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Now the NEW ZEALAND Freedom Convoy Has Arrived

Posted by M. C. on February 16, 2022

The places we thought were paradise are now hell holes.

First the protest was deemed legal as others before it. Then, members of the Freedom Convoy were told they were trespassing. Then, mass arrests came. Cameras began to be used against members of the Freedom Convoy to identify them. Then, water sprinklers were turned on. Then, loud music.

Things have only escalated in New Zealand, and they’re bound to continue in the near future.

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/new-zealand-freedom-convoy/

Jeff Thompson

As anticipated, the Canadian Freedom Convoy movement has expanded, and is now firmly in place within New Zealand. And the New Zealand Freedom Convoy has finally reached the grounds of Parliament.

February 7, New Zealand citizens clamoring for their inherent right to freedom absolutely saturated the area around Parliament, as thousands filled the area. And, like Canada, New Zealand’s Prime Minister would not discuss matters with them. Jacinda Ardern refused to meet her fellow citizens, claiming that not only did she have “other priorities” to attend to, but that “this too shall pass.”

🇳🇿 NEW ZEALAND

FREEDOM CONVOY NZ 22 pic.twitter.com/mWA1CNXNUH

— Fede Rores (@FedeRores) February 6, 2022

No arrests had been made at this time, though.

Two days later, police had made over 120 arrests at the Freedom Convoy, stating that people were “trespassing” and were guilty of “obstruction.”

The New Zealand Police tweeted out at this time, “Wellingonians have the right to conduct their lives and go about their business without the interference of ongoing unlawful activity.”

Throughout the past two years, New Zealand has had incredibly tight travel restrictions. Many Kiwis have ended up stranded away from home within their own country, as a result. Families have been separated, forced apart by those who claim that they are serving the public’s interest.

New Zealanders are forced to show their “papers” anytime they enter a church, attend a rugby match, or go to many other venues as well. The Kiwis are fed up.

And now they’re being punished for saying ‘no.’

Parked vehicles are being given traffic tickets, drones and security cameras (most likely with facial recognition software) are being used to identify protestors, and anybody arrested is being told they cannot “lawfully” reenter the protest, as having been served trespassing papers, they would then be in violation of their trespassing notice.

What is strange about this though is that New Zealand has a long history of protesting on Parliament grounds. It’s never been a problem before. Police even explicitly stated at one time that the Freedom Convoy’s presence did not constitute a trespassing violation.

Even Jacinda had previously stated, “People often protest on the front lawn of Parliament. It is a part of New Zealand.”

After it was announced to the protestors that they were now trespassing, they responded in unison by engaging in the Maori haka, a traditional war dance.

So, what changed?

Perhaps, it is the stated goals of the New Zealand Freedom Convoy that has caused the sudden U-turn in policy by the police.

According to the Convoy, papers have been filed for the arrest of Health Minister Andrew Little. He is being presented with charges of manslaughter by the Freedom Convoy, and anybody who has evidence of a jab injury within New Zealand has been encouraged to provide their evidence for their claim.

See the rest here

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What Trudeau’s move against the truckers means

Posted by M. C. on February 16, 2022

https://mailchi.mp/tomwoods/ezra?e=fa1aba8cd8

You have probably heard that Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, just invoked something called the Emergencies Act in response to the trucker protest.

I want to share with you a Twitter thread on the subject by Ezra Levant, who publishes the heroic Rebel News, one of the very rare Canadian sources that isn’t official state propaganda.

Here goes:

1. Trudeau has no legal justification for invoking the Emergencies Act.

It has never been invoked before — not even on 9/11, or the 2014 terrorist attack on Parliament.

Trudeau called the truckers “terrorists,” but everyone can see that’s a lie.

2. Tonight Trudeau called the truckers, and the countless citizens cheering them on, “dangerous” and “not peaceful.” But in fact there has not been a single act of violence committed by any of them in two weeks.

3. The Emergencies Act is to made to defend against a genuine threat to the security of the nation. The definition of “threat” in outlined in the CSIS Act. It has an extraordinarily high bar: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/C-23.pdf

4. There is no espionage threat; no foreign clandestine coup plot; no “serious violence”; no covert act “intended ultimately to lead to the destruction or overthrow by violence.” 

And the act specifically excludes “lawful advocacy, protest or dissent.”

5. This is a coup — from within government. A desperate, flailing politician who bungled the pandemic, antagonized millions of Canadians and sits at just 16% in the polls [source: Maru Public Opinion Survey, February 9-10 — TW]. Three of his own MPs have broken ranks. This is a panicky power grab.

6. There was loud honking in Ottawa. A judge ordered truckers to stop and they complied. The Ambassador Bridge was cleared without incident by local cops.

None of that needed emergency powers. 

But Trudeau wants to rule, like his father figure, Castro.

So he made his move.

7. Trudeau’s obsession with vaccine mandates exceeds any public health rationale. He wants the biomedical security state — the database, the power to control, the power to surveil. 

8. $20 million has been raised for the truckers. The first $10M was through GoFundMe. Trudeau pressured them to cancel the campaign. The next $10M was through GiveSendGo. An Ontario court — in an ex parte (secret) hearing — ordered the money frozen. And then GSG was hacked.

9. About a million dollars was disbursed to a Canadian bank for the truckers, but that was seized, too.

Not a dime has actually gone to the truckers. But Freeland claims that those funds are tantamount to financing terrorism.

10. This is the Canadian version of Biden’s disgraceful memo instructing the FBI to investigate parents who show up to complain at school board meetings. Trudeau and Freeland have criminalized grassroots, peaceful political activism.

11. Freeland announc[ed] that anyone who donated to the trucker crowdfunds is a terrorist financier, and can have their bank accounts seized without a court order. Freeland will “share relevant information” about her enemies list with the banks.

12. There’s more; the bizarre notion of not only commandeering tow trucks, but also “directing” tow truck drivers themselves to work for the government. (What — at the point of a gun? On pain of jail?)

13. It’s hard at first to understand the idea of a coup by someone who is already in office. But recall, Trudeau only won the election with 32% (he lost the popular vote). He’s been increasingly erratic and enraged. Even his former admirers are shocked.

14. He was losing support from his own MPs. The polls were tanking. The truckers were winning — not just in the court of public opinion, but actually convincing provincial premiers to hurry up and end their lockdowns. The public were laughing at him. And he can’t stand that.

15. By shocking the country with a form of martial law, and the suspension of due process and civil liberties, and granting himself the power to unilaterally seize the bank accounts of his enemies, Trudeau consolidates power, thrills the media and silences critics within his party.

16. I mean, it’s “war time” and there are “terrorists” afoot — you must rally behind the prime minister. It stops the dissent in his own party. But more importantly, it criminalizes the Conservative opposition party.

17. Most political fundraising is done online now through crowdfunding. Most of the donors to the trucker convoy are opponents of Trudeau. Trudeau will now use the State of Emergency to build a “terrorist” database of all of the people who donated to support the peaceful protest.

18. Trudeau says this will be the law for “just” 30 days. But he also said we’d be out of lockdowns in two weeks. The Castro model is the permanent emergency and a permanent revolution against the enemies of the movement. Trudeau’s twist is using banks to make his enemies list.

19. And in the background — Trudeau’s new bill to regulate the Internet. That’s the final piece of the puzzle, isn’t it?

Inicidentally, I just sent a donation to Rebel News out of appreciation for their excellent convoy coverage.

Now let me add one more thing: even though it’s February, there’s never a wrong time to pull your children out of a bad educational situation.

Justin Trudeau campaigned on diversity and rainbows, and is forcing his crazy views on everyone with an iron fist.

The same goes for your kids’ teachers. It’s all diversity and rainbows, until it isn’t.

Here is the solution:

http://www.RonPaulHomeschool.com

Tom Woods

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See the CDC corruption for yourself

Posted by M. C. on February 16, 2022

It’s in plain sight in this paper in JAMA about myocarditis rates by CDC authors.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/02/no_author/see-the-cdc-corruption-for-yourself/
Steve Kirsch

Check out this paper published in JAMA written by a bunch of CDC authors including my favorite CDC misinformer, Dr. John Su.

It’s super popular. Over 500,000 views.

Here’s the key paragraph:

Furthermore, as a passive system, VAERS data are subject to reporting biases in that both underreporting and overreporting are possible.38 Given the high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination, underreporting is more likely. Therefore, the actual rates of myocarditis per million doses of vaccine are likely higher than estimated.

I agree. Underreporting is more likely. In fact, the term “overreporting” wasn’t even mentioned in the reference they cite. I can’t even figure out how VAERS could be overreported since the system should eliminate duplicates unless there is a bug.

But the key thing here is they did absolutely nothing to attempt to quantify the underreporting factor (URF).

They absolutely know how to estimate it. John wrote the paper on how to do that in November 2020: The reporting sensitivity of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) for anaphylaxis and for Guillain-Barré syndrome. 

Do they apply that methodology to compute a minimum underreporting factor for serious adverse events (e.g., using the anaphylaxis rates from the Blumenthal paper in JAMA).

Of course not!

They simply do not want to let anyone know how serious it is.

So they deliberately leave out the estimate of the minimum URF (the minimum URF is the URF calculated using the most serious events that would be expected to be always reported) and leave it as an exercise for the reader.

My URF calculation

When I make the URF calculation using their methods and the best available data, the CDC then claims that they don’t agree with my results. They never say why.

My minimum URF comes to 41. But that’s for really serious stuff that will always get reported to VAERS. For myocarditis, the doctors don’t like to believe it could be caused by the vaccine so they typically won’t report it.

When you ask the CDC for the correct minimum URF, they say, “We’ll get back to you” and never do.

The paper says there are at most 106 reports per million doses for boys 16-17. That’s 1 in every 9,433 fully vaccinated teenage boys. It’s actually more than that in reality because there are reports from the first dose (these are usually an order of magnitude lower than the second dose) and because the “window” for looking at cases was only 7 days. So keep that in mind. Also, note the 10X dose dependency. That’s a sure sign of causality. It doesn’t get much stronger than that.

Now, using a pretty conservative URF of 100 for this symptom (2.5X the minimum which I think is a reasonable engineering estimate for the myocarditis which is much less likely than anaphylaxis to be reported), we get an actual rate in practice of more than 1 in 100.

That’s pretty high. It’s unacceptably high. That’s why they never apply the URF. Because it would disqualify the vaccine.

Does a 1 in 100 rate of myocarditis match the real world? Yes!

Our calculation matches up to what we see in the real world.

The real world data is kept hidden from view of everyone. I have yet to see a single school that publishes their myocarditis cases. The only way you find these out is when parents talk to parents. The government doesn’t want anyone to know the real numbers for obvious reasons: it would kill the vaccine program if people knew the truth. So everyone keeps quiet and you have to get really lucky to get any data at all.

For example, at Monte Vista Christian School (MVCS), there are 4 cases of post-vaccine myocarditis. The school has around 800 students and assuming 50% are boys and around half are vaccinated (which is an educated guess using information from a parent that I’m not allowed to disclose) that would be a myocarditis rate of approximately 1 in 50 boys. The head of the school isn’t talking. She likes to correct my articles, but she never claims my number is wrong because lying about the number isn’t a Christian value. She corrects everything else, but not the number. This should be troubling to everyone.

Check out the latest MVCS conversation in the Postscript section of this article.

So the bottom line is once you apply a realistic URF of 100 to the rate in VAERS, you get a reasonable estimate for the true incidence rate of myocarditis post-vaccine.

It’s on us to do our own risk assessments

Since the government agencies aren’t doing the risk assessments, each of us can do our own like Montpellier did in the comments. Here’s what he wrote:

If I simply assess my own friendship circle about 80% of those that got injected had various degrees of side effects. Out of those 80% about 20% ended up feeling sufficiently ill they had to visit the ER more than once over suspected blood clots. One ended in intensive care for over two weeks. Out of the remaining, I’d estimate around half (50%) never felt normal or well months later after taking their vaccines and keep asking all the time why they constantly feel ill, weak, exhausted and unable to cope with basic daily tasks.

Not a single one of them received an acknowledgement that their side effects were due to the vaccines, not one case was added to any adverse effects reporting system.

One person who ended in the ER was told it was merely ‘bad luck’ that she ended with neurological problems and pains on the entire side of the body where she’d been injected…. after she ‘recovered’ the symptoms re-appeared when she took a flight to her sister’s wedding.

Your mileage may vary. Does that sound like a perfectly safe vaccine to you?

More on CDC corruption

For a first-hand look at CDC corruption from someone who used to work at NIOSH (which is part of the CDC), see:

Lawrence’s Newsletter

Righting the Ship Part II

The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception. Pr 14:8 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a long and storied global history of public health but as it has grown in size and mission it has become a master at the art of deception in order to fulfill a political agenda that has remained…Read more9 days ago · Lawrence Mazzuckelli

Summary

The minimum URF is absolutely required for estimating the safety of the vaccines. Not doing the calculation at all is corrupt. It means you cannot do a realistic risk benefit analysis. This is a technique for hiding safety data from the public. That’s the way they roll at the CDC and nobody in the mainstream medical community has the courage to call them out on it. Nobody.

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Tulsi Gabbard: ‘Power Elite’ Will ‘Silence & Cancel Anyone Who Dares Question’ Biden

Posted by M. C. on February 16, 2022

Former Democrat congresswoman issues warning about the ‘bigger issue’ with censorship

https://neonnettle.com/news/18300-tulsi-gabbard-power-elite-will-silence-cancel-anyone-who-dares-question-biden

By: Jay Greenberg

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has warned that America’s “power elite” will “silence and cancel” anybody “who dares challenge or question” the agenda of Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Speaking to USA Today, Gabbard blasted the Biden administration for its attack on podcaster Joe Rogan.

Gabbard warned that the Democrats’ effort pointed “to a bigger issue,” which is “the power elite trying to silence and cancel people who dare to question the establishment narrative.”

Gabbard stated:

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve gotten to know Joe [Rogan] and consider him a good friend; he’s like the nicest, most generous, humble guy, and I think he’s done the right thing in addressing these issues that have come up; very directly, very honestly and been very ready to admit how he can be better and apologizing.

“I think it’s what we would hope to get from anyone, really.”

Have your say – ⇓ Hit the comments below ⇓

tulsi gabbard was responding to attacks against joe rogan who she describes as a good friend
Tulsi Gabbard was responding to attacks against Joe Rogan, who she describes as a ‘good friend’

“And I think how not only a lot of the kind of the corporate response has been, but also, frankly, the White House inserting itself into trying to cancel Joe Rogan points to the bigger issue, which is really the attempts by the power elite trying to silence and cancel people who dare to question the establishment narrative, who dare to maybe hold a different view,” Gabbard continued.

“And that response, trying to cancel people.

“Silence them and smear their character, is the age-old tactic.

“I’ve been on the receiving end of it, so I know exactly how that feels.

“And it is so dangerous because it undermines free speech in America.”

On February 1, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had urged Spotify to take further action against Rogan after Spotify announced it would tag alleged controversial episodes with a new warning label, which Gabbard referenced in her statement.

Gabbard tweeted, “I may disagree with what you say, but I’m willing to sacrifice my life to protect your right to say it.

“The campaign to silence @JoeRogan shines a light on the bigger issue: the power elite will silence anyone who dares challenge or question their power.”

See the rest here

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Ukraine Invasion Scheduled for Wednesday Canceled

Posted by M. C. on February 16, 2022

Over recent weeks, AP’s ace reporter Matthew Lee and colleagues had been repeatedly led down the White House garden path by the likes of broken-record “the-Russians-are-coming-and-it-could-be-Wednesday” national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Might it be that, this time, at least one AP honcho became so weary of this drivel, that s/he decided to go ahead and publish before receiving the customary Guidance Memo from the powers that be, telling the Establishment media how to spin major events?

by Ray McGovern

“’Foiled again!’ rose the cry from those expecting Russian President Vladimir Putin to step out of character and risk war, just as he finally succeeds in getting the U.S. to take Russia’s security concerns seriously – and even address them.” Today we can simply recycle the above lede sentence from our article four weeks ago: Godot Likely To Arrive Before Russia Invades Ukraine.

New this time, and so far unique, is the lack-of-spin headline and lede that the AP promptly used yesterday in reporting on the significance of the talks held in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin and visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. (Headline and lede sentences follow.)

Russia ready to discuss confidence-building measures, Putin says after talks with Germany’s Scholtz

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Moscow is ready for talks with the US and NATO on limits on missile deployments and military transparency, in a new sign of easing East-West tensions. The statement came after Russia announced it is pulling back some troops from exercises that have raised fears of a potential invasion of Ukraine.

Has AP Learned a Lesson?

Over recent weeks, AP’s ace reporter Matthew Lee and colleagues had been repeatedly led down the White House garden path by the likes of broken-record “the-Russians-are-coming-and-it-could-be-Wednesday” national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Might it be that, this time, at least one AP honcho became so weary of this drivel, that s/he decided to go ahead and publish before receiving the customary Guidance Memo from the powers that be, telling the Establishment media how to spin major events?

This time, the “guidance” came from President Joe Biden himself, who stuck to Sullivan’s ad-nauseam alerts that a Russia invasion “remains distinctly possible.”

Reuters, too, apparently got the Memo in time and dutifully reported:

The Kremlin sought to portray its moves as proof that Western talk of war had been both false and hysterical.

“February 15, 2022 will go down in history as the day Western war propaganda failed. Humiliated and destroyed without a single shot fired,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Russia’s defence ministry published footage showing tanks and other armoured vehicles being loaded onto railway flatcars. But Western military analysts said they needed more information to judge the significance of the latest troop movements.

Putin With Scholz

At yesterday’s press conference, Chancellor Scholz at times played straight man for Putin, calling the announcement of the Russian troop pullback a “good signal” and agreeing that diplomatic options are “far from exhausted”, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had reported to Putin on Monday. Here’s what’s important (and was given appropriate prominence in AP’s reporting).

Putin at the presser with Scholz:

“… as [Lavrov] reported yesterday, the [US and NATO] responses still contain a number of considerations that we are not only ready to discuss but that we have actually suggested to our partners over the years. I am referring to our proposals on European security, certain weapons systems, notably, intermediate and shorter-range missiles, and military transparency. We are ready to continue this joint work. … [Emphasis added.]

So far, the NYT has omitted that statement by Putin, which, coming yesterday together with the troop pullback, is highly significant. That the Times “forgot” to include it is yet another sign that even the most sensible, rudimentary negotiations on key matters of concern to Russia will be resisted tooth and nail by the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-MEDIA-Academia-Think-Tank) complex in which the NYT is right there in the middle, the fulcrum – the key “M.”

Still, some Times editor apparently insisted on slipping in the important acknowledgment by Mr. Biden today that:

“Neither the US or NATO have missiles in Ukraine. We do not, do not have plans to put them there as well.” [Emphasis added.]

Biden made this commitment to Putin during the telephone call of Dec. 30 that Putin had urgently requested. It amounts to a major concession and enabled Moscow to conclude that at least one or two of Biden’s retinue – or Biden himself – have their heads screwed on right.

In sum, at the risk of boring Antiwar.com readers who have heard this many times before, this issue represents the most fruitful negotiating path. A key remaining question is whether the MICIMATT can thwart it. All in all, yesterday gave a glimmer of hope that if others of the MEDIA follow AP’s example, US citizens will become better informed of the realities and thus be chary of giving credulity to officials like Jake Sullivan. As President Eisenhower warned 61 years ago, only “an informed citizenry” can prevent inordinate accretion of power by the MIC, the Military-Industrial-Complex.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

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Ukraine Crisis: A Nightmare Caused by US Interventionism

Posted by M. C. on February 15, 2022

What the US media will not report is that this entire crisis – and the threat of a serious war – has all been brought about by US interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, specifically the US-backed coup that overthrew an elected government in 2014. Every bit of unrest in Ukraine proceeded from that single foolish and immoral act by the Obama Administration.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/february/14/ukraine-crisis-a-nightmare-caused-by-us-interventionism/

Written by Ron Paul

Over the weekend we heard that the US is evacuating its embassy in Kiev for fear of a Russian invasion. We also heard that Russia is evacuating its embassy in Kiev for fear of a US-backed provocation in eastern Ukraine that may lead to a Russian military response.

We are in “uncharted territory” the media tells us. Yes, that is true. But it is uncharted because no one had ever imagined in the past that the US government would be so foolish to risk a thermonuclear war over the borders of a country – Ukraine – that have changed so many times over the past century.

An urgent Biden-Putin phone call on Saturday did not lead to any breakthrough – as if anyone thought it would. Instead, it provided cover for Biden Administration hawks to claim they tried every diplomatic approach, but war seems to be the only option.

But this whole thing is a farce. As I see it, here is the Ukraine crisis in a nutshell:

Biden to Putin: “Don’t invade Ukraine.”

Putin to Biden: “We have no intention of invading Ukraine.”

Biden to the US media: “Putin is about to invade Ukraine!”

Then Biden’s top officials proceed to embarrass themselves by warning that the invasion was imminent. Or it’s coming next Tuesday, or Wednesday, or surely before the end of the Olympics. Does anyone think they have any credibility left with their constant hysterical warnings?

Meanwhile “US intelligence” continues to leak incendiary information – likely self-serving – to a US media that has lost any interest in skepticism toward any “scoop” handed down by US government officials.

What the US media will not report is that this entire crisis – and the threat of a serious war – has all been brought about by US interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, specifically the US-backed coup that overthrew an elected government in 2014. Every bit of unrest in Ukraine proceeded from that single foolish and immoral act by the Obama Administration.

That is why we are non-interventionist. The philosophy of non-interventionism is one very good piece of insurance protecting us from needless war. If you don’t meddle in the affairs of foreign countries, there is less chance of being dragged into an unnecessary war.

Ukraine is a great example of why non-interventionism is the only pro-America foreign policy. We are risking nuclear war with Russia over what? Ukraine’s borders? Surely most Americans see how idiotic this is.

The Biden Administration is at present shell-shocked that the Russian government did not back down over plans to expand NATO to Ukraine. Russia understandably views NATO membership for Ukraine -with its Article 5 guarantees – to be an unacceptable threat considering the ongoing border disputes.

This is not our fight, yet Biden’s foreign policy team has decided it’s a great time to kick the hornet’s nest.

Is it all about Biden’s dismal approval ratings? What a sick thing to risk a major war over. We need to stand up and say “enough.” Before it’s too late.

Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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The Mandates Are Leaving Europe. Is Freedom Winning? –

Posted by M. C. on February 15, 2022

But the little choices we make everyday matter. Do we report heterodox-thinking friends, family, and coworkers the way DHS wants us to? Or do we support each other? Do we “just go with the flow,” or do we continue to speak out about infringements on our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Do we spend our time zoning out in front of a screen or learning skills that will help us become assets to our communities?  

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/mandates-leaving-europe/

Joanna Miller

Joy reigned in my house this past week as one child’s school lifted its mask mandates. At the same time, frustration ensued when another child was uninvited to an event due to her jab status. My little neck of the country can’t seem to decide if it’s going to ditch restrictions or double down. Situational awareness is vital to prepping, and yet it’s hard to tell what’s going on. 

Maybe if we look at which governments are taking what kind of measures around the world, we will see trends that can better inform us in the United States.  

What mandates do we see in Europe?

Many of the European countries have announced that they will move forward treating Covid as just another endemic disease. Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic have all started lifting Covid-related restrictions, such as limits on gatherings and requiring Covid Passes to enter certain venues. Italy, Finland, Ireland, France, and Lithuania are easing many requirements. 

Most of these countries plan to be as close to “normal” as possible by March. The United Kingdom has lifted work-from-home requirements, mandatory masking, and requiring Covid Passes to enter venues.

Let’s look at some of these countries a little more closely.

Denmark was the first country in the European Union to scrap restrictions. Denmark never tried to mandate the jab, though 78% of the population voluntarily received it. Their government officials have stated that they do not want to force their population to do anything because they do not want to lose the trust of the people. 

Considering that they are letting go of their restrictions, the Danish people’s trust seems well-placed.

On February 3, Sweden also announced that they were ending the use of their Covid Passes. Sweden had been notoriously (or inspiringly, depending on how you look at it) reluctant to shut down when the rest of the world did. How did the Swedes fare? Did they all die for their refusal to place their population on house arrest?

Well, as of February 5, 2022, the Swedes have approximately 1592 deaths per million due to Covid, while the Americans have approximately 2707 deaths per million. Yep, our lockdowns that destroyed small businesses everywhere were totally worth it. . .

And, like the Danes, the Swedes never mandated jabs, though their country achieved over 70% compliance voluntarily. Interestingly, Sweden has not recommended jabs for children. They simply decided the experimental jabs were not worth the risk to children. Like the Danish government, the Swedish government gives the impression that it is genuinely trying to do what’s best for its citizens.  

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom had the second-worst Covid-related death toll in Europe, surpassed only by Russia. Like the United States, the UK has its own influential pharmaceutical giant in its Wellcome Trust. Not surprisingly, the Brits were subjected to much of the same fear-mongering and almost comically overblown death projections we Americans have been. 

We’ve got Tony Fauci; they’ve got Neil Ferguson from the Imperial College, whose models in 2020 have been proven wrong by a factor of about ten. And yet, at the end of January, the Brits decided that Omicron had peaked and that they were ready to open up, too.

Are we seeing minor victories with the dropping of mandates?

See the rest here

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The End Of Empire | The Z Blog

Posted by M. C. on February 15, 2022

This may be what the end empire is like from the inside. We will have spasms of bellowing and shouting from Washington, but the world will slowly crawl out from under the shadow of Washington. Meanwhile, domestic politics will grow increasingly untenable, with populist revolt replacing electoral organizing. The system simply stops working as the reason for it to keep working no longer makes sense. The end of empire is a million small breakdowns in the system.

https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=26699

Note: The Monday Taki post is up. The subject of it and today’s post is the rather bizarre crisis in Europe. Of course, Sunday Thoughts is up behind the green door for those needing audio stimulation. Much of it is about the situation in Europe.

The question that has not been given much consideration over the last few decades is how exactly will the Global American Empire end? All empires come to an end, but not all of them end the same. Usually, they dissolve into their constituent parts like we saw with the Soviet Union. This may or may not bring with it a spasm of violence, but the unnatural combination eventually returns to its nature. What makes each empire unique is its birth and its death.

Like every empire before it, the Global American Empire will end. This may be what we are seeing with the current crisis in Europe over Ukraine. Russia is well past the dissolution of the Soviet Empire. Europe has also evolved past the old arrangements made necessary by the Cold War. The only player stuck in the past is the Global American Empire, which is carrying on like it is 1960. We are now seeing the hints of the end for the American empire in Europe.

The starting place is the fact that the stuff coming from Washington is so bizarre that not even the Ukrainians understand it. The rhetoric has gone well beyond the normal sort of moralizing that has distinguished the American empire. Washington and now London have conjured a reality in which the Russians are ready to launch into Ukraine while the Russians and Ukrainians are happy to find a peaceful solution. The whole thing is making Washington look a bit nuts.

All of this happening against the reality that if the Russians want to invade Ukraine there is nothing NATO can do about it. If the Russians wanted to move onto Berlin there is not much NATO could do to stop them. Over time, the West would be able to rally and cripple the Russians economically, then roll them back militarily, but in the short term everyone gets that NATO is a paper tiger. It is also a pointless vestige from a bygone era that should have been scrapped a generation ago.

This is one entry point into the crisis. The Germans want to finish Nord Stream 2 and build closer economic ties with Russia. The Russians want to restore their ancient relationship with Western Europe. They will not accept the American conditions that they must embrace the religion of the West. There will be no rainbows and transsexuals in the Russian culture. There will be no scenes of Russian soldiers walking around in pumps claiming to be sorry for their ancestors.

The Germans and the French seem to be ready to make the deal with the Russians and begin a new era for both sides. The Russians can maintain their traditional model for organizing themselves and Europe will begin to normalize economic relations with the rest of Eurasia. This leaves little room for the Global American Empire, which is based on an assertion that there is only one moral way to organize a society. This potential new arrangement is a rebuke of the very idea of empire.

Another entry point into viewing the current crisis as a stage in the dissolution of the Global American Empire is in the reaction itself. Even the American media has lost track of how many times the Biden people have claimed an invasion is imminent. It feels like it is a weekly thing now. The State Department swears the tanks are revving their engines and then nothing happens. European leaders have to be wondering if the empire is losing its grip on reality.

The hysteria could very well be the only thing left. Again, if Russian draws the line on NATO expansion and takes over Ukraine, there is very little Washington can do about it other than make a lot of noise. The promise of crippling economic sanctions is as ridiculous as the rest of the bellowing. Europe needs to buy important stuff from Russia in order to exist. Germany and France will go along with superficial stuff to please Washington, but they are not committing suicide over Ukraine.

See the rest here

by thezman

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The US War Machine Is Just a Rich Man’s Mafia

Posted by M. C. on February 15, 2022

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-us-war-machine-is-just-a-rich

Caitlin Johnstone

If you “vote out fascism” and then the president you voted for turns out to have the same effective policies as the previous administration, it’s time to start asking who the fascists actually are.

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Hoo you’ve done it now, CIA. You are in trouble. It was all good fun when you were doing fine normal stuff like toppling governments and running torture programs and assassinating people, but collecting bulk data on Americans?? You better prepare for some accountability, mister!

And the next time you suggest the CIA might be up to something nefarious, you’ll still get called a crazy conspiracy theorist.

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“Abolish the CIA” is almost too weak a position for an agency that should never have been made in the first place and should have been dismantled in the fucking nineteen sixties.

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The US war machine is just a rich man’s mafia.

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It’s not about Joe Rogan. It’s not about Covid misinformation. It’s not about QAnon, Russian trolls, domestic extremists or election security. It’s about ruling power structures needing to normalize and expand the regulation of online speech to protect consent for the status quo.

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A liberal is someone who yells all day about far right truckers and far right Joe Rogan and then applauds when their president gives weapons to literal Nazis.

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Very excited to find out whether “The US intelligence community says Putin has decided to invade Ukraine any minute now” is the kind of psyop that’s just designed to ramp up cold war hysteria or the kind of psyop that’s designed to prime us for US proxy war aggressions.

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The PR black eye the US empire sustained from the Iraq invasion ensured that it will greatly preference using proxy forces over US troops wherever possible. Middle Eastern jihadists, Latin American reactionaries, and Ukrainian Nazis all make very good proxy forces for the empire.

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A lot of confusion about Russia and Ukraine could be easily avoided if English language news media would end the appallingly unethical practice of printing unsubstantiated assertions by opaque intelligence agencies and presenting it as a “scoop”.

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The burden of proof is always on the party making the claim. It’s so weird how everyone will apply this standard to things like internet forum arguments and high school debates but not to immensely consequential claims by the most powerful institutions on the planet who have a well-documented history of lying.

Make a claim that could result in winning a Twitter argument and you’ll immediately be asked for proof. Make a claim that could result in thousands of deaths and it will be reported as fact by The New York Times.

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So to recap:

See the rest here

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Still No Answers On The CIA’s Unconstitutional Mass Surveillance Of Americans | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on February 15, 2022

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/still-no-answers-cias-unconstitutional-mass-surveillance-americans

Tyler Durden's Photo

by Tyler Durden

Monday, Feb 14, 2022 – 10:50 PM

By Matthew Guariglia & Andrew Crocker via Common Dreams/Electronic Freedom Foundation,

The Central Intelligence Agency has been collecting American’s private data without any oversight or even the minimal legal safeguards that apply to the NSA and FBI, an unconstitutional affront to our civil liberties. According to a declassified report released last week by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), the CIA’s surveillance program is reminiscent of the mass surveillance programs conducted by the NSA, though the details released thus far paint a disturbing picture of potential wide-scale violations of people’s privacy.To start, the CIA program has apparently been conducted outside the statutory reforms and oversight of the intelligence community instituted after revelations by Edward Snowden in 2013. The newly declassified CIA data collection program is carried out in conjunction with Executive Order 12333 and is therefore subject to even less oversight than the woefully under-supervised NSA surveillance programs subject to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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