Charlie Smith
StraightSun, 05 Apr 2020 23:56 UTC
© Wikipedia
Republicans have made tremendous political headway with their base through the term "fake news".
It's undermined confidence in the mainstream media and created an us-and-them perception of the relationship between the White House press corps and U.S. president Donald Trump.
But now, some Republicans are starting to use the term "fake science" to describe what they see as a globalist attempt to shut down the economy and benefit Big Pharma and the government of China.
The most articulate advocate of this point of view is Shiva Ayyadurai, a Mumbai-born and U.S.-raised entrepreneur with a PhD in biological engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His academic research was focused on modelling whole cells. He was also a Fulbright scholar who studied how to integrate traditional medicine in South India with modern biological systems.
Ayyadurai is seeking the Republican nomination to run for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in 2020.
In a video posted on Twitter this weekend, he claimed that the United States has been "at war, politically" as a result of the novel coronavirus. "As an MIT PhD in biological engineering, it's my view that the fear-mongering is really being used to suppress dissent, it's being used to support mandated medicine, and it's being really used to support crashing this economy," Ayyadurai alleged.
He's launched a campaign to persuade U.S. president Donald Trump to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, an immunologist and director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
RTSun, 05 Apr 2020 23:19 UTC
© Andy Buchanan / Pool via Reuters
Dr Catherine Calderwood is stepping down from the post of Scottish Chief Medical Officer following an embarrassing revelation that she repeatedly broke the same Covid-19 lockdown rules her office has been preaching.
"It is with a heavy heart that I resign as Chief Medical Officer," she said in a brief statement, admitting that a "justifiable focus" on her behaviour "risked becoming a distraction" from hugely important task of getting the country through the coronavirus crisis.
I am deeply sorry for my actions and the mistakes I have made.
Comment: It's not just the Scottish Health Minister.
Plenty of other authority figures are acting as thought rules don't apply to them. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was spotted working at out the Supreme Court's gym even though her personal trainer advised her not to. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was scolded on Twitter for also going to the gym. Philippines senator Koko Pimentel was hounded online for going to a hospital on the same evening that he test positive for COVID-19. Rules for thee, not for me!
When you see someone in authority telling you that engaging in certain behavior will endanger all our lives and then you see that same person engaging in that behavior, it's rational to assume that they don't believe their own propaganda.
RTSun, 05 Apr 2020 21:37 UTC
© China Daily via REUTERSA worker inside a laboratory in Wuhan, Hubei province, China February 6, 2020.
Senior members of the UK government have become less skeptical of the fringe theory that the coronavirus pandemic came from a lab in Wuhan, China, the original epicenter of the outbreak, high-ranked sources told the
Daily Mail.
A member of Cobra, the emergency committee led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, told the paper that while it's still believed that the virus originated from animals,
intelligence reports have not ruled out the possibility that the deadly illness was man-made.
"There is a credible alternative view [to the zoonotic theory] based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted," the unnamed source told the British paper.
Rumors that the Chinese authorities had something to do with the outbreak have been solely based on the fact that Wuhan is home to the Institute of Virology. The facility, which is believed to have the most advanced labs in China, is
located a dozen kilometers from the wildlife market that was pinpointed by Beijing as the source of the pandemic. Experts at the institute were the first to suggest that the disease had been transmitted to humans from bats.
Suggestions that Covid-19 was man-made were thought to be mere conspiracy theories unsupported by any actual proof, but it has now emerged that this possibility was discussed at the highest level in the UK.
Comment: While the plebs are on lockdown, Scottish Chief Medical Officer Dr. Catherine Calderwood took a nice
vacation (she has since
resigned!). US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to the gym (reserved exclusively for her). NYC Mayor de Blasio did the same. Over in Zambia, police are threatening to
whip people who dare "to dare authorities". The head of the Paris police force
blamed Covid-19 patients for their current state - they didn't respect confinement suggestions, apparently.
Queen Elizabeth II
compared the present situation to WWII (a war in which tens of millions of people died and which lasted years...), but tried to reassure Brits at the same time. Meanwhile, Sweden
postponed their Aurora 20 military drills. But Trump sent thousands of troops to states reporting "high" numbers: "We are going to be adding a tremendous amount of military to help." As for the examples of the U.S. buying up supplies already earmarked for other countries (like France), Trump called such actions "the opposite of piracy":
"Low-risk" businesses in Iran will start
operating within a week, according to Rouhani. Italy plans to
roll back the lockdown "gradually and cautiously", after the country is past the "peak" (which it appears is already taking place, judging by the reported numbers). The reported numbers in Spain too are
decreasing. But Moscow's mayor says the capital is the "highest risk"
region in Russia, requiring "tough" decisions. (Russia is also planning to resume repatriation flights, after cancelling them last week.) The Russian national wealth fund
covered half of the expenses for the aid sent to New York. The Spanish PM says the very
survival of the EU is at stake over their handling of "the crisis". He may be right, but not in the way he intends.
Defence Attorney Sydney Powell and Michael Flynn
A lawyer for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said her client was prepared to "audit" the U.S. intelligence community as White House national security adviser.
And that, according to former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, is partly why federal agents "set up" Flynn.
Flynn, 61, is fighting to dismiss the government's case against him. He pleaded guilty in December 2017 for
lying to investigators about his conversations with Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak on sanctions on Russia and a United Nations resolution on Israel, but in January, he told the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that he was "innocent of this crime."
Powell, who took over Flynn's defense last summer,
told the
Vicki McKenna Show on 1310 WIBA Madison on Tuesday that her client was "totally set up"
because he threatened to expose wrongdoing by top intelligence officials in the Obama administration.
© AFP/Brendan SmialowskiRussian President Vladimir Putin • US President Donald Trump
It's becoming increasingly clear as the Coronapocalypse wreaks havoc on all of our lives that the relationship between China and the U.S. has changed, and not for the better. At every level of state actor we've seen a huge increase in the rhetorical hostility between the two nations.
From President Trump calling COVID-19 the "China Virus" to the Chinese officially accusing the U.S. of seeding the virus in Wuhan back in October, these interactions signal a big shift is underway. Alexander Mercouris of The Duran has been saying for months that
the U.S. and China have been headed for a divorce. And that this divorce is one of Trump's strategic goals.He recently
upgraded that divorce to that of a new Cold War and I have to agree with him. We're seeing a sudden shift in anti-China coverage coming from CIA house organs like the
New York Times and the
Washington Post. Both sides are effectively accusing the other of engaging in bioweapons deployment and attack which is very serious when one considers the U.S.'s current nuclear posture.
© REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump has fired the man who notified Congress that a whistleblower had concerns about a telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump notified both the House and Senate intelligence committees Friday about his decision to fire Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson, who precipitated an
impeachment inquiry when he relayed anonymous whistleblower testimony that the president's conversation with Zelensky sought an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden in return for delivering military assistance.
RTFri, 03 Apr 2020 19:02 UTC
© Reuters/Stephen YangBrooklyn, New York, closed for business
Bank of America customers trying to apply for their piece of the $350 billion small business bailout were appalled to learn the bank was restricting loans to businesses who'd borrowed previously - despite claiming otherwise.
Outraged customers discovered on Friday that the massive financial institution is unilaterally denying loans through the Paycheck Protection Program - the small business bailout passed as part of last month's coronavirus economic stimulus -
to any business that hasn't borrowed from Bank of America previously.While the bank's CEO Brian Moynihan told CNBC it was merely prioritizing existing business loan customers,
the policy posted on its website contradicted that claim, revealing that a prerequisite for applying to the scheme was a "small business lending relationship, inclusive of credit card," that existed prior to February 15. Bank of America was the first of the 'big banks' to begin accepting applications - and,
as of Friday morning, the only one, though the program's website was supposed to go live at midnight on Thursday.
Comment: Perhaps only those who had financial problems and utilized BofA for previous loans should have been the quarantined test cases for this PTB experiment! It doesn't take much forethought to see what will ensue, given the shock and severity of circumstances in this relatively sudden globally-perpetrated change agent. What comes next is extremely predictable! It is the unforeseen that should worry us.
Helen Buyniski
RTSun, 05 Apr 2020 13:01 UTC
© Reuters/Stephanie McGehee.The family: a casualty of the epidemic?
Technocratic activists are full of solutions to the coronavirus crisis -
the same panaceas they've been pushing for years. What problem wouldn't be solved by abolishing the family, privacy, and other things we take for granted?!Under the time-honored rubric of
"never let a good crisis go to waste," the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork to tout their favored
"solutions" as answers to the coronavirus pandemic and the attendant economic crisis. Of course,
they've been pushing these initiatives for years, and there's a reason (or three) that they haven't been terribly popular -
they'd require completely upending current societal models, and few have the stomach for such fundamental change.But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Surely there's something of value in these revolutionary projects? Let's have a look, shall we...
Comment: Swiftly destroying the in-common structures of society disintegrates the individuals that comprise it - a mass swipe and wipe of civilization's history, constructs, laws, the protection of community, economic substance and common ground. What is left is soul-crushing fragmentation in an unrecognizable, but covertly manageable form.
Oleg Burunov
SputnikSun, 05 Apr 2020 13:20 UTC
© Reuters/Abdullah RashidUS soldiers and officers, prior to handover ceremony as US forces draw down in Iraq.
Late last month, the US-led international coalition's headquarters in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh near the Syrian border was reportedly transferred to the Iraqi Army, who earlier took over several local military bases left by coalition troops.
Colonel Myles Caggins, spokesman for the combined Joint Task Force - Operation
Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), has announced that
the US-led anti-terror coalition is leaving an air base located in central Iraq.He tweeted on Saturday that "after months of planning",
at least 500 CJTF-OIR troops had departed the Taqaddum (Habbaniyah) Air Base, transferring $3.5 million in property to the Iraqi government, and that the Iraqi Ministry of Defence "remains strong against Daesh in Anbar Province".
Comment: The exit of US troops is better now than never, which could easily have become the case given US' historic and intrusive military base proliferation across the globe. Is it a real drawdown or merely a consolidation ploy?
© unknownCurrently in Sweden...
If Sweden, which has not locked down its economy and society, emerges with a death toll from COVID-19 that is somewhere in the middle of the pack of European countries, there is going to be a lot of recrimination,
particularly against those who have tried to silence any discussion about the true extent of the threat that COVID-19 actually poses.In a word: Sweden.
What happens if they pull this off? What happens if it turns out that we could have coped with COVID-19 without collapsing entire sectors of the economy putting millions on the dole, and imposing some of the most draconian restrictions on civil liberties in living memory?Sweden has not closed the bars. Shopping malls are open. Schools and companies are open too. There are some restrictions such as on gatherings of over 500 people. But, in comparison with most European countries,
life in Sweden is relatively normal.Right now, Sweden's death rate from coronavirus is 33 per million of the population. In France it is 83. In Italy it is 230. In Britain it is 43. In the Netherlands it is 78.
Comment: It's not just the Scottish Health Minister. Plenty of other authority figures are acting as thought rules don't apply to them. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was spotted working at out the Supreme Court's gym even though her personal trainer advised her not to. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was scolded on Twitter for also going to the gym. Philippines senator Koko Pimentel was hounded online for going to a hospital on the same evening that he test positive for COVID-19. Rules for thee, not for me!
When you see someone in authority telling you that engaging in certain behavior will endanger all our lives and then you see that same person engaging in that behavior, it's rational to assume that they don't believe their own propaganda.