Category: Goobermint

Apparently to DHS, speech (Other Than Authorized Government Speech) constitutes  a “Terrorism Threat”

When do you think they’ll arrest fauci?

The Department of Homeland Security Just Smeared Americans Who Question Government on COVID, Elections as a ‘Terrorism Threat’

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DHS

If you question the government, you might be a terrorist threat. At least, that’s what the US Department of Homeland Security just suggested in a new National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin.

The DHS statement warned against a heightened terrorist threat environment they blame on several factors, including “the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.” For examples of such terrorism-fueling, dangerous speech the DHS cited “widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19.”

Also among the supposed causes of terrorism? An “online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors.”

It gets worse.

The advisory warned that “These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence. Mass casualty attacks and other acts of targeted violence conducted by lone offenders and small groups acting in furtherance of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances pose an ongoing threat to the nation.”

Sounds pretty scary. So who are these actors we should be on guard against? Um, literally you. Anyone who “sow(s) discord or undermine(s) public trust in U.S. government institutions” is officially considered a threat to the nation, according to this statement.

Frankly, this DHS statement is a more real and pressing threat to most Americans than terrible but extremely, extremely rare terrorist attacks.

Throughout our history, the US government has used its agencies to label individuals as terrorists and a threat. This label is often a pretext used to then undermine their work, stalk them, threaten them, and many believe, even kill them. One need look no further back in history than how the federal government grossly mistreated Martin Luther King, Jr. to find evidence of that.

For the record, anyone in their right mind is questioning US government institutions at this point.

They have unconstitutionally spied on all of us, stripped us of due process, trampled on our economic freedom, and shielded themselves from liability through qualified immunity. They’ve shut down our businesses and our schools, taken away our livelihoods, and used our taxes to further unjust wars and pad the pockets of their friends. Now, they want to label you a terrorist if you acknowledge what is being done to you.

Moreover, painting criticism, ideas, and theories as a threat to safety is always the first way oppressive governments set the stage to attack free speech.

It’s the oldest trick in the book, but it should enrage you nonetheless.

Quip O’ The Day

“Polling must be really bad for Ted Lieu, of all people, to call for the recognition of natural immunity and an end to restrictions.”–Ian Cheong

Lieu’s chart ends in October, even before Omicron hit.
He must be so desperate to end restrictions that he’ll post anything, and he’s just the moron to do it.

Again, they’re so accommodating to provide pictures for positive ID

CT gooobernor says you can’t be tough on crime “if you’re weak on guns”

Most of the time, anti-gun politicians couch their real agenda with language designed to make them appear moderate; for every Beto O’Rourke bellowing “Hell yes we’re coming for your AR-15” there are a dozen Democrats proclaiming “I support the Second Amendment, but we need a few more commonsense gun safety regulations.”

It’s not that they really are moderate on the issue, of course. They’re simply trying to package their unappetizing ideology in a way that’s palatable to more people.

Every now and then, though, you’ll run across someone who’s willing to give the public a peek at what they really think about the Second Amendment, and put their authoritarian impulses on display for all the world to see. On Monday, it was Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont who made his desire to go after legal gun owners clear.

“We have more damn guns in this state than ever before,” Lamont said with more than a dozen advocates and lawmakers in the Capitol’s historic Hall of the Flags. “We have more legal guns, we have more illegal guns. You’re not tough on crime if you’re weak on guns.”

Got that? According to Lamont, in order to get tough on crime you’ve got to crack down on guns; and he made it clear that he doesn’t really give a damn if they’re legally possessed or not.

In fact, one of Lamont’s proposals for this year is all about making it easier for police to stop and question those carrying a firearm, even if there’s no suspicion of criminal activity. For Lamont and his fellow Democrats, simply exercising your Second Amendment right to bear arms should be reason enough for law enforcement to suspect a crime.

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‘Mayoral Myth’ Exposed—Most States Have Preemption Laws

UPDATED, 2/7/22 @ 5:56 P.M. – Bruce Harrell, the recently-installed mayor of Seattle, tried to invent a myth when he told reporters—without challenge—that Washington is one of a handful of states with a firearms preemption statute, a claim that is demonstrably false.

“We have too many guns pouring into the cities, and into our country,” Harrell asserted at just over 31 minutes into a 41-minute press event last Friday. “And you will hear this year me lead efforts on trying to get relief from the exemption RCW 9.41.290. You’ll hear me talking about that. I don’t know how many lives have to be lost before we realize we’re one of the few states that has that kind of restriction allowing the state to govern the laws we need for our city of Seattle.”

Contrary to Harrell’s claim, there are at least 42 states with preemption laws, which place sole authority for regulating firearms in the hands of the state legislature.

Harrell was referring to Washington’s nearly-40-year-old preemption law, which was adopted in 1983, strengthened in 1985 and has become a model for similar laws in other states, something the Seattle Times failed to mention in its coverage.

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US Defense Database DMED Tracked Exploding Number of Vaccine-Related Injuries

When US Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) held a hearing on vaccine safety in January this year, a number of DOD whistleblowers stepped forward with alarming data. They shared data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) which tracks every illness of military members.

The purpose of gathering such data is expressly to spot adverse health trends that could affect combat readiness. It is therefore accurate, complete and designed for early detection.

Lawyer Thomas Renz reported on five years of data during the hearing which showed an alarming rise in medical problems related to Covid vaccines. The whistleblowers stepped forward because their superiors had ignored the problem. Renz plans to pursue the matter in a US federal court.

Arguably, the DMED is the best epidemiological database in the world and since neither Pfizer nor Moderna is able to provide better data, this upward trend related to vaccine injury must be cause for great concern.

In a declaration under penalty of perjury, the three military physicians Samuel Sigoloff, Peter Chambers, and Theresa Long, exposed the 300 percent increase in DMED codes registered for miscarriages in the military in 2021 over the five-year average. The five-year average has been 1499 codes for miscarriages per year, but during the first 10 months of 2021, it shot up to 4 182.

The same trend was seen in spiking cancer cases, from a five-year average of 38 700 per year to 114 645 in the first 11 months of 2021, coinciding with the vaccine. And reported neurological disorders increased by an incredible 1000 percent.

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Filed, of course, by a demoncrap representative name of Brad Witt (again nice they provide a photograph for positive ID)

 The bill text doesn’t – yet – specify the minimum value of each ‘luxury good’ to have the 3% tax applied, but I’ll wager the price of a gun will be “any price”.

 

Oregon bill increases tax on luxury items to help those in need

A new House Bill aimed at helping some of the state’s most vulnerable will receive a public hearing next week.

HB 4079, known as the Oregon Freedom Pilot Program, would increase taxes on luxury items. The money collected would be given out to low-income pregnant women and adults who have aged out of the foster youth program. Those who qualify would receive $750 a month for up to three years, but only if they agree to the requirements of completing a financial literacy class and letting purchases made with the $750 be tracked for analytical purposes.

“We believe those two accountability measures are going to lead to success, not only for the individuals that we enroll in the program but the program itself, as well as the taxpaying public” said Rep. Brad Witt, demoncrap-Clatskanie. “What will be required here, is that folks that choose to participate in the program and want to avail themselves to the $750 monthly payment, be required to take a financial education course and also to agree that their purchases will be monitored by an independent third party anonymously. That way we can then have a system of constant improvement on the financial literacy course, knowing what it is that we need to be instructing folks on to achieve the best results that we possibly can out of the program.”

The $750 would come on a debit card. Witt says there are no restrictions on what that money can be spent on.

Taxes would be increased to 3% on items deemed a luxury. Examples outlined in the bill include airplanes, expensive watercrafts, high-end cars, jewelry>>>>> and guns<<<<<. Witt says once each item goes over a certain price, it will be taxed.

“Jewelry would be a $20,000 threshold; we have a $15,000 threshold for items like snowmobiles,” said Witt. “Each item, the threshold pricing point was determined by what is the average cost of that item in the marketplace and we tried to get it at the very high end of that market to make sure it was luxury and not an everyday purchase price.”

HB 4079 will be heard on Tuesday in the Human Services Committee. KATU reached out to Oregon House Republicans about the bill. No one was available for an interview or to provide a statement on Friday, but a spokesperson says this bill is something they are paying attention to.

Witt says if it passes, this bill will make Oregon the first state in the country to provide such legislation.

Ukraine gave up nukes 30 years ago. Today there are regrets.

“We gave away the capability for nothing,” said Andriy Zahorodniuk, a former defense minister of Ukraine. Referring to the security assurances Ukraine won in exchange for its nuclear arms, he added: “Now, every time somebody offers us to sign a strip of paper, the response is, ‘Thank you very much. We already had one of those some time ago.’”

 

Observation O’ The Day
“What is the likelihood that a consequence of Joe Biden’s presidency is that many technologically advanced nations are going to obtain nuclear weapons. I look forward to the same folks who were surprised at how quickly Afghanistan fell expressing surprise at this new development.”–Chuck Finley

Yep. As the Pax Americana ends, that’s the rational thing to do.

Biden acts much more like Putin’s puppet than Trump ever did.

Vladimir Putin is rolling over the United States.

The Biden administration botches relations with Russia while its experts tell each other flattering fictions

Vladimir Putin doesn’t need to send troops into Ukraine. He has already achieved his strategic goals — for now.

The leading European Union powers, France and Germany, are competing against each other for Putin’s ear, while Britain is competing against them by shipping arms to Ukraine. The United States is exposed as an unreliable protector, unable to defend its overextended position on Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine. NATO is divided and powerless, a shadow of imperial overreach.

A decrepit caste of corrupt leaders is incapable of managing a controlled retreat from imperial overreach. America today, or Russia the day before yesterday? Vladimir Putin witnessed the decay and collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders. He is now returning the favor. He is pushing American and European influence out of Ukraine, and unpicking the already frayed bonds of NATO and the EU.

Geopolitics is not about morality. It is about the effective use of power. For thirty years, the smart opinion in Washington was that post-Soviet Russia was no threat to anyone because it had an economy the size of Portugal and its economy ran on carbon fuel exports. That these statistics were true shows how well Vladimir Putin has played his limited hand — and how arrogantly the US has mishandled relations with Russia while its experts tell each other flattering fictions.

When George Kennan, the architect of Cold War containment, reviewed the American diplomacy of the 1890s, he noted an “overestimation of economics, of trade, as factors in human events and the corresponding underestimation of psychological and political reactions — of such things as fear, ambition, insecurity, jealousy and perhaps even boredom — as prime movers of events.” Kennan habitually decried the crusading idealism of Wilsonian foreign policy. Here, he detects idealism’s shadow, the tendency to overemphasize material interest, as an obstacle to understanding what we are dealing with.

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US Government Left As Many As 9,000 American Citizens In Afghanistan After Withdrawal, Senate Report Reveals

As many as 9,000 American citizens were left in Afghanistan when the U.S. military withdrew from the country Aug. 31, according to a report released Thursday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In public statements, Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, claimed that only 100-150 Americans remained in Afghanistan and had contacted the U.S. government with a desire to leave. The State Department and Defense Department officials stuck to that number, even as the government publicly admitted that large numbers of American citizens were still leaving the country.
The report, signed by Foreign Relations ranking member Jim Risch of Idaho, reveals that State Department officials believed that between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans were in Afghanistan as late as Aug. 17. In the next two weeks, only 6,000 Americans were able to escape the country ahead of the Taliban takeover. In testimony in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, however, Blinken claimed that “approximately 100-150 remained in Afghanistan who still wished to depart.”

While there’s disagreement over the policy to leave Afghanistan, Americans share outrage over how the admin. withdrew, & what that failure has done to America’s reputation. This morning I released a report that details what went wrong & why.

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“The democrats defund the police, fail to prosecute criminals, and then tell us they are going to increase restrictions on firearms. This isn’t stupidity or ignorance. This is evil”--Joe Huffman

Biden’s ‘guns first’ approach to violent crime ignores basic facts
Over 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms

With violent crime increasing over the last two years, Americans want a solution. But President Joe Biden constantly frames violent crime as only a gun problem. Again, it was the sole focus of Biden’s speech in New York City on Thursday. Even when he mentions police or prosecutors, it was in terms of enforcing gun control laws.

But this “guns first” approach ignores a basic fact – over 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms. And while Biden blames guns for the increase in violent crime, the latest data show that gun crimes fell dramatically.

Biden’s proposal yesterday to “work to take those shooters off the streets as quickly as possible” is great, but with over 92% of violent crime not involving guns, why not promise to do this for all violent criminals?

Andy McCarthy: What Biden can and cannot do about crime

The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, in the latest year available (2020), shows that there were 4,558,150 rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults, and the FBI reports 21,570 murders. Of those, 350,460 rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults (see Table 8) and 13,620 murders involved firearms. Adding those numbers up, 7.9% of violent crimes used guns.

Relying on public health researchers, Democrats blame increasing gun sales as the cause. But while violent crime reported to police rose 5% in 2020, you can’t blame that increase on guns because gun crimes actually fell by 27%. The National Crime Victimization Survey also finds a similar 27% drop.

All this is consistent with academic research by myself and others showing that criminals are less likely to carry guns when civilians have them for protection. If a criminal pulls out a gun against an armed victim, he is more likely to be shot.

Gun ownership didn’t fuel the increase in crime over the last couple of years. Rather, people worried about violent crime and decided to arm themselves for self-protection.

It’s not hard to explain the increased violence. Many urban areas saw more than half of prison inmates released because of the pandemic, and the releases still continue. Newly convicted criminals weren’t going to prison. Nationwide, there were over 340,000 fewer inmates in jails and prisons in 2021 than in 2019. Cities cut police budgets and ordered officers to stand down in many places. New York City cut its police budget by $1 billion.

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Your Crap-For-Brains and Hypocrisy O’ The Day all rolled into one senile idiot.

Biden Tells the Most Shameless Lie Yet and Descends Into Babbling

Not only did he get them from China, and is now telling us a bald-faced lie, he entered into contracts directly with a Chinese company to get the tests, paying them more than $1.28 billion dollars for millions of the tests. So, after all they did with COVID, China is being enriched by Biden.

BlabbleAbbleDabble

If this doesn’t confirm just who actually the anti-American seditionists who are bought by the chinese commies are…….

Things demoncraps will defend or encourage athletes doing:
Kneel during the National Anthem? √
Disrespect the American flag? √
Call America “Amerikkka” and a racist, white supremacist country? √
Call the former President “orange Hitler?” √
Criticize China’s many documented human rights abuses? Ohhh Nooo.
That will cause the Speaker of the House to warn you to shut up and play ball.

Pelosi Encourages American Athletes to Keep Their Mouths Shut About ‘Ruthless’ China

The 2022 Winter Olympics are officially underway in communist China. A number of athletes chose to boycott Friday morning’s opening ceremonies in an effort to highlight the country’s ongoing human rights abuses and responsibility for the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

“Olympic athletes from multiple countries who want to show solidarity with the victims of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses have been quietly preparing to boycott the Opening Ceremonies, according to human rights activists who have been helping to educate and organize them,” The Washington Post reports. “For several months, U.S.-based activists have been meeting with Olympic athletes from several Western countries to urge them to speak out on the Chinese government’s mass atrocities and severe repression of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers and other groups inside China. The athletes, facing the threat of punishment from the Chinese government if they talk about human rights, have almost all avoided addressing the subject in public.”

But back in the United States, Democratic politicians are urging athletes to keep their criticism of the regime to themselves. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is advising athletes to keep their mouths shut for fear they will be punished.

“You’re there to compete. Do not risk incurring the anger of the Chinese government because they are ruthless,” Pelosi said.

BLUF:
Again, dumb + vicious = trouble.
Do not, not even for a second, underestimate what the ruling caste will do to hold onto its power.
It has shown it is willing to take your job, to silence you, even to throw you in jail. Why would you imagine it would not go as far as it had to in order to preserve the power of a young dummy by sending help from an old dummy?

If there are two things we’ve learned lately, it is that anything can happen, and that the people in charge are fully capable of screwing up beyond our wildest dreams.

Will We End Up Invading Canada?

The old stereotype of Canadians as slow-talking, syrup-slurping igloo jockeys has been dashed this week as our friends to the north have launched a peaceful working class revolt against the blackface-wearing clown they have as their prime minister, as well as against that country’s entire ruling caste. We patriotic Americans stand in solidarity with the big rig truckers pushing back against The Man – although that assumes their oppressor’s gender. But, in this Age of Insanity, there’s always the possibility of chaos – even in Canada.

While the good-natured, polite pushback against the globalist establishment has been entirely pleasant so far, the terrified elite’s reaction to it has not. It’s been ugly and could get uglier. All over the world, it is the same when the people of what we once knew as the Free World challenge the powerful. The failed global elite is getting desperate to retain its power, from Austria to Australia. All those alleged principles you hear so much about when you try to protect or pursue your own interests? Forget them. Silencing dissenters. Banning assemblies. Even turning the cops on peaceful protestors. These are the tools in the rulers’ toolbox. You see it here in America too, in government and out. Even Neil Young wants to shut down and gag Joe Rogan for refusing to enforce the official narrative, and is anyone surprised? They adore censorship. They won’t call it that. They call it suppressing “misinformation,” with the definition of that term being anything they don’t want people to hear. And they call protest against the corrupt incompetents of the ruling class “insurrection.”

But the elite’s reaction won’t work. Yet, while that’s good, what’s bad is that this will not stop their bitter defense of their rule. They will take the next step, and the next, to keep their power.

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Our border with Mexico is wide open for illegal aliens, while MeatPuppet™ will send troops to secure Ukraine’s border.

Arizona attorney general: Biden sending US troops to secure Ukraine border is ‘height of hypocrisy’

MARK BRNOVICH:
The blame lies with President Biden.
Instead of going to New York City or sending the vice president to Central America to study the root causes, he should come here to the border and see firsthand the destruction his administration has wrought on Arizona.
I think it’s the ultimate height of hypocrisy that you literally have the president of the United States willing to risk our sons and daughters to secure Ukraine.
The president’s willing to risk our sons and daughters to secure the Ukrainian border, and meanwhile, millions of pounds of drugs are flooding through our southern border.
Millions of people in our country are less safe and in more danger as a result of the Biden administration’s failure to secure our very own border. 

Video

Truckers are starting a working-class revolution — and the left hates it.

So we’re finally seeing a genuine, bottom-up, working-class revolution. In Canada, and increasingly in the United States, truckers and others are refusing to follow government orders, telling the powerful that, in a popular lefty formulation, if there’s no justice, there’s no peace.

Naturally, the left hates it.

For more than a century, lefties have talked about such a revolt. But if you really paid attention, the actual role of the working class in their working-class revolution was not to call the shots — it was to do what it was told by the “intellectual vanguard” of the left.

A working-class revolution led by the working class is the left’s worst nightmare because the working class doesn’t want what the left wants. The working class wants jobs, a stable economy, safe streets, low inflation, schools that teach things and a conservative, non-adventurous foreign policy that won’t get a lot of working-class people killed. It’s not excited about gender fluidity, critical race theory, “modern monetary theory,” foreign adventures and defunding police.

Worse yet, a huge part of the lefty self-image revolves around feeling superior to the working class and openly expressing disdain for it. One need spend only a few minutes tuning into left media like NPR, CNN or MSNBC to hear the disdain for working-class Americans, inhabitants of “flyover country,” people who live in the middle of nowhere.

Trucker protest
The left has vilified the Canadian truckers protestors as Russian agents, Nazis and white supremacists.
REUTERS

So naturally, the idea that those people might be staging a revolution is intolerable.

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Propaganda O’ The Day

Biden’s DOJ announces new crackdown on home-built firearms

Joe Biden’s Justice Department is launching a National Ghost Gun Enforcement Initiative, which they say will crack down on home-build firearms, which they call “ghost guns.”

To be clear, Americans have been making firearms in their homes since before there was a United States of America. Home-built firearms remain perfectly legal in most free states.

Today’s announcement states that the DOJ will bring federal charges against those who use home-built firearms in the commission of a crime.

The DOJ’s press release claims that “local law enforcement reported 1,750 suspected ghost guns in 2016, and that number had grown to 8,712 by 2020, according to DOJ statistics.”

These statistics have not been borne out in conversations Armed American News has had with senior local law enforcement officials.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday the “ghost gun” initiative is but one anti-gun measure his department will be undertaking to target “community violence.”

“Garland is directing U.S. attorneys to prioritize federal prosecutions of those who illegally sell or transfer firearms that are used in violent crimes, and the department is announcing a new initiative seeking to curb drug-related violence and overdose deaths by partnering with local law enforcement,” according to the press release.

Or, one could take a slightly different view and have a reasonable basis for thinking that it wasn’t a lack of preparation, but a lack of caring about it.

Report: Documents Show Biden Admin was Completely Unprepared for Afghanistan Withdrawal
“Outsiders were frustrated and suspicious the administration was having plenty of meetings but was stuck in bureaucratic inertia and lacked urgency until the last minute.”

The Biden Administration’s evacuation of Afghanistan in August of 2021 was a disaster. Some analysts point to that moment as the beginning of Biden’s imploding poll numbers, as Americans were horrified by the images of people clinging to airplanes and falling to their deaths.

Newly leaked documents show that Biden and his team were completely unprepared for this moment.

Jonathan Swan and Hans Nichols broke the news at Axios:

Scoop: Leaked document reveals Biden’s Afghan failures

Leaked notes from a White House Situation Room meeting the day before Kabul fell shed new light on just how unprepared the Biden administration was to evacuate Afghan nationals who’d helped the United States in its 20-year war against the Taliban.

Why it matters: Hours before the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan’s capital on Aug. 15, 2021, senior Biden administration officials were still discussing and assigning basic actions involved in a mass civilian evacuation.

  • Outsiders were frustrated and suspicious the administration was having plenty of meetings but was stuck in bureaucratic inertia and lacked urgency until the last minute.
  • While the word “immediately” peppers the document, it’s clear officials were still scrambling to finalize their plans — on the afternoon of Aug. 14.
  • For example, they’d just decided they needed to notify local Afghan staff “to begin to register their interest in relocation to the United States,” the document says.
  • And they were still determining which countries could serve as transit points for evacuees.

Shelby Talcott of the Daily Caller has more:

The obtained memo was the meeting’s “summary of conclusions” and details how officials were still scrambling to work out simple details for a mass evacuation in Afghanistan. In one note, the memo reveals officials had only then come to the agreement to contact locally employed staff to gauge interest levels “in relocation to the United States.”

The notes also reveal that officials hadn’t yet sorted out exactly what countries would be transit points for those needing to leave Afghanistan.

“State [Department] and DOD [Department of Defense] will begin planning transit processing for evacuees after departure from Kabul,” the document reads.

“The NSC staff will chair a small group discussion to explore ways to engage Canada and other third countries, such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, to host Afghan allies at risk … who have either not been vetted or received limited vetting,” another portion of the memo reads.

It’s stunning to remember that Biden actually left Americans and allies behind. It doesn’t seem real.

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The number I’ve seen is that it is estimated that the lockdowns prevented on average  0.2%  – that’s “Maybe Two (2) out of a Thousand” – deaths in comparison with just trusting people to do the right thing.
Sorry, that small of a number is statistical noise, which means that there is no evidence the lockdowns did anything but disrupt our entire economy and empower the tyrant authoritarians. Which, to be frank is the silver lining because they’re now exposed to the world for future action.

Johns Hopkins Analysis: ‘Lockdowns Should be Rejected Out of Hand.’

The aura of “expert” has lost its luster during Covid, as our supposedly bigger brains have been proved wrong repeatedly.

Two of these have been Ezekiel Emanuel and Anthony Fauci. Both were enthusiastic proponents of societal lockdowns as a means of preventing deaths and the spread of Covid. We now know from a Johns Hopkins blockbuster meta-analysis that “shutting it down,” in Donald Trump’s awkward phrase, did very little to prevent deaths.

It’s a long, arcane, and detailed analysis, and I can’t present every nuance or statistic here. But I think these are the primary takeaways. From the study:

Overall, we conclude that lockdowns are not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic, at least not during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results are in line with the World Health Organization Writing Group (2006), who state, “Reports from the 1918 influenza pandemic indicate that social-distancing measures did not stop or appear to dramatically reduce transmission […]

In Edmonton, Canada, isolation and quarantine were instituted; public meetings were banned; schools, churches, colleges, theaters, and other public gathering places were closed; and business hours were restricted without obvious impact on the epidemic.” Our findings are also in line with Allen’s (2021) conclusion: “The most recent research has shown that lockdowns have had, at best, a marginal effect on the number of Covid 19 deaths.”

Why might that be?

Mandates only regulate a fraction of our potential contagious contacts and can hardly regulate nor enforce handwashing, coughing etiquette, distancing in supermarkets, etc. Countries like Denmark, Finland, and Norway that realized success in keeping COVID-19 mortality rates relatively low allowed people to go to work, use public transport, and meet privately at home during the first lockdown. In these countries, there were ample opportunities to legally meet with others.

Worse, the lockdowns caused tremendous harm:

Unintended consequences may play a larger role than recognized. We already pointed to the possible unintended consequence of SIPOs, which may isolate an infected person at home with his/her family where he/she risks infecting family members with a higher viral load, causing more severe illness. But often, lockdowns have limited peoples’ access to safe (outdoor) places such as beaches, parks, and zoos, or included outdoor mask mandates or strict outdoor gathering restrictions, pushing people to meet at less safe (indoor) places. Indeed, we do find some evidence that limiting gatherings was counterproductive and increased COVID-19 mortality

What lessons should be learned (my emphasis)?

The use of lockdowns is a unique feature of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns have not been used to such a large extent during any of the pandemics of the past century. However, lockdowns during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic have had devastating effects. They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy. These costs to society must be compared to the benefits of lockdowns, which our meta-analysis has shown are marginal at best. Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument.

To which I would add another: We can never squelch free discourse and debate on public-health issues again.

People who argued against the “scientific consensus” about the lockdowns were stifled, censored by Big Tech, denigrated by the media, and mocked by establishment scientists. That was essentially “anti-science.” The scientific method needs heterodox voices to speak freely if it is to function properly.

This subsequent look-back shows why. To a large degree, those with the officially disfavored views–such as the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration—were correct on this matter.

Will we learn the lesson? Yes, if our goal is to ably discern and apply the best policy options, which can be a messy process. No, if the point is to allow those in charge of institutional science to exert societal control.

CCRKBA: KING COUNTY, WA GUN MURDERS, SHOOTINGS PROVE ANTI-GUNNERS LIED

BELLEVUE, WA – Monday’s “Shots Fired” report from the King County (WA) Prosecutor’s Office on the number of gun-related homicides and injuries last year is more proof that gun control laws and anti-rights initiatives adopted over the past few years in Washington State have been abject failures, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today in reaction.

“Proponents of these laws, and especially the gun control initiatives passed in recent years, sold the public a bill of goods, and now everybody knows it,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Voters were told in 2014 that Initiative 594 would reduce gun-related violence, and today’s data proves they were misled. Four years later, the Seattle-based gun prohibition lobby promised Initiative 1639 would prevent gun-related homicides, and they lied again. In Olympia, anti-gun politicians are pushing more gun restrictions right now, with the same promises.

“The billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobby and their allies in Olympia claim that so-called ‘gun violence’ is an epidemic,” he said. “Frankly, the intellectual dishonesty of the gun control crowd is the real public health crisis.”

King County authorities reported Monday that 88 people were murdered and another 372 were wounded in shootings last year. Law enforcement agencies in the county reported a startling 1,405 shooting incidents, surpassing the 1,025 posted in 2020.

Gottlieb opposed both initiatives, and he has been an outspoken critic of other gun laws pushed through the Legislature. CCRKBA’s national headquarters are in Bellevue, just east of Seattle. A check of the FBI annual Uniform Crime Reports shows the number of murders in Washington, and especially Seattle, have gone steadily upwards since the current gun control crusade started eight years ago.

“We warned the public these gun control schemes were wishful thinking at best,” Gottlieb said. “The data provides all the evidence necessary to say anti-gun-rights initiatives and legislation have amounted to snake oil, giving the public a false sense of security while their rights are being steadily eroded.

“Instead of pushing more restrictions like they’re doing right now,” he said, “it is time for gun control zealots to admit they’ve been wrong all along. Extremist gun control has failed miserably for Evergreen State citizens, and the rising body counts prove it.”