How Politicians Make Millions Off Our Corrupt Political System
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | September 16, 2021
Politicians receive very comfortable salaries. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, for instance, earns $223,500 a year, making her the third-highest-paid elected official in the U.S. Yet, since 2004, her wealth has increased from $41 million to nearly $115 million, according to OpenSecrets, which began tracking lawmakers’ personal finances that year.
She’s not alone in her wealth. Personal financial disclosures reveal that more than half of Congress members are millionaires, with a median net worth of just over $1 million. As is often the case, however, the top 10% of the lawmakers in terms of wealth are three times richer than the bottom 90%. Pelosi comes in as number 6 on a list of the wealthiest members of the 116th Congress.
At issue isn’t the fact that politicians are multimillionaires — rather, as noted on a recent Twitter thread by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, it’s how they made their millions:
“If you think it’s fine and normal that the Speaker of the House’s personal wealth tripled to $115 million ever since financial disclosures were required (2004), that’s fine, but the issue is how that money was made. It was from companies directly affected by her actions.”
Politicians get rich from ‘lucky’ stock trading
In the last two years, nearly 75% of Pelosi’s stock trades have involved Big Tech stocks, totaling over $33 million in trading. “That has happened as major legislation is pending before the House, controlled by the committees Pelosi oversees, which could radically reshape the industry and laws that govern the very companies in which she and her husband most aggressively trade,” Greenwald wrote in a blog.
Pelosi’s most traded company was Apple, accounting for 17.7% of her trades. But unlike most people buying and selling Apple stock, Pelosi had the privilege of speaking privately with Apple CEO Tim Cook on at least one occasion to discuss the company’s standing and how it could be affected by pending bills relating to Silicon Valley reforms.
The call in question occurred just days after antitrust reform legislation was introduced. Big Tech pushed back, and Cook called Pelosi directly to voice his concerns. Pelosi, according to The New York Times, then asked him which measures he specifically objected to. Greenwald reported on the blatant conflict of interest:
“Sources who refused to be identified tried to convince the Times’ reporters that ‘Ms. Pelosi pushed back on Mr. Cook’s concerns about the bills.’ But in doing so, they confirmed the rather crucial fact that Pelosi was having personal, private conversations with the CEO of a company in which she and her husband were heavily invested and off of which they were making millions of dollars in personal wealth.
“And Pelosi, according to the report, asked Cook what changes were needed to avoid harming Apple and other Silicon Valley giants.”
Trading stocks in companies affected by pending legislation
Greenwald also revealed that Pelosi’s five most-traded stocks in the last two years — Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Google — were those that stood to be most affected by pending legislation, and not just any legislation, but legislation that she was working to negotiate and work through Congress.
Four of the companies — Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google — were directly identified by the House Antitrust Subcommittee as being monopolies, making their futures heavily dependent on the pending legislation. According to Greenwald:
“Beyond that, Google — one of the companies in which the Pelosis’ stock trades have made millions — is one of the top five donors to the House Speaker. The wealthy couple buys and sells in Google stock, making millions. She works on bills that directly affect the future trajectory of Google. And they lavish her campaign coffers with cash, a key source of her entrenched power.”
Meanwhile, Pelosi’s husband, Paul, purchased risky options in Alphabet, the parent company of Google, in February 2020, which he sold in June, netting more than $5 million in profits. The purchase was made, Greenwald wrote:
“… right before the market began plunging due to the COVID epidemic and right before the House, led by his wife, was set to introduce new legislation to regulate those same tech companies. Yet even as the prices in several of those companies plummeted, Paul Pelosi held onto them, only to sell them last June at a massive profit.”
He also cited two other “disturbing incidents” in which Paul Pelosi had impeccable timing with his investment decisions, including exercising nearly $2 million worth of Microsoft call options within two weeks of a Microsoft contract to supply the U.S. Army with augmented reality headsets. The other incident involved the purchase of about $1 million in Tesla stock after calls made prior to the government announcing incentives it would offer to promote the shift toward electric vehicles.
“In response to media inquiries,” Greenwald reported, “Pelosi denied that she is involved in or even has knowledge of her husband’s stock trading. There is, of course, no way to confirm or disprove that, but what is clear is that the vast wealth generated by those stock trades in companies Pelosi greatly affects — and about which she clearly has non-public information — directly enriches Pelosi herself.”
Suspicious COVID-related trading
Not every lawmaker had filed annual financial disclosures at the time of OpenSecrets’ latest report, including Sen. Kelly Loeffler, (R-Ga.), who has an estimated worth of over $500 million.
She and her husband, New York Stock Exchange chief executive Jeff Sprecher, came under fire for suspicious stock trades worth between $1.2 million and $3.1 million that occurred immediately after a “closed-door coronavirus briefing in late January” 2020. Among them:
- Buying stock in an online travel booking site in February 2020, then selling it four days later, just before a ban on flights from Europe was publicly announced.
- Purchasing stock in Citrix, which sells GoToMeeting teleworking software.
Loeffler denied using confidential information from her Senate duties to make a private profit but announced in April 2020 that she and her husband were liquidating their stock holdings and “moving into exchange-traded funds and mutual funds.” In other suspicious instances:
- Sen. Richard Burr, (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who receives frequent briefings about potential U.S. threats, also dumped stock, including in hotel companies, worth up to $1.7 million in late January 2020.
- “As Intel chairman,” Burr “got private briefings about coronavirus weeks ago,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (D-N.Y.), tweeted at the time. “Burr knew how bad it would be. He told the truth to his wealthy donors while assuring the public that we were fine.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-Calif.), and Sen. James Inhofe, (R-Okla.), also sold stock after Intelligence Committee briefings.
How is this legal?
Corruption runs deep in politics, with Big Tech and Big Pharma giving campaign money to politicians who in turn receive non-public information about the corporations that can be used to enrich their personal stock portfolios. The lawmakers then have influence over legislation that affects the companies in which they’re personally invested.
Politicians are supposed to be performing a public service, but once they’re out of the public eye, many go on to serve as lobbyists or work in the corporate world. This means that during their tenure, they don’t want to close doors that may help them once they’re no longer in politics.
The system is such that most politicians aren’t fighting for the public but, rather, are looking out for their own self-interest and wealth accumulation. Case in point: There were 1,502 pharmaceutical lobbyists in 2020, 63.91% of whom were former government employees.
A revolving door, in which government employees and former members of Congress take jobs with lobbying firms, is common among lobbyists, and the reverse also occurs, in which people from the private sector end up in government positions. How is this legal? As Greenwald explained, unless insider trading can be proven, this type of “lucky” trading that is building the wealth of numerous politicians will continue:
“While the trades cannot be declared illegal unless it can be proven that either Pelosi acted on non-public information — in which case it would be the felony of insider trading — the ethical stench is obvious.
“Just as was true when numerous Senators from both parties sold stocks in COVID-related industries before the pandemic began — raising questions about whether they had advance knowledge of what was coming through classified briefings — watching Nancy Pelosi’s wealth skyrocket by millions of dollars from trades in the very companies she is directly overseeing creates a sleazy appearance, to put that mildly.”
Politicians are in good company, as top health officials also cash in on stock options tied to the companies they oversee. For instance, Dr. Julie Gerberding — director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2002 until 2009, who after leaving the CDC became president of Merck’s vaccine division in January 2010 — sold half her Merck stock options for $9.11 million in January 2020.
In March 2020, a group of legislators introduced the Ban Conflicted Trading Act to “prohibit members of Congress and senior congressional staff from abusing their positions for personal financial gain through trading individual stocks and investments while in office or serving on corporate boards.”
“Members of Congress should not be allowed to buy and sell individual stock,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “We are here to serve the public, not to profiteer.” Senator Jeff Merkley, who introduced the Act to the Senate, added:
“Buying and selling stocks while making decisions that affect the stock’s value is inherently a conflict of interest. At best, it can seriously degrade public trust — as we are seeing today. At worst, it’s a blatant abuse of power.”
And now the feds are taking over the distribution of monocloncal antibodies
By Meryl Nass, MD | September 16, 2021
From the WaPo we learn there is a shortage of monoclonal antibodies, so the feds will take over distribution. Hmm. We don’t know anything about long-term side effects of monoclonals.
Monoclonal antibodies are an effective and very expensive product if used in the first week of illness–just like hydroxychloroquine, which the feds (and most states) have restricted. Will this move restrict monoclonals too? Why are the feds buying monoclonals to dole out for free but not letting us have HCQ and ivermectin? Does it have anything to do with the fact they are injected?
And of course the feds defend the move with the “equity” argument.
The Biden administration moved this week to stave off shortages of monoclonal antibodies, taking over distribution of the critical covid-19 therapy and purchasing 1.4 million additional doses…
“HHS will determine the amount of product each state and territory receives on a weekly basis,” an HHS spokesman said. “State and territorial health departments will subsequently identify sites that will receive product and how much.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe new procedures that are still being explained to communities throughout the country.
“This system will help maintain equitable distribution, both geographically and temporally, across the country, providing states and territories with consistent, fairly distributed supply over the coming weeks,” he added.
35,000 Women Report Period Problems After Covid Jab
By Richie Allen | September 16, 2021
Around 35,000 women have come forward to report irregularities with their menstrual cycle, including abnormal period pain, after they received a covid jab.
Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Dr. Victoria Dale called for an investigation. She lectures on reproductive immunology at Imperial College London.
Incredibly, The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the UK’s drug watchdog, has refused to accept that there is a link between the jabs and menstrual cycle problems.
According to the MHRA:
“The rigorous evaluation completed to date does not support a link between changes to menstrual periods and related symptoms and Covid vaccines.”
According to The Mail Online this morning:
Data on the number of period problems following vaccination was collected from the MHRA’s Yellow Card Scheme, which keeps a record of every case of a potential side effect. But this data is reliant on women coming forward, meaning nearly 35,000 figure could be the tip of the iceberg.
So-called experts were rushed onto UK TV and radio shows this morning to assure the public that even if there is a link between the jabs and period problems, the jabs do not affect fertility.
They’re lying. I am not saying that I know the jabs affect fertility. I do not know that. But equally they cannot know that the jabs do not affect fertility in males or females.
That’s because they have no long-term data on how the jabs affect fertility or anything else for that matter. I really hope this information is getting through to people. The jabs are unnecessary, untried, unsafe and the manufacturers have been indemnified against legal action from anyone injured by their products.
Shocking report exposes how US defense contractors have wasted trillions through fraud and corruption
By Kit Klarenberg | RT | September 15, 2021
The newly released ‘Profits of War’ report from Brown University has revealed in staggering detail the full extent of the corruption unleashed by Washington’s profligate defense spending during the 20-year War on Terror.
It notes that since the start of the intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001, Pentagon spending has totalled $14 trillion, with the US war budget increasing between 2002 and 2003 by more than the entire military spending of any other country. Between one-third and one-half of that total was pocketed by defense firms, which provided logistics and reconstruction, private security services and weapons – along the way, these contractors habitually engaged in “questionable or corrupt business practices,” including fraud, abuse, price-gouging and profiteering.
Wartime conditions meant standard contract processes were circumvented – bidders, bids, and subsequent delivery weren’t subject to significant oversight, so fleecing the Pentagon was extremely easy, particularly for well-connected companies with government ties.
Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman have in recent years been awarded between a quarter to a third of all Pentagon contracts. It’s surely no coincidence that four of the past five US Defense Secretaries previously worked at one of the ‘big five’.
A key focus of the report is Halliburton, which was awarded an open-ended contract without competition, to provide a wide array of support for US soldiers overseas, including setting up and managing military bases, maintaining equipment, catering, and laundry services. A 2003 internal Pentagon review found the company had dramatically overcharged for basic goods and services to the tune of tens of millions, and conducted faulty work on bases that put soldiers at risk.
In some cases, Halliburton billed Washington for services it didn’t actually provide – in 2009, it was determined the number of meals for which it charged the Pentagon was up to 36 percent greater than the true figure. In others, the company’s reckless conduct had fatal consequences. The report documents how, from 2004 to 2008, at least 18 military personnel in Halliburton-built bases across Iraq were electrocuted due to sub-par installations.
It took the death of a Green Beret who was electrocuted while showering for Congress to launch an investigation into the issue, with a resultant review revealing that the wider building was found to have “serious electrical problems” almost a year before he died, but Halliburton did nothing to remedy the situation – not least because its contract didn’t oblige the firm to “[fix] potential hazards.” The company was also found to have employed untrained or inexperienced electricians to do work at a lower rate, while billing Washington for fees provided by professionals.
Despite criminal investigations being launched by the FBI, Justice Department, and Pentagon Inspector General during the mid-00s into Halliburton’s activities in Iraq, not a single employee was ever penalized, its government contracts only multiplied thereafter, and a civil servant who’d raised numerous concerns about the company’s conduct was demoted.
The firm’s insulation from prosecution may well be explained by Vice President Dick Cheney serving as its CEO between 1995 and 2000 – he still held stock options worth millions, and had received millions of thousands of dollars more in deferred compensation for his role, when the War on Terror began.
Cheney was also instrumental in the privatization of US warfare more widely. In 1992, under his direction as Defense Secretary, the Pentagon paid the parent company of Halliburton $3.9 million to produce a report on how private contractors could provide logistics in overseas theaters of conflict.
Numerous examples of fraud, waste, and abuse in Afghanistan are also documented in ‘Profits of War’, including a US-appointed economic task force spending $43 million on a gas station that was never used, $150 million on lavish living quarters for economic advisors, and $3 million for patrol boats for the Afghan police that were also never used.
A cited Congressional investigation found a significant portion of the $2 billion in transportation contracts splurged by Washington ended up as kickbacks to warlords, police officials, or even the Taliban, sometimes as much as $1,500 per vehicle, or up to half a million dollars for each large convoy of 300 trucks. In 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated such “protection money” was one of the group’s major sources of funding.
Smaller contractors weren’t always bulletproof though. Custer Battles, a firm founded by a former Army Ranger and an ex-CIA operative in the aftermath of 9/11, was awarded a contract – its first ever – to guard Baghdad airport, and collect old Iraqi currency so it could be destroyed. The firm’s chiefs had no experience in airport security, employed security guards with no prior training, didn’t hire translators who spoke Arabic, and acquired no security dogs to detect explosives.
Its operatives also went on a shooting spree in the city of Umm Qasr, firing on civilian cars and crowded minibuses, and only stopping when local authorities and a British military unit intervened. Mercifully, no one was injured or killed – no disciplinary actions arose either, as the staffers bribed witnesses to keep quiet.
Custer’s CEO was paying himself $3 million annually, and company staff on-the-ground lived in supreme luxury, their complexes replete with swimming pools, air conditioning and wireless internet – meanwhile, US troops often stayed in tents and abandoned buildings. In 2004, a consultant to the firm came across an internal document that exposed gross overcharges, provision of fake leases and bills, and use of false front companies by Custer. The company was barred from receiving any further US government contracts, and fined a meagre $10,000.
Still, those repercussions are positively seismic when one considers no major US defense contractor has to date ever suffered significant financial or criminal consequences for their work – or lack thereof – during the War on Terror. What’s more, there’s no indication any lessons have been learned in Washington – quite the opposite, in fact. The report notes the sector has “ample tools at its disposal to influence decisions over Pentagon spending going forward.”
Foremost is a vast and extremely well-funded lobbying effort. Defense contractors have provided $285 million in campaign contributions since 2001, with a special focus on presidential candidates, Congressional leadership, and members of the armed services and appropriations committees. Moreover, these firms have spent $2.5 billion on lobbying since 9/11, each employing over 700 lobbyists annually over the past five years on average, more than one for every member of Congress.
Many of these lobbyists, the report states, have passed through a “revolving door” from jobs in Congress, the Pentagon, National Security Council and other agencies key to determining the size and scope of the US military budget. Company chiefs openly brag about their effective purchase of lawmakers – in October 2001, Harry Stonecipher, then-Vice President of Boeing, declared that “any member of Congress who doesn’t vote for the funds we need to defend this country will be looking for a new job after next November.”
With the War on Terror now seemingly over, “exaggerated estimates of the military challenges posed by China have become the new rationale of choice” for defense contractors, as they seek to bloat the already unbelievably voluminous US defense budget even further.
In 2019, the National Defense Strategy Commission published a scaremongering report, which proposed three to five percent annual growth in the Pentagon budget to address the purported threat of China. Ever since, those figures have become a mantra for hawks in government, think tanks and the media – as the report notes, nine of the 12 members of the Commission had direct or indirect ties to the arms industry.
One can’t help but be reminded of President Eisenhower’s farewell address, in which he offered a prophetic – and clearly unheeded – warning about the ever-growing power of the defense sector.
“We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all US corporations,” he reflected. “The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government…We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
By Kit Klarenberg, an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
AMA issues mix of mindless propaganda & “Trust the SCIENCE” jargon to teach doctors to lie about Covid jabs
By Meryl Nass, MD | September 14, 2021
I am looking over the “AMA Covid -19 Guide. Winter 2021. It is not a guide. It only deals with Covid vaccines, not treatment. It’s raison d’etre is:
“To overcome vaccine hesitancy and ensure widespread vaccine acceptance among all demographic groups, physicians and the broader public health community must continue working to build trust in vaccine safety and efficacy, especially in marginalized and minoritized (this is not my misspelling–Nass) communities with historically well-founded mistrust in medical institutions. As COVID-19 vaccines become more widely available, it is critical that physicians continue to ensure they practice and encourage their patients to wear masks, physical distance and wash hands until a critical mass of the population is vaccinated.”
It is an extraordinary document. I wonder how much the AMA got paid to put their name on it. Probably a lot.
It is extraordinary because it would repel most doctors. It was obviously written by a non-doctor. I have an idea of one person who may have had a hand in creating it–John Grabenstein, a pharmacist and propagandist extraordinaire, who helped craft the fake science on the anthrax vaccine. He works for the Immunization Action Coalition now. He is a one man band who knows how to pull all the levers to push terrible vaccine policies.
It turns out that the current AMA President, Gerald Harmon, was instrumental in pushing the experimental and dangerous anthrax vaccine, and punishing refusers and truth tellers. This got him rapid promotions, and he retired as a Major General. No doubt he worked with Grabenstein back then, and probably now.
Whoever wrote the “Guide” did not know that whooping cough and pertussis were the same thing, or that the DTP vaccine includes tetanus. It is of interest that there is no name on it, no clue about how it came into existence.
All this business about “equity.” If the federal government cared about equity, why are they always bombing and droning people of color? What equity means to them is that a 25% acceptance of the Covid vaccine by Black people cannot be allowed to stand. And the refusal by blacks to participate in clinical trials is especially egregious.
The document is really kind of a hoot, it is so out of 1984. It shows you what the propagandists are really worried about, for example, the fact that too many people have learned the FDA “review” and the Pfizer preclinical tests were bogus:
On combating the spread of vaccine misinformation:
• With misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine development process circulating widely, new AMA policy seeks to educate physicians on speaking with their patients about the vaccine and provide culturally appropriate education materials for all patients.
On vaccine development:
• To help physicians promote vaccine confidence among patients and the general public, we must continue to instill confidence in the information, education, and transparency around the FDA’s process for authorization or licensure, as well as the standards by which FDA will review future vaccine candidates and the clinical endpoints the FDA hopes to achieve.
• Physicians must be continuously updated about the review process for future COVID-19 vaccines. Any available safety and efficacy data must be in place as soon as possible so that any questions or concerns about the vaccine candidates can be addressed.
• The AMA has been talking to FDA officials about the role the agency needs to continue to play in alleviating vaccine concerns by ensuring the process is transparent and based on science.
• The widespread availability and adoption of a safe and efficacious vaccine will play an essential role in slowing transmission of COVID-19 and allow us to move safely and confidently toward the full re-opening of our businesses and schools, helping ease Americans back toward pre-pandemic life.
• Research shows growing levels of confidence in the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines, but there continues to be vacancy hesitancy among some individuals and in some communities, which we are striving to overcome.
• What’s clear is that the benefits of getting the vaccine to protect you from COVID-19 exceed the risks, which is why medical experts strongly recommend getting the vaccine.
• To improve the dialogue and provide opportunities for physicians to learn more about vaccine development, approval, and ongoing distribution plans and challenges, AMA has initiated a series of “town hall” type webinars with physicians and career staff at both the FDA and CDC. All events are archived on AMA’s website.
• To develop the most effective COVID-19 vaccine, U.S. clinical trials must include representation of all Americans to ensure treatments are studied in every population that may use it.
The AMA is pleased that efforts have been made by institutions to acknowledge the exclusion of Black and Latinx people from clinical trials historically.
Now there are many efforts underway to ensure Black and Latinx people, who have been disproportionately affected by the virus, are prioritized in clinical trials.
This not only provides better safety and efficacy data but is a more equitable strategy that will hopefully contribute to trust in the vaccine once available.
Shockingly, CDC Now Lists Vaccinated Deaths as Unvaccinated
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | September 15, 2021
While public health officials and mainstream media claim the COVID-19 pandemic is now “a pandemic of the unvaccinated,”1 we now know this claim is based on highly misleading statistics.
In a July 16, 2021, White House press briefing,2 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky claimed that “over 97% of people who are entering the hospital right now are unvaccinated.” A few weeks later, in an August 5, 2021, statement, she inadvertently revealed how that statistic actually came about.3
As it turns out, the CDC was looking at hospitalization and mortality data from January through June 2021 — a timeframe during which the vast majority of the U.S. population were still unvaccinated.4
But that’s not the case at all now. The CDC is also playing with statistics in other ways to create the false and inaccurate impression that unvaccinated people make up the bulk of infections, hospitalizations and deaths. For example, we now find out the agency is counting anyone who died within the first 14 days post-injection as unvaccinated.
Not only does this inaccurately inflate the unvaccinated death toll, but it also hides the real dangers of the COVID shots, as the vast majority of deaths from these shots occur within the first two weeks.5 Now their deaths are counted as unvaccinated deaths rather than being counted as deaths due to vaccine injury or COVID-19 breakthrough infections!
How CDC Counts Breakthrough Cases
According to the CDC,6 you’re not counted as fully vaccinated until a full 14 days have passed since your second injection in the case of Pfizer or Moderna, or 14 days after your first dose of Janssen. This is how the CDC defines a vaccine breakthrough case:
“… a vaccine breakthrough infection is defined as the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen in a respiratory specimen collected from a person ≥14 days after they have completed all recommended doses of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-authorized COVID-19 vaccine.”
In other words, if you’ve received one dose of Pfizer or Moderna and develop symptomatic COVID-19, get admitted to the hospital and/or die from COVID, you’re counted as an unvaccinated case. If you’ve received two doses and get ill within 14 days, you’re still counted as an unvaccinated case.
The problem with this is that over 80% of hospitalizations and deaths appear to be occurring among those who have received the jabs, but this reality is hidden by the way cases are defined and counted. A really clever and common strategy of the CDC during the pandemic has been to change the definitions and goalposts so it supports their nefarious narrative.
For example, the CDC has quietly changed the definition of “vaccine,” apparently in an attempt to validate calling the COVID mRNA gene therapies vaccines. In an August 26, 2021, archived version7 of vaccine, the CDC defines it as a “product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.”
But a few days later, a new definition appeared on the CDC’s website,8 which now says a vaccine is a “preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.” The differences in the definitions are subtle but distinct: The first one defined a vaccine as something that will “produce immunity.”
But, since the COVID-19 vaccines are not designed to stop infection but, rather, to only lessen the degree of infection, it becomes obvious that the new definition was created to cover the COVID vaccines.
Different Testing Guidelines for Vaxxed and Unvaxxed
It’s not just the CDC’s definition of a breakthrough case that skews the data. Even more egregious and illogical is the fact that the CDC even has two different sets of testing guidelines — one for vaccinated patients and another for the unvaccinated.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the CDC has recommended a PCR test cycle threshold (CT) of 40.9 This flies in the face of scientific consensus, which has long been that a CT over 35 will produce 97% false positives,10 essentially rendering the test useless.11,12,13
In mid-May 2021, the CDC finally lowered its recommended CT count, but only for patients who have received one or more COVID shots.14 So, if you have received a COVID injection, the CDC’s guidelines call for your PCR test to be run at a CT of 28 or less. If you are unvaccinated, your PCR test is to be run at a CT of 40, which grossly overestimates the true prevalence of infection.
The end result is that unvaccinated individuals who get tested are FAR more prone to get false positives, while those who have received the jab are more likely to get an accurate diagnosis of infection.
Only Hospitalization and Death Count if You’re COVID Jabbed
Even that’s not all. The CDC also hides vaccine failures and props up the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” narrative by only counting breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization or death.
In other words, if you got your second COVID shot more than 14 days ago and you develop symptoms, you do not count as a breakthrough case unless you’re admitted to the hospital and/or die from COVID-19 in the hospital, even if you test positive. So, to summarize, COVID breakthrough cases count only if all of the following apply:
- The patient received the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna shot at least 14 days ago (or one dose in case of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose injection)
- The patient tests positive for SARS-CoV-2 using a CT of 28 or less, which avoids false positives
- The patient is admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 and/or dies in the hospital
Vaccinated Probably Make Up Bulk of Hospitalizations
If vaccinated and unvaccinated were not treated with such varying standards, we’d probably find that the vaccinated now make up the bulk of hospitalizations, making the COVID pandemic one of the vaccinated. An August 30, 2021, exposé by The Epoch Times reveals what’s really happening on the front lines:15
“After a battery of testing, my friend was diagnosed with pancreatitis. But it was easier for the hospital bureaucracy to register the admission as a COVID case … The mainstream media is reporting that severe COVID cases are mainly among unvaccinated people … Is that what’s really going on?
It’s certainly not the case in Israel, the first country to fully vaccinate a majority of its citizens against the virus. Now it has one of the highest daily infection rates and the majority of people catching the virus (77 percent to 83 percent, depending on age) are already vaccinated, according to data collected by the Israeli government …
After admission, I spoke to the nurse on the COVID ward … The nurse told me that she had gotten both vaccines but she was feeling worried: ‘Two thirds of my patients are fully vaccinated,’ she said. How can there be such a disconnect between what the COVID ward nurse told me and the mainstream media reports?”
The heart of the problem is that the U.S. is not even trying to achieve an accurate count. As noted by The Epoch Times, “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have publicly acknowledged that they do not have accurate data.”
So, when you hear that cases are rising, and that most of them are unvaccinated, you need to ask: “Are these people who have had one vaccine and gotten sick, two vaccines and gotten sick, or no vaccines at all? Without more details, it is impossible to know what is really going on,” The Epoch Times says.16
All we do know, according to one doctor who spoke with The Epoch Times, is “the vaccines are not as effective as public health officials told us they would be. ‘This is a product that’s not doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s supposed to stop transmission of this virus and it’s not doing that.’”
Counting Non-COVID Illness as COVID Cases
On top of all of that, hospitals are still also reporting non-COVID related illnesses as COVID. As reported by The Epoch Times :17
“Health authorities around the world have been doing this since the beginning of the COVID crisis. For example, a young man in Orange County, Florida who died in a motorcycle crash last summer was originally considered a COVID death by state health officials …
And a middle-aged construction worker fell off a ladder in Croatia and was also counted as a death from COVID … To muddy the waters further, even people who test negative for COVID are sometimes counted as COVID deaths.
Consider the case of 26-year-old Matthew Irvin, a father of three from Yamhill County, Oregon. As reported by KGW8 News, Irvin went to the ER with stomach pain, nausea, and diarrhea on July 5, 2020. But instead of admitting him to the hospital, the doctors sent him home.
Five days later, on July 10, 2020, Irvin died. Though his COVID test came back negative two days after his death and his family told reporters and public health officials that no one Irvin had been around had any COVID symptoms, the medical examiner allegedly told the family that an autopsy was not necessary, listing his death as a coronavirus case. It took the Oregon Health Authority two and a half months to correct the mistake.
In an even more striking example of overcounting COVID deaths, a nursing home in New Jersey that only has 90 beds was wrongly reported as having 753 deaths from COVID. According to a spokesman, they had fewer than twenty deaths. In other words, the number of deaths was over-reported by 3,700 percent.”
No Need to Fear the Delta Variant if You’re Unvaccinated
In a June 29, 2021, interview,18 Fauci called the Delta variant “a game-changer” for unvaccinated people, warning it will devastate the unvaccinated population while vaccinated individuals are protected against it. Alas, in the real world, the converse is turning out to be true, as the Delta variant is running wild primarily among those who got the COVID jab.
In a June 30, 2021, appearance on Fox News, epidemiologist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough pointed out that “It is very clear from the U.K. Technical Briefing19 that was published June 18 that the vaccine provides no protection against the Delta variant.”20
The reason for this is because the Delta variant contains three different mutations, all in the spike protein. This allows this variant to evade the immune responses in those who have received the COVID jabs, but not those who have natural immunity, which is much broader.
Even so, the Delta variant is far milder than previous variants, according to the U.K.’s June 18, 2021, Technical Briefing.21 In it, they present data showing the Delta variant is more contagious but far less deadly and easier to treat. As McCullough told Fox News:
“Whether you get the vaccine or not, patients will get some very mild symptoms like a cold and they can be easily managed … Patients who have severe symptoms or at high risk, we can use simple drug combinations at home and get them through the illness. So, there’s no reason now to push vaccinations.”
Contrast that with the following statement made by President Biden during a CNN town hall meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, in late July 2021:22
“We have a pandemic for those who haven’t gotten a vaccination. It’s that basic, that simple. If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, not going to the ICU unit, and not going to die. You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”
However, Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency doctor and visiting professor of health policy and management at George Washington University’s Milken School of Public Health in Washington, D.C., contradicted the president, saying he had led the American astray by telling them you don’t need a mask if you’re vaccinated, or that you can’t get it or transmit it. As reported by CNN Health:23
“In particular, Wen took issue with Biden’s incorrect claims that you cannot contract Covid-19 or the Delta variant if you are vaccinated. ‘I was actually disappointed,’ Wen said. ‘I actually thought he was answering questions as if it were a month ago. He’s not really meeting the realities of what’s happening on the ground. I think he may have led people astray.’”
CNN added that Wen had told their political commentator Anderson Cooper that “many unknown answers remain related to Covid-19, and that it is still not known how well protected vaccinated individuals are from mild illness … [or] if you’re vaccinated, could you still be contagious to other people.”
Vaccinated Patients Flood Hospitals Around the World
The U.K. data showing the Delta variant is far milder than previous SARS-CoV-2 viruses deflates the claim that avoiding severe illness is a sign that the shots are working. Since the Delta variant typically doesn’t cause severe illness in the first place, it doesn’t make sense to attribute milder illness to the shot.
But if Delta is the mildest coronavirus variant yet, why are so many “vaccinated” people ending up in the hospital? While we still do not have clear confirmation, this could be a sign that antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) is at work. Alternatively, it could be that vaccine injuries are being misreported as breakthrough cases.
Whatever the case may be, real-world data from areas with high COVID jab rates show a disturbing trend. For example, August 1, 2021, the director of Israel’s Public Health Services, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, announced half of all COVID-19 infections were among the fully vaccinated.24 Signs of more serious disease among fully vaccinated are also emerging, she said, particularly in those over the age of 60.
A few days later, August 5, 2021, Dr. Kobi Haviv, director of the Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, appeared on Channel 13 News, reporting that 95% of severely ill COVID-19 patients are fully vaccinated, and that they make up 85% to 90% of COVID-related hospitalizations overall.25
In Scotland, official data on hospitalizations and deaths show 87% of those who have died from COVID-19 in the third wave that began in early July were vaccinated.26
In Gibraltar, which has a 99% COVID jab compliance rate, COVID cases have risen by 2,500% since June 1, 2021,27 and in Iceland, where over 82% have received the shots, 77% of new COVID cases are among the fully vaccinated.28
Data from the U.K. show a similar trend among those over the age of 50. In this age group, partially and fully “vaccinated” people account for 68% of hospitalizations and 70% of COVID deaths.29
A CDC investigation of an outbreak in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, between July 6, 2021, through July 25, 2021, found 74% of those who received a diagnosis of COVID19, and 80% of hospitalizations, were among the fully vaccinated.30,31 Most, but not all, had the Delta variant.
The CDC also found that fully vaccinated individuals who contract the infection have as high a viral load in their nasal passages as unvaccinated individuals who get infected.32 The same was found in a British study, a preprint of which was posted mid-August 2021.33,34 This means the vaccinated are just as infectious as the unvaccinated.
Interestingly, a Lancet preprint study35 that examined breakthrough infections in health care workers in Vietnam who received the AstraZeneca COVID shot found the “viral loads of breakthrough Delta variant infection cases were 251 times higher than those of cases infected with old strains detected between March-April 2020.”
What’s more, they found no correlation between vaccine-induced neutralizing antibody levels and viral loads or the development of symptoms. According to the authors:
“Breakthrough Delta variant infections are associated with high viral loads, prolonged PCR positivity, and low levels of vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies, explaining the transmission between the vaccinated people.”
Not All Vaccinated Are Confirmed Vaccinated
As if all of that weren’t enough, there’s yet one more confounder. Just because you got the COVID shot does not mean you’ve been confirmed as having gotten the shot. You’re only confirmed “vaccinated” if your COVID injection is added to your medical record, and this sometimes doesn’t happen if you’re going to a temporary vaccination clinic, a drive-through or pharmacy, for example. As reported by CNN:36
“If you are among the countless people who didn’t get the doses at a primary care doctor’s office, there may not be any record of the vaccination on file with your doctor.”
To actually count as a “confirmed vaccinated” individual, you must send your vaccination card to your primary care physician’s office and have them add it to your electronic medical record. If you got the shot at a pharmacy, you’ll need to verify that they forwarded your proof of vaccination to your doctor. Primary care offices are then responsible for sharing their patients’ immunization data with the state’s immunization information system.
Patient-recorded proof of vaccination is only accepted for influenza and pneumococcal vaccines, not COVID-19 injections.37 What this all means is that, say you got the shot several weeks ago at a drive-through vaccination clinic and get admitted to the hospital with COVID symptoms. Unless your COVID shot status has actually been added into the medical system, you will not count as “vaccinated.”
This too can skew the statistics, because we know the CDC ascertains vaccination status by matching SARS-CoV-2 case surveillance and CAIR2 data using person-level identifiers and algorithms.38
As noted by John Zurlo, division director of infectious disease at Thomas Jefferson University, “the lack of reliable vaccine records complicates efforts to precisely understand vaccine effectiveness and determine how many local hospitalizations and deaths are resulting from COVID-19 breakthrough infections.”39
We’re in the Largest Clinical Trial in Medical History
In closing, it’s worth remembering that the COVID injection campaign is part and parcel of a clinical trial. As noted Dr. Lidiya Angelova in a recent Genuine Prospect article:40
“Many people are unaware that they are participating in the largest clinical trial test of our times. It is because World Health Organization, healthcare authorities, politicians, celebrities, and journalists promote the experimental medical treatments (wrongly called COVID-19 vaccines) as safe and efficient while in fact these treatments are in early clinical research stage.
It means that there is not enough data for such claims and that the people who participate are test subject.”
As shown in a graph on Genuine Prospect, under normal circumstances, clinical research follows a strict protocol that begins with tests on cell cultures. After that comes tests on animals, then limited human testing in four phases. In Phase 1 of human testing, up to 100 people are included and followed anywhere from one week to several months.
Phase 2 typically includes several hundred participants and lasts up to two years. In Phase 3, several hundred to 3,000 participants are tested upon for one to four years. Phase 4 typically includes several thousand individuals who are followed for at least one year or longer. After each phase, the data is examined to assess effectiveness and adverse reactions.
The timelines for these stages and phases were not followed for the COVID “vaccines.” Most Phase 3 trials concluded by the end of 2020, and everyone who got the shots since their rollout under emergency use authorization is part of a Phase 4 clinical trial, whether they realize it or not.41 And since the trials are not completed, you simply cannot make definitive claims about safety, especially long-term safety. As noted by Angelova:42
“When I worked at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) … I went to the course Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research … The first rule we learnt was ‘Clinical research must be ethical’ … All ethical aspects of clinical research are dismissed with the COVID-19 vaccines.
People should know that nobody can require such to participate in everyday activities like using public transportation, shopping, going to school and even hospital. People should know that they should not be punished for refusing to take the experimental medical treatments.
COVID-19 vaccines mass use and COVID-19 measures are an infringe[ment] of the Articles 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 18, 20, 25, 27, 28 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).”
Sources and References
- 1 The New York Times July 16, 2021
- 2 WH.gov Press Briefing July 16, 2021
- 3 Fox News
- 4 Mayo Clinic COVID Vaccine Tracker
- 5 Twitter DX Foundation September 2, 2021
- 6 CDC August 25, 2021
- 7 Web Archive August 26, 2021
- 8 CDC September 1, 2021
- 9 FDA.gov CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR July 13, 2020 (PDF) Page 35
- 10 Clinical Infectious Diseases September 28, 2020; ciaa1491
- 11 The Vaccine Reaction September 29, 2020
- 12 Jon Rappoport’s Blog November 6, 2020
- 13 YouTube TWiV 641 July 16, 2020
- 14 CDC.gov COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Case Investigation Guidelines (PDF)
- 15, 16, 17, 28 The Epoch Times August 30, 2021
- 18 PBS June 29, 2021
- 19, 21 Public Health England, SARS-CoV-2 Variants Technical Briefing 16, June 18, 2021 (PDF)
- 20 Covidcalltohumanity.org July 5, 2021
- 22 CBS 8 News July 21, 2021
- 23 CNN Health July 22, 2021
- 24 Bloomberg August 1, 2021 (Archived)
- 25 American Faith August 8, 2021
- 26 The Daily Expose July 29, 2021
- 27 Big League Politics August 4, 2021
- 29 Evening Standard August 20, 2021
- 30 CDC MMWR July 30, 2021; 70
- 31 CNBC July 30, 2021
- 32 NBC News August 7, 2021
- 33 Impact of Delta on Viral Burden and Vaccine Effectiveness in the UK (PDF)
- 34 CBS News August 19, 2021
- 35 The Lancet Preprint August 10, 2021
- 36 CNN April 26, 2021
- 37 Immunize.org Documenting Vaccination
- 38 MMWR August 27, 2021; 70(34): 1170-1176
- 39 Philadelphia Enquirer August 31, 2021
- 40, 42 Genuine Prospect August 31, 2021
- 41 Red Voice Media June 22, 2021
Fauci doesn’t know how to tell the truth. Gratuitous, unnecessary lying are your clue the man is not to be trusted.
By Meryl Nass, MD | September 13, 2021
Fauci speaks in favor of Covid vaccine mandates for schools and air travel.
And he cannot help telling a little Fauci lie:
“I don’t know where you went to school, but the school where I went to, you had to be vaccinated for measles, mumps, rubella, polio to go to school.”
The measles, mumps and rubella vaccines were not licensed until 1968-71. All children had had all those diseases by then, and so the vaccinations were begun only in young children, and not given to teens or adults.
The first polio vaccine was licensed in 1955.
Fauci was born in 1940. He finished medical school in 1966. He probably received a polio vaccine in high school, but he most certainly never received vaccines for measles, mumps or rubella, which were not in use until he was already a doctor, not a schoolkid.
Hot Mic Catches Israeli Health Minister Admitting Vaccine Passports Are About Coercion
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | September 13, 2021
Unaware that he was on a hot mic and being broadcast live on a TV station, Israeli health minister Nitzan Horowitz admitted that vaccine passports were primarily about coercing skeptical people to get the vaccine.
“Imposing “green pass” rules on certain venues is needed only to pressure members of the public to get vaccinated, and not for medical reasons, Israeli Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said on Sunday, ahead of the weekly Cabinet meeting,” reports Jewish News Syndicate.
Unaware that his words were being broadcast live to the nation on Channel 12, Horowitz told Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked that not only should the green pass be removed as a requirement to dine at outdoor restaurants, but also, “For swimming pools, too, not just in restaurants.”
“Epidemiologically, it’s true,” said Horowitz, adding, “The thing is, I’m telling you, our problem is people who don’t get vaccinated. We need [to influence] them a bit; otherwise, we won’t get out of this [pandemic situation].”
The health minister went on to acknowledge that the system wasn’t even being enforced in most venues.
“There is a kind of universality to the ‘green pass’ system, other than at malls, where I think it should be imposed, [because] now it’s clear that it applies nowhere,” he said.
Israel was once lauded for its successful vaccine rollout and the speed with which it introduced vaccine passports.
The green pass was heralded as an “early vision of how we leave lockdown.” However, the country recently reported its highest ever number of daily COVID cases, with nearly 11,000 infections being recorded.
Although the early threat that the unvaccinated would be banned from entering numerous public venues convinced many younger people to get the vaccine, once it rolled out, the ‘green pass’ system was rarely even enforced and was subsequently scrapped at the end of May.
But once cases started rising again later that summer, Israel’s vaccine passport system was reintroduced and expanded.
Meanwhile, Sweden, which never imposed a hard lockdown, recently banned travelers arriving from Israel from entering the country.
The Vaccine Passport Scheme Has NOT Been Scrapped
By Richie Allen | September 13, 2021
UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the BBC’s Nick Robinson yesterday, that his government has decided to scrap the vaccine passport scheme which was due to be implemented at the end of the month. Javid was telling porkies.
He told Robinson:
“We shouldn’t be doing things for the sake of it. We’ve looked at it properly and, whilst we should keep it in reserve as a potential option, I’m pleased to say that we will not be going ahead with plans for vaccine passports.”
However, The Times reports this morning that:
Downing Street has insisted that vaccine passports are still a “first-line defence” against a winter wave of Covid-19 after the health secretary said plans to introduce them had been scrapped.
No 10 said checks on the vaccine status of people going to nightclubs and other crowded events remained a crucial part of the government’s winter Covid plan due to be unveiled by the prime minister tomorrow.
They haven’t scrapped the scheme, they’ve simply postponed it. Facing a backlash from backbench MP’s and the wrath of night-time industry leaders, the government has decided that the smart move is to row back on vaccine passport plans, for now.
But when the NHS is overwhelmed again this Winter (as it is every Winter), vaccine passports will be back on the table. Hospitality bosses will be told to implement the scheme or face mandatory closure.
Dr. Chand Nagpaul is the chair of the British Medical Association. Today, he will address the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting. He is expected to deliver a damning assessment of the Government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. According to The Telegraph :
Dr Nagpaul will argue that the health service was already in crisis before March 2020, after parts of it had been “starved” by a lack of facilities and almost 90,000 staff vacancies.
The latest NHS England figures show 5.6 million people are now waiting to start treatment, up from 4.2 million in March 2020.
The number of NHS hospital beds in the UK has more than halved in the last 30 years, from around 299,000 in 1988 to 141,000 in 2019.
In 1988, the UK population was 56,812,757. Today it’s 68,207,116. NHS Winter crises are as certain as death and taxes. Now factor in the tens of thousands of staff who will leave the health service (and social care) because they will refuse to be jabbed and you have a perfect storm.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will address the nation tomorrow. He will say that he wants to move towards “living with covid as an endemic disease.” He’ll say that he doesn’t want to lockdown again this Winter and that he is diametrically opposed to vaccine passports.
However, the power to reimpose any measure he sees fit will remain on the statute books. Lockdowns, masks and vaccine passports will be back this Winter. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.
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