Scamdemic - Corona Virus

CDC Quietly Changes the Definition of Vaccination

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by A Political Junkie  via : Viable Opposition

Like many other things during the pandemic, even the most basic premises of science find themselves undergoing what can only be described as the “cancel culture.”

Thanks to the Wayback Machine, let’s look at how the CDC defined “vaccination” prior to September 1, 2021:

Note that prior to September 1, 2021 vaccinations were introduced to “produce immunity”.

Here is the newly minted CDC definition of vaccinations which became effective on September 1, 2021:

Now, vaccinations are introduced to “provide protection”.

Undoubtedly, there seem to be a lot of “coincidences” during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Here is another one that also just happened to take place on September 1, 2021:

As you can see and as I posted here, Israelis who received the two-dose Pfizer BNT162b2 vaccine regimen and who had not previously suffered from COVID-19 (i.e. are SARS-CoV-2 naive) have a far greater chance of experiencing a breakthrough infection with the Delta variant than those who had been infected previously and had not been vaccinated.

This study shows that natural immunity provides a longer-lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 variant than those who had two doses of Pfizer’s BNT162b2 vaccine.

Isn’t it interesting to see how the CDC has changed the definition of vaccination to fit the limitations of at least one of the COVID-19 vaccines?  There’s nothing like cancelling what doesn’t fit the mainstream pandemic .

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The US Economy: Fantasies are Nice, but Reality is Far More Demanding

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Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

A great many essential components in America are on ‘indefinite back order’, including the lifestyle of endless globally sourced goodies at low, low prices.

Setting aside the “transitory inflation” parlor game for a moment, let’s look at what happens when critical parts are unavailable for whatever reason, for example, they’re on back order or indefinite back order, i.e. the supplier has no visibility on when the parts will be available.

If the part that blew out is 0.1% of the entire machine, and the other 99.9% still works perfectly, the entire machine is still dead in the water without that critical component. That is a pretty good definition of systemic vulnerability and fragility, a fragility that becomes much, much worse if there are two or three components which are on indefinite back order.

This is the problem with shipping much of your supply chain overseas: you create extreme systemic vulnerability and fragility even as you rake in big profits from reducing costs. Speaking of costs, let’s look at the costs of having a large, costly, complex mechanism sitting idle in a non-functioning state due to some broken element for which there is no substitute available. Whatever productive capacity the mechanism, process, etc. had is now stuck at zero.

Buying a new replacement is extremely costly, and that’s not always available for all the same reasons that parts and components aren’t available. Finding someone to fabricate a new component is not easy due to the wholesale transfer of manufacturing moxie and capability overseas.

You might be able to find someone to weld a replacement strut, but try finding someone to fab a new bicycle derailleur or better yet, a multilayer semiconductor chip. What about 3-D fabrication? Doesn’t that solve this problem? If the part can be “printed,” yes, but there are limits on what can be 3-D fabbed. You can’t 3-D fab a complex thermostat or controller, for example. You can’t 3-D fab a rubber gasket, either, or a great many other bits of petrochemical-based manufacturing.

Scarcities are not limited to parts and components; skilled people can be scarce, too. For example, there is a limited supply of ICU doctors and nurses. The training required to work in an ICU is specialized and experiential; throwing someone with minimal training in is not a substitution that’s going to work. You can’t order an ICU staff from China or print one digitally the way the Federal Reserve creates currency out of thin air. It takes many years to train the staff to function at a high level in ICU.

A great many such labor scarcities exist for skilled workers who cannot be replaced except by someone with the same training and years of experience. This is one reason ICUs can break down: there is no replacement staff available, and no way to “print more.”

It turns out there’s also a scarcity of people willing to do the dirty-work jobs America needs done for wages that haven’t kept up with inflation. As I have explained here, the $1.65 minimum wage I earned in 1970, if factored for real-world inflation, is around $18 per hour, and arguably closer to $20 per hour.

The solution is to raise the pay to levels that attract workers, but then this requires raising prices on the good and services to the point that customers can no longer afford them.

But wait, can’t we automate all work and deliver full-gee-whiz free-money, no-work communism to everyone? I invite everyone who reckons this is in the realm of the do-able to design, program and manufacture an automated robot that can trundle out to the laundry room, pop open a broken clothes dryer, diagnose the problem, manage to find a new controller board, fit it correctly and properly reconnect all the little wiring bits, close it up, test it, lift the dryer back on the washing machine and do all that for the relatively modest cost of a human repairperson. When you accomplish fabricating and programming that robot to do all the work without instruction or oversight, by all means let us all know how much it cost to design, program and manufacture, what the payback of the development and manufacturing process will cost amortized over the (short) life of the robot and how reliable it is in the real world.

The point is, fantasies are nice but reality is far more demanding.

There can also be scarcities of competence. There may be replacements who claim competence, but when reality intrudes on the shuck-and-jive, their competence was illusory, and the net result is the entire institution can be described by President G.W. Bush’s memorable phrase, this sucker’s going down.

There can also be scarcities of institutional infrastructure and capacity. Once the institution, enterprise, state agency, etc. has been stripmined of redundancy, institutional memory and competence, then the first scarcity that cannot be replaced is the first domino that topples all the other dominoes of systemic vulnerability and fragility.

The Federal Reserve can print trillions of dollars and the federal government can borrow and blow trillions of dollars, but neither can print or borrow supply chains, scarce skills, institutional depth or competence. That nice shiny new semiconductor fab you reckon will resolve the chip shortage? You can print the billions of dollars needed in an instant, but the machinery, expertise and time can’t be conjured quite so easily. That fab is years away from completion no matter how many freshly conjured dollars you throw into the air.

When Critical Parts Are On “Indefinite Back Order,” the Machine Grinds to a Halt: that’s the U.S. economy in a nutshell.

A great many essential components in America are on indefinite back order, including the lifestyle of endless globally sourced goodies at low, low prices.

That lifestyle is out of stock and cannot be replaced with financialization fakery.

Hey, Federal Reserve, can you conjure up a non-corrupt financial system, a domestic supply chain, and an economy of open competition, transparency, accountability and competence? If not, you are even more worthless than we feared.

Scamdemic - Corona Virus

Breaking News! Federal Judge Blocks New York State Health Care Worker Vaccination Mandate

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Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on Tuesday granted an emergency injunction blocking the state of New York from enforcing a new virus vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

Seventeen medical health professionals had asked the court to enjoin enforcement of New York’s mandate that then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Aug. 16. The mandate required staff at hospitals and long-term care facilities such as nursing homes, adult care facilities, and other congregate care settings, be vaccinated for COVID-19 to continue to be employed.

The plaintiffs, including doctors, nurses, a medical technician, and a physician’s liaison, were facing termination, loss of hospital admitting privileges, and the destruction of their careers unless they consent to be vaccinated with vaccines in contradiction of their religious beliefs, the lawsuit argued.

Their religious beliefs compelled the plaintiffs “to refuse vaccination with the available COVID-19 vaccines, all of which employ aborted fetus cell lines in their testing, development, or production,” according to court documents.

The health care employees argued that the vaccine mandate would nullify protections for sincere religious beliefs under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, even though the prior state health order in effect just days earlier had afforded the same protections.

“What New York is attempting to do is slam shut an escape hatch from an unconstitutional vaccine mandate,” attorney Christopher Ferrara, Thomas More Society special counsel, said in a statement before the injunction was granted.

“And they are doing this while knowing that many people have sincere religious objections to vaccines that were tested, developed, or produced with cell lines derived from aborted children.”

Judge David Hurd of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, a Bill Clinton appointee, granted a temporary restraining order the morning of Sept. 14 in the case. The lawsuit was brought against New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D).

“The vaccine mandate is suspended” and the New York Department of Health “is barred from taking any action, disciplinary or otherwise, against the licensure, certification, residency, admitting privileges or other professional status or qualification of any of the plaintiffs on account of their seeking or having obtained a religious exemption from mandatory COVID-19 vaccination,” Hurd’s order states.

Ferrara learned the court injunction was granted while he was being interviewed over the telephone by The Epoch Times.

Asked if he was pleased by the ruling, Ferrara laughed, “Are you kidding me?”

Scamdemic - Corona Virus

Admitted: Nearly Half of ‘COVID Hospitalizations’ Mislabeled

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via The Atlantic

A brand new study is calling into question how reliable and meaningful of a number of “patients hospitalized with Covid-19” in the U.S. is.

Covid hospitalizations – the most common metric heard when discussing the seriousness of the pandemic – may not be nearly as meaningful of a number as many once thought. And don’t take it from us: The Atlantic published a stunning piece on Tuesday citing a new study that suggests “almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases”.

The Atlantic had formerly called Covid hospitalizations “the most reliable pandemic number,” last winter. Now, after a nationwide study of hospitalization records was release, the publication is walking back its fervor on that statement.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School, Tufts Medical Center, and the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System took on the task of trying to figure out how serious Covid cases were in those hospitalized, and how many people counted as Covid hospitalizations were actually in the hospital for Covid, versus getting a Covid test after being admitted for something else.

The study “analyzed the electronic records for nearly 50,000 COVID hospital admissions at the more than 100 VA hospitals across the country,” The Atlantic wrote. It “checked to see whether each patient required supplemental oxygen or had a blood oxygen level below 94 percent” in order to try and determine if cases met the NIH’s threshold for “severe COVID”.

What the study found was that from March 2020 to January 2021, 36% of Covid cases in the hospital were mild or asymptomatic. From January 2021 to June 2021, during the Delta variant’s spread, that number rose all the way to 48%. For vaccinated hospital patients, the number rose to a stunning 57%.

As The Atlantic put it in their own words: “The study suggests that roughly half of all the hospitalized patients showing up on COVID-data dashboards in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason entirely, or had only a mild presentation of disease.”

The limitations of the study obviously included the fact that the VA isn’t representative of the total U.S. population:

Among the limitations of the study is that patients in the VA system are not representative of the U.S. population as a whole, as they include few women and no children. (Still, the new findings echo those from the two pediatric-admissions studies.) Also, like many medical centers, the VA has a policy to test every inpatient for COVID, but this is not a universal practice. Lastly, most of the data—even from the patients admitted in 2021—derive from the phase of the pandemic before Delta became widespread, and it’s possible that the ratios have changed in recent months. The study did run through June 30, however, when the Delta wave was about to break, and it did not find that the proportion of patients with moderate to severe respiratory distress was trending upward at the end of the observation period.

Graham Snyder, the medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, says the study buries the lede of how effective the vaccine is: “It’s underreported how well the vaccine makes your life better, how much less sick you are likely to be, and less sick even if hospitalized. That’s the gem in this study.”

Daniel Griffin, an infectious-disease specialist at Columbia University, concurred: “People ask me, ‘Why am I getting vaccinated if I just end up in the hospital anyway?’ But I say, ‘You’ll end up leaving the hospital.’”

“We should refine the definition of hospitalization,” said Shira Doron, an infectious-disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center and co-author of the study. “Those patients who are there with rather than from COVID don’t belong in the metric.”

What does the study as a whole conclude? Again, in the words of The Atlantic: “…the study also demonstrates that hospitalization rates for COVID, as cited by journalists and policy makers, can be misleading, if not considered carefully.”

On the Road to Serfdom ?

How the ‘War on Terror’ Has Morphed into a ‘War’ Against the West’s Own Populations

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by Neil Clark

is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. His award winning blog can be found at www.neilclark66.blogspot.com.

The obligatory references to ‘freedom and democracy’ from Western leaders to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 seemed particularly hollow this year bearing in mind what is currently being rolled out in the countries they govern.

There was a certain symmetry about the West’s withdrawal from Afghanistan considering it was almost exactly twenty years since the 9-11 attacks and the subsequent US-led invasion. That military intervention marked the start of the ‘War on Terror’. On the grounds that it was ‘sheltering terrorists’ the Taliban was targeted, and then the war machine moved on to Iraq – which we were told had WMDs, and after that Libya and Syria.

The double standards and contradictions were there for all to see. Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, its secular strongman Saddam Hussein was a bulwark against the likes of Al-Qaeda. Ditto Assad in Syria and Gaddafi in Libya.

We all knew these ‘regime change’ wars had more to do with profits than prophets. They were about extending global hegemony and toppling governments which didn’t toe the line and most certainly nothing to do with promoting ‘democracy’ or ‘human rights‘.

Now, with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, we seem to be moving on to a new chapter. One in which the target populations for ’colonisation’ are for once not abroad, but at home.

Consider the way that the countries which invaded Afghanistan – and took part in the other wars mentioned above, under the banner of ‘Freedom and Democracy’, have morphed into authoritarian police states since March 2020, with hard lockdown Australia being the most shocking example.

Stay at home orders. The arrest of people not following the ‘rules’. The quite appalling threat that those who are unvaccinated won’t ever again be able to participate in everyday life – even though we know the new vaccines don’t prevent transmission. People have even been prevented from visiting their seriously ill loved ones in hospital, or hugging bereaved relatives at funerals. Just how inhumane is that?

The bombs may not have been falling on Western populations, as they did on Afghans, Libyans and Iraqis, but nevertheless I don’t think it’s hyperbolic at all to describe what‘s been going on these last 18 months as a kind of war. There’s certainly been relentless psychological warfare, designed to wear us down physically and mentally, with lockdowns and threat of further lockdowns being a key component in the new ‘Project Fear’.

Take what’s just happened in one 24-hour period in Britain as an example. Having threatened us for weeks about mandating vaccine passports for large events from October 1, the Health Secretary Sajid Javid said yesterday that the government would not now be going ahead with the plans. Today though we hear they’re ‘a first-line of defence’ of the government’s plans for the autumn and winter. Remember too the date when the government first announced that vaccine passports were coming. It was July 19, which was meant to be ‘Freedom Day’. We should have been out celebrating that day but instead we were deliberately made to feel worried sick about what lay ahead in the autumn. It’s been like this ever since March last year.

Boris Johnson might be the PM, (and what a rotten one he is too), but the influential behind-the-scenes networker and uber-globalist Tony Blair is the key figure who links the old ‘War on Terror’, with the new war on Western populations and their centuries-old freedoms.

‘The Blair Creature’ , whose Institute has received generous funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, failed in his attempt to introduce inherently anti-British ID cards to Britain when he was prime minister but is now pushing hard – very hard – for vaccine passports. “I think you’re going to the stage where it’s going to be very hard for people to do a lot of normal life unless they can prove their vaccination status,” he declared menacingly earlier this year. And we all know that vaccine passports, if they do come in, won’t end with vaccination status, but morph in time into a full digitalised ID card and a freedom-busting social credit system.

Blair’s not the only link. It’s hard not to notice that the same gatekeepers and narrative managers who have tried to police the debate on the Western-led wars of choice of the last 20 years, have, since 2020 been doing exactly the same on Covid. The pejorative and highly-weaponised terms ‘Anti-vaxxer’ and ‘Covid-denier’ have been used to smear anyone who expresses concern over the disproportionate measures and authoritarian direction of travel, in the same way that ‘Saddam apologist’ was used to decry anyone who questioned whether Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction. Then, as now, the aim was to stop people from speaking out.

The biggest threat we face at present is not more Iraq-style wars of aggression abroad, but the war to destroy our liberties which is going on, right in front of our very eyes, at home – and carried on under the guise of protecting us from coronavirus.

Yet many anti-imperialists seem stuck in an early 2000s time-warp and aren‘t appearing to notice that the same people who promoted the conflicts they rightly opposed have moved on to the next stage of the anti-democratic, globalist agenda. Afghanistan may have been important in 2001, as the gateway to a series of post 9-11 wars, but in 2021, there’s an even bigger operation being undertaken. Namely, implementing the Davos set’s ‘Great Reset’ and all that it entails.

Scamdemic - Corona Virus

A New Wave of Engineered Covid Around the World?

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As opposition to mandates and the so-called “green passports” grows around the world, are we seeing a new assault to break the resistance?

US:

Joe Biden’s plummeting approval ratings and the potential recall of Gavin Newsom are the first salvos to be fired by an electorate that is sick and tired of being treated like an errant toddler by a duplicitous and entitled elite.

“I will use my power as president to get them out of the way.”

The follow up question from the press should be “Excuse me, how will you get ‘them’ out of the way?” This phrase uttered by America’s increasingly authoritarian POTUS perfectly describes the current administration’s approach. The neoliberal power set see themselves as the gatekeepers of the moral high ground.

Opinions regarding the president’s authority or lack thereof were strongly split along party lines, with 54.9% of Democrats agreeing Biden did in fact have the power to order private businesses to demand their employees be vaccinated. Among Republicans, however, 83.5% believed the president was overstepping his authority, and more than two thirds of independents and those with no party affiliation (68.2%) agreed Biden lacked the ability to make such demands.

Similarly, the vast majority of Republicans – 79.5% – believed the vaccine mandate set a dangerous precedent that “could be abused by future presidents on other issues,” an opinion shared by 58% of non-affiliated voters and even 30.4% of Democrats. The majority of those hailing from Biden’s party, however (54.4%), did not believe the mandate would be abused by future leaders.

Biden’s announcement on Thursday regarding the pending vaccine mandate has polarized the nation, with even many fully vaccinated Americans balking at using government muscle to force a controversial medical treatment on unwilling individuals. Several Republican governors have vowed not to enforce the mandate, a show of defiance which won support from 55.1% of the poll’s respondents. Some 40.1% opposed the governors’ efforts to block Biden’s mandates, however. Party affiliation heavily predicted whether one supported or opposed the dissident governors, with the majority of unaffiliated voters (62.3%) also supporting the governors who had vowed to block the mandate.

China:

The Chinese authorities have said that Covid-19 infections in the southeastern province of Fujian have more than doubled in the previous 24 hours. Preliminary tests suggest the Delta variant is responsible for some of the cases.

On Tuesday the Chinese National Health Commission said that 59 new locally transmitted cases had been identified on Monday. The figure is nearly a threefold increase over Sunday, when only 22 infections were registered.

The cases were all found in southeastern Fujian province, which is bordered by Zhejiang to the north and Guangdong to the south. A total of 102 local infections have been registered in the past four days, including in the transport hub of Xiamen, which is home to some five million people.

The outbreak has already engendered a quick reaction from the local authorities, with Fujian province sent into lockdown on Monday night. Residents in the city of Xiamen were put under “closed-loop” management – which means people are banned from leaving their local area and all entertainment venues are shut down.

According to the South China Morning Post, more than 1,000 people have been sent into quarantine, including schoolchildren, and the mid-autumn festival has been cancelled.

An earlier outbreak in July and August saw the state impose strict measures, citywide testing campaigns and harsh lockdowns. This time the outbreak comes ahead of the week-long National Day holiday starting on October 1.

The repetitive outbreaks are despite China’s considerable progress in vaccinating against Covid-19. To date, the country has administered 2.15 billion vaccines.

Russia:

Russian President Vladimir Putin will go into self-isolation as a result of at least one person around him testing positive for coronavirus, the Kremlin has announced. He is still expected to appear at meetings via video-link.

Russia has seen a third wave of infections in recent weeks, with 17,837 positive tests for the virus recorded in the past 24 hours. A further 781 patients were said to have died from Covid-19, bringing the total death toll since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to 194,249.

Israel:

A prominent Israeli vaccine skeptic, who earlier accused the Jerusalem police of trying to poison him, telling his followers that “if anything happens” to him they should assume he was “assassinated,” has died of Covid-19.

Hai Shaulian, an anti-vaxxer with a significant social media following and an organizer of protests against facemasks and vaccination, died at the age of 57 on Monday morning from complications linked to Covid-19, according to the Jerusalem Post and other local outlets.

In a video he published on social media from his hospital bed several days before his passing, Shaulian claimed he had been mistreated by the police after his arrest in early September. The activist was detained at a protest against the Green Pass system – which limits access to venues and events for unvaccinated Israelis – in Jerusalem and brought before the judge the next day. Shortly after that, he started feeling unwell and was placed in Edith Wolfson Medical Center in Holon where his tests returned positive for Covid-19. Shaulian was, obviously, not vaccinated against the virus.

In the clip, he said that after his arrest, an officer put his leg on his neck and went as far as suggesting that “the Jerusalem police tried to poison” him because of his campaigning.

Israel has carried out one of the world’s largest immunization drives, fully vaccinating more than 60% of its population with Pfizer jab and already delivering a third – booster – shot to some 2.8 million people. However, a major proportion of the public, including many Arabs and Orthodox Jews, still refrain from getting inoculated, with anti-vaxxers holding regular protests and actively using social media to question the government’s policies.

Czech Republic:

The president of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman, has been hospitalized, although no information on his condition has been provided. He is known to oppose current mandated vaccination and the Western vaccines; supported Sputnik V and Sinopharm instead.

Former President Václav Klaus, who served between 2003-2013, is also currently in the military hospital, having been admitted over the weekend.

Cultural/Ideological Divide

Biden’s Jab-to-Work Speech Was Him Announcing His Defeat

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by El Gato Malo  via: Substack

People seem worried and depressed post Biden speech. Don’t be.

Last night was Biden losing. It was his reign of terror ending. It was a tepid, bitter speech in which true colors were shown and nothing was gained. Biden was the angry grandpa 5 drinks in at thanksgiving dinner talking about how the damn Beatniks and minorities were ruining America.

And everyone heard it.

He even lost “swiss cheese” Jerome. (And this guy never met a mandate or imposed mitigation he did not like.) When Jerome starts doubting your mandate and calling you out you’re WAY off the reservation. You cannot even see the middle from how far out on the edge you are.

No president can be as blatantly divisive as Biden was last night. It was a conflict speech, pitting neighbor against neighbor. It was the speech of a fascist demagogue losing control and losing the plot. It vilified and hectored. And that is a weak speech. It’s a speech of defeat, a speech of capitulation that your ideas, ideology, and science are bankrupt.

And everyone heard it.

He claimed he would overrule governors acting within their own just purviews. He instituted clearly illegal labor policies rooted in discrimination and domination. He declared those who will not comply the enemies of the state and the enemies of their communities. This was a war speech, a call to arms speech. It sounded like he was trying to work himself up to utter the phrase “Pfizernacht.”

And everyone heard it.

There’s no kidding yourself anymore about who the fascists and totalitarians and authoritarians are. They just told you. But even more telling was what they did not say and what they did not do: this was a weak response, a limp and vapid plan, and minor evolutions in encroachment.

I had expected something MUCH more muscular. Vaxxpasses nationally, white-labeled by government and administered through a database of databases to be federally run and privately implemented and required. FAA mandates. Denial of federal funding to any who oppose it. A massive public-private partnership of carrots and sticks to drive industry into corporatist fascist compliance.

And we got none of it.

They don’t have the will, the votes, or the backing and they just showed us so. There’s nothing left in their hand. They have realized the people are not with them and they dared not do anything bold. This speech was not the beginning of the new tyranny, it was the end of this one.

And boy oh boy did the governors hear it.

Revolt has surged into the open and become general.

Even the cats and dogs are now in alliance against tyranny. Follow battle beagle for the latest in states whose governors or AG’s have said “no way” to this labor department overreach in vaccine mandates.

27 and counting.

And some of the governors said a bit more than “see you in court.”

No one is gonna have to ask henry for clarification on what he meant, will they?

So get your heads up, amigos. We did not lose last night, we won.

Biden revealed his true nature and intentions too blatantly to ignore.

And everyone heard it.

And many, many rose against it. And more will rise every day. This was the call to action, and action is coming.

This was the call to unify and to stand tall. And it’s finally happening. This desultory, petulant toe in the water broke the dam and there are about to be 900 billion gallons of America running everywhere.

Watch.

(Better yet, help.)

This tide just turned. Get ready to ride it.

Western Hegemony's Collapse

Taiwan: War on the Horizon

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Global Times: “give “Taiwan independence” forces a decisive and destructive blow.”

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

According to British newspaper the Financial Times on Saturday, Washington is seriously considering a request from the island of Taiwan to change the name of its mission in the US capital from “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” to “Taiwan Representative Office.” It is also reported that White House Asia adviser Kurt Campbell has backed the request. Washington is assessing the risks such a change would bring. The report has caused strong repercussions in the island, but neither the US government nor the Taiwan authorities have commented on the report.

Reports also said senior “national security” officials from the US and the island of Taiwan held face-to-face talks on Friday in Annapolis, Maryland, which is less than an hour’s drive from Washington DC. The two pieces of news were revealed immediately following reports about a phone conversation between the Chinese and the US heads of state.

It must be pointed out that if the US and the island of Taiwan do make the name change, it will mean Washington’s basic abandonment of its “one-China policy,” which will constitute a significant change surrounding the Taiwan question. Lithuania previously said it would set up an office in the Taiwan island with the name “Taiwan Representative Office” and the island also announced its plan to set up an office in Lithuania using the same name. This has met strong resistance from the Chinese mainland. If the US does the same, without doubt it will have a widespread demonstration effect on its allies and bring about a wave of name changes of the island’s mission in these countries.

The US knows well it’s a significant and serious matter. It is leaking certain information to test the Chinese mainland’s response. But, is there really anything to test? The Chinese mainland has no other choice but take the challenge and prepare for a showdown with the US if it pushes the matter to the tipping point of a showdown. Should the US rename the island’s mission in Washington as “Taiwan Representative Office,” the Chinese mainland should respond to it in a punitive way no lighter than it did with Lithuania. At that time, it’s anticipated that China will recall its ambassador to the US and it is likely the “lowest diplomatic reaction.” Otherwise, China cannot set up its prestige on the one-China principle it has always been upholding.

Due to US incitement and instigation, some Western countries are itching to play the “Taiwan card.” Punishing only small countries while ignoring the major powers won’t work. Safeguarding the bottom line of the one-China principle means we have to deter the US attempt to cross the line. Otherwise, we will have to face the possibility of more “Taiwan Representative Offices” emerging in a batch of capital cities.

Diplomatic measures alone are obviously not enough. If the US and the Taiwan island change the names, they are suspected of touching the red line of China’s Anti-Secession Law, and the Chinese mainland will have to take severe economic and military measures to combat the arrogance of the US and the island of Taiwan. At that time, the mainland should impose severe economic sanctions on the island and even carry out an economic blockade on the island, depending on the circumstances.

Militarily, Chinese mainland’s fighter jets should fly over the island of Taiwan and place the island’s airspace into the patrol area of the PLA. This is a step that the mainland must take sooner or later. The name change provides the Chinese mainland with sufficient reason to strengthen our sovereign claim over the island of Taiwan. It is anticipated that the Taiwan army will not dare to stop the PLA fighter jets from flying over the island. If the Taiwan side dares open fire, the Chinese mainland will not hesitate to give “Taiwan independence” forces a decisive and destructive blow.

More importantly, if the Chinese mainland turns a blind eye to the US and the Taiwan island this time, they will definitely go further in the next step. According to reports, Joseph Wu, leader of the external affairs of the Taiwan island, participated in the talks between senior security officials from the US and the island in Annapolis on Friday. Next time, they may publicly hold the meeting even in the US State Department in Washington DC. As the US will hold the “Summit for Democracy” by the end of this year, if we do not contain the insolence of the US and the Taiwan island, Washington might even really invite Tsai Ing-wen to participate in the summit. It will be much worse in nature than former Taiwan regional leader Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the US as an “alumnus” in 1995.

Will peace come if the Chinese mainland puts up with all this and swallows its anger for the sake of peace? If the mainland doesn’t strike back decisively, US warships will dock at the island of Taiwan, its fighter aircraft will land on the island and its troops may be stationed in the island again. At that time, where will be China’s prestige as a great power? How can the country maintain its system of defending its interests on the international stage?

The fact is that a contest of will has been formed regarding the Taiwan question Since China has declared that the Taiwan question is a matter of our core interests, we must take resolute actions to protect the bottom line of this exact national interest at any cost. If the Democratic Progress Party authority really dares to take the risk of triggering a war to push for a name change, and the US, which just suffered a debacle in Afghanistan, is not afraid of being involved in a new war, then what is there for the mainland to be scared of?

It seems that sooner or later, the Taiwan Straits will be plunged into a storm that will change the situation there drastically. And judging from the current actions of the US and the island of Taiwan, we can be sure that even if they will have to take this step back, they will step forth again soon. Thus, right now we need to be fully prepared to blow them out of the water in the Taiwan Straits.

The US has been engaging in phrase mongering, hoping that the “competition” between China and the US will not evolve into a “conflict.” We have to tell them clearly with our actions that “competition” with the Chinese mainland on the Taiwan question is bound to turn into a serious conflict, and there is absolutely no room for maneuver.

The End is Here

Dangers Loom Over The Fragile US Economy In The Next 12 Months

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Authored by Brandon Smith, originally published at Birch Gold Group,

The U.S. and most of the world is at the threshold of what I would call a nexus point in history. There are establishment forces at play that seek to impose a permanent authoritarian presence within our nation in the name of Covid “safety.” This includes lockdown mandates and restrictions on economic participation for the unvaccinated (including being unable to keep a job).

At the same time, only 53% of the public has been fully vaccinated against Covid. A significant number of the unvaccinated seem likely to dig in their heels and will refuse to comply.

We are at an impasse. With incessant fear mongering over the latest covid variants and the government obsession with 100% vaccination, the pro- and anti-vaccine groups are squaring off . It is a conflict between those who see their submission to the vaccination as a badge of personal responsibility and civic-mindedness versus those who see it as merely an excuse for authoritarianism. Unless pro-vax people choose to stand down and walk away from the fight, our economic future will grow increasingly unstable.

This is the foreboding backdrop of our economic tale, and it is important to keep in mind that the technocratic exploitation of the covid non-crisis as a push for supremacy is going to color EVERYTHING that happens in our financial system from now on. You cannot talk about our economic condition without including the effects of the pandemic theater.

I believe that the next year in particular is going to be adrenalized and chaotic beyond what we have already seen in 2020-2021. Like I said, there are two sides of America that are now completely opposed in almost every way. Something is going to snap, and I suspect this will happen in 12 months or less.

The U.S. economy is itself an underlying disaster in the making and in many ways the Covid issue is a convenient distraction away from a much larger threat.

Let’s not forget that since the credit crash of 2007-2008 America and most other nations have been surviving on pure monetary deferment. That is to say, not a single problem unmasked in 2008 has been dealt with or solved by the central bankers in the 13 years since. All of the destructive factors were delayed by money printing rather than being fixed. Writing a new post-dated check to cover your last check only works as long as your creditor is willing to cooperate…

The pandemic response has conjured an even greater crisis because the shutdowns of vast parts of the service sector led to trillions more in stimulus just to keep an array of businesses from closing permanently, let alone the trillions of dollars that are STILL being printed to boost unemployment checks.

All of this monetary trickery is going to end, and when it does, there will be a fiscal reckoning beyond anything the world has seen in centuries.

Here are some of the most immediate dangers as I see them in the next 12 months, and what they mean for our future…

Covid unemployment boost is ending (but it’s too already late)

I have to say, I don’t think any government policy has hurt the U.S. economy more than the additional Covid benefits added to unemployment checks. With an extra $300 per week added to existing federal benefits there has been zero incentive for the jobless to find employment. This doesn’t even account for the additional money and benefits granted by various states. Why work at all when you can do nothing for months on end and get paid the same? This has triggered a desperate crisis in the small business sector in terms of finding employees to continue operations.

I have personally seen half the businesses in my region scramble for workers and stretch their resources thin just to survive. Ultimately, many companies have been forced to cut business hours by half because they just don’t have the people to stay open all week. There are now help wanted signs on the doors of every single business I come across.

Yet, bizarrely, there are still numerous mainstream media reports arguing that Covid unemployment checks should continue into the foreseeable future.

It is hard to say whether conditions will change, but for now the indication is that the federal government will be winding down boosted unemployment checks. What I suspect will happen is that certain state governments will react by bulking up on their already existing unemployment measures to offset the federal draw-down, and the businesses in these states will see the drought on employees continue. In the end many of these businesses will shut their doors for good, especially smaller outlets that are unable to keep up with the major corporate retailers that enjoy billions in stimulus to keep them afloat.

At this stage those help wanted signs will be replaced with “closing forever” signs and all those jobs will disappear in the blink of an eye. The federal cuts to unemployment checks are too little too late, I think, and there are no guarantees that they will remain in place considering reports of the “delta variant.”

Many establishments will try to hold out through the Christmas season, but there is already a war going on for the holiday employees needed to deal with the seasonal rush. Corporate outlets have the ability to offer larger bonuses and more incentives.

Small businesses will be crushed this Christmas.

Stagflation is becoming undeniable

I have been warning for years that when the economic destabilization of the U.S. happens it will come not in the form of deflation or standard hyperinflation, but stagflation, which is a kind of unholy marriage of the two.

The combination of rampant stimulus measures and helicopter money injected straight into the pockets of the unemployed resulted in a temporary consumer bonanza. Everyone was buying up everything they could get their hands on, resulting in some strange supply chain pressures and shortages, not to mention MUCH higher prices.

I have seen my personal costs jump around 20% in the past year alone, and I’m sure most other people are experiencing a similar inflationary drain. Anyone who does not already own a home is now priced out of the market in almost every state (with the exception of certain major cities where no one wants to live right now anyway).

Fuel and energy prices are through the roof, food prices are expanding monthly, and car prices are crippling. But this is only a fraction of the problem…

There will soon come a time when Covid stimulus measures will fizzle out, and unless President Biden gets his massive infrastructure bill passed the piper will soon need to be paid. This of course creates a whole new set of stagflationary issues as prices remain stuck in an inflated range but all that extra Covid cash dries up. One might assume that if no one is buying then prices will drop along with demand, but this is not the case under stagflationary conditions. We are already witnessing this in the housing sector, where sales have been dropping for the better part of this year but overall prices remain extremely high.

I suspect that stagflation will once again become a household word in the U.S., perhaps not this year but by early next year. I am seeing signals of dollar devaluation that are visible in necessities but also in manufacturing costs, shipping costs to the U.S. as well as retail “package shrinkage.”

If you have the cash now, I would suggest buying your essentials in bulk before the prices climb even higher next year. Buying now ensures you get the maximum purchasing power from your already-diluted dollars.

The Eviction Moratorium Is Ending And There Is Nothing The CDC Can Do About It.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has no authority whatsoever to enforce rules or prosecute and punish citizens. No one votes for these people and nothing in the Constitution of the United States grants them the authority to dictate economic or social guidance. But for some reason it has been deemed acceptable by the federal government to allow the CDC to demand mass business shutdowns and moratoriums on rental evictions. Multiple courts including the Supreme Court have ruled against the CDC moratorium but they continue to claim the power to fine any property owners that decide to press for evictions of tenants that have refused to pay for up to a year or more.

What I don’t understand is that there are millions of unclaimed jobs out there and both state and federal governments have been providing endless unemployment benefits. But there are still people who will not pay rent this month simply because the CDC has deemed evictions unsavory during a pandemic. The conditions do not justify this at all, but the CDC rules do not take reality into account.

I am seeing indications that many landlords are going to move ahead with evictions anyway soon, and with around 11 million renters far behind on payments, a firestorm is about to erupt. The fact of the matter is, the CDC and the federal government are ignoring the Supreme Court on this issue not because they care about the well-being of those 11 million people, but because without the moratorium in place the cold truth of our economic crisis will be much more obvious to the average person.

The one thing that the establishment hates more than anything is transparency, and they do not want Americans to realize the extent of the financial damage right under our noses. Unemployed people sitting at home, collecting checks and playing Xbox may not be productive members of society, but at least they don’t cause the kind of trouble the government worries about.

Hungry, homeless and unemployed people? They’re the catalyst for mass protests, anti-government revolts, even revolutions.

Another factor that I don’t think many people understand is that the moratoriums have created a fear environment in the property rental arena. Landlords will exit the rental business the first chance they get by selling off their properties. If your business relies on your ability to collect rents and you are restricted from doing this by the government, then your business is no longer a business, it is an involuntary charity.

The result will be the loss of millions of rental properties in the U.S., leaving no housing for low-income families who cannot afford a mortgage down payment. In essence, the CDC has created a perfect storm for the destruction of the rental market and a historic spike in homelessness.

Even with some courts blocking the moratorium, the damage has already been done and property owners will not wait around, fearing another moratorium in the future.

I predict that evictions will ramp up around Christmas time and peak in early 2022, and that homeless numbers will absolutely explode into 2022 as available rentals disappear across the nation.

Vaccine Passports Will Be The Death Rattle Of Small Businesses

Small businesses make up around 50% of the U.S. retail market and are a big part of jobs numbers. I find it less than coincidental that nearly every single action on the part of the government in terms of the Covid response has led to a retail apocalypse that has eclipsed the small business sector while keeping the corporate retail sector alive. The last nail in the coffin for smaller service providers will be vaccine passports, if they are allowed to take root.

Biden’s latest and predictable announcement of a vaccine passport executive order apparently applies only to companies with 100 employees or more, but this represents a large number of small to moderate businesses, and if Biden gets his way ALL businesses will be included eventually. I will be writing extensively on this in my next article.

Many retailers are already sounding the alarm over the fear of possible vaccine passports for customers because they know that they will lose at least half of their customer base in response. The enforcement of such rules would require extra costs that will grind down their profit margins. And let’s not forget that if a customer sneaks through security measures, that business might be held liable and fined into oblivion. It’s a lose/lose for business owners which means, again, that many thousands more businesses will close down.

America’s economy will be annihilated.

We all know that the government under Biden is not going to give up on vaccinations or the mandates. They will continue to press until they get what they want (or until the public stops them). Don’t get too comfortable in the relative calm that we have enjoyed until recently as far as Covid restrictions are concerned.

* * *

More insanity is on the way, so be prepared. Consider liquidating your increasingly-worthless paper dollars on bulk quantities of your essential supplies.

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Cornell University: 95% Vaccination Rate, 5 x More COVID “Cases”

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by JOSEPH SILVERSTEIN – CORNELL UNIVERSITY via The College Fix

ANALYSIS: If the goal is to prevent infection, the 95 percent vaccination rate on Cornell’s campus has not accomplished that

Cornell University has aggressively pushed its students to get vaccinated, announcing a vaccine mandate for the 2021-22 academic year in April and frequently denying religious and medical exemptions.

As a result, 95 percent of the campus population, both students and faculty, is vaccinated.

Despite this, Cornell University has more than five times the amount of confirmed positive cases during its first week of this academic year than it did during its first week of the 2020-21 academic year, according to the Cornell COVID dashboard.

By the numbers, during the first week of school that ran from Aug. 27 to Sept. 2 of this academic year, Cornell reported 322 positive COVID-19 cases.

In comparison, during the first week of school last year, which ran from Sept. 3 through Sept. 9 of 2020, Cornell reported 59 positive COVID-19 cases.

That is 263 more cases, or more than five times the amount of positive cases, when comparing the first week of school.

Most students attended in-person classes in the fall of 2020 and were required to wear masks, just like this academic year. The increase in positive cases cannot be attributed to an increase in testing — in fact, more tests were administered in the first week last fall, according to the Cornell COVID dashboard.

From Sept. 3 through Sept. 9 of 2020, there were 28,951 COVID tests administered, accordingto the Cornell COVID dashboard. There were only 59 positive tests, or a 0.2 percent positivity rate.

In contrast, from Aug. 27 to Sept. 2 of this year, only 27,103 tests were administered, finding 322 positive cases, or a 1.19 percent positivity rate.

No variable changed: Cornell announced in July that it would still require all individuals, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a mask while inside. The same public health measures, often criticized as too strict, that were in place last year remain in place this year.

Due to the high amount of positive cases the Ithaca campus is currently experiencing, President Martha Pollack warned classes may be moved online if the trend continues. Meanwhile, the campus has been moved to a “Code Yellow.”

If the goal is to prevent infection, the 95 percent COVID-19 vaccination rate on Cornell’s campus has not accomplished that.

As Cornell and many other universities across the country mandate these vaccines, one must ask: to what extent are the vaccines effective? Do the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks for healthy 20-year-olds?

In August, the CDC director admitted the COVID-19 vaccines cannot prevent transmission. Cornell’s recent case surge is further evidence of that.

The risk of an adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine, while minute, is not zero.

According to CDC and FDA data, the mRNA vaccines have been linked to increased risk of myocarditis, a serious heart condition, in young people, particularly young men. While this reaction to the vaccine is exceedingly rare, the connection between the mRNA vaccines and myocarditis is higher than previously thought.

Further, Dr. Robert Malone, one of the founders of mRNA vaccines, warned on evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein’s podcast that the spike protein received from vaccination is, in his medical opinion, cytotoxic.

And according to information released by the Japanese government in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the lipid particles from the Pfizer vaccine concentrate overwhelmingly in the ovaries and also bone marrow.

Why on earth would Cornell force its students to receive this vaccine?

To be clear, Americans who are elderly, immunocompromised, or suffer from a serious underlying condition should definitely get the vaccine. But even in those cases, they must still have the freedom to make such a decision for themselves.

Cornell’s draconian COVID-19 policies have failed, and now the administration’s promises about a normal, mask-free academic year in return for achieving “herd immunity” have come crashing down against the cold reality we all face.

If the vaccines cannot prevent infection and return us to normalcy, what then, is the point of returning to campus at all?

Editor’s note: The author of this piece has requested and been denied a religious exemption from Cornell’s vaccine mandate. He received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine in June.