1679 Comments

This a fantastic and timely article. Heather MacDonald was talking about this exact topic well over a year ago, but she's a "conservative" so she got no play at all.

I work in the Bad Neighborhood and the lockdowns and masks have been devastating. I had two seniors, young women, who attempted suicide. But for early intervention they would have succeeded. No one cared - because COVID! Because they were unable to meet or socialize, so we could use two weeks (now over 600 days) to "flattenthecurve", they had all of their teen issues exacerbated and they were almost destroyed. I had another student get shot and killed. He would have graduated in June 2021, but no one cared, because of two things: he wasn't killed by a white male wearing a badge, and because COVID! I wrote about him here:

https://education-ny.blogspot.com/2021/05/no-protests-no-marches-no-grift.html

As NYC begins an insane round of vaccine segregation, the ripple effects will be terrible. If you were told for the last 2 years that the USA was a systemically racist, unconscionably corporate, bigoted hellhole since 1619, then told to get a Gov't and Big Pharma vaccine because, well, THIS time those selfsame institutions are suddenly looking out for your best interests - you'd be leery of the vaccine too. This is why we have around 39% of the African American population fully vaccinated. But NYC is seeing to it that the Black population will not be allowed to go into restaurants, clubs, museums, or any other establishment. This is only one aspect of the continued madness of this new Religion.

Not only is the cost benefit analysis not being recognized, the trampling of Civil Rights is afoot, because COVID! The silence of the ACLU is unbelievable. This new religion of COVID, seemingly spearheaded by outfits like the World Economic Forum and their "Great Reset", is going to have the effect that all of these globalist maneuvers will have: it will decimate, discriminate and destroy the people who can least afford it.

NYC has collapsed under its 'leadership' (I'm in NYC), and Greenwald's assessment is correct, timely, and deserves a wide audience. We need regular people to push back, because the Corporate Media / Government Complex isn't.

Expand full comment

I've been wondering how the woke cult is going to justify their support for vaccine segregation in light of it negatively impacting the black community. It shall be interesting.

Expand full comment

As long as the media is telling them only Conservatives are unvaccinated how would they know?

Expand full comment

Exactly. People outside the Left tend to overestimate the knowledge of the typical Leftist. There are a lot of things that we think everybody knows that these people have never heard before.

Expand full comment

That is because in the u.s. "Left" and "Right" are being manipulated and guided by "their" respective medias. First, the "Right" alienated the supposed "Left" by their 1980's/1990's/early 2000's agendas that started with anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-union, pro-prayer in schools, pro-racism (Willy Horton and "tough on crime"), pro-corporate, and then, after 9/11, moved on to pro-war/anti-Muslim. No distinctions were made between Neocon "Right" and Libertarian "Right". Now, in order to see a debate about some of the issues that mattered to the 1990's pre-9/11 "Left" (globalization and transgenic crops, and anti-interventionism, for example), you have to read Libertarian-oriented sites. On some issues, "Left" and "Right" have totally traded places. Bush and Obama functioned as sanitizers for certain agendas. People need to be able to think in terms of vision and issues rather than "Left" and "Right" if there is going to be any truth told.. Otherwise Fox and MSNBC (plus the gatekeepers) will always be there to think for you and implant your mind with their software (belief system).

Expand full comment

Exactly. They will simply pretend it isn’t happening.

Expand full comment

That 'let's pretend' strategy has been working really well for them for a long time.

Expand full comment

Key Point: The cult of the woke don't even consider black people to be People. The woke view black people as a means pump up their own egos as caregivers to the "helpless."

Expand full comment

This is obvious because they attack anybody who 'should' be Democrat as a traitor. Don't you know that if you don't vote for Biden, you ain't black?

Expand full comment

Exactly. I saw an headline recently calling Larry Elder, something to the effect of, a racist with a black face.

Expand full comment

First the Sec of State refused to put Larry Elder on the recall election. Larry sued and won.

Next LATimes published the "Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned" trash.

When this didn't work, now they brought out some ex-fiance of Larry to claim he abused her.....

Soon someone will claim Larry and Kavanaugh were gang raping them 35 years ago....

Expand full comment

Happily ignoring the fact their current Messiah - JFK

was a mafia-connected philanderer who had 10+ mistresses

or the other messiah Barry O

happily photographed laughing with known Anti-Semite and SPLC hate criminal Farrakhan.

The left is happy to ignore facts if it suits them

Expand full comment

I don't watch Fox but someone shared Tucker Carlson comedically destroy the LATimes last night which is a funny watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-U5AOyq9Kk

Expand full comment

Yes! That was it.

Expand full comment

Meanwhile, that same group complained their youth are disproportionately being put in jail all voted for the guy whose laws put minorities in jail in record numbers.

The reality is that the techbros who funded and control the media these days all said it better be Biden not Sanders and thats why we have Quid Pro Joe.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/03/02/nyt-big-tech-executives-tell-dems-anyone-but-sanders/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/technology/silicon-valley-bernie-sanders.html

Expand full comment

If you wanted to created a 'systemic racism' ticket, you'd start with a guy who's been writing racist laws for decades, and then you'd add in a corrupt DA who's been using those laws to lock up people -- even when she knows they are innocent.

Expand full comment

The NYT article quotes Keith Rabois, silicon valley investor....

Keith is ostensibly a Republican, per his donations:

https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=keith+rabois&sort=A&type=donors

And Keith's young boyfriend Jacob Helberg makes sure to do all the donations to DNC

https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=jacob+helberg&sort=A&type=donors

Keith works with Vinod Kholsa, another major DNC donor.

https://www.opensecrets.org/search?order=desc&q=vinod+khosla&sort=A&type=donors

So you see the NYT using a quasi-Republican who is really DNC to attack Trump and at the same time push Biden vs Sanders.

This is why we saw Sanders pushed out just like in 2016, even after he won the first 3 primaries.

Expand full comment

Not disagreeing. As for political donations specifically: most family office strategies are to donate to viable candidates on *all* sides if you wanna be a player (e.g. need political support).

The arrangement you use as evidence may not be the strongest evidence.

That is not to say anything about the validity of your point. I kind of got confused by the last sentence.

Expand full comment

They will just declare the black population as "mostly vaccinated" and it will be racist if they are required to prove otherwise.

Expand full comment

I'm not sure how they prove anything since black people don't have ID./sarc

Expand full comment

I don’t think so

Expand full comment

Well, it's racist if minority citizens have to show ID to vote, so it follows that it's racist if minority citizens have to show proof of vax. I'm just going by the program.

Expand full comment

Even better - they will claim that the reason blacks aren't getting vaccinated is because of white supremacy and whites preventing blacks from getting vaccinated lol

They will never acknowledge the fact that many populations including blacks, hispanics are very skeptical of the medical community due to past experiences.

Aba & Preach did a very good take down video of Philip DeFranco on this topic:

https://youtu.be/k6yHSIqsT9g

Expand full comment

Easy, they pretend the majority of unvaccinated are conservatives and Trumpers.

The left has a problem in that they simply ignore the minority communities until they can weaponize them, just like they do with violence. Minority on minority violence = no story for liberal media. White guy kills one minority (George Zimmerman is a great example) its the biggest news story for 2 years.

Expand full comment

Saw a study the other day that showed the vast majority of people with a PHD are not taking the Vaccine.

Expand full comment

That's so interesting. Can you attach the link?

Expand full comment

Use your favorite search engine and check it out. I did.

Expand full comment

Although you say you "saw" the study, you didn't read it carefully, and maybe you didn't see the actual study at all. You are wrong in saying the study claims "the vast majority of people with a PHD are not taking the vaccine". Instead, it said that 77% of people who say they have a PhD either have taken the vaccine or at least probably would take the vaccine if one was offered to them today. The remaining 23% of people who say they have a PhD have not taken the vaccine and either probably or definitely wouldn't take a vaccine if one was offered to them today. So, the vast majority of people with a PhD ARE willing to take the vaccine according to the study. But the study claims that PhDs are more likely than other education groups to be unwilling to take the vaccine, which is what came up in the headline of the MSN article. I see some reason to doubt the study's claims on that.

There are several flaws in the study. It's not peer-reviewed. Their sampling method isn't that great ("soft ask and low response rate"), and was limited to Facebook users. PhD holders who use Facebook and complete a survey there are probably less likely to take the vaccine than PhD holders in general. Perhaps the most important flaw is that there are reasons to doubt that respondents who claim to have a PhD really have one.

The study's authors note that they don't know if the survey was completed in good faith. And in fact they are pretty sure that some respondents who claimed to have doctorates do not. They say "those who selected self-described gender had a high frequency of uncommon responses [28.1% claimed to have a doctorate] suggesting the survey was not completed in good faith." The study's authors also note that their sample shows a higher percentage of people with PhDs than would be found in the general population of US adults. So it is likely that some respondents who don't want to take the vaccine are also falsely claiming to have PhDs, inflating the numbers. The authors say "Further investigation into hesitancy among those with a PhD is warranted."

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v2

Expand full comment

As of today, they don't seem to care. The COVID religion trumps everything, always, at all times. GG's number for the United States - people under 18, is true. None of it matters.

Expand full comment

For some extra fun, ask them why they insist the same people who can't be expected to carry a voter ID, are now expected to carry a vaccine passport.

Expand full comment

OMFG what a gem.

Demand identification proving they are the person on the vaccine card.

Expand full comment

Situation Update, Aug 30th, 2021 - US hospitals have become MURDER FACTORIES

https://www.brighteon.com/6bb1992e-3d3f-4d3e-8ccb-af64b8897ad1

\\][//

Expand full comment

Stay away from hospitals. Like roach motels, you check in but you don’t check out. The cure is worse than the disease.

Expand full comment

Being a good patient requires informed cooperation with the staff, not just passive submission to whatever they want to do to you. If you're unconscious, hope for the best. If you're conscious, everything they do to you is up to you. Ignorance is not bliss. You get one body, with no warranty. Learn to take care of it.

Expand full comment

Excellent advice. If a Doctor loses a patient, he always has more.

Expand full comment

And he gets paid either way.

Expand full comment

This isn't new with covid. Medical malfeasance has been a major cause of death for a long time. Covid has accelerated it, amped up by corrupt covernments pushing vaccines and patent medicines to incite fear and submission. But it is enabled by the propaganda media who studiously ignore the damage and support the government spin. We knew we couldn't trust government or media, but we're in big trouble if we can no longer trust doctors.

Expand full comment

60% of Those Older Than 50 Who Die From COVID Are Double Vaxxed

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

As of August 15, 2021, 68% of COVID patients admitted to hospital in the U.K. who were over the age of 50 had received one or two doses of COVID injections. By mid-August, 59% of serious cases in Israel were also among those who had received two COVID injections, mirroring U.K. data

Only in the 50 and younger category were a majority, 74%, of British COVID patients unvaccinated. Those claiming we’re in a pandemic of the unvaccinated fail to differentiate between age groups

The same applies to COVID deaths in the U.K. Unvaccinated make up the majority of deaths only in the under-50 age group. In the over-50 group, the clear majority, 70%, are either partially or fully “vaccinated”

We cannot rely on U.S. data to get a clear idea of how the COVID shots are working, as the CDC has chosen to only track breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization and/or death

Reanalysis of Pfizer’s, Moderna’s and Janssen’s COVID trial data using the proper endpoint show the shots are hurting the health of the population, and if mass vaccination continues we face “a looming vaccine-induced public health catastrophe”

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/08/30/fully-vaccinated-covid-deaths.aspx

NOTE:

As all of Dr Mercola articles; there are only 48 hours to read before deletion.

\\][//

Expand full comment

From Vaccinated to Unvaccinated: How People Can Wake Up

https://www.bitchute.com/video/wDeafUbHCmXc/

\\][//

Expand full comment

Cash, COVID, and cover-up, part 1: ​The questions we should have asked of Fauci about the origins of COVID-19

Less than two years ago, an outbreak of a new, flu-like virus that would eventually be known as COVID-19 began in Wuhan, China. Today, almost 5 million people globally have died from this pandemic, and we are no closer to understanding how it began. Well, that's not entirely true.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/cash-covid-and-coverup-part-1-the-questions-we-should-have-asked-of-fauci-about-the-origins-of-covid-19

\\][//

Expand full comment

THE TWO LEAD FDA VACCINE REVIEWERS ARE QUITTING

Gee, I wonder why?

Don’t worry, though. You can be confident this has nothing to do with political pressure to push boosters or vaccines for kids or the full “approval” that came last week.

Nothing to see here, folks!

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the-two-lead-fda-vaccine-reviewers?

\\][//

Expand full comment

CDC didn’t want you to see this data…

Posted by Kane on August 5, 2021 2:37 am

Internal CDC Documents

A graph, originally created by the New York Times, shows internal CDC documents acquired from the Washington Post of how infectious and lethal the delta variant is in comparison to other diseases.

You can find the graphs by clicking here:

https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/8a726408-07bd-46bd-a945-3af0ae2f3c37/note/57c98604-3b54-44f0-8b44-b148d8f75165.#page=1

Chairman Jeffery McKay with Fairfax County says he’s expecting an announcement in the near future regarding a mask mandate. “We in Fairfax County will follow, as we always have, CDC guidance and any direction from the governor,” said McKay. “And I would suspect that in the days and weeks ahead there may be more announcements about that.”

The CDC internal document data also shows the delta variant may be infectious for longer about 18 days compared to ancestral strains at 13 days, meaning quarantine periods could be longer.

https://citizenfreepress.com/column-1/heres-the-data-on-breakthrough-infections-the-cdc-didnt-want-you-to-see/

\\][//

Expand full comment

"

"but we're in big trouble if we can no longer trust doctors."--Mr. Watson

It depends on the doctors. There are doctors like Judy Mikovich, Doctror Mercola. or Dr. David Martin. Then there are the "insuranse doctors" like Kaiser Perm and other factory scale hospital businesses, who are as brainwashed as the prostitute "news people" on mainstream media...essentially zombie drones.

Just this morning I read a disinfo propaganda piece in Forbes denying that the Pfizer 'vaccine' contains Graphine Oxide,

However here is a study speaking to the 'Benefits' of nano partical (solgels) for such drugs:

Nanomedicine: A Diagnostic and Therapeutic Approach to COVID-19

"Nanoparticles can enhance drug-based therapies by optimizing uptake, stability, target cell-specific delivery, and magnetic properties. In fact, recent studies have highlighted the potential of nanoparticles in different aspects of the fight against SARS-CoV-2, such as enhancing biosensors and diagnostic tests, drug therapies, designing new delivery mechanisms, and optimizing vaccines. This article summarizes the ongoing research on diagnostic strategies, treatments, and vaccines for COVID-19, while emphasizing the potential of nanoparticle-based pharmaceuticals and vaccines."

--June 2021 study

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.648005/full

Graphene Oxide is one such nanoparticle that many scientific researchers have discovered in the mRNA solutuon called "vaccines".

It is a bloody madhouse of contradictions in the literature!

Some on this forum may hoop and hollar making fun of the title of this piece on my blog, but the title is an accurate description of the situation. And the information from dozens of sources depicts a horrific picture of what is happening:

https://thedissedent.page/2021/08/13/mad-scientist-rule-the-world/

\\][//

Expand full comment

As we know from history, the left always eats its own. If you are a good comrade they eat you last.

Expand full comment

" If you were told for the last 2 years that the USA was a systemically racist, unconscionably corporate, bigoted hellhole since 1619, then told to get a Gov't and Big Pharma vaccine because, well, THIS time those selfsame institutions are suddenly looking out for your best interests - you'd be leery of the vaccine too."

This line fantastically sums up the heavy bullshit the left has been serving in my lifetime. The same left that told us for decades "the man" was not to be trusted are now putting on their government jackboots because their party is in power. Its fucking horrific.

Expand full comment

The flower children have wilted

Expand full comment

And don’t forget that the earth is on fire

Expand full comment

Baby bath water out the widow you go BUH bye!!

Expand full comment

Bernadene, I do not have any children, I just argue with them on greenwald.substack.com

Expand full comment

Yeah I realized I need to not start doing that very thing. Carry on.

Expand full comment

lol

Expand full comment

That isn't the Left; it's Democrats. I know a lot of lefties who are HIGHLY

Expand full comment

It’s the left

Expand full comment

(ACCIDENTAL POST)...SCEPTICAL of the vaccines, and other elements of the Covid response, such as it is.

Look up RFK Jr. and "Children's Health Defender;" lefty environmentalists.

Expand full comment

In early 2020 I began writing about doubts. By mid-February I was buried in criticism for spreading misinformation by writing that every other corona virus was spread human to human, we should assume COVID19 was as well; that social distancing of two meters was based on 19th century research on bacteria, missing the fact that viruses were much smaller and lighter than bacteria, making the real distance eight meters. This continued for two years. I've been repeatedly banned.

The international picture is far worse than ours. Shutting down our food production, spreading panic world-wide, will have far more serious conseque4nes. There are few seaports that service Africa,, and as many as five or more borders must be transited before reaching some countries. The same applies to Central Asia. Mass starvation and food insecurity lasting generations will follow.

We are now divided between good vaccinated and bad unvaccinated people. One-size-fits-a;ll medicine is stupid. Good treatments are labeled dangerous misinformation and can't be used. Practicing physicians are ignored, while medical bureaucrats rule. This is insanty

Expand full comment

It’s amazing how questioning is now “misinformation”. As though skepticism were something other than the bedrock of the scientific method

Expand full comment

They always go after the truth tellers.

Expand full comment

I only wrote what I had learned in medical school in Germany in the 1980s, and from my brief work as a psychiatrist there before family needs caused me to return to the US. I then left medicine permanently and followed other careers. I did follow a few journals and read perhaps five or six peer-reviewed articles per month. We knew everything we needed to know to prevent a pandemic: protect the elderly and obese, practice good sanitation and put patients outdoors where there is nearly a zero chance of infection.

Leave everybody else alone until we know more.

Expand full comment

I like the way you think. My immediate family has a fair representation in the medical field. I mostly listen and learn.

Expand full comment

Yup, yup and yup!

Expand full comment

Greenwald's piece is welcome, but there is nothing "bizarre" about the way the governance structures are being globally reorganized, not when one looks at who and what institutions are involved in ushering in this new system of forced medical interventions, 360 degree biomedical surveillance, and other Orwellian wet dreams.

At this point, I wish people like Greenwald and Taibi would just go for the nuclear option and start reporting on Whitney Webb's work over at Unlimited Hangouts. The discrepancies, dissemination of contradictory information, and withholding of other vital information is not "bizarre" when we look at who is shaping these policies top down, and their intentions...

US Intel Agencies Played Unsettling Role in Classified and “9/11-like” Coronavirus Response Plan:

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/03/reports/us-intel-agencies-played-unsettling-role-in-classified-and-9-11-like-coronavirus-response-plan/

All Roads Lead to Dark Winter

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/04/investigative-series/all-roads-lead-to-dark-winter/

A “Leap” toward Humanity’s Destruction

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/06/investigative-reports/a-leap-toward-humanitys-destruction/

There is a recurring "transhumanist" ideology underlying all the radical overhauls in health policy, and the introduction of new technocratic forms of governance where elected officials become essentially superfluous, subordinated to the decrees of the scientific clergy, otherwise known as the "expert" class.

These new and weird technocratic forms of governance are being used to make "human engineering" and "transhumanist" policies the norm. Anyone who has a sense of the history of things like "transhumanism" (a word coined by the former director of the British Eugenics Society, Julian Huxley) can quickly recognize that transhumanism is simply a re-branding of the same old eugenics programs. The only difference is now, thanks to things like the "Human Genome Project," the "human engineering" enthusiasts believe they have all the data and statistical models needed to prove their ideas and make "the unthinkable once again thinkable."

https://off-guardian.org/2021/06/12/how-the-unthinkable-became-thinkable/

Today, people over at the World Economic Forum call it the "Fourth Industrial Revolution." It is a world in which as one of the WEF's high priests Yuval Hariri says, humans will no longer be struggling for survival, but "relevance," since machines are supposedly going to create a new "global useless class." Thus, so the thinking of the WEF's priesthood goes, we will need to find new ways of making ourselves relevant and enhance our capacities, including "merging with machines" and adopting "human engineering" to make ourselves more "efficient."

https://www.globalresearch.ca/escaping-brave-new-world-transhumanism-utopia-eugenics/5745624

It's time to say "Never Again."

Expand full comment

Spectacular comment and set of links from David Gosselin.

Bravo!!!

\\][//

Expand full comment

David Gosselin, you are invited!

IN CONTEXT

William Whitten

A FREE SOCIOPOLITICAL FORUM WELCOME

https://williamwhitten.substack.com/p/in-context/comments

\\][//

Expand full comment

I could only get through a few articles before too many "It's the Jews" references made me turn away.

Expand full comment

Can you tell us which article had the "It's the Jews" nonsense in it?

Be specific dear, point to the exact comments you refer to here.

\\][//

Expand full comment

"dear": a condescending word used by some males in giving directives to women when first meeting them.

Expand full comment

Piss off Rose.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Oh another 14 year old comment from Willie Boy!

Expand full comment

Yes. And Honey is used that way also.

Expand full comment

Yes you are correct. It is "patriarchal speak" and will infuriate any real feminist man or woman.

Expand full comment

It's up above, boy.

Expand full comment

I see Jennifer, so you didn't mean, "It's the Jews". You meant 'It's the Israelis.

That is a different kettle of fish, because the Jewish people in general do not have intelligence operatives, and state agendas in the same way that the Israeli state does.

The same confusion came about when certain researchers claimed and Israeli connetion in the 9/11 attacks. The researchers were accused of anti-Semitism.

I submit to you that it is not anti-Semitism to criticise the Israeli state. Even if Israel is a theocracy as some would charge, there is still the fact that the majority of the worlds Jewish population lives outside of Isreal.

BTW I do not think that Isreal was involve in the attacks on 9/11. but it is clear that they did have intelligence on the matter.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Just edit your lingo and use Zionists and Diaspora Jews.

Expand full comment

Hasn’t the media also been calling California gubernatorial candidate the “black face of white supremacy” ie throw everything at the guy because the establishment is genuinely scared?

You seem to be using the same kind of tactics.

Whitney Webb is one of the best and most honest journalists out there, shining a real bright light on the military, intelligence and surveillance state. And the other link was a podcast on eugenicist Julian Huxley and the history of Transhumanism, which everyone should know about since it’s the guiding philosophy for many Great Reset and surveillance state architects.

As William asked below, please show us all the “It’s the Jews” excerpts that everyone else missed.

You wouldn’t want people to think you’re just making it up to smear people.

Expand full comment

Ok, well, in this article she blames Isreal for hacking the elections because some technology used in our elections comes from Isreal, and Isreal has done some bad things, so.. Jews interferring in our elections.

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/07/investigative-series/how-government-and-media-are-prepping-america-for-a-failed-2020-election-2/

"With intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Israel not only crafting the narrative about 2020 foreign meddling, but also dominating these technologies and simulating their use to upend the coming election, it becomes crucial to consider the motivations behind this narrative and if these intelligence agencies have ulterior motives in promoting and simulating such outcomes that would effectively end American democracy and hand almost total power to the national security state."

And then she's all over spyware Toka and Pegasus, which are awful but she claims without evidence that they are a front for the Isrealli state. Maybe, but again it's more speculation due to a former politician having invested in the company. Again, this spyware is concerning, but she's getting all lizard people in her insistance of some global jewish cabal running it all. Doesn't she know every country has this stuff?

https://www.mintpressnews.com/pegasus-just-tip-israel-unit-8200-toka-spyware-whitney-webb/278042/

She also accuses Isreal of genocide.

https://israelgenocide.com/tag/whitney-webb/

I'm not establishment and I'm not scared, but rabid anti-semitism in an unfortunate aspect of the far left, and in my opinion, despite some otherwise fine reporting, Whitney Webb has bit the bug. I'm not trying to cancel or smear her, simply stated that she lost credibility with me when I looked into some of her writings.

Expand full comment

Just a few days ago James Lindsay at New Discourses had a strong post that vaccine passports are systemically racist in terms of Critical Race Theory. Negatively affect Blacks and are known to do so, intent does not matter. He opposed CRT and wants vax passport proponents called out for racism to make his point, but if you believe in CRT the point still stands

Expand full comment

I dare any of these "woke" leftists to go watch videos of Black Panthers Bobby Seale and Huey Newton talking about how racist gun control is.

Expand full comment

A Republican governor changed the gun laws for when Panthers began carrying guns. The NRA NEVER comes to the defense of black gun owners.

Expand full comment

Right on. Means they are afraid of blacks who are armed. Not whites so much or yellows or reads or blues or greens!

Expand full comment

It sure as shit does seem like everyone in power is scared of their opponent's constituents being armed.

Expand full comment

With good reason methinks.

Expand full comment

And yet those same gun lovers will act Ronnie Reagan farted perfume and pissed holy water, conveniently forgetting his own fascism because it didnt occur against them.

SMH

Fuck fuck fuck the NRA, I've said this since I first learned of them and their impotence.

Expand full comment

If not for NRA we wouldn't have any right to self defense at all. They're not perfect but you don't really want nice guys defending you. Ruthlessness wins political fights just like it wins gun fights.

Guns are another accurate comparison for Glenn's zero risk challenge. Just as the timid fear every virus, even though they have the innate capability to kill every covid germ they meet, so to do the timid fear every gun, even though it could save their life in the off chance they encounter violence. The dying thought of everyone shot by a criminal is probably "I shuda been armed..."

Successful people learn to use the tools available to them, including medicine, and transportation, and defense. Sometimes it works to let others handle it for them. Often that doesn't work.

Expand full comment

I roll with Gun Owners of America, they are no compromise and make no deals. No big overhead like the NRA. The NRA is well intended just not my type of grass roots activists.

Expand full comment

It's like picking a favorite player on a ball team. It's the team that gets the win. In this game, NRA gets the publicity, the MVP, so has most of the influence. Other players make a lot of contributions. Some of the more aggressive actions are happening in really tyrannical states like Cal and NY. Both have very active and effective state associations, deserving of support.

Expand full comment

yup

Expand full comment

"Both Republicans and Democrats in California supported increased gun control, as did the National Rifle Association of America. Governor Ronald Reagan, who was coincidentally present on the capitol lawn when the protesters arrived, later commented that he saw "no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons" and that guns were a "ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will." In a later press conference, Reagan added that the Mulford Act "would work no hardship on the honest citizen."

I remember when The Mulford Act was signed into law. My father laughed until he cried, then he cried some more.

Expand full comment

The irony being today's 'progressives' (who ostensibly support the Black Panthers being that they are minorities) have no desire to repeal a conservative, Republican-constructed and Reagan-signed bill that targeted those very same Panthers.

Keeping whitebread oppressive laws from the 1960's that were designed to keep minorities from being armed is totally OK in the progressive Mecca known as CA.

Expand full comment

This has nothing to do with race except to people to whom everything has to do with race. The government oppression were all suffering doesn't discriminate by race, age, sex or anything but power. The rulers and their cronies have one set of rules, and they use other rules to keep the rest of us docile and submissive. Those who try to insert extraneous issues are missing the point.

Expand full comment

Except race is used to divide and conquer

Expand full comment

Yes. Race is CONTENT and McLuhan has carefully instructed us to know that content is irrelevant. The MEDIUM is the MESSAGE. Now it is important to carefully discriminate those categories and to KNOW what the MESSAGE is. Think Trump. His administration was the MEDIUM. What was its MESSAGE? That is the question to ask and answer yet everyone continues to argue about CONTENT which is irrelevant.

Expand full comment

"CONTENT which is irrelevant."--Janet Abbot

You have a catch 22 deary. Your content that you just posted is irrelevant.

So this makes all the bullshit you say here irrelevant. Doesn't it?

\\][//

Expand full comment

Hmm, a male who rushes to address women condescendingly with terms like "deary" or "dear". I've pointed out before how condescending you're being, but it seems you're just starting to do it more with women.

Expand full comment

Yes Raaaandall,

And I have pointed out what a dick you are too.

I have only "done it" with women my whole life.

Are you a "switch hitter" Randy?

Eww caca!!

\\][//

Expand full comment

A lot of people prattle about race without saying why. Seems their only message is signaling their own perception of virtue. But what do race obsessives actually want, or do? Apparently just complaining about others is sufficient for them. Content is all that matters for most people, but for some it's sufficient just to prattle.

Trumps messages were clear to about half the country. Probably clear to the other half, too, they just didn't like it. Anybody doesn't understand the messages should ask. Communication is always a two way process. Many messages are sent, but just not received.

Expand full comment

The victim card is a big part of the race narrative, the question is who gets to play it, and how effective it is?

Expand full comment

The sad part is we've trained a couple generations to view themselves ax victims. That's a defeatist attitude that only works on other losers. We used to be more self confident. Maybe we will be again

Expand full comment

I agree. Sometime I hope all of this is a bad dream that we all wake up from one day and it’s gone. Maybe a trend that just goes away. Another part of me says it is the new normal and here to stay.

Expand full comment

Not likely in a civilization, an empire in the stage of disintegration.

Expand full comment

"Trumps messages were clear to about half the country"--Mr. Watson

And just what was tha message?

\\][//

Expand full comment

Contemplate Trump's MESSAGE for yourself.

Expand full comment

Who asked you Janet?

\\][//

Expand full comment

MAGA is the condensed message.

Expand full comment

Make America Great Again.

A splendid idea, one that still gathers adherents to the cause.

God Bless America.

\\][//

Expand full comment

McLuhan's "MESSAGE" is GROUND. It is invisible. But it is still there as the most important part of the MEDIUM.

Expand full comment

Make yourself invisible Janet. You need to be institutionalized. Seek help!

\\][//

Expand full comment

The final insult when someone has run out of anything of substance to reply. Typical of adolescent communication but you are no longer an adolescent from your pic honey. Try stupider people to fool. You know, the Biden way of doing things.

Expand full comment

MESSAGE: confidence; direct communication; saying what you mean and meaning what you say; assuming the risk in acting on your decisions; Saying what you think is the truth no matter how offensive it is to many others; avoiding the INSTITUTIONALIZED POLITICAL DISCOURSE!

Expand full comment

Funny how things change in a short decade: from DOJ investigating Pfizer, to DOJ soon being their enforcer: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-largest-health-care-fraud-settlement-its-history

Expand full comment

Women "attempt" suicide at higher rates because they aren't really trying to kill themselves; it's a cry for help. Men and boys actually commit much higher rates of suicide from mid teens to elderly because we don't allow men to cry for help.

Expand full comment

I believe someone like Glenn (with his vision, absolute intelligence and fantastic writing skills) would be needed to investigate the undeniable truth: N.Y. City and State absolutely, no question asked deserve what they have. Winston Churchill said "Every country has a government it deserves." Cannot be more true to N.Y. City and State. It would be great if Glenn wrote an analysis how a society like N.Y. is able to vote the two absolute worst governor and mayor into power; multiple times. All I can tell New Yorkers: "Enjoy them"

Expand full comment

Exactly to my point above, none of this is being discussed. It’s disgusting! Well said

Expand full comment

Certainly betrays disingenuous thinking

Expand full comment

WHERE THE HELL is the DEBATE over MANDATED VACCINES?!?!? Look at deBladio’s NYC wide mandate, now in Los Angeles and I’m sure it will be a domino effect, soon to arrive at your Blue State City. It’s is OUTRAGEOUS that ppl would be fired from their job for not taking the “SHOT” or denied a continued membership at their health facility, or access to restaurants, public events etc. WHY should ppl who ALREADY had Covid & have antibodies be mandated to take this shot?? WHY is no one discussing those who have compromised immune problems and were advised by their DOCTORS NOT TO TAKE THE SHOT not factored in?! WHY, now that we KNOW, the vaccinated are also still TRANSMITTING Covid and can get Covid again, aren’t we allowed to do the cost benefit analysis and decide for OURSELVES whether or not we want to reduce our own personal chance of “severe symptoms/hospitalization?!” VS the UNKNOWN LONGTERM health implications of this “shot” that has YUUUGE CONFLICTS OF INTEREST among those individuals and agencies which are behind its development ?! WHY hasn’t there been a VERY public debate regarding safe, effective, credible and known TREATMENTS?! WHY Aren’t we hearing anything about the actual debate that is occurring among world renowned neurologists and vaccine developers formerly with Pfizer and Merck and Gates foundation (Geert Vanden Bossche) and countless others about the risks of a mass vaccination rollout during a pandemic and the likelihood of breakout cases and the CREATION of more and more variants? WHY in the hell hasn’t that debate been occurring and why hasn’t it been covered main stream outlets? I am grateful for 20 Greenwald four this article regarding rational cost benefit analysis of policies regarding Covid. But, the giant elephant in the room is mandated vaccines, which is why you’re seeing millions and millions of people around the globe protesting yes. Where are the large protests here in the United States? Don’t people realize this it’s a scary slippery slope leading to authoritarian control? Have they forgotten Michael Chertoff and his airport scanners after 911 saying “they could milk those surveillance capabilities & policies” for years?? What the hell is wrong with people? They have succumbed to the fear mongering and lost all rational objective thought.

Expand full comment

What I don't understand is this -- isn't demanding proof of vaccination a violation of HIPPA rights? The right to privacy concerning our health history?

Expand full comment

It is. I am 100% certain of this as I had to undertake monthly DOJ compliance trainings in regards to HIPAA.

Expand full comment

Obviously it depends on the context. HIPAA rules don't apply to every employer. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/covered-entities/index.html

Expand full comment

Employers are not immune to lawsuits when negative results happen from the vacs the way the govt and Pfizer are exempt. Armstrong is financially supporting anyone who takes this to court.

Expand full comment

Why dont you enlighten us as to when you think HIPAA rules dont apply, with the link you cited?

Expand full comment

Yes, sir. You are an individual, and not a health care provider or one of the other covered entities listed in that link. As an individual being asked/required to show proof of vaccination, you cannot violate your own HIPAA rights (because you, as an individual, are not covered under HIPAA). An example of a HIPAA violation would be your health care provider providing that information to your employer without your consent.

Expand full comment

That is not an employer but you are correct in that case.

The main thing with HIPAA is that it applies to an employer’s request for health information from a covered entity.

So if you refuse to say whether you are vaccinated, and your employer requested that information from your insurance, it would be a violation.

Expand full comment

So, if my healthcare provider told a survey company that I take X drug and the survey company offered me $100 to take a drug survey, is that a violation?

Expand full comment

Demanding proof of vaccination is unconstitutional under the Forth, Fifth and Ninth Amendments.

\\][//

Expand full comment

What does the *Forth* amendment say? Fifth protects you in criminal cases. You can refuse, but not by citing the *Fifth.* The fourth pertains to governments, not businesses. The Supreme Court ruled in 1905 (Jacobson v. Massachusetts) that health departments had the right to require the smallpox vaccination and to require proof of vaccination. The ninth? Who knows.

Expand full comment

The Forth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things

>>Supreme Court rulings are like a yoyo, up and down loop't'loop. The PEOPLE dicide what the Constitution means by acceptance of draconian laws or dissent against such laws<<

The Fifth Amendment

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

>>This amendment applies because one need not reveal ones status one way or the other to authiorities on any subject.<<

The Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

>>It is obvious that the Ninth covers all instances that the citizen sees as his.hers inherent right.<<

What is at stake when accepting an injection of these unknown solutions?

The evidence is clear that the mainstream is lying about the after effects of these injections even in the short term. And many virologists have been warning that the long term effects are likely devistating.

Inform yourselves. do not walk blindly into the abyss.

\\][//

Expand full comment

It's always interesting that constitutional questions decided in the courts are always split decisions. Rights, and truth, are never absolute, but subjected to the whims of the majority. Wins come from winning the majority.

Expand full comment

Rights, and truth, are ALWAYS absolute. Truth is not decided by a vote. Truth is decided by the facts that prove it.

\\][//

Expand full comment

You should see his opinions about physics. Or not...

Expand full comment

I will eventually. Or not. : D

Expand full comment

He's busy linking Newton's laws to the Constitution. Basically proving something important. The atlas shrugged will be no more.

Expand full comment

You know Watson, you are starting to stand in for Randy Rose as a total prick who has to stalk my every comment and make some derogatory remark.

And like Rose, your slanderous comments are always based in your own ignorance.

\\][//

Expand full comment

"stalk my every comment" - it was not your comment, dimwit.

Expand full comment

You shouldn't have any problem rebutting them, then. All we hear is emotional rants. Just trying to help.

Expand full comment

They are not MY ideas about physics Watson. They are Sir Isaac Newton's ideas on physics.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Maybe you should start directing your comments Holmes way instead, Witless.

Expand full comment

Yes. Go listen to the Canadian lawyer on this for Canada Law.

Expand full comment

No. It is worth noting that HIPAA only applies to HIPAA-covered entities, business associates of HIPAA-covered entities, and subcontractors of business associates. There are no restrictions on disclosures of information about the 2019 Novel Coronavirus and COVID-19 by other entities; however, while HIPAA may not apply, other federal and state laws may do.

Expand full comment

The answer to all of JT's questions is "fear." The country is driven by hysteria, incited by corrupt media, orchestrated by tyrants, enabled by ignorance.

Expand full comment

Social media has greatly undermined our ability in public discourse to conduct careful analysis based on reason and replaced it mainly with triggered emotionalism. The Histrionic States of America.

Expand full comment

The corruption of the media has been greatly hastened by their early adoption of social media. They were formerly modestly biased, then they became bubble-ensconced emotionally triggered sycophants unable to restrain their histrionics.

Remember, it's well known that the entire "machine learning" of the AI algos driving social media engagement is how to trigger your brain chemistry to stay "engaged" in the content. The way to do this is to trigger your heavily emotionally invested reactions, which keeps you engaged but undermines your ability to reason.

Expand full comment

And it drives the "fear" you correctly cite. I'm just trying to explain it.

Expand full comment

Already explained. Virilio: The Original Accident ; The Information Bomb ; The Administration of Fear. Consider yourself validated by the finest mind of our time.

Expand full comment

Yes Exactly what Virilio means. How to do feel validated by the finest mind since Einstein (influencedc by him) in our time? Congratulate yourself.

Expand full comment

Do you blame them? They had to adapt or die. If the mainstream media hadn't jumped on social media they would all be dead.

Expand full comment

The Media for the Masses is a HATE MACHINE.

Expand full comment

Aw that is just content Janet. Only the medium matters.

REMEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

\\][//

Expand full comment

Carlin's synopsis on this is spot-on.

You can't blame the media for being these whores. They are the literal nexus of all the lies, advertising, politics, money, etc.

It seems you cannot implement honesty into this system it will throw it all out of whack.

Expand full comment

Virilio discusses this. The Covid fear hysteria was a spontaneous hysterical emotional reaction WORLD WIDE and instantaneous for THE FIRST TIME IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE. It resulted in the perception of GLOBALIZATION a phenomenon when everyone experienced it at the same moment in time while sitting still - experiencing inertia - and SPEED traveled at the speed of light throughout the entire world. This perception means that PROGRESS is over and the younger generation cannot ever expect to travel beyond any boundaries. THE PLANET IS NOW PERCEIVED AS TOO SMALL FOR US!

Expand full comment

There is now an incredible amount of data from scientists and virologists that the mRNA solution in these shots are NOT vaccines. And that these mRNA solutions are in fact extrememly toxic and that the long term damage to those who have taken these shots are more than likely going to see huge portions of the world population dying and having permenently damged heath consequences to those who survive.

See:

THE ILLUSION OF KNOWLEDGE - LECTURE BY DR. DAVID MARTIN

https://www.bitchute.com/video/4N4aFmQ8DfpT/

Also:

The Fauci/COVID-19 Dossier

This document is prepared for humanity by Dr. David E. Martin.

The PDF is available for free on the Internet.

\\][//

Expand full comment

William Whitten is the top commenter on this Substack by any measure, as long as quality is not considered. He believes in Pizzagate, he believes that the World Trade Center towers fell not because of planes crashing into them but because of planted explosives, he believes in the McMartin preschool was a site for mass child abuse (by celebrities, in "tunnels leading from the school to undergraound chambers"). He believes almost the full catalogue of nuttiness. He writes "This information is of such critical importance that EVERYONE needs to know it. Mad Scientists Run the World!!!" Whenever he posts in support of a theory, the odds are good that he's telling falsehoods. And he posts over 100 comments on each of Greenwald's Substack articles; he posted over 350 on Greenwald's most recent article alone.

Expand full comment

Slight correction, Randall:

He believes the McMartin preschool (as part of a worldwide Satanic conspiracy cult) was a site for mass child abuse (by celebrities, where the main defendant, Ray Buckey, flushed kids down toilets to transport them to "secret tunnels leading from the school to underground chambers."

(you can't make this shit up)

Expand full comment

Wait, it can't be *impossible* to make this shit up. (I was tempted to mention how he claims he has credentials from working in the Makeup Department, but that feels unfair to him.)

Expand full comment

Actually Rose, I worked in Special Effects Make-up on films like The Thing and Aliens, as well as Terminator (1) Ghost Busters and others.

The work is generally scupting and making prosthetics, masks and monster costumes as well as animatronic creatures , like the Spiderhead scene in The Thing, which I designed, and sculpted. along with the heads that came off of the body during the "heart attack sequence.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Great work! The Thing is a classic.

Expand full comment

Rose, I did not bring up the issue of 9/11 on this thread. One of your funny boys brought it up, saying that he saw a substack of mine on the 9/11 conspiracy. The the rest of the twirly birds went spinning off in that direction.

In fact this very thread is one of those with you bringing up 9/11.

But I will tell you this, I don't care if you bring in the whole Tabernacle Choir singing 'William Comments Too Much This I Know Because The Bible Tells Me So",

It won't make a bit of difference to me.

I spread information that I think is important. If you don't think it is important, fine. But making this Grand Brouhaha over it is preposterous.

\\][//

Expand full comment

I've done nothing to "bring in" anyone. What makes you think that the people who are pointing things out to you are "funny boys" or "twirly birds"?

Expand full comment

Look Rose, this constant badgering by you and your funny boys and twirly birds is the reason I characterize your blabbering bullshit as I do.

Every fucking thread you charge in with your blithering accusations about how many comments I make, how I don't make the right sort of comments. Compaining about "conspiracy theories" and whatever gripe du jour you have stuffed in your panties.

If this sort of nonsense is not obsessing then the word has no meaning.

It makes one wonder what sort of bullshit you pull in real life, when you have to interact with people in person. I bet you always pick out some 'whipping boy' in any situation with other people around.

.

Who is it in your own family? Your Wife? A dissapointing son or daughter? Maybe you kick the dog when there are no people around.

You obvioulsy have a lot of pent up angst in your life.

Maybe the Covod lockdowns got to you, who knows what triggered it. Or maybe you have just been an asshole your whole life. A natural born prick. Aye?

\\][//

Expand full comment

I don't like that you're calling people funny boys and twirly birds. You were using needlessly insulting language toward people before anyone was criticizing the high volume of your comments.

In "real life, when you have to interact with people in person..." -- your style of interaction would be disliked. I recommend that you improve it and be less insulting.

Expand full comment

Someone is infatuated with Willy. Admit it, Randall. No one that is not obsessed would keep these statistics. Do you have a William Whitten shrine in your house? I've seen lots of cop shows featuring people who behave like you do.

Expand full comment

Unlike you, I don't think anyone here is either infatuated or obsessed with "Willy". The high volume of Whitten's posts, and their low quality-to-quantity ratio, has been pointed out by others; evidently his efforts to make himself conspicuous have made this a matter of shared concern. Since noticing the quantity of his posts takes less than five seconds (less time than you spend defending him), it's hardly a sign of infatuation.

Expand full comment

According to IMDB, "Willie" hasn't worked in a while, or at least received credit for it. It makes sense. Because unless you can stick "Willie" in a room by himself, from 10pm-6am, who the hell would want to work with him?

Expand full comment

Shit he can do should no longer be in demand. Willie only progressed, according to him, to acquire photoshop expertise which is not much nowadays. So he decided to become a 20th century high-rise building expert instead.

And a first-class whiner. He barged in this blog, started harassment game (hell, even managed to displace Timmy as far as being a plug in every hole - and that's saying a lot) and then started crying when he got a significant pushback.

How about starting to behave for a change, William Whitten?

Expand full comment

Admittedly, I read Mr. Whitten's posts and generally agree with him; but only Randall Rose has decided it is important to document how many times he has commented on Glenn's site. I still think it is a sign of forbidden love.

Expand full comment

," has been pointed out by others"--Rose

Yea, like your two yapping puppies Phil and russian_bot And this new twerp, redge1657. What a crew you four make. Hyperventilating over the amount of comments I make and getting wet panties squeeling in the corners together like teen aged girls.

Hell for all we know they just might be teenaged girls,

I don't know why you bother with this cheesy bullshit. But it is not my problem, you need to work that out in therapy with a trained professional.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Hey, Wonka. I know you've proved beyond all reasonable (your) doubt that WTC fell because of govt blowing it up, literally. But I never read your musings, sorry, proof, as to how was the preparation done.

Were there gray-suited men with backpacks coming up and down the stairs there placing charges at odd hours of the night? Where did they place them? Over what period? What kind of explosives? Who was in charge?

Have they all committed suicide (wink,wink)?

Etc. Willie - go!

Expand full comment

"But it is not my problem"

Quite a few people, not just those you mentioned, have already pointed out what your problem is. I hope you put effort into making positive contributions, not just posting about World Trade Center sabotage stories and similar nutty conspiracy theories.

Expand full comment

You possess the self-awareness of a belt sander, William.

Having seen the painfully low volume of commenters on your BLOG (nobody reads it because it's the same unhinged, recycled nuthouse bilge; i.e. it blows ass) you seek and obtain the attention you crave by ruining GG's blog through incessant spam bombing.

And your "victim" routine here is even more pathetic than your BLOG, which is quite an accomplishment.

Congratulations!

Expand full comment

Black’s Law Dictionary defines a conspiracy in US law as:

A combination or confederacy between two or more persons formed for the purpose of committing, by their joint efforts, some unlawful or criminal act, or some act which is innocent in itself, but becomes unlawful when done by the concerted action of the conspirators, or for the purpose of using criminal or unlawful means to the commission of an act not in itself unlawful.

\\][//

Expand full comment

n the beginning, I enjoyed Bill's McMartin moral panic blast from the past (along with Phil's always entertaining mocking) as much anyone and believe me, I still read "Michelle Remembers" for entertainment, but at some point Bill started using derogatory language towards the female posters on this board and I did not find that entertaining at all.

I think a lot of us decided it was all too toxic and simply stopped posting here. I don't want to insult Will and his sidekick Charles Clemens since they both appear to be mentally imbalanced and I have no wish to push either of them over the edge, but it frankly became a lot less fun sharing ideas without their constant idiotic conspiracy theory intrusions into the conversation.

This appears to be an entirely unmoderated forum. Until that changes, I suspect many of us will simply stay away.

Good luck

Expand full comment

There are still reasonable people here (too many to name), but overall you're right that the quality of the comments forum has gone down in recent months. I would no longer say as I did in June that this is an above-average forum for comments; it's basically just average now (though Greenwald's Rumble is far worse). I've noticed that others besides you have moved away from commenting on this Substack, and I'm not sure whether people have actually stopped reading Greenwald (though I guess some must have).

I don't think this is an entirely unmoderated forum. People are banned occasionally, either by Greenwald or by Substack. But I think you're right if you meant that there isn't an official moderator (like there was at the Intercept) looking over all the posts and deciding who and what to ban. This has pros and cons, and at the Intercept I thought they sometimes removed posts due to simple misunderstanding. I haven't forgotten that Greenwald was basically the one who framed the architecture for the comments system at the Intercept -- and still it ended up not fulfilling some of his goals. Designing a comments section is hard, and I hope some day we will find a better architecture than totaling likes (even though the post of mine you replied to got liked by quite a few). Obviously, a comment section that was solely dominated by the kind of post that gets a "Liked by Glenn Greenwald" would be terrible too.

A lot of it comes down to Greenwald's choices. His goals of civil liberties and reasonable argument are sometimes undermined by his anti-liberal emotions. I think he somewhat overestimates how much he's stirring up and appealing to a devotion by his audience to civil liberties and reasonable argument. He doesn't entirely see that a lot of his audience is pretty much just there to get their anti-left, anti-liberal, anti-MSM biases reinforced, and he doesn't see how much he's contributing to that by his choice of what to omit and what to place emotional emphasis on. In effect, he is largely relying on connecting with his audience through this sort of emotional partisan loyalty and prettifying it with talk of civil liberties and rationality which, for a significant part of his audience, is just something to pay lip service to. That is the main reason why he attracts an audience much of which is into nutty conspiracy theories and a desire to violently overthrow their political opponents. And the conspiracy-theory stuff is even worse than it appears. Greenwald has not fully appreciated that those of his followers who lack a genuine liking for free reasonable debate are hardly going to be capable of making a positive change in government, and any influence they have on the kind of regime America has will only be in a more oppressive direction. I would like to see Greenwald distance himself more from the Trumpian idea of "Deep State" (Trump and Trumpians define the deep state simply as anyone in government who gets in Trump's way), and return to fighting oppressive forces in general.

Expand full comment

Aw, it is such a shame Raaaahhndall that one of your puppies got sick and is going back to the kennel....

I am sure that certain members will miss his inane blabber and foolish tomfoolery. I know you will.

Hahahahahaha!!!!!!!

\\][//

Expand full comment

Find a hobby involving arts and crafts. You're an artist, right? Take up Bonsai. Do volunteer work - ANYTHING other than this. You spend an inordinate amount of time and energy being this cartoon super villain, and it's not healthy.

I really do hope that you get the professional help that you so desperately need, William - preferably before you do harm to yourself, or others. In the meantime go ruin your own BLOG, not this one.

Expand full comment

But I'm not going anywhere Willie. Your David Brent-like performance here is ultimately entertaining. The lack of self-awareness can only be equaled by that character.

"If You Don't Know Me By Now" says Willie (via David Brent, courtesy of Juxtaposition Records) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riOZoc8vyFQ

Expand full comment

Phil says that Whitten's "spam bombing" is the reason why Phil is unsubscribing from this Substack, and Whitten replies "Hahahahahaha!!!!!!!" I guess that's one more proof that William Whitten is the top commenter here --in a situation like this, his reaction is to string together a longer series of "ha"s and exclamation points than anyone else would. Whitten rules!

Of course, he also writes more comments than anyone else, at least 100 on this page alone, though the quality of his posts is lacking. One of his posts opens with the sentence "Look assbite." One might wonder what the best reply is to someone who says "Look assbite." Perhaps it's not something I could say.

But this isn't just about him addressing one person such as me. He addresses a lot of us in pretty much the same way. Whitten believes that this is an unmoderated forum, and I think by now a lot of us know exactly how he would want to use an unmoderated forum.

I've repeatedly defended Whitten before when people were talking about banning him. The most recent time I stuck up for him on that was last week. Now I've shifted to being neutral on whether he should be banned. These decisions aren't mine to make, and I'm just one person who should have no more power than anyone else in this forum. But Whitten will have one fewer defender on the banning issue from now on.

For now, I'm going to take a break from posting for a little bit, and I may come to a decision about whether I want to keep engaging him.

But if I don't speak to Whitten again, there's one more thing that I think I can say considerately and nicely. Donald Trump has gotten the Covid vaccine, and Whitten can choose whether to do the same. Putting aside what my own decision is, I think Whitten will be happier in the long run if he chooses to do what Trump did. It might matter more than what happens in this forum.

Expand full comment

You seem to suggest Greenwald *calculates* what to write about basing his decisions, at least in part, on what type of reader/commenter he wants to bring in. While he might keep it in mind I don't think he ultimately gives a damn and so he simply writes what he wants.

That it ends up bringing the Willie's type of commenter, well, that may be unfortunate but it's a fact. Whatever the link is and how it came about and why it is sustained should not be Greenwald's concern.

That is, he shouldn't be moderating himself. But he might want to moderate the forum to weed out some obvious spammers.

Expand full comment

"That is the main reason why he attracts an audience much of which is into nutty conspiracy theories and a desire to violently overthrow their political opponents. And the conspiracy-theory stuff is even worse than it appears."--Randall Rose

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”― H.L. Mencken

It seems that Mr. Rose must have missed this article by Glenn Greenwald:

Questions About the FBI's Role in 1/6 Are Mocked Because the FBI Shapes Liberal Corporate Media

The FBI has been manufacturing and directing terror plots and criminal rings for decades. But now, reverence for security state agencies reigns.

--Glenn Greenwald

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/questions-about-the-fbis-role-in

Mr. Rose's summation:

"I would like to see Greenwald distance himself more from the Trumpian idea of "Deep State" (Trump and Trumpians define the deep state simply as anyone in government who gets in Trump's way), and return to fighting oppressive forces in general."

Former Press Secretary Bill Moyers hosted this article as part of his PBS series on the Deep State

Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State

February 21, 2014

by Mike Lofgren

https://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

While Mr. Rose attempts to present himself as a sober, rational realist, he instead reveals himself to be a rather naive personality that tends towards an acceptance of 'The Official Narrative' that is unwarranted in the light of history.

It is this perspective that Mr. Rose brings to this forum. As it is his right to have this opinion, I would have no objection to it, but for the fact of his personal attacks on myself that have been ongoing on these forums sense we first encountered one another.

His complaints seem centered on the number of comments I make here. But lately his diatribes have escalated to the point of trying to frame me as a 'violent extremist' who wishes to overthrow the constitutionally elected government of the United States.

He makes these spurious charges based upon a single comment I made saying that I think that Biden should be removed from office by any means necessary. It is an opinion that I expessed after saying I thought that Biden should be impeached and courtmartialed for malfeasance of his duties and president and commander and chief.

Rose then needled me saying that my first opinion of impeachment and courtmartial were not sincere, and he insisted that what I really want is a violent revolution to take place in America. These accusations by Mr. Rose are not only false, but they are delusional and predicated on his pathological hatred of myself and those who support former President Trump.

Mr. Rose has taken every oportunity to attack me on almost any topic I comment on.

I have appealed to his sense of porportion, I have asked him to simply stop stalking me throughout these forums. All to no avail. And then he has the temerity to claim that I have insulted him by my use of "obscene" language, as though his constant slanders against me are not in fact far greater insults of substance, than any calling of names can possibly be.

This dispute will only end, when Mr. Rose can begin to consort himslef in a reasonable manner and put an end to his constant harangue of yours truly.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Your pontificating has become boring.

Expand full comment

"This dispute will only end, when Mr. Rose can begin to consort(?) himslef(sic) in a reasonable manner and put an end to his constant harangue(?) of yours truly."

The Ginko Biloba not kicked in yet, Charles?

Expand full comment

I'm outta here. Keep up the good fight, RR! See you on the other side.

Expand full comment

"I still read "Michelle Remembers"--Areslent

RAINN Statistics

Every 68 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted. And every 9 minutes, that victim is a child.

https://www.rainn.org/

\\][//

Expand full comment

Areslent,

Name the female posters yiou claim I used derogatory language towards.

I can name one, Amy, who also used derogatory language towards me. I did cuss at Amy once, but then deleted that comment after settling down.

I also said that I think that Janei Abby is as crazy as a shit-house rat. And I still think that. (Sorry Janet)

You say, "I think a lot of us decided it was all too toxic and simply stopped posting here"

You can speak for yourself, that is fine, but it is unstubstantiated hyperbole to assert what you just have.

Yes it seems to be an unmoderated forum. And perhaps it is best that those who fear and are intimidated by free speech should avoid being insulted by views and language that upsets them.

I suppose, you never appreciated George Carlin, or the great leap he helped bring to the right to free speech with hiis 7 Dirty words skit.

The seven dirty words are seven English-language curse words that American comedian George Carlin first listed in his 1972 "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" monologue. The words, in the order Carlin listed them, are: "shit", "piss", "fuck", "cunt", "cocksucker", "motherfucker", and "tits".

How George Carlin’s ‘Seven Words’ Changed Legal History

The comedian’s routine led to a Supreme Court ruling and raised questions about censorship that remain unresolved.

"On May 27, 1972, comedian George Carlin took the stage at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Southern California for what would become a seminal moment in broadcast history.

Recording material for a new album, Class Clown, he debuted a monologue called "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." Rattled off to hearty laughter and applause, the words were: s**t, p**s, f**k, c**t, c********r, m**********r, and t**s.

The bit was meant to highlight the absurdity of signaling a few words out of the roughly 400,000 in the English language that would somehow corrupt our souls by repeating them for public consumption, and Carlin effectively made his point with silly voices and simple logic.

But the funnyman knew he was treading in dangerous territory: He had been with Lenny Bruce a decade earlier when his mentor was arrested in Chicago for saying at least two of those forbidden words during a show.

Sure enough, Carlin met the same fate in Milwaukee a few months after debuting his "Seven Words." His arrest was eventually thrown out, but the bigger battle was just beginning.

At around 2:00 p.m. on October 30, 1973, East Coast station WBAI-FM warned it was about to air a recording with potentially offensive language and proceeded to play an offshoot of Carlin's routine, this one titled "Filthy Words."

CBS executive John Douglas, a member of a watchdog group called Morality in Media, listened to the broadcast alongside his 15-year-old son as they drove home. Appalled, he filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission a few weeks later over the language aired in the middle of the day.

In February 1975, the FCC issued a declaratory order that determined the broadcast to be "indecent" and threatened to impose sanctions on the Pacifica Foundation, who owned WBAI, over any subsequent complaints. Pacifica challenged this finding in court, and in 1977 the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the broadcast entity by a 2-1 margin, sending the case all the way up to the Supreme Court.

On July 3, 1978, the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, upholding the FCC's power to determine language guidelines and limitations by a 5-4 margin. Penning the majority decision, Justice John Paul Stevens cited the need for such regulation due to broadcast media's "uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans."

But Justice William Brennan slammed the "misapplication of fundamental First Amendment principles," in his dissent, writing, "The Court's decision may be seen for what, in the broader perspective, it really is: another of the dominant culture's inevitable efforts to force those groups who do not share its mores to conform to its way of thinking, acting, and speaking."

The legal issue of ‘indecency’ returned to courts years later

After the turn of the century, the issue returned to the forefront amid a changing media landscape. Along with the increasing popularity of cable television, the proliferation of the internet, with its burgeoning social media platforms, introduced new avenues for off-color language (and other content) to reach audiences.

But it was traditional broadcast media that found itself in hot water for profanity, specifically for the f-bombs uttered by celebrities like Bono and Cher during live awards telecasts. After the FCC revised its policy to prohibit such "isolated and fleeting" expletives, the Fox network launched a lawsuit to fight these restrictive measures.

In 2009's Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, the Supreme Court upheld the power of the FCC in this case but punted the issue of a broader ruling on censorship back to the lower courts for examination.

After the Second Circuit Court found the FCC's policy to be "unconstitutionally vague" in 2010, FCC v. Fox returned to the Supreme Court in 2012. This time, the Court ruled against the FCC, but on the grounds that the Commission had violated due process by not giving a proper warning about its revised policy. Majority opinion author Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that the ruling did not touch on the constitutionality of the policy itself, essentially leaving things as they had been since FCC v. Pacifica was decided in 1978."

https://www.biography.com/news/george-carlin-seven-words-supreme-court

Now, I don't know anymore about Areslent than he knows about me. But I will say, that if he is really as prissy as his comments indicate, that he must have a terrible time with modern films and TV shows. Perhaps all he watches are productins meant for children.

It is difficult for many of us to face this brave new world and all of its contradictions. Some hate those :filthy words. Some hate censorship. Some hate Woke woowoo. Some hate themslves. Some hate everybody but themselves. And some few of us seem to be able to deal with the world the way it is and not the way we think it should be.

And having said all that, I have to agree that it is a good idea for Areslent to stay away. It doesn't seem to me a very wise choice to pop in here with his current comment...but then again, I am the target of his ire....Lol

\\][//

Expand full comment

Another graduate of the Ayn Rand School of Brevity.

Expand full comment

Today is my last day here and at Taibbi's board, too. My money was never

meant to enable William "Show me on the rubber parrot where Charles touched you" Whitten can use it (and Glenn's rep) to incessantly spam bomb me with irrelevant, unhinged glop. All the rest is just jimmies on the ice cream. With any luck, Williams' wife will figure out who to get him to take his Haloperidol again. I'm not holding my breath. Take care.

Expand full comment

Don't forget he has called me, a lifetime hater of the established DNC, a "bidenista" because I dared to criticize Donald Shitlord Trump, his lord and saviour.

Expand full comment

"Donald Shitlord Trump, his lord and saviour."--Icono

That's the spirit daddio! Dounledown and give me more reasons to consider you a closet Bidenista wankaroo splidge faced monkeyboy.

\\][//

Expand full comment

You proved his point, as if seeing through Trump means someone is a Bidenist (it doesn't).

Also, it's funny that your urge to insult drove you into using your own Bidenist phrase. Though your version of the "lying dog faced pony soldier" line manages to be even more nonsensical than Biden.

Expand full comment

Oh yea, be sure to keep tabs on my every word here Raaaaaandall.

It is nice to know how much you care. Lol

\\][//

Expand full comment

But you lick those jackboots eh

Expand full comment

stop projecting your fantasies onto me

Expand full comment

I don’t even have any Jack boots but you can lick my sneakers

Expand full comment

Wow, I just looked at his own substack and you are right. Most recent post is a 9/11 conspiracy article.

Expand full comment

So redge,

Do you think you can make a reasoned rebuttal to that "conspiracy artilcle"?

Can you explain the mechanisms that caused the collapse of the WTC Towers?

Go ahead tell the forum here what caused the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11. 2001.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Whitten made his own case about the World Trade Center collapse in a post here a week ago:

"If 12 stories drop on the remaining 98 floors. Then applying Newton's 3rd law, the collapse would be arrested at the 86th floor"

It's fair to say he has a nonstandard view of Newton's 3rd law if he thinks skyscraper collapses work that way.

Expand full comment

Newton's third law states that when two bodies interact, they apply forces to one another that are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

Thus If 12 stories drop on the remaining 98 floors. Applying Newton's 3rd law, the collapse would be arrested at the 86th floor.

If none of you grasp elementary physics, that is your own damned fault.

\\][//

Expand full comment

It’s not a conspiracy theory unless he asserts, as truth, a countervailing argument.

Expand full comment

NIST, which found that of the 16 perimeter columns examined, “only three columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250˚C [482˚F],” and no evidence that any of the core columns had reached even those temperatures (2005, p. 88).

NIST (2005) says that it “did not generalize these results, since the examined columns represented only 3 percent of the perimeter columns and 1 percent of the core columns from the fire floors”. That only such a tiny percent of the columns was available was due, of course, to the fact that government officials had most of the steel immediately sold and shipped off. In any case, NIST’s findings on the basis of this tiny percent of the columns are not irrelevant: They mean that any speculations that some of the core columns reached much higher temperatures would be just that—pure speculation not backed up by any empirical evidence."

https://thedissedent.page/2021/08/17/9-11-false-flag-psyop/

\\][//

Expand full comment

Oh Jesus hahahaha!

Expand full comment

No I absolutely cannot. And the reason is because I am not trained in structural engineering, demolitions, terrorism, counterintelligence, avionics, weapons technology, etc. And I also do not have access to all of the relevant data, or have any idea how to go about analyzing it. So what I do is rely on what the experts who do have those data and skills say about the matter. And there is no single credible expert our there claiming that the WTC towers were brought down by anything other than airplanes crashing into them.

Expand full comment

Remember how last year every "expert" was telling us how COVID came from animals. That change quickly huh? How about experts who were sent to investigate Syria chemical attacks? Do you know what happened to them? I highly doubt you that, but ask me and I will explain if you are truly interested.

Expand full comment

In a world where "credible experts" have convinced most of the world that COVID-19 came from a bat in nature (although there have been zero documented cases of animal-to-human transmission of the disease), we often accept the preponderance of published or broadcast information as if it was the truth. Did excess CO2 in our atmosphere end the Ice Age? Did a lack of CO2 cause the Ice Age? There is no question that jet fuel is basically kerosene - a fuel incapable of generating the heat necessary to melt steel. It is also true that very few people are aware of the destruction of Tower #7 of the WTC on 9/11/2001.

Bombshell: CNBC Anchor Admits Building 7 Brought Down in ...

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/bombshell-cnbc...

Expand full comment

I agree with the first part of the statement in terms of the complexity of Data to be considered here. But I don’t agree with you in terms of requiring that other people advance an entirely different theory about how the buildings fell in order for me to rationally be incredulous in the face of a dearth of information provided. I don’t say “I believe the experts”. I say “the experts have provided the necessary data and conclusions to inspire my credulity”. Thus far they have failed to do so.

Expand full comment

"And there is no single credible expert our there claiming that the WTC towers were brought down by anything other than airplanes crashing into them."--redge

That is absolutely untrue.

My challage to you was and remains:

Can you explain the mechanisms that caused the collapse of the WTC Towers?

Go ahead tell the forum here what caused the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11. 2001.

Your response did not explain the mechanisms that caused the collapse of the WTC Towers.

Instead you are relying on an appeal to authority. Authority that you admit you take on faith because you are not trained in structural engineering, demolitions, etc.

You also asserthat you do not have access to all of the relevant data. But the data is available online:

FAQs - NIST WTC Towers Investigation

Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC Towers Investigation

Also see:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x77jk0q

\\][//

Expand full comment

Overall I agree that you are an idiot William, but you are also right to question the official 9/11 BS. It is idiotic that so many Amerians can't question how a building can come down due to some debris (building number 7 or whatever the fuck it was called). Be proud that at least you are not buying that BS, like the rest of the sheep.

Expand full comment

Oh, overall you agree that I am an "idiot" aye Oerz?

Well that's fine with me because you are a jackass.

\\][//

Expand full comment

It amazes me that those who hoist the white flag of ad hominem attacks fail to see that their pejorative term inevitably returns to them as assuredly as the echo to the caterwauling man.

Expand full comment

How would that invalidate his statements about Glenn Greenwald‘s article? Isaac newton believed in imaginary beings. Does that invalidate Newtonian physics?

Expand full comment

Now secrecy about his true religious convictions became essential. There were laws prohibiting anti-Trinitarianism and social pressure weighed heavily against those who were even suspected of harboring such thoughts. It's an irony that while representing Cambridge in Parliament, Isaac Newton was assigned to a committee working on a draft of the 1689 Toleration Act, which governed religious dissent in England. The committee added a recommendation that all dissenters be required to "profess Faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his Eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, One God blessed for evermore." It must have taken a monumental amount of self-discipline and nerve for Newton to suppress his true feelings and convictions during the committee proceedings. Perhaps, Newton exercised his prerogative as a sober, silent, thinking man. Of necessity, Isaac Newton was a closet Unitarian; outwardly he maintained the appearance of a faithful Anglican communicant. Only as he lay dying did Newton drop the charade: he refused Anglican last rites. This act did not prevent his burial in Westminster Abbey.

https://www.uufhc.net/sermons/s080427.html

\\][//

Expand full comment

Ideas don’t have guilt by association

Expand full comment

True, but many of us find it useful to know which people have a record of inaccuracy or accuracy. If there is a case where Whitten posts strong arguments for his conclusions, then as far as those particular conclusions are concerned, his overall record of inaccuracy doesn't matter. So to that extent, you're right. But in cases where Whitten posts no strong argument, his overall record of inaccuracy may be helpful for some of us in deciding whether to engage with him further, particularly in borderline cases.

Expand full comment

I actually do not agree with this way of thinking. I do understand that if you think someone is actually being disingenuous that it’s rather unuseful to discuss things with him. But that would just be a matter of not responding at all.

Expand full comment

Others have tried. Never works.

Expand full comment

This forum should not be about me. The amount of time you spend squawking about me would be better spent picking the fuzz out of your belly button.

What the fuck do you get out of all this inane babble?

You seem to think that I am wallowing in all this attention I get from you fliptards. I am not. I have asked you nicely to just stop. But you refuse to stop. This has to be at least the forth or fifth thread that you have come at me with this pathetic whining about the number of comments I make.

I still don't get it. Why the fuck do you care about it?

My guess is that you are just a born asshole, and you need a target to gripe at where ever you go.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Mr. Rose, you seem to be first among a group of detractors that make a habit of running through the same disingenuous complaints and allegations as to both the number of my comments and the validity of the information in those comments.

You have yet to make a specific counter argument to any of the issues in my commentary or the substance of the blog entries you so abhore.

You claim that whenever I posts in support of a theory, the odds are good that I am "telling falsehoods." However you have no actual rebuttal to any of my assertions other that your empty subjective opinions. You never provide actual empirical verified data or facts as a counter argument.

It is delightful to see you are now partnering up with such clowns as Phil and russian-bot a pair of giggling fruitcakes that never have a single thing of substance to offer.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Maybe because some opinions are so ridiculous that they do not require a counterargument. Also, calling people fruitcakes in 2021...come on.

Expand full comment

If an opinion does not require a counter argument then no response at all would be more logical unless you were going to challenge them to provide more information to the point where the argument would at least arise to a level of falsifiability.

Expand full comment

Part of the value of forums is correcting information that could mislead uninformed readers. Has nothing to do with labels, or fruitcakes, which have way too many carbs and cultivate the comorbidities that exacerbate covid infections.

Expand full comment

So if someone claims the Earth is flat then a responder should come up with a careful explanation why it is not so? Or leave it alone risking some Oompa-Loompa running away with that newfound knowledge?

Expand full comment

Well stated. I did make a rebuttal to your assertion that it wasn’t a vaccine, but your comment here is far more rational than your yelping detractor here

Expand full comment

This is exciting, Willie - you succeeded in starting another flame. That's why you're so invaluable here.

Tell me, Wonka, it might be easier to enumerate things you're not an expert in. Their number may even be zero, no?

Expand full comment

I am certainly not the first of your detractors. I simply listed your assertions. It is up to you to find a strategy to convince people about these assertions (planted explosives in the World Trade Center on 9/11, and so on). Or, you could stop taking up people's time and just stop posting.

Expand full comment

He’s actually not taking up peoples time. It is up to you me and all the rest of us to decide how to dispense with our life force.

Expand full comment

Thomas Jefferson described The Federalist Papers as “the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written.”

Have you read The Federalist Papers Mr. Rose?

\\][//

Expand full comment

Well Rose, since you among most of my other detractors refuse to read the links to the evidence I have provided. I will tell you and them the most likely time and most likely way that the explosives were planted in the WTC Towers.

Ace Elevator Company was doing upgrades in both towers in the weeks before September 11. In fact they were still in the process of those upgrades on the 11th.

It is proposed that the conspirators joined in that operation and blended in with the workmen working on the elevator renovation; workmen, laborers, truck drivers, etc. Exposive charges were brought into the towers labeled as elevator parts. These were directed to the conspiators who would place the charges as if they were doing legitimate work on the elevators.

as in all conspiracies only a few persons in the right positions were necessary to carry out the operation.

https://thedissedent.page/2021/08/23/fema-403-appendix-c/

https://thedissedent.page/2021/08/21/the-construction-of-the-wtc-

towers-1-2/

\\][//

Expand full comment

So, is that suggesting the vaccines don't save a lot of lives? Maybe Dr Martin (and his fans) should subscribe to Glenn's substack, and read this article. Glenn's message of cost benefit considerations certainly applies to vaccines. These have far less risk for many people than the virus. The real problem is the criteria for both benefits and risks for the vaccines is being withheld, so most people who don't need it are being misled to think they do, and many who do need it aren't being told why. A competent medical bureaucracy would focus on protecting those at risk, and leave the rest of us alone.

Expand full comment

Dr Martin Is way beyond anyone here on grasping the criminality of this whole pandemic scam.

Have you actually viewed any of his video presenations?

\\][//

Expand full comment

Yes. Also enjoyed Judy Mikovitz, and looking forward to the new RFK book. But the thing zealots often overlook is they don't know it all, and advancing knowledge requires answering critics as well. Some zealots are not really interested in advancing knowledge.

Expand full comment

Oh, CHRIST! Did someone say "BEETLEJUICE" three times?

Expand full comment

FDA Approval Illegal! Doctor Reveals Pfizer Insert Proves Criminal Regulation Violations!

https://www.brighteon.com/6a74da11-ae26-4bcc-b5fb-800d5027e44a

\\][//

Expand full comment

It is, by definition, a vaccine. I have no interest in taking it, but it is a vaccine

Expand full comment

The chemical cocktails made of proteins and cholesterol are not, by any definition, vaccines.

vaccine

[vakˈsēn]

NOUN

a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, PREPARED FROM THE CAUSITIVE AGENT OF THE DISEASE, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease.

Expand full comment

Hmm, so mRNA is "made of proteins and cholesterol". You definitely show you don't believe the mainstream news.

Expand full comment

FDA Approval Illegal! Doctor Reveals Pfizer Insert Proves Criminal Regulation Violations!

https://www.brighteon.com/6a74da11-ae26-4bcc-b5fb-800d5027e44a

\\][//

Expand full comment

Proves my point. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines contain cholesterol but the J&J vaccine doesn't. Each vaccine includes one ingredient -- mRNA for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, or a modified adenovirus for the J&J vaccine -- that is a synthetic substitute for the causative agent of Covid-19. This synthetic substitute can be used to produce ("expresses") a protein found in Covid-19, but does not contain that protein directly. The mRNA is not made from proteins or from cholesterol, and the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines contain no proteins at all.

Expand full comment

You know it's credible science if it's one guy on Bitchute

Expand full comment

You know its is credible science if it is Dr. David Martin on BitChute.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/4N4aFmQ8DfpT/

\\][//

Expand full comment

Thank you for your upvotes Mr. Trout.

Love your moniker and the reference to Vonnigut, onw of my favorite authors of all time!

Please feel free to join me at my new open forum:

IN CONTEXT

A FREE SOCIOPOLITICAL FORUM WELCOME

https://williamwhitten.substack.com/p/in-context

\\][//

Expand full comment

No kidding!!!! Yet idiot Corrupt politicians are mandating these shots!

Expand full comment

The vax is the wrong issue. It's like if they demanded we all watch NASCAR on Sunday afternoons, and banned all other TV programming. The vax is mostly innocuous for most people, like watching TV. A little uncomfortable for some. Dangerous for a few. But your odds are good, and you might find it beneficial. The real issue is why their obsessive demand, and why the prohibition of all alternatives, and why no one asks. What are they hiding? My guess is it's fundamentally about maintaining fear so they can justify mail in ballots so they can manipulate elections and remain in power.

Expand full comment

"What are they hiding?" - also, what is their message? When should we expect it to arrive and by which medium? Is it possible we have already missed it? If yes, then by how much?

Expand full comment

As Monty Python taught us, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. The frog in the warming pot doesn't expect to be eaten, but the clues are there. Creeping tyranny always culminates in either full autocracy or overthrow of the tyrant. Americans have tolerated tyrants at many levels for so long we've grown accustomed to it, and some to yearn for it. It's not about the tyrant, or their messengers -- it's about us. Either we continue to tolerate it, or we don't. Doesn't look good.

Expand full comment

"nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" - that was due to there being no internet. Nowadays everybody expects everything any minute.

Like a cow plop from Willie Witless to arrive from the left field (rather, from the right in his case).

Expand full comment

But what LEADS to the Spanish Inquisition?

Answer: people expecting the End Times any day now. No shortage of expectations there.

Expand full comment

I love that I can like both of your comments on this as being true.

Expand full comment

This one is more your style Watson:

Argument - Monty Python

https://youtu.be/ohDB5gbtaEQ?t=2

\\][//

Expand full comment

"Why the fuck should we believe this group of people who by default, have lied to the American public their entire lives?"

Honestly, when in your lives have you sat down and said to yourselves "Man the government sure got this one right".

FOH!

Expand full comment

"The vax is the wrong issue."--Watson

No, it is not the wrong issue, and the only way you can be saying this is again, you have not seen the evidence because you simply refuse to link to the sites that several of us have given here. you like to pretend that you know what you are talking about while remaining willfully ignorant.

The “Killer Vaccine” Worldwide. 7.9 Billion People

The Covid-19 Vaccine should be Halted and Discontinued Immediately Worldwide

Numerous scientific studies published independently confirm the nature of the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine which is being imposed on all humanity.

The stated objective is to enforce the Worldwide vaccination of 7.9 billion people in more than 190 countries, to be followed by the imposition of a digitized “vaccine passport”. Needless to say this is a multi-billion dollar operation for Big Pharma.

Bill Gates and WHO’s Director General Dr. Tedros

The global vaccine project entitled COVAX is coordinated Worldwide by the WHO, GAVI, CEPI, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in liaison with the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Wellcome Trust, DARPA and Big Pharma which is increasingly dominated by the Pfizer-GSK partnership established barely four months before the onset of the Covid-19 crisis in early January 2020.

The Covid-19 Timeline

Fake figures of covid-19 positive cases and covid-19 related deaths. Lies upon lies.

There is a complex timeline. The covid crisis is marked by several stages leading up to the implementation of mass vaccination Worldwide in December 2020.

A fake Worldwide Public Health Emergency (PHEIC) was announced by the WHO on January 30, 2020 (based on 83 positive cases Worldwide outside China), followed by the onset of the crisis in air travel and international commodity trade (Trump on January 31, 2020), the February 20, 2020 financial crash, the March 11, 2020 lockdown, followed by the second, third waves and fourth waves. When will it end?

For further details on the Timeline see Chapter II of

The 2020-21 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset”

The March 11, 2020 Lockdown and Its Devastating Social and Economic Consequences

Starting on March 11, 2020, 44,279 so-called confirmed RT-PCR “positive cases” (Worldwide out of China) and 1440 Covid deaths were used to justify:

social confinement,

the lockdown and closure of 190 national economies, crisis of the global economy,

extensive corporate bankruptcies in key sectors of economic activity,

the outright elimination of small and medium sized enterprises,

the triggering of poverty and mass unemployment,

social distancing, the face mask, no social and family gatherings,

Devastating impacts of mental health,

an engineered crisis of the national health system,

the closure of schools, colleges and universities,

the closure of museums, concert halls, culture and sport events,

institutional collapse and the disruption of civil society.

The stated objective has always been to save lives. The outcome of these policies have literally destroyed people’s lives. Millions of people Worldwide have been driven into extreme poverty.

And then ten months later the Covid-19 vaccine has come to our rescue.

It was announced in early November 2020 and launched Worldwide in late December.

The fear campaign has spearheaded compliance and acceptance to higher authority.

Video

The mRNA vaccine was presented as an everlasting solution, as a means to curbing the epidemic, saving lives, reopening our shattered national economies and restoring a sense of normality in our daily lives.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-killer-vaccine-worldwide-7-9-billion-people/5749363

\\][//

Expand full comment

Billions have taken rna vax, all but a few thousand survived. Better odds than driving to the bar. It's clear that a small percentage of the population is at high risk from this virus. It's clear that most people are clueless whether they're at risk. These vaccines give the vulnerable a little more time. Not optimal, but a win. The government has clearly manipulated the evidence and the public to sell vaccines. That's vile but not unexpected for any who are familiar with human nature in general, or bureaucrats in particular. Hysterical tantrums about reality are never productive.

Expand full comment

Everybody knows. Nobody wants to do anything about it. China joe is on the payroll. But hostile countries attacking us is not unexpected, and not unique. The important thing about hostile attacks is repelling them. We've screwed that up badly. The failed responses are on us, not them.

If they lobbed a missile at us we wouldn't respond. Learn mandarin now. It takes time, and you'll need it to beg for mercy from your new masters.

Expand full comment

"Hysterical tantrums about reality are never productive."--Watson

Dismissing the evidence conrary to your opinions is always dangerously delusional.

You admit that "The government has clearly manipulated the evidence and the public to sell vaccines"

And yet you do not consider by how far the "government" is manipulated the evidence, and that the intent is likely more insidious than to simply 'sell the so-called vaccines.

Firsrt and formost we must get the language cleared up here. These mRNA products are NOT vaccines. they are Spike proteins in a solution containing Graphene-Oxide nano particles.

Both of these items are extremely dangerous to human health, and the lethality of this toxic soup is only now manifesting. You have no idea of how many deaths and horrific injuries lie ahead in the monts to come.

\\][//

Expand full comment

We have a pretty good idea how many are at risk. Just extrapolate results from the first billion. The risks are low. But the real failure is trying to force vax on folks who don't need it. If I was at risk from the virus, I'd be in line for a shot right now. But I'm not. Others are less competent at deciding, and it's abusive to coerce the ones who really don't need it.

I study evidence for things that matter. The vax doesn't matter to me. I know enough about it to know the people who need it are better off with it than without it.

Expand full comment

I know how much government manipulates us. Hysterical evidence doesn't change that. Those who need to manufacture complaints, such as nomenclature (vax is defined as a biologic that induces antibodies, which the rna vaxes certainly do), are missing more relevant points. Vaccines are not our problem. Innocuous at worst, saving a few lives at best. Their need to demand them and incite panic is the problem. They want power. We can either mount competent campaigns to replace them, or take up arms against them, or wail as we submit to them. Support competent candidates and it will be over soon. First step is don't panic. Hysteria is the path to panic.

What is your objective, and how do you plan to achieve it?

Expand full comment

"What is your objective, and how do you plan to achieve it?"--Watson

My main objective is to spread knowledge. One cannot have the correct objective unless one has the correct knowledge.

One of the ways that the correct knowledge on these mRNA solutions is to warn everyone of their danger. If your call such warnings "hysteria', it proves you do not know what you are talking about.

Arguing with you is always like arguing with a potato. You ALWAYS make ignorant arguments against information that you steadfastly refuse to read.

All I would ask is that you stay the fuck out of the way with your stupid incredulity.

\\][//

Expand full comment

"Hysterical tantrums about reality are never productive." - also historically proven dangerous.

Expand full comment

"WHERE THE HELL is the DEBATE over MANDATED VACCINES?!?!?"--JT

IN CONTEXT

William Whitten

A FREE SOCIOPOLITICAL FORUM WELCOME

https://williamwhitten.substack.com/p/in-context/comments

\\][//

Expand full comment

Americans have turned into foolish ill educated people

Expand full comment

Technology helped expose what's been hidden before.

Expand full comment

Kilgore Trout is a stellar ID label. Almondine? From Edgar Sawtelle? Then I agree with that part also

Expand full comment

It's just a silly portmanteau. But thanks anyway.

Expand full comment

What planet were those guys from that communicated by farting and tapdancing in that Kilgore Trout story?

I looked it up....

Margo

He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing.

[BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS]

\\][//

Expand full comment

Buttering it up Witless? Forgot "Quack, Quack" once more.

Expand full comment

Then read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. You are in for a treat. And Kilgore Trout has a long legacy.

Expand full comment

Thanks, Janet. As a teenager, I loved Kurt Vonnegut. Although I don't read much fiction these days, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle does sound interesting. I will add it to my reading list. I am little behind on my reading; hoping to catch up with a four-day weekend coming up next week, if I can get my chores done tomorrow. I am re-reading Darkness at Noon (revised translation with new material) now.

Expand full comment

Ming the Merciless ruled the planet Mongo. I think Vonnegut just twisted that into Marlo as a nod to both Flash Gordon and Hemmingway.

\\][//

Expand full comment

Hi Kilgore...whussup?

\\][//

Expand full comment

As a conservative I disagree with a lot of what you are saying.

Private businesses can refuse service to anyone who is not a protected class.

Even in liberal ass CA I have yet to see a mandated vaccine requirement in a public facility. Its the private businesses pushing them right now where I am. I take my dollars to other non-mask-requiring businesses myself.

Expand full comment

every human being is part of a protected class. The whole concept of "protected class" came from the same liberal muck that has created vaccine passports. If your business cannot refuse to bake a cake for someone, you should not be allowed to refuse serving a latte without showing vaccine papers.

Expand full comment

I don't disagree but the way the system currently works is the elected officials make the laws which exist and the courts rule on their validity.

Expand full comment

All these mandates are based on executive emergency powers that began under GWB and expanded under Obama. They aren’t laws passed by Congress.

Expand full comment

What are you talking about? In CA its the Governor's mandate, it has nothing to do with anything else.

States across the country are tightening their own laws to prevent this.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pennsylvania-voters-revolt-strips-governor-of-covid-powers/

Expand full comment

I’m not taking about masks and state lockdowns. I’m taking about the CDC and NIH (executive branch agencies) mandates that are being enforced on the federal level.

Expand full comment

Exactly! While I disagree with your views, at least they are coherent!

Expand full comment

Today I went to three different businesses.

The local post-office, no vaccine/mask requirement.

The local "healthy" grocery store, mask requirement.

The local CVS, no vaccine/mask requirement.

Thats an OK system to me because the government isnt making me do it, private businesses are, and as a backer of the free market, I am free to take my business elsewhere when I disagree (and I did, I spent 1/10th what I would normally at the grocery store and ordered the rest from Amazon who had no mask requirement)

So the end result is and will be small business will suffer which helps the same shitlord elites from all parties.

Expand full comment

There is no vaccine mandate, unless you can show me where people are threatened with jail or fine. You are free to patronize establishments which are "anti-vax" friendly, and work at businesses where open germ warfare is encouraged by the employer. Let the market decide.

Expand full comment

Hi Ty, The threat of a fine and jail is happening in our country right now. I live in Washington State and our Governor, Jay Inslee, has passes a proclamation that if you are a self-employed health care worker who does not get the vaccine by mid October, law enforcement can come to your business, (self-employed massage therapists, doctors, nurses, chiropractors, mental health counselor, etc.) and charge you with a gross misdemeanor, which in WA State is up to a $5,000 fine or up to a year in jail! This is for people that do not work for the state, but have their own business, which should shock and disturb any freedom loving American. And they will lose their license to practice and will not be eligible for unemployment. Most health care practitioners have a very specialized education and will have nothing to fall back on if this happens. They could lose their business and their home etc if they "choose" not to get vaccinated. Also, now that we know that vaccinated people are spreading Covid-19, it makes even less sense. We have already had 10 friends and family members in our community who were vaccinated, test positive for Covid-19 in the past month, with symptoms where they had to stay home sick, so they are definitely out there spreading it around, as the CDC director shared in her August update that the vacccines do NOT stop transmission.

Expand full comment

Depends on the way the law is written. Aany "forced" vaccination (threat, fear, demand, etc) is AGAINST the law.

Expand full comment

Why can a private business not decide who they employee?

Expand full comment

Oh, you mean like Blacks, women, gays, etc.?

Expand full comment

Those are protected classes. In fact, every class is a protected class at some point except white males ages 18-39.

Fun fact.

Expand full comment

You do realize that many employers and most schools already require vaccinations, and have for decades?

Expand full comment

So? They shouldn't.

Is this POV of the type "I am just following orders!", so I can never question them?

Expand full comment

Well I admit I don't know your full take on the matter. But more generally, I find it odd that the people screaming about individual freedoms and liberties (i.e., people you might call libertarians), are also acting like private businesses can't come up with their own rules about how they want to handle Covid.

Expand full comment

There are at several exceptions in the current COVID situation:

- corp demand for immediate and universal implementation

- gov and large corps are acting like a cartel, forcing acceptance of conditions while prohibiting reasonable alternatives (WFH for unvaccinated; daily testing on premises; etc)

- suppression of medical and behavior alternatives and other information through censorship, rather than democratic and open scientific debate and accommodaion for (here, political) minorities, indicates actions are being taken by them in bad faith. So even the premises (overall COVID dangerousness) are questionable.

So, I argue a "free market" of employment isn't working here.

Expand full comment

The issue is that each of those employers and schools have allowed for religious and medical exemptions. This has been this way in CA since 1957.

But don't believe me, read what healthcare workers are saying about this

https://files.constantcontact.com/7712c786701/c90d7253-b236-45d1-93dc-6e560b8996cf.pdf

Expand full comment

Right. You care SO much for blacks, women, and gays.

Expand full comment

How do you know how much I care for them? I happen to be an old-fashioned Leftist. Before they were polluted by Marx's (Orwellian "Some pigs are more equal than others") vanguards, that is.

Expand full comment

Oh your like the old fashion leftist that murder about 200,000,000 people in the twenty century. I would not be proud of that.

Expand full comment

FYI, MAL: It is possible to be Leftist without being Marxist.

-Marxism is like a religion; like all religions, it has its own Overton window (look it up) regarding things that can or cannot be questioned. Most Marxists (whatever faction) will not question the rightness of its cause and prescriptions, and so will commonly sacrifice the (current) will of the people to get to its supposed utopia, where, supposedly, everyone will finally "see the light" just as they have. That's bullshit, and most of the world understands this at this point in history. Just like you. :)

-Coherent Leftists, on the other hand, don't want to put a gun to your back to get you to prioritize their (general) objectives of equality (of various kinds). They'd rather *convince* you of such things. The know that to do otherwise, that is, if they abandon the goal of convincing majorities, their goals are't worth shit.

Expand full comment

Uh, maybe you should read the comment you're replying to more carefully.

Expand full comment

In other words, a Birkenstock hippy.

Expand full comment

Well we are all trying to keep up with your country's leader and his respect for those groups

https://i.cbc.ca/1.5289171.1568999202!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_1180/justin-trudeau-brownface.jpg

Expand full comment

They can. Just like a private business should be able to set their own 'covid' rules.

Expand full comment

Go away

Expand full comment

You really add a lot to the conversations here Candis

Expand full comment

I would like to see Glen tackle that one.

Expand full comment

Govts are protected from lawsuits over mandated vaccines. So are the vaccine pharmeceuticals immunized from lawsuits. BUT ANY COMPANY OR EMPLOYER WHO MANDATES VACCINATION IS NOT EXEMPT FROM BEING SUED TO THE END OF TIME! Now in Canada a lawyer is suing the STATE!

Expand full comment

One phrase I want purged from the discussion around COVID, especially as it relates to schools, - "abundance of caution." Instead, how about the "appropriate level of caution?"

Expand full comment

But - the children! Or, if it saves just one life...

Sigh.

Expand full comment

well the American public school system is so good and is providing such a high level of value relative to it's cost, I mean we are at the top of every single academic metric and our per student costs are the lowest, right?

RIGHT??????

Expand full comment

I'm with you! If only "the powers that be" would actually think.

Expand full comment

A number of people I know on the right believed covid would magically disappear after the election last fall. I kept reminding them of Rahm Emmanuel's infamous line, never let a crisis go to waste. The calculus is simple: Covid will cease to be the dominant issue in all of our American lives, and restrictive measures taken in response to it will only end, when it stops being a winning issue for Democrats. They control people with fear (so do Republicans, but Dems have the media, so they win), and as long as they can make people irrationally afraid to death of covid and convince those same people that only Democrats have all the right answers, they will continue to propagate this insanity.

And it isn't only about votes. Look how the CDC is now being leveraged as super-Constitutional psuedo-agency to enact policy, and its edicts are upheld by federal judges. What amazing power! Democrats will never give that up unless someone takes it from them.

Expand full comment

"Covid will cease to be the dominant issue" ... when mandated bodily-invasive access has been normalized.

It will follow the same path as, to take just one example, the now-ubiquitous and unquestioned electronic surveillance. Because "nobody" complains about it any more.

Expand full comment

I'm guessing the endgame is a CCP style social credit scoring system that begins with vaccine passports in order to get people used to this level of authoritarian control over their daily lives.

Expand full comment

You already have a credit scoring system, consumer profile, and NSA/FBI/Fusion center profile. No need to play projection with China.

Expand full comment

After all, the government needs to shut off your bank account to counter 'misinformation'!

Expand full comment

It is completely wrong to say or suggest that electronic surveillance has gone "unquestioned." Granted, all three branches of government could have done much more to curtail it, and I suspect you think they should have, but that your side lost the issue does not mean it was never an issue and never questioned.

And this is an important distinction with serious implications for society, but bear with me while I spell out the specifics:

1. There are multiple, well-funded organizations devoted to opposing electronic surveillance laws and the government's employment thereof, i.e. lots of people question them.

2. There are multiple statutory controls that limit (albeit without sufficient accountability or enforcement mechanisms) the government's surveillance powers, i.e. there are hoops they need to jump through written into the laws.

3. There is separate administrative oversight of government surveillance, e.g. DOJ IG and PCLOB (again granting that they need real "teeth"), i.e. at least someone other than the people doing the surveillance are involved.

4. There is a constitutional amendment in the Bill of Rights directly addressing the government's search and seizure authority, i.e. it is not a novel issue for the courts.

As a general matter, none of the above is true of public health measures taken in response to the pandemic:

1) Of the thousands of ultra vires and unconstitutional orders imposed, only a tiny handful have been questioned by serious organizations. An even smaller fraction of those were successful, many due to unique circumstances, eg Wisconsin law allowing legislature to file suit against executive branch. The ACLU and other "civil rights" groups not only refuse to oppose restrictive public health measures, but they actively support them.

2) State emergency powers statutes provide virtually unlimited authority to Governors, i.e. the power to regulate anything related to COVID-19, and all but a few exercised them to their fullest extent. There is no statutory obligation to demonstrate need, justify policy to anyone, reasonably tailor measures, allow public comment or debate, or even give notice. Such laws authorize tyranny - by design.

3) Governors who exercised such vast powers are accountable to no one, are not required to engage in any oversight, and are not required to consult with anyone, including state legislatures or local governments. They are accountable only to state legislatures, the vast majority of which have done nothing to curtail governors' authorities. Even when they do, they are utterly toothless, assuming the governor even bothers to comply, and they often don't.

4. Nothing in the Bill of Rights or State Constitutions says anything about lockdowns, masks, or vaccination. When other constitutional rights are asserted as grounds to oppose public health measures, virtually all courts - with the limited exception of arbitrary restrictions on church attendance - have said that our exercise of those rights can be strictly curtailed in emergencies.

When laws restrict privacy rights, the rights of immigrants, the rights of workers (teachers are a great example), the rights of welfare recipients, etc. - pick any other issue - the associated profession mobilizes to oppose them and has institutional support. Where is the bar, the AMA, the teachers union on public health measures that not only hurt their own membership, but the people they serve? Like the ACLU, they actively support the government.

Even though FISA and other bad laws are still on the books, our civil society worked as intended in at least trying to oppose them, and in many ways were successful in getting the problem mitigated. But with the COVID response, even though the threat to liberty is exponentially greater, absolutely nothing has been done institutionally to counterbalance the response. We are truly in uncharted and dangerous territory as a result.

Expand full comment

Thanks for this good comparison - a few comments --

"It is completely wrong to say or suggest that electronic surveillance has gone 'unquestioned.'"

I don't mean that it (like COVID now) went unquestioned. I meant only that after the initial complaints, and then after the Snowden revlations, the surveillance has still very largely continued continued. Surveillance capitalism, likewise, continues to grow. Sounds like you're basically agreeing on that? Thank you for your list -- I will look further into it its history and current state. But as you admit, the backlash has not been very successful, and I fear it never can be without a sea-change in public awareness.

I mean that the same strategy is at work with universal vaccination for COVID. (No other vaccines are on a path to 100% compliance. They tried for seasonal flu shots and "failed" in that regard.) There are many ways to otherwise successfully solve this problem. They cannot answer how is *100%* vaccine compliance is *required* "by science".

"As a general matter, none of the above is true of public health measures taken in response to the pandemic: ..."

Society (both those leading and following it) has changed in the last 15-20 years. Agreed that the situation -- lack of a healthy democratic-society responsiveness -- has grown much worse at this point. IMO and awareness, it has been a well-planned, hegemonic destruction of republican democracy implemented since the 1970s, if not the past century.

Expand full comment

High-Frequency Data Show Delta Fearmongering Softens Economy

AUGUST 30, 2021 BY ARABINDAADMIN1 LEAVE A COMMENT

What worries us is macroeconomic data has already begun to slow amid unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimuli in history, and all those tailwinds could soon become headwinds.

For instance, retail sales plunged again in July, and the employment and industrial production data are becoming disappointing considering the level of stimuli.

One month after the BEA shocked Wall Street with its first estimate of Q2 GDP, which was a significant miss to expectations of 8.5%, printing at just 6.5%, last week far fewer fireworks when the BEA released its first estimate of Q2 GDP, which came in at 6.6% which was also a miss to forecasts of 6.7%.

As the economy slows, Goldman Sachs slashed its Q3 GDP estimate of 8.5% earlier this month and now sees just 5.5% growth in Q3. We noted that "a sudden negative change" occurred in the economy because consumer spending is collapsing.

And while most banks have been quick to attribute the sudden slump in retail sales to Delta fears, Morgan Stanley's chief equity strategist Michael Wilson told clients, "disappointing retail sales and consumer sentiment suggest the US consumer is fading," and while he shares our view that most blame Delta he, like us, thinks this is more about a payback in demand.

Broadly speaking, US economic surprise data, which measures the degree to which the economic data is either beating or missing economists' forecasts, turned negative in late July and continues to plunge.

https://globalintelhub.com/high-frequency-data-show-delta-fearmongering-softens-economy

\\][//

Expand full comment

Gentlemen, if I may add my two cents to your fascinating discussion...

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”—Lord Acton

The U.S. Governmnet is absolutely corrupt.

Let me be perfectly clear here. My critique is not against the constitutional republic established in 1789. My critique is of the corruption that has subverted the Constitution of the United States of America. I am a proud patriot of the principles that founded this great nation. Especially the superbly eloquent Declaration of Independence, which excites my heart everytime I read it!

From Republic to Corporatist State

The Revolutionary War began with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The US Constitution was ratified in 1788, establishing a republic.

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company 1886, through an error (?) of the Court Recorder (citing obiter dictum unlawfully) began a progression of Supreme Court rulings that asserted that Corporations had the same legal rights as human beings citing the 14th Amendment as the relevant ground for that assertion.

By 1900 the corporations had used this doctrine to amass the huge fortunes that give them the ability to effectively buy the government of the United States. Therein was spawned the Corporatist State. This effectively ended the constitutional republic.

https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/02/why-the-u-s-is-government-corrupt/

Asside from the fact that the United States was founded as a Republic, there is now this well known study....

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy

The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.

So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.

This is not news, you say.

Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here's how they explain it:

Testing Theories of American Politics:

Elites, Interest Groups, and Average

Citizens

Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page

Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics—which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian

Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and two types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased

Pluralism—offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens;

economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented.

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been

possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort

to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial

independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no

independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of

Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

PDF available online for free.

___________________________________________

From former Presidential Prees Secretary Bill Moyers:

Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State

February 21, 2014

"Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country…"

February 21, 2014

by Mike Lofgren

https://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

\\][//

Expand full comment

I used to be one of those people, but it has become increasingly clear this is bigger than the Red vs. Blue games. (As was the removal of Donald Trump, of course.)

Here's a key thing to understand: the huge institutional investors--Vanguard, Fidelity, and Blackrock--steer trillions of dollars in investment, most of which does not actually belong to them. Yet they retain the voting rights, and therefore possess a huge amount of undue influence over the governance of public corporations. And they are using it to push the Davos/WEF agenda.

It started with climate change policy. Then it was the hiring of diversity/inclusion officers, who serve as a pipeline for whatever is cooked up in university social science departments. And now, they're pushing for companies to force their employees to get vaccinated.

Keep that in mind when you hear the control freaks gloating about how this is just the "free market" doing its thing.

Expand full comment

"A number of people I know on the right believed covid would magically disappear after the election last fall. I kept reminding them of Rahm Emmanuel's infamous line, never let a crisis go to waste."

You're not the only one. I reacted angrily whenever I heard anyone on the Right say that COVID would disappear after the election for the same reason - there was no reason whatsoever for Democrats to let go of the power it gives them.

Expand full comment

The real issue is not harm caused to children by missing schools, it's that COVID was overblown by the media and, especially, politicians - such as Faucci. By the CDC's own statistics, only some 6% of deaths attributed to COVID were actually solely due to it. Furthermore, only a small fraction of those who are believed to have had the virus have died. Not only that, in the United States, less than 10% of the population has allegedly had it over the past year and a half. Of course, millions probably had it and thought it was just a cold (which it essentially is.) The real problem is the armies of government beauracrats who saw COVID as an opportunity to exert their authority. I live in Texas where EVERY SINGLE on of the county judges and mayors who have imposed draconian measures is a Democrat while the rest of the state is essentially free of those impositions. My own county is governed by an Indian immigrant, a Democrat, who does whatever his parties dictates that he do. The county judge in Harris County is a Colombian immigrant, also a Democrat, who does the same thing as does the black Democratic mayor of Houston. In short, the driving force in the imposition of drastic measures is political with left-wing journalists providing the propaganda to cause panic among part of the population.

Expand full comment

"By the CDC's own statistics, only some 6% of deaths attributed to COVID were actually solely due to it."

Oft repeated but complete crap. The table lists the primary and secondary causes from Certificates of Death where Covid-19 appeared. If the cause of death were listed as "Accute Respiratory Distress Syndrom (ARDS) caused by Covid-19 infection", then there would be a tally for that certificate under "ARDS" and it would not be counted in your 6% even though, clearly, Covid-19 is the +primary+ cause. If a COD listed "bacterial pneumonia", there is no indication whether the pneumonia was primary or secondary to covid-19, e.g., "death from covid-19 with complications from secondary pneumonia" would tabulate the same as "death from bacterial pneumonia complicated by covid-19 infection". You would have to consult the original certificate to know which.

In other words, that table has ++not a darn thing++ to do with "solely caused by" one way or the other, not even a little bit around the edges, though it has been willfully misrepresented as such. The only things that table tells you is the number of CODs where the coroner felt strongly enough that the death involved Covid-19 to include it as +a+ cause and the types of other things included as +a+ cause on the same certificates.

Expand full comment

It DOES tell you that people who die from covid are very very rarely ACTUALLY healthy. And there's no denying that we've NEVER counted deaths like this before.

Expand full comment

Another way of putting that is to say that we don't really have any freakin' clue how many people actually died +because of+ COVID-19, to say nothing of those poor folks who would have died from pneumonia caused by some other infection.

Expand full comment

"...we don't actually have a clue..."

Not from that table, no, and never more than an estimate at a population level. Good estimates depend on detailed clinical analyses. Those detailed analyses trail the initial data by months. Good meta-analysis of them takes years. We do have enough now to know that +quite a lot+ of people "actually died" of covid-19 for some rational definition of "actually died". The exact numbers will be argued about for decades.

People forget in this day of instant (yet perennially terrible) data, that even the surface level of detail in the National Vital Statistics System or query/analysis systems like WISQARS normally takes about 18 months after the close of the year to compile and quality-check all that data. 2020 NVSS data would not normally be complete and fully-cooked until summer of Twenty-Twenty-TWO. We want up-to-the-minute data and that's fine, as long as we keep in mind that up-to-the-minute data is garbage.

Expand full comment

SimulationCommander: "And there's no denying that we've NEVER counted deaths like this before."

We've ALWAYS counted deaths like that-- for everything-- but unless you are intimately aware of how death statistics are counted and used, you just wouldn't know. When I had a crash course in epidemiogy for NBC work in the 90s, one of my textbooks, from about ten years prior, discussed the perpetual overlap of causes/comorbidities and-- as a result-- the perils of trying to add or subtract percentages (the sum of all categories frequently totals to 100%). I still have that book and reread chunks of through this crisis as well as both older and newer epidemiology works. So, when I looked at that table, I had no surprise at its organization, especially after reading +the footnotes at the bottom+ that explained it.

Expand full comment

Oh, so we count everybody with a tiny bit of flu virus in them as a flu death?

Interesting.

Expand full comment

;-) !!! Well, first you should know that we don't actually "count" flu deaths most years. We +estimate+ them from the fairly small sample that is actually tested. I got the Swine flu back in the day from someone with a test-confirmed infection. I myself was never tested. That's typical. Ironically, we have much better flu statistics for 2020 because the presence of Bat Soup resulted in a lot more lab testing to confirm flu.

But, in general, yes, if a coronor bothers to write "influenza" on a death certificate, it counts as an influenza death in NVSS regardless of other causes listed. If someone has terminal cancer, catches the flu and dies, then "flu" is the proximate cause of death, not cancer (both may or may not appear on the death certificate). If that same person is killed in a car accident, then auto-accident is the proximate cause, not cancer. If someone otherwise healthy gets hit by a car, goes to the hospital, gets flu in the hospital, and dies, then very likely both will end up on the death certificate and it is counted as both an auto-fatality and a flu death. That is the literally text-book process going back many decades and it is done because it is the only way of treating comorbidities with any consistency. Knowing that ALL of these things consistently overlap, there are ways to deal with it in the numbers.

If you tried to figure out how many people "actually died" of covid by some definition, then you would have to compare apples-to-apples with auto-fatalities, flu, heart-attacks, etc. If you attempt the exercise, you will rapidly learn why we mostly never do that.

Expand full comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZpgra3XbU

If Someone Dies with COVID-19, We Are Counting That As a COVID-19 Death

This has never happened before. Never have we counted everybody with a tiny bit of flu virus as a flu death. If a covid positive person is killed FOR ANY REASON, that's a covid death. Even the car accident.

Hell, GEORGE FLOYD was a covid death.

So since we DON'T do that for other deaths, why did we change the rules? Why does EVERY SINGLE positive test demand being listed on the death certificate?

Expand full comment

The CDC tracked the flu all the way up until Covid. Now the flu has magically disappeared

Expand full comment

Nah, there are some Repub County Judges that adopted similar limitations, but in the main you're right the biggies like Travis, Dallas, Harris, Tarrant, Bexar, etc. were the most aggressive and are STILL trying to control their populations. Thank goodness Abbott has done a pretty good job of balancing things though we'd still be better off if we had taken Sweden's approach. Too many Karens for that though......

Expand full comment

The over the top response to COVID-19 was originally done as yet another means to undermine and sabotage the Trump administration. The democrats in NY and NJ eschewed copious resources supplied by Trump and instead chose a course of action that led to the unnecessary and preventable deaths of thousands of older people.

Now that Trump is gone, the farce is being continued in earnest because the mercurial lock-downs, mask mandates, and vaccination document requirements are training the public for the planned future of extreme micromanaging of their lives and existence by a ruling class who are absolutely certain they know what's best for all of the humanity they openly despise now, in spite of mountains of evidence and a history of consistent failures to the contrary.

Even though there is zero evidence that, outside of a clinical setting containing people with open wounds or compromised immune systems, masks are a deterrent for the spread of disease, the mask mandates are now a key political wedge issue. The democrats will literally never give up the mask mandates... ever. The reason why is that mask mandates, over time, condition the public like domesticated livestock to whittle down notions of personal "freedom" to something as preposterous as being "allowed" by some psychopathic governor to walk around in the open air without a goddamn dirty rag over one's face.

"Golly!!!... Thank you dear leader for letting me not have to wear a mask today!... I feel so free!!!"

Once freedom is defined to that pathetic level of existence, people won't fret so much about the high taxes they pay to corrupt psychopaths to squander on things that don't do the public one lick of good.

The Future is Now... And it really sucks.

Expand full comment

Thaks Mule, a great comment! It touched all the essential points. The actual agenda of the Covid Hysteria is social engeneering to entrain populations to accept draconian measures involving their health.

Your personal health is now the state's business, not yours, not your doctors, but to be mandated by the state.

And this all goes back to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Klaus Schwab's 'Great Reset'. The final goal is the end of UD sovereignty and the melding of the US with a global government run by technocrats such a Scwab, Fauci and their gang.

https://thedissedent.page/2021/08/13/mad-scientist-rule-the-world/

https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/26/the-great-reset-h-g-wells-dystopian-vision-comes-alive/

\\][//

Expand full comment

Covid torpedoed the entire economy, and changed the narrative during the 2020 election from "The best economy on record" to "FEAR FEAR FEAR HEALTHCARE FEAR JOBS FEAR FEAR".

And people think they aren't related thats cute.

Expand full comment

And it’s quite obvious. The awakened see it. The sheeple don’t

Expand full comment

Yeah and the sheep on the right are just as bad, today I heard Liz "The poster-girl for white privelege" Cheney saying all of the Afghanistan stuff was Trump's fault, remember, because he wanted to pull out of the 20 year war.

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/16/liz-cheney-donald-trumps-meeting-with-the-taliban-set-all-this-in-motion/

So now you have the hawks on the left and the right uniting to get us back into Afghanistan which was obvious by news coverage the entire intent of the "botched pullout".

This is something Glenn spoke about months ago.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-new-ruling-coalition-opposition

Expand full comment

I have a 16 year old who has now lost the second half of freshman and entire sophomore years. He was an honors student, but by the end of last year flunked 3 classes. Remote learning was a complete joke, the teachers often didn't show up at all, just posted a note on the screen to read the next section. His sport was cancelled, he's now lost interest after the 1.5 year absence. Judging by the reaction of the school and district, and the incredibly full summer school programs (again, it took weeks to find availability), this is very common in our area. The district just offered to retroactively list any grades on any transcript as pass/fail. When he predictably developed major depression, it took us months to find a therapist with availability, and that is by remote because the available therapist lives 2,500 miles away. It's only now getting better for him, he just successfully finished summer school and the therapy is helping immensely.

Any education official who claims to care about the children in all this is lying, plain and simple. This is about flexing political muscle and protecting the teachers, full stop. I would say they should be ashamed of themselves, but they are incapable of shame.

Expand full comment

Pretty much the same here in Las Vegas. Teen suicides doubled. I have 4 grandchildren in school here. They handled the situation reasonably well but we are well off and could provide some relief in extra activities and swimming in our pool. I used to drive by apartment complexes where poor children lived. What little play equipment they had was marked off with yellow “crime” tape. It was heartbreaking.

Expand full comment

Get him enrolled in college classes...now! Get him a part time job at Starbucks where they provide ASU online at no cost (provided you maintain X hours and Y gradepoint). Do the essentials for 2 years then let him choose where he finishes, at which point we'll be out of this pandemic.

Expand full comment

The Cult of Safetyism (of which the Cult of Covid is a branch) has done and continues to do immense damage to our society. It has blinded sensible people to rational thought; it has turned us into a nation of cowards; it has done astoundingly high damage to kids’ development; and on and on… “ if we just save one person, it is worth any cost…” “out of an abundance of caution…” “you are responsible not for yourself, but for all of us…”

Expand full comment

It is amazing that the cult of safetyism has emerged, just as the concept of due process has declined. It used to be that if one innocent person was convicted...

Expand full comment

I am amazed that you are amazed. If you are going to enslave people you have to promise to take care of them. It is the natural devolution of government.

Expand full comment

Ok, but what do you think of the societal consequences of policy that says "We don't give a fuck about you, you're on your own"? Without some kind of shared protection and social contract you don't have society but ruthless chaos and anarchy.

Expand full comment

Policy isn’t a real thing beyond the people who use the coercive force of government. What do I think of them not coercing me? That would be awesome. The lockdowns along with the destruction of the economy is the worst public policy decision in world history. The reason why I say that statism is a religion, and not merely like a religion, is that there are no limits to the number of people that they can kill, the number of lives they can destroy, that dissuade you from worshiping their power and not questioning their authority. Despite your devotion to them, let me assure you, in the words of George Carlin, “they don’t give a fuck about you”.

Expand full comment

Fuck, I wish substack had a high-five button instead of like because I'd hit it on this post.

Expand full comment

Something more like a religion is the belief that private profits and imaginary currency are worth more than human life, and that the best way to help people is to abandon them to disability and death.

Expand full comment

Well, people learn very quickly the government isn't around to help them and they need to make their own way.

It's an important lesson that should be taught as early as possible.

Expand full comment

Beyond the fact that it reflects reality better than saying you must wear a dirty rag on your face for flue bug that doesn't even make 99% of the people infected with it ill and has a 99.9%+ survival rate. That mandates seems a lot more like "I don't give a fuck about you." than simply leaving mask wearing a personal choice outside of clinical areas.

Expand full comment

they are doing it as Rand Paul said "For political theater".

Their plan is that by seeing masks, it is a visual cue that we should live in fear and only the government can protect us by providing us healthcare, oh by the way vote DNC.

Expand full comment

Neither extreme is good, hence the need for cost-benefit analysis. You know... the main point of Glenn's essay?

Expand full comment

I am a big fan of that policy myself, as a libertarian.

Expand full comment

That makes sense, but really think about what it means to live in a failed state with no services, law, or social cohesion. Such places already exist in Libya, Somalia etc and they aren't fun.

Expand full comment

I love the Somalia argument. The groveling statists using it demonstrates the childishness of their arguments. I also love the idea that social cohesion only comes from the violent force of government. The assumption is that we will all devolve into some grown-up version of Lord of the flies if we don’t have sociopaths lording over us, threatening us, and ruining our lives. Way to lick a boot

Expand full comment

The sociopaths are the people who think they can play out their fantasy as a warlord in a total state of anarchy, as if freedom means anything when you don't have health care, roads, clean water. I mean, you could turn to your local robber baron or warlord for these things, but its just easier to have a functioning government.

Expand full comment

Sooo…if someone believes in voluntarism, I.e. coercion is illegitimate as a means to order society, they secretly harbor a desire to be a war lord? How did you arrive at this very odd conclusion?

Expand full comment

I live in an area where libertarians like to create the most noise and soot from their armored pickup trucks as possible, drive around with confederate flags and brandish weapons and body armor at every chance. Their paradise is a war zone. That is the apex of hyperindividualism that Americans believe in. And then when someone asks them to put on a mask...its violence. Lol.

Expand full comment

Such policies exist in nature. We constantly hear talk of 'letting it be as nature intended' except when it comes to handing out help for other citizens. Then its not "let nature take over" its "lets do the exact opposite of what happens in nature".

This is not to say it doesnt have consequences, which was your point I believe.

Expand full comment

Eh, we are in nature. Humans are part of nature. What are you on about?

Expand full comment

Strong lions dont take a kill over to the weak lion. Nature and Darwinism says the strong survive. This is antithesis to the concept of big government and its constant "let us give you everything you want as long as we get to control it".

Expand full comment

So without state coercion and confiscation you wouldn’t help other people?

Expand full comment

Leave it to a shitlord liberal to take something I never said and then associate that behavior to me.

This is like me asking:

Are you saying that as a Democrat you support slavery?

I am using as my argument the irrefutable and cited fact that every single Democrat except 1 voted against the Emancipation Proclamation.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/37-3/h384

Expand full comment

Even Karl Marx envisioned a state-less society, but he understood that you can't do that without first a class-less society without power imbalances, or else you just have barbarism and feudalism.

Expand full comment

Without these things I would probably be a slave or struggling for survival.

Expand full comment

Or maybe humans have evolved and we can take responsibility for ourselves instead of acting like abdication responsibility is to respect the magical free market or "nature".

Expand full comment

Isn't providing something to someone who didnt provide it themselves the exact lack of responsibility for themselves you are bitching about?

Expand full comment

Safetyism and authorities have joined forces in what on the surface presents as an humanitarian effort to “save the children . By not exploring the costs to the measures with open rational dialogue, we have failed

Expand full comment

Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality. Theodore W Adorno

Expand full comment

But government has succeeded. It has succeeded in doing what it’s real purpose is which is to parasitize people, extract their wealth, and in the process reduce them to servitude. It’s working great!

Expand full comment

This is a direct result of the new voting and buying power of women in America, imo.

America is a softer, gentler place where we hand out trophies for all children, and this is 100% something that occurred with the children of the hippies.

Expand full comment

Branch COVIDians :-)

Expand full comment

I heard from the old coots bleating about the “Safety Empire” whilst in the military 50 years ago. As now, it was from whiners to whom doing a proper job was “too hard, mommy!”

Expand full comment

So you are 70+ year old Canadian bitching about American politics every single day on the internet?

Your life must be incredibly pathetic to spend so much time bitching about something that in no way affects you.

Expand full comment

Glad you finally picked up the topic, Glenn. The refusal to do any cost-benefits analysis is just the tip of an iceberg that something fundamentally rotten here. I am no Covid dinner, not a Trump supporter and not an anti-vaxxer. I just took my Pneumovax 23. So what are the other indicators that something is fundamentally rotten?

1) right at the beginning of the pandemic government officials in multiple countries had proclaimed that we'll get back to "normal" only after vaccination. Now consider that a vaccine for a new disease has always taken 8-10 years to develop. They cannot have suggested locking down countries for that long. Alternatively it has always been a fix from the beginning

2) If Covid-19 is one of the deadliest diseases that we have faced recently, why have our health authorities failed so far to come up with early treatment recommendations? I am being polite here - in reality they have doing everything to refuse to consider and evaluate many promising options. I have had several relatives, colleagues, friends who got Covid. All of then have survived well. But more importantly, I have asked each of them, after being told that have Covid, what their primarily physician had asked then to do. Without exception they were told to "stay home, take rest, drink a lot of water, take Aspirin if needed, measure temp, etc. ... and go to the emergency room if symptoms become serious"!!!! Really?

3) "Fatality from Covid" per million differ by a factor oh hundred. That tells me that it is not the inherent lethality of the virus, but other things that are different in different countries that should be equally taken into consideration - identify those, and find out where one can have the best leverage. It may sound provocative, but a virus does not (by itself) kill a person. It initiates a cascade of events that ultimately may or may not kill the persons. the events in this cascade are influenced by a variety of parameters, some biological and some external. Biological parameters include strength of the immunes system, age, comorbidities, etc. External parameters include time and type of medical intervention, access to care, etc.

Therefore, the logical approach would have been to investigate why fatality rates are different in different countries and location, identify a host of parameters that might be influencing the cascade of events, then identify which ones can be influenced (in the short, medium and long term), and then go about addressing the problem. But no, from the very beginning, there was a razor sharp focus on vaccination. In reality, what we have been having from the very beginning, are not pandemic measures but vaccination measures. There is a big difference between to the two.

Let me give an analogy to explain the fallacy. Let's say the mortality rate from gun shot wound is 100 times higher in Country A than in Country B. Instead of finding out why Country A is having so much more fatality from a the cause, the government of A dictates that everyone in Country A must go around in full body armor made from depleted uranium. We are the Country A!

I could add many more such absurdities, that irrespective of any statistics or having to go into virology or medicine, shows that if you think rationally, the whole thing stinks.

BTW, I always see people talking about "Covid cases". That's an absurdity. What they (including officials) are talking about is the number of "PCR positives". These are completely two distinct things.

PCR is a test that cannon detect infection or infectiousness. It certainly cannot diagnose any disease, let alone Covid that's because it is not a diagnostic device. Only a clinician, sometimes with the help of certain diagnostic tools, can diagnose a disease. PCR test has never been approved as a diagnostic device, the test as not been standardized and has never been validated. Authorities are misreprestating PCR positive numbers as "cases" to scare people to comply with draconian measures.

Expand full comment

This ^^^^. How are we going on two years into a pandemic that has (allegedly) claimed over 4 million lives, and yet, even today, living in a major metropolitan area with access to the (allegedly) best medical care in the world, if I get COVID, my doctor will not do anything for me short of, "take some aspirin and call an ambulance if you stop breathing".

Expand full comment

The refusal to develop and implement therapeutic protocols (by the governmental agencies, not by independent doctors) for the early stages of the disease may be the single most infuriating piece of this puzzle. They speak of blood on the hands of the unvaxxed when they are standing in an ocean of it.

Expand full comment

The thoroughly evil combo of legacy media and the DNC simply won't talk about early treatment options, but they do exist under EUA from the FDA. Here's one: https://www.regencov.com

Expand full comment

Can I ask you why you believe anyone in the media about anything?

I don't.

Make them prove the shit they are saying.

Expand full comment

You should take my use of (allegedly) twice in my comment as a good indication of my level of trust in the media "about anything". But I have enough direct personal experience to verify that COVID is a virus that can and often does make people very sick, and I do know that within a half of an hour from my house, there are several world-renowned medical institutions (UCSF and Stanford Med Schools, Kaiser HMO HQ, etc.). Still, if I or someone in my family gets COVID, it doesn't appear that short of hospitalization, there will be anything offered to help us.

Expand full comment

" If Covid-19 is one of the deadliest diseases that we have faced recently, why have our health authorities failed so far to come up with early treatment recommendations?"

Good question. DeSantis is promoting the horrible idea that "Early Treatment Saves Lives." Regeneron (Monoclonal Antibodies) has EUA from the FDA, but nary a peep from the ghoulish legacy media/DNC axis.

Expand full comment

Steroids were not used through the entire NYC peak because of a WHO recommendation about SARS1 that turned out to be wrong and deadly.

9 of 10 people put on a ventillator dies. Frontline heroes wanted them because they filter the air coming out of the person, so many believed shoving tubes down throats would make the hospital environment less contagious. Of course they are all wearing "masks," but real scientists know masks don't work. so "stay home until you're sicker" was tortured-reasoning good-intent: if you come in likely as not we'll kill you to protect ourselves by putting you on a vent so you must not do it until you're so bad off the ventilator might be helping you.

FDA had to be begged over talk-to-the-hand disinterest to grudgingly allow some use of convalescent plasma. CDC did not give enough support to the program to make it relevant. In 1900s doctors did this on their own without asking anyone.

This pattern of one random doctor in one University hospital begging for approval to do some basic treatment-improving trial, then begging for attention to the results, surely applies to many other stories.

SpO2 meters can tell you when you need to go to the ER and are cheap, but there's no discussion of how to get an accurate one in each household.

I see a conspicuous lack of national coordination. They want to talk about lab origin, lockdowns, vaccine coercion, and mask nonsense. They don't want to do their job and coordinate the response by:

- increasing the risk budget on research to match the emergency's urgency,

- sharing information among doctors

- giving basic treatment advice to everyone

- using recognition and authority to encourage doctors to put themselves out there.

They're also not collecting data. The best data guiding US policy decisions comes from Israel and Norway. And their analysis of data is conspicuously rigged to achieve a political result every time, like bucketing boys and girls in myocarditis risk when they know it only affects boys to make the effect look half as large.

The mask is not even falling any more. Everyone now assumes these agencies are staffed by corrupt Soviet-style apparatchiks that vomit authoritative bulshytt.

Expand full comment

So just to be clear, we need to blindly trust the same medical professionals who in " the AMA’s (1989 Encyclopedia of Medicine) were saying transgender people were infected with and I quote:

"[a] rare psychiatric disorder in which a person feels persistently uncomfortable about his or her anatomical sex," and who typically seeks medical treatment, including hormonal therapy and surgery, to bring about a permanent sex change.

I mean its not like medical experts change their tune when pressured politically, right?

Expand full comment

Replying to the same people telling me to 'listen to experts' not you personally.

Expand full comment

Why do you believe COVID is as deadly as they say it is?

Where are the death certificates? They aren't even done yet and the media is already adding people to COVID death totals. Its Y2K all over but with COVID.

They took an actual issue, fearmongered it into oblivion, and then reaped all the $ they made off that fear.

https://nypost.com/2021/03/10/massive-1-9-trillion-bill-is-a-bailout-for-blue-states/

Expand full comment

Y2K didn't happen because hundreds of thousands of people worked millions of hours fixing and testing old code to make sure it didn't. Not because it wasn't a real problem.

Expand full comment

Y2K didnt happen because it was fear-mongering to blow billions on more big government.

Expand full comment

Well the flu died, magically, that’s for sure

Expand full comment

That’s a very good point. And I agree with you . I had left it out deliberately in order to make my point that something is very fishy - and do that by focusing solely on “non-statistical” aspects.

I could add several more points, but I had to keep us short because I had a doctor appointment.

Expand full comment

You are spot on flu deaths are at record lows, cause and effect correlation anybody?

Expand full comment

It's almost like social distancing, hand washing, and staying home when sick have some effect on virus transmission.

Expand full comment

Well said. I share your thought that it was time that Glen commented. It will be interesting to see if Twitter and the others let this stand on his accounts. Being silent on this issue is complicity in my book. Too many lives and too much freedom are at stake.

Expand full comment

Did your smartphone change "denier" to "dinner" ;?)

Expand full comment

Even the lowly spellcheck is sick of that stupid "denier" term. lol

Expand full comment

Ha, ha. Actually it did butcher a few more words in my text. I had a doctor appointment and ended up posting it without reviewing it first. ;-(

Expand full comment

Done that

Expand full comment

I recently had a discussion with my graduate mentor about covid, and how mask policies and vaccinating children for a disease that is virtually harmless to them (statistically) does not make sense. We do not put our children at increased risk in order to provide more safety for grandma and grandpa. He said my type of language is what leads to elder abuse. In this discussion, it was also implied that I placed a greater value on the lives of children vs. the elderly. I outright stated that if I were forced to put value on lives, that yes, the life of child is "worth" more than that of an elderly individual, and that I thought this was a normal stance of people in our society (after all, you save the women and children first in emergencies).

Covid has people living in their brainstems, leaving them unable to think rationally. This includes our children, who have been severely impacted by all-things covid. It needs to stop.

Expand full comment

Exactly. It's like the entire Covid "narrative" was crafted with an appeal to primitive level thinking (which still takes over in the presence of extreme fear) in mind. Remember the early photos of people dropping dead in the streets, etc? It was all introductory manipulation.

Expand full comment

I'm old enough to remember the days when people would say "Break a leg!" and "Have a blast!" Now it's "STAY SAFE!!!" and "BE SAFE!!". Yech.

Expand full comment

And "we're all in this together"!

Expand full comment

“primitive level thinking” You’re not even up to that level.

Expand full comment

Last I checked, the elderly can get vaccinated. Is the question really the welfare of children vs. the welfare of some old idiot who won't get a vaccine (and who has a 99%+ chance at survival either way)?

You may want to get a new mentor.

Expand full comment

Problem is the people who need immunity worst, which includes people with conditions in the elderly, also don't respond well to vaccines. You need healthy I mine system to develop immunity to a virus or a vaccine.

Expand full comment

I'm guessing your mentor is a dem. Most academics are. The biggest problem we face is the politicization of science, and especially medicine. He's either too dumb to be a mentor or just parroting the party orthodoxy. It won't stop until dems are out of power.

Expand full comment

No, he's actually quite radical by US standards. He simply has bought into the covid hysteria, which is easy to do living in a liberal NE town, being engulfed in it. He's also a science guy but admits he hasn't read much of the stuff coming from the "conspiracy" side of things. It's easy to find "science" on both sides of a lot of these issues to reinforce one's confirmation bias, and I find it troubling so many are stopping to investigate at that point.

Expand full comment

Disappointing that there are comments here literally arguing against doing any cost/benefit analysis. Hope they're getting paid by Pfizer's PR firm because the alternative is almost more depressing.

Expand full comment

Well done

Expand full comment

Well done. This is really important. Aside from the fact that MASKS DO NOT WORK. And vaccine passports are racist and exclusionary even if the vaccines stopped one from contracting and spreading the virus. And lockdowns and closures are insane as they destroy many aspects of human health and survival. 150 million globally have been shoved into extreme poverty and starvation by lockdowns.

But one important addition, is that Covid is extremely AGE STRATIFIED and none of these restrictions nor guidelines are AGE STRATIFIED. Nearly 80% of Covid deaths are among people over 65 with multiple underlying comorbidites. People over 65 are only 16% of the population. The OBESE are also nearly 80% of all deaths. And hospitalizations are nearly 80% people with Vitamin D deficiencies. So Covid is not something that impacts everyone equally.

In fact, asymptomatic spread, spread on surfaces and outdoor spread are all rare and not a driver of the pandemic. So masking is nonsensical, even if it worked. Which is most certainly does not. Covid is transmitted by aerosols and masks do not stop aerosols. If you can smell the smoke from a person smoking nearby, then you are not protected from Covid aerosols either. People who are high risk go into crowded indoor spaces because they are masked and risk contracting Covid, and those with symptoms may go out thinking they are masked so it's okay. So, Masks likely cause more deaths from Covid.

With the decline in vaccine efficacy shown in Israel and the UK, we have to admit that Covid is going to be endemic and seasonal like the flu. We will see it come in waves and we need a longterm strategy to protect the most vulnerable while the young and healthy return to normal.

As soon as we admit Covid will NEVER END, we can start making sensible policies to protect the vulnerable, not to destroy the lives of children and young healthy people who are at vanishingly small risk. Children are likely at about .001% of death from Covid. That's far less than from the FLU. Policies for children should not be the same as those for people over 65. We should be putting money into protecting the elderly and the infirm and vulnerable. And stop limiting the lives of the young and healthy who SHOULD catch Covid, hopefully after vaccination, and have robust natural immunity which in turn protects the elderly and immunocompromised because they are also part of the herd.

Last thing, masking children for 7 hours a day in school is criminal. They are at at least 4x less danger from Covid than from the Flu. It's child abuse to make them mask up all day in school. The severe damage we are doing to our children is going to be seen in the future as a crime against humanity.

Expand full comment

MASKS DO NOT WORK. Proof?

Expand full comment

There is now 18 months of real world data that shows the same results in states and countries regardless of mask compliance. Just look at Sweden.

There have been studies, like the Danish study which show no benefit for individuals nor societies.

Cloth masks stop nothing. Even professionally fitted N95 masks have to be worn tightly and all the time and swapped for new ones multiple times a day to show any effectiveness. And no one does that.

As mentioned, if you can smell smoke through it, aerosols are getting through. A new study showed that 50% of exhaled air goes around masks. So aerosols are not stopped. Most of Covid transmission is via aerosols.

Also nearly 80% of cases trace to the home. So even if they worked they would be irrelevant.

And again, masks create a false sense of security which likely caused the elderly and high risk to take risks. And for those with symptoms to go out. So they probably cause increased deaths.

Masks also harms children and adults, contributing to isolation and depression.

The irrefutable evidence is that places with low mask compliance have done as well as those with high mask compliance. Kids in Schools that were open did better than those in schools that were closed.

The clear takeaway is that our interventions have created extreme harm. But have not stopped the virus.

https://fee.org/articles/new-danish-study-finds-masks-don-t-protect-wearers-from-covid-infection/

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/10/07/covid-19-to-add-as-many-as-150-million-extreme-poor-by-2021

Expand full comment

Indeed. Cloth masks are ridiculous. I was thinking as much one evening when a neighbor put on a big party. That sickly sweet smell of marijuana was thick. A cloth mask would not filter out marijuana fumes any better than it would filter out smoke. A cloth mask would certainly not filter out smaller virus particles.

Expand full comment

If cloth masks were effective, Doctors would use them instead of crying for the last year about shortages for the masks they actually use because cloth ones aren't shit.

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/25/1009858893/u-s-companies-shifted-to-make-n95-respirators-during-covid-now-theyre-struggling

Expand full comment

Put another way: it would be illegal to advertise a mask as having any effect on COVID-19 prevention.

Expand full comment

They dont advertise having any effect on anything. The expectation of virus protection is entirely in the mind of the buyer.

Expand full comment

This is the argument that tends to shut up social media maskers especially when I point out I work in actual healthcare and actual data.

Expand full comment

Surgical masks are no better than cloth for virus size particles. Surgical masks are designed to protect the patients from the surgeon drooling on them. If the docs want protection from infections they put on space suits.

Expand full comment

Well, there was that Danish study last year that tracked about 10,000 people over the course of three months. About half were randomly assigned to wear masks. 1.8% of the mask wearers contracted COVID in that time. 2.1% of the non-mask wearers contracted COVID. The difference of 0.3% was not statistically significant.

Expand full comment

https://uwaterloo.ca/news/media/study-supports-widespread-use-better-masks-curb-covid-19

Depends what you mean by "masks". Those face diapers and the surgical masks are effectively worthless.

Expand full comment

... as has been proven by multiple studies that for reasons I will truly never understand our public health "experts" have decided to ignore.

Also, N95 masks were never designed to filter exhaled particles, rather the inhaled ones. They do a very poor job of it, but since cloth/surgical masks are 0% effective, I suppose it's fair to say they are better.

Expand full comment

Anyone wearing them HAS to know their breathing is being restricted. A child is being CONDITIONED BEHAVIORIALLY to breathe shallowly. Shallow breathing restricts your lungs and voila leads to Covid. Could anything be more obvious?

Expand full comment

I get the thinnest masks I can find. They probably wouldn't keep bugs out of my teeth on a motorcycle. But the airlines like them fine. I read about a lady in Hollywood last year bragging about a mask she crocheted...

Expand full comment

LOL!

Expand full comment

Masks also impede air flow, reducing oxygen and increasing co2 concentration, above osha safety standards for adults, probably developing retardation in kids, in addition to the festering bacterial growth from the little snotty brats. They might be useful if it also muffled them, but they don't do that either.

Expand full comment

And yes the other things you say about masks are accurate. The first time I left one on for a few hours while in the library using the computer, I had verrtigo when I left and went outside. I thought I could faint easily.

Expand full comment

Your comment is revealing. Masking children reveals an invisible hatred for children in this culture.

Expand full comment

Sometimes good motives have bad outcomes.

Expand full comment

Yes, there is a lot of evidence they don't work, for those who want to see it. And are competent enough to find it.

Expand full comment

Just wear one and brethe thru it. You will FEEL your breathing RESTRICTED. What else do you need to know.

Expand full comment

Those who have experienced scuba, or snorkeling, or swimming, or hiking up mountains, know breathing is sometimes difficult. We overcome, usually, and get the job done. A little difficulty with masks could be accommodated if it was useful. It's not.

Expand full comment

Depends if breathing restriction is conscious or unconscious. Whether you are being conditioned to breathe that way without knowing that that's what is happening to you.

Expand full comment

Smell that cigarette smoke nearby. Did you?

Expand full comment

The point is the smoke is tiny aerosol particles of .1 micro, which is the same size as viral particles for Covid, which pass right through a mask. Also, if the aerosol particles are going around the mask, you smell the smoke. AND THEY ARE! And 50% of air you breathe out goes around the mask.

Expand full comment

So I am sup[osed to bel;ieve you are an expert and know EXACTLY to the micro how big smoke partidcles are and Covid particles. Sorry I'm not buying.

Expand full comment

Clearly masks (leaving aside correctly fitted N-95 respirators) provide almost no protection to the wearer. That is not the point. Surgeons do not wear masks to protect themselves from patients, but to protect patients from the surgeon. And, yes, most of the air the surgeon breathes out goes around the mask, nonetheless, wearing masks is a necessary part of the standard protocols that drastically reduce the risk of infections from surgical procedures. Masks impede clouds of droplets carrying viruses and bacteria from the wearer into the environment. Whether the effect is strong enough in the case of droplets carrying SarsCov-2 viruses to be worth the inconvenience and discomfort to the general public is, drum roll please, a matter for cost-benefit analysis.

Expand full comment

N95s are special to capture 95% (not 100%, and most commercial masks have been shown to not meet spec) of particles considerably bigger than virus particles. Statistically they'll catch a few, but obviously miss a lot.

Expand full comment

I hope you realize that it is not individual virus particles floating around in the air, but droplets from people's breath carrying the particles, that spread the disease. The droplets are considerably larger than the 0.3 micron size that an N-95 catches, while even individual virus particles at 0.1 microns would be caught at some lower efficiency rate. I only mentions correctly fitted N-95 respirators because someone with the opposite views on the mater to what I take yours to be would otherwise have brought them up.

Maybe we should all read the paper at doi: 10.1126/science.abg6296 and those it cites before continuing the discussion.

Expand full comment

I guess, in Abbeyville, smoke particles = a virus in an aerosol.

Expand full comment

Smoke particles are larger than micro particles in a Covid breath. You do the arithmetic.

Expand full comment

But how much of the smell of cigarette smoke is due to particles in the smoke and how much to volatile aromatic compounds boiled off in the burning process, the particles of which are molecules and considerably smaller than a virus particle? Bring the empirical science on that before you suggest anyone do arithmetic.

Expand full comment

You want me to believe Best Buy on the science? Nope. They want to sell me the masks.

Expand full comment

Right here is the proof that your country supports terrorists.

https://twitter.com/kinsellawarren/status/1430541154685161473

Go put on some blackface and tell us about your lack of free speech in Cuckville while you bitch about American politics.

Expand full comment

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣WARREN KINSELLA!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Or as Canada’s Frank magazine calls him, Kinsellout.

Expand full comment

Did you watch the video, thats your fake Afghan politician calling the Taliban "brothers".

Now, shut the fuck up. People who actually have free speech are talking and you aren't one of them.

Expand full comment

“Shut the fuck up…free speech…” Uh huh.

Expand full comment

Yeah we have free speech in this country America that you talk shit on in every greenwald post.

Meanwhile, up in cuckville, where you live, you do not.

Expand full comment

Literally all the data in the actual real world.

Expand full comment

It is a well-known fact that a negative cannot be proven. Prove that masks work, Pete.

Expand full comment

Ask Pete to prove his country's leader isnt a racist blackface wearing son of Fidel Castro.

Expand full comment

“Iconoclast”…like “patriot”…sure sign of a deluded flake.

Expand full comment

"Canadian" like "Liberal" sure sign of a cucked pussy

Expand full comment

Steve Pesce just tried.

Expand full comment

Hey Pete, prove that you have free speech in Canada?

Oh shit there goes all your woke muscles.

Expand full comment

Great post, Glenn. You raise questions most of us have been asking ourselves for a year and a half! In San Diego county where I live, COVID deaths (through 8/17/21) for children 0-9 are exactly... zero. For ages 10-19, that figure is 2, or .1% - a bit less than seasonal flu. And that includes kids who are immuno-compromised in some way. Children are more at risk being driven to school than in school from COVID. I recently reviewed as much mask data as I could find. Most such studies were for influenza, and most included hand washing and social distancing together with mask wearing. The general takeaway I got is that this combination protocol is modestly beneficial in high risk settings. I can't see a justification for masking up kids, however, when one assesses the cost/benefits. The one mask-only study I could find (DANMASK-19) was inconclusive with respect to the benefits of masks. Despite being a well-designed study with 6,034 participants, it was turned down by Lancet, JAMA and NEJM - no surprise as all 3 have become politicized. I also noted that the Great Barrington Declaration by 3 of the world's top epidemiologists (and co-signed by over 3,000 other public health scientists) was given little coverage as it took a common sense approach such as what Glenn suggests - protect the vulnerable and otherwise open up with reasonable precautions. Another area that is under-reported on is the difference between the CASE fatality rate (when people present to an institution and are diagnosed with COVID) and the INFECTION fatality rate, which includes those who have mild symptoms and didn't get treatment or those who are asymptomatic. To me, the latter is what matters. I used CDC data to calculate my infection fatality risk (I'm a 69 year old male in good health) and it came out at .9 of 1%. I'll take those odds all day long. I have to conclude that the people making these inane decisions for us are either not very well-informed or they have an ulterior agenda.

Expand full comment

"Modestly beneficial" is generous. Its just physics. Airborne virus. Face coverings all have holes to allow some air through. The holes are bigger than the virus. Those who want a demo should fire up a joint, inhale, mask up, exhale in front of a mirror. Smoke goes out mostly around the loosely fitted edges but also liberally through the fabric. Any mask, even n95, which no one can tolerate more than a few minutes. Smoke particles are bigger than virus. If you don't smoke (good for you!) there are videos of this demo on line. Masks are designed to trap mucous particles with virus on the surface, expelled with cough and sneeze from infected people. That's not the main transmission for covid.

Expand full comment

Great article, as usual, but those who would benefit the most from taking its message to heart are those to whom Covidiocy is either a) true religion or b) malevolent intent to bring about a nefarious outcome. Neither will change their behavior based on logic and clear thinking.

Expand full comment

Another way cost-benefit is ignored is on the specificity of the responses.

For example: recent CDC information suggests that infected individuals, whether vaccinated or not, shed the virus at the same rate -- i.e. are equally dangerous to those around them.

That would suggest that not getting vaccinated does not increase any individual risks but for the unvaccinated individual him/herself. There isn't any good data on how easy it is for the vaccinated to be reinfected or infected with variants (indeed, the CDC stopped measuring this in May of this year). And yet, the proposed solutions do not match the data. Things like vaccine mandates. Vaccine passports. When based on the reality on the ground, it would seem we should have perpetual social distancing and masks.

Then on masks, no studies showing the cost-benefit of those have rendered definitive answers either. Mask wearing has been shown to promote bacteria pneumonia. It might also stop the virus trapped in large vapor drops, but most masks aren't fine enough to stop the aerosol virus. What's the cost benefit there? Who knows?

Nothing is subjected to cost/benefit analysis, even compared to what our mainstream CDC says we know.

That's religion. Masks always good. Non-mask wearers always bad. Vaccine always good. ANY other treatments, even if seemingly effective -- bad.

And so it's no wonder people suspect other agendas (pharma profits, for example). When nothing makes sense, and the data is not only often contradictory but also rankly manipulated, that suggest motive other than health.

Expand full comment

Outside of an n95 mask (properly worn!), the most recent legitimate study shows that the stupid blue paper and cloth masks covidiots love wearing block barely 10% of air particles; i.e. they are virtually useless other than to signal your submission to Lord Fauci. https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0057100

Expand full comment

If mask mandates were to be taken seriously, there would need to be some kind of well-defined COVID mask standard formulated, articulated, and enforced. We're well over a year into this BS, and I could still satisfy any mask mandate going by tying two elastic loops on a 6" square piece of gauze. I will strongly resist resuming mask use of any kind. If that utterly fails, I will go back to what I wore initially, my 3M half-face respirator with organic-vapor-enhanced P100 filter cartridges. If forced to wear a mask, I will at least insist on wearing one that accomplishes something.

Expand full comment

Exactly!!! If masks CAN work, then you're going to have to start policing EVERYTHING about the masks. Is it clean? Did you get it out of your pocket? Did you wash your hands after touching it?

This is obviously untenable.

Expand full comment

Not sure why you need the oilproof kind. I would have thought that N100 is as good as P100. But of course you can do P100 if it makes you feel safe.

Expand full comment

Absolutely correct. The N95 masks, while effective, are very uncomfortable if worn for long

Expand full comment

Look at the spec. They're supposed to trap 95% of particles considerably bigger than viruses. Might catch a few. Maybe enough if you have healthy immune system. Also try the smoke test. Inhale smoke, fit your mask as you usually do, exhale in front of a mirror. You'll be surprised. Smoke particles are bigger than viruses. If you don't have anything smokable, Check online for videos.

Expand full comment

I use N95s consistently, including for hours at a time in the gym.

Expand full comment

You are a better person then me. I detest them

Expand full comment

Sorry, I'm not a better person, and I accept your point that many people find them uncomfortable. I should have made clear that reasonable people can differ on this.

Expand full comment

My gym doesn't require masks. I go every day, no problem. Maybe it's my nose hair.

Expand full comment

Maybe the cost benefit analysis for wearing masks is done by big pharma. No one that wears them follows strict protocol, so they are very likely to suffer additional harms that can be addressed by taking "medicine". Think of all the drugs available for the kids that will without a doubt suffer psychological harm by having to wear a useless mask. We have a drug for that too, or will have shortly.

Expand full comment

The context in which people wear masks is an issue too. Everybody wears them in public settings like grocery stores where they're only having brief passing interactions with other people where transmission is unlikely, but they don't wear them when they're visiting their friends and relatives and having the sort of prolonged close contact that is most likely to transmit the virus. It's like only wearing a seat belt on residential side streets, but taking off the seat belt whenever you get on the freeway.

Expand full comment

Unfortunately our leaders and press LIE ABOUT EVERYTHING. Equally unfortunate NO ONE is ever held accountable, except the disorderly tourists

Expand full comment

My daughter has MIS-C last year and it was the scariest two weeks of my life (she’s fine now), but I’m not going to ignore the statistics and pretend that my single experience (or other people’s one-off anecdotes) should dictate public policy. Schools absolutely need to be open and society needs to learn to live with this virus in a cost-benefit manner. The people championing New Zealand and Australia’s zero-COVID policies are the real psychopaths.

Expand full comment

New Zealand schools have been open almost this entire time with no mask or vaccine mandate...

Expand full comment

But when Trump announced travel bans, which are the way in which New Zealand managed that, the opposition party denounced him as engaging in "hysterical xenophobia" instead of demanding they be even stricter (which is what a real "party of science" would have done).

Expand full comment

And next door, aussies are shooting shelter dogs.

Expand full comment