insidethevatican |Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò,
80, has written an open letter to America’s bishops expressing concern
about various issues concerning the Coronavirus, and the vaccinations
against the virus.
The
central concern of the former Vatican nuncio to the United States
(2011-2016) is that the testing of the various vaccines has not yet been
completed, and will not be completed in many cases until 2023 or 2024.
Since
there are already after nine months of vaccinations a number of
reported cases of negative reactions to the vaccines, Viganò says that
he, and other bishops, ought to be concerned about the announced plan of
US President Joseph Biden (link) to vaccinate in the near future 28 million American children between the ages of 5 and 11.
Since
these children have, statistically, faced little danger from the
Coronavirus, but might face some type of negative side effect from the
untested vaccines, Viganò argues that it would be more prudent to
postpone such massive vaccinations plans for such young children until
the testing is complete.
To persist in carrying out the plan would be a crime, Viganò maintains.
The
letter contains many footnotes to scientific articles — some little
noted by the mainstream media — which the archbishop believes support
his arguments.
“I
realize that it may be extremely unpopular to take a position against
the so-called vaccines,” Viganò writes to Gomez, “but as Shepherds of
the flock of the Lord we have the duty to denounce the horrible crime
that is being carried out.”
Here is Viganò’s text, when he sent to me yesterday, October 26, though the text is dated October 23, four days ago. —RM
tinkzorg | In recent days, the phrase ”Let’s go
Brandon!” has taken on a life of its own. At one point, four out of ten
songs on the Spotify top 10 list were called ”Let’s go Brandon”. People
are saying it as a form of greeting, or wearing it on t-shirts. For
some, this is just a funny gag. For others, it is a source of
significant and growing dread; dread about what is happening politically
in the United States, and what the future now looks to have in store
for them.
For those of you who don’t know the
context: at a recent NASCAR event in New Jersey, the crowd could be
heard chanting ”Fuck Joe Biden!” after the race. During an interview
with the winner of the race – a man named Brandon Brown – the flustered
reporter, hearing the chant, then says on camera that the crowd must be
very enthused for Brandon, as they’re all chanting ”Let’s go Brandon!”
in his honor. Of course, they crowd is doing no such thing, and she and
everyone else knows it. This little episode, on its own, is hardly very
remarkable or significant. Others slowly pick up on the story and mock
the journalist involved. But at this point, it is merely just another
day of ”fake news”, another day of the liberal media being the liberal
media.
However, like a dangerous respiratory
virus, this little ”Brandon incident” then incubates for a week or two,
before blossoming out into something far more serious, into a true
social event. People start saying ”Let’s go Brandon!” at random, both as
a mockery of the sitting president, but also as a way to mock the now
increasingly toothless media apparatus, who fewer and fewer seem to take
seriously at all. And this is where things become truly interesting: as
at least one pilot then tells his passengers ”Let’s go Brandon!” before
takeoff, liberal America starts to actually freak out. At this point,
think pieces are produced by NPR and others claiming that there’s a new
form of conspiratorial ”code speak” that ”racists” are now using to note
their displeasure with the sitting president. Others demand the
offending pilot be fired, as it is obvious that he
isn’t really saying ”Let’s go Brandon!”, he’s actually saying ”Fuck Joe
Biden!”. The irony here should be quite obvious, as liberals are now
decrying people for playing along with the very same cover story they
invented out of thin air to cover up what is clearly growing
dissatisfaction with president Biden.
Some
have taken this to be just another funny episode of ”internet humor”
leaking into the real world. But this is, to put it frankly, the
delusions of an intellectual class who themselves enjoy being ironic on
the internet, and who then quite myopically assume that everyone else
must think and act the way they do. Middle aged female nurses, as a
rule, do not use 4chan, nor are they versed in, or at all
interested in, the finer points of ironic ”internet humor”. Political
humor, coming from normal, working class people, might superficially
resemble that of irony-poisoned college graduates. But in reality, they
have very little in common.
Moreover, there’s a very large, very
obvious flaw in this explanation of events. Again, the crowds at that
NASCAR race weren’t chanting ”Let’s go Brandon!” they were chanting
”Fuck Joe Biden!”, and by all accounts, they certainly weren’t being
ironic about that. No coded language was intented, no mental
jiu-jitsu performed. Only when the media tried to use its incredibly
hollow and thoroughly unimpressive powers of ”mind control” did people
start with ironic mockery, and that mockery was aimed both at the
president as well as the clear powerlessness of the chattering classes
to control the narrative or get people to believe them. And so, perhaps
unsurprisingly, when airplane passenger hear the phrase ”Let’s go
Brandon!” spoken over the intercom, they don’t necessarily hear just a
joke, but also a reminder that a political conflict they had tried to
suppress is very much still real.
But even with all this said, many a reader
will probably want to ask a simple question: why does any of this
matter? Though I would argue that the sudden explosion of ”Let’s go
Brandon!” in American culture actually means a very great deal, to truly
explain why this joke is so funny to some, and so unnerving to others,
we have to do so by way of a metaphor. To truly understand why many
liberals are so scared of what others consider to still be merely a
harmless joke, we have to talk a bit about a concept known as Kantai Kessen,
the Japanese naval war doctrine during World War II. Do not worry, the
relevance of this concept to today’s America will hopefully become clear
as we go along.
technofog | The CDC caused an uproar in early September 2021, after it changed
its definitions of “vaccination” and “vaccine.” For years, the CDC had
set definitions for vaccination/vaccine that discussed immunity. This
all changed on September 1, 2021.
The prior CDC Definitions of Vaccine and Vaccination (August 26, 2021):
Vaccine:
A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity
to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease. Vaccines
are usually administered through needle injections, but can also be
administered by mouth or sprayed into the nose.
Vaccination: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.
The CDC Definitions of Vaccine and Vaccination since September 1, 2021:
Vaccine:
A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response
against diseases. Vaccines are usually administered through needle
injections, but some can be administered by mouth or sprayed into the
nose.
Vaccination: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease.
People
noticed. Representative Thomas Massie was among the first to discuss
the change, noting the definition went from “immunity” to “protection”.
To many observers, it appeared the CDC changed the definitions
because of the waning effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. For
example, the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine falls over time, with
an Israeli study
reported in August 2021 as showing the vaccine being “only 16%
effective against symptomatic infection for those individuals who had
two doses of the shot back in January.” The CDC recognizes the waning
effectiveness, thus explaining their promotion of booster shots.
Of course, the usual suspects defended the CDC. The Washington Post, for example, cast doubt that the CDC changed the definition because of issues with the COVID-19 vaccines. The CDC tried to downplay the change, stating “slight changes in wording over time … haven’t impacted the overall definition.”
Internal CDC E-Mails
CDC emails we obtained
via the Freedom of Information Act reveal CDC worries with how the
performance of the COVID-19 vaccines didn’t match the CDC’s own
definition of “vaccine”/“vaccination”. The CDC’s Ministry of Truth went
hard at work in the face of legitimate public questions on this issue.
In one August 2021 e-mail, a CDC employee cited to complaints that “Right-wing covid-19 deniers are using your ‘vaccine’ definition to argue that mRNA vaccines are not vaccines…”
Greenwald | What is going on here is almost too self-evident to require elaboration. For years, The Post
favorably covered the animal welfare work of this group without even
remotely suggesting it had some nefarious ideological agenda, let alone
investigating its finances. Only one thing has changed: their work in
highlighting gruesome dog experimentations now has the possibility of
undermining Dr. Fauci or harming his reputation, and thus The Post
— acting like the pro-DNC liberal advocacy group that it is — set out
to smear White Coat as right-wing MAGA activists in order to
delegitimize and discredit their investigative work and, more
importantly, give liberals a quick-and-easy way to dismiss their work as
nothing more than an anti-science MAGA operation even though they are
nothing of the sort.
Even more disturbing was the telephone call which Goodman had on Monday with Reinhard and another Post reporter, Yasmeen Abutaleb,
assigned to the health and COVID beat. During that call, Abutaleb in
particular repeatedly demanded to know whether White Coat was concerned
that the activism they were doing on these dog experimentation programs
could end up harming Dr. Fauci's reputation and thus make him less able
to manage the COVID crisis. They even suggested that by encouraging
people to call the NIH telephone lines to protest this experimentation,
they might be making it difficult for people with questions about COVID
to get through. The obvious premise of the entire conversation was one
completely antithetical to the journalistic ethos: it is immoral to
do anything that reflects negatively on Dr. Fauci now, no matter how
true or warranted it might be, because his importance is too great to
risk undermining him. (Request for comment from Reinhard was not responded to as of publication of this article, but will be added if supplied).
In
general, as this controversy has unfolded, media outlets have expressed
almost no interest in the immorality and atrocities of these
taxpayer-funded dog experimentations, and instead have acted as
political activists with only one goal: protect Dr. Fauci. PolitiFact, for instance, purported to fact-check
White Coat's campaign (laughably calling them “a conservative watchdog
group”) by implying they were lying. Aside from citing (but not
verifying) NIAID’s denial that they funded one of the experiments, they
acknowledged that they did indeed fund others, but then pointed out that
nobody could prove that Fauci personally approved the funding
for these experiments. Yet that is a claim White Coat has never made and
which, in any event, is as unlikely as it is irrelevant given that, for
thirty years, Fauci has been the head of the agencies conducting these
experiments which have long been the target of activist protest. It is
simply impossible that he was unaware of these controversies.
After speaking with the two Post reporters,
Goodman told me that “it’s clear based on my conversations with them
that rather than investigating the horrific puppy experimentation being
funded with our tax dollars by Anthony Fauci — about which they have
asked virtually nothing — they are instead interested in attempting to
discredit our organization and #BeagleGate campaign in order to run
defense for Fauci.” He also described the sudden change in The Post's
behavior in reporting on them: “in just five 5 years, the paper went
from featuring our group as a model of bipartisanship in the animal
protection movement and highlighting our winning campaigns to end
taxpayer-funded animal testing to now trying to smear us a conservative
front group that doesn’t really care about animals, all because we dared
to criticize St. Fauci.”
Bellotti described The Post's sudden turnaround this way:
Having
personally witnessed the horrors of animal testing, I founded [White
Coat] to unite liberty-lovers and animal-lovers, Republicans and
Democrats, Libertarians and vegetarians to fight against wasteful
taxpayer-funded animal experiments. Widening the tent is how you win
campaigns, and we’ve done this more effectively than any other
organization, resulting in historic wins for animals, from shutting down
the government’s largest cat experimentation lab to freeing monkeys
from federal nicotine addiction experiments to bringing dog testing at
the VA to record lows. This has all been done on a shoestring budget
with overwhelming support from grassroots advocates and donors.
Apparently for some though, disparaging Anthony Fauci for funding the
abuse of puppies is a bridge too far. But, to suggest that we’re out to
accomplish anything other the save animals from wasteful government
spending and abuse is simply not true nor supported by any actual
evidence.
Newspapers like The Post vehemently
deny that they have any political agenda, insisting that they are
devoted to non-partisan and apolitical reporting. Very few people
believe this fraud any longer, which is why trust in journalism has collapsed so precipitously, but rarely do we see a test case that so vividly illustrates how they really function.
For years, The Washington Post
reported fairly and truthfully on this group, because none of its
activities threatened any government officials whom the paper wishes to
protect. Suddenly, when the work they have been doing for years began to
reflect poorly on a government official vital to American liberalism, The Post
launched a campaign that is not even thinly disguised but nakedly clear
in its goal: to smear this group by impugning its motives and
distorting its agenda so that its work is immediately and uncritically
disregarded by the paper's overwhelmingly liberal audience.
consentfactory | Still, as mass hysterical as things are, count on GloboCap to go
balls out on the mass hysteria for the next five months. The coming
Winter is crunch time, folks. They need to cement the New Normal in
place, so they can dial down the “apocalyptic pandemic.” If they’re
forced to extend it another year … well, not even the most brainwashed
New Normals would buy that.
Or … all right, sure, the most brainwashed would, but they
represent a small minority. Most New Normals are not fanatical
totalitarians. They’re just people looking out for themselves, people
who will go along with almost anything to avoid being ostracized and
punished. But, believe it or not, there is a limit to the level
of absurdity they’re prepared to accept, and the level and duration of
relentless stress and cognitive dissonance they are prepared to accept.
Most of them have reached that limit. They have done their part,
followed orders, worn the masks, got the “vaccinations,” and are happy
to present their “obedience papers” to anyone who demands to see them.
Now, they want to go back to “normal.” But they can’t, because … well,
because of us.
See, GloboCap can’t let them return to “normal” (i.e., the new
totalitarian version of “normal”) until everyone (i.e., everyone who
matters) has submitted to being “vaccinated” and is walking around with a
scanable certificate of ideological conformity in their smartphones.
They would probably even waive the “vaccination” requirement if we would
just bend the knee and pledge our allegiance to the WEF, or BlackRock,
or Vanguard, or whoever, and carry around a QR code confirming that we
believe in “Science,” the “Covidian Creed,” and whatever other
ecumenical corporatist dogma.
Seriously, the point of this entire exercise (or at least this phase
of this entire exercise) is to radically, irrevocably, transform society
into a monolithic corporate campus where everyone has to scan their IDs
at every turn of an endless maze of perpetually monitored,
eco-friendly, gender-fluid, ideologically uniform, non-smoking, totally
meat-free “safe spaces” owned and operated by GloboCap, or one of its
agents, subsidiaries, and assigns.
The global-capitalist ruling classes are determined to transform the
planet into this fascistic Woke Utopia and enforce unwavering conformity
to its valueless values, no matter the cost, and we, “the
Unvaccinated,” are standing in their way.
They can’t just round us up and shoot us — this is global capitalism,
not Nazism or Stalinism. They need to break us, to break our spirits,
to coerce, gaslight, harass, and persecute us until we surrender our
autonomy willingly. And they need to do this during the next five
months.
theatlantic | We know how this ends: The coronavirus becomes endemic, and we live with it forever.
But what we don’t know—and what the U.S. seems to have no coherent plan
for—is how we are supposed to get there. We’ve avoided the hard
questions whose answers will determine what life looks like in the next
weeks, months, and years: How do we manage the transition to endemicity?
When are restrictions lifted? And what long-term measures do we keep,
if any, when we reach endemicity?
The
answers were simpler when we thought we could vaccinate our way to herd
immunity. But vaccinations in the U.S. have plateaued. The Delta
variant and waning immunity against transmission mean herd immunity may well be impossible even if every single American gets a shot. So when COVID-related restrictions came back with the Delta wave, we no longer had an obvious off-ramp
to return to normal—are we still trying to get a certain percentage of
people vaccinated? Or are we waiting until all kids are eligible? Or for
hospitalizations to fall and stay steady? The path ahead is not just
unclear; it’s nonexistent. We are meandering around the woods because we
don’t know where to go.
What is clear, however, is that case numbers, the metric that has guided much of our pandemic thinking and still underlies CDC’s indoor-masking recommendation
for vaccinated people, are becoming less and less useful. Even when we
reach endemicity—when nearly everyone has baseline immunity from either
infection or vaccination—the U.S. could be facing tens of millions of infections from the coronavirus every year,
thanks to waning immunity and viral evolution. (For context, the flu,
which is also endemic, sickens roughly 10 to 40 million Americans a
year.) But with vaccines available, not every case of COVID-19 is
created equal. Breakthrough cases are largely mild; 10,000 of them will
cause only a fraction of the hospitalizations and deaths of 10,000 COVID
cases in the unvaccinated. The more highly vaccinated a community is,
the less tethered case numbers are to the reality of the virus’s impact.
So
if not cases, then what? “We need to come to some sort of agreement as
to what it is we're trying to prevent,” says Céline Gounder, an
infectious-disease expert at New York University. “Are we trying to
prevent hospitalization? Are we trying to prevent death? Are we trying
to prevent transmission?” Different goals would require prioritizing
different strategies. The booster-shot rollout has been roiled with
confusion for this precise reason: The goal kept shifting. First, the
Biden administration floated boosters for everyone to combat
breakthroughs, then a CDC advisory panel restricted them to the elderly
and immunocompromised most at risk for hospitalizations, then the CDC
director overruled the panel to include people with jobs that put them
at risk of infection.
On
the ground, the U.S. is now running an uncontrolled experiment with
every strategy all at once. COVID-19 policies differ wildly by state,
county, university, workplace, and school district. And because of
polarization, they have also settled into the most illogical pattern
possible: The least vaccinated communities have some of the laxest
restrictions, while highly vaccinated communities—which is to say those
most protected from COVID-19—tend to have some of the most aggressive
measures aimed at driving down cases. “We’re sleepwalking into policy
because we’re not setting goals,” says Joseph Allen, a Harvard professor
of public health. We will never get the risk of COVID-19 down to
absolute zero, and we need to define a level of risk we can live with.
msn | In a video that’s garnered more than 2.4 million views on TikTok, Nevada
real-estate agent Sean Gotcher criticizes the “iBuying” business model,
in which companies buy and sell homes for a profit. In the video, he
proposes that a nameless company has a website where many people search
for homes “when they’re bored,” and he says that same company “uses that
information to go into that ZIP code and start purchasing houses.”
In other words, he’s suggesting that companies such as Zillow are
using the data they glean from people’s perusal of home listings on
their sites to make decisions about which houses to buy as iBuyers.
Gotcher
later argues that the company will buy 30 homes at one price, and then
purchase a 31st home at a higher price. “What that just did is create a
new comp,” Gotcher says, referring to comparable prices on nearby
properties, which appraisers use to determine the value of a home for
sale. He then says the company can turn around and sell the other homes
at that new, higher price.
In subsequent videos, Gotcher takes on Zillow and Redfin more directly, criticizing their respective business practices.
“I’m
happy to see the conversation that’s occurring at every printer in
every real estate office about data storage, mixed with buying power and
recognizable marketing is finally happening outside our office doors so
more can participate in the discussion,” Gotcher, who works for Level
Up Real Estate in Henderson, Nev., told MarketWatch in an email.
The video subsequently garnered even more attention on Twitter when a person with the username Gladvillain shared it
after learning that the user’s mother had sold her home to Zillow. Many
users claimed that Zillow was purchasing “all of the homes,” and said
they planned to boycott the platform.
Both Zillow and Redfin
contradicted the video’s claims. “The internet has empowered millions of
consumers with more information, transparency and tools in real estate
to help them make smarter real estate decisions, many provided by Zillow
for more than a decade,” a Zillow spokesperson told MarketWatch in an
email. “Unfortunately, the internet can also sometimes be a source of
misinformation and falsehoods — as is this case.”
A Redfin spokesperson added that the company doesn’t “have the share
to manipulate the market nor do we have any desire to, because
intentionally overpaying for homes would be a terrible business model.”
Real-estate
experts debunked many of the points made in the viral video, and argued
that other forces are to blame for the country’s competitive, pricey
housing market.
“If you could rig the residential housing market
that easily, the Realtors would have done it long ago,” said Gilles
Duranton, a real-estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School.
ips | U.S. billionaires have seen their wealth surge $1.8 trillion during
the pandemic, their collective fortune skyrocketing by nearly two-thirds
(62 percent) from just short of $3 trillion at the start of the COVID
crisis on March 18, 2020, to $4.8 trillion on August 17, 2021, according
to a report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for
Policy Studies Program on Inequality (IPS). A table of the top 15
billionaires is below and the full data set is here.
Elon Musk has seen his wealth increase by an eye-popping $150 billion during the pandemic, a gain of over 600 percent.
America’s
billionaire bonanza demonstrates the flaws in our current economic and
tax systems President Biden and Democrats in Congress are trying to
remedy by advancing a $3.5 trillion budget package,
which has already passed the U.S. Senate and is being considered in the
U.S. House today. If it becomes law through the budget reconciliation
process this fall, it will aid communities and working families by making healthcare, eldercare, childcare, housing and education more affordable,
investing in clean energy, expanding the Child Tax Credit and providing
12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. It will be paid for by
making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share of taxes, and
it will not raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year.
Not
only did the wealth of billionaires grow, but so did their numbers: in
March of last year, there were 614 Americans with 10-figure bank
accounts; this August, there are 708. Their $1.8 trillion of
increased wealth alone over 17 months, which will not be taxed unless
they sell their assets, would pay for more than half of Biden’s 10-year $3.5 trillion investment package.
motherjones |When I first came to the Dominican
Republic 30 years ago evidence of forced labor in the sugar harvest was
glaringly obvious: Men with shotguns guarded locked gates to trap
workers in the cane fields. But the International Labor Organization’s
indicators of forced labor include more subtle abuses like the hazardous
working conditions, low pay, and other issues cane workers regularly
describe today.
“We’re talking about coercive forces that are psychological, coercive
forces that are driven by debt,” said Duncan Jepson, managing director
of the international anti-trafficking group Liberty Shared. “And that’s
slightly more subtle than methods of violence.”
One Sunday morning, Euclides and I went to a batey for an Evangelical
church service, under a patchwork of red and blue tarps affixed to
wooden poles. We’d been invited by a couple I’ll call Efrain and Noni.
Noni paced back and forth before the congregation, microphone in her
hand, leaning back, giving it everything.
In contrast to his wife, Efrain sat quietly in a folding chair. He’s a
“mixer,” part of a team of fumigators who sometimes use sticks ripped
from trees to stir chemicals in open 55-gallon drums. Despite Central
Romana’s promises to provide health care to workers, Efrain told us he
has to pay for much of it himself, which has pushed him into spiraling
debt. Together with expenses caused by his brother’s thrombosis, he now
owes 30,000 pesos—about $600, or nearly three months’ pay. The lender
charges 10 percent per week, Efrain explains: “If you borrow 1,000
pesos, you have to give this person 100 pesos per week in interest.”
Yearly, that adds up to 520 percent interest.
More than two dozen cane workers told us their salaries are so low
that they’ve turned to money lenders in nearby towns. A municipal
firefighter who has a side business making loans to cane workers
explained that while Central Romana doesn’t operate the loan shark
rings, the company’s low wages leave workers desperate and willing to
pay exorbitant rates. One of the ILO’s elements of forced labor is
“fraudulent debt from which workers cannot escape.”
It’s a brutal cycle, Efrain tells us. The canecutters are in debt until they die.
Sugar is not the only thing that’s
made the Fanjuls so rich. Their profits are sweetened thanks to the
politics of the United States. Not only does Central Romana benefit from
a tariff program under which the Dominican Republic gets a greater
share than any other sugar-exporting nation—with the company filling
nearly two-thirds of that quota—but it also profits from a
congressionally authorized federal price-support program that inflates
the value of each pound by about 10 cents. Vincent Smith, an
agricultural economist and critic of the program, estimates the Fanjul
family is “getting at least $150 million a year” in net benefits from
the program, with another $25 million going to Central Romana’s imports.
“That’s a very substantial concentration of benefits on a very small
number of folks,” Smith says.
Some of that money goes back to seed the American political system.
Over the last 20 years, Big Sugar has spent more than $220 million on
campaign contributions and lobbying to sustain the price-supports and
oppose stricter dietary guidelines, with 40 percent of that, according
to OpenSecrets, coming from Fanjul-affiliated companies and lobbying
groups. Smith, citing Federal Election Commission data, points out that
the Fanjul empire and allied sugar organizations spend 10 million every
year on lobbying and campaign contributions. “They’re not doing this out
of the goodness of their hearts,” says Sheila Krumholz, OpenSecrets’
executive director. “It’s a very good investment.”
pagesix | Prince Andrew’s attorneys made the shocking claim that the woman
suing him for allegedly raping her when she was a teenager was actually a
sex trafficker tasked with procuring “slutty girls” for pedophile
Jeffrey Epstein.
In a section of the legal filing, Andrew, 61, alleged Giuffre, 38,
was “involved the willful recruitment and trafficking of young girls for
sexual abuse,” by the financier, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail before he could be tried for assaulting underaged girls.
“She was like the head b—h. She’d have like nine or 10 girls she used
to bring to him. She never looked like she was being held captive,”
Philip Guderyon, a former boyfriend of Giuffre’s, was quoted as saying
in the court document.
Crystal Figueroa, whose brother also dated Giuffre, said the accuser
asked her for help finding victims for Epstein, according to the court
filing.
“She [Giuffre] would say to me, ‘Do you know any girls who are kind of slutty?,’” lawyers alleged Figueroa said.
Giuffre has alleged she was recruited into Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation in 2000 by Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of procuring women and underage girls for the billionaire, and is awaiting trial in Manhattan federal court.
Giuffre claims Andrew sexually assaulted her three times — including once in Manhattan — at the behest of Epstein, charges the disgraced royal has denied.
The prince’s latest offensive accused her of fabricating the charges for a “payday,” while also referencing Giuffre’s 2009 agreement with Epstein, which lawyers said should block any legal action she could take against Andrew.
CNN | The American chief executive of Barclays(BCS), Jes Staley, is stepping down with immediate effect following an investigation by British regulators into his relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, the bank said on Monday.
The
investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of
England's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) was disclosed by
Barclays in early 2020 and focused on how Staley had characterized the
relationship to his employer.
Barclays
and Staley were made aware on Friday evening by the FCA and the PRA of
the preliminary conclusions of their investigation.
"In
view of those conclusions, and Mr Staley's intention to contest them,
the board [of Barclays] and Mr Staley have agreed that he will step down
from his role as group chief executive and as a director of Barclays,"
Barclays said in its statement on Monday.
"It
should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr Staley
saw, or was aware of, any of Mr Epstein's alleged crimes, which was the
central question underpinning Barclays' support for Mr Staley following
the arrest of Mr Epstein in the summer of 2019," the bank added, saying
it was not appropriate for it to comment further.
A
spokesperson for the FCA and PRA said the regulators "do not comment on
ongoing investigations or regulatory proceedings" beyond confirming the
actions detailed in the statement from Barclays.
Staley had been running Barclays since late 2015. Prior to that he worked for more than 30 years at JPMorgan(JPM),
where he served as head of its investment banking division. His
relationship with Epstein dated back to 2000, when he became head of
JPMorgan's private bank.
"He
was already a client. The relationship was maintained during my time at
JPMorgan, but as I left Morgan it tapered off quite significantly,"
Staley told reporters on a call in February 2020.
Asked then whether he regretted his relationship with Epstein, Staley
said: "Obviously I thought I knew him well and I didn't. And for sure
with hindsight of what we all know now I deeply regret having had any
relationship with Jeffrey Epstein."
Harpers | It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?”
And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific
personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may
be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from
City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll
never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated
intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor
tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of
success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or
social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and
what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a
code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing
game. Try it at the next big party you go to.
The saturnine man over there talking with a lovely French emigree is
already a Nazi. Mr. C is a brilliant and embittered intellectual. He was
a poor white-trash Southern boy, a scholarship student at two
universities where he took all the scholastic honors but was never
invited to join a fraternity. His brilliant gifts won for him
successively government positions, partnership in a prominent law firm,
and eventually a highly paid job as a Wall Street adviser. He has always
moved among important people and always been socially on the periphery.
His colleagues have admired his brains and exploited them, but they
have seldom invited him—or his wife—to dinner.
He is a snob, loathing his own snobbery. He despises the men about
him—he despises, for instance, Mr. B—because he knows that what he has
had to achieve by relentless work men like B have won by knowing the
right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even
more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he
hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father
for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him
of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because
the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological
insecurity.
Pity he has utterly erased from his nature, and joy he has never
known. He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an
eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him. Not to rule but to be
the secret ruler, pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains.
Already some of them are talking his language—though they have never
met him.
There he sits: he talks awkwardly rather than glibly; he is
courteous. He commands a distant and cold respect. But he is a very
dangerous man. Were he primitive and brutal he would be a criminal—a
murderer. But he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Nazi
regime. It would need men just like him—intellectual and ruthless. But
Mr. C is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy
hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly
brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated
into nihilism. He would laugh to see heads roll.
eand | Let
me pause for a moment. There are only really a handful of liberal
democracies on earth — and America and Britain are their chief
exemplars. What does liberal democracy mean? Broadly, it means that
public goods are to be privatized. Because nobody deserves anything from
the social surplus as an inherent, constitutional human right. They
might deserve the right to carry guns, sure — but a portion of the
social surplus, meaning healthcare, retirement, income, a place to live,
etcetera, as constitutional rights? Forget it. Everyone is to “stand on
their own two feet,” and not be a “liability.” Society is to be ruled
by competition, the more intense and brutal the better, which is the
machine that winnows the wheat — the talented, ruthless, cunning,
amoral, indifferent — from the chaff. Even the average person is better
off this way, because all those Nietzschean ubermen are the smartest and
cleverest and most productive, who lift up everyone’s living standards,
with wondrous “innovations” and ideas and creations.
Again,
take a moment to really understand the linkages in all those disparate
ideas. How they add up to a whole paradigm, a whole praxis, known as
“liberal democracy.” Why? Because…
We now understand that all that is false. If it were true, any of it, then American and British living standards wouldn’t be falling so catastrophically. They wouldn’t have been falling for decades now. They would have kept on rising. The
whole causal chain which liberal democracy’s Grand Experiment was based
on — individualism, greed, selfishness, hyper-competition, leading to
productivity and innovation, leading to rising living standards for all,
fuelling political stability and happiness and trust — we now know the whole theory is false.
Know. This isn’t politics anymore. Now we’re in the realm of knowledge, of facts, of empiricism. Politics
is about beliefs. I believe this form of political order works, because
it leads to eudaimonia. People have believed many such things — in
feudalism, theocracy, communism, fascism. Intelligent people, thoughtful
people — they know. Because there is something to
know. It’s not a political belief that feudalism or fascism don’t work
as forms of political order — it is a fact which we know, the lesson earned with blood and tears and tragedy.
And now we are learning the same thing about liberal democracy. We are beginning to know.
The answer to a very great question. The outcome of a Grand Experiment.
We are not in the realm of casual “politics” anymore, meaning political
beliefs. We are now in the realm of knowledge about political economies, which is a very different thing. Now we know that liberal democracy doesn’t work, either, right alongside fascism and communism.
Interestingly, we also know that liberal democracy appears to decay into fascism.
The widespread poverty and implosive living conditions it produces, in
the end, as the rich get richer, and the middle becomes an underclass,
ignite the atomic bomb of fascism right in the heart of a society.
jacobin | Unlike Steve Jobs, who embraced the counterculture and sought to
infuse the tech industry with some of its values, Thiel has long been
hostile to the Left and all its cultural offshoots. Like Noyce before
him, he believes that the Left’s influence slows technological progress
and sets humanity back.
Thiel has been described as a libertarian because he funded
initiatives like the Seasteading Institute for a time and has advocated
for deregulation and slashing government spending on welfare and social
programs. But he doesn’t just want a smaller state. He wants a
particular kind of state, one reminiscent of the early days of Silicon
Valley, when the tech industry and pro-capitalist governments
collaborated to exercise global hegemony.
Chafkin writes that, especially after 9/11, Thiel was “no longer much
of a libertarian, if he’d ever been one in the first place.” He’d
originally positioned PayPal as an anti-establishment innovation that
would give everyone their own Swiss bank account and “unilaterally strip
governments of the power to control their own money supplies.” But he
later complied with financial regulations and worked with the FBI to
find money launderers — the same people whom he had described as
personal Swiss bank account–holders. He benefited handsomely from the
collaboration.
As he became a more prominent right-wing political figure by backing
Trump, appearing at the 2019 National Conservatism conference, and
funding so-called right-wing populist
candidates like Josh Hawley and J.D. Vance, his companies also became
more closely entwined with the US government. Thiel had invested in
SpaceX and cofounded Palantir, two companies that rely heavily on
lucrative public contracts, and even went so far as to sue the US
government to gain access to them. Palantir, in particular, is a
data-mining company that works with both major corporations and the US
military and intelligence community.
In 2019, Thiel took to the pages of the New York Times to argue for tech companies to work more closely with the US military.
He criticized decades of US policy toward China and called out Google
for opening an AI lab in China as it canceled an AI contract with the
Pentagon — effectively accusing it of helping the enemy. In seeking to
stoke a Cold War nationalism centered around opposition to China,
Chafkin explains, Thiel wants “to bring the military-industrial complex
back to Silicon Valley, with his own companies at its very center.”
And he’s not the only tech executive who feels this way — just the
first to come out and say it, paving the way for the others. In February
2020 Eric Schmidt, whom Thiel once called “Google’s minister of
propaganda,” wrote his own Times
op-ed calling for the United States to take China’s technological
threat more seriously. “For the American model to win,” he wrote, “the
American government must lead.” A few months later, Zuckerberg positioned Facebook in opposition to China
in front of US lawmakers, while other companies, including Amazon and
Microsoft, have continued to fight for major contracts with the US
military.
Regardless of whether they identify as liberal or conservative, the
tech industry’s leaders are embracing the military-industrial complex.
Thiel is not an outlier; he’s just a few paces ahead.
realclearpolitics | Bill Maher argued against masks, vaccine mandates at work, firing people
with immunity, and more on Friday's edition of 'Real Time' on HBO.
Maher declared the pandemic was over and it is time for everyone to give
up and "resume living," telling viewers there will always be a variant.
"Just resume living," Maher said. "I know some people seem to not want
to give up on the wonderful pandemic, but you know what? It's over.
There's always going to be a variant. You shouldn't have to wear
masks... I haven't had a meeting with my staff since March of 2020.
Why?"
"Also, vaccines, masks. Pick one! You've got to pick. You can't make me
mask if I've had the vaccine," he said. "I saw it today, people outside
alone, walking with a mask. It's so stupid. It's an amulet. A charm
people wear to ward away evil spirits. It means nothing."
"Can't we get people to understand the facts more?" Maher asked.
Atlantic writer Caitlin Flanagan told Maher she has "broken up" with COVID and has had enough.
"I have broken up with COVID. It's not working for me anymore," she said.
"I can't keep up," Flanagan later said. "And you know what? I've had
cancer. I'm triple vax'd. If it gets me, fair play to it because it will
put up a fight against me. But I'm not staying in my house again."
Sen. Chris Coons (D-CT), Maher's other guest, argued pandemic mitigation
efforts are still needed because the entire world has not recovered.
"So in the United States, in most of the western world, we're ready to
be done with this, but we're not done until the world is safe and we're
not safe as a world until the world's vaccinated," Coons said.
"Except the world recognizes natural immunity, we don't," Maher
responded. "Because everything in this country has to go through the
pharmaceutical companies. Natural immunity is the best kind of immunity.
We shouldn't fire people who have natural immunity because they don’t
get the vaccine."
"If someone is willing to be a fireman, if someone is willing to be a
policeman, if someone is willing to go into a burning building and says,
'I'm just not that afraid of COVID and I don't want to take the
vaccine,' that should be enough," Flanagan said.
"You shouldn't be losing a job, you shouldn't be furloughed without pay,
the guy that saves lives because he doesn't want to take the vaccine.
It's ridiculous," she added.
"For unvaccinated hospitalization risk - unvaccinated. 41% of Democrats
thought it was over 50%... Hospitalization rate for the vaccinated is
actually 0.01% and the rate for the unvaccinated is 0.89%. So in both
cases, the correct answer is less than 1%. They thought it was over 50%.
How do people, especially of one party, get such a bad idea? Where did
that come from?" Maher asked.
strategic-culture | Even as scientific studies show that vaccines alone cannot extricate
humanity from the Covid-19 crisis, governments are rushing headlong
towards the creation of a ‘vaccinated economy’ without any consideration
for the consequences. It’s time for an injection of sanity and informed
democratic debate.
An astonishing thing happened this week that should have – were it
not for a media industrial complex that coddles and cossets the powers
that be – incited journalists to scream bloody murder around our
increasingly imprisoned planet. What the world got instead was the
deafening cacophony of crickets.
When a reporter asked New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern about
the possibility of the Pacific island nation being fragmented into two
distinct classes of citizens – the vaccinated and unvaccinated – Arden
didn’t miss a beat as she responded with her trademark Cheshire grin,
“That is what it is. So yep. Yep.”
After being further prodded by the deferential journalist as to why she favored apartheid, Ardern, who has already mandated vaccines for government employees or else,
responded, unscientifically, that “people who have been vaccinated will
want to know that they are around other vaccinated people; they’ll want
to know that they’re in a safe environment.”
Under normal conditions – that is, before scientific inquiry was sent
back kicking and screaming to the Dark Ages – Ardern’s outrageous
remark would have been greeted by robust and vigorous debate from both
the political and medical communities. After all, the vaccinated should
feel absolutely at ease mingling among the unvaccinated in stuffy public
places given that they are, supposedly, protected? Isn’t that the point
of the vaccines, to protect the vaccinated and get us back to some
semblance of ‘normal’? If not, then why the incessant push to jab every
single person on the planet, and not just once, as initially promised,
but multiple times? The answer, at least according to Queen Ardern, is
so that everyone can feel “confident” once again among their fellow man.
That makes absolutely zero sense, especially as new studies show no
discernible decrease in infection rates among the vaccinated. So why
hedge our bets when just the opposite seems to be happening?
The signals began ringing loudly in December 2020, when first covid
shots were administered, and quickly became deafening. They were that
loud, and the extraordinary magnitude of them has been and continues to
be ignored by our government at all levels in Washington DC, all levels!
Senators this week demonstrated that they could put the heat on,
witness AG Merrick Garland — when they want to take something seriously.
However, despite the Loudon rape fiascos, which senators used to slap
Garland around with, Garland the Magnificent remains in office. And his
order to FBI to treat parents complaining about public school
corruption remain “domestic terrorists” remains in place far as I know.
Save for Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, none of them have lifted a
finger, while thousands and tens of thousands dead, permanently
disabled, maimed, injured, blinded, cancers that were in remission came
back, ditto herpes, thousands of miscarriages and who knows how many
thousands of women now permanently sterilized? from these poisons sold
as preventive medicine. Among many, many other injuries. And hospitals
across the land fire skilled medical staff for saying anything about
this grotesque bestiality. These are not hospitals; they are charnel
houses!
What are these shots actually preventing, —- if 85% of those dead after covid shot got the disease anyways?
Below is data indicating how out of control the covid shot injuries
are, which also indicates the moral turpitude of Congress, Biden, and
his men [and Trump’s advocacy of “warp speed” vax], et al.
In the 11 months preceding covid shot rollout, Jan — Nov 2020,
34,701 adverse events reported to VAERS — for ALL vaccines combined.
In the 11 months since, Dec 2020 to Oct 2021,
622,743 adverse events for covid-only shots
Nearly 17 times more, or 1,685% more.
This is what vaccine failure looks like.
This is what government failure looks like.
Had the CDC and US Food and Drug Administration been serious about
adverse events and in particular, the percentage of those either having
covid or not, they would have done something to ensure that there would
be data on this, for each and every VAERS report submitted.
In particular, regarding VAERS reports in which death occurs after covid shots.
While 100% data on this may seem like pie in the sky, the least we
should expect is what Pfizer and Moderna claimed was 95% Vaccine
Effectiveness VE. Which as we now know was base, rank, propaganda and
deception, at best.
Irrespective of the fact that the actual VE of these poisons tends toward zero, one can at the very least expect that the percentage of VAERS reports
on who did and did not test positive for this disease should have at a minimum
been ~ 43%.
43% is the CDC estimated VE, from average of previous decade’s [through 2019/2020 flu season], of influenza shots.
Instead, only 16.42% is actually reported in VAERS data bank. That’s bad, that’s really unconscionably bad.
VAERS data shows that of all the after covid shot deaths,
2.54 % reported “SARS-COV-2 TEST NEGATIVE”
13.88% reported “SARS-COV-2 TEST POSITIVE”
Where are the other 83.58% ???
Thus, only 16.42% of this essential data is actually, as of Oct. 29 data, known via VAERS.
Assuming these proportions are at least in the ball park, this means
~85% of after covid shot deaths tested positive
~15% tested negative.
[13.88/16.42 = 84.531, or 85% rounding; 100-84.531 = ~15%]
8,086 deaths after covid shot reported to VAERS x 21X = ~165,000 actual deaths.
165,000 x 0.85 = ~144,211 died with positive test
165,000 x 0.15 = 21,631 died with negative test.
Total = ~ 165,842
Rose says that these deaths are caused by covid shots.
I have ordered tens of thousands of vaccines in my lifetime.
We have not had near the time or ability to completely assess this situation with the COVID vaccines. And certainly with what we know about the COVID vaccines now, there are really no big benefits for “public health” in general. There is enormous benefit for individual patients that are at high risk and I have spent inordinate amount of my time trying to convince these people to go for it.
In the vaccinated, it appears the contagion can be spread and caught likely just as easily as in the unvaccinated. Therefore, the risks and benefits are all on the individual side and not on the community side. This is completely different than in most of the childhood vaccines which lead us to sterilization and decreased spread to zero. Our COVID vaccines currently will be able to do no such thing. We can greatly impact high-risk individual lives with these vaccines and we should all be trying to do that – but impacting the course of spread in a vast population is much different with these COVID vaccines than say with measles. It is unfortunately simply not going to work that way until/if we get better vaccines.
If the COVID vaccines worked like the measles vaccine, we would not be having all the discussion about “protecting the vaccinated” would we? If they worked like they were early on promised, the vaccinated would not have to worry for a second about the unvaccinated. The consequences and problems would theoretically all be on the unvaccinated. We can behave that way with certainty with the measles and mumps vaccines with just microscopic levels of breakthrough. But the COVID vaccines offer no such protection. I applaud anyone who gets vaccinated – especially those in higher risk situations. I spend large amounts of my day every day doing just that. But given the way these were sold, and given what has occurred, I blame no one for being hesitant. It is my job to convince those high-risk to overcome their doubts. But demonizing anyone who has concerns and having them fired is just completely inappropriate.
I really do wish Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson and Chris Cuomo and even Dr. Wen and Dr. Fauci could spend just one day with me – and see what all the confusion and chaos has wrought in the minds and souls of my patients. I really do.
Public health has no business mandating these for individuals in this situation. Heart disease and strokes have killed more people than COVID this year – but you do not hear the public health authorities mandating that every adult take LIPITOR. Why not?
It is because coercion simply does not work in these situations. Coercion often severely coalesces resistance. Look around you. Much research has been done on this in the past. Just look at Dr. Fauci’s take on coercion and vaccine mandates from just last autumn before the vaccines arrived. What he said then and what he is saying now cannot both be true. (Of course when looking for that link, I was able to find 3 different contradictory things he has said about vaccines in the past year). There has been no sudden sea change in decades of public health research. And what he said last autumn had years of public health research and wisdom behind it. He appropriately exempted from his statement last year Health Care workers (and I would add the military) – which are not at all “the public” in public health.
topical-bible-studies | A study of the Greek words pharmakeia (Strong's 5331) and pharmakeus (Strong's 5332).
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance:
"5331. pharmakeia ... from 5332; medication ('pharmacy'), i.e. (by extension) magic (literal or figurative)."
"5332. pharmakeus ... from pharmakon, (a drug, i.e. spell-giving potion); a druggist ('pharmacist') or poisoner, i.e. (by extension) a magician."
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary:
"pharmaceutical ... from Greek pharmakeutikos ... a medicinal drug."
"pharmaco- ... Greek pharmako-, from pharmakon ... medicine : drug."
"pharmacology ... the science of drugs."
"pharmacy ... from Greek pharmakeia ... the
art or practice of preparing, preserving, compounding, and dispensing
drugs ... a place where medicines are compounded or dispensed ... DRUGSTORE."
The words in bold in the following verses, unless otherwise noted, are the King James Version translations of the Greek word pharmakeia, and represent every occurrence of pharmakeia in the New Testament.
Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft [RSV: sorcery], hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the
which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they
which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Revelation 9:20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these
plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should
not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone,
and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
Revelation 18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down
from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his
glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great
is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the
hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her
fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with
her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance
of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of
her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Revelation 18:21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great
millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall
that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at
all.
22 And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and
trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of
whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound
of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and
the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at
all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by
thy sorceries were all nations deceived.
The word in bold in the following verses is the King James Version translation of the Greek word pharmakeus, and represents the only occurrence of pharmakeus in the New Testament.
Revelation 21:7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers,
and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
unlimitedhangout | How did Moderna know that COVID-19 would create those conditions months
before anyone else, and why did they later claim that their vaccine
being tested in NIH trials was different than their commercial
candidate?
In late 2019, the biopharmaceutical company Moderna was facing a
series of challenges that not only threatened its ability to ever take a
product to market, and thus turn a profit, but its very existence as a
company. There were multiple warning signs that Moderna was essentially
another Theranos-style fraud, with many of these signs growing in
frequency and severity as the decade drew to a close. Part I of
this three-part series explored the disastrous circumstances in which
Moderna found itself at that time, with the company’s salvation hinging
on the hope of a divine miracle, a “Hail Mary” save of sorts, as stated
by one former Moderna employee.
While the COVID-19 crisis that emerged in the first part of 2020 can
hardly be described as an act of benevolent divine intervention for
most, it certainly can be seen that way from Moderna’s perspective. Key
issues for the company, including seemingly insurmountable regulatory
hurdles and its inability to advance beyond animal trials with its most
promising—and profitable—products, were conveniently wiped away, and not
a moment too soon. Since January 2020, the value of Moderna’s
stock—which had embarked on a steady decline since its IPO—grew from
$18.89 per share to its current value of $339.57 per share, thanks to
the success of its COVID-19 vaccine.
Yet, how exactly was Moderna’s “Hail Mary” moment realized, and what
were the forces and events that ensured it would make it through the
FDA’s emergency use authorization (EUA) process? In examining that
question, it becomes quickly apparent that Moderna’s journey of saving
grace involved much more than just cutting corners in animal and human
trials and federal regulations. Indeed, if we are to believe Moderna
executives, it involved supplying formulations for some trial studies
that were not the same as their COVID-19 vaccine commercial
candidate, despite the data resulting from the former being used to sell
Moderna’s vaccine to the public and federal health authorities. Such
data was also selectively released at times to align with preplanned
stock trades by Moderna executives, turning many of Moderna’s
highest-ranking employees into millionaires, and even billionaires,
while the COVID-19 crisis meant economic calamity for most Americans.
Not only that, but—as Part II of this three-part series will show,
Moderna and a handful of its collaborators at the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) seemed to know that Moderna’s miracle had arrived—well
before anyone else knew or could have known. Was it really a
coincidental mix of “foresight” and “serendipity” that led Moderna and
the NIH to plan to develop a COVID-19 vaccine days before the viral
sequence was even published and months before a vaccine was even
considered necessary for a still unknown disease? If so, why would
Moderna—a company clearly on the brink—throw everything into and gamble
the entire company on a vaccine project that had no demonstrated need at
the time?
phys.org | Researchers at MIT and Harvard University have designed a way to
selectively turn on gene therapies in target cells, including human
cells. Their technology can detect specific messenger RNA sequences in
cells, and that detection then triggers production of a specific protein
from a transgene, or artificial gene.
Because transgenes can have negative and even dangerous effects when expressed in the wrong cells,
the researchers wanted to find a way to reduce off-target effects from
gene therapies. One way of distinguishing different types of cells is by
reading the RNA sequences inside them, which differ from tissue to
tissue.
By finding a way to produce transgene only after "reading" specific
RNA sequences inside cells, the researchers developed a technology that
could fine-tune gene therapies
in applications ranging from regenerative medicine to cancer treatment.
For example, researchers could potentially create new therapies to
destroy tumors by designing their system to identify cancer cells and
produce a toxic protein just inside those cells, killing them in the
process.
"This brings new control circuitry to the emerging field of RNA
therapeutics, opening up the next generation of RNA therapeutics that
could be designed to only turn on in a cell-specific or tissue-specific
way," says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering
and Science in MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science
(IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering and the senior author of
the study.
This highly targeted approach, which is based on a genetic element
used by viruses to control gene translation in host cells, could help to
avoid some of the side effects of therapies that affect the entire
body, the researchers say.
Evan Zhao, a research fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically
Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and Angelo Mao, an MIT
postdoc and technology fellow at the Wyss Institute, are the lead
authors of the study, which appears today in Nature Biotechnology.
RNA detection
Messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules are sequences of RNA that encode the
instructions for building a particular protein. Several years ago,
Collins and his colleagues developed a way to use RNA detection as a
trigger to stimulate cells to produce a specific protein in bacterial
cells. This system works by introducing an RNA molecule called a
"toehold," which binds to the ribosome-binding site of an mRNA molecule
that codes for a specific protein. (The ribosome is where proteins are
assembled based on mRNA instructions.) This binding prevents the mRNA
from being translated into protein, because it can't attach to a
ribosome.
The RNA toehold also contains a sequence that can bind to a different
mRNA sequence that serves as a trigger. If this target mRNA sequence is
detected, the toehold releases its grip, and the mRNA that had been
blocked is translated into protein. This mRNA can encode any gene, such
as a fluorescent reporter molecule. That fluorescent signal gives
researchers a way to visualize whether the target mRNA sequence was
detected.
In the new study, the researchers set out to try to create a similar
system that could be used in eukaryotic (non-bacterial) cells, including
human cells.
dailymail | The White House coronavirus coordinator
said that Biden's December 8 vaccine deadline for government contractors
is 'not a cliff' at a press briefing on Wednesday.
Jeffrey
Zients said of the deadline, which is when Biden all federal
contractors have to be vaccinated by: 'Even once we hit those deadlines,
we expect federal agencies and contractors will follow their standard
HR processes and that, for any of the probably relatively small percent
of employees that are not in compliance, they'll go through education,
counseling, accommodations, and then enforcement.'
Federal workers should be vaccinated by a deadline of November 22.
The statement means that employers with more than 100 workers will not
have to fire unvaccinated employees in two month's time. Instead of
immediate lay-offs there will be time for education, counseling and
other measures before potentially ending employment.
Prior to the press briefing millions of
workers were left believing they'd be jobless come December 9 unless
they got a religious or medical exemption.
Zients added: 'These processes play out across weeks, not days.
'And
so, to be clear, we’re creating flexibility within the system. We’re
offering people multiple opportunities to get vaccinated. There is not a
cliff here.'
The coordinator was also
sure to note that the purpose of the deadline, 'most importantly, is to
get people vaccinated and protected, not to punish them'.
Southwest Airlines Chief Executive Gary
Kelly said last week: 'We want our employees to know that nobody is
going to lose their job on December 9 if we're not perfectly in
compliance... We're not going to fire anybody who doesn't get
vaccinated.'
Meanwhile, American
Airlines Chief Executive Doug Parker said he did not expect any
employees to leave as a result of the vaccine mandate.
A
group representing FedEx Corp, United Parcel Service Inc and other
cargo carriers told the White House last week it would be virtually
impossible to have 100 percent of their respective work forces
vaccinated by December 8.
His statements came after it was revealed that just 68 percent of the US military is vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Many
federal contractors have told employees that they risk losing their
jobs if they are not vaccinated by December 8. Raytheon Technologies'
Chief Executive Greg Hayes warned in a CNBC interview Tuesday the US
aerospace and defense firm will lose 'several thousand' employees who
refuse to take Covid-19 vaccines, as it prepares to meet the December 8
deadline.
On Wednesday Republican
Senator Roger Wicker urged Biden to abandon the plan completely and
said: 'We cannot afford to gut our transportation network of tens and
perhaps hundreds of thousands of essential, good-paying jobs.'
Nationwide,
about 191million Americans have been fully vaccinated - nearly 58
percent of the population, according to CDC data.
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