Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 89
April 11, 2025
Israeli Reservists Dismissed over Letter Calling for Return of Captives and End of War
Almanar News EnglishIsraeli Air Force pilots at Ramon Airbase in the Zionist entity’s south (January 2025).
A group of close to 1,000 reservists with the Israeli Air Force published on Thursday a letter demanding the return of the Israeli captives in Gaza, with signatories arguing that the continuation of war “serves political and personal interests.”
“The continuation of the war doesn’t advance any of the declared goals of the war, and will bring about the deaths of the hostages, of IDF soldiers and innocent civilians,” read the letter, referring to Israeli occupation forces.
“As has been proven in the past, only an agreement can return hostages safely, while military pressure mainly leads to the killing of hostages and the endangerment of our soldiers,” the letter, published as an ad in a number of Israeli newspapers, added.
“We call on all citizens of Israel to mobilize for action.”
IAF to Dismiss Reservists over Letter
According to the latest reports, 60 reserve officers and soldiers in the Israeli Air Force, including qualified pilots, were dismissed after they signed a letter demanding an end to the war.
Israeli media reported that the Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar is set to dismiss active reservists who signed the letter.
The Israeli occupation military said it has no issue with reservists protesting any matter in their civilian lives, as long as they do it without using the name of the military or their role.
Tomer Bar, Israeli Air Force chief (image from archive).It is thought that dozens of the signatories are active reservists and will likely be dismissed. The others are close to retirement or haven’t served for years, according to Israeli media.
Several reservists who initially signed on to the letter removed their signatures prior to its publication after holding discussions with the IAF.
The few signatories who are active reservists are set to be dismissed from duty by Bar, The Times of Israeli reported, adding that the Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has supported the move.
The occupation military said it cannot accept a situation in which reservists “use the Israeli Air Force brand” to protest political matters.
It added that “it is inconceivable for someone to do a shift at [the IAF] command center and head out afterward and express mistrust in the task.”
Netanyahu, Katz Slam Letter
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz expressed support for the decision by Bar.
“Refusal to serve is refusal to serve, even if it’s only hinted at in whitewashed language,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Statements that weaken the IDF and strengthen our enemies in a time of war are unforgivable,” he added.
[…]
Tulsi Gabbard Drops TWO Huge Bombshells
Fox News
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard made a startling revelation during an open cabinet meeting Wednesday, announcing that she has evidence that electronic voting machines have been tampered with to manipulate the results of past US elections.
“I’ve got a long list of things that we’re investigating. We have the best going after this, election integrity being one of them,” Gabbard stated.
“We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time,” she continued.
Gabbard emphasised that the evidence shows that machines are “vulnerable to exploitation to manipulate the results of the votes being cast.”
She told President Trump that the finding “further drives forward your mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections.”
It seems the ‘conspiracy theorists’ were right again.
Gabbard also announced that she is about to make public a huge amount of information relating to the assassinations of RFK, and MLK Jr.
Gabbard followed up on the comments in a Fox News interview, also noting she has teams of people scouring FBI and CIA warehouses looking for hidden documents on the JFK assassination.
[…]
Via https://modernity.news/2025/04/11/tulsi-gabbard-drops-two-huge-bombshells/
Swiss Pharma Company Announces $23 Billion US Investment Days After Trump Pledges ‘Major Tariff’ on Drug Imports
Charlotte de la Fuente/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Nick GilbertsonPharmaceutical company Novartis announced plans to build seven facilities in the United States and expand others in a $23 billion investment over five years on the heels of President Donald Trump’s announcement of forthcoming tariffs on imported drugs.
The Swiss company revealed the major investment in a press release.
“This commitment enables Novartis to expand on its current manufacturing, research and technology presence across the country with 10 facilities, including 7 brand new facilities, creating nearly 1,000 new jobs at Novartis and approximately 4,000 additional US jobs,” the release said.
Six of the facilities will be manufacturing plants, two of which will focus on radioligand therapy in Florida and Texas. It remains to be seen where the other four plants will be built.
Moreover, the company is establishing a biomedical research innovation center in San Diego as part of the investment, and it is expanding three of its production facilities in Indiana, New Jersey, and California.
The company also noted that its goal is to ensure “all key Novartis medicines for US patients will be made in the United States.”
On Tuesday, Trump notably pledged to impose tariffs on drugs produced in other countries.
“So we’re going to be announcing, very shortly, a major tariff on pharmaceuticals,” Trump said Tuesday night at a National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) dinner. “And…when they hear that, they will leave China, they will leave other places, because… most of their product is sold here.”
“And they’re going to be opening up their plants all over the place in our country,” he added.
Trump doubled down on his statement on Wednesday.
“We realized during COVID that we don’t make our drugs or our pharmaceuticals in this country,” Trump told reporters.
However, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan denied that potential tariffs are the primary influence behind the move, per Reuters.
“We believe we can manage the tariffs – though of course they will be very painful – so while that is a factor (behind this investment), it’s not the driving factor,” Narasimhan said.
This is the latest in an influx of investments into the United States since Trump returned to office and began warning of and imposing his tariff policies. Stargate, a joint project between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, has pledged a $500 billion investment in America, and Apple announced it is investing $500 billion in America, which are just a few of the other examples.
[…]
Will Asia Dump its $3 Trillion of US Treasury Bonds in Response to Tariffs?
Asian central banks could start dumping their US debt if Trump’s tariff policies are actually implemented. Image: X Screengrab
TOKYO – The dollar extended its biggest plunge in three years on Friday after China raised tariffs on the US to 125% from 84%, a tit-for-tat step that has gold surging, markets everywhere gyrating and investors more uncertain than ever about the global economic and financial outlook.
It’s now US President Donald Trump’s move. Does the Trump 2.0 White House double down and increase its own tariff rate, now at 145%, on Asia’s biggest economy? Trump, after all, has threatened before a 200% levy on certain Chinese products.
Perhaps most interesting about this week is what global investors learned about the Trump 2.0’s pain threshold. Punters learned – to their horror – that Trump is willing to stomach epic stock market losses but not telltale signs of distress in the bond market.
Posterity will show that it wasn’t the US Congress, the judiciary or voters that forced the US president into a more relational tariff policy. It was bond traders.
In Asian trading hours on April 9, the so-called “bond vigilantes” pushed the yield on 30-year US Treasury bonds above 5%, Bloomberg reported. That — and memories of events from the mid-1990s, mid-2000s and the Silicon Valley Bank bust in 2023 — saw Trump beat a hasty and rare retreat on most tariffs.
Yet it’s concerns about the next round of vigilantes to take on the Trump White House that made him blink: Asian central banks.
Central banks in the region hold roughly US$3 trillion of US Treasuries, with Japan and China, the top holders, sitting on a combined $1.9 trillion. If they were to start selling on a significant scale, who could pick up the slack? Other than the largest global banks buying steadily, arguably no one.
That’s why chatter in bond trading pits this week that Japan, China and other Asian monetary authorities might be selling so alarmed top US Treasury Department officials. For years, traders feared China might dump its trove of US T-bills in retaliation against US sanctions and restrictions. That day may have arrived.
China, after all, has an incentive to show that “it won’t hesitate to cause turmoil in the global financial market in order to improve its negotiating power against the US,” says strategist Ataru Okumura at SMBC Nikko Securities.
[…]
Via https://asiatimes.com/2025/04/the-real-bond-vigilantes-hounding-trump-are-asian/#
April 10, 2025
EPA to Review Health Risks of Water Fluoridation as RFK Jr. Says He’ll Tell CDC to Stop Recommending It
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin on Monday announced plans to “expeditiously review” new science on the possible health risks of water fluoridation.
Also on Monday, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he plans to tell the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop recommending water fluoridation nationally.
Kennedy’s deputy chief of staff Stefanie Spear said Kennedy would direct the CDC’s community preventive services task force to study fluoride and make a new recommendation, The New York Times reported.
Zeldin and Kennedy made the announcements at a press conference in Utah, which last week became the first state to ban the practice of adding fluoride to community water supplies.
The growing body of research showing fluoride’s toxic effects gained national attention when a federal judge in September ruled against the EPA in a landmark lawsuit brought by the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), Mothers Against Fluoridation, Food & Water Watch and others.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ruled that water fluoridation at current levels recommended by public health agencies in the U.S. poses an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health and that the agency must regulate it.
Chen’s 80-page decision outlined the scientific evidence that fluoride exposure is linked to reduced IQ in children.
The EPA announced in January that it planned to appeal the ruling, days before President Joe Biden left office.
People long concerned with the harmful effects of water fluoridation on children’s health celebrated the EPA’s announcement that it would review the latest science, in an apparent response to the lawsuit. However, in a post on X, Michael Connett, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, urged caution.
Zeldin didn’t mention in Monday’s announcement that the EPA is under a court order to regulate the chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Instead, he said the agency would conduct a review under a different statute, the Safe Drinking Water Act, effectively sidestepping the obligation imposed by the court, Connett said.
The EPA’s appeal of the lawsuit, due April 11, is going forward.
“If EPA files the appeal, as it looks like they will, that will likely say more about EPA’s true intentions with fluoride than a commitment to do another ‘review’ — especially since EPA’s ‘reviews’ of the fluoride literature in the past have been atrocious,” Connett added.
The CDC makes recommendations on whether communities should add fluoride to their drinking water and at what levels. However, the EPA sets the maximum levels allowed in water under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The current maximum allowable levels of fluoride in drinking water are 4.0 milligrams/liter (mg/L), which is many orders of magnitude higher than the currently recommended dosage of 0.7 mg/L — which itself has demonstrated a risk to children’s health in recent studies.
Chen ruled that the EPA must regulate fluoride under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which regulates substances whose production, use or disposal may cause unreasonable risks to human health.
In August 2024, the National Toxicology Program published a report linking fluoride exposure to neurotoxic effects in children, after public health officials tried for years to block its publication and water down its conclusions.
Recent epidemiological studies in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. showed significant associations between higher fluoride exposure and worse neurocognitive outcomes for children — including at the 0.7 mg/L levels.
A meta-analysis published in January showed that fluoride exposure was associated with significant reductions in IQ scores in children.
Major medical associations and public health agencies — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Dental Association and the CDC — have continued to support adding fluoride to drinking water, claiming it helps prevent cavities.
However, in addition to the growing body of research showing fluoride’s risks to children’s health, a second body of research shows that water fluoridation doesn’t provide the significant benefits the pro-fluoridation lobbyists claim.
A Cochrane Review published in October 2024 found that adding fluoride to drinking water provides very limited, if any, dental benefits, especially compared with 50 years ago.
Kennedy’s announcement signaled that in light of current science, the CDC may change its long-held position that adding fluoride to water to prevent cavities is safe and effective.
Connett said that if the CDC stops recommending water fluoridation nationally, the move would be “big.”
“The EPA has historically been very deferential to HHS when it comes to fluoride regulations and policy, so for the CDC to stop recommending fluoridation would be very significant for future EPA actions.”
CDC’s water fluoridation recommendations are widely followed but not mandatory. State and local governments decide whether to add fluoride to water and, if so, how much — as long as it doesn’t exceed a maximum set by the EPA.
Just over 200 million Americans drink fluoridated water, according to the CDC. However, since Chen’s verdict last year, numerous cities, counties and states across the country have stopped fluoridating their water or are debating rule changes that would end fluoridation.
[…]
Red Light Therapy: Miracle Medicine
Red Light Therapy: Miracle Medicine
By Mark Sloan
EndAllDisease (2018)
Book Review
Greeks and Romans were aware that exposure to colored light had health benefits. As of January 2018 when this book was published, there were 50,000 published studies on light. The near-infrared spectrum is most effective in healing. Most commercial red light generators produce both red and near-infrared light.
According to Sloan, there are 10 most important chronic health conditions benefiting from red and near-infrared treatment:
1. Melting belly fat and increasing muscle mass – studies adding near-infrared light therapy to an exercise program found the group using both experienced 20% or greater weight loss. Some studies showed weight loss with near-infrared light therapy alone.
2. Accelerated wound healing – near-infrared light therapy.
3. Increased bone density – red and near-infrared light therapy.
4. Increased testosterone levels – red and near-infrared light therapy.
5. Enhanced brain function – near-infrared light therapy.
6. Reduction/elimination anxiety and depression – red and near-infrared light therapy.
7. Pain relief – red and near-infrared light therapy
8. Acne – red light only
9. Regrowing hair – red and near-infrared light therapy
10. Arthritis – red and near-infrared light therapy
Sloan has a special interest in studies about the effect of red/near-infrared light in cancer, which he stresses is not a genetically-linked illness nor an invasive organism as the Big Pharma-dominated Western medical establishment makes out.
Over 100 years ago, Nobel Prize-winning researcher Dr Otto Warburg discovered that a cancer cell is a cell with damaged mitochondria, ie a metabolically defective cell in need of repair. Warburg won the Nobel Prize after discovering cytochrome oxidase, a crucial enzyme in the last step of oxidative phosphorylation in 1926. Warburg also discovered that he was able to turn a healthy cell into a cancer cell by inhibiting phosphorylation.
Specific toxins that inhibit oxydative phosphorylation include: chemotherapy, cyanide,
phosphide compounds, estrogen, serotonin, aphlatoxin, ultraviolet B radiation, xrays, nitric oxide oxide and unsaturated fatty acids.
One of the main therapeutic effects of red and near-infrared light is to unbind nitric oxide, one of the main cytochrome oxidase inhibitors. This means red and near-infrared light also increase ATP (the cells main energy carrier), cell oxygenation, blood flow and CO2 concentrations, while decreasing stress hormones, lactic acid, inflammation and free radical. Studies show this effect is enhanced when combined with Methylene Blue (see Methylene Blue: Miracle Drug for Cancer, Autism, Depression, Pain, Ebola and Much Much More).
Unlike most Western medications, red light therapy has virtually no side effects and is approved by the FDA for a number of indications.
Tariff Freak Out: Why So Many People Cling To The Cancer Of Globalism
Stocks Are Irrelevant Until Market Manipulation Ends
Zero Hedge
This past week after Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcements the Dow Jones Index plunged by around 4000 points and the global panic was palpable. Social media was rife with nervous naysayers on both sides of the aisle – The leftists are panicking but also cheering because they think crashing markets will turn into public support for the woke commie brigade. A contingent of conservatives are panicking too, but I’ll get to that in a moment…
My response? Finally this farce of a market is facing a correction and smacking people in the face with five fingers of reality! I applaud the event because it’s something that needed to happen years ago. Most skeptics are wrong on the tariff issue, mainly because they think the stock market matters. It doesn’t. People are also terrified of tariffs because they think globalism matters. It doesn’t.
This position might upset those who are heavily invested right now, but I would argue they are missing the macro picture and they need to look at the situation from a position of inevitability. Tariffs and the end of globalism are a necessary outcome. Here’s why we shouldn’t fear the Reaper…
The narrative on social media (from critics on both sides) is that Trump is unwittingly destroying the US economy to spite foreign trading partners because they’re getting more out of us than we’re getting out of them. I can’t speak to Trump’s motives because I’m not a psychic, but I can say that it’s impossible for Trump to destroy the economy. Why? Because it was already destroyed over the past two decades (some would argue longer) by the Federal Reserve and previous administrations.
The economy was in dire straits when Biden left office. Nothing has really changed except stocks are no longer being propped up artificially (we’ll see how the Fed reacts).
In every instance since the crash of 2008 when the markets have shifted into correction territory, the central bank has stepped in to prevent a natural reversal. They print tens of trillions of dollars in fiat from thin air and then pump it into banks and international corporations in order to kick the can down the road for a little while longer.
The Dow Jones gained over 15,000 points in less than four years after the initial covid crash in 2020 (this is unheard of in a normal economy). ALL of these gains are connected directly to stimulus programs and subsequent inflation initiated by the Federal Reserve (cycled through the Yen carry trade and stock buybacks, among other pathways). They have been manipulating stocks into a condition of perpetual inflationary gains – But a reckoning has arrived in the shape of stagflation and it’s killing America slowly.
If stocks cannot survive without a constant flow of recycled fiat to prop them up, then the markets are not real. I suggest that the Dow Jones needs to undergo at least another 10,000 points in decline before valuations are grounded in some kind of reality, and that’s being generous. Some deflation is necessary to bring back affordability.
An economy based on inflation, illusion and comfortable ignorance is a nuclear bomb waiting to explode. There are many conservatives that understand this problem well, but even some of them are freaking out today because they also prefer to avoid facing the consequences of the farce being exposed.
They should know better.
I’ve been hearing Republican and Libertarian commentators decry the “Everything Bubble” for a long time, but many of these people cling like barnacles to the fantasy that there’s a silver bullet solution. Crypto is going to save us (no it’s not). Winning elections is going to save us (no it’s not). Revolution is going to save us (not in the short term). Gold is going to save us (again, not in the short term). There is no scenario in which we can avoid the pain of a financial reformation. There is no silver bullet solution, so stop waiting around for one to materialize.
Stocks Are Not An Indicator Of Economic Health
Stocks are not a leading indicator of economic health and it’s hard to find an instance when a crash has ever been the direct cause of a crisis rather than a symptom of something bigger. Stocks are, in fact, a trailing indicator of problems that should have been noticed long ago.
In nearly every major stock crash in modern history (including the crash of 1929) there were sufficient signs that the economy was in decay, but those signs were dismissed. If you’ve been waiting for a crash to tell you that it’s time to take a closer examination of our nation’s financial health then you’ve been blind.
Most People Don’t Care About The Markets
The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of all stocks. Only 21% of American families own any shares directly. Another 40% own at least some shares indirectly through retirement programs, but their holdings are tiny – Nearly insignificant. Who actually cares about stocks? The vast majority of the populace does not. They might see stock indexes as an indicator of economic stability (this is an incorrect assumption), but they aren’t scrambling to adjust their portfolios right now.
In terms of market players, global corporations and banks benefit most from government and central bank interference in equities, not Joe Dirt or Jane Dirt just scraping by month-to-month, hoping for a modest house and a tiny stipend in a 401K. Is this a terrible indictment of “capitalism” and free markets? No. My point is that most of the people freaking out about tariffs and the markets are generally people who have large investments, or a political agenda.
There are those that claim that “all of us” should care about stocks because when companies lose value in their shares they end up firing employees in order to make up the difference. This argument presumes that these companies weren’t going to do that anyway. Deflation is not the only bogeyman out there. Inflation also leads to layoffs as we’ve been seeing the past few years. Artificially inflated stocks are NOT a shield against mass job losses.
Tariffs Are Not A Tax On The Citizenry, They’re A Tax On Global Corporations
I’m getting a little tired of people constantly defending international conglomerates as if they are victims. On the libertarian side of things there are number of well meaning skeptics that suggest tariffs are “unconstitutional” because they symbolize taxation without representation. This is incorrect. Tariffs are not a tax on the public. They are not a tax on foreign economies. They are a tax on global corporations and the foreign goods they import.
As I noted last month in my article ‘Trade War: Tariffs Are Needed To Defeat Globalism But They Come With A Cost’, the Libertarian side of the liberty movement tends to worship corporations and globalism as the ultimate expression of free markets. Somewhere along the line they were conned.
Corporations are socialist constructs that only exist with government charter and special protections. The market bailouts are a perfect example of how corporations that should have been allowed to fail were kept alive because of their partnership with the government.
Frankly, I do not care that they’re getting taxed for importing foreign goods and exporting American jobs. That’s a good thing. If they want to void the tax, all they have to do is bring manufacturing and jobs back to the US. It’s not as if they don’t have options.
Americans can also buy from smaller locally sourced producers to avoid price hikes. Suddenly, the playing field in which international companies get an unfair advantage is a little more level and competition returns. THAT’S a free market, as opposed to what we have today.
Globalism Is Not Inevitable
Tariffs might seem like a crude weapon against the machinations of globalism – As so many skeptics repeat like parrots: “Trump is using an ax when he should be using a scalpel…Squawk!!”.
This isn’t about Trump, so let’s set him aside for a moment. Instead, consider what globalism really is: A system which pretends to benefit humanity while quietly bleeding as much wealth as it can from the middle class. It then places that cash in the coffers of a tiny percentage of elites. Globalism is a wealth and property transfer machine.
The direct result is a historic wealth gap that has put 30% of all cash in the hands of 1% of the population. The bottom 50% of the populace holds a laughable 2.6% of global wealth, and the problem is only getting worse.
In terms of “free trade” and the supply chain, interdependency makes all nations weak by forcing them to rely on other countries for key resources and base necessities. They’ve set up a system which makes it hard to walk away. Freedom from globalism means isolation from preestablished supply chains.
For those that say tariffs are an attack on our allies and trading partners, this is foolish. First, a lot of these countries are NOT our allies. Europe in particular is becoming more totalitarian by the day, throwing people in jail for online speech and political opponents in jail for wanting to stop mass immigration. Why should we be allies or trading partners with people who would happily destroy every value we hold dear?
Furthermore, why has the American consumer become the cash cow for the rest of the world? Why are other countries so reliant on us to buy their products? The narrative is that Americans MUST continue to consume outside exports and remain dutiful pay-pigs because if we don’t that means we’re declaring war? Yeah, I think not.
Finally, if tariffs don’t work or they’re a destructive practice, then why do so many countries place tariffs on American goods? They’re allowed to enforce a trade balance, but we’re not?
Globalism Is A Cancer And It Must Be Allowed To Die
What critics are truly afraid of is the death of globalism. Not because they particularly adore the ideology; a lot of them hate globalism and what it represents. Rather, they are afraid because they’re addicted to the meager comfort that the system provides and they know that independence (detoxification) comes with pain.
It means hard work and sacrifice, but also living through a generational struggle that asks a lot of us while there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see any benefits in our lifetime. Americans today are increasingly less concerned with the world their children might inherit. They only seem to care about their immediate happiness. Some Americans would sacrifice everything including their freedoms just to avoid dealing with an uncomfortable crisis event.
If stock markets don’t matter, guess what? Your happiness REALLY doesn’t matter.
This one is for the survival of the species, folks. Eventually the wave we’re coasting on is going to crash to the shore. Globalism is a cancer on our world. Either we step up and kill it or we will suffer more each decade while our children grow up with no inkling of what prosperity means.
Yes, Conservatives Will Be Blamed – News Flash: They Were Going To Blame Us Anyway
Conservatives and liberty advocates will be blamed for any economic instability that results from Trump’s economic policies. I’ve been warning about this FOR YEARS. I warned about it at the beginning of Trump’s first term back in 2016. I said that Trump will be called the “next Herbert Hoover”, that his tariffs would be tied to chaos in markets and probably the dollar. I warned that, by extension, all conservatives will be scapegoats for a crisis that the globalists actually created.
Back then I believed that the liberty movement’s most important job was to ensure that blame is placed on the central banks, international corporations and NGOs. Now, I’m not so sure that optics matter anymore. The establishment is going to blame us regardless and people will believe them or disagree with them based purely on political allegiance, not on facts. If the end result is the death of globalism then it’s worth the risk.
There will be uncertainty and the enemy will try to take advantage of the crisis and public fear to promote their one world system and a one world digital currency. This simply means they’ll have to be removed from the equation before they can use the situation to take more power. Interpret that however you like.
Of course, maybe all of this is premature. The majority of foreign governments are already rushing to the negotiating table to offer more beneficial trade policies. Maybe Trump’s tariffs will be short lived, the panic will be fleeting and manufacturing will flourish in America again. It’s certainly possible, but again, not without some pain in the short term.
My suspicion is that the tariff issue is just one of many “crisis” scenarios that will play out over the next few years. And the more globalism is derailed the more the elites will try to retaliate. We have to be willing to endure it and press forward. Even if tariffs succeed in bringing back domestic production, the global order will still be disrupted dramatically in the process. We can shriek in fear over it, or, we can view it as an opportunity to cleanse America and the world of a parasitic system that has been plaguing us for decades.
[…]
Via https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/tariff-freak-out-why-so-many-people-cling-cancer-globalism
Some Fall-Out From The Tariff Wars
Moon of Alabama
President Trump likely thought that he could press China into making a deal with him. The tariffs he imposed were supposed to create leverage for that.
Instead he found that China is willing and able to fight back:
China said it will raise its tariff on US goods to 84%, retaliating to the hefty new tariffs on its imports that kicked in on Wednesday.The move came after the Trump administration followed through on a threat to add a 50% tariff on Chinese goods, in addition to 34% reciprocal tariffs, raising the overall tariff rate on Chinese goods to 104%. The steep new duties on China and 184 other US trading partners took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
Beijing’s move marks further deterioration in US-China trade relations after China vowed on Tuesday to “fight to the end” in the renewed trade war.
When the U.S. launched its proxy war in Ukraine against Russia it thought that it could defeat Russia by economic means. A wall of sanctions and other restrictions were to destroy the Russian economy. But Russia was prepared and much stronger than the U.S. had anticipated. Its economy did better than those of the countries which opposed it.
A similar miscalculation seems to have happened with regards to China.
Trump is not knowledgeable about China’s mighty economy. Vice-President Vance recently called China’s highly qualified work force ‘peasants‘. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is likewise ignorant:
I advised Scott Bessent, now Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury who is leading the tariff war, in 2013 when he was still with Soros. An investment bank engaged me to advise Bessent on China’s economy and consumer trends and go over my book The End of Cheap China.I took an instant disliking – Bessent was one of the most arrogant and ignorant on China people I had ever met. He was uber bearish on China and was largely ideologically driven in his analysis. Communist countries couldn’t succeed was basically the jist of his views.
Data and rational analysis did not reign supreme.
…
He thinks America has the upper hand with China right now. I worry for America. We have one of the most ignorant on China yet arrogant people I’ve ever met running a trade war against China.
Along with trouble in the stock and treasury markets we now can see trade between the U.S. and not only China but large parts of South Asia comes to a screeching halt:
Amid escalating trade tensions between China and the United States, some Chinese exporters are taking the drastic step of ditching shipments mid-voyage and surrendering containers to shipping companies to avoid crushing tariff costs.Industry insiders have dubbed the move “preparing for the Long March”, a grim metaphor for what many see as a prolonged and punishing downturn in cross-Pacific trade.
A staff member at a China-listed export company, who requested anonymity, said its US-bound container volume had plummeted from 40 to 50 containers a day to just three to six as a result of the new tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by the second Trump administration.
…
“We’ve halted all shipping plans from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia,” the employee said. “Every factory order is halted. Anything that hasn’t been loaded will be scrapped, and the cargo already at sea is being re-costed.”
Those are goods that U.S. importers expected to see but which will not be delivered. Not even to higher prices. It may take a few weeks until the effects will be seen in U.S. stores but empty shelves, especially for low value everyday stuff, are now sure to appear.
There are no other producers to take up the space.
This will hit the U.S. much more than China:
The Chinese trade surplus with the US is about 3% of its GDP. China would not lose off of that; it would wind up redirecting a lot of those goods to other countries that would only welcome the extra stuff up to a point, or even sell more domestically. But China could weather the hit. Economic suffering that clearly results from US malevolence would also be unifying, while a sluggish economy due to the deflating of a monster property bubble is much less so.Trump is proposing to make this dire situation worse by sanctioning pharmaceuticals.
…
The only way inflicting this level of punishment on Americans (a huge spike in untreated illnesses, on top of the economic distress from sudden rises in costs and resulting spending cutbacks that will result in business failures, high inflation (conceivably hyperinflation if the destruction of productive capacity is large enough, and readers know I hate the casual use of the “h” word), and a big uptick in unemployment, is if the plan is to produce so much upheaval as to justify the imposition of martial law. But who wants to be the emperor of a hellhole?
On Monday I had quoted Adam Tooze who provided a scenario of rising Treasury interest:
Rather than investors piling into Treasuries driving the price up, instead, we could see investors selling Treasuries en masse.
…
At this point we would expect to see the Fed step in, not just to lower interest rates, as is now commonly expected, but do more drastic interventions.
…
But [..] what if investors, both American and foreign decide, that they no longer wish to hitch their wagon to the empire of the mad king? What if they decide that the US is indeed exceptional, but that it is exceptional in rather nasty ways? […] Well in that case, holding billions in dollars newly created by the Fed does not give you the security you want.So you sell the dollars. You just want out of the mad house.
This, Ladies and Gentleman, would be the truly big disaster.
The unthinkable move in Treasury happened last night:
Treasury yields spiked on Wednesday as investors bailed out of what has been perceived as the world’s safest instrument on expectations of crumbling foreign demand as tariffs take effect.The yield on the 10-year Treasury spiked to as high as 4.516%. Yields move in the opposite direction to prices.
Yields settled down after China called for dialogue with the U.S. on trade, and then moved right back near the highs of the day after China said it was increasing its tariffs on the U.S. to 84%.
The yield on the 30-year Treasury was 4.91%, having earlier peaked above 5%.
“Something has broken tonight in the bond market. We are seeing a disorderly liquidation,” said Jim Bianco, president and macro strategist at Bianco Research.
…
[T]ariffs are devastating to bonds — not only do they have an inflationary impact, but they result in fewer dollars being sent to foreign countries that have traditionally recycled them into financial assets and U.S. Treasury securities in particular.
—
Peter Schiff @PeterSchiff – 10:51 UTC · Apr 9, 2025U.S. stocks, bonds, and the dollar are all down. This is a broad-based liquidation of U.S. assets. Trump claims his tariffs will cause foreigners to invest in the U.S. to avoid the tariffs. Instead, tariffs have already resulted in foreigners pulling their money out of the U.S.
Rising interests is the last thing the Trump administration wanted to see. It wants to borrow more to be able to cut taxes. But with interest rates on the rise it will become more difficult to cover the U.S. deficit.
The real damage though will probably happen in smaller Asian countries who have borrowed in U.S. dollar and, due to tariff and trade troubles and rising interest rates, will have difficulties to pay back their loans. If they default the western banks who have lend them the money will go down with them. The trade trouble could thus develop into a serious banking crisis.
[…]
Via https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/04/fall-out-from-the-tariff-wars.html#more
Supreme Court rules Trump CAN deport illegal migrants using historic wartime act
By MELISSA KOENIG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
President Donald Trump scored a huge win in his efforts to deport migrants living in the United States illegally with a major Supreme Court ruling on Monday.
The country’s highest court, in an unsigned 5 – 4 ruling, ruled that the Trump administration can invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.
Trump had declared that members of the Tren de Aragua gang were terrorists, and his border czar Tom Homan spectacularly rounded up suspected gangsters across the United States last month to send them back to ‘hell hole’ prisons in Venezuela.
But the president’s efforts were halted on March 15 when Obama-appointed US District Court Judge James Boasberg issued an injunction blocking the deportations.
That injunction has now been lifted under the Supreme Court’s ruling – allowing the president to once again send suspected gang members to their home countries.
Trump hailed the ruling as a ‘GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA’ in a post on his Truth Social page Monday night.
‘The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders and protect our families and our Country, itself,’ he wrote.
President Donald Trump scored a huge win in his efforts to deport illegal migrants living in the United States illegally, as the Supreme Court allowed him to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members
Trump hailed the decision as a ‘GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA’ on his Truth Social
Attorney General Pamela Bondi similarly hailed the court’s decision on Monday as ‘a landmark victory for the rule of law’ and criticized Boasberg as an activist judge who exceeded his powers.
‘The Department of Justice will continue fighting in court to make America safe again,’ she said in a social media post.
Trump had invoked the Alien Enemies Act last month to swiftly deport the alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, attempting to speed up removals with a law best known for its use to intern Japanese, Italian and German immigrants during World War Two.
He had claimed that members of the gang were ‘conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States’ with the goal of destabilizing the nation.
But Boasberg quickly fought back – ruling that the Alien Enemies Act ‘does not provide a basis for the president’s proclamation given that the terms invasion, predatory incursion really relate to hostile acts perpetrated by any nation and commensurate to war.’
The liberal judge also said that he needed to issue his order immediately because the government already was flying migrants it claimed were newly deportable under Trump’s proclamation to be incarcerated in a notorious El Salvador prison called the Terrorism Confinement Center.
The Trump administration, though, has claimed that the flights had already left US airspace by the time Boasberg issued a written order and were therefore not required to return.
Lawyers with the Justice Department dismissed the weight of Boasberg’s spoken order calling for any planes carrying deportees to be turned around.
The decision on Monday allows the Trump administration to once again deport alleged Venezuelan gang members
In court documents urging the Supreme Court to overturn Boasberg’s order, the Trump administration also argued that Boasberg’s temporary ban encroached on presidential authority to make national security decisions.
It said the judge had ‘rebuffed’ Trump’s immigration agenda, including the president’s ability ‘to protect the Nation against foreign terrorist organizations and risk debilitating effects for delicate foreign negotiations,’ Fox News reports.
‘This case presents fundamental questions about who decides how to conduct sensitive national security-related operations in this country – the President, through Article II, or the Judiciary, through [temporary restraining orders],’ lawyers for the Justice Department wrote in their March 28 application to Chief Justice John Roberts – who handles emergency litigation coming out of DC.
‘The Constitution supplies a clear answer: the President. The republic cannot afford a different choice,’ they argued.
Opposing the government’s application were a group of Venezuelan men in custody of US immigration authorities.
They argued that if Boasberg’s injunction were to be lifted they ‘will suffer extraordinary and irreparable harms – being sent out of the United States to a notorious Salvadoran prison, where they will remain incommunicado, potentially for the rest of their lives, without having had any opportunity to contest their designation as gang members,’ NBC News reports.
The plaintiffs’ family members have denied their alleged gang ties – with lawyers for one of the deportees, a Venezuelan professional soccer player and youth coach, saying U.S. officials had wrongly labeled him a gang member based on a tattoo of a crown meant to honor his favorite team, Real Madrid.
A suspected gang member is seen being escorted off a plane at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador
Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke of the ‘grave harm Plaintiffs will face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador’ in her dissenting opinion
But in Monday’s decision, the court’s majority said it was not resolving the validity of the administration’s reliance on the 18th century law to carry out deportations.
The plaintiffs in the case ‘challenge the government’s interpretation of the Act and assert that they do not fall within the category of removable alien enemies. But we do not reach those arguments,’ the majority wrote.
It instead emphasized that it was deciding that any challenges to deportation under the Alien Enemies Act must be brought in the federal court district where the migrants are detained, meaning that the proper venue for challenges would be Texas – not DC.
At the same time, the majority placed limits on how deportations may occur – emphasizing that judicial review is required.
It said that detainees ‘must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act.
‘The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.’
Those who dissented with the court’s decision were conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called her colleague’s conclusion ‘suspect.’
She said the court granted the government ‘extraordinary relief’ and did so ‘without mention of the grave harm Plaintiffs will face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador or regard for the Government’s attempts to subvert the judicial process throughout this litigation.’
Others have argued that Trump’s order exceeded his powers because the Alien Enemies Act authorizes removals only when war has been declared or the United States has been invaded.
The law specifically authorizes the president to deport, detain or place restrictions on individuals whose primary allegiance is to a foreign power and who might pose a national security risk in wartime.
Amid the questions over the legality of the Alien Enemies Act, Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment by Congress – a process that could remove him from the bench – drawing a rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.
Trump on social media called Boasberg, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2011 in a bipartisan 96-0 vote, a ‘Radical Left Lunatic’ and a ‘troublemaker and agitator.’
Meanwhile, Boasberg is continuing to weigh whether to bring potential contempt charges against administration officials for sending the plane of alleged gangsters to El Salvador despite his order.
A preliminary injunction hearing in that case is set for Tuesday.
[…]
April 9, 2025
NEW STUDY – Flu Vaccination Linked to 27% Increased Risk of Flu
The Cleveland Clinic study titled, Effectiveness of the Influenza Vaccine During the 2024-2025 Respiratory Viral Season, was just uploaded to the MedRxiv preprint server:
Background The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine during the 2024-2025 respiratory viral season.
Methods Employees of Cleveland Clinic in employment in Ohio on October 1, 2024, were included. The cumulative incidence of influenza among those in the vaccinated and unvaccinated states was compared over the following 25 weeks. Protection provided by vaccination (analyzed as a time-dependent covariate) was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression.
Results Among 53402 employees, 43857 (82.1%) had received the influenza vaccine by the end of the study. Influenza occurred in 1079 (2.02%) during the study. The cumulative incidence of influenza was similar for the vaccinated and unvaccinated states early, but over the course of the study the cumulative incidence of influenza increased more rapidly among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. In an analysis adjusted for age, sex, clinical nursing job, and employment location, the risk of influenza was significantly higher for the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated state (HR, 1.27; 95% C.I., 1.07 – 1.51; P = 0.007), yielding a calculated vaccine effectiveness of −26.9% (95% C.I., −55.0 to −6.6%).
Conclusions This study found that influenza vaccination of working-aged adults was associated with a higher risk of influenza during the 2024-2025 respiratory viral season, suggesting that the vaccine has not been effective in preventing influenza this season.
This study analyzed over 53,000 Cleveland Clinic employees and found that those who received the influenza vaccine during the 2024–2025 season were statistically more likely to contract influenza compared to those who remained unvaccinated. After adjusting for key factors like age, sex, job role, and location, the data showed a 27% higher risk of influenza among the vaccinated group (Hazard Ratio = 1.27). This led to a negative vaccine effectiveness estimate of −26.9%.
Americans are tired of toxin-loaded injectable products that completely fail and deteriorate their health. Thankfully, the new HHS administration pulled the CDC “Wild to Mild” flu vaccine campaign a few months ago.
[…]
Via https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/new-study-flu-vaccination-linked
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