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Posts Tagged ‘coronavirus’

REVEALED: U.S. government gave $3.7million grant to Wuhan lab at center of coronavirus leak scrutiny that was performing experiments on bats from the caves where the disease is believed to have originated

Posted by M. C. on April 13, 2020

Fauc’ is a Chooch.

US Congressman Matt Gaetz said: ‘I’m disgusted to learn that for years the US government has been funding dangerous and cruel animal experiments at the Wuhan Institute, which may have contributed to the global spread of coronavirus, and research at other labs in China that have virtually no oversight from US authorities.’

Fauci scolds Trump for not acting quickly enough when he and the CDC, NIH and NIAID had the information on a silver platter and either were:

Incompetent or

Too lazy to care or

Following the plan

Didn’t the US government have a hand in Plum Island (Lyme disease outbreak) and Kenema hospital (Ebola outbreak)?

The US seems negligent in following through regarding the selling of lab animals to the wet market.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211291/U-S-government-gave-3-7million-grant-Wuhan-lab-experimented-coronavirus-source-bats.html

By Frances Mulraney and Glenn Owen For The Mail On Sunday

  • The US National Institutes of Health, a government agency, awarded a $3.7million research grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology
  • The lab is the center of several conspiracy theories that suggest it is the original source of the coronavirus outbreak
  • The institute experimented on bats from the source of the coronavirus
  • They were captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan
  • Sequencing of the Covid-19 genome has traced it to bats to Yunnan’s caves
  • The U.S. government funded research on coronavirus transmission in the lab over the past decade
  • Learn more about how to help people impacted by COVID

The Chinese laboratory at the center of scrutiny over a potential coronavirus leak has been using U.S. government money to carry out research on bats from the caves which scientists believe are the original source of the deadly outbreak.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology undertook coronavirus experiments on mammals captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan which were funded by a $3.7 million grant from the US government.

Sequencing of the COVID-19 genome has traced it back to bats found in Yunnan caves but it was first thought to have transferred to humans at an animal market in Wuhan.

The revelation that the Wuhan Institute was experimenting on bats from the area already known to be the source of COVID-19 – and doing so with American money – has sparked further fears that the lab, and not the market, is the original outbreak source.

Lawmakers and pressure groups were quick to hit out at U.S. funding being provided for the ‘dangerous and cruel animal experiments at the Wuhan Institute’.

A laboratory at the center of scrutiny over the coronavirus pandemic has been carrying out research on bats from the cave which scientists believe is the original source of the outbreak

A laboratory at the center of scrutiny over the coronavirus pandemic has been carrying out research on bats from the cave which scientists believe is the original source of the outbreak

Workers are seen next to a cage with mice inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan. It has been revealed that the lab also carried out research on bats from the source location of COVID-19

Workers are seen next to a cage with mice inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan. It has been revealed that the lab also carried out research on bats from the source location of COVID-19

The institute is located only 20 miles from the food market where it was originally believed that the outbreak began. Experts continue to say the virus was transmitted from animal to human and was not lab engineered in China as some conspiracy theories have claimed

The institute is located only 20 miles from the food market where it was originally believed that the outbreak began. Experts continue to say the virus was transmitted from animal to human and was not lab engineered in China as some conspiracy theories have claimed.

US Congressman Matt Gaetz said: ‘I’m disgusted to learn that for years the US government has been funding dangerous and cruel animal experiments at the Wuhan Institute, which may have contributed to the global spread of coronavirus, and research at other labs in China that have virtually no oversight from US authorities.’

On Saturday, Anthony Bellotti, president of the US pressure group White Coat Waste, condemned his government for spending tax dollars in China, adding: ‘Animals infected with viruses or otherwise sickened and abused in Chinese labs reportedly may be sold to wet markets for consumption once experiments are done.’…

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Coronavirus Hysteria and Big Conservatism: Corona Cons, the Dead Party – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 11, 2020

The Big Con has failed to bring to the public’s attention that no more than a month or so ago, Dr. Fauci revealed a very different face when he didn’t have remotely as large an audience (i.e. remotely as many people to scare).

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/jack-kerwick/coronavirus-hysteria-and-big-conservatism-corona-cons-the-dead-party/

By

This [Northern Conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation.

“What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn.

“American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted?

“Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip.”

                                                                                                                              –Robert Lewis Dabney

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Dabney’s characterization from a century ago of “Northern conservatism” remains unsurpassed in both eloquence and accuracy as a description of that contemporary phenomenon that styles itself, “conservatism.”

This is what I refer to as Big Conservatism, the Big Con, or the Conservative-Industrial-Complex.

A curious, or perhaps not so curious, thing that has unfolded before our eyes during The Great Panic of 2020 is the readiness with which the Big Con has labored indefatigably to exacerbate it.

Indeed, Fox News and The New York Post are indistinguishable from CNN, MSNBC, and The Washington Post in their breathtaking, hyper-sensationalized coverage of…The Virus.

The Big Con, in other words, has been every bit as much a purveyor of Fake News and fear as has their leftist counterparts.

As of this writing, April 8, 2020, some in the Big Con have begun—even if, like the prisoner in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave who, with no small measure of reluctance, breaks free of his bonds to ascend into the blinding light of the sun—slowly, carefully note holes in the official narrative on The Virus.

Still, though, those in the Big Con who have gotten just this far are in a minority.  The Big Con will not dare say anything so much as remotely critical of Dr. Fauci, for example, or Dr. Birx. Hell, for that matter, I don’t recall them uttering a negative syllable even about Andrew Cuomo.

The Big Con, however, is behaving now as it always does: In order to maintain the illusion that it represents an opposition party to that of the left, it seeks to quarrel with the latter over differences in degree—never differences in kind.

Examples:

Race and “Racism” Read the rest of this entry »

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What Governors Can Do | Mises Institute

Posted by M. C. on April 10, 2020

The bad press is already started regarding Sweden. How they make out will be interesting.

Too bad it will be years before reliable information will be leaked.

To my Pennsylvania comrades-don’t expect relief anytime soon.

https://mises.org/power-market/what-governors-can-do

Jeff Deist

Which state has the courage to become the Sweden of the US, and take a different (read: better, freer) approach to coronavirus?

As of yesterday, five US states remain at least reasonably “open” in terms of their implemented measures to fight the pandemic. Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota have no state orders in place closing businesses and forcing residents to stay home, while Iowa and North Dakota shut down “nonessential” businesses but have not issued stay-at-home orders.

Three states, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Utah, have partial lockdowns in place.

The other forty-two states have varying orders in place, and some regions such as the San Francisco Bay area have issued their own stricter shutdown policies. Population-wise, nearly 95 percent of all Americans today live under some kind of restrictions on movement and business, decreed either statewide or by counties and cities.

There is a tremendous opportunity here for state and local politicians to distinguish themselves. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem in particular has been steadfast in resisting political pressure to order a statewide lockdown, and surely most Americans readily understand how sparsely populated Western states might approach a pandemic very differently than big urban cities.

What should that approach look like? Here are some broad brushstrokes:

  • First, one brave governor (or county supervisor, mayor, etc.) gets the ball rolling by forming an impromptu coalition of states interested in staying open or reopening. Political pressure to go along with other states is strong, and the federal government has a long and sordid history of bullying states into compliance with national edicts using the carrot and the stick. The Trump administration thus far has been surprisingly reluctant to issue a nationwide shutdown, and governors looking for daylight should seize on this. They will need each other to stand against the tide—see, e.g., this broadside, against Noem.
  • Hold a press conference to announce the coalition, pick a marketable name for the effort (something like “South Dakota—Open for Business!”), and hold weekly calls open to media. Discuss conditions, options, and ideas, but make it clear that each state is wholly independent and that decisions are necessarily localized—this is not an interstate compact.
  • Announce guidelines, not orders, to citizens along these lines: people over seventy are strongly encouraged to self-quarantine in a strict manner. Those over fifty who have existing medical vulnerabilities to the virus are encouraged to do the same. Healthy people under fifty are welcome to return to daily activities but are strongly encouraged to wear masks (proven to be effective in several Asian countries). Of course many residents will self-quarantine regardless, and some businesses will choose to shut down regardless, per their individual choices.
  • Reopen government courts, and set a deadline of sixty or ninety days hence for resumption of contract enforcement (including evictions). Ask the state bar association to set up statewide centers for landlords and tenants to meet and renegotiate—using realistic numbers—rental agreements. Hard-line landlords can go to court, and hard-line tenants can refuse payment, but evictions benefit neither party in the immediate term.
  • In stages, reopen public schools and universities based on local conditions. Hold parental votes online to determine whether each school district will continue online classes or revert to physical attendance.
  • Announce that restaurants, bars, and retail outlets are open as usual, with the strong caveat that provable cases of virus transmittal will be heard in state courts under a broad doctrine of premises liability. This will encourage the kind of measures by owners that have been seen in Taiwan and Singapore, ranging from using digital thermometers at store entrances to relentless scrubbing of surfaces in restaurants.
  • Immediately bid out a statewide insurance claims facility for coronavirus deaths so that in worst case scenarios families will be compensated for loss of loved ones. Insist that payments are retroactive to cover deaths prior to the bid, and use the model of airlines after crashes (quick payouts, little paperwork, claims personnel with good bedside manner). Payouts of $1 million would not be impossible to insure against in low-population states, where deaths likely will remain well under five thousand. Insurers themselves can go to the reinsurance markets, and insurance companies would have every incentive to test, treat, and take measures necessary to keep citizens alive. They would become de facto partners when it comes to securing medical equipment, hospital beds, and personnel. Insurance companies also would have a strong incentive, unlike politicians, to determine what constitutes death “from” the virus as opposed to death with the virus simply present in the body. Use bond revenue (discussed below) to cover premiums.
  • Immediately bid out to pharmaceutical companies for a supply of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and other promising drugs. Eliminate unnecessary state restrictions on prescribing and dispensing such drugs, and consider making them available over the counter until infections subside. Distribute them widely across the state, and charge break-even (cheap) prices for generic versions.
  • Issue state bonds for sale to private equity investors, hedge funds, foundations, and individuals. Take a deep breath, and secure them with real estate owned by the state—make government, rather than taxpayers, sacrifice for once! Price them aggressively, with higher than market rates of interest (but not junk bond rates). Make these bonds nontaxable by the issuing state itself, both with respect to income and capital gains. Use the funds to provide insurance, medical equipment, hospital capacity, testing centers, and protective gear as needed.
  • Encourage regional airlines, or major airlines serving the state, to relocate aircraft there and resume “domestic” flights (and/or flights between “open” states).

None of these ideas is particularly difficult to implement per se, but do any governors have the political will to do so? They should if they take an honest look at the landscape of a country that is coming unglued. Every day there is less and less to lose by trying something different. In a crisis, bold usually wins. So the choice at present appears to be bold freedom or bold tyranny.

Americans are reconsidering federalism and even nullification in an era of intensely polarized anti-Trump sentiment. The Left argues for soft secession in the form of “Bluexit” from the hated red states; conservatives such as Angelo Codevilla call for strategic defiance of the feds in what he terms a “Cold Civil War.” Golden State governor Gavin Newsome even recently referred to California as a “nation-state,” and why not? With 40 million people, a huge economy, tourism, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, ports and coastlines, and major universities, not to mention beaches, deserts, and mountains, the state easily could be an independent nation.

We were already in uncharted territory, but the coronavirus truly laid bare the deep and intolerable political divisions wracking our country. Governor Noem and others could begin the healing process now, literally and figuratively, by showing us a way forward without DC. The virus could be the catalyst for a new map of America.

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Trump and Pelosi Ready to Spend Another $2 Trillion on Infrastructure

Posted by M. C. on April 7, 2020

Sadly, a large quantity of Americans seem eager to take the fast lane on this road to serfdom, even as the economic and civil liberties restrictions pile up under the guise of a public health emergency.

https://www.theadvocates.org/2020/04/trump-and-pelosi-ready-to-spend-another-2-trillion-on-infrastructure/

Who says there’s not enough bipartisanship in Washington? President Donald Trump is praising House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and urging Congress to follow her lead by passing yet another $2 trillion coronavirus bill that would “invest” in infrastructure.

privacy coronavirus south korea 

What a sight to behold, a country in crisis inspires its leaders to come together for the common good. Even better, by forcing more debt and inflation on Americans, the economy can finally get roaring again!

That demented logic prevails in Washington, D.C., and the swamp-drainer-in-chief is no exception.

Fresh off signing the most expensive bill in American history, more than twice the cost of FDR’s New Deal, Trump is ready for whatever Pelosi throws at him next, as long as it also costs at least $2 trillion.

On Monday, Pelosi unveiled her wishlist for what she called “Phase 4” of Congress’s response to COVID-19. This fourth bill could very well be bigger than the previous three, setting a new price tag record.

The San Francisco Democrat listed “more direct payments,” “more opportunity for family and medical leave,” and an infrastructure megaproject.

“She wasn’t bad,” Trump tweeted after watching Pelosi’s press conference.

“With interest rates for the United States being at ZERO, this is the time to do our decades long awaited Infrastructure Bill. It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country! Phase 4,” Trump wrote, adopting Pelosi’s term for the forthcoming proposal.

Sadly, a large quantity of Americans seem eager to take the fast lane on this road to serfdom, even as the economic and civil liberties restrictions pile up under the guise of a public health emergency.

Economist Peter Schiff, who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, has been sounding the alarm that another crash is imminent since the Federal Reserve dropped interest rates to zero, promising to monetize debt without restraint or limit.

“President @realDonaldTrump thinks it’s the perfect time for the government to borrow trillions more to improve our infrastructure. That’s like a guy who just lost his job deciding it’s the perfect time to take out a second mortgage to put in the swimming pool he’s always wanted,” Schiff tweeted.

To extend the analogy, Trump is gaining support for the project by promising the biggest pool party ever. All politicians and special interests are invited.

There is no opposition to this profligate spending. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell just wants to wait “a few weeks” to see how the other $2.2 trillion stimulus bill plays out first.

It doesn’t actually matter what happens in a few weeks though. When government policies go horribly wrong, a bureaucrat knows that just means the policy wasn’t enacted with enough gusto.

The coronavirus pandemic remains the sole focus of the country to the detriment of the people. Worse than the disease is the government’s cure.

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Modern Medicine Knew of the Zinc Cure for Coronavirus Infections a Decade Ago, But Failed To Put It Into Practice – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 7, 2020

Zinc Vitamins A, C, D. I take them. I am conservative with metals and Vit A. Liberal with C & D.

I am not a doctor. This is what I do, not a recommendation for you.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/no_author/modern-medicine-knew-of-zinc-cure-for-coronavirus-infections-a-decade-ago-but-failed-to-put-into-practice/

By Bill Sardi

The long-standing bias against natural over patentable synthetic molecules in the practice of medicine has now resulted in the avoidable premature death of thousands of the most vulnerable individuals and the abrupt and near-complete economic collapse of modern society due to an unwarranted over-response by health authorities, political overseers and sensationalist news media.

The narrow and archaic vaccine-only paradigm to treat infectious diseases has left human populations vulnerable to a highly transmissible and potentially pathogenic virus with no approved drugs or vaccines in place.

Unprepared public health authorities should all have resigned by now. Instead, they wield unelected power as they mandate countermeasures such as indoor quarantine that will further deprive the sunlight-deprived masses in the northern hemisphere of the natural vitamin D needed to prevent this seasonal infectious disease.

The power hungry must produce deaths to spread the fear needed to extend control over the planet’s human populations. What looms is a decree for universal vaccination before the multitudes are permitted to return to normal life. The supposition is that only health authorities know what is best for 7 billion hostages presumed to be medically ignorant.

This unprecedented man-made chaos could have been avoided by putting into practice a remedy described nearly a decade ago.

In 2010 a collaboration of university-based researchers in The Netherlands and the USA reported that the combination of the trace mineral zinc plus a zinc transport molecule (ionophore) that facilitates zinc’s entry into cells efficiently impairs the replication of RNA viruses, like the newly mutated COVID-19 coronavirus, to effect a cure.

The discovery is documented in PLoS Pathogens journal, Volume 6, issue 11, November 2010.

This prior discovery appears to validate the recent report of Vladimir Zelenko MD, a New York-based physician who treated 699 consecutive cases of COVID-19 coronavirus with complete 100% success.  His treatment protocol includes oral zinc, chloroquine as a zinc ionophore and an antibiotic (azithromycin).

Chloroquine initially ridiculed

Chloroquine received early push-back by political antagonists of the President of the United States who initially endorsed it, which was met with ridicule and scorn, even in scientific publications as well as from Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Infectious Disease.  But then an international poll showed 37% of 6227 doctors rated this zinc-enhancing drug, mostly used to treat malaria, as the “most effective therapy” for treatment for coronavirus.

Alerting the public

This journalist was among the first to make the public aware chloroquine is a zinc ionophore.  It became evident that virtually all of the symptoms of COVID-19 coronavirus infection, as noted by an emergency room physician, correlated with those produced by zinc deficiency, a report that via the internet was spread globally.  The masses were beginning learn this calamity could be avoided without the aid of public health agencies.

Wider application

Zinc + ionophore was found to abolish RNA coronaviruses at very low concentration in a lab dish, meaning treatment leading to a cure is achievable in humans.  In a lab dish the halt of viral replication was found to occur within minutes.

This zinc + ionophore approach was successfully tested on the deadly SARS-coronavirus that struck human populations in Asia in 2003-2004 and was also found to be effective against coxsackievirus, foot-and-mouth disease, and rhinoviruses (cold viruses).

In the present COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic the zinc + ionophore combination could have been employed in a targeted fashion for high-risk groups (elderly, diabetics, smokers, alcohol abusers, immune suppressant and illicit-drug users) as prevention and for curative purposes among patients with severe lung disease.

The family of RNA viruses also includes poliovirus and influenza virus.  In other words, zinc therapy would also simultaneously address the seasonal flu viruses also in circulation, something public health authorities strangely paid no attention to this flu season.

Effectiveness of zinc along or with ionophore Read the rest of this entry »

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The Things You CANNOT Say About Coronavirus

Posted by M. C. on April 6, 2020

This is a very bad situation but…

don’t take any statistics at face value. It will take months or maybe years before anything close to accuracy is available.

Consider that Italy is bankrupt and the EU periodically threatens to shut off the euros if Italy doesn’t do as is told.

The more casualties the more the euros and free stuff will flow.

Sad to say, there is money to be made…and not just in Italy.

and…if you don’t know many caught C and didn’t go to the doctor because of mild or no symptoms, you DO NOT KNOW rates.

https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/03/the-things-you-cannot-say-about-coronavirus/

James Corbett

…But there’s some problems with those numbers. As Prof Walter Ricciardi—scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health—recently revealed, “The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.”

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Social Engineering - Lamar University

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Coronavirus Being Used to Scare You Away From Using Cash | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on April 4, 2020

Being bound to computers for transactions kicks the door wide open to hardcore surveillance of personal activity and location data. Being eternally on the grid means relentless taxation and negative interest rates, which the Federal Reserve is already gearing up for.

None of this bothers the well-heeled boosters of a cashless society or their lackeys in the media. They want Americans reading about the threat of coronavirus cooties on their cash, which is absurd.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/coronavirus-being-used-to-scare-you-away-from-using-cash/

by

Cash has been the target of the banking and financial elites for years. Now, the coronavirus pandemic is being used to frighten the masses into accepting a cashless society. That would mean the death of what’s left of our free society.

CBS NewsCNN, and other mainstream outlets are fearmongering again. Alarmism is nothing new in the media world, but this time, it’s not about triggering panic buying or even pushing a political agenda.

The war on cash is about imposing a new meta-narrative. As economist Joseph Salerno explains, the cashless society forces all payments to be made through the financial system. It doesn’t end with monopoly control over transactions, though.

Being bound to computers for transactions kicks the door wide open to hardcore surveillance of personal activity and location data. Being eternally on the grid means relentless taxation and negative interest rates, which the Federal Reserve is already gearing up for.

None of this bothers the well-heeled boosters of a cashless society or their lackeys in the media. They want Americans reading about the threat of coronavirus cooties on their cash, which is absurd.

Germs, of course, can loiter all over credit and debit cards, smartphones, ATMs, and every other cash alternative device. Too bad implanted microchip technology isn’t further along, the banksters must be thinking.

In another CNN article, readers are practically shamed for withdrawing cash to save during a crisis. Every sentence, every word, every letter of the article is nuts.

It begins by reassuring the reader that their bank account is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). There’s no mention of moral hazard from CNN. The fact that the federal government guarantees every bank account up to $250,000 encourages reckless financial and banking behavior. Not worth mentioning, CNN?

Prior to the end of World War II, there were $500, $1,000, and $10,000 bills in wide circulation. This cash was dissolved by the Federal Reserve in the name of fighting organized crime. This same argument is now being made against $50 and $100 bills by Harvard economics professor Kenneth Rogoff.

In the Wall Street Journal, Rogoff also wrote that a cashless society would offer such benefits as “greater flexibility for the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy when necessary.”

He wrote those words in 2017. And these too:

“The Federal Reserve should be able to implement negative nominal interest rates vastly more effectively in the absence of large bills, which could prove quite important as a stimulative tool in the next financial crisis.”

Prophetic. And indeed, negative interest rates would require the assistance of outlawing cash, so that banking customers don’t cheat by simply drawing out on their accounts.

Pardon the pun, but it’s absolutely sick how COVID-19 is being used now as a launching pad for this cashless agenda. There’s nothing to fear about using cash during this time of social distancing.

Wash your hands after handling cash, but don’t give up your moolah. Preserve your health, your privacy, and your liberty.

Reprinted from The Advocates for Self-Government.

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Extension of full-spectrum dominance: Why you should be ...

 

 

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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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Preventing Liberty from Becoming a Coronavirus Fatality – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on April 1, 2020

Given the historical record of how previous emergencies spawned corrosive policies that continue to menace basic freedoms years or decades later, it is urgent to seek effective curbs on the growing abuses of power in the current crisis.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/preventing-liberty-from-becoming-a-coronavirus-fatality/

by

Public attitudes about the coronavirus outbreak increasingly exhibit features of a collective panic. That development creates the danger that government measures designed to deal with a very real public health problem may lead to enormous collateral damage both to the economy and the freedoms that Americans take for granted.

Given the historical record of how previous emergencies spawned corrosive policies that continue to menace basic freedoms years or decades later, it is urgent to seek effective curbs on the growing abuses of power in the current crisis. We must resist being stampeded into endorsing whatever policies self-interested officials insist are necessary.
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Governments at all levels have taken ever more extreme (even outrageous) actions in an effort to stem the outbreak. The governors of New York, California, and other states have issued orders closing most private businesses and requiring residents not engaged in “essential” activities to remain in their homes.  Nevada’s governor greatly restricted doctors from prescribing an anti-malaria drug that Trump administration experts suggested held promise for treating coronavirus, because in the governor’s opinion, such prescriptions might lead to hoarding.  U.S. Justice Department officials secretly asked Congress to give the executive branch the authority to seek orders from federal judges to detain indefinitely any individual during the current emergency or any future one.

Although appalling, such attempted eviscerations of constitutional liberties should not be surprising.  Governments invariably exploit crises to expand their powers—often to a dangerous degree. That certainly has been the track record in the United States throughout our history.  Worse, a significant residue of expanded powers always persists after the crisis recedes and life supposedly returns to normal.

Most, but not all, of the abuses and unhealthy expansions of power have occurred during wartime. World War I led to statutes and executive orders that still haunt us more than a century later.  For example, various administrations have used the Espionage Act of 1917 to punish whistleblowers and intimidate investigative journalists. Barack Obama’s administration even waged a campaign to harass and intimidate journalists who published leaked material. Officials conducted electronic surveillance of both New York Times reporter James Risen and Fox News correspondent James Rosen in an effort to identify their sources.  The government named Rosen as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in an espionage case brought against his source.  The administration asserted that it had the right to prosecute Risen, even though it chose not to take that step.

Later presidents used other laws passed during World War I in ways the legislators who enacted them never contemplated.  For example, in August 1971 Richard Nixon declared a national emergency under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 to impose import tariffs, close the gold window for international payments, and establish domestic wage and price controls.

World War II produced additional abuses and dangerous precedents. The most alarming example was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order putting Japanese Americans in “relocation centers” (concentration camps).  In an especially shameful ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of his action.  That decision is not just a matter of academic or historical interest.  Later administrations developed contingency plans along the lines of FDR’s infamous executive order.  In the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, suggestions surfaced that Muslim aliens (and even Muslim-American citizens) should be subjected to internment measures as part of the war on terror.

During the Korean War, President Harry Truman expanded the number and scope of executive orders, further enlarging the power of the presidency—a power surge that already had reached troubling levels under Woodrow Wilson and FDR.  Truman’s most flagrant initiative was his attempt to seize control of the nation’s steel mills as a wartime measure.  Fortunately, on that occasion the Supreme Court fulfilled its constitutional duty and struck down his dangerous executive power grab.

More recently, the policy responses to the 9-11 terrorist attacks included that 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), ostensibly to wage war against Al Qaida and its allies.  However, the AUMF became a veritable blank check for presidents to wage wars anytime, anywhere, for any reasons those presidents deemed appropriate.  Domestically, the response to 9-11 included the so-called Patriot Act and its legendary erosions of the 4th Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the weakening of other substantive and due process rights guaranteed in the Constitution.  That measure was a crucial building block in the growth of the current pervasive surveillance state.

Wars and other “national emergencies” produced an array of lesser, but still undesirable, expansions of governmental power and the narrowing of individual rights.  For example, the federal government’s response to the economic and financial dislocations of the Great Depression included Roosevelt’s executive order banning the private ownership of gold.  That annoying limitation continued until the mid-1970s.

The historical record also demonstrates that “temporary” measures enacted to deal with a specific crisis frequently prove to be anything but temporary.  One insidiously corrosive “temporary” change was the establishment of the withholding provision to the federal income tax during World War II.  That temporary measure is still with us, and the effect has been revolutionary.  Paying the tax in installments that show up as nothing more than an entry on an employee’s paycheck stub disguises the extent of the actual tax burden on that individual and reduces the emotional impact.

The fundamental lesson from these historical episodes is that Americans need to resist the casual expansion of arbitrary governmental power in response to the current coronavirus crisis.  New local and state governmental assaults on civil liberties came early and already are disturbingly plentiful. In early March, authorities around the United States ordered schools to close and ether prohibited large-scale public events or pressured the sponsors to take such action.  A growing number of jurisdictions soon went further. San Francisco ordered residents to “shelter in place,” barring them from engaging in any “nonessential” activity outside their own homes.  All of this occurred before California Governor Gavin Newsom and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo set a new, even more intrusive pattern by ordering statewide lockdowns.

Beyond the trampling of property rights and other crucial liberties, the coronavirus episode has led to worrisome erosions of the democratic political process.  Louisiana and Georgia were the first states to cancel primary elections, citing the danger of contagion among polling place crowds. Other states, including Ohio and Maryland, soon followed

Both the nature and scope of the expanding restrictions should alarm all defenders of liberty.  In mid-March, North Carolina went beyond shutting down individual enterprises or even types of businesses; authorities there placed most of the Outer Banks off limits to tourists and other outsiders.  Police established checkpoints to examine identifications and required special permits for access.  There is more than a small echo in that measure of the ubiquitous police or military checkpoints and “show your papers” demands that countries in the old Soviet bloc implemented, and various dictatorships around the world require today. It’s an ominous policy and image.

Sentiments in favor of comprehensive lockdowns to halt the spread of the virus reflect understandable emotions, but panic is always a poor basis for policy decisions.  The economic costs of such radical responses to the coronavirus outbreak are enormous, and the damage to basic liberties ultimately may prove even worse. Ugly, potentially dangerous precedents are being set left and right.  In virtually every case, officials imposed restrictions without any provisions for appeal—or even public comment. Worse, they did not seem to recognize any limits to their power with respect to a health crisis. The steps taken to date go far beyond the longstanding authority of local governments to impose quarantines on individuals or families diagnosed with certain highly contagious diseases.  Entire cities and states are now being put on similar lockdowns, even though the overwhelming majority of residents show no signs of coronavirus

Worries about expansive government diktats and precedents are especially warranted if the coronavirus outbreak is neither unique nor a crisis of short duration.  Originally, there was a pervasive assumption that the emergency would last only a few weeks, and then life in America (as well as other countries) would return to normal.  But in Trump’s March 16 press conference, both the president and his health policy advisers indicated that the outbreak might last until July or August.  Some experts in Britain fear that it could last until spring 2021.

That possibility creates some very serious concerns. There is no realistic way that a complex, inter-connected market economy can operate effectively for an extended period of time with a country—or even major portions of it–on lockdown.  A similar problem arises if the coronavirus does not prove to be a one-time visitor, but resembles influenza outbreaks that ebb and flow each year. In addition to the adverse economic consequences, forcibly cocooned populations will have every justification to become furious if arbitrary bureaucratic edicts repeatedly uproot their lives.

There is an imperative reason to monitor and curb some of policy precedents being set.  Future overcautious or egotistical public officials will be tempted to impose drastic measures even in response to lesser health or other emergencies.  Government orders closing private businesses fundamentally alter the relationship between individuals and the state in a dangerous fashion. Travel restrictions that confine people to their homes or bar them from specific areas are further cause for alarm.  Such restrictions always have been a hallmark of authoritarian political systems. Likewise, the postponement of elections is unsettling. Giving incumbent officials such authority creates an obvious potential for abuse—especially if the incumbents face the prospect of electoral defeat.  Perhaps worst of all is the possibility of the federal government being able to seek the indefinite detention of people based on nothing more than a Justice Department request and a compliant judge’s order.

Given the historical record of how previous emergencies spawned corrosive policies that continue to menace basic freedoms years or decades later, it is urgent to seek effective curbs on the growing abuses of power in the current crisis. We must resist being stampeded into endorsing whatever policies self-interested officials insist are necessary. Benjamin Franklin observed that “those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  Americans must keep that wise admonition in mind during and after the coronavirus crisis.

Be seeing you

 

 

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The Government Employee Who May Have Saved a Million American Lives, by Ron Unz – The Unz Review

Posted by M. C. on April 1, 2020

But then on Monday, March 16th a miracle occurred. With no prior warning or public discussion, Santa Clara County Public Health Officer Dr. Sarah Cody and her counterparts from five other SF Bay Area counties announced that they had issued a “Shelter in Place” order, their somewhat euphemistic term for a full regional lock-down.

https://www.unz.com/runz/the-government-employee-who-may-have-saved-a-million-american-lives/

Dr. Sarah Cody, Santa Clara County Health Officer

Dr. Sarah Cody. That’s the name of a local government employee probably unknown to almost everyone reading this. Yet I think there’s a good chance that a million or more Americans will owe her their lives. And therein lies a tale…

Last Tuesday President Donald Trump announced that he expected to lift most health restrictions recently imposed due to the Coronavirus epidemic and send the country back to work by Easter, a possibility that shocked and horrified nearly all mainstream health professionals.

No need to worry, I said. I predicted that the exponentially-growing Coronavirus death toll in his home city of New York would have reached such horrifying levels by Easter that his Wall Street friends would persuade him to “pivot” away from such a foolhardy proposal.

At the time I made that prediction, Coronavirus deaths in New York were running at around 50 per day, and they soon jumped to 140 per day, then reached 209 in a 24-hour period by Saturday. Wall Street Wizards are quite familiar with exponential growth, the fundamental basis of compound-interest, and presumably they began to notice what was happening outside their own windows. So on Saturday, Trump announced that rather than any relaxation, he was instead considering an unprecedented federal quarantine of the entire State of New York as well as adjoining parts of of New Jersey and Connecticut, though he later backed down under fierce pressure. Just five days had made all the difference in the world.

The unimaginable human disaster now facing our country has several obvious roots. Our oceans had protected our home front from any attack during the two world wars while modern medicine had rendered disease epidemics a fading memory for three generations. Our arrogant and incompetent national leadership simply could not comprehend the possibility that their missteps might actually kill hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans. Moreover, our mainstream media was equally oblivious, and even if they had sounded the alarm, they had hysterically cried wolf so many times about so many ridiculous things that nobody would have taken them seriously.

But an important contributing factor is surely the inability of most individuals to grasp the unusual dynamics of an exponentially-growing process. In such a situation, seemingly insignificant delays can have enormous consequences.

Let us consider a very simple example in which two similar cities each happen to have 1,000 Coronavirus infections, with a doubling-period of 3 days.

Suppose that the first city immediately implements a complete lock-down, thereby drastically reducing the spread of the disease, and then uses that window of opportunity to track down and temporarily quarantine all the infected. Assuming a 1% death rate, 10 total fatalities will result.

Now suppose the second city takes exactly the same approach, but merely delays implementing the policy for a single week. During that lost week, the number of infected will grow to 5,000, and the resulting five-fold increase in cases requiring hospitalization may overwhelm the local health care system, thereby increasing the death rate to 5%. The result is 250 fatalities. So the delay of a single week has increased the death toll by a factor of 25.

I live in Palo Alto, and every now and then I see a squirrel wander into the middle of a street, then remain frozen in fear as an approaching car bears down upon him. Almost invariably, the squirrel leaps away to the nearby pavement at the last moment, saving its life. But occasionally I have noticed the remains of a youthful squirrel who did not react in time.

For a month or two, our national government and its top health officials seemed similarly paralyzed with horror as they began to recognize the oncoming locomotive of a deadly disease rapidly approaching them. But during this crucial period, they did little or nothing and vast numbers of Americans may die as a consequence.

The Coronavirus is extremely contagious and once it has significantly established itself within a community, the only effective means of halting the rapid spread is through a full social lock-down. This approach had been especially necessary in America, given our woeful lack of adequate testing capabilities.

China completely locked down and quarantined the city of Wuhan at a point when only 300 detected infections and 17 deaths had occurred, thereby strictly confining all 11 million residents to their homes. Not long afterward, similar measures were applied to the 60 million residents of the surrounding province of Hubei, and later extended to include some 700 million Chinese across the country, a medical quarantine perhaps a thousand times larger than any such previous effort in human history.

These remarkable Chinese actions shocked and astonished many observers around the world, certainly including myself. But they succeeded brilliantly, and China seems to have almost entirely stamped out the deadly disease at the final cost of just a few thousand deaths. Millions perhaps even tens of millions of Chinese owe their lives to the decisiveness of their bold and courageous national leadership.

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