Connect with us

Uncategorized

We Need To Protect The Free Speech Of Dissident Doctors

We Need To Protect The Free Speech Of Dissident Doctors

Published

on

We Need To Protect The Free Speech Of Dissident Doctors Tyler Durden Thu, 11/19/2020 - 21:40

Authored by 'The COVID Physician' via TheCritic.co.uk,

Liberty. The right to be free from torture, inhumane and ill treatment; the prohibition of servitude; the right to liberty and security of person; the right to a fair trial; freedom of expression; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; the right to privacy and a family life; freedom of association; freedom from discrimination; and policing by consent are all so pre-Covid-19. The governmental response to the coronavirus pandemic has massacred these fundamental human rights.

Weaselly Covid marshals in hi-vis vests now bark aggressively at me, telling me to “stand back!” and “cover your nose!”. I have stopped resisting or trying to placate them with reason. I have stopped trying to reassure them that I am a doctor. Their brows furrow: a dissident doctor is either not really a doctor, or is the worst kind of scum.

We live in a strange world where minority activists campaign for commercial euthanasia: a world in which a select number of elected and unelected individuals dictate that 100 per cent of us are not allowed the liberty of taking the 0.06 per cent risk of a cost-free, natural death from a respiratory illness (a very common terminal event) at an average age of 82 years old. This is utter insanity while younger, fitter people commit suicide at rising rates under repressive lockdown restrictions, economies collapse, and other debilitating diseases continue to crush, kill and incapacitate the other 99.94 per cent.

Matt Hancock currently champions the right of a small minority of the terminally ill to travel abroad for a Dignitas death, while denying everyone else the right to face the small risk of death by Covid-19 in order to live with dignity and freedom in the UK. How does this make any sense?

Two Elephants in the Room

(1) How did we get here?

(2) How prevent it happening again?

These are the two questions that surviving mainstream investigative journalists and parliament seem unable to address. Our masters have consistently turned focus to a question that has preoccupied us for months: How do we get out? With this emphasis, they made haste to our perpetual imprisonment. How can we be certain that the question being asked in private is not, rather, how can we capitalise on this situation?

How did we get here?

First it is worth asking from where did the virus originate? Evidence from the scientific community supports the hypothesis it may have been genetically engineered in a laboratory. In May 2020 Professor Luc Montagnier, the virologist who won the Nobel prize for discovering the HIV virus, has corroborated Indian scientists’ concerns from January 2020 that there are four distinct regions of the SARS-CoV-2 genome which appear to have been spliced in from HIV genomes.

Dr Limeng Yan goes further to say that Covid-19 was intentionally developed as a bioweapon. What further intrigues is Dr. Robert Gallo, an Anthony Fauci contemporary at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and another heavyweight from the 1980s race to isolate the HIV virus, appears to have briefly weighed in against Limeng’s previous September 2020 paper on a lab chimaera theory. So, who are we meant to believe in this tangled web?

The technological knowledge of biological weapons and their antidotes is in the select hands of a few private individuals, corporations and military facilities

Did you know that following serious scientific concern, there was a US government moratorium on the NIH conducting dangerous and unethical virus “gain of function” (GOF) research inside the US? However, the US continued to fundcoronavirus research at the Wuhan BSL-4 lab in that moratorium period of 2014 to 2017. GOF research increases the danger of – and weaponises – viruses. Were you aware that funding for this comes from Professor Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease? Are you aware that the US has funded and supported virological research with inter alia China for over 15 years? Indeed, Sino-American GOF research sponsored by Fauci’s NIH and NIAID, involving Wuhan BSL-4 lab’s “bat-woman”, Zhengli-Li Shi, was allowed to continue during this moratorium.

How prevent it happening again?

To answer the second question of preventionone must to again ask how we got to this point of global paralysis where the WHO, a largely unaccountable, undemocratic, sprawling supranational entity under the private influence of the Gates Foundation and Pharma calls the shots, strips us of our human rights and God-given liberty. In this brave new world, the technological knowledge of biological weapons and their antidotes is in the select hands of a few private individuals, corporations and military facilities.

How is it that civilian, state-owned scientific apparatuses to protect the population are either non-existent or wholly inadequate? So much so that our governments must jump into the lap of the profiteering pharma-cartels and their sponsored universities. Why do our chief scientific advisor, chief medical advisor, and chief mathematic remodeller seem to have cartel tattoos on their CVs? Would you trust Big Pharma hitmen to advise and cure you?

Wouldn’t it be better to have independent, accountable state-funded experts who would be less prone to the politicisation and profit motives that are destroying our way of life? Is this not preferable to the collusive, corrupt, and clandestine public-private partnerships such as SAGE? Even the establishment BMJ’s Executive Editor has belatedly come round to express serious concern about the “politicisation, corruption, and suppression of science.” As Michael Gove said (and subsequently retracted), “I think the people are fed up of experts in organisations with acronyms, saying they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”

As for pandemic preparedness, the government (presumably in conjunction with the same global non-state actors) is said to have organised for a public health crisis such as the one we currently find ourselves in, yet it seems to want to keep the findings of the Operation Cygnus report under lock and key. Why?

What did Sir Simon Stevens, CEO of NHSE say at a press conference on 5 May 2020? This shifty, career pen-pusher said he was quoting from ICU consultant, Dr Alison Pittard. This, in practice, means he was absolving himself of all accountability and responsibility for the statement. He said he had spoken to her the day before and she had said, “In the here and now we cannot stop cancer developing, in the here and now we can’t immediately prevent heart attacks or strokes … but we can reduce the spread of coronavirus in the community.”

This is a problematic and fatally misleading statement. Stevens should be ashamed of himself for making a political soundbite out of Dr Pittard’s words; particularly when citing her name for added authenticity and protection.

First of all, if my colleague said this, please understand she operates in a very compartmentalised, specialist ICU cocoon, at the sharpest end of a chronically under-resourced and stymied NHS service. She will be traumatised, sensitised and conditioned by Simon Stevens’ under-funding of her service and the clear excess deaths of March and April.

Second, know that we can prevent cancer developing, and stop heart attacks and strokes. This is called screening, early diagnosis, early intervention and timely surgery; such things were normal daily phenomena before March. Drug companies devoted billions to tell us it was possible. Now, Simon Stevens, Dr Alison Pittard and Pharma tell us it is not possible and squander 2.4 billion pounds daily to a National Covid Service which is six times the daily budget of the entire NHS.

Third, how can an ICU consultant’s well-meaning soundbite be the final word in community medicine? Is lockdown actually an effective way to stop the spread of this disease? That’s debatable, and not absolute. I agree we could suppress it and keep kicking the can down the road, culminating in higher periodic and seasonal spikes. But how and when (if ever) do we exit from her strategy – a snake oil vaccine? Alternatively, we could have been like Sweden and got it over and done with. I doubt the lay fact-checkers will bother analysing Simon Stevens’ parroted wisdom.

A few days later in The Sunday Times, Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, aped mindlessly:

You can’t stop someone having a heart attack or a stroke, but you can control the volume of Covid-19 patients by using lockdowns to reduce the infection rate… the NHS will certainly be arguing that the Government should be very cautious about coming out of lockdown.

Covid-19 and Chicken Pox

Now, imagine if a novel Chicken Pox descended on earth as if from nowhere, for that is how SARS-CoV-2 appears to have arrived. This parallel may help facilitate a common perspective. It could well have been far more damaging and certainly more terrifying than SARS-CoV-2. Imagine: no prior immunity, no prior sharing a lollipop at a pox party with a friend’s child to ensure broad, safe, and natural immunity before adulthood. Young adults, adults and the elderly would be dying en masse of multi-system pathologies. The pox marks would strike psychological terror; there would be no cure, no vaccine. Gradually, we would learn to cope with it, embrace it as a child, a rite of passage that you would rather have.

As for me, I had unknowingly acquired immunity at some point in my life. I discovered this because I required serological proof to work on a hospital paediatric ward in my thirties. So, I am relieved my child has possibly had Covid-19 as probably have I. To see hundreds of schools and their young teachers refuse the low risk of opening shop and returning to work seemed to me a dangerous folly: no immunity, no education, no jobs, no future, no life. We desperately need a reservoir of resilient, naturally immune people to shield the non-immune, vulnerable and elderly. More chance of suppressing the virus this way than with a rushed vaccine. I may as well say it now before it becomes criminal to do so. The world has lost its mind.

Dissident doctors, Thought Crimes & Arbitrary Injustice

Many have asked why more doctors and nurses are not coming forward with an alternative truth, and why they are not openly doing so. First, understand the state apparatus (including the regulatory body for doctors, the GMC) which has set its immovable stall: Catastrophic Pandemic (no such thing), Philanthropic Lockdown, Wonder Vaccine.

Then, take the extraordinary GMC assault on senior consultant surgeon’s right to free speech. Dr. Mohammed Adil was metaphorically lynched; swinging ominously off the GMC entrance from his redundant stethoscope – a gangland warning from the drug cabal to the rest of us. Then, recall what happens to an NHS whistle-blower, in spite of so-called whistle blowing protection laws, by familiarising oneself with the unbelievable scapegoating, cover-up, injustice and judicial “incompetence” doled out to Dr. Chris Day over 6 years and counting.

Now appreciate that in 2016, for the first time since at least 2006 according to cases compiled by the GMC, a doctor, consultant eye surgeon John Brookes walked scot free from his disciplinary tribunal without any sanction at all, even though the tribunal found he was guilty of misconduct. His offence? A 15-month sexual affair with a current patient. Not even a one-month nominal suspension was suitable: he was deemed too “unique” in his surgical talents and too valuable to his patients. The GMC tribunal made an “exceptional circumstance” of his case. The tribunal went further in its sympathies and commented that this was a consensual and mutually supportive sexual affair – that was until the jilted patient tweeted his affront to Brookes’ hospital CEO.

The GMC doesn’t do human rights for all, nor morals, ethics and Hippocrates per se anymore. It does duties. Duties are done for employers. No more egregious example of this was the GMC case of Dr. John Brookes. His case is paradigmatic of the damage, demoralisation and destabilisation of the medical profession. Ten years ago, it is likely he would have been removed from the GMC register for such an offence.

But, what of Dr. Adil, chairman of the World Doctors Alliance? He is a colleague of Dr Heiko Schöning, the German medic arrested at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park on 26 September 2020. What did Adil do to warrant his arrest? After several months of witnessing global and local healthcare go down the chute and members of the public suffer, he courageously (some would say extremely inexpediently) spoke out on YouTube with admirable passion about the global assault on civil liberties, public health, the NHS and his own patients’ health by disproportionate government measures. He referred to the pandemic as a hoax. You may find the video here.

Dr. Heiko Schöning being arrested for speaking at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, 26 September 2020.

The GMC didn’t like it. It suspended him from his patients and his 30-year-long NHS career for 12 months, pending tribunal. No unique attributes, no “magic fingers”, no “consensual and mutually supportive” sexual relationship with a patient to help him avoid interim suspension nor the charge of exercising his legal right to free speech.

I am not saying I agree with him. “Hoax” may not be the most appropriate word to use in this situation. Dr Limeng Yan uses “fraud”. But how do we know for sure? Perhaps it is a hoax in the sense that in our collective hysteria we are leading ourselves to fatal self-deception? How does the GMC know? It does not. It has blind faith in the state-pharma-media sponsored narrative. Remember, lone voices have spoken out before when Tony Blair asserted to the world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. History proved those lone, renegade voices to be right. Look at what then became of the middle east, then Europe and now the world. We believed in our politicians and not the experts. Recall the strange, horrid fate that befell principled weapons inspector, Dr. David Kelly.

The GMC seems not to care if Dr. Adil is correct. Might is right. He stepped out of line and spoke his truth. He must be silenced and professionally ruined before another doctor speaks. His was not speech riddled with hate, but by an honest concern that the government’s response to this pandemic is not medically or scientifically sound.

The GMC’s primary concern is its statutory responsibility and overarching objective as set out in the Medical Act 1983 (as amended), in particular the need:

  1. To protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and wellbeing of the public;

  2. To maintain public confidence in the profession;

  3. To promote and maintain proper professional standards and conduct for members of the profession.

As the BMJ reported:

A GMC spokesperson said: ‘The interim orders tribunal imposed an interim suspension on Dr Adil’s registration, following our referral, to protect patients and public confidence. This interim suspension remains in place while we consider concerns about Dr Adil’s fitness to practise.’

Well, who says it protects patients and maintains public confidence to see the GMC violate the lawful free speech of a senior doctor? Thousands of the people have turned out to support him. He is only one among a quarter of a million registered doctors. Why is there so much concern over his influence? Let him speak and be heard. Surely, he must have something important to say to risk his life’s calling? However, that is why the GMC is concerned, he speaks with repute and authority, and therefore the GMC must undermine him.

By denying him his democratic right to political, personal and professional expression, the GMC colludes to deny his right to be heard, and the right of the public to hear him. It denies him the right to seek the truth in open, democratic discourse, and the right to scrutinise the government and hold it to account. It denies diversity and equality of opinion. It denies him his livelihood, and needlessly detaches him from his life’s work and patients who rely on him.

Orwell once said, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”. Well, welcome to a very veterinary Animal Farm.

Violation and criminalisation of human rights is becoming quite the corona-craze for official and charitable bodies. The British Academy, the Royal Society, the GMC, the government, the police… who next? Jonathan Sumption in retirement from judicial office is now able to speak with an impunity and candour not afforded to Dr Adil. Like Adil, he is a lone renegade. He pointedly called out the indifference of so-called civil rights organisations such as Liberty – which has a history of intervening for the partisan rights of Remainers – when it comes to defending everyone else’s human rights.

We now have the Labour party wishing to criminalise and censor our free speech. This time their leverage is “anti-vaxxers”, but even that term is problematic. I would imagine it is a defamatory slur designed by the corporate mandatory vaccine pushers who wish to smokescreen the fact that most objectors are manifestly not anti-vax. They are simply and reasonably against useless, unsafe, rushed and unproven pharmaceuticals where the profit-centric corporations are given state immunity from civil and criminal prosecution should the pharmaceutical be dangerous.

This is aside from the very serious issues of common assault, treatment without consent, and the violation of patient choice. In the context of what we know about the risks of the virus, none of this is appropriate, nor proportionate. What we now have is a mainstream principal of discretionary free speech at the behest of one ideological blob. If you do not worship at that altar, your god does not necessarily get to be heard, and may as well not exist.

Dr. Adil is not the first nor only doctor to accuse the WHO, Pharma and governments of a hoax pandemic. Did you know we had a relatively dry practice run of the orchestration of the apparatus to inflict terror on the world and fill the coffers of Big Pharma in 2009-2010 with swine flu? A German doctor and politician, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, accused the WHO of conspiring with Pharma to redefine and lower the threshold of declaring a pandemic.

 That brings me to another doctor who might equally be accused of “over-valued ideas” and occupying the other end of the so-called pandemic hoax spectrum. She argues for the embattled corporate propagandists Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson and Johnson. She is Dame Clare Marx, Chair of the GMC. This is what she wrote a week before Lockdown 2.0: [emphases in bold are mine].

A GMC Love Letter

 27.10.20

Your wellbeing matters – a message from Dame Clare Marx

Experiences of this pandemic will not be uniform, but for sure, none of us will be left unchanged.

Doctors have found themselves working at the edge of their comfort zone. Some of you have confronted harrowing situations. Some have made difficult decisions against a backdrop of uncertainty and fear. Some have been unable to give the care you wanted to give. 

Now, on top of managing rising demand, a weighty backlog of elective work and the second wave of the pandemic, doctors are bracing themselves for the much-anticipated winter storm.

We know that you and your teams are already weary. With barely time to process the events of recent months, many of you are now steeling yourselves for the inevitable challenges to come.

That commitment and resolve requires a huge physical and emotional effort, some would say it’s an act of courage.

We went into medicine to help people and to make things better. But we can’t do that without caring for ourselves too. Your wellbeing matters – to you, your patients and to us as your regulator.

We want to support you so you can keep delivering the best possible care to patients. We’ve compiled helpful resources here to help you survive and thrive over the coming months.

We all know that this will be a marathon, not a sprint.

The nature of being a doctor is to go above and beyond to deliver the care our patients require. But doing that requires doctors to take their own wellbeing seriously.

On behalf of the GMC, and as a doctor myself, I am immensely proud of the profession’s response to this crisis.

Thank you for your continued dedication and professionalism. Please look after yourselves, and each other.

Dame Clare Marx

Chair of the General Medical Council

When I received this call to arms, I had to step back in some amazement. I found it unrepresentative, patronising and inappropriate in many parts. This letter was innuendo and euphemism, wrapped up in a tissue of concern for our well-being. The problem was ill-defined – is doctors’ mental health failing due to an apocalyptic pandemic or due to the government’s lockdown and suspension of the usual NHS? Or is it the huge backlog she at least acknowledges?

Non-dissident Doctors

However, some doctors do seem immune from GMC scrutiny. Have the two doctors (Drs. Martin Landry and Peter Horby) involved in the Oxford Recovery trial been properly held to account for unusually high doses of hydroxychloroquine given to presumably vulnerable hospitalised patients with advanced Covid-19? This may have killed cheap, generic hydroxychloroquine’s early promise as a community prophylactic and early treatment in Covid-19 at low and normal doses, leaving the market wide open for expensive, novel, commercially exploitable vaccines and therapies. In fact, it may well have: watch Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty reject hydroxychloroquine as a result of Recovery.

It could be argued that Recovery might have hastened the demise of some of its participants. But, still, it is Dr. Adil who remains the GMC’s prime target and public enemy number one of our dysfunctional state.

How did Recovery receive ethical approval to give excessive doses to vulnerable patients in an advanced Covid-19 state with hydroxychloroquine when mainstream media was telling us hydroxychloroquine was dangerous and toxic at normal doses? The Recovery trial gave a massive 2400mg hydroxychloroquine in the first 24 hrs, and 800mg every subsequent 24 hrs for the next 9 days. Who proposed and approved these doses? The normal daily dose is 200-400mg, and it is a general pharmaceutical principle that patients with organ failure are sometimes given lower doses to avoid toxicity.

Recovery concluded hydroxychloroquine had no effect on survival, but what if it did and this was masked by its potential toxicity? Emerging data from other studies tells us that hydroxychloroquine may have an effective role to in early stage Covid-19 at low/normal doses.

Something doesn’t add up. It seems as if the Recovery trial result has caused a character assassination on hydroxychloroquine. Are none of my colleagues concerned about this? Surely, there is a case to answer for these doctors.

What would GMC scrutiny make of Drs. Pittard, Whitty, Landry, Horby and Marx? Are they merely GMC-compliant, dutiful doctors; are they ethical and competent professionals; have their actions protected patients and public confidence or caused harm and grossly negligent deaths? What about their “fitness to practise”? These are the complex and challenging questions for the GMC that only a few lone renegades are willing to ask.

What can we do? I would urge the public to make their views known to their MPs and copy in the GMC and the Free Speech Union. Submit FOIA requests to the GMC, hold it to account – it acts for you. Support the Free Speech Union, and protect yourself and others by joining it and donating to it. We live in interesting times, and I fear they are about to become more interesting.

Read More

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Women’s basketball is gaining ground, but is March Madness ready to rival the men’s game?

The hype around Caitlin Clark, NCAA Women’s Basketball is unprecedented — but can its March Madness finally rival the Men’s?

Published

on

In March 2021, the world was struggling to find its legs amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Sports leagues were trying their best to keep going.

It started with the NBA creating a bubble in Orlando in late 2020, playing a full postseason in the confines of Disney World in arenas that were converted into gyms devoid of fans. Other leagues eventually allowed for limited capacity seating in stadiums, including the NCAA for its Men’s and Women’s Basketball tournaments.

The two tournaments were confined to two cities that year — instead of games normally played in different regions around the country: Indianapolis for the men and San Antonio for the women.

But a glaring difference between the men’s and women’s facilities was exposed by Oregon’s Sedona Prince on social media. The workout and practice area for the men was significantly larger than the women, whose weight room was just a single stack of dumbbells.

The video drew significant attention to the equity gaps between the Men’s and Women’s divisions, leading to a 114-page report by a civil rights law firm that detailed the inequities between the two and suggested ways to improve the NCAA’s efforts for the Women’s side. One of these suggestions was simply to give the Women’s Tournament the same March Madness moniker as the men, which it finally got in 2022.

But underneath the surface of these institutional changes, women’s basketball’s single-biggest success driver was already emerging out of the shadows.

During the same COVID-marred season, a rookie from Iowa led the league in scoring with 26.6 points per game.

Her name: Caitlin Clark.

Caitlin Clark has scored the most points and made the most threes in college basketball.

Matthew Holst/Getty Images

As it stands today, Clark is the leading scorer in the history of college basketball — Men’s or Women’s. Her jaw-dropping shooting ability has fueled record viewership and ticket sales for Women’s collegiate games, carrying momentum to the March Madness tournament that has NBA legends like Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce more excited for the Women’s March Madness than the Men’s this year.

Related: Ticket prices for Caitlin Clark's final college home game are insanely high

But as the NCAA tries to bridge the opportunities given to the two sides, can the hype around Clark be enough for the Women’s March Madness to bring in the same fandom as the Men for the 2024 tournaments?

TheStreet spoke with Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, who has been following sports viewership trends for the last two decades; Melissa Isaacson, a veteran sports journalist and longtime advocate of women’s basketball; and Pete Giorgio, Deloitte’s leader for Global and US Sports to dissect the rise Caitlin Clark and women’s collegiate hoops ahead of March Madness.

“Nobody is moving the needle like Caitlin Clark,” Lewis told TheStreet. “Nobody else in sports, period, right now, is fueling record numbers on all these different networks, driving viewership beyond what the norm has been for 20 years."

The Caitlin Clark Effect is real — but there are other reasons for the success of women's basketball

The game in which Clark broke the all-time college scoring record against Ohio State on Sunday, Mar. 3 was seen by an average of 3.4 million viewers on Fox, marking the first time a women’s game broke the two million viewership barrier since 2010. Viewership for that game came in just behind the men’s game between Michigan State vs Arizona game on Thanksgiving, which Lewis said was driven by NFL viewership on the same day.

A week later, Iowa’s Big Ten Championship win over Nebraska breached the three million viewers mark as well, and the team has also seen viewership numbers crack over 1.5 million viewers multiple times throughout the regular season.

The success on television has also translated to higher ticket prices, as tickets to watch Clark at home and on the road have breached hundreds of dollars and drawn long lines outside stadiums. Isaacson, who is a professor at Northwestern, said she went to the game between the Hawkeyes and Northwestern Wildcats — which was the first sellout in school history for the team — and witnessed the effect of Clark in person.

“Standing in line interviewing people at the Northwestern game, seeing men who've never been to a women's game with their little girls watching and so excited, and seeing Caitlin and her engaging with little girls, it’s just been really fun,” Isaacson said.

But while Clark is certainly the biggest success driver, her game isn’t the only thing pulling up the women’s side. The three-point revolution, which started in the NBA with the introduction of deeper analytics as well as the rise of stars like Steph Curry, has been a positive for the Women’s game.

“They backed up to the three-point line and it’s opening up the game,” Isaacson said.

One of the major criticisms from a lot of women’s hoops detractors has been how the game does not compare in terms of quality to the men. However, shooting has become a great equalizer, displayed recently during the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend last month when the WNBA’s Sabrina Ionescu nearly defeated Curry — who is widely considered the greatest shooter ever — in a three-point contest.

Clark has become the embodiment of the three-point revolution for the women. Her shooting displays have demanded the respect of anyone who has doubted women’s basketball in the past because being a man simply doesn’t grant someone the ability to shoot long-distance bombs the way she can.

Basketball pundit Bill Simmons admitted on a Feb. 28 episode of “The Bill Simmons Podcast” that he used to not want to watch women’s basketball because he didn’t enjoy watching the product, but finds himself following the women’s game this year more than the men’s side in large part due to Clark.

“I think she has the chance to be the most fun basketball player, male or female, when she gets to the pros,” Simmons said. “If she’s going to make the same 30-footers, routinely. It’s basically all the same Curry stuff just with a female … I would like watching her play in any format.”

But while Clark is driving up the numbers at the top, she’s not the only one carrying the greatness of the product. Lewis, Isaacson, Giorgio — and even Simmons, on his podcast — agreed that there are several other names and collegiate programs pulling in fans.

“It’s not just Iowa, it’s not just Caitlin Clark, it’s all of these teams,” Giorgio said. “Part of it is Angel Reese … coaches like Dawn Staley in South Carolina … You’ve got great stories left and right.”

LSU's Angel Reese (right) and her head coach Kim Mulkey are two of the biggest names in Women's college hoops. 

Eakin Howard/Getty Images

The viewership showed that as well because the SEC Championship game between the LSU Tigers and University of South Carolina Gamecocks on Sunday, Mar. 10 averaged two million viewers.

Bridging the gap between the Men’s and Women’s March Madness viewership

The first reason women are catching up to the men is really star power. While the Women’s division has names like Clark and Reese, there just aren’t any names on the Men’s side this year that carry the same weight.

Garnett said on his show that he can’t name any men’s college basketball players, while on the women’s side, he could easily throw out the likes of Clark, Reese, UConn’s Paige Bueckers, and USC’s JuJu Watkins. Lewis felt the same.

“The stars in the men's game, with one and done, I genuinely couldn't give you a single name of a single men’s player,” Lewis said.

A major reason for this is that the Women’s side has the continuity that the Men’s side does not. The rules of the NBA allow for players to play just one year in college — or even play a year professionally elsewhere — before entering the draft, while the WNBA requires players to be 22-years-old during the year of the draft to be eligible.

“You know the stars in the women's game because they stay longer,” Lewis said. “[In the men’s game], the programs are the stars … In the women's game, it's a lot more like the NBA where the players are the stars.”

Parity is also a massive factor on both sides. The women’s game used to be dominated by a few schools like UConn and Notre Dame. Nowadays, between LSU, Iowa, University of South Carolina, Stanford, and UConn, there are a handful of schools that have a shot to win the entire tournament. While this is more exciting for fans, the talent in the women's game isn’t deep enough, so too many upsets are unlikely. Many of the biggest draws are still expected to make deep runs.

But on the men’s side, there is a bigger shot that the smaller programs make it to the end — which is what was seen last year. UConn eventually won the whole thing, but schools without as big of a national fanbase in San Diego State, Florida Atlantic University, and the University Miami rounded out the Final Four.

“People want to see one Cinderella,” Lewis said. “They don't want to see two and three, they want one team that isn't supposed to be there.”

Is Women's March Madness ready to overtake the Men?

Social media might feel like it’s giving more traction to the Women’s game, but experts don’t necessarily expect that to show up in the viewership numbers just yet.

“There’s certainly a lot more buzz than there used to be,” Giorgio said. “It’s been growing every year for not just the past few years but for 10 years, but it’s hard to compare it versus Men’s.”

But the gap continues to get smaller and smaller between the two sides, and this year's tournament could bridge that gap even further.

One indicator is ticket prices. For the NCAA Tournament Final Four in April, “get-in” ticket prices are currently more expensive for the Women’s game than the Men’s game, according to TickPick. The ticketing site also projects that the Women’s Final Four and Championship game ticket prices will smash any previous records for the Women’s side should Clark and the Hawkeyes make a run to the end.

NCAA "get-in" price comparison.

Getty Images/TheStreet

The caveat is that the Women’s Final Four is played in a stadium that has less than a third of the seating capacity of the Men’s Final Four. That’s why the average ticket prices are still more expensive for the men, although the gap is a lot smaller this year than in previous years.

The gap between the average ticket prices of the Final Four tournaments is getting smaller.

But that caveat pretty much sums up where the women’s game currently stands versus the men’s: There is still a significant gap between the distribution and availability of the former.

While Iowa’s regular season games have garnered millions of viewers, the majority of the most-viewed games are still Men’s contests.

To illustrate the gap between the men’s and women’s game — last year’s Women’s Championship game that saw the LSU Tigers defeat the Hawkeyes was a record-breaking one for the women, drawing an average of 9.9 million viewers, more than double the viewership from the previous year.

One of the main reasons for that increase, as Lewis pointed out, is that last year’s Championship game was on ABC, which was the first time since 1995 that the Women’s Championship game was on broadcast television. The 1995 contest between UConn and Tennessee drew 7.4 million viewers.

The Men’s Championship actually had a record low in viewership last year garnering only 14.7 million viewers, driven in-part due to a lack of hype surrounding the schools that made it to the Final Four and Championship game. Viewership for the Men’s title game has been trending down in recent years — partly due to the effect the pandemic had on collective sports viewership — but the Men’s side had been easily breaching 20 million viewers for the game as recently as 2017.

The 2023 Women's National Championship was the most-viewed game ever, while the Men's Championship was the division's least watched. 

Iowa's Big Ten Championship win on Sunday actually only averaged 6,000 fewer viewers than the iconic rivalry game between Duke and University of North Carolina Men’s Basketball the day prior. However, there is also the case that the Iowa game was played on broadcast TV (CBS) versus the Duke-UNC game airing on cable channel (ESPN).

So historical precedence makes it unlikely that we’ll see the women’s game match the men’s in terms of viewership as early as this year barring another massive viewership jump for the women and a lack of recovery for the Men’s side.

But ultimately, this shouldn’t be looked at as a down point for Women’s Basketball, according to Lewis. The Men’s side has built its viewership base for years, and the Women’s side is still growing. Even keeping pace with the Men’s viewership is already a great sign.

“The fact that these games have Caitlin Clark are even in the conversation with men's games, in terms of viewership is a huge deal,” Lewis said.

Related: Angel Reese makes bold statement for avoiding late game scuffle in championship game

Read More

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

One city held a mass passport-getting event

A New Orleans congressman organized a way for people to apply for their passports en masse.

Published

on

While the number of Americans who do not have a passport has dropped steadily from more than 80% in 1990 to just over 50% now, a lack of knowledge around passport requirements still keeps a significant portion of the population away from international travel.

Over the four years that passed since the start of covid-19, passport offices have also been dealing with significant backlog due to the high numbers of people who were looking to get a passport post-pandemic. 

Related: Here is why it is (still) taking forever to get a passport

To deal with these concurrent issues, the U.S. State Department recently held a mass passport-getting event in the city of New Orleans. Called the "Passport Acceptance Event," the gathering was held at a local auditorium and invited residents of Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District to complete a passport application on-site with the help of staff and government workers.

A passport case shows the seal featured on American passports.

Amazon

'Come apply for your passport, no appointment is required'

"Hey #LA02," Rep. Troy A. Carter Sr. (D-LA), whose office co-hosted the event alongside the city of New Orleans, wrote to his followers on Instagram  (META) . "My office is providing passport services at our #PassportAcceptance event. Come apply for your passport, no appointment is required."

More Travel:

The event was held on March 14 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. While it was designed for those who are already eligible for U.S. citizenship rather than as a way to help non-citizens with immigration questions, it helped those completing the application for the first time fill out forms and make sure they have the photographs and identity documents they need. The passport offices in New Orleans where one would normally have to bring already-completed forms have also been dealing with lines and would require one to book spots weeks in advance.

These are the countries with the highest-ranking passports in 2024

According to Carter Sr.'s communications team, those who submitted their passport application at the event also received expedited processing of two to three weeks (according to the State Department's website, times for regular processing are currently six to eight weeks).

While Carter Sr.'s office has not released the numbers of people who applied for a passport on March 14, photos from the event show that many took advantage of the opportunity to apply for a passport in a group setting and get expedited processing.

Every couple of months, a new ranking agency puts together a list of the most and least powerful passports in the world based on factors such as visa-free travel and opportunities for cross-border business.

In January, global citizenship and financial advisory firm Arton Capital identified United Arab Emirates as having the most powerful passport in 2024. While the United States topped the list of one such ranking in 2014, worsening relations with a number of countries as well as stricter immigration rules even as other countries have taken strides to create opportunities for investors and digital nomads caused the American passport to slip in recent years.

A UAE passport grants holders visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 180 of the world’s 198 countries (this calculation includes disputed territories such as Kosovo and Western Sahara) while Americans currently have the same access to 151 countries.

Read More

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Fast-food chain closes restaurants after Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Several major fast-food chains recently have struggled to keep restaurants open.

Published

on

Competition in the fast-food space has been brutal as operators deal with inflation, consumers who are worried about the economy and their jobs and, in recent months, the falling cost of eating at home. 

Add in that many fast-food chains took on more debt during the covid pandemic and that labor costs are rising, and you have a perfect storm of problems. 

It's a situation where Restaurant Brands International (QSR) has suffered as much as any company.  

Related: Wendy's menu drops a fan favorite item, adds something new

Three major Burger King franchise operators filed for bankruptcy in 2023, and the chain saw hundreds of stores close. It also saw multiple Popeyes franchisees move into bankruptcy, with dozens of locations closing.

RBI also stepped in and purchased one of its key franchisees.

"Carrols is the largest Burger King franchisee in the United States today, operating 1,022 Burger King restaurants in 23 states that generated approximately $1.8 billion of system sales during the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2023," RBI said in a news release. Carrols also owns and operates 60 Popeyes restaurants in six states." 

The multichain company made the move after two of its large franchisees, Premier Kings and Meridian, saw multiple locations not purchased when they reached auction after Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings. In that case, RBI bought select locations but allowed others to close.

Burger King lost hundreds of restaurants in 2023.

Image source: Chen Jianli/Xinhua via Getty

Another fast-food chain faces bankruptcy problems

Bojangles may not be as big a name as Burger King or Popeye's, but it's a popular chain with more than 800 restaurants in eight states.

"Bojangles is a Carolina-born restaurant chain specializing in craveable Southern chicken, biscuits and tea made fresh daily from real recipes, and with a friendly smile," the chain says on its website. "Founded in 1977 as a single location in Charlotte, our beloved brand continues to grow nationwide."

Like RBI, Bojangles uses a franchise model, which makes it dependent on the financial health of its operators. The company ultimately saw all its Maryland locations close due to the financial situation of one of its franchisees.

Unlike. RBI, Bojangles is not public — it was taken private by Durational Capital Management LP and Jordan Co. in 2018 — which means the company does not disclose its financial information to the public. 

That makes it hard to know whether overall softness for the brand contributed to the chain seeing its five Maryland locations after a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

Bojangles has a messy bankruptcy situation

Even though the locations still appear on the Bojangles website, they have been shuttered since late 2023. The locations were operated by Salim Kakakhail and Yavir Akbar Durranni. The partners operated under a variety of LLCs, including ABS Network, according to local news channel WUSA9

The station reported that the owners face a state investigation over complaints of wage theft and fraudulent W2s. In November Durranni and ABS Network filed for bankruptcy in New Jersey, WUSA9 reported.

"Not only do former employees say these men owe them money, WUSA9 learned the former owners owe the state, too, and have over $69,000 in back property taxes."

Former employees also say that the restaurant would regularly purchase fried chicken from Popeyes and Safeway when it ran out in their stores, the station reported. 

Bojangles sent the station a comment on the situation.

"The franchisee is no longer in the Bojangles system," the company said. "However, it is important to note in your coverage that franchisees are independent business owners who are licensed to operate a brand but have autonomy over many aspects of their business, including hiring employees and payroll responsibilities."

Kakakhail and Durranni did not respond to multiple requests for comment from WUSA9.

Read More

Continue Reading

Trending