Covid Controversies Require Critical Thinking

For nearly 27 years, the Reader has provided the Quad Cities with alternative news and perspectives. By “alternative,” I mean alternative to the mainstream media, and this unyielding mission has served the community well. This policy as it applies to COVID-19 is no different, especially due to the vast volumes of information that are being withheld, even censored, from the American public.

It is not necessary for agreement to appreciate information that makes us look at the issues of our time more closely, or differently. The more information, the better, for informed decisions and opinions. The only non-negotiable requirement should be evidence-based reporting, well-sourced and verified, then linked for readers to investigate for themselves. Our mission statement has always been “to make you think, not tell you what to think.”

Months after the nation's economy crashed and millions were (and continue to be) put out of work, a large group of Illinois House Democrats is still quite upset at the way Governor JB Pritzker's administration is handling unemployment insurance-claims.

But the Pritzker administration is refusing to bend on their most important demands, saying the governor will not move selected constituents to the “front of the line” ahead of others, which created a backlash within his own party.

WASHINGTON DC (June 12, 2020) — In response to the current pandemic and economic crisis, Congress and the President have enacted $4 trillion in spending, benefit payments, grants, loans, tax cuts, tax deferrals, and other measures to support the economy. So far, over half that money — $2.1 trillion — is out the door. The remaining dollars are largely flowing as expected.

Makes don't work to protect people from Covid19.

There have been extensive randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies, and meta-analysis reviews of RCT studies, which all show that masks and respirators do not work to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses, or respiratory illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles.

The present paper about masks illustrates the degree to which governments, the mainstream media, and institutional propagandists can decide to operate in a science vacuum, or select only incomplete science that serves their interests. Such recklessness is also certainly the case with the current global lockdown of over 1 billion people, an unprecedented experiment in medical and political history.

I am well aware of the stigma associated with questioning the status quo when it comes to matters of health and well being. You may have noticed the Reader has not had any local health-care advertisers for many years. Nor have we ever had any pharmaceutical advertisers, something all mainstream media rely heavily on to stay afloat.

Longtime readers of this publication are well aware that one of the Reader's primary directives is to question authority. There are troves of documentation worldwide that prove our leaders got COVID-19 deadly wrong in numerous areas. If you have not read Reader editor Kathleen McCarthy's extensive analysis of the COVID-19 science and punditry over the last three months, you can get caught up at the following short links: RCReader.com/y/covid19 and RCReader.com/y/covidmay.

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), in the period just prior to and just after Governor JB Pritzker issued his first stay-at-home order in March, houses of worship in Illinois experienced thirteen COVID-19 outbreaks, resulting in 88 cases.

Since then, Illinois has seen no such outbreaks until one was revealed last week. IDPH told me of a very recent church-related outbreak of 39 cases, including the pastor.

“The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support.” — Étienne De La Boétie, The Politics Of Obedience

WASHINGTON DC (May 15, 2020) — The fiscal and monetary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic crisis has been both swift and substantial. We have been tracking these support measures — in the form of spending, tax breaks, loans, and other actions — as part of our COVID Money Tracker initiative.

The most mystifying phenomena of this COVID-19 pandemic is the public's resistance to a wealth of compelling new data that confirms the SARS-CoV2 virus, claimed by the CDC, NIH, and WHO to be the cause of the disease COVID-19, is not nearly as lethal as originally feared. In fact, the data is showing less than 1/10th of 1 percent (0.01percent) of people who test positive for COVID-19 will actually die, with 90 percent of those people averaging 65 or older and having multiple critical comorbidity conditions.  [UPDATE: The CDC has estimated the lethality to be 0.26%, while detractors disagree.] The percentage of children 12 and under at risk is infinitesimal. So the question should now be: Is COVID-19 worthy of pandemic status, and based on widespread compelling new data, is the extreme global response still justified?

On October 18, 2019, the planners of the 2020 worldwide panic called a Covid-19 pandemic emergency fully mapped out and role-played how all of this fear and economic chaos would arise and what steps global leaders will take. Visit Plannedemic.org to see the World Economic Forum and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded Coronavirus pandemic simulation's own Web site of materials and video recordings. Participants include non-government organizations (NGOs) such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations, global corporations and media, Johns Hopkins University, the World Bank, and both U.S. and China Centers for Disease Control agencies.

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