Patrick's Notebook

by Brian McGlinchey

If you’ve felt the media has heavily emphasized bad news throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, your judgment now has some scholarly corroboration.

Dartmouth College and Brown University researchers have analyzed tens of thousands of Covid-19 articles and found major U.S. media outlets have overwhelmingly pushed negative narratives about the virus.

“The most striking fact is that 87 percent of the U.S. stories are classified as negative, whereas 51 percent of the non-U.S. stories are classified as negative,” according to the study by Dartmouth economics professor Bruce Sacerdote, Dartmouth’s Ranjan Sehgal and Brown University’s Molly Cook.

Thwarting Public Clarity About Covid-19

Though the study doesn’t delve deep into the societal implications, there’s little doubt excessive media negativity has contributed to public misunderstanding of the nature of the disease and the risk it poses to various segments of society. » Read the rest of this entry «

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“The remedy is worse than the disease.”—Francis Bacon

One way or another, the majority of Americans will survive COVID-19.

It remains to be seen, however, whether our freedoms will survive the tyranny of the government’s heavy-handed response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Indeed, now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., we may all be long-haulers, suffering under the weight of long-term COVID-19 afflictions.

Instead of dealing with the headaches, fatigue and neurological aftereffects of the virus, however, “we the people” may well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.

Therein lies the danger of the government’s growing addiction to power. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Jim Quinn

In Part 1 of this article I documented the never ending false narratives used by those shaking the jar to keep us at each other’s throats. I will now show how 2020 was a turning point in history, with an accelerating decline of our empire in progress

The numerous examples of how those holding the jar shake it to generate conflict and chaos to achieve their Machiavellian ambitions pales in comparison with what they accomplished during the fateful year of 2020. They began shaking the jar at hypersonic speed by weaponizing the annual flu, giving it a scary name and then faking data to scare the entire world into lockdowns and mandatory masking, even though “science” said neither of those “solutions” worked against viruses. And the science was right.

But that was not enough. They needed to reignite race wars by declaring the country is infected with systematic racism, even though we have spent $25 trillion on welfare programs since the War on Poverty began in 1965. The level of shaking in 2020 should make any critical thinking person pause and ask why. They really needed a huge distraction as cover for their real purpose. As usual, just follow the money. The global financial system was on life support and was in danger of flat lining, destroying the wealth of billionaire oligarchs, corporate titans, and the Wall Street cabal. » Read the rest of this entry «

By Felicity Bradstock

As the shift in oil demand from Covid-19 turned the tables of regional levels of fuel production and exports, China succeeded in overtaking the USA as the world’s biggest oil refiner in 2020. As China began to ramp up its refining capacity throughout the pandemic, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) published data showing that China processed more crude oil than the U.S. for much of 2020.

While the USA suffered from a drop in demand throughout 2020, leading to a decrease in all oil-related activities, China benefited from this international shift. In contrast to the U.S., when oil prices fall, the Chinese government pays refiners to increase production levels.

China currently has at least four major new refineries under construction, most of which are expected to produce plastic feedstocks, such as ethylene and propylene.

While the U.S. is likely to once again overtake China as the world’s biggest oil refiner by the end of 2021, long-term demand predictions mean it’s probable that this trend will be short-lived, as oil needs across Asia continue to rise. » Read the rest of this entry «

By Simon Watkins

Iraq remains the key cover through which Iran transports its oil to the rest of the world, as has been well-documented by OilPrice.com, so the news last week that Iraqi and Egyptian officials have discussed the possibility of extending the Basra-Aqaba pipeline to Egypt as this would be “an important addition and a new outlet for Iraqi oil exports to North Africa” (according to representatives of the two negotiating teams) should be read in this light. It should also be read in terms of the overall strategy for the expansion of influence of Iran – backed by China in the wide-ranging 25-year deal – not just across the Shia crescent of power in the Middle East but into eastern and northern Africa as well. A key to this expansion is the roll out of an integrated network, based around oil, gas, and electricity supplies, that allows for not just the installation of permanent infrastructure linking one country to another but also for the on-site presence of permanent ‘technical and security’ personnel, many of which are already – or will be – Iranian and Chinese. This alliance is also the other option for countries in the region to the U.S.-Israel-led ‘relationship normalisation deals’ currently being touted as a core method by which to stop Iran’s increasing regional influence, subscribed to so far by the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco.

Jordan was always a natural contender to be drawn into the alternative Iran-led alliance, given its strong historical anti-Israeli bias. Jordan’s current king, Abdullah II, is the son of King Hussein, a key leader in the 1967 Six-Day War waged by Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq, against Israel, and then a supporter of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, also again involving Egypt and Syria, principally, fighting Israel, although it also involved expeditionary forces from a wide range of Arab states, including Jordan and Iraq. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Jim Quinn

“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti-Mask. Vax vs. Anti-vax. Rich vs. poor. Man vs. woman. Cop vs. citizen. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar… and why?” – Shera Starr

A few weeks ago, I saw the above quote in Jeff Thomas’ article Learning from Ants, and it has been reverberating in my mind ever since. It is a perfect analogy for what has been happening in this country for years, with the jar lately being shaken at a rate faster than a Biden vote count increase at 3:00 am in a swing state. Everyone in this country, and the world, is at each other’s throats. Who is shaking the jar? Why are they shaking the jar? Why do they want us fighting each other?

If they keep us focused on fighting each other, they believe we will not notice their reprehensible criminality, as they manipulate the masses through psychological engineering and the employment of propaganda techniques to push their desired narrative. If you ask someone – who is shaking the jar? – they will likely answer based on the standard left vs right, liberal vs conservative, white vs black paradigm which has been created by those benefiting from conflict. It is always a safe bet to follow the money when trying to identify the culprits. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Ron Paul

Hopefully, Americans will realize that, in addition to coronavirus lockdowns and mandates, the entire welfare-warfare-fiat money system is built on a foundation of lies

Mask tyranny reached a new low recently when a family was kicked off a Spirit Airlines flight because their four-year-old autistic son was not wearing a mask. The family was removed from the plane even though the boy’s doctor had decided the boy should be exempted from mask mandates because the boy panics and engages in behavior that could pose a danger to himself when wearing a mask.

Besides, four-year-olds do not present much risk of spreading or contracting coronavirus. Even if masks did prevent infections among adults, there would be no reason to force children to wear masks.

Mask mandates have as much to do with healthcare as Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screenings have to do with stopping terrorism. Masks and TSA screenings are “security theater” done to reassure those frightened by government and media propaganda regarding coronavirus and terrorism that the government is protecting them.

Covid oppression will worsen if vaccine passports become more widely required. Vaccine passports are digital or physical proof a person has taken a coronavirus vaccine. New York is already requiring that individuals produce digital proof of taking a coronavirus vaccine before being admitted to sporting events. » Read the rest of this entry «