Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Covid much less deadly says new study
Sebastian Rushworth 18 March, 2021
An article was recently published in the British Medical Journal that reported on a matched cohort study which compared the risk of dying for those infected with the new British variant (a.k.a. B.1.1.7) and those infected with the older covid variants.
A matched cohort study is a type of observational study where you take a group of people with some condition and then try to find a similar group without the condition to match against. Then you follow the two cohorts over time and see if they differ in some meaningful outcome (like death). Since it is an observational study, it can only show correlation. It can’t prove the existence of a cause and effect relationship, but that doesn’t stop many people acting like it does.
The article has resulted in fear-mongering headlines in news media around the world. Just to take the first example I could find, Al-Jazeera published an article with the headline: “UK variant up to 100% deadlier more deadly, study finds”.
Those darn studies, they’re always finding things. It’s like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. You knock one down here, and another one pops up over there. Anyway, let’s look in to the study some detail, and see if the claim is true.
There were two criteria that had to be fulfilled for a person to be included in the study. They had to have a PCR-test positive for covid at some point between the beginning of October 2020 and the end of January 2021. And they had to be over 30 years old. The authors don’t provide any reason for the second criterion. The only reason I can see for removing people under the age of 30 is that they pretty much never die when they get covid, and including them would therefore have resulted in less impressive mortality numbers, which would have made it a little bit harder to use the results as part of public fear mongering campaigns.
A night shift schedule is associated with increased DNA damage
Medical Xpress March 8, 2021
New clues as to why night shift workers are at increased risk of developing certain types of cancer are presented in a new study conducted at Washington State University Health Sciences Spokane.
Published online in the Journal of Pineal Research, the study involved a controlled laboratory experiment that used healthy volunteers who were on simulated night shift or day shift schedules. Findings from the study suggest that night shifts disrupt natural 24-hour rhythms in the activity of certain cancer-related genes, making night shift workers more vulnerable to damage to their DNA while at the same time causing the body's DNA repair mechanisms to be mistimed to deal with that damage.
Though more research still needs to be done, these discoveries could someday be used to help prevent and treat cancer in night shift workers.
"There has been mounting evidence that cancer is more prevalent in night shift workers, which led the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify night shift work as a probable carcinogenic," said co-corresponding author Shobhan Gaddameedhi, an associate professor formerly with the WSU College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and now with North Carolina State University's Biological Sciences Department and Center for Human Health and the Environment. "However, it has been unclear why night shift work elevates cancer risk, which our study sought to address."
Is moderate alcohol consumption healthy?
Sebastian Rushworth 19 February, 2021
I'm going to start this article by revealing my own biases. I'm not sure
where the idea that alcohol might be healthy comes from. It's
pretty well established that alcohol is poisonous to all living
organisms. That's why we use it to disinfect surfaces, and why I lather
my hands in it several times per hour when I'm working in the hospital.
It interferes with the functioning of cell membranes, and at high
enough doses it causes the cell membranes to fall apart completely,
killing the immersed organisms. That's the reason it is such an
effective disinfectant. It doesn't take a great leap to think
that something that interferes with the functioning of our cell
membranes might not be too good for us.
As an interesting aside, the alcohol disinfectant I use to rub my hands
in at work is perfectly drinkable, if you're desperate enough. Which is
why the nurses generally remove all the disinfectant containers from the
patient's room if they know the patient has an alcohol addiction.
Alcohol is a very energy dense molecule. One gram of alcohol (a.k.a.
ethanol) contains 7 calories. This can be compared to carbohydrates and
protein, which both provide 4 calories per gram, and fat, which provides
9 calories. This is probably why we've evolved the ability to
metabolize alcohol and turn it in to energy in the first place. Those of
our ancestors who could eat any fermented fruit they happened to come
across were less likely to starve. Which is the reason why it's possible
to subsist (for a while at least) on a diet consisting entirely of
alcohol. It's also the reason alcoholics generally develop severe
vitamin deficiencies - they're getting most of their energy needs met
from a source that is completely devoid of other nutrients. I don't
recommend.
So where does the idea that moderate alcohol consumption is healthy come from? My guess would be that the companies that sell alcohol have something to do with it. I
wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find that they'd seeded the
scientific literature with articles supporting the healthiness of
alcohol, just as the sugar industry has seeded the literature with
articles supporting the healthiness of sugar. It could also have something to do with the fact that moderate alcohol consumption is part of the mediterranean diet, which we've been told for decades is one of the healthiest ways to eat.
Georgetown University

Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States. John Carroll’s founding of Georgetown College coincides with the birth of our nation.
In 1789, Carroll secured the deed to 60 acres of land on a hilltop overlooking the village of Georgetown. He was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1808.
Classes began in 1792. Within the first year, attendance grew to more than 40 students – some as far away as the West Indies. In 1817, the school awarded its first two bachelor’s degrees.
The Civil War (1861-1865) nearly closed Georgetown, as the student body dropped from 313 to 17 between 1859 and 1861. A total of 1,141 students and alumni enlisted in the war, serving in both the Union and Confederate forces.
After the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, in 1862, several campus buildings were turned into a temporary hospital. To celebrate the end of the Civil War, Georgetown students selected the colors blue (Union) and gray (Confederate) as the school’s official colors in 1876.
A Discussion with Ganoune Diop
Berkley Center, Georgetown University
Background: Ganoune Diop is a leading intellectual within interfaith circles and has been part of the G20 Interfaith Forum since its inception in 2014, focusing on issues of religious freedom. He is currently leading the Association’s working group on religious dimensions of racism. He and Katherine Marshall spoke (by zoom) on July 27, to explore various dimensions of his path from Rufisque, Senegal to the Seventh Day Adventist headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. This has involved a constant focus on freedom and a remarkable intellectual journey crossing multiple disciplines and topics.
What did you do after you finished with your master’s degree?
I
was offered an internship to become a pastor, in Paris, where I lived
for many years. During the latter two years I was working as an
associate pastor. I was then called to be the senior pastor in another
city, Lille, a city with a well-known university with students from all
over the world. I engaged many people. I focused then a great deal on philosophy, an area where my interest had never diminished, even as I was doing theology.
From Lille, I was called to head the Department of Biblical Studies for
the Adventist Church in France, which I did for three years.
The
next large shift came when I was asked if I wanted to pursue an
academic career as a teacher. That would entail going to the US, to
Michigan, and doing a PhD in Old Testament. At the time, I was doing a
PhD in New Testament in France at the Catholic University of Paris,
linked to semiotics, the analysis of religious discourse. I was
also studying at La Sorbonne. I found that fascinating. I stayed in the
US for about five years, finishing a PhD in Old Testament. I then
returned to France, this time as a teacher.
I had studied ancient languages, Hebrew especially, while I was in college, then for my masters. While I was working in Paris, I decided that I really needed to have a degree in philology, the science of languages. I did not just want to be a good student in Hebrew or a good student in Greek. If I was to teach these languages, I wanted to have the necessary credentials. I went to the Catholic University of Paris again, while I was teaching in France, pursuing a master's degree in philology at the School of Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations and Languages.
The Seventh Day Adventist Church is not part of the World Council of Churches. We have what we call observer status.
I'm invited to events and I work with them personally. I was even part
of the writing committee at the Busan General Assembly few years ago. We
collaborate and we partner, but the Seventh Day Adventist Church has
chosen, for freedom of conscience purposes, not to belong to an
ecumenical entity with a central organization, because belonging to such
a central organization is like surrendering one's constitutional
conscience. This may be why the Catholic Church, for example, while
having very close and cordial relationships, cannot be under the
umbrella of another organization. We position ourselves in a similar
way. We will join any table where people come with an equal footing. For
reasons of freedom of conscience and preservation of our distinct
identity, SDAs are involved in interchurch relations but not fusion of
churches. We belong to the family of Christians who confess the
Trinitarian God, the divinity of Jesus who is lord and savior. However,
just to be clear, in some countries, the Seventh Day Adventist Church is
part of, for example, the Protestant World Federation or similar
organizations. France and Spain are such cases, because the government
deals directly with these entities that include Catholics, Protestants,
Jews, Muslims, etc. But we are not part of the World Council of
Churches, nor of the Council of European Churches (CEC), even though we
work so closely with them I personally teach every year at their
European summer school on human rights, and I'm invited at their general
assembly More
Let’s keep Sunday sacred
Newsday 27 February 2021
SUNDAY IS the soul of the nation. It is more than just a fanatical religious preoccupation. There is a reason why the day was woven into the fabric of our society. We have to save Sunday.
Historically, the practice of reserving a day for rest was the best thing for a fledging nation. It was biblical in intent and economical in its effect. It offered intangible rewards such as resting from the labours of life and connecting with the divine.
Most of that has changed, somewhat. Like the ebbing tide that erodes our shoreline, the will and ways of men have shaped this part of our existence and changed our perspective on the day. But there are grave consequences for the nation that does not seek their God and prefers to make Sunday like every other day.
It is so sad what has happened to Sunday, once a day of worship. Our fathers failed to instil in us the respect for the divine and the restful time that the day offers. For many it’s only time to play and dingolay, or even to make some more money. While a few faithful find respite in the solemn assembly of prayer, their hands are raised in praise and sometimes in protest at what our Sunday has become.
We have failed as a people to extol the virtues of the day. Although it’s justifiable that we should engage our time and energy towards acquiring wealth, the essence of our lives cannot be trifled away by sacrificing the only day we have for rest. Sunday must be set aside for the purpose of praise and thanksgiving and relaxation.
We must remember the fate of the great city of Rome and the debauchery, the wantonness, the festivities and flagrant disorders of the day. The same demise is certain for our nation if we reject the formula for success that is found in the wisdom of a day of rest.
Current Justices of the Supreme Court: All Except Two Are Roman Catholics
Jamesjpn January 11, 2021
Six out of nine current Supreme Court Justices were nominated by Republican Presidents! And yet Roe vs. Wade has still not been overturned. And seven out of nine are Roman Catholics who are supposed to be against abortion!
John G. Roberts, Jr.
President George W. Bush, Republican, nominated him as Chief Justice of the United States, and he took his seat on September 29, 2005. Roberts is a devout Catholic and is married to an ardent pro-life activist. In spite of the fact he was nominated by a Republican and is supposed to hold traditional Christian values, he ruled with other Supreme Court justices in July 2020 that Nevada can impose tighter restrictions on churches than casinos to enforce social distancing guidelines. Moreover, Roberts concurred with the liberals on the court to strike down a Louisiana anti-abortion law! Why doesn’t the Pope excommunicate the guy? Something sinister is afoot. Maybe the RCC’s stance against abortion is really phony after all.
Clarence Thomas
President George Herbert Walker Bush, Republican, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and he took his seat on October 23, 1991. Thomas was raised Catholic and attended a Catholic seminary.
Stephen G. Breyer
President Clinton, Democrat, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on August 3, 1994. Breyer is Jewish.
Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
President George W. Bush, Republican, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on January 31, 2006. Alito is a practicing Catholic.
Sonia Sotomayor
President Barack Obama, Democrat, nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role on August 8, 2009. Sotomayor is Catholic.
Elena Kagan
In 2009, President Obama, Democrat, nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 10, 2010. She took her seat on August 7, 2010. Kagan is Jewish.
Neil M. Gorsuch
President Donald J. Trump, Republican, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on April 10, 2017. Episcopalian, raised Roman Catholic
Brett M. Kavanaugh
President Donald J. Trump, Republican, nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on October 6, 2018. Kavanaugh is a practicing Catholic.
President Donald J. Trump, Republican, nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat on October 27, 2020. Barrett is a practicing Catholic.
The Monsanto Papers: Getting dirty
EHN Mar 12, 2021
The book tells the true life tale of Lee Johnson, a California groundskeeper who was diagnosed with terminal cancer he alleged was caused by his exposure to Monsanto's Roundup herbicides.
Lee
wouldn't think about the sprayer accident again until many months
later, when an odd-looking scaly lesion popped up just above his right
knee. It itched and cracked and oozed. As time passed, the patch near
his knee was matched by another on his arm. And another on his torso.
Small bumps the size of BB pellets sprouted out of his skin. Lee changed
the laundry soap and dryer sheets his family used and tried an
assortment of creams, but nothing helped. Dread grew with every new spot
that erupted. Eventually, nearly Lee's entire body, including his face
and scalp, was covered in painful sores. Some became infected, including
one on his head.
As his condition progressed, Lee's once unmarred skin broke open at the slightest touch in some places, and wearing clothing became almost unbearably painful. A lesion even developed on one of his eyelids, making it impossible for him to open the eye without grimacing in pain. The softer the skin where the lesions sprouted, the more searing the pain, Lee learned.
Strangers started to stare when Lee went out. His sons' friends asked if he'd been burned in a fire or suffered from some disfiguring disease. "What's wrong with your dad?" became a common question for Ali when Lee attended a football practice. He took to wearing long sleeves, long pants, and large sunglasses in public, hoping to avoid the pitying glances from strangers.
In the early stages, when the skin eruptions were fewer, flatter, and less painful, Lee could still sometimes tell himself they might just be part of a weird rash. He kept going to work as usual and kept doing his regular rounds, including spraying weed killer. He convinced himself that the skin problems would resolve themselves, just as the bee stings and bloody scrapes he suffered on the job always had. But when the sores spread to his face, Lee had had enough. It was time to see a doctor and, he hoped, find a medicine that would clear it all up.
Sunlight and Vitamin D: They’re Not the Same Thing
Westonaprice April 20, 2020
ARTICLE SUMMARY
• Sulfate synthesis in the skin captures the sun’s energy. Adequate
sunlight exposure to both the skin and the eyes is vital to our
long-term health.
• Among other functions, sulfate supports blood vessel health, the
body’s electrical supply and the delivery system for important molecules
such as cholesterol, vitamin D, dopamine and melatonin.
• Evidence indicates that sunlight protects against cancer, heart disease, hypertension and bone fractures.
• The benefits of sunlight exposure are about much more than vitamin D.
• Many studies show that vitamin D supplementation cannot reproduce
sunlight’s health benefits. Moreover, excessive vitamin D
supplementation can aggravate systemic sulfate deficiency, which will
drive calcium buildup in the arteries.
• Both sunscreen and glyphosate interfere with synthesis and production of melanin—the body’s natural mechanism of sun protection. Aluminum in sunscreen disrupts sulfate synthesis. These disruptions may explain why melanoma prevalence has steadily risen in tandem with the increased use of higher sun-protection-factor sunscreens over the past two decades.
We have been brainwashed into believing that the sun is toxic, whereas in fact it is life-giving. I am a great fan of sunlight exposure to both the skin and the eyes. The sun has been a resource for Planet Earth since the beginning of time, and biological organisms evolved with a constant supply of energy they could count on every day with the rising sun. Plants use the energy of sunlight to convert inorganic carbon into organic matter, with the help of chlorophyll. Why would animals ignore such an obvious energy source? Just as plants need sunlight to grow, sunlight plays an essential role in energizing animals, including humans.
I believe that the mechanism with which we safely exploit the sun’s energy is through the oxidation of sulfur to sulfate, with the help of cholesterol. This reaction takes place in the skin—catalyzed by sunlight—and it is vital to our long-term health.
PROTECTIVE SUNLIGHT
People who live in places with little sun have statistically higher risk for many chronic conditions, including multiple sclerosis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autism, Alzheimer’s disease and age-related macular degeneration.1 On the other hand, a great deal of epidemiological evidence suggests that sunlight exposure protects from many different types of cancer. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is recommended in treating different skin conditions, including psoriasis, eczema, jaundice and acne. Sunlight may also be beneficial in healing various autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel disease and thyroiditis.
Yet chances are that your dermatologist has told you to “stay out of the sun and take a vitamin D supplement every day.” For some, this has seemed like good advice because we have been taught to believe that the sun causes skin cancer and that the only reason to get out in the sunlight at all is to boost vitamin D levels through its UV-stimulated synthesis in the skin. Driven by the belief that the benefits of sunlight exposure are mainly due to vitamin D synthesis, the natural conclusion is that vitamin D supplements would achieve the same goal.
The story is not that simple, however. When placebo-controlled studies are conducted on vitamin D supplementation, they usually produce disappointing results. I believe the reason is that sunlight exposure is about a whole lot more than vitamin D synthesis in the skin. In a paper published in 2016, Richard Weller wrote: “A substantial body of evidence shows that sunlight has health benefits and that these are independent of vitamin D and thus cannot be reproduced by oral supplementation.”2
Merkel urges Putin to pull troops back from Ukraine border
Aljazeera 8 Apr 2021
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to pull back a military build-up near the country’s border with Ukraine amid heightened tensions in the conflict-stricken Donbas region.
Ukrainian government troops have battled Russian-backed separatists in the country’s eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which form part of Donbas, since the rebels seized a swath of territory there in April 2014.
Fears of an escalation in hostilities have mounted in recent weeks, with Ukraine raising the alarm about an increase in Russian forces along the countries’ shared border and renewed front-line clashes.
“The Chancellor demanded that this build-up be unwound in order to de-escalate the situation,” Germany’s government said in a readout of a telephone call between Merkel and Putin.
Sunday, January 31, 2021
The Spirit and power of God will be poured out upon His children.
Popular revivals are too often carried by appeals to the imagination, by exciting the emotions, by gratifying the love for what is new and startling. Converts thus gained have little desire to listen to Bible truth, little interest in the testimony of prophets and apostles. Unless a religious service has something of a sensational character, it has no attractions for them. A message which appeals to unimpassioned reason awakens no response. The plain warnings of God's word, relating directly to their eternal interests, are unheeded.
With
every truly converted soul the relation to God and to eternal things
will be the great topic of life. But where, in the popular churches of
today, is the spirit of consecration to God? The converts do not
renounce their pride and love of the world. They are no more willing to
deny self, to take up the cross, and follow the meek and lowly Jesus,
than before their conversion. Religion has become the sport of infidels
and skeptics because so many who bear its name are ignorant of its
principles. The power of godliness has well-nigh departed from many of
the churches. Picnics, church theatricals,
church fairs, fine houses, personal display, have banished thoughts of
God. Lands and goods and worldly occupations engross the mind, and
things of eternal interest receive hardly a passing notice.
Notwithstanding the widespread declension of faith and piety, there are true followers of Christ in these churches. Before the final visitation of God's judgments upon the earth there will be among the people of the Lord such a revival of primitive godliness as has not been witnessed since apostolic times. The Spirit and power of God will be poured out upon His children. At that time many will separate themselves from those churches in which the love of this world has supplanted love for God and His word. Many, both of ministers and people, will gladly accept those great truths which God has caused to be proclaimed at this time to prepare a people for the Lord's second coming. The enemy of souls desires to hinder this work; and before the time for such a movement shall come, he will endeavor to prevent it by introducing a counterfeit. In those churches which he can bring under his deceptive power he will make it appear that God's special blessing is poured out; there will be manifest what is thought to be great religious interest. Multitudes will exult that God is working marvelously for them, when the work is that of another spirit. Under a religious guise, Satan will seek to extend his influence over the Christian world.
In
many of the revivals which have occurred during the last half century,
the same influences have been at work, to a greater or less degree, that
will be manifest in the more extensive movements of the future. There
is an emotional excitement, a mingling of the true with the false, that
is well adapted to mislead. Yet none need be deceived. In the light of
God's word it is not difficult to determine the nature of these
movements. Wherever men neglect the testimony of the Bible, turning away
from those plain, soul-testing truths which require self-denial and
renunciation of the world, there we may be sure that God's blessing is
not bestowed. And by the rule which Christ Himself has given, “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16), it is evident that these movements are not the work of the Spirit of God. Great Controversy p. 464
It is 100 seconds until “midnight"
NY Post January 27, 2021
The symbolic Doomsday Clock — designed by scientists to measure how close humanity is to an apocalypse — remains set dangerously close to disaster at 100 seconds until “midnight,” it was revealed Wednesday.
The annual end-of-days prediction remains the closest the clock has ever ticked toward catastrophe, based on threats including the coronavirus, climate change and nuclear catastrophe, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced.
Marking “a historic wakeup call,” its hands have remained in the same place since January 2020, the first time it ever moved closer than two minutes to midnight.
“[This year] revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly,” the group said in a press release.
“We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds — not hours, or even minutes. It is the closest to Doomsday we have ever been in the history of the Doomsday Clock. We now face a true emergency — an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for error or further delay,” added Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the group.
The Stock Market, Fatally Wounded by the Truth, Will Stumble and Crash
Charles Hugh January 30, 2021
It didn't have to be this way, but this is the reality we must now face: truth is fatal
to fraud, and our entire financial-political system is a fraud.
The stock market has just been punctured by the thin blades of truth. It is fatally wounded but
nobody dares notice. The wounds are barely visible, but the internal damage is mortal.
The stock market is already stumbling and will soon crash.
The banquet's participants ignore the faltering market because the rules are we never reveal
the truth, or acknowledge it, or discuss it, no matter how obvious, because truth is fatal to
fraud. So the stock market's vital signs are in freefall but the conversation remains upbeat
and light: stimulus, rapid growth in the second half, etc., all the patter of a carefully constructed
illusion that fraud is forever as long as the truth never comes out.
Alas, the truth has emerged from the shadows, despite the silence of the insiders and
the financial media. Here are the truths that have emerged like karmic genies:
1. The stock market is nothing but one giant fraud. The entire market is corrupt and rigged
from the ground up. The fraud is systemic, designed into every tendril of the market. It was a
useful deception to blame it all on "bad players," but now the truth has been revealed: the market
is nothing but a rigged game enriching insiders.
2. The Fed is a fraud. All the Federal Reserve has accomplished in 13 years of goosing the
stock market is unprecedented wealth and income inequality as the fraud of the Fed has boosted
the fraud of the market, which has fatally undermined America's social and economic orders.
Please read this short paragraph and let it sink in.
Monopoly Versus Democracy (Foreign Affairs):
Ten percent of Americans now control 97 percent
of all capital income in the country. Nearly half of the new income generated since the global
financial crisis of 2008 has gone to the wealthiest one percent of U.S. citizens.
The richest three Americans collectively have more wealth than the poorest 160 million Americans.
Is the covid ‘pandemic’ merely economic theatre?
Bringing together the US emergency bank lending crisis and the now massive Covid response, I’ve concluded that one of the main reasons it is happening, apart from the corporate looting, is because of a historic event, the USA’s economic collapse and the dollar’s demise, which started just weeks before this Covid operation kicked off, and has been put on hold by a world wide manufactured economic ‘freeze’.
The end of ‘Extend and Pretend’
A few months before Covid appeared, the Fed were busy pouring literally trillions of dollars into the US banks, to prevent inter-lending bank-runs which were starting to develop. These were the same tectonic fissures that developed prior to the 2008 crisis, where the banks became so distrustful of each other’s solvency, that they massively increased interest rates to each other to factor in the risk. If unsuppressed the lending rates would continue to rise, laying a path to bank failures and a contagion which would eventually derail the economy and undermine the dollar itself.
In September 2019 the Fed intervened in the repo. markets for four consecutive days, pumping $75 billion per day into the banks, as the inter-banking interest rate – the repo rate – peaked at a terrifying 10% [1]. If this level were allowed to contaminate regular highstreet lending, it would cause widespread debt defaults & insolvencies.
The dangers are far greater today because, unlike in 2008, Quantitive Easing (QE) has pushed the Fed to the limits of its credibility, and are forcing them into causing some serious currency debasement. If they continue with the forms of QE they are shackled to, then dollar debasement becomes a certainty in a US economy that is far more fragile & indebted generally and less able to cope.
The Fed must have known for a few years that QE was not returning the economy to economic normality, and that they were still trapped in the solvency crisis of 2008. Knowing this, the Fed were prepared for the latest crisis. They had made it possible to inject hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking system discreetly, unlike in 2008, without any additional Congressional fanfare, via the Financial Stability Oversight Council, formed in 2010.
They had given themselves almost unlimited funds and the resources of the entire government if necessary, to reassure the banks that collapse was impossible. This ‘rescue operation’ was being played out, relatively unreported except in the financial press, only weeks prior to the Covid flu appearing on the world stage. Issuing…
Tulsi Gabbard Asks Biden: “Have You Declared Martial Law?”
Summit 25 January, 2021
“What is it that they are trying to accomplish now by creating an enduring presence?”
Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard asked Joe Biden if he had declared martial law after it was revealed that thousands of troops stationed in the capital will remain there until March.
As we highlighted earlier, at least 5,000 National Guard soldiers will remain in DC until the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump is completed, a process which won’t be concluded for at least six weeks.
“President @JoeBiden, have you declared martial law? Because that is what it’s starting to look and feel like. Let our troops get back home to their families,” Gabbard tweeted.
The Propaganda Multiplier
It is one of the most important aspects of our media system, and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.
The key role played by these agencies means Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.
A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles were based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews were in favor of a US and NATO intervention, while propaganda was attributed exclusively to the opposite side.
Introduction: “Something strange”
“How does the newspaper know what it knows?” The answer to this question is likely to surprise some newspaper readers: “The main source of information is stories from news agencies. The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions.” (Höhne 1977, p. 11)
A Swiss media researcher points out: “The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the world; above all, we get to know what they have selected.” (Blum 1995, p. 9)
In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies are hardly known to the public: “A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all … In fact, they play an enormously important role in the media market. But despite this great importance, little attention has been paid to them in the past.” (Schulten-Jaspers 2013, p. 13)
Even the head of a news agency noted:
“There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known
to the public. Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the
spotlight, yet they can always be found at the source of the story.”
(Segbers 2007, p. 9) More
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021
After 9/11, the entire country collectively lost its mind in the throes of fear. During that time, all civil and Constitutional rights were shredded and replaced with the pages of The USA PATRIOT Act.
Almost 20 years later, the U.S. has again lost its collective mind, this time in fear of a “virus” and it’s “super mutations” and a “riot” at the capitol. A lot of people called this and to the surprise of very few, much like after 9/11, Americans are watching what remains of their civil liberties be replaced with a new bill.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021
The DTPA is essentially the criminalization of speech, expression, and thought. It takes cancel culture a step further and all but outlaws unpopular opinions. This act will empower intelligence, law enforcement, and even military wings of the American ruling class to crack down on individuals adhering to certain belief systems and ideologies.


