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Doctors are sending out ‘do-not-resuscitate’ forms telling people like my disabled daughter to sign them, I find that chilling — RT Op-ed

Posted by M. C. on April 4, 2020

So that’s that, then. It’s asking these people to volunteer for death.

Socialized government run medicine.

We have talked about progressive, eugenics before. This is what it looks like.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/484832-disabled-covid-doctors-treatment/

Damian Wilson
Damian Wilson
Doctors are sending out ‘do-not-resuscitate’ forms telling people like my disabled daughter to sign them, I find that chilling
I get that Covid-19 means difficult medical decisions have to be made about who gets treatment and who doesn’t. But telling the disabled and already sick to sign away their rights in advance is asking them to volunteer for death.

As the parent of a disabled child, you need to become an expert at juggling all the balls you must keep in the air if you want to become the parent of a disabled adult, as I am fortunate enough to be.

In all my 18 years of helping to look after my lovely daughter Elvi, I’ve never been so scared for her future as I am in this Covid-19 pandemic. Drop one of those balls at this time, and I could be signing my child’s death warrant.

It’s not just because the virus could be significantly more lethal for her. It’s also because some doctors may take the view that my daughter’s life is much less worthy of medical care compared to able-bodied people.

It has emerged this week that some GPs around Britain have been sending out letters to patients with existing health issues asking them to sign Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) forms, in case they catch the coronavirus and their condition worsens.

So that’s that, then. It’s asking these people to volunteer for death.

Also on rt.com ‘Culling’ the old & weak: Eugenics and social Darwinism rear their ugly heads in the Covid-19 pandemic

 

I now hold my breath every time the postman comes. Is today the day the letter with the DNR form arrives? While I suppose it might be handy to be identified as a vulnerable family so we can finally book an online grocery delivery, the cost of what these GPs are asking us to do is too unbearable to even think about.

It’s hard to tell if our medical centre will be one of those following such a procedure. You can’t quiz them. Have you tried ringing a doctor recently?

A GP surgery in Wales that sent out the request for people to sign a DNR if they hadn’t already, said the benefits included doctors, family and friends knowing not to call 999 if a loved one’s condition worsened, thereby saving “scarce ambulance resources” and risking any transmission of the coronavirus to others.

If such disabled or ill people who refused to sign such forms were to make it to hospital, of course, a decision on DNR would be made by hospital staff, without any consultation. And not just for people who had serious underlying health problems, but even for those with learning difficulties.

Ever since evidence from Italy that there was something desperately wrong started to appear on the evening news, we have seen doctors in despair over the God-like choices they have to make between who should live and who should die, about who should be treated and who shouldn’t. It has become obvious that the decision is about who will have the better quality of life if they survive.

In the UK, DNR paperwork effectively throws the choice back to the patient, urging them to choose to die rather than risk being a burden to the health service. And while people with serious underlying health issues could fail to make the grade in many cases, it’s those with disabilities who are facing the DNR roulette as well.

It’s an unimaginable rock and a hard place. And that terrifies the hell out of me.

Elvi, my eldest daughter, turned 18 last year and her mother and I applied for the legal approval of joint deputyship to make decisions on her behalf as she enters adulthood. The two separate areas governed by this are finances and health. We opted for the financial side as a matter of urgency, seeing no health issues needing to be made on her behalf on the horizon. No one had even heard of coronavirus six months ago.

Not having the final say over our now-adult daughter’s health and welfare was considered something we could address down the road if and when we came to that junction.

Well, we are now there a whole heap sooner than we thought. Because if my daughter contracts Covid-19 and is admitted to hospital, then who will make the decisions needed on her behalf? Legally, we, her parents, have no say about how she will be treated. We may not even be allowed to be with her. I can only start to imagine the confusion and panic she would face if she is admitted to hospital feeling very poorly without those who care for her day-to-day allowed to assist in her treatment or even be by her side.

The recent weeks of family isolation with her shouting constant demands for crisps, pizza and various TV shows from her bedroom, struggling to communicate with us and getting hugely upset at the disruption to her regular schedule have been testing enough in the well-loved surroundings of home.

Elvi is largely non-verbal on top of her physical and learning disabilities and, while legally an adult, would have absolutely no idea about what would be going on in an unfamiliar environment, or be able to find a way to let those treating her know how distressed she had become. The only way to deal with her in this situation would be to keep her constantly sedated.

A couple of years ago, when facing a dental procedure under anaesthetic, she had to be sedated while still in the waiting room as she became so upset, screaming and lashing out at those trying to help. It is an anecdote I relate only to give you some idea of what we are dealing with.

If she is infected by the virus – her carer and that poor woman’s entire family have had it, and recovered – and needs hospitalisation, then the best we can hope for is that she is in a place where people know her, and us, and can tailor any treatment required.

The only alternative to that seems to be a lonely bed in a converted exhibition centre where medical staff are unfamiliar with the complex young woman in front of them, and may be forced to make life or death decisions without any input from her family.

And that is, frankly, the stuff of nightmares.

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The Real Reason for the New Cold War with Russia

Posted by M. C. on April 4, 2020

The view at the top was that Russia had better behave now and do what we tell them to do. They lost the Cold War. They are no longer a superpower, and so they just better do what we tell them and shut up.

That attitude, which wasn’t evident immediately, gradually became more evident. It really broke out with the bombing of Yugoslavia in the late ’90s when Boris Yeltsin—who was supposedly a great friend of America—said, “No, this we will not stand for.”

As I’ve said before, I’m not a big fan of President Putin, but given the possibility, Putin would have worked to have a close relationship with the West.

He was told in no uncertain terms that there was no interest in that, and his reaction was as follows.

https://internationalman.com/articles/the-real-reason-for-the-new-cold-war-with-russia/

International Man

Editor’s Note: Vladimir Pozner is Russia’s most influential TV political-talk-show host, journalist and broadcaster.

Pozner has hosted several shows on Russian television, where he has interviewed famous figures such as Hillary Clinton, Alain Delon, President Dimitri Medvedev and Sting.

Pozner has appeared on a wide range of networks, including NBC, CBS, CNN and the BBC. In his long career, he has been a journalist, editor (Soviet Life Magazine and Sputnik Magazine) and TV and radio commentator, covering all major events in Russia.

Pozner has appeared on The Phil Donahue Show and Ted Koppel’s Nightline.

He co-hosted a show with Phil Donahue called Pozner/Donahue. It was the first televised bi-lateral discussion (or “spacebridge”) between audiences in the Soviet Union and the US, carried via satellite.

In 1997, he returned to Moscow as an independent journalist.

Doug Casey’s friend Mark Gould sat down with Pozner in Moscow to help us better understand the relationship between the US and Russia.

 —

International Man: Naturally, Americans have a lot of misconceptions about Russia. The US government and media offer an overly simplistic and unfavorable view of the country.

What does the US government and media get wrong?

Vladimir Pozner: That’s a very difficult question to answer. It’s not only what they get wrong, but what they deliberately say that is not true.

It’s a combination of things.

It’s one thing not to understand another country.

For instance, I was in Japan, and it took me a very long time to begin to understand things because the Japanese do things very differently—not good or bad, just different.

It’s another thing to have a prejudice about another people or another country and to present things in a negative light.

Broadly, the relationship between Russia and the United States has been a difficult one for most of the 20th century, starting with the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. It was very threatening to the United States and to capitalism.

The goal of having a world revolution and having socialism everywhere initiated things like the Red Scare in the United States back in the 1920s.

These things evolved over the years all the way up to the postwar period when you had Joe McCarthy and all of those things.

There was a deep ideological difference between the USSR and the United States, that pretty much, in my opinion, formatted the way people looked at “Russia,” because for most Americans, the USSR and Russia, was exactly the same thing.

Although, the USSR consisted of a lot of other countries that were not Russian at all, like Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, what have you.

So that’s one side of it. The negative attitude over a 70-plus-year period became part of the American outlook.

Then things changed. Suddenly the USSR became a different country. Gorbachev, Glasnost, and Perestroika… we were going to be friends.

Everyone was overjoyed on both sides of the fence. The American side was saying, “Now they’re going to be like us, finally.”

That was the average view.

The view at the top was that Russia had better behave now and do what we tell them to do. They lost the Cold War. They are no longer a superpower, and so they just better do what we tell them and shut up.

That attitude, which wasn’t evident immediately, gradually became more evident. It really broke out with the bombing of Yugoslavia in the late ’90s when Boris Yeltsin—who was supposedly a great friend of America—said, “No, this we will not stand for.”

The problem from that point on was that Russia was no longer willing to follow the American lead. This led to tremendous anger on the part of the American establishment, which was reflected in statements and in the media.

When Vladimir Putin came around, he initially wanted to be a member of the West. He officially proposed that Russia join NATO and that Russia become part of the European Union.

He was officially told, in politer terms, to go do “whatever.“ In fact, he was told that Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO well before Russia.

This is official. This isn‘t something that I‘m dreaming up.

Ultimately, in 2007, in Munich, Putin made a famous speech, saying that we no longer agree to be treated like a second-rate nation. We have our global aspirations and interests, and we are going to protect them.

From that point on, Putin became monster number one, and Russia became negative.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Talking About Stoicism 64 The Tragedy of the Commons

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2020

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Regime Change through the Drug War – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2020

U.S. officials knew that it would look bad to simply invade the country and effect a regime-change operation through force of arms. Undoubtedly, they considered a state-sponsored assassination through the CIA, which specialized in that form of regime change, but for whatever reason that regime-method wasn’t employed.

https://www.fff.org/2020/04/01/regime-change-through-the-drug-war/

by

The Justice Department’s securing of a criminal indictment of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro reminds us that when it comes to the U.S. government’s regime-change operations, coups, invasions, sanctions, embargoes, and state-sponsored assassinations are not the only ways to achieve regime change. Another way is through a criminal indictment issued by a federal grand jury that deferentially accedes to the wishes of federal prosecutors.

The best example of this regime change method involved the president of Panama, Manuel Noriega.

Like many corrupt and brutal dictators around the world, Noriega was a partner and ally of the U.S. government. In fact, he was actually trained at the Pentagon’s School of the Americas, which is referred to in Latin America as the School of Assassins. He later served as a paid asset of the CIA. He also served as a conduit for the U.S. government’s illegal war in Nicaragua, where U.S. officials were using the Contra rebels to effect a regime change in that country.

But like other loyal pro-U.S. dictators, Noriega fell out of favor with U.S. officials, who decided they wanted him out of office and replaced with someone more to their liking.

The big problem, of course, is the one that always afflicts U.S. regime-change aspirations: Noriega refused to go voluntarily.

U.S. officials knew that it would look bad to simply invade the country and effect a regime-change operation through force of arms. Undoubtedly, they considered a state-sponsored assassination through the CIA, which specialized in that form of regime change, but for whatever reason that regime-method wasn’t employed.

So, the regime-changers turned to the U.S. Justice Department, which secured a criminal indictment against Noriega for supposedly violating America’s drug laws. The U.S. rationale was that the U.S. government, as the world’s international policeman, has jurisdiction to enforce its drug laws against everyone in the world.

On December 20,  1989, the U.S. military invaded Panama to bring Noriega back to the United States to stand trial on the drug charges. One might consider the invasion to be one gigantic no-knock raid on an entire country as part of U.S. drug-war enforcement.

An estimated 23-60 U.S. soldiers were killed in the operation while some 300 were wounded. An estimated 300-800 Panamanian soldiers were killed. Estimates of civilian deaths ranged from 200 to 3,000. Property damage ranged in the billions of dollars.

But it was all considered worth it. By capturing Noriega and bringing him back for trial, U.S. officials felt that they had made big progress in finally winning the war on drugs. Equally important, they had secured the regime change that had been their original goal. At the same time, they sent a message to other rulers around the world: Leave office when we say or we’ll do this to you.

Noriega was convicted and received a 40-year jail sentence. When his lawyers tried to introduce evidence at trial of his close working relationship with the CIA and other elements of the U.S. national security state, not surprisingly federal prosecutors objected and the judge sustained their objections. Better to keep those types of things as secret as possible.

Alas, Noriega’s conviction and incarceration did not bring an end to the war on drugs, as this crooked, corrupt, failed, and racially bigoted government program continues to this day. Moreover, as Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro might soon find out., the drug war continues to provide an effective way for U.S. officials to effect regime change.

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Bill Gates Calls for a “Digital Certificate” to Identify Who Received COVID-19 Vaccine – The Vigilant Citizen

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2020

Bill Gates recently stated on Reddit that “digital certificates” will be used to identify who received the upcoming COVID-19 vaccine. And these certificates will also be used to identify who can conduct business or not. Here’s how this plan is already backed by a massive organization called ID2020.

Showing your papers without having to reach in your pocket.

Look for mandatory vaccination in your future.

Think about that when you are using Gate’s latest surveillance tools-W10 and Edge.

https://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/bill-gates-calls-for-a-digital-certificate-to-identify-who-is-vaccinated/

By

For years, Bill Gates has been at the forefront of research regarding global pandemics and mass vaccination campaigns. In the past decade, Gates went on record several times stating that the world was not ready for a global pandemic.

In October 2019 (only a few months before the apparition of COVID-19) the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (in cooperation with the World Economic Forum) hosted Event 201, a 3.5-hour table-top simulation of a global pandemic.

Bill Gates Calls for a

Oddly enough, this simulation was about a novel coronavirus that would kill millions. About eight weeks later, an actual novel coronavirus spurred in China. This lead to some people wondering if this exercise actually predicted the spread of COVID-19. In response to these questions, a statement was posted on the Event 201 website.

Statement about nCoV and our pandemic exercise

In October 2019, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted a pandemic tabletop exercise called Event 201 with partners, the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Recently, the Center for Health Security has received questions about whether that pandemic exercise predicted the current novel coronavirus outbreak in China. To be clear, the Center for Health Security and partners did not make a prediction during our tabletop exercise. For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction. Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic. We are not now predicting that the nCoV-2019 outbreak will kill 65 million people. Although our tabletop exercise included a mock novel coronavirus, the inputs we used for modeling the potential impact of that fictional virus are not similar to nCoV-2019.

On March 13th, about a day after COVID-19 began shutting down the entire Western world, Bill Gates stepped down from the public board of Microsoft to “dedicate more time to philanthropic priorities including global health and development, education, and climate change”. As the pandemic spread across the world, Gates became an outspoken and authoritative figure on the pandemic crisis, appearing all over mass media to share his views and recommendations.

On March 18th, Bill Gates took part in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit titled I’m Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. AMA about COVID-19. where he answered questions about the pandemic. In one of his answers, Gates referred to a “digital certificate” to keep track of who got vaccinated.

A Reddit user named RemoteControlledUser asked this question:

What changes are we going to have to make to how businesses operate to maintain our economy while providing social distancing?

Bill Gates’ answer:

The question of which businesses should keep going is tricky. Certainly food supply and the health system. We still need water, electricity and the internet. Supply chains for critical things need to be maintained. Countries are still figuring out what to keep running.

Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.

Bill Gates Calls for a

While most of Gates’ answers were received with praise, this one raised lots of eyebrows. The most upvoted reply highlights the similarities between Gates’ solution and the “Mark of the Beast” in the Bible.

Bill Gates Calls for a

This concept of a “digital certificate” to store medical information (including vaccines received) and to grant access to rights or services was not a mere suggestion. It is part of a massive project that is propelled by a powerful group called ID2020 which is backed by the United Nations, the Rockefeller Foundation and … Bill Gates’ Microsoft.

ID2020

Bill Gates Calls for a

Simply put, ID2020 is looking to create a digital identification system that would store a wealth of personal information and that would go beyond the limits of national governments. The official website of ID2020 states that a global digital identity is necessary to keep track of refugees and ID-less people in developing countries. Of course, people in developed countries would be ID-ed as well. The website states:

We Need to Get Digital ID Right

Unfortunately, current models of digital ID do not meet everyone’s needs. They are generally archaic, insecure, lacking adequate privacy protection, and for over a billion people worldwide, unavailable.

Everyone should have access to a digital ID that enables them to prove who they are across institutional and international borders and across time, while giving them control over how their personal information is collected, used, and shared.

In an article published by ID2020 in 2018, vaccines are the perfect way to introduce digital identity to the world – especially infants. Appropriately titled Immunization: an entry point for digital identity, the article states:

Because immunization is conducted in infancy, providing children with a digital child health card would give them a unique, portable digital identity early in life. And as children grow, their digital child health card can be used to access secondary services, such as primary school, or ease the process of obtaining alternative credentials. Effectively the child health card becomes the first step in establishing a legal, broadly recognized identity.

In short, according to ID2020, vaccinations are the perfect opportunity to introduce a digital ID that would store the medical history of each individual. This identity would also be used to grant access to basic rights and services.

ID2020 is already testing the introduction of digital IDs in Bangladesh. On August 2019, ID2020 published a “Request for information” article stating:

A2i and its partners Gavi and ID2020 are committed to jointly researching and implementing a unique ID for infants through digitisation of vaccination processes in Bangladesh.

The program will provide infants and children with a portable, biometrically-linked digital ID either at the point of birth registration or at the time of their immunizations, simultaneously supporting three shared objectives:

Driving improvements in CRVS (Demographic and Social Statistics) coverage and process

Supporting improvements in vaccination process and equity

Ultimately, supporting access to rights and services throughout one’s life-course.

In this Bangladesh experiment, digital ID is “biometrically-linked”, meaning that it is based on the fingerprints of individuals. The article describes the process in place:

Information is required regarding biometric scanners capable of capturing the fingerprint biometrics of parents during phase 1 with the ambition to also effectively capture infant biometrics in phase 2. Scanners can be cabled or Bluetooth. Scanners must be a minimum of FBI certified FAP30, portable, robust and capturing a minimum of 500 pixels per inch. Please state the port type on the scanner(s), for example, micro USB, USB C, or other.

While this project is linked to biometrics, Bill Gates has been funding research on a different form of vaccine identification: The quantum dot tattoo.

Quantum Dot Tattoo

In December 2019, a group of researchers at the MIT published a study in Science Translational Medicine about the use of quantum dot tattoos to identify who people who received a vaccine.

Bill Gates Calls for a

An article in Futurism titled An Invisible Quantum Dot ‘Tattoo’ Could Be Used to ID Vaccinated Kids reviewed this study:

For the people overseeing nationwide vaccination initiatives in developing countries, keeping track of who had which vaccination and when can be a tough task.

But researchers from MIT might have a solution: they’ve created an ink that can be safely embedded in the skin alongside the vaccine itself, and it’s only visible using a special smartphone camera app and filter.

In other words, they’ve found a covert way to embed the record of a vaccination directly in a patient’s skin rather than documenting it electronically or on paper – and their low-risk tracking system could greatly simplify the process of maintaining accurate vaccine records, especially on a larger scale.

(…)

The invisible “tattoo” accompanying the vaccine is a pattern made up of minuscule quantum dots – tiny semiconducting crystals that reflect light – that glows under infrared light. The pattern – and vaccine – gets delivered into the skin using hi-tech dissolvable microneedles made of a mixture of polymers and sugar.

“It’s possible someday that this ‘invisible’ approach could create new possibilities for data storage, biosensing, and vaccine applications that could improve how medical care is provided, particularly in the developing world,” MIT professor and senior author Robert Langer said in the statement.

The article states that this study was the result of a direct request from Bill Gates.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the team’s research, which was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday.

According to a Scientific American story, the project came about following a direct request from Microsoft founder Bill Gates himself, who has been personally involved in efforts to eradicate polio and measles through vaccinations.

In Conclusion

While answering a question about conducting business in the era of social distancing, Bill Gates replied that “digital certificates” will be used to determine who had COVID-19, who recovered from it, who was recently tested for it and who received the vaccine. This short (and unexpected answer) opened a gigantic pandora box of what could be in store in the near future: The inevitable mass vaccination campaign to eradicate COVID-19 would be the perfect opportunity to introduce a worldwide digital ID. This system would store a wealth of information about each individual (including vaccination history) and would be used to grant access to rights and services. Although Gates did not go into specifics, “digital certificates” could be linked to biometrics or a quantum dot tattoo.

Considering the fact that this entire project is eerily reminiscent to a passage in the Book of Revelation (a Mark of the Beast that is received on the “right hand or forehead” and that is required “to buy or to sell”), the introduction of such a system would most likely be received with a great deal of resistance. And not only from religious people.

P.S. The economic crisis caused by COVID-19 has caused a massive drop in advertising revenues, making it difficult for independent websites such as The Vigilant Citizen to remain afloat. If you appreciated this article, please consider showing your support through a small monthly donation on Patreon. If you prefer, you can also make a one-time donation here. Your support will help this site navigate these difficult times as it continues to provide vital information and analysis on a regular basis. Thank you!

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We Are All Homeschoolers Now | The American Spectator

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2020

This highly credentialed child care costs taxpayers a lot of money. So long as things kept trucking along, most of us were not of the mood to too closely scrutinize these expenses. But now that we’re out the money and have to take care of the kids, reassessment is going to happen.

https://spectator.org/we-are-all-homeschoolers-now/

What does education look like in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic?

At the K-12 level, you’ve got problems. At the collegiate level, you’ve got existential problems.

School is out for the year in most locales. More innovative districts are retooling like crazy and trying to do online classes. Parents are looking for cheap or free resources to do the job and keep their kids occupied during our enforced isolation.

Now that we’re out the money and have to take care of the kids, reassessment is going to happen.

In short, we are all homeschoolers now. Expect that to be much more the case next school year, as enough parents who were forced to try it either a) like it and decide to keep this knowledge train rolling or b) don’t believe the schools are safe enough to send their kids back into and so suck it up.

This will create knock-on problems for public schools certainly, and also for private schools.

Kids go to school for six-plus hours a day, but a lot of that time is wasted. In most cases, you could run through the lessons in about two hours. Parents are seeing that now.

The pandemic quarantine is showing us that schooling is basically state- or parent-sponsored babysitting with some ABCs, 123s, dodgeball, and the prom thrown in.

This highly credentialed child care costs taxpayers a lot of money. So long as things kept trucking along, most of us were not of the mood to too closely scrutinize these expenses. But now that we’re out the money and have to take care of the kids, reassessment is going to happen.

Public education will survive, of course, but in a reduced capacity. Fewer kids will go and school bonds will become a harder sell. Expensive private schools will also face scrutiny, as the now-poorer parents have seen that they can do this on their own if they so choose.

The sector of education that is in real trouble is higher education. Costs have gone nothing but up as schools have used the money from student loans to do things like build more buildings, hire an assistant to the assistant to the assistant of the president — basically anything but put that money back into the classrooms.

As tuition has risen steadily, so has unbankruptable student loan debt. It costs a lot of money to go to college these days, even at state schools. When the good times were rolling, enough high school graduates and their parents were willing to chance it to keep academia fat and sassy.

The sector of education that is in real trouble is higher education.

That will change, and abruptly enough to give administrators whiplash. Colleges and universities are keeping the money flowing in right now with online courses. Students who would never have considered distance learning have gotten a taste of it. Many will decide they prefer that to the in-person experience.

Schools will try to hold per-credit prices up, but it won’t work. Economies of scale for in-demand online learning are significantly lower than classroom learning, and there are enough credentialed competitors in that space that this will finally bend the higher-ed cost curve down.

Well-endowed elite schools, such as Harvard, will do fine. Most state schools will survive, though state legislatures may impose some needed discipline. But many smaller schools in the middle, which have regular tuition hikes baked into how they do business, simply will not make it.

Case in point: a bunch of students at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts asked for a partial refund of their tuition, which comes to nearly $60,000 a year, on the grounds that they are not paying that kind of money to take online classes. Instead, they got a video of Dean Allyson Green dancing to REM’s “Losing My Religion.” She’ll be losing their tuition soon enough.

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Who are the Narco-Terrorists: George H. Walker Bush: The Bush Family and the Mexican Drug Cartel – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2020

The CIA protects the multibillion dollar global drug trade as well as the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. Moreover, it is estimated that 300 billion dollars (annually) worth of drug money is routinely laundered in casinos across America including Las Vegas and Atlantic City… as well as in Macau and Singapore. Guess who are the World’s richest casino owners.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/jeb-bush-the-mexican-drug-cartel-and-free-trade/5448747

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

In December 2019, Donald Trump offered to intervene in Mexico, i.e. “to go after the Drug Cartels”. The Mexican president turned down Trump’s generous offer.

And then President Trump confirmed that his administration was considering categorizing “drug cartels” as “terrorists”,  akin to Al Qaeda (with the exception that they are “Catholic terrorists”).

They would henceforth be designated by Washington as “foreign terrorist organizations”.

What is the intent? 

Create a justification for US-led “counterterrorism” (military) operations directed against Latin America countries?

Extend the “War on Terrorism” to Latin America?  “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). Go after the “Narco-terrorists”. 

And now, US federal prosecutors are accusing Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro of  participating (according to the NYT) “in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, in a major escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure him to leave office”. 

The unspoken truth is (which the NYT fails to mention):

1. Al Qaeda and its related terrorist organizations (including ISIS) in the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia are creations of the CIA.

2. The CIA protects the multibillion dollar global drug trade as well as the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. Moreover, it is estimated that 300 billion dollars (annually) worth of drug money is routinely laundered in casinos across America including Las Vegas and Atlantic City… as well as in Macau and Singapore. Guess who are the World’s richest casino owners.

4. Both American and Latin American politicians are known to have ties to the drug trade.

Flash back to the 1990s: George H. W. Bush, the dad of  Bush Junior had developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas de Gortari (former president of Mexico) and his dad Raul Salinas Lozano who, according to the Dallas Morning News (February 27, 1997) was “a leading figure in narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul Salinas de Gortari…  And Raul was an intimo amigo of  Jeb Bush, (former Governor of Florida) and the brother of  George W, Bush.  

The Bush family has ties to the Bin Laden Family as well as ties to the Salinas de Gortiari family. Is it relevant?

The following text was published in May 2015 under the title  Jeb Bush, the Mexican Drug Cartel and “Free Trade”. The Bush Family and Organized Crime. It also documents the signing of the North american Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by a Mexican head state with links to the Drug Cartels.  

Michel Chossudovsky, April 2, 2020

***

Jeb Bush is a presidential candidate.  [was in 2015]

But Jeb is not only the brother of George W. and the son of George H. W. Bush.

Jeb Bush also had close personal ties to Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of Mexico’s former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. In the 1990s, Raul the “drug kingpin”, according to Switzerland’s  federal prosecutor Carla del Ponte, was one of the main figures of the Mexican Drug Cartel.  

Jeb Bush  –before becoming Governor of the Sunshine State– was a close friend of Raul Salinas de Gortiari (image right):

“There has also been a great deal of speculation in Mexico about the exact nature of Raul Salinas’ close friendship with former President George Bush’s son, Jeb. It is well known here that for many years the two families spent vacations together — the Salinases at Jeb Bush’s home in Miami, the Bushes at Raul’s ranch, Las Mendocinas, under the volcano in Puebla.

There are many in Mexico who believe that the relationship became a back channel for delicate and crucial negotiations between the two governments, leading up to President Bush’s sponsorship of NAFTA.” (Prominent intellectual and former foreign Minister of Mexico Jorge G. Castañeda, The Los Angeles Times. and Houston Chronicle, 9 March 1995, emphasis added)

The personal relationship between the Bush and Salinas families was a matter of public record. Former President George H. W. Bush  had developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas and his father, Raul Salinas Lozano. (left)

Raul Salinas Lozano was the family patriarch, father of Carlos and Raul Junior. According to the former private secretary to Raul Salinas Lozano (in as statement to US authorities):

“… Mr. Salinas Lozano was a leading figure in narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul Salinas de Gortari, his son-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 official in the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and other leading politicians, according to the documents. Mr. Ruiz Massieu was assassinated in 1994.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997, emphasis added).

Former president George H. W. Bush and Raul Salinas Lozano were “intimo amigos”. Read the rest of this entry »

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Keeping It Unreal | The Medically Induced Police State

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2020

The Coronavirus has been around for decades. Just look at the back of
your can of Lysol. It informs you that their product protects you from
“Human Coronavirus,” among other things. Many of us strongly suspect
that cases of simple Coronavirus have been lumped in with those
purporting to be COVID-19, the dastardly strain in question, which all
the best and brightest “experts” inform us could spread across the world
like wildfire.

https://donaldjeffries.wordpress.com/

 

I have long feared a police state. Not the figurative one we’ve been letting develop for years now. I mean a literal one. Where they can stop you for any reason and ask you for your “papers.” Where they can restrict your movements, and your associations. Where they can confine you to your homes.

Yesterday, this became an unfortunate reality for me and all other Virginians. Mayor Ralph “Blackface” Northam signed an Executive Order that essentially locks my state down. Police can stop any motorist and ask where they are going. If they aren’t going to a doctor or the store, they can be charged with a misdemeanor. For now. And those essential personnel who are still working have been given papers. Yes, “show me your papers” is finally here in the land of the free.

Over the course of just a few weeks, America and most of the world has been subjected to a power play that rivals anything that George Orwell could have dreamed up. Whole countries locked down. People quarantined who have no illness. People restricted to their houses. “Social distancing” mandating that people stay six feet apart from one another. The closing down of virtually all businesses. No more going to the movies, or restaurants, or casinos, or concerts. Professional sports leagues and even the NCAA’s lucrative March Madness basketball tournament have been cancelled. All schools have been closed indefinitely.

So, surely all these draconian, unprecedented moves indicate that something really dangerous is going on? Instead, the world has basically come to a standstill over a virus strain, which has not even conclusively been proven to exist, that has killed a fraction of what the common flu kills every year, in this country and around the world.

The Coronavirus has been around for decades. Just look at the back of your can of Lysol. It informs you that their product protects you from “Human Coronavirus,” among other things. Many of us strongly suspect that cases of simple Coronavirus have been lumped in with those purporting to be COVID-19, the dastardly strain in question, which all the best and brightest “experts” inform us could spread across the world like wildfire.

The primary source for all the fear porn which has been emanating from our putrid state-run media for weeks, came from United Kingdom epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who issued a dire warning that 2.2 million could die from COVID-19 in the United States alone. Without quite the attention given his initial predictions by the hysterical media, Ferguson quietly acknowledged last week that his numbers were wrong. Very, very wrong. His weak admission that perhaps 20,000 could die was not very convincing. And a pair of Stanford professors of medicine followed that up by saying the predictions of fatalities “may be too high by orders of magnitude.”

Instead of responding reasonably to these indications that those who initiated the alarmist talk from our journalists and politicians were utterly wrong, our leaders have doubled down on the heavy-handed, unwarranted response. More states like mine have gone into lock down mode. It is akin to Martial Law, without any visible troops in the streets. Given the lack of opposition to this authoritarianism, they haven’t needed any. Without firing a shot, as the saying goes.

Citizen journalists have posted a myriad of videos on You Tube, which depict not the “overwhelmed” hospitals that are literally bursting at the seams with corpses, but instead largely empty facilities. Jason Goodman has been filming around hospitals in New York City, the alleged epicenter of the alleged epidemic, and it has to be seen to be believed. Idle ambulances everywhere. Disinterested EMT workers and hospital employees. Many, if not most of them not wearing masks. Police harassing him from filming on a public street. I have a friend who lives in New York City, and he just called me this morning to report how non-busy the biggest hospital in Brooklyn looked. Something very strange is going on here.

Meanwhile, Dr. Colleen Smith, a doctor who specializes in “medical simulation,” whatever that is, violated every HIPAA regulation imaginable when she filmed inside an ICU at New York City’s Elmhurst Hospital. Dr. Smith complained about a lack of equipment and resources, the same establishment mantra we’ve heard time and time again from establishment sources, which is invariably blamed on hapless Donald Trump. Her video was published by the New York Times. The same day she was filming inside, Elmhurst Hospital was videotaped outside by a citizen journalist. You guessed it- it resembled a ghost town.

As I’ve made clear to so many who are parroting the mainstream line, “people are dying!,” yes, people are dying. They do everyday. As Bob Dylan, also back in the news this week with a better late than never song about JFK assassination truth, once said, “he not busy being born is busy dying.” The question is, what are the people whose deaths the state-controlled media is fixated upon dying from? How many of these deaths are actually from underlying causes like diabetes or pneumonia, or less frightening strains of virus, like the regular flu or the generic Coronavirus?

There are many disquieting indications that the wild overreaction to this is a hoax, even if the virus is not. The photograph of ominous rows of coffins supposedly emanating out of Italy, which has been allegedly hit so hard by COVID-19, which was proven to be from another country, taken years earlier. The Italian reports indicating that 99% of the fatalities attributed to this virus came from “other pathologies.” The story in early February out of China, that the Chinese were including deaths from pneumonia along with the scary COVID-19 cases. It is no exaggeration to say that, considering the draconian response, those in charge have a tremendous vested interest in significantly increasing the numbers.

Both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control were caught lying about the same thing in 2009; they falsely inflated the Swine Flu figures. Sharyl Attkisson lost her job with CBS for exposing the CDC. No investigative journalism is allowed in this country, outside of amateurs on the internet. The CDC and WHO are front and center here, along with our perpetually dishonest politicians and laughable, lapdog establishment press. They are the ones selling this narrative. Why would any intelligent person believe them?

I have been lied to my entire life by the most powerful authority figures. I worked for the Medical Industrial Complex for 44 years, until being fired two years ago for helping a handicapped co-worker. You read that right. That’s the chance you take in a “right to work” state. It gives them a right to fire you for no reason. Our healthcare system is hopelessly inefficient and just as corrupt as any other part of America 2.0. The medical profession itself is the third leading cause of death in this country. When you enter a hospital, you take your life in your hands. So excuse me for not trusting in all the white coats issuing their dire pronouncements.

In Virginia, our unofficial Martial Law is in effect until June 10. Just imagine how many businesses will never reopen after being closed for nearly three months. How many employees will be laid off, and be left to deal with the ever-increasing cost of living with their $1200 checks that constituted the trickle-down droppings from the $5.5 trillion dollar “stimulus” package, which Ron Paul called “a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the elite?” Picture the massive unemployment claims, somehow paid for by payroll taxes which are not going to be collected from all those unemployed workers who are no longer paying them.

And we still haven’t heard a peep of protest from anyone with a large public platform. Not a single corporate leader whose dedication to capitalism compels him to protest the literal shutdown of almost all commerce. There is a stunning uniformity of opinion on this massive overhaul of our society, which happened in the blink of an eye. Only naysayers like me, with the voices we have on the internet, are pointing out how shockingly wrong all of this is.

America, even as it existed in its watered-down, often embarrassing form a month ago, is forever gone. Once our leaders have demonstrated they can institute such authoritarian restrictions on the populace, with virtually no resistance, it is a certainty they will do it again. Expect to see the kind of ridiculous color-coded “terror threat” warnings we saw after 9/11. When the unquestioned authorities declare that we are at “code red” in terms of a new viral threat, America will just go back into lock down mode. Americans will be used to it.

Helping to sell this narrative has been an astonishing number of celebrities. This virus evidently is predisposed to attack famous people who have shown unswerving devotion to the Deep State. It was entirely predictable that the likes of Tom Hanks, Greta Thunberg, Prince Charles, and Chris Cuomo would test positive. For the Coronavirus, as it is worded in all the celebrity cases, not for COVID-19. This could be the lazy, unintentional intermingling of a generic term for the deadly strain that has stopped the world. Or it could be an admission that technically they are telling the truth- the tests can only determine whether one has Coronavirus, not any particular strain of it.

But there is a huge difference between the two terms; testing positive for the generic Coronavirus is no big deal. It could just be a common cold, or an indication someone is a carrier, with no symptoms at all. If everyone in past years had been frightened by fear porn into getting tested for any sniffle, who knows how many might have been positive? They have somehow convinced most of the public that this virus strain is potentially far more deadly than anything since the Bubonic Plague, despite numbers that remain a fraction of what we see every flu season. With even the most severe flu seasons, nothing has ever been closed or cancelled. Certainly there was never any kind of lock down.

This has all been sold to the public on the basis of protecting us. After all, our leaders care about us. They have only our best interests at heart. And what is more terrifying to anyone than the state of their health? None of us want to put our loved ones’ lives in danger. And so we become even more compliant than normal.

Benjamin Franklin wisely warned, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Considering the continuous fear porn coming from our leaders, few of us probably feel safe. And their totalitarian response to an invisible enemy should make all of us feel demonstrably less free.

 

 

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What Are ‘Essential Services’? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2020

As Mr. Read pointed out, even the production of a “simple” pencil is beyond the capabilities of one person or one firm to plan and implement. It requires an incredibly complex market coordination of land, labor, and capital. A pencil requires graphite and iron miners, trucks, rubber for the tires for the trucks, rubber plantations, workers at the rubber plantations, paint producers, lumberjacks, sawmills, employees for the operation of the sawmills and for all the associated factories, tool manufactures to make the tools used in the various associated industries, and maintenance personnel to keep all the facilities running.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/david-hathaway/what-are-essential-services/

By

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey recently issued an Executive Order requiring residents to “stay home.” The Governor said that only businesses providing “essential services” could remain open. When hit with a barrage of questions, he told Arizonans to not worry because “grocery stores and pharmacies” would remain open and their employees would be allowed to leave their homes and go to work. As I considered what an “essential service” is in the free market, I was reminded of Leonard Read’s brilliant essay “I, Pencil.”

As Mr. Read pointed out, even the production of a “simple” pencil is beyond the capabilities of one person or one firm to plan and implement. It requires an incredibly complex market coordination of land, labor, and capital. A pencil requires graphite and iron miners, trucks, rubber for the tires for the trucks, rubber plantations, workers at the rubber plantations, paint producers, lumberjacks, sawmills, employees for the operation of the sawmills and for all the associated factories, tool manufactures to make the tools used in the various associated industries, and maintenance personnel to keep all the facilities running. There is also a myriad of ancillary industries that produce and provide a huge number of items used in the various businesses that produce components in the higher orders of production to make the pencil; things like ink, paper, clothing for the workers, and oil pumping and refinery equipment to keep fuel flowing to all the associated vehicles and industries. The interconnected web of cooperating firms and individuals is almost infinite.

If producing a pencil is complicated and requires the complex coordination and invisible hand of the free market that is well beyond the planning capabilities of any person or any firm, we can only imagine the exponential level of complexity needed to keep a Wal-Mart store open. If a Wal-Mart store is considered to be providing an “essential service” and is allowed to stay open in a “stay at home” state, how can it possibly do so without the invisible market cooperation of an unfathomable number of actors, each being influenced individually by price signals?

Can a Wal-Mart store stay open without wholesalers and producers? Can the producers stay in business without other producers of sub-components? Can the sub-components be produced without raw material producers? Can meat make it to a Wal-Mart store if the rancher and farmer have to stay home and can’t drive around to various properties and check on water and feed sources for his animals? Can the farmer take care of his farm if his tractor is broken and needs maintenance from the mechanic? Has the mechanic been deemed essential? Does the farmer or the mechanic need a special waiver from the Governor? What about the roving livestock wranglers, fruit pickers, well and pump maintenance workers that are needed by the farmer or rancher on irregular schedules?

What if the farmer or the truck driver has broken his glasses? Can he go to his eye doctor? If the eye doctor can stay open, can the glasses producer go to work to make the glasses for the truck driver or the farmer? If the farmer’s cell phone breaks and he can’t communicate with the meat buyer or feed producer, will the cell phone store be designated an “essential service” and remain open to sell him a new one? Can billboard companies operate so that the public can know which facilities are open and providing services in the midst of the closure order? Can graphics designers produce the signs for the billboard companies? Can newspaper employees drive to work and drive around town to take pictures so that the public stays informed? Are the banks an essential service to provide physical cash to those that want it and need it?

Can a Wal-Mart store arrange for its garbage and waste to be hauled off? What about the contractor that keeps the freezers and refrigerators running at Wal-Mart – is he essential? What about the producer and supplier that provides refrigerant to the freezer maintenance contractor – is he essential? I was told by a police officer that people would be pulled over and told to go home if they weren’t on their way to buy groceries. I don’t know what the charge would be if the driver refused to go home since the legislature hasn’t defined a law that is being broken. Current political actions definitely run contrary to the trite John Adams quote, “We are a government of laws not of men.”

Besides Mr. Read’s great essay, this situation brings to mind Henry Hazlitt’s little book “Economics in One Lesson;” the “one lesson” being that politicians will cause harm when they make mandates because they can only consider the effects on a small part of the overall economy. There will be broad ramifications and unintended consequences throughout the economy whenever an activity is expanded or restricted through political action. In short, central planning can never work because it can never consider the full interrelation of all aspects of the economy. Central planners can only consider specific hoped-for outcomes on limited segments of the economy when making decisions.

I don’t see how this magical candy-land enabled by court intellectuals and run by executive branch authoritarians is going to be managed through central planning.  Next thing, prices will go up, gouging will be alleged and more central planning will “be needed to control prices.” We are also all being told to “work at home.”  Wow, what a deal. We will stay home and produce nothing except for internet data shooting back and forth and all the stuff will magically get produced and the shelves will get stocked.  Why didn’t we think of this sooner? “Essential services.” What a nifty idea. Let’s all take a vacation, or better yet, retire. The government has got this under control.

Be seeing you

From “I, Pencil” to “I, Smartphone”: The Moral Limits of ...

 

 

 

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New App Requires Reporting of People Sneezing or Coughing – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 2, 2020

Precrime police alerts, guilty until proven innocent.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/joseph-mercola/new-app-requires-reporting-of-people-sneezing-or-coughing/

By

Mercola.com

The new Google app “Corona Waze” asks users to “tag” individuals who sneeze, cough, are sweating or have a runny nose. You can also tag people who do not use soap or wash their hands for at least 20 seconds, or for other social distancing violations. People can also be tagged for not wearing gloves or masks, or hoarding toilet paper and cleaning supplies.

Facial recognition systems deployed through nationwide security cameras will be used to identify offenders who are not carrying cell phones while Google’s Fitbit will automatically report unfavorable biometrics to alert emergency services. Google’s Android phone camera will utilize thermographic temperature fluctuations while taking selfies or pictures of others to alert medical marshals of potential fevers.

Surveillance companies like Google have become essential tools to properly enforce pandemic protocols. An accelerated nationwide 5G rollout has been mandated to support biometric feedback sensors to instantly alert the medical establishment of potential threats to others.

Medical Surveillance Is Key for Controlling Outbreaks.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has partnered with the federal government’s health department and launched an online portal for COVID-19 testing that will be under the auspices of Verily, its health care and life sciences arm.1

To apply for a test, you have to fill out a symptoms checklist and provide your travel history, health status and information about contact with individuals known to be infected. You must also provide a valid Google account2 — which requests a cellphone number as part of its account creation process — so your health data can be merged and you can be properly tracked through your cell phone.

For now, only those with high risk scores will be allowed to get tested.3 As reported by The Seattle Times:4

“The U.S. government is in active talks with Facebook, Google and a wide array of tech companies and health experts about how they can use location data gleaned from Americans’ phones to combat the novel coronavirus, including tracking whether people are keeping one another at safe distances to stem the outbreak …

The early, unprecedented collaboration between Washington and Silicon Valley reflects the urgent, nationwide scramble to stop a deadly malady that has shuttered businesses, skewered the stock market, sent students home from school and now threatens to overwhelm the U.S. medical system with patients in need of critical care.”

According to The Seattle Times,5 “dozens of engineers, executives and epidemiologists” are also urging Apple and Google to use their data-gathering expertise to “help doctors determine people who were in contact with a patient that later tested positive for coronavirus.”…

Be seeing you

Witze über die STASI – Die STASI

 

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