Tuesday, August 31, 2021
How Powell’s Jackson Hole remarks have refreshed a rally in both stocks and bonds
Published: Aug. 30, 2021 at 2:32 p.m. ET
By
Vivien Lou Chen
Call it ‘Jackson Hold’: After Jackson Hole speech, investors expect an easy-money Fed to be status quo for weeks or months to come
By
Vivien Lou Chen
Call it ‘Jackson Hold’: After Jackson Hole speech, investors expect an easy-money Fed to be status quo for weeks or months to come
A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, on July 29, 2021. TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s ambiguity around the start date of any tapering in bond purchases this year is giving investors plenty of confidence that continued easy-monetary policy will be in place for at least weeks, if not months.
Friday’s Jackson Hole speech by Powell — colloquially referred to as “Jackson Hold” — is what’s established the current investing tone: It’s why money continued to flow Monday into Treasurys and U.S. stocks, with the S&P 500 SPX, -0.13% and Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.04% indexes touching fresh intraday record highs, some analysts said.
While Powell remained unclear about just when a 2021 tapering process would unfold, investors made their own assumptions: A September announcement is riding largely on Friday’s nonfarm-payroll report, where the median expectation is for a gain of 750,000. Although a jobs number below expectations would almost certainly take a September announcement off the table, some market participants say that a figure matching or even exceeding estimates might also not be enough to tee-up the tapering process by the Fed’s next meeting in three weeks. That would leave the November gathering as the central bank’s next best opportunity.
“’Jackson Hold’ speaks to the markets’ mindset right now, which is risk on and rates on,” meaning bond prices rally and yields fall, said Rob Daly, director of fixed-income at Glenmede Investment Management, who oversees $4.5 billion. “The uncertainty leading to a more dovish tone from Powell is being seen as an elixir, or what investors want.”
An overabundance of liquidity in financial markets at the moment is moving asset prices in the same direction. And the opposite is at risk of occurring when the Fed starts to signal its tapering process is under way, with both stocks and bonds selling off. Daly says he “likes being in cash because taking chips off the table is prudent, given we could see greater market volatility in the fall.”
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Until recently, bond prices and stocks ordinarily moved in opposite directions. That is because in past periods of risk-on in markets, investors tended to head into stocks and out of bonds, which are seen as a haven. The Fed’s $120 billion of monthly bond buying ensures that a player remains in government debt, propping up prices and anchoring yields. That, along with continued foreign demand, a lack of positive-yielding bonds world-wide and month-end rebalancing considerations, has investors continuing to buy U.S. government debt as stock values also rise.
Case in point: The 10-year rate TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.307% has continued to pull back since Powell’s remarks, though it still had the biggest weekly rise since June last week.
“Whether you agree with the Fed’s easy policies around asset purchases (which we don’t at this point) or not, the Chairman has a remarkable ability to soothe markets,” said Gregory Faranello, executive director of AmeriVet Securities and head of U.S. rates trading and strategy. “Since Friday, we have seen this reflected in rates, equities, credit and broader financial conditions.” Meanwhile, the forward Fed Funds curve is implying a low-rate environment “for quite some time and right now markets like it.”
Given the lack of specifics on a tapering timeline, investors zeroed in on Powell’s efforts to distinguish the scaling back of bond purchases from the first rate increase. That distinction helped to solidify in many minds that a hike won’t necessarily immediately follow the end of tapering.
“Both stocks and bonds are experiencing a relief rally after Fed Chair Powell separated taper timing from rate-liftoff timing,” said David Gagnon, a San Diego-based managing director and head of Treasurys trading for Academy Securities. “Basically, more liquidity is buoying asset prices, and with month-end rebalancing approaching, buyers in the bond market are in the driver’s seat at the moment.”
Veterans Affairs suicide hotline received more than 35,000 calls during Afghanistan evacuation
By Mike Brest
August 31, 2021 - 5:31 PM
The Veterans Affairs suicide hotline received an increase in calls during the final two weeks of the U.S. military's withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Veterans placed more than 35,000 calls to the Veterans Crisis Line between Aug. 13 and 29, according to VA data provided to the Washington Examiner, which coincides with the time period in which the U.S. military and coalition forces were embarking on what would become one of the largest airlifts in history as they worked around the clock to evacuate foreign nationals and Afghan allies who could be at risk under the Taliban regime.
'HUNDREDS' OF US CITIZENS LEFT BEHIND AS TROOPS LEAVE AFGHANISTAN
There was an average of 2,060 calls a day during that time frame, with the most, 2,570, occurring on Monday, Aug. 16, when Kabul fell under Taliban control.
The VA analyzes changes in call data volume by comparing the day of the week and month with the previous year, a spokesperson explained to the Washington Examiner. There were approximately 2,300 more calls during this year’s two-week period than the year prior, accounting for a roughly 7% increase from year to year.
There were 377 active-duty service members who died by suicide in 2020, up from 348 the year before, according to the Department of Defense Quarterly Suicide Report. That number has steadily increased, and in 2016, there were 280 such deaths.
The VA is starting a new awareness campaign for the month of September, which is Suicide Prevention Month.
The campaign urges veterans to reach out, hear others’ stories, be prepared, find resources, and spread the word in an effort to “act now” so they can “prevent Veteran suicide later.”
Two veterans who have suffered personal tragedies are also working on their own initiative in an attempt to thwart veteran suicides. Retired Staff Sgt. Leroy Petry, a Medal of Honor recipient, and Frank Larkin, a former Navy SEAL and Secret Service agent, are leading the efforts for a “National Warrior Call Day,” which would be a specific day to promote veterans reaching out to each other.
Reps. Liz Cheney and Elaine Luria introduced a resolution in June that, if passed, would designate Nov. 21, 2021, for the commemoration.
Monday, August 30, 2021
Sunday, August 29, 2021
Comirnaty CV19 Vax Approval Actually Fraudulent – Chris Martenson
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Comirnaty CV19 Vax Approval Actually Fraudulent – Chris Martenson
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Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com
August 26, 2021
Francis the Fox Pushes the Great Reset with Rome’s Climate Agenda
By Stuart Quint
Has Pope Francis outfoxed the world under the ruse of climate change and environmental ¨justice¨?
In the year 2015, Pope Francis wrote his controversial encyclical “Laudato Si”. He commands the nations to confess their collective sins of exploiting the environment with capitalism.
“’Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains us…’ This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air, and in all forms of life.”[1]
In his article “Francis the Fox”, Richard Bennett exposed Francis’s real agenda of paganism and totalitarianism. Environmentalism is a Vatican battering ram to compel the nations of the world to bow down to the wicked agenda of the Papacy and their surrogates in the global elite.[2]
Five years later, it appears Pope Francis is succeeding. The nations are listening!
According to the Pew Research Center, global concern over the dubious “science” of climate change has exploded. 13 of the 26 countries surveyed consider climate change to be their number one national threat.[3]
The US has also been deceived. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans today see climate change as a major threat to their nation. Over 5 years before, only 4 in 10 Americans saw climate change as a threat.[4]
By riding a wave of fear, Pope Francis has hypnotized many to take action. And their governments are now willing to submit, even at the detriment of their own populations!
In his most recent encyclical “Fratelle Tutti”, Francis applauds his living predecessor Benedict XVI:
“In this regard, I would also note the need for a reform of ‘the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth.’”[5]
Strange Bedfellows: The Vatican, Globalists, and Radical Climate Change Advocates
To put teeth behind the climate change agenda, Pope Francis is teaming up with global secular elites.
The United Nations with its Agenda 21 is one major player.[6]
He is also allied with the World Economic Forum (WEF), the elite club of globalist elites in business and government. In exchange for his parroting of their world agenda, the WEF adores Francis with Catholic panels at the annual Davos gathering as well as touting his decrees on their website.[7]
A front-page article on the WEF website lauds Francis for his affirmation of their principles and denunciation of “neo-liberalism” (their derogatory name for capitalism and democracy blessed by the Reformation).[8]
The WEF along with the IMF and the UN is pushing a radical global agenda called the “Great Reset”.[9]
This agenda includes an aggressive environmental component[10] bent on net-zero emissions and other changes to global governance.[11] Smart grids, smart cities that monitor consumption, and 5G systems that conduct surveillance on devices and private citizens are sample technologies.[12] Wealth redistribution, including “universal basic wage” (for which Pope Francis advocated in Easter service), and the growth of secular government at the expense of personal freedom also highlight the “Great Reset”.[13]
Indeed, the WEF seeks to use Covid to accelerate and enforce the “Great Reset”.
So why change the configuration of the Jesuit “Provinces”?
SO WHY CHANGE THE CONFIGURATION OF THE JESUIT “PROVINCES”?
18 Oct 2019
However, for the past fifteen years, under the generalate of Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, and now with Fr. Arturo Sosa, these national or regional borders are breaking down as new Jesuit Provinces are created. The new Provinces are sometimes multicultural and even multilingual. These organizational changes, like any change in the course of human life, have created tensions here and there. Jesuits from neighbouring regions or countries, who previously had little contact with one another, were now being urged to communicate, to collaborate, and to think about their future together.
Among the projects for creating new Provinces is that of Central Europe, which will soon be completed. The new province will bring together the current Provinces of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Lithuania. The decrease in the number of Jesuits is quite often suggested as the main reason for consolidating Provinces, some of which have had a long tradition of “national” autonomy. Since the Swiss Jesuits were involved in one of these regroupings, they raised the issue directly with Father General during his visit to their country last September.
Father Sosa’s response offers a much broader and deeper perspective than considerations of only a mathematical or geographical nature. The General recalled the essentially universal character of the Society of Jesus since its foundation. See above for what he has to say about this question.
Note:
October 18, 2019 the day when the Jesuit Provinces RESTRUCTURING was announced, was also the day that EVENT 201 was conducted:
·
Event 201
·
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY. The exercise illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences.
·
Saturday, August 28, 2021
The No Religious Test Clause (ARTICLE VI of the U.S. Constitution)
COMMON INTERPRETATION
The No Religious Test Clause
by Alan E. Brownstein
Professor of Law & the Boochever and Bird Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality at the University of California - Davis School of Law
by Jud Campbell
Associate Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law
After requiring all federal and state legislators and officers to swear or affirm to support the federal Constitution, Article VI specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” This prohibition, commonly known as the No Religious Test Clause, banned a longstanding form of religious discrimination practiced both in England and in the United States. In doing so, it provided a limited but enduring textual constitutional commitment to religious liberty and equality that has influenced the way Americans have understood the relationship between government and religion over the last two centuries.
In England, religious tests were used to “establish” the Church of England as an official national church. The Test Acts, in force from the 1660s until the 1820s, required all government officials to take an oath disclaiming the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and affirming the Church of England’s teachings about receiving the sacrament. These laws effectively excluded Catholics and members of dissenting Protestant sects from exercising political power. Religious tests were needed, William Blackstone explained, to protect the established church and the government “against perils from non-conformists of all denominations, infidels, turks, jews, heretics, papists, and sectaries.”
At the time the United States Constitution was adopted, religious qualifications for holding office also were pervasive throughout the states. Delaware’s constitution, for example, required government officials to “profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost.” North Carolina barred anyone “who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion” from serving in the government. Unlike the rule in England, however, American religious tests did not limit office-holding to members of a particular established church. Every state allowed Protestants of all varieties to serve in government. Still, religious tests were designed to exclude certain people—often Catholics or non-Christians—from holding office based on their faith.
Today, nondiscrimination is an essential part of religious freedom, and it therefore may seem odd that the state laws and constitutions simultaneously imposed religious tests while also professing to protect religious liberty. Indeed, some critics, such as Thomas Jefferson, condemned religious tests as repugnant to freedom of conscience. But many Americans in the late 1700s and early 1800s apparently did not view religious tests and religious freedom as inherently contradictory. Some argued that religious tests did not violate freedom of religious conscience because no one had an obligation or entitlement to hold public office. Office-holding, in other words, was a privilege, not a right. Americans thus allowed minority religions to practice their faith while insisting that government power must be reserved for and could only be trusted to Protestants.
Notwithstanding this almost unanimous state consensus, the Framers of the federal Constitution prohibited religious tests for federal office-holding. It is not clear why they did so. There is little record of debate about this provision or discussion as to its merits at the constitutional convention. We do know that the ban on religious tests was controversial during the ratification debates, sometimes evoking passionate criticism of its inclusion in the Constitution. It was elementary to some opponents of the ban that “a person could not be a good man without being a good Christian.” Even as prominent a proponent of ratification as John Jay had demonstrated strong support for the use of religious tests within his own state.
Supporters of the Constitution defended the prohibition against test oaths as advancing religious freedom and protecting less politically powerful faiths against discrimination. They also argued that laws requiring religious tests were futile. Men without principles would easily evade the laws’ purpose through sham compliance while honest men who followed the dictates of their conscience would be barred from office. The difficult question was how these arguments could be reconciled with the widespread acceptance of religious tests throughout the states.
There is very little case law interpreting the No Religious Test Clause. The foundational ideas of religious liberty and equality, which are intrinsic to the rejection of religious tests, have been developed far more fully in cases interpreting the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Thus, the Supreme Court has never held that the Clause applies to state as well as federal office-holding. In other words, unlike most parts of the Bill of Rights, the ban on religious tests has not been formally applied against the states (or “incorporated”) under the Fourteenth Amendment. But in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), the Supreme Court unanimously held that religious tests for state office-holding violate the religion clauses of the First Amendment. “[N]either a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion,’” the Court declared. “[N]either can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.”
In a related case, McDaniel v. Paty (1978), the Supreme Court invoked the First Amendment to strike down state laws prohibiting clergy from holding office. Such a disqualification from holding office, the Court explained, unacceptably abridged religious liberty. Here again, the fact that these religion-related exclusions were adopted by many states both before and after the Constitution’s ratification did not persuade the Justices that such burdens on religious liberty were permissible.
As is true of virtually all constitutional provisions, the No Religious Test Clause in Article VI only restricts governmental action. Private citizens do not violate the Constitution if they vote against a political candidate because of his or her religion. A harder question, which has provoked considerable contemporary debate, is whether the Clause extends beyond a ban against oaths and prohibits government officials from taking the religious views of an individual into account in selecting or confirming that individual for a federal position—such as an appointment to the Supreme Court.
The No Religious Test Clause
by Alan E. Brownstein
Professor of Law & the Boochever and Bird Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality at the University of California - Davis School of Law
by Jud Campbell
Associate Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law
After requiring all federal and state legislators and officers to swear or affirm to support the federal Constitution, Article VI specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” This prohibition, commonly known as the No Religious Test Clause, banned a longstanding form of religious discrimination practiced both in England and in the United States. In doing so, it provided a limited but enduring textual constitutional commitment to religious liberty and equality that has influenced the way Americans have understood the relationship between government and religion over the last two centuries.
In England, religious tests were used to “establish” the Church of England as an official national church. The Test Acts, in force from the 1660s until the 1820s, required all government officials to take an oath disclaiming the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and affirming the Church of England’s teachings about receiving the sacrament. These laws effectively excluded Catholics and members of dissenting Protestant sects from exercising political power. Religious tests were needed, William Blackstone explained, to protect the established church and the government “against perils from non-conformists of all denominations, infidels, turks, jews, heretics, papists, and sectaries.”
At the time the United States Constitution was adopted, religious qualifications for holding office also were pervasive throughout the states. Delaware’s constitution, for example, required government officials to “profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost.” North Carolina barred anyone “who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion” from serving in the government. Unlike the rule in England, however, American religious tests did not limit office-holding to members of a particular established church. Every state allowed Protestants of all varieties to serve in government. Still, religious tests were designed to exclude certain people—often Catholics or non-Christians—from holding office based on their faith.
Today, nondiscrimination is an essential part of religious freedom, and it therefore may seem odd that the state laws and constitutions simultaneously imposed religious tests while also professing to protect religious liberty. Indeed, some critics, such as Thomas Jefferson, condemned religious tests as repugnant to freedom of conscience. But many Americans in the late 1700s and early 1800s apparently did not view religious tests and religious freedom as inherently contradictory. Some argued that religious tests did not violate freedom of religious conscience because no one had an obligation or entitlement to hold public office. Office-holding, in other words, was a privilege, not a right. Americans thus allowed minority religions to practice their faith while insisting that government power must be reserved for and could only be trusted to Protestants.
Notwithstanding this almost unanimous state consensus, the Framers of the federal Constitution prohibited religious tests for federal office-holding. It is not clear why they did so. There is little record of debate about this provision or discussion as to its merits at the constitutional convention. We do know that the ban on religious tests was controversial during the ratification debates, sometimes evoking passionate criticism of its inclusion in the Constitution. It was elementary to some opponents of the ban that “a person could not be a good man without being a good Christian.” Even as prominent a proponent of ratification as John Jay had demonstrated strong support for the use of religious tests within his own state.
Supporters of the Constitution defended the prohibition against test oaths as advancing religious freedom and protecting less politically powerful faiths against discrimination. They also argued that laws requiring religious tests were futile. Men without principles would easily evade the laws’ purpose through sham compliance while honest men who followed the dictates of their conscience would be barred from office. The difficult question was how these arguments could be reconciled with the widespread acceptance of religious tests throughout the states.
There is very little case law interpreting the No Religious Test Clause. The foundational ideas of religious liberty and equality, which are intrinsic to the rejection of religious tests, have been developed far more fully in cases interpreting the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Thus, the Supreme Court has never held that the Clause applies to state as well as federal office-holding. In other words, unlike most parts of the Bill of Rights, the ban on religious tests has not been formally applied against the states (or “incorporated”) under the Fourteenth Amendment. But in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), the Supreme Court unanimously held that religious tests for state office-holding violate the religion clauses of the First Amendment. “[N]either a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion,’” the Court declared. “[N]either can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.”
In a related case, McDaniel v. Paty (1978), the Supreme Court invoked the First Amendment to strike down state laws prohibiting clergy from holding office. Such a disqualification from holding office, the Court explained, unacceptably abridged religious liberty. Here again, the fact that these religion-related exclusions were adopted by many states both before and after the Constitution’s ratification did not persuade the Justices that such burdens on religious liberty were permissible.
As is true of virtually all constitutional provisions, the No Religious Test Clause in Article VI only restricts governmental action. Private citizens do not violate the Constitution if they vote against a political candidate because of his or her religion. A harder question, which has provoked considerable contemporary debate, is whether the Clause extends beyond a ban against oaths and prohibits government officials from taking the religious views of an individual into account in selecting or confirming that individual for a federal position—such as an appointment to the Supreme Court.
Friday, August 27, 2021
Parallels between the French revolution and latter-day events - Part 2
Parallels between the French revolution and latter-day events - Part 2
lightchannel.dk
Scheduled for 8/28/2021, 4:45 AM.
Harvard Selects An Atheist For Chief University Chaplai
Screenshot, YouTube/Harvard University
MARY MARGARET OLOHAN
SOCIAL ISSUES REPORTER
August 26, 20213:59 PM ET
Harvard University has selected a man who does not believe in God to be the school’s chief chaplain.
Chief Chaplain Greg Epstein is the author of “Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe.” He also serves as Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) humanist chaplain, and as Convener for Ethical Life at the MIT Office of Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life.
“We don’t look to a god for answers,” 44-year-old Epstein told The New York Times. “We are each other’s answers.” (RELATED: Should Priests Deny Biden Communion? Theologians Weigh In)
Epstein will lead the university’s community of more than 30 chaplains who represent “many of the world’s religious, spiritual, and ethical traditions” and “who share a collective commitment to serving the spiritual needs of the students, faculty, and staff of Harvard University.” These chaplains work closely with students both in groups and individually, acting as mentors and counsellors.
Harvard University has selected a man who does not believe in God to be the school’s chief chaplain.
Chief Chaplain Greg Epstein is the author of “Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe.” He also serves as Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) humanist chaplain, and as Convener for Ethical Life at the MIT Office of Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life.
“We don’t look to a god for answers,” 44-year-old Epstein told The New York Times. “We are each other’s answers.” (RELATED: Should Priests Deny Biden Communion? Theologians Weigh In)
Epstein will lead the university’s community of more than 30 chaplains who represent “many of the world’s religious, spiritual, and ethical traditions” and “who share a collective commitment to serving the spiritual needs of the students, faculty, and staff of Harvard University.” These chaplains work closely with students both in groups and individually, acting as mentors and counsellors.
I’m obliged and honored to share personal news: I’ve been elected president of my @HarvardChaplain colleagues, and the brilliant @emmabgo wrote about it for the @nytimes. Will add a 🧵here, later today.
“The New Chief Chaplain at Harvard? An Atheist.”https://t.co/m5rZEqHnQV
— Greg M. Epstein (@gregmepstein) August 26, 2021
Harvard University was established by Puritan colonists to educate American clergymen under the motto “Truth for Christ and the Church,” the Times reported. The university, named after Pastor John Harvard, chose clergymen to lead Harvard for over 70 years.
“There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life,” Epstein told the Times. (RELATED: Here’s Why Media Calls Biden A ‘Devout Catholic’ According To Theologians, Commentators)
A Harvard Crimson survey of the university’s 2019 class found that students were two times more likely to identify as agnostic or as atheist than average 18-year-olds, the Times reported: 21.3% of the class said they were agnostic and 16.6% said they were atheist. About equal shares of the students said they were Protestant (17%) or Catholic (17.1%), 10.1% said they were Jewish, 2.5% said they were Muslim, 3% said they were Hindu, and 12% said they were “other.”
Neither Epstein nor Harvard University immediately responded to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Content created by The Daily Caller News
Thursday, August 26, 2021
Mark of the COVID Beast: Store Denies People Food, Water Without Vaccine Passport - Report
By Samantha Chang August 23, 2021 at 1:39pm
The liberal nation of France has deteriorated into a fascist police state whose vaccine passport requirements may be preventing the unvaccinated from getting basic essentials such as food, judging by a disturbing Twitter video.
“French supermarkets have hired bouncers in order to deny people basic human rights to food and water because they didn’t get the right government permission slip,” independent journalist Luke Rudkowski tweeted on Friday.
The alarming video he posted shows a security guard brutally grabbing a masked woman and throwing her out of the store like a trash bag.
The woman gets outraged by the abusive manhandling and yells at the security guard.
After she leaves, a man approaches the bouncer and scolds him for not allowing the female shopper to get “alimentaire” (a French word for food).
The shocking video is evocative of the “mark of the beast,” a biblical hallmark of those pledged to the forces of evil.
In an Aug. 20 commentary in the Midland (Texas) Reporter-Telegram, titled “Is the COVID vaccine the ‘mark of the beast'”, the Rev. Darin Wood, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Midland, explained that “in Revelation 13:16-18, the Apostle John speaks of an apocalyptic pair of beasts who will rule the earth with vengeance, cruelty and animosity. Their severe manner and harsh rule will inflict pain and grief on all those on the earth at the time.
Will the US adopt France's brutal treatment toward the unvaccinated?
The liberal nation of France has deteriorated into a fascist police state whose vaccine passport requirements may be preventing the unvaccinated from getting basic essentials such as food, judging by a disturbing Twitter video.
“French supermarkets have hired bouncers in order to deny people basic human rights to food and water because they didn’t get the right government permission slip,” independent journalist Luke Rudkowski tweeted on Friday.
The alarming video he posted shows a security guard brutally grabbing a masked woman and throwing her out of the store like a trash bag.
The woman gets outraged by the abusive manhandling and yells at the security guard.
After she leaves, a man approaches the bouncer and scolds him for not allowing the female shopper to get “alimentaire” (a French word for food).
The shocking video is evocative of the “mark of the beast,” a biblical hallmark of those pledged to the forces of evil.
In an Aug. 20 commentary in the Midland (Texas) Reporter-Telegram, titled “Is the COVID vaccine the ‘mark of the beast'”, the Rev. Darin Wood, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Midland, explained that “in Revelation 13:16-18, the Apostle John speaks of an apocalyptic pair of beasts who will rule the earth with vengeance, cruelty and animosity. Their severe manner and harsh rule will inflict pain and grief on all those on the earth at the time.
Will the US adopt France's brutal treatment toward the unvaccinated?
“Their sovereign reach will require that all those who desire to transact commerce or business – buying or selling anything – to bear the mark of the beast. Should they fail to have the mark, they will be ostracized.”
Wood concluded his commentary by saying the COVID vaccine is not the mark of the beast. But he gave considerable, respectful thought to why many, many people are asking raising the question.
Even as a metaphor, it’s unsettling.
Obviously, this isn’t the literal “mark of the beast,” but the concept is disturbingly similar. In some places in France, if you don’t have proper government-approved documentation, it’s apparently OK to deprive you of the ability of “buying and selling” — even if it’s buying necessities. (In the United States, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has implemented similar measures.)
Another shocking video from France shows activists blocking the entrance to a supermarket that reportedly banned unvaccinated customers.
Still another Twitter video shows a group of French citizens arguing with police about the vaccine passport in front of a store.
Several protesters are heard calling the coronavirus restriction “discrimination.”
Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron urged all French people to get vaccinated and announced the rollout of a nationwide “health pass” (also known as a vaccine passport).
“From August, the health pass will apply in cafes, restaurants, shopping centers, as well as in hospitals, retirement homes, medico-social establishments and in long-distance transport,” Macron said in the July 12 speech. (Text and translation available here.)
To his credit, the liberal French president said he secured his country’s borders in order to stem the spread of COVID-19.
“Since July 12, border controls have been tightened,” Macron said.
This is a stark contrast to President Joe Biden, who not only refuses to secure his own country’s borders, but has been letting coronavirus-infected illegal aliens loose across the United States.
To further pressure everyone in France to get vaccinated, Macron said people will soon be forced to pay for their own coronavirus tests.
“In the fall, PCR tests will be paid for, unless prescribed by a doctor, in order to encourage vaccination rather than the multiplication of tests,” Macron said.
France has been roiled by protests after unveiling its vaccine passport requirement, which was enacted in July but took effect on Aug. 1.
Last month, the French Parliament approved a bill requiring vaccine passports for access to restaurants, bars, trains and airplanes.
“The law requires all workers in the health care sector to start getting vaccinated by Sept. 15, or risk suspension,” France 24 reported.
“It also requires a ‘health pass’ to enter all restaurants, trains, planes and some other public venues. It initially applies to all adults, but will apply to everyone 12 and older starting Sept. 30.”
The health pass requires patrons to show paper or digital proof that they’re fully vaccinated, recently tested negative or recently recovered from the coronavirus.
Ironically, the national motto of France is “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (liberty, equality and fraternity).
The country’s embrace of Big Government bullying to browbeat its population into submitting to unscientific, oppressive shows just how far liberals have moved away from the actual principles of freedom and equality.
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
In A Message To Americans, Pope Francis Says Getting Vaccinated Is 'An Act Of Love'
August 18, 20218:03 AM ET
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pope Francis delivers his blessing as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican earlier this month.Andrew Medichini/AP
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is adding his voice to a campaign to overcome vaccine skepticism, issuing a public service announcement insisting that vaccines are safe, effective and an "act of love."
The video message released Wednesday is aimed at a global audience but directed particularly at the Americas. It features six cardinals and archbishops from North, Central and South America as well as the Argentine-born pope. It was produced by the Vatican and the Ad Council, which has produced a series of pro-vaccine ads in a bid to get more people vaccinated.
In his comments, Francis said: "Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love. And contributing to ensure the majority of people are vaccinated is an act of love."
He added: "Vaccination is a simple but profound way of promoting the common good and caring for each other, especially the most vulnerable."
Francis had emphasized at the start of the pandemic the need to ensure equal access to the vaccine, especially for the poor. But faced with increasing skepticism about vaccines especially among religious conservatives, the Vatican has vowed an all-out effort to overcome hesitancy and encourage widespread vaccination.
The Vatican has declared that it is morally acceptable for Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines, including those based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses.
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Biden's Odd Comment About Kamala Being President Soon
Biden: "It's gonna be, we gonna have some presidents pretty soon."
Coronavirus Updates: Biden calls for vaccine mandates after FDA approval
COVID-19 Live Updates, News and Information
By Eyewitness NewsTuesday, August 24, 2021 6:54AM
EMBED <>MORE VIDEOS
ABC News' Dan Lieberman reports on the battle against COVID in the US.
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Officials are hoping that the FDA approval of Pfizer's COVID vaccine will give reassurance to the 82 million eligible but still unvaccinated people in the United States.
The FDA director said that the approval process was extremely rigorous.
"We've heard false claims that thousands of people have died from the vaccine. Let me be clear, these claims are simply not true. Getting a COVID-19 vaccine can save your life," Dr. Marks said.
The White House says that the approval means that businesses and institutions should now have the confidence to issue vaccine mandates.
"If you're a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a state or local leader, I call on you now to do that, require it," President Biden said.
Some 738 Americans die every day from COVID-19.
Here are more of today's headlines:
Mom shares daughter's final message before dying of COVID
ABC News' Dan Lieberman reports on the battle against COVID in the US.
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Officials are hoping that the FDA approval of Pfizer's COVID vaccine will give reassurance to the 82 million eligible but still unvaccinated people in the United States.
The FDA director said that the approval process was extremely rigorous.
"We've heard false claims that thousands of people have died from the vaccine. Let me be clear, these claims are simply not true. Getting a COVID-19 vaccine can save your life," Dr. Marks said.
The White House says that the approval means that businesses and institutions should now have the confidence to issue vaccine mandates.
"If you're a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a state or local leader, I call on you now to do that, require it," President Biden said.
Some 738 Americans die every day from COVID-19.
Here are more of today's headlines:
Mom shares daughter's final message before dying of COVID
A Texas mother is sharing her daughter's final message before dying after a weekslong battle with COVID-19 complications.
Paige Ruiz was due to deliver Celeste on July 30, 2021. She tested positive for COVID-19 on July 24, just days before her due date and days before the CDC and a national OBGYN group strongly recommended vaccination for pregnant women.
Ruiz was able to recover enough to be alert and meet her newborn daughter via video call. However, she soon developed COVID-19 complications. She passed away on Aug. 15. She was never able to hold baby Celeste.
New Jersey vaccine mandate for school personnel
Gov. Phil Murphy announced that all New Jersey school personnel, from pre-K through 12th grade, will be required to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 18 or undergo regular testing -- up to one or two times a week.
NEW: All preschool-through-12 school personnel are required to complete a full vaccination course or undergo regular testing at a minimum of once to twice each week.
Full compliance is required by October 18th. pic.twitter.com/OeoCNPgosA— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) August 23, 2021
Pentagon to mandate COVID-19 vaccine for military service members
The Pentagon says it will require service members to receive the COVID-19 vaccine now that the Pfizer vaccine has received full approval.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is making good on his vow earlier this month to require the shots once the Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine.
Pfizer vaccine approved by FDA
The U.S. gave full approval to Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, a milestone that may help lift public confidence in the shots as the nation battles the most contagious coronavirus mutant yet.
The vaccine, which will now be marketed as Comirnaty, made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech now carries the strongest endorsement from the Food and Drug Administration, which has never before had so much evidence to judge a shot's safety.
NYC vaccine requirement for teachers, school employees
Mayor Bill de Blasio says public school employees will have to have received at least one dose by September 27th. The new vaccination policy will not allow weekly testing as an option.
Why you shouldn't rush to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot before it's your turn
In the next month, millions of Americans will get ready to roll up their sleeves for a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. But when it comes to booster shots, it's not as simple as "more is more" -- it's also a matter of when.
For severely immunocompromised people, a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine is available now. Come mid-September, that option is expected to be open for everyone who got Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, at least eight months after their second dose.
Health experts caution not to jump the gun -- or the line -- on when you might actually need a booster shot.
Large events canceled due to delta variant, wallop states' economies
A festival in New Orleans. Concerts in Nashville, Tennessee. A comic book convention in Atlanta. As the delta variant surges across the country, states with low COVID vaccination rates are reeling from a loss in tourism dollars due to large-event cancellations and postponements.
Of the 11 states with vaccination rates under 50%, Louisiana, Tennessee and Georgia have cancelled staple events, costing an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars for local and state economies, according to officials.
What to know about delta and other COVID-19 variants of concern
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed the COVID-19 delta variant as one of its "variants of concern" (VOCs) on June 15. According to the CDC, VOCs can be more contagious, more dangerous, less susceptible to available treatments or harder to detect. The current VOCs all have mutations in the virus's spike protein, which acts as a key to break into cells to infect them. And that's a potential concern because the spike protein from the original version of the virus is what scientists used to design all three authorized vaccines. It's also what monoclonal antibody treatments latch on to so the virus can't get into your cells, effectively "neutralizing" the threat. So far none of these mutations have changed the virus enough to undercut the vaccines. The uncontrolled spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, means the virus is mutating quickly. That's why many new variants are being discovered in places with the highest infection rates and large numbers of unvaccinated individuals, like the United States, the United Kingdom, India and Brazil.
Monday, August 23, 2021
Sunday, August 22, 2021
Saturday, August 21, 2021
What to expect from Henri in New England
Maps: What to expect from Henri in New England
By Maria Elena Little Endara and Brittany Bowker Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff,Updated August 21, 2021, 10:53 a.m.
Parts of Massachusetts could see heavy rain leading to flash flooding.CRAIG F. WALKER/GLOBE STAFF
Forecasters are keeping an eye on Henri’s path as it approaches New England
A hurricane warning went into effect Saturday for the Rhode Island and Connecticut coasts, and areas inland. A tropical storm warning was issued for the Cape and Islands, and for locations in south-central Massachusetts.
Forecasters are keeping an eye on Henri’s path as it approaches New England
A hurricane warning went into effect Saturday for the Rhode Island and Connecticut coasts, and areas inland. A tropical storm warning was issued for the Cape and Islands, and for locations in south-central Massachusetts.
Hurricane and tropical storm warnings were issued for Southern New England.NWS
Storm surge warning in effect throughout the region.NWS
The latest National Hurricane Center models show a westward shift for the storm, and Henri is expected to make landfall near eastern Long Island Sunday afternoon. Then it should weaken rapidly as it heads into Connecticut on Sunday evening before slowly exiting the region Monday. The main hazards include damaging winds, flooding rain, and storm surge flooding.
The cone contains the probable path of the storm center.NWS
Heavy rainfall may lead to flash flooding, damaging winds, and storm surge, although the arrival of the storm near lower tide may help mitigate impact, the weather service said. Flood watches were issued for central parts of the state, and in all of Western Massachusetts. Excessive runoff from heavy rainfall may cause flash flooding in areas with small creeks ad streams, urban areas, and low lying spots. Forecasters predict between 3 to 6 inches of rain in these areas, with high amounts possible.
Heavy rainfall may lead to flash flooding, damaging winds, and storm surge, although the arrival of the storm near lower tide may help mitigate impact, the weather service said. Flood watches were issued for central parts of the state, and in all of Western Massachusetts. Excessive runoff from heavy rainfall may cause flash flooding in areas with small creeks ad streams, urban areas, and low lying spots. Forecasters predict between 3 to 6 inches of rain in these areas, with high amounts possible.
Expected rain from Henri.NWS
Flooding is possible Sunday and Sunday night in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Western and Central Massachusetts.NWS
Most of Massachusetts is under “slight” or “marginal” risk for flash flooding, and areas in western Massachusetts have the greatest potential for flash flooding Sunday and Sunday night, forecasters said.
Most of Massachusetts is under “slight” or “marginal” risk for flash flooding, and areas in western Massachusetts have the greatest potential for flash flooding Sunday and Sunday night, forecasters said.
Risk of flash flooding throughout the region.NWS
The most likely arrival time of tropical storm-force winds is Sunday around 8 a.m., and as early as Saturday evening in parts of southern New England.
The most likely arrival time of tropical storm-force winds is Sunday around 8 a.m., and as early as Saturday evening in parts of southern New England.
Most likely arrival time of tropical storm-force winds.NWS
The storm should clear out of the area by sometime late Monday night, forecasters said.
The National Weather Service encourages people to start preparing for a possible hurricane by having extra cash on hand, filling up vehicles with gas, and buying non-perishable food in case power is lost.
Lauren Booker of Globe staff contributed to this report.
The storm should clear out of the area by sometime late Monday night, forecasters said.
The National Weather Service encourages people to start preparing for a possible hurricane by having extra cash on hand, filling up vehicles with gas, and buying non-perishable food in case power is lost.
Lauren Booker of Globe staff contributed to this report.
NJ Priests Using Hookup Apps Alarms Catholic Church Officials,..
Inside the Vatican Photo Credit: Special to Daily Voice
Vatican City, NJ Priests Using Hookup Apps Alarms Catholic Church Officials, Reports Say
08/20/2021 12:23 p.m.
A conservative Catholic media organization has published a series of reports claiming that priests at New Jersey churches and the Vatican have been using hookup apps.
"The Pillar" collected and reviewed commercially available app signal indicating patterns on location-based hookup apps at more than 10 rectories within the Archdiocese of Newark between 2018 and 2020, the blog reported July 23.
The data apparently shows evidence that "both homosexual and heterosexual hookup apps were used in parish rectories or other clerical residences with a frequency suggesting, in several cases, residence in those locations," the outlet said.
A spokesperson from the Newark archdiocese requested more information for further investigation and released the following statement.
"Although the purported information conveyed to the Archdiocese does not provide any evidence of misconduct by Archdiocesan clergy or employees, we recognize that any app or technology has the potential for misuse or abuse, which would be of concern," the archdiocese said in a statement.
"This matter is to be evaluated and further reviewed pending the receipt of the publisher’s data and analysis."
Another report by The Pillar said that dating app data signals were emitted from areas within Vatican City that were off limits to tourists.
A previous report by The Pillar apparently prompted the resignation of former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference Jeffrey Burrill, on claims he used gay hookup app Grindr "on a near-daily basis" between 2018 and 2020.
While The Pillar's editors declined interview requests from other media outlets, they apparently said on a podcast that their blog posts were written with a goal of exposing "secretive culture of wrongdoing within the church," the New York Times says.
The Monster From The Abyss
The Time of the End
Chapter 11
THE MONSTER FROM THE ABYSS
In the chapter of the Revelation about the Two Witnesses, which we have studied briefly, a special attack upon the Bible is mentioned, which was strikingly fulfilled at the time of the French Revolution.
In Revelation 11:7, A.R.V., we read, "And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them."
This means that when they have finished or are finishing their testimony "in sackcloth" (see The Great Controversy, p. 268), which would be about the end of the 1260-year period, a violent campaign would be let loose against the Holy Scriptures. Every student of history knows that just such a deadly warfare did take place at the time of the French Revolution. Various public ceremonies were held to heap disgrace and contempt upon all religion, specifically upon the Sacred Scriptures. It would be difficult for ingenuity to think of some new method of shame and disgrace against the Bible which was not practiced during this insane period. And we need to remember that for the preceding century or more France had prided herself on being the most cultured and educated country in the world.
The subtle influences that prepared the way for this outbreak of hatred against everything sacred or divine are given in chapter 15 of The Great Controversy, pages 265-288. Only a brief summary can be given here. This national explosion, with many international echoes, was the culmination of a long series of events in which Rome suppressed God's Two Witnesses, the Holy Scriptures. But this Revolution was permitted to take place as a terrible example, a type, a preview, of what the entire world will yet experience as result of the modern anti-Genesis war against the Bible, under the influence of the modernistic philosophy of evolution.
We have been warned: "… the world-wide dissemination of the same teachings that led to the French Revolution—all are tending to involve the whole world in a struggle similar to that which convulsed France."—Education, p. 228.
The work of the Reformation began early in France. It began among the educated teachers in the University of Paris and among the cultured members of the royal court. But in that age of the world nobody had yet had a glimpse of the idea of the complete separation of church and state; hence those who treasured the Bible and wanted to see its teachings carried out saw no other way than the political and military method for bringing this about. Accordingly, for centuries the conflict went on, legal decrees and armies being employed by both sides, sometimes the Reformers and sometimes the Papists being successful. Finally by the horrible Massacre of St. Bartholomew and by the still more fiendishly successful system of the dragonnades, by which a ruffian and licentious soldiery were quartered in the homes of the Huguenots, the Protestants were at last driven into exile or exterminated; and a dreary economic and cultural paralysis settled down upon the nation.
Since the king had undertaken to regulate the lives of everybody, he naturally had to care for the poorer classes. At length Paris contained so many beggars and so large a proportion of the population lived by the doles from the government, that the city has been compared to a monstrous almshouse. Ignorant, superstitious, penniless, with no useful work to occupy their time, the Parisian mobs became the tools by which wild demagogues could at short notice arouse a frenzy of excitement and lead them to wild and hysterical behavior, controlled by demons and bent on the suppression and ruin of the rulers in church and state, whom they looked upon as the cause of their misery.
Chapter 11
THE MONSTER FROM THE ABYSS
In the chapter of the Revelation about the Two Witnesses, which we have studied briefly, a special attack upon the Bible is mentioned, which was strikingly fulfilled at the time of the French Revolution.
In Revelation 11:7, A.R.V., we read, "And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them."
This means that when they have finished or are finishing their testimony "in sackcloth" (see The Great Controversy, p. 268), which would be about the end of the 1260-year period, a violent campaign would be let loose against the Holy Scriptures. Every student of history knows that just such a deadly warfare did take place at the time of the French Revolution. Various public ceremonies were held to heap disgrace and contempt upon all religion, specifically upon the Sacred Scriptures. It would be difficult for ingenuity to think of some new method of shame and disgrace against the Bible which was not practiced during this insane period. And we need to remember that for the preceding century or more France had prided herself on being the most cultured and educated country in the world.
The subtle influences that prepared the way for this outbreak of hatred against everything sacred or divine are given in chapter 15 of The Great Controversy, pages 265-288. Only a brief summary can be given here. This national explosion, with many international echoes, was the culmination of a long series of events in which Rome suppressed God's Two Witnesses, the Holy Scriptures. But this Revolution was permitted to take place as a terrible example, a type, a preview, of what the entire world will yet experience as result of the modern anti-Genesis war against the Bible, under the influence of the modernistic philosophy of evolution.
We have been warned: "… the world-wide dissemination of the same teachings that led to the French Revolution—all are tending to involve the whole world in a struggle similar to that which convulsed France."—Education, p. 228.
The work of the Reformation began early in France. It began among the educated teachers in the University of Paris and among the cultured members of the royal court. But in that age of the world nobody had yet had a glimpse of the idea of the complete separation of church and state; hence those who treasured the Bible and wanted to see its teachings carried out saw no other way than the political and military method for bringing this about. Accordingly, for centuries the conflict went on, legal decrees and armies being employed by both sides, sometimes the Reformers and sometimes the Papists being successful. Finally by the horrible Massacre of St. Bartholomew and by the still more fiendishly successful system of the dragonnades, by which a ruffian and licentious soldiery were quartered in the homes of the Huguenots, the Protestants were at last driven into exile or exterminated; and a dreary economic and cultural paralysis settled down upon the nation.
Since the king had undertaken to regulate the lives of everybody, he naturally had to care for the poorer classes. At length Paris contained so many beggars and so large a proportion of the population lived by the doles from the government, that the city has been compared to a monstrous almshouse. Ignorant, superstitious, penniless, with no useful work to occupy their time, the Parisian mobs became the tools by which wild demagogues could at short notice arouse a frenzy of excitement and lead them to wild and hysterical behavior, controlled by demons and bent on the suppression and ruin of the rulers in church and state, whom they looked upon as the cause of their misery.
They Have Come Up With Some Ominous New Definitions For What Constitutes “Domestic Terrorism”
Are you a potential domestic terrorist? You may not think so, but the Department of Homeland Security may see things quite differently. A brand new terrorism advisory has just been issued, and some of the things that it identifies as “potential terror threats” should chill us to the core. You see, the truth is that the definition of a “terrorist” is constantly evolving. In the old days, a Middle Eastern male that dresses in traditional Islamic attire, that grows opium in his field and that carries around an AK-47 would have been considered a “potential terrorist” by U.S. authorities. But now we have lost the war in Afghanistan and the Taliban are partying like it is 1999 in the presidential palace in Kabul. As a result, our spooks need a new group of “potential terrorists” to send to Guantanamo Bay, and so they are setting their sights on you.
You may be tempted to think that I am exaggerating.
I truly wish that I was.
NBC News is telling us that a “terror alert” has just been issued by Homeland Security, and during their report on this new “terror alert” a very alarming graphic was shown to the viewers.
Under the heading “POTENTIAL TERROR THREATS”, the following three categories were listed…
-“OPPOSITION TO COVID MEASURES”
-“CLAIMS OF ELECTION FRAUD, BELIEF TRUMP CAN BE REINSTATED”
-“9/11 ANNIVERSARY AND RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS”
We have never seen anything quite like this before.
Now “opposition to COVID measures” is something that can make you a “potential terrorist”?
Wow.
So precisely what does that mean?
Does someone become a “potential terrorist” if they speak out against masks, lockdowns or vaccines?
What about sharing information that contradicts the official narratives about COVID? Will that make someone a “potential terrorist” as well?
If that is the case, then researchers at the Mayo Clinic may soon get hauled off to Guantanamo Bay…
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine – the most commonly used shot in the U.S. – was only 42 percent effective against infection, while the Moderna vaccine was only 76 percent effective in July.
For the study, published on pre-printer server medRxiv.org – meaning it has not yet been peer review – the team gathered data on more than 25,000 Minnesotans from January to July.
When Dr. Fauci was asked about that study, he quickly dismissed it as bad information.
And whatever Fauci says must be the gospel truth, because we have been told that any criticism of Fauci is an attack on science itself…
You may be tempted to think that I am exaggerating.
I truly wish that I was.
NBC News is telling us that a “terror alert” has just been issued by Homeland Security, and during their report on this new “terror alert” a very alarming graphic was shown to the viewers.
Under the heading “POTENTIAL TERROR THREATS”, the following three categories were listed…
-“OPPOSITION TO COVID MEASURES”
-“CLAIMS OF ELECTION FRAUD, BELIEF TRUMP CAN BE REINSTATED”
-“9/11 ANNIVERSARY AND RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS”
We have never seen anything quite like this before.
Now “opposition to COVID measures” is something that can make you a “potential terrorist”?
Wow.
So precisely what does that mean?
Does someone become a “potential terrorist” if they speak out against masks, lockdowns or vaccines?
What about sharing information that contradicts the official narratives about COVID? Will that make someone a “potential terrorist” as well?
If that is the case, then researchers at the Mayo Clinic may soon get hauled off to Guantanamo Bay…
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine – the most commonly used shot in the U.S. – was only 42 percent effective against infection, while the Moderna vaccine was only 76 percent effective in July.
For the study, published on pre-printer server medRxiv.org – meaning it has not yet been peer review – the team gathered data on more than 25,000 Minnesotans from January to July.
When Dr. Fauci was asked about that study, he quickly dismissed it as bad information.
And whatever Fauci says must be the gospel truth, because we have been told that any criticism of Fauci is an attack on science itself…
Friday, August 20, 2021
The True Haiti Earthquake Death Toll Is Much Worse Than Early Official Counts
A tool built by the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that the number of fatalities may range from 10,000 to 100,000 or more
By Sara Reardon on August 19, 2021
Bulldozer clears the rubble of a building that collapsed in the earthquake in Brefet, a neighborhood of Les Cayes, Haiti, on August 17, 2021. Credit: Reginald Louissaint, Jr. Getty Images
Haiti is still rebuilding from the massive earthquake that struck 11 years ago, as well as dealing with the fallout of its president’s assassination in July. So the island nation was ill-prepared for the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that hit its western region on August 14. At the time of publication, the official death toll hovers around 2,000, although for the first few critical days after the quake, media reports listed a death toll in the hundreds.
But the true number of deaths is probably at least five to 50 times that number, according to a scientific model from the U.S. Geological Survey. Its tool, known as Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER), automatically combines information about an earthquake with demographic and other data from the affected region to model the likely scale of the disaster, including deaths and economic impact.
PAGER, which was launched in 2007, does not predict the exact number of fatalities. Rather it estimates the probability that the number lies within a certain range. For the recent earthquake in Haiti, PAGER gives a 35 percent chance that between 10,000 and 100,000 people have died and a 32 percent chance that the death toll will top 100,000.
This earthquake was probably less deadly than the one that hit Haiti in 2010, for which PAGER correctly predicted more than 100,000 deaths. The tool also estimates a 66 percent chance that the cost of damage for this year’s quake lies between $100 million and $10 billion. For comparison, the 2010 earthquake cost between $7 billion and $14 billion.
Having an accurate estimate of deaths and damage early on could greatly influence the scale of the response. News organizations tend to report the official death count, which is the number of bodies found so far. In a country such as Haiti, which has poor infrastructure and limited access to remote regions, determining the real toll this way could take months. This creates a problem for international responders, humanitarian aid organizations and other nations, all of who need to assess the extent of the damage and determine an appropriate response.
Scientific American spoke with David Wald, a seismologist at the USGS who helped develop PAGER and other earthquake modeling tools.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Why are Haiti’s official fatality numbers so much lower than PAGER’s?
There are a lot of things that you don’t see that the models predict. What you’re not seeing is all the small towns and villages and remote buildings, some of them on these hillsides that may be affected not only by shaking but by landslides. It’ll be a long time before those areas are all reached, especially because access and civil infrastructure and governance are all challenged. So those [fatality] numbers will tend to grow over time, as we always expect. We can say, very definitively, that there are going to be problems with the roads because of landslides—because the roads cross the steep terrain where there was strong shaking.
What data are used by PAGER to model fatalities?
Getting the exact number of fatalities is unachievable. There are just too many uncertainties and too many unknowns. But to create a prediction, there are three ingredients: the shaking, the population exposed to each shaking level and how vulnerable that population is, based on the buildings [people] are in.
We know that for larger earthquakes, the pattern of shaking can be extremely complicated, so we try to capture that as best we can through a tool called ShakeMap. If you had thousands of stations, you would know the shaking everywhere, and it would be a really well-constrained map.
In California, you have hundreds of stations. If you go to Haiti, where there are not very many seismic stations, there is additional uncertainty. It’s always going to be more uncertain until we help equip Haiti with more instruments. The second ingredient is the population exposed to these different shaking levels. You can just take a population grid and calculate the population exposed for all of the different shaking intensity levels. The final question is the impact of that. In China or Haiti, you have very vulnerable buildings. For the same shaking level, you can get many times more fatalities than you would in, say, California or New Zealand or Japan, where you have better building codes.
In the case of Haiti, there’s a high population, strong shaking and very vulnerable buildings. And that leads you to the conclusion that there’s going to be what we call a red alert on PAGER, where we have probably 1,000 fatalities or higher.
Why is there so much uncertainty?
You don’t have many instruments. Haiti has a seismic network where it can locate earthquakes. But we can’t use those instruments for the ShakeMap. They have to be special instruments called strong motion instruments. There are probably six or seven in Haiti, and we only have the data from two of them.
An additional source of uncertainty in our calculations is trying to figure out [the location and shape of] the fault. It also has dependencies on the data and how good the data are and how complicated the earthquake was. In this case, it’s a pretty complicated, challenging fault to determine. Sometimes those things take months to really iron out. But we always do our best to do it within the first few hours and days.
For the modeling, a big problem is: we don’t even know how many people died in 2010. The estimates range from 100,000 to 320,000. Most countries have very good reporting, and if the number of fatalities is three, four or five, you can assume it’s pretty damn accurate. But once you get into these really big losses, such as in Haiti, the truth is uncertain.
We can never be exact in this business, but we can be useful. And for Haiti, it was in the red alert, no matter what, so it was an international type of response.
How does PAGER record an earthquake when it strikes?
First of all, the National Earthquake Information Center [determines] the magnitude and epicenter. It operates 24/7, so that information gets sent out and triggers ShakeMap, which will generate a map of the shaking with the seismic data that are available. As soon as the ShakeMap is made, PAGER runs. It takes the shaking, and it overlays population. And with the model for that country, it estimates fatalities. It also sends that ShakeMap around the world to systems that estimate shaking and damage.
Most earthquakes are in the green zone because they’ll be in the ocean or a low population area. Even magnitude 8.0s are often in the subduction zones [collisions between tectonic plates in which one sinks beneath the other] offshore and don’t affect anything. One of the most important things about PAGER is to say that nothing happened as opposed to that something happened.
If it’s an orange or red alert like this was for Haiti, however, it will page us, and we can watch the model get generated. We will review the results before sending those out. We sit on it for maybe 10 or 20 minutes while we look at the other information that’s coming in, such as better magnitudes and better locations, and we’re confident that that’s a good starting place.
News reports use the official numbers, which are probably far lower than the actual numbers. Does that mean people will pay less attention to the disaster?
With the media, there have been a number of cases where an earthquake will happen at night, and nobody will be paying attention. Then it’ll be another news cycle, with Afghanistan and COVID and so many other things, so the media are paying attention to those.
We’re saying, “It’s going to be worse than the initial reports. It’s going to be much worse.” We may be overestimating the total losses, based on some of these uncertainties. It’s a challenge for the media to work with uncertain numbers. And it’s a challenge for the agencies and the financial institutions and urban search-and-rescue teams. But we’re pushing them in the direction of “it’s worse than we’ve seen so far.”
Different PAGER users have different timelines. Urban search and rescue should begin within hours, so you go with these uncertain numbers. Whether to send $1 billion worth of aid can wait a little bit longer. Over days, things tend to stabilize, and you reach the answer that’s a little bit more constrained than the initial estimates.
Haiti is still rebuilding from the massive earthquake that struck 11 years ago, as well as dealing with the fallout of its president’s assassination in July. So the island nation was ill-prepared for the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that hit its western region on August 14. At the time of publication, the official death toll hovers around 2,000, although for the first few critical days after the quake, media reports listed a death toll in the hundreds.
But the true number of deaths is probably at least five to 50 times that number, according to a scientific model from the U.S. Geological Survey. Its tool, known as Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER), automatically combines information about an earthquake with demographic and other data from the affected region to model the likely scale of the disaster, including deaths and economic impact.
PAGER, which was launched in 2007, does not predict the exact number of fatalities. Rather it estimates the probability that the number lies within a certain range. For the recent earthquake in Haiti, PAGER gives a 35 percent chance that between 10,000 and 100,000 people have died and a 32 percent chance that the death toll will top 100,000.
This earthquake was probably less deadly than the one that hit Haiti in 2010, for which PAGER correctly predicted more than 100,000 deaths. The tool also estimates a 66 percent chance that the cost of damage for this year’s quake lies between $100 million and $10 billion. For comparison, the 2010 earthquake cost between $7 billion and $14 billion.
Having an accurate estimate of deaths and damage early on could greatly influence the scale of the response. News organizations tend to report the official death count, which is the number of bodies found so far. In a country such as Haiti, which has poor infrastructure and limited access to remote regions, determining the real toll this way could take months. This creates a problem for international responders, humanitarian aid organizations and other nations, all of who need to assess the extent of the damage and determine an appropriate response.
Scientific American spoke with David Wald, a seismologist at the USGS who helped develop PAGER and other earthquake modeling tools.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Why are Haiti’s official fatality numbers so much lower than PAGER’s?
There are a lot of things that you don’t see that the models predict. What you’re not seeing is all the small towns and villages and remote buildings, some of them on these hillsides that may be affected not only by shaking but by landslides. It’ll be a long time before those areas are all reached, especially because access and civil infrastructure and governance are all challenged. So those [fatality] numbers will tend to grow over time, as we always expect. We can say, very definitively, that there are going to be problems with the roads because of landslides—because the roads cross the steep terrain where there was strong shaking.
What data are used by PAGER to model fatalities?
Getting the exact number of fatalities is unachievable. There are just too many uncertainties and too many unknowns. But to create a prediction, there are three ingredients: the shaking, the population exposed to each shaking level and how vulnerable that population is, based on the buildings [people] are in.
We know that for larger earthquakes, the pattern of shaking can be extremely complicated, so we try to capture that as best we can through a tool called ShakeMap. If you had thousands of stations, you would know the shaking everywhere, and it would be a really well-constrained map.
In California, you have hundreds of stations. If you go to Haiti, where there are not very many seismic stations, there is additional uncertainty. It’s always going to be more uncertain until we help equip Haiti with more instruments. The second ingredient is the population exposed to these different shaking levels. You can just take a population grid and calculate the population exposed for all of the different shaking intensity levels. The final question is the impact of that. In China or Haiti, you have very vulnerable buildings. For the same shaking level, you can get many times more fatalities than you would in, say, California or New Zealand or Japan, where you have better building codes.
In the case of Haiti, there’s a high population, strong shaking and very vulnerable buildings. And that leads you to the conclusion that there’s going to be what we call a red alert on PAGER, where we have probably 1,000 fatalities or higher.
Why is there so much uncertainty?
You don’t have many instruments. Haiti has a seismic network where it can locate earthquakes. But we can’t use those instruments for the ShakeMap. They have to be special instruments called strong motion instruments. There are probably six or seven in Haiti, and we only have the data from two of them.
An additional source of uncertainty in our calculations is trying to figure out [the location and shape of] the fault. It also has dependencies on the data and how good the data are and how complicated the earthquake was. In this case, it’s a pretty complicated, challenging fault to determine. Sometimes those things take months to really iron out. But we always do our best to do it within the first few hours and days.
For the modeling, a big problem is: we don’t even know how many people died in 2010. The estimates range from 100,000 to 320,000. Most countries have very good reporting, and if the number of fatalities is three, four or five, you can assume it’s pretty damn accurate. But once you get into these really big losses, such as in Haiti, the truth is uncertain.
We can never be exact in this business, but we can be useful. And for Haiti, it was in the red alert, no matter what, so it was an international type of response.
How does PAGER record an earthquake when it strikes?
First of all, the National Earthquake Information Center [determines] the magnitude and epicenter. It operates 24/7, so that information gets sent out and triggers ShakeMap, which will generate a map of the shaking with the seismic data that are available. As soon as the ShakeMap is made, PAGER runs. It takes the shaking, and it overlays population. And with the model for that country, it estimates fatalities. It also sends that ShakeMap around the world to systems that estimate shaking and damage.
Most earthquakes are in the green zone because they’ll be in the ocean or a low population area. Even magnitude 8.0s are often in the subduction zones [collisions between tectonic plates in which one sinks beneath the other] offshore and don’t affect anything. One of the most important things about PAGER is to say that nothing happened as opposed to that something happened.
If it’s an orange or red alert like this was for Haiti, however, it will page us, and we can watch the model get generated. We will review the results before sending those out. We sit on it for maybe 10 or 20 minutes while we look at the other information that’s coming in, such as better magnitudes and better locations, and we’re confident that that’s a good starting place.
News reports use the official numbers, which are probably far lower than the actual numbers. Does that mean people will pay less attention to the disaster?
With the media, there have been a number of cases where an earthquake will happen at night, and nobody will be paying attention. Then it’ll be another news cycle, with Afghanistan and COVID and so many other things, so the media are paying attention to those.
We’re saying, “It’s going to be worse than the initial reports. It’s going to be much worse.” We may be overestimating the total losses, based on some of these uncertainties. It’s a challenge for the media to work with uncertain numbers. And it’s a challenge for the agencies and the financial institutions and urban search-and-rescue teams. But we’re pushing them in the direction of “it’s worse than we’ve seen so far.”
Different PAGER users have different timelines. Urban search and rescue should begin within hours, so you go with these uncertain numbers. Whether to send $1 billion worth of aid can wait a little bit longer. Over days, things tend to stabilize, and you reach the answer that’s a little bit more constrained than the initial estimates.
So you can take the model as an uncertain estimate, along with what’s happened on the ground, and weigh those appropriately.
Thursday, August 19, 2021
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Pope Francis Encourages Covid Vaccines in Media Campaign
“Getting the vaccines that are authorized by the respective authorities is an act of love,” the pope says in a video from the Ad Council.
“Thanks to God’s grace and to the work of many, we now have vaccines to protect us from Covid-19,” Pope Francis says in an ad released on Wednesday.Credit...Ad Council
By Tiffany Hsu
Aug. 17, 2021
Getting vaccinated against Covid-19 is “an act of love,” Pope Francis says in a public service ad that will start circulating online and on television on Wednesday.
Working with the Ad Council, a nonprofit group, in its first campaign to extend beyond the United States, the pope encourages people around the world to get inoculated.
The ad shows the pope, speaking in Spanish with English subtitles, with church officials from the United States, Mexico, Brazil and other countries describing vaccination as a moral responsibility.
“Thanks to God’s grace and to the work of many, we now have vaccines to protect us from Covid-19,” the pope says in the ad. “They bring hope to end the pandemic, but only if they are available to all and if we collaborate with one another.”
“Getting the vaccines that are authorized by the respective authorities is an act of love. And helping the majority of people to do so is an act of love,” Francis continues. “Getting vaccinated is a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable.”
By taking part in the vaccination campaign, the pope has joined a group of influencers that has included former presidents, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Elmo from “Sesame Street.” The plea has become increasingly urgent as the mutating virus cycles through unvaccinated populations, threatening global attempts to return to normalcy.
In centers of faith, efforts to counter vaccine hesitancy have often been fraught. Vaccine acceptance among Hispanic Catholics in the United States rose to 80 percent in June from 56 percent in March, while jumping to 79 percent from 68 percent among white Catholics, according to a June survey of more than 5,000 adults by the Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core nonprofit groups. By comparison, 56 percent of Hispanic Protestants and white evangelical Protestants feel the same, a far smaller percentage than other groups.
Many religious Americans who are hesitant told researchers that faith-based arguments could persuade them to get the shot.
“If you’re used to your pastor being a cultural critic or a social commentator, then whether he’s talking about the election or a social movement or the vaccine, you’re more likely to listen to him,” said Heidi A. Campbell, a professor at Texas A&M University who studies media and religion. “You’re going to give whatever he says more street cred, because it comes with an air of divine authority, which he wouldn’t have if he was just a teacher or a news commentator.”
Pastors in Black communities, where congregants skeptical of the Covid-19 vaccines cite a history of medical mistreatment, have publicly rolled up their sleeves to get inoculated. Orthodox Jewish rabbis have taken to YouTube and Zoom to endorse the shot. During the Ramadan holy month, national Muslim groups issued statements emphasizing that the vaccine was halal, or permissible to use.
Credit...Image by Ad Council
Still, some religious leaders have met resistance online and on the air, where a large audience can be exposed to vaccine misinformation. On WhatsApp, recordings of rabbis making unproven claims about the vaccines’ effects on fertility have circulated among Orthodox Jewish communities. On Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, some churches and Christian influencers have spread conspiracy theories linking vaccines to microchips or blaming those who get a shot for not trusting God’s will.
Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Tenn., recently declared itself a “mask-free church campus” whose congregants “celebrate faith over fear.” Its Facebook page, with 60,000 followers, includes videos featuring crowded gatherings where Greg Locke, the pastor, speaks of “this Delta variant nonsense” and declares the vaccine a “forcible communistic jab in the arm.”
Pope Francis, who earlier in the pandemic was criticized for not wearing a mask in public, was vaccinated this year and has already publicly stated that vaccination was morally acceptable and an ethical obligation. In the Vatican, a hall designated for papal gatherings was repurposed as a vaccination clinic.
Joining the Ad Council campaign allows the pope’s message to reach an even wider audience. The Ad Council said it would run the ad on Telemundo, Universo and WarnerMedia platforms, as well as on media in Spanish-speaking countries.
“We’ve said all along that the messenger can be as or more important than the actual message itself,” said Lisa Sherman, the chief executive of the Ad Council, a group that led a similar crusade in the 1950s, when it urged Americans to get vaccinated against polio.
The Ad Council has assembled a diverse group of more than 1,100 representatives for its $60 million vaccination campaign. Earlier this summer, around the same time the organization was completing plans with the pope, it was also signing up the pop rock band Foreigner.
Source
Still, some religious leaders have met resistance online and on the air, where a large audience can be exposed to vaccine misinformation. On WhatsApp, recordings of rabbis making unproven claims about the vaccines’ effects on fertility have circulated among Orthodox Jewish communities. On Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, some churches and Christian influencers have spread conspiracy theories linking vaccines to microchips or blaming those who get a shot for not trusting God’s will.
Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Tenn., recently declared itself a “mask-free church campus” whose congregants “celebrate faith over fear.” Its Facebook page, with 60,000 followers, includes videos featuring crowded gatherings where Greg Locke, the pastor, speaks of “this Delta variant nonsense” and declares the vaccine a “forcible communistic jab in the arm.”
Pope Francis, who earlier in the pandemic was criticized for not wearing a mask in public, was vaccinated this year and has already publicly stated that vaccination was morally acceptable and an ethical obligation. In the Vatican, a hall designated for papal gatherings was repurposed as a vaccination clinic.
Joining the Ad Council campaign allows the pope’s message to reach an even wider audience. The Ad Council said it would run the ad on Telemundo, Universo and WarnerMedia platforms, as well as on media in Spanish-speaking countries.
“We’ve said all along that the messenger can be as or more important than the actual message itself,” said Lisa Sherman, the chief executive of the Ad Council, a group that led a similar crusade in the 1950s, when it urged Americans to get vaccinated against polio.
The Ad Council has assembled a diverse group of more than 1,100 representatives for its $60 million vaccination campaign. Earlier this summer, around the same time the organization was completing plans with the pope, it was also signing up the pop rock band Foreigner.
Source
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Monday, August 16, 2021
Saturday, August 14, 2021
Friday, August 13, 2021
Father and son arrested for using fake COVID-19 vaccination cards to vacation in Hawaii
CNNWire
Friday, August 13, 2021 8:20AM
A father and son were arrested when they reportedly used fake vaccination cards to travel to Hawaii.
HONOLULU (KITV) -- Investigators with the Hawaii Attorney General's office arrested a father and son on Sunday when they reportedly tried to use fake vaccination cards at a Hawaii airport.
The pair were arrested at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu after flying there from California.
"In reality, you're taking a big risk and a big chance of falsifying documents that, in most states, getting the vaccine and PCR test is free, or of a nominal fee, and so why you would try and attempt that or do it through a falsified document, really you have to ask why," said Joe Logan, a representative of the Attorney General's office.
In a matter of clicks anyone could have access to a fake CDC vaccine card - Experts say not only is this a crime, but a safety concern that could ultimately make the coronavirus pandemic last even longer.
Investigators said Trevor and Norbert Chung were arrested following a tip from someone in the community.
Anyone caught trying to cheat the state's "Safe Travels" program could face up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Investigators are working with the Federal Government to identify the source of false vaccine cards.
Thursday, August 12, 2021
Pope Francis takes an urgent phone call during his weekly general
audiencePublished: Aug. 11, 2021 at 10:38 a.m. ET
By
Associated Press
Francis chatted animatedly for a couple of minutes with whoever was on the other end
Pope Francis speaks on a cell phone, given to him by his aide Piergiorgio Zanetti, at the end of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021. AP PHOTO/RICCARDO DE LUCA
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Maybe heaven can wait, but a phone call for the pope could not.
In a decidedly unusual break from protocol, Pope Francis took a cellphone from an aide while standing at center stage in a Vatican auditorium for his weekly Wednesday audience with the public. Francis, who had blessed the attendees near the event’s end, chatted animatedly for a couple of minutes with whoever was on the other end.
The pope gestured with his free hand as if the caller could see him – a common impulse for many people when talking on the phone – while he held the device to his left ear with his other hand. Francis seemed to be explaining something and did most of the talking.
He twice moved his right hand as if he were signing something.
The Vatican declined to comment about the nature of the very public call.
After blessing the members of his audience, the pope typically wades into the crowd to greet many of them affectionately. But in another departure from the routine, Francis on Wednesday abruptly changed direction while chatting with another aide as he was about to descend the stage steps. Instead of greeting the faithful, he headed toward a closed exit door on the stage.
First the aide, then the pope, gestured to the participants that they should wait. The aide opened the door, and the pope walked briskly off the stage. After a few minutes, Francis returned and went down the marble steps to the audience section to mingle with people who wanted to shake his hand or take selfies with him.
By
Associated Press
Francis chatted animatedly for a couple of minutes with whoever was on the other end
Pope Francis speaks on a cell phone, given to him by his aide Piergiorgio Zanetti, at the end of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021. AP PHOTO/RICCARDO DE LUCA
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Maybe heaven can wait, but a phone call for the pope could not.
In a decidedly unusual break from protocol, Pope Francis took a cellphone from an aide while standing at center stage in a Vatican auditorium for his weekly Wednesday audience with the public. Francis, who had blessed the attendees near the event’s end, chatted animatedly for a couple of minutes with whoever was on the other end.
The pope gestured with his free hand as if the caller could see him – a common impulse for many people when talking on the phone – while he held the device to his left ear with his other hand. Francis seemed to be explaining something and did most of the talking.
He twice moved his right hand as if he were signing something.
The Vatican declined to comment about the nature of the very public call.
After blessing the members of his audience, the pope typically wades into the crowd to greet many of them affectionately. But in another departure from the routine, Francis on Wednesday abruptly changed direction while chatting with another aide as he was about to descend the stage steps. Instead of greeting the faithful, he headed toward a closed exit door on the stage.
First the aide, then the pope, gestured to the participants that they should wait. The aide opened the door, and the pope walked briskly off the stage. After a few minutes, Francis returned and went down the marble steps to the audience section to mingle with people who wanted to shake his hand or take selfies with him.
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