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Surprised? Another Hate Crime Hoax Exposed | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on August 31, 2021

And then, two months after the school’s nationwide hate-crime humiliation, Bucknell announced that a university-commissioned independent investigation by law firm Cozen O’Connor “found no evidence that the students outside of Fran’s House on May 13 were motivated by bias against the residents and their affinity as an LGBTQ+ community.”

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/surprised-another-hate-crime-hoax-exposed/

by Brian McGlinchey

In mid-May, news broke of a disturbing incident at Bucknell University: Outlets across the country reported that, on the eve of final exams, a mob of 15 to 20 intolerant male students had victimized the school’s LGBTQ community via an attack on a residence hall established as a “safe space” for community members.

The intruders were members of a former Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity chapter that was shut down in 2019 over hazing violations. Before hosting the “Fran’s House” LGBTQ residential group, the building at the center of the disturbance was TKE’s decades-long home at Bucknell.

Students living in the house said the TKE brothers banged on doors and windows, yelling, “Let us in…this isn’t your home…this is our home.” One apparently exposed himself; someone allegedly urinated on the porch.

That same evening, the house’s residential advisor published a lengthy and emotionally-charged open letter to Bucknell President John Bravman, recounting how the experience of “20 inebriated former fraternity members harass(ing) the LGBTQ+ community” left his “legs shaking with adrenaline.”

On the morning after the disturbance, Bucknell raced to issue a statement condemning what it called a “horrific incident.”

In a fateful contradiction, the university simultaneously promised an independent investigation to ascertain the facts while embracing the assumption that this was an attack on the LGBTQ community.

“We cannot erase the ugliness and subsequent trauma of last night’s transgression against the students of Fran’s House and, implicitly, many others, but we can commit to addressing it in a way that protects LGBTQ Bucknellians and better ensures their safety in the future,” said the statement issued by Bravman along with the school’s provost and its associate provost for equity and inclusive excellence.

Bucknell’s dramatically-worded embrace of the hate crime narrative poured gasoline on the public relations fire. By characterizing the episode as a “horrific incident” against LGBTQ students that left administrators “sorrowful,” the university handed journalists and editors just what they needed for sensational, click-inducing coverage.

Stories erupted at the nation’s most prominent outlets, with headlines describing a shocking hate crime at the highly selective Pennsylvania school:

  • The New York Times: Bucknell Investigating “Horrific” Harassment of LGBTQ Students
  • USA Today: Bucknell University Condemns “Horrific” Attack on LGBTQ Residence: “We Are Outraged and Sorrowful”
  • The Washington Post: “Horrific” Attack on LGBTQ House Sparks University Investigation

Social media lit up with indignation. A professor arranged for people to take shifts standing guard outside the house. Students organized a “solidarity march against toxic masculinity.” TKE’s national office condemned the incident as an “act of intolerance.”

And then, two months after the school’s nationwide hate-crime humiliation, Bucknell announced that a university-commissioned independent investigation by law firm Cozen O’Connor “found no evidence that the students outside of Fran’s House on May 13 were motivated by bias against the residents and their affinity as an LGBTQ+ community.”

Good luck finding that news at the Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, NBC News, CNN, Fox News, New York Post, The Hill, Boston Globe, The Advocate, New York Daily News, Insider Higher Ed, Los Angeles Blade, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, Seattle Times and countless other outlets that pushed the false, Bucknell-encouraged hate crime angle.

See the rest here

About Brian McGlinchey

STARK REALITIES WITH BRIAN McGLINCHEY is a Substack newsletter that undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. McGlinchey has spoken at the national conference of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, and has appeared on the Scott Horton Show, Tom Woods Show and Ron Paul Liberty Report. Receive new Stark Realities posts via email

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Pfizer Board Member Warns Policymakers: “Natural Immunity” Needs to Be Included In COVID Mandate Plans | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on August 31, 2021

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is a Pfizer board member, noted that “natural immunity” gained from a prior COVID-19 infection needs to be included in discussions about policies and mandates.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/pfizer-board-member-warns-policymakers-natural-immunity-needs-be-included-covid-mandate

Tyler Durden's Photoby Tyler Durden

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is a Pfizer board member, noted that “natural immunity” gained from a prior COVID-19 infection needs to be included in discussions about policies and mandates.

“The balance of the evidence demonstrates that natural immunity confers a durable protection,” Gottlieb said during a Monday morning TV interview, referring to a landmark new preprint Israeli study that found prior COVID-19 infection confers much more protection against the virus than any vaccine.

“It’s fair to conclude that,” he said.

Although Gottlieb said he would “be careful” about concluding whether natural immunity provides better protection against transmitting the virus, officials “should start assimilating that into our policy discussions.”

“Natural infection confers robust and durable immunity,” he said, citing the Israeli study and others.

However, whether natural immunity or vaccines are better than one another “isn’t that material” when it comes to policy discussions, Gottlieb added.

Last week, researchers from Maccabi Healthcare and Tel Aviv University said that individuals who recovered from COVID-19 had superior protection against the Delta variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus than those who received the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, the most commonly used shot in Israel.

“This analysis demonstrated that natural immunity affords longer-lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease, and hospitalization due to the Delta variant,” the study concluded, noting their findings came from the “largest real-world observational study” in the world. Their study, which hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, noted outcomes for a period between June 1 and Aug. 14 of this year.

When researchers compared cases of prior infection that occurred between March 2020 and February 2021 with vaccinations between January and February 2021, they found that the vaccinated cohort was 5.96 times more likely to contract the Delta variant and 7.13 times more at risk for symptomatic disease compared to those previously infected.

The results suggest that natural immunity gained from having survived a previous infection of COVID-19 may wane over time against the Delta variant, the authors wrote.

Those vaccinated were at a greater risk of COVID-19-related hospitalizations compared to those who were previously infected, the authors noted. They said that being 60 years of age or older increased the risk of infection and hospitalization.

The authors of the research paper said they only observed protection against the Delta variant and not other strains. Meanwhile, they only observed the Pfizer vaccine and didn’t look at other vaccines or the effects of a booster shot.

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Overpaid, Insecure, And Unintelligent — This Is Who You Leave Your Kids With And Who Most Kids Will Therefore Emulate – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 31, 2021

Suddenly you found out that if you wanted your kid to breathe freely, you were evil. If you did not want your kid to be a science experiment, you were deserving of arrest and imprisonment — not a fit parent. If you wanted your kid to have face-to-face class, rather than staring at a screen for 80% of his waking day, then you were anti-social.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/08/allan-stevo/overpaid-insecure-and-unintelligent-this-is-who-you-leave-your-kids-with-and-who-most-kids-will-therefore-emulate/

By Allan Stevo

There is a fascinating trend taking place among parents.

They are starting to realize who they are leaving their children in the hands of.

Sure there have always been PTA meetings and parent teacher conferences. There have been open houses and days for parents to come in and volunteer at school. There have been sports leagues and field trips and volunteer activities for you to see a teacher in action and to see how they are at their job and as a person. But if there wasn’t genuine philosophical conflict, there was no way to truly feel them out.

2020 and 2021 made that possible.

Suddenly you found out that if you wanted your kid to breathe freely, you were evil. If you did not want your kid to be a science experiment, you were deserving of arrest and imprisonment — not a fit parent. If you wanted your kid to have face-to-face class, rather than staring at a screen for 80% of his waking day, then you were anti-social.

Yes, I know, plenty of readers of these pages had those realizations before 2020. But for the normies among us, 2020 was a real gift, and in a lot of ways.

It suddenly became obvious to parents in the days and weeks before a Zoom-based circulum became the norm, that doing classwork at the kitchen table with your kids didn’t take 6, 7, or 8 hours, but was more like 90 or 120 or maybe 150 minutes of effort. What were the teachers doing with all the rest of the time then?

Then Zoom-based classes started and you got to see what the teachers were doing with the extra time — not much of anything beneficial to your kid. Then your home became filled with the echoes of their vapid nonsense.

Then you began to learn a little more about how the school was run, and you began to ask questions you never even troubled yourself with. What do these people believe in? How much do they get paid? Who really runs this whole show? Where do they get off putting some of this crap into the curriculum?

You started asking a lot of questions, and before you knew it, you might not have just been asking the questions to your search engine. You might have been asking the questions to people at the school too — maybe a principal, maybe a superintendent, maybe a counselor, maybe a teacher, maybe an aide. And before you knew it, you were told not to be in the room during the Zoom-based classes. You were given attitude. You were told that this isn’t any concern of theirs. You were told how smart people came up with this plan, and that you needed to get in line. You were told to trust the professionals.

Well, the problem really is that you trusted the professionals at all, for any time, for a single second.

If your family ended up in a mess in 2020, that’s probably how you ended up there — by trusting professionals.

Trust is a thing earned and granted to a select few close to you. Trust is not a blanket sentiment given to thousands and millions of people. That’s not called trust. That’s called idiocy.

It is idiocy to see how overpaid, insecure, and unintelligent these people are and to back away from your parental responsibilities like you “trust” them. It’s negligence to see how overpaid, insecure, and unintelligent these people are and to let them have ANY access to your kids. It is hypocritical to see how overpaid, insecure, and unintelligent these people are and to give a single dime to support their efforts, let alone leave your pride and joy with them.

A property tax protest is the right response to the school system after what the months since the Ides of March 2020 have shown us. These people are overpaid, insecure, and unintelligent. If you don’t figure out how to stop paying your property taxes, you are inevitably supporting that.

But let us not stop there. Let us get into the topic of child sacrifice. Let us get into the topic of how virtuous they deem it to turn your child’s body, mind, and soul to rubbish.

Do not pretend they share your values.

Do not pretend they care for your children.

They care for your children enough to get you to leave them your children.

That’s how much they care for your children. What they are banking for is that you are stupid enough to keep leaving them with your children after all the police powers they granted themselves over the past year while you weren’t looking.

Keep leaving them with your children, and you will get a rude awakening one day soon.

That’s how much they care for your children. If they thought you’d never come asking about it they would do far worse to your children, but they know you can cause a lot of trouble for them if they do, or at least you used to be able to. 2020 and 2021 taught them a lesson — you don’t love your kids as much as you claim to, and you don’t have as much power and authority that you, and they, once thought you did, otherwise if you did, 2020 and 2021 wouldn’t have gone down the way it did.

Everyone sees how weak your hand is as a parent, with the possible exception of you.  Some parents think they are stronger than they really are in the school system. Sure, they can bend a school board to their will, maybe even get a superintendent fired, but “possession is nine-tenths of the law,” and you leave your kids for much of the day in the “possession” of some bad hombres.

I’m happy that parents are going to the school board to protest CRT. Marxism has no place in the classroom. I help these protests. I help train lion parents to fight. I go speak and rally awesome people to stand up. However, if you need to tell your school board to tell its teachers not to teach CRT, you’ve already lost.

The people who proposed the curriculum came up through the ranks of the people you leave your children with. They are the same. You can’t beat them with the school board. They are a bunch of hard-to-fire harpies trained in witchcraft and brainwashing. This is so accurate that you could even go so far as to dominate the school board and to get the school board to allow one book in the classroom — the Bible, whichever translation is your favorite — and you will still get Marxism stuffed into your child’s head.

They are overpaid, insecure, and unintelligent, and the greatest gift of 2020 and 2021 that you can give your child, no matter how painful it may be at first, is to keep your child far away from these people and to never look back at their temples of slow motion child sacrifice.

The second greatest gift you can give your child is a world in which their children will never know these slow motion temples of child sacrifice. Defund them. Stop paying taxes to them. Yes. I really mean that.

I once worked in a really good one.

They aren’t that good.

The people who work in them are overwhelmingly overpaid, insecure, and unintelligent.

The few who don’t fit that description, and who aren’t irreparably deformed by their time among the others, may help pave the way for what education looks like going forward, because unless child sacrifice at the hands of the overpaid, insecure, and unintelligent is your thing, the current model isn’t going to be what education looks like for long.

Queen Elizabeth introduced something akin to the idea of public education as we know it. It caught on very slowly. For the majority of the history of the United States, no such concept existed. Schooling was a matter for the home, the church, and the community. It was not what we have today. What we have today is a true aberration that will not long survive — at least not in the new America, not in the breakaway republic that will leave all this nonsense behind.

But you can’t single-handedly control that. What you can single-handedly control is what happens to your child.

Let your child wear the mask to class, and you will one day realize your child also received the Covid shot in class, that is, if your relationship with your child is even strong enough for that information to get to you. That’s the truth. Will you become a parent who writes me after returning from the hospital to learn that their child was vaccinated without their knowledge? Will you be looking for sympathy?

You know everything you need to know in order to prevent that day from coming. Read the laws and orders, you’re in denial if you don’t think 2021 is the year that thousands and maybe millions of American kids get the unsafe, ineffective, experimental Covid vaccine in schools without parental permission.

You must draw a line at the face mask. You must never let your child be masked. Really though, an even more bold line must be drawn. If you leave your child with sociopaths, not only is your child far more likely to end up a sociopath, your child is going to be sacrificed at the altar of those sociopaths. Regardless of their sociopathic crocodile tears that appear when they are caught in the act, the slow-motion sacrifice of your child’s body, mind, and soul for the greater good will bring a sociopathic “educator” all manner of joy.

Stop it. Value your child more. If your child is in a school where you have to fight CRT, face masks, and vaccines, your child is a sacrifice waiting to happen. Don’t let that happen. You know enough to stop it. It might not be easy. Who ever said parenting would be? But it’s going to be so much better than what that school can offer your child, no matter how good of a school it is.

Say no to the evil. All of the evil. Never wear a mask again. Don’t let anyone put the harmful and ineffective mask on your child. “Face Masks in One Lesson” (here) (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953847005?linkCode=ogi&psc=1&th=1&tag=lrc18-20) exists to help you do that, as do these LewRockwell.com pieces (https://www.lewrockwell.com/author/allan-stevo/?ptype=article), and the email newsletter at RealStevo.com (https://realstevo.com/) full of quick, easy to watch videos on how to make that, and other bold steps, a reality in your own life. 

Allan Stevo [send him mail] writes about international politics and culture from a free market perspective at 52 Weeks in Slovakia (www.52inSk.com). He is the author of How to Win America, The Bitcoin Manifesto, and numerous other books.

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The FBI were in the Capital Riot & Probably Led The People In | Armstrong Economics

Posted by M. C. on August 31, 2021

looks like you will have to click the link to watch the videos. Videos are short.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/police-state/the-fbi-were-in-the-capital-riot-probably-led-the-people-in/

Video Player00:0001:02

USA Today swears this is fake news. They claim this is not the same guy. But USA Today is part of the Fake News Organization against the people. So who do we believe? Video Player00:0000:55Video Player00:0000:28

This does not support the lies of an armed insurrection being pushed by the Democrats and the Deep State to justify the loss of more rights and the usurpation of unbridled power. They are using this narrative to justify a new Domestic Terrorist Act introduced by Democrats where they will imprison American citizens claiming you are a terrorist for disagreeing with the government narrative. This is all part of ending Democracy and moving toward Schwab’s new Great Reset. There were clearly government operatives in the building and my bet is they were the leaders to ensure the people entered the capital building.

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How ‘Informed Consent’ Became ‘Coercion of the Uninformed’ – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on August 31, 2021

The first is that this commercial, just like every COVID vaccine pitch ever created, treats us, the skeptical-yet-potential consumer, like a child being persuaded by a desperate parent to believe that Santa really showed up on Christmas Eve.  “I saw him on the Santa Tracker app.  Honest!”

The second is the absence of all that fine-print disclosure that commonly appears at the bottom of most American drug commercials, accompanied by a swift recitation of those horrifying potential side effects in a pleasant voice.  And curiously, after not being reminded that there are potential side effects to the COVID vaccines or what those side effects are, we’re also not reminded that we should talk to our doctor before “deciding” to take this new drug.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/coog30gmailcom_how_informed_consent_became_coercion_of_the_uninformed.html

By William Sullivan

There must be a lot of money to be made in peddling medical treatments and prescription drugs to Americans, or else there’d be no way the advertisements pitching these treatments and drugs to the public could be so plentiful.  But you may have noticed a feature of those ads that is conspicuously absent in the public pitch for COVID-19 vaccines.

Let’s consider that commercial (or any of the hundreds exactly like it) entreating you to get vaxxed as a means to “get back to life,” showing happy images of travel passports, college, family meals, and visiting grandparents.  But, we’re assured, “it’s okay to have questions,” like “how were the vaccines tested?” and “why should I get vaccinated?” 

How were they tested?  “In rigorous clinical trials among adults of diverse backgrounds,” we’re assured.  Oh, well that’s a relief. 

Why should I get vaccinated?  Because “protecting yourself also helps protect the people around you.”  You don’t say?  Hadn’t heard that.

“Back to life?” the commercial ends.  “It’s up to you.”

There are two things that the average American might notice here. 

The first is that this commercial, just like every COVID vaccine pitch ever created, treats us, the skeptical-yet-potential consumer, like a child being persuaded by a desperate parent to believe that Santa really showed up on Christmas Eve.  “I saw him on the Santa Tracker app.  Honest!”

The second is the absence of all that fine-print disclosure that commonly appears at the bottom of most American drug commercials, accompanied by a swift recitation of those horrifying potential side effects in a pleasant voice.  And curiously, after not being reminded that there are potential side effects to the COVID vaccines or what those side effects are, we’re also not reminded that we should talk to our doctor before “deciding” to take this new drug.

As it turns out, there’s a reason that all those American drug manufacturers and their pitchmen have always put all those uncomfortable disclosures in their commercials, and it’s not because they’re really bad salespeople or because they love being the subject of countless parodies for presenting side effects that are often worse than the cure they promise.

Nope.  It’s thanks, in part, to this little nuisance of a concept called “informed consent.”

“Informed consent to medical treatment,” according to the American Medical Association, “is fundamental to both ethics and law.  Patients have a right to receive information and ask questions about recommended treatments so that they can make well-considered decisions about care.”

Pharmaceutical companies peddling their wares in America, almost uniquely in the global context, are able to market prescription drugs directly to potential patients.  Because of this, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeks to keep the drug peddlers honest, believing this to be part of the process by which potential patients are informed, and therefore requiring them to present the negative effects of any medical treatment alongside potential benefits.

The other reason is personal injury lawyers, who will scour every advertisement a drug company puts out to find a client that experiences some negative impact as a result of an undisclosed side effect, but that’s another story.

In sum, that appears to be why COVID vaccine commercials don’t include side effects to inform the public about any potentially negative side effects.  It’s a loophole.  They don’t disclose the details because they’re not marketing a specific brand of the product to the public.  It’s just a public service announcement that (coincidentally, I’m sure) does what the pitchmen of Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, or Moderna couldn’t legally do as a matter of consumer protection — and that is pitch their products by promising all of that vague upside without presenting any of the potentially negative side effects. 

So, the advertisements for the COVID vaccine are neither informative nor balanced, despite being presented as such.  And even more sinister than that, they seem to offer the false proposition of our being given a choice in taking the jab.

It’s not a very convincing pretense, to be fair.  Even the language in the commercials amounts to a thinly-veiled threat that noncompliance will be punished.  You can’t get “back to life” unless you get the shot, it unapologetically presumes. 

But it’s presented as if any of this might be a matter of personal choice.  “It’s okay to have questions,” we’re told.  It’s just not okay to reach any conclusion that involves a decision to not take the jab for any reason.  You’re free to have reservations about it, of course, so long as those reservations eventually (and hopefully soon, the rest of society is counting on you!) become assuaged by the soothing, vague bromides that have been provided by the product manufacturers and their pitchmen.

This, like the masks, and like stupid the distancing rituals we became accustomed to last year, is just theater. 

When you sit for the jab, the nurse will likely give you seven pages of warnings and disclosures.  Maybe, if she’s really honest, as one happened to be while giving my brother-in-law the shot, she’ll tell you that this list of disclosures is about six pages longer than the typical set of disclosures that accompanies a “normal” vaccine.

Sure, you could put on your readers and glance at all those warnings and disclosures for a few minutes as if the information therein might affect your decision to let that nurse plunge the contents of that syringe in your arm, but that’s just theater, too.  There’s nothing in there that’s changing your mind.  The nurse knows you’re going to let her do it, just as you likely know, as he did, that you may not have a job next month if you don’t.

Over the threat of COVID, and in spite of this virus being miraculously undeadly to children and most healthy individuals while only threatening a fairly specific demographic in society at any significant level, the government took away our right to go to church, our right to conduct commerce in our communities, our children’s right to the education for which we overpay, and even our ability to smile at one another when we pass each other in the grocery store. 

If you work for the government, do you think, even for a moment, that the same government that did all of that to you would not now do everything within, and even beyond, its newfound power to force you to take these vaccines as a condition of employment? 

If you work in the private sector, are you so naïve as to think that this coercion may not be imminently coming for you, in the form of corporate leviathans doing the bidding of the government with whom it now openly shares a bed in order to force you, at all costs, to unwillingly plunge into your arm the drugs that our government has already bought from these drug companies?

They’re not interested in our consent and are deeply interested in limiting our access to information.  There is no “informed consent” involved here. 

It’s just tyranny.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

Photo credit: US Secretary of Defense CC BY 2.0 license

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.

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As the Political Divide Grows, It Makes Sense to Redraw State Boundaries | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on August 30, 2021

Redrawing Boundaries = Secession’s Gender Neutral, Genetically Similar Group Member

Due to the rapid cultural transformation of Colorado’s electorate, Colorado state politics seem alien to Weld County voters nowadays. Colorado has one of the most college-educated populations in the country, occupying the fifth-place ranking on WalletHub’s list of the most educated states. To boot, it enjoys first place for the percentage of people who are associate’s degree holders and second place for the percentage of people with bachelor’s degrees nationwide. It’s no secret that universities are the indoctrination centers that have been effective in churning out professionals who hold leftist beliefs running the spectrum from managerial leftism to outright Marxism.

https://mises.org/wire/political-divide-grows-it-makes-sense-redraw-state-boundaries

José Niño

In the coming decade of heightened political tension, cartographers may have to make serious adjustments to the borders of several American states.

The American left’s desire to micromanage activities ranging from people defending themselves to relying on cheap, nonrenewable energy sources has provoked a significant backlash. And it’s not just manifesting itself in the form of an average political protest or a regular election to vote the proverbial bums out.

Several states are already witnessing their rural counties attempting to separate from the rest of their state. On previous occasions, I’ve showcased the examples of Greater Idaho and a number of Virginia counties wanting to join West Virginia as signs of how burgeoning discontent among citizens of blue states is being channeled into separatism. Weld County, which has been trying to break away from Colorado in the last decade, is no different.

Back in 2013, Weld County County commissioner Sean Conway suggested that the county provides more oil and gas revenue to the state than it gets in return for public services such as roads and schools. Shortly thereafter, Conway and other dissatisfied activists in northern Colorado counties attempted to create a new state via ballot initiative. Although voters only approved the initiative in five of the eleven counties, it did mark a shift in the political conversation. The idea of politically embittered residents of northern Colorado separating from the state would no longer be seen as a fringe thought experiment.

Movements to have Weld County leave Denver’s orbit have not gone away. In 2020, Christopher Richards registered Weld County Wyoming, a political committee with the ostensive goal of putting an initiative on the November 2021 ballot that could fundamentally reshape politics in northern Colorado. Under this initiative, the Weld County Commission would be given the power to consider a potential annexation by its northern neighbor, Wyoming.

The reasoning behind Weld County Wyoming’s initiative for Weld County to relocate to Wyoming is that Colorado’s northern neighbor has a more amenable political environment for the citizens of Weld County. For example, Wyoming has no income tax and regulates oil and gas in a less energetic manner than its southern neighbor.

The latter point has become a pressing matter for Weld County residents in recent years. Colorado’s state government recently passed legislation that adds another layer of regulations to oil and gas, while Boulder County went above and beyond by enacting the most stringent regulations on fracking in the Rocky Mountain State.

Natural gas is a key economic driver for Weld County and any full-fledged push toward completely phasing out natural gas would have a devastating effect on Weld County’s economy. The Wattenberg field, the fourth-largest oil field in the US in terms of proven oil reserves, is largely situated in Weld County. Additionally, it is the ninth-largest gas field in terms of proven natural gas reserves. Weld County is the source of approximately nine out of every ten barrels of new crude oil produced in the Colorado.

Curiously, Colorado was not as leftist in previous decades, and in that period, it would have been doubly absurd to fathom the idea of parts of the state floating the concept of attaching themselves to Wyoming. Colorado gained notoriety for voters approving the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) amendment in 1992, which constrains state and local governments’ ability to tax and spend without the approval of voters. Colorado was also one of the first states to allow law-abiding citizens to concealed carry on university campuses, even adopting the law before states like Texas. 

However, political winds have blown dramatically left over the course of two decades. Electoral and policy trends have borne this out. Colorado is generally viewed as a safe blue state and has gone to Democrats by comfortable margins in presidential elections since 2008. 

On gun policy, Colorado’s lurch toward statism has been remarkable. Following the Aurora movie theater shooting of 2012, Colorado politicians have made gun control a major pillar of their political agenda. In the immediate aftermath of the Aurora massacre, Colorado successfully passed high-capacity magazine bans and universal background checks. A few years later the Colorado state government passed other items on Gun Control Inc.’s wish list such as red flag gun confiscation orders (2019) and a mandatory firearm storage law (2021).

Due to the rapid cultural transformation of Colorado’s electorate, Colorado state politics seem alien to Weld County voters nowadays. Colorado has one of the most college-educated populations in the country, occupying the fifth-place ranking on WalletHub’s list of the most educated states. To boot, it enjoys first place for the percentage of people who are associate’s degree holders and second place for the percentage of people with bachelor’s degrees nationwide. It’s no secret that universities are the indoctrination centers that have been effective in churning out professionals who hold leftist beliefs running the spectrum from managerial leftism to outright Marxism.

On a micro level, the educational and political differences between Weld County and the more populated counties of Colorado also typify these trends. Boulder (62 percent), Larmier (47 percent), and Denver (49 percent) Counties all have higher percentages of individuals twenty-five years and older who hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. This is in contrast to Weld County, where only 27.5 percent possess a bachelor’s degree or higher. Further, these areas are more affluent than Weld County. Boulder ($46,826), Larimer ($37,363), and Denver ($43,770) Counties enjoy higher per capita incomes than Weld County ($31,793).

Denver and Weld County are political worlds apart at the federal level. Weld County was a safe win for Donald Trump in 2020, when voters pulled the lever for the real estate magnate by a comfortable 58 percent–40 percent margin. On the other hand, Denver was a blowout for Joe Biden; voters decisively went for the former Delaware senator, by a margin of 82 percent to 17 percent. Larimer County was a safe Biden win (56 percent to 40 percent), while Boulder was a landslide victory, with Biden winning the county 79 percent to 19 percent. 

Some conservatives may lament the state’s political transformation, but not all is lost, as evidenced by Weld County’s growing push to join Wyoming. In fact, Colorado’s new political changes present novel opportunities for jurisdictional reconfigurations. Most blue states are dominated by one or a few metro centers, surrounded by massive swathes of semirural/rural areas that are culturally distinct from major population centers. This growing bifurcation transpiring nationwide is fertile soil for a decentralization revolution.

Separatism is in the air in America, and we should celebrate it. Discarding the starry-eyed fantasy of unity is the first step in acclimating Americans to the idea of radical decentralization. People are already fleeing blue states and sorting themselves out in states with like-minded individuals. Realistically speaking, this will be a drawn-out process marked by stumbling blocks along the way, but it must start somewhere. Author:

Contact José Niño

José Niño is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. Sign up for his mailing list here. Contact him via Facebook or Twitter. Get his premium newsletter here.

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Erie Times E-Edition Article-Antibodies waning? The immune system has a backup plan for that

Posted by M. C. on August 30, 2021

Conveniently discovered when vaccinate are being rejected by the unwashed, your natural immune system does not work against covid until after you take the vaccine!

“The research was released Aug.23 ahead of peer-review and publication.”

https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=235a568fd_1345eb2

Jason Gale Bloomberg News TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE Antibodies against the coronavirus wane over time, but the immune system has a backup plan that doesn’t rely on boosters, according to a study by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, where technology for mRNA vaccines was developed.

Researchers at the university’s Perelman School of Medicine tracked 61 people for six months after immunization with mRNA vaccines. The team noted that antibodies gradually ebbed, but that the shots generated durable immune memory to COVID-19 in the form of B and T cells that increased over time to help ward off serious illness.

‘That was maybe a little bit surprising,’ said John Wherry, director of the institute for immunology, who works in the same faculty as mRNA pioneer Drew Weissman. The research was released Aug.23 ahead of peer-review and publication.

Concern that COVID-19 vaccines are providing a weaker shield against the more-transmissible delta strain in countries that began immunizations early has prompted health authorities to consider offering third doses to boost antibody levels. President Joe Biden said recently his administration is considering whether to start offering extra jabs as soon as five months after receiving a second dose.

Although third doses promise to bolster antibodies and make them better at blocking COVID-19 for longer, the body has its own natural support to defend against COVID-19 even when circulating antibody levels decline, Wherry said.

‘Should antibodies wane and you get a little bit of local infection, you have memory B cells there to sort of renew or respond very rapidly to make new neutralizing antibodies,’ he said.

Antibodies on mucosal surfaces lining the nose and throat block the coronavirus at its portal of entry, preventing it from causing an infection. But, as protective antibodies there fade, an infection is more likely to take hold – at least until new antibodies are triggered in response. Wherry’s group found that memory B cells generated by the mRNA vaccines made by Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. and its partner BioNTech SE appeared better at blocking virus variants including alpha, beta and delta, than those produced in response to a mild case of COVID-19.

Additionally, high levels of vaccine-induced T cells, a type of white blood cell capable of finding and killing virus-infected cells, were detected after six months, ‘maintaining an additional armor to protect us,’ Wherry said.

The findings help to explain why immunization remains effective at protecting against severe COVID-19, hospitalization and death even as more breakthrough infections occur.

‘Vaccinated people are really not fueling this fire; it’s really unvaccinated people that are,’ Wherry said. ‘So that’s more reason to get vaccinated.’

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“It’s all for your own good” – OffGuardian

Posted by M. C. on August 30, 2021

And so, in the name of “togetherness”, they are banning all people who are not vaccinated, including all children under 12 years of age who cannot, alas, be legally vaccinated yet. Not even people with a negative Covid test will be allowed entry to the concerts: only the “vaxxed” ones, with their proper certificates. Still, even they will have to endure masks for the whole duration of the spectacle. It’s not clear if also the musicians have to wear masks – I suppose at least the flute players will be exempted.

https://off-guardian.org/2021/08/29/its-all-for-your-own-good/

TE Creus

One of the most annoying aspects of the current measures supposedly created “against the pandemic” that we have been subjected for almost two years now is the insistence that everything is done “for our own good”, as if governments and big companies were strict but caring parents, and we were just unruly or disobedient children who don’t really know what they need.

It brings to mind CS Lewis’ warning about that most oppressive of tyrannies, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims.”

Now, I cannot tell for sure if the vaccines, the lockdowns, the travel restrictions and the masks work or not. My feeling is that they don’t, or at least, not in the way we are being told, but that’s not the issue. The question is why are we being treated like stupid children who cannot simply choose, but have to take a “jab” and then get “green passes” to travel or work or enter any establishment.

Apparently, governments and big corporations worldwide are worried about our “health”.

But are they, really?

Like monomaniacs, they seem to be worried exclusively about Covid.

Not about the incredible amount of mental health issues and the alarming increase of teenage suicides during the various “lockdowns”.

Not about people, like my elderly neighbours, who could not see their family (who live in another country) for over two years and are suffering with solitude.

Not for the people who, afraid of contracting Covid, didn’t go to the hospital to treat other conditions and died.

Not for the people who died or got sick because of side effects of the vaccines.

No, it’s just “Covid”. And even that doesn’t seem to be their main worry. As long as they get their “vaccine passports” and their “tracking apps” and their “cashless society”, they don’t really care if you get the disease or not.

When did this wave of fake concern started? Ok, governments were probably always in the business of being annoying busybodies – “I’m from the government and I am here to help” was a scary sentence since who knows how long. But companies for decades were mostly concerned with selling their product, not with lecturing us.

However, at the peak of BLM riots, I received dozens of emails from big companies assuring me that, to them, “blacks lives mattered”. In Pride Month, the same companies assured me that they were fighting for transgender rights to use whichever bathroom they wanted. I never asked nor cared what’s their position on those issues, just that they make a good product that I can use.

Now, the same companies send me emails about masks and vaccination and passes. Because, see, they are worried about my health.

Unfortunately, it’s not just governments and big companies. Almost every institution in the culture and the arts is also kowtowing (either by government decrees or to keep being funded, I don’t know) to this literal “new world order”.

For instance, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra now has very strict regulations for entry. They tell us that they want to create “an environment in which we all may confidently discover what it means to be together again.”

And so, in the name of “togetherness”, they are banning all people who are not vaccinated, including all children under 12 years of age who cannot, alas, be legally vaccinated yet. Not even people with a negative Covid test will be allowed entry to the concerts: only the “vaxxed” ones, with their proper certificates. Still, even they will have to endure masks for the whole duration of the spectacle. It’s not clear if also the musicians have to wear masks – I suppose at least the flute players will be exempted.

And yet, despite all those draconian rules who really seem to take out all of the fun of the process (and in this case it might really better to just stay home and watch a video streaming online), “these protocols do not offer absolute protection against contracting COVID-19” and the spectators must “voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19.”

Note also that those showing any possible symptoms might not be allowed entry, vaccine or not. (I wonder if anyone who coughs during one of the breaks will be forcefully ejected.)

This is just one example among many of the ludicrous and merciless “new normal” that we are subject to in the name of our health.

But remember, “it’s all for your own good”.

TE Creus is a writer, translator and filmmaker. He is the author of “Our Pets and Us: The Evolution of a Relationship” and the collection of short stories “The Sphere”. He’s the editor of Contrarium.

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Who profits from the Kabul suicide bombing? – Asia Times

Posted by M. C. on August 30, 2021

The origin of ISIS is incandescent material. ISIS was spawned in Iraq prison camps, its core made of Iraqis, their military skills derived from ex-officers in Saddam’s army, a wild bunch fired way back in 2003 by Paul Bremmer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

https://asiatimes.com/2021/08/who-profits-from-the-kabul-suicide-bombing/

by Pepe Escobar

The horrific Kabul suicide bombing introduces an extra vector in an already incandescent situation: It aims to prove, to Afghans and to the outside world, that the nascent Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is incapable of securing the capital.

As it stands, at least 103 people – 90 Afghans (including at least 28 Taliban) and 13 American servicemen – were killed and at least 1,300 injured, according to the Afghan Health Ministry.

Responsibility for the bombing came via a statement on the Telegram channel of Amaq Media, the official Islamic State (ISIS) news agency. This means it came from centralized ISIS command, even as the perpetrators were members of ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K.

Presuming to inherit the historical and cultural weight of ancient Central Asian lands that from the time of imperial Persia stretched all the way to the western Himalayas, that spin-off defiles the name of Khorasan.    

The suicide bomber who carried out “the martyrdom operation near Kabul airport” was identified as one Abdul Rahman al-Logari. That would suggest he’s an Afghan, from nearby Logar province. And that would also suggest that the bombing may have been organized by an ISIS-Khorasan sleeper cell. Sophisticated electronic analysis of their communications would be able to prove it – tools that the Taliban don’t have. 

The way social media-savvy ISIS chose to spin the carnage deserves careful scrutiny. The statement on Amaq Media blasts the Taliban for being “in a partnership” with the US military in the evacuation of “spies.”

It mocks the “security measures imposed by the American forces and the Taliban militia in the capital Kabul,” as its “martyr” was able to reach “a distance of no less than five meters from the American forces, who were supervising the procedures.”

So it’s clear that the newly reborn Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the former occupying power are facing the same enemy. ISIS-Khorasan comprises a bunch of fanatics, termed takfiris because they define fellow Muslims – in this case the Taliban – as “apostates.”  

Founded in 2015 by emigré jihadis dispatched to southwest Pakistan, ISIS-K is a dodgy beast. Its current head is one Shahab al-Mujahir, who was a mid-level commander of the Haqqani network headquartered in North Waziristan in the Pakistani tribal areas, itself a collection of disparate mujahideen and would-be jihadis under the family umbrella.

Washington branded the Haqqani network as a terrorist organization way back in 2010, and treats several members as global terrorists, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the family after the death of the founder Jalaluddin. 

Up to now, Sirajuddin was the Taliban deputy leader for the eastern provinces – on the same level with Mullah Baradar, the head of the political office in Doha, who was actually released from Guantanamo in 2014.  

Crucially, Sirajuddin’s uncle, Khalil Haqqani, formerly in charge of the network’s foreign financing,is now in charge of Kabul security and working as a diplomat 24/7.

The previous ISIS-K leaders were snuffed out by US airstrikes in 2015 and 2016. ISIS-K started to become a real destabilizing force in 2020 when the regrouped band attacked Kabul University, a Doctor Without Borders maternity ward, the Presidential palace and the airport.

NATO intel picked up by a UN report attributes a maximum of 2,200 jihadis to ISIS-K, split into small cells. Significantly, the absolute majority are non-Afghans: Iraqis, Saudis, Kuwaitis, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens and Uighurs.

The real danger is that ISIS-K works as a sort of magnet for all manners of disgruntled former Taliban or discombobulated regional warlords with nowhere to go.    

The perfect soft target

The civilian commotion these past few days around Kabul airport was the perfect soft target for trademark ISIS carnage. 

Zabihullah Mujahid – the new Taliban minister of information in Kabul, who in that capacity talks to global media every day – is the one who actually warned NATO members about an imminent ISIS-K suicide bombing. Brussels diplomats confirmed it.  

In parallel, it’s no secret among intel circles in Eurasia that ISIS-K has become disproportionally more powerful since 2020 because of a transportation ratline from Idlib, in Syria, to eastern Afghanistan, informally known in spook talk as Daesh Airlines.

Moscow and Tehran, even at very high diplomatic levels, have squarely blamed the US-UK axis as the key facilitators. Even the BBC reported in late 2017 on hundreds of ISIS jihadis given safe passage out of Raqqa, and out of Syria, right in front of the Americans.

The Kabul bombing took place after two very significant events.

The first one was Mujahid’s claim during an American NBC News interview earlier this week that there is “no proof” Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11 – an argument that I had already hinted was coming in this podcast the previous week.

See the rest here

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Why Kamala Harris? – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on August 30, 2021

It is now amply obvious why Biden’s handlers chose Kamala.

They saw in her someone who was so inept and amateurish that she made the somnambulist Joe look like the brighter one.

Kamala Harris has made Joe unimpeachable.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/why_kamala_harris.html

When Joe Biden declared Kamala Harris his running mate in the 2020 election, it perplexed many among his allies and detractors.

Why on earth did Joe opt for a relatively youthful individual who makes him look even older than he is in contrast?

What caused Joe to choose somebody who lambasted him during the primaries and accused him of racism?

It has to be remembered that Kamala couldn’t win a single state during the primaries and was compelled to drop out before the election commenced. She, therefore, brought no electoral benefits to Joe.

Joe had pledged to select a female running mate.

But among the myriad able, capable, and respectable female politicians in Washington and around the country, why Kamala?

Before there could be any more questions or speculations, the liberal media began the celebrations — even where I am, in India.

She was a woman who had pigment in her skin. She was biracial, her mother is from India while her father is black and from Jamaica. Since diversity is the flavor of the moment, she satisfied all the criteria with flying colors.

There were fawning interviews, obsequious television profiles, and copious flattering magazine articles.

Conspiracy theorists claimed that the sinister puppet-masters pulling Joe’s strings were behind this, they knew Joe wouldn’t last long owing to his rapidly declining cognitive abilities. At some point, Kamala Harris would replace Joe as president so that the far-left agenda can be implemented.

That would make her the first female president. There would be the reason for more flattering and slobbering by the media. Some even had already begun fawning.

The fact that Joe kept referring to his government as the Harris Biden administration and on some occasions called her President Harris further fuelled conspiracies

It, therefore, wasn’t a matter of if but when Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden.

See the rest here

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