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The cartel that is behind Americans’ declining health and fitness

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I’ve noticed that Dr. Jay Richards has been talking a lot about the role that government plays in guiding the health of American citizens. I am so far behind on this, so I have to catch up. Basically, there is concern that government agencies are guiding Americans poorly because they are too close to Big Pharma and Big Food. And it is causing us a lot of health problems.

Well, I noticed that Jay wrote an article for Daily Signal about MAHA, and I think it’s a really good article to explain what the Trump administration is supposed to solve.

First, he explains how we got here:

Although RFK, Jr. is famous—or infamous, depending on your view—for his criticisms of vaccines, that wasn’t the theme of his lengthy speech. He spoke instead about an unholy alliance—a cartel—of industries, corporate media, government regulatory agencies, and even nonprofit “charities” that is making us fat and sick. This problem doesn’t fit the simple taxonomy of “public” and “private” or “left” and “right” that served us well during the Cold War.

Kennedy has been a voice in the wilderness warning about this cartel for years. Most Americans first became aware of it during the 2020 pandemic. Here’s the basic story: COVID-19 itself was likely the product of dangerous gain-of-function research conducted by the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. That’s bad enough. But Communist China didn’t act alone. This work was funded, at least in part, by the U.S. government’s National Institutes of Health and laundered through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.

One point is that critics of the cartel were suppressed:

Once the virus was out, the absurd and counterproductive lockdowns and hygiene theater were pushed by global entities such as the World Health Organization. Domestically, Francis Collins, then-head of the NIH, and Anthony Fauci, then-head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, worked to undermine independent experts who criticized the federal bureaucrats’ favored policies.

Collins and Fauci even orchestrated the publication of a deceptive article in Nature that claimed the virus had a natural origin. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal entities, including the Biden White House, pressured social media platforms to censor even the best-credentialed dissenters.

Attentive Americans soon learned that public health, as a field, focuses on nudging whole populations, rather than seeking the health of individual patients.

Another key point – the cartel companies cannot be sued for any damages they cause:

Certain pharmaceutical companies—which pay royalties to many NIH staff, including Collins and Fauci—enjoyed a suspiciously fast and less than rigorous approval process for their mRNA “vaccines.” Vaccine mandates then created a massive artificial market for the drugs. And drug companies’ immunity from legal liability allowed them to enjoy the financial benefits of these policies without facing the downside risks from any long-term harm to those who took the vaccines.

Many Americans started to mistrust their doctors, because they were pushing drugs and surgeries on their children:

Then, during the lockdowns, the growing awareness of the “gender-industrial complex”— media, medical professionals, pharmaceutical companies, politicians, and others who push ghoulish “gender-affirming” interventions on people distressed about their sexed bodies—further reinforced the lack of credibility of private and public health authorities.

Jay says that these symptoms – lockdowns, mandates, persecution of scientific dissent – are all the work of “the cartel”, which is composed of actors from Big Government, Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Media.

Jay then switches over to the specific problems that the cartel is alleged to have caused:

In his speech, Kennedy devoted many paragraphs to the “chronic disease epidemic”—including ever higher rates, even among children, of Type II diabetes and obesity, and of Alzheimer’s, which some now refer to as “Type III diabetes.”

[…]He spoke of “an explosion of neurological illnesses that I never saw as a kid,” including: “ADD, ADHD, speech delay, language delay, Tourette’s Syndrome, narcolepsy, ASD, Asperger’s, autism. In the year 2000, the Autism rate was one in 1500. Now, autism rates in kids are one in 36, according to CDC; nationally, nobody’s talking about this.”

He also spoke of the massive spikes in the use of antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs.

So, that’s the problem that Kennedy and his allies in the Trump administration need to solve.

For me, two of the biggest red flags are 1) the persecution of qualified dissenting scientists, and 2) the threats of ending the employment of people who don’t want to take medications where the manyfacture is immune to being sued. Those factors right there alerted me to the existence of “the cartel”, and now I’m just hoping that Kennedy is the right person to do something about it. I’m not convinced that he is, but I think it’s positive that Jay thinks he is.

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What do ancient non-Christian sources tell us about the historical Jesus?

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This article from Biblical Archaeology covers all the non-Christian historical sources that discuss Jesus.

About the author:

Lawrence Mykytiuk is associate professor of library science and the history librarian at Purdue University. He holds a Ph.D. in Hebrew and Semitic Studies and is the author of the book Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 B.C.E. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004).

Here are the major sections:

  • Roman historian Tacitus
  • Jewish historian Josephus
  • Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata
  • Platonist philosopher Celsus
  • Roman governor Pliny the Younger
  • Roman historian Suetonius
  • Roman prisoner Mara bar Serapion

And this useful excerpt captures the broad facts about Jesus that we get from just the first two sources:

We can learn quite a bit about Jesus from Tacitus and Josephus, two famous historians who were not Christian. Almost all the following statements about Jesus, which are asserted in the New Testament, are corroborated or confirmed by the relevant passages in Tacitus and Josephus. These independent historical sources—one a non-Christian Roman and the other Jewish—confirm what we are told in the Gospels:31

1. He existed as a man. The historian Josephus grew up in a priestly family in first-century Palestine and wrote only decades after Jesus’ death. Jesus’ known associates, such as Jesus’ brother James, were his contemporaries. The historical and cultural context was second nature to Josephus. “If any Jewish writer were ever in a position to know about the non-existence of Jesus, it would have been Josephus. His implicit affirmation of the existence of Jesus has been, and still is, the most significant obstacle for those who argue that the extra-Biblical evidence is not probative on this point,” Robert Van Voorst observes.32 And Tacitus was careful enough not to report real executions of nonexistent people.

2. His personal name was Jesus, as Josephus informs us.

3. He was called Christos in Greek, which is a translation of the Hebrew word Messiah, both of which mean “anointed” or “(the) anointed one,” as Josephus states and Tacitus implies, unaware, by reporting, as Romans thought, that his name was Christus.

4. He had a brother named James (Jacob), as Josephus reports.

5. He won over both Jews and “Greeks” (i.e., Gentiles of Hellenistic culture), according to Josephus, although it is anachronistic to say that they were “many” at the end of his life. Large growth
in the number of Jesus’ actual followers came only after his death.

6. Jewish leaders of the day expressed unfavorable opinions about him, at least according to some versions of the Testimonium Flavianum.

7. Pilate rendered the decision that he should be executed, as both Tacitus and Josephus state.

8. His execution was specifically by crucifixion, according to Josephus.

9. He was executed during Pontius Pilate’s governorship over Judea (26–36 C.E.), as Josephus implies and Tacitus states, adding that it was during Tiberius’s reign.

Some of Jesus’ followers did not abandon their personal loyalty to him even after his crucifixion but submitted to his teaching. They believed that Jesus later appeared to them alive in accordance with prophecies, most likely those found in the Hebrew Bible. A well-attested link between Jesus and Christians is that Christ, as a term used to identify Jesus, became the basis of the term used to identify his followers: Christians. The Christian movement began in Judea, according to Tacitus. Josephus observes that it continued during the first century. Tacitus deplores the fact that during the second century it had spread as far as Rome.

I remember reading the 1996 book by Gary Habermas entitled “The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ“. This book is a little before the time of most of you young Christian apologists, but back before the time of Lee Strobel and J. Warner Wallace, this is the stuff we all read. Anyway, in the book he makes a list of all that can be known about Jesus from external sources. And fortunately for you, you don’t have to buy the book because you can read chapter 9 of it right on his web site.

From Tacitus he gets this:

From this report we can learn several facts, both explicit and implicit, concerning Christ and the Christians who lived in Rome in the 60s A.D. Chronologically, we may ascertain the following information.

(1) Christians were named for their founder, Christus (from the Latin), (2) who was put to death by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilatus (also Latin), (3) during the reign of emperor Tiberius (14 37 A.D.). (4) His death ended the “superstition” for a short time, (5) but it broke out again, (6) especially in Judaea, where the teaching had its origin.

(7) His followers carried his doctrine to Rome. (8) When the great fire destroyed a large part of the city during the reign of Nero (54 68 A.D.), the emperor placed the blame on the Christians who lived in Rome. (9) Tacitus reports that this group was hated for their abominations. (10) These Christians were arrested after pleading guilty, (11) and many were convicted for “hatred for mankind.” (12) They were mocked and (13) then tortured, including being “nailed to crosses” or burnt to death. (14) Because of these actions, the people had compassion on the Christians. (15) Tacitus therefore concluded that such punishments were not for the public good but were simply “to glut one man’s cruelty.”

And from Josephus he gets this:

(1) Jesus was known as a wise and virtuous man, one recognized for his good conduct. (2) He had many disciples, both Jews and Gentiles. (3) Pilate condemned him to die, (4) with crucifixion explicitly being mentioned as the mode. (5) The disciples reported that Jesus had risen from the dead and (6) that he had appeared to them on the third day after his crucifixion. (7) Consequently, the disciples continued to proclaim his teachings. (8) Perhaps Jesus was the Messiah concerning whom the Old Testament prophets spoke and predicted wonders. We would add here two facts from Josephus’ earlier quotation as well. (9) Jesus was the brother of James and (10) was called the messiah by some.

So when you are reading the New Testament, these facts are the framework that you read within. It’s a good starting point when dealing with people who have never looked into who Jesus was and what he taught and what his followers believed about him, right from the start.

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Domestic terrorist attempts to murder Christian apologist using SWAT team

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Recently, people on the political left have been engineering SWAT team raids on the homes of prominent Christians and conservatives. Below, we’ll take a look at one of the Christian scholars who was raided – Larry Taunton. You might remember Larry from his public discussions with famous atheists like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens.

Here’s the story from Christian Post:

A Christian author and apologist who was recently “swatted” at his rural Alabama home told The Christian Post he believes the recent spate of false police reports made against conservative commentators indicates the Left is getting desperate.

Larry Alex Taunton told CP he grabbed his pistol and nearly shot a heavily armed police officer who attempted to enter his house shortly after 1 a.m. on March 17.

The local sheriff’s office in Talladega County responded in full force that morning upon fielding a call from a man who said he was trapped inside Taunton’s blood-soaked home after having been shot in the leg amid three active shooters at his residence.

As has been the case for approximately 15 other prominent conservative voices in recent weeks, the call was fake and made in an apparent attempt to instill fear and potentially instigate a lethal situation.

What’s interesting about this SWAT attempted murder against Taunton is how the police came at 1 AM with nine police cars, body armor, and assault rifles. But when they got to Larry’s house, they din’t announce themselves.

If you watch the video, you’ll see that the police do not knock, and they do not announce themselves to the homeowner. They just try to come directly into the house. In rural Alabama – a state with strong gun laws, and self-defense laws.

Larry was waiting inside with his own weapon, and he did NOT know who these people outside his house were. He says that if the attacker had opened the door, he would have opened fire:

“So here’s someone trying to breach my front door with a semi-automatic rifle without announcing himself,” he said. “I’m armed. I can see him, he cannot see me. And I’m thinking, ‘If this guy comes through my door, I will shoot him. I’m not asking questions. He’s more heavily armed than I am, and if I’m to have any chance at all, I will have to shoot first.'”

There have been a LOT of SWAT team incidents in the last month. It looks like it is a coordinated effort.

Fox News reported this:

FBI Director Kash Patel on Friday revealed that the agency is investigating a recent spike in swatting incidents after several conservative media figures said they were targeted.

“I want to address the alarming rise in ‘Swatting’ incidents targeting media figures,” Patel wrote Friday morning on his social media. “The FBI is aware of this dangerous trend, and my team and I are already taking action to investigate and hold those responsible accountable.”

[…]Conservative podcaster Nick Sortor said Thursday on X that both his father and sister were swatted that same day.

“A dozen cops attempted to kick my dad’s door in at gunpoint,” he wrote.

[…]Sortor said the person who called the police on his father claimed he was killing his “entire family, requiring them to intervene with deadly force.”

“This is nothing short of attempted murder. They wanted the police to kill my father,” he added.

I notice that this is not the first time that leftist activists have engaged in domestic terrorism. And this is not something new. Republican politicians have been frequent victims of SWAT attacks, going back to 2023. In Wisconsin, Democrats ordered pre-dawn raids on the homes of Republicans. In 2022, the FBI raided the home of a pro-life activist. And don’t forget how Democrats just open fire on Republicans, like a Bernie Sanders supporter did with Steve Scalise. When will federal law enforcement stop these attacks?