#AceNewsReport – Mar.21: The suspect in bombings in the US city of Austin in Texas is believed to be down and neutralized, local media reported on Wednesday: The NBC News reported that the suspect engaged in a shootout with the Austin Police Department SWAT team on a motorway in Round Rock, Texas before being shot […]
I had been doing so much better about keeping up with my blogs, until about this last week. I had not gotten back to posting as much as I had in the past, but was doing much better.
I have to admit though, every month, beginning the week before foreclosure hell (the day they auction the homes foreclosed upon), have been particularly hellish.
I guess for a while, no one I know was being foreclosed upon. But beginning last month, my friends began being sold at auction again. It had been a whole year until just these last couple of months. Then all of the sudden, properties that the banks had lost interest in, out of the blue, and with little or no warning, were sold at auction.
We all managed to stop two of the sales, those two were cancelled, but last month, one was lost to foreclosure, and it took a lot of work to get cancelled, the two that were cancelled.
So, even though there may not be the number of foreclosures every month that there had been for a long time, looks like the banks have managed to get lined up, these companies, that will purchase damn near any house at auction. These companies that want to turn around and rent you your house they just purchased at foreclosure.
I told everyone, back in 2008-2009 when Goldman Sachs’ sorry ass said that “only the rich should own houses, everyone else should be renters”, that this is what could be expected. Yes, it took another 8 years for it to happen to this scale, but it is here, and it won’t be going away, till they get every one of our homes.
I have watched foreclosure sales every month since around 2006, and all the properties that were fought for, and the banks, just kind of fizzled away without a lot of fuss, homes that they realized would be close to impossible to get the foreclosed upon owner to leave, now that they can work it out to where these rent home companies, are the ones that has to get rid of the previous owners of the properties.
The banks see this as minor housekeeping, which they don’t mind at all.
“The Black Budget.” This Is What The ‘Secret Government’ Doesn’t Want You To Know
Arjun Walia
June 29, 2016
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/06/29/the-black-budget-this-is-what-the-secret-government-doesnt-want-you-to-know/
Countless amounts of academics, presidents and other politicians have told humanity that a secret government is really pulling the strings when it comes to who holds the balance of power on our planet. Multiple studies have emerged showing that a very small group of people and the corporations they run basically have control over all of the worlds resources. According to the estimates of some, the US government alone classifies up to 500 million pages of documents every single year, for the purpose of protecting ‘national security.’ Our world is drenched in secrecy, and it’s reached a point where we don’t really know what’s happening on our planet. Our main source of information is corporate media, this is a big problem.
Who were these politicians? Senator Daniel K. Inouye, the highest ranking Asian-American politician in United States history, serving the democratic party from 1963 until his death in 2012, stressed the fact that “there exists a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself (source)
Decades ago, the very first British MP wrote that “the world is government by very different personages to what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” (Coningsby, Book 4, Chap. 15.) – Page 131
The 26th U.S. president, Theodor Roosevelt made a hard-hitting statement about the secret government, revealing that “behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. (source)
To see some more, similar quotes, you can refer to THIS article.
The Black Budget
snowdenA few years ago, Edward Snowden, a former intelligence contractor has leaked the very first documentation that proves the existence of clandestine black budget operations (1) (programs that are extremely classified dealing with technology, information and more.) Did we really need this leak in order to believe that black budget programs operate in secrecy? No, many people will tell you that the existence of black budget programs was obvious and that we didn’t need any official documentation to prove it, but this still helps. The United States has a history of government agencies existing in secret for years. The National Security Agency (NSA) was founded in 1952, its existence was hidden until the mid 1960’s. Even more secretive is the National Reconnaissance Office, which was founded in 1960 but remained completely secret for 30 years.
We are talking about Special Access Programs (SAP). From these we have unacknowledged and waived SAPs. These programs do not exist publicly, but they do indeed exist. They are better known as ‘deep black programs.’ A 1997 US Senate report described them as “so sensitive that they are exempt from standard reporting requirements to the Congress.” (0)(8)
The Washington Post revealed that the “black-budget” documents report a staggering 52.6 billion dollars that was set aside for operations in the fiscal year 2013. Although it’s great to have this type of documentation in the public domain proving the existence of these black budget programs, the numbers seem to be off according to some statements made by some very prominent people who have been involved in the defense sector for years. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that these programs are not using billions of dollars, but trillions of dollars that are unaccounted for. Here is a statement given by Canada’s former Minister of National Defence, Paul Hellyer in 2008:
It is ironic that the U.S. would begin a devastating war, allegedly in search of weapons of mass destruction when the most worrisome developments in this field are occurring in your own backyard. It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects which both congress and the commander in chief no nothing about(2)
We are talking about large amounts of unaccounted-for money going into programs we know nothing about. There have been several congressional inquiries that have noted billions, and even trillions of dollars that have gone missing from the federal reserve system. On July 16, 2001, in front of the house appropriations committee, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated:
The financial systems of the department of defence are so snarled up that we can’t account for some $2.6 trillion in transactions that exist, if that’s believable (3)
We don’t really hear about black budget programs, or about people who have actually looked into them. However, the topic was discussed in 2010 by Washington Post journalists Dana Priest and William Arkin. Their investigation lasted approximately two years and concluded that America’s classified world has:
Become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employes, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work (4)
Another person was aviation journalist Bill Sweetman. Within the Pentagon, he estimated that approximately 150 special access programs existed that weren’t even acknowledged. These programs are not known about by the highest members of government and the highest ranking officials in the military. He determined that most of these programs were dominated by private contractors (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc.) and that he had no idea as to how these programs were funded(5)(8).
Dwight Eisenhower, former 5 star U.S. general (highest possible rank) and President of the United States also warned us about secrecy and the acquisition of unwarranted influence within the “department of defence” with his farewell speech:
In the council of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential disaster of the rise of mis placed power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes(6)
He warns us about the influence of the military industrial complex, and the influence and power it’s capable of. After Eisenhower the next and only other president that blew the whistle on secrecy beyond the government was president John F. Kennedy in one of his most famous speeches, he is also referring to the military industrial complex:
The very word secrecy is repugnant, in a free and open society. And we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence. On Infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumour is printed, no secret is revealed (7)
The amount that the US sets aside for sensitive operations each year is not allowed to be published for eyes outside of the intelligence community. We are in an age where the US is having a difficult time keeping sensitive information under wraps, and although there is an abundance of blatant information for the world to wake up to, that which is still kept under tight wraps has also become more transparent. Many phenomena previously labelled as merely a “conspiracy theory” are now surfacing as true and verifiable day after day.
Could some of these black budget programs be dealing with UFOs? There is a large amount of evidence to suggest that they do, and possibly even extraterrestrials. Documents from the NSA prove that UFOs and extraterrestrials are of high interest to the agency(9)(10). In fact I would like to mention that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that these black budget programs deal with matters beyond our world. Garry McKinnon has also shed light on this fact, as have thousands of previously classified documents and statements from high level government and military personnel. The world within our own world must be quite fascinating, the fact that we are living in the time of transparency must mean that the truth cannot stay hidden forever.
Do read more of our articles on the UFO/Extraterrestrial phenomenon, you can click HERE.
Black budget programs also deal with, for example, deep underground and under ocean military bases.
You can read the article below for more information on that:
Under Ocean Military Bases: There Is More Than Just One Area 51
Worlds Within Worlds
Excerpt from the book “A.D. After Disclosure” written by Richard Dolan and Bryce Zabel (8).
Richard Dolan’s Thoughts on the “Breakaway Civilization”
By now, the classified world has moved far beyond the reach of the public world, and far beyond in its power and capabilities. Consider the story of a former NSA scientist who spoke with the authors. According to this individual, the NSA was operating computers during the mid-1960s with a processing clock-speed of roughly 650 megahertz(MHZ). To put that in perspective, it took 35 years for personal computers in the consumer market to reach that speed. Indeed, in 1965 there were no personal computers at all. Immediately, the near-fatal Apollo 13 mission in 1971 comes to mind, with its reliance on slide-rulers by mission specialist to guide the damaged NASA spacecraft back to Earth. When presented with this image, the NSA scientist shrugged and stated that secret computational capabilities were too important to share with NASA. So in, in computing, the National Security Agency was an amazing 35 years ahead of the rest of the world. This leads one to wonder what its computational powers are today.
Another example was the U.S. air strike against Libya in 1986. The raid employed f-111 fighter aircraft. Left out of the mission, however, was the F-117A Nighthawk, better known as the stealth fighter. It had been operational since 1983, but was still classified in 1986. In a form of logic both perverse and rational, the F-117A was so radically advanced that keeping it secret was more important than using it for this military mission.
Given the mixture of a treasure chest of government money, and private connections, the likelihood exists that six decades later there is a clandestine group that possesses:
Technology that is vastly superior to that of the “mainstream” world.
The ability to explore areas of our world and surroundings presently unavailable to the rest of us.
Scientific and cosmological understandings that give them greater insights into the nature of our world
A significant “built off the grid” infrastructure, partially underground, that affords them a high degree of secrecy and independence of action
This might well qualify them as a separate civilization – one that has broken away from our own, in effect, a breakaway civilization. Still interacting with our own, its members probably move back and forth between the official reality of what we are supposed to believe, and the other reality which encompasses new truths and challenges.
Sources:
(0)http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDOC-105sdoc2/content-detail.html
(1)http://rt.com/usa/snowden-leak-black-budget-176/
(2) Speech From Paul Hellyer
(3)http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=408
(4)http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america
(5) Sweetman, Bill. “In Search of the Pentagon’s Billion Dollar Hidden Budgets: How the US Keeps Its R&D Spending Under Wraps.” Janes International Defence Reporter, Janurary 5, 2000
(6) Eisenhower’s farewell speech
(7) JFK Speech
(8) Dolan, M. Richard and Zabel, Bryce. A.D. After Disclosure. New Page Books. 2012
http://www.afterdisclosure.com/2011/04/breakaway.html
http://richarddolanpress.com/book-rd3-a-d-after-disclosure/
http://www.afterdisclosure.com
(9)http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/comint_part_j.pdf
(10)http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/key_to_et_messages.pdf
Then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during a 2008 visit to Kosovo with U.S. Army troops on foot patrol in the town of Gnjilane. (The U.S. Army / CC BY 2.0)
The Pentagon Can’t Account for $21 Trillion (That’s Not a Typo)
By Editor May 23, 2018
The Pentagon Can’t Account for $21 Trillion (That’s Not a Typo)
Then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during a 2008 visit to Kosovo with U.S. Army troops on foot patrol in the town of Gnjilane. (The U.S. Army / CC BY 2.0)
http://www.theeventchronicle.com/news/north-america/the-pentagon-cant-account-for-21-trillion-thats-not-a-typo-2/
By Lee Camp
Twenty-one trillion dollars.
The Pentagon’s own numbers show that it can’t account for $21 trillion. Yes, I mean trillion with a “T.” And this could change everything.
But I’ll get back to that in a moment.
There are certain things the human mind is not meant to do. Our complex brains cannot view the world in infrared, cannot spell words backward during orgasm and cannot really grasp numbers over a few thousand. A few thousand, we can feel and conceptualize. We’ve all been in stadiums with several thousand people. We have an idea of what that looks like (and how sticky the floor gets).
But when we get into the millions, we lose it. It becomes a fog of nonsense. Visualizing it feels like trying to hug a memory. We may know what $1 million can buy (and we may want that thing), but you probably don’t know how tall a stack of a million $1 bills is. You probably don’t know how long it takes a minimum-wage employee to make $1 million.
That’s why trying to understand—truly understand—that the Pentagon spent 21 trillion unaccounted-for dollars between 1998 and 2015 washes over us like your mother telling you that your third cousin you met twice is getting divorced. It seems vaguely upsetting, but you forget about it 15 seconds later because … what else is there to do?
Twenty-one trillion.
But let’s get back to the beginning. A couple of years ago, Mark Skidmore, an economics professor, heard Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, say that the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General had found $6.5 trillion worth of unaccounted-for spending in 2015. Skidmore, being an economics professor, thought something like, “She means $6.5 billion. Not trillion. Because trillion would mean the Pentagon couldn’t account for more money than the gross domestic product of the whole United Kingdom. But still, $6.5 billion of unaccounted-for money is a crazy amount.”
So he went and looked at the inspector general’s report, and he found something interesting: It was trillion! It was fucking $6.5 trillion in 2015 of unaccounted-for spending! And I’m sorry for the cursing, but the word “trillion” is legally obligated to be prefaced with “fucking.” It is indeed way more than the U.K.’s GDP.
Skidmore did a little more digging. As Forbes reported in December 2017, “[He] and Catherine Austin Fitts … conducted a search of government websites and found similar reports dating back to 1998. While the documents are incomplete, original government sources indicate $21 trillion in unsupported adjustments have been reported for the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015.”
Let’s stop and take a second to conceive how much $21 trillion is (which you can’t because our brains short-circuit, but we’ll try anyway).
1. The amount of money supposedly in the stock market is $30 trillion.
2. The GDP of the United States is $18.6 trillion.
3. Picture a stack of money. Now imagine that that stack of dollars is all $1,000 bills. Each bill says “$1,000” on it. How high do you imagine that stack of dollars would be if it were $1 trillion. It would be 63 miles high.
4. Imagine you make $40,000 a year. How long would it take you to make $1 trillion? Well, don’t sign up for this task, because it would take you 25 million years (which sounds like a long time, but I hear that the last 10 million really fly by because you already know your way around the office, where the coffee machine is, etc.).
The human brain is not meant to think about a trillion dollars.
And it’s definitely not meant to think about the $21 trillion our Department of Defense can’t account for. These numbers sound bananas. They sound like something Alex Jones found tattooed on his backside by extraterrestrials.
But the 21 trillion number comes from the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General—the OIG. Although, as Forbes pointed out, “after Mark Skidmore began inquiring about OIG-reported unsubstantiated adjustments, the OIG’s webpage, which documented, albeit in a highly incomplete manner, these unsupported “accounting adjustments,” was mysteriously taken down.”
Luckily, people had already grabbed copies of the report, which—for now—you can view here.
Here’s something else important from that Forbes article—which is one of the only mainstream media articles you can find on the largest theft in American history:
Given that the entire Army budget in fiscal year 2015 was $120 billion, unsupported adjustments were 54 times the level of spending authorized by Congress.
That’s right. The expenses with no explanation were 54 times the actual budget allotted by Congress. Well, it’s good to see Congress is doing 1/54th of its job of overseeing military spending (that’s actually more than I thought Congress was doing). This would seem to mean that 98 percent of every dollar spent by the Army in 2015 was unconstitutional.
So, pray tell, what did the OIG say caused all this unaccounted-for spending that makes Jeff Bezos’ net worth look like that of a guy jingling a tin can on the street corner?
“[The July 2016 inspector general] report indicates that unsupported adjustments are the result of the Defense Department’s ‘failure to correct system deficiencies.’ ”
They blame trillions of dollars of mysterious spending on a “failure to correct system deficiencies”? That’s like me saying I had sex with 100,000 wild hairless aardvarks because I wasn’t looking where I was walking.
Twenty-one trillion.
Say it slowly to yourself.
At the end of the day, there are no justifiable explanations for this amount of unaccounted-for, unconstitutional spending. Right now, the Pentagon is being audited for the first time ever, and it’s taking 2,400 auditors to do it. I’m not holding my breath that they’ll actually be allowed to get to the bottom of this.
But if the American people truly understood this number, it would change both the country and the world. It means that the dollar is sprinting down a path toward worthless. If the Pentagon is hiding spending that dwarfs the amount of tax dollars coming in to the federal government, then it’s clear the government is printing however much it wants and thinking there are no consequences. Once these trillions are considered, our fiat currency has even less meaning than it already does, and it’s only a matter of time before inflation runs wild.
It also means that any time our government says it “doesn’t have money” for a project, it’s laughable. It can clearly “create” as much as it wants for bombing and death. This would explain how Donald Trump’s military can drop well over 100 bombs a day that cost well north of $1 million each.
So why can’t our government also “create” endless money for health care, education, the homeless, veterans benefits and the elderly, to make all parking free and to pay the Rolling Stones to play stoop-front shows in my neighborhood? (I’m sure the Rolling Stones are expensive, but surely a trillion dollars could cover a couple of songs.)
Obviously, our government could do those things, but it chooses not to. Earlier this month, Louisiana sent eviction notices to 30,000 elderly people on Medicaid to kick them out of their nursing homes. Yes, a country that can vomit trillions of dollars down a black hole marked “Military” can’t find the money to take care of our poor elderly. It’s a repulsive joke.
Twenty-one trillion.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke about how no one knows where the money is flying in the Pentagon. In a barely reported speech in 2011, he said, “My staff and I learned that it was nearly impossible to get accurate information and answers to questions such as, ‘How much money did you spend?’ and ‘How many people do you have?’ ”
They can’t even find out how many people work for a specific department?
Note for anyone looking for a job: Just show up at the Pentagon and tell them you work there. It doesn’t seem like they’d have much luck proving you don’t.
For more on this story, check out David DeGraw’s excellent reporting at ChangeMaker.media, because the mainstream corporate media are mouthpieces for the weapons industry. They are friends with benefits of the military-industrial complex. I have seen basically nothing from the mainstream corporate media concerning this mysterious $21 trillion. I missed the time when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said that the money we dump into war and death—either the accounted-for money or the secretive trillions—could end world hunger and poverty many times over. There’s no reason anybody needs to be starving or hungry or unsheltered on this planet, but our government seems hellbent on proving that it stands for nothing but profiting off death and misery. And our media desperately want to show they stand for nothing but propping up our morally bankrupt empire.
When the media aren’t actively promoting war, they’re filling the airwaves with shit, so the entire country can’t even hear itself think. Our whole mindscape is filled to the brim with nonsense and vacant celebrity idiocy. Then, while no one is looking, the largest theft humankind has ever seen is going on behind our backs—covered up under the guise of “national security.”
Twenty-one trillion.
Don’t forget.
If you think this column is important, please share it. And check out Lee Camp’s weekly TV show, “Redacted Tonight.” Camp also is taping a new live stand-up special in Los Angeles on May 18 and 19. He’ll be doing over an hour of his new comedy, and special guest Jimmy Dore will be on the show. You can purchase tickets here.
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By Rick Wells Detailing the corruption and grim prospects for salvaging our federal govt without Trump taking matters into his own hands, Dobbs asks if America is ready to say… The Lou Dobbs interview of Chris Farrell begins with them coming to an easy agreement that James Comey is nauseating, that he’s a disgrace and […]
via DOBBS – HOW CLOSE IS AMERICA TO SAYING “TO HELL WITH THIS CORRUPT GOVT?” — tomfernandez28’s Blog
Best description on what is going on, that I have read yet!
Thanks
By Jim Campbell
May 12, 2018
As the Whistle-Blowers come forward the disclosures are really terrible.
This person, a former CIA operative, distinguishes between the Deep State and the Shadow Government.
The Deep State is alleged to operate with money, power and greed.
Do I personally believe in the Deep State or the Dark State?
After reading Area 51 a true documentary of CIA unclassified documents I will never consider what the government is doing for us especially when its run by Democrats, then think what it is actually doing “To US.”
That being said, this entire article must be taken with a grain of salt.
As far as governments go, the bottom line is that government is just too damn big,
WAY too big. It needs to be cut back and pruned drastically and Trump is just the guy to do it, he has already made a good start…
View original post 2,464 more words
The Donald’s Done — The Deep State Wins Its War On America First
written by david stockman wednesday may 9, 2018
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/may/09/the-donalds-done-the-deep-state-wins-its-war-on-america-first/
The Donald’s action to ash-can the Iranian nuclear deal marks the War Party’s complete and baleful triumph. There is now nothing much left of America First.
Trump’s reckless, unwarranted and utterly irrational action will pull Washington ever deeper into an incendiary middle eastern vortex of political and religious conflict that has absolutely nothing to do with the safety and security of the America people.
To the contrary, picking a fight with Tehran is an exercise in unprovoked Imperial aggression. The Iranian regime has no means to attack America militarily and has never threatened to do so. Nor has it invaded any other country in the region where it was not invited by a sovereign government host.
Even Iran’s minor skirmishes with American forces in recent years have been owing to the happenstance of Washington’s far-flung imperial ventures.
For example, Washington destroyed Saddam’s Sunni/secular government in Iraq and installed a Shiite regime in Baghdad, thereby leaving the Sunni lands of western Iraq in chaos. Only then did Baghdad invite their shiite co-religionists from Iran to help excise the scourge of ISIS that formed from the remnants of Saddam’s army and government.
Likewise, Washington and its allies sent thousands of jihadist warriors and billions of aid and supplies into Syria to topple its dully elected government. Only then did the Alawite (Shiite) Assad regime invite help from its confessional compatriots in Tehran.
And you can’t find any more ludicrous example of the cat calling the kettle black than the Donald’s claim that Iran is a terrorist state because it is aligned with the Shiite population of Lebanon represented by Hezbollah.
For crying out loud. The War Party pretends Washington has turned much of the middle east into rubble and barbarism in order to spread democracy — whether they wanted it or not, and whether they were ready for it or not.
But Lebanon is a serviceable democracy and last weekend Hezbollah and its allies — including certain Sunni factions — won an overwhelming election victory. They now control a clear majority in its legislature, where Hezbollah will have the power to name a new Prime Minister (a Sunni) and Speaker of the Parliament (a Shiite) — both of whom will be pledged to work with the country’s Christian president.
That particular outcome of democracy the War Party can’t abide. But it fairly violates the english language itself to call it state sponsored terrorism.
In a similar vein, the Houthi tribe of Shiites have dominated much of northern and western Yemen for centuries. So when a Washington installed government in Sana’a was overthrown, the Houthi took power in northern Yemen — as had been the case during the long expanse from 1918-1990 when the two Yemens were finally unified.
But it is the Houthis who are the victims of aggression by the brutal Saudi bombing campaign that has left more than 10,000 civilians dead and the land plagued with famine, cholera, rubble, and economic collapse.
There is no telling which faction in Yemen’s fratricidal civil war and invasion by Saudi Arabia is the more barbaric, but the modest aid provided by Iran to its Shiite kinsman in northern Yemen is absolutely not a case of state sponsored terrorism.
In a word, the Donald has fallen hook, line and sinker for the War Party’s lie- and propaganda-filled demonization of the Iranian regime. We have debunked this false history elsewhere, but suffice to say that it boils down to two very imperialist propositions.
To wit, that Iran is not entitled to have its own foreign policy via alliances with Iraq, Syria, the dominant party of Lebanon, or the official government in Sana’a Yemen because Washington (and Israel) say so; and that it’s not allowed to have even intermediate and medium range missiles (that can’t reach either the US or most of Europe) to defend itself — even though Washington has armed its far wealthier Sunni rival across the Persian Gulf with upwards of $250 billion of America’s most advanced warplanes, attack helicopters, missiles, drones and sundry other accoutrements of war.
And that is to say nothing of a tiny residual capacity to enrich uranium to 3.5 percent purity (compared to 90 percent weapons grade) for civilian power reactors on fewer than one-fifth of the oldest and slowest centrifuges it had before the 2015 nuke deal.
Nor does it consider that all 17 US intelligence agencies certified in an official NIE (national intelligence estimate) in 2007 and again in 2011 that Iran only had a small weaponization research program between 1999 and 2003, which was then abandoned and never restarted.
Moreover, the documentary proof of that was thoroughly investigated by the IAEA after the 2015 deal, which then re-validated that the Iranian weapons program was indeed disbanded in 2003.
In short, the Donald has fallen for a pack of lies and distortions that are only remotely plausible if the aim is to find enemies and territories around the planet to police, occupy or otherwise hegemonize. And to thereby keep the Warfare State in business, its $800 billion budget funded, and the Imperial City’s vast beehive of think-tanks, contractors, NGOs, lobbyists, and racketeers in clover.
The invincible grip on power of the above — the Deep State for short-hand purposes — has now been proven. And that’s a full-on tragedy because the Donald’s inchoate notion of America First was an incipient challenge to its power — the only one since the end of the cold war.
To be sure, Donald Trump never had a coherent or articulated notion of America First. But all of his impulses were in the right direction.
Perhaps like renegade Sarah Palin before him, for example, he could see Russia from his airy on the 68th floor of Trump Tower and recognize that it is no threat whatsoever to America’s security.
That is, from his perch the Donald could gaze upon metro New York’s $1.6 trillion of GDP, which is greater than the entirety of Russia’s economy ($1.5 trillion GDP); and whether he knew the precise numbers or not, his impulse toward rapprochement with Putin was spot on.
Likewise, whether he had gotten George Bush’s folly in Iraq right on day one or not — he was loud and clear in his consistent denunciation years before Hillary sprouted her dawkish feathers.
Nor was he any less correct when he averred that NATO was obsolete. After all, the GDP of the EU-29 is 10X larger than Russia’s, and their combined military spending is 4X greater.
If you’re not a prisoner of Imperial Washington’s twisted group think you cannot possibly believe that Russia’s supremely rational leader — Cool Hand Vlad — intends to militarily assault his European neighbors. He’d like to supply their markets, not occupy their cities — something that anyone except the demented, self-serving bureaucrats of NATO can easily understand.
Ditto for Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia et. al. They aren’t cold war “dominoes” because the Soviet Union slithered off the pages of history 27 years ago; they don’t threaten America directly, either, because they don’t have two dimes to rub together economically or militarily; and whether they affiliate with the Saudi-Sunni axis or the Iran-Shiite crescent makes not one damn bit of difference for the safety and security of American citizens in Lincoln NE or Springfield MA.
In the case of the Korean Peninsula, the Donald also rightly questioned why we are still funding 29,000 US troops when the war there ended 65 years ago.
The truth is, it is a war that never should have been fought in the first place because the now open Soviet archives show both Stalin and Mao were against it. US national security was never at stake.
Rather than a domino, it originated purely as a civil war between the communist/nationalists under Kim II-sung, who had fought the Japanese occupiers to the death, and a puppet government in the South under Syngman Rhee.
The latter was an aristocratic dandy who moved to the US in 1904 and spent most of the next 40 years hob-knobbing in Washington. So doing, he promoted endless schemes to install himself in power back in Korea, which finally happened when Japan’s 35-year long occupation was ended in August 1945.
At length, the two Korean political rivals got into a war that the north would have handily won — and might well have turned itself into a cheap labor based export platform just as did Mao’s heirs on the mainland. It might even have become a darling of Wall Street — just as the Red Suzerains of Beijing are today.
That is to say, there was exactly nothing at stake in June 1950 — until the rabid cold warriors in Washington persuaded Truman to intervene.
So doing, the US military launched the most destructive and vicious bombing campaign in history under the blood-thirsty top Air Force general, Curtis LeMay. By the 1953 armistice, North Korea had become a bombed-out wasteland with hardly a city or town not reduced to rubble and with millions of civilians dead or starving.
But it was not merely a pointless war and waste of American blood and treasure; it also became forever embraced by the people of the north as the patriotic war of resistance that paved the way for six decades of the brutal Kim family dictatorship and a life of poverty and misery for its 25 million people, who could otherwise be working in Apple factories and auto plants today.
Needless to say, Imperial Washington has no regard for honest history — only its own self-serving narrative and imperative need for enemies and missions to justify nearly $800 billion per year for the machinery of war and empire. In the case of North Korea, in fact, its imperial pretensions and penchant for “regime change” under the neocons in recent decades, unleashed a veritable monster.
That is, a drive by the Kim family to obtain nuclear weapons, thereby hoping to avoid Saddam’s fate at the end of a rope or Khadafy’s bloody demise with a shive up his rectum.
Fortunately, the Donald has been blessed with a historic serendipity. His military bluster and name-calling apparently caused Kim Jong-un to stage so many nuclear bomb tests culminating in a huge (for N. Korea) 160 kiloton explosion last September that the Fat Boy of Pyongyang has literally destroyed the mountains which house his Punggye-ri test site.
A recent authoritative study actually warns that if North Korea were to use the same area for another test it could cause an “environmental catastrophe.”
North Korea’s past tests have altered the tectonic stress in the region to the extent that previously inactive tectonic faults in the region have reached their state of critical failure. Any further disturbance from a future test could generate earthquakes that may be damaging by their own force or crack the nuclear test sites of the past or the present.
Of course, Kim Jong-un is now attempting to make a virtue out of necessity by ostentatiously shuttering the no longer useable site and inviting the world to witness its entombment. But if that leads to a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, so be it.
And let it also be an occasion to reverse the mistake of June 1950, and get American forces off the peninsula once and for all: Return Korea to the Koreans to work out their own governance as they see fit!
Yet even on this matter, where the Donald has recently tried to explore a drastic reduction, if not complete removal, of US troops as part of the pending deal with Kim Jong-un, the Deep State has come down on him with all fours.
In that regard, here is what former “peace” candidate Barack Obama’s leading advisor on the topic had this to say:
Kelly E. Magsamen, a top Asia policy official at the Pentagon during the Obama administration, said, ‘U.S. presence in South Korea is a sacrosanct part of our alliance.’
In fact, apparently the entire global empire of Washington is sacrosanct — including the ridiculous fact that in the year 2018 Washington still has military bases in the defeated powers of World War II. Yet neither Japan nor Germany have any mortal military enemies and both are utterly dependent on the trade custom of the US for their high standard of living.
So the Deep State now owns the Donald and America First is not even a slogan. It’s inoperative, Nixon-style.
Indeed, it’s only a matter of time before the Donald gets the ultimate Nixon treatment — now that he has done the Deep State’s dirty work and ash-canned the deal that could have opened a broad avenue toward peace in the world and drastic retrenchment of the fiscally bankrupting Warfare State at home.
That is to say, at length the ingrates of the Deep State will put the Donald on the Dick Nixon Memorial Helicopter for his final ride to Gonesville.
To paraphrase the great Randolph Bourne, Demonization of the Unwilling is the Health of the Deep State.
At least that much the Donald has now, regrettably, confirmed with his sophomoric attack on Iran.
So doing he has also lurched America drastically forward on the path to a monumental financial catastrophe. That’s because taken together the Warfare State and the Welfare State are also the fiscal demise of the state.
One of these days even the lemmings of Wall Street — which took day’s calamitous news in stride — will finally get the memo, too.
Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.
FILE–In this April 28, 2018, file photo, made from video provided by Pepperdine University, shows one of a pair of pelicans crashing a graduation ceremony at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. The wildlife organization, International Bird RescuThe Associated Press
Sick pelicans showing up along Southern California coast
By The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — May 10, 2018, 5:00 PM ET
FILE–In this April 28, 2018, file photo, made from video provided by Pepperdine University, shows one of a pair of pelicans crashing a graduation ceremony at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. The wildlife organization, International Bird Rescue, said Thursday, May 10, 2018, that there’s been a surge in the number of sick and dying brown pelicans along the Southern California coast in the past week. (Grant Dillion/Pepperdine University via AP, file)
more +
A wildlife organization says there’s been a surge in the number of sick and dying brown pelicans along the Southern California coast in the past week.
International Bird Rescue said Thursday that more than 25 pelicans have been brought to its wildlife center in the San Pedro district of Los Angeles.
The big birds are showing signs of emaciation, hypothermia and anemia. The organization did not cite a cause.
Wildlife center manager Kylie Clatterbuck says it’s normal to receive recently fledged baby pelicans this time of year but the current wave includes many second-year birds.
The organization says there are many cases of pelicans landing on city streets, residential yards and airport runways.
A well-publicized incident occurred April 28 when two pelicans landed at Pepperdine University’s graduation ceremony in Malibu.
———
Cardiovascular medicine
Research
Lack of an association or an inverse association between low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol and mortality in the elderly: a systematic review
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/6/e010401.full?sid=cfb00014-f0a8-407d-ae71-a3278160ca49
Uffe Ravnskov1, David M Diamond2, Rokura Hama3, Tomohito Hamazaki4, Björn Hammarskjöld5, Niamh Hynes6, Malcolm Kendrick7, Peter H Langsjoen8, Aseem Malhotra9, Luca Mascitelli10, Kilmer S McCully11, Yoichi Ogushi12, Harumi Okuyama13, Paul J Rosch14, Tore Schersten15, Sherif Sultan6, Ralf Sundberg16
Author affiliations
Abstract
Objective It is well known that total cholesterol becomes less of a risk factor or not at all for all-cause and cardiovascular (CV) mortality with increasing age, but as little is known as to whether low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), one component of total cholesterol, is associated with mortality in the elderly, we decided to investigate this issue.
Setting, participants and outcome measures We sought PubMed for cohort studies, where LDL-C had been investigated as a risk factor for all-cause and/or CV mortality in individuals ≥60 years from the general population.
Results We identified 19 cohort studies including 30 cohorts with a total of 68 094 elderly people, where all-cause mortality was recorded in 28 cohorts and CV mortality in 9 cohorts. Inverse association between all-cause mortality and LDL-C was seen in 16 cohorts (in 14 with statistical significance) representing 92% of the number of participants, where this association was recorded. In the rest, no association was found. In two cohorts, CV mortality was highest in the lowest LDL-C quartile and with statistical significance; in seven cohorts, no association was found.
Conclusions High LDL-C is inversely associated with mortality in most people over 60 years. This finding is inconsistent with the cholesterol hypothesis (ie, that cholesterol, particularly LDL-C, is inherently atherogenic). Since elderly people with high LDL-C live as long or longer than those with low LDL-C, our analysis provides reason to question the validity of the cholesterol hypothesis. Moreover, our study provides the rationale for a re-evaluation of guidelines recommending pharmacological reduction of LDL-C in the elderly as a component of cardiovascular disease prevention strategies.
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-010401
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Strengths and limitations of this study
This is the first systematic review of cohort studies where low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) has been analysed as a risk factor for all-cause and/or cardiovascular mortality in elderly people.
Lack of an association or an inverse association between LDL-C and mortality was present in all studies.
We may not have included studies where an evaluation of LDL-C as a risk factor for mortality was performed but where it was not mentioned in the title or in the abstract.
We may have overlooked relevant studies because we have only searched PubMed.
Minor errors may be present because some of the authors may not have adjusted LDL-C by appropriate risk factors.
Some of the participants with high LDL-C may have started statin treatment during the observation period and, in this way, may have added a longer life to the group with high LDL-C and some of them may have started with a diet able to influence the risk of mortality.
We may have overlooked a small number of relevant studies because we only searched papers in English.
Introduction
Rationale
For decades, the mainstream view has been that an elevated level of total cholesterol (TC) is a primary cause of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease (CVD). There are several contradictions to this view, however. No study of unselected people has found an association between TC and degree of atherosclerosis.1 Moreover, in most of the Japanese epidemiological studies, high TC is not a risk factor for stroke, and further, there is an inverse association between TC and all-cause mortality, irrespective of age and sex.2
In a recent meta-analysis performed by the Prospective Studies Collaboration, there was an association between TC and CV mortality in all ages and in both sexes.3 However, even in this analysis, the risk decreased with increasing age and became minimal after the age of 80 years. Since atherosclerosis and CVD are mainly diseases of the elderly, the cholesterol hypothesis predicts that the association between CV mortality and TC should be at least as strong in the elderly as in young people. There may be a confounding influence in these studies, however, because TC includes high-density lipoprotein cholestrol (HDL-C), and multiple studies have shown that a high level of HDL-C is associated with a lower risk of CVD.
Objectives
We examined the literature assessing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) as a risk factor for mortality in elderly people. Since the definition of CVD varies considerably in the scientific literature, we have chosen to focus on the association between LDL-C and all-cause and CVD mortality, because mortality has the least risk of bias among all outcome measures. If Goldstein and Brown’s recent statement that LDL-C is ‘the essential causative agent’ of CVD4 is correct, then we should find that LDL-C is a strong risk factor for mortality in elderly people.
Methods
Search strategy
UR and RS searched PubMed independently from initial to 17 December 2015. The following keywords were used: ‘lipoprotein AND (old OR elderly) AND mortality NOT animal NOT trial’. We also retrieved the references in the publications so as not to miss any relevant studies. The search was limited to studies in English.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
All included studies should meet the following criteria: the study should be a cohort study of people aged 60 years or older selected randomly from the general population, or a study where the authors had found no significant differences between the participants and the source population’s demographic characteristics. The studies should include an initial assessment of LDL-C levels, the length of the observation time and information about all-cause and/or cardiovascular mortality at the end of follow-up. The studies should also include information about the association between LDL-C and all-cause and/or CVD mortality. We excluded studies that did not represent the general population (eg, case–control studies; case reports; studies that included patients only); studies where data about elderly people were not given separately, and studies without multivariate correction for the association between LDL-C and all-cause and/or CV mortality. We accepted studies where the authors had excluded patients with serious diseases or individuals who had died during the first year.
Study selection, data items and extraction
Studies where the title or abstract indicated that they might include LDL-C data of elderly people, were read in full, and the relevant data were extracted by at least three of the authors, for example, year of publication, total number of participants, sex, length of observation time, exclusion criteria, LDL-C measured at the start and the association between initial LDL-C and risk of all-cause and/or at follow-up. When more than one adjusted HR was reported, the HR with the most fully adjusted model was selected.
Quality assessment
The design of the study satisfies almost all points of reliability and validity according to the Newcastle Ottawa Scale as regards selection, comparability and exposure.5 Thus, all studies represented elderly people only; ascertainness of exposure (eg, measurement of LDL-C) was present in all studies, and outcome was unknown at the start. It can be questioned if all of the studies represented the general population because, as shown below, in some of them various types of disease groups were excluded.
Results
Study selection
Our search gave 2894 hits. We excluded 160 studies, which were not in English, and 2452 studies because, judged from the abstract, it was obvious that they were irrelevant.
The rest of the papers were read in full; 263 of these studies were excluded for the following reasons: (1) the participants did not represent the general population; (2) LDL-C was not measured at the start; (3) follow-up information was not given for the elderly separately; or (4) no information was present about mortality during the observation period (figure 1). One of the studies6 was excluded because it included the same individuals as in a previous study.7
Figure 1
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Figure 1
Flow Chart. CV, cardiovascular; LDL-C, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.
Study characteristics
The remaining 19 studies including 30 cohorts with a total of 68 094 participants met the inclusion criteria (figure 1). All-cause mortality was recorded in 28 cohorts. In 16 of these cohorts (representing 92% of the individuals), the association was inverse and with statistical significance in 14; in 1 of the cohorts, the association was mirror-J-formed with the lowest risk in the highest quartile; in the rest of the papers, no association was found. CV mortality was recorded in nine cohorts; in one of them, the association was almost U-shaped with the lowest risk in the highest quartile (curvilinear fit: p=0.001); in one of them, the association was mirror-J-formed and also with the lowest risk in the highest quartile (curvilinear fit: p=0.03); in the other seven cohorts, no association was found (table 1).
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Table 1
Association between LDL-C and all-cause mortality and CVD mortality, respectively, in 19 studies including 30 cohorts with 68 094 individuals from the general population above the age of 60 years
Risk of bias across studies
One explanation for the increased risk of mortality among people with low cholesterol is that serious diseases may lower cholesterol soon before death occurs. Evidence to support this hypothesis may be obtained from 10 of the studies in which no exclusions were made for individuals with terminal illnesses. However, in four of the studies, participants with a terminal illness or who had died during the first observation year were excluded. In one of those studies,8 LDL-C was not associated with all-cause mortality; in the three others,16 ,20 ,24 which included more than 70% of the total number of participants in our review, LDL-C was inversely associated with all-cause mortality and with statistical significance. Thus, there is little support for the hypothesis that our analysis is biased by end of life changes in LDL-C levels.
It is also potentially relevant that all studies did not correct for the same risk factors, and some of them did not inform the reader about which risk factors they corrected for. However, taking all studies together, 50 different risk factors were corrected for in the Cox analyses (table 2).
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Table 2
Factors corrected for in the multifactorial analyses of each study
It is worth considering that some of the participants with high LDL-C may have started statin treatment during the observation period. Such treatment may have increased the lifespan for the group with high LDL-C. However, any beneficial effects of statins on mortality would have been minimal because most statin trials have had little effect on CVD and all-cause mortality, with a maximum reduction of mortality of two percentage points. It is therefore relevant that the 4-year mortality among those with the highest LDL-C in the included cohorts was up to 36% lower than among those with the lowest LDL-C. Furthermore, in the largest study20 that included about two-thirds of the total number of participants in our study, the risk was lower among those with the highest LDL-C than among those on statin treatment.
It is also possible that those with the highest LDL-C were put on a different diet than those with low LDL-C. However, this potential bias in mortality outcomes could have gone in both directions. Some of the individuals with high LDL-C may have followed the official dietary guidelines and exchanged saturated fat with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid. In a recent study, the authors reported that among participants who were older than 65 at baseline, a 30 mg/dL decrease in serum cholesterol was associated with a higher risk of death (HR 1.35, 95% CI 1.18 to 1.54).26 If applied to the general population, this finding suggests that the conventional dietary treatment for high cholesterol with vegetable oil replacing saturated fat may actually increase mortality in those individuals with high LDL-C. Thus, the lack of an association between LDL-C and mortality may have been even stronger than reported since the dietary intervention may have been counterproductive.
Finally, it is potentially relevant that we limited our literature search to PubMed. In preliminary searches with PubMed, OVID and EMBASE, we identified 17 relevant studies in PubMed, but only 2 in OVID and EMBASE, and these 2 studies were found in PubMed as well. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that there are studies with findings with divergent results from those we have reported here, as all of them reported either no association or an inverse association between LDL-C and mortality.
Discussion
Assessments of the association between serum cholesterol and mortality have been studied for decades, and extensive research has shown a weak association between total cholesterol and mortality in the elderly; several studies have even shown an inverse association. It is therefore surprising that there is an absence of a review of the literature on mortality and levels of LDL-C, which is routinely referred to as a causal agent in producing CVD4 and is a target of pharmacological treatment of CVD.
Our literature review has revealed either a lack of an association or an inverse association between LDL-C and mortality among people older than 60 years. In almost 80% of the total number of individuals, LDL-C was inversely associated with all-cause mortality and with statistical significance.
These findings provide a paradoxical contradiction to the cholesterol hypothesis. As atherosclerosis starts mainly in middle-aged people and becomes more pronounced with increasing age, the cholesterol hypothesis would predict that there should be a cumulative atherosclerotic burden, which would be expressed as greater CVD and all-cause mortality, in elderly people with high LDL-C levels.
Our results raise several relevant questions for future research. Why is high TC a risk factor for CVD in the young and middle-aged, but not in elderly people? Why does a subset of elderly people with high LDL-C live longer than people with low LDL-C? If high LDL-C is potentially beneficial for the elderly, then why does cholesterol-lowering treatment lower the risk of cardiovascular mortality? In the following we have tried to address some of these questions.
Inverse causation
A common argument to explain why low lipid values are associated with an increased mortality is inverse causation, meaning that serious diseases cause low cholesterol. However, this is not a likely explanation, because in five of the studies in table 1 terminal disease and mortality during the first years of observation were excluded. In spite of that, three of them showed that the highest mortality was seen among those with the lowest initial LDL-C with statistical significance.18 ,20 ,24
Is high LDL-C beneficial?
One hypothesis to address the inverse association between LDL-C and mortality is that low LDL-C increases susceptibility to fatal diseases. Support for this hypothesis is provided by animal and laboratory experiments from more than a dozen research groups which have shown that LDL binds to and inactivates a broad range of microorganisms and their toxic products.27 Diseases caused or aggravated by microorganisms may therefore occur more often in people with low cholesterol, as observed in many studies.28 In a meta-analysis of 19 cohort studies, for instance, performed by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and including 68 406 deaths, TC was inversely associated with mortality from respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases, most of which are of an infectious origin.29 It is unlikely that these diseases caused the low TC, because the associations remained after the exclusion of deaths occurring during the first 5 years. In a study by Iribarren et al, more than 100 000 healthy individuals were followed for 15 years. At follow-up, those whose initial cholesterol level was lowest at the start had been hospitalised significantly more often because of an infectious disease that occurred later during the 15-year follow-up period.30 This study provides strong evidence that low cholesterol, recorded at a time when these people were healthy, could not have been caused by a disease they had not yet encountered.
Another explanation for an inverse association between LDL-C and mortality is that high cholesterol, and therefore high LDL-C, may protect against cancer. The reason may be that many cancer types are caused by viruses.31 Nine cohort studies including more than 140 000 individuals followed for 10–30 years have found an inverse association between cancer and TC measured at the start of the study, even after excluding deaths that occurred during the first 4 years.32 Furthermore, cholesterol-lowering experiments on rodents have resulted in cancer,33 and in several case–control studies of patients with cancer and controls matched for age and sex, significantly more patients with cancer have been on cholesterol-lowering treatment.32 In agreement with these findings, cancer mortality is significantly lower in individuals with familial hypercholesterolaemia.34
That high LDL-C may be protective is in accordance with the finding that LDL-C is lower than normal in patients with acute myocardial infarction. This has been documented repeatedly without a reasonable explanation.35–37 In one of the studies,37 the authors concluded that LDL-C evidently should be lowered even more, but at a follow-up 3 years later mortality was twice as high among those whose LDL-C had been lowered the most compared with those whose cholesterol was unchanged or lowered only a little. If high LDL-C were the cause, the effect should have been the opposite.
Conclusions
Our review provides the first comprehensive analysis of the literature about the association between LDL-C and mortality in the elderly. Since the main goal of prevention of disease is prolongation of life, all-cause mortality is the most important outcome, and is also the most easily defined outcome and least subject to bias. The cholesterol hypothesis predicts that LDL-C will be associated with increased all-cause and CV mortality. Our review has shown either a lack of an association or an inverse association between LDL-C and both all-cause and CV mortality. The cholesterol hypothesis seems to be in conflict with most of Bradford Hill’s criteria for causation, because of its lack of consistency, biological gradient and coherence. Our review provides the basis for more research about the cause of atherosclerosis and CVD and also for a re-evaluation of the guidelines for cardiovascular prevention, in particular because the benefits from statin treatment have been exaggerated.38–40
Acknowledgments
The study has been supported by a grant from Western Vascular Institute.
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82-Year-Old Woman With Dementia Gets Her Memory Back After Changing Her Diet
By Editor May 2, 2018 No Comments
82-Year-Old Woman With Dementia Gets Her Memory Back After Changing Her Diet
By Alanna Ketler
Recently, an 82-year-old woman who suffered from dementia, who couldn’t recognize her own son has miraculously got her memory back after changing her diet.
When his mother’s condition became so severe that for her own safety she had to be kept in the hospital, Mark Hatzer almost came to terms with losing another parent.
Sylvia had lost her memory and parts of her mind, she had even phoned the police once accusing the nurse who were caring for her of kidnap.
A change in diet, which was comprised of high amounts of blueberries and walnuts, has proven to have had a strong impact on Sylvia’s condition that her recipes are now being shared by the Alzheimer’s Society.
Sylvia also began incorporating other health foods, including broccoli, kale, spinach, sunflower seeds, green tea, oats, sweet potatoes and even dark chocolate with a high percentage of cacoa. All of these foods are known to be beneficial for brain health.
Mark and Sylvia devised to diet together after deciding that the medication on it’s own was not enough, they looked into the research showing that rates of dementia are much lower in mediterranean countries and copied a lot of their eating habits.
According to Mirror.co.uk“
Mark, whose brother Brent also died in 1977, said: “When my mum was in hospital she thought it was a hotel – but the worst one she had ever been in.
“She didn’t recognise me and phoned the police as she thought she’d been kidnapped.
“Since my dad and brother died we have always been a very close little family unit, just me and my mum, so for her to not know who I was was devastating.
“We were a double act that went everywhere together. I despaired and never felt so alone as I had no other family to turn to.
“Overnight we went from a happy family to one in crisis.
“When she left hospital, instead of prescribed medication we thought we’d perhaps try alternative treatment.
“In certain countries Alzheimer’s is virtually unheard of because of their diet.
“Everyone knows about fish but there is also blueberries, strawberries, Brazil nuts and walnuts – these are apparently shaped like a brain to give us a sign that they are good for the brain.”
There were also some cognitive exercises that Mark and his mother would do together like jigsaw puzzles crosswords and meeting people in social situations, Sylvia would also exercise by using a pedaling device outfitted for her chair.
Mark said, “It wasn’t an overnight miracle, but after a couple of months she began remembering things like birthdays and was becoming her old self again, more alert, more engaged..
“People think that once you get a diagnosis your life is at an end. You will have good and bad days, but it doesn’t have to be the end. For an 82-year-old she does very well, she looks 10 years younger and if you met her you would not know she had gone through all of this.
“She had to have help with all sorts of things, now she is turning it round. We are living to the older age in this country, but we are not necessarily living healthier.”
The Body’s Ability To Heal Is Greater Than Anyone Has Permitted You To Believe
This story just goes to show how resilient our bodies really are if given the right environment. Most of these types of diseases are often related to diet in the first place so that means that they can indeed be reversed with a proper diet. Sure, some of them are genetic and you might be a carrier of the gene, but that is not a guarantee that it will become active, there are things you can do to minimize the risk. Our health is our greatest wealth. We have to realize that we do have a say in our lives and what our fate is.
We have covered the topic before of how aluminum build up in the brain is directly related to dementia and more specifically Alzheimer’s disease, being able to identify this as a cause is important because recognizing this means we can do our part to limit the exposure and to also detoxify our brains and bodies from this damaging heavy metal.
In an article titled, Strong evidence linking Aluminum to Alzheimer’s, recently published in The Hippocratic Post website, Exley explained that:
“We already know that the aluminium content of brain tissue in late-onset or sporadic Alzheimer’s disease is significantly higher than is found in age-matched controls. So, individuals who develop Alzheimer’s disease in their late sixties and older also accumulate more aluminium in their brain tissue than individuals of the same age without the disease.
Even higher levels of aluminium have been found in the brains of individuals, diagnosed with an early-onset form of sporadic (usually late onset) Alzheimer’s disease, who have experienced an unusually high exposure to aluminium through the environment (e.g. Camelford) or through their workplace. This means that Alzheimer’s disease has a much earlier age of onset, for example, fifties or early sixties, in individuals who have been exposed to unusually high levels of aluminium in their everyday lives.”
His most recent study, published by the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology in December 2016, titled: Aluminium in brain tissue in familial Alzheimer’s disease, is one of the many studies that he and his team have conducted on the subject of aluminum over the years. However, this study in particular is believed to be of significant value, because it is the first time that scientists have measured the level of aluminum in the brain tissue of individuals diagnosed with familial Alzheimer’s disease. (Alzheimer’s disease or AD is considered to be familial if two or more people in a family suffer from the disease.)
According to their paper, the concentrations of aluminum found in brain tissue donated by individuals who died with a diagnosis of familial AD, was the highest level ever measured in human brain tissue.
Professor Exley wrote:
“We now show that some of the highest levels of aluminium ever measured in human brain tissue are found in individuals who have died with a diagnosis of familial Alzheimer’s disease.
The levels of aluminium in brain tissue from individuals with familial Alzheimer’s disease are similar to those recorded in individuals who died of an aluminium-induced encephalopathy while undergoing renal dialysis.”
He explained that:
“Familial Alzheimer’s disease is an early-onset form of the disease with first symptoms occurring as early as 30 or 40 years of age. It is extremely rare, perhaps 2-3% of all cases of Alzheimer’s disease. Its bases are genetic mutations associated with a protein called amyloid-beta, a protein which has been heavily linked with the cause of all forms of Alzheimer’s disease.
Individuals with familial Alzheimer’s disease produce more amyloid beta and the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are much earlier in life.”
The First Step Towards Change Is By Raising Awareness
As more and more awareness grows involving the true causes of these neurodegenerative brain disorders, the more we can do our part to prevent and even treat them and hopefully, eventually eliminate things such as aluminum and other chemicals in our foods to prevent this disease from happening altogether.
Please share this article with anyone you know who knows someone who is suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s.
This article (82-Year-Old Woman With Dementia Gets Her Memory Back After Changing Her Diet) was originally published on Collective Evolution and syndicated by The Event Chronicle.
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Apparently the reason Aluminum has been found in the Chemtrails that allegedly don’t exist! “They” are not only trying to kill us, and make us dumb, they want us to succumb to dementia…
APRIL 27, 2018
The radiation dispersed into the environment by the three reactor meltdowns at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan has exceeded that of the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe, so we may stop calling it the “second worst” nuclear power disaster in history. Total atmospheric releases from Fukushima are estimated to be between 5.6 and 8.1 times that of Chernobyl, according to the 2013 World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Professor Komei Hosokawa, who wrote the report’s Fukushima section, told London’s Channel 4 News then, “Almost every day new things happen, and there is no sign that they will control the situation in the next few months or years.”
Tokyo Electric Power Co. has estimated that about 900 peta-becquerels have spewed from Fukushima, and the updated 2016 TORCH Report estimates that Chernobyl dispersed 110 peta-becquerels.[1](A Becquerel is one atomic disintegration per second. The “peta-becquerel” is a quadrillion, or a thousand trillion Becquerels.)
Chernobyl’s reactor No. 4 in Ukraine suffered several explosions, blew apart and burned for 40 days, sending clouds of radioactive materials high into the atmosphere, and spreading fallout across the whole of the Northern Hemisphere — depositing cesium-137 in Minnesota’s milk.[2]
The likelihood of similar or worse reactor disasters was estimated by James Asselstine of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), who testified to Congress in 1986: “We can expect to see a core meltdown accident within the next 20 years, and it … could result in off-site releases of radiation … as large as or larger than the releases … at Chernobyl.[3] Fukushima-Daiichi came 25 years later.
Contamination of soil, vegetation and water is so widespread in Japan that evacuating all the at-risk populations could collapse the economy, much as Chernobyl did to the former Soviet Union. For this reason, the Japanese government standard for decontaminating soil there is far less stringent than the standard used in Ukraine after Chernobyl.
Fukushima’s Cesium-137 Release Tops Chernobyl’s
The Korea Atomic Energy Research (KAER) Institute outside of Seoul reported in July 2014 that Fukushima-Daiichi’s three reactor meltdowns may have emitted two to four times as much cesium-137 as the reactor catastrophe at Chernobyl.[4]
To determine its estimate of the cesium-137 that was released into the environment from Fukushima, the Cesium-137 release fraction (4% to the atmosphere, 16% to the ocean) was multiplied by the cesium-137 inventory in the uranium fuel inside the three melted reactors (760 to 820 quadrillion Becquerel, or Bq), with these results:
Ocean release of cesium-137 from Fukushima (the worst ever recorded): 121.6 to 131.2 quadrillion Becquerel (16% x 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq). Atmospheric release of Cesium-137 from Fukushima: 30.4 to 32.8 quadrillion Becquerel (4% x 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq).
Total release of Cesium-137 to the environment from Fukushima: 152 to 164 quadrillion Becquerel. Total release of Cesium-137 into the environment from Chernobyl: between 70 and 110 quadrillion Bq.
The Fukushima-Daiichi reactors’ estimated inventory of 760 to 820 quadrillion Bq (petabecquerels) of Cesium-137 used by the KAER Institute is significantly lower than the US Department of Energy’s estimate of 1,300 quadrillion Bq. It is possible the Korean institute’s estimates of radioactive releases are low.
In Chernobyl, 30 years after its explosions and fire, what the Wall St. Journal last year called “the $2.45 billion shelter implementation plan” was finally completed in November 2016. A huge metal cover was moved into place over the wreckage of the reactor and its crumbling, hastily erected cement tomb. The giant new cover is 350 feet high, and engineers say it should last 100 years — far short of the 250,000-year radiation hazard underneath.
The first cover was going to work for a century too, but by 1996 was riddled with cracks and in danger of collapsing. Designers went to work then engineering a cover-for-the-cover, and after 20 years of work, the smoking radioactive waste monstrosity of Chernobyl has a new “tin chapeau.” But with extreme weather, tornadoes, earth tremors, corrosion and radiation-induced embrittlement it could need replacing about 2,500 times.
John Laforge’s field guide to the new generation of nuclear weapons is featured in the March/April 2018 issue of CounterPunch magazine.
Notes.
[1]Duluth News-Tribune & Herald, “Slight rise in radioactivity found again in state milk,” May 22, 1986; St. Paul Pioneer Press & Dispatch, “Radiation kills Chernobyl firemen,” May 17, 1986; Minneapolis StarTribune, “Low radiation dose found in area milk,” May 17, 1986.
[2]Ian Fairlie, “TORCH-2016: An independent scientific evaluation of the health-related effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,” March 2016 (https://www.global2000.at/sites/global/files/GLOBAL_TORCH%202016_rz_WEB_KORR.pdf).
[3]James K. Asselstine, Commissioner, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Testimony in Nuclear Reactor Safety: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, May 22 and July 16, 1986, Serial No. 99-177, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1987.
[4] Progress in Nuclear Energy, Vol. 74, July 2014, pp. 61-70; ENENews.org, Oct. 20, 2014.
Tara Conner, a former Miss USA in 2006, praised President Trump for his actions a decade earlier when, as the owner of the pageant, he provided her with a life-saving, life-altering, second chance.
Conner found herself embroiled in scandal when she tested positive for cocaine and was caught drinking despite being underage that year.
Many at the time speculated that she would be stripped of her title, but Trump surprised everyone when he didn’t rush to judgment and expressed concern for Conner’s well-being instead.
“First and foremost he is concerned about Tara and wants to do what is best for her,” Trump’s office said at the time. “Then he will think about what is best for the very successful Miss USA pageant.”
When the decision came down, spectators were surprised once again, with Trump allowing her to retain the title of Miss USA provided she enter a drug rehab program.
View original post 204 more words
A female Islamic extremist has been caught by police in possession of a USB key that contained the identities of 2,626 intelligence officials from France’s Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (DCRI).
The woman, identified as Mina B., was already known to the country’s intelligence services and had been placed on the terror watch list known in France as the S-File, Le Pointreports.
Mina B. was questioned by French authorities back in April of last year over her involvement with another radical Islamic extremist named Sana O. who she was said to have helped house and finance in 2016. Sana O. had attempted to travel to Syria and join radical Islamic extremist groups on two occasions before having his passport revoked.
Police recently opened a second investigation into Mina B. and found she had been in contact with several Islamic extremists in the area around Magnanville.
The USB stick contained a list of the…
View original post 211 more words
David Hogg Pushing Boycott of Mutual Fund Companies Invested in Gun Manufacturer Stocks Breitbart ^ | 17 Apr 2018 | AWR Hawkins
If you have logged out of your Facebook account – or have never even had one – the US social network giant is still keeping close tabs on you, tracking every virtual move, and there’s nothing you can do about it. David Baser, the company’s product management director, admitted in a recent blog post that […]
via Facebook says it tracks non-users but doesn’t ‘sell people’s data’ — tomfernandez28’s Blog
Subprime mortgages make a comeback—with a new name and soaring demand
The subprime mortgage industry vanished after the Great Recession but is now being reinvented as the nonprime market.
Carrington Mortgage is now offering mortgages to borrowers with “less-than-perfect credit.”
Demand from both borrowers and investors is exceeding expectations.
Diana Olick | @DianaOlick
Published 10:45 AM ET Thu, 12 April 2018 Updated 1:54 PM ET Thu, 12 April 2018
CNBC.com
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/sub-prime-mortgages-morph-into-non-prime-loans-and-demand-soars.html
Subprime stages comeback as ‘non-prime’ loans Subprime stages comeback as ‘non-prime’ loans
1:41 PM ET Thu, 12 April 2018 | 01:28
They were blamed for the biggest financial disaster in a century. Subprime mortgages – home loans to borrowers with sketchy credit who put little to no skin in the game. Following the epic housing crash, they disappeared, due to strong, new regulation, and zero demand from investors who were badly burned. Barely a decade later, they’re coming back with a new name — nonprime — and, so far, some new standards.
California-based Carrington Mortgage Services, a midsized lender, just announced an expansion into the space, offering loans to borrowers, “with less-than-perfect credit.” Carrington will originate and service the loans, but it will also securitize them for sale to investors.
“We believe there is actually a market today in the secondary market for people who want to buy nonprime loans that have been properly underwritten,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of Carrington Mortgage Holdings. “We’re not going back to the bad old days of ninja lending, when people with no jobs, no income, and no assets were getting loans.”
A home improvement contractor works on a house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here’s how much homeowners could cash out in home equity
2:32 PM ET Mon, 2 April 2018 | 01:14
All loans will not be the same
All loans, however, will not be the same for all borrowers. If a borrower is higher risk, a higher down payment will be required, and the interest rate will likely be higher.
“What we’re talking about is underwriting that goes back to common sense sort of practices. If you have risk, you offset risk somewhere else,” added Sharga, while touting, “We probably are going to have the widest range of products for people with challenging credit in the marketplace.”
Carrington is not alone in the space. Angel Oak began offering and securitizing nonprime mortgages two years ago and has done six nonprime securitizations so far. It recently finalized its biggest securitization yet — $329 million, comprising 905 mortgages with an average amount of about $363,000. Just more than 80 percent of the loans are nonprime.
A ‘who’s who of Wall Street’
Investors in Angel Oak’s nonprime securitizations are, “a who’s who of Wall Street,” according to company representatives, citing hedge funds and insurance companies. Angel Oak’s securitizations now total $1.3 billion in mortgage debt.
Angel Oak, along with Caliber Home Loans, have been the main players in the space, securitizing relatively few loans. That is clearly about to change in a big way, as demand is rising.
“We believe that more competition is positive for the marketplace because there is strong enough demand for the product to support multiple originators,” said Lauren Hedvat, managing director, capital markets at Angel Oak. “Additionally, the more competitors there are, the wider the footprint becomes, which should open the door for more potential borrowers.”
Big banks are also getting in the game, both investing in the securities and funding the lenders, according to Sharga.
“It’s large financial institutions. A lot of people with private capital sitting on the sidelines, who are very interested in this market and believe that as long as the risks are managed well, and companies like ours are particularly good at managing credit risk, that it’s a good investment opportunity,” he said.
As the economy improves, and rents continue to rise, more Americans are trying to become homeowners, but the scars of the Great Recession still stand in the way. One-fifth of consumers today still have very low credit scores, often disqualifying them from obtaining a mortgage in today’s tight lending market.
Relaxed lending standards
Last summer, Fannie Mae announced it would relax its lending standards for prime loans, allowing borrowers with higher debt and lower credit scores to obtain loans without additional risk overlays, such as large down payments and a year’s worth of cash reserves.
Fannie Mae raised its debt-to-income (DTI) limit from 45 percent to 50 percent. DTI is the amount of total debt a borrower can have compared to his or her income. As a result, demand from buyers with higher debt exceeded all expectations. The share of high DTI loans jumped from 6 percent in January 2017 to nearly 20 percent by the end of February 2018, according to a study by the Urban Institute.
“From January to July 2017, Fannie purchased 80,467 loans with DTI ratios between 45 and 50 percent. But from August 2017 to February 2018, Fannie purchased 181,911 loans in the same DTI bucket. This increase of more than 100,000 loans in just seven months exceeded our estimate (85,000 additional Fannie loans annually) and Fannie’s expectations.” – Urban Institute
The mortgage industry expectation was that Fannie Mae would mitigate the additional risk with other factors, like a higher necessary credit score, but that was not added. The mortgage insurers balked, since they would be on the hook for the risk, so last month Fannie Mae “recalibrated” its risk assessment criteria again.
“We got a bigger response than we thought we were going to, so we dialed back to make sure we were in the right spot where our governance kicks in to make sure we’re not taking excessive risk,” said Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s chief economist.
Millennials carry more debt
The outsized demand from borrowers with more debt as well as demand for nonprime mortgages in the private sector show just how many borrowers today would like to become homeowners but are frozen out of the mortgage market.
Millennials, the largest homebuying cohort today, have much higher levels of student debt than previous generations. Members of older generations who went through foreclosures during the housing crisis or other hits to their credit are still struggling with lower FICO scores.
In addition, credit tightened up dramatically. In fact, between 2009 and 2015, tighter credit accounted for just more than 6 million “missing” loans, according to research by Laurie Goodman at the Urban Institute. These are mortgages that would have been granted under more normal historical underwriting standards.
The rebirth of the nonprime market is focused on these missing mortgages. The hope is that the industry will also focus on better standards of underwriting and not take risk to the levels it once did, levels that resulted in disaster.
If You Thought Fukushima Was Over With You’re Dead Wrong! Guess What’s Happening Now?
Thursday, April 12, 2018 8:56
By Lisa Haven
http://beforeitsnews.com/politics/2018/04/were-being-nuked-you-wont-believe-what-fukushima-is-doing-now-outrage-2994495.html
Fukushima, that’s the name of the nuclear power plant that will go down in history as one of the worst events of it’s time and it will leave millions of cancer patients in its path.
Emigrate While You Still Can! Learn More…
For years this nuclear plant has been wreaking havoc on our oceans and on our bodies, ever since it’s destruction on March 11, 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami stroked the area. Sadly, the mainstream media have kept this disaster “on the down-low” in order to not panic the public, just as they did when Chernobyl took out millions with cancer.
With sieverts now reaching 530 and talks that they could go as high as 5,000, the mainstream media is forced to report on this devastation, however they fail to mention the repercussions it will have on humanity.
In the video below I prove just how bad this event really is and the effects it is still having on those here in America…
<a href="http://” target=”_blank”>The Video
Here’s what the globalists have to say about decreasing the worlds population, and I believe, they allow things like Fukushima specifically for that:
At the United Nations Biodiversity Assessment on Sustainable Human Population; US Senate September 9, 1994:
“A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be one billion people. This must be implemented within 30-50 years, 2/3’s of the population must be cut.”
“The UN says property rights are not absolute and unchanging, but are there for the convenience of whatever government wants to do.” – Michael Coffman
Price Phillip, Duke of Edinburg:
“If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
Henry Kissinger:
“Depopulation should be the highest priority of U.S. foreign policy towards the Third World.”
Theodore Roosevelt:
“Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind”
Ted Turner, in an interview with Audubon Magazine:
“A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
Thomas Ferguson, State Department Office of Population Affairs:
“There is a single theme behind all our work–we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it….”“Our program in El Salvador didn’t work. The infrastructure was not there to support it. There were just too goddamned many people…. To really reduce population, quickly, you have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile age females….” “The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa, or through disease like the Black Death….”
Alexander King, Bertrand Schneider – Founder and Secretary, respectively, The Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, pgs 104-105, 199:
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“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb:
“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people…. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.” Stanford Professor ”
Jacques Cousteau UNESCO Courier 1991:
“In order to save the planet it would be necessary to kill 350,000 people per day.”
Robert Walker, former chair of PepsiCo and Proctor & Gamble on water:
“Water is a gift of nature. Its delivery is not. It must be priced to insure it is used sustainably….Ted Turner makes the radical statement that, “A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal,””
Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, 1991:
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill (this is absolute proof that man made global warming is a fabrication)…. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
Bill Gates TED Talk
“First, we’ve got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent, but there we see an increase of about 1.3.”
UNDERCOVER VIDEO: HUNDREDS of Twitter Employees Paid to View “Everything You Post,” & Private “Sex Messages”
https://www.projectveritas.com/video/undercover-video-hundreds-of-twitter-employees-paid-to-view-everything-you-post-private-sex-messages/
by Staff Report January 15, 2018
Project Veritas has released undercover footage of Twitter Engineers and employees admitting that Twitter employees view”everything you post” on their servers, including private “sex messages,” and “d*ck pics.” The engineers also admit that Twitter analyzes this information to create a “virtual profile” of you which they sell to advertisers.
James O’Keefe has just completed a book about this series entitled “AMERICAN PRAVDA: My fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News.” The book will be released by St. Martin’s Press on January 16, 2018. Pre-order the book: http://www.americanpravdabook.com
This is part three in Project Veritas’ Twitter investigation.
See part one: Part One
See part two: Part Two
Pre-order James O’Keefe’s new book – a treatise on modern media, a true crime spy thriller, and a rollicking adventure story. Follow James and his undercover journalists as they expose mainstream media outlets like CNN and the New York Times and reveal dirty political tricks during the 2016 national elections.
Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack Reveals $70 Million Pentagon Program At Porton Down
By Editor April 4, 2018
http://www.theeventchronicle.com/study/salisbury-nerve-agent-attack-reveals-70-million-pentagon-program-at-porton-down-2/
Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack Reveals $70 Million Pentagon Program At Porton Down
Signs prohibiting access near to the Porton Down Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, near Salisbury, Britain, March 19, 2018. © Peter Nicholls / Reuters
Dilyana Gaytandzhieva is a Bulgarian investigative journalist and Middle East Correspondent. Over the last two years she has published a series of revealing reports on weapons smuggling. Two months ago South Front published her investigation into the Pentagon bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world. Her current report provides an overview of the Pentagon-funded experiments at the secretive UK military laboratory Porton Down near Salisbury, where an ex-Russian spy and his daughter were allegedly poisoned with a nerve agent. Twitter/@dgaytandzhieva
By Dilyana Gaytandzhieva exclusively for SouthFront
The Pentagon has spent at least $70 million on military experiments involving tests with deadly viruses and chemical agents at Porton Down – the UK military laboratory near the city of Salisbury. The secretive biological and chemical research facility is located just 13 km from where on 4th March former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a bench following an alleged Novichok nerve agent poisoning.
The Porton Down Lab is located just 13 km from the site where Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found and from where they were rushed to hospital.
Information obtained from the US federal contracts registry reveals that the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has funded a number of military projects performed at the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), or Porton Down, over the last decade. Among them: experimental respiratory infection of non-human primates (marmosets) with Anthrax, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Western equine encephalitis virus, and Eastern equine encephalitis virus. The US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has also funded experiments on animals which were exposed to chemical agents such as Sulfur Mustard and Phosgene gas. Phosgene gas was used as a chemical weapon during World War I where it was responsible for about 85 % of the 100,000 deaths caused by chemical weapons.
DTRA has also been granted full access to DSTL scientific and technical capabilities, and test data under a 2011 contract for the collaboration and exchange of scientific and technical capabilities with the UK Ministry of Defence.
At least 122,000 animals used for military chemical and biological experiments at Porton Down
Animal experiments are classified as confidential in the UK. Under section 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, it is a criminal offence to disclose certain information about animal experiments in the UK.
Data obtained via the Freedom of Information Act though gives an idea of the dimensions of military chemical and biological experiments carried out at Porton Down. A total of 122,050 animals have been exposed to deadly pathogens, chemicals and incurable diseases over the last decade (2005-2016).
Monkeys being used in warfare agent testing at Porton Down in the past
Animals used include mice, guinea pigs, rats, pigs, ferrets, sheep, and non-human primates. Some of the deadly experiments have been sponsored by the Pentagon under contracts between DSTL and DTRA. Scientists at Porton Down have infected, or poisoned, animals in order to measure time to death and lethal dose of exposure. In practice, the possible use of the researched virus/chemical gas as a weapon.
Marmoset monkeys are experimentally infected at Porton Down with Ebola, Anthrax, Marburg Virus and other deadly pathogens. Scientists measure time to death and lethal dose of exposure to the bio agent. Photo credit: Vic Pigula
Ebola as bioweapon
12 Marmoset monkeys were experimentally infected with the Ebola virus, via aerosol, at Porton Down under a Pentagon-funded project – Experimental respiratory infection of marmosets with Ebola virus Kikwit (the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus which killed more than 245 people in Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo, in 1995). The project was part of a $6.3 million DTRA program running at Porton Down from 2012 to 2016 – Development of common marmoset models for category A/B pathogens and product evaluation in marmosets.
Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack Reveals $70 Million Pentagon Program At Porton Down
Source: Experimental Respiratory Infection of Marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) With Ebola Virus Kikwit, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 212, 1 October 2015
The experiment’s stated goal was to measure the lethal dose of exposure and time to death meaning that the Ebola virus Kikwit was researched for its potential as a bioweapon. All infected marmoset monkeys died from 6 to 10 days after exposure to the Ebola virus.
The Pentagon also funded studies on the deadly Marburg virus: a $2.6 million project – Experimental respiratory Marburg virus haemorrhagic fever infection in the common marmoset, and another $1.4 million project – Marburg virus model development, which were undertaken at Porton Down in 2017. This virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever and is listed as a Category A Bioterrorism Agent. All infected monkeys died from 8 to 10 days. The aim of the studies was to examine the dose and time to death for animals exposed to aerosolized Marburg virus.
Source: Experimental respiratory Marburg virus haemorrhagic fever infection in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), International Journal of Experimental Pathology
Under another $4.8 million project, funded by DTRA, Porton Down scientists along with the Pentagon contractor Mapp Biopharmaceutical tested Susceptibility and lethality of Western Equine Encephalitis Virus in mice when infected by the aerosol route. Mapp Biopharmaceutical is an American pharmaceutical company, which has developed an Ebola vaccine from the tobacco plant. According to the study, aerosol infection is the likely route of exposure to Western Equine Encephalitis Virus in a biowarfare scenario.
12 Marmoset monkeys were infected with anthrax at Porton Down during an experiment funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The study, Experimental respiratory anthrax infection in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), aimed at determining the lethal dose needed to kill 50% of the animals or the so called LD50 indicator. The value of LD50 for a substance is the dose required to kill half the members of the tested population after a specified test duration. Six of the monkeys died from anthrax from 40 to 140 h.
Source: Experimental respiratory anthrax infection in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), US National Library of medicine
Chemical agent tests
British military scientists were funded by DTRA to perform Chemical Agent system testing as part of a $39.7 million Pentagon program (2012-2017) at Porton Down. Documents prove that the US Department of Defense Agency – DTRA funded animal experiments with chemical agents at the secretive British military lab.
In 2016 Porton Down scientists along with their colleagues from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense published the results of a joint study Acute Gene Expression Profile of Lung Tissue Following Sulfur Mustard Inhalation Exposure in Large Anesthetized Swine. According to the funding information, this work was supported by two contracts with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (US Department of Defense). During the experiment at Porton Down 16 pigs were exposed to mustard gas for about 10 minutes, at 12 h post exposure the animals were killed (three of them died during the experiment due to complications) and a full post-mortem examination performed in order to determine the lung damage caused by the sulfur mustard inhalation.
Sulfur mustard is a chemical warfare agent that was first used on the battlefield in World War I. It has been classified as a Class 1 human carcinogen, meaning that it can also cause cancer. Mustard agents were regulated under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention as substances with no use other than in chemical warfare.
The last use of Sulfur mustard in battle was confirmed in Syria in 2016. According to the BBC, Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists used mustard gas against government forces in Deir-ez-Zor. The same chemical gas was confirmed to have been used by ISIS against Kurds in Northern Iraq. According to The Independent, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed that laboratory tests had come back positive for sulfur mustard, after around 35 Kurdish troops fell sick on the battlefield in August 2015.
Iraqi soldiers captured a cache of chemical weapons from ISIS in Qayarah, Iraq, the rockets tested positive for sulfur mustard, October 2016. (Source: Ed Alexander/BLACKOPS Cyber)
According to information obtained from the US Federal contracts registry, Porton Down scientists 5 months ago completed a $ 2 million military program involving chemical gas experiments on animals. This program was funded by the US Department of the Army on behalf of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD) and was launched in 2008 and further extended in 2012. The work on the program included Phosgene Gas tests. Amongst them – Continued Model Development to Establish Reproducible Phosgene Injury at 24 Hours. According to the program documents, the purpose was to monitor the development of acute lung injury following phosgene exposure. Phosgene gas was used extensively as a chemical weapon, most notably during World War I.
Coincidence: Guinea pigs at Porton Down and at the home of the poisoned ex-spy
Tests using nerve agents VX and VM on guinea pigs were carried out at Poton Down in 2015. The project was funded by the UK Ministry of Defence. Interestingly, ginea pigs were also found at Sergei Skripal’s home in Salisbury, just a few kilometers away from the secretive chemical and biological military lab. A photo of the Skripals’ pets – a cat and guinea pigs, was posted by his daughter Yulia on Facebook.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, photos: Facebook
Guinea pigs were found in the house of the poisoned ex-spy in Salisbury, just a few kilometers away from Porton Down, where such guinea pigs were used for nerve agent chemical tests.
In a 2015 report to the UK parliament the UK Ministry of Defence does confirm the use of animals for military chemical and biological experiments. The ministry states: “DSTL is proud to deliver cutting-edge science and technology for the benefit of national defence and security. Part of its work is to provide safe and effective countermeasures against the threat posed by chemical and biological weapons and to enhance the treatment of conventional casualties on the battlefield, which could not currently be achieved without the use of animals”.
Porton Down scientists test chemical gas on London Tube passengers
Chemical gas was released on thousands of unsuspecting commuters during a military experiment on the London Underground, documents reveal. These chemical tests were performed in 2013 by scientist from Porton Down.
Porton Down scientists released chemical gas on the London Underground in 2013.
The UK government never informed the British public of the military experiment on the London Underground. Thousands of people were exposed to chemical gas without their knowledge. Nor did the Ministry of Defence ask for their consent to participate in such military experiments. Information about the project can be obtained from a 2016 US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document entitled Environmental Assessment of Proposed NYC Subway Tracer Particle and Gas Releases for the Underground Transport Restoration Project.
5 PFTs, SF6 and Urea were released on the London Underground in 2013 in the form of liquid aerosol droplets. Source: US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
The document provides information about other programs running in the USA and UK from 2005 to 2016. Among them are the London Underground chemical trials. They were conducted by the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), also known as Porton Down.
Information obtained from the UK government contracts registry confirms that Porton Down scientists conducted a study involving access to the London tube under a 3-year contract with the London Underground (2011-2014). The content of the project is not specified though.
According to the contract documents, the London Underground cannot communicate “on these matters with any media representative unless specifically granted permissions to do so. In the event that the Contract becomes classified the Contractor must safeguard information. Before publishing information to the general public, Porton Down may redact any information that would be exempt from disclosure if it was the subject of a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act”.
The London Underground is prohibited from public disclosure of information about the Porton Down project without permission, according to the contract documents. Source: data.gov.uk
The controversial military laboratory was investigated for chemical and biological experiments on humans in the past. Up to 20,000 people took part in various trials from 1949 to 1989. In 2008, the UK Ministry of Defence paid 360 veterans £3 million without admitting liability.
Ronald George Maddison was a twenty-year-old Royal Air Force engineer who died while undergoing tests with sarin at Porton Down in 1953, according to declassified military documents.
Powder dissemination of chemical or biological agents
Presently Porton Down scientists produce and test dissemination of biological and/or chemical agents as they did in the past, documents from the UK government contracts registry reveal. Although the information is redacted, it still raises questions as to why the UK military needs to develop a new technique for dissemination of chemical or biological agents via the inhalational route. A private contractor – Red Scientific Ltd, was awarded a £50,000 contract in 2012 “to explore techniques that could be used to manipulate the flow ability of dry powders, principally to understand the delivery of solid particulate by inhalation, and to apply a variety of innovative powder manipulation techniques to a specific irritant powder (provided by DSTL)”. If the work in 2012/13 proves to be successful there is potential for a second phase to be pursued in 2013/14 examining other powder materials with the same techniques, the contract documents reveal. The project’s stated goal is marked improvement in the efficiency of aerosolisation over current techniques used at DSTL.
DSTL has awarded a private contractor to explore more advanced techniques for powder dissemination of chemical/biological agents. Source: data.gov.uk
DSTL has also tested dissemination techniques in wind tunnels. A private company – NIAB Trading Ltd, was awarded a £12,020 contract to provide facilities and expertise to assist with wind tunnel assessments.
Such experiments involving the release of bacteria were conducted in the UK in the past during the joint UK-US military operation DICE. A declassified US Army document reveals that a series of 24 field trials took place off the coast of Portland and in Lyme Bay in the UK in 1975. Each field trial involved the spraying of massive bacterial aerosols from a converted Land Rover. Although the US and UK joined the UN Conventions on the prohibition of chemical and biological weapons, documents prove that their military programs have never ended.
Porton Down scientists conducted field tests in 1956. The masks on their faces allowed the collection of warfare simulants which had been sprayed from aircraft. Photo credit: Imperial War Museums
US official lied in Brussels about the Pentagon biolaboratories
Robert Kadlec, Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Health, categorically denied the existence of an American bio-weapons program at a seminar on the threat of biological and chemical weapons. The event was organized by the European Parliament on 7th March in Brussels. Asked why the information about the US military bio-laboratories in 25 countries bordering on Russia, China and Iran (the Pentagon’s main rivals) is classified, Kadlec responded: “They are not classified, they are openly available to anyone who wants to look at them.”
(full video of Robert Kadlec’s comment here)
Documents about the Pentagon offshore bio-laboratories prove him wrong though.
According to the 2005 Agreement between the US DoD and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine the Ukrainian government is prohibited from public disclosure of sensitive information about the US program. The Pentagon has been operating 11 biolaboartories in Ukraine.
Porton Down is just one of the Pentagon-funded military laboratories in 25 countries across the world, where the US Army produces and tests man-made viruses, bacteria and toxins in direct violation of the UN convention. These US bio-laboratories are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program– Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.
The Pentagon-funded military facilities are not under the direct control of the host state as the US military and civilian personnel is working under diplomatic cover. The local governments are prohibited from public disclosure of sensitive information about the foreign military program running on their own territory. Without being under the direct control of the host state, these Pentagon bio-laboratories put the health of the local population at risk and must be closed.
This article (Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack Reveals $70 Million Pentagon Program At Porton Down) was originally published on South Front and syndicated by The Event Chronicle.
Edmonton terror attacks: Terrorism has evolved from bombs and planes, to cars and knives
By Stewart Bell National Online Journalist, Investigative Global News
Edmonton terror attacks: Terrorism has evolved from bombs and planes, to cars and knives
https://globalnews.ca/video/rd/1176465475574/
more
WARNING: Video contains disturbing images. Edmonton police released security video showing a car ramming into a police officer and the suspect getting out of the vehicle to stab the officer.
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Not long ago, terrorists wanted spectacle. Their plots were grandiose, aiming for body count and targets of symbolic importance like the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.
But tactics have evolved in recent years into the kind of incident that unfolded Saturday night in Edmonton: a driver rams a lone police officer directing traffic, then jumps out and stabs him.
READ MORE: Edmonton terror attacks: Police officer stabbed, people struck by U-Haul
Hours later, the same suspect was spotted in a U-Haul van, which he used to mow down four pedestrians before he flipped the vehicle and was arrested, police said.
It’s exactly what groups like the so-called Islamic State have been encouraging. Retired Canadian intelligence analyst Phil Gurski said the theme has been to “just do what you can with what you’ve got.”
“Extremist messaging continues to emphasize a move towards less complex, small scale plots, against soft targets by individuals already based in the West,” read a 2015 Canadian intelligence report.
Angie Seth chats with investigative journalist Stewart Bell who says the suspected terror attack in Edmonton falls inline with recent attacks around the world.
https://globalnews.ca/video/rd/1059349571862/
Recent attacks in Barcelona, Nice and London all followed that pattern.
Police have said little about the Edmonton attacker, except that he was a 30-year-old Somali refugee and an ISIS flag was found in his car. He was expected to be charged Monday with two counts of terrorism as well as attempted murder. Global News has identified him as Abdulahi Sharif.
Regardless of his motives, his tactics are in line with current trends in terrorism.
Al Qaeda began calling for vehicle attacks in 2010. In 2013, two extremists ran down a British soldier, Lee Rigby, near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich and tried to behead him with a butcher knife.
An ISIS spokesman, Abu Muhammad Adnani, urged followers in September 2014 to simply select a victim and “smash his head with a rock or slaughter him with a knife or run him over with your car.”
READ MORE: A timeline of Canadian terrorist incidents
Watch below: Terrorism studies expert John McCoy says there has been “some precedence” for the Edmonton attacks that exists in previous incidents that have occurred in Canada in the past.
https://globalnews.ca/video/rd/1059189315853/
The following month, Martin Couture-Rouleau drove a car into a group of Canadian Forces members in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Following a chase, he charged officers with a knife and was shot.
In March 2016, Ayanle Hassan Ali stabbed two Canadian Forces members at a Toronto recruiting office while saying that, “Allah told me to come here and kill people.” He is now facing terrorism charges.
WATCH: Common terrorism tactics in Europe was used in Edmonton: expert
https://globalnews.ca/video/rd/1059092547882/
The attack on a Quebec City mosque in January was also a relatively simple operation. The gunman, who apparently harbored far right, anti-Muslims views, opened fire in a crowd, killing six worshippers.
Pro-ISIS propaganda continued to incite for vehicle attacks as recently as Friday, when a message warned Canada, Australia and other countries that ISIS “soldiers” who would “run over people by vehicles and cut off their necks.”
In an audio address released Thursday, ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi called on his supporters to “intensify the successive attacks … Continue your jihad and blessed operations, and do not let the crusaders and apostates enjoy a good life or a pleasant living in the middle of their countries while your brothers are experiencing bombardment, killing, and destruction.”
https://globalnews.ca/video/rd/1059331651792/
“I call it Nike terrorism: just do it,” Gurski said. “And this is what ISIS has been telling people for years.”
Police reveal details about suspect in Edmonton vehicle attacks
“Chemtrail Cough” is Sweeping the Nation — Death by Respiratory Disease Has Skyrocketed
February 11, 2018
http://www.unseen-pedia.com/chemtrail-cough-sweeping-nation-death-respiratory-disease-skyrocketed/
Have you noticed that everyone around you is congested and coughing? I am calling this new syndrome “chemtrail cough.”
My wife is coughing, I am coughing and now even our dogs are coughing. In just four years death by respiratory disease has skyrocketed from 8th in the world to 3rd and possibly even 2nd.
If someone in congress receives a letter with a little bit of white powder in it the capitol is evacuated and the media freaks out and starts screaming “terrorists.”
However, right over their heads, hundreds of tons of nano aluminum and barium are being sprayed on them daily and yet nobody seems to care.
Yesterday I heard Alex Jones start his broadcast by saying his throat hurt and his voice was messed up because of something in the air but he didn’t know what it was.
Just one hour before his show started I heard the world’s leading expert on the subject of chemtrailsand geoengineering (Dane Wiginton) conduct an interview and he sounded terrible too.
Alex often talks about what people will put up with. One of his ideas is to go door to door in Austin and ask homeowners if it would be OK to put cameras in their bedrooms and then record their responses.
Of course, no sane person would allow that yet they do allow the NSA and countless other agencies and private corporations to do exactly the same thing via their smart TVs and smart phones.
Here’s my idea. How would anyone from Infowars or any other patriot radio show like it if I cornered your kid somewhere, opened a can of bug spray and emptied the entire can on their face?
You probably wouldn’t like it too much and yet you tolerate the EXACT same thing to be done to your kids on a daily basis by Bill Gates and the rest of the geo-engineering fanatics.
How is this not the number one story in the world all day and every day? Has everyone in the alternative media lost their minds too? We know that nano sized particulate of aluminum is very harmful to the brain and is responsible for killing everything that lives and yet it is rarely discussed and very little effort is directed to exposing it and stopping it.
Don’t people understand that if we don’t stop this right now there will be nothing left to live and fight for?
They are turning the sky over the entire country white daily. I have saved these recent satellite images to illustrate just how much material they are dumping on us. The sprayers repeat the same pattern day after day with very few exceptions.
Satellite Images
Sunday morning (5/25/14)
Sunday afternoon (5/25/14)
Monday morning (5/26/14)
Monday afternoon
Tuesday morning (5/27/14)
Tuesday afternoon (5/27/14)
They typically spray heavily first thing in the morning and greet the sun as it rises. They then spray all day long following the sun as it crosses the sky. They then spray heavily in the west as the sun sets.
The aluminum and barium (blanketing us all day) dissipates and falls to the ground in the early evening. The planes then return to their bases to refuel, rearm and get ready for the next attack the next morning.
Unless all radio talk show hosts come together and put an end to this craziness called geo-engineering it is my opinion that all life on earth will die and the battle for the future of humanity will be lost.
Dane Wigington should be on every radio show at least once a week to cover the latest developments in the collapse of our ecosystem. It’s accelerating and nothing is being done to curtail these insane programs.
Source humansarefree
SHOCK: David Hogg Changes Story, Wasn’t At School When Cruz Opened Fire
By Peter D’Abrosca – Mar 26, 2018
SHOCK: David Hogg Changes Story, Wasn’t At School When Cruz Opened Fire
In a not-yet-released CBS Documentary, David Hogg, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student who has become the face of the gun control movement, changes his entire story and admits that he was not at the school during the event.
In a Time interview done within hours of the shooting Hogg recounted, “Our first response was ‘that sounded a lot like a gun shot’ and we closed the door.” Hogg claimed that he was in his AP enviromental science class during the shooting. He also made videos of himself and other students, regarding gun control, purportedly while the shooting was going on.
But CBS News has released some transcripts from its “39 Days” documentary, in which student David Hogg is quoted.
“On the day of the shooting, I got my camera and got on my bike and rode as fast as I could three miles from my house to the school to get as much video and to get as many interviews as I could because I knew that this could not be another mass shooting,” Hogg said in his CBS News interview.
The shooting occurred in the afternoon, after alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz was dropped off after 2 PM.
“While I was in there, I thought, ‘What impact have I had? What will my story be if I die here? And the only thing I could think of was, pull out my camera and try telling others. As a student journalist, as an aspiring journalist, that’s all I could think: Get other people’s stories on tape. If we all die, the camera survives, and that’s how we get the message out there, about how we want change to be brought about,” Hogg recalled.
Watch David Hogg tell two different stories below:
Interesting. However, Hogg made some videos purportedly DURING the shooting from inside the school.
Here is Hogg’s interview with TIME magazine following the shooting in which he claimed that he was in his AP environmental science class at the time the shooting occured:
When Hogg heard a “pop” while sitting in an AP environmental science class around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, he told his teacher it sounded strangely like a gunshot. But there had been a fire drill that very morning and talk of a “Code Red” exercise to prepare for an active shooter. This must just be a surprise drill, he reasoned.
And then the fire alarm sounded. Dutifully acting on it, Hogg and other students tried to exit the building. A janitor—Hogg doesn’t know his name but calls him an angel—knew where the shots were coming from and sent the students back. Then a culinary arts teacher, Ashley Kurth, pulled Hogg and others inside, locked the door, and made them hide in a closet. Checking Twitter and Instagram, Hogg—who’s an editor at the school’s TV station—found the news that the shooting was real and ongoing.
The shots continued for what felt like an eternity. Hogg considered the possibility that he would not live to see the end of the day.
“While I was in there, I thought, ‘What impact have I had? What will my story be if I die here?’” Hogg told TIME in the hours following the ordeal. “And the only thing I could think of was, pull out my camera and try telling others. As a student journalist, as an aspiring journalist, that’s all I could think: Get other people’s stories on tape. If we all die, the camera survives, and that’s how we get the message out there, about how we want change to be brought about.”
Pretty big contradiction there.
Here is some of “student reporter” David Hogg’s interviews with his classmates, purportedly during the shooting. By the way, there is no way Hogg could have gotten into the school during the shooting, because the Broward County Sheriff’s Office set up a perimeter around the school during the shooting, all the while refusing to enter the school to stop the bloodshed.
Here is Hogg claiming to be inside the school during the shooting.
Here are Hogg’s interviews with his classmates, purportedly during the shooting:
Sheriff Scott Israel’s Broward County Sheriff’s Office made a concerted effort to not enter the Parkland high school during February’s mass shooting, instead allowing the shooting to happen.
The mainstream media is finally reporting on police and emergency scanner audio tapes that show the full extent of the Sheriff’s Office’s complicity in the horror at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
“Do not approach the 12 or 1300 building, stay at least 500 feet away,” Sheriff’s Office deputy Scot Peterson said over radio dispatch, disproving his claim that he didn’t go inside the school because he was ordered not to do so if he didn’t have body cameras on. School surveillance footage has still not been released, and is unlikely to ever be released.
Big League Politics first reported on audiotapes showing that the Sheriff’s Office set up a perimeter around the high school during the shooting, after learning that multiple people were shot dead inside the high school. The police dispatcher ordered police to “hold all perimeters” while the shooter was still at large. Thirty minutes after learning of the active shooter situation, the Sheriff’s Office was still holding its perimeter and dispatchers were reporting “The shooter is not down. The shooter is not down.”
Our reporting proved that Israel’s office lied by claiming that they only set up a perimeter around the school AFTER the shooting, not during the shooting. In fact, they set up a perimeter four minutes after learning that people were shot dead inside.
A Great Piece on Teenagers and Gun Control
Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | March 28, 2018 | Rush Limbaugh
Posted on 3/28/2018, 4:45:31 PM by Kaslin
RUSH: We’re not quite through with the gun control aspect of this, because that’s the big area, number one, where the left has finally decided they don’t have to lie anymore and they don’t have to pretend. They’ve been saying for years: We don’t want to confiscate every gun. We just want life to be safer in America. We want get rid of the assault rifles. We wanted to get rid of the semiautomatics. We want to get rid of the killing machines. We love our children.
Well, that’s never been the case. Not that they don’t love their children. What’s never been the case is that they only have a few things they want to do. They want total confiscation of every weapon in this country. And if it takes them 20 years, fine and dandy. They don’t put four-year time limits, something the Soviets and communists taught them very well. The Soviet Union never had a time limit on things like we do.
We have four-year administrations. If the president doesn’t get something done in four years or a second term, eight years, that’s considered, “It’s over. Somebody else has to start again.” In totalitarian countries, dictatorships, there’s no such thing as a time limit. You just get it done when you got it done. You have an objective and you work towards it, period. You don’t get derailed, and you don’t get stopped, and you don’t stop yourself. And people on our side just don’t believe anybody could have that kind of commitment and intensity. But these people have had it trained and educated, burned into them.
But I ran across a piece today that I want to share some excerpts with you from. This is Bruce Thornton, Shillman Journalism Fellow, David Horowitz Freedom Center. This is from FrontPageMag.com. “Teenagers Make Great Progressive Shock Troops.”
I just want to read a few excerpted paragraphs here, because you know what this piece is? This piece is one of those I wish I would have written. It contains elements, details, explanations for why things have been happening by certain people on the left for all these years, what the objective is, how they’ve gone about it and so forth. It’s really enlightening. And it deals with, how did we go off the rails?
It wasn’t that long ago that there were virtues and that there were tenets, there were time-honored traditions, institutions, and philosophies that everybody followed because they were time-honored and believed in, and they worked. And they were all oriented around virtue and morality, doing the right thing, overcoming obstacles, learning how to deal with adversity, not whining, not moaning, not complaining, not becoming a victim. When did all this change? Bruce Thornton here tackles it. So I JIPped this. I join it in progress.
“Once upon a time, experience in a hard, indifferent world, the virtues like self-reliance and impulse-control nourished by faith and tradition, and an education based on mental skills and the lessons of history taught the young that their feelings and ‘self-esteem’ don’t amount to a hill of beans in this flawed world.”
Once upon a time experience mattered, virtue, self-reliance, impulse control nourished by faith and tradition and an education system that taught people how to think, taught the lessons of history, taught young people that feelings were no substitute for knowledge and experience.
“Once upon a time people learned that good deeds are more important than fine words, that acting on their impulses and seeking instant gratification carry a high price, and that duty and obligation and responsibility to others in the end are the foundations of our political and social order.
“Starting in the postwar fifties, increasing wealth, more time spent in school rather than factories and fields, consumer capitalism’s promotion of impulse-buying, and a culture of materialism that defines the self through fashion, consumption, and popular culture rather than through education, challenges, and character — all exacerbated the flaws of youth that the larger culture once tried to correct, but now indulged.”
So he’s saying that the descent into current pop culture can be traced back to the economic boom of the postwar fifties. He’s not blaming economic booms. He’s not blaming a good economy. What he says is that with the increased wealth per capita, family income, more time spent in school rather than in factories and fields, so more professional training rather than vocational, consumer advertising promoting impulse buying and a culture of materialism as a definition of yourself. And of course yourself is defined by fashion, consumption, pop culture. That’s when it all began.
“Movies, music, and soon the therapeutic curricula of schools reinforced and glorified these flaws rather than disciplining and correcting them. The ‘human sciences’ replaced the doctrines of faith and wisdom of tradition in explaining human nature and its proper aims. The last three generations have been marinated in these social and cultural dysfunctions –” So he’s talking about anywhere from 60 to 75 years. So the last 60 to 75 years people have marinated, kids have “marinated in these social and cultural dysfunctions that have resulted in a sense of entitlement and outlandish expectations. Adolescence has been extended far beyond the traditional beginning of adulthood.”
That means parents are perfectly fine with their kids not growing up. Parents are perfectly fine with their kids remaining kids. I have a story in the Stack today, 75% of Millennials, mom and dad are still paying most of the bills, even after they’ve left the house. Because their parents say, “It’s so hard out there.” Good Lord. But, anyway, Mr. Thornton here is exactly right. Adolescence has been extended far beyond the traditional beginning of adulthood. What would you say that is, 21? Graduating from college, you’re an adult, you strike out on your own.
Anyway, it’s a great point here that parents have willingly accepted that their adult kids are still their kids, they’re still adolescents. This has been “increasingly shaped by a leftist political ideology that rationalizes and exculpates bad character and destructive choices as the fault of a corrupt political, economic, and social system. But the old-left call for the violent overthrow of such an evil establishment is now merely a rhetorical flourish. Symbolic politics like marches and demonstrations that occasionally stray into vandalism and petty thuggery are preferred, for they are relatively risk-free, and draw the attention of sympathetic media and like-minded adults who praise the youngsters’ ‘passion’ and ‘commitment’ to ‘change’ and a ‘better world.’”
“Take David [‘Camera’] Hogg, who was present during the attack last month on the high school in Parkland. The 17-year-old appears with four other Stoneman Douglas students on the cover of Time [magazine], and has become a darling of the anti-gun crowd for his profanity-laced tantrums that demonstrate perfectly the portrait sketched above…” Adolescents not being reined in. Profane language and behavior being applauded.
Isn’t he cute? Don’t we want to reward his passion and commitment? You know, I ask people who have kids, “Would you let your kid be doin’ this? Would you let your kid go on national TV at a march and make YouTube videos, and every other word be the F-bomb?” “No way! No way!” See, every parent that I ask… Where are this kid’s parents? I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know if they’re applauding. I don’t know if they’re troubled by it.
He’s out there calling the people that he’s upset with “‘The pathetic f—ers that want to keep killing our children, they could have blood from children splattered all over their faces and they wouldn’t take action because they all still see those dollar signs,’ [Hogg] said of the NRA and” people like Marco Rubio. “Notice how this…” I’m reading now Mr. Thornton. “Notice how this callow youth simply regurgitates the stale clichés of the gun-control fundamentalists. [This kid] obviously has no clue that the NRA has political clout not because of the pittance it gives politicians compared to, say, public-employee unions…”
No! “[T]he NRA has political clout … because millions” and millions and millions of Americans support it to defend a constitutional right they cherish. “Nor does [this kid] realize that a young person dying in a mass school shooting by a psychopath with a rifle is a rare occurrence, compared to dying in a car accident, or being beaten to death, or being killed by a motorist while walking or biking to school. He has no clue that the demonized, perfectly legal AR-15 was already banned from 1994-2004, without lowering gun-deaths…
“Like his equally addled elders, he can’t fathom that more regulations of guns do nothing to keep them out of the hands of” bad guys. In other words, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about — and it was that long ago where people that didn’t know what they were talking about were not given pedestals, and were not proclaimed experts, and the rest of the country was not required to agree and shut up. The rest of the country was not required to applaud and say, “Isn’t that cute!”
And the rest of the country was not prohibited from calling out that whoever didn’t know what they were talking about. But all of that’s changed. We can’t criticize it! We have to respect it. We have to applaud it for reasons that have nothing to do with fact, reasons that have nothing to do with truth. “This same juvenile thinking characterizes another high-school teen, this one interviewed by The Wall Street Journal:
“‘I make it a point to tell my mother I love her every day, because I want that to be the last thing I say to her in case anything happens to me at school,’ [the student] said, adding that gun violence ‘is something I don’t want to have to think about on a daily basis.’ While the young [student] is obsessing over the rare deaths from school shootings, 11 teens die every day from texting while driving. But we see no mass-movement to hold cell-phone manufacturers, and their billions spent in lobbying po[itician]s, responsible for the carnage their products cause.”
And likewise my old standby: We don’t see anybody protesting the automobile companies because the number of people killed every year by the wheel dwarfs the number of students shot in school. “Throw in drug overdoses and drunk-drivers, and kids and their parents have much more likely risks to worry about when a child leaves for school.” He’s the thing: “But we can’t blame the young. The progressive transformation of our culture has been directed at creating just such students, whose natural inclinations to self-drama and emotion rather than thinking make them perfect constituents for an ideology that flourishes among those who obsess over their feelings, and who demand the elimination of the sad constants of risk and suffering.
“The tragic wisdom that flawed humans are free to choose wickedness, and that the utopia of a world without risk or suffering is impossible, contradicts the pipe dreams of the left,” and all they are teaching. “So those who believe traditional wisdom must be trained from an early age to [give up] their freedom and autonomy to the technocratic elite that needs them to remain children.” So his point is that those kids are who they are because somebody has a design that it stay that way, that they become useful, that they become trained not to think but rather as sponges.
And they grow up to be exactly who they are as 17-year-olds, and they never change.
And they end up being incapable of self-reliance, incapable of thinking for themselves, incapable of being moved by facts.
They remain intolerant. So his point is: You can’t blame the kids. This is how they’re being raised. It’s how they’re being educated. It’s how they’re being taught. But at the same time, there are millions and millions of kids who somehow have managed to avoid this progressive inculcation. They join the military. They work for charities. They march for the right to life of the unborn. You just don’t know hear nearly as much about them, but they’re there, and they’re in much greater numbers than the students on Saturday. And that crowd, again, is estimated to be 10% kids.
I left this open for no reason. That is my thought for the day…
Chuck Morse
https://www.newsmax.com/chuckmorse/israel-maalot-school-shooter/2018/02/27/id/845719/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=idealmedia&utm_campaign=newsmax.com&utm_term=68856&utm_content=2196187
By Chuck Morse
Tuesday, 27 Feb 2018 12:34 PM
On May 15, 1974, three shooters entered the Netiv Meir Elementary School in the Jewish-Arab town of Ma’alot in northern Israel taking 115 people including 105 children hostage. At the time, Israel was on a leftist utopian bender with social experiments that included disarmament and gun free zones. On the second day of the standoff, the Israeli army stormed the building as the shooters murdered children with grenades and automatic weapons. 25 hostages were killed including 22 children, 68 were injured.
Israel responded to the atrocity by mandating armed security in every school. Retired military veterans and police, often grandfathers and grandmothers, began to monitor schools. Teachers and school staff began to volunteer for gun training and began to carry concealed weapons after registering with their school administration. Teachers started to participate in active shooter drills. There have been only two school shootings in Israel since that slaughter and in both cases the shooter was killed and stopped from killing more innocents.
In September 2015, Israel responded to a plethora of knife attacks by making it easier for citizens to obtain guns. Army officers with the rank of Lieutenant and above would be permitted to purchase guns freely and security guards would be allowed to take their guns home after work. The minimum age for gun purchases was dropped from 21 to 18. Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat urged residents to carry a gun and was photographed carrying a Glock 23. Israelis overwhelmingly view the right to bear arms as the best means of deterring gun violence.
The mainstream media is lying about President Trump’s call for arming teachers in one of the ugliest and most dangerous pieces of fake news yet.
The president has not called for arming all teachers, only making it possible for the approximately 10 percent of teachers who are former military or security personnel, who are already licensed and trained, or who would like to obtain a license and training to be permitted to carry a concealed weapon if they choose to do so. In fact, 17 states already allow teachers who register with their school boards and who are cleared to carry concealed weapons. I’m proud to note that my own state of Massachusetts is one of those states. Apparently, Florida is not on the list.
The use by the left of impressionable young children who have been traumatized by school shootings to push their gun grabbing agenda is a particularly odious and despicable manipulation of emotions. If these leftists possessed a shred of decency or genuine concern for the safety of school children they might inquire as to whether the child feels safe going to school in a gun free zone where no one is properly equipped to stop a shooter. They might consider no longer stigmatizing and mocking gun training or the teaching of self-defense.
The social phenomena that constitutes school shootings and its uptick since Columbine, the social and psychological factors that led to this uptick, is a broad and profound subject that urgently calls out for a national discussion and a scientific inquiry free of ideology and invective from all sides. The question of gun regulation, particularly of semi-automatic weapons, is also an important topic that needs to be addressed without histrionics and posturing.
Meanwhile, and in these times of clear and present danger to our school children, common sense steps such as securing our school buildings and allowing trained and willing teachers and administrators to defend the students with concealed weapons is urgently needed.
Chuck Morse hosts “The Morse Force” live Monday-Friday at Noon, ET on YouTube. The program is also available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play and his books are available on Amazon.com. For more of his reports — Click Here Now.
Business Management News March 16, 2018
Keystone Pipeline Leaks Nearly Quarter Million Gallons of Oil in South Dakota
Keystone Pipeline Leaks Nearly Quarter Million Gallons of Oil in South Dakota. http://www.businessmanagement.news
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Keystone Pipeline Leaks Nearly Quarter Million Gallons of Oil in South Dakota
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Here’s a bit of news that the operators of the Keystone Pipeline would like to keep under wraps: TransCanada Corp’s Keystone pipeline leaked apx 210,000 gallons of oil in north-eastern South Dakota, the company and state regulators reported on Thursday.
Crews shut down the pipeline on Thursday morning and activated emergency response procedures after a drop in pressure was detected resulting from the leak south of a pump station in Marshall County, TransCanada said in a statement. The cause was being investigated.
Officials do not believe the leak affected any surface water bodies or threatened any drinking water systems from the spill on to agricultural land, said Brian Walsh, an environmental scientist manager at the South Dakota department of environment and natural resources, which has dispatched a staff member to the site.
“Ultimately, the cleanup responsibility lies with TransCanada, and they’ll have to clean it up in compliance with our state regulations,” Walsh said.
The pipeline transports crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, passing through the eastern Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. It can handle nearly 600,000 barrels, or about 23m gallons, daily. TransCanada says on its website that the company has safely transported more than 1.5bn barrels of oil, or about 63bn gallons, through the system since operations began in 2010.
TransCanada said in its statement that it expected the pipeline to remain shut down as the company responds to the leak. It did not offer a time estimate.
The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration did not immediately return an email requesting additional information from the Associated Press.
A leak and spill in south-eastern South Dakota in April 2016 prompted a week-long shutdown of the pipeline. TransCanada estimated that just under 17,000 gallons of oil spilled on to private land during that leak. Federal regulators said an “anomaly” on a weld on the pipeline was to blame. No waterways or aquifers were affected.
TransCanada said at the time that the leak was the first detected on the pipeline since it began operating, though there had been leaks at pumping stations. One of those leaks happened in south-eastern North Dakota in May 2011, when 14,000 gallons spilled after a valve failed at a pumping station near the South Dakota border.
The Keystone Pipeline is part of a 2,687-mile system that is also to include the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which has faced persistent opposition from environmental groups, Native American tribes and some landowners.
Donald Trump issued a federal permit for the project in March even though it had been rejected by the Obama administration. The project has received needed approvals in states between Alberta, Canada, and Nebraska. Nebraska regulators plan to announce their decision next week.
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Why No Transgender in the Military?
Trey Gowdy just said a few things about the military in response to a stupid question from a CNN reporter about the ban of transgender.
He nails it!
Nobody has a “right” to serve in the Military. Nobody.
What makes people think the Military is an equal opportunity employer?
Very far from it.
The Military uses prejudice regularly and consistently to deny citizens from joining for being too old or too young, too fat or too skinny, too tall or too short.
Citizens are denied for having flat feet, or for missing or additional fingers.
Poor eyesight will disqualify you, as well as bad teeth.
Malnourished? Drug addiction? Bad back? Criminal history?
Low IQ? Anxiety? Phobias? Hearing damage? Six arms?
Hear voices in your head? Self-identify as a Unicorn?
Need a special access ramp for your wheelchair?
Can’t run the required course in the required time?
Can’t do the required number of pushups?
Not really a “morning person” and refuse to get out of bed before noon?
All can be reasons for denial.
The Military has one job. War. Anything else is a distraction and a liability.
Did someone just scream “That isn’t Fair”?
War is VERY unfair, there are no exceptions made for being special or challenged or socially wonderful.
YOU change yourself to meet Military standards.. Not the other way around.
I say again: You don’t change the Military… you must change yourself.
The Military doesn’t need to accommodate anyone with special issues.
The Military needs to Win Wars.
If any of your personal issues are a liability that detract from readiness or lethality…
Thank you for applying and good luck in future endeavors.
Who’s next in line?
(P.S. some debate if it was Trey Gowdy that said this – whoever said it was right on)
———————————————–
I Was Once Transgender. Why I Think Trump Made the Right Decision for the Military.
Paying for transition-related surgeries for military service members and their families is beyond comprehensible.
Perhaps they have forgotten that our military was forged to be the world’s strongest fighting force,
not a government-funded, politically correct, medical sex change clinic for people with gender dysphoria.
>>> Related: Transgender Americans Won’t Be Allowed to Serve in Military, Trump Announces
Gender dysphoria, the common diagnosis for one who feels at odds with his or her birth gender, develops from prolonged anxiety and depression. People are not born that way.
The “proof” for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is having strongly held feelings—but feelings can and often do change over time.
The military is expected to prepare its members in warfare: to kill, destroy, and break our enemies.
The most important factors in preparing a strong military are not hormone therapy, surgical sex changes, or politically correct education.
We need psychologically fit, emotionally sound, highly trained troops to protect our nation from its enemies.
While countless homeless vets are currently sleeping under cardboard boxes, or waiting for life-saving care from the Department of Veterans Affairs,
we learn that transgender military recruits now qualify for preferential coverage for sex change procedures that are scientifically unproven and extremely costly.
Costly, but Not Effective
Transitioning can be expensive—up to $130,000 per person for numerous body-mutilating and cosmetic procedures over many months (or years) to fashion the body to appear as the opposite sex.
Yet, no matter how skilled the surgeon, or how much money is spent, it is biologically impossible to change a man into a woman or a woman into a man.
The change is only cosmetic.
The medical community continues to recommend this radical “treatment” in the absence of scientific evidence that people are better off in the long run.
This population attempts suicide at a rate of 40 percent.
Even after the full surgical change, they attempt to end their lives, or tragically succeed.
Over 60 percent of this diverse population suffer from co-existing mental disorders.
Consider Bradley Manning (now Chelsea Manning), a former Army soldier who was so psychologically and emotionally unbalanced
that he stole confidential documents from the military and forwarded them to WikiLeaks.
The Military Is a Fighting Force, Not a Gender Clinic
The military should not provide sex change surgery.
Through my website, http://www.sexchangeregret.com ,
I hear from people who experienced firsthand how damaging and unnecessary reassignment surgeries were.
For them, the sex change failed to resolve the emotional and psychological disorders that drove the desire to change gender.
Many write after living the transgender life for years.
They write to ask for advice on how to reverse the original surgical change and restore their lives to the original birth gender like I did, a process called detransition.
Some service members will come to regret having undergone the surgery and will want to detransition.
Where will the military be then? Will the military pay for the sex change reversal procedure, too?
Failed “sex change surgeries” are not uncommon and will drive up the cost to care for the military transgender population above the projected $3-4 billion 10-year cost.
Beyond the financial cost, there’s the question of the service member’s military readiness during their transition or detransition,
as the process often comes with a great deal of anxiety and emotional instability.
——————————————————–
Transgender Surgery: Regrets – More Suicides
http://www.newsweek.com/transgender-women-transgender-men-sex-change-sex-reassignment-surgery-676777
one surgeon is reporting a trend of regret.
Urologist Miroslav Djordjevic, who specializes in gender reassignment surgery, has seen an increase in “reversal” surgeries among transgender women who want their male genitalia back. In the past five years, Djordjevic performed seven reversals in his clinic in Belgrade, Serbia. The urologist explains to The Telegraph that those who want the reversal display high levels of depression, and in some instances, suicidal thoughts. Other researchers also report hearing about such regrets.
A 2011 study found that after sex reassignment surgery, more than 300 Swedish transsexuals faced
a higher risk for mortality, suicide ideation, and psychiatric issues compared to the rest of the population.
Georgia: Disbarred Lawyer Richard Merritt Jailed on Theft, Elder Abuse Charges
Attorney Richard Merritt was disbarred Monday for pocketing a client’s $75,000 settlement and jailed Wednesday on multiple felonies.
Georgia: Disbarred Lawyer Richard Merritt Jailed on Theft, Elder Abuse Charges
http://www.barcomplaint.com/attorney-theft/georgia-disbarred-lawyer-richard-merritt-jailed-on-theft-elder-abuse-charges/
The problems of Richard Merritt have come to a head with his arrest. This has been long coming has his behavior has been in question for several years.
Richard Vinson Merritt
Former Smyrna attorney Richard V. Merritt, who was disbarred Monday after admitting to settling a client’s suit for $75,000 and then pocketing the money, woke up in the Cobb County Jail Thursday after being arrested on separate felony elder abuse, theft, exploitation and check fraud charges.
The spokesperson for the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office said he had no further information on the charges, which were apparently filed by the Smyrna Police Department. The booking report includes a notation that Merritt is to be held for the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, where a press liaison said they received a bench warrant for “indirect criminal attempt.”
He provided no further information, and there was no immediate response from Smyrna police.
On Friday, Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds said there was little he could offer concerning Merritt’s case so far.
“We have yet to receive the complete investigative file from the Cobb Sheriff’s Department,” said Reynolds via email. “When we do, our White Collar Unit will begin the process of determining what charges we will proceed to the grand jury with. In addition, our Investigators will begin reviewing the file upon receipt to see if there are any additional victims or charges which need to be pursued.”
Merritt remained in jail on Friday afternoon.
Merritt is the subject of multiple civil suits in Cobb County, including one filed by a woman who claims he forged her name on a $150,000 settlement agreement and check without her knowledge. She claims Merritt never turned over any funds.
He also faces several legal malpractice and fraud lawsuits in Cobb County from clients claiming he agreed to handle their cases and then never filed them and never pursued any actions.
Merritt has represented himself in each of the lawsuits.
The attorney for a plaintiff in one case, Sapp & Moriarty partner Daniel Moriarty—interviewed before word of Merritt’s arrest was known—said he was surprised at the mild tone in the state Supreme Court’s disbarment opinion, which only said Merritt “settled a client’s personal injury matter for $75,000 but failed to promptly disburse those funds to his client or her medical providers and failed to render a full accounting of the funds to his client.”
“That’s a euphemism for stealing money,” said Moriarty. “I talked to an investigator who has seen his bank records and determined that he had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars. It just blows my mind what he’s gotten away with.”
According the bar complaint reviewed by the Daily Report, Merritt was retained to handle a personal injury matter in December 2016 and settled it last February, cashing the forged check Feb.7. On Feb. 10, he filed a lawsuit “and continued to lead me on until late May 2017 when I learned what he had done,” the confidential complaint said.
“I have never seen a dime of the $75,000,” said Merritt’s former client.
Another civil suit filed in Cobb County State Court last year said Merritt forged a husband and wife’s signature on a settlement and check in a medical malpractice case and never told them.
Another complaint said Merritt accepted a med-mal case and continually told his client that he was investigating it. Merritt sent emails saying “All is well and we are moving forward on your case,” and “No worries I’m on it!”
Then he stopped accepting the woman’s calls, and the filing deadline passed.
In that case, Judge Maria Golick struck Merritt’s answers and ordered a damages-only trial after finding he “willfully failed to respond” to hearing notices. Golick scheduled a show-cause criminal contempt hearing, and the decision is apparently still under advisement, according to court records.
In the case Moriarty is handling, Merritt also allegedly claimed to be conducting discovery and searching for experts, even scheduling bogus depositions for his clients, only to cancel them at the last minute.
Merritt was the principal for the Smyrna-based Merritt Firm, whose offices were the subject of several dispossessory actions between 2015 and 2017, according to court records.
Last August, Merritt sued two attorneys on behalf of spine surgeon and frequent medical expert James Chappuis. At the time, Merritt said he vice president and general counsel of Chappuis’ Orthopaedic & Spine Surgery of Atlanta.
That case settled confidentially shortly after it was filed.
Trump Drops the Gloves and Becomes the “Gun-Grabber-in Chief” Lewis G. Carroll said it first: “First the execution; then the trial.” On Wednesday, Donald Trump echoed that sentiment when he said: “Take the guns first; go through due process later.” Well, that’s not exactly the way due process is supposed to work. But Trump made […]
via Trump to Second Amendment: Drop Dead — Freedom Is Just Another Word…
Manifest Injustice 
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