Wednesday, July 14, 2021

"The Right to Be Let Alone: What to Do When COVID Strike Force Teams Come Knocking"

"The Right to Be Let Alone: What to Do When 
COVID Strike Force Teams Come Knocking"
By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.” - Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

"A federal COVID-19 vaccination strike force may soon be knocking on your door, especially if you live in a community with low vaccination rates. Will you let them in? More to the point, are you required to open the door?

The Biden Administration has announced that it plans to send federal “surge response teams” on a “targeted community door-to-door outreach“ to communities with low vaccination rates in order to promote the safety and accessibility of the COVID-19 vaccines.

That’s all fine and good as far as government propaganda goes, but nothing is ever as simple or as straightforward as the government claims, especially not when armed, roving bands of militarized agents deployed by the Nanny State show up at your door with an agenda that is at odds with what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis referred to as the constitutional “right to be let alone.”

Any attempt by the government to encroach upon the citizenry’s privacy rights or establish a system by which the populace can be targeted, tracked and singled out must be met with extreme caution. These door-to-door “visits” by COVID-19 surge response teams certainly qualify as a government program whose purpose, while seemingly benign, raises significant constitutional concerns.

First, there is the visit itself. While government agents can approach, speak to and even question citizens without violating the Fourth Amendment, Americans have a right not to answer questions or even speak with a government agent. Courts have upheld these “knock and talk” visits as lawful, reasoning that even though the curtilage of the home is protected by the Fourth Amendment, there is an implied license to approach a residence, knock on the door/ring the bell, and seek to contact occupants. However, the encounter is wholly voluntary and a person is under no obligation to speak with a government agent in this situation.

Indeed, you don’t even need to answer or open the door in response to knocking/ringing by a government agent, and if you do answer the knock, you can stop speaking at any time. You also have the right to demand that government agents leave the property once the purpose of the visit is established. Government officials would not be enforcing any law or warrant in this context, and so they don’t have the authority of law to remain on the property after a homeowner or resident specifically revokes the implied license to come onto the property.

When the government’s actions go beyond merely approaching the door and knocking, it risks violating the Fourth Amendment, which requires a warrant and probable cause of possible wrongdoing in order to search one’s property. A government agent would violate the Fourth Amendment if he snooped around the premises, peering into window and going to other areas in search of residents.

It should be pointed out that some judges (including Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch) believe that placing “No Trespassing” signs or taking other steps to impede access to the door is sufficient to negate any implied permission for government agents or others to approach your home, but this view does not have general acceptance.

While in theory one can refuse to speak with police or other government officials during a “knock and talk” encounter, as the courts have asserted as a justification for dismissing complaints about this police investigative tactic, the reality is far different. Indeed, it is unreasonable to suggest that individuals caught unaware by these tactics will not feel pressured in the heat of the moment to comply with a request to speak with government agents who display official credentials and are often heavily armed, let alone allow them to search one’s property. Even when such consent is denied, police have been known to simply handcuff the homeowner and conduct a search over his objections.

Second, there is the danger inherent in these knock-and-talk encounters. Although courts have embraced the fiction that “knock and talks” are “voluntary” encounters that are no different from other door-to-door canvassing, these constitutionally dubious tactics are highly intimidating confrontations meant to pressure individuals into allowing police access to one’s home, which then paves the way for a warrantless search of one’s home and property.

The act of going to homes and taking steps to speak with occupants is akin to the “knock and talk” tactic used by police, which can be fraught with danger for homeowners and government agents alike. Indeed, “knock-and-talk” policing has become a thinly veiled, warrantless exercise by which citizens are coerced and intimidated into “talking” with heavily armed police who “knock” on their doors in the middle of the night. “Knock-and-shoot” policing might be more accurate, however.

“Knock and talks” not only constitute severe violations of the privacy and security of homeowners, but the combination of aggression and surprise employed by police is also a recipe for a violent confrontation that rarely ends well for those on the receiving end of these tactics.

For example, although 26-year-old Andrew Scott had committed no crime and never fired a single bullet or threatened police, he was gunned down by police who knocked aggressively on the wrong door at 1:30 am, failed to identify themselves as police, and then repeatedly shot and killed Scott when he answered the door while holding a gun in self-defense. The police were investigating a speeding incident by engaging in a middle-of-the-night “knock and talk” in Scott’s apartment complex.

Carl Dykes was shot in the face by a county deputy who pounded on Dykes’ door in the middle of the night without identifying himself. Because of reports that inmates had escaped from a local jail, Dykes brought a shotgun with him when he answered the door.

As these and other incidents make clear, while Americans have a constitutional right to question the legality of a police action or resist an unlawful police order, doing so can often get one arrested, shot or killed.

Third, there is the question of how the government plans to use the information it obtains during these knock-and-talk visits. Because the stated purpose of the program is to promote vaccination, homeowners and others who reside at the residence will certainly be asked if they are vaccinated. Again, you have a right not to answer this or any other question. Indeed, an argument could be made that even asking this question is improper if the purpose of the program is merely to ensure that Americans “have the information they need on how both safe and accessible the vaccine is.”

Under the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552a, an agency should only collect and maintain information about an individual as is “relevant and necessary to accomplish a purpose of the agency.” In this situation, the government agent could accomplish the purpose of assuring persons have information about the vaccine simply by providing that information (either in writing or orally) and would not need to know the vaccination status of the residents. To the extent the agents do request, collect and store information about residents’ vaccination status, this could be a Privacy Act violation.

Of course, there is always the danger that this program could be used for other, more nefarious, purposes not related to vaccination encouragement. As with knock-and-talk policing, government agents might misuse their appearance of authority to gain entrance to a residence and obtain other information about it and those who live there. Once the door is opened by a resident, anything the agents can see from their vantage point can be reported to law enforcement authorities.

Moreover, while presumably the targeting will be of areas with demonstrated low vaccination rates, there is no guarantee that this program would not be used as cover for conducting surveillance on areas deemed to be “high crime” areas as a way of obtaining intelligence for law enforcement purposes.

We’ve been down this road before, with the government sending its spies to gather intel on American citizens by questioning them directly, or by asking their neighbors to snitch on them. Remember the egregiously invasive and intrusive American Community Survey?

Unlike the traditional census, which collects data every ten years, the American Community Survey (ACS) is sent to about 3 million homes per year at a reported cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, while the traditional census is limited to ascertaining the number of persons living in each dwelling, their ages and ethnicities, the ownership of the dwelling and telephone numbers, the ACS is much more intrusive, asking questions relating to respondents’ bathing habits, home utility costs, fertility, marital history, work commute, mortgage, and health insurance, among other highly personal and private matters.

Individuals who receive the ACS must complete it or be subject to monetary penalties. Although no reports have surfaced of individuals actually being penalized for refusing to answer the survey, the potential fines that can be levied for refusing to participate in the ACS are staggering. For every question not answered, there is a $100 fine. And for every intentionally false response to a question, the fine is $500. Therefore, if a person representing a two-person household refused to fill out any questions or simply answered nonsensically, the total fines could range from upwards of $10,000 and $50,000 for noncompliance.

At 28 pages (with an additional 16-page instruction packet), the ACS contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire. These concern matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including questions relating to respondents’ bathing habits, home utility costs, fertility, marital history, work commute, mortgage, and health insurance, among others. For instance, the ACS asks how many persons live in your home, along with their names and detailed information about them such as their relationship to you, marital status, race and their physical, mental and emotional problems, etc. The survey also asks how many bedrooms and bathrooms you have in your house, along with the fuel used to heat your home, the cost of electricity, what type of mortgage you have and monthly mortgage payments, property taxes and so on.

However, that’s not all. The survey also demands to know how many days you were sick last year, how many automobiles you own and the number of miles driven, whether you have trouble getting up the stairs, and what time you leave for work every morning, along with highly detailed inquiries about your financial affairs. And the survey demands that you violate the privacy of others by supplying the names and addresses of your friends, relatives and employer. The questionnaire also demands that you give other information on the people in your home, such as their educational levels, how many years of school were completed, what languages they speak and when they last worked at a job, among other things. While some of the ACS’ questions may seem fairly routine, the real danger is in not knowing why the information is needed, how it will be used by the government or with whom it will be shared.

Finally, you have the right to say “no.” Whether police are knocking on your door at 2 am or 2:30 pm, as long as you’re being “asked” to talk to a police officer who is armed to the teeth and inclined to kill at the least provocation, you don’t really have much room to resist, not if you value your life. Mind you, these knock-and-talk searches are little more than police fishing expeditions carried out without a warrant. The goal is intimidation and coercion.

Unfortunately, with police departments increasingly shifting towards pre-crime policing and relying on dubious threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state, we’re going to see more of these warrantless knock-and-talk police tactics by which police attempt to circumvent the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement and prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Here’s the bottom line. These agents are coming to your home with one purpose in mind: to collect information on you. It’s a form of intimidation, of course. You shouldn’t answer any questions you’re uncomfortable answering about your vaccine history or anything else. The more information you give them, the more it can be used against you. Just ask them politely but firmly to leave.

In this case, as in so many interactions with government agents, the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments (and your cell phone recording the encounter) are your best protection. Under the First Amendment, you don’t have to speak (to government officials or anyone else). The Fourth Amendment protects you against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. And under the Fifth Amendment, you have a right to remain silent and not say anything which might be used against you.

You can also post a “No Trespassing” sign on your property to firmly announce that you are exercising your right to be left alone. If you see government officials wandering around your property and peering through windows, in my opinion, you have a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Government officials can ring the doorbell, but once you put them on notice that it’s time for them to leave, they can’t stay on your property.

It’s important to be as clear as possible and inform them that you will call the police if they don’t leave. You may also wish to record your encounter with the government agent. If they still don’t leave, immediately call the local police and report a trespasser on your property.

Remember, you have rights. The government didn’t want us to know about - let alone assert -those rights during this whole COVID-19 business. After all, for years now, the powers-that-be - those politicians and bureaucrats who think like tyrants and act like petty dictators regardless of what party they belong to - have attempted to brainwash us into believing that we have no right to think for ourselves, make decisions about our health, protect our homes and families and businesses, act in our best interests, demand accountability and transparency from government, or generally operate as if we are in control of our own lives.

But we have every right, and you know why? Because as the Declaration of Independence states, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights - to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness - that no government can take away from us.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped the government from constantly trying to usurp our freedoms at every turn. Indeed, the nature of government is such that it invariably oversteps its limits, abuses its authority, and flexes its totalitarian muscles. Take this COVID-19 crisis, for example.

What started out as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) has become yet another means by which world governments (including our own) can expand their powers, abuse their authority, and further oppress their constituents. The government has made no secret of its plans. Just follow the money trail, and you’ll get a sense of what’s in store: more militarized police, more SWAT team raids, more surveillance, more lockdowns, more strong-armed tactics aimed at suppressing dissent and forcing us to comply with the government’s dictates. It’s chilling to think about, but it’s not surprising.

In many ways, this COVID-19 state of emergency has invested government officials (and those who view their lives as more valuable than ours) with a sanctimonious, self-righteous, arrogant, Big Brother Knows Best approach to top-down governing, and the fall-out can be seen far and wide.

It’s an ugly, self-serving mindset that views the needs, lives and rights of “we the people” as insignificant when compared to those in power. That’s how someone who should know better such as Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard law professor, can suggest that a free people - born in freedom, endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, and living in a country birthed out of a revolutionary struggle for individual liberty - have no rights to economic freedom, to bodily integrity, or to refuse to comply with a government order with which they disagree.

According to Dershowitz, who has become little more than a legal apologist for the power elite, “You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask, you have no right to open up your business… And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”

Dershowitz is wrong: as I make clear in my book "Battlefield America: The War on the American People," while the courts may increasingly defer to the government’s brand of Nanny State authoritarianism, we still have rights. The government may try to abridge those rights, it may refuse to recognize them, it may even attempt to declare martial law and nullify them, but it cannot litigate, legislate or forcefully eradicate them out of existence."

Musical Interlude: Il Divo, "Wicked Game" (Melanconia)

Full screen recommended.
Il Divo, "Wicked Game" (Melanconia) 
(Live In London 2011)

"How It Really Is, And Oh Boy, It Will Be..."


Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/14/21: "Hyper-Alert! FED Admits Any Taper Is 'Way Off' And Inflation Will Persist"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/14/21:
"Hyper-Alert! FED Admits Any Taper Is 
'Way Off' And Inflation Will Persist"

"Dare..."

"Relax..."

"Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to
TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing."
 - Steve Voake, "The Dreamwalker's Child"

"Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat. We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth. Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods."
 - J.K. Franko, "Life for Life"

"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself."
-  Louis-Ferdinand Celineo

MUST WATCH! Greg Hunter, "Hyperinflation Will Collapse Biden Administration"

"Hyperinflation Will Collapse Biden Administration"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Clif High is an Internet data mining expert who uses something he calls “Predictive Linguistics,” which sorts through billions of bits of information on the Internet to predict future trends and events. He has many well-documented correct predictions. High predicted a month ago, “The Biden Administration would be in full collapse by this fall.” The CV19 Vax door knocking campaign from the Biden camp, to harass people into getting the jab, is simply a prelude to the coming collapse. High explains, “It’s a sign of desperation, and it’s a sign of weakness. What they do not realize is the people doing this work are going to be assaulted by the people they are going to be talking to verbally and sometimes physically. It won’t go well for the workers. It’s going to cause lots and lots and lots of videos and audio recordings to come into existence that the Biden Administration will desperately not want to have happened. At some point, I think it will be the PR aspect that will get them to cancel it. People will take the opportunity to ‘red pill’ these workers and record it. It will be like my enemy is sending his troops to me. Let me see if I can convert them to my purpose.”

How will the collapse of the Biden Administration take place? High says, “This is an economic issue.  We exist on the petro-dollar empire, and that empire is dying very rapidly. We are in the very final phases of that death. In that final phase, we reach hyperinflation. We are at the point that hyperinflation has broken loose. It’s reported at 5.4%, but it’s really hyper. It really is three times that or four times that. Energy, since Biden took over, is up 40%. We are now reaching a point of the inflation to run parallel with the debt that is going to reach an extreme. This extreme, by my calculations, should impact the Biden Administration in some form of a catastrophic crisis around the last half of September. Fundamentally, it will be the inability to pay for things. It will be a situation where the hyperinflation has so outpaced normal expectation that all of the government contracts in the computers, which have limits and constraints, will have blown beyond those limits and constraints. The government will not be able to write checks because the computers will refuse to print them. This is a crude way of explaining it.  There are thousands of constraints built into software configured at a time when there was a more rational view of inflation.”

High goes on to say, “We are at that point where empire is collapsing. The empire is collapsing because the money is no good.”

High also talks about the breakdown of society because so many high-skilled people will die from the jabs. High says the “lockdown plan that would have killed many has failed,” because of President Trump. High also contends, “The power elite are committed. They can’t back down now, and they must continue with the idea of trying to kill as many of us as possible, especially now that we have had this great awakening and they have broken the veil of secrecy so to speak. This is why the door to door thing. Inoculation is not a good thing, and the elite are trying to inoculate 95% of humanity out of existence. 

Going back to my data to 2003 and onward, there has always been this area of data that said 1.24 billion people would be dying prematurely. We are at the point right now that a little more than 2 billion people have been inoculated, injected with these mixtures, and if we take the numbers out of various institutes out of London they estimate between 60% and 70% this coming winter will fall ill, and the vast majority of those people will die. This is very close to what my data has predicted since 2003 – 1.24 billion people dying. So, imagine what that is going to do to our social order. At that level, our society will be hovering around breakdown. We won’t have truck drivers, doctors, dentists, and a lot of the healthcare workers inoculated themselves. We won’t have airline pilots, and we may not have pilots for large ships to get them in and out of port. That’s a highly skilled job, and it takes years to train someone.”

High also has data on the massive amounts of bodies that will need to be buried or cremated because of the deaths from the CV19 jabs. It is gruesome.

High also talks about bitcoin, gold, silver, the stock market and how a new financial system will emerge. Spoiler alert: gold, silver and Bitcoin are not going lower in price, according to Clif High - just the opposite. High also talks about data on election fraud, the CCP attack on Nov 3, 2020, and how it will all be coming out into the open. Will Donald Trump get back into office? High has data on that too and will explain it. High says the elite will become prisoners of “We the People.” The great awakening of “We the People” will leave the elite no place to hide and no place to run."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes 
One-on-One with Internet data mining expert Clif High:

(Program Note: What is written here is a fraction of what is in this 70 min. interview. I will not be doing a Weekly News Wrap-Up on Friday 7/16/21. I did this a month ago when Clif High was on, and this interview is better than that one. Please take time to carefully listen as High lays out what to expect from August to the end of the year.)
Related, an absolute Must Read:

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

"The Everything Crisis Has Begun; Inflation Nightmare; Wealth Transfer Tsunami; Pension Crisis"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/13/21:
"The Everything Crisis Has Begun; Inflation Nightmare; 
Wealth Transfer Tsunami; Pension Crisis"

"Inflation is Surging as Wages are Falling - People are Unprepared"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, IAllegedly, PM 7/13/21:
"Inflation is Surging as Wages are Falling - People are Unprepared"
"We go from one Extreme to Another. We started the homeless encampment in Austin, Texas. Then we go to the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines. Inflation is surging higher than it has in the last 30 years and wages are dropping before our eyes. People need to get ready."

"Harry Dent: Get Prepared For The Biggest Stock Market Crash In Our Lifetime"

Full screen recommended.
"Harry Dent: Get Prepared For 
The Biggest Stock Market Crash In Our Lifetime"
by Epic Economist

"Once again, market veterans, financial analysts, and economists are sending a warning message for investors: Brace for the biggest stock market crash of all times - a major pullback has already started! One of the most recent alerts comes from Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who expects a market correction of up to 20% as the Federal Reserve is left with no other choice rather than hiking interest rates amid soaring inflation. This time around, unlike other sharp drops witnessed in the past, Zandi argues that a rapid recovery won't be in the cards particularly because the market is extremely overvalued. It would take over a year to return to break even, he said. In an interview with CNBC, Zandi said "the headwinds are building for the equity market," and "the Federal Reserve has got to switch gears here” because the economy is at risk of overheating.

He suggested that a significant market crash may already be underway because investors are starting to get spooked. Sell-off concerns are also making Morgan Stanley analysts warn that major US stock indexes are in a "rolling correction" despite recording a series of new highs. "As investors rotate away from higher-risk names and as market breadth declines, major indexes will remain vulnerable," analysts led by equity strategist Michael Wilson said in the note. "Under the surface, financial markets have taken on a much more defensive posture," the note said. This means that they are observing the initial stages of the stock market crash as investors have started to abandon risky assets. Up until this point, Morgan Stanley has shared a less rosy and more realistic view of the markets compared to other banks. The analysts said they fully expect a market transition to happen, and in the process, several overvalued stocks will face a crash until the end of this year.

It takes just “one extra snowflake to start an avalanche - and boom!,” said the veteran investor, economist, and financial analyst Harry Dent in a recent interview with ThinkAdvisor. Dent said that the epic market bubble is likely to “blow at the end of this month, if not September”. He argued that stocks have no more place in investors’ portfolios, and predicted that most equities will tumble 80% by autumn. “It will be the biggest crash of our lifetime,” he stressed.

In March, he affirmed that “the biggest crash ever” would likely occur by the end of this June and many analysts started disregarding his opinion because that didn't happen. However, Dent has a good point to explain why the crash hasn't occurred just yet: "It’s the same old story," he said. "We’ve been rebounding since [the health crisis] crashed us in March of last year. The stimulus was off the reservation! The central banks said, “We’ll triple down.” But I don’t think the rebound going to last, and the markets don’t think it’s going to last. So the question is: When does it blow?"

And to that question, he presented the forecast that "the end of this month is one of the most likely times, if not September". Dent is amongst the experts who can see that what we are facing is an "everything bubble" that includes stocks, housing, and bonds. One single failure can lead to the simultaneous burst of the three markets, and the analyst is ringing the alarm on the housing market bubble. “Real estate is still bubbling up, but U.S. home sales have gone down 22% or 23% in just a matter of the last five or six months. That’s a sign there’s a limit to the bubble. So that’s the beginning.”

Similarly, the economist who accurately predicted the 2008 financial meltdown is now waving a red flag about another looming disaster. However, this time, things are much worse than they seem. Nouriel Roubini, an economist at NYU Stern School of Business, argues that the next stock market crash will be the catalyst for a crisis of extraordinary proportions that could lead us to a devastating societal collapse.

Roubini added that due to an impending debt crisis, the government will be insolvent, and thus unable to bail out banks, corporations, and households. In other words, no one will come to our rescue. We will be left will a collapsing economy, crashed markets, bankrupt businesses, and feeling the catastrophic impacts of a decaying purchasing power. This means that the coming everything bubble burst might be the beginning of the end. This slow-motion train wreck looks unavoidable. We will soon see the stagflation of the 1970s meet the debt crisis of the post-2008 period and merge into the most devastating economic and financial disaster in history. The question is not if but when."

Musical Interlude: Medwyn Goodall, “Eyes of Heaven”

Full screen recommended.
Medwyn Goodall, “Eyes of Heaven”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Separated by about 14 degrees (28 Full Moons) in planet Earth's sky, spiral galaxies M31 at left, and M33 are both large members of the Local Group, along with our own Milky Way galaxy. This narrow- and wide-angle, multi-camera composite finds details of spiral structure in both, while the massive neighboring galaxies seem to be balanced in starry fields either side of bright Mirach, beta star in the constellation Andromeda. Mirach is just 200 light-years from the Sun. But M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is really 2.5 million light-years distant and M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is also about 3 million light years away.
Although they look far apart, M31 and M33 are engaged in a gravitational struggle. In fact, radio astronomers have found indications of a bridge of neutral hydrogen gas that could connect the two, evidence of a closer encounter in the past. Based on measurements, gravitational simulations currently predict that the Milky Way, M31, and M33 will all undergo mutual close encounters and potentially mergers, billions of years in the future.”
"Everything passes away- suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?"
- Mikhail Bulgakov, "The White Guard"

"The Great Thing About The Internet..."

"The great thing about the internet is that you get to meet people you
would otherwise only meet if you were committed to the same asylum."
- Robert Brault

Gerald Celente, "The Trends Journal": "Give Up Your Freedumb to be Free"

Gerald Celente, "The Trends Journal":
"Give Up Your Freedumb to be Free"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over hype and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in the increasingly turbulent times ahead."

"A Power Grab"

"A Power Grab"
By Bill Bonner

DUBLIN, IRELAND – "Oh my… oh my… England is courting disaster. From last weekend’s Financial Times: "The country is set to become the first to lift all COVID-19 restrictions, even as cases are rising. Critics have condemned the plan as “dangerous and premature.” How big a gamble is [Prime Minister] Boris Johnson taking? The decision “defies logic and it’s criminal frankly,” says Ravi Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at Cambridge University. The dreaded Delta variant is on the march. New cases are reportedly running 15 times higher than they did at the beginning of May."

Have the English gone mad? Or suddenly gone sane?

Irresistible Temptation: We have been exploring the role of the elite in a society. It is the elite who decide its pandemic policies, for example. And what to do about its government budget deficits. And how much money to print. And when it makes sense to subsidize industries or give out money to households. Ordinary people – often wearing jeans and flannel shirts – fix the plumbing, build the cars, and flip the burgers. But it is the men in suits… and the women in their smart business attire… who really make a mess of things.

The “little people” suffer their own little disasters. The “big heads” cause the big ones. For better or for worse, the private person gets – generally – what he has coming. If he fails to fill the tank or fix the roof, he pays the price. But the public person – with his wars and fantasies – puts the cost on others. As we’ve seen, like other groups, the elite always wants more money and more power. But the elite control the government, and the temptation to use it to get both is almost irresistible. Then, the interests of the elite no longer align with those of the rest of the population.

Overreach: We’ve spent a lot of time connecting the dots, showing how the elite use the fake-money system to transfer trillions of dollars to themselves. Even more galling, to many people, is the way the elite flexes its muscles in other ways. “We have been informed,” said our minister on Sunday, “that we will no longer be permitted to do baptisms.” That is, we presume, meant to protect us from the COVID-19 virus. But to me, it seems like overreaching by the government.

Health is usually a private matter. Whether a woman flosses her teeth or eats enough green vegetables is typically not for the public-minded elite to decide. It’s nobody’s business but her own, she may think. But over the last 15 months, her health has been a matter of government concern. She was no longer allowed to make her own choices and take what came her way; she was expected to obey. She may have been forced to close her business (if the authorities considered it “non-essential”). She may have been forced to “shelter in place,” or even to wear a face mask outside.

Futile Resistance: Looking at the statistics, state by state, country by country, there is no obvious connection between the policies decreed by the medical elite and the consequent COVID-19-related death rates. And whether they implemented the lockdowns or not… they got about the same results.

France, for example, with a very competent public health service, which was determined to stop the virus from spreading, suffered 166 deaths per 100,000 people. Nicaragua, very unlike France in every way, suffered only 3. Most likely, the difference comes from the way people live. In Nicaragua, houses are open to the outside air… and people spend much of their time outside. Studies show that almost all viral infections happen indoors. Whatever the explanation, the elite’s war against the COVID-19 virus looks like another failure. Sweden, initially a conscientious objector, had fewer deaths than France.

Policy Failure: But now, it appears that the battle was not only futile… but counterproductive. Here’s The George Gilder Report: "A new study (one of as many as 50 or so that I’ve seen) from the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Rand Corp. took a close look at all US states and 43 countries. The authors were seeking a correlation of some sort between shelter-in-place (SIP) orders and lives saved. Incredibly, they found the opposite:

We find that following the implementation of SIP policies, excess mortality increases. The increase in excess mortality is statistically significant in the immediate weeks following SIP implementation for the international comparison only and occurs despite the fact that there was a decline in the number of excess deaths prior to the implementation of the policy. At the U.S. state-level, excess mortality increases in the immediate weeks following SIP introduction and then trends below zero following 20 weeks of SIP implementation. We failed to find that countries or U.S. states that implemented SIP policies earlier, and in which SIP policies had longer to operate, had lower excess deaths than countries/U.S. states that were slower to implement SIP policies. We also failed to observe differences in excess death trends before and after the implementation of SIP policies based on pre-SIP COVID-19 death rates."

Two Misunderstandings: What transformed a private health matter into a Great Public Crusade (and another public policy failure) were essentially two misunderstandings…

• First, that “nobody’s safe until everybody’s safe."
• And second, that the elite knows how to make us all safe.

As to the first, it was never true. Fat, diabetic, old, and frail people – especially those in nursing homes – were much more at risk of dying from the coronavirus than young, healthy cowboys out on the Great Plains. The differences were personal and individual, not public. And it never made sense to treat each individual as though he had the same risk of dying as everyone else. In that sense, maybe it was never really a “pandemic” at all. A pandemic is “incident to a whole people,” in which everyone is at risk. Most people were never really at risk of dying from COVID-19.

Instead, the way the disease chose its victims was little different from the basic pattern of life itself. People are enfeebled by age and ailments. Then, they die. The coronavirus merely helps them complete the final stages of their lives.

As to the second – that the elite could protect us from the virus – at least you could make a plausible case for it. On islands, especially, where the feds could control the comings and goings of the population, a lockdown might be effective. New Zealand, for example, which has restricted access, has had just 26 COVID-19-related deaths. But in most places, including the U.S., as time goes on, the lockdowns look more and more like more overreaching."

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/13/21: "Must Watch! BIS Admits 'We Are Planning For Absolute Control'"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/13/21:
"Must Watch! BIS Admits 'We Are Planning For Absolute Control'"

The Daily "Near You?"

San Antonio, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Cutting Through the Matrix of Lies and Deceptions about Covid"

"Cutting Through the Matrix of Lies 
and Deceptions about Covid"
by Chris Black

"Motto: I want to remind you that the coronavirus is a hoax, and there is no new virus. It is just a rebranding of the flu.

We’re over one year into “two weeks to slow the spread”, and the majority of people still believe the Big Pharma owned legacy media’s lies and deceptions about the “covid pandemic” and “safe mRNA vaccines”. Proven liars like Fauci are still invited on TV shows to push fear porn propaganda to Americans. Fauci said recently that he wants more “vaccine mandates” at the local level, basically calling for forced inoculations.

So what if that’s against the law? It’s the Virus Regime and you have no rights. In France, that gerontophile manlet of a president of theirs is implementing digital covid passports. As in, if you’re not fully vaccinated, you cannot function in society, as you’re denied access to shopping malls, public transportation etc. “The unvaccinated will bear the brunt of the restrictions rather than everyone…from the beginning of august, the vax pass will be needed for coffee shops, restaurants, supermarkets, hospitals, trains, buses etc…”

- Nat (@Arwenstar) July 13, 2021

Welcome to the gulag!

Australia is still under lockdown, as well as Canada and other places in the Western world. According to a recent poll (I take that with a grain of salt though, because I don’t trust The Economist to tell me the time of day), 40 percent of UK’s population want mask mandates to remain in place forever, while almost half think unvaccinated people should be permanently banned from foreign travel.

In the US, the government is threatening to send the Vaxx Police to people’s homes, in order to push them into getting vaccinated with experimental and unauthorized DNA altering substances.

And speaking of mRNA vaccines, I strongly advise you to watch this medic explaining how the spike proteins in mRNA so-called vaccines destroy your body irreversibly.

And all this hysteria and fear porn is about a disease with a 99,98 percent survivability rate in people under 50.

Meanwhile, the Vaers report continues to monitor deaths from side effects of the vaccine, which are at time of writing approaching 10,000 in the U.S. alone, with in excess of 438,000 adverse reactions also reported. It must be noted that as per a 2011 report by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc. for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), less than one percent of all vaccine adverse events are reported to the government. If every vaccine death was reported like a covid death, people would hang the likes of Fauci to lamp posts.

Here’s the deal: There have been a lot of hoaxes that people still believe. You don’t need everyone involved to know it is a hoax. The supposed sequenced genome of SARS-CoV-2 is a hoax. However, PCR tests were made to match a genetic primer that occurs in over 2000 other proteins and cells in the human body. If you run a PCR test higher than 25 cycles, the chances that background DNA from any of those other sources matches that primer is nearly 100%. A person is said to be Covid positive when they are not. The technician is just following protocol (from WHO) and the doctor is just repeating results. Unless they actually know the test is faulty, they are in on the scam without knowing they are.

Now, when something has less than a .02% chance of killing you, it isn’t a life or death situation. The “vaccine” has a known death and disability rate far higher than the supposed virus. Plus the chances of coming into contact with someone who has an “active” case of the virus is less than one half of one percent. Meaning most people will go through their day without ever being exposed. The chances of exposure to the supposed sickness have been vastly overblown.

Wearing a mask exposes you to a far greater percentage of contracting a serious respiratory disease other than Covid from the fungus and bacteria that exponentially multiply in the death muzzle.

Taking the jab has a 100% chance of exposing you to side effects; so, with a 99.98% chance of survival unless you have serious co-morbidities that would also kill you within weeks, and a greater than 99% chance of not being exposed each day: WHY WOULD YOU EVER TAKE AN EXPERIMENTAL GENE ALTERING VIAL OF DEATH?

If there ever was a virus, it ran its course and was done by the beginning of April 2020. Trump wanted the entire country opened up with all restrictions lifted by Easter. Remember that?Instead April brought harsher lockdowns and mandates. Then in May the mask mandates began and started sweeping across the country.

What made it all possible? A change in the CDC guidance for determining a case of Covid and what could be counted as a Covid death. From the beginning of February through the end of March, Ohio had less than 5000 cases and under 20 deaths. The week prior to the updated guidance, cases in Ohio fell 85% and there was only one death. Within one week of the updated “guidance”, Ohio added 10k cases and almost 500 deaths. None of them were real, but the hospitals were given $18k for every person they labelled with Covid and $45k if they put the person on a ventilator. The Covid scam was born and it still goes on today.

"The $50 Trillion Plundered from Workers by America’s Aristocracy Is Trickling Back"

"The $50 Trillion Plundered from Workers by 
America’s Aristocracy Is Trickling Back"
by Charles Hugh-Smith

"The depth of America’s indoctrination can be measured by the unquestioned assumption that Capital should earn 15% every year, rain or shine, while workers are fated to lose ground every year, rain or shine. And if wages should ever start ticking upward even slightly, then the Billionaires’ Apologists are unleashed to shout that higher wages means higher inflation, which will kill the economic “recovery.” Said another way: if wages stagnate so workers lose ground every year as inflation in essentials rises, that’s the way it should be. If wages rise so workers can keep up with inflation, then that will trigger an inflationary death spiral.

That this indoctrination is so widely accepted reveals the success of America’s Aristocracy in reshaping the narrative to make their plundering appear to be “inevitable.” But the siphoning of $50 trillion from workers to the Aristocracy, and the Nobility’s control of political power was anything but inevitable: it was engineered by policies that enriched billionaires, the top 0.01% Aristocracy, and the top 10% who own 90% of America’s productive capital.

This wholesale transfer of wealth and income from workers to Capital was documented by a RAND Corporation report, "Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018." Time magazine summarized the findings: "The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% - And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure."
There are some who blame the current plight of working Americans on structural changes in the underlying economy – on automation, and especially on globalization. According to this popular narrative, the lower wages of the past 40 years were the unfortunate but necessary price of keeping American businesses competitive in an increasingly cutthroat global market. But in fact, the $50 trillion transfer of wealth the RAND report documents has occurred entirely within the American economy, not between it and its trading partners. No, this upward redistribution of income, wealth, and power wasn’t inevitable; it was a choice – a direct result of the trickle-down policies we chose to implement since 1975.

The net result of this four-decade siphoning of wealth/income from workers was recently documented by a Foreign Affairs article: "Monopoly Versus Democracy:" "Ten percent of Americans now control 97 percent of all capital income in the country. Nearly half of the new income generated since the global financial crisis of 2008 has gone to the wealthiest one percent of U.S. citizens. The richest three Americans collectively have more wealth than the poorest 160 million Americans.

In other words, the bottom 90% have very little stake in the status quo: they receive essentially zero income from America’s stupendous $121 trillion hoard of private wealth and have essentially zero political influence, as documented in "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens."

Now the worm has finally turned, and workers are refusing to accept the Neofeudal dominance of the Aristocracy, not by open revolts that the State can violently crush but by indirect means. Fed-up Boomers are retiring, fed-up Gen-Xers are cutting their hours, refusing to go back to the office, starting their own enterprises and Millennials are assembling multiple income streams, building micro-houses, and leveraging shortages of workers for higher wages.

The techno-fantasy that’s Corporate America’s fondest dream is automation of all labor: get rid of all human workers and just manage the robots with loving care. But the reality is robots have limits, as I explain in my book "Will You Be Richer or Poorer?" – limits imposed by physics and finance.

And so, weeping inconsolably, Corporate America continues exploiting its workforce with the usual threats: you’re powerless because we can automate your job or offshore it to Lower Slobovia. Contrast this with the real world: a young man of my acquaintance recently took a job at a Corporate America Big Box outlet. His wage was $12/hour, and all the power was of course in the hands of Corporate America: he had no power over his schedule, or anything else.

In the script of the past four decades, Corporate America (while crushing small business and buying the best government money can buy) could keep the serfs slaving away for stagnating wages, all in service of maximizing corporate insiders’ stock options, buybacks and soaring profits. This individual was tipped off to a much better opportunity, and when he gave notice to the Big Box manager, the manager corralled him for two hours, first offering a $3/hour raise (25%) and then badgering him to stay on as a serf on the Big Box plantation. He refused.

This is the pure distillation of Corporate America and the Aristocracy: if they’d offered this hard-working individual the 25% raise after he proved his worth, then maybe he wouldn’t have been so motivated to seek better opportunities elsewhere.

At long last, some the $50 trillion plundered from workers is trickling back to the people who actually create the income and wealth. As a thought experiment, consider an economy in which farmers and workers reaped 15% gains annually like clockwork, and Corporate America’s insiders, financiers and speculators, and Wall Street’s parasites all lost 15% of their wealth and income every year like clockwork.

In other words, imagine the $50 trillion flowing back to those who generated it from those who looted it. As I often note here, when you push the pendulum to an extreme of wealth and income inequality, it will swing to the opposite extreme minus a tiny bit of friction. The serfs are quietly slipping away, and the Aristocracy, blinded by hubris and greed, believes nothing will ever change because, well, their wealth and power is deserved. What they really deserve will manifest in the next four years as the chairs at the banquet of consequences are shuffled."

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/13/21: "Meltdown: Inflation Is Surging, Hourly Wages Fall! The Entire System Is Fraudulent"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/13/21:
"Meltdown: Inflation Is Surging, Hourly Wages Fall! 
The Entire System Is Fraudulent"

Monday, July 12, 2021

"Economic Armageddon; Prepare for Impact; Millions to Be Evicted"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/12/21:
"Economic Armageddon; Prepare for Impact; 
Millions to Be Evicted"

"Even the Rich are Getting Affected by the Everything Bubble"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, IAllegedly, PM 7/12/21:
"Even the Rich are Getting Affected
 by the Everything Bubble"

Musical Interlude: Yanni & Samvel Yervinyan, "Until The Last Moment"

Full screen recommended.
Yanni & Samvel Yervinyan, "Until The Last Moment"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the above gorgeously detailed image was recently taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in honor of the 23rd anniversary of Hubble's launch. 
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”

"A World in Confusion: Cultivating Inner Clarity"

"A World in Confusion: Cultivating Inner Clarity"
by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"When the world is in chaos, we can still have our own inner peace and maintain a sense of calm in a sea of unrest. People who maintain their sense of calm when things around them are in a state of flux and confusion are always wonderful to be around. We feel calmer just being near them, as if they have activated our own sense of inner peace. From them we learn that we can be calm, even when everything around us is in turmoil, because we know that no matter what happens, this inner sense of calm will help us to function well. Often, times of confusion are the times that enable us to find that part of ourselves that knows how to cope, and how to be a light to others in the storm.

If we allow ourselves to be thrown off balance by every piece of disturbing news that comes our way, we may be relying too much on our emotions. On the other hand, our thoughts may also be unreliable at times like these, as they chatter on endlessly about what might happen next. If our feelings and thoughts activate one another in a hectic way, then we become caught up in the confusion that surrounds us. However, if we can locate the stillness at the center of our hearts, we can find composure in almost any situation. In addition, we provide a safe place for our friends and family, who are also prone to taking on the confusion of a world in flux.

It helps to remember that we don't need to completely understand what's happening right now, nor do we need to be able to predict the future. Most of us just want to find our way to being at peace with whatever happens, and we can find this peace inside. Cultivating our inner clarity with meditation, journaling, and reading words that inspire us, will lead us to that place inside us that's already there, just waiting."

"A Wise Man Once Said..."

“A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming, when we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.”
- “Dr. Meredith Grey”, “Grey’s Anatomy"

"It’s NOT a Conspiracy"

"It’s NOT a Conspiracy"
by Jim Rickards

"Philosophers and analysts use a principle called Occam’s Razor (sometimes Ockham’s Razor) to solve difficult problems. It says that when you are confronted with two possible solutions to a problem, one complicated and one simple, it’s usually better to select the simple solution. There’s always some attraction to the complicated solution because humans like intrigue and plot twists. But statistically, the simple solution is more likely to be correct and therefore the one that analysts should prefer unless contrary evidence presents. This approach is useful in dealing with conspiracy theories.

Yes, real conspiracies exist (such as the plot to assassinate JFK), and analysts must be alert to the possibility. But most so-called conspiracies have much simpler explanations that are more likely to be correct. One of the most potent drivers of coordinated political action is not a deep, dark conspiracy. It’s usually just the result of like-minded individuals cooperating to achieve the same goal.

It’s Groupthink, Not Conspiracy: If the political players all think alike and agree on goals, you don’t need a conspiracy. Just let them go to work every day and communicate with each other, and you’ll get the coordinated result without the inevitable twists and turns of a conspiracy.

That’s a good thing to bear in mind when considering the current administration. 23 top Biden administration officials all worked at the same consulting firm called WestExec Advisors. These officials include Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. For those who may be unfamiliar, “WestExec” is a reference to West Executive Avenue, a non-public road that runs between the West Wing of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

The West Wing is not that large and only has a few choice offices plus the Situation Room, the Roosevelt Room (for larger meetings) and the Cabinet Room, which is smaller. Most officials who say they “work in the White House” actually work in the Eisenhower Building, which means they walk across West Executive Avenue when they have meetings with top Biden officials.

The WestExec Advisors name is a play on that kind of insider status of the long list of former WestExec principals who are now running the country. (Don’t look to Biden as the source of power; he’s not mentally competent and does what the WestExec crowd or the rest of the Biden family tell him to do).

A Threat to National Security: So, with all of this power emerging from one firm, does that mean there’s a conspiracy among the alums to control the world? Not really. But, it points to a bigger problem, which is the lack of cognitive diversity. The WestExec crowd all went to top schools, had top jobs in previous administrations, exhibit high IQs, and boast lots of credentials.

If you look at their resumes, you’ll see they all went to the same schools, had the same professors and pursued the same career paths. With few exceptions, it’s all Harvard, Yale and Columbia with a small dose of Stanford or Chicago for good measure.

They all went to law school or got PhDs and worked for the same small set of law firms or consulting firms. Then they all worked in a small set of government agencies, including the State Department, National Security Council or the Intelligence Community.

They all think alike. That’s an acute weakness because if they all look at things the same way, they will all miss the real dangers coming that don’t fit into their mental molds. Lack of cognitive diversity is a fatal weakness.

As a leader, you should always be willing to lower the average IQ if it means you can increase the range of viewpoints. At least someone might point out it’s raining to a group that’s too buried in briefing books to look out the window. This uniform mindset is itself a danger to national security. Sooner than later, a threat will arise that none of them will see coming.

On the Verge of the Most Destructive War Since WWII? And there’s no shortage of threats in the world. Perhaps the most pressing right now is China’s aggressive posturing in East Asia. It’s not just China and the U.S. The world’s three largest economies - the U.S., China and Japan - may be squaring off for the most destructive and costly war since the end of World War II.

The main protagonists will be China and the U.S. The cause of war will be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which may be coming much sooner than the world expects. China would start the war with an invasion across the Taiwan Strait. The U.S. would be obliged to come to the defense of Taiwan and take measures to disable the Chinese fleet and its air support. But, Japan is no bystander.

A glimpse at a map shows that if Taiwan were in Communist China’s hands, Japan’s own sea lanes would be threatened, including its access to imported oil. Japan has its own island disputes with China. If China were to capture Taiwan, Japan’s islands in the East China Sea would likely be the next to fall.

The U.S. could fall back to a line of islands, including Guam, Hawaii and the Aleutians, but no fallback is possible for Japan. If China seizes Taiwan and the U.S. falls back, Japan would be under the thumb of China, and they know it. Of course, a fallback by the U.S. would be an enormous blow to U.S. credibility, as well as its economic power. That’s why an alliance of the U.S. and Japan against China to defend Taiwan (along with Taiwan’s own formidable defense capability) is the most likely response to a Chinese amphibious assault.

“Wolf Warrior” Diplomacy: The question for the world is whether China will get the message and refrain from attacking Taiwan. Unfortunately, signs point in the opposite direction. China has left its non-threatening style of diplomacy in the past. Today, China pursues “Wolf Warrior diplomacy,” named after a popular Chinese movie that features aggressive Navy SEAL-style tactics as practiced by Peoples’ Liberation Army commandos.

China has come out of its shell and seeks regional hegemony to be followed by global hegemony. It is aggressively pushing on its neighbors in India, Myanmar, and the six nations that surround the South China Sea. Taiwan is the prize, and China is preparing to seize it. This attack will be Xi Jinping’s legacy and his attempt to rival the reputation of Mao Zedong. Will Team Biden be able to see it coming? U.S. investors should not take Chinese restraint for granted. Allocations to cash, gold and U.S. Treasury notes will preserve wealth when the worst happens."
Related:

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/12/21: "FED Admits They Are Propping Up The Market! ECB To Maintain 'Emergency' Bond Buying"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/12/21:
"FED Admits They Are Propping Up The Market! 
ECB To Maintain 'Emergency' Bond Buying"