Stellantis NV, maker of the Jeep, Ram and Chrysler brands, reached a tentative agreement with the UAW on Saturday, which included the same 25% hourly pay raise plus cost-of-living allowances over the more-than-four-year contract included in a similar deal reached by Ford last week.

Those agreements still need to be voted on by the companies’ union members.

And now, after more threats from the UAW, Bloomberg is reporting that GM is said to have reached a tentative agreement with UAW to end the strike that is costing them billions.

GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra and UAW President Shawn Fain reportedly spoke on Sunday, people familiar with the discussions said.

Bloomberg reported that the automaker and UAW made progress on the status of temporary workers but still needed to agree on retiree benefits, the people said.

With 300,000 retirees – the most of any automaker – a $500 annual payment would cost the company $150 million a year for the life of the deal.

The deal reached Monday includes a 25% hourly pay raise plus cost-of-living allowances over the more-than-four-year contract, according to the person, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

The agreement still needs to be approved by GM’s union members.

For context:

• Detroit automaker unionized labor costs, including wages and benefits, are estimated at an average of $66/hour.

• That compares with $45 at Tesla, which isn’t unionized, and $55 for Asian automakers.

• Meeting all of Fain’s initial demands would boost average hourly labor costs to an estimated $136/hour.

Fein claims to be matching the roughly 40% compensation gains automaker CEOs have realized in the past decade.

Ford’s CEO made $22mm last year. Stellantis’s $24.8mm. GM’s nearly $29mm.

“Competition is code word for race to the bottom, and I’m not concerned about Elon Musk building more rocket ships so he can fly in outer space and stuff,” Fain told CNBC, defending his demands.

“Our concern is working-class people need their share of economic justice in this world.”

As Eric Peters warned over the weekend: “The secular trend toward ever rising inequality is turning.”

“In August, UPS settled its labor dispute with the Teamsters 340k drivers who on average now make $170k in wages and benefits. That same month, Yellow failed to come to agreement with the Teamsters and ceased operations after nearly a century of trucking delivery — it awarded ten executives $4.6mm in special retention bonuses, laid off all 30k drivers and went into liquidation. A secular trend reversal to how society divides its economic spoils is not all that different from revolution. Bitterly fought, treacherous for all involved.

And this latest episode promises to be particularly so.

Because in the timeless conflict between capital and labor, it is extremely rare for the imbalance to be so extreme.

The wider the gap, the bigger the stakes.

And the last time the chasm was so great was at the height of the Roaring 1920s.”

GM shares are up in the pre-market, but not very impressively – perhaps on the reality of what this will do to the company’s bottom line…

As Eric Peters exclaimed yesterday, in the end its the taxpayer that will foot this giant bill:

“We hit the companies to maximum effect,” said UAW President Shawn Fain in a Facebook livestream. GM and Stellantis [and now GM] had just agreed to provide a 25% wage increase to United Auto Workers members, matching the same offer by Ford to end the six-week strike.

The gains are valued at more than four times those won in the last UAW contract in 2019 and provide more in base wage increases than Ford workers have received in the past 22 years.

The deal will reinstate major benefits lost during the Great Recession, including cost-of-living allowances. Some lower paid workers will receive an immediate 85% wage increase.

This is the sort of thing that happens in a relatively free market when capital owners have extracted such a large share of the nation’s economic spoils that labor revolts.

Government workers got a 4.6% raise this year. And 70mm Social Security recipients received an 8.7% benefit increase in 2023.

Such gains are mechanical, mathematical, removing the need for union strikes to extract more money.

The cost is simply added to the Federal deficit, which is funded through the issuance of bills and bonds, the supply of which is expanding at an accelerating rate.

Politicians can dampen the trajectory of this parabolic trend. Theoretically. In practice, they are the ones responsible for its remarkable shape.

And after six weeks of paralysis in the republican congress, a new House Speaker was selected, hailing from Louisiana, the 3rd most federally dependent state government in the union. Ahead of what will be the most chaotic presidential election in modern history, Mike Johnson will lead, having circulated an amicus brief – signed by more than 100 Republican lawmakers – and filed it in a Texas court case to contest the 2020 election results in four swing states.

It thus seems unlikely that our politicians will be focused in 2024 on restoring our national finances to a sustainable trajectory. There will be no Union boss to fight that fight. Only bond markets, which are ultimately built upon faith. And this is fading.”

The full terms of the deal are unknown but we are President Biden will give it another ‘thumbs up’, because, after all, it’s not his money.

Sur enough, President Biden just told reports, “I think it’s great.” Great for whom we are not 100% sure.

Authored by Aaron Pan via The Epoch Times,

The survey found that 60 percent of Americans are falling behind on their savings for emergencies, in which 38 percent said they are significantly behind…

A large majority of Americans are falling behind on their savings, as 81 percent have not increased their emergency savings since the beginning of the year, according to a survey.

The survey by Bankrate, released on Oct. 25, showed just 19 percent of American households increased their emergency savings, while 32 percent have less savings now compared with the beginning of 2023. Thirty percent of households have the same amount of savings, while 20 percent had no emergency savings at the start of the year and remain having none.

In terms of age, older generations tend to have less emergency savings now than at the beginning of the year.

According to the survey, households with income over $100,000 tend to have more savings now than at the beginning of the year.

In addition, the survey found that 60 percent of Americans are falling behind on their savings for emergencies, in which 38 percent said they are significantly behind and 22 percent said they are slightly behind.

Among those who said they were falling short on their savings, 13 percent said they would never be on track, while 22 percent said they were uncertain how long it would take.

The poll also found inflation is the main impediment that prevents Americans from increasing their savings amid renewed concern over long-term price hikes. Fifty-seven percent of households who suffered no saving increase blamed inflation for their issue, while 38 percent cited too many expenses that hurt their saving funds.

“Just 19 percent have increased their emergency savings balances since the beginning of the year. Rising prices and high household expenses have been the predominant impediments to boosting emergency savings,” said Bankrate chief financial analyst Greg McBride.

The survey was conducted online with 2,496 adults from Sept. 20 to 22.

Tap Savings for Consumption

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York revealed on Oct. 11 that Americans’ disposable income has fallen, and consumers are increasingly dipping into savings to prop up consumption.

From the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 through the end of 2021, Americans’ excess savings grew to roughly $2.6 trillion, or 14 percent of annual disposable income, according to the New York Fed.

Since then, U.S. excess savings have steadily fallen, dropping to 10 percent of disposable income—or $1.9 trillion—by the second quarter of 2023.

Data for the first two months of the third quarter cited by the New York Fed show that consumers have generally maintained their propensity to spend, but as real disposable income has fallen, they’ve increasingly been drawing on their savings to continue shopping.

Withdrawals From Retirement Savings on the Rise

Amid persistent inflation, retirement savings also take a hit as more Americans make hardship withdrawals from their retirement funds to cover emergency needs.

USA Today cited a report from Fidelity Investments, reporting that hardship withdrawals from 401(k) accounts have tripled from 2.1 percent in 2018 to 6.9 percent in 2023.

Moreover, hardship withdrawals at Vanguard have doubled during the 2018-2022 period, increasing from a monthly rate of 2.1 transactions per 1,000 participants in 2018 to 4.3 in 2022.

Inflation Eroding Living Standards

Nearly 50 percent of Americans say high prices are eroding their living standards—a record number that matched the all-time high set in July 2022, when the pace of inflation was a whisker away from breaking into the double digits.

“After stabilizing earlier this year, concerns about inflation have grown again,” reads the latest University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers report, released on Oct. 13.

The survey shows that 49 percent of consumers polled in early October said high prices eroded their living standards. That’s up substantially from last month’s 39 percent and matches the all-time high notched in July 2022.

Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), shot up at a furious pace through 2021 and narrowly missed breaking the 10 percent psychological barrier by mid-2022.

The rising prices peaked at 9 percent in June 2022, a multi-decade high that later fell to 3.1 percent by June 2023. However, inflation in August and September jumped back up to 3.7 percent, bringing renewed concerns about inflation.

What’s more, year-ahead inflation expectations have jumped, rising from 3.2 percent in September to 3.8 percent in early October, per the University of Michigan survey.

Longer-term inflation expectations also rose to 3 percent this month from 2.8 percent last month.

Poor sugar and cocoa harvests in Mexico, India, and the Ivory Coast, primarily due to El Nino-induced weather disturbances like low rainfall, have caused a spike in candy prices for the second consecutive year. Surging prices are leading some consumers to trade down to value or store-brand candy this Halloween, according to AP News. 

Data from retail price tracking website Datasembly reveals consumers have been slapped with the second year of double-digit inflation in the candy aisle. Prices for candy jumped 13% this month compared to prices last October. That’s up from a 14% increase in candy in October 2022. 

“The price of candy has gotten to be outrageous,” Jessica Weathers, a small business owner in Shiloh, Illinois, told AP. She usually buys plenty of candy for the trick-or-treaters, but this year, she only bought two bags, indicating, “It doesn’t make sense to me to spend $100 on candy.”

This Halloween, one-third of consumers are planning to trade down to value or store brands when buying candy for trick-or-treaters, according to market research firm Numerator. 

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show candy prices have rocketed higher in the last several years. 

El Nino weather trends have meant drier conditions for Asia, Central America, and West Africa, which are major growing areas for cocoa and sugar. 

Cocoa prices rocketed to 44-year highs on drier conditions across West Africa. 

“There may be no price relief in sight, at least through the first half of 2024,” said Dan Sadler, principal of client insights for Circana, a market research firm.

Global sugar prices have surged to 12-year highs as parts of Asia experienced dry weather that dented harvests. 

“The US candy consumer is essentially paying the price for poor crops in Mexico and also Asia,” John Stansfield, a senior sugar analyst at commodity data platform DNEXT, told NYTimes. 

For some context, at the supermarket, candy inflation means consumers can expect a 250-piece variety pack of Mars Inc. chocolate bars to cost around $25, versus the same package was $19.50 two years ago. 

Last week, Hershey’s CEO Michele Buck warned: “We know that value and affordability continue to be top-of-the-line for consumers as budgets are stretched.” 

Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

I’ve been saying for a long time that the transgender takeover of women’s sports is going to end only when women stop competing against them.

It makes sense that this retreat from competition is happening in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (“BJJ”), which is a close-contact sport in which women can get hurt, unlike racing. At a recent women’s BJJ competition, men completely dominated the event, with some events having only male competitors.

I did BJJ for almost a decade, although I started too late in life ever to be any good, and my joints got damaged before I got my advanced belts. However, I know a lot about the sport. At the dojo where I trained, men and women rolled together. This means I have experience grappling with both men, who were holding back as hard as they could, and with women, who were not.

Even with their settings on low, the men were more formidable opponents than the women were. They had greater bone mass and greater muscle mass. Where women, because of biology, had a lot of space and softness between hip and head, men did not. They were solid, without a forgiving waistline or more delicate neck. Theoretically, I could have choked out one of my women partners; I could never have choked out the men, whether in theory or fact.

This greater mass mattered because BJJ is about finding your opponent’s soft spots—his joints and neck—and putting those spots in holds that threaten either to break the joints, cut off the blood supply to the brain, or suffocate the person. This is close contact fighting. People can get badly hurt. I knew people at the dojo who dislocated joints, ripped muscles, and broke bones. Almost invariably, those people were men grappling men—and these were friends who didn’t mean to hurt each other.

In this regard, BJJ, like all martial arts, is different from the running and swimming races we usually hear about when it comes to men competing against women. A woman will lose a race against a man, but she won’t have her facial bones splintered, her shoulder broken, her hip dislocated, or any of the other gruesome injuries that are all too easy in a hard-fought BJJ round between a man and a woman.

Image: Real man-v-man BJJ in action. YouTube screen grab.

That difference may explain why several women who were set to compete at a BJJ competition last week pulled out when they realized that they might be grappling with biological men. In fact, so many women pulled out that, eventually, it was just men (weird, creepy men) grappling with each other:

In a martial arts tournament last week, several females boycotted because of the surplus of males competing against the women.

In most of the women’s divisions, there were more males than females competing. In one of the women’s division, there were ONLY males left competing as… pic.twitter.com/nULMvHBDVV

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) October 27, 2023

You can read more here about what’s going on in the world of competitive BJJ. Again, this rests with women: Unless women boycott any sport that allows men to compete, this is going to keep happening.

Women can either hang on by the skin of their teeth, hoping to take home a medal here and there, or they can band together to fully and finally expose the grotesque fraud of so-called trans-women who compete in and, inevitably, dominate women’s sports.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A new travel requirement for Americans visiting most European countries was delayed again to sometime in 2025, officials said.

The requirement involves an online travel authorization through the European Travel Information and Authorization System, or ETIAS, and it applies to the visitors of 30 European countries. That includes popular destinations such as France, Spain, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Portugal.

Now, the system “will be ready to enter into operation in Spring 2025,” said a brief announcement after a meeting of the Council of the European Union earlier this month. “The new roadmap for the delivery of the new IT architecture foresees that the Entry/Exit system will be ready to enter into operation in Autumn 2024,” it also said.

In a recent update to the European Union website for ETIAS, it said that “mid-2025” is when the new travel requirements will go online. No applications are being processed or “are collected at this point,” according to the website.

Multiple reports noted that the system was supposed to go into effect in 2021, but it has been postponed several times since then.

It’s not just travelers from the United States who will have to register online. Travelers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Israel, Mexico, and dozens of other countries—including some located on the European continent like Albania, Montenegro, and Ukraine—will have to adhere to the requirement.

The new system is being adopted by 27 countries in Europe’s Schengen Area as well as several others.

The European Commission, the executive decision-making organization for the EU, proposed the system in 2016 in what officials say is a means to strengthen security checks from people from over 60 countries who can visit Europe’s Schengen Area without a visa. The United States imposed a similar system years ago.

The system, meanwhile, will register the information and biometric data of travelers. That includes face scans and fingerprints, while stamp passports will be phased out.

This system, elaborated the European Union’s site, “will replace the current system of manual stamping of passports, which is time-consuming, does not provide reliable data on border crossings, and does not allow a systematic detection of over-stayers.”

Travelers will have to fill out an ETIAS application form before traveling and pay a $7 fee. However, some applications may take several weeks if additional information is needed from the traveler, while some may have to obtain an interview, according to the EU website.

“We strongly advise you to obtain the ETIAS travel authorization before you buy your tickets and book your hotels,” said the EU website, adding that the authorization is valid for three years.

Gareth Williams, a director at Eurostar—which operates trains to France from London—said that “we don’t currently see a practical solution. If we take the peak of August, up to 80 percent of people will have to go through the system,” reported The Independent.

The new system will likely increase processing times at European airports. “If the [biometric] process is added to the entry process, careful logistic planning is crucial to avoid congestion,” Kuan-Huei Lee, associate professor of tourism at Singapore Institute of Technology, told National Geographic.

But, “If you forget to do it, you won’t board the plane,” Sofia Markovich, a travel advisor and founder of Sofia’s Travel, told CNBC earlier this month, referring to applying under ETIAS. “After 9/11, things changed in the world,” she added. “It’s really about keeping things safe and knowing who comes in and who goes out.”

“It’ll be a minor hassle, but it’s not unusual for countries to have entry requirements like this one,” Cameron Hewitt, content and editorial director at Rick Steves’ Europe, told the Washington Post. “It certainly shouldn’t cause anyone to rethink a trip to Europe. From what we know, ETIAS looks like it’ll simply be a manageable bit of red tape.”

The update comes as the U.S. State Department recently sent out a worldwide alert to Americans overseas due to an elevated possibility for terrorist attacks, coming in the midst of high tensions in the Middle East.

“Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution,” the alert said earlier this month.

The issuance of the rare worldwide alert bulletin came after demonstrations and riots across the Middle East earlier this month in response to the conflict in Israel. The designated terrorist group Hamas attacked multiple areas in southern Israel, leading to an extensive bombing campaign in Gaza.

Retired US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler said it first and said it best: “War is a racket. It always has been…”

But what often goes unsaid is his next sentences:

“It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.“

And indeed, every year, the world’s most powerful countries spend billions of dollars on so-called ‘defense’.

But where does this money actually flow?

To gain insight, Visual Capitalist’s Marcu Lu and Bhabna Banerjee ranked the world’s top 25 defense companies by 2022 revenues, using data from Defense News.

Note that their graphic shows each company’s revenues from defense, and not total revenues. This is because many companies such as Boeing also generate revenue from non-defense related industries and sectors.

Data and Country Highlights

The data we used to create this graphic is listed in the table below.

The U.S. and China are the most represented countries on this list, with 12 and four respective companies in the top 25.

Country Highlights: U.S.

The U.S. consistently has the world’s largest military budget, so it’s no surprise that American companies dominate this ranking. Here are some interesting facts about the top three:

Lockheed Martin

• Formed in 1995 by the merger of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta
• While primarily known for producing advanced fighter jets like the F-35, the company is also working with NASA on the Orion spacecraft

RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies)

• Raytheon produces a wide range of military equipment, including the Javelin portable anti-tank missile system.
• According to CSIS, the U.S. has supplied 7,000 Javelins to Ukraine, equal to roughly one-third of its stock.

Northrop Grumman

• Formed in 1994 by the merger of Northrop and Grumman Aerospace, this company is known for developing the B-2 stealth bomber.
• In August 2023, the company opened an office in Taiwan to “accelerate access to the company’s technologies”.

Country Highlights: China

China’s top three companies in this ranking are all state-owned enterprises.

Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC)

• AVIC is China’s largest aerospace and defense company, also ranking 150th in the Fortune Global 500 (2023).
• Chengdu Aerospace Corporation, a subsidiary of AVIC, produces China’s first operational stealth fighter, the J-20.

China North Industries Group (CNIG)

• CNIG does business internationally under the name Norinco Group.
• In 2003, Norinco was sanctioned by the Bush administration for allegedly supplying Iran with missile technologies.

China South Industries Group (CSIG)

• CSIG produces military vehicles, ammunitions, and other equipment.
• The company also owns Changan Automobile, a major car brand in China and one of the world’s largest EV producers.

Other Highlights

Two European companies on this list that aren’t typically associated with the defense industry are Airbus and Rolls-Royce.

Airbus is one of the world’s largest producers of commercial airliners, and is widely used by major carriers alongside offerings from Boeing. When it comes to defense, Airbus produces a variety of military drones, fighters, and transports.

On the other hand, Rolls-Royce is a major supplier of aircraft and naval engines, and designs the nuclear propulsion systems for the UK’s submarine fleet.

It actually has no affiliation with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, which is currently a subsidiary of BMW. The original company ran into financial difficulties in the 1970s, which led to the separation of the car and aero-engine businesses.

Authored by Sonia Elijah via the Brownstone Institute,

Around the world, there has been a deafening silence over excess deaths from governments and the mainstream media, who not so long ago were quite fixated on the daily death toll for Covid. 

On October 20th, a 30-minute adjourned debate (20 rejections later) on excess deaths in the UK House of Commons was finally secured by Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire and member of the Reclaim Party. 

Bridgen began his speech to the sound of erupting cheers from the full, upper public gallery, in stark contrast to the almost empty chamber below. 

Where were the hundreds of MPs who would normally sit shoulder to shoulder in the chamber? It appears, an increase in deaths of their constituents was not a pressing issue for them on that Friday afternoon. 

We’ve experienced more excess deaths since July 2021 than in the whole of 2020, unlike the pandemic, however, these deaths are not disproportionately of the old, in other words, the excess deaths are striking down people in the prime of life but no-one seems to care. I fear history will not judge this house kindly. 

Strikingly, excess deaths have been seen across all age groups, which Bridgen pointed out during his speech.

The graph below shows the pooled weekly total number of deaths for all ages, from 27 participating countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Germany (Berlin), Germany (Hesse), Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK (England), UK (Northern Ireland), UK (Scotland), and UK (Wales).

According to the British Medical Journal, ‘Excess deaths are calculated as the difference between current numbers of deaths and those in a baseline year, and the excess can differ depending on the baseline and methodology used.’ 

This important point on how excess can differ depending on the baseline used, was raised by Bridgen.

ONS Manipulating the Data, Again

Bridgen explained:

‘To understand if there is an ‘excess’ by definition, you need to estimate how many deaths would have been expected. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) used 2015-2019 as a baseline…Unforgivably, the UK ONS (Office for National Statistics) have included deaths in 2021, as part of their baseline calculation for expected deaths- as if there was anything normal about the deaths in 2021- by exaggerating the number of deaths expected, the number of excess deaths can be minimized. 

Why would the ONS want do that?’

My early 2022 interview with Norman Fenton, professor of Risk Information Management at Queen Mary, University of London, revealed how the ONS had also been manipulating the data on deaths involving Covid-19 by vaccination status. 

Fenton coauthored a paper analysing the ONS report: ‘Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status, England: deaths occurring between 2 January and 24 September 2021.’ 

The paper concluded that the ONS was guilty of ‘systematic miscategorisation of vaccine status’ and that the COVID-19 vaccines did not reduce all-cause mortality, but rather produced genuine spikes in all-cause mortality shortly after vaccination.

The Backlog of Unregistered Deaths

Bridgen went on to highlight a critical failure in how data on deaths are being collected.

‘There is a total failure to collect (never mind publish) data on deaths that are referred for investigation to the coroner. Why does this matter? A referral means that it can be many months and given the backlog, many years, before a death is formally registered. Needing to investigate a cause of death is fair enough. Failing to record when the death happened, is not. Because of this problem, we actually have no idea how many people died in 2021, even now. The problem is greatest for the younger age groups, where a higher proportion of deaths are investigated. This data failure is unacceptable.’

Excess Deaths in the Younger Age Groups

My investigative report into child deaths following Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine revealed there was an increase in deaths in the 0-14 age group, around the time the mRNA vaccine was authorised in children, 12-15 years of age.

Bridgen drew attention to the fact that in a judicial review on a decision to vaccinate younger children, the ONS shockingly refused in court to give anonymised details (which they admitted was statistically significant) on the increase in excess deaths observed in the second half of 2021, for young adolescent males. Bridgen made the point that potentially even more excess deaths would have been observed, if those referred to the coroner had been included.

Excess Deaths Observed in Heavily Vaccinated Countries

In August 2023, fifteen EU Member States that recorded excess deaths, the highest rates were observed in Ireland (21.1 percent), Malta (16.9 percent), Portugal (12.7 percent) and the Netherlands (9.4 percent), according to Eurostat. It should be noted that, as of January 2023, Portugal had the highest COVID-19 vaccination rate in Europe having administered 272.78 doses per 100 people in the country, while Malta had administered 258.49 doses per 100. 

Increase in Cardiac Arrests

Bridgen, brought attention to the fact that Dr Clare Craig, diagnostic pathologist and co-chair of HART, was the first to highlight the increase in cardiac arrest calls after the vaccine rollout in May 2021.

Bridgen stated:

‘Ambulance data for England provides another clue. Ambulance calls for life-threatening emergencies were running at a steady 2,000 calls per day until the vaccine rollout. From then they rose to 2,500 daily, and  calls have stayed at that level since.’

Category 1: An immediate response to a life-threatening condition, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest. 

The Anomalies of the Pfizer Clinical Trial

Bridgen shared the fact that:

Four participants in the vaccine group of the Pfizer trial died from cardiac arrest compared to only one in the placebo group. Overall there were 21 deaths in the vaccine group up to March 2021, compared to 17 in the placebo group. There were serious anomalies about the reporting of deaths in this trial, with the deaths in the vaccine group taking much longer to report than those in the placebo group. That is highly suggestive of a significant bias in what was supposed to be a blinded trial.

An Israeli study clearly showed an increase in cardiac hospital attendances among 18-39 year olds that correlated with vaccination not covid. 

Australia, the Perfect Control Group

Bridgen explained that Australia had almost no covid when vaccines were introduced making it the perfect control group. 

The state of South Australia had only had 1,000 cases of covid in total across the whole population by December 2021, before omicron arrived. What was the impact of vaccination there? For 15-44 year olds, there were historically around 1,300 emergency cardiac presentations a month. With the vaccine roll-out to the under 50s, this rocketed reaching 2,172 cases in November 2021 in this age group alone, which was 67% more than usual.

Overall there were 17,900 South Australians who had a cardiac emergency in 2021 compared to 13,250 in 2018, a 35% increase. The vaccine must clearly be the No.1 suspect in this, and it cannot be dismissed as a coincidence. Australian mortality has increased from early 2021 and that increase is due to cardiac deaths.

How the Regulators Have Failed

The regulators also missed the fact that in the Pfizer trial the vaccine was made for the trial participants in a highly controlled environment, in stark contrast to the manufacturing process used for the public – which was based on completely different technology. Just over 200 participants were given the same product that was given to the public, but not only was the data from these people never compared to those in the trial for efficacy and safety, but the MHRA has admitted that it dropped the requirement to provide this data. That means there was never a trial on the Pfizer product actually rolled out to the public, and that product has never even been compared to the product that was actually trialled.

The vaccine mass production processes use vats of Escherichia Coli and presents a risk of contamination with DNA from the bacteria, as well as bacterial cell walls, which can cause dangerous reactions. This is not theoretical; there is now sound evidence that has been replicated by several labs across the world that the mRNA vaccines were contaminated by significant amounts of DNA which far exceeded the usual permissible levels. Given that this DNA is enclosed in a lipid nanoparticle delivery system, it is arguable that even the permissible levels would have been too high. These lipid nanoparticles are known to enter every organ of the body. As well as this potentially causing some of the acute adverse reactions that have been seen, there is a serious risk of this foreign bacterial DNA inserting itself into human DNA. Will anyone investigate? No they won’t.

The BBC’s Role

How ironic that the BBC has chosen to remain utterly silent on the issue of excess deaths, despite its ardent daily coverage of the Covid death toll. 

In regards to vaccine injuries, the BBC took a far more proactive role. The public broadcaster took it upon itself to collaborate with Facebook to take down the online pages of Covid-19 vaccine injury groups, by drawing attention to the fact that these groups used carrot emojis to circumvent Big Tech censors. 

Many viewers of Bridgen’s speech took to social media to draw attention to the fact that the BBC also took it upon itself to plaster the debate with its own captions, in an attempt to contradict what the MP was saying. 

One caption read: The NHS says COVID-19 vaccines used in the UK are safe and the best protection from getting seriously ill with the disease.

What is interesting is that Bridgen did not mention vaccines and autism during his debate but this did not stop the BBC from inserting the caption below.

‘NHS guidance states vaccines do not cause autism, there is no evidence of a link between MMR vaccine and autism.’

It must be noted that the BBC helms the Trusted News Initiative (an alliance of Big Tech and the mainstream media) set up in 2019 to combat ‘anti-vax misinformation’ in real-time. Therefore, its collaboration with Facebook to censor stories on vaccine harms; the lack of any coverage on excess deaths and the more recent captioning of Bridgen’s speech – shows just how effectively it has executed that role. 

In Conclusion

Bridgen closed the debate by stating the following:

The experimental covid-19 vaccines are not safe and are not effective. Despite there being only limited interest in the Chamber from colleagues—I am very grateful to those who have attended—we can see from the Public Gallery that there is considerable public interest. I implore all Members of the House, those who are present and those who are not, to support calls for a three-hour debate on this important issue. Mr Deputy Speaker, this might be the first debate on excess deaths in our Parliament—indeed, it might be the first debate on excess deaths in the world—but, very sadly, I promise you it will not be the last.

Republshed from the author’s Substack

Sonia Elijah has a background in Economics. She’s a former BBC researcher and now works as an investigative journalist.

Authored by Robert Malone via Substack,

A bit of knowledge about “public health” can be a dangerous thing when financially conflicted partisans control the executive branch…

Last February, the serving White House (WH) Chief of Staff (COS) quietly resigned, and a new one was ushered in. But a comparison of the outgoing and incoming WH Chief of Staff demonstrates striking similarities. A careful reading of the bios of Biden’s two chief of staff picks reveals a disturbing trend. Both choices appear consistent with – first and foremost – the capture of both the “health”-related administrative state and the levers of the Biden administration itself by the pharmaceutical-medical industrial complex.

Why is this important? Because the WH Chief of Staff is the most critical political appointee of the President, and functionally serves as the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States in addition to being a cabinet position. The position is widely considered the most important and powerful job in the Executive branch of the US Government, next to the sitting POTUS.

In the case of a feeble or incapacitated president, the WH Chief of Staff essentially acts in place of the President. Given the ascendency of the power of the Executive Branch and its permanent Administrative State bureaucracy over the judicial and legislative branches, this appointed position functionally runs the country.

The job entails:

• “Selecting senior White House staffers and supervising their offices’ activities;

• Managing and designing the overall structure of the White House staff system;

• Control the flow of people into the Oval Office;

• Manage the flow of information to and decisions from the Resolute Desk (with the White House staff secretary);

• Directing, managing and overseeing all policy development;

• Protecting the political interests of the president;

• Negotiating legislation and appropriating funds with United States Congress leaders, Cabinet secretaries, and extra-governmental political groups to implement the president’s agenda; and

• Advise on any and usually various issues set by the president.

• The firing of senior staff members.” (wiki)

The Chief of Staff is essentially given the keys to the White House. This position clearly has much more power than the Vice-president, and yet the job is not only an unelected one, but it is also not confirmed by the Senate.

Why do I assert that Biden’s choices for WH COS demonstrate the functional capture of the White House by the pharmaceutical-medical industrial complex?

Biden’s first Chief of Staff was Ron Klain. He was Biden’s Chief of Staff when he was vice-president under Biden. During that time, he initially transitioned from managing the allocation of stimulus funds to becoming the Ebola response coordination under Obama. The Ebola response was an “all-hands” government effort, due to a case of Ebola actually occurring on American soil, and the risk that this particular variant might become able to infect via the respiratory tract (thanks to fearporn primarily promoted by Dr. Osterholm).

Prior to and after Obama’s presidency, Mr. Klain was the executive vice president for Revolution, an investment firm that invested in several healthcare companies, such as BrainScope, Everyday Health and Extend Health. “Extend Health” is now renamed “One Exchange” and is a leading provider of health care solutions for Medicare-eligible individuals.

After his time in the Obama White House, Klain also became an external advisor for the Skoll Foundation, whose website lists as a main strategic priority the strengthening of global health systems and presenting pandemics. He held this position until his selection to serve as WH Chief of Staff under Biden.

Ron Klain has worked at high levels in the Clinton, Obama and now Biden’s White House administration. His time in the White House has been punctuated by stints in the corporate world. Hence, he has see-sawed between government and industry, at the highest levels – leveraging both for power, influence and money. By serving in various White House administrations in unelected positions which do not need confirmation by the Senate, he has avoided having to publicly disclose conflicts of interest.

During his tenure in Biden’s White House, Klain pursued a vaccine-only strategy and directed White House messaging relating to this policy including that horrible White House statement saying the vaccinated have ‘done the right thing’ and the unvaccinated are ‘looking at a winter of severe illness and death for you and your families’. Adding insult to injury, Klain is the one that asserted that ‘The truth is the truth’ – remember that as Chief of Staff, Klain was directly responsible for “Directing, managing and overseeing all policy development”.

The real “truth” of this whole situation is that the leadership of the Obama Ebola response team from 2014 was brought in to form the core of Biden’s White House operational management team, as documented in a November 2020 Politico article, just a week or two of Biden having “won” the election:

Klain is one of a number of people Biden has tapped for his administration whose views on battling a health crisis were shaped by what happened in 2014. At an event in Wilmington, Del. last week, Biden highlighted how his just-announced pick for Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, helped combat Ebola and Zika as part of the Obama administration. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, his pick for UN ambassador, “was our top State Department official in charge of Africa policy during the Ebola crisis,” Biden noted. And the former vice president praised Jake Sullivan, who served as his national security adviser during much of the Ebola outbreak, for “helping me develop our Covid-19 strategy”…

.But many of the public health, communication and government mobilization lessons Klain and his team learned then are not only applicable now; they’re also at the core of Biden’s plan for tackling the pandemic when he takes office in January.

Homeland Security Director Alejandro Mayorkas worked with Klain from 2001 to 2009 at the O’Melveny law firm. Which is interesting because this where Klain has now returned to the firm as a partner.

This is how one arm of the government has become completely captured by the pharmaceutical-medical industrial complex via prior “public health emergency” response teams. The clear fact is that the Biden White House was only interested in a vaccine solution, despite the established fact that public health research long ago determined that a vaccine for a rapidly evolving respiratory virus would never succeed. People in the White House must have known this but disregarded that knowledge because either 1) they were corrupted, 2) they were deep in the mass formation psychosis and group think, or 3) they functioned as incompetent useful tools for others.

I know that I personally spoke with Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s Chief of Staff in 2021 about these issues and had assurances that they would discuss the issues with a vaccine approach with the White House. That was the last I heard from them. This all leads me to believe that the resulting amazingly dysfunctional “public health” response was more about their own interests in making money and expanding political power than in developing an actual response that made sense.

My experience working in the Ebola response on 2014 re-enforced a very different lesson than that of the Biden White House COVID policies. That is that vaccines would never be the answer to an ongoing outbreak. That medical counter measures must include a response that listens to hands-on physicians tinkering to find medical counter measures. That the generic, FDA approved medicines that have worked in the past for early treatments will work in the future. They are the first line of defense. Furthermore, non-respiratory infectious diseases versus respiratory infectious diseases will be very different from each other, in terms of public health responses. And finally, that the US intelligence community is deeply embedded in the bureaucracy that sets “public health” policies, particularly during infectious disease outbreaks, and works hand-in-glove with Bill Gates, WHO leadership, US State Department, and the giants of the BioPharmaceutical industry. Ron Klain’s White House called for an all-of-government response focused on vaccines and that is what they got (all of government meaning DHS, HHS, DoD, Department of State and CIA/IC). This response was developed and operationalized for Klain by Jeff Zients, who was President Biden’s COVID czar. Which brings us to Klain’s replacement.

Let’s now focus our attention on the professional biography of the new Chief of Staff, Jeff Zients. Although Zients is purported to not have any “public health experience,” the truth is that he has spent his entire career milking the government out of money for his own medical-industrial complex investment funds. He has worked to continuously spin the revolving door between his businesses in the medical-industrial complex and the government- all to the benefit of public health, of course .

Zients comes from an extremely wealthy family, who played a pivotal role in “health care services” since the 1990s. His father is known to have “helped” outsource veteran’s healthcare services to private industry way back when.

Jeff Zients joined The Advisory Board Corp in 1992, where he helped “build a research company focused on “providing best practices research and host[ing] seminars for 2,500 health care industry members, including hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and biotech firms.”  The Advisory Board achieved astounding financial success and became one of the “pillars of Washington society”.

During the presidency of Barack Obama, Zients served as director of the National Economic Council from 2014 to 2017. He was also acting director of the Office of Management and Budget in 2010. He then led the emergency effort to fix Obama care after the troubled launch.

During his tenure as director of the National Economic Council, Zients’ investment firm, Portfolio Logic – founded in 2003, settled a a multimillion-dollar suit with the Justice Department over allegations that its subsidiary health care firm committed Medicare and Medicaid fraud.  Portfolio Logic LLC was and is an investment firm initially focused on health care and business services. Portfolio Logic’s current valuation is around $182 million and it appears that Portfolio Logic is still privately held by Zients and his family, although information about Portfolio Logic has mostly been scrubbed from the Internet.

While leading the Obamacare (ACA) roll-out, Zients also had an ownership position in PSA Healthcare. Which the Obama White house determined was not a conflict of interest.

The “American Prospect” writes of Zients:

Zients was a leader in implementing many of the Obama administration’s most pro-corporate policies. Zients owes his entire public-policy career to his corporate worldview and connections, which have remained strikingly consistent for over a decade—exactly in keeping with his pre-government history.

In fact, a Fox News article documents that the Wikipedia page for Biden’s chief of staff was scrubbed to hide many of his corporate past dealings. This includes deleting the details in 2020 relating to Zients’ positions at Bain & Company, Portfolio Logic and Facebook. Although his Wiki page now mentions that Zients was CEO of Cranemere up until his leave in 2020, it does not mention that Cranemere Healthcare Services works in the healthcare ecosystem. As he is apparently still on leave from Cranemere, one can assume that he will resume his 1.6 million US Dollar compensation package per year from Cranemere upon leaving the White House.

Jeffrey Zients’ is considered one of the wealthiest members of the Biden administration, and most of this money was inherited or made while working in the medical-industrial complex, which includes vast profits from the privatization of health-care and billing.

Zients was part of Biden’s transition team and then started working for the Biden WH as his COVID czar. During this period, he was considered a “special government employee,” and so could continue with his private sector employment and was exempted from filing the public financial disclosures that normal staff must complete. Again, Zients formulated the vaccine only public health policy, including the mandate policies. He alone spoke to major Airline CEOs to insist on vaccine mandates.

In January 2023, Zients became Biden’s Chief of Staff. Remember, that the position of Chief of Staff is the most important position next to the President. In this capacity, it appears that he has maintained the operational capture by the pharmaceutical-medical industrial complex of the executive branch of government initiated under Obama in the context of enacting and implementing the “Affordable Care Act”, ergo – the White House and President Biden.

As Biden has proven to be a fragile and weak president, many believe that this has allowed Zients to seize the reins of executive power. Zients past history predicts that he will use this to further his own financial interests, which clearly represent a significant financial conflict of interest.

The revolving door just doesn’t stop spinning, and it all seems to revolve most efficiently around Zients, the pharmaceutical-medical industrial complex and now future pandemic responses. Talk about the foxes in the hen house!

Do not get distracted, 2024 looms large.

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While Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser tries to restore ‘law and order‘ to the nation’s Capitol, local CVS stores aren’t waiting around – and have resorted to displaying photos of products on their shelves instead of the actual items themselves.

Several tweets have been circulating, showing empty shelves aside from the framed photographs of toilet paper and other items, the National Pulse reports.

This is from the CVS on H Street in Washington DC.

Due to the out-of-control theft, they have now put away almost all their items and just have photographs of what is in stock.

You press the button and the sales associate gets you what you need.

I was in Barcelona, Spain a few… pic.twitter.com/jOif99w77d

— Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarinoUS) October 27, 2023

Another DC CVS, in Columbia Heights, has placed items in locked cages.

Another CVS location in D.C.’s Columbia Heights has placed many items behind locked cages, the aisles of empty shelves decorated with profane graffiti. Crime in the American capital has reached crisis levels. Violent crime is up 41 percent over last year – the city has seen a 33 percent increase in homicides and a 70 percent increase in robberies. According to D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department theft is up 21 percent, with 10,673 incidents reported so far in 2023. Motor vehicle theft has seen a 101 percent increase compared to 2022. -National Pulse

I checked out the Columbia Heights CVS for myself the other weekend. pic.twitter.com/1fMIlIrjV5

— John Fubka (@JohnFubka) October 26, 2023

Over the last month, DC’s homicide rate hit its highest level in 20 years, while auto thefts have more than doubled over the past year.

“At a time when we’re dealing with historically low staffing levels, these amendments seek to make some common-sense changes recognizing the operational concerns our officers see every day, while also supporting police accountability and public safety,” said Mayor Muriel Bowser, who introduced legislation last week aimed at addressing crime trends, including organized retail thefts.

During a Congressional hearing on violence two weeks ago, House Republicans criticized a “soft” on crime approach.

“The crime we are seeing just a few blocks from this building is unprecedented,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who chairs the Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance. 

“The man who is in charge of prosecuting the criminals has abandoned his responsibilities, that’s Matthew Graves,” Biggs continued, referring to the US Attorney for DC.

For comparison, here is how other countries are able to live. https://t.co/5ANVszYlC2

— Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarinoUS) October 27, 2023