Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 413
June 2, 2023
Even at ‘Safe’ Levels, Roundup Disrupts Gut/Immune Function, New Study Suggests
Investigators at the University of Iowa found that at levels approximating the U.S. Acceptable Daily Intake — 1.75 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day — glyphosate altered the gut microbiome composition and induced “a pro-inflammatory environment.”
A new University of Iowa study provides the first experimental evidence that exposure to glyphosate, even at officially designated “safe” levels, disrupts the gut microbiome in mammals.Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s (owned by Bayer) widely used line of broad-spectrum herbicides.
Consisting of trillions of benign, ever-resident microorganisms (bacteria, yeast, fungi, and even viruses), the gut microbiome helps animals digest food, fight infections, produce vitamin K and other important biomolecules, and metabolize medicines.
Intestinal microbes, especially certain bacterial species, may also benefit the immune system and heart health while reducing cancer risk and positively affecting healthy aging and longevity. The term “microbiome” refers to these organisms and also to their collective genomes.
Investigators at the University of Iowa found that at levels approximating the U.S. Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) — 1.75 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day — glyphosate altered the gut microbiome composition and induced “a pro-inflammatory environment.”
They determined this by measuring the loss of beneficial Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium bacterial species, and the simultaneous blocking of microbial gene pathways that produce anti-inflammatory short-chain fatty acids.
Changes in gut microbe populations were also accompanied by higher levels of pro-inflammatory markers such as Lipocalin-2 and CD4/IL17A-positive immune system cells, and an increase in fecal pH.
Lipocalin-2 is a biomarker for various forms of kidney diseases, heart failure and obesity-related illnesses. The IL-17 family of cytokines promotes protective immunity against many pathogens but also, paradoxically, drives inflammatory pathology during infection and autoimmunity.
According to the authors of the study, published in the June issue of Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology, a rising fecal pH inhibits the normal production of anti-inflammatory short-chain fatty acids.
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The state of the microbiome is increasingly viewed as a surrogate marker for an organism’s overall health.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, symptoms of gut microbiome dysregulation include constipation, diarrhea, bloating, fatigue and acid reflux associated with such health conditions as diabetes, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome.
First study to link dosage to glyphosate’s effect on gut microbiome
As is often the case with broad-spectrum poisons, glyphosate may affect human health through a variety of mechanisms — few, if any of which have been studied rigorously.
One possible mechanism is disruption of the gut microbiome, which is known to be harmful.
The Iowa study is the first to link dosage, in a systematic way, to glyphosate’s effect on the gut microbiome.
Researchers used C57BL/6J mice, a strain normally selected for studying age-related hearing loss. The animals were reared according to protocol on irradiated feed and moved from one cage to another before testing to normalize each animal’s gut microflora.
The mice were then exposed to three different concentration levels of glyphosate in their drinking water: 1, 10 and 100 micrograms of glyphosate per milliliter of water. The middle dosing scheme, 10 micrograms per milliliter, corresponded to the U.S. adult ADI of 1.75 mg/kg/day (assuming water intake of 4 milliliters per day).
During the 90-day study, researchers collected feces on days 30, 60 and 90, which they froze for future analysis. Similarly, they collected blood on days 30 and 60.
On day 90, investigators dispatched the mice and collected colon tissue for examination of the lamina propria, a rich source of both somatic and immune system cells.
Investigators found glyphosate exposure at doses approximating the U.S. ADI altered the populations of microorganisms normally inhabiting the gut and affected the animals’ neuro-immune-endocrine system toward a pro-inflammatory state.
Even at ADI levels, glyphosate exposure adversely affects the animals’ “gut homeostasis” and physiology, the authors said.
This study begs questions about the test animals’ susceptibility to microbiome dysregulation as a result of rearing, diet, genes or a combination of those factors.
The study’s lead author, Ashutosh K. Mangalam, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the Microbiome Core research facility at the University of Iowa, declined to answer The Defender’s questions on these issues.
Study’s methodology raises questions
It’s been known since at least 2012 that glyphosate interacts with the gut microbiome based on observations of species ranging from honeybees to carp.
Similarly, the herbicide has been known to interfere with immune function for at least a decade.
While all this is established science, demonstrated time and again across species and habitats, it does not in itself mean that glyphosate at the human ADI is harmful to humans.
One should also be wary of extrapolating too readily from what are essentially animal biomarker studies to human health outcomes.
The “further research” called for by the study authors should therefore include validation of their mouse model, followed by challenges to affected animals to study how specific health outcomes correlate to the microbiome alterations under study.
For example, mice could be exposed to pathogens or antigens after microflora alterations to observe inflammatory responses or their ability to fight infectious diseases.
Because of potentially interconnected causation, one of the controls for such an experiment should be animals whose gut bacteria were similarly affected, but by means of a different agent.
In other words, are animals getting sick because of those specific immune cell- or fatty acid-related malfunctions? Or is glyphosate adversely affecting the animal’s health through a different mechanism in addition to its effects on the microbiota?
How big is the glyphosate problem?
The ever-rising year-over-year use of glyphosate in the U.S. goes back decades, despite unrelenting medical and scientific scrutiny.
First approved in 1974, glyphosate is still widely applied in agricultural, government and consumer settings — despite being linked to dozens of serious health issues and, as of 2022, being the target of at least 125,000 lawsuits.
The use of glyphosate-based herbicides jumped tenfold with the introduction of genetically modified “Roundup-resistant” crops. It is the most-used herbicide in U.S. agriculture, with an estimated 287 million pounds applied to fields and crops in 2016.
Despite a barrage of evidence that glyphosate causes harm and huge settlements in favor of plaintiffs, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) historically has granted the chemical and its manufacturer the benefit of the doubt.
Every 15 years, the EPA reviews key aspects of an herbicide’s (“pesticide” in EPA terminology) registration.
In 2020, in response to public comments questioning the chemical’s safety in animals and the environment, the agency reaffirmed its long-held position that the herbicide does not cause human cancer and that there are “no risks of concern to human health from current uses of glyphosate” either to “children or adults” when the product is “used according to label directions.”
Additionally, the agency saw:
No indication children are more sensitive to glyphosate from “in-utero or post-natal exposure” and there were “no risks of concern from ingesting food with glyphosate residues” or to “children entering or playing on residential areas treated with glyphosate.No evidence glyphosate causes human cancers in humans. On this point, the EPA disagrees with the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which in 2015, designated glyphosate a “probably carcinogenic to humans.”No indication glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor by virtue of having passed Tier I screening under its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program.Similarly and predictably, the National Pesticide Information Center, an EPA-associated group at Oregon State University, denies any connection between glyphosate and human illness:
“Pure glyphosate is low in toxicity, but products usually contain other ingredients that help the glyphosate get into the plants. The other ingredients in the product can make the product more toxic.”
In other words, glyphosate is only toxic if it gets inside plants, which provides little comfort considering its concentrati ons in human tissues. With either glyphosate or its metabolite present in the urine of 81% of Americans over the age of 6 and in samples from 75% of pregnant Canadian women, the chemical is already inside almost all of us.
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If You Want to help Free Assange You Need to Recognize the Importance of the Durham Report
Cynthia ChungIt is interesting that in light of the recent release of the Durham report, there has been little evident commotion coming from the activists who wish to “Free Assange” and I think that speaks volumes about a bigger problem than even the illegal imprisonment of Julian Assange. This problem is tied to the inability to address a system that has entirely broken down and is no longer in the service of protecting the security of the American people, let alone the western world more broadly.
In fact, it is rather a bizarre phenomenon that there has been a complete disconnect between the witch-hunt against Julian Assange which is clearly connected to the 2016 US election outcome and the witch-hunt against Donald Trump who was that outcome.
Hillary Clinton ran with this narrative repeatedly during the actual 2016 presidential campaign, calling Julian Assange an agent of the Kremlin who was working to get Trump elected, while ignoring the fact that the embarrassing revelations leaked from her private emails and DNC hard drives were the product of a DNC insider (likely the murdered Seth Rich), and not a foreign hack as both Hillary and the FBI claimed.
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In another presidential debate (see 0:48 in video clip) Clinton remarked to the moderator “You are very clearly quoting from WikiLeaks and what is really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans. They have hacked American websites, American accounts, of private people, of institutions, then they have given that information to WikiLeaks for the purpose of putting it on the internet. This has come from the highest levels of the Russian government, clearly from Putin himself, in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed, to influence our election. So I actually think that the most important question of this evening Chris, is finally will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this and make it clear that he will not have the help of Putin in this election, that he rejects Russian espionage against Americans, which he actually encouraged in the past. Those are the questions we need answered.”
Just to be clear, none of this to this day has ever been substantiated including by the Mueller report which had to acknowledge that they had no evidence, despite going through Trump’s tax returns, that the Trump presidential campaign had any funding or that it colluded with the Russian government.
Despite this lack of any evidence, the FBI refused to exonerate him and have instead blatantly continued an investigation for the same allegations after over six years of finding nothing (Mar-a-Lago is the most recent dubious FBI raid on Trump in August 2022 which is continuing to justify itself under the Espionage Act despite absolutely no basis).
The Mueller report also failed to provide evidence that WikiLeaks had any direct connection or funding from the Russian government, though this was another goal of their investigation. The Mueller report stated that the Special Counsel’s office considered charging WikiLeaks or Assange “as conspirators in the computer-intrusion conspiracy and that there were “factual uncertainties” about the role that Assange may have played in the hacks or their distribution that were “the subject of ongoing investigations” by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Thus, the over $25 million dollar Mueller investigation also failed to implicate WikiLeaks in the Russia Gate conspiracy and yet also refused to exonerate Julian Assange.
The Mueller report also failed to provide evidence that the Russian government, or as Hillary made the point repeatedly, Putin, shaped the outcome of the 2016 US elections. Yet, this continues to be alleged.
Thus, we have three entities being accused of election interference: Trump, Assange, and the Russian government (Putin more specifically) and none of these have been substantiated (Mueller’s report on fake Russian social media accounts and fake hashtags does not cut it, for the details of the Mueller report refer here.).
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We are left with the very agencies and individuals that have been launching these accusations as the real source of election interference and threats to national security.
Why were the constant FBI investigations into Trump during his presidential campaign and actual presidency not considered an unlawful interference with the 2016 US elections and presidency? Why are the never-ending court cases against Trump, the newest announced to take place just three weeks after Super Tuesday, one of the most important days on the Republican presidential primary calendar leading up to the 2024 elections not considered unlawful interference with the 2024 US elections?
It is thus an internal problem, not a foreign infiltration problem.
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Assange has clearly been a destabilizing force to the structural integrity of the Five Eyes apparatus by simply exposing it for what it was, as did NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
[…]Yes, Assange did influence the outcome of the 2016 US elections LEGALLY by informing Americans about the skeletons in Hillary’s closet (or more accurately described as catacomb). This would never have come to light without Assange since Hillary had actually destroyed or removed federal records while under investigation on numerous occasions and was receiving a certain degree of state protection as well which is seen by the mere fact that she was never held accountable for destroying these files, which is a federal crime, even though it is acknowledged that she was in fact guilty of this.
The reason why WikiLeaks had leaked so much damning material on Hillary and not on Trump is very simple, and has nothing to do with Assange working for Trump or Russia or any other bias. It was because Trump did not have anything criminal to expose to the American public to begin with.
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In 2012, Julian Assange was granted asylum by Ecuador who feared his human rights might be violated if he were extradited to Sweden to face allegations of rape and molestation which were made in August 2010.
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In May 2017, Sweden dropped the rape investigation. At this point there does not appear to be any reason why Assange could not walk away as a free man, however, the UK government continued to push for his detainment.
A new President of Ecuador is elected on May 24, 2017, Lenin Moreno.
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In December 2018, Moreno demands that Assange leave the Ecuadorean embassy.
In April 2019, UK police enter the embassy and detain Assange for “failing to surrender to the court” over a warrant issued in 2012. This warrant should no longer have been valid since it applied to Sweden’s investigation at the time that was dropped by 2017.
Clearly to accommodate this enforcing of an expired warrant, Sweden decides to reopen the sexual assault case against Assange, one month later, in May 2019.
That same month, Assange is sentenced to 50 weeks in the Belmarsh prison in London for breaching his bail conditions.
In November 2019, Sweden again drops the investigation into Assange for sexual assault, yet, Assange was to remain in prison for something that he would ultimately never even face trial for, and has remained incarcerated in the Belmarsh prison four years later.
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On 13 September 2019, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Assange would not be released on 22 September when his prison term ended because he was a flight risk amidst an extradition request. She said when his sentence came to an end, his status would change from a serving prisoner to a person facing extradition. It should be noted that under normal circumstances, a charged individual may be imprisoned for up to 30 DAYS AWAITING EXTRADITION if they are considered a flight risk, it has been THREE YEARS+ in the case of Assange.
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On 4 January 2021, Judge Baraitser ruled that Assange could not be extradited to the United States, citing concerns about his mental health and the risk of suicide in a US prison. However, she also sided with the US on every other point, including whether the charges constituted political offences and whether Assange was entitled to freedom of speech protections.
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In August 2021, Lord Justice Holroyde in High Court granted permission for the contested risk of suicide to be raised on the appeal. In December 2021, the Hight Court ruled in favour of the United States.
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The case was remitted to Westminster Magistrates’ Court with the direction that it be sent to the Home Secretary Priti Patel for the final decision on whether to extradite Assange. On 24 January 2022 Assange was granted permission to petition the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom for an appeal hearing, but in March the court refused to allow the appeal, saying that Assange had not raised an arguable point of law.
On 20 April 2022, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring of the Westminster Magistrates Court formally approved the extradition of Assange to the US and referred the decision to the Home Secretary Priti Patel. On 17 June 2022, Patel approved the extradition.
On 1 July 2022, Assange lodged an appeal against the extradition in the High Court. On 22 August 2022, Assange’s legal team lodged a Perfected Grounds of Appeal before the High Court challenging District Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s decision of 4 January 2021 with new evidence. Assange also made a further appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but on 13 December 2022, this appeal was declared inadmissible. (Source on details of Assange’s court proceedings from Wikipedia.)
Assange faces 18 charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents, largely the result of a leak by the former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
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Thus, Assange, whom the Mueller investigation failed to implicate in Russia Gate, was instead to be charged under the Espionage Act due to publishing material Manning sent to WikiLeaks on classified or sensitive military information concerning…the merits of the War on Terror.
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The Relevance of the Durham ReportThe Durham report is a special counsel investigation that began in 2019 when the US Justice Department designated federal prosecutor John Durham to review the origins of the FBI investigations into the validity of 2016 US elections and more specifically the Trump campaign.
Durham was given authority to examine the government’s collection of intelligence, government documents and to request voluntary witness statements.
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Durham also noted that the Steele dossier, the provoking act for the investigation, was deeply flawed and that the FBI was unable to corroborate “a single substantive allegation.” He added that the agency went through with the investigation despite “a complete lack of information from the Intelligence Community that corroborated the hypothesis upon which the… investigation was predicated.”
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Via https://cynthiachung.substack.com/p/if-you-want-to-help-free-assange
Russiagate’s Missing Pieces: What Was Not Said in the Durham Report?
Seymour Hersh
The first thing to understand about John Durham is that he was a fearless prosecutor who went after organized crime and put in prison retired and active FBI agents who protected the mob for money or other enticements. One of the agents he stopped had enabled James “Whitey” Bulger Jr., once one of America’s most wanted men, the Winter Hill Gang boss who evaded arrest for sixteen years.
In his forty-five years as a state and federal prosecutor in Connecticut and Virginia, Durham worked often and closely with FBI agents, especially on cases that involved violations of federal racketeering statutes.
Durham also handled two inquiries into the CIA’s conduct in the War on Terror, and he did so without angering his superiors in the executive branch. In one case he was asked to investigate the alleged destruction of CIA videotapes of detainee interrogations, the so-called torture tapes. His final report on the matter remains secret, and he recommended that no charges be filed. He was later asked to lead a Justice Department inquiry into the legality of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” that resulted in the death of two detainees. In that case, he was told that officers who were given and obeyed what were determined to be illegal orders—there were many of those after 9/11—could not be prosecuted. No charges were filed.
Durham’s 306-page report was made public on May 15, and it pleased no one with its focus on the obvious. The journalist Susan Schmidt, whose byline was a must-read when she was a reporter for the Washington Post, pointed out on Racket News that Durham said the FBI would have done less damage to its reputation if it had scrutinized the questionable actions of the Clinton campaign in 2016: the Feds “might at least have cast a critical eye on the phony evidence they were gathering.”
Schmidt was highlighting a moment in Durham’s report where he hints at the real story: Russiagate was a fraud initiated by the Clinton campaign and abetted by political reporters in Washington and senior FBI officials who chose to look the other way. Durham writes: “In late July 2016, US intelligence agencies obtained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against US Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.”
He continues: “this intelligence—taken at face value—was arguably highly relevant and exculpatory because it could be read in fuller context, and in combination with other facts, to suggest that materials such as the Steele Dossier reports and the Alfa Bank allegations . . . were part of a political effort to smear a political opponent and to use the resources of the federal government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies in support of a political objective.”
Durham goes on to cite many instances of public statements and private communications of Clinton campaign staffers that were “consistent with the substance of the purported plan.” He finds evidence to suggest that “at least some officials within the campaign were seeking information about the FBI’s response to the DNC hack, which would be consistent with, and a means of furthering, the purported plan.” He adds that “the campaign’s funding of the Steele Reports and Alfa Bank allegations . . . provide some additional support for the credibility to the information set forth in the Clinton Plan intelligence.”
However, his report focuses on who knew about the Clinton Plan intelligence and when they knew of it, while “the details of the Clinton Plan intelligence,” “facts that heightened the potential relevance of this intelligence to” Durham’s inquiry, and his team’s “efforts to verify or refute the key claims found in this intelligence” are confined to a Classified Appendix.
It became evident to some members of Durham’s staff that the real story was not about whether or not Trump had pee parties in a Moscow hotel room—one of the headline-producing allegations in the Steele Dossier that consumed the Washington press corps in the aftermath of Trump’s victory in the 2016 election. The issue was whether the Clinton campaign, in its constant leaking of false accusations and false data, had crossed a line.
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Via https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/russiagates-missing-pieces
June 1, 2023
The Arrival of Indo-Europeans in India
Episode 4 Indo-European Vedic Culture
A History of India
Michael Fisher (2016)
Film Review
The Vedas, dating back to 1500 BC (prior to the arrival of Indo-Europeans in India), form the basis of the Hindu* religion. While Hindus believe the Vedas are true divine wisdom, historians use them to trace changes in the Sanskrit language over time. This, in turn, helps establish the date individual Vedic poems were composed. Vedic Sanskrit, originating in western Central Asia, is the oldest Indo-European language. Ancient Persian is the language closest to Sanskrit.
The Vedas consist of four collections. The oldest, the Rigveda, consists of 10 books, with the oldest six describing the migration of Vedic Indo-Europeans into North India. Newer collections dating from 1200-600 BC describe prescribed spiritual rituals, healing, math and astronomy. The most recent collections (the Artharvaveda and the Upanishads) from 900-500 BC describe the universe and its components.
The early Rigvedic deities included gods representing the sun, darkness, thunderstorms, fertility, the bull and fire. Each clan was associated with a deity that protected them. Indra, the martial leader of the deities, dispatched lighting bolts in the form of a bronze mace (similar to Zeus and Thor). His devotees prayed for his assistance in intra- and inter- clan struggles.
Indra was the leader of the Deva (meaning shining ones), a word related the Greek and Latin word for god (theos and deos). The Asura, initially relatives of the Deva, became their enemies until Indra eventually stripped them of their powers and defeated them. In Persian Zoroastrianism, these roles were reversed, with the deities being called Ahura and the demons Daeva.
The Vedic people infiltrated into India incrementally and were never an invading force. They traveled in oxen-drawn carts, domesticated donkeys and dogs, hunted boars, savored cow’s milk and gold and offered ghee to the gods. They had horses that pulled three-wheeled carts into battle, as well as quivers with feathered arrows tipped with (sometimes poisoned) bone or bronze blades. Archers wore gauntlets to protect their arms from their bows and warriors, as well as impenetrable inner and outer armor. Early Vedic poems also refer to flutes, lutes, harps and drums, as well as gambling with dice.
The Vedas also refer to the Pani (who may have been Adivasi) who came out of the forests to raid their cattle.
Later Vedic poems refer to complex mathematically constructed Vedic birds used in rituals. Since the Indo-Europeans brought no knowledge of mathematics with them, they may have borrowed this knowledge from Indus Valley descendants.
DNA evidence suggests North Indian Indo-European, Indus Valley and Adivasi intermarried, with all their descendants speaking languages derived from Sanskrit. All South Indians speak Dravidian languages.
*Hindu was a word coined by foreigners meaning “beyond the Indus River.” It was eventually adopted by native Indians to describe their primary religion (embracing 80% of the Indian population).
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/366254/366179
What Made Some Doctors Do the Right Thing During the Pandemic
Analysis by A Midwestern DoctorSince I was very young, I noticed a minority of people “got it” and could see through the current lie everyone else was falling for. Being like this can be incredibly isolating, so I tried to seek these people out and connect them. As time went forward, the question we all asked was, “What makes certain people be awake?”
Note: “Awake” was the best word we could ever find to describe this characteristic. This is somewhat frustrating because it is still not the correct word and because “awake” is also used by countless spiritual groups to gratify the participants and nothing more.
From looking into this question, we concluded depending on how strict the criteria you used, between 1-10% of the population was “awake.”
Interestingly, a market research study found 10% of the population was self-directed (meaning to sell them things, you had to justify the product on its merits), while 90% were not and bought products based on being repeatedly told to buy them. I was shown this study years ago, and I believe MIT or Harvard conducted it, but I could never find it.
Similarly, some meditation schools do not promote themselves (hence why few know of these faiths). This is because those schools felt that only the previously mentioned 10% had the necessary self-direction to complete their practices, and it was unlikely they would be among those who were persuaded into joining the faith rather than having sought it out of their own accord.
When I discussed this topic with Pierre Kory, he told me that his experience has been that, at most, only 10% of doctors were capable of non-algorithmic thinking and real problem-solving — which became quite challenging for him because his job was to train the next generation of ICU doctors.
Similarly, he found when he ordered consults, around 90% of specialists (irrespective of the specialty) would repeat a standardized algorithm back to him for the patients he had already seen more times than he could count. Conversely, only 10% could actually think about the case and provide valuable insights that assisted Kory in developing a treatment plan for a challenging patient.
As the previous example illustrates, when exploring this question, we often found being awake did not correlate with intelligence; many extremely intelligent but unawake people who often “just don’t get it” roam the earth.
Conversely, there are many remarkably perceptive individuals that could not succeed whatsoever within the conventional academic paradigm. Sadly, our educational system, which we trust with developing the young minds that can advance our society into the future, rather than addressing this trend, has increasingly discouraged critical thinking and replaced it with algorithmic thought and blind deference to authority.
This, amongst other things, has been reflected in a progressively declining quality of applicants to medical schools and the residency training that follows medical school.
In college, I attempted to prove to one friend that awake people were not as rare as they thought, and afterward, I shared my “successes” with my friend and was told, “Those people aren’t awake; you just replaced their programming with something a bit closer to the truth.” That stuck with me. I then began to notice this issue all around me.
For example, I would see many groups dedicated to an (often alternative) cause and realize that many members had adopted the group either because they wanted to conform to their peers or to look good to the world around them. Because of this, those members will typically abandon the principles the group stands for once the group no longer benefitted them.
Another way to put it is that people often say they sincerely care about things, but when you break it down, there is no integrity or substance behind those words.
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Consider these examples:
• Most of the current left idolizes and continually references Martin Luther King. Yet, they do the exact opposite of what MLK advocated for — non-violent protest, harmony between different races, and not judging each other by the color of their skin — by continually trying to fracture and define people by their identities.
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• Many liberals who grew up protesting Vietnam have spent their lives being identified as “anti-war.” Trump was the first president since Carter who did not start any new wars (even when Assad crossed the red line for allegedly gassing his own people [later proven to be a lie] — an instance when many other presidents would have begun a war).
Furthermore, Trump also ended longstanding military conflicts we had been involved in. Despite this, very few “anti-war” liberals supported his policies, and instead, the majority of the Democratic party is now entirely behind the military-industrial complex.
• Physicians who claim to identify with supporting the Hippocratic oath and treating all patients equally complied with extremely questionable hospital policies for managing COVID-19.
For example, they would not provide repurposed pharmaceuticals to patients requested by both the patient and family members — even when the patient was otherwise expected to die, and despite there being cases where lawsuits forced the treatment to be provided, and the patients survived.
Worse still (mirroring some of what happened in Nazi Germany), there was widespread discrimination in the medical field against the unvaccinated that clearly and unambiguously violated the tenets of medical ethics.
• Many religious leaders chose to abandon their faith’s teachings by complying with the COVID-19 and vaccine narratives. Similarly, many Christians, including the doctor mentioned below, were disgusted by how many fellow members of their faith in medicine abandoned its principles to discriminate against the unvaccinated.
• Many people in the “holistic” health field who espouse the importance of never putting any toxins or unnatural things (e.g., GMOs) into your body and believe in the healing power of nature aggressively pushed for the COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Sadder still, I saw cases of left-wing physicians who were immensely distrustful of vaccines because they specialized in treating childhood vaccine injuries, nonetheless got the COVID-19 vaccine, admitted they developed a significant complication from it, and even now are still pushing for masking.
Similarly, I saw numerous institutions teaching dedicated to alternative schools of medicine (e.g., naturopathic medicine) whose founders, and many of who followed in their footsteps, felt very strongly about not vaccinating, yet these leading institutions of their respective professions forcefully mandated the vaccines on both their students and employees.
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As I have learned more about those who spoke out against COVID-19, I’ve realized, despite being in different fields and holding different values, the fundamental ways we all think are very similar, and I believe I would have followed a similar path to many of them had I entered their profession instead of medicine.
Similarly, while many caved to the COVID-19 (and vaccine) narrative, none of my mentors ever did. Many of them, in fact, are lifelong liberals who are in complete disbelief at what their party and peers now support (e.g., the current war policy). Because of this, what they had in common may be able to provide some valuable answers to what made some stand up over the last few years.
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Saudi Arabia Set to Join BRICS Development Bank
Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
The strengthening of ties between the BRICS bank and Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer, is undesirable for the West as it again signals another advancement in the de-dollarisation of the global economy. In the last week of May, Saudi Arabia held talks to join BRICS’ New Development Bank as its ninth member, a decision that is not only economic but also with political motive.
Saudi Arabia’s benefit from joining the NDB is clear, given the potential for increased trade, especially Saudi exports. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest oil suppliers, and BRICS countries produce many different goods. Therefore, such cooperation can be considered mutually beneficial. Saudi membership in the NDB will expand the internal market of the BRICS countries, which means opening new opportunities for economic development in these countries.
As Bloomberg reported on May 30: “The New Development Bank, the lender created by the BRICS group of nations, will widen its membership as it seeks to boost its capital and counter the influence of Western-dominated multilateral banks.”
Saudi Arabia is the biggest economy in the region, and its neighbour, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is already a member of the NDB. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has also expressed interest in joining BRICS. The BRICS summit in South Africa in August will discuss expanding the grouping, which could open the path for the Arab country to join.
“In the Middle East, we attach great importance to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and are currently engaged in a qualified dialogue with them,” the NDB told the Financial Times in a statement.
Talks with Saudi Arabia come as the NDB prepares to formally evaluate its funding options, which were questioned after the West imposed sanctions on Russia following the launch of its special military operation in Ukraine.
Membership will likely be granted as it would strengthen Saudi Arabia’s bonds with BRICS countries, especially when the country is pursuing closer relations with all powers, particularly China. Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed a “new era” in the countries’ ties when he visited Saudi Arabia in 2022. Most importantly, Beijing in March brokered a historic agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomatic relations, something which irked Washington.
The NDB has lent $33 billion to more than 96 projects in the five founding members — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — but the bank has expanded its membership to include the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bangladesh. Although Egypt and Bangladesh represent major emerging markets and economies, Saudi Arabia, like the UAE, would represent another rich shareholder in the NDB.
“[Fundraising options are] the most important thing at the moment,” said Ashwani Muthoo, director-general of the NDB’s independent evaluation office, which was established last year.
Muthoo declined to comment on the Saudi accession talks but said the board wanted to examine alternative instruments and currencies to bring in resources, something that Saudi Arabia can offer.
It is recalled that Mikhail Mishustin said on a visit to China in May that Moscow saw “one of the bank’s main goals” as defending the bloc from “illegitimate sanctions from the collective West”. This fact interests Saudi Arabia as it breaks from servitude to the US to become a sovereign Middle/Regional power instead.
It is recalled that China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in October 2022 that BRICS leaders agreed on expanding the bloc and expressed support for the discussion on the standards and procedures of expansion. Wang also noted that China would work with other BRICS members to jointly advance the expansion process so that more partners will join the BRICS family.
By being first accepted into the NDB, Saudi Arabia’s path to joining BRICS would be opened. As said, Saudi Arabia will likely join the NDB as the banks have a strong will to expand their membership, which will signal the Arab country’s eventual accession into the bloc.
Dilma Rousseff, the bank’s president, said at the NDB’s annual meeting in Shanghai on May 30, “The world is going through a transformation process and it’s not about one currency against any another one. NDB will continue seeking funds in the dollar market but also in the Asian market.”
The fact that the NDB is comprised of the most powerful and richest countries outside of the Western bloc has Washington concerned as it poses the greatest challenge to dollar hegemony. With the current level of the NDB project funding in local currencies at 22%, the bank is well on course to meet its goal of 30% by 2026. This percentage will only continue to grow as the years pass, and the addition of Saudi Arabia will contribute to this effort. Thus, the Middle Eastern country will actively participate in de-dollarisation.
CBC Whistleblower: Widespread Wuhan Lab Leak Coverup From Beginning
Video link: https://s3.us-central-1.wasabisys.com/lib-backup-na/bx_videos_media_resized/b/bq/bqs/bqshrjantvv5ydx6uznalgmza8wwlfhk.mp4“There was no ‘news;’ there was only propaganda.”
Political Fail Blog
This is one of the most explosive investigations of criminality in the media that I have ever seen. Propaganda is our enemy, and he gets it. Now, anyway. I’ve been talking about it since the 80s…
UK Police Detain Journalist Over Political Views
Tales from the Conspiratum
You cannot be a journalist in the West anymore. Look at what they do to those who question the state propaganda.
“The Cradle contributor was questioned for five hours by counter-terrorism police over his journalistic work and political opinions
UK counter-terrorism police detained journalist Kit Klarenberg upon his arrival in his home country from Belgrade, Serbia, on 17 May, subjecting him to an extended interrogation over his “political views” and his reporting.
Klarenberg has written extensively for The Cradle, exposing London’s many covert operations in West Asia.
According to The Grayzone, six plainclothes police were waiting for him outside his plane, promptly moving him to a back room and informing him of his detention under Schedule Three, Section Four of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act.
Klarenberg was questioned for over five hours about his journalistic work, including “his personal opinion on everything from the current British political leadership to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
The counter-terrorism police seized his electronic devices and SD cards, took DNA swabs, fingerprinted him, and photographed him multiple times. He was threatened with arrest if he failed to comply.
Klarenberg’s most recent investigation for The Cradle exposed how UK government-affiliated contractors have been training Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces using US funding.
He made waves in recent months by exposing London’s use of Yemeni NGOs to covertly undermine the Ansarallah-led government in Sanaa as well as Jordan’s use of UK intel techniques known as “digital media exploitation … used to monitor, manipulate, and disrupt dissent in the kingdom.”
Klarenberg has also ruffled feathers in London with his reporting for The Grayzone, exposing “major British and US intelligence intrigues,” including a report on how at least two of the hijackers who carried out the 11 September attacks in New York had been recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation.
Another of his major exposés was a report revealing that journalist Paul Mason worked as a UK security state collaborator tasked with discrediting alternative media outlets, academics, and peace activists critical of NATO’s role in the Ukraine war…”
UK police detain journalist Kit Klarenberg over ‘political views’
The Cradle contributor was questioned for five hours by counter-terrorism police over his journalistic work and political opinions
MORE https://t.co/tHYnoGkQRU pic.twitter.com/9mYElAzKYv
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) May 31, 2023
May 31, 2023
Chemtrails Exposed: The Fly Ash Connection
Via Aisle C
The author’s book Chemtrails Exposed: A New Manhattan Project provides compelling evidence indicating that the chemtrails so often seen in today’s skies most commonly consist of coal fly ash. For many reasons, the injection of fluoride into local drinking water supplies is a similar phenomenon. Although there are prima facie similarities, we find deeper and darker connections, once again going back to the original WWII Manhattan Project.
This article commemorates the release of the author’s second book. It’s called “From Little Acorns” and it’s now available exclusively at Amazon.com. “From Little Acorns” is an easy read and a modern archetypal story written as a rallying cry in our war against the satanic establishment. The eBook and audiobook are coming soon. Please check it out!
The injection of fluoride into our drinking water is analogous to the injection of coal fly ash into our atmosphere in that both of these substances are toxic waste byproducts of heavy industry. These wastes would be expensive to dispose of properly, but global corporations can apparently sell both of these wastes for use in water fluoridation as well as for the spraying of chemtrails. That’s their idea of turning lemons into lemonade. It all mass murders populations and devastates our environment, but it’s apparently good for big business.
The other piece of prima facie evidence linking chemtrails to fluoride is Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) whistleblower Craig Davis noting that fluoride in our drinking water works synergistically with other environmental toxins to become much more deadly inside our bodies. Christopher Bryson, the author of The Fluoride Deception (the book upon which most of this article is based) also notes this effect. But Davis has gone further and noted that fluoridated water in combination with chemtrails produces this synergistic effect.
All this begs the question: How did water fluoridation come about? And: Are there any more connections between chemtrails and fluoride? The answers to these questions are found, once again, in the original Manhattan Project.
Fluoride and the original Manhattan Project
The production of the world’s first atomic bombs (the Manhattan Project) required massive amounts of fluorine. Do you see where this is going? One of the methods of refining the necessary uranium was known as the “gaseous diffusion” method. Using this method, hundreds of tons of fluorine were required for the production of one atomic bomb.
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Fluoride was a toxic waste byproduct of this process. But the question about what to do with all this toxic waste was not the only issue.
The workers at the atomic bomb plants where the gaseous diffusion method was practiced were falling ill and dying due to fluoride poisoning. There were some legal challenges during the war relating to workers’ exposure to fluoride, but a temporary fix for this potentially massive legal liability was found in 1946 when testing responsibilities were transferred from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service. Once that transfer occurred, the problem seemed to magically disappear, but not really.
Compounding the issue, atomic bomb plant workers were not the only ones being harmed by fluoride exposure. Not only were workers inside the factories becoming sick and dying, but people living in communities near the factories were being poisoned too. This highlighted an even bigger problem: environmental fluoride pollution.
Fluoride is a toxic waste byproduct of not only the production of atomic bombs. Fluoride gasses are produced during the production of: petroleum, bricks, leather, steel, glass, and plastics. And being that fluoride is a constituent of coal fly ash, American citizens have historically inhaled fluoride from the emissions of nearby steel and aluminum plants as well as those from coal-fired power plants. The workers inside these factories have been most severely affected.
After the war, the Manhattan Project morphed into the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the AEC went about greatly expanding America’s atomic bomb production programs. This was the Cold War, after all. This expansion produced exponentially more fluoride toxic waste from the production of atomic bombs. And let’s not forget the fissile material needed for the nascent nuclear power industry. All this added up to fluoride pollution becoming, as Bryson writes, “The biggest single legal worry facing the atomic bomb program following WWII.”
In consideration of all the resultant lawsuits, Bryson writes, “Fluoride has been the nation’s most damaging air pollutant, and almost certainly its most expensive.” But don’t expect the feds to help. In 1957, after a court ruled in favor of people harmed by fluoride emissions, the federal government abruptly stopped monitoring ambient fluoride.
Enter water fluoridationFunded by the large corporations that stood the most to gain, it was the Mellon Institute that, in the mid to late 1930s, began the promotion of fluoridated drinking water. Corporations like Monsanto, U.S. Steel, Alcoa and DuPont funded scientific studies at the Mellon Institute that served to legitimize and promote the idea. The Mellon Institute and their funders continued their promotions of water fluoridation up to and all throughout WWII. In his book and in published articles, your author has already established some interesting connections between Monsanto and DuPont and the spraying of chemtrails.
As America emerged from WWII, advocates for water fluoridation gained a leader in the person of Dr. Harold Hodge (1904-1990). Dr. Hodge was a professor at the University of Rochester, NY and the former chief toxicologist of the original Manhattan Project. Concurrently, the University of Rochester became the hub for drinking water fluoridation in America and the world. Hodge went on to train a generation of dental school deans in the 1950s and 1960s who unanimously advocated for the practice.
Dr. Hodge was well aware of the extreme toxicity of fluoride. During the war, Hodge had investigated the fluoride poisoning of atomic bomb factory workers as well as the poisoning of people living nearby. But did Hodge inform people about such things? No he didn’t. To the contrary, he hid this information from his colleagues. So much for the scientific method.
Hodge and the University of Rochester were backed by many of the same corporations behind the pioneering work on water fluoridation done earlier at the Mellon Institute. Before the war, Hodge was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Evidence in the author’s book strongly correlates the Rockefeller Foundation with the spraying of chemtrails.
Consistent with his work in fluoride, there are other examples of Hodge exhibiting extremely low ethical standards. Hodge helped choreograph wartime experiments in which hospital patients were injected with plutonium and uranium without their knowledge or consent. Hodge also participated in a series of post-war experiments involving the injection of uranium and plutonium into unsuspecting and uninformed patients. In 1969 Hodge became professor emeritus at the UCSF Medical School.
Hodge and Rochester’s work served to inoculate their funders from legal liabilities. As Hodge, Rochester and the corporations that funded them caused water fluoridation to become an accepted practice, this served to provide legal cover against lawsuits claiming that people had been poisoned by fluoride. How could it be bad for you (the reasoning goes) if the government is putting it in the water? The support of state and local governments for water fluoridation conveniently lessened any and all legal liabilities for the big fluoride producers. Now we know the real story of how fluoride came to be in our drinking water.
[…]
Via https://aislec.wordpress.com/2023/05/30/chemtrails-exposed-the-coal-fly-ash-fluoride-connection/
Correction: Transgender Surgery Provides No Mental Health Benefit
The American Journal of Psychiatry has issued a major correction to a recent study. The Bränström study reanalysis demonstrated that neither “gender-affirming hormone treatment” nor “gender-affirming surgery” reduced the need of transgender-identifying people for mental health services. Fad medicine is bad medicine, and gender-anxious people deserve better.“Why do researchers get away with sloppy science? In part because, far too often, no one is watching and no one is there to stop them.” –“The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science,” National Association of Scholars.
A major correction has been issued by the American Journal of Psychiatry. The authors and editors of an October 2019 study, titled “Reduction in mental health treatment utilization among transgender individuals after gender-affirming surgeries: a total population study,” have retracted its primary conclusion. Letters to the editor by twelve authors, including ourselves, led to a reanalysis of the data and a corrected conclusion stating that in fact the data showed no improvement after surgical treatment. The following is the background to our published letter and a summary of points of the critical analysis of the study.
A Crisis of Irreproducibility in Psychology and Medicine
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When we first analyzed the study last October, it was obvious that it had major shortcomings. Dr. Van Mol led our team—which includes endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, child and adolescent psychiatrist Miriam Grossman, and Johns Hopkins professor of psychiatry Paul McHugh—to summarize our findings into a compact, 500-word letter to the editor. We were not the only clinicians to question the study’s legitimacy. A total of seven letters, all critical of the study, were published on August 1, including our own. The editors included a response from the original authors, and they explained why it took ten months to publish the letters.
Let’s look at the study and the shortfalls we found. The Swedish Total Population Register of 9.7 million people and national patient databases were used to assess the effectiveness of “gender-affirming hormone treatment” and “gender-affirming surgery” in affecting three endpoints: prescriptions for antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications, healthcare visits for mood or anxiety disorders, and post-suicide attempt hospitalizations. The study authors, Bränström and Pachankis, concluded that gender-affirming hormones offered no effect but that surgery did reduce mental health treatment. They further asserted the finding “provides timely support for policies that ensure coverage of gender-affirming treatments.”
The authors used an odd combination of retrospective data collected over an eleven-year period from 2005 to 2015, together with limited psychiatric outcomes over a “prospective” one-year period during 2015 and no control group. Qualifying criteria were, to be alive in Sweden as of December 31, 2014, and to have a diagnosis of gender incongruence. The first graphic in the study specified “time since last gender affirming surgery” and traced back ten years. That chart could easily be misinterpreted as a prospective ten-year follow-up.
Where the Study Falls Short
One problem leading to irreproducibility is loss to follow-up. This refers to patients who participated in a study but at some point are considered “lost”: they are either unwilling or unable to communicate, missing, or dead. Loss to follow-up is frequently seen in studies that validate the benefits of transition, and it was strongly implied in the Bränström study by several metrics. First, the authors reported that 2,679 Swedes were diagnosed with “gender incongruence.” Though seemingly large, the numbers are a full order of magnitude below what DSM-V prevalence statistics would project. Where did the remainder go?
A paucity of gender-affirming surgeries also suggested loss to follow-up. Table 3 of their study showed that only 38 percent of people diagnosed with gender incongruence had any type of affirmative surgery, and only 53 percent of those—about 20 percent of the total—had surgery of the reproductive organs. Gender affirming surgery is free in Sweden, so where are these patients? And for those whose last surgery was ten or more years earlier, how many completed suicide, died of other related causes, or emigrated from Sweden prior to the study timeline?
In terms of follow-up care, the authors only measured three outcomes as listed above. Overlooked were key data of completed suicides, healthcare visits, prescriptions, and hospitalizations for the litany of other medical or psychological diagnoses potentially related to gender-affirming treatments. Such information was available through Sweden’s multiple registry databases, so why not use it? These omissions suggested cherry-picking data in order to obtain the desired results.
We concluded our letter by comparing this study to the one we consider perhaps the best of its kind, also from Sweden, the 2011 Dhejne study. The Dhejne team made extensive use of numerous, specified Swedish registries and examined data from 324 patients in Sweden over thirty years who underwent sex reassignment. They used population controls matched by birth year, birth sex, and reassigned sex. When followed out beyond ten years, the sex-reassigned group had nineteen times the rate of completed suicides and nearly three times the rate of all-cause mortality and inpatient psychiatric care, compared to the general population. These important findings could have easily been updated by Bränström and Pachankis to the more current time frame.
Which brings us back to the August AJP and why seven critical letters took ten months to see print. Along with the letters, the AJP editors published a correction that explained their need “to seek statistical consultations.” These consultants “concurred with many of the points raised.” The study’s authors were asked to reanalyze their data, and the results demonstrated “no advantage to surgery” for their three endpoints in the subject population. The authors noted in their response letter that their “conclusion” “was too strong.”
Unresolved Problems
The AJP correction is significant, but the study still suffers from numerous problems. This has been a win for patients insofar as sex-reassignment surgery has been demoted from improving mental health to having no effect. The reanalysis on the other hand showed an increase in treatment for anxiety after surgery. Why was there not also an expected increase in post-surgical depression, as Drs. Malone and Roman argued in their letter to the editor? Increased post-surgical anxiety without an accompanying increased depression rate is a highly unusual finding. Were these subjects also lost to follow-up?
With respect to cross-sex hormones, it has been shown that 23 percent of patients on high-dose anabolic steroids like testosterone, which is prescribed to every female-to-male patient, meet criteria for a major mood syndrome, and 3 to 12 percent have developed psychotic symptoms. Why is this not reflected in the study or the reanalysis?
There remain major deficits in knowledge that the authors easily could have filled by examining the Swedish databases. One of the strengths of the 2011 Dhejne study is that an increase in mortality is clearly seen at around 10 years. The current study fails to look at available data over a similar time course to assess if mortality has been affected. Similarly, completed suicide information is missing from Bränström. How can one understand suicidality in relation to hormones and surgery by only looking at suicide attempts and not deaths? Likewise, if one wants to understand the full range of psychiatric disorders in this population by examining medication data, then the use of all appropriate pharmaceuticals should be included, not only anti-anxiety and anti-depressant agents. However, simply tabulating prescriptions for psychiatric medications provides a limited and inadequate measure of the degree of emotional distress in any population. Many distressed individuals decline to seek professional help or will refuse pharmaceuticals if they do. The effects of these gaps in knowledge are much like holes cut out of a portrait; the full picture is lost and distorted when the key facial features are removed.
Our co-author Dr. Paul McHugh ended sex reassignment surgeries at John Hopkins Medical School when a study from his department revealed that the mental and social health of patients undergoing sex reassignment surgery did not improve. He adds here that this paper, and even the correction, misdirects clinical thought in many ways. Most crucially it presumes an unproblematic future for these subjects, despite evidence that the psychological state of many will, after surgery, worsen with time. Our experience at Hopkins, when we first recognized that the psychological well-being of patients undergoing surgery did not improve, rested on relatively short-term assessments. The long-term Swedish study of Dhejne demonstrated that the serious fallouts including suicide emerged only after ten years. None of this clinical experience is reflected in this paper or its correction.
Now how will the thirteen-year-old girls who have had breast amputations and testosterone fare? Abigail Shrier writes in her excellent exposé Irreversible Damage that, “Nearly all of the detransitioners I spoke with are plagued with regret. . . . They possess a startlingly masculine voice that will not lift. . . . They live with slashes across their chests . . . and flaps of skin that don’t quite resemble nipples.”
How about children who are ultimately sterilized by puberty blockers followed by cross-sex hormones and even gonad removal? These unethical surgeries are receiving funding by the very NIH that claims to be working to correct problems of irreproducibility. These experiments are beyond reproducibility problems: they are ethical failures by which doctors cause long-term harm to children and adolescents, all based on political activism supported by faulty science.
The Bränström study reanalysis demonstrated that neither “gender-affirming hormone treatment” nor “gender-affirming surgery” reduced the need of transgender-identifying people for mental health services. We appreciate the editors, the study authors, and other letter writers for carefully scrutinizing the study and publishing these findings. However, our team believes that many of the pro-transition studies we have read fare no better.
Fad medicine is bad medicine, and gender-anxious people deserve better.
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The Most Revolutionary Act
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