Sign up here for docu-series: https://vrevealed.com/trailer/
Category Archives: libertarianism
The Evidence Keeps Piling Up: Lockdowns Don’t Work by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute
The toll lockdowns have taken on human life and human rights has been incalculable. Increases in child abuse, suicide, and even heart attacks, all appear to be a feature of mandatory stay-at-home orders issued by politicians who now rule by decree without any legislative or democratic due process. And then, of course, there is the economic toll on employment, which will feed negative impacts into the longer term. The economic burden has fallen the most on the young and on working-class families, whose earners are least able to work from home.
These measures also have made a mockery of basic human rights while essentially expropriating private property. Mom-and-pop business owners were told to shut their doors indefinitely or face arrest. The unemployed were told it was now illegal to work for a living if their careers were deemed “nonessential.” Police officers have beaten citizens for not “social distancing” while mothers have been manhandled by cops for attempting to use playground equipment.
This was all done because some politicians and bureaucrats—who were in no danger of losing their large paychecks—decided it was a great idea to carry out a bizarre and risky experiment: forcing large swaths of the population to stay at home in the name of preventing the spread of disease.
An Experiment Concocted by Governments
Indeed, politicians have long dreamed of forcing people into isolation en masse. But this was most recently revived during the George W. Bush administration. As the New York Times reported in April,
Continued here: The Evidence Keeps Piling Up: Lockdowns Don’t Work
Pandemic Skeptics…Proven Right! Dr. Ron Paul
Was the whole coronavirus panic set off by a faulty understanding of the difference between infection fatality rate and case fatality rate? One doctor in the UK makes a strong case that the mania was set off by a math mistake. Also today, more mainstream outlets concluding that lockdowns were a terrible mistake. SF government gyms remain open while commercial gyms driven out of business. Baseball madness, as Nationals general manager ejected from game…for no mask in his own private booth in an empty stadium!
Robert F Kennedy Jr in Berlin 28 aug 2020
DIVIDED WE FALL, AND GOOD VS. EVIL – Mark Devlin
Thoughts on last weekend’s London protest event, the disappointing fall-out from it, and a reminder that Evil does not have the monopoly on our shared experiences.
Details of the COVID-19 UK Truth Tour here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/22785…
POSITIVE MENTAL OUTLOOK: “There’s Always Another Way…” Peggy Hall
“There’s always another way—and I’m going to find it!” 👍💯💪
The CDC Expands its Overreach and is Now America’s New Landlord Threatening Rental Markets – Health Impact News
THE CDC IS AMERICA’S NEW LANDLORD
This is astonishing, even by 2020 standards.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, operating under the US Department of Health and Human Services, has asserted jurisdiction over private residential leases nationwide. It intends to curtail evictions until at least the end of the year, and in fact its new directive threatens federal criminal penalties against landlords who ignore tenant “declarations” made using CDC forms.
It is unclear, to put it mildly, exactly how this jurisdiction over private contracts and state/local courts flows even to Congress, much less an administrative agency acting on its own.
One federal official justifies the bizarre and legally dubious action based on the CDC’s broad charter to stop the spread of communicable diseases—a charter at which they’ve failed miserably with covid:
Congress has delegated broad authority to HHS, the Surgeon General and CDC, to take reasonable efforts to combat the spread of communicable diseases, and frankly I think it makes sense for those authorities abroad because we don’t know for any given situation or scenario what steps will be needed to stop the spread.
I think, in this particular order, the CDC has made a very compelling case that it is quite problematic at this particular time.
It’s focused on this particular pandemic, which is obviously the uniquely powerful grasp in the nation’s entire history in terms of the effect it’s had that for a bunch of reasons in particular, that the home has been sort of the focal point of people social distancing and building, sort of a safe space themselves over the past few months, and also the fact that if people get kicked out, they may end up in overcrowded congregated living facilities or homeless shelters, and that is a potential recipe for a big spread of COVID-19.
Thanks to the oft-criticized but in fact essential Zero Hedge for the nice bit of early and original reporting here—a full day before NPR, Bloomberg, et al.—and for details from a phone conference with CDC officials.
Again, this was announced without congressional input or approval and purely by administrative decree.
At least the eviction and mortgage moratoriums in the CARES Act, passed by Congress in March, were enacted by politicians who face voters this fall. And while those earlier moratoriums may well be constitutionally suspect too, at least in times of sanity, they were limited to federally backed rentals and mortgages.
The CDC’s new action is much broader, applying conceivably to all private residential leases across the country.
The fallout from suspending rental contracts will be deep and long lasting. Many landlords will find their situations untenable and stop making mortgage and property tax payments.
New rental housing stock will be depressed, as owners worry about the next suspension of rent payments now that the precedent has been set.
After all, why wouldn’t moratoriums happen again when the next pandemic or financial crisis hits? Rental housing units will drop in price as more landlords abandon the business—setting the stage for commercial and private equity buyers to grab units on the cheap from individuals and small owners.
Ultimately, foreclosures, evictions, and tax sales will happen no matter what the federal government does. The likely outcome is bigger players owning more and more of the rental housing stock, consolidating the permanent renter class and adding to the rootlessness many Americans feel.
Even the most modest home ownership creates skin in the game and encourages better neighborhoods, while areas dominated by rentals lack the same incentives for improvement. And the new owners of rental units will pass all the uncertainty, risks, and potential losses on to millions of Americans in the form of higher rents.
Even during the most turbulent periods in American history, including the Great Depression, World War II, and an 1880s tuberculosis outbreak which killed one in seven people, virtually no one expected the federal government to suspend rent.
This action by the CDC, in response to a very manageable and retreating cold virus, is the kind of quietly unprecedented development we’ve come to expect this year.
Watershed Moment in U.S. History
This is a watershed moment for the US: when you destroy trust in contract enforcement you create terrible ripple effects throughout society.
Something this radical should not be rushed into place with such little forethought, especially when it amounts to buying votes in a national election. But of course in a managerial state we should expect just this type of shortsighted political consideration to prevail over good sense and justice.
The CDC wants to effectively vitiate contracts: when you tell one party that it need not perform and the other that it cannot sue for nonperformance, you radically alter the bargaining power of those parties.
The contract they signed becomes nothing more than an aspirational document, a legislative (or administrative!) tool to be rewritten at the will of politicians.
The effects of this moratorium undoubtedly will spill over in unforeseen ways as Americans get used to the idea that their financial obligations can be erased by state edict.
The tremendous costs will be borne by all of us, because when contracts are not enforceable every transaction must account for much higher risks.
Read the full article at Mises.org.
Source: The CDC Expands its Overreach and is Now America’s New Landlord T
Mayors, governors, presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, popes, potentates Sep 2 by Jon Rappoport
(To join Jon Rappoport’s email list, click here.)
Based on my vast experience as a translator, this is what these leaders are saying:
“We’re too stupid to know what’s going on. So we rely on our public health officials. What they recommend becomes law or edict. Right away.”
“We’re in the process of committing economic suicide. We would ask you to join us, but there is no asking. You’re in, whether you like it or not. And the ‘we’ is a bit of a misnomer, because as leaders, our paychecks are secure. Also, ‘in the process of committing’ isn’t entirely correct, because we’ve already accomplished the aforementioned suicide. Apparently, one can achieve the act of self-destruction multiple times.”
“For example, we re-open our economies, expand testing with worthless tests, rack up false positives, and then on the basis of these meaningless case numbers, we move to lockdowns again.”
“Don’t blame us. We’re too stupid to know what we’re doing. Of course, we SEE what we’re doing, but there is a distinction between seeing and knowing. Our people are sorting out that distinction now, and we’ll get back to you with clarifications, as we can.”
“There are two issues we need to explain. First, the CDC has announced that only six percent of COVID deaths have been caused by the virus alone. In all other instances, the elderly victims were already suffering from multiple and serious health conditions. We’re aware that these prior conditions, plus the inflicted terror of a COVID diagnosis, plus the ensuing isolation from family and family, have been sufficient to cause death in 94 percent of ALL persons labeled ‘death by the virus.’ NO VIRUS IS REQUIRED. Startling, isn’t it? But we ignore all this. Why? Because we’re told to.”
Second, as the New York Times has revealed, up to 90 percent of all cases of COVID, defined by a positive test, are indeed meaningless, because the quantity of virus in people’s bodies is so infinitesimal, no harm would come to them and no contagion from person to person would occur. We also ignore this matter, because we’re told to.”
“Ordinarily, these two major developments would lead us to proclaim, ‘Go back to work, go back to your lives, take off your masks, it’s all over.’ But we don’t make that proclamation. We carry on as if nothing has happened. Why? In order to remain consistent, and because we’re told to. We’re that stupid.”
“There is a third issue, now that we think of it. The US and the UK, back in March, were considering open policies. No lockdowns. Then a demonstrably failed computer modeler named Neil Ferguson, from the Imperial College of London, stated that 500,000 people could die in the UK, and two million could die in the US. On that basis, with no investigation of Ferguson’s abysmal track record, both countries went to lockdowns and the first round of economic suicide. Other countries followed suit. Why? We leaders of these countries understood the economic and human consequences, but we didn’t GRASP the consequences. The distinction, here again, is in the process of being sorted out.”
“In the interest of full disclosure, there is a yet a fourth issue we must place on the table and enter into the record. You see, at the beginning of this whole business, in Wuhan, we really have no idea what researchers did or didn’t do, in their lab, which resulted in them announcing they had discovered a new coronavirus that was causing a serious outbreak.”
“We’re not permitted in these labs. There is no video of the step by step process which occurred in the Wuhan lab. There were no non-conflicted independent observers. Bottom line: we don’t know whether a new virus was actually discovered.”
“We do know no traditional large-scale electron microscope studies have been performed, using tissue samples from, say, a thousand patients who were supposedly afflicted with the epidemic disease.”
“We also know the researchers started with a piece of RNA they simply PRESUMED came from a virus. One more…oddity.”
“We also know the researchers stated that pneumonia was the cardinal feature of the new epidemic. Yet, going back decades, about 300,000 people a year in China die from pneumonia. That means millions of cases of pneumonia occur every year in China.”
“We also know that if these researchers in Wuhan had looked through the windows of their lab, they would have seen a deadly haze. This is called air pollution. In Wuhan, and other Chinese cities, the lethal mixture of early industrial age and modern industrial age polluting toxins is unprecedented in human history.”
“This pollution causes all sorts of lung infections, including pneumonia, which, again, was said to be cardinal feature of the NEW epidemic.”
“We know and yet we don’t know, if you catch our drift.”
“We can add things up but the conclusion evades us.”
“We see but we don’t understand.”
“However, bear with us. There is much to sort out and clarify.”
“The light WILL shine through the darkness.”
“You’re in our thoughts and prayers.”
“Thank you for your service.”
“That is all.”
NO, YOU FINE FEATHERED LEADERS. THAT IS VERY DEFINITELY NOT ALL. THE SHIT STORM IS ALREADY COMING YOUR WAY.
DUCK.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Speaks at Berlin Rally for Freedom and Peace
Thanks to HealthImpactNews.com for email regarding this.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke to hundreds of thousands in the streets of Berlin, Germany, August 29, 2020. With Großer Stern Square and the Siegesäule Monument as a backdrop, Mr. Kennedy talked about government control by fear and spoke out against totalitarianism. He said the government and those with the greatest wealth and control have done a terrible job on public health and will shift us all to 5G and a cashless society. He said that 5G is being pushed on us as a good thing but it will be used for surveillance and data harvesting. Mr. Kennedy added that the COVID 19 pandemic is a crisis of convenience that is destroying the middle class, impoverishing us all, and it is making the powerful elite even more powerful. He closed with the message that we must protect our fellow man, our vulnerable children and our freedoms and democracy!
Know Your Rights. Don’t Talk to Cops at the Airport – Ron Paul Institute
friday august 28, 2020
I confess to a dislike of the police; any police at any level. I dislike equally local cops, state troopers, federal law enforcement from a myriad of agencies and prison guards. I’ve always said, “Give a man a badge and a gun and you’ve created a monster.” I also believe that my opinion about law enforcement in the United States is in the minority.
Most Americans like and trust the police. We’re bombarded on social media by exhortations to “Back the Blue!” We say “thank you for your service” along with the military at sporting events. I’m something of a “progressive constitutionalist.” I believe in freedom, equality, and individual rights. I’m not going to back the blue.
I had the pleasure of flying back to the United States this week from an overseas trip. The airline socially distanced passengers, so I had an entire row all to myself. It was one of the easiest flights I’ve had in recent memory. I arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport after 10 hours in the air and was happy to be home. I have an app on my phone called “Mobile Pass” that allows me to put my passport, flight information and photograph in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement system so that I can just breeze through Immigration and go on to baggage claim. It saves a lot of time.
‘Come with Me Sir’
I got off the plane at JFK having already completed the Mobile Pass and I went directly to the very short line for Mobile Pass holders. The ICE officer was very nice, but after he scanned my passport, he said, “Please come with me, sir. We’re going to have you talk to one of my colleagues.” I’m not stupid. I know what that means. It means “let the harassment begin.” But I was ready for it.
I was placed in secondary, where I sat for about 25 minutes. Finally, an ICE agent named Officer Oh called my name. He was assisted by Officers Hippolyte and Castellano. Apparently, it takes three armed people to deal with me.
“Have you ever been arrested for a crime?” I wasn’t surprised that was the first question. I’ve said consistently over the past eight years that I wear my conviction for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture program like a badge of honor. I said so on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and NBC’s Today Show. It’s no secret.
My response was, “You know I have been. You otherwise wouldn’t ask me a stupid question like that, which has literally nothing whatsoever to do with my travel today.” The ICE agents looked at each other. “What was the nature of your crime?” Oh responded. I think he also didn’t expect my own response.
“I’m going to tell you guys exactly the same thing that I tell your friends at Dulles Airport when they harass me. I’m represented by counsel. I don’t talk to cops. You have no right to detain me. I’m a journalist and I’m going to write about this incident using your true names. And you have no legal right to keep me from entering my own country.”
‘Free to Go’
Again they looked at each other. Finally, Oh said, “you’re free to go.”
You’re damn right I am.
I called my attorney as soon as I got out of baggage claim. He told me that I did the right thing and that he wouldn’t have given answers any different from the answers I gave. It occurred to me, though, that most Americans have no idea what their rights are.
The American Civil Liberties Union has a great article on its website telling people what to do when they are confronted by tin horn authority at airports around America. The bottom line is that if you are an American citizen or a permanent resident (green card holder) you don’t have to answer any questions.
ICE can delay you, but they cannot stop you from entering your own country. Tell them that. Repeat it as a mantra if you have to. And remember my personal mantra. It works:
“I’m represented by counsel. I don’t talk to cops. You have no right to detain me.”
Cops are tough when they can hide behind each other, behind their guns, behind their badges, or behind qualified immunity. But they’re powerless when faced with the power of the Constitution. Know your rights.
Reprinted with author’s permission from ConsortiumNews.
What's happening? 