by Patrick J. Buchanan

As of April 30, the coronavirus pandemic has killed 61,500 Americans in two months and induced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.

And if history is our guide, the economic crisis, which has produced 30 million unemployed Americans in six weeks, may prove more enduring, ruinous and historic than the still-rising and tragic death toll.

The Spanish flu of 1918-1919, the deadliest pandemic in modern history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide, a third of the planet’s population, and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including 675,000 Americans.

“Adjusting for the difference in the size of the American population then and now,” writes Chronicles columnist Roger McGrath, “that number will be equivalent to two million deaths today.”

Yet, the Spanish flu did not shut America down.

As the Spanish flu hit and spread in 1918, the U.S. raised, trained and equipped an army of 4 million men, sent 2 million soldiers to France, broke Gen. Erich Ludendorff’s army, and turned the tide in favor of the Allies.

By December 1918, Doughboys were arriving in New York harbor — having sailed home from Europe’s battlefields on flu-infested transports.

As the scourge continued to take its toll, Woodrow Wilson sailed to Europe, participated for months in the Paris Peace Conference, returned, went on a national train tour to sell his Paris treaty and League of Nations, and suffered a stroke.

In September 1919, Gen. Pershing led his victorious troops in victory parades in New York City and Washington. This writer’s father, a teenager then, was in the D.C. crowd.

In the history books of the 1950s, World War I, Wilson and the Senate battle over the treaty he brought home and U.S. membership in the League of Nations loomed far larger than the Spanish flu that had killed as many U.S. soldiers as the Kaiser’s armies.

But the Great Depression, to which our current crash is now being compared, did not last for just a year like the Spanish flu. The Depression lasted from the stock market crash in October 1929 to the eve of World War II.

Economically, it was devastating. Unemployment during the 1930s never fell below 14 percent. In 1937, it was back up to 17 percent.

At the bottom of the Depression, the stock market had lost 90 percent of its value, and the GDP had fallen 50 percent. Not until the end of FDR’s second term, in 1940, when the U.S. began to gear up for the war, did America really begin to pull out of it.

FDR’s New Deal, however, while it did not cure the Depression, was a historic political triumph for both the president and his party.

From 1930 through 1946, Democrats controlled both houses of the Congress every year, elected and reelected FDR four times and gave him a 46-state landslide in 1936, losing only Maine and Vermont.

What this suggests is that the economic devastation we have brought upon ourselves to battle the pandemic may prove more lasting and historic in its impact than the terrible losses of human life to COVID-19.

Politically, the Depression worked for the Democratic Party like no other event in history. After the Crash of 1929 under Herbert Hoover, the GOP held the House and Senate for only four of the next 50 years.

From 1932 to 1968, the GOP lost the presidency in seven of nine elections. Only Dwight Eisenhower’s two terms in the 1950s interrupted a 36-year reign of the Democratic Party in the White House.

Richard Nixon broke the Democratic dominance and took back the White House for the Republicans in 1968. But it would still take another dozen years before the GOP won control of either house of Congress.

President Trump predicts a V-shaped recovery, the greatest boom in U.S. history. But it is well to recall what happened to the GOP when it failed to deliver in the last Depression.

Just as the Civil War was the defining event of the 19th century, giving us 13 Republican presidents from Lincoln to Hoover and only two Democrats — Grover Cleveland and Wilson — how and when we emerge from this new Depression may tell us which party not only wins 2020 but also dominates the new era.

And as one sees the growing divisions along political lines, with conservatives and populists calling for the country to be opened up, and liberals and Democrats calling for continued sheltering in place, both seem to realize the stakes.

Democrats may proclaim that they are eager to see the pandemic come to a swift and early end and the economy to return quickly to the robust state it was in last February.

But the cold political interests of the Democratic Party today are what they were in Hoover’s time, to pray that the president fails, and fails badly, so that they inherit the estate

(Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever).

by Jon Rappoport

The basic purpose of these 10 forms is the presentation of a false picture of reality.  You could find more forms, or divide these 10 into sub-categories.

The ten basic forms are:

* Direct lying about matters of fact.

* Leaving out vital information.

* Limited hangout. (This is an admission of a crime or a mistake, which only partially reveals the whole truth. The idea is that by admitting a fraction of what really happened and burying the biggest revelations, people will be satisfied and go away, and the story will never be covered again.)

* Shutting down the truth after publishing it—includes failing to follow up and investigate a story more deeply.

* Not connecting dots between important pieces of data.

* Censoring the truth, wherever it is found (or calling it “fake news”).

* Using biased “experts” to present slanted or false “facts.”

* Repeating a false story many times—this includes the echo-chamber effect, in which a number of outlets “bounce” the false story among themselves.

* Claiming a reasonable and true consensus exists, when it doesn’t, when there are many important dissenters, who are shut out from offering their analysis.

* Employing a panoply of effects (reputation of the media outlet, voice quality of the anchor, acting skills, dry mechanical language, studio lighting, overlay of electronic transmissions, etc.) to create an impression of elevated authority which is beyond challenge.

These are all traditional forms and methods.

Here’s an example of a big story that deployed all ten forms of fake news: the Swine Flu pandemic of 2009.

In the spring of 2009, the World Health Organization (elevated authority beyond challenge) announced that Swine Flu was a level-6 pandemic—its highest category of “danger.” In fact, there were only 20 confirmed cases at the time (direct lying about “danger”). And W.H.O. quietly changed the definition of “level-6” so widespread death and damage were no longer required (another aspect of direct lying).

The story was, of course, picked up by major media outlets all over the world (echo chamber effect, fake consensus, never connected dots re W.H.O. lies), and quite soon, Swine Flu case numbers rose into the thousands (direct lying, as we’ll soon see).

Medical experts were brought in to bolster the claims of danger (biased experts; important dissenters never given space to comment).

In the early fall of 2009, Sharyl Attkisson, then a star investigative reporter for CBS News, published a story on the CBS News website. She indicated that the CDC had secretly stopped counting the number of Swine Flu cases in America. No other major news outlet reported this fact (omitting vital information).

Attkisson discovered the reason the CDC had stopped counting: the overwhelming number of blood samples taken from the most likely Swine Flu patients were coming back from labs with: no trace of Swine Flu or any other kind of flu. Therefore, a gigantic hoax was revealed. The pandemic was a dud, a fake.

Despite Attkisson’s efforts, CBS never followed up on her story (shutting down the truth after exposing it). Never probed the lying by the CDC (failure to connect dots). In a sense, CBS turned Attkisson’s story into a limited hangout—a further investigation would have uncovered acres of criminal behavior by both the CDC and the World Health Organization, to say nothing of the governments and media outlets that supported these lying agencies. The mainstream press essentially censored Attkisson’s revelations.

Then, about three weeks after CBS published Attkisson’s story, WebMD published a piece in which the CDC claimed that its own (lying) estimate of 10,000 or so cases of Swine Flu in the US was a gross understatement. Truly, there were 22 MILLION cases of Swine Flu in the US (doubling-down on lying).

And that was that.

Which leads to an 11th form of fake news: if one lie doesn’t quite fly, tell a much bigger lie.

And these mainstream sources are currently shouting and bloviating about independent media spreading fake news. I guess you could call that number 12: accusing their opponents of committing the crimes they are, in fact, committing.

(Jon Rappoport is the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix And Power Outside The Matrix). 

Your papers, please. You have none? You must go back into the dark”

by Jon Rappoport

—Once again, in this article, I step into the world of official gibberish about the epidemic and the virus and tests and so on. I point out the internal contradictions in the government position. And then I step back and look at what they’re really up to, in the way of a covert operation.

Let’s start with the official word on so-called immunity certificates.

POLITICIO, 4/10: “Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, revealed Friday the federal government is considering issuing Americans certificates of immunity from the coronavirus, as the Trump administration works to better identify those who have been infected and restart the U.S. economy in the coming weeks.”

“The proposal is contingent upon the widespread deployment of antibody tests which the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration are in the process of validating in the U.S., Fauci said.”

“Although coronavirus testing thus far has been able to determine if an individual has an active infection, antibody tests report whether an asymptomatic person was previously infected but has since recovered [and is immune], potentially allowing them to return to their jobs.”

Now let’s take that POLITICO article apart.

Immunity certificates would be issued to people who test POSITIVE on an antibody test. Meaning: antibodies in a person’s body are a sign that he has gained immunity from the coronavirus.

But wait. How about this?

Science News, March 27: “Science News spoke with…Charles Cairns, dean of the Drexel University College of Medicine, about how antibody tests work and what are some of the challenges of developing the tests.”

“Cairns: ‘The big question is: Does a positive response for the antibodies mean that person is actively infected, or that they have been infected in the past [and are now immune]…?’”

What??

In other words, when you penetrate an inch below the surface, you find there are even official/mainstream doubts, grave doubts about the meaning of a positive antibody test. It could mean IMMUNE or it could mean INFECTED.

This would be like saying, “The photo either proves there was a sixteen-car wreck on Highway 5 or it was smooth sailing and there was no accident at all.”

Actually, since 1984, a positive antibody test has generally been taken to mean the person is infected, has the disease in question.

So why the sudden turnaround now? Why are Fauci and other government officials claiming that a positive antibody test signals immunity?

Answer: Because, with the widespread use of this simple and quick antibody test (much quicker and easier to perform than the current PCR test), a reason is invented for issuing immunity certificates. And this is what the goal is. Introduce the population to immunity certificates. As a tune-up for the underlying operation, which is:

Immunity certificates for people who eventually receive vaccinations against COVID-19 (and, finally, all vaccines).

Just take the COVID-19 vaccine and you’ll be immune and you can carry with you a certificate, wherever you go—and you WILL be allowed to go here and there and live a normal life. With your paper or digital or tattoo immunity certificate.

Whether the certificate plan will be enacted this time around (COVID-19), or in the next fake pandemic, remains to be seen. But the IDEA is now firmly planted in the public mind. You can win a “gold star” on the blackboard from the teacher—your certificate to a better life. Just obey and follow orders. TAKE THE VACCINE.

Carrot and stick. Be free, or be limited.

If, indeed, we see a COVID-19 vaccine introduced, another variation on this operation would be: “Under Emergency regulations, everyone must take the shot.” But when you do, you’ll get your very valuable certificate of immunity. You’ll win a prize. Isn’t that wonderful?

No. It isn’t.

It’s Corona Bologna.

It’s all about CONTROL.

And in this article, I haven’t discussed questions about what would actually be IN the COVID-19 vaccine. I took up that subject in a recent piece about DNA vaccines. The new DNA technology, if introduced, would PERMANENTLY alter the genetic makeup of the vaccine-recipient.

And meanwhile…don’t you just love the idea of the government first locking you up, and then “freeing” you with an official seal of approval?

“The gate is open for you, sir. You have your papers. But you, sir, you must go back. No papers.”

(Jon Rappoport  is the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix).