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In a ma­jor blow to vac­cine ef­forts, se­nior FDA lead­ers step­ping down

Zachary Brennan
Endpoints News
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 15:34 UTC
FDA administration building
© Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration building.
Two of the FDA's most se­nior vac­cine lead­ers are ex­it­ing from their po­si­tions, rais­ing fresh ques­tions about the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion and the way that it's side­lined the FDA.

Mar­i­on Gru­ber, di­rec­tor of the FDA's Of­fice of Vac­cines Re­search & Re­view and 32-year vet­er­an of the agency, will leave at the end of Oc­to­ber, and OVRR deputy di­rec­tor Phil Krause, who's been at FDA for more than a decade, will leave in No­vem­ber. The news, first re­port­ed by Bio­Cen­tu­ry, is a mas­sive blow to con­fi­dence in the agency's abil­i­ty to reg­u­late vac­cines.

Mar­i­on Gru­ber

Mar­i­on Gru­ber
The bomb­shell an­nounce­ment comes at a par­tic­u­lar­ly cru­cial mo­ment, as boost­ers and chil­dren's shots are be­ing weighed by the reg­u­la­tor. The de­par­tures al­so come as the ad­min­is­tra­tion has re­cent­ly jumped ahead of the FDA's re­views of boost­er shots, an­nounc­ing that they might be avail­able by the week of Sept. 20.

A for­mer se­nior FDA leader told End­points that they're de­part­ing be­cause they're frus­trat­ed that CDC and their ACIP com­mit­tee are in­volved in de­ci­sions that they think should be up to the FDA. The for­mer FDAer al­so said he's heard they're up­set with CBER di­rec­tor Pe­ter Marks for not in­sist­ing that those de­ci­sions should be kept in­side FDA. What fi­nal­ly did it for them was the White House get­ting ahead of FDA on boost­er shots.


Comment: Interestingly, this comes right on the heels of the FDA's recent "approval" of the Pfizer covid vaccine.

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Newspaper

"Unacceptable": Iran punishes Evin prison guards after abuse video leak


The Guardian
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 17:03 UTC
Evin
© The Justice of Ali/APAssociated Press
A still from video footage from Evin prison shared with the Associated Press by a self-identified hacker group.
Iranian prosecutors have opened criminal cases against six guards at Tehran's Evin prison after footage showing widespread abuse of detainees at the facility leaked out last week.

The judiciary said "some" prison guards were in detention after a three-day investigation into mistreatment and grim conditions at Evin. Zabihollah Khodaeian, a judiciary spokesperson, said authorities had also summoned two guards and punished others. He did not elaborate on the penalties or identifying the suspects.

Last week the Associated Press published parts of the videos and a report about the abuse at the facility in northern Tehran, long known for holding political prisoners and those with ties to the west whom Iran uses as bargaining chips in international negotiations. An online account purportedly belonging to a self-described hacker group shared footage of an incident and parts of other surveillance video it had seized.


Comment: Hostage diplomacy seems to be more of an American specialty: Hunting Russians abroad? US asking allies to arrest Russians who will then be extradited to the US, Moscow claims


Comment: See also: Grim conditions in Iran's Evin prison revealed after hackers leak CCTV footage

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Light Sabers

Hardline Israeli politicians & Palestinian groups blast top-level bilateral meeting as 'betrayal' of respective countries


RT
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 05:59 UTC
Israeli airstrike
© Sputnik / Ahmed Zaqout
FILE PHOTO. A Palestinian man inspects the damage of a house destroyed by an early morning Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, Palestine. May 18, 2021.
The high-level meeting between Israel's Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has prompted outrage from both Israeli lawmakers and Hamas, which termed it a "betrayal of martyr blood."

In the first such talks in over a decade, Gantz and Abbas met on Sunday evening in the West Bank city of Ramallah to discuss a range of issues. But right-wing Israeli politicians expressed anger with Gantz over meeting with Abbas, who they reportedly accused of being a "Holocaust denier and terrorist."

Similarly, a number of Palestinian groups - most of which are opposed to peace talks - denounced the PA leader for meeting with Gantz, who was labeled "the criminal Zionist minister of war." Prior to entering politics, Gantz had been a chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).


Comment: To be fair, here they have a point.


Comment: The mistrust towards Israel and Gantz is understandable because, despite the meeting, Israel's relentless attacks on Palestine and its people continue.

See also: Israel and the crime of apartheid, what's new?

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Quenelle - Golden

Australia's ivermectin imports have increased tenfold, MPs lobby for its approval as a coronavirus treatment

Imran Henry
The Guardian
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 19:44 UTC
ivermectin
A national shortage and tenfold increase in Australians importing ivermectin in August has sparked a warning from the Therapeutic Goods Administration against the use of the medicine, which is typically used to deworm livestock, as a treatment for Covid-19.


Comment: This is a glaring example of how the establishment in league with the media are blatantly distorting the facts as part of an agenda to tar a variety of medications that are legitimate treatments for the coronavirus.

Ivermectin is a demonstrably safe and effective medicine for humans but they're implying that it's primary use is for deworming animals. However, Wikipedia tells us that it's not only approved for humans by the FDA, but the WHO considers it an 'essential medicine'; the same cannot be said for the experimental injections that are still on emergency use authorisation and the trials involving billions of people won't be finished until next year at the earliest:
Ivermectin is a medication that is used to treat parasite infestations.[6][7] In humans, this includes head lice, scabies, river blindness (onchocerciasis), strongyloidiasis, trichuriasis, ascariasis, and lymphatic filariasis.[6][8][9][10] In veterinary medicine, it is used to prevent and treat heartworm and acariasis, among other indications.[9] It can be taken by mouth or applied to the skin for external infestations.[6][11]

Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981.[14][15] It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.[16] Ivermectin is FDA-approved as an antiparasitic agent.

Comment: Is it any wonder people have had to resort to taking care of their own health when their government is threatening people with 'quarantine camps'? Sydney was turned into a dystopian hellscape after recording just 374 cases and the deaths of two 90-year-old men 'with' coronavirus:








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Roses

Ex-CIA 'spy' who bragged about being first to call COVID a hoax dies from the virus

Lee Brown
New York Post
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 19:00 UTC
Robert David Steele
© YouTube
Robert David Steele
A former CIA counterintelligence expert who claimed to be the first person to call the coronavirus a hoax has died — after testing positive for COVID-19 and denying it is real until the very end, according to a report and his pal.

Robert David Steele, a QAnon devotee who was touring the US "to awaken the nation in truth," blogged about his doomed battle with the contagion Aug. 17.

"I will not take the vaccination, though I did test positive for whatever they're calling 'COVID' today," he wrote alongside an image that appeared to show him hooked up to a ventilator

"The bottom line is that my lungs are not functioning," he wrote, admitting even then that it had been a "near-death experience.

"We will never be the same because now we know that we've all been lied to about everything," added Steele, who calls himself a former spy and Marine.

His friend Mark Tassi revealed the death of the "great patriot" in an Instagram post Sunday — calling it "very suspicious" that Steele died from this "typical respiratory thing," refusing to say the word COVID.

Comment: Yet another example of the fear porn being used to scare people into giving in to government dictates for getting jabbed, staying isolated, and remaining afraid. The fact that this story also allows the media to smear "conspiracy theorists" and "covid deniers" is just a bonus.

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Bad Guys

America's 20 years of disaster in Afghanistan, by the numbers


RT
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 18:50 UTC
CH-47 Chinook Afghanistan
© AP Photo / Department of Defense
The unceremonious exit of US forces from Afghanistan marks the end of nearly two decades of foreign military intervention in the country, leaving behind a trail of destruction and waste difficult to comprehend.

The last three US military transport departed the Hamid Karzai Airport late on Monday, just ahead of the August 31 deadline set for full withdrawal. For years, Washington and media outlets described the conflict in Afghanistan as a stalemate that had provided enough security to kindle social progress, security and stability. But a post-mortem of the last twenty years tells a different story - one of bloodshed, instability and grift, at a total cost of more than $2 trillion.
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Footprints

Report: Wisconsin lost track of 82,000 ballots in state Biden won by 20,000

Fred Lucas
The Daily Signal
Fri, 27 Aug 2021 17:59 UTC
Wisconsin ballots
© Andy Manis/Getty Images
Poll workers Angela and Zach Achten check in a box of absentee ballots in the gym at Sun Prairie High School on Nov. 3 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. The entire gym was dedicated to counting the absentee ballots.
Wisconsin lost track of more than 82,000 mail-in ballots cast in the state in the November 2020 elections — more than four times the margin of difference separating the two presidential candidates in the state, according to a report by the nonprofit Public Interest Legal Foundation.

The legal foundation, an election integrity watchdog group, released a research brief Friday looking at one of the most closely contested states in the 2020 presidential election.

However, the Wisconsin Elections Commission disputes those findings, as the commission spokesman said the report "mischaracterizes election systems and cherry-picks data," adding, it is "unreliable and frankly, it's sloppy work."

Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump by 20,682 votes in Wisconsin in the November presidential election. However, according to the legal foundation's report, 82,766 mail-in ballots in the state were either undeliverable or suffered an unknown fate.
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People 2

Battle over critical race theory may end up leading the US to civil war. Privatizing all schools is a solution

Walter Block
RT
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 18:08 UTC
school children critical race theory
© Unsplash / Cdc
The only way to reduce tensions on whether critical race theory should be taught to American children is privatizing all schools. This won't stop infighting completely but at least each side will be somewhat accommodated.

Some parents maintain that the US is a racist country and if it has any chance whatsoever of turning this around, CRT must be part of our educational system. Merely avoiding the subject is itself racist they aver, and that should not be tolerated.

Others, equally adamant, take the opposite position. In their perspective, CRT is itself racist; it takes on the key aspects of communism to boot. Over their dead bodies should their precious young children be subjected to such an evil abomination, they say.

My own viewpoint is the latter. However, I am not now concerned with the substantive merits of CRT, one way or the other. Instead, I approach this issue with the goal of reducing tensions. I want to point to a compromise.

Comment: While the privatization of schools isn't a bad idea, the energy behind CRT is such that it's massive momentum has infected institutions and system in all aspects of society. As such, the privitization of schools, even if it were able to be implimented, would have a marginal effect on it's spread. It's likely the US will have to suffer a whole lot in order to reach any potential in changing its current course.

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Sheriff

So what if 'Paw Patrol' is 'copaganda'. Don't the woke want children to respect the police?

Paul A. Nuttall
RT
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 17:49 UTC
PAW Patrol
© IMDB
"PAW Patrol: The Movie" by Cal Brunker, Spin Master Entertainment, 2021.
The latest target of the cancel culture mob is a new movie featuring the crime-fighting Paw Patrol pups - for promoting a pro-police stance to children. In a normal, sane world, this would be considered a good thing.

We all know that the parallel universe of wokery knows no boundaries. Indeed, the latest target for the perpetually offended is the popular children's animation 'Paw Patrol'. You see, according to the guardians of woke, 'Paw Patrol' is not just a fun cartoon that is watched by millions of kids - and parents - around the world; it is instead "copaganda," which brainwashes our little ones into respecting authority and the police.
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Bad Guys

Video allegedly shows Bin Laden's security chief returning to Afghanistan hours before US troop exit

Oleg Burunov
Sputnik International
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 17:57 UTC
Amin ul-Haq
© Hassan I. Hassan/Twitter
Under the 2020 US-Taliban* peace deal, the militant group pledged that they would not "allow any of its members, other individuals, or groups, including al-Qaeda*, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies".

Amin ul-Haq, a former security chief of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden reportedly reemerged in Afghanistan hours before the completion of the US troop withdrawal from the nation.

A video surfaced on Monday purportedly showing Amin ul-Haq, a top al-Qaeda arms supplier, returning to his hometown in Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province. Neither the Pentagon nor the State Department has commented on the matter yet.

In the footage, an SUV carrying what looks like ul-Haq is seen driving through a checkpoint amid a small crowd of apparent admirers.

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