “piss off” those without a vaccine passport.

In an interview with the Montreal Gazette, Dr. Benoît Barbeau, a virologist at the Université du Québec à Montréal, said he believes the latest vaccine passport restrictions in Quebec are largely punitive in nature and noted that while it’s possible for transmission in larger stores, he believes they’re less risky than smaller, more contained spaces.

January 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

CDC “Pivoting its language” on vaccination status

Moving forward people will need regular boosters to be “up to date”, & they won’t be using the term “fully vaccinated” anymore.

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | January 25, 2022

Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Center for Disease Control, told the media on Friday that the CDC is intending to “pivot the language” regarding the Covid19 vaccines.

Speaking to the press briefing, Dr Walenksy had a very obvious message she really wanted to hammer home :

And what we really are working to do is pivot the language to make sure that everybody is as up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines as they personally could be, should be, based on when they got their last vaccine. So, importantly, right now, we’re pivoting our language. We really want to make sure people are up to date. That means if you recently got your second dose, you’re not eligible for a booster, you’re up to date. If you are eligible for a booster and you haven’t gotten it, you’re not up to date and you need to get your booster in order to be up to date.

(You can watch the full briefing here.)

It’s pretty clear that “say “up to date”, not “fully vaccinated”, was underlined in the memo. As was “pivot the language”, but what does it actually mean?

Well, that should be clear, it means people who were “fully vaccinated” will soon be “not fully vaccinated”.

(Side note here, but can we take a moment to appreciate the term “pivot the language”? That is some nice newspeak, beautiful. Up there alongside “enhanced interrogation”.)

The use of the term “up to date” in place of “fully vaccinated” is likewise deliberately crafted political language, turning a hard-and-fast reality into an ever-extending continuum. Normalising the open-ended nature of the new “vaccinations”.

We did warn you this would happen, you will NEVER be full vaccinated.

The good news is that this could be the breaking point for a lot of people who have gone along peacefully up until now, and if you doubt that just look how nervous Walenksy is in saying it, and listen to how much trouble she’s going to avoiding the phrase “not fully vaccinated”.

She knows this is going to alienate a lot of people. Could be our side is about to get some considerable reinforcements.

January 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Have Lockdown Sceptics Won the Argument?

By Edward Chancellor | The Daily Sceptic | January 25, 2022

Now that Covid restrictions are being rolled back, various commentators are declaring victory over the miserable virus. Lockdowns, we are told, worked. Only a fool could argue otherwise.

Devi Sridhar, the Chair of Global Public Health at Edinburgh University, who was formerly an exponent of the Zero Covid strategy of completely eradicating the virus, has recently announced in the Guardian that “delaying and preventing infection as much as possible through this pandemic was a worthwhile strategy. In early 2020, there were few treatments, limited testing and no vaccines. The costs of those lockdowns were big, but the effort to buy time paid off”.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Tom Harwood of GB News says much the same. Lockdown sceptics, he writes in CapX, are “bizarrely claiming victory now that restrictions are coming to an end”. The sceptics, Harwood asserts, ignore the success of vaccines. “There is a blindingly obvious distinction between the need for non-pharmaceutical interventions amongst a non-immune population, verses [sic] one with incredibly high levels of immunity.” He points to a lower death toll from the Omicron variant which appeared after the “stupendously successful vaccine rollout”. In conclusion, Harwood writes that to “deny lockdowns worked to reduce spread is to deny logic”.

Let’s examine the logic. If lockdowns bought time for the rollout of vaccines, then we would expect fewer Covid deaths in places that locked down early and fast. That is the case in Australia and New Zealand, which early in the pandemic sealed their borders against the virus. But the trouble with this policy, as our Antipodean friends are discovering, is the difficulty of exiting. Their policy of national self-isolation has lasted nearly two years, and continues in large measure even after most of their population has been vaccinated.

By contrast, in Europe there is no evidence that lockdowns significantly reduced Covid deaths. Sweden, which never locked down, has the same number of deaths per million as Austria, which did (see chart below). It’s true that Swedish deaths ran higher somewhat earlier than Austria, but this ‘bought-time’ doesn’t appear to have changed the final tally.


The evidence from the United States points to a similar conclusion: the Covid death rate (as a share of the population) in Florida, which largely avoided lockdowns, is slightly below the U.S. national average and far below that of New York, which had (and continues to impose) relatively tough restrictions.

It’s true that mass vaccination has reduced the risk of hospitalisation and death from Covid. But lockdown exponents imply that vaccines alone are responsible for the decline in the infection fatality rate. The evidence from South Africa, whose vaccination rate is around a quarter of the European average (49 doses per 100 people versus 180, or 27%), suggests otherwise.

It appears that either Covid has evolved to become less virulent, as the South African doctors suggested back in December, or South Africa’s population has built up strong natural immunity from prior infection – a possibility overlooked by most commentators. It seems likely that both factors have played a role in reducing the virulence of the disease. Even if lockdowns had succeeded in reducing Covid deaths until the vaccine rollout that wouldn’t necessarily justify their imposition. From the start, lockdown sceptics were concerned about the collateral damage caused by closing down the economy, shuttering schools, neglecting conventional health care and forcing people to isolate in their homes for months on end. They railed in vain against the cruelty of lockdowns: mothers giving birth alone, old people dying alone or left for months without visitors in nursing homes, the damage to children’s education, funerals unattended, small businesses crushed and so forth. Finally, the public appears to be waking up to these cruelties. Hence, the fury at the hypocrisy of Downing Street officials who imposed harsh rules for the nation which they didn’t scrupulously follow themselves.

Then there are lockdown’s immense financial costs. At the time, these could be ignored since governments financed them with interest-free loans from central banks. But all that money-printing is now fuelling inflation that will lead to further immiseration in the coming years. The sceptics argued that lockdowns were never subject to a proper cost-benefit analysis which took social and economic costs into account. That remains the case. Thus, not only has there been no ‘victory’ in the war on Covid – on the contrary, the highly contagious Omicron variant appears to be overcoming all attempts to constrain it  – but the argument over lockdowns has yet to be decisively won by either side, so that lockdowns are either accepted as a tool of sound public health policy or roundly condemned as a colossal mistake. The sceptics’ work continues.

Edward Chancellor is a financial journalist and the author of Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (1998).

January 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Testing Healthy People is Stupid

Compulsively testing and quarantining healthy athletes is even stupider

eugyppius | January 25, 2022

It’s the last week of the 2022 European Men’s Handball Championship, held this year in Slovakia and Hungary, and the players just can’t stop testing positive for Corona. Iceland, where handball attracts enormous interest, had eleven players sidelined after positive tests last week. Their star goalie, Björgvin Páll Gústavsson, emerged from isolation to play against Croatia yesterday, only to test positive again this morning. It’s back to quarantine for him, as he waits for a PCR confirmation. Nobody is actually too sick to play, but the alternative – spreading Omicron to a bunch of other athletes who will get it one way or another anyway – is unthinkable.

Mass containment is a set of policies that require people to act crazy all the time. Omicron is everywhere; locking up a few athletes isn’t going to slow it down. To that comes the fact that these handball players are all totally healthy; their risk of severe outcome is so low, it’s essentially unquantifiable. And on top of it all, all these precautions plainly do nothing. Everyone is testing positive anyway.

Somehow, it’s always the people at least risk who have to put up with the most Corona nonsense. Kids have spent almost two years alternating between prolonged social isolation and antiseptic prisons once known as schools. Professional athletes are probably the most heavily tested demographic in the world. The lower-risk working-age population bears the brunt of the vaccine mandates, capacity limits, and hygiene rules. Meanwhile, if you’re a sedentary retiree and you don’t care about going to the pub, your life has hardly changed since all this started.

Containment has been denuded of every conceivable goal; not even the people directing the circus can explain why we are doing this anymore. If you ask leading vaccinators like Karl Lauterbach, they’ll tell you it’s because we need to ward off hypothetical future variants – a laughable justification, which will always spring eternal. It’s time to put an end to this. It’s time to stop the testing and the masks and the vaccinating, it’s time for the hystericists to shut up and go home.

January 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

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