Worrying Correlation Between COVID Vaccines & Rising Cancer Incidence in Children and Young Adults

The ExposeThe ONS dataset, available on the ONS website here, details deaths by vaccination status from April 1, 2021, to May 31, 2023. Our analysis focused on mortality rates per 100,000 person-years from January to May 2023 among residents in England aged 18 to 39 and 40 to 49, and what we found is truly shocking.

Initial observations of the data prove that individuals aged 18 to 39 who had received four doses of a COVID-19 vaccine exhibited higher mortality rates compared to their unvaccinated counterparts.

Click to enlarge
Source Data

In every single month, four-dose vaccinated teenagers and young adults were significantly more likely to die than unvaccinated teenagers and young adults. The same can also be said for one-dose vaccinated teenagers and young adults, and two-dose vaccinated teens and young adults in February 2023.

The difference in mortality rates was so stark that the unvaccinated only managed to reach a mortality rate of 31.1 per 100,000 person-years in January, whereas the four-dose vaccinated managed to reach a shocking mortality rate of 106 per 100,000 person-years in the same month.

The one-dose vaccinated also fared much worse than the unvaccinated with a mortality rate of 53.3 per 100,000 person-years in January 2023.

For the remaining months, unvaccinated teens and young adults mortality rate remained within the 20-something per 100,000 person-years. Whereas four-dose vaccinated teens and young adults mortality rates only went as low as 80.9 per 100,00 in April and remained within 85 to 106 per 100,000 for the remaining months.

The January to May average mortality rate per 100,000 person-years was 26.56 for unvaccinated teens and young adults and a shocking 94.58 per 100,000 for four-dose vaccinated teens and young adults.

Meaning on average, the four-dose vaccinated were 256% more likely to die than the unvaccinated based on mortality rates per 100,000.

A similar pattern was also discovered among people aged 40 to 49.

The figures reveal that both one-dose and four-dose vaccinated adults aged 40-49 were significantly more likely to die than unvaccinated adults of the same age in every single month since the beginning of 2023.

January was the worst month for both vaccinated groups as a mortality rate per 100,000 of 411.3 was recorded among the one-dose vaccinated and a mortality rate of 258.5 per 100,000 was recorded among the four-dose vaccinated.

Whereas a mortality rate of just 144.5 per 100,000 was recorded among the unvaccinated.

[…]

It shows that the January to May average mortality rates were 132.08 per 100,000 among the unvaccinated, 264.14 per 100,000 among the one-dose vaccinated and 225.2 per 100,000 among the four-dose vaccinated. Meaning, on average, the one-dose vaccinated were 100% more likely to die than the unvaccinated, and the four-dose vaccinated were 71% more likely to die.

However, a month-by-month analysis shows that in March, the four-dose vaccinated were 104% more likely to die than unvaccinated 40-49-year-olds based on mortality rates per 100,000.

While in January, the one-dose vaccinated were 185% more likely to die than unvaccinated 40-49-year-olds.

Because these figures are mortality rate per 100,000 it cannot be argued that this is because more people have had the Covid-19 vaccine. This means the figures are extremely worrying, especially when we consider the fact they also include Covid-19 deaths.

These figures explain why young people are dying of cancer at an explosive rate.

Since the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines, there has been an unprecedented rise in the deaths of young people between 2021 and 2022 from rapidly metastasizing and terminal cancers, according to data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Click to enlarge
Source Data

The data provided by the ONS on the rate of cancer deaths above the historic norm in 2022 for ages 15-44 in the U.K. include:

  • A 28% rise in fatal breast cancer rates in women.
  • An 80% increase in pancreatic cancer deaths among women and a 60% increase among men.
  • A 55% increase among men in colon cancer deaths and a 41% increase in women.
  • A 120% increase in fatal melanomas among men and a 35% increase in women.
  • A 35% increase in brain cancer deaths among men and a 12% rise in women.
  • A 60% increase in cancer death rates among men in cancers “without site specification” and a 55% increase among women.

A full analysis of the cancer rates can be read in full here.

All of these figures are both shocking and extremely worrying, proving COVID-19 vaccination increases a person’s mortality rate, which in turn proves COVID-19 vaccination is killing teens, young adults and the middle-aged in the tens of thousands.

[…]

Via https://expose-news.com/2024/03/14/correlation-covid-vaccines-and-rising-cancer-cases-in-children/

Elites’ Empty Climate Policies

Ron Clutz

Randall G. Holcombe writes at Independent Institute President Biden’s Climate Aspirations.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.  H/T John Ray

Most of what the political class calls policies are
really aspirations with no policy content.

They are feel-good statements that promote goals most people would support, with no associated policies that would move toward those goals. The following is an example.

The White House’s web page for the National Climate Task Force (skip down to the section “President Biden’s Actions to Tackle the Climate Crisis”) lists emissions goals for 2030, 2035, and 2050, well after President Biden will have left office, even if he serves out a second term. These are aspirations and aspirations that would have to be met by his successors, letting the president off the accountability hook.

What prompted me to write about this subject was this article titled “Biden’s scaled-back power rule raises doubts over US climate target,” which reports on an actual policy. The Biden administration has decided to exclude natural gas power plants from upcoming emissions standards.   The key point in this example is that the president’s actual policy works against the president’s stated goals.

Further down, the website lists the Biden administration’s accomplishments toward fulfilling his climate aspirations. They include a record number of electric vehicles and charging stations, new solar and wind projects, and supporting domestic manufacturing of clean energy technologies.

Those may be good things, but they are
things the private sector is doing.

“Support” isn’t a policy; it’s an attempt to take political credit for private sector action. If these things count as accomplishments, they are private sector accomplishments, not Biden administration accomplishments.

The website also credits the Biden administration for finalizing the strongest vehicle emissions standards in American history and proposing more robust standards for greenhouse gas and air pollution emissions. Those are not policies; they are aspirations. Should those aspirations be realized, it will be because the private sector has figured out how to reduce its emissions.

As the political season ramps up this year, notice that the “policies”
that politicians will propose are not really policies at all; they are aspirations.

They say, “Here are some good things I would like to accomplish if I am elected,” but they don’t say how they intend to accomplish them. They amount to feel-good slogans rather than actual public policies.

Most people will be in favor of mitigating climate change,
reducing crime, securing the border, and reducing the budget deficit.

Those are feel-good aspirations. Fewer people will favor specific policies aimed at realizing those aspirations. That’s why politicians talk about aspirations rather than specific policies. That’s also why those aspirations often fail to be realized.

The aspirations are popular; the policies to accomplish them are less so.
That’s why the Biden administration is enacting a policy
that works against his own stated goals
.

Footnote:  Climate and Energy Policies No Relation to Climate Mitigation

When it comes to controlling weather and climate, it’s actually worse than the author says.  What policies there are serve only to destroy society’s energy platform with no discernable impact on the supposed problem.

[…]

Via https://rclutz.com/2024/03/14/elites-empty-climate-policies/

“Measles Mayhem”: Where is This Going?

Kit Knightly

The headlines are full of measles at the moment, in the way that always reeks of coordination.

The measles outbreak in the US has been simmering away for weeks, but was brought back to the front burner in the last few days. The Daily Mail headlining:

America on verge of measles MAYHEM: Hundreds feared to be infected in California and Arizona outbreaks as US suffers year’s worth of cases in two months

It’s not just Arizona and California either. Chicago, Florida and Philadelphia all have “outbreaks” of their own.

An article in the Atlantic headlined “The Return of Measles”, claims there have been measles outbreaks in 19 separate states.

Meanwhile, on our side of the pond, a measles outbreak that started in Birmingham in January has apparently spread north and south. The UK’s total cases are apparently up to ~733.

In Ireland, the scary story is that one person on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Dublin tested positive for measles a couple of days ago. That number has since risen to three! The authorities are desperately hunting down anyone who was on that plane.

That’s three measles scare-stories in three different countries at the same time, with maybe more on the way

To quote Ian Fleming, “once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence and three times is enemy action”.

So what is this “enemy action”? Where is this story going?

First, let’s get this out of the way: This is not a public health scare. Not a real one. Measles is not especially dangerous, with a reported case fatality ratio of about 0.02% in Western countries, meaning for every 5000 people who get measles 4999 will survive.

So what’s with the scary headlines? What’s the endgame here?

To answer that we need to ask “who are the media are blaming?”, and as with most issues these days there are two answers to that.

Yes, it’s another binary.

On the one hand, the “left” arm of media is busily blaming “anti-vaxxers”. The “right” arm of the media is blaming illegal immigrants.

Let’s examine the left side first.

Last week the New York Times headlined:

Vaccination Rates Dipped for Years. Now, There’s a Measles Outbreak in Britain.

Then, two days ago the Los Angeles Times reported:

More parents are delaying their kids’ vaccines, and it’s alarming pediatricians

The Louisville Courier-Journal has an article in a similar vein, claiming “Covid denialism allows other infectious diseases to spread”.

In the UK the “liberal” press is laying the blame at the feet of the so-called “Wakefield generation” (referencing Dr Andrew Wakefield, who publicized a possible link between MMR and autism in the 1990s).

In Canada, TVO.me, a not-for-profit run by the Ontario Board of Education, opines “With measles making a comeback globally, we need to talk about vaccine hesitancy”

Having established “blame”, is there a proposed “solution”?

Of course — making the MMR vaccine mandatory.

The UK’s NHS has already launched a major MMR vaccine drive, with accompanying talk in the media claiming “Want to get rid of measles? Make the vaccine compulsory for kids”

In Canada – where there has barely been an outbreak yet – CTV discussed the possibility of mandatory measles vaccines four days ago.

That’s one side of the argument, which can be roughly summed up as “Anti-vaxxers are fueling measles outbreaks, make vaccines mandatory”

What’s the other side?

The other is blaming illegal immigrants

The “outbreak” in Chicago has been traced to an “overcrowded” migrant centre.

Two separate articles in the Daily Mail cite “experts” who blame the nationwide “outbreak” on the “open southern border”:

Biden’s border is leaving America open to drug-resistant outbreaks, experts warn – as second measles case is confirmed in Chicago migrant shelter

They’ve been setting the stage for this particular “issue” since at least last summer, when USA Today warned that New York’s Asylum Seekers were a potential “public health crisis”, while the UK tabloids were talking about TB outbreaks in asylum centres.

Their proposed “solution”? Control the borders. How? Why, with biometric visa tracking and digital IDs obviously.

This was first suggested years ago. When Trump was campaigning in 2016 he promised what they now call the “digital border wall”, powered by AI. Similar systems are already in the works in other places around the world. According to the DHS website, they are already using biometric facial recognition at border crossings.

In December 2023, the UK’s former Lord Chancellor David Gauke wrote:

Do you really want to stop the boats? If so, you should back digital ID cards.

As I wrote in my piece 2024: The Year Global Government Takes Shape, digital identity systems have long been the elite’s catch-all solution, including to stopping illegal immigration.

That’s the other side of the argument. Essentially, “Illegal immigrants are bringing disease over the border, we must institute AI-powered biometric digital identity checkpoints to stop them”

This split-blame approach existed when we published our previous Measles article back in January, the difference is now the solutions are coming out, a manipulated non-choice between two different dystopian tools of control.

That’s the false binary: are the anti-vaxxers or immigrants to blame? Should we introduce digital identity systems to secure the border or mandatory vaccines to increase immunity?

Whichever side you pick, you lay the groundwork for both, because by your taking a position you have legitimized the false predicate of the argument. That’s the rhetorical trick.

Both sides build their position on the same underlying assumption – i.e. there is a measles outbreak and we must do something about it – and both sides play on existing biases to scapegoat a minority, hoping to leverage that division into more authoritarian social controls of one kind or another.

[…]

Via https://off-guardian.org/2024/03/13/measles-mayhem-where-is-this-going/

Canadian Parliament Moves to Impose Potential Life Imprisonment for Speech Crimes

Jonathan Turley

We have previously discussed the unrelenting attacks by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his allies on free speech. There has been a steady criminalization of speech, including even jokes and religious speech, in Canada. Now, the Canadian parliament is moving toward a new change that would allow the imposition of life imprisonment on those who post views deemed supportive of genocide. With a growing movement calling Israel’s war in Gaza “genocide,” the potential scope of such a law is readily apparent. That appears to be its very draw for anti-free speech advocates in the country.

The Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63 increases the potential penalties from five years to life imprisonment. It also increases the penalty for the willful promotion of hatred (a dangerously ill-defined crime) from two years to five years. The proposed changes constitute a doubling down on Canada’s commitment to reducing free speech for citizens despite criticism from many in the civil liberties community.

There is also a chilling option for house arrest if a judge believes a defendant “will commit” an offense. In other words, if a judge thinks that a citizen will be undeterred and try to speak freely again.

Justice Minister Arif Virani employed the same hysteria to convince citizens to surrender their freedoms to the government. He expressed how terrified he was with the potential of free speech, stating that he is “terrified of the dangers that lurk on the internet for our children.”

It is not likely to end there. Today the rationale is genocide. However, once the new penalties are in place, a host of other groups will demand similar treatment for those with opposing views on their own causes.  This law already increased the penalties for anything deemed hateful speech.

The law comes after Canada blocked a Russian dissident from becoming a citizen because of her violation of Russian anti-free speech laws. In a telling act, the government said that the same conduct (i.e., free speech) could be a crime in Canada.  Indeed, it may now be punished even more harshly.

[…]

Via https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/14/oh-canada-the-parliament-moves-to-impose-potential-life-imprisonment-for-speech-crimes/

Joe Biden and Donald Trump to Become Presidential Nominees

Donald Trump (L) & Joe Biden (R).

Donald Trump (L) & Joe Biden (R). | Photo: X/ @BaileyBlls

teleSUR Newsletter

On Tuesday, the Democratic and Republican parties held primaries in Georgia, Mississippi, and Washington.

On Tuesday, U.S. media projected that U.S. President Joe Biden and Donald Trump have secured enough delegates to become their respective party’s 2024 presidential nominee.

By winning the primaries in the state of Washington, former U.S. President Trump became the candidate of the Republican Party, according to projections by NBC and CNN.

With 76 percent of the votes counted in Washington, he obtained a resounding 74 percent of support, far surpassing Nikki Haley, who withdrew from the presidential race last week.

Trump thus surpassed the threshold of 1,215 delegates that he needed to secure the presidential nomination, although the result will not be official until his party’s national convention, which will take place from July 15 to 18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

On Tuesday, the Democratic and Republican parties held primaries in the states of Georgia, Mississippi and Washington.

In addition, Democrats held primaries in the territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, located in the Pacific, where Biden obtained the six delegates in dispute.

President Biden also became the Democratic nominee. His victory came before Trump’s, just ten minutes after the polling stations in Georgia closed at 7:00 p.m. local time. So far, he has achieved 2,107 delegates, exceeding the 1,968 required to be nominated.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Hawaii are still meeting to vote in ‘caucuses’, neighborhood assemblies, from which the results are not yet available.

[…]

Via https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Joe-Biden-and-Donald-Trump-to-Become-Presidential-Nominees-20240313-0001.html

Trans Lobbyists Angry UK NHS Has BANNED Puberty Blockers For Kids

England halts puberty blockers for children, adolescents - Rebel News

Steve Watson

Transgender lobbyists are upset that the National Health Service in the UK has announced that children will no longer be given puberty blocker prescriptions following conclusions by health experts that there are serious safety concerns.

The NHS commissioned the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to review the published evidence on Gonadotrophin Releasing Hormone Analogues (GnRHa), AKA puberty blockers, which prevent the body from making sex hormones.

An NHS England policy document published Tuesday noted “NHS England has carefully considered the evidence review conducted by NICE (2020) and has identified and reviewed any further published evidence available to date.”

“We have concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of PSH (puberty suppressing hormones) to make the treatment routinely available at this time,” the document further noted.

Gender dysphoria treatment will continue on the government run health service in the UK, however puberty blockers will now only be used in clinical trials by following the decision.

The investigation was undertaken after the number of children being referred to Gender Identity Development Service in the UK, which prescribes puberty blockers, shot up from 250 kids in 2012 to more than 5,000 in 2022.

As we highlighted last year, The number of children placed on puberty blockers for ‘gender affirming care’ doubled in the UK in a year despite the NHS saying it would stop the practice.

At least 100 children, some as young as 12, have been given the drugs since July 2022 regardless of the NHS’ decision that month to stop doing so based on a damning review by Dr Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

Dr Cass warned that puberty blockers could permanently disrupt the brain development of adolescents, and irreversibly rewire neural circuits.

Cass also charged that Tavistock clinic, where the ‘treatment’ is carried out, operates an “affirmative, non-exploratory approach”, diagnosing children with gender dysphoria without proper oversight.

Other critics have charged that the NHS was practising ‘gay conversion therapy’ by using the drugs on children.

Commenting on the NHS decision to ban the drugs, health minister Maria Caulfield said “We welcome this landmark decision by the NHS to end the routine prescription of puberty blockers and this guidance which recognises that care must be based on evidence, expert clinical opinion and in the best interests of the child.”

“The NHS must ensure its Gender Identity Services protect, support and act in the best interests of children and we will continue to work with NHS England to protect children in this area,” she added.

Former prime minister Liz Truss urged that the ban should also be applied to private practices, calling on the government to back her amendment to the Health and Equality Acts Bill to make the prescription of puberty blockers to children completely illegal in the UK.

“I welcome NHS England’s decision to end the routine prescription of puberty blockers to children for gender dysphoria,” she said, adding “I urge the Government to back my Bill on Friday which will reinforce this in law and also prevent these drugs being supplied privately.”

Transgender activists criticised the NHS move, with advocacy group Stonewall stating “All trans young people deserve access to high quality, timely healthcare.”

The group went on to falsely claim that puberty blockers are reversible, stating “For some, an important part of this care comes in the form of puberty blockers, a reversible treatment that delays the onset of puberty, prescribed by expert endocrinologists, giving the young person extra time to evaluate their next steps. We are concerned that NHS England will be putting new prescriptions on hold until a research protocol is up and running at the end of 2024.”

Trans activists also took to social media to complain that confused children will no longer have puberty blockers prescribed to them on the NHS, encouraging people to sue the ‘far right’ health service and go private instead, and claiming that “cis kids” will still get puberty blockers prescribed to them.

[…]

Via https://modernity.news/2024/03/13/trans-lobbyists-angry-that-uk-nhs-has-banned-puberty-blockers-for-kids/

CDC Pushes Seniors to Take More Covid Booster Shots Every Four Months

SLOW EUTHANASIA: CDC pushing more COVID “booster” shots on people 65 and older: “every four months”

Dr Eddy Betterman

There is another new Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “vaccine” they are calling a “booster,” 2023-2024 edition, that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants all seniors over the age of 65 to get this year.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) panel says older adults need immediate protection from “the increased risk of severe disease from COVID-19,” and that they can achieve this by getting jabbed with the latest chemical shots from the pharmaceutical industry.

In a February 28 press release, the CDC says its new recommendation is based on “the currently available data on vaccine effectiveness,” which allegedly points to the newest boosters providing solid protection for the elderly against the latest Chinese Virus strains.

“Adults 65 years and older are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, with more than half of COVID-19 hospitalizations during October 2023 to December 2023 occurring in this age group,” the CDC claims.

“Data continues to show the importance of vaccination to protect those most at risk for severe outcomes of COVID-19. An additional dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccine may restore protection that has waned since a fall vaccine dose, providing increased protection to adults ages 65 years and older.”

(Related: No matter how much you’ve been injured by COVID jabs, the CDC still wants you to keep getting jabbed with every new “booster.”)

CDC fearmongering yet again

Some members of the CDC advisory panel were unhappy with the initial recommendation, not because it went too far and is based on pseudoscience but rather because, in their opinion, it did not go far enough in scaring old people to take the latest booster.

The first proposed guidance was merely a recommendation that elderly folks may want to get the newest boosters. Some CDC panel members argued that the recommendation needed stronger language instructing people 65 and older that they should get the latest boosters, otherwise they might get sick and die.

In the end, the panel voted 11-1 to use stronger, scarier-sounding wording after CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen decided it sounded best, arguing that it would light a fire under the feet of old people to better scare them into taking the new injections, no questions asked.

“Most COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations last year were among people 65 years and older,” Cohen claimed about why she supported the stronger recommendation. “An additional vaccine dose can provide added protection that may have decreased over time for those at highest risk.”

What Cohen conveniently failed to bring up is a new study out of Japan that warns about the dangers of the newest boosters. That study determined that there is insufficient evidence to back pushing these new shots on older adults.

“The real driver behind all this decision making is generating and following the money,” wrote one skeptical commenter about why the CDC continues to lie to the public about the deadly shots.

“If you can’t earn it, then get yourself into a niche where you can make it legal to steal it from those who do earn it while eliminating the rest. That’s where we’re at now.”

“Actually, this is also about population control,” responded another. “The CDC is guilty of crimes against humanity. I wonder if anyone will ever do something about it … I seriously doubt it.”

“They don’t even care anymore that we know they’re trying to kill us,” said another. “I guess they didn’t reach their elderly death goal the first time around, so now they’re pushing yet another round of these poison shots.”

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2024/03/13/cdc-pushing-covid-booster-shots-elderly-65/

Canada, Sweden Restore UNRWA Funds as Report Accuses Israel of Torturing Agency Staff

UNRWA -funded school detroyed in Gaza
(Photo by Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Jon Queally

“The work that UNWRA does cannot be overstated,” said Canadian lawmaker Salma Zahid. “It will save lives as we have seen the visuals of children dying of hunger in Gaza. The need for immediate aid is non-negotiable.”

The governments of Canada and Sweden have announced they will resume funding for the United Nation’s agency that provides humanitarian aide and protection to Palestinians living in Gaza and elsewhere—a move that other powerful nations, including Israel’s most powerful ally the United States, continue to refuse.

Calling the lack of humanitarian relief inside Gaza “catastrophic,” Canadian Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen said Friday his nation would restore funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in order to help address the “dire” situation on the ground living.

Sweden made its announcement Saturday and said a $20 million disbursement would be made to help UNRWA regain its financial footing.

The restoration of funds follows weeks of global criticism and protest for the decision by many Western nations to withhold UNRWA funds after Israel claimed, without presenting evidence, that a few members of the agency—the largest employer in the Gaza Strip—had participated in the Hamas-led attacks of October 7.

As a result, UNRWA has said it’s ability to provide aid and services to Gaza—where over 100,000 people have been killed or wounded in five months of constant bombardment and blockade by the Israeli military—has been pushed to the “breaking point” as malnutrition and starvation has been documented among the displaced population of over 2 million people.

“Canada is resuming its funding to UNRWA so more can be done to respond to the urgent needs of Palestinian civilians,” Hussen said. “Canada will continue to take the allegations against some of UNRWA’s staff extremely seriously and we will remain closely engaged with UNRWA and the UN to pursue accountability and reforms.”

“I welcome Canada lifting the pause on funding for UNWRA,” said Canadian MP Salma Zahid, a member of the Liberal party representing Scarborough Centre in the House of Commons. “The work that UNWRA does cannot be overstated. It will save lives as we have seen the visuals of children dying of hunger in Gaza. The need for immediate aid is non-negotiable.”

Earlier this week, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told a special meeting of the U.N. General Assembly the agency was “facing a deliberate and concerted campaign” by Israel “to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them.”

On Friday, Reutersreported on an internal UNRWA report that included testimony of employees who said they were tortured by Israeli officers while in detention to make false admissions about involvement in the October 7 attack.

According to the reporting:

UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma said the agency planned to hand the information in the 11-page, unpublished report to agencies inside and outside the U.N. specialised in documenting potential human rights abuses.

“When the war comes to an end there needs to be a series of inquiries to look into all violations of human rights,” she said.

The document said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.

Michael Bueckert vice president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, said the new report was “more evidence that Canada’s political decision to suspend UNRWA funding was based on false allegations obtained through torture.”

“While the resumption of UNRWA aid is certainly welcome,” said Bueckert, “there needs to be accountability for the harm that Canada’s actions have caused.”

[…]

Via https://www.commondreams.org/news/unrwa-funding-2667469058

How Raw Milk Went From a Whole Foods Staple to a Conservative Signal

State Sen. Jason Schultz, right, mingles during recess inside the Iowa Senate chamber.

State Sen. Jason Schultz was a driving force in getting raw milk legalized in Iowa. | Meg McLaughlin/The Register

In 2008, as he was running for the Iowa House of Representatives, Jason Schultz was stunned to learn dairy farmers could get in trouble for selling milk.

A local farmer had shown him the cease-and-desist letter he had received from the Iowa Department of Agriculture for selling milk straight from his cows to his friends and neighbors without pasteurizing it — heating it to kill bacteria — first.

So one of the first things Schultz, a Republican, did upon winning was introduce a bill to legalize the sale of so-called raw milk. The bill went nowhere, which wasn’t much of a surprise in a Legislature controlled by the opposite party, though almost no one in either party was interested in fighting a small army of big dairy lobbyists and public health officials who lectured about the dangers of potentially fatal bacteria. Moreover, the state had a long-standing prohibition on the sale of raw milk; indeed, in 1980, Iowa jailed 37-year old dairy farmer Delbert Banowetz for 30 days for the offense.

But Schultz wouldn’t give up, pushing the bill year after year. Very slowly over time he attracted supporters like Esther Arkfeld, a homeschooling mom and dairy owner turned grassroots leader who argued raw milk had health benefits and could help small farmers, too. Last May, Schultz’s bill finally passed, legalizing the sale of raw milk directly from farm to consumer. The vote — 37 to 13 in the Senate and 64 to 35 in the House — wasn’t particularly close.

What changed since 2008 is a vivid example of a larger upheaval in American politics. The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still say raw milk is dangerous and the state dairy lobby sent lobbyists to the Iowa Capitol to defeat Schultz’s bill. But Iowa has flipped — it’s a Republican state now, from the presidential vote to the governor’s office to the near-supermajority Legislature — and that flip has occurred alongside even larger shifts in national politics, spurred on by the rise of Donald Trump. With Trump has come a new GOP electorate, one more rural, more working class, less ideological and generally more distrustful of lobbyists, big business and “the experts.” And that has been a big help for a cause that is bucking just about every one of those groups.

Long a fringe health food for new-age hippies and fad-chasing liberal foodies, raw milk has won over the hearts and minds of GOP legislators and regulators in the last few years. (The Iowa vote broke almost perfectly along party lines with nearly all Republicans in favor and only a handful of Democrats defecting to their side.) And it’s not just in Iowa. Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, Georgia and Wyoming all have passed laws (or changed regulations) since 2020 legalizing the sale of raw milk on farms or in stores.

Before the late 19th century, there was only raw milk. But as the turn of the century approached, scientists began heating milk to eliminate dangerous bacteria, just as Louis Pasteur had demonstrated you could do with wine.

It couldn’t have come soon enough in America. By the 1920 census, America had become a majority-urban country. People moving to cities still wanted to drink milk, and the market provided — with smelly, bacteria-infested urban dairies. Many of these dairies were attached to distilleries, where cows could eat the waste left over from making whiskey and other alcohol. The so-called swill milk that was produced teemed with so much bacteria it was estimated to have killed 8,000 infants in New York City in a single year.

Progressivism was also on the rise at the turn of the 20th century, with the widespread belief that science would help build a safer and healthier country. Naturally, when milk pasteurization was proven to be effective, city officials rushed to adopt it. New York City was first to mandate pasteurization in 1910. Other cities quickly followed suit, and states began to ban the sale of raw milk as well. At first, the added cost of pasteurization would have frustrated the dairy industry, but eventually the additional standards came to be appreciated by the industry’s biggest players. After all, pasteurization gave them an edge over smaller dairies that couldn’t afford pasteurization machinery, while simultaneously allowing them to have low cleanliness standards without risking harm to the consumer. The final and biggest blow to raw milk came nearly 80 years later when a federal judge ruled in favor of the Ralph Nader-founded advocacy group, Public Citizen, and banned all interstate sales of raw milk.

But raw milk never disappeared, and in the early 2000s, it started to make a comeback.

It wasn’t hard to understand why. After decades of highly processed foods, skyrocketing obesity rates and a glut of ingredients impossible to pronounce, some consumers began to seek out food they understood to be natural, healthy and better for the planet. By 2001, the organic food market in the United States was valued at $8 billion; it’s now $63 billion. Raw milk, its enthusiasts claim, contains probiotics, enzymes, and vitamins that are reduced, damaged, or made inactive by the pasteurization process. (The FDA disagrees, in a 10,000-word post on its website.) Some other raw milk drinkers just prefer the creamier, sweeter taste.

In the 2000s, there was never any question what slice of the political spectrum this organic food revolution belonged to: liberals, of course.

[…]

Whole Foods, the expensive natural-vibe grocery store that sold raw milk at the time, was an unquestionable winner of the era. (The chain was so popular with Democrats that Dave Wasserman, an election analyst at the Cook Political Report, came up with an easy way of predicting an election: the counties with a Whole Foods voted for the Democrat and the counties with a Cracker Barrel voted for the Republican.) The New York Times wrote an article in 2010 about raw milk (one of many sympathetic articles from that time period) that put raw milk consumption alongside other “food movements picking up steam in America — organic, buy local, vegan, vegetarian, and the like.”

David Gumpert, a former BusinessWeek columnist and Wall Street Journal reporter, wrote extensively about raw milk during this era. His book, Raw Milk Revolution, chronicled the battle between state regulators and farmers who were willing to break the law to give “health-conscious consumers” what they want at a price far higher than they could fetch from a dairy distributor. Gumpert was, and is, an advocate for drinking raw milk, and his writings lambasting over-regulation of the product were published in unquestionably left-leaning outlets like The Nation and Grist.

So how did raw milk go from the darling of the organic liberals, deserving of sympathetic coverage in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the New Yorker, to the conservative culture war signal that is a sweetheart of deep-red state legislatures?

Two things happened at once.

First, liberal elites gave up on it. Iowa Democrats overwhelmingly voted against the raw milk bill; it no longer gets sympathetic coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, the New Yorker, Grist or The Nation. Whole Foods no longer sells it (although Erewhon now does), and perhaps fittingly, Whole Foods is now owned by Amazon, the trillion-dollar retailer whose employees donated overwhelmingly to Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Covid is sure to have played a role here, the era where many liberals internalized that trusting the experts distinguished them from Trump and those they considered anti-science (or worse, anti-vax). One study found that whether a school planned to reopen in the fall of 2020 was much more related to its county’s support for Trump in 2016 than it was to local Covid numbers.

At the same time, conservatives discovered that raw milk fit neatly inside a worldview that was increasingly skeptical of credentialed expertise. Though in some ways, it had always been a natural fit. As conservative writer Rod Dreher put it in a 2002 essay called “Crunchy Cons” about his love for the organic despite its liberal tinge (and the predictable sneering of his Republican colleagues), conservatism is in part defined by the belief that “generally speaking, Small and Local and Particular and Old are better.” Much more recently, Carmel Richardson wrote for The American Conservative after Iowa’s raw milk law went into effect that the law evoked “the ghost” of a “rugged ethos” present in American culture and history.

Raw milk legalization is also deregulatory, as I was reminded by Alexia Kulwiec, the executive director of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which seeks to protect farmers’ rights to sell raw milk, among other products: “The environment [in red states] has been more friendly to the concept of less regulation of consumer choice and letting consumers decide for themselves if they want access to this local food.”

But there’s an element far more important than a deregulatory environment or traditional aesthetics: trust. Symbolically, whether you vote for the Democratic Party today can often be defined by a single question: Do you trust the experts?

As Suzy Weiss explained for The Free Press last January, drinking raw milk is often a giant middle-finger to the experts — the same ones who say Joe Biden isn’t cognitively impaired, that Donald Trump is the worst president in the history of America, and that drinking raw milk is “like playing Russian roulette with your health,” as the director of the FDA Division of Dairy and Egg Safety once said. To be clear, the CDC’s own study says raw milk is estimated to have caused three deaths from 1998-2018 while oysters cause 100 deaths every year. Weiss writes “for new consumers, raw milk is a symbol. … To drink (and especially to produce) raw milk is a way of breaking with convention and raging against the machine — the United States Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control, the FDA, doctors, PhDs, state regulators, and Big Dairy.”

[…]

It’s not just vaccines. Conservatives, on average, trust everything less, from experts to politicians to media to other people in general. The latter — Republicans’ disproportionate general distrust of other people — has even skewed polling, since Republican voters are now less likely to answer polls, according to Democratic pollster David Shor.

This new trust polarization — where the trusting vote Democrat, and the distrustful vote Republican — began to take off during Trump’s 2016 campaign, which he ran in opposition to (and shared mutual disrespect with) America’s elites and experts. But trust polarization, especially as it relates to raw milk and other unprocessed foods, seems to have accelerated rapidly in recent years thanks to the Covid pandemic, when Republicans mobilized in opposition to lockdowns and mandates, and Democrats mobilized in favor, since it was what the experts recommended.

[…]

But one state seems poised to defy this growing partisan divide.

In Colorado, a new bill, SB24-043, seeks to legalize the sale of raw milk directly to consumers from registered dairy farmers who follow certain rules around labeling, storage and transportation.

It was introduced by a Democrat.

State Sen. Dylan Outerbridge Roberts, the Democrat who introduced the bill, told me he’s been paying attention to the issue for years thanks to some dairy farmers in his district who told him raw milk sales would help their small-town economies. Turns out he’s not the only Democrat who supports it. “I’ve been looking into it for a few years and then actually over the summer, our governor, Jared Polis, was interviewed about this issue and made a very strong statement that he supports changing the law,” Roberts told me.

[…]

Via https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/10/the-alt-right-rebrand-of-raw-milk-00145625

French Revolution: Napoleon Becomes First Consul for Life

Episode 39 Building Power – General and First Consul

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

By 1799 France, which was still at war with Britain and Austria, had lost nearly all their territory in northern Italy and Austria. In the spring of 1800, First Council and General Napoleon led 93,000 troops across the Alps to attack the Austrians’ rear flank in Milan and cut off their supply lines.

Despite losing to the Austrians in the Siege of Genoa in June, two French generals (Desaix and Kellermann) turned the tide and forced the Austrians to agree to an armistice and withdraw their troops from Genoa and Lombardy.

In his role as First Council, between 1800 and 1804 Napoleon negotiated peace treaties with Bavaria, Naples, Spain, Portugal, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, the US, Great Britain and Austria. The treaties restored French hegemony over northern Italy, Belgium and the left bani of the Rhine. It also recognized France’s satellite republics in Netherlands, Switzerland and Northern Italy. The “Cisalpine Republic” became the  “Italian Republic” with Bonaparte as president. Peace lasted roughly one year.

Although First Consul Bonaparte moved into Louis XVI’s Tuilleries palace, he deliberately dressed as commoner. He also moved the Council of State (created in December 1799 to draft new laws and resolve administrative disputes) into the palace. One of the first measures passed was to shut down all political clubs and to ban most political newspapers. In 1799, the number declined from 73 to 13 and by 1804 it was down to four.

The first serious threat to Napoleon’s rule occurred on December 24, 1800, when a bomb exploded near his carriage. Although his chief of police Joseph Fouche used horseshoe prints to trace the plot to two known royalists, Napoleon insisted anarchists (Jacobins) were involved. He eventually ordered 11 men to be guillotined – two guilty royalists and 9 innocent Jacobins.

Repression deepened as he

  • rounded up and deported dozens of Jacobins and established military tribunals in southern and western France.
  • granted full amnesty to emigres who wished to return to France.
  • crushed the resurgent Vendee Revolt* and recruited some of its leaders to serve in his government.

Following eight months of secret negotiations with Pius VII in 1800, Napoleon issued the Concordat of 1801 (which remained in force until 1905), stipulating that the French government would continued to pay priests, protestant clergy (and eventually rabbis); that Napoleon would appoint bishops and the pope merely consecrate them; and that the Catholic church forswear all claims to church lands that had been nationalized and sold. Although France remained a secular state, on Easter Sunday 1802 French church bells rang out for the first time since the Revolution.

In August 1802, a plebiscite approved a new constitution that made Napoleon First Consul for life, omitted any declaration of rights and centralized power in a strong executive consisting of Napoleon and two other Consuls (who had 10-year terms). The Consuls appointed members of the two legislative chambers: a Trabinaire, which could debate legislation but not vote, on it and a Council of State which could vote on legislation but not debate it. The constitution also allowed for a 60-member senate the Consuls appointed for life that would judge whether laws were constitutional and gave Consults the power to appoint local officials (who ceased to be elected by local residents).

This 1802 constitution was approved with a 20% turnout. The 1799 constitution had ended the secret ballot. All adult males were eligible to vote, but they had to sign their ballots.


*See 1793: The French Revolution Faces Counterrevolution

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149397