Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Caught on camera – how Trump was robbed of the 2020 election

By Thomas Lane | TCW Defending Freedom | May 19, 2022

Joe Biden is president of the United States. That is an indisputable fact. But how he got to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is questionable.

The statistical anomalies of the 2020 election alone make Biden’s victory seem dubious. Here are a few, of many, examples:

Donald Trump’s campaign rallies filled stadiums with tens of thousands of supporters; Biden’s campaign events – when he left the basement – hardly attracted a dozen. If these candidates were two musicians, and one was selling out arenas while the other was struggling to fill a little pub, which act would a record company executive bet on becoming a gold-record performer?

For the past ten American presidential elections, 19 counties, often referred to as the ‘bellwether counties’, predicted the outcome of the race. In 2020, Donald Trump won 18 of these counties, but Biden won the presidency.

At midnight on election night, vote counting mysteriously stopped in five states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina – where Trump had a significant lead over Biden. The next morning, Biden suddenly had more votes than Trump. One is expected to believe that nearly 100 per cent of the votes which arrived during this suspicious pause were for Biden?

Certain that the election was fraught with fraud, Trump and some of his supporters challenged the results of the 2020 election with dozens of lawsuits. But most of the cases were dismissed by judges due to ‘lack of standing’, which is a legal term that states ‘the party has not alleged a sufficient legal interest and injury to participate in the case’.

However, Dinesh D’Souza’s new political documentary, 2,000 Mules, just might give Trump’s lawsuits a leg to stand on.

Using geotracking, a technology which locates the exact position of a person by obtaining data from his or her smartphone or similar devices, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips of True the Vote were able to expose a couple of thousand mules (people who illegally collected and deposited voting ballots) travelling between pro-Biden campaign offices and ballot drop boxes during the final month of the election season.

Engelbrecht and Phillips then obtained security camera footage of the mules stuffing the drop boxes with ballots. The mules’ activity ranged from just a few ballots deposited in several boxes throughout the month, to nearly 300 mules visiting one box and depositing 1,900 ballots (10x the average) in a single day.

In the most compelling scene in the documentary, D’Souza multiplies the number of mules by the number of their drop-box visits, then multiplies that number by the number of ballots deposited by each mule to get a total number of illegal votes. He does this calculation for each swing state where Biden won, then subtracts the number of illegal votes from Biden’s total. Spoiler alert: Mules concludes that Trump won the 2020 election.

D’Souza and his team have done their part: they have exposed the criminals and the crime. Between the geotracking data and the surveillance footage, they have evidence of over 2,000 people committing felonies. However, their hands are tied because they are mere citizens. As D’Souza concludes in the film: ‘It is time for law enforcement to step in.’

May 20, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Film Review | , | Leave a comment

Ex-FBI General Counsel Says Bureau Found No Evidence of Link Between Trump, Russian Bank

Samizdat – 19.05.2022

WASHINGTON – The FBI found no evidence of a covert communications channel between former US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank, former FBI General Counsel James Baker said in a testimony at the trial of Hillary Clinton’s lawyer Michael Sussmann, according to a Fox News report.

Sussmann told the FBI in 2016 that there was a backdoor communications channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which is reportedly linked to the Russian government. Sussmann is being charged with making a false statement in connection with the meeting for allegedly lying about not working on behalf of any clients.

A probe conducted by Special Counsel John Durham alleges that Sussmann was actually working for the campaign of Hillary Clinton, as well as for tech executive Rodney Joffe.

Baker emphasized that the FBI concluded there was no substance to Sussmann’s allegations against Trump and could not confirm there was a surreptitious communications channel, the report said.

The testimony echoes that of FBI Special Agent Scott Hellman, who said on Tuesday during the trial said that the allegations against Trump were found to be untrue, the report added.

The FBI investigated allegations of Trump collusion with the Russian government in a probe run by Special Counsel Robert Mueller starting in 2017. Mueller’s investigation found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy or collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian officials.

Durham in 2019 was chosen to investigate the origins of the FBI’s probe into the Trump campaign. The investigation has resulted in indictments against Sussmann, as well as Igor Danchenko and Kevin Clinesmith.

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Moderna Vaccine Delivered More Risk Than Benefit in Trials for Children 6 to 11, Despite New York Times Positive Spin

By Madhava Setty, M.D. | The Defender | May 17, 2022

Two doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine “were found to be safe and effective in inducing immune responses and preventing COVID-19,” according to an analysis of the results of Moderna’s vaccine trial in children ages 6 to 11.

However, a closer look at the analysis, published May 11 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), finds the trial results showed the vaccine provided meager benefit when compared to risk, and the study was too small to assess serious and known adverse events such as myocarditis and pericarditis in children of this age.

The NEJM paper presented findings from both Phase 1 (complete) and Phase 2 and 3 (ongoing) trials of Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine. Phase 1 results were used to determine an appropriate dose for the Phase 2 and 3 trials.

The authors of the analysis concluded:

“Two 50-μg doses of the mRNA-1273 vaccine were found to be safe and effective in inducing immune responses and preventing Covid-19 in children 6 to 11 years of age; these responses were non-inferior to those in young adults.”

The scope of my analysis below is limited to the Phase 2 and 3 portions of the trial where 4,016 children were randomly assigned to receive two injections of mRNA-1273 (50 μg each) or a placebo.

How effective was the vaccine?

The effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine, as determined by immunogenicity (the ability of the vaccine to elicit an antibody response), exceeded that measured in adolescents in a separate trial.

However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains that antibody test results should not be used as an indication of immunity.

Moreover, the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biologics Product Advisory Committee reached a consensus in April that antibody levels cannot be used as a correlate for vaccine effectiveness.

The FDA committee’s decision is consistent with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s executive summary of a science brief, released on Oct. 29, 2021, which stated:

“Data are presently insufficient to determine an antibody titer threshold that indicates when an individual is protected from infection.”

Nevertheless, the FDA used immunobridging as a means to justify authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, as The Defender reported here and here.

If the FDA authorizes the Moderna formulation for children age 6 and under, it would be another example of the agency making a decision that contradicts its own position.

With regard to “preventing COVID-19,” Moderna’s Phase 2 and 3 trials showed no deaths, hospitalizations or severe infections in either those who received the vaccine or those who were given the placebo.

Thus, the trial could not determine the benefit, if any, of the vaccine in preventing these outcomes.

Beginning 14 days after the second dose, 3 of 2,644 vaccine recipients developed COVID-19 (defined as a positive PCR test and a single symptom) compared to 4 of 853 placebo recipients (see Table S26).

Adjusting for the different number of recipients in each of the two groups, 12.4 cases of symptomatic disease would have occurred in a group of 2,644 placebo recipients.

This means that 2,644 vaccinations would prevent 9.4 (12.4 – 3 = 9.4) cases of COVID-19.

Put another way, more than 280 children in this age group would need to be fully vaccinated (two doses) to prevent a single case of non-severe, symptomatic COVID-19 — so 280 is the Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNV), which is the key metric used to assess risk versus benefit as explained below.

The authors of the NEJM paper admitted their findings were limited because too few cases of COVID-19 occurred in this time window. They instead calculated a Vaccine Efficacy (VE) of 88% based on infections occurring 14 days after the first injection.

COVID-19 mRNA vaccine trials to date have all calculated VE starting from the time the product is thought to have maximum efficacy, i.e., 14 days after the second dose. This approach has been criticized as being impractical if not disingenuous as it will necessarily exaggerate the product’s benefit.

However, now faced with a dearth of outcomes, Moderna investigators chose to veer from their prior strategy. Using outcomes from 14 days after the first dose, we can calculate that 56 children need to be fully vaccinated to prevent a single symptomatic infection.

Was the vaccine ‘safe’?

Trial participants were assessed for local and systemic adverse reactions within 7 days of the first and second doses.

In the vaccine group, 94% of children experienced a local adverse reaction after the first dose, and 95% experienced a local adverse reaction after the second dose.

Local adverse reactions include pain, redness or swelling at the injection site or in proximal lymph nodes.

Also, according to the trial results, 58% of vaccine recipients suffered a systemic adverse reaction after the first dose, and 78% suffered a systemic adverse reaction after the second dose.

Systemic reactions include fever, chills, headache, muscle/joint pain, nausea, vomiting and fatigue.

The majority of these adverse reactions were mild. However, 4.1% of the vaccinated children experienced Grade 3 local and systemic reactions after the first dose, and 12.2% of vaccinated children experienced Grade 3 local and systemic reactions after the second dose.

Grade 3 events are serious and interfere with a person’s ability to do basic activities and may also require medical intervention.

Finally, 29.6% of vaccinees (891) reported an unsolicited adverse event.

Unsolicited events are those independently reported by a participant to investigators. There is generally a degree of underreporting of these adverse events because the reporting requires the participant to initiate the report, rather than reply to a survey initiated by someone else.

While solicited (via a survey) adverse events are assigned a grade, unsolicited adverse events are divided into “serious” and “not serious.”

In the Moderna Phase 2 and 3 trials, only three of these unsolicited adverse events were classified as serious. All three were deemed unrelated to the vaccine by the investigators.

However, the study reported only those unsolicited adverse events that occurred with a greater-than-1% incidence.

In other words, with a vaccinated pool of children of approximately 3,000, if fewer than 30 children had a particular adverse event, it was not reported in the trial results (Table S20).

Conclusions

The investigators admit their analysis of the vaccine’s efficacy is limited because of the limited number of cases that occurred during the study.

Nevertheless, they conclude, “… the mRNA-1273 vaccine at a dose level of 50 μg in children was protective against Covid-19 beginning 14 days after the first injection.”

They also wrote:

“These results extend the evidence of the safety and efficacy of the mRNA-1273 vaccine seen in adults and adolescents and provide support for the use of this vaccine to prevent Covid-19 in children.”

But at what price?

If we use an NNV of 56, and considering that 4.1% and 12.2% of vaccinated children will suffer Grade 3 local and systemic reactions, every one case of non-severe COVID-19 prevented through vaccination will result in two Grade 3 local reactions and nearly seven Grade 3 systemic reactions.

Using an NNV of 280 based on outcomes 14 days after the second dose predicts that 11 children will suffer a Grade 3 local reaction and 35 will suffer a Grade 3 systemic reaction for every COVID-19 case prevented.

The risk-benefit profile of this product in this age group should not reassure the public or the FDA.

Moreover, this study was conducted in the summer and fall of 2021, a time when Delta was the predominant strain.

A large observational study from the state of New York conducted during the time Omicron was the prevalent variant demonstrated Pfizer’s pediatric formulation had efficacy that plummeted to 12% within seven weeks.

There is no reason to believe Moderna’s product will fare any better.

Nevertheless, The New York Times, reporting on the May 11 NEJM analysis, highlighted the vaccine’s immunogenic power, running the headline, “Moderna Vaccine Provokes Strong Immune Response in Children 6 to 11.”

Despite the headline, which framed the analysis in a positive light, the Times did admit:

“The trial was not large enough to detect rarer side effects, such as the heart problems that have been observed in other age groups.

“Moderna’s trial measured the vaccine’s power against the Delta variant, and the researchers are still assessing its performance against Omicron. All of the vaccines have proven to be less effective, in all age groups, against the Omicron variant.”

Despite only tepid support from mainstream media, the FDA seems fixated on authorizing this product.

Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, recently hinted the FDA would not demand that pediatric vaccine formulations against COVID-19 meet the agency’s own Emergency Use Authorization guidelines requiring 50% efficacy.

Vinay Prasad, M.D., MPH, explained the implications of this potential shift in the FDA’s stance, stating it was “incredible” that Marks would sign off on a pediatric vaccine if it seems to be mirroring efficacy in adults but is less effective against Omicron.

“We have standards for a reason,” Prasad said. The standard chosen by the FDA was “arbitrary and, if anything, I’d argue it was on the low side — 50% isn’t as good as what we wanted.”

“Fifty percent is quite low, and if you have a very low vaccine efficacy […] you can have compensatory behavior that actually leads to a lot more viral spread,” he added.

Though an effective vaccine does not presently exist, finding and authorizing one does not pose a problem if the FDA somehow believes it can redefine “effective” while maintaining a semblance of a regulatory authority.

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

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

George W. Bush Inadvertently Condemns “Unjustified and Brutal Invasion of Iraq”

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | May 19, 2022

Former President George W. Bush endured an awkward moment during a speech when he meant to refer to Ukraine but instead condemned “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.”

Whoops.

Bush made the error during a speech where he compared Ukrainian President Zelensky to Winston Churchill.

“The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine,” said Bush.

Freudian slip, much?

Bush blamed his age for the gaffe, joking, “I’m 75,” but his entire presidency was replete with similar such moments.

Bush’s reference to Russia eliminating political opponents from participating in the electoral process can equally be applied to Ukraine.

President Zelensky recently signed a law banning political opposition parties if they are deemed to be “pro-Russian,” a vague smear that could be applied broadly.

He also nationalized all television networks in the country, freezing out any possibility of dissent.

A YouTuber who criticized Zelensky was also recently detained on an international arrest warrant in Spain and faces possible extradition at the behest of the Ukrainian government.

Last month, footage was released of Associated Press accompanying armed men from the Ukraine Security Service as they kidnapped and arrested dissidents from their own homes.

But yeah, Putin bad!

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

The (Undercover) Epicenter Nurse | Episode Nine

Perspectives on the Pandemic | June 9, 2020

Erin Marie Olszewski is a Nurse-turned-investigative journalist, who has spent the last few months on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic, on the inside in two radically different settings. Two hospitals. One private, the other public. One in Florida, the other in New York.

And not just any New York public hospital, but the “epicenter of the epicenter” itself, the infamous Elmhurst in Donald Trump’s Queens. As a result of these diametrically opposed experiences, she has the ultimate “perspective on the pandemic”. She has been where there have been the most deaths attributed to Covid-19 and where there have been the least. Erin enlisted in the Army when she was 17. She deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Part of her duties involved overseeing aid disbursement and improvements to hospital facilities. While in country she received the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service, and was wounded in combat.

Erin eventually retired as a sergeant, and became a civilian nurse in 2012. Erin is a medical freedom and informed consent advocate. She co-founded the Florida Freedom Alliance but no longer has any connection with the organization. Watch more episodes of Perspectives on the Pandemic here:

Episode 1: https://dai.ly/x7ubcws

Episode 2: https://dai.ly/k7af1wKOAvcoA7w5DkZ

Episode 3: https://youtu.be/VK0Wtjh3HVA

Episode 4: https://youtu.be/cwPqmLoZA4s

Episode 5: https://dai.ly/k3l3VyZ2YQv6Zbw5VqE

Episode 6: https://youtu.be/3f0VRtY9oTs

Episode 7: https://youtu.be/2JbOvjtnPpE

Episode 8: https://youtu.be/WlLmt6_w_AM (As of publication of this video, the producers are still awaiting comment from Elmhurst Hospital). Produced by Libby Handros and John Kirby, The Press and the Public Project. Ref 7814

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

FDA Authorizes Pfizer Booster for Kids 5 to 11, Bypasses Advisory Panel

By Megan Redshaw | The Defender | May 17, 2022

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, without convening its vaccine advisory panel of independent experts to discuss Pfizer’s data on 5- to 11-year-olds — and based on a study subset of only 67 children, CNBC reported.

The FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the boosters despite data showing higher infection rates among fully vaccinated children in the 5 to 11 age group compared to unvaccinated children, no studies testing the efficacy of the vaccine against the current dominant BA.2 COVID-19 variant and two new studies showing that for vaccinated people who get Omicron, the infection provides better protection against future infections than a second booster dose.

The vaccine advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is scheduled to meet Thursday. The agency and its director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, are expected to sign off on the boosters, The Washington Post reported.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said data increasingly show protection provided by two shots wanes over time, but the agency determined a third shot could help boost protection for children in the 5 to 11 age group and the “benefits outweigh the risks.”

The FDA authorized the third shot after analyzing data from an ongoing Pfizer clinical trial in which a small subset of only 67 children in the age group had higher antibody levels one month after receiving a booster dose.

As The Defender reported, antibody levels alone are not indicative of immune protection. When it comes to COVID-19, T cell and natural killer cell responses are the crucial part of immune protection.

Pfizer has not published its actual data, precluding experts from conducting this analysis.

The authorized booster dose, the same strength as the first two doses, generated neutralizing antibodies to Omicron and the ancestral Wuhan version of the virus, according to The New York Times.

The FDA said it did not identify any new safety concerns and found the children in the trial experienced the same mild side effects other people do after receiving a booster.

However, a subset of only 67 children is not large enough to detect potential adverse events like myocarditis, and it is unknown how rapidly any protection provided wanes because trial participants were not followed beyond a 28-day period.

About 8.1 million, or 28%, of children ages 5 to 11, received their primary series of two COVID-19 vaccine doses as of May 11, according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Those children will now be eligible for a third dose five months after their second dose based on data obtained from the 67 children who were followed for only one month.

COVID cases higher in vaccinated children aged 5 to 11, CDC data show

According to the latest CDC data, since February, higher COVID-19 case rates were recorded among fully vaccinated children compared to unvaccinated children in the 5 to 11 age group.

The CDC on Feb. 12 reported a weekly case rate of 250.02 per 10,000 population in fully vaccinated children ages 5 to 11, compared to 245.82 for unvaccinated children in the same age group.

The trend continued through the third week of March, which is the latest week of available data.

“Several factors likely affect crude case rates by vaccination and booster dose status, making interpretation of recent trends difficult,” CDC spokesperson Jasmine Reed told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Limitations include higher prevalence of previous infection among the unvaccinated and unboosted groups, difficulty in accounting for time since vaccination and waning protection, and possible differences in testing practices (such as at-home tests) and prevention behaviors by age and vaccination status,” Reed said. “These limitations appear to have less impact on the death rates presented here.”

According to CDC data, the gap between fully vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in all age groups has grown increasingly smaller, with the death rate showing the same trend for people over age 50.

For people under age 50, death rates are almost identical between the vaccinated and unvaccinated since the beginning of the vaccine rollout.

Data show COVID-19 vaccines have a “negligible effect” on people, said Dr. Peter McCullough, a prominent cardiologist and epidemiologist.

“With these results in hand, it is clear the vaccines are having a negligible effect in populations,” McCullough told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Given the overall poor safety profile and lack of any assurances on long-term safety, Americans should be cautious in considering additional injections of these products.”

Having COVID may be more effective than getting a booster, studies show

Two new studies show, for people who are vaccinated against COVID-19, getting a breakthrough Omicron infection may provide better protection than receiving a second booster, Fortune reported.

One study conducted by German biotechnology company BioNTech SE assessed vaccinated individuals who had breakthrough COVID-19 infection associated with the Omicron variant.

BioNTech found these individuals had a better B-cell response than individuals who had received a booster but had not been infected.

According to MD Anderson Center, B cells are a type of white blood cell that create antibodies that bind to pathogens or foreign substances and neutralize them. B cells bind to a virus and prevent it from entering a normal cell causing infection. They also recruit other cells to help destroy infected cells.

A second study by the University of Washington and Vir Biotechnology investigated the immune responses of various groups based on vaccination and infection status.

The study analyzed blood samples of individuals who had been vaccinated and then caught the Delta or Omicron variants and compared them with those who had COVID-19 first and were then vaccinated, those who had been vaccinated but were not previously infected and those who were infected but had never received a COVID-19 vaccine.

The study found vaccinated individuals with breakthrough Omicron infection produced antibodies that formed a strong defense against other variants of the virus. Unvaccinated people who caught Omicron did not have a similarly robust immune response.

Efficacy of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine wanes rapidly

A study published May 13 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found protection from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine turned negatively effective among children and adolescents five months after receiving a second dose — meaning recipients were more likely to get COVID-19 five months after being vaccinated.

Vaccine effectiveness “was no longer significantly different from 0 during month 3 after the second dose,” the researchers wrote. They also found protection against hospitalization waned significantly over time.

In adolescents, the authors said, efficacy increased again with boosters.

Most non-randomized studies attempting to determine vaccine efficacy (VE) had “common flaws,” including no accounting for baseline prior COVID-19 infection, no reporting for those who received a booster within a six-month time window and no adjudication of hospitalization or death due to COVID-19 or other conditions, McCullough told The Epoch Times.

“As a result, most studies of COVID-19 VE have biases towards overestimating any clinical benefit of vaccination,” McCullough said.

As The Defender reported on May 13, a different study published in JAMA showed second and third doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine provided protection against the Omicron variant for only a few weeks.

“Our study found a rapid decline in Omicron-specific serum neutralizing antibody titers only a few weeks after the second and third doses of [the Pfizer-BioNTech] BNT162b2,” the authors wrote.

A preprint study released in February showed Pfizer’s two-dose regimen of its COVID-19 vaccine for children was only 12% effective against Omicron in children ages 9 to 11, and the effectiveness of the vaccine “declined rapidly” for children 5 to 11.

Researchers at the New York State Department of Health and the University at Albany School of Public Health examined the effectiveness of the vaccine in children 5 to 11 and adolescents 12 to 17 from Dec. 13, 2021, to Jan. 30, 2022, and determined the effectiveness of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine declined rapidly for children, particularly those 5-11 years.

According to a Danish study of 128 people who had received two or three doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, levels of Omicron-specific “neutralizing” antibodies decline rapidly after a second and third dose of Pfizer’s shot.

Compared to original and Delta variants, researchers found the proportion of Omicron-specific antibodies detected in participants’ blood dropped “rapidly” from 76% four weeks after the second dose to 53% at weeks 8 to 10 and 19% at weeks 12 to 14.

After the third shot, neutralizing antibodies against Omicron fell 5.4-fold between week 3 and week 8.

Last month, Moderna requested EUA for its COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 6 months to 6 years. Pfizer plans to seek EUA for a three-dose regimen for the same age group.

The FDA’s top vaccine official told a congressional committee on May 6 COVID-19 vaccines for children under 6 will not have to meet the agency’s 50% efficacy threshold required to obtain EUA.

Megan Redshaw is a staff attorney for Children’s Health Defense and a reporter for The Defender.

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

May 18, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Taking the milk out of babies’ mouths: Food shortages are the new globalist weapon

By Kate Dunlop | TCW Defending Freedom | May 18, 2022

ARE you getting used to the Great Reset? How are you liking the New World Order built on globalist diktat, infection, mass poisoning by inoculation, inaccessible healthcare, inflation, draconian policing, shortages, uncontrolled migration, fear, more fear, and war…

You’ll doubtless be prepared for what’s coming next. It’s not a secret – Bill Gates and his World Health Organisation cohorts have already told us. The next viral releases – Hantavirus, Nipah virus, Marburg, whatever – are all primed and ready to go, together with monkeypox and avian bird flu. All come packaged with their own ‘off the shelf treatments’ from Big Pharma, all guaranteed to be equally as effective as the Covid jabs.

Supply chain problems are already here and will worsen, depending on whatever the next emergency is, and the UK is as well prepared for them as it is for shortages of fuel, gas, and electricity – which is to say not at all.

Now we are being told that a major food crisis is inevitable. Speaking at a Nato conference in Brussels on March 25th of this year, Joe Biden said: ‘Regarding food shortages – yes, we did talk about shortages, and they’re going to be real.’ He’s a man of his word.

Previously the blame was put on ‘climate change’, Brexit, shortages of foreign hands to pick and harvest crops, not enough lorry drivers, lockdowns, the ‘management’ of Covid, and the mass culling of chickens due to bird flu.

Now the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia are delivering shortages of gas, oil, and wheat. Russia and Ukraine together are the largest exporters of wheat and other grains in the world and Russia the largest exporter of oil and gas. Their impact on global logistics and food supply is immense.

At the same time, food production and processing facilities in the US seem to be spontaneously combusting. Since August last year, more than 16 such plants have been damaged by fire.

In September, a meat processor in Nebraska lost five per cent of the country’s beef supply. In March this year, a frozen food plant in Arkansas and a potato processing site in Maine both burned down. Last month, two planes crashed into two food plants, causing massive destruction – one at a General Mills facility in Georgia and another at a potato processing unit in Idaho.

Florida is having its worst orange crop in 70 years, with 90 per cent of trees affected by ‘citrus greening,’ a disease spread by the invasive Asian citrus psyllid bug, which was first found in China, then India and Saudi Arabia. Today, every citrus grove is infected. The impact on farmers already suffering from Covid restrictions is disastrous.

Russia and Belarus are two of the biggest global exporters of fertiliser and fertiliser-related products, accounting for 10 billion dollars activity per annum. The war and the sanctions have damaged the fertiliser market, with prices hitting all-time highs in March.

China’s draconian ‘Zero Covid’ approach and its export ban on fertiliser since last summer has added to farmers’ woes and hit food production costs.

Now it’s baby formula milk, with shortages across the US since February this year. CBS News reports that some 40 per cent of top-selling formula products were ‘out of stock’ at the end of April, according to an analysis from Datasembly.

The Wall Street Journal suggests two reasons for the shortages. It says supply chain issues caused by the Covid-19 pandemic worsened after Abbott Labs, a major formula manufacturer, voluntarily recalled some products and closed a plant in Michigan. Then there was a Food and Drug Administration investigation into complaints related to four infants who were hospitalised, two of whom died.

The White House reaction last week was woeful, with the tone-deaf press secretary Jen Psaki saying the government is ‘doing its best’ and that manufacturers are working at full capacity. In a national health emergency she went on to hint that some mothers are hoarding formula.

But, as with everything in the Magic Kingdom of Biden, things are not what they seem. The legacy media are slow to show locked cabinets in Walmart and empty shelves in other stores, though news that the government is transporting supplies of baby formula to border migrants is beginning to leak, as Tucker Carlson reports.

Eric Boehm, writing in Reason, confirms that although some of the shortages stem from the closure of the Abbott plant, there were already longstanding market problems. A closer look at US trade and regulatory policies shows that government is primarily responsible for the shortages.

According to the New York Times, ‘baby formula is one of the most tightly regulated food products in the US, with the Food and Drug Administration dictating the nutrients and vitamins, and setting strict rules about how formula is produced, packaged, and labelled’.

The US formula market was valued at 3,653 million dollars in 2019 and projected to reach 5,811 million dollars by 2027. The Covid-19 pandemic brought an upsurge in demand due to panic buying on the back of shortage fears.

Rising numbers of American parents are sourcing ‘unapproved’ European formula, even though it attracts an 18 per cent tariff quota. Some are desperate for supply, but others choose European brands because they offer options such as goat’s milk or milk from pasture-raised cows, which are ‘rare or non-existent in an FDA-regulated form in the US’.

Others consider EU products to be of higher quality due to stricter content regulations, including important levels of DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid), which are not required in the US. Almost no American baby formula would meet EU standards and many parents worry about adulteration.

Americans pay well over the odds for European formula, with one website selling product from Germany at 26 dollars for a 400-gram box, about four times the price of the top US formulas.

In April 2021, US Customs and Border Protection agents in Philadelphia seized 588 cases of formula worth around 30,000 dollars. The formula was said to have violated the FDA’s ‘import safety regulations.’ According to Twitter chatter, the FDA issued a fake recall of European formulas in 2021 and has regularly seized legal personal-use shipments.

Plain old natural disaster coupled with bureaucratic interference is not what is going on here. The US baby formula shortage is neither due to incompetence nor maladministration – it is an attack on the most vulnerable in society; part of a deliberate policy to keep chaos bubbling at peak in the service of the Great Reset.

We know what is going on. In 1974, Henry Kissinger said: ‘Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.’

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , | Leave a comment

US puts ‘disinformation board’ on hold

The government’s Disinformation Governance Board has reportedly been paused after a tide of online criticism

Samizdat | May 18, 2022

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has “paused” its Disinformation Governance Board, the Washington Post claimed in a story published on Wednesday. The outlet blamed the decision on online “right-wing attacks” against its appointed head Nina Jankowicz, who has confirmed her resignation from the government.

According to the Post, the DHS decided to shutter the board on Monday and Jankowicz drafted her resignation letter on Tuesday morning, only to be pulled into a conference call on Tuesday evening and offered to stay in some capacity.

The Homeland Security Advisory Council is currently reviewing whether to shut down the board entirely, while the DHS working groups “focused on mis-, dis- and mal-information have been suspended,” the Post reported.

After the story was published, Jankowicz confirmed her resignation in a statement released through a spokesperson. “I have decided to leave DHS to return to my work in the public sphere,” she wrote, noting that the board’s work has been “paused and its future uncertain.”

“It is deeply disappointing that mischaracterizations of the Board became a distraction from the Department’s vital work, and indeed, along with recent events globally and nationally, embodies why it is necessary,” Jankowicz added.

The DHS has not officially commented on the status of the board. A statement given to the Post only said that “Jankowicz has been subjected to unjustified and vile personal attacks and physical threats.”

Most of the story, authored by the controversial columnist Taylor Lorenz, focuses on what she calls “coordinated online attacks” against Jankowicz, which she says were led by “far-right influencer” Jack Posobiec, the editor of Human Events.

Jankowicz announced the board’s creation and her role in it on April 27. It did not take long for  critics to bring up her own online history, from Democrat activism and involvement in “Russiagate” to efforts to censor the – true – New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop as a fake “Russian influence op.”

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, however, has defended Jankowicz as “eminently qualified” and a “renowned expert in the field of disinformation,” adding that he did not question her objectivity.

Jankowicz, 33, has previously worked for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – the Post uses a 2019 photo taken at his campaign headquarters as the cover for its article – as well as the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the US National Democratic Institute, where she ran the Russia and Belarus programs.

The board’s purpose had been “grossly mischaracterized,” a department spokesperson told the Post, adding it was not meant to police speech. “Quite the opposite, its focus is to ensure that freedom of speech is protected.”

Anonymous DHS employees and congressional staffers, on the other hand, told Lorenz that Jankowicz was “set up to fail” by the Biden administration, which was “unsure of its messaging” and “unprepared” to counter the online criticism of her.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Nancy Pelosi says there needs to be a “balance” to free speech

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | May 17, 2022

In the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on ABC to advocate for “balance between free speech and safety.” She did not specify how this balance might be achieved, or who would have the last word in defining it.

Seemingly suggesting that suppressing free speech to some (unspecified) extent would be the way to go in dealing with cases of extreme violence, this US official made it clear that it was once again social media that politicians would like to see moderate and censor even more than they do now.

Speaking on Sunday, the Democrat also complained that it is impossible for her party to carry out its gun control proposals in the Senate, and urged “vigilance” among the population, encouraging people to report others to the authorities in case somebody is suspected of being “on a path” to committing acts of violence.

Social media companies, meantime, should “address” and also track down whatever gets classified as extremism, Pelosi’s comments suggest.

The Buffalo shooter, an 18-year-old, is presumed to have adopted the ideology of white supremacy, and Pelosi’s mention of social platforms needing to step up their speech policing game appears to stem from investigators at this time thinking that some online postings praising previous mass shootings “may be associated” with the gunman. There have also been reports of a “manifesto” being posted online before the deadly incident occurred.

Pelosi’s sentiment focusing on the role of social media was echoed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who said tech companies must be “held accountable” and be made to provide assurances that they are “taking every step humanly possible to be able to monitor this information.”

Pelosi has long been “at war” with social media, notably while pressuring Facebook to remove an edited video of her, that her supporters at the time referred to as a “deep fake.”

Also in 2020, she egged on advertisers to use their “tremendous leverage” to force social media companies to increase the level of censorship of what she considers to be misinformation. At the time, speech that Pelosi believed needed to be more strictly controlled had to do with topics such as elections and Covid.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

The imminent global food crisis is being blamed on Russia, but the truth is rather more complex

Just-in-time supply chains and globalism may lead to global hunger

By Dr. Mathew Maavak | Samizdat | May 18, 2022

The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict is undoubtedly impacting global grain supplies, as well as the means of growing crops around the world. But is the looming global food crisis solely Russia’s fault – as spun by the Western media machine?

Only a few months ago, Covid-19, government-imposed lockdowns and climate change were repeatedly blamed for this scenario.

A recent White House Joint Statement by US President Joe Biden and EU leader Ursula von der Leyen clearly singled out the supposed new culprit: “We are deeply concerned by how Putin’s war in Ukraine has caused major disruptions to international food and agriculture supply chains, and the threat it poses to global food security. We recognize that many countries around the world have relied on imported food staples and fertilizer inputs from Ukraine and Russia, with Putin’s aggression disrupting that trade.”

The concept of global food security these days appear as fleeting as Biden’s mnemonic prowess. It has been 12 years since the world was shaken by the Arab Spring, a series of events in which hunger played a significant role, and which, in turn, led to violent uprisings and yet-unresolved civil wars in Libya, Yemen and Syria. Big Tech, Western officials and influencers fuelled this mayhem in the name of ‘freedom and democracy’ but never proffered any concrete solutions. Instead, global hunger grew unabated, while its root causes were explicated through the lens of ‘climate change’ and ‘global governance’.

In the meantime, right at the doorsteps of the Tech giants, the streets of San Francisco were increasingly populated by the homeless and strewn with human faeces and discarded needles from drug abuse. Even a new urban art genre emerged in the form of poop graffiti! Nothing better represents the disconnect between the lofty promises and septic realities of Silicon Valley.

Here is something else for the reader to ponder: Contact-tracing technologies that were used to lock down societies were never trialled to connect the poor to nearby farmers markets, food banks and soup kitchens. A rational person cannot be blamed for suspecting that the intention all along was to eviscerate small-scale farmers, grocers and traders during lockdowns and thereby render citizens prostrate before governments and Big Business. As for technocrats who lap up the smarmy fantasies of the World Economic Forum (WEF), what lessons have they learnt since the fateful Arab Spring?

Here we look at two inexcusable failings of the purveyors of global governance. These are linked to the very issues which Biden and von der Leyen are using to scapegoat Russia.

National granaries

The Arab Spring and its bloody aftermath should have taught governments a lesson about the imperative of establishing new national granaries. Well-maintained facilities can store wheat and corn, amongst other goods, for more than 10 years. Individuals can extend this shelf-life to a whopping 31 years under proper conditions.

Grain stats worldwide also raise questions over government commitments to food security. Global wheat production, for instance, has steadily increased during the last decade. According to a Statista.com brief on Jan 27: “The global production volume of wheat came to about over 772 million metric tons in the marketing year of 2020/21. This was an increase of about ten million tons compared to the previous year. Wheat stocks is [sic] also estimated to increase to about 294 million metric tons worldwide by 2021.”

Dr. Mathew Maavak is a Malaysian expert on risk foresight and governance.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

EU to pay Ukraine’s budget

Samizdat | May 18, 2022

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday proposed an aid package of 9 billion euros ($9.5 billion) to keep Ukraine’s government running, and said that the EU would lead reconstruction efforts in Ukraine after hostilities cease. Her announcement came a day after the US called on Europe to open its coffers for Kiev.

Money for the aid package would be borrowed by the Commission on global financial markets and would be repayable by Kiev. As per the EU’s rules on macro-financial assistance, the Ukrainian government would be free to use the cash as it sees fit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Ukraine needs around $7 billion per month to pay its soldiers, civilians and pensioners, and to keep essential services running. The proposed EU package will therefore keep Ukraine functioning for just over a month.

Hours before von der Leyen’s announcement, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Brussels Economic Forum that “the bilateral and multilateral support announced so far will not be sufficient to address Ukraine’s needs, even in the short term.”

“I sincerely ask all our partners to join us in increasing their financial support to Ukraine,” she continued, adding that aside from keeping the country afloat in the short term, “massive support” would be needed to rebuild Ukraine once the fighting ends.

Von der Leyen said on Wednesday that the EU will lead this reconstruction effort, but would not be the sole contributor.

“That is why we propose a reconstruction platform as part of this plan jointly led by Ukraine and the Commission and bringing together EU Member States, other bilateral or international donors, international financial institutions, and other like-minded partners,” she said.

While von der Leyen’s aid package is in line with what Yellen requested, it must still be approved by both the European Parliament and European Council. However, none of the Commission’s aid packages to Ukraine thus far – which include four consecutive €500 million ($520 million) packages of military aid and €1.2 billion ($1.26 billion) worth of emergency loans – have faced any resistance from either body.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused EU leaders of acting on behalf of their “American overlord” with regard to Ukraine, and committing economic “suicide” by cutting themselves off from Russian energy resources amid inflation and record high fuel costs.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Western military strategy for Ukraine changes for conciliatory tone

By Uriel Araujo | May 18, 2022

According to Western authorities and media reports Ukraine has been winning the war, but, notwithstanding all the weapon’s shipments from the West, this narrative can only be described as propaganda, for a number of reasons. Amid this triumphalist rhetoric, the US-led West seems to have chosen the path of full-spectrum conflict with Moscow, as one can see in the recent G7 joint statement.

And yet, strangely, French President Emmanuel Macron’s own remarks during Europe Day contained a conciliatory tone about not “humiliating” Moscow should Kiev win. The US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, in turn has asked May13 for a conversation with his counterpart, Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, to talk about “an immediate ceasefire”. This was the very first talk the two officials had since the beginning of the Russian military operations in February. Thus, we are seeing contradictory signs.

Moreover, Austin also showed he is interested in keeping lines of communication open with the Kremlin. The one-hour long phone call was requested by Washington. This is the same Lloyd Austin who, in April 26, stated he believed Kiev would win the war, with American help.

Echoing Austin’s change of tone, Macron reportedly has asked Ukraine to make some “concessions”, to which President Volodymir Zelensky replied in a May 13 interview with Italian TV channel RAI that “we won’t help Putin save face by paying with our territory”. This has generated some embarrassment and has prompted a reply from the French presidency, stating that Macron in fact has never “asked President Zelenskyy for any concession.” The same day the G7 announced its intentions to further contain and isolate Moscow, Macron stated, during his address to the European Parliament, on May 9, that “we are not at war with Russia”, adding that Europe’s duty is to “stand with Ukraine to achieve a ceasefire, then build peace.”

Macron and Austin are not alone. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a long talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 13 over the telephone, according to a recent Twitter publication of his, stated that there must be a “ceasefire” in Ukraine “as quickly as possible”. Interestingly there was no talk of Russia immediately retreating, which would be a strange thing if it were true that Kiev is “winning” the war.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi in turn has also echoed the same theme about a ceasefire. The fact that the speeches of leaders from the three EU largest countries are thus aligned is a clear sign that something is changing. This reflects popular opinion also: according to a recent survey across 27 Western countries (conducted by polling company Ipsos), support for diplomatic talks with Russia has increased precisely in France, Germany and Italy.

These are certainly not the only problems that should worry the US. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, has threatened to block Sweden and Finland NATO bids. With Turkey being such a relevant NATO member, this is yet another sign of the contradictions within the alliance.

In spite of the aforementioned Austin statements, the American take on this is still somewhat more complicated, though. According to the Politico website, a high-ranking Washington official has admitted the US worries about a “fracture”, considering these recent European developments. Within American society itself, however, concerned voices, even in the conservative camp, are increasingly more skeptical about the current US policy regarding the Russo-Ukrainian war. As inflation rises, the 40 billion-dollar package to help Kiev, which is being discussed in Congress, is under a lot of criticism.

While Western officials are starting to change their tone and are apparently willing to start some dialogue with Moscow, the Ukrainian President in turn is maintaining his triumphalist uncompromising tone. Kiev, however, is largely dependent on the West, and in the long run would have no choice, but to play along.

The problem is that any “appeasement” endeavors will face a harsh internal reaction from the very extremist forces the West has been supporting. One should recall Dmytro Yarosh’s 2019 threatening remarks about Zelensky “losing his life” and ending up “hanging on a tree on Khreshchatyk (in the Kiev’s center)” if he “betrayed” Ukrainian nationalists. Yarosh, a far-right activist, is nowadays an adviser to Valerii Zaluzhny, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This also explains why countries such as Germany are increasingly reluctant to further arm Kiev – the risk of weapons ending up in the hands of unpredictable extremist groups is too high.

By now, it has become abundantly clear that today’s conflict in Ukraine is a proxy Western war against Russia. The attitude of the United States and EU leaders regarding the crisis has been one of open confrontation without compromise – and of fueling tensions. However, as we can see, there are signs that this approach could be starting to decline.

In early May, referring to the former US President, Noam Chomsky, stated, in an interview, that only one “Western statesman” is advocating “a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, instead of looking for ways to encourage and prolong it”, namely “Donald Trump”. Chomsky’s remark seemed accurate back then, but this might be changing now.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »