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The Political Economy of Autism

By Toby Rogers | September 14, 2021

Autism is an epidemic and a pandemic by any reasonable definition of those words. J.B. Handley in, How to End the Autism Epidemic, produced the best chart showing the growth in autism prevalence in the U.S. over the last 50 years:

Increase in Autism Prevalence in the U.S. 1970 to 2017

Source: Handley (2018).

Darold Treffert at Winnebago State Hospital in Wisconsin was one of the first people to attempt to measure autism in the general population. His study, published in Archives of General Psychiatry in 1970, showed an autism rate of less than 1 in 10,000 children.

Then, sometime around 1987, the autism rate in the United States began to skyrocket. By 2017, the autism rate in the U.S. was 1 in 36 kids (Zablotsky et al., 2017). So the U.S. has experienced a 277-fold increase in autism prevalence in the last 50 years.

In some places and populations the rates are even higher: in Tom’s River, NJ, the state’s largest suburban school district, 1 in 14 eight-year-olds is on the autism spectrum; in Newark, NJ, 1 in 10 Black boys is on the spectrum (forthcoming).

The United States is in the midst of a genocide.

Genetic theories of autism never made much sense because “there is no such thing as a genetic epidemic” — the human genome just does not change that fast. An early twin study by Susan Folstein and Michael Rutter at the Institute of Psychiatry in London in 1977 suggested a strong genetic component to autism. More recent scholarship shows that this was likely overstated; the study only had 21 twin pairs and did not effectively control for environmental factors (twins usually grow up in the same family and are thus likely exposed to the same toxicants).

As the autism rate exploded throughout the U.S., the state of California hired eleven of the best geneticists in the country to examine the role of genes in autism. They concluded that genetics explains at most 38% of autism cases and in two places they explained that this was likely an overestimate (Hallmayer et al., 2011). Whatever is driving the surge in autism prevalence, it is not primarily genetics.

Well perhaps the increase in autism prevalence is just the result of better awareness (and what’s called “diagnostic expansion and substitution”)? That theory of the case does not check out either. The state of California funded two multimillion dollar studies to examine sharply rising prevalence in the state and whether it was the result of social factors. The first study was led by pediatric epidemiologist Robert S. Byrd at UC Davis who directed a team of investigators at UC Davis and UCLA. The investigators concluded that, “The observed increase in autism cases cannot be explained by a loosening in the criteria used to make the diagnosis” and “children served by the State’s Regional Centers are largely native born and there has been no major migration of children into California that would explain the increase in autism” (Byrd et al., 2002).

The state of California revisited this question in 2009 with a study led by the top environmental epidemiologist in the state — Irva Hertz-Picciotto at the UC Davis Mind Institute. This study concluded that changes in diagnostic criteria, the inclusion of milder cases, and earlier age at diagnosis explain about a quarter to a third of the total increase in autism (Hertz-Picciotto & Delwiche, 2009). In a subsequent interview with Scientific American, Hertz-Picciotto explained that these three factors “don’t get us close” to explaining the sharp rise in autism over that time period and she urged the scientific community to take a closer look at environmental factors (Cone, 2009).

There are now seven good ‘societal cost of autism’ studies (Jarbrink and Knapp, 2001; Ganz, 2007; Knapp et al., 2009; Buescher et al., 2014; Leigh & Du, 2015; Cakir et al., 2020; Blaxill, Rogers, & Nevison, 2021). They all show that the U.S. and much of the developed world is heading for economic and social collapse as a result of surging autism costs.

Autism increases poverty and inequality. Lifetime care costs for autism range from $1.4 to $2.4 million. Mothers of kids with autism earn 35% less than mothers of kids with other health limitations and 56% less than mothers of kids with no health limitations (Buescher et al., 2014).

In 2015, autism cost the U.S. an estimated $268 billion a year in direct costs & lost productivity; given current rates of increase, autism costs will reach $1 trillion a year (3.6% of GDP) by 2025 (Leigh & Du, 2015). As a point of comparison, the U.S. Defense Department budget is “just” 3.1% of GDP.

All of the more recent studies show autism costs surpassing $1 trillion a year in the near future. There is no plan by any level of government to raise revenue to meet these costs or prevent autism to mitigate these costs. Elected officials are frozen like a deer in the headlights.

In the last decade, three groups of top epidemiologists have published consensus statements declaring that neurodevelopmental disabilities including autism are caused by toxicants in the environment (The Collaborative on Health and the Environment, 2008; Mount Sinai Hospital, 2010; Project TENDR, 2016).

This is good news because it means that autism is likely preventable. The bad news is that the leading mainstream toxicologists do not want to lose their jobs so they generally avoid mentioning pharmaceutical products (even though these products appear to have an outsized impact). Parents groups have made up for the cowardice of mainstream toxicology by funding their own research.

We have fairly good data that five classes of toxicants increase autism risk:

  1. Mercury from coal fired power plants and diesel trucks;
  2. Plastics;
  3. Pesticides & herbicides;
  4. EMF/RFR; and
  5. Pharmaceuticals (Tylenol, SSRIs, & vaccines).

Taking each toxicant in turn…

For every 1,000 pounds of environmentally released mercury, there was a 61% increase in the rate of autism (Palmer, 2006). For every 10 miles closer a family lives to a coal fired power plant the autism risk increases by 1.4% (Palmer, 2009).

Plastics: Children with autism had significantly increased levels of 3 endocrine disruptors (two phthalates — MEHP & DEHP, & BPA) in blood samples as compared with healthy controls (Kardas, 2016).

Pesticides & herbicides: Increased use of RoundUp is strongly correlated (r = 0.989) with the rising prevalence of autism (Swanson, 2014). Organophosphates increase autism risk 60 – 100%; chlorpyrifos increase risk 78% – 163%; pyrethroids increase risk 78% (Shelton et al., 2014).

9 studies show an association between acetaminophen (Tylenol) use & adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes (Bauer et al., 2018). Avella-Garcia (2016) & Liew et al. (2016) found that males exposed to Tylenol in utero have significantly elevated risk of autism.

8 studies show a statistically significant association between selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) use in pregnant women and subsequent autism in their children (see meta-analysis in Kaplan et al., 2016). Doctors who prescribe SSRIs to pregnant women are committing malpractice.

Unfortunately, in the debate over toxicants that increase autism risk, all roads lead back to vaccines. At least 5 studies show a statistically significant association between vaccines & autism (Gallagher & Goodman, 2008 & 2010; Thomas & Margulis, 2016; Mawson et al., 2017a & 2017b).

Dr. Paul Thomas is the most successful doctor in the world at preventing autism. Data from his practice show:

If zero vaccines, autism rate = 1 in 715;

If alternative vaccine schedule, autism rate = 1 in 440;

If CDC vaccine schedule, autism rate = 1 in 36.

That study had large sample size (3,344 children), access to medical files, and good researchers working on it. But look closely. His alternative vaccine schedule reduces autism risk by more than 1200%. However even an alternative vaccine schedule increases autism risk by 160% versus no vaccines at all.

And all of those other toxicants that I described above that have been shown to increase autism risk? Those are the 1 in the 715 cases when the parent does not vaccinate at all. Autism appears mostly be a story of iatrogenic injury from vaccines.

This is not a surprise. Thousands of parents have been telling us for years that their children regressed into autism following vaccinations. Ethylmercury is a known neurotoxin and is still in 7 different vaccines (Thomas & Margulis, 2016, p. 14).

Aluminum is a known neurotoxin (Grandjean & Landrigan, 2014) and is used in a majority of vaccines. “The dose makes the poison” paradigm has collapsed in recent years and now we know that many toxicants have no safe dose.

In a sane world, all of this would be seen as good news. In a sane world the CDC, EPA, NIH and every major newspaper would rush out to Portland, Oregon to examine whether the data from Dr. Paul’s practice (and other studies) are correct. But we live in an insane world…

To date, the CDC, EPA, NIH, the federal government, and all state governments have ignored Dr. Paul’s work. None of the top 10 major newspapers in the U.S. have reviewed his book, The Vaccine Friendly, plan even though it is a bestseller on Amazon. In fact the Oregon Medical Board was so incensed by Dr. Paul’s success in preventing autism that they pulled his medical license briefly in 2021 (he has since been reinstated).

All of this information is public and available to anyone with an internet connection and a library card. By 1999 it was clear that vaccines that contained mercury were a problem (see Kirby, 2005). By the early 2000s it was clear that the problems with vaccines went well beyond mercury. Government had a choice to make: come clean or double down. And starting with senior scientist Thomas Verstraeten and then William Thompson the CDC decided to just flat out lie, manipulate findings, and destroy data.

The pharmaceutical industry also had a choice to make: improve their products or utilize their extensive capture of media and government to protect their existing toxic products. As everyone now knows, they chose to protect their existing toxic products. But the pharmaceutical industry has an enormous problem on their hands. We know some vaccines (hepatitis B, HPV, flu, DTaP…) cause catastrophic harms. And pockets of unvaccinated people across the country — who are healthier than vaccinated children — are the control group that provides evidence of Pharma’s crimes.

So starting in 2015, with the introduction of SB277 in California, the pharmaceutical industry began a systematic effort to eliminate the unvaccinated control group in all 50 states. They start by removing religious or personal belief exemptions to vaccination. In subsequent years they introduce bills to eliminate all medical exemptions to vaccination (SB 277 in CA in 2019) to get to 100% vaccination rates (even though all scientists will tell you that there are some children who should not be vaccinated because of underlying health conditions). In the Pharma legislative blitzkrieg no one is spared so that there will be no evidence left of the harms from these products. If 100% of children are treated, then there is no background rate of illness and all vaccine injuries just appear “normal”.

These mandatory vaccine bills are racketeering and crimes against humanity. With the introduction of coronavirus vaccines in late 2020, the situation has gotten much worse. Pharma now aims to vaccinate 100% of adults as well as 100% of kids and the results thus far have been catastrophic.

So here’s where things stand. The vaccine paradigm has collapsed (and no, mRNA, DNA, and adenovirus vector vaccines are not going to save it). Pharma has piles of cash and extensive capture of the media, academia, and government. So they have the ability to do just about whatever they want. Fearing prosecution and seeking immense profits, Pharma has abandoned any pretense of science, consent, or health and pushed all in to set up a totalitarian state that will serve their interests.

But Pharma has harmed so many people — first with the childhood schedule and now with coronavirus vaccines — that there are now millions of people who have seen vaccine injury first-hand and are now fighting back with everything they’ve got. Variously referred to as the medical freedom movement, the health choice movement, and/or the personal sovereignty movement, these brave citizens are taking on the most powerful industry in the world and fighting to save our country from Pharma fascism. The fighting is so fierce because the stakes are enormous. We are fighting to preserve human life as we know it from the most predatory and corrupt industry in the world.

To learn more about the toxicants associated with autism, read The Political Economy of Autism. To learn more about the battle to save our country and the world from Pharma totalitarianism, please subscribe to my Substack.

January 24, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

ICAN LAWYER BREAKS DOWN SCOTUS VACCINE CASE

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | January 19, 2022

Just moments after the Supreme Court ruled against Biden’s vaccine mandate for large employers, ICAN Attorney, Aaron Siri, Esq., joins Del to critique important moments from this monumental hearing.

January 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

US diplomats’ families ordered to leave Ukraine

US lethal aid being unloaded at a Kiev airport. © Twitter / U.S. Embassy Kyiv
RT | January 24, 2022

The families of US diplomats have been ordered to leave Ukraine, while some embassy staffers were authorized to depart on a “voluntary” basis, according to an updated travel advisory that reiterated claims of a “continued threat of Russian military action.”

“There are reports Russia is planning significant military action against Ukraine,” the State Department said on Sunday, adding that it “authorized the voluntary departure of US direct hire employees (USDH) and ordered the departure of eligible family members (EFM).”

American citizens were once again strongly advised not to travel to Ukraine, while those already in the country were told to “consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options.” The highest “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory for Ukraine, citing Covid and “increased threats from Russia,” has been in place on the Department of State website for more than a month.

The US had previously warned its citizens that they should not “anticipate that there will be US government-sponsored evacuations,” should a war take place in Ukraine, suggesting that they use the available commercial flights instead.

Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations that it’s planning an invasion of Ukraine, which have been made by the US and its allies since November last year, describing the claims as groundless attempts to instill “hysteria.”

According to the Kremlin, it’s the West that has been stirring tensions in Ukraine by supplying weapons to Kiev – which is embroiled in a “frozen” conflict with self-proclaimed republics in the southeastern Donbass region – and intensifying the NATO buildup in Eastern Europe.

January 23, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Secret of ‘microwave weapons’ targeting US diplomats revealed

By Paul Robinson | RT | January 23, 2022

US diplomats and security officials suffering from a spate of unexplained health problems were victims of Russian microwave weapons, we were told time and time again. But now the CIA admits Moscow wasn’t actually behind “Havana Syndrome.” The story fits a disturbingly familiar pattern of misinformation.

With each passing week, the list of discredited allegations against Russia grows and grows. Time and time again, Western governments and the media have sprung into action to inform us of some new evil plot, only to backpedal later when it became clear that there was nothing to it.

Take, for instance, the multi-year saga that was Russiagate, built on the idea that Donald Trump was a Russian agent. There are still some believers, but for the most part people lost interest once it became clear that it was a load of baloney and that the “Steele Dossier” that sparked it off wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

Then there were the claims that Russia was arming the Taliban, that it had inserted malware into the Vermont electrical grid, that it had bankrolled Brexit via British businessman Arron Banks, and so on. All are now discredited.

Yet the allegations keep on coming. A case in point is the story of Havana Syndrome, which was in the news again this week. For those of you who have missed it, Havana Syndrome is the name given to mysterious symptoms experienced by hundreds of American diplomats and CIA agents around the world, including “headaches, fatigue, hearing and vision loss, severe and debilitating cognitive impairment, tinnitus, brain fog, vertigo, and loss of motor control.”

Such a wide set of symptoms casts immediate doubt on whether there is a single cause. Nevertheless, speculation soon ran rife that they were all examples of a single “syndrome,” and that American diplomats were being targeted by some sort of unknown microwave emitter designed to fry peoples’ brains.

After examining four possible causes of Havana Syndrome – infection, chemicals, psychological factors, and microwave energy – a US government report concluded that “directed pulse RF [radio frequency] energy… appears to be the most plausible mechanism.” Havana Syndrome was “real, and it is serious,” remarked CIA Director William Burns, adding that there was a “very strong possibility” that it was the result of intentional actions.

Who might be doing such a thing? In public, US government officials avoided naming names, admitting that they lacked the evidence to do so. In private, however, the finger was pointed firmly at the Russian Federation, a charge rapidly amplified by the international media.

Thus the New York Times reported that officials “familiar with the report” mentioned above said that the country behind the “attacks” was Russia. CIA veteran Lewis Regenstein claimed that Russian/Soviet attacks of this sort had been going on since the 1950s, penning an article for the Washington Times headlined “68 years of Russian microwave radiation attacks on Americans with impunity.” “Russians use ‘secret microwave weapon’ to target American spies across the globe,” claimed The Sun. And so on. The media had made its mind up – Russia was to blame.

Why the Russian secret services might be doing this has never been explained, with some experts speculating that Havana Syndrome was the result of deliberate attacks, and others believing that the harm to humans was an unintended side effect of some scanning machine designed to extract intelligence from diplomats’ electronic devices. Either way, the Russians were responsible, even though not the slightest jot of evidence in support of this thesis has ever been publicly produced.

It didn’t take long, though, for skeptics to come up with other theories. One was that the syndrome was caused by the loud noise made by crickets. Support for this theory later came in a report commissioned by the US State Department that concluded crickets were the most likely culprits in 21 recorded cases.

Late last year, another theory emerged. Havana Syndrome was “a mass psychogenic illness,” a group of US scientists decided. It was, they said, an example of the “nocebo effect,” the opposite of the placebo effect. In this, expectations of something negative happening to one’s health causes something negative to happen. After the initial incident in Cuba, US diplomats were told to look out for “anomalous health” issues, and as a result they started feeling them. In effect, it was all in their heads.

Whatever the truth, the story of Russian microwave weapons continued to gain traction. But it now seems that even the CIA is having doubts. According to reports this Thursday,

“In a new intelligence assessment, the CIA has ruled out that the mysterious symptoms known as Havana Syndrome are the result of a sustained global campaign by a hostile power aimed at hundreds of US diplomats and spies, six people briefed on the matter told NBC News.

In about two dozen cases, the agency cannot rule out foreign involvement, including many of the cases that originated at the US Embassy in Havana beginning in 2016. Another group of cases is considered unresolved. But in hundreds of other cases of possible symptoms, the agency has found plausible alternative explanations, the sources said.

The idea that widespread brain injury symptoms have been caused by Russia or another foreign power targeting Americans around the world, either to harm them or to collect intelligence, has been deemed unfounded, the sources said.”

Oh dear! How embarrassing. For sure, there are still a few cases in which the cause of illness remains unknown and so foreign involvement “cannot be ruled out.” But that is hardly evidence for ruling it in. This latest assessment knocks the “Russia done it” narrative for six.

In short, once again we found that we’ve been fed a tissue of lies. By now, we should hardly be surprised, but the whole affair speaks to the credulity of much of our political and media establishment, and to the need for a much more cautious and evidence-based approach to allegations of wrongdoing.

It’s common nowadays to complain of the public’s lack of trust in traditional political and media institutions. One of the reasons for this is that people have become skeptical of the old “gatekeepers” of the truth due to their tendency to shout wolf at every available opportunity. If people believe disinformation coming from newer sources, it’s because they’ve become disenchanted by the misinformation coming from the old ones. The latter are under threat, but they have only themselves to blame.

Paul Robinson is a professor at the University of Ottawa. He writes about Russian and Soviet history, military history and military ethics, and is author of the Irrussianality blog.

January 23, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?

By H. Bruce FRANKLIN | CounterPunch | January 19, 2022

As the U.S. moves nuclear forces closer and closer to the border of Russia, and as our corporate media bang their war drums louder and louder, does anyone remember the Cuban missile crisis?

In June of 1961, just three months after the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was defeated,  the United States began the deployment of fifteen Jupiter nuclear missiles to Turkey, which shared a border with the Soviet Union. Each missile, armed with a W49 1.4 megaton thermonuclear warhead, was equivalent to 175 Hiroshima bombs. With their fifteen-hundred-mile range, the missiles were capable of annihilating Moscow, Leningrad, and every major city and base in the Russian heartland. Each missile could incinerate Moscow in just sixteen minutes from launch, thus wildly raising the possibility of thermonuclear war caused by technological accident, human error, miscommunication, or preemptive attack.

We didn’t hear about the Jupiter missiles and of course we didn’t hear anything about Operation Mongoose, the top-secret plan launched on November 1, 1961, to overthrow the government of Cuba through a systematic campaign of sabotage, coastal raids, assassinations, subversion leading to CIA-sponsored guerrilla warfare, and an eventual invasion by the U.S. military. The armed raids and sabotage succeeded in killing many Cubans and damaging the economy, which was hit much harder by the economic embargo announced in February. However, the assassination plots were foiled, and all attempts to develop an internal opposition failed. Many of the CIA agents and Cuban exiles who infiltrated the island by sea and air were captured, and quite a few of them talked, even on Cuban radio, about the plans for a new U.S. invasion, which was planned for October. Cuba requested military help from the Soviet Union, which by July was sending troops, air defense missiles, battlefield nuclear weapons, and medium-range ballistic missiles equivalent to the U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey.

At 7 p.m. eastern time on Monday, October 22, 1962, John F. Kennedy delivered the most terrifying presidential message of my lifetime. Declaring that the Soviet Union had created a “clear and present danger” by placing in Cuba “large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction” “capable of striking Washington, D.C.,” he announced that U.S. ships would immediatly impose a “strict quarantine,” a transparent euphemism for a blockade, on the island. Knowing that the American people knew nothing about the recent and ongoing U.S. deployment of the Jupiter ballistic missiles capable of striking all the cities of the Russian heartland, he stated, “Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift that any . . . change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.” And knowing the American people knew nothing about Operation Mongoose and its previously planned invasion of Cuba in October, the president stated over and over again that these Soviet missiles were “offensive threats” with no defensive purpose. Here was his most frightening sentence: “We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth—but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.”

On Friday Jane wrote a long letter to her family:

Oct. 26, 1962

Dear Family,

Marie, your letter from the east helped rouse me from a state of paralysis in which I have been suspended since Kennedy’s speech on Monday… Bo, I am glad your orders so far are not changed… I had figured Bill must be in the blockade…

Thursday night Bruce was one of three faculty who spoke on this crisis. Dr. Leppert, a nuclear physicist (he watched the effects of nuclear blasts in Nevada) and Dr. Holman of the medical school were the two other speakers.  There was a large audience.  The discussion afterwards was intelligent and constructive.  But part of the time there I felt like crying because all their hope and desire for reason is, in effect upon those in power, like the vaguest ripple of a breeze.  When we once sent a telegram urging no resumption of nuclear testing, we received in return a very brisk, official pamphlet on how to prepare for a nuclear attack…

Tuesday in the middle of the night Karen appeared at our bed and said through tears, “I’ve been having a nightmare about an atomic bomb.”  We had been being careful about our words around them, but the radio had been on constantly…  Tuesday I had periods of wishing I weren’t pregnant, but I keep telling myself that instead of bringing one more person into the shadow of nuclear war, I’ll be bringing one more person up to hate hate, respect respect, and love love.

Until I recently read her letter, I had forgotten my talk. According to the Stanford Daily, I had explained how Kennedy’s blockade of Cuba violated international law and asked the audience to judge it on “pragmatic, ideological, and ethical” grounds. That all sounds embarrassingly tame and bookish. Jane obviously would have done better.

The recipients of Jane’s letter included her sister Marie and her husband Bo Sims, a Marine lieutenant colonel stationed at the Pentagon, and her sister Bobbie and her husband Bill Morgan, the captain of a destroyer.  Back in 1956, Bill has cut our wedding cake with his ceremonial Navy sword. Although he and I rarely agreed about anything—except the Gulf of Tonkin incidents of 1964—I always figured that he was probably a good, albeit gung-ho, naval officer, fair to his crew and responsible about his duty. Only in 2017 did I discover that the destroyer under Bill’s command was the USS Cony, one of the U.S. warships searching the Cuban coast for surviving invaders the Bay of Pigs the year before.  The day after Jane was writing her letter, Bill was indeed carrying out his orders professionally and efficiently. On October 27, the Cony discovered and then tracked for four hours the Soviet diesel-electric submarine B-59 out in the North Atlantic Ocean several hundred miles from Cuba.

The Cony was one of eight destroyers and an aircraft carrier hunting for Soviet submarines that might be heading for Cuba. They were under orders to force any such sub to surface by bombarding it with “signaling depth charges,” designed to cause explosions powerful enough to rock the sub, while also pounding it with ultra-high-amplitude sound waves from the destroyer’s sonar dome.

Meanwhile, the B-59’s last orders from Moscow were not to cross Kennedy’s “quarantine line” — 500 miles from Cuba–but to hold its position in the Sargasso Sea. After that, it received no communication from the Soviet Union for several days. It had been monitoring Miami radio stations that were broadcasting the increasingly ominous news. When the sub-hunting fleet of U.S. ships and planes arrived, the submarine was forced to run deep, making it lose all communication with the outside world, and to run silent, relying on battery power. The batteries were close to depleted, the air conditioning had broken down, and water, food, and oxygen were running low when the Cony began its hours of bombardment with the depth charges and high-amplitude sonar blasts. Other destroyers joined in an ongoing barrage of hand grenades and depth charges.

The Soviet officers were unaware of the existence of “signaling depth charges,” and international law has no provision allowing one warship to bombard another with small explosives unless they are in a state of war. Since the B-59 was hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic, not within the blockade area and not heading toward Cuba, its crew and officers logically deduced that war had started. If so, it was their duty to attack. The officers knew that with one weapon on board, they could destroy the entire sub-hunting fleet of destroyers and the aircraft carrier that had been pursuing them—along with themselves.

Neither Bill Morgan nor anyone else in the U.S. Navy or government was aware that the B-59 was armed with a T-5 nuclear torpedo, approximately equivalent in explosive force to the Hiroshima bomb. If the sub fired its T-5, it would plunge the world into nuclear holocaust.

One nuclear weapon fired from any of the American or Russian subs still prowling the oceans would do the same today, decades after the end of the Cold War. Hardly anyone in America then or now is aware of the command-and-control protocol on nuclear-armed submarines. In order to deter an opponent’s “decapitating” first strike, which would wipe out all the nation’s leaders with the authority to launch a nuclear retaliation, the three top officers of a nuclear-armed sub have the authority and ability to launch a nuclear attack under certain circumstances. On October 27, 1962, the Soviet command-and-control protocol for launching nuclear torpedoes was even riskier: only the sub’s captain and its political officer had to agree.

On the B-59, Captain Valentin Savitsky and his political officer realized that it was now or never. Their choice was either to surface—which was equivalent to surrender while they, perhaps alone, had the ability to launch a significant counterattack—or to fire their nuclear torpedo. They decided to attack and readied to aim for the aircraft carrier at the core of the submarine-hunting fleet.

Only one man stood in the way of a nuclear Armageddon, and he was on board the B-59 by chance. He was Vasili Arkhipov, the commander of the four-submarine Soviet flotilla, who vetoed the attack, leaving Captain Savitsky with no alternative but to surface.

“This week’s events have brought home,” Jane had written in her letter a day earlier, how few people have any say “about nuclear war before it may be brought down upon their heads by the handful of people who decide man’s fate.” Even that handful of people in the White House and Pentagon didn’t know about those nuclear torpedoes. And that handful of people in the Kremlin didn’t know that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff had been itching for an excuse to launch a full-scale thermonuclear attack on the Soviet Union and that now, led by the “mad”—President Kennedy’s word—ravings of my ex-boss Curtis LeMay, these dogs of war were demanding to be let off their leashes.

The Missile Crisis ended with the USSR removing all “offensive” weapons from Cuba in return for a public U.S. commitment not to invade Cuba and a secret agreement to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey within several months. Years after the Jupiter missiles were withdrawn, we were told that they were “obsolete,” a term still used in almost all accounts of the crisis. But if the Jupiter missiles in Turkey were obsolete, then so were the equivalent Soviet missiles in Cuba. In reality, the problem with both deployments was not obsolescence but reckless brinkmanship, initiated by the United States. Fortunately, Moscow and Washington ended up mutually recognizing that neither was willing to live with a gun that close to its head.

What may have looked to the public like a Soviet capitulation turned out to be a successful, desperate, and potentially fatal gamble by the Soviet Union. They won a tit-for-tat removal of the land-based missiles within sixteen minutes of incinerating either Moscow or Washington, with a bonus of stopping the imminent invasion of Cuba and possibly future invasions as well, all without having to commit to the future defense of Cuba.

Behind the scenes, Kennedy now had to deal with the shrieking hawks, furious at the president both for missing the golden opportunity to annihilate the Soviet Union and for an ignominious surrender of America’s exceptional right to invade Cuba and to station nuclear weapons wherever it pleased.

Alarmed by how close we had come to nuclear apocalypse, Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev set up a telephone hot line to enable direct communication, developed a personal relationship to ease tensions, and succeeded in August 1963 in banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere, under water, or in space. The president inspired many of us with an eloquent June 1963 American University commencement address about the world’s crucial need for an enduring peace. He even urged “every thoughtful citizen” who desired peace to “begin by looking inward—by examining his own attitude toward peace, toward the Soviet Union,” which he extolled for its heroic World War II sacrifices. But then of course he went on to claim: “The Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today.”  Since today Russia is as capitalist as Saudi Arabia, Australia, and United States, what is “the primary cause of world tension today?”

President Kennedy’s final remarks began with this statement: “The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.”  So it must have been Vietnam that started a war with the United States.

January 22, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

UKRAINE CRISIS: US ‘Toolboxes’ Are Empty

By Scott Ritter | Consortium News | January 22, 2022

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in a hastily scheduled, 90-minute summit in Geneva yesterday, after which both sides lauded the meeting as worthwhile because it kept the door open for a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. What “keeping the door open” entails, however, represents two completely different realities.

For Blinken, the important thing appears to be process, continuing a dialogue which, by its very essence, creates the impression of progress, with progress being measured in increments of time, as opposed to results.

A results-oriented outcome was not in the books for Blinken and his entourage; the U.S. was supposed to submit a written response to Russia’s demands for security guarantees as spelled out in a pair of draft treaties presented to the U.S. and NATO in December. Instead, Blinken told Lavrov the written submission would be provided next week.

In the meantime, Blinken primed the pump of expected outcomes by highlighting the possibility of future negotiations that addressed Russian concerns (on a reciprocal basis) regarding intermediate-range missiles and NATO military exercises.

But under no circumstances, Blinken said, would the U.S. be responding to Russian demands against NATO expanding to Ukraine and Georgia, and for the redeployment of NATO forces inside the territory of NATO as it existed in 1997.

Blinken also spent a considerable amount of time harping on the danger of an imminent military invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces said to be massing along the Ukraine-Russian border. He pointed out that any military incursion by Russia, no matter what size, that violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine, would be viewed as a continuation of the Russian “aggression” of 2014 and, as such, trigger “massive consequences” which would be damaging to Russia.

Blinken’s restatement of a position he has pontificated on incessantly for more than a month now was not done for the benefit of Lavrov and the Russian government, but rather for an American and European audience which had been left scratching their collective heads over comments made the day before by President Joe Biden which suggested that the U.S. had a range of options it would consider depending on the size of a Russian incursion.

“My guess is he [Russian President Vladimir Putin] will move in, he has to do something,” Biden said during a press briefing on Wednesday. While presenting a Russian invasion as inevitable, Biden went on to note that Putin “will be held accountable” and “never have[sic] seen sanctions like the ones I promised will be imposed” if Russia were, in fact, to move against Ukraine. Biden spoke of deploying additional U.S. military forces to eastern Europe, as well as unspecified economic sanctions.

Biden then, however, hedged his remarks, noting that the scope and scale of any U.S. response would depend on what Russia did. “It’s one thing,” Biden said, “if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do.”

Almost immediately the Washington establishment went into overdrive to correct what everyone said was a “misstatement” by Biden, with Biden himself making a new statement the next day, declaring that he had been “absolutely clear with President Putin. He has no misunderstanding, any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion,” and that there should be “no doubt at all that if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price.”

And just in case the President was not clear enough, Blinken reiterated that point following his Friday meeting with Lavrov.

Immutable

The U.S. narrative about Russia and Ukraine was immutable; Russia was hell bent on invading, and there would be massive consequences if Russia acted out on its intent. This was no idle threat, Blinken said, but rather represented the unified position of the United States and its allies and partners.

Or was it? In a telling admission, CNN’s White House correspondent, John Harwood, stated that the “minor incursions” statement by Biden was harmless, because (Harwood said) Putin already knew through sources that this was, in fact, the U.S. position. As for Europe and Ukraine, their collective confusion and outrage was merely an act, a posture they had to take for public consumption, since the optics of Biden’s statement “sounds bad.”

In short, the lack of an agreed-upon strategy on how to deal with a Russian incursion/invasion of Ukraine was an open secret for everyone except the U.S. and European publics, who being fed a line of horse manure to assuage domestic political concerns over being seen as surrendering to Russian demands.

Biden and his administration are old hands at lying to the American public when it comes to matters of national security. One only need look to Biden’s July 23, 2021, phone call with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for a clear precedent into this inability to speak openly and honestly about reality on the ground. “I need not tell you,” Biden told Ghani, “the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there is a need,” Biden added, “whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”

This, in a nutshell, is the essence of the posture taken by the Biden administration on Ukraine. Blinken has indicated that the U.S. has a toolbox filled with options that will deliver “massive consequences” to Russia should Russia invade Ukraine. These “tools” include military options, such as the reinforcement of NATO’s eastern flank with additional U.S. troops, and economic options, such as shutting down the NordStream 2 pipeline and cutting Russia off from the SWIFT banking system. All these options, Blinken notes, have the undivided support of U.S. European allies and partners.

The toolbox is everywhere, it seems—Biden has referred to it, as has White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Blinken has alluded to it on numerous occasions.

There’s only one problem—the toolbox, it turns out, is empty.

While the Pentagon is reportedly working on a series of military options to reinforce the existing U.S. military presence in eastern Europe, the actual implementation of these options would neither be timely nor even possible. One option is to move forces already in Europe; the U.S. Army maintains one heavy armored brigade in Europe on a rotational basis and has a light armored vehicle brigade and an artillery brigade stationed in Germany. Along with some helicopter and logistics support, that’s it.

Flooding these units into Poland would be for display purposes only—they represent an unsustainable combat force that would be destroyed within days, if not hours, in any large-scale ground combat against a Russian threat.

The U.S. can deploy a second heavy armored brigade to Poland which would fall in on prepositioned equipment already warehoused on Polish soil. This brigade would suffer a similar fate if matched up against the Russian army. The U.S. can also deploy an airborne brigade. They, too, would die.

There are no other options available to deploy additional U.S. heavy forces to Europe on a scale and in a timeframe that would be meaningful. The problem isn’t just the deployment of forces from their bases in the U.S. (something that would takes months to prepare for), but the sustainability of these forces once they arrived on the ground in Europe. Food, ammunition, water, fuel—the logistics of war is complicated, and not resolved overnight.

In short, there is no viable military option, and Biden knows this.

Empty Sanctions Too

The U.S. has no sanctions plan that can survive initial contact with the enemy, which in this case is the collective weakness of the post-pandemic economies of both Europe and the U.S.; the over-reliance of Europe on Russian-sourced energy, and the vulnerability of democratically elected leaders to the whim of a consumer-based constituency. Russia can survive the impact of any sanctions regime the U.S. is able to scrape together—even those targeting the Russian banking system—far longer than Europe can survive without access to Russian energy.

This is a reality that Europe lives with, and while U.S. policy makers might think hard-hitting sanctions look good on paper, the reality is that whatever passes for U.S.-European unity today would collapse in rapid order when the Russian pipelines were shut down. The pain would not just be limited to Europe, either—the U.S. economy would suffer as well, with sky-high fuel prices and a stock market collapse that would put the U.S. into an economic recession, if not outright depression.

The political cost that would be incurred by Biden and, by extension, the Democrats, would be fatal to any hope that might remain for holding onto either house of Congress in 2022, or the White House in 2024. It would be one thing if Biden and his national security team were honest and forthright about the real consequences of declaring the equivalent of economic war on Russia. It is another thing altogether to speak only of the pain sanctions would cause Russia, with little thought, if any, to the real consequences that will be paid on the home front.

Americans should never forget that Russia has been laboring under severe U.S. sanctions since 2014, with zero effect. Russia knows what could be coming and has prepared. The American people wallow in their ignorance, believing at face value what they are told by the Biden administration, and echoed by a compliant mainstream media.

Propaganda About ‘Propaganda’

One of the great ironies of the current crisis is that, on the eve of the Blinken-Lavrov meeting in Geneva, the U.S. State Department published a report on Russian propaganda, decrying the role played by state-funded outlets such as RT and Sputnik in shaping public opinion in the United States and the West (in the interest of full disclosure, RT is one of the outlets that I write for.)

The fact that the State Department would publish such a report on the eve of a meeting which is all about propagating the big lie—that the U.S. has a plan for deterring “irresponsible Russian aggression”—while ignoring the hard truth: this is a crisis derived solely from the irresponsible policies of the U.S. and NATO over the past 30 years.

While a compliant mainstream American media unthinkingly repeated every warning and threat issued by Biden and Blinken to Russia over the course of the past few days, the Russian position has been largely ignored. Here’s a reminder of where Russia stands on its demands for security guarantees: “We are talking about the withdrawal of foreign forces, equipment, and weapons, as well as taking other steps to return to the set-up we had in 1997 in non-NATO countries,” the Russian Foreign Ministry declared in a bulletin published after the Lavrov-Blinken meeting. “This includes Bulgaria and Romania.”

Blinken has already said the U.S. will reject this.

The toolbox is empty. Russia knows this. Biden knows this. Blinken knows this. CNN knows this. The only ones who aren’t aware of this are the American people.

The consequences of a U.S. rejection of Russia’s demands will more than likely be war.

If you think the American people are ready to bear the burden of a war with Russia, think again.

January 22, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wrong Again, Atlantic, High Lumber Prices Are Not Being Caused by ‘Climate Change’

By Linnea Lueken | ClimateRealism | January 19, 2022

Near the top of the results of a Google search for “climate change” was a story in The Atlantic, titled “Lumber Prices Are off the Rails Again. Blame Climate.” This is false. The evidence shows supply chain disruptions are responsible for higher lumber prices.

The article claims that recent high lumber prices and volatility are due to climate change severely impacting the lumber supply coming from Canada.

“When it comes to lumber, climate change has manifested itself in extreme volatility, lack of supply, and a paradigm shift in how lumber markets have behaved for decades. Lumber prices are the second highest they’ve ever been, today, this moment—ever. And it was precipitated by mudslides, which was precipitated by burning, which was precipitated by beetle kill. There’s an infrastructure story in there. There’s a climate story.”

While it is true that lumber prices are currently abnormally high, as shown by this screenshot of a five-year trend from the NASDAQ report on lumber (LUM), climate change is not to blame.

Screenshot taken from NASDAQ: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/commodities/lbs

The recent spike in lumber prices is due to the post-pandemic supply chain and shipping bottlenecks. The already climbing prices were exacerbated by the destruction of infrastructure like roads and rail lines in British Columbia and the North-Western United States due to heavy rainfall that struck the region this winter. Parts of major highways like British Columbia Highway 1 were closed for repairs or debris clearing after the flooding and associated mud slides.

This atmospheric river event that carried rain to the West this winter is not an unprecedented climate event, but is instead a weather event. Climate Realism discusses the difference between weather events and climate change here and here, for example.

A recent Climate Realism article showed the claim that the recent atmospheric river event spanning the Pacific Northwest was caused by climate change was false. In the article, Cliff Mass, Ph.D., of the University of Washington, cited rainfall data proving the recent weather event was not sign of climate change. Mass analyzed the rainfall data from Bellingham and Clearbrook Washington, which goes back more than a hundred years, and found no evidence to support the claim that there has been an increase in heavy rainfall.

“There is NO HINT of a trend towards more extreme precipitation at either of these sites.” Dr. Mass said.

Atmospheric rivers have occurred in the region many times throughout history, and have been much more severe in the decades prior to the Industrial Revolution, as described by meteorologist Anthony Watts:

“The highest rainfall ever in California during recorded history likely occurred in January 1862, during the “Great Flood”. This was an atmospheric river event like we are experiencing now, but lasted several days, dumping 24.63 inches of rain in San Francisco, 66 inches in Los Angeles, leaving downtown Sacramento underwater.”

Strong weather events always have been, and always will be potential causes of infrastructure damage and supply-chain disruptions. The potential for localized natural disasters should be factored into infrastructure plans. Corporate media outlets like The Atlantic are wrong to blame climate change every time the skies open.

January 22, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Scientists want global ban on ‘sun-dimming’

Researchers rally against solar geoengineering as a method of fighting ‘climate change’

RT | January 20, 2022

An international group of scientists and experts wants all nations to sign a pact banning public funding and deployment of solar geoengineering, as well as outdoor experiments revolving around ways to ‘dim the sun.’

“Solar geoengineering at planetary scale is not governable in a globally inclusive and just manner within the current international political system,” the researchers wrote in an open letter published in the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change journal this week.

The concept of solar geoengineering aims to lower temperatures on Earth by using modern technology to reduce the incoming sunlight. The proposals include the spraying of aerosols into the stratosphere to stop the spread of solar energy. Some see this as a potential response to global warming.

But the authors of the letter warned about “uncertainties” surrounding the effects of such technologies on weather, agriculture, and the supply of food and water.

The letter argued that the world’s poorest nations will be left highly vulnerable unless powerful countries place the technology of such planetary scale under international control.

“The current world order seems unfit to reach such far-reaching agreements on fair and effective political control over solar geoengineering deployment.”

Proposals to study solar geoengineering were most recently floated by the media amid COP26, a major UN climate change summit in Scotland in November of last year.

In March, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report recommending an investment of $100-$200 million in solar geoengineering research over five years as part of crafting “a robust portfolio of climate mitigation and adaptation policies.” NASEM argued that outdoor experiments that involve releasing substances into the atmosphere must be limited and subjected to strict regulation.

NASEM emphasized that solar geoengineering should not be a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

January 22, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

On The Eve of Washington March, COVID Declaration

Now Backed by More Than 17,000 Doctors and Medical Scientists Around the World

By Robert W Malone MD, MS | January 22, 2022

Following Dr. Robert Malone’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, more physicians and medical scientists have joined with their colleagues from around the world in signing the Physicians Declaration. Now with more than 17,000 signatures confirmed through a rigorous validation process, these physicians and scientists are represented by Dr. Malone as he speaks at the march to Defeat the Mandates on Sunday, January 23 in Washington, D.C.

The over 17,000 signers to the declaration have reached consensus on three foundational principles:

  1. Healthy children should not be subject to forced vaccination: they face negligible risk from covid, but face potential permanent, irreversible risk to their health if vaccinated, including heart, brain, reproductive and immune system damage.
  2. Natural Immunity Denial has prolonged the pandemic and needlessly restricted the lives of Covid-recovered people. Masks, lockdowns, and other restrictions have caused great harm especially to children and delayed the virus’ transition to endemic status.
  3. Health agencies and institutions must cease interfering with the physician-patient relationship. Policymakers are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, as a result of institutional interference and blocking treatments proven to cure at a near 100% rate when administered early.

Led by Dr. Malone and staying loyal to the Hippocratic oath, the declaration’s signers have resisted financial inducements, threats, unprecedented censorship, and reputational attacks to remain committed first to patient health and well-being. After 23 months of research, millions of patients treated, hundreds of clinical trials performed and scientific data shared, and after demonstrating and documenting their success in combating COVID-19, the 17,000+ physicians and medical scientists who signed the declaration support the core principles Dr. Malone and many other doctors have been speaking out about since late last year.

The 17,000+ signatures of the declaration are authentic and must pass a screening process before being officially identified as signing the declaration. Signatories are required to supply their affiliation and a link to their medical organization, facility, or profile. Nurses, non-MD practitioners and non-medical scientists are removed from the list signatories, as are duplicate entries and “bot” emails. The emails of the signatories have been separately and repeatedly tested and verified by a 3rd-party provider.

As the number of signatures to the declaration continues to rise, we have published a select group of world famous, highly credentialed physicians and scientists who authored the declaration. Many other doctors who have spoken out against the corruption, censorship and hypocrisy by authorities have been threatened, fired, censured, lied about, intimidated, and harassed – all while saving patients’ lives daily. Never has the public been forced to become lab rats, for a vaccine 5 years away from adequate testing, violating basic principles of informed consent. Moreover, the medical and scientific evidence on the efficacy and safety of the COVID- 19 vaccine do not support mandating its use for anyone, especially healthy children.

January 23 March on Washington

The over 17,000 signers of the declaration will be represented on Sunday, January 23, when Dr. Malone stands with fellow doctors and scientists on stage in Washington DC, as part of the Defeat the Mandates march Sunday, January 23, 2022. At the Lincoln Memorial, they will be joined by a wide range of featured guests for a series of inspiring talks and musical performances. Join us!

About the Global COVID Summit

Global Covid Summit is the product of an international alliance of doctors and scientists, committed to speaking truth to power about Covid pandemic research and treatment.

Thousands have died from Covid as a result of being denied life-saving early treatment. The Declaration is a battle cry from physicians who are daily fighting for the right to treat their patients, and the right of patients to receive those treatments – without fear of interference, retribution or censorship by government, pharmacies, pharmaceutical corporations, and big tech. We demand that these groups step aside and honor the sanctity and integrity of the patient- physician relationship, the fundamental maxim “First Do No Harm”, and the freedom of patients and physicians to make informed medical decisions. Lives depend on it. More information here: https://globalCovidSummit.org

An events page is available to alert you to upcoming Summits and other events, most prominent of which is the January 23 March on Washington, an “American Homecoming” to protest overreaching medical mandates.

But you can also view some amazing video from past summits including Florida and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Please spread the word about this site – it’s important!

Remember – if you are a physician, nurse, medical scientist or medical care professional, please wear a white coat to the march (or carry it). Let’s all work to make this march peaceful in solidarity for all those marching around the world.

January 22, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Over 1 Million Deaths and Injuries Following COVID “Vaccines” Reported to CDC

By Megan Redshaw | The Defender | January 21, 2022

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released new data showing a total of 1,053,830 reports of adverse events following COVID vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and Jan. 14, 2022, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

The data included a total of 22,193 reports of deaths — an increase of 448 over the previous week — and 174,864 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 4,418 compared with the previous week.

Excluding “foreign reports” to VAERS, 732,883 adverse events, including 10,162 deaths and 66,059 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020, and Jan. 14, 2022.

Foreign reports are reports foreign subsidiaries send to U.S. vaccine manufacturers. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, if a manufacturer is notified of a foreign case report that describes an event that is both serious and does not appear on the product’s labeling, the manufacturer is required to submit the report to VAERS.

Of the 10,162 U.S. deaths reported as of Jan. 14, 19% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 24% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 61% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.

In the U.S., 525.2 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of Jan. 14, including 307 million doses of Pfizer, 200 million doses of Moderna and 18 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

Every Friday, VAERS publishes vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed. Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to Jan. 14, 2022, for 5- to 11-year-olds show:

The most recent death involves a 7-year-old girl (VAERS I.D. 1975356) from Minnesota who died 11 days after receiving her first dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine when she was found unresponsive by her mother. An autopsy is pending.

  • 14 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation).
  • 22 reports of blood clotting disorders.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to Jan. 14, 2022, for 12- to 17-year-olds show:

  • 27,205 adverse events, including 1,559 rated as serious and 35 reported deaths.The most recent death involves a 15-year-old girl from Minnesota (VAERS I.D. 1974744), who died 177 days after receiving her second dose of Pfizer from a pulmonary embolus. An autopsy is pending.
  • 65 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death — with 96% of casesattributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
  • 594 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis with 583 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
  • 152 reports of blood clotting disorders, with all cases attributed to Pfizer.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to Jan. 14, 2022, for all age groups combined, show:

40% rise nationwide in excess deaths among 18- to 49-year-olds, CDC Data Show

Death certificate data from the CDC show excess deaths increased by more than 40% among Americans 18 to 49 years old during a 12-month period ending in October 2021, compared to the same time period in 2018-2019 before the pandemic. COVID caused only about 42% of those deaths.

Excess deaths are defined as the difference between the observed number of deaths during a specific time frame and the expected number of deaths during that same period.

State-level data for the same 12-month period also show increases. For example, in Nevada, excess deaths were as high as 65%, with COVID accounting for only 36%. The District of Columbia saw an increase of 72% — with COVID not being a factor in any of the deaths.

Increases in excess deaths were most noticeable in the Midwest and western and southern states, while states seeing the lowest increases were primarily from the Northeast.

January 21, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

US nearly wiped out tens of thousands of civilians with dam strike in Syria

The Tabqa Dam in Syria. ©Claude Salhani / Sygma via Getty Images
RT | January 21, 2022

In 2017, the US bombed a piece of strategic infrastructure in Syria, the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates River, despite it being on a no-strike list, the New York Times reported.

A B-52 bomber dropped some of the heaviest weapons in the US Air Force arsenal on the target, including at least one BLU-109 bunker buster, which is designed to destroy fortified concrete targets. This bomb pierced through five stories in one of the dam’s towers, but didn’t explode.

If the Soviet-designed earth-and-concrete structure had failed, tens of thousands of people living in a valley below would likely have died.

The dam wasn’t immediately destroyed, but damage to its equipment rendered it inoperational and at risk of overflowing. An unprecedented truce involving the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), US-backed forces on the ground, and Syrian government forces was hastlily struck with Russia’s help to allow a crane controlling emergency floodgates to be repaired.

After the work was done by a crew of 16 workers, a drone strike ordered by the same taskforce that called in the initial strike obliterated a van carrying some of them back. It killed a mechanical engineer, a technician, and a Syrian Red Crescent worker.

The events were described by the Times based on interviews with unnamed US military officials as well as people in Syria, including an engineer who was present at the dam on the day of the strike. It is the newspaper’s latest expose of Talon Anvil operations, which critics call reckless. The taskforce was created to coordinate the war effort against IS and was staffed by US Army Delta Force commandos, according to previous reporting.

The March 26 strike on the Tabqa Dam was attributed to US forces by Russia and Syria, but then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, under whose purview the taskforce operated, dismissed it as “a lot of crazy reporting.”

“The Tabqa Dam is not a coalition target and when strikes occur on military targets, at or near the dam, we use non-cratering munitions to avoid unnecessary damage to the facility,” he assured journalists.

According to Times sources, Talon Anvil routinely used a trick to circumvent the airstrike vetting process by senior command, citing the urgency of defending US allied forces from an imminent attack. The strike on the dam was also justified that way, but witnesses said no major fighting in the area was taking place before the bombs hit.

US Central Command acknowledged dropping three 2,000-pound bombs, but said they were targeting towers, not the dam itself. And that the fact it didn’t fail proved the safety of the operation, a spokesman for the military suggested. He denied that the usual procedures were sidestepped in authorizing the strikes.

The Times said a report requested from specialized engineers in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Defense Resources and Infrastructure office prior to the strikes recommended against using any sort of explosives in the vicinity of the dam. Even relatively small munitions like Hellfire missiles could damage concrete structures controlling the flow of water, the four-page assessment said, according to the newspaper.

Talon Anvil had not reported the dam strikes. The US military had to piece together what had happened by reviewing logs from the B-52 bomber, a source told the Times. No disciplinary action was taken against members of the secret unit, the newspaper reported.

January 21, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Court deals Biden another blow on vaccine mandates

FILE PHOTO ©  AP / Susan Walsh
RT | January 21, 2022

President Joe Biden has suffered another legal setback to his efforts to coerce Americans into getting vaccinated against Covid-19 – this time with a federal court blocking mandated jabs even for employees of his own administration.

US District Court Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown in Texas ruled on Friday that the mandate overstepped Biden’s authority as president. After finding that the plaintiffs will likely prevail at trial, the judge issued a nationwide injunction, meaning the Biden administration will be barred from enforcing its vaccine order anywhere in the US.

The mandate applied to more than 3.5 million federal workers. It provided no option for submitting to regular Covid-19 testing in lieu of vaccination. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday that 98% of government employees had either been vaccinated or sought medical or religious exemptions. “We are confident in our legal authority here,” she said.

Brown disagreed, saying that it was a “bridge too far” for Biden – “with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress” – to force millions of employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of employment. The judge cited last week’s US Supreme Court ruling striking down Biden’s order requiring private-sector employers to force their workers to get inoculated.

The president clearly has authority to regulate employment policies, Brown said, but “the Supreme Court has expressly held that a Covid-19 vaccine mandate is not an employment regulation.” Interpreting the high court’s ruling in that way could set a significant legal precedent in claims against other employers that force their workers to get vaccinated.

While some private employers, such as Starbucks, have nixed their vaccine mandates in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, others have said they’ll continue to require vaccination against Covid-19 without any government order. Carhartt, a maker of popular work clothes, is facing a boycott after its decision to double down on forced vaccines angered conservatives.

Brown served on the Texas Supreme Court from 2013 until 2019, when he was appointed by then-President Donald Trump for a federal court judgeship.

January 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

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