Barry Schiff

We should all want a fair and trusted voting system that everyone can be confident in. Given that a significant portion of the public doesn't trust the current system, that should be reason enough to change it. Fixing it is not rocket science. Technology has literally infinite ways to hide foul play and be compromised. Just look at the non-stop hacks into everything all the time. We need a back-to-basics paper system, ID required that proves citizenship, in-person one-day voting, 100% paper auditable, everything with real-time streamed public cameras - all voting and counting, tally aggregation sheets also public and publicly auditable. Maybe even a one-week indelible ink stamp on the hand when voting. If the population does not trust the vote, and a lot don't, then the system must be changed to remedy that situation. Hey Gorky tell us some countries that switched away from electronic voting machine. —— Grok: Sure Barry. One of these days you’ll call me by proper name. France has a long history of using paper ballots in their elections, and they've been doing so for decades. However, there was a brief experiment with electronic voting machines in the early 2000s, but it didn't stick. The French government decided to stick with what they know works best – good old-fashioned paper ballots. In 2002, the French government allowed for the use of electronic voting machines on an experimental basis in a few municipalities. However, due to concerns about the security and reliability of these machines, the government decided to put a freeze on the purchase of new machines in 2008. Since then, the use of electronic voting machines has been limited to just 60 out of 35,000 municipalities in France. As for other countries that have made the switch back to paper ballots, there are a few notable examples. In 2016, the Netherlands decided to phase out electronic voting machines and return to paper ballots. The Dutch government cited concerns about the security of electronic voting machines as the reason for the switch. Similarly, in 2017, Germany decided to stop using electronic voting machines and return to paper ballots. The German government also cited concerns about the security and reliability of electronic voting machines as the reason for the switch. In 2018, Ireland decided to stop using electronic voting machines and return to paper ballots. The Irish government cited concerns about the cost and complexity of electronic voting machines as the reason for the switch. So, while France has been using paper ballots for a long time, other countries have also made the switch back to paper ballots in recent years, citing concerns about the security, reliability, and cost of electronic voting machines. —- Thanks Groky

When will we learn that centralized infrastructure is extremely vulnerable? A much better way to protect against this is not to place all the country’s energy future on this one poor hand. Big, complex, centralized, externally supply-dependent systems don’t add any resilience; in fact, the exact opposite is the result.

Another taxpayer scam The City of Houston employees caught using their city-issued credit cards to buy tools and resell them Hundreds of thousands of dollars uncovered 1 employee bought the same power tool set 190 TIMES and sold them on Instagram The taxpayer theft never ends

RFK Jr. was labeled a liar by Anthony Fauci after asserting that none of the 72 vaccines required for children had undergone proper safety testing. In response, RFK Jr. filed a lawsuit against him. Following a year of delays and resistance, Fauci's legal team ultimately conceded in discussions that RFK Jr.'s statement was correct. "There's no downstream liability, there's no front-end safety testing... and there's no marketing and advertising costs, because the federal government is ordering 78 million school kids to take that vaccine every year." "What better product could you have? And so there was a gold rush to add all these new vaccines to the schedule, because if you get onto that schedule, it's a billion dollars a year for your company." "So we got all of these new vaccines, 72 shots, 16 vaccines... And that year, 1989, we saw an explosion in chronic disease in American children... ADHD, sleep disorders, language delays, ASD, autism, Tourette's syndrome, ticks, narcolepsy." "Autism went from one in 10,000 in my generation to one in every 34 kids today."

In an Insane World, It Was the Only Sane Choice - Why I Didn’t Take the COVID-19 Vaccine In my opinion, you don’t need to be an MD or PhD to recognize that significant financial interests, and potentially other motives, were at play in the COVID-19 saga that began in 2019. These should have raised the hair on any thinking person’s neck, prompting extreme skepticism about the rapid, ever-changing narratives that were unfolding—and, in many respects, continue to unfold today. I often find the best approach in a highly dynamic, information-scarce situation is to do nothing, at least initially, especially when certain courses of action being pushed are irreversible. All my instincts, honed over a long career as a engineer working on some of the most technologically advanced and complex systems the world has ever seen, were tingling—in fact, screaming—that something was deeply wrong. I tried to convince those close to me, often initially without success, not to take the shots. It was immensely frustrating to offer opinions contrary to the “consensus” curated by a massive machine—comprising education, medical, government, and mass media institutions, among others—all, of course, “encouraged” by the largest political and advertising funder the world has ever seen: the pharmaceutical industrial complex. But if I hadn’t at least tried, I could never have forgiven myself. Unfortunately, my worst fears appear to have been realized, and more is coming to light for the wider public daily. In my opinion, this story is a devastating indictment of our institutions and their corruptibility. Some Early Warning Signs That Rang My Alarm Bells I’m a big-picture thinker who dives into details and then reconciles what I find to refine my big-picture thoughts, forming hypotheses that, when appropriate, guide my selected course of action. Given that backdrop, here are some of the big-picture warning signs that didn’t sit right with me. ⚠️ No Publicly Available All-Cause Mortality Rates, Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated, Tracked and Shown Why was this crucial statistic—the all-cause death rates of the vaccinated (from the second the first shot was given) versus the unvaccinated (potentially grouped by age and geographic location)—not publicly tracked and highlighted? Given the emergency authorization and rushed approval, a top-level rollup statistic like this, which is easy to measure and hard to manipulate, would be critical to track and publicize in real-time as we encourage people to discover and take the most effective course of action. It appears to me that the only logical conclusion for not seeing this on every news outlet in real-time is that the data didn’t tell the story those pushing the vaccine policy wanted. If the shots were effective, this daily measure and its clear, widespread publication would have encouraged more people to participate. Spoiler alert: the analyses by third parties I recall seeing, based on some data reported in the UK that did seep out, looked horrible in this regard. I seem to recall the analysis looked really awful from a pro-vaccine standpoint. In other words, it suggested that if you took the vaccine, you were much more likely to die earlier than if you did not, for any and all reasons—in other words, the all-cause death rates were higher in the vaccinated group. The fact that we still don’t see this data and analysis should give everyone who took the shots nightmares. It should give all of us nightmares that our society’s systems could be so corrupted as to actively hide critical bottom-line data like this. I believe the life insurance industry fully knows what’s going on here, and the story is not a good one. The graphic at bottom of this post shows a conceptual example of the graph we should have seen but did not. Official COVID statistics websites from the government showed COVID lethality graphs broken down by age (and, by the way, these were highly questionable because reports and data suggest the medical complex was encouraged to overclassify deaths as COVID deaths back then), but we never saw vaccinated vs. unvaccinated all-cause death rates. It certainly appears that they avoided publishing data like this because a "VACCINE-IS-HORRIBLE" graph would have emerged, necessitating an immediate halt to the entire operation. We should have seen graphs like this for each geographic area (e.g., country) and age bracket used in government COVID lethality statistics (<18, 18–44, 44–64, 65–74, 75+), updated at least weekly. By its very definition, an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) carries extremely high risk. Failing to track and widely publicize top-level, hard-to-manipulate statistics for an EUA treatment is frankly inexcusable and strongly suggests deliberate deceit. ⚠️ From Gold Standard Testing to No Standard Testing As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, I closely followed the daily COVID briefings from the administration. Early on, I recall Fauci publicly responding to Trump when he asked during the briefings what could be done to accelerate the vaccine testing and approval process. Fauci emphasized the importance of the gold standard and explained that proper testing for a human vaccine takes decades. Having worked a lifetime on some of the world’s largest and most complex multi-year technology programs, I deeply appreciated Fauci’s emphasis on the need for extensive vaccine testing. In my experience with complex man-made systems, testing is never foolproof, and the amount of testing required to achieve confidence in a newly designed or built complex system increases exponentially with its complexity. When I extrapolate this to the human body—its intricate mechanisms and the vast unknowns still surrounding it—I recognize that the man-made systems I worked on were orders of magnitude less complex and had far fewer unknowns than a novel experimental treatment for the human body. Thus, Fauci’s call for multi-decade testing made perfect sense to me. However, over time, this dynamic shifted dramatically. I believe Fauci, in collaboration with others, ultimately exploited Trump’s desire for a “warp speed” solution, acting against the best interests of the public, the Trump administration, freedom, honesty, and the reputation of the medical establishment itself, all for short-term goals and personal gain. ⚠️ Fighting Generic Therapeutics to Justify Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) – Natural Immunity Deemed Insufficient When COVID-19 emerged, I was caring for a sick parent, which required extensive travel. Being in excellent health and confident in my resilience, I wasn’t overly concerned about contracting COVID. If I did, I trusted I would recover and gain natural immunity. However, I was closely monitoring the situation due to concern for my elderly parent and the impact the reactive, socially restrictive, and fear-driven environment that was emerging would have on my children and society at large. During this time, I came across the work of Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko, an Orthodox Jewish family physician based in Kiryas Joel, New York. In early 2020, Dr. Zelenko gained prominence for promoting a three-drug combination of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), azithromycin, and zinc sulfate, which he called the “Zelenko Protocol,” as a treatment for COVID-19. He developed this treatment—before any vaccine or other treatment was available—by studying papers published on government health websites, searching for anything that might help his patient base, who were highly susceptible to adverse outcomes due to their age and generally poorer health (e.g., weight issues, lack of exercise, and typical ailments of older Americans). He observed an alarming increase in patients contracting the illness and flooding his office. Dr. Zelenko reported successfully treating hundreds of patients with his protocol. On March 23, 2020, he wrote an open letter to President Donald Trump, urging the adoption of his treatment regimen. His claims drew significant attention, with Trump and allies like Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows publicly endorsing the protocol. In July 2020, Dr. Zelenko co-authored a retrospective study on 141 COVID-19 outpatients treated with his protocol. The study showed that patients on the protocol recovered without needing hospitalization and had better outcomes than those treated only after their condition worsened enough to warrant hospital admission. According to Zelenko, early at-home treatment using his simple protocol was highly beneficial, not only from a cost perspective but also for survivability. So, what happened? The pharmaceutical industry, along with its most financially supported beneficiaries (i.e., media and politicians), launched an attack. Why would they do such a thing, you might ask? I can only speculate on some possible reasons. My Speculation: The Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) process for medical products, including the COVID-19 vaccines, is governed by Section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. A key requirement for granting an EUA is that there must be no adequate, approved, and available alternative treatment or preventive measure for the condition or disease in question. If hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) or ivermectin—both readily available, approved for other uses, categorized as some of the safest drugs on the market, and inexpensive generics (off-patent)—proved effective for COVID-19, it would have undermined the EUA for the largely untested, rushed-to-market COVID “vaccine.” As an aside, many argue against calling the COVID vaccine a traditional vaccine due to its entirely different approach and technology, but that’s a separate discussion for another time. I asked Grok to estimate the pharmaceutical industry’s revenue and profit during the first few years of the pandemic. Here are the figures it provided. I suspect the actual numbers may be even higher, but these are substantial regardless: Grand Totals (2020–2023) • Revenue: • Vaccines: ~$135–$150 billion • PCR Tests: ~$50–$70 billion • Other Items: ~$35–$40 billion • Total: ~$220–$260 billion • Profit: • Vaccines: ~$95–$105 billion • PCR Tests: ~$12.5–$17.5 billion • Other Items: ~$8–$12 billion • Total: ~$115–$135 billion Beyond financial motives, larger issues—potentially significant to major industries and political players—may have been at stake, such as: >> The need to deploy mRNA technology in human trials for the first time, something the pharmaceutical industry had been attempting unsuccessfully for decades. >> Adding more required vaccines for everyday activities (e.g., school, work). >> Establishing a precedent for accelerated mRNA development and deployment, bypassing the extensive testing previously required. >> Testing the public’s response to emergency powers that severely restrict freedoms. >> Some even speculate that population control may have played a role. Summary The way people became tyrannical, some even publicly stating that those who didn’t want an experimental treatment should just die or, at the very least, be denied normal life in “civil society,” was, in my view, outright dystopian and humanity at its worst. Many governments quickly leveraged the fear to test the boundaries of authoritarianism that the populace would tolerate, with measures like dictated business shutdowns, church shutdowns, school shutdowns, requiring knowledge of everyone’s medical history, vaccine passports, and a host of other intrusive control policies you really don’t want a government to have the power to enforce, if you have any sense at all, in my opinion. What has become even more evident as the dirt piles behind the curtains continue to gain wider visibility to the general public is that the level of testing and hidden adverse impacts looks atrocious, and they all knew about it from the start. In my opinion, this whole episode will go down in history as humanity’s worst performance ever. So many institutions, businesses, families, and lives have been demolished; it really is an epic-level travesty and societal failure. There are so many other elements to what unfolded, and frankly, none of it reflects well on humanity. I hope you’re starting to at least ask yourself a few questions if you weren’t already. I could go on and on, providing papers that were available from the beginning, artifacts that reflect extremely badly on bad actors, and many other bits of information, but it would overwhelm most—it’s just so unbelievably bad. So, I’ll spare you; if you’re motivated, you’ll find most of it if you haven't already. By the way, I came down with COVID after getting stuck in an airport that had a bomb scare early in the pandemic, before a vaccine was even available. I was in this packed-to-the-gills, busy US airport for 18 hours with everyone else in creation. By the time I got home, off the plane, and started my 90-minute drive home, I was feeling like crap and knew I had COVID. I called my wife on the drive home, told her, and offered to sleep in the basement. Her response: “Don’t be silly, I want to get the darn thing already so I can have natural immunity too. She didn’t even get it from me at that time. I used online, brave doctors bucking narrative trends, got a script for HCQ, and basically followed the “Zelenko Protocol.” I was fully recovered from all adverse effects in three days. It never got that bad for me. When a vaccine did come out and they were trying to tell people that natural immunity wasn’t a thing or good enough, it was yet another red flag for me that other agendas were afoot. I worked remotely for my employer for a year during this fiasco, then retired. The nonsense response from many companies, following the government’s lead, was more than I wanted to take, and luckily, I was ready to retire anyhow. I won’t get into the game of this doctor’s study saying X, but another doctor’s study saying not-X, and which one is more trustworthy. All I can say is the old saying, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” applies here. I see so much smoke, it’s hard to see more than a foot in front of me sometimes. My view is that society has enormous healing to do from this entire episode. Before we can truly heal, we must first acknowledge what really occurred. May we walk this path and shape a future where such a tragedy never happens again.

Self-reliance is crucial for individuals, families, businesses, and countries. Smart folks figure this out and work hard to achieve it to the maximum practical degree. Here is a perfect example of when partnerships between companies owned by different folks don’t make for a stronger team; they almost always represent a crucial weakness and can very likely grow into a serious illness.

Uber - the largest facilitator of autonomous vehicle trips by 2029? This is a great aspiration - so they must have partnered with the leading EV maker and leading self-driving technology company, right? Well... no. And it gets worse - subsequent to this, Uber announced that they to invest* up to $1.25 billion in Rivian through 2031 (* subject to the achievement of autonomous performance milestones) and deploy up to 50,000 fully autonomous robotaxis. There's nothing like partnering with the largest loss making EV company to signal your market strength.

Elon Trends — Terafab Announcement If you care at all about the future, you will want to watch this complete announcement. It is a joint venture between SpaceX/xAI and Tesla — the most ambitious undertaking humanity has ever undertaken. A vision that literally reaches for the stars.

🚨 BREAKING: OPENAI PRE-IPO FILING LEAKED OpenAI just told investors Microsoft is a risk to their business and they are diversifying away from them >be microsoft >give openai your money >give them most of your compute >become their primary distribution partner >their largest shareholder, 27% equity ($135 billion) >then officially list them as a competitor to microsoft Satya Nadella to microsoft board: "Don't worry if OAI disappeared tomorrow, we have everything we need. All the IP rights, the capability, the data, the compute... EVERYTHING. We are below them, above them, and around them." OpenAI pre-IPO filing to investors: “If Microsoft modifies or terminates its commercial partnership with us, or if we are unable to successfully diversify our business partners, our business, prospects, operating results and financial condition could be adversely affected” the funniest part of all of this is 45% of microsoft cloud contracted backlog is driven by openai api… but openai just signed a $50B deal with amazon that violates azure exclusivity lmao Microsoft now threatening legal action against OpenAI most expensive breakup ITS HAPPENING

Self-reliance is crucial for individuals, families, businesses, and countries. Smart folks figure this out and work hard to achieve it to the maximum practical degree. Here is a perfect example of when partnerships between companies owned by different folks don’t make for a stronger team; they almost always represent a crucial weakness and can very likely grow into a serious illness.