Pentagon to surveil social media of US Service Members
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim the Net | May 19, 2021
The new US administration is reportedly planning to reverse course on a previous policy not to spy on members of its own military by monitoring political opinions they express on social media.
In the past, this type of surveillance was not used out of fear that it might infringe on service members’ First Amendment rights, but now that the Biden administration is making combating “domestic extremism” one of its main narratives, that is changing.
According to The Intercept, which said it had access to relevant internal Defense Department documents and spoke to a source with direct knowledge, a pilot program is in the works to continuously screen behavior on social media of the members of the military, looking for any concerning signs, in the context of opinions espousing domestic extremism.
According to the same source, the Pentagon plans to outsource this job to a private surveillance company – most likely Babel Street – and thus bypass the First (and Fourth) Amendment.
Babel Street is already selling controversial products to US law enforcement, who use its services as a method of circumventing government requirements, like warrants. Babel Street buys and sells massive amounts of phone location data, and some of the previous clients have been the Secret Service and US Special Operations Command.
The latest pilot program seems to be developed far from the eyes and the ears of Congress. Don Bacon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that so far they had heard nothing from the Department of Defense (DoD) “that would confirm this story.”
However, an email from the House Armed Services Committee sent later said it was their understanding that the DoD intends to use social media screening as an additional vetting tool, rather than one for ongoing surveillance.
“That said, Secretary Austin has been clear about his intentions to understand to what extent extremism exists in the force and its effect on good order and discipline. We look forward to hearing the results of the stand down and the Department’s plan to move forward,” the email said.
Meanwhile, neither Babel Street, nor Bishop Garrison, who is behind the project, have commented about it. Garrison is a senior adviser to the defense secretary and head of an extremism steering committee, who has drawn attention for what has been described as a purge of Trump supporters from the military. In 2008, he is said to have authored an opinion piece that referred to free speech as “digital black plague.”
Facebook hints its “Oversight Board” could expand to other social platforms
Facebook has its sights set on more censorship domination
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim the Net | May 19, 2021
Facebook is seen as trying to promote the self-regulating model known as its Oversight Board as a success story that could become a standard for other similar platforms.
There were indications of an ambition to turn the Oversight Board into a bigger, more widely-encompassing regulatory body in a letter CEO Mark Zuckerberg penned in 2019, announcing the Board and saying that while it would initially deal with a small number of contentious cases, Facebook hoped it would in time expand to include “more companies across the industry as well.”
More recently, discussing Facebook’s decision to ban President Trump, VP of Global Affairs Nick Clegg did not disagree with his boss’s initial sentiments around the Oversight Board.
“Who knows, maybe in the future it could either be the germ of an idea that is then taken up in statutory regulation or it could be something that could operate for more companies than just for Facebook,” Clegg said.
One of the members of the board, Rachel Wolbers, said the body hopes to do such good work that “other companies might want our help.”
Officially, the Board has commented to say that while the model of “online governance” they are testing here might prove useful to others, their focus is currently on Facebook and Instagram.
And while the signs are there that Facebook would like to at least set the tone and become a leader in the censorship and moderation “standard” for social media – or just toot its own horn as doing this highly controversial work well – those other companies, its competitors, have so far remained silent, and that includes YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit.
One reason some observers give for this is that they “like their autonomy and have different rules” – but there is also the issue of how such an idea might be brought to life technically, given the different platforms and appeals systems currently in place.
There are examples of entire industries self-regulating to introduce agreed upon rules, like the gaming industry. But those who see the idea of the Oversight Board as a far fetched role model for others say that its own existence is “still controversial.”
The J&J Covid-19 vaccine is being manufactured by the anthrax vaccine company. This is its history
By Dr Meryl Nass, MD | May 19, 2021
Emergent BioSolutions will be in the spotlight today during a House Select Subcommittee Meeting on the Corona Virus Crisis, today at 10:30 am. It can be watched here.
Below, I provide the backstory aka checkered past of this company.
DOD created a plan to vaccinate its service-members against many biowarfare threat agents in the 1990s. At the time, of the bioterrorism vaccines that were being considered, only anthrax and smallpox vaccines had licenses. Anthrax vaccine was chosen to initiate the program in March of 1998.
The first 2 million doses of anthrax vaccine came from a stockpile that had been made for the US army by Michigan’s state vaccine lab (Michigan Biologics Products Institute). What became known in November 1997, after the FDA performed an inspection, was that most of the army’s 11 million dose stockpile of anthrax vaccine, stored at the Michigan lab, was multiply expired, had been redated, and was contaminated, with visible bacterial and fungal growth in some of the lots. FDA immediately shut down the anthrax vaccine factory, and quarantined 9 million of the 11 million existing doses. Unfortunately, FDA allowed the Defense Department to use 2 million doses, which it did over the next two years.
The Conclusions from FDA’s 1998 and 1999 inspection reports of the facility can be read here.
The Michigan state lab was a massive affair with many buildings on a campus in downtown Lansing. It produced a large variety of vaccines and blood products for the state of Michigan. However, over the years the state had not made the required repairs and updates. After the 1997 FDA inspection, Michigan had to repair the place or close it. Michigan decided to sell, and looked for a buyer.
The former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Crowe, heard about the sale. He had come to know the el Hibri family when he was Ambassador to the UK. The el Hibri’s had purchased anthrax vaccine from the UK government laboratory at Porton Down just before the Gulf War, and resold it to the Saudi government at a 100x markup.
Crowe and the el Hibri family joined with several of the lab’s officials, and the newly formed group purchased the lab. The purchase price was about 19 million dollars. Admiral Crowe was given a 13% share in exchange for his role as Chairman of the Board, risking none of his own funds. Much of the cost was later paid by the transfer of vaccines to the state of Michigan.
The new company, formed in the first half of 1998, was named Bioport. It chose to focus on its sales of anthrax vaccine to the Army. However, the new company was deeply concerned about potential liability for the lab’s products. The purchase was delayed until the Secretary of the Army signed an indemnification for injuries that might result from use of anthrax vaccine in soldiers, and it also indemnified the company against claims if the vaccine failed to provide the expected protection against anthrax. The state of Michigan had also been indemnified by the Army to produce the vaccine. But from its 1970 licensure until 1998, almost all the anthrax vaccine had only been used in animal experiments.
After FDA had shuttered the anthrax vaccine plant for manufacturing defects, the Army paid to bulldoze and then rebuild the factory in 1999. But even after it was rebuilt, FDA withheld its approval, and the plant lay idle.
Meantime, the 2 million doses that FDA had failed to quarantine were injected into 500,000 military service-members between 1998 and 2001. Many thousands became ill. An official report on the program, quoting unnamed government officials, claimed that 1-2% of recipients had developed permanent disabilities. The military vaccinations were mandatory, and refusers were punished with a court martial or loss of a month’s pay and performance of extra duties. Nonetheless, seeing the injuries sustained by their colleagues, many refused.
In 2001, the anthrax vaccine label, a legal document that describes what is known about the product, listed the CDC’s definition of Gulf War syndrome as a possible adverse effect of the vaccine. (It has been removed from the current label.)
Five Congressional hearings were held throughout 1999 on different aspects of the anthrax vaccine program by the House Committee on Government Reform and National Security (now known as the House Committee on Oversight and Reform). Additional hearings held by other Congressional committees also touched on the vaccine program. The Government Reform and National Security Committee wrote up its findings in a report titled Unproven Force Protection. Its June 30, 1999 hearing dealt specifically with Bioport and its sole source contracts.
Despite this, Bioport has been very successful. Although the Pentagon was considering an end to the anthrax vaccine program in the summer of 2001, the sudden appearance of the anthrax letters after the September 11, 2001 attacks breathed new life into the vaccine program and turned Bioport’s fortunes around. DHHS Secretary Tommy Thompson announced in November 2001 that the anthrax vaccine plant would finally receive an FDA approval and begin production. At the end of January 2002 that is what happened.
But that was not the end of Bioport’s problems. Soldiers challenged the legality of the vaccine’s license in federal court. It was learned that while there had been efficacy testing of an earlier version of the vaccine, the current vaccine formulation had never undergone either efficacy or safety testing in a clinical trial. Aware of this major omission, FDA had withheld the issuing of a “final rule and order” for the anthrax vaccine for over thirty years.
The soldiers prevailed on the legal issues, and First District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan rescinded the vaccine license in 2004, based on the company’s failure to prove efficacy or meet basic FDA standards for licensure.
Unwilling to bow to judicial authority, the Defense Department rolled out a backup plan. A new regulatory authority had just been created, the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). An EUA was slapped on the unlicensed anthrax vaccine, and DOD quickly restarted its mandatory vaccinations. (There was no emergency: the issuing of an EUA required only the potential for an emergency.)
The attorneys for the soldiers took the case back to court, and Judge Sullivan ruled that even if an experimental medical product received an EUA, it was still investigational and could not be mandated. The law required that EUA products be offered with informed consent. To receive an EUA (unlicensed) product, the recipient must be apprised of the risks and benefits of the product, be informed of alternatives to the product, and no coercion in any form could be applied. Ergo, no mandate.
FDA waited about 18 months, and then issued a full license for Bioport’s anthrax vaccine, although there were still no efficacy data. FDA instead claimed that a 1950’s era trial of a very different anthrax vaccine was sufficient for licensure, even though that trial failed to show benefit against inhalation anthrax.
When the soldiers and their attorneys challenged the licensing decision in court, the next judge ruled in favor of FDA on the basis of “deference”—meaning that FDA could ignore its own regulations when making a determination on safety and efficacy, with or without acceptable data. In 2006 mandatory vaccination restarted.
Bioport then shed its old skin in an attempt to leave its baggage behind. It renamed itself Emergent BioSolutions. Its vaccine had been renamed BioThrax.
Emergent BioSolutions (EBS) then branched out, buying other companies, primarily those making other sole source biodefense products. The military continued to mandate anthrax and (in 2003) smallpox vaccines for service-members. Eventually EBS purchased the smallpox company as well, and the cholera and typhoid vaccines used in the US.
A 2010 report on Emergent BioSolutions, written by Scott Lilly for the Center for American Progress, was titled, “Getting Rich off Uncle Sucker.” It revealed 300% profit margins, unique for a government contractor.
The company’s business plan was to rely on insiders to sell sole source biodefense products to the US government, most of which were stockpiled and never used–inking contracts with multiple federal agencies, including CDC, DOD, NIAID, the State Department, ASPR and BARDA.
In 2012 EBS got one of three DHHS contracts to house a so-called Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (CIADM) that could be used to produce pandemic or biodefense products in the event of emergencies. With this grant EBS purchased and expanded what became its Bayview factory in Baltimore. The CIADM contract essentially guaranteed Emergent a big role in any future pandemic response.
Emergent acquired the maker of Narcan nasal spray, the opioid overdose antidote. Soon FDA began recommending to prescribers that they write a Narcan script whenever they wrote a narcotic script, just in case. States started buying large quantities for free distribution. Sales rose 600% after EBS bought the company.
Under the Trump administration, retired Air Force Colonel, physician and biodefense consultant Robert Kadlec was appointed to the position of Assistant Secretary of DHHS for Preparedness and Emergency Response (aka ASPR). Kadlec had also been a consultant and business partner of EBS’ founder and chairman Fuad el-Hibri. Kadlec had omitted this information from the required disclosures for Senate confirmation. Once confirmed as Assistant Secretary, Kadlec was able to transfer responsibility for the National Strategic Stockpile (containing the US stockpiles of pandemic remedies, masks and equipment) from the CDC to his own agency. Kadlec then gave multiple sweetheart deals to EBS, until the value of EBS’ contracts with ASPR exceeded those of every other contractor.
ASPR Kadlec was blamed for cancelling a federal contract to make N95 masks while buying more and more anthrax and smallpox vaccines, pre-Covid.
Covid-19 presented a huge opportunity for Emergent BioSolutions. EBS received $628 million from DHHS to retool its CIADM factory. It inked additional contracts with the Astra-Zeneca, Johnson and Johnson, Novavax, Providence Therapeutics and VaxArt companies to provide bulk manufacturing of their vaccines in its Baltimore facilities. Altogether its pandemic contracts were worth about $1.5 Billion. It was slated to manufacture 9 separate medical products to address Covid-19, all designed by other companies.
But there were serious potential problems.
While it had a storied Board of former federal officials, Emergent BioSolutions had never brought a single product to market. Its expertise was in contracting and acquisitions, not production. It had a history of production failures, and had demanded that the federal government bail the company out, or else the sole source products the company provided would become unavailable. Some of this was detailed in the Congressional report Unproven Force Protection. Entering the pandemic, EBS was still making the same mistakes it had been guilty of twenty years earlier:
- EBS sold and continues to sell nerve gas auto-injectors to federal agencies which have been defective and are not licensed. According to the law, these products can neither be produced in the US nor sold here. Instead, Emergent manufactures them in Germany and restricts its sales to US embassies overseas.
- In July 2020, the Soligenix company requested arbitration against Emergent BioSolutions, claiming a loss of $19 million, because EBS had manufactured its experimental ricin vaccine, used in a human trial, which failed to meet specifications.
EBS did not have an active workforce in Baltimore. On September 30, EBS held an online job fair which it titled “Warp Speed Careers Event.” The event sought to recruit 300 employees. Yet EBS had begun inking vaccine contracts 5 months earlier, and could have hired and trained a workforce that was ready to go when FDA gave it the go-ahead. Instead, doing things on the cheap, EBS hired late, failed to provide adequate training to its employees, and experienced a spectacular series of production failures. Many millions of doses of its Johnson and Johnson and its Astra-Zeneca Covid vaccines had to be dumped. J and J missed its 20 million dose quota for the end of March, and FDA, despite repeated inspections, would not give the plant an authorization so its products could be used.
Despite this, somehow millions of doses produced in the unauthorized plant were shipped to Canada, the European Union, South Africa and Mexico. The EU, at least, used the product. How did that occur? We don’t know. Did any get distributed in the US? We can’t be sure none did.
On April 4, 2021, EBS announced it would receive an additional $23 million from DHHS for new equipment to use in the manufacture of Johnson and Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine.
As of last week, EBS was facing another lawsuit from its shareholders, and its stock price had fallen to $60 from the peak on February 12 of $125 per share. However, Emergent CEO Robert Kramer exercised his stock options in January and February, near the stock’s peak, earning himself over $7 million dollars in profit.
In summary, EBS, despite considerable manufacturing shortcomings, has been extremely successful at obtaining government contracts and earning huge profits. But its products have repeatedly been unreliable. The company has managed to turn failures into success, especially when its products, like civilian stockpiles of anthrax and smallpox vaccine, and nerve gas auto-injectors, are stockpiled but not used.
The public has only gradually been learning that the vaccines it thought were being produced by huge Pharma companies Astra-Zeneca and Johnson and Johnson were in fact being manufactured by the anthrax vaccine company, Emergent BioSolutions. How did it come to pass that the federal government, and these established pharmaceutical companies, bet the farm on EBS’ production of Covid-19 vaccines?
Steven Crowder gives YouTube legal notice, intends to seek injunction against deplatforming
By Tom Parker | Reclaim the Net | May 17, 2021
Comedian Steven Crowder has announced that last Thursday (May 14, 2021), his company, Louder with Crowder LLC, gave a legal notice to YouTube announcing its intent to file a lawsuit and seek an injunction to stop YouTube deplatforming his channel.
Crowder has one of the most popular conservative channels on YouTube with more than five million subscribers. However, over the last few months, YouTube has removed his videos, demonetized his channel, and most recently, suspended him from uploading or live streaming for two weeks.
“Once we hit the new year and a new president ascended, the landscape of social media shifted in favor of the left,” Louder with Crowder’s editor at large, Courtney Kirchoff, noted in a blog post announcing the legal action against YouTube. “Democrats took control of the presidency and now have control of both houses of Congress. As such, YouTube and other Big Tech platforms feel emboldened, with very few lawmakers standing in their way.”
In a video about the legal action they plan to take against YouTube, Crowder and his lawyer Bill Richmond discussed how the channel is now just one strike away from being deleted after receiving a warning strike and two hard strikes this year.
The warning strike was issued on a coronavirus lockdown anniversary video where someone in the studio said “young children are more likely to die of the flu than COVID.”
The statement reflects Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics but YouTube deemed the video to be in violation of its “medical misinformation” policy.
“It is tantamount to saying that no conservatives or people who cite the CDC and believe that relevant information like young children have a different immune response to COVID than the standard flu, and it is significantly less lethal to young people but more lethal to old people, which we’ve always talked about, YouTube is saying anyone with that point of view is not welcome on this channel, on this platform, I guess,” Crowder said when discussing this warning strike.
The first hard strike was issued on a March 29 video where Crowder provided examples of a vote being cast from a fake address in Nevada in 2020. YouTube deemed this to be “content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.”
Crowder said he didn’t make any such claims and described this first strike as “investigative journalism being a violation of the policy if someone doesn’t like it.”
The second hard strike was issued on a May 10 video where Crowder described the Columbus police shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant as “an example of a justified police shooting” that was “necessary to save the life of someone who is in the process of being stabbed.”
According to YouTube, this video violated its rules around “content reveling in or mocking the death or serious injury of an identifiable individual.”
Crowder noted that Big Tech platforms allowed posts that were favorable to Bryant and critical of the police officer to remain up. But when he challenged the criticism of the police officer and argued that the shooting was justified because she had a knife in her hand and was about to swing at another girl, his video was removed and he was suspended.
“That means that the lie is allowed and the truth is not because the truth is simply from a point of view which is impermissible,” Crowder said.
“It’s an incredible indictment of how YouTube enforces its policies and, and really the reason why we’ve had to give the notice, serve the notice of moving for an injunction, to prevent the deplatforming,” Richmond added.
Richmond continued by discussing how he and Crowder’s team are concerned about YouTube actively looking for violations that aren’t actually violations and explained that this is why they’ve moved forward with this injunctive notice which will request immediate relief to protect the existence of Crowder’s YouTube channel.
“This is something that concerns every person who values any type of democracy,” Richmond added. “What they’re saying is ‘these ideas are so dangerous that we can’t address them and rebut them, we can’t criticize them, we just have to extinguish the opinions entirely, we have to eradicate these opinions from the planet because we can’t deal with them.’ But the reality when everyone looks at this is, this is a comedy show that takes on important issues. Commentary, politics, issues that are facing everyone in every part of the nation in the world. And we have to be able to talk about them.”
We Won! Trader Joe’s was the First Crack in the Armor
By Allan Stevo | Lew Rockwell | May 17, 2021
For more than a year, Trader Joe’s has been a particularly troubling store for some readers of these pages.
Trader Joe’s has some excellent quality products at a consumer friendly price with a quirky corporate style. What’s not to like about such a place?
When corona communism was implemented after the Ides of March 2020, we saw exactly what was not to like about such a place.
Trader Joe’s became one of many private companies that enforced the terrible one-sized-fits-all health mandates, including the CDC’s April 3, 2020, face mask order, the single most powerful tool of 2020.
The very concept of private property is further perverted when such behavior takes place as private companies enforce illegitimate government edict.
It didn’t stop there. Through participation in trade organizations, the executives of Trader Joe’s and other companies, called for even more stringent across-the-board policies from government. They didn’t just enable, they didn’t just enforce, they didn’t just encourage, they demanded even more tyranny!
To the credit of Trader Joe’s, their corporate policy always left room for individual exemptions among customers. However, in practice, this was very difficult to invoke. The Trader Joe’s horror stories are legion, and some of the worst of the past year.
In some locations, a customer practically had to have a law degree to get their face mask exemption policy honored.
The easy breezy decentralized corporate style of Trader Joe’s quickly devolved to utter tyrrany as managers were more likely to follow the directives of the CNN chyron than the actual corporate policy.
That once friendly “crew member” who always gave you an extra big smile at checkout was suddenly a mask Nazi of the tallest order.
I mean it when I say “Nazi.” A defining characteristic of nazism was the fusion of state and corporate power. Nazis needed corporate cooperation for their efforts to take hold, just as the corona communists of the Ides of March 2020 did.
Executives at Trader Joe’s overwhelmingly looked the other way as stores enacted the most preposterous policies.
Example: an employee polling other customers on whether a medically exempt customer looked like someone who should be medically exempt from a mask and then inciting customers to corner and angrily confront the unmasked shopper about that.
This kind of sick behavior was happening to grandmothers! Who could possibly justify an employee cornering a shopper in the spices section and gathering together an angry mob of customers?
Regional Vice Presidents encouraged the tyranny further, giving full support to such behavior and being so full of hubris as to actually put such support in writing. That level of hubris speaks volumes about an organization in a way little else can. There was utter disconnect from reality and total contempt for anyone who disagreed. As is so often true, pride precedes a fall.
On April 29, 2021, I sent a strongly worded letter on this topic of their rampant abuse of costumers to Trader Joe’s CEO Daniel Bane.
Just to make sure the letter was not ignored, my team and I followed up that letter with a press release further pointing to Trader Joe’s illegal and unethical discrimination.
It is the job of corporate communications departments to take note of the chatter about their company in the media and online. In such an environment, press releases can be a helpful exclamation point on a sentence that needs to be spoken with emphasis: Don’t tread on us.
If done right, both the CEOs office and the communications team end up going frantically through the company figuring out how to address those concerns.
This particular press release was picked up and reprinted by at least 109 media sources that day. The Trader Joe’s communications team probably noticed.
Beginning the very next day, the toughest Trader Joe’s stores in the country stopped their ridiculous level of radical enforcement. More than a year’s worth of the most unceasing awful behavior toward customers literally stopped overnight.
It was so rampant that I used to receive several complaints about Trader Joe’s some weeks. As of April 30, more than two weeks ago, I have not received a single new complaint. This was not only what I was observing through correspondences, but my team and I also have folks patrolling the world as health freedom inspectors keeping an eye on tyrannical corporate enforcement of illegitimate government policy. These health freedom inspectors reported similar results. Additionally, I myself am constantly out testing techniques and probing for cracks in the system. I firsthand observed an absolute night and day shift on April 30, repeatedly confirmed in the days thereafter.
I think we had their attention.
In the days ahead, I encouraged people to reach out to the Trader Joe’s CEO at his personal email address as follow up to the letter.
Hundreds of readers of these pages did that. This activity peaked with some 300 emails being sent to the CEO on a single day, Thursday, May 13, 2021.
I was CC’d or BCC’d on about a hundred of them that day.
This wasn’t sent to info@traderjoes.com. This was sent to the CEO. 300 emails to a single inbox can be hard to ignore.
The CDC adjusted their guidance on Thursday as well. Trader Joe’s didn’t leap to the lead on that, sticking their necks out because of the CDC guidance. Based on anecdotal accounts, they had a lot of pressure from employees and customers alike. The lawsuits, the complaints, the pushback, the pressure means a lot. I’ve never worked at a company where a single email that was written right and directed to the right inbox at the right time could not move an entire company to immediate action.
Just one email can do that. Anyone who wants to deny that, has never seen that happen or has some agenda by which they seek to discourage you. One, well targeted email can make a difference. Ten can as well. A hundred can. A thousand can. I don’t pretend to know what happened behind the scenes, but I know that our emails had the ability to shape policy at several dozen companies this Friday and my guess is that they did. They may have even helped to shape policy at the CDC, a much harder entity to motivate than a private business. Having seen letters like that cross desks, both governmental and private, I know how very impactful they can be.
What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall.
The next morning, on Friday, May 14, 2021, Trader Joe’s publicly altered their policy.
They dropped all face mask mandates for customers.
To save face, they cited a CDC guidance from the previous day about vaccines and face masks. They claimed that they would only allow entrance to unmasked customers who had been vaccinated, a detail that they publicly have stated they will not be checking for.
They crumbled.
I knew they were weak, these tyrants, I knew these orders were getting ready to crumble, but I didn’t realize exactly how weak they were. They are very weak and the proper response to weakness from an enemy of freedom is to fight all the harder, until they look back at 2020 and say “I’m never gonna try that again.”
Despite the corporate spin and gobbledygook, the truth of the matter is this:
On May 14, 2021, you and I, who have long been fighting this in ways both big and small, won a decisive victory, as we took down the Trader Joe’s face mask order. We left Trader Joe’s with no other alternative. We made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Dozens of companies immediately followed.
This is a huge victory, and it cannot stop here.
Trader Joe’s plans to leave their employees masked. They also plan to keep their “only the vaccinated can be unmasked policy” in place on paper. If allowed to remain in place, it will be only a matter of time before it returns with a vengeance. The next time it is enforced, we shouldn’t expect it to be as generous and easy to defeat as it was this time.
Therefore, we must stop the forced masking of Trader Joe’s employees and we must remove all mention of any government-advised health mandate as a condition of entering a business.
It is not the place of government to place health mandates on us, and it is certainly not the right of corporations to enforce such illegitimate abuses of government power on us. It is illegitimate abuse of government power no matter who enforces it: your neighbor, your grocer, your child’s school, your mailman, or your own mother.
We must truly redouble our efforts.
Time is of the essence. We have a very short window of opportunity to defeat these one-size-fits-all health mandates.
The annual flu season will begin in late-September. Respiratory virus related illnesses and deaths will increase and the fear campaign will intensify. Standard deaths that take place every year from respiratory viruses will be blamed on something scary. “Vaccine” deaths will be blamed on something scary and will certainly not be blamed on vaccines. We will have quite a fight on our hands.
If these one-size-fits-all approaches are still with us and normalized in September 2021, there will be no stopping them. They will be with us a very long time and we really will have entered the new normal. We must return society to normal by the end of this summer, or we risk losing society as we once knew it.
We must roll society back far before 2019, to regain freedoms we were once certain were gone forever, and we must let no vestige of 2020 remain.
That is the work that is ahead of us. That is the work we need accomplished immediately and by September 2021 at the latest, for if we do not, we will go into a far more pernicious battle for our civilization and will be doing so with the forces of freedom so grossly unprepared. That is something we cannot let happen.
I need you to do one thing right now to help me accomplish that, I need you to sign up at RealStevo.com, and I will enlist you in helping me take down these orders. In signing up, you will be joining an army of activists. The army of activists who read my work, who were so responsive, and who hit Trader Joe’s hard and repeatedly made such a difference in shifting this policy. We have much more work ahead of us.
Then I need you to share this article.
With literally 20 minutes of work a day from a dedicated minority, taking targeted action, we can take down these orders.
If you need pointers on how not to wear a mask ever again read my bestselling “Face Masks in One Lesson.” If you would like similar writing free of charge, check out my LewRockwell.com writing on the topic, but really what it comes down to is insisting in your own life that you will live life by a higher standard: that is what saying “No!” to the mask amounts to.
We can do this.
We are winning.
They are desperate.
Victory is at hand.
And now we must close on our victory.
If you’re a closer I need you.
Who is with me?
Covid scaremongering – the government’s £1bn blitz
By Frederick Edward | Conservative Woman | May 17, 2021
WHOEVER controls the flow of information controls the narrative. I recently looked at the government’s reliance on polling through partners such as YouGov. Today I return to the role of the wider media.
A few months ago I wrote about the government’s Covid-related advertising expenditure. In late spring 2020, all Covid-19 media campaigns were centralised into the Cabinet Office, Michael Gove’s sprawling 8,000-plus strong department. By the end of the year, HM Government had become the country’s largest spender for media advertising. My estimate was a total government outlay on advertising for Covid-related purposes in 2020 of approximately £240million.
For media outlets facing a collapse in advertising revenue because of the closure of the economy, the government spending was a lifeline. Whether the Fourth Estate could objectively report on the government’s handling of the virus whilst simultaneously receiving copious funding from that same government was highly debatable.
Since my article in February, more data has come to light. The Cabinet Office has continued spending heavily on Covid media campaigns, mainly through its media buying partner Manning Gottlieb, laying out just over £87million in the first three months of 2021. This brings its Covid advertising spend to more than £280million between April 2020 and March 2021.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus scare, the Cabinet Office’s outlay on Covid media campaigns has increased steadily, with Q1 21’s figure (£87million) being more than double the amount spent in Q2 20 (£42.6million), and up significantly on both Q3 20 (£71.3million) and Q4 20 (£79.7million). (As noted, it was in Q2 20 that the Cabinet Office began centralising Covid-related media programmes.)
Approximately 88 per cent of the Cabinet Office’s advertising spend is done through Manning Gottlieb, with whom the government has had a close working relationship since awarding the company a £800million media buying services contract in October 2018.
At that time Alex Aiken, Executive Director for Government Communications, stated that the government’s communications team sees such media endeavours as an important way to counter ‘disinformation’ and ‘fake news’. As anyone with a decent grasp of history will know, it is of course governments who are the regular purveyors of truth and honesty: the Soviet Union’s Pravda (translating as ‘truth’) being a helpful example of such services rendered to the public by the benevolent state.
However, this is only part of the story. After this large contract, Manning Gottlieb were awarded a further three contracts specifically with the Cabinet Office.
The first of these was in November 2018 at a value of £183million: the primary focus of this appears to have been for media campaigns during the transition period following Britain’s exit from the European Union. Nevertheless, with an end date of 31 May 2022, a proportion of these resources were funnelled into Covid-19 media campaigns.
Subsequently, a £119million contract was signed (effective March 2020) purely for the provision of media buying services for Covid-19 related campaigns. This contract was later extended – until either March or August 2021 (the government’s website is unclear) – by a further £229million, bringing this contract to a total value of £348million.
A third contract, effective 1 April 2021, was signed for the same purpose, Covid-19 media campaigns. This contract is extendable until 21 May 2022 and has a maximum value of £320million. Whether it will be expanded in a similar fashion to the previous contract signed with Manning Gottlieb remains to be seen.
Taken together, the three contracts have a value of £851million. As noted, some of this figure was spent before the pandemic on information campaigns surrounding Brexit. Nevertheless, over the last two quarters Covid advertising spending has outweighed Brexit by a factor of about 4:1. To this sum should be added spending from bodies such as Public Health England before the Cabinet Office’s centralisation efforts, which appears to be in the region of £15million, a figure smaller than I previously estimated.
That said, if the most recent contract with Manning Gottlieb was extended in the same way as the previous one (by an additional £229million), there is no reason why the Cabinet Office’s Covid advertising spend could not hit a total of £1billion over the next year to year-and-a-half.
To put such a sum in perspective, £1billion would buy two years’ supply of vitamin D tablets for the entire UK population. To use a more hackneyed analogy, it would pay the starting salary for more than 40,000 nurses in Our NHS.
One element that remains unknown, however, is how much Manning Gottlieb are paid for these services, since their fees are redacted on the Crown Commercial Service’s website. [p.97]
With a pandemic that appears all but finished – oh, but for an entirely unpredictable ‘Indian variant’ – one wonders what the government will do with hundreds of millions of pounds of advertising through to late May next year. One can only presume that it will be used to browbeat the public into accepting a vaccine for which the majority have no need, or for the increasingly probable reimposition of further lockdowns.
The first of these prompts the question: if you are spending hundreds of millions to persuade people to get a vaccine, perhaps it is not all that necessary in the first place. Were the vaccine of an ordinary type and of indisputable value, I dare say no media campaign at all would be necessary: there is little more than their own health that people care about.
That contracts are projected to last at least another year is indeed worrying. Along with councils advertising positions for ‘Covid marshals’ until 2023, one wonders if the government already has plans for further infringements on our liberties, the timeframe for which has been built into contracts such as those as agreed with Manning Gottlieb. Given the backtracking, twisting and turning that has been displayed to date, it would not appear unlikely.
With a remit to purchase advertising across all media types, companies such as Manning Gottlieb are central to the dissemination of information in the public sphere. It remains an open question whether, while receiving central funds important to their survival, the media will be able or willing to scrutinise government policy, both in the realms of further lockdowns and of the constant bombardment of vaccine propaganda.
The track record so far shows that the vast majority of the media is both unable and unwilling to ask difficult questions surrounding the government’s handling of the pandemic. With hundreds of millions of pounds sloshing around over the next few years, don’t expect that to change any time soon.
THE NEW ABNORMAL AND THE CONFLICTED MIND OF JOE NORMIE
Computing Forever | May 13, 2021
Reality Bites Sort Of… | Thomas Sheridan | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFUsPz2b3jo
Watch: Reality Bites Sort Of… | Thomas Sheridan | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFUsPz2b3jo
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Government insider says UK Gov. plans to continue Lockdown and the Mainstream Media are in on it
THE DAILY EXPOSE • MAY 15, 2021
A Whitehall source directly linked to the Covid Response has said that the UK Government have already structured a detailed plan designed to neutralise each stage of lockdown easing, including the compliance of media outlets to help spread fear.
The Whitehall source has said that he has been “increasingly concerned” with how the Government are behaving, and that their “relationship with the truth” is now not even on nodding terms. The latest plan will involve a series of ‘crisis’ around drug supply; mutant strains; and third waves, specifically choreographed to condition the public for further lockdowns and vaccine passports.
The plan, that according to the source is designed to take us to September 27th 2021 is to be released in stages over the summer months and, according to the Whitehall source, is already ‘well underway’.
On March the 8th, the first milestone of the roadmap was implemented, with school children finally returning to class. The following day Chris Whitty gave a pre-written speech to the Commons that said schools reopening would cause another surge in the virus and ended it with “Let me be clear, many, many more people will die before this is over” the soundbite obligingly repeated on every news outlet, with BBC news having it on-loop all day.
On March the 29th, the second milestone of the roadmap was implemented. The Government said – “The evidence shows that it is safer for people to meet outdoors rather than indoors,”. This is why from the 29th March, when most schools start to break up for the Easter holidays, outdoor gatherings (including in private gardens) of either 6 people (the Rule of 6) or 2 households will also be allowed, making it easier for friends and families to meet outside.
The next day (March 30th) the AstraZeneca Vaccine was again stopped due to blood clots fears, despite the medicine’s regulator clearing it only the previous week. Whilst Boris Johnson repeated what he’d said the previous week that the mutated virus on the continent would inevitably “wash up on our shores”.
On April 19th, the third milestone saw pub gardens, and non-essential shops reopen. Followed immediately by news of a second vaccine being halted for fear it was causing blood clots and the discovery of the South African mutation said to be able to avoid them anyway.
The next milestone is due on May 17th with the Government relaxing social contact rules further and the opening of indoor venues. This will be followed by a story that the mutation is ‘more deadly than first thought’ and that young people are now also vulnerable to it, accompanied by the result of the vaccine passport trials have shown that they have a ‘positive effect on virus reduction’.
The final milestone is due on June 21st where ALL restrictions were promised to be lifted. This will not be allowed to happen. Vaccine passports / Track and Trace will be mandatory, as will masks and social distancing. The entire week of the 21st will be taken up by a third wave, which will suddenly be ‘rampant’, and this will be attributed to a new variant which they will declare is more deadly than the previous strains of Covid allegedly doing the rounds. This will be accompanied with yet more issues with vaccine supplies. Authorities will declare that one of the vaccines is effective against the deadlier strain, but a ‘problem’ with its manufacture will emerge.
The Whitehall source went on to say –
“All the measures are aimed at two things, vaccine passports and lockdowns starting next winter,
“The ultimate goal is to have the public, back in their box.
“Note that Boris is now talking down vaccine’s and bigging-up lockdowns, that wasn’t a mistake, that was all part of the plan”.
The plan also includes an ad campaign like the one seen at Christmas, the message this time will be that the pandemic isn’t over and vaccine passports are the ‘solution’.
Facebook deletes “I trust my immune system” profile photo frames under “misinformation” policy
By Christina Maas | Reclaim the Net | May 16, 2021
Facebook has a lengthy policy on what people are allowed to talk about in relation to COVID vaccines. However, as of the end of last week, the platform continued to host “pro-immune system” profile picture frames until it was contacted by CNBC News.
An analysis by CNBC News found out that there are dozens of profile picture frames promoting pro-immune system opinions. Some are using statements such as “I TRUST MY IMMUNE SYSTEM! #NOTASHOT.” Others didn’t mention the word vaccine, such as “I HAVE AN IMMUNE SYSTEM! #MedicalFreedom.”
Facebook has now deleted all of these frames.
A spokesperson for Facebook told CNBC that such frames did actually violate its policies, adding that the platform would remove frames with vaccine skeptic messages. In its policy on anti-vaccine misinformation, the platform prohibits, “promoting alternative treatments or natural immunity, celebrating those who refuse vaccination, and encouraging vaccine refusals without citing medical rationales or guidance,” and “claims that something other than COVID-19 vaccine can vaccinate you against “COVID-19.”
The spokesperson also noted that pro-vaccine frames are allowed and are trending on the platform.
“In countries where vaccines are available to most of the population, like the US and the UK, we ramped up our efforts to show people when their friends and neighbors share their support for vaccines through profile frames and stickers,” Facebook wrote in a blog post earlier this week.
Biden revokes Trump’s executive order against Big Tech censorship
By Didi Rancovic | Reclaim the Net | May 15, 2021
Four of President Donald Trump’s executive orders have been quietly reversed by the new Biden administration on Friday.
The news was announced by the White House on late Friday and those media outlets who attempted to get any further comment and clarification were out of luck at the time, as the White House remained silent.
One of the four executive orders the former president had signed was called, Preventing Online Censorship.
The executive order came along – and perhaps “prophetically” – before the unprecedented wave of online censorship in the wake of the November 2020 US elections – and the political and physical turmoil during the long weeks the US was trying to count that vote, that culminated in the Capitol Hill protests in early January – but perhaps far more reaching decision by Twitter to ban the account of a sitting president.
The order the Biden administration has now annulled originates in May 2020, when several of Trump’s tweets got labeled as “misleading.”
The executive order at the time accused Twitter of “now” selectively slapping warning labels (meant to undermine authenticity, and ease of access to these tweets) as a reflection of the social media company’s own political bias.
The executive order also mentioned Twitter at the same time turning a blind eye to perpetrators of what many at this time already saw as a Russian collusion hoax, like Adam Schiff. His tweets never got flagged for political bias, the order read.
The order meant that the commerce secretary was to submit a petition to the Federal Communications Commission over social media companies’ practices, while the U.S. attorney general was asked to consider enforcing anti-censorship states laws.
According to the EFF, Biden’s move to revoke the order of his predecessor on this issue came after a letter from Rock The Vote, Voto Latino, Common Cause, Free Press, Decoding Democracy, and the Center for Democracy & Technology, who said the order was “a drastic assault on free speech designed to punish online platforms that fact-checked President Trump.”
These organizations also filed lawsuits against the Trump executive order – a case that now seems to be resolved with the Biden administration’s move.
The End of The Mask
By Kip Hansen | Watts Up With That? | May 15, 2021
If there was ever a surer example of the perversion of the Power of Experts than the Covid Mask Mania, I am unaware of it. I doubt that there is a single self-aware person in the world that does not know what the Covid Mask Mania means, even most of those who have been stanch supporters and promoters of The Mask are aware that it is, in fact, a product of a world-wide Mass Hysteria that grew out of the unknowns surrounding the outbreak of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China in late 2019.
Those of you who still have the ability to remember the recent past, despite endless propaganda aimed at making you forget, the original CDC Guidance on Face Masks for Covid-19 was this:
Wear a facemask if you are sick
If you are sick: You should wear a facemask when you are around other people (e.g., sharing a room or vehicle) and before you enter a healthcare provider’s office. If you are not able to wear a facemask (for example, because it causes trouble breathing), then you should do your best to cover your coughs and sneezes, and people who are caring for you should wear a facemask if they enter your room. Learn what to do if you are sick.
If you are NOT sick: You do not need to wear a facemask unless you are caring for someone who is sick (and they are not able to wear a facemask). Facemasks may be in short supply and they should be saved for caregivers.[ source CDC website dated 28 March 2020 via WayBack Machine ]
The Famous Fauci, back when he was just Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and not yet a global media star – let me be clear, we are talking about when Dr. Anthony Fauci was the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases of all kinds – he said the following in a televised interview on March 8, 2020:
[ Quoting the opinion checking website, FactCheck.org which found that history requires a revision in order to comply with “latest guidelines” in its current coverage here. ]
Here’s what Fauci told Dr. Jon LaPook, chief medical correspondent for CBS News, in the clip circulating on social media:
LaPook, March 8: There’s a lot of confusion among people, and misinformation, surrounding face masks. Can you discuss that?
Fauci: The masks are important for someone who’s infected to prevent them from infecting someone else… Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.
LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.
Fauci: … There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.
LaPook: And can you get some schmutz, sort of staying inside there?
Fauci: Of course, of course. But, when you think masks, you should think of health care providers needing them and people who are ill. The people who, when you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks — that’s fine, that’s fine. I’m not against it. If you want to do it, that’s fine.
LaPook: But it can lead to a shortage of masks?
Fauci: Exactly, that’s the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it.”
Other than adding a link to the definition of schmutz – I have not highlighted any of Faucci’s statement. I don’t need to catch Fauci out in anything because Fauci was absolutely scientifically correct in everything he said. In this, he totally depended on the existing science on the prevention of the transmission of coronavirus illnesses. And the science on the topic has not changed – if anything, it has been reinforced over and over throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yet, FactOpinionCheck.org decided that Fauci, the USA’s leading expert on Infectious Diseases and their transmission, was not expert enough – so they check his knowledge against the opinion of the Director of the CDC? No…. against the opinion of Dr. Dean Winslow, a well-known infectious disease physician at Stanford (University) Health Care who told FactOpinionCheck.org:
“In early March, so few patients had been tested that public health officials didn’t yet know that people could spread the virus without showing symptoms, said Winslow.
“That was just not known at that point.”
There was no new science that suddenly made masks effective for the general public but something maybe about Covid-19.
And what does that science really say? “… there’s little scientific evidence that the various face coverings we call ‘masks’ do much if anything to stop the spread of the coronavirus.” [ source ] There are just too many peer-reviewed, high-powered, definitive studies and meta-analyses to list here. The Big List of such studies is in the book: “The Price of Panic. . . .” by Jay W. Richards, Douglas Axe, and William Briggs.
It is, of course, as in all things that deal with the political interference in things that should depend on strict empirical science, worse than that.
In April 2020, the Famous Fauci said
“So, we want to make sure that this issue of having a broader community approach towards putting on a facial covering doesn’t, in fact, get in the way of the primary purpose of masks.
[ which was, he had just explained: “masks that are most appropriately used and necessary for the front-line health care workers, who do need it for the clear and present danger that they find themselves in when they are taking care of people who are actually sick with coronavirus disease.” ]
And in that regard, that’s why what we’re talking about are things that may not necessarily need to be a classical mask, but could be some sort of facial covering.
You know, we’re pretty good in making things in a way that spontaneously becomes effective just because of your own creativity.”
[ source – PBS interview here. ]
Once the CDC changed it’s tune on masks, demanding that The Mask be worn at all times under almost all circumstances, the rhetoric ramped up not only demanding that everyone everywhere wear masks, but accusing those who fail or refuse to wear masks of “killing their grandmothers” (Andrew Cuomo – Governor of New York – a charge he repeats in the present about those who don’t get vaccinated).
In a mass-hysteria-type reaction, everyone who could find a public megaphone jumped on the bandwagon, making wilder and wilder public statements about the deadly-serious importance of wearing masks:
“Everyone should wear a mask,” Blumberg said. “People who say ‘I don’t believe masks work’ are ignoring scientific evidence. It’s not a belief system. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t believe in gravity.’
“People who don’t wear a mask increase the risk of transmission to everyone, not just the people they come into contact with,” he said. “It’s all the people those people will have contact with. You’re being an irresponsible member of the community if you’re not wearing a mask.” [ source ]
Wearing a mask became a virtue signaling bellweather: “I’m a good person, a patriot, a saint….” Because I wear a mask, even in my own home or when alone in my car.
And now?
In an unexpected change of heart (must have been as there has been no new science or breakthrough understanding), the CDC has said:
Vaccinated Americans May Go Without Masks in Most Places, Federal Officials Say
Fully vaccinated people do not have to wear masks or maintain social distance indoors or outdoors, with some exceptions, the C.D.C. advised. [ source ]
Directly from the CDC:
“Update that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance
Update that fully vaccinated people can refrain from testing following a known exposure unless they are residents or employees of a correctional or detention facility or a homeless shelter”
[ source: CDC here 13 May 2021 ]
End BQ
What does this mean for the real world?
Up to 13 May 2021, US News and World Report list the following U.S. states as having NO Mask Mandate previous-to-CDC-announcement:
Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | Florida | Georgia | Idaho | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Louisiana | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | New Hampshire | North Dakota | Oklahoma | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Wisconsin | Wyoming | Northern Mariana Islands (an unincorporated territory and commonwealth of the U.S.)
That’s 26 out of 50 states with no mandate before the new CDC guidelines.
So far today:
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear says the state’s mask mandate will end June 11, 2021. On that date, the Bluegrass State will also return to 100% capacity at venues and events. [ source ]
Minnesota — Following New CDC Guidance, Governor Walz Announces End to Statewide Face Covering Requirement — Minnesota will align with CDC guidance and recommend unvaccinated Minnesotans continue to wear face coverings indoors [ source ]
North Carolina has removed its indoor mask mandate for most settings and lifted all mass gathering and social distancing limits. This step forward is effective immediately and follows yesterday’s guidance from the CDC. [ source ]
Rhode Island — paraphrasing “fully vaccinated people, as of this coming Tuesday, will no longer need to wear masks or social distance”. [ source ]
Michigan – paraphrasing “everyone who is two weeks out from their second vaccine dose can go without a mask”. [ source ]
Oregon – “Starting today, Oregon will be following this guidance, which only applies to fully-vaccinated individuals. That means Oregonians who are fully-vaccinated no longer need to wear masks or social distance in most public spaces.” [ source ]
Florida — “Floridians should not be penalized for rejecting the overreach of local authorities through unnecessary mask mandates,” [Governor] DeSantis wrote on Twitter Thursday about his decision to pardon the Carnevales. [ who had been arrested for failing to require masks and social distancing at their business, a gym.]” “The governor confirmed his intentions to pardon people at a press conference Thursday in Ormond Beach, Florida, saying he would “remit” the remaining outstanding fines that have been issued against people at the state’s next clemency meeting.” [ source ]
Connecticut — Masks Not Required Indoors For Fully Vaccinated People in Connecticut Starting May 19: Governor [ source ]
Illinois – “Gov. J.B. Pritzker says that he will revise executive orders to sync up with new CDC guidelines on mask wearing by vaccinated individuals in indoor and outdoor spaces.” [ source ]
Nevada – “On May 3, Gov. Steve Sisolak signed an emergency directive updating mask and face covering requirements for the state to align with the CDC’s recommendations, including any subsequent guidance. As a result, the new guidance from the federal agency became effective immediately, according to a news release from the state.” [ source ]
Pennsylvania – “In short, the Health Department says it is following the CDC’s lead. That means Pennsylvanians who are fully vaccinated no longer have to wear masks outdoors or indoors except in certain situations.“ [ source ]
Washington – “Masks off: Fully vaccinated people can shed masks in Washington, [Washington Governor] Inslee announces following new CDC rules” [ source ]
New York – “Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New York State will adopt the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new guidance on mask use for fully vaccinated people. The guidelines state that fully vaccinated people, defined as two or more weeks after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, no longer need to wear masks outdoors, except in certain crowded settings and venues.” [ source ]
Virginia – “Governor Ralph Northam today lifted Virginia’s universal indoor mask mandate to align with new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Governor Northam also announced that Virginia will ease all distancing and capacity restrictions on Friday, May 28, two weeks earlier than planned. The updates to Virginia’s mask policy …. will become effective at midnight tonight along with previously announced changes to mitigation measures.” [ source ]
Colorado – “Coloradans who are fully vaccinated are no longer required to wear masks, and people who aren’t vaccinated are only required to wear them in limited settings, Gov. Jared Polis said Friday.” [ source ]
Delaware – “Governor John Carney on Friday announced that – effective May 21 – the State of Delaware will lift its requirement that Delawareans and visitors must wear face coverings anytime they are indoors with others outside their household. Delawareans should instead follow masking guidance issued on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for all indoor and outdoor activities.” [ source ]
West Virginia – “West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced that he is signing an executive order to modify the face covering requirement during a press conference on Friday. The governor says West Virginia will immediately begin following the updated CDC guidance for those who are fully vaccinated. The facial covering requirement will still apply to those who have not been vaccinated until June 20.” [ source ]
The Governors of the states (in the United States) are announcing allegiance to the CDC so quickly that I literally cannot keep up with adding them in above as I write this column.
How long do you think the other governors, who have not yet fallen into line with the new (and very welcome) diktat from the CDC, can delay? Does anyone think that citizens of one state seeing freedom restored in the neighboring state will not demand the same freedom?
I think that reasonable people will realize that the mask mandate was unnecessary from the beginning — especially as The Science from The Epidemiologists has been telling them all to expect to have to wear masks for at least another six months, a year longer, two years, or maybe forever. In a poll conducted by the NY Timesthat was completed just 4 days ago, 81% of professional epidemiologists expected mask mandates to continue for at least 1 more year. 52% expected masking to last for more than a year. The minimum expected was “a few more months”. Up until yesterday, Epidemiologists represented The Science…. no longer, they have been kicked to the curb.
In my opinion, this new CDC Guideline breaks the back of the oppressive Covid-19 Panic Power Grab by presidents, governors, city councils and mayors who have reveled in their free pass to rule by executive order under emergency powers without oversight by elected law makers.
There will be no going back, I don’t think the people will stand for it, at least not in the United States.
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Who Runs Our World?
Netanyahu addresses US Congress
By Richard Hugus | January 4, 2019
Our world is run by oligarchs, the holders of vast wealth from monopolies in banking, resource extraction, manufacturing, and technology. Oligarchs have such power that most of the world doesn’t even know of their influence over our lives. Their overall agenda is global power — a world government, run by them — to be achieved through planned steps of social engineering. The oligarchs remain in the background and have heads of state and entire governments acting in their service. Presidents and prime ministers are their puppets. Bureaucrats and politicians are their factotums.
Who are politicians? Politicians are people who work for the powerful while pretending to represent the people who voted for them. This double-dealing involves a lot of lying, so successful politicians must be good at it. It’s not an easy job to make the insane agenda of the powerful seem reasonable. Politicians can’t reveal this agenda because it almost always goes against the interests of their constituents, so they become adept at sophistry, mystification, and the appearance of authority. For example, wars for Israel have been part of the agenda of the powerful for years. Since 2001, wars for Israel have been sold as “the war on terror” and lots of lies had to be made up as to why the war on terror was a real thing. The visible faces promoting the war on terror were neoconservatives in the US, almost all of whom were advocates for Israel, or Zionists. Zionists are not the only members of the oligarchy, but they seem to be its lead actors. ... continue
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