A remarkable series of events culminated in at least one major Wall Street hedge fund on the verge of insolvency and widespread anxiety and even panic from the titans of the financial system. It was all initiated on a sub-group of Reddit known for its heterodox interest in stock markets, video games, and vaguely populist politics.
Purposely targeting the stock of a company that had long been written off by Wall Street and which short sellers had decided to ravage — the video game retailer GameStop — these small investors, many apparently working class or debt-ridden, banded together to drive up the stock price of that company into the stratosphere, abruptly leaving the hedge fund short-sellers with billions of dollars in losses.
Although it may be more complex than this once all the facts are all known, this is being treated — by those excited by it and those aghast — as a type of populist uprising, a David v. Goliath tale in which ordinary people united to brilliantly beat Wall Street at its own game, thereby transferring plutocratic wealth back to the public. Oligarchs and their media spokespeople spent all day on CNBC and other pro-Wall-Street outlets expressing outrage and demanding government intervention to protect them from what they regard as this grave injustice.
And the sub-Reddit has now been banned by at least one platform, on the highly suspicious ground that it was due to “hate speech” and not the use of this group to sabotage Wall Street billionaires (what a remarkable coincidence of timing that this sub-Reddit’s “hate speech” suddenly crossed a line exactly as hedge fund managers were demanding their heads; the page continues, however, to appear on Reddit itself).
In the video below, I discuss what happened and what the implications are. One note about the video: though I do discuss the amorphous and trans-ideological politics driving both the Reddit uprising and the reaction to it, that topic in particular merits much more consideration. Liberal journalists and pundits love to mock the idea that “economic anxiety” drives anything remotely adjacent to right-wing populism — the primary drivers are racism and other types of bigotry, they insist in unison — yet all one has to do is spend any non-trivial amount of time in that sub-Reddit to see genuine and significant levels of rational economic anger often quite untethered, even hostile, to left-liberal cultural pieties and political niceties. Given their recent noble success, everyone now wants to claim these Redditors as their own, but their politics, like many people’s, defy the clean left-right dichotomy on which the professional media and punditry classes depend, the only prism through which they can understand the world.
This is one of the most interesting and potentially significant events — not just financially but culturally and politically — to happen in some time, and I try here to explain the key components and highlight some of the most consequential implications [note that this video was filmed late last night before the banning of the sub-Reddit by Discord on obviously specious grounds and, far worse, the corrupted banning this morning by major trading platforms, including RobinHood, of any attempts to buy GameStop and other targeted stocks while still allowing them to be sold: the ultimate expression of what should be illegal market manipulation to protect hedge funds]:
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Migrants held for ransom in Texas hoped Biden would welcome them
HIDALGO COUNTY, Texas. — On a dusty patch of gravel a few miles from the Mexican border, the journey north for twelve Latin American migrants came to a screeching halt. Three women and nine men, mostly from Honduras and Guatemala, were rescued from a stash house in Edinburg, Texas on Wednesday morning by the Hidalgo…
New videos show suspects in ‘most violent attacks’ on cops during Capitol riots
The FBI released new videos Thursday of 10 people believed to be involved in the “most violent attacks” on police during the deadly Capitol riots. In one of the short clips, an unknown man can be seen swinging a club-like weapon at cops with riot shields. In another, a man is trying to wrestle a…
Coronavirus Reinfections Are Rare, Danish Researchers Report
People over 65 are more likely to experience a second bout with the virus, according to a large study of medical records.
US Jobless Claims Rise to 770,000 With Layoffs Still High
WASHINGTON—The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits rose last week to 770,000, a sign that layoffs remain high even as much of the U.S. economy is steadily recovering from the recession. Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that jobless claims climbed from 725,000 the week before. The numbers have dropped sharply since the depths […]
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Chilling video shows Atlanta gunman watching his victims enter the spa before killing four
Exclusive video obtained by DailyMail.com shows Long parked outside Young’s Asian Massage Parlor Tuesday afternoon and eerily watching people enter before he stepped inside and opened fired.
Biden nominee Gupta to sell stake in company linked to chemical used by drug cartels in heroin
Gupta has an $11 to $55 million asset holding in Avantor, which her father chairs.
Facebook is making a bracelet that lets you control computers with your brain
Facebook says it has created a wristband that translates motor signals from your brain so you can move a digital object just by thinking about it.
How does it work? The wristband, which looks like a clunky iPod on a strap, uses sensors to detect movements you intend to make. It uses electromyography (EMG) to interpret electrical activity from motor nerves as they send information from the brain to the hand. The company says the device, as yet unnamed, would let you navigate augmented-reality menus by just thinking about moving your finger to scroll.
A quick refresher on augmented reality: It overlays information on your view of the real world, whether it’s data, maps, or other images. The most successful experiment in augmented reality was Pokémon Go, which took the world by storm in 2016 as players crisscrossed neighborhoods in search of elusive Pokémon characters. That initial promise has faded over the intervening years, however, as companies have struggled to translate the technology into something appealing, light, and usable. Google Glass and Snap Spectacles bombed, for example: people simply did not want to use them. Facebook thinks its wristband is more user friendly.
Does it work the way Facebook claims? Too soon to tell. The product is still in research and development at the company’s internal Facebook Reality Labs, and I didn’t get to have a go. No word yet on when it will be released or how much it will cost, either.
Years in the making: Facebook acquired startup CTRL-labs in September 2019 for between $500 million and $1 billion. CTRL had been working on its own wrist-based EMG device, and its head, Thomas Reardon, now leads Facebook’s AR/VR research team. At the press preview, Reardon said the device was “not mind control.” He added, “This is coming from the part of the brain that controls motor information, not thought.”
The AR play: The announcement is the second in a series of three that have been planned to set out the company’s position in augmented reality. On March 9, Facebook announced that its glasses would be responsive to immediate surroundings—walking past your favorite coffee shop might trigger the glasses to ask if you want to place an order. Facebook says it will reveal its own haptic gloves and other wearables later this year.
Another privacy pitfall? Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has aggressively invested in augmented and virtual reality, recognizing that products like these can mean access to countless valuable data points. In the café example above, the company (and therefore advertisers) could find out what kind of coffee you prefer, where you live, and, by statistical deduction, your demographic, health, and other personal information. And given the company’s history with regard to privacy, there’s some reason to be skeptical.
Teacher vaccinations will likely not be mandatory to reopen schools: education sec
Coronavirus vaccines will likely not be mandatory for teachers in order to reopen schools, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said. Cardona made the admission Wednesday evening during an interview with “NBC Nightly News” while discussing the efforts to re-launch in-person instruction for K-12 schools nationwide, saying a mandate was not needed. “I think we’ve seen examples…
March 18, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 51 Minutes 53 Seconds
The Atlanta shooting suspect revealed to police what led to his attack, the Homeland Security Secretary spoke before Congress for the first time, and the deadline arrives to collect signatures for California’s recall effort against the governor.
Atlanta Shooting Suspect Tells Police Attack Not Racially Motivated
ATLANTA—A man accused of killing eight people, most of whom were of Asian descent, at massage parlors in the Atlanta area told police the attack was not racially motivated and that he potentially had a “sex addiction,” officials said Wednesday. Still, authorities said they were investigating whether the deaths were hate crimes. Six of the […]
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Atlanta-area parlor shootings suspect may have ‘sexual addiction,’ police say
The man accused of killing eight people at massage parlors in the Atlanta area told police his act was not racially motivated, and that he potentially had a “sex addiction,” officials said. Still, officials said they were investigating whether the deaths were hate crimes amid concerns over a wave of attacks on Asian Americans.
ATLANTA — The man accused of killing eight people at massage parlors in the Atlanta area told police his act was not racially motivated, and that he potentially had a “sex addiction,” officials said Wednesday.
Still, officials said they were investigating whether the deaths were hate crimes amid concerns over a wave of attacks on Asian Americans. Six of the victims were Asian and seven were women.
Officials did not say that Robert Aaron Long, 21, ever went to the parlors where the shootings occurred. They also said he was planning to go to Florida in a plot to attack “some type of porn industry.”
“He made indicators that he has some issues, potentially sexual addiction, and may have frequented some of these places in the past,” said Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds.
He said it was too early to tell if it was racially motivated. “But the indicators right now are it may not be. It may be targets of opportunity. Again, we believe that he frequented these places in the past and maybe have been lashing out.”
Many suspects who commit mass shootings have a history of violence against women. Still, the attack haunted members of the Asian American community who saw the shootings as an attack on them, given a recent wave of assaults that coincided with the spread of the coronavirus across the United States. The virus was first identified in China, and then-President Donald Trump and others have used racially charged terms like “Chinese virus” to describe it.
“We’re in a place where we’ve seen an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans since the pandemic started,” said Georgia state Rep. Bee Nguyen. “It’s hard to think it is not targeted specifically toward our community.”
The attacks began Tuesday evening, when five people were shot at Youngs Asian Massage Parlor near Woodstock, about 30 miles north of Atlanta, Cherokee County Sheriff’s spokesman Capt. Jay Baker said. Two people died at the scene, and three were taken to a hospital where two died, Baker said.
About an hour later, police responding to a call about a robbery found three women dead from apparent gunshot wounds at Gold Spa near Atlanta’s Buckhead area, where tattoo parlors and strip clubs are just blocks away from mansions and skyscrapers in one of the last ungentrified holdouts in that part of the city. Officers then learned of a call reporting shots fired across the street, at Aromatherapy Spa, and found another woman apparently shot dead.
“It appears that they may be Asian,” Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Joe Biden has been briefed on the “horrific shootings” and would receive an update later Wednesday from Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant cautioned that it was too early to say if the attack was hate crime. Over the past year, thousands of incidents of abuse have been reported to an anti-hate group that tracks incidents against Asian Americans, and hate crimes in general are at the highest level in more than a decade.
“We are heartbroken by these acts of violence,” Asian Americans Advancing Justice — Atlanta said in a statement. “While the details of the shootings are still emerging, the broader context cannot be ignored. The shootings happened under the trauma of increasing violence against Asian Americans nationwide, fueled by white supremacy and systemic racism.”
Police in Atlanta and other major cities deplored the killings, and some said they would increase patrols in Asian American communities. Seattle’s mayor said “the violence in Atlanta was an act of hate,” and San Francisco police tweeted #StopAsianHate. The New York City Police counterterrorism unit said it was on alert for similar attacks.
Other civil liberties groups and prominent Americans also expressed their dismay. The Rev. Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said she’s “deeply saddened that we live in a nation and world permeated by hate and violence. I stand with Asian members of our World House, who are a part of our global human family.”
Former President Barack Obama regretted that “even as we’ve battled the pandemic, we’ve continued to neglect the longer-lasting epidemic of gun violence in America.” While acknowledging that the shooter’s motive was not known, he said “the identity of the victims underscores an alarming rise in anti-Asian violence that must end.”
Surveillance video recorded a man pulling up to the Cherokee County business about 10 minutes before the attack there, and the same car was spotted outside the Atlanta businesses, authorities said. A manhunt was launched, and Long was taken into custody in Crisp County, about 150 miles south of Atlanta, Baker said.
Video evidence “suggests it is extremely likely our suspect is the same as Cherokee County’s, who is in custody,” Atlanta police said in a statement.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in statement Wednesday that its diplomats in Atlanta have confirmed with police that four of the victims who died were women of Korean descent. The ministry said its Consulate General in Atlanta is trying to confirm the nationality of the women.
FBI spokesman Kevin Rowson said the agency is assisting Atlanta and Cherokee County authorities in the investigation.
Crisp County Sheriff Billy Hancock said in a video posted on Facebook that his deputies and state troopers were notified Tuesday night that a murder suspect out of north Georgia was headed their way. Deputies and troopers set up along the interstate and “made contact with the suspect,” he said.
A state trooper performed a PIT, or pursuit intervention technique, maneuver, “which caused the vehicle to spin out of control,” Hancock said. Long was then taken into custody “without incident.”
Crisp County sheriff’s spokeswoman Haley Wade said Wednesday morning that Long, who is white, is no longer in their custody and that her office has turned over its information to the other Georgia agencies and the FBI.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is in South Korea meeting with Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, mentioned the killings during an opening statement.
“We are horrified by this violence which has no place in America or anywhere,” he said.
“Our entire family is praying for the victims of these horrific acts of violence,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday evening on Twitter.
___
Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to the this story.
Suspect In Georgia Shooting Might Have Been A Sex Addict, Police Say
‘The indicators right now are it may not be’.
Atlanta Shooting May NOT Be Hate Crime, Shooter Claims Sex Addiction: Police
Always wait for details. Always wait for facts to come in.
On Tuesday, there was a mass shooting in Atlanta. Eight people were murdered at massage parlors. I won’t name the shooter, because f*ck that guy. I’d rather he not know that I know he exists and that he spend the rest of his life as anonymous prison chum. Most of the victims were Asian, so it didn’t take long before leftists tied it to Donald Trump and the recent increase in anti-Asian hate crimes. Which, if they waited all of twelve hours, they would know that may not be the case. Police tell the Associated Press that, as of right now, indicators are that it might NOT be racially motivated. There’s also this detail:
Officials did not say that [the shooter], ever went to the parlors where the shootings occurred. They also said he was planning to go to Florida in a plot to attack “some type of porn industry.”
“He made indicators that he has some issues, potentially sexual addiction, and may have frequented some of these places in the past,” said Sheriff Frank Reynolds, of Cherokee County, where one of the targeted businesses was.
I see. So he was a scumbag and a pervert. Good to know.
Is it possible further investigation shows that this WAS racially motivated? Perhaps. That’s why you wait for facts to come out. Also, hate crime or just multiple homicide, prosecute this man to the fullest extent of the law. Let the prison system sort out the rest.
As of this writing, President Biden hasn’t spoken publicly yet. It will be curious to see if he labels it as a “hate crime” even if facts don’t back that up. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and House Democrats have also all made it clear that gun control is on their agenda. I’ll let you set your level of political cynicism to decide whether they’re going to exploit this for that end. . . .
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded March 17, 2021 | 75 Million vs. 435 … The Deplorables Have Power to Save America | Video: 48 Minutes 37 Seconds
“We build their walls, we pave their roads, we build their schools,” Greene said of taxpayers funding the rest of the world. “There is no reason to not fund our wall.” Our guests are: Marjorie Taylor Greene, John Fredericks, Phill Kline, Darren Beattie.
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded March 17, 2021 | Let’s Roll … Open the Schools, not the Border | Video: 48 Minutes 31 Seconds
“They say the issue is safety, I say the issue is politics,” said Friend. “They’re just used to getting a paycheck and staying at home.” Our guests are: John Fredericks, John Spiropoulos, Lydia Friend, Dave Ramaswamy.
“Hell on Earth”: Yemeni Children Starve to Death as U.S.-Backed Saudi Blockade Devastates Nation
The World Food Programme is warning Yemen is headed toward the biggest famine in modern history, with the U.N. agency projecting around 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 could die from acute malnutrition this year as the Saudi war and blockade continues. CNN senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says Yemen is accurately described as “hell on Earth.” Her latest report from inside Yemen details the devastating impact of the conflict on civilians, including widespread fuel shortages affecting all aspects of life. “We were utterly unprepared for what we found when we got there,” says Elbagir.
Reports of Deaths After COVID Vaccines Up by 259 in 1 Week, CDC Data Show
Data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the number of injuries and deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following COVID vaccines remain consistent with previous weeks, with the exception of a 31% spike in reports of Bell’s Palsy.
Every Friday, VAERS makes public all vaccine injury reports received by the system as of Friday of the previous week. Today’s data show that between Dec. 14, 2020, and March 5, a total of 31,079 total adverse events were reported to VAERS, including 1,524 deaths — an increase of 259 over the previous 7 days — and 5,507 serious injuries, up 1,083 over the same time period.In the U.S., 85.01 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of March 5.
VAERS is the primary mechanism for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.
This week’s 31% increase in reports of Bell’s Palsy marks a break with past trends. Otherwise, today’s data reflect trends that have emerged since The Defender first began tracking VAERS reports related to COVID vaccines.
This week’s VAERS data show:
- Of the 1,524 deaths reported as of March 6, 30% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination, and 46% occurred in people who became ill within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
- Nineteen percent of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.
- Fifty-three percent of those who died were male, 45% were female and the remaining death reports did not include gender of the deceased.
- The average age of those who died was 77.9 and the youngest death confirmed was a 23-year-old.
- As of March 5, 265 pregnant women had reported adverse events related to COVID vaccines, including 85 reports of miscarriage or premature birth. None of the COVID vaccines approved for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) have been tested for safety or efficacy in pregnant women.
- There were 1,689 reports of anaphylaxis, with 59% of cases attributed to the Pfizer-Bio-N-Tech vaccine and 41% to Moderna.
The first Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine was administered in the U.S. on March 2. As of March 5, two adverse events related to the vaccine had been reported to VAERS. Both occurred in young people, and the reactions included tongue tingling and numbness, hot flashes, headache and extreme fatigue.
On March 10, The Defender reported the death of a 39-year-old woman who died four days after receiving a second dose of Moderna’s COVID vaccine. Kassidi Kurill died of organ failure after her liver, heart and kidneys shut down. She had no known medical issues or pre-existing conditions, family members said. An autopsy was ordered, but Dr. Erik Christensen, Utah’s chief medical examiner, said proving vaccine injury as a cause of death almost never happens.
Last month The Defender reported that a 58-year-old woman died hours after getting her first dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. State and federal officials said they were investigating her death but did not perform an autopsy. A public records request revealed emails between State Health Commissioner Normal Oliver and public information officers that suggest officials were “concerned the death of Keyes, who is Black, could worsen vaccine hesitancy among minorities,” reported The Virginian Pilot.
State officials refused to answer how medical examiners could thoroughly rule out other potential causes of death triggered by or linked to the shot without an internal examination of the body.
The family was forced to get their own private autopsy. Keyes’ daughter said that even before state officials had her mother’s postmortem preliminary test results, the medical examiner’s office told her they would not perform an autopsy. They told her “nothing could be gleaned from an autopsy that would relate the vaccine to her death.”
On March 11, Denmark, Norway and Iceland announced they were joining other European countries in temporarily suspending use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID vaccine following reports of blood clots in people who got the vaccine, The Defender reported. The Danish decision came days after Austrian authorities suspended a batch of AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine while investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after receiving the shots. The same batch used in Austria was used in Denmark, according to Reuters.
On March 9, Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt was hospitalized two days after taking AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. He received antibiotics and fluid. A link to the vaccine was ruled out, reported Reuters.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has not been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Authorization, but the drugmaker said last week it plans to apply soon.
Meanwhile, Pfizer is gearing up to protect itself from any financial risk associated with vaccine injuries in those countries where, unlike in the U.S., there are no laws in place to indemnify the vaccine maker against liability for injuries.
As reported by The Defender on March 9, Pfizer is demanding countries put up sovereign assets as collateral for expected vaccine injury lawsuits resulting from its COVID-19 inoculation after Argentina rejected Pfizer’s request to enact legislation indemnifying the company from liability for injuries. Pfizer wanted Argentina and Brazil to guarantee the company would be compensated for any expenses resulting from injury lawsuits against it.
Pfizer demanded Brazil waive sovereignty of its assets abroad in favor of Pfizer, not apply its domestic laws to the country, not penalize Pfizer for vaccine delivery delays and exempt Pfizer from all civil liability for COVID vaccine side effects. Brazil rejected Pfizer’s demands, calling them “abusive.”
Nine other South American countries have reportedly negotiated deals with Pfizer. It’s unclear whether they actually ended up giving up national assets in return.
In the U.S., vaccine makers already enjoy full indemnity against injuries occurring from this or any other pandemic vaccine under the PREP Act. COVID vaccine injury claims are filed with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), which is funded by U.S. taxpayers. The CICP is administered within the Department of Health and Human Services, which also sponsors the COVID-19 vaccination program.
On March 8, the CDC released new guidelines on how those “fully vaccinated” against COVID could gather with others. According to CNN, the level of precautions taken are determined by the characteristics of unvaccinated people. Fully vaccinated people can visit with other vaccinated people indoors without masks or social distancing, and can visit indoors with unvaccinated people from a single household without masks or physical distancing if the unvaccinated people are at low risk for severe disease.
Children’s Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.
The post Reports of Deaths After COVID Vaccines Up by 259 in 1 Week, CDC Data Show appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.
Hundreds of COVID-19 Vaccines Discarded Due to Storage Error at Kansas Hospital
A hospital in Kansas had to discard about 600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines on March 11 due to mistakenly storing them in a freezer, a hospital spokesperson said. Lawrence Memorial Hospital (LMH) received 570 doses of the J&J vaccines on March 10 “in a refrigerated state” and placed them into a freezer, a standard hospital procedure normally done for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines that require extremely cold storage. But unlike the mRNA vaccines, the J&J vaccines only need to be refrigerated at a certain temperature and cannot be put into the freezer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Once the hospital’s vaccine team recognized the error, they immediately reached out to J&J for guidance, Rebecca Smith, vice president of strategic communications at LMH, told The Epoch Times. “Johnson & Johnson did indicate that those doses should be discarded,” …
Bill Gates: Vaccines Are ‘Phenomenal’ Profit Makers
Story at-a-glance
- After years of building a reputation as a “ruthless tech monopolizer,” Bill Gates 2.0 was launched with the creation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With this foundation, he reinvented and rebranded himself as one of the world’s most generous philanthropists.
- However, Gates’ brand of philanthropy creates several new problems for each one it solves and can best be described as “philanthrocapitalism.”
- Today, Gates monopolizes or wields disproportionate influence over the tech industry, global health and vaccines, agriculture and food policy (including biopiracy and fake food), weather modification and other climate technologies, surveillance, education and media.
- According to Gates, vaccines are phenomenal profit makers, with more than a 20-to-1 return.
- Gates is now promoting the technocratic “reset” plan, which includes an aggressive climate change agenda, yet Gates’ extensive travel by private jet makes him a top polluter.
“Bill Gates — What You Were Not Told,” a segment of the Plandemic documentary, reviews the personal and professional background of the Microsoft mogul, Bill Gates. Contrary to popular myth, many see Gates as more of an opportunist than a genius inventor, and the video touches on several of the less honorable moments of his career.
After years of building a reputation as a “ruthless tech monopolizer,” Bill Gates 2.0 was launched with the creation of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With this foundation, he reinvented and rebranded himself as one of the world’s most generous philanthropists.
Gates’ charity is not what it seems
Alas, as noted by AGRA Watch, Shiva Vandana, Ph.D., and others, Gates’ brand of philanthropy creates several new problems for each one it solves and can best be described as “philanthrocapitalism.” As noted in the AGRA Watch article, “Philanthrocapitalism: The Gates Foundation’s African Programs Are Not Charity,” published in 2017, advocates of philanthrocapitalism:
“… often expect financial returns or secondary benefits over the long term from their investments in social programs. Philanthropy becomes another part of the engine of profit and corporate control. The Gates Foundation’s strategy for ‘development’ actually promotes neoliberal economic policies and corporate globalization.”
Indeed, over the years, Gates has ended up in a position where he monopolizes or wields disproportionate influence over not only the tech industry, but also global health and vaccines, agriculture and food policy (including biopiracy and fake food), weather modification and other climate technologies, surveillance, education and media.
Not surprisingly, he’s tied to online fact checker organizations that strangle free speech, and recently told “60 Minutes” that to combat mistrust in science, we need to find ways to “slow down the crazy stuff.” What’s “crazy” and what’s not, however, is rarely as clear-cut as the mainstream media would like you to believe.
And, like a true philanthrocapitalist, Gates’ generosity ends up benefiting himself most of all. As discussed in “Bill Gates — Most Dangerous Philanthropist in Modern History?” the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donates billions to the very same companies and industries that the foundation owns stocks and bonds in.
As Gates himself reveals in the featured video, he figured out that vaccines are phenomenal profit makers, saying they’re the best investment he’s ever made, with more than a 20-to-1 return. The one thing that allows for this is the liability shield vaccine makers have been given by the government.
Gates, global climate czar
As mentioned in the featured video, Gates is financing an effort to divert solar rays from the Earth’s surface in an attempt to combat global warming — an irrational approach at best, considering the potential this has to devastate global agriculture.
His latest book also details his climate change recommendations, which just so happens to include urging governments to support the very companies he’s invested in and similar sleight-of-hand gestures.
Meanwhile, as noted by The Nation, Gates himself is a serious polluter, with a 66,000 square-foot mansion, a private jet, 242,000 acres of farmland (which makes him the largest farmland owner in the U.S.) and investments in fossil fuel-dependent industries such as airlines, heavy machinery and cars.
“According to a 2019 academic study looking at extreme carbon emissions from the jet-setting elite, Bill Gates’s extensive travel by private jet likely makes him one of the world’s top carbon contributors — a veritable super emitter,” The Nation writes.
“In the list of 10 celebrities investigated — including Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton and Oprah Winfrey — Gates was the source of the most emissions. ‘Affluent individuals can emit several ten thousand times the amount of greenhouse gases attributed to the global poor,’ the paper noted. ‘This raises the question as to whether celebrity climate advocacy is even desirable …’”
Gates leads the technocratic takeover
Gates’ focus on climate change makes perfect sense once you realize that he’s part of the technocratic elite that, for decades, have been working to gobble up the world’s resources in anticipation for the Great Reset, previously known as the One World Order.
Over the past year, the need for the Great Reset has been announced by government leaders around the world, the clarion call being that we need to “reset” the global economy and the way we live, work, travel and socialize in order to make the world more fair and sustainable. Addressing climate change under the banner of a global emergency is part and parcel of that PR campaign.
If you’ve paid attention, you’ve probably seen the hints. During the initial lockdowns in the early part of 2020, there were a slew of articles talking about how nature and wildlife were thriving in the absence of human socialization and travel. At other times, the COVID-19 pandemic has been presented as a warning to us all as to what happens when you get out of sync with nature.
No real food for you
Gates clearly feels pressure to do his part to realize the technocratic dream. He told “60 Minutes” he is eager to see his various visions come to fruition within his lifetime, and he guesses he might have 20 or 30 years left. As reported by ZeroHedge:
“Gates is pushing drastic and ‘fundamental’ changes to the economy in order to immediately halt the release of greenhouse gasses — primarily carbon dioxide— and ‘go to zero’ in order to save the planet from long-prognosticated (and consistently wrong) environmental disaster. Changes we’ll need to make in order to realize Gates’ vision include:
- Allocating $35 billion per year on climate and clean energy research.
- Electric everything.
- Widespread consumption of fake meat, since cows account for ‘4% of all greenhouse gases.’
- Retooling the steel and cement industries, which Gates says account for 16% of all carbon dioxide emissions, to inject up to 30% of captured C02 into concrete, and create a different type of steel.
- Widespread adoption of next generation nuclear energy to supplement wind and solar.
And since producing plants to make fake meat emits gases as well, Gates has backed a company which uses fungus to make sausage and yogurt, which the billionaire calls ‘pretty amazing’ … ‘The microbe was discovered in the ground in a geyser in Yellowstone National Park. Without soil or fertilizer it can be grown to produce this nutritional protein — that can then be turned into a variety of foods with a small carbon footprint.’”
Indeed, Gates would like wealthy Western nations to switch entirely to synthetic lab-grown beef, and rails against legislative attempts to make sure fake meats are properly labeled as such, since that slows down public acceptance.
Gates again proves feudalism is a failed system
With his land ownership, Gates clearly is in a monopoly position (yet again!) to drive agriculture and food production in whatever direction he desires, and he wants us all to eat as much fake food as possible. As noted in a long and detailed article on Gates’ philanthrocapitalist endeavors by The Defender:
“Thomas Jefferson believed that the success of America’s exemplary struggle to supplant the yoke of European feudalism with a noble experiment in self-governance depended on the perpetual control of the nation’s land base by tens of thousands of independent farmers, each with a stake in our democracy.
“So at best, Gates’ campaign to scarf up America’s agricultural real estate is a signal that feudalism may again be in vogue. At worst, his buying spree is a harbinger of something far more alarming — the control of global food supplies by a power-hungry megalomaniac with a Napoleon complex.”
The article goes on to detail Gates’ “long-term strategy of mastery over agriculture and food production globally,” starting with his support of GMOs in 1994. Ever since then, Gates’ “philanthropic” approaches to hunger and food production have been built around his technology, chemical, pharmaceutical and oil industry partners, thereby ensuring that for every failed rescue venture, he gets richer nonetheless.
“As with Gates’ African vaccine enterprise, there was neither internal evaluation nor public accountability,” The Defender writes:
“The 2020 study ‘False Promises: The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)’ is the report card on the Gates’ cartel’s 14-year effort.
“The investigation concludes that the number of Africans suffering extreme hunger has increased by 30 percent in the 18 countries that Gates targeted. Rural poverty has metastasized dramatically …
“Under Gates’ plantation system, Africa’s rural populations have become slaves on their own land to a tyrannical serfdom of high-tech inputs, mechanization, rigid schedules, burdensome conditionalities, credits and subsidies … The only entities benefiting from Gates’ program are his international corporate partners …
“His investment history suggests that the climate crisis, for Gates and his cronies, is no more than an alibi for intrusive social control, ‘Great Reset’-scale surveillance, and massive science fiction geoengineering boondoggles, including his demented and terrifying vanity projects to spray the stratosphere with calcium chloride or seawater to slow warming, to deploy giant balloons to saturate our atmosphere with reflective particles to blot out the sun, or his perilous gambit of releasing millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in South Florida.
“When we place these nightmare schemes in context alongside the battery of experimental vaccines he forces on 161 million African children annually, it’s pretty clear that Gates regards us all as his lab rats.”
Gates Foundation seeded catastrophic COVID-19 policies
Gates, of course, has also played a leading role in the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel who has a channel on Substack, Gates had a hand in the “criminally negligent coronavirus response policies” that killed an inordinate number of senior citizens in nursing homes in New York, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Schachtel points out that a common thread in these instances is that they listened to the frightfully inaccurate modeling forecasts from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which is funded and controlled by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He writes:
“In March and early April, politicians were informed by the modeling ‘experts’ at Gates-funded IHME that their hospitals were about to be completely overrun by coronavirus patients.
“Modelers from IHME claimed this massive surge would cause hospitals to run out of lifesaving equipment in a matter of days, not weeks or months. Time was of the essence, and now was the time for rapid decision making, the modelers claimed.
“On two separate April 1 and April 2 press conferences, Cuomo made clear that his policy decisions were based off of the IHME model … In an April 9 briefing, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer referred to the IHME model in order to project deaths and the PPE resources needed for the supposed surge. It was the same story with the government of Pennsylvania.”
White House Coronavirus Task Force members Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, both of whom have substantial ties to Gates, also relied on the IHME forecast models. As noted by Schachtel:
“These models, and the policy decisions that were made by relying on them, set off a chain of events that led to indefinite lockdowns, complete business closures, statewide curfews, and most infamously, the nursing home death warrants.”
Delete that which no longer serves
The Gates Foundation also co-sponsored Event 201, a scripted tabletop exercise held mere months before the COVID-19 outbreak that ended up being remarkably prophetic.
Strangely enough, in an April 2020 BBC interview, Gates denied the simulation had occurred, saying that “We didn’t simulate this, we didn’t practice, so both the health policies and economic policies, we find ourselves in uncharted territory.” In an article for National Herald India, Norbert Häring highlights Gates’ apparent forgetfulness, stating:
“It is true that if a little less emphasis had been placed on opinion manipulation, more attention could have been paid to health and economic policy. One of the four meetings was entirely devoted to this. But health and economic policies did get discussed. Gates can hardly have forgotten that.
“The video on control of public opinion is the most interesting one, as it helps to put in perspective the efforts in this regard, which we are currently experiencing. One participant tells us that Bill Gates is financing work on algorithms which comb through the information on social media platforms to make sure that people can trust the information that they find there.”
Gates has also erased other evidence where the truth is coming back to haunt him. Case in point: Gates-funded fact checkers have vehemently denied claims that Gates ever said we’ll need digital vaccine passports, passing it off as yet another crazy conspiracy theory.
But Gates did say that in a June 2020 TED Talk. Someone just edited that specific statement out of his speech after the quote started making the rounds on social media. In a December 11, 2020, article, The Defender presented the proof.
Fact checkers also dismiss claims that subdermal microchips or digital tattoos will eventually be used to track and trace us, yet as noted by The Defender, Gates did commission MIT to develop an injectable quantum dot dye system to “tattoo” medical data on your body, and has patented technology that uses implanted biosensors that monitor body and brain activity and is tied to a crypto currency system.
He’s also invested tens of millions into microchip devices with remote-controlled drug-delivery systems, military contractors that track and trace pandemic infections and vaccine compliance, and has a greater than $1 billion investment in 5G video surveillance satellites and 5G antennas. When you put all of these things together, Gates’ plans start to take on a rather ominous feel.
Gates is the most visible figurehead of modern technocracy
Whether preplanned or not, the COVID-19 pandemic is clearly being used to usher in highly controversial changes that are unmistakably totalitarian-building, including the private take-over of government through public-private partnerships.
Surveillance has become the biggest for-profit industry on the planet, and your entire existence is now being targeted for profit. Among those who stand to profit the most is Gates himself.
For a better understanding of what you’re giving up by going along with the mainstream narrative that we need Big Tech to save us, see my article about social psychologist and Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff and her extraordinary book, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.”
You also won’t want to miss my interview with Patrick Wood, featured in “The Pressing Dangers of Technocracy.” He paints a picture that can be hard to swallow, especially if you’re just coming around to hearing about all of this for the first time, but it’s really crucial that everyone begin to understand what we’re facing.
Time is running out. To have any chance of stopping it, we must understand our trajectory, and unite to change the course Gates and others like him have set for us.
Originally published by Mercola.
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Latest shots-in-arms tally below average — as share of Illinois residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19 hits 12%
About 78,000 shots were administered Monday, officials said, while the state’s average number of doses given per day is at a new high of more than 102,000.
With the latest 78,287 shots reported by public health officials Tuesday, about 12% of Illinois residents have now been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
It was the third straight day the state failed to top 100,000 administered doses, but thanks to record-setting totals last week, Illinois’ rolling average is up to a new high of 102,564 shots given per day, according to the state Department of Public Health.
Nearly 4.2 million shots have gone into Illinois arms over the past three months. Almost 1.6 million people have received either both required doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or the one-and-done Johnson & Johnson shot.
Illinois residents 16 and up with chronic health conditions, plus a select group of essential workers, currently are eligible to receive doses, though that’s still not the case in Chicago, suburban Cook County and most other collar counties as supply remains low.
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered by day
Graphic by Jesse Howe and Caroline Hurley | Sun-Times
Source: Illinois Department of Public Health
Graph not displaying properly? Click here.
Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady has said eligibility will expand in the city March 29. During an online Q&A, she teased that city officials would release more details on that plan Wednesday.
Meanwhile, state officials reported 1,997 new cases of the disease, the highest one-day total logged by the state since March 6.
And those cases were diagnosed among 51,240 tests, meaning 3.9% of samples came back positive — the highest proportion of positive tests in a single day reported by the state in almost seven weeks.
Still, the state’s rolling seven-day average positivity rate is 2.3%, hovering just above the all-time low of 2.1% reported over the weekend. Illinois reported just 782 new cases Monday, marking the first sub-1,000 daily case tally in nearly eight months.
Hospitals are treating just about the fewest coronavirus patients they’ve seen since the pandemic first hit, too, with 1,152 beds occupied as of Monday night. That included 250 patients receiving intensive care and 124 using ventilators, figures that have also bottomed out this month.
New COVID-19 cases by day
Graphic by Jesse Howe and Caroline Hurley | Sun-Times
Source: Illinois Department of Public Health
Graph not displaying properly? Click here.
But the virus is still causing grief statewide, with 19 more COVID-19 deaths reported Tuesday, including that of a Cook County woman in her 40s.
On average, COVID-19 has claimed 28 lives per day over the past week. That rate has fallen from a daily average of about 50 in mid-February.
Illinois’ death toll is now up to 20,973, among more than 1.2 million people who have tested positive for the virus over the past year.
Updates on CCP Virus: Moderna Begins Study of Vaccine in Kids ( Babies As Young As 6 Months )
Moderna has begun dosing patients in a mid-to-late stage study of its CCP virus vaccine, mRNA-1273, in children aged six months to less than 12 years, the company said on Tuesday. The study will assess the safety and effectiveness of two doses of mRNA-1273 given 28 days apart and intends to enroll about 6,750 children in the United States and Canada. Sweden Is Latest Country to Halt Using AstraZeneca Vaccine Sweden is pausing the use of the AstraZeneca CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccine as a precautionary measure amid concerns about reports of blood clots in some recipients in Europe. A growing number of European countries—including Germany, France, Italy, and Spain—have suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, though the company and international regulators say there is no evidence the shot is to blame for the blood clots. Masks and Distancing Required for Roadside Spectators During Torch Relay Tokyo Olympic organizers …
Country Star Larry Gatlin Tests Positive for COVID-19 After Getting 2nd Moderna Vaccine Dose
Country music star Larry Gatlin of The Gatlin Brothers said he tested positive for COVID-19 after receiving his second Moderna vaccine dose. Gatlin, 72, told Fox News he is feeling fine after the diagnosis. “What are the odds?” he said. According to the singer, he received his second Moderna vaccine dose on March 4. On March 8, he received a rapid test that came back positive. A second test on Tuesday also showed a positive result for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. “Folks, I feel like I have a cold, and not even a bad cold at that. I even hit a few golf balls before dinner,” Gatlin remarked in his interview with Fox. “To you who have been terribly sick or have lost friends or loved ones, my heartfelt prayers go out to you. I have a lot of character flaws and defects you can pray about if you …
‘Hypocrisy’ And ‘Lies’: Tara Reade Slams Biden For Praising Courage Of #METOO Accusers
President Joe Biden’s accuser Tara Reade accused him of both “hypocrisy” and “lies” Tuesday evening for praising the courage of #METOO accusers.
“It takes a lot of courage for a woman to come forward,” Biden said Tuesday. “Some are not — anyway, takes a lot of courage to come forward.”
Top U.S. officials strike a critical tone toward China during a visit to Japan.
Just days before the Biden administration’s first face-to-face encounter with Beijing, two senior American envoys used a visit to Tokyo on Tuesday to set a confrontational tone for the talks, rebuking what they called “coercion” and “destabilizing actions” by China in its increasingly aggressive military forays in the region.
Cuomo helped draft letter disparaging his first sexual harassment accuser: report
Soon after the first woman accused Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment last December, the governor and his close associates worked to draft a letter attacking the former aide’s credibility, a new report said Tuesday. The letter, which was never released, disparaged Lindsey Boylan and accused her of coming forward for “political retribution,” according to…
Liberal Circuit Court Judge Charged With Possession Of Child Pornography
Blomme called himself the ‘progressive alternative’.
Convicted Democratic fund-raiser had secret ties to U.S. intelligence
Imaad Zuberi’s career took fateful turn after he told prosecutors he couldn’t help federal probe into Trump.
Texas Ensures Forgiveness of $29 Million in Unpaid Electric Bills After Griddy Files for Bankruptcy
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Tuesday that about 24,000 former customers of Griddy Energy LLC will be released from paying $29.1 million in unpaid electric bills incurred during last month’s winter storm after the power retailer filed for bankruptcy. Paxton said his office has been negotiating with Griddy after the state filed a lawsuit against the energy company for deceptive advertising. Griddy has since filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after the state grid operator cut off the company’s access to customers for unpaid bills. The attorney general said that his office ensured that Griddy’s proposed bankruptcy plan would release all outstanding payment obligations for Texas residents who were unable to pay their energy bills due to the unexpected spike in prices during the storm. He said that his office and Griddy are also engaged “good faith” talks to also provide relief for Texans who have already paid their bills. “I ensured …
8 Dead After Shootings at 3 Massage Parlors in Georgia, Man Captured
ATLANTA, Georgia—Shootings at two massage parlors in Atlanta and one in the suburbs left eight people dead, many of them women of Asian descent, authorities said Tuesday. A 21-year-old man was taken into custody in southwest Georgia hours later after a manhunt. Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant said three people were killed at a spa […]
The post 8 Dead After Shootings at 3 Massage Parlors in Georgia, Man Captured appeared first on NTD.
Elderly Asian man dies following California robbery, as hate crimes swell
An elderly California man has died from injuries suffered when he was punched in the face by a robbery suspect who prosecutors claim has a history of targeting older Asians. Seventy-five-year-old Oakland resident Pak Ho suffered a traumatic brain injury and brain damage after being knocked to the sidewalk from a single punch in the…
US and Asian Allies Launch Partnership to Supply Billions of Vaccines in Indo-Pacific
WASHINGTON—President Joe Biden held his first multilateral summit on Friday with the leaders of Japan, India, and Australia to launch a partnership for the distribution of at least a billion doses of vaccines in Asia to counter China’s influence in the region. The four leaders made a joint commitment to bring together Indian manufacturing, U.S. technology, Japanese and American financing, and Australian logistics capabilities to address the severe shortage of vaccine supply across the world, particularly in Southeast Asia. The informal alliance, called the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or “Quad” that consists of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia, held its first ever leader’s level meeting. Prime Ministers Yoshihide Suga of Japan, Narendra Modi of India, and Scott Morrison of Australia joined the virtual summit hosted by Biden. “We’ve got a big agenda ahead of us,” Biden said in his opening remarks during the summit. “But I’m optimistic about our prospects.” He stressed that …
‘Asian Graduation,’ ‘Black Graduation’: Columbia University Holding 7 Different Ceremonies For Students
‘An ‘FLI Graduation’ which is for ‘first-generation and/or low income community”.
House panel to hold hearing on violence against Asian Americans
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Thursday on violence against the Asian American community amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a press release.Committee members announced Tuesday that the pane…
Trump on Border Crisis: ‘They’re Going to Destroy Our Country’
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday condemned President Joe Biden’s border agenda, warning that the current administration’s approach would “destroy” the United States. In an interview with Maria Bartiromo aired on Fox News on March 16, Trump lamented Biden’s decision to freeze or reverse several of the previous administration’s border policies, including the construction of […]
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Biotech researcher bought 800 castor beans to extract ricin, feds say
A research director at a Massachusetts biotechnology firm has been arrested by federal authorities for allegedly trying to acquire the highly toxic poison ricin, officials said Tuesday. Dr. Ishtiaq Ali Saaem, 37, who has a doctorate in biomedical engineering, allegedly wanted to extract the toxin from 100 packets of castor beans that he ordered, according…
March 16, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 52 Minutes 57 Seconds
The Department of Justice and several other government agencies say foreign actors did not manipulate the 2020 election, Moderna tests its COVID-19 vaccineon children younger than 12, and four states and a territory are joining forces with Texas.
And These Are Supposed To Be The “Real” News Outlets: Washington Post Adds Lengthy Correction To Report On Trump Call With Georgia Elections Investigator
“Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also told her that she had ‘the most important job in the country right now.'”
The headline and text of the Post report have been corrected to remove quotes misattributed to Trump, the newspaper said.
The correction comes days after The Wall Street Journal obtained audio of the December call between Trump and the investigator.
“When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” Trump told Frances Watson, the chief investigator of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, the Journal reported on Thursday.
Watson reportedly responded: “I can assure you that our team and the [Georgia Bureau of Investigation], that we are only interested in the truth and finding the information that is based on the facts.”
The original Post report shook the political world just days after the Jan. 5 run-off elections in Georgia, a contest both Republican senators lost, giving Democrats the majority in the upper chamber.
The original Post report was covered widely by many media outlets, including the Hill, which has also updated its report on the Trump call.
ISIS jihadis are ‘beheading CHILDREN as young as 11 in barbaric uprising that’s left 2,500 dead in Mozambique’
Chance Briggs, Save the Children’s country director in Mozambique, said the reports of attacks on children “sicken us to our core”.
Facebook Global Planning Lead Reveals Need for Government Intervention: ‘The Single Biggest Thing is this Company Needs to be Broken Up’…‘No King in the History of the World has been the Ruler of Two Billion People, but Mark Zuckerberg is’
ON VIDEO: “AI [Artificial Intelligence] is essentially evolving to become like human intelligence. Then, it’s going to go beyond human intelligence and at that point, humans are expendable…If you ever went to a picnic — we would not spend one minute thinking about the ants that we stepped on the grass, right? From AI, we will become like those ants…So, I might be killing hundreds of ants when I walk in the park, I don’t know, and I don’t care. It’s not a thing that I care about. We will be like those ants,” he said.