The corruption and incompetence of the federal government is stunning, much worse than even I had suspected. Marc Andreessen's conversation with Joe Rogan is jaw-droppingly depressing. The problems they are discussing should make for daily headlines in the news media, but no.
Full episode on Spotify.
The CEO of Axios is not ranting out of concern for us. He is ranting because it wants the unearned power of being a permanent gatekeeper. He wants legacy media to have power to control our thoughts and actions, whether or not the legacy media is doing excellent work. The ultimate power of the news should reside with all of us at the grassroots level. The responsibility and power for all things that affect us should be with each of us. That is the core idea of a democracy and the great gift offered to us by the Enlightenment.
Ed Dowd, former analyst with BlackRock, testifies before Congress about his findings of excess deaths and disabilities since the introduction of the COVID vax. In addition to vaccine safety, he raises urgent questions about U.S. nonchalance in light or this data:
The solution had never undergone human trials prior to 2020, and it was approved under an EUA in late 2020 within record time for a vaccine and a noticeably short trial period. The government deemed these products safe and effective and told the nation they would prevent you from getting and transmitting COVID-19. These statements have since been proven false. It has become clear that the U.S. government, along with the health regulators, do not desire an honest accounting of these policies that were imposed mostly under federal mandates. I will predominantly focus on the human and economic costs since the beginning of 2021, which if they were favorable to the current regime, you would be hearing them scream these results from the rooftops.
When analyzing the excess death human costs, it's interesting to note that in 2020, there were approximately 458,000 excess deaths, of which 73% were age 65 and older, and 15 to 64 comprising just 27%. Note, we were told in 2020 that the COVID-19 risk of death was primarily in the older populations. However, in 2021, with the rollout of the, quote unquote, safe and effective vaccine, there were approximately another 500,000 excess deaths but a mixed shift had occurred from older to younger. In 2021, the 65 plus age category was 57%. Remember it was 73% in 2020 of the total, while the 15 to 64 cohort increased to 43%. The absolute excess death increased from 20 to 21 for the productive working age 15 to 64 was 73%. So in 2020, 124,000 people perished excessively. and then in 2021 it rose to 215,000, 73%. For a virus that kills old people, this makeshift is an epic failure for the so-called vaccine solution. The total excess deaths since the rollout of the vaccine in the US, including 21, 22, and 23, is approximately 1.1 million. ...
The blame of the vaccine could be put to rest if studies were conducted of vaccinated versus unvaccinated individuals. Independently of whether it's the vaccine or not, as a nation we should all collectively want to know what is actually causing these tragic health results. However, the silence by the health authorities and the U.S. government strongly suggest they know the answer to that question.
See this additional article regarding Dowd's findings regarding worldwide excess deaths.
Study concluding that DEI is ineffective, and perhaps counterproductive, ignored by "news" media because it runs against the prevailing narrative. This excerpt is from Colin Wright's article: "Why Was This Groundbreaking Study on DEI Silenced? Two leading media organizations abruptly shelved coverage of a groundbreaking study that went against their narrative":
In a stunning series of events, two leading media organizations—The New York Times and Bloomberg—abruptly shelved coverage of a groundbreaking study that raises serious concerns about the psychological impacts of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) pedagogy. The study, conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) in collaboration with Rutgers University, found that certain DEI practices could induce hostility, increase authoritarian tendencies, and foster agreement with extreme rhetoric. With billions of dollars invested annually in these initiatives, the public has a right to know if such programs—heralded as effective moral solutions to bigotry and hate—might instead be fueling the very problems they claim to solve. The decision to withhold coverage raises serious questions about transparency, editorial independence, and the growing influence of ideological biases in the media.
The NCRI study investigated the psychological effects of DEI pedagogy, specifically training programs that draw heavily from texts like Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist and Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility. The findings were unsettling, though perhaps not surprising to longstanding opponents of such programs. Through carefully controlled experiments, the researchers demonstrated that exposure to anti-oppressive (i.e., anti-racist) rhetoric—common in many DEI initiatives—consistently amplified perceptions of bias where none existed. Participants were more likely to see prejudice in neutral scenarios and to support punitive actions against imagined offenders. These effects were not marginal; hostility and punitive tendencies increased by double-digit percentages across multiple measures. Perhaps most troubling, the study revealed a chilling convergence with authoritarian attitudes, suggesting that such training is fostering not empathy, but coercion and control.
The implications of these findings cannot be downplayed. DEI programs have become a fixture in workplaces, schools, and universities across the United States, with a 2023 Pew Research Center report indicating that more than half of U.S. workers have attended some form of DEI training. Institutions collectively spend approximately $8 billion annually on these initiatives, yet the NCRI study underscores how little scrutiny they receive. While proponents of DEI argue that these programs are essential to achieving equity and dismantling systemic oppression, the NCRI’s data suggests that such efforts may actually be deepening divisions and cultivating hostility.
Wrighty's article includes details of the study, showing strongly that exposure to DEI causes people to be more divisive. In short, DIE does the opposite of what it pretends to do. Yet, major news outlets that have often reported on work by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) refuse to report on this particular study, despite the widespread implementation of DEI and the potential widespread harm caused gy these programs.
Why are the Elites freaking out over free speech? In a mass-email to subscribers, Catherine Herridge explains:
The new super consumers of news are flocking to X and other platforms that support independent journalism, diverse voices, and embrace transparency which can strengthen democracy. This is nothing short of an industrial revolution driven both by technology and by loss of trust in corporate media. In 2023, Human Rights lawyer Jacob Mchangama wrote about the upheaval and resulting, 'elite panic.
Elite panic is this recurring phenomenon throughout the history of free speech, where whenever the public sphere is expanded, either through new communications technology, or to segments of the population that were previously marginalized, the traditional gatekeepers, the elites who control access to information, tend to fret about the dangers of allowing the unwashed mob — who are too fickle, too unsophisticated, too unlearned — unmediated access to information. They need information to be filtered through the responsible gatekeepers and it may be even more dangerous to allow them to speak without adult supervision. That's a phenomenon that we see again and again. And we're seeing it play out now on social media. … [Elite panic is] one contributing factor to the free speech recession.