Bill Gates: Schadenfreude by Gossip

I’ve been guilty of the sin of ♥ing Schadenfreude for a long time, but these smears by innuendo (in many cases) tickle my innards purple.  I’d been trying a 2 Photos Caption Contest for fun to deflect a bit from the current troubling zeitgeist.

‘Melinda Gates ‘warned’ husband Bill about meeting sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, divorce reportedly ‘not friendly’ – reports’, 7 May, 2021

“It’s not clear why Gates’ meeting with Epstein in 2013 was so objectionable when their earlier gatherings had apparently gone down without any drama, though it’s doubtful that Melinda would have wanted to make a scene in a room with her husband and several business prospects. Gates and Epstein have a history dating back into the 1990s, according to an Evening Standard article from January 2001 that – while focusing on Prince Andrew’s own relationship with Epstein – also mentioned the financier as someone to whom he had entrusted “many millions”.

While the article is no longer easily searchable online, the MintPress News obtained a copy in 2019. Archives like the Wayback Machine also retain copies.

The Gates/Epstein relationship is all but impossible to deny under those conditions, particularly given his appearance in the flight logs of the pedophile’s ‘Lolita Express’ private jet. Gates traveled on the jet from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Palm Beach, Florida, logs show.

Despite the metric tons of rumors online, Gates and his PR team have insisted the billionaire never had any connections with Epstein at all aside from philanthropy.”

Bill Gates stepped down from Microsoft board after company launched probe into affair with female staffer – media’, RT.com, Ma7 17, 2021

“Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper said that Gates was asked to vacate his seat in March 2020 after an extramarital relationship he had with a staffer became the subject of a company probe. He had been re-elected to the board just three months prior. Explaining his decision, Gates released a statement at the time saying that he wanted to focus on his philanthropic endeavors, adding that he would continue to act as an adviser to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. He also resigned his position on the board of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the conglomerate run by fellow billionaire businessman Warren Buffett.

But according to the Journal, there were more scandalous reasons behind Gates’ departure. In late 2019, members of the Microsoft board were reportedly alerted to a letter from a female employee who detailed a relationship she had with the software mogul, and also demanded changes to her job at the company. She allegedly requested that Gates’ now-estranged wife, Melinda French Gates, also read her letter detailing the purported affair. Board members tasked with looking into the matter hired a law firm to investigate possible misconduct. As more details came to light, the company’s leadership feared that the relationship between Gates and the female staffer had been “inappropriate,” the paper reported. Board members also reportedly raised concerns about Gates’ dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Gates is said to have stepped down before the board made a formal ruling on the matter.  […]

The claim about his hidden motive for leaving the company comes amid a string of reports about Gates’ personal life leading up to his recent divorce. According to the Daily Beast, Gates allegedly sought marriage advice from Epstein during multiple visits to his Manhattan townhouse between 2011 and 2014. Gates reportedly told the infamous ‘financier’ that his marriage to Melinda was “toxic.” During their chats, the billionaire allegedly also suggested that he could help Epstein “rehabilitate his image” following his 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution. The infamous sex offender allegedly killed himself in August 2019 while awaiting his trial at a federal jail in Manhattan. He had been arrested a month earlier and charged with sex trafficking.”

OTOH,  a spoilsport:I never thought I’d feel sorry for Bill Gates, but the media’s pro-Melinda propaganda has again proved rich men should NEVER marry’, Peter Lloyd, RT.com, May 18, 2021

(Great opening followed by ass-kissing):

“The couple’s separation was only recently announced, but the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Mail are already assassinating Bill’s character. Impartial journalism? Not a chance, just more media misandry.

He’s spent the past few months pushing Covid-19 vaccines – even though he’s not a doctor and the jabs have had some questionable side effects.

He is also one of the world’s most powerful men, a highly respected philanthropist and a long-standing resident of the Forbes Rich List (with an estimated fortune of $128.3 billion, no less). “

(followed by an homage to his Supreme Gawdliness…)

‘Gates’ Divorce Prompts Scrutiny of His Past, Ties With Epstein & Clinton Foundation, Analyst Says’, May 25, 2021, sputnik news, Ekaterina Blinova

Does the End Justify the Means?

The first meeting between Gates and Epstein came in 2011, three years after the infamous financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, became a registered sex offender and later spent 13 months in jail, according to Business Insider.

One might wonder as to why Bill Gates turned a blind eye to Epstein’s reputation, notes Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist.” […]

“The Daily Beast suggested on 18 May that Gates turned a blind eye to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes conviction apparently because wanted the well-connected financier to help him secure the Nobel Peace Prize.

“He [Gates] thought that Jeffrey would be able to help him, that he would know the right people, or some kind of way to massage things, so he could get the Nobel Peace Prize, which is what Bill wants more than anything else in the world,” a former Gates Foundation employee said, as quoted by the media outlet. “I think he was ultimately disappointed it didn’t work out.”

Furthermore, Norwegian business newspaper DN reported in October 2020 that Gates and Epstein travelled to Strasbourg in 2013 and met with Thorbjørn Jagland, a former Norwegian prime minister who was at that time the chairman of the Nobel committee. However, a Gates representative has denied that the tech magnate had campaigned for the Nobel Prize in any way.

Jeffrey Epstein was not the only “bad guy” Bill Gates was hanging out with: he had also maintained close ties with Rajat Kumar Gupta, a former director of management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company (from 1994 to 2003). Gupta was charged with insider trading in 2012 and spent two years in jail. Earlier he served as an advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”

Then these headings:

Cooperation With the Clinton Foundation

Gates’ Past is Haunting Him

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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I would not put anything past him.

Personally, my theory was that Gates got married only to have legitimate children (three? while us "lower" people get zero?) and the divorce timing showed that Melinda's time as brood mare was over.
Just a theory, no proof, but had to believe Gates' having passion about anything but money.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

wendy davis's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

and yes, three kids. his Wiki has been amended (ahem) with this hilarity:

Gates married Melinda French on the Hawaiian Island of Lanai on January 1, 1994.[177] They met in 1987 after Melinda began working at Microsoft.[178] At the time of their marriage, Gates was given permission by Melinda to spend limited time with his ex-girlfriend, businesswoman Ann Winblad.[179] Bill and Melinda have three children: Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe.[180] The family's residence is an earth-sheltered mansion in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. In 2009, property taxes on the mansion were reported to be US$1.063 million, on a total assessed value of US$147.5 million.[181] The 66,000-square-foot (6,100 m2) estate has a 60-foot (18 m) swimming pool with an underwater music system, as well as a 2,500-square-foot (230 m2) gym and a 1,000-square-foot (93 m2) dining room.[182] On May 3, 2021, Bill and Melinda Gates announced that they had decided to divorce following 27 years of marriage, and 34 years as a couple.[183] The couple said they will keep working together on charitable efforts

mellie had been quoted as noting that africn women walking with a kid or two in tow, one in progresss, and a basket atop her head, really grieved her, so bill injected them with hackable birth control devices which could be turned on and off 'at will'.

do you remember his Tweets showing he'd been providing smart phones so that african women could be Outstaning in their Fields checkig the mrket price for their crops? (w/ accompanying photos, of course).

how many chuckles is this worth?

thanks, voice. ; )

on morning edit: billy loves bucks, but likely as a Vehicle to Power! King of the World!

and so charitable that his billions of fortune doubled after he began 'giving it away'.

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With these kind of stories, I have to wonder what's beneath the surface. Let's take Melinda, for instance. She was an employee of Microsoft when they met. If she was in a position to get as close to Bill as she did, she knew what she was getting herself into. And Bill himself. It's obvious the foundation was the typical tyrant's ego trip/whitewash. This can't be new either. The Epstein stuff? Well, how is he different than say Bill Clinton or Prince Andrew?

While I understand the divorce angle makes this more salacious, but I guess my point is, this stuff about Gates is all known. The media has sat on it this long so why now? I have a hard time taking it at face value that this is just a woman spurned. I am not sure I buy that "the media’s pro-Melinda propaganda" exists as an agenda. It feels like something else is afoot, but I guess time will tell.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

wendy davis's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter

the MSM has latched onto the darker side stories since their divorce was announced, but as far as being widely known? i'm not sure. the B & M gates foundation must employ a hella PR team and related attorneys, no? they even have their own Global Development tab at the Guardian.

he/they did a hella lot of health damage to africans with their 'free vaccines' (including live polio vaccines), and his/their GMO 'Green Revolution' has been a scourge to humanity, imo, not to mention their eugenics program in africa, and iirc, india.

i had to laugh at this as well:

I have a hard time taking it at face value that this is just a woman spurned. I am not sure I buy that "the media’s pro-Melinda propaganda" exists as an agenda. It feels like something else is afoot, but I guess time will tell.

my memory is more holes than cheese, but iirc, it was bill at the world economic forum in davos who'd gamed out a Sars virus pandemic, and followed it through... but later said, no, is wasn't the covid 19 one.

thanks for the additions, doctor john.

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CB's picture

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/rfk-jr-the-defender-podcast-...

Investigative journalist and researcher Whitney Webb dives deep into the murky relationship between now-deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, billionaire Bill Gates and other Silicon Valley elite, in an interview with Children’s Health Defense Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on the “RFK Jr The Defender Podcast.”
...
There is a “deliberate coverup,” said Webb, of the true ties between Gates and Epstein. Many of the Silicon Valley elites “are part of something called the Edge Foundation,” which is how “Epstein was able to connect so intimately with a lot of the individuals who would later become the Silicon Valley elite,” Web told Kennedy.

Many of today’s big Silicon Valley companies have origins tied to the intelligence community, said Webb. The Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, invested in technologies deemed useful to intelligence forces, and when they did, they had a hand in the company’s product development, Webb explained.

Webb also told Kennedy about her opinions on vaccine passports, which, she says, aren’t just about tracking vaccines, but are a part of a global plan to move towards a cashless, digital-banking based society where vaccine status, economic activity and biometric identity are all tied into one.

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4GKPM01vw3WZ0jaY0EN8zZ?go=1&utm_source=...

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wendy davis's picture

@CB

and i do recall his being big on cashless societies, esp. with india's (ptui) modi. worked great for the upper caste, not so much with the underclass.

RFK, jr. of course has been labelled a Vaxxer (as in anti-vax) but i think he got a lot of the cautionary tales right. almost makes me wish i could get the app and listen.

sorry to be answering so minimally, CB, but today, RL's been a bitch again. nice to see you again, here's hoping you're doing better all the time.

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CB's picture

@wendy davis


The Cover-Up Continues: The Truth About Bill Gates, Microsoft, and Jeffrey Epstein

While more revelations about the Bill Gates–Jeffrey Epstein relationship have begun trickling out following the Gates’s divorce announcement, the strong evidence pointing to their relationship beginning decades prior to 2011 continues to be covered up by the media—not necessarily to protect Bill but to protect Microsoft.
by Whitney Webb May 25, 2021
31 minute read
...
While mainstream media outlets apparently agree that Jeffrey Epstein was a likely factor in the Gates’s recently announced split up, what these same outlets refuse to cover is the real extent of the Bill Gates–Jeffrey Epstein relationship. Indeed, the mainstream narrative holds that Gates’s ties to Epstein began in 2011, despite the evidence pointing to their relationship beginning decades earlier.

This blanket refusal to honestly report on the Gates-Epstein ties likely is due to Gates’s outsized role in current events, both in terms of global health policy as it relates to COVID-19 and in his being a major promoter and funder of controversial technocratic “solutions” to a slew of societal problems. What is more likely, however, is that the nature of the relationship between Gates and Epstein before 2011 is even more scandalous than what transpired later, and it may have major implications not just for Gates but for Microsoft as a company and for some of its former top executives.

This particular cover-up is part of an obvious tendency of mainstream media to ignore the clear influence that both Epstein and members of the Maxwell family wielded—and, arguably, continue to wield—in Silicon Valley. Indeed, the individuals who founded tech giants such as Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Microsoft, Tesla, and Amazon all have connections with Jeffrey Epstein, some closer than others.

This investigation is adapted from my upcoming book One Nation Under Blackmail, which will be released early next year and will include a more complete investigation into Epstein’s ties to Silicon Valley, scientific academia, and intelligence agencies.
...

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wendy davis's picture

@CB

amigo. i'll read it as soon as i'm able.

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Creosote.'s picture

@CB
in connection with reports of his buying up massive acreage in eastern Washington state.
I posted about this earlier in an old thread, but what puzzled me was that significant areas of eastern Washington (the Scablands) are not farm country, as the area suffered many massive prehistoric floods that stripped everything away down to bare stone.

Then it occurred to me, What if someone were to build massive solar installations in that area, and then be in a position to control the creation and sale of all that power to the state, or Oregon, Idaho, and elsewhere in the west.

Or was the land purhasing intended to cover or promote other news?

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the public was put out into the public deliberately. I had no idea why they would put out information about a divorce until I heard a woman posit that the divorce gave them a plausible public reason to dump billions in stock without triggering a massive selloff.

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@entrepreneur

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

wendy davis's picture

@entrepreneur

but in any event, that the shit's hitting their fans is fine with me, even at this late date.

sure bill thinks he's worthy of a Nobel Prize, because:

What's the difference between God and bill gates?

God doesn't believe she's bill gates.

wish i could imagine a purr-fect closing song, this is the closest i can come:

Santana and Everlast:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCBS5EtszYI&list=RDKCBS5EtszYI&start_rad...

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getting their ass handed to them.
I have absolutely no respect, regard, love, like, admiration, for ANYBODY who associated with Epstein.
What those people are, in my opinion, is the kind of verbiage that shouldn't be typed.
Good to see you ma'am, and this essay is on fire!

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

wendy davis's picture

@on the cusp

'fuquewads' for you then? i confess id been avoiding epstein stories for a long time? then gizlaine maxwell (sp?) popped up... the term 'lolita express' gave me the absolute shivers! (more avoidance)


I always enjoy any Important Billionaire Superior Person getting their ass handed to them.

#MeToo. your opening above = Schadenfreude, or finding pleasure in their exposés...or worse (for those who dinnae get my verbiage).

although Gates has been one of my pet projects for a hella long time. now it's 'for climate change': small nuclear power plants, high-tech geoengineering, covertly 'reducing the surplus population', and so on. oh, and selling green-washed bonds at Davos and virtual Davos. ; )

good to see you as well, amiga, and i'm tickled you're enjoying all this as i am. i checked his twitter account this a.m. and needed a barf bag. good thing his GAVI's rakin' in some more billions, though.

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mimi's picture

It is somehow important and somehow destructive to one's mental health. So, I thought to heal some of the distress that must come with what you write about, is this article I just ran into:

Trevor Noah’s Dark Upbringing Made Him The Man He Is Today

Are those who laugh the hardest usually the ones masking the most pain?

Thinking about your Schadenfreude laughters, this hits the nail on its head, imo.

If laughter is the best medicine, Trevor Noah is one powerful doctor. He is the leading comedian of our generation and continues to delight with his matter-of-fact, observational approach to life. He isn’t afraid to push boundaries and find humor in the darkest, most threatening situations; perhaps this is why he was chosen as Jon Stwart’s successor for The Daily Show.

But if one looks closer into his early life and upbringing, they will realize that Trevor has overcome a world of pain and discrimination to reach the upper echelons of comedy. What’s even more remarkable that he’s persisted with the laughs every step of the way without fail. Here’s what we can take away from his astonishing journey:
[video:https://youtu.be/Yphxh5L8YbQ]

Have a little laugh. Trevor has a rare gift, worth accepting that gift as is, imho.

Be well and have a good one day resting with a smile.

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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

this was a joy to paste together! i know others will enjoy your Noah video, but i've earned the hard way that videos trigger my vertigo. last crash was wicket bad, but i'm beginning to heal from it 8 weeks later.

mr. wd (at 73) is back to working 3 or 4 half-days a week and i baby-sit myownself. i wear a small flip phone i hang around my neck w/ his # on speed dial. we call it 'my bra buddy'.

yes, it was horrid to paste together one longish and one short palestinian genocide posts, but the least we can do, i reckon) is to bear witness to what Israel and the US is doing to a doubly colonized people.

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mimi's picture

@wendy davis
(I don't know what I touched on my key-board to cause comments to just leave into the dark side underground) and now I am so exhausted that I have only so much left to say as to apologize. I have understood through OtCs comment what vertigo is and that you suffer under that condition. I never could have thought about something like that.

In my imagination you were someone like Buffy Sainte-Marie, in your fifties may be.
Well, mimi's brain, you don't wanna have it ...

I am so mad that I lost the first write-up of a comment answering yours, that I just make a fist to God asking why he has allowed us human beings to develop something horrible like the online social media, where mysterious powers mess with your strokes on the keyboard to simply make you turn into a furious witch cursing all things online.

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wendy davis's picture

@mimi

no apology is required; with my brain damage i get things wrong ll the time!

peace, health, and solidarity to you always, mimi,

wd

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“He [Gates] thought that Jeffrey would be able to help him, that he would know the right people, or some kind of way to massage things, so he could get the Nobel Peace Prize, which is what Bill wants more than anything else in the world,” a former Gates Foundation employee said, as quoted by the media outlet. “I think he was ultimately disappointed it didn’t work out.”

Pretty sure winning the Peace Prize nowadays requires warmongering against some folks, but then again I'm not one of these bastards so idk.

One of the weirdest things about the entire Epstein matter (from my pov, everything about it is weird and most of what the public has been told is transparent bullshit) is that while we're still not getting anything like the real story, we're getting more press and questions about that dude's access to the rich people who run the world out of Bill and Melinda's divorce than we were getting when he was visibly involved in having all kinds of recreational adventures with our most powerful elected officials.

Thanks for this piece, Wendy, hope today is better for you than yesterday!

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wendy davis's picture

@Reverend Jane Ignatowski

sure and barack obomba was given his for....for...hope? ya reckon he wears it now and again when he and michelle are snuggled before a blazing fire?

is there any speculation that epstein was murdered in jail? i'm not snarking entirely.

welcome, rev jane, and today just may be better than yesterday, although i'm still moving at a snail's pace.

best to you,
wd

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Creosote.'s picture

@wendy davis
about Epstein's death in jail? If C99 is the public, then yes, there's been at least one strong report on what sounds very likely to have taken place, and Alligator Ed wrote it, with diagrams and much careful detail not supporting suicide. Including the fact that for some reason the guards in a maximum security prison, obliged to do regular checks on Epstein, somehow were absent for hours.
Not sure how to find that story now but perhaps JtC may be able to turn it up.

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wendy davis's picture

@Creosote.

as i'd admiited earlier, i'd been staying away from epstein (-barre virus) stories, as the whole mélange makes me sick.

who bought ff the guards, then? aye, there's the rub! but i'll be whitney webb told the story well, back when she was still at mint press news.

thanks, creosote.

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@Reverend Jane Ignatowski

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

he likely reason for the continued cover-up of the true extent of Epstein’s ties to Gates has much more to do with Gates’s company Microsoft than with Bill Gates himself. While it is now permissible to report on ties that discredit Gates’s personal reputation, the information that could tie his relationship with Epstein and the Maxwells to Microsoft has been omitted.

If, as the Evening Standard reported, Epstein did make millions out of his business ties with Gates prior to 2001 and if Gates’s ties to Isabel Maxwell and the Israeli espionage–linked company CommTouch were to become public knowledge, the result could easily be a scandal on a par with the PROMIS software affair. Such a disclosure could be very damaging for Microsoft and its partner the World Economic Forum, as Microsoft has become a key player in the WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution initiatives that range from digital identity and vaccine passports to efforts to replace human workers with artificial intelligence.

She has a book coming out. I do hope she can avoid small planes and lonely hotel rooms. The woman is a national treasure.

The above is a quote from a recent piece about Gates Found. Epstein and our favorite ex presidential power couple.

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Mary Bennett

wendy davis's picture

@Nastarana

OMG; that will take closer scrutiny for my tired eyes and mind. loved this section to bits, though, as it echoes what i believe i know and recall:

Such a disclosure could be very damaging for Microsoft and its partner the World Economic Forum, as Microsoft has become a key player in the WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution initiatives that range from digital identity and vaccine passports to efforts to replace human workers with artificial intelligence.

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@wendy davis the origin of the idea of vaccination passports. Especially, exactly when the concept was first floated among TPTB.
Off topic a bit, I am sorry about your vertigo. My Mom suffered with it to a degree.
While I do not have the problem, I am constantly in a time crunch. I turn on videos, and on rare occasions, the tv, and I listen to them wile I do laundry, prepare meals, etc...I want the info, but seldom have the time to sit still and watch. I have also been known to turn off the screen, keep the audio on.
I hate for you to miss out on some juicy stuff, chica!

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

wendy davis's picture

@on the cusp

i've been working toward a Very Large Pot of chinese noodle soup, and it's been going much more slowly that i'd anticipated, even given the myriad ingredients.

i do remember seeing Bill Gates kvetching at RT.com that he'd never said nuffin' 'bout no vaccine passports, but i began at WEF. this 2021 link only talks about the polling they did on the issue, enormously favorable, of course.

the EU is making some plans in this link: Member states agree on technical specifications for EU-wide vaccine passport; The "Digital Green Certificate" is on track to be rolled out by June', By Tammy Lovell, April 29, 2021

and here we are back to RFK, jr: Yes, Bill Gates Said That. Here’s the Proof.
Gates and his minions insist the billionaire never said we’d need digital vaccine passports.
But in a June 2020 TED Talk, Gates said exactly that. Someone edited out the statement, but CHD tracked down the original., Dec. 12, 2020

and i kept forgetting to provide the Sputnik link i'd featured.

thanks for the tips for listening rather than watching interviews, but at least in the past, i hadn't retained a thing, hearing only snippets. but i'll simply have to forgo them, and as always, ask the provider for cliffs notes.

2 on china diaries, mine and one of c99's true sinofile's (grin), i did, no one helped. and even knowing better, i watched about 7 mins of his, walked into the bedroom, keeled over, and 3 hrs later finally found the phone, after inch=worminging my way on my back. i did stop by the bathroom to see if i could use a small bench to lever myself up to the throne...oh, i had to wee! but i'd torn up my left shoulder again, so i stuffed a bunch of TP in my knickers, lol.

but by this week, i can fairly safely keep my balance on one crutch again. for a time, 2 hadn't even been enough so mr. wd was the third one. ; )

best to you,
wd

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@wendy davis Man,the passport sounds like a money maker, and likely a locater scheme.
People who work out of country will be forced to vax just to keep their jobs.
It will be interesting to see if countries with a huge dependency on tourism will start missing the non-vaxxers. It remains to be seen if it is a thing a couple of years from now.
I can't imagine what you go through while sitting in a moving vehicle.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

wendy davis's picture

@on the cusp

close to perfect, thanks be to the gods.

think of the corruption that will be afoot underneath the vaccine passports.

the closing song that had eluded me last night was this, let's call it 'the Bill Gates 4th Industrial Revolution Boogie':

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEn9wvz3teg]

thank you, miz cusp.

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Creosote.'s picture

@wendy davis here:
https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/dire-straits/industrial-disease
with thanks to Mark Knopfler

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wendy davis's picture

@Creosote.

mr. wd always says that mark knopfler can make his guitar...talk.

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wendy davis's picture

7 Reasons Why a Vaccine Passport (Pass, Certificate or Whatever They Want to Call It) Should Give Us Pause for Thought, Posted on April 13, 2021 by Nick Corbishley at naked capitalism

2 paragraphs:

Of course, the use of the word “passport” is deceptive. “Passport” implies a document endorsed by a state that establishes citizenship and guarantees diplomatic protection. A traditional passport does not require the bearer to participate in a vaccine program, although immunity certificates have existed for diseases such as Yellow Fever. Another difference is that a vaccine passport is likely to come in the form of a digital document. The potential scope of its application is also far broader than that of a normal passport. It could be required not only to establish identity and vaccine status at national borders but also to travel, access public buildings and basic services within one’s own country of residence.

In countries that already have an established national health service, such as the UK and Israel, the vaccine passport has been mandated at state level. In the US tech and health-care companies are firmly in the driving seat. At least 17 alternative programs are currently under development. As for the EU, it has proposed issuing “digital green certificates” that would allow EU residents to travel freely across the 27-nation bloc by the summer as long as they have been vaccinated, tested negative for COVID-19 or recovered from the disease. It’s worth noting that the EU has been studying the feasibility of creating a common EU vaccination card since early 2019.

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