Nick Reynolds

Newsweek

For so-called “longshot” candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott among Republicans and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. among Democrats sure are popular in recent polling for the 2024 presidential nominations.

Their likeability with voters, however, has so far failed to translate to tangible support for their campaigns.

When he entered the race this year, Kennedy was seen as a legitimate threat to siphon support from President Joe Biden, who wasn’t receiving full support for reelection within his own party.

Going off recent Harvard/Harris polling released last week, for example, Kennedy’s net favorability rating of +21 (meaning his favorable numbers are 21 percentage points higher than his unfavorable numbers) was 35 points higher than Biden’s as the president remained dogged by an anemic -53 favorability rating among the more than 2,000 registered voters polled.

A Flourish chart

But Kennedy has struggled to gain any momentum against a president whose job approval has regularly sagged well below lows seen by Trump, Barack Obama or George W. Bush in polls conducted during their presidencies. While 16 percent of Democratic voters in last week’s poll said they would support Kennedy over Biden, the president still enjoys the backing of 62 percent of Democratic voters.

And it’s not just against Biden. In a hypothetical matchup against Vice President Kamala Harris, Kennedy would get only about 22 percent of the vote.

Newsweek reached out to Kennedy’s campaign via email for comment. However, the answer for Kennedy’s inability to break through is, seemingly, simple: Biden, despite his unpopularity with Republicans and independents, is still very popular within his own party.

Though some two-thirds of voters said they didn’t want Biden to run for a second term (including 38 percent of Democrats) in a poll of 922 registered voters by The Messenger/Harris released Tuesday, Biden still enjoys a 78 percent approval rating among members of his own party while Kennedy, for the most part, has enjoyed most of his public-facing support from conservative groups and donors eager for a challenger to Biden.

[…]

Via https://www.newsweek.com/robert-kennedy-jr-would-winning-2024-if-it-was-popularity-contest-1815284

Episode 19 The Early Mughal* Empire

A History of India

Michael Fisher (2016)

Film Review

In 1526, Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur led his troops out of Kabul (Afghanistan) to conquer the Delhi Sultanate in north India. The Mughal empire lasted three centuries before being crushed in 1858 by the British.

Born in the central Asian kingdom of Ferghana, Babur was distantly related to both the Mongol Genghis Khan and the Turkman Timur (aka Tamerlane).

He made four unsuccessful attempts (starting in 1505) before ultimately capturing the Delhi Sultanate from a much larger army. The sultan had 100,000 men and 100 elephants lined up against Barbar’s 12,000. However the latter’s troops were much more mobile, using mounted warriors to surround enemy lines, as well as muskets and small canon in common use by the Ottoman Turks.

Maharam Sengram Singh led a major coalition of Hindu Rajput, Indian Muslim and Indo-Afghan troops against the invaders, which Babur ultimately defeated in 1527 to occupy all Muslim and Hindu cities of North India.

After constructing a string of watchtowers and postal rests along the highway to Kabul (which remained his home base). Barbur, who found north India oppressively hot and humid, sealed himself off in Delhi in walled-off water cooled gardens. When he died, his body was returned to Kabul for burial.

After taking up his father’s throne in Delhi in 1530, his oldest son Humayun declared himself divine and made an unsuccessful attempt to conquer south India. Sher Khan, who ruled the Bengal sultanate, united the Indo-Afghans from Bengal and Gujarat against him and eventually drove him out of India. In 1540 Sher Khan replaced him in Delhi as Sher Shah.

In 1555 Humayun recaptured the Mughal lands from Sher Shah’s son Isam Shah. He died a few days later after a fall, leaving his 13-year old son Akbar to reestablish the empire.

*Mughal is a Persian world for a warrior of mixed Mongul/Turkic origin.

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/366254/366209

(Image credit: Apple)

Sead Fadilpašić

techradar

UNESCO believes smartphones should be banned from schools, as they distract students and don’t really contribute to the learning process.

The UN’s educational organization has launched a global new report on technology in education, calling for governments around the world to regulate its use.

Called, “Technology in education: A tool on whose terms?”, the report argues that when used in excess, or without the presence of a qualified teacher, any benefits technology in the classroom might have – disappear.

Learning experience

“The digital revolution holds immeasurable potential but, just as warnings have been voiced for how it should be regulated in society, similar attention must be paid to the way it is used in education. Its use must be for enhanced learning experiences and for the well-being of students and teachers, not to their detriment”, warns Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO.

“Keep the needs of the learner first and support teachers. Online connections are no substitute for human interaction.”

UNESCO essentially accused governments around the world of not putting learners first, and doing very little to regulate an important aspect of society: Simply distributing computers to students does very little in terms of improving education, if teachers aren’t involved in the pedagogical process, UNESCO said. Furthermore, it added that “fewer than a quarter” of countries currently ban the use of smartphones in schools.

Teaching children how to use technology responsibly should also be a part of their learning experience, argues Manos Antoninins, Director of the Report. “We need to teach children to live both with and without technology; to take what they need from the abundance of information, but to ignore what is not necessary; to let technology support, but never supplant human interactions in teaching and learning.”

While UNESCO focused on the classroom in this report, excess smartphone use among the younger population is a much wider issue, with some researchers claiming children’s attention spans have dropped, many have become emotionally unstable, and if left without a smartphone for a prolonged period of time, some will even develop suicidal thoughts.

“Keep the needs of the learner first and support teachers. Online connections are no substitute for human interaction.”

UNESCO essentially accused governments around the world of not putting learners first, and doing very little to regulate an important aspect of society: Simply distributing computers to students does very little in terms of improving education, if teachers aren’t involved in the pedagogical process, UNESCO said. Furthermore, it added that “fewer than a quarter” of countries currently ban the use of smartphones in schools.

The Blogging Hounds

“The Amish are a perfect example of a large group of people who are largely unvaccinated,” testified Steve Kirsch to the Pennsylvania State Senate.

“You won’t find kids with ADD, with autoimmune disease, with PANDAS, PANS, with epilepsy. You just don’t find any of these chronic diseases in the Amish.”

“The US government has been studying the Amish for decades, but there’s never been a report out to the public,” Steve Kirsch denoted.

“After decades of studying the Amish, there’s no report because the report would be devastating to the narrative. It would show that the CDC has been harming the public for decades and saying nothing and burying all the data.”

Steve Kirsch also testified this interesting bit of information about the Amish to the Pennsylvania State Senate.

“I did the calculation,” Steve Kirsch announced.

Given five Amish people died in Lancaster County, PA, “the Amish died at a rate 90 times lower than the infection fatality rate of the United States of America.”

“Now, how is that possible?”Steve Kirsch asked. “It’s possible because the Amish aren’t vaccinated. And because the Amish didn’t follow a single guideline of the CDC,” he answered.

“They did not lock down. They did not mask. They did not social distance, They did not vaccinate, and there were no mandates in the Amish community to get vaccinated. They basically ignored every single guideline that the CDC gave us. Ignoring those guidelines meant a death rate 90 times lower than the rest of America.”

And here are Steve Kirsch’s opening four minutes:

“All these vaccines are causing harm to our kids. It’s not just the COVID vaccines,” attested

Steve Kirsch. “If you compare the results of kids whose moms didn’t get vaccinated, no [vitamin] K shot, and no vaccines, and if you compare the outcomes of those kids versus kids who got the CDC schedule, there is a dramatic difference,” he emphasized.

“It is a difference that nobody wants to talk about … The fully unvaccinated kids are always healthier.”

The Control Group Data – Vaccinated / Unvaccinated:

• Chronic Conditions – 60% / 5.71%

• Arthritis – 16.67% / 0%

• Heart Disease – 48% / 0%

• Diabetes – 10% / 0%

• Asthma – 7.7% / 0%

• Autism – 2.5% / 0%

• ADHD – 9.4% / 0.47%

• Cancer – 6.0% / 0%

The entirety of  Steve Kirsch’s testimony is provided in the link below. He speaks around the 2 hours and 25-minute mark.

Medical Freedom Panel 2023

[…]

Via https://theblogginghounds.com/2023/07/26/steve-kirsch-we-cant-find-an-autistic-kid-who-was-unvaccinated/

The Expose

Since late 2021, official Government reports have indicated the Covid-19 vaccine severely damages the immune system with the potential to cause some new form of Covid-19 vaccine-induced acquired immunodeficiency syndrome among people who have received multiple injections.

The claims were furiously denied by the mainstream establishment despite the fact it was their data that blatantly outlined this was the case. But rather than prove otherwise most Government agencies just decided to stop publishing the damning data instead.

However, almost two years later, the authorities have quietly decided to begin an investigation into Covid-19 vaccine induced Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and Antibody-Dependent Enhancement after scientists around the world, including many from Harvard and Yale, were forced to admit a debilitating suite of problems have been appearing hours, days or weeks after a Covid-19 vaccine has been administered.

But they have thus far decided to dub the condition ‘Long Vax’ in an attempt to trivialize the deadly consequences of Covid-19 vaccination and give more credence to the alleged condition ‘Long Covid’ which is otherwise known as hypochondria.

But despite this, the world is now gearing up for yet another new round of “boosters”. And like all vaccines, those targeting the alleged Covid-19 virus can cause deadly and debilitating side effects in many people.

According to the establishment and scientists at Harvard and Yale, these include cases of abnormal blood clotting and heart inflammation. Both of these have been known about since early 2021, with a huge rise in myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) being recorded among younger males.

But now scientists at Harvard and Yale are conducting research on what they claim is a newly identified condition they are absurdly referring to as ‘Long Vax’ and are even claiming the chronic symptoms resemble the made-up disease referred to as “Long Covid”.

The new study has materialised due to the quietly announced wider acceptance of the sinister consequences of Covid-19 vaccination among the mainstream medical and scientific community.

“You see one or two patients and you wonder if it’s a coincidence,” says Anne Louise Oaklander, a neurologist and researcher at Harvard Medical School. “But by the time you’ve seen 10, 20,” she continues, trailing off. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

According to researchers “Long Vax” may steam from an immune system overreaction to the spike (S) protein the body is instructed to make once the mRNA contained in the Covid-19 injections invades the body cells.

A spike protein that scientists and doctors assured the public was “harmless” when they decided to conduct the largest experiment on humankind in history following the emergency use authorisation of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 injections.

“I’m persuaded that there’s something going on” with these side effects, Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at Yale University says. “It’s my obligation if I truly am a scientist, to have an open mind and learn if there’s something that can be done.”

Evidence strongly suggests the body may produce a second round of antibodies that mistakenly attack healthy cells or bind to ACE2 receptors, leading to heart rate fluctuations and blood pressure issues. Common symptoms include headaches, extreme fatigue, abnormal heart rate, and blood pressure fluctuations.

In other words, the mainstream scientific establishment now believes the mRNA Covid-19 injections definitely cause Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE), and possibly even Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Just as many warned it would do, including The Expose team, prior to the emergency use roll-out due to the fact all previous trials of mRNA technology had induced the deadly condition.

And this is why mRNA technology had never been authorised for human use prior to the alleged Covid-19 pandemic.

What is Antibody-Dependent Enhancement/Vaccine-Associated Enhanced Disease?

Intensive research conducted by health experts throughout the years has brought to light increasing concerns about “Antibody-Dependent Enhancement” (ADE), a phenomenon where vaccines make the disease or immune system response to other pathogens far worse by priming the immune system for a potentially deadly overreaction.

ADE can arise in several different ways but the best-known is dubbed the ‘Trojan Horse Pathway’. This occurs when non-neutralizing antibodies generated by past infection or vaccination fail to shut down the pathogen upon re-exposure or another pathogen on exposure.

Instead, they act as a gateway by allowing the pathogen to gain entry and replicate in cells that are usually off-limits (typically immune cells, like macrophages). That, in turn, can lead to wider dissemination of illness, and over-reactive immune responses that cause more severe illness.

Even Dr Anthony Fauci, the Chief Medical Adviser to the President of the United States, admitted when discussing the Covid-19 vaccine, that this would not be the first time a vaccine that initially looked good, actually made people worse.

In 2016, a dengue virus vaccine was designed to protect against all four serotypes of the virus. The hope was that by inducing immune responses to all four serotypes at once, the vaccine could circumvent the issues related to ADE following disease with the dengue virus.

The vaccine was given to children in the Philippines. However, fourteen vaccinated children died after encountering the dengue virus in the community as they had developed antibody responses that were not capable of neutralizing the natural virus circulating in the community.

In previous clinical trials of vaccine candidates to combat SARS and MERS, the studies each failed during the animal phase due to ADE also known as pathogenic priming or a cytokine storm.

Phase three clinical trials are designed to uncover frequent or severe side effects before a vaccine is approved for use, including ADE.

But here in lies the problem, none of the Covid-19 vaccines completed phase three clinical trials, and this is the reason they were only granted emergency use authorisation. And it was the first time in history a novel “vaccine” was granted emergency use authorisation to be issued to the entire population, including children who have never been at risk of suffering anything worse than the common cold if exposed to the alleged Covid-19 virus.

What is Covid-19 Vaccine-Induced Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome?

It’s a common misconception that AIDS is only caused by the HIV virus or that they are even one and the same.

In fact, AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is just the name used to describe a number of potentially life-threatening infections and illnesses that happen when your immune system has been severely damaged.

People with acquired immune deficiency syndrome have an increased risk of developing certain cancers and serious infections that usually occur only in individuals with a weak immune system, or would otherwise be mild in those with a healthy, working immune system.

And sadly, a mountain of evidence suggests that Covid-19 injections should be added to the list of causes.

[…]

Via https://expose-news.com/2023/07/19/gov-admits-covid-vaccine-ade/

Ilya Tsukanov

Sputnik Global

The second Russia-Africa Summit and Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum will take place in St. Petersburg on July 27-28, with President Putin expected to meet with the leaders and representatives of 49 different African countries which have confirmed plans to take part.

Russia will be offering African countries an alternative to the defunct Black Sea Grain Deal to ensure the continent’s continued food security, Russian Foreign Ministry ambassador-at-large Oleg Ozerov has said.

“Of course, it will be not only a discussion as such, but the discussion with solutions for African nations so that they leave St. Petersburg with clear understanding how these issues will be resolved,” the Russian diplomat, who heads the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, told Sputnik.

Russia has already provided assistance to some African countries earlier, including gratis fertilizer shipments to countries including Malawi and Kenya, Ozerov added.

suspended its participation in the Black Sea grain deal last week, citing Western countries’ failure to facilitate Russian food and fertilizer exports, and pointing out that just 3 percent of the grain shipped out of Ukraine under the agreement actually went to countries in need in Africa and Asia, with the vast majority instead ending up in Europe and Turkiye.

Western powers have failed to bully African countries into submission and to persuade them not to attend the upcoming summit in St. Petersburg, Ozerov said.

“Pressure is being exerted. It is of a permanent character. This pressure was exerted through various channels – through the diplomatic corps of Western nations, which literally on a daily basis are trying to dissuade representatives of African states from traveling to Russia, and which demand that African countries firmly pick a camp,” Ozerov said.

The West’s demands look “very strange,” the diplomat said, as they’re coming “from those countries which publicly proclaim democracy and freedom of choice, but in practice demand submission to their dictates.”

There are also other forms of pressure besides politics and diplomacy, the ambassador-at-large said, including economic and financial coercion, with “political conditions put in place for the provision of economic assistance to a number of states both through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where the United States uses its dominant position to put forward political conditions.”

Similar conditionalities are being set up by the European Union, “when the allocation of loans is conditioned on the termination of contacts with the Russian side, or their reduction to a minimum, the non-attendance of a summit or the non-participation in [other] events,” Ozerov said.

Nevertheless, the diplomat stressed that Russia has not seen “African states following this dictate en masse.”

It’s now obvious that that the Western bloc cannot bend all other countries to its will, for objective reasons,” Ozerov said, likely alluding to the G7’s falling political and economic weight in the world as the BRICS countries slowly move the planet in the direction of genuine political and economic multipolarity.

Delegations from 49 of Africa’s 54 countries confirmed their plans to participate in the Russia-Africa Summit by last week, with about half being represented at the highest level – by heads of state or heads of government, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Ahead of the summit, Russian President Putin penned an article outlining his vision on the prospects for cooperation between Russia and African countries.

Ozerov indicated that Russian and African leaders will be adopting an overarching policy declaration, joint action plan, as well as three documents on sectoral cooperation at the summit, with the latter concerned with “the fight against terrorism, the non-deployment of weapons in space and international information security.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry expects that these document will become a platform for joint work with African countries on the creation of a new configuration of international relations, based on equality and a multipolar world rather than on a “unilateral dictatorship,” the diplomat noted.

Security Cooperation

In the security sphere, the Russian ambassador-at-large pointed out that Russia has no military presence in Africa, with requests of certain African countries concerning only security assistance.

“We do not have military presence there. There are requests to Russia to provide security assistance. But it is not military presence. Military presence is when one sends troops. We are not sending them. We are sending instructors at the request of African states,” Ozerov said.

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20230725/russian-african-leaders-to-adopt-declaration-joint-action-plan-at-summit—diplomat-1112126248.html

Dowd then presented a slide showing yearly PIP clearances (payments) by body system, using different metrics for 2020, 2021, and 2022.

“And you can see, I’ll point out hematological (blood-related) … that’s up 522% in 2022. And I want to say this is versus trend. It’s not versus 2021 or 2020. It’s versus a trend that we analyzed from 2016 to 2019. So it’s a percent increase over trend. And the trends were stable — and then this exploded.”

Dowd continued to explain the chart in more detail.

“And you can see, if you look at this chart, [increased claims in] different body systems started off slowly in 2020, picked up speed in 21, and just exploded in 2022. So something is going on that is detrimental to the population of the UK,” he concluded.

Here are some of the worrisome numbers of increased claims above trend in 2022:

Hematological – up 522%

Auditory – up 121%

Cardiovascular – up 121%

Dermatological – up 138%

Endocrine, metabolic, and thermoregulation – up 156%

Gastrointestinal – up 145%

Genito-urinary – up 143%

Immune – up 115%

Musculoskeletal – up 93%

Neurological – up 107%

Oncology – up 35%

Psychiatric – up 124%

Respiratory – up 93%

Visual – up 80%

“These numbers are just crazy percentage-wise,” Dowd remarked.

“We can convert these things to what’s called Z scores or standard deviations.”

Dowd explained how a three-standard deviation happens 0.3% of the time. “In Wall Street, that’s a big deal.” “Sometimes we see extreme six-standard deviation events, and that’s kooky,” he added. But alarmingly, the increase in hematological (blood-related) claims equates to a 61 standard deviation. “That’s like the probability of a black hole appearing near the earth, and we get sucked in in two years. It’s not something that is likely to occur mistakenly,” Dowd remarked.

Dowd ended by commenting, “61 standard deviations is lights out, black swan event, something’s gone off the rails. It’s so many zeros and so unlikely to happen by accident that it has to be explained. And that’s what we’re calling on the medical community to explain this. That’s it.”

The full interview between Doctors Drew Pinsky, Kelly Victory, and former Blackrock portfolio manager Ed Dowd is available in the video below:

Ed Dowd Reveals New “Bombshell” Data That Looks Like A Cover Up w/ Dr. Kelly Victory – Ask Dr. Drew

Via https://vigilantfox.substack.com/p/ed-dowd-drops-bombshell-data-hematological

By Ilya Tsuanov

Sputnik International

European industrial behemoth Germany has found itself among the nations hit hardest by the West’s attempt to “punish” Russia for its military operation in Ukraine, with industrial output slumping and the country sinking into a recession earlier this year after losing access to the cheap and reliable supply of Russian hydrocarbons.

German business, administrative, and government leaders have expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the government’s energy and economic policy, and expressed fears that the Central European industrial powerhouse’s economy may have “passed its zenith,” with its best days behind it.

A survey of 484 company board members, managing directors, government ministers, and other senior decision-makers by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research for German media has found that only 24 percent of the country’s managerial class is satisfied with Economic and Climate Minister Robert Habeck’s job performance, down from 91 percent just a year ago.

Fewer than a quarter of those surveyed expect things to improve over the next six months, with two thirds saying there’s “little chance” the country can restore its lost international competitiveness, and 76 percent saying they don’t believe Habeck or the Ministry of Economic Affairs has the interests of German business in mind to a sufficient degree.

Among the top five problems cited by managers which hamper Germany’s competitiveness are high energy costs (77 percent), a shortage of skilled workers (70 percent), excessive government regulation (68 percent), a backlog in digitization programs (65 percent), and dilapidated infrastructure (61 percent).

58 percent of those polled said Germany appears to have “passed its zenith” economically, with just 22 percent expecting the economy to pick up again.

About three quarters of respondents expressed criticism of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Traffic Light coalition (which includes Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, the Greens – represented by Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and the Free Democratic Party). Satisfaction with the coalition government has dropped from 62 percent in 2022 to 21 percent now, with 65 percent of those polled suggesting the coalition’s policies are “weakening the country.”

The Allensbach Institute conducted its survey between June 13 and July 7, with the 484 businessmen and officials polled including 89 board members of large companies, 18 ministers, and 28 heads of firms.

The German economy officially sunk into a recession in May after economic growth shrunk by 0.3 percent in the first three months of 2023.

In the aftermath of the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown Russia-NATO proxy war in Ukraine in February 2022, Germany has faced all the problems other Western countries have related to the decision to decouple themselves economically from Russia, like high inflation and spiking energy prices. However, as Europe’s main industrial economy, Germany’s crisis has been even more painful for local businesses, which have expressed concerns about the loss of competitiveness to other global behemoths like the US and China due to the energy-intensive nature of their products.

Washington added insult to Germany’s injuries last year after announcing federal subsidies to certain “green” industries, effectively trying to entice European industry to relocate to the United States for tax breaks and cheaper energy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in May 2022 that decoupling the European economy from Russian energy resources would threaten the entire region with widespread deindustrialization and loss of competitiveness.

Last month, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced that cuts in the budget had forced Berlin to halt additional contributions to the European Union’s budget.

“Germany is both an important supplier for other European countries and an important buyer. A lasting recession in the German economy will certainly have significant effects on France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands,” Paris-based economist Jacques Sapir told Sputnik earlier this month.

“If this recession lasts until next spring, the economies of the countries mentioned will also go into depression, which in turn will affect the German economy even more,” Sapir predicted, characterizing Berlin and Europe’s anti-Russian sanctions policy as “a form of suicide.”

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20230724/german-business-fears-best-days-behind-it-as-economy-crushed-by-loss-of-russian-energy-1112105334.html