How To Reduce Gun Violence Without Violating The Second Amendment

How to reduce America's horrible gun violence problem without violating the Second Amendment?  Here is a partial list if ways to keep such dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands while respecting the rights of responsible gun owners all the same:

• Do a massive, voluntary gun buyback program.  And yes, when done at a large enough scale and paying enough for it to be worth one's while, these things actually do work.
• Follow something like the Massachusetts model on the federal level (things like gun licensing, universal background checks, red flag laws, and a reinstated assault weapons ban and high-capacity magazine ban).
• Apply the RICO law to street gangs.
• Additional penalties for gun carry during a felony.
• Put a tax on bullets, like comedian Chris Rock advocated.  Expensive bullets = no innocent bystanders.

None of these things actually violate the letter or spirit of the Second Amendment in any way, by the way.  Remember, the best part of the Second Amendment is where it says, "well-regulated".

Stephen Hawking Warned Us About It. We Need To Listen Yesterday!

Years ago when he was still alive, the late genius theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking made a terrifying prediction, namely that the prospect of uncontrolled superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) is at least as much of an existential threat to humanity as climate change.  And that really says something!

Alas, we still don't seem to be listening, let alone heeding his wise advice.  There is no way to sugar coat this hard-to-swallow pill.  If AI grows any more powerful than it currently is (that is, more powerful than GPT-4) before we learn how to fully control it, and it becomes uncontrollable, it would truly be an existential threat to humanity, civilization, and planet Earth (and possibly even beyond).  Not just in the distant future, but also sooner than one may think, at the rate things are currently going.  Even as a best case scenario, uncontrolled AI would make literally every single current problem in the world far worse before it would make it better.  I repeat, that's the best we could hope for, and it goes downhill from there.  I mean, once the genie is out of the bottle, it's not like anyone would be able to, you know, outsmart it any longer if it ultimately becomes orders of magnitude smarter than even Stephen Hawking himself.

The TSAP thus supports recent calls to put a minimum six month global moratorium on any further AI development beyond GPT-4, period, no exceptions.  And ideally, this moratorium would be indefinite, but six months would still buy us time.  THIS is what things like the precautionary principle and Pascal's Wager were literally designed for.  That is, we would be in a far less precarious position (by orders of magnitude) if we "overreact" and shut it down yesterday, than we would if we were to foolishly let AI get out of control and it becomes too late to control it.  There is literally no comparison between the two.

We ignore such risks at our peril.  Don't say we didn't warn you!

Just Say NO To The WHO Pandemic Treaty!

The TSAP has previously noted that the WHO Pandemic Treaty (currently pending ratification) is problematic at best, both in what it contains, as well as what it lacks.  Now we are learning even more about why the USA should NEVER sign onto it, especially the amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) in conjunction with it.  In classic textbook Orwellian doublespeak fashion, the text contains a very disturbing section that purports to preserve and honor national sovereignty, but actually ends up doing the exact opposite, as can be seen in the extremely elastic wording below:

4.3 of the Treaty
"3. Sovereignty – States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to determine and manage their approach to public health, notably pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and recovery of health systems, pursuant to their own policies and legislation, provided that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to their peoples and other countries. Sovereignty also covers the rights of States over their biological resources."

Wow.  Read between the lines once again.  The part in bold is the absolute worst kind of Orwellian sophistry, in that all someone would have to do is argue in a tortured fashion that it is like having a "designated peeing section in a swimming pool" (apologies to the late George Carlin) for nations to refuse to implement WHO diktats including, but not limited to, travel restrictions, lockdowns, closures, mask mandates, or jab mandates/passports.  The Constitution be damned, of course, as this treaty doesn't even allow for the usual "subject to constitutional limitations" qualifiers found in typical international treaties.  And also the collateral damage to people from such measures would predictably be ignored by the powers that be.

To put it bluntly, if the USA does sign the treaty, then we as a nation would effectively be signing away our national sovereignty to the WHO.  And we must never do that.  Once we do, there is NO turning back!

At a minimum, the USA must add a reservation to the treaty striking the bold text entirely and adding "subject to constitutional limitations", as a condition for signing and ratification.  Better yet, the USA should denounce the treaty entirely and refuse to sign it.  

Worse still, as a News Uncut Substack article notes, "the proposed amendments remove an existing IHR paragraph which protects “respect for dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of people.” Translated, that means you could lose liberty and bodily autonomy; anyone who refused a mandatory vaccine could be banned from travel, work or even shopping. No digital health passport, no life."

Very telling indeed.  All the more reason to reject this utterly terrible treaty wholesale, period.

"Too Big To Fail" = Too Big To EXIST

Once again, the issue of "too big to fail" is in the foreground, as we have obviously learned NOTHING from the last financial crisis.  If there is ANY lesson that we must NEVER forget, it is this: "too big to fail (or jail)" is really too big to EXIST, period.  And here is what we absolutely MUST do going forward:  give all banks and corporations large enough to have "systemic risk" (that is, where them failing would literally bring the whole economy down) a choice between the following menu of options:

1. Pay a prohibitive 90% marginal tax rate on all profits beyond the first billion, or,
2. Break up into smaller, unaffiliated banks or companies, similar to what anti-trust laws require for monopolies, or,
3. Full nationalization by the federal government, and (if already failed or failing) replacing the entire board of directors.

That's it.  That's the ONLY real solution. 

Of course, we also need to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act and pass a financial transactions tax and repeal the safe harbor provision of bankruptcy law and regulate derivatives better and stuff like that.

So what are we waiting for?

What Was The Cruelest April Fool's Joke In All Of Recorded History?

What was the absolute cruelest April Fool's joke in all of recorded history?  "Two weeks to flatten the curve".  After all, had it actually been true, it would have literally ended on April 1, 2020.

And as The Who (not to be confused with the WHO, the World Health Organization!) famously sang:

"We won't get fooled again!"

Trumpty Dumpty Had A Great Fall

Well, it finally happened today.  The Donald has become the first (former) president to be indicted for a crime.  In his case, the primary charge (possibly a felony) was one related to the infamous Stormy Daniels hush money scheme, of all things.  And he also faces potential charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.  It is really NOT looking good for the washed up plutocrat turned reality TV star turned wannabe politician turned wannabe dictator turned disgrace of epic proportions.

All the king's horses and all the king's men, won't be able to put Trumpty together again.  Believe me.

UPDATE:  Trump was arrested and arraigned on April 4, 2023, and charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and that's just what they have so far.  His next court date is December 4, 2023.  Scratch that, it is the next court date for THESE particular charges.  A civil case against him related to rape allegations is coming up before then on April 25.  Looks like all of that Teflon has finally worn off of the Don for good, and for the first time in his life he is finally being held accountable for something.  

And far from rallying around their fallen idol like they would have in the past, most of his supporters were strangely out to lunch when it happened.

He is rapidly falling away and falling apart now, and it is only going to get worse for him going forward.  Really sucks to be him now.  Sad!  Believe me. 

How To Smash The Permanent War Racket For Good

On the 20th anniversary of "Quagmire Accomplished" in Iraq, Dennis Kucinich wrote a great article about the utter disaster it has been, and the massive human costs and follies of wars of aggression in general.  I agree with him 100%.  Also, we should note that it was part of a much larger racket as well, that is, a state of permanent war that the oligarchs have been benefiting handsomely from for decades, all while cannibalizing our own country in the process, as Chris Hedges has noted in another good article.

My response to that article was as follows:

As Major General Smedley Butler said back on 1935, "War Is A Racket". It was true then, and is true now, *a fortiori*.

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html 

I will note that bringing back the draft would not really solve anything. Conscription did not prevent Vietnam from dragging on, and even (largely) universal conscription still doesn't prevent Israel from their own perpetual war against Palestinians and occasionally other neighbors as well. And plenty of non-imperialisitic countries have all-volunteer militaries currently, because they know it's a strategically superior choice in the 21st century. 

And then, there is that annoying little detail that conscription is a form of slavery, of course. And the working class would still bear the overwhelming brunt of it, while the elites would still find a way to stay out of harm's way. The middle class, however, would be further hollowed out. 

Would it heal our divided nation if brought back today? That is very doubtful. I think it would look far more like the (often very racist) 1863 Draft Riots of NYC than the anti-war protests of the Vietnam era. 

In other words, the grass may look greener on the other side, but it still has to be mowed all the same. 

One good idea though would be my own variant of General Butler's idea, "consensual conscription", where for all wars going forward, it should be put up to a vote by those of military age. Those who vote no will be exempt, while those who abstain or vote yes will be eligible to be drafted into that war. And renew the vote every year. If the majority vote no, the war must end within 90 days, period. Also, raise the eligibility age to include people in their 40s, 50s and even early 60s. You know, those who are of the age to start the wars but not actually serve in them. Those who are 4F or CO would join the newly-created Human Shield Brigade, which is exactly what it sounds like: a sort of Peace Corps on steroids whose primary purpose is to nonviolently put their bodies on the line to protect civilian populations wherever they are deployed. 

Everyone would have skin in the game, and yet no one would be forced or coerced into participating in a war they do not believe in, or any war for that matter. 

And eradicating poverty with UBI, free college, single-payer Medicare for all, and stuff like that would also end the so-called "poverty draft" as well. Of course, that would mean we would have to (gasp!) pay our troops what they are actually worth, that is, significantly more than they are currently being paid. And since the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, they could easily print their own money to do so.

Problem solved.

More details, not included in my response:

The Selective Service System should be put back into "deep standby" like it was from 1975-1980, where all registration is suspended.  Only reactivate the registration requirement when an actual draft is either in effect and/or likely will be in the near future.  And yes, if that ever does happen, women should be included as well.  It's really only fair, right?  What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and if you really want equality, you got it, Toyota!

For the record, the TSAP of course does not support bringing back an actual draft.  A country that needs a draft to defend itself deserves to lose, and any fair-weather "allies" unwilling or unable to defend themselves without the help of foreign conscript armies from halfway around the world also deserve to lose as well.  And if there were a truly "just war", conscription would be unnecessary, as volunteers would be plentiful.  But in those vanishingly rare instances where we are actually in a war of necessity, and volunteers are no longer enough, the sacrifice should be shared equally.  Not only in terms of gender, but also age, class, race, and so on as well.

If anything, the billionaires should go first, THEN we can talk about drafting the broader working class.

Regardless though, any conscription for the sole or primary purpose of social engineering, as opposed to absolute necessity for defense as a last resort, has absolutely zero place in a free society.  It is an alien culture that ultimately belongs to totalitarians.

Also, the half-century old War Powers Resolution of 1973 needs to be updated and tightened so the President cannot just start indefinitely undefined wars willy-nilly, and the President should be held fully liable for any damages resulting from the abuse of this power.  Wars or any war-adjacent military actions in foreign countries lasting more than 90 days should require a formal and official declaration of war by Congress per the Constitution, and if not it must be halted within 90 days, no exceptions.  No more indefinite or nebulous AUMFs without a very strict sunset clause.  No more decades-long quagmires ever again.  Like, EVER.  And the nuclear launch codes must be taken off of "hair trigger alert", and only given when the President's senior advisers approve.

And of course, the profit needs to be taken out of war.  The crony capitalism of the mercenary-industrial complex needs to end yesterday, full stop.  And all it would take would be a few tweaks of the tax code, plus the intestinal fortitude to actually enforce it.

As General Butler famously said, 

"TO HELL WITH WAR!"

"Either war is obsolete, or man is."

-- Buckminster Fuller

"War, what is it good for?  Absolutely NOTHING!"

-- Edwin Starr

"Come the war, come the avarice, come the war, come hell...Come attrition, come the reek of bones, come attrition, come hell...This is why, why we fight, why we lie awake...And this is why, this is why we fight..."

-- The Decemberists

"Now the labor leader's screaming when they close the missile plant, United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore. Call it peace or call it treason, call it love or call it reason, but I ain't marching anymore."

-- Phil Ochs

"I declare the war is over, it's over, it's over..."

-- Phil Ochs

"But the hardest thing I'll ask you, if you would only try, is take your children by their hands and look into their eyes.  And there you'll see the answer you should have seen before.  If we win the wars at home, there'll be no fighting anymore"

-- Phil Ochs 

Three Years Later, The Debate Is Over

Three years later, the results are in, and now the debate is over for good:

Lockdowns don't work, and actually do more harm than good.

Masks don't work, except as a mind control device, and are far from harmless. 

Novel experimental gene therapies that speciously self-identify as "vaccines" not only don't work as advertised, but they have caused a LOT of excess deaths and serious injuries on balance.

Sweden got it right overall, as did Belarus, Nicaragua, Tanzania, the Faeroe Islands, and the 12 US states that (largely) eschewed lockdowns, mask mandates, and jab mandates, plus a few other states like Florida and Georgia that came to their senses quickly after seeing their early errors.

In other words, the powers that be in most of the world did literally EVERYTHING wrong in dealing with the pandemic, by design, and the very few things that could have actually helped save lives were deliberately ignored or censored.

The day of reckoning is NOW.  Seriously, NEVER AGAIN!

Any questions?

UPDATE:  Once again, it looks like Vitamin D was the closest thing to a magic bullet for this virus, especially along with Vitamin C and Zinc.  We see consilience across numerous studies and converging lines of evidence everywhere.  And that's also probably why all Nordic countries and Canada and Australia had such relatively low excess death rates, as all of these countries fortify their food (mostly flour, bread, and milk) with Vitamin D far more than the rest of the world does, while the USA generally only fortifies milk and most countries don't even fortify with Vitamin D at all.  Additionally, we also see that neither the official narrative, nor the "Scooby Doo" narrative that they wanted us to discover, have ever really jibed well at all with Occam's Razor. 

Pay No Attention To The Little Man Behind The Curtain

A new book by Matthew Desmond, Poverty By America, is the latest book about the topic of why poverty persists in the richest country on Earth.  In it, he discusses what he feels is the root cause of poverty's persistence, namely all of the ways that the non-poor benefit at the expense of the poor by keeping them poor.  It is true that it is not always enough to comfort the afflicted, sometimes you need to "afflict the comfortable" as well, to paraphrase the famous author and filmmaker Michael Moore.  

While there is a great deal of truth to what he says, and he makes some great points, the TSAP feels that the author is unfortunately 1) engaging too much in zero-sum game thinking, where in for one person to win, someone else has to lose, 2) largely ignoring the "little man behind the curtain", that is, the oligarchs of the big banks and Wall Street who fundamentally rig the game, and the FERAL Reserve that they own and control.  By focusing on all of the ways that the middle class and somewhat rich benefit at the expense of the poor, it also has the effect of ignoring what the billionaire class has done and is continuing to do to the broader working class, which includes the poor, the near poor, and the ever-shrinking middle class as well.  In contrast, David DeGraw back in 2014 wrote Peak Inequality, that really sheds light on the "little man behind the curtain":  the top 0.01%.  And it applies a fortiori to 2023, as inequality has only gotten worse.  If reading that doesn't make you feel RIPPED OFF, check your pulse 'cause you might be dead!

While there a number of things that need to be done to solve these massive intertwined and synergistic problems of poverty and inequality, keep in mind that we can mathematically end poverty overnight with a Universal Basic Income (UBI).  And also another that our tax code is actually regressive at the very top, where thanks to numerous loopholes, the top 0.01% often pay only a fraction of what those below them pay, if anything at all.  Aside from closing loopholes and greatly hiking the top marginal tax rates for those making over $10 million per year, another idea that has yet to be tried is a financial transactions tax on stocks, bonds, derivatives, and stuff like that. Alternatively, essentially all taxes could be replaced by a tiny 0.1% or less Universal Exchange Tax (UET) on all electronic transactions, period.  With a tax base of most likely $5 quadrillion or more, a 0.1% rate would raise $5 trillion per year, enough for the entire federal budget and then some.  It would actually be quite progressive in practice, since the rich make far more transactions than the non-rich.  And such a tax would still be quite painless for literally everyone except perhaps speculators and money launderers.

And of course, we need to nationalize the private FERAL Reserve, and restore the power of money creation back to its rightful creators, Congress, who would then authorize the Treasury to do so.  Such power is far too important to leave to the big banks and they sycophantic lackeys and technocrats. 

So what are we waiting for?

How To Defuse The QUADRILLION Dollar Derivatives Bubble

"Beware the Ides of March!"

With all the talk about (so far) isolated bank failures and the potential for a real, wider financial crisis in the near future, no one wants to talk about the real elephant in the room:  the looming QUADRILLION dollar derivatives bubble just waiting to burst.  And if the FERAL Reserve keeps on hiking interest rates in a misguided attempt to fight inflation that is already cooling, it will burst catastrophically, making 2008 and possibly even 1929 look like a walk in the park.

This massive derivatives bubble was decades in the making, resulting from the ever-increasing "financialization" of the economy.  Wall Street has basically been gambling with other people's money, in the world's largest casino, all while getting bailouts.  Privatize the profits, and socialize the losses, basically.

There is still time to defuse this ticking time bomb though:

1. Cut interest rates, YESTERDAY!  Or at least stop raising them!
2. End Quantitative Tightening, YESTERDAY!
3. Pass a financial transaction tax (aka "Wall Street Gaming Tax") of 0.1% on all financial transactions, including stocks, bonds, and especially derivatives.
4. Repeal the "safe harbor" provision of bankruptcy law, particularly as it applies to derivatives. 
5. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act in full.
6. Ban the practice of "quote stuffing".
7. Ban stock buybacks by corporations.
8. Going forward, ban any and all types of new and exotic derivatives that are not completely transparent. 
9. No more bailouts OR "bail-ins" of the banks (but of course depositors should still be made whole per the FDIC, with  no apologies to ultra-purist libertarians or paleoconservatives).
10. Implement "Quantitative Easing For People" (that is, with direct payments to individuals, not banks) as needed.
11. And last but not least, all banks that are "too big to fail" are really too big to exist, and should thus be either forcibly broken up, or nationalized as public utilities.  YESTERDAY!

The first five items alone, or even the first four, would be enough to defuse it in the near term, while the remaining items would be to clean up the damage and/or prevent it form happening again in the future. 

In the meantime, we all need to brace ourselves for a possible financial crisis and recession in the future.  But don't fall for the idea that we should withdraw all of our money now, as that would literally be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The FDIC guarantees the first $250,000 per depositor per bank, so unless you have more than that (and didn't put it in multiple banks like you should have), it does not make sense to do so.

And let's not forget the role that the lockdowns played in all of this.  To paper over their predictable consequences, they printed trillions of dollars to do so (which increased demand for goods and services), at the same time that the lockdowns and their fallout constrained supply and snarled supply chains.  The resulting inflation was then belatedly papered over by raising interest rates and Quantitative Tightening, and the resulting whiplash has brought us where we are now with the banks, and making the bubble even more likely to burst.

Of course, things weren't exactly rosy for the financial system before the pandemic either.  Behind the scenes, a financial crisis was already subtly brewing, with the turmoil "repo market" in September 2019 being the first canary in the coal mine.  The FERAL Reserve kept printing more and more money to try to paper it over, but the problem wouldn't go away, even many months later.  They needed to do something BIG, and FAST.  It's almost like the pandemic was actually a PLANDEMIC, a big heist of the century to temporarily shore up the big banks in 2020 and make the rich richer, the poor poorer, and hollow out whatever is left of the middle class.  But hey, that's just a "conspiracy theory", right?

UPDATE:  The FERAL Reserve has raised the Fed Funds Rate by 0.25 percentage points.  Looks like they really, really wanna pop the "Everything Bubble".

Why "Nattokinase" Should Be A Household Buzzword Now

The ever-insightful Dr. Peter McCullough has recently pointed out a way to detox from the jabs.  An enzyme supplement called Nattokinase, from fermented soybeans, can apparently dissolve the toxic spike protein, and also thins the blood as well to reduce the dangerous clotting that the jabs are famous for.  He discusses all of this on his recent Substack post here.

So that looks like another good way to detox from the jabs.  We already knew for a while now that N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is also good as well, in that it cleaves the disulfide linkage in the spike protein.  And zeolites and Vitamin C have been recommended by others as well, and resveratrol and fisetin, and also pine needle tea and omega-3 fatty acids.

Of course, the number one best way to avoid the toxic consequences of the jabs is to not get any (more) jabs in the first place.  In other words, nip it in the bud.  DUH!  But failing that, all hope is still not lost.

For more damage control for those who got jabbed, see here as well.

DISCLAIMER:  The above should not be considered medical advice, so be sure to consult a nutritionally-informed physician before beginning any supplement program.

Three Nutrients. Three Tablets. Three Lost Years That Could Have Been Averted

We have noted this before, but we will again.

From the ever-insightful Dr. Steve Kirsch's recent Substack article, in a nutshell:

"Special mention for the fact that the entire pandemic was completely unnecessary. 3 supplements work better than vaccines and are safe and cheap. All the lockdowns, masking, vaccines, mandates, social distancing, etc. were all unnecessary. And even though this is now known, nobody will pay attention since it will make them look bad.

"Uptake of vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc were significantly associated with the reduced risk of infection and severity of COVID-19 (OR: 0.006 (95% CI: 0.03–0.11) (p = 0.004)) and (OR: 0.03 (95% CI: 0.01–0.22) (p = 0.005))... this study was conducted before the start of mass vaccination against COVID-19 in Bangladesh."

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/23/5029

That's over 150x decreased risk just from taking these 3 dirt-cheap supplements that everyone has known to be safe + effective for decades! And it was all pre-vax, it was for the original Wuhan strain that was most dangerous!"

Read that again, and again, and again and let it sink in.  Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Zinc.  Those three things alone would have largely defanged and declawed this overall already relatively humdrum virus to begin with, which was basically a classic super-flu at worst, and never an existential threat.

And especially for Vitamin D, but the others too, this was confirmed time and again.  And again and again.

Oh, and one of the other thing that we at the TSAP have long advocated, the humble xylitol nasal spray, has also been confirmed yet again as prophylaxis.

It gets even worse still for the powers that be, apparently, when one also notes that the standard of care for patients with post-viral pneumonia was abruptly changed worldwide, at or before the beginning of the pandemic.  And not for the better, either. The change was to no longer give antibiotics for pneumonia if Covid was thought to be the cause, even though it was very likely that many if not most of such deaths were from secondary bacterial infections.  And antibiotics would have been given had they not been inexplicably removed from the protocols, and thus deliberately withheld from patients for political reasons.  A good chunk of excess deaths could thus easily be attributed to that alone.  

Just #3tablets of azithromycin or doxycycline would often have been enough to save their lives.

And don't forget to read the eye-opening Spartacus Letter if you haven't already.

In other words, all of the lockdowns, closures, masks, jabs, and NPIs were basically in vain.  Not that these things would have ever really had any hope or redeeming quality in the first place, of course. 

Three nutrients.  Three tablets.  Three lost years that we will never get back, that could have all been averted, to say nothing of all of the gargantuan excess deaths that resulted.  How will they ever live this down?  And will future generations ever forgive us?

Why The WHO Pandemic Treaty Needs Serious Revision Before It Can Be Signed

The current draft of the WHO pandemic treaty is very close to being signed by President Biden.  And while the "fact checkers" vociferously deny that the treaty will sign over America's hard-won national sovereignty to the WHO in the event of a future global health emergency, there is still good reason to refuse to sign it until serious revisions are made.  

First, the constitutionally questionable practice of it possibly even going into effect without the Senate's "advice and consent" (as is typically required to ratify international treaties), let alone the utterly specious notion that treaties can even supersede the Constitution itself, is enough to give anyone a severe case of the heebie-jeebies, or at least any serious student of history that gives a crap about the Constitution.  That alone is bad enough. 

But the most important problem of all, is what the treaty, by omission, does NOT require of its signatories.  The following is what we believe any such treaty absolutely MUST require explicitly, in light of the past three years of authoritarianism:

To be prohibited in any circumstances:

• All lockdowns, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited. 
• All mask mandates outside of a healthcare setting must be strictly prohibited.
• All forced business closures must be strictly prohibited unless fully compensated by, and entirely at the expense of, whatever government imposed such closures.
• All forced school closures lasting more than ten (10) consecutive school days must be strictly prohibited. 
• All vaccine mandates, passports or coercion, in theory or practice, must be strictly prohibited for any vaccine that 1) has been on the market for less than ten (10) years and/or 2) has not been conclusively proven to be truly safe and effective.
• Launching or marketing any sort of vaccine, or anything that identifies as such, without the proper safety and effectiveness testing and/or without following GMP, shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Any attempt to censor alternative viewpoints shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Any attempt to officially deny or censor a known effective treatment or prophylaxis shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Any attempt to abolish cash shall be strictly prohibited. 
• Social credit scoring shall be strictly prohibited. 

To be strongly discouraged overall:

• Blanket mask mandates in healthcare settings shall be strongly discouraged. 
• School closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged.
• Business closures of any kind shall be strongly discouraged. 
• Vaccine mandates, passports, or coercion of any kind shall be strongly discouraged regardless of the vaccine or how supposedly safe it is.
• Mandatory quarantine of exposed individuals without symptoms shall be strongly discouraged for any disease for which the body of research evidence does not support (i.e. influenza and coronaviruses).
• Gathering restrictions or any other restrictions on freedom of association shall be strongly discouraged. 
• Travel bans and restrictions shall be strongly discouraged. 
• Mass testing with PCR shall be strongly discouraged in most circumstances. 
• Central bank digital currency (CBDC) shall be strongly discouraged (and shall be prohibited if it replaces cash entirely).
• Digital ID shall be strongly discouraged. 

To be encouraged:

• Informed consent
• Bodily autonomy 
• Human rights
• Civil rights and liberties 
• Free speech
• Public health (as it was originally founded)
• Early treatment and prophylaxis 
• Nutrition 
• Holistic view of health
• National sovereignty 

Definitions:

• "Lockdown" shall be defined as any mandatory "stay home", "shelter in place", or equivalent order lasting more than 24 consecutive hours, for all or part of the population, for any reason.  Any nighttime curfew order lasting more than three (3) consecutive nights would also meet this definition as well.  These must be off the table.
• "Mask mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce anyone to cover all or any part of one's face for the purposes of disease control, or any penalties for not complying for same.
• "Vaccine mandate" shall be defined as any attempt to force or coerce any person to receive anything that identifies as a vaccine.
• "Vaccine passport" shall be defined as any identifier bestowed on a person that gives certain privileges conditional on having received anything that identifies as a vaccine.
• All other definitions have their usual meaning, and apply in theory or practice.

That should be the FLOOR for any such treaty, as even that may be too much leeway. Then, and ONLY then, should the USA agree to any WHO pandemic treaty.

The Verdict Is In: Freedom Wins

We had already noted that Sweden was thoroughly vindicated for eschewing lockdowns, masks, and overall stringency during the pandemic.  Just like Belarus, Nicaragua, Tanzania, and even Brazil did similar to or better than their stricter neighbors in terms of cumulative all cause deaths as well.  

"But America is different!" the lockdown zealots speciously claim.  We are somehow too affluent, too spoiled, too poor, too unequal, too racist, too diverse, too multicultural, too fractured, too lazy, too workaholic, too unhealthy, too coddled, too independent, too dependent, too immature, too precocious, too low-trust, too credulous, too individualistic, too herd mentality, too smart for our own good, too stupid, too educated, too uneducated, too fragile, too many problems already, too (insert favorite adjective here, the more contradictory the better) to be able to even compare ourselves to other countries, let alone copy even in part what the world's few remaining free countries did without disastrous consequences resulting.  Or something. 

Of course, in this country, twelve US states (nearly a quarter of all states) basically eschewed lockdowns as well, most famously South Dakota, and several additional states were either much less stringent than the national average and/or only locked down briefly before opening up and lifting restrictions fairly quickly, most famously Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

And yet, now a new 50-state study finds that among US states and DC, less stringent states were not significantly different from more stringent ones in terms of health outcomes, but they did do significantly better on economic outcomes and education outcomes as well as overall outcomes.  For example, when adjusted for age and pre-existing conditions, Florida and California (with polar opposite policies) ended up being within error bounds of each other and the national average in terms of death rates.  And as we have noted earlier, this was not the only American study that arrived at similar (if not even more damning) conclusions either, namely that lockdowns and related restrictions were essentially all pain and no gain.  Thus it looks like freedom wins hands down, both in the USA as well as abroad. 

Let America be America again!

UPDATE:  Yet another international study found that not only were lockdowns, overall stringency, and jabs associated with higher death rates, but also HCQ and IVM were associated with lower death rates, just as the late Dr. Vladimir Zev Zelenko famously predicted back in 2020.  In a world of Lysenkos, be a Zelenko.

Are They Already Telegraphing The Next Plandemic?

You know the Covid pandemic is effectively over (i.e. now endemic) when the fearmongering MSM is already moving on to the next (theoretical) pandemic....or is that plandemic?

In recent days, there have been several articles in the MSM about bird flu (H5N1 avian influenza, to be precise) now seemingly infecting mammals as well as birds, and how this may some day soon result in it jumping to humans and perhaps causing a pandemic.  There was recently an outbreak at a mink farm (remind me again why we are still "farming" minks in 2023?) in which there was likely mink to mink transmission, which has some scientists nervous now.  There have been some wild mammals catching it sporadically, such as otters and foxes, but those were most likely isolated instances in which they caught it from wild birds, which many wild mammals eat.

H5N1 bird flu appears to have originated decades ago on poultry farms, particularly in China, from where it eventually spread to wild birds.  The conditions there are often quite deplorable, and provide the perfect petri dish for incubating viruses.  There are many strains, and the deadliest strain appears to have a 50% fatality rate* when humans (rarely) catch it from the infected birds they work with.  Of course, even if it does at some point make the jump to human to human transmission, that does not necessarily mean it will retain its lethality, nor does it mean it will become contagious enough to cause a pandemic.

Of course, the oligarchs and their lackeys  may very well make it happen with "gain of function" (i.e. gain of lethality and/or contagion) research for the next plandemic.  We don't always know for sure what they are up to, but if it does become the next plandemic, remember that they telegraphed the idea well in advance, as they usually tend to do.

And whether it is natural origin, lab origin, accidental, deliberately, or hoax, keep the following things in mind about any respiratory virus pandemic:

1. Lockdowns don't work
2. Masks don't work
3. Most NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions), including but not limited to school closures, don't work for very long or very well at all
4. "Flatten the curve" usually does NOT reduce the number of cases or deaths in the long run, and merely drags them out for longer by delaying the inevitable 
5. The best time to prepare hospitals is always yesterday. "Clearing the decks" by cancelling "non-essential" procedures for prolonged periods is an absolute last resort, and doing it when there is no immediate local need for it does far more harm than good
6. ALL workers are essential workers
7. Panic always backfires.  Keep calm and carry on.
8. Vaccines nearly always come far too late and/or take far too long to work
9. Hastily-made vaccines of any type are generally a risky proposition
10. Novel experimental mRNA or other gene therapy "vaccines" are particularly risky, and are unlikely to have a NET favorable effect, when adverse effects are taken into account
11. "Leaky" vaccines (i.e. every single flu and Covid vaccine to date) do NOT stop transmission of the virus, have ZERO justification to mandate or coerce people to get them, and over-vaccinating a population with those can in fact backfire mightily 
12. Early antiviral treatment and prophylaxis are the best bet.  Repurposing generics makes far more sense than waiting for a new and patented "miracle cure" from Big Pharma while the bodies pile up
13. Don't forget to take your vitamins, especially Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Zinc. And also Thiamine and Niacin.
14. Ventilate, ventilate, ventilate indoor air
15. Slopes are MUCH slipperier than they appear
16. Never surrender your right to be with the people you love.  Like, ever.
17. Once you give up your civil rights, even temporarily, it is VERY hard if not impossible to get them back.  Power concedes NOTHING without a fight!

Every single one of the above truths was ultimately learned the hard way.  And God willing, may we never have to learn the hard way again.  Like, ever.

*NOTE:  The bandied-about 50% fatality rate is the case fatality rate (CFR) for the tiny number of known human cases caught from birds over the years, based on the most pathogenic strains of H5N1.  The infection fatality rate (IFR), however, remains unknown and could perhaps be as much as tenfold lower.  But even then, that would put it at "only" two to three times deadlier than the infamous 1918 pandemic flu.  Of course, if it ever, God forbid, becomes contagious enough to sustain human to human transmission with an R value greater than 1, the CFR and IFR may very well drop further.  But as we have seen with Covid, if the R value is high enough, it does not really need to have a very high IFR or CFR to get a considerably "high score" in terms of total deaths.  SARS-2 was a much less deadly virus than the original SARS-1, but more contagious and much more subtle and thus much harder to contain, so the former had a much higher death toll than the latter, which was too "hot" and thus very easily contained.  And MERS ("camel flu") was an even deadlier coronavirus still in terms of IFR and CFR, rivaling or exceeding bird flu, but fortunately it was not very contagious among humans, so it was a flash in the pan.

State Of The Planet Address 2023

It is now 2023, and this year the TSAP will not waste any time giving our annual State of the Planet Address as we do every year.  Yes, we know it is a bit of a downer to say the least.  So sit down, take off your rose-colored glasses, and read on:

Our planet is in grave danger, and has been for quite some time now.  We face several serious long term problems:  climate change, deforestation, desertification, loss of biodiversity, overharvesting, energy crises, and of course pollution of many kinds.  Polar ice caps are melting.  Rainforests have been shrinking by 50 acres per minute.  Numerous species are going extinct every year.  Soil is eroding rapidly.  Food shortages have occurred in several countries in recent years.  Weather has been getting crazier each year thanks to climate change.  We have had numerous and often record-breaking wildfires, floods followed by long periods of drought, and a "storm of the century" at least once a year for the past several years.   And it is only getting worse every year.  In fact, 2020 is tied with 2016 as having been the hottest year on record.  Look no further than the three record-breaking storms in the past 20 years:  Katrina (2005, highest storm surge), Sandy (2012, largest diameter), and then Harvey (2017, a 1000-year flood, and overall worst hurricane on record), followed by Irma and Maria which devastated Puerto Rico, for a taste of the not-too-distant future.  And that was before Hurricane Michael devastated a rather large chunk of Florida.  And the wild weather continues to this day, with up to six-foot (!) snowfalls in parts of Upstate New York just over two months ago.

None of this is an accident of course.  These problems are man-made, and their solutions must also begin and end with humans.  We cannot afford to sit idly by any longer, lest we face hell and high water in the not-too-distant future.  Our unsustainable scorched-earth policy towards the planet has to end.  Yesterday.

While we do not invoke the precautionary principle for all issues, we unequivocally do for the issue of climate change and any other environmental issues of comparable magnitude.  In fact, for something as dire as climate change, as of 2015 we now support a strong "no regrets" approach.  With no apologies to hardcore libertarians or paleoconservatives, in fact. We are not fazed one bit by the naysayers' pseudoscience as it does not really "debunk" the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. The only serious debate is about how fast it will happen, and when the tipping point (or points) will occur. It is not a matter of if, but when. And the less precarious position is to assume it is a real and urgent problem. We need to reduce CO2 emissions to the point where the CO2 concentration is at or below 350 ppm, ASAP.  And it is currently at an unsustainably high level of 400+ ppm, and growing rapidly every year.

Given the latest IPCC report, which is truly nothing short of horrifying, the general consensus among climate scientists is that we have only at most 12 years left (now more like 11) to act radically before truly catastrophic climate change is a foregone conclusion.  And 2030 will be here before we know it.  

Now THAT is a national emergency!  And a global one, in fact.  Thus, a full-steam-ahead, Green New Deal 2.0 is LONG overdue.  We have already squandered over a whole decade since Copenhagen, and we cannot afford to squander even one more day, let alone another decade.

Solving the problem of climate change will also help to solve the other ecological crises we are facing, for they all ultimately have the same root causes, not least of which is our insatiable addiction to dirty energy.  However, there is a right way to solve it, and several wrong ways.  Technology is important, but it won't be decisive on its own (economics geeks may recall Jevons Paradox).  The real problem is the paradigm that our society has been following, and that system is based on wetiko, the parasite of the mind and cancer of the soul.  It often seems that the only difference between capitalism and cannibalism is the spelling.

The TSAP endorses the ideas embodied in Steve Stoft's new book Carbonomics, most notably a tax-and-dividend system that would tax carbon (i.e. fossil fuels) at the source, and give all Americans an equal share of the revenue generated from this tax.  (Note that our proposal to tax natural resources and pay out an Alaska-like citizen's dividend already includes this.)  Yes, prices for various things would undoubtedly rise due to this tax, all else being equal, but the dividend will allow Americans to pay for this increase. The average American would in fact break even, but those who (directly or indirectly) use less energy than average will effectively pay less tax, while the energy hogs will effectively be taxed more, as they should be. Thus it is certainly not a regressive tax, and may even be mildly progressive. This is both the simplest and most equitable way to reduce carbon emissions as well as other forms of pollution, not to mention waste of dwindling non-renewable resources. The real challenge is getting the feds to accept something that won't directly benefit them (in the short term).  Carbonomics also includes other good ideas, such as improving how fuel economy standards are done, and crafting a better verison of the Kyoto treaty.   

In addition to the ideas in Carbonomics, we also support several other measures to help us end our addiction to fossil fuels once and for all.  Our Great American Phase-Out plan would phase out all fossil fuels by 2030 at the latest, via alternative energy, efficiency, and conservation.  One good idea to further the development of alternative energy would be the use of feed-in tariffs for renewable power sources. 

(We are now very behind schedule, so perhaps the best we could hope for is a phaseout by 2050, which may be too late.)

Of course, it is not enough to stop emitting carbon dioxide, we also need to remove the current excess levels of it from the atmosphere as well, as that stuff can otherwise linger for centuries and continue wreaking havoc on the climate.  We support ending net deforestation completely, planting a LOT more trees, and putting carbon back in the ground through carbon sequestration. One method is known as biochar, a type of charcoal made from plants that remove carbon dioxide from the air, that is subsequently buried. This is also an ancient method of soil fertilization and conservation, originally called terra preta.  It also helps preserve biodiversity.  Another crucial method would be regenerative organic farming, which also turns the soil into an effective carbon sink as well.  And we will most likely also need to employ higher-tech methods of sucking carbon out of the air as well.

We've said this before, and we'll say it again.  Our ultimate goal is 100% renewable energy by 2030, but we need to hedge our bets.  We can phase out fossil fuels, or we can phase out nuclear power, but we can't do both at the same time--and fossil fuels need to be phased out first, and quickly.  Nuclear is doing a pretty good job of phasing itself out as it is.  So let's not get rid of it prematurely.  

LENR (low energy nuclear reactors) and fusion power are also worth considering.

But the biggest elephant in the room (make that the elephant in the Volkswagen) is overpopulation.  It does not make for pleasant dinner conversation, but it must be addressed or else all other causes become lost causes in the long run. We absolutely need to have fewer kids, or nature will reduce our population for us, and the latter will NOT be pleasant to say the least. The TSAP believes in voluntarily reducing the total fertility rate (TFR) to 1.5-1.9 children per woman to do so, but let us be clear that we do NOT support draconian and/or coercive measures of population control (like China has used).  We believe that more liberty is the answer, not less.  In fact, the two most effective means of reducing the birthrate are poverty reduction and female empowerment.

Fortunately, America's TFR has recently dropped to a record low of about 1.6-1.7 with no indication of rising back above replacement rate in the near term.  And with the massive social and economic fallout from the pandemic and especially the lockdowns, the TFR may even drop further.  But clearly we cannot keep growing and growing, that's for sure (in fact, we need to shrink). And our insatiable addiction to economic growth (despite being decoupled from well-being) is also every bit as harmful as overpopulation as well, if not more so.  Growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell,  is clearly one of the most asinine obsessions our nation (and world) has ever had.  We clearly need to transition to a steady-state economy, most likely following a period of what Naomi Klein calls "selective degrowth" as well.  And to do that, we need a radical paradigm shift to happen yesterday.  Put another way, we need to leave room for Nature, lest Nature not leave room for us.  We have been warned, decades ago in fact.  Unfortunately, such warnings have largely fallen of deaf ears until very recently.

(NOTE:  The novel experimental gene therapies that self-identify as "vaccines" may be behind the drop in birthrates from 2021 to 2022, and if that is not reversible, is NOT really good news.  Time will tell.)

Yesterday is the time to jettison the Twin Big Lies that "everybody must work for a living" and "everybody must procreate".  Because doing so is the sine qua non of any realist plan to avert ecological catastrophe.

Last but not least, the TSAP now believes that as long as men remain in charge, we are all merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  Let's face it, it ain't gonna be us fellas who will save the world, as the past 7000 years or so have shown.  We paved paradise and put up a parking lot, we created a desert and called it peace.  We devoured and suffocated our own empire, and our proverbial 15 minutes of fame is almost up.  Only when women finally take over and reclaim their rightful position as the new leaders of the free world--and they will--will there be any real permanent solution.

Bottom line: we need to take the environment much more seriously than we do now.  We ignore it at our own peril.  And while the current administration in DC clearly doesn't care, We the People must act nonetheless.  With no apologies to the deniosaurs or Big Oil, Big Gas, or Dirty Coal.

Oh, by the way, wanna hear a joke?  Peak Oil.  Not saying it won't happen, of course--it will eventually peak and decline at some point--but climate change kinda supersedes it.  While conventional oil most likely has already peaked, there is more than enough total oil (including unconventional) to deep-fry the Earth--and most of which needs to stay in the ground if we wish to avoid catastrophic climate change.  Fossil fuels are, after all, what Buckminster Fuller referred to as our planet's "energy savings account", which we need to wean ourselves off of and save just in case of a planetary emergency--and he first said this in 1941!

So quibble all you want, but the truth must be faced head-on.  Hindsight is 2020, and we have a planet to save.  So let's roll!

UPDATE:  We never thought we would ever have to say this, but the TSAP does NOT support a "climate lockdown" or any other type of lockdown for that matter.  It is at best a category error, and would do far more harm than good in the long run.  And of course it flies in the face of the basic principles of anything remotely resembling a free society.  So take that off the table now!

It should also go without saying, but we at the TSAP DO NOT support the WEF "Great Reset", social credit scoring, or a cashless society (aka CBDC) either.  Those are a totalitarian's dream come true, and our worst nightmare come true for the rest of us.  We believe that the answer is MORE liberty and democracy, not less.

Let the planetary healing begin!