Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 418

Biden Admin: Chocolate Milk Too Dangerous for Kids But Puberty Blockers Fine

AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

Spencer Brown

As if President Joe Biden and his administration haven’t already done enough to make life more difficult and usher in more hardship for the American people, his band of merry muck-ups are now setting their sights on school lunches and toying around with a ban on chocolate milk — as well as strawberry milk and other flavor alternatives — over concerns about added sugars.

Yes, the same administration that called it “outrageous” and “immoral” to prevent children from taking life-altering hormones to prevent puberty for the purpose of “transitioning” is worried that milk provided at school might have ill effects on their health. 

This potentially devastating news for America’s students came courtesy of a scoop in The Wall Street Journal this week on what the United States Department of Agriculture is weighing as it works on revamping federal standards for school-provided meals. 

Via WSJ:

The issue has divided parents, child-nutrition specialists, school-meal officials and others. Supporters of restricting flavored milk say it has added sugars that contribute to childhood obesity and establish preferences for overly sweet drinks. But opponents, including the dairy industry and many school districts, say removing it will lead to children drinking less milk.

“We want to take a product that most kids like and that has nine essential nutrients in it and say, ‘You can’t drink this, you have to drink plain’?” asked Katie Wilson, executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance, which represents 18 of the largest school districts in the country. “What are we trying to prove?”

[…]

The USDA proposed guidelines for school meals earlier this year, but held off making a recommendation on flavored milk, most of which is chocolate. 

The agency said it is considering excluding flavored milk from elementary and possibly middle schools, or continuing to serve it to all grade levels. Under either scenario, flavored milk would have to comply with a new limit on the amount of added sugars.

“Flavored milk is a challenging issue to figure out exactly the best path forward,” Cindy Long, administrator of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, said, explaining why the agency is weighing two options. “We really do want to encourage children to consume milk and we also recognize the need to reduce added-sugar consumption.”

 

Oh, so the USDA chickened out on making a decision on chocolate milk already, and now they’re still hemming and hawing trying to decide whether students should have the choice of chocolate milk with their lunch. And even if they do have chocolate milk available, they’re going to restrict how much sugar is in it? 

The federal government is clumsy and ineffective at handling pretty much every aspect of Americans’ lives into which it intrudes, and once again Biden is ready to put the USDA in a position of dietary lunch monitor. Where was this concern from the Biden USDA — or any federal agency over the past three years — for the health of America’s children who were more or less locked inside their homes due to COVID? Playgrounds were dismantled, Jen Psaki bragged about how her kids weren’t allowed to play with their friends, and the federal government did lasting damage to the rising generation’s mental health without any similar level of concern nor any apology. 

What about the Biden administration’s embrace of radical transgender ideology that states it’s a human right for young people — with or without their parents’ consent — to begin taking often irreversible hormone treatments or moving toward mutilative surgeries? If your kid wants to begin taking hormones that will prevent them from going through puberty, the Biden administration isn’t worried about long term effects. But if your kid wants to decide to have chocolate milk at lunch, well that’s a huge problem with lasting negative health consequences that must be stopped. It’s beyond absurd. 

[…]



Via https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2023/05/17/biden-considering-ban-on-chocolate-milk-in-schools-n2623260

 

The Rise of the American Gestapo – Has It Already Happened?

From Klark Barnes at earlking56.family.blog

Looking at the present, with each passing day, I see a very probable future: a new despotism creeping slowly across America. Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades.

In efforts to enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are/were willing to have others suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, huge unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil, and bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread intervention in international politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or military invasion…

I look at present members of the Establishment or people on its fringes who, in the name of Americanism, betray the interests of most Americans by fomenting militarism, applauding rat-race individualism, protecting undeserved privilege, or stirring up nationalistic and ethnic hatreds. I see pretended patriots who desecrate the American flag by waving it while waiving the law.

In Nazi Germany, the Gehieme Staatspolizei, or Gestapo, was literally the Homeland Police (Security). It was the MOTHERLAND in the USSR, the FATHERLAND in Nazi Germany, and now the HOMELAND in Nazi America! Homeland Security and the FBI are the American Gestapo.

[…]

Via https://earlking56.family.blog/2023/05/15/the-rise-of-the-american-gestapo-has-it-already-happened/

Ukraine’s Depleted Uranium Blast: Europe on Brink of ‘Environmental Disaster’

A frame of a CCTV video, purportedly depicting a major blast at an ammo depot in Khmelnintsky, Ukraine

Sputnik – 19.05.2023

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev warned on Friday that a radioactive cloud was heading towards Western Europe following the destruction of a Ukrainian warehouse storing British-supplied depleted uranium ammunition.

Sputnik News spoke with Dr. Chris Busby, physical chemist and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, about how the West’s decision to provide depleted uranium (DU) ammunition to Ukraine has potentially caused a continent-wide ecological disaster. Below is his answer in full.

Recently, several web media outlets provided videos of an enormous explosion in the town of Khmelnitski, located to the West of Kiev, and about 200 km from the border with Poland. There were two major explosions which produced a massive roiling swirling fireball which, like an atomic bomb, developed upwards and formed a mushroom cloud, which was black.

I have represented nuclear atmospheric test veterans in the Royal Courts of Justice in London and have seen many films of nuclear explosions: this was not one. A nuclear explosion is characterised by an immediate intense white light which wipes out the camera film or detector.

So, what was it? It was suggested by several commentators that an arms depot that had been hit contained the Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons sent by the UK to the Ukraine for use in the British Challenger tanks as anti-tank penetrators. That the explosion was one involving the burning of the DU in the fireball. Since I am a scientific authority on Uranium and its health effects, but have also examined its dispersion and behaviour in the environment, I will comment on what I believe happened, and why it is important. I was a member of the UK government Ministry of Defence Depleted Uranium Oversight Board (DUOB) in 2000-2005, and also the UK government Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters (CERRIE) 2000-2004. I am Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) which is an independent NGO that provides advice on risk from ionising radiation.

My main research interest in this area is Uranium and health, particularly the DU particles, which are so small they act as a gas and move over very large distances once they are created by the burning of DU. I found them in England in 2003 after they had come from Iraq. I found them in 2023 in England after they came from the Ukraine war. So that is the first thing: the material is able to travel very large distances.

Therefore, if the Khmelnitski explosion was a DU one, the material would move with the wind direction and should be detectable at monitor sites downwind.

First, we need to say that DU has a gamma signature, it releases gamma rays. The UK and USA governments lie about this. They point to the fact that the U-238, that remains after the fissile U-235 is removed in the centrifuges (and is sent off for nuclear weapons and reactors), is a weak alpha emitter.

They say that alpha radiation cannot penetrate skin and so the DU itself is harmless. That it cannot be detected by a Geiger Counter and the alpha particles don’t make it through the window. There is, of course, a health problem if the post-impact particles are inhaled and pass into the body through the lung into the lymphatic system or directly into the digestive system, but essentially DU is harmless.

What you need to know is that Uranium 238, when it decays with its alpha emission, turns into Thorium-234 and Protoactinium-234m which then turns into Uranium 234. Thorium 234 is a beta and gamma emitter delivering 6% of its decay energy as a gamma ray. Thus, large clouds of DU particulate aerosol will be detectable by gamma detectors.

When I visited Iraq with Al Jazeera in 2000 I went to the south and examined the corpses of the tanks that had been hit by DU in the first Gulf War. Some of the A-10 DU penetrators were still lying around. They gave off an intense gamma ray signal, and the holes in the tanks were highly gamma ray active. So much for only an alpha emitter.
I am a yachtsman: examination of the UK metereological weather pressure maps tell us that at the time, and for days after the explosion, there was an anticyclone to the North of the explosion site and winds were weak but from the South East blowing North Westerly around the high-pressure area. So, the plume would move towards Poland. If the winds were about 5km/h they would reach any Poland detectors 250 km away on the 15th.

After Chernobyl, the European Union set up a Europe-wide gamma radiation detector system that used to give gamma readings in real time. I went to look. But astonishingly, all the data was blocked. The web- based system, administered from Germany, (EURDEP) would not provide the detector maps that are normally available. Luckily, there were some location maps on the web and some that had been already downloaded by colleagues of mine before the system stopped working. I obtained maps from Poland. One of these I show below.
You will see that a very highly significant increase in gamma radiation occurred at this detector, north west of the explosion site almost exactly when it would be expected on the basis of a distance of 250km and a mean wind speed of 5km/h. The increase, from 60nSv/h to 90nSv/h was highly statistically significant about 50%. Other detectors all across Poland showed an increase*, as the plume passed over them, the increase being weaker the further away (due to dispersion of the plume).

Later, the Poles measured the increase at the Marie Curie Institute in Lublin, but their map was a more sophisticated one and needed some expert interpretation. The Polish map gave gamma increases split into two natural isotopes, Bismuth and Thallium, also total gamma and cosmic ray gamma.

From the map, we are to assume (and this was the implicit message) that the gamma peak was due to Bismuth. Enter Sherlock Holmes. Bismuth 214 is a Radon daughter. The natural background radioactive gas Radon (Rn-222) is always present, since it is produced from Uranium and Radium in the ground. If there is a sudden change in atmospheric pressure, or when it rains, there is a gamma peak from Radon, which shows itself as the Bi-214 peak. So, the Poles seem to be implying that the increase in gamma radiation is normal and nothing to get scared about. Many have picked up on the Bismuth spectrum. But the way in which the Polish graphs are presented is misleading.

The problem with a radon argument is first that the gamma increases go up all across Poland at a time scale that identifies a plume from Khmelnitsky and second that there was a stable anticyclone weather system and no atmospheric pressure changes that might pull radon out of the ground. I checked all that. There was only some light rain over Lublin.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20230519/ukraines-depleted-uranium-blast-europe-on-brink-of-environmental-disaster-1110462939.html

How Scotland’s Jacobite Rebellion Fed the Celtic Revival

William of Orange, the last foreign conqueror to invade England

Episode 21 Rediscovering the Celts

The Celtic World

Dr Jennifer Paxton (2018)

Film Review

According to to Paxton, the first scholarly inquiry into Gaelic culture and language began in the 16th century, after Scottish historian George Buchanan (1506-1582) discovered a linguistic link between different Celtic languages. A native Gallic speaker, he wrote in Latin and Scots* and was the first to refer to a Celtic “race”. After reading the Irish Book of Invasions, which traces the origin of the Celts to Scythia, he used common place names (eg the Irish god Lugh) to uncover links between Scottish and Irish Celts and pre-Roman Gaul.

Two other key figures in the revival were the 17th century Irish historian Geoffrey Keating, who circulated a manuscript reviving interest in Irish mythology, and Paul Ivres Pezron, (1639-1706) a French Cistercian monk familiar with the Breton language. In addition to writing a history of Gaul, Pezron was the first to refer to a Celtic group of languages and to identify a link between Breton and Welsh (establishing Welsh as a Celtic language).

Finally Welsh linguist Edward Lhuyd (1660-1709) identified the distinction between Q-Celtic and P-Celtic languages. See Celtic Languages in the Ancient World

During the 18th century, this knowledge achieved wide public awareness, thanks to the Jacobites (the descendants of James II, who was driven from the English and Scottish thrones in 1688*).

When the 1746 Battle of Cuulloden essentially ended the Jacobite Rebellion, King George II passed the Dress Act, which banned wearing tartan plaids (except for Scottish regiments in the British army). The ban paradoxicaly increased their popularity. Historically different tartans were regional, based on locally available dyes. However the British Army’s standardization of tartans by regiment led them to be linked to clans, rather than regions.

Claiming his work to be a translation of a Gaelic epic poem by the medieval warrior poet Ossian, in 1761 Scottish writer James McPherson popularized the mythical giant Finn McCool throughout Europe. The result was a sudden interest in all things Scottish, leading to the formation of the Highland Society in 1778 in London. The latter enabled Highland expats in England to meet and talk about Highland culture.

In 1782 the Dress Act was repealed.

*Scots is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in Northern Ireland,

**Paxton states James II was dethroned due to incompetence, but most historical sources indicate the Dutch prince William of Orange invaded England with the intention of capturing both the English and Scottish throne for himself

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/5701024/5701066

Higher Infant Mortality, Kidney Disease and TB Linked to Living Near Factory Farms

Image credit: mercola.com

By  Dr. Joseph Mercola

Concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs — gigantic factory farms that hold many thousands of animals in a warehouse-style setting — pose a wide range of threats to human health and the environment.

Story at a glance:

Communities near hog-concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have higher mortality rates from anemia, kidney disease, tuberculosis (TB) and septicemia, as well as higher infant mortality, likely due to exposure to hog waste.CAFO animal waste is made all the worse by the fact that these animals are routinely fed antibiotics, which promotes drug-resistant bacteria.Drug-resistant pathogens are not only found on meat, they can also spread from CAFO feedlots into the environment via the air, spreading far and wide by wind.Manure from industrial agriculture is the primary source of nitrogen and phosphorus in waterways. Resulting damage includes algae overgrowth that depletes the water of oxygen, killing fish and other marine life.Slaughterhouses are another source of nitrogen pollution, and three-quarters of U.S. meat processing plants that discharge wastewater into local waterways have violated the pollution limits of their federal Clean Water Act permits.

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) — gigantic factory farms that hold many thousands of animals in a warehouse-style setting — are an environmental disaster in more ways than one, and when hurricanes hit, this fact becomes acutely obvious when animal waste, collected in massive “lagoons,” overflow, contaminating both land, water and residential homes.

Even under the best circumstances, the lagoons may leak, seeping millions of gallons of waste a year into neighboring soil and groundwater. Add in a formidable force like a hurricane and the potential for leakage, overflow and runoff is virtually guaranteed.

Environmental contamination from overflowing animal waste is bad enough in and of itself, but CAFO waste is made all the worse by the fact that these animals are routinely fed antibiotics, which promotes antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

These drug-resistant pathogens are then spread through the environment in a variety of ways. Storms drive contaminated water across large areas, wind spread airborne pathogens, and other foods are contaminated by using the waste as fertilizer.

Hog waste poses risks to public health

Vice News highlighted some of the problems associated with North Carolina’s CAFO hog waste in a recent article, noting:

“The waste-filled lagoons have created a constant source of environmental pollution during hurricanes, which frequent North Carolina’s coast.

“Lagoons overflowed or breached in 1996 during Hurricane Fran, in 1998 during Hurricane Bonnie, in 1999 during Hurricane Floyd, in 2016 during Hurricane Matthew, and just last month during Hurricane Florence — 33 overflowed.”

Hurricanes, which hit North Carolina with regularity, clearly compound the environmental problems associated with hog CAFOs, but it’s an inescapable issue for residents year-round.

When the lagoons are emptied by spraying the liquid waste onto fields, nearby residents are quite literally showered with liquefied feces, and several studies have noted the health dangers of living near these CAFOs.

A North Carolina swine farm nuisance lawsuit even presents evidence of hog DNA collected from the walls in residential homes.

Many find the stench unbearable and the air hard to breathe.

Most recently, a study published in the North Carolina Medical Journal found communities near hog CAFOs have higher mortality rates from anemia, kidney disease, TB and septicemia, as well as higher infant mortality.

[…]

Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are a CAFO scourge

American livestock farmers use nearly 30 million pounds of antibiotics each year in the raising of their animals.

Most of these are raised in CAFOs, where overcrowding, lack of sanitation, stress and an unnatural diet make the animals prone to illness. Antibiotics are routinely added to their feed to combat disease.

Antibiotics also have the side effect of promoting growth, making the animals grow fatter faster, which is another reason for the drugs’ use.

This agricultural use accounts for about 80% of all antibiotics used in the U.S., making it a significant source of continuous low-dose exposure via your diet.

However, while low-dose antibiotic exposure is a health risk, a far more significant concern is the antibiotic-resistant bacteria CAFO meats may harbor. As revealed by a recent analysis of food testing done by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2015, 83% of meats sold in U.S. supermarkets are contaminated with enterococcus faecalis, i.e., fecal bacteria.

A high percentage are also contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria:

79% of ground turkey samples were contaminated with drug-resistant enterococcus faecalis; 73% of the salmonella found on ground turkey was antibiotic-resistant salmonella.71% of pork chops were contaminated with drug-resistant enterococcus faecalis62% of ground beef samples were contaminated with drug-resistant enterococcus faecalis.36% of chicken breasts, legs, thighs and wings were contaminated with drug-resistant enterococcus faecalis; 1 in 5 strains of salmonella was resistant to amoxicillin, a type of penicillin, which as a class is designated as “critically important” in human medicine.

Drug-resistant bacteria from feedlots go airborne

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are not just in the meat, however.

Researchers have found that drug-resistant pathogens can also spread from CAFO feedlots into the environment via the air, spreading far and wide by the wind.

Between August and December 2012, Phil Smith, an associate professor of terrestrial ecotoxicology at Texas Tech and his colleague, Greg Mayer, an associate professor of molecular toxicology, collected air samples from 10 commercial cattle yards within a 200-mile radius of Lubbock, Texas.

[…]

The pair explain that the drug-resistant genes are contained in the fecal matter. When it dries, it allows the genes to spread by winds over great distances.

The study estimates that the amount of potentially contaminated dust particles released by cattle yards in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas exceeds 46,000 pounds (21,000 kg) per day.

So not only can you be exposed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria via water and contaminated meat, depending on where you live, but simply breathing could be a route of exposure as well.

Smith also notes that microbes are “promiscuous with their genetic information,” and can share their genetic information across species. What this means is that microbes that have not been directly exposed to antibiotics may still develop resistance, simply by coming into contact with drug-resistant bacteria.

The fact that this mingling may occur just about anywhere — even out in nature — is troubling, as it implies there’s virtually no way to stop the progression of resistance. It simply cannot be confined.

Cattle industry tries to kill the story

As reported by Texas Monthly, the findings caused quite the headache for the Texas Cattle Feeders Association.

Its president and CEO, Ross Wilson, said the idea that antibiotic-resistant bacteria were airborne was “a big accusation” based on “a superficial, initial set of science.”

“They found genetic material. That does not mean that there’s any organism that is out there that is going to transfer that potential resistance,” Wilson said. “And if people expect us to sit idly by and not defend our members when some are alleging this is our fault, it’s not happening.”

Mayer and Smith agree there are unanswered questions, such as “What is the consequence of the bacteria’s gene sequence when it lands?” and “Can it cause an infection in humans?”

Texas Monthly continues:

“If the bacteria are dead, though, then what Smith and Mayer found was naked DNA, which is released by bacteria after their cell walls have decomposed. When these pieces of DNA fall out of the wind, they can be picked up by bacteria on the ground, in a process known as transformation.

“If live bacteria downwind of the feed yard absorbed the DNA found in Smith and Mayer’s samples, they could acquire antibiotic resistance, though the process is much less efficient than conjugation.

“Smith and Mayer don’t know if the bacteria they detected downwind of the feedlots were dead or alive.

“Nor do they know at what concentrations the bacteria might be found as they move farther away from the feedlots. But they had demonstrated that antibiotic resistance could be spread on the wind.”

Disturbed by comments made by Smith and Mayer during the media storm that followed the publication of their findings, Wilson called the duo for a meeting, in which he asked them to dial back the media attention.

According to Texas Monthly:

“The incident upset Smith and Mayer, who have both grown weary of the controversy their research has sparked.

“‘This is like nothing I have ever experienced in science before. And it’s not that we haven’t done cooler things, better things, more technical things,’ said Mayer.

“‘It’s just that there isn’t a big industry that cares about it.’

“Smith put it another way. ‘They would like nothing more than for us to zip our mouths, put our instruments away, and never do another study,’ he said … ‘I just don’t like to be bullied.’”

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/infant-mortality-kidney-disease-cafo-factory-farms-cola/

 

Imran Khan and the independence of Pakistan

by Thierry Meyssan

Pakistan has never been independent. It has always remained a toy in the hands of the United Kingdom and the United States. During the Western war against the Afghan communist regime, it became a rear base for Bin Laden’s mujahideen and Arab fighters. However, for the past decade, a cricket champion like no other has been trying to liberate it, make peace with India and create social services: Imran Khan.

The Pakistani population is rising up against its army and its political personnel. Everywhere, demonstrations are forming in support of the former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, who has just been released but is the subject of a hundred legal proceedings.

Who is Imran Khan?

Imran Khan comes from an illustrious Pashtun family. His father is descended from an Indian general and governor of the Punjab, and his mother from a Sufi master who invented the Pashto alphabet. He was educated in Lahore, then in England at Oxford. He speaks Saraiki, Urdu, Pashto and English. He is a cricketer, the most important sport in Pakistan. He was captain of the national team in 1992 and managed to win the World Cup. During the years 1992-96, he devoted himself exclusively to philanthropic activities, opening a hospital for cancer patients and a university with his family’s money. In 1996, he entered politics and created the Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI). He obtained a seat in the National Assembly in 2018, but was the only one elected from his party.

Imran Khan is not a politician like the others. He recognizes himself in the approach of Mohamed Iqbal (1877-1938), the spiritual father of Pakistan.

[…]

Imran Khan is therefore a Sunni, an admirer of a Shiite philosopher. He proposes to modernize his country, not by eradicating its religious traditions, but on the contrary, by trying to sort them out to keep only the best. He shows himself to be extraordinarily open and tolerant in a country that was the first in the world to be governed by the Egyptian Brotherhood of the Muslim Brotherhood, a sectarian political party linked to the British MI6 [2]. Like Ali Shariati, he is a revolutionary in the noble sense of the word and an anti-imperialist. In his political life, he never ceased to denounce the Anglo-Saxon takeover of his country. He will therefore logically become the haunt of the British and American imperialists.

[…]

In theory, Pakistan has civilian rule, but it has been rocked by numerous military coups. The military is the only effective administration and has gradually gained control of many economic sectors. During the war in Afghanistan, it supported the Afghan mujahideen and of course Osama bin Laden’s Arab fighters on behalf of the CIA.

[…]

Imran Khan is not on the side of either the army or the political class. He calls for early elections. He does not believe a word of either the US, the army or the politicians’ version. He campaigns against both corruption and submission to the US, two themes that concern both Pakistani camps. In a few months, his party emerged from the shadows and his discourse won over his people. He formed a coalition and became Prime Minister in 2012.

A breakaway prime minister

Inspired by the example of Muhammad when he was head of state, he created a free health care program in Punjab, opened shelters for the homeless and implemented a social protection and anti-poverty program.

He clashed with the Islamists of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan who demanded the death penalty for blasphemers. During the attack on the former premises of Charlie-Hebdo in Paris and the murder of a teacher Samuel Paty [4] in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, he attacked the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who justified the attacks against Islam provoked by these crimes. In the end, after having negotiated a shaky agreement with the fanatics of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, he ended up banning this movement.

As a symbol of his open-mindedness, he built the Kartarpur Corridor which allows Indian Sikhs [5] to come on pilgrimage to the shrine of their founder Guru Nanak, 5 kilometers inside Pakistan. But the Indian government is not opening an equivalent corridor for Pakistani Sikhs to come on pilgrimage to Dera Baba Nanak in India.

Despite the advancement of the China-Pakistan economic corridor, the situation forces it to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help. As usual, the IMF demanded neo-liberal structural reforms. The result was a drop in living standards and a return to poverty. He went to Russia after the latter had just intervened militarily against the “integral nationalists” in Ukraine.

Let us recall that Stepan Bandera was working at the beginning of the Cold War with the Muslim Brotherhood. Immediately, the United States intervened politically in Pakistan to bring down the government of Imran Khan. After a first attempt, parliamentarians passed a vote of no confidence and dismissed the Prime Minister.

An unpredictable opposition leader

Imran Khan, who was in a very small minority in the Assembly but had a huge majority among the population, became the leader of the popular opposition.

He was succeeded as Prime Minister by Shehbaz Sharif, brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The Sharif dynasty is involved in many of the financial affairs exposed in the Panama Papers. It has a number of offshore companies that it has used to organize tax evasion. Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to 10 years in prison, then to 7 years in prison in another case, before going into exile in London. As for Shehbaz Sharif, he was exiled in Saudi Arabia during the dictatorship of General Perwez Musharaf.

An attack was organized against him on November 3, 2022, killing one person and injuring three others, including Khan himself, who was wounded in the leg. He accused the Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, of having ordered the attack. According to a video, one of the two gunmen cited Khan’s playing music during prayers and his agreement to talk to Israel, a “kafir” (infidel) nation, as motives. This shooter is a member of the Tehrik-e- Labbaik Pakistan. In reality, Pakistan’s rapprochement with Israel under Imran Khan was the result of favorable pressure from Saudi Arabia.

The US-based journalist Ahmad Noorani accuses on his website General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who has just retired as Pakistan’s Chief of Staff. He claims that he and his family have become considerably richer over the past six years.

Imran Khan then demanded that what he had stolen be confiscated and raised the question of the power of the army: an institution that defends the country, but also plays a murky economic role.

The Sharif government launched an incredible number of legal proceedings, more than 100, against the most popular man in the country. None of them seemed to be very serious, but all of them had high legal stakes, so that Imran Khan could do nothing but answer to the police and the judiciary. At the same time, one of his followers, Senator Azam Khan Swati, who had criticized the attitude of senior officers, was arrested for insulting the army and imprisoned.

But the man did not react as expected. He denounced the instrumentalization of justice and asked his supporters to be voluntarily incarcerated to saturate the system and discredit it. In front of each prison, 500 members of his party gathered and ask to be arrested. Some of them were arrested, but the government quickly realized the trap and tried to disperse them.

Not knowing what to do, the Sharif government once again considered having Khan assassinated during an attempted arrest by the military. His party, the Justice Movement (PTI), surrounded his family palace and prevented the army and police from entering.

Imran Khan’s arrest by the police and army at the Lahore court. The forces of “order” broke the doors and windows of the courtroom during the pleas of the lawyers.

In the latest incident, as Imran Khan was on his way to court to answer charges against him, police surrounded the court to arrest him. As his supporters closed the doors of the courtroom, the police broke them down to seize him.

[…]

Via https://www.voltairenet.org/article219304.html

West Fueling Sovereign Debt Crisis in Ukraine

RT

Debt has already surpassed 89% of GDP and will continue to rise, Russia’s envoy to the UN warns

Western financial measures are leading Kiev into a sovereign debt crisis, with the burden expected to exceed Ukraine’s GDP by the end of the year, the Russian ambassador to the UN has warned.

“We will hear a lot today about the solidarity of the Western community with Ukraine, the readiness to support it ‘as long as it takes.’ However, it is necessary to understand that this support is taking Ukraine to the brink,” Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council on Monday. “Its foreign debt surged to a record $132 billion, or 89% of GDP in 2022. It’s estimated that by the end of this year it will exceed 100%.”

The Russian envoy added that the “enormous funds allocated to Ukraine by the IMF, the EU, and the US are driving that country into a debt pit,” cautioning that “ordinary Ukrainians will have to repay the debts.”

Commenting on Kiev’s agreement with US financial company BlackRock to launch the Ukraine Development Fund, Nebenzia noted that the American firm will be in charge of managing the finances.

“What essentially is happening under the guise of attracting private investment for large-scale projects in key areas of the economy, is a transfer of state sovereignty to external corporate management of the world’s largest investment fund headquartered in New York,” the diplomat stated.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has pushed Western leaders to provide more and more cash to sustain the economy and military. He previously told the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that the country would need $55 billion in 2023 to cover the estimated budget deficit and rebuild critical infrastructure amid the conflict with Russia.

Ukraine has already deferred payments until 2024 on more than $20 billion of debt held by international investors. It is set for foreign debt restructuring next year, with G7 creditors claiming they would only extend their grace period for Ukrainian debt if private creditors agree. The nation’s budgetary shortfall is estimated to surpass $43 billion in 2023 alone.

[…]

Via https://swentr.site/business/576387-ukraine-western-loans-debt/

Missed Bacterial Pneumonia Cases Left Untreated Were the Majority of COVID-19 Hospital Deaths.

 

By James Lyons-Weiler

Hospital protocolists sticking to the strict hand-me-down highly profitable “COVID protocol” may have doomed a majority of admitted COVID-19 patients to death due to a perfect storm of institutional failure.

I first warned FDA in early 2020 that because the commercial kits did not use internal negative controls there would be arbitrarily high COVID-19 false positive rates due to the abuse of non-quantitative PCR. The majority of “cases”, I pointed out, would be false because the test was to be used as a screening device – and when you screen with an imperfect test when prevalence is low, you end up with more false positives than negatives in the set of positives.

Knowing that people who were symptomatic for respiratory infections would be among the most tested population and that Fauci’s medical approach to COVID-19 was to tell people to go home and get as sick as possible, it was readily clear that people would be dying due to lack of treatment for treatable conditions, like bacterial pneumonia and fungal infections in the lung.

Now a study from NIH-funded researchers in Chicago, IL has found that unresolved respiratory infections – not necessarily those involved in SARS-CoV-2 – were present in people who failed to “respond” to mechanical ventilation.

The authors wrote:

“Recent data suggest that secondary pneumonia is present in up to 40% and pneumonia or diffuse alveolar damage is present in over 90% of autopsy specimens obtained from patients with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection (18). Consistent with these observations, we and others found high rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia requiring mechanical ventilation, suggesting that bacterial superinfections such as VAP may contribute to mortality in patients with COVID-19 (7, 19–22). These findings prompt an alternative hypothesis that a relatively low mortality rate directly attributable to primary SARS-CoV-2 infection is offset by a greater risk of death attributable to unresolving VAP (23).”

They concluded:

“These data suggest mortality associated with severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia is more often associated with respiratory failure that increases the risk of unresolving VAP and is less frequently associated with multiple-organ dysfunction.”

Unsurprisingly, the study found that people with bacterial pneumonia who were on ventilators had the highest mortality. Although their analysis restricted consideration to bacterial pneumonia cases detected 48 hours after ventilation, they did not distinguish between undiagnosed cases of bacterial pneumonia upon admission and those acquired in-hospital (nosocomial infection). The rate of co-infection is not clear either, due to insufficient testing for bacterial pneumonia in patients once diagnosed with COVID-19.

The study leads to the stunning potential that perhaps 58% of “COVID” cases were respiratory issues other than COVID (43% bacterial pneumonia, 16% non-pathogen causes of respiratory failure). Treated as “COVID”, these patients were doomed to a fate of non-treatment due to mis- or under-diagnosis.

It is unclear what percentage of deaths attributed to COVID-19 could have been prevented via a standard therapy for bacterial pneumonia, but it is potentially very high. Fauci’s prescription – sending patients home to do nothing – no corticosteroids, no antibiotics just in case it was bacterial – drove the COVID-19 death rate up far higher than it had to be.

Gao et al., 2023. Machine learning links unresolving secondary pneumonia to mortality in patients with severe pneumonia, including COVID-19, Journal of Clinical Investigation (2023). DOI: 10.1172/JCI170682

https://www.jci.org/articles/view/170682/pdf

[…]

Via https://popularrationalism.substack.com/p/missed-bacterial-pneumonia-cases?

Washington Governor Signs Controversial Bill Allowing Government to Remove Minors for Failure to Consent to Gender Transition Surgery

The Blogging Hounds

On Tuesday, Governor Jay Inslee (D-WA) signed the controversial Senate Bill 5599 introduced by State Sen. Marko Liias (D-Everett), which allows the state to legally take children away from their parents if they don’t consent to their child’s gender transition surgeries or abortion.

Washington state’s current law requires that any youth shelter where a child seeks refuge must notify their parents or guardians within 24 to 72 hours. However, the state law allows them to not tell the parents or legal guardians if they have “compelling reasons” to believe that doing so would put the kid in danger of abuse or neglect.

The newly signed law will allow the government to hide the whereabouts of runaway children who claim to be seeking sex changes or abortions. Meaning, no one can protest the “state-sanctioned kidnapping of children.”

Senate Bill 5599 will remove parents from the health and mental health care decision-making process of their children.

“Trans youth and transgender people have become a target for disinformation campaigns and political stunts that portray them as dangerous or degenerate,” said Inslee during the bill signing Tuesday.

“In Washington State, we reject the politics of transphobia and fear. We look for ways to help LGBTQ remain safe and support it. With this bill, Washington leads the way by taking a more compassionate, developmentally appropriate, and reasoned approach to support these youth as they access gender-affirming treatment and reproductive health care services,” he added.

[…]

Via https://theblogginghounds.com/2023/05/16/washington-democrat-governor-inslee-signs-controversial-bill-allowing-government-to-take-away-minors-from-parents-if-they-refuse-to-agree-to-gender-transition-surgery-video/

 

Separatists fed up with Trudeau want Alberta to break away from Canada, become 51st state

By Jon Brown | Fox News

.An advocacy group in Alberta, Canada, is trying to educate residents of the province about what it argues would be the benefits of breaking off from the country to join the U.S. as its 51st state.

“I find myself having an affinity toward the U.S. more than Canada because of the freedom, Constitution and just the entire republican system versus the monarchy here, which is really a pseudonym for dictatorship,” a source with the Alberta 51 Project told Fox News Digital.

Founded in 2022, the project is “dedicated to supporting education to all Albertans on why we should become the 51st state of the United States of America,” according to its website. About one-fifth of Canadians in various provinces believe they would be better off under the U.S. government, according to a poll done by Research Co. earlier this year.

The source who spoke to Fox News Digital did so on condition of anonymity amid what he described as the increasingly authoritarian tactics of the Canadian government, which he noted has arrested Christian pastors and targeted its political opponents by freezing their bank accounts during last year’s trucker convoy protests.

The source said that the project rolled out in response to online chatter among disaffected Albertans who wished somehow to secede from the authority of the federal government in Ottawa, which he noted is in the eastern part of Canada and exhibits a mindset that often diverges from that of Canadians in the more conservative western provinces.

“Albertans have a real affinity with the land, and they have that cowboy spirit, that Indian spirit, that oil-and-gas rigger spirit,” he said, adding that many Albertans have a desire to be left alone by the government.

“That’s not really a Canadian governmental kind of thing,” he said. “Basically, in Canada, you have a socialist-style system, and that socialism is kind of like a bad disease that just keeps getting worse and worse as time goes by.”

“We wanted to dare to poke the Canadian identity bear,” he said. “When Trudeau came in, he said some years ago that Canada doesn’t have a culture, they’re not different. So, they use that for globalism and what they call ‘multiculturalism.’ So, they kind of pooh-pooh any Canadian identity – with the exception of Quebec, of course; don’t touch the sacred cow.”

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, on Monday, March 6, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick / Canadian Press via AP)

The source said Trudeau’s assertion was insulting to Albertans as well as many traditionalist Canadians who live in Saskatchewan, eastern British Columbia and even westernmost territory Yukon, whose worldview he likened to rural Americans in states such as Montana and Texas. He also said that the rich natural resources of Alberta and similar provinces have been unfairly siphoned by other parts of Canada since the provinces were established.

Such Canadians are suspicious of big government, he said, and noted that the U.S. Constitution was framed by men who had the same attitude and would better fit them. The source maintained that fear toward their government has seized many Canadians in recent years.

“The monarchy is the supreme ruler and his representative is the prime minister and the governor general,” he said. “And really, it’s just a rubber stamp. Whatever the prime minister says, that pretty much goes. We saw that during the trucker convoy when Trudeau basically shut off everybody’s rights and freedoms, and nobody did anything. No one said anything. In Canada, we don’t have rights and freedoms like in the U.S.”

“Trudeau, at heart, is a fascist; he’s a communist at heart, he’s a globalist,” the source said, who maintained that the prime minister “will never be held to account” because his administration also appoints the country’s judges.

“Most people actually do go to work doing physical jobs, whether it be in the oil field – which is by far our largest industry – or farming or any other kind of primary industry or trade,” he said of Albertans. “The people here are younger, and we’re willing to do physical work to make more money.”

“The die is being cast right now, and it’s about seeing who blinks first, whether it’s the provincial governments or the federal government,” Downing said. “For the folks in Alberta, we’re at a precipice of our own where we’re not going to allow this to continue.”

Peter Downing, a former officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) who founded the separatist movement “Wexit” — a play on “Western Exit” — in the wake of Trudeau’s 2019 reelection, told Fox News Digital that Albertans increasingly began looking toward their American neighbors amid the Canadian government’s crackdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Echoing the source at the Alberta 51 Project, Downing speculated that Alberta, which saw more clergy arrests during the pandemic than anywhere else in the Western world, has repeatedly popped up in international media because of its “rugged individual mindset.”

“We don’t tolerate it,” Downing said of Albertans’ attitude toward government overreach, adding that most people in the province do not adhere to the “socialist environment” of Ottawa.

[…]

Via https://www.foxnews.com/world/separatists-fed-up-trudeau-want-province-break-away-canada-become-51st-state