VIDEO: Skyrocketing Food Price Mystery Exposed

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • Food shortages and skyrocketing food prices now appear inevitable. The global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month. On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021. In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months
  • Inflation was already ramping up well before Russia went into Ukraine, thanks to the uncontrolled printing of fiat currencies that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic. Governments’ COVID responses have also wreaked havoc with global supply chains, causing disruptions that continue to this day
  • Ukraine has ceased exports of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and cattle, and Russia has banned exports of fertilizer
  • Together, Russia and Belarus provide nearly 40% of the global exports of potash, a key fertilizer ingredient. Russia also exports 48% of the global ammonium nitrate, and combined with Ukraine, they export 28% of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilizers. Experts are now predicting fertilizer prices may double as a result of Russia’s ban on fertilizer exports
  • The long-term answer lies in regenerative biodynamic farming, which does not use any chemical inputs

In the featured video, “Breaking Points” cohosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti discuss one of the greatest threats currently facing the people of the world, namely food shortages and skyrocketing food prices.

According to a recent NPR report,1 the global food price index hit its highest recorded level in March 2022, rising 12.6% in a single month.2 On average, food prices were one-third higher than in March 2021. In the U.S., food prices rose 9% in 2021, and are predicted to rise another 4.5% to 5% in the next 12 months.3

But while the Ukraine conflict is cited as the primary cause, it’s not the sole reason. Price inflation was already ramping up well before Russia went into Ukraine, thanks to the uncontrolled printing of fiat currencies that occurred in response to the COVID pandemic. Governments’ COVID response have also wreaked havoc with global supply chains, causing disruptions that continue to this day.

The climate has also been uncooperative, causing poor harvests around the world. China, for example, has reported it expects the lowest harvest yields in history this year, thanks to serious flooding of its farmland in the fall of 2021.4

Compounding Crises Threaten Global Food Productivity

That said, the Russia-Ukraine conflict is certainly making a bad problem worse. Ukraine is known as “the bread basket” of Europe, responsible for producing and exporting 12% of all food calories traded on the international market. Russia is also a major exporter of food, and together with Ukraine, the two countries account for nearly 30% of global wheat exports, nearly 20% of the world’s corn and more than 80% of the sunflower oil.5

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s projections, wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine will be reduced by more than 7 million metric tons in 2022. At the same time, the Ukrainian government has decided to ban all export of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and cattle, to ensure food safety for its own people, while Russia has banned exports of fertilizer.6

As reported by Wired, the current food crisis in Ukraine is made up of several components, and the effects will have a worldwide rippling effect, thanks to our dependency on global trade:7

“Goods that have already been harvested — last autumn’s corn, for instance — can’t be transported out of the country; ports and shipping routes are closed down, and international trading companies have ceased operations for safety. (Plus, while those crops sit in bins, destruction of the country’s power grid takes out the temperature controls and ventilation that keep them from spoiling.)

This year’s wheat, which will be ready in July, can’t be harvested if there’s no fuel for combines and no labor to run them. Farmers are struggling over whether to plant for next season — if they can even obtain seeds and fertilizer, for which supplies look uncertain [ … ]

Analysts worry that the countries that buy the most wheat from Ukraine — predominantly in Africa and the Middle East — will have the hardest time paying as prices rise.”

Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist and professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois told Wired magazine:8

“This crisis is beyond the normal ability to shuffle supplies around. We’ve exploded that system, and the cost is going to be extreme economic pain.”

Serious Fertilizer Shortage Looms

Together, Russia and Belarus provide nearly 40% of the global exports of potash, a key fertilizer ingredient. Russia also exports 48% of the global ammonium nitrate, and combined with Ukraine, they export 28% of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilizers.9

Experts are now predicting fertilizer prices may double as a result of Russia’s ban on fertilizer exports. For some farmers, that will be a death knell that causes them to go out of business. The rest will be forced to charge more for their commodities, resulting in skyrocketing food prices.

Biodynamic Solutions

Are there any solutions to this pressing dilemma? I would argue that there are, but it’ll require rapid response and adaptation from farmers everywhere. As explained in “Kiss the Ground,” a documentary about biodynamic farming, a beautiful harmony exists within nature, and we can benefit by tapping into that natural system with biodynamic practices rather than working against it.

As noted in the film, a preview of which is included above, “Biodynamic farming is simply farming in service of life.” While it requires a leap of faith to make the transition, the results speak for themselves. Biodiversity improves rapidly on farms that make the transition, and the quality of the food (and the quality of life of the farmer) is greatly augmented.

Biodynamic agriculture builds upon the foundation of organic farming. That means zero pesticides and synthetic fertilizers are used. But biodynamic then goes a step further. The goal is to make the land better than it was before. It doesn’t just stop the destruction of soil, but actually regenerates it.

The farm as a whole is basically viewed as one organism, where each part of the farm supports the rest. Livestock have their role, as do microorganisms and beneficial insects. Rather than working against you, they’re now working for you to improve the fertility of the soil and the quality of the food grown in it.

Biodynamic farming is really about being a part of nature and working with it rather than trying to conquer nature through unnatural and ultimately destructive means.

Biodynamic farming can also, over time, help stabilize the climate. Not only do biodynamic farmers not pollute the air, water or soil in the first place, but the plants also pull carbon from the air, depositing it back into the soil where it does the most good, and requires far less watering. Regenerative practices also prevent the loss of topsoil and increase rainfall.

For example, regenerative ranchers in Northern Mexico, in the Chihuahuan Desert, who have added 1 million acres of rotational grazing, report getting 15% to 20% more rainfall than their neighbors who haven’t regenerated their land.

Support Biodynamic Farming

Many of the food products we sell under the Mercola brand are produced by Demeter certified biodynamic farmers in eight countries. Demeter is the oldest ecological certification in the world. Most recently, we’ve initiated the first-ever standards for Demeter Certified Biodynamic supplements as well.10

We also fund the Billion Agave Project, initiated by Regeneration International on a regenerative farm in Mexico run by the Organic Consumers Association. It’s a fantastic solution that solves several problems at once.

This project is a game-changing ecosystem-regeneration and reforestation strategy that uses a combination of agave plants and mesquite (a nitrogen-fixing companion tree), to salvage and regenerate degraded semi-arid lands that aren’t suitable for other crops.

Forty percent of the world is arid or semi-arid and in danger of becoming desert where nothing will grow. But we can reverse this process using native plants and permaculture techniques such as this one.

By taking a limb from a healthy mesquite tree, adding some natural hormones and wrapping the branch with a bag filled with compost, you will, after three to four months, have a small tree ready for planting as new roots grow into the compost-filled bag. At that point, you can either plant it into a container or directly into the soil.

This process is known as “air layering.” A 1-year-old mesquite tree grown in this way will be as big as a 7-year-old mesquite tree grown from seed, significantly speeding up the reforestation effort. The roots of the mesquite tree can burrow hundreds of feet down in search of water, and they in turn provide nutrition for other plants, as they exchange liquid carbon from the tree for the nutrients from the soil.

In this way, the mesquite supports the growth of the agave without need for chemical fertilizers, and the agave can then be used to produce a fermented nutrition-rich biomass that supports grazing livestock that otherwise might not have enough to eat.

A Way to Support Grazing Cattle on Semi-Arid Lands

Agave is best known for producing tequila, but a local farmer in Mexico discovered he could use the massive leaves, which are typically discarded as junk, to produce a nutrient-rich livestock feed. Cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and even sheepdogs enjoy it.

The feed is produced by finely chopping up the leaves, each of which can weigh 40 to 80 pounds, and then fermenting them in a closed container. To this fermented mash, you can then add mesquite pods at a ratio of 80% to 90% agave leaf and 10% to 20% mesquite pods. This mix is superior to alfalfa in terms of nutrition, but costs only a third or a quarter of the price.

A big part of the cost-savings is from the reduced water consumption. Alfalfa needs about 26 times more water than agave and mesquite. Most of the animals on the farm eat the natural vegetation and get the agave mash as a supplement.

However, by adding garbanzo beans — another low-water crop — you could produce a feed that the animals could live on exclusively. Considering some areas are now considering culling their livestock herds due to a shortage in cattle feed,11 this could be a novel solution in some instances.

New Market Opportunities

Changing the farming subsidies to prioritize regenerative farming would go a long way to changing the status quo, but private investing is another route to success that is now coming to the fore.

There’s a new type of asset being developed on the stock exchange called Natural Asset Stocks, or Natural Asset Corporations. The government of Costa Rica, for example, is putting all government-owned forests and farmlands into a Natural Asset Corporation.

This is a type of stock different from anything we’ve seen so far. Basically, these stocks will allow fund managers, private investors and corporations to invest in natural assets. The part you end up owning is the ecosystem services of that land.

So, for example, you could own the environmental services resulting from the Billion Agave Project, which include carbon sequestration amounts and water savings. Over time, as the whole system matures and the soils are regenerated, your asset rises in value.

This new asset system will allow Wall Street to divert financial assets into ecosystem assets that benefit the planet in a multitude of ways, and still get a return on their money.

The Organic Consumers Association has also developed a system of verification to go along with this new asset system. Using modern technology, it will be able to accurately measure things like the number and size of plants and the health of the soil.

Had heed been taken sooner, we wouldn’t be in such a precarious position right now. But hindsight is 20/20, and I believe many farmers will now be forced to make the tough choice to make the conversion to biodynamic if they want to survive in the long term.

They’re also using a blockchain accounting system to verify the calculations and make it very difficult to cheat. So, anyone who invests in a natural asset will be able to verify, several years down the road, at a very low cost, whether the asset has improved or degenerated.

Regenerative Farming Could Save the World

A number of people have pushed regenerative farming for decades, warning that the current chemical-dependent monoculture is unsustainable in the long run, and subject to geopolitical disruptions. We’re seeing the reality of those warnings right now.

Had heed been taken sooner, we wouldn’t be in such a precarious position right now. But hindsight is 20/20, and I believe many farmers will now be forced to make the tough choice to make the conversion to biodynamic if they want to survive in the long term.

Their transition is not going to bring immediate help to the global population, as it takes a number of years to turn depleted soils into soils that can support food production without chemical inputs. But we have to start thinking in the longer term if any of us are to survive.

As a nonfarmer, you can support this effort by buying food from regenerative and biodynamic farmers. Regenerative International, incorporated in 2014, has built a global network of regenerative farmers and ranchers, with some 400 affiliates in 60 countries.

You can find a map of these regenerative farms on RegenerationInternational.org. Of course, you can also implement regenerative strategies in your own garden, even if it’s a small one. The future does look bleak at the moment, with food shortages and skyrocketing prices appearing inevitable, but doing nothing is not the answer. We must all start thinking ahead and make wiser choices.

The globalization of food production has led us to the brink of disaster. The answer is to return to locally grown foods. Similarly, our reliance on chemical-dependent monocultures has just been proven to be a weak link that needs to be replaced by regenerative methods that don’t need chemicals to thrive. We have the answers to the problem. We just need to implement them, as rapidly as possible.

Sources and References

RELATED ARTICLE: Labor Unions (Quietly) Admit the Jones Act Is Contributing to America’s Supply Chain Problems

EDITORS NOTE: This MERCOLA column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

INFANTICIDE USA: Nearly Full Term Baby Boy’s Body Found in Abortion Clinic in Washington, D.C.

The story coming out of a late-term abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. shows you everything that’s wrong with abortion and the people who promote it.

Here is a picture of Baby Boy 1, one of five babies killed at the clinic recently whose remains were reportedly obtained by a pro-life advocate who has since been arrested.

I defy anyone to look at this picture and tell me this is not a human being: Click here to see Baby Boy 1 Picture (warning graphic image).

This boy was a nearly full term baby, viable outside the womb.  The photo shows that “that he remained largely intact, raising questions about how his life ended. He also has what appears to be a fully formed face, fingers, toes, and all the primary features normally visible in a newborn.”

Abortion supporters want legal cover to be able to kill babies like this up to birth.  If you support this, I will tell you right to your face you are a monster.

But the abortion-industrial complex has circled the wagons.  D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser refuses to investigate, even though the five babies might have been killed in illegal partial birth abortions, killed after birth, or left to die after being born alive.

Gone are the days when abortion rights supporters would tell you they wanted abortions to be ‘safe, legal, and rare.’  Now we get hysterical attempts to push the envelope precisely at the moment public support for abortion is dwindling and the Supreme Court is poised to pull back on abortion rights.  The demands are getting more shrill and outrageous.  Now, abortionistas claim the right to an ‘effective abortion’, meaning, they want to kill the baby if it’s born alive.  An abortionist at that D.C. clinic admitted some years ago, that he “probably wouldn’t” help a baby who survived an abortion even though “legally we would be obligated to help.”  So much for the law.  One of his staff said at the time a baby born alive after a botched abortion should just be flushed down the toilet.  So much for humanity.

A Democrat-controlled committee in the California Assembly recently reported out a bill critics say would allow infanticide, letting babies die up to 6 weeks after birth.  As originally written, the bill would have allowed the murder of newborns for any reason.  The language was revised, but it still allows the killing of infants and discourages law enforcement from investigating the circumstances.

California isn’t the only place pushing the envelope.  Democrat-controlled Colorado and New Jersey now have laws allowing abortion up to birth.  The Democrats who control the U.S. Senate wanted to federalize a right to abortion up to birth and shred all state pro-life laws in the process.  The bill failed, but by only one vote.

Take a look at the picture of Baby Boy 1 again. Look long and hard. If you support his killing, or the Democrats’ insane drive for abortion up to birth and beyond, I don’t mind telling you to your face you are a monster. The only question is, what kind of monster are you?

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

©Fred Brownbill. All rights reserved.

How Mask Mandates Make a Mess of Things—Literally

Government-driven litter can quickly become pollution.


The mask mandate for all airplanes and public transit in the US was set to expire on April 18. But on Wednesday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended it for 15 days, citing an uptick in cases, especially of the “BA.2 omicron subvariant.”

“In order to assess the potential impact the rise of cases has on severe disease, including hospitalizations and deaths, and health care system capacity, the CDC order will remain in place at this time,” the agency announced in a statement.

The government wants another 15 days to assess the spread. Sounds familiar.

The expiration of the order would have been a milestone in the protracted winding down of the government-driven mask culture that has reigned supreme throughout the world since early in the pandemic. The reign of the mask has had mixed results at best, most of which were unintended adverse consequences.

The most visible of these consequences has been mask litter, which sharply increased during the pandemic, according to a research study published December 2021 in the journal Nature Sustainability.

“The proportion of masks in litter increased by >80-fold as a result of COVID-19 legislation, from <0.01% to >0.8%,” the study found.

We’ve all seen it: the baby blue masks on the sidewalk and in the gutter, sometimes soaked with rainwater and caked with muck. It’s a disgusting eyesore: “visual pollution” is the technical term.

And it’s not only mask litter. The study also discussed gloves and wipes. And Singapore is dealing with another visual pollutant resulting from COVID mandates: sticker litter.

In August 2021, The Straits Times reported that, to comply with government rules prohibiting unvaccinated people from dining in, food courts were checking vaccination status at the entrance and marking the vaxxed with little stickers.

This method spread throughout the island nation. But now Singapore is dealing with an unintended consequence of its vaccine rules, as The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday:

“Outside, scores of discarded badges ended up stuck to railings, walls, signs, traffic-light posts—practically any surface within arm’s reach, even plants. Some of the rules were eased recently, but the unwanted pandemic souvenirs remain.

Beyond the visual blight, the stickers leave behind a gummy, hard-to-clean residue.”

As the Journal hinted, it is ironic that Singapore is dealing with gummy gunk in public spaces resulting from a draconian order, given that decades ago it famously issued another draconian order banning chewing gum… to prevent gummy gunk in public spaces.

Some may dismiss litter as a mere annoyance. But its visual pollution injects ugliness and chaos into our lives, mars the beauty and order humans naturally strive to create, and degrades our quality of life.

And litter can escalate into pollution that more directly impacts health. This is especially true for litter that accumulates on a massive scale due to sweeping government policies that impact human behavior en masse.

As the Nature Sustainability study warned:

“Littered items can be transported by weather conditions into drains and sewerage systems, creating potential blockages where they entangle with other solids (for example, leaf litter).”

Like I said, mask litter can be disgusting. And our natural disgust response is often a warning sign for unhygienic threats to our health. So it is no surprise that the study warned that litter can become “vectors for other pathogens and pollutants.”

The study lists several other negative environmental impacts, rounding out the list with microplastics:

“Chemical, physical and biological weathering will break the littered items down from macro-plastics (>5 mm) into micro-plastics (<0.5 mm) and nano-plastics (<100 nm) that have the potential to enter the lower food chain and have toxicological effects including the leaching of metals.”

Every soiled mask on the sidewalk should be a reminder that all government dictates have unintended consequences. Like debris, the adverse impacts of the COVID regime have accumulated, adding up to a mind-bogglingly immense total cost for society: in material security and prosperity, health (both physical and mental), and quality of life. It is long past time to clean up.

AUTHOR

Dan Sanchez

Dan Sanchez is the Director of Content at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and the editor-in chief of FEE.org.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Lockdown’ Europe [again] to punish Putin!

Report urges Europe to ‘ban all business flights, private jets & internal flights…ban car use within cities…reducing heating in buildings’

Lockdown 2.0: The “Switch Off Putin” RePlanet report: “We propose bans on all business flights, private jets and internal flights within Europe to save oil, and bans also on car use within cities,” the report’s authors said. “This should be combined with free public transport.”

“In some ways, the speed of the change will resemble the Covid lockdowns,” the report noted, adding, “as, with Covid lockdowns, social pressure to abide by national restrictions will also play a big part.”

Morano:

“This ‘Switch Off Putin’ report is serving as Putin’s revenge on the West, allowing the once free West to destroy itself under the false guise of hurting — Putin.”

Climate Depot Special Report

By: Climate Depot -April 13, 2022 4:18 PM

A new report is urging Europe to hurt Putin by imposing COVID lockdown-inspired energy bans on Europeans. The RePlanet report, being touted by the UK Guardian, is calling for a “ban all business flights, private jets & internal flights,” imposing a ban on “car use within cities” and “reducing heating in buildings,” all while “fast-tracking solar & wind” power.  The RePlanet report is titled, “SWITCH OFF PUTIN: UKRAINE ENERGY SOLIDARITY PLAN – How we can stop funding Putin’s war machine.”

“We propose bans on all business flights, private jets and internal flights within Europe to save oil, and bans also on car use within cities,” the report’s authors said. “This should be combined with free public transport. While the impacts of this are not easily quantified, we believe this could double the reduction in oil use beyond that proposed by the IEA.”

The report is explicit in its enchantment with COVID lockdowns. “In some ways, the speed of the change will resemble the Covid lockdowns,” the report noted, adding, “as, with Covid lockdowns, social pressure to abide by national restrictions will also play a big part.”

The report, which calls for “energy rationing” and claims it will be “rationing via fair shares,” apes the COVID template by stating, “We may need a state of emergency declared.” The report is open about how COVID lockdowns can be the model for so much of what progressives and government leaders want to impose on society.

The first tool in the tool kit for these European academic activists writing the report is resurrecting the COVID lockdowns. The report is calling for energy lockdowns to allegedly punish Russian President Vladimir Putin, but in doing so, Europe will deploy self-inflicted punishing energy lockdowns on itself.

The report boldly demands more government intrusion in the lives of Europeans, a massive expansion of a micro-managed economy and society will be achieved by extended energy rationing, strict limits on freedom of mobility, more economic disruption, unemployment, and inflation. But according to the authors of the report, it will be so worth it because the measures will somehow “switch off Putin.” Europe will commit energy and economic suicide, but it will all be to harm Putin. Take that Putin!

The West has long targeted itself for self-destruction using the climate scare but now the Russian invasion of Ukraine is opening up more opportunities for the West to further self-flagellate itself to achieve its “climate goals.” The report is music to the ears of the global leaders, World Economic Forum, academia, and the media, who have been desperate to keep the lockdowns humming along.

The report declares that “European economies are now on a war footing in terms of the rapidity of the energy transition.” But a war footing is another phrase for massive oppression of your citizens. See: Climate agenda seeks WW2 mobilization – ‘But all mobilizations are oppressive. You can’t commandeer half of the GDP without disrupting or even destroying people’s lives’

A full return to a managed economy à la the 1970s is being demanded in the report, complete with energy restrictions and price caps. “Governments will need to introduce price caps and guaranteed minimum supplies at the household levels,” the report explains.

The “Switch Off Putin” report sounds an awful lot like an energy version of COVID lockdowns. Instead of opening Europe back up for domestic energy production, they are told to suffer and do with less and are prescribed the same failed lockdown-style policies they endured for COVID. It is odd how COVID ‘solutions’ also allegedly helped the climate and now the same solutions are being touted to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Let’s simplify this: The proposed ‘solutions’ to climate change, COVID, and now the Russian war are all exactly the same — more lockdowns, hammer the poor and middle class with more restrictions on travel, less freedom, and even more surrendering of power to unelected government regulators.

This “Switch Off Putin” report is serving as Putin’s revenge on the West, allowing the once free West to destroy itself under the false guise of hurting — Putin.

Note: The authors of the “Switch Off Putin” report are Mark Lynas, Rauli Partanen, and Joris van Dorp.

 

The report’s co-author Mark Lynas is no stranger to extreme climate activism, having once hurled a cream pie in the face of “Skeptical Environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg over his dissenting climate views.

Watch the video below of Mark Lynas assaulting Lomborg with a pie during one of Lomborg’s talks.

 

#

Background: 

UK Guardian: Ban European flights and car use in cities to hurt Putin, report urges

Strong measures by Europe could quickly deprive Russia of oil and gas income worth billions, experts say

By Helena Horton Environment reporter

Excerpt:

Flights should be banned in continental Europe and car use banned in city centres to save energy and prevent Vladimir Putin profiting from fossil fuel sales, campaigners have said.

It would be possible for Europe to quickly end its reliance on oil and gas from Russia by taking strong measures, according to a report by the climate adviser Mark Lynas, energy analyst Rauli Partanen, and energy and sustainability installations specialist Joris van Dorp.

Policies include rationing, with everyone in Europe allowed the same minimum amount of energy to use, and limiting thermostats to 18C in winter.

The report’s authors said: “We conclude it is possible to eliminate Russian gas imports starting immediately in Europe. This will require an unprecedented level of European solidarity, a combination of a Marshall plan and a Berlin airlift to redistribute energy around the continent as needed and support the transition.”

The authors of the latest report from the RePlanet Research Institute, however, say such measures would reduce demand by 2.7m barrels a day in advanced economies, still substantially less than Russian oil exports to Europe.

The authors argue that we need to go further, and say they have worked out how to eliminate 25% of all oil use in Europe.

“We propose bans on all business flights, private jets and internal flights within Europe to save oil, and bans also on car use within cities,” they said. “This should be combined with free public transport. While the impacts of this are not easily quantified, we believe this could double the reduction in oil use beyond that proposed by the IEA.”

To replace the gas Europe buys from Russia, the authors recommend measures including stopping the nuclear phaseout in Germany, Sweden and Belgium, reducing heating in buildings by 4C, and a fast-track deployment of additional solar and wind generation.

RePlanet Report Excerpts: 

“We know that a rapid cessation of Russian fossil fuel imports will be painful for Europe.” …

“We will need dramatic measures to reduce demand, implemented via some form of energy rationing to ensure the burden is shared fairly and does not disproportionately hurt poorer households and countries.” …

“We may need a state of emergency declared, and an explicit political recognition that European economies are now on a war footing in terms of the rapidity of the energy transition. In some ways the speed of the change will resemble the Covid lockdowns, but with a different trajectory in the longer term.”

[ … ]

“Rationing via fair shares is the only alternative: governments will need to introduce price caps and guaranteed minimum supplies at the household levels so that everyone gets a basic amount and those with less ability to pay are not simply cut off. Turning down thermostats will be difficult to mandate and enforce, but with only a certain amount of gas allowed per household the incentive to stick to it will be substantial. As with Covid lockdowns, social pressure to abide by national restrictions will also play a big part.”

#

‘Rationing’: Enviros Push Radical Lifestyle Changes Amid Energy Crisis – The authors — two of which are from the eco group RePlanet Research Institute — also argued the Ukraine crisis highlighted the need for a rapid transition to clean energy alternatives. They said large-scale solar and wind projects should be immediately green-lit and constructed.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Intl Energy Agency report urges ENERGY LOCKDOWNS: ‘Banning use of private cars on Sundays…Reducing highway speed limits…more working from home…cutting business air travel’ & SUV ‘tax’

IEA report ‘A 10-Point Plan to Cut Oil Use’ excerpts: “Reducing highway speed limits by about 6 miles per hour; more working from home; street changes to encourage walking and cycling; car-free Sundays in cities and restrictions on other days; cutting transit fares; policies that encourage more carpooling; cutting business air travel; and more.” … “Governments have all the necessary tools at their disposal to put oil demand into decline in the coming years, which would support efforts to both strengthen energy security and achieve vital climate goals.” …

Restricting private cars’ use of roads in large cities to those with even number-plates some weekdays and to those with odd-numbered plates on other weekdays

Car-free Sundays in cities: Banning the use of private cars on Sundays

‘Tax’ SUVs: “Sales of SUVs also keep increasing…policies to address the rise in sales of such vehicles – such as specific registration and road taxes – are key.” …Ban installation of new oil boilers

This new 2022 report from IEA comes follows their 2021 report urging a form of climate lockdowns to battle global warming. The 2021 IEA report called for ‘behavioral changes’ to fight climate and ‘a shift away from private car use’ and ‘upper speed limits’ and thermostat controls; limits on hot water & more!.

From COVID Emergency to War & Back to ‘Climate Emergency’: House Dems want Biden to declare national ‘climate emergency’

Reality Check: ‘Climate lockdowns’ touted by Gates & Soros funded professors, Govts, media, & academia

Green New Deal disruption and destruction: Seeks WW2 mobilization – ‘But all mobilizations are oppressive. You can’t commandeer half of the GDP without disrupting or even destroying people’s lives’

 

The Personal Tragedy of Transgenderism

I told you a year ago about personal stories of unhappiness coming from transgenders who end up regretting the choices they made.  [Daily Skirmish – 4//6/21].  Another such story has just been told.  This one is remarkable because it appeared where you would least expect it, in the ultra-liberal Washington Post.

A middle-age transgender who had sex change surgery at 19 wrote,

“I know now that I wasn’t old enough to make that decision.”

This person now regrets not being able to have children and being condemned to a lifetime of powerful drugs:

Surgery unshackled me from my body’s urges, but the destruction of my gonads introduced a different type of bondage. From the day of my surgery, I became a medical patient and will remain one for the rest of my life. I must choose between the risks of taking exogenous estrogen, which include venous thromboembolism and stroke, or the risks of taking nothing, which includes degeneration of bone health. In either case, my risk of dementia is higher, a side effect of eschewing testosterone.

The writer is today,

“alarmed by how readily authority figures facilitate transition. I had to persuade two therapists, an endocrinologist and a surgeon to give me what I wanted. None of them were under crushing professional pressure, as they now would be, to ‘affirm’ my choice.”

The writer advises young people give your body and your sexuality a chance before making irreversible changes:

Most of all, slow down. You may yet decide to make the change. But if you explore the world by inhabiting your body as it is, perhaps you’ll find that you love it more than you thought possible.

Another 19-year-old transgender, this one in California, committed suicide.  She started transitioning to a boy secretly at her school a couple years earlier, but it never made her happy.  Her mother lost custody when the mother wouldn’t get with the program.

A former transgender says kids are often misdiagnosed with ‘gender dysphoria’ and set on a path toward sex change, when what they really need is treatment of their underlying unhappiness.  Trauma from adverse childhood experiences like sexual abuse, or physical or emotional abuse, can manifest as gender dysphoria but, once identified and treated, can dissipate without going down the gender transitioning road.

Draft guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recommend mental health screenings for adolescents before transitioning starts.  This is common sense but, unfortunately, too many professionals skip that step and go right to gender transitioning as the first resort.

A year ago, I wrote about the hundreds of transgenders who regret their choices and seek to detransition, about how hormone blockers are linked to over six thousand deaths, and about individual transgenders lamenting their sex change was a bad idea, and it ruined their life.

Reason is what sets us apart from animals.  Humans can think about the consequences before making choices.  People who don’t think about the consequences end up having a bad life, it’s that simple.  Transgenders with regrets later in life are Exhibit A.

There will always be transgender people, and nobody should hate them or wish them harm.  But it’s an adult choice, only to be taken after years of calm reflection, not a choice to be foisted on unsuspecting youth by financially self-interested professionals or ideologically motivated left-wing activists.  Think about the consequences – unhappiness, suicide, a lifetime of powerful drugs, among them – before the current bout of transgendermania ruins your life or the life of someone you love.

So ask the professionals trying to make a buck, the activists pursuing a political agenda, and school officials who want to keep it all secret from parents: where’s the fire?  Have you made full disclosure of all the risks to me, including not being able to have children and dementia in old age?  And are you going to be around to help me if it all goes horribly wrong?  See what kind of answers you get.  “Most of all, slow down.”

The secret is, there is no fire.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

Are the Fully Vaxxed More Likely to Die From COVID?

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • April 1, 2022, another batch of 11,000 Pfizer documents were released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Pfizer trial data reveal natural immunity was as effective as the jab, and that shot side effects were more severe in those under 55. Since the risk of severe COVID is dramatically lower in younger people, an elevated risk of side effects unacceptable, and the shot should have been restricted to those at high risk of severe COVID
  • The adverse event rate per dose for Pfizer’s mRNA jab, based on their own studies, is nearly 1 in 800, and the myocarditis rate is 10 in 100,000 — far greater than the 2 in 100,000 rate previously reported
  • Pfizer’s consent form specifies that the effect on sperm, fetuses and nursing children are unknown. Yet health authorities and media have espoused as “fact” that the shot does not affect reproductive health or fertility and is perfectly safe for pregnant and nursing mothers
  • Pfizer’s documents show they’ve not ruled out the risk of antibody-dependent enhancement. Vaccine-associated enhanced disease (VAED) is listed as an “Important Potential Risk.” As of February 28, 2021, Pfizer had 138 cases of suspected VAED, 75 of which were severe, resulting in hospitalization, disability, life-threatening consequences or death; a total of 38 cases were lethal and 65 remained unresolved
  • Pfizer and FDA also knew that people of all ages experienced transient suppression of immune function for one week after the first dose

With another batch of 11,000 Pfizer documents, released April 1, 2022, old suspicions have gained fresh support. As reported by “Rising” cohost Kim Iversen (video above), the first bombshell revelation is that natural immunity works, and Pfizer has known it all along.

The clinical trial data showed there was no difference in outcomes between those with previous COVID infection and those who got the shot. Neither group experienced severe infection. Natural immunity was also statistically identical to the shot in terms of the risk of infection.

Younger Adults More Likely to Experience Side Effects

The second revelation is that side effects from the shots were more severe in younger people, aged 18 to 55, than those aged 55 and older. (The risk of side effects also increased with additional doses, so the risk was higher after the second dose than the first.)

As many of us have said all along, the risk of severe COVID is dramatically lower in younger people than those over 60, which makes an elevated risk of side effects unacceptable.

As noted by The Naked Emperor on Substack,1“with a vaccine that is producing more frequent and more severe reactions and adverse events in younger individuals, the vaccine should have been restricted to those who were actually at risk of severe COVID-19.”

Pfizer Documents Show High Rate of Myocarditis

Interestingly, Pfizer’s documentation also includes medical information that mainstream media and fact checkers have labeled as misinformation or disinformation. A pediatric consent form lists several possible side effects, including a myocarditis rate of 10 in 100,000 — far greater than the 1 in 50,000 (i.e., 2 in 100,000) rate previously reported.

We also know that myocarditis is far more frequent in young males, so for them, the risk is significantly higher than 10 in 100,000, as they make up the bulk of these injuries.

Effects on Reproductive Health Are Unknown

The consent form also specifies that the effect on sperm, fetuses and nursing children are unknown. Yet health authorities and media have espoused as “fact” that the shot does not affect reproductive health or fertility and is perfectly safe for pregnant and nursing mothers.

If an effect is unknown, by definition you cannot claim it to be harmless. If you do, you are lying, plain and simple, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is but one in a long list who is guilty of this. She has repeatedly assured the public that the jab poses no health risks to pregnant women or their babies. Here’s Walensky in May 2021:

And here she is, in October 2021, still claiming there are no risks.

Similarly, in August 2021, when Comirnaty was licensed, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, claimed the COVID jab was safe during pregnancy:

Video may not work on all browsers

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) also make definitive statements about safety, claiming “Vaccination may occur in any trimester, and emphasis should be on vaccine receipt as soon as possible to maximize maternal and fetal health.”2 Yet even the Comirnaty label3,4 states that “available data on Comirnaty administered to pregnant women are insufficient to inform vaccine associated risks in pregnancy.”

Antibody-Dependent Enhancement Has Not Been Ruled Out

Many who have warned about the possibility of mRNA shots causing antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) — a situation in which you end up being more susceptible to serious infection than you would have been otherwise — have been smeared and demonized by media and labeled as disinformation spreaders.

Yet Pfizer’s own consent form clearly states: “Although not seen to date, it cannot yet be ruled out that the studied vaccine can make a later COVID-19 illness more severe.” As noted by Iversen, if ADE truly was of no concern at all, the consent form would not include it. Yet there it is.

Vaccine-associated enhanced disease (VAED) is also listed as an “Important Potential Risk” in Table 5 on page 11 of a document called “5.3.6 Cumulative Analysis of Post-Authorization Adverse Event Reports.”5

As of February 28, 2021, Pfizer had 138 cases of suspected VAED, 75 of which were severe, resulting in hospitalization, disability, life-threatening consequences or death; a total of 38 cases turned out to be lethal and 65 remained unresolved.6,7

Moreover, as noted by the Daily Expose,8 “Phase 3 clinical trials are designed to uncover frequent or severe side effects before a vaccine is approved for use, including ADE. But herein lies the problem, [because] none of the COVID-19 vaccines have completed Phase 3 trials.”

Pfizer’s Phase 3 trial is due to be completed February 8, 20249 — nearly two years from now! Despite that, Pfizer concluded in its FDA submission that “None of the 75 cases could be definitively considered as VAED.”

“[H]ow on earth could they not definitively conclude that VAED was to blame when 75% of the confirmed ‘break-through’ cases reported to them were severe disease resulting in hospitalization, disability, life-threatening consequences of death?” The Daily Expose asks.10

Pfizer Knew About Immunosuppression

Another revealing statement found in the documents is this:

“Clinical laboratory evaluation showed a transient decrease in lymphocytes that was observed in all age and dose groups after Dose 1, which resolved within approximately one week …”

In other words, Pfizer knew that, in the first week after the shot, people of all ages experienced transient immunosuppression, or put another way, a temporary weakening of the immune system, after the first dose.

As noted by Iversen, this may have skewed infection rates, as people were not considered partially vaccinated until 14 days after their first shot,11 and officially fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose.

If people are susceptible to infection during that first week, yet are counted as unvaccinated during that time, this makes it appear as though the unvaccinated are more prone to infection when that’s simply not true. Pfizer’s own trial showed infection was significantly more common in the vaccine group than the placebo group — 409 versus 287 — within the first seven days of the jab.12

Fully Vaxxed Are More Likely to Die From COVID

The fact that Pfizer and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were aware the shot caused immunosuppression is incriminating, now that U.K. government data show that, compared to the unvaccinated, those who have received two doses are:13

  • Up to three times more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19
  • Twice more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19
  • Three times more likely to die of COVID-19

The Pfizer documents admit there was a temporary drop in immune function after the first dose, but the real-world data showing an increased risk of severe infection and death due to COVID among the double jabbed suggest ADE may indeed be at play later on as well.

The chart below, created by the Daily Expose,14using data from the UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance Report for week 13, 202215 (pages 40 and 45), reveals who’s more likely to get COVID. And the infection rate for triple-vaxxed is even higher than the double vaxxed.

covid-19 case rate

The next chart was created by the Daily Expose16using data from pages 41 and 45, comparing COVID hospitalization rates.

covid-19 hospitalization rate

And, finally, there is a comparison of the death rates, based on pages 44 and 45 of the UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance Report for week 13, 2022.17Anyone over the age of 40 who has been double jabbed is now more likely to die of COVID than an unvaccinated person of the same age.

covid-19 death rate

Negative Vaccine Effectiveness in the Real World

The Daily Expose goes on to calculate and graph the real-world effectiveness rate of the COVID jab, and it’s dire news:18

“If the rates per 100,000 are higher among the vaccinated, which they are, then this means the COVID-19 injections are proving to have a negative effectiveness in the real-world. And by using Pfizer’s vaccine effectiveness formula we can accurately decipher what the real-world effectiveness among each age group actually is.

Pfizer’s vaccine formula: Unvaccinated Rate per 100k – Vaccinated Rate per 100k / Unvaccinated Rate per 100k x 100 = Vaccine Effectiveness …

This data shows that all double vaccinated people over age 18 are between 2 and 3 times more likely to be infected, with a minus-87% vaccine effectiveness among 18 to 29 year olds, and a minus-178% vaccine effectiveness among the over 80’s.

[A]ll double vaccinated people over age 30 are between 0.2 and 2 times more likely to be hospitalized, with a minus-1% vaccine effectiveness among 30 to 39 year olds, and a minus-76% vaccine effectiveness among the over 80’s.

The following chart shows the real world COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against death among the double vaccinated population in England, based on the death rates provided above …

[A]ll double vaccinated people over age 40 are between 2 and 3 times more likely to die of COVID-19, with a minus-90% vaccine effectiveness among 30 to 39 year olds, and a minus-156% vaccine effectiveness among the over 80’s.”

Pfizer Hired 600 to Process Unprecedented Report Load

For the last two years, we’ve been keeping an eye on the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), shaking our heads in disbelief as the numbers shot up by the hundreds every single week, rapidly outpacing injuries for every other vaccine combined over the past 32 years.19

As of March 25, 2022, there were 1,205,753 COVID jab-related reports, including 145,781 hospitalizations and 26,396 deaths.20 There has never been a medical product in modern history that can compare. Nothing has been as injurious and lethal as these experimental injections.

In an earlier batch of documents, we learned Pfizer received 42,086 case reports containing a total of 158,893 events in the first three months of the rollout. In that release, the number of doses shipped was redacted, but in the April 1, 2022, release, it was left unredacted, which means we can now calculate the rate of adverse events reported to Pfizer in those first three months.

Between December 2020 and the end of February 2021, Pfizer shipped out 126,212,580 doses of its mRNA jab worldwide. Divided by 158,000 side effects, we get an adverse event rate per dose of nearly 1 in 800,21 which is just crazy irresponsible.

We now also have documentation showing Pfizer, by the end of February 2021, had hired 600 additional full-time employees to process the unprecedented influx of adverse event reports, and they predicted that by the end of June 2021, they’d end up hiring more than 1,800.22

In the end, the COVID jab will go down in history as the biggest medical malfeasance ever to occur with the willing participation of both drug companies and regulatory agencies. And there’s no end in sight.

In March 2022, the FDA went ahead and authorized doses 4 and 5, based on a preprint study23,24 that found a fourth Moderna shot was 11% effective and caused side effects in 40% of recipients, and a fourth Pfizer shot was 30% effective and caused side effects in 80% of people.

I’m not sure what it’ll take for this public health nightmare to end and for the responsible parties to be held to account for their criminal negligence, but apparently, we’ve not hit critical mass outrage yet.

AMERICA’S CULTURE WAR: Pro-Groomer Democrats vs Anti-Groomer Parents

There has been a cultural war going on in America between Democrats who want to groom children into sexual objects to be used and sexually abused and parents who want their children to be raised with wholesome values, healthy morals and live in a land of liberty and freedom.

Biden, his administration, the Democrat Party and those who support grooming children (e.g. Disney, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, the legacy media) are all focused on fundamentally transforming the nuclear family.

This “cultural war” is designed to destroy the traditional family of a father, mother and their biological children. But parents are fighting back.

There are three agenda’s supported by the Democrat Party that are designed to eliminate fathers and mothers and replace them with big government groomers. These key Democrat Party agendas are:

  1. Democrats focus on putting Critical Race Theory in every classroom in America, in our federal departments and even in our military forces.
  2. The LGBTQAI+ curriculum taught in public schools from K-12 which is quietly dismantling norms while fundamentally changing America’s education system.
  3. The Biden/Harris/Democrat Party’s focus on the three myths of diversity, equity and inclusion. This is the promotion of Wokeism by Democrats, corporations, Hollywood and federal government agencies that target traditional children and families.

Critical Race Theory

Here is a video of a father who takes down Critical Race Theory (CRT), which is being taught in many public schools in minority communities. This father, in a heartwarming conversation with his little daughter, tells the truth about CRT:

This father understands that we judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skins.

reported:

If you want a close look at the madness of critical race theory, look at what’s going on in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), Maryland’s largest school system. Little of this is connected to reality, and it’s no wonder parents everywhere are objecting.

We received two sets of records related to the teaching of critical race theory, including a training course with information about a book titled “Antiracist Baby” that introduces the youngest readers to “the concept and power of antiracism,” and says it’s the “perfect gift” for “ages baby to age 3.”

The documents also include information from a course titled, “Digital Literacy 3” at Thomas Pyle Middle School. The course’s curriculum includes activities where the children discuss the identification of their gender, religion, and sexual orientation. The course also includes the children using “propaganda” to lead social justice movements.

America’s schools are all into CRT. They’re building the next generation of haters of those different than themselves.

WATCH: Critical race theory ‘buzzwords’ list released, then deleted by Texas policy organization

Diversity, Inclusion, Equity (DIE)

The three Democrat Party myths of diversity, inclusion and equity (DIE) in reality produce conformity, inequality and exclusion. They’re designed to kill individual free thought and force young people into opposing groups for a political agenda. Democrats are grooming the next generation!

In a column titled “How we are being diversified into uniformity” David Gibney wrote:

But individual, not group, diversity is my concern. Diversity in its multiple incarnations turns hollow if the individuals are becoming not less, but more alike. And this is happening.”

“Diversity” has unequivocally entered the popular lexicon in recent years, with companies, government agencies, and educational institutions promoting events and awareness campaigns under its banner. Jacoby makes a persuasive case that this is essentially superficial. Those who emphasise their diversity are not really seeking to live out this diversity in a materially or culturally distinct way — but to mainstream it. He argues:

“The legitimate demand here — and of most outside groups clamouring for representation — is to join the mainstream and enjoy its benefits.”

In contrast, those who are genuinely diverse would rather live according to their own rules, even if that means living outside the mainstream.

We are each unique and as we mature we are impacted by both nature and nurture. Equity demands sameness but we’re not the same. We are naturally diverse from our own unique DNA, to our physical features and abilities. Inclusion involves how we make friends, find work partners and marry and raise our children.

Government has no role in dictating our life choices. When government defines us we become automatons and lose our humanity and with it our freedoms to choose what’s best for us as unique individuals.

LGBTQAI+

In an August 19th, 2019 article The Daily Caller warned:

Virtually every week, there seems to be another issue that preoccupies the country.

But while our attention is focused on President Donald Trump, Google, Charlottesville, Russia, impeachment, Jeffrey Epstein, the next elections, racism, a trade war with China, the #MeToo movement, or something else, LGBTQ organizations are quietly going about their work dismantling ethical norms, making a mockery of education, ruining innocent people’s lives, and destroying children’s innocence.

Here’s some examples of how this LGBTQ agenda works:

  1. A transgender weightlifter won multiple gold medals at the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa. Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand won two gold medals and a silver in the three heavyweight categories for women weighing more than 87 kilograms, or 192 pounds. Hubbard is physically male.
  2. As reported by the Associated Press: “Parents also can choose (gender) ‘X’ for newborns. New York City is joining California, Oregon, and Washington state in allowing an undesignated gender option on birth certificates. A similar provision takes effect in New Jersey in February.”
  3. The Associated Press also recently reported that “California has overhauled its sex education guidance for public school teachers, encouraging them to talk about gender identity with kindergartners.” Tatyana Dzyubak, an elementary school teacher in the Sacramento area, objected: “I shouldn’t be teaching that stuff. That’s for parents to do.” But parents and parental authority have always been a thorn in the side of totalitarian movements. Therefore, dismantling parental authority is one of the primary goals of the left, of which LGBTQ organizations are a major component.
  4. Libraries in major urban centers now feature Drag Queen Story Hour—drag queens reading stories to preschool-age children. (Read, for example, the laudatory New York Times article “Drag Queen Story Hour Puts the Rainbow in Reading” from May 19, 2017.)
  5. David Zirin, sports editor of The Nation: “There is another argument against allowing trans athletes to compete with cis-gender athletes that suggests that their presence hurts cis-women and cis-girls. But this line of thought doesn’t acknowledge that trans women are in fact women” (italics added).
  6. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., in a letter to USA Powerlifting: “The myth that trans women have a ‘direct competitive advantage’ is not supported by medical science.”

Of course these policies, statements and political positions are all false and absurd.

The Bottom Line 

The Democrat Party is officially the Grooming Party.

Their support for the cultural war against parents, our culture and society is open for public view.

Democrats nominated a pro-pedophile nominee for the Supreme Court and she is now judging from the bench of the highest court in our nation.

This alone proves our point.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

New Harvard Study: Homeschoolers Turn Out Happy, Well-Adjusted, and Engaged

Homeschooled children fared better than children who attended public schools in many categories.


Researchers at Harvard University just released findings from their new study showing positive outcomes for homeschooled students. Writing in The Wall Street Journal last week, Brendan Case and Ying Chen of the Harvard Human Flourishing Program concluded that public school students “were less forgiving and less apt to volunteer or attend religious services than their home-schooled peers.”

The scholars analyzed data of over 12,000 children of nurses who participated in surveys between 1999 and 2010 and found that homeschooled children were about one-third more likely to engage in volunteerism and have higher levels of forgiveness in early adulthood than those children who attended public schools. Homeschooled children were also more likely to attend religious services in adulthood than children educated in public schools, which the researchers noted is correlated with “lower risks of alcohol and drug abuse, depression and suicide.”

The new findings offer a stark contrast to the portrayal of homeschoolers by Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Bartholet, who notoriously called for a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling last year—just before the US homeschool population ballooned to more than 11 percent of the overall school-age population, or more than five million students, in the wake of the coronavirus response.

In their Journal Op-Ed, Case and Chen challenged their colleague.

“The picture of the home-schooled student that emerges from the data doesn’t resemble the socially awkward and ignorant stereotype to which Ms. Bartholet and others appeal. Rather, home-schooled children generally develop into well-adjusted, responsible and socially engaged young adults,” they wrote.

The Harvard researchers also discovered that homeschooled students were less likely to attend college than their public school peers. Some media outlets latched onto this finding in their headlines, while ignoring the Harvard scholars’ speculation that this could be due to a variety of factors. Homeschoolers could be choosing alternatives to college as a pathway to adulthood, and college admissions practices may create barriers for homeschooled students.

I reached out to Case and Chen for additional comments on their study’s findings, including how they think the homeschooling data and outcomes might have changed since 2010, when their data set ended.

“We are also glad to see that some colleges, including some top-tier colleges, have become more flexible in their admission policies for homeschoolers over the past years,” Chen responded.

Indeed, more colleges and universities have implemented clearer guidelines and policies for homeschooled students in recent years, and many are now eager to attract homeschooled applicants. In 2015, Business Insider noted that homeschooling is the “new path to Harvard,” and in 2018 the university profiled several of its homeschooled students.

The researchers also suspect that the well-being gap between homeschoolers and public school students has widened over the past decade, with homeschoolers faring even better.

“For instance, social media apps have come to smartphones over the past few years, leading to their widespread adoption by teenagers and even younger children,” Chen told me this week. “Some prior studies suggested that such increasing smartphone use may have contributed to the recent huge spikes in adolescent depression, anxiety, and school loneliness. Cyberbullying, sexting and ‘phubbing’ have also become more common in children’s daily lives, especially in school settings. We might expect that these issues may be less common among homeschoolers than their public school peers.”

As more families experimented with homeschooling last year, and many of them decided to continue this fall, the new Harvard data should help them to feel confident about their education choice. In terms of human flourishing, homeschoolers are doing well—perhaps even better than their schooled peers.

“Many parents opted to try homeschooling during the COVID pandemic,” said Chen. “Hopefully, the public awareness about homeschooling and the related practices and support for homeschoolers will be improved in the long run.”

AUTHOR

Kerry McDonald

Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at FEE and host of the weekly LiberatED podcast. She is also the author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019), an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a regular Forbes contributor. Kerry has a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College and an M.Ed. in education policy from Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four children. You can sign up for her weekly newsletter on parenting and education here.

RELATED VIDEO: Dad Takes Down Critical Race Theory In Heartwarming Conversation With Little Daughter

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: The Batwa paid the ultimate price to save gorillas. Do environmentalists care?

Which is more important: human beings or exotic species?


The Batwa are a group of pygmy people who have lived in central Africa for millennia. Their homeland spreads across what is now Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Shorter in stature than other Africans, they dwell in highland rainforests, where they survive by hunting small game and foraging for plants.

They are among the last Africans to adopt Western customs. Hence they are often unfairly portrayed as primitive and uncultured. Worse, in many of the countries in which they live, in each of which they are a tiny minority, they have been systematically mistreated and underserved by governments.

One wrenching example of such mistreatment is the misery of the Batwa in Uganda. In this country, the Batwa used to live in three large forests in the southwest of the country: Bwindi, Mgahinga and Echuuya.

In 1991, nearly all of them were forcefully evicted, often at gunpoint by rangers from the Uganda Wildlife Authority. The three forests were designated as national parks to protect the endangered mountain gorillas who shared them with the Batwa. Never mind that the Batwa weren’t a direct threat to the gorillas or other endangered species.

Having never adopted formal systems of land ownership, the Batwa lacked title to their forests. Clearly taking advantage of this, the government of Uganda did not compensate them and abandoned them on the edges of the forests, with neither land nor the skills with which to make a living outside the forest.

In the years that followed, many of the Batwa died, threatening the survival of the tribe itself. Of those that survived, many fell into drug abuse, begging and prostitution. They soon had the highest HIV prevalence rate of any ethnic group in Uganda. This is exacerbated by limited access to healthcare and education. Only 10 percent of Batwa children in Uganda are in formal education.

Alongside these losses must be added the greater loss of contact with the home and legacy of their ancestors, which for most of the younger generation is now alien. The only legal way for a Mtwa (singular for Batwa) to enter the forest now is as a guide, on the so-called Batwa Experience at the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, in which they re-enact the ways of their ancestors for curious tourists.

The mountain gorillas of Uganda, on the other hand, have gone on to multiply. They now number over 400, accounting for nearly half of the over 1,000 now living in the wild. The species is no longer listed as critically endangered. The sacrifice of the Batwa people to the cause of great ape conservation has paid off.

The government of Uganda charges tourists up to US$700 to observe the gorillas in their habitat. Practically none of this money ends up in Batwa hands.

The Batwa of Uganda are conservation refugees, silent victims of a global movement to save biodiversity at all costs. So silent is their suffering that it rarely even makes the footnotes when the recovery of the mountain gorilla is celebrated. Betrayed by their government and activists, their only hope now rests in the pity and goodwill of their neighbours and some NGOs.

With such support, the Batwa filed a case against the government in 2011. Ten years later, in August 2021, a five-judge bench of Uganda’s constitutional court unanimously ruled that the evictions had been illegal and that the Batwa had been treated inhumanely. It ordered the government to pay the Batwa “fair and just compensation” within 12 months.

The government intends to appeal the ruling.

This was no small victory. It marked the first substantial recognition of the unjust suffering of the Batwa. However, it is not obvious what “fair and just compensation” would look like for a people evicted from their forest home more than 30 years ago. The only fair and just compensation would be to have never been evicted at all.

So many years later, many of those who were directly wronged no longer live. Even in the best of circumstances, temporal distance from the injustice would complicate any attempt at optimal redress. Further delays, including the appeal by the government, only make things worse. Justice delayed is justice denied.

What’s more, the restoration of the Batwa’s forest home seems to be out of the question. Many older Batwa seem to be reconciled to this. This is not only because of their despair at the intransigence of the government, but also because the younger generations are unlikely to adopt the ways of their ancestors. Their alienation cannot be undone.

In any case, whatever happens from here on, the suffering of the Batwa should be a lesson for the environmental movement. The solutions we propose for the preservation of biodiversity often seem neat and well-considered, but they rarely are.

Unless we realise that future generations aren’t the only ones for whom we should protect the environment, we risk grievously harming present generations in the process.

AUTHOR

Mathew Otieno

Mathew Otieno writes from Kisumu, Kenya. More by Mathew Otieno

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Report: Chinese doctors executed prisoners for their organs

Another in a series of damning reports.


Shocking allegations about Chinese organ donation have been made in a leading medical journal, the American Journal of Transplantation. An Australian researcher and an Israeli transplant surgeon claim that “physicians in the People’s Republic of China have participated in executions by organ removal”.

Mathew Robertson, of the Australian National University in Canberra, and Professor Jacob Lavee, of Tel Aviv University, scanned 2,838 papers drawn from a dataset of 124,770 Chinese-language transplant publications from 1980 to 2015. In 71 of these, from medical centres around the country, they found evidence that brain death had not been properly declared and that “the removal of the heart during organ procurement must have been the proximate cause of the donor’s death”.

In other words, doctors trained to save lives, doctors whose creed is “do no harm”, stood in as executioners for the Chinese government so that so that they could harvest organs from prisoners. Who were the prisoners? We don’t know, but they could have been murderers and rapists. Or they could have been Falun Gong supporters, Uyghurs, or political dissidents.

Although this atrocity is impossible to prove definitively because of the secrecy surrounding most government statistics in China, activists have accumulated mountains of indirect evidence. Two Canadians, David Matas and the late David Kilgour, wrote Bloody Harvest in 2007. An American researcher, Ethan Gutmann, wrote  The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem in 2014. In 2019 the China Tribunal, an independent investigation into these allegations, released yet another report in the form of a legal ruling. It concluded that:

“The Tribunal’s members are certain – unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt – that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.”

The article in the American Journal of Transplantation, then, is further confirmation of years of rumours and scholarly reports.

“There were two criteria by which we claimed a problematic brain death declaration,” Robertson, who translated the Chinese papers, told WebMD News. “One was where the patient was not ventilated and was only intubated after they were declared brain dead, the other was that the intubation took place immediately prior to the surgery beginning.”

This damning assertion has been flatly denied by Chinese authorities. “While some anti-China forces fabricate and spread rumours on China’s organ transplantation, their true, malicious intentions are becoming increasingly clear to and rejected by the international community,” the Chinese embassy in Israel told the newspaper Haaretz.

The authors have produced no evidence from eyewitnesses, but they discovered that the authors of these 71 papers unwittingly disclosed, albeit indirectly, that they had ignored the dead donor rule when removing hearts and lungs from the donors. And since most of the donors between 1980 and 2015 were prisoners, this implies that the transplant operation must have been the means of executing them.

“Transplanting organs from a person who has been executed, is brain dead and whose heart is still beating, requires complex and delicate coordination between the executioners and the doctors salvaging the organ,” Lavee told Haaretz. “The papers analysed in the study show that Chinese physicians have essentially joined the execution procedure to avoid losing the organ due to a lack of coordination.”

In 2015 China agreed to stop using prisoners for transplant operations and declared that it would rely upon voluntary donations. However, the number of organs available for transplant never stopped growing. Next year the Chinese have predicted that there will be 50,000 transplants, all from voluntary donors, with waiting times in weeks or even days. In the West, waiting times are months or years.

There are credible allegations that Uighur prisoners, Falun Gong prisoners, and other prisoners have been “organ donors”. Is this continuing? The authors of the paper believe that it is:

“While more voluntary donations are taking place in China than ever before, there are as yet no reliable data on the true scale of the reforms. It is also unclear whether and to what degree death row prisoners and prisoners of conscience are still being utilized as organ sources. Given the lack of sanctions and accountability for procurement of prisoner organs in the past, the strong financial incentives to continue such activity, and the difficulty of external observers of detecting it, it is unclear why Chinese hospitals would cease engaging in this profitable trade.

Dr Lavee told Haaretz that the participation of doctors in executions is a crime against humanity:

“As the son of a Holocaust survivor who was in a Nazi concentration camp, I cannot stand aside and remain silent when my professional colleagues, Chinese transplant surgeons, have for years been partners to a crime against humanity by cooperating with the authorities and serving as the operational arm for mass executions,” he says.

China is doing its best to divert attention from these allegations. On the annual celebration of Tomb Sweeping Day in Chongqing, a city of 31 million in central China, China Daily recently reported that “Organ donation and transplantation have been gaining steam in China in recent years, with data from the China Organ Donation Administrative Center showing that more than 4.62 million people have signed up for organ donation”.

At an event attended by families of organ donors, recipients, and coordinators, one man expressed his gratitude: “It was after hearing that one life was saved because of my father’s donation that I realized the greatness of his heart and the true meaning of life. It feels like his life was extended in another way. He never actually left me.”

There are two very different explanations for China’s booming organ transplant industry. Which is correct?

AUTHOR

Michael Cook

Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet. He lives in Sydney, Australia. More by Michael Cook

RELATED ARTICLE: The Batwa paid the ultimate price to save gorillas. Do environmentalists care?

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

How we are being diversified into uniformity

Russell Jacoby’s book is a fascinating account of how people across the world have come to conform to a particular mode of behaviour and thought, despite claims to the contrary.


On Diversity: The Eclipse of the Individual in a Global Era by Russell Jacoby, Seven Stories Press, 2020, 152 pp

In a recent article for the online magazine UnHerd, Irish commentator Conor Fitzgerald uncovered some uncomfortable truths about Ireland’s non-profit industrial complex. This small island nation, population roughly five million, boasts no fewer than 33,000 NGOs. And the Irish taxpayer funds them to the tune of €5 billion every year.

Admittedly some of the these NGOs pursue worthy and practical causes, supplying essential health and social services that the Irish government has not taken responsibility for managing itself. However, many others merit further questioning.

Dampening democracy

Fitzgerald focuses on the National Women’s Council, whose latest annual report for 2020 reveals that it received over €800,000 in funding from various government agencies. This contrasts strongly with the mere €40,000 it received in private donations.

Holding strongly partisan views on contemporary social issues, the National Women’s Council was very vocal during the 2018 abortion referendum and in the campaigns leading up to it.

An NGO is meant to be a non-governmental organisation — that’s what the letters stand for. But is an NGO still worthy of the name when the funding it receives from government is twenty times greater than its private income?

This is about more than one NGO, though. The issue raises troubling questions about the health of public discourse in Ireland which our commentariat have been reluctant to explore.

In February, an editorial in The Irish Times weakly pondered whether such NGOs “can… be regarded as truly independent if the Government they lobby happens to provide the bulk of their funding.” Unfortunately it probed no further, uncritically concluding that organisations such the National Women’s Council “contribute to a vibrant civil society and help bring about positive change.”

The possibility that Ireland’s parliamentary democracy and associated web of NGOs are a mere tax-funded social construct has produced no further probing or introspection from our intelligentsia. The editorial’s cowardly attempt to lift the veil on a troubling matter for the nation’s intellectual, political, and cultural life saw it submissively return it to its place once more.

Yet the fine weave of messaging and action produced by this parasitic symbiosis of government, media, and tax-funded NGOs on significant political, social, and cultural issues in recent years should make one think twice about the existence of a genuinely diverse “vibrant civil society” in Ireland in 2022.

Global conformity

Although based on American cultural life, Russell Jacoby’s On Diversity: The Eclipse of the Individual in a Global Era offers fertile material for observers of Ireland’s monochrome official social, cultural, and intellectual landscape.

Jacoby problematises our contemporary self-concept as “diverse” when the penetrative effects of globalisation in capital and culture are actually leading to greater homogeneity in how many people around the world dress, speak, consume, and think. Positing the “diversity idea” as mere “rhetoric or jargon”, Jacoby argues that “the world is not becoming more but less diverse.”

An American intellectual historian, Jacoby is Emeritus Professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has published widely on aspects of intellectual and cultural history, and in recent years has focused his critical gaze on the increasingly monolithic culture of the modern university. The book is not a simplistic tirade against the global ubiquity of jeans and T-shirts, soft drinks and hamburgers, or the English language — although it does explore some of these tokens of cultural hegemony in its early chapters.

Jacoby’s point is more subtle, and the book’s subtitle is important here. His concern is the eclipse of the individual amid global movements toward material, cultural, and intellectual homogeneity. Jacoby argues that as individuals become less diverse, the distinguishing features of groups of individuals will fade:

“But individual, not group, diversity is my concern. Diversity in its multiple incarnations turns hollow if the individuals are becoming not less, but more alike. And this is happening.”

“Diversity” has unequivocally entered the popular lexicon in recent years, with companies, government agencies, and educational institutions promoting events and awareness campaigns under its banner. Jacoby makes a persuasive case that this is essentially superficial. Those who emphasise their diversity are not really seeking to live out this diversity in a materially or culturally distinct way — but to mainstream it. He argues:

“The legitimate demand here — and of most outside groups clamouring for representation — is to join the mainstream and enjoy its benefits.”

In contrast, those who are genuinely diverse would rather live according to their own rules, even if that means living outside the mainstream. Jacoby cites the Amish and Hasidic Jews as examples: “The Amish and Hasids do not want to ‘blend in.’ They incarnate a diversity that gives lie to its current form, whose adherents only desire to be let in, not left out.” Thus when diversity becomes about fitting in and entering the mainstream, the idea begins to ring hollow.

For Jacoby, “as people become less culturally different, they fetishize their differences.” Irish readers may appreciate this in the context of the St Patrick’s Day celebrations of a few weeks ago, when people around the world donned green hats or orange wigs, ostensibly emphasising diversity and difference (their Irishness, however tenuous). By 18 March, however, those external signifiers of difference had been cast aside, and the indistinctness of the masses returned.

Mainstream diversity (as paradoxical as the phrase sounds) can be worn lightly, at little cost, and cast off when its moment passes. Moreover when so many are wearing leprechaun hats and proclaiming their Celtic roots, is diversity really evident here in the first place? For Jacoby, such diversity is no more than superficial when, underneath the external differences, most people think and dress the same. Ultimately today’s corporate and institutional campaigns to promote diversity are “a façade” and in fact monotonously mainstream.

The book comprises two parts. The opening three chapters consider historical manifestations of diversity in material culture. The final two chapters attempt to trace the history of the idea, particularly through the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill, although Jacoby’s evident wide reading draws amply on the writings of lesser known figures, too — revolutionaries, reactionaries, eccentrics, and romantics — from the lively intellectual circles of eighteenth and nineteenth century France, Germany, Switzerland, and Russia.

Crushing childhood

An interesting exploration of diversity’s material dimension occurs in the third chapter, “Playing with Diversity.” Jacoby explores threads of diversity, and its retreat, through the fascinating, entwined histories of childhood play and boredom.

A circumscribed period of time when children can live and engage in activities specific to their age, childhood is largely a modern, post-industrial development. Improved nutrition, sanitation, mandatory schooling, and limits on child labour have “opened a space between infancy and adulthood” which was previously “strangled” by the “realities of poverty and work.” However as childhood has become more formalised and regulated, Jacoby argues, it has also become less diverse.

What does he mean by “diverse” here? Jacoby evaluates modern attitudes to free time and play. Contemporary children’s games, from organised sports to computer games, are designed by adults. Well-meaning though they are, “as adult-run activities, organized sports, and computer games occupy this space [i.e. childhood], the capacity for diversity shrinks,” Jacoby suggests.

The bleak vista of contemporary “dull playgrounds” have seen sandboxes, seesaws, monkey bars, and high-pitched slides disappear in favour of modular, easy to maintain, colourful tubes, low platforms, and shallower slides. A fatal mix of health-and-safety-ism and fears about litigation have deadened the spirit of adventure and risk in playgrounds. Jacoby notes a remark by the author of one study of childhood play that some playgrounds are now “too safe.”

This erosion of diversity and vibrancy in childhood play is contrasted with boredom. This existentially unpleasant condition is sure to leave many a conscientious reader uneasy. Nevertheless, careful to distinguish boredom from melancholy or sloth, Jacoby provocatively argues that this condition ought to be appreciated as a privilege rather than a nuisance.

We ought to cherish our fleeting moments of boredom since it was once “a marginal phenomenon, reserved for monks and the nobility.” Permitting boredom in childhood, opening up a space for limited, temporal and existential lack of structure or organisation, can foster creativity, flexibility, and resilience — conditions necessary for diversity to flourish. Nowadays, Jacoby writes, “we worry if our kids are not occupied — and they have lost the ability to do nothing.”

Philosophical underpinnings

The final two chapters of the book progress from brief histories of everyday manifestations of diversity and plunge us into the history of the idea itself. The writings of Mill and Tocqueville feature prominently here, although they percolate the entire book too. Both men were concerned about “the ability of the individual to stand up against society — against social homogenization and conformity.”

Tocqueville’s influential Democracy in America queried how “the rise of commercial society based on money and equality undermines the individual.” According to Jacoby, “Tocqueville saw the advance of democracy and equality as irreversible, but worried about its consequences — uniformity, greyness, and even a new despotism.”

Tocqueville wrote of his fears for modern democracies whose leadership “inhibits, represses, saps, stifles, and stultifies, and in the end […] reduces each nation to nothing but a flock of timid and industrious animals” — a remarkably durable and prescient assertion even today among the West’s machinery of capital and opaque managerial bureaucracy.

Assessing the new-born United States, Tocqueville found society there both “agitated” and “monotonous.” Tocqueville, according to Jacoby, identified in the burgeoning post-Enlightenment and post-revolutionary democratic nation state the “twin movements of individual emancipation and individual conformity.”

Mill was heavily influenced by Tocqueville, with one caveat — Tocqueville, according to Mill, mistakenly “attributed to democracy the ills of capitalism.” Mill’s philosophical classic On Liberty argues for “the importance, to man and society, of a large variety of types of character” and the importance of “giving full freedom to [society to] expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions.”

Mill was concerned that the growth of commercial activity entailed “the growing insignificance of individuals.” Genuine diversity requires a tolerance for an individual’s own agency and responsibility. Jacoby points out that “unlike today’s diversity boosters, Mill saw diversity not simply as choices or inherited characteristics, but was something deeper, modes of living.” Jacoby regrets that Mill’s pleas for greater tolerance of variety, even eccentricity, in living and doing, for going against the tide, “barely elicit a nod from current academics who write on him.”

Readers expecting a laboured and predictable critique of current political and cultural movements carried out in the name of diversity will be disappointed. This is not the book for them. Jacoby studiously avoids highly current matters. The book attempts to walk a tightrope — between the progressives who ostensibly promote the concept of diversity yet implicitly demand ideological conformity, on the one hand, and the reactionaries who critique progressive notions of diversity because they work against their own interests and values, yet implicitly demand similar conformity to their own worldviews, on the other. Jacoby considers himself a friend of neither camp. Nevertheless, the target for much of his book is the progressive consensus that prevails from campus to corporation today.

Jacoby is a historian, not a philosopher, and “diversity” is not an abstract ontological peculiarity, but manifests itself in real ways that people think and behave. Occasionally the book’s argument in these final chapters is hard to follow. This is understandable given the ephemeral nature of the concept. However, at times one feels that Jacoby could have slowed down his frantic and exhaustive aggregation of source material in order to remind the reader of how they fit the book’s overarching argument regarding the decay of the dignity of the individual amid totalising narratives of diversity. This pitfall is understandable for someone who has spent their career in academia. The highly distilled and at times opaque train of thought in these final chapters neglects to bear in mind the average reader whom it is presumably trying to convince, and to pace its argument for them. However this criticism is, in another sense, a compliment to Jacoby, whose reading and knowledge is as wide-ranging as it is deep, and whose message grows ever more relevant.

AUTHOR

David Gibney

David Gibney is a school teacher in Dublin. He holds a PhD in English literature. More by David Gibney

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Disney Stock Plummets -30%: Boycott Child Grooming

Dump your stock. Take the kids to Dollywood. Unsubscribe to Disney plus. These cretins are sexually grooming your kids. Protect the children. Do not support sexualizing children.

In recent weeks, Disney has been emerging as an increasingly vocal activist for the LGBTQ+ agenda.

Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek has argued that Disney is simply seeking more diversity because it is good for business.

In that light, Chapek apologized to the LGBTQ+ community “for not being the ally you needed me to be,” and pledged to be a better ally, in a new video that journalist Christopher Rufo tweeted.

Chapek said that he is working with the “LGBTQIA+ Advisory Council” to discern different suggestions about how to take action to help the LGBTQ+ community.

He added that “words are not enough so we are taking some actions now.”

“I want you to know that your words have made a real impact on me,” he said. “I understand that we have made mistakes, and the pain that those mistakes have caused.”

“I and the leadership team are determined to use this moment as a catalyst for meaningful and lasting change,” Chapek added.

Disney has continued to insist that there is a growing queerness in our culture that now must be catered to in entertainment.

Karey Burke, head of entertainment, said that her son had told her: “Gen-Z is 30-40 percent queerer than the other generations Mom, so Disney better get with it,” the Daily Mail reported.

Disney keeps pushing the envelope beyond just verbal support of the LGBTQ+ agenda, though, as Chapek said they would.

The entertainment giant also announced to its employees that they have a new benefits program that will allow employees and their families to access gender reassignment surgeries or hormone usage, the Post Millennial reported.

“The other big area is gender identity and expression. So doing all of this work to ensure that our employees and cast can express their gender here authentically and proudly at the company. So, you know, coming up with guides on how to change your photo information about pronouns, working with our benefits team to give information about gender affirmation procedures, both for our employees who are transitioning and trans, but also our employees who have kids who are transitioning,” a man explained in a video of a Disney internal meeting, that journalist Christopher Rufo then tweeted.

Disney’s strong stance has come particularly to light after Florida passed the Parental Rights in Education bill (which critics inaccurately call the “Don’t Say Gay” bill). The bill prohibits Florida teachers from teaching about sexual orientation to children in kindergarten through third grade.

Disney blatantly declared that they opposed this bill and would try to overturn it, CNBC News reported.

Since then, Disney has grown bolder in its stance of allying with the LGBTQ+ community and more evidence has been published about just how the corporation is planning to do that.

Either through catering to LGBTQ+ employees, or featuring more trans and gay characters in its content, Disney is acting on its promise.

For instance, Disney, alongside three other media corporations, announced that it will air a new public service announcement from GLAAD that will feature a transgender teen and will call for nationwide support for LGBTQ+ youth, CNBC News reported.

Chapek was serious when he announced that Disney would be taking more action.

“By now, I hope you have all read my most recent note in which I pledged to be a better ally for the LGBTQ+ community; apologized for not being the ally you needed me to be; and committed to ensuring that our company lives up to its values,” Chapek said in the video. “I meant every word.”

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

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SICK: Disney+ removes Peter Pan, Dumbo, and other movies deemed “offensive” by the Democrat-fascists

Disney’s Star Gina Carano Fired For Her Political Views

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

 

New Study Reveals Florida And Republican-Led States Dominate COVID-19 Best Responses; Democrat-Led States Rank Among Worst

More crucial news that will be suppressed, censored and lied about by the criminal media.

In NYC, the large majority are still wearing masks outside. The once coolest city in the world is now the saddest. Pathetic.

New Study Reveals Florida And GOP-Led States Dominate COVID-19 Best Responses; Democrat-Led States Rank Among Worst

By Dillon Burroughs • Daily Wire • Apr 11, 2022

A new report that ranks each state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed GOP-led states, including Florida, among the top performers, with Democrat-led states dominating the bottom of the list.

The Committee To Unleash Prosperity (CUP) has released the most comprehensive analysis to date on how states handled the COVID-19 crisis. These results have also been published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“The Report Card on the States measures and compares state performance on three metrics: the economy, education, and mortality from the virus. It answers the question: how did states do in balancing the health of their citizens, allowing their economies to remain operational and keeping job losses low, and keeping their schools open so that school-aged children did not suffer long term educational setbacks,” the committee said in a statement provided to The Daily Wire.

“Each of these three metrics were equally weighted. The states that received an F grade were New Jersey, New York, California, Illinois and Washington, D.C. These states performed poorly on every measure. They had high age-adjusted death rates; they had high unemployment and significant GDP losses, and they kept their schools shutdown much longer than almost all other states,” it added. “The top performers were Utah, Nebraska, and Vermont with Montana and Florida right behind.”

A total of 18 states received a grade of A or B. Of the top-ranking 18 states, 16 are led by Republican governors. No Democrat-led states appeared in the top five.

The “biggest mistake” observed in the study was the long-term closing of businesses and schools.

“Shutting down their economies and schools was by far the biggest mistake governors and state officials made during Covid, particularly in blue states,” said CUP Co-Founder Stephen Moore. “We hope the results of this study will persuade governors not to close schools and businesses the next time we have a new virus variant.”

States with locked down economies averaged about two points higher in unemployment than states that did not engage in more severe lockdowns, according to the study.

Despite the emphasis on Florida’s openness versus California’s restrictions, the study showed that the adjusted death rates in the two states from COVID-19 were nearly the same.

The study also offered an important insight regarding states’ rights from the study, noting “one of the wisest policy decisions was to ultimately let the 50 states and their governors and legislators make their own pandemic response policies. Federalism worked.”

A concerning takeaway from the study regarded the relationship between unemployment and social problems. For example, for each one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate, there were 920 more suicides and 650 more homicides. Increases in mental health concerns, domestic violence, and homelessness were also associated with increased unemployment rates.

The full report is available online from the CUP.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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LIVE WORLD PREMIERE: Watch The Water

“Adolf Hitler would be proud of the American Medical System.” – NH 


The published the world premiere video “Watch The Water” on it’s Rumble channel.

WATCH THE WATER:

The plandemic continues, but its origins are still a nefarious mystery. How did the world get sick, how did Covid really spread, and did the Satanic elite tell the world about this bioweapon ahead of time? Dr. Bryan Ardis (www.ardisantidote.com) has unveiled a shocking connection between this pandemic and the eternal battle of good and evil which began in the Garden of Eden.

In this Stew Peters Network exclusive, Director Stew Peters, award winning filmmaker Nicholas Stumphauzer and Executive Producer Lauren Witzke bring to light a truth Satan himself has fought to suppress.

Visit http://ardisantidote.com/ to learn how to protect you and your loved ones during this biological war.

©. All rights reserved.

VIDEO REPORT: ‘Booster Lunacy,’ Real Facts on This Unprecedented Experiment

Booster mania. FDA approves 5th Covid booster.


STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • A preprint study posted April 3, 2022, reports high rates of infection with BA.1, BA.1.1 and BA.2 — variants of Omicron — among triple-jabbed health care workers. In all, the incidence rate among the triple-jabbed with one of these variants was 22%, and only 10% remained asymptomatic
  • March 29, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a second booster (dose No. 4, for those taking Pfizer or Moderna) for adults over age 50, as well as a third booster (dose No. 5) for immunocompromised people aged 12 and older. The additional boosters are to be given four months after the last dose
  • The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also recommending adults who have received two doses of Janssen’s viral vector DNA shot to get a third shot using either Pfizer or Moderna, despite there being no data on the safety or effectiveness of mixing the various shots
  • FDA authorized doses 4 and 5, without input from its expert voting panel, based on data showing the Moderna shot was only 11% effective, and caused side effects in 40% of recipients, and the Pfizer shot was 30% effective and caused side effects in 80% of people
  • The lead author of that paper, Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, an infectious disease specialist at Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer, Israel, has publicly stated that “Not a third dose, not a fourth dose, not a fifth dose will do anything to stop infections [long-term]”

That the mRNA-based COVID shot is not a real vaccine is evidenced by the sheer number of “boosters” required to keep COVID-19 at bay. When the injections were released at the beginning of 2021, the promises flowed.

Getting the two-dose regimen was said to be 95% effective and would keep you safe from serious infection. If everyone would just roll up their sleeves and get the jab, the pandemic would be over in no time. By mid-July 2021, just over half the adult U.S. population had received the shot. (Specifically, 56% had received one dose, and 49% were fully vaccinated with two doses.1)

Well, before the year was over, reality started setting in, as effectiveness waned2,3,4 far more rapidly than anyone expected. What’s worse, the shot actually increased the infectivity of the Delta variant,5 and toward the latter part of 2021, hospitals around the world were starting to fill up with “vaccinated” COVID patients.6,7,8

A preprint study,9 posted April 3, 2022, also reports high rates of infection with BA.1, BA.1.1 and BA.2 — variants of Omicron — among triple-jabbed health care workers. In all, the incidence rate among the triple-jabbed with one of these variants was 22%, and only 10% remained asymptomatic. As concluded by the authors:

“We report high incidence of omicron infections despite recent booster vaccination in triple vaccinated individuals. Vaccine-induced antibody titres seem to play a limited role in risk of omicron infection. High viral load and secretion of live virus for up to nine days may increase transmission in a triple vaccinated population.”

FDA Authorizes Fourth and Fifth Doses

In mid-August 2021 — just eight months into the COVID jab campaign — the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the first booster (the third dose of mRNA), starting with the immunocompromised.10

Then, March 29, 2022, the FDA cleared a second booster (dose No. 4, for those taking Pfizer or Moderna) for adults over age 50, as well as a third booster (dose No. 5!) for the immunocompromised aged 12 and older.11,12 The additional boosters are to be given four months after the last dose.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also recommending adults who have received two doses of Janssen’s viral vector DNA shot to get a third shot using either Pfizer or Moderna.13 This despite there being ZERO data on mixing the various shots.

So, in a little over one year, we’ve gone from “two mRNA jabs will ensure you won’t carry the virus or get sick or die of COVID” to “you need a booster every four months and you can still contract, transmit, get sick and die of COVID.” At this rate, we’re looking at three injections per year, and the fully-jabbed and boosted are still getting sick with COVID.

For example, we recently found out that 7 in 10 “vaccinated” CDC employees got breakthrough infections in August 2021,14 and Princess Cruises reported an outbreak onboard the Ruby Princess in March 2022, despite a 100% “vaccination” rate among both crew and passengers, plus proof of a negative COVID test prior to boarding.15 As noted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the video above, “it’s time to follow the science.

COVID Policy Has Nothing To Do With Science

Remarkably, the FDA made the decision to approve another booster without convening its expert voting committee, as is the norm. As noted by Dr. Marty Makary in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:16

“The Food and Drug Administration last week authorized Americans 50 and over to get a fourth COVID vaccine dose. Some of the FDA’s own experts disagree with the decision, but the agency simply ignored them.

It will convene its advisory committee this Wednesday [April 6, 2022] to discuss future vaccine needs. That’s like having lawyers present arguments to a judge who’s already issued a verdict … Decisions like this only reinforce the perception that COVID policy is driven by groupthink and politics.”

Even Dr. Paul Offit, whose faith in vaccines is legendary, expressed surprise and dismay at the FDA’s decision to move forward without holding an open meeting to allow experts to comment on the data. He told CNBC:17

“It’s just sort of fait accompli. So, is this the way it works? We talk endlessly about how we follow the science — it doesn’t seem to work out that way.”

Dr. Peter Hotez, another well-known vaccine pusher, has also expressed concern about the continued booster trend. He told CNBC that vaccine policy should not merely be based on keeping people out of the hospital, but should also seek to prevent COVID infection and “long COVID.”

He pointed out that the effectiveness of the third dose against hospitalization from Omicron infection has been shown to decline from 91% to 78% in just four months. “That gives me pause for concern that the boosters are not necessarily holding up as well as we’d like,” he said. It is really hard to believe that both of these vaccine pushers are actually waking up and beginning to question the narrative.

FDA’s Decision Based on Shockingly Bad Data

The FDA reportedly based its decision to authorize doses 4 and 5 on Israeli data posted on the preprint server medRxiv, February 15, 2022.18,19 What evidence was provided in this as yet non-peer-reviewed study that was compelling enough to circumvent the voting committee and public comment? According to the authors:

“Breakthrough infections were common, mostly very mild, yet, with high viral loads. Vaccine efficacy against infection was 30% and 11% for BNT162b2 [Pfizer] and mRNA1273 [Moderna], respectively. Local and systemic adverse reactions were reported in 80% and 40%, respectively.”

This is worth repeating. FDA authorized doses 4 and 5 based on data showing the Moderna shot was only 11% effective, and caused side effects in 40% of recipients, and the Pfizer shot was 30% effective and caused side effects in 80% of people. I know, you are probably shaking your head, saying, “What?!” That’s beyond astounding.

The FDA is charged with confirming that medical products are safe and effective. By authorizing the fourth and fifth COVID shots with abysmal effectiveness and sky-high adverse reaction rates they make it abundantly clear that that they are a completely captured agency and have completely abrogated their responsibility for public health.

The lead author of that paper, Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, and infectious disease specialist at Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer, Israel, has even publicly stated that “Not a third dose, not a fourth dose, not a fifth dose will do anything to stop infections [long-term].”20

Experts: We Cannot Boost Our Way Out of the COVID Pandemic

In an April 4, 2022, article, Forbes staff reporter Robert Hart writes:21

“While a fourth dose appears to be beneficial at preventing serious illness in older or high-risk people, Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Forbes that repeated boosting is not ‘a viable strategy’ and it’s not clear that younger groups without high-risk health conditions ‘benefit much from even third doses.’”

Professor Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, agrees, saying the current strategy is “not sustainable.” Similarly, Dr. Dan Barouch, a physician and vaccine researcher at Harvard Medical School, told Hart that getting a booster shot every three to six months is impractical for wealthy countries and “simply not possible” in poorer ones.

What we really need, Barouch said, is “vaccines with better durability.” John P. Moore, professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine also weighed in, telling Hart he doesn’t think we can “simply boost our way out of the pandemic.”

Regions With Low COVID Jab Rates Have Fared Well

Adding to suspicions that the COVID jabs aren’t doing much of anything is the fact that areas with low injection rates, such as Africa, have fared no worse than those with very high rates.

As reported by The New York Times,22,23 the Kamakwie district in Sierra Leone has registered a total of just 11 COVID cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and no deaths. Sierra Leone, in total, has had just 125 COVID deaths since the pandemic was declared. This, despite gathering for large weddings, concerts and football matches without masks.

Bill and Melinda Gates went on record early on in the pandemic stating Africa would be destroyed by COVID unless we made a concerted effort to get the COVID jab to them.

Their greed-fueled prediction turned out to be completely false, and while the African Union has been pushing to reach a 70% injection rate in West and Central Africa, the low incidence of COVID has sparked arguments against continuing the injection campaign this year, as health care funds are needed for other far more common ailments, such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Importantly, Africa wasn’t spared because SARS-CoV-2 didn’t sweep through it, because it did in spades. Studies looking at blood samples reveal two-thirds of the population in sub-Saharan countries have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 — evidence that they were exposed, recovered and developed the best protection possible — natural immunity.24,25

Areas with more reliable death registries and other data collection, such as South Africa, do show excess deaths during 2020 and 2021, which are being attributed to COVID. But by the third quarter of 2021, only 4% of Africans had received the jab and, by and large, it seems they are far better off because of it.

As noted by Del Bigtree in the featured Highwire video, the shots have basically decimated the immune function of those who took them, and the FDA has no other plan or option now than to roll out a never-ending series of boosters to “top up” people’s immune defenses, even if it’s only to a slight degree. They have nothing else. The damage is done.

COVID Shots ‘Proven to Cause More Harm Than Good’

While the official narrative is that the COVID shots may be “less than perfect but still better than the alternative” (i.e., getting the infection when you’re unvaccinated), immunologist Dr. Bart Classen published a study26 in the August 2021 issue of Trends in Internal Medicine, disputing this claim.

The study,27 “U.S. COVID-19 Vaccines Proven to Cause More Harm than Good Based on Pivotal Clinical Trial Data Analyzed Using the Proper Scientific Endpoint, ‘All Cause Severe Morbidity,’” details a core problem with the Pfizer, Moderna and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) trials.

All three employed a surrogate primary endpoint for health, namely “severe infections with COVID-19.” This, Classen says, “has been proven dangerously misleading,” and many fields of medicine have stopped using disease-specific endpoints in clinical trials and have adopted the far superior endpoint “all-cause mortality and morbidity”.

The reason for this is because if a person dies from the treatment or is severely injured by it, even if the treatment helped block the progression of the disease they’re being treated for, the end result is still a negative one. The COVID jab would fare very poorly using this metric.

To offer an extreme example of what you can do with a disease-specific endpoint, you could make the claim that shooting people in the head is a cure for cancer, because no one who got shot in the head died from cancer. When reanalyzing the clinical trial data from these COVID shots using “all-cause severe morbidity” as the primary endpoint, the data reveal they actually cause far more harm than good.

The proper endpoint was calculated by adding together all severe events reported in the trials, not just COVID-19 but also all other serious adverse events. By doing this, severe COVID-19 infection gets the same weight as other adverse events of equivalent severity. According to Classen:28

“Results prove that none of the vaccines provide a health benefit and all pivotal trials show a statistically significant increase in ‘all cause severe morbidity’ in the vaccinated group compared to the placebo group.

The Moderna immunized group suffered 3,042 more severe events than the control group. The Pfizer data was grossly incomplete but data provided showed the vaccination group suffered 90 more severe events than the control group, when only including ‘unsolicited’ adverse events.

The Janssen immunized group suffered 264 more severe events than the control group. These findings contrast the manufacturers’ inappropriate surrogate endpoints:

Janssen claims that their vaccine prevents 6 cases of severe COVID-19 requiring medical attention out of 19,630 immunized; Pfizer claims their vaccine prevents 8 cases of severe COVID-19 out of 21,720 immunized; Moderna claims its vaccine prevents 30 cases of severe COVID-19 out of 15,210 immunized.

Based on this data it is all but a certainty that mass COVID-19 immunization is hurting the health of the population in general. Scientific principles dictate that the mass immunization with COVID-19 vaccines must be halted immediately because we face a looming vaccine induced public health catastrophe.”

To make the above numbers more clear and obvious, here are the prevention stats in percentages:

  • Pfizer 0.00036%
  • Moderna 0.00125%
  • Janssen 0.00030%

We also have a cost-benefit analysis29 by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and researcher Kathy Dopp, published in March 2022, which shows the COVID jab increases children’s risk of dying from COVID infection. Children under 18 are also 51 times more likely to die from the jab than they are to die from COVID if not vaccinated.

Jamie Jenkins,30 former head of health and labor market analysis at the British Office for National Statistics, has also revealed that 4 million doses must be administered to children, 5 to 11 years of age, to prevent a single ICU admission in this age group.31

Assuming two doses per child, that means 2 million children must take their chances with serious and potentially lifelong side effects to prevent a single child from requiring intensive care due to COVID-19.

But you may be relieved to know that at least the pharma companies will be earning tens of billions of dollars from this recommendation. The COVID jabs are, without a doubt, the most financially successful pharma product in the history of the world. And the icing on the cake? Everyone, from the manufacturer to the person who administers the shot, has complete immunity from any prosecution for their nefarious plan to destroy the health of children.

Menstrual Problems Among Transgendered

One side effect that has made headlines in alternative media over the past year is abnormal bleeding and menstrual irregularities. For example, vaginal bleeding has been reported both in children who aren’t old enough to begin menstruation and in post-menopausal women.

Now, an online survey by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis reveals transgendered people are also reporting breakthrough menstruation, despite being on menstruation-suppressing hormones. As reported by Newswise:32

“The study is the first to examine vaccine-associated breakthrough bleeding in people who take testosterone or other hormones that suppress menstruation. The research focuses on individuals with a range of gender identities such as transgender, nonbinary or gender-fluid.

Previous studies of COVID-19 vaccine related menstrual symptoms have largely focused on cisgender (cis) women, those whose gender identity matches the female gender they were assigned at birth …

Out of over 160,000 survey respondents, the researchers identified 552 people who said they used testosterone or other gender-affirming hormones and did not usually menstruate. Most of these respondents (84%) selected more than one gender category, with 460 identifying as transgender, 373 specifying man or man identified, 241 identifying as non-binary and 124 indicating they were genderqueer/gender non-conforming.

One-third of these respondents reported breakthrough bleeding after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, 9% reported chest or breast soreness and 46% reported having other symptoms they would usually associate with a period, such as cramping and bloating.

Some respondents used the survey’s open-ended text boxes to report significant negative mental health impacts in response to their period symptoms, including anxiety, depression, gender dysphoria, panic attacks and suicidal ideation …

‘I hope that discussing these findings openly allows people to know that this could be a side effect so they can prepare appropriately,’ said [lead author Katharine] Lee.

‘This is especially important given the fact that some people described mental health outcomes like anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation as responses to unexpected breakthrough bleeding after vaccination.’”

RELATED ARTICLE: Lawmakers accuse CDC and FDA of statistical manipulation of COVID-19 data to justify lockdowns and other extreme mitigation policies

EDITORS NOTE: This MERCOLA column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.