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FBI Concludes Jeffrey Epstein Had No Clients, Didn’t Blackmail Anyone, And Definitely Killed Himself

FBI Concludes Jeffrey Epstein Had No Clients, Didn’t Blackmail Anyone, And Definitely Killed Himself

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

Deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein and his colleague, Ghislaine Maxwell, were both charged by the Justice Department with sex trafficking—and Maxwell was convicted. But according to the DOJ, the two apparently didn’t have any clients.

In a bombshell FBI memo leaked to Axios and published Sunday night, officials said they’ve reviewed more than 300 gigabytes of Epstein evidence—and haven’t found any vast human trafficking or sexual blackmail operation.

“This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list.’ There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,” the unsigned memo said.

The FBI also reiterated its previous claim that Epstein did kill himself. In an attempt to demonstrate that Epstein’s cellblock was secure the night he purportedly killed himself, the FBI released footage from the once camera that was recording. However, the camera only showed a tiny sliver of a staircase leading to Epstein’s cell.

According to a DOJ-OIG report released in 2023, only two cameras in Epstein’s housing unit were recording—and those cameras had numerous blind spots. The camera in Epstein’s cell block, which had at least three other inmates, wasn’t recording. Nor was the camera covering one of the elevator bays that led to Epstein’s floor.

The DOJ-OIG report also revealed that prison officials actually knew about the malfunctioning cameras the day before Epstein died.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz said his staff interviewed an MCC technician, who started to repair the cameras on Aug. 8, 2019, but did not finish his work. The technician told the inspector general he had “no idea” why he did not stay at the facility to resolve the problem that day.

Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide by hanging after he was found dead in his jail cell on August 10, 2019. But his lawyers contested that claim. Skeptics point to malfunctioning surveillance cameras, sleeping guards, and broken bones in Epstein’s neck as indications that his death was something other than suicide.

Because of Epstein’s extensive fraternization with high-profile politicians and celebrities such as Bill Clinton, former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, Prince Andrew and Bill Gates and many more, some claim that Epstein’s death was actually a hit job to silence him. Proponents of that theory include Epstein’s former partner, Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.

“I believe that he was murdered. I was shocked, and I wondered, ‘How did this happen?’ Because I was sure he was going to appeal, and I was sure he was covered by the non-prosecution agreement,” Maxwell told British reporter Jeremy Kyle of TalkTV in 2023.

The non-prosecution agreement referenced by Maxwell was a sweetheart deal Epstein signed with the Department of Justice in 2008, in which he pleaded guilty to a state charge of procuring for prostitution a girl below the age of 18. Epstein was housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade, and was reportedly allowed to leave the jail on “work release” for up to 12 hours a day.

After the Miami Herald published an expose on Epstein and his non-prosecution agreement in late 2018, Epstein was arrested again on July 6, 2019, on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 07/06/2025 – 23:20

The Secret Campaign To Stop RFK Jr.

The Secret Campaign To Stop RFK Jr.

Authored by ‘A MidWestern Doctor’ via ‘The Forgotten Side Of Medicine’ substack,

A few days ago, Robert Malone contacted me about a leaked memo from BIO published by the Brownstone Institute which he’d shared on his Substack which detailed an orchestrated industry conspiracy to sabotage RFK Jr. and stop making America healthy.

After reviewing the article, my suspicion was that it was authentic as I knew an orchestrated campaign against RFK Jr. existed and much of it matched what we had already proven these groups (e.g., BIO do). I then asked the people closest to the story (who I trust) who shared that they had confidence in the source who leaked it, and noted that when confronted by a larger outlet, BIO did not explicitly deny it, also suggesting the document was real (e.g., their spokesman declined to confirm or deny the veracity of the quote about lobbying for Kennedy’s ouster). As such, I will proceed on the assumption it was real.

RFK’s Nomination

Throughout this publication, RFK Jr. has been one of the few political figures I have publicly supported. This is because:

  • RFK has continually advocated for many of the things most important to me.

  • I long thought it would be impossible to ever have anyone in a senior level of government advocating for them—but due to an extraordinary confluence of events RFK was put into a position to.

  • When I spent time with RFK, my two non-verbal takeaways were that he has gone through a lot of very difficult and traumatic events throughout his life, and that he has a deep conviction in the positions he is advocating for. There are a variety of ways people can respond to those types of unpleasant experiences, and it appeared to me that RFK adopted one of the less common responses—developing a deep conviction to make the world be a better place regardless of the obstacles put in front of you.

  • A few of my close friends who know RFK Jr. feel the same way.

  • Since he has gotten into the H.H.S., he has been very systematic and strategic in fixing the issues we are facing, in many cases doing exactly what I would do.

In short, like many, I long entertained entering politics so I could fix the horrendous issues around us, but ultimately was not willing to because becoming a politician is a miserable experience which puts your entire life under scrutiny, leads to a never ending slew of attacks to force you to adopt positions that support vested interests, and requires you continually make unpalatable compromises to advance the greater good.

RFK Jr. hence is a blessing to me, as he’s doing everything I would do if I’d made the necessary sacrifices (and had the luck) to get into a position of influence, but instead he’s taking the heat for that role, and as such, I feel compelled to do all I can to support him during this once in a lifetime opportunity (which is essentially why I overextend myself to produce this newsletter).

Making the Impossible Possible

One of the things I feel most people do not grasp is how much influence the H.H.S. Secretary has over health in the country (as many of the Federal Laws and Policies are written so that they are implemented at the Secretary’s discretion—which until now has protected the status quo as no H.H.S Secretary tried to make the country healthy).

Likewise, I feel many still do not understand just how improbable it was RFK got both nominated and confirmed, or that Trump has essentially given RFK the leeway to do whatever he wants to do (provided it’s done in a sensible and persuasive manner)—something to the best of my knowledge no other Federal leader in US history has been able to do.

Note: the closest parallel, Harvey Willey, the first head of the FDA a century ago had massive public support, and both Congress and the court’s support, but nonetheless lobbyists managed to convince the executive branch to tie Wiley’s hands eventually leading to his resignation as he realized he could do more to help America’s health from outside of the government.

Presently, I believe RFK’s unprecedented situation was due to:

  • Trump having longstanding concerns about the excessive vaccine schedule due to children he knew being injured by them. Beyond having publicly spoken about this prior to his 2016 run, during the 2016 presidential debates he refused to back down on his position and at the start of his first term, he’d planned to have RFK lead a federal investigation of the vaccine schedule (which was ultimately nixed by his administration and outside parties like Bill Gates).

  • Both Scott Atlas M.D. and Joe Navarro’s memoir of the pandemic tell a similar story. During COVID, Trump had had serious doubts about what the media and experts were saying about COVID (which against widespread protest he enacted the early travel ban), did not support the lockdowns or endless testing, and repeatedly tried to get non-standard therapies (e.g., hydroxychloroquine and disinfecting UV light treatments) into consideration. Unfortunately, everyone in the H.H.S. along with the media, continually sabotaged this and as a result, his advisors told him he could not rock the boat by creating public outrage over being a mass murder (e.g., by not perpetually locking down the country)—something we also encountered when communicating with the White House over off-patent ways to treat and end the pandemic (they told us the data was compelling but they could not afford to be eviscerated by the media by supporting them).

  • Both Navarro and Atlas attested that Trump felt immensely conflicted over ignoring his gut hunch to listen to the “experts,” and it is my belief that Trump knows if had instead focused on rational COVID policies, he would have won the 2020 election (as the pandemic would have been over by November). Note: when Atlas left the White House, he told Trump and his advisors ““Well, Mr. President, I will say this. You have balls. I have balls. But the closest people around you—they didn’t. They had no balls. They let you down.” (followed by Atlas remarking They let down the rest of the country, too).

  • The alternative proposed to Trump (and supported by the medical establishment and an otherwise hostile media) was to push for a vaccine in Warp Speed so that it could be ready before the election. Trump thus used a pre-existing (Gates funded) framework for this and did everything he could to expedite it (e.g., he funded the development and manufacturing of a variety of potential vaccine candidates prior to them being ready so that the production time could be decreased). On one hand, this was a “monumental accomplishment” as it allowed a vaccine to get to market much faster than anyone thought was possible, but on the other hand (if you knew about all the issues with vaccines) a terrible idea likely to release a disastrous product.

  • Most importantly however, after months of meetings, promises, and eager expectations by the White House, at the last minute, Pfizer pulled the rug out on Trump and delayed the vaccine’s approval until right after the election, presumably because it was in their interest to have a more pro-pharmaceutical contingent assume the Presidency (which the House Judiciary recently confirmed). On one hand, I feel this was “fair” because if you make a deal with the devil you can’t expect to not get burned, but more importantly, that greed from Pfizer was incredibly shortsighted because it destroyed any trust or leverage they had to rein Trump in were he to get re-elected.

  • The media messaging used to push the COVID vaccines was very similar to the sensationalistic partisan messaging used to discredit Trump’s first presidency. Because of this, when it was deployed against Trump’s supporters to make them vaccinate, owing to their existing distrust of the media developed over the last four years, they were not receptive to it, and chose not to vaccinate. As such, when the media and government doubled down on pushing the vaccines, it made many who were previously neutral about vaccines become highly distrustful of them—particularly since they were frequently observing severe injuries every authority claimed “did not exist” and seeing the COVID vaccine fail.

  • In short, because of how greedy the pharmaceutical industry was with the COVID vaccines (and how good a job the galvanized independent media did of exposing these underhanded tactics) they effectively “killed the goose that laid the Golden Eggs” and created the most public distrust in vaccines that has been seen since the early days of the smallpox vaccineNote: Pfizer’s decision to relentlessly push the COVID vaccines to increase their profits (at the expense of the traditional vaccine industry) seemed incredibly short-sighted to me, as had this been done less aggressively, the trust that industry rests upon could have been maintained. One of the best explanations I’ve ever heard for why this happened came from a pharmaceutical executive who shared with me that pharmaceutical executives are frequently rotated out of their companies and paid lavish bonuses which are dependent upon sales during their tenure, so as a result, they have no incentive to avoid short term profits at the expense of the sector.

  • All of that (and prior skepticism from the Tea Party due to Obama’s vaccine overreach) made vaccine skepticism part of the modern Republican party and birthed the Make America Healthy Again movement. In turn, RFK was able to ride that wind to become one of the most successful independent candidates in US history (reaching 22% of the vote), before utilizing that capitol to support President Trump (and likely swing the race) in return from him agreeing to advance Making America Healthy Again (as there was no interest within the Democrat party to do the same).

  • Trump decided to keep his promise (either out of obligation or because he want to make America healthy) and due to his unique political position, had the ability to force others to comply with it.

It’s really hard to describe how improbable all of this happened, and had I not seen it unfold in front of me, I would have never thought there was even a 1% chance of someone like RFK becoming the HHS Secretary.

Note: RFK recently had an excellent interview with Tucker Carlson which spelled out exactly what he is doing, how grave and indefensible many of the issues we face are, and the difficulties he’s run into from the establishment from trying to make things right.

Public Relations

One of the most frustrating things for me throughout my lifetime has watched cause after cause (or politician) I strongly agreed with be nullified by the media working in concert to sabotage it. It hence was eye-opening for me when I learned about the Public Relations Industry (discussed further here), an invisible multibillion industry which synthesizes marketing and propaganda to persuade the public of its sponsor’s message.

On one side, PR is immensely depressing, as it so effect it essentially “invalidates” democracy as whatever message its sponsor’s pay for is what becomes policy rather than what the public wants—and in most cases the public can’t even see it be done. On the other, understanding the industry is also incredibly informative for predicting future events, as there are a limited number of tactics the PR industry uses (presumably because people who work in those firms are not that creative and because the industry has had such a monopoly on truth it has not been forced to innovate). As a result, once you see the early stages of a PR campaign in motion, you normally know what will follow because it is very predictive and repetitive.

Note: those tactics include blasting the same message on every outlet, using focus groups to create the most emotionally manipulative messaging possible (which is why newscasters and politicians will all often say rather odd sculpted phrases), having “independent” experts or “trustable third parties” promote the intended message and creating fabricated viral moments (which the entire media then amplifies) to promote their message.

In many cases, PR is also blended with political lobbying so lobbyists will not only push legislators to kill a bill which threaten their industry but also incite a public hysteria against it to intimidate legislators into stopping it. For example, methamphetamine production has been immensely damaging for many parts of America (e.g., roughly 4% of Americans have an amphetamine use disorder, overdoses now kill over 30,000 Americans a year, parental methamphetamine has become a leading reason children are put into foster care and in numerous states cleaning up toxic meth labs have overwhelmed law enforcement). Much of this arose from it becoming possible to easily synthesize meth at home from pseudoephedrine (one of many cough medicines), so legislators in hard hit states sought to stop this by placing limits on how much pseudoephedrine could be purchased over the counter—after which lobbyists and PR firms descended like hornets to stop those laws from passing (in most cases succeeding).

Public Relations and Social Media

The PR apparatus is much more suited to engaging with the legacy media than social media (as there are a limited number of networks which have monopolized the airwaves so it is easy enough to pay them all off to promote your message whereas online there are an almost infinite number of voices). Because of this, the existing control apparatus has greatly struggled (e.g., within hours Twitter can often completely debunk a carefully orchestrated and costly PR campaign and there are far to many content producers to buy them all off) and a lot of marginal attempts have been made to try to shift that tide.

As such, during the COVID vaccine public relations campaign, one of the primary pushes by the industry was to enact draconian censorship from both online media companies (e.g., Facebook) and the government. As this was not enough, many attempts were made to directly silence those who still spoke out (e.g., getting them banned online, getting them fired, taking about their board certifications or licenses and leaving grisly threats on their doorsteps).

Eventually, we figured out much of this was being coordinated by “Shot’s Fired” a private Facebook group (which had many prominent vaccine zealots including Richard Pan—the California State Senator who ushered in the era of immensely unpopular vaccine mandates after the 2019 Measles “outbreak” [where no one died]). That group in turn would pick a “target,” descend on them like bees, and then once the target had been neutralized, proceed onto the next target.

After some work (e.g., a few of us infiltrated the group while a few others untangled their web of concealed funding), we discovered out they were being funded be the Public Good Project, which in turn was being funded by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). For context, BIO is “the largest trade organization to serve and represent the emerging biotechnology industry in the United States and around the globe,” with many pharmaceutical clients (e.g., you can find Moderna, J&J and remdesivir’s manufacturer Gilead listed as core companies in their membership directory), and interlocking relationships with the leadership of many of these companies (e.g., BIO shares a VP with Pfizer). In turn, as you might expect, these groups also had extensive interactions with the Biden administration and the social media companies, all of which was done to further promote the vaccine campaign.

Note: when I watched the promotional videos Shots Fired made to attract funding, they essentially said they would “save the world” by getting the funding for a lot of trolling (harassment) and astroturfing—relatively unsophisticated tactics that again illustrate the PR apparatus is not capable of effectively engaging the internet.

Let’s now look at BIO’s partial denial of the leak:

The purported memo was not produced by BIO. We have never seen or heard of this document, and it certainly does not accurately represent the spirit, strategy, or mission of BIO’s work.

Given BIO’s documented conduct, I would say the document very much reflects “the spirit, strategy, and mission of BIO’s work.”

Note: strong accusations require significant proof. Everything I mentioned in this section is extensively documented in this article.

The Vast Pharmaceutical Conspiracy to Silence Dissent Online

A Midwestern Doctor

September 25, 2024

The Plot to Get RFK, Jr.

Once it became clear Trump would indeed take on the political risk of nominating RFK Jr., I suspected a massive PR campaign would be orchestrated to stop it. In turn, I gradually saw clearly concocted stories appear on the mainstream media, and on November 18th Politico aired a remarkably story which not only admitted this was happening, but appeared to be a solicitation for more funding.

Democratic-aligned healthcare advocacy groups are putting together a strategy to fight Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be HHS secretary.

During an organizing call on Monday, the details of which have not been reported publicly, more than 200 people from several dozen of those groups, along with other advocacy organizations, discussed strategies to oppose Kennedy’s nomination. That included which Republican senators to target and the most effective way to talk to them, according to Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care.

Protect Our Care is hiring teams in several states, including Alaska, Idaho, Maine, and West Virginia, to lobby senators at the state and local level through experts and personal stories, with events slated to begin as soon as next week.

Note: as you might expect, “Protect Our Care” was funded by the medical industry. One of the most amazing things about this campaign is that it not only targeted Democrat Senators but also (with Mike Pence’s lobbying group) Republican ones. This led to the truly extraordinary situation where RFK Jr. was attacked both for being “too pro-choice” and “too pro-life” something I have never previously seen in the abortion debate.

Because of all of this, I quickly began testing out if there was any approach I could enact to potentially derail it. After a bit, I realized the best approach was to highlight the vast pharmaceutical donations prominent politicians (particularly Elizabeth Warren) had received and juxtapose them with those politicians zealous (and unjustified) critiques of RFK which coincidently happened to echo industry talking points.

As such, after some testing to refine it, I posted a thread immediately after the first day of RFK’s hearing which showed those most opposed to RFK also had the most contributions from parties within the pharmaceutical industry. This worked (getting 33 million direct views and many more indirect ones) and the backlash from it (e.g., against progressive icon Bernie Sanders), according to one insider, was sufficient to get key Republicans on the fence to vote for RFK so they would not risk breaking from their party and having their funding be exposed—all of which illustrates that the traditional PR approach (paying off the media to gaslight Americans) is no longer viable.

However, while that campaign failed and RFK was able to get confirmed, the industry was not going to give up (as people will get quite vicious to protect their revenue streams) and since then I’ve tried to do what I can to counteract the various (common) strategies they’ve cycled through such as many people claiming RFK is our enemy and trying to sabotage MAHA or the various attempts I’ve watched to neutralize RFK by driving a wedge between MAHA and MAGA.

BIO’s Document

With that context, I would now like to review the leaked BIO document with some comments of my own. In my eyes, one of the most important takeaways from this is that many parts of it show how the PR industry continuously sculpts and resculpts language to manipulate us.
Note: my comments are in italics, everything else is copied from the document.

BIO Vaccine Policy Steering Committee (VPSC) Meeting April 3, 2025 Executive Summary – Key Highlights

Political Landscape
•Widespread concern over RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine stance; members view him as a direct threat to public health.
•FDA’s April 2 RIF (reduction in force) marked a critical turning point, raising concerns about institutional stability [RIF was where RFK let go of corrupt officials and science throughout the H.H.S. who had undermined America’s health]
•Speculation about the Trump-RFK Jr. alliance, with potential for breakdown over conflicting interests.

Strategic Voices and Allies
•Dr. Oz seen as a potential “voice of reason” on public health within the current administration.
•Senator Cassidy emerging as an influential advocate for CDC and public health engagement.
•AEI and former Senator Richard Burr seen as important conservative allies in vaccine advocacy.

Note: Senator Cassidy has been one of RFK’s primary opponents on vaccine safety. I am truthfully undecided if he has been paid off or simply has the strong belief in vaccines many doctors have (e.g., while the former seems likely, the only person I know who I trust and directly knows Cassidy believes it is the latter). Fortunately, even if he is being funded, documents like this make it much harder for him to maintain his stance and create a window for him to pivot once RFK Jr. is able to provide gold-standard evidence of vaccine harm (which he discusses in the above Tucker Carlson interview).

VPSC Leadership and Goals
New co-chairs: Silvia Taylor (Novavax) and Art Hirt (Merck).
•Emphasis on governance restructure, AEI relationship-building, and defining 2025 vaccine strategy.
•Strategy centered on continuity, innovation access, and restoring public trust [good luck with that].

Investor and Market Challenges
Vaccine development viewed as unpredictable and politicized; goalposts are constantly shifting.
•Investor confidence shaken; limited capital access for the next 6–9 months.
•Jim Wassil (Vaxcyte): no viable capital-raising opportunities in current climate.

Note: when Malone sent me this, my immediate response was “lol, goal posts are shifting” in reference to the fact the vaccine industry always shifts the goal posts on a vaccine during their sales campaign (e.g., the COVID vaccines would be fully voluntary, prevent transmission and prevent all illness, to mandatory and maybe reduce your risk of severe illness if you take a booster every year). More importantly, this passage touches on the core of the issue, because people no longer have a blind trust in vaccines and their lucrative approval by the FDA/CDC is no longer guaranteed, they’ve stopped becoming an attractive market for investors, thereby drying up the funding spigot, which amongst other things sustains the PR and lobbying campaigns enacted by groups like BIO (hence creating an existential risk to this group).

Communications and Messaging Strategy
Need to frame vaccine narrative around “efficiency,” “transparency,” and “national security.
•Shift BIO’s messaging regarding ACIP/FDA from defensive to proactive: from “protect” and “defend” to “optimize” and “enhance.”
•Launch of the pro-vaccine campaign “Why We Vaccinate” to be tested in the Washington, D.C. area.

Opportunities and Threats
Threats: Anti-vaccine rhetoric, tariffs, index pricing, weakened FDA capacity.
•Opportunities: Leverage National Security Commission report, onshore supply chains, reposition vaccines as national security assets.

Tactical Recommendations
Engage conservative voices and grassroots/state-level influencers rather than federal figures like RFK Jr.
•Convene a Senate Public Health Caucus.
•Rebuild FDA capacity with Commissioner Makary; modernize review pathways while protecting mission integrity.
Focus public messaging on science and economic benefits—healthy workforce, national resilience.

  1. Meeting Goals
    a. Discuss new governance structure of VPSC
    b. Identify key areas for BIO engagement
    c. Outline VPSC goals/priorities
    d. Build a relationship with AEI

  2. Introduction of New Co-Chairs a. Silvia Taylor – Corporate Affairs, Novavax b. Art Hirt – SVP Vaccines, Merck

  3. BIO Diversifying Input
    a. Including Conservative voices
    b. American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
    c. Richard Burr – Former Senator NC; Advisor, DLA Piper Health Policy Steering Committee
    Note: In many cases once politicians leave office they frequently become highly paid lobbyists or create lobbying groups (e.g., Mike Pence’s firm has a 20 million dollar budget)

  4. 2025 Vaccine Strategy
    a. Goal: Protecting continuity and viability of vaccine business
    b. Core Principles: Promoting access, innovation, and trust
    c. Objective: Maintain and strengthen environment for vaccine access and innovation
    d. Objective: Help build trust in vaccines

  5. Impact of New HHS Administration [one of the most important parts to read]
    a. “It is time to go to The Hill and lobby that it is time for RFK Jr to go…communicate what’s going on in business”
    b. Trump owed RFK Jr (for his support), but that loyalty may/may not last
    c. Definitive examples of RFK Jr’s threat to vaccines and public health
    d. If vaccine companies lose investor confidence – everyone loses
    e. Jim Wassil, EVP & COO Vaxcyte
    •i. Investors have stated they are leaving until the next data read out
    •ii. No opportunity to raise capital in the current environment
    •iii. Investors are sitting on the sidelines for the next 6-9 month
    •iv. Vaccine pathway to approval is unpredictable and politicized
    f. RFK Jr Administration keeps moving the goal posts on vaccines
    g. BIO supports change, as long as the core mission of institutions is protected and there is business continuity
    h. Need to communicate with the new Administration using their words – safety, efficiency, health resilience, transparency
    Note: all of this shows that we are winning and there is a good chance that will snowball.

  6. John Crowley – BIO President & CEO
    a. Vaccines are the #1 priority at BIO [this shows how critical vaccines are to the industry as there are far more lucrative non-vaccine products on the market, but vaccines are a cornerstone of the trust which underlies the industry and a source of longterm revenue from all the chronic illnesses they cause]
    b. Vaccines are “canary in the coal mine” with respect to gauging HHS anticipated actions
    c. BIO created vaccine task force (1st BIO task force)
    d. There are both threats and opportunities working with the new Administration
    •i. Threats—1. Tariffs 2. Index pricing 3. Vaccine lack of trust
    •ii. Opportunities
    1. National Security Commission Report – Biotech Threats (https://www.biotech.senate.gov/final-report/chapters/)
    •a. Need for accelerated research and approval timelines
    •b. Need for on-shoring supply lines [I actually agree with this]
    e. FDA needs to stay strong; BIO priority to work with Commissioner Makary to replace lost talent, modernize FDA, communicate big picture implications regarding vaccine access [my limited indirect experiences with Makary have made me very hopeful he won’t sell out to the industry]
    f. Need a creative communication campaign targeting
    •i. Legislators and influencers (as opposed to directly with RFK Jr)
    •ii. Conservative constituents such as AEI
    •iii. Unions (concern regarding Member health)
    •iv. Campaign needs to both inspire and frighten (potential outcomes)
    •v. $2M of BIO’s $4M cash reserve will be spent on vaccine programs [once again showing how critical vaccines are to the industry—particularly since BIO is willing to risk that much of their reserves despite a real chance their funding will dry up]
    g. Need to identify common ground areas
    •i. Domestic manufacturing
    •ii. Strategic importance to U.S.
    •1. Need for a healthy population [which is why BIO’s response after getting caught was to “endorse” MAHA].
    •2. Protection from pandemic/bio attacks

    Note: on the internet, there are two common ways for content producers to make money. One is to be paid a flat fee to promote sponsored messages for your brand (e.g., large influencers can make 10,000 a post). Now that I have a larger Twitter following (287k followers) I periodically get these solicitations (and never respond). I asked a friend about Influenceable and she told me she received $500 per tweet (which were pre-written but she could modify), and normally 3 tweets per campaign and a few per month, adding up to a roughly 10,000.00 minimal work monthly salary (which helps explain why many prominent conservative influencer’s all started posting nearly identical messages supporting soda consumption (for up to $1000 each) that Nick Sorter then exposed in May here.
    The other is to receive a cut for how much of a product you sell (typically via an affiliate link). In most cases, the products being sold are high margin ones with a lot of competition (e.g., ivermectin or fenben), which results in overpriced ones being offered which the influencer then creates their own spin to justify why you should buy it from them (and attack their competitors or anyone who threatens their sales). I have received a lot of requests to do this (which would have netted me hundreds of thousands of dollars) but I have refused to do it because I don’t think it’s ethical and want to restrict promoting products to new ones I think come from ethical companies I want to give a chance to enter the marketplace so they can help people. One of the both fortunate and unfortunate things about DMSO is that since it costs so little, there are no margins to be made on it, so I have not been attacked by other people pushing DMSO, but simultaneously, no one has wanted to heavily promote it (as they can’t make money off it) so it’s fallen to me to do that (which fortunately due to my network I can).

    Scott Gottlieb – Resident Fellow, AEI [Scott Gottlieb was one of Trump’s FDA Chiefs and then after leaving immediately became a Pfizer Board Member and frequently is a media guest defending the pharmaceutical industry].

  7. a. “MAHA movement is a cover for an anti-vaccine campaign” [this is why it’s so critical for us to also focus on the other important MAHA polices like healthier food which appeal to a broader segment of the population]
    b. Focus attention and dialog on grassroots/state/local level (vs Federal)
    c. Very few people in the WH with public health backgrounds [as COVID and 2020 shows, appealing to experts will no longer work]
    d. Q: Will the Trump-RFK Jr relationship break?
    ”Not convinced it will break as there are non-vaccine issues, such as food safety, within MAHA” [which is why I do not agree with the influencers criticizing RFK for focusing on food safety]
    Q: How does one reach out and get support when no one is willing to stick their neck out? [this illustrates that the monolithic vaccine industry is a lot more vulnerable than it appears once its core supports such as public trust are removed]
    ”Focus on the national security benefit – need for domestic manufacturing.”
    f. Concern that companies are exiting smaller vaccine markets
    g. Need to differentiate between anti-vaccine/vaccine hesitancy (“movable middle”) vs anti-vaccine mandate groups
    h. Need to differentiate between science argument vs economic argument (healthy workforce)
    i. Dr. Oz can be public health voice of reason within WH [not anymore!]
    •i. Has strong healthcare team
    •ii. Deeply scientific and public health minded
    •iii. Potential role educating the public
    j. Senator Cassidy is getting more involved regarding CDC, etc
    k. Recommend convening a Senate Public Health Caucus
    l. Q: How work with AEI to target messages?
    •i. AEI is pro-vaccine
    •ii. Use as a data-leading voice to leverage the discussion

  8. VPSC Strategy Discussion – ACIP and FDA
    a. BIO needs to change the messaging narrative from “protect,” “defend,” “maintain” to “support,” “shape,” “optimize,” “enhancing,” “streamline,” “efficiency,” “transparency”
    b. Focus on positive change; no place for politics; areas of commonality
    c. Move narrative to the middle [no longer possible because of what you did during COVID]
    d. BIO Communications Strategy
    •i. Have built out a pro-vaccine campaign (whywevaccinate.org) based on qualitative and quantitative research
    •ii. Plan to market test in WDC market (April/May)
    e. Re-imagining the FDA
    •i. Key messages working with FDA are “efficiency” and “speed”
    •ii. How does one approach the FDA given the brain-drain?
    •iii. Q: Is Novavax (data requirements) the new review standard? [yes, now you have to actually provide data showing a vaccine is safe and effective rather than just getting rubber stamped with minimal data]
    •iv. Conflicting FDA objectives (1. Drive to modernize 2. Slowing down vaccine development – e.g., Novavax approval; slow-walking ACIP).
    f. More productive to target Makary and Trump Insiders vs RFK Jr
    g. Risk of U.S. losing its worldwide advantage

Overall, this document is a wonderful illustration into one facet of what the vaccine industry looks like on the inside and I hope we see more similar ones in the future.

Conclusion

Since COVID, there has been a massive and completely unprecedented loss of trust in our medical system (e.g., , a large JAMA study of 443,445 Americans found that in April 2020, 71.5% of them trusted doctors and hospitals, while in January 2024, only 40.1% did). The medical system has now recognized this issue, and many prominent politicians are now urgently calling for it to be addressed.

However, they still exist within the old paradigm (where the mass media and PR can convince the public of anything), and hence have tried to resort to browbeating the public into submission. For example, at RFK’s confirmation hearing, many senators raised this point and said for him to be confirmed, that since many trusted RFK, he needed to publicly endorse vaccination so trust in vaccination could be restored—without the faintest recognition this would simply cause people to lose trust in RFK.

I fully agree it is urgent to rebuild trust in medicine (as there is a lot of good healthcare workers do and many critical things we rely upon medicine for which we have no viable alternative to). However, the unchangeable fact is that the medical industry’s greed went to far and the widespread public trust they’ve relied up to have their questionable actions be shielded from public scrutiny no longer exists.

As such, the only path forward is to make the medical system earn the public’s trust by returning to gold-standard (objective) science which pulls the harmful and ineffective medicines everyone is profiting from off the market, allows the non-patented therapies which really help people (e.g., the Forgotten Side of Medicine) to enter the mainstream, and allow doctors to have the autonomy to actually spend time with their patients and figure out what helps them rather than being forced into 15 minutes visits where they can only check the required boxes and follow the existing medical guidelines.

Fortunately, I feel we are getting closer to that point, and while campaign’s like BIO’s are frustrating, I believe at the end of the day they actually help us as if we can expose these tactics for everyone to see (which the internet makes possible) it will further galvanize the public to demand the actual reform to Make America Healthy Again. Since so much is at stake, it is critical for each of us to do everything we can be on guard for these tactics and not fall prey to the attacks and division, as currently, short of actually doing the right thing (e.g., making America healthier) the only option the industry has is to divide us so we fight amongst ourselves and splinter into factions which lack the power to shift the existing paradigm.

As such, I am incredibly grateful for all the support, unity and heart felt wisdom I have seen from so many of you, as beyond it making this newsletter possible, I believe it is the force that can finally end the nightmare we have been stuck in.

*  *  *

The Forgotten Side of Medicine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 07/06/2025 – 22:10

Russia Becomes First Country To Officially Recognize Afghanistan’s Taliban Government

Russia Becomes First Country To Officially Recognize Afghanistan’s Taliban Government

Russia has become the first country to officially recognize Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government, which occurred during a formal ceremony in Moscow on Saturday.

In attendance representing the Taliban was Molavi Gul Hassan Hassan, Kabul’s ambassador to Russia. In the ceremony he presented his credentials to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Yuryevich Rudenko.

Russian President Vladimir Putin directly approved the move, which the Kremlin has explained is aiming at strengthening cooperation in combating terrorism and drug trafficking. Moscow’s own embassy in Kabul has remained operational all of these years.

Image source: Afghanistan’s Embassy in Moscow

Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, has described, “First of all, Afghanistan matters because of the terror threats that once stemmed from there. Second, drug trafficking. Since the current authorities are actively working to control this, maintaining a partnership is important.”

Without doubt, high on the minds of Moscow officials remains the attack on the Crocus City Hall venue near Moscow in March of last year by a group of gunmen who also detonated bombs.

It was the deadliest terror attack on Russian soil in decades, and claimed the lives of over 130 people. Russia blamed the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K) group, which originates in the restive AfPak region.

In addition to counter-terror cooperation, Russian Foreign Ministry highlighted that recognizing the Taliban government enables broader cooperation in areas like trade and energy. Already deals have been signed related to oil, gas, and wheat.

It was in 2022 that Russia removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations, in order to pave the way for regional economic deals.

There is of course a huge irony in all of this and historic roles have definitively reversed. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, US and Pakistani intelligence launched ‘Operation Cyclone’ to arm the Mujahideen, out of which came the Taliban. Some of the militants the CIA trained, armed, and funded would later go on to form Al-Qaeda.

It was in 2001 under the Bush administration that the US overthrew the Taliban regime which had been in power since 1996. After a two-decade plus long US coalition occupation, the US exited Afghanistan in 2021 under Biden, after which the Taliban returned to power.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 07/06/2025 – 21:35

Carlson Teases Interview With Iran’s President: ‘God-Given Right To All Information Americans Can Gather’

Carlson Teases Interview With Iran’s President: ‘God-Given Right To All Information Americans Can Gather’

Former Fox News show host and journalist Tucker Carlson has revealed plans to release an interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, explaining that the American public has a right to hear directly from the leader of a nation the US military recently attacked.

Anticipating immense pushback from mainstream media pundits as well as hawkish politicians, Carlson stated, “We know we’ll be criticized for doing this interview. Why did we do it anyway? Well, we did it because we were just at war with Iran 10 days ago, and maybe again.”

Image source: Jerusalem Post/Shutterstock

He said further in the preview clip of his The Tucker Carlson Show that it was conducted remotely with the help of a translator, and that it will be made public “in a day or two” – which likely means early this coming week.

“And so, our view, which has remained consistent over time, is that American citizens have the constitutional right and the God-given right to all the information they can gather about matters that affect them,” he added in the preview clip introduction.

“Can you believe everything you hear from the president of Iran? Probably not,” Carlson said. “But that’s not the point. The point is, you should be able to decide for yourself whether you believe it or not.”

The full discussion between Carlson and Pezeshkian apparently did not involve questions over the extent to which the Trump-ordered bombing raids impacted Iran’s nuclear development or progress.

Carlson reasoned, “There’s no chance he’s going to answer that question honestly. I didn’t bother to ask it. The answer, in fact, from an American perspective, even from the CIA’s perspective, is unknowable. So we dispense with those.”

“There are all kinds of questions that I didn’t ask the president of Iran, particularly questions to which I knew I could get an not get an honest answer, such as, ‘was your nuclear program totally disabled by the bombing campaign by the US government a week and a half ago?'” he said.

“The purpose of the interview was to add to the corpus of knowledge from which Americans can derive their own opinion. Learn everything you can, and then you decide that’s the promise of America,” Carlson said additionally.

One source has pointed out the following…

“And we hope that this interview does a small part to making that promise real this interview will be up as soon as we have done editing it as noted and that should be in a day or two.” 

Indeed poll after poll shows that in any given overseas conflict, and especially in cases of so-called preemptive US strikes, the most pro-war demographic among the American public tends to have the least knowledge of the countries they advocate bombing. Often there’s little awareness of basic geography or especially recent history.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 07/06/2025 – 20:25

New York Times Struggles To Explain Why It Reported News To Traumatized Readers

New York Times Struggles To Explain Why It Reported News To Traumatized Readers

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

This week, the New York Times experienced an uprising in its ranks and among its readers. The paper was denounced by its own staff and liberal pundits called for the entire editorial staff to be canned.

Why?

Because The New York Times actually reported news that was deemed harmful to the Democrats, specifically Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani. The newspaper took the additional step of publishing a cringing explanation of why it reported the news that Mamdani lied on his Columbia application in claiming to be black.For liberals, it was an utter nightmare. For a party still defined by identity politics, Mamdani’s false claim over his race left many uncertain about how to react.The left has always maintained a high degree of tolerance for false claims by its own leaders, from Sen. Elizabeth Warren claiming to be a native American to Sen. Richard Blumenthal claiming to have served in the Vietnam War.

The problem is when a news eco-chamber for many readers is shattered by an errant outbreak of journalism. Many Times readers live within a hermetically sealed news silo, relying on MSNBC for cable, The New York Times for print, and BlueSky for social media. You can literally go all day without being exposed to an opposing view or fact. Then suddenly this happens.

The result is often anger. It is the same response many in higher education have to “triggering” views being expressed on campus by conservative or libertarian speakers.

The fact is that the Mamdani story was obvious news—and confirmed by the candidate himself. Mamdani identified as both Asian and African American on his 2009 Columbia University application, according to the New York Times.

Some accused him of being a fraud while others suggested he was trying to abuse affirmative action.

The Times reported, adding:

Columbia, like many elite universities, used a race-conscious affirmative action admissions program at the time. Reporting that his race was Black or African American in addition to Asian could have given an advantage to Mr. Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and spent his earliest years there.

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Mamdani, 33, said he did not consider himself either Black or African American, but rather “an American who was born in Africa.” He said his answers on the college application were an attempt to represent his complex background given the limited choices before him, not to gain an upper hand in the admissions process. (He was not accepted at Columbia.)

Other candidates, like Mayor Eric Adams, went after Mamdani, and the matter has now become an issue in the mayoral election.

The Times readers were outraged to the point that the paper published a lengthy statement from the Times’ assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust, Patrick Healy, attempting to explain why it decided to publish facts that undermined a Democratic candidate. Healy sheepishly explained that “When we hear anything of news value, we try to confirm it through direct sources. Mr. Mamdani confirmed this information in an interview with The Times.”

It did not help. Much like the infamous Cotton scandal, where editors were fired for allowing a Republican senator to print an opposing view on riots, writers and pundits demanded firings or attacked the journalists.

One such response came from Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, who attacked the journalists themselves. Not surprisingly, the attack appropriately came on BlueSky, a social media site designed to be a safe place for liberals who do not want to be triggered by opposing views.

Bouie slammed Times reporter, Benjamin Ryan, as stupid, claiming, “Everything I have seen about him screams a guy with little to no actual brain activity.”

After that outrageous attack, Bouie deleted the post, explaining, “I deleted several posts about a Times story because they violated Times social media standards.”

Bouie seems to view Ryan as simply stupid for publishing the truth about the leading candidate for mayor lying about his race. It is the ultimate expression of advocacy journalism. Apparently, the Times should have killed the story to keep readers from knowing about Mamdani’s prior false claim.

In “The Indispensable Right,” I discuss the radical shift in American journalism that occurred with the rejection of neutrality and objectivity in favor of advocacy journalism. J-schools now teach that objectivity is a dated concept. As former New York Times writer (and now Howard University journalism professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones has explained, “All journalism is activism.”

After interviewing more than 75 media leaders, Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor, and Andrew Heyward, former CBS News president, detailed how media leaders view neutrality and objectivity as dated concepts that inhibit social and political agendas.

The problem is that once readers become accustomed to an echo chamber, exposure to opposing facts triggers rage.

That was evident among pundits and commentators like former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who declared, “Your absolute abrogation of the NYT standards would in a better era there have led the full range of you in management to resign. Utter failure. Then again, if you don’t realize NYT is perceived as actively campaigning against Mamdani, you’re all lost anyway.”

Ironically, the opposition to Mamdani by some liberals over his anti-Israeli views is being cited as the only reason that the Times would run such a story opposing a leading Democratic candidate. It raises an even more chilling prospect that, absent such a division among Times readers, this story might not have been published.

I hope that that is not true. As many on the left breathe into paper bags from the exposure to an opposing view in the Times, this could prove an important cultural moment for a newspaper that has led the industry toward advocacy journalism.

Many of us still hope that the Times and papers like the Washington Post will still reject advocacy journalism and move back toward objective journalism. However, as this latest controversy demonstrates, that revival will be difficult after years of hiring writers and editors who view neutrality as a relic of journalism.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 07/06/2025 – 19:50

300% Increase In American Investors Defrauded By ‘Pump’n’Dump’ Stock Fraud: FBI

300% Increase In American Investors Defrauded By ‘Pump’n’Dump’ Stock Fraud: FBI

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

There has been a surge of criminals targeting stock investors in the United States in a “ramp-and-dump” stock manipulation scheme via messaging apps and social media platforms, the FBI said in a July 3 alert.

In the scheme, “investment clubs” are promoted among potential targets. These clubs are often bots or fake accounts, and the promotional messaging directs victims to secure messaging apps where the group operates. Scammers impersonate legitimate brokerage firms or well-known stock analysts to appear credible.

“They secretly control a large volume of a low-priced stock and coordinate efforts to inflate its price (‘ramp up’) by encouraging investment club members to purchase shares over a period of several weeks or months,” said the alert.

“Once the price is artificially elevated, the criminals sell off (‘dump’) their shares at a profit, leaving unsuspecting investors with significant losses as the stock value collapses.”

According to the FBI, there has been at least a 300 percent annual jump in victims complaining about ramp-and-dump stock fraud so far this year.

The agency asked investors who suspect they’ve been duped in investment fraud to report the incident to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) website.

The FBI’s Chicago Division released a statement earlier this year seeking victim information on a ramp-and-dump investment scheme.

In January, some individuals allegedly impersonated U.S. investment advisors, making “false representations and instructed investors to purchase shares of CLEU stock, promising significant returns on their investment.” CLEU refers to China Liberal Education Holdings Limited.

“However, when the value of CLEU stock dropped dramatically on January 30, many investors lost nearly all of the funds invested in these shares,” the FBI statement said.

Warning Signs of Fraud

In the FBI alert, the agency detailed some of the red flags to watch out for to identify whether an investment proposal is part of a ramp-and-dump scheme.

For instance, people targeted by scammers could receive unsolicited investment tips via “accidental” messages with links to online investment clubs.

The scammers may push to buy low-priced stocks in emerging or new companies, promising high returns, and even vowing to cover losses incurred from investing in these entities, said the alert.

They can pressure people to quickly buy stocks, citing a major market-moving event such as government approval or a company breakthrough, it added.

“If anyone requests your personal information, access to your financial account(s), or offers a financial benefit in exchange for sharing your information or opening an account, consider this a red flag; your information could be used to open an account through which another party can engage in manipulative activity,” said the FBI.

According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a self-regulatory organization of broker-dealers, one of the hallmarks of a ramp-and-dump scheme it has observed is “significant, unusual price increases” on small-cap stocks on the day, or shortly after, their IPOs.

Most of these involve companies having operations outside the United States, said the organization, adding that U.S. regulators believe ramp-and-dump schemes were involved in manipulating some of these IPOs.

FINRA cited stocks having small market capitalization and limited public float—the shares of a company available for trade to the public—as a red flag of ramp-and-dump fraud.

“These schemes have been more commonly found in relation to IPOs raising less than $25 million and issuing fewer than 20 million shares, with issuer valuations under $100 million,” FINRA said.

“Limited public float means that only a small portion of overall shares is available to the public. When a company has limited public float, its shares can be more volatile and harder for investors to sell.”

Tyler Durden
Sun, 07/06/2025 – 18:40

Watch: Mexico City Protest Against American Ex-Pat ‘Invasion’ Turns Violent

Watch: Mexico City Protest Against American Ex-Pat ‘Invasion’ Turns Violent

In a role reversal that underscores a universal resentment of economic and social impacts caused by a major influx of foreigners, demonstrators marched in Mexico City on Friday to protest against the city’s status as a hot new residential destination for American ex-pats and remote workers. Though it started peacefully, many demonstrators turned violent, with some of them accosting Americans and smashing the restaurants, banks and other businesses that cater to them.

Angered by soaring rents they rationally blame on foreigners, hundreds of protesters marched through Condesa and Roma — two neighborhoods that are particularly popular with Americans living in or visiting Mexico City —  and proceeded to the US embassy and to a metro station. Their signs expressed a variety of sentiments: 

  • Gringo: Stop Stealing Our Home
  • Mexico For Mexicans
  • Pay Taxes, Speak Spanish, Use Pesos Or Get Out Of Here
  • Death To The Neo-Colonizer
  • Expat = Gentrifier
  • Your New Home Is An Invasion
  • Gentrification = Neo-Colonization
  • To Gentrify Isn’t Progress, It’s Dispossession 
  • We Shouldn’t Feel Like Foreigners In Our Own Land

Some of the demonstrators started attacking businesses in Condesa and Roma, smashing windows, spray-painting graffiti, tearing down awnings, vandalizing cars, completely destroying a restaurant patio, and looting. A Starbucks outlet was among the most-damaged properties:

As rocks were hurled against the windows by the mob outside, Starbucks customers went prone on the floor: 

Video captured protesters screaming at American-looking tourists as they sat at a sidewalk eatery, and a man spray-painting KILL A GRINGO on a the wall of a building.

Following the mayhem, Mexico City Governor Carla Brugada issued a lengthy statement, carefully walking a line that combined a condemnation of the violence with her own opposition to gentrification, and a defense of her administration’s efforts to promote affordable housing:

“Mexico City does not agree with gentrification…We know that gentrification can exclude those who have lived their entire lives in their neighborhoods, which is why we allocate unprecedented resources to create conditions that allow them to continue developing their life projects in their own communities.

However, we in no way endorse violence to address this issue. We reject violence as a method to resolve conflicts. This city stands for rights and freedoms. We respect demonstrations and social expressions in response to any situation, but not aggression.”

The city’s popularity with ex-pats soared in the Covid era, as so-called “digital nomads” — remote workers who live months at a time in exotic locales — came to Mexico City to escape Amerian lockdown regimes, take advantage of the lower cost of living, and enjoy the mild climate.

With the influx of Americans, rents in the popular zones soared, squeezing out the locals. Neighborhoods were transformed, not only demographically but architecturally. One protester, 19-year-old college student Michelle Castro, told Associated Press that she’s watched the transformation of apartment complexes from residences for locals to rentals for tourists: 

“There are a lot of foreigners, namely Americans, coming to live here. Many say it’s xenophobia, but it’s not. It’s just that so many foreigners come here, rents are skyrocketing because of Airbnb. Rents are so high that some people can’t even pay anymore.”

Mexico grants residency permits that start out on a one-year term, with the freedom to leave and re-enter as much as you like over that span. The permit can be renewed up to a cumulative four consecutive years, followed by options to apply for permanent residency or to start the temporary residency process over again… 

    …which brings us to an important point. While many of the angry sentiments directed against Americans in Mexico City mirror those that might be voiced against illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States, there’s one enormous distinction that can’t be ignored: The Americans in Mexico City entered the country legally.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/06/2025 – 18:05

    America’s “Healthcare” System Is Now A Structured Financial Skim/Scam

    America’s “Healthcare” System Is Now A Structured Financial Skim/Scam

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    “Healthcare” grift, graft, fraud and financialized skims / scams will bankrupt the nation.

    I’ve been writing about America’s healthcare system for 18 years, emphasizing two enduring themes: 1) our lifestyle is unhealthy, with predictable consequences and 2) healthcare as it is currently configured will bankrupt the nation all by itself.

    This recent article on how having a baby without complications now costs over $44,000 adds a third theme: the tragi-comic insanity and absurdity of the “healthcare” system that has been normalized, as if this is the only possible way to organize healthcare:

    “And They Wonder Why The Birth Rate Is Declining”: A Mother Went Viral For Revealing The Costs Of Being Pregnant In America:

    Lastly, Kayla reveals that her baby received a bill, too, which added up to $12,761.30 without insurance. For their family of five now, the cost of insurance per month is $2,500 — a nearly $400 increase from when they were just a family of four. “We’re still waiting for him to process on our insurance,” she explains, “so, for now, this is the cost without it.”

    One user said, “America’s healthcare system is a joke… how does the newborn have a $12k bill?”

    It’s more than a joke–it’s travesty of a mockery of a sham of a system that actually improves health. There’s an even darker side of the picture–the takeover of the system by financiers and fraudsters–which truth be told is a redundancy.

    We can now add a fourth theme: stripped of purposeful opacity, America’s “healthcare” system is nothing more than a structured financial skim/scam. Before we dig into that, here are a few of the dozens of posts I’ve written on “healthcare” since 2008:

    U.S. Lifestyle + “Healthcare” = Bankruptcy (June 19, 2008)

    The “Impossible” Healthcare Solution: Go Back to Cash (July 29, 2009)

    Why “Healthcare Reform” Is Not Reform, Part II (December 29, 2009)

    Sickcare Will Bankrupt the Nation–And Soon (March 21, 2011)

    How Healthcare Became Sickcare (March 18, 2022)

    Let’s start with what childbirth cost back when healthcare was paid in cash. Here are the costs of childbirth in 1952 at one of the finest hospitals on the West Coast, The Santa Monica Hospital: $30:

    According to the BLS Inflation Calculator, $1 in 1952 is $12.13 today, so adjusted for inflation, the $30 fee to deliver a baby would be $363 today. Here are maternity rates from 1952:

    A private room was $19, or $230 in today’s currency. OK, so we have fancier equipment now, more staff, etc., but really–does that explain what once cost less than $1,000 in today’s money–paid in cash, no insurance–now costs $44,000? No. Here’s why: structured financial skims/scams.

    Dutch Rojas (@DutchRojas) is a go-to source for explaining the opaque way “healthcare” skims / scams siphon off hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Consider these X posts:

    Why is healthcare expensive?

    You go to your doctor.

    Same building, same service.

    But now it’s 3x the price, because they sold to a health system.

    The secret?

    A “facility fee” was added.

    Medicare and commercial payers just hand it over.

    It’s not for better care.

    It’s for ownership.

    Every consolidation deal is a bet against the patient and you’re footing the bill.

    And the politicians love every bit of it…

    Provider Taxes: The Most Elegant Grift in American Healthcare

    It’s not a tax.

    It’s a laundering operation.

    Here’s how it works:

    North Carolina’s ‘nonprofit’ health systems are running a $40+ billion hedge fund operation disguised as healthcare.

    They’re extracting hundreds of millions in tax exemptions while paying CEOs tens of millions.

    This is the largest wealth transfer scheme in the American healthcare system.

    This doesn’t even include outright Medicare/Medicaid fraud, overbilling, unnecessary tests, medications and procedures, and a nearly endless menu of other enrichment schemes passed off as “care.” These billions go to the “owners,” not the frontline healthcare providers / workers.

    Lastly, let’s consider a few charts. Here is my 2008 diagram of the building blocks of an unhealthy lifestyle:

    The cost of insurance continues rising, becoming ever more burdensome and ever more unaffordable:

    Yes, the number of retirees is expanding, but this parabolic rise in Medicare costs far exceeds the rise in the number of retirees.

    The same can be said of Medicaid.

    “Healthcare” grift, graft, fraud and financialized skims / scams will bankrupt the nation. Thanks to the purposeful opacity of the complex funding streams, we can’t even figure out what is actually “care” and what’s just another skim / scam.

    Our starting point should always be: this is not the only way we could organize “healthcare.” We could have a rational, transparent, competitive and affordable system. But to get that, we first have to completely dismantle the current system, and everyone skimming billions will fight with all their billions in campaign contributions to stop that from ever happening. As a result, the nation will be bankrupted by greed.

    *  *  *

    Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my new fiction/novels page.

    Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Subscribe to my Substack for free

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/06/2025 – 17:30

    ‘Fact Checkers’ Claim NY Mayoral Candidate’s “Seize The Means Of Production” Remark Isn’t Communist

    ‘Fact Checkers’ Claim NY Mayoral Candidate’s “Seize The Means Of Production” Remark Isn’t Communist

    Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

    An open Communist is on the verge of becoming the Mayor of New York, yet the self appointed Ministry of Truth wants Americans to believe that it’s totally not Communist ideology to advocate for “seizing the means of production.”

    Zohran Mamdani used the phrase openly in 2021, just one of many examples of his extreme left wing outlook.

    Yet, Politifact, an extreme leftist organisation that has declared itself the arbiter of truth says there’s a lack of context to the statement. 

    The post states:

    A White House spokesperson highlighted Mamdani’s use of the phrase in an email to PolitiFact July 1, days after we published our June 26 fact-check of President Donald Trump who called Mamdani ‘communist’ in a Truth Social post. The White House didn’t send us evidence to support Trump’s statement before our fact-check was posted; multiple political scientists and communism experts told us Mamdani’s mayoral race positions did not amount to communism. We rated Trump’s statement False.

    The spokesperson sent us a June 30 New York Post article highlighting Mamdani’s 2021 remarks as a newly elected state assemblyman and a 2020 Mamdani tweet praising a young leader. (We won’t dwell on the latter post because Mamdani’s point isn’t clear.) Fox News, Mediaite and CNN pundits flagged his resurfaced remarks.

    After reviewing the tape and re-interviewing experts, we decided not to change our False rating. Mamdani’s views in the mayoral race do not reflect communism, and experts found his 2021 remark too brief to reach detailed conclusions.

    The phrase is literally in the Communist Manifesto.

    What more context is needed?

    GTFO.

    They’re telling people not to believe what they’re seeing and hearing.

    Meanwhile, Mamdani faces a fresh scandal after being accused of lying about his ethnicity on his application to Columbia University.

    The 33-year-old Muslim immigrant reportedly identified himself as both “black” and “Asian” on his application to the elite Ivy League school, when he was a high school senior in 2009, the New York Times reported. 

    Mamdani’s application was ultimately denied despite the fact that his father, Mahmood, was working at Columbia as the director of the Institute of African Studies at the time.

    A new one for Politifact to check into then.

    Mamdani, who emigrated to the U.S. from Uganda, told the Times that he doesn’t identify as either race but only as “an American who was born in Africa.”

    “Most college applications don’t have a box for Indian-Ugandans, so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background,” he said, further claiming that he specified “Ugandan” in a separate section of the application.

    *  *  *

    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/06/2025 – 16:20

    NATO’s Rutte Warns Of Chinese-Russian Red Dawn As Medvedev Suggests He’s “On Magic Mushrooms”

    NATO’s Rutte Warns Of Chinese-Russian Red Dawn As Medvedev Suggests He’s “On Magic Mushrooms”

    NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has gone full ‘Red Dawn’ – warning that China and Russia might orchestrate simultaneous invasions of Taiwan and Europe to destabilize the Western alliance.

    If Xi Jinping would attack Taiwan, he would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, residing in Moscow, and telling him, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this, and I need you to keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory,’” Rutte claimed in a recent interview with The New York Times. “That is most likely the way this will progress, and to deter them, we need to do two things.”

    To counter this perceived threat, Rutte advocated a comprehensive dual approach aimed at fortifying NATO’s resilience and expanding its strategic partnerships.

    One is that NATO, collectively, being so strong that the Russians will never do this,” he explained, emphasizing the need for a robust collective defense posture to dissuade any Russian adventurism. “And second, working together with the Indo-Pacific—something President [Donald] Trump is very much promoting, because we have this close interconnectedness, working together on defense industry, innovation between NATO and the Indo-Pacific.”

    Rutte further heightened concerns by highlighting Russia’s rapid military rearmament, which he described as a pressing geopolitical challenge. “We have an enormous geopolitical challenge on our hands,” he told the Times. “And that is first of all Russia, which is reconstituting itself at a pace and a speed which is unparalleled in recent history.” The NATO chief claimed that Russia is “now producing three times as much ammunition in three months as the whole of NATO is doing in a year,” a statistic he attributed to Moscow’s deepening partnerships with North Korea, China, and Iran in sustaining its war against Ukraine.

    Dmitry Medvedev, a senior Russian official, took to X to mock the NATO leader, writing, “Rutte has clearly gorged on too many of the magic mushrooms beloved by the Dutch. He sees collusion between China & Russia over Taiwan, and then a Russian attack on Europe.” Medvedev added, “But he’s right about one thing: he should learn Russian. It might come in handy in a Siberian camp.” The caustic response reflects Moscow’s broader strategy of deflecting Western criticism with ridicule, though it offers little clarity on Russia’s actual strategic calculations.

    Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Trump has pressed NATO allies to significantly increase defense spending, successfully pushing for a new target of 5% of GDP, a sharp increase from the previous 2% benchmark. This demand, coupled with heightened concerns over European security, has driven countries like Britain and Germany to bolster their military budgets.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 07/06/2025 – 15:45