CDC REFUSING TO PUBLISH DATA
And:
US TRUCKERS HIT THE HIGHWAY IN PROTEST OF MANDATES
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | February 24, 2022
Freedom Convoy USA 2022 Organizer, Kyle Sefcik, went viral this week with his video message to President Biden to end the mandates, and his plan for peaceful protest of the draconian measures.
Convoy updates.
#FreedomConvoyUSA #KyleSefcik #TruckerConvoy #FreedomConvoyUSA2022
See also:
Chinese embassy points to ‘real threat to the world’
RT | February 27, 2022
Chinese diplomats have published a list of US military adventures in recent decades, arguing that Washington was the “real threat” to the world, as the EU, the US, the UK, NATO, and the UN chief have all accused Moscow of an “unprovoked” attack on Ukraine.
The Chinese embassy in Russia on Saturday reposted an image originally shared by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lijian Zhao earlier this week showcasing the United States’ “Democracy World Tour.” Listing many of the incidents where the US had either bombed or invaded other countries since the end of the Second World War, the image noted that these nations represented “roughly one-third of the people on earth.”
“Never forget who’s the real threat to the world,” Zhao captioned the photo. The embassy added the same caption to its post, but in Russian.
The embassy went on to point out that 81% of wars between 1945 and 2001 were launched by the US, accusing Washington of “pouring oil” on the conflict in Ukraine.
On Saturday, Zhao took yet another swipe at Washington with an image listing “bomb attacks, sabotage, attempted regime change” by Washington. The diplomat accompanied the post with a hashtag #NeverForget.
China was one of the three nations that abstained from the voting on a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine after it was vetoed by Russia. The resolution demanded the immediate withdrawal of troops engaged in the Kremlin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Bloomberg reported on Saturday that at least two of China’s largest state-controlled banks limited financing to purchase raw materials from Russia, reportedly out of concern about US sanctions.
Public health needs restrictions
It is time for a taste of its own medicine
By Vinay Prasad MD MPH | February 26, 2022
Just yesterday, I read that NYC public schools will remove the OUTDOOR mask mandate starting Monday. How Brave!
Let’s reflect on this for a moment. NYC school district has been requiring children wear masks OUTSIDE all this time. Years after we knew the virus almost never spreads outside. During recess when kids play, forced to wear a mask while exerting themselves. Wow!
Whoever made the policy is an idiot. No way around it. They are not fit for policymaking. They abused the power of government to coerce children (at incredibly low risk of bad outcomes) to wear a mask in a setting where the virus simply does not spread. In other words, they participated in something done in the name of public health, which actually made human beings worse off. Worse, they used coercive force to do it.
Post-COVID we need to seriously talk about setting restrictions. But not on people. We need to place restrictions on public health and things done in the name of public health. We cannot allow individuals who are poor at weighing risk and benefit and uncertainty to coerce human beings, disproportionately the young and powerless (waiters/ servers) to participate in interventions that have no data supporting them, for years on end.
Public health be the subject of restrictions; a taste of its own medicine. Some of those restrictions should be placed on governments, but others on private actors who are appealing to public health. Here is what that might look like:
- In an emergency situation, if governments mandate or advise individual level behavioral interventions (e.g. masking), those entities should have to generate robust data in 3 months (cluster RCTs) to demonstrate efficacy, or the intervention is automatically revoked. Some may argue 3 months is too short, but if it is truly a crisis warranting emergency proclamations, then you should see a signal in 3 months, and governments can expand sample size to ensure prompt results.
- If a trial is positive that does not mean the policy continues forever, but must be debated (net benefit/ net harms/ tradeoffs) by the body politic.
- Private entities should be prohibited from mandating emergency drug products. Check out this tweet by my conversation partner— VPZD PODCAST— Zubin Daminia:
Cal Academy is a museum in Golden Gate Park. Do they have any business nor ability to mandate boosters in adolescents? No, it is absurd. Two senior officials with the FDA— Gruber and Krause- resigned over this decision. Paul Offit and Luciano Boro and others have been publicly critical of boosters for young people, and Cal Academy mandates it? Cal Academy is not qualified to make this decision.
- The same is true for daycares and private schools that have already mandated kids vax 5 to 11. Should random private individuals be permitted to coerce vaccination under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)? I believe restrictions must be put in place to prevent them from doing such a thing. Perhaps it should be explicit that it is illegal to coerce any medical product under EUA status. This would stop Cal Academy and private schools.
- The same is true for boosters. Colleges should be prohibited from mandating medical products under the auspices of EUA. What is going on right now on college campuses is astonishing foolishness.
- Hospital patients deserve a bill of rights. Prohibitions on visitation, particularly of children or older people; especially near the end of life were cruel and disgusting. Even long after PPE was adequate— into 2022— these rules continued. Patients need a bill of rights, and hospitals should face severe restrictions on their ability to banning visitors. To my knowledge the US has not— like Hong Kong— Separated a baby from her parents, but our rules are unjust.
- Do people have the right to return to the their home country? Read this excellent article about Australians trapped in India. This is an important issue.
- Who decides if schools should close? Schools are too important to permit local decision makers to close them for years on end. In the USA, this happened along partisan lines, with the most progressive cities punishing children the most. There has to be some bill of rights for kids to prevent this from happening. Schools might need to close in rare circumstances in the future, but this should be done only in extraordinary times, and no one can justify closing schools only in Democratic cities. Kids need a real champion, and it is not the AAP.
These are just a few examples of where governments or institutions have overreached in the name of public health, but there are many more. Post COVID, the group that needs to face the strongest restrictions is public health itself. We must careful remove the power we have granted public health, which has often been misused.
Vinay Prasad MD MPH is a hematologist-oncologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco. He runs the VKPrasad lab at UCSF, which studies cancer drugs, health policy, clinical trials and better decision making. He is author of over 300 academic articles, and the books Ending Medical Reversal (2015), and Malignant (2020).
Russia’s space agency responds to Western sanctions
RT | February 26, 2022
Roscosmos will cease work on joint space projects with Europe and the United States and instead seek cooperation with China, the head of the Russian space agency Dmitry Rogozin announced on Saturday.
Rogozin told Tass news agency on Saturday that he had given his team an order to start negotiations with Beijing on coordination and mutual technical support of all deep space missions, including the ‘Venera-D’ project, the first Russian mission to Venus since Soviet times.
“Under the conditions of sanctions, US participation in the project is impossible,” Rogozin said.
Earlier on Saturday, Rogozin also announced the suspension of cooperation with European partners on launches from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
In a tweet, Rogozin said Roscosmos was suspending the cooperation in light of new sanctions and “recalling its technical staff, including the launch team.”
The European Space Agency (ESA) has been using the Russian-made Soyuz rockets to send some of its satellites into orbit. Kourou’s proximity to the equator makes it an ideal place for space launches.
NASA said on Friday, however, that despite new sanctions and export controls imposed on Moscow it would continue working with Roscosmos on the operation of the International Space Station (ISS).
The West has implemented a harsh new wave of sanctions on Russia following its military attack on Ukraine, with restrictions varying from banning operations of Russian banks and companies to airspace closures, the suspension of visas, and personal sanctions aimed at President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that restrictions slapped on Moscow would “degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program.”
Russia insists that its offensive in Ukraine was its only option to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which it recognizes as independent states, and to ensure that Russia would not be put under threat by NATO from Ukrainian territory. Moscow is now working on retaliation measures. Earlier on Saturday, Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that analysis and coordination of efforts between various agencies would be required to provide a response which “would best serve” Russia’s interests.
Washington’s Crocodile Tears Over Ukraine’s Destruction
By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | February 25, 2022
As of this writing, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is hunkered down in his bunker somewhere in Kiev, as the sound of the encroaching war gets closer and closer. A grim scene, to be sure.
All the US and EU kisses and roses leading up to this end have turned to dust and barbed wire, as a no-doubt deeply bitter Zelensky has nothing left but to cry out in anger: “Who is ready to fight with us? I do not see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid.”
The chips are down, as much of the US-equipped and backed Ukrainian military appears to have turned and ran as Russian forces approached. That is not to say that there has not been death and destruction on both sides. The battle for Kherson was brutal, with plenty of Russian losses. But nevertheless, as of this writing, it has fallen to Russian control.
Kiev in the main may well fall within the next 12-24 hours. Russian troops are already in the city. And Zelensky is in his bunker with fewer and fewer to take his calls. The cavalry he believed was promised him will not be coming to rescue him. Ukraine will be de-militarized and Ukraine will be neutral. Once held up as a great ally of Washington and Brussels, Zelensky is alone.
It brings to mind that great quote I often recycle from RPI academic advisor John Laughland, written as the early US-backed color revolutions rampaged through the former Soviet world in the early 2000s:
It is better to be an enemy of the Americans than their friend. If you are their enemy, they might try to buy you; but if you are their friend they will definitely sell you.
Zelensky has now learned the bitter truth, which previously favored foreign leaders also learned. Most of their lessons have been even harder than Zelensky’s (at least to this point).
The bitter truth is that Washington’s foreign policy establishment never actually considered Zelensky – or his predecessor Poroshenko – to be allies or partners of the United States. Overflowing with a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and extreme cynicism, Washington’s elites have always viewed Ukraine as a tool to “regime-change” a Russia that, after its post-Yeltsin recovery, would no longer take its direction from them.
The false gods of American exceptionalism are jealous ones indeed.
The American foreign policy establishment wanted a perpetual “Yanks to the Rescue” Russia, whereby US “consultants” and spooks would ensure that the most obsequious candidate would continue to win and rule. A string of Russian presidents who would, à la Shevardnadze and a whole string of other post-Soviet leaders, run the country like a family business: lots of biznis deals for family members…and maybe 10 percent for the “big guy.”
Americans are victims (willing or not) of a mass media system as propagandistic as any that existed during Soviet Communism. The “party line” is established and it is unwaveringly followed whether the favored flavor is Fox or MSNBC. When it became obvious that Yeltsin’s one-time understudy, Vladimir Putin, wasn’t going to play that way, the party line came down that he must be demonized.
Not carefully studied and where appropriate opposed (on the basis of actual US interests), but rather Putin had to be demonized and, ultimately, “regime-changed.”
Discourse in the US is so infantile that just writing this objective truth will no doubt land this author in the “Putin’s puppet” purgatory. Not for the first time.
Most Americans will not have heard – and those who have likely do not care – that twice when the Ukrainian people elected a president who was in favor of maintaining good relations with its Russian neighbor the US intervened and overthrew the government. First time in the 2004-5 “Orange Revolution” and then the fateful 2014 “Maidan” revolt, which was explicitly and overtly supported by senior US government officials on the ground in Kiev including Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland and the late neocon warmonger Sen. John McCain.
In the meantime tens of millions of dollars flow from the US taxpayer to favored think tanks, civic organizations, and media outlets via the National Endowment for Democracy (sic) and numerous US-funded related organizations. The goal is the same: manipulate Ukraine so that it remains on Washington’s preferred path (toward conflict with Russia).
It is fashionable – particularly over the past two days – for even antiwar and “restraint”-promoting scribblers and jaw-boners to fall into tune with the warmongers’ songbook of “Russian aggression” as the sole cause of recent bloodshed and destruction.
While anyone with an ounce of decency deeply regrets and opposes the use of such massive military force as we have seen recently in Ukraine, if there is one lesson to be learned from this entire miserable chapter (and by “chapter” I mean the entirety of post-Cold War US foreign policy) it is this: There are consequences that come with the belief that the key to peace and prosperity is to remake the world in your own image through the use of overt and covert, violent and non-violent means. That lesson should have been learned with the fall of Soviet communism itself, but the “victors” were too full of hubris to pause for a moment of humility.
Wishing reality was one thing and accepting that it is another are two very different things. The distinction must be made or the mass mental illness of “American exceptionalism” can never be cured. Otherwise the consequences next time the tectonic plates shift may be far closer to home.
Whether America and the EU like it or not, the era of ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality” is well and truly over. Its end is not to be mourned but to be celebrated. The only pro-America foreign policy is non-intervention in the affairs of others.
Ukrainian President Zelensky is unlikely to survive his turn being America’s cat’s paw to wrong-foot Russia. While he sits in his bunker contemplating his fate, he may well be visited by the ghosts of Saddam and Gaddafi and all those who preceded him in this position. God help him.
Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute
Twitter Says It Will Consider Censoring “Emerging Narratives” About Ukraine War
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | February 25, 2022
Twitter announced that it was monitoring “emerging narratives” about the Ukraine war that will be censored if they represent a violation of the company’s policies.
The announcement was made in response to Twitter deleting tweets and suspending accounts that had posted videos of Russian tank divisions and helicopters heading to Ukraine.
After users complained, Twitter acknowledged that it had targeted the accounts in “error” and they were later restored.
However, a statement by a Twitter spokesperson is likely to cause alarm amongst free speech advocates.
“We took enforcement action on a number of accounts in error,” the statement said, adding, “We’ve been proactively monitoring for emerging narratives that are violative of our policies.”
The use of the term “emerging narratives” suggests that Twitter will begin censoring certain perspectives on the conflict in the context of their policy on “misinformation.”
These problematic “narratives” are almost certainly likely to be ones that question narratives being put out by the Biden White House and NATO sources.
Similar rules were applied to skepticism expressed towards COVID vaccines as well as the lab leak theory, which was once deemed to be ‘harmful misinformation’ but is now widely accepted as the most likely explanation for the pandemic.
The potential for the Russian attack on Ukraine to be exploited to push for further censorship and blacklisting of free speech in the west is a clear danger.
For weeks, leftists have been trying to smear Tucker Carlson as being guilty of “treason” over him accusing the Biden administration of exploiting tensions between Russia and Ukraine to distract from the president’s dreadful handling of domestic issues.
The word “traitor” also trended on Twitter yesterday in response to Nigel Farage suggesting that NATO should share some blame for Putin’s actions.
In a related story, the official Twitter Ukrainian government also lobbied Twitter to ban the official Russian government Twitter account.
Ukraine’s hybrid war is mutating
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | FEBRUARY 25, 2022
The first signs of the dual track in Russia’s hybrid war in Ukraine have surfaced. By Thursday evening, the Kremlin held out an olive branch to the Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Succinctly put, President Vladimir Putin expressed his preparedness to engage in discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart with a focus on obtaining a guarantee of neutral status for Ukraine and the promise of no offensive weapons on its territory.
The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said without elaborating, “The president formulated his vision of what we would expect from Ukraine in order for the so-called ‘red-line’ problems to be resolved. This is neutral status, and this is a refusal to deploy weapons.”
Putin had made it clear in a nation-wide address Thursday morning announcing the launch of the military operation that the Russian objective narrowed down to “demilitarisation” and “denazification” of Ukraine. The latter refers to the ascendant neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine who have been acting as a state within the state and perpetrated atrocities against the ethnic Russian population.
The Kremlin offer didn’t come out of the blue. A group of Ukrainian MPs also came out yesterday with an appeal calling on Zelensky, in an open letter, to start negotiations with Moscow. Interestingly, the group is led by Vadim Novinsky – a Ukrainian billionaire and one of the co-leaders of the Opposition Bloc, an association of over dozen political parties. The group also proposed direct consultations between the parliaments of the two countries.
But what lends enchantment to the view is that Zelensky on his own also requested French President Emmanuel Macron to convey a message to Putin directly. Macron has since disclosed that he has had “a quick, direct and frank conversation on a request from President Zelensky.”
Macron said the aim of the conversation was a request from Kiev “to end hostilities as soon as possible.” The Kremlin confirms that Putin held a “frank” conversation with Macron.
Macron’s role is important, since it was he who first floated with Putin the idea, in the course of a conversation recently, that one way out of the impasse could be that Kiev unilaterally gave up any intention to join the NATO. Subsequently, in an interaction with the Russian media at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Putin also mentioned this idea.
Zelensky himself said (after Macron’s conversation with Putin) in an emotional video address to the nation after midnight Thursday, “We have been left alone to defend our state. Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid.” He went on to disclose that he had heard from Moscow that ”they want to talk about Ukraine’s neutral status.”
Quite obviously, Zelensky realises by now that the cavalry is not coming from Washington or Brussels to salvage his government. In fact, Zelensky’s request to Macron followed the repeated categorical affirmations by US President Biden that there is no question of American intervention in Ukraine or of US troops engaging Russian military.
Meanwhile, Russian Defence Ministry highlighted on Thursday that Moscow’s strategy will be to hit military targets and avoid civilian casualty. Ukraine’s air defence system has been rendered non-functional. Moscow is encouraging Ukrainian soldiers to surrender or simply return to their families, the intention being to minimise any fighting.
All this suggests that a political track is on standby. The Russian game plan is to force Zelensky to see the writing on the wall. Ukraine’s capitulation is a matter of days only. This hybrid war would have the following elements:
- Russia will no doubt systematically vanquish the neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine (especially within the military such as the Azov Brigade) who have Russian blood on their hands. These elements so far acted with impunity because of covert western support for their anti-Russian disposition.
- Russia estimates, rightly so, that any crackdown on the neo-Nazi elements will only strengthen Zelensky’s hands. Lacking a power base of his own, he has been a hostage of extreme nationalists.
- On the other hand, Western powers have retrenched in panic from Kiev, and an embittered Zelensky is left to fend for himself. But, paradoxically, this also makes Zelensky a reasonable interlocutor, liberated from the US’ vice-like grip.
- Zelensky has been acting under immense external pressure and fear of extreme nationalists who enjoy “street power.”(The coup in February 2014, scuttling an orderly constitutional transition from President Viktor Yanukovich, was organised by the ultra-nationalists with overt US support.)
- Zelensky’s massive mandate (over 73% of votes) in the 2019 election was largely due to whole-hearted support from Russian voters who were attracted to his platform of dialogue with Russia and the promise of a negotiated settlement in Donbass with Moscow’s help. But in the event, he became a captive of extreme nationalists and a victim of western manipulation.
- Nevertheless, Zelensky has been sporadically signalling to Moscow his desire for an exit route, sensing he was on a road to nowhere. Lately, he voiced dissatisfaction over the war hysteria in Washington. At least during one telephone conversation with Biden recently, they had a heated exchange, according to the CNN.
Russia’s tentative offer appears to be that Ukraine could opt for a status of neutrality on the lines of Austria and Finland with a self-imposed ban on its NATO membership. Conceivably, Zelensky would be open to such an idea. Now, what is there in it for him?
First, Russia will forthwith call off or at least suspend the military operation. That will strengthen Zelensky’s standing. Second, Russia’s direct involvement holds the key to easing of tensions in the Donbass. Moscow had been dodging such a role.
Third, Zelensky could resume his links with the pro-Russian constituency in Ukraine, which was his mainstay of support in the 2019 election. This would have implications for his bid for a second term in the 2023 election.
Fourth, Russia enjoys extensive networking within Ukraine, which has a chaotic political environment driven by corruption and venality, oligarchs and mafia and so on. Russia still wields influence with the power brokers who have at one time or another enjoyed Moscow’s patronage. Thus, Zelensky would see that Russian help can also heal Ukraine’s fragmented political economy.
As for Russia, out of the conditions for security guarantee that it had projected to the US in mid-December, where Moscow drew a blank, Putin may succeed in reaching his objectives at least partially if Ukraine were to turn its back on NATO membership and terminate western military deployments on its soil.
Given the profound civilisational links between Russia and Ukraine, enduring people-to-people relations and family kinships, there is a reservoir of opinion in Ukraine favouring improvement of relations with Russia. Ukraine’s economy is also closely aligned with Russia — even today, Russia is Ukraine’s number one export market. Russia has been a generous donor too. The transit fee for transportation of pipeline gas to Europe alone exceeded 1 billion dollars annually!
Russia’s main gain will be that in geopolitical terms, Ukraine regains its sovereignty and ceases to be a de facto American colony. Russia calculates that a neutral Ukraine will de facto take the Ukraine matrix to its priori history before the 2014 coup.
What is of crucial importance will be that Zelensky is somehow enabled to navigate his path toward dialogue with Putin. The good part is that Russian military operations will throw radical nationalists into disarray, and, secondly, it is improbable that Biden is raring to resume the shenanigans in Ukraine. American politics is increasingly riveted on the mid-term in November and public disfavours Washington taking sides between Ukraine and Russia.
Will the US acquiesce with the nascent processes? There is hope that Macron can mediate. Conceivably, he is in touch with Biden.
CA Bill would punish Doctors over COVID ‘Misinformation,’ as other states move to protect Doctors’ rights
By David Charbonneau, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 23, 2022
Before the U.S. Supreme Court last month blocked the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for large employers and allowed the mandate for healthcare workers to stand, all eyes were on the feds when it came to COVID-related policies.
But state lawmakers also have been busy drafting bills in an effort to shape COVID policies closer to home.
The California Assembly, for example, introduced over the past six months a flurry of bills designed to strengthen vaccination mandates and regulate treatment options for patients.
For example, Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) last month introduced legislation proposing COVID vaccine mandates for all K-12 students in California schools.
And this month, Assembly Member Evan Low (D-Campbell) introduced legislation (AB 2098) that, according to the Los Angeles Times, would “make it easier for the Medical Board of California to discipline doctors who promote COVID-19 misinformation by classifying it as unprofessional conduct.”
The bill defines “unprofessional conduct” as any action a physician or surgeon takes “to disseminate or promote misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”
Under the bill, disciplinary action could be brought against a physician for disseminating information that “resulted in an individual declining opportunities for COVID-19 treatment or prevention that was not justified by the individual’s medical history or condition.”
Additionally, doctors could be disciplined for “misinformation or disinformation” that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus to an extent where its dissemination constitutes gross negligence” by the physician.
Commenting on the criteria, Dr. Meryl Nass, an expert in epidemiology and vaccine injury and member of the Children’s Health Defense scientific advisory committee, said:
“I think this is clearly an attempt to legislate that the government of California or the Medical Board of California will define what is truth and what is misinformation, and medical providers will have to follow lockstep with that definition.
“This, of course, is the same thing as the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s “1984,” and if the California legislature actually votes for this bill, the intent of the action will be to enforce a one and only truth.
“Nowhere does this legislature define what is misinformation and disinformation. They do talk about contemporary scientific consensus but as we know in the last two years, the so-called scientific consensus — or the public health agency consensus — on masks, on vaccination, on boosters, etc. has flip-flopped all over the place. So we have adequate examples that the concept of “contemporary scientific consensus” is basically meaningless in this context.”
Contrary to typical board practice, under AB 2098, physicians could also be disciplined for public speech, including social media posts, unrelated to the actual treatment of patients.
Supporters of Low’s bill insist the legislation does not impinge on doctors’ freedom of speech.
“This isn’t a call for a policing of free speech,” Nick Sawyer, an emergency room doctor who founded a group called No License for Disinformation, told the LA Times. “This is a call for protecting the public against dangerous misinformation, which patients are parroting back to us in our emergency room departments every day.”
Nass disagreed:
“The result is removing options from doctors and patients. And the longer-term consequence is that doctors will become irrelevant if they are not needed to assess each individual’s personal risks and benefits from each type of medical care.
“The government and its partners in the healthcare industries can simply prescribe one-size-fits-all healthcare for everyone.”
Low’s bill, introduced as part of a larger effort by a group of Democratic state legislators to strengthen vaccination laws, set off a contentious debate over how far the state should go in pursuing COVID mandates.
Other COVID-related bills introduced in California include:
- Assembly Bill 1993, authored by Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), would require employees and independent contractors to be vaccinated against COVID as a condition of employment unless they have an exemption based on a medical condition, disability or religious beliefs.
- Assembly Bill 1797, introduced by Akilah Weber (D-San Diego), allows California school officials to more easily check student vaccine records by expanding access to a statewide immunization database.
- Senate Bill 866, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would let children 12 and older be vaccinated without parental consent.
Other states pursue efforts to support alternative treatments
In contrast to California, several state legislatures are moving to provide legal support for off-label prescriptions and alternative approaches supported by physicians.
In New Hampshire, legislators last month held public hearings on a bill that would allow for over-the-counter dissemination of ivermectin at pharmacies, provided certain treatment plan requirements were met.
New Hampshire HB 1022 would permit pharmacists to dispense the ivermectin by means of a standing order entered into by licensed healthcare professionals.
Sponsors of the bill argued many healthcare workers are unable to prescribe ivermectin, either because of hospital politics or outside professional pressures.
The bill has support from Dr. Paul Marik, who traveled from Virginia to testify at the public hearing.
A former professor of medicine and chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, Marik sued the hospital he worked for after it banned physicians from prescribing ivermectin for COVID patients.
Marik resigned late last year in protest of the ban.
During his testimony in New Hampshire, Marik described ivermectin as “cheap, exceedingly safe and exceedingly effective.”
“If ivermectin had been promoted at the beginning of this pandemic, we would not be sitting here today,” Marik said.
Kansas lawmakers last month advanced a bill supporting the prescribing of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. The model legislation, also introduced in Tennessee, would require pharmacists to fill prescriptions for the off-label use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
In direct contrast to the California legislation, the Kansas bill also would mandate that doctors not be subject to disciplinary action for any “recommendation, prescription, use or opinion … related to a treatment for COVID-19, including a treatment that is not recommended or regulated by the licensing board,” Kansas Department of Health and Environment or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“Such actions,” the bill states, “could not be considered unprofessional conduct.”
Kansas lawmaker Sen. Mark Steffen (R-Hutchinson) supports the bill. Steffen, an anesthesiologist, said he’s under investigation by the University of Kansas Health System with which he is affiliated for prescribing ivermectin to COVID patients.
Dr. Festus Krebs III, a physician representing the Catholic Medical Association of Kansas City, also spoke in favor of the bill:
“With ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, we now have 76 ivermectin COVID-19 controlled studies which show 66 percent overall improvement and 57 percent decreased mortality.”
Meanwhile, in Florida, legislation that would extend protection for hospitals against patient lawsuits over COVID care sits on the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis, awaiting signature or a veto.
And in New York, the state’s comptroller — citing the investment of the state’s public pension plan in Spotify — sent a letter to the company asking it to increase its screening of “misinformation” on their platform.
© 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.
How Many Chicken Hawks Are in Ukraine?
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 24, 2022
How many American chicken hawks are in Ukraine? I could be wrong but my hunch is zero. That’s right: Not one single American chicken hawk is over there helping the Ukrainians to defend their country against Russia’s attack. They are all sitting here at home, safely ensconced in their living rooms or offices.
How many American chicken hawks are there? That’s, of course, impossible to say. But you can find lots of them in Congress and in the executive branch. You can also find them on the commentary pages of America’s mainstream newspapers.
Oh, yes, they are exclaiming against the horrors of the invasion. They are expressing their deepest sympathies with the people of Ukraine. They are calling on President Biden to impose maximum sanctions on Russia. But they are all still here at home rather than over there helping the Ukrainian people in their hour of need.
It would not have been difficult during the past month to catch a flight to Europe and make one’s way to Ukraine. Chicken hawks could have gone over as a gigantic group and offered their services to the Ukrainian military or just to the government. But no, the chicken hawks have chosen to remain here at home.
The New York Times reports, “Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, called on all Ukrainian civilians to join the fight and enlist with territorial defense units.”
Such being the case, I will guarantee you that Reznikov and the Ukranian people would welcome the personal assistance and support of American chicken hawks. Alas, they choose to remain here at home.
Why won’t America’s chicken hawks travel to Ukraine and offer a helping hand to the Ukranian people?
Three possible reasons come to mind.
One is that they’re simply scared. Going into battle against the Russian army is no doubt a frightening prospect for many American chicken hawks.
Another possible reason is that the chicken hawks simply place a higher value on their comfortable lives here at home than they place on risking their lives in a very uncomfortable situation in Ukraine.
A third possibility — the one I think is the most likely — is that deep down they know that it’s the Pentagon that has manipulated and designed this crisis by placing Russia in a position of having to make a difficult choice: (1) Let NATO absorb Ukraine, which would enable the Pentagon to establish military bases, missiles, troops, tanks, and weaponry on Russia’s border or (2) Invade Ukraine and take over the reins of power, which would thereby prevent the Pentagon from establishing its bases, missiles, troops, tanks, and weaponry on Russia’s border. (See my article “The Evil and Malevolence of the Pentagon’s Brilliant Strategy in Ukraine.”)
Given that it was the Pentagon that designed and precipitated this crisis, it would stand to reason that American chickenhawks might be reluctant to risk their lives by traveling to Ukraine and helping people resist the Russian invasion.
Interestingly, the New York Times reports that at least one Ukrainian understands fully the role that the Pentagon and NATO have played in designing and precipitating this crisis. A woman named Lyubov Vasilyevna, 75, stated, “It’s our scoundrels in Ukraine who listen to NATO and the Pentagon, which are pushing them into war.”
My hunch is that there are lots of other Ukrainians who understand this truth. My hunch also is that even though they would never say it publicly, as Lyubov Vasilyevna has, lots of American chicken hawks know this truth as well.
It is important that we keep in mind that none of this had to be. When the Soviet Union unilaterally dismantled itself and ended the Cold War, it was clear that Russia wanted nothing more than establishing peaceful and friendly relations with the West.
But the U.S. national-security establishment would have nothing to do with that plan. Rather than dismantling NATO, the Pentagon decided to keep that Cold War dinosaur in existence. Even worse, the Pentagon had NATO begin moving eastward toward Russia by absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact.
Anyone could see where this scheme was headed. Once NATO signaled that it intended to absorb Ukraine, Russia drew the line. It was not about to permit an aggressive regime like the U.S. government (e.g., the Pentagon’s brutal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan) to establish military bases, offensive missiles, tanks, troops, and weaponry on Russia’s border, any more than the Pentagon would permit Russia (or China or North Korea) to do the same thing in Cuba.
And so now the Pentagon has succeeded in converting Russia into a new (and old) official enemy. With its evil machinations and scheming, it has also now cost the lives of countless Ukrainians.
No wonder not one single American chicken hawk is in Ukraine helping the Ukrainian people.
China points finger over Ukraine offensive
RT | February 24, 2022
China has blamed the US for creating the tensions which led to Thursday’s Russian attack on Ukraine. Beijing further called on the international community to avoid “stoking panic” over the situation.
During a press briefing, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the key question was the role played by the Americans, whom she branded “the [main] culprit of current tensions.”
“If someone keeps pouring oil on the flames while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral,” Hua said. China objects to “any action that hypes up war,” she added.
Chunying accused the US of hypocrisy, asking whether Washington had respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Afghanistan, where she said it had “wantonly killed innocent people.” She called on the US to “take these questions seriously and abandon double standards.”
Describing the unfolding events as “complex,” the spokeswoman confirmed that Beijing was not providing military support to Russia, and said China was not “jumping to any conclusions” over the situation.
She called on all sides to “work for peace instead of increasing tensions” or “stoking panic.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a military attack on Ukraine on Thursday, which he said was aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” the country. He accused the West of flooding Ukraine with advanced weaponry and ramping up the NATO presence in the country, arguing that the Russian “special operation” was necessary to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which Moscow has recognized as sovereign states.
Russia’s military action has prompted an international outcry and threats of new, large-scale sanctions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Thursday that Kiev had cut diplomatic ties with Moscow.
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Book Review
‘Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison’: A Tale of Two Diaries
By Jill Erzen | The Defender | October 13, 2026
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s private diary reveals a “mind-numbing” contradiction between what the former top U.S. infectious disease official knew about COVID-19 and what he told the public, senior White House adviser Peter Navarro, Ph.D., said last week on “American Thought Leaders.”
In his new book, “Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison,” due out Oct. 20, Navarro compares Fauci’s private entries to his own pandemic-era diary, and uses what he calls “a tale of two diaries” to argue that Fauci should face criminal prosecution.
“I show, actually, how a prosecution can and should happen … at the state level, most likely,” Navarro said. “He should wind up in prison, and we’ve got the receipts in this book to put him there.”
Navarro said Fauci repeatedly acknowledged important facts in private, then publicly pursued policies that contradicted those facts — with devastating consequences.
“What he says many times privately in his diary is so at odds with both his public behavior and public statements that it’s mind-numbing,” Navarro said.
Navarro examines the lasting damage caused by lockdowns and other pandemic policies, and the ongoing toll of long COVID.
His book also addresses questions about vaccine safety, including why healthy young people faced COVID-19 vaccination mandates despite concerns about myocarditis, and why women were not warned about miscarriage risks linked to the shots. … continue
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