Big news for this humble citizen journalist: I have re-entered the Real World and now have a real job. As of August 11th, I have become a high school English teacher. (I am also teaching 8th grade students Current Events and the Basics of Journalism).

What this means to readers of Bill Rice, Jr’s Substack newsletter is I will now file fewer stories every week … but, nobody panic; this column isn’t an obituary … I’m going to “keep posting while I still can.”

What this means to myself is I now receive a monthly salary, which means our family’s income worries should be significantly reduced. Now - perhaps and hopefully - the disposable income in our family’s joint checking account will not vanish before the final weeks of month’s calendar.

Expressed differently, due to real inflation and economic realities, I have implemented an income-generating “work-around.” (IMO, life is a never-ending process of creating new work-arounds).

In life, big choices invariably produce subsequent consequences.

A couple of years before Covid, I made a major life decision to become a freelance journalist, which meant I was going to try to make a livable income “following my passion,” which is writing stories I consider important and maybe even original (stories I knew I couldn’t write as a corporate journalist).

Approximately eight years later, life experience told me I, in fact, couldn’t pull this off. While a few aspiring writers can do this, I wasn’t one of these people.

As it turns out, family economic conditions often trump idealistic aspirations and, as they say, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do … at least if he doesn’t want the the electricity to get turned off and still wants to buy ramen noodles and chicken nuggets for his children at the grocery store.

Which is not to say I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed my run as a contrarian freelance journalist … nor do I have any regrets about the mental synopses that kept firing and producing story ideas that, like magic, popped into my brain, and then (a little more magic) ended up on the world wide web (where the algorithms fighting “dangerous misinformation” also suddenly appeared.)

In the aggregate, these stories have reached and been read by more than one million total strangers. Taking the road less traveled allowed me, at one time, to cultivate more than 8,000 subscribers (and more than 17,500 “followers”) on Substack.

On the positive side of the ledger, I did pocket some income from my writing, which means a thank you is in order to the founders of this writers’ platform as well as to everyone who’s read any of my articles, including some readers who even paid me money as a humbling gesture of support.

Approximately two years ago, it became impossible to miss that any positive subscription momentum I had achieved in my first years as a Substack author had suddenly ceased and, indeed, reversed. (In my working life, I try to identify significant changes).

For a while now, I’ve taken note of key metric trends and knew I might have to call an audible on my professional career.

A Substack author really needs to have at least 1,000 paid subscribers to make an income comparable to a school teacher. For two or so years, it looked like I could actually reach this milestone, but then something changed … I peaked at 309 paid subscribers and then started losing - not gaining - paid subscribers every week.

Like it often does, destiny - or “reality” - ended up playing a hand.

While the fact I was unable to make a sufficient living as a “Covid contrarian” writer leaves me a tad put out and mildly depressed, I am also extremely grateful, and even pleasantly surprised, I was able to quickly find an organization that would hire me as a school teacher even though I had never taught one class in my life and possess zero formal education credentials.

Regarding this new chapter in my life, it’s significant to my story that our county’s major private school hired me, almost on the spot after, almost on a whim, I called the school’s headmaster, introduced myself and asked this organization’s leader if her school would consider hiring a teacher who had a college degree in political science and had worked most of his life as a journalist.

One of my favorite mottos is “You have ‘no’ in your pocket,” which means go ahead and ask because - who knows? - you might get a “yes.”

Which is the answer I instantly received.

Upon later analysis, I quickly deduced my employment prospects were better than I might have expected because:

• A) The school happened to be looking for a new high school English teacher;

• B) The school’s junior high English teacher, who is very popular and has been a success, is herself a former journalist who had no School of Education credentials and …

• C) I’m, thankfully, fairly well known in our community and probably have the reputation of a competent journalist who knows how to write, which suggests I might be able to teach young students how to do the same thing.

FWIW, I didn’t even bother applying for a teaching position at a public school as I knew only an “independent” school might hire someone with my work background.

I also didn’t bother applying for a position at any corporate news organization as I knew that would be a waste of time given my contrarian journalism credentials.

Truth be told, securing a real job - at least one I thought I would enjoy and might be good at - was a greater challenge than one might expect. At 61, I’m no spring chicken. (Note to students: avoid cliches. Do as Mr. Rice says; not as he does).

I also thought I could maybe get a job in marketing or public relations or maybe sales, which I’ve done in the past, but with rampant inflation, which is not going to suddenly disappear, I really didn’t want to take a job where I had to ask people to spend money when most people are now trying to save money.

However, I’ve always thought I would enjoy teaching English, journalism, history or social studies. I also thought I knew enough to teach these subjects … if someone would just give me the chance.

Long story short, I was hired - in my small hometown (so I don’t have to commute) and my bosses and colleagues are willing to be patient with me as I learn how to construct lesson plans (that fulfill the education standards), fill out attendance and tardy reports and all the other myriad tasks teachers must perform.

While a private school teacher doesn’t make the income of a public school teacher, I can report that even teachers at modest-sized private schools make more money than 99.9 percent of Substack citizen journalists.

I have a secret weapon …

As a 61-year-old rookie teacher, I also have a secret weapon as my wife, Carrie, has spent almost 20 years …. teaching high school English!

So far, Carrie has told me do this, this and this - and don’t do this. She has picked out the first short stories I’ve taught my five classes of sophomore, junior and senior literature students and taught me how to dive deep to identify key themes and the discussion questions that will make students more likely to think critically.

(Displaying a little more confidence, in my job interview, I told my school’s headmaster that I could teach Current Events and Journalism “in my sleep.”)

After 13 days of classroom lessons, I give myself an A for faking it until I make it … and/or for putting a Bill Rice, Jr. spin on established or conventional teaching protocols.

For example, my teaching philosophy relies heavily on the Socratic Method, a concept many of my students were not yet familiar (but are now).

I’ve already used my story to teach students about the key elements of any story …

I’ve also used examples from my own life to illustrate the “elements of compelling stories.”

For example, I’ve told my students every story has a protagonist. From Hamlet to Forrest Gump, every story also includes “rising action” and “conflicts will be introduced,” which means the protagonist will invariably experience significant change(s).

The “What” that changed for me was, at the non-tender age of 61, I went from being a contrarian, crusading citizen journalist to high school teacher - which does qualify as a significant change.

Those interested in my story can be sure a series of conflicts and challenges will arise as our protagonist tries to navigate the unknown, with scores of students, parents, colleagues and administrators being auxiliary characters in this, we hope, inspiring “feel-good drama.”

Just like I’ve tried to teach my Substack readers, I’ve already told my students that the best question is often Why.

Part of my why answer can be derived if one simply follows the money (as in, I needed more of this stuff.) But the other part of the answer, for me at least, is that I wanted to work in a job where I might make a difference and would, also, enjoy my work.

The big change for me - our protagonist - is that I have segued from trying to save the entire world by writing potentially important stories (that are often taboo) to, now, “thinking local” and trying to make a micro difference in at least a small percentage of my students’ lives.

In my four years as a Substack author, I can’t count the number of times astute readers and citizen journalist colleagues have written that people should spend more time trying to change things we might really change … in environments like, say, a classroom home room … not in Washington D.C., Basel or Davos.

Lessons from being a Substack author …

As a Substack journalist, I’ve learned many lessons - some positive, some depressing.

A bah-humbug lesson I’ve now accepted is that nothing will change unless people who matter want these changes to occur.

For example, almost six years after I started writing about the topic, nobody (who matters) is talking about the important take-aways flowing from my Early Spread hypothesis.

Nor is anyone who matters in the medical, scientific, political and journalistic professions talking about the embalmers’ clots.

By simply using the Socratic Method, disciples of Socrates quickly figure out that many topics are taboo and most questions that challenge the authorized narratives will be ignored, censored or dismissed.

I’ve already tried to give my students examples of literary irony and told students irony is simply when the opposite of what you think will happen actually happens.

It is thus ironic that leaders interested in public health or a “search for the truth” are doing all they can to block inquiry into these subjects.

(The other day I asked my students if they knew what happened to Socrates. Out of 80 students, one knew the answer. However, to their credit, all my students quickly picked up on my side teaching lesson and now know why the Powers that Be in ancient Greece sentenced Socrates to death).

I can still crank out stories on weekends, holidays and late at night …

Becoming a full-time high school English teacher doesn’t mean I have given up on my goal of writing what I hope are provocative and important articles and essays.

I’ve devised a new plan and should be able to file at least one or two stories every week (mostly now on the weekend). I don’t know how many people read my “Notes,” but I can pop out seven of these a week and, as long as some Substack authors allow Reader Comments, I’m going to be posting comments - as well as cross-posting and re-stacking stories I think are important.

A perk of being a school teacher is educators receive days off for many holidays, plus Spring, Christmas and Summer Breaks where I can get back to filing five stories a week.

If Big Brother’s legions of admirers hoped to get rid of me permanently, they haven’t succeeded yet.

***

I’m also now acquiring a rapid education on the education system and am once again moving around in the community. I’m no longer self-isolating in front of a computer screen in my study 10 hours a day. I’m now a roving citizen journalist who can still write about Covid topics, but also someone who should have more informed thoughts on 20 other important societal trends and subjects.

I hope to teach my students a few valuable concepts, but I bet they can teach me a few things about our New Normal World as well.

In Conclusion, that’s my Big News. Change played a hand and a new story, with its new adventures, is now weaving through time and space.

(If any of my students happen to read this essay, please note that I answered the all-important “Why” question. As to the denouement of this story, I don’t know what it will be. I guess people are going to have to keep reading to find out.)

Writer gratuities via Ko-Fi.

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Author’s note/prologue:

In almost four years of publishing “Bill Rice, Jr’s Newsletter,” I’ve written more than 500 original articles and cross-posted hundreds of other articles I thought were significant.

It occurs to me this is far too many articles for one person to read even half of this corpus of journalistic work. I also know nobody is promised a tomorrow, which means any new article I post - for hundreds of reasons - could be my last.

If this happens to be my last Substack article, I hope archives of my stories continue to exist somewhere. Today’s dispatch is my effort to summarize two subject areas, themes, theories and conclusions I think should be viewed as significant, but, so far, are not.

In other words, today’s dispatch is my attempt to give readers a few reasons why they might want to read a sample of my archived articles … even if I have departed and gone to the Great Poster Heaven in the Sky.

I’ll start with several general conclusions:

• Conventional wisdom, which one can also call the authorized narrative, is not always wrong, but is wrong (or at least dubious) a stunning percentage of the time.

• Those who control the Narrative usually end up controlling the world. These “leaders” benefit by promulgating false or dubious narratives. (FWIW, I now think most “leaders” are actually “followers.”)

• Expressed differently (and surreally), those who never challenge false narratives will rise to the highest levels of leadership in myriad important organizations and will qualify as the most powerful people in the world.

• Citizens who may be “seeking the truth” should search for and pay much greater attention to the writers and thinkers who are not afraid to challenge false or dubious narratives … writers like myself.

My primary original area of journalistic interest …

It’s very possible no writer in the world has written more about a hypothesis I’ve dubbed “Early Spread” than myself. While this observation might qualify as a point of pride, it’s also a disconcerting conclusion as I think many serious writers, journalists and experts in epidemiology should have also seriously investigated this hypothesis.

Based on my research and original investigative journalism, I’ve concluded the accepted dates of the origination of Covid have been wrong all along. Expressed in a way anyone can understand, the timeline of virus spread has always been wrong. (IMO).

My main conclusion is many millions of citizens in the world had already been infected by a novel virus by the time China reported a new virus to the World Health Organization on December 31, 2019.

While millions of people probably agree with this hypothesis, a surprisingly small number of citizens appreciate the key take-away that flows from this conclusion.

If millions of people had already been infected by an unusually contagious and deadly virus by late December 2019 - and then many more millions by the lockdown dates of mid-March 2020 - very large numbers of people should have already died from this virus by both of these dates.

Of course, this did NOT happen (or nobody who keeps up with the number of all-cause deaths observed a significant spike in all-cause deaths). Basically, something that should have happened … didn’t happen.

The most provocative question I’ve asked still doesn’t have a convincing answer.

Why did a contagious virus that was NOT unusually “deadly” for seven or eight months suddenly become ultra deadly in late March and April 2020?

The only way to discredit this hypothesis would be for the experts to say/prove that early spread did not happen. But if a reader, at random, picks five or six of my 100 Early Spread stories, this reader will see that evidence of early spread is actually voluminous, which means, per my logic, Early Spread did (almost certainly) happen.

If I was asked to identify the most compelling evidence I’ve identified that proves early spread, my answer would have nothing to do with antibody tests or major, pre-Covid flu/ILI outbreaks across the country.

Instead, I would simply highlight that no public health official ever seriously investigated this hypothesis. Or, these officials simply dismissed the evidence of Early Spread I’ve compiled.

My main conclusion is that trusted officials are more interested in concealing or dismissing important evidence than seriously investigating the hypothesis that A) early spread happened and B) the number of infections was not “limited” or rare.

Thus … from the early days of official Covid, I concluded the public should not trust the experts, who were either covering up something important or were too obtuse to pursue a very plausible hypothesis, one supported by volumes of data points.

To cite one example of early spread articles I’ve published that IMO has not received enough attention …

According to two antibody studies of crew members of two air craft carriers (The USS Roosevelt and the French aircraft carrier The Charles DeGaulle) 60 percent of crew members already had antibodies when tested in April and May 2020. To myself, these are incredible, shocking or eye-opening percentages.

A few of my critics have told me I shouldn’t put much stock in antibody tests, which are as dubious as the PCR tests, they claim. While these critics might be right, I still like this question:

Why didn’t the Navy or governments of any nation go ahead and test the crews of every Naval ship for antibodies? Crew members on both ships reportedly experienced “Covid outbreaks” in late March and April (based on PCR tests).

But what if crew members of every ship had been tested in April or May 2020 and had similar percentages of positives? How would these positives be explained?

Six years of Covid research has pounded home the point that critical-thinkers should look at common-sense investigations that easily could (and should) have happened …but didn’t happen.

Anecdotes such as this prompted me to coin one of approximately 12 Maxims I’ve repeatedly highlighted: Officials will never investigate that which they don’t want to confirm.

The answer to the question “Why won’t officials do A, B, C or D?” seems obvious to myself. That answer is: They know the likely answer or result, but don’t want the public to know.

Also, it’s amazing to me that, apparently, nobody in the public health establishment ever seriously considered the possibility Early Spread happened. That is, when I point out that almost 3,000 U.S. schools closed “due to illness” in the months before official Covid, the apparent rejoinder is “So what?” Or: “This was just a coincidence.”

What happened is that experts created an Origins Narrative which can be summarized as follows:

An ultra contagious and ultra-deadly virus originated in Chinese bats. This virus somehow jumped species and began to infect people in just one Chinese city (Wuhan) who had visited a wet market in mid December 2019. (Apparently nobody got infected in Beijing).

By approximately mid-February 2020, this contagious virus had reached America (and other countries) and “community spread” commenced. By latter March 2020, tens of thousands of deaths began to be attributed to this new virus and disease.

Very few people in China, the (alleged) country of origin, had died by late January 2020, but tens of thousands of people in New York City had perished from this virus by late April/Early May. While this anecdote strikes me as curious, it never struck the experts as curious or odd.

Of course, the rejoinder to all my contrarian questions is: “You’re not an expert.” (When I’m hired to teach high school English, one of my first student assignments is going to be: “Write a term paper citing 10 examples where the experts turned out to be wrong.”)

Draconian lockdowns were ordered to prevent spread (and thus future deaths), but, somehow, virus spread and huge numbers of deaths still occurred.

To me, the authorized scenario has always been farfetched, implausible and non-sensical, but, still, this became the Official Narrative. Indeed, if someone questioned this “settled science” this person would be cancelled, vilified and/or censored, meaning banned from expressing contrarian “free speech.”

***

I’ve also asked why didn’t any corporate journalists pursue evidence of early spread. It seems to me that, if proven, this would be a blockbuster story.

If government agencies were covering up the real origins of Covid - and if one simply pondered all the implications that would flow from this finding - this would certainly qualify as a far more explosive scandal than, say, Watergate.

Early on, I concluded that everyone who mattered must be a participant in a conspiracy to cover-up a very important truth.

Clearly, in all of America and all of the world, no real “watchdog” journalists exist.

Somehow, everyone who mattered was operating from the same script or got the same memo - This topic is off-limits to investigation.

At least to myself, this take-away is far more sinister than a virus that, in reality, posed a zero percent mortality risk to 99 percent of the world population.

As I quickly came to view things, the probability a random adult under the age of 80 would die from a case of Covid might be 1-in-1,000 (0.01 percent), which is the same mortality risk as the common flu.

Conversely, the probability that, say, 40,000 corporate professional journalists would ignore or refuse to investigate important Covid facts was 100 percent.

I quickly concluded if these journalists and “news” organizations won’t pursue important Covid stories that don’t jibe with the official narrative, they probably won’t pursue or expose other important scandals as well. (Expert liars rarely lie just once).

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All events led to a “vaccine”

After spending a year or so documenting spiked evidence of early spread, the same experts I was determined to debunk rolled out several experimental “vaccines,” which the public was told would end all Covid cases and deaths.

As it turns out - not a surprise to myself at all - this was another brazen lie.

People who got the shots were actually more likely to get Covid. Also, the year after the shots were introduced even more people (allegedly) died from this new disease than had died in the first 12 months this new virus was spreading (or, as I believe, the first 18 months it was actually spreading).

Cases of cancers, heart attacks, strokes - more than 100 "life-altering” adverse events - suddenly exploded.

Obituaries where the words “died suddenly” were mentioned became omnipresent. Nobody had ever heard of “turbo” cancers, but we all have now … or at least those of us who flocked to a truth-seeker work-around, the alternative media.

The Pandemic Planners didn’t count on the embalmers speaking up ….

By mid-2021, embalmers (most prominently my Alabama friend Richard Hirschman) started finding strange, white, fibrous “calamari” like “clots” in large percentages of the bodies they were embalming. Later, brave whistleblowers like Richard started telling anyone who would listen what they were finding

Based on extrapolations flowing from four embalmer surveys commissioned by Tom Haviland and Laura Kasner, tens of millions of world citizens either had or have these hideous never-before-seen substances in their veins and arteries.

The key finding from these surveys is, yes, these things must be real (too many embalmers are finding them for all of them to be con artists or liars) … but more alarming is the fact that hundreds of thousands of corporate journalists, public health officials and “scientists” refuse to investigate this new phenomena.

As another aside, my friend Richard Hirschman had the best rejoinder to the legions of vaccine narrative-protectors. I once interviewed Richard and he told me at least one fact-checker challenged the veracity of his claims by telling him, “But you’re not a doctor or a scientist” (thus, you are not an expert).

Richard’s reply: “But you’re not an embalmer.”

For the record and to illustrate a point, I must have written 25 stories on the embalmers’ clots. In contrast, in four-plus years, every other corporate journalist in the world has written zero stories about this new phenomena.

If this is the last story I ever publish, I would point out to future readers who may discover this Substack that I did not ignore this story.

Lastly, I tried to popularize the term “thermo-nuclear truth bomb” (TNTB)

Per my definition, a TNTB is a story that goes viral and, once confirmed and the majority of the world population comes to believe X is true, the way the population views the world’s trusted experts instantly changes.

Before a TNTB detonates, most people trust and believe the experts. After such an event happens, nobody does.

Circling back to where I started, IMO almost all important narratives are false or dubious, a state of affairs that probably, in different ways, harms billions of people … with much of this harm, death and misery being completely unnecessary.

As to the existential question of why so many citizens tolerate this depressing state of affairs, the best answer I’ve come up with is that no historically-significant journalist has ever written any stories that would qualify as a thermo-nuclear truth bomb. (Thus, the public doesn’t know they’ve been a victim of a diabolical crime or scam).

Or citizen journalists have produced many such stories, but these pieces simply don’t matter because they weren’t published by The New York Times, followed-up by a major expose’ on “Sixty Minutes” … followed-up by a real truth-seeking tribunal commissioned by, say, the people’s elected representatives.

In Conclusion ….

As a Substack citizen journalist, I’ve tried to prove the existence of Early Spread and the Embalmers’ Clots. However, what I’m really trying to do is prove that all important truth-seeking organizations are completely captured.

Once upon a time, Donald Trump got elected president by promising to drain the swamp. However, one difference between President Trump and myself is that I’ve highlighted a couple of areas that might make this altruistic and world-changing event actually happen.

Still, I acknowledge it’s very possible a thermo-nuclear truth bomb that causes a Great Purge will never detonate. In which case I’ll be one of thousands of citizen journalists whose work was easily ignored or dismissed, and my epithet will read, “Well, at least he tried” … which I like better than “He never tried.”

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One way I try to gauge the number of real human being readers my newsletter has is by analyzing certain “reader engagement metrics” Substack provides.

(I also continue to think Substack matters - or could matter - because I view the world as a battlefield of competing narratives and Substack, not manipulated, has the potential to slay/debunk false and toxic narratives.)

Specifically, I’m curious to see if my metrics are “in the same ballpark” as my “Covid Contrarian” colleagues. If they are not, I can’t help but ask myself why are my numbers so different (read: much worse) than my peers?

Three newsletters I’ve analyzed closely are the metric numbers produced by my Substack buddies Mark O’Shinskie, Simulation Commander and Jenna McCarthy.

All three of us started our newsletters at approximately the same time and all three of us would probably qualify as “Covid Contrarians” (a term, FWIW, I might have coined.)

When it comes to the metrics of story “likes” and “Reader Comments” all three of my friends blow away my numbers. This despite the fact that, according to Substack-published subscription numbers, I actually have 2,100 more subscribers than Mark and 1,200 more than Simulation Commander.

Jenna, on the other hand, has approximately 2,600 more (published) subscribers than I do (10K to 7. 62K).

***

For today’s analysis, I’m focussing on metrics from Jenna’s newsletter for the simple reason Jenna and I both happened to post stories on the same subjects within 16 hours of one another.

The two subjects I’ve analyzed below were “Stephen A Smith apologizes” and “Fauci pleads the Fifth.”

As this analysis seems to confirm, far more real live human being readers seem to be reading Jenna’s articles compared to my articles.

In fact, I wouldn’t waste a dispatch on this topic except for the fact that these numeric disparities strike me as “statistically significant.”

As all my readers should know by now, when I identify disparities that strike me as “odd” (or are not what I would expect to observe) I often flag or highlight these differences.

The conclusion I’ve reached with numerous “Substack metric” stories is that someone, somehow, is screwing with the reach of my Substack newsletter.

If this is true, this would mean that “someone” is sabotaging my ability to generate revenue from what is, for now, my full-time business.

The reason such a conclusion might be of interest to people besides myself is my conclusion that “if this is happening to me, I’m probably not the only person this is happening to.”

The allegation - which, to be clear, I haven’t proven - would be that some form of sophisticated censorship or shadow-censorship is very possibly occurring at least at some Substack newsletters.

This would be particularly disturbing as, for years, Substack was considered the media oasis that had fought and eschewed Orwellian censorship programs which, as Covid proved, definitely occurred at many other media and social media platforms.

My (disconcerting) conclusion would, thus, have two parts: These reach-suppression operations are now occurring even at Substack.

… And, since I believe these are sophisticated operations, someone highly intelligent and devious must be coordinating these “attacks” (with the likely motive being an effort to suppress or neutralize “threats” to the Powers that Be.)

I should note that several of my readers have opined in my Reader Comments that it wouldn’t necessarily be the founders and employees of Substack who might be engaged in any “reach suppression operations.”

That is, it could be people with access to Internet servers, email programs or any number of tech wizards who might know how to throttle the reach of “threats” with nobody able to conclusively figure out how this goal is being accomplished.

If this is true, I would still think Substack’s tech masters must know this is happening … and haven’t done anything to stop it.

(As to the question of why my newsletter might have been targeted, see this recent article.)

I have also come to believe that any tech or narrative- manipulation savants would easily be able to perform psychological profiles - or “risk assessments” - and identify the people perceived as most likely be able to thwart their planned future agendas or expose their past crimes.

I’m not sure of course, but perhaps with the assistance of AI, key generals within the Censorship Industrial Complex might have also concluded that my personality profile checks many of the boxes of a “significant threat?”

(Number of shares - cross-posts and re-stacks - are another important metric Substack content creators can track.)

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With this wild and crazy prologue out of the way, let me now compare my metrics to those of Jenna McCarthy. I leave it up to my readers to see if you might also reach the same conclusions I’ve reached …

As noted, Jenna’s newsletter has approximately 10,000 subscribers and I have 7,627. This means Jenna’s newsletter has 1.38x more subscribers than my newsletter, a ratio readers might keep in mind as you consider the metrics listed below.

“Stephen A. Smith Apologizes” Metric Analysis …

Jenna McCarthy’s story:

• Likes: 424

• Reader Comments: 272

• Cross-posts/re-stacks: 45

***

Bill Rice, Jr.’s story on Stephen A …

• Likes: 62

• Reader Comments: 52 (14 by me)

• Cross-posts/re-stacks: 4

Discussion/comparison:

• Jenna’s story produced 6.8x as many likes as my story.

• Jenna’s story produced 5.2X as many Reader Comments as my story

• Jenna’s story was shared 11.25x more than my article.

• The most popular comment at my site generated 22 “likes” (far more than normal for my Reader Comments section).

• The most popular comment after Jenna’s article on the same subject (made by our mutual friend, Laura Kasner) generated 113 “likes” - 5.14x more than my most popular comment.

“Fauci pleads the fifth” comparison/analysis …

Jenna McCarthy’s story:

• Likes: 289

• Reader Comments: 243

• Cross-posts/re-stacks: 33

Bill Rice, Jr.’s story:

• Likes: 64

• Reader Comments: 63 (15 by me)

• Cross-posts/re-stacks: 8

- Jenna’s story produced 4.51x as many likes as my story on the same subject.

- Jenna’s story produced 3.86x as many Reader Comments as my story.

- Jenna’s story was shared 4.13x more than my article.

- The most popular comment at Jenna’s site got 73 “likes.” The most popular comment at my newsletter got 9 “likes.” Jenna’s “most popular” Reader Comment produced 8X more likes than the most popular comment at my newsletter.

***

While I acknowledge that Jenna might be a better and more entertaining writer than myself and probably does have a more loyal subscriber base than I do, I don’t think the disparity in these particular metrics should be this dramatic.

(For an even more-stunning disparity, look at my metrics compared to all the liberal or Status-Quo-defending authors who are setting readership records on Substack these days).

As I’ve written tongue in cheek, I have asked myself if it’s possible I’ve simply lost my Mojo as a Substack author. Perhaps my act, content, writing style, whatever, has grown stale or, like Fonzi and “Happy Days” once did, I’ve jumped the shark.

However, I don’t think this is the case as I recently published a story that produced the same impressive metrics my articles used to routinely produce.

As noted in this story, when Meryl Nass cross-posted one of my stories - and my newsletter tapped into Dr. Nass’s subscriber base - in a couple of days, all my key metrics exploded into the stratosphere.

This morning I did one of my patented metric analysis and can report these eye-opening changes in my metrics, which should illustrate my point.

Metric Analysis - “What I think really happened with Covid”

Increases generated by this one story …

• Page views: This key metric more than doubled (from an average of approximately 3,500 to 7,555).

• New Subscribers: Increase of more than 100-fold (from average of losing three to five subscribers with every new story to netting 116 new subscribers (Note: in a period of one week).

• “Likes:” Increase of approximately 4.5-fold - from a recent average of approximately 55 “likes” to 261 “likes.”

• Reader Comments: Increase of at approximately 4-fold - from an average of approximately 15 unique posters (per story) to 62 “unique” readers who made a post in my Reader Comments after reading this story. (Total reader comments were 149).

• Most popular reader comment: My first comment was the “most popular,” generating 39 “likes,” which is at least five times more than the most popular comment at most of my stories in the past six months.

Significantly, almost all of this impressive growth happened after Dr. Nass cross-posted my article.

For example, only eight people (not counting myself) had made a reader comment in the first 24 hours after I posted this story. (Dr. Nass cross-posted my story about 28 hours after I had hit the send button. For some curious reason, she said she had a hard time figuring out how to find and then cross-post my article.)

In the three days after she cross-posted my article, 44 more people made comments and the number of my “likes” went from 62 to 261 (+ 199).

So what’s my main take-away?

When people who are not currently subscribers do get my articles, they still like my stuff (literally). Apparently, I haven’t lost my Mojo.

But, just as I suspected would be the case, my spike in good fortune was short lived. When Dr. Nass doesn’t cross-post my article, my numbers revert right back to a non-impressive and depressing norm.

In the last two weeks, my new stories net me from zero to 2 new subscribers and every story produces a new Substack phenomena (at least for myself) - the instantly “disabled email” (a figure that ranges from five to 19 per new article).

Also, my all-important “Page View” metric is dipping even below 3,500 (when six months ago, I averaged at least 4,500 Page Views per article).

For example, in the last 27 hours since I published my “Conclusions” article, I’ve generated only 3,031 Page Views (and 31 of those page views were me “checking my metrics.”)

Above, readers witnessed me dance a little two step, celebrating the 149 Reader Comments my “What I think really happened in Covid” story generated.

Well, yesterday’s story (so far) has generated a grand total of 29 Reader Comments (six by me), which were made by just 18 of my 7,627 “subscribers.” (My follow-up story to “What I really think about Covid” produced 28 Reader Comments, 15 of these by me and my sweet wife.)

About those Page View Numbers we authors get …

As a final point, I want to alert my Substack colleagues that the Page View numbers we all receive should be viewed as highly-dubious (IMO).

For example, according to Substack metrics, the story that Dr. Nass cross-posted supposedly produced “7,555 Page Views.”

However, this can’t be right as Dr. Nass told me in an email that, according to her metrics, 19,000 of her readers opened my article after she cross-posted it. If 19,000 of her readers opened it and 2,200 of my subscribers opened this article, that’s at least 21,200 total readers.

Substack’s dashboard also features a box that tells content providers where their “traffic” for a given article came from.

With this article, Substack tells me that 1 percent of readers of my “What I think really happened in Covid” article came from Dr. Nass’s Substack. Well, one percent of 7,555 total readers would be just 76 “bonus” or extra readers (not 19,000).

Substack also tells writers how many new subscribers each article produced. With this article - thanks to the Dr. Nass boost - I produced 45 total new subscribers (including three “paid”), per this data field.

However, per the above-shown metric graph, I added 116 new subscribers in the seven days after Dr. Nass cross-posted my article.

Before I published this article, I had 7,509 subscribers. Seven days later I had 7,625 (a difference of 116 net subscribers).

Since no other story produced more than one new subscriber, my conclusion is that all, or almost all, of this huge spike of new subscribers came courtesy of this Good Doctor’s subscribers.

Other anecdotes that make me think I haven’t lost my Mojo …

While my latest article produced only 3,000 readers and only 18 of my 7,627 subscribers (0.23 percent) made a comment, the comments I did receive were flattering enough to turn my face crimson.

For my file “Maybe I haven’t lost my Mojo after all,” I copied and pasted these seven comments:

“Double thumbs up to this one.”

“Great statements and conclusions.”

“Great! Bill, will save this for posterity.”

“This is thoroughly excellent, Bill.” (Thank you, Mark O’Shinskie!)

“Incredible post, Bill, asking all the right questions …”

“Great post! …”

“God bless you, good Sir. Wishing you continued success in your good endeavors here.”

I will say I have very smart readers, readers who also read many other Substack newsletters and are probably typical for any Covid Contrarian author.

Based on very kind “reviews” like these, I can’t help but conclude that if more readers on Substack saw my last article, this article would have produced far more than 3,000 readers (which might be the lowest figure I’ve generated in three years) and far more than only 18 readers would have made a Reader Comment. (This story did generate an atypical 74 “likes,” which is curious given the Page View numbers were among the lowest I’ve recorded in years.)

Again, I can’t help but conclude that someone, somehow, is suppressing the reach of my Substack newsletter.

Which I can only conclude must mean I’m firing Hellfire posts at targets that must rate high on the PTB’s Vulnerability Scale - which is the one take-away that makes me feel good about the work I am doing on Substack.

***

(Yesterday’s article - which produced one of my lowest Page View metrics in years - did generate two new monthly paid subscribers, which are greatly appreciated. I also appreciate the reader gratuities I regularly receive from a handful of incredibly generous readers).

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IMO, the conclusion(s) that flow logically from these statements are all the same. My conclusions that flow from these conclusions are listed at the end of this essay.

***

If tens of millions of people had Covid between September 2019 and the end of February 2020 and nobody died from this disease, what conclusion would you make about the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of this new disease?

If, “officially,” more than one million Americans and 15 million people world-wide“died from Covid” - and almost all of them died after the lockdowns of mid-March 2020, the conclusion might be (must be) that this novel virus suddenly (and somehow) became ultra-contagious and extremely “deadly” after this date.

If a virus suddenly changed and became far more contagious and lethal than it had been in the first seven months this novel virus was circulating, what would you conclude?

If millions of Covid deaths began to be recorded after the lockdown were implemented and after new hospital and nursing home protocols were implemented, what would you conclude?

If a new diagnostic test, the PCR test, was used to proclaim the vast majority of people who tested positive with this test should be labeled a medical case, but most of these people had no medical symptoms, what would you conclude?

If you learned no employee at the 12,000-employee CDC had ever died from Covid, what would you conclude about the mortality risk this virus posed to this sample of random adult employees?

If you learned that no college or professional athlete has ever died from Covid, what would you conclude about the mortality risk this virus posed to these tens of thousands of athletes?

If public health experts said that 1-in-30 people (a 3.4 percent IFR) who are infected by a novel virus would die from this disease, what would you conclude about the number of CDC employees or athletes who didn’t die from this new deadly disease in the years 2020-2026?

If you knew Anthony Fauci told the public the Covid IFR was 1 percent, but in his diary said it was between 0.2 and 0.3 percent, what would you conclude about the credibility of Anthony Fauci?

The Mother of All Taboo Conclusions …

If, beginning a few months after the roll-out of the Covid “vaccines,” more than 800 surveyed embalmers reported they were now routinely finding strange new white fibrous clots in the veins and arteries of the deceased, what would you conclude about a possible cause-and-effect correlation between the shots and the clots?

If you knew - in more than five years - no government-employed or funded scientists or physicians had investigated this never-before-seen phenomena, what would you conclude about these “scientists?” (See: “They KNOW.”)

If you were told “Case Zero” of Covid occurred in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, but you knew (from reading this newsletter) that hundreds of antibody-positive cases in multiple countries and more than 20 U.S. states had already been “confirmed” by this date, what would you conclude about the origins and real birth date of this virus?

If you were told or learned that the first “confirmed” Covid patient in America was treated at a hospital in Everett Washington in mid-January 2020, but an emergency room doctor at this hospital said he’s aware of no staffer who treated this patient, what might you conclude?

If you were shown a picture of a Wuhan man who collapsed on a sidewalk and (allegedly) died suddenly from Covid in late January 2020, but nobody knows anything about this man, what would you conclude?

If - by presumably February or March 2020 - CDC officials tested two tranches of archived Red Cross blood for antibodies, but didn’t report the results of this study to the public until November 30, 2020, what would you conclude?

Re: Watchdog journalists …

If no corporate news organization in America reported any of the Covid facts I and thousands of other independent citizen journalists have reported, what would you conclude about these journalists and “news” organizations?

If “watchdog” “journalists” are supposedly the most cynical and skeptical people employed in any profession, and are especially skeptical of people who possess great power, would you conclude this description is complete bunk?

If you knew that millions of vaccinated citizens got Covid and then Rebound Covid after being fully vaccinated, would you conclude these shots were “effective” at preventing Covid cases?

If you know the above anecdote is true, would you conclude that the spike in Covid cases in the second year of official Covid proved this was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated?”

If millions of people think they had early Covid (extrapolated from Reader Comments), would you conclude every one of these people was wrong?

If millions of people believe they suffered a vaccine injury or believe loved ones died from their shots, would you conclude that every one of these people is lying or is wrong?

If almost 3,000 schools in the U.S. closed “due to illness” in the weeks and months before Covid was supposed to be spreading in America, would you conclude that any of these sick students and teachers might have had early Covid?

If, in the weeks and months before official Covid, doctors ordered many more flu tests than they had in previous flu seasons, would you conclude that there might be a reason for this change and that this reason might be “early Covid?”

If, except for Sweden and several impoverished Third-World nations, every government on the planet imposed the same lockdowns and NPIs - and all experts said the exact same things as all the other experts - would you conclude the Covid response might have been coordinated?

If no Swedish school children (or teachers) died after continuing to go to school in the early months of official Covid and most weren’t wearing masks or social distancing, would you conclude the NPIs and lockdowns weren’t needed at all?

(I’ve recently concluded my articles reach about 25 percent fewer readers than they did six months ago. I assume this metric would be even more deflating if I didn’t include the Share button with every article).

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If America has approximately 4 percent of the world’s population but had approximately 15 percent of the world’s “Covid deaths” and “cases,” would you conclude the public health response in America was a preposterous folly?

If Anthony Fauci, the most prominent and revered scientist/public health official in the world, “took the Fifth” 111 times in a Senate Hearing and received a full pardon for any crimes he committed as NIAID director, would you conclude this man is afraid of being exposed as a fraud and of being subjected to criminal prosecution? (Would you conclude this is the Science you should trust?)

In the past six years, if only one prominent “talking head” (Stephen A. Smith) has apologized for vilifying Covid or shot skeptics, would you conclude that the thousands of other prominent pundits who have not apologized are too petty, hypocritical, duplicitous and cowardly to do the same thing?

If the Covid shots don’t work and aren’t safe for everyone, would you conclude other vaccines (like the flu shot) might also be equally ineffective?

If you knew the unvaccinated Amish are much healthier than the average American citizen (and didn’t suffer any Covid deaths), would you conclude the Amish might be smarter than the public health experts?

(I could go on and on, but since I worry that some of my articles are too long, I’ll stop here.)

A few conclusions that flow from the above …

• Citizens with critical-thinking abilities should never trust the “experts” and public officials, who are proven liars and are extremely dangerous.

• All important truth-seeking organizations are completely captured.

• Officials will never investigate that which they do not want to “confirm.”

• The world is being led by the obtuse.

• The world is being led by pathological, serial liars.

• The world is being led and manipulated by sinister people, forces and organizations.

• The world’s real leaders or real rulers know they can easily con most of the people.

• The world’s real rulers have no serious worries about being exposed because they know anyone who could expose their lies does not reach enough people and/or can be dismissed as another science-denying conspiracy kook.

• The world’s real rulers know most members of a potential resistance force have been effectively corralled into media platforms like this one, which means critics are simply venting to ourselves.

• As long as potential “threats” exist (people who could expose crimes against humanity), censorship and reach-suppression operations are not going to stop.

***

Author’s note: For space reasons, I restricted this partial list of “conclusions” to Covid topics.

That is, I didn’t itemize conclusions critical thinkers might have formed about authorized narratives involving, say, the war in Persia (or any “necessary” war), conclusions flowing from the Epstein saga, dubious or laughable economic statistics, other dubious health conclusions from the health field or the curious changes in Substack metrics I have previously quantified.

However, in conclusion, I would also conclude …

If trusted leaders lie about one significant subject - because they know they can - one can reasonably conclude they will also lie about other important subjects.

For example, If a freelance journalist like myself can easily identify at least 70 provenly-false or dubious statements promulgated by Covid experts, any honest critical thinker should conclude that nobody should believe any claim or statistic issued by these people.

I have also concluded that corporate journalists will continue to work in pack solidarity and citizens in all important organizations will continue to value and seek the “safety of the herd.”

Until, somehow, common sense becomes far more common or until one brave leader with exceptional persuasive abilities emerges, my conclusion is that the Captured Status Quo will not change.

On a more optimistic note, I would add that the detonation of one thermo-nuclear truth bomb might change this toxic Status Quo … However, I admit I’m not certain this result would happen, because we don’t have a case study where this has happened.

My main conclusion is that the world’s real rulers (the Deep State or Epstein Class), are committed to doing everything in their formidable power to ensure such a world-changing event never happens.

What we are living through here might be best described as a David vs. Goliath battle and, at least according to that tale, David did slay the giant.

I don’t know if that story actually happened, but if, once upon a time, some courageous person with True Grit did confront (and then defeat) a supposedly invincible adversary, I love the moral of that story.

***

(I’ve also concluded that for some reason my Substack ship is sinking, but until the stern dips under the water I’m going to keep posting while I still can. That is, I’ve resolved to go down posting.)

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Of all the thousands of “hot takes” Stephen A. Smith has given on ESPN and his Sirius Radio talk show, none was hotter and more significant than the one he delivered last week when he publicly (and sincerely IMO) apologized to NBA star Kryrie Irving for calling him “selfish” for not getting a Covid “vaccine.”

Smith also apologized to approximately a dozen other professional athletes who refused to get the Covid shots and, as I learned in watching his full 19:42 apology, included athletes (and citizens) who questioned other parts of the Covid response like mask and distancing requirements.

Smith said his apology was prompted by watching Anthony Fauci refusing to testify in front of a Senate Committee where Fauci “took the Fifth” 111 times.

For more than six years, millions of global citizens have waited in vain for one public figure with the stature of Smith to issue such an apology, an apology where Smith stated Irving (and other “vilified” athletes) were right and he and all other talking heads who attacked these athletes were “wrong.”

According to Smith, Irving was not “stubborn or selfish. He was brave” and was simply expressing his first amendment rights and his human rights to do what he thinks is best for his own health and body.

The fact this public apology - from one of the most influential “influencers” in the media world - came after the Fauci “hearing” provides another reason to thank Sen. Rand Paul for holding a hearing most of his Democratic colleagues stated should not even be held.

The combination of the Hearing (where several Republicans teed off on the once “untouchable” Fauci) and Smith’s mea culpa seems to suggest a Great Reassessment on the response to Covid might, belatedly, be occurring.

Late or not, Smith deserves tremendous credit for admitting he was wrong. IMO, it will now be interesting to note whether more public figures make similar apologies.

(I did note that Smith made his apology on his Sirius radio talk show and NOT on the network of his primary and much-higher profile employer, ESPN, which is owned by the Disney Corporation).

Smith pointed out that in refusing to get his Covid shot, Irving expressed solidarity with all the people who lost their jobs because they also wouldn’t get the shot or got the shots only because they would lose their jobs if they didn’t.

According to The Vigilant Fox, Irving forfeited $11 million in salary in the 2021-2022 season and might have lost $100 million from not getting a contract extension, which would be the greatest financial sacrifice ever made by a professional athlete based on a decision of principle. (Or, maybe not. See today’s Reader Comments).

Smith seemed to admit that his employer, Disney/ESPN, imposed vaccine mandates on its employees. As a “leader” of the ESPN team of employees, Smith said he felt it was his obligation to get a shot - to, in essence, lead by example.

Smith also disclosed that he actually didn’t want to get the shots, but did this anyway because he thought he should lead by example.

(Per Substack metrics, my “Page Views” have declined by at least 1,000 in recent months, which I assume means I’m doing something right.)

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Shots didn’t prevent Smith’s own severe case of Covid …

In an eye-opening revelation, Smith said he almost died after he tested positive for Covid on Dec. 21, 2021. According to Smith, by New Year’s Eve of that year, his symptoms were very severe and he was hospitalized in ICU.

The eye-opening revelation is that Smith had already received two doses of Pfizer “vaccine” several months before he became very ill.

That is, the “vaccine” - that all citizens were originally told would prevent infections - clearly didn’t do this. (Later, of course, the vaccinated were told the shots were only designed to prevent “severe cases” or death.)

Weeks after his case, Smith revealed that doctors told him he would have died absent his Covid shots. However, the shots certainly didn’t prevent his severe case. (One gets the feeling Smith now questions his doctors’ assertion that he would have died absent his shots).

People were also told - by experts like Anthony Fauci and Kay Ivey, the governor of my state - that the huge spike of Covid “cases” in the fall and winter of 2021-2022 was occurring only among the “unvaccinated folks” - another brazen Covid and vaccine lie, as Smith, today, could/would no doubt attest.

In his comments, Smith noted that only four NHL athletes were unvaccinated. Also, almost every athlete in the NFL and NBA was fully vaccinated.

In researching Stephen A’s severe case, I found a story from Sports Illustrated that stated:

“Smith’s positive test comes amid a surge in cases in the United States. As of Tuesday morning, according to The New York Times, there are more than 140,000 daily cases of COVID-19 on average, up 20% in the 14-day change.

“Among other industries, the sports world has been severely impacted by the surge with multiple NBA games getting postponed and NFL games being delayed due to positive tests. The NHL will reportedly pause its season beginning Wednesday amid a surge in positive COVID-19 cases before returning to play next week.“

In other words, a surge in positive cases happened in the NHL (and all sports leagues) even though 99 percent of athletes were vaccinated. (Personally, I would also be very interested in learning how many athletes and citizens who became sick enough to be admitted to a hospital had also received that year’s flu “vaccine.”)

These Covid sports facts remain taboo to mention or criticize …

While Smith suggested viewers shouldn’t fully condemn experts like Anthony Fauci, I have no problem condemning Fauci as well as the “journalists” at news and sports organizations who never questioned any of the lockdown policies, rampant testing, mandatory masking and shots or all the fines that were issued to individuals who did not comply with various NPIs.

For example, every journalist at ESPN (and Disney’s news organization, ABC) should have (and must have) known that not a single professional or college athlete died from Covid between 2020-2026.

This would mean that among tens of thousands of active athletes, the Infection Fatality Rate for athletes aged 18 to 40 was 0.0000 percent.

In the first year of (official) Covid, athletes in Division I sports and professional sports had to submit to uncomfortable PCR swab tests three to four times every week.

The vast majority of these “confirmed” cases were asymptomatic, meaning the positive athlete was experiencing no symptoms. Still, this athlete and anyone this athlete talked to for more than 10 minutes had to quarantine for two weeks and couldn’t play their sport.

Games were played in front of no fans or stadiums that were 85 percent empty.

Athletes didn’t have to wear their masks at practice or a game but were fined five figures for not wearing their masks as they walked to the showers after a practice.

Coaches at outside games were fined similar amounts because they weren’t wearing their mandatory masks correctly.

For years (or even until today), no talking head at ESPN (or any major news organization) ever pointed out, and certainly never criticized, any of these ridiculous and unnecessary “safety measures.”

That is, while Stephen A. Smith did criticize his own actions and words, he’s yet to attack his bosses at Disney or any league commissioner, all of whom, like Anthony Fauci, were either concealing well-known Covid facts or were intoxicated with exerting their own power over others.

Everybody did their own risk-benefit assessment …

Regarding the response to Covid, it’s easy for braver, independent pundits to identify the dynamic that no doubt explains how such madness predominated.

Perceived experts like Anthony Fauci created a terrifying fear narrative, which was reinforced and never challenged by pundits like Stephen A. Smith nor any journalist in any corporate newsroom.

Leaders in every important organization in the world quickly performed their own risk-benefit analysis, concluding that they would not be harmed if they supported the official narrative and would suffer career harm if they publicly challenged the official narrative.

Brave and principled dissidents like Kyrie Irving and Novak Djokovic were punished for not going along with conventional wisdom, and endured public scoldings from influential commentators like Stephen A. Smith for being “selfish.”

To his credit, Smith admitted that he was not willing to risk his own salary (said to be the highest of any news/sports commentator in the world) to publicly criticize the Covid Powers That Be.

Unspoken but no doubt true is that Smith would have been dismissed from his high-paying job if he had done this (as were several female ESPN reporters - citing pregnancy concerns - who were fired or forced to resign after they refused to get the jabs).

One Covid lesson is that dissent from an authorized narrative can, perhaps, matter, but only if it occurs early enough and comes from a highly respected source with tens of millions of viewers (someone exactly like Stephen A. Smith).

With Covid, such a potentially influential critic never materialized … or when a few high-profile athletes dissented, they were attacked by the “pack journalism” mob committed to enforcing the “authorized” narrative.

For many Covid Contrarians, it’s interesting and probably a tell, that it took this many years for one prominent “talking head” to issue an apology as public and heartfelt as Mr. Smith’s.

And, again, it will be interesting to see if other prominent Talking Heads at the “world-wide leader in sports” now feel it’s “safe” to issue their own mea culpas.

In Conclusion …

The Narrative that alleged public servants and alleged experts like Anthony Fauci might not have been infallible after all is certainly starting to change, which is certainly a positive development.

Stephen A. Smith didn’t have to take time off from his vacation to issue this public apology, but he did anyway.

My guess is that Smith will NOT suffer any decrease in popularity for doing what, belatedly or not, he came to believe was the right and decent thing to do.

He admitted that he was wrong - and Kryie Irving (and millions of people just like Irving) were actually right, or if not right, should not have been vilified by the public.

As hot takes go, this public apology was indeed significant.

Given how few public figures have done the same thing and how sincere Mr. Smith seemed to be, speaking for myself, I accept and appreciate his apology.

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(I greatly appreciate any readers who may be able to support this newsletter with a one-time writer gratuity or a monthly or annual paid subscription. )

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Author’s note: It will be interesting to observe how many Reader Comments today’s article on the “importance of Reader Comments” generates.

***

IMO, censorship and “reach-suppression” ops are one of the “keys to the operation” for the world’s real rulers.

Furthermore, I think an important part of this coordinated conspiracy is an effort to thwart the potential influence of citizens who use Reader Comments to present information or express “unauthorized” or “dangerous” opinions.

As I’ve written ad nauseam, all important “truth-seeking” organizations are completely captured. Most important among these alleged truth-seekers would be the corporate press, also referred to as the mainstream media or the Fourth Estate.

The corporate “watchdog” press constructs and manipulates “narratives” via the stories its journalists write, but also, just as significantly, by the subjects their journalists will never investigate nor write about (for example, “evidence of early spread” or the embalmers’ clots).

A “hole in the dyke” of this strategy is the fact many consumers of news spend just as much time reading Reader Comments as the story proper. This means the efforts of “gatekeepers of the news” can be circumnavigated by intelligent and informed readers who either post rebuttals in the Comments or add information that the news organization’s journalists would never include in a story.

While Reader Comments sections are very popular with readers, they are also no doubt viewed by The “Powers that Be” as very dangerous or as a “threat” to any entities that want to control a given narrative.

The “solution” to blocking or reducing this threat has at least six components:

• One, news organizations simply don’t offer Reader Comments.

• Two, if a news organization did once allow Reader Comments, they did away with this option.

• Three, only paid subscribers are allowed to make Reader Comments.

• Four, news organizations employ individuals who “moderate” Reader Comments, meaning these people get to pick what comments are published and, just as importantly, the comments that won’t be published.

• A fifth possibility, which I believe might apply to my Substack, is that algorithms or AI programs are employed to limit the number of comments at some newsletters (and, somehow, decrease the number of “likes” a given post might receive or doesn’t receive.)

• A sixth strategy is to cancel or block posters who make unauthorized posts. (This happened to me when I was a paid subscriber to The Athletic sports website and my posting privileges were cancelled when I kept defending athletes who were anti-vax, like Aaron Rodgers. Dan Rather also cancelled my subscription after I made a few posts at his Substack newsletter he didn’t like).

The case study of al.com …

An excellent example that supports the above bullet points would be the evolution of Reader Comments at the website al.com, which is the largest “news organization” in my state of Alabama. (al.com is the former Birmingham News, Mobile Press-Register and Huntsville Times newspapers. The website is actually part of a very large national news parent company, Advanced Media, which operates many websites, newspapers and magazines around the country).

Once upon a time - about 15 years ago - al.com hosted an extremely popular Reader Comments section. In fact, I would say hundreds of thousands, or maybe more than a million, readers visited the site multiple times a day to, yes, read the stories, but also read the Reader Comments, which would number in the hundreds or thousands for the most popular articles.

Speaking for myself, I would routinely use this Comment Section to call BS on an article I thought was biased or not “fair and balanced.” Numerous other readers did the same thing.

Long story short, al.com - citing several reasons, some perhaps legitimate and some no doubt disingenuous - eliminated this very popular section.

Certainly, by the time Covid arrived in 2020 (actually in 2019 in my opinion), nobody could make Reader Comments that challenged any of the authorized narratives, which were all “settled science” according to the non-skeptical, “pack” journalists employed by this news company.

The same “business decision” applied to just about every prominent news organization in the world, the majority of which used all or several of the above-cited six strategies to block or control unwanted Reader Comments.

Basically, in a nutshell, contrarian or independent thinkers were SOL if they wanted to opine on any of the major and important issues of the day.

(Once upon a time, pre-Internet, these people could also write an old-fashioned Letter to the Editor, but those once-popular sections are also now Gone with the Wind.)

Two examples of the journalism gold one can find in the Readers Comments sections …

As a citizen journalist and researcher, I’ve made it a habit to read as many Reader Comments as I can.

In fact, several of my biggest “scoops” or exclusive stories were discovered by me reading Reader Comments sections.

For example, I think I found the first likely case of Covid in the UK - in November 2019 - by reading 500 comments from The Daily Mail’s website, which still allowed comments. (See story here.)

Also, back when I had disposable income, I was once a paid subscriber to The New York Times and, because of this, found a fellow subscriber who said he had Covid in the “fall of 2019.” Significantly, the man said he got two different positive antibody results from two different testing labs, which he named.

(At least four times, I sent the text of this man’s comments to the newspaper’s “news tip” email address, thinking America’s paper of record might want to follow-up on this eye-opening claim, but nobody followed up on the possible first Covid case in the world. For more on “Shane from Marin County’s” story, see “Case 3” in this Early Spread article.)

***

I doubt many readers remember this, but I once wrote a 7,000-word story where I ran excepts of hundreds of Reader Comments I had saved from people who think they had “Early Covid.”

IMO, such “anecdotes” - especially if there are huge numbers of them - should carry some weight when assessing the validity or plausibility of a given hypothesis.

The same reasoning that applies to “Early Spread anecdotes” would also apply to anecdotes from people who say they were injured by Covid “vaccines” or who say a loved one or friend died after getting these shots.

A question I’ve asked: “Are every one of these people wrong?” (Of course, the answer provided by experts would be: “Yes.”)

(Per Risk Experts at the U.N., sharing articles like I publish every week is very dangerous so, for your own safety, please don’t share this article.)

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Something is going on at Zero Hedge and Citizen Free Press

Recently, two significant changes have occurred at two popular Internet sites I peruse several times each day.

One site is Citizen Free Press, which aggregates news headlines and became one of the most visited websites in the world after The Drudge Report, for some mysterious reason, did an ideological 180. (Also, founder Matt Drudge seems to have fallen off the face of the earth).

For years, “Citizen Kane,” the proprietor of this site, allowed Reader Comments, but about a year ago, he did away with this popular section.

In fact, this decision dramatically curtailed the reach of my Substack newsletter as in the first 18 months of this newsletter, CFP ran dozens of my stories, which increased the “reach” of my articles by 20,000 to 74,000 readers every time I got to access Kane’s readership.

(Envious fellow writers have asked me how I got so many stories posted at CFP and my answer is, “I’m not sure.” All I did was post a brief summary of one of my articles - with a link - in his Reader Comments section. Clearly, Kane read his Reader Comments and must have liked many of my articles.)

Recently, I’ve noticed that Kane no longer posts links to many topics he once did cover, like Early Spread. (Also, raise your hand if you’ve ever seen an embalmers’ clots story at CFP). IMO, Citizen Kane has also gone full MAGA or full neo-con. Anyway, I’m not sure why he did away with his Reader Comments, but my guess is that he is also now blocking his readers from being exposed to certain contrarian or frowned-upon points of view.

I also know my writing, for some unknown reason, has been banned. (“No links for you!”)

Zero Hedge might be the best example of a very popular website that has grown in popularity and influence because the site always allowed uncensored Reader Comments to anyone, no paid subscription necessary.

Like myself, I’m sure millions of readers check out this site several times a day and go straight to the Reader Comments. (I might be one of the site’s more famous or infamous posters, but, at least for now, I’m not going to disclose my posting handle!)

Recently, the posting board at ZH is up-in-arms because the “Tylers” have obviously changed their Reader Comment policies.

More than a year ago, ZH started marketing “premium” subscriptions (which are pricey at $60/month). Since no Fortune 500 oligarch-supporting corporation will buy ads at ZH, one understands this effort to get more revenue from voluntary paid subscribers (the same revenue model as Substack).

What changed is that the people who pay $720/year now dominate the Reader Comments section. That is, the posts of premium subscribers go to the top of the thread, and often, stay there all day. While free subscribers (like myself) can still make posts, these are often quickly sent to where the lost socks go and nobody sees them or they get zero or no “likes.”

Just about everyone at ZH is speculating on what’s really going on here and why. Some people think that the “Zionist” or “Israeli lobby” might be involved somehow.

(While I’m not convinced this is the case, I do believe the conspiracy that supporters of Israel bought Tik-Tok largely to limit the negative content young people were starting to post about the “genocide” in Gaza, etc. FWIW, the “official narrative” was that Americans had to buy Tik Tok because China was somehow using the platform to brainwash the world’s younger generations, which IMO was a bogus cover story.)

***

All (I think) I know about Reader Comments sections is that they are very important to the Powers that Be, who must hate and fear forums that are completely uncensored. IMO, if these sites can be manipulated or shadow censored, they will be.

I am also convinced that “bots” and perhaps AI posters have been employed to skew, manipulate or control narratives in many Reader Comments sections.

IMO, the effectiveness of this “strategy” might have been illustrated when Florida governor Ron DeSantis was running for president.

As most readers will remember, during the first years of Covid, Gov. DeSantis was considered a political hero or “rock star” among the cohort of citizens who think like I do.

Alas, this commonly-held sentiment changed in an incredibly short period of time. Personally, I think an army of bots and sophisticated algorithms were used to take down DeSantis.

I can use posts I made and viewed on Zero Hedge to support this conspiracy theory. For years, everyone on ZH loved Gov. DeSantis. Almost overnight, a flood of posts started being made saying he was a fraud and another Jeb Bush clone.

I tried to defend the governor of the “free state of Florida” with counter posts and all of my posts got dozens of down votes.

“Something is going on here,” I thought to myself.

For whatever reason(s), the “narrative” about Ron DeSantis flipped 180 degrees, leading me to believe this was NOT any “organic” movement - it must have been part of a plan.

One take-away from this theory would be that the Powers that Be can manipulate opinion or narratives by censoring the reach of certain posters, but they can also use these same comments sections to manufacture bogus new narratives with either bogus human beings and/or paid trolls.

In Conclusion …

A pet theory of mine is that as the world moves forward in time, censorship and Narrative Control operations will become more important to the Powers that Be.

As I view things, these people and organizations have no choice. If they don’t continue to do this, they risk being exposed for the villains they are … and one morning may wake up to see 2,000 people with pitch forks massing behind the walls of their gated communities.

Per my theory, the world will always be full of “threats” to the Deep Staters and Epstein Class … and these threats will always have to be neutralized..

As it turns out, the real threats aren’t “Iran” or “Russia” or a “deadly” contagious virus - they are you and me, people with firm opinions who aren’t afraid to share them.

Unlike myself, most people don’t publish their own Substack newsletter or if they do, most authors have fewer than 100 subscribers.

This leaves … the Reader Comments Sections as the place any resistance movement could, theoretically, reach large numbers of fellow citizens and maybe plot to “take our country back.”

However, per my theory, the Bad Guys figured this out and this threat has been neutralized and will continue to be neutralized.

As things turned out, a key battlefield in the war for hearts and minds was the Reader Comments Sections.

Anyway, as I’ve been writing for at least two years, post while you still can. Also, if you are being censored, this means you are doing something good and right.

Writer gratuities via Ko-Fi.

“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.” - Answer Anthony Fauci gave to 111 questions this morning.

***

As it turns out, Dr. Anthony Fauci did NOT testify this morning in front of a Senate Committee investigating the origins of Covid.

Instead - 111 times - Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment Right against self-incrimination and refused to answer any questions.

Still, the show must go on and Committee Republicans availed themselves of the opportunity to tell Fauci what they really think of him in a hearing that is being described as “explosive.”

For this story, viewer discretion is advised as a few participants couldn’t refrain from using profanities. (I will refrain from publishing President Trump’s latest Truth Social Post, which is also rated R.)

Fauci did get to make an opening statement where he accused chairman Rand Paul of having an “unhinged obsession” with him.

Even before the “questioning” commenced, Sen. Paul ordered Fauci’s lead lawyer (later labeled “the biggest dirt bag lawyer” in town) to be removed from the Hearing Room. Paul noted “for the record” that Fauci had “six other lawyers” who could advise him from chairs just behind Fauci.

***

As a service to my readers, I watched most of the Committee Hearing, scribbled notes and will now present excerpts that should give readers a flavor for the hearing. I’ve paraphrased many of the senators’ comments and while quotes might not be word-for-word transcripts, I believe they’re all close to accurate.

Sen. Rick Scott, Republican Florida

Sen. Scott provided his opinion that Fauci has thrown his long-time aide and friend David Morens under the bus. (Morens is facing criminal charges for, among other charges, destroying and falsifying evidence.)

Fauci had previously testified that he did not have an “advisory relationship” with Morens and that his former aide had never advised Fauci on any “substantive issues,” including bragging about how he knew how to get around FOIA requests.

According to Sen. Scott, both men “destroyed records” and discussed substantive issues all the time.

Switching topics, Sen. Scott said the professional guidance shared by Fauci was “appalling” (especially for pregnant women and mothers with small children) and said guidance was constantly changing.

Sen. Scott said it “was disgusting” that people had to watch beloved family members “die on the phone.”

According to Sen. Scott, Fauci “destroyed trust” in government and “lied to millions.”

Everything you did was to “fuel your ego” and make sure you continued to be “the center of attention,” said Sen. Scott.

“Your legacy will be that you destroyed public trust in exchange for five minutes of fame.”

Sen. Andy Kim, Democrat NJ

Sen. Kim profusely thanked Fauci for his 50 years of public service.

According to Sen. Kim, public servants are increasingly “being attacked.” He said important government grants are being “cut” and citizens are being “denied medical cures and medicines” that these public servants help provide.

American citizens can no longer rely on life-saving grants and the counsel of proven experts, he said. America, he added, is “being crippled” by an increasingly toxic atmosphere.

If public servants’ views “don’t align” with the approved politics, “you will be attacked.”

Quoting Teddy Roosevelt, Kim said public servants like Dr. Fauci are heroic and noble figures who are being attacked and intimidated for “being in the arena.”

(Editorial aside: Since the subject of this hearing was Covid policies, I wonder if Sen. Kim has ever noted any Republicans who dissented from the authorized Covid narratives who might have been attacked, bullied, smeared or fired … or if he ever attacked anyone who disagreed with the “settled science” as identified by Dr. Fauci.)

Sen Josh Hawley (Republican, Missouri)

Sen. Hawley started off his questions by having some fun with Fauci.

• “What day of the week is it?” (Answer: “On the advice of counsel …”)

• “What color tie are you wearing?” (ibid)

• “What’s the color of the carpet on the floor in front of you?” (ibid)

It only took about two seconds for it to become apparent that Hawley is no fan or admirer of Fauci.

By taking the fifth, Fauci was showing contempt for this legislative body, said the Show-Me-State senator, adding that “Silence is admission.”

(Hawley and others noted that Fauci was “taking the fifth” even after he had received a full and unconditional pardon from President Biden and after being issued a legal subpoena to testify. Others have opined the full pardon might not be legal if it was issued not by the President but by an “auto pen.”)

Hawley said Fauci simply did “not want to answer for all the terrible things you did.”

The Missouri Republican pounded home the point that Fauci used his chief of staff and personal assistant - as well as at least six more employees in his agency - to solicit organizations for cash awards and prizes - which, according to Hawley, is a violation of the law.

Staffers were “a full-time application machine,” said Hawley.

Hawley displayed a blown-up quote - an email his chief of staff Greg Folkers sent to someone in the ethics department, which must approve any cash awards. The email said, in part: “We need to get to yes.”

According to Hawley, in a period of 12 to 24 months - Fauci received 8 awards which came with a cash prize, including one award that paid him $900,000.

Although he pocketed “more than a million dollars” in prize money, Fauci didn’t even need the money, said Hawley, who noted Fauci has a net worth of $12 million and that he was the highest paid worker in the entire federal government, making $480,000 his final year. Hawley also said Fauci received a pension of $400,000 in the first year after he retired.

According to Hawley, Fauci was probably more interested in the prestige such awards gave him, which would allow him to exert “even more control” over people.

“This was really about a power trip not just money,” said Hawley.

What Fauci wanted most of all was to “be on TV” and be considered the “Sun god of science,” said Hawley, adding, Fauci’s tenure was a “multi-course time of self-dealing.”

While at some point in his career Fauci might have wanted to serve the public, he will now go down in history as a “narcissist, megalomaniac and a liar,” said Hawley.

“You’ve done more to harm science than anybody in my lifetime and I hope you go home and write that in your diary.”

Sen. John Fetterman (Democrat, PA)

Fetterman, who wasn’t wearing his hoodie in the hearings, was the one Democrat I heard who displayed a more balanced view on Fauci and the Covid response.

Fettermann admitted that he probably had negative views of many right-wing critics of the Covid response, but added the Wuhan lab-leak theory “always seemed to make sense to me.”

He said he understands the desire to fight a dangerous pandemic but also empathized with people who lost their jobs because of the lockdowns.

“We should be willing to pursue the truth no matter where it comes from,” he said.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (Republican, Ohio)

Moreno stated that guidance and advice issued by Fauci was followed by “idiotic politicians” everywhere.

He said Fauci wouldn’t need a team of criminal attorneys (including the “biggest dirt-bag attorney in Washington”) if he wasn’t guilty of many crimes.

He then asked Fauci, “Do you feel like you are in deep shit?” (Fauci took the Fifth).

Moreno listed approximately eight elements of the Covid response that he said harmed U.S. citizens. He then asked every spectator in the room who was harmed by any of these mandates to stand up (about half the room stood up).

Next, he asked Fauci if he would turn around and look at the people harmed by the policies he promulgated. (Fauci did not comply and did not look at the standing spectators).

“You can’t even look at them,” said Moreno.

Moreno shared one Covid anecdote that still burns him up.

The story was about a mother who took her son and family to a high school football game so they could watch the boy’s friends play in the game.

The game was outside and the family of four sat together away from other fans, but they did not wear the required mask.

The mother, as captured on video that went semi-viral, was arrested, an image and memory which prompted a profane question to Fauci:

“Who the f*ck do you think you are for doing that?”

Among the groups harmed by Fauci-endorsed policies were military members who were fired for not getting their “vaccines,” business owners “who lost their businesses” and 2, 3 and 4-year-old children who were “traumatized” because they had to wear masks, said the senator.

Moreno asked Fauci, “Do you have the dignity to say you are sorry?”

Moreno also said Americans died because they got “shots they did not need.”

“I hope somewhere, some day, somehow you have to answer for your crimes,” he added.

Sen. Joni Ernst (Republican, Iowa)

Sen. Ernst began her remarks by telling Fauci that millions of Americans “have not forgotten” all the harms and atrocities caused by the response to Covid.

People haven’t forgotten the masks, the lockdowns, the adverse reactions to the shots, the government’s misinformation, the censorship, the people who tattle-taled on neighbors, the school closings, the rise in suicides and the businesses that were forced to close, as well as the hundreds of billions of dollars that were stolen through fraud, she said.

Ernst also asked Fauci if he requested that Biden, or his handlers, grant him an unconditional pardon. She also asked why the pardon was specifically back-dated to January 1st, 2014.

She pointed out that one of the authors of the Proximal Origins paper that Fauci helped edit and coordinate later got a $9 million grant from the NIAID.

She also stated that “parts” of aborted babies were used in scientific research Fauci approved.

(To be fair to Fauci, he couldn’t rebut any of her claims … but, then again, he could have if he hadn’t pled the fifth.)

***

Sen. Ashley Moody, Republican, Junior Senator from Florida

Note: Sen Moody was appointed to fill out the term of Marco Rubio, who is now Secretary of State.

Sen. Moody began her remarks by rebutting the points of Democrats who “fell over themselves” trying to flatter Fauci and used their time to say Tuesday’s hearing should never have been held.

Per Moody, senators are supposed to hold powerful bureaucrats and politicians accountable and the issues being addressed by the committee were some of the most significant of our lifetimes.

Sen. Paul did not subpoena Fauci to try to “entrap” him, she said. “We’re trying to bring accountability.”

“The public has to be able to trust the people who are giving them advice and that trust depends on candor,” she said.

The former attorney general of the “free state of Florida” used her prosecutor skills to argue that Fauci-endorsed mandates and guidance were non-sensical and the opposite of real science.

For example, she said the 6-foot-separation guidance was made up out of thin air and was not backed by any real scientific study (something Fauci, in another Congressional hearing when he was under oath, had previously acknowledged).

Still, this “rule,” once applied, had draconian “consequences” on the world, causing schools, churches and businesses to shut down.

She showed Fauci’s flip flops regarding masks, which at one time he said were completely unnecessary and might do more harm than good (before becoming a powerful advocate for single masks and even double masks).

She highlighted quotes from Fauci where he said he “didn’t recommend locking anything down.”

She then showed entrees in his diary where the mayor of New York City and the governor of California said they locked down businesses and schools based on Fauci’s recommendation and guidance.

According to the senator, Fauci was actually in favor of “shutting the whole country down.”

Instead of being non-partisan, Fauci clearly held Republican politicians in lower esteem, she said.

For example, in his recently released diary entrees, Fauci called Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, a “total jerk” and a “complete disgrace.”

According to the senator, Fauci said everything Florida did in its Covid response was “completely wrong” and even said that America’s democracy was in “dire danger because of Florida.”

All levels of government should be accountable and transparent to the people, said the senator.

“What you did was the exact opposite,” she said. “I can’t even believe I have to explain this.”

Sen. Rand Paul (Chairman of the Committee, Republican from Kentucky)

Paul used his time to make the case that Fauci funded “gain of function” research and was clearly trying to cover up any funding his agency sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Paul said it’s “almost certain” Covid started.

Paul presented a montage of Fauci soundbites where Fauci said the Wuhan Wet Market (in mid-December 2019) was the origination point of Covid, which was caused by a bat virus that “jumped species.”

However, Paul has now produced diary entrees where Fauci says case zero was not at the Wuhan Wet Market, which Fauci opined was just a “super spreader event.”

“The first infection was in early December” and did not have anything to do with the Wet Market, said Paul, citing a newly-exposed Fauci document.

(My editorial comment: In America, probably millions of people had already contracted Covid before early December. Certainly the first case of Covid was not in “early December” 2019.)

Paul also said Fauci and the science establishment dismissed the significance of natural immunity. According to Paul, who is also a doctor, people have known natural immunity provides a measure of protection since 446 BC.

A theme of Paul’s remarks was that, as NIAID director, Fauci said one thing in public and something entirely different in private.

Sen. Ron Johnson (Republican, Wisconsin)

Sen. Johnson used a portion of his time to highlight the large number of iatrogenic deaths he says were caused by the medical establishment’s hospital and nursing home protocols.

He shared an anecdote about a nurse who was ordered to give remdesivir to a patient and pleaded with the doctor to not do this because she really liked this patient and knew the drug (nicknamed “run death is near”) could end his life.

Sen. Johnson said the government and medical establishment has “turned their backs” on the vaccine injured and have “gas lit” doctors and nurses who have tried to be whistleblowers.

The VAERS System shows that the number of deaths and adverse events from the experimental shots are unprecedented and Fauci and other officials have “covered up” or ignored these “safety signals,” said Sen. Johnson.

Miscellaneous …

In his second round of comments, Sen. Scott of Florida asked a series of questions about the influence Bill Gates had on Covid and vaccine policies, including questions about whether Fauci arranged to get a government security clearance for Gates.

One of many questions about Gates: “Did you partner with Bill Gates?”

Sen. Scott also asked Fauci how much he has earned in royalty payments from pharmaceutical companies or for his role in getting certain drugs or vaccines developed.

Sen. Johnson said he would soon be holding another hearing on vaccine injuries and Johnson wants Fauci to testify at this hearing as well. Sen. Johnson asked Fauci if he would attend without being issued a subpoena.

Fauci, of course, took the fifth and didn’t answer, prompting Johnson to say, “You’ll be getting your subpoena this afternoon.”

Lastly, Sen. Paul told Fauci “there will be repercussions for your refusal to testify today” and said the committee would meet again in a week to consider filing Contempt of Congress Charges against Fauci.

My post-script comments …

Yesterday I predicted that no senator would ask any questions or make any points about “Early Spread.” For the record, I was correct.

Needless to say, the embalmers’ clots didn’t come up in questioning.

I did note that senators from both parties all seem to agree that at least one million Americans and 15 million people world-wide had died “from Covid,” which, IMO, is a preposterous embellishment.

Everybody seems to agree that virus spread started in Wuhan in December 2019.

As always, citizens can use their own discernment to gauge who they trust more - Dr. Anthony Fauci, members of the U.S. Senate or a freelance journalist posting while he still can in God’s Country, Troy, Alabama.

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Author’s note: I wonder if any senator is willing to go down in history and ask the thermo-nuclear embalmers’ clot questions? (See bottom of today’s story).

***

Everybody get your popcorn ready; tomorrow morning Anthony Fauci is going to testify before another Rand Paul Senate Committee.

Such Congressional cage matches don’t happen often. As Fauci, 85, isn’t getting any younger and there’s an excellent chance the Democrats will control the U.S. Senate six months from now, this might be the last time a few (mild) Covid skeptics get to take a few swings at the “hero” of the Covid Pandemic.

The event qualifies as must-watch TV as, thanks to Sen. Paul, committee members will have the opportunity to grill Fauci on the litany of contradictions and evidence-spiking efforts this particular “ego maniac” foolishly recorded in his 1,100 page “diary” (also referred to as a vanity “scrapbook” replete with press accolades.)

Since I’ve seen these Congressional plays performed many times, I’m confident I know what will happen and, just as significantly, what will not happen in tomorrow’s made-for-TV production.

The Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs is ostensibly still investigating the “origins” of the Covid virus and thus the pandemic that flipped the world upside down.

Sen. Paul deserves credit for being the only member of the U.S. Senate who’s always believed Fauci - with the help of many esteemed accomplices from the field of “Science” - concocted a bogus origins theory.

Paul, IMO, will have little problem proving, again, that Fauci pushed the “Natural Origins” theory in an effort to make sure no one gave any credence to the possibility that mad scientists - funded and encouraged by his agency - created the novel coronavirus in a lab (via “gain-of-function” manipulations).

At least in the opinion of many Americans, Sen. Paul has already persuasively made the case that Fauci quarterbacked an extensive cover-up of virus origins.

The main reason I can’t wait to watch tomorrow’s drama is that Fauci will be asked several questions - and will have to listen to many short speeches - that should make him squirm and his blood pressure spike.

If Fauci never serves a day in prison or never has to refund any of his honoraria cash prizes - he’ll at least have to sit and take it as a couple of senators - citing his own diary entrees - show a large viewing audience the true character and megalomania of a text-book narcissist, charlatan and bureaucratic bully.

If Fauci seethes and recoils at the deference he is not given by some senators, many Americans will thank God for small blessings and gratefully accept this rare gift we are about to receive.

Leading the interference will be …

Of course, we all know that half the Committee members will rise up out out of their chairs defending Fauci and attack their Senate colleagues for besmirching such a national treasure, a man who is still viewed as the embodiment of Science Itself.

If nothing else, the fact half the committee will go out of their way to display solidarity with the most toxic bureaucrat in U.S. history will be worth the price of admission and - who knows? - might one day be noted with disgust by anyone who bothers to check the transcripts from this historical record.

I bet a year’s subscription to my newsletter that none of these questions will be asked …

I also know that the most important or explosive questions will NOT be asked by any member of the Committee. (I know this because, through deep citizen research and elementary dot-connecting, I have been able to identify the many important subjects that are taboo and off-limits to real inquiry … at least among “officials” who, unlike myself, actually matter).

As noted, the subject of the hearing is (supposedly) the “origins” of the coronavirus. At least to myself, it’s beyond surreal that the question of WHEN people first started to be infected by this supposedly novel virus never comes up in any questioning of scientific leaders like Anthony Fauci.

That is, I’ll bet a steak dinner at any four-star restaurant at any Trump-branded resort that zero “early spread” questions will be asked of Dr. Fauci.

That is, per the experts and the inquisitors, when people first started to contract Covid isn’t a question any expert should be asked.

Several Senators will no doubt pound home the point that a “gain-of-function” virus must have escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. The point will be made that a a covey of mangy Chinese bats didn’t cause the world’s most infamous naturally-occurring plague.

What Americans won’t be told is that hundreds of people - who are known by name (or whose names could be known to officials) - were already sick with Covid weeks and months before the Wuhan outbreak of mid-December 2019.

Nor will anyone ask Fauci a simple question: Did you know this (that early spread happened), or did you quickly learn this?

No senator will ask Fauci “Have you ever heard of Belleville, NJ Mayor Michael Melham?” (Melham had all the signature Covid symptoms Nov. 19-21, 2019 and later tested positive with two Covid antibody tests).

A more general question would be for one senator to simply ask Fauci “Do you think any American had Covid in November 2019?”

If this question was asked (which it won’t be) and Fauci, in a stunner, answered “Yes, this is certainly possible,” Fauci would himself be admitting that the outbreak at the Wuhan Wet Market couldn’t have included any person who could be labeled as Covid “Case Zero.”

If Fauci did say he’s heard of Mayor Melham, the obvious follow-up questions would be:

“Dr. Fauci, why didn’t anyone from any science agency at least interview Mayor Melham? “

The honest answer - which Fauci, of course, wouldn’t give - is that science agencies never investigate anything they don’t want to “confirm” - which, in fact, would be “news the public could use” in assessing the credibility of said agencies.

Sen Paul might then ask: “Regarding the origins question, should anyone in the public trust any of the government’s truth-seeking agencies?”

… Or, for that matter, should the public trust anything the experts said about Covid?

If, per a miracle, any senator asked Fauci about any of the hundreds of likely/possible early cases I’ve identified, the same senator could ask “Were these the only people who might have had early Covid?”

If they weren’t, this would seem to suggest this contagious virus might have already spread across America and the world many weeks before the world was notified about a novel new virus.

(If anybody knows a Senator on this committee or any person who might matter, please consider sharing this story before 7:30 a.m. tomorrow.)

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If I was a senator from Alabama on the Committee, I’d ask Fauci if he thought the novel coronavirus was, indeed, unusually contagious?

“If this is/was a contagious virus, wouldn’t it spread to many people in a rapid period of time?”

Nobody knows how Fauci might respond to such questions as nobody has ever asked him questions like this.

It’s possible he would say the virus wasn’t contagious in its first weeks or months. If he did say this, a Cracker Jack senator like myself, might retort:

“We’re supposed to believe Mayor Melham got Covid from … nobody?”

Since there’s no reason to treat a proven prevaricator with undeserved respect, I’d probably come across as a little mean or harsh in my cross-examination.

“Isn’t it true, Dr. Fauci, that Michael Melham, and the unknown person who infected him, didn’t contract this new illness from the Wuhan Wet Market?”

I’d also direct the esteemed scientist to the findings of the Red Cross Antibody study, which was commissioned by the CDC.

“Are you familiar with this study?” I’d start.

If Fauci said he was familiar with this study, I’d ask him why the government even commissioned such a study of “archived” blood that was drawn from blood donors in nine states weeks before the first confirmed case in America.

(If Fauci is going to say all 106 positives were false positives, somebody should ask him why the CDC even did this study if nobody was going to put any stock in the positive antibody results).

I’d also ask him another question nobody has asked any official who works for any public health agency:

“When were those blood samples actually tested for antibodies?”

I’d also point out that most of these antibody-positive blood donors must have been infected by at least November 2019 if not weeks or months earlier.

“When did you and everyone in the public-health science establishment know that at least 106 Americans from nine states already had Covid antibodies when they gave blood in the last months of 2019?” I’d ask.

I’d also ask him how long does it take the government to test 7,000 units of blood for antibodies? Can this be done in a matter of days or would it take many months? If it did take many months, “Why did it take so long?”

“Also, why were the results of this study not released to the public until November 30, 2020?”

“Why couldn’t these results have been known and released to the public before you and your colleagues ordered the entire world to be locked down to ‘slow or stop spread?’ “

Personally, I’d then cut to the chase.

“Dr. Fauci, did you and your colleagues intentionally cover up evidence of wide-spread virus infections in America?”

We know Fauci would never admit such a cover-up occurred, but given that the results weren’t released for 11 months, it sure seems like a cover-up occurred.

Which would beg the question: “Why was this information not shared with the public earlier?”

Nobody on this Committee would like this question, but I’d ask it anyway: “How does a committee supposedly investigating the “origins” of a new virus have zero interest in the earliest cases in the country or the world?”

It’s possible, I guess, that one senator has read a couple of my Early Spread stories and, thus, would know that I had found antibody evidence of Americans in dozens of U.S. states who had been infected by this virus before the Wuhan outbreak.

This informed senator could then ask Fauci, “doesn’t such evidence connote a virus that had already spread widely?”

Such questions would be laying the predicate for a conclusion very few citizens in America have probably considered.

“Dr. Fauci, how many Americans could have contracted this virus before the end of December 2019?”

I doubt he’d offer a straight answer. so I’d have to prod him: “Just a couple of people? Or maybe millions?”

If the answer was, or could be, the latter estimate (millions of people), the next question would be the money question:

“Dr. Fauci, given that there were (perhaps) many millions of Americans who had Covid before the lockdowns, where is the spike in all-cause deaths caused by this allegedly deadly virus?”

Another way to ask the same question, or make the same point, would be to ask: “Why did a virus that began infecting people at least in October 2019 not become deadly until the last weeks of March 2020?”

Of course, the key point - which you’d have to make plain to every-day citizens - is that if the virus wasn’t any more “deadly” than the normal flu, there was zero reason to mandate a rushed, experimental shot … that did turn out to be deadly.

In my opinion, the only way to answer such questions would be to say there were no early cases in America or anywhere, which based on the volumes of evidence I’ve compiled would, IMO, be a brazen lie.

Which would mean our trusted public health experts are lying, and any citizen should should know they are lying for the simple reason the same people supposedly investigating the origins question chose to never investigate any of the world’s possible early cases.

I’d also ask why did every expert simply assume the first cases had to come from Wuhan, China.

***

If I was given more than my allotted five minutes, I’d then ask Fauci if he was aware that at least 2,886 U.S. schools (a record by a wide margin) closed due to illness in the months before the novel coronavirus had supposedly begun to spread in communities in our country.

“Do you think it’s possible any of these sick students and teaches could have had Covid?” I’d ask, adding, “This possibility never occurred to anyone at the NIH or CDC?”

“Isn’t it at least possible the virus didn’t originate in China?” I’d ask, knowing the answer of Science himself. “NO that is simply not possible, Senator Rice!” (I think Rand Paul thinks this is impossible as well).

While I’m certain Fauci won’t be asked these questions, I do think the public would be fascinated, even startled, if these questions were asked of him.

As it is, I would ask my readers who watch tomorrow’s proceedings to at least take note of the questions that will NOT be asked of Dr. Fauci, which is really an indictment of the “truth-searchers” who represent us in the U.S. Senate.

I Double-Dog Dare a Senator to Go Here …

Lastly, this possible final appearance of Dr. Fauci before a Senate Committee might be the last opportunity for one U.S. Senator to go down in history and go ahead and play the thermo-nuclear truth card.

Ask Dr. Fauci if he’s ever heard of the embalmers’ clots.

Here, I maintain that It’s impossible the most informed infectious disease expert in the world has NOT heard of this phenomena by now.

Still, Fauci could only give two possible answers:

“Yes, Senator, I have heard of the embalmers’ clots”

Or:

“No, I have never heard of such a thing. Senator, could you help me out with this and provide a little more information?”

IMO, Fauci would be cooked like toast with either answer he gave.

If he says yes, he has heard about the embalmers’ clots, the obvious follow-up questions would be:

“Well, what do you think about them? In your opinion, are they real? As a scientist and a physician, do these things disturb or concern you in any way?”

“What do you think is causing them?”

“Did any embalmer or pathologist ever see these substances before the Covid vaccines were rolled out?”

“Why is nobody in the science community investigating this?”

The brave senator (soon to feel the wrath of Big Pharma) would, of course, be able to show many photos of actual embalmers’ clots on the Senate’s Overhead Slide projector.

The gasp heard in the room (and around the world) would be one for the ages.

Fauci might say these photos are AI fakes or he might say these substances are nothing to worry about and, in fact, are healthy for people who had them in their veins and arteries when they died.

Like the Early Spread questions, nobody knows what Fauci would say as, more than five years after embalmers began to discover these clots nobody has asked one of the country’s leading health experts one question about their existence.

If Fauci punted and said the science community should perhaps investigate these substances, presumably every person watching on TV would ask why didn’t you do this five years ago?

If Fauci said this is the first he’s ever heard of this phenomena, everybody would know Science Itself is the World’s Biggest Liar.

***

Of course, the odds one Senator will ask Fauci these questions might be approximately 1-in-1 million. (According to Tom Haviland’s embalmer surveys, the odds a given decedent has these things in their veins is approximately 1-in-5.)

Once this previously-taboo bomb exploded, Vegas might immediately take bets on the probability, say, The New York Times would include these quotes in their story that afternoon.

Also, is there one corporate reporter in the world who would follow-up with questions to HHS director Kennedy or one White House correspondent who would ask President Trump if he is aware of the embalmers’ clots and, if so, what does he think about them?

We’d have to wait and see, but it’s even money this wouldn’t happen. Still, this non-follow-up might strike millions of global citizens as a tad odd.

It might not matter, though, as at least ten million people would be watching the Hearings and they’d find it hard to forget such questions or revelations, at least IMO.

The embalmers clots, with or without a boost from The New York Times or “Sixty Minutes,” would finally go viral and this citizen journalist could die happy (without these clots in my veins as I never got any Covid shot).

If Fauci wants to say the embalmers’ clots are no big deal and it would be a waste of tax-payer money to investigate them, let him go ahead and say this.

Of course, Fauci, one of the world’s most savvy Narrative Manipulators, knows he won’t be asked these questions. I know he won’t be asked these questions. All 3,500 of my remaining readers know he won’t be asked these questions. Rand Paul knows these questions won’t be asked.

Isn’t it funny the things we all know?

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Today, I’d like to assess the way the majority of world citizens currently view the American government and the policies our elected leaders pursue. In this essay, I will also highlight a few reassessments - my effort to show how these views have changed over a period of 2 1/2 decades.

IMO this thought exercise will show that many previous assessments were false or dubious, but these “authorized narratives” were exploited to pursue agendas that ended up making the world a more dangerous place and lowered the standard of living or quality of life for the majority of world inhabitants.

I do know that honest “reassessments” can be bracing to acknowledge or ponder … but so be it. From time to time, writers or thinkers probably do need to take the time to point out this is the way things used to be - or this is the way most people thought at one time - and here’s the way many or most people think today.

In my view, most components of the “New-Normal” Status Quo are far more disturbing than the former Old Status-Quo conventional wisdom.

For convenience, I will use the date 9-11-2001 as a line of demarcation to contrast views that might have been common on this date with views that prevail today.

That was then …

Prior to 9-11-2001, most world inhabitants almost certainly viewed America as the world’s “Good Guy” - “a shining beacon on the hill,” symbolizing freedom, free market capitalism and a bulwark fighting the more sinister regimes on the planet.

This is now …

This morning I watched a podcast with retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. In his appearance on Glenn Diesen’s You Tube show, Wilkerson said that recent global opinion polls show that two-thirds of the world population now view America as a threat or impediment to a brighter world future.

I actually earned my college degree in political science, but even if I hadn’t, I would know that such a sea-change in global sentiment … ain’t good for the home team.

Furthermore, according to these polls, two-thirds of the world population views China in a positive manner or think China is the nation that is doing more things to make the world a better place to live.

For almost my entire life - until just the last couple of months - most Americans viewed the nation of Israel as the one beacon of democracy in the Mideast, a nation that must constantly fight for its survival and a nation and government that all Americans and freedom-lovers should always support.

I don’t need to check opinion polls to know this “assessment” has - in a remarkably fast period of time - experienced a stunning reassessment.

In the CliffsNotes’ version, Israel has also always been the “Good Guy.” Indeed, anyone who questions this assessment should be viewed as threat who must be silenced, censored, punished or vilified.

This assessment clearly changed due to the confluence of several fairly current events …

• One, millions of American and global citizens have taken a keen interest in the Epstein Files and Epstein’s various operations (significantly many people believe Epstein was working for Israel and Mossad),

• Two, hundreds of millions of global citizens have, belatedly, come to believe (or at least entertain the possibility) that Israel’s non-stop bombing of Gaza does approach or meet the definition of “genocide.” (Also, Israel’s non-stop bombing of towns in southern Lebanon has no doubt factored into this reassessment).

• Three, Israel desired and pushed America into a war with Iran, a war that, per a common and fair assessment, could be labeled as a “sneak attack.”

In one day, the first volleys of this “sneak attack” resulted in the assassination of the Supreme Leader of a sovereign nation, as well as scores of other Iranian leaders and their women and children family members … as well as the murder of 168 Iranian school girls and their teachers.

• Four, as a footnote that might be worth noting, millions of Americans were clearly agitated that Rep. Thomas Massie, Congress’s highest-profile critic of Israel, was soundly defeated by an obscure candidate whose campaign benefited from $20 to $30 million in donations from the Israel lobby (and, of course, the endorsement of President Trump, who - as more citizens now better grasp - is also supported by the same lobby).

In the aggregate, the above events (and other events not mentioned) caused untold millions of citizens to reassess everything they’d previously believed about Israel.

During the same time frame, a similar number of people began to reassess everything we’d been conditioned to think about the “evil” “terrorist” nation of Iran, which leaders of Israel had spent decades framing as Israel’s greatest enemy.

Everything did change on 9-11 …

Following the terrorists attacks of 9-11, the key take-away (assessment) of almost everyone was that America would have to fight terrorists “over there” before the terrorists, again, struck a shocking blow against America over here.

If America could just spread democracy - and change several “evil” regimes - the people in these nations wouldn’t “hate us for our freedoms” and, per the nearly universal assessment - would never attack us again.

This was the assessment of a group of geo-political strategists known as Neo-cons and, for decades, this argument (excluding Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns) prevailed in the battle for hearts and minds in America. (Israel and its long-time prime minister Bibi Netanyahu was the main and most-influential advocate for this policy course.)

America used what, at the time, was a much more formidable military to implement neocon-endorsed policies by first invading Afghanistan and then, in a much larger invasion, Iraq.

(Question: Today, would most people assess that the American military is stronger and more capable in 2026 compared to 2001? My answer: I think not, meaning this would be another noteworthy reassessment.)

The assessment at the time (a correct one) must have been that the regime of Iraq would be much easier to topple than the regime of Iran, which could be dealt with later (which turned out to be 25 years later).

As I’ve documented ad nauseam, official and settled assessments of the professional assessors almost always turn out to be bogus as was the claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, which this nation, for some suicidal reason, was going to, somehow, soon deploy against American cities.

Also, while intelligence agencies found that almost all the 9-11 terrorists were citizens of Saudi Arabia, a close American ally, this assessment … didn’t matter. (Take-away: Certain “assessments” carry more rhetorical and policy weight than others.)

Clearly, more people have begun to reassess whether Israel really was or is the Godly, pristine, noble nation we were all taught to believe it is. Also, more people have begun to re-evaluate “truths” or “facts” regarding Israel’s arch enemy, Iran.

A maxim about the danger of ‘Truth Bombs’ …

As I’ve written in many essays, the power of a proverbial “thermo-nuclear truth bomb” detonating is not just that one “authorized narrative” could be obliterated as bunk in one blast … the real threat to the Powers that Be is that if one false-narrative whopper is exposed as such … it’s very possible the same people will/could also quickly start to identify many other lies their “trusted leaders” have fed them.

That is, the fear of the world’s real rulers is that massive numbers of citizens begin to perform other critical-thinking “reassessments” dealing with other previously “settled” areas of political science.

Which, per my geo-political analysis, is exactly what’s happening right now.

***

For the first time in my life, millions of people are questioning whether the nation of Iran really was/is the villain we’ve always thought this nation was.

It’s been said you can judge a person (or a nation) by noting who their friends are. The converse might also be true - one can can also judge a nation by who they are fighting or who they think is a villain.

For decades, Iran and its people viewed Israel as an evil villain that was, literally, getting away with not just murder, but mass murder.

While certainly not the case with all people, today a rapidly-growing number of people is beginning to say:

“Damn. Iran might have been right all along. Israel might not be the wonderful nation we thought it was. Iran might have been ahead of the curve; they had Israel pegged before I did.”

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“Death to America!” … Iran clearly lost lost the “narrative battle” (until just recently)

It should be noted Iran was itself facing a major PR obstacle. For at least 47 years, the official narrative was that Iran was an evil, terrorist nation, a view that was largely grounded in the fact that Iranian students over-ran the U.S. embassy and held American citizens hostage for more than a year.

Furthermore, every American who keeps up with current events or is familiar with historical events has seen numerous clips where throngs of Iranian citizens gather in the streets and chant “Death to America!”

The obvious conclusion was that Iranians want to kill us all. If so many people are chanting these words, we should take them at their word and do anything we can to punish or contain such a mortal threat to our people.

One reassessment that might be occurring - at least to some extent - is that more people are beginning to look back over the last five decades and decided that Iranians, actually, had killed hardly any Americans.

For example, Iranians didn’t kill the 52 hostages, who they ultimately released unharmed.

Per conventional wisdom, just about every American believes “Iran” killed hundreds of Marines in a suicide attack in Beirut in 1983.

Iran tried to counter this narrative by saying, “we didn’t do that” - another group did that and only did it because President Regan inserted troops into a combat zone. (To proffer a politically incorrect but correct military truism .. When troops are inserted into a combat zone they will, very possibly, be targeted by enemy forces who don’t want said troops to be there).

Also, all neo-con politicians have said (assessed) that Iraqi resistance forces didn’t use roadside bombs to kill and injure American troops occupying Iraq. It was really “Iran” that killed and injured many of our troops.

Whether Iran helped “resistance” forces in Iraq with these IUD counter-attacks or not, the fact remains American troops were targeted only because Iraqis or some Muslims didn’t want American troops to be occupying this nation.

(FWIW, the members of the French Underground resistance organized and executed the same type of attack against Nazis who occupied their nation. Also, per deductive reasoning, if America had never invaded and occupied Iraq, the number of American casualties - caused by Iraq or Iran - would have been zero. That is, one can say Iranians killed our troops, but one could just as easily say the policies of President George W. Bush led to the deaths of our troops.)

Thirdly, per the accepted narrative, “Iran” has encouraged or produced legions of citizens who killed myriad Americans in myriad terrorist attacks.

However, as it turns out, this is not true. In fact, the only Iranian sympathizer I can think of who killed Americas might be the man who killed several Americans in a Texas bar, presumably as “revenge” after America and Israel attacked Iran.

The real terrorists, who have produced significant body counts, were Al Qaida and ISIS terrorists and Iran is/was an opponent of both terrorist groups. (FWIW, Iran condemned the 9-11 attacks and expressed condolences to these American victims.)

(I will say that, so far, articles on the Iran War haven’t been particularly popular at my Substack, but at some places they are).

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The Free Press actually can change long-held narratives

Another reason the narrative (Iran is THE evil terrorist nation in the world) might be changing is that more Americans and global citizens are starting to listen to commentators who are presenting Iran’s version of world events.

The most influential of these commentators is a professor from Tehran University named Seyed Marandi.

Professor Marandi, who speaks American English better than I do, must do 12 interviews with international podcasters every day. (I’m actually surprised YouTube hasn’t completely blocked these interviews and, also, I’m somewhat surprised America or Israel hasn’t killed Professor Marandi yet. Note: See Bonus Content in today’s Reader Comments).

In the parlance of war, Professor Marandi is probably a more dangerous force than three divisions of the Iranian Army.

Many people who have watched any of his interviews have no doubt concluded this man is highly intelligent, very persuasive and comes across as honest, credible and humble.

In numerous interviews, he has admitted that yes, Iranians chant “Death to America!” all the time. But he, convincingly, makes the point that Iranians are not calling for the death of every-day Americans or any Americans, what Iranians want to see happen is the American government defeated and American forces to get out of the Mideast and quit imposing draconian sanctions on their country, etc.

Iranians, he makes clear, have no beef with every-day Americans, who when they do visit Iran are always treated with respect and allowed to go back home.

The fact these messages (which are really efforts to rebut authorized narratives) are resonating with millions of people around the world is because Professor Marandi has become a kind of “rock star” of YouTube podcasts (at least among those who are weary of CNN, NBC and Fox News “coverage” of the war).

Speaking for myself, I’ve acknowledged the common “death to America!” chants, but, as they say, actions speak louder than words and one can simply judge what nation is committing actions that kill and wound huge numbers of the other nation’s citizens.

That is, no Americans are gathering in the streets chanting “death to Iran!” but the militaries of America and Israel have recently killed at least 3,000 Iranian citizens (more than 9-11) and wounded many more in two different bombing and missile assaults occurring across all sections of Iran.

One could argue, convincingly, that the President of the United States might as well be screaming “death to Iran!” As he’s made too many comments and made too many posts on Truth Social to keep track of where he’s told the people of Iran that America is going to “obliterate” its nation or “destroy its civilization” or bomb this nation back to the Stone Age.

President Trump has gloated about taking out Iran’s Supreme Leader and still hasn’t expressed any condolences or remorse about the 168 Iranian school children our military murdered.

I would also like to note that President Trump has repeatedly bragged and crowed about an assassination he ordered in his first term - the death by Hellfire Missile of IRGC general Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020.

This, I think, was when one could note another significant change in the thinking of political leaders (and the non-outraged response of the vast majority of the U.S. population).

Just like today, when Trump ordered the assassination of this Iranian leader, our nation had actually not declared war on Iran. Soleimani had been invited by America’s now-ally Iraq to speak to Iraq’s prime minister.

He and nine other people (including five citizens of Iraq) were then instantly blown up by a Hellfire missile fired from a drone by the U.S. military. (Sidebar trivia: Lockheed Martin’s Hellfire missile, as well as the THAAD and JASSM missiles, are built in my hometown of Troy, Alabama, meaning if all these regional wars ever go global, our family is going to be watching the skies closely).

IMO, once upon a time, this event would have been viewed by most world leaders, the press and diplomats as a state-sponsored assassination (and/or an act of terrorism).

But not in 2020. By this time, a reassessment had obviously occurred and the act was actually cheered by most political observers and all Fox News pundits. For their part, American citizens just shrugged their shoulders. (On an Outrage Scale going from 1 to 100, the level of public outrage might have been a 1.)

FWIW, Iran responded by bombing a U.S. military base in the region after Iran gave a heads-up it was getting ready to do this. Notably, this was not one of today’s “tic-for-tac” responses as Iran did not try to assassinate, say, the chairman of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

While it didn’t get any corporate news coverage, one assumes the Outrage Scale among Iranian citizens was probably a 100, but the Supreme Ruler (later assassinated himself) did not authorize a stronger response. Still, the event probably did produce a few more rallies where, curiously, even more Iranian citizens chanted, “Death to America!”)

One new “assessment” begets another new assessment …

IMO, the assassination of Gen. Soleimani was also a seminal event as several years later President Trump green-lit missile attacks on purported Venezuelan cocaine smugglers.

Again, once upon a time, instantly killing civilians (in a country America was not at war with) would have created outrage among numerous members of the Influencer Class.

But this was no longer the case. Per the new “assessment” any American president could order the military to kill any civilians, at least if they were believed to be transporting cocaine.

Long-held principles of American jurisprudence like “Innocent until proven guilty” or habeas corpus or that an instant death penalty shouldn’t be administered to people in the illegal drug trade … no longer applied. (Needless to say, these principles do not apply to “dealers” in the legal drug and “vaccine” trade).

In Summary …

At least for myself, it’s amazing and surreal to take note of all the previous assessments that no longer apply and all the new assessments that now do apply. Also, it’s striking to reflect on all the assessments that, as I write are, perhaps, being reassessed.

Not long after 9-11, all the political experts who mattered assessed that America had to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, military operations that, we were told, would be accomplished in a couple of months.

Needless to stipulate, America always had to defend and support Israel, which is still the assessment of both parties in Congress.

However, also of note, this is one assessment where the views of political leaders seems to be increasingly at odds with the views of the American “men and women on the street.” (Even Facebook is replete with posts from people who seem to have moved at least some of their previous iron-clad assessments into the trash file).

In the last five months, per the assessment of everyone who matters, the regime of Iran had to be changed or else Iran was going to nuke America or Israel any day.

President Trump said Operation Epic Fury (not “Operation Liberate Iran”) would take four to five weeks and Americans, and President Trump, would be showered with roses once our military disposed of Iran’s villainous leaders. (Instead, in “the largest funeral in world history,” 40 million Iranians mourned the leader USrael” murdered.)

In 2001, America - by far - had the world’s strongest economy and people in most countries of the world had a favorable opinion of our nation.

Nobody had heard of Jeffrey Epstein or the Epstein Class. If a typical citizen had heard of such a vile person, most Americans would just assume the government would prosecute him and all his co-accomplices and would also prosecute any and all “Johns” Epstein pimped young girls and women to.

This “assessment” has certainly changed. Indeed - who had this on their Bingo card? - it’s Iran that seems to have declared war on the “Epstein Class.”

In 2026, a U.S. president finally decided to do what Benjamin Netanyahu (and Lindsey Graham) had been lobbying for for a quarter century and change the regime in Iran.

In 2001, per common assessments of the time, any policy that would costs hundreds of billions of dollars and jeopardize the lives of many American military members and risk economic catastrophe, would at least have required a vote of Congress … but not in 2026.

Skip forward a couple of decades and a president could simply do this on his own volition and didn’t even need to brief one member of Congress.

Still, most Americans had little issue with such a sneak attack and certainly few Americans equated this to what Japan did to America on Dec. 7, 1941.

Eight months ago, per everyone’s assessment, Iran was a backwards, uncivilized nation of “Arabs” who could make quality rugs as well as farmers who excelled at raising goats. If this “assessment” hasn’t changed by now, I just … give up.

Also, according to intelligence assessments, Iran’s leaders had just killed 3,000 protestors … later assessed at 10,000 … then 30,000 … then 40,000 and now 52,000. (Presumably, the mass graves will be unearthed in the years to come).

Iran certainly didn’t have the military capability, nor the public support, to put up much of a fight against the combined might of American and Israel.

In a couple of weeks, Iran would surrender unconditionally and, in two years, McDonalds and Dollar General stores would be on every other corner in Tehran.

Until I came up with today’s story idea, I hadn’t thought about this, but the “reassessments” are actually kind of stunning once you start itemizing a few of them … Not just reassessments but sudden and dramatic reassessments.

It’s almost like a strange kind of low-yield neutron truth bomb - one, like “vaccine” deaths, is hard to easily detect - is already starting to detonate.

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Author’s note: I’ve been thinking about today’s subject for years, but, frankly, held off publishing an article because I know many readers or subscribers might disagree with my thoughts and I’m already losing a flood of subscribers for my contrarian views. However, the topic of “what really happened on 9-11” is back in the news as Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters recently did a high-profile interview with Tucker Carlson stating his emphatic view that plastic explosives actually brought down three WTC buildings. I should say I’m a big admirer of Waters’ brave stands for “human rights” and note that all Waters wants is a real court inquiry into what really happened on 9-11 … and I certainly support this effort.

***

As I’ve written many times, I definitely believe in numerous “conspiracy theories,” even conspiracies that might involve millions of accomplices (like Covid).

However, among the cohort of “conspiracy kooks, ” I’m probably atypical in that I don’t necessarily subscribe to all widely-accepted conspiracy theories.

For example, I’m not sure I believe the 9-11 conspiracy thread that postulates some unknown group of conspirators wired at least three of the World Trade Center buildings with explosives and then brought down all three buildings with a controlled detonation.

In this piece, I simply want to pose many questions that might explain why I question certain elements of a widely-held 9-11 conspiracy theory. My hope is that readers might offer good answers to some of my questions, an outcome that could cause me to reconsider my current views.

Second caveat: I think certain conspiracies involving elements of the U.S. government could likely be true. For example, I think the U.S. government has conspired to cover-up for individuals in Saudi Arabia who helped make these attacks possible.

I also think it’s possible Mossad or elements of Israel intelligence might have been aware of the 9-11 attacks and did NOT alert American officials and, of course, American politicians who have “kissed the wall” would be very likely to cover-up for American’s closest ally. (Amazingly to myself, Saudi Arabia - led by the renowned humanitarian MBS - is also considered one of our nation’s most important allies, which would provide a reason for our government to not want to embarrass this particular petro-dollar-supporting friend and ally.)

I also think the subsequent “anthrax” scare was almost certainly an intentional and planned conspiracy (probably or perhaps perpetrated by individuals in our own government) to spread fear and make possible a massive bio-weapons complex and the merger of the Science Industrial Complex and the Military Industrial Complex - a marriage that probably produced “Covid” two decades later.

***

A popular and widely-accepted 9-11 “conspiracy theory” is that the two famous World Trade Center skyscrapers didn’t collapse because two commercial jets crashed into them and caused an intense fire. Per this theory, the buildings were actually brought down by a “controlled demolition.” Also, and significantly, believers of this theory point to the admittedly odd collapse of World Trade Center building No. 7, which collapsed more than five hours after the first plane hit the first Tower.

As no one seems to have ever said that “Muslim terrorists” installed the explosives that caused these buildings to collapse, the logical conclusion would be that employees or “operatives” working for element(s) of the U.S. government actually did all the work that resulted in the implosion of these buildings.

Right here, if proven, the public would be confronted with one of the most evil and audacious plots in the history of nations and governments. If “proven,” one could logically conclude that all of the attacks that occurred on this day were actually conceived and executed by our own government.

The theory, one assumes, would postulate that many people in the U.S. government knew that on 9-11-2001 four planes were going to be hijacked and be flown into four different symbolic U.S. targets: Two World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon and the fourth suicide-attack, which wasn’t successful, on either the Capitol or White House.

Significantly, organizers of the conspiracy must have calculated that the impact and fires caused by two planes that flew into the World Trade Center towers would NOT bring down these building.

Thus, one can assume conspirators deemed it essential that at least three WTC buildings completely collapsed, a result that, per the conclusions of plotters, would be possible only via the detonation of plastic explosives that had been planted days, weeks or months BEFORE the planes were hijacked.

At least for myself, it seems farfetched to believe that, say, the CIA spent weeks wiring three buildings with powerful explosives, which they were going to detonate out of the blue on some random day (without planes crashing into the buildings prior to the explosives being detonated).

Those who subscribe to this theory must agree that the plan (razing at least three iconic national buildings) would entail production of a credible “cover story” - the “cover story” being that two jet airliners, hijacked by crazed and militant Muslim terrorists, caused the buildings to collapse.

After the first part of the plan occurred (hijacked planes did crash into these buildings), the CIA (or whoever hatched the plan) could wait 40 to 75 minutes before someone pushed the detonator buttons and brought down the two iconic skyscrapers (and, many hours later, for some curious reason, a WTC building most people didn’t even know existed).

That is, such a “plan” would seem to prove that the conspirators knew two planes were going to crash into these skyscrapers on 9-11, which, in turn, provided the perfect cover to detonate the explosives that brought these buildings down.

This foreknowledge, in turn, would seem to prove that the CIA (?) also coordinated all of the “cover-attacks,” components of the plan that had to happen for the scheme to work.

According to this crime theory and my own effort at deductive reasoning, psychopathic spooks in the government recruited and/or enticed 21 Muslim extremists to hijack planes on 9-11 (thereby creating the requisite cover story). But it was CIA operatives (or maybe Mossad operatives?) who wired three New York City buildings with explosives.

Presumably, this was a classic “false flag” operation, the goal or motive of which was to create national and international outrage at Muslim terrorists, which would allow Neo-cons to launch wars and regime-change operations against four or five Mideast nations and grow the Military Industrial Complex (and Surveillance Complex) by a sizable degree. (Of note, the ensuing Mideast regime-change operations would also facilitate the Project for a Greater Israel).

As they say, “follow the money” and everything that happened after 9-11 did make numerous companies vaults of new revenue and definitely increased the size and power of the U.S. government and the MIC, which apparently wasn’t large enough or controlled too few people in 2001.

In one sense, this “motive” doesn’t sound that farfetched as this is exactly what ended up happening.

However, to my mind, framing this plot using the context of a “risk-benefit analysis” makes such a scenario highly unlikely. (As I wrote in an essay arguing that Jeffrey Epstein and Charlie Kirk are, in fact, dead, every important decision any person makes involves calculating personal risks and possible benefits).

Here, I’ll list a few of my questions, beginning with the “risk” side of this analysis.

Per this particular theory, the key component of the 9-11 operation would be: The wiring of three buildings with explosives. (Also, recruiting and logistically supporting the terrorists who hijacked four planes in a period of 90 minutes - i.e. both elements of the plan had to happen in tandem.)

Obvious questions:

How many people does it take to wire three buildings with explosives?

Like everyone reading this, I’ve seen videos of large buildings that were instantly razed by demolition experts. It seems to me the necessary “prep work” would require, at a minimum, scores of employees/conspirators, performing weeks of prep work. Also, the World Trade Center towers were the second and third tallest buildings in the country. As far as I know, no company has ever imploded a 100-story skyscraper, which can’t be easy … and this particular project involved at least three buildings.)

How long would it take to execute such an operation? Could explosives experts, working in a clandestine manner without being exposed, do this, in say, a week or would it take many weeks or months?

(It’s possible the all-important explosive experts had a plausible cover story. For example, perhaps members of this crew had infiltrated an asbestos removal team. Still, this handful of key conspirators would have to do the same work at three different buildings, which would require even more time and human assets to perform the necessary “prep work.”)

Were the people recruited to do this essential work told why they were doing this?

If so, what were they told? (Perhaps they were all told, “Blowing up these buildings and killing tens of thousands of innocent American citizens will help preserve our national security” or, this has to be done to protect Americans’ freedoms.

Or, perhaps, they were told/ordered to do this and, as good intelligence soldiers, they knew not to ask any questions about why they were engaged in such a sinister project.

The biggest “risk” question that occurs to me is … What if the people who wired any of these three buildings were caught?

This possibility must have occurred to plot organizers … and/or it’s hard to believe organizers wouldn’t have considered this possibility.

What would happen to the plotters if they were discovered to have planted powerful explosives in the World Trade Center buildings?

It’s possible I guess (or, really, guaranteed), that the CIA would try to cover-up any possible discovery of its elaborate explosive-planting operation, but, for example, would members of New York City’s Police Force have gone along with any effort to keep such details from the public?

Would key detectives and executives of New York’s Finest, upon discovering who really brought down the buildings, have said, “Normally, we would charge such plotters with mass murder, but since we now see the federal government was trying to protect America’s National Security (by using the thousands of deaths as an excuse to invade Mideast countries), we will spike this investigation?”

If New York officials did decide to spike the biggest crime in U.S. history (an event that also killed hundreds of New York City firemen and police officers), other scenarios could have also resulted in exposure of the plot and the real villains.

For example, it’s possible that someone - maybe a janitor or security guard who stumbled upon one of the team members installing the explosives - - could have gone to the press. Would every New York newspaper and TV station decide to sit on the story that someone was trying to blow up three WTC towers and kill up to hundreds of thousands of people?

I guess such a scenario is possible, but I doubt it. IMO, this “story” would have gotten out and, to quote Donald Trump, would have been “huge.” (Also, corrupt organizations weren’t as captured in 2001 as they are in 2026).

Also, it wouldn’t have taken much detective work to find out who the explosive team members really worked for. Once everyone learned the CIA (or Mossad or whoever) was plotting to blow up the WTC, …. there goes the CIA … and/or there goes “support for the nation of Israel.”

Indeed, if proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, one actually wonders if the citizens of the United States of America would have continued to want to be ruled or “led” by Satan-like rulers, opening up the distinct possibility of instant secession or another Civil War.

Also, if one goal was to increase the power and influence of the Intelligence Agencies and Military Industrial Complex, any proof that these same organizations conspired to kill as many innocent Americans as possible would, presumably, not be as possible in the future as, presumably, the first new consensus of public opinion would be to nuke the CIA and dismantle the MIC.

In other words, the “risk” for the people who installed the explosives and brought down a block of New York City buildings (and exploded a section of the Pentagon and - but for the actions of one group of heroes - destroyed the U.S. Capitol - would not be small.

At a minimum, if convicted and prosecuted, every accomplice would spend the rest of their lives in prison. One also imagines that murdering thousands of people might warrant the death penalty for at least a few of the key participants.

Furthermore, the reputations of family members of the guilty would would be forever sullied; wives of the guilty would leave their husbands; children of the conspirators would surely disown their fathers, etc.

Thus, the main reason I am skeptical of the “controlled demolition” theory is A) plotters would simply not have been able to recruit enough participants who would go along with the plot and B) any intelligence operatives would, presumably, be smart enough to know the plot could, at least potentially, be exposed. The defense that “we were just following orders” might work in some cases but not in a scenario where the orders entailed the murder of 2,500 or more innocent civilians.

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Contrasting a 9-11 Conspiracy with the Covid Conspiracy …

I actually can envision a scenario that might explain why accomplices or conspirators of Covid Crimes against Humanity “went along” with this conspiracy.

For example, doctors and nurses that placed patients on ventilators and administered them fatal doses of remdesivir could argue that they were just trying to save patients … or were just following accepted medical protocols, (orders) passed down from the CDC.

“We didn’t know we were harming these patients,” would no doubt be a common defense, one that might, in fact, be true for many of these (alleged) “care-givers.”

This defense contrasts with a defense of 9-11 conspirators who might argue, “We didn’t know those plastic explosives would actually be used to blow up and bring down those buildings.”

Or: “We didn’t know those Muslim terrorists we recruited to hijack U.S. planes would actually try to fly those planes into the those two sky scrapers, the Pentagon and the Capitol.”

(I’ve also always thought it strange the CIA was trying to kill the politicians who fund and enthusiastically support the CIA. IMO, If plotters knew the terrorists were going to fly two planes into the WTC towers and, per this theory, they did; they must have also known another plane was going to hit the Capitol or The White House).

What would be the benefit for conspirators?

As I explore this thought exercise, I’m trying to identify any possible “benefits” of going along with the plot.

It seems to me any half-way intelligent plotter would have had to have concluded, “Okay, if the truth is ever exposed, I’m going to lose everything that’s important to me; I’ll be remembered as one of the country’s worst-ever traitors and mass murderers - this would be the risk … but what would I gain if I do go along with this plan? What’s the benefit side of the equation here?”

Possible answers:

… It’s possible, I guess, the conspirators might get a promotion or maybe a (secret) bonus. I guess they’d get to keep their CIA jobs. Also (where do they find these sadists?) maybe a few sickos would enjoy the satisfaction of killing tens of thousands of innocent people to support the crazy plans of rogue neo-con bosses?

And what about the bosses who hatched this plan and recruited the accomplices? What would their futures look like if they were exposed?

IMO, most insane intelligence operations are designed to increase the power, budgets and control of different elements of the government and Deep State.

One has to wonder how many Congressmen would authorize bigger budgets - or more clandestine “black operations” - for an agency that conspired to kill tens of thousands of Americans.

A scenario I don’t view as possible:

Congress: “Okay, CIA, here’s your $20 billion allocation for this year. However, you’ve got to promise you’ll never try to blow up the World Trade Center, Pentagon and Capitol ever again.”

To my mind, these massive risks simply wouldn’t be worth the benefits.

Speaking about the plotters, these questions also occur to me:

WHY was it so important to make sure three WTC buildings collapsed?

Here, one has to picture the outcome if these buildings had not collapsed and the other parts of the plan did work.

With this scenario, on 9-11, terrorists would have flown planes into two World Trade Center buildings (producing thousands of casualties even if the buildings didn’t collapse). With another plane attack, they would have blown up a section of the Pentagon and the Bad Guys would have flown a plane into either The Capitol or the White House, probably destroying one of those symbolic buildings and producing hundreds or thousands of additional deaths.

Question: Would this NOT qualify as enough “shock and awe” to galvanize the country into fighting back against Osama Bin Laden or the nations that allegedly support him?

I simply don’t understand the plotters’ thinking, which, per this theory, apparently was that these shocking events would NOT be shocking enough …. unless the two tall towers - and Building No. 7 - collapsed.

In my view, this conspiracy would give new and dark meaning to the term “over-kill.”

Some who espouse this theory have speculated that one or all of the buildings had to completely collapse to destroy and literally bury incriminating documents or maybe vaults of gold (which I think would survive tons of debris crashing down on any bars).

If this is true, why did the plotters also decide to to attack the Pentagon and the Capitol/White House?

I also don’t understand how plotters could be confident the hi-jacking part of the operations would be successful. What if, for many different possible reasons, two planes didn’t crash into the World Trade Center? (To prove my point, the attack of the fourth plane, which crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, was NOT successful).

A scenario, that could have happened, that I doubt many people have considered:

Under this possible scenario, one of the teams that hijacked a commercial airplane did succeed with their mission and flew into one of the World Trade Center Towers. However, for 50 different possible reasons, the other team didn’t succeed in their mission. That is, only one plane flew into one tower.

Plotters, using the cover of the plane explosion and the inferno caused by the jet fuel, would, presumably, have gone ahead and detonated their plastic explosives, bringing down one tower. However, presumably they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) blow up the other tower that wasn’t hit, which would leave open the possibility all the plastic explosives planted in this building could later be discovered, meaning the CIA would have to scramble and remove the plastic explosives.

This hypothetical, I think, illustrates the key to the entire operation of the New York City 9-11 attacks: Everything hinged on two planes being successfully hijacked by two teams of terrorists who did succeed in flying both planes into both buildings - thus providing the requisite cover explosions to “cover” for the plastic explosives that actually brought down both buildings.

Of course, the most sinister take-away from this line of detective work is that the plotters must have, obviously, known all along that this is exactly what was going to happen. This would, in turn, mean, that (many) individuals in the U.S. government knew all along what was going to happen because, presumably, they orchestrated the entire operation (not just planting the explosives, which they never would have done unless they knew planes were going to crash into those buildings.)

That is, the plastic explosive part of the plan couldn’t even be implemented unless the other parts of the plan had gone off (successfully) … as planned.

Among other logical take-aways, this suggests plotters had been working on this plan for many months if not for more than a year - certainly long enough to recruit the terrorists, allow a couple of them to complete their pilot lessons and allow ample time to wire at least three buildings with enough explosives to bring down all three buildings. (I also assume that if plotters wired three World Trade Center buildings with explosives, they must have/probably also wired all seven buildings with explosives).

Building No. 7 …

The most compelling part of the buildings-imploded-by-exposives theory involves the (admittedly) strange collapse of WTC Building No. 7.

However, another question that has always occurred to me is why did plotters feel it necessary (mandatory?) to implode this building with explosives as well?

If destroying this building was vitally important, is it possible plotters created the entire multi-faceted 9-11 attacks simply to provide cover for imploding this one obscure building?

Again, did the plotters think that bringing down both WTC skyscrapers wouldn’t provide enough national psychological trauma to achieve their goals; they also had to take all the additional risks of wiring an obscure WTC building?

(Also, detonating this building six hours later would - as we have now seen - raise many obvious and fair questions. It seems to me if conspirators blew up two buildings, they would have blown up the third building at approximately the same time - not hours later.)

To me, all of this spit-balling conjecture makes zero sense. Stated differently, if Building No. 7 had not collapsed, everything that happened in the world after 9-11 would have still happened.

Here one, again, tries to put one’s self into the minds of the plotters.

One, two planes flying into two World Trade Center towers would NOT cause enough outrage for American politicians and citizens to launch a war on terror.

Nor would the supplementary attacks on the Pentagon and terrorists blowing up the White House or U.S. Capitol.

Key strategists must have said: “We have to detonate our pre-planted explosives in both towers to make sure they collapse, killing even more people and making an even more indelible impression on the masses.”

“But we also need to make sure we bring down this 47-story building on the outskirts of the WTC complex. (If something very incriminating was in that building and had to be buried with rubble never to be discovered, inquiring minds, myself included, would like to know what this thermo-nuclear evidence might have been).

How does anyone know the buildings wouldn’t collapse on their own?

Another point made by adherents of the demolition theory is that both WTC buildings would NOT have collapsed on their own. (According to Roger Waters, “all” structural engineering experts agree with this conclusion.)

However, speaking for myself, I don’t know how plotters could know (for a fact with 100-percent certainty) that neither of these two towers would collapse because, as far as I know, no large jet aircraft, fully-loaded with jet fuel and traveling at 500 mph had ever crashed into a skyscraper before.

(FWIW, I also believe the fact much of the asbestos fire-retardant had been removed and replaced in both buildings might explain why the buildings ultimately collapsed or, if the original and superior fire retardant material had not been replaced, might have collapsed at a later time or maybe not collapsed).

Alternate conspiracy theories that seem more plausible to myself …

A more plausible conspiracy theory IMO would be one where psychopathic intelligence operatives, perhaps, recruited 20 Muslim hijackers to do exactly what they did. This would, almost, be a fool-proof plan, as the people who crashed the planes into their targets would, of course, all die in the suicide attacks.

Another conspiracy theory, more believable to myself, is that elements of U.S. intelligence might have uncovered the plot before it happened and decided to let it happen, figuring this would be an excellent “crisis” they could exploit to bring all their neo-con plans to fruition.

However, organizing the entire operation, including going to the trouble (and risks) of wiring and blowing up three buildings, would massively increase the number of Americans who must have been involved.

Something that hasn’t happened …

Fans of Mafia movies like “Good Fellows” (which was based on a true story), know that many people involved in conspiracies often end up getting “whacked.”

Thinking about the 9-11 conspiracy theory outlined above, I wonder how many American conspirators must have known about this conspiracy and participated in it (by wiring at least three buildings with explosives or, per my logic, planning the whole thing).

To me, this number might be in the triple digits and must certainly be far into the double digits. So the question occurs to me, have 20 or 30 CIA or Mossad agents been “whacked” in the years after 9-11?

I don’t know. Has Whitney Webb or some alternative media journalist reported on this?

Were the plotters 100-percent convinced that nobody on their team would ever talk or do something stupid? Apparently, if this conspiracy theory is true, they had/have no such worries.

All of this said, let me now say this …

No where in this essay do I say the “controlled demolition” version of the 9-11 conspiracy theory is definitely wrong.

The main reason I don’t completely rule out this “high-risk” conspiracy theory is that I’m convinced a far more massive conspiracy gave us “Covid.”

The 9-11 theory outlined above could only be conceived and orchestrated by officials who are unfathomably evil. However, I do believe - based on copious evidence - that evil people exist, probably in numbers that would stun every decent and normal person on the planet.

Correctly tabulated, if one tallies all the deaths caused by wars and occupations in Mideast countries over the last 25 years, the 9-11 attacks might have ultimately produced at least one million victims and millions of additional victims who suffered serious injuries.

As mind-boggling as it is to ponder these figures, they are a pittance compared to the world-wide victims caused by the Covid conspiracy (and the lethal government response to same).

Thus, if elements of our government (and Deep State) are and were able to perpetuate a conspiracy that would kill tens of millions of people (Covid), wouldn’t the same type people be okay with a plot that would kill 10,000 or 1 million innocent people with their 9-11 plot?

This, I admit, is an excellent rebuttal point to this essay. If nothing else, history teaches us that national leaders have orchestrated numerous schemes that ended up killing millions of innocent people.

But, in my opinion, Covid was a different type of conspiracy.

With Covid, I suspect only a relatively small number of people and organizations were involved in creating an alleged “deadly pandemic.” Millions of people - necessary accomplices - ended up participating because they were all easily duped and conditioned to follow the experts and authorities and support the “authorized narrative.”

With Covid, the vast majority of citizens (and especially leaders of important organizations) quickly figured out they would BENEFIT by going along with the authorized narrative (and faced little risk from doing this). Essentially, they figured out being a member of “the herd” provided great career safety.

The difference between Covid and the popular 9-11 conspiracies is that almost no American could be portrayed as being any kind of “accomplice” in the 9-11 attacks. The only conspirators who mattered would be the people who wired three buildings with explosives, pushed the remote-control detonation devices, and/or recruited (or didn’t stop) the 20 terrorists who did, in fact, hijack four planes.

Speaking for myself, If I was invited to participate in such a plot - or even ordered to participate in such a plot, I would have refused. Even if I wanted to participate in one of the greatest homicide events in world history, I would have spent the rest of my life worried about being exposed, prosecuted, the plan going sideways or me later being rubbed out so I couldn’t talk.

But, per the “controlled demolition” conspiracy theory, dozens (or hundreds) of key conspirators either didn’t see any real risks involved or were willing to assume these risks.

In Conclusion …

IMO, large swaths of of our ruling elites excel at concocting bogus Fear Narratives like a “deadly pandemic” or “this rogue nation has weapons of mass destruction they are getting ready to use on us.” Still, for plotters, these are low-risk ruses, especially since the MSM is a co-conspirator in these Narrative Control Operations.

However, American “public servants” wiring three buildings for explosives, recruiting and partnering with real terrorists and then pushing three buttons and bringing down three iconic buildings is a far riskier proposition IMO.

Plus, IMO, this would be an extreme risk - involving elaborate and time-consuming work - that plotters didn’t even need to take.

As I don’t think the CIA (or Mossad) would take on these risks, I don’t think this popular conspiracy theory should be viewed as conspiracy fact.

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A new employee of Alabama’s Emergency Management Agency (Josh Johnson, a popular former TV meteorologist) recently made a post on his Facebook site, reminding everyone we are now in Hurricane Season and included a link from the AEMA including seven bullet points, providing citizens Official Hurricane Safety Guidance.

In response, I provided my contrarian bonafides, telling anyone who reads the Comments Section that I am tired of Government Safety Nannies telling us what to do and acting like they are saving lives.

Here is my exact post:

“In my contrarian opinion, this is just more Nanny State BS (“Follow official evacuation routes,” etc. ). These agencies are conditioning/brain-washing people to comply with our saviors and protectors - the government. I can figure out how to get through a possible hurricane on my own.”

As you can tell, Nanny Bureaucrats have long been a pet peeve of mine.

However, I am obviously in the minority. For example, here are two other comments Josh’s post generated:

Poster 1: “Thanks for continuing to take care of us.”

Poster 2: “Thank you Josh, still taking care of us. God b!ess.”

(I do want to say that Josh, who I’ve met a couple of times, seems like a nice guy and I’m not trying to pick on him. I’m just using him and his latest guidance post to make a few points I’ve been wanting to make for a while.)

As do-gooder agencies go, the AEMA is not the monstrosity of other state and federal do-gooder agencies.

From Google AI, I learned (emphasis added by this contrarian):

“The Alabama Emergency Management Agency (AEMA) operates with a dedicated staff of approximately 60 state employees. Headquartered in Clanton, Alabama, this team coordinates with 34 state departments, federal partners, and local county EMAs to manage disaster preparedness and recovery efforts.”

In other words, the AEMA does far less harm and consumes far less tax-payer dollars than the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), which, per Google AI, employs “more than 2,600 people.”

For example, it is the “dedicated” employees of the ADPH who work tirelessly 24-7, 365 days out of the year to make sure every Alabama citizen gets their annual flu shot.

The same agency encouraged everyone to get their Covid shots and ensured all Alabamians that Covid was a mortality threat to all Alabamians, including children.

(When I asked the media person for the ADPH how many Alabama children had actually died from Covid, I was told the “public health” agency couldn’t provide this information to the public. Nor could/would the agency answer my question about how many of the ADPH’s own 2,600 employees had died from Covid in the past five years - “HIPAA reasons,” I was told.)

***

In the intro text of his post, Josh wrote: “Reminder: We are in hurricane season NOW!”

(Note the ALL CAPS and the exclamation point, which, I guess is a reminder that makes everyone exclaim, “Oh my gosh - I forgot we were in Hurricane Season.”)

Josh did add, “All is quiet at the moment, but that could change in a matter of days.”

Josh is right about that. That’s one thing about the weather; it can change in a matter of hours or days.

And, to be clear, I do appreciate the work of people in Josh’s previous job of meteorologist, the weather babes and dudes who tell everyone that a tropical depression has formed off the coast of Africa, might grow into hurricane and might land somewhere in the Southeast or East Coast.

Due to this work, all citizens know we need to be alert; that we might need to go somewhere else (evacuate) and that the power could go off for days, which means we might need to get extra batteries and stock up on Vienna Sausages.

I didn’t know, but was educated by the AEMA press release, that we should also all “practice with your household and pets.”

At first, I didn’t understand how I was supposed to “practice” for a hurricane with our sweet dog, Annie, but one of the bullet points explained that we should “search on-line for local pet-friendly evacuation locations.”

As far as practicing with the rest of my household, my plan was always that if things looked like they might get bad enough, I was going to tell my wife and two kids, “Get in the car; we’re leaving.”

The “practice” would be getting the family to actually do what Dad said.

What I really think …

I’ve also always thought that impending or real disasters were just another excuse for bureaucrats and elected officials to act more important.

These developing weather situations are an excuse for governors and mayors to hold countless press conferences, telling everyone, “A hurricane might be coming - listen to us for more official guidance/orders.”

Citizens know these are important press conferences (and these are very important leaders) because these briefing always include a sign language interpreter.

Personally, I’ve always wondered how many deaf people are actually watching these press conferences and, even if some people can’t hear, can’t they read? (Also, doesn’t every TV show now come with close-captioning?)

Still, these events have provided me some of my greatest chuckles, especially when someone who can read sign language reports that the sign-language interpreter is signing complete gibberish.

Also, these events always include 20 other officials standing behind the governor with sombre looks on their faces. The governor/mayor will invariably instruct everyone to follow the instructions of the government’s disaster experts.

(Everyone needs to share this article so people know what to do when we have another hurricane.)

As I will never forget from Hurricane Opal in 1995, sometimes hurricanes do actually hit and do produce devastation even hundreds of miles inland.

When this happens, as a general observation (and with some exceptions), the people who rally to the occasion and rescue people are every-day good Samaritan citizens. Here I’m talking about people with fishing or air boats who mobilize on their own and ignore the guidance of the government or don’t wait for the National Guard to come save people in dire situations.

(Also, it’s always been amazing to me how good, old-fashioned capitalism kicks in and armies of people from all over show up with chain saws the morning after the storm.)

As an aside, my wife and I just watched a Netflix documentary about an Italian cruise ship that sunk in 2012 after the captain ran the ship into rocks. In that emergency, the crew kept telling everyone the ship had simply experienced a power outage and everyone should go back to their rooms. Fortunately, passengers knew this was a crock and went to work trying to save themselves.

(My wife pointed out that the same thing happened on 9-11, when people working in the second World Trade Center tower were told to go back to their offices and not evacuate the sky-scraper.)

This is good guidance - especially if your father happens to be a gasoline distributor …

Another expert hurricane preparedness pro tip is citizens should keep their vehicles at least half full with gasoline - which is good advice that nobody would think about except for the highly-trained experts.

As another aside, I’ll never forget the time a hurricane in the Gulf kept stalling and then changing directions, resulting in the Emergency Planners ordering three different evacuations, which they kept rescinding and then re-ordering.

As it turns out, my Dad was in the gasoline business in Troy, Alabama and owned two Gulf Stations on Highway 231. Both stations were right on the main official evacuation route.

Dad got to sell petrol six times to hundreds of thousands of motorists who were evacuating and un-evacuating, more than enough to fund a great beach vacation for our family as the hurricane never did any damage to the coast.

***

Who knows if the 2026 Hurricane Season will be a bad one or be another season where no hurricanes make landfall.

About 30 years ago, all the experts told us that hurricanes were going to become much more common and they would all pack much higher wind gusts because of man-made Global Warming.

That prediction was a bust as, per the official records, fewer hurricanes have made landfall and, when they did, they were about the same as the hurricanes that made landfall between 1900 to 1980, when Global Cooling was the big worry.

Which is not to say, we shouldn’t all take hurricanes seriously.

My main point is that, once upon a time, American citizens didn’t need an army of self-important bureaucrats and politicians to tell us to buy extra batteries and practice by checking for hotels that accept pets.

When Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater were running for president, they made fun of people who said, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.” (Back then, “rugged, self-reliant” voters seemed to get the joke).

In Conclusion …

Once upon a time, adult leaders knew that adult citizens were smart enough to know what to do if a hurricane was bearing down on their towns.

Today, 80 percent of the population says, “Oh, thank you so much, Government, for helping us stay safe,” with politicians invariably adding, “We really need to increase the budgets for our Emergency Management agencies and our First Responders.”

As for contrarian Facebook posters like myself, I think “someone” is simply trying to condition us all to comply with our leaders and produce a population of ever-more-compliant sheeple.

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On July 8th - six days ago - I again stepped into the batter’s box here on the Substack diamond to take my swings.

The situation was dire for my team. It was the bottom of the 9th and Team Rice was down by three runs with two outs in the last inning. The good news is that America’s Team had three runners on base. However, adding stress, the pitcher quickly got two strikes on me.

The pitcher rocks, fires … Bill focusses as hard as he can, swings, ball hits bat on sweet spot and - I can’t believe it - that ball is out of here!

Walk-off, grand slam!

Play-by—play Announcer: “What a great column Bill posted today!”

Color commentator: “Wow! The crowd is going wild.”

Yes, indeedy - Holllyyy Cow! - Breaking a season-long slump, a Substack author who was hitting just .100 for the season and hadn’t hit a home run all season, stroked one that was still rising when it sailed over the left field fence.

In fact, that one Substack swing netted me 116 new free subscribers when I had been losing, on average, five to 10 subscribers every time I stepped into the batter’s box and hit “send” on a story.

The Rest of the Story …

In today’s follow-up plate appearance, I would like to provide the back story of a column that was the lead highlight on “Sports Center” and caused my wife to give me a big, wet kiss on the lips.

It turns out that Bill wasn’t the real hero of this game. The real hero was one of his loyal fans, Dr. Meryl Nass, a beloved (or reviled) contrarian physician who, after having her license to practice medicine revoked by the Commissioner (for allegedly posting dangerous disinformation), continued to publish a Substack newsletter.

Before I stepped into the batter’s box in the bottom of the 9th, my column (“Here’s what I think really happened with Covid”) had been read by approximately 3,500 people, but had produced only a handful of new subscribers, which was still three more than most of my articles had produced in the last 18 months.

While I was in the dugout, thinking about switching bats, Dr. Nass sent a message down to the dugout.

In a note (actually an email), she told me that she wanted to cross-post my column, but, for some reason, was having difficulty performing this routine Substack activity.

“I was not able to cross post your July 8 article with pic of Mad Men,” Dr. Nass said, adding, “The reason is there are no 3 dots in the upper right corner of the piece. Wanted to let you know.”

The note caught my attention because, on occasion, I too had wanted to cross-post an article I liked or thought was important and couldn’t do it for the same reason (no three dots) next to the story header.

Dr. Nass added in her note:

“Also, I don’t think I am getting your posts most of the time.”

This note actually angered me, although it also confirmed or reinforced a long-held hypothesis of mine:

“Somebody doesn’t want my Substack articles to reach hardly any people; someone is messing with my Substack.”

I scribbled a note in response, handed it to the bat boy who delivered it up into the bleachers to Dr. Nass.

My note (email) thanked Dr. Nass for taking an interest in this particular column and I added that if she could figure out a way to cross-post my piece ..

“I will also be able to tell how many more readers and subscribers I get when a colleague with a much-larger subscription base shares my story.”

(Note: Dr. Nass now, supposedly or reportedly, has 48K subscribers, which she told me is 5,000 fewer than she had a year ago.)

Two innings later I got another note (email) from Dr. Nass, delivering fantastic news:

“I had so much trouble finding your newsletter through Google, then trying to get to the archive page. Anyway, after several more clicks and false starts, I actually reached a page that allowed me to cross post it. Go figure.”

Dr. Nass added: “It is very hard to find Substacks (or maybe our kind of Substack) using search engines.”

In a nutshell, my column was now going to reach a lot more readers and prospective subscribers.

***

Sure enough (I had my device with me in the dugout), my story metrics immediately started to explode.

Without Dr. Nass’s assist, the story had produced 80 likes, which was very good compared to my previous plate appearances (which had been averaging about 40 to 50 “likes.”)

My teammates must have wondered what I was doing as a smile spread across my face while I spit out a few more sunflower seeds.

… 85 likes, 90 … 100! 120! … (Update: Last I checked, my story had generated 240 “likes.”)

And the emails started coming in from Substack: new subscriber, new subscriber, new subscriber …

“Boys,” I said, “I’m back in business. We ain’t dead yet.”

(Troy University has a baseball player named Jabe Boroff. For most of the season, this player was hitting under .125 and had only one home run. In one month, he blasted 10 home runs and is now known as “Jabe Ruth.” Jabe is my role model.)

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This was what I was battling …

As fans of my newsletter must know, for almost two years, I had been struggling with the dreaded loss of confidence.

“Casey (Bill) has lost his Mojo,” all the headlines read.

A former top prospect and candidate for Substack Rookie of the Year back in 2022, Rice, poor fellow, could no longer buy a hit, much less a home run.

I, of course, could read the writing on the wall - the analytics (metrics), don’t lie … or (keep reading, do they?)

A couple of games before this big game I even wrote a story saying my Substack ship, like the Titanic, was sinking. There was probably nothing I could do to stop this.

In a week, I’d be sent down to AAA in Nashville and next season I’d no doubt be in A ball in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Pundits had a field day speculating on what had happened to me.

Conventional wisdom seems to have agreed that I was a victim of “Covid fatigue” or “newsletter over-saturation” which was causing millions of Substack readers to cull subscriptions as fast as they received a new article in their in-box.

I meekly replied, “Well, I write about plenty of subjects that aren’t Covid” and couldn’t help but ask, “Why are only ‘Covid contrarian’ readers culling subscriptions at a furious clip? This isn’t happening to Kait Justice or Robert Reich …”

Others said I must have changed my swing, which accounted for all my strikeouts.

“No, I haven’t changed my swing,” I said. “My writing is the same as it was three years ago.” I even added: “I think it’s better.”

While I never said this publicly to the sports scribes who gathered around my locker after every game, privately, I thought my game experience had allowed me to polish my writing and that my brain synopses were firing at a higher clip, allowing me to connect dots I hadn’t been able to connect when I made my Major League debut on Substack.

For their part, the tabloids said I was clearly paranoid, just another wacko conspiracy theorist prone to whining.

Or, people said, “he’s getting what he deserves. He keeps posting dangerous and extremist articles that are going to jeopardize the public’s safety if people are allowed to read his content.”

All of this is back-story material that will come out in a “30-for-30” documentary one day, but these anecdotes show that I was feeling some pressure and was not working from an optimal mental state when I stepped into the batter’s box and wrote my first sentence of “This is what I think really happened with Covid.”

And then Dr. Nass cross-posted my article and I was able to tell my naysayers, “Take that,” except a classy, old-school ball player, I kept my mouth shut.

I might not have turned the corner …

I will add that the metrics that story produced still strike me as off, dubious or “curious.”

For example, Substack tells me that my play-of-the-day story ended up generating 6,400 “Page views.”

However, I just sent a follow-up email to Dr. Nass, who told me - per her metrics - 19,066 of her readers actually read the Bill Rice, Jr. story she cross-posted. (If one adds 3,000 of my readers that had already read this article, that story reached at least 22,000 readers).

Also, Substack tells me - with one metric - that this story produced 47 new subscribers (three paid and 44 free).

However, when I posted that story I had 7,509 total subscribers and I now (supposedly) have 7,625 subscribers. Per simple subtraction, I added 116 new subscribers.

Since I’ve only posted one original story since then (“Logic, Jim”) and that story “reverted to the norm,” and produced only one new subscriber, by deductive reasoning (“Logic, Jim”) I concluded that my prior story (my grand slam story) actually generated 115 new subscribers.

Per my logic or belief, one story produced 115 new subscribers when I’d been averaging losing five net subscribers every time I stepped into the batter’s box.

So the question I’m trying to conceive an answer for is “What changed?”

(When I was called up to the Big Leagues, the scouting report on me said, “Rice has a unique talent for detecting odd trend changes.”)

My answer is only one thing changed: Dr. Nass cross-posted this article.

That article actually reached far more people than all my other 2025-2026 articles had been reaching. (Back when I was a Rookie of the Year candidate, and metrics might have been more credible, I once wrote a story that got 74,000 Page Views).

And - at least to me, here’s the headline - when new readers are exposed to my writing - 115 of them decided they liked my writing style and decided they would become either a paid subscriber or a free subscriber.

For some reason, the phenomena of “Covid fatigue” or “subscription over-saturation” didn’t apply to this story or to this new pool of readers.

In effect, what happened (IMO) is that through a clever work-around, Dr. Nass figured out a way to get one of my articles around “the gatekeepers of the news.”

And, just like was the case for the first two years of my Substack, when new readers read my stuff, an impressive ratio of them decided to give this kid a chance and become free subscribers.

As “proof of readership,” - these readers also hit the “like” button at a rate that was four to six-fold more than my previous corpus of articles. The number of Reader Comments, which I value greatly, also exploded.

The flood of new free subscribers fed my ego and the $192 boost in “annualized revenue” brought my checking account back into the black.

However, what really made me feel like Alabama’s Tua Tongolovia had just completed a 40-yard TD pass to Devonta Smith (on 3rd-and-26) in overtime of the national championship game against Georgia in 2017 … is that this column seems to support my hypothesis that someone really has been messing with my Substack metrics to suppress my reach and take money out of my pocket.

It seems to me I was right all the time.

If people, or the algorithms, would just leave me alone and go back to the 2023 Status Quo, my Substack newsletter would be doing just fine and no readers would have to read any more “curious-metrics-on-Substack” articles.

***

While one should always celebrate life’s memorable victories, a little voice in my head did tell me, “This won’t last, Bill” … and it didn’t.

My “Logic, Jim” story - per official Substack metrics - was read by approximately 1,500 current subscribers and 1,500 non-subscribers.

For business-growth purposes, “the non-subscribers” have always been my “target audience” and this particular pool of non-subscribers produced one new free subscriber.

Here’s what I think is really happening (Part 2) ….

At the moment, my working hypothesis is that my total reader metrics are probably as dubious as Covid “case numbers” and the CPI’s official inflation rate.

It’s possible the vast majority of my target market - non-subscribers - are bots or made up out of thin air, which might explain why these readers are so different than Dr. Nass’s (real, live, human being) readers and never hit the subscribe button.

Still, the Titanic hasn’t gone completely under water and this case study (plate appearance) at least suggests that it might be possible for the Home Team to rally from a big deficit and slay Team Narrative Controllers.

In Conclusion …

When I was in the minors before I got called up to The Show, I once had a batting coach who gave me a great piece of advice.

“Keep swinging, Kid,” he told me. “You’ve got promise; don’t let any of the doubters stomp on your enthusiasm.”

Which became one of my Maxims or, these days, my guiding philosophy of life: “Post while you still can.”

Sometimes in life and even on Substack, you swing, look up, flip your bat toward the dugout and say, “Touch ‘em all, baby.”

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I don’t consider myself a genius, but I do try to use the same logic or deductive reasoning that authentic geniuses use in their thinking.

One talent real geniuses possess is they can take one observable fact and then proceed to formulate dozens of other conclusions that likely flow from said observation or one “known truth.”

In layman’s terms, such thinkers conclude: “If A is true, it follows logically that B, C, D and E must also be true.”

This is the exact same mental exercise I’ve employed in my research, thinking and writing on my “early spread” hypothesis.

Early on in my investigative journalism and research, I concluded that many people had contacted a novel coronavirus before the authorities said was possible.

This, in fact, must have qualified as a maverick/contrarian conclusion (although I think millions of people probably agree with me that this was the case … or at least was possible).

However, my conclusion that “some significant but unknown number of people had early cases of Covid” is not really a sinister or potentially “thermo-nuclear” conclusion by itself. The truly seismic (and I believe, “logical”) conclusions flow from the many other conclusions that must be true if this simple observation is, in fact, true.

In today’s dispatch, I’m going to list key conclusions that flow from one simple observation or belief. It is these firmly-held beliefs that, in turn, scare the daylights out of me when thinking about what must be the true character of our world or my assessment of the “leaders” who rule over us.

First simple observation: “Early spread” happened and was real.

(Note: As this essay reveals, I also use the Socratic Method to inform my thinking - thus the questions I have interspersed throughout today’s article) …

If this observation is true, what else must be true (or is probably true)?

For starters …

• Some important people must have known this and, for some reason(s), didn’t want the public to know this.

• Also, nobody (who matters) seriously investigated this possibility.

• Furthermore, a coordinated effort must have been utilized to conceal or dismiss/discredit credible evidence of early spread.

• And this: There must be a reason(s) that important truth-seeking organizations have not pursued this line of investigation.

What would/might these reasons be?

And:

What is/was the “authorized” conclusion from “origins investigations?”

Answers:

• Covid started in Wuhan, China.

• Covid was a naturally-occurring virus that “jumped species” from bats.

• (This, IMO, is very important): Covid, per the experts, did NOT start from any “gain-of-function” experiments or research.

• “Community spread” of this virus commenced in December 2019 in Wuhan, China.

This, by logic, would mean that:

• Nobody anywhere in the world who experienced Covid symptoms before mid-December 2019 could possibly have had Covid.

***

But what if all of these conclusions - usually couched as “settled science” - aren’t true?

Another good question IMO:

Why would “trusted” officials promulgate and disseminate false narratives?

One might also ask this question: Why does anyone who is covering-up something important … lie?

Or:

Would officials, or any important watchdog organization, actually participate in a conspiracy to conceal the truth from the public?

Editorial comment: Many citizens believe the answer to the above question is yes, they might lie. However, for some strange reason, most people in the world didn’t or don’t think such experts and authorities (people with great power and much to lose if they were exposed as brazen liars) would lie about the true origins of Covid.

This is another common-sense question: Why was it so important to Fauci and other important and prestigious scientists to promote the natural origins theory?

This answer, at least to myself, seems pretty obvious: Because they didn’t want the Science Industrial Establishment (or the U.S. Government) to be implicated in any “Crime of the Century” or “Crime Against Humanity.”

(Please see Bonus Content in today’s Reader Comment for text confirming the importance of popular writers cross-posting another author’s articles. Thank you, Dr. Nass!)

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The key take-away from the Proximal Origins Theory (read: cover-up) is that bats caused the Covid pandemic.

However, it should be noted (and hasn’t been) that this narrative also stipulates (as “settled science) that virus spread did not begin until mid-December 2019.

Fauci and his co-conspirators thus precluded/prevented any investigation into earlier cases of Covid. In effect, they set the birthdate of Covid or the “timeline” of when virus spread actually commenced, meaning the official Covid timeline has probably always been bogus …. And probably intentionally so.

I’ve always thought this is a good question: Would real scientists or investigative journalists be interested in dating the real start date of “virus spread?”

My answer: Yes they would.

Next question: Did such further credible and genuine investigations actually ensue?

My answer: No they didn’t.

Question: Why did this (credible origins’ investigations) NOT happen?

I can think of only four possible answers:

One, the belief every important truth-seeking person or organization will - and should - always accept the conclusions of the perceived experts.

(This, at least to myself, would be an extremely disturbing conclusion and would, in fact, mean the Scientific Method should NOT be utilized. That is, this would mean “real science” is, for all intents and purposes, dead.)

Two, most members of the public lack the intelligence to conclude that it’s at least possible trusted authorities might be wrong or, perhaps, lying.

(This would also be an extremely disturbing conclusion as it suggests the IQ of the vast majority of world citizens is too low to employ or utilize basic logic and deductive reasoning).

Three, this take-away, in turn, suggests that the “Powers that Be” know they can get away with lies and massive frauds because they know the population is effectively obtuse or incapable of exposing sinister plots … which would be yet another disturbing conclusion.

The fourth possibility is that “leaders” throughout the world know (or suspect) the official narrative(s) is false, but don’t care and will not do anything to expose this truth.

(This conclusion, at least to myself, would also be “beyond disturbing” and even suggest the existence of true evil … or that the number of evil people is much greater than most citizens previously understood.)

Another conclusion flowing from my Early-Spread Research:

Everyone (who matters) somehow all knew that “early spread” was a taboo subject of inquiry.

Addendum aside: The same people and “truth-seeking” organizations intuitively understand that the “embalmers’ clots” phenomena is another taboo subject to expose or investigate … which I mention only to make the point that there are countless taboo subjects that everyone who matters knows cannot be investigated and then, perhaps, confirmed.

I have also concluded that if officials know they can get away with one brazen lie or crime (which they now do), this must make them supremely confident they can get away with other lies and crimes, which is certainly not a positive precedent for mankind.

(To channel Don Henley: “Are you with me so far?” Do you see where I am going with all these New Abnormal Maxims - Maybe we can check out from this hotel, but we can never leave.)

Other conclusions:

Many people likely experienced early Covid or were infected by the virus that causes the symptoms and clinical presentation of Covid-19.

This was NOT a small number of people.

Unusually contagious viruses make larger numbers of people sick or symptomatic. (This, IMO, probably explains why 2,750 more U.S. schools closed “due to illness” in the months before official Covid compared to a previous five-year-average.)

Viruses that are limited, “isolated” or aren’t spreading widely don’t make people in all 50 U.S. states sick in a time period of several months.

Per my research, people who had early Covid symptoms and later tested positive for Covid antibodies had not recently been to China.

… Which quickly led me to conclude: Any virus spread among people who had Covid symptoms or later tested positive for Covid via antibody tests did NOT trace back to any outbreak in Wuhan, China.

Key (explosive) Take-away/conclusion:

Epidemiologists and public health officials did NOT note large numbers of “Covid deaths” until after mid-March 2020.

This, by logic, would mean that if the novel coronavirus was spreading across America and other countries that this virus was not uniquely or conspicuously “deadly” in its first four to eight months of spread.

One can also observe that this particular novel virus become supremely deadly only after lockdowns and NPIs were implemented to slow or stop spread.

Thus, it seems that lockdowns intended to prevent Covid cases and deaths somehow produced the exact opposite result.

Based on one simple observation dealing with evidence of Early Spread, it seems to me that it’s very possible that something else besides the virus must explain the hundreds of thousands of Spring 2020 “Covid deaths.”

Conclusion:

Via logic involving the process of elimination, the iatrogenic protocols used in hospitals and nursing homes must have caused the vast majority of deaths that were falsely labeled “Covid deaths.”

Also:

If many people people (probably tens of millions) had already contracted a novel virus by late February 2020, this would mean that many millions of people must have already acquired natural immunity.

Furthermore, if large numbers of people already had natural immunity and the virus was not deadly to 99.8 percent of the people who might contract it, there was absolutely no need for a rushed experimental “vaccine” that would allegedly prevent new infections and stop new deaths.

Also, while I’m no virologist, I’m confident that natural immunity is superior to any mRNA gene therapy in preventing medical cases.

“Confirmation” of early spread would confirm that Covid was nothing for the public to panic about and that the virus had, almost certainly, peaked and started to ebb by the time lockdowns were mandated in mid-March 2020.

From one simple observation - early spread is real and happened - I thus, quickly, concluded that …

• Officials must have known this and covered this up.

• The bat origins story must be a lie.

• If natural origins was a lie, this leaves only non-natural origins as the culprit.

• No person in government (or the Deep State) would want the public to know they were responsible for a pandemic, which would provide “possible motive” for a vast cover-up.

• Even if the novel coronavirus wasn’t overly deadly, a novel virus produced in a lab via “gain-of-function” research still killed a not-insignificant number of people and made many millions of people very sick.

• The December (or later November 2019) origins birthday was clearly a lie.

• The new Iatrogenic protocols - which enriched hospitals around the country - were required/necessary to produce the huge number of deaths that “confirmed” the “deadly virus” narrative.

• The fraudulent PCR tests explain the massive number of “cases.”

• The public should also also now know why large number of people couldn’t get a PCR test until latter March 2020 - and why only people who had been to China got the few tests that were administered.

• Censorship, reach-suppression efforts and bullying/fear tactics were intended to silence or mute the influence of people who could use basic and simple logic.

• The Covid “vaccines” caused millions of more deaths and adverse events than this respiratory virus did, which would mean “bats” didn’t kill millions of world inhabitants … democide did.

Other Key Conclusions from my Conclusions Column …

None of the above would have happened if the public simply knew that tens of millions of people had already been infected by this virus by the time authorities conspired to make everyone panic over a pandemic that was NOT “deadly” for the first seven or so months of its spread.

But this is not the most maddening or sinister interpretation that flows from my hypothesis that evidence of early spread was intentionally concealed from the public.

The most sinister conclusion I quickly formed is that every important truth-seeking organization in the world must be completely captured.

Nobody (who matters) cares about the truth and everyone who does matter ensured such a brazen crime against humanity could be pulled off.

Per logic, I don’t know what other conclusions I could make.

I do know citizens like myself are not supposed to reach these conclusions, but these conclusions - almost by process of elimination - are what they are.

The other possibility is that everything happened exactly like the experts said and our trusted authorities have been completely transparent and honest and have never lied about anything related to Covid.

While, like Mr. Spock, I’ve tried to use logic, I know logic and critical thinking are frowned upon by the world’s real rulers, no longer matter and/or make independent thinkers like myself a target or threat.

Which, if true, would also be a conclusion I find terrifying.

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Following my own advice to “post while you still can,” I might as well go ahead and publish a piece where I summarize what I think really happened with Covid. (I decided to make my version of events a little more colorful than a paper you might read in The Lancet.)

In roughly chronological order …

Years before official Covid, U.S. “mad scientists” probably led by Ralph Baric succeeded in creating a virus that was more infective and contagious. (This would be “gain-of-function” research, the amazing breakthrough where scientists try to make scary natural pathogens much more scary.)

Years before official Covid, specially-trained commandos of elite Deep State units began changing laws and regulations which made it easier/possible to declare a pandemic.

To the relief of everyone, conscientious public servants and freedom fighters in the Military Industrial Complex could now fully control the world-saving response to all existential threats to humanity (not just Global Warming).

Years before official Covid, people in the know on “the real state of the economy” understood and, no doubt stressed-out over, the possibility an economic crisis could spiral out of control, which could jeopardize the Establishment’s continued rule and control of America and thus the world.

“Someone” or some group of people decided they needed to create one crisis to camouflage (and/or delay) another crisis that was gurgling like lava just below the surface.

According to the Masters of the Universe, the world needed digital ID - and later digital currency - to keep the masses from going for their pitchforks and/or to keep them from revolting and/or to keep them mollified via direct deposits of digital incomes.

Per my theory, it was probably agreed that “Vaccine passports” or digital medical IDs would make it easier for the world’s real rulers to roll out much-needed future “digital solutions.”

Also, trillions of dollars of “stimulus” injected into the financial system would buy the world’s real rulers extra time (aka “kicking the can down the road”) and, as a side benefit, make many billionaires multi-billionaires.

More deadly vaccines would, over time, kill millions of people prematurely which would mean, in the future, pension funds had to pay out less money to retirees.

Also, given that the same vaccine would decrease fertility and reduce birth rates, in the future, this would result in fewer citizens, citizens who would not spend most of their lives drawing welfare or taking up space in public school classrooms.

Fewer people on the planet would also make future unemployment rates lower than they otherwise would have been (plus, plotters probably agreed, “AI can perform those jobs anyway.”)

The trillions of dollars in stimulus money produced by the Magic Printing Press would also ensure the stock market continued to soar.

(One of the great silver linings of the Covid Pandemic is that economists now know that Bubonic Plagues - as well as global wars - are, in fact, bullish for investors - at least for those who invest in the same companies BlackRock does).

Significantly, the Dow soaring well above 50,000 ensures the pension and retirement funds generate enough dividends and capital gains to ensure that the Peon and Proletariat Classes could keep getting their pensions (and keep watching the Hunger Games … check that, the World Cup).

Then ...

Someone proposed, “Let’s stage a pandemic.”

To which, all the right people squinted their eyes in thought, bit their lips in deep contemplation, twiddled their fingers on their desk tops and then said … “Okay.”

The plotters then ramped up narrative-control operations, telling everyone who would listen that a deadly pandemic was inevitable … but nobody should worry too much as the world’s trusted experts were on top of this possibility and, if this did happen, they already had their rejoinder ready: “We’ve got a vaccine for that.”

***

Someone also realized the masses might not go along with a pandemic that might be perceived as contrived or embellished. Or, the world still had a few intelligent people, some of whom would probably call-out any ruse.

“Such people will have to be censored and these people will have to be shamed into silence,” someone must have replied.

Everyone who matters agreed with this statement and The Censorship Industrial Complex was conceived, funded, staffed and sprung into action.

To assign everyone their designated roles, multiple table-top planning retreats were scheduled and held with all the right people attending and making valuable contributions.

“If the entire world isn’t going to be wiped out, we all have to do our part,” said the Gates-funded facilitator of Event 201: “Do I hear a second?”

“Second.”

“Thus, be it resolved.”

Before the group broke for cocktails, the Narrative had been written and everyone knew they should buy Moderna and Pfizer stock the next day.

As planners realized some trouble-making scientists would probably demand “proof of virus,” they knew they had to use a real virus, which they happened to have thanks to Dr. Baric and the generous financial support of Dr. Fauci’s NIH and American tax-payers.

***

Planners also knew a real “deadly” virus could kill them so they, first, tested the “gain of function” pathogen to make sure it wasn’t really super-deadly.

On some unknown date, someone must have said:

“Start releasing the virus,”… which is one of history’s most significant events and qualifies as the real birth of Covid.

Regarding my “early spread” evidence, I don’t know who “Case Zero” is or was. (I do know it wasn’t Mayor Melham nor was it Sung Si, the vendor who ran the ferret booth at the Wuhan Live Market in mid-December 2019.)

(It should be noted it’s possible there never was a novel virus at all, which, if true, would make the entire Covid Production even more impressive.)

Per the Pandemic Script, the cover story was that the virus would, at some future date, be “discovered” in China and all would agree that it had “jumped species” from Chinese bats - the story’s real villain.

The key part of the script …

The key to the entire operation was the creation and rapid approval of a new diagnostic test - a PCR test - that would, like magic, create hundreds of millions of “cases.”

In a departure from the norm, a person with this new disease didn’t have to exhibit any symptoms at all.

As one leader of one African nation later said, the PCR test would identify positives in door knobs, hubcaps, mangos and goats, which - for the purposes of the plotters - was perfect.

For the plan to be smoothly executed, it was important that the PCR test not be widely administered in America until latter March 2020 (which would preclude the possibility of any “confirmed early cases.”)

Also, I am confident that one planner piped up and said, “Let’s only test people who have recently been to China.”

To which all those in attendance probably replied: “Great idea, Jane.”

Except for the participant who was the Director of China’s version of the CDC. Per my imagination, this man probably said (in Mandarin, through a translator): “Hey, wait a damn minute.”

***

The novel virus also had to be perceived as being 10 to 100 times more deadly than the common flu and create shocking numbers of deaths so, at some point, huge numbers of deaths had to be observed somewhere.

One significant outbreak created (supposedly) three to 10 deaths of geriatric cruise enthusiasts. The first region of a nation to experience a deadly outbreak was Northern Italy. (Oddly, China - birthplace of the Plague - recorded very few deaths) … but beginning in the last 10 days of March 2020 in New York City, tens of thousands of people began to suddenly die from a disease that was now called Hey-19 (I mean Covid-19).

In late January 2020, one Chinese man apparently just fell-out dead on a Wuhan sidewalk, an event that happened to be captured by a photographer from Reuters, an image that was instantly disseminated around the world, causing every person who saw this picture to exclaim, “Oh, sh*t.”

Nobody advertised these component parts of the plan …

The use of ventilators, remdesivir, morphine, Midazolam; cutting the prescriptions of antibiotics in half; dehydration and starvation; patient panic; isolating patients - who could not be protected from doctors by their loved ones, and codes that attributed Covid mortality to people who died from motorcycle accidents … as well as a project to protect the public from certain medicines that were really “horse paste” …. combined to produce the all-important and shocking death figures … as did billions of dollars in payouts to hospital systems who followed the CDC’s life-saving protocols.

Lockdowns, masking and 75 other Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions further conditioned the masses to follow the guidance of their rulers.

Scientists, doctors and pundits who said, “something is off here” and questioned the origins narrative or the necessity of the unprecedented NPIs were censored, de-platformed, fired and/or their licenses revoked.

***

In China, officials protested that their nation had been framed and made into a Patsy for causing Covid, but nobody believed them and these arguments weren’t published by the Trusted News Initiative.

Still, in late January 2020, China imposed the world’s most draconian lockdowns in an effort to “stop spread,” which makes one wonder if the Chinese were also obtuse enough to think virus spread had just started.

Horse-out-of-the-barn or not, these proactive virus mitigation tools were held out as the model for the rest of the world and, per the script, the mantra became “lockdown until the vaccines save us all.”

(I should perhaps note that binge watching old TV series set viewing records for Netflix and I finally watched “Mad Men,” “The Wire” and “The Sopranos,” which I was happy to learn are not over-rated.)

In America, Anthony Fauci became the greatest national hero since George Washington and nurses and doctors who were killing tens of thousands of patients were feted as another group of national heroes.

Skip to a few scenes involving me …

Beginning in April 2020, I started saying or suggesting that the virus might have originated from an American lab and been circulating for many months before its announcement.

In late May 2020, I finished an article where I provided evidence of 15 Americans who had Covid in November and December 2019. I emailed my article to approximately 30 news organizations, none of which published my article.

This is also the approximate time I coined my first two New Abnormal Maxims:

“Every important truth-seeking organization in the world is completely captured.”

And:

“Authorities will never investigate that which they don’t want to confirm.”

Later in 2020, my Facebook account was suspended for the first of three times, prompting me to utter a few expletives I’ll delete, ultimately causing me to start a Substack newsletter.

Back to the rest of the world …

With “warp-speed,” American scientists created several vaccines that safety trials confirmed were 95 percent effective and 100-percent safe.

Most citizens lined up to get these shots, which were mandatory for approximately half of the world’s employees.

When more people (allegedly) “died from Covid” in the second year of the pandemic, these deaths were blamed on the “unvaccinated folks.”

There was no need to investigate possible early cases as the experts said there were no early cases …. just like today, the same experts say there are no embalmers’ clots, which beget the birth of another Bill Rice, Jr. Maxim:

“Never trust the experts.”

Once enough vaccinated folks caught Covid or Rebound Covid, officials explained that the “vaccines” were only intended to prevent death and severe cases.

When a spike in all-cause deaths occurred in vaccinated folks, only people who found articles in the alternative media learned this or were disturbed by this.

Also, celebrities who were being killed or harmed by the shots issued press releases thanking the Pharmaceutical Companies that were killing or injuring them.

After five years and the roll-out of seven or eight Covid boosters, most Americans quit getting their recommended Covid shots but half the country still gets their mRNA flu shots, which still don’t prevent the flu and probably cause it.

And I guess everybody knows the rest of the story from here …

Epilogue …

I’m still publishing away on Substack, where I am now setting records for lost subscribers. (See “Bonus Content” in today’s Reader Comments).

I never got invited to be a guest on Joe Rogan or one of Tucker Carlson’s podcasts and Sen. Paul or Sen. Johnson never asked me to testify in front of a Congressional Committee investigating the real birth date of Covid.

I still don’t know what person or persons said “release the virus” and no mainstream news organization has ever investigated any possible early cases.

Officials did try to implement digital vaccine passports but that trial balloon got shot down by a kid with a bb gun.

While the response to “Covid” might have delayed an economic or financial calamity, my strong hunch is that the effort to kick any financial crisis down the road will just make the inevitable meltdown more horrific.

While many people have offered educated guesses, nobody knows for sure who green-lit the Pandemic of the Century.

Whoever it was is still in power and, no doubt, is working on details of the next crisis, which will take our minds off the real crisis, which I still think is an economic catastrophe.

As we learned in Covid, most people don’t want to know the truth so these people won’t be overly upset when the accomplices in the next Crime of the Century again escape Scott Free.

For my part, I’ll keep posting while I still can (and keep adding this little red button at the bottom of my articles).

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Two examples of recent reader comments germane to today’s dispatch:

Mary: I did not see a comment from you on the post by Christine. I tried twice to reply to that post but it did not register.

csofand: Me either Mary.

***

For all the articles I’ve posted about “curious trends on Substack,” I’ve yet to identify the main reasons this (possible) nefarious activity disturbs and angers me … tremendously. Today, I provide several of these reasons, which might make a few of my remaining readers better understand my keen interest in this subject and this “trend change.”

For purposes of this article, I assume the “trend reversals” I’ve observed on my Substack newsletter are not universal nor “organic” changes which have affected all Sustack content creators roughly the same. Instead, I assume these changes must have been intentional, have been orchestrated for a reason(s) and my newsletter has likely been identified as a “threat” and thus has been specifically targeted.

IMO, these reasons are designed to thwart the reach and influence of my articles and Notes. I will start with this point …

… These changes have caused significant financial harm to myself and my family.

For four years, producing this Substack newsletter has been my full-time job and the only source of revenue I derive for our family. (The vast majority of family income comes from my wife’s teacher’s salary).

As only I (and Substack/Stripe) would know, my monthly revenue stream has plummeted (from about $1,200 net income/month to now about $250/month).

Unknown is how much my Substack income might have been by now - or in the future - if my newsletter (IMO) had not been “targeted” for reach and revenue-suppression operations … or if such striking metric changes had not occurred.

To be clear, I can’t definitively “prove” my subscription (and Ko-fi “gratuity”) income is being adversely affected.

However, if this is happening, such a “conspiracy,” IMO, would qualify as an unfair trade practice and must violate myriad criminal statutes as well as constitute grounds for a legitimate civil lawsuit, qualifying me (and probably many other potential plaintiffs for compensatory and punitive damages).

(Share Request: To my fellow content providers, please share with others you think might be interested in this subject.)

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With this piece, I don’t want to bore readers with specific examples of my own changing metrics. However, for quick illustration purposes, I simply note that for the first 13 months of my Substack newsletter, I was averaging adding 16.5 new paid subscribers every month.

In the past 12 months, I have averaged losing 3.2 new paid subscribers per month, with this key metric declining from 271 to 232 - a loss of 39 net paid subscribers or a decrease of 14.4 percent. (My peak paid subscription number was 310 on September 7, 2024 - 22 months ago.)

According to Substack’s “Gross Annualized Revenue” metric, in the past 12 months my annual revenue has declined by “only” 13.1 percent. However, per my cash-flow accounting, the income deposited into my bank account in recent months has decreased by approximately 76 percent (from $1,200 to $250).

Significantly, the pace of lost subscribers (paid and free) is accelerating as I lost five paid subscribers in the past 30 days

For the first 12 months of this newsletter, I previously added, on average, 378 total subscribers every month. In recent months, I’ve been losing approximately three to five total subscribers every day.

As I’ve noted in previous “curious metrics” articles, the vast majority of my new articles now produce produce zero subscribers when, for the first two years of my newsletter, my articles produced, on average, at least 14 new subscribers every time I hit “send.”

I know this might come across as whining …

Some readers have politely informed me that readers don’t care about “metrics” stories, which I acknowledge might come across as whining. While some readers hold this opinion, this POV wasn’t always the case as the story that produced my record number of new paid subscribers (41) was my first big story on “curious trends on Substack.” So … go figure.

(For purposes of providing a basis of comparison between “then and now,” readers might click on this link and note that this particular story - published 28 months ago - produced 1,158 “likes,” and 657 Reader Comments in addition to netting me, over the ensuing 10 days, 41 new paid subscribers and 251 free subscribers.)

My working hypothesis is that “someone” has applied various unknown algorithms that have dramatically changed my key Substack metrics of paid-subscribers-generated, total subscribers, Page Views and number of “likes” and Reader Comments.

Also, as mentioned, it’s impossible to know how many total and paid subscribers I might have today (and in the future) if these changes had not occurred. My working theory is that my key Substack metrics would have continued to grow - and, with it, my income.

Per my estimate or belief, in the last two years stark changes in my Substack metrics have probably cost me, in the aggregate, tens of thousands of dollars, and perhaps a figure that would approach $100,000 by next fall (when, at one time, I was pacing to have 1,000 paid subscribers).

A better way to frame sentiments that might be labeled as “sour grapes” or “whining” might be to ask readers: “Would you be agitated if you thought someone had effectively “stolen,” say, $35,000 from you?

My level of frustration or sense that illegal or fraudulent mechanisms are being used to harm certain authors might not exist if the same metric trends were common across all Substack authors.

However, as I have documented ad nauseam, it is clear that more liberal authors - those more likely to defend the authorized narratives - are not experiencing the same dramatic trend reversals. Indeed, large numbers of Substack authors are experiencing the same impressive growth rates I once experienced, but even more so.

Based on analyzing my own metrics and the published numbers of other Substack authors, I have also reached the firm conclusion that any censorship or reach-suppression efforts seem to be different for different authors.

Why is always the best question …

If my reach-suppression hypothesis is accurate (or, at least for some authors, is occurring), the next obvious question would be why is this occurring.

To myself, the most likely reason would be that certain entities and powerful organizations are determined to suppress the reach of certain authors, especially those who focus on potentially “thermo-nuclear” or taboo topics that might threaten the Powers that Be or the “authorized” narrative(s).

IMO, this conclusion jibes with common sense and, as we move forward in our New Abnormal times, suggests that narrative-control operations will no doubt remain significant and will likely even intensify.

I’ve also concluded that those engaged in different varieties and levels of censorship would not have to focus on every potential influencer, but would instead likely focus their efforts on those they believe have the greatest potential to expose their past nefarious deeds and thwart their future projects.

If this theory is true, and I have been placed high on any “threat” list, my newsletter might receive more extreme counter-measures to ensure my theories and articles don’t reach a wider audience.

(The evidence that numerous government entities, NGOs, fact-checking organizations and corporate “news” organizations have conspired to do just this in the past is undeniable.)

Et tu, Substack?

One potentially-explosive allegation - or possibility - I keep raising is that such reach-suppression operations are now, very possibly, being employed on Substack.

If proven (which I doubt it ever will be), this change would be particularly disconcerting to champions of authentic free speech as, for years, Substack was clearly viewed, correctly, as a beacon of free speech and the place citizen journalists - by default - flocked to to avoid censorship.

IMO, efforts to suppress the reach of authors like myself - and amplify the reach of people who rarely agree with people like myself - have become far more sophisticated, ingenious/devious and almost impossible to “prove.”

If someone was somehow able to “prove” that the reach of their Substack newsletter has been suppressed, an obvious conclusion would be that such tools were not being employed to thwart or harm just one “contrarian” author.

If more people realized how many people had been surreptitiously targeted and negatively affected, the public might better realize the scope and scale of these Orwellian activities and know for a fact such operations had not been abandoned and, indeed, seem to have expanded to include new threats … of which Substack might be considered the most conspicuous potential threat.

***

As always, censorship programs have two goals: To prevent the exposure of past crimes and to make it easier to implement future “reforms” which will increase the control of the State or their oligarch/Deep State partners.

Such disclosures would suggest that the Powers that Be are more determined than ever to implement even more draconian and liberty-stealing initiatives in the future.

That is, greater awareness of possible “shadow censorship” projects on Substack should not be viewed as an insignificant development. This, IMO, would, qualify as an extremely ominous development.

Three areas of focus that might make my newsletter stand out and thus be viewed as a ‘threat’

One question I’ve asked myself is what might make my Substack different than other Substacks, even those of my fellow “Covid Contrarians.”

I’ve already outlined one of these areas - my focus on possible “funny business” on Substack itself. While other authors have expressed similar concerns, few Substack colleagues have devoted as many column inches to analyzing or exploring this possibility as I have.

The subject that probably first put me on the Substack map was my focus on “early spread,” which I continue to believe could be a thermo-nuclear revelation … if this hypothesis was ever definitively “confirmed” and then fully understood by large swaths of the public.

On a planet with approximately 8 billon inhabitants, I am confident no other writer has written more about this topic than I have (thus, I am “different” than almost all of my colleagues … at least as it involves my persistent efforts to highlighting these two “taboo” issues.)

Even today, the significance of early spread is difficult for most citizens to grasp or appreciate. However, if people realized that tens of millions of global citizens had already been infected by a novel coronavirus by the late fall of 2019 - with no increase in all-cause deaths - the entire narrative on the “deadly” virus would be completely different.

People might realize that everything they were told about this pandemic - and then the shots they were told they had to get to save their own life and the lives of millions of others - was wrong or a lie and that key officials must have known this all along.

(As a citizen journalist, my primary goal is to discredit and debunk bogus experts, who I believe cause far more harm than they prevent. My ultimate and most ambitious goal is to play a small role in creating a massive purge of obtuse or corrupt “leaders,” a result which, IMO, would make possible a much brighter future.)

Embalmers’ clots

I’ve also written probably 25 articles on the embalmers’ clots phenomena and referenced them in probably 500 posts at other sites.

I wouldn’t say I have written more about the embalmers’ clots than any other Substack author, but if Substack consists of 30,000 content creators, I’m probably in the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent who has tried to raise awareness of this potential scandal.

While it’s more challenging to explain the significance of “early spread” to the disinterested layman, my 10-year-old son could instantly comprehend the significance of the embalmers’ clots simply by looking at a few photos of actual “clots.”

As such, this subject continues to be the world’s most likely thermonuclear truth bomb - that is, if it ever detonated, which, apparently, it never will.

Only one reason explains why billions of people are not already outraged by our trusted officials’ refusal to investigate this “public health” nightmare. That reason: Mind-boggling levels of coordinated censorship.

In my opinion, the people and organizations who devise and implement censorship programs have figured out who poses the greatest threat to their continued rule and then have targeted these specific people.

As it turns out, there’s no need to censor, say, Robert Reich or Heather Cox Richardson; in fact, the reach of these influencers is no doubt artificially inflated.

However, even a “small-time” freelance journalist like myself might be identified as a threat to continued control of the world’s “real rulers” - not because of the number of readers I had on a certain date, but because of the number of readers I might reach if my audience continued to grow, something which, of course, did not happen.

In Conclusion …

IMO, the world’s growing number of censorship advocates obviously pay attention to circulation numbers of different authors or pundits. However, of more interest to them might be a project to identify the subjects these authors focus on.

Over the past two days, my subscriber Freedom Fox and I exchanged emails on today’s subject. FWIW, Freedom Fox agrees with my premise/hypothesis and is one of a not insignificant number of readers who has told me he’s detected ways that my newsletter seems to have been targeted for more proactive reach-suppression activities.

Freedom Fox says one goal of shadow-censors is to make sure authors like ourselves are, effectively, “speaking to an empty room.” (Another metaphor would be that all “contrarian” authors have effectively been herded into one insignificant corral.)

In previous dispatches, I’ve pointed out that one of the main goals of my articles is to simply point out significant changes (from past “norms”) that have occurred. Employing the Socratic Method, I then ask myself why these changes must/might have occurred.

One obvious and dramatic change I’ve observed involves the metrics of my own Substack newsletter. IMO, my metrics changed - at least in part - because of the subjects I write about.

As I told Freedom Fox, it also wouldn’t surprise me if psy-op or narrative controllers employ sophisticated assessments to perform psychological profiles on certain writers or pundits who might possess the character and communication skills to more effectively challenge scandalous narratives and, perhaps, galvanize larger numbers of citizens.

“This person is a greater potential threat than other writers,” might be one conclusion such sinister agents reach.

Or, it’s possible I am completely off base and am just another citizen who has been consumed by paranoia and become a believer in non-existent conspiracies.

However, I would like to conclude by stating it’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you.

***

Note:

In today’s Reader Comments, I will add a flurry of “Bonus Content.” The first comment explains my interest in today’s Comment Section. Readers are invited to opine on whether these comments might qualify as good or interesting added value to them.

Writer gratuities via Ko-Fi.

Writing a story about my “cousin,” Courteney Cox, who I’ve actually never met, made me start thinking about all of the famous people I have met in my life.

Since I love lists and this might impress my kids one day, I’m going to go ahead and name these people.

I could be wrong, but my “brushes-with-famous-people” list is probably longer than similar lists many people reading this could also compile, which makes me feel my life - perhaps semi well-lived at certain points - might include one somewhat novel feature.

That is, whenever I start to feel a little blue and and might be beating myself up because I never became rich and famous, I remind myself, “Bill, you are friends with the stars; cut yourself some slack …”

I should explain that I met most of these famous or well-known people because, for much of my adult life, I have been a journalist. Even a journalist working for small community newspapers has the opportunity to meet a surprisingly large number of well-known or semi-famous people due to story assignments.

While some of these interactions lasted an hour or longer, other meet-and-greets might have spanned, say, 5 to 30 seconds … but, still, I did talk to these people.

A quick example …

Near the top of my list is my conversation with the lead singer of the Go Go’s - Belinda Carlisle. I met Belinda in the basement of the University of Alabama Sigma Nu house in 1983 (or ’84) after Belinda dropped by after a concert in Tuscaloosa.

At the time, I was a pledge. By rule, “new boys” had to carry a cigarette lighter in our pockets. (The thought was that pledges, as aspiring gentlemen, could light a cigarette for comely co-eds who might appreciate such chivalrous gestures.)

While waiting in the keg line, I looked to my left and, lo and behold, there was Belinda Carlisle, who had just pulled a cigarette out of her purse.

A good New Boy, I quickly lit Miss Carlisle’s fag, adding: “Here you go.”

To which Belinda replied, “Thank you.”

To which I replied, “You’re welcome.”

This event thus qualifies as a legitimate conversation with a person who was definitely famous.

***

I also met a a large number of famous former Alabama football greats through my late father, who played football for the Crimson Tide and two famous people because my great aunt was the office manger for a U.S. Congressman.

I also visited with several famous people as Mike Amos’s co-host on “Today in L.A.” (Mike himself is definitely famous in our neck of the woods). I got to meet a couple of well-known people because I publish two Substack newsletters and was, for a year, a fellow of the Brownstone Institute.

Several of my “brushes with greatness” were actually phone conversations and I technically didn’t meet the famous person in person. Some of these celebrities are/were known throughout the country (and world) and others are just Alabama or local celebrities.

I added a few anecdotes to add flavor and memorable details to my list column and, for my “national” newsletter deleted the names of people who might only be famous in Alabama or Pike County.

Musicians:

Belinda Carlisle

Hank Williams, Jr. (Bocephus) - who, I think, still owns a hunting lodge on the border of Pike and Bullock County. I once got to watch my buddy Bocephus record an album at the Almeria Social Club just outside of Pike County.

Merle Kilgore, Hank’s manager, who I later learned also co-wrote the classic country song “Ring of Fire.”

Lee Greenwood - Any person who is proud to be an American should certainly be proud of meeting Lee Greenwood.

David Allen Coe - Before DAC’s show at Harvey’s in Troy, his roadies threw me off the stage for taking photos of the crowd from said stage. I was a better athlete back then and, like a cat, landed on my feet.

Rudy Vallée - a crooner, actor and radio personality who was a “teen idol” in my grandparents’ generation. I met a much older Vallée when I was 9 years old at an officer’s club at a military base outside of Washington D.C. on a trip to visit my great aunt, who was office manager for Cong. Bill Nichols (who himself was fairly famous).

Alabama football coaches, athletes and administrators …

Paul “Bear” Bryant

Nick Saban

Gene Stallings

Ray Perkins

Mal Moore - former Alabama athletic director and long-time UA assistant coach (teammate of my late father’s).

Bill Battle - another teammate of Dad’s - former Alabama athletic director and former head coach of Tennessee. Founded Collegiate Licensing Company, America’s leading sports licensing company.

Lee Roy Jordan - Alabama and Dallas Cowboys great.

Johnny Musso - Alabama running back in the early 70s who once gave me his chin strap after a game when I was 6-years-old.

Golfer Jerry Pate, U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur champion. Pate later became a golf course architect. I interviewed Jerry while he was driving in a cart around Montgomery Country Club’s course, which he was re-designing.

Basketball coaches …

Wimp Sanderson

C.M. Newton

I’ve also met plenty of Auburn greats:

Coach Pat Dye - My late father actually got Coach Dye his first college coaching job … at Alabama, a random event that might have later changed sports history in our state.

Coach Terry Bowden - who I first met when he was head coach at Samford. (As many will confirm, Coach Bowden will chit-chat … for hours … with anyone.)

Pat Sullivan, former Auburn QB and Heisman Trophy winner.

Tracy Rocker, Outland and Lombardi Trophy winner who was later an assistant coach at Troy.

Chuck Person, NBA great from Brantley who I once interviewed in a night club outside of Troy.

Harvey Glance, gold metal sprinter (4 x 100 relay, 1976 Games) and former track great at Auburn. He visited my 6th grade class in Opelika after he won the gold medal. He brought his gold medal.

Other well-known coaches …

Legendary Coach Bobby Bowden - who held a high school football camp in Troy for about 7 years. (Coach Bowden is probably the most approachable and friendliest celebrity I’ve ever met.)

Coach Chan Gailey - who once lived across the street from my grandmother and later became head coach of America’s team, the Dallas Cowboys.

Indiana Coach Curt Cignetti - As recounted in a recent story, I “met” Coach Cig on the sidelines of an Alabama football game in 2007. I didn’t speak to him, but we had a memorable stare down and he told me, “Get the hell out of here!”

Miami Hurricane head football coach Larry Coker.

Hall of Fame athletes:

Hank Aaron

Bart Starr

DeMarcus Ware

John Hannah

Mike Ditka

Don Sutton - Major League Baseball Hall of Fame and Braves’ announcer.

Jim Bunning - Hall of Fame pitcher who later served in Congress and Senate from Kentucky. (I met this baseball great when I was 9 through my great aunt on the trip to D.C.)

Phil Neikro - Atlanta Braves great who I met at the Front Porch when Phil was hanging out with his son, who was on the Troy baseball team at the time.

Other former star athletes:

Bobby Bonilla, former Major League Baseball great - I was introduced to Bonilla in the clubhouse of the Florida Marlins by his teammate at the time, Troy’s Brian Meadows.

Cornelius Bennet, Alabama and Buffalo Bills great - who I briefly chit-chatted with when he visited a party at the Sigma Nu house. (As the story goes, my brother Rush kept “Biscuit,” who might have over-indulged on free beer, from pulling the “Sigma” letter off the brick wall at the front of the Sigma Nu house.)

Politicians:

Former Alabama Gov. and presidential candidate George Wallace - I spoke to Wallace on the phone when he called my grandmother, Lucy Rice, to express his condolences after the death of my grandfather. FWIW, Wallace was retired from politics at the time so he didn’t make this call to curry favor with future voters. The classy call meant a great deal to Grandmother.

Former Alabama Gov. Fob James, also a former AU football great although his nickname for the Tigers was “Fumbling Fob.” (Trivia: Gov. James’ youngest son was my brother Bobby’s best friend when we lived in Opelika.)

Current Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey. Gov. Ivey became somewhat famous nationally when she berated all the “unvaccinated folks” in our state.

Sen. Howell Heflin - I’ll never forget that I almost had to do the Heimlich maneuver on Sen. Heflin during an interview at Mr. J’s restaurant in Troy after he experienced a violent, 10-minute coughing fit. When Sen. Heflin finally stopped coughing, he picked up on his answer like nothing had happened. (See humorous Bonus story about Sen. Heflin in today’s Reader Comments).

Sen. Jeff Sessions - was also, for a couple of months, President Trump’s attorney general.

Sen. Richard Shelby

Cong. John Lewis - also an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. The late Mr. Lewis grew up in rural Pike County.

Judge Roy Moore - The “10 Commandment’s Judge.” This future chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court later became the first Republican in decades to lose a senate race to a Democrat. Judge Moore once spoke at the Troy Exchange Club’s Prayer Breakfast and I interviewed him after his talk … What I remember about this interview is that this person gave me an acute case of the heebie jeebies.

Cong. Ron Paul - I interviewed Dr. Paul, one of my political heroes, for 30 minutes via phone for a story on “shrinkflation” that I wrote for The American Conservative.

Cong. Barry Moore - I met this native of Enterprise on “Today in L.A.” … Since he has President Trump’s all-important endorsement, Barry will soon be Senator Barry Moore (joining Katie Britt, also from Enterprise. It’s note-worthy that a little town in south Alabama will have produced two U.S. senators who will be serving at the same time.)

Community organizers civil rights leaders/cable TV pundits …

Al Sharpton - This back story is too bizarre to tell in a few sentences. I might circle back to it later.

Miscellaneous:

Dan Rather - My claim to fame with the long-time CBS News TV anchor is that I once subscribed to his Substack newsletter, then made a couple of posts Rather didn’t like and he promptly banned me from his site.

Dr. James Andrews - orthopedic surgeon to the stars. (Dr. Andrews operated on my left knee two times. Absent these two injuries, I would have become a famous football player … Not.)

Richard Scrushy, founder of Health South who later spent several years in prison for one alleged scandal I think was bogus charges. However, Scrushy was acquitted of accounting/share-holder fraud, when he was probably guilty so prosecutions can sometimes balance out.

Jimmy Rane, “The Yellow Fellow” and Alabama’s only billionaire. (Trivia: A fraternity brother of mine, Slats Slayton, came up with the “Yellow Fellow” advertising campaign which is well-known throughout the South.)

Mary Harmon Bryant - Coach Bryant’s wife.

Paul Bryant, Jr. - Coach Bryant’s son and a very successful businessman.

Deidre Downs, former Miss America who later became a physician. (Deidre, a very nice lady, later achieved more publicity for becoming the first Miss America to marry another female).

Dorothy (Doro) Bush Koch, daughter of President George H. W. Bush and sister of President George W. Bush. I interviewed this famous sibling/daughter when she was promoting a book on her father.

Mrs. Lewis Grizzard, widow of syndicated humor columnist Lewis Grizzard.

Richard Hirschman - The world’s most famous (and significant) embalmer and the person who made the embalmers’ clots a potential thermo-nuclear, world-changing story. As it turns out, Richard lives 35 miles south of me in Ozark. A trade embalmer, one of the funeral homes Richard works for is in my hometown of Troy. Richard and I enjoyed a five hour visit in my house a couple of years ago, which gave me a wonderful feature story.

Dr./Lt. Col. Theresa Long - Now retired, Lt. Col. Long is the most significant Covid whistleblower in the the U.S. military. I once interviewed her on the phone and then spent more time with her and her family at a Freedom Symposium in Huntsville.

Tom Haviland - Creator (with Laura Kasner) of the very significant embalmers surveys. While we’ve never met in person, we have exchanged several emails.

“Citizen Kane” - The owner/editor of Citizen Free Press, which replaced the Drudge Report as the go-to news aggregator for many conservatives after Drudge sold out and vanished from the face of the earth. CFP once ran dozens of my articles and I shared several emails with Kane. However, he no longer runs any of my stories and quit replying to my emails, causing me to conclude I did or wrote something that put me out of favor with this very influential influencer.

Writers/journalists of some acclaim:

Paul Finebaum - I once called his sports talk show and we, of course, both got into it on the air. (I would have won our debate, but he cut my call off).

Allen Barra

Warren St. John

Judy Woodruff, PBS, CNN and NBC News correspondent.

***

(For the first 16 or so months of my history as a Substack content creator, I thought I had an outside chance to break through to semi-famedome, at least in the niche category of “Covid Contrarian” (a term I might have coined). Alas, my momentum fizzled and then suddenly reversed. Kind of like John Travolta, I’m now working on my comeback and thus appreciate people who use this “share” button.)

Share

Through my work on Substack or affiliation with the Brownstone Institute ..

Mary Holland, executive director of Children’s Health Defense. Through Mary’s close relationship to RFK, Jr. I am just three degrees of separation from President Trump - a connection I might exploit one day to go ahead and save the world.

Jeffrey Tucker, founder of the Brownstone Institute and a widely-read and very influential columnist. (Trivia: For many years Jeffrey lived in Auburn, where he worked with Lew Rockwell at the Mises Institute, which is based in Auburn.)

Toby Rogers - Brownstone writer who I met at a Brownstone retreat.

Dr. Meryl Nass - Substack author and regular on CHD and other alternative media podcasts. Dr. Nass and I have exchanged several emails.

Sasha Latypova - A very well-known “Covid Contrarian” I used to exchange friendly emails with. However, we got sideways with each other after I made some posts in her Reader Comments section that made her mad, which made me mad and, before you know it, we had a robust Substack Cage Match - which happens sometimes.

Mark O’Shinskie - One of my favorite Substack authors who has become a good buddy. Mark loves making friends with his readers, which counters all the friends he lost because of his views on the “Scamdemic.”

Jenna McCarthy - Substack author who always makes you laugh.

Jeff Childers - A Covid Contrarian star (219K subscribers!) who I met at a “Freedom Symposium” in Huntsville, where he was one of the keynote speakers.

Local or regional celebrities:

The late Dr.. Ralph Adams - President of Troy State for 25 years. (Also, probably George Wallace’s best friend. Trivia: Dr. Adams can be seen in the movie “Forrest Gump.”)

Bobby Jon Drinkard - Troy native and contestant on “Survivor” in two different seasons.

“Sister Schubert” Barnes - Founder of Sister Schubert’s famous home-made rolls. (Carrie just bought us some!)

Scott Cross - Ultra-successful coach at Troy who is now the new basketball coach at Georgia Tech.

Skylar Meade - Baseball coach of the Troy Trojans who is now our town’s favorite citizen after leading our team to this year’s College World Series in Omaha. (Troy finished 6th in the entire nation!)

Note: For some reason, I never met Jon Sumrall, the former Troy coach and new head football coach at Florida who is getting ready to become much more famous.

Finally, I am quite close to my son Jack Rice, better known to everybody as “Pickle Jack McCoy” and our mischievous little dog, Annie who we don’t consider a canine.

In summary …

… Per a quick count, including people not listed in this “national column,” I have met more than 90 famous people. If I can hang on a few more years, I might increase this list to an even 100. If this happens, at my eulogy my pastor can say “… and in his always-interesting life, Bill became close friends with 100 famous people … one of whom (Pickle Jack McCoy) is with us today.”

***

See more Bonus Content in today’s Reader Comments. Readers are also invited to share some of their own “brush with greatness” stories.

Writer gratuities via Ko-Fi.

Author’s note: This story ended up being longer than I envisioned. However, I like this dispatch, which I think makes many original points that, in my view, are significant. Thanks for reading or skimming it!

***

As noted in my last story, officials in China feel that Western media coverage of origins theories constitute “vicious smears.”

Indeed, on November 7, 2021, China’s U.S. Embassy released a lengthy document which authors say provide the “facts and truth” about known evidence of coronavirus origins. The document also seeks to rebut numerous other points Chinese officials believe have been grossly unfair to their nation.

Since, unsurprisingly, this document, received little or no media attention in America, today I would like to summarize some of the 22 points (“vicious smears”) the Chinese authors summarize in this document.

As noted in my prior story, I agree that many of these points are significant and should have always been a central part of any credible origins investigations. However, I have also highlighted several areas that make me think China, for some reason(s), was also covering up evidence of early spread in their own nation.

In this piece, I also develop several of my own points where I am seeking to investigate the “crime of the century” via the lens of evidence that flows from my early spread hypothesis.

Summary of some of China’s points with a few of my comments and questions added

Emphasis added by myself.

The document opens by stating: “Disregarding science and facts, the United States has fabricated lies, and smeared and criticized China.”

“… A growing number of clues, reports and studies have indicated that COVID-19 cases emerged in many places around the world as early as in the second half of 2019. The outbreak in the United States occurred earlier than the officially confirmed cases …”

“…. In January 2021, the WHO global study of origins said that there was no indication of the transmission of the novel coronavirus before December 2019 in Wuhan, adding it was considered unlikely that any substantial transition of SARS-CoV-2 was occurring in Wuhan in October or November 2019.”

My first comment: IMO, this statement, which no doubt accurately reflects the consensus of WHO officials, also calls into question the veracity of this alleged truth-seeking organization as copious evidence of early spread existed in China (see my last story), with even more credible evidence of early cases outside of China.

One analysis from the Chinese Academy of Sciences states: “All of the dates indicated by the data are earlier than Jan. 20, 2020, the officially announced date of the first confirmed case in the United States, showing that COVID-19 pandemic in the United States started to spread around September 2019 (and/or August 2019) with a high confidence probability…”

No antibody studies of archived blood in China …

The Chinese “Rebuttal Paper” cites antibody and waste water studies in the USA, Italy, France and Spain. However, significantly to myself, the paper doesn’t cite any results of antibody studies from archived blood donor supplies in China.

That is, in America, the CDC at least tested two tranches of “archived” Red Cross Blood for antibodies (a study that found 2.04 percent of donors who gave blood in CA, WA and OR Dec. 13-16, 2019 already had antibody evidence of prior Covid infection at the time they gave blood, which means most if not all of these donors had been exposed to this novel virus in November 2019 if not earlier).

As far as I am aware, no retrospective analysis of blood samples collected before December 31, 2019 has ever occurred in China, which, to myself, is a giant Red Flag and suggests a possible conspiracy to conceal evidence of early cases in China.

(It should also be noted that the CDC delayed reporting findings of the “Red Cross Antibody Study” for nine to 12 months and, for some reason, never tested other tranches of stored blood from other time points and more sections of the country).

In point 16 of China’s “Vicious Slander” document, officials seem to address the question of why Chinese officials have yet to test saved samples of blood for antibodies. Per my reading, China is arguing that lawsuit and privacy regulations governing stored blood samples prevent the testing of any such blood for Covid antibodies.

Re: The omnipresent HIPAA Excuse …

As an aside: Such “privacy” issues - called HIPAA laws/regulations in America - were cited by American researchers in explaining why positive Red Cross blood donors in America were never notified of their positive antibody results, why none of the positive donors were identified by name and why no interviews were done of the blood donors who happened to test positive.

I should also add that my efforts to acquire pertinent data on a variety of Covid issues has been repeatedly thwarted by public health officials, who responded that such information could not be provided to a journalist for “HIIPA reasons.”

(Per Google AI, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law passed in 1996 designed to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient’s consent or knowledge.”)

According to the Chinese government, it was slander that “The Chinese government instructed the destruction of the serum of early cases, making it impossible to determine when the spread of the virus started.”

Quick comment: To myself, this is yet another admission that antibody tests are, in fact, perhaps the only way to identify or “confirm” early cases via a diagnostic test.

According to China authors, the “Facts and Truth,” are that “China did not destroy the serum of early cases. The China-WHO joint team on origins tracing has agreed that some serum researches would be conducted once the blood from the Wuhan Blood Center meets the relevant regulatory requirements.”

The paper also states: “A quite small amount of blood was preserved during the period. In accordance with Article 31 of the Measures for the Administration of Blood Stations, the term of preservation of a blood sample shall be two years after the whole blood component blood is used, and it can only be available for use when there is a medical dispute or lawsuit.”

My comment: Apparently, “a search for important truths in the name of advancing science” or investigating the origins of the Pandemic of the Century are not sufficient grounds to over-ride any privacy regulations. (FWIW, five years after this document was released, I’ve still not found any evidence China ever tested archived blood supplies of Chinese citizens for antibodies.)

The document’s second “vicious slander” point says the “outbreak has nothing to do with the WIV”

Regarding the Western media claim that three scientists at the WIV become sick and were hospitalized in November 2019, the authors write:

“China has repeatedly asked the skeptics to reveal the names of these three people in order to make the reports clear, but no one so far has provided a name.” (Note: A story published approximately 19 months later by Public/Racket news, co-written by Matt Taibbi, does name three scientists at the WIV who allegedly (with “100 percent certainty”) became sick in November 2019).

Author’s note: It is significant to me that the Racket/Public story is the only article or paper that, by name, cites (three) Wuhan residents who might have been infected before December 2019.

Compare and contrast to my reporting …

In contrast, my early spread articles have listed scores of Americans by name who had antibody-confirmed Covid cases in November and December 2019. Hundreds of other Americans had antibody evidence of early Covid but their names were not provided … For example, 106 antibody-positive blood donors who gave blood to the American Red Cross beginning Dec. 13, 2019.

(One of my Covid journalism take-aways is that possible early cases in China matter a great deal, but possible/likely early cases in America don’t matter at all.)

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Also, as I have previously reported, state public health agencies were required to collect data on American citizens who tested positive on antibody tests (once those tests became available). However, with a few minor exceptions, no names or figures of antibody-positive possible early cases has ever been released to the public.

That is, America actually has far more known or named individuals who experienced Covid symptoms (and later received a positive antibody test) who experienced these symptoms prior the first confirmed cases in the world.

Since the identify of these individuals is either known, or could easily be ascertained, this means these individuals could have been questioned and their possible early cases have been investigated by the CDC or public health authorities, a simple and common-sense task which, for some reason, never happened.

This is why I continue to insist that a wide-spread conspiracy - in America, other countries and no doubt in China - was implemented to conceal all evidence of early infections from the public. IMO, this conspiracy was perpetrated by officials simply failing to investigate that which they, clearly, do not want to “confirm.”

***

(As my Substack newsletter is currently sinking, I am trying to get as many significant stories out into the life boats while my dispatches might still reach a few human readers. Thanks for sharing!)

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Hospital Parking Lot Photos and World Military Games …

Regarding the hospital parking lot satellite photos, China’s rebuttal document simply states: “The relevant reports and studies are very absurd.”

The authors note that six hospital parking lots were full prior to global visitors arriving to the Wuhan World Military Games, which began October 18, 2019.

“It was impossible that the military athletes from all over the world that participated in the games felt nothing,” said one Chinese official.

However, as documented in several stories published by prominent news organizations and summarized in this story by myself, scores of visitors to these Games did report that they had become sick while in Wuhan.

China officials had to be aware of these reports … just like government and military sources in all nations of the world had to be aware of these reports.

However, officials never interviewed any of these sick visitors or, apparently, ever gave any of these individuals antibody tests, which were being administered as early as January 2020.

In fact, many athletes and visitors who reported they became sick in Wuhan were specifically instructed to not talk to the press - yet another giant red flag, suggesting a vast conspiracy to conceal possible evidence of early cases.

In my research, I read two articles (one from the BBC) that fact-checked the parking lot study and, not surprisingly to myself, found it unpersuasive. I also read a couple of articles that reported on the authors’ findings.

A valid critique made by one interviewed source is that authors who performed this analysis should have also examined hospital parking lot photos from other cities in China during the same time periods, not just in Wuhan.

It occurs to me that authors could have also done a similar analysis of hospital parking lots in America in the weeks and months before official Covid to ascertain if American hospitals might have been seeing more patients suffering from ILI (or Covid) symptoms in, say, November or December 2019.

For example, in my research into ILI outbreaks, I learned that one hospital in New Orleans saw more ILI patients in the month of November 2019 than the same hospital saw the entire six months of the prior flu season. I can’t help but wonder if parking lot satellite photos at this hospital might “confirm” that something different was happening in New Orleans in November 2019.

China fingers Dr. Baric …

The China Rebuttal Paper also strongly suggests that a modified virus could have come from the labs of Dr. Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina.

(In other sections, the paper acknowledges that Baric did collaborate with China scientists on coronavirus research, but states that any “gain of function” work was done exclusively by Baric and/or American scientists).

China became the No. 1 Suspect simply because they first discovered a novel coronavirus …

The Rebuttal Paper correctly notes that China was “the first country to report the Covid-19 epidemic” and “discover(ed) this unidentified pneumonia.”

Here Chinese officials seem to be saying just because their nation was the first to discover and then report a novel pneumonia-causing virus to global health authorities does not necessarily mean any novel coronavirus originated in their country.

Per my speculation or “crime theory,” it seems likely or possible that one or more important figures in China might have worked with U.S. Pandemic plotters to identify alleged “case zeroes” in China and also date the first cases to mid-to-late December 2019 in Wuhan.

A question I posed in earlier stories in this series of articles is how did possible American “plotters” know that a novel coronavirus would eventually be “discovered” and then reported to the world by Chinese officials in Wuhan?

For example, if Wuhan hospital director Zhang Jixian had not reported a novel, pneumonia-causing virus to public health officials in China on December 27, 2019, Covid as we know it would probably have never happened. Thus, the Chinese official(s) who first “discovered” a novel virus is, arguably, the most important person in the entire Covid narrative.

Another question I’ve asked myself is why didn’t anyone else identify and then report a novel, pneumonia-causing coronavirus following the hospitalization of any of the hundreds or thousands of people (in America and around the world) who went to the doctor or a hospital after experiencing ILI/Covid symptoms between mid-2019 and December 2019?

That is, isn’t it possible that medical officials at the aforementioned New Orleans hospital could have also “discovered” a novel coronavirus?

I have found numerous anecdotes of patients who were sick with Covid symptoms before 2020 who report their doctors told them they were stumped as to what was causing their illness. Many citizens also report their symptoms were different than previous bouts with flu, bronchitis or other ILIs they’d previously experienced.

An additional question I’ve posed is how would the “Covid origins narrative” have changed if a novel, pneumonia-causing virus had been “discovered” in America (not China) in, say, October or November 2019?

While hypothetical or an “unknown unknowable,” it seems to me such a finding/revelation would, if nothing else, have rendered moot any significance attached to a lab leak at the WIV, or any outbreak at a Wet Market in December 2019 in Wuhan.

For me, it seems very likely such news would open the door to investigations of a possible lab leak or intentional release in America, especially if early cases happened in the summer or early fall of 2019 - before the traditional cold and flu virus season.

Thus, to myself, it would have been very important to possible “Pandemic Plotters” to make sure no such stories reached the mass population.

(Note: This might have happened anyway with a few stories that noted strange and deadly outbreaks at two Virginia nursing homes in the summer of 2019 and also a modicum of press coverage that was given to a mysterious ‘vaping” illness that had stricken hundreds of people in multiple U.S. states around the same time. While these odd epidemiological events received some press coverage, no public health expert or authority reported a :novel, pneumonia-causing coronavirus” to the WHO like China later did.)

China brags it altered the curve …

Also, China says unprecedented non-pharmaceutical interventions it initiated “contained the spread of Covid-19 in China, but also bought precious time for the world.”

My comment: With this statement, it seems China might be agreeing that the virus did originate in their country.

In one paragraph, China officials write that their aggressive virus mitigation efforts reduced spread “67-fold and likely prevented 7 million cases” in their nation. Another sentence says the virus “had largely been contained” in China, adding that by February 29, 2020, “over 1.4 million infections and 56,000 deaths outside of Hubei Province might have been avoided by national and provincial public health measures.”

As I wrote in my last dispatch, by the last week in January 2020, China officials said only 25 residents in the entire country had died from confirmed Covid.

Based on the above statement from China officials, I guess readers are supposed to believe that at least 56,000 people would have died in China after January 23-24, when China initiated lockdowns measures that critics have labeled as “draconian.”

If virus spread actually began in Wuhan in early or mid-December 2019 (or months earlier), for some reason the virus wasn’t killing hardly anyone in the early weeks and months it was being transmitted person to person (before the lockdowns) - a deductive reasoning extrapolation I find … curious, nonsensical or not credible.

Also, if lockdowns saved this many lives in China, why didn’t lockdowns in America - for example, in New York City - save similar numbers of lives?

One scary rejoinder to this question would be the take-away many public health officials gleaned from the “China example” - namely, America didn’t lockdown hard enough … like Wuhan did, which is something to think about when public health experts report the next emerging and deadly virus.

The Politicization of Covid-19 …

In Point 20, Chinese authors write that “the deployment of the intelligence community in origins tracing is itself compelling evidence of the politicization of the the issue.”

My comment: This, IMO, is an astute and valid observation … By, perhaps, Day Two of my investigations and research into possible early Covid cases in America I had concluded that nobody (who mattered) was likely to publish any story I wrote on this topic. This is because I instantly picked up on the “political” implications of my research.

That is, the dates any novel virus began to infect large numbers of people wouldn’t matter if the virus did indeed originate from bats (in China or America) or had “natural origins.”

However, if the virus might have been modified in a tax-payer funded lab by “mad scientists” (to become more infectious) and either escaped or was intentionally released and a giant conspiracy ensued - such a revelation might meet the threshold of a “thermo-nuclear” scandal.

Per my crime hypothesis, it seems clear that the authorized narrative had to be that this virus originated in China, didn’t emerge until latter December 2019, definitely didn’t start in America and virus origins can be traced to infected bats.

One also wonders what trusted public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci knew and when they knew whatever they knew.

Personally, I’m not sure what Fauci knew (or didn’t know) about a possible conspiracy to unleash a “contrived” pandemic on the world.

However, as soon as China officials called the WHO and alerted this agency to the emergence of a pneumonia-causing coronavirus on December 31, 2019, Fauci and a cabal of close colleagues sprung into action in an effort to vilify any person who might be espousing a lab-leak theory.

Here we have an example of the world’s most powerful public health bureaucrat who was not curious about discovering the real origins truth, but instead a leader who was leading a conspiracy to block a genuine search for the truth. By themselves, these actions suggest Fauci knew the truth might turn out to be thermo-nuclear. They also suggest that “Science himself” was terrified of real science being performed.

I find it very interesting, or quite revealing, that Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the CDC at the time, was not chosen to be a part of the team Fauci organized to concoct the proximal origins cover-up story.

As reported in a prior dispatch, Redfield later told TV anchor Chris Cuomo that he (Redfield) had at least two phone conversations with the person who holds the similar job as Redfield in China’s version of the CDC. According to Redfield, this person, George Gao, told Redfield on New Year’s Eve 2019 that 27 people had become sick with what seemed to be a new virus and they’d all visited the Wuhan Wet Market.

Redfield said this didn’t make sense to him and he asked his counterpart to “look (for cases) outside of the wet market.”

“Two or three days later” the two men spoke again and Mr. Gao told Redfield, “Bob, we have hundreds of cases and it has nothing to do with the wet market.”

My Comment:

This means by January 2nd or 3rd, China’s CDC director had told a key American public health official that the so-called Case Zero “had nothing to do with the wet market.” Presumably, virus spread started earlier.

I believe Redfield has stated he did share details of this conversation with Anthony Fauci, who - not surprisingly - kept Redfield from his cover-up team of esteemed “scientists.”

In Conclusion …

Almost all parts of the authorized origins narrative deal with whether the first cases in Wuhan can be traced to a Wet Market (supporting a natural spillover theory) or to the WIV (which would suggest a possible lab leak).

However, no early discussions involving people who matter (which would include important corporate journalists who are supposed to investigate all possibilities) seriously addressed the question of when the first cases occurred. It was just accepted as “settled science” that case zero must have been someone who visited this market at some point in December 2019.

“Early Spread” never came up or was seriously considered or discussed.

IMO, this must have been by design.

FWIW, the authorized narrative took hold, worked as planned, and no credible investigation into virus origins has ever occurred.

I also think, somehow, Covid conspirators knew the research and investigative journalism of “contrarian” citizen journalists such as myself would be ignored and/or never reach a mass audience, which must have also been a part of a vast, coordinated Covid conspiracy.

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This author has probably written more stories citing evidence of “early spread” in America than any other journalist. However, I’ve yet to write a story that summarizes the abundant “evidence” (or claims) that a novel coronavirus might have been spreading weeks or months before the “Wuhan outbreak” in China.

As this dispatch should show, many sources - including U.S. intelligence sources and one former CDC director, are convinced that China - like the American government - may have also concealed evidence of early spread.

In a timeline format, today’s dispatch illustrates how the dates of possible case zero have kept moving backwards in time.

I should note that Chinese officials have adamantly denied that cases occurred in their country prior to December 2019. In a document I recently discovered, Chinese officials list 22 “vicious slanders” they claim have have been made against their nation as it regards any discussions on virus origins.

(It is not surprising to myself that China’s POV on the origins question would not receive extensive, or any, coverage in the Western press, which this Chinese document did not).

The Chinese rebuttal document list many articles and papers, which I have also repeatedly cited, showing cases outside of China that seem to pre-date the Wuhan outbreak of mid-December 2019.

While I find many of these “rebuttal” points convincing and significant, several claims made by Chinese officials also strike me as nonsensical.

For example, even if “Case Zero” didn’t occur in China in December 2019, a virus said to be as contagious as the novel coronavirus would have certainly spread across China by the fall of 2019 … even if the virus didn’t originally emerge in this country.

One key question I’ve yet to find a reasonable explanation for is why did China officials impose such a draconian lockdown on its nation beginning on January 23, 2020 if the evidence is so convincing that this virus had infected many millions of people around the world - and presumably in China - well before this date?

Timeline for likely Case Zero started in late December 2019 but now traces back to mid-2019 …

Source: U.S. Right to Know article by journalist Lewis Kamb, published February 6 of this year).

June 2019 lab escape in Wuhan -

“More than six years after COVID-19 emerged in China and killed millions worldwide, newly released intelligence records show that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was evaluating a detailed lab-origin scenario as early as March 2020 — weeks into the pandemic and well before the issue became a subject of public debate.

“… On a previously published slide headed ‘Hypothetical Laboratory Origin of SARS-CoV-2,’ the assessment … ‘then posits that an uncharacterized virus escaped in mid-2019 (me: which would have been June 2019) sparking the outbreak, and that the Wuhan institute later published disinformation that analysts speculated helped to bolster a natural-origin narrative.”

The article adds that: The “DIA has fully withheld hundreds of pages it deemed classified or otherwise exempt from disclosure, and many of the pages that were produced are nearly entirely blacked out, with heavy redactions obscuring key context, sourcing and internal discussions.”

Aside editorial comment: Note that journalist Kamb writes that “COVID-19 emerged in China and killed millions worldwide.” If I had written this story, I would have added two qualifiers: “the virus, which reportedly originated in China” and that “allegedly has killed millions world-wide.”

Or, Kamb could have written that a virus that originated in China in “mid-2019” for some reason didn’t kill any person until January 9, 2020 and for some reason didn’t produce large numbers of deaths until after mid-March 2020 - which, according to Kamb’s own story, would be approximately nine months after virus spread might have begun.

That is, Kamb - or no journalist - has ever explained why a non-deadly but very contagious virus suddenly became ultra-deadly in the spring of 2020.

August to October 2019 - Wuhan hospital parking lots were over-flowing …

according to a Harvard and Boston Children Hospital study of satellite images of six Wuhan hospitals compared to photos of the same locations taken in earlier years at roughly the same time period.

Per authors, their unique analysis suggests spread of a rare summer or early fall ILI … and possibly early Covid.

Summary/Excerpts:

“The novel coronavirus may have been spreading in China as early as last August, according to a Harvard Medical School study based on satellite images of Wuhan hospital parking lots and search engine data.”

According to researchers, the number of cars in the parking lots showed “spikes of 67 to 90 percent” compared to prior years in the same weeks/months.

Here is the study proper and here is ABC News’ report of the author’s findings. (See today’s Reader Comments for Bonus Content on this study).

August to Sept. 12 -

As stated in several interviews and his book The Wuhan Cover-up, the time period a novel coronavirus might have begun circulating in Wuhan, according to RFK, Jr. Citing intelligence sources, Kennedy has repeatedly highlighted a likely lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology on or around Sept. 12, 2019.

August or September 2019 -

Dates that former CDC director Robert Redfield now believes virus transmission began in Wuhan, likely from an accidental lab leak at the WIV.

“We now know that the transmission of Covid-19 probably began between August and October of 2019 .. and clearly (Chinese officials) knew it. They were well-informed,” said Redfield in an interview with TV anchorman Chris Cuomo.

FWIW, on May 29, 2020, while he was Donald Trump’s director of the CDC, Redfield participated in a press conference where CDC officials stated they could find no evidence of “community spread” in America before February 2020. This finding seems odd given that Redfield later said this contagious virus was spreading around the world in the summer of 2019 - five to six months before February 2020.

Question: Does Dr. Redfield believe a very contagious virus would NOT have spread to America in a period of five or six months?

October 18 - 27 - Dates World Military Games were held in Wuhan.

Numerous media reports later said scores of visitors (from multiple nations) experienced ILI or Covid symptoms while at these Games.

Per my research, China has never admitted or acknowledged that anyone who attended these Games might have contracted “Early Covid.” Nor have any public health officials in any other nation. (As far as I have been able to ascertain, no visitor to the World Military Games ever later received a Covid antibody test, which I find very strange.)

An exclusive story published by The Washington Free Beacon in April 2025, claimed that “Biden Administration Concealed Congressionally Mandated Report on Earliest Suspected American COVID Cases” (at these Games).

Unspecified date in November 2019 -

According to a May 23, 2021 Wall Street Journal major exclusive story, the month three WIV researchers went to hospital experiencing Covid or ILI symptoms.

First two paragraphs of story:

“Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.

“The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

November 2019 - Three authors from Racket and Public News also published a story that purports to name “patients zero” (including a man named Ben Hu, who led the WIV’s “gain of function” research, according to authors.)

November 17 - According to a March 13, 2020 article from The South China Morning Post, the first person infected with the new disease may have been a Hubei resident aged 55, but ‘patient zero’ has yet to be confirmed. The article, cited “Chinese government data” … and noted that Chinese health officials told local media that the virus likely was spreading before they realized, “though they have offered no details.”

Late November 2019 - In April 2020, ABC News reported that the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) received word in late November that a contagion was sweeping through Wuhan, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population.

Sources familiar with the reports said NCMI, a component of the military’s Defense Intelligence Agency, based the analysis on wire and computer intercepts coupled with satellite images similar to those used by Brownstein’s (parking lot analysis) team. After that story was broadcast, the NCMI’s director issued a statement, denying that a formal “product/assessment” was generated in November.

Author’s note: While the above articles and intelligence reports are interesting and worthy of coverage, I’ve dismissed any possible “blockbuster” significance of stories that claim Covid can be traced to a couple of reportedly sick scientists at the WIV in November 2019 … for the simple reason I have found many cases (in America and other countries) that happened prior to these possible events/cases. That is, IMO, these individuals were not “case zeroes.”

Moving to “official” or acknowledged cases …

December 1, 2019 - From various sources, the date the first Wuhan resident, who was later hospitalized at the primary Wuhan hospital treating Covid patients, reported the onset of her Covid symptoms.

December 16, 2020 - Date the first patient was admitted to a Wuhan hospital with Covid symptoms. (source: Lancet paper.) This lady was a vendor at Wuhan Wet market although many early patients had no connection to this live animal market.

Dec. 27 - Date a Wuhan hospital official first reported to local public health officials the existence of a “novel pneumonia-causing” virus.

Note: According to Chinas’s rebuttal document (referenced above), a man named Zhang Jixian, director of the the Dept. of Respiratory and Critical Care at Hubei Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, “was the first person to report Covid-19 cases on December 27, 2019” … and was “awarded for this contribution.”

(I’ve always wondered how the world would be different if Mr. Jixian had not made this report to anyone.)

December 31, 2019 - Date Chinese officials first reported a novel virus to the World Health Organization (official birthdate of the pandemic).

January 2, 2021 (From Lancet paper): By this date, 41 Wuhan residents had been admitted to one or more Wuhan hospitals and had been identified as having laboratory-confirmed 2019-nCoV infection.

January 9, 2020 - Date the first Covid death was reported in Wuhan (and the world).

January 23 - Chinese officials impose travel ban and NPI’s (lockdowns) on residents of Wuhan.

January 24-25 - 27 more Chinese provinces begin “Level 1” Response.

January 24, 2020 - In all of China, total number of fatal cases of Covid is reported as 25.

For context …

by April 29, 2020, New York City had experienced 12,571 total Covid deaths. The first NYC Covid fatality was recorded on March 14, 2020, meaning the city went from zero Covid deaths to 12,571 in a period of approximately 45 days.

The populations of Wuhan and NY City are almost identical. It’s unclear why a virus that, in roughly one month, would kill only 25 people in the entire nation of China could kill 12,571 residents of one American city in a little more than one month. Also, all NY City “Covid deaths” happened after lockdowns were imposed in New York City around March 14, 2020. (The first confirmed case in NY City was recorded as March 1, 2020.)

FWIW, I have found no reports - citing U.S. intelligence - which claim that Wuhan experienced many thousands of Covid deaths between Dec. 31st, 2019 and the end of January or mid-February (or before these dates when virus spread almost certainly began. That is, a virus that was not overly deadly in Wuhan was, a few months later, incredibly lethal in NY City).

January 31, 2020 - By this date, just 9,692 cases Covid cases had been confirmed in all of China (population 1 billion-plus). Source: New England Journal of Medicine

January 31, 2020 - Date President Trump, by executive emergency order, bans all travel to and from China.

DISCUSSION …

It is unclear to myself why Chinese officials decided to impose “draconian” lockdowns in Wuhan (and then in other provinces) beginning on January 23, 2020.

Per the above bullet points, it seems clear that any novel virus had already been spreading widely in this city - and presumably country - weeks or months before the lockdowns were imposed.

However, this mitigation response was extremely significant as it was held out as a model for other nations to follow in “fighting” virus spread.

The China mitigation response is documented in this paper published in the journal Science, first published at the end of March 2020.

The title of the paper is: “An Investigation of transmission control measures during the first 50 days of the Covid epidemic in China.”

My comment: The title of the paper is suspect as this was almost certainly not the “first 50 days of the epidemic in China.” (The paper dates “virus spread” in Wuhan to December 31, 2019.)

Covid seems to have stayed primarily in Wuhan …

According to Chinese officials, virus spread was “largely contained to Wuhan,” which strikes me as odd or implausible. (Wuhan, which has been described as “The Chicago of China,” is a major transportation hub in the nation.)

For example, “The reported daily incidence of confirmed cases peaked in Hubei province (including Wuhan) on Feb. 4th was 3,156 laboratory-confirmed cases (5.33 per 100,000 population in Hubei or 1-in-18,762 Wuhan residents).

However, by January 31, there were only 875 cases in all other Chinese provinces (0.07 per 100,000 population).

***

U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission, told a newspaper that “China has done an excellent job of suppressing the COVID-19 epidemic and that the world should have learned a lot more from China’s response. The United States should learn some ‘good manners to work cooperatively with China rather than trying to impose its will on that nation,’ “ said Sachs.

To give Chinese officials the benefit of the doubt, it’s possible no one in China was aware of the copious evidence of early Spread (or spikes in ILI cases) in America or other countries by late January 2020 and, thus, might have believed the virus started in their country (jumping from bats an not escaping from a lab).

However, at some point, Chinese officials became aware of this evidence, which suggests a virus that was spreading widely throughout the world beginning at some point between mid 2019 and the fall of 2019.

Per my conjecture, it’s likely officials in China sought to conceal evidence of early spread for the same reason American officials did - because this evidence, if confirmed, would prove that very few people had died from this virus, which would mean this was not a “deadly” virus or the next Spanish Flu or Bubonic Plague.

Since China imposed, arguably, the most draconian lockdowns in the world (at least in Wuhan), it seems unlikely that China officials would later want to admit to their trusting citizens that authorities were completely wrong about the lethality or mortality risk of said virus … or that the draconian measures ordered by their leaders were completely unnecessary.

For their part, China officials maintain that the government’s “strong intervention measures significantly changed the epidemic curve” and “also bought precious time for the world” (which seems to me to be a tacit admission the virus did start in China).

In its document rebutting “vicious smears,” Chinese officials said that over 1.4 million infections and 56,000 deaths outside of Hubei “might have been avoided” because of national public health measures.

Conclusion, circling back to where I started …

In Part 1 of this 4-part series, I speculated that American “pandemic plotters” might have sought to concoct a faux pandemic via a lab-created virus that was contagious but not deadly. I further speculated that officials might have wanted to frame the nation of China as the villain for a virus that did, in fact, acquire the nickname of “The Wuhan Flu.”

One possible motive would be to inject trillions of dollars of “liquidity” into a financial system that might have been approaching an undisclosed crisis.

Such a crisis would also, perhaps, grease the rails for a transformation to digital currency and digital ID and much greater control for the so-called Powers that Be. (Population control would be a more sinister motive.)

If one purpose was to cause economic harm to China, this result does not seem to have happened. Indeed, America probably suffered greater harm via a major and continuing spike in real inflation and consumers of the world continue to disproportionately purchase products manufactured in China.

More than six years after virus spread commenced, no officials or public health organizations are seriously or sincerely investigating the true origins of this novel virus and the “vaccines” that were rolled out in December 2020 (and later mandated for many citizens) are still considered “safe and effective” by public health experts.

For years or decades to come (and maybe forever), the key Covid questions will almost certainly remain unanswered, no doubt because the harsh truths would be far too shocking for most citizens to handle.

***

(The six-plus years of Covid have been a wild, roller-coaster ride for this Substack author. From September 2022, I grew my subscribers from zero to more than 8,000, including 310 paid subscribers. However, in the past 12 or so months, I have lost 500 total subscribers and 75 paid subscribers. Still, as this story hopefully shows, there’s plenty of important Covid stories still to be written.)

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I learned via Facebook that actress Courteney Cox recently celebrated her 61st birthday, which was the perfect opportunity for me to make a Facebook post and let everyone know I am kin to Courteney.

We all have our claims to fame and this is one of mine, even though I’ve never actually met the beguiling and beautiful Ms. Cox and, truth be told, am not 100 percent sure we are technically “related. “

Still, it makes a good “brag story” and one might argue we are related.

As it turns out, Courteney Cox has an aunt - Ann Chapman Cox - who grew up in Troy in the 1940s and 1950s. Ann is my late mother - Marcia Chapman Rice’s - first cousin. This means my mother’s first cousin is Courteney Cox’s aunt.

Does your town have nicknames like these?

Ann, who lives in Mountain Brook, hasn’t lived in Troy in many decades but everyone over a certain age knew Ann’s brother, Brother Chapman.

Brother was one of hundreds of proud Trojans who went by a nickname - not his birth certificate name - his whole life. (Brother’s real name was Corley Chapman, Jr.)

My mother once wrote one of my favorite Troy Citizen columns where she listed all the many people in Troy who were known by their nicknames.

For example, great Troy characters of my youth included Trojans like Boy Motes, Rat McWhorter, Red Stinson, Junior Byrd, Tip Colley, Baba Hendricks, Teen Coleman, Sister Schubert, Whitey Whitman and my mother’s own father, Hickey Chapman. (One day I’m going to find that column and re-publish it. Mom broke the names down by categories - like “hues,” Animal Kingdom, verbs, familial relations, etc.)

My late grandfather, Hickey has been given credit for giving Dr. Tip Colley his nickname.

As the story goes, Tip (whose real name was, I think, James) had just moved to Troy when his father became director of the Alabama Baptist Children’s Home, which moved its campus from Evergreen to Troy at some point in the 1920s.

My grandfather was the manager of the Troy High football team. Dr. Colley went out for the team and was, in fact, the tallest player on said team.

Said Hickey: “Watch out guys, Here comes Tip-Top Colley!”

Like many nicknames, the first name was later shortened or modified and “Tip” Colley was born.

As an aside, “Hickey” is not a red mark one gets from someone smooching your neck in the backseat of your Ford Mustang - it is short for Hickory, which was Hickey’s middle name. (Hickey ended up marrying Kathryn Rushmore from Andalusia, but we all knew her by her nickname “KaKa.”)

Another Trend Change Identified …

I’m a professional observer of changing trends and one trend change I’ve observed is that, at some point, far fewer people were known only by their nicknames.

That is, in my generation I can think of only a couple of classmates who were primarily known by their nickname - For example, Steve Barras became “She Daddy” and Philip Walters was “Opie” but even with those names, plenty of people still called my friends by their God-given name.

It’s also strange to me how some people are known strictly by their last name. For example, nobody called Gary Rumph “Gary;” everyone called him Rumph.

Many “Bobby’s” later become Bob. My late father, Bill, was known for his first 18 years as “Billy.” My friend Candy Whitman is now Candace and Sandra Huggins is now Sandy.

At Alabama, Dad was roommates for a year or two with Bud Casey, who later became famous as Vincent “Bo” Jackson’s position coach at Auburn and then even more famous as “Famous” Amos’s sidekick on “Today in L.A.” (Lower Alabama).

Dad always called Bud “Travis” (his name for 20 or so years). However, I like Bud better.

(One of the movie lines I quote all the time is from Urban Cowboy: “That’s damn good, Bud!” When John Travolta’s character, whose real name was Buford, was riding the mechanical bull.)

I guess I can tell this story …

Several of dad’s teammates at Alabama also had nicknames, one of which created a great story even if it’s probably politically incorrect to share.

One of Dad’s teammate was named “Digger” O-Dell. The year after Dad graduated, Alabama played Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. In 1962, Alabama’s roster had yet to become integrated, but the Sooners had at least one black player.

As the story goes, the referees stopped the game and reprimanded Alabama’s players and coaches for repeatedly using the most offensive of racial epithets.

The refs thought Alabama’s players were saying, “Get the … (N-word)” when the Tide players were actually saying, “Get him, Digger!”

Dad’s best friend at Alabama was James A. Patton, but nobody called Mr. Patton, who has never been to Japan, “James” … everyone did - and still does - call him “Jap.”

Of course, Dad’s coach had the most famous nickname in the history of college football - “Bear” Bryant.

However, as everyone who spent much time around this legendary figure knows, almost no one called him “Bear.” Everyone called him “Coach” Bryant.

The best-known nickname in the football world I can think of today is Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, which became Dabo’s name because his older brother kept calling the baby Swinney “Dat Boy” - when he was trying to say, “That Boy” … which became Dabo.

More on Courteney’s rise to stardom …

Courteney Cox doesn’t have a nickname, but her trajectory to stardom is interesting.

Courteney, of course, became an instant sensation when she was the girl Bruce Springsteen (“The Boss”) pulled out of the audience to dance with in his MTV video “Dancing in the Dark.”

I also remember when Courteney was Michael J. Fox’s girlfriend on “Family Ties.”

Then my cousin got the break of a lifetime when she was cast in “Friends,” which came on right after “Seinfeld,” where one of TV’s most eccentric characters went only by the name of Kramer.

Both shows are now considered classics and Courteney will no doubt be earning residuals when she is 98.

One could make the case that Courteney Cox is the best-known actress to ever come from Alabama. (Her competition would be Kate Jackson, one of the original “Charlie’s Angels” and Louise Fletcher, the actress who won an Oscar for playing Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” or, maybe, going back even further, Tallulah Bankhead (I checked, this was her real name).

(BTW, growing up, the sister of Jimmy Gaskin, who was a long-time resident of Troy, was great friends with Kate Jackson, “the smart Angel.”)

Octavia Spencer, a graduate of Jeff Davis High School, has also had a fine career and Fannie Flagg had an outstanding career as an actress, a sharp-witted regular on the game show “Match Game” and then as a talented author, who wrote Fried Green Tomatoes. (Surely Fannie Flagg’s real name is not Fannie … I just checked - that’s a “stage name” - a good one - Fannie created.)

(You can share “Iran deal” stories with your friends or you can share riveting stories like this one …)

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Regarding my close relationship with Courteney, when I was a Sigma Nu at the University of Alabama, about 12 of my fraternity brothers were from Mountain Brook - and all of them went to high school with Courteney although, at the time, she was just another beautiful person from Alabama’s toniest community and, as far as I remember, she never attended any keg parties in our frat lodge basement. (At one Sigma Nu keg party, I did once light a cigarette for Belinda Carlisle of the Go Go’s, but that’s a “brush with greatness” story I’ll save for another day.)

Still, I’ve always thought that one day I might call Courteney and tell her we are close relatives.

I’m going to do this when I finally finish my first screenplay - or make my pitch to Netflix to produce my 8-part TV series - and need someone with Hollywood connections to get my script in front of the right people.

As we all know, we are all just six degrees of separation from any famous or important person. With Courteney I’m just two or three degrees from being in the door.

How I plan to save the world …

As it regards my efforts to save the world, I’ve actually thought a fair amount about the Six-Degrees of Separation Theory.

As my readers know by now, I would be flattered if I could one day play even a small role in exposing the non-safe and very dangerous Covid non-vaccines.

As it turns out, I once met Mary Holland, the director of Children’s Health Defense, at a retreat in Connecticut hosted by The Brownstone Institute.

Mrs. Holland was very nice to me and I enjoyed a 90-second chat with her and have even exchanged emails with her. It occurs to me that Mrs. Holland must be very close to Robert Kennedy, Jr. (two degrees of separation) who founded the CHD and must have hired Mrs. Holland. So Mary could easily arrange a phone or video chat with the director of the Department of HHS, who is a mere two degrees of separation from your humble Substack content creator.

“Bobby, Bill … How are you today?”

For his part, Bobby can pick up the phone any time and talk to his boss, President Trump, who is, thus, only three degrees of separation away from me here in Troy, Alabama.

“Mr. President, you need to expose these embalmers’ clots,” I will say.

I don’t know what Mr. Trump will say to my suggestion. If I don’t immediately impress him, I’m going to have to tell him that I am Courteney Cox’s second cousin three times removed by marriage.

I’ll also tell him I graduated from high school with She Daddy Barras and my grandfather gave Tip Colley his nickname.

Then we’ll just see what happens.

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I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words which present persuasive and compelling evidence a novel coronavirus was infecting Americans (and people in many countries) months before Chinese officials (on Dec. 31, 2019) first announced to the world the presence of a novel new virus that was causing pneumonia and flu-like symptoms.

As I’ve repeatedly theorized, for some reason American officials endeavored to conceal or dismiss all evidence of “early spread” in America.

However, as I’ve also developed in multiple stories, compelling evidence also exists that early spread - many people becoming infected well before the “Wuhan Outbreak” - almost certainly occurred in China as well.

As I will document in a future story, reports (citing numerous sources) have been published stating or suggesting that early cases had occurred in China in June, July, August, September, October and December 2019.

This evidence spurs several key, unanswered questions, including:

• What did Chinese officials know about early infections and when did they know this?

• Why didn’t Chinese officials announce the presence of a novel, contagious coronavirus months before Dec. 31, 2019?

• If a contagious virus had been spreading in China as early as the summer of 2019, why did China wait until late January 2020 to implement draconian and unprecedented lockdowns to “slow or stop spread” in hundreds of Chinese cities?

• If a deadly and extremely contagious novel virus was spreading in Wuhan many months before the first day of 2020, why did China experience only a tiny number of “Covid deaths.” (In a nation of one billion people, only 50 Chinese had reportedly died from Covid by the last day of January 2020.)

• Lastly, is it possible China officials, for whatever reason(s), also conspired to conceal early cases and might have conspired with other nations, including American officials, to advance the official narrative of virus spread - i.e. that spread began in late December in their nation?

***

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I again summarized evidence which strongly suggests copious (definitely not “limited” or “isolated”) virus spread occurred in America. I also speculated that American officials must/might have wanted to “frame” China as the nation where a deadly plague originated.

A key unanswered question in my mind is how American officials (perhaps) knew that alleged “Case Zero” would be identified in Wuhan, China … and not until the final days of December 2019.

***

As it turns out, I covered many of the strange/unanswered “China questions” in a lengthy dispatch I published on Nov. 2, 2023 - 25 months ago.

Upon reflection, my article “The pandemic’s start date HAD to be delayed” might be one of my more significant dispatches I’ve written if only because I question many “origins” premises that few other journalists have highlighted.

As this piece is germane to my current series, I’d like to re-publish key parts today (with a few minor edits).

***

Given the overwhelming evidence of severe and widespread ILI in America before China’s world-changing announcement of December 31, 2010, the possibility such a virus might have already been spreading for months should have occurred to public health “experts” in America and the rest of the world.

For example, we know many athletes and visitors to the World Military Games held in Wuhan in October 2019 became sick at those games. This suggests a novel virus might have been spreading at least two months before the first person allegedly became infected at a live animal market in Wuhan in mid-to-late December.

However, if this contagious and supposedly lethal virus was infecting large numbers of Chinese months earlier (even before visitors started arriving to these Games), why didn’t anyone notice a spike of deaths before February 2020?

To me, the most credible answer is that the virus was contagious … but, for almost 100 percent of people who were infected by this virus, it wasn’t lethal. This latter point would explain the absence of a spike in all-cause deaths in Wuhan (and, for that matter, everywhere) before February 2020.

China is about as totalitarian a government as exists in the world. It’s also occurred to me that China could have simply never reported the possible existence of a new pneumonia-causing virus.

As very few people in China apparently died from Covid (and most who did were very old with co-morbid conditions), nobody would have known anything unusual was happening on the virus front.

But, for some reason, China did report this outbreak. And, as they say, the rest is history.

One can only speculate about the reasons China did report this novel virus to the WHO … thereby setting off a chain of events that today might be labeled the Mother of All Overreactions.

If we take China at its word, this government was simply doing the right thing. That is, if and when health officials discover a new (perhaps deadly and contagious) virus, they should, of course, tell the scientific and medical community what they’ve discovered.

It should be highlighted that China later locked down harder and longer than just about any country in the world. Plus, as we all know, China was ultimately blamed for producing the worst virus since the Spanish Flu (which, fwiw, did not originate in Spain.)

Speaking for myself, I can’t think of any good reason China would voluntarily assume the role of global pandemic villain.

Perhaps, even in this controlled society, Chinese decision makers knew they couldn’t prevent news of this outbreak reaching the rest of the world.

Perhaps they thought this virus was indeed “novel” and was perhaps even a “bio-weapon” that, perhaps in their minds, had been intentionally released in their country.

Also, it’s possible this country’s leaders didn’t know how bad things might get if they didn’t respond in a draconian (aggressive or pro-active) manner.

Or … Perhaps they knew the virus had started to circulate months earlier, but for whatever reason, China’s narrative-controllers wanted to date virus spread to late December/early January … just like American officials clearly wanted to do (and did do).

Maybe China and America’s official leaders were both covering up the same thing?

Today, it’s become much more widely accepted that scientists in China were - for some inexplicable reason - working with scientists from their adversary, America - and were very likely trying to manipulate bat viruses in a Wuhan lab.

However, given all the evidence of early cases around the world, it makes far more sense that any virus might have escaped from a Wuhan lab in September 2019 (or August, July or June 2019) and not December or November 2019.

Did officials in China - and America - have good reasons to push back the start date (virus escape date)? And, if so, what would those reasons be?

Assuming that some American officials were complicit in this infamous event, a couple of possible reasons occur to me.

Possibility No. 1:

The virus was released, either intentionally or by accident, at an American lab or a lab outside of America but not in China. America then tried to frame China as the culprit.

However, this “frame job” would not necessarily portray China as as world villain as the authorized narrative was that the virus was naturally-occurring. That is, it wasn’t China’s fault this pandemic began. The pandemic was instead the fault of a covey of bats that infected other animals which were later sold at a live market, which started the world’s Most Famous Pandemic.

The narrative, once sacrosanct, that the pandemic was definitely caused by a naturally-occurring virus is, at least, no longer considered “settled science.”

However (and importantly), this was THE authorized narrative for more than a year. In fact, many American scientists affiliated with the U.S. Government Science Complex still embrace this theory as the best answer to the virus origins question.

Even today, if anyone reads any story or study that mentions key details of this pandemic, this article will state - as 100-percent fact - that the virus originated in China. (That is, I’ve never read an article that states, “the novel virus is alleged to have originated in China” or “scientists currently believe the virus originated in China.”)

Significantly, if the narrative that infected bats were the true villain is accepted as “settled science,” virus-origin sleuths would have no reason to investigate possible lab escapes anywhere else in the world … or any possible lab escape before December 2019.

From the POV of the few Americans who might be “in the know,” this theory - if accepted - would effectively conceal any possible U.S. fingerprints regarding what might be the greatest crime in history.

Of course, China officials, who aren’t stupid, must have known that many skeptics would quickly blame their own virus lab (the WIV) as a likely source of this pandemic. However, knowing this possibility existed, China still made its world-changing announcement.

Expressed differently, if China had announced to the world that a novel new virus existed in, say, early September 2019, many people would have blamed the WIV at this time too.

It seems to me if China wanted to preclude such rampant speculation, the nation could simply have not made this big announcement. This thought thread, in turn, makes me wonder how possible Pandemic plotters could have known (for sure) that China would actually make this announcement … as, “no big announcement from China” = “No Pandemic.”

The real Covid story is what happened AFTER the virus escaped …

To myself, the more-important story involves government actions that followed the origination event.

For the directors of the “pandemic production,” the lockdowns and then the roll-out of the experimental mRNA vaccines are what really seemed to matter.

My Big Question: Would any of these events have happened if everyone realized that some new “bug” was circulating many months earlier?

My answer: No.

In my opinion, the main reason the birthdate of virus spread had to be pushed back is that this virus (regardless of what caused it) had not produced any known deaths. In China (just like everywhere else in the world), no noticeable spike in excess deaths occurred between summer 2019 and early March 2020.

How could the Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci’s of the world and the Science/Military Industrial Complex create the requisite fear needed for the lockdowns and then the vaccines … if nobody was dying from this new virus?

First a novel virus had to be identified, but this news was NOT enough …

It seems to me the narrative creators had to have a huge spike in deaths. As it turns out, they didn’t get the deaths (in large or eye-opening numbers) until a heavily-publicized outbreak in northern Italy and then an outbreak on a cruise ship full of octogenarians.

(As noted, as of the end of January 2020, only approximately 50 Chinese citizens had died from Covid and China didn’t record its first “confirmed” Covid death until January 11th, 2020 - which would be four to seven months after “virus spread” almost certainly started.)

For the purposes of “pandemic plotters,” the spike in deaths they needed arrived in late February 2020.

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One might ask why couldn’t the orchestrators of this production have “produced” the same panic and then, ultimately, the same number of (needed) “Covid deaths” a couple of months earlier?

My answer is that they couldn’t do this because a terrifying novel virus hadn’t been “identified” yet. Again, as it turns out, the key event was the “Wuhan outbreak” and then an official in China calling the WHO on December 31, 2019.

In effect, The Wuhan Outbreak allowed officials to identify where and when the virus originated.

In the mind of this narrative skeptic, the two most important points were that this virus definitely hadn’t been produced in America and the virus definitely hadn’t begun to spread when tens of millions of people in America experienced Covid-like symptoms, which, one assumes, were simply dismissed as a “coincidence” (although few if any virus experts even commented on or noted said coincidence).

Absent the “Wuhan Outbreak” seminal event, too many skeptics might have started looking harder at possible lab escapes in, say, America and more people might have started thinking about all the millions of people who’d already been sick with the exact same symptoms of those reported in Wuhan.

In short, officials would NOT have been able to blame the Mother of All Pandemics on bat caves located 1,000 miles from Wuhan.

***

Confirmed evidence of “early spread” in America would of course open up the possibility a lab-leak occurred in America (and, as far as I know, no public health expert has blamed any American virus on American bats).

Early spread that pre-dated the “Wuhan outbreak” would open up an entirely different line of inquiry into the “origin” question. While this would not rule out the WIV as the possible epicenter of pandemic, this lab would not be the only “suspect” or “lab of interest.”

Also, the official narrative insists this virus originated in China (probably Wuhan) and then spread everywhere else on the planet. However, it seems to me it’s just as possible a contagious virus could have originated in America … where, given a couple of weeks, it would would have also spread across the globe - including to China.

This was also important to the ultimate narrative …

Also, IMO, it was very important to the narrative that officials could say they’d identified the super flu in time … and thus lockdowns would save “millions of lives.”

The operative narrative became: “We have a novel virus that is actually spreading in late March and April (not, like normal, in the winter virus season), but we are now aware of this and we can protect you and your grandmother if you just do A, B, C and D and if you don’t do W, X, Y and Z.”

“Sheeple” need a good reason to panic and voluntarily forfeit all of their liberties. “Fear of death” provided this reason.

Thus, the key parts of the Covid program probably couldn’t commence until Major Proof of Death had occurred. Said evidence came, not in Wuhan or China, but in northern Italy, on one cruise ship and, later, in a few big-city hospitals in cities like, most significantly, New York … in hospitals that primarily serve the poor, plus, many nursing homes.

Per my hypothesis, the directors of the pandemic response had to wait for large numbers of deaths to occur before they could roll out the rest of their program/agenda.

Still, the hyper focus on China was very important to events that followed as China’s belated lockdown effort was widely cited as the life-saving, pro-active model that every nation should use to protect its citizens.

The odd difference between America and China is that locked-down China experienced very few Covid deaths, while New York City - after lockdowns were imposed - recorded more than 30,000 Covid deaths in approximately two months (from late March through May).

The Importance of the PCR tests …

IMO another reason the start date of virus spread had to be pushed back several months is that there wasn’t a PCR test when most people had experienced ILI symptoms.

Until this test became widely administered (after March 15, 2020), everyone who became sick was just … sick - perhaps from confirmed influenza or a flu-like illness.

That is, the PCR test was the real pandemic changer. Indeed, it became the official pandemic identifier.

As contrarian reports later verified, as many as 94 percent of “Covid cases” wouldn’t have been labeled Covid “patients” if the cycle thresholds on said test were set at 25 or 30 instead of 35, 40 or above.

Due entirely to the PCR Covid tests, Covid became the first major health threat where 20 to 80 percent of people who were labeled “medical cases” never even developed symptoms or needed any kind of medical treatment.

A key, undeniable, observation would be: When testing became widespread, Covid cases were suddenly identified everywhere.

If these same tests had been available in January or February 2020, I’m almost certain millions of people would have been “testing positive.”

Also, as I continue to highlight, the only Americans who received the very rare early PCR tests were Americans who had recently returned from China.

No PCR tests = No spreading virus and no pandemic. Widespread PCR tests = widespread Covid and the Mother of All Pandemics.

The vast majority of “Covid deaths” are also explained by the fact all of these alleged “Covid victims” had tested positive via a PCR test.

One of the greatest unreported scandals in history would be the distinct possibility the overwhelming majority of “Covid deaths” were actually caused by other co-morbid conditions in combination with iatrogenic treatments that contributed to these deaths.

Also, life-saving treatments that would have been used pre-Covid were often discarded in post-Covid times. (For example, prescriptions of antibiotics given to pneumonia patients reportedly decreased significantly. Also, proven and safe medicines such as ivermectin and HCQ were outlawed as treatment options via “official health guidance.”)

Another disturbing (and off limits) line of inquiry might seriously investigate the possibility these deaths had been caused intentionally, perhaps to create the requisite level of fear needed to justify the lockdowns and later the “warp speed,” experimental “vaccines.”

Even if there was no “intent,” the effect of the new treatment protocols (in my opinion) did cause a massive spike in deaths.

Also, trusted public health agencies like the CDC, WHO, NIH and prestigious medical associations did embrace these protocols and did smear and censor medical professionals who disagreed with key parts of the Covid treatment guidance.

Intentional or not, it was the sudden spike in all-cause deaths that cemented the narrative that this was a very contagious and lethal novel virus … and thus everything that followed was justified.

In Conclusion …

To myself, it’s immensely significant that no confirmed Covid deaths happened in either China or America before the second week of January 2020.

In my final story on this topic, I’ll present several possible reasons why China officials might have also covered up “early spread.” I will also summarize all the published reports of early cases in Wuhan (spanning from June through December 2019).

A head-scratcher that remains is why China was the first (and only) nation that, belatedly, identified a novel virus that was causing flu-like symptoms and pneumonia in some people.

***

(Subscriber Update: Since August 16th, 2025 to today, my newsletter has lost 438 subscribers (from 8,013 to 7,575). I mention this only because, if at all possible, I would like to reverse this trend, which maybe is not possible … but - Onward! - I’m going to “keep posting while I still can.”)

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