activistpost--2020-10-14--U.S. Gov’t Awards Contracts to Seven Organizations with Ties to Gates Foundation, DARPA, Big Tech

The National Institutes of Health has awarded contracts to seven organizations working on digital health solutions for COVID-19 involving smartphones and wearable “ biosensors ” – so who are these companies ?
On September 15 , the National Institutes of Health announced that they had awarded contracts to seven companies developing digital health solutions for SARS-CoV-2 , the virus that causes COVID-19 .
The National Cancer Institute ( NCI ) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering ( NIBIB ) , part of the NIH , selected the seven projects put forth by the organizations .
The contracts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and will focus on using artificial intelligence ( AI ) , machine learning , and other methods , combined with smartphone apps , wearable devices , and software “ that can identify and trace contacts of infected individuals , keep track of verified COVID-19 test results , and monitor the health status of infected and potentially infected individuals.
” These organizations include : iCrypto , Inc. ( Santa Clara , California ) Shee Atiká Enterprises , LLC ( Sitka , Alaska ) University of California , San Francisco physIQ , Inc. ( Chicago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) IBM ( Armonk , New York ) Evidation Health , Inc. ( San Mateo , California ) The NIH also noted that another company , CareEvolution , LLC ( Ann Arbor , Michigan ) , was awarded a contract by the NIBIB .
NIBIB Director Bruce J. Tromberg , Ph.D. , stated that digital health technologies built around smartphones and wearable devices will help guide the public through the COVID-19 pandemic by gathering and analyzing large amounts of data from many different sources .
“ When this information is analyzed using cutting-edge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will have access to powerful new tools for reducing the risk of infection and returning to normal activities , ” Tromberg said .
The news of the NIH contracts provoked few media reports about the latest development in the fight against COVID-19 .
However , there was no scrutiny of the companies themselves .
This piece is a brief examination of the connections between the companies pushing smartphone apps and wearable technologies , and the individuals and institutions who stand to benefit from the advancement of this biosecurity focused , technocratic reality .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA ) , Apple , and Google .
Let ’ s start with the organization of which we know the least about – iCrypto , Inc .
The NIH awarded digital firm iCrypto , Inc. a contract for “ developing a smartphone-based platform to provide proof of testing , serologic , and vaccination status.
” Beyond that single line there are not many details available regarding the “ smartphone-based platform ” iCrypto is commissioned to build .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provides “ a scalable , customizable , SaaS solution with capabilities including amongst others Mobile-Centric ID Aggregation , strong Mobile-Centric ( biometric ) Authentication across the organization , Verifications , Authorizations , and Attestations ( immutable audit trails ) , thus assisting with all-around accountability , governance & audit compliance , non-repudiation , increased productivity and profitability.
” ICrypto ’ s website describes itself as a “ Trust and Digital ID / Attestation platform that enables businesses to transact faster ( minimize friction ) with increased trust , accountability and profitability.
” Beyond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 3 employees , the website is barren and offers little details on the companies history .
Similarly , the twitter account for iCrypto has only 2 tweets from 2018 .
A list of press releases from the company make no mention of the NIH contract , but one press release from 2019 states that iCrypto has an “ extensive offering that encompasses multiple authentication factors such as fingerprint scans , photographs , facial recognition , user behaviour , and PINs , iCrypto is the most comprehensive solution of its kind in the market @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come to arrive at a fuller understanding of iCrypto ’ s “ smartphone based platform ” and how it will interact with the population .
CareEvolution received a contract for their tool SAFER-COVID , which they describe as “ a digital health solution that integrates self-reported symptoms , data from consumer wearable devices , electronic health record and claims data , and COVID-19 test results to indicate whether users are ready to return to work and normal activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
” CareEvolution says that the SAFER-COVID self-assessment tool “ helps you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and how to safely return to regular daily activities such as work and other social interactions.
” The tool is designed to use available research from the CDC , NIH , and other organizations to give the user “ guidance ” on what they can do “ to be more confident that you are not infectious to others.
” CareEvolution has yet to provide specifics on what type of wearable devices they are gathering data from , but the use of wearable devices is a central component to the NIH contracts .
Shee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a smartphone-based platform aimed at supporting individuals in low-resource settings with a Bluetooth-enabled thermometer and pulse oximeter.
” Shee Atiká is specifically focused on a platform to “ monitor and support individuals with COVID-19 symptoms ( who may need testing ) and those who have already tested positive.
” The company says their app will integrate a Bluetooth-enabled thermometer and pulse oximeter into an approach “ uniquely designed for low-resource settings and underserved populations.
” How the technology will function and how exactly it is suited for “ underserved populations ” is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for $ 1 per month at Patreon .
Once again , there is not much information about the company itself or the nature of the technology being designed by Shee Atiká Enterprises and their parent company Shee Atiká Incorporated .
However , we do know that Shee Atiká Incorporated is also the parent company of INDHA Health Solutions , an Alaskan company that specializes in creating healthcare solutions for clients to improve healthcare management .
INDHA says it “ turns biometric patient information into usable knowledge for participants , employers and healthcare providers.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and wearables which are currently used to detect blood sugar and blood pressure .
According to Alaska Northstar Resources , LLC , another one of Shee Atiká ’ s subsidiaries , Shee Atiká , Inc. , and its subsidiaries , have performed close to $ 1 billion in U.S. government contracts .
With this history of government contracts it should be no surprise that the relatively unknown company has been chosen to create the next wave of digital health tools aimed at tracking those who may have COVID-19 .
We should also noted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TigerSwan were both implicated in a scheme involving disgraced international corporation DynCorp .
The NIH granted the University of California , San Francisco a contract to investigate a GPS-based “ retroactive contact-tracing tool for COVID-19.
” Researchers with UC San Francisco have been actively developing contact tracing technology in response to COVID-19 .
Contact tracing is a process of identifying individuals who may have come into contact with an infected person , collecting information about their contacts , and then tracing the contacts of infected individuals .
All persons who may have come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tested for infection , treated for the infection , and their contacts traced as well .
The NIH contract is the latest step in UCSF efforts to create a contact tracing tool that not only tracks an individual ’ s current and future movements , but looks to “ recreate people ’ s movements.
” In September , UCSF researchers invited the public to share their location data – which is collected by Google – via their smartphones and mobile devices .
The data sharing and monitoring is part of a new study @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contact tracing efforts and helping scientists understand how the coronavirus is spreading from person to person .
“ The UCSF project takes a different approach from the one that Google and Apple are using in their contact tracing apps , ” the university wrote .
“ Those apps use Bluetooth beacons to detect phones that are nearby in real time , sending alerts whenever users come near someone who reported having tested positive .
By contrast , Covidseeker looks back in time .
With enough participants , it may be able to recreate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were rising and falling in the spring and summer of 2020.
” The grant from the NIH is not unusual given that two organizations have a longstanding relationship .
For example , in 2019 , for the 13th year in a row , UCSF claimed the top spot among public institutions in funding from the NIH .
“ The NIH has been behind many of the biggest breakthroughs that UCSF scientists have made over the decades , ” UCSF wrote .
On September 30 , UC San Francisco students , faculty and staff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID Notify software .
They were invited to activate COVID Notify on their smartphones to be the first Californians to test the tool as part of a limited pilot .
California lawmakers are hoping to use the tool to learn how best to reopen their state .
The technology powering COVID Notify was developed by Google and Apple .
The developers claim the software is anonymized and does not use GPS and never collects , stores , or transmits personal information and location data .
UC San Francisco has also briefly received funds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global health drugs ” .
The digital medicine company Physiq Inc. has received a contract from the NIH to “ develop an artificial intelligence ( AI ) -based index that can provide an early warning that a patient with COVID-19 is in decline and needs medical treatment.
” The NIH is asking Physiq to use their COVID-19 Decompensation Index ( CDI ) Digital Biomarker , which is described as a personalized AI-based algorithm that will run on Physiq ’ s existing AccelerateIQ computing platform .
The company markets their AccelerateIQ platform as an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from wearable biosensors .
Their platform works with a chest-worn disposable sensor patch product called VitalPatch from Vital Connect , Inc. PhysIQ describes their work as “ applying artificial intelligence to wearable sensor data ” using the only FDA-cleared “ personalized analytics platform ” designed to process multiple vital signs from wearable sensors to create a “ personalized dynamic baseline ” for each individual .
Essentially , they aim to map your vital signs while you are healthy and use their analytics platform to detect “ subtle deviations ” that could be the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ changes in health .
In May , PhysIQ partnered with the U.S. Department of Defense , and The Henry M. Jackson Foundation on an initiative to use physIQ ’ s platform to collect and analyze wearable sensor data to better understand the pathophysiology of COVID-19 .
This project called for “ continuous monitoring ” of COVID-19 patients using a wearable biosensor in an attempt to predict disease progression and early signs of infection .
The plan is to send the platform to “ individuals associated with military hospitals in the U.S. , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The NIH awarded Vibrent Health a $ 4.23 million contract on the promise of developing “ mobile applications , data integrations , and validated machine learning algorithms to identify COVID-19 and differentiate it from influenza , and to perform contact tracing using Wi-Fi technologies.
” Praduman Jain , Founder and CEO of Vibrent Health , noted that his company was working on “ Wi-Fi-enabled contact tracing ” using smartphones and wearable devices to “ assist society with the return to normalcy.
” Jain and Vibrent Health believe this method of using wi-fi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and “ advise actions to protect individuals from COVID-19 exposure.
” Vibrent will do so by “ expanding ” and “ enhancing ” its Digital Health Solutions Platform .
The platform allows researchers to “ rapidly deploy standardized measures from survey systems they use for everyday research into their own research programs.
” Vibrent claims their technology will be able to differentiate COVID-19 from the Flu , as well as inform users if they should seek medical attention .
In June , Vibrent announced they had developed a “ rapid deployment solution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Health currently serves as the Participant Technology Systems Center for NIH ’ s All of Us Research Program .
Vibrent responded to the program ’ s need to gather data by rapidly developing and deploying a COvid-19 Participant Experience ( COPE ) Survey .
The survey asked more than 325,000 participants to share their social distancing experiences , COVID-19 symptoms , COVID-19 testing , mood , stress , loneliness , discrimination , anxiety and other aspects of physical and mental health .
IBM has been contracted to test an “ integrated solution to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reporting.
” There are currently no further details on the specifics of this project , but IBM has been heavily involved in the effort to use digital technology as a method for combating COVID-19 .
IBM recently announced it was partnering with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Energy to use supercomputers to launch the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium , which is reported to be “ an unprecedented amount of computing power—16 systems with more than 330 petaflops , 775,000 CPU cores , 34,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also been offering artificial intelligence powered technology and an AI assistant to answer citizens ’ questions .
Of course , supercomputing and AI are nothing new for one of the world ’ s oldest computer technology and consulting firm .
More than a decade ago , IBM was working on a computer system that stimulates and emulates the brain ’ s abilities for sensation , perception , and cognition .
IBM claimed they had made advances in simulating the behavior of the cerebral cortex and created an algorithm that could “ synthesize ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ announced they were partnering with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory ( AFRL ) on a “ first-of-a-kind brain-inspired supercomputing system powered by a 64-chip array of the IBM TrueNorth Neurosynaptic System.
” The platform was designed to “ enable deep neural-network learning and information discovery.
” IBM said the systems pattern recognition and sensory processing power is equivalent of 64 million neurons and 16 billion synapses while only consuming 10 watts of power .
The IBM TrueNorth Neurosynaptic System was originally developed under the auspices of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics ( SyNAPSE ) program in collaboration with Cornell University .
Whitney Webb has reported extensively on DARPA ’ s dark agenda and how it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic .
Evidation Health is tasked with “ investigating a health measurement platform to analyze self-reported and wearable device data to both detect COVID-19 and differentiate it from influenza.
” Evidation has a history of working with smart devices and other wearable technology .
The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority ( BARDA ) and the Gates Foundation also recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ COVID-19 detection algorithm.
” Evidation is to work with 4YouandMe – a nonprofit that helps individuals share their health data for medical research – to collect self-reported and wearable-collected data from 300 participants .
Evidation previously partnered with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Apple on research into whether consumer gadgets like smartwatches and sleep trackers could be used to spot early signs of dementia .
The man behind the research , Dr. Andrew Trister , was hired by the Gates Foundation in 2019 .
In August 2018 , Evidation launched a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from more than 100 sources ranging from Apple Health to Fitbit , Epic , Blue Button , and Dexcom .
Evidation stated that the platform can analyze individual behavior and health in real time .
Evidation also has a history of collaborating with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. government .
In May , the Gates Foundation invested in Evidation to develop a “ digital biomarker of COVID-19 and understand an individual ’ s susceptibility to infection and cascading effects of disease.
” The reason I make note of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the mammoth influence that Bill Gates and his Foundation have on international health organizations and the policies they propose .
In part 2 of my investigation into Gates , I detailed how the Gates Foundation is connected to nearly every U.S. institution involved in the fight against COVID-19 , as well as international organizations and governments .
From the World Health Organization to universities and private companies , Bill Gates is able to shape the direction of health policy .
The NIH contracts are part of a broader effort by the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ biosecurity state .
In addition to the eight companies mentioned here , there are also efforts for immunity passports and contract tracing apps .
These include the CommonPass , a project with support from the World Economic Forum ; CovidCheck , an app with backing from the CDC and the Clinton Health Initiative ; and CommonHealth , another contact tracing app developed with help from UCSF and the Rockefeller Foundation .
These contracts are also one aspect of Operation Warp Speed , the public-private partnership launched by the Trump administration to rapidly develop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump admin has previously promised to deliver 100 million doses by October 2020 , 200 million by December , and 300 million doses by January .
As Whitney Webb has recently show , the Trump administration is awarding contracts to vaccine manufacturers in a way that allows the agreements to remain hidden from the public .
An organizational chart for OWS dated July 30 , 2020 includes the names of several organizations involved in the recent NIH contracts .
U.S. government officials from the NIH , BARDA , and Health & Human Services @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As I have previously written , Dr. Moncef Slaoui , the head of OWS , is the epitome of a Big Pharma lobbyist .
Following his education , Slaoui joined the pharmaceutical industry , serving on the board of Directors of GlaxoSmithKline between 2006 through 2015 .
Slaoui served in several senior research & development ( R & D ) roles with GlaxoSmithKline during his time with the company , including Chairman of Global Vaccines .
GSK has a history of working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on projects such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and anti-HIV compounds used as microbicides .
In fact , Dr. Slaoui worked for 27 years on the malaria vaccine , ultimately partnering with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a $ 600 million malaria vaccine .
When Slaoui took over at GSK , his predecessor , Tachi Yamada , joined the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation .
More recently , Slaoui sits on the boards of pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology organizations .
He is also partner at MediciX investment firm , chairman of the board at Galvani Bioelectronics , chairman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the boards of Artisan Biosciences , Human Vaccines Project and Moderna Therapeutics .
Each of these companies is involved in vaccine development and the emerging field of bioelectronics .
In the next part of the # ExposeWarpSpeed investigation we will explore the role of Moncef Slaoui as Chief Advisor of Operation Warp Speed and his history of involvement in bioelectronics and implantable devices .
We will also show how the Gates Foundation is funding “ vaccine patches ” in the United States and Australia as part of the COVID-19 recovery .
Question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Derrick Broze , a staff writer for The Last American Vagabond , is a journalist , author , public speaker , and activist .
He is the co-host of Free Thinker Radio on 90.1 Houston , as well as the founder of The Conscious Resistance Network & The Houston Free Thinkers .
https : //www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/category/derrick-broze/ Visit TheLastAmericanVagabond.com .
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By Derrick Broze
The National Institutes of Health has awarded contracts to seven organizations working on digital health solutions for COVID-19 involving smartphones and wearable “biosensors” – so who are these companies?
On September 15, the National Institutes of Health announced that they had awarded contracts to seven companies developing digital health solutions for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the NIH, selected the seven projects put forth by the organizations. The contracts are worth up to $22.8 million and will focus on using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and other methods, combined with smartphone apps, wearable devices, and software “that can identify and trace contacts of infected individuals, keep track of verified COVID-19 test results, and monitor the health status of infected and potentially infected individuals.” These organizations include:
iCrypto, Inc. (Santa Clara, California)
Shee Atiká Enterprises, LLC (Sitka, Alaska)
University of California, San Francisco
physIQ, Inc. (Chicago)
Vibrent Health (Fairfax, Virginia)
IBM (Armonk, New York)
Evidation Health, Inc. (San Mateo, California)
The NIH also noted that another company, CareEvolution, LLC (Ann Arbor, Michigan), was awarded a contract by the NIBIB.
NIBIB Director Bruce J. Tromberg, Ph.D., stated that digital health technologies built around smartphones and wearable devices will help guide the public through the COVID-19 pandemic by gathering and analyzing large amounts of data from many different sources.
“When this information is analyzed using cutting-edge computational and machine learning methods, everyone will have access to powerful new tools for reducing the risk of infection and returning to normal activities,” Tromberg said.
The news of the NIH contracts provoked few media reports about the latest development in the fight against COVID-19. However, there was no scrutiny of the companies themselves. This piece is a brief examination of the connections between the companies pushing smartphone apps and wearable technologies, and the individuals and institutions who stand to benefit from the advancement of this biosecurity focused, technocratic reality. A study of these organizations reveals connections to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Apple, and Google.
iCrypto, Inc.
Let’s start with the organization of which we know the least about – iCrypto, Inc. The NIH awarded digital firm iCrypto, Inc. a contract for “developing a smartphone-based platform to provide proof of testing, serologic, and vaccination status.” Beyond that single line there are not many details available regarding the “smartphone-based platform” iCrypto is commissioned to build.
The company’s LinkedIn page says iCrypto provides “a scalable, customizable, SaaS solution with capabilities including amongst others Mobile-Centric ID Aggregation, strong Mobile-Centric (biometric) Authentication across the organization, Verifications, Authorizations, and Attestations (immutable audit trails), thus assisting with all-around accountability, governance & audit compliance, non-repudiation, increased productivity and profitability.”
ICrypto’s website describes itself as a “Trust and Digital ID / Attestation platform that enables businesses to transact faster (minimize friction) with increased trust, accountability and profitability.” Beyond this brief description and a mention of 3 employees, the website is barren and offers little details on the companies history.
Similarly, the twitter account for iCrypto has only 2 tweets from 2018. A list of press releases from the company make no mention of the NIH contract, but one press release from 2019 states that iCrypto has an “extensive offering that encompasses multiple authentication factors such as fingerprint scans, photographs, facial recognition, user behaviour, and PINs, iCrypto is the most comprehensive solution of its kind in the market today.”
Further investigations are needed to come to arrive at a fuller understanding of iCrypto’s “smartphone based platform” and how it will interact with the population.
CareEvolution
CareEvolution received a contract for their tool SAFER-COVID, which they describe as “a digital health solution that integrates self-reported symptoms, data from consumer wearable devices, electronic health record and claims data, and COVID-19 test results to indicate whether users are ready to return to work and normal activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
CareEvolution says that the SAFER-COVID self-assessment tool “helps you make decisions about when, if, and how to safely return to regular daily activities such as work and other social interactions.” The tool is designed to use available research from the CDC, NIH, and other organizations to give the user “guidance” on what they can do “to be more confident that you are not infectious to others.”
CareEvolution has yet to provide specifics on what type of wearable devices they are gathering data from, but the use of wearable devices is a central component to the NIH contracts.
Shee Atiká Enterprises, LLC
Shee Atiká Enterprises is tasked with “developing a smartphone-based platform aimed at supporting individuals in low-resource settings with a Bluetooth-enabled thermometer and pulse oximeter.” Shee Atiká is specifically focused on a platform to “monitor and support individuals with COVID-19 symptoms (who may need testing) and those who have already tested positive.”
The company says their app will integrate a Bluetooth-enabled thermometer and pulse oximeter into an approach “uniquely designed for low-resource settings and underserved populations.” How the technology will function and how exactly it is suited for “underserved populations” is not explained.
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Once again, there is not much information about the company itself or the nature of the technology being designed by Shee Atiká Enterprises and their parent company Shee Atiká Incorporated.
However, we do know that Shee Atiká Incorporated is also the parent company of INDHA Health Solutions, an Alaskan company that specializes in creating healthcare solutions for clients to improve healthcare management. INDHA says it “turns biometric patient information into usable knowledge for participants, employers and healthcare providers.” This is done by smart devices and wearables which are currently used to detect blood sugar and blood pressure.
According to Alaska Northstar Resources, LLC, another one of Shee Atiká’s subsidiaries, Shee Atiká, Inc., and its subsidiaries, have performed close to $1 billion in U.S. government contracts. With this history of government contracts it should be no surprise that the relatively unknown company has been chosen to create the next wave of digital health tools aimed at tracking those who may have COVID-19.
We should also noted that Shee Atiká and private military contractors TigerSwan were both implicated in a scheme involving disgraced international corporation DynCorp.
University of California, San Francisco
The NIH granted the University of California, San Francisco a contract to investigate a GPS-based “retroactive contact-tracing tool for COVID-19.” Researchers with UC San Francisco have been actively developing contact tracing technology in response to COVID-19. Contact tracing is a process of identifying individuals who may have come into contact with an infected person, collecting information about their contacts, and then tracing the contacts of infected individuals. All persons who may have come into contact with an infected individual are tested for infection, treated for the infection, and their contacts traced as well.
The NIH contract is the latest step in UCSF efforts to create a contact tracing tool that not only tracks an individual’s current and future movements, but looks to “recreate people’s movements.”
In September, UCSF researchers invited the public to share their location data – which is collected by Google – via their smartphones and mobile devices. The data sharing and monitoring is part of a new study called Covidseeker, ostensibly aimed at improving contact tracing efforts and helping scientists understand how the coronavirus is spreading from person to person.
“The UCSF project takes a different approach from the one that Google and Apple are using in their contact tracing apps,” the university wrote. “Those apps use Bluetooth beacons to detect phones that are nearby in real time, sending alerts whenever users come near someone who reported having tested positive. By contrast, Covidseeker looks back in time. With enough participants, it may be able to recreate people’s movements when infection rates were rising and falling in the spring and summer of 2020.”
The grant from the NIH is not unusual given that two organizations have a longstanding relationship. For example, in 2019, for the 13th year in a row, UCSF claimed the top spot among public institutions in funding from the NIH. “The NIH has been behind many of the biggest breakthroughs that UCSF scientists have made over the decades,” UCSF wrote.
On September 30, UC San Francisco students, faculty and staff began participating in a trial of the COVID Notify software. They were invited to activate COVID Notify on their smartphones to be the first Californians to test the tool as part of a limited pilot. California lawmakers are hoping to use the tool to learn how best to reopen their state. The technology powering COVID Notify was developed by Google and Apple. The developers claim the software is anonymized and does not use GPS and never collects, stores, or transmits personal information and location data.
UC San Francisco has also briefly received funds the Gates Foundation for malaria and “global health drugs”.
PhysIQ, Inc.
The digital medicine company Physiq Inc. has received a contract from the NIH to “develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-based index that can provide an early warning that a patient with COVID-19 is in decline and needs medical treatment.”
The NIH is asking Physiq to use their COVID-19 Decompensation Index (CDI) Digital Biomarker, which is described as a personalized AI-based algorithm that will run on Physiq’s existing AccelerateIQ computing platform. The company markets their AccelerateIQ platform as an effective tool for collecting and organizing data from wearable biosensors. Their platform works with a chest-worn disposable sensor patch product called VitalPatch from Vital Connect, Inc.
PhysIQ describes their work as “applying artificial intelligence to wearable sensor data” using the only FDA-cleared “personalized analytics platform” designed to process multiple vital signs from wearable sensors to create a “personalized dynamic baseline” for each individual. Essentially, they aim to map your vital signs while you are healthy and use their analytics platform to detect “subtle deviations” that could be the early warning signs of disease or other changes in health.
In May, PhysIQ partnered with the U.S. Department of Defense, and The Henry M. Jackson Foundation on an initiative to use physIQ’s platform to collect and analyze wearable sensor data to better understand the pathophysiology of COVID-19. This project called for “continuous monitoring” of COVID-19 patients using a wearable biosensor in an attempt to predict disease progression and early signs of infection. The plan is to send the platform to “individuals associated with military hospitals in the U.S., as well as across sites in Southeast Asia.”
Vibrent Health
The NIH awarded Vibrent Health a $4.23 million contract on the promise of developing “mobile applications, data integrations, and validated machine learning algorithms to identify COVID-19 and differentiate it from influenza, and to perform contact tracing using Wi-Fi technologies.”
Praduman Jain, Founder and CEO of Vibrent Health, noted that his company was working on “Wi-Fi-enabled contact tracing” using smartphones and wearable devices to “assist society with the return to normalcy.” Jain and Vibrent Health believe this method of using wi-fi enabled contract tracing could “identify outbreaks” and “advise actions to protect individuals from COVID-19 exposure.” Vibrent will do so by “expanding” and “enhancing” its Digital Health Solutions Platform. The platform allows researchers to “rapidly deploy standardized measures from survey systems they use for everyday research into their own research programs.”
Vibrent claims their technology will be able to differentiate COVID-19 from the Flu, as well as inform users if they should seek medical attention.
In June, Vibrent announced they had developed a “rapid deployment solution” for a COVID-19 survey. Vibrent Health currently serves as the Participant Technology Systems Center for NIH’s All of Us Research Program. Vibrent responded to the program’s need to gather data by rapidly developing and deploying a COvid-19 Participant Experience (COPE) Survey. The survey asked more than 325,000 participants to share their social distancing experiences, COVID-19 symptoms, COVID-19 testing, mood, stress, loneliness, discrimination, anxiety and other aspects of physical and mental health.
IBM
IBM has been contracted to test an “integrated solution to support contact tracing and verifiable health status reporting.” There are currently no further details on the specifics of this project, but IBM has been heavily involved in the effort to use digital technology as a method for combating COVID-19.
IBM recently announced it was partnering with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Energy to use supercomputers to launch the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, which is reported to be “an unprecedented amount of computing power—16 systems with more than 330 petaflops, 775,000 CPU cores, 34,000 GPUs, and counting.”
IBM has also been offering artificial intelligence powered technology and an AI assistant to answer citizens’ questions.
Of course, supercomputing and AI are nothing new for one of the world’s oldest computer technology and consulting firm. More than a decade ago, IBM was working on a computer system that stimulates and emulates the brain’s abilities for sensation, perception, and cognition. IBM claimed they had made advances in simulating the behavior of the cerebral cortex and created an algorithm that could “synthesize” neurological data.
In 2017, IBM announced they were partnering with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) on a “first-of-a-kind brain-inspired supercomputing system powered by a 64-chip array of the IBM TrueNorth Neurosynaptic System.” The platform was designed to “enable deep neural-network learning and information discovery.” IBM said the systems pattern recognition and sensory processing power is equivalent of 64 million neurons and 16 billion synapses while only consuming 10 watts of power.
The IBM TrueNorth Neurosynaptic System was originally developed under the auspices of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) program in collaboration with Cornell University.
Whitney Webb has reported extensively on DARPA’s dark agenda and how it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Evidation Health, Inc.
Evidation Health is tasked with “investigating a health measurement platform to analyze self-reported and wearable device data to both detect COVID-19 and differentiate it from influenza.” Evidation has a history of working with smart devices and other wearable technology.
The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and the Gates Foundation also recently backed Evidation for the purpose of developing a “COVID-19 detection algorithm.” Evidation is to work with 4YouandMe – a nonprofit that helps individuals share their health data for medical research – to collect self-reported and wearable-collected data from 300 participants.
Evidation previously partnered with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Apple on research into whether consumer gadgets like smartwatches and sleep trackers could be used to spot early signs of dementia. The man behind the research, Dr. Andrew Trister, was hired by the Gates Foundation in 2019.
In August 2018, Evidation launched a data platform that could reportedly process data from more than 100 sources ranging from Apple Health to Fitbit, Epic, Blue Button, and Dexcom. Evidation stated that the platform can analyze individual behavior and health in real time.
Evidation also has a history of collaborating with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. government. In May, the Gates Foundation invested in Evidation to develop a “digital biomarker of COVID-19 and understand an individual’s susceptibility to infection and cascading effects of disease.”
The reason I make note of the investments from the Gates Foundations is because of the mammoth influence that Bill Gates and his Foundation have on international health organizations and the policies they propose. In part 2 of my investigation into Gates, I detailed how the Gates Foundation is connected to nearly every U.S. institution involved in the fight against COVID-19, as well as international organizations and governments. From the World Health Organization to universities and private companies, Bill Gates is able to shape the direction of health policy.
Exposing Operation Warp Speed
The NIH contracts are part of a broader effort by the U.S. government to combat COVID-19 and expand the biosecurity state. In addition to the eight companies mentioned here, there are also efforts for immunity passports and contract tracing apps. These include the CommonPass, a project with support from the World Economic Forum; CovidCheck, an app with backing from the CDC and the Clinton Health Initiative; and CommonHealth, another contact tracing app developed with help from UCSF and the Rockefeller Foundation.
These contracts are also one aspect of Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership launched by the Trump administration to rapidly develop and distribute a Covid-19 vaccine. The Trump admin has previously promised to deliver 100 million doses by October 2020, 200 million by December, and 300 million doses by January. As Whitney Webb has recently show, the Trump administration is awarding contracts to vaccine manufacturers in a way that allows the agreements to remain hidden from the public.
An organizational chart for OWS dated July 30, 2020 includes the names of several organizations involved in the recent NIH contracts. U.S. government officials from the NIH, BARDA, and Health & Human Services are involved in the contracts and OWS. As I have previously written, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the head of OWS, is the epitome of a Big Pharma lobbyist.
Following his education, Slaoui joined the pharmaceutical industry, serving on the board of Directors of GlaxoSmithKline between 2006 through 2015. Slaoui served in several senior research & development (R&D) roles with GlaxoSmithKline during his time with the company, including Chairman of Global Vaccines. GSK has a history of working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on projects such as the development of a malaria vaccine and anti-HIV compounds used as microbicides. In fact, Dr. Slaoui worked for 27 years on the malaria vaccine, ultimately partnering with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a $600 million malaria vaccine. When Slaoui took over at GSK, his predecessor, Tachi Yamada, joined the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
More recently, Slaoui sits on the boards of pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology organizations. He is also partner at MediciX investment firm, chairman of the board at Galvani Bioelectronics, chairman of the board at SutroVax and sits on the boards of Artisan Biosciences, Human Vaccines Project and Moderna Therapeutics. Each of these companies is involved in vaccine development and the emerging field of bioelectronics.
In the next part of the #ExposeWarpSpeed investigation we will explore the role of Moncef Slaoui as Chief Advisor of Operation Warp Speed and his history of involvement in bioelectronics and implantable devices. We will also show how the Gates Foundation is funding “vaccine patches” in the United States and Australia as part of the COVID-19 recovery.
Question Everything, Come To Your Own Conclusions.
Source: The Last American Vagabond
Derrick Broze, a staff writer for The Last American Vagabond, is a journalist, author, public speaker, and activist. He is the co-host of Free Thinker Radio on 90.1 Houston, as well as the founder of The Conscious Resistance Network & The Houston Free Thinkers. https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/category/derrick-broze/
Visit TheLastAmericanVagabond.com. Subscribe to TLAV’s independent news broadcast on YouTube or iTunes. Follow on Facebook, Twitter, and Minds. Support at Patreon or PayPal.
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activistpost--2020-10-14--More Than Half Of Americans “plan to stockpile food and other essentials” For The Chaotic Months Ahe

More Than Half Of Americans “plan to stockpile food and other essentials” For The Chaotic Months Ahead

There was a time when preppers were relentlessly mocked , but nobody is laughing now .
Today , most Americans are thinking about stockpiling food , and this massive shift in our national mindset has been sparked by concern about what is going to happen in the months ahead .
Many Americans believe that another wave of the coronavirus pandemic is coming , others believe that our ongoing economic depression will get even deeper , and yet others are convinced that the upcoming election could produce widespread violence .
Of course there have always been people that have been deeply @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have never seen anything quite like this .
In fact , a brand new survey has found that over half of all Americans are currently planning “ to stockpile food and other essentials ” … People still remember the shortages that we witnessed earlier this year when the coronavirus pandemic first erupted in this country , and those that ended up being stuck at home without enough toilet paper would rather not repeat that experience .
So as the mainstream media continues to hype a new wave of the pandemic , we should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stores really hard .
And according to data company Envestnet Yodlee , there is evidence that this is already happening… Already , there ’ s some evidence that grocery sales are rising , according to data from industry sources .
The typical bill for a trip to the grocery store rose to $ 72 for the week ended October 6 , or 11 % higher from the week before , according to data company Envestnet Yodlee .
“ That ’ s the highest we ’ ve seen since the first week of June @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this in January , ” said Bill Parsons , group president of data and analytics at Evestnet .
Fortunately , many grocery store chains anticipated a spike in demand in advance and started stocking up ahead of time .
The following comes from CNN… During a time when other retailers all over the nation are failing at a pace that we have never seen before , many grocery store chains are actually experiencing booming sales .
And of course I have been warning that this would eventually happen for a very long time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demand for food and other essentials tends to go up and demand for non-essential items tends to go down .
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Needless to say , this is something that is not just happening in the United States .
All over the world we have seen demand for food on the rise , and this comes at a time when global food production has become increasingly stressed .
As a result , food prices all over the world are starting to escalate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the beginning .
Global food supplies will continue to get even tighter , and global demand for food will just continue to shoot higher .
So I would stock up while you still can , because prices will never be lower than they are right now .
Meanwhile , our society continues to unravel right in front of our eyes .
You would think that the Lakers winning the NBA title would be a time to celebrate for the city of Los Angeles , but instead large crowds of young people used it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police officers… In Portland , protesters just toppled statues of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln during a “ day of rage ” , but the mainstream media didn ’ t seem to think that this was any sort of a problem .
And in the middle of the country , the violence never seems to stop in the city of Chicago… Of course things could soon get a whole lot worse .
According to one recent survey , 56 percent of all Americans expect “ an increase in violence as a result of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hoping that such a scenario can be avoided if one of the candidates is able to build an extremely large lead on election night .
A large enough lead could potentially cause the candidate that is behind to concede fairly quickly , and that may ease tensions .
But I wouldn ’ t count on that .
At this point we are about 500 hours away from the election , and both sides are indicating that they are prepared to fight until the bitter end .
And the side that ultimately ends up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ temper tantrum , and that won ’ t be good for our country at all .
So it makes sense that so many Americans are making extra preparations for the months that are ahead , because it definitely appears that they could be quite rocky .
***Michael ’ s new book entitled “ Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America ” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon .
*** About the Author : My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “ Lost Prophecies Of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ available on Amazon.com .
In addition to my new book , I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End , Get Prepared Now , and Living A Life That Really Matters .
( # CommissionsEarned ) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing , and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe .
I have published thousands of articles on The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American Dream and The Most Important News , and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe .
I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites , but I also ask that they include this “ About the Author ” section with each article .
The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only , and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal , business , financial or health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me on social media on Facebook and Twitter , and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help .
During these very challenging times , people will need hope more than ever before , and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can .
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Get a free issue of Counter Markets today .

By Michael Snyder
There was a time when preppers were relentlessly mocked, but nobody is laughing now. Today, most Americans are thinking about stockpiling food, and this massive shift in our national mindset has been sparked by concern about what is going to happen in the months ahead.
Many Americans believe that another wave of the coronavirus pandemic is coming, others believe that our ongoing economic depression will get even deeper, and yet others are convinced that the upcoming election could produce widespread violence. Of course there have always been people that have been deeply alarmed about future events, but we have never seen anything quite like this. In fact, a brand new survey has found that over half of all Americans are currently planning “to stockpile food and other essentials”…
Slightly more than half of Americans in a recent poll from Sports and Leisure Research Group say they already have or plan to stockpile food and other essentials. The chief reason: fears of a resurgent pandemic, which could lead to disruptions such as new restrictions on businesses. On Oct. 2, the number of COVID-19 cases in the USA was its highest in almost two months.
People still remember the shortages that we witnessed earlier this year when the coronavirus pandemic first erupted in this country, and those that ended up being stuck at home without enough toilet paper would rather not repeat that experience.
So as the mainstream media continues to hype a new wave of the pandemic, we should expect to see Americans hitting the grocery stores really hard. And according to data company Envestnet Yodlee, there is evidence that this is already happening…
Already, there’s some evidence that grocery sales are rising, according to data from industry sources. The typical bill for a trip to the grocery store rose to $72 for the week ended October 6, or 11% higher from the week before, according to data company Envestnet Yodlee. “That’s the highest we’ve seen since the first week of June and the second-highest since we started tracking this in January,” said Bill Parsons, group president of data and analytics at Evestnet.
Fortunately, many grocery store chains anticipated a spike in demand in advance and started stocking up ahead of time. The following comes from CNN…
Grocery stores across the United States are stocking up on products to avoid shortages during a second wave of coronavirus. Household products — including paper towels and Clorox wipes — have been difficult to find at times during the pandemic, and if grocery stores aren’t stocked up and prepared for second wave this winter, runs on products and shortages could happen again.
During a time when other retailers all over the nation are failing at a pace that we have never seen before, many grocery store chains are actually experiencing booming sales.
And of course I have been warning that this would eventually happen for a very long time. During a time of crisis, demand for food and other essentials tends to go up and demand for non-essential items tends to go down.
Become an Activist Post Patron for $1 per month at Patreon.
Needless to say, this is something that is not just happening in the United States. All over the world we have seen demand for food on the rise, and this comes at a time when global food production has become increasingly stressed.
As a result, food prices all over the world are starting to escalate quite aggressively…
Food prices continue rising during the coronavirus pandemic, jeopardizing food security for tens of millions worldwide. On Thursday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations said world food prices rose for the fourth consecutive month in September, led by surging prices for cereals and vegetable oils, reported Reuters. FAO’s food price index, which tracks the international prices of the top traded food commodities (cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat, and sugar), averaged 97.9 in September versus a downwardly revised 95.9 in August.
Sadly, this is just the beginning.
Global food supplies will continue to get even tighter, and global demand for food will just continue to shoot higher.
So I would stock up while you still can, because prices will never be lower than they are right now.
Meanwhile, our society continues to unravel right in front of our eyes. You would think that the Lakers winning the NBA title would be a time to celebrate for the city of Los Angeles, but instead large crowds of young people used it as an opportunity to riot and attack police officers…
A crowd of more than 1,000 revelers descended into the area around Staples Center after the game. Unruly individuals mixed within the crowd began throwing glass bottles, rocks, and other projectiles at officers. That is when an unlawful assembly was declared, and only a limited number of people complied and began to disperse. A larger portion of the group broke off and began vandalizing businesses while continuing to engage in violent behavior, some aimed at responding officers.
In Portland, protesters just toppled statues of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln during a “day of rage”, but the mainstream media didn’t seem to think that this was any sort of a problem.
And in the middle of the country, the violence never seems to stop in the city of Chicago…
Five people were killed and 48 others were injured by gunfire this weekend in Chicago. Five of those wounded were teenagers. Last weekend saw 37 people shot throughout the city, five of them fatally.
Of course things could soon get a whole lot worse.
According to one recent survey, 56 percent of all Americans expect “an increase in violence as a result of the election”.
Isn’t that incredibly sad?
Many are still hoping that such a scenario can be avoided if one of the candidates is able to build an extremely large lead on election night. A large enough lead could potentially cause the candidate that is behind to concede fairly quickly, and that may ease tensions.
But I wouldn’t count on that.
At this point we are about 500 hours away from the election, and both sides are indicating that they are prepared to fight until the bitter end.
And the side that ultimately ends up losing is likely to throw a massive temper tantrum, and that won’t be good for our country at all.
So it makes sense that so many Americans are making extra preparations for the months that are ahead, because it definitely appears that they could be quite rocky.
***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***
About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.
Become a Patron!
Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Send resources to the front lines of peace and freedom HERE! Follow us on SoMee, HIVE, Parler, Flote, Minds, and Twitter.
Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.


activistpost--2020-10-15--The New Media Has Become like the Old Media—And That Means the Usual Bias

At this point , of course , it ’ s hard to see how this is even debatable .
While “ censor ” is perhaps not the most accurate term to use here—given the word ’ s connotations of state intervention—it is apparent that social media firms , at the very least , limit discussion and the reach of certain political viewpoints by banning certain users .
These firms also openly admit to biasing readers against certain content through the use of “ fact checkers.
” Anecdotal evidence also strongly suggests that these social media firms also engage in tactics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hides certain posts and content from certain users .
This is no haphazard or “ neutral ” bias , either .
It is clear that the user bans and “ fact checking ” warnings against certain posts are designed to fall most often on groups that could be described as “ conservative , ” or “ libertarian , ” or which advocate in favor of Donald Trump and his allies .
As far as media companies go , this is just par for the course .
What is perhaps so unusual in this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and libertarians seem surprised that things turned out this way .
This may be due to the fact that many continue to believe the false notion that social media companies are a sort of “ public utility.
” The social media companies themselves promote this myth and like to give the impression that they are open forums facilitating open communication .
In reality , the firms are essentially just media companies like CNN , NBC , or the New York Times .
The only meaningful difference here is that social media firms don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ABC News or the Washington Post do .
Rather , social media companies have convinced their users to produce all the content .
The social media companies then reap the rewards in terms of selling personal information to advertisers and curating user-produced content to suit the companies ’ own vision and needs .
Ultimately , the lesson to be learned here is that anyone who holds opinions outside a center-left or far left narrative should expect about as much “ fairness ” from social media firms as one might expect from CNN or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we should expect social media firms to ignore and marginalize the very same opinions and groups that have been ignored and marginalized by established media companies for decades .
This also means that organizations , writers , and publishers of these verboten opinions must do what they ’ ve always done : create their own publications and find effective methods of disseminating their content outside the control of establishment gatekeepers .
More seasoned observers of media behavior , of course , aren ’ t surprised or shocked when they hear that social media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parameters of acceptable debate or silence certain voices .
The establishment media , its reporters , and its editors have viewed this kind of “ censorship ” as both necessary and laudable since at least the early twentieth century .
It was at that time that American progressives began to make headway with the idea that journalists should act as gatekeepers of truth and that “ the press ” should determine for itself what it was that people ought to be allowed to read and know .
As I noted last year , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Walter Lippmann ’ s 1922 book Public Opinion .
Lippmann contended that ordinary people are incapable of reading about events from diverse sources and making up their own minds .
Rather , it was necessary for experts to provide only “ controlled reporting and objective analysis.
” But how is this “ objective analysis ” to be achieved ?
The answer , according to Lippman , lies in making journalism more scientific , and in making facts “ fixed , objectified , measured , [ and ] named.
” Thus was born the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who was above bias and who communicated to the public the only truth .
Naturally , this implies that all “ untrue ” narratives must therefore be silenced .
[ RELATED : “ ‘ Objective Journalism ’ Has Always Been a Myth ” by Ryan McMaken ] In reality , of course , the journalists and editors themselves , like all human beings , brought with them their own biases and partisan sympathies .
As the twentieth century progressed , journalism schools at colleges and universities cemented certain biases among those who went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By mid-century , changes in the technological and media landscape narrowed the number of media outlets and the public became increasingly dependent on fewer and fewer editors and journalists at a shrinking number of companies .
As Bruce Thornton has explained at the Hoover Institution : This transformation did not go unnoticed .
By the 1940s , it was increasingly clear that a distinction had arisen between the “ establishment ” media and what would come to be known as “ alternative media.
” As Moira Weigel noted in her review of Claire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Political Junkies : Although the new regulatory regime was allegedly devoted to “ fairness , ” more adroit observers understood that fairness was really just whatever the major media companies defined as “ mainstream ” while everything else came to be defined as beyond the pale of civilized discussion .
Naturally , many conservative groups opposed to the “ center ” —which in the mid-twentieth century really meant a center-left bent reflecting the views of mid-century university professors and other “ experts ” like Schlesinger himself—understood that the new fairness excluded their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for $ 1 per month at Patreon .
By the 1940s , “ conservative ” groups—i.e.
, pretty much anyone opposed to the New Deal and its legacy—realized they needed to found their own organizations .
As noted by Nicole Hemmer at The Atlantic : This “ alternative media ” included other publications , many of which came out of the “ Old Right , ” such as the inimitable Frank Chodorov ’ s publication analysis , founded in 1944 .
Chodorov described it as “ an individualistic publication—the only one of its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would go on to edit another new alternative magazine called The Freeman , founded in 1954 .
Rightist organizations like these , however , were not the only ones in the alternative media landscape .
Weigel notes that independent journalists on the left were also objecting to the mainstream view being promoted by major outlets like the New York Times .
Specifically , the work of left-wing journalist Izzy Stone became influential through his acolyte Seymour Hersh : These organizations became all the more solidified in this belief when it became apparent that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use the “ fairness doctrine ” to silent dissenters .
Paul Matzko recounts how , “ Conservative radio broadcasting surged in the early 1960s as a result of the rise of non-network , independent radio stations that were cash-strapped and willing to air people whose politics were too radical for network radio.
” These independent radio broadcasters criticized the Kennedy administration on a wide variety of topics from trade to foreign policy .
The administration took notice , and By the late 1960s , it was clear who was in charge of media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outlets backed up by the federal government .
It was these players who would decide what was “ fair , ” what was “ the center , ” and what was acceptable political debate .
Naturally , this wasn ’ t done through any explicit announcements .
Rather , the media used tactics such as what political scientists call “ agenda setting , ” “ framing ” and “ priming ” to set the terms of acceptable debate .
These tactics involve the media emphasizing certain events over others , creating standards by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and simplifying issues by presenting only a small number of opposing viewpoints .
This naturally has the effect of limiting which viewpoints end up being perceived by the public as “ normal.
” Viewpoints outside those presented as mainstream then strike the viewer or reader as “ extreme.
” Moreover , as the media picks and chooses which events to cover , some events and persons gain prominence in the national discussion while others fade into the background .
This is an easy way to manipulate how the public views which facts are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effect of all this is that many ideologies , persons , and facts are “ censored ” simply as a result of being ignored or excluded by media stories in broadcasts and printed texts .
The Rise of the Internet In spite of all this , many independent media organizations continued to make inroads into the establishment media domain through radio broadcasts .
This was especially true of conservative and right-wing broadcasts , which became immensely popular during the 1990s and early 2000s and influenced the media landscape considerably .
The most successful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Show , although there were many imitators such as Michael Medved , Sean Hannity , and Michael Savage .
So lucrative had this conservative “ alternative ” become that Fox News , which began broadcasts in 1996 , attempted to capitalize on the notion of presenting “ unbiased ” news that would depart from the bias of organizations like CNN and NBC News .
“ We Report , You Decide ” became the tagline , and many followers of conservative talk radio tuned in to hear the allegedly unbiased version of broadcast television @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internet websites became increasingly influential .
The Drudge Report , which began as an email newsletter in 1995 and went online in 1997 , attracted an enormous readership after it became a source for information on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal , which the establishment media had initially refused to carry .
By 1999 , numerous editors , webmasters , and organizations—ones generally ignored by the establishment media—were founding their own websites and producing their own content .
Sites like LewRockwell.com , Antiwar.com , and Mises.org—among countless others—were gaining access to a far larger audience @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days of mailed newsletters .
Meanwhile , more established publications like National Review moved much of their content online , capturing a much larger audience than had ever been possible in the days of magazines sent only to paid subscribers .
During this period , it is understandable that many followers of alternative media began to believe that it would finally become possible to compete with the old establishment media on its own terms .
After all , for the first time , any organization could inexpensively purchase a domain name , start @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s materials and opinions accessible to the general public .
In most cases , these websites were free to readers .
This represented quite a departure from the days of newsletters , monthly magazines , and newspapers that were costly to produce and which reached audiences sometimes numbering only hundreds of people .
Now , the same points of view once hidden in obscure newsletters could be read by anyone , and could be linked from other websites .
These articles could easily be quoted , reproduced , and even promoted through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Being an alternative news source suddenly got a whole lot easier , even if an organization still had to engage in the hard work of building an audience .
By the early 2000s , however , it was clear that the establishment media wasn ’ t about to disappear .
In fact , many large national news organizations increased in power .
This occurred because the proliferation of free online news sources and classified ads decimated revenue for smaller newspapers and news organizations .
Mid-sized and small newspapers began to shrink or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Washington Post and the New York Times increased .
Moreover , old TV-viewing habits were difficult to change , and TV broadcasting continued to dominate the news cycle , even if commentary and alternative points of view could easily be found online for free .
Although the internet had made it far easier to deliver other viewpoints to readers , these readers still had to go out of their way to actually visit and read these sites .
For many , it remained easier to just turn on the television and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before them .
With the rise of smartphones and social media , however , it looked like even small organizations might be able to place themselves in front of readers with even less effort .
All that was necessary was for social media users to “ like ” your organization and then the reader would receive updates in news feeds as new information came online .
It looked like the alternative media would be able to use social media to engage the reader every time he or she casually scrolled through the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smartphone .
By 2016 , however , it was clear it wasn ’ t going to be so simple as all that .
By then it was increasingly evident that social media companies were using their software to control what the readers saw in their news feeds beyond the readers ’ use of the Like button .
Moreover , accusations continued to mount that companies like Facebook and Twitter were curating the content within their listed “ trending ” topics and within the newsfeeds to emphasize certain stories while hiding other points of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , editors , and curators at social media firms—many of whom worked within corporate cultures extremely similar to those found at establishment media firms—were interested in presenting a controlled news stream to readers .
Social media firms continue to pretend to be “ platforms , ” but they are , in fact , media companies that edit and control what the public can see .
This , of course , was to be expected .
There was never any reason to assume that the content managers meeting in offices at Facebook would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a newsroom at the Washington Post .
These gatekeepers had their own set of biases and were more than happy to use their power to favor their preferred ideological bent .
The alternative media—and its readers—had made the mistake of thinking social media was an unbiased and objective player .
It wasn ’ t .
And it isn ’ t .
Far from changing the game fundamentally , social media has actually helped to continue a trend that was already accelerating during the mid-twentieth century .
It has helped to further centralize gatekeeping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hands of a relatively small number of people .
Social media companies are acting just like the big media companies before them , which began consolidating power in the early decades of broadcasting .
They exclude “ dangerous ” and alternative points of view while favoring the views expressed by establishment “ experts.
” Moreover , social media has simply added its weight to the overall monolith of establishment media , which—while in decline—is anything but irrelevant .
Indeed , traditional media like television likely remain more influential than social media .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over their many users , the fact remains that social media companies do not actually control access to information on the internet .
Anyone is free to actually visit the websites that social media firms are acting to hide from their readers ’ eyes .
Moreover , barriers to entry when it comes to creating publicly accessible online content remain quite low .
With television , however , one can not simply switch to a seemingly endless number of independent and alternative new sources .
Television broadcasting remains prohibitively expensive for firms outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Access is even more constrained for on-air broadcasts , which remain tightly controlled by federal regulators .
When it comes to broadcasting , competition remains far more tightly controlled than is the case with the internet .
And TV news remains extremely influential , especially among people who actually vote .
Although young Americans are watching less and less TV , the over-40 population , which votes more often than younger cohorts , still receives a very large amount of its news from organizations like CNN and Fox News .
TV news @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” but the fact remains that the voter turnout for the over-60 cohort is about double that of the 18–29 age group .
Meanwhile , nearly 50 percent of Americans 65 and older still get their news from traditional TV .
Fifty-eight percent of the over-65 group “ often ” get news from cable TV .
Televised news is also relatively more central in the media habits of nonwhites and women .
We could contrast this with Twitter , which the establishment media often treats as if it were a representative slice of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of Americans use Twitter at all , and the overwhelming number of posts on Twitter are produced by only 10 percent of users .
Twitter is primarily the domain of people who have graduate degrees , are white , and are left of center in their politics .
It could be that Twitter may be the news source of the future , but for now , people who actually vote get far more of their news from TV or other sources .
In any case , it should be clear that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hasn ’ t actually changed much with the rise of social media .
Any journalist , commentator , or organization that wishes to provide “ alternative ” views and critiques must fight to draw readers away from the dominant media companies , which enjoy all the advantages of deep pockets and support from university professors , government bureaucrats , and the wealthy .
In social media—as in the established old media—editors , curators , and managers work to promote their own self-described “ mainstream ” views while excluding as “ extreme ” the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the status quo we ’ ve long been facing , and it doesn ’ t look to be changing any time soon .
Ryan McMaken ( @ ryanmcmaken ) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute .
Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and The Austrian , but read article guidelines first .
Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado .
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By Ryan McMaken
A sizable majority of American adults say—when polled—that social media organizations “censor” political viewpoints:
A Pew Research Center survey conducted in June finds that roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults say it is very (37%) or somewhat (36%) likely that social media sites intentionally censor political viewpoints that they find objectionable. Just 25% believe this is not likely the case.
At this point, of course, it’s hard to see how this is even debatable. While “censor” is perhaps not the most accurate term to use here—given the word’s connotations of state intervention—it is apparent that social media firms, at the very least, limit discussion and the reach of certain political viewpoints by banning certain users. These firms also openly admit to biasing readers against certain content through the use of “fact checkers.” Anecdotal evidence also strongly suggests that these social media firms also engage in tactics like “shadow banning,” which hides certain posts and content from certain users.
This is no haphazard or “neutral” bias, either. It is clear that the user bans and “fact checking” warnings against certain posts are designed to fall most often on groups that could be described as “conservative,” or “libertarian,” or which advocate in favor of Donald Trump and his allies.
As far as media companies go, this is just par for the course. What is perhaps so unusual in this case is that so many self-identified conservatives and libertarians seem surprised that things turned out this way.
This may be due to the fact that many continue to believe the false notion that social media companies are a sort of “public utility.” The social media companies themselves promote this myth and like to give the impression that they are open forums facilitating open communication. In reality, the firms are essentially just media companies like CNN, NBC, or the New York Times. The only meaningful difference here is that social media firms don’t produce their own content like ABC News or the Washington Post do. Rather, social media companies have convinced their users to produce all the content. The social media companies then reap the rewards in terms of selling personal information to advertisers and curating user-produced content to suit the companies’ own vision and needs.
Ultimately, the lesson to be learned here is that anyone who holds opinions outside a center-left or far left narrative should expect about as much “fairness” from social media firms as one might expect from CNN or NBC News. In other words, we should expect social media firms to ignore and marginalize the very same opinions and groups that have been ignored and marginalized by established media companies for decades.
This also means that organizations, writers, and publishers of these verboten opinions must do what they’ve always done: create their own publications and find effective methods of disseminating their content outside the control of establishment gatekeepers.
A Brief History of Media Bias
More seasoned observers of media behavior, of course, aren’t surprised or shocked when they hear that social media companies have taken steps to constrain the parameters of acceptable debate or silence certain voices.
The establishment media, its reporters, and its editors have viewed this kind of “censorship” as both necessary and laudable since at least the early twentieth century. It was at that time that American progressives began to make headway with the idea that journalists should act as gatekeepers of truth and that “the press” should determine for itself what it was that people ought to be allowed to read and know.
As I noted last year, this idea was promoted especially forcefully in Walter Lippmann’s 1922 book Public Opinion. Lippmann contended that ordinary people are incapable of reading about events from diverse sources and making up their own minds. Rather, it was necessary for experts to provide only “controlled reporting and objective analysis.”
But how is this “objective analysis” to be achieved? The answer, according to Lippman, lies in making journalism more scientific, and in making facts “fixed, objectified, measured, [and] named.”
Thus was born the idea of the “objective” journalist who was above bias and who communicated to the public the only truth. Naturally, this implies that all “untrue” narratives must therefore be silenced.
[RELATED: “‘Objective Journalism’ Has Always Been a Myth” by Ryan McMaken]
In reality, of course, the journalists and editors themselves, like all human beings, brought with them their own biases and partisan sympathies. As the twentieth century progressed, journalism schools at colleges and universities cemented certain biases among those who went to work for major media companies. By mid-century, changes in the technological and media landscape narrowed the number of media outlets and the public became increasingly dependent on fewer and fewer editors and journalists at a shrinking number of companies. As Bruce Thornton has explained at the Hoover Institution:
The second development that increased the malign partisan influence of the media in the postwar period was the rise of television and the decline in the number of newspapers. With that, there were fewer and fewer information sources from which readers could chose, giving the three television networks and the big metropolitan papers, especially the New York Times, inordinate unchallenged power over public information. At the same time, those seeking alternative points of view had fewer and fewer daily papers, while the ones that remained were dependent on a few news services such as the Associated Press, which represents one point of view. To speak in Madisonian terms, one media faction had now expanded to the point that it crowded out and marginalized alternative points of view.
Creating Alternatives to the Establishment Media
This transformation did not go unnoticed. By the 1940s, it was increasingly clear that a distinction had arisen between the “establishment” media and what would come to be known as “alternative media.” As Moira Weigel noted in her review of Claire Potter’s book on alternative media, Political Junkies:
Potter does not define precisely what she means by “alternative media.” But the term really only makes sense in opposition to the “mainstream” or mass media that emerged in the first half of the twentieth century, in the form of national newspapers and magazines, Hollywood film studios, and radio and television stations. These outlets grew up with new standards for objective reporting and new federal agencies and laws that forbade broadcasters from engaging in open partisanship. In 1927, Congress passed the Radio Act, requiring broadcasters to give political candidates equal opportunities to present their views. In 1949, the expanded Federal Communications Commission (created partly in response to the popularity of the antisemitic radio star Father Coughlin) established the “Fairness Doctrine,” requiring broadcasters of all kinds to provide multiple points of view on controversial issues. As more Americans tuned in, a carefully regulated Cold War media pushed them toward what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. famously named “the vital center.”
Although the new regulatory regime was allegedly devoted to “fairness,” more adroit observers understood that fairness was really just whatever the major media companies defined as “mainstream” while everything else came to be defined as beyond the pale of civilized discussion.
Naturally, many conservative groups opposed to the “center”—which in the mid-twentieth century really meant a center-left bent reflecting the views of mid-century university professors and other “experts” like Schlesinger himself—understood that the new fairness excluded their ideas.
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By the 1940s, “conservative” groups—i.e., pretty much anyone opposed to the New Deal and its legacy—realized they needed to found their own organizations. As noted by Nicole Hemmer at The Atlantic:
The idea of “fair and balanced” partisan media has its roots in the 1940s and 1950s. Human Events, the right-wing newsweekly founded in 1944, was dedicated to publishing the “facts” other outlets overlooked.
This “alternative media” included other publications, many of which came out of the “Old Right,” such as the inimitable Frank Chodorov’s publication analysis, founded in 1944. Chodorov described it as “an individualistic publication—the only one of its kind in America,” and he would go on to edit another new alternative magazine called The Freeman, founded in 1954.
Rightist organizations like these, however, were not the only ones in the alternative media landscape. Weigel notes that independent journalists on the left were also objecting to the mainstream view being promoted by major outlets like the New York Times. Specifically, the work of left-wing journalist Izzy Stone became influential through his acolyte Seymour Hersh:
Hersh first encountered Stone’s work in 1964. At the time, Hersh was working at the Associated Press; by 1966, he and Stone had become friends. Hersh would later recall that Stone helped him recognize how the mainstream media marginalized journalists who dared to embarrass the government, and strengthened his conviction that the public had a right to information that both the media and government were trying to keep from them.
These organizations became all the more solidified in this belief when it became apparent that the federal government was willing to explicitly use the “fairness doctrine” to silent dissenters. Paul Matzko recounts how, “Conservative radio broadcasting surged in the early 1960s as a result of the rise of non-network, independent radio stations that were cash-strapped and willing to air people whose politics were too radical for network radio.”
These independent radio broadcasters criticized the Kennedy administration on a wide variety of topics from trade to foreign policy.
The administration took notice, and
The administration’s plan for dealing with these conservative irritants involved, among other measures, using the regulatory power granted to the executive branch to intimidate their donors and hosts. First, a special campaign of targeted Internal Revenue Service audits challenging their tax-exempt status stemmed the flow of donations to the offending broadcasters. Then, the selective application of the Federal Communication Commission’s Fairness Doctrine pressured station owners into dropping conservative programming altogether. All of this was coordinated from the Oval Office and the Attorney General’s office, part of it even caught on tape.
By the late 1960s, it was clear who was in charge of media: a small number of major media outlets backed up by the federal government. It was these players who would decide what was “fair,” what was “the center,” and what was acceptable political debate.
Naturally, this wasn’t done through any explicit announcements. Rather, the media used tactics such as what political scientists call “agenda setting,” “framing” and “priming” to set the terms of acceptable debate. These tactics involve the media emphasizing certain events over others, creating standards by which events ought to be judged, and simplifying issues by presenting only a small number of opposing viewpoints. This naturally has the effect of limiting which viewpoints end up being perceived by the public as “normal.” Viewpoints outside those presented as mainstream then strike the viewer or reader as “extreme.” Moreover, as the media picks and chooses which events to cover, some events and persons gain prominence in the national discussion while others fade into the background. This is an easy way to manipulate how the public views which facts are relevant and which are not.
The effect of all this is that many ideologies, persons, and facts are “censored” simply as a result of being ignored or excluded by media stories in broadcasts and printed texts.
The Rise of the Internet
In spite of all this, many independent media organizations continued to make inroads into the establishment media domain through radio broadcasts. This was especially true of conservative and right-wing broadcasts, which became immensely popular during the 1990s and early 2000s and influenced the media landscape considerably. The most successful of these was likely The Rush Limbaugh Show, although there were many imitators such as Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage.
So lucrative had this conservative “alternative” become that Fox News, which began broadcasts in 1996, attempted to capitalize on the notion of presenting “unbiased” news that would depart from the bias of organizations like CNN and NBC News. “We Report, You Decide” became the tagline, and many followers of conservative talk radio tuned in to hear the allegedly unbiased version of broadcast television news.
The landscape changed again as internet websites became increasingly influential. The Drudge Report, which began as an email newsletter in 1995 and went online in 1997, attracted an enormous readership after it became a source for information on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, which the establishment media had initially refused to carry.
By 1999, numerous editors, webmasters, and organizations—ones generally ignored by the establishment media—were founding their own websites and producing their own content. Sites like LewRockwell.com, Antiwar.com, and Mises.org—among countless others—were gaining access to a far larger audience than had ever been available in the days of mailed newsletters. Meanwhile, more established publications like National Review moved much of their content online, capturing a much larger audience than had ever been possible in the days of magazines sent only to paid subscribers.
The Rise of Social Media
During this period, it is understandable that many followers of alternative media began to believe that it would finally become possible to compete with the old establishment media on its own terms.
After all, for the first time, any organization could inexpensively purchase a domain name, start a website, and make the organization’s materials and opinions accessible to the general public. In most cases, these websites were free to readers. This represented quite a departure from the days of newsletters, monthly magazines, and newspapers that were costly to produce and which reached audiences sometimes numbering only hundreds of people.
Now, the same points of view once hidden in obscure newsletters could be read by anyone, and could be linked from other websites. These articles could easily be quoted, reproduced, and even promoted through online ads and through established mailing lists.
Being an alternative news source suddenly got a whole lot easier, even if an organization still had to engage in the hard work of building an audience.
By the early 2000s, however, it was clear that the establishment media wasn’t about to disappear. In fact, many large national news organizations increased in power. This occurred because the proliferation of free online news sources and classified ads decimated revenue for smaller newspapers and news organizations. Mid-sized and small newspapers began to shrink or disappear entirely. And the relative power of the Washington Post and the New York Times increased. Moreover, old TV-viewing habits were difficult to change, and TV broadcasting continued to dominate the news cycle, even if commentary and alternative points of view could easily be found online for free.
Although the internet had made it far easier to deliver other viewpoints to readers, these readers still had to go out of their way to actually visit and read these sites. For many, it remained easier to just turn on the television and consume whatever information appeared on the screen before them.
With the rise of smartphones and social media, however, it looked like even small organizations might be able to place themselves in front of readers with even less effort. All that was necessary was for social media users to “like” your organization and then the reader would receive updates in news feeds as new information came online. It looked like the alternative media would be able to use social media to engage the reader every time he or she casually scrolled through the “news feed” on his/her desktop or smartphone.
By 2016, however, it was clear it wasn’t going to be so simple as all that. By then it was increasingly evident that social media companies were using their software to control what the readers saw in their news feeds beyond the readers’ use of the Like button. Moreover, accusations continued to mount that companies like Facebook and Twitter were curating the content within their listed “trending” topics and within the newsfeeds to emphasize certain stories while hiding other points of view.
Not surprisingly, the billionaires, editors, and curators at social media firms—many of whom worked within corporate cultures extremely similar to those found at establishment media firms—were interested in presenting a controlled news stream to readers. Social media firms continue to pretend to be “platforms,” but they are, in fact, media companies that edit and control what the public can see.
This, of course, was to be expected. There was never any reason to assume that the content managers meeting in offices at Facebook would be any more unbiased than the reporters in a newsroom at the Washington Post. These gatekeepers had their own set of biases and were more than happy to use their power to favor their preferred ideological bent.
The alternative media—and its readers—had made the mistake of thinking social media was an unbiased and objective player. It wasn’t. And it isn’t.
The Game Is Unchanged
Far from changing the game fundamentally, social media has actually helped to continue a trend that was already accelerating during the mid-twentieth century. It has helped to further centralize gatekeeping power over the media narrative in the hands of a relatively small number of people.
Social media companies are acting just like the big media companies before them, which began consolidating power in the early decades of broadcasting. They exclude “dangerous” and alternative points of view while favoring the views expressed by establishment “experts.”
Moreover, social media has simply added its weight to the overall monolith of establishment media, which—while in decline—is anything but irrelevant. Indeed, traditional media like television likely remain more influential than social media. While social media firms do exercise sizable influence over their many users, the fact remains that social media companies do not actually control access to information on the internet. Anyone is free to actually visit the websites that social media firms are acting to hide from their readers’ eyes. Moreover, barriers to entry when it comes to creating publicly accessible online content remain quite low.
With television, however, one cannot simply switch to a seemingly endless number of independent and alternative new sources. Television broadcasting remains prohibitively expensive for firms outside the small number of huge media companies. Access is even more constrained for on-air broadcasts, which remain tightly controlled by federal regulators. When it comes to broadcasting, competition remains far more tightly controlled than is the case with the internet.
And TV news remains extremely influential, especially among people who actually vote. Although young Americans are watching less and less TV, the over-40 population, which votes more often than younger cohorts, still receives a very large amount of its news from organizations like CNN and Fox News. TV news may be for “old people,” but the fact remains that the voter turnout for the over-60 cohort is about double that of the 18–29 age group. Meanwhile, nearly 50 percent of Americans 65 and older still get their news from traditional TV. Fifty-eight percent of the over-65 group “often” get news from cable TV. Televised news is also relatively more central in the media habits of nonwhites and women.
We could contrast this with Twitter, which the establishment media often treats as if it were a representative slice of America. Yet surveys suggest only 22 percent of Americans use Twitter at all, and the overwhelming number of posts on Twitter are produced by only 10 percent of users. Twitter is primarily the domain of people who have graduate degrees, are white, and are left of center in their politics.
It could be that Twitter may be the news source of the future, but for now, people who actually vote get far more of their news from TV or other sources.
In any case, it should be clear that the game of providing alternative and dissenting viewpoints hasn’t actually changed much with the rise of social media. Any journalist, commentator, or organization that wishes to provide “alternative” views and critiques must fight to draw readers away from the dominant media companies, which enjoy all the advantages of deep pockets and support from university professors, government bureaucrats, and the wealthy.
In social media—as in the established old media—editors, curators, and managers work to promote their own self-described “mainstream” views while excluding as “extreme” the views of everyone else. This is the status quo we’ve long been facing, and it doesn’t look to be changing any time soon.
Source: Mises.org
Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and The Austrian, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.
Image: Pixabay
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