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How the Elite Use Hypnosis to Control the Masses | The Daily Bell

Posted by M. C. on January 6, 2021

If you’re at a hypnotist show, this is the stage when the crazy stuff starts happening. They make you think you’re a duck, or forget your name. Or they convince you to become a loyal devotee to support their quest to overthrow every oppressive government and replace them with a private governing system, devoid of coercion, with ultimate respect for each individual’s freedom… for example.

In real life, this is the stage of hypnosis when they make you bow to the woke mob, and abandon all sense of reason. It feels good. It feels so nice to stop questioning, abandon rationality, to sink under their control, and to become a properly programmed part of the collective.

People underestimate that appeal, of surrendering all sense of self, and all responsibility to someone else– a hypnotist, an expert, a politician, a scientist.

https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/how-the-elite-use-hypnosis-to-control-the-masses/

On July 20, 2012, James Holmes opened fire inside a theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing twelve people, and injuring dozens more.

The attack was elaborate and well coordinated, Holmes even left explosives rigged to blow at his apartment.

And yet when he showed up in court, the media reported that Holmes “seemed dazed and largely unaware of his surroundings.”

Holmes would later tell a fellow inmate that an “evil therapist programmed me to commit mass slaughter.”

And strange enough, some of the evidence submitted at trial conveniently included a journal belonging to Holmes, found in a university mailroom, addressed to his campus psychologist, confessing all sorts of evil, violent fantasies.

The fellow inmate claims that Holmes said he felt like he was in a video game while he carried out the shootings, and mentioned neuro-linguistic programming, a form of psychotherapy or hypnosis.

Now, clearly this man was crazy, so you have to take what he says with a grain of salt.

But it does make you wonder– the FBI, for instance, has been known to approach unstable mentally ill people, and entice them into agreeing to carry out a terrorist plot.

The FBI supplies their target with fake explosives, and then arrests them at the scene of the crime. This allows the FBI to claim they foiled a terrorist attack, when in reality, the culprit would have been mentally incapable of planning and committing the crime without the FBI’s guidance….

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Medical Errors and the Cult of Expertise in the Age of Covid | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on January 6, 2021

In 2020, however, look for the final tally to show that counting medical errors has been swept aside in the mortality documentation in favor of attributing more deaths to covid-19.

After all, it is now common practice to count any death in which covid-19 was a contributing factor as a death due to covid. That is, anyone who dies “with covid” is reported to be a death caused by covid.

A nurse gave a covid patient the wrong medication, which led to a severe adverse reaction? That’s a covid death. A doctor mixed up two covid patients and administered inappropriate treatment to both? That’s two covid deaths right there.

In other words, unless steps are taken to ensure accurate recording somewhere, if covid deaths are being overreported, we can expect medical-error deaths to be underreported.

https://mises.org/wire/medical-errors-and-cult-expertise-age-covid

Ryan McMaken

Ever since the covid panic began in February of this year, medical personnel such as doctors and nurses have been treated to a level of hero worship generally reserved for the government’s soldiers and cops. We were told they were heroically slaving away to treat covid victims. And although many of these nurses were apparently spending their time choreographing TikTok videos and dancing in hospital hallways, we were assured by government officials and their obedient allies in the media that medical staffers are the new model for self-sacrifice and civic virtue. 

Yet in the two decades leading up to 2020, researchers were repeatedly alarmed by the extent to which medical errors were a persistent problem in American clinics and hospitals. Beginning at least as early as 1999, an increasing number of studies suggested that perhaps nearly a hundred thousand patients per year were dying due to medical errors.

Numerous articles appeared in mass media outlets suggesting that medical training was insufficient, that systems devised by hospitals were error prone, and that malpractice was not as rare as doctors would have us believe. 

Not surprisingly, politics also intervened. Many outlets took the apparent prevalence of medical errors to prove that more government regulation and government funding were necessary. Others noted problems in how government agencies count deaths. 

But then the covid panic happened. Not surprisingly, concerns over medical competence have receded into the background, and medical personnel have instead been treated to a status of near apotheosis, with the opinion of every run-of-the-mill nurse or physician on everything from racism to “essential businesses” being of the utmost gravity. 

Moreover, with a focus on the maximization of counting covid deaths, it is likely we’ll see fewer deaths due to medical errors in official counts. And lobbying groups devoted to representing doctors and nurses are likely to use the current political situation to their own advantage. As has long been the case with police and soldiers, the medical profession is pressing the “never question us, we’re experts” line. The actual record, however, suggests the level of “expertise” ought to receive more scrutiny. 

How Many Deaths Are Caused by Medical Errors? 

After years of growing discussion on the topic, Johns Hopkins University in 2016 released a study concluding that “medical errors” were the third leading cause of death:

Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Their figure, published May 3 in The BMJ, surpasses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) third leading cause of death — respiratory disease, which kills close to 150,000 people per year.

A death caused by a medical error is defined as a death caused by poorly skilled staff, errors in judgment, a preventable adverse effect, or systemic problems such as computer malfunctions or mix-ups over medication.

The Hopkins study concluded that the methods of reporting deaths in the United States are inadequate to account for the full role of medical errors. 

The Hopkins statistic was widely reported in the media, such as in this 2018 article at MSNBC. MSNBC even notes that other studies have reported medical errors as the cause of over four hundred thousand deaths per year. 

Closer to 100,000 per Year?

Since then, some researchers have expressed dismay and disbelief over the notion that deaths caused by medical errors could be so numerous. For example, researcher and medical doctor David Gorski insists that many who believe the Hopkins number of 250,000 are no better than “quacks.”

Gorski suggests that only fifty-two hundred deaths per year result from medical errors. But in this Gorski relies on a very narrow definition of medical errors as the overwhelming and obvious cause of death. He nonetheless admits that more than 108,000 deaths per year are cases in which “adverse effects of medical treatment” (i.e., medical errors) are “contributory.”

Gorski’s number of fifty-two hundred is likely little more than wishful thinking. While 250,000 may be on the high end, it’s unlikely medical errors are nearly as rare as Gorski hopes.

In this study published in 2020 at the National Institutes of Health, for example, the authors take for granted that “[m]edical errors in hospitals and clinics result in approximately 100,000 people dying each year.”

And it is also widely assumed, as noted in this study by the Washington Medical Commission that “Medical errors remain vastly underreported.” After all, medical personnel are often reluctant to report errors so as to avoid potential legal problems or sanctions from supervisors.

But while some doctors insist they’re being unfairly targeted, others have been sounding the alarm for years. Today, a commonly accepted number is between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand deaths per year.1

These are not small numbers. A total of one hundred thousand medical-error deaths makes medical errors among the top cause of deaths. If the current covid-19 pandemic plays out like previous pandemics, the total number of deaths will be much lower in 2021 than 2020’s official total of approximately 350,000. But deaths due to medical errors will continue to number around a hundred thousand year after year after year. 

Covid and Medical Errors

Gorski slams the practice in which cases where medical errors were only contributing factors in deaths are potentially counted as deaths due to medical errors. The debate has long been over how much medical errors must contribute to death before they are reasonably counted as the cause of death.

In 2020, however, look for the final tally to show that counting medical errors has been swept aside in the mortality documentation in favor of attributing more deaths to covid-19.

After all, it is now common practice to count any death in which covid-19 was a contributing factor as a death due to covid. That is, anyone who dies “with covid” is reported to be a death caused by covid.

A nurse gave a covid patient the wrong medication, which led to a severe adverse reaction? That’s a covid death. A doctor mixed up two covid patients and administered inappropriate treatment to both? That’s two covid deaths right there.

In other words, unless steps are taken to ensure accurate recording somewhere, if covid deaths are being overreported, we can expect medical-error deaths to be underreported.

Seizing a Political Advantage

Meanwhile, trying to take advantage of the current goodwill showered on medical personnel, many medical professionals are seeking additional legal protections from malpractice suits. Reuters reports:

State chapters of the powerful American Medical Association and other groups representing healthcare providers have been pressing governors for legal cover….More than half a dozen emergency room doctors and nurses told Reuters they are concerned about liability as they anticipate rationing care or performing unfamiliar jobs due to staff and equipment shortages caused by the outbreak.

Yet, there is no reason to assume covid treatments will make doctors and nurses easy targets. States already have standards in place which require plaintiffs to show that medical personnel “negligently deviated from the reasonable standard of care.” The fact that a doctor made a mistake is not enough to make a malpractice lawsuit successful.

Thus, some attorneys who represent victims of medical error and negligence worry that covid will be used as an excuse to further shield healthcare workers from legitimate lawsuits:

Joe Belluck, a New York lawyer who brings medical malpractice cases, said he’s concerned the coronavirus crisis could be used to enact a wish list of changes sought by doctors, hospitals and the medical industry to curb unrelated lawsuits.

Given the way that medical personnel have been treated by media and government personnel in the age of covid-19, it’s not hard to see how this current state of hero worship could be employed to ram through legislation favored by longtime rent-seeking special interest groups like the AMA.

  • 1. See HHS.gov: “However, preventable medical errors potentially take 200,000 or more American lives each year and cost the United States about $19.5 billion in additional medical costs and lost productivity from missed work.” (Strategic Goal 1)

Author:

Contact Ryan McMaken

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and The Austrian, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

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Man Driving Alone In Carpool Lane Informs Officer His Preferred Pronoun Is ‘They’ | The Babylon Bee

Posted by M. C. on January 5, 2021

https://babylonbee.com/news/driver-allowed-access-to-carpool-lane-since-preferred-pronoun-is-they

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Do Black Lives Matter in the White Elite’s Civil War?

Posted by M. C. on January 5, 2021

It is not wayward elites who are abusing our democratic public, so much as the public abusing itself, when it chooses to be ruled by antiwhite racists.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/03/do-black-lives-matter-in-the-white-elites-civil-war/

By Paul Gottfried

Sasha Johnson, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist, tweeted the last day of 2020 her highest hope as a black nationalist: “The white man will not be our equal but our slave. History is changing. No peace without justice.” 

I kept this statement in mind as I looked at USA Today and our look-alike local newspaper on the newsstand on December 31. Both featured prominently on their front pages a BLM crusader looking down defiantly at whites in a widening revolt against a racist America. I have no idea what BLM is doing to remove any of the systemic social problems of urban blacks or to improve their material well-being.

Last week, I watched on TV as a black boxer entered the ring, dressed in a BLM robe, and surrounded by a ring staff who also wore BLM advertisements on their clothing. According to the announcer, this politically engaged boxer had lost siblings in what seems to have been gang wars. I am at a loss to see how BLM’s call to defund or abolish the police will engage the worrisome problem of black-on-black crime.

One may also be puzzled about why the black racism featured by BLM, and which comes through most plainly in its refusal to recognize that white lives have the same value as black ones, occasions only scattered objections from whites. This may be the most surprising thing about the rise of BLM to national and even international prominence. Why don’t whites care about being accused of supporting a racist society that is allegedly descended from a bigoted white past? 

In my former home state of Connecticut, Miguel Cardona introduced a critical race studies program into public education, which earned this top educational official nationwide plaudits. Now Cardona is being rewarded for his antiwhite educational crusade by being considered for education secretary in the Biden Administration. The overwhelming majority of those who cast their ballots for Cardona’s Democratic Party in Connecticut, whose popular U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal showcases his relationship to BLM and Antifa, are white and may even include acquaintances. Don’t these voters care that the party they overwhelmingly support, throws dirt at whites as whites? Many white voters seem delighted to have this dirt thrown at them and to have their children coming home and reciting the antiwhite hate-speech they picked up courtesy of Cardona and the teachers’ unions. 

I am not denying others are complicit in this continuing outrage, like woke capitalists, government bureaucrats, black race hustlers, and media ideologues. But let’s not forget the predominantly white electorate in this country, especially the self-important soccer moms, who seemed pleased with the new order. These people do have political choices and they make disastrous ones. It is not wayward elites who are abusing our democratic public, so much as the public abusing itself, when it chooses to be ruled by antiwhite racists. 

Recently someone asked me why I am not a white nationalist. My answer was that we first must address the looming white problem. Then we can share the blame with others for our current madness. There would be no critical race theory being taught anywhere in this country unless whites wanted it taught and in fact insisted that it be taught. 

The question is why this is the case. Something like what I’ve described is going on throughout the Anglosphere and Western Europe. There Islamophilia and anticolonialism have led to the same kind of socially suicidal mentality among the native white populations that we find among our woke elites and their ubiquitous imitators. The closest to an explanation that I can come to after researching this behavior is that there is a white civil war going on, in which racial minorities and, in Europe, Muslims play an ancillary role. Upwardly mobile urban whites hate other whites living in what until recently were traditional, religiously influenced communities. The anti-white, anti-Christian torrents of abuse coming from these elites and would-be elites are never aimed at themselves. Rather they are intended for those other whites whom they despise and want to see degraded. 

In a recent, stirring speech at a Turning Point conference, Fox News host Tucker Carlson observed that the cultural Left is trying to take away our “road map” by cutting us off from any sense of an historical past. The Left is doing this by pulling down statues, renaming buildings, army bases, and even sports teams, and railing against the American past. This, of course, is all true. What we are seeing in the United States has been going on in a slightly different form elsewhere—for example, in Germany, where the government claims to be saving its population from a largely imaginary return to fascism by condemning and extinguishing much of its past. 

But there is another side to this cancel culture that Carlson failed to mention. It is a weapon in a civil war that some whites are wielding against other ones. The elites and their followers are just punishing those they hate. They obviously don’t see they are wreaking havoc on themselves.

About Paul Gottfried

Paul Edward Gottfried is the editor of Chronicles. An American paleoconservative philosopher, historian, and columnist, Gottfried is a former Horace Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, as well as a Guggenheim recipient.

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Black Lives Matter and the Communist Pedigree of the Clenched-Fist Salute – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on January 5, 2021

Communism-Socialism’s fraternal twin

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/01/charles-burris/black-lives-matter-and-the-communist-pedigree-of-the-clenched-fist-salute/

By Charles Burris

Now that Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and other terrorist groups rioting, plundering, and savagely destroying American cities have adopted the raised clenched fist salute for their nihilistic movements, LRC readers must know the backstory of the Communist pedigree of this symbolic gesture.

Asked about the clenched fist’s esoteric origins, John Lautner, a former top official of the Communist Party USA, told American Opinion magazine (forerunner to The New American) in 1970:

The clenched-fist salute has been used among revolutionaries for many centuries as a symbol of defiance, comradeship, and solidarity. It was employed during the bloody French Revolution of 1789, and again during the industrial revolutions of 1848. At the formation of the First International in London in 1864 (known as the International Workingmen’s Association), Karl Marx and his followers gave the clenched-fist salute, as did his followers at Brussels in 1889 during the formation of the Second International, the so-called Yellow International. And, it had been used by the revolutionary Communards in the Paris Communes of 1871, a violent affair which led to the deaths of over 25,000 Parisians. Since the Third International, the Comintern begun at Moscow in 1919, it has been the official salute of all Communist Parties throughout the world.

Above is a photo of Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela, and long-time leader of the South African Communist Party Joe Slovo at an African National Congress rally, 1990. All three are shown engaged in the raised clenched fist salute which for a century has been the salute of Communists. In the background is the hammer and sickle symbol appearing on a red star. This has been the symbol of the international Communist movement since 1919, and was featured on the flags of the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and Communist parties throughout the world.

Watch this brief YouTube video, Nelson Mandela kill Whites, where Mandela is shown with fellow MK terrorist members singing an anthem about killing whites while raising their fists in the Communist salute. After his death, the Communist Party and the ANC confirmed that Mandela was a covert member of the Central Executive Committee of the South African Communist Party at the time he was arrested as a terrorist in 1962. communist propaganda s… Buy New $19.99 (as of 06:01 EST – Details)

From the December 5, 2013 statement of South African Communist Party deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila:

“At his arrest in August 1962, Nelson Mandela was not only a member of the then underground South African Communist Party, but was also a member of our party’s central committee. To us as South African communists, Cde Mandela shall forever symbolize the monumental contribution of the SACP in our liberation struggle,” the party said in a statement reacting to Mandela’s death.

“The contribution of communists in the struggle to achieve the South African freedom has very few parallels in the history of our country. After his release from prison in 1990, Cde Madiba became a great and close friend of the communists till his last days.”

Communism is a deadly virus that killed millions. Communist regimes killed over 100, 000, 000 (100 million) of their own enslaved peoples. This is the real legacy of Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, and Black Lives Matter.

The Best of Charles Burris Charles A. Burris [send him mail] teaches history in the Murray N. Rothbard Room at Memorial High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Cleaning Up The Leftovers From Biden’s Last Bout Of Leadership

Posted by M. C. on January 5, 2021

Let there be no doubt, in foreign policy terms “leadership” is the bipartisan and benign euphemism for America First nationalism. And that usually means some sort of war. Biden already has his warriors in place from the Obama years: Bloody Susan Rice, Blinken at State, Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense. There will be others filling in the mid ranks as those principals call in their former deputies, who call theirs.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2021/january/04/cleaning-up-the-leftovers-from-biden-s-last-bout-of-leadership/

Written by Peter Van Buren

As Trump leaves office the only president to have not started a new war since WWII—and Joe Biden, who supported so many of America’s wars, including (vice-) presiding over the second and third Iraq Wars, heads into office—the talk is again what should be the most terrifying words anyone outside the US could hear: More American Leadership. Thing is, we haven’t cleaned up the leftovers from the last bout of leadership yet.

President-Elect Biden pulls no punches about how he feels about Trump’s lack of war, saying “Trump has abdicated American leadership in mobilizing collective action to meet new threats. This is the time to tap the strength and audacity that took us to victory in two world wars and brought down the Iron Curtain.” His SecState-nominee Antony Blinken used the word “leadership” in a speech 16 times. Biden himself wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs titled “Why America Must Lead Again.” Introducing his national security nominees, Biden said “America is back, ready to lead the world.”

Let there be no doubt, in foreign policy terms “leadership” is the bipartisan and benign euphemism for America First nationalism. And that usually means some sort of war. Biden already has his warriors in place from the Obama years: Bloody Susan Rice, Blinken at State, Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense. There will be others filling in the mid ranks as those principals call in their former deputies, who call theirs.

The problem with America’s leadership spurts is that they are often left uncompleted. They are played for US domestic political consumption and leave behind a mess someone else has to clean up when politics shift. Worst of all, no one in America seems to ask those overseas who are about to be freed, liberated, encouraged to revolt, or otherwise enlightened by the arrival of the American Empire if they indeed want any leadership today.

So maybe before spewing out any new leadership, Biden could start by cleaning up some of the leadership he and others left behind. Start with Iraq.

Quick, Jeopardy-style, when did the Iraq War end? Correct answer of course is “What is never.” America wrecked the place from the air in 1991, then invaded by land in 2003. Those American troops mostly left in 2010, then returned in 2014, and today loiter like dropouts in the high school parking lot in unknown but relatively small numbers. The American Embassy in Iraq, physically still the size of the Vatican and once the largest embassy in the world in diplomatic headcount, sits mostly empty with a security guard-to-diplomat ratio that would embarrass any Twitter warrior.

You would wish that was all, but the horrors of the Iraq Wars are such that even bodies already buried find their way to the surface. Among the many US atrocities few today know about (Google “Haditha Massacre,” “Mahmudiyah rape,” “Abu Ghraib torture”) loom the Nisour Square murders.

On a hot as hell September 16, 2007, Blackwater mercenaries hired by the State Department as security killed 17 Iraqi civilians—including two children—and injured 20 in Nisour Square, central Baghdad. The US lied and prevaricated for years, until finally the truth slithered out that none of the Iraqis were armed, the Blackwater guys panicked, and their so-called defensive fire was beyond any legitimate rule of war.

The State Department tried to intervene, allowing the defendants to claim State’s own Diplomatic Security officers had offered them on-the-street immunity in return for later recanted testimony (Nisour Square wasn’t the only time State lied to cover for Blackwater). It took seven years until a US court convicted four Blackwater employees. All four were pardoned by Trump in December 2020.

“That was years ago” say many of the same Americans willing to connect a police shooting today to the first slaves arriving on this continent in 1619. Though the average American might vaguely remember something bad happened with Blackwater, every Iraqi knows what Nisour Square stands for: American invasion, false promises of freedom, arrogant use of power. The same way Vietnamese know My Lai and thousands of other such incidents whose names never made it into the American press. Or perhaps how the remaining scraps of the Lakota people still reference Wounded Knee. No reckoning allowed save the marvelous sleight of hand of America’s fragile memory.

Read the whole article here.

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : The ‘Great Reset’ is about Expanding Government Power and Suppressing Liberty

Posted by M. C. on January 5, 2021

Included in Schwab’s proposal for surveillance is his idea to use brain scans and nanotechnology to predict, and if necessary, prevent, individuals’ future behavior. This means that anyone whose brain is “scanned” could have his Second Amendment and other rights violated because a government bureaucrat determines the individual is going to commit a crime. The system of tracking and monitoring could be used to silence those expressing “dangerous” political views, such as that the Great Reset violates our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2021/january/04/the-great-reset-is-about-expanding-government-power-and-suppressing-liberty/

Written by Ron Paul

World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab has proposed using the overreaction to coronavirus to launch a worldwide “Great Reset.” This Great Reset is about expanding government power and suppressing liberty worldwide.

Schwab envisions an authoritarian system where big business acts as a partner with government. Big business would exercise its government-granted monopoly powers to maximize value for “stakeholders,” instead of shareholders. Stakeholders include the government, international organizations, the business itself, and “civil society.”

Of course, government bureaucrats and politicians, together with powerful special interests, will decide who are, and are not, stakeholders, what is in stakeholders’ interest, and what steps corporations must take to maximize stakeholder value. People’s own wishes are not the priority.

The Great Reset will dramatically expand the surveillance state via real-time tracking. It will also mandate that people receive digital certificates in order to travel and even technology implanted in their bodies to monitor them.

Included in Schwab’s proposal for surveillance is his idea to use brain scans and nanotechnology to predict, and if necessary, prevent, individuals’ future behavior. This means that anyone whose brain is “scanned” could have his Second Amendment and other rights violated because a government bureaucrat determines the individual is going to commit a crime. The system of tracking and monitoring could be used to silence those expressing “dangerous” political views, such as that the Great Reset violates our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The Great Reset involves a huge expansion of the welfare state via a universal basic income program. This can help ensure compliance with the Great Reset’s authoritarian measures. It will also be very expensive. The resulting increase in government debt will not be seen as a problem by people who believe in modern monetary theory. This is the latest version of the fairy tale that deficits don’t matter as long as the Federal Reserve monetizes the debt.

The Great Reset ultimately will fail for the same reason all other attempts by government to control the market fail. As Ludwig von Mises showed, government interference in the marketplace distorts the price system. Prices are how information about the value of goods and services related to other goods and services is conveyed to market actors. Government interference in the marketplace disturbs the signals sent by prices, leading to an oversupply of certain goods and services and an undersupply of others.

The lockdowns show the dangers of government control over the economy and our personal lives. Lockdowns have increased unemployment, caused many small businesses to close, and led to more substance abuse, domestic violence, and suicide. We are told the lockdowns are ordered because of a virus that poses no great danger to a very large percentage of the American public. Yet, instead of adopting a different approach, politicians are doubling down on the failed policies of masks and lockdowns. Meanwhile, big tech companies, which are already often acting as partners of government, silence anyone who questions the official line regarding the threat of coronavirus or the effectiveness of lockdowns, masks, and vaccines.

The disastrous response to Covid is just the latest example of how those who give up liberty for safety or health will end up unfree, unsafe, and unhealthy. Instead of a Great Reset of authoritarianism, we need a great rebirth of liberty!

Copyright © 2021 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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Watch “Reprieve? UK Judge Rejects Assange Extradition” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on January 4, 2021

https://youtu.be/mKOpH5DRBSc

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Parler ContentTucker on the true enemy of the American people. Follow the FB video to the full speech and watch from the 2:35:00 mark onwards.

Posted by M. C. on January 4, 2021

https://parler.com/post/fc3b016a242d434597c0c7b0161bb53c

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Wealthy hospitals rake in U.S. disaster aid for COVID-19 costs | Reuters

Posted by M. C. on January 4, 2021

“The dollars could be very big for hospitals. FEMA funds are uncapped,” said Brad Gair, a former FEMA official and now senior managing director at consulting firm Witt O’Brien’s.

More cases = more $$$

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-hospitals-aid-insi-idUSKBN29310X

By Chad Terhune

(Reuters) – After collecting billions of dollars in U.S. coronavirus aid, many of the nation’s wealthiest nonprofit hospitals are now tapping into disaster relief funds that critics say they don’t need.

The money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is going to some large health systems that have billions of dollars in cash reserves and investments, according to government records reviewed by Reuters.

FEMA has received nearly 2,200 aid requests from hospitals and thus far has approved about 15% of them, for a total of $894 million, the agency told Reuters. Hospitals can request more money as U.S. infections surge, and FEMA officials expect total aid awards to rise significantly.

Some health policy experts say that large and well-capitalized nonprofit systems – which typically pay no taxes – do not need the additional relief money. Among the aid applicants are some of the nation’s best-known health systems, including the Cleveland Clinic, Providence and Stanford Health Care.

“These are very financially successful hospitals that have already received a huge amount of taxpayer money to help with COVID-19,” said Eileen Appelbaum, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “This feels like greed for them to go to FEMA for even more money.”

Some nonprofit hospitals said federal aid hasn’t covered all of the lost revenue and higher expenses caused by the pandemic. The FEMA program, they said, recognizes their major investments in staff and equipment to handle the crisis.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted hospitals and health systems around the country, including ours,” said Angela Smith, spokeswoman for the Cleveland Clinic.

FEMA funds are typically dispersed after hurricanes, floods or other natural disasters in a specific region. Nonprofit hospitals nationwide can apply now because President Donald Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency in March.

For-profit hospitals, which have faced similar challenges from the pandemic, can’t tap the FEMA money because federal law governing disaster relief excludes for-profit businesses.

FEMA is reimbursing nonprofit hospitals for money spent on personal protective equipment, ventilators, employee overtime, temporary workers, testing supplies and other expenses covered as “emergency protective measures.” The agency reimburses hospitals for 75% of their eligible costs.

“The dollars could be very big for hospitals. FEMA funds are uncapped,” said Brad Gair, a former FEMA official and now senior managing director at consulting firm Witt O’Brien’s.

The program does not consider whether applicants need the money, Gair said.

“If a well-off hospital has eligible expenses, it gets money,” Gair said. “There is always a question about the fairness of that, but FEMA doesn’t look at the hospital’s bottom line.”

Nonprofit hospitals account for about 60% of hospitals nationwide, and years of mergers have created health giants with immense market power and vast resources.

These hospitals get tax exemptions on the condition that they provide charity care and other community benefits. Some lawmakers and economists, however, increasingly criticize large nonprofit hospitals for not doing enough to help low-income patients and their communities while spending surplus cash on lavish building projects, high executive pay and expensive marketing, such as naming rights on professional sports facilities. Some critics say they’re often indistinguishable from their for-profit peers.

Major nonprofit health systems counter that they collectively provide billions of dollars in charity care annually and that the community benefit they provide outweighs the value of their tax exemptions.

Keith Turi, an assistant FEMA administrator, said the agency runs an “eligibility-based program” with no cap, which means smaller hospitals are not competing for limited funds with large and wealthy health systems.Slideshow ( 4 images )

Even so, handing out aid to hospitals that don’t need it is a waste, said Tim Egan, chief executive of Roseland Community Hospital, a nonprofit, 134-bed facility serving low-income patients in Chicago. Egan said his facility has struggled financially as its payroll shot up by $5 million this year to cover coronavirus care. But big nonprofit hospitals, he said, are swimming in money by comparison.

“These FEMA dollars should be earmarked for safety-net hospitals that are really underwater,” Egan said. “We may be in the same storm, but we are not in the same boat. While they’re pulling their multimillion-dollar yacht up to the dock, our boat is leaking.”

MASSIVE CASH RESERVES

This year, hospitals and other medical providers have already received about $145 billion in federal grants under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. In addition, Medicare has provided nearly $80 billion in low-interest loans and increased reimbursements for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 by 20%, which may yield another $3 billion for hospitals.

After big CARES Act payouts earlier this year attracted scrutiny from advocates and lawmakers, some hospital chains returned the money. Nonprofit health system Kaiser Permanente and for-profit chain HCA Inc acknowledged they didn’t need the aid and returned it.

Some of the hospital systems applying for FEMA aid have vast financial reserves that have provided a cushion against pandemic-related losses and expenses.

Providence, based in Renton, Washington, runs 51 hospitals and nearly 1,000 clinics. It reported an operating loss of $214 million for the first nine months of this year as expenses rose 4% and patient volume dropped by 10%.

But the health system’s reserve of cash and investments ballooned to $14.5 billion by Sept. 30 – an increase of $2.2 billion from nine months earlier. A spokesman said that was due in large part to $1.6 billion in coronavirus loans from Medicare that must be repaid. Providence also got $682 million in CARES Act grants and $9 million initially from FEMA. The hospital chain said it plans to file more requests with FEMA for an undetermined amount.

Providence said it will follow all federal rules in seeking the disaster aid. FEMA officials have reminded applicants not to seek funding for work or expenses covered by the CARES Act or other sources.

“We are being diligent in our effort to avoid double dipping,” Providence said in a statement.

Providence said it needs the money to offset coronavirus-related costs as the pandemic “enters what appears to be its most dangerous phase.”

Cleveland Clinic has experienced a similar shortfall as surgeries were canceled and emergency-room visits plummeted. The health system, which runs 18 hospitals, said that patient revenue was $890 million lower than expected during the first nine months of this year and that it spent more than $190 million on pandemic-related expenses. It reported an operating loss of $108 million through September.

But the system’s net income – including strong investment gains – tripled to $604 million in the most recent quarter, compared to a year ago. Cleveland Clinic has $11.8 billion in cash reserves and investments.

The system has also benefited from $423 million in CARES Act grants and a $849-million loan from Medicare, which it has paid back. Last month, FEMA awarded Cleveland Clinic $46 million to help with the costs of a facility expansion for COVID-19 patients and the purchase of ventilators and other supplies. The system said in a statement that it plans to file for additional FEMA funds as it incurs more pandemic-related costs.

Two of the largest aid requests in FEMA records reviewed by Reuters came from two other hospital systems with billions of dollars in financial reserves: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, which sought $259 million, and Stanford Health Care, which requested $127 million. A spokeswoman for the New York hospital system said it plans to seek more money to cover its major expenses in staff and equipment. A Stanford Health spokeswoman said federal grants only offset “a small portion of the costs that our hospital has incurred.”

Dan Skinner, an associate professor of health policy at Ohio University, said the “idea that some of these institutions require disaster funding is laughable” given the size of their investment portfolios and rainy-day funds.

He said the debate over coronavirus aid tends to lump together all hospitals and obscures the wide disparities in financial need between small, community hospitals and deep-pocketed health care chains. Moody’s Investor Service wrote earlier this month that smaller hospitals struggling with coronavirus costs may have to merge with larger health systems.

“There is so much public goodwill toward hospitals during the pandemic,” Skinner said. “I feel some of these hospitals are manipulating that.”

HOSPITAL REVENUE DOWN ONLY SLIGHTLY

U.S. hospitals lost considerable revenue during the early days of the pandemic, in March and April, as many Americans postponed routine care. Surging infections also forced hospitals to delay elective procedures – a key revenue source – to devote more staff and resources to the pandemic.

Since then, business has rebounded and hospital revenue was only off by 1.7% through the first nine months of 2020 compared to the same period last year, according to the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation Health System Tracker.

“Hospitals had bounced back to financial stability, but now there may be another hit” as coronavirus hospitalizations surge again, said Venson Wallin, an industry consultant and managing director at the BDO Center for Healthcare Excellence & Innovation. “We are on a roller coaster.”

Banner Health, a Phoenix-based nonprofit which runs 29 hospitals in six states, holds $5.4 billion in cash and investments, according to an April report by Fitch Ratings. Banner has filed applications with FEMA, for amounts not yet determined, after receiving about $1 billion in federal grants and loans this year.

Its most recent federal tax return, for 2018, shows that Banner’s chief executive, Peter Fine, made $10.3 million in 2018. He received $25.5 million the year earlier, boosted by a one-time retirement plan payment. A spokesman said Banner may seek FEMA aid if CARES Act funds “do not cover all eligible expenses incurred as a result of the pandemic.”

Reporting by Chad Terhune; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Brian Thevenot

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