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CDC endorsed use of ivermectin … for Afghan refugees!

“I have long been convinced that Nature has all the solutions we need to solve our past … that will be the primary source of the treasures and solutions that we seek.” ~Professor Satashi Omura, Nobel co-laureate for the discovery of ivermectin 

Looking at 2019 CDC guidance, one has to wonder if one of the reasons why there is such a run on ivermectin is because our own government is using it. And no, not for horses, but for refugees. Yet these same government agencies are running a blood libel-style smear campaign against the drug and its users by misleading people into conflating it with a veterinarian version of the drug, leading many people to think it’s some sort of poison for humans. In the process, they are leaving thousands of COVID patients without any other options for treatment.

It’s not clear whether the hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees will be forced to get vaccinated like American international travelers, but one thing is clear: They will likely get the ivermectin that most Americans can no longer access. It turns out that in 2019, the CDC issued guidance for refugees from Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East to be given ivermectin pre-emptively for potential infections.

The CDC advises the International Organization for Migration (IOM) physicians who screen the refugees for departure, and U.S. doctors who treat them upon arrival, to prescribe “all Middle Eastern, Asian, North African, Latin American, and Caribbean refugees” with ivermectin and albendazole.

“But that is for parasitic infection, not viral infection!” shouts the chorus of ignorant fools who have ignored the past 18 months of ivermectin saving countless lives. Putting this point aside for a moment, that is only a question about efficacy, not safety. Government agencies are slandering ivermectin as if it’s not a safe drug and even convincing people that it’s for animals. Do they consider refugees animals? The point is: People who are now getting COVID – both vaccinated and unvaccinated – are left without any options for outpatient treatment. Why would the government stand in the way of ivermectin treatment that it mass-distributes to refugees, even if the establishment bureaucrats personally believe it won’t help for COVID?

To the extent the government even screens refugees for COVID, will officials suspend ivermectin treatment for a refugee who has COVID alongside a parasitic infection? After all, we are told that somehow one of the safest drugs in the history of humanity suddenly turns unsafe if you want to use it for another ailment. Or perhaps Americans can self-identify as refugees and then obtain prescriptions for this lifesaving drug. The question now is whether the rest of the media that ignored ivermectin’s success for 17 months will continue to call the drug a “horse dewormer” even as it’s administered to Afghan refugees.

The revelation of this CDC guidance demonstrates that ivermectin is not some obscure drug, much less an animal drug that was used one time for humans in Africa many years ago. The agency feels it is needed today in most parts of the world. To suggest that it is not safe is a scandalous lie. Perhaps doctors will have to start punching in the prescription code for abortion or suggest it’s for an Afghan refugee in order to get the prescription filled:

In reality, anyone who thinks that somehow one of the safest and most successful drugs of all time cannot work for other ailments is woefully uninformed. I trust Professor Omura, the man who won the Nobel Prize for developing ivermectin for Merck, over the company itself, which now stands to benefit from an expensive drug it is developing, with which the cheap ivermectin, which is off patent, would interfere.

In March, Omura wrote in the Japanese Journal of Antibiotics that he hopes “ivermectin will be utilized as a countermeasure for COVID-19 as soon as possible.” Ten years ago, Omura observed: “Ivermectin has continually proved to be astonishingly safe for human use. Indeed, it is such a safe drug, with minimal side effects, that it can be administered by non-medical staff and even illiterate individuals in remote rural communities, provided that they have had some very basic, appropriate training.”

Any sampling of the internet will reveal a unique degree of reverence for this drug among all of the (pre-political) literature on ivermectin. For example, in 2017, Nature’s Journal of Antibiotics observed the following about the fact that ivermectin held promise outside use just as an-antiparasitic agent:

Today, ivermectin is continuing to surprise and excite scientists, offering more and more promise to help improve global public health by treating a diverse range of diseases, with its unexpected potential as an antibacterial, antiviral and anti-cancer agent being particularly extraordinary. …

Moreover, whereas ivermectin-resistant parasites swiftly appeared in treated animals, as well as in ectoparasites, such as copepods parasitizing salmon in fish farms, somewhat bizarrely and almost uniquely, no confirmed drug resistance appears to have arisen in parasites in human populations, even in those that have been taking ivermectin as a monotherapy for over 30 years.

As for the drug’s exact mechanism of action against COVID, Dr. Ryan Cole, a brilliant Mayo Clinic-trained pathologist, listed eight different mechanisms in an exclusive interview with TheBlaze:

1. Inhibits binding at ACE2 and TMPRSS2, keeping the virus from entering our cells.

2. Blocks alpha/beta importin (the virus cell taxi), keeping it from getting to the nucleus.

3. Blocks the viral replicase zipper (RdRp).

4. 3-Chimotrypsin protease inhibition (keeps the virus from assembling).

5. Ivermectin strengthens our natural antiviral cell activity by increasing our natural interferon production (this counters SARSCOV2 activity, which inhibits cellular interferon).

6. Decreases IL-6 and other inflammatory cytokines through NF Kappa Beta downregulation, taking the patient from a cytokine storm to calm. 

7. Binds NSP14, necessary for viral replication, and blocks it (equals less virus). 

8. Most important mechanism is inhibiting binding to CD147 receptor on red cells, platelets, lung, and blood cell lining. Ivermectin keeps the virus from binding here and decreases deadly clotting.

For those who want a more detailed explanation of each of these mechanisms, Dr. Cole has provided me with important links and videos, which I posted together in this twitter thread:

So, the next time you hear any media figures refer to ivermectin as an animal medicine, just remember that they are regarding people from three continents as something less than human. And now, they are treating every American – increasingly those who are also vaccinated – as subhuman beings who don’t deserve any treatment until it is too late.

Biden’s issues order on declassification review of 9/11 documents

President Biden signed an executive order on Friday directing the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies to pursue a declassification review of documents related to the FBI’s investigations of the 9/11 attacks.

Why it matters: Victims’ families have told the president they will object to his presence at next week’s 20th-anniversary memorial events unless he declassifies documents that they believe will show the Saudi Arabian government supported the attacks.

Driving the news: Biden’s order requires Attorney General Merrick Garland to publicly release the declassified documents over the next six months. 

  • Even if some information might merit continued protection in the interest of national security, agencies should consider “whether the public interest in disclosure of the information outweighs the damage to the national security that might reasonably be expected from disclosure,” per the order.

What he’s saying: “We must never forget the enduring pain of the families and loved ones of the 2,977 innocent people who were killed during the worst terrorist attack on America in our history,” Biden, who campaigned on a promise to declassify 9/11 documents, said in a statement.

  • “My heart continues to be with the 9/11 families who are suffering, and my Administration will continue to engage respectfully with members of this community. I welcome their voices and insight as we chart a way forward.”

Biden’s Economy Created Just 235,000 Jobs in August

The U.S. economy added 235,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate dipped to 5.2 percent, the Labor Department said in its monthly labor assessment Friday.

The median Econoday forecast of analysts was for 740,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 5.2 percent, according to Econoday. The private payrolls report from payroll processor ADP on Wednesday, however, pointed to a much weaker number, with ADP estimating just 374,000 jobs, missing estimates for 500,000.

The August figures follow the upwardly revised 1.1 million jobs for July (revised from the preliminary report of 943,000), which was the second straight month above consensus, and an unemployment rate of 5.4 percent, which was also better than consensus. The economy added 962,000 in June (revised up from last month’s estimate of 938,000 and the preliminary estimate of 850,000) and 614,000 in May.

One note of caution: the estimate of jobs is based on data from a mid-month work week that occurred when the level of new infections was considerably lower than it is now. That could mean that the survey results, although extremely disappointing, actually overestimated the number of jobs created by not accounting for a slowdown in the second half of the month.

Employment has risen by 17.0 million since the ebb in April 2020 but is down by 5.3 million, or 3.5 percent, from its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.

Employment in leisure and hospitality, which had been averaging 350,000 jobs over the last six months, did not grow at all. Bars and restaurants shed 42,000 jobs. Retail also contracted, losing 29,000 jobs.

Mining, which includes fracking and other energy extraction jobs, added 6,000. IT added 17,000. Financial services grew by 16,000.

The manufacturing sector was remarkably strong given the weakness elsewhere. Employment grew by 37,000 jobs. Manufacturing employment is now 378,000 below the prepandemic level.

In August, there was little or no improvement in other major industries, including construction, wholesale trade, and health care.

Employment increased by 40,000 in private education, declined by 21,000 in state government education, and fell by 6,000 in local government education, confounding expectations for a jump in hiring in the education sector.

The economy outperformed expectations on many metrics in the first two quarters of this year as vaccinations boosted business and consumer confidence and restrictions on businesses were been lifted. But the surge in Covid-19 infections and inflation this summer have coincided with a series of disappointing economic reports that appear to indicate economic growth has already peaked and is now slowing.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNOW attempts to assess what the latest data suggests about quarterly GDP. As of Thursday, it read just 3.7 percent for the third quarter, reflecting how much recent economic data has fallen short of expectations. The New York Fed’s version was last updated on August 27 with a reading of 3.8 percent. The “Blue Chip” forecast, compiled from interviews with leading economists, is for growth of around 6.5 percent, down from 7.5 percent a month ago. In August, Goldman Sachs cut its third quarter growth estimate from nine percent to 5.5 percent and bearish Bank of America cut its forecast from seven percent to 4.5 percent.

‘Cheers’ Star Kirstie Alley, 70, Says She Used Ivermectin, Joe Rogan Protocol To Treat COVID And Recovered In 12 Days

Kirstie Alley used many of the same drugs as Joe Rogan – including Ivermectin – and recovered from COVID-19 in only 12 days.

Television and film actress Kirstie Alley, 70, revealed on Twitter that she used Ivermectin and a cocktail of other drugs, popularized yesterday by podcast legend Joe Rogan, to treat her COVID-19. Alley says she recovered fully in 12 days, with most symptoms subsiding in two days.

Sharing a video in which Joe Rogan described how he treated his COVID-19, Alley revealed she used similar drugs to massive success, despite being in a higher risk age group. “I did almost the same protocol when I got it,” wrote Alley. “It sucked for two days then I was just tired [with] no sense of smell or taste for 10 more days.”

The “Cheers” star added, “I had no respiratory symptoms, thank god, not even a sniffle. Don’t care if people think protocols are stupid. Effective IF DONE IMMEDIATELY.” When Alley was asked by a fan how she was able to secure the treatment regimen, she said “My good ole family Dr. and a Covid expert doc from NYC.. gotta tell you the protocols are cheap.”

Rogan made headlines and was heralded as a beacon of hope for medical freedom by conservatives and ridiculed for using “horse paste” by the left, despite the latter being factually inaccurate misinformation.

On a video posted to social media, Rogan said, “I got back from the road Saturday night feeling very weary, I had a headache I just felt, just run down and just to be cautious, I separated from my family, slept in a different part of the house and throughout the night I got fevers and sweats and I knew what was goin’ on,” Rogan stated on Wednesday. “So I got up in the morning, got tested, and turns out I got COVID.”

“So we immediately threw the kitchen sink at it, all kinds of meds, monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, Z-Pak, prednisone, everything,” Rogan continued. “Uh, and I also got an NAD drip and a vitamin drip and I did that three days in a row. And so, here we are on Wednesday, and I feel great. I really only had one bad day, Sunday sucked, but Monday was better, Tuesday felt better than Monday, and today I actually feel good. I feel pretty f**king good. Uh, that’s the good news. The bad news is we have to move the Friday show in Nashville.”

Economy falls well short of expectations with 235,000 jobs added in August amid delta surge

The economy fell far short of predictions and added just 235,000 new jobs in August as the delta variant of COVID-19 surged. 

Economists had projected that 750,000 jobs would be gained.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.2% despite the weak job growth, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. 

The Friday report adds to the economic anxiety in the United States as it attempts to claw its way out from the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The economy is far from where it was before the health crisis, when the unemployment rate hovered at about 3.5% and millions of more people were employed than are now.

“To have today’s numbers, 235,000, is really surprising. This is way below expectations,” said former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao during a phone call with the Washington Examiner

Chao, who led the department from 2001 to 2009, pointed out that as the delta variant increased over the past month, consumer confidence and workers returning decreased. She also noted that the impact could be seen in the travel sector, where business travel has been lagging behind estimates from just a couple of months ago. 

Job growth in the leisure and hospitality industries stalled out in August as households pulled back on outings because of the virus. 

There are also shortages of labor across the country, with some employers, especially those in the leisure and hospitality industry, reporting that they are having trouble finding and retaining employees. In order to entice workers, some companies have had to boost wages and offer other incentives such as signing bonuses. 

At the same time, the economy is facing rising inflation, which has been running much hotter than economists at the Federal Reserve and in the Biden administration had predicted. 

Consumer prices increased 5.4% in the year ending in July, according to the most recent Department of Labor report. The figure was slightly above expectations but less pronounced than the enormous price increases seen over the previous few months. 

Consumer sentiment has additionally taken a hard hit because of the delta variant, dropping to the lowest level in a decade, according to the University of Michigan. The decline from July to August marked the third-sharpest plunge after April of last year, when it fell 19.4%, and during the 2008 recession, when it fell 18.1% in October of that year.

The Friday jobs report is the last one before the expanded federal unemployment benefits program, which provides $300 per week on top of state funding, ends on Monday. Just over half of the states ended the program early, but high-population states such as New York and California did not, and some economists think that the continuation of the program has held back the economy.

Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam

In 2020, at the World Economic Forum, David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, proclaimed that the investment firm wouldn’t take corporations public unless they had at least one “diverse” member on their board. The ostensible logic: a diverse leadership performs better by avoiding groupthink. But the proclamation came too late. Six months before, the last S&P 500 company with an all-male board had inducted a woman. Goldman was actually virtue-signaling to divert attention from its role in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, described in 2016 as the “largest kleptocracy case to date.” Goldman had paid $1 billion in bribes to win work raising money for 1MBD, a slush fund linked to then-Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak and corrupt officials. Fined $5 billion for its machinations, Goldman was embracing “woke” to burnish its credentials.

It’s not just Goldman. Corporate America has learned to invoke buzzwords like ‘stakeholder capitalism’ and ‘social justice’ to boost its profile, cachet, and profits. In Woke, Inc.:  Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy lays bare this duplicitous con. He writes in the introduction, “Here’s how it works: pretend like you care about something other than profit and power, precisely to gain more of each.” Worryingly, this deception is subverting democracy.

Like most American capitalists, Ramaswamy believes that the job of business is to provide products, maximize profit, and deliver value to shareholders. It’s not the realm of business to impose one particular vision of “social responsibility” on society. Corporate law limits boards’ focus to the financial interests of shareholders. This protects democracy from corporate overreach, for with financial power, businesses can easily crowd out dissent, whether from employees or from ordinary Americans.

On the other hand, corporations are granted the privilege of limited liability — protection from being pursued for business failure — so that they can innovate without fear. The business judgment rule (BJR) also protects CEOs and boards from being sued for bad decisions. But when corporations engage in social activism, they use the power of that immunity against democracy. They are able to work from behind shields denied to genuine activists, who may have a different social vision. They are also able to go unquestioned for funding fashionable but unprofitable causes in conflict with the interests of shareholders, who may not subscribe to those causes. In both ways, as Ramaswamy writes, this concentrates “the power to determine American values in the hands of a small group of capitalists rather than the hands of the American citizenry at large, which is where the dialogue about social values belongs.”

The newfangled “stakeholder model,” which dilutes corporate accountability to shareholders, gives corporations a virtual carte blanche as long as they pretend to have everyone’s best interest in mind. Therefore, they can claim to have pursued “policies with conscience” to explain away bad performances. Or cheat, as Volkswagen did, when it claimed it was the most “climate conscious” automaker while using defeat devices on emission tests.

Ramaswamy exposes how top government officials leverage corporate ties to accomplish what they can’t get done in Congress. By allying with major woke companies, woke politicians get a megaphone for their message, while the corporates get to project moral superiority. There’s even a certification system for corporate wokeness — the environment, social, and corporate (ESG) index — devised, not surprisingly, by the U.N. Economist Milton Friedman viewed such regulations as big government interference, adversely affecting a company’s performance and ultimately damaging the economy. Instead, executives committed to a particular cause should make products in consonance with their ideologies.

The author declares that he’s a defector from corporate America. He’s fed up with its pretense of caring about justice, all the while wreaking havoc on democracy and robbing people not only of their money but also their identity and voice. Wokenomics allows corporations to provide influence and money to “woke” people and gain a cloak of moral superiority to hide wrongdoing. When companies are sued, part of the settlement money typically goes to left-wing nonprofits as tax-deductible “donations” that can result in a huge discount of the original “fine.” The Department of Justice thus deprives taxpayers of the benefits from a class-action suit; it also deprives the treasury of taxes.

The book describes scenarios in which dictators — even the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — can become stakeholders. First, the BLM and environmental and feminist activists front for American companies to win consumer approval. The companies monetize the trust, generating clicks, selling ads, charging fees, and thus gathering huge amounts of personalized data. When they do business in China, the CCP demands access to that data. The companies comply, ignoring gross human rights abuse in China while hyperventilating about systemic racism and transphobia in America.

Disney happily filmed in China, where Uighurs are forcibly sterilized or aborted, but demurred about filming in Georgia when the “heartbeat” abortion ban was implemented. With wokenomics, corporations arbitrarily decide who should speak and who should be censored as a hater or hate group. Support for BLM is de rigueur; criticism of China is verboten. The American government can be condemned, not the CCP.

So-called woke corporations have also become propaganda machines and censors for the government, doing for it what the Constitution forbids. Big Tech, especially firms controlling social media, interferes in elections by restricting debate and deciding in advance what information the electorate gets to access. In effect, they legislate a value system, ban alternative narratives, and render the democratic process irrelevant. In the past, monopolies fixed prices; now they fix ideas. Congress gave Big Tech immunity (Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act) from any liability for censoring or regulating content; in exchange for the protection, Big Tech makes massive one-sided campaign contributions.

Woke idea-fixing has also changed corporate America into a dogma-bound Church of Diversity — not of thought but of skin-deep factors like race and sex. Employees who don’t share a particular worldview are fired. A particular skin color is absurdly conflated with one particular left-wing opinion. A black person who espouses a conservative viewpoint is “not black.” And it’s impossible to be racist towards whites. The utterly racist implication of wokeness — race and gender being the only woke diversity metrics — is that genetics alone reveals how a person thinks.

As a solution, Ramaswamy advocates critical diversity theory. The idea is that organizations should screen for diversity of thought and experience. They should define their purpose, demarcating areas where they would prefer alignment with the organizational view rather than diversity of opinion and where the latter is valued more.

He concludes that the underlying issue is the lack of a shared American identity, rather than lingering racism or sexism. Woke diversity, without an all-American communality, divides people into tribes in conflict. Woke capitalism arrogates to corporations what should be adjudicated through our democracy — racial justice, gender equality, climate change, and beyond. Two things, he says, define us as a nation: the American Dream, and E Pluribus Unum. The first is best achieved through capitalism; the second through democracy. Wokeism is noxious because it destroys democracy.

US Labor Agency Probes Two Complaints From Apple Workers

A U.S. national labor agency is investigating two charges against tech giant Apple Inc. filed by employees, records on its website show.

The charges, filed on Aug. 26 and Sept. 1, are being reviewed by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board’s office in Oakland, California. The agency declined to comment.

“We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised,” Apple, which is based in Cupertino, California, said in a statement that cited employee privacy in declining to discuss specifics.

Ashley Gjovik, a senior engineering program manager at Apple, told Reuters that she filed the Aug. 26 charge, which cites harassment by a manager, reduction of responsibilities, and increases in unfavorable work, among other complaints.

The Sept. 1 charge was filed by Cher Scarlett, an Apple software engineer who said the company repeatedly stopped discussions of pay among employees.

The documents she sent the agency, which she provided to Reuters, say Apple “engaged in coercive and suppressive activity that has enabled abuse and harassment of organizers of protected concerted activity.”

The labor relations agency investigates all charges it receives and launches a prosecution against the employer if merited.

In recent weeks, some current and former Apple workers have critiqued company culture on Twitter, using the hashtag #AppleToo. U.S. law allows employees to openly discuss certain topics, such as working conditions.

In addition, workers have engaged in a heated debate on the messaging platform Slack about Apple’s move to scan U.S. customer phones and computers for child sex abuse images, Reuters reported.

In a letter accompanying her NLRB charge, Scarlett wrote that Apple employees began a pay equity survey in April, but the company blocked them, citing privacy concerns.

It also halted subsequent surveys, including one that aimed to address the privacy issues, Scarlett added.

In late August, Apple denied employees’ request to create a Slack channel to discuss pay equity, which Scarlett told Reuters was “the last straw” that led her to file the complaint.

Gjovik told Reuters that after Apple started investigating her complaints, as well as accusations of sexism, her managers began re-assigning her work to colleagues and loading her up with undesirable tasks.

The company put her on paid administrative leave in early August. She said Apple had not finished its investigation.

‘As many abortions as possible’: Inside the ‘race’ to terminate pregnancies before Texas ban kicked in; women ‘relieved,’ ‘happy’ after having last-minute procedures

Desperate abortion-seekers and abortion providers described their “race against time” in the final hours before Texas’s new ban on abortions kicked in Wednesday, and it shows just how little thought is given to countless unborn lives that are routinely terminated.

What are the details?

At a Whole Woman’s Health clinic in Fort Worth, it was “a race to perform as many abortions as possible until midnight,” the 19th reported. After that, the new state law — which prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, or roughly six weeks gestation — would make having the procedure nearly impossible.

That Tuesday, scores of patients gathered outside the clinic hoping to undergo a last-minute operation, but there were too many patients and too little time.

Inside the clinic, Marva Sadler, the director of clinical services, tried to motivate her team of eight, saying, “We are not the bad guys here. We are doing everything right and we’re going to help everybody that we can. If there’s someone that we can’t help, it’s not our fault.”

A similar scene played out at Whole Woman’s Health clinics across the state. The abortion provider wrote in a tweet thread that “waiting rooms are filled with patients” and that doctors and other staff would be working until the very last minute to service them.

“This is what abortion care looks like. Human right warriors,” the group said.

What else?

Abortion-seekers, too, gave little thought to the life inside of them while describing the chaotic final days before the ban took effect.

“It was a race against time for me,” said 21-year-old Hope Hanzlik, an Army service member, in conversation with the Lily

She recalled scheduling her abortion procedure on Aug. 23, knowing that the Texas ban could take effect soon. On the day of the appointment, she got approval from her commanding officers and then drove three hours to the clinic with a friend. She arrived 48 hours before the ban was implemented.

Hanzlik said she felt “relieved,” adding, “I’m not ready to have a child.”

Anything else?

Another woman, a 21-year-old sex worker who remained anonymous for fear of reprisal, told Jezebel she was “sick with worry” that she would “have to have the baby” due to the new Texas law.

“Ever since I was a teenager — and then especially when I started doing sex work — I knew that if I got pregnant I would get an abortion,” recalled the woman, referred to in the article as “Jen.”

“I know Texas is very conservative, and I figured there might be a lot of judgment and it might be a little hard, but I never seriously considered it that I wouldn’t be able to get an abortion at all,” she added.

Jen, however, was able to get an appointment on the last day before the law kicked in. She said the clinic was packed with at least 30 people at a time when she was there. Afterward, she said she felt “happy” and “relieved” but sad for others who weren’t able to have the procedure.

“I feel a little woozy from the sedative still, but other than that I feel very fine and very happy,” Jen said. “I feel so relieved — this is a big weight off my shoulders.”