20200401LOC
Supplies Are Starting To Get Really Tight Nationwide As Food Distribution Systems Break Down
01-04-20 10:07:00,
Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
All across America, store shelves are emptying and people are becoming increasingly frustrated because they can’t get their hands on needed supplies.
Most Americans are blaming “hoarders” for the current mess, but it is actually much more complicated than that. Normally, Americans get a lot of their food from restaurants. In fact, during normal times 36 percent of all Americans eat at a fast food restaurant on any given day. But now that approximately 75 percent of the U.S. is under some sort of a “shelter-in-place” order and most of our restaurants have shut down, things have completely changed. Suddenly our grocery stores are being flooded with unexpected traffic, and many people are buying far more than usual in anticipation of a long pandemic. Unfortunately, our food distribution systems were not designed to handle this sort of a surge, and things are really starting to get crazy out there.
I would like to share with you an excerpt from an email that I was sent recently. It describes the chaos that grocery stores in Utah and Idaho have been experiencing…
When this virus became a problem that we as a nation could see as an imminent threat, Utah, because of its culture of food storage and preparing for disaster events seemed to “get the memo” first. The week of March 8th grocery sales more than doubled in Utah, up 218%. Many states stayed the same with increases in some. Idaho seemed to “get the memo” about four days later. We were out of water and TP four days after Utah. Then we were out of food staples about four days later. Next was produce following a pattern set by Utah four days earlier.
The problem for us in Idaho was this. The stores in Utah were emptied out then refilled twice by the warehouses before it hit Idaho. Many of these Utah stores have trucks delivering daily. So when it did hit Idaho the warehouses had been severely taxed. We had a hard time filling our store back up even one time. We missed three scheduled trucks that week alone.
COVID-19: Ten Things To Think About
01-04-20 09:43:00,
Authored by Justin Pavoni via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity,
1. All of this can be solved by following the voluntary principle: If you are worried then stay home. If you are willing to assume the risk then go to work.
Going to work means you may interact with people and thus get sick. It’s a risk. The other people at work took on this risk of their own choosing too. Life is full of risks. Not going to work has its own obvious risks associated with it. Let people choose their own paths based on their own risk tolerance and voluntary choices. Don’t impose your view via government force on those of us that peacefully disagree with you.
2. There have been 23,000 US deaths so far this year due to flu, 3,000 from coronavirus.
Worldwide stats are roughly in parallel. Legitimate population samples and common sense show that the virus has infected way more people than reported by the immoral news organizations that make money off this hysteria. It is highly likely that REAL death rates are closer to .05 percent rather than the oft-emphasized 3 percent.
3. Social Distancing makes people distrust one another.
People that are afraid of each other are easier to control. We just had a house fire and while nobody will shake my hand because they’re afraid to death of coronavirus, they’ll happily walk around in the burned down home without a respirator. Of course the burned down house is far more likely to be an immediate and serious health threat. Anyone else see a problem here?
4. I have already seen certain local governments posting websites for all of us to tell on each other for congregating in groups.
My wife has had skeptical posts removed from Facebook. Sounds a lot like the secret police to me.
5. Will they soon be forcibly vaccinating my whole family even though there’s a huge chance I’m naturally immune to this virus already?
What if I don’t want the vaccine? What if I would rather develop a natural immunity? Am I going to be targeted (modern day witch hunt) as a bio terrorist germ spreader if I want to contract the cold and let my body beat it on its own?
Hospitals Firing Doctors Who Talk To The Press
31-03-20 07:21:00,
US Health care systems have warned emergency room doctors and nurses that if they speak out about working conditions inside a hospital, they will be fired, reported Bloomberg.
Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, lost his job last week after he spoke to a local media outlet about the lack of protective gear for staff at Puget Sound area hospitals.
Hospital staff at the NYU Langone Health system were recently warned that if they spoke to the media without authorization, they would be terminated.
“Hospitals are muzzling nurses and other health-care workers in an attempt to preserve their image,” said Ruth Schubert, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Nurses Association. “It is outrageous.”
With confirmed virus cases over 163,000 and 3,170 deaths, hospital systems across the country are seeing a massive influx of patients that is straining the system.
Doctors and nurses “must have the ability to tell the public what is really going on inside the facilities where they are caring for Covid-19 patients,” Schubert said.
As we noted in January, a hospital doctor in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of COVID-19, tried to inform the world about a fast-spreading disease. However, he was quickly silenced by the Chinese government, and since, more than 800,000 people around the globe have been infected, with 39,000 deaths.
One reason that nurses and doctors must be informative about evolving conditions inside hospitals is that public donations of medical equipment or gear could help out a local facility.
“It is good and appropriate for health-care workers to be able to express their own fears and concerns, especially when expressing that might get them better protection,” said Glenn Cohen, faculty director of Harvard Law School’s bioethics center. Hospitals are likely trying to limit reputational damage because “when health-care workers say they are not being protected, the public gets very upset at the hospital system.”
NYU Langone Health employees received notification last week that if they spoke with media, they would be “subject to disciplinary action, including termination.”
New York’s Montefiore Health System requires doctors and nurses to get permission from superiors before speaking to the media.
Pentagon Asks to Keep Future Spending Secret – Global Research
31-03-20 03:55:00,
The Department of Defense is quietly asking Congress to rescind the requirement to produce an unclassified version of the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) database.
Preparation of the unclassified FYDP, which provides estimates of defense spending for the next five years, has been required by law since 1989 (10 USC 221) and has become an integral part of the defense budget process.
But the Pentagon said that it should no longer have to offer such information in an unclassified format, according to a DoD legislative proposal for the pending FY 2021 national defense authorization act.
“The Department is concerned that attempting publication of unclassified FYDP data might inadvertently reveal sensitive information,” the Pentagon said in its March 6, 2020 proposal.
“With the ready availability of data mining tools and techniques, and the large volume of data on the Department’s operations and resources already available in the public domain, additional unclassified FYDP data, if it were released, potentially allows adversaries to derive sensitive information by compilation about the Department’s weapons development, force structure, and strategic plans.”
Therefore, DoD said,
“This proposal would remove the statutory requirement to submit an Unclassified Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) to the Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, the Comptroller General of the United States, and the Congressional Research Service.”
It follows that FYDP data would also not be included in the published DoD budget request, as it typically has been in the past.
The DoD proposal would preserve a classified FYDP for Congress but it would repeal the requirement that DoD officials “certify that the data used to construct the FYDP is accurate.” DoD said that “This requirement is unnecessary as information from these systems is already used to provide the President’s Budget.”
The unclassified FYDP helps inform budget analysis
At a time when it is clear to everyone that US national security spending is poorly aligned with actual threats to the nation, the DoD proposal would make it even harder for Congress and the public to refocus and reconstruct the defense budget.
Without an unclassified FYDP, Congress and the public would be deprived of unclassified analyses like “Long-Term Implications of the 2020 Future Years Defense Program” produced last year by the Congressional Budget Office.
Bob Dylan’s Midnight Message to JFK’s Ghost – Global Research
31-03-20 01:03:00,
“For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.” – Hamlet
On May 1, 1962, President John Kennedy was meeting in the Oval Office with a group of Quakers who were urging him to do more for peace and disarmament. As he kept explaining the great political opposition he was facing within his own government, they kept urging him to do more. He listened very closely to their words and finally said, “You believe in redemption don’t you.” By the next spring he had turned decisively toward the peacemaking the Quakers had urged upon him, resulting in his murder in the fall by treacherous government forces, led by the CIA, that opposed him all along.
Now that Dylan has burst forth from behind his many masks and gifted the world with his incandescent new song about the assassination, with a title taken from Hamlet, from the mouth of the ghost of the dead King of Denmark –“ Murder Most Foul “– we have entered a new day in an odd way. For those who have wondered over the years if Dylan had “sold out,” here is their answer. For those who have wondered if he would go to his grave reciting the words of T.S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock – “I am no Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be” – here is Hamlet’s booming response. Not only does this song lay bare the truth of the most foundational event in modern American history, but it does so in such a powerfully poetic way and at such an opportune time that it should redeem Dylan in the eyes of those who ever doubted him.
I say “should,” but while the song’s release has garnered massive publicity from the mainstream media, it hasn’t taken long for that media to bury the truth of his words about the assassination under a spectacle of verbiage meant to damn with faint praise. As the media in a celebrity culture of the spectacle tend to do, the emphasis on the song’s pop cultural references is their focus, with platitudes about the assassination and “conspiracy theories,” as well as various shameful and gratuitous digs at Dylan for being weird,
Sweden’s Approach To Coronavirus: Do Nothing
31-03-20 10:28:00,
Sweden has taken a slightly different approach to coronavirus than the rest of the world, allowing life to go on as ‘normal’ with a few exceptions.
Unlike neighboring Denmark – which has restricted meetings to 10 people or less, Swedes are still going out to nightclubs, hanging out with friends, and even ‘enjoying ice creams beneath a giant Thor statue in Mariatorget square,’ according to the BBC.
“We who are adults need to be exactly that: adults. Not spread panic or rumors,” said Prime Minister Stefan Löfven in a televised address to the country last weekend.
“No one is alone in this crisis, but each person has a heavy responsibility.“
And while the country has limited gatherings to 50 people as of Sunday, the government is largely leaving decisions over self-isolation and social distancing up to the citizens. BBC notes that almost half of Stockholm residents are working remotely, and that traffic is quieter than usual. Stockholm’s public transport company SL reports 50% fewer riders on subway and commuter trains last week.
Stockholm Business Region, a state-funded company that supports the city’s global business community, estimates that rises to at least 90% in the capital’s largest firms, thanks to a tech-savvy workforce and a business culture that has long promoted flexible and remote working practices.
“Every company that has the possibility to do this, they are doing it, and it works,” says its CEO Staffan Ingvarsson.
His words cut to the heart of the government’s strategy here: self-responsibility. Public health authorities and politicians are still hoping to slow down the spread of the virus without the need for draconian measures. –BBC
According to the report, there are ‘guidelines’ but not strict rules. People are advised to stay home if they’re sick or elderly, wash hands, and avoid non-essential travel whenever possible.
So far the country has had roughly 3,500 cases and 105 deaths.
Demography may also be a relevant factor in the country’s approach. In contrast to the multi-generational homes in Mediterranean countries, more than half of Swedish households are made up of one person, which cuts the risk of the virus spreading within families.
COVID-19 Derangement Syndrome: A World Gone Mad
31-03-20 10:10:00,
Authored by Percy Carlton for the Saker Blog,
The whole world has gone mad with what I call Covid-19 Derangement Syndrome (CDS).
I define it as an acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in response to the Covid-19 Corona Virus pandemic. The infection is particularly prevalent among the media and the government officials of the world.
Human beings fear what they do not understand and that fear causes them to behave in irrational and destructive ways. The current Covid-19 pandemic is a perfect example of that. I don’t need to describe the paranoia and economic destruction to you because you can see it with your own two eyes everywhere you look. Both the media and the world’s governments are fueling the panic – the media with their hysterical 24/7 coverage and the governments with their draconian police state actions.
I feel like the man in the following cartoon.
I am doomed to helplessly stand by and watch the entire world commit economic suicide for no good reason. At first glance this may seem like a shocking and callous statement but do not mistake this as support for the view that the government should stand back and let the private sector take care of the problem. I have no problem with a strong authoritarian central government response as long as it is reasonable and wise. The current government response is neither.
Do Nothing VS Shut Everything Down
The current debate about what governments should do seems to be limited to two options: Do nothing and let the virus run its course or use authoritarian methods to quarantine and restrict the movement of citizens within and across state and national borders. The former will result in many people unnecessarily dying and the latter will save lives but is already resulting in a catastrophic worldwide economic collapse with repercussions that will last for years. It is very narrow thinking to think that those are the only two options that exist. There is always another way. Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a solution to the COVID-19 virus problem that would save lives and not result in a worldwide economic Armageddon?
Mike Krieger: “Question Everything!”
31-03-20 10:08:00,
Authored by Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Crises, like pandemics, don’t break things in and of themselves; they show you what’s already broken.
– Patrick Wyman
Big macro crises in any form are scary, massively disruptive, and in some cases, literally deadly. This is why governments and entrenched institutions always see such events as opportunities to further consolidate wealth and power.
The current global pandemic is no exception, as I detailed in last week’s piece: Power Grab. While it’s necessary to be aware of this reality — and to push back against it wherever possible — it’s equally important to recognize there’s a silver lining to all of this.
The paradigm we live under depends on us not thinking too hard about how power functions. It relies on us being so busy with the basics of survival, or distracted by superficial consumerism and endless entertainment, to contemplate how the system actually works. This method of social control has been wildly successful throughout my lifetime, but what’s interesting about moments of global crises is the mask is forced off for a period. In a desperate scramble to marshal all of the corporate-imperial state’s resources to save the interests of the oligarchy, we’re shown in full color who really matters and who doesn’t.
For every $1000 check that goes out another $1,000,000 check goes out.
The corporations get 1000X more than you.
You get 1/1000th what the corporations receive.
Business as usual, even in a “pandemic”.
— Johnny America (@JohnnyBananas79) March 30, 2020
It’s amazing how quickly all of Congress turns into socialists (for corporations) the minute billionaires start losing some money.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) March 27, 2020
You do not matter. The imperial state doesn’t care about you. Oligarchs don’t care about you. Mega corporations don’t care about you. This truth is cleverly hidden from much of the public during “normal” times when the machine is humming along as intended, but it’s far more in your face during a crisis period. It’s much harder to hide the truth when the world gets turned upside down.
Aside from the grotesque spectacle of the U.S.
Greater Depression? Shocking Images Show Horror Of America’s New “Breadlines” – Activist Post
31-03-20 09:59:00,
By Tyler Durden
“It could never happen again…”
A quick Google search shows the horrific scenes from the 1930s as Americans lined up by the thousands for food as The Great Depression struck fast, hard, and deep…
And here is today’s shocking ‘breadlines’ – This video shows hundreds of cars waiting to receive food from the Greater Community Food Bank in Duquesne, near Pittsburgh…
Hundreds of cars wait to receive food from the Greater Community Food Bank in Duquesne. Collection begins at noon. @PghFoodBank @PittsburghPG pic.twitter.com/94YFaO7dqX
— Andrew Rush (@andrewrush) March 30, 2020
The last two food bank giveaways drew massive crowds and caused major delays on Route 837. When they had one at Kennywood last week, it drew over 800 cars and backed up for miles.
How did America go from “greatest economy ever” to “Greater Depression” so fast?
And don’t forget, we just had the biggest spike in joblessness… ever…
Article source: ZeroHedge
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P Is For Pandemic (And O Is For Orwellian)
31-03-20 09:06:00,
Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
– Alan Moore – V for Vendetta
“Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade.”
– Alan Moore – V for Vendetta
I wrote an article called V for Vendetta – 2011 just over nine years ago on the day after the Tucson shooting where congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen others were shot by a psychologically disturbed lunatic, with six dying. At the time, I thought of the scene from the V for Vendetta movie where someone did something stupid and all hell broke loose. I expected a similar result from this act, but those in control of our society were successfully able to put a cork in the bottle, preserving their façade of order.
We learned shortly thereafter, through the patriotic efforts of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, how the government was using the vilest of schemes to surveil every American through their abuse of the Patriot Act. The government has become and enemy of the people.
It is interesting to go back and view my conclusion from nine years ago and assess its accuracy as of today:
“This country has not reached the level of control and fear seen in Orwell’s 1984 and V for Vendetta, yet. We are moving relentlessly in that direction. Surveillance, monitoring, spying, censorship, secret prisons, predator drones, and conforming to state rules and regulations put citizens further under the thumb of an all-powerful state. The freedom to dissent, the freedom to be left alone, the freedom to speak out against injustice, the freedom to disagree with your government, and the freedom to present your ideas without fear of retribution or penalty are essential in a democratic society.
The next phase of this Fourth Turning will surely include another downward spiral in financial markets as un-payable debts accumulate to a tipping point level. When ATM machines stop spitting out twenties, food shelves are bare and gas stations are shuttered,
DOJ Seeks to Exploit Coronavirus Emergency to Detain People Indefinitely – Global Research
30-03-20 08:22:00,
Throughout U.S. history, presidents have exploited national emergencies to exceed their constitutional powers. Abraham Lincoln illegally suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Franklin D. Roosevelt confined people of Japanese descent in internment camps during World War II. And George W. Bush used his post-9/11 “war on terror” to launch two illegal wars, mount a program of torture, conduct extensive unlawful surveillance and illegally detain people.
In light of the national emergency Donald Trump declared on Friday, March 13, his Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking Congress to allow the attorney general to indefinitely detain people without trial in violation of the constitutional right of habeas corpus. The DOJ also seeks to hold hearings without the defendant’s consent and exclude anyone with COVID-19 from eligibility for asylum.
Trump, who delayed responding to the pandemic for an unconscionable period of time, has now declared himself a “wartime president.” He knows that wartime presidents are never defeated at the ballot box. Despite Trump’s incompetent handling of the crisis, his approval ratings are as high as they have ever been.
But, during Bush’s so-called war on terror, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld,
“We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens,” adding, “Even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties.”
Trump’s Powers During the National Emergency
In declaring the national emergency, Trump invoked the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, which provides for financial and technical assistance to state and local governments.
He also invoked the National Emergencies Act, which triggers more than 100 additional powers for the president, constitutional law scholar Stephen Rohde said on WBAI radio’s “Law and Disorder.” They include the authority to shut down radio stations, freeze bank accounts and even deploy the military.
Moreover, the Communications Act of 1934 says that when a president proclaims there is a state or threat of war, he can order “the closing of any facility or station for wire communication.”
Rohde worries that provision could include television,
Coronavirus Shutdown and the Worldwide Corporate Debt Crisis – Global Research
30-03-20 08:21:00,
After a decade-long, worldwide corporate debt binge, the bill has come due: huge swaths of the corporate world are now at risk of default, with only governments able to save them. This time, any bailouts must place corporate investment under public control.
***
The coronavirus shutdown is hammering supply and demand across the globe. That has forced the real economy into a sharp recession and triggered a rolling financial crisis. Below is a primer on one key piece of this mess: the crisis in corporate debt markets. This branch of finance is vitally important because even healthy companies often need access to credit. If they do not get it, they go under.In 2008, the vector of crisis ran from mortgage-backed securities to the rest of the financial sector and then to the real economy. This time, the real economy is being hit directly, and the damage is reverberating back into financial markets. The failing markets, in feedback-loop fashion, further threaten the real economy as corporations find it harder to borrow. As the corporate debt markets sour, major companies will go bankrupt. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Some analysts expect the economy to contract by an annualized rate of 30 percent during the second quarter of 2020.
Already, US financial markets are on public life support. The Federal Reserve has committed to unlimited purchases of all sorts of assets: US Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities, car loans, municipal debts, and, in a historic step, both short term and long-term corporate debt. But the crisis will require more than a financial rescue.
The key political question now is: What sort of controls will come with the state intervention? Corporate greed and self-dealing need to be checked not merely in the name of fairness but also to make sure public bailout money is actually invested in the real economy rather than just gambled away, as it was after the 2008 crash and rescue.
The Rise of Corporate Debt
Since 2008, household debt levels have actually declined and are now lower than they were going into the last crash. But not corporate debt. Measured as a firm’s “net debt” compared to its EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization), corporate debt has doubled since the last crash. » Lees verder
“The Plannedemic”?
30-03-20 08:10:00,
A PLAN YOU CAN’T TRUST!
For the past decade, Bill gates has been warning us about an inevitable pandemic. Conditioning us. Getting us used to the idea.
Last year, he even held a summit on the matter and ran computer simulations to predict outcomes. Why did a former computer nerd and mogul become so interested in vaccination and disease?
Possibly because he’s worth over $100 billion and thinks he owns the world. He also wants to make an impact on humanity. Getting rid of excess humanity, that is. Bill’s father was once the head of Planned Parenthood. He comes from a eugenics background. Gates frets about world population growth. Is it any wonder he pushes Monsanto’s GMO food as well as harmful vaccines?
Apparently Bill’s computer simulations discovered that people would easily fold under government pressure combined with an unseen enemy. Billions of people are under lockdown right now. Half the world is shut down. Gates must marvel at how easy it was to do it. Things are going according to plan. They can’t control us physically, but he can control us mentally through fear drummed into our brains 24/7 by mass media.
The coronavirus is real, but we’ve had many waves of flu viruses throughout the years. Many thousands die each year from the flu. Our elderly and infirm are the hardest hit.
This time the deaths are being magnified by the Fear Porn Channels. Statistics are controlled and manipulated to produce panic and hysteria.
The Democrats failed with their Russia collusion lie. They failed with impeachment. They are all for this hysteria because they can blame it all on Trump.
Trish Regan was just fired from Fox Business Network because she called out concerns that the Chinese coronavirus was just another attempt to impeach President Donald Trump.
That was too close to the truth for Fox. They fired her.
We now have social distancing to further divide the human race – as if we were all some sort of disease in need of eradication. The corrupt WHO and CDC have us controlled like puppets on strings.
“The Scope For Pain Is Immense” – China’s Consumer Default Tsunami Has Started
30-03-20 07:59:00,
One month ago we reported that “China Faces Financial Armageddon With 85% Of Businesses Set To Run Out Of Cash In 3 Months“, in which we explained that while China’s giant state-owned SOEs will likely have enough of a liquidity lifeblood to last them for 2-3 quarters, it is the country’s small businesses that are facing a head on collision with an iceberg, because according to the Nikkei, over 85% of small businesses – which employ 80% of China’s population – expect to run out of cash within three months, and a third expect the cash to be all gone within a month.
To be sure, the stakes could not be higher: These smaller employers account for 99.8% of registered companies in China and employ 79.4% of workers. They contribute more than 60% of gross domestic product and, for the government, more than 50% of tax revenue. In short: they are the beating heart of China’s economy.
In short, should this default tsunami start, not only will China’s economy collapse, but China’s $40 trillion financial system will disintegrate, as it is suddenly flooded with trillions in bad loans.
* * *
Well, it is now one month later, and as we feared, and as the SCMP reports, “a global consumer default wave is just getting started in China” as overdue credit-card debt in China has soared by about 50% in February, while researchers at the Peterson Institute warn (as we did in February) that what is happening now in China is “a preview of what we should expect throughout the world.”
Take the case of Zhang Chunzi – like millions of people around the world, she borrowed money she thought she would be able to repay before the coronavirus changed everything. Now laid off from her job at an apparel exporter in Hangzhou, the prosperous capital of east China’s Zhejiang province, the 23-year-old is missing payments on 12,000 yuan (US$1,700) of debt on her credit card and an online lending platform operated by Ant Financial.
“I’m late on all the bills and there’s no way I can pay my debt in full,” Zhang said.
The Things You CANNOT Say About Coronavirus — Steemit
29-03-20 08:48:00,
by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
March 28, 2020
Pssst. You.
Yeah, you.
Are you interested in talking about . . . things? You know, the kind of things that we’re not allowed to talk about anymore? You know, since the . . . uhhh . . . “The Event“?
You are? Great. I mean, you might have noticed things are getting a bit hairy out there. As in, you’re likely to get your head bitten off for daring to suggest that things may not be totally ok with the “new normal.”
It seems all these new social norms and cultural taboos that have arisen in the past few weeks have also created a raft of new thoughtcrimes: Things that must not be spoken for fear of being expelled from polite society . . . or worse.
That’s why it’s so vitally important for us to speak out about our concerns before these socially-policed thoughtcrimes become literal crimes. As I’m sure you know, if these new social norms are not confronted, voicing dissent will soon become impossible.
So, allow me to voice some thoughtcrimes of my own. But be forewarned: I assure you that you will find at least some of my ideas to be offensive. You will disagree with them strongly. You will become irate.
The real question is: What are you going to do to those voicing opinions you disagree with? Engage in dialogue with them? Or demand that agents of the state scrub their speech from the internet and lock them in a cage for their thoughtcrime?
Well, either way, I’ve already committed thoughtcrime numerous times in recent weeks, I might as well share them with you. Are you ready? Let’s go.
1 – We have met the enemy . . . and it is our neighbors
People imagine that when the boots-on-the-ground tyranny arrives, it will be enforced by the police or the military. Newsflash: the boots-on-the-ground tyranny is here, and it is being enforced by your neighbors, Joe Sixpack and Jane Soccermom.
Need proof?
“The Industry Has Never Experienced Anything Like This Before”: 3% Of All Restaurants Have Already Closed Permanently
29-03-20 05:37:00,
Authored by Emma Liem Beckett of Restaurant Dive,
Summary:
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Three percent of restaurants have already permanently closed due to the coronavirus crisis, according to research from the National Restaurant Association. Forty-four percent of operators have temporarily closed their restaurants, and 11% anticipate they will permanently close within 30 days.
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Restaurant sales dropped 47% across the U.S. from March 1 to March 22, and 54% of operators now offer off-premise services only, according to an NRA survey of more than 4,000 restaurant operators.
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Seventy percent of restaurants surveyed have had to lay off employees and reduce workers’ hours, and about half of restaurants expect further layoffs and hourly reductions in the next 30 days. More than 60% of restaurants have had to reduce their operating hours.
The association’s research spotlights just how gutting the coronavirus crisis has been for the restaurant industry — and many market experts worry the damage done so far is just the tip of the iceberg.
“This is uncharted territory,” Hudson Riehle, NRA SVP of research, said in a statement. “The industry has never experienced anything like this before.”
Eighty-eight percent of restaurant operators also reported that total sales volumes between March 1 and March 22 this year was lower than it was during the year-ago period, per NRA research.
The NRA requested more than $400 billion in financial relief, loans and insurance options for the industry from the government. On Wednesday, the Senate passed a $2 trillion stimulus package that included $350 billion in small business loans, $500 billion in loans for distressed companies and $250 billion in unemployment insurance benefits.
This safety net could help some restaurant operators keep their heads above water, but the question is, for how long?
And even though these loans will also offer forgivable debt if small- and medium-sized businesses continue to pay their employees, the stimulus package doesn’t address the NRA’s request of $100 billion in business interruption insurance.
Major restaurant chains have already suffered fatal blows to their businesses in just a few weeks time. Punch Bowl Social,
We Are All Totalitarians Now
29-03-20 05:20:00,
The coronavirus epidemic has been highly instructive. In the face of a looming early death for millions of citizens, Western States have entered a genuine crisis in which the Schmittian sovereign â who was always there lying in waiting â has reemerged into the open and taken all the measures deemed necessary, liberty and law be damned.
The nations making up the European Union are highly illustrative in this respect. For starters, there was no unified European response. Each nation having its own police and media/consciousness, each one adopted their measures in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner, although all tended towards a gradual escalation.
Jean Quatremer, Libérationâs euro-federalist correspondent in Brussels, lamented: âUp to now, it has been every man for himself. Italy, the epicenter of the European epidemic, was abandoned; Germany and France even went so far as to forbid the export of medical equipment, with no regard for solidarity.â
Admittedly that was two weeks ago and since then the Europeans have made some progress in getting their act together.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is perhaps the EUâs only truly federal and sovereign entity, in some respects more powerful that the U.S. Federal Reserve, because there is no pan-European political counterpart to counterbalance it. A few days after making the faux pas of declaring that the Bankâs job did not involve policing interest rate spreads,[1] ECB President Christine Lagarde reversed her position and declared her institution would lend â¬750 billion to stabilize the European economy.
I am always left in awe of this spectacle: while European officials and lobbyists are locked in a perpetual struggle of niggardly Kuhhandel in Brussels over the pork-laden EU budget, Lagarde can summon up five times the annual budget with a snap of her fingers.
Corona really does work miracles. Things that were declared âimpossibleâ have become the norm. The parks of Western European cities are finally being cleared of migrants, now that these have been declared a sanitary hazard (being a criminal one was apparently not enough).
The European Parliamentâs meetings in Strasbourg â a traveling circus which costs taxpayers â¬100 million per years â have been suspended.
The COVID19 Pandemic is the Beginning of Medical Martial Law – Activist Post
29-03-20 05:20:00,
Derrick Broze breaks down how we are experiencing another 9/11 moment, where the world radically shifts and free humans lose their privacy and liberty.
Show notes:
- Trump signs $2T coronavirus relief package
- H.R.748 – CARES Act
- Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority
- The CDC will set up a coronavirus ‘surveillance and data collection system’ as part of the $2 trillion stimulus bill, which President Trump just signed into law
- DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights During Coronavirus Emergency
- COVID-19 Could Provide Cover for Domestic Surveillance Expansion
- Rhode Island Police to Hunt Down New Yorkers Seeking Refuge
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Lockdown Lunacy – Global Research
29-03-20 10:02:00,
Former Health Ministry chief Prof. Yoram Lass says governments can’t halt viruses and the lockdown will kill more people from depression than the virus.
***
Former Ministry of Health director-general Prof. Yoram Lass has been regularly interviewed by the Israeli media since the coronavirus outbreak first started. But in contrast to the prophets of doom and deep concern shown by most medical professionals, he has presented a somewhat different and controversial opinion. Prof. Lass feels that it is wrong to shut down the entire country because of a virus that is ultimately less of a killer than the flu. In other words, he is saying that taking into account the cost benefits, it is preferable ‘to sacrifice’ the elderly so that daily life can go on as normal. This is an outlook that has antagonized many and has made him a ‘persona non grata’ in the TV interview studios.
Lass is at peace with himself over all this and with the voices calling him ‘deluded.” “I didn’t invite myself to the studios,” he told “Globes,” “and I’m prepared to give my opinion to everybody who is ready to listen.”
Do you think you are being excluded because you presented an unpopular position?
“I can tell you that several days ago I heard with my own ears, after I was interviewed on the radio by Nissim Mishal, the deputy director of the Ministry of Health Prof. Itamar Grotto tell Mishal that I shouldn’t be brought into studios. And last Friday, I was invited to the studio by Ayala Hasson. Some three days beforehand, they called me and ask not to go anywhere else, and then the day before they cancelled. And who did they replace me with on the program? The futurist David Passig, who told the people of Israel that in the best case scenario 40 million people would die, and in the worst case scenario 300 million people would die. That shows you how the media is only trumpeting hysteria. Because it was clear that if I was sitting next to him, I would only have told an amazed Israeli people that every year 17,000 Italians die of flu while in Israel only 126 dies of flue last year.
Corona: An Epidemic of Mass Panic – Global Research
29-03-20 10:01:00,
Almost everyone I talk to, lay people and colleagues (I am a specialist in internal medicine and have worked for two years at a department of infectious diseases) consider the Coronavirus pandemic a pandemic of panic, more than anything else.
On 8 March, I published in the BMJ about this. I wrote:
“What if the Chinese had not tested their patients for coronavirus or there had not been any test? Would we have carried on with our lives, without restrictions, not worrying about some deaths here and there among old people, which we see every winter? I think so.”
The WHO estimates that an influenza season kills about 500,000 people, or about 50 times more than those who have died so far during more than 3 months of the Coronavirus epidemic.
I also wrote:
“Is it evidence-based healthcare to close schools and universities, cancel flights and meetings, forbid travel, and to isolate people wherever they happen to fall ill? In Denmark, the government recommends cancellation of events with over 1000 participants.”
It is much worse now. All gatherings in Denmark of more than 10 people are banned, even outdoors, and you can get a fine of 1500 kr (about $250) if you violate this rule. What a dream scenario for any ruler with dictatorship tendencies; all democratic demonstrations are unlawful. Football matches are still allowed, if there are only 5 players on each team and no spectators.
I joked about my tennis, but now my four times a week of tennis is gone even though we cannot be more than 4 people on the court at a time. Next I joked about golf, as I could not imagine anyone would forbid golf. They did, even though there are loads of people walking or running in the forest around our golf course, and even though you may still walk on the fairways, if you do not look like a golfer. Our CrossFit gym also closed as per government orders.
I had only one joke left, which I fired when my wife told me that in the lunch room of the department of clinical microbiology where she works, every second chair should be left empty while the conference room is overcrowded as usual,
What Happens In the Wake of the COVID-19 Lockdown? Economic Destruction, Global Poverty, Bankruptcies, Mass Unemployment. Neoliberalism to the Rescue – Global Research
28-03-20 05:37:00,
In the wake of the lockdown: Bankruptcies and mass unemployment, the economic destabilization of entire countries.
Millions of people have lost their jobs, and their lifelong savings. They are unable to pay their home mortgages.
In developing countries, poverty and despair prevail.
The political implications are far-reaching. The lockdown undermines real democracy.
It would be naive to believe that the financial crisis was spontaneous. It was carefully engineered.
The coronavirus continues to provide a camouflage. Fear and panic (generated profusely by the corporate media) create “favorable conditions” for “institutional speculators”, many of whom had detailed foreknowledge of the WHO decision to launch a Global Public health emergency on January 30th, at a time when there were only 150 “confirmed cases” outside China.
The collapse of stock markets has resulted in the most important transfer in money wealth in modern history.
The Coronavirus is not the cause of financial collapse. What prevails is an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty which enables powerful financial interests to manipulate the stock market and consolidate their financial positions.
In early February, roughly $6 trillion were wiped off the value of stock markets Worldwide. Massive losses of personal savings (e.g. of average Americans) are ongoing not to mention corporate failures and bankruptcies.
Each time Trump opens his mouth, or blames the Chinese on twitter, the stock markets respond. Those who have inside information or foreknowledge of US policy decisions will make a bundle of money.
Behind the pandemic, there are powerful economic interests, Wall Street, Big Pharma, the Washington Consensus, Charities and Foundations, the WHO, the IMF, et al. They met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on January 21-24, one week prior to the launching of the WHO global public health emergency.
The “international community” is calling for economic recovery. How will it be instrumented. So-called “corporate bailouts” i.e. “handouts” for banks, major corporations including airlines.
One trillion promised by the Fed, another trillion by the European Central Bank headed by Christine Lagarde.
“We have a responsibility to recover better” than after the financial crisis in 2008, said UN secretary general António Guterres:
“We have a framework for action – the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Dr. Ron Paul On COVID-19 Panic: The Real Danger “Is The Government’s Overreaction”
28-03-20 05:11:00,
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
In a recent interview, Dr. Ron Paul opined on his son Rand, who has tested positive for the coronavirus. Dr. Paul said that the dangers of the coronavirus have been “blown way out of proportion” and some people benefit from crises, like politicians who want more power.
Dr. Paul begins his interview with Lior Gantz of the Wealth Research Group saying Rand Paul had no symptoms of the virus and is feeling fine, like the majority of people who have gotten. Many are already immune and have been exposed without showing any signs. “I think millions of people have probably had the infection and still do,” says Dr. Paul.
“But it’s used by an excuse by those who have a special interest…and I think that is sad.”
The problem is that this crisis was blown up so some people (the ruling class) could expand and broaden their power over the public, and Dr. Paul says hopefully, the masses will “wake up soon” to what the government is doing to them and their future.
“Somebody is making political use out of this and it’s [the political usage of the coronavirus] is out of control,” Dr. Paul (an OBYN) added.
Just look at who has been hurt the most so far: the poorest Americans in service industries that the ruling class demanded to shut down. Dr. Paul says the only real danger is the government’s expansion of power and the already sick or elderly who will get the coronavirus. But that danger to our susceptible population already exists and has for years in the form of colds and several strains of the flu, so the panic and shut down is unwarranted. Unless you want more power and totalitarian control.
Both Dr. Paul and Mr. Gantz have been long-time liberty and free-market champions, and this interview is a must-watch if you consider yourself anything other than a slave to the government. Both men are calling out the power-hungry ruling class, something the majority of Americans have not done.
Watch the entire eye-opening interview here:
“The people who love control,
Police, Military Begin Door to Door Searches to Hunt Down New Yorkers Seeking Refuge – Activist Post
28-03-20 05:08:00,
By Matt Agorist
Rhode Island — In perhaps the most unprecedented attack on the Constitution on which the Free Thought Project has ever has ever reported, the governor of Rhode Island has announced that the National Guard will begin conducting house-to-house searches to hunt down New Yorkers seeking refuge in their state.
Not only will cops be violating the 4th Amendment rights of citizens in their homes, the governor also announced that Rhode Island cops have already begun pulling over every vehicle they see with a New York license plate.
In a move that is reminiscent to that of Nazi Germany, the governor labeled an entire state a threat. Checkpoints have been set up along the interstate and vehicles with New York plates were being stopped without probable cause on Friday.
“Right now we have a pinpointed risk,” Governor Gina Raimondo said. “That risk is called New York City.”
It is no question that New York is the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak and their citizens should remain self-quarantined to prevent the spread of the virus. The state has over 46,000 reported cases and 450 deaths reported as of Saturday morning.
However, police officers and the National Guard have no idea if the person they are stopping or searching has been in the state for weeks or days.
As Bloomberg reports:
Rhode Island has just over 200, and it has begun an aggressive campaign to keep the virus out and New Yorkers contained, over objections from civil liberties advocates.
Raimondo, a Democrat, said she had consulted lawyers and said while she couldn’t close the border, she felt confident she could enforce a quarantine.
This draconian police state action comes in spite of the fact that many New Yorkers own summer houses in Rhode Island and have every right to be there. But the governor could not care less. According to Bloomberg, “many New Yorkers have summer houses in Rhode Island, especially in tony Newport, and the governor said the authorities would be checking there.”
“Yesterday I announced and today I reiterated: Anyone coming to Rhode Island in any way from New York must be quarantined,” the governor said.
Midnight on Planet Lockdown: Dylan strikes again
28-03-20 04:43:00,
Midnight on Planet Lockdown: Dylan Strikes Again
Like a shot ricocheting at Heavenâs Door, Bob Dylan has released a masterpiece dissecting JFK’s assassination
Dallas. Texas. Location of the scene where John Kennedy was assassinated during an official journey.
1963
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What spectacular timing. Like a shot ricocheting at Heavenâs Door as a virus pandemic rages and Planet Lockdown is the new normal, Bob Dylan has produced a stunning 17-minute masterpiece dissecting the November 22, 1963, assassination of JFK â releasing it at midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Thursday.
For baby boomers, not to mention obsessive Dylanologists, this is the ultimate sucker punch. Countless eyes will be plunged into swimming pools revisiting all the memories swirling around âthe day they blew out the brains of the king / Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing.â But thatâs not all: the Dylanmobile takes us on a magical mystery tour of the 60s and 70s, complete with the Beatles, the Age of Aquarius and the Whoâs âTommy.â
If thereâs any cultural artifact capable of sending a powerful jolt across a discombobulated America trying to come to grips with a dystopic Desolation Row, this is it, the work of Americaâs undisputed, true Exceptionalist. The times, they are-a-changinâ. Oh, yes, they are.
There are so many nuggets in Dylanâs lyrics they would be worthy of a treatise, tracking the vortex of music, literature, film references and interlocking Americana.
This is essentially an incantatory mantra set to piano, sparse percussion and violin. We have two narrators: a dying Kennedy (âRidinâ in the backseat next to my wife / Headinâ straight on in to the afterlife / Iâm leaninâ to the left, got my head in her lap / Oh Lord, Iâve been led into some kind of a trapâ) and Dylan himself.
UK Police Force Creates Tool That Lets People Snitch On Others For Not “Social Distancing”
28-03-20 12:28:00,
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
A police force in the UK has created a tool that allows people to snitch on others for not engaging in proper “social distancing.”
Humberside Police have created an online portal that allows people to alert them to violations of lockdown measures introduced by the government this week to fight the spread of coronavirus.
“The force says the portal has been made in response to an increase in the number of calls to its non-emergency 101 number following the government’s announcement earlier this week around new police powers to disperse groups,” reports ITV.
According to rules implemented earlier this week, people are not allowed to congregate in groups of more than two unless it’s a family from the same household.
“We will not be able to deploy officers to every single report of social gatherings that contradict the Government’s advice and dependent on the information within the report will determine our response,” according to Humberside Police’s Chris Philpott.
“However it may be some of the reports are referred on to our partner agencies, our Local Authorities for example, who could take further action to stop gatherings in certain places.”
As we highlighted earlier, Derbyshire Police revealed that they had used a surveillance drone to track dog walkers in a remote part of the country and then searched their license plates to find out where they live.
Police in North Yorkshire, another remote region, have also revealed that they will start conducting road checkpoints to make sure people have a valid reason for being outside.
Earlier this week, police in London were dispatched to send people home who had congregated on a local green area.
It’s not a holiday, it’s a lockdown, which means you don’t just come here and sunbathe.” pic.twitter.com/vS2j8kex73
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) March 24, 2020
In Spain, where COVID-19 lockdown rules are even tighter, a neighbor snitched on another neighbor after seeing two brothers playing soccer in a back yard.
* * *
My voice is being silenced by free speech-hating Silicon Valley behemoths who want me disappeared forever.
13 Reasons To Fear The Coming COVID World Order
28-03-20 09:08:00,
Authored by Andrew Korybko via One World Press,
COVID-19 has fundamentally changed life as we know it, and it’s more than likely that our future will be a dystopian one given how various governments have already responded to this viral outbreak.
The skeptics among us are fearful that this whole pandemic is overblown and being exploited as a smokescreen for stealing our freedoms, and while their attitude towards this disease is questionable (and quite possibly dangerous), their suspicion about a government takeover of society is warranted.
Never before have governments had so much power over the people, though in these emergency conditions, that might not be an entirely bad thing for the time being seeing as how it could very well be necessary for our survival.
The problem, however, is that these newly assumed powers probably won’t be voluntarily surrendered after this epidemic ends, which is why many people are so concerned. They’re convinced that we’ve suddenly entered a period of global dictatorship, and it’s difficult to argue with them.
So much else is also changing as well, and it’s hard to keep up with the “COVID World Order” that’s been thrust upon us, but what follows is an attempt to briefly describe everything that’s already taken place and predict what will probably follow:
1. DE-FACTO MARTIAL LAW…
There’s no other way to describe both the “recommended” and mandatory quarantines that many in the world are experiencing than to call them what they are, a state of de-facto martial law, which isn’t being formally declared in order to not provoke any more panic than there already is.
2. …IS THE “NEW NORMAL”
Now that de-facto martial law of a seemingly indefinite period has been accepted by the people (whether willingly or begrudgingly), it’ll probably become the “new normal” and be implemented countless times in the future, be it as an “overabundance of caution” in the event of another outbreak or under any other pretext.
3. SOCIAL MEDIA CENSORSHIP WILL INTENSIFY
“Big Brother” is already here, but he’s going to become a bigger bully than ever before by intensifying his censorship of people’s social media posts on the basis that they’re “socially irresponsible” (e.g.
Suspending The Constitution: Police State Uses Crises To Expand Its Lockdown Powers
28-03-20 09:08:00,
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.”― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
You can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured.
This coronavirus pandemic is no exception.
Not only are the federal and state governments unraveling the constitutional fabric of the nation with lockdown mandates that are sending the economy into a tailspin and wreaking havoc with our liberties, but they are also rendering the citizenry fully dependent on the government for financial handouts, medical intervention, protection and sustenance.
Unless we find some way to rein in the government’s power grabs, the fall-out will be epic.
Everything I have warned about for years—government overreach, invasive surveillance, martial law, abuse of powers, militarized police, weaponized technology used to track and control the citizenry, and so on—has coalesced into this present moment.
The government’s shameless exploitation of past national emergencies for its own nefarious purposes pales in comparison to what is presently unfolding.
It’s downright Machiavellian.
Deploying the same strategy it used with 9/11 to acquire greater powers under the USA Patriot Act, the police state—a.k.a. the shadow government, a.k.a. the Deep State—has been anticipating this moment for years, quietly assembling a wish list of lockdown powers that could be trotted out and approved at a moment’s notice.
It should surprise no one, then, that the Trump Administration has asked Congress to allow it to suspend parts of the Constitution whenever it deems it necessary during this coronavirus pandemic and “other” emergencies.
It’s that “other” emergencies part that should particularly give you pause, if not spur you to immediate action (by action, I mean a loud and vocal, apolitical, nonpartisan outcry and sustained, apolitical, nonpartisan resistance).
In fact, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been quietly trotting out and testing a long laundry list of terrifying powers that override the Constitution.
How Governments Are Deploying Big Data To Enforce COVID-19 Quarantines
28-03-20 09:03:00,
This week a technology startup called Unacast launched a new app called “Social Distancing Scoreboard,” which tracks the GPS location of smartphones and grades geographical regions, such as a town, county, and or even a state, on how well residents in those areas are abiding by the government-enforced social distancing rules. The app creates an index, ranked from A to F, for whether people are staying home or not.
Comparing the nation’s mass movements between February 28 to March 23 – virus cases started to rise and local governments across the country began to implement “shelter in place” public health orders, which by mid-month, changes in the average mobility for Americans started to slope downwards. As of March 23, the app ranked the US with a “C,” detailing how many people in the US are ignoring calls by the federal and state governments to stay home amid community spreading.
As of March 23, the top five states where citizens were practicing the best social distancing were District of Colombia, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, and Alaska. The bottom five states were Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
On a state and county level, Maryland earned a “B” with much of its counties surrounding Washington, DC, and central counties receiving good marks on Monday as many stayed home. However, in Western Maryland, it was life as usual as many seemingly did not care about the virus crisis.
Unacast is just another example of how technology is being deployed as mass surveillance tools to combat the virus.
Several other examples of companies and governments extracting data from citizens for surveillance purposes to support quarantines have been though monitoring social media posts and facial recognition databases.
Ghost Data, a big data analysis firm, collected half a million Instagram posts in March, mainly from hard-hit virus regions in Italy that are in lockdown. The company was able to run facial recognition software on all images to identify people who were violating the country’s quarantine orders.
Another technology company that has joined the effort to support big governments in their quest to enforce full lockdowns with high-tech tools is telecommunications firm Vodafone.
Global Pandemic Response Handing Governments Sweeping Powers They May Never Relinquish
28-03-20 08:55:00,
While the response to the coronavirus pandemic have ranged from mocking the disease (such has Brazil’s Bolsonaro) to physically sealing people inside of apartment buildings in China, governments are deploying an array of legislative and technical measures to track and control citizens during the outbreak which has killed over 21,000 in roughly three months.
As the situation deteriorates, many fear that the current efforts to control the virus will have dire consequences for individual freedoms long after the danger of COVID-19 has passed, according to Bloomberg’s Ian Marlow – who notes “In desperate times like these, leaders on all levels are going to extraordinary lengths to do whatever possible to contain the virus.”
Like the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis of such magnitude that it threatens to change the world in which we live, with ramifications for how leaders govern. Governments are locking down cities with the help of the army, mapping population flows via smartphones and jailing or sequestering quarantine breakers using banks of CCTV and facial recognition cameras backed by artificial intelligence.
The restrictions are unprecedented in peacetime and made possible only by rapid advances in technology. And while citizens across the globe may be willing to sacrifice civil liberties temporarily, history shows that emergency powers can be hard to relinquish. –Bloomberg
“A primary concern is that if the public gives governments new surveillance powers to contain Covid-19, then governments will keep these powers after the public health crisis ends,” says Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation based in San Francisco. “Nearly two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government still uses many of the surveillance technologies it developed in the immediate wake.“
In China, authorities have leveraged their extensive monitoring network to trace people exposed to COVID’s epicenter in Hubei, and encouraged citizens to monitor their neighbors’ health and movements. And perhaps this has worked – as the country has lifted standing travel restrictions as the rest of the world goes into lockdown (reported resurgence aside).
“China was able to control the outbreak because government was tracking people closely,”
Trump greenlights call-up of one MILLION reservists to battle Covid-19
28-03-20 08:51:00,
To help with the Covid-19 coronavirus emergency, US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order authorizing the call-up of up to a million reserve military personnel in the army, navy, air force and coast guard.
Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security – which is in charge of the Coast Guard units not subordinated to the Navy – are now authorized to order individual members and units of the Ready Reserve under their jurisdiction to “active duty not to exceed 24 consecutive months,” Trump noted in the executive order signed on Friday evening.
The number of mobilized reservists is “not to exceed 1,000,000 members on active duty at any one time.” The Pentagon and Homeland Security are supposed to ensure “appropriate consultation is undertaken with relevant state officials” about using National Guard reserves activated under this order.
Also on rt.com
US passes 100,000 CASES of Covid-19 after becoming world epicenter for virus – Johns Hopkins University
The call-up is part of a flurry of presidential actions aimed against the Covid-19 outbreak on Friday, including the signing of a $2.2 trillion stimulus and relief bill – widely criticized on both sides of the aisle in Congress, but passed anyway – and invoking the Defense Production Act to compel automakers to produce ventilators needed to treat severe coronavirus cases.
Trump has been reluctant to invoke the authority under the DPA for over a week, saying major corporations had offered to comply with federal supply requests voluntarily, only to blow up at General Motors and Ford in a series of angry tweets in the morning.
Also on rt.com
‘Open your STUPIDLY abandoned plant’: Trump lashes out at GM & Ford over ventilator delay
The US shot to first place in the world in terms of the number of registered Covid-19 cases, ahead of Italy and China – where the contagion originated in December – with over 100,000 people testing positive, and more than 1,500 fatalities.
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Western Media Focusses On Big Pharma’s Search for a Coronavirus Vaccine While Suppressing Coverage of High Dose Intravenus Vitamin C to Save Lives in China – Global Research
27-03-20 08:21:00,
Not a day passes without some hyped up media story of how big-pharma is racing to the rescue of humanity with its search for a coronavirus vaccine. There are over 40 companies now searching for a vaccine. Collectively they are spending huge sums of money supported by lavish amounts of tax payer cash. Estimates of how soon a vaccine can be produced vary wildly but most estimates agree that it is unlikely to happen this year. It goes without saying that the first to market with a usable vaccine stands to make billions of dollars.
The mainstream media, scientific and political establishments are completely under the spell of big pharma. Governments reassure the public that they’re doing everything in their power to protect them with a variety of measures. These range from mass lock downs and trillion dollar bailouts for big business to limited amounts of helicopter money for the citizens of wealthier countries.
Regardless of where you live if you have to go to hospital with symptoms of the coronavirus the key question facing you is: will you be able to leave walking out front door or will you end up being wheeled out the basement back door?
The mainstream media in cahoots with governments and the medical establishment are suppressing any news regarding the use of a cheap, safe and easy to produce treatment for coronavirus patients. Maybe its because this treatment is being used in Chinese hospitals to save lives. Let’s face it there has been no let up in Cold War 2.0 during the current pandemic.
Dr. Andrew W. Saul, Editor in chief of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, sums up the Western big pharma approach nicely when he says:
“Medical orthodoxy obsessively focuses on searching for a vaccine and/or drug for coronavirus COVID-19). While they are looking for what would be fabulously profitable approaches, we have with vitamin C an existing, plausible, clinically demonstrated method to treat what coronavirus patients die from: severe acute respiratory syndrome, or pneumonia.’’
On 17 March a group of Chinese physicians held a video conference to discuss the use of high dose intravenous vitamin C for patients with moderate to severe cases of corona virus. The keynote speaker at this meeting was Dr.
Despite Global Pandemic – New Space Force Launches Billion Dollar Communications Satellite – Activist Post
27-03-20 08:10:00,
By B.N. Frank
We were warned more of this could happen and it did yesterday. The newly formed U.S. Space Force has officially launched its $1.2 billion dollar communications satellite.
This follows on the heels of SpaceX launching its Starlink program, with 1 million ground antennas approved by the FCC.
More from 5GCrisis:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has authorized SpaceX to begin rolling out as many as 1 million of the ground antenna the company will need to connect users to its Starlink satellite internet network. Starlink is SpaceX’s plan to build an interconnected network, or “constellation,” of about 12,000 small satellites, to provide high-speed internet to anywhere in the world. The company has launched 360 Starlink satellites in the past year. Read the news here.
Involuntarily exposing every single man, woman and child 24/7/365 to a known human health risk – nothing to worry about here, folks!
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is supposed to protect the public from the telecom industry. A paper published earlier this year suggests they may have broken environmental law when they approved SpaceX’s Starlink Mega Constellation (approximately 42,000 spacecraft!). But breaking laws, harming the public, and frying the planet don’t seem to be of any concern to the FCC. In fact, they seem to be on everybody’s shit list except the telecom industry’s (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16).
Astronomers and other scientists have also been issuing catastrophic warnings about what Elon Musk and his company are doing (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).
From DailyMailUK:
But the billionaire has been slammed by astronomers for the ‘disgusting’ project which they claim is ‘a crime against humanity’.