Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 363

Values Of Used EVs Plummet, As Dealers Stuck With Unsold Cars

By Paul Homewood

Not a Lot of People Know That

The average cost of second hand electric cars is plummeting by a “phenomenal amount” as they sit for “months on end” without any buyers.

Research by online motor marketplace, AutoTrader, revealed the average price for a used EV has dropped by 21.4 per cent this month, compared to a year ago.
Marc Palmer, the head of strategy and insights at AutoTrader, told MailOnline: “The used market will now be slower to mature. There will be fewer new EVs registered and fewer used cars coming to market.

“There will be sections of the public, especially those who are sceptical, who will want to wait.”

The expert explained that used cars are the “biggest” section of the industry, however motorists are likely to “take longer” in the switch to electric.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/24099905/second-hand-ev-prices-falling-driver-lose-confidence/

According to the Mail:

Mid-month figures for September released by AutoTrader – the largest online marketplace for cars – reveal that the average price of a used EV has fallen by 21.4 per cent to £32,463.

Premium sector EVs, including Tesla, BMW, Mini and Mercedes-Benz, were hit hardest – with values falling by up to 24.1 per cent year-on-year.

The data, reported by The Times, showed that prices of second-hand premium sector EVs peaked at £51,704 last August and have since plummeted by more than £10,000 to £39,268.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12551439/used-electric-cars-price.html

The secondhand EV is between a rock and a hard place!

Increasing numbers are now coming onto the market, corresponding to the increasing number of new sales in recent years.

Yet at the same time, there seems to be little appetite from buyers. Most new EVs go either to Business/Fleet purchasers, or rich, virtue signallers. Neither sector is interested in buying second hand EVs.

Private buyers of second hand cars cannot afford the inflated price of EVs – if they could, they would buy a new petrol car anyway. And they are less likely to have off street parking, therefore making charging more expensive and problematic. Hence the low turnover of second hand EVs.

EV manufacturers have taken a huge risk in offering cheap PCPs [Personal Contract Purchases],* in the hope attracting buyers. These deals are ultimately based on EVs holding their value well.

With plummeting secondhand values, they and the lease companies could be facing massive losses.

What is remarkable about these reports is that the so-called experts seem genuinely surprised about all of this. It was utterly predictable all along.

One “expert”, Marc Palmer, the head of strategy and insights at AutoTrader, told the Mail that the used market will now be slower to mature, and that motorists are likely to “take longer” in the switch to electric.

And the SMMT said “A faster and fairer mass transition [to zero-emission vehicles] is threatened by the absence of support for private buyers, many of whom plan to go electric but are delaying due to concerns over affordability and uncertainty regarding the availability of a charging network.”

They have obviously been believing their own propaganda about EVs for too long.

They still do not seem to have worked out that EVs are utterly useless for most private drivers, who will refuse to make the switch until forced to.

*[In essence, PCP is like a loan to help you purchase your car, however unlike a personal loan you won’t be paying off the full value of the car unless you decide to keep the vehicle].

A History of Jewish Persecution in Medieval Europe

Jewish Massacre at Clifford’s Tower

Episode 12 The Fourth Lateran Council and the Jews

1215: Years That Changed History

Dr Dorsey Armstrong (2019)

Film Review

In this lecture, Armstrong traces that persecution of marginalized populations (which was new to European society) that became official with the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. For the most part it included, lepers,* Jews, Muslims, homosexuals and women.

She believes this persecutory culture (persisting to the present day) resulted from a relative shortage of land caused by the Medieval Warm Period (950-1250 AD) and the subsequent population boom. Systematic persecution gave ruling elites a justification to confiscate the lands of designated minorities. In the case of Jews, laws restricting them from occupations other than money lending, banking and rent collection made them particularly loathsome to people who owed them money. Following their expulsion from successive European countries, people who owed them money had their debts forgiven.

Historically the Romans had acknowledged Jews as good public servants and scholars, especially as they didn’t proselytize the way Christians did. As king of the Franks, Lombard and the Holy Roman Empire (768-814), Charlemagne welcomed them as merchants, traders and scholars. In England, Henry II ( 1154-89) dismissed all his Norman banking and financial advisors and replaced them with Jewish officials.

Although a minority, Jews experienced a golden age of Jewish culture in Muslim Spain. This ended in 1279, when Alfonso VIII who ruled the small Christian kingdom of Castile, ordered all the Jewish tax-farmers imprisoned. In January 1281, he ordered the rest of the Jewish population arrested while they were attending synagogue, demanding a ransom of 4,380,000 gold maravedis for their release. By the end of the 13th century, Spanish Jews were segregated into walled ghettos and only  allowed to work as money lenders and rent collectors. In 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella “liberated” the Iberian peninsula from from Muslim rule, they expelled all Jews from Spain.

Edward I, the great grandson of Henri II, expelled all Jews from England in 1290. They were only allowed to return when England briefly became a republic in 1656,

Philippe Auguste (1165-1223) of France expelled all French Jews in 1182, except for those who managed his treasury

During several crusades, marauding crusaders staged wholesale massacres on Jewish communities in German speaking countries.

There were also Jewish massacres in York** and Bury St Edwards in 1190. In York, after setting fire to a tower where Jewish families had taken refuge, the rioters immediately went to the cathedral (where the city kept their loan documents) and burned them as well.

*As farmland became more scarce, there was increasing migration towards cities where people lived closer together and the prevalence of leprosy increased. By the 13th century, lepers were no longer allowed to inherit or bequeath land.

**The York city fathers had invited a group of Jewish money lenders to take up residence to help finance the city’s growing trade network.

Film can be viewed free on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/12392969/12392994

Lies of Omission: 10 Stories the Media Conveniently Left Out This Week

THE VIGILANT FOX

The top 10 stories this week from Vigilant News that the media “forgot” to tell you about. #10 – Cattle are being injected with mRNA “vaccines,” but one beef rancher is taking a stand. #9 – Kari Lake makes a fiery accusation against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky #8 – “Turbo cancers” are targeting young people — and it’s likely to get even worse. #7 – Top cardiologist breaks down four ways the COVID-19 shots injure and kill before the European Parliament. #6 – Top data analyst makes a chilling prediction on how the COVID conspirators will cover up their crimes. #5 – The CDC dropped a bombshell on itself, exposing an alarming risk/benefit ratio. #4 – Brave EU politician delivers an explosive message to the global tyrants, telling them all to ‘go to Hell.’ #3 – Oncologist unveils why fasting for 48+ hours is a potent therapy for COVID “vaccine” injuries. #2 – Fitness enthusiasts, not just athletes, are dying suddenly. #1 – New-found emails prove Biden White House hid COVID Vaccine Harms from the public.

Via https://substack.com/@vigilantfox

Investors Know Truth About New Covid Jabs

The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter

However hard Big Pharma is pushing the new Covid jabs, investors know the truth.Even though we are getting closer to winter, a perfect time to sell Covid jabs, Moderna’s share price is down 44%.

And Pfizer’s is down 36%.

Clearly investors in the know realise that people just aren’t taking the Covid shots anymore.

So the sales team has been brought in to try and drum up business. All over the MSM news today are reports of a new study which claims to show that Long Covid can cause long-term damage to multiple organs.

The study, published in The Lancet is titled “Multiorgan MRI findings after hospitalisation with COVID-19 in the UK (C-MORE): a prospective, multicentre, observational cohort study”.

Read any MSM coverage of this study and you will be led to believe that a third of Long Covid patients sustained damage to multiple organs five months after infection. Lung injuries were almost 14 times higher among Long Covid patients, whilst brain and kidney injuries were three and two times higher respectively.

‘Study lead Dr Betty Raman said people who had more than two organs affected were “four times more likely to report severe and very severe mental and physical impairment”’.

Scary stuff, sign me up for my booster now.

But is the study all that it is made out to be?

First of all the declarations of interests page is over 1,600 words long with reference after reference to links with Big Pharma.

Secondly, and most importantly, the study is massively flawed. It recruited 2,710 participants and whittled these down to 259 who were discharged from hospital with PCR-confirmed or clinically diagnosed COVID-19 between March 1 2020 and Nov 1 2021.

This group was then compared with 52 non-Covid-19 controls from the community. The average age of the study group was 57 and the control group was 49. As the study says, “compared with non-COVID-19 controls, patients were older, living with more obesity and had more comorbidities”. 50% of the study group were obese compared with only 37% of the control group. 40% had smoked at some point in their lives compared with only 17% of the control group. I could continue with percentages of all the pre-existing comorbidities but I think you get the picture.

(For those who will ask the question, 40% of the control group were vaccinated at follow-up compared with 44% of the study group.)

So what do you think happens when you take an unhealthy, older group of people who have been in hospital with Covid and you compare them with a younger, healthier group of people from the community. You geniuses, you guessed it. You find that the unhealthier group are unhealthier.

Give the Big Pharma sales team a genius medal for that one and a sucker medal to the MSM who did the sales pitch for them.

But don’t take it from me, here is what Professor Francois Balloux, Director of the UCL Genetics Institute in London, has to say about the study:

Thus, my point is not that the conclusions of the study are necessarily false but that the control group is inadequate. I worry the study may have been published as is because it fits a particular narrative, and not necessarily because it is sound and robust.

By choosing a control group made of elderly, frail, terminally ill patients, it might be possible to demonstrate that Covid actually repairs organ damage, which would obviously be an absurd conclusion, and which should rightly be called out. Yet, here we are …

[…]

Via https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/the-reality-behind-the-long-covid

Sowing the GMO Seeds of Depopulation?

By Colin Todhunter

If physical violence is to be used only as a final resort, a dominant class must seek to gain people’s consent if it is to govern and control a population. It must attempt to legitimize its position in the eyes of the ruled over by achieving a kind of ‘consented coercion’ that disguises the true fist of power. This can be achieved by many means and over the years commentators from Gramsci to Althusser and Chomsky have described how it may be done.

However, one of the most basic and arguably effective forms of control is eugenics/ depopulation, a philosophy that includes reducing the reproductive capacity of the ‘less desirable’ sections of a population.

There is a growing fear that eugenics is being used to get rid of sections of the world population that are ‘surplus to requirements’. And it is a legitimate fear, not least because there is a sordid history of forced/covert sterilizations carried out on those deemed ‘undesirable’ or ‘surplus to requirements’, which reflects the concerns of eugenicists who have operated at the highest levels of policy making. From early 20th century ‘philanthropists’ and the Nazis to the nascent genetics movement and rich elites, by one means or another ridding the planet of the great unwanted masses has always been fairly high on the ‘to do’ list (see this informative piece)

Millionaire US media baron Ted Turner believes a global population of two billion would be ideal, and billionaire Bill Gates has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to improve access to contraception in the Global South.

Gates has also purchased shares in Monsanto valued at more than $23 million at the time of purchase. His agenda is to help Monsanto get their genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into Africa on a grand scale. In 2001, Monsanto and Du Pont bought a small biotech company called Epicyte that had created a gene that basically makes the male sperm sterile and the female egg unreceptive.

Bill Gates’ father has long been involved with Planned Parenthood:

“When I was growing up, my parents were always involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that.”

The above quotation comes from a 2003 interview with Bill Gates.

Planned Parenthood was founded on the concept that most human beings are reckless breeders. Gates senior is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a guiding light behind the vision and direction of the Gates Foundation, which is heavily focused on promoting GMOs in Africa via its financing of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The Gates Foundation has given at least $264.5 million to AGRA.

According to a report published by La Via Campesina in 2010, 70 percent of AGRA’s grantees in Kenya work directly with Monsanto and nearly 80 percent of the Gates Foundation funding is devoted to biotechnology.

The report also explains that the Gates Foundation has pledged $880 million to create the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which is a heavy promoter of GMOs.

The issue of genetic engineering cannot be fully understood without looking at the global spread of US power. The oil-rich Rockefeller dynasty helped promote the ‘green revolution’, which allowed the US to colonise indigenous agriculture across large parts of the planet. By projecting power through the WTO, IMF and World Bank, Washington has been able to make food and agriculture central to its geopolitical strategy of securing global dominance.

As with the control of food and agriculture, the US also regards depopulation as a potential geo-strategic tool (see this) in the quest for control of global resources. What better way to achieve this via a (GM) tampered-with food system that US agribusiness has increasingly come to dominate?

What better way to achieve this than with ‘spermicidal corn’ for example? In Mexico, there is concern about biopharmaceutical corn. Some years ago, Silvia Ribeiro, of the ETC organization, stated:

“The potential of spermicidal corn as a biological weapon is outrageous, since it easily interbreeds with other varieties, is capable of going undetected and could lodge itself at the very core of indigenous and farming cultures. We have witnessed the execution of repeated sterilization campaigns performed against indigenous communities. This method is certainly much more difficult to trace.”

While most of the literature on GMOs is concerned with the impacts of crops that have been genetically modified to deal with pests or herbicide spraying, there are very worrying trends regarding plants being genetically modified to contain industrial pharmaceuticals or possess possible contraceptive traits.

The world’s problems are not being caused by overpopulation, as Turner states, but by greed and a system of ownership and global power relations that ensures wealth flows from bottom to top. The issue at hand should not be about stopping population growth in its tracks but about changing a socially divisive global economic system and the unsustainable depletion of natural resources.

Millionaires like Ted Turner believe it should be a case of carry on consuming regardless, as long as the population is cut.

This is the ideology of the rich who regard the rest of humanity as a problem to be ‘dealt with.’ He says there are “too many people using too much stuff.” He couldn’t be more wrong. For instance, developing nations account for more than 80 percent of world population, but consume only about one third of the world’s energy. US citizens constitute 5 percent of the world’s population but consume 24 percent of the world’s energy.

We should be weary of a politically and militarily well-connected biotech sector which has ownership of technology that allows for the genetic engineering of food and a gene that could be used (or already is) for involuntary sterilization. From covert vaccination campaigns to germ warfare and geo-engineering, sections of the population around the world have too often been sprayed on, injected or exposed to harmful processes to induce sterility, infertility or to merely see the outcome of exposures to radiation, bacteria or some virus. It is for good reason some conflate GMOs and bio-terror.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/sowing-the-gmo-seeds-of-depopulation-2/5450801

We’re Being Prepared For The Ukraine War To Last Into The 2030s

Caitlin Johnstone

Western officials and media pundits are now directly acknowledging that Ukraine’s much-touted “spring counteroffensive” has been a catastrophic failure, but rather than seeing this as a reason to reconsider the mainstream political consensus on this war, they are instead telling everyone that the counteroffensive’s failure means we must commit to the status quo of bloodshed and nuclear brinkmanship for years to come.

In a recent article titled “US and G-7 Allies Expect War in Ukraine to Drag On for Years,” Bloomberg reports that the US-centralized power structure expects to be backing its proxy conflict against Russia for a very long time, potentially into the 2030s.

Bloomberg reports:

“The US and its allies in the Group of Seven now expect the war in Ukraine may drag on for years to come and are building that possibility into their military and financial planning.

“A senior official from one European G-7 country said the war may last as much as six or seven more years and that allies need to plan financially to continue support for Kyiv for such a long conflict.

“That’s much longer than many officials had expected earlier this year, but slow progress in Ukraine’s counteroffensive in recent months has tempered expectations.”

https://twitter.com/Antiwarcom/status/1703544708180677109

In a recent interview with CNN, outgoing Joint Chiefs chair Mark Milley said that achieving Kyiv’s official goal of fully recapturing all Ukrainian territory is going to require “very significant effort over a considerable amount of time.”

“I can tell you that it’ll take a considerable length of time to militarily eject all 200,000 or plus Russian troops out of Russian-occupied Ukraine,” Milley added. “That’s a very high bar. It’s going to take a long time to do it.”

In a recent interview with German newspaper Berliner Morgenpost, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also pounded home the point that this war will drag on for a very long time.

“Most wars last longer than is expected when they first start. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.

“We are all wishing for a quick peace,” Stoltenberg added. “But at the same time, we must recognize: If President Zelensky and the Ukrainians give up the fight, their country would not exist anymore. If President Putin and Russia laid down their weapons, we would have peace. The easiest way to end this war would be if Putin withdrew his troops.”

You see this claim from empire managers and their apologists all the time: that the only obstacle to peace in Ukraine is Russia refusing to leave. This of course ignores the many extensively-documented western aggressions which are known to have provoked Russia’s invasion, a fact that Stoltenberg himself admitted to earlier this month.

https://twitter.com/wallacemick/status/1705126114539053505

Demanding that Russia end its aggressions without the west agreeing to end its own aggressions which led to this conflict is just demanding that Russia lie down and submit to being ruled and dominated by the western empire. It’s not a call for peace, it’s a call for the total victory of Washington and its cohorts.

Stoltenberg reinforced his point that this war will drag on for years by affirming that Ukraine will gain NATO membership when this war is over, which is effectively a message to Moscow that if it still finds NATO membership for Ukraine unacceptable it must either annex Ukraine into the Russian Federation entirely or keep this war going on forever.

“Ukraine will become a member of NATO — all allies have made that clear,” Stoltenberg said, adding that Ukraine will need NATO protection when the war ends, otherwise “history could repeat itself.”

The western media are conveying the same message. Notorious empire propaganda rag The Economist has a new article out titled “Ukraine faces a long war. A change of course is needed,” featuring a Ukrainian flag with the words “TIME FOR A RETHINK” scrawled across it. If you didn’t know anything about The Economist you might assume at first glance that this was an article about rethinking the approach of backing an endless proxy conflict — especially after its opening paragraphs acknowledge that “The plan is not working” and “Ukraine has liberated less than 0.25% of the territory that Russia occupied in June.”

https://twitter.com/battleforeurope/status/1705206986290147533?s=20

You would be wrong though. What The Economist means is that we should switch from thinking of this as a war that can be won in a timely fashion to one which will continue for the foreseeable future:

“Both Ukraine and its Western supporters are coming to realise that this will be a grinding war of attrition. President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington this week for talks. ‘I have to be ready for the long war,’ he told The Economist. But unfortunately, Ukraine is not yet ready; nor are its Western partners. Both are still fixated on the counter-offensive. They need to rethink Ukraine’s military strategy and how its economy is run. Instead of aiming to “win” and then rebuild, the goal should be to ensure that Ukraine has the staying power to wage a long war — and can thrive despite it.”

So western empire managers and their agenda-setters in the mass media are making it as clear as could be that the US-centralized empire has found itself in yet another endless war, another “grinding war of attrition” featuring unfathomable destruction and suffering with no exit strategy, which once again pours vast fortunes into the coffers of the military industrial complex. The only difference is that this time it comes with the added bonus of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

[…]

Via https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/were-being-prepared-for-the-ukraine/

 

US bioweapons in Nigeria endanger Africa and the whole world

Drago Bosnic

InfoBrics

Revelations about what Victoria Nuland ever so euphemistically called “biological research facilities” in Ukraine are usually tied to the start of Russia’s strategic counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe (SMO). However, the truth is that the United States has had a massive bioweapons program for well over half a century and that it has become unprecedentedly globalized in recent decades. The belligerent thalassocracy carefully disguises it under the pretense of “battling epidemics” and “improving health services” of host countries, but the very fact that the Pentagon is directly involved in these projects is a major red flag that indicates such claims are at the very least highly questionable.

Expectedly, the US-led political West is adamant that Russia is “engaged in disinformation” and that these “biological research facilities” are not only “harmless”, but also “benevolent”, as Washington DC is “simply trying to help”. And yet, as soon as the Russian military came into possession of materials housed in these biolabs, Nuland complained before the US Congress that the “benevolent research” could become “dangerous in Russian hands”. It’s important to note that independent investigators have been researching this topic for years before the SMO started, including the respected Bulgarian investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who has also experienced numerous unpleasantries because of it.

For instance, in 2018, Gaytandzhieva was expelled from the EU Parliament for confronting the US Assistant Secretary of Health over Pentagon-funded biolabs in 25 countries around the world. Her fascinating and groundbreaking work was smeared by the mainstream propaganda machine as “fake news”, although the high-ranking US official could’ve simply given a short explanation about the “benevolence” that’s taking place in these “biological research facilities”. Gaytandzhieva also broke the story about similar biolabs in Georgia, where she interviewed numerous locals who contracted “mysterious” diseases just because they were living in the vicinity of the “benevolent” facilities.

As if that isn’t frightening enough, there are at least 336 Pentagon-run “biological research facilities” spread across the world, although the actual number could be several times higher. Africa is particularly exposed to such “benevolent research”, especially populous countries such as Nigeria. Russian military intelligence has identified at least four US biolabs in the African nation. Major General Igor Kirillov, the commander of Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Troops, pointed out the “strange coincidences” of epidemic outbreaks in the vicinity of these facilities. The involvement of the Pentagon is further reinforced by the participation of the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).

Namely, the DTRA has been involved in “modernizing and reconstructing” the National Veterinary Research Institute in Vom, central Nigeria. Why would a US Department of Defense (DoD) agency take part in supposedly “non-military” activities that could’ve easily been conducted by public health services? And yet, the involvement of DoD doesn’t stop there, as the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) has been conducting similar activities at the facilities of the Nigerian Defense Ministry, where they’ve been testing particularly dangerous pathogens without notifying local authorities, thereby exposing thousands of regular Nigerians (and possibly millions in the long term) to serious biohazard.

American military virologists in Nigeria are engaged in classified research that involves pathogens that cause tuberculosis, malaria, monkeypox and even COVID-19 and AIDS. Local sources indicate that tens of thousands of samples and genetic materials are being covertly transferred to other US-run biolabs, not only in Nigeria, but also abroad. Needless to say, the risk of causing yet another pandemic of global proportions because of such activities is substantial, even if the research conducted there is as “benevolent” as the Pentagon claims. The complete lack of transparency on the part of the US State Department, even toward the host country, only further reinforces this notion.

Frequent rotation of military personnel involved in the controversial “research” can only be described as an attempt to better conceal the nature of the Pentagon’s bioweapons program in Nigeria. What’s more, the recommendations of specialists from other US agencies, such as the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), actually lead to a worsening of the epidemiological situation in Nigeria, including an increase in cases of Ebola, Lassa, Crimean-Congo and similar types of hemorrhagic fever, as well as other dangerous diseases. Nigerian military personnel are probably the most vulnerable category, as the Pentagon exerts substantial control over Nigeria’s military and medical system.

Apart from DTRA, other US agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and USAID (US Agency for International Development) have varying degrees of involvement. Under the pretext of “improving the sanitary and epidemiological situation” in Nigeria, the US government is exerting a tremendous amount of control over the country’s bioscientific infrastructure. The European Union is also cooperating with its US counterparts, although the troubled bloc disguises the involvement of its agencies by presenting it as a “humanitarian” effort. Unfortunately, Nigerian authorities are either unaware or are turning a blind eye to the fact that their citizens are effectively being used as guinea pigs.

These activities only serve to create conditions for conducting more effective dual-use “biological research”, the purposes of which are beneficial not only to the interests of the Pentagon, but also the so-called Big Pharma. All of the aforementioned pathogens (in addition to numerous others) are a deadly biohazard that endangers the lives of not only millions of Nigerians, but billions of people in Africa and around the world. The question is – cui bono? Well, it’s certainly not the Nigerian people (or any other for that matter). However, taking into account the astronomical profit margins of American and other Western pharmaceutical corporations, we get the idea of who does.

[…]

Via http://infobrics.org/post/39426/

The Hidden History of the Fourth Crusade (and Sacking of Constantinople)

Episode 11 The Fourth Crusade and the Crusading Impulse

1215: Years That Changed History

Dr Dorsey Armstrong (2019)

Film Review

The Fourth Crusade

The circumstances leading to the Fourth Crusade (1204) were set off by a succession dispute in the Byzantine Empire. Alexios IV Angelos, son of deposed emperor Emperor Isaac II, requested help from the Venetian banks (who financed the Crusades) and Pope Innocent III in reclaiming the throne. After a few skirmishes on the outskirts of Constantinople, Aleixios regained the throne, until a popular revolt deposed and murdered him. With Alexios dead and unable to repay the debt owed the Venetian bankers, the crusaders (according to Armstrong) spontaneously launched a frenzied attack on the richest city in the world.

In addition to looting most of the churches, for gold, silver, jewels and relics, they tortured monks turned many civilians out of their homes, raped women, slaughtered newborns and stripped elderly women to search them for gold and jewels.

Isaac II (who regained the throne) also died in 1204, and the first of several Latin emperors Count Baldwin was appointed to rule the Byzantine Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire continued to be ruled by Latin emperors, supported by a contingent of European troops, until 1261.

Infuriated by the vicious carnage, Pope Innocent II initially excommunicated, many participants in the Fourth Crusade, especially (according to Armstrong) those in the Venetian contingent.* He subsequently reinstated them after they handed over all the relics they had stolen.

Albigensian Crusade

The Albigensian (Cathar) Crusade** in 1209 was the next major crusade. Pope Innocent III allowed France’s northern nobility to seize the wealth of (and kill) many non-Cathars who defended themselves against crusaders.

The Children’s Crusade

The Children’s Crusade in 1212 had two principal leaders 12-year-old Stephen, from Cloyes (in central France)  and 10-year-old Nicholas of Cologne Germany. Joined by large numbers of poor adult peasants, there were 7,000-30,000 participants altogether in the Children’s Crusade. Many of the children were taken into brothels and slavery by greedy merchants who had promised them passage across the Mediterranean.

The Reconquista

In the early 13th century, many European Christians were till involved in the Reconquista (which had started in 722) to recapture pain from its Muslim leaders. They were ultimately successful in 1492.

*Armstrong makes this single throw away comment about the “Venetian contingent” with no mention of the role of Venetian bankers in funding the Fourth Crusade. Instead she asserts that a “surge of religious fervor” caused the crusaders to detour and sack Constantinople instead of progressing to the Holy Land. This contradicts several historical accounts that clearly implicate the doge of Venice and his bankers in the decision to attack Constantinople. It was the Venetian banks who funded the transport of crusaders to Constantinople, at the request of the faction supporting Alexios IV Angelos. Unable to repay their debt following his murder, the European monarchs and nobles who ordered the detour, simply advised the crusaders under their command to help themselves to Constantinople’s treasures to cover their debt to the Venetian bankers. See Bankers at the Gates, Encyclobedia Britannica Enrico Dandolo and Blood Money: 12th Century Trade Wars and the Fourth Crusade

This last source reveals that already by 1200 Venice, was actively engaged in economic warfare with Constantinople and that the republic was no longer a mere city-state. It had amassed numerous holdings in the Balkans along the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea. A network of shipyards on the Balkan coast allowed them to construct vessels requested by the crusaders more quickly. In return they demanded payment of half of everything they captured on land or at sea.

Canadian history Matthew Ehret also provides a comprehensive overview of the role of Venice in the 4th Crusade in The Clash of the Two Americas, Volume 4.

**In addition to their gnostic and Manichean (viewing the world as a balance between Good and Evil) beliefs, the Cathars were strict vegetarians, opposed marriage and disputed both Christ’s divinity and his crucifixion.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/12392969/12392992

New York Repeals COVID Vaccine Mandate For Healthcare Workers But Legal Fight Not Over

By  Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

New York will officially repeal its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers starting Oct. 4. The mandate, which led to thousands of workers being fired or quitting, will be lifted after a lawsuit sponsored by Children’s Health Defense challenged its legality. However, the state may still seek sanctions against workers for alleged past violations.

New York State officially will repeal its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers on Oct. 4, the attorney general’s office on Tuesday informed the New York Supreme Court.

The announcement comes after New York health officials revealed in May that they planned to repeal the mandate, in a surprise move during a hearing in a lawsuit challenging the mandate.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) sponsored the lawsuit, filed Oct. 20, 2022, by a group of medical practitioners affected by the mandate, along with several additional plaintiffs, including two doctors, a nurse, a radiologic technologist and a medical laboratory specialist.

Defendants in the case include the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), New York Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul and Mary T. Bassett, the state’s health commissioner.

Sujata Gibson, the plaintiffs’ attorney, today told The Defender:

“This is a tremendous victory for the healthcare workers and for medical freedom in general, but also for the people of New York who have been deeply impacted by the massive shortage that occurred because of this mandate. Thirty-four thousand healthcare professionals had to leave the field, and we have all been impacted by their absence.

“While this victory is significant, the fight is not over. People suffered enormously because of this mandate and justice needs to be done so that they can be made whole.”

On Jan. 13, the court found for the plaintiffs and struck down the mandate, declaring it “null, void, and of no effect” and alleging the state’s health department “blatantly violated the boundaries of its authority as set forth by the legislature.”

The state appealed, and separately won a stay against the initial ruling. The stay reinstated the mandate, which affected an estimated 34,000 healthcare workers, and perpetuated the ongoing worker crisis in New York’s healthcare system.

Sujata Gibson told The Defender that by allowing the mandate to remain in place, the stay devastated the lives of thousands of workers who remained shut out of work because they were terminated or suspended.

New York’s Supreme Court Appellate Division in Rochester was scheduled to hear arguments on the mandate at a hearing in May. But just minutes before the plaintiffs were set to begin oral arguments, Jonathan Hitsous, an attorney representing the state, announced its intention to repeal the mandate.

Repealing a mandate is a lengthy process requiring a public comment period and hearings. Hitsous told the court the state’s health department would no longer enforce the mandate during that process.

The documents submitted to the court Tuesday showed that during the public comment period, the NYSDOH received only one comment about the proposed repeal, which was from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

That department urged NYSDOH not to repeal the mandate and instead to amend the regulation to require personnel to be “up to date” with COVID-19 vaccination or to wear a “well-fitting mask” at times when COVID-19 is determined to be prevalent.

The NYSDOH considered those options and rejected them, Gibson said.

But, it indicated it may “continue to seek sanctions against providers based on previously cited violations that allegedly occurred.”

Kim Mack Rosenberg, CHD acting general counsel, told The Defender the repeal was a “tremendous victory” for healthcare workers and the patients they care for.

“However,” she added:

“We cannot forget the workers who were damaged by the mandate. The mandate took a financial and emotional toll on professionals dedicated to patient care. Among other things, they suffered job loss and, in many instances, had to leave New York State in order to find work and support their families.

“Many of those workers may not want to or may not be able to return to New York, even with the mandates lifted. The impact of the mandate will be felt for years to come.”

Plaintiffs still seeking to uphold lower court ruling

When he announced, in May, plans to repeal the mandate, Hitsous also asked the court to overturn the lower court’s original ruling striking down the mandate as illegal and unconstitutional.

Hitsous argued the original lawsuit was rendered moot — the rights and interests of the parties involved are no longer at stake — because the state planned to repeal the mandate.

But Gibson opposed the move to vacate the original ruling, arguing it “leaves open the very real possibility that this constitutional violation could happen again and ruin many more lives.”

In fact, later the same day that Hisous announced the state’s intent to repeal the mandate, the NYSDOH sent out guidance to affected healthcare facilities clarifying that the promises to the court were not accurate, Gibson said.

The letter stated the NYSDOH would stop citing providers for failing to comply with the mandate while its termination was undergoing consideration, but that the department was still seeking sanctions for past violations.

The NYSDOH also reminded providers that they must continue to follow and enforce all applicable state and federal laws — which by implication included the mandate.

Gibson filed a motion on June 8 asking the court to lift the stay and either consider the case on its merits or end the appeal of the original decision.

She also detailed the effect on workers who continued to suffer harm because the state’s voluntary repeal is only prospective, not retroactive.

The state’s attorney did not oppose her motion to repeal the stay. In fact, on June 20, Hitsous submitted an affirmation of the motion.

However because the affirmation was submitted after the deadline set by the court, it was not accepted by the panel, and the stay technically remained in place. Despite this, people interviewed by The Defender said hospitals did begin dropping their mandates.

Gibson told The Defender the state’s submission to the court this week shows why the case remains relevant and is not made moot by the repeal.

“The submission makes clear that this case is not moot as they reserve the right to continue to seek sanctions against people who allegedly violated the mandate before the repeal and the harm that was done still needs to be remedied.”

The court has yet to decide on the motions before it.

Mandates for workers were devastating but the lawsuit made a difference

New York’s COVID-19 mandate for healthcare workers took effect in September 2021, prompting 34,000 medical workers, or 3% of the workforce at the time, to quit or be fired instead of getting the shots.

Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo first enacted the mandate on Aug. 16, 2021, and the NYSDOH adopted it as a permanent rule under Gov. Hochul on June 22, 2022, even though New York ended its COVID-19 state of emergency on June 24, 2021.

Margaret Florini, spokesperson for Medical Professionals for Informed Consent, told The Defender the mandate devastated thousands of healthcare workers in New York.

She said:

“We pooled money to help people in our lawsuit provide food for their children, to provide birthday presents for their children, to provide Christmas presents for their children.

“Wow. I mean, people have lost their homes that they have raised their families in, and had to sell them. Pensions have been drained, retirements have been drained. There are people in New City who are literally begging because they are so in debt and can’t pay their rent.

“And a couple people in Medical Professionals for Informed Consent have received their final eviction notices, and they are at the point where they will literally be homeless within the next few weeks.”

As New York entered a crisis of healthcare workers, she said many workers crossed state lines to work in Pennsylvania in order to survive, and as a result, Pennsylvania’s healthcare system is booming.

Confidential documents shared with The Defender showed that after Gibson filed the motion to lift the stay in June, several hospitals changed their policies and began re-hiring fired or suspended workers.

The Defender reviewed emails showing that effective July 1, Ascension healthcare system no longer made the COVID-19 vaccine a condition of employment at its New York facilities.

There was an outpouring of gratitude by reinstated workers for the work done through the lawsuit to get their jobs back.

[…]

But, she said, the work is not done. If the lower court’s ruling is upheld, plaintiffs will be able to seek job reinstatement, back pay and other damages in a different process.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/new-york-repeals-covid-vaccine-mandate-healthcare-legal-fight/

 

America’s First ‘Shroom Clinic’ Opens In Oregon

Zero Hedge

America’s first licensed health clinic to sell ‘magic mushrooms’ opened in June in Oregon and has been swamped with surging demand. The waitlist for the clinic exceeds 3,000 people, some of whom are searching for ways to treat depression and PTSD.

No prescription or referral is needed for Epic Healing Eugene, but customers must be over 21 to receive psilocybin services.

AP News said some customers complained the ‘mind-bending’ experience is too costly:

“A client can wind up paying over $2,000, which helps cover service center expenses, a facilitator and lab-tested psilocybin. Annual licenses for service centers and growers cost $10,000, with a half-price discount for veterans.” 

Even though The Oregon Psychiatric Physicians Association opposed legalizing psilocybin in 2020, voters thought otherwise and also decriminalized the possession of hard drugs.

Epic Healing Eugene’s owner Cathy Jonas told AP that providing legal access to mushrooms is a ‘dream come true’:

“The plant medicines have communicated to me that I’m supposed to be doing this thing.”

State regulators decided that 50-milligram doses would be allowed. Jonas said she offers 35 milligrams of pure psilocybin or about 6 grams of dried mushrooms.

Each customer must consume the shrooms in the vicinity of Epic Healing Eugene and must remain on the property until the drug wears off. So forget about tripping in the forest with friends.

One of Jonas’ customers described being in a “kind of infinite-dimension fractal that just kept turning and twisting” after consuming 35 milligrams of shrooms.

“It was kind of mesmerizing to watch, but it got so intense,” said the client, who didn’t want to be identified to protect his privacy.

The client continued, “I started to have this experience of dying and being reborn. And then I would kind of see large portions of my life going by in a very rapid way.”

Several studies have revealed psilocybin is a possible treatment for psychiatric disorders.

Roland Griffiths, a professor who studies the neuropsychopharmacology of consciousness at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, received approval in 2000 to carry out the first experiments on psilocybin since the 1960s. He found in a survey of early study participants that more than half regarded it as one of the most meaningful experiences of their life.

“The mystical experience itself does seem to be really important for therapeutic effects, but we published survey data to suggest it’s not actually the mystical experience itself, but the personal insights you can encounter or gain during that mystical experience that actually lead to therapeutic change,” Barrett said, adding, “The idea here is that mystical experience can create the opportunity for personal insights.”

Since then, other more recent studies have shown promise in using psilocybin-assisted therapy to treat psychiatric disorders like depression. Some have been used to identify their usefulness in smoking cessation (alongside talk therapy). They have also shown some usefulness in alleviating anxiety in people with terminal cancer.

Another study, one published last week, found that the psychedelic drug MDMA can reduce symptoms of PTSD:

 “It’s the first innovation in PTSD treatment in more than two decades. And it’s significant because I think it will also open up other innovation,” said Amy Emerson, CEO of MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, the research sponsor.

Before the Food and Drug Administration can prescribe MDMA, the Drug Enforcement Administration would need to change its classification from Schedule 1 to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Psilocybin is still illegal federally, but several states are considering adopting Oregon’s decriminalizing approach to drugs.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/americas-first-shroom-clinic-opens-oregon