Public Health Sacrificing Kids for the Greater “Good”

by Stephen Schumacher | Jun 13, 2022 | General

Last June Jefferson County Emergency Management popped up vax clinics at the Saturday Farmers Market, in those pre-booster days excitedly advertising “Johnson & Johnson vaccine available today! One and Done!” Not seeing any takers, I tried talking with one of the masked doctors there, and was surprised by his enthusiasm to give these experimental injections to young children regardless of kids’ risks exceeding benefits for the sake of supposed societal good.

Vaxxers at PT Farmers Market, June 5, 2021 (photo: Stephen Schumacher)

I was reminded of this attitude while reading a peer-reviewed study finding “teenagers are [up to 6 times] more likely to get vaccine-related myocarditis than end up in hospital with Covid,” where a commentator expressed that “Whether or not [young kids] are at high risk relative to the adverse side effects, they should be vaccinated to reduce the probability of older, more at-risk people from getting it.” (Since the injected appear to be more infectious, it’s unclear how that helps grandma.)

This attitude mystified me back then, but I understand it better now after reading Dr. Robert Malone’s explanation of the dark philosophy that has replaced “Do no harm” in modern Public Health:

Dr. Robert Malone interviewed with Dr. Ryan Cole in Gig Harbor, WA on Feb. 21, 2022 (photo: Stephen Schumacher)

As taught in most Universities, “Public Health” (as in the Masters of Public Health degree programs) is also largely based on these two 18th and 19th century philosophical theories (utilitarianism and malthusianism).

As opposed to the disciplines of Medicine and clinical research, which are grounded in the principles of the Hippocratic oath and beneficence as applied to the individual patient.

Examples of beneficence in clinical research and medical practice include “Do no harm,” “Balance benefits against risks,” and “Maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms.”

What’s so bad about replacing individual patients’ rights and well-being with Public Health’s new utilitarian emphasis on purported “greatest good of the greatest number”?  Consider this thought experiment:

A man walks into his doctor’s office for a health checkup. After completion of the exam, he asks “Doc, how am I doing?” His utilitarian MD-MPH turns and says, “You are in perfect health. Your heart is perfect, your liver is perfect, and your kidneys are perfect. And I have four other patients that will die in the next week if they do not get transplants requiring a donated heart, liver or kidney. So I will be prepping you for surgery in one hour.”

Four lives saved for one sacrificed. I think that we can all agree that, while this scenario may meet a utilitarian standard, it fails to meet the fundamentals of Judeo-Christian belief systems regarding the Hippocratic oath and principle of beneficence. But if reports are correct, in the very utilitarian, marxist reality which is modern China under the CCP, organ harvesting is a fact of life.

Dr. Malone concluded that:

As we look back at the long list of public health lies and tragedies that have occurred since January 2020, I have been trying to think through what systemic changes should be implemented to help prevent such catastrophically poor decision making in the future.

I suggest that at the top of the list we include jettisoning both the philosophical dependence of public health decision making (as taught in MPH programs) on utilitarian philosophy, and instead substitute a Judeo-Christian values-based public health decision making process. We have let the MPH utilitarians interject themselves in place of the traditional role of the Physician, and have had to live through the consequences.

Those consequences are now being revealed by research volunteers studying “the 55,000 internal Pfizer documents which the FDA had asked a court to keep under wraps for 75 years”.

PFIZER DOCS: FDA HID PREGNANCY & BABY HARMS

Dr. Naomi Wolf summarized Pfizer documents showing that:

Pfizer (and thus the FDA) knew by December 2020 that the MRNA vaccines did not work — that they “waned in efficacy” and presented “vaccine failure.”

Pfizer knew in May of 2021 that 35 minors’ hearts had been damaged a week after MRNA injection — but the FDA rolled out the EUA for teens a month later anyway, and parents did not get a press release from the US government about heart harms til August of 2021, after thousands of teens were vaccinated.

Athletes and college students and teenagers are collapsing on football and soccer fields. Doctors wring their hands and express mystification. But BioNTech’s SEC filing shows a fact about which the CDC and the AMA breathe not a word: fainting so violently that you may hurt yourself is one of the side effects important enough for BioNTech to highlight to the SEC.

Pfizer (and thus the FDA; many of the documents say “FDA: CONFIDENTIAL” at the lower boundary) knew that … the mRNA spike protein and lipid nanoparticles did not stay in the injection site in the deltoid, but rather went, within 48 hours, into the bloodstream, from there to lodge in the liver, spleen, adrenals, lymph nodes, and, if you are a woman, in the ovaries.

Lipid nanoparticles, the tiny hard fatty casings that contain the MRNA, traverse the amniotic membrane. That means that they enter the fetal environment, of course. (They also traverse the blood-brain barrier, which may help explain the post-MRNA vaccination strokes and cognitive issues we are seeing). … The assurance that the vaccine is “safe and effective” for pregnant women, was based on a study of 44 French rats, followed for 42 days.

While pregnant women were excluded from the internal studies, and thus from the EUA on which basis all pregnant women were assured the vaccine was “safe and effective”, nonetheless about 270 women got pregnant during the study. More than 230 of them were lost somehow to history. But of the 36 pregnant women whose outcomes were followed – 28 lost their babies.

This week the FDA is gearing up to grant new Emergency Use Authorization to inject this witch’s brew into babies as young as 6 months old, and the White House is rolling out 10 million doses prior to authorization.

Biden Administration Makes Available 10 Million Doses of COVID Vaccine for Kids Under 5 — Before FDA Authorizes Shot

Children’s Health Defense chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. gave notice to the FDA and CDC on February 9 and June 10 that:

Should you recommend this pediatric EUA vaccine to children under five years old, CHD is poised to take legal action against you. CHD will seek to hold you accountable for recklessly endangering this population with a product that has little, no, or even negative net efficacy but which may put them, without warning, at risk of many adverse health consequences, including heart damage, stroke and other thrombotic events and reproductive harms.

Commenting on the White House targeting babies with Covid countermeasures that were “never about science or public health” prior to FDA safety review, Kennedy made clear that:

Now they have departed from common sense and into naked cruelty and barbarism. By recommending an unapproved, experimental, zero-liability and high-risk medical intervention for an illness that poses zero statistical danger to that age group, the White House has made itself the enemy of America’s children.

The Pharma gods have demanded child sacrifice and the high priests of public health have offered a generation of infants. Now more than ever, parents and physicians must step into the breach to protect our babies from our government.

Our regulatory agencies and elected officials are not protecting us because they are in lockstep with Big Pharma and mainswamp media promoting this sacrificial message. Their propaganda has been internalized by many who we used to trust to know better, as evidenced by the enthusiasm of the doctor I spoke with at the pop-up vaccine clinic. Jefferson County Public Health’s website is teeming with information on where these dangerous shots are available for 5-11 year olds. Will they soon be adding kids under five?

Council Watch – June 6, 2022

by Stephen Schumacher | Jun 8, 2022 | General

The Port Townsend City Council opened its June 6 meeting by hearing new police hire Officer Chase Stanton take his Oath of Office.

In public comments, Julie Jaman spoke to the Gateway and Boatyard Expansion Project being hornswoggled by the project mantra “the poplars must go” instead of implementing the Gateway Development Plan that doesn’t envision cutting. Since both PUD and Port have indicated poplars can be worked around, the win-win solution is to remove and replant poplars as needed while pruning suckers per the Plan. Before cutting poplars around town, cost review is needed of functions provided by poplars like unique verticality, buffering, windbraking, storm survivability, filtration, and link to the seasons. Poplars are the right tree in the right place, preventing a paved strip-mall development contrary to community values. *

Harvey Windle focused on problems with the council’s temporary streateries reauthorization until December 31, covering documented damage to business recovery income, lack of notice, not following public input, being out of compliance with state law preventing gifting of public property for these “mess tents”, and aggravating parking scarcity downtown where streateries and all-day parkers make it hard for customers to find places to park.

Stephen Schumacher riffed on Cato’s famous catchphrase by saying “Port Townsend defendenda est” (i.e. PT must be defended), urging the council to stay attentive each meeting to critical police staffing issues, along with getting roads and potholes fixed that were exacerbated by Sunday’s downpour.  He reviewed latest findings from The New York Times and elsewhere about masks having infinitesimal effect on Covid spread, their unfitness for purpose since designed for bacteria not aerobic virus transmission, and their many harms especially for kids, so encouraged council to stop modeling their misuse.

City Manager John Mauro responded to public comment by noting council’s wish is to talk about parking management in the next term. Regarding police staffing, the city has just sworn in a new officer, so there is movement in the right direction.

Following staff presentation of interim Ordinance 3291 granting a 6-month extension for temporary tent encampments, pastor Scott Rosenkrans of Port Hadlock Community United Methodist Church spoke of their experience hosting their first Tiny Home encampment.  They haven’t had one problem, have enough space for another one, and host a food pantry open Saturdays 10am-1pm, and help folks transition into permanent housing. During the 18 months the tiny homes have been there, they’ve become good neighbors.

Councilor Ben Thomas asked for clarification about the 180 day effective duration of the ordinance and its potential renewal for a second 180 days. City Attorney Heidi Greenwood responded that they’d be vested so eligible for a second extension. Aislinn Diamanti moved, Deputy Mayor Amy Howard seconded, and the council passed the extension unanimously.

After completing some unfinished business adopting Resolution 22-027 for a water system cross connection control program, the council considered Ordinance 3292 to impose a $50 civil infraction for vehicles idling for more than 3 minutes, with exceptions for health or safety reasons, extreme temperatures, traffic stops, law enforcement, vehicle repair, etc.

The proposal arose from the PT High School Students for Sustainability, none of whom were present due to graduation-related conflicts. Attorney Greenwood had helped students with this, and clarified that the exception for health reasons would cover people living in their vehicles.

Thomas wished there was another way to get the same educational result without passing a hard-to-enforce law penalizing idling.  Monica MickHager praised the students’ energy, but suggested next time they learn by looking at what codes could be removed to encourage sustainability.  Howard felt that if the stated goal is education, then the written warning step shouldn’t be skipped.

Mayor David Faber felt the ordinance should be passed if it’s consistent with our community ideals, but wondered whether officers could be given discretion to issue a warning in lieu of a fine.  Heidi explained that generally discretion is always implied on the side of the enforcing officer so long as language “they will” is not there.

After an amusing delay finding a councilor to move the motion, Faber eventually stepped up, Rowe seconded, and the idle ban was passed unanimously.

The council then took up Resolution 22-027 adopting a policy for city fee waivers for intergovernmental cooperation and non-profit organizations that provide community benefits. Howard asked why waivers are limited to two times per calendar year, and Greenwood answered that the intent was to spead them out so they wouldn’t all go to the same organizations. Thomas asked why waivers were limited to non-profits, and Greenwood said this was to keep waivers further from the line where they could be considered gifts of public funds. MickHager moved, Thomas seconded, and the motion carried unanimously. 

Next up was Resolution 22-028 to join HUD’s House America initiative to respond with urgency to community homeless crises.  Mauro provided background that this came about because councilors Diamanti and Howard sit on the county Housing Fund Board, and staff recommended the city join.

In public comment, Schumacher asked council to evaluate whether anything can be done quickly with the Cherry Street Project to provide housing, and if not, sell it to get this albatross off the books so the money can be used for worthy housing projects.  During council deliberation, MickHager wordsmithed characterizing Housing First as “the most effective approach” to “an effective approach”. With that edit, MickHager moved, Diamanti seconded, and the motion carried unanimously.

Concerning the Major’s City Manager Evaluation, MickHager felt he did a good job so moved to approve it, which Diamanti seconded and the council approved unanimously.

In his City Manager’s Report, Mauro started talking about staff comings and going, saying it was great starting a tradition to swear in new police officers before council, feeling that’s right for the duty they provide to our community.  That’s a positive, balancing the anticipated resignation of Sgt. Garin Williams after 15 years.

He’s looking to fill other openings, including police, deputy public works directory, and city clerk.  Emma Bolin will be joining as Planning Community Development Director, helping among other things with the Evans Vista land purchase.

Mauro spoke of various adventures related to Sunday’s heavy rain downfall, which Public Works responded to quickly.  Steve King went on the bluff to look at the stability of the slope, which mostly just lost topsoil… as Mauro quipped, it was interesting to see geology happening in real time.

Mauro feels like Port Townsend is coming back after a couple of years. Rowe was at the previous Farmers Market, and councilors enthusiastically expressed their intent to have one of them appear there the last Saturday of each month to discuss people’s concerns.

Libby Wennstrom asked what our magic number currently is for police staffing. Mauro replied it’s hard to say because we’re now in flux with training. The city has an arrangement with the county as a fallback, but fortunately we haven’t had to call on them and hope to get enough officers to be self-reliant, but as Chief Olson had said, this may take 12-18 months. Other cities are likewise having problems and are down to 30-40% police staffing.

Thomas noted that Windle and others have come to him asking about taking away the temporary streateries; he doesn’t see that happening, but looking at the temporary ordinance, he wonders if they can be terminated if not used for 60 days. Faber mentioned that King had already brought that up with the new owner of Alchemy, whose streatery seems to be rarely used.

Greenwood clarified that the temporary reauthorization until December 31 doesn’t have the same 60 day abandonment clause as in the permanent authorization proposal, but that doesn’t mean the city could not look to exercise it.  In terms of process, restaurants don’t have property rights to their allowed streatery slots.

The next regular council meeting on June 20 has been canceled because many members will be out of town that day. 

*Correction:  The original version inadvertently omitted Julie Jaman’s public comment.

Council Backs Off From Downtown Streateries, Contrary to Leader Misreporting

by Stephen Schumacher | May 5, 2022 | General

PT Free Press is expediting publication of this council report in hopes of minimizing community confusion arising from inaccurate Leader reporting that PT City Council OK’s long-term streateries program. The opposite actually took place, as can be seen by viewing the May 2 meeting.

Here follows my emailed response to The Leader and city staff:
 

So for the second meeting in a row, The Leader completely misrepresented the decisions made by the Port Townsend City Council regarding streateries. Rather than okaying the program, the council spent much of its May 2 meeting reconsidering permanent streateries in thoughtful response to a tidal wave of near-unanimous negative public comment.

Ben Thomas kicked off council discussion by expressing that streateries seem to have gone from being a good thing to a touchstone for public process concerns, since a lot of people came out of the survey not feeling they were heard. The pushback was significant enough for him to move to table the ordinance for permanent streateries until a permanent parking plan could be developed.

Monica MickHager seconded, having grave doubts before last meeting related to the city not having moved on a parking management plan for 20 years. She’s thinking about alternatives like sidewalk cafes or restaurants with space in the back, given that downtown is just two streets with limited space between cliff and water.

Owen Rowe appreciated the public input and concurred that tabling the whole thing makes sense and was worth discussing. Riffing on putting the cart (streateries) before the horse (parking), he noted the argument that streateries don’t connect to our Victorian heritage, when sidewalks were mud with carts and horses so no one wanted to eat on the streets back then.

Libby Wennstrom agreed that a parking study should have come first, but was concerned that tabling now would just kick the same questions down the road, leaving us with multiple years of tents in the interim. Aislinn Diamanti was likewise inclined to let the few businesses wanting to invest in streateries move ahead with them at least uptown, but maybe removing downtown ones.

Mayor David Faber spoke about how before tonight’s meeting, he’d thought the council could still move forward with this program, taking responsibility that originally he (not staff) had wanted to fast-track streateries because he’d heard nothing but positive feedback about them so didn’t want to push this off. But now hearing every single public comment but one expressing massive frustration against the streatery program, he’s trying to give space to those opinions by maybe going forward with just uptown streateries at this time, or delaying permanent streateries until parking enforcement improves.

The council discussed pros & cons of tabling the ordinance versus amending it so that no streateries are allowed in the downtown historic district at this time, eventually coalescing on the latter approach, after which Thomas withdrew his motion to table. The council proceeded to brainstorm draft language for 5 amendments to address every point under discussion, which staff was encouraged to tweak as needed.

Rowe moved to approve staff bringing back a third reading of the ordinance with amendments to various paragraphs as discussed, Faber seconded, and the motion carried unanimously.

Since permanent streateries would not be approved this meeting, the next issue was the imminent expiration of temporary streatery authorization. Wennstrom noted that temporary streateries combine the worst of both worlds, since they’re ugly and sit on the street surface instead of platforms, while still negatively affecting other businesses and parking; Thomas said he was more worried about permanence.

MickHager moved to approve a resolution extending the special event authorizing temporary streateries, waiving special use fees, which carried unanimously.

Permanent streateries in the downtown are off the table now. The city council will revisit an ordinance allowing permanent streateries uptown and in other business districts at its upcoming May 16 meeting.

Out and About in the Time of Lockdowns

by Stephen Schumacher | Apr 28, 2022 | General

I was never locked down.

I designated myself an “essential worker” and continued my office IT job as always, as did all my coworkers.  I continued shopping at the Food Co-op, where no one wore masks during those early months and few if any got sick (borne out by food worker union statistics). I continued participating in regular services inside my church as part of a skeleton livestreaming crew.  I found streets strange with few humans or cars but more wildlife.

When the initial extreme lockdowns eased, things paradoxically got harder for those never locked-down as mask and vax mandates began rolling out.  Soon after reopening, Room to Move Yoga and the Rose Theatre excluded everyone unwilling to “show papers”, maintaining restrictions above and beyond Health Department orders to this day.  

As even Farmers Markets set up checkpoints to impose outdoor masking, the unlocked-down responded with joyous weekly freedom rallies, walkouts, and protest marches. Community resistance continues through outlets like the Free Press and Health Freedom Information network gatherings.

Public arts took a nose dive, but a few venues provided relief.  Throughout much of the lockdowns, the only cinema open to all was the naturally (un)socially-distanced Wheel-In Motor Movie drive-in theatre, joined recently by its companion Uptown Theatre reopening with a brighter new screen.

When the Wooden Boat Festival was cancelled, the neighboring Artful Sailor stepped up with its “Woulda Been a Boat Festival” featuring music from classic rock band Greased Lightning. They are again offering a free Sock Hop by the skate park this Saturday, April 30 from 5-7pm.

Most heartening for me during this time of lockdowns has been my church continuing to keep its doors open with worship practices and soulful joyous choir music as unchanged as possible.  That has thankfully translated into strong parish growth both here and in churches around the country that stayed open and focused on in-person services.

These were a few of my personal touchstones that might still have general relevance today. Outwardly I’ve mostly had it easy due to my independent nature and circumstances, but inwardly these past two years have been extremely disillusioning and disconcerting, yet laced with silver linings.

Everybody has their own lockdown story. If you’d like to share yours, feel free to post it in the comments section or submit it as an article.

Slur Trek 2: The Wrath of Mann

by Stephen Schumacher | Mar 9, 2022 | General

Senior Leader columnist Bill Mann is at it again, unleashing his second wave of trash-talk against so-called “anti-vaxxers”, calling them “stupid”, “idiots”, “foolish”, “deniers”, “clueless”, etc., etc., etc.

In a bizarre reversal of reality, Mann blames lockdown opponents for locking his grandchildren into a “bubble” that “deprived [them] of a normal childhood”:  

I don’t blame my cautious daughter in Oregon for the protectiveness she affords our two under-5, un-vaxxed grandkids. They’ve never been in a store or restaurant. They only go to empty playgrounds. They have only one “bubble,” three other kids in a small family that they play with. And we can all hardly wait until the day those kids under age 5 can get vaccinated. If all the clueless and heedless had been vaccinated, our grandchildren may not have been deprived of a normal childhood.

Mann is mistaken regarding the relative risks versus benefits of the Covid quasi-vaccine for otherwise-healthy youngsters, who have virtually zero risk of death from the virus but serious known and unknown risks from the vax.  

New studies are finding healthy boys have about 4-6 times higher chance of cardiac hospitalizations than catching Covid, with 1 of every 4515 adolescents hospitalized for myocarditis in Hong Kong after the second dose, and similar destruction of young hearts in the U.S.

County officials have been repeatedly alerted about these dangers, but falsely claim “no children have died from receiving Pfizer’s vaccine” and are “hopeful” they can start pushing it on children under 5 soon.

Mann’s new column is a sequel to his similar screed from August 25, 2021, which unloaded even more vituperative verbiage:

• dehumanizing his neighbors as “boneheads”, “spreadnecks”, “dolts”, and “knuckle-draggers”;  
• demonizing them as public enemies “making innocent people sick, especially children”; and
• urging they “should not be allowed in public spaces” and “not work.”

The Leader‘s blithe promotion of Mann’s provocative hate speech, coupled with their continued censorship of contrarian voices, unleased a flood of letters to the editor and critical responses online. When none of this criticism was allowed to see print in their Opinion Forum, protests outside the Leader offices followed.

Unfortunately, Mann is not just shouting at the moon, but is a small but angry cog is a larger campaign to fan up fear, hatred, deplatforming, discrimination, and violence against so-called “anti-vaxxers”.  

This jive term was originally a slur on folks concerned about problems shared by all vaccines, but “anti-vax” has been progressively broadened to suppress negative findings about any individual vaccine or booster, especially the experimental mRNA injections that increased all-cause mortality by 24% during their abortive and fraudulent emergency-use-authorization trial (and which are not even vaccines according to the CDC definition from a year ago).

The “anti-vaxxer” slur has nonsensically been extended to embrace those who are pro-vaccines but anti-mandates, as well as anyone who questions any aspect of the current lockdown narrative.  According to its current usage, the majority of Americans are “anti-vaxxers”, given the unpopularity of vaccine mandates. 

The authoritarian risks from this hate campaign are not just academic… an unhinged Department of Homeland Security has now issued a crazy dangerous bulletin targeting those spreading “misleading narratives” or factual “malinformation” including about “vaccine and mask mandates” as “domestic terrorists”! 

If the malefactors behind this classification get their way, what’s next? 

• Burning books and outlawing free speech, as is already happening via social media monopolies following illegal executive branch marching orders in defiance of the First Amendment? 
• Rounding up thought-criminals into concentration camps like those being built in Australia?  
• Freezing or stealing their bank accounts as done to working-class truckers and their supporters in Canada?
• Indefinitely detaining them in gulags and trampling on due process rights as done to Jan. 6 trespassers?

To his credit, Mann now expresses openness about ending mask mandates, but is quick to say that doesn’t make him “anti-mask”.  Wrong again… at least according to the broad-brush “anti-vax” definition rules, Mann’s statements are as “anti-mask” as the nuanced views of most supposed “anti-vaxxers”.

Given that his county health officer is still urging everyone to wear masks, the fact that Mann’s “anti-mask” published views differ from the official truth means Mann is spreading medical “misinformation” as defined by Homeland Security.  That also means Mann may now officially be a “terrorist”, whom the covid coup threatens to censor and persecute along with the “anti-vaxxers” that Mann despises. Maybe he can share a prison cell with them.

——————————————-

The Leader saw fit to print Mann’s two feature columns dedicated to abusing “anti-vaxxers”, despite (or because of) their being filled with “insults, taunts, bullying, intimidation, and profanity” … the very language that specifically violates the Free Press commenting policy against flame wars deterring and drowning out serious discourse.

As writers and editors, we wrestle to discern what level of civil discourse we should aspire to and enforce… what would be most true, kind, and helpful. I am concerned that my own words of criticism are sometimes too barbed and unkind in this and other articles I have written, and if so, I truly apologize.

But it is also true that our own county’s namesake was adamant that his sharp words should stand in our Declaration of Independence, where Thomas Jefferson wrote: “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”