Category Archives: Uncategorized

US universities impose ‘police state’ rules to prevent campus protests over Gaza war

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Police detain a protestor, as other police officers enter the campus of Columbia University, in New York City, on April 30, 2024. (Photo by Reuters)

PressTV

US universities have imposed “police state” rules to avoid a repeat of campus protests against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, with students and faculties warning of the chilling effect they would have on free speech.

Reports indicate that as summer break ends, university administrations across the United States are imposing tougher measures to avoid a new wave of campus protests, which led to nationwide police crackdowns on campuses last semester.

Large protest encampments set up last semester eventually ended after a nationwide police crackdown on campuses in different US universities led to more than 3,100 arrests.

Scores of students faced criminal charges and disciplinary measures, and several schools scaled back graduation ceremonies for protesting against the Israeli war which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians so far.

Columbia University students, who were at the vanguard of the movement, may encounter the most changes.

The university president, Minouche Shafik, resigned this week in the wake of criticism for her handling of the protests, but not before overseeing the installation of fencing around the lawns of the school’s quad – the heart of campus life and the site of large protest encampments.

According to the Wall Street Journal, university administrators are also considering bringing in “peace officers” with the authority to arrest students – something Columbia’s current 290 security personnel cannot do.

In an email sent to students last month, the administration also announced a “color-coded campus status” system, with varying levels of access restrictions “based upon the potential disruption to our academic mission and/or campus operations.”

To further confront protesting students, some universities have banned the use of “event tents, tables, walls, outdoor displays, inflatables, freestanding signs, huts, sculptures, booths, facilities, flashing or rotating lights, illuminated signs, or similar objects and structures.”

Students say despite new draconian rules the pro-Palestine rallies will continue as long as Israeli atrocities go on in occupied Palestinian lands.

“The war is still there … nothing has changed in Palestine,” said Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a sociology PhD student who participated in the Columbia University students’ campus protests.

He said universities’ efforts to quash the protests when students return from summer vacation will fail.

“It’s going to be more of a police state than it was, but I don’t think that means no one’s going to do anything,” the graduate student pointed out.

Human rights advocates and student activists as well as university faculty members have sounded the alarm about the new policies, warning that the restrictions in addition to endangering free speech, run counter to educational institutions’ mission to foster debate, risk deepening tensions on campuses, and – in the case of public universities – may run foul of schools’ constitutional obligations.

Last week, the American Association of University Professors issued a statement condemning the harsh anti-protesting rules at universities.

The tougher new rules “impose severe limits on speech and assembly that discourage or shut down freedom of expression”, wrote the group, which represents more than 44,000 faculty members nationwide.

“Those who care about higher education and democracy should be alarmed.”

[…]

Bring Back Traditional Cheese-Making — A Movement to Redefine Cheese as a Superfood

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Dr Mercola

Story at-a-glance

  • Industrial cheese production has compromised the quality of cheese. Most cheese is now made using synthetic, lab-produced rennet that alters the nutritional profile
  • Traditionally made cheese with animal rennet is a superfood, providing benefits like lactoferrin, beneficial saturated fats, vitamin K2, tyrosine and probiotic bacteria
  • Cheese made from A2/A2 milk from grass fed cows, and using traditional cheesemaking techniques is more nutritious and easier to digest than industrial cheese
  • Expanding access to traditionally made cheese can help shift consumer preferences toward healthier, more sustainable dairy options

Cheese has been a staple in human diets for millennia. However, the advent of industrial cheese production has dramatically altered its quality, making real, traditional cheese increasingly hard to find in the U.S. Instead, the market is now flooded with cheese made using synthetic, lab-produced rennet, which alters its nutritional profile and fails to match the quality and benefits of traditionally made cheese.

Fortunately, exciting developments are underway to make high-quality cheese more accessible to a broader audience. This initiative is spearheaded by Ashley Armstrong, cofounder of Angel Acres Egg Co., which specializes in low-PUFA (polyunsaturated fat) eggs, and the Nourish Cooperative, which provides some of the healthiest food in the United States. Ashley is also an expert on the late Dr. Ray Peat’s principles of bioenergetic medicine.

In our interview above, Ashley and I discuss the crucial differences between traditionally made cheese and its industrial counterparts, and how their efforts to expand the production and distribution of high-quality, artisanal cheese can allow more people to get access to this superfood and help shift consumer preferences toward healthier, more sustainable options.

The Emergence of Synthetic Cheese Rennet

Cheese is often said to be as good as the milk it’s made from, but an equally important factor is the rennet used in its production. Rennet is an enzyme complex responsible for coagulating milk. It comes in four types — animal rennet, vegetable rennet, microbial rennet and fermentation-produced chymosin (FPC), a rennet made from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that is often misleadingly labeled as “plant-based” for greenwashing purposes. Ashley explains:

“In the early 1990s, Pfizer generated FPC … It is produced in a lab from a genetically modified enzyme, so it’s not natural. They take a gene out of an animal cell’s DNA string and insert it into a bacteria, commonly a yeast or a mold.

They take that DNA, put it into the yeast or mold DNA string, and then that will initiate the production of the chymosin enzyme, [which is] what coagulates the milk. That is what’s naturally occurring inside the stomach chamber of a cow. The host culture is then cultivated and fermented.”

In a previous article, Ashley detailed how cheese was traditionally made with animal rennet, which is found naturally in the stomach lining of ruminant animals and is known to produce superior flavor. True vegetable rennet, on the other hand, often compromises the flavor of cheese. This is why most cheeses labeled as “vegetable rennet” today are not made with real vegetable rennet.

There’s no regulation on the terms used for rennet in cheese labeling, so most are actually made with either microbial rennet made from mold or FPC. Nowadays, manufacturers primarily use FPC because it’s cheaper, more stable, and meets the growing demand for vegetarian-friendly cheese. In fact, 90% of cheese produced in the U.S. uses synthetic rennet.1

How GMO Rennet Can Impact Your Health

While “plant-based” GMO rennet may sound like a good option, it can actually compromise your health. Ashley asserts:

“The biggest problem here is that this is made in a lab. Trace amounts of mold and fungus have been found in these enzymes, which are then used to make the cheese. [For] people who are allergic to mold or fungus, it can cause toxicity or allergenic responses …

It’s also been shown to disrupt gut health, likely because you’re inserting strange microbial populations into your gut. So, there are toxicity, allergenic and gut health concerns about FPC.”

Despite the safety of GMO rennet being evaluated only by a 90-day trial in rats,2 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its use in food. It was also given Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status, exempting Pfizer from the stringent pre-approval requirements for new food additives.

However, Ashley clarifies that its GRAS status is essentially meaningless, as it simply places all the responsibility on the producer to evaluate its effectiveness. This means we don’t really know the long-term repercussions of consuming GMO rennet.

Even when you start with the finest raw milk to make cheese, the use of GMO rennet can compromise the final product’s quality and nutritional value. In fact, I believe that most of the cheese consumed in this country should be avoided because it contains this ingredient, which is what makes most cheeses today so hard to digest.

How Dairy Misconceptions Contribute to Calcium-to-Phosphorus Imbalance

Ashley emphasizes that one of the key benefits of consuming cheese is its rich calcium content:

“Eating adequate calcium is going to be important for bone health and dental health, but there’s so many other benefits. One of the main things is maintaining that proper cell structure, which can lead to improved energy production, improved metabolism and make it easier to lose weight.

[Eating adequate calcium is] also going to lead to better blood pressure regulation, since low dietary calcium has been shown to increase blood pressure. It’s also going to lower oxalate absorption … [T]he more calcium consume, the less oxalates you absorb through your intestines, so it helps reduce the chances of oxalate toxicity.”

Unfortunately, the vilification of dairy products by the mainstream media has led many to avoid cheese, or to choose plant-based alternatives. This shift, driven by misconceptions that dairy causes digestive problems and calcification, leads to a cascade of health issues. As Ashley explains:

“When your calcium intake is low, it causes the parathyroid hormone (PTH) to rise, and that leads to an influx of calcium into the cells. Meanwhile, phosphorus, which is more readily available in our diet, remains in abundance, creating an imbalance in the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio …

The biggest thing that PTH does is it’s one of the main bone regulators, so when PTH is elevated, that causes an increase in bone resorption and a decrease in bone formation. It’s increasing the body’s requirements to go mine for calcium in your bones because you’re not consuming enough dietarily.”

Ashley also reveals that manufacturers add phosphate to commercial cheese as a preservative and to improve melting capabilities, which further exacerbates the imbalance between calcium and phosphorus.

“It’s becoming increasingly challenging to get [adequate] calcium intake,” Ashley notes. “We want our calcium-to-phosphorus ratio to be as close to 1-1 as possible.” This underscores the need to incorporate traditionally made cheeses into your diet, not just as a “guilty pleasure” but as a staple, health-supporting food choice.

Traditionally Made Cheese Is a Superfood

In addition to having impressive calcium content, high-quality artisanal cheese is also a good source of the following nutrients:

• Lactoferrin — Lactoferrin is an iron-binding glycoprotein with a range of pharmacological benefits for both infants and adults, including immunomodulatory, antioxidant, antitumor and antimicrobial properties.3

It also plays a role in enhancing iron absorption and regulating cellular functions such as activation, differentiation and proliferation.4 Lactoferrin is significantly reduced during pasteurization,5 hence the importance of choosing raw milk cheese.

• Saturated fats — One of the standout components in cheese is the odd-chain fat C15:0 (pentadecanoic acid). This essential fat, which is more abundant in milk from grass fed cows, has been associated with an array of health benefits, including improved metabolic health.

According to a 2023 study published in the journal Nutrients,6 low levels of C15:0 are linked to an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and certain cancers.

The authors concluded there’s strong evidence that this essential nutrient supports healthy aging and longevity in humans, with cell-based activities that are as good as, or better than, leading longevity-enhancing prescription therapeutics.7

• Vitamin K2 — This form of vitamin K plays a role in calcium metabolism, helping direct calcium to the bones where it’s needed. By doing so, it helps support both bone and cardiovascular health.8

• Tyrosine — An amino acid that’s found in higher amounts in raw milk cheese than heavily processed ones,9 tyrosine influences your body’s production of important neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine, which are vital for mood regulation, cognitive function and stress response.10 Tyrosine also contributes to thyroid hormone production, which is essential for regulating your metabolism.11

• Beneficial bacteria — Raw milk cheeses contain live lactic acid bacteria that can act as probiotics. The consumption of raw cheese has been documented to improve microbiome balance due to these beneficial bacteria, which are typically killed in pasteurized cheeses.12 According to a study published in the journal Foods:13

“Current scientific evidence suggests that LAB [lactic acid bacteria], mainly Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, are beneficial to the host in correcting imbalances in the intestinal microbiota, and consequently in maintaining and regulating health. These bacteria are traditionally associated with fermented foods and are the most studied probiotic organisms.

Probiotic organisms can protect the host from intestinal disease by inhibiting toxin production, producing antibacterial compounds, blocking pathogen adhesion sites, competing for nutrients and stimulating immunity.

In addition to pathogen exclusion, probiotics may offer other beneficial properties to the host’s health, including nutrient synthesis (certain vitamins), reduction in lactose intolerance and production of bioactive compounds such as CLA [conjugated linoleic acid], SCFA [short-chain fatty acids] and EPS [exopolysaccharides].”

The Characteristics of a High-Quality Cheese

High-quality, traditionally made cheese, like the one Ashley aims to provide, is characterized by several key factors:

• Made from A2/A2 milk — Raw milk (not pasteurized) with the A2/A2 beta-casein protein can be easier to digest if you’re experiencing digestive issues with conventional A1 milk.

• Sourced from 100% grass fed cows — Cheese made from the milk of vaccine-free cows that are exclusively grass fed on diverse pastures contains higher levels of beneficial nutrients compared to conventionally made cheese, which typically comes from cows fed genetically modified feeds and raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

• Animal rennet — Traditional animal rennet is used instead of synthetic or microbial alternatives, which can lead to better taste, texture and digestibility.

• Handcrafted using traditional techniques — The cheese is made in small batches using traditional techniques by skilled cheesemakers to avoid compromising the quality.

[….]

The Mongols in Central Asia

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The Khanates | Rise, Khans, Legacy Facts & History Worksheets

Episode 15 The Mongols in Central Asia

The Mongol Empire

Dr Craig Benjamin (2020)

Film Review

Most of this lecture concerns the Toluid Revolution, which transferred control of the Central Asian Chagatai Khanate from the descendants of Ogedai and Chagatai to those of their younger brother Tolui. This involved nearly a century of civil war in which Chinggis Khan’s descendants fought over control of Central Asia, often involving rulers of the Persian Ilkhanate and the Yuan dynasty in their struggles.

1269 – a kuritai held in the Mongol homeland divides control of the empire between between Qubilai Khan (who assumed control of the former Jin dynasty in northern China),  Kaidu (who assumed control of the modern day Xinjiang province in western China), Baraq (who became ruler of the Chagatai Khanate) and Mongke Temur (who assumed control of the Persian Ilkhanate).

1271 – Qubilai Khan conquers the Song Dynasty and establishes the Yuan dynasty.

1275 – Qubilai Khan leads the Yuan army against Kaidu for refusing to recognize him as Great Khan and for stirring up rebellions in Tibet and Manchuria.

1270 – Kaidu reclaims parts of western China, as well as promoting rebellions in the Ikhanate and leading raids into India.

1310 – Yuan dynasty absorbs most of the western Chagatai Khanate, while Ilkahanate Khanate absorbs the eastern regions.

The fall of the Chagatai Khanate in the mid-14th century led to the rise of independent Mogulistan and Mawarannhr (Transoxiana), which became part of the Arab caliphate. Both regions mainly spoke Turkic instead of Mongolian.

Inhabitants of Mogulistan remained nomadic, living mainly in mobile tent cities and retaining the administrative structure created by Chinggis Khan to collect taxes, mint Arabic and Persian silver coins, and protect the Silk Road trade*

Bukhara in Transoxania built several madrassa and supported Sufi missionaries who spread Islam via the Silk Road.

*With Mogulistan producing apples, melons, fur, slaves, wine and textiles.

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/12373094/12373124

Buy a Bible, Become a Terror Suspect

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File:The Holy Bible.jpg - Wikipedia

 

By James Bovard

Americans are familiar with the Miranda warning that anything that arrestees say can be used against them in a court of law. But the Biden administration secretly created a new tripwire: Anything you purchase can be used against you. And if you didn’t want to be categorized as a “lone wolf” potential terrorist, you never should have bought that Bass Pro hat.

Federal agencies have long kept an eye on suspicious purchases by Americans considered potential troublemakers. Flash back 50 years, and the feds likely tracked buyers of The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), a book chockful of bad advice that caused boneheaded hippie bomb makers to blow themselves up.

But the federal surveillance net has vastly increased since the 1970s. Nowadays, the feds are flagging people who purchase Bibles and “other media containing extremist views,” according to a report by the House Judiciary Committee.

Technology is propelling new threats to freedom. A March 2024 report by the House Judiciary Committee noted that “the decline of cash and the rise of digital payments and e-commerce platforms….As a result, these financial institutions often act as arms of federal law enforcement as they work in coordination with federal law enforcement to identify what transactions and other information is ‘suspicious’ enough to be reported.” Greater computer resources make it vastly cheaper to store dirt on practically any private citizen.

The January 6 protests

After the January 6 Capitol clash in 2021, the Biden administration targeted average Americans as if they were would-be terrorists. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) bloated its definitions of “suspicious behavior,” warning banks to track  “‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts),’” the House Judiciary Committee announced in a January report. As Fox News reported, FinCEN “distributed materials to financial institutions that outlined ‘typologies’ of ‘various persons of interest’ and provided the banks with ‘suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement.’”

If you bought a gun or ammo since 2021, Team Biden bureaucrats may have automatically classified you as a “potential active shooter.” Or maybe your purchases triggered “Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators.” Are people who majored in theater in college but never got starring roles more likely to be classified as “lone actors?” The feds also warn of “Lone Wolves.” How does a “Lone Actor” become a “Lone Wolve?” [sic] Is this only a problem during full moons, or what?

FinCEN encouraged banks to use terms such as “TRUMP” and “MAGA” for “identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement,” according to the House Judiciary Committee. Committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) complained: “This kind of pervasive financial surveillance … raises serious doubts about FinCEN’s respect for fundamental civil liberties.” The House Committee is therefore demanding information on “federal law enforcement’s mass accumulation and use of Americans’ private information without legal process; FinCEN’s protocols, if any, to safeguard Americans’ privacy and constitutional rights in the receipt and use of such information.”

Defining “extremism”

Much of the absurdity begins with entitling bureaucrats to arbitrarily define “extremism.” In Washington, anyone who doesn’t worship government is considered an extremist. Why else would the official list of potential alarm signals include people who shopped at Cabela’s or Dick’s Sporting Goods? The Treasury Department formally admitted in February that FinCEN “began shortly after January 6” to track suspicious activity that “included terms such as ‘antifa,’ ‘MAGA,’ ‘Trump,’ ‘Biden,’ ‘Kamala,’ ‘Schumer,’ and ‘Pelosi.’”

Jordan’s committee learned that FBI officials “made contact with and provided Bank of America with specific search query terms, indicating that it was ‘interested in all financial relationships’ of BoA customers transacting in Washington D.C. and customers who had made ‘ANY historical purchase’ of a firearm, or who had purchased a hotel, Airbnb, or airline travel within a given date range.” Buy a gun, go to Washington 10 years later, get a federal dossier for the rest of your life! Jordan complained that the federal government “urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”

As a March 2024 follow-up report from the House Judiciary Committee noted, FinCEN carried out similar meetings with Barclays, Charles Schwab, HSBC, Paypal, Western Union, Wells Fargo, Citibank, JPMorgan, and Chase “geared toward discussing options for financial institutions to share customer information voluntarily with federal law enforcement outside of normal legal processes.”

The FBI shared one report with financial institutions that asserted that Americans “who expressed opposition to firearm regulations, open borders, COVID-19 lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and the ‘deep state’ may be potential domestic terrorists.” Federal agencies used that report “to commandeer financial institutions’ databases and ask the financial institutions to conduct sweeping searches of individuals not suspected of committing any crimes. Federal law enforcement agencies warned that “the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views,” could be evidence of “Homegrown Violent Extremism.” The committee declared that the evidence from federal agencies “show a pattern of financial surveillance aimed at millions of Americans who hold conservative viewpoints or simply exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

The House Judiciary Committee is also probing the FBI’s role in vacuuming up information on private citizens beyond targeting banks. Rep. Jordan complained that the FBI “prepared an official report that broadly characterized certain political beliefs as indicative of domestic violent extremism.” Will Team Biden seek to make scoffing at politicians a federal offense? Jordan is seeking sworn testimony about the FBI’s “mass accumulation and use of Americans’ private information without legal process.”

Financial surveillance

The latest revelations are another leap toward total financial surveillance. Prudent citizens should react to this news as if they saw a convicted burglar prowling outside their house taking too many photographs. Federal financial agencies have a record of secretly conspiring to cripple or destroy individuals or industries they despise. Federal regulations confer vast discretion to bureaucrats which they have not hesitated to abuse in the past.

During the Obama administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Justice Department launched Operation Choke Point, supposedly to “choke” illegal businesses’ access to financial services. But the target list was stretched to include attempts to destroy financial access for porn stars, coin dealers, online tobacco companies, and other targets.

Federal threats swayed banks to blindside thousands of their business customers. Cigar sellers and manufacturers were clobbered as collateral victims. A Daily Beast story headlined “The Banks’ War on Porn” reported that “hundreds of current and former porn stars” received “curt letters of account termination without further explanation” from their banks. A top FDIC official insisted that the agency’s letters to Congress on the crackdown “always mention pornography when discussing payday lenders and other industries, in an effort to convey a ‘good picture regarding the unsavory nature of the businesses at issue,’” according to a 2014 congressional report.

For some federal regulators and prosecutors, guns were even worse than smut. The FDIC notified banks to “‘prohibit’ payment processing for firearms merchants” and described “loans to firearms dealers as ‘undesirable,’” according to the congressional report. Banks were advised by one private regulatory compliance service: “Arms and Ammunition Dealers are identified as higher risk businesses because they have a higher risk of being associated with terrorism and terrorist acts.” The National Rifle Association complained that banks were “refusing to do business with legitimate law-abiding companies in the firearm industry … without regard to the specific company’s credit, criminal or financial history.” Hundreds of firearms and ammo companies saw their bank accounts frozen or terminated. Representative Sean Duffy (R-WI) complained that federal officials were “weaponizing government to meet their ideological beliefs.” Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) declared, “Unelected bureaucrats at the Department of Justice, the FDIC and other agencies set out to kill legal businesses by starving them of access to financial institutions.”

Emails from FDIC officials showed they were “scheming to influence banks’ decisions on who to do business … [to ensure] banks ‘get the message’ about the businesses the regulators don’t like, and pressuring banks to cut credit or close those accounts, effectively discouraging entire industries,” according to an analysis published by the Daily Signal.

Former FDIC chief William Isaac declared: “Operating without legal authority and guided by a political agenda, unelected officials at the DOJ are discouraging banks from providing basic banking services — deposit accounts, payments processing services, and payroll accounts — to lawful businesses simply because they don’t like them. Bankers are being cowed into submission by an oppressive regulatory regime.” American Bankers Association president Frank Keating complained: “The government is compelling banks to deny service to unpopular but perfectly legal industries by threatening penalties.” Operation Choke Point was terminated by the Trump administration, but legions of laws and regulations that could permit federal agencies to deny due process to politically disfavored businesses remain on the books.

Canada exemplifies how quickly a democracy can exploit financial tools to become authoritarian. The Canadian government used emergency decrees to freeze the bank accounts of anyone suspected of being tied to COVID “Freedom Convoy” protests in 2022. Politicians used financial levers to seek to cripple any opposition from truckers or anyone else. A Canadian court later ruled that the Trudeau regime had illegally abused emergency powers, but that did not repair the damage the decrees inflicted.

An American kleptocracy

The latest revelations bolster suspicions that the United States is becoming a kleptocracy.  Ten million dollars in wire transfers arrive in Biden family bank accounts from squirrely foreigners, and nobody is permitted to raise an eyebrow. Busloads of members of Congress have gotten rich from crooked insider trading in the stock market. Federal investigators ignore those scandals and instead hound hapless individuals suspected of buying too many boxes of .22 ammo for target practice. While FinCEN fretted about sales of Goretex camouflage vests, the feds slow-walked investigations of alleged bribes (including gold bars) received by the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ).

U.S. money-laundering regulations are designed to shroud crimes by American politicians. Federal agencies require banks to take far more precautions when handling financial transactions involving “politically exposed persons” — which includes almost all foreign politicians, their family members, friends, associates, and anyone else likely to take the money and run. But as a 2020 federal regulatory notice declared, federal banking agencies “do not interpret the term ‘politically exposed persons’ to include U.S. public officials.”

At the same time that federal agencies are acting as if they have a divine right to know how every citizen spends every dollar, don’t expect Uncle Sam to come clean on where your tax dollars go. Are you concerned about the $100 billion in U.S. government money that has been sent to the Ukraine government? Don’t worry — Congress decided there is no need to audit your tax dollars after they are forwarded to Kyiv. Are you concerned whether your tax payments are financing Deep State surveillance operations targeting yourself, your neighbors, and even your in-laws? Congress signed off on dropping an Iron Curtain around the budgets of federal intelligence agencies long ago. The only thing that citizens are entitled to is a rote assertion that any government expenditures are “for your own good.”

The biggest folly is to expect the government to be reasonable after it launches crazy surveillance schemes. Will we ever we learn how far Team Biden has gone in playing Trivial Pursuit by stockpiling vast amounts of data on American citizens? Citizens cannot submit to endless illicit intrusions without forfeiting their right to any remaining privacy.

[…]

Via https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/buy-a-bible-become-a-terror-suspect/

Banned: X Silences Naomi Wolfe Yet Again

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Dr Naomi Wolfe

This is getting really tiresome.

Two days ago, I appeared on the “Alex Jones Show”. I explained to Mr Jones that to me it looked as if there were at least two coups underway at the White House — possibly three: https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1823085161509970286

Clearly the Harris team had taken out of play the Biden team, and now, with a bizarre interview in which Nancy Pelosi was distancing herself from President Biden, it appeared that the Schumer/Pelosi/Obama team was distancing themselves from and gunning (metaphorically) for the Biden and Harris teams.

You remember from my essay here, “Lady MacBiden”, which I wrote shortly after the assassination attempt against Pres Trump, that I warned readers of this Substack that there would be a coup. I warned that it was likely to be related to evidence of a crime committed by the Biden family. I speculated about Mrs Biden and Hunter — and later I warned that the letter of resignation that “President Biden” posted on Twitter, did not have FEC disclaimers required by law by candidates and I warned that the autopen signature looked different from the signature on the letter.

Well, you are welcome. Ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi herself confirmed on Aug 11, 2024 — almost a month after I issued this set of warnings — that a Biden letter “did not sound like” President Biden. And I was right, too, about the alleged crimes committed by the Biden family: The New York Times revealed yesterday that the State Department, after a delay of months, had belatedly responded to the newspaper’s FOIA request by releasing documents confirming that Hunter Biden had unlawfully solicited help from the State Department for his Ukrainian company Burisma — without registering with FARA.

The fact that the White House retained and retained these documents for months after receiving a FOIA request from “the Paper of Record”, and then released them this week, shows me that the Biden family is no longer in power, and that there will be more and more damning documents released, and more and more distancing of others at high levels away from the Biden family, as the campaign gears up. It is also my bet that the Harris/Walz ticket won’t be the final Democratic ticket. The people who managed to take Biden out of the running, are entirely able to take the catastrophically unlikeable Harris out of the running.

All this being said: I described these potential crimes of the Biden family two days ago on Alex Jones, on a video that I can no longer easily find by searching. Half an hour after it aired, I received a notification when I tried to log into “X”, that I had violated copyright and had 48 hours to fill out a form, or else I would be suspended. I went through all of the ‘X Support’ prompts, finally to be told by ‘X Support’ that there was nothing I could do to re-gain my X account, with its 420,000 followers. Sorry.

Now, when I try to log into my account, “X” has no memory of me and no record of my email. People who can see my “X” account say that my face has been removed and my name, replaced by a blank head and shoulder icon, and that all my posts are posted by “dot”. As in “. posted on August 11, 2024.”

I also found that many of my platforms and devices were frozen or inaccessible. I was evicted off of YouTube again — without even the courtesy for a form notification. I also was unable to send emails; my phone froze, and my Mac slowed to a crawl.

Bottom line, this is about the last platform available to me on which to speak to the world. Once again I am too dangerous to “platform.”

If you care about my work and want me to fight to be heard, and not fold my tents, which is what these harassers wish to bring about, please take this moment to become a paid subscriber. I sent a solicitation letter a few months ago and got a lovely response of support; for some some reason my subscribers are back down to pre-solicitation letter levels. So I must ask again.

I have over 90,000 subscribers and a few more than 4000 are paid subscribers. I know that times are very tough. But the very first thing I did after being deplatformed yet again — and hacked, as well, by people scary and effective enough to hack multiple devices – was to send a retainer — yet another retainer — to my attorney who is already suing X on my behalf (I am a fellow plaintiff with President Trump). I also need to engage cybersecurity specialists yet again to un—-k my electronics, and probably book a session with my PTSD therapist.

As I have said before, if you want a victory, if you want free voices and a free world, those readers who can afford to, you must send resources to the infantry. Not just to me — to other voices who risk this kind of nonsense and harassment and law fare every day just to tell you the truth, as well.

Here I am – not invisible, not “a dot”, not a cypher, not silent, but still extant, as before, a living person. “X” does not decide who speaks, ultimately, and neither does the DNC. The truth has a way of being heard, and surviving whoever tries to kill it.

They tried to silence me in 2021 for telling the truth and my voice’s reach just quadrupled.

Try it again, evildoers: you will see an army rise up (metaphorically) to preserve, protect and defend our right to speak.

[…]

Via https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/banned-again?publication_id=676930&post_id=147717555

US moving towards total censorship

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US moving towards total censorship – Moscow

Russian-born US political analyst and author, Dimitri Simes. © Sputnik / Nina Zotina

RT

A witch hunt is underway in America ahead of the presidential election, Russia’s ambassador to Washington has said

Freedom of speech in the US is only permitted for those who express pro-American views, while dissenters are subjected to a “political inquisition,” Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has claimed.

The diplomat was commenting on an FBI search at the home of Russian-born US political analyst and author Dimitri Simes in Virginia, on Tuesday. Simes, a critic of President Joe Biden’s administration, has been co-hosting a geopolitical talk show on Russia’s Channel 1 since 2018.

The targeting of Simes is another example of the “witch hunt”  taking place in the US in the run up to the presidential election on November 5, Antonov wrote in a post on Telegram on Saturday.

“Hundreds of people are declared undesirable just because they dare to contradict the policies of the administration. They are forbidden from having their own point of view” and government agents are “breaking into homes, performing searches and seizing documents,” he stated.

According to the ambassador, the situation in the country resembles the “dark times of McCarthyism,” a campaign against suspected communists led by Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

“The local ruling circles have decisively embarked on the path of total censorship. Freedom of speech in modern America is sacred only if this speech is pro-American. All dissidents are subject to political inquisition, especially when it comes to those who fight against one-sided and biased views on Russia,” he said.

Antonov accused Washington of double stands when it comes to democracy and freedom of speech. While “easily” neglecting the rights provided by the First Amendment at home, US officials, “at the same time continue to lecture the whole world on democratic values and human rights,” he wrote.

Simes is a naturalized US citizen, who immigrated from the Soviet Union in 1973. He served as an aide to President Richard Nixon and as the publisher and CEO of National Interest magazine, which advocates a realist approach to international relations and geopolitics.

At the height of Russiagate, Simes was among those investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as a suspected contact between Donald Trump and the Russian government. The report by Muller in 2019, which failed to find any evidence of collusion between Moscow and Trump’s 2016 campaign, also vindicated Simes.

FBI agents arrived at his property in Virginia a week after a search took place at the home of former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter in New York state. Ritter, who is now a journalist and commentator, said the US authorities appeared to be “primarily concerned” with his “relationship” with Russian media outlets – RT and Sputnik news agency.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/602714-simes-us-censorship-antonov/

Democrats infiltrate healthcare systems with QR code voting initiatives targeting the vulnerable

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Lance D Johnson

For years, the Democratic Party has strong-armed its way into the medical field, using coercive tactics to manipulate patients into agreeing with their left-wing ideals. Over the past four years, the left’s totalitarian political agenda was felt across the medical system, with unlawful and insidious medical mandates engulfing doctor’s offices, emergency rooms and intensive care units. Democrats managed to purge the most competent healthcare professionals from hospitals across the United States because these nurses and doctors did not follow the vaccine-mask-testing mandates and treatment restrictions that were put in place by Democrat elites.Now these same monstrous, totalitarian Democrats are erecting voting initiatives inside the medical system to push patients into complying with the Democrat’s sordid political agendas.

Democrat Party elite are manipulating healthcare systems, coercing patients to vote Blue

Vot-ER, a nonprofit organization, is spearheading an effort to integrate voter registration into medical settings, utilizing physicians to encourage certain patient demographics to register and vote. This approach, described by Democrats as a means of empowering patients, has drawn criticism for its political bias and its impact on the healthcare system.

At the core of Vot-ER’s approach is a system that outfits physicians with badges that feature QR codes. When patients scan these codes with their smartphones, they are directed to a website where they can register to vote. According to Vot-ER, this integration of voting into healthcare is intended to act as a form of “therapeutic treatment,” which “enhances patient empowerment and recovery.” For example, Dr. Julie Graziane from the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute asserts that voter registration serves as a “therapeutic tool” and is integral to the recovery process.

Vot-ER’s founder, Dr. Alister Martin, suggested to a patient that voting was the “only way” to address air pollution, a remark that reflects the organization’s belief in voting as a solution to solve various societal issues. The patient is then manipulated to believe that Democrats are the only ones who will address air pollution, even though the party’s current environmental plan centers around climate change hysteria, and doesn’t address any real pollutants.

Despite its claims of non-partisanship, Vot-ER’s connections to left-leaning politics are evident. In fact, this whole system is funded by Democratic Party donors. Dr. Martin, for instance, is a known donor to Democratic causes and has served as an adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris.

The organization’s leadership includes figures like Aliya Bhatia, who is a donor to Democratic politicians including Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Another big donor, Leah Ford, previously received recognition from Planned Parenthood and identifies with gender pronouns. The infiltration of medical offices with forms that require “preferred gender pronouns” is another way that the Democratic Party asserts itself as “inclusive” and manipulates patients into accepting delusional Democratic ideals.

Vot-ER’s funding sources also raise serious questions about the future of left-wing politics infiltrating healthcare and abusing vulnerable patients.

[…]

Vot-ER is backed by dark money groups and progressive foundations such as the Tides Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. These affiliations suggest a significant financial and ideological alignment with progressive causes, vaccine mandates and other forms of ideological and physical oppression marketed as “science.”

Vot-ER system targets patients who are more likely to succumb to Democratic Party lies

Vot-ER’s tools have been adopted in a wide range of medical settings, including emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals and substance abuse clinics, spanning approximately 89,000 patients.

[…]

Via https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-08-15-democrats-infiltrating-healthcare-systems-voting-initiatives.html

German ministers told there’s no more money for Ukraine

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German ministers told there’s no more money for Ukraine – media

FILE PHOTO: Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. © Getty Images / Maja Hitij

 

RT

Berlin could halve its military assistance to Kiev in 2025.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner has issued a request to the country’s defense ministry calling for a limit to military assistance to Ukraine, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported on Saturday. According to Lindner, the country’s current budget plan is not capable of allocating funds to Kiev.

The request was made in a letter addressed to German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and specified that only military aid that has already been approved can be delivered to Kiev. Additional applications from the defense ministry will no longer be accepted, even if issued at the behest of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

FAZ noted that the block on newly approvals is already in effect and that Berlin would halve its military aid to Ukraine next year. In 2027, the assistance is expected to decline to less than one tenth of its current volume.

Up to €8 billion in aid to Ukraine has been scheduled for 2024, and the planned maximum of €4 billion for 2025 already exceeds available funds, the media outlet noted, adding that only €3 billion is planned for 2026, and €500 million each for 2027 and 2028.

“End of the event. The pot is empty,” an unnamed source in the federal government told FAZ, stressing that Berlin has “reached a point where Germany can no longer make any promises to Ukraine.”

The newspaper noted that the urge comes amid Lindner’s push for harsh austerity measures; these have already been imposed on all German ministries except defense. The finance minister has been resisting intense pressure from Scholz and Economy Minister Robert Habeck to suspend the country’s constitutional limit on debt to allow for the cost of providing military aid to Kiev amid the Ukrainian conflict.

Germany is the second biggest backer of Ukraine after the US. Berlin has provided and committed military aid of at least €28 billion ($30.3 billion) to Kiev in current and future pledges. This includes advanced military equipment such as Leopard 2 tanks, Marder infantry fighting vehicles, and US-made Patriot air-defense systems.

Lindner reportedly doesn’t expect the country’s assistance to Ukraine to drop, as the minister hopes to cover the expenses not with federal budget funds, but through the use of Russian central bank assets that were frozen by Kiev’s Western allies shortly after the conflict escalated.

Nearly $300 billion belonging to Russia’s central bank has been immobilized by the EU and G7 nations as part of Ukraine-related sanctions. In May, Brussels approved a plan to use the interest earned on the frozen assets to support Ukraine’s recovery and defense. Under the agreement, 90% of the proceeds are expected to go into an EU-run fund for Ukrainian military aid, with the other 10% allocated to supporting Kiev in other ways.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/602719-germany-no-money-ukraine-aid/

Kamala Harris Campaign Requires Covid Vaccination

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Igor Chudov

I’m not sure if any of my readers want to apply to join the “Kamala Harris for President” campaign.

However, if you are considering applying, be aware that the campaign requires all its workers to be COVID-vaccinated and “up-to-date” on all the COVID shots. https://jobs.lever.co/BFP/a3db8c48-0d22-4863-8ee1-b43b8d0d1a95

[…]

Via https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/harris-for-president-requires-covid?publication_id=441185&post_id=147781616&isFreemail=true&r=87aoi&triedRedirect=true

 

Jordanian study reports sleep disorders in 48% of Covid jab recipients

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Jon Fleetwood

A new study published last month in the international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal Clinical and Experimental Vaccine Research confirms a link between the covid-19 injection and narcolepsy, sleep paralysis, hallucinations, and repeated interruptions or awakenings during the night.

The study aimed to investigate the relationship between covid-19 injections and the incidence of narcolepsy symptoms in the Jordanian population.

Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterised by excessive daytime sleepiness and sudden, uncontrollable episodes of falling asleep.

It’s worth noting that Pfizer Inc.’s safety data – only made available by order of a Texas federal judge, denying the company’s plea to keep the data hidden for more than 75 years – show the company was aware that sleep disorders were linked to their covid injection by February 2021.

Screenshot from Phmpt.org taken 15 August 2024

The new study used a descriptive, cross-sectional, online self-administered survey conducted between December 2022 and May 2023.  The survey targeted males and females above the age of 18 years who took any type of covid injection and had no chronic diseases.

Significantly, patients “had no sleep disorders before taking the vaccine.”

A total of 873 participants were included in this study.

Most participants (79.8%) received two vaccine doses, the Pfizer shot being the most commonly administered (58.6%), followed by Sinopharm (28%), AstraZeneca (6.3%), and a mixed vaccine regimen (7.1%).

Most participants (68.8%) had received their first dose more than a year ago, while 25.7% received it within 7–12 months and 5.5% received it within 6 months.

Significantly, nearly half of the participants reported excessive daytime sleepiness.

“Approximately half of the participants (48.7%) reported experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness,” the study reads. “Among those with excessive daytime sleepiness, the distribution of vaccine types taken showed a slightly higher prevalence of Pfizer (50.6%) and Sinopharm (48.8%) vaccines.”

Two in 10 participants reported experiencing sleep paralysis (20.4%) and hypnagogic hallucinations (15.7%).

[Sleep paralysis is a temporary condition characterised by a feeling of being conscious but unable to move or speak. It typically occurs when a person is falling asleep or waking up, and can last from a few seconds to several minutes.]

[Hypnagogic hallucinations are vivid sensory experiences that occur as a person is drifting off to sleep or waking up. They can involve visual, auditory, tactile, or kinetic perceptions, and can be quite intense and realistic.]

Additionally, sleep attacks (suddenly becoming overwhelmingly sleepy) were reported by 25.1% of the participants.

Those experiencing sleep attacks showed a slightly higher prevalence of Pfizer (27.5%) and Sinopharm (25.4%) jabs.

Finally, fragmented nighttime sleep was reported by 42.3% of the participants.

Those with fragmented sleep showed a higher prevalence of Pfizer (44.9%) and Sinopharm (43.0%) shots.

The study authors believe the covid vaccine is possibly to blame for these sleep disorders, confirming their findings “revealed a notable occurrence of narcolepsy symptoms among vaccinated individuals.”

“We hypothesise a possible link between covid-19 vaccination and the emergence of narcolepsy symptoms in Jordanian individuals,” they write.

“In our study, we observed a concerning incidence of narcolepsy symptoms following covid-19 vaccination. These findings are significant and warrant further investigation into the potential association between covid-19 vaccines and narcolepsy.”

You can download the full study HERE.

About the Author

Jon Fleetwood is an author and former managing editor for American Faith.  His work has appeared on Alex Jones’ InfoWars, One America News (OAN), RFK Jr.’s The Defender (Children’s Health Defense), Dr. Sherri Tenpenny’s The Tenpenny Report, The Bill Martinez Radio Show, The New American, and Mike Lindell’s Frank Speech.

Fleetwood publishes articles on a Substack page which you can subscribe to and follow HERE.  You can also follow him on Twitter HERE, Instagram HERE and Facebook HERE.

[…]

Via https://expose-news.com/2024/08/16/half-of-covid-vaccine-recipients-sleep-disorders/