Karen Rubin, Columnist
Trump continues to lie (when doesn’t he?) about the Biden-Harris administration’s outstanding relief response to a historic storm that devastated six states and took over 220 lives – so far – saying that they are spending disaster funding on illegal migrants while neglecting Republican areas, and ignoring Republican governors – all debunked by the governors themselves.
And don’t forget that Trump tried to pressure Speaker Johnson to shut down government rather than pass a budget resolution and had he been successful there would have been no federal workers to mobilize to provide emergency response.
Now, with Hurricane Helene already costing $34 billion, Hurricane Milton barreling down on Florida, and FEMA expecting to run out of funds in the next week, 35 Republican Senators rejected allocating more funds for FEMA while Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to take up more funding until after the election – clearly expecting the suffering and hardship to be blamed on Biden-Harris and Democrats and not the traitorous Republicans to tilt the election.
And, even as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis gladly accept federal aid, they have all but banished climate change from government policy and action. These Big Oil stooges have done nothing to mitigate disaster or adapt to be resilient. And they clearly do not see their states as part of a national or a global endeavor – doing their part to stem the forces that are heating the oceans that turn storms into super storms and cold snaps into a polar vortex.
As Margaret Renkl wrote in the New York Times, “There Is No Climate Haven. We All Live in Florida Now.”
Every three weeks, the United States experiences an extreme weather event that produces $1 billion worth of damage, averaging $150 billion a year ($165 billion in 2022) according to the latest US National Climate Assessment, CNN reported.
“The more the planet warms, the greater the impacts. Without rapid and deep reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, the risks of accelerating sea level rise, intensifying extreme weather, and other harmful climate impacts will continue to grow. Each additional increment of warming is expected to lead to more damage and greater economic losses compared to previous increments of warming, while the risk of catastrophic or unforeseen consequences also increases,” according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
But, the NCA notes, “This also means that each increment of warming that the world avoids—through actions that cut emissions or remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere—reduces the risks and harmful impacts of climate change. While there are still uncertainties about how the planet will react to rapid warming, the degree to which climate change will continue to worsen is largely in human hands. In addition to reducing risks to future generations, rapid emissions cuts are expected to have immediate health and economic benefits. At the national scale, the benefits of deep emissions cuts for current and future generations are expected to far outweigh the costs,” the NCA notes.
Hurricane Helene is already expected to cost $100 billion to rebuild the roads, bridges, communities that have been decimated. But there is so much – a life’s work, a life’s savings, a life – that cannot be rebuilt, reconstructed, repaired or resuscitated.
I am frankly sick of sending billions of dollars to climate change-deniers. There should be no federal disaster aid for any recovery, rebuilding, restoration project that does not require climate change and climate resiliency to be core to the plan.
You require communities to rebuild to be sustainable, eco-friendly, ergonomic and healthy, with clean, renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal) – walkable, bikeable; electric-powered cars, buses, delivery trucks, mail trucks, school buses. You rebuild affordable housing and commercial buildings with net-zero goals in mind and require sustainable agriculture.
The climate crisis is actually a disruption of the entire ecosystem that supports human life. And all of it is connected – greenspace; healthy living, working and recreational environments; affordable, nutritious food; clean air and water; healthy oceans. Communities need to think and plan holistically; states need to establish code (after Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, New York State joined a coalition of states to adhere to the goals of reducing carbon emissions); and the federal government should continue what the Biden-Harris administration has put into place, funding an economic and infrastructure renaissance based on climate action.
Trump has such unmitigated gall as to lie about the Biden-Harris administration response, when his ‘relief” to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria came in the form of tossing paper towels into a crowd and awarding a $300 million no-bid contract to a two-person Montana company with ties to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Whitefish Energy, to rebuild the electric grid (it didn’t).
But this outrageous lie that the Biden-Harris administration discriminated against “Republican” communities is yet another example of Trump’s accusation being more of a confession.
Politico revealed that when he was president, Trump would refuse to provide disaster relief until he could inspect political maps showing how many people there voted for him; want to cut programs that help prepare, manage and mitigate wildfires and refused to give California wildfire aid until he learned how many people in the affected area voted for him; dangled federal aid for Michigan if they would oppose the state’s mail-in ballot program.
Trump rolled back flooding standards to appease his wealthy donor, real estate developer Richard Lefrak; diverted $150 million in FEMA disaster funds ahead of Hurricane Dorian hitting the Southeast; threatened to veto legislation providing $5 billion in disaster relief after extreme earthquakes; and proposed budget cuts to NOAA that would have left the US unprepared for extreme weather.
But that was only the first term. In a second term, Trump and Vance’s Project 2025 agenda proposes eliminating disaster loans to enable families and small businesses rebuild after storms and to cut assistance for hurricane victims; calls to raise FEMA’s threshold for state and local government disaster assistance; advocates privatizing FEMA’s National Flood Insurance program and rolling back emergency response spending, putting the burden for preparedness and response costs on states and localities; dismantling NOAA and eliminating the National Weather Service’s federal weather forecasting.
One last thing: just imagine Donald Trump in the Oval Office, who can’t get through a paragraph or read off the teleprompter without rambling into irrelevance and who during his first term didn’t have the focus or interest to sit through a briefing, having to juggle a climate disaster of historic proportions, an escalation of war in the Middle East, a Putin invasion, and an impending dock strike that would cripple the economy.
Biden is handling all of these with Harris along side. They have the people heading the agencies and the teams necessary to get the job done.
See also: Viewpoint: Climate crisis poses threat to public health, economic stability
Column (The Real Deal) by Gary Feldman: The severe dumbing down of America
By The Island 360 – November 10, 2020
If you were being “enslaved,” would you know it? The majority of the population has accepted, without questioning, life-diminishing controls.
Enslave:
Cause (someone) to lose their freedom of choice or action. – Oxford Languages
To control someone’s actions, thoughts, emotions, or life completely.
(We are increasingly enslaved by technology.) – Cambridge Dictionary
To enslave a person or society means to trap them in a situation from which they cannot escape. – Collins Dictionary
Chemicals
Chemicals destroy the climate, fertile soil that grows our food, pollute our drinking water, gut flora, mutate our genes, are a threat to our brains and neurological systems, cause cancers.
Big Pharma
Pharmaceuticals disrupt the gut microbiome and Ph balance, alter brain chemistry, enter our drinking water, have life-threatening side-effects, create a revolving door of pharmaceutical dependence.
Factory Farming
Industrial farms inflict tremendous torture upon farm animals, causing them untold suffering. They are also force-fed lab-created GMOs, not normal to their natural diets. With ties to pharmaceutical companies, factory farms administer antibiotics and growth hormones to make these animals large, so much so that they cannot stand on their own legs. Crammed into very small cages, they never see the light of day or breathe the fresh air.
“The factory meat industry has polluted thousands of miles of America’s rivers, killed billions of fish, pushed tens of thousands of family farmers off their land, sickened and killed thousands of U.S. citizens, and treated millions of farm animals with unspeakable and unnecessary cruelty.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Biotech Labs and GMOs
Just about all food crop seeds in America, unless organic, are created in laboratories, not nature-grown. Genetically modified organisms contain foreign DNA, unrecognized by the human body. They alter the human genome, create havoc with our health, make us vulnerable to new viruses, and lower IQ.
Grown with synthetic fertilizer, they are heavily sprayed with Glyphosate and other toxic chemicals. Nitrous oxide produced by synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, caustic to our lungs, creates tremendous heat in the atmosphere. It is 300 times more powerful at warming the Planet than carbon dioxide and methane. With synthetic soil and fake food, void of nutrients vital to life, how long do you think we can survive?
Intellectual Property
Genetically altered crop seeds contain novel (new) proteins, giving the Biotech industry rights to apply for patents. This creation is not by nature, but by science. According to patent laws, by consuming food containing these altered proteins, you are considered to be infringing upon the lab’s patent.
Support local journalism by subscribing to your Blank Slate Media community newspaper for just $50 a year.
Andrew Kimbrell, internationally recognized public interest attorney, founder and executive director of the Center for Food Safety states, “Through a patenting system that favors the rights of corporations over the rights of farmers and citizens, our food and farming system is being held hostage by a handful of companies. Nothing less than the future of food is at stake.”
Led Lights
The Led lights now in our villages, so unnaturally bright, have a much greater impact on circadian sleep rhythms than conventional street lamps. Ongoing exposure can cause the retina to become severely damaged, especially for those 50 and over. Species in nature need a naturally dark environment to sleep. They become disoriented. Trees become diseased and die. When nature is disrupted, humans are to follow.
5G Wireless
Dr. Yael Stein of Hebrew University, Jerusalem writes about 5G “Harming and changing our environment and is a disaster waiting to happen.”
Joel M. Moskowitz writes in Scientific American: More than 240 scientists signed, along with medical doctors, the International EMF Scientist Appeal to the FCC: “…EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.”
Among possible ramifications to human health due to the strength of these EMFs, are an excess of cytokines, an over-inflammatory response by the immune system, or cytokine “storm” which attacks the lungs, that we are unfortunately hearing so much about at this time due to the Coronavirus.
Dr. Martin L. Pall, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences, Washington State University states: “Putting in tens of millions of 5G antennae without a single biological test of safety has got to be about the stupidest idea anyone has had in the history of the world.”
Microchipping and Robotic Technology, Paperless Society
Microchipping will trace and track every aspect of people’s lives.
Hand-scanning through microchips is already being tested/implemented in supermarkets in the US and around the world, causing massive job loss.
Paper trails, including store receipts and bank statements will be eliminated. Can we rely on technology to be available, and keep accurate, secure accounts of personal finances, important documents and records?
Deep State
Local politicians, on up to the president are said to be “just taking orders.” Through exemplary “genius,” the Deep State (certain individuals and powerful puppet masters who are the behind the scenes architects of our laws) has its agenda carried out. Everything is created by design. Educational institutions and funded education projects are directed and controlled through select mega corporations. When a school district is top rated, it is based upon teaching the students technology utilized and promoted by the government. Does this make for a fruitful life, humanitarian society, longevity?
With our high educational degrees, people have become intellectually bankrupt. They use their thought process according to how much money they have. Many can’t think past maintaining their own lifestyle. What does a family with an annual income of $50,000 have to do, compared to a family making $150,000? Think.
Considering our broken society, should our population be salvaged, and if so, who can or will save us?
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
Albert Einstein
Kellen M Smith November 12, 2020 At 5:44 pm
Mahalo nui for publishing this article. There needs to be more diversity of thought and skepticism in academic and media discourse. A false dichotomy of left vs right thinking is plaguing the country. Nobody seems to be discussing the very important issues Gary brings up in this article.
Column: The Real Deal
Ready for the Great ‘Reset?’
by Gary Feldman
By The Island Now – December 16, 2020
The Great Reset, considered to be the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is a created reform of “technocracy” (also referred to as “sustainable development”) that will transform all industry in every facet. It will affect everything from government, energy and finance, to food (our lifeline), healthcare, medicine, real estate – all aspects of life.
Technocracy, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, is a political philosophy that refers to government by technicians who are guided solely by the imperatives of their technology (Artificial Intelligence, robotics, computer chips, GPS tracking, WiFi, biometrics, etc.).
The Great Reset’s biggest players will be in data collection, computer technology, telecommunications, weapons manufacturing, finance, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and the food industry.
According to Forbes magazine, technocracy is an economic system referred to as “stakeholder capitalism.”
Promoters of the Great Reset are using the experience of COVID-19 to advance their plan. Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, in his book “Covid-19: The Great Reset” describes how the virus disrupted both economic and social infrastructure and “what changes will be needed to create a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable world going forward.”
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says, “Covid-19 will usher in a world where insecurity and unpredictability constitute the new normal. Companies will digitalize faster, innovation will be spurred by the necessity of finding new ways of working and cutting cost. Many things will not go back to the way they were. The impact of this, along with the huge hangover bill for dealing with the virus and the loss of economic activity, will be to produce a lot of hardship with the burden falling often on the most vulnerable.”
The aim of the Great Reset is to fundamentally restructure the world’s economy and political relations on basically two assumptions. One: Every element of nature, every life form is a part of the global inventory, owned by globalist individuals.
Two: Absolutely all the world’s inventory will need to be strictly accounted for in a central database, all readable by a scanner, and ID’ed and managed by AI (Artificial Intelligence) using the latest science. The goal is to count (scan), then efficiently control and manage absolutely all resources (and, yes, that includes people) with unprecedented digital precision.
The Deep State puppet masters are implementing the plan using unequivocal genius via technology.
As explained by journalist James Corbett, the Great Reset is a new social contract that will tie every person to it through an electronic ID linked to your bank account and health records, and a social credit ID that will connect to you and dictate every facet of your life. This global agenda includes tracking and monitoring, and ultimately controlling the world through digital surveillance.
There won’t be a single aspect of human life left out of this plan. All this is sealed with surveillance of how we interact with our fellow human beings in general. Was everyone told to have no more than 10 family members at your Thanksgiving table?
According to speculators, the Great Reset will be invoked by governments in a forceful manner without consent. Fear is used as a manipulation tool. And any time someone dissents, they will be accused of being “anti-science.” Any science that conflicts with the status quo is declared anti-science.
With the Great Reset comes the endangerment of our right to privacy. In our 50 states, we have the Constitution that stands in the way of this violation, as of now. Are you paying attention and understanding the increasing and muscling attempts to sidestep, compromise and invalidate our Constitution? The intent is anti-humanity.
The technocratic elite could ultimately hold the power over people’s assets, leaving all people with no ownership, no possessions. Think about the lyrics of John Lennon’s song, “Imagine.” “Imagine no possessions……. no countries…. no religion too.”
Plan for Our Food under the Great Reset
The Defender, a media platform by the Children’s Health Defense, points out that the architects of the Great Reset claim it will reduce food scarcity, hunger and disease, and even mitigate climate change.
But a closer look at the corporations and think tanks that the World Economic Forum is partnering with to usher in this global transformation, suggests that the real motive is to tighten corporate control over the food system. The WEF insists the future of food and public health hinges on genetically modified organisms, lab-grown protein, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals.
As noted by Jeremy Loffredo of The Defender, the ultimate goal is to replace wholesome, nutritious foods with GMOS, lab-created. The proposed diet aims to reduce the meat and dairy intake of the global population by as much as 90 percennt, replacing it with foods, including cereals and oils that are made in a lab.
Vandana Shiva, scholar, environmentalist, food sovereignty advocate and author, raises a harsh critique of this proposed diet, saying it is not about nutrition at all, but big business and its corporate takeover of the food system.
“The Great Reset is about multinational corporate stakeholders at the World Economic Forum controlling as many elements of planetary life as they possibly can. From the digital data humans produce to each morsel of food we eat.” She says, “The Great Reset is about maintaining and empowering a corporate extraction machine and the private ownership of life.”
Green New Deal: Part of the Great Reset
The Green New Deal would expand, on a vast scale, the federal government’s control over how people produce and consume energy, harvest crops, raise livestock, build homes, drive cars and manufacture goods.
In terms of the approach to methane, a Greenhouse Gas: Methane gas heats the environment. Farm animals expel this gas and will be slaughtered in the guise of reducing methane gas in the environment.
The reality is that farm animals are fed genetically altered corn and soy, unnatural to their diets, forcing methane gas to be created in their systems. Humans expel methane gas as well. A high carbon tax will be placed on what will be left of meat.
Then the population will be enticed to go along with the lab-created plant protein that simulates real meat. Almost all plant protein created in a lab must have a stem cell harvested from an animal in order to be grown synthetically (actually rendering such plant proteins non-vegetarian). Animals will be slaughtered to make way for this new synthetic meat.
The End Game
The Great Reset, through Technocracy, is a method of totalitarian control of the environment and every being on the Planet. EQ (emotional intelligence) is the only way to understand the many layers of this agenda.
Would you call the Great Reset a conspiracy theory or pure genius?
Somebody needs a drink.