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Yesterday’s WSJ: “Some Who Rushed to Covid-19 Vaccine Hold Off on Boosters

Dr Meryl Nass

SOME? What a farce.

The NY Times, updated yesterday, presents CDC’s numbers for Americans who have received at least one booster: 109.6. There are 333 million Americans.

Thus the needle remains at 32.9% of Americans who have received at least one booster.

That number (33%) has not risen in September despite the shiny new useless bivalent boosters that don’t even work in animals and cleverly avoided any testing in humans.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Since the new boosters became available earlier this month at pharmacies, doctors’ offices and elsewhere, about 4.4 million people have received a new booster shot, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.” The article also claims that “After some 77% of adults got the primary series, however, roughly 52% got the first booster” according to CDC.

But that isn’t right. 4.4 million divided by 333 million Americans is 1.3%.

At the September 1 ACIP meeting, which I live-blogged, CDC told the committee that 49% of those eligible (who have completed a primary series) had gotten a booster. Well, here it is September 23, and guess how many of those eligible have gotten a booster (as of September 21)? 48.7% according to CDC’s website. Yet 49% (Those claimed to have gotten a booster on Sept 1) plus 1.3% (those claimed to have gotten a COVID bivalent booster since Sept. 1) equals 50.3%.

Is 48.7% the same as 50.3% or “roughly 52%”? I don’t think so, even with the New Math.

[…]

Via https://merylnass.substack.com/p/yesterdays-wsj-some-who-rushed-to?isFreemail=true

After 21-Year Delay, Judge Hears Evidence in Lawsuit Alleging Cellphones Caused Plaintiffs’ Brain Cancer

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

In an interview with The Defender, Hunter Lundy, an attorney representing plaintiffs in two lawsuits alleging cellphones caused plaintiffs to develop brain cancer, said he was frustrated with the legal system’s slow pace, but that he believes the “truth is going to come out.”

A judge this month is hearing evidence in a lawsuit filed in 2011 by a group of individuals who developed cancer, allegedly as a result of radiation from their cellphones. Depending on how the judge rules, the lawsuit could finally head to a jury trial.

Evidentiary hearings in Murray v. Motorola began Sept. 12 in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, and are scheduled to continue until Sept. 30. Expert testimony will be presented during the hearings before the case goes before a jury.

In a parallel case that may have repercussions for the D.C. case, a similar lawsuit before a federal court in Louisiana — filed by the widow of a man who died of an aggressive form of brain cancer allegedly caused by cellphone radiation — also is headed to trial.

The D.C. case is proceeding without the plaintiffs being able to present a significant category of evidence pertaining to the defendants’ liability. However, that evidence will be heard in the Louisiana case.

In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Hunter Lundy, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in both cases, discussed the evidence and expert testimony and the potential significance rulings in this case could have.

D.C. case: lawsuit filed in 2001 finally headed to a jury

In 2001 and 2002, six individuals, including Michael Patrick Murray, sued the telecommunications industry.

The six plaintiffs had developed brain tumors beneath where they held their cellphones. Additional plaintiffs joined the case in 2010, 2011 and thereafter — with the number of plaintiffs now exceeding 80, according to Lundy.

The defendants are a who’s who of major telecommunications companies, including AT&T, Bell Atlantic, Bell South, Motorola, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sanyo, Sony, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and many other companies.

The lawsuit also names the Federal Communications Commission and the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CITA), an industry lobbying group.

After 21 years and multiple delays, many of the plaintiffs have since died.

Despite efforts on the part of the defendants to get the lawsuit dismissed or relocated to federal court in Maryland, the case was initially remanded from the D.C. District Court to the D.C. Superior Court — where the complaints were dismissed in 2007, before being partially reinstated in 2009, by the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals.

The case continued to wind through the courts, with evidentiary hearings finally beginning this year.

Lundy discussed key details about the lawsuit, stating that the plaintiffs alleged: “the radiation frequency … the microwave radiation coming out of cellphones increased the risk of individuals getting brain tumors.”

The plaintiffs further alleged that “the cell phone industry, the manufacturers and the carriers knew when these [cellphones] were put out on the market that they had dangers that they didn’t warn people about,” said Lundy.

However, Lundy said that the main thrust of the case concerns gliomas — tumors that impact the brain and spinal cord.

According to Lundy, “There are several kinds of gliomas … the most prevalent one is the glioblastoma,” a type of malignant glioma.

Other gliomas, such as acoustic neuroma, are benign, Lundy told The Defender, but form on the cerebral nerve inside the brain, growing without their victims being aware of them. Eventually, their growth leads to hearing loss and their removal results in residual brain damage.

Ultimately, most such cases result in death, said Lundy. With glioblastoma, for instance, diagnoses range from having three to four months — to five years at most — to live.

[…]

The victims were impacted by first-, second- and third-generation analog cellphones produced in the 1980s and 1990s. “The antennas were up at the top of the phone and some of them were operated on three watt and greater power,” Lundy said, whereas “Today you’ve got smartphones operating on a quarter watt.”

Lundy told The Defender:

“There was a long period of years in which people were getting high exposure from cellphone radiation because they were using them so much … and there wasn’t sufficient information, instruction or warning by the industry to the user of the dangers involved. That’s the thrust of the case.”

“Our argument is that if you continue to use the analogue [phones] and you use the second- or some of the third-generation [devices], you’ll see a linear effect” regarding radiation exposure and latency, Lundy added, where the effects of such radiation become apparent over time.

As an example, Lundy referred to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, where “it was still 40 years before … you saw tremendous numbers of cancers developing.”

Although the plaintiffs were from different parts of the U.S., the initial lawsuits — later combined into the current case — were filed in the District of Columbia “because [of] the idea that the lobbying institutions of the wireless industry [are] located in D.C.,” said Lundy.

However, these lobbying groups — and the rest of the defendants — “don’t want us to have a trial in front of a jury,” said Lundy, which resulted in the defendants using a variety of delay tactics.

In 2013, a Frye hearing was held, during which, according to Lundy, the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses “had to pass a standard before they could testify in front of a jury.”

“The Frye standard had to be met where you proved that the methodology used by the expert … was generally accepted in the scientific community,” Lundy said.

In the period between 2013 and 2015, the five experts put forth by the plaintiffs were approved according to the Frye standard and a trial was held, Lundy said. However, the defendants, on appeal, were able to get the case reversed and to get the standard by which the plaintiffs’ experts were evaluated changed, to the Daubert standard.

According to Lundy, in this second standard, “you had to prove that not only was the science [accepted], you had to prove that it was reliable and that it was readily available.”

“In the interim,” according to Lundy, “we have been through several judges.”

Ultimately, the plaintiffs were not allowed to supplement the opinions of the initial experts with new witnesses and new science, unless it “somehow [was] related to the old opinion,” Lundy said. This hamstrung the plaintiffs and subsequent judges hearing the case, he added.

But “We’re going forward with other witnesses … and then the case will be submitted to the court again and there will probably be post-hearing briefs,” Lundy said. “At some point, the court will make a ruling and then both parties will have a right to appeal … and so, the process goes on.”

Louisiana case an opportunity for more expert testimony to be presented

The related case, Walker v. Motorola et al., filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, may present an opportunity for plaintiffs to present expert testimony that was shut out of the D.C. case.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman of Children’s Health Defense, is co-counsel in this case.

According to Lundy, this lawsuit has the potential to quickly go to trial.

“Ahead of what’s going on in D.C., we just want a case to go to trial somewhere … we need a ruling before people go forward,” Lundy told The Defender.

Referring to the D.C. case, Lundy said:

“We haven’t been able to get … liability document production, discussing the development of the products, the interaction between risk management and others.

“So I think in Louisiana, if we prevail, we will get the discovery [of such evidence]. It’s a different ballgame.”

In the Louisiana case, the family of Frank Aaron Walker sued the telecommunications industry, alleging the pastor’s death from an aggressive brain cancer was brought on by cellphone radiation, the health risks of which the industry has known for decades.

According to the suit, the telecommunications industry “suppressed credible cell phone safety concerns and has conspired to conceal or alter results of safety studies to make them more ‘market-friendly.’”

Walker was “a 25-year user of cell phone products,” the suit claims, before dying on Dec. 31, 2020, age 49, following “a two-year battle with glioblastoma that included extensive radiation, chemotherapy and surgery.”

During this two-year period, Walker experienced severe symptoms including “seizures, visual auras, excessive fatigue, migraines, light sensitivity, memory problems, psychological and emotional stress, anxiety, and depression,” the lawsuit alleges.

Similar to the D.C. case, the defendants in the Louisiana lawsuit include several major telecommunications industry players, such as AT&T, Cricket Communications, CITA, Motorola, the Telecommunications Industry Association and ZTE.

In a 2021 press release issued after the lawsuit was filed, Lundy stated:

“For generations, the telecom industry has fought the release of scientific studies and information regarding ties between mobile phone use and brain tumors. The industry manipulated the science to the detriment of consumers.

“With this lawsuit, Mr. Walker’s family hopes to help reveal the telecom industry’s secrets and hold them accountable for harm done to consumers.”

In the same release, Lundy alleged the telecommunications industry “downplayed, understated, and/or did not state the health hazards and risks associated with cell phones.”

The press release also quoted Walker’s widow, April Marie Walker:

“Throughout his battle with cancer, Frank never lost his faith or his sense of humor, but he suffered terribly.

“Our family’s hope now is that we can force the telecom industry to let consumers make informed choices about the products we buy.

“If the telecom industry knew holding a cell phone next to one’s head is dangerous, then the public should have known this information.”

In remarking on the broader significance of this case, Lundy said:

“There needs to be an exposure of truth. I just believe everybody should be accountable.

“We have not been allowed to do liability discovery. We have done scientific discovery and evidence about science. But we do not yet have the industry’s documents.

“I think we’ll be able … to do liability discovery here in federal court in Louisiana when we go forward.”

https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/embed/defender-sms-reminders-v2

Industry concealed studies linking cellphone use to brain and DNA damage, plaintiffs allege

The Louisiana lawsuit also cites a significant number of scientific studies and industry actions taken since the 1980s, “including the firing, defunding or denigration of researchers who discovered adverse effects associated with cell phone use.”

According to the lawsuit:

“At all times herein mentioned, Defendants were aware of numerous studies and experiments that demonstrated the health hazards of RF radiation dating back to the late 1940s and continuing to this day, yet Defendants have consistently maintained to the public at large that cell phones are absolutely safe.”

The lawsuit alleges “scientific and medical research, published in peer-reviewed literature, has demonstrated a correlation between biological effects and the exposure to RF radiation within the radio frequency band of 300 megahertz to 2.4 gigahertz,” noting, however, that such peer-reviewed journals are not typically read by the general public.

Radiation exposure standards adopted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), initially in the 1960s, and subsequently modified in the 1980s and 1990s, “excluded cell phones,” states the lawsuit, as “the cell phone industry manipulated the research and pressured members of the ANSI Safety Committee to exempt cell phones from regulation and compliance.”

However, as scientific and public concern over radiation produced by cellular phones increased in the 1990s, “defendants, individually and through their trade associations … undertook with public fanfare to fund scientific studies to prove the safety of cell phones,” resulting in the formation of the Scientific Advisory Group in 1993.

Subsequently, industry associations CTIA and Telecommunications Industry Association hired an expert, Dr. George Carlo, to direct the Scientific Advisory Group and conduct research into cellular phone radiation. However, as the lawsuit states:

“When this industry-funded research failed to corroborate the industry’s claims of safety and, in fact, presented new evidence supporting health concerns, the industry responded by terminating the research funding and publicly disparaging Dr. Carlo as well as suppressing and minimizing the results of his studies.”

Nevertheless, numerous other scientific studies followed, calling into question the industry’s claims regarding the safety of their mobile devices. These studies are cited in the lawsuit and include:

A 1995 University of Washington study conducted on rats exposed to “radiation similar to the type of radiation emitted from the antenna of a cell phone,” found the radiation caused damage to DNA. The industry funded research that aimed to disprove these fundings, but which ultimately confirmed them, leading the industry to refuse to publish the results.Another scientist who subsequently replicated the DNA damage found by the University of Washington research had his findings “suppressed” by the industry, pressuring him and threatening to withdraw funding.A 1996 study of Air Force personnel found those exposed to RF radiation had a “risk of brain tumors 1.39 times higher … versus those not exposed.”A 2000 study by Sweden’s Orebro Medical Center “found the risk of tumors developing on the same side of the head cell phone users hold their cell phones is significantly higher than it is for the other side.”In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a decade-long multinational research study, the “Interphone Study,” ultimately finding that “the use of cell phones for a period of 10 years or more can increase the risk of glioblastomas by 40% in adults” and that “tumors are most likely to occur on the side of the head most used for calling.”A 2002 Swedish study found “the risk of developing brain tumors from first-generation cell phones … was as much as 80% greater than those who did not use cell phones.”Another Swedish study, in 2003, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which in turn operates under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “found electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emitted by certain cell phones damaged neurons in the brains of rats.”A four-year study performed by Reflex, with funding from the European Union, in 2004 found that “radio waves from cell phones damage DNA and other cells in the body and that the damage extended to the next generation of cells.”

[…]

In 2011, the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) “declared the RF radiation emitted from cell phones to be ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans.’”

Also according to the lawsuit, in the period since the IARC’s 2011 declaration, “more than 1,000 additional scientific studies have been published in peer-reviewed literature further supporting the causal link between cell phone radiation, brain tumors and health effects.”

The lawsuit states that “several experts have analyzed this new information and concluded cell phone radiation should be classified as a ‘probable human carcinogen.’”

Some of these subsequent studies include:

A 2015 study out of Jacobs University in Germany, finding (and replicating the results of a 2010 German study) that “weak cell phone signals can promote the growth of tumors in mice,” at “radiation levels that do not cause heating and are well below current safety standards.”A 2016 study by the U.S. National Toxicology Program, finding that “male rats exposed to cell phone radiation developed higher rates of cancer” and also “caused DNA breaks in the male rats’ brains.”

[…]

However, according to Lundy and to the lawsuit, the telecommunications industry tacitly began to address these [cancer] concerns beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Lundy told The Defender that “the fact that they, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as they started making patent applications to change the design of their phones, started to move the antennas because they had a problem,” is indicative of this shift, adding:

“And we know enough to know that the London [insurance] market quit writing coverage for the wireless industry in the early 2000s, so they know something and are seeing something that we haven’t seen.”

The Louisiana lawsuit cites 13 examples of the telecommunication industry’s moves to quietly reduce RF exposure from mobile devices, dating back as early as 1991.

[…]

Lundy: ‘The truth is going to come out’

[…]

Lundy cited the long history of lawsuits involving the tobacco industry as an example of this, saying:

“The cigarette industry never lost a case for 30 or so years. But when [tobacco industry whistleblower] Dr. Jeffrey Wigand disclosed the fact that they were manipulating nicotine to addict 13-year-olds, I mean, the whole climate shifted.”

According to Lundy, truthful information regarding children’s health, in relation to the use of cellular phones, is of particular importance:

Lundy told The Defender:

“There’s other countries … that have barred the use of cellphones for kids that aren’t 16 years of age yet … we know that the skull is not fully developed until they’re 25. So we’re talking about children having radiation going into their brain very young.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/lawsuit-cellphone-brain-cancer-jury-trial/

New York State runs ad campaign about children’s myocarditis awareness

Dr Eddy Betterman

The prevalence of myocarditis among young people is now so high that a hospital system in New York has created a commercial that aims to normalize it as just another childhood pathology.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, which operates more than 200 locations throughout Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Westchester and Putnam Counties, as well as 10 hospital campuses, created a video called “Pediatric Patient Story – Suri (30s version)” that was published on September 6 – you can watch it below.

As you will notice, a caption in the video explains that the patient featured, Suri, thought the condition was just a “bad stomach ache,” but that it later “turned out to be myocarditis, a serious inflammation of the heart.”

“Our multidisciplinary pediatric critical care team worked to regulate her heartbeat – and got her back to feeling like herself,” the hospital brags in the video. (Related: A Nordic study found that covid injections greatly increase a person’s risk of myocarditis.)

Critics blast NewYork-Presbyterian, telling hospital: “Do not normalize myocarditis in children”

The sad reality is that this promo video has undertones of trying to normalize myocarditis in children, even though the condition was never a problem before Operation Warp Speed.

Before the Trump administration unleashed covid “vaccines” at the behest of Tony Fauci and Big Pharma, myocarditis in children was virtually non-existent. Today, it is rapidly spreading among the “fully vaccinated.”

One account on Instagram called “cops4freedom” posted a clip of the NewYork-Presbyterian video along with a caption about “Do Not Normalize Myocarditis in Children.” Many others on YouTube and elsewhere had similar criticisms.

“This makes me sad and angry,” one of them wrote about the video.

“Absolutely disgusting,” added another.

“Geez and now they are making it sound ‘Oh! It’s normal and you’ll be fine!” wrote someone else.

There is absolutely nothing normal about heart inflammation in a child – except, of course, if that child was injected with experimental gene modification chemicals such as those in Pfizer and Moderna’s messenger RNA (mRNA) shots.

As you may recall, the “authorities” have been telling everyone for going on almost two years now that myocarditis in the fully jabbed is “mild” and “rare.” They also systematically buried any and all evidence suggesting otherwise.

Now, out of nowhere, a New York hospital system has decided to normalize myocarditis in children because apparently it is not quite as mild and rare as previously claimed.

According to the data contained in the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), upwards of 90 percent of all myocarditis cases end up requiring hospitalization. Does that sound mild to you?

VAERS data also shows that cases of both myocarditis and pericarditis, the latter being another form of heart inflammation, have skyrocketed ever since Operation Warp Speed was launched.

Those at greatest risk of developing myocarditis or pericarditis post-injection are young, adolescent males, according to a study that was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

That study looked at data in VAERS, which shows that the primary outcome post-injection is myocarditis, while the secondary outcome is pericarditis.

“According to the study, VAERS received 1,991 reports of myocarditis (391 of which also included pericarditis) after receipt of at least 1 dose of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine and 684 reports of pericarditis without the presence of myocarditis,” reports The Gateway Pundit.

“Of the 1991 reports of myocarditis, 1,626 met the CDC’s case definition for probable or confirmed myocarditis.”

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2022/09/24/new-york-state-runs-ad-campaign-childrens-myocarditis-awareness/

Why Ukraine Referendum is Big Deal

Russia’s newest ICBM Sarmat equipped with maneuvering warheads

Indian Punchline

The referendum on September 23-27 in the Donbass and southern Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine on their accession to Russian Federation is, prima facie, an exercise of the right of self-determination by the native population who reject the western-backed regime change in Kiev in 2014 and the ascendancy of extreme nationalist forces with neo-Nazi leanings in the power structure. 

But it has other dimensions, too. In all probability, the referendum will overwhelmingly opt for accession to Russian Federation. In Donbass, it is a straightforward question: “Do you support the entry of the DPR into the Russian Federation as a subject of the Russian Federation?” For  Kherson and the Zaporozhye Cossacks, the referendum ascertains three sequential decisions: secession of these territories from Ukraine; formation of an independent state; and its entry into the Russian Federation as a subject. 

In 2014, all legal procedures for the admission of Crimea and Sevastopol to the Russian Federation were completed in four days. An expeditious process can be expected this time around too. There is huge mass support within Russia for reunification with the ethnic Russian populations in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine who suffered severe persecution during the past 8-year period, including brutal violence, at the hands of extremist Ukrainian nationalist elements in control of the state apparatus. This is a highly emotive issue for the Russian people. 

In the post-cold war era, the genie of self-determination was first let out of the bottle by the West during the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia. Although the US midwifed the secession of Kosovo from Serbia as far back as in 1999 -2008, the entity is yet to be accorded recognition by the UN. Serbia rejects the secession despite sustained western pressure. 

That said, the Kosovo precedent will not stop the western powers from condemning the accession of regions of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

The big question today is about the Russian calculus. President Vladimir Putin has surely factored in that the accession of the “Russian regions” of eastern and southern Ukraine is an immensely popular decision in the domestic opinion. He has never hidden that he is acutely sensitive about the hopes and aspirations of his nation. The most revealing (and authoritative) comments on this topic have come from the former President Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev wrote in his Telegram channel: “Referendums in Donbass are of great importance not only for the systemic protection of the inhabitants of the LNR, DNR (Donbass) and other liberated territories, but also for the restoration of historical justice.”

In Medvedev’s opinion, these plebiscites “completely change the vector of Russia’s development for decades.” He adds, “And not only our country. Because after they (referendums) are held and the new territories are accepted into Russia, the geopolitical transformation in the world will become irreversible.” 

Most important, Medvedev forewarns, “An encroachment on the territory of Russia is a crime, the commission of which allows you to use all the forces of self-defence.” 

 Furthermore, he says, once the process of annexation of the new territories is completed, “not a single future leader of Russia, not a single official will be able to reverse these decisions. That is why these referendums are so feared in Kiev and in the West. That is why they need to be carried out.” 

What emerges is that Russia has given up hopes of any negotiated settlement. Moscow was initially optimistic that Kiev would negotiate, but the bitter experience turned out to be that President Zelensky was not a free agent. The US-UK tandem undermined the accord negotiated by Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul in April under Turkish mediation. The Biden Administration holds the stop watch for the proxy war. And Washington’s timeline is linked to the weakening and destruction of Russian state, which has been the ultimate US objective. Lest we forget, Joe Biden played a seminal role in installing the new regime in Kiev in 2014 and in moulding Ukraine as an anti-Russian  state.

Suffice to say, the referendum on Wednesday is Russia’s only available course of action under the circumstances, while Kiev maintains a maximalist position as advised by the US, UK and Poland. 

The accession of Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye creates a new political reality and Russia’s partial mobilisation on parallel track is intended to provide the military underpinning for it. The accession signifies a paradigm shift insofar as any further attacks on these regions can be construed by Moscow as attacks on Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. 

Certainly, Kiev’s wanton attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye will trigger Russian reaction. Any attack will be considered aggression and Moscow reserves the right to respond “adequately.” The fact the Russian deployment in these territories will be significantly augmented and upgraded signals the  willingness to use force. 

Meanwhile, Russia’s special military operations will continue until its set objectives are fully realised. Which means, even more territories may come under Russian control, creating ever newer facts on the ground, whilst the track of dialogue has become extinct. And, of course, all this will be playing out at a juncture when Europe descends into recession, as sanctions against Russia boomerang. It is improbable that European public will support their governments to enter into a war with Russia over Ukraine. Kiev and its mentors in Washington and London need to factor all this very carefully.

[…]

Via https://www.indianpunchline.com/why-ukraine-referendum-is-a-big-deal/

Collapse Update: US Retailers Mysteriously Cancelling Billions in Orders

Michael Snyder

Economic Collapse Blog

Do they know something that they aren’t telling us?  As you will see below, Walmart, Target and other major U.S. retailers are literally canceling billions of dollars in orders ahead of the coming holiday season.  I have never heard of such a thing happening before, and under normal conditions it wouldn’t make any sense at all.  The holiday season is typically the busiest time of the year for retailers, and at this time in 2021 there was actually a great deal of concern that there wouldn’t be enough inventory due to global supply chain problems.  But now everything has changed.  All of a sudden major retailers are feverishly canceling orders, and this would only make sense if a severe economic downturn was imminent.

For example, Walmart is admitting that it has canceled “billions of dollars in orders” as we approach the upcoming holiday season…

John David Rainey, Walmart’s EVP and CFO, said it had cleared most summer inventory, was reducing exposure in electronics, home and sporting goods, and canceled “billions of dollars in orders” to realign inventories. He said, “Our actions in Q3 will allow us to make significant progress toward rationalizing absolute levels and mix, which will enable our stores to be well positioned ahead of the holiday season.”

It is extremely odd that Walmart would decide to do such a thing.

Recently I had an opportunity to stroll through a Walmart, and there were plenty of inventory holes.

So what would make them suddenly cancel “billions of dollars” in orders that they thought that they were going to need for the holiday season?

Perhaps some enterprising reporter will be willing to ask them such a question.

Meanwhile, we just learned that Target has also canceled “more than $1.5 billion” in orders…

Target said it had reduced its “inventory exposure in discretionary categories” throughout Q2 by canceling more than $1.5 billion of orders in these categories and marking down products.

Target is much smaller than Walmart is, and so for Target to cancel so many orders is a really big deal.

And it turns out that Kohl’s and Under Armour have also been canceling large numbers of orders as well…

Kohl’s has also pulled back on order receipts and increased promotions to get through an inventory glut.

“We have taken action to address inventory, including increasing promotions, being aggressive on clearing excess inventory and pulling back on receipts,” said Kohl’s CFO Jill Timm in a call with investors.

Under Armour also said it made some proactive cancellations due to supply chain constraints to ensure that “the right inventory was coming in at the right time,” said interim president and CEO Colin Browne in a call with investors.

These retailers are obviously scared that they will end up stuck with massive amounts of inventory that they cannot sell.

Do they believe that economic activity during the months ahead will be much lower than they originally anticipated?

One corporate executive that is actually publicly admitting that he believes that a recession is coming is FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam…

FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday that he believes a recession is impending for the global economy.

“I think so. But you know, these numbers, they don’t portend very well,” Subramaniam said in response to Cramer’s question of whether the economy is “going into a worldwide recession.”

The CEO’s pessimism came after FedEx missed estimates on revenue and earnings in its first quarter. The company also withdrew its full year guidance.

Sadly, he is right on target.

For months, I have been warning that the economic numbers were telling us that big trouble was on the way, and now everyone can see it.

But unlike the “Great Recession” of 2008 and 2009, this time we are also going to have to deal with raging inflation even as economic activity slows down all around us.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal is ominously warning that U.S. consumers “are set to pay even more this winter” as heating costs continue to soar to absolutely ridiculous levels…

U.S. utility customers, faced with some of their largest bills in years, are set to pay even more this winter as natural-gas prices continue to climb.

Natural-gas prices have more than doubled this year because of a global supply shortage made worse by the war in Ukraine, and they are expected to remain elevated for months as fuel is needed to light and heat homes during the winter. The supply crunch has made it substantially more expensive for utilities to purchase or produce power, and those costs are being passed on to customers.

The cost of living has been rising much faster than our paychecks have for quite some time now, and a lot more pain is on the horizon.

I really like how Brandon Smith recently summarized the current state of the U.S. economy…

A common refrain from people who are critical of alternative economists is that we have been predicting crisis for so long that “eventually we will be right.” These are generally people who don’t understand the nature of economic decline – It’s like an avalanche that builds over time, then breaks and quickly escalates as it flows down the mountain. What they don’t grasp is that they are in the middle of an economic collapse RIGHT NOW, and they just can’t see it because they have been acclimated to the presence of the snow and cold.

Economic decline is a process that takes many years, and while you might get an event like the market crash of 1929 or the crash of 2008, these moments of panic are nothing more than the wreckage left behind by the great wave of tumbling ice that everyone should have seen coming far in advance, but they refused.

[…]

Via http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/why-are-walmart-and-other-major-u-s-retailers-canceling-billions-of-dollars-in-orders-as-summer-comes-to-an-end/

Bill Gates’ ‘Magic Seeds’ Won’t Solve World Hunger But Will ‘Create Ecological Disaster’

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Bill Gates is rebranding genetically engineered seeds as “magic seeds” and says they’re the answer to world hunger, but according to Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., a “failed, clumsy crude manipulation of living systems does not create ‘magical seeds.’ It creates an ecological disaster.”

Bill Gates said he believes the global community must invest in engineered crops using what he calls his “magic seeds” to solve world hunger.

Food aid alone cannot address the problem, Gates said in an essay accompanying the  Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s (BMGF) Goalkeepers 2022 Report, released earlier this month.

What is needed, he said, are “magic” seeds that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to hot and dry climates or to grow three weeks faster than natural seeds.

“Temperature keeps going up,” Gates said. “There is no way, without innovation, to come even close to feeding Africa. I mean, it just doesn’t work.”

However, André Leu, organic farming expert, former president of IFOAM Organics International and author of “Growing Life: Regenerating Farming and Ranching,” criticized Gates for calling his genetically modified seeds “magical.”

“This is patently false and an example of spin doctoring by public relations companies to rebrand products that are widely regarded as Frankenfoods,” Leu told The Defender.

According to Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., environmental activist, author and founder of Navdanya International, “[Natural] seeds as the source of life are magical. They hold their implicate order within them, and unfold to relocate the unique patterns and structures of life in its diversity.”

In contrast, Shiva said, “Genetically engineered seeds have been made to own life through patents.”

Shiva told The Defender:

“[Genetically engineered seeds] are a failed technology.

“Herbicide-resistant crops were supposed to control weeds. They have created superweeds. Bt toxin crops were supposed to control pests. They have created super pests, increased the need for pesticides, increased farmers’ debt and driven farmers to suicide in India.

“A failed, clumsy, crude manipulation of living systems does not create ‘magical seeds.’

“It creates an ecological disaster of monocultures of GMOs [genetically modified organisms] displacing the rich diversity of crops that we need for the health of people and the health of the planet.”

According to Gates, he’s concerned about the planet — at least how it may be impacted by climate change.

The BMGF on Sept. 6 released an “Agriculture Adaptation Atlas” that uses predictive modeling to estimate how climate change may affect growing conditions for crops in African countries.

The BMGF is also promoting the use of artificial intelligence (AI) that processes the genome sequences of crops along with this environmental data to conjure up a data-based vision of what farms should look like in the future.

“From this computer model, researchers can identify the optimal plant variety for a particular place,” Cambria Finegold, director of digital development for CABI, an intergovernmental organization that is developing models for the BMGF, earlier this month told The Associated Press (AP). “Or they can do the reverse: pinpoint the optimal place to grow a specific crop.”

Finegold added:

“It’s not just, ‘how do we get through this crisis and get back to normal?’ It’s, ‘what does the future normal look like?’”

But critics pointed out this reliance on AI and genetically modified seeds would exacerbate environmental issues because the modified seeds require heavy use of fossil-fuel fertilizers, which must be transported across great distances, and pesticides that threaten biodiversity.

According to Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and AGRA Watch, a group that “works with partner organizations in Africa and the US to support sustainable, agroecological, socially responsible, and indigenous alternatives,” the BMGF’s industrial agricultural programs in Africa, including its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), cause biodiversity loss, hurt small-scale farmers and cause environmental harm — all while failing to solve hunger.

https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/embed/defender-sms-reminders-v2

Rachel Bezner Kerr, a professor of global development at Cornell University, told the AP there are existing alternatives — such as locally managed seed banks, composting systems that promote healthy soil and non-chemical pesticide interventions — that can build more resilient farming systems and reduce the need for food aid.

Kerr, a lead author of the food chapter of the latest report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that although the panel doesn’t make recommendations, “overall, the kind of focus on a few technologies and reliance on fossil fuel-based inputs isn’t in line with ecosystem-based adaptation” or a biodiverse future.

However, BMGF CEO Mark Suzman contended fertilizer is necessary. “You simply cannot meet overall productivity gains without it,” he said on a call with reporters, according to the AP.

Gates also dismissed alternative ideas.

“If there’s some non-innovation solution, you know, like singing ‘Kumbaya,’ I’ll put money behind it,” Gates told the AP in an interview. “But if you don’t have those seeds, the numbers just don’t work.”

Gates said, “When researchers in Kenya compared plots of this new [genetically modified] maize, which they called ‘DroughtTEGO®,’ with the old one, they saw the DroughtTEGO farms were producing an average of 66% more grain per acre.”

Shiva said genetically engineered crops and seeds aren’t the answer.

“To end world hunger we must stop treating food as a commodity and seeds as corporate ‘intellectual property,’” she told The Defender.

“To solve world hunger every farm must become biodiverse and ecological. Biodiversity intensification produces more nutrition per acre, with no dependence on external inputs of seeds and toxic agrochemicals as our report ‘Health Per Acre’ shows.”

“We can feed the people while regenerating the biodiversity of the planet,” Shiva said.

Leu agreed. “The scaling up of regenerative organic agriculture based on the science of agroecology would easily solve the global food insecurity crisis. It is low-cost, proven, and effective, and scaling it up globally would be less than the cost of developing one GMO crop.”

Claiming GMOs have no place in solving world hunger, Leu said:

“Despite more than 40 years of hype that GMO seeds were going to dramatically increase yields, solve pest and disease problems, reduce pesticide use, drought-proof crops, allow them to be grown in saline soils, and numerous other extravagant claims, this has not been achieved.

“The research by independent scientists — not by the scientists employed by the biotech companies who have an obvious conflict of interest — clearly shows that there have been no yield increases over conventional breeding.

“The only two things GMO crops have succeeded in doing are dramatically increasing the use of toxic pesticides such as glyphosate (Roundup) in our food, bodies, and environment and the profits of the large agribusiness pesticide companies.”

Leu emphasized the effectiveness of teaching organic farming methods to small-scale farmers to address hunger.

“The majority of food-insecure people are smallholder family farmers and others who depend on them in rural communities,” he said.

“We have proven many times that teaching good organic farming practices can increase their yields by over 100% so they can feed their families and local communities. They also get an income to pay for healthcare, education and many other things that are important for a good quality of life.”

Who really suffers and who profits from ‘philanthrocapitalism based on biopiracy’?

The BMGF and the Gates-led AGRA say they aim to transform agriculture in Africa by increasing incomes and food security for millions of smallholder farmers.

On July 13, Gates pledged to donate $20 billion to the BMGF so it can increase its annual spending to “mitigate some of the suffering people are facing right now.” The donation brought the foundation’s endowment up to $70 billion, CNBC reported in July.

The BMGF has spent $1.5 billion on grants focused on agriculture in Africa, according to Candid, a nonprofit that researches philanthropic giving.

But an independent evaluation of AGRA’s efforts, released in late February by the consulting firm Mathematica, found “mixed” outcomes on inclusive financial, output markets and farmer outcomes, The Defender reported.

According to Joeva Rock, Ph.D., assistant professor of development studies at the University of Cambridge who wrote a not-yet-released book about food sovereignty in Ghana, activists in Africa questioned whether the funds could have been better spent elsewhere.

In Ghana, field trials for four varieties of genetically modified seeds began in 2013, Rock told the AP.

“What would happen if those went into increasing funds to the national research centers in Ghana, to building roads, to building storage, to building silos or helping to build markets?” Rock said.

Food insecurity is not caused by low yields, Leu told The Defender. “It is caused by unfair and inefficient food distribution systems.”

Leu said:

“Industrial farming systems are not designed to feed the poor. The COVID-19  pandemic lockdowns and war in Ukraine are examples of why it is the wrong model.

“Growing food thousands of miles away from where it is needed instead of growing it locally is the problem. People are dependent on supply chains that can easily be disrupted.

“Also, food-insecure people are the poorest on the planet. Even if the food gets to their country, they can’t afford to buy it.

“On the other hand, we now have an obesity epidemic in the more affluent countries and regions due to an oversupply of calories empty of nutrition from industrial agriculture.”

In 2006, the BMGF joined with the Rockefeller Foundation to spur a “green revolution” in Africa by creating AGRA.

“Over the long term, the partnership, called Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), intends to improve agricultural development in Africa by addressing both farming and relevant economic issues, including soil fertility and irrigation, farmer management practices, and farmer access to markets and financing,” the groups said.

At its inception, AGRA declared Africa deficient in what it referred to as “improved inputs,” such as fertilizer and “advanced” seeds, and has worked to implement policies that would make African farmers use manufactured fertilizers, pesticides and engineered seeds — which are all patented products that generate profits for their owners.

AGRA Watch — founded to respond to and challenge AGRA’s policies — calls BMGF’s efforts “philanthrocapitalism based on biopiracy.”

Although the BMGF and AGRA claim to be “pro-poor” and “pro-environment,” their alignment with transnational corporations such as Monsanto, and foreign policy groups such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), makes their motives suspect, according to AGRA Watch:

“[BMGF] takes advantage of food and global climate crises to promote high-tech, market-based, industrial agriculture and generate profits for corporations even while degrading the environment and disempowering farmers.”

A three-part video series “Rich Appetites: How Big Philanthropy Is Shaping the Future of Food in Africa” explains why exporting the U.S. agribusiness model to Africa is a “grave mistake” and exposes how “Big Philanthropy” — namely the BMGF — is destroying farming and food in Africa by seizing control from local interests.

As of Sept. 20, Forbes estimated Gates’ net worth to be around $104.4 billion.

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/bill-gates-genetically-engineered-seeds-world-hunger-ecological-disaster/

Sept 22: Plandemic 3 Set to Rock the World

Madison Area Lyme Support Group

https://thehighwire.com/videos/plandemic-3-set-to-rock-the-world/  Video Here (Approx. 38 Min)

Plandemic 3 Set to Rock the World

Another eye-opening documentary uncovering the unprecedented pressure pushing the dangerous, toxic, experimental mRNA gene therapy injections.

The documentary details how government officials, politicians, entertainers, dating apps, and places of employment, have created, directed, and are taking part in the “greatest psychological fear campaign in human history”, causing unprecedented psychological pressure on all – including vulnerable children, pregnant women, and even babies to obtain an experimental, ineffective injection that doesn’t even meet the definition of a “vaccine.”

Del Big Tree interviews Mikki Willis, Director of the Plandemic series and comedian JP Sears.

Plandemic 3, Prelaunch Party is available now, on The Highwire. For more info go to thehighwire.com/plandemic3  An evening of celebration and fundraising, as the countdown to the world premiere of Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening has begun. Guest speakers include JP Sears, Del Bigtree, and the visionary filmmaker himself, Mikki Willis.

Once there you can sign up to get updates for the documentary.

Willis has also made his book “Plandemic” free in audio format.

For more:

 

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/09/30/proof-that-the-pandemic-was-planned-with-purpose/

Via https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2022/09/22/plandemic-3-set-to-rock-the-world/

Corona Policy Aimed at “Changing Behavior,” Not Improving Health.

By Elze van Hamelen

Global Research

Part III of the Series: Worldwide, social engineering has become standard operating procedure for governments

Corona policy was primarily focused on directing citizen behavior such as wearing mouth masks, keeping a distance, staying home, and test and vaccination readiness – experimental measures with no scientific basis. This is evidenced by the large-scale use of behavioral scientists in implementation and communication of corona policy. The government and media are supported in this behavioral management by the RIVM (the Dutch CDC) Corona Behavior Unit and the government-wide Corona Behavior Team.

The application of behavioral insights is taking off during corona, and various government departments are working together to develop “interventions” that make citizens more compliant with corona rules. “This is the first policy topic on which the government has deployed relatively large amounts of behavioral expertise,” BIN NL writes in report “Rich in Behavioral Insights” (2021). This behavioral expertise focuses on fueling autonomous and unconscious behavior by acting on emotions such as fear, shame, guilt, wanting to maintain a positive self-image, or wanting to belong to the group. Or, by presenting information or possibilities in such a way that the ‘right’ choice is automatically made.

At the beginning of the crisis, in March 2020, the RIVM Corona Behavior Unit will be established. The behavioral unit aims to “promote the physical, mental and social health of the population,” and is supported in this by an advisory board and several expert teams including 40 professors and 19 doctors. They conduct research with which they support government communication and policy. The unit reports to, among others, the National Coordinator for Terrorism and Security (NCTV, the Dutch version of ‘Homeland Security’) and the National Crisis Communication Core Team (NKC). In addition to BIN-NL, the RIVM Corona Behavior Unit, the government-wide Corona Behavior Team is was established. They cooperate on developing interventions to promote compliance. The NKC coordinates press and public communications, drawing on the behavioral recommendations of the RIVM Corona Behavior Unit and the Corona Behavior Team.

The commitment to behavioral guidance is very explicit in a memo released under a FOIA request from the Ministry of Health dated May 12, 2020: “It takes more to guide behavior. But it also takes more than nudging. It’s about thinking about the whole journey that people make in certain situations, contexts, moments in the day, and so on. And what choices they make in the process. What is difficult or easy to do? What can we do to help people exhibit the right behavior? You want people not to have to think. How do actions and choices come about? Key questions then are:

How can we properly engage the unconscious part of people with cues and prompts (e.g., washing hands, how does a new ritual arise?)?How do people stay intrinsically motivated?How can people themselves become experts in making good judgments?”

The RIVM Corona behavior unit is asked in the memo for advice and support: “In what way can we, in the very short term, give nudging a better place in the communication of the national government when it comes to monitoring measures?” The NKC applies these insights, by “rewarding exemplary behavior or speaking from ‘we’.” They are asked, “what need is there at the local and regional level, for example, a toolkit, or an overview of principles of nudging?”

The report “Rich in Behavioral Insights Edition 2021” that was published by BIN-NL, shows how efforts were made to manipulate citizen behavior, and that the focus was not on health outcomes. The research and interventions focused on whether citizens stay home after a positive pcr test, on willingness to test regularly, and on stimulating large-scale testing even when there are no symptoms. The behavioral scientists overlook the fact that the tests have no diagnostic value, and that asymptomatic transmission has not been scientifically proven – and that staying home when you have no symptoms but a positive test is of no medical benefit. Meanwhile, without context, the “infections” resulting from large-scale testing are presented day in and day out in the media as a measure of the pandemic, thus creating lingering fear.

Additionally, investigations documents that were released under FOIA, show even more explicitly that government interventions were focused behavior change. For example, in the summer of 2020, experiments were be conducted in Amsterdam and Rotterdam investigating the effect of wearing masks on distancing, a measure that the RIVM notes has “modest scientific support.” It was already known that wearing masks would not prevent the spread of the virus. The experiments measure do not measure any health indicators. One behavioral expert substantiates masking as follows: “Masks have become the most visible evidence of Covid”.  Seeing the masks causes anxiety, in addition they signal the “social norm,” who follows the rules, and who does not. They are very effective for continued obedience.

Fear

Similar to the Netherlands, the British government has several departments that advise on the application of behavioral knowledge. One such department is “SPI-B,” the “Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behavior,” was concerned in March 2020 because a large number of citizens see did not feel sufficiently threatened by the virus because they knew it posed no risk to their age group. Therefore, the behavioral unit recommended that ” The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard‐hitting emotional messaging based on accurate information about risk.” The British government followed with a campaign featuring images of elderly people on respirators with the messaging “Look her in the eyes. And tell you never bend the rules”. In Germany, a similar recommendation leaked out from the Interior Ministry. This recommendation to increase fear in became known as the ‘panic paper’. It is known that manipulating fear is one of the most effective ways to instell obedience.

Although no “panic paper” came out in the Netherlands, communication campaigns surrounding corona played on fear, for example by presenting images of mass graves and headlines and through headlines or advertisements such as:

“Nearly 170,000 new infections a day as British variant engulfs Netherlands” (AD, January 2021)“British variant more than 60 percent deadlier” (NRC, March 2021)“1.5 meters can save your mom’s life” (Amsterdam, 2020)“Keep your grandmother out of the ICU” (Amsterdam, 2020)“A corona test is free. Your grandma priceless” (Do What Must Campaign, The Hague).Behavioral guidance for vaccination readiness

“What kinds of messages are most persuasive for increasing vaccination willingness?”, this question was investigated by five scientists affiliated with the prestigious American University of Yale. They developed and tested messages aimed at self-interest, guilt and shame, anger, courage, trust in science, regaining personal freedom and economic freedom, and published their findings in the article “Persuasive messaging to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake intentions,” in the scientific journal Vaccine. The scientists write, “Persuasive messages evoke a sense that vaccinating is social, address concerns about how others see you, and also help convince others to get vaccinated, and condemn those who don’t.” The first part of the study was be conducted between May and July 2020, well before the first corona vaccine is developed, let alone temporarily authorized. The scientists do not address whether concerns about vaccine safety or effectiveness may be justified. The assumption is that vaccinating is the solution to the crisis, and the use of behavioral knowledge is desirable to increase vaccination willingness – an assumption that we also find among behavioral units and government in the Netherlands.

Examples of recommended messages include:

“Stopping covid is important because you can get sick, and die from it. It is dangerous for people of all ages. Getting vaccinated is the most effective way not to get sick.”“By getting vaccinated you can protect everyone around you, it reduces the risk of your family or people around you getting sick.“Imagine how guilty you feel when you make someone else sick…”“Imagine how embarrassed you feel when you make someone else sick…”“Those who do not take a vaccine are not brave, but reckless… they are putting their family’s health at risk.”“The only way to defeat covid is to follow scientific approaches… the people who refuse a vaccine are not aware of the science”“Every person who gets vaccinated reduces the likelihood that we will have to go back into lockdown.”

The messages are echoed almost one-to-one in the Dutch campaign to encourage vaccination readiness:

Hugo de Jonge: “Either you get vaccinated, or you get sick” (July 2021)

“Corona vaccination: ‘we roll up our sleeves. To protect yourself and those around you, vaccination is the most important step” (Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport)“Do you want to embrace the other again? Will you get vaccinated against corona?” (Poster in retirement home).“Slow vaccination suspected cause of high excess mortality in the Netherlands” (2022, Trouw)“An unvaccinated person in the ICU costs four to ten people their operation” (Trouw, October 2021)“Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema: vaccine refusers often ill-informed” (AT5, December 2021)“Unvaccinated people are egoists. Thanks to them society remains locked. (Noordhollands Dagblad).

In the Netherlands, there is a particularly strong commitment to regaining (!) freedom:

“Vaccination makes more and more possible” (Tv spot, Ministry of VWS)“OMT: end of January room for relaxations, provided enough booster shots are taken” (January, 2022).“Camping with my grandfather again, that’s what I do it for. Daan, 22 years old”. (Campaign Only Together)“I want to be able to just go to school again. That’s why I got the shot. Get your vaccinations without an appointment” (Girl year at 14, advertising GGD Amsterdam)“I feel like going to a festival again. Just give me the jab!” (GGD Amsterdam)“This weekend DJs at vaccination location NDSM to win over young people” (AT5, July 2021)“Heineken: the night belongs to the vaccinated” (Advertisement)

Later, pressure to get “vaccinated” has been greatly increased by stepping up pressure, coercion, threats of exclusion and intimidation:

“Non-vaccinated are often poorly educated, ‘right-wing Christian’ or immigrant” Trouw, November 2021)“Majority vaccinated think people without vaccinations can be refused entry to public places” (EenVandaag July 2021)Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge: “We continue to vaccinate, neighborhood by neighborhood, door by door, arm by arm” (Press conference, 2021)Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge: “I do not resign myself to the right to say no to vaccine” (Press conference, December 2021)

The slogans and messages play purposefully on automatic, unconscious processes. As a result, an image forms, under the radar, that if you get vaccinated you care about your family, are fulfilling your social duty, are helping society come out of lockdown, you are smart – because you understand the science, and that those who don’t participate are particularly antisocial, evil and stupid. None of the slogans provide real information that helps you make an informed, educated choice, worse, the unconscious image that is created causes a resistance to do go look at that information.

Replacing political debate with social engineering

The behavioral influence campaigns rest on the assumption that we are dealing with a potentially apocalyptic virus that justifies the extreme measures. But it was clear very early on in the crisis, in part because of the research of Stanford’s top virologist John P. A. Ioannidis, that we are dealing with a disease similar to severe influenza, which is primarily a risk to the elderly. Nor are the measures — such as 1.5-meter distance, wearing masks, mass testing, lockdowns, or achieving maximum ‘vaccination’ coverage — to prevent the spread of the virus that for most gives a 99 percent survival rate, had a good scientific foundation. What we now know, based on the investigation of documents that have been released under FOIA, is that this was also known to the government.

This shows the real problem with behavioral influencing: rational exchange based on scientific, factual information was not possible within the public domain. Indeed, it is actively censored, suppressed, blackballed and excluded. At the same time, the social engineers assume a consensus therefore behavioral control would be justified. Politics is replaced by social engineering.

Had real open discussion of alternatives been possible, the money spent on behavioral control, communication and surveillance could have gone instead to expanding care and supporting caregivers. Where the justification for manipulation starts with the assumption that citizens have “limited rationality,” and that the government must therefore ‘guide’ them in their choices, it morphes into the desire that those citizens should rather stop thinking for themselves altogether.

[…]

Via https://counterinformation.wordpress.com/2022/09/21/covid-measures-biggest-social-conformity-event-in-history-corona-policy-was-aimed-at-changing-behavior-not-at-improving-health/

The History of Ordinary People in Medieval England

A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages: Scenes from The Town and Countryside of Medieval England

By Martin Whitlock

Robinson (2017)

Book Review

What impressed me most about this book is Whitlock’s superb depiction of everyday life and ordinary people prior to the Norman conquest. He describes a resurgence of a money economy (which significantly declined with the collapse of the Roman Empire) by the eighth century AD. By 1066 AD, England was a nation of market towns, each organized around a central church and a specialized industry.*

In the years preceding the Norman Conquest (1066), only 4,500 of a population of 2.5 million owned land. Ten percent were outright slaves.** Seventy percent were villeins (serfs) attached to landholding lords who could sell them to other lords. The latter spent most of their work week tilling the lord’s land and only two days or less cultivating the land that provisioned their families. Twenty percent of the population lived in towns and worked as artisans or merchants.

Life expectancy was 35 years for men and 25 years for women (owing to high risk of death in childbirth).

Medieval England reached its peak population (6.5 million) in 1300. The fourteenth century saw a steep population decline, from a series of famines (1314, 1319-21), followed by the the Black Death in 1348. Owing to recurrent plague outbreaks (ending in 1666), England’s population wouldn’t fully recover until the 17th century. Declining population worked in favor of lower classes determined to curb feudal oppression by both gentry and church hierarchy.

For me the most interesting chapters concerned the origin of Common Law, which Whitlock distinguishes from Statute Law (ie laws passed by Parliament) and the systematic persecution of Jews in medieval England. According to Whitlock, Common Law was the system of royal justice that emerged from 1160-12. It’s first summarized by Henry of Bratton in On the Laws and Customs of England.

By the early thirteenth century, according to Whitlock, Jews were the primary financiers (the New Testament forbids Christians to lend money at interest) and paid huge taxes to the king for the right of residence and royal protection. In addition to moneylending, they also served as merchants and pawnbrokers and traded in precious metals, furs and jewelry.*** They enjoyed special status under Henry I (1100-1135), who received a percentage of all transactions conducted by Jewish merchants.

Under the influence of Pope Gregory IX, who condemned all Jews owing to their historic persecution of Christ, this tolerance was gradually reversed. Systematic persecution of English Jews escalated until their eventual expulsion from England in 1290 by Edward I (who inherited all their land). Following their departure, immigrant bankers from Venice and Florence (for some reason exempt from the Christian ban on charging interest) replaced the Jews as England’s principal financiers.

*Examples of eighth century industries include pottery kilns, armor manufacture, wool production for export, glass blowing and slave trading. Specific occupations (in most cases directly employed by the lord of their manor) recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book include millers, shepherds, pigmen, beekeepers, fish women, eel catchers, vintners, salt makers, quarry mean, carpenters, tilers and mason.

**People were enslaved after being defeated in war or committing crimes such as theft or working on Sunday. In some cases they were descendants of slaves or sold themselves into slavery to avoid starvation. Prior to the ban on slavery enacted in 1102, Anglo-Saxon slaves were shipped from Bristol for sale in Iceland, Scandinavia and Spain.

***In the Venetian city states that succeeded the Roman empire, Jews engaged in moneylending because they were forbidden to own land, farm or engage in most other professions. See https://stuartbramhall.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/how-history-helps-us-understand-what-russia-and-china-are-up-to/

Global Excess Mortality Rates — Where’s the Investigation?

By Rob Verkerk Ph.D.

Are scientists and the media deliberately overlooking COVID-19 vaccines as a possible factor in global excess mortality rates?

We have previously pointed to official data in 2021 that shows a temporal association between the apparent rises in “excess mortality” among different age groups and the time each was exposed to COVID-19 “genetic vaccines” (here and here).

These data were in plain sight in the public domain, being based on official data from the nearly 30 mainly European countries carried on the euroMOMO portal.

Now, a year on, it’s nigh on impossible to hide the fact that in many industrialized countries that went full swing into intense control measures, from lockdowns, masks, genetic surveillance and “genetic vaccines,” people are dying at unexpectedly high rates.

The jabs or boosters may be a factor — but so may a bunch of other things, such as not gaining timely and proper medical attention, psychosocial stress and deprivation, along with a gamut of other potential co-factors.

The current apparent excesses in deaths over those that would have been expected is especially unusual given they have occurred during the northern hemisphere summer when deaths are normally at their lowest — and it is difficult to apportion blame to an invisible virus that on all accounts has lost virulence in its current guise.

According to The Guardian, even the U.K. Health Security Department argues summer heatwaves only explained around 7% of the excess mortality in July in England and Wales.

We have to ask ourselves what’s really going on.

Are the statistics tricking us, or is there something ominous going on that’s not being reported?

If the latter, how much effort is going into trying to unearth the causes of these deaths — and how many are, or could be, preventable?

[…]

Totality of evidence

[…]

We know now from multiple sources of official data from different countries that COVID-19-related deaths aren’t much of an issue at present, such as the lack of virulence of the circulating Omicron strains (something that might change given the selection pressure that is likely to ensue as more people opt for “genetic vaccination” this autumn).

Bear in mind, even these “COVID-19 deaths” (as tracked globally through Our World in Data, see Fig. 1) have often substantially overestimated deaths because COVID-19 was in the majority of occasions not found to be the primary cause of death.

Rather, it was only associated with deaths, having been determined by way of a flawed PCR test within, say, one month of death.

Yes, someone killed in a motorcycle accident who died 27 days after having received a false positive COVID-19 antigen test would be down in the official record as a “COVID-19 death.”

Multiple sources, all pointing to an unexpected rise in deaths in 2022

The following are five important sources that include country-specific, region-specific and global data that most reputable scientists (an ever more tricky characterization), I believe, would regard as being of high quality, and approaching the “totality of evidence” threshold, that we think paint a fairly complete picture of the excess death paradox we currently face.

1. Excess mortality data for England, from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (U.K.)

The first thing to note is the relative increase in excess mortality over the three successive summers (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Excess mortality in England between February 2020 and August 2022. Red notations added by the author. Source: Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. Methodology is given in a link in the second paragraph of the Introduction in the above document.

More than this, when you explore the data from this Office for Health Improvement and Disparities source, you find that some of the biggest excesses compared with expected deaths have occurred in the two youngest age groups, ages 0 to 24 years and 25 to 49.

Not only that, there are few differences in death according to the level of deprivation, which might have been caused by inadequate or poor quality diets or lifestyle effects.

Ethnicities also had an influence with white and mixed ethnicities being most impacted, while black and Asian ethnicities, were least affected.

This pattern, whether or not it is coincidental, follows the pattern of COVID-19 “vaccine” uptake — Johnson’s government pushing hard but ineffectually to get black and Asian ethnicities to be less “hesitant.”

There were also some differences in region, and it’s of interest that low COVID-19 “vaccine” uptake and highly polluted London had the lowest excess mortality of any of the regions.

2. Excess mortality from Germany, 2020-2022

In their ResearchGate preprint analyzing excess mortality in Germany between 2020 and 2022, Christof Kuhbandner (University of Regensburg) and Matthias Reitzner (University of Osnabrück) have applied actuarial science to get to the bottom of the excess mortality figures in Germany.

Long and short of it — with different, interesting and transparent methodology — here are some of the top line findings:

In 2020 there was no apparent significant excess mortality.Excess mortality started rising as of April 2021 for reasons other than COVID-19 caused or associated mortality.Nearly all of these excess deaths were in the age groups between 15 and 79 — hence not including the oldest most frail members of society that have historically been shown to be the most likely to succumb to respiratory infections.

3. EuroMOMO — regional excess mortality data mainly from Europe

Readers and supporters of Alliance for Health International have been led by us so often to the euroMOMO website.

That’s the deal — we have to keep looking as every time we look, we get to see a snapshot in time. We only start to get a more complete picture of what’s going on when we see all the snapshots together in our “COVID Crisis Album.”

The excess mortality in the youngest age group across all 28 euroMOMO countries/regions continues for 2022 and is deeply disturbing as it includes the youngest and most vulnerable in society between the ages of 0 and 14 years.

But there is a noticeable trend for excesses that have occurred at a time when Omicron has caused little in the way of mortality, in a number of countries.

[…]

Figure 3. Excess mortalities (as z-scores) in Europe during week 29 (July 18-24) 2022. Credit: EuroMOMO.

[…]

What’s killing people?

“They” — including the mainstream science and medical establishment, governments and much of the media — are largely mute on trying to unpick what’s going on.

When they do recognize the paradox of excess mortalities now that the pandemic is viewed by most as largely over or in a temporary lull prior to another assault this northern hemisphere Autumn, the one consistent thing you find is the lack of any mention of the possible role of those infernal “genetic vaccines.”

This shouldn’t be a surprise given the extraordinary suppression of information on the scientific discourse around these gene-altering products, as reported by Ety Elisha, Josh Guetzkow and colleagues in the peer-reviewed journal HEC Forum that has been informed by the forcibly released Pfizer data that reveals just how much the regulators knew about lack of effectiveness and significant harms when they issued emergency authorization in 2020.

[…]

What’s the real mix of contributory factors?

Honestly? We don’t know! But we could add a few additional points to Prof Sridhar’s list that might be worth looking into, should any researchers be interested (but who will fund them?):

Suicides.Loneliness.Depression and anxiety.Lack of purpose or meaning in life.Inappropriate diets.Inappropriate lifestyle.Breakdown in social relationships.Lack of timely access to effective healthcare services.Lack of early diagnosis of serious, life-threatening conditions or diseases.Short, medium and longer-term harms of “genetic vaccines.”Increased autoimmune diseases triggered by “genetic vaccines.”Increased infectious disease prevalence from compromised immunity from social isolation and “genetic vaccines.”Enhancement of chronic diseases by dysregulated immune system and persistent systemic inflammation, triggered by repeated exposure to COVID-19 “genetic vaccines.”Sub-optimal treatment of COVID-19 disease (e.g. remdesivir).Failure to implement effective early treatment (e.g. as per FLCCC [Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance] protocols).Inappropriate use of mechanical ventilators.Unwarranted placement of DNR (“do not resuscitate”) notices on care home residents.Unjustified use of powerful sedatives (e.g. midazolam) known to contribute to deaths in nursing homes.

Even this is a partial list, supplementary to that of Prof Sridhar.

However, in light of what we know now about COVID-19 “genetic vaccine” harms, their omission as potential contributors to the clearly evident excess mortalities in many countries is a grave — and likely deliberate — scientific oversight.

An oversight that is likely killing and injuring people, unnecessarily.

Society normally has ways of dealing with deliberate oversights of this nature, through the courts and penal system.

Maybe that’s still to come?

If there’s one feeling I have about any retribution, it is that in the years to come, this omission and violation of human rights and human life will be seen for what it is by the majority, not just a growing minority.

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/global-excess-mortality-rates-deaths/