By Keith R. Jackson

In medicine, we are constantly balancing risk and reward.  Nearly all medicines and many therapeutic treatments involve risk to the patient we hope to help.  It’s time we use this same intellectual exercise to create a reasonable inquiry into the risks we took when responding to COVID-19 and balance it against the reward.  If nothing else is accomplished, a better plan for future societal responses can be formulated.  And if we recognize and remedy our failures in time, maybe we’ll still have a recognizable United States of America.

We have the benefit of hindsight, so we can look at the results objectively.  The reward?  Although we’ve lost well over 500,000 American lives to COVID-19, it could have been far worse.  Even though the number is in question (as there were economically rewarding incentives to list COVID-19 as a cause of death when it could have had little to do with a person’s demise), it is still a frightening and increasing number.

But our methods to mitigate COVID-19 come at a terrible societal cost.  People will die from the fallout from the governmental response.  Meanwhile, politicians and the media are transparently manipulating “the science,” justifying bad and ineffective policies to erode the whole idea of the United States of America, ignoring the toll their decisions have wrought.  They ignore real science, studies replicated over years, that easily prove that the COVID-19 response they chose to follow will kill far more people than it saves.

On top of that, the consequences of the world’s response have resulted in what will be millions of deaths worldwide, far outweighing mortality from the virus itself.  Even knowing this, even when we are aware that the cure is worse than the disease, we remain compliant in the middle of a fear-stoked roar from complicit mainstream media and politicians, doubling down on bad policy and poorly substantiated recommendations.

Studies are accumulating estimations of potential deaths from the consequences of the lockdowns, school closings, and business closures.  A recent Bureau of Economic Research study suggests that just the “unemployment shock” in America will lead to a 3% increase in mortality projected out over the next 15 years.  This translates to roughly 890,000 additional deaths.

Scores of health issues that have been undiagnosed, untreated, and made worse by the isolation, depression, obesity, and substance abuse associated with the pandemic will pile up bodies in the next months to years.  As an example, preventable deaths from missed breast and colorectal cancer diagnoses this past year are estimated at 10,000.  Deaths of despair, suicide and drug abuse, are predicted by the mental health resource PSYCOM to be increasing by 75,000 this year.  This includes a 30% increase in suicide in the military since COVID-19.  

BIS Bulletin describes a nexus between recessions and mortality, with an increase in mortality rates by a third versus non-recession periods.  It is exaggerated in poorer countries.  Similarly, child mortality rises to 110 per a thousand compared to 78 in regular times.  It is an established fact that there is increased mortality of those living in poverty, and nothing ensures poverty more than inadequate education.  Remote schooling is sure to prove ineffective.  Again, this will disproportionately hurt the poor, and it will be the gift that keeps on giving for years to come.

There were economic good times prior to the virus.  The truth is that this recession was a predictable consequence of our response.  It was a choice made because the CDC, whose original purpose was to help us in our fight against viral pandemics, believed that this was the long feared virus that would prompt “DEFCON 4.”  It is well known that lockdowns lead to a sharp decline in economic activity.  The CDC is aware of the potential increase in mortality caused by recessions and lockdowns.  Yet it chose to push this response. 

Worldwide shutdowns inspired by our CDC and other countries’ health organizations are estimated by economists at the IMF to have caused a 9-trillion-dollar cumulative loss of global GDP.  The probable deaths from starvation arising from the agricultural consequences of COVID-19 alone will number in the millions.  Again, this will be affecting the poorest countries disproportionately.

Apparently, the optics of standing by and allowing the virus to succumb to herd immunity, something that would undoubtedly have been horrifically portrayed, given the media of today, was too much when held up against the predictably greater loss of life caused by the response.  Why else would the CDC chose this path?  It did it because those running it knew that the media would hide or obfuscate the costs of the response.  They did it because the deeply entrenched bureaucrats within the department hated their president and worried about his re-election.

The most shocking result of the COVID-19 response is the ease with which United States citizens gave up their freedoms.  Americans just said “sure!” when the government arbitrarily took away our ability to run our businesses, attend church and school, and move freely.  Even when the rules and regulations were shown to be more destructive than beneficial, they acquiesced.  Even when the media bias was glaringly apparent, Big Tech was found to be using the pandemic to extend their power, and science was nakedly politicized, they bent over and took it.  They said “OK” when mainstream media, Big Tech, and college campuses used cancel culture to silence critics.

Most disturbingly, they suspended their need for truth.  They chose not to interfere with the narratives being pushed by government, media, tech, and academia, despite the ever more obvious lies.

A lie told a thousand times becomes the truth, or so we were warned by Joseph Goebbels, the famed Nazi.  So, we give up what it means to be an American to go along with the lies.  We give up our desire to use our own free will and be responsible for our choices.  And we give up our rights as Americans and obey a federal government that is following an unconstitutional agenda.

Following our politicians into a future with no “Land of the Free” will be incalculably destructive to the world.  Having no promise of American ideals for the world to aspire will have untold costs.  We are suspending respect for truth for a promise of safety, watching our country disappear.  A world without the USA will be unsafe, unpredictable, and devoid of dreams of freedom.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/the_covid19_response_is_killing_more_than_it_saves.html

After six years, it’s over. “Sternstunde Religion” presenter and scholar of Islam Amira Hafner-Al Jabaji (50) is leaving Swiss public broadcaster SRF – at her own request. The station announced this today.

In the future, Hafner-Al Jabaji wants to realise more of her own interreligious activities. She had not only made friends with this recently. In February, she attacked the critic of Islam Saïda Keller-Messahli Fathima Ifthikar after the broadcast of the “Arena” on the burka ban.

The latter she said was like an out-of-control bulldozer that flattened everything that stood in its way in terms of argument. In her blog, the SRF woman wrote: “She is not a moderate. That much is clear. She has left the argumentative path and has become increasingly radicalised in recent years.”

Hafner-Al Jabaji also lashed out at her employer SRF. Keller-Messahli is an “extremist Muslim” who, because of SRF and other media, is allowed to spread her “hate speech” and her “poison against democracy” again and again.

In this way, the media encouraged “one-sided opinion-making” and compartmentalisation, “which in turn can lead to radicalisation processes”.

Controversial: According to the newspaper “NZZ”, the “Sternstunde” woman is president of the interreligious think tank she co-founded in 2008, which campaigned against the burqa ban campaign.

As an SRF employee, she would have to keep herself detached and maintain silence about her political views. Hafner-Al Jabaji, however, attracted attention several times by doing the opposite.

The Association of Islamic Organisations in Zurich (VIOZ) advertised events with Hafner-Al Jabaji. She appeared under the name “SRF journalist” at events such as the “Ummah Day” co-organised by the VIOZ.

This is not without risk. According to the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, “VIOZ” is influenced by the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

Hafner even called on her SRF colleagues in her blog posting to consider “the Muslim associations” in future and to stop inviting Saïda Keller-Messahli, who is ostracised in those groups.

The latter then complained to the UBI (Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television). But Hafner’s dismissal had nothing to do with this, SRF declared on Tuesday afternoon.

Hafner-Al Jabaji now says of her time at SRF: “It was a privilege to be allowed to present ‘Sternstunde Religion’.

https://www.nau.ch/people/aus-der-schweiz/sternstunde-religion-moderatorin-verlasst-srf-nach-islam-zoff-65901275AuthorfredalanmedforthPosted onApril 6, 2021Edit”Swiss TV presenter insults the chairwoman of the Association for a Progressive Islam and opponent of the Burka as an “extremist Muslim””

It was a case that shocked the entire country: An Egyptian (47), who could not get over the break-up with his ex-flame, became a firebug and took brutal revenge on the tobacconist (35). After the cowardly arson attack, Nadine W. had to struggle agonisingly with death for over a month. In the end, she finally died: the burns all over her body were too severe.

Already the relationship with Ashraf A. must have had more of a nightmare than the fairy tale from the Arabian Nights that the once fun-loving woman must have believed in when she met the Egyptian. For he soon showed his true colours and became more and more jealous. A year and a half ago, he even bugged her shop because he wanted to know who she was talking to and about what. Again and again they broke up, but she could not break away for a long time. But the longed-for improvement never came. When it was finally over, he attacked her!

“I wanted to teach her a lesson” – with these inconceivable words A. coldly tried to justify the arson attack. So late in the morning of March the 5th he went to the tobacconist’s in the Alsergrund district of Vienna. So that no one from outside could see him putting his terrible plan into practice, he pulled the blinds shut. As soon as the room was completely opaque, he didn’t hesitate, but brutally punched Nadine W. in the face.

The woman went down on the spot, but the suspect did not let go of her. For minutes he tried to strangle her, when she was desperately gasping for air, he had no mercy. He pressed harder and harder – until he thought she was dead. But she was still moving. He then doused her with petrol, choked her again and simply set his ex-girlfriend on fire!

As soon as he had done the cruel work, he calmly made off. He left the shop and even locked it. For the burning woman, however, the martyrdom was just beginning. The fact that she did not immediately burn alive was due to the fact that attentive passers-by managed to overcome their shock and had the presence of mind to smash the glass door with a shopping trolley. This gave Nadine W. at least a tiny chance of not dying immediately in the hell of fire…

The tobacconist rushed out of the interior into the open. Screaming in agony, she desperately tried to keep herself standing. Soon she stumbled and collapsed in front of her shop, severely injured due to the unbelievable pain. Nadine W. was still burning brightly! A paramedic who happened to be nearby rushed over and then smothered the flames with blankets.

She was immediately taken to hospital – where her condition initially stabilised. This means that the immediate danger to her life was over – but not the pain. It was already clear after the attack that the return to a normal life, if at all possible, would be long and difficult. But the sympathy of the citizens was great when her family started a fundraising campaign. More than 46,000 euros were collected for the victim.

Now there is sad certainty: Nadine W. can no longer take this difficult path back. The burns all over her body were too fatal. After four weeks of unbelievable agony, she died as a result of the cowardly and brutal arson attack. The suspicion against her Egyptian ex-boyfriend thus intensifies to murder. He now faces a life sentence for the disgusting act. In view of the brutality – a surveillance video filmed the atrocity.

Unfortunately, such attacks are not an isolated incident. In recent years, there have been repeated fatal attacks on women in our country. Regularly, the insulted pride of the spurned men is mixed with problematic moral concepts, which the perpetrators are sometimes imparted from their own culture. All too often this is a dangerous cocktail, the result of which is an attack that leads to permanent disfigurement or even death.

In this respect, a case that happened in Steyr at the end of 2018 is unforgettable. At that time, Saber A. (17) from Afghanistan stabbed his girlfriend Michelle F. (16) to death in her children’s room. At that time, too, audio recordings suggested that the teenager wanted to break up with the migrant. He then stabbed her – and commented on his crime afterwards with the words: “I made a murder.” Subsequently, political demands for a change in asylum and migration law arose.

https://www.wochenblick.at/grausaum-eifersuechtiger-ex-uebergoss-trafikantin-mit-benzin-und-zuendete-sie-an-jetzt-ist-sie-tot/

Every year, the Swedish National Center for Terrorist Threat Assessment (NCT), a government agency, releases a report assessing threats from extremist groups of various kinds. What is new this year is that right-wing parties and alternative media outlets have been labeled as terrorist threats nearly on the same level as radical Muslim groups.

The NCT was able to make these additions after it broadened the definition of right-wing extremism, which, according to the government, now also includes a number of media outlets and the populist Sweden Democrats, a party well-known for its opposition to mass immigration.

As Samnytt reports, for several years now, there has been an increased risk of a terrorist threat in Sweden. The assessment has been mainly pointing out the growing threat of radical Islam linked to the government’s open immigration policy. In the shadow of that threat, the government also fears that violent autonomous left-wing and right-wing extremist groups will be capable of committing terrorist acts as well.

In this year’s report, radical Islam is still highlighted as the most dangerous and threatening ideology. At the same time, the NCT raises the right-wing extremism threat to almost the same level as the Islamist one, and it also states that it believes that the threat from that direction may increase this year.

In its latest outlook, Säpo, which is part of NCT, expands the definition of “threatening right-wing extremism” to also include groups and people not in favor of violence. Despite their focus on peace, these groups have still been listed as potential terrorist threats. 

The revised approach to right-wing extremism also defines NCT’s recent annual report and is something that the red-green government takes further note of when it listed alternative media and the Sweden Democrats as part of the threat.

Minister of the Interior Mikael Damberg (Swedish Social Democratic Party) pointed out that this is something that “must be taken very seriously”. He believes that Sweden Democrats have abandoned its “zero tolerance” towards the alleged White power movement despite the party explicitly stating it does not accept any White supremacist ideology.

In regards to the government’s decision to label certain “alternative media outlets” a terrorist threat, the government may be targeting them due to the fact that while they often have limited resources due to corporate advertising boycotts and censorship on social media, they have nonetheless proven influential. SD party leader Jimmie Åkesson recently stated that his party has gained much of its success thanks to alternative media despite conservatives increasingly being threatened or silenced online. 

The government now agrees that Sweden Democrats, alternative media, those critical of immigration and Islam, and other concerned citizens on social media should be included in the right-wing extremist threat picture.

Left-wing governments have increasingly taken undemocratic measures to silence opposition parties. For example, in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was temporarily placed under surveillance by a domestic intelligence agency, resulting in the government being able to monitor emails and phone calls of every single member of the party in the run-up to elections. 

https://rmx.news/article/article/sweden-democrats-and-alternative-media-listed-among-right-wing-extremist-terrorist-threats

Many a holidaymaker has already had the experience when the booked 4-star hotel turned out to be a hovel and caused displeasure. This is probably what happened to a group of illegal migrants who had to flee from Tunisia by boat across the Mediterranean because of the alleged war-like conditions there and arrived in Lampedusa with one’ s last ounce of strength, complaining about the reception in Italy and about the accommodation in the hotel because obviously the young men expected adequate accommodation and better service, similar to that in a 4-star hotel.

https://politikstube.com/hotspot-ist-kein-sterne-hotel-lampedusa-illegale-aus-tunesien-beschweren-sich-ueber-empfang/

Not all racial groups or communities have expressed the same amount of fear and anxiety over climate change, increasingly also a social justice issue. Climate change is being viewed as responsible for “pandemics, pollution, natural disaster” but only whites seem to be concerned about its effects.

The Scientific American (SA) published an opinion article maintaining that “people and communities suffering [from climate change] most are disproportionately” black, but only whites were worried about the future of our planet.

And because climate anxiety is a white concern, according to the publication, it has become a suspect endeavour. “Is climate anxiety a form of white fragility or even racial anxiety? Put another way, is climate anxiety just code for white people wishing to hold onto their way of life or get ‘back to normal’ to the comforts of their privilege?”

They argue that the white response to climate change has been “sucking up all the oxygen in the room and devoting resources toward appeasing the dominant group”. This may result in whites hoarding resources, limiting the rights of the other races most affected and following a “xenophobic strategy” to save themselves.

“Climate change compounds existing structures of injustice, and those structures exacerbate climate change,” according to the SA.

“It is a surprisingly short step from ‘chronic fear of environmental doom’ as the American Psychological Association defines eco-anxiety, to xenophobia and fascism. Racism is not an accidental by-product of environmentalism; it has been a constant reference point.” Notably, the early environmentalists in the US were “anti-immigrant eugenicists”.

Climate change activists believe that the world is facing the “greatest existential threat of our time” but according to the SA, this claim ignores racial issues such as slavery, colonialism and white police brutality.

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/04/06/those-who-feel-climate-anxiety-are-overwhelmingly-white/

Thick smoke rises from the windows of the sacristy of the church of St. Mary’s Assumption in the Rotthausen district of Gelsenkirchen. Shortly afterwards, the flames spread to the roof truss.

Major operation for the fire brigade!

Around 7.15 p.m. on Easter Monday, the fire rescuers were called to the scene on the street Beethovenstraße. At least 80 firefighters were deployed with three turntable ladders. In order to ensure optimal fighting of the flames at great heights, an articulated mast platform from the plant fire brigade of BP Gelsenkirchen was also called in for support.

Fire brigade spokesman Carsten Jost (46): “The fire started in the sacristy and spread to the roof truss. The deployment will continue for several hours.”

The church building has been empty for about ten years and is no longer used.

The police had already been called to the church twice before. A door was open, but the officers closed it as best they could. Was it arson? Shortly before the fire broke out, witnesses had seen young people running away.

https://www.bild.de/regional/ruhrgebiet/ruhrgebiet-aktuell/gelsenkirchen-feuer-in-kirche-75967642.bild.html