Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 368
September 13, 2023
France Bans iPhone Over Radiation Concerns
FILE PHOTO © Soumyabrata Roy / NurPhoto via Getty ImagesRT
Sales of the Apple device must cease immediately.Apple must withdraw all iPhone 12 models from the French market immediately, the National Frequency Agency (ANFR) announced on Tuesday, accusing the popular smartphone of emitting far more electromagnetic radiation than European Union regulations allow.
“The ANFR expects Apple to deploy all available means to put an end to the non-compliance. Failure to act will result in the recall of equipment that has already been made available to consumers,” the agency said.
According to the regulator, tests at an accredited laboratory revealed that the phone exceeded the specific absorption rate (SAR) value mandated by the EU, which is four watts-per-kilogram (W/kg), when held in hand or in a trouser pocket. The “body” SAR, when the phone is in a jacket pocket or a bag at least 5mm away, was within the 2 W/kg limit, however.
Apple must immediately stop the sale of the iPhone 12 in France and get ANFR approval if it makes updates to them to ensure compliance, the regulator added. ANFR inspectors have been authorized to check “all distribution channels in France” for the banned device, starting Tuesday.
The iPhone 12 was introduced in October 2020 and has continued to be popular due to a lower price point than the subsequent models. Apple says the model has a SAR of 0.99 W/kg when measured by the EU standard.
Earlier on Tuesday, the California-based Apple announced the iPhone 15 line of devices, featuring the USB-C connector in order to comply with an EU mandate adopted in 2022.
The US Federal Communications Commission has yet to comment on the French announcement. The FCC has a SAR limit of 1.6 W/kg.
France’s radiation crackdown comes after several months of bad news for Apple. Last week it was reported that China has banned government employees from bringing iPhones or any other foreign devices into the office or using them for work purposes.
Russian officials were advised to stop using iPhones in July, while the state military industry banned them outright, citing security concerns. Later that month, a class action suit in the UK accused the US-based company of monopolistic behavior regarding fees charged by the app store.
[…]
Via https://swentr.site/news/582870-france-iphone12-radiation-ban/
Israel: Young People Refuse Military Service Over Judicial Reforms
By Oren Ziv in Tel AvivMiddle Eastern EyeYouth Against Dictatorship ties refusal of military service to controversial judicial reforms and oppression of Palestinians.
Hundreds of Israeli high school students have publicly declared that they will refuse to serve in the army, in protest at the judicial reforms which have caused widespread unrest and controversy in the country in the past year.
Although it is not the first time Israelis have refused military service in protest, the decision by 230 students to boycott the service is the first organised attempt to use refusal as a specific means of opposing the current government’s judicial reforms.
In a statement released on Sunday at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium high school in central Tel Aviv, Youth Against Dictatorship also explicitly tied their cause to opposition to the oppression of the Palestinians.
“As young women and men about to be conscripted into Israeli military service, we say NO to dictatorship in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We hereby declare that we refuse to join the military, until democracy is secured for all who live within the jurisdiction of the Israeli government,” read the statement, which attracted widespread attention and controversy in Israel.
The statement said that the “dictatorship that has existed for decades in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is now oozing into Israel proper and is directed against us.”Violent settlers now control the entire state. These are not recent developments. Undemocratic attitudes and actions are essential to maintaining this regime of occupation and Jewish supremacy. The only thing that has changed is that the mask is now off. Faced with this reality, we say NO!”
In recent months, the practice of refusing has shifted from exclusively small groups on the radical left to the heart of public discourse in Israel.
Hundreds of reservists announced that they would stop volunteering for reserve service in protest at what many claim is an effective “coup” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose judicial reforms will heavily strengthen parliament against the judiciary.
Former politicians and members of the security establishment have also declared support for the boycott. At a demonstration in Tel Aviv in July, former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said the time had come “to decide on the suspension of volunteering for the reserves until the legislation is completely stopped”.
Former Defence Minister and Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon has also said of reservists who stop their service that he “would have done the same”.
The statement by the 230 youths is the first organised initiative regarding refusal of mandatory service, which applies in Israel to every man or woman at the age of 18, except for ultra-Orthodox Israelis – who are exempt for religious reasons – and Palestinian citizens of Israel, most of whom are not conscripted.
“The statement makes the connection between the judicial overhaul and the occupation. Those promoting the overhaul in the Knesset are Rotman, Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who are settlers,” said 16-year-old Ella Greenberg Keidar, referring to a number of far-right legislators who have been pushing the judicial reforms.
She told Middle East Eye that the government’s legislation was enabling further construction in the occupied territories and further acts of “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians.
“Beyond criticising settlers and the settlements, we want to talk about the militarism of society that allows such a thing. In addition, the reform was designed to increase the oppression of LGBT people, women and immigrants,” she said.
‘I won’t be a soldier of Ben Gvir’Some of the signatories said they had planned to refuse to serve even before the current far-right government was formed, while others have consolidated their position in recent months.
Tal Mitnick, 17, told MEE that despite his concerns he had planned to keep his head down and enlist in a non-combat role, so that he would be able to get a career after military service.
“When the protests started, I started to be more active and learn from people around me,” he said. “I decided to publicly refuse. I understood that these army units are backing up the combat units, giving them the intolerance to invade houses and blackmail Palestinians.”
‘On the personal level, my attitude has changed – I felt there was an obligation to publicly refuse, in order to present a resistance to the blunt fascist discourse’
– Yuval Dag, activist
He added that the demonstrations had caused a lot of people to wake up and see the connection between the overhaul and the occupation.
“I personally began to connect things, to see the settlers from the West Bank leading the overhaul, and why it is important for them to weaken the Supreme Court, in order to pass racist laws and annex the territories,” he explained.
Yuval Dag was the first person to be jailed since the new government was formed and the protests began in January.
Dag, who is 20, had taken the decision to refuse military service already, but decided to go public after the new far-right government was elected.
“On the personal level, my attitude has changed – I felt there was an obligation to publicly refuse, in order to present a resistance to the blunt fascist discourse,” he explained to MEE. “In the general public, the slogan of ‘I won’t be a soldier of Ben Gvir’ became acceptable, even in places where the occupation was not discussed, because now there is a demon on the other side.”
Dag served 64 days in military prison before he was released.
“It was a difficult experience in prison… I hope more will refuse and that it will become more acceptable.”
Refusal ‘common and accepted’In July, the Knesset passed a key pillar of the government’s judicial reform package, abolishing Israel’s “reasonableness standard”, eliminating the Supreme Court’s ability to block government decisions it deems unreasonable.
Proponents of the plan say it is necessary to restore the balance of power between government branches, while opponents say it will remove checks and balances and undermine the independence of the judicial system.
Attorney Noa Levy, who represents conscientious objectors and advises Youth Against Dictatorship, said that increasing numbers of Israelis taking part in military service had contacted her since the reforms protests began.
Levy told MEE that they said they had lost confidence in the roles assigned to them, and were overwhelmed by doubts following the first mass refusals, prompted by the abolition of the reasonableness standard.
For older “refuseniks”, the new wave of Israelis refusing to serve is heartening.
David Zonsheine, 50, is co-founder of the Courage to Refuse group that refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
He was jailed in 2002 after he refused to serve as a reservist in the Palestinian territories.
“More than 20 years ago, we were struggling to return Israel to the morally good place they thought it once was,” he told MEE.
“We used our uniform in order to speak to the public – they understand the army itself is the problem, as it produces all the right-wing ideology, even more extreme than Ben Gvir.”
Zonsheine said that while he was still guarding his expectations, it was a positive fact that refusal was now “common and accepted”.
“The protests against the overhaul shifted the focus from the army to the regime,” he explained. “We stated we won’t serve because of what the army is doing to Palestinians; they state that they won’t serve in an army of a regime because of its actions against Israeli Jews. Now we need to explain the problems beyond that.”
[…]
America’s Social Meltdown
The stage has been set for a societal meltdown of epic proportions. When the United States went through the Great Depression of the 1930s, conditions were extremely rough, but our country was able to successfully weather the storm thanks to the relatively high character of the American people. Unfortunately, several generations later we are simply not made of the same stuff. Just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is absolutely exploding in our society today, and there is chaos in major cities from coast to coast. If things are this bad now, while economic conditions are still at least somewhat stable, what is going to happen when economic conditions get exceedingly harsh in this country?
Already, crime is totally out of control in communities all over the nation. According to the Washington Post, homicides are up 29 percent in Washington D.C. so far this year, and robberies are up 67 percent…
The spike in felonies — homicides and robberies are up 29 and 67 percent from the same time period last year, police statistics show — is not the only data that is causing alarm. The number of juveniles arrested for carjacking has increased slightly since last year, with 41 of the 64 charged between the ages of 12 and 15. As of Aug. 31, a total of 81 minors had been shot in the city this year, compared with 66 over the same span last year and 37 in 2021.
While a preponderance of violence occurs where it often has — in poor neighborhoods on D.C.’s eastern edge — statistics show that the geography of crime has become more diffuse, with prosperous areas less immune than before.
Those are definitely very alarming numbers, but Washington D.C. is far from alone.
A crime wave has been steadily percolating all over America, and even young women are eagerly participating in the violence…
The shocking moment three women beat an Asian man with a metal pipe before taking off with his car has been caught on camera.
Danxin Shi, a rideshare driver, is no longer able to work after his vehicle was stolen by the gang about 5:30pm on Tuesday evening in crime-ridden, Dem-led Chicago.
Footage shows the moment the Chinatown resident, who lives West 22nd Place, parking his vehicle and walking along the street when he is struck with a weapon and shoved to the ground – where he is beaten repeatedly.
This makes me so sad.
Young women are not supposed to act like this.
But now we live in a society where all of the old rules have been thrown out.
In this environment, literally anything goes. Theft is going to cost U.S. retailers more than 100 billion dollars this year alone, and “flash robberies” that are conducted by mobs of young people have become a daily occurrence…
A group of ‘flash rob’ thieves stormed into a Los Angeles Macy’s department store at Northridge Mall on Sunday morning as they filled bags with $20,000 worth of perfume.
Cellphone video of the crime showed several men dressed in dark hoodies and blue medical face masks loading up bags of what appeared to be cologne and perfume merchandise.
Meanwhile, the worst drug crisis in the entire history of the United States just continues to escalate.
Today, the heart of the city of Benjamin Franklin looks like something you would expect to see in a third world country…
Disturbing new video from Philadelphia shows addicts on the street in a trance like state, passed out on the sidewalk in the city’s multiple homeless encampments.
In the Kensington neighborhood, the footage shows fires burning on trash littered sidewalks as groups of people set up camp.
Drug users are seen hunched over with no control of their limbs, while others are sprawled across the garbage covered streets.
Large groups have taken over the sidewalks, turning them into homeless encampments where many people live in their own filth.
But this isn’t just happening in our large metropolitan areas.
According to Zero Hedge, authorities are having to deal with “third-world country stuff” in Casper, Wyoming…
A city in Wyoming has been overwhelmed with a growing number of homeless people, who have damaged a local hotel that would require millions of dollars to fix and left hundreds of pounds of human feces in the downtown area, according to its mayor.
Casper Mayor Bruce Knell, in an interview with local news media Cowboy State Daily published on Aug. 31, said the city’s homeless population had topped about 200 people, creating “a mess” as they roam the city’s parks and streets.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s third-world country stuff happening in Casper, Wyoming,” Mr. Knell said.
“They destroyed everything,” he added. “It’s horrible.”
With each passing day, conditions in this nation get even worse.
So what is going to happen when the economy finally tanks and people start getting really desperate?
You might want to start thinking about that, because very hard times are clearly on the horizon.
When the economy slows down, there is less demand for rail transportation, and at this point total combined U.S. rail traffic has fallen on a year over year basis for three months in a row…
“August was the third straight month in which total year-over-year U.S. rail carloads have fallen,” Association of American Railroads (AAR) Senior Vice President John T. Gray reported on Sept. 6. Total combined U.S. traffic for the first 35 weeks of 2023 was 16,173,208 carloads and intermodal units, a decrease of 4.9% compared to last year.
Even more troubling, credit card delinquencies and auto loan delinquencies have both hit levels that we haven’t seen in more than a decade…
This year, credit card delinquencies have hit 3.8%, while 3.6% have defaulted on their car loans, according to credit agency Equifax.
Both figures are the highest in more than 10 years.
“The increase in delinquencies and defaults is symptomatic of the tough decisions that these households are having to make right now — whether to pay their credit card bills, their rent or buy groceries,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told the Washington Post.
We had a very sharp recession during the first two quarters of 2020, and then we had another relatively mild recession during the first two quarters of 2022.
Now it appears that a new downturn has begun, and it promises to be very painful.
But our population is clearly not prepared to handle what is ahead of us.
When economic conditions get extremely harsh, I expect that we will see a massive national temper tantrum, and it won’t be pretty.
[…]
Via https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/we-have-a-real-life-nightmare-on/
September 12, 2023
FDA Approves New COVID Vaccines for Infants as Young as 6 Months — Based on Minimal Data or Testing
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the new vaccines are “formulated to more closely target currently circulating variants and to provide better protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death.” However, the vaccines target the XBB.1.5 variant, which “is declining in the U.S.,” according to CNBC.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday approved updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, paving the way for their approval by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is meeting today to vote on whether to recommend the two vaccines, CNBC reported. Following ACIP’s vote, CDC Director Mandy Cohen is “likely” to approve its recommendation, Endpoints News reported, opening the door for the vaccines’ public availability.
The vaccines received FDA approval for people ages 12 and up, and Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for children from 6 months to 11 years. Ages 5 and over will be eligible to receive a single dose, previously vaccinated children between 6 months and 4 years of age will receive one or two doses, while unvaccinated children in the same age group will be eligible for two Moderna doses or three Pfizer-BioNTech doses.
According to the FDA, the new vaccines are “formulated to more closely target currently circulating variants and to provide better protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death.”
However, the vaccines target the XBB.1.5 variant, which “is declining in the U.S.,” according to CNBC, citing CDC data.
[…]
Dr. Pierre Kory, president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), said, ”It is unconscionable that the government can recommend this booster for 6-month-olds when the FDA has no data on how children might be affected.”
In a separate statement, the FLCCC said, “By leveraging the unnecessary Emergency Use Authorization … the FDA is pushing forward with an experimental vaccine booster based on limited safety and efficacy data.”
[…]
Canadian physician Dr. William Makis said, “There is no ‘COVID-19 emergency’ for children, therefore there is no legitimate scientific basis for an ‘emergency authorization’ of a new COVID-19 booster in this age group,” adding, “any doctor still administering COVID-19 mRNA vaccines to children of any age is engaging in medical malpractice.”
[…]
“There are no randomized clinical trials demonstrating either Pfizer or Moderna XBB.1.5 boosters would work” against the new strains, he added.
Writing on his Substack, Dr. Robert Malone, pioneer and expert in mRNA and DNA vaccines and therapies, noted that the XBB.1.5 variant “is on its way to becoming extinct,” while new variants “have evolved even further to escape the antibody pressure elicited by the globally deployed leaky ‘vaccines.’”
He noted that “the FDA administrative bureaucracy self-determined that they could continue to bypass their normal (already lax) procedures for evaluating purity” by authorizing the agency to approve new COVID-19 vaccines and boosters for 180 days after the public health emergency expired May 11.
The PREP Act (Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act) liability shield for the COVID-19 vaccines will remain in place through Dec. 31, 2024.
Little data, but ‘a lot of red flags’ surrounding the updated COVID vaccines
According to CNBC, “Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax have released early trial data indicating their new shots provide protection against Eris,” adding that Pfizer and Moderna have also said their updated shots produced a “strong immune response against BA.2.86,” another emerging COVID-19 subvariant.
In its announcement, the FDA said:
“The updated vaccines are expected to provide good protection against COVID-19 from the currently circulating variants. …
“Based on an evaluation of the totality of the evidence, the benefit-risk profile is favorable for individuals 6 months of age and older to receive an updated COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.
“Although serious outcomes from COVID-19 are less common in younger individuals, they do occur, and it has been demonstrated that recently receiving a COVID-19 vaccine reduces the risk of such serious outcomes.”
In the same announcement, Marks said, “The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality.”
However, according to the Times, only Moderna has shared trial data of its updated vaccine, which shows that testing was conducted on 100 people. It does not appear that any children or pregnant women were included in that sample.
Also according to the Times, Pfizer spokesperson Jerb/20230911213153/https:/ica Pitts said the updated Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine “involved tests in animals,” and that “Trials following people who received the shot are continuing.” Yet, Pfizer claims the new vaccine generates antibodies that “effectively neutralize” the EG.5 subvariant.
“The only testing has been on antibody levels,” said Risch. “No clinical testing has been done on the new boosters.”
Kory said the FDA’s exclusive reliance on data provided by the manufacturers “is a great conflict of interest” and “not how [they] are going to rebuild trust with the public.”
On his Substack, Malone also noted that the risk of the new COVID-19 subvariants — and subsequent need, or lack thereof, for vaccines targeting them, has not been tested, but that the vaccines’ EUA status enabled them to quickly attain FDA approval.
[…]
Similarly, at a Sept. 7 press conference, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said “There’s essentially no evidence” supporting the updated vaccines, and “no clinical trial showing that it is a safe product for people … but there are a lot of red flags.”
[…]
According to Wastila, “Both Moderna and Pfizer have failed to deliver on promised post-marketing studies” from prior COVID-19 vaccines. “We have yet to see the results from the bivalent vaccine safety studies in pregnant women; the myocarditis studies in young people also have not been completed nor have most results been shared.”
‘The beginning of their public backslide’
Notably, public health officials and the news media appear to be walking back rhetoric that claimed those who were vaccinated would not catch COVID-19 or transmit it.
[…]
This contrasts with statements made by Dr. Anthony Fauci during a May 2021 MSNBC interview, where he said the COVID-19 vaccines “protect you completely against infection,” and that those infected aren’t likely to transmit the virus or have symptoms.
Wastila, who as part of the Coalition Advocating for Adequately Labeled Medicines, submitted a citizen petition to the FDA on Jan. 31 with concerns about inadequate COVID-19 vaccine labeling, said the FDA’s “acknowledgment that the boosters may not be needed by all individuals is the beginning of their public backslide.”
[…]
Dr. Ashish Jha, former White House COVID-19 adviser and now dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, told KFF that “a reasonable person” could disagree regarding the need for healthy young people to get the updated vaccine.
[…]
He added that the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) “hit a grim milestone this August, with 18,015 COVID-19 vaccine deaths, with approximately 1,100 dying on the same day they took the shot,” while Kory noted that VAERS data now shows that “400,000 people required medical care after receiving a COVID vaccine.”
VAERS has historically been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.
‘People aren’t stupid’
Risch called the updated COVID-19 vaccines “a useless idea,” noting that “Almost everybody has had COVID-19 at least once and/or has been vaccinated and has a substantial degree of immunity. That puts them at low risk of serious responses to the viruses circulating now and through the fall and winter.”
CNBC noted “It’s unclear how many Americans will … get another shot in the coming months,” reporting that according to CDC data, only 17% of the U.S. population received Pfizer’s and Moderna’s previous boosters, released in September 2022.
According to the Times, “Nursing homes … have fallen behind on booster rates,” with Medicare data indicating that only approximately 62% of residents are up-to-date.
A survey of 2,196 people published Sept. 4 in Vaccine found that the main reasons for not receiving the previous bivalent booster included immunity due to prior infections, concerns about side effects and a belief that boosters do not provide protection.
[…]
He also referred to recent documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request revealing that most people being hospitalized with COVID-19 are vaccinated and that the FDA and CDC hid data on the spike in deaths among this population.
Wastila said this data is “of great concern” and that “there does appear to be a dose response to this risk — the more shots, the greater likelihood of hospitalization and/or death,” adding that “These current boosters will only further this ‘negative effectiveness’ response, will only further weaken and destroy recipients’ immune systems.”
[…]
According to a MedPage Today story published last month, there is no data available for administering the COVID-19, flu and RSV vaccines at the same time.
Similar messaging to that of the Biden administration is emanating from the vaccine manufacturers. According to CNBC, Bourla and Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel both urged the public to receive their COVID-19 and flu vaccines at the same time.
According to KFF, Moderna recently told investors “it was focused on increasing sales” of its vaccines via “awareness campaigns” which will “connect COVID-19 with seasonal flu vaccines with the goal to drive consumers to get vaccinated this fall.”
[…]
Watch today’s ACIP meeting here:
[…]
California Threatens to Defund 600+ Schools Over Low Vaccine Rates
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. California is auditing more than 600 schools for allegedly failing to reach student vaccination targets or file vaccination reports. But critics say the numbers are misleading and the audit is driven by Big Pharma and political interests.
The California Department of Health (CDPH) is threatening to restrict funding for the more than 600 schools being audited by the state because they reported more than 10% of their kindergarten or seventh grade students were not fully vaccinated last year or because they failed to file a vaccination report with the state, EdSource reported.
[…]
CDPH posted the audit list, which included 449 schools with kindergarten students, 175 schools with seventh graders, 56 schools with both grades and 39 schools that had not filed a vaccination report.
California students are considered “not fully vaccinated” if they have not provided proper immunization records to their school, if they don’t have the vaccinations required by the school system or if they have been admitted to schools conditionally while they are in the process of finishing their school-mandated vaccine series, according to the state audit guide.
If a student behind on the vaccine requirements has not received a first dose of a required vaccine within 10 days of starting school and a second dose of a required vaccine within four months of the first dose, the student must be excluded from school.
The audit guide indicates that to determine whether schools have students behind schedule, auditors check whether kindergarteners have two doses of a varicella (chickenpox) vaccine and two doses of a measles vaccine and whether seventh graders have two doses of varicella and one dose of Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis), their sixth pertussis-containing vaccine.
Oakland Unified School District, with 48 elementary schools and eight of the seventh grade schools on the list, has the highest number of schools being audited. Los Angeles Unified has 75 of its non-charter schools on the audit list, while Pomona Unified has 13, San Francisco Unified 14 and San Juan Unified in Sacramento County, eight.
The vaccination audit has been occurring in public schools only since the 2021-2022 school year, when 45 schools made the list.
Schools in violation of the state law must submit corrected attendance reports that reflect the reduction in average daily attendance cited in the audit finding, which will likely reduce their funding, according to CDPH spokesperson Scott Roark.
Sensationalizing vaccine numbers
Over the last year, legacy media organizations such as The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post along with public health officials across the country have been sounding the alarm over decreasing rates of routine vaccination among U.S. children.
But even at its lowest point — the 2020-2021 school year — the kindergarten vaccination rate only dipped to 94% from 95%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Experts cited in these articles blame the drop on pandemic disruptions to U.S. healthcare, “vaccine hesitancy” about the COVID-19 vaccine bleeding over into other vaccines and the availability of non-medical vaccine exemptions.
EdSource reported that vaccination rates in California, which had been climbing since the state eliminated the personal belief exemption in 2015, plunged after schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thousands of children in California were unable to start the school year in 2022 because they were behind on their vaccinations, it reported.
But EdSource also reported that the kindergarten vaccination rate was 92.8% in 2020 — down from 95% in 2018 — but went back up to 94% in 2021.
Substack writer and analyst Karl Kanthak told The Defender these numbers are being used to create the appearance of a crisis, which he says is part of a broader attack on vaccine exemptions.
Between the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which gave vaccine makers immunity for any injuries caused by vaccines, the 1994 Vaccines for Children Program that provides no-cost vaccines to low-income children and the school mandates, Big Pharma has achieved nearly full saturation of the pediatric market, Kanthak said.
But that’s not the case for the adult market, where vaccine uptake is much lower without mandates. “Eliminating school exemptions for children is a major step in making exemptions unavailable for adults,” Kanthak said.
Because the child market was already saturated, “they [pharma] couldn’t use low rates as an excuse” to argue legislators should eliminate access to exemptions, he said.
That has resulted in the misrepresentation of vaccine rates, where it is made to seem as if high numbers of children are missing required vaccines, raising the specter of disease outbreaks, said Kanthak, which is apparent in the audit and EdSource’s reporting on it and most media headlines about vaccines.
[…]
Audit numbers are ‘misleading’
For example, Kanthak told The Defender that many shots required for kindergarteners, including the last doses of the MMR, varicella, DTaP and polio can be administered between the ages of 4 and 6, according to the CDC’s childhood immunization schedule.
Doctors or parents planning to complete the course of vaccination may choose to do so later in that time period for any number of reasons related to the child’s development, health condition or previous vaccination.
Because children start kindergarten in that window, many children being counted as unvaccinated are on the CDC schedule, even if they are not yet “fully vaccinated,” he said.
[…]
Kanthak said the audit numbers themselves are misleading because some of the schools listed have very few students and some of those students are missing something marginal.
“The first two schools on the list have only two seventh grade students, therefore one student missing their Tdap — sixth pertussis injection — gives those schools an only ‘50% fully vaccinated’ measurement.”
The audit lists a significant number of schools with very few students. Sixty-three elementary schools and 53 seventh grade schools have fewer than nine students. Thirty-five elementary schools and nineteen seventh grade schools have fewer than 20 students.
In those schools, having one or two students not “fully vaccinated” places them on the audit list, but it is a small number of overall students. Using a percentage in any population less than 100 is misleading, he added, because each student comprises more than 1% of the total.
Kanthak added that such reports typically exclude these small numbers to protect children’s confidentiality.
Only 61 of the kindergarten schools on the list and 46 of the seventh grade schools on the list had more than 100 students.
Overall, the total number of kindergarten students in the more than 500 schools on the audit list comprises about 5.3% of the total 471,379 kindergarten students in California.
California-based attorney Brad Hakala of the Hakala Law Group told The Defender, “In a state that has in excess of 39 million residents … it seems like statistics are consistently being skewed” to favor the position that dropping vaccine rates is a crisis.
[…]
Vaccine rights attorney Greg Glaser told The Defender he thinks the rising concerns parents have with vaccination has the potential to pose a real threat to Big Pharma, which is “calling the shots” on these audits to make sure vaccination rates don’t drop at all.
[…]
Ad hoc immunization clinics raise concerns
EdSource reports that schools and districts trying to increase vaccination rates are sending vaccination guidelines home with students and health services teams and reaching out to families to let them know where to get vaccinated.
Also, some schools or school districts are offering immunization clinics.
For example, Sacramento City Unified School District offers weekly free vaccination clinics at its district enrollment center. And Gateway Community Charters offered a clinic at its middle school.
The presence of such clinics also raises concerns, Glaser said, specially given the recent push by the U.S. federal government to rapidly expand the use of school-based health centers across the country.
This push has some critics concerned children will receive, or be pressured into receiving, unnecessary or unwanted medical interventions without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
Dr. Mary Kelly Sutton — an integrative physician whose license was revoked by the California medical board for writing eight vaccine medical exemptions the board alleges were not fully compliant with CDC regulations — told The Defender she saw the clinics as a way to pressure families and children into vaccination in ways that could violate their rights.
[…]
Vaccine exemptions: ‘as California goes, so goes the nation’
California has been ground zero for struggles over vaccine mandates for over a decade.
In 2012, California passed Assembly Bill 2109 to restrict the ability of parents to have their children exempted from vaccine requirements based on personal beliefs.
Where before parents simply had to write a letter stating their personal beliefs, the new law stipulated that parents seeking exemption for their children must get the signature of an authorized healthcare provider stating that parents had received information about the risks of not being vaccinated.
In 2015, allegedly prompted by a measles outbreak at Disneyland — that the media blamed on unvaccinated children — and low vaccination rates in many California schools, Democratic State Sens. Richard Pan and Ben Allen authored a controversial bill, Senate Bill 277, that eliminated the “personal belief exemption” altogether.
Pan’s SB 277 passed in 2015 and Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law, despite significant pushback from parents, hundreds of whom protested at the legislature.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Pan also proposed legislation mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for all school children, with no personal or religious exemptions permitted — before the full approval of the vaccine for children by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The bill did not pass.
He also wrote a 2021 op-ed in The Washington Post likening “anti-vaccine extremism” to domestic terrorism.
The passage of SB 277 in 2015 made California the first state in nearly 35 years to eliminate nonmedical vaccine exemptions. Beginning in January 2016, nonmedical vaccine exemptions were no longer accepted for school entry.
After that, school vaccination rates rose. Parents who don’t want to vaccinate their children can obtain a medical exemption, have their children enrolled in special education services or homeschool them.
California has one of the highest rates of homeschooled children in the country, and those numbers are higher post-pandemic.
But California has also taken an aggressive stance against medical exemptions.
Doctors providing medical exemptions have been investigated by the California Medical Board, with many of them having their licenses revoked.
All medical exemptions for California children issued on or after Jan. 1, 2021, are subject to review by CDPH and can be revoked. All exemptions are automatically reviewed if they are submitted in a school where the immunization rate is below 95% if the school has failed to report its vaccination rates, if the physician writing the exemption has written more than five medical exemptions in a calendar year or if CDPH deems it necessary to protect public health.
GOP takes on Federal Reserve in battle over central bank digital currency
By Eleanor Terrett FOXBusinessAs many as 130 countries are exploring digital versions of their currencies; 11 countries, including China, have fully implemented a CBDC
It has been one week since Congress returned from summer recess, and Republican lawmakers are wasting no time in bringing legislation back to the House floor to block a central bank digital currency, FOX Business has learned.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., on Tuesday afternoon will reintroduce the Central Bank Digital Currency Anti-Surveillance State Act, a Republican-backed bill that aims to prevent the Federal Reserve and its member banks from issuing a digital version of the dollar and using it to implement monetary policy.
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have become increasingly popular over the last three years. According to research from think tank Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, as many as 130 countries, representing 98% of the global economy, are exploring digital versions of their currencies; 11 countries, including China, have fully implemented a CBDC.
However, CBDCs are controversial among crypto enthusiasts and conservatives even though they both fall under the category of digital assets. Traditional cryptocurrencies like bitcoin were created as a mechanism to avoid centralized government control; CBDCs, meanwhile, establish a monetary link between private citizens and the government.
Republicans like Emmer say a CBDC would enhance the surveillance state, which is why Communist China is among the first countries to establish one.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., speaks at an event celebrating 100 days of House Republican rule at the Capitol Building April 17, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Governments can use CBDCs to gain unfettered access to private citizens’ financial data. The potential access to, and exploitation of user data significantly outweighs the benefits of low transaction costs and increased financial inclusion, critics say.
The official line from the Biden administration is that there are no plans to issue a CBDC, but GOP lawmakers are skeptical because the Fed has taken what’s seen as nascent steps like research and pilot programs to explore the possibility of one day implementing a CBDC. In fact, CBDCs have become a talking point among 2024 Republican presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy. Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also denounced CBDCs, calling them “instruments of control and oppression.”
Emmer’s new legislation is actually an updated bill that he introduced earlier this year and is reissuing to reflect the fast-evolving digital asset policy landscape. It is co-sponsored by 49 congressional Republicans and implements two main changes to the original text introduced in February. The new version contains a section that bans “intermediated CBDCs,” CBDCs that are issued by the Fed but managed by retail banks and other financial institutions instead of directly by the Fed. An intermediated CBDC is the model China uses for its digital yuan.The latest bill has also removed a provision requiring the Fed to report to Congress any CBDC pilot programs or studies it conducts on the subject. According to Emmer, the change was made to make the bill more narrowly focused, as the issue is also being addressed in separate bills such as Rep. Alex Mooney’s Digital Dollar Pilot Prevention Act.
Anti-CBDC legislation has also been introduced in the Senate, with Mike Lee’s No CBDC Act and Ted Cruz’s bill, like Emmer’s, that would prevent the Fed from issuing a CBDC directly to individuals.
Because Democrats control the Senate and the White House, any anti-CBDC legislation is unlikely to pass this year. That said, people close to Emmer hope the legislation will raise public awareness to the downside CBDCs represent.
“The administration has made it clear: President Biden is willing to compromise the American people’s right to financial privacy for a surveillance-style CBDC,” Emmer told FOX Business. “That’s why I am reintroducing an improved CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act to put a check on unelected bureaucrats and ensure the United States’ digital currency policy upholds our values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free-market competitiveness.”
Spokespeople for the Fed and Treasury did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The updated bill comes ahead of a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing on CBDCs on Thursday. Meanwhile, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler is testifying today in front of the Senate Banking Committee, where he will likely be questioned about his approach to digital asset regulation, which has been described as “hostile” by many industry participants. Gensler will also appear before the House Financial Services Committee later this month.
[…]
Via https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/gop-takes-on-federal-reserve-in-battle-over-digital-dollar
Speaker McCarthy Opens Biden Impeachment Inquiry
Washington, D.C. – Today, Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the House of Representatives is opening an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Remarks below are as delivered or you may watch online here.
“In recent months, House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct; taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption.
“Now, here’s what we know so far:
“Through our investigations, we have found that President Biden lied to the American people about knowledge of his family’s foreign business dealings.
“Eyewitnesses have testified that the President joined multiple phone calls and had multiple interactions, dinners, resulting in cars and millions of dollars to his son and his son’s business partners.
“Bank records show that nearly $20 million in payments were directed to Biden family members and associates through various shell companies.
“The Treasury Department, alone, has more than 150 transactions involving the Biden family and other business associates that were flagged as “suspicious activity” by U.S. banks.
“Even a trusted FBI informant has alleged a bribe to the Biden family.
“Biden used his official office to coordinate with Hunter Biden’s business partners about Hunter’s role in Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
“Finally, despite these serious allegations, it appears that the President’s family has been offered special treatment by Biden’s own administration; treatment he would not otherwise have received if he were not related to the President.
“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption, and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives.
“That’s why today, I am directing our House committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. This logical next step will give our committees the full power to gather all the facts and answers for the American public.
“It’s exactly what we want to know, the answers, and I believe the President would want to answer these questions and allegations as well.
“This effort will be led by Chairman James Comer at the Committee on Oversight, in coordination with Chairman Jim Jordan of the Judiciary Committee and Chairman Jason Smith on Ways and Means.
“I don’t make this decision lightly. And Regardless of your party or who you may have voted for, these facts should concern all Americans.
“The American people deserve to know that public offices are not for sale – and that the federal government is not being used to cover up the actions of a politically-associated family.
“I would encourage the President and his team to fully cooperate with this investigation in the interest of transparency.
“We are committed to getting the answers for the American public – nothing more, nothing less.
“We will go wherever the evidence takes us.”
[…]
Via https://www.speaker.gov/speaker-mccarthy-opens-an-impeachment-inquiry/
Evidence Against COVID-19 Vaccines in Medical Journals Continues to Grow
Daily Sceptic
As a university academic, and former pharmacist, whose speciality is misinformation, disinformation and fake news, I have been very active of late in collecting (and writing) papers appearing in medical journals that provide evidence and arguments against the COVID-19 vaccines. Below is a summary of some of the recent papers I find to be most concerning.
Vaccine effectiveness and safety exaggerated
An article appearing in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, including BMJ Editor Peter Doshi amongst its authors, discusses several biases that, if not accounted for, indicate that the effectiveness of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in observational studies is being heavily exaggerated. The most important appears to be one many of us have worried about from the beginning, the dubious ‘case-counting window bias’, which concerns the seven days, 14 days or even 21 days after the jab where we are meant to overlook jab-related issues, particularly poor effectiveness, as “the vaccine has not had sufficient time to stimulate the immune system”. In an example using some data from Pfizer’s clinical trial, the authors show that thanks to this bias, a vaccine with effectiveness of 0%, which is confirmed in the hypothetical clinical trial, could be seen in observational studies as having effectiveness of 48%.
In a follow-up article in the same journal I revealed ways in which the situation may even be worse. The aforementioned ‘case-counting window bias’ is often accompanied by a ‘definitional bias’, whereby the Covid cases in the vaccinated are not just ignored, but shifted over to the unvaccinated. So building on the above example, a vaccine with 0% effectiveness can actually be perceived as having 65% effectiveness. My article also shows, touching on the intriguing (horrifying?) issue of negative effectiveness, “a vaccine with minus-100% effectiveness, meaning that it makes symptomatic COVID-19 infection twice as likely, can be perceived as being 47% effective”. Furthermore, “Repeated calculations will show that moderate vaccine effectiveness is still perceived even with actual vaccine effectiveness figures of minus-1,000% and lower”. I also explained that this exaggeration could equally apply to studies on vaccine safety, which would be important when comparing the overall health of the vaccinated and unvaccinated, as may be appropriate when looking into the mysterious rise in non-Covid excess deaths post-pandemic.
Doshi, joined by one of his earlier co-authors, decided to produce another article in the same journal, a follow-up to my follow-up, shifting the focus from observational studies to the clinical trials. They found that case counting “only began once participants were seven days (Pfizer) or 14 days (Moderna) post Dose 2, or approximately four to six weeks after Dose 1”. The obvious implication:
Decisions on when to initiate the case counting window affected calculations of vaccine efficacy. Because cases occurring in the four to six weeks between Dose 1 and the case counting window were excluded, reported vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 (the primary endpoint) at the time of Emergency Use Authorisation was higher than what would have been calculated had all COVID-19 cases after Dose 1 been included, as in a conventional Intent-to-Treat analysis.
They also found that “different case counting windows” were used at different times, ‘coincidentally’ yielding better results.
Not yet published, though under peer review, is my intended fourth and final article in this unofficial ‘series’. Firstly, I justify my earlier concern of exaggerated safety in observational studies, or studies built on observational data and models rather than data from controlled trials, by discussing a recently published paper in another journal, noting how the authors only count vaccine adverse effects from 14 days after the second dose (or seven days after the latest booster shot), and stopping the count at around four to five months. As if to highlight the potential magnitude of safety exaggeration with so many adverse effects being overlooked, the study, flawed as it is, showed only a very slight net benefit to vaccination. A more complete view of adverse effects (as well as cases in the ‘partially vaccinated’) could easily lead to the conclusion that the risks of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the benefits. I also explain that there are issues with the adverse effect counting windows in the clinical trials in relation to their short length. The safety monitoring ends mere months after vaccination, though adverse effects can manifest clinically years later.
Vaccine-induced myocarditis and young males
In the latter article, and in a rapid response published by BMJ Open, I also discuss recent evidence and journal articles on myocarditis, with one finding a “Covid vaccine-induced myocarditis incidence rate of around one in 100,000, and around one in 19,000 for males between the ages of 12 and 17 years”. These authors also found that a significant number of people with Covid vaccine-induced myocarditis end up dead soon afterwards. Go ahead and contrast this with the U.K. Government’s determination of numbers needed to vaccinate to prevent a severe Covid hospitalisation being in the hundreds of thousands for young ‘no risk’ groups.
In research I hope to be published soon, I show how Pfizer estimates an even greater incidence of myocarditis in young males, and it also estimates that one million vaccinated will result in zero to one saved lives. Yes, zero is included as a real possibility. By Pfizer. It would appear that, at least for certain groups, this one adverse effect alone undoes the claim that the ‘risks outweigh the benefits’. The risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis may indeed be very small, but the risk of serious Covid in the young and healthy is smaller still. If you’re a young male and if you’ve received one of these novel COVID-19 vaccines, it may be worthwhile testing for preclinical myocarditis.
Negative effectiveness
I couldn’t leave you hanging after dangling this juicy but horrifying morsel in front of you earlier. I managed to get another rapid response published, in the BMJ proper this time, on the topic of negative effectiveness. While rapid waning of effectiveness and exaggeration of effectiveness is concerning enough, particularly as we learn more about the adverse effects, the phenomenon of COVID-19 vaccine negative effectiveness could completely end the discussion as to whether the COVID-19 vaccines are net useful or not. There is increasing evidence for this phenomenon (in relation to infections, hospitalisations and deaths), with one study revealing a dose-dependent relationship. The more COVID-19 jabs, the more the risk of COVID-19. If that sounds concerning to you, well, quite. My rapid response effectively refuted an article in the BMJ trying – and failing horribly – to explain this phenomenon away. If negative effectiveness is occurring, there is no such thing as ‘risks vs benefits’. There is only ‘risks plus risks’. We need explanations from the manufacturers and regulators, as a matter of urgency.
[…]
1215: Effect of Fourth Lateran Council on Christian Belief
Episode 6 Canons for Christian Practice and Belief
1215: Years That Changed History
Dr Dorsey Armstrong (2019)
Film Review
Prior to listening to this lecture, I was unaware that most of the major doctrines associated with Catholicism were enacted by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. In addition to making marriage a compulsory church requirement (for children to legally inherit from their biologic fathers), the Fourth Lateran Council made the celibacy of priests compulsory.
Among other canons it enacted were
acknowledgement of the Cistercians (founded 1098), Franciscans (1209) and Dominicans (founded 1216) as official monastic orders*compulsory yearly attendance at confession and mass (usually at Easter)**compulsory belief in transubstantiation (non-belief was a heresy punishable by execution)a ban on participation of monks, priests and nuns in commercial traderequirement for each church to hire a master to provide free formal instruction to would-be priests for free (opening access to the priesthood for the poor)*The first monastic order, the Benedictines (founded 529 AD) were highly involved in local government and commerce, and the other three were founded, in part, in reaction to the former’s over involvement in commercial activities. The Franciscans and Dominicans were mendicant orders. They wandered around with begging bowls to reach out to people who most needed them.
**This cannon was enacted in part in response to rural peasants who were incorporating pagan rituals into planting and harvest festivals.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
September 11, 2023
FBI, HHS Stonewalling Congress Over Illegal Chinese COVID Lab In California
Zero Hedge
The Chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has threatened to subpoena the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after they refused to produce information on an illegal Chinese lab that was “caught red-handed conducting dangerous research related to COVID-19 and other deadly diseases without a license by FBI agents and California officials.”
In Thursday letters to the agencies (FBI letter, HHS letter), Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) noted their failure to respond to prior requests for information, and says that if they fail to comply with oversight, “we will be forced to evaluate the use of the compulsory process.”
The letter also puts the agencies on notice that the Subcommittee may request that employees sit for voluntary transcribed interviews.
As we previously noted, the lab was found in what was thought to be a empty storage building in Reedley, California – located in the central San Joaquin Valley.
It was only discovered after a local code enforcement officer noticed a garden hose poking out a back wall of the building, according to YourCentralValley.
Public Health staff also observed blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples and serums; and THOUSANDS of vials of unlabeled fluids and suspected biological material.
Additionally they found 900 genetically engineered mice, engineered to catch and carry COVID-19, living in “inhumane” conditions.
773 of the mice had to be euthanized, and officials found another 178 mice already dead.
“This is an unusual situation. I’ve been in government for 25 years. I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba.
Even county health officials were left in shock.
“I’ve never seen this in my 26-year career with the County of Fresno,” said Assistant Director of the Fresno County Department of Public Health Joe Prado.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested the substances and detected at least 20 potentially infectious agents, including coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis and herpes, according to a Health and Human Services letter dated June 6.
Agents also found thousands of package boxes – many with shipping labels from China. Below is a photo included in court documents in California.
NBC News reports that an investigation found the tenant was Prestige BioTech, a company registered in Nevada and unlicensed for business in California. City officials spoke with Xiuquin Yao, who was identified as the company president, through emails included in the court documents.
Yao told officials that Prestige BioTech moved assets belonging to a defunct company, Universal Meditech Inc., to the Reedley warehouse from Fresno after UMI went under. Prestige Biotech was a creditor to UMI and identified as its successor, according to court documents.
Officials were unable to get any California-based address for either company except for the previous Fresno location from which UMI had been evicted.
“The other addresses provided for identified authorized agents were either empty offices or addresses in China that could not be verified,” court documents said.
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