Will Election-Riggers Wag the Dog Again?

 By J.B. Shurk

How do we know that Washington, D.C. is the nerve center of a global empire and not the seat of a federal government with limited powers over the individual states and their citizens?  Every four years, people around the world wait with trepidation to see what new calamity might strike the human race, as the masters of mass destruction work to install the right globalist sock puppet inside the White House.

Economic crises and impromptu wars have a strange way of materializing during America’s election season.  Twenty-twenty gave us a genetically engineered pandemic, a planetary lockdown, and widespread crimes against humanity.  Disease, death, and suffering were the horrific costs required to shatter President Trump’s three years of peace and prosperity.  COVID was the poisonous smokescreen necessary to give Dementia Joe Biden a mail-in-ballot “victory.”

Foreign pundits often complain that it is deeply unfair that only American citizens get to vote for the U.S. president.  So great is this one official’s impact upon the rest of the world, they aver, that the whole planet should have a say.  Well, my foreign friends, the U.S. government agrees with you!  That’s why we have open borders and months-long mail-in-ballot elections with few voter identification requirements, drawn out vote-counting, and no transparency.  If D.C. wanted secure borders and secure elections, we would have both.  But the gangsters who run things over here can’t manipulate electoral outcomes unless they first flood the country with tens of millions of illegal aliens, print just as many untraceable postcard ballots, and discourage in-person voting and picture ID.  Foreigners have been robbing Americans of their votes for quite some time with the active assistance of the federal government.  As the lockdown lemmings used to sing in unison during the Reign of COVID Terror, rest assured: we’re all in this together!

Aside from all the fraudulent mail-in-ballots that will inevitably impact the 2024 election, though, the deranged powers that be still need their quadrennial smokescreen!  No act of sabotage or ruination is too sinister for those who manipulate world events to win American elections.  Bill Clinton’s sex scandals disappeared behind his wag-the-dog missile strikes during the Yugoslav Wars.  Barack Obama’s candidacy benefited from the housing crisis and Great Recession that almost sank the banking system on George Bush’s watch.  Hillary Clinton nearly succeeded in torpedoing Donald Trump’s election chances and later presidency with her Russia collusion hoax (and a great deal of help from both the American and British Intelligence Communities).  Trump’s Houdini-like ability to escape Deep State traps apparently led those dangerous goons to dynamite the global economy with an outbreak of COVID-1984.  Even then, American intelligence officers could drag Joe Biden’s carcass across the 2020 finish line only by fraudulently labeling his cocaine-addled son’s incriminating “laptop from Hell” as “Russian disinformation” and conspiring with corporate news outlets to censor the treasure trove of evidence documenting the Biden Crime Family’s half-century of quid-pro-quo corruption with foreign adversaries.  War, economic collapse, frame-ups, spy games, cover-ups, and other sordid Deep State plots — anything goes when it comes to putting a puppet in the White House!

What manner of grotesquery might we have coming our way over the next two months?  You can tell that the World Health Organization and America’s pharmaceutical Sith Lords have been salivating at the possibility of a new global pandemic that would add billions to their “vaccine” coffers and re-equip them with the authoritarian powers to lock down national economies, close schools, and imprison citizens in quarantine zones.  You can’t go a week without some government health official hyperventilating about avian flu, monkeypox, or an election-season strain of Kamala COVID.  (I hear that if you get that one, you start cackling at inappropriate times.) 

It’s easy to understand why the resurgence of a COVID election variant is so appealing.  By using the Wuhan Flu as a pretext for ignoring state election laws in 2020, courts opened the door to mass electoral fraud.  Widespread use of mail-in ballots devoid of (1) signature verification, (2) enforced chain-of-custody rules, (3) safeguards against coerced voting, and (4) confirmation that each person in possession of a ballot is legally entitled to vote fundamentally transformed American elections — especially in critical battleground states.  Although the corporate press ignores these salient facts, 2020 produced astonishing outcomes, including the addition of over twenty-five million more votes than the previous contentious election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and the unlikely result that Trump won almost every bellwether county by double-digits while still “losing” the election to an opponent who prevailed in a historically low number of American counties.  How to explain such anomalies?  Only mail-in-ballot magic can say. 

The pharmaceutical industry is dying to make more moolah and give its government pals another much-needed totalitarian assist.  But the people aren’t biting!  Every time some white-coat “expert” gets on the boob tube to warn about our imminent demise, the public responds with gusto: we will not comply!  Too many of 2020’s statutory violations have become permanent fixtures of local elections, but the absence of any declared medical emergency makes it more difficult for courts to ignore widespread fraud this year.

War seems like the ideal distraction to help rig the 2024 vote.  Ever since Commie-la Harris and Horse-Glue Joe Biden sacrificed the lives of thirteen U.S. service members in America’s disastrously conducted retreat from Afghanistan, D.C.’s war hawks have been itching for a fight with Russia.  After all, the military-industrial complex has a lot of hungry mouths to feed, and, like all vampires, its diet depends on a steady supply of blood.  It wasn’t enough for Barack Obama’s State Department (and the CIA spooks heading humanitarian NGOs) to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected president a decade ago — a textbook coup that ignited a civil war in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern regions.  That turned out to be a mere appetizer for a rapacious U.S.-NATO Godzilla still looking to feast.  Mainstream media may entirely blame Russia for the war in Ukraine, but the West has been hell-bent on inflaming the region and rejecting any kind of negotiated peace.  Why bother calculating the tremendous cost in human lives when vassal state Ukraine serves as an ideal launching pad for wider attacks against America’s old Cold War enemy?  Besides, Russia is a country blessed with tremendous natural resources, and BlackRock — one of the multinational investment companies that largely dictate foreign policy decisions in the White House — would just love to lay claim to all those untapped energy stores.

Like its COVID kissing cousin, any outbreak of war creates emergency conditions that provide cover for all kinds of election mischief.  More valuably, it creates an opportunity for the craven Democrats in control of the White House to manufacture a rally round the flag effect among the American people that could shift support to the incumbent party.  No doubt this is exactly what Joe Bribe’em and his Dim-Dem posse had in mind by escalating tensions with Russia these last two years. 

There’s just one problem: Americans have no interest in WWIII.  It’s kind of difficult to convince voters to defend the homeland from harm when the political aristocracy occupying D.C. regularly denounce them as “deplorables” and “domestic terrorists.”  Still, if the Deep State has taught us anything, it is this: psychopaths have no qualms about destroying the world if doing so keeps Donald Trump from returning as president.  Raise a middle finger to our would-be rulers, and vote for Trump anyway.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/09/will_election_riggers_wag_the_dog_again.html

Immune pathways can prevent lung healing after viral infection, study shows

 An aberrant immune–epithelial progenitor niche is a hallmark of post-viral lung disease. Credit: Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07926-8

Investigators involved in a multicenter study co-led by Cedars-Sinai discovered a pathway by which immune cells prevent the lungs' protective barrier from healing after viral infections like COVID-19. The findings, published in Nature may lead to new therapeutic treatment options.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how viral infections can cause long-lasting effects—a condition called long COVID. Also known as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2, long COVID has left a devastating trail of people who continue to live with long-term debilitation after infection. One such manifestation is scarring of the lungs—a condition known as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 pulmonary fibrosis.

Those with long COVID can present with a broad constellation of symptoms, including post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 pulmonary fibrosis, which can cause severe difficulty breathing that requires oxygen supplementation. Patients with the most severe breathing difficulty may also need a lung transplant. Without additional treatment options, many patients are often left with long-term disability and life-threatening complications.

"This study sought to understand the pathways that led to abnormal repair in the lungs that produced a scar-forming environment," said Peter Chen, MD, co-corresponding author of the study, the Medallion Chair in Molecular Medicine and the interim chair of the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai. "Our findings may lead to therapeutic strategies to prevent fibrotic lung disease after viral illnesses."

Investigators established models of post-viral lung disease and used molecular profiling and imaging to identify immune cells called CD8+ T cells as a driving factor in preventing lung healing and repair post-infection. Moreover, the investigators used post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 pulmonary fibrosis patient cohorts to validate the abnormal immunologic pathways, corroborating the animal model work.

"Although we based the work on post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 pulmonary fibrosis, other viral pandemics in the past have also revealed that ability to cause lung scarring after infection—like swine flu," said Jie Sun, Ph.D., co-corresponding author of the study and professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. "The research and broader medical field must be prepared and better understand how to prevent adverse outcomes stemming from these viruses."

Chen and Sun say these findings—and similar studies—could provide novel information into the pathobiology of other forms of lung fibrosis.

More information: Jie Sun, An aberrant immune–epithelial progenitor niche drives viral lung sequelae, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07926-8. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07926-8

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-09-immune-pathways-lung-viral-infection.html

'Researchers advocate for tissue-engineering approach for arthritis relief'

 Various forms of arthritis afflict nearly 600 million people worldwide and add $16.5 billion to the United States' health care bill, yet there are few engineered cartilage tissue therapies available to sufferers.

In Nature Reviews Rheumatology, University of California, Irvine biomedical engineers have shared insights into the effective treatment of severe osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis and the clinical trial and regulatory efforts that are going to be necessary to bring products to market.

In their review article, researchers in the DELTAi laboratory headed by Kyriacos Athanasiou, Distinguished Professor of biomedical engineering, discussed a variety of technologies developed to address articular cartilage diseases and disorders in the knee, temporomandibular joint, hip joint and others. Despite substantial research efforts, no treatments to date have been made specifically to treat severe osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.

The team delved into new methods of helping tissue-engineered cartilage implants survive inflammatory environments using immunomodulatory biomaterials and synthetic biology, and they highlighted clinical development of allogeneic cells from donors versus autologous cells from the person being treated.

"Researchers have expected the successful application of tissue engineering toward articular cartilage for decades, but the process is arduous. Cartilage repair products have been slow to reach the marketplace and exhibit significant limitations," said lead co-author Benjamin Bielajew, a postdoctoral scholar in biomedical engineering. "But despite past setbacks, we remain optimistic. We believe that with these recent advances in cartilage tissue engineering, the field is poised to develop better treatments for the millions of people suffering debilitating joint deficiencies."

Rachel Nordberg, a research specialist in biomedical engineering, who served as the primary lead co-author of the review article, said that recent innovations in tissue engineering spotlight the need for researchers to master the ins and outs of translation and commercialization of these new products.

"For academic researchers, it is not enough to develop these technologies in the laboratory, we also need to fully understand and navigate in the 'translational vector'—engaging with regulatory agencies such as the FDA, understanding funding opportunities from academia for clinical use, and working toward commercialization and widespread use," said Nordberg. "Through this bilateral approach—this academic translation—there is great potential to bring forth a new generation of cartilage therapies."

More information: Rachel C. Nordberg et al, Recent advancements in cartilage tissue engineering innovation and translation, Nature Reviews Rheumatology (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41584-024-01118-4

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-09-advocate-tissue-approach-arthritis-relief.html

Dem Attacks Against Jill Stein Show How Desperate They're Getting

 by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The Democrats have all of a sudden zeroed in on Green Party leader Jill Stein in the latest sign that they’re getting desperate.

Most polls had previously claimed that Kamala was leading Trump, but cynics suspected that this was all part of the party’s coronation of their new candidate after Biden dropped out. The truth is now coming out after even pro-Democrat Newsweek felt compelled to headline a recent article about how “Kamala Harris' Lead Over Trump Being 'Steadily Cut'—Poll” so as to retain some credibility.

Three factors have worked against her faux lead and inevitably exposed it as fraudulent:

1. Americans haven’t forgotten how Trump miraculously survived an assassination attempt this summer;

2. influential former Democrats RFK and Tulsi Gabbard endorsed him; and

3. Kamala’s CNN interview was disastrous.

The first even inspired lifelong Democrat Mark Zuckerberg to praise Trump as a “badass”; RFK and Tulsi command a lot of sway among dissident Leftists; and Americans remembered how inept Kamala is.

The confluence of these aforesaid factors is responsible for the Democrats attacking Stein all of a sudden despite having hitherto held off on doing so out of fear that it would give her free publicity. Trump’s real lead (i.e. not the manipulated polling put out by Democrat cut-outs) might already be “too big to rig” or is rapidly approaching that level. Stein might also once again siphon votes from disgruntled Leftists and thus lead to him winning back the presidency, which is the Democrats’ worst nightmare.

They’ve proven themselves unable to effectively counteract the three factors working against Kamala’s faux lead so their backup plan is to attack Stein like AOC and DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni began doing earlier this week. The first claimed that she’s “not serious”, “not authentic”, and “just predatory” in the sense that she could take enough votes from the Democrats to make a difference, while the latter defamed her as “a useful idiot for Russia” whose “spoiler candidacy” can help Trump win.

Neither would have crossed the Rubicon, let alone at the same time and not to mention given their influential roles in the party, had they not thought (or perhaps been told by the party elite) that the expected benefits outweigh the predictable detriments. They’re giving her free publicity, which could further amplify her ideas among dissident Leftists and thus lead to her siphoning off more votes from the Democrats, but with the goal in mind of ultimately scaring some of her supporters away too.

The fact of the matter though is that those who support Stein are already aware of these two information warfare narratives against her but don’t care since they see their vote for her as a form of protest against the Democrats and the US’ political system more broadly. They’re therefore not going to be scared away like AOC and Corridoni expect, but those two might have an ulterior motive in mind in going on the attack, or at least those who might have told them to do that could have such intentions.

It was explained late last month in this analysis here about why “The Justice Department’s Crackdown On Russian Media’s American Affiliates Is Frightening” that efforts are underway to concoct another Russiagate conspiracy theory for discrediting Trump’s potential victory and sabotaging his next term. To that end, the FBI raided the homes of Scott Ritter and Dimitri Simes, and unnamed administration sources told the New York Times that more people might soon be raided on this pretext too.

The abovementioned analysis concluded that “[Trump’s] actual lead might result in a victory that’s ‘too big to rig’ if it stays on track, hence the need to preemptively manufacture a backup plan”, which could be complemented by the Democrats’ attacks Stein in order to more compellingly concoct their narrative. It should be mentioned that these attacks followed her announcing that she’d attend a rally in support of the Uhuru 3, whose Russiagate-like case readers can learn more about from one of them here.

The narrative threads have yet to be explicitly connected, but one scenario is that the FBI’s latest raids and the Democrats’ sudden attacks against Stein are meant to lend false credence to another Russiagate conspiracy theory for discrediting Trump’s “too big to rig” lead in the event that he wins. The FBI raids can’t do this on their own, nor the Democrats’ attacks against Stein, hence the need to pair them together and perhaps include another forthcoming but as-yet unknown element into this mix.

After all, it was already explained how the Democrats’ attacks against Stein will only give her free publicity and risk more dissident Leftists defecting from their party to hers, but this interpretation reconceptualizes everything by enabling the Democrats to then blame it all on Russia. Her public support for the Uhuru 3 coupled with the latest attacks against her and the FBI’s raids could combine to make a remixed Russiagate scenario more believable to a greater segment of the population than the first one.

If Trump’s lead is “too big to rig” like was argued throughout this analysis might already be the case or rapidly approaching that level, then the Democrats’ fallback plan could be to craft this narrative as a last-ditch effort to influence some electors into not voting for him, or at least till everything is “investigated”. Stein is going to carry some percentage of the vote like she always does whenever she runs, and if Trump’s lead is “too big to rig”, then there’s logic in attributing her “spoiler vote” to “Russian influence”.  

To be clear, Stein and all other third-party candidates have the right to run for president, and this shouldn’t be discredited. That said, sour Democrats are known to resort to the dirtiest tricks to smear their opponents instead of taking their electoral losses in a sportsmanlike manner. Blaming Trump’s potential return to office on “Russian-backed Stein” and relying on “evidence” obtained from the FBI’s raids of Russian media’s American affiliates, the Uhuru 3 case, and whatever else is therefore possible.

It remains to be seen whether these threads are explicitly connected by that party or not, and there’s always a chance that their elite might decide not to go through with this for whatever reason, but it’s still plausible enough to be taken seriously and that’s why all Americans should be on alert. As Election Day nears and Trump’s lead over Kamala grows, or hers over him slips as some Mainstream Media outlets might frame it so as to retain some credibility, the Democrats will become more desperate than ever.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democrats-attacks-against-jill-stein-show-how-desperate-theyre-getting

Testosterone's paradoxical effects in prostate cancer

 A treatment paradox has recently come to light in prostate cancer: Blocking testosterone production halts tumor growth in early disease, while elevating the hormone can delay disease progression in patients whose disease has advanced.

The inability to understand how different levels of the same hormone can drive different effects in prostate tumors has been an impediment to the development of new therapeutics that exploit this biology.

Now, a Duke Cancer Institute-led study, performed in the laboratory of Donald McDonnell, Ph.D. and appearing in Nature Communications, provides the needed answers to this puzzle.

The researchers found that prostate cancer cells are hardwired with a system that allows them to proliferate when the levels of testosterone are very low. But when hormone levels are elevated to resemble those present in the normal prostate, the cancer cells differentiate.

"For decades, the goal of endocrine therapy in prostate cancer has been to achieve absolute inhibition of androgen receptor function, the protein that senses testosterone levels," said lead investigator Rachid Safi, Ph.D., research assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, at Duke University School of Medicine.

"It's been a highly effective strategy, leading to substantial improvements in overall survival," he said. "Unfortunately, most patients with advanced, metastatic disease who are treated with drugs to inhibit androgen signaling will progress to an aggressive form of the disease for which there are limited therapeutic options."

Prostate cancer cells respond differently to different doses of androgens. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52032-y

Using a combination of genetic, biochemical, and chemical approaches, the research team defined the mechanisms that enable prostate cancer cells to recognize and respond differently to varying levels of testosterone, the most common androgenic hormone.

It turned out to be rather simple. When androgen levels are low, the androgen receptor is encouraged to "go solo" in the cell. In doing so, it activates the pathways that cause cancer cells to grow and spread. However, as androgens rise, the androgen receptors are forced to "hang out as a couple," creating a form of the receptor that halts tumor growth.

"Nature has designed a system where low doses of hormones stimulate cancer cell proliferation and high doses cause differentiation and suppress growth, enabling the same hormone to perform diverse functions," McDonnell said.

In recent years, clinicians have begun treating patients with late-stage, therapy resistant prostate cancers using a monthly, high-dose injection of testosterone in a technique called bi-polar androgen therapy, or BAT. The inability to understand how this intervention works has hindered its widespread adoption as a mainstream therapeutic approach for prostate cancer patients.

"Our study describes how BAT and like approaches work and could help physicians select patients who are most likely to respond to this intervention," McDonnell said. "We have already developed new drugs that exploit this new mechanism and are bringing these to the clinic for evaluation as prostate cancer therapeutics."

In addition to McDonnell and Safi, study authors include Suzanne E. Wardell, Paige Watkinson, Xiaodi Qin, Marissa Lee, Sunghee Park, Taylor Krebs, Emma L. Dolan, Adam Blattler, Toshiya Tsuji, Surendra Nayak, Marwa Khater, Celia Fontanillo, Madeline A. Newlin, Megan L. Kirkland, Yingtian Xie, Henry Long, Emma Fink, Sean W. Fanning, Scott Runyon, Myles Brown, Shuichan Xu, Kouros Owzar, and John D. Norris.

More information: Rachid Safi et al, Androgen receptor monomers and dimers regulate opposing biological processes in prostate cancer cells, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52032-y

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-09-testosterone-paradoxical-effects-prostate-cancer.html

U.S. Steel shares plunge on report White House preparing to block Nippon Steel takeover

 U.S. Steel

 shares tumbled more than 17% on Wednesday as the White House is reportedly preparing to block the company’s planned sale to Japan’s Nippon Steel.

People familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that President Joe Biden was preparing to announce that he will block the $14.9 billion deal. U.S. Steel shares have fallen 41% this year.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said U.S. Steel “should remain American-owned and American-operated” during a campaign event in Pittsburgh Monday. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, is also opposed to the deal.

U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the company would likely be forced to close plants and move its headquarters from Pittsburgh if the deal is blocked. Burritt told the Journal that the transaction is crucial to keeping U.S. Steel’s older plants competitive and maintaining jobs.

The deal has been under review by the Committee on Foreign Investment, a body that scrutinizes the potential impact of foreign investment in the U.S. on national security. U.S. Steel has not received any update or executive order related to the committee’s review, a company spokesperson said.

“We continue to stand by the fact that there are no national security issues associated with this transaction, as Japan is one of our most staunch allies,” the U.S. Steel spokesperson said.

“We fully expect to pursue all possible options under the law to ensure this transaction, which is best future for Pennsylvania, American steelmaking, and all of our stakeholders, closes,” the spokesperson said.

The bipartisan opposition to U.S. Steel’s acquisition by Nippon demonstrates a rising tide of protectionism in the U.S. even toward a company that is based in a close ally such as Japan.

U.S. Steel has 20 million metric tons of annual production capacity. Nippon, headquartered in Tokyo, is Japan’s largest steelmaker. The companies combined would have up to 86 million tons of capacity.

A Nippon Steel spokesperson said the acquisition would revitalize the American Rust Belt and benefit U.S. national security “in a way no alternative can.”

“Simply put, U. S. Steel and the entire American steel industry will be on much stronger footing because of Nippon Steel’s investment in U. S. Steel – an investment that Nippon Steel is the only willing and able party to do so,” the spokesperson said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/04/us-steel-shares-drop-more-than-15percent-on-report-white-house-preparing-to-block-nippon-steel-takeover.html

Queens-Midtown Tunnel partially reopens after water intrusion

 The Queens-Midtown tunnel has partially reopened for two-way traffic after closing earlier today due to an accident that allowed water to begin flowing into the tunnel. 

Officials say drivers should expect delays and congestion.

According to MTA CEO Janno Lieber, a private contractor hired by the city of New York was doing exploratory drilling along Manhattan's shore of the East River near the U.N., in order to find pylons that would support a greenway walk project along the riverfront. 

According to Lieber, the contractor got bad information and began drilling atop the tunnel, and punched a 2 ½ inch hole in the tunnel's roof, allowing water to pour in.

Queens-Midtown tunnel issues create traffic havoc

The partial closure of the Queens-Midtown tunnel has causing traffic havoc for drivers throughout New York City. FOX 5 NY's Linda Schmidt has the story.

Repairs are now underway.   

"We're working around-the-clock to get things fully operational at the Queens Midtown Tunnel," Mayor Eric Adams said in a post on X. "Right now, the northbound tunnel is open to two-way traffic to alleviate some of the traffic in the area. The southbound tunnel remains closed."

NYC live traffic map

Click here to open the embedded map in your browser.

Queens-Midtown Tunnel status

For more information from the MTA, click HERE.

This is a developing story.

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/nyc-queens-midtown-tunnel-closed