Trump Takes Aim at Big Pharma 

Trump made front-page news again with his announcement that acetaminophen – the primary active ingredient in Tylenol – is dangerous for pregnant women and that the FDA would be issuing a notice of the risks. Also that evidence supporting RFK Jr.’s longtime concerns about the dangers of vaccines would be released. As usual, his remarks were not formally scripted but extemporaneously delivered with the help of what looked like an index card with scribbled notes. This was evident when he attempted to pronounce acetaminophen, a stumble that, by the time anyone reads this, will no doubt have been broadcast all over the Free World.

Unsurprisingly, the food and drug industry media (which includes most of the mainstream conservative channels and streaming services) dumped on Trump’s remarks. There were lots of charges of misinformation and irresponsibility, but nothing I could take seriously since they were all purposely misleading statements meant to maintain the public’s naïve belief in the safety of what Americans put into their bodies.

I spent some time trying to dig up the actual facts from reports on actual scientific studies that observed basic scientific protocols, such as controlling for variables and observing meaningful test specifications. And I found, once again, that Google had buried them even deeper so that I could not find some studies that only weeks before I had not only read but taken notes on. Chat GPT was even less reliable, coupling up press releases that said nothing, explained nothing, and blamed no one.

There were some new postings, but, not surprisingly, they were all pro-pharmaceutical pieces published by non-profit institutions that were themselves supported by Big Pharma.

When RFK Jr. was first nominated for his post, I wrote that he was probably liberal public enemy number one – even above Trump and Musk. So far, he’s been able to work without a serious attempt on his life. But he should have protection 24/7.

Just the Facts 

Did you know that the Food/Drug-Industrial Complex is larger than the entirety of the US military and sends considerably more billions to the coffers of our elected representatives than the Military-Industrial Complex?

 

Japan Vaccine Study Revisited: What the Official Data Revealed 

Speaking of fake news manufactured by Big Pharma, here’s an update on the Japanese study on the dangers of the COVID-19 vaccines. In researching this story, I came upon a “report” from the “Public Health Communications Collaborative” (PHCC) that said “there is no evidence of any investigation into COVID-19 vaccines by the Japanese government” and that “there isn’t any evidence of widespread deaths caused by the vaccines.” Since that statement was an outright lie, as there by now dozens of studies and millions of reports to the contrary, I wondered what this PHCC group was. It turns out to be a non-profit funded in 2020 (interesting!) that apparently gets a lot of its funding from Big Pharma and has been accused of being a Big Pharma shill.

Last week, Japan’s independent citizen coalition, United Citizens for Stopping mRNA Vaccines, released a report on a study they conducted covering more than 21 million Japanese citizens, obtained through FOIA requests. (I didn’t know that Japan had an FOIA protocol. Good for them!)

Professor Yasufumi Murakami, a scientist at Tokyo Science University, said that the study suggests that as many as 610,000 Japanese died from the COVID vaccines.

As I said when I first reported this, the numbers matched rising excess mortality figures during the period studied. The data showed that those who received multiple doses faced earlier, steeper death spikes. The study itself is long and boring, but I’m pretty confident I was able to grok its conclusion – that the COVID vaccines cause delayed, cumulative damage, destroying immune systems, causing heart issues, and triggering organ failures.

In Japan, as in the US, this report had little effect on the government, as health authorities continued to advocate for mRNA vaccines, including the “reiteron” (replicon) shots, which have been reported to have even higher adverse reactions and death rates.

But the Japanese public, like the American public, has lost faith in their government’s position on the vaccines. Since last October, vaccine uptake has tanked: Fewer than 10,000 doses of the new vaccines have been administered. Over 100,000 Japanese citizens have petitioned for an immediate halt to all mRNA vaccination programs.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry – led by companies like Meiji Seika Pharma – has launched lawsuits against critics, including Congressman Kazuhiro Haraguchi after he developed lymphoma and had spike proteins found in his tissues post-vaccination. The authorities are actively suppressing dissent and preventing transparency, effectively burying the full extent of the damage.

I’ve implied it many times. Now I’m going to be blunt. The dangers of COVID – the virus – were greatly exaggerated by Big Pharma, most governments, and the mainstream media. To make matters worse, the dangers of the vaccines were greatly discounted or flatly denied by the same group of miscreants.

I believe that in several years, after the dust settles and the perpetrators of the lies have moved on to other campaigns, the COVID fiasco will go down as the greatest mass medical experiment in history.

Every week that passes, new evidence of the lethality of the COVID vaccines is published by a reputable scientific organization. And almost immediately thereafter, some shill with a degree hired by Big Pharma pops up in the media outlets, disputing the findings and repeating the lie that the vaccines were and are perfectly safe.

Why I Do What I Do… 

“You have been a tremendous source of inspiration to me over the years, and I am deeply appreciative of you, your work, and most of all for your ethos of sharing. Countless marketers (myself included) have been able to forge careers built on the ideas and principles you conceptualized and popularized through your books, blog, and businesses. I don’t think there’s an interview, book, or video of yours on the internet I haven’t tried to absorb through repeat viewing.” – DG

 

“I’ve been using your metaphors to inspire people. You once said writing to a new subscriber is like going on a first date. I said that today to a wonderful trader who struggles with writing. She came away inspired and proceeded to write the best free write up I’ve seen out of her. This is at Options Pit, a small but growing publisher with great traders. I just got a position as editorial director and have used more than one of your metaphors to describe good writing to them. Thank you for telling those stories and teaching those lessons.” – CD

Name two things that are eminently predictable about this.

Hint: No, this isn’t the same “What Is This?” that I published in the Sept. 22 issue. This one is photos of the chancellors of the American Academy of Poets.

Answer: But, yes, it’s basically the same thing. There is only one White man in the group, and he is “gender fluid.”

Comedians vs. Hecklers 

I don’t do comedy, so I rarely have to deal with hecklers. But I should probably study this just in case.

BW, a BJJ friend and colleague who tells me he looks forward to reading what I have to say about this or that, told me last weekend that he dreads opening my blog posts because he fears they will be 40 pages long. He’s not the first to lodge this complaint. I not only recognize its fairness, I sympathize with it 100%. As I said to him, “You dread reading them? How do you think I feel about writing them?!

I have been trying various strategies to reduce the load on my readers (and myself) – and I have reduced the average length from about 20,000 words at peak garrulousness to about 4,000.

Today, I’m taking an even more drastic step. I’m going to slash the word count to under 1,000 by limiting the content to just three things: (1) an excerpt from my Journal, (2) a celebrity interview that I loved and wanted to share with you, and (3), as a PS, a short, comic video about Apple vs. Android users that I think is very clever.

Shorter issues may mean more issues, so let me know if you like/hate this short format.

Trying Something New… Again

BW, a BJJ friend and colleague who tells me he looks forward to reading what I have to say about this or that, told me last weekend that he dreads opening my blog posts because he fears they will be 40 pages long. He’s not the first to lodge this complaint. I not only recognize its fairness, I sympathize with it 100%. As I said to him, “You dread reading them? How do you think I feel about writing them?!

I have been trying various strategies to reduce the load on my readers (and myself) – and I have reduced the average length from about 20,000 words at peak garrulousness to about 4,000.

Today, I’m taking an even more drastic step. I’m going to…

Wait! Did I just repeat myself? 

Was that an editorial screw-up? No. I purposely re-used my “Inside This Issue” comments as content for “Notes From My Journal” because, while I was writing the former, I realized it could equally well serve as content for the latter – and thus save you an extra 200 words of unnecessary reading time.

Okay, that takes care of the Journal excerpt – the first thing that I said I was going to include in this issue.  Now let’s get to the other two…

Bari Weiss’s Interview with Woody Allen 
One of the Best Celebrity Interviews I’ve Ever Seen 

Woody Allen at the Venice Int’l Film Festival, Sept. 4, 2023

When I say “one of the best I’ve ever seen,” I’m not exaggerating.

I began watching this at about 12:30 a.m. two nights ago, knowing that I had to be up and going at 6:30. Since I’ve always been a fan of Woody Allen and have recently become a fan of Bari Weiss, I thought I’d take a quick look at the first five minutes – just to see if it was good enough to get back to later.

But I couldn’t stop at five minutes. Nor at 10. Nor at minute 20. I continued watching to the end, then I turned off the lights and fell immediately asleep.

I was understandably tired when I woke up, but very happy to have spent the time watching the entire interview. Not just because of the range of interesting topics covered – from what it takes to succeed at any worthy endeavor, to a secret for long-term success in the movie business, to the role of comedy in dealing with the existential pathos of life itself – but also because of the demonstrable degree of intellectual acumen one can still possess at age 89.

The interview is introduced this way on Weiss’s website (The Free Press):

“Woody Allen has done it all. The actor, comedian, and filmmaker has made 50 movies and has been nominated for 24 Academy Awards….

“Now, at the age of 89, Allen has published his first-ever novel. What’s with Baum? is the darkly comedic tale of… a middle-aged Jewish writer with a secret that could unravel his life. In other words, it’s like a Woody Allen movie – just in book form. It also touches on a major theme of our age: the idea that an accusation, once made, is as good as a conviction, [a theme he discusses with Weiss in the interview].”

You can watch the full conversation here.

Caveat: Before you have a knee-jerk reaction to the part of the interview that deals with controversial aspects of Allen’s personal life that were in the scandal sheets for several years in the middle of his career, I’m going to ask you to suspend your current conclusions until you read something I’ll be publishing in the next issue.

Re my comments on the Charlie Kirk assassination in the Sept. 13 issue: 

“Very sad day with the shooting of Charlie Kirk and the reaction from both left and right afterwards. Your blog has covered it well, and the whole episode reminds me of one of my favorite Orwell quotes: ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ And I think this is getting lost today.” – DG

 

“I would like to recommend a book by Allen Guelzo, Our Ancient Faith. Without saying so explicitly, the author draws shocking parallels between today’s political violence and that of Lincoln’s day. I want to offer the idea that this time, this day, our country will change. The scales will fall from enough eyes so that the truth will no longer be deniable.” – JM

iPhone User Callously Interviews Android User 

This was sent to me by CF, one of my three brothers who uses (and favors) his Android phone instead of an iPhone. Before seeing it, I had a vague notion that there is a longstanding friendly competition between the two camps, but I had no idea what the points of contention were. Now I know a few of them, thanks to this hilariously conceived, written, and acted bit that I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I did.

Last week was a busy one for me. Busier than usual. I had six two-hour business meetings, two blog interviews, a half-dozen coaching sessions with copywriters, and three business dinners. Not to mention all the follow-up research I was doing on the Epstein scandal and the Charlie Kirk assassination.

I have fewer appointments scheduled for this week, which is good. But unless I can meditate my way down to some reasonable semblance of calm and acceptance about these two events that I have no control over, it’s going to be just as stressful as last week.

In any case, what follows is less than half of what I prepared to put in this issue. I figured that my readers may feel less disturbed by these two stories than I am, and I didn’t want to subject them to more than they could take.