3 Years to Slow The Spread: Covid hysteria and the creation of a never-ending crisis

Thursday marked the three year anniversary of the infamous “15 Days To Slow The Spread” campaign.

By March 16, yours truly was already pretty fed up with both the governmental and societal “response” to what was being baselessly categorized as the worst pandemic in 100 years, despite zero statistical data supporting such a serious claim.

The Moment That Shook the World: "15 Days to Slow the Spread" (March 16, 2020)

Fauci: "In states with evidence of community transmission, bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms, and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be https://t.co/T9CGrYFNjv… https://t.co/SwDYBgN438 pic.twitter.com/k5oaU36YAR

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 16, 2023

I was living in the Washington, D.C. Beltway at the time, and it was pretty much impossible to find a like-minded person within 50 miles who also wasn’t taking the bait. After I read about the news coming out of Wuhan in January, I spent much of the next couple weeks catching up to speed and reading about what a modern pandemic response was supposed to look like.

What surprised me most was that none of “the measures” were mentioned, and that these designated “experts” were nothing more than failed mathematicians, government doctors, and college professors who were more interested in policy via shoddy academic forecasting than observing reality.

Within days of continually hearing their yapping at White House pressers, it quickly became clear that the Deborah Birxes and Anthony Faucis of the world were engaging in nothing more than a giant experiment. There was no evidence-based approach to managing Covid whatsoever. These figures were leaning into the collective hysteria, and brandishing their credentials as Public Health Experts to demand top-down approaches to stamping out the WuFlu.

DeSantis on Covid lockdowns: “So I call and say, ‘Deborah [Birx], tell me: when in American history has this been done?’ And she says, ‘It’s kind of our own science experiment that we’re doing in real time.’”

Lockdowns were Fauci's “science experiment”🤯pic.twitter.com/K7H8NIBPaV

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) March 14, 2023

To put it bluntly, these longtime government bureaucrats had no idea what the f—k they were doing. Fauci and his cohorts were not established or reputable scientists, but authoritarians, charlatans, who had a decades-long track record of hackery and corruption. This Coronavirus Task Force did not have the collective intellect nor the wisdom to be making these broad brush decisions.

Back then, there were only literally a handful of people who attempted to raise awareness about the wave of tyranny, hysteria, and anti-science policies that were coming our way. There were so few of us back in March in 2020 that it was impossible to form any kind of significant structured resistance to the madness that was unfolding before us. These structures would later form, but not until the infrastructure for the highway to Covid hysteria hell had already been cemented.

Making matters worse was the reality that the vast majority of the population — friends, colleagues, peers and family included — agreed that dissenters were nothing more than reckless extremists, bioterrorists, Covid deniers, anti-science rabble rousers, and the like.

Yet we were right, and we had the evidence and data to prove it. There was no evidence to ever support such a heavy-handed series of government initiatives to “slow the spread.”

By March 16, 2020, data had already accumulated indicating that this contagion would be no more lethal than an influenza outbreak.

The February, 2020 outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship provided a clear signal that the hysteria models provided by Bill Gates-funded and managed organizations were incredibly off base. Of the 3,711 people aboard the Diamond Princess, about 20% tested positive with Covid. The majority of those who tested positive had zero symptoms. By the time all passengers had disembarked from the vessel, there were 7 reported deaths on the ship, with the average age of this cohort being in the mid 80s, and it wasn’t even clear if these passengers died from or with Covid.

Despite the strange photos and videos coming out of Wuhan, China, there was no objective evidence of a once in a century disease approaching America’s shores, and the Diamond Princess outbreak made that clear.

Of course, it wasn’t the viral contagion that became the problem.

It was the hysteria contagion that brought out the worst qualities of much of the global ruling class, letting world leaders take off their proverbial masks in unison and reveal their true nature as power drunk madmen.

And even the more decent world leaders were swept up in the fear and mayhem, turning over the keys of government control to the supposed all-knowing Public Health Experts.

They quickly shuttered billions of lives and livelihoods, wreaking exponentially more havoc than a novel coronavirus ever could.

In the United States, 15 Days to Slow The Spread quickly became 30 Days To Slow The Spread. Somewhere along the way, the end date for “the measures” was removed from the equation entirely.



3 years later, there still isn’t an end date…

Anthony Fauci appeared on MSNBC Thursday morning and declared that Americans would need annual Covid boosters to compliment their Flu shots.

NEW - Fauci: Americans will likely need "a booster shot once a year."pic.twitter.com/Ec0zSWhV2b

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 16, 2023

So much of the Covid hysteria era was driven by pseudoscience and outright nonsense, and yet, very few if any world leaders took it upon themselves to restore sanity in their domains. Now, unsurprisingly, so many elected officials who were complicit in this multi-billion person human tragedy won’t dare to reflect upon it.

In a 1775 letter from John Adams to his wife, Abigail, the American Founding Father wrote:

Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrender their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.

Covid hysteria and the 3 year anniversary of 15 Days To Slow The Spread serves as the beginning period of a permanent scar resulting from government power grabs and federal overreach. While life is back to normal in most of the country, the Overton window of acceptable policy has slid even further in the direction of push-button tyranny. Hopefully, much of the world has awakened to the reality that most of the people in charge aren’t actually doing what’s best for their respective populations.

Reprinted with permission from The Dossier.
Subscribe and support here.

from 3 Years to Slow The Spread: Covid hysteria and the creation of a never-ending crisis

The War on Marijuana is Hitting American Trucking

Marijuana is legal for medical or general (recreational) use by adults in most American states, but a truck driver can still lose his job because a United States government mandated routine drug test indicates he used marijuana.

Some people will be quick to respond, “Good, I don’t want people driving big rigs down the road while high on pot.” But, as Paul Armentano of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) points out in a March 10 The Hill editorial, “Such tests are not intended to assess for marijuana-induced impairment, but rather, they are designed to detect whether one may have been exposed to cannabis several days, weeks, or even months earlier.”

The impact on trucking of such US government mandated testing for marijuana is big. Armentano writes:

According to newly provided statistics compiled by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation, over 40,000 commercially licensed truck drivers failed federally mandated drug screens for marijuana in 2022. Since 2020, more than 100,000 truck drivers have tested positive for past cannabis exposure. Of this total, only about 25 percent sought to return to work — resulting in mass driver shortages.

It is a sad situation that this testing for marijuana results in truck drivers losing their jobs because of actions they took in their private time that do not interfere with their work. The toughest part of fixing this problem will likely be people in the US government letting go of drug war priorities that prevent changing policy to make it more in line with advancing liberty and safety.

from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2023/march/17/the-war-on-marijuana-is-hitting-american-trucking/

Ron Paul Challenged the Coronavirus Tyranny from the Beginning

Thursday was three years since President Donald Trump announced the “15 days to slow the spread” campaign that played a big role in propelling the use of new expansive government powers to limit the exercise of freedom in the name of countering coronavirus. The campaign both did not slow the spread and did not end after 15 days. What it did do was help grow and maintain tyrannical policies of the United States, state, and local governments that were marketed as based in science and promoting of health but that in reality were grounded in pseudoscience and harmful to health.

While innumerable media pundits and politicians were jumping beforeany available microphone to expound their commitment to use government to bludgeon the people in the name of countering coronavirus, a smaller group of individuals, ignored by the big money media and censored on social media, was warning of the dire consequences of the plethora of government mandates being put in place across America. Among them was libertarian communicator Ron Paul, founder and chairman of the Ron Paul Institute.

On the day of Trump’s announcement — March 16, 2020, Paul published at his Ron Paul Institute website an editorial titled “The Coronavirus Hoax.” “Government over-hypes a threat as an excuse to grab more of our freedoms,” is how Paul assessed the situation. Further noted Paul, “People should ask themselves whether this coronavirus ‘pandemic’ could be a big hoax, with the actual danger of the disease massively exaggerated by those who seek to profit – financially or politically – from the ensuing panic.” Even the claimed benefit of the coronavirus crackdown of protecting people’s health, Paul warned, was unfounded. In fact, Paul presciently warned that the government restrictions would tend to harm health, noting as an example that the “martial law” coronavirus fearmongers were dreaming about “will leave people hunkered down inside their homes instead of going outdoors or to the beach where the sunshine and fresh air would help boost immunity.” Also that day, Paul further discussed at his Ron Paul Liberty Report show his opposition to the multiplying authoritarian coronavirus measures. 

As the government crackdowns in the name of countering coronavirus continued, Paul, in his editorials, interviews, speeches, and Ron Paul Liberty Report episodes, kept challenging the many attacks on both freedom and health from various crackdown measures including mandates that people take experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots to keep their jobs or attend school, mask mandates, vaccine passport requirements, suppression of medical information and treatments that differed from the government-advanced orthodoxy, and the forced closure of businesses, schools, churches, and other places where people otherwise would routinely 

Many more people joined in later to challenge the coronavirus crackdowns, some even just in retrospect. This is a great thing. But, a special respect is owed to individuals such as Paul who from the beginning stood against the coronavirus crackdown.

from Ron Paul Challenged the Coronavirus Tyranny from the Beginning

'What Event Would You Change In History?' #AskRonPaul

Welcome to another edition of #AskRonPaul, where Dr. Paul tackles questions from...you! Today Dr. Paul discusses what event in history he would change, what to expect with bank collapses, and the easiest way to end the Ukraine war. Today on the Liberty Report:



from 'What Event Would You Change In History?' #AskRonPaul

Covid, Courage, and Cowardice

“Moral courage can be lonely indeed. People don’t mind being trapped, as long as no one else is free. But stage a break, and everybody else begins to panic.” - William Deresiewicz

When I look back at the times of Covid hysteria, I think most about outliers and rule followers, and what separates courageous people from cowards.

These past three years served as a good reminder that true courage is an isolating experience. It is both difficult to possess and retain, and regularly interpreted by one’s peers as both peculiar and dangerous. Courage is special because it is a unique trait that separates the man from the mob. 

We all think we’d be this guy:



But in late 2019, when push came to shove, the vast majority of our population submitted to the regime.

We learned a lot about a constant in human behavior, no matter where you were physically present, when faced with something deemed as a major crisis.

Cowardice, unlike courage, is encouraged, rewarded, and it comes easily. 

In the face of a government declared “national emergency,” so many decided to take the coward’s route in the form of compliance, submission, and even taking to targeting the regime-declared “enemies” of society.

To be a good citizen, all you had to do was sit down, shut up, wear your submission mask, shutter your family business, carry your movement pass with you, and be up to date on your experimental pharmaceuticals. In exchange, society rewarded the coward class with opportunity, public praise, and a Good Citizen stamp of approval.

After all, it is an enormously difficult task to swim upstream. It is much easier just to blend in, especially when raising your voice is considered both a major community and direct social faux pas. Not only is speaking out “selfish,” but it came with infinite negative consequences attached to one’s personal and professional ambitions.

Courage doesn’t come in the form of a unanimous bill in Congress and flashy televised hearings featuring celebrity pundits. 

Congress is unanimous on this. Be very afraid. #covidoriginshttps://t.co/MQezsVdgf6

— Ashe in America (@AsheinAmerica) March 10, 2023

Courageous people stick to their principles despite the vast majority of the population — and even those closest to them — declaring them a problem, or something much worse.

Courage is unique because it is almost impossible to be courageous and popular at the same time. If courage were popular, it wouldn’t be brave. If courage was common, it wouldn’t be courageous.

Yet courage is essential for human flourishing in a free society. When the forces for tyranny rear their ugly heads for the next manufactured crisis in the not so distant future, courageous citizens will once more be called upon to thwart their ambitions.

Courage is hard, but it’s worth it. Realtime courage is rarely rewarded, but a courageous legacy lasts forever.

Reprinted with permission from The Dossier.
Subscribe and support here.

from Covid, Courage, and Cowardice

GOP Civil War? With DeSantis And Trump, Realists Take Both Top Slots

Florida Governor and presumptive Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis shocked the GOP establishment with a statement rebuking further involvement in the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Suddenly neocon papera like the Washington Post are panicking about a new "isolationist" GOP. Also today, what about that US drone brought down near Russia? Finally: another Covid-related scandal. Watch today's Liberty Report:



from GOP Civil War? With DeSantis And Trump, Realists Take Both Top Slots

Ukraine: The Greatest Geopolitical Catastrophe of the...?

As world tensions heighten over Ukraine, some fear this crisis might grow into a great geopolitical catastrophe. Certainly it could. But few recognize there is an even greater matter of conflict brewing between the US and Russia. It could quickly outpace the already-dangerous Ukraine war.

Consider the following statement about the war:

"This is not about Ukraine at all, but the world order." Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that, referencing the war.

Oxford University professor Peter Frankopan in The Spectator for March 4, 2023 cited that statement by Lavrov. It was made a month after the invasion. Now it has become a point that's been virtually lost in the subsequent mish-mash of conflicting news reports on every side of the still ongoing Ukraine conflict.

Lavrov's "world order" term equates to an issue that many refer to as American hegemony.

To understand where the "world order" issue might take us, let's first look at the already immediate dangers of the Ukraine conflict.

Often we are reminded that Vladimir Putin famously alleged that the demise of the Soviet Union was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century." NBC News reported it back in April 2005.

Now it can be debated whether Putin has initiated a great geopolitical catastrophe of his own by invading Ukraine in February 2022. There is obvious irony in that thought.

History will ultimately judge whether the Ukraine war will grow to be the greatest tragedy of the 21st century. Meanwhile, there is a practical reason to believe that the Ukraine conflict could even take on a much greater proportion than that.

If you take a serious look at the ultimate risk involved, you can see a distinct a possibility that the Ukraine conflict could become the greatest geopolitical catastrophe ever seen. The risk is that high if the war extends into a long war and to a direct nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia. A resulting nuclear catastrophe could lead to an insurmountable disruption of world civilization. I'll show how that's a quantifiable risk.

In a game of Russian roulette there is also a risk. There is a finite chance that you could kill yourself. It is improbable though. The odds from one pull of the trigger are against it. But who among us would bet on the improbable and pick up a revolver and take the chance? Why not? After all, the odds of survival are in your favor. But there is something else involved.

The additional factor here is of course one of risk/benefit. If you could somehow avert a worse and certain fate by agreeing to a trigger pull in Russian roulette, the risk might be worth it. The benefit would outweigh the risk. Otherwise it would be a foolish move.

Now we are actually facing a game of Russian roulette in Ukraine. That's not just an off-the-cuff allegation. It's the product of a scientific risk analysis conducted by Dr. Martin Hellman. He is Adjunct Senior Fellow for Nuclear Risk Analysis at the Federation of American Scientists. Hellman's been involved in scientific analysis of this issue going back at least 15 years.

Dr. Hellman now scientifically estimates: "So long as the war in Ukraine drags on, we are playing Russian roulette with the whole world about once a year." Mathematically the odds of catastrophe are about 17 percent.

In addition to Hellman's position with FAS, he is also a Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and winner of the million dollar ACM Turing Award, said to be the Nobel Prize for computing.

Given the risk explained by Hellman, is there an offsetting benefit? Is there anything that makes that nuclear risk acceptable?

A recent Rand report titled "Avoiding a Long War" suggests there is not. The gist of the report is roughly, (1) the war to protect and recover Ukrainian territories is supporting extreme tensions between nuclear superpowers, (2) the war has no direct and tangible benefit for Americans, and (3) priority should be given to ceasing hostilities over sending more weaponry.

That hardly seems offsetting to pulling the revolver's trigger once each year every year while the war rages on. But despite the absence of a practical benefit, a February 6, 2023 Gallup pole reports, "Americans Still Stand by Ukraine," Republicans 53 percent, Democrats 81 percent. "Ending the war quickly, even if it allows Russia to keep territory?" That gets only minority support. Republicans 41 percent, Democrats 18 percent.

But where's the benefit for Americans? I can't identify one, at least not for the general public. It could be that it is beneficial for others.

Hellman's conclusion suggests it's more likely you'll experience a nuclear catastrophe in the next year than the odds that your house will burn down. Yet homeowners readily buy fire insurance while caring or knowing little of the greater nuclear risk and indeed they mostly advocate taking that risk.

So here is a paradox: If there is no apparent benefit for Americans, why do they so heartily support fueling the fire of war by sending over more and bigger weaponry? Russia's unjustified aggression against Ukraine is clear. It is also clear there is no positive correlation between sending more weapons and reducing the Ukrainian deaths and destruction. Indeed it is having an opposite effect. What explains all this?

It was already last November that General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated that he couldn't foresee a military victory in Ukraine by anybody. Somehow America's public doesn't believe that. How could that be?

Is it media influence? My observation of our media is that the mainstream message is highly emotionalized. Certainly it is easy to have compassion for the unforgivable fate of the Ukrainians. But concluding that more war, more killing, and more destruction will change that just isn't rational.

Instead, the media message I've seen largely plays upon abstract concepts such as preserving Ukraine's democracy, and helping her people to stay free. Mainstream media portray those abstractions with emotionality, and that catches on with audiences -- and it spreads.

How could that happen?

Recently I saw a book by a retired Canadian clinical psychologist, Dr. Bruce Hutchison, that seems to hit this squarely on the head. It's titled Emotions Don't Think: Emotional Contagion in a Time of Turmoil. And that's exactly how I perceive what's happening vis-a-vis Ukraine. But the emotions connected to the Ukraine war are to a great extent negative emotions. They allow people to accept and support the current risk of a nuclear confrontation -- without the consequences of that risk even registering with them. Hutchison calls the propagation of such emotions "toxic emotional contagion." He says they typically involve the emotions of fear and hate.

Lamentably, rational thoughts are not spreading about future carnage and destruction from a continuing war or of its futility. Instead, Americans have been swept away with apparently politically engineered emotions, and that sadly is permitting more carnage and destruction. "Emotions don't think," as Hutchison puts it.

"When President Biden made a secret trip Monday to Ukraine marking the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he declared that the United States is going to back Ukraine as long as it takes." That's what NPR reported on February 20, 2023.

So, it's more war and emotion, less thinking ahead.

But, still, what about Putin's ominous but oft-quoted statement that the loss of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of its century? Isn't that a real threat of territorial expansion?

That quote seems usually to be cited exactly for the purpose of arousing toxic emotions: fears of a territorially adventuresome Putin. It invokes images that are almost archetypical in the minds of many -- that of Hitler's march across Europe and the old domino theory of the Vietnam era. They can elicit a scary emotion that can be contagious.

However, less often seen is Putin's remark, "Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains" That was reported in the New York Times on February 20, 2000. The remark sort of kills the implied scary emotion of the other Putin quote.

But now what about the potentially larger issue, the challenge to American dominance in the world? Whether you call it "world order" or "American hegemony," Russia is not alone in its dissatisfaction with that status quo.

So now what about Frankopan's citation from Lavrov? "This is not about Ukraine at all, but the world order"

More recent statements seem to affirm: that is Russia's bottom-line objective:

--"Russia's upcoming new foreign policy concept will focus on terminating the West's monopoly in international affairs, the country's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday." February 16, 2023, Xinhua

--"The Russian president said his country is opposed to the emergence of a unipolar world that revolves around Washington's interests." February 20, 2023, RT

Given all that, hasn't the US been lured into spending well over $100 billion on the wrong issue, Ukraine? Couldn't international unease over America's strong international role emerge as a far greater problem, indeed the main concern? Why would our government be pouring so many resources into Ukraine when it is not the prime issue?

Frankopan has an answer: "In its most blunt terms, the war has served as a moment of one of the greatest transfers of wealth in history..."

He even names names: "There have been big winners, such as shareholders in the five oil giants -- BP, Shell, Exxon, Chevron, and Total Energies -- who reported combined profits of $200 billion last year. The fossil fuel-producing states of OPEC also had eye-watering revenues, reaching $850 billion last year. But the price rise of LNG has meant countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh have suffered blackouts, which in turn cut productivity. This has paved the way for social unrest and political volatility -- as well as increasing a global sense of resentment towards the West."

The above doesn't even account for other big winners, the large US defense contractors with their huge profits.

All together, the Ukraine war has been a bonanza for an elite few. But not for the average American that must pay the taxes and bear the debt for all the related appropriations enacted by Congress and signed by the president.

Doesn't that bonanza for elites create vested interests in politically protecting the supportive legislation? And wouldn't that involve paying large fees to lobbyists who cater to the needs of politicians, including contributions to campaign funds and supporting pet interests of politicians? Who's going to want to pull back on our lavish support for Ukraine?

Given the momentum of the tragic and senseless Ukraine war it is hard to foresee anything changing to favor the common good. The matter is largely out of our hands.

And doesn't that leave us all like lemmings heading for the proverbial cliff?

from Ukraine: The Greatest Geopolitical Catastrophe of the...?