A population of 100 million comes with a price. Are Canadians willing to pay it?

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/population-100-million-comes-price-are-canadians-willing-pay-it

A population of 100 million comes with a price; Are Canadians willing to pay it?
Appeared in the National Post

A recent series of articles in the Globe & Mail suggested Canada should double its annual intake of immigrants to 500,000 with the goal of raising the country's population to 75 million in 50 years and 100 million by the end of the century. The justification for this policy is almost entirely ideological. The larger population is needed to give more weight to the authors’ efforts to convince the world to follow Canada's model of a truly social-democratic, multicultural and eco-friendly society yet there is no discussion of the high economic costs the policy would bring.

Doug Saunders, the Globe's correspondent in England, listed the benefits of raising Canada's population to 100 million, saying it would end the greatest price of under-population, (which) is loneliness: We are often unable to talk intelligently to each other, not to mention the world, because we just don't have enough people to support the institutions of dialogue and culture whether they're universities, magazines, movie industries, think tanks or publishing houses. ... It would put an end to the low population density that plagues large sections of Toronto and Calgary.A recent series of articles in the Globe & Mail suggested Canada should double its annual intake of immigrants to 500,000 with the goal of raising the country's population to 75 million in 50 years and 100 million by the end of the century. The justification for this policy is almost entirely ideological.

We do not have enough people, given our dispersed geography, to form the cultural, educational and political institutions, the consumer markets, the technological, administrative and political talent pool, the infrastructure-building tax base, the creative and artistic mass necessary to have a leading role in the world.

But these so-called benefits invite important questions. According to the Globe, the 100-million target has supposedly been suggested in the past and it's a nice, round number. But why not use 300 million or 500 million as targets? They are also nice, round numbers, which would catapult Canada even more decisively into a leading role in the world.

The argument about loneliness is simply strange as Canada's universities, think tanks and cultural institutions are well connected to their counter-parts within the country and in the rest of the world through the use of the Internet and low-cost travel.

Importantly, the Globe is either wrong or mute on the economic issues on increased immigration. The suggestion that a larger population would lower the cost of serving a larger set of consumers ignores the fact that economies of scale are less important than in the past because they can be achieved in today's world of free trade and low transportation by serving global consumer markets. The claim that doubling immigration levels would increase total national income fails to take into account that it would also lower living standards as measured by average after tax incomes and that it would make the income distribution less equal and retard the growth of income per capita.

The average immigrant who arrived since 1985 imposes an annual fiscal burden on taxpayers of $6,000, a total of $25 billion annually when all recent immigrants are taken into account. This is the result of these immigrants having low average incomes and paying correspondingly low taxes while they are entitled to all the benefits offered by Canada's welfare state. There is no chance to find double the current number of immigrants with better or even the same economic prospects as recent immigrants. Therefore, the Globe's proposal would substantially increase the fiscal burden on Canadian taxpayers.

Doubling immigration levels would put downward pressure on wages, increase unemployment and the incidence of poverty. It would raise the return to capital and reduce income equality. Most important, the low wages would slow the growth in labour productivity by discouraging investment in labour saving capital and technology. The wealth from natural resources would have to be shared among a larger number of people.

Doubling immigration levels would not solve the labour and skills shortage and might even worsen it, as more immigrants would require housing, schools, hospitals, and many other infrastructure facilities. With current levels of immigration, 250 new housing units must be built every week to accommodate new immigrants in Greater Vancouver alone. The demand for professionals will also increase. For example, 4,500 additional physicians are needed for every million new immigrants. Nor would the doubling of immigrants solve the problem of unfunded liabilities of Canada's social programs simply because they quickly become beneficiaries of these programs.

Canadians need a rational and full discussion whether the costs and risks stemming from much higher immigration levels and population are worth the ideological benefits claimed by its advocates.

Author:
Herbert Grubel
Professor Emeritus of Economics, Simon Fraser University 

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Casey Peterson On Critical Race Theory

Sandia Labs - America's premiere government-funded nuclear weapons design lab, has taken aggressive action against an employee, Casey Peterson, who produced a viral video "pushing back on the narrative of modern systemic racism and white privilege."
Here's the long and short of it via Christopher Rufo - director of the Discovery Institute's Center on Wealth & Poverty, who has directed four documentaries for PBS, Netflix and international television - and has declared 'war' on critical race theory.

There is a civil war erupting at @SandiaLabs.

Following my investigation, a dissident electrical engineer named Casey Peterson emailed all 16,000 employees denouncing critical race theory in the lab and hoping to spark a rebellion against Sandia executives.

Here's the story.🧵

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) August 27, 2020

Rufo continues:
On Tuesday, Peterson made a YouTube video "pushing back back on the narrative of modern systemic racism and white privilege."
The video quickly hit 10,000 views within the labs and dozens of Sandia employees contacted Peterson to express support.
Within hours, Sandia executives dispatched a counterintelligence team to lock Peterson out of the network and scrub his communications from internal servers—which, via the Streisand Effect, made the video even more viral and sparked widespread unrest against Sandia executives.
By the afternoon, executives were panicking about the brewing rebellion, placed Peterson on paid administrative leave, and established a "security review board" to "evaluate whether [his] actions have comprised or posed a threat to Sandia computing and security systems."
Peterson—who took a stand at grave risk to his career—says he is speaking on behalf of all of Sandia employees who are "scared to speak out" because of the lab's repressive culture. "If I get fired because of this," Peterson says, "the fight does not end, it only intensifies."
This is the first explicit rebellion against critical race theory in the federal government—and the coalition is growing. "We need to completely rip [critical race theory] out of Sandia root and stem," Peterson says. "It is cancer and we need to get it out of the labs right now."
Sandia executives have made it clear: they want to force critical race theory, race-segregated trainings, and white male reeducation camps on their employees—and all dissent will be severely punished. Progressive employees will be rewarded; conservative employees will be purged.
Keep this in mind: Sandia Labs is a federally-funded research agency and designs America's nuclear weapons. Senator @HawleyMO and @SecBrouillette have launched an inspector general investigation, but Sandia executives have only accelerated their purge against conservatives.
Sandia executives face a decision-point: they can back down and Peterson's rebellion will notch an internal victory; or they can fire him and Peterson will become further evidence of Sandia's corrupt and repressive culture. In a sense, Peterson cannot lose.

According to multiple sources, the executives who have pushed the most toxic elements of critical race theory and race-segregated trainings are James Peerey, Dori Ellis, David White (he/him), and Mark Sellers. They must be investigated by the Inspector General. pic.twitter.com/Zrhqf9aclA

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) August 27, 2020

Here's the bottom line: this is the first shot in the rebellion against critical race theory in the federal government. Casey Peterson has taken a courageous stand and the Inspector General must conduct a full investigation of Sandia Labs—and hold executives accountable.

We are opening up a multi-front war against critical race theory in the federal government: (1) investigative reporting to expose the truth; (2) internal rebellions to increase the pressure; (3) inspector general investigations; (4) laying the groundwork for an executive order.

It might take time, there might be losses, but we will achieve victory! Swords up!⚔️ Prayers up! 🙏 pic.twitter.com/SYm4RmHJBp

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) August 27, 2020

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How Nations Collapse: Disunity

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

They may just opt out of the whole insane charade and stop paying the mountains of debt and stop trying to prop up the deranging pretense of middle-class snobbery.

Though many blame Donald Trump for dividing the nation, the nation was already disunited. Trump's election simply added day-glo paint to the lines that had long been hardening between disunited, disaffected camps.

As I've explained over the years, disunity is the systemic source of collapse-- not just of nations and empires but of enterprises and families. In other words, disunity is scale invariant: it breaks down marriages, family fortunes, partnerships, corporations, nations and empires with the same dynamics.
When challenges arise--and challenges always arise--the unified family, enterprise, nation or empire can make the shared sacrifices necessary to meet the crisis head-on, and not just survive, but as befits an anti-fragile system (as per Nassim Taleb's definition of anti-fragility), become stronger as a result of adapting to the crisis.

The family, enterprise, nation or empire fragmented by profound disunity is incapable of not just shared sacrifices but of a shared consensus on how to proceed against challenges such as famine, pandemic and economic depression.

It is the nature of human existence that shared sacrifice is the glue that binds disparate individuals and groups into a unified and thus powerful entity. In the early days of the Roman Republic and Empire, the wealthiest citizens were taxed heavily to raise the money needed to defend Rome or prosecute wars of conquest.

The patrician class served as officers in the army, and it was their duty to serve in the front lines, and in some cases (such as the horrendous defeat at Cannae) suffer higher combat death rates that common soldiers.

Profound disunity is characterized by the recognition that favored elites make no sacrifices, and this injustice consumes the binds of civil unity. The elites benefit the most from the system, piling up enormous fortunes and great political power, while the disempowered masses make the sacrifices on the battlefield and pay the taxes.

This disunity is not only political; it is social, economic and cultural as the elites' wealth soars in direct correlation to their unwillingness to make any sacrifices for the common good.

Grasping for power via philanthro-capitalist foundations is not a sacrifice; it's just a PR spin on the same old elitist accumulation of self-serving influence.

Though the mechanics are obscured by the financial games of central banks and financiers, the commoners understand that the nation's elites are parasitic and predatory, rigging the financial and political systems to benefit themselves at the expense of the nation and its citizenry.

Though it's convenient to divide America into two camps, anti-Trump and pro-Trump, these camps are each fragmented into disparate interests. There is no middle ground in the nation and none within the various warring camps.

As the Federal Reserve gooses the stock market to new heights, America's billionaires add hundreds of billions in additional wealth to their already obscene piles--piles largely untouched by taxes. In America, sacrifice has long been something demanded of the commoners: they fight the wars, they pay the taxes, they do the work and they sacrifice their health in jobs that only further enrich the few who reap all the gains while sacrificing nothing.

While America's spoiled, parasitic elites indulge in financial and sexual debauchery, fraud and embezzlement, the commoners grow weary of the widening divide in wealth, income, power, health and ethics. America's spoiled, parasitic elites are not just self-serving, greedy, and predatory; they're overconfident and hubris-soaked.

As for the commoners--they've been fragmented for decades into warring camps, fighting over social mores, political theater and all the frustrations of the powerless: embittered by the erosion of security and fairness and the indignities of slaving away for corporations that enrich the few while impoverishing the many, exhausted by the insecurities of chronic under-employment and the exploitations of the gig economy, the commoners may eventually find common cause in overthrowing their exploitive elites.

Or they may just opt out of the whole insane charade and stop paying the mountains of debt and stop trying to prop up the deranging pretense of middle-class snobbery in favor of an honest, low-cost mode of living that dispenses with servitude to self-serving, greedy elites and their corporate-plantation technocrat overlords.

Could America Have a French-Style Revolution? (July 14, 2020)

Asking this is like asking, could the Western Roman Empire fall? Yes, it could, yes it did. Based on the nation's multiple sources of profound disunity, collapse is only a matter of when, not if.

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PRAGER: Everything The Left Touches It Ruins. Now Add Science.

More than two years ago, I wrote a column titled “Whatever the Left Touches It Ruins.” I listed eight examples:

— The universities.
— The arts: music, art and architecture.
— Sports.
— Mainstream Judaism, Protestantism and Catholicism.
— Race relations.
— Women’s happiness.
— Children’s innocence.
— And, perhaps most disturbingly, America’s commitment to free speech.

One should now add the sciences.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the Left’s ruining of science. This had already begun with the Left’s attacks on “objectivity,” the most essential value in science — the very thing that makes science possible. The Left declares objectivity, which it now puts in quotation marks, a characteristic of white supremacy.

One example is that science departments in universities throughout America have declared their intention to hire physicists, biologists and other scientists based on gender and race, not scientific expertise. A few years ago, all five candidates on the shortlist of applicants to the physics department of the University of California at San Diego were females, “leading one male candidate with a specialty in extragalactic physics,” reported Heather Mac Donald, “to wonder why the school had even solicited applications from Asian and white men.”

Mac Donald updated her findings in a piece published this week: “The dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, pronounced himself ‘absolutely dedicated’ to turning the engineering school into an ‘anti-racist organization.'”

A recent example was the declaration by more than 1,000 doctors and other health care providers that despite all their previous warnings against public gatherings as health risks: “As public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings (mass protests against racism) as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health.”

Yet another example of leftism overwhelming medical science is the medical profession’s denial of the benefits of hydroxychloroquine and zinc in the early days of a COVID-19 infection. That physicians, including the Food and Drug Administration, would label a drug dangerous that has been used safely for more than half a century, and by many thousands (such as those with rheumatoid arthritis or lupus) every day for decades, is a medical and moral scandal. The medical profession has placed politics not only ahead of science but also ahead of saving lives. The medical profession, the FDA and the CDC have lost the faith of half of the American people and, over time, will lose the faith of the majority of Americans. It is difficult to envision the medical profession regaining its credibility in this generation.

One of the world’s most prestigious medical and scientific journals, The Lancet in the U.K., withdrew an article it had published that dismissed the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 patients. The article contained made-up data.

As The New York Times reported, Dr. Richard Horton, the editor in chief of The Lancet, called the paper retracted by his journal a “fabrication” and “a monumental fraud.”

The journal published the fraudulent study about the alleged dangers of hydroxychloroquine because of pressure from pharmaceutical companies, which have nothing to gain financially from widespread use of hydroxychloroquine, a cheap, generic drug, and because the journal loathes President Donald Trump, who, when the first reports of successful treatment with hydroxychloroquine surfaced, had announced use of the drug could save lives. Horton had labelled Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. funding of the World Health Organization “a crime against humanity” after the WHO’s politicization of the coronavirus, including behaving as a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party when it condemned Trump’s Jan. 31 ban on travel from China.

The number of Americans killed by the medical boards, the pharmaceutical boards, the FDA and the CDC for not allowing doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine in the early days following a patient’s diagnosis with COVID-19 and outside of a hospital setting, and the number killed by the doctors who could but would not prescribe hydroxychloroquine, is likely in the tens of thousands. On my radio show, Yale University epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch said, “Because we were blocked from using it (hydroxychloroquine) in the United States to the present point, probably at least 100,000 people have died.”

Based on the retracted study in The Lancet, The Washington Post headlined “Hydroxychloroquine Drug Promoted by Trump as Coronavirus ‘Game-Changer’ Increasingly Linked to Deaths.” And social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter immediately remove any citation of a scientist who promotes hydroxychloroquine.

A fourth example is the American Psychological Association, or the APA, choosing leftism over psychology in declaring, “40 years of research (show that) traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.”

The one good thing to come out of the APA’s pathologizing masculinity is that people searching for a competent psychotherapist for themselves or their child now have an easy method by which to identify the incompetent: Simply ask the prospective therapist if he or she agrees with the APA statement. If they do, or if they merely hesitate to distance themselves from it, you know you want another therapist.

Forthcoming columns will deal with more areas of life ruined by the Left, including, most troubling of all, America itself.

As seen in their treatment of the statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the Left can tear down, but it cannot build.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/prage...ow-add-science

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This Graph Changed My Life

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Edward Snowden: How Your Cell Phone Spies on You

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What They Don't Want You To See, Shadowgate

Looks like YT took it down, wonder why? (rolls eyes)
You can watch it here on bitchute

Millie Weaver from InfoWars was reportedly arrested at home in Ohio this weekend shortly after releasing a video documentary labeled “Shadowgate”.

The video is about a group of individuals and government contractors who are behind the Obamagate coup attempt of President Trump. These people really run the government.

According to one supporter who shared with us the video:

This is the Most Amazing investigative documentary I have ever seen. Produced by Millie Weaver an Independent / Info Wars journalist. Millie deserves a Pulitzer Prize, but instead was arrested Friday along with her husband on burglary charges and has been indicted by a grand jury seated in Ohio. There is more important information contained in this report than I have seen in all the years I have been following internet news.

The video is about the preservation of our Privacy, Liberty, and Freedom. The information contained needs to be made common knowledge before the election. Big Tech immediately censored the report.

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The Real Kamala Harris

EndOfTheAmericanDream.com reported on August 11, 2020:

by Michael Snyder
Could the White House soon be occupied by a power-hungry authoritarian that will not hesitate to use the full power of the presidency to absolutely crush political enemies?  And no, I am not talking about Joe Biden.  There are certainly a whole lot of negative things that you can say about Joe Biden, but I wouldn’t call him an “authoritarian”.  In part one of this series, I called him a “creepy old man that likes to sniff hair and rub up against people at awkward moments”, and at this point everyone can see that he is in an advanced state of decline.  In fact, one recent survey found that 59 percent of likely voters do not believe that he will even finish a single term in the White House…

In another illustration of how many Americans are concerned about Joe Biden’s advancing age and declining mental faculties, a new Rasmussen poll has found that 59 percent of likely voters don’t believe he’ll finish a 4 year term in the White House.
Broken down along party lines, 74 percent of Republicans believe Biden won’t make it through his first term while 49 percent of Democrats agree.

Of course that survey question assumed that Biden will make it to election day, and there is absolutely no guarantee that will actually happen considering how rapidly he is deteriorating.
In any event, it appears that Kamala Harris will take over for Biden at some point, and that should deeply alarm all of us.
There are some people that get into politics because they truly want to serve the American people, and there are others that get into politics for the fame and the power.  Tom Del Beccaro actually ran against Kamala Harris in California, and he assures us that she is squarely in the latter category…

For Harris, politics is a game of ambition not something of substance.
She is not a policy person. Her convictions aren’t with respect to the issues; they are with respect to power and the limelight.

And once she gets her hands on power, she is not afraid to abuse it.
During her time as attorney general of California, she ruthlessly went after pro-life activist David Daleiden.  You may remember that Daleiden had filmed numerous undercover videos in which Planned Parenthood employees admitted that they make huge profits from the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses, and that upset Harris so greatly that she sent a team of heavily armed agents to his home to seize all of his footage…

Daleiden, the founder of the pro-life Center for Medical Progress and a self-described citizen journalist, made headlines last summer with a series of “sting” videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood clinic employees discussing the illegal sale of tissue from aborted fetuses.
The videos prompted a congressional investigation and an attempt by GOP lawmakers to defund Planned Parenthood. The women’s health provider also sued the Center for Medical Progress, claiming the videos were deceptively edited.

Throughout her tenure, Harris seemed to think that the solution to just about any problem was to throw someone in jail.  In fact, at one point she even supported a bill which would have put “parents of truant children” in prison…

Harris was also fond of overcriminalization. She supported legislation that would jail the parents of truant children. She strongly opposed criminal justice reform measures throughout her tenure in California. She also supported the Golden State’s unconstitutional law muzzling crisis pregnancy centers, which the Supreme Court struck down last year as a clear violation of the First Amendment and an attempt to criminalize the moral and political viewpoints of others.

During the Democratic debates, Tulsi Gabbard used her record to attack Harris repeatedly.
In one very memorable moment, Gabbard pointed out that Harris put more than 1,500 people in prison for marijuana violations even though Harris basically admitted that she had used marijuana herself…

I want to bring the conversation back to the broken criminal justice system that is disproportionately negatively impacting black and brown people all across this country today. Now Senator Harris says she’s proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she’ll be a prosecutor president.
But I’m deeply concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.
She blocked evidence — she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California.

I don’t know about you, but that certainly does not sound like someone that I want in the White House.
And when she was running for president, Harris actually mocked Biden when he suggested that her plan to impose nationwide gun control via executive order would not be constitutional…

Last year, Senator Kamala Harris may have become the first presidential candidate in history to laugh derisively at the idea that the Constitution limits what a president can do.
When former Vice President Joe Biden said that her plan for gun control by executive fiat didn’t pass constitutional muster, she scoffed and deployed one of her canned one-liners, “I would just say, ‘Hey, Joe, instead of saying no we can’t, let’s say yes we can!’”

As bad as Hillary Clinton was, she never proposed using an executive order to institute a nationwide gun grab.
If Harris really does become president, I anticipate that there will actually be discussion in some red states about the possibility of declaring independence from the federal government.
Yes, I do think that things could really get that bad.
As our society continues to literally come apart at the seams, one of the last things that we need is a power-hungry authoritarian in the White House.
I don’t understand why Joe Biden would make such a choice, and if he wins in November we are going to be stuck with her.
Having Kamala Harris just one heartbeat away from the presidency is truly a nightmare scenario, because Joe Biden’s health would be the only thing standing in the way of a reign of terror unlike anything America has ever seen before.

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Scotland's Justice Minister Humza Yousaf wants to criminalize thoughts

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"Anti Semitism Is A Trick We Always Use"

FULL INTERVIEW: Shulamit Aloni shows how the Zionist lobby does not represent all Jews or Israelis. I would also add that the Zionist American government does not represent all Americans. 2002 from the @DemocracyNow archives.

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The Great Reset , What the Globalists Want For You

“The Great Reset” will be the theme of a unique twin summit to be convened by the World Economic Forum in January 2021. In-person and virtual dialogues will address the need for a more fair, sustainable and resilient future, and a new social contract centred on human dignity, social justice and where societal progress does not fall behind economic development. 

The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.

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Who Killed George Floyd?

In the death of George Floyd, the State of Minnesota has charged former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin with second-degree murder and former officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao with aiding and abetting that murder. But, as will be shown in detail below, the physical, scientific, and electronically recorded evidence in the case overwhelmingly and conclusively proves that these defendants are not guilty of the charges and, in fact, played no material role in bringing about Floyd’s death.

Instead, the evidence proves that, when he first encountered the police, George Floyd was well on his way to dying from a self-administered drug overdose. Moreover, far from publicly, brazenly, and against their own self-interest slowly and sadistically killing Floyd in broad daylight before civilian witnesses with video cameras, the evidence proves that the defendants exhibited concern for Floyd’s condition and twice called for emergency medical services to render aid to him. Strange behavior, indeed, for supposedly brutal law officers allegedly intent on causing him harm.

Similarly, the evidence recorded by the body cameras worn by the police conclusively establishes that Floyd repeatedly complained that he couldn’t breathe before the police restrained him on the ground. As documented by Floyd’s autopsy and toxicology reports, his breathing difficulty was caused not by a knee on his neck or pressure on his back, but by the fact that he had in his bloodstream over three times the potentially lethal limit of fentanyl, a powerful and dangerous pain medication known to shut down the respiratory system and cause coma and death. He also had in his system a lesser dose of methamphetamine, which can cause paranoia, respiratory distress, coma, and death.

Beyond those findings, his autopsy disclosed no physical injuries that could in any way account for his demise.

The transcript of the video footage from the camera worn by Officer Thomas Lane combined with the transcript of the video from Officer Alexander Kueng’s camera lay out on a second-by-second basis all that transpired in their presence from the time they arrived on the scene through Lane’s ambulance trip with Floyd to the hospital.

Upon their arrival, Lane and Kueng were told by a person identified as “Speaker 1” that a man in the “blue [Mercedes] Benz” parked in front of “Cup Foods” had passed “a fake [$20] bill.” As the officers approached the car, they observed concerning movements in the front seat by the person later identified as Floyd.

Lane drew his sidearm and ordered Floyd approximately seven times to show his hands. Once Floyd finally placed his hands on the steering wheel, Lane holstered his weapon. Nevertheless, Floyd continued to plead with Lane not to shoot him despite Lane’s repeated assurances that he was not going to shoot.

After he exited the car, Floyd was non-compliant and continued to resist and move about until he was handcuffed and seated on the sidewalk.

Lane and Kueng questioned Floyd and the other two occupants of the car concerning Floyd’s behavior and whether he might be under the influence of drugs.

As the officers tried to move Floyd to a police car, the following exchange occurred:

Lane to Floyd: What, are you on something right now?
Floyd: No, nothing.
Kueng: Because you are acting a little erratic. 
Lane: Let’s go. Let’s go.
Floyd: I’m scared, man.
Lane: Let’s go.
Kueng: You got foam around your mouth, too?
Floyd: Yes, I was just hooping earlier.
Lane: Let’s go.
Floyd: Man, all right let me calm down now. I’m feeling better now.
Lane: Keep walking.
Floyd: Can you do me one favor, man?
Lane: No, when we get to the car. Let’s get to the car, man, come on.
Kueng: Stop moving around.
Floyd: Oh man, God don’t leave me man. Please man, please man.
Lane to Kueng: Here. I want to watch that car [the blue Mercedes Benz] too, so just get him in [the police car].
Kueng to Floyd: Stand up, stop falling down! Stay on your feet and face the car door!
Floyd: I’m claustrophobic man, please man, please.

Later in the video transcripts are these exchanges:

Floyd: Please, man. Don’t leave me by myself man, I’m just claustrophobic, that’s it.
Lane: Well, you’re still going in the [police] car.
***
Kueng to Floyd: Why are you having trouble walking?
Floyd: Because officer [inaudible]
Lane: I’ll roll the windows down, okay?
***
Kueng to Floyd at the door to the squad car: Take a seat!
Floyd: Y’all I’m going to die in here! I’m going to die, man!
Kueng: You need to take a seat right now!
Floyd: And I just had COVID man, I don’t want to go back to that.
Lane: Okay, I’ll roll the windows down. Hey, listen!
Floyd: Dang, man.
Lane: Listen!
Floyd: I’m not that kind of guy.
Lane: I’ll roll the windows down if you put your legs in [the squad car] all right? I’ll put the air on.
***
Speaker 9 [civilian] to Floyd: Quit resisting bro.
Floyd: I don’t want to win. I’m claustrophobic, and I got anxiety, I don’t want to do nothing to them!
Lane: I’ll roll the window down.
Floyd: I’m scared as fuck man.
Speaker 9: That’s okay [inaudible]
Floyd: [inaudible] when I start breathing it’s going to go off on me, man.
Lane: Pull your legs in.
Floyd: Okay, okay, let me count to three and then I’m going in please.
Speaker 9: You can’t win!

As the officers continued their efforts to get Floyd into the police car, he continued to resist and repeatedly insisted that he was “claustrophobic.” Floyd hit his head on the car’s window and suffered a minor cut. Consequently, the police placed a “Code 2” call for Emergency Medical Services to tend to the wound.

And then, after Kueng told him once again to “take a seat” in the squad car, Floyd announced, “I can’t choke, I can’t breathe Mr. Officer! Please! Please!”

And then, this was said:

Floyd: I want to lay on the ground. I want to lay on the ground. I want to lay on the ground!
Lane: You’re getting in the squad [car].
Floyd: I want to lay on the ground! I’m going down, I’m going down, I’m going down.
Kueng: Take a squat (sic).
Floyd: I’m going down.
Speaker 9: Bro, you about to have a heart attack and shit man, get in the car!
Floyd: I know I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. [crosstalk]
Lane: Get him on the ground.
Floyd: Let go of me man, I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
Lane: Take a seat.
Floyd: Please man listen to me.
Officer Chauvin: Is he going to jail?
Floyd: Please listen to me.
Kueng: He’s under arrest right now for forgery. [inaudible] what’s going on.
Floyd: Forgery for what? For what?
Lane: Let’s take him out [of the squad car] and just MRT [Maximal Restraint Technique by which a suspect’s feet are “hobbled” to his waist].
Floyd: I can’t fucking breathe man. I can’t fucking breathe.
Kueng: Here. Come on out [of the squad car]!
Floyd: [inaudible] Thank you. Thank you.
Officer Thao: Just lay him on the ground.

Let’s hit the pause button and consider the evidence so far. Floyd was incoherent, acting erratically, non-compliant, and foaming at the mouth. He was having trouble walking and standing up. He wanted to lie on the ground. But, while still upright, he complained three times that he was “claustrophobic,” seven times that he “can’t breathe,” and twice that he was “going to die.” And Speaker 9 exclaimed that Floyd looked like he was about to have a “heart attack.”

All of this happened before he was on the ground and immobilized by the police. Nevertheless, as he continued to resist and behave irrationally, his condition deteriorated and his complaints of being unable to breathe increased in frequency even though no one was applying force of any kind to his neck or compressing his back or chest.

After Floyd was on the ground, he continued to move about and say that he couldn’t breathe. Lane was near Floyd’s feet, Kueng at the middle of Floyd’s body, and Chauvin at his back and head with his knee on Floyd’s neck.

Thao: Is he high on something?
Kueng: I’m assuming so, we found a pipe.
Lane: He wouldn’t get out of the car. He wasn’t following instructions. [crosstalk] …
Floyd: Please, I can’t breathe. Please man. Please man!
Thao: Do you have EMS [Emergency Medical Services] coming code 3?
Lane: Ah code 2, we can probably step it up then. You got it? [crosstalk]
Floyd: Please, man!
Thao: Relax!
Floyd: I can’t breathe.
Kueng: You’re fine, you’re talking fine.
Lane: Your talken (sic), Deep breath.
Floyd: I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Ah! I’ll probably just die this way.
Thao: Relax.
Floyd: I can’t breathe my face.
Lane: He’s got to be on something.
Thao: What are you on?
Floyd: I can’t breathe. Please, [inaudible] I can’t breathe. Shit.
Speaker 9: Well get up and get in the car, man. Get up and get in the car.
Floyd: I will. I can’t move.
Speaker 9: Let him get in the car.
Lane: We found a weed pipe on him, there might be something else, there might be like PCP or something. Is that shaking of the eyes right is PCP?
Floyd: My knees, my neck.
Lane: Where their eyes like shake back and forth really fast?
Floyd: I’m through, I’m through. I’m claustrophobic. My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Everything hurts. I need some water or something, please. Please? I can’t breathe officer.
Chauvin: Then stop talking, stop yelling.
Floyd: You’re going to kill me, man.
Chauvin: Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.
Floyd: Come on, man. Oh, oh. [crosstalk] I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. Ah! They’ll kill me. They’ll kill me. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Oh!
Speaker 8: We tried that for 10 minutes.
Floyd: Ah! Ah! Please. Please. Please.
Lane: Should we roll him on his side?
Chauvin: No, he’s staying put where we got him.
Lane: Okay. I just worry about the excited delirium or whatever.
Chauvin: That’s why we got the ambulance coming.

As Floyd continued to shout that he couldn’t breathe and called for his mother, a radio transmission was recorded saying that the ambulance was approximately four blocks away. When it arrived, Lane got in the ambulance and helped to give Floyd CPR on the way to the hospital.

Before we discuss further what happened at the scene, let’s take a look at Floyd’s 20-page autopsy and toxicology report.

The autopsy report by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office is titled “CARDIOPULMONARY ARREST COMPLICATING LAW ENFORCEMENT SUBDUAL, RESTRAINT, AND NECK COMPRESSION.” Strangely enough, the report, which thoroughly sets forth in detail all physical and toxicological findings, makes no other mention of the purported cause of death. In fact, the first iteration of the report didn’t even mention “law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression,” and the criminal complaint filed by prosecutors stated that the autopsy “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”

Moreover, prior to issuing the autopsy report, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner preliminarily found that the “autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.”  (Emphasis added.)

These preliminary findings by the Medical Examiner were incorporated in the Statement of Probable Cause attached to the arrest warrant for Officer Chauvin, which was filed on May 29, 2020. This date is significant because, as you will see, neither the Medical Examiner nor the prosecutors had yet received Floyd’s toxicology report. That report was issued by NMS Labs of Horsham, Pennsylvania, on May 31, 2020.

In short, Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder (later raised to second-degree murder by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison) without the benefit of a complete and competent investigation of all the relevant facts and circumstances of Floyd’s death.

Apparently dissatisfied with the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s findings, the Floyd’s family attorney had a re-autopsy performed by Dr. Michael Baden*, the former Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, and Dr. Allecia Wilson of the University of Michigan.

In announcing the re-autopsy findings, Dr. Wilson stated that she and Dr. Baden “have seen accounts from the complaint and based on that, yes our findings do differ [from those of the Hennepin County Medical Examiner]. Some of the information that I read from that complaint states that there was no evidence of traumatic asphyxia. This is the point in which we do disagree. There is evidence in this case of mechanical or traumatic asphyxia.”

However, Dr. Wilson conceded that they did not have access to toxicology results, tissue samples, or some organs, but added that those items “are not likely to change” the results of the re-autopsy.
The re-autopsy concluded that, even without physical evidence of traumatic asphyxia, such as broken bones in the neck, the compression on Floyd’s neck and chest still caused his death by depriving his brain of blood and oxygen and his lungs of air. Dr. Baden stated that the pressure was not visibly supported by autopsy because the pressure applied by the police had been released by the time the body was examined. Noting that “the video is real,” Dr. Baden added that the abrasions on the left side of Floyd’s face and shoulder showed how hard police had pressed him against the pavement. Dr. Wilson also referenced this “physical evidence that there was pressure applied to his [Floyd’s] neck.”
After Drs. Baden and Wilson concluded that Floyd’s death was “a homicide due to the way he was being subdued,” the Hennepin County Medical Examiner then amended his report to include the reference to “complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”

With all due respect to Drs. Baden and Wilson, however, they rendered their opinion as to the cause of death without, by their own admission, having considered the results of Floyd’s toxicology screen.

If they had, they would have seen that, at the time of death, Floyd was under the influence of a lethal overdose of fentanyl, which, according to the toxicology report, is a rapid-acting synthetic morphine substitute “reported to be 80 to 200 times as potent as morphine,” as well as a lesser dose of methamphetamine, which can also cause convulsions, circulatory collapse, coma, and death.

But before we get to the details of Floyd’s tox screen, let’s consider the following autopsy findings by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner:

No life-threatening injuries identified

1. No facial, oral, mucosal, or conjunctival petechiae
2. No injuries of anterior muscles of neck or laryngeal structures
3. No scalp soft tissue, skull or brain injuries
4. No chest wall soft tissue injuries, rib fractures (other than a single rib fracture from CPR), vertebral column in juries, or visceral injuries
5. Incision and subcutaneous dissection of posterior and lateral neck, shoulders, back, flanks, and buttocks negative for occult trauma.

Some commentators have attached great importance to the finding of no “facial, oral or conjunctival petechiae,” which are small red or purple hemorrhages that can result from asphyxiation such as would occur if pressure was applied to block the flow of blood to the brain. However, while these petechiae can result when that happens, their absence does not necessarily prove that no such compression occurred.

Instead, the more pertinent question is whether Chauvin’s kneeling on one side of Floyd’s neck cut off the blood flow through both carotid arteries to his brain. The carotids are located on each side of the neck, and people can live with only one functioning carotid artery. This raises the question as to whether Chauvin’s direct application of pressure to only one side of Floyd’s neck cut off the carotid artery on the other side of his neck.

Moreover, in regard to Chauvin’s possible criminal intent or purported desire to harm Floyd, Minnesota police are trained to use a “neck restraint” technique, which is defined in the official training literature as “compressing one or both sides of a person’s neck with an arm or leg, without applying direct pressure to the trachea or airway (front of the neck).” The video of Chauvin kneeling on the side of Floyd’s neck appears in all respects to be a textbook application of this officially approved technique. Put another way, by the training that they had received, the police defendants would have no reason to believe that Chauvin’s kneeling on Floyd’s neck was either causing serious harm or anything other than the approved standard operating procedure.

We know from the video transcripts that Floyd, in addition to complaining about being unable to breathe while he was still upright, repeated that complaint for a matter of minutes while he was on the ground and being restrained by police. But Floyd remained conscious and complaining for several minutes. How can that be if Chauvin’s knee had cut off the flow of blood to Floyd’s brain? If the police had cut off the flow of blood and oxygen to Floyd’s brain, he would have lost consciousness within seconds, not minutes. (See Nichols, Larry, Law Enforcement Patrol Operations: Police Systems and Practices, McCutcheon Publishing Company, 1995.)

So why couldn’t Floyd breathe, and how did he die? The clear answers to those questions are to be found in his toxicology report, which overwhelmingly and unerringly supports the conclusion that Floyd’s breathing difficulties and death were the direct and undeniable result of his ingestion of fentanyl mixed with methamphetamine.

When Floyd arrived at the hospital, his blood was drawn. According to the toxicology report, postmortem testing of that blood established the presence of, among other drugs, “Fentanyl 11 ng/mL” (nanograms per milliter). In that regard, tucked away in the report’s “Reference Comments” is this: “Signs associated with fentanyl toxicity include severe respiratory depression, seizures, hypotension, coma and death. In fatalities from fentanyl, blood concentrations are variable and have been reported as low as 3 ng/mL.”

Got that? According to the toxicology report, which is central to the prosecution’s case, at 11 ng/mL, Floyd had over three times the potentially lethal 3 ng/mL dose of fentanyl in his bloodstream when he arrived unresponsive at the hospital.

Similarly, the toxicology report also disclosed the presence of methamphetamine, which it states is “capable of causing hallucinations, aggressive behavior and irrational reactions” as well as “restlessness, confusion, hallucinations, circulatory collapse and convulsions.”

Defense counsel should blow up those sections of the toxicology report to Mount Rushmore–size proportions, hang them on the courtroom wall, and read them every five minutes to the jury. They more than explain Floyd’s bizarre behavior, inability to stand, difficulty walking, and complaints about being unable to breathe while sitting, standing, and lying on the ground.

Moreover, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among the most common characteristics of a fentanyl overdose is “foaming at the mouth … and confusion or strange behavior before the person became unresponsive” (emphasis added). In short, Floyd’s foaming at the mouth, incoherence, physical incapacity, non-compliant behavior, breathing difficulty, and rapid downward spiral into unconsciousness and death are fully explained by the toxicological evidence that he had ingested a massively lethal overdose of fentanyl mixed with a smaller dose of similarly dangerous and debilitating methamphetamine. In other words, by the time he first encountered the police, Floyd had already rendered himself a dead man walking and was only minutes away from expiring.

So, who killed George Floyd? He did.

The only crime here has been the prosecution’s shockingly incompetent investigation of Floyd’s death. In charging and continuing to prosecute these defendants, Minnesota’s attorney general has failed to take into account the most important and material evidence in the case, i.e., the fact that Floyd’s inability to breathe started while he was still upright and mobile and the scientific proof that his death was the direct and inescapable result of a massively fatal overdose of a powerful and dangerous drug known to cause, in the words of the toxicology report, “severe respiratory depression, seizures, hypotension, coma and death.”

The proof of the defendants’ innocence is undeniable. But given the violence and rioting that has followed in the wake of Floyd’s death, will it be possible for these defendants to receive justice? In other words, will there be a judge or jury with enough integrity and courage to defy the mob and, in recognition of the clear and overwhelming exculpatory evidence, set these wrongfully accused men free.
________
* In the interests of full disclosure, I have known Dr. Baden for over 40 years. He has testified as an expert on behalf of my clients in a number of cases and is a person of great integrity, skill, charm, and learning.
George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. From 1978 to 1983 he was the Chief of the Police Brutality/Misconduct Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, which investigated and prosecuted use of deadly force by police. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net

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America, COVID-19, Dr. Fauci, China, Politicians and the Left Wing Media

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The White Slave Trade of Africa

In this episode we look at the white slave trade in Africa, where Barbary Pirates kidnapped Europeans and sold them into slavery, attacking shipping as well as infiltrating coastal villages and islands. The episode looks at the extent this problem had on Europe and America between the 16th-19th Century.

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Understanding Denmark's Growing Anti-Immigration Stance

Denmark's Identity Crisis: Denmark has long had a reputation for welcoming migrants and protecting its minorities. But these days there are fractures in this once cohesive society. “What is Danish?” asks comedian Ellie Jokar. Born in Iran, now a Dane, Ellie struggles to understand why her once friendly country has pulled up the welcome mat. Hamish Macdonald explores a nation having an identity crisis.
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Bodycam Footage Of George Floyd Arrest Leaked

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The New York Times Hits a Milestone

Three days without publishing an op-ed that caused a minor earthquake on social media.  

Just kidding, it’s even more monumental than that: For the first time in the paper’s history, the NYT’s digital revenue ($189 million) exceeded print revenue ($175 million) last quarter.

Probably should stop calling it “the paper”

The NYT added 669,000 digital subscribers in Q2, its best quarter for subscription growth ever. It now has 6.5 million total subscriptions across print and digital, with the goal of hitting 10 million by 2025. 

Bezos would be proud: The Times is ruthlessly crushing its peers. 

• Those 669k new subscribers is more than the combined paid online readership of the Boston Globe and the LA Times, per the FT.
• And the beatdown is happening on local news’s home turf. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, the NYT has “more digital subscribers in Dallas-Fort Worth than the Dallas Morning News, more digital subscribers in Seattle than the Seattle Times, more digital subscribers in California than the LA Times or the San Francisco Chronicle.”

How does that happen?

The vast majority of news subscribers only pay for one (1) online subscription, concludes the Reuters Institute, and in the U.S., that’s increasingly the Times.

The company’s been able to attract readers through a variety of strategic investments—in high-quality journalism/talent, games and lifestyle offerings, and multimedia products such as podcasts.

• Take “The Daily,” the NYT’s weekday morning podcast, for example. On the earnings call yesterday, incoming CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said host Michael Barbaro’s luscious voice greets an audience that’s “vastly larger” than the daily or Sunday paper. It gets more than 3.5 million listeners each day. 

Zoom out: The NYT may be king of the news hill, but the view isn’t all that great. The pandemic has walloped advertising revenue across the media industry, and the Times felt it—ad revenue slid 44% and revenue on the whole declined 7.5%.

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Why Your Kid is a Communist

CanadaFreePress.com reported on August 3, 2020:

    by Ray DiLorenzo

    No, I am not saying that every parent’s child is a communist. What I am saying is that there are enough young people out there with either an affinity or a sympathy for the communist system to make us all very concerned. The polls show it, the rioting proves it.

    According to a 2019 Gallup poll, 51% of adults, 18 to 29 view socialism positively, while 49% view capitalism positively.

    Parents, especially of strong Christian faith, can hardly believe what comes out of the mouths of their children. College-age young adults go into university as bright eyed, eager-to-learn fledglings and come out bitter, angry, under achievers.
    Why so much of our youth has turned to Communism/Socialism

    Why so much of our youth has turned to Communism/Socialism is a story of the last 100 years. Please, don’t give me that Democratic-Socialist drivel. It’s just another Leftist slogan to misdirect.

    A group of Marxist intellectuals in the 1920s got together in Germany with the purpose of spreading the Russian Communist Revolution in the West, especially in America. This group of Marxists founded the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt to study ways and methods to spread communism. It became known as the Frankfurt School.

    At the same time, Hitler was running roughshod over Germany with his fascism, much of it copied from Mussolini in Italy. Although fascism and communism are kissing cousins, each had a different scapegoat. Communism used class, fascism used race. In any case, Hitler wasn’t going to have it. He wanted no competition.

    By 1933, Hitler had those who were involved in the Frankfurt School deported. They found a welcome home at Columbia University in New York City. They realized early on that what worked in Russia was not going to be accepted in the West, certainly in the United States, because of its strong Judeo-Christian roots and its vast middle-class…the group of people who were not rich, but definitely not poor. The middle-class had little reason to revolt. They had cars, homes with white picket fences, and were clinging to their guns and religion.

    These subversives decided, brilliantly, that breaking down the culture was needed for the populous to accept communism. It included breaking down the Christian foundation, destroying the family structure, feminism, sex education, promoting atheism, hedonism, free sex, abortion, homosexuality, mass migration, globalism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, you name it. They advanced anything that would destroy the traditional family, culture and our moral foundation. Their goal was to set people free to drift, leaving generations of people with no anchor with which to tie on to accept the promise of a collectivist utopia.

    It spread to every major university, junior college, high school, middle school, elementary school, and in many cases, preschool. There is an Institute for Social Research in almost every major university in the United States. Their teaching has been disguised in subjects like Critical Theory, a tool to demonize Christianity, capitalism, and Western civilization. Every student in almost every school today is being exposed to this trash, and in a positive light. Considering the basement level of morality now taught in our schools, Hollywood, and in many modern homes, it is no wonder so many of the young are breaking windows, shooting cops, destroying private property, knocking down statues of people their teachers taught them to hate and some they don’t even know.
    The education system in America today has the stench of almost 100 years of indoctrination akin to re-education camps in communist filth

    The education system in America today has the stench of almost 100 years of indoctrination akin to re-education camps in communist filth. Several generations lost to ignorance and degradation. Disneyland has LGBTQ Day, teachers are being fired or subject to a Reign Of Terror for being conservative, resisting the new morality, the new normal. Students are punished academically and socially for not joining in the sedition. Many libraries and even some U.S. embassies fly the homosexual flag. Most students are not taught anything close to the American history we were taught. And when they are taught our history, it is in a negative context.

    Those political leaders whose lust for power has overruled their desire for public service has now taken over a major part of our political and judicial system, and almost an entire political party. These are the 60s terrorists and their children, and students. They watch quietly with approval as people are murdered and cities are torn apart as they scheme how to use the crisis to their advantage. Only mere pockets of sanity are left. Meanwhile the people in the media, Hollywood, and the Deep State, having attended the same miserable schools, equally indoctrinated, give their blessing. And all the while the church in America says and does what it has done for generations…nothing.

    There may not have been a communist behind every bush like Joe McCarthy had us believe, but take a look now. Old Joe was right after all.
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Mainstream Media TV Veteran Admits "We Are A Cancer And There Is No Cure"

MSNBC producer quits, citing corporate media’s war on “diversity of thought.”

MSNBC producer Ariana Pekary explained that the reason for her deciding to quit her job was that the mainstream media blocks “diversity of thought” in favor of promoting hysterical voices for ratings and that a TV veteran admitted to her “we are a cancer and there is no cure.”

Pekary, who was an “integral member” of Lawrence O’Donnell’s primetime show, says that the media’s obsession with Trump is actually costing lives because it is preventing reasoned discussions about how to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

“This cancer risks human lives, even in the middle of a pandemic. The primary focus quickly became what Donald Trump was doing (poorly) to address the crisis, rather than the science itself. As new details have become available about antibodies, a vaccine, or how COVID actually spreads, producers still want to focus on the politics. Important facts or studies get buried,” Pekary explained.

The former producer also revealed that a “successful and insightful TV veteran” acknowledged to her that, “We are a cancer and there is no cure,” adding, “But if you could find a cure, it would change the world.”

Pekary also highlighted how the very model by which the corporate press is structured guarantees that voices of dissent are silenced in favor of hysterical political extremists, something that has come to fore over the last two months with the media’s relentless promotion of Black Lives Matter narratives.

“The model blocks diversity of thought and content because the networks have incentive to amplify fringe voices and events, at the expense of others… all because it pumps up the ratings,” she wrote.

Pekary’s resignation follows that of former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss, who said she was smeared by her own colleagues as a racist and a Nazi for daring to engage in “wrongthink” by not echoing fringe social justice rhetoric.
https://summit.news/2020/08/04/media-tv-veteran-admits-we-are-a-cancer-and-there-is-no-cure/
 
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