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Ukraine Proves We Learned Nothing From The Vietnam War

Days ago marked 50 years since the signing of the Paris Peace Accords which effectively ended American participation in the Vietnam war. One of the consequences, according to Georgetown University international affairs scholar Charles Kupchan, was that an “isolationist impulse” made a “significant comeback in response to the Vietnam War, which severely strained the liberal internationalist consensus.”

As the Cold War historian John Lamberton Harper points out, President Jimmy Carter’s hawkish Polish-born national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, scorned his intra-administration rival, the cautious, gentlemanly secretary of state Cyrus Vance as “a nice man but burned by Vietnam.” Indeed, Vance and a number of his generation carried with them a profound disillusionment in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. And for a short time, the “Vietnam Syndrome,” (shorthand for a wariness and suspicion of unnecessary and unsupportable foreign interventions) occasionally informed American policy at the highest levels and manifested itself in the promulgations of the Wienberger and Powell Doctrines which, in theory anyway, represented a kind of resistance on the part of the Pentagon to unnecessary military adventures.

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Former UK Defense Minister Says NATO May Need To Send Ground Forces To Ukraine

The “domino theory” was once used to great effect in order to manipulate the American public into supporting the Vietnam War, but will the same narrative work to get the west to support World War III with Russia? 

Former UK Defense Minister Sir Gerald Howarth seems to think so as he uses this exact claim to justify NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine. 

It should be noted that a large percentage of the American populace and most of Europe have no interest whatsoever in engaging with Russia and possibly its allies in all out war, but the establishment appears intent on forcing the issue anyway.  The delivery of NATO tanks and the possibility of longer range missiles will no doubt trigger a wider response from Russia, which will then be used by NATO as a reason to escalate further. 

At the very least, Howarth does admit what many in the alternative media have been saying for some time – That Ukraine’s efforts have ground to a halt without further support from NATO troops.  The deliveries of money and weapons are nothing more than a stop-gap; wars are won by men. 

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The CDC Puts Itself In Charge Of Language Too

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has come out with a guide for how we are all to speak and write. This can be found on the website titled, “Preferred Terms for Select Population Groups & Communities.” It is clear that this list is being read and distributed broadly – from medical institutions, hospitals, scientific communications, doctor’s offices, schools and universities, as well as other US Government agencies and institutes.

The CDC is the arm of the US Government tasked with disease control and prevention. It is not tasked with correcting wrong-speak.

Now, how exactly this guide fits in with the CDC mission is beyond me.

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BC decriminalizes hard drugs amid fentanyl crisis

On Tuesday, following the granting of a three-year exemption from Health Canada, British Columbia became the first province in Canada to decriminalize hard drugs, with the government arguing that “substance use is a public health matter, not a criminal justice issue.”

Many have argued that it will only result in more drugs on the street and, inevitably, more dead British Columbians, while some have praised the move as a step in the right direction.

Under the new laws, adults found possessing less than 2.5 grams of certain formerly-illicit drugs will not face criminal charges, nor will they have the substances seized by law enforcement.

Drugs that can now be possessed and used without punishment include opioids, such as heroin, morphine, fentanyl, crack and powder cocaine, meth, and MDMA. 

The BC government emphasized that “decriminalization is not legalization,” noting that, “under this exemption, illegal drugs (including those listed above) are not legalized and will not be sold in stores. Drug trafficking remains illegal, regardless of the amount of drug(s) in possession.” They added that all prior restrictions relating to drug use at schools, airports, and private establishments will remain in place.

While the aforementioned drugs may not be sold in stores, in Vancouver, opioids were recently made available for purchase via vending machines. The project was meant to give users access to safe medical-grade opioids instead of potentially contaminated street drugs, however, it has come under scrutiny as of late due to the potential of misuse.

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CDC Aware of Reports of ‘Debilitating Illnesses’ After COVID-19 Vaccination: Official

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials are aware of reports of long-lasting problems following COVID-19 vaccination, an official recently disclosed.

“With respect to reports of people experiencing debilitating illnesses, we are aware of these reports of people experiencing long-lasting health problems following COVID vaccination,” Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, said on Jan. 26.

“In some cases, the clinical presentation of people suffering these health problems is variable and no specific medical cause for the symptoms have been found,” Shimabukuro added. “We understand that illness is disruptive and stressful, especially under those circumstances. And we acknowledge these health problems have substantially impacted the quality of life for people and have also affected those around them. And we hope for improvement and recovery, and we will continue to monitor the safety of these vaccines and work with partners to try to better understand these types of adverse events.”

Shimabukuro was speaking during a Jan. 26 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) meeting that discussed COVID-19 vaccine safety and effectiveness.

Dr. Hayley Gans, a pediatrics professor at Stanford University Medical Center, had asked how federal authorities were tracking problems that have cropped up after vaccination and might not be “amenable” to rapid cycle analysis, or one way of monitoring vaccine safety.

Shimabukuro noted that any person, including health care workers, can submit reports of adverse events to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which the CDC manages, “and we accept all those reports without judging the clinical seriousness or how plausible the adverse event may be with respect to causation.” Other systems also monitor safety beyond the rapid analysis, he added.

“We take vaccine safety very seriously,” Shimabukuro said.

Shimabukuro’s comments are unusual among federal officials, who have been reluctant to connect adverse events with the COVID-19 vaccines.

Brianne Dressen, who was injured by AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, said that the response was welcome but wondered whether it was enough.

“This was an unprecedented move but also was a carefully worded response. Instead of a little whisper in an FDA meeting, this really needs to be communicated to the medical community,” Dressen, co-founder of the support group React19, told The Epoch Times in an email. “They have said these very words to us privately so it’s good they are finally leaning in the right direction to start the conversation publicly, but is it too little too late?”

“Injured Americans have been begging these agencies for acknowledgement for over two years. This small utterance should have happened long ago. By now we should be openly discussing and researching these Covid vaccine reactions,” she added.

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Woman injured after Covid vaccine demands retractions after media falsely declares her video to be faked

A Louisiana woman with documented seizures and other medical issues following Covid vaccine is demanding retractions from a mob of ill-informed media who published attacks that she calls false and libelous.

Angelia Desselle, 47, is a former manager of a surgery center outside of New Orleans. Earlier this week, she responded to a post by Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Musk stated that he’d had a bad reaction to a Covid-19 vaccine booster, and had a cousin who suffered heart inflammation after the shot. 

Desselle can relate.

Days after getting Pfizer’s Covid vaccine in January of 2021, she reported serious medical issues. She posted a video clip recorded at Ochsner Hospital in Jefferson, Louisiana showing her apparently suffering an episode of uncontrollable shaking.

Evidently without investigating the matter in even a cursory fashion, many vaccine industry interests and others on Twitter declared the video, and Desselle’s apparent illness, to be fake. Desselle, who is white, was subjected to bullying and a barrage of racist attacks.

In one of the tamer exchanges, a user by the name “Ducky” Tweeted: “Why does this phenomenon only happen to white American republicans?” 

“Because they’re all victims,” replied user Pauly Cassilas.

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‘Set phone up so I can spy on you showering.’ Hunter Biden threatened to withhold cash-strapped assistant’s pay if she didn’t FaceTime him naked, texts show – as it’s revealed she’s the FOURTH employee with whom he had a sexual relationship

Hunter Biden threatened one of his cash-strapped young female staffers with withholding her pay if she didn’t FaceTime him for sex.

Shocking texts between the President’s son, 52, and his young assistant, who was 29 at the time, show Hunter asking for video sex sessions and sending her cash via Apple Pay after she pleaded that she was struggling to make rent.

The woman, who DailyMail.com has chosen not to identify, worked as an assistant at Hunter’s law firm, Owasco, in 2018 and 2019. She is the fourth employee he is known to have had a sexual relationship with.

Documents on his abandoned laptop show Hunter put his lover and brother’s widow Hallie Biden on his company payroll, as well as her sister Liz Secundy, with whom he also had an affair, texts reveal.

He also hired his daughter’s basketball coach, reportedly former stripper Lunden Roberts, but ended her employment and stopped responding to her messages after she told him she was pregnant with his child. Roberts eventually had to sue him for child support. 

Messages and emails involving his now 33-year-old assistant first appear on Hunter’s laptop in June 2018, when he flew her from Los Angeles to Washington DC.

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11 US cities — all governed by Democratic mayors — listed among 50 most dangerous in world

Eleven U.S. cities rank among the 50 most dangerous in the world, according to a recent report published by Numbeo, a global quality of life database. All 11 are governed by Democratic mayors.

Three U.S. cities — Baltimore, Memphis and Detroit — are ranked among the 20 most dangerous cities on the planet.

The three cities have more in common than just violent crime. All three are run by Democrats. 

Baltimore ranks #15 on the annual dangerous cities list, with Memphis and Detroit close behind at #18 and #19, respectively.

Brandon Scott, just 38 years of age, is the mayor of Baltimore. Jim Strickland Jr., an attorney and politician, is the 64th and current mayor of Memphis, where the Memphis police department has just announced plans to permanently deactivate the unit that five of the officers involved in the vicious beating of Tyre Nichols belonged to. Mike Duggan, meanwhile, is currently serving as the mayor of Detroit. 

Two more U.S. cities run by Democrats appear among the 30 most dangerous in the world: Albuquerque (#23), where 45-year-old Tim Keller serves as the 30th mayor, and St. Louis (#27), where Tishaura Oneda Jones has served as mayor since April of 2021.

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It’s Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives. Newsweek Op-ed

As a medical student and researcher, I staunchly supported the efforts of the public health authorities when it came to COVID-19. I believed that the authorities responded to the largest public health crisis of our lives with compassion, diligence, and scientific expertise. I was with them when they called for lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters.

I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.

I can see now that the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness andsafety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.

But perhaps more important than any individual error was how inherently flawed the overall approach of the scientific community was, and continues to be. It was flawed in a way that undermined its efficacy and resulted in thousands if not millions of preventable deaths.

What we did not properly appreciate is that preferences determine how scientific expertise is used, and that our preferences might be—indeed, our preferences were—very different from many of the people that we serve. We created policy based on ourpreferences, then justified it using data. And then we portrayed those opposing our efforts as misguided, ignorant, selfish, and evil.

We made science a team sport, and in so doing, we made it no longer science. It became us versus them, and “they” responded the only way anyone might expect them to: by resisting.

We excluded important parts of the population from policy development and castigated critics, which meant that we deployed a monolithic response across an exceptionally diverse nation, forged a society more fractured than ever, and exacerbated longstanding heath and economic disparities.

Our emotional response and ingrained partisanship prevented us from seeing the full impact of our actions on the people we are supposed to serve. We systematically minimized the downsides of the interventions we imposed—imposed without the input, consent, and recognition of those forced to live with them. In so doing, we violated the autonomy of those who would be most negatively impacted by our policies: the poor, the working class, small business owners, Blacks and Latinos, and children. These populations were overlooked because they were made invisible to us by their systematic exclusion from the dominant, corporatized media machine that presumed omniscience.

Most of us did not speak up in support of alternative views, and many of us tried to suppress them. When strong scientific voices like world-renowned Stanford professors John Ioannidis, Jay Bhattacharya, and Scott Atlas, or University of California San Francisco professors Vinay Prasad and Monica Gandhi, sounded the alarm on behalf of vulnerable communities, they faced severe censure by relentless mobs of critics and detractors in the scientific community—often not on the basis of fact but solely on the basis of differences in scientific opinion.

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