Note from Justin: In a shocking turn of events, it seems that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has quietly stopped collecting adverse event reports on their V-safe website. This website, which was actively gathering safety data for COVID-19 vaccines, abruptly stopped collecting data on June 30, 2023, leaving many to wonder why. The CDC now directs users to the FDA’s VAERS website for adverse event reporting, even though they had previously dismissed VAERS as “passive” and “unverified.” This decision raises troubling questions about the safety of mRNA Covid-19 injections and why the CDC would choose to stop monitoring adverse events for such a new and potentially risky technology.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) V-safe website quietly stopped collecting adverse event reports with no reason or explanation. The V-safe website simply states: “Thank you for your participation. Data collection for COVID-19 vaccines concluded on June 30, 2023.” If you go there today, V-safe directs users to the FDA’s VAERS website for adverse event reporting, even though officials continually derided VAERS as “passive” and “unverified.”
VAERS and V-safe are mutually exclusive safety collection databases operated by the FDA and CDC, respectively. VAERS is an older way of collecting safety data where one can fill out a form online, or manually, or by calling a toll-free number, whereas V-safe is a device “app” which requires online registration. Both VAERS and V-safe collect personal information, lot numbers, dates and associated information, but V-safe was an active collection system geared towards a younger app-using demographic.
Here is the last report before deletion.
Does this mean that the CDC believes that the mRNA Covid-19 injections are so safe, there is no need to monitor adverse event reports any longer? What is the argument against continued monitoring, especially since the V-safe website was already up and paid for?
While CDC’s V-safe was stealthily and abruptly turned off, refusing to accept new safety reports, to this very day the CDC continues to urge everyone ages 6 months and older to stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters.
As a drug safety expert, I personally can’t cite another example of any agency or manufacturer halting collection of safety data. It seems even worse because mRNA technology is relatively new with long-term manifestations unknown. On top of this, both manufacturers and the FDA refuse to sharethe list of ingredients, such as lipid nanoparticles, which could affect individuals differently and take a long time to manifest clinically.
CNN has a new article out titled “Newly declassified US intel claims Russia is laundering propaganda through unwitting Westerners,” and it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect if you’ve been critically observing the western mass media over the last several years. An anonymous source making vague and unevidenced claims of an unverifiable nature about a longtime target of the US intelligence cartel, based solely on information provided by that same intelligence cartel.
CNN’s Kate Bo Lillis reports:
“US intelligence agencies believe that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is attempting to influence public policy and public opinion in the West by directing Russian civilians to build relationships with influential US and Western individuals and then disseminate narratives that support Kremlin objectives, obscuring the FSB’s role through layers of ostensibly independent actors.
“‘These influence operations are designed to be deliberately small scale, the overall goal being US [and] Western persons presenting these ideas, seemingly organic,’ a US official authorized to discuss the material told CNN. ‘The co-optee influence operations are built primarily on personal relationships … they build trust with them and then they can leverage that to covertly push the FSB’s agenda.’”
“But the official stressed that the Western voices that eventually became mouthpieces for Russian propaganda were almost certainly unaware of the role they were playing,” CNN adds.
CNN exists to provide US intelligence with a vehicle for laundering its propaganda. Its top hosts enthusiastically manipulate the American public on behalf of their handlers in Langley, Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon. This is pure projection. https://t.co/TDQORPvyyo
As usual, there is no way to prove or disprove these extremely vague claims about “small scale” actions supposedly being orchestrated by a foreign intelligence agency to create mouthpieces for Russian propaganda who don’t know they’re mouthpieces for Russian propaganda. We’re meant to simply take the word of an anonymous US official citing unsubstantiated assertions by US intelligence agencies.
And it brings up a few questions.
Firstly, what precisely are we meant to do with this very vague information about this very broad supposed trend? It kind of seems like we’re meant to just generally feel more paranoid and suspicious about anyone who isn’t toeing the official western line on issues pertaining to Russia. Whose interests would that serve? Would it perhaps serve the information interests of the US empire, which the US intelligence cartel exists to promote?
Secondly, if the US intelligence cartel believes this very broad, vague threat exists, why not just tell us themselves? Why not just issue some public statements from named officials, instead of funneling it through the news media disguised as a news story? What a weird charade.
These words were the opening statement of a White House executive order by Joe Biden to save economic freedom in theory by limiting it in reality through government intervention.
Government rules and regulations bear heavy costs on businesses in many ways. For example, many states require companies to purchase workers’ compensation insurance even if the business is one employee (the owner) and he pays himself almost nothing. Instead of benefiting the new business, government helps subsidize the larger businesses. Likewise, some areas charge businesses license fees for the privilege of working out of their homes. As the lists and requirements go on, so do the costs and the time to make sure you are in compliance. And if something is out of order, more capital resources are wasted through fines, and time dealing with these issues is time spent away from running the business.
“A fair, open, and competitive marketplace has long been a cornerstone of the American economy, while excessive market concentration threatens basic economic liberties, democratic accountability, and the welfare of workers, farmers, small businesses, startups, and consumers.”
These words were the opening statement of a White House executive order by Joe Biden to save economic freedom in theory by limiting it in reality through government intervention. Biden is right that competition is the cornerstone to a prosperous economy, but the best way to promote competition is less regulation instead of more of it. When business decisions are up to bureaucrats instead of actual business owners accountable to their customer base, it’s the consumer who will lose the most.
Inefficiency of Efficiency as a Policy
Two of the most successful businesses in American history are Standard Oil and Walmart. They became that way because they were relentless at being the most efficient in their businesses. As both companies grew, they expanded their operations into new ventures, but these were services and products whose purpose was to support the main business. This is known as vertical integration.
Standard Oil manufactured their own barrels and railroad tanker cars instead of purchasing through a third party because they were able to make a better product for themselves at a lower cost and were able to save overhead on the markup that a supplier would charge.
Walmart created their own distribution network that was exclusive for their store’s use. They used their own trucks and drivers to deliver stock to and from their stores instead of relying on someone else. This efficiency that they created from being their own distributors also had the compounding effect of improving how they managed their inventory, which meant that not only did they have low prices but also always had stock.
These two examples led to both companies overtaking their competition and increasing their market shares for their industries. Standard Oil acquired many of its smaller competitors in the oil refining industry with the results being that many people working at the acquired firms received jobs with Standard Oil, and the price of oil fell during their growth because they passed their efficiencies on to their customers through the lower prices they charged. Today the company is remembered as the original big bad monopoly, but its negative reputation doesn’t match the facts.
Kmart was America’s largest discount chain as Walmart was growing. Walmart not only went on to become number one through their superior business practices, but Kmart today is now practically out of business. That is how things are supposed to work in a free market, but today’s politicians feel like they have the need to regulate this because it’s not fair to the business owners that ended up losing the game, despite making a lot of money as they played it.
Instead, today there would be calls for Walmart to spin off their distribution centers, and we might later find out that those politicians received donations from Kmart. Or there might have been regulators preventing the Standard Oil drums and cars being used because they weren’t from an approved third party. In each of these hypothetical situations, the government would be promoting competition but through fragmentation, and the cost of this would be greater inefficiency, less innovation, and higher prices for consumers.
These regulations were not there to provide “safety” to consumers but rather to keep competition out of the marketplace by fiat. Rothbard states that the only meaningful definition of monopoly is an exclusive legal right granted by the state.
However, if the free-market USDA fails to stop an illness from arising, through their own inspection failures, they may lose their credibility with both consumers and the producers that pay them. Profit and loss provide greater incentives for success than a bureaucracy that theoretically cannot “go under.”
Most students in America are introduced to the writings of Upton Sinclair. While they aren’t shown his incredible cover-up of the Holodomor or his other Soviet apologisms, they are presented with his most famous work: The Jungle. This work tells the tale of Sinclair’s investigation into the wretched working conditions of the meat-packers of its age. Between lost limbs and failed inspections, Sinclair writes about the meat being contaminated and barbarously prepared.
This tale is meant to show the supposed failures of laissez-faire capitalism, with its disregard for workers and health. Readers are supposed to walk away with a firm belief in the need for the regulation of these firms. Hurrah! Here comes the mighty state to provide safety to the masses that would otherwise be made sick by crony corporations. That’s far from the truth.
Murray Rothbard himself documents in The Progressive Era the truth of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulation. Rothbard observed that nearly every inspection passed in any form of legislature or bureaucracy was fueled by protectionism from existing firms. These regulations were not there to provide “safety” to consumers but rather to keep competition out of the marketplace by fiat. Rothbard states that the only meaningful definition of monopoly is an exclusive legal right granted by the state. Perhaps then, the only meaningful definition of so-called monopoly powers is a firm’s ability to push regulation that harms their competition through the state.
Even today, the USDA—and its regulations—threaten to crush small farmers under its heel. A small hobby farm, or even one that simply isn’t a factory farm, can hardly stand up to the regulations.
Meat processing in the United States must be done under the supervision of a USDA inspector if the goal is to sell the animal product to another person. A farmer cannot simply butcher his or her own animal, cut it into the usual meat products, and sell it at a farm stand. That would violate USDA regulations. Regardless of the ability of farmers to inspect and keep their own animals healthy or of their own skill in butchering livestock, they must have a USDA inspector to sell the product on the market.
This inspector is not provided, though, free of charge by the USDA through taxpayer dollars.
When should America deploy its armaments and forces to conflicts around the globe? And how much of the American military intervention abroad is shaped by genuine humanitarian and U.S. interests versus the tangled web of foreign alliances, special interest groups, and defense contractors?
These questions, which have long divided both major political parties, were on display in Milwaukee last night at the first Republican presidential debate as foreign policy loomed as a key point of contention.
Vivek Ramaswamy, as the only candidate directly against any escalation in the Ukraine-Russia war and against any additional U.S. funds, argued that the conflict represented “another no-win war” like the wars in Iraq and Vietnam. The biotech investor favors a quick negotiated end to the fighting and an alliance with Russia to help contain China against any future aggression, as well as a greater focus on domestic issues, such as immigration.
Several candidates, in contrast, bitterly argued that supporting Ukraine is a moralistic necessity.
Mike Pence, a proponent of increased military support to Ukraine, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is a dictator and a murderer, and the United States of America needs to stand against authoritarianism.”
News reports of how Hawaiians greeted Biden’s motorcade in Maui on August 21 with middle fingers and shouts of “F_ _ _ You!” “F_ _ _ You!” was especially appropriate – if not a century or so too late – in light of the history of how Hawaii became a U.S. government possession.
Twenty-two years after the Lincoln regime proclaimed to have saved American government “of the people, for the people, by the people,” by slaughtering nearly half a million fellow citizens in the Southern states, the Republican party of Lincoln disenfranchised the native people of Hawaii with what was known as the “bayonet constitution.” At the time, the American crony capitalists who essentially ran the Republican party (as they had from its inception) wanted Hawaii to be declared an American province under U.S. control (aka, their control). As historian Gregg Jones wrote in Honor in the Dust, Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani attempted to stave off the American crony capitalist imperialists by creating a new constitution. The crony capitalists responded by creating a laughingly named “Committee of Safety” that plotted to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy.
They got the U.S. government to appoint one John Stevens as an “envoy” to Hawaii, whose job was to arrange for American troops to land there, take over, get rid of the Monarchy, and create a puppet government with one of their own as the head of the government. Sound familiar?
A Judge Sanford Dole, whose family had long Puritan/Yankee roots in the state of Maine, was put in place as the new head of government. A paramilitary organization known as the Honolulu Rifles forced the Hawaiian king at gunpoint with the threat of being stabbed to death with bayonets to sign off on a new constitution that came to be known as the “bayonet constitution.” This was “the party of Lincoln” in all its glory, having just two decades earlier forced the Southern states at gunpoint to accept a new constitutional order that essentially destroyed the system of federalism of the founding fathers and replaced it with a consolidated, monopolistic, bureaucratic Leviathan in Washington, D.C. run by “rich men north of Richmond,” as a popular new country music song describes it.
Pope Francis condemns Europeans for not taking in more African Muslim immigrants, but says little about the plight of persecuted African Christians at the hands of Muslims.
Yet, the disembarkation points are located for the most part in Muslim countries. Aren’t Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt in a better position to see to it that only seaworthy ships set sail? Why doesn’t Francis scold them? Well, to put it mildly, it’s not advisable to scold Muslims, or hold them to account. And, as far as I can tell, Francis never has.
Apparently Francis is taking Bush II’s lead. Bush: Never let a good Christian genocide stand in the way of genuflecting to those with oil and pipelines.
For years, sub-Saharan Africans—in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, and numerous other nations—have been victims of sustained persecution and frequent massacres.
And for years, Pope Francis has, on numerous occasions, chastised Europeans for their “indifference” to Africans. Is he concerned about the African Christians who are being slaughtered on a daily basis by Muslims in the name of Allah?
Er, no. Francis has been relatively silent about their plight. One gets the impression that he is—what’s the word?—“indifferent” to their fate.
What are Europeans doing to merit such a strong condemnation from the pope? Are they hunting down Muslims in France just as Muslims hunt Christians in Nigeria? Are they burning down their villages? Murdering them with machetes? Raping their women? Forcing their children to convert to Christianity?
Well, no. Basically, Pope Francis is angry because the Europeans aren’t taking in enough immigrants fast enough. In addition, he seems to think that the immigrants aren’t offered sufficient social services. Yet, European leaders protest that they are doing all they can.
In France, for example, the state provides immigrants with free or highly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, unemployment benefits, and so on. The Netherlands provides a similar array of benefits to immigrants but can’t build housing fast enough to keep up with the flow of new immigrants. As a result, immigrants are now being housed in four-star hotels and on luxurious cruise ships. For example, the city of Rotterdam has chartered the MS Silja Europa, the 10th-largest cruise liner in the world, to accommodate 1500 immigrants.
It’s difficult to square this generous treatment with Pope Francis’ assertion that the treatment of the immigrants is “disgusting, sinful, and criminal”—especially when one considers that immigrants are often given priority over poor and needy Europeans when it comes to housing and welfare benefits.
However, one can sympathize with the pope’s concern over the many immigrants who drown during the perilous crossing from North Africa to Europe’s Southern coast. “They are left to die in front of us,” he says, “making the Mediterranean the largest cemetery in the world.” But European governments do not control the weather in the Mediterranean. Nor do they supply the unseaworthy and overcrowded boats that depart from North Africa. Moreover, European coast guard ships have rescued hundreds if not thousands of immigrants over the years. In addition, cruise ships, merchant ships, and fishing ships have taken part in rescue efforts.
In light of this, Pope Francis’ assertion that “they are left to die in front of us” is more than a little misleading.
And what of Francis himself? Doesn’t he bear some responsibility for the deaths? After all, he is one of the world’s chief proponents of immigration and one of the chief scolds of those who are unwilling to accept a steady stream of immigrants into their countries. He knows that the crossing is dangerous, yet he continues to insist that the crossings must continue and that it is the duty of European countries to somehow guarantee the safety of the immigrants.
Yet, the disembarkation points are located for the most part in Muslim countries. Aren’t Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt in a better position to see to it that only seaworthy ships set sail? Why doesn’t Francis scold them? Well, to put it mildly, it’s not advisable to scold Muslims, or hold them to account. And, as far as I can tell, Francis never has.
Although he criticizes Europeans for their supposed indifference to immigrants, he has nothing to say about the responsibility of the immigrants to obey the laws of their adopted countries.
Let’s stop here for a minute and note that although immigrants come to Western Europe from many places—Poland, Romania, Ukraine, China, Vietnam, India—the single largest bloc of immigrants are Muslims coming from Islamic nations. The former tend to work hard, rely less on welfare, and integrate well into the culture and customs of their new nation. By contrast, the latter (the Muslims) rely heavily on welfare, don’t integrate well, and are disproportionately involved in crime. In France, for instance Muslims make up 70 percent of the prison population. Moreover, the 2015-2016 mass immigration of Muslims into Europe coincided with a massive crime spike, including a number of large-scale massacres.
Pope Francis is surely aware of the connection between Muslim immigration and crime waves in Europe, yet he never speaks of it. Likewise, he has little to say about the persecutions in the sub-Saharan regions of Africa and virtually nothing to say about who is doing the persecuting.
What’s happening in large parts of Africa is difficult to ignore. In July, Muslims killed 37 Christians in Benue State in Nigeria. In June, the AP reported that authorities in Uganda “recovered the bodies of 41 people, including 38 students who were burned, shot, or hacked to death” after an Islamic group with ties to ISIS attacked a secondary school. Francis may think that the Mediterranean is the world’s largest graveyard, but in recent decades far more people have been murdered in Nigeria alone than have perished in the Mediterranean.
Many have referred to the slaughter in Africa as a genocide. Yet Francis manages to avoid the subject of Muslim persecution of Christians both in Africa and elsewhere. The question that arises is “Why?” How can one explain his seeming indifference?
On the contrary, the events in Germany between 1933 and 1943 had shown him that perfectly intelligent people were, under the pressure of political power and propaganda, rendered stupid—that is, incapable of critical reasoning.
In 1943, the Lutheran pastor and member of the German resistance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was arrested and incarcerated in Tegel Prison. There he meditated on the question of why the German people—in spite of their vast education, culture, and intellectual achievements—had fallen so far from reason and morality. He concluded that they, as a people, had been afflicted with collective stupidity (German: Dummheit).
He was not being flippant or sarcastic, and he made it clear that stupidity is not the opposite of native intellect. On the contrary, the events in Germany between 1933 and 1943 had shown him that perfectly intelligent people were, under the pressure of political power and propaganda, rendered stupid—that is, incapable of critical reasoning. As he put it:
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than wickedness. Evil can be protested against, exposed, and, if necessary, it can be prevented by force. Evil always harbors the germ of self-destruction by inducing at least some uneasiness in people. We are defenseless against stupidity. Nothing can be done to oppose it, neither with protests nor with violence. Reasons cannot prevail. Facts that contradict one’s prejudice simply don’t need to be believed, and when they are inescapable, they can simply be brushed aside as meaningless, isolated cases.
In contrast to evil, the stupid person is completely satisfied with himself. When irritated, he becomes dangerous and may even go on the attack. More caution is therefore required when dealing with the stupid than with the wicked. Never try to convince the stupid with reasons; it’s pointless and dangerous.
middle ground fallacy (the correct position between “Drink a gallon of bleach daily for good health” and “Drink zero bleach daily for good health” is not “Drink half a gallon of bleach daily for good health”)
In truth the so-called “centrists” or “moderates” of our world are really violent extremists, because they support the most murderous and tyrannical power structure on our planet, and are only regarded as moderate because they sit in the mid-range of a completely artificially created spectrum.
In reality the assumption that the truth exists anywhere in either of the two mainstream political viewpoints promoted by the managers of the western empire is an example of the bandwagon effect, which describes the cognitive bias in which humans tend to take on beliefs, behaviors, styles and attitudes solely because that’s what the people…
One of the worst mistakes you can make when formulating your understanding of the world is to begin with the assumption that the truest and most accurate position must lie somewhere near the center of the two major political perspectives you see laid out all around you.
It’s a mistake not only because assuming that the center position must be the best one is a type of fallacious reasoning known as the middle ground fallacy (the correct position between “Drink a gallon of bleach daily for good health” and “Drink zero bleach daily for good health” is not “Drink half a gallon of bleach daily for good health”); it’s also a mistake because the entire framing arises from a situation that has been artificially engineered by the powerful.
It’s a well-documented fact that the rich and powerful pour vast fortunes into manipulating the political and media landscape in ways that serve their interests. Their control over the news media and Silicon Valley tech platforms is used to set the agenda and influence public perception by determining what issues will receive attention and which won’t in ways that preserve the political status quo they’ve built their empire upon, thereby shrinking the Overton window of acceptable debate down to a very narrow spectrum whose outcomes can’t threaten their interests in any way.
“Normal human beings – whose brains haven’t been turned to clam chowder by propaganda from either mainstream faction – would much prefer to avoid giant world-threatening confrontations between any nuclear-armed nations.” https://t.co/mUIQO8eLzc
We just discussed this dynamic with regard to US aggressions against Russia and China; the Overton window is being narrowed to a debate between which US enemy should be the target of the most imperial aggressions, with voices who advocate detente with both countries finding no platform in mainstream politics or media. This is what Noam Chomsky was talking about when he said “the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”
People assume there must be truth in the mainstream worldview because so many others are invested in the mainstream worldview, when really the only reason that worldview is mainstream in the first place is because so much wealth and influence has gone into making it mainstream. In reality the assumption that the truth exists anywhere in either of the two mainstream political viewpoints promoted by the managers of the western empire is an example of the bandwagon effect, which describes the cognitive bias in which humans tend to take on beliefs, behaviors, styles and attitudes solely because that’s what the people around them are doing.
This bias would have had evolutionary advantages early on in our development as a species.
MCViewPoint 