Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

From the very beginning of the Ukraine conflict I have been following developments on both sides. My concern has always been the larger implications in geopolitics and economics. Because globalism has pushed most nations into interdependency, an ongoing war in Ukraine could very well set off a chain of dominoes that tests America’s already unstable financial system and supply chain.

I should note that I really don’t care about the Ukrainian government or the Russian government and I have no interest in which side “wins.” I, like many people, think Ukraine has nothing to do with the American public and is purely a proxy war being pursued by NATO. It is my belief that certain international interests (globalists) are keen for the conflict to continue regardless as they seek to exploit it as a crisis of opportunity.

All of my primary predictions for the Ukraine war have turned out to be true:

First, as I noted in my article ‘The Globalist Reset Agenda Has Failed – Is Ukraine Plan B?’, published in January 2022, a regional war (or proxy war) with Russia in Ukraine was the most likely scenario to unfold, followed by international calls for escalation against Russia.

Second, in my article ‘Ukraine Learns The Value Of An Armed Citizenry, But Far Too Late’, published in March, I noted that:

“The methods which Ukrainian forces are using to ambush Russian armor columns are rather advanced and familiar. I suspect the possibility that there are outside military “advisers” (perhaps US advisers) on the ground right now in Ukraine. The advanced guerrilla-style ambush tactics and the results look similar to training that is often given to Green Berets or SAS. The UK did send anti-tank weapons along with a small group of “trainers” to Ukraine in January.”

It is now openly admitted by recently retired British Army, Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith that UK special forces (SAS) are on the ground in Ukraine leading Ukrainian troops. This revelation potentially opens the door to a much wider war between NATO and Russia.

Third, in my article ‘Escalation: Recent Events Suggest Mounting Economic Danger’, published last September, I predicted that:

“With the amount of propaganda coming from Ukrainian Intelligence and NATO, it’s hard to say what is actually happening, but I suspect Russia is changing strategies and repositioning to deploy missile and artillery bombardment of infrastructure, including power grids and water.”

“This is a tactic that Russia has avoided for months, which is surprising because one of the first measures usually taken by the US during an invasion is to eliminate most key infrastructure (as we did in Iraq).”

Not long after I wrote this, Russia did in fact shift to an infrastructure targeting strategy. Ukraine’s power grid was estimated in December to be 60% to 80% destroyed, and 70% of residents in Kyiv were without running water. Ukrainian grid operators admit that the damage is “colossal.” In the least damaged regions, the power grid is still running at a 30% deficit.

Large generators shipped by NATO countries have lessened the strain and allowed major facilities like hospitals and military posts to function and mild weather has helped prevent a full on exodus of the entire population. Repairs are ongoing, but the lowest damage estimates are running around $9 billion (more than double that in the mid-range estimates), and rolling blackouts continued through the end of January with a limit of 10 hours per day of electricity for citizens that still have a working grid.

I mention this information because it is important to put these events in context of the bigger picture; the mainstream media and a majority of pro-Ukraine people argued that these scenarios were not going to happen. They were wrong. They will continue to make wrong predictions because they are basing their conclusions on propaganda rather than evidence and logic.

Russian missile and drone strikes on infrastructure in particular were widely dismissed as a possibility in the weeks leading up to the Russian pullback. The “war was over”, they claimed, and soon Ukraine would take the Donbas and even Crimea. Yet, here we are months later and the war continues.

As I have noted ever since Russia shifted strategies for the winter, all Putin had to do is wait until NATO armaments and money started to fade and Ukraine’s grid down problems wear out the population. In terms of US arms, deliveries are now drawing down as inventories shrink on key weaponry. Putin has been playing the long game.

The grid targeting strategy made sense for a number of reasons, but most of all it suggests an effort by Russia to push civilian populations out of major cities or out of the country entirely. Why is this valuable to Putin? Because less civilians means a lesser chance of heavy collateral damage during a new offensive effort, which I believe will take place sometime this spring.

It’s important to understand that, for now, the dynamics of war have changed. The information age has made hiding military operations and movements very difficult, and when civilian casualties mount everyone in the world is going to know about it. If media and phone technology had been as available in Iraq in 2003 as it is today, I suspect the US would have waged the war much more carefully and avoided the high civilian death rate. At this time, public optics matter and Ukraine is as much an information war as it is a shooting war.

Putin is likely trying to clear the field of as many civilians as he can before a renewed push forward. At least 20% of the Ukrainian population has permanently fled to Europe under refugee status while around 2.9 million Ukrainians have left to join Russia.

Russia now has an approaching window for offensive actions, and the need for such a move is clear. NATO countries are supplying Ukraine with less armaments than before, but they are upping the technological level of the weapons they are delivering. It is only a matter of time before long range missiles are handed to Zelensky that would give him the ability to strike at targets deep in Russia.

Putin will need to increase the existing buffer and expand his foothold beyond the Donbas while also protecting Crimea from retaliation. This means, most likely, splitting the country in two from the north and drawing a majority of Ukraine/NATO elements there. Spring would be the most opportune time, as conditions for troop movements improve. Offense requires speed.

There have been reports of extensive troop movements and joint training in Belarus, a Russian ally within easy striking distance of Kyiv. The troop build up in Belerus is compounded by a recent statement by President Alexander Lukashenko, who warned that even a single enemy soldier crossing the Belarus border would lead to the nation’s full involvement in Ukraine. In other words, Belerus is about to join a Russian offensive with its 60,000 troops and 300,000 reservists. Surrounding Kyiv from the north would be child’s play.

Russia has been engaged in counter-operations in the east for the past month, but I suspect this is a distraction from the real strike which will come from Belarus. Russia has cut their artillery attacks by 75%, which suggests a stockpiling of ordnance for an offensive attack. Russia’s missile bombardments have also been highly limited, and though mainstream propagandists say that they must be “running low”, a majority of their missile technology has been used sparingly, including their hypersonic missile technology which has only been used three times for key targets according to reports.

Russia has not deployed the majority of their air forces and larger drones to Ukraine. A cursory study of Russian military capabilities should tell anyone that Putin is holding back, again, likely to avoid mass civilian casualties. All bets are off this spring if and when Belerus joins the theater.

Mainstream military analysts continue to argue that Belarus is “just a feint.” They say the deployment of Russian forces is limited, that Russia doesn’t have the resources for a new offensive and that Belarus will not join the war. The fact that these analysts have been consistently wrong for the past year tells me that ALL of these elements are going to happen.

The question is, what happens after that? What happens when Russia takes considerable ground in Ukraine despite hundreds of billions of dollars in NATO aid, advanced armaments, intel from the DoD and special forces “advisers” on the ground? Well, NATO officials have said that a loss in Ukraine is not acceptable; meaning, they will escalate.

It’s hard to say yet what that would entail – Russia has already weathered all sanctions and economic tactics deployed by the west with the help of trading partners like China and India. They have even survived being removed from the SWIFT network. Escalation would have to entail direct contact.

It is my belief that the Ukraine event is just one part of a larger chain reaction.

With NATO weakened after throwing billions in cash into Ukraine along with a large supply of arms, it seems obvious to me that this is an opportune time for another conflict elsewhere which NATO will be ill equipped to respond to. China is in a perfect position to invade Taiwan, for example.

Ukraine is a useful powderkeg, but not the only powderkeg.

*  *  *

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Authored by Julie Kelly via American Greatness (emphasis ours),

It’s week five of the Justice Department’s most high-profile—and high-stakes—criminal trial related to the events of January 6, 2021. Five members of the Proud Boys face the rare “seditious conspiracy” charge. Guilty verdicts—almost certain given the government’s near-perfect conviction rate for January 6 defendants—would build legal momentum for a similar indictment against Donald Trump. (The trial is so crucial that Matthew Graves, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia responsible for prosecuting every January 6 case, has shown up in the courtroom on at least three occasions.)

Trump is a major figure in this trial, an unindicted coconspirator of sorts. Last week, Judge Timothy Kelly allowed prosecutors to play a clip of Trump’s extemporaneous comment for the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”—a remark uttered during a presidential debate in September 2020 more than three months before the Capitol protest. The Justice Department wants to portray the comment as a call to arms, tying the alleged “militia” group to the former president.

The clip is just another thin reed of evidence in the government’s landmark domestic terrorism case. In fact, much of the “evidence” amounts to nothing more than worthless trinkets, braggadocious group chats, and otherwise protected political speech. 

It now appears that one key piece of evidence was not the work of any defendant in this case but rather written by a one-time government intelligence asset with unusual ties to both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, another group involved in January 6.

A document titled “1776 Returns” is cited by the government to indicate the group had an advanced plan to “attack” the Capitol. In two separate criminal indictments, prosecutors explained how the document ended up in the hands of Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys: “On December 30, 2020 [an unnamed] individual sent Tarrio a document—[that] set forth a plan to occupy a few ‘crucial buildings’ in Washington, D.C. on January 6, including House and Senate buildings around the Capitol, with ‘as many people as possible’ to ‘show our politicians We the People are in charge.’”

Calling the document a “high-level summary,” a prosecutor last week combed through each page of “1776 Returns” with an expert witness even though the government conceded there was no proof Tarrio opened the file or shared it with others.

“The plan, essentially, is to have individuals inside these buildings, either cause a distraction, or—pull fire alarms in other parts of the city to distract law enforcement so that a crowd can then rush the buildings and occupy the interior so they can demand a new election,” FBI Agent Peter Dubrowski told the jury.

In other words, an “insurrection!”

But a bombshell motion filed over the weekend debunks the Justice Department’s suggestion that the document was a product, or at least a roadmap, used to guide the group’s conduct on January 6. The filing suggests that the handling of “1776 Returns,” like so much of January 6, was yet another sting operation. 

“It appears that the government itself is the author of the most incriminating and damning document in this case, which was mysteriously sent at government request to Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio immediately prior to January 6 in order to frame or implicate Tarrio in a government created scheme to storm buildings around the Capitol,” wrote Roger Roots, attorney for Dominic Pezzola, in the motion seeking a mistrial. “As such, [the document] and the government’s efforts to frame or smear defendants with it, constitutes outrageous government conduct.”

Turns out, the person responsible for preparing the document is a man named Samuel Armes, a young cryptocurrency expert living in Florida. But Armes’ résumé raises many red flags, particularly in a case involving the use of multiple government informants. 

Armes told the January 6 select committee last year that he has worked for the State Department and Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. “A lot of the work that I did for the government was in counterthreat finance or regulatory environments around crypto,” he testified.

As a student at the University of Southern Florida, Armes was enrolled in a special program that prepared graduates for a career in the intelligence sector. Armes told House investigators he was “groomed to be in the CIA, FBI, or any intel agencies.” When asked to clarify what that meant, Armes explained he was “trained and educated” to eventually work as an intelligence asset. 

Part of that training required preparing different responses to potential terror threats. And Armes was no slouch. “I reported under Colonel [Joshua] Potter’s counterthreat finance unit. And I actually developed for them critical research on cryptocurrency that may have been used by drug cartels or ISIS. And so I did similar scenarios with them, wargaming scenarios, of why these terrorist groups might be using cryptocurrency and how they might go about doing so.”

That background in “war games” apparently motivated Armes to do the same before January 6. After reading reports about the Transition Integrity Project, a collection of high-level Trump foes plotting to remove Trump from office regardless of the election’s outcome, Armes said he felt compelled to perform his own “worst case scenario.” 

Hence the “1776 Returns” paper.

But Armes’ explanation as to why he put thoughts on paper is strange, to say the least. His reasons for “brainstorming,” as he called it, what might happen after the election veered from the Terry Schiavo case—“when government authorities are kind of confused and people don’t know who to obey or who to answer to, anarchy kind of breaks out, and certain parties take advantage of that anarchy,” he said of the protracted legal battle over the famous right-to-die case two decades ago—to Trump’s unpredictability, to the 2020 summer riots, to total anarchy in the streets. 

Even more odd is that his internal “brainstorming” document ended up in the inbox of Erica Flores, a business associate in Florida—who just happened to be Tarrio’s girlfriend at the time. “I had told her that I was kind of brainstorming what I think might happen, and she seemed interested. And she asked if she could see it, and I said sure. And so I ended up sharing it with her on a Google Drive.”

Flores then sent the document to Tarrio.

Flores’ version of events, however, is quite different from Armes’ account. While he disputed being the sole author of the document, Flores reportedly told the January 6 committee that Armes wrote the whole thing. Further, contrary to Armes’ testimony to the committee, she said Armes told her to send it to Tarrio.

For now, it’s unclear whether the public, or more importantly, the defendants, will learn the truth about the origins of the “1776 Returns” missive. Armes admitted he cannot find the original document in his Google files. And although Flores spoke with the January 6 committee, her transcript is not publicly available, buried with hundreds more at the National Archives.

That’s not the end of Armes’ weird story; he also was in contact with a member of the Oath Keepers in 2020. Armes’ name showed up on a hotel reservation for James Beeks, now on trial in D.C. for his participation in the January 6 Capitol protest. When House investigators asked Armes why Beeks included his name on the same hotel room, Armes claimed the man had a romantic interest in him.

Armes also admitted he and Beeks had many conversations before January 6 on topics such as the election and domestic politics. But just like Armes’ original “1776” document, those messages are missing, too.

As evidence piles up to show how federal assets played an animating role before and on January 6, Armes’ weird account—and background in government intelligence—cannot be dismissed as coincidence.

Los Angeles Times photographers have published stunning before and after photos of Lake Oroville, one of California’s largest reservoirs, on the State Water Project, to only reveal nature has healed itself — not humans or insane ‘green’ taxes pushed by progressive Democrats who virtue signal about saving the planet. 

As of Thursday, the California Department of Water Resources’ data showed the current water level at Lake Oroville was 69% of its capacity on Wednesday — up from 28% just two months ago. The State Water Project is a network of reservoirs, canals, and dams that supplies water to 27 million people. 

Last summer, Lake Oroville’s water levels fell dangerously low (read: here & here). But a conveyor belt of atmospheric rivers dumped trillions of gallons of rain on the state early this year that helped fill up the once drought-stricken reservoir. 

And there’s more good news: deep snowpack this year in California, the Great Basin, and the Colorado River Basin will provide even more water in the months ahead to alleviate severe drought conditions. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. government is asserting that it, not Moderna, should face a lawsuit that alleges the company committed patent infringement with its COVID-19 vaccine.

The government said the court should allow it to “relieve Moderna of any liability for patent infringement resulting in performance of the ’-0100 contract and to transfer to the United States any liability for the manufacture or use of the inventions claimed in the patents-in-suit resulting from the authorized and consented acts.”

Liability did not refer to an admission of patent infringement, the filing said, but “having legal responsibility for any acts that may constitute the alleged infringement.”

Arbutus Biopharma and Genevant Sciences sued Moderna in 2022 in federal court in Delaware, alleging Moderna in its vaccine used “breakthrough technology” that Arbutus had already created and patented.

Moderna later filed for dismissal, arguing that under federal law, any infringement claims relating to inventions being used “by or for the government” and with “the authorization and consent of the government” must be handled in the Court of Federal Claims.

The first prong was satisfied in the 2020 contract between Moderna and the U.S. Army—the ’-0100 contract—which stated in part that the agreement was “for the United States government … and the U.S. population,” Moderna said. The second prong, the company said, was met by the insertion of a regulation stating the government “authorizes and consents to all use and manufacture, in performing this contract or any subcontract at any tier, of any invention described in and covered by a United States patent.”

In his ruling rejecting Moderna’s attempt to dismiss the case, U.S. District Judge Mitchell Goldberg said the allegations against Moderna indicated the development and sale of the vaccines was primarily for the benefit of the vaccine’s recipients. The U.S. government was an incidental beneficiary, he said. Under legal precedent, the law, 1498, does not cover inventions with an incidental benefit.

“While discovery may reveal that all, some, or none of the alleged infringing activity was ‘for the Government,’ the limited record appropriate for consideration at this stage does not allow me to make any such determination,” Goldberg, a George W. Bush appointee, said. The judge also declined to find that Moderna met the standard for having the government’s authorization and consent, in part because the government had not filed any papers in support of the company.

In the new statement of interest, government lawyers made clear they are backing Moderna.

Read more here…

Several bicyclists in the San Francisco Bay Area’s East Bay have reported being the targets of a group of drivers who are pulling up beside them and quickly opening their doors in an attempt to hit the riders.

The so-called “dooring” incidents have left two riders seriously injured, according to members of the East Bay Bike Party, who say incidents occurred last Thursday through Saturday in Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville.

At least 14 people have been targeted and eight were actually hit, the cyclists said.

In two incidents, the suspects swerved directly into the bicyclist as opposed to using their doors.

According to KTVU, Oakland PD is investigating a Friday night collision in which a cyclist was involved in a crash.

In another instance, bicyclist Ellie Mead suffered a serious head injury, but was told by police to “call back later” when she tried to open a case.

As KTVU further reports:

Around this time, other bikers said they were targeted. One was on Shafter Avenue traveling northeast approaching Hudson Street and was also hit by a car door; by 5366 Shafter Ave. The victim did not suffer any physical injuries, but his bike was damaged. 

“They bent his rim, but some amazing Samaritans gave us a loaner, so we could still ride. Don’t have more details, unfortunately. Sad this happened to so many people,” said a biker.

Many of the victims on Saturday night were in the Rockridge and Shafter neighborhoods and were on their way to the EB Bike Party at Rockridge BART.

2/3: In this video, driver of car speeds up and chases after bicyclist near Shafter & Clifton in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood, per @ebbikeparty, warning of numerous incidents known as “dooring.” @oaklandpoliceca pic.twitter.com/4UJ8tNHq0Q

— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) February 13, 2023

“This is very scary. It’s criminal. I mean the people doing it should really think about the consequences here,” said Watson Ladd. “They pulled ahead after the roundabout. As they passed they opened their door smacking me in the shoulder and just drove off.”

Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

A progressive San Francisco politician is proposing that California legalize sex work. Though Supervisor Hillary Ronen’s proposal is just a resolution, not a mandate, it’s part of a continuing trend in the city and state of liberalization and decriminalization of prostitution. 

“I don’t think this is going to happen tomorrow,” Ronen told a journalist. But, she said to another, “I do feel that society’s acceptance and (ability) to get away from the morality issues is growing.” 

But if California and San Francisco legalize prostitution, it will likely exacerbate sex trafficking, including of minors, say experts.

 “If we do that, this gives total leeway to the traffickers to exploit minors,” said Elizabeth Quiroz, who was sex trafficked in San Francisco.

“If you legalize it, you increase demand and so you have to increase supply.”

Already, sex trafficking has increased two- to threefold since last June, when Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation by San Francisco State Senator Scott Wiener that removed the criminal prohibition on loitering with the intent to solicit prostitution.

Investigators with Special Operations Finding Kids, who rescued a 14-year-old from her pimp in San Francisco last week, say that the trafficking of minors had been increasing alongside the decrease of police over the last two to three years. 

Defenders of legalizing prostitution point to European cities like Berlin as a model. In 2002, Germany defined prostitution as a profession and gave “sex workers” the right to health care, a pension, and unemployment benefits. Arrests for exploiting prostitutes declined from 1,365 to 45 between 2000 and 2014. “The law governing sex trafficking was not modified,” notes an analyst, “yet there were less than half as many trafficking cases in 2014 than in 2000…. The decline may mean that legalization reduced the involvement of bad actors.”

But sex trafficking increased in Germany upon legalization, according to one quantitative study of 150 countries, a correlation that holds for countries across the globe that legalize prostitution. A police detective responsible for investigating and prosecuting human trafficking in Germany said in 2020 that for two decades, there had been a degradation of conditions for prostitutes and a reduction in the state’s ability or willingness to prosecute organized crime and abuse, resulting directly from legalization.

Even the analyst quoted above, who is sympathetic to the German model, acknowledged, “Many of the madams [in Germany] are connected to organized crime networks based outside of Belgium, and they exercise tight control over the African or Eastern European women working for them.” In 2016, an Eastern European woman who was being sexually trafficked in Hamburg jumped out of a third-story window to escape. “The German system has effectively legalized rape, so long as it’s done to a prostituted woman,” a sex trade survivor told journalist Julie Bindel. 

Legalization neither ends trafficking nor encourages the reporting of it to the police. One study showed that sex customers in Germany, where prostitution is fully legal, reported witnessing sex trafficking more than their counterparts in the UK, Scotland, and the United States, where prostitution is fully or partly illegal, and reporting it to authorities less. 

The same study showed that German sex customers were more likely than their counterparts in other countries to regard prostitutes as “unrapeable,” meaning that johns can do whatever they want to prostitutes without their consent. 

Have things gone better in Nevada where prostitution is legal? They have not.

“Even in Nevada, they have panic buttons,” said Marjorie Saylor, a survivor of sex trafficking. But, she said, “By the time you hit them, you can be choked out, or dead.”

Brenda Sandquist, an advocate for trafficking victims in Nevada, said that women in the state’s legal brothels are frequently beaten and raped in their rooms and then forced back to work. When these crimes are reported, the police often won’t do anything since the brothels are legal. Pimps also use Nevada’s brothels as legal shields; criminal trafficking rings in California will sometimes stash trafficked girls in them to keep them out of the reach of law enforcement.

And the abuses that come from legalized prostitution could be far worse in San Francisco, where the police department is short 540 officers, and open air drug dealing is widespread. The proposal to legalize prostitution in San Francisco comes on the heels of proposals to put supervised drug sites in neighborhoods around the city and allow marijuana cafés to attract tourists. 

Mayor London Breed last month announced she was working with Ronen, the sponsor of the prostitution legalization resolution, to allow city contractors to create centers for people to use hard drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and meth like they do in Amsterdam. 

And San Francisco State Assemblymember Matt Haney earlier this month proposed marijuana coffee shops, also modeled on what Amsterdam does.

“Let’s support our small businesses, tourism and hospitality sectors,” he tweeted, “and our legal cannabis small businesses.”

His proposal has the support of another supervisor, Rafael Mandelman.

But as San Francisco politicians emulate Amsterdam, Amsterdam has restricted hours when bars, pot shops and brothels are open.

Just a few days after Haney made his proposal, Amsterdam city authorities announced a ban on smoking cannabis in the city’s red light district to reduce crime and violence. .

Why is that?

Why are San Francisco city leaders seeking to do more of what has plainly failed?

Why is it going in the opposite direction of Europe?

Money, Sex, And Religion

Downtown San Francisco is eerily empty as the city’s population has shrunk and workers have stayed away from the office.

The immediate reason Supervisor Ronen is seeking to legalize prostitution and create a red-light district is that four blocks in her district have become what she says is a “cruising zone” for johns seeking prostitutes, and neighbors are fed up.

“They feel like they don’t get the same level of attention as other city residents,” said Kanishka Cheng of the good government group Together SF. 

Ronen agrees.

“What’s happening right now on Capp Street is it’s become more brazen and bigger than we’ve ever seen it before,” she said. 

But in seeking legalization and a red-light district, Ronen is doubling down on the liberalization approach that caused the increase in streetwalking since last June. 

Why won’t Ronen and progressives shut down sex trafficking? Because doing so would require using the police and the courts, which Ronen and her colleagues say is racist and causes more harm than good.

…

Subscribers can read more here…

Authored by Kevin Homer via The Brownstone Institute,

The American Medical Association (AMA) urges physicians to promote COVID-19 vaccines and bivalent boosters. 

The AMA even supplies members with social media talking points and strategies to deal with vaccine detractors. 

It is not the first time that my profession has endorsed a product that may be hazardous to your health.

For most of the 20th century, the AMA turned a blind eye toward the dangers of tobacco use. During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, tobacco companies paid handsomely to advertise cigarettes in AMA’s journal, JAMA. In a 1948 editorial minimizing the ill effects of smoking and justifying tobacco advertising in its publications, JAMA noted that “cigarette business is a tremendous business,” as if the size of the bottom line can mitigate a conflict for an organization founded for the “betterment of public health.”

The connection between smoking and lung cancer was recognized early in the century. At the same time, the AMA became increasingly dependent on money generated by tobacco sales. Tobacco companies sponsored meetings of medical societies, setting up their booths alongside exhibitions of the latest medical treatments. Free cartons were distributed at physician meetings. Cigarette makers even paid for publication of pseudoscientific reports claiming the health benefits of their products.  

Doctors who opposed smoking faced ridicule from their colleagues. Dr. Alton Ochsner, a renowned surgeon and sentinel voice warning of the dangers of tobacco, began publishing on the connection between smoking and lung cancer in the early 1940s. His 1954 book Smoking and Cancer: A Doctor’s Report was negatively reviewed in prominent medical journals, characterized as a medieval model of logic that belongs in the nonscience section of a library. Prior to his appearance on Meet the Press, Dr. Ochsner was told he could not discuss the relationship between smoking and lung cancer on air.

Yet the mounting evidence was hard to ignore. In 1954, JAMA stopped accepting cigarette advertisements and published an editorial rebuking tobacco company advertising practices. But five years later, a JAMA editorial was still skeptical of the evidence linking smoking to cancer, and a 1961 Nebraska State Medical Journal editorial dismissed the evidence as merely “statistical.” Tobacco companies continued to sponsor state medical meetings as late as 1969. By then most people were aware of the dangers of smoking.

In 1964, the Surgeon General concluded that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and other life-limiting health conditions. The next year, a warning label was required on packages of cigarettes. By 1971, the government banned cigarette advertisements on television and radio. Instead of taking the lead against an obvious threat to public health, the AMA asked for time and money to study the effects of tobacco. 

Between 1964 and 1976, the AMA received more than $20 million from the tobacco industry to fund research. Instead of using the money for smoking cessation programs, many of the funded studies focused on ways to make a safer cigarette. To keep money flowing into its Education and Research Foundation the AMA delayed, stating in a confidential 1971 report that, “AMA is not prepared to make any statement regarding termination of the smoking-health research program.” The report went on to complain that tobacco companies are “in arrears on 1970 contributions.” The dependency on tobacco money created a political alliance between doctors and cigarette makers as their lobbyists joined forces in Washington. 

The delay benefitted tobacco sales and maintained the AMA’s “research” payments, but it angered Dr. Ochsner, who accused the AMA of being derelict. The AMA called Dr. Ochsner’s position “extreme.” But name-calling could not stall the inevitable conclusion any longer. In 1978 the AMA finally agreed with what most people had already realized: smoking causes lung cancer, and many other health problems. The romance with big tobacco was over.

Or was it?

As late as 1982, JAMA publications were warned to steer clear of “politically sensitive” topics like tobacco use. After most of a century of being on the tobacco dole, the AMA could not make a clean break. The AMA portfolio contained investments in tobacco companies until the late 1990s. 

In 1998, the tobacco industry settled lawsuits filed by state governments with a massive Master Settlement Agreement. In exchange for perpetual annual payments and tight regulatory control, the tobacco industry could continue to sell its products protected from future lawsuits brought by participating states and jurisdictions.  

But who really benefitted from the Tobacco Settlement? Only 2.6 percent of the money has been used for smoking prevention and cessation programs. Some states have used the tobacco money to fill budget gaps. South Carolina gave money to tobacco farmers affected by a drop in prices. Altria Group, a global tobacco company, is on the US News & World Report 10 best-performing stocks list. Altria, Phillip Morris, and British American Tobacco have all grown annual dividends consecutively since the settlement. According to Dr. Ed Anselm, “The most addictive thing about tobacco is money.”

Tobacco use remains the number one preventable cause of death in the United States. In the first fifty years after the Surgeon General’s 1964 report, more than 20 million Americans died of smoking. How many of these deaths would have been prevented if doctors had not been conflicted by financial entanglements with the tobacco industry?

Money blinds objectivity. When money drives decisions, controverting evidence is ignored, dissenting voices are ridiculed, open debate is suppressed, talking points are distributed, conclusions are delayed, and people die from a product with liability protection. 

The New York State Journal of Medicine published a retrospective of tobacco’s relationship to medicine in its December 1983 issue. Flipping through the pages is enlightening.  Surrounding the articles describing the greed and politics of Big Tobacco are advertisements from medicine’s new love—Big Pharma.  Doctors have exchanged one bedfellow for another.

By endorsing irrelevant COVID-19 vaccines and poorly tested bivalent boosters, the AMA is pushing a product without concern for its potential negative health effects. Like before, the medical profession lags behind public opinion. According to recent Rasmussen Reports, 7 percent of vaccinated individuals report a major side effect, and nearly half of Americans believe that COVID-19 vaccines have caused unexplained deaths, about the same proportion who believed that smoking caused cancer in the 1960s while the AMA was studying the issue.

A conflicted profession cannot honestly evaluate data. Nowadays, the pharmaceutical business is a tremendous business. An organization benefitting from product sales cannot be trusted to evaluate that product. 

If doctors could not recognize the health dangers of tobacco for most of the last century, why should we trust them when they say novel vaccines are safe and effective?

Keith Olbermann, generally considered a washed up “journalist” with a modicum of his former influence, is nonetheless a prominent voice of madness within the easily led leftist fold.  People like him should be considered a valuable litmus test for what the political left is really thinking, including the kinds of sentiments they rarely say out loud.  

The subject matter of his recent podcast should raise some eyebrows among anyone concerned about constitutional integrity or the 2nd Amendment, as Olbermann proudly suggests that Democrat controlled blue states should engage in economic civil war with red states in order to destroy conservative support for gun ownership.  

“WE MUST HAVE ECONOMIC CIVIL WAR.

“There is only one way to stop Mass Shootings. The Blue States must financially starve the Red States, the Gun Lobby, the GOP, the Death Lobby, and the crooked judiciary into submission.

“NOW.”

WEDNESDAY COUNTDOWN: https://t.co/OY1H1fxw8G pic.twitter.com/0wILxJIXu0

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) February 15, 2023

Olbermann’s theory is based on the assumption that blue states “have all the money” and that red states are somehow destitute and reliant on the good graces of rich Democrats.  This idea often stems from a common progressive assumption that all conservatives are poverty stricken “rednecks” trapped in “flyover country.”  It just confirms what we have long known – Progressives live in a regional bubble and rarely venture out of the hive mind they rely on daily.    

It’s a bizarre notion considering Americans have been leaving major blue states by the millions over the past few years due to economic decline, high taxes and draconian covid mandates.  This mass migration has been well documented, so it’s odd that Olbermann is unaware of it.  It’s not just individuals, but also businesses that are fleeing leftist areas and moving to conservative havens. 

In 2021, there wasn’t enough U-Haul trucks to accommodate all the people trying to escape California.  What were the destinations movers were going to?  Florida and Texas topped the list.  The California state government was so desperate to stop people from leaving (and desperate to maintain tax revenues) that they tried to pass a law requiring that former residents continue to pay taxes to CA for up to 10 years.  How they plan to enforce such a law is unknown, but the legislation reveals a panic among Democrats which is palpable. 

The mass exodus was not limited to California, though, and included states like New York, Illinois and New Jersey.  In terms of raw data, blue states make up the vast majority of the most indebted places in the US, and a list of the 10 most fiscally stable states is majority red.

In general, the biggest problems red states have in terms of economic disparity or crime are caused by Democrat run cities within their borders.  Wherever progressives manage things, disaster follows.     

Olbermann’s call for an economic civil war is delusional and impractical, but it does reveal a certain level of anxiety that leftists have about gun owners.  Not in terms of gun violence – They don’t actually care about gun related deaths; they only care about how such tragedies can be exploited for political gain.  What they do care about, it seems, is the fact that shooting events are not giving them the social leverage they used to get. 

In the past, the corporate media could run with a single mass shooting for many months in an effort to create hysteria over gun ownership.  However, gun ownership is rising among some Democrat and moderate voters.  And, concerns are increasing over economic instability and exploding crime in the US.  What leftists are realizing is that they are never going to get the guns because the public is realizing how much they need tools for self defense.  The citizenry is beginning to understand that gun control is a means to punish law abiding people for the actions of a handful of criminals.

Not only that, but an armed populace is a hard to dominate populace.  The goal of every authoritarian regime has been to first disarm their political enemies so that they can’t fight back. Leftist intentions are clearly based on a desire for control that compels them to obsess over gun rights.  They are even openly talking about extreme measures, including civil war, as a vehicle for gun control.  This is a good sign, because it shows how close the anti-gun rights lobby is to defeat.   

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg faced sharp criticism after he appeared to cast some of the blame for the Ohio train derailment onto former President Donald Trump because the Department of Transportation (DOT) under the former president nixed an Obama-era regulation on advanced train brake systems.

The derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3 of a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals sparked a blaze, releasing toxins into the air and forcing evacuations.

Buttigieg’s office did not address the incident for days, with the Transportation secretary breaking his silence on Feb. 14, saying he was “concerned about the impacts” of the derailment, which also led to contaminants entering the Ohio River, killing several thousand fish.

Buttigieg also took aim at the Trump-era DOT for axing a rule on the use of electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes.

“We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe,” Buttigieg said in a tweet.

The Transport Secretary’s tweet drew a flurry of reactions on social media, many critical.

“This is an absolutely insane thing to tweet,” wrote Jack Kennedy of Barstool Sports, in a tweet.

This is an absolutely insane thing to tweet https://t.co/ovMFB4t13Y

— Kenjac (@JackKennedy) February 15, 2023

“This is the state of the Biden administration: Blame Trump for something that happened exclusively under their watch,” wrote Canary CEO Dan K. Eberhart in a tweet.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) took to Twitter to remark: “It’s 2023 @PeteButtigieg. Stop blaming Trump.”

ECP Rule

As part of Trump’s cutting regulations that he said slowed the economy, the DOT in 2018 withdrew an Obama-era rule that was opposed by railroads requiring trains carrying certain hazardous chemicals to use ECP brakes.

Read more here…