As Axios has reported, companies are taking ever more daring positions on social and political issues because of intense pressure from the public and their own employees. At a time of rock bottom trust in institutions and leaders, corporations are among the very few remaining bastions of public confidence, says Edelman, the public relations firm.
The latest example is Salesforce, which has recently barred certain gun sellers from using its e-commerce software, per the Washington Post. It follows a trend of companies targeting guns:
Amazon and eBay have both banned the sale of firearms on their platforms.
Shopify has stopped providing its software to merchants who sell semi-automatic firearms and silencers, among other weapons.
Walmart, the country’s biggest gun seller, has stopped selling the weapons to customers under 21. And Dick’s Sporting Goods has pulled all assault-style guns from its shelves.
Firms have waded into other debates, too: In an outcry over abortion rights, Hollywood studios are threatening to stop filming in Georgia. And two years ago, a backlash by PayPal, the NCAA, Bank of America and others forced North Carolina to repeal a “bathroom bill” that discriminated against transgender individuals.
“We are concerned by the rise of boardroom legislation by unelected corporate leaders,” says Lawrence Keane, SVP of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. “It’s particularly troubling when the companies making the decisions have tons of market power.”
The big picture: While firms are well within their rights to take a stand, their actions take on new significance when unelected businesses have the same sort of power as government officials, says Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago.
In early 2018, Facebook and Google banned ads for cryptocurrency exchanges. That meant 60% of all online ads were off limits to cryptocurrency companies.
The combined actions of Amazon, eBay, Shopify and, now, Salesforce, have effectively banned the online sale of certain guns.
The bottom line: Look for continued corporate activism, as socially minded employees and consumers show no sign of wavering in their insistence on their companies taking such positions.
“It has a lot to do with the war for talent,” says Louis Hyman, a historian at Cornell. “In an age where the corporate talent is socially liberal, companies that do not take these positions are risking their key assets.”
“It’s not really companies who are making this difference. It’s the consumers who support these companies,” says Heather Cox Richardson, a professor at Boston College.
The Emotional Appeal of Socialism Despite Its Long History of Failure
From Milton Friedman’s Introduction to “The Road to Serfdom” by Frederick Hayek:
To understand why it is that ‘good’ men in positions of power will produce evil, while the ordinary man without power but able to engage in voluntary cooperation with his neighbors will produce good, requires analysis and thought, subordinating the emotions to the rational faculty.
Surely that is one answer to the perennial mystery of why collectivism [and socialism], with its demonstrated record of producing tyranny and misery, is so widely regarded as superior to individualism, with its demonstrated record of producing freedom and plenty. The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument. And the emotional facilities are more highly developed in most men than the rational, paradoxically or especially even in those who regard themselves as intellectuals.
Experience has strongly confirmed Hayek’s central insight—that coordination of men’s activities through central direction and through voluntary cooperation are roads going in very different directions: the first to serfdom, the second to freedom. That experience has also strongly reinforced a secondary theme—central direction is also a road to poverty for the ordinary man; voluntary cooperation, a road to plenty. The battle for freedom must be won over and over again. The socialists in all parties to whom Hayek dedicated his book must once again be persuaded or defeated if they and we are to remain free men.
In the 1920s, Edward Bernays, the so-called “father of public relations,” wrote several influential books outlining the principles of successful propaganda. In his book by that title, Bernays argued that “the mind of the people…is made up for it by…those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion” and know how to skillfully supply the public with “inherited prejudices” and “verbal formulas.”
Bernays’ comments come to mind in the current climate of hostility and intolerance being directed against individuals pejoratively dubbed by the vaccine lobby as “anti-vaxxers.” The dumbed-down propaganda being plastered across the mainstream media on an almost daily basis would have the public believe that anyone who questions any aspect of vaccination is ignorant, selfish or both. However, there is a glaring flaw with this logic. The incontrovertible fact—which the legislators, regulators, reporters and citizens who are participating in mass tarring and feathering are not honest enough to admit—is that many of the people classified as “anti-vaxxers” are actually “ex-vaxxers” whose dutiful adherence to current vaccine policies led to serious vaccine injury in themselves or a loved one.
Parental compliance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) heavy-duty vaccine requirements for infants is often the catalyst for the injuries that start families down the path of becoming ex-vaxxers.
From compliance to injury
Vaccine coverage in the United States is high. In their first three years, over 99% of American children receive some vaccines. By the government’s indirect admission, however, vaccine-related adverse events are also common—with fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries ever getting reported.
Parental compliance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) heavy-duty vaccine requirements for infants is often the catalyst for the injuries that start families down the path of becoming “ex-vaxxers.” In one tragic case, a parent who followed doctors’ orders lost her six-week-old infant girl 12 hours after the child received eight vaccines; medical experts’ conclusion that vaccination was the cause of death prompted a different valuation of risks and benefits with a subsequent child. There are many other such stories. Moreover, when individuals who suffer nonfatal vaccine injuries stick to the standard vaccination regimen, research shows that they often experience even more severe injuries the next time around.
In the U.S., vaccines have been liability-free since 1986—and evidence suggests that vaccine safety has deteriorated significantly as a result. The only current recourse for the vaccine-injured is to file a petition with the stingy and slow-moving National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP). Although the NVICP has paid out over $4 billion in taxpayer-funded compensation, it denies far more petitions than it awards. The family of the six-week-old described in the preceding paragraph eventually received NVICP compensation, but not before the program expended considerable effort to leave the cause of death unexplained. And, literally adding insult to injury, the maximum payout for any vaccine-related death is only $250,000.
The chair of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) committee has stated, ‘Congress is getting paid to not hold pharma accountable.’
Money talks
When people or their loved ones are vaccine-injured, many begin to unravel the unscrupulous world of pharmaceutical influence on our media, government agency leaders and lawmakers. Connecting the dots is a horrifying and enlightening experience, exposing facts to which the general public generally remains oblivious. These revelations weigh heavily when someone makes the decision to permanently change into an “ex-vaxxer.”
Why would the people’s elected representatives (and the officials they appoint) propagate smears, promote censorship and ignore the testimonials of the many families that have experienced devastating vaccine injuries?
Why would officialdom ignore the escalating fiscal implications of vaccine injuries, which are imposing a staggering financial burden on households and taxpayers?
Why do the media increasingly advocate for the elimination of informed consent and vaccine choice?
One of the inescapable answers has to do with the overt and covert influence of pharmaceutical industry funding on those who shape vaccine policy and public opinion.
At the government level, senior Senators openly admit that “drug companies have too much influence in Washington,” with big pharma spending more than any other industry on lobbying and campaign contributions. For example, the pharmaceutical industry poured an estimated $100 million into the 2016 elections, rewarding politicians on both sides of the aisle with its largesse. The chair of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) committee has stated, “Congress is getting paid to not hold pharma accountable” [emphasis added].
…studies show that medical journal advertising generates “the highest return on investment of all promotional strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies.”
Not content to just influence legislators, the pharmaceutical industry puts equally high value on print advertising directed at doctors—the all-important “gatekeepers” between drug companies and patients. In fact, studies show that medical journal advertising generates “the highest return on investment of all promotional strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies.”
Covering all bases, pharmaceutical companies also advertise vaccines and other drugs directly to U.S. consumers. The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world (along with New Zealand) that permits this type of direct-to-consumer pandering. Drug company spending on television and print advertising in the U.S. rose to $5.2 billion in 2016—a 60% increase over 2012—with untold additional amounts spent on digital and social media advertising. Astoundingly, pharmaceutical companies even get a tax break for these marketing expenditures, a corporate deduction that costs taxpayers billions annually.
The media benefit handsomely from the steady infusion of pharma advertising dollars. Four networks (CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox) received two-thirds of the TV ad monies spent on top-selling drugs in 2015, with the Prevnar 13 vaccine representing the eighth most-advertised pharmaceutical product that year. Under these bought-media circumstances, it is somewhat astonishing that a few media outlets were willing to concede that drug money “coursing through the veins of Congress” directly contributed to the opioid crisis. So far, however, no reporters have been willing to connect similar dots between drug money and unsafe vaccines.
What the WHO failed to mention, however, is the preponderant role of “commercial interests”—and especially pharmaceutical industry interests—in shaping its goals and strategies.
Pharmaceutical industry influence makes itself felt not just domestically but also globally, and this has led to a corresponding amping-up of rhetoric against “anti-vaxxers” around the world. In early 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) hyperbolically declared “reluctance or refusal to vaccinate” to be one of ten major “global health threats.” What the WHO failed to mention, however, is the preponderant role of “commercial interests”—and especially pharmaceutical industry interests—in shaping its goals and strategies.
Back in 2009, sleight of hand by WHO scientists rebranded the swine flu from “a ‘perfectly ordinary flu’” into a “dangerous pandemic.” This maneuver successfully generated billions in profits for vaccine and anti-flu drug manufacturers; however, the vaccine in question (Pandemrix) caused cases of narcolepsy—many in young people—to surge all over Europe to nearly four times higher than prevaccine levels. In all likelihood, the parents of the narcolepsy-afflicted youth joined the ranks of “ex-vaxxers.” A researcher looking back on the Pandemrix fiasco recently stated:
“If vaccine regulators were serious about safety, the entire vaccine fleet would have been grounded following the Pandemrix narcolepsy disaster, to check for the same mechanism of failure in other vaccines. But nothing of that sort happened….”
Double standards
If consumers want to learn about the potential risks of widely used FDA-approved drugs, they can—with a little legwork—find detailed information on hundreds of drugs on the FDA’s website. For azithromycin, for example, the FDA links to studies showing that the antibiotic increases risks of cancer relapse and cardiovascular problems. A link for fentanyl clearly warns of “the potential for life-threatening harm from accidental exposure” and “deadly” risks to both children and adults. Although it can be an uphill battle to get drugs taken off the market, the ongoing pressure of lawsuits has succeeded in removing some egregious offenders such as Vioxx—and Merck, Vioxx’s manufacturer, has been forced to pay out billions in settlements.
In contrast, consumers who go to the FDA website for risk information about vaccines (classified as “biologics” rather than “drugs”) will search almost in vain, finding sparse information for only four vaccines. One of the four is Gardasil—also manufactured by Merck, and one of the most notoriously dangerous vaccines ever rushed onto the market. While the FDA cautiously states that “concerns have been raised about reports of deaths occurring in individuals after receiving Gardasil,” the agency asserts that “there was not a common pattern to the deaths that would suggest they were caused by the vaccine.” The 2018 book, The HPV Vaccine on Trial, contradicts this benign narrative and describes how Gardasil has caused thousands of perfectly healthy young women and men to “suddenly lose energy, become wheelchair-bound, or even die” while Merck continues to enjoy “soaring revenues.”
For government and the media to dismiss these and other accounts of serious vaccine injuries as insignificant—while falsely labeling injured individuals and their advocates as irresponsible “anti-vaxxers”—is both shameful and insulting. After revealing how the mainstream narrative about Gardasil is riddled with “discrepancies and half-truths,” the authors of The HPV Vaccine on Trial issued a call for greater civility. Noting that marginalization and bullying of the vaccine-injured “destroys civil public discourse and discourages scientific inquiry,” they pointed out that “we urgently need both.”
Geoengineering, also known as climate engineering, is a controversial subject. Though many people dismiss it as nothing more than a conspiracy theory, there are many others who vehemently insist that governmental and other organizations are actively involved in attempts to manipulate the weather. Most of these experiments, they say, are directed at reversing the effects of so-called climate change, while some agencies have more sinister reasons for wanting to manipulate the weather, including a desire to control the ionosphere – and therefore radio communications – for military purposes.
In recent years, evidence has been mounting that perhaps geoengineering should not quickly be dismissed as conspiracy theory. Reports have emerged suggesting that increased amounts of aluminum are being detected in precipitation. If this heavy metal is present in the rain, it is certainly present in large quantities in the air. This ties in perfectly with the theory of geoengineering, which claims that aluminum is sprayed into the atmosphere as a way to control the rain.
The Promise of Good Health; Are We Jumping Off the Cliff in the U.S.?
By Kristina Kristen
In the United States, many legislators and public health officials are busy trying to make vaccines de facto compulsory—either by removing parental/personal choice given by existing vaccine exemptions or by imposing undue quarantines and fines on those who do not comply with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) vaccine edicts. Officials in California are seeking to override medical opinion about fitness for vaccination, while those in New York are mandating the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine for 6-12-month-old infants for whom its safety and effectiveness “have not been established.”
The U.S. has the very highest infant mortality rate of all industrialized countries, with more American children dying at birth and in their first year than in any other comparable nation—and more than half of those who survive develop at least one chronic illness.
American children would be better served if these officials—before imposing questionable and draconian measures—studied child health outcomes in Japan. With a population of 127 million, Japan has the healthiest children and the very highest “healthy life expectancy” in the world—and the least vaccinated children of any developed country. The U.S., in contrast, has the developed world’s most aggressive vaccination schedule in number and timing, starting at pregnancy, at birth and in the first two years of life. Does this make U.S. children healthier? The clear answer is no. The U.S. has the very highest infant mortality rate of all industrialized countries, with more American children dying at birth and in their first year than in any other comparable nation—and more than half of those who survive develop at least one chronic illness. Analysis of real-world infant mortality and health results shows that U.S. vaccine policy does not add up to a win for American children.
Japan and the U.S.; Two Different Vaccine Policies
In 1994, Japan transitioned away from mandated vaccination in public health centers to voluntary vaccination in doctors’ offices, guided by “the concept that it is better that vaccinations are performed by children’s family doctors who are familiar with their health conditions.” The country created two categories of non-compulsory vaccines: “routine” vaccines that the government covers and “strongly recommends” but does not mandate, and additional “voluntary” vaccines, generally paid for out-of-pocket. Unlike in the U.S., Japan has no vaccine requirements for children entering preschool or elementary school.
Japan also banned the MMR vaccine in the same time frame, due to thousands of serious injuries over a four-year period—producing an injury rate of one in 900 children that was “over 2,000 times higher than the expected rate.” It initially offered separate measles and rubella vaccines following its abandonment of the MMR vaccine; Japan now recommends a combined measles-rubella (MR) vaccine for routine use but still shuns the MMR. The mumps vaccine is in the “voluntary” category.
Here are key differences between the Japanese and U.S. vaccine programs:
Japan has no vaccine mandates, instead recommending vaccines that (as discussed above) are either “routine” (covered by insurance) or “voluntary” (self-pay).
Japan does not vaccinate newborns with the hepatitis B (HepB) vaccine, unless the mother is hepatitis B positive.
Japan does not vaccinate pregnant mothers with the tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine.
Japan does not give flu shots to pregnant mothers or to six-month-old infants.
Japan does not give the MMR vaccine, instead recommending an MR vaccine.
Japan does not require the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.
No other developed country administers as many vaccine doses in the first two years of life.
In contrast, the U.S. vaccine schedule (see Table 1) prescribes routine vaccination during pregnancy, calls for the first HepB vaccine dose within 24 hours of birth—even though 99.9% of pregnant women, upon testing, are hepatitis B negative, and follows up with 20 to 22 vaccine doses in the first year alone. No other developed country administers as many vaccine doses in the first two years of life.
The HepB vaccine injects a newborn with a 250-microgram load of aluminum, a neurotoxic and immune-toxic adjuvant used to provoke an immune response. There are no studies to back up the safety of exposing infants to such high levels of the injected metal. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) upper limit for aluminum in intravenous (IV) fluids for newborns is far lower at five micrograms per kilogram per day (mcg/kg/day)—and even at these levels, researchers have documented the potential for impaired neurologic development. For an average newborn weighing 7.5 pounds, the HepB vaccine has over 15 times more aluminum than the FDA’s upper limit for IV solutions.
Unlike Japan, the U.S. administers flu and Tdap vaccines to pregnant women (during any trimester) and babies receive flu shots at six months of age, continuing every single year thereafter. Manufacturers have never tested the safety of flu shots administered during pregnancy, and the FDA has never formally licensed any vaccines “specifically for use during pregnancy to protect the infant.”
Japan initially recommended the HPV vaccine but stopped doing so in 2013 after serious health problems prompted numerous lawsuits. Japanese researchers have since confirmed a temporal relationship between HPV vaccination and recipients’ development of symptoms.
U.S. vaccine proponents claim the U.S. vaccine schedule is similar to schedules in other developed countries, but this claim is inaccurate upon scrutiny. Most other countries do not recommend vaccination during pregnancy, and very few vaccinate on the first day of life. This is important because the number, type and timing of exposure to vaccines can greatly influence their adverse impact on developing fetuses and newborns, who are particularly vulnerable to toxic exposures and early immune activation. Studies show that activation of pregnant women’s immune systems can cause developmental problems in their offspring. Why are pregnant women in the U.S. advised to protect their developing fetuses by avoiding alcohol and mercury-containing tuna fish, but actively prompted to receive immune-activating Tdap and flu vaccines, which still contain mercury (in multi-dose vials) and other untested substances?
Japan initially recommended the HPV vaccine but stopped doing so in 2013 after serious health problems prompted numerous lawsuits. Japanese researchers have since confirmed a temporal relationship between HPV vaccination and recipients’ development of symptoms. U.S. regulators have ignored these and similar reports and not only continue to aggressively promote and even mandate the formerly optional HPV vaccine beginning in preadolescence but are now pushing it in adulthood. The Merck-manufactured HPV vaccine received fast-tracked approval from the FDA despite half of all clinical trial subjects reporting serious medical conditions within seven months.
Best and Worst: Two Different Infant Mortality Results
The CDC views infant mortality as one of the most important indicators of a society’s overall health. The agency should take note of Japan’s rate, which, at 2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, is the second lowest in the world, second only to the Principality of Monaco. In comparison, almost three times as many American infants die (5.8 per 1,000 live births), despite massive per capita spending on health care for children (see Table 2). U.S. infant mortality ranks behind 55 other countries and is worse than the rate in Latvia, Slovakia or Cuba.
If vaccines save lives, why are American children dying at a faster rate, and…dying younger compared to children in 19 other wealthy countries—translating into a 57 percent greater risk of death before reaching adulthood?
To reiterate, the U.S. has the most aggressive vaccine schedule of developed countries (administering the most vaccines the earliest). If vaccines save lives, why are American children “dying at a faster rate, and…dying younger” compared to children in 19 other wealthy countries—translating into a “57 percent greater risk of death before reaching adulthood”? Japanese children, who receive the fewest vaccines—with no government mandates for vaccination—grow up to enjoy “long and vigorous” lives. International infant mortality and health statistics and their correlation to vaccination protocols show results that government and health officials are ignoring at our children’s great peril.
Among the 20 countries with the world’s best infant mortality outcomes, only three countries (Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore) automatically administer the HepB vaccine to all newborns—governed by the rationale that hepatitis B infection is highly endemic in these countries. Most of the other 17 top-ranking countries—including Japan—give the HepB vaccine at birth only if the mother is hepatitis B positive (Table 1). The U.S., with its disgraceful #56 infant mortality ranking, gives the HepB vaccine to all four million babies born annually despite a low incidence of hepatitis B.
Is the U.S. Sacrificing Children’s Health for Profits?
Merck, the MMR vaccine’s manufacturer, is in court over MMR-related fraud. Whistleblowers allege the pharmaceutical giant rigged its efficacy data for the vaccine’s mumps component to ensure its continued market monopoly. The whistleblower evidence has given rise to two separate court cases. In addition, a CDC whistleblower has alleged the MMR vaccine increases autism risks in some children. Others have reported that the potential risk of permanent injury from the MMR vaccine dwarfs the risks of getting measles.
Why do the FDA and CDC continue to endorse the problematic MMR vaccine despite Merck’s implication in fraud over the vaccine’s safety and efficacy? Why do U.S. legislators and government officials not demand a better alternative, as Japan did over two decades ago? Why are U.S. cities and states forcing Merck’s MMR vaccine on American children? Is the U.S. government protecting children, or Merck? Why are U.S. officials ignoring Japan’s exemplary model, which proves that the most measured vaccination program in the industrialized world and “first-class sanitation and levels of nutrition” can produce optimal child health outcomes that are leading the world?
A central tenet of a free and democratic society is the freedom to make informed decisions about medical interventions that carry serious potential risks. This includes the right to be apprised of benefits and risks—and the ability to say no. The Nuremberg Code of ethics established the necessity of informed consent without “any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion.” Forcing the MMR vaccine, or any other vaccine, on those who are uninformed or who do not consent represents nothing less than medical tyranny.
Despite the oceans of pixels, buckets of ink, and hours of TV and radio coverage respecting the Mueller report, there are two important things underplayed or ignored: the ubiquitous nature of Russian interference from 2014 on, which Obama ignored, and the real target of the witch hunt — General Michael Flynn (and why). To get there, let’s first quickly review the pre- and post- report major media coverage.
The Ridiculous Press Propagation of the Hoax and Response to the Report
There are countless examples of the media beclowning itself when the left’s dream of a slam-dunk against the president failed. It was like the election night follies all over again.
To quote the satirical Babylon Bee: “CNN: ‘God Allowed the Mueller Report to Test Our Unshakable Faith in Collusion’”
Here are some examples.
CNN’s Jake Tapper indicated it was suspicious that Attorney General William Barr repeated several times that the report found no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. This after his network touted the notion of collusion hundreds of times over the past two years. As my friend Harry Lewis noted, this repetition was “not only fair, but essential to driving home [the hostile media’s] malice, stupidity, and folly. Barr did that with great economy.”
At the Barr presser on the report, CBS’s Paula Reid suggested that the attorney general’s summary was too generous to the president. In particular, she questioned his characterization of the Mueller investigation as “unprecedented”. Barr who is clearly no lightweight responded,
“Is there a precedent for it?”
“Well, no,” conceded Reid.
“Okay so unprecedented is an accurate description, isn’t it.”
”Yeah,” admitted Reid.
It’s hard to pick a favorite, but disgraced NBC anchor Brian Williams is certainly a top contender, comparing Barr to Iraq’s former propaganda minister Baghdad Bob. (You might recall Williams was nabbed making up stories about Hurricane Katrina.)
While most of the media blathered on, caught flatfooted in pushing for years the Clinton fable, not all were suckered in.
Terry Moran of ABC tweeted:
John Brennan has a lot to answer for — going before the American public for months, cloaked with CIA authority and openly suggesting he’s got secret info, and repeatedly turning in performances like this.
Glenn Greenwald, no fan of the president, produced what I consider the most detailed, fair response to the Mueller report:
In sum, Democrats and their supporters had the exact prosecutor they all agreed was the embodiment of competence and integrity in Robert Mueller. He assembled a team of prosecutors and investigators that countless media accounts heralded as the most aggressive and adept in the nation. They had subpoena power, the vast surveillance apparatus of the U.S. government at their disposal, a demonstrated willingness to imprison anyone who lied to them, and unlimited time and resources to dig up everything they could.
The result of all of that was that not a single American — whether with the Trump campaign or otherwise — was charged or indicted on the core question of whether there was any conspiracy or coordination with Russia over the election. No Americans were charged or even accused of being controlled by or working at the behest of the Russian government. None of the key White House aides at the center of the controversy who testified for hours and hours – including Donald Trump, Jr. or Jared Kushner — were charged with any crimes of any kind, not even perjury, obstruction of justice or lying to Congress.
These facts are fatal to the conspiracy theorists who have drowned U.S. discourse for almost three years with a dangerous and distracting fixation on a fictitious espionage thriller involved unhinged claims of sexual and financial blackmail, nefarious infiltration of the U.S. Government by familiar foreign villains, and election cheating that empowered an illegitimate President. They got the exact prosecutor and investigation that they wanted, yet he could not establish that any of this happened and, in many cases, established that it did not.
As he noted, here are some of the press accounts obliterated by the report:
Paul Manafort never visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy; Guardian reporting otherwise is utterly fake.
Buzzfeed’s claim that the President told Michael Cohen to lie about negotiations to build a Trump Tower is Moscow — FAKE.
CNN’s claim that Cohen asserted that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting (bruited by Carl Bernstein, Jim Sciutto and Marshall Cohen) — FAKE.
Rachel Maddow’s charge that “the Russians may be controlling our government” — FAKE.
Claims by Marcy Wheeler (repeated by others, including the Washington Post) that the post-election contacts between Trump and Russia were evidence of a conspiracy — FAKE.
Also FAKE: the Steele Dossier, pee-pee tape stories, secret meetings in Prague, and corrupt financial dealings with Russia going back years before the election.
Claims about the Trump Tower meeting in 2016 fell flat — there was nothing criminal about it.
In Greenwald’s words:
One can debate whether it’s unethical for a presidential campaign to have dirt about its opponent released by a foreign government, though anyone who wants to argue that has to reconcile that with the fact that the DNC had a contractor working with the Ukrainian government to help Hillary Clinton win by feeding them dirt on Trump and Manafort, as well as a paid operative named Christopher Steele (remember him?) working with Russian officials to get dirt on Trump.
In sum, neither during the investigation nor at its conclusion did most of the American press cover itself with glory. Neither did the Democratic Party and the intelligence community. They deserve our scorn for deluding Americans for years, and I predict they will get it. People who are scammed may be loath to acknowledge they were, but they will. Reality bites.
Research links fluoridated water consumption to endocrine dysfunction, hypothyroidism, ADHD and reduced IQ
Many water authorities do not use pharmaceutical grade fluoride; they use hydrofluosilicic acid — a toxic waste product of the fertilizer industry that is frequently contaminated with heavy metals and other toxins
97 percent of Western European countries do not fluoridate, and data show non-fluoridating countries have seen the exact same reduction in dental cavities as fluoridated areas
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has hailed water fluoridation as one of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century. Beginning in 1945, it was claimed that adding fluoride to drinking water was a safe and effective way to improve people’s dental health. Over the decades, many bought into this hook, line and sinker, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The featured film, “Our Daily Dose,” reviews some of this evidence. As noted in the film’s synopsis:
“Filmmaker Jeremy Seifert lays out the dangers of water fluoridation informatively and creatively, highlighting the most current research and interviewing top-tier doctors, activists, and attorneys close to the issue. Through thoughtful examination of old beliefs and new science, the film alerts us to the health threat present in the water and beverages we rely on every day.”
Share This Film With Those Still Sitting On the Fence on Fluoride!
The film may not offer many brand new revelations to those of you who are already well-informed about the history and documented hazards of fluoride.
It was primarily created as an educational vehicle aimed at those who may not be aware of these issues, or who might not yet be entirely convinced that drinking fluoride isn’t a good thing. So PLEASE, share this video with all of your friends and family who are on the fence on this issue, and ask them to watch it. It’s only 20 minutes long, but it packs a lot of compelling details into those 20 minutes.
Understanding how fluoride affects your body and brain is particularly important for parents with young children, and pregnant women. It’s really crucial to know that you should NEVER mix infant formula with fluoridated tap water for example, as this may overexpose your child to 100 times the proposed “safe” level of fluoride exposure for infants!
If your child suffers with ADD/ADHD, drinking fluoridated water may also worsen his or her condition. Ditto for those with under-functioning thyroid. So please, do share this video with your social networks, as it could make a big difference in people’s health.
Fluoride Is Both an Endocrine Disruptor and a Neurotoxin
Scientific investigations have revealed that fluoride is an endocrine-disrupting chemical, and a developmental neurotoxin that impacts short-term and working memory, and lowers IQ in children. It has been implicated as a contributing factor in the rising rates of both attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and thyroid disease.
Indeed, fluoride was used in Europe to reduce thyroid activity in hyperthyroid patients as late as the 1970s, and reduced thyroid function is associated with fluoride intakes as low as 0.05 to 0.1 mg fluoride per kilogram body weight per day (mg/kg/day).
For Over 50 Years, Fluoride Levels Were Too High, Government Admits
Children are particularly at risk for adverse effects of overexposure, and in April 2015, the US government admitted that the “optimal” level of fluoride recommended since 1962 had in fact been too high. As a result, over 40 percent of American teens show signs of fluoride overexposure — a condition known as dental fluorosis. In some areas, dental fluorosis rates are as high as 70 to 80 percent, with some children suffering from advanced forms.
So, for the first time, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) lowered its recommended level of fluoride in drinking water by 40 percent, from an upper limit of 1.2 milligrams per liter (mg/L) to 0.7 mg/L. The HHS said it will evaluate dental fluorosis rates among children in 10 years to assess whether they were correct about this new level being protective against dental fluorosis. But just what is the acceptable level of harm in the name of cavity prevention?
A number of studies have shown that children with moderate to severe dental fluorosis score worse on tests measuring cognitive skills and IQ than peers without fluorosis — a clear revelation highlighted in the film, as some still insist that dental fluorosis is nothing more than a cosmetic issue.
The Price We Pay for Cavity Prevention
According to the film, the CDC estimates water fluoridation decreases dental decay by, at most, 25 percent. Recent research, however, suggests the real effect may be far lower. Based on the findings of three papers assessing the effectiveness of fluoridation on tooth decay, the researchers concluded that water fluoridation does not reduce cavities to a statistically significant degree in permanent teeth.
If that’s the case, then why are we still jeopardizing our children’s long-term thyroid and brain health by adding fluoride to drinking water?
Fluoride — like many other poisons — was originally declared safe based on dosage, but we now know that timing of exposure can play a big role in its effects as well. Children who are fed infant formula mixed with fluoridated water receive very high doses and may be affected for life as a result of this early exposure.
Fluoride can also cross the placenta, causing developing fetuses to be exposed to fluoride. Considering the fact that fluoride has endocrine-disrupting activity, this is hardly a situation amenable to the good health of that child. It’s important to realize that fluoride is not a nutrient. It’s a drug, and it’s the ONLY drug that is purposely added directly into drinking water.
This route of delivery completely bypasses standard rules relating to informed consent, which is foundational for ethical medical practice. What’s worse, there’s no way to keep track of the dosage. And no one is keeping track of side effects.
Infants Are Severely and Routinely Overdosed on Fluoride
According to the recent Iowa Study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the CDC, infants and young children are being massively overdosed on fluoride. This study, which is the largest U.S. study conducted measuring the amount of fluoride children ingest, concluded that:
100 percent of infants receiving infant formula mixed with fluoridated tap water get more than the allegedly safe dose of fluoride. Some formula-fed infants receive 100 times the safe level on a daily basis
30 percent of 1-year-olds exceed the recommended safe dose
47 percent of 2- to 3-year-olds exceed the safe dose
Most Water Authorities Use Toxic Waste Product, Not Pharmaceutical Grade Fluoride
As stated, fluoride is a drug, and research into the health effects of fluoride are based on pharmaceutical grade fluoride. However, a majority of water authorities do not even use pharmaceutical grade fluoride; they use hydrofluosilicic acid, or hexafluorosilicic acid — toxic waste products of the phosphate fertilizer industry, which are frequently contaminated with heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury, cadmium, lead, and other toxins.
This is a key point that many fluoride proponents fail to address when arguing for its use. Indeed, holding elected officials accountable for procuring proof that the specific fluoridation chemical used actually fulfills fluoride’s health and safety claims and complies with all regulations, laws and risk assessments required for safe drinking water, has been a successful strategy for halting water fluoridation in a number of areas around the U.S.
While the idea of hiding toxic industrial waste in drinking water would sound like a questionable idea at best to most people, it was welcomed by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In a 1983 letter, Rebecca Hanmer, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water, wrote:
“… In regard to the use of fluosilicic acid as a source of fluoride for fluoridation, this Agency regards such use as an ideal environmental solution to a long-standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water, and air pollution are minimized, and water utilities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them…”
Data and Science Do Not Support Water Fluoridation
Ninety-seven percent of Western European countries do not fluoridate their water, and data collected by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that non-fluoridating countries have seen the exact same reduction in dental cavities as the U.S.,16 where a majority of water is still fluoridated. If fluoride were, in fact, the cause of this decline, non-fluoridating countries should not show the same trend.
Clearly, declining rates of dental decay are not in and of themselves proof that water fluoridation actually works. It’s also worth noting that well over 99 percent of the fluoride added to drinking water never even touches a tooth; it simply runs down the drain, contaminating and polluting the environment.
Source: KK Cheng et.al. BMJ 2007.17 Rates of cavities have declined by similar amounts in countries with and without fluoridation.
Ending Fluoridation Will Be the Greatest Public Health Achievement of the 21st Century
In a stunning revelation from a 2009 UN document titled “Rethinking the Economic Recovery: A Global Green New Deal“, it is discovered that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ (AOC) Green New Deal is not a new movement of the people, but rather a crafty (and plagiarized) creation of a small group of global elite working through the United Nations.
This 144-page report was headed by Edward B. Barbier, a professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Wyoming at the time, but specifically prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
It was UNEP that sponsored the infamous 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that catalyzed the doctrine of Sustainable Development and produced the Agenda 21 book labeled The Agenda for the 21st Century. UNEP has been at the root of every intellectually bankrupt scheme to flip the world into its resource-based economic system while driving a fatal nail into Capitalism and Free Enterprise. In my books Technocracy Rising and Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order, I have extensively documented that Sustainable Development is nothing more than warmed-over Technocracy from the 1930s.
CAP was founded by John Podesta, a prominent member and operative of the Trilateral Commission. Podesta was the principal architect for the U.S. environmental policy for well over 2 decades. He served as Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Special Counselor to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Campaign Manager. In July 2002, the UN Secretary-General appointed him to the High-Level Panel On Post-2015 Development Agenda that created the text for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.
The Board of Directors for CAP includes Sen. Tom Daschle (Chairman), Stacey Abrams, Donald Sussman, and California billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer.
Peterson Institute for International Economics
PIIE was founded by Peter G. Peterson (1926-2018), a principal member of the Trilateral Commission for decades. PIIE’s Board of Directors is a Who’s Who of the Trilateral Commission and includes Lawrence Summers, C. Fred Bergsten, Richard N. Cooper, Stanley Fischer, Robert Zoellick, Alan Greenspan, Carla A. Hills, George P. Schultz, Paul A. Volcker, and Ernesto Zedillo. The PIIE paper cited by Barbier was A Green Global Recovery? Assessing US Economic Stimulus and the Prospects for International Coordination
Plagiarized: Familiar Language
Echoing AOC’s rhetoric, the Barbier’s UNEP report states,
The multiple crises threatening the world economy today demand the same kind of initiative as shown by Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, but at the global scale and embracing a wider vision. (p. 5)
Until now, the Green New Deal has been more of an idea than an actual policy. This week, an Ocasio-Cortez resolution is set to make its debut. The plan prioritizes climate change, but its strength lies in its symbolic ties to one of the Democratic party’s biggest historical successes: the original New Deal under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The comparison to Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been prominent from the first day that Ocasio-Cortez became a public figure.
A Christian man who refuses to pay his taxes until the government stops funding abortion has won a historic lawsuit against the IRS.
Michael Bowman has refused to file a tax return or pay taxes since 1999. “I’m not a tax protester. I love my country,” he told reporters. “I have a duty to my country. I have a duty to my conscience.”
Lifesitenews.com reports: The IRS has sent him numerous warnings over unpaid taxes from 2002 to 2014, and in 2012 the Oregon Department of Revenue began garnishing money from Bowman’s bank account. In response, he started cashing out his paychecks and leaving only a minimum balance in his account.
This, federal prosecutors say, constituted “remov[ing] his income from the reach of taxing authorities.” They indicted him for felony tax evasion in the amount of $356,857, as well as four misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file tax returns.
Bowman’s attorney, Matthew Schindler, argued that his client was fully transparent every step of the way, from disclosing all of his paychecks to cashing them at his own bank, under his own name.
“Like a player collapsing as they lose Twister, the government has reached too far forward and stretched way too far back,” his motion to dismiss read.
Last week, US District Judge Michael Mosman sided with Bowman on the felony charge, ruling that the feds failed to show he attempted to conceal income or deceive the government. Prosecutors remain free to re-introduce the charge in the future and are currently weighing whether to do so.
The Green New Deal exposes the ultra-radical nature of UN policies of Sustainable Development. The UN is sworn to overthrow Capitalism and Free Enterprise, and it using global warming as a battering ram.
Here is what to do when the title is a lie. Confirm it also lies within the text. Confirm the lies in a historical and political context. Expose the lies and the people responsible. Explain, in ways the people can understand, why they can safely ignore the hysteria and actions it recommends. Attack those people and politicians that demand you pay for the lies. Then, adopt the policy of not believing anything in the new, fake news world.
.It is not “new,” it is not “green” other than in name, and it is not a “deal.” In other words, it is a technocrat’s delight because it revisits and resuscitates their goal of total government control without appearing to do so. Proponents of the original idea that humans were causing global warming are losing the war one battle at a time. They did what they always do. Ignore the evidence and move the goalposts. That is what they are doing with the New Green Deal. It is the same use of false or deliberately created science to convince people that they can save them from the sky falling. Chicken Little reappears as Big Turkey.
The last major example occurred in 2004. From 1998 onward CO2 levels continued to increase, but temperatures stopped increasing. This completely contradicted their major assumption and brought them face-to-face with Thomas Huxley’s (1825 – 1895) observation that,
The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
The emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) disclosed that instead of revisiting the science they changed the name from global warming to climate change. This clever but deceitful move allowed them to avoid any evidence that contradicted their hypothesis by removing the hypothesis. It also allowed them to identify any weather event as support for their claims of human interference.
From its emergence onto the world stage in 1988 the claim of human-caused global warming (AGW) was a front for the need for not only local government control, but an over-arching one-world government. Elaine Dewar summarized the goal of Maurice Strong, the architect of Agenda 21 and its subsidiary the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as follows.
Strong was using the U.N. as a platform to sell a global environment crisis and the Global Governance Agenda.
A major piece in the platform was the creation of a global threat. It must be global to transcend national boundaries, so they could argue that no one nation could cope. They produced the major piece through the artificial construct of global warming.
It began at the 1988 US Joint Congressional Hearing when James Hansen falsely testified that he was 99% certain that humans were the cause. That was not true then, and it is not true now, but it continues as a justification for the New Green Deal. The person who organized that Hearing was former Senator Timothy Wirth. I say, former Senator because after one term he resigned and took an appointment as President of the United Nations Foundation. This organization was created from a 1998 $1 billion gift from media mogul Ted Turner. He is listed as a member of the Club of Rome along with George Soros and Wirth.
John Warner, cardiologist and president of the American Heart Association (AHA), recently suffered a heart attack in the middle of a health conference at the age of 52
In all likelihood, Warner followed AHA recommendations, many of which can actually worsen or cause heart disease
AHA supports ample grain consumption and recommends eating harmful fats such as canola, corn, soybean and sunflower oil, both of which are known to cause and/or contribute to cardiovascular problems
Good heart health starts with your diet — what you eat and when you eat. A powerful treatment for heart disease is to work your way up to an intermittent fasting schedule where you’re fasting for 20 hours a day
When you do eat, make sure you eat real food, and consider a cyclical ketogenic diet, high in healthy fats, low in net carbs with moderate protein. Once you’re comfortable with this intermittent fasting schedule, start doing a monthly water only fast, working your way up to multiple days
In the health paradox of the year, 52-year-old cardiologist John Warner, president of the American Heart Association (AHA), recently suffered a heart attack in the middle of a health conference.1,2 In a statement, the association reported Warner was in stable condition after having a stent placed to open a blocked artery. Part of Warner’s speech at the Scientific Sessions conference in Anaheim, California, centered around his own family’s struggle with heart disease.
“After my son was born and we were introducing him to his extended family, I realized something very disturbing: There were no old men on either side of my family. None. All the branches of our family tree cut short by cardiovascular disease,” Warner said in his speech.3
“Together we can make sure old men and old women are regulars at family reunions, that people live long enough and healthy enough to enjoy walks and fishing trips with their grandchildren and maybe even their great-grandchildren. In other words, I look forward to a future where … children grow up surrounded by so many healthy, beloved, elderly relatives that they couldn’t imagine life any other way.”
The AHA’s CEO, Nancy Brown, said in a statement:4 “John wanted to reinforce that this incident underscores the important message that he left us with in his presidential address … that much progress has been made, but much remains to be done.”
Many AHA Recommendations Worsen Heart Health
In all likelihood, Warner followed AHA recommendations, many of which are actually recipes for heart disease disaster. Of the foods scientifically proven to cause heart disease and clogged arteries, excess sugar and industrially processed omega-6 vegetable oils, found in nearly all processed foods, compete for space at the top the list. And what kinds of foods does the AHA recommend to protect your heart?
Not only does it support ample grain consumption, it also recommends eating harmful fats such as canola, corn, soybean and sunflower oil.5 “Blends or combinations of these oils, often sold under the name ‘vegetable oil,’ and cooking sprays made from these oils are also good choices,” the AHA says. Meanwhile, the association still insists saturated fats are to be avoided.
Just this past summer the AHA shocked health experts around the world by sending out a worldwide advisory6 saying saturated fats such as butter and coconut oil should be avoided to cut your risk of heart disease, and that replacing these fats with margarine and vegetable oil might cut your heart disease risk by as much as 30 percent. Overall, the AHA recommends limiting your daily saturated fat intake to 6 percent of daily calories or less.7
This is as backward as it gets, and if Warner was following this long-outdated advice, it’s no wonder he suffered a heart attack. In fact, it is to be expected. As noted by American science writer Gary Taubes in his extensive rebuttal to the AHA’s advisory,8 with this document, the AHA reveals its longstanding prejudice — and the method by which it reaches its flawed conclusions.
In short, the AHA simply excluded any and all contrary evidence. After this methodical cherry-picking, they were left with just four clinical trials published in the 1960s and early ‘70s — the eras when the low-fat myth was born and grew to take hold. The problem is nutritional science has made significant strides since then, and a number of significant studies have firmly disproven the hypothesis that saturated fat causes heart disease, finding no association whatsoever.
In related news, the AHA recently issued new guidelines on blood pressure,9 moving the goal post for heart health yet again. Now you’re considered hypertensive if your blood pressure is above 130 over 80. Previous guidelines started hypertension at 140 over 90. This means an estimated 30 million Americans will qualify for the designation of having high blood pressure, and of those, an estimated 1 in 5 are likely to receive the recommendation to take blood pressure medication.
Flawed Fat Recommendations Have Been Followed With Disastrous Consequences
Since the 1950s, when vegetable oils began being promoted over saturated fats like butter, Americans have dutifully followed this advice, dramatically increasing consumption of vegetable oil. Soybean oil, for example, has risen by 600 percent while butter, tallow and lard consumption has been halved. We’ve also dramatically increased sugar consumption, which has also been implicated as a primary contributor to heart disease and other chronic health problems.10
While following this advice, Americans have gotten fatter and sicker. Heart disease rates have not improved even though people have been following the AHA’s “heart healthy diet.” Common sense tells us if the AHA’s advice hasn’t worked in the last 65 years, it’s not likely to start working now. Modern research is just now starting to reveal what actually happens at the molecular level when you consume vegetable oil and margarine, and it’s not good.
For example, Dr. Sanjoy Ghosh,11 a biologist at the University of British Columbia, has shown your mitochondria cannot easily use polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for fuel due to the fats’ unique molecular structure. Other researchers have shown the PUFA linoleic acid hinders mitochondrial function and can even cause cell death.12
PUFAs are also not readily stored in subcutaneous fat. Instead, PUFAs tend to get deposited in your liver, where they contribute to fatty liver disease, and in your arteries, where they contribute to atherosclerosis.
According to Frances Sladek,13 Ph.D., a toxicologist and professor of cell biology at UC Riverside, PUFAs behave like a toxin that builds up in tissues because your body cannot easily rid itself of it. Making matters worse, when vegetable oils like sunflower oil and corn oil are heated, cancer-causing chemicals like cyclic aldehydes are also produced.14
Other research confirms such findings by linking fried foods to an increased risk of death. For example, eating fried potatoes more than twice a week has been shown to double a person’s risk of death compared to never eating fried potatoes.15 Animal and human research has also found vegetable oils promote:
According to Dr. Cate Shanahan,21 a family physician and author of “Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food,” the idea that PUFAs are healthier than saturated fats falls flat when you enter the field of biochemistry, because it’s “biochemically implausible.” In other words, the molecular structure of PUFA is such that it’s far more prone to react with oxygen, and these reactions disrupt cellular activity and cause inflammation.22 Oxidative stress and inflammation, in turn, are hallmarks not only of heart disease and heart attacks but of most chronic diseases.23,24
[T]he folks at the AHA claim saturated fat is pro-inflammatory and causes arterial plaque and heart attacks — but there is no biochemically plausible explanation for their argument,” she told me in an emailed rebuttal to the AHA advisory. “Saturated fat is very stable, and will not react with oxygen the way PUFA fat does, not until the fundamental laws of the universe are altered. _
Our bodies do need some PUFA fat, but we need it to come from food like walnuts and salmon or gently processed (as in cold pressed, unrefined) oils like flax and artisanal grapeseed, not from vegetable oils because these are refined, bleached and deodorized, and the PUFA fats are molecularly mangled into toxins our body cannot use.”_
John Galton and his girlfriend Lily Forester had finally made it. On a March 2017 evening, the young American couple sat on their balcony above Acapulco, Mexico, counting their blessings. They’d recently moved into a big house on a mountainside and were eyeing an ambitious push into the artisanal bong business.
Galton and Forester were anarcho-capitalists who slipped U.S. drug charges worth 25 years in prison, they said in a YouTube video that night. They’d hopped the border and resettled in what Galton called one of the world’s “pockets of freedom,” a community billed as a libertarian paradise.
Almost two years later, Galton was murdered.
Last week, gunmen burst into the couple’s mountaintop home, killing Galton on the spot, and seriously wounding one of the couple’s friends. (Forester survived, badly shaken.) The killers are presumed to be a drug cartel; Mexican authorities say Galton grew marijuana at the home.
Galton was part of a small community of fellow anarcho-capitalists formed by Jeff Berwick, who promised a drug-friendly haven and hosts the annual “Anarchapulco” festival. Berwick says Galton and Forester should’ve known what they were getting into.
“They started up a competing conference to Anarchapulco, called Anarchaforko and John continued to be involved in one way or another with the production or sale of plants,” Berwick told The Daily Beast in an email. “Unfortunately, that is the one thing that is very dangerous to do in Mexico as the drug cartels will attack anyone they see as competition and that appears to have happened to John.”
Anarchapulco will go on as scheduled next week and might be even bigger due to the murder, Berwick says.
“We’ve received nothing but love from attendees and expect this will not affect attendance in a negative way at all,” he said. “In fact, it could increase attendance as more people are exposed to our message this week due to media coverage of this tragic event.”
Berwick is a Canada-born anarcho-capitalist podcaster, who moved to Acapulco part-time in 2009 and became known for a hard-partying lifestyle. In 2015, he launched Anarchapulco, a festival for anarcho-capitalists, some of whom relocated to Acapulco full-time.
“Every year, as people would visit, they would be attracted to the freedom, weather and culture of Acapulco and many people would stay or move there,” Berwick told The Daily Beast. “This was not anything planned and happened quite organically. But there are likely in the neighborhood of dozens or hundreds of voluntaryists who now live in Acapulco.”
A former member of the community told The Daily Beast the community’s membership fluctuates, but is likely around 50 to 60.
This year’s Feb. 14-17 Anarchapulco promises a nudist pool, psychedelics, sex counseling, and sessions on radical homeschooling—as well as big-name Republican figures like former presidential candidate Ron Paul and Fox News personality Judge Andrew Napolitano.
The conference is located in a ritzy Acapulco hotel. Attendees will have shelled out $545 for tickets, with options to pay an additional $495 for an “investment summit,” $255 for the “Infinite Man” summit with a pickup artist, $140 for “De-Mystifying the Occult,” and $250 each for various drug ceremonies like “Jaguar Vision,” an hour-long DMT experience.
Anarcho-capitalists (“ancaps”) believe in dismantling the state and allowing unchecked capitalism to govern the world in its place. Even within the small anarchist world, ancaps are fringe. Anarchists typically describe their movement as inherently anti-capitalist. Their philosophy describes anarchy as the rejection of hierarchical structures, which they say capitalism enforces. Anarcho-capitalists, meanwhile, see money as a liberating force. They promote a variety of libertarian causes like using cryptocurrency, legalizing all drugs, and privatizing all public institutions like courts and roads. The movement reveres the novelist Ayn Rand, whose work outlines a philosophy of radical selfishness and individualism. Her best-known character, an idealized capitalist named John Galt, appears to have inspired Galton’s name.
Berwick is an unofficial leader in this movement that eschews leaders. And Acapulco is only his latest attempt at building an ideal ancap society.
A native Canadian, Berwick made his fortune by founding and selling the stock promotion website Stockhouse, and by investing in bitcoin before the cryptocurrency boomed in value. Then his ventures took a more experimental turn.
After moving to Acapulco in 2009, Berwick became something of an ancap pied piper, selling passports and real estate to non-Mexican anarchists who wanted to live in the city, according to a 2014 Wired profile. Today, Berwick’s real estate business appears dead. Its website, which advertised “paradise,” now redirects to the homepage for Anarchapulco.
“Jeff was always saying publicly that Acapulco’s not dangerous, that you can do anything, nothing will happen to you. People believed him.” — ‘Mike’
Berwick’s passport company, TDV Passports, also appears to have stumbled. The site used to sell “professional facilitation services for those seeking to establish citizenship in countries abroad.” In practical terms, that meant putting clients in touch with people who could fast-track immigration and citizenship applications. Various versions of the site charged from $12,000 for the Dominican Republic citizenship process to $40,000 in “legal fees” for U.S. citizenship. The company appearsfrequentlyon scam-reporting websites, where alleged TDV Passports customers complained of spending tens of thousands of dollars without ever obtaining immigration documents.
“Mike,” who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity, is a former Berwick colleague who lived in Berwick’s Acapulco community for two years.
“The first Anarcapulco was funded by this passport scheme,” Mike said. “Essentially Jeff was selling Mexican passports to Middle Eastern people. I met Egyptians and a lot of Syrians… He promised to provide passports. I’ve heard of one or two who got them before the scheme collapsed.”
Berwick did not respond to The Daily Beast’s comment on TDV Passports.
Investors dumped millions into the project, which promised to be an ideal society of freedom-loving individuals. Instead, would-be Gulch residents found themselves part-owners of a mismanaged patch of desert. When investors visited the site in 2014 to pick out the plots where their homes and farms would go, they learned that the area had not been zoned for their habitation. One ancap investor defected from the project with a scathing blog post, accusing the Galt’s Gulch team of failing to secure water rights for the desert community. The project, now an outright failure, is the subject of lawsuits in Chile. Berwick, who is not a defendant in the lawsuits, claims he was duped by one of his colleagues on the project.
With Galt’s Gulch drying up, Berwick returned his focus to Acapulco, launching the first Anarchapulco festival in 2015. The event, a celebration of cryptocurrency, alternative health, and post-government politics, was a success, both in attendance and in establishing a year-round ancap presence in the city.
According to the forthcoming documentary “Stateless,” Berwick’s first festival “was designed to attract other ‘ancaps,’ libertarians, and crypto-anarchists to Acapulco, with hopes of encouraging many to become residents of the region and build a new community of government-evaders.”
