Vigilant News

Eternal Vigilance is the price of liberty.

Biden Administration

OpEd: Biden Doubles Down on Failed Drug War, Plots to Outlaw Nicotine

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As if not unpopular enough, the Biden administration has announced plans to double down on the unwinnable drug war. This time, the alphabet boys are coming for the vapes.

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued marketing denial orders (MDOs) to JUUL Labs Inc. for all of their products currently marketed in the United States. As a result, the company must stop selling and distributing these products. In addition, those currently on the U.S. market must be removed, or risk enforcement action.”

At the same time, the Biden administration is also proposing a rule to cap the maximum allowable nicotine levels in cigarettes.

Last year, the FDA moved to ban menthol cigarettes on grounds that they’re purportedly racist and homophobic. According to acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock explains:

“The FDA will help significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers, and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ+ individuals, all of whom are far more likely to use these tobacco products.”

No flavors, no mint, no good hard tobacco kick – no fun for you. If you’re lucky, you’ll get diluted, gray government nicotine – or, else, nothing at all.

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The alleged motivations of the FDA/Biden administration bureaucrats are highly suspect. They’re on the job protecting your teenager from strawberry-flavored nicotine products. But, simultaneously, they’re more than willing to inject 6-month-olds with unnecessary and experimental gene therapies that don’t protect them from a virus that posed very little risk to them in the first place.

They’ll also shovel Ritalin and Adderall (an amphetamine salt which is, for all intents and purposes, essentially legal meth) down your kid’s throat so they’ll sit still in their public school library during drag queen story hour.

But they’ll protect them from the e-cigarettes that are already illegal to sell to minors.

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Even if an undeserved olive branch were extended, and the government’s motivations were assumed to be pure as the driven snow, the infantilization of the public is an insult to individual dignity.

If liberty means anything, it’s that adults are at liberty to take risks with their own health, safety, and even their lives. Protecting people from themselves – as a mother removes a AAA battery from her baby’s mouth – is not within the government’s purview.

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Moreover, even if the government’s pure intentions and right to assume moral authority over what adults are allowed to ingest, what does the historical record say about the government’s ability to regulate banned substances?

Drug arrests are the #1 driver of mass incarceration in the Land of the Free, which is itself the #1 incarcerator in the world both in raw numbers and on a per capita basis.

But, drug warriors will then argue, mass incarceration – which costs tens of thousands of dollars per prisoner per year, incubates a criminal subculture, and robs non-violent drug users of their future – might be a steep cost, but maybe it’s worthwhile if it produces less drug use. Right?

Source: Reason

One of those lines is not like the other. Trillions of dollars later, drug addiction rates are roughly the same as 40 years ago.

In addition to failing to curb the appetite for the banned substance, prohibition also inevitably births new opportunities for entrepreneurs to operate outside of law in underground black markets:

“Though the advocates of prohibition had argued that banning sales of alcohol would reduce criminal activity, it in fact directly contributed to the rise of organized crime. After the Eighteenth Amendment went into force, bootlegging, or the illegal distillation and sale of alcoholic beverages, became widespread.”

Supply and demand always wins out. When an economic sector is pushed underground, all it produces, without exception, is more violence, more organized crime, dangerous/substandard products, and more destroyed futures.

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America can’t win any other war despite massive resources. Why would the drug war be any different?

The US government spent at least $2.3 trillion (of accounted money – the true figure is probably higher) on the Afghanistan war, only to abandon the project twenty years later, leaving behind a sea of sophisticated military equipment in the hands of the Taliban.

The US government spent another $2+ trillion in Iraq (based on Deep State lies), only to abandon that project as well, destabilizing the entire country, plunging it into bloody civil war, and handing over a huge swathe of territory to a violent theocratic terror state.

Which federal employee was ever held accountable for their monumental failure – despite obscene funding? Dick Cheney, Bush, and the neoconservative war criminals responsible for the Iraq War walk free. The foremost drug war proponent in the Senate, Joe Biden, was awarded with the presidency.

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If the drug war were a private enterprise, investors and other stakeholders would have demanded proof of some modicum of progress. Without proof of efficacy, they would never continue dumping trillions into the project.

But in America, in 2022, the American public (the theoretical stakeholder and funder) has no say in public policy. This is not rhetorical hyperbole but rather documented statistical reality.

It doesn’t matter how ineffective the government intervention is – whether the stated aim is to depose a foreign dictator or control domestic drug consumption.

In large part, the looting of the public treasury is the point. Excess, escalating funding as a reward for continued failure by the executors of the drug war is the feature, not the bug.

The inevitable result of the tobacco ban will be more of the same: your tax money will be squandered in a failed attempt to dissuade you from accessing desired goods by restricting your liberties – all in the service of ulterior motives.

What the ban is guaranteed to achieve is a more self-perpetuating bureaucracy that serves no one’s interests but its own.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose and/or Substack, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter.

Worst President Ever? Hunter’s Business Dealings and a Shocking New CNN Poll Have Democrats Dragging Biden to the Chopping Block

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A new survey that was recently conducted by SSRS and CNN has determined that even the far-left is struggling to find any redeeming qualities in Joe Biden’s Administration. 

The poll shows that the public’s view of the state of our nation is the worst it’s been since 2009, and its view on the economy is the lowest it’s been since 2011. Roughly 7 out of ten respondents say that Joe Biden has failed to address the country’s most pressing issues.

Biden’s current approval, at least according to this particular poll, is resting at a meager 38%, with 62% disapproving. The approval rating of Biden’s handling of the economy is at 30%, while the president’s handling of inflation sits at 25%. Both numbers are the lowest for any president in history.

A staggering 82% of those polled said that economic conditions are poor. About 4 in 10 (41%) described the economy as “very poor.” The poll found that 64% of Americans believe the economy is currently in a recession. Our economic situation is bleak, but that might not be the only reason the current president is polling so low.

Another poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports suggests that the American voters are aware that Hunter Biden was involved in some shady business deals and that they believe the current sitting President benefited from these deals. This is despite Big Media’s best efforts to completely ignore the stories.

While President Joe Biden has denied involvement in his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings, most voters don’t believe the president’s denials.

The new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports finds that 69% of Likely U.S. voters believe it’s likely the president was aware of at least some of Hunter Biden’s major foreign business dealings, including 49% who think it is Very Likely. Just 22% don’t think it is likely President Biden was aware of his son’s foreign deals, and 10% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Burisma may be all but swept under the rug at this point, but the new survey comes on the heels of Hunter’s attorney claiming that his client has no more interest in the two Chinese companies currently in question. However, a report from Breitbart has recently shown that may not be the case:

Skaneateles, a company Hunter Biden founded with a ten percent stake in BHR Partners, still holds a ten percent interest in the company despite claims to the contrary, according to Chinese business records.

Hunter Biden “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly in either BHR or Skaneateles,” Hunter’s lawyer Chris Clark claimed in November to the New York Times.

But Chinese business records contradict Clark’s claim. “Chinese site Qixin says the latest filing comes from BHR itself and that it was filed last month,” the Washington Examiner reported. “The 2021 annual report by BHR has an ‘announcement date’ of June 20. Skaneateles is still listed as a ‘shareholder’ with a 10% stake.”

China’s business registry may not have been changed to reflect Hunter’s vacated interest. But with Hunter’s global profile as the United States president’s son, the omission seems unlikely.

It should be noted that Hunter’s representative has also refused to say who bought the stake in the company and for what price.

Hunter’s possible part ownership of BHR Partners is relevant because BHR Partners is the same company linked to Chinese oil interests to which the Biden administration reportedly sold 950,000 barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve earlier this month.

Something stinks to high heavens, but we’ve been engulfed in the stink long enough to barely even recognize it at this point. The information above certainly makes Biden’s recent bulk sale of US oil to China amidst an energy crisis all the more suspicious.

White House Diversity Hire’s Utter Incompetence Highlights Identity Politics Failure

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Just two months in, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is the most monumental failure at the podium in recorded history:

“It’s been a rocky first month for White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Her answers have baffled reporters, and even made some of her White House colleagues wince.”

Imagine how bad her performance really has been to induce neoliberal Politico into writing such an unflattering intro paragraph.

That’s like a Hindu priest beating a sacred cow. Ordinarily, while covering a sacrosanct immigrant lesbian Person of Color© in such a position, Politico would fawn.

Just how historically awful has Jean-Pierre been? More importantly, what lesson does her failure teach on the hollowness of leftist identity politics?

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At her coronation as Biden’s new press secretary, Team Biden explicitly marketed Jean-Pierre as a diversity hire:

“So, I just want to take the opportunity to celebrate and congratulate… Karine Jean-Pierre…
First, as you all know, she will be the first Black woman, the first out LGBTQ+ person to serve in this role, which is amazing, because representation matters.”
-Outgoing Press Secretary Jen Psaki, May 6, 2022

Since taking the podium, no individual has done more to singlehandedly undermine the affirmative action principle.

This specimen of mediocrity has been a spectacular failure. Without exception or exaggeration, each and every Jean-Pierre press conference has been an unmitigated trainwreck. I suffered through most of them, because I’m a  masochist.

Words alone can’t do justice. Some disasters have to be witnessed firsthand, up-close to appreciate, like a class V hurricane:

Consider her performance on June 2, 2022, in the throes of the baby formula shortage:

(34:48)

“Q: Did the President have any conversations with any Cabinet Secretaries or the FDA commissioner once he was confirmed in February about the formula shortage before April?

A: Look, you know, as — as more — as you all know, the President spoke to — to this yesterday: As more abnormalities were seen in supply and sales started to decrease in April — you know, because people have asked about this — senior White House staff made — made the President aware of the problem, and this was in April. I don’t have any calls to read out for you.”

Look how many hyphens the transcriptionist had to insert there. Stammering and stuttering, Jean-Pierre muddled through the pre-written talking points script in her notebook that someone competent prepared for her.

Even so, she failed to directly answer the question about whom the president talked to and when – or even come close.

The reporter politely followed up, not having received an answer, and she rambled further:

“I — so, as you know, the President deals with issues on a regular basis and that — that boils up to him.   And it’s just an — there’s no specific person that I can call out to you.  But it’s the regular way that we — we move forward through the regular channels.  I don’t have a specific person.  But that’s — that’s kind of how it goes.”

How it goes, indeed. That’s how unaccountability and the incompetent bureaucracy of a failed state goes.

The handpicked, compliant press corps attempted to get an answer to the same softball question – when and from whom Joe Biden first learned of the baby formula shortage – a minimum of eight more times.

Each time her answer was equally nonsensical. In response, she flipped through her notebook full of pre-canned answers, fingered one that might somehow tangentially connect to the question, read it (poorly), and moved on.

Literally, a well-trained sixth-grader could deliver a more inspiring product. Again, she wasn’t speaking extemporaneously off the cuff – she attempted to read basic sentences off of her notebook, and failed even at that.

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The whole charade is a disgusting affront to the American people who pay Jean-Pierre’s and Biden’s salaries to role-play stewards of state.

Remember when the Biden administration and the corporate media promised, with the blackest humor, that “the adults are back in charge“?

When diversity takes precedence over competence, the “adults” aren’t in charge of anything. Unless, of course, by “adults,” one means the oligarchs who actually run the gears of state to rob the American public.

Those “adults” don’t care how dysfunctional the executive gets so long as the gravy train of favorable regulation and public subsidy for their private gain continues.

At least Jean-Pierre’s predecessor, Jen Psaki, could lie with a modicum of grace. Granted, Psaki was equally soulless and her moral compass equally broken. Yet she could at least string together a single-sentence lie without reading.

No one in their right mind believes Jean-Pierre would have gotten within a mile of that podium if she was a white man – unless maybe she was a trans white dude. Those are cool, and diverse.

Of course, the woke inmates who run the White House asylum pin the blame squarely on the nearest white man for Jean-Pierre’s failings:

“Some Black communications officials in and outside the administration, along with allies of Jean-Pierre, feel White House leadership has set her up to fail by having Kirby, a white man who was in the running for her job, hovering nearby and taking the lead on foreign policy.”

No way! Who could have predicted the blame-whitey routine?

By “hovering,” of course, they mean Kirby doing Jean-Pierre’s job for her on the high-stakes foreign policy front so as to avert a nuclear holocaust.

 

The Biden administration finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Every single newsday that Jean-Pierre is trotted out to the world to humiliate herself and her colleagues, the whole presidency’s credibility sinks even lower. Yet, the administration can’t get rid of her because that would be racist, homophobic, misogynist, etc.… all the isms. Then, it’d have a mutiny on its hands.

If you close your eyes, you can already divine the Buzzfeed headlines: KKK Biden Throws Diverse, Talented, Sacred Person of Color© Press Secretary Under the Bus After Two Months on the Job!

Biden’s handlers unleashed the SJW monster on themselves; they made their bed; now they have to lie in it. That’s called sweet, savory karma.

Originally Posted @ the Daily Bell

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose and/or Substack, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter.

FED Dolling Out $250 Million PER DAY in Interest Payments to Unknown Beneficiaries as Economic End-Times Approach

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The current global, socioeconomic paradigm has allowed for a small group of mostly unidentified beneficiaries to reap hundreds of millions of dollars per day by way of interest payments. This cushy racket was all made possible by the Federal Reserves’ reverse repo program.

The impending collapse of the financial system as we know it looms on the horizon while those in a position to do so feed the crisis (and themselves) through endless money laundering schemes. 

Whether it’s the war in Ukraine, Executive orders, experimental vaccines, the push for Solar panels and electric vehicles… there are few things being heavily marketed to the world today that weren’t designed to reap maximum profits for the financial elite in Davos Switzerland and the Washington DC political establishment.

In fact, Peter Schweitzer wrote a phenomenal book about how all of this works back in 2011 called Throw Them All Out, a highly recommended read for our audience.

In response to the record inflation, caused either by the reckless or intentionally destructive spending of the Biden Administration, the FED decided to raise interest rates by 75 basis points last month – the largest increase since 1994 – in an effort to slow the Bidenflation tidal wave.

To the surprise of no one, there’s been virtually no improvement to the economy since this change. Quite the contrary, as inflation continues to trend in the wrong direction since the FEDs rate raise. Not only that, but the FED revised its quarterly projections to show negative GDP growth will be expected for the second quarter in a row, essentially proclaiming that a recession isn’t on the horizon, it’s already here.

RELATED: Key FED Indicator Suggests That The US is Already in a Recession

When faced with the hard decision to either help ease the economy back on track or raise interest rates to make the already skyrocketing inflation markedly worse, the FED chose the latter. This change quietly paved the way for a small group of mostly unidentified beneficiaries to start collecting hundreds of millions of dollars per day by way of interest payments, this is thanks to the Federal Reserve reverse repo program.

The program has seen a record 2.330 trillion in cash holdings, and interest payouts have ballooned since the aforementioned FED rate hike, totaling over 100 million per day. The 108 depositors, who hold assets in the fund, are the recipients of these absurd payouts.

As per Zerohedge:

there is a record $2.33 trillion in cash parked at the Fed’s overnight facility, doing nothing…

…Well not nothing: it was nothing when rates were zero, but at 1.55% which is the current reverse repo rate, that $2.33 trillion is a golden goose for the 108 counterparties that are parking cash at the facility, a mixture of money market funds, banks, GSEs and various other financial intermediaries.

How big is this particular Golden Goose? The chart below shows the payment in interest that the Fed makes day on this record $2.33 trillion in funds: as of today it amounts to just over $100 million every single day! That’s right, more than $100 million in interest payments on funds parked with the Fed, which is by definition the world’s only risk-free counterparty!

As ZeroHedge points out, the interest profits are only due to the FED’s past reckless spending.

Also from ZeroHedge:

“All of the above is with the Fed Funds rate at 1.75%. As a reminder, the Fed hopes to keep hiking at least another 175bps (or more) in the next 6 months, which will push the rate to 3.50% and will mean that the Fed will be paying half a billion in interest every single day to a handful of mostly unknown counterparties every day, money which for said counterparties is also known as (riskless) profit and which is only the result of the Fed’s previous money printing.”

COVID Propaganda Roundup: ‘Shots For Tots’ (They Finally Came For the Babies)

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Ben Bartee – July 01, 2022
Reposted with permission from The Daily Bell

If you’re into profiting off of human misery, consider investing in manufacturers of toddler-sized mini-coffins.

Perhaps, for instance, Abbey Caskets’ Traditional Infant Poplar in Cherry Finish at $499.00 plus tax. Pfizer won’t help the parents afford it, but the government will take its cut of the profits.

Death and taxes, etc.

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We predicted successfully months ago that the child shots were on their way because the leftist social engineers have a fetish for pulling kids into their biomedical cult.

Whether the agenda item is transing them before they hit puberty or injecting them with experimental gene therapies, getting the children started on these biomedical regimens as early as possible is priority #1. Like all zealots, the social engineers like to get them young when they’re most vulnerable, manageable, and impressionable.

The biomedical needle orgy for 6-month-olds begins. Via Associated Press:

“The nation’s infants, toddlers and preschoolers are finally getting their chance at COVID-19 vaccination as the U.S. rolls out shots for tots this week…

The CDC advises vaccination even for those who already had COVID-19… For the littlest kids, there’s Pfizer’s three-shot series or Moderna’s two shots.”

“Shots for tots” – if that focus-grouped sales gimmick doesn’t induce a shiver down your spine, consider that you may have lost your soul.

Above: Biomedical cult ritual child sacrifice

Some unfortunate toddler named Fletcher has been held hostage under house arrest for years now, isolated, out of the sun, likely vitamin D-deficient as a result, probably strapped into a Meta headset or whatever. His escape depends on his unhinged mother shooting him up with the Pfizer gene therapy:

“Little Fletcher Pack woke up Monday morning and asked: ‘Is today vaccine day?’ For the 3-year-old… the answer was yes…

Fletcher’s mother said that once her son is fully vaccinated, he can finally go bowling and visit the nearby children’s museum…

‘He’s never really played with another kid inside before.’”

US only country in the world vaxxing babies 

“The U.S. is now the only country in the world that vaccinated children as young as six months old.”

Several European countries, in fact, restrict vaxxing anyone under 30 due to the risks of myocarditis and other side effects.

Biden’s handlers would accuse those European states of Disrespecting the Science©.

Above: a proud mother Respects the Science©, offers child as tribute to biomedical gods

Babies’ risk of COVID death infinitesimally tiny

As we’ve explained in depth before, the risk of death from COVID among children is 2 per million (0.0002%). That’s likely an OVER-estimate of the risk, given undocumented instances of children’s exposure.

The vaxxes don’t stop infection, babies don’t get sick with COVID, so what’s the point?

One who assumes benevolent intent on the part of the government and corporate authorities might be forgiven for assuming any of this is about Public Health©.

The functions of the COVID-19 mRNA child-stabbing are profit and social control. Pfizer isn’t done milking the pandemic for all it’s worth (which is tens of billions and counting). The government isn’t done inventing new permanent emergency powers for itself via the biomedical state.

Above: a biomedical priestess does Science©, injects alchemy potion

Corporate media admits vaxxes don’t stop new variants, encourages them anyway

The pro-vaxx corporate propaganda doesn’t even claim the mRNA shots prevent infection anymore.

Via CNN:

“A.4 and BA.5 appear to escape antibody responses among… those who have been fully vaccinated and boosted… However, Covid-19 vaccination is still expected to provide substantial protection against severe disease.”

Notice the careful use of “expected” – because they have no evidence whatsoever that the vaxxes will provide any substantial protection against emerging variants. All they have to offer are “expectations” whispered into their ear by their Big Pharma advertisers, which they dutifully reprint.

The cited virologist, Dr. Dan Barouch, predicts mass infections among the vaccinated:

“Our data suggest that these new Omicron subvariants will likely be able to lead to surges of infections in populations with high levels of vaccine immunity.”

When pressed by Sen. Rand Paul in a Jun 16 Senate hearing, Warlord Fauci didn’t present any evidence of efficacy for the COVID shots in children – only “assumptions”:

Paul (00:09): Are you aware of any studies that show reduction in hospitalization or death for children who take a booster?

[Fauci refuses to directly answer question, repeats talking points citing purported efficacy in the elderly, not children.]

…

Fauci (2:30): If you look at the data from Israel, the boosts… was associated with a clear-cut clinical effect, mostly in elderly people… but also… in people in their 40s and 50s…

Paul: But not in childen.

Fauci: Well… [trails off into talking points, doesn’t refute Paul’s assertion.]

Paul: You’re not willing to be honest with the American people.

Indeed not.

Paul goes on to explain that the only proof that the FDA used to “recommend” (soon to become “mandate” if they get their way) the shots for babies was short-term antibody generation. No long-term study of potential side effects occurred.

Basic virology establishes that antibody response via blood testing does not equate to clinical efficacy. The FDA itself acknowledges that fact. Warlord Fauci knows that; he’s lying on purpose to maximize injection numbers in children, devastating health consequences be damned.

The FDA also didn’t factor in prior infection in children whatsoever into their recommendations. They didn’t even collect any data on that subject.

The “experts” at the FDA who approved this calamity need to be prosecuted, convicted, and duly punished for their crimes against humanity in Nuremberg II.

Examples must be made. Catharsis must be had. Lady Justice’s thirst must be quenched.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose and/or Substack, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter.