RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?

This year French President Emmanuel Macron has declared he will crack down on "fake news" with new laws banning publication of "offending" information.

The question is: who decides what "fake news" is? It is the French government. That means any article or viewpoint published across various media platforms is liable to be deleted - if French authorities judge the content to be "fake".

It's not hard to imagine how these new laws will be used to target Russian news media in particular. Macron has already made tendentious claims that Russian media outlets, Sputnik and RT, interfered in the French presidential elections last year by allegedly spreading "fake news" about his campaign.

Sputnik and RT both rejected the allegations made by Macron. When Sputnik ran a couple of articles during the French elections they were based on critical comments issued by Macron's opponents. Nothing more sinister than that.

Comment: Sputnik and RT to file lawsuit over Macron team's allegations

During an official visit to Paris three weeks after Macron's election last May, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a press conference that the French leader did not delve into allegations of Russian media interference during their private conversations.

If Macron had a case, why didn't he raise it during his high-level meeting with Putin? The fact that he didn't suggests that the French president is grandstanding with baseless claims of "Russian meddling" - in the same way that American and British politicians have been doing over the past year.

Comment: Macron is no statesman, but a placeholder chosen and funded by the banking cabal.

Candidate Macron: An insider disguised as an outsider, wrapped in opportunism

He chose to raise the topic publicly, right in front of Putin at a joint press conference. Putin, of course, behaved like a true leader, saving his comments for a private meeting.

Macron accuses RT and Sputnik of 'behaving like deceitful propaganda' right in front of Putin

Macron's campaign repeatedly accused Russia of interference in the election, claiming that Russian hackers attempted to gain access to its data, and impede the work of its website. A trove of communication purportedly from Macron's staff was leaked on the internet a day before the run-off election. Moscow has staunchly denied any interference.

Despite an anticipated coolness in relations, the Russian president is one of the first world leaders to travel to Paris since Macron's convincing election win.

On Monday, the pair spent three hours in what the French leader called a "frank exchange of views," which Putin said would lead to a "qualitative" improvement in relations between the two countries.

Let's get back to the issue of forthcoming French media laws and the danger they pose to free speech. So, if the French authorities deem any published content to be "fake", they are arrogating the power to ban it.

The bitter irony of this development comes on the third anniversary this week of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.

Recall that three years ago on January 7, 2015, a pair of Al Qaeda-linked gunmen stormed the offices of the satirical magazine and shot dead 11 people. The atrocity prompted millions of people on to the streets of Paris declaring, "Je Suis Charlie". It was supposed to be a rally in defiant support of the right to free speech and freedom of expression.

Three years on, Macron's government is proposing to shut down freedom of expression with its new laws purportedly targeting "fake news" - or any viewpoint designated by French authorities as "not established in facts". As already noted, Macron has made the provocative assertions that Russian media outlets are purveyors of "fake news" - a claim that he makes without credible evidence or facts.

The danger of this development to free speech is illustrated by a survey published this week which alleges that the French public are susceptible to believing in "conspiracy theories".

State-owned channel France 24 reported that nearly 80 per cent of French people believe in one or more "conspiracy theories", according to the cited recent survey.

From the France 24 report:

"The poll by the Ifop Group on behalf of the Fondation Jean Jaures think-tank and the Conspiracy Watch organization found that large sections of French society believed in theories with no grounding in established fact."

Fair enough, some of the expressed beliefs among the 1,200 people sampled do seem a bit whacky. For example, some 10 per cent of respondents reportedly said they believe that the "Earth is flat"; and another 16 per cent apparently think that the American moon landings were faked.

However, the report carried by France 24, as well as by Agence France-Presse (AFP), goes on to conflate those dubious concepts with other "conspiracy theories" which are in fact, very arguably, valid alternative points of view.

It was reported that "54 per cent of respondents" believe that the American CIA were involved in the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963; and that "31 per cent agreed" with the viewpoint that Western state secret services have manipulated jihadist terror groups like Islamic State.

Here is how France 24 describes the JFK question: "One of the best-known conspiracy theories - that the CIA was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963 - was believed by 54 per cent of respondents."

On the jihadist terror topic, it reports: "Other theories tested in the survey... included that jihadist groups Al Qaeda and the Islamic State were manipulated by Western secret services (31 per cent agreed)."

Note how the established, government-aligned French media are making pejorative judgments about the assassination of JFK and the nature of jihadist terror groups. Any viewpoint that does not conform to the "official" one on either of these topics is denigrated as "a conspiracy theory not based on established fact" - or, in short, "fake news".

Under President Macron's new media laws, articles or opinions which contend an alternative version of either the JFK assassination or jihadist terror groups are liable to be banned from public platforms. Moreover, those media outlets that do carry such alternative views could be sanctioned for publishing "fake news".

We do not have the space here to go into depth on the two subjects cited above. But suffice to say that there is abundant, credible research and literature to support alternative explanations to the "official narratives".

On the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963, the official story that he was murdered by a lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald has been debunked by several reliable sources. The elaborate nature of the shooting in Dealey Plaza and the subsequent cover-up had to involve a high-level covert state operation, including the CIA. The fatal headshot from the front is paramount proof that Oswald was not the assassin. Former American President Richard Nixon, as well as the late French President Charles De Gaulle, are both on record dismissing the official explanation about JFK's murder as absurd (see JFK: An American Coup, by John Wilson-Hughes).

As for Al Qaeda and their offshoot jihadist terror groups, it has been scrupulously documented by Peter Dale Scott (The Road to 9/11), Michel Chossudovsky (America's 'War on Terrorism'), among other respected authors, that these groups were first created by American and British military intelligence as proxies to fight against Soviet troops in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

More recently, during the war in Syria, there is hard evidence showing that US, British and French intelligence agencies, along with Turkish counterparts and Saudi funding, instrumented Al Qaeda-linked terror proxies to wage a covert war for regime change. This contradicts the official Western government and media claims that Western states are "fighting against terrorism". The evidence in fact shows Western government agencies colluding with terror groups to advance their geopolitical objectives, such as regime change.

Therefore, it is the official versions on JFK and terror groups that are arguably "fake news". They are the "conspiracy theories not based on established fact".

Yet, under Macron's new laws, French authorities will be able to suppress valid, critical thinking and freedom of expression simply on the basis of assigning the label "fake news".

This is a grave assault on democratic rights and the power of citizens to hold their governments to account, especially when those governments are up to their necks in criminality.

Alabama Declares State Of Emergency Over Flu Epidemic As Death Toll Rises

by Tyler Durden

Sat, 01/13/2018 - 15:00

Citing a strain on “overwhelmed” health resources, Governor Kay Ivey declared an official State of Emergencyin Alabama on Thursday due to the rapidly spreading flu epidemic.

WHEREAS the State Health Officer has reported that an outbreak of the influenza virus has occurred in the State of Alabama; and

WHEREAS this outbreak poses a high probability of widespread exposure to an infectious agent that poses significant risk of substantial harm to a large number of people in the affected population; and

WHEREAS the health care facilities and personnel of the State are overwhelmed by the number of ill patients and taxed to such an extent that care of patients may now no longer be provided in the traditional, normal, and customary manner nor is the utilization of traditional, normal, and customary standards of care possible.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Kay Ivey, Governor of the State of Alabama, pursuant to relevant provisions of the Alabama Emergency Management Act of 1955, section 31-9-1 et seq., Code of Alabama (1975), on the recommendation of the State Health Officer, do hereby declare that a State Public Health Emergency exists in the State of Alabama. I direct the appropriate state agencies to exercise their statutory and regulatory authority to assist the communities and entities affected. I also direct the Alabama Department of Public Health and Alabama Emergency Management Agency to seek federal assistance as may be available.

FURTHER, I direct the following:

1. Health care facilities that have invoked their emergency operation plans in response to this public health emergency may implement the “alternative standards of care” plans provided therein, and such are declared to be the state approved standard of care in health care facilities to be executed by health care professionals and allied professions and occupations providing services in response to this outbreak.

2. These “alternative standards of care” shall serve as the “standard of care” as defined in section 6-5-542(2), Code of Alabama for the purposes of section 6-5- 540 et seq. The “degree of care” owed to patients by licensed, registered or certified health care professionals for the purposes of section 6-5-484 shall be the same degree of care set forth in the “alternative standards of care. To the extent that the provisions of section 6-5-540 et seq. are inconsistent with this order, the said provisions are hereby suspended.

3. All health care professionals and assisting personnel executing in good faith under the “alternative standards of care” are hereby declared to be “Emergency Management Workers” of the State of Alabama for the purposes of title 31 of the Code of Alabama.

4. The State Health Officer shall inform members of the public on how to protect themselves and actions being taken in response to this public health emergency.

According to the CDC, this is the worst outbreak in their 13 years of tracking influenza.

The reason this year’s flu season is more severe than usual is because it involves the dreaded H3N2, a strain of the influenza A virus that causes more health complications and is more difficult to prevent.

H3N2 hits people harder than other seasonal flu strains and can be especially deadly among vulnerable groups like the elderly and children. Researchers still aren’t sure why, but they’ve found that a flu season involving the H3 virus is generally nastier — with more hospitalizations and flu-related deaths — than seasons involving mostly H1N1 or influenza B viruses.

This year, more than 80 percent of flu cases involve H3N2 strain. And the CDC’s Jernigan reported that there were 22.7 hospitalizations related to flu per 100,000 population during the week of December 31, 2017, to January 6, 2018. That’s a doubling from 13.7 the week before. “We’re seeing a rapid rise in the number of people being hospitalized,” Jernigan said. (source)

But it isn’t just Alabama.

The flu epidemic is spreading across the US.

18 people have died in Dallas, Texas from the flu, 4 in Tennessee, and 27 have died in California. Hospital waiting rooms are jammed with flu victims, the doctors are running out of medication, ambulance services are strained and even IV bags are in short supply. Influenza is impacting 46 states.

In total, the flu has killed 85 adults and 20 children in the United States and last week, the CDC reported that the hospitalization rate for people with the flu DOUBLED.

Here’s the CDC’s map of the flu’s spread throughout the US as of the last day of 2017.

As mentioned above, 80% of the cases in the US are H3N2. As usual, although this year’s flu vaccination does NOT protect against the H3N2 strain, “experts” are still urging everyone to get a shot anyone. (Despite the fact that some numbers say it is only 10% effective.)

One hundred years after the Spanish flu pandemic, could we be facing another deadly global outbreak?

Some resources for pandemic preparedness are this article and this book.

How the flu kills

When you start getting sick, it can be hard to tell if you have a cold or the flu. This guide can help. You can treat your symptoms with home remedies, but this is really NOT a virus to mess around with. It’s killing people. Rapidly. Even those who seem to be in prime health can be felled by the virus, like the 21-year-old fitness enthusiast who died 5 days after contracting H3N2.

According to Scientific American, it isn’t the flu that kills people, but the body’s attempt to heal itself.

After entering someone’s body—usually via the eyes, nose or mouth—the influenza virus begins hijacking human cells in the nose and throat to make copies of itself. The overwhelming viral hoard triggers a strong response from the immune system, which sends battalions of white blood cells, antibodies and inflammatory molecules to eliminate the threat. T cells attack and destroy tissue harboring the virus, particularly in the respiratory tract and lungs where the virus tends to take hold. In most healthy adults this process works, and they recover within days or weeks. But sometimes the immune system’s reaction is too strong, destroying so much tissue in the lungs that they can no longer deliver enough oxygen to the blood, resulting in hypoxia and death.

In other cases it is not the flu virus itself that triggers an overwhelming and potentially fatal immune response but rather a secondary infection that takes advantage of a taxed immune system. Typically, bacteria—often a species of Streptococcus or Staphylococcus—infect the lungs. A bacterial infection in the respiratory tract can potentially spread to other parts of the body and the blood, even leading to septic shock: a life-threatening, body-wide, aggressive inflammatory response that damages multiple organs. Based on autopsy studies, Kathleen Sullivan, chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, estimates about one third of people who die from flu-related causes expire because the virus overwhelms the immune system; another third die from the immune response to secondary bacterial infections, usually in the lungs; and the remaining third perish due to the failure of one or more other organs. (source)

Social isolation is the best way to keep your family healthy, but in a world where we work and go to school, this isn’t always possible. A strict handwashing regimen can also help lessen the likelihood of contracting the flu.

Worst case scenario, if you DO get sick, please don’t hesitate to seek medical attention if you need it. This virus can kill otherwise healthy people within days.

(zerohedge.com)

Last month, the Trump administration approved the largest US sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine since 2014 by approving a commercial license authorizing the export of sniper systems to Ukraine for $41.5 million. A few days later, the antitank Javelin missiles that the Ukranian government requested were added to the sale - the total package is now valued at $47 million. Although the US State Department announced the measure as providing Ukraine with "enhanced defensive capabilities as part of our effort to help Ukraine build its long-term defense capacity", Russia has rightly suggested it will exacerbate the conflict. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stated that the US has become an accomplice in the war and that the sale makes it impossible for Russia to remain "indifferent".

Writer Daniel Larison calls Trump "a fool" for arming Ukraine, as Russia will respond more aggressively and will always outmatch whatever support the US gives, because it has far more at stake. The situation will lead to a "fruitless and unnecessary competition with another major power" - a power that Trump promised barely a month earlier to seek a good relationship with. Likewise, Professor Stephen Cohen is right when he says it doesn't make any geopolitical or strategic sense.

Cohen warns about the danger of Kiev interpreting the arms sale as a signal from Washington for a new offensive against the Donbass, which will end again in military disaster for the Ukrainian regime. This may bring the neo-fascists closer to power, and the new Cold War closer to more direct war between the nuclear superpowers.

Add to this the recent approval of a $133 million US anti-ballistic missile sale to Japan, which Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced as a violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the US and Russia, and which she sees as part of a bigger plan by the US for a "global anti-missile system."

So why is the Trump administration backtracking on improving relations with Russia and potentially putting the entire globe in danger?

Alexander Mercouris thinks this is part of a pattern of confrontational decisions taking place "since the US military effectively took charge of the US government back in the summer", when Steve Bannon left the White House, leaving generals Kelly, McMaster and Mattis in control. Regarding the weapons sale to Ukraine, he offers the following possible explanations:

the US weapons are being supplied to facilitate a planned Ukrainian offensive to conquer the Donbass;
the US weapons are being supplied as a gesture of political support for Ukraine in its continued confrontation with the two People's Republics and with Russia;
the US weapons are being supplied to enable the US to gain political leverage over Russia in the ongoing negotiations to settle the Ukrainian crisis;
the US weapons are being supplied to help Donald Trump politically at home by stifling criticism that he is "giving up" on Ukraine and in order to show that he is "getting tough" with Russia.

Cohen's view is in line with the last option. Assuming it was Trump's decision, he says, "it was no doubt to disprove the underlying premise of the still unproved Russiagate allegations that he is a lackey of the Kremlin", and it is in this sense that "Russiagate has become the No. 1 threat to American national security, certainly in regard to nuclear Russia." The point being, the US intel agencies that concocted the Russia collusion story did so because by accusing Trump of being a Kremlin agent, they knew he would be forced to prove otherwise and take a belligerent stance towards Russia.

While all such explanations are no doubt part of the equation, there is another possibility that while perhaps more mundane, is no less alarming. Consider that Trump has not only surrounded himself by generals, but also by former weapons industry executives:

Examples of Trump's industry-heavy administration include Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a former board member at General Dynamics; White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who worked for a number of military firms and was an adviser to Pentagon contractor DynCorp; former Boeing executive and now Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan; former Lockheed Martin executive John Rood, nominated as undersecretary of defense for policy; former Raytheon Vice President Mark Esper, newly confirmed as Secretary of the Army; Heather Wilson, a former consultant to Lockheed Martin, who is Secretary of the Air Force;Ellen Lord, a former CEO for the aerospace company Textron, who is Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition; and National Security Council Chief of Staff Keith Kellogg, a former employee of the major military and intelligence contractor CACI.

These are the people who have the ear of the man seeking to fulfill his campaign promise of creating jobs in the US by selling goods and services abroad and to bring down the country's trade deficit from a six-year high of $50 billion. In fact, the Trump administration is expected to announce in the near future a "Buy American" plan that would ease rules on US military exports (including human rights and arms control considerations) and would call for military attaches and embassy staffers around the world to act "as a sales force for defense contractors, actively advocating on their behalf".

The Washington Post reports that Trump personally approved the Ukraine sale license after being presented with a memo by Defense Secretary James Mattis, a former board member at General Dynamics, and Rex Tillerson, a man who openly claims that Russia is out "to undermine Western institutions" through the use of "hybrid warfare", and who refuses any normalization with Russia until Crimea is given back to Ukraine. The latter is a position virtually identical to Joe Biden's and that of the neocons.

If it looks like the decision to arm Ukraine lacked any (geo)political strategy or foresight on the part of the president, it may be that the president has no such foresight. As The Saker put it:

For months now President Trump has mostly ruled the US by means of "tweets" which, of course, and by definition, amount to exactly nothing and there is nothing which could be seriously called a "US foreign policy" (with the exception of the never-ending stream of accusations, threats and grandstanding, which don't qualify).

Perhaps Trump - rather than being mentally unstable, a new Hitler, or a misunderstood savior or negotiating genius - is simply what he appears to be: a businessman with limited political insight who often makes poorly thought-out decisions based on the advice of corporate and deep state representatives who follow their own agendas, those entities constituting the real power in the USA.

Some things in US politics are systemic; they have been so for many decades and are likely to remain so for some time in the future. We should all understand this by now:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/16/2018 12:46:03 AM
	France gives kiss of death to free speech Finian Cunningham Sputnik Sun, 14 Jan 2018 16:35 UTC © Reuters Christian Hartmann/File Photo This year French President Emmanuel Macron has declared he will crack down on "fake news" with new laws banning publication of "offending" information. The question is: who decides what "fake news" is? It is the French government. That means any article or viewpoint published across various media platforms is liable to be deleted - if French authorities judge the content to be "fake". It's not hard to imagine how these new laws will be used to target Russian news media in particular. Macron has already made tendentious claims that Russian media outlets, Sputnik and RT, interfered in the French presidential elections last year by allegedly spreading "fake news" about his campaign. Sputnik and RT both rejected the allegations made by Macron. When Sputnik ran a couple of articles during the French elections they were based on critical comments issued by Macron's opponents. Nothing more sinister than that. Comment: Sputnik and RT to file lawsuit over Macron team's allegations During an official visit to Paris three weeks after Macron's election last May, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a press conference that the French leader did not delve into allegations of Russian media interference during their private conversations. If Macron had a case, why didn't he raise it during his high-level meeting with Putin? The fact that he didn't suggests that the French president is grandstanding with baseless claims of "Russian meddling" - in the same way that American and British politicians have been doing over the past year. Comment: Macron is no statesman, but a placeholder chosen and funded by the banking cabal. Candidate Macron: An insider disguised as an outsider, wrapped in opportunism He chose to raise the topic publicly, right in front of Putin at a joint press conference. Putin, of course, behaved like a true leader, saving his comments for a private meeting. Macron accuses RT and Sputnik of 'behaving like deceitful propaganda' right in front of Putin Macron's campaign repeatedly accused Russia of interference in the election, claiming that Russian hackers attempted to gain access to its data, and impede the work of its website. A trove of communication purportedly from Macron's staff was leaked on the internet a day before the run-off election. Moscow has staunchly denied any interference. Despite an anticipated coolness in relations, the Russian president is one of the first world leaders to travel to Paris since Macron's convincing election win. On Monday, the pair spent three hours in what the French leader called a "frank exchange of views," which Putin said would lead to a "qualitative" improvement in relations between the two countries. Let's get back to the issue of forthcoming French media laws and the danger they pose to free speech. So, if the French authorities deem any published content to be "fake", they are arrogating the power to ban it. The bitter irony of this development comes on the third anniversary this week of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. Recall that three years ago on January 7, 2015, a pair of Al Qaeda-linked gunmen stormed the offices of the satirical magazine and shot dead 11 people. The atrocity prompted millions of people on to the streets of Paris declaring, "Je Suis Charlie". It was supposed to be a rally in defiant support of the right to free speech and freedom of expression. Three years on, Macron's government is proposing to shut down freedom of expression with its new laws purportedly targeting "fake news" - or any viewpoint designated by French authorities as "not established in facts". As already noted, Macron has made the provocative assertions that Russian media outlets are purveyors of "fake news" - a claim that he makes without credible evidence or facts. The danger of this development to free speech is illustrated by a survey published this week which alleges that the French public are susceptible to believing in "conspiracy theories". State-owned channel France 24 reported that nearly 80 per cent of French people believe in one or more "conspiracy theories", according to the cited recent survey. From the France 24 report: "The poll by the Ifop Group on behalf of the Fondation Jean Jaures think-tank and the Conspiracy Watch organization found that large sections of French society believed in theories with no grounding in established fact." Fair enough, some of the expressed beliefs among the 1,200 people sampled do seem a bit whacky. For example, some 10 per cent of respondents reportedly said they believe that the "Earth is flat"; and another 16 per cent apparently think that the American moon landings were faked. However, the report carried by France 24, as well as by Agence France-Presse (AFP), goes on to conflate those dubious concepts with other "conspiracy theories" which are in fact, very arguably, valid alternative points of view. It was reported that "54 per cent of respondents" believe that the American CIA were involved in the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963; and that "31 per cent agreed" with the viewpoint that Western state secret services have manipulated jihadist terror groups like Islamic State. Here is how France 24 describes the JFK question: "One of the best-known conspiracy theories - that the CIA was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963 - was believed by 54 per cent of respondents." On the jihadist terror topic, it reports: "Other theories tested in the survey... included that jihadist groups Al Qaeda and the Islamic State were manipulated by Western secret services (31 per cent agreed)." Note how the established, government-aligned French media are making pejorative judgments about the assassination of JFK and the nature of jihadist terror groups. Any viewpoint that does not conform to the "official" one on either of these topics is denigrated as "a conspiracy theory not based on established fact" - or, in short, "fake news". Under President Macron's new media laws, articles or opinions which contend an alternative version of either the JFK assassination or jihadist terror groups are liable to be banned from public platforms. Moreover, those media outlets that do carry such alternative views could be sanctioned for publishing "fake news". We do not have the space here to go into depth on the two subjects cited above. But suffice to say that there is abundant, credible research and literature to support alternative explanations to the "official narratives". On the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in November 1963, the official story that he was murdered by a lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald has been debunked by several reliable sources. The elaborate nature of the shooting in Dealey Plaza and the subsequent cover-up had to involve a high-level covert state operation, including the CIA. The fatal headshot from the front is paramount proof that Oswald was not the assassin. Former American President Richard Nixon, as well as the late French President Charles De Gaulle, are both on record dismissing the official explanation about JFK's murder as absurd (see JFK: An American Coup, by John Wilson-Hughes). As for Al Qaeda and their offshoot jihadist terror groups, it has been scrupulously documented by Peter Dale Scott (The Road to 9/11), Michel Chossudovsky (America's 'War on Terrorism'), among other respected authors, that these groups were first created by American and British military intelligence as proxies to fight against Soviet troops in Afghanistan during the 1980s. More recently, during the war in Syria, there is hard evidence showing that US, British and French intelligence agencies, along with Turkish counterparts and Saudi funding, instrumented Al Qaeda-linked terror proxies to wage a covert war for regime change. This contradicts the official Western government and media claims that Western states are "fighting against terrorism". The evidence in fact shows Western government agencies colluding with terror groups to advance their geopolitical objectives, such as regime change. Therefore, it is the official versions on JFK and terror groups that are arguably "fake news". They are the "conspiracy theories not based on established fact". Yet, under Macron's new laws, French authorities will be able to suppress valid, critical thinking and freedom of expression simply on the basis of assigning the label "fake news". This is a grave assault on democratic rights and the power of citizens to hold their governments to account, especially when those governments are up to their necks in criminality. Comment: Macron is only attempting to complete an agenda that has been at work in France for years. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité - French government begins blocking websites it doesn't like France arrests 54 people for exercising free speech just days after free speech rally France's arrest of Dieudonné shows the sham of its free speech celebrations (sott.net)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/16/2018 1:02:36 AM
	Alabama Declares State Of Emergency Over Flu Epidemic As Death Toll Rises by Tyler Durden Sat, 01/13/2018 - 15:00 Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog, Citing a strain on “overwhelmed” health resources, Governor Kay Ivey declared an official State of Emergencyin Alabama on Thursday due to the rapidly spreading flu epidemic. WHEREAS the State Health Officer has reported that an outbreak of the influenza virus has occurred in the State of Alabama; and WHEREAS this outbreak poses a high probability of widespread exposure to an infectious agent that poses significant risk of substantial harm to a large number of people in the affected population; and WHEREAS the health care facilities and personnel of the State are overwhelmed by the number of ill patients and taxed to such an extent that care of patients may now no longer be provided in the traditional, normal, and customary manner nor is the utilization of traditional, normal, and customary standards of care possible. NOW, THEREFORE, I, Kay Ivey, Governor of the State of Alabama, pursuant to relevant provisions of the Alabama Emergency Management Act of 1955, section 31-9-1 et seq., Code of Alabama (1975), on the recommendation of the State Health Officer, do hereby declare that a State Public Health Emergency exists in the State of Alabama. I direct the appropriate state agencies to exercise their statutory and regulatory authority to assist the communities and entities affected. I also direct the Alabama Department of Public Health and Alabama Emergency Management Agency to seek federal assistance as may be available. FURTHER, I direct the following: 1. Health care facilities that have invoked their emergency operation plans in response to this public health emergency may implement the “alternative standards of care” plans provided therein, and such are declared to be the state approved standard of care in health care facilities to be executed by health care professionals and allied professions and occupations providing services in response to this outbreak. 2. These “alternative standards of care” shall serve as the “standard of care” as defined in section 6-5-542(2), Code of Alabama for the purposes of section 6-5- 540 et seq. The “degree of care” owed to patients by licensed, registered or certified health care professionals for the purposes of section 6-5-484 shall be the same degree of care set forth in the “alternative standards of care. To the extent that the provisions of section 6-5-540 et seq. are inconsistent with this order, the said provisions are hereby suspended. 3. All health care professionals and assisting personnel executing in good faith under the “alternative standards of care” are hereby declared to be “Emergency Management Workers” of the State of Alabama for the purposes of title 31 of the Code of Alabama. 4. The State Health Officer shall inform members of the public on how to protect themselves and actions being taken in response to this public health emergency. According to the CDC, this is the worst outbreak in their 13 years of tracking influenza. The reason this year’s flu season is more severe than usual is because it involves the dreaded H3N2, a strain of the influenza A virus that causes more health complications and is more difficult to prevent. H3N2 hits people harder than other seasonal flu strains and can be especially deadly among vulnerable groups like the elderly and children. Researchers still aren’t sure why, but they’ve found that a flu season involving the H3 virus is generally nastier — with more hospitalizations and flu-related deaths — than seasons involving mostly H1N1 or influenza B viruses. This year, more than 80 percent of flu cases involve H3N2 strain. And the CDC’s Jernigan reported that there were 22.7 hospitalizations related to flu per 100,000 population during the week of December 31, 2017, to January 6, 2018. That’s a doubling from 13.7 the week before. “We’re seeing a rapid rise in the number of people being hospitalized,” Jernigan said. (source) But it isn’t just Alabama. The flu epidemic is spreading across the US. 18 people have died in Dallas, Texas from the flu, 4 in Tennessee, and 27 have died in California. Hospital waiting rooms are jammed with flu victims, the doctors are running out of medication, ambulance services are strained and even IV bags are in short supply. Influenza is impacting 46 states. In total, the flu has killed 85 adults and 20 children in the United States and last week, the CDC reported that the hospitalization rate for people with the flu DOUBLED. Here’s the CDC’s map of the flu’s spread throughout the US as of the last day of 2017. As mentioned above, 80% of the cases in the US are H3N2. As usual, although this year’s flu vaccination does NOT protect against the H3N2 strain, “experts” are still urging everyone to get a shot anyone. (Despite the fact that some numbers say it is only 10% effective.) One hundred years after the Spanish flu pandemic, could we be facing another deadly global outbreak? Some resources for pandemic preparedness are this article and this book. How the flu kills When you start getting sick, it can be hard to tell if you have a cold or the flu. This guide can help. You can treat your symptoms with home remedies, but this is really NOT a virus to mess around with. It’s killing people. Rapidly. Even those who seem to be in prime health can be felled by the virus, like the 21-year-old fitness enthusiast who died 5 days after contracting H3N2. According to Scientific American, it isn’t the flu that kills people, but the body’s attempt to heal itself. After entering someone’s body—usually via the eyes, nose or mouth—the influenza virus begins hijacking human cells in the nose and throat to make copies of itself. The overwhelming viral hoard triggers a strong response from the immune system, which sends battalions of white blood cells, antibodies and inflammatory molecules to eliminate the threat. T cells attack and destroy tissue harboring the virus, particularly in the respiratory tract and lungs where the virus tends to take hold. In most healthy adults this process works, and they recover within days or weeks. But sometimes the immune system’s reaction is too strong, destroying so much tissue in the lungs that they can no longer deliver enough oxygen to the blood, resulting in hypoxia and death. In other cases it is not the flu virus itself that triggers an overwhelming and potentially fatal immune response but rather a secondary infection that takes advantage of a taxed immune system. Typically, bacteria—often a species of Streptococcus or Staphylococcus—infect the lungs. A bacterial infection in the respiratory tract can potentially spread to other parts of the body and the blood, even leading to septic shock: a life-threatening, body-wide, aggressive inflammatory response that damages multiple organs. Based on autopsy studies, Kathleen Sullivan, chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, estimates about one third of people who die from flu-related causes expire because the virus overwhelms the immune system; another third die from the immune response to secondary bacterial infections, usually in the lungs; and the remaining third perish due to the failure of one or more other organs. (source) Social isolation is the best way to keep your family healthy, but in a world where we work and go to school, this isn’t always possible. A strict handwashing regimen can also help lessen the likelihood of contracting the flu. Worst case scenario, if you DO get sick, please don’t hesitate to seek medical attention if you need it. This virus can kill otherwise healthy people within days. (zerohedge.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 1/16/2018 9:58:10 AM
	Why is The Trump Administration Selling Weapons to Ukraine? Andrés Perezalonso Sott.net Mon, 15 Jan 2018 14:02 UTC © Getty The Trump administration approved the sale of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. Last month, the Trump administration approved the largest US sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine since 2014 by approving a commercial license authorizing the export of sniper systems to Ukraine for $41.5 million. A few days later, the antitank Javelin missiles that the Ukranian government requested were added to the sale - the total package is now valued at $47 million. Although the US State Department announced the measure as providing Ukraine with "enhanced defensive capabilities as part of our effort to help Ukraine build its long-term defense capacity", Russia has rightly suggested it will exacerbate the conflict. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stated that the US has become an accomplice in the war and that the sale makes it impossible for Russia to remain "indifferent". Writer Daniel Larison calls Trump "a fool" for arming Ukraine, as Russia will respond more aggressively and will always outmatch whatever support the US gives, because it has far more at stake. The situation will lead to a "fruitless and unnecessary competition with another major power" - a power that Trump promised barely a month earlier to seek a good relationship with. Likewise, Professor Stephen Cohen is right when he says it doesn't make any geopolitical or strategic sense. Cohen warns about the danger of Kiev interpreting the arms sale as a signal from Washington for a new offensive against the Donbass, which will end again in military disaster for the Ukrainian regime. This may bring the neo-fascists closer to power, and the new Cold War closer to more direct war between the nuclear superpowers. Add to this the recent approval of a $133 million US anti-ballistic missile sale to Japan, which Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced as a violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the US and Russia, and which she sees as part of a bigger plan by the US for a "global anti-missile system." So why is the Trump administration backtracking on improving relations with Russia and potentially putting the entire globe in danger? Alexander Mercouris thinks this is part of a pattern of confrontational decisions taking place "since the US military effectively took charge of the US government back in the summer", when Steve Bannon left the White House, leaving generals Kelly, McMaster and Mattis in control. Regarding the weapons sale to Ukraine, he offers the following possible explanations: the US weapons are being supplied to facilitate a planned Ukrainian offensive to conquer the Donbass; the US weapons are being supplied as a gesture of political support for Ukraine in its continued confrontation with the two People's Republics and with Russia; the US weapons are being supplied to enable the US to gain political leverage over Russia in the ongoing negotiations to settle the Ukrainian crisis; the US weapons are being supplied to help Donald Trump politically at home by stifling criticism that he is "giving up" on Ukraine and in order to show that he is "getting tough" with Russia. Cohen's view is in line with the last option. Assuming it was Trump's decision, he says, "it was no doubt to disprove the underlying premise of the still unproved Russiagate allegations that he is a lackey of the Kremlin", and it is in this sense that "Russiagate has become the No. 1 threat to American national security, certainly in regard to nuclear Russia." The point being, the US intel agencies that concocted the Russia collusion story did so because by accusing Trump of being a Kremlin agent, they knew he would be forced to prove otherwise and take a belligerent stance towards Russia. © Associated Press T-72 Tanks from the Donetsk Peoples Republic, now under threat by Javelin missiles. While all such explanations are no doubt part of the equation, there is another possibility that while perhaps more mundane, is no less alarming. Consider that Trump has not only surrounded himself by generals, but also by former weapons industry executives: Examples of Trump's industry-heavy administration include Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a former board member at General Dynamics; White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who worked for a number of military firms and was an adviser to Pentagon contractor DynCorp; former Boeing executive and now Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan; former Lockheed Martin executive John Rood, nominated as undersecretary of defense for policy; former Raytheon Vice President Mark Esper, newly confirmed as Secretary of the Army; Heather Wilson, a former consultant to Lockheed Martin, who is Secretary of the Air Force;Ellen Lord, a former CEO for the aerospace company Textron, who is Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition; and National Security Council Chief of Staff Keith Kellogg, a former employee of the major military and intelligence contractor CACI. These are the people who have the ear of the man seeking to fulfill his campaign promise of creating jobs in the US by selling goods and services abroad and to bring down the country's trade deficit from a six-year high of $50 billion. In fact, the Trump administration is expected to announce in the near future a "Buy American" plan that would ease rules on US military exports (including human rights and arms control considerations) and would call for military attaches and embassy staffers around the world to act "as a sales force for defense contractors, actively advocating on their behalf". The Washington Post reports that Trump personally approved the Ukraine sale license after being presented with a memo by Defense Secretary James Mattis, a former board member at General Dynamics, and Rex Tillerson, a man who openly claims that Russia is out "to undermine Western institutions" through the use of "hybrid warfare", and who refuses any normalization with Russia until Crimea is given back to Ukraine. The latter is a position virtually identical to Joe Biden's and that of the neocons. If it looks like the decision to arm Ukraine lacked any (geo)political strategy or foresight on the part of the president, it may be that the president has no such foresight. As The Saker put it: For months now President Trump has mostly ruled the US by means of "tweets" which, of course, and by definition, amount to exactly nothing and there is nothing which could be seriously called a "US foreign policy" (with the exception of the never-ending stream of accusations, threats and grandstanding, which don't qualify). Perhaps Trump - rather than being mentally unstable, a new Hitler, or a misunderstood savior or negotiating genius - is simply what he appears to be: a businessman with limited political insight who often makes poorly thought-out decisions based on the advice of corporate and deep state representatives who follow their own agendas, those entities constituting the real power in the USA. Some things in US politics are systemic; they have been so for many decades and are likely to remain so for some time in the future. We should all understand this by now: In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. - Dwight D. Eisenhower Andrés Perezalonso Andrés Perezalonso has been a contributing editor for Signs of the Times in both its English and Spanish versions since 2007. He holds a PhD in Politics, an MA in International Studies, a first degree in Communication, and has a professional background in Media Analysis. He thinks that understanding world events is not unlike detective work - paying attention to often ignored details and connections, and thinking outside of the box. He was born and raised in Mexico and currently resides in Europe. (sott.net)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

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Alabama Declares State Of Emergency Over Flu Epidemic As Death Toll Rises

The flu epidemic is spreading across the US.

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Why is The Trump Administration Selling Weapons to Ukraine?

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Alabama Declares State Of Emergency Over Flu Epidemic As Death Toll Rises

The flu epidemic is spreading across the US.

How the flu kills

12,000 flee as lava oozes from Philippine volcano 15 JAN 2018

Why is The Trump Administration Selling Weapons to Ukraine?

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12,000 flee as lava oozes from Philippine volcano
15 JAN 2018