The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. -H.L. Mencken
In response to my recent essay on the Russell Brand conviction, several readers asked me why on earth I published a detailed report on this case on our Substack newsletter. The point—which seems obvious to me—is that Russell Brand has been sent to prison solely on the grounds of public denunciations and accusations, with zero substantiating evidence.
It doesn’t matter if you regard him as an unsympathetic or suspicious character. The moment the state is allowed to suspend hard-won legal protections against possible false accusations, we are back to the heresy trials and witch hunts of the 16th and 17th century, when thousands were burned at the stake on the grounds of accusations.
If that period of history strikes you as too remote, then consider the millions who lived under the great totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, in which men and women could be thrown into a Gulag or Concentration Camp on the basis of denunciations.
When feeling and expressing moral outrage becomes more important than adhering to due process for the accused, anyone who challenges the dictates of central power can be accused of all manner of offenses and incarcerated.
During the pandemic, Dr. Peter McCullough was accused of “spreading misinformation,” fired from his job, sued by his former employer, forced to spend a fortune on attorneys, vilified and maligned in the public forum, stripped of his professorships, editorships, and most of his academic credentials. Such is the tried and true method by which tyrants eliminate critics and dissidents.
Elucidating the nature of tyranny in all its forms is the primary activity of our mission at this Focal Points newsletter and at our McCullough Foundation. As an investigative reporter, my job is to elucidate ALL the ways in “We the People” are manipulated, controlled, and exploited by central power.
Tyrants love emergencies and crises because they seemingly justify the expansion of state power and the massive theft and transfer of wealth from the citizenry to special interests who are ostensibly in the business of “countering” threats.
The purported threat could be anything—a novel infectious disease, changes in the earth’s climate, Russian or Iranian bogeymen, or even moral defects such as “sexism” or “racism.”
ANY threat can be deceptively used to justify a massive intervention such as transferring hundreds of billions of dollars and weapons to the “heroic” regime of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his cronies in Ukraine to “save” the West from the Russian bogeyman, Vladimir Putin.
The innumerable indications that enormous wealth has been transferred from US taxpayers to Ukraine’s corrupt oligarchy are obscured by propaganda. And, as we have learned about propaganda, it always works—it never fails to mesmerize millions, no matter how many times it is revealed that the US and other governments cannot be trusted.
I wonder what percentage of US taxpayers is aware of the mounting evidence that hundreds of millions of Western money, earmarked for protecting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, has likely been stolen?
For example, yesterday, November 10, Ukraine’s TSN television news service published an investigative report showing a lavish penthouse with marble columns, gilded decorations, an indoor swimming pool, and a live crocodile kept in a terrarium.
The television report identifies the property in Dnipro, Ukraine as part of an investigation involving contracts to protect electrical infrastructure in the Kyiv region.
Ukrainian media identify the suspected owner as Vladyslav Sokolov, a businessman from Dnipro and former candidate for the Dnipropetrovsk regional council. Companies reportedly associated with Sokolov supplied construction materials for infrastructure-protection projects.
Whether Sokolov is indeed guilty of skimming funds earmarked for protecting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure needs to be fully investigated and fairly adjudicated in court.
However, on the face of it, it seems odd that—in a country whose median household income is approximately $200 per month—Sokolov is apparently trying to surpass the Roman Emperor Nero in opulence. The following appears to be an image of him at his desk.
Why is investigating and reporting this story within our purview? Because the US government’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine does NOT serve the interests of “We the People,” and it elevates the risk of a nuclear exchange with Russia, which would have catastrophic consequences for our public health in the United States.
As I stated yesterday in a fit of intemperate exasperation, it appears that institutional medicine is now dominated by retards. Shortly after I posted the essay, I called an Uber to visit a friend in hospital who, this summer, developed a weird autoimmune condition following a small, penetrating wound to her lower leg.
For over four months she has been struggling with extremely alarming and debilitating wounds on her leg and a general feeling of malaise. Consultations with multiple doctors in multiple hospitals has yielded no clear diagnosis or treatment plan, and she is now languishing in hospital with no end in sight.
On the ride to the hospital, I called Dr. McCullough and described her condition. He immediately said, “It sounds like Pyoderma gangrenosum. That’s what I would ask about.”
I did a quick internet query “Does Pyoderma gangrenosum sometimes evade a positive diagnosis due to complications or errors in diagnostic testing?” This query yielded the following:
Pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is a classic “diagnosis of exclusion” because there is no single pathognomonic lab test, scan, or biomarker that can definitively confirm it. Instead of a single positive test result, diagnosing PG requires a careful synthesis of clinical observations, ruling out mimickers, and evaluating multi-criteria scoring systems.
Testing analysis often evades or misleads clinicians for several specific reasons:
1. Biopsies Tell a Changing Story
The primary major criterion for diagnosing ulcerative PG is a skin biopsy showing a dense neutrophilic infiltrate (a heavy buildup of a specific white blood cell). However, this “positive” histologic finding is highly sensitive to time and location.
Timing matters: If a biopsy is taken late in the disease process, or after a patient has already begun a trial of corticosteroids or other immunosuppressants, the characteristic neutrophils may be entirely absent, leaving only non-specific chronic inflammatory changes.
Location matters: The biopsy must be taken precisely from the active, advancing edge of the ulcer. A biopsy taken from the center of the dead tissue will only show non-specific necrosis, leading to false negatives.
After reading this, I arrived at the hospital and immediately asked my friend, “What do your doctors say about Pyoderma gangrenosum?”
“I was tested for that a while back, but the result was negative. But it’s funny that you should ask, because now the doctors are wondering if the test wasn’t properly done,” she replied.
“Let me guess, the biopsy probe was taken from the middle of the wound and not from the margin?” I said.
She gave me a surprised look and said, “Yes, that is the suspicion.”
My point in relating this story is NOT to suggest that we at the Focal Points newsletter and at the McCullough Foundation are especially clever. Our work is not primarily about intelligence—it’s about diligence, attentiveness, and care.
Diligence, attentiveness, and care are the qualities that motivated Dr. Peter McCullough to embark on his great and tortuous journey of providing early home treatment for high-risk COVID-19 patients and questioning the COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
We care about the reality of the world and are keenly interested in apprehending and reporting it. However, doing so requires a lot of time and effort. If you find our work interesting, please support it by becoming a paid subscriber to the Focal Points or by making a donation to the McCullough Foundation by clicking on the icon below. Finally, please share the link to the post with your friends.
And some people are easily scared. Look at 80% who volunteered for human experimentation, 97% of closed churches filled with people scared of what comes after death and don't forget the 77% of church staff bailed out by the government in pandemic.😜
The fact that the mob mentality is so easily whipped up when no facts support the narratives is what frightens me the most. It was the NY Times that condemned the unvaccinated, not scientific evidence. Russell Brand was found guilty by channel 4 news and the hysteria of the UK media, well before his scam trial. Vladimir Putin is deemed the devil incarnate when it is the arrogance and aggression of the American hegemony that provoked the Ukraine war. There’s an awful lot of kool-aid drinking. And the metaphorical one is even more poisonous than the real one.