COVID-19

WEEKLY REMINDER

COVID HAS A SURVIVAL RATE OF 99.91+% FOR THOSE UNDER 60

THIS GENE EXPERIMENTAL JAB DOES NOT

LATEST VAERS COVID VACCINE DATA THROUGH AUGUST 23, 2021

650,075 Total Reports of adverse effects

REPORTED / vs. / ESTIMATED

• DEATHS: 13,911 / 139K – this is after CDC deleted some death reports (https://t.me/westcoastintel/13200)
• HOSPITALIZATIONS: 56,912 / 569K
• URGENT CARE: 76,159 / 761k
• OFFICE VISITS: 103,837 / 1M
• ANAPHYLAXIS: 5,752 / 57k
• BELL’S PALSY: 4,832 / 48k
• MISCARRIAGES: 1,709 / 17K
• HEART ATTACKS: 6,217 / 62K
• MYOCARDITIS/PERICARDITIS: 5,222 / 52K
• PERMANENTLY DISABLED: 18,098 / 181k
• LOW PLATELET: 2,870 / 28k
• LIFE THREATENING: 14,328 / 143k
• SEVERE ALLERGY: 26,655 / 266k
• SHINGLES: 7,578 / 75k

As a physician, I think it’s incredibly important for patients to have access to as much life-saving information as possible, especially as we still continue to see COVID-19 cases across the country.

In a commonsense move last week, Florida’s surgeon general announced that any Floridian is now eligible to receive monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19, without having to deal with the bureaucracy of a doctor’s office. 

Since then, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has opened nearly 15 state-run COVID-19 treatment clinics in an effort to relieve overrun hospitals. These clinics offer access to monoclonal antibody cocktails which are highly effective in treating COVID-19 patients before their condition worsens. The treatment is an IV infusion but is done as an outpatient. 

Rather than follow the lead of DeSantis, our governor in Kentucky continues to only support more mandates with the ever-looming threat of lockdowns as the last line of defense against COVID-19.

For quite a while now I’ve publicly praised the benefits of monoclonal antibodies and urged Kentuckians and Americans to be aware of this remarkable and effective treatment.

While Dr. Anthony Fauci and his friends at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have failed to adequately promote this treatment, that hasn’t stopped me from speaking out about it – both in media interviews and while traveling across Kentucky.

You deserve to have this critical information. 

If you are infected with the COVID-19 virus and begin to have a bronchitis-like cough, and you’re not yet sick enough to be hospitalized but are continuing to get sicker, you should ask your doctor about receiving monoclonal antibodies as a treatment. 

Monoclonal antibodies are designed to block the virus’ attachment and entry into the cell. 

Bad news:After worst week for COVID-19 cases in Kentucky, state sets more hospitalization records

If you have the virus, this treatment could potentially save your life. It helped President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Chris Christie when they were battling the disease and it could help you too. 

These antibodies are proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful antigens that have also been modified to directly fight against the spike proteins of COVID-19. 

At this point in the fight against COVID-19, we have developed many groundbreaking treatments. Unfortunately, Dr. Fauci and the Biden administration continue to downplay monoclonal antibody treatment and promote mitigation strategies such as cloth masks, which peer reviewed studies have shown are ineffective.

Think about it, if there’s a patient in the hospital with COVID, and you ask the doctors and nurses what kind of mask they wear, none of them wear cloth masks when caring for a COVID patient. They all wear an N95 mask, as it’s the only mask that effectively filters out virus particles. 

More:Delta-driven surge enters deadlier phase in US – and who’s dying is changing; Fauci promotes monoclonal antibodies

Every day now we find that immunity is not perfect and breakthrough infections are increasing. Fortunately, the community immunity developed from both natural infection and vaccination has greatly reduced the current hospitalization and death rate. Once everyone becomes aware of the benefits of other treatments such as monoclonal antibodies and corticosteroids even more lives will be saved.

Vaccines and natural immunity are, in my opinion, the primary reason why hospitalizations and death rate have plummeted. To be clear, my opinion on vaccines has not changed. I’m still pro-vaccine, as I’ve always been, especially for those with high risk factors like older age and increased weight. However, I’m also pro-freedom, and in a free country people will evaluate their personal risk factors and are smart enough to ultimately make medical decisions themselves.

So, rather than only offering or promoting one treatment and instituting illogical lockdowns, I urge Gov. Beshear to follow suit of Gov. DeSantis and the people of Florida.

Monoclonal antibodies are an effective treatment for this virus that little attention has been paid to. This has to change. It is another effective tool in the fight against COVID and could help save countless lives.

Rand Paul is a Republican U.S. senator from Kentucky.

Rand Paul: Monoclonal antibodies could save your life from COVID-19 (courier-journal.com)

Pfizer revealed on Wednesday that it gave its first dose to a patient participating in its phase 2/3 clinical trial examining the efficacy of an orally administered drug that is designed to combat COVID-19.

CEO Albert Bourla on Wednesday night wrote on Twitter that “success against COVID19 will likely require both vaccines [and] treatments” and said the pharmaceutical giant started a “Phase 2/3 study of our oral antiviral candidate—specifically designed to combat SARS-CoV-2—in non-hospitalized, low-risk adults.”

The drug, which has been dubbed PF-07321332, is designed for COVID-19 patients who haven’t been hospitalized but who have symptoms of the virus and are at low risk of seeing it progress to become a severe disease.

The randomized, double-blind trial will enroll about 1,140 participants, who will get either PF-07321332 or a placebo orally every 12 hours for five days, according to a press release from Pfizer (pdf).

“Protease inhibitors, like PF-07321332, are designed to block the activity of the main protease enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate,” the release said. “Co-administration with a low dose of ritonavir is expected to help slow the metabolism, or breakdown, of PF-07321332 in order for it to remain in the body for longer periods of time at higher concentrations, thereby working continuously to help combat the virus.”

Currently, the only three COVID-19 drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are the vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the vaccines’ efficacy for keeping people out of the hospital has dropped. In an update, the agency said that against the Delta variant, the vaccines’ effectiveness at keeping people out of the hospital was between 75 percent and 95 percent in July—a drop from 97 percent in June.

It comes as the American Medical Association (AMA) called for “immediate end” to the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19, and for doctors to stop prescribing it after podcast host and comedian Joe Rogan confirmed he took the drug in combination with other medications to treat COVID-19.

“We are alarmed by reports that outpatient prescribing for and dispensing of ivermectin have increased 24-fold since before the pandemic and increased exponentially over the past few months,” the AMA said on Thursday.

Ivermectin has been labeled as a “horse dewormer” by some mainstream media outlets, but the drug has been used for decades to treat river blindness and intestinal roundworm infection in humans. Over the course of the pandemic, some doctors have prescribed it for COVID-19, and several Indian states authorized the drug’s usage to treat the virus earlier this year.

Variations of the drug are given to pets and livestock, and federal officials have warned people against taking animal ivermectin for COVID-19, saying it could lead to hospitalization or even death. In veterinary medicine, the drug is designed to prevent and treat heartworm.

COVID-19 is the illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

While there is technically no federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the United States, widespread vaccine mandates among public and private institutions have formed a “de facto…nationwide mandate” that is “creating a two-tier society” in which the unvaccinated are systematically ostracized, warns economist and author Jim Rickards.

“Whether you had [COVID-19] or not, need [the vaccine] or not, young or not, vulnerable or not, you have to take it, or you’re going to be pushed to the margins of society,” Rickards, author of “The New Great Depression: Winners and Losers in a Post-Pandemic World,” told The Epoch Times.

In addition to government institutions mandating vaccines—including the Pentagon recently requiring that military members get vaccinated—private companies requiring employee vaccinations include Walmart, Google, Netflix, Disney, and Tyson Foods. President Joe Biden specifically thanked these companies in an August press briefing “for their recent actions requiring vaccination for employees,” and said, “I know this isn’t easy—but I will have their backs.”

“One by one, these private institutions, think tanks, universities, state and municipal governments, the military, federal police … federal contractors … uniformed military, etc. … when you add up all these individual mandates, public and private, they’re tantamount to a federal mandate, even though there’s no single federal mandate,” Rickards said.

“This is just a drive, almost a monomaniacal drive, to get everybody in America to take the vaccine. Everybody,” he added. “If you want to participate in society, whether it’s going to school, dining out, social life, sports, whatever, you have to be vaccinated. If you’re not vaccinated, you’re going to be, in effect, in the basement. You’re going to be crammed down in the basement. You’ll be treated like a leper.”

Rickards further described a new societal dynamic that he sees taking shape, saying that there is an institutional drive to make life difficult for those who resist receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

“[Institutions are] not content. They’re saying, well, in some situations, we can’t force you to take the vaccination, but we’re going to make your life miserable in the meantime by saying you have to be tested once a week or you have to sit apart,” he said, using sporting events as an example. Earlier this year, Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners provided special “vaccinated-only” seats without social distancing for fans who had received a COVID-19 vaccination, while those who had not been vaccinated were seated in socially distanced “unvaccinated” sections. Other perks for vaccinated fans included access to special sections in the Mariners’ stadium, including a space next to the bullpen in center field and a terrace above left field.

“Some places, they say, ‘Well, [unvaccinated fans] can come to the sporting event, but we have a special seating section in the upper deck, and the hot dog guy doesn’t go there. So, you can go to the ballgame, but you get the worst seat and no hot dogs and no beer, etc.’ But that’s what we’ve done.”

Rickards said that there are major questions about why so much institutional pressure is being brought to bear to enforce blanket COVID-19 vaccinations, pointing out that there has been serious discussion in the United States about potentially needing a vaccine passport for interstate transportation.

He asked, “Is it about pharmaceutical company profits? Is it about basically using COVID vaccination as a handle for a national ID system?”

Censorship and Mandates

On Aug. 28, former New York Times journalist and author Alex Berenson, who is a noted critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and lockdowns, was permanently suspended from Twitter after posting: “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it—at best—as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”

Rickards considers that available COVID-19 treatments commonly referred to as vaccines are, by definition, not actually vaccines.

“It doesn’t stop you from getting [COVID-19], and it doesn’t stop you from spreading [COVID-19]. And so, that’s not a vaccine as it’s understood, and it’s not a vaccine as it’s defined in law,” Rickards said of available COVID-19 treatments. “So, is it a treatment? Yeah. Is it effective in some ways? Yes. I don’t deny that.”

In his book, Rickards cites Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University, who previously said, “There aren’t any vaccines for human coronaviruses … We don’t have a single vaccine for any of them.”

“Dr. Bhattacharya makes a point that is often lost in the Wall Street chatter and hype about ‘silver bullets’ and ‘miracle drugs,’” Rickards writes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health agencies have said that COVID-19 vaccines “are safe and effective” after clinical trials and say that side effects are rare. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walenksy and others have cited studies saying that the vaccines don’t necessarily prevent transmission of COVID-19, but have stated that the shots limit the severity of the illness.

The CDC, on its website, also says that mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are considered vaccines.

“mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, work differently than other types of vaccines, but they still trigger an immune response inside your body. This type of vaccine is new, but research and development on it has been under way for decades,” it states.

Pfizer and Moderna did not return requests for comment.

Berenson, the former New York Times journalist, also hinted that he will be filing a lawsuit related to his suspension from Twitter, writing on his Substack page, “I can’t wait to hear what a jury will make of this.”

Prior to his Twitter suspension, Berenson had also posted tweets about university COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In July, after a federal judge rejected a request by eight Indiana University students to block the university’s requirement that students be vaccinated against COVID-19 or receive an exemption, Berenson noted in a tweet, “Another court ruling in favor of vaccine mandates/quasi-mandates – this time for a public university.”

Later, in August, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett refused an emergency request from the eight students to block Indiana University’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The students had argued that they “have a constitutional right to bodily integrity, autonomy, and of medical treatment choice in the context of a vaccination mandate.”

Regarding university COVID-19 vaccine mandates, Rickards said: “Basically the entire class, the entering or returning class of 2021, is being told, ‘you can’t go back to school without a vaccine.’ By the way, [these students] are college kids, you know they’re 18, 19, 20 years old. They’re the least vulnerable [to COVID-19] other than children.”

The author, who completed his undergraduate studies in the 1970s, said that those who are older statistically have different risk calculations with respect to COVID-19 vaccination than university students.

“My chance of a severe case of COVID is much higher … Statistically that’s just true, and I’ll take my chance with the vaccine, but 18- and 19-year-olds have no business taking the vaccine because the trade-off is different, your risk of a serious case is very low and [of] side effects—they could be a lifetime—are high,” he said.

Rickards predicted that there will likely be more cases similar to the lawsuit brought by Indiana University students in the near future, with “inconsistent decisions” in various courts and “one or more landmark rulings over the course of the next year.”

“The history of cases like this when you get back to other vaccines … in terms of public school admissions and so forth, has tended to favor the vaccine requirement. Not in every case,” he said. “I’m not highly optimistic that the courts are going to come down on the side of the individuals in these cases. But again, these cases have a long way to go.”

‘Live Free or Die’

Rickards noted that, in addition to vaccine mandates, “mask mandates are back in a lot of places” in the United States, and are impacting interstate travel.

“I live in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and our motto here is ‘Live Free or Die,’” Rickards said, referencing the state’s motto, which was originally written by John Stark, a Continental Army general during the American Revolution. “And I’ll give the [New Hampshire] governor [Chris Sununu] a lot of credit. So far we’re standing up for that … right now there’s no mask mandate, there’s no vaccination requirement for indoor dining.”

In other parts of the country, however, mask mandates are in effect. Rickards described a recent mask-related standoff that he experienced in Los Angeles: After landing at Los Angeles International Airport, Rickards rented a car to drive to his hotel, and pulled up to an airport parking lot checkpoint, staffed by an attendant who would open a gate to let Rickards drive the rental car out of the parking lot.

“I pull up to the booth, I’m not wearing a mask, and the guy says, ‘Put a mask on.’ I said, ‘I’m in a car by myself. Why do I need a mask?’” Rickards recounted. “And he said, ‘If you don’t put the mask on, I’m not opening the gate.’ And he was 10 feet away. He had a mask on.”

Rickards was carrying a mask in his pocket, and put it on to comply with the attendant’s demand.

“He opened the gate, and I ripped it off before I drove through to let him know what I thought of it,” Rickards said.

He stated that varying and inconsistent pandemic-related rules across the United States discourage travel and create an “enormous” economic headwind.

“There are all kinds of constitutional and curtailment-of-liberty-and-freedom-of-choice issues all around this,” Rickards said, referring to pandemic-related mandates. “But if you just want to convert it to dollars and cents, this hurts business, travel, leisure, resorts, restaurants, cruise ships, airlines, hotels, you name it. It’s hurting all of it.”

Vaccine Mandates ‘Creating a Two-Tier Society’ in the US: Expert (theepochtimes.com)

For every American wanting to preserve their freedom and counter the unfolding communist revolution in the world, this must-watch episode of “Counterpunch” with Trevor Loudon is the place to start. The episode, entitled “How Pro-CCP (Chinese Communist Party) Communists Are Working to Flip North Carolina,” covers key strategies that communist activists and the CCP use to infiltrate and take over states through winning elections for Democrats. Loudon breaks down how this strategy could soon flip the balance of power in the United States completely in pro-CCP Democrats favor. “We have a world to win back and we don’t have much time,” he said.

Loudon uses the state of North Carolina as the key example in this episode, explaining that North Carolina is a big target for the left and communists. This is due to the number of universities there with cutting edge research, which makes it an ideal location to place spies and steal technology. North Carolina also plays a key role in the presidential election as a path to victory. The infiltration of minority communities and activist efforts there could result in flipping the state blue (Democratic), therefore making it very difficult for any Republican to ever win the presidency again.

Loudon explains how this method was done in Virginia—flipping the state from Republican to now a solid Democrat stronghold. This effort was done by a pro Communist Party organization that worked to give votes back to convicted felons. It was those votes that flipped Virginia. The organizations were well versed in the demographics needed to win, with the maps they used even being generated from the Geography Department of Wuhan University in China. This shouldn’t be a surprise. The important thing for Americans to understand is that the goal of the American pro-Chinese communists is to flip the south, as it is the stronghold of the Republican Party and Conservative Christians. This is the area for them to flip in order to destroy the Republican Party.

Liberation Road is the pro-CCP organization that Loudon delves into in this episode. This group is made up of many self proclaimed communists with ties to the CCP. These activists have been moving people in large numbers to areas of North Carolina and working to sway voter demographics in their favor as well as infiltrate local organizations. Many of the voter registration organizations they work with are in fact front groups that target different communities, such as rural or minority areas, and coordinate their efforts towards one specific goal.

The episode mentions key activists to be aware of in North Carolina, their pro-communist ties, and what role they are playing with these various front organizations. Loudon also gives examples of how activists have turned the teachers and union members of North Carolina into a voting block and increasingly militant force as well as how they mobilize targeted communities to win elections. The main pattern Liberation Road uses is to get involved in the minority communities and activate them to vote Democratic in big numbers. This strategy is how they intend to flip the state.

Durham, North Carolina, is a critical target to achieve this goal. Liberation Road has moved large numbers of people into that area and worked to elect people into local governing positions such as school board, sheriff, city council, and others. “Two organizations: The Durham People’s Alliance and Durham for All have basically put almost every serving member of the city council in their seats. And they call in favors.” Loudon says. This level of control gives these organizations key access to money, systems, information, and experience. Loudon points out that taking control of a city is a great way to learn how to take over and govern an entire state.

The episode even takes a look into the various city council members and mayors that communist fronts have elected, and their connection with the organizations. It is important to know backgrounds and affiliations before voting so that voters can be educated on who these candidates are connected with and what their motives are. Statewide, the Carolina Federation and Durham for All have supported the Democratic ticket top to bottom. Although they support all Democrats running for various positions, the main interest lies in the governor and United States Senate seats.

Right now the Senate is evenly balanced, with 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats. That tie is broken by Vice President Kamala Harris, who Loudon points out also has a pro-CCP background. Every state, regardless of size, has two senators that serve in Washington. In the last year, Durham for All has put significant effort into flipping the two North Carolina Senate seats. If a Democrat were to win those seats, that would win the Democratic Party complete control of the United States Senate and allow them to basically accomplish whatever they want. The Democrats did almost flip one seat in a recent election, but thanks to a sexting scandal from their candidate, the Republican barely squeezed by with a victory. However, this setback was not for lack of trying.

Loudon says people need to understand that: “the communists are very strategic. They understand elections, they understand the balance of power, so they’re always trying to elect Democrats. This is the big reason they’re trying to get Washington, D.C. into a state.” If this Democratic stronghold became a state, the Democratic Party would get two more senators, making it virtually impossible for Republicans to ever control the Senate again. “A few hundred votes could decide the whole balance of power in the nation.” This power would extend to deciding the presidency as well.

The episode also covers North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, who was elected by these pro-communist organizations. His actions of taking down confederate statues is in line with the Liberation Road ripping down and destroying monuments in the state, among other pro-communist agendas that he has pursued. Cooper is very active with pro-China causes, such as the Carolina China Council, which facilitates exchanges between China and Carolina businesses and academia. Liberation Road loves these partnerships. “That’s what they’re here to do. They’re here to give China an avenue to exert its influence in this country. That is their job.”

Loudon says that bringing Chinese companies into your county or your state is like bringing the mafia into your community. Yes there’s going to be a lot of money, but there’s also going to be a lot of corruption with it. “Every major Chinese business is affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party or the People’s Liberation Army or both. This is not like American businesses that hopefully work independently from the government,” says Loudon, stating that Chinese business and the CCP are directly and closely connected. “You do not get big in business in China unless you cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party.” By bringing Chinese companies into North Carolina, Cooper has brought the CCP into the state.

Loudon concludes the episode expressing hope that this information gives Americans a better understanding of what is happening not only in this critical state, but in every state across the country. He stresses that the same principles happening in North Carolina are also being applied all over America and all over the world. Wherever the CCP is involved, they are working with local activists to flip the seats of power in that state or community toward their own interests. “Giving the Communist Party of China access to your country at any level is going to have, openly or covertly, a big impact on your politics, and not in the right direction.”

Watch the full episode on Epoch TV, and be sure to share and spread this crucial information that others need to know.

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The climate army is coming.

Dissatisfied with the American people’s lack of concern for their issue du jour, self-righteous coastal elites are moving on from slick PR campaigns and headline-grabbing protests to deploy a legion of climate activists across the nation—paid for by your tax dollars, whether you like it or not.

President Joe Biden’s proposed Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) would be the biggest mobilization of government labor since the New Deal, a massive and likely permanent expansion of government power cementing the radical climate agenda in our halls of government. It would also burden taxpayers with massive debt—without any impact whatsoever on the global climate.

Though the CCC is said to support such innocuous projects as solar panels and parks, it’s really a slush fund for progressive activism paid for by your tax dollars.

The CCC’s governing structure would allow unelected bureaucrats to funnel taxpayer money wherever they want to with almost no oversight. In fact, it explicitly endorses racially oriented decision-making, requiring at least half of projects to entail “environmental justice”—the murky idea that climate change is the culprit for all manner of racial disparities. This is the opposite of both equity and transparency, two goals the Biden administration claims to aspire to.

The CCC also plans (pdf) to extend taxpayer dollars to “providing education on climate change,” which is code for funding political activist groups like Greenpeace, the Sunrise Movement, and Movement for Black Lives. These organizations aren’t about the environment so much as providing an advertising arm for the climate doomsday narrative and progressive political agenda.

The CCC’s few potentially beneficial projects are better suited for private industry and charity than a bloated federal behemoth—and its overtly partisan provisions foretell a sinister future for our nation.

While the national economy is still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 lockdowns, with businesses large and small starving for talent, the federal government is preparing to pull 1.5 million workers out of the economy. Instead of embracing the power of the free market, the Biden administration seems set on destroying it.

What’s worse is that the CCC encourages hiring illegal immigrants and will give jobs, benefits, and even tuition reimbursements to people whose first act in the United States was flouting the law to cross the border illegally. A report by the American Accountability Foundation found taxpayers could expect to pay nearly $9 billion to provide illegal immigrants with jobs and benefits through the CCC. The Biden administration’s disastrous response to the border crisis will be significantly worsened by extending another carrot—taxpayer-funded, all-but-permanent jobs—to illegal immigrants instead of prioritizing law-abiding American citizens.

Of course, the CCC will also be required to use union labor—yet another arbitrary and costly provision that will make this progressive dream even more inefficient and even less helpful to the country.

Biden’s supporters might respond that all this is necessary to stave off the climate catastrophe. Surely we have to do something! But climate science—the real data lurking behind apocalyptic headlines and shrill sound bites—doesn’t support Biden’s argument.

There has been no documented increase in climate-related disasters of any kind. In fact, wildfires and floods have actually declined in recent decades. And here’s even better news: Climate-related deaths have fallen by around 98 percent even though the global population has quadrupled in the last century. Humanity in all parts of the world is becoming more resilient to our natural environment, even while activists cry that the end is near.

Even if all this weren’t so and action really was necessary, even the most radical climate rules would make no meaningful difference. Eliminating fossil fuel consumption nationwide—despite being unimaginably expensive while dismantling our economy and putting lives in jeopardy—would reduce global temperatures at the end of the century by less than two-tenths of a degree.

The CCC, like the Green New Deal and other socialist ideas before it, isn’t really about climate change. It’s not about protecting the American future or even about the environment. It’s about pushing America one step closer to socialism and a progressive dystopia where everyone works for the government, there is no free market, and only politically correct opinions are allowed.

It’s no wonder the American people don’t trust the government to spend their money wisely on climate change. Instead, they trust each other. They know that entrepreneurs and innovators willing to do what Americans have always done—roll up their sleeves and try new ideas—have a far better chance of success than inefficient government programs. That’s how the real issues of our time will be solved, from climate adaptability to more pressing concerns like fighting poverty and delivering modern health care to the developing world.

The Climate Army Is Coming (theepochtimes.com)

With the recent release of Congress’ official inquiry into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and the half-expected declaration that the virus was equally as likely to have natural origins as man-made origins, it seems increasingly certain that we’ll never know where COVID-19 actually came from. Not only have scientists still not found the “missing link” animal that allowed the virus to jump from bats to humans, presuming it has a natural origin, but there are two separate labs in Wuhan, China, that deal with bat coronaviruses, and neither of them are talking. It sadly isn’t surprising that Congress couldn’t get any straight answers on this issue after waiting over a year to start asking questions, and were thus left to put out another report whose findings amounted to, “Oh well.”

While the Wuhan Institute of Virology has long been the chief suspect in the lab leak theory, there is a second lab located in Wuhan that has a lower biosafety level and seems to have been quietly swept off the list of suspects between the time Trump first mentioned the potential lab leak and a few months ago, when our media overlords finally decided we’re allowed to talk about it. Thankfully, “Truth Over News” hosts Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke not only remember this second lab, they have devoted an entire episode to it so you’ll remember it, too. “There’s Another Lab in Wuhan That’s Received Far Less Attention: The CCP’s Lab” deals primarily with the main players at this second lab, but also shows its ties with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The main takeaway from the episode is that anyone who believes China will ever tell us anything about the origins of COVID-19 is, at best, a fool.

Carlson starts off introducing the viewer to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention Lab and its own bat enthusiast, Tian Junhua, who was in charge of studying coronaviruses. After giving a teaser about the lab’s proximity to the Huanan Seafood Market that took initial blame for the COVID-19 outbreak, Carlson drops an early bombshell about the date the lab opened, which is enough in itself to hook the audience into instantly wanting to know more. Mahncke picks it up from there and doesn’t disappoint, diving into Junhua’s background with the Chinese CDC and studying bats in particular with a starting timeline of 2012 and stomach turning details. The year 2012 may seem innocent at first, but it comes back into play later in the episode so keep it in mind as you watch.

Despite knowing very little about bats, Junhua trapped them for research with seemingly great enthusiasm. In addition to providing the viewer with his analysis, Mahncke also shows the referenced media story on Junhua so any interested audience member can pause and read for themselves exactly how reckless he was when collecting his specimens.

After revealing the stunning carelessness Junhua employed in capturing bats, Mahncke begins to connect him to other dots in the coronavirus pandemic. Junhua is not just an arbitrary scientist with no regard for safety protocols plucked from a list to support the idea that COVID-19 may have leaked from the Chinese CDC lab. He’s an accredited scientist and an internationally published author, who has written at minimum three papers in conjunction with, among other people, virologist Edward C. Holmes. Holmes was on the teleconference with Anthony Fauci in February 2020 that no one was ever supposed to find out about, where the initial plan to bury the idea that the virus originated in a lab was hatched.

As if this wasn’t enough to raise alarm bells about Junhua and the Chinese CDC lab, Carlson presents an article from a whistleblower in 2018 that outlined not only the deplorable conditions in the level-2 biohazard lab, but how many bats were still in captivity for research purposes. It will come as a surprise to no one that the article quickly vanished from the internet and the whistleblower vanished as well. Carlson then moves on to the date the lab was moved into close proximity to both the wet market and Union Hospital, which both saw COVID-19 outbreaks in the earliest days of the pandemic. Little is known about when or why the lab was moved, but Peter Ben Embarek, lead investigator for the WHO into the origins of COVID-19, was concerned enough about the lab’s recent move to speak with Danish documentary filmmakers about it.

Mahncke picks up Embarek’s trail from there, noting that he joined the “it wasn’t a lab leak” chorus in February 2020, and that his Chinese equivalents were just lovely, helpful people who never stonewalled him or tried to twist his arm into keeping his mouth shut. Again, what he said behind closed doors told the opposite story, even as he continued with the accepted natural origins narrative. Embarek even appears to have fudged the timeline with the WHO of the first coronavirus case happening in mid December 2020.

Holmes and Junhua come back into play as Carlson returns to fill in more of the timeline of the effort to squelch the lab leak theory. They published a joint paper in February 2020 to establish Dec. 26, 2019 as the official date of the first coronavirus case. In what feels a little too much like a planned coincidence, the head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi Zhengli, published a paper on the exact same day claiming she just happened to stumble across a bat virus that was similar in genetic structure to SARS-CoV-2. Zhengli tried to hide the fact that the virus came from samples taken in 2012 (the same year Junhua started working for the Chinese CDC lab) and had managed to kill three miners working where the bats lived.

It’s at least worth asking more pointed questions, which is exactly what Carlson and Mahncke do at the end of the episode. They don’t accuse anyone of a specific cover-up, but rightly point out that there are enough red flags not to just leave this at, “We can’t be sure what happened.” Given the evidence laid out in “There’s Another Lab in Wuhan That’s Received Far Less Attention: The CCP’s Lab,” not wanting to ask questions feels more like a conspiracy theory at this point than speculating about a lab leak. The straightforward, no-nonsense reporting in this episode of “Truth Over News” is more than worthy of watching and sharing, and may finally help put to rest the ridiculous idea that anyone worried about the two labs in Wuhan is just xenophobic.

“Truth Over News” premiers every Tues & Thur at 5 p.m.—exclusive on EpochTV.

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Epoch TV Review: Something is Rotten in Wuhan (theepochtimes.com)

It is the beginning of a never-ending bad dream. Joe Biden and the Pentagon have managed to birth a new terrorist haven, destroy much of U.S. strategic deterrence, and alienate our allies and much of the country.

In the hours after the horrific deaths of 13 service members, we have been reassured by our military that our partnership with the Taliban to provide security for our flights was wise. We were told that the terrorist victors share similar goals to ours in a hasty American retreat from Kabul. We were reminded that Afghan refugees (unlike U.S. soldiers) will not be forced to be vaccinated on arrival. Such statements are either untrue or absurd.

On the very day of the attack that killed American troops, the sergeant major of the U.S. Army reminded us in a tweet that diversity is our strength, commemorating not the dead but Women’s Equality Day. If so, then is the opposite of diversity—unity—our weakness? Will such wokeness ensure that we do not abandon the Bagram air base in the middle of the night without opposition?

The chief of staff at the Office of Naval Intelligence warned the ONI’s active duty and retired service members that they must not criticize Biden, their commander in chief, over the Afghanistan fiasco. The office correctly cited prohibitions found in the Uniform Code of Military Justice barring any disrespect shown to senior government leadership.

Indeed, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps was relieved of his command for posting a video accurately blaming military and civilian leadership for the Afghanistan nightmare.

Yet until Jan. 20, retired top brass had constantly smeared their elected commander in chief with impunity.

Recently retired Gen. Michael Hayden retweeted a horrific suggestion that unvaccinated Trump supporters should be put on planes back to Afghanistan, where they presumably would be left to die. Hayden earlier had compared Trump’s border facilities to Nazi death camps.

Other retired high-profile military officials variously called their president an emulator of Nazi tactics, a veritable Mussolini, a liar, and deserving of removal from office sooner than later. None of these retired four-stars faced the sort of repercussions that the Office of Naval Intelligence just warned about.

More than 50 former intelligence officials on the eve of the November election signed a letter suggesting that incriminating emails found on Hunter Biden’s missing laptop might be “Russian disinformation.” They used their stature for political purposes to convince the American people that the story was a lie.

Retired Gen. Joseph Dunford and retired Adm. Mike Mullen recently blasted retired brass who had questioned Biden’s cognitive ability. OK. But they should have issued a similar warning earlier, when the violations of fellow retired officers were even more egregious in election year 2020.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apologized for doing a photo op with Trump, erroneously buying into the narrative that Trump had ordered rioters cleared from Lafayette Square for the staged picture. Worse, he leaked to journalists that he was so angry with Trump that he “considered” resigning.

Think of the irony. If Milley considered a politicized resignation to rebuke Trump over the false charge, then surely he could consider a real resignation after overseeing the worst military disaster of the last half-century in Kabul.

Milley had promised to root out white supremacy from the ranks while recommending that his soldiers read Ibram X. Kendi’s racialist diatribes.

Something is terribly wrong in the ranks of America’s top commanders that reflects something wrong with the country.

The Pentagon needs to stop virtue-signaling about diversity days and culturally sensitive food for Afghan refugees. Instead, can it just explain why the Bagram air base was abandoned by night, or why Taliban terrorists are our supposed “partners” in organizing our surrender and escape?

Which general allowed more than $85 billion in American weapons to fall to the Taliban—a sum equal to the price of seven new U.S. aircraft carriers?

Who turned over to the Taliban the lists of Americans and allied Afghans to be evacuated?

Who left behind biometric devices that the Taliban are now using to hunt down our former Afghan friends?

Somehow our new woke Pentagon is hell-bent on losing the trust of the American people—along with the wars it fights abroad.

There’s a Problem in the Upper Reaches of Our Military (theepochtimes.com)

The European Union’s counterpart to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said there’s no urgent need to deploy COVID-19 vaccine boosters, coming a week after federal health officials recommended them and set a Sept. 20 deadline.

On Sept. 2, the European CDC stated that booster doses for individuals who are fully vaccinated aren’t needed for the time being.

“Based on current evidence, there is no urgent need for the administration of booster doses of vaccines to fully vaccinated individuals in the general population,” the EU agency stated, adding that its “report also notes that additional doses should already be considered for people with severely weakened immune systems as part of their primary vaccination.”

The agency stated that the priority now is to “vaccinate all those eligible individuals who have not yet completed their recommended vaccination course” and stressed that there’s a difference between booster shots and additional doses provided for individuals with weakened or compromised immune systems.

The European Medicines Agency last month concluded that more data is needed on the duration of the protection conferred by COVID-19 vaccines before it could recommend booster shots for non-immunocompromised people.

Besides the United States, Germany and France have announced that they would provide boosters to immunocompromised individuals and vulnerable people starting in September. They cited the spread of the Delta COVID-19 variant as a reason to push the third doses out.

After top officials with the CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week announced they would try to start rolling out booster shots by Sept. 20, the World Health Organization issued a sharp rebuke against wealthier nations and accused them of pushing for booster shots rather than providing vaccines to poor countries. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, however, said that the United States can provide both booster shots for its own residents and distribute the vaccine to poorer nations.

As booster shots are being rolled out, meanwhile, concerns have been raised that the extra doses would shift the definition of what it means to be “fully vaccinated.”

For example, in Israel, which is one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, health officials recently began declaring that individuals who have received three—not two—COVID-19 vaccine doses are “fully vaccinated.” Holders of Israel’s vaccine passports have to get a third dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine within six months of their second shot or they could lose the pass.

“We are updating what it means to be vaccinated,” said Israel’s COVID-19 response coordinator, Salman Zarka, during a recent news conference, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Stocks for AstraZeneca, which administers the majority of vaccines in EU countries, were up by about 1.19 percent as of mid-day trading on Sept. 2.

Europe’s CDC Breaks With Biden Admin, Says COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters Not ‘Urgent’ (theepochtimes.com)

The fall of Kabul to the Taliban on Aug. 15 was a shock to the world, as were images of U.S. cargo planes lumbering off the runway in “defeat” at the hands of the Taliban. Yet, there was no real Taliban defeat of America, which at its core is the idea of freedom. An idea can never be defeated.

And, America continues to be the most powerful nation in the world, both economically and militarily. The Taliban will struggle to feed themselves over the coming months, and America will probably end up helping them do so. For better or worse, that’s the kind of people we are.

Rather than experiencing defeat in Afghanistan, America is pivoting to its newest, greatest threat: China. After 20 years of defeating the Taliban, and keeping down other terrorists on their own home turf, it is time to accept that the democracy we sought for Afghans has not come to pass. It’s time to move on and demonstrate the power and opportunity of democracy elsewhere.

Yet, Beijing, which supported Pakistan and their Taliban proxies throughout the war, is trying to go further and present the fall of Kabul as evidence of not only an American defeat, but of a longer-term American decline. This couldn’t be further from the truth, at least for the moment.

Look at the last decade of stock performance to see that not only is America roundly beating China, but America is beating Europe as well. Together, America and Europe are leaving China in the dust, because the Chinese Communist Party’s communism, regulatory and tax takings, and erratic governance, are scaring off smart money.

It is true that since the fall of Kabul on Aug. 15, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) index outperformed America’s S&P 500 by about 1 percent. And, the pandemic hit American stocks harder than Chinese stocks.

But take the longer view. Since 2011, the S&P rose 260 percent, beating the SSE’s 27 percent rise by a multiple of over nine times. And by August 2020, the S&P had entirely recovered from the pandemic slump and was back to America-sized growth.

Chinese equities are bringing down emerging market (EM) indexes, which also include India, Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa. These markets trail U.S. equities, which have the advantage of existing in a mature rule of law system that respects property. People want to put their money where it is safe and can be used, and it is safer in capitalist countries with a history of wealth accumulation, than in communist countries with a history of taking capitalists hostage.

International investors only benefit when they can freely withdraw their earnings, which is not the case in communist countries like China and Venezuela. Capital controls in those countries make investments forever, or nearly so, which make them more of a donation or foot in the door than an investment. Profits typically can’t be repatriated easily from communist countries.

According to the Financial Times, U.S. stocks have returned 356 percent over the last 10 years, beating European returns of 188 percent, and the emerging market’s (MSCI EM index) 66 percent. That makes the last 10 years a lost decade for emerging markets, and in particular, for investors in China.

“After starting 2021 on a bright note as investors bet on a global economic renaissance and commodity prices rushed higher, EM equities were thrown back into reverse by China’s regulatory clampdown on industries from financial technology to education,” according to the Times. “As a result, the MSCI EM index has slipped another 1.4 per cent this year, even as most other markets have soared.”

The Times continues, “Beijing’s crackdown [on technology and education companies, for example] has sent the Hong Kong stock market down more than 10 per cent since the beginning of July and the onshore CSI 300 index has slipped 6.4 per cent.”

The CSI 300 replicates the capitalization-weighted performance of the SSE and Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s top-300 stocks.

Conversely, vaccines in the United States and Europe are allowing for economic opening and growth, possibly closing the prior gap of China’s GDP growth outpacing that of the West. Governments are increasingly concerned about allowing investment and trade with China due to its relative lack of accounting standards, as well as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) lapses. China scores badly on these metrics, to which conscientious investors increasingly pay attention.

Many investors also fear more anti-capitalist crackdowns are coming from Beijing, making Chinese equities uninvestable, and leading its already-invested cheerleaders to wake up and give a few half-hearted cheers for China.

China optimists at Goldman Sachs, Standard Chartered Bank, and BlackRock, who do plenty of business with China and so may be just a tiny bit biased on the matter, keep pumping the totalitarian country.

“There are pockets of opportunities now,” Goldman’s Peter Oppenheimer told the Times. “Given how emerging markets have derated, if concerns about the Delta variant moderate a little bit and we don’t get more significant anti-market interventions in China, I think there will be a reasonable rebound.”

Goldman is one of the top-20 U.S. investors in China, at approximately $17.4 billion according to a 2021 government document, so it’s not surprising that its analysts would be pumping the value of their own investment.

Eric Robertson of Standard Chartered said in a note, “We believe this growth pessimism is overdone and that EM assets look attractive. The timing might still be premature, but we are looking for that entry point.”

Yet as recently as Aug. 24, Standard Chartered Wealth Management’s chief information officer said they preferred U.S. and European markets to emerging markets, and within emerging markets, preferred India to China.

On Aug. 17, BlackRock’s Wei Li told the Times that “China is under-represented in global investors’ portfolios but also, in our view, in global benchmarks.” Her BlackRock Investment Institute recommended doubling or tripling allocation to Chinese assets in diversified global portfolios. In the MSCI All-World index, that would mean increasing the weighting from its current 4.2 percent, to about 10 percent.

That’s a lot of money given the totality of U.S. investments in China.

The largest American institutional investors, including private equity firms and state pensions, already have $2.3 trillion invested in China, according to the government data. Tripling that would increase American capital at risk in China to almost $7 trillion.

The more money the banks have invested in China, the more pressure they will put on Washington to go easy on the totalitarian country. Going easy means China keeps pushing its territorial boundaries against our allies, we do and say nothing, and we keep slapping China’s wrist for up to $600 billion in IP theft annually.

BlackRock is America’s biggest investor in China, according to the government data cited previously, with approximately $155 billion in the country. Could that capital at risk have something to do with BlackRock’s support for other investors doubling or tripling investment in the country? It would sure make for a smooth unwinding of its position.

Already in 2021, investors have plowed $81 billion into emerging market equity funds. That’s setting up 2021 to be the biggest for EM equities since 2010.

What these investors and big banks aren’t accounting for is the macro-political risk at the end of it all. Once China is pumped up economically through American investment and technology, their military will be stronger than the U.S. military, and at that point, China will be in a position to gradually erode American influence globally.

Democracy, freedom, and capitalism, could become a thing of the past. All those billions that the big banks thought they made from China will then belong to China. Communism will have won, and there will be no more American bankers, and no more bank accounts stuffed with their Chinese earnings.

America will have sold China the rope with which they hang us, and which will be the end of democracy and freedom.

But, I’m not sure that American bankers can see past the next few financial quarters, or coordinate sufficiently through government controls on investments in China, to act strategically and avoid that sorry eventuality.

Stop Investing in China: America Is the Better Bet (theepochtimes.com)

On Aug. 31, the Hernando County School Board convened an emergency meeting and voted by a measure of three to two to impose a mask mandate for students in the Hernando County School System. This makes Hernando County the 11th Florida school board to impose mask mandates on children. In response, a 10-year-old Hernando County student urged citizens to “be like Power Rangers and fight back.”

Nearly 100 residents, mostly parents and grandparents of Hernando County school students, waited hours, standing in shifts in the sweltering heat, to have their chance to express their opinions about the proposed mask mandate. The overwhelming majority adamantly opposed the measure. Less than five came to express support. In the tense aftermath of an Aug. 24 school board meeting, where citizens began shouting at the board and each other, there was a notable presence of law enforcement outside of the building as well as inside the board room. Speakers were placed outside for the overflow crowd to hear proceedings inside.

Following public comments, the board engaged in discussion before casting their votes. Board Chair Linda K. Prescott (District 2), Susan Duval (District 5—who attended by phone) and Kay Hatch (District 1) voted to impose the mask mandates. Vice Chair Gus Guadagnino (District 4—also in attendance by phone) and Jimmy Lodato (District 3) voted against the measure.

In a leaked email, sent to a “concerned” parent before the meeting, Duval made it clear she had already made up her mind to impose the mask mandate before hearing any of the public comments.

“Our district is in crisis and I don’t see a reasonable way out without masks, better sanitation measures, better social distancing, etc.,” Duval stated in her email. “My support is for a 30 day mask mandate with a medical exemption. If after 30 days, the positivity drops [to] five percent or less, the masks become optional. If the rate is six percent or higher, we go for another 30 days. I hope that clarifies my position.”

Prior to public comments, Hernando County General Counsel Dennis Alfonso advised that not allowing parents to opt out of a mandatory mask mandate for students would not only place the board in violation of Florida’s Parents’ Bill of Rights (pdf), it would subject them to the governor’s promise to withhold the salaries of school board members who imposed a mask mandate for children.

A prepared statement, read prior to the vote, suggested Lodato had already decided to vote against the measure because it would violate the governor’s July 30 executive order (pdf) reinforcing the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

However, on Aug. 27, a Leon County judge struck down the governor’s executive order. DeSantis has vowed to appeal the ruling.

The Legal Battle

“It’s not surprising that Judge Cooper would rule against parents’ rights and their ability to make the best educational and medical decisions for their family, but instead rule in favor of elected politicians,” Taryn Fenske, Communications Director for Governor DeSantis, said in a statement. “This ruling was made with incoherent justifications, not based in science and facts—frankly not even remotely focused on the merits of the case presented. We are used to the Leon County Circuit Court not following the law and getting reversed on appeal, which is exactly what happened last year in the school reopening case. We will continue to defend the law and parents’ rights in Florida, and will immediately appeal the ruling to the First District Court of Appeals, where we are confident we will prevail on the merits of the case.”

Jared Ochs, Director of Communications and External Affairs for the Florida Department of Education, told The Epoch Times they “are immensely disappointed” that the ruling issued by the Second Judicial Circuit “discards the rule of law.”

“This decision conflicts with basic and established rights of parents to make private health care and education decisions for children,” Ochs stated further. “We will continue to fight to make sure every child has access to education. We are committed to the fundamental rights of parents and will push forward on appeal to ensure that this foundation of democracy is upheld.”

Orange and Indian River County recently joined Broward, Alachua, Duval, Hillsborough, Leon, Miami-Dade, Sarasota, and Palm Beach counties in implementing mask mandates.

On Aug. 30, Florida’s Department of Health announced that it is withholding funds from Alachua and Broward County following their defiance of the governor’s ban on mask mandates that do not permit parents to opt out.

“Unlike some other counties that are violating Florida law, the Hernando County School Board has enacted a mask policy that complies with state law, by ensuring all parents have the right to opt out their own kids from forced masking,” Christina Pushaw, Press Secretary for the Executive Office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told The Epoch Times. “We will be closely monitoring all districts that adopt mask policies like Hernando’s, to ensure that the choices of parents are respected by everyone in the school community. We have zero tolerance for unequal treatment, including discrimination against children based on their parents’ choices about masks.”

“There is no scientific basis for forced-masking children,” Pushaw said further. “Sadly, some school board members around the state are focused on playing politics instead of doing their research and doing the right thing for kids and families. By the way, if you compare counties in Florida that mandate masks versus those that respect parents’ rights, the data doesn’t support the idea that mask mandates are effective in any way. For example, the infection rate in Martin County (mask optional) is 1.37 percent while that of Palm Beach County (mask mandate) is 1.82 percent. If mask mandates work, why is Palm Beach reporting higher COVID prevalence than Martin?”

Citizens Speak Out

“I’m a mother and a front-line worker,” Carella Kara told The Epoch Times. “I have had the vaccination, Moderna, but was against it. So far, it has kept me safe along with proper PPE. I feel this virus and its changes [are] happening too fast for bodies to handle. If we cover with masks we protect ourselves and others from spreading it so fast. This is crazy not to help protect our kids.”

Kara was unable to attend the meeting. She was at home caring for her eldest daughter, who has contracted COVID-19. “I almost lost my youngest daughter [to COVID-19],” Karra said. “and now my oldest is on oxygen.” Kara’s husband has also had COVID-19.

“I still say parent choice,” Pam Everett told The Epoch Times. Everett was one of those who spoke against the mask mandate at the meeting. “They pay the taxes to the schools. They need to be in control about their children’s health. This is just one way of control and their hold is just going to get stronger and stronger.”

“It has no teeth,” Krysia Bailey told The Epoch Times as a message to other Hernando County citizens regarding the School board’s decision. “You can still send your children in without a mask. Don’t be afraid of the online form. Take a stand. Fill out the form. Let them know they do not have the authority to tell our children that they cannot breathe fresh air. Be there at the October 12 meeting. We must draw the line in the sand. Our children have been used as pawns for the last 20 months. It’s time to stop.”

“You have not earned the right to make medical decisions for my children,” Bailey admonished the board during public comments at the Aug. 31 meeting. “You haven’t earned the right to make any medical decisions for any child in this county. Even Vladimir Putin today said that he can’t force people to wear a mask in Russia. Are you less pro-choice and liberal than Vladimir Putin? Do we need to move to Russia for our children to breathe free?”

Bailey told the board on Aug. 31 she recently moved to Florida from Maine because she wanted “to be free.”

“I did not vote for Dr. Fauci or the Center for Disease Control, so the local leaders have to stop hiding behind useless recommendations from the people who have gotten it wrong from the beginning and make the tough decisions the constituents elected them to make,” Jose David, a Hernando County resident and “proud father of three wonderful boys” told The Epoch Times. “Hernando County lately doesn’t feel like the county I came to love when I moved here nine years ago.”

“We need to fight back,” 10-year-old Vincent Soto shouted over the podium on top-toe as cheers and applause filled the room at the Aug. 31 meeting. “I know I’m a kid, and to be honest, we need to be like Power Rangers and fight back! We need to fight back against evil!”

‘DeSantis Trusts Floridians’

“Governor DeSantis stands for parents’ rights, makes data-driven decisions, and follows the science,” Pushaw told The Epoch Times.”There is no empirical evidence to support the assertion that the benefits of forced masking of schoolchildren outweigh the potential harms. Masking kids under 12 is not recommended in many European countries, because their health authorities have found that the risks are not well understood—and the data shows that forced—masking of young children has a negligible impact on COVID prevalence and spread.”

“There is no authority more ‘local’ to children than their own parents,” Pushaw explained. “Governor DeSantis trusts Floridians to make the best choices for themselves and their families.”

“Thank you for your coverage of this masking issue in Hernando,” Pushaw told The Epoch Times. “I am SO happy to hear that parents are speaking out for their rights to make health and education decisions for their own kids, and Governor DeSantis fully supports them.”

10-Year-Old Urges Citizens to ‘Be Like Power Rangers and Fight Back!’ After Florida School Board Imposes Mask Mandate (theepochtimes.com)

It’s usually a good thing when a person has leaned from an experience. While times of crisis cause damage, they also can bring about innovation and wisdom. We can come out of a struggle with insight and be stronger for it.

Considering the actions and words of some of our political leaders however, I fear that they are coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic having learned all the wrong lessons.

While it may be coincidence, the language coming from President Joe Biden’s administration and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been strikingly similar this week.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) just launched the new Office of Climate Change and Health Equity. This wasn’t surprising as it was in response to an executive order from President Biden last January. The terminology used was interesting though. HHS claimed that it would use “lessons learned” from the COVID-19 pandemic to address climate change and health issues.

Meanwhile on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a crowd of supporters “What we learned from this COVID crisis, we will be applying to the climate crisis, the housing crisis, to reconciliation, to making sure that everyone has good jobs and careers that carry them through and create good opportunity for their kids.”

What I fear is that the lesson these political leaders are referring to is confirmation of just how easily and willingly the populace will give up its civil rights in the face of a health crisis. Authoritarian-minded politicians now know that if they can package an initiative as a response to a public health crisis, they won’t need to bother with worrying about the individual rights of citizens when implementing it.

In referring to a “climate crisis” and in tying it to health issues, politicians are setting the stage to continue to implement policies without regard to individual rights. They just need to act under the guise of responding to an immediate crisis.

The “Great Reset” concept is often dismissed as a conspiracy theory, but it is very real. It is a plan to use a world crisis in order to implement massive changes in political policies and government structures. It wants to reconfigure capitalism, and not for the better. Proponents of the Great Reset speak to the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity rather than a crisis. Again, this is no deeply hidden conspiracy or secret. It is all laid out on the World Economic Forum website in plain text.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a supporter of the World Economic Forum and he addressed their annual conference in 2018. Last November while addressing the U.N., Trudeau said “This pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset, This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to re-imagine economic systems that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality and climate change.”

We should be very concerned when ideologically driven politicians see the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity rather than a calamity. When leaders see times of crisis as a means to pursue radical change, they may feel inspired to drag out or even cause emergencies. It certainly is an easier way to bring the public on board than democratic exercises are.

In challenging times like now, citizens need to keep their governments in check. Constitutions and documents such as the Canadian Charter of Rights were designed specifically to protect the rights of individuals from government overreach. Section 1 of the Canadian Charter allows the government to suspend individual rights as it says our rights are subject to “reasonable limits.” Our government felt that it was reasonable to limit several our Charter rights in the name of protecting us from COVID-19. The courts and a large proportion of our citizenry agreed.

Having learned how easily the government can suspend Charter rights, we can rest assured that unprincipled and ideologically driven leaders will concoct future emergencies to bypass the rights of citizens again. We have heard everything from racism to firearm crimes to climate change being referred to as health issues now. That is no mistake. It sets the stage for state intervention that may bypass legislated rights protection.

Some of the world’s most horrific governments emerged from hard times. We saw that clearly enough just after the Great Depression. Citizens are too concerned with simply getting by to realize what their politicians may be getting up to. We always need to be vigilant and when we see world leaders referring to the pandemic as an opportunity, we need to sit up and take notice. An opportunity for whom, and at what cost?

Politicians Are Learning All the Wrong Lessons From the Pandemic (theepochtimes.com)

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is calling out East Kodak CEO James Continenza for apologizing to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over an Instagram post featuring images of Xinjiang—where the regime is accused of committing genocide—after some complaints on heavily censored Chinese social media platforms.

The Republican lawmaker sent Continenza a letter on Wednesday in response to the company’s decision last month to pull 10 images by French photographer Patrick Wack taken of life in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, where at least one million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities are being held in a sprawling network of detention and reeducation camps.

Wack described his photographs as a visual narrative of Xinjiang’s “abrupt descent into an Orwellian dystopia” over the past five years, which sparked backlash from Chinese Instagram accounts. Kodak subsequently apologized for “any misunderstanding or offense” that the post may have caused.

“For a long time, Kodak has maintained a good relationship with the Chinese government and has been in close cooperation with various government departments,” Kodak also said in a separate statement posted to China’s social media platform WeChat. “We will continue to respect the Chinese government and the Chinese law. We will keep ourselves in check and correct ourselves, taking this as an example of the need for caution.”

Scott in a Twitter post said it is “shameful” that New York-based Kodak “covered-up abuse to appease Communist China.”

“After sharing photos shedding light on Communist China’s brutal human rights abuses against Uhygur [sic] Muslims, @Kodak cowered, deleted them & apologized,” Scott said.

In his letter, Scott questioned Kodak’s “close cooperation” with the CCP as described in the apology.

“The ongoing abuses in Communist China are despicable,” Scott wrote. “Kodak’s decision to delete these photos, essentially censoring its own content, only empowers Communist China to continue these abuses against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.”

Scott gave the company 30 days to answer his questions, including whether all of Kodak’s supply chains are free from Uyghur forced labor, why Kodak apologized to the CCP, and whether Wack’s images will be reposted.

“As an American company headquartered in New York and incorporated in New Jersey, Kodak should be standing for American values and against our foreign adversaries,” wrote Scott. “I am deeply concerned by Kodak’s decision to not only delete Mr. Wack’s photos from Instagram, but also to issue gross apologies to the Chinese Communist Party.”

Addressing the issue in an interview with Hong Kong Free Press, photographer Wack said Kodak’s conduct is “disappointing,” particularly as a company that has been for a century “one of the main traders in the photography industry” that “prides itself on helping people record important events.”

“I think that’s what upsetting most people,” Wack said.

“Once they made the post, even if they were harassed by Chinese trolls … they should have stayed with it,” he added. “It was starting to get ugly for them and that’s why they panicked. They didn’t see that they were actually going to unleash something even worse by doing this.”

The Chinese regime’s army of Internet trolls, dubbed the “50 cent army” as they are paid by the CCP (pdf) to make posts, works to dominate online thought and discussion by echoing the party line.

Kodak didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.

Sen. Rick Scott Calls Out Kodak CEO for Apologizing to CCP Over Xinjiang Instagram Post (theepochtimes.com)

Mask mandate and use efficacy for COVID-19 containment in US States

Damian D. Guerra^1,*, Daniel J. Guerra²

¹Department of Biology, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, United States of America;
²Authentic Biochemistry, VerEvMed, Clarkston, Washington, United States of America

Background: COVID-19 pandemic mitigation requires evidence-based strategies. Because COVID-19 can spread via respired droplets, most US states mandated mask use in public settings. Randomized control trials have not clearly demonstrated mask efficacy against respiratory viruses, and observational studies conflict on whether mask use predicts lower infection rates. We hypothesized that statewide mask mandates and mask use were associated with lower COVID-19 case growth rates in the United States.

Methods: We calculated total COVID-19 case growth and mask use for the continental United States with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. We estimated post-mask mandate case growth in non-mandate states using median issuance dates of neighboring states with mandates.

Results: Earlier mask mandates were not associated with lower total cases or lower maximum growth rates. Earlier mandates were weakly associated with lower minimum COVID-19 growth rates. Mask use predicted lower minimum but not lower maximum growth rates. Growth rates and total growth were comparable between US states in the first and last mask use quintiles during the Fall-Winter wave. These observations persisted for both natural logarithmic and fold growth models and when adjusting for differences in US state population density.

Conclusions: We did not observe association between mask mandates or use and reduced COVID-19 spread in US states. COVID-19 mitigation requires further research and use of existing efficacious strategies, most notably vaccination.

https://escipub.com/irjph-2021-08-1005/

A pair of top Food and Drug Administration vaccine regulators are reportedly planning to resign in protest over the Biden administration’s push to encourage booster shots for COVID-19 vaccine recipients.

The two regulators, Dr. Marion Gruber and Dr. Philip Krause, are stepping down in October and November, respectively, according to The New York Times.

The resignations come after weeks of an aggressive blitz by the Biden administration to encourage Americans to get a booster shot if they’ve received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

An @US_FDA spokesperson confirms departure of @FDACBER‘s Dr. Marion Gruber and Dr. Phil Krause

Email from Dr. Peter Marks announcing the “two retirements” calls Dr. Gruber’s departure “a huge loss” and thanks Dr. Krause for “incredible contributions to public health” https://t.co/Ko5KzfhZzc pic.twitter.com/e5aolUwQ6v

— Alexander Tin (@Alexander_Tin) August 31, 2021

Trending:Biden Officials Turn on Him, Reveal How They Really Feel About Afghanistan Withdrawal

Gruber, the director of the vaccines office at the FDA, and Krause, her deputy, do not believe there is enough data to justify booster shots for the public, the Times reported.

Both had reportedly seen the White House’s push for booster shots as putting unnecessary pressure on the FDA to quickly authorize the doses without the needed data.

The pair were also frustrated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its advisory committee for playing a large role in decisions they believed were solely up to the FDA, CNBC reported.

Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, announced in an email to employees that he would serve as acting director of the vaccines office until a permanent successor is found, according to the Times.

“Thank you so much to Marion and Phil for all that they have contributed and continue to contribute to the agency, and thanks so much to each of you for all that you do every day,” Marks wrote in the email, according to CNBC.

The White House coronavirus response coordinator, Jeffrey D. Zients, when asked by reporters about the resignations, said booster shots were dependent on FDA review.

“As our medical experts laid out, having reviewed all the available data, it is in their clinical judgment that it is time to prepare Americans for a booster shot,” Zients said in a briefing, according to the Times.

The FDA is planning to hold a public panel meeting to discuss the booster shots, the outlet reported. The agency is also planning to determine whether vaccines should be made available to children under 12.

Johnson & Johnson last week became the latest company to announce the results of booster shot trials, claiming that participants had a ninefold increase in antibodies after the booster.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has also reportedly discussed a recurring vaccine schedule with the White House.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently required all military service members to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but has not yet mandated the booster shots.

Zients has hinted that the Biden administration is seeking to require employers to implement vaccine mandates to drive up vaccination numbers.

The FDA fully approved the Pfizer vaccine for those 16 and older last month, paving the way for vaccine mandates and possibly booster shots.

Top FDA Vaccine Regulators Resign in Protest, Reportedly Point the Finger at White House (westernjournal.com)

How does a leader decide what to do?

The most logical response is: “Cui bono?”—”Who benefits?”—from the decision.

If some policy benefits your country most, you should, within moral bounds, pursue it.

If your enemies benefit most, you should avoid it.

I’d be curious to learn what answer proponents of America leaving Afghanistan—conservative or liberal—would give to the question, “Cui bono?”

I can say that until this moment, I have not read or heard a single cogent argument from proponents of American withdrawal as to how exactly it benefits America.

“Twenty years is too long,” or its variant, “we have to end these endless wars,” the most commonly offered argument for withdrawal, has nothing to do with benefiting America.

It is an emotional sentiment, not a rational argument.

The withdrawal has already cost us in a single day more service members’ lives than we lost on any one day in Afghanistan since June 2014, seven years ago.

The number of American servicemen killed in Afghanistan per year from 2015 to 2020 is respectively 22, 9, 14, 14, 21, and 11. No one can seriously argue that we are leaving Afghanistan because of high American casualties.

So, while America doesn’t benefit at all from leaving Afghanistan, it does get hurt.

The damage to the reputation of America—as an ally and as a strong country—is not easily overstated.

The damage done to NATO, whose members President Joe Biden didn’t bother to consult, is greater than any damage former President Donald Trump—whom the left-wing mainstream media constantly attacked for damaging NATO—was alleged to have done.

On the other hand, “Cui bono?” has some very clear answers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, every Islamic terror group in the world and every other anti-American regime and movement.

In the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro compiled a list of recent Western weakness in the face of tyrants and the commensurate strengthening of those tyrants:

“The West’s abandonment of Hong Kong in the face of Chinese aggression last year.

“The West’s continuing desire for a rapprochement with the Iranian mullahcracy.

“The West’s routine appeasement of Russia.

“All speak to the unwillingness of the West—and the West’s leader, the United States—to stand up for allies anywhere on earth.

“Afghanistan is simply the latest, and by far the most stunning, example of abandonment of an American ally …

“China’s Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, chortled, ‘From what happened in Afghanistan, those in Taiwan should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse in hours and U.S. military won’t come to help. As a result (Taiwan) will quickly surrender.’

“Indeed, given the window presented by the Biden administration, it would be somewhat of a surprise if China didn’t attempt some sort of action against Taiwan in the next few years …

“Foreign policy abhors vacuums, and the United States has now created one. That means that erstwhile American allies will begin to play footsie with countries like Russia and China, believing that American commitments mean little. They have reason for such suspicions, obviously.”

The effects on Americans’ perceptions of the military constitute another terrible price paid by leaving Afghanistan. More and more Americans see the military as more concerned with fighting white supremacy in America and transphobia in the military than with fighting for the supremacy of freedom on earth. This is new. And it will have a devastating effect on both America and the military. One obvious consequence: Who will want to enlist in a woke military? (Perhaps that’s the goal.)

It seems that every generation has to relearn the basic laws of life, such as this one: There are many bad people and many bad countries in the world, and only a fear of good countries prevents them from conquering other countries.

There is less fear of good countries in the world today than at any time since World War II. And that is especially so because the good countries are preoccupied with their own alleged evils rather than with the world’s real evils.

Cui Bono? Who Benefits From the Afghanistan Withdrawal? (theepochtimes.com)

CalPERS has $490 million tied up in companies funding Belt and Road

California’s state pension invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Chinese state-owned enterprises linked to the People’s Liberation Army, according to records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) had more than $3 billion invested in Chinese companies, including 14 state-controlled enterprises blacklisted by the Trump administration, as of June 2020. Many of these companies are funding the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project Beijing is using to expand its geopolitical and military influence.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.), who recently praised a Chinese-owned media company for its “journalistic integrity,” has not commented on CalPERS’s Chinese investments. It is a notable silence from the embattled governor, who has called on CalPERS, the country’s largest public pension system, to divest from tobacco companies and companies linked to the Turkish government. Newsom faces a recall election on Sept. 14.

CalPERS had more than $450 million invested in 14 Chinese companies the Trump administration put on an investment blacklist last year because of their ties to the Chinese military. President Donald Trump’s executive order, which the Biden administration has continued, prohibited Americans from investing in companies that aid the Chinese military.

It is unclear whether CalPERS has complied with the executive order by divesting in the blacklisted companies. The pension fund declined the Free Beacon‘s requests for comment. CalPERS had more than $490 million invested in seven Chinese state-owned enterprises that, while not on the U.S. blacklist, are funding the Belt and Road Initiative, according to its 2020 investment report. CalPERS invested in some of the Chinese companies as early as 2016, records show.

Two companies in the CalPERS portfolio—China Merchants Port and CITIC—control ports in Sri Lanka and Myanmar that the People’s Liberation Army has used for military exercises. CalPERS had $3.7 million invested in China Merchants Port and $110 million in CITIC as of June 2020.

CalPERS, which has more than $400 billion in assets under management, also had $5 million invested in China State Construction Co., which has built roads and bridges in Asia, Africa, and the United States as part of Belt and Road. China State Construction is one of the firms on the Trump administration investment blacklist.

CalPERS had another $6 million invested in China Communications Construction Company, a state-owned company that U.S. officials have said is building military installations in the South China Sea in violation of agreements that China has with its neighbors. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo singled out China Communications Construction last year as one of the “weapons” Beijing uses to impose an expansionist agenda.

The pension fund has hundreds of millions of dollars more invested in some of China’s largest lenders, including $185 million invested in China Construction Bank. China Construction has invested $405 billion in 176 Belt and Road projects. China Merchants Bank and Bank of China, two other state-owned enterprises in the CalPERS portfolio, are invested heavily in Belt and Road projects.

CalPERS has come under scrutiny from state and national lawmakers over its investments in Chinese companies. The fund’s critics say the investments not only aid the Chinese Communist Party but also create financial risk for the state’s pensioners because of the lack of transparency into the operations of Chinese firms.

“CalPERS would do well on its own to reconsider some of its billions of dollars of investments in China just for the fact that immediate international turmoil produces large uncertainties for California retirees,” said Lance Christensen, the chief operating officer at the California Policy Center, a conservative think tank.

Some investment managers are reportedly reconsidering investments in China because of the government’s crackdown on tech companies and other for-profit companies. Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges lost $400 billion in value in July amid a series of regulatory crackdowns orchestrated by the Chinese government, the Wall Street Journal reported.

CalPERS’s former head under Newsom, Ben Meng, is an American citizen of Chinese origin. Prior to leading CalPERs, he worked in China as the deputy chief investment officer of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange. In that role, he oversaw $3 trillion of foreign-exchange reserves.

During Meng’s time at CalPERS, Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) criticized Meng’s membership in China’s Thousand Talents Program, which the nation uses for espionage. Banks wrote to Newsom suggesting the governor fire Meng, a power Newsom does not technically have.

“Governor Newsom, if it were up to me, I would fire Mr. Meng immediately,” Banks wrote in a February 2020 letter. Banks took specific issue with Chinese companies like Hikvision, for example, that are used by China to further its detention of Uyghurs. CalPERS responded by calling Banks’s letter a “politically opportunistic attempt to force us to divest, undermining our ability to perform our fiduciary duty to provide retirement security to California’s public employees.”

Last year, Banks and Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) called on Newsom and CalPERS to divest from Chinese state-owned companies. CalPERS rejected the requests, saying that its portfolio largely mirrors investments in the MSCI and FTSE stock indices. MSCI has said it is divesting from the 14 companies on the federal blacklist, but it is not clear whether CalPERS plans to follow MSCI’s lead.

While Newsom does not directly control CalPERs, he has actively used his bully pulpit as a statewide elected official to force the agency’s investment decisions in the past. In 2019, he signed an executive order directing CalPERS and other state pension funds to invest in green energy companies in order to fight climate change.

In 2016, then-Lt. Gov. Newsom urged CalPERS not to reverse a decision to prohibit investment in tobacco companies. He said CalPERS would be “investing in death” if it allowed investments in Big Tobacco. CalPERS voted later that year to expand its prohibition on tobacco investments.

As a gubernatorial candidate in 2018, Newsom called on CalPERS to divest from Turkish companies because of the regime’s refusal to recognize the mass murder of Armenians in 1915.

“It is wrong of us as a state … to invest in Turkish businesses. It’s time for divestment at the [University of California] and CalPERS,” Newsom said at a rally outside the Turkish consulate in Los Angeles.

Newsom has not made a similar demand of CalPERS regarding China, even though both the Trump and Biden administrations have said that the government is carrying out genocide against Muslims in Western China.

“Gov. Gavin Newsom is quick to leverage his position on issues like climate change by outlawing gas-powered cars or other similar mandates, but slow to speak out on government investments in China, where their environmental and labor record is abysmal,” said Christensen, the official at the California Policy Center.

Newsom’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

California’s State Pension Invests Millions in Chinese State-Owned Companies (freebeacon.com)

A reconfigured global elite are shaping up around a new kind of vision for transforming our world. They’ve called their neo-socialist and multilateral vision the Green New Deal.

Joe Biden’s White House team are core players in this vision, as they seek to reinvent Roosevelt’s original 1930s New Deal into a contemporary twenty-first century Democratic Party platform.

But there are also other important players pushing this neo-socialist dream.

One has been the European Union’s large and well-organised green lobby. Another has been Klaus Schwab (economist and founder of the World Economic Forum), who has used Davos to push his vision of a “Great Reset” of the global economy.

Those getting on board with the Green New Deal are the usual advocates of state interventionism, big government, and multilateral globalism. But surprisingly this new elite is a mix of left-liberals, socialists, Greens, bureaucrats, and university researchers/experts. More surprising is that sections of the business elite are also climbing on board what they believe will be a gravy train.

It appears business is motivated by two factors. First, they are afraid of activist pressure. Second, their marketing departments are telling them there are great public relations kudos to be had in signing up to the now fashionable narratives of saving victims, saving the planet, and distancing themselves from left-leaning stereotypes of greedy uncaring capitalists.

So now we have woke businesses greenwashing their brands plus learning to make profits out of the Green New Deal’s neo-socialist strategy to tear up our old infrastructure and replace them with new ones at great expense to the taxpayer. Who knew socialism could be profitable.

But one of the most fascinating features of this trend is how enthralled legacy media journalists are with the green narratives underpinning this emergent global elite.

Journalists who would normally ask questions about self-interest, crooked narratives, and obvious propaganda now meekly buy into the trendy narratives. Indeed journalists are now being told that applying the journalistic principle of balance is a bad thing when reporting on issues like climate change.

Instead, journalists are being taught that it is fine to advocate for green climate change messages. We even have global media like the BBC instructing their journalists not to be balanced on climate change.

In a climate when green activism is now normalised in media newsrooms, it is hardly surprising that we see journalists treating green experts as media darlings, and as a result, those same green experts are no longer challenged by probing journalistic questions.

Instead, what emerges is a de facto partnership between the media, climate change scientists, and activists wherein journalists start to construct pro-green (propaganda-like) stories.

One way of explaining this partnership is to see it as part of the phenomenon of an emergent global elite for whom left-wing “progressivism” has become a kind of secularised religion, built around saving the many kinds of victims we apparently have today.

These victims can be those conventionally beloved by socialists—the poor. They can also be the new victims beloved by identity politics—LGBTQI, Indigenous or ethnic minorities. Or victims beloved by feminists—women persecuted by the patriarchy. Or the victims can now even be non-human—whales, polar bears, coral reefs, nature, or the planet.

What binds all these victims is that they need to be saved by a self-selecting elite of people who have married elements of the narratives of left-liberalism and neo-Marxism.

This elite first emerged in the United States and then spread to the rest of the western world. And now, like a virus, it is also spreading to places like the European Union (EU).

It is an elite who have proven highly susceptible to catching the green virus. Significantly, enormous progress has been made in capturing western universities, the global media, the education system, and the many bureaucracies across the Anglo world and EU.

The result has been the growth of an alliance between left-liberal, progressive politicians; academics; journalists; and bureaucrats.

Once the universities were captured by this progressive-left, universities were used to teach a new “way of seeing” and a “new way of speaking about” the world.

Thus, universities become the source of what is termed ‘woke’ and green narratives; while the media and internet are used to disseminate their tales. In addition, as universities produced more of these progressive and Green “experts,” journalists rely on them to justify their own work—creating an ongoing cycle.

Importantly, since universities teach journalism, public relations and marketing the communication industries are filled with those taught the woke discourses beloved by the globalised elite.

Not surprisingly, the resultant spread of progressivism within the communications industry means progressives are also becoming well placed—and more skilled—at spreading their own ideologies, while shutting down opposing views.

Indeed the Left are so successful that much of the world in the Biden era is starting to feel a bit like a mixture of the hard authoritarianism of George Orwell’s 1984 and the soft authoritarianism of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

The proliferation of both discourse around the Green New Deal, and the expanding power of a medical autocracy calling the shots over COVID-19, are two indicators of the way the global elite are becoming successful at promoting only their views while undercutting all others.

The universities have also given birth to “experts” who believe that secular science can fix everything thereby removing the need for religion or traditional knowledge.

At a deeper level, German existential philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche saw this rot beginning when Western thinkers “killed God” in the 19th century, and from that wrong turn has evolved the secularist, social engineers of today.

But at a more institutional level, I think American conservative philosopher Paul Gottfried was correct that the problem lies in today’s overly interventionist governments imposing social therapy measures upon their citizens.

His argument was that this began during the post-second World War era in the United States—specifically with Paul Lazarsfeld’s Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University in the 1940s to 1950—and in the growth of the 1960s U.S. government-led social engineering policies (for example, affirmative action new migration laws).

And today, we see the modern manifestation of such a long-running trend in state-run welfare systems, the Green New Deal, and the COVID-19 medical autocracy.

Significantly, Lazarsfeld’s behavioural science was built on the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School’s idea of an “Authoritarian Personality”—a personality type that is submissive and obedient to authority—as well as the notion that experts should learn to manage and control the population better (using psychology, behavioural sciences, public opinion research, public relations, and spin-doctoring). This, in turn, can help stop the re-emergence of “bad ideas” like nationalism or traditionalism.

Lazarsfeld founded an American tradition of academic thinking about how the media could be used to promote “good” (progressive) ideas and shut down “bad” ideas.

Lazarsfeld’s centre employed many Frankfurt School members and so opened the door to the merging of left-liberal and neo-Marxist ideas, which has further contributed to the growth of the progressive elite.

With Biden in office, this elite now has a great base to work from to disseminate their preferred ideological narratives including the virtues of big government, green activism, and multilateral interventionism to save its so-called “victims.”

And because the 2000 anti-Trump crusade helped cement the alliance between left-leaning politicians, activists, mainstream liberal media journalists, U.S.-owned tech giants; and the university sector, we can now expect to see a period of intensified dissemination of “progressive” narratives plus simultaneous attempts at discourse closure aimed at closing-down and disrupting narratives that the Left loves to hate.

Global Elite Latches Onto Neo-Socialist Vision: The Green New Deal (theepochtimes.com)

A great number of people were shocked by the result of the 2020 presidential election, but Curtis Bowers (former Republican member of the House of Representatives) might not have been. Although he never described himself as a prophet, he indeed foresaw in 2015, or earlier, that 2016 would be the last time in his lifetime to see a conservative president elected. In other words, he worried that the political environment in the United States would continue to deteriorate or radicalize unless a miracle were to happen.

Bowers and his interviewees in the documentary “AGENDA 2: Masters of Deceit“ talked about possible electoral manipulation and fraud, but that was not the main factor that led him to make such a judgment about the future of America’s political arena. The basis for his conclusion was simply demographic trends.

According to Bowers’ study, in 1980, about 40 percent of the U.S. population held conservative political views, 50 percent were undecided, and only 10 percent were liberal. The trend was that both the conservative and undecided populations were shrinking. In 2012, the conservative dropped to 30 percent, while the liberal grew to 30 percent, making the two evenly matched. By 2036, the conservative and undecided are projected to fall further to 10 percent and 20 percent respectively, while the liberal might grow to 70 percent accordingly.

For conservatives, if Bowers’ analysis and predictions are accurate, it will indicate the United States is becoming a socialist or communist country. Could there be anything more frightening than that?

Bowers himself was not willing to accept this too. However, he was aware that American conservatives must force themselves to rationally recognize this dire situation and act vigorously to salvage it, rather than simply pinning their hopes for a turnaround on the next election.

What has caused this trend in the proportion of political leanings? The direct answer from Bowers is the left is capturing 85 percent of young Americans each year. They achieved this not because they had magic powers. Rather, they had a long-standing agenda, a communist agenda, to undermine, infiltrate and control the family, the church, the state, the media, the schools, and many more institutions that influence the worldview of the youth.

In the “Communist Manifesto,” Karl Marx called on his followers to destroy all traditional political systems, economic models, religious beliefs, moral values, family structures, and so on. And these did prevail in the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, and some other countries.

At the end of the Cold War, many Americans once believed they had defeated or even eliminated communism. Bowers was one of them. But the first-hand experience in 1992 changed his view. He attended a communist strategy meeting at the campus of the University of California, Berkley. He was shocked to learn that the communists were still or had always been seriously planning to change America to be more in line with their views. What surprised him more was the rapidity with which the Communists were achieving their goals. This led him to drop his prior work and devote himself to researching and exposing the Communist destruction in the United States.

In his first award-winning documentary “AGENDA: Grinding America Down,” Bowers uses a wealth of facts and data to demonstrate that communism is not dead or gone, but has deliberately, yet unwittingly, orchestrated and driven changes in American values over the past decades.

The most convincing witnesses were the communists themselves. In 1958, W. Cleon Skousen listed 45 goals of the communists to infiltrate and convert the United States, in his book “The Naked Communist.” These 45 goals cover everything from influencing specific policies to corrupting American culture. Examples include capturing one or both of America’s political parties; controlling key positions in radio, TV, and pictures; presenting homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as normal and healthy; replacing revealed religion with social religion; discrediting the American founding fathers; encouraging easy divorce, and more. Please watch the documentary for details.

The sequel documentary “AGENDA 2: Masters of Deceit” explains the reasons why communism has not died out. In defiance of moral principles, the communists and those who were duped masterfully kept changing their names, coining new terms, and winning the cognitive war repeatedly like a duck to water. For example, in Fabian socialism, a denomination of communism, deception is their motto. Another branch, the Frankfurt School, boasted they could convince students that snow is black through distorted interpretations and truth subjectivism in education.

Bowers notes that no matter how catchy the slogans of the communists and the left are, they aim to establish big government and foster dependence on it. Julia Irish, a family therapist, gave “AGENDA 2: Masters of Deceit” five stars and commented, “Our children are being lost. We are well into creating a third generation of state dependents.” But Julia believes all people want self-esteem, so she doesn’t think young people will spontaneously and willingly rely on and support big government, instead, they have been simply indoctrinated to think that way. “The result is depression, anxiety, drug dependence, domestic abuse and poverty.”

Bowers’ remark that 2016 would be the last time in his life to see a conservative president elected may leave many in despair. It was like a lady in the audience crying sadly after a screening of the documentary “AGENDA.” The reason was that a male audience member affirmed Bowers’ research, declaring, “I am a professor at this college, I am a communist, and we will win because we are taking all of your children.”

Tanya Wright, an author for the Natural Homeschool, has a different feeling. “I don’t think this is a fear-mongering documentary,” Wright writes, “it was a desperate call to arms to those who have ears to hear.” I agree.

If Bowers were that pessimistic, he wouldn’t have his entire family committed to going around and presenting these documentaries. He clarified his genuine thought by quoting Sun Tzu, “If you know yourself, you will have a 50 percent chance to win the battle. If you know your enemy, you will have a 50 percent chance to win. But, if you know yourself AND your enemy, you will have a 100 percent chance to win.” Bowers hopes Americans rediscover their identity and values, understand the dangers they are in and who their enemies are, and then act quickly to defend themselves and finally win.

The change in the demographic ratio of conservatives, undecideds, and liberals in the United States is ongoing. In the documentary “AGENDA 2,” Star Parker suggests, “The only way you are going to reverse the trend is to begin to interject a biblical worldview back into the hearts and minds of our youth.” I agree, while it is easier said than done. People who believe in God must also consider the cunning and temptations of satan to walk their path steadily. In this regard, “The Specter of Communism” series from The Epoch Times illustrate it best. So my suggestion is to watch both Agenda documentaries and “The Specter of Communism” series as a collection.

The Terrifying Prophecy of Bowers and the Only Way to Stop It (theepochtimes.com)

Hillhouse Capital – a private equity firm funded by America’s top universities and is invested in companies including Zoom and Apple – struck a $1.5 billion deal with a Chinese Communist Party-owned investment fund.

Hillhouse Capital partnered with the “wholly state-owned” Hangzhou Capitol on a billion-dollar fund “to invest in sectors including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and new energy vehicles,” according to Chinese state-run media outlet China Global Television Network (CGTN).

Hillhouse Capital, which was funded with $20 million in seed capital from the Yale University Endowment, is reported to be backed by America’s most prestigious universities. Following a Stanford University investment of $200 million in 2015, the fund was “investing money for at least six of the 10 wealthiest universities in the U.S.,” including Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) has also invested nearly $1 billion with the Beijing-based fund.

These investments are now being used, however, to contribute to the growth of the Chinese Communist Party.

A press release from Hangzhou Capital – which pledges to be “guided by Xi Jinping’s thoughts on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era” – reveals that its partnership with Hillhouse Capital is part of a broader Chinese regime-backed effort to turn the city into a “leading and exemplary benchmark for national advancement.”

“The implementation of the “National Digital Economy First City” strategy focuses on value investment to empower outstanding enterprise development, optimizes industrial layout and accelerates the cultivation of new kinetic energy, and creates new impetus for Hangzhou to become a model city ​​for high-quality development and construction of a common prosperity demonstration zone in Zhejiang Province,” the group adds. 

Hillhouse Capital’s partnership with a Chinese state-owned enterprise also calls into question its sizable investments in companies such as Zoom, Uber, Apple, TikTok parent company ByteDance.

MUST READ:  Biden White House Approves Licensing Deal For Chinese Communist Party-Linked Huawei, Reversing Trump-Era Hardline.

Article Seven of China’s National Intelligence law stipulates that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work according to law.”

Investment Firm Backed By Top American Universities Partners With ‘Socialist’ China-Backed Fund. – The National Pulse

No mention of US-funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) “remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19,” according to an unclassified report released on Aug. 27. “Two hypotheses are plausible,” the report explains, “natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.”

In May, when President Joe Biden urged the agencies to “redouble” their efforts to find the origin of the virus, the IC had “coalesced around two likely scenarios but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question,” he said in a statement. To reach essentially the same conclusion now, the IC must have ignored major revelations, and there’s more to the story.

For Angelo Codevilla, a former staffer with the Senate Intelligence Committee, Biden’s call to redouble efforts was “a comical attempt to avoid being discredited by the unraveling narrative that China’s role in the pandemic is another manifestation of racism.” In addition, “U.S. intelligence does not possess hard facts to prove exactly what happened in that lab, nor does U.S. intelligence have sources in China, human or technical, placed and uncompromised, capable of yielding such information.”

Codevilla, a former professor of international relations at Boston University, predicted that “the report will stop short of a full-on indictment of China, instead urging increased transparency through ‘cooperation.’ The chances of this report mentioning U.S. funding for ‘gain of function’ research are zero.”

True to form, the Aug. 27 report contends that “China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19.” Gain-of-function research is not mentioned, an unforgivable oversight.

Gain-of-function research manipulates viruses to make them more lethal and transmissible. Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to conduct gain-of-function research, once banned in the United States.

Money is fungible and the WIV is not accountable to American taxpayers. Fauci initially opposed President Trump’s ban on travel from China and maintained the theory that the virus that causes COVID-19 developed naturally in the wild. When scientists found evidence that the virus had been engineered, the NIAID boss pressured them to change their view.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), believed “the most likely etiology of this pathology in Wuhan was from a laboratory. You know, escaped.” For holding that view, Redfield began to receive death threats. As he told reporters in March of 2020, “I was threatened and ostracized because I proposed another hypothesis.” Embattled Americans might expect the vaunted intelligence community to take notice of such threats, along with other developments now a matter of record.

Chinese national Dr. Xiangguo Qiu transferred a cargo of deadly pathogens from Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) to the WIV. One of the pathogens was the Henipah virus, and samples from early Wuhan COVID-19 patients show the presence of genetically modified Henipah virus, according to The Epoch Times.

The genetic manipulation was the finding of Dr. Steven Quay, a Seattle-based physician, scientist, and former faculty member at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In COVID-19 samples uploaded by scientists at the WIV shortly after China informed the World Health Organization about the outbreak, Quay found “genetic manipulation of the Nipah virus [a type of Henipah virus], which is more lethal than Ebola,” he told The Epoch Times.

Quay also co-authored an opinion piece, titled, “The Science Suggests a Wuhan Lab Leak,” noting that the COVID-19 pathogen has a genetic footprint never observed in a natural coronavirus. “In gain-of-function research, a microbiologist can increase the lethality of a coronavirus enormously by splicing a special sequence into its genome at a prime location.” The result of similar experiments “has always been supercharged viruses.”

Quay is also the author of the manuscript, “A Bayesian analysis concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 is not a natural zoonosis but instead is laboratory derived.”

Embattled Americans might expect their intelligence community to take notice of major scientific developments like that. Americans might also wonder what the nation’s “medical CIA” might know.

The Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), a division of the CDC, is tasked to prevent dangerous viruses from arriving on American soil. Despite boots on the ground in China, the EIS failed to prevent the virus from arriving stateside. What the medical CIA knows about the origin of the virus would be of great interest, but nobody from the EIS has testified to Congress under oath.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier began her career with the EIS and in early 2020, as director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), she briefed reporters on a “novel” coronavirus from China. When asked about travelers from Wuhan to the United States, Messonnier told reporters that was “not something that I’m at liberty to talk about today.” Americans might expect their intelligence agencies to identify the official or politician who slapped that gag order on the CDC official, and explain what it was intended to hide.

Messonnier suddenly resigned from the CDC in May and has yet to testify. Another missing witness is Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance. A recent report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee found “strong evidence that Daszak is the public face of a CCP [Chinese Communist Party] disinformation campaign designed to suppress discussion about a possible lab leak.”

The Aug. 27 report claims the intelligence community examined “all available intelligence reporting and other information.” That is clearly a stretch, and embattled Americans could be forgiven for regarding it as a coverup, or worse.

According to the Aug. 27 report, “the virus was not developed as a biological weapon.” In addition, “the IC assesses China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of COVID-19 emerged.” That ignores the experience of Qiu, who worked closely with four facilities believed to be involved in China’s biological weapons development, including the WIV, where she transferred the cargo of deadly pathogens.

Most agencies involved with the report believe “SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered.” That ignores the published work of Quay, who found “genetic manipulation” of the Nipah virus, and showed how gain-of-function research makes viruses “supercharged.”

Had the intelligence agencies investigated the latest scientific evidence, the death threats to Redfield, the resignation of Messonnier, and the mysterious Epidemic Intelligence Service, they might not remain divided on the origin of COVID-19.

As it stands, a dubious and evasive report will help China hinder investigation of the pandemic that has harmed millions of Americans and people around the world.

Latest US Intel Report Helps China Hinder Probe Into COVID-19 Origin (theepochtimes.com)

After previously ignoring their Advisory Committee, the Biden Admin FDA didn’t even bother to “hold a formal advisory committee meeting to discuss Pfizer’s application for full approval of its covid-19 vaccine” See: “Covid-19: FDA set to grant full approval to Pfizer vaccine without public discussion of data” BMJ 2021; 374 (20 August 2021) BMJ 2021;374:n2086 By Gareth Iacobucci, The BMJ- https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2021/08/23/covid-19-fda-set-to-grant-full-approval-to-pfizer-mrna-covid-vaccine-without-public-discussion-of-data-there-is-no-control-group-either/

Update: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2021/08/25/fda-only-renewed-emergency-use-authorization-for-pfizer-approval-was-for-biontechs-comirnaty-with-years-of-additional-safety-studies-required-thru-2027/

“Three experts have now resigned from a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee after the agency approved an Alzheimer’s drug called Aduhelm against the wishes of nearly every member on the panel.” https://www.npr.org/2021/06/11/1005567149/3-experts-have-resigned-from-an-fda-committee-over-alzheimers-drug-approval It may be four, because there are four vacancies listed: https://www.fda.gov/advisory-committees/peripheral-and-central-nervous-system-drugs-advisory-committee/peripheral-and-central-nervous-system-drugs-advisory-committee-roster

From Dr. Aaron Kesselheim’s resignation letter from the FDA Advisory Committee (June 10, 2021):

“For both eteplirsen and aducanumab, the decisions by FDA administrators to ignore the Advisory Committee’s clear recommendations led to their approval of two highly problematic drugs that offered little evidence that they would meaningfully benefit patients suffering from these devastating conditions. This will undermine the care of these patients, public trust in the FDA, the pursuit of useful therapeutic innovation, and the affordability of the health care system.”

“With eteplirsen, the AdComm and FDA’s own scientific staff reported that there was no convincing evidence that the drug worked; both groups were overruled by FDA leadership, which approved the drug based on considerations (including concerns about the sponsor’s finances) that were not part of the Advisory Committee’s discussions.

This week, the aducanumab decision by FDA administrators was probably the worst drug approval decision in recent US history. At the last minute the agency switched its review to the Accelerated Approval pathway based on the debatable premise that the drug’s effect on the brain amyloid was likely to help patients with Alzheimer’s disease. But, this pivotal question was not discussed at the Advisory Committee meeting and its premise was specifically excluded from discussion, as the FDA said “We’re not using the myeloid as a surrogate for efficacy.” At our public meeting, concerns about trial data from one of the FDA’s own reviewers were not given adequate time for discussion, and some of the questions FDA asked the committee were worded in a way that seemed slanted to yield responses that would favor the drug’s approval.

“I believed in the value of Advisory Committees to provide a way for outside experts to provide science-based guidance to the agency on its drug approval decisions. But after my experience on this Advisory Committee for both the eteplirsen and now the aducanumab discussions, it is clear to me that the FDA is not presently capable of adequately integrating the Committee’s scientific recommendations into its approval decisions.” (Retyped, to facilitate reading, from the original letter found below and here: https://archive.ph/uPSXj There could be a typo. We make no guarantees. The original is always the original.)

The original letter is here:

It’s also found here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3jKN4GWYAUGj9U.png

IS BIDEN USING THIS DRUG? THAT MIGHT PROVIDE A CLUE AS TO ITS EFFECTIVENESS.
After reading the letter, now see FDA’s blah, blah, blah:
“FDA Grants Accelerated Approval for Alzheimer’s Drug
For Immediate Release:
June 07, 2021

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Aduhelm (aducanumab) for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, a debilitating disease affecting 6.2 million Americans. Aduhelm was approved using the accelerated approval pathway, which can be used for a drug for a serious or life-threatening illness that provides a meaningful therapeutic advantage over existing treatments.

Accelerated approval can be based on the drug’s effect on a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict a clinical benefit to patients, with a required post-approval trial to verify that the drug provides the expected clinical benefit. 

“Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating illness that can have a profound impact on the lives of people diagnosed with the disease as well as their loved ones,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Currently available therapies only treat symptoms of the disease; this treatment option is the first therapy to target and affect the underlying disease process of Alzheimer’s. As we have learned from the fight against cancer, the accelerated approval pathway can bring therapies to patients faster while spurring more research and innovation.”

Alzheimer’s is an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, and eventually, the ability to carry out simple tasks.

While the specific causes of Alzheimer’s disease are not fully known, it is characterized by changes in the brain—including amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary, or tau, tangles—that result in loss of neurons and their connections. These changes affect a person’s ability to remember and think.
Aduhelm represents a first-of-its-kind treatment approved for Alzheimer’s disease. It is the first new treatment approved for Alzheimer’s since 2003 and is the first therapy that targets the fundamental pathophysiology of the disease.

Researchers evaluated Aduhelm’s efficacy in three separate studies representing a total of 3,482 patients. The studies consisted of double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled dose-ranging studies in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Patients receiving the treatment had significant dose-and time-dependent reduction of amyloid beta plaque, while patients in the control arm of the studies had no reduction of amyloid beta plaque.

These results support the accelerated approval of Aduhelm, which is based on the surrogate endpoint of reduction of amyloid beta plaque in the brain—a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid beta plaque was quantified using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging to estimate the brain levels of amyloid beta plaque in a composite of brain regions expected to be widely affected by Alzheimer’s disease pathology compared to a brain region expected to be spared of such pathology. 

The prescribing information for Aduhelm includes a warning for amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA), which most commonly presents as temporary swelling in areas of the brain that usually resolves over time and does not cause symptoms, though some people may have symptoms such as headache, confusion, dizziness, vision changes, or nausea. Another warning for Aduhelm is for a risk of hypersensitivity reactions, including angioedema and urticaria. The most common side effects of Aduhelm were ARIA, headache, fall, diarrhea, and confusion/delirium/altered mental status/disorientation.  

Under the accelerated approval provisions, which provide patients suffering from the disease earlier access to the treatment, the FDA is requiring the company, Biogen, to conduct a new randomized, controlled clinical trial to verify the drug’s clinical benefit. If the trial fails to verify clinical benefit, the FDA may initiate proceedings to withdraw approval of the drug.

Aduhelm was granted Fast Track designation, which seeks to expedite the development and review of drugs that are intended to treat serious conditions where initial evidence showed the potential to address an unmet medical need. 
Aduhelm is made by Biogen of Cambridge, Massachusetts”. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-grants-accelerated-approval-alzheimers-drug

FDA Ignored Advisory Committee Recommendations & Approved Drugs that “Offered Little Evidence That They Would Meaningfully Benefit Patients” (June Resignation Letter); FDA Didn’t Bother to Convene Advisory Committee for Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA Covid Vaccine Approval | Mining Awareness + (wordpress.com)

Attendees violated New Mexico’s indoor mask mandate, putting lives at risk

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary in history, married her longtime partner Skip Sayre on Saturday at a tribal resort in New Mexico. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), the failed presidential candidate best known for pretending to be Native American, was among the celebrities in attendance.

Photos obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show Haaland, Warren, and other wedding guests partying indoors without masks in blatant violation of New Mexico’s public health restrictions. On Aug. 17, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D., N.M.) issued a statewide order reimposing an indoor mask mandate to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“The re-implemented mask requirement applies to all individuals aged 2 and older in all indoor public settings—except when eating or drinking,” the governor’s press release for the order states. “The indoor mask requirement will be effective Friday, Aug. 20. It will remain in effect until at least September 15.”

An Interior Department spokesman, who is a former employee of Media Matters for America, told the Free Beacon guests at the wedding “were required to be vaccinated and wear masks” in accordance with “CDC guidance and New Mexico’s public health orders,” but did not comment on the photographic evidence that contradicted this claim.

Lujan Grisham’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the apparent violation of the state’s mask mandate.

Politico‘s Playbook newsletter also reported, without evidence, that “guests were required to be vaccinated and wear masks.” The news blog published two photos of the married couple posing outdoors, but none from the ceremony or reception, which appears to have taken place indoors.

In one photo, Haaland and Sayre are embracing on the dance floor. Neither are wearing masks, though Haaland appears to be holding one in her hand. Another photo shows Haaland sitting next to Rep. Sharice Davids (D., Kan.), an actual Native American who has bragged that “all my heroes killed colonizers.” The women were unmasked, even though they were not eating or drinking. Another photo shows Warren smiling without a mask as she poses with a fan.

“Bruce and I were so happy to celebrate Deb and Skip this weekend,” Warren wrote on Facebook. Her office did not return a request for comment on the countless lives endangered by the senator’s reckless behavior.

Haaland’s wedding is the most recent example of Democratic politicians flouting government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions while insisting that everyone else follow the rules. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D., N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, lectured Americans about the importance of wearing masks, yet defied a State Department “do not travel” warning by attending a maskless wedding in France earlier this month.

Former president Barack Obama threw himself a massive birthday party at his $17.5 million estate on Martha’s Vineyard, which coincided with a spike in COVID-19 that is threatening to overrun the island’s only hospital. Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington, D.C., attended a maskless indoor wedding earlier this summer, less than 24 hours after she mandated the use of masks indoors. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) has violated his own health and safety guidelines on numerous occasions.

More than 227,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 since President Joe Biden took office.

PHOTOS: Elizabeth Warren Partied Maskless With Actual Native Americans at Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s Wedding (freebeacon.com)

A Florida-based coalition of lawyers says that it’s going to represent thousands of U.S. airline workers seeking a religious exemption from mandatory COVID-19 vaccines.

Liberty Counsel, an international group that advocates for religious freedom, said at least 3,000 employees representing 15 airlines in the United States and abroad have come forward asking for legal help.

“We’re working with people in a lot of different airlines,” Liberty Counsel founder and Chairman Mat Staver told The Epoch Times. “They come directly to us to contact us. [The number is] quite large.”

Staver said the airline workers include pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers, and gate checkers—“all are represented.”

“We basically walk them through the process,” he said. “These people were working during the pandemic. Now they’re being told to get the shots or they’re being terminated.”

On Aug. 6, United Airlines became the first major U.S. airline to require mandatory vaccinations for all 67,000 employees by Oct. 25 under threat of termination.

The Chicago-based airline estimates 80 percent of employees have received the shot, while more than 95 percent of pilots have already done so.

A United Airlines media relations spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the company has a “very narrow reasonable accommodation process for those who qualify for medical or religious exemptions.”

“We do not have additional information to share at this time beyond what was sent to employees earlier this month in [a corporate] memo,” the spokesperson said.

Staver noted that the vaccine mandates are causing severe mental stress among airline employees industrywide, resulting in accidents on the ground in some cases.

Staver said United Airlines is also challenging employees to prove their religious conviction to qualify for a religious exemption. To be eligible, he said, they have to show they’re a follower of a recognized religion with a history of opposition to vaccines. They also need to include a letter from the clergy stating their sincere religious belief.

“They’re trying to intimidate them, and in some cases, [employees] believe they have no other alternative,” he said.

On Aug. 24, Delta Air Lines announced vaccines would be required for an estimated 68,000 employees and that about 75 percent have complied. Those that refuse the vaccines will be subject to a $200 monthly surcharge.

“We’ve always known the vaccinations are the most effective tool to keep our people safe and healthy in the face of this global health crisis,” Delta Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in a statement. “That’s why we’re taking additional, robust actions to increase our vaccinations rate.”

Earlier in August, Hawaiian Airlines and Frontier Airlines announced mandatory vaccines for their employees. Alaska Airlines is considering implementing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for its 20,000 employees.

Staver said that despite full legal immunity granted to COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, private employers could still be held liable for any adverse reaction to the shots.

As of Aug. 30, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 13,500 deaths associated with COVID-19 injections through its voluntary reporting system.

Lawyers Helping Airline Workers Land Religious Waivers Against COVID-19 Vaccines (theepochtimes.com)

On Sunday morning, former President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, compared Americans who oppose getting vaccinated or wearing masks to the Islamic terrorists who attacked Kabul airport and killed 13 members of the United states military.

Duncan tweeted, “Have you noticed how strikingly similar both the mindsets and actions are between the suicide bombers at Kabul’s airport, and the anti-mask and anti-vax people here? They both blow themselves up, inflict harm on those around them, and are convinced they are fighting for freedom.”

Have you noticed how strikingly similar both the mindsets and actions are between the suicide bombers at Kabul’s airport, and the anti-mask and anti-vax people here?
They both blow themselves up, inflict harm on those around them, and are convinced they are fighting for freedom.

— Arne Duncan (@arneduncan) August 29, 2021

Rep. Dan Crenshaw took no prisoners in his response, snapping, “Wow you’re a real piece of human garbage.”

Wow you’re a real piece of human garbage. https://t.co/xN7ZbKOWHt

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 29, 2021

He added, “Btw this guys was Secretary of Education under Obama/Biden. Will Biden denounce him?”

Btw this guys was Secretary of Education under Obama/Biden.

Will Biden denounce him?

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 29, 2021

Crenshaw wasn’t alone in his criticism:

GOP Congresswoman Mary Miller: “Secretary Duncan, this is a very sick thing to say during the dignified transfer of 13 US service members lost in the attack.”

Secretary Duncan, this is a very sick thing to say during the dignified transfer of 13 US service members lost in the attack. https://t.co/InRkOTmk6t

— Congresswoman Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) August 30, 2021

Former Congressman Jason Lewis: “Well no…you miserable son-of-a-bitch. But I have noticed how ISIS and the Obama/Biden 2.0 administration both seek to create fear in the minds of their neighbors in order to take away freedom of choice and push an oppressive agenda. But of course I would never compare the two…”

Well no…you miserable son-of-a-bitch. But I have noticed how ISIS and the Obama/Biden 2.0 administration both seek to create fear in the minds of their neighbors in order to take away freedom of choice and push an oppressive agenda. But of course I would never compare the two… https://t.co/SQivA9uVg7

— Jason Lewis (@LewisForMN) August 29, 2021

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro:  “Feel free to travel to Kabul any time and report from on the ground about those similarities.”

Feel free to travel to Kabul any time and report from on the ground about those similarities https://t.co/HPOTrNz7AB

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) August 30, 2021

Human Events’ Jack Posobiec: “This was an Obama Cabinet member. This is what they think of you.”

This was an Obama Cabinet member. This is what they think of you. https://t.co/4yAV6d02KZ

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 29, 2021

Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina was murdered in the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018: “When you ran the Department of Ed your policies encouraged districts to ignore threats to our nation’s schools where they festered. It led to Parkland. Delete your account.”

When you ran the Department of Ed your policies encouraged districts to ignore threats to our nation’s schools where they festered. It led to Parkland.

Delete your account. https://t.co/x6WHdK2Yil

— Ryan Petty (@rpetty) August 29, 2021

Journalist Beverly Hallberg: “So because I have an autoimmune disease and waiting for clinical trials (also have natural immunity), the former Secretary of Ed thinks that I’m just as bad as suicide bombers. Got it.”

So because I have an autoimmune disease and waiting for clinical trials (also have natural immunity), the former Secretary of Ed thinks that I’m just as bad as suicide bombers. Got it. https://t.co/vK01nqG0Qe

— Beverly Hallberg (@BeverlyHallberg) August 30, 2021

Real Clear Investigations’ Mark Hemingway: “This man was in charge of public education in America.”

This man was in charge of public education in America. https://t.co/AAaSi3fi1S

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) August 30, 2021

The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf: “If they were actually ‘strikingly similar’ many people would have no preference as to which to share a community with but in fact, no one is ambivalent on that question.”

If they were actually “strikingly similar” many people would have no preference as to which to share a community with but in fact, no one is ambivalent on that question. https://t.co/nitHM2uZUM

— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) August 30, 2021

WEX Magazine’s Jay Caruso: “It is not surprising that Duncan blew through $7 billion in five years to ‘fix crumbling schools’ and failed.”

It is not surprising that Duncan blew through $7 billion in five years to “fix crumbling schools” and failed.

— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) August 30, 2021

Radio host Dan O’Donnell: “Have you noticed how strikingly similar both your intelligence level and logical reasoning capability are to those of a tree stump?”

Have you noticed how strikingly similar both your intelligence level and logical reasoning capability are to those of a tree stump? https://t.co/yYaM02F3CL

— Dan O’Donnell (@DanODonnellShow) August 29, 2021

Duncan went to college with Robert Runcie, later the superintendent of Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) at the time of the Parkland shooting. Duncan hired Runcie to run Chicago Public School district’s IT office, then later when Runcie applied for the superintendent job in Broward gave Runcie a glowing reference.

As The Daily Wire reported:

As superintendent, Runcie convinced the Broward County taxpayers to fund an $800 million bond initiative called “Safety, Music, Renovation, and Technology,” or “SMART.” According to Florida TaxWatch, in the first four years of the SMART bond’s existence, the district only spent 5% of the money on safety projects, which was far below what the district was claiming to be spending.

Obama Education Secretary Compares Anti-Maskers To Kabul Terrorists. Crenshaw: ‘Wow. You’re A Real Piece Of Garbage’ | The Daily Wire

A full-page advertisement that called for the world to hold the Chinese communist regime to account for the COVID-19 pandemic was pulled at the last moment by The New York Times in March 2020. The paper said the ad didn’t meet its standards, but the ad was pulled after it had already passed the paper’s vetting process. The businessman who paid for the ad suspects the paper’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) played a role. He only revealed the details of the incident to The Epoch Times earlier this year.

The ad was scheduled to run on March 22, 2020. It was already approved, paid for, and even printed and distributed in some locations when the paper pulled the plug in the middle of the night, preventing the ad from being published in some of the paper’s main markets, including New York and Florida.

The decision was so abrupt that the sales representative responsible for the ad wasn’t informed, and the client only found out the next morning when he couldn’t find the ad in the paper.

The client, Brett Kingstone, is a real estate agent in Florida. He backed up his story with email threads documenting his correspondence with the newspaper as well as images of the contract he signed, details about the payment and subsequent refund of the $55,000 ad fee, and photos of the ad as it ran in some locales.

New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said the ad ran in “an early edition of Sunday’s paper and was removed from all later editions, which account for the vast majority of copies.”

“The ad in question did not meet our standards and should not have appeared in The New York Times,” she told The Epoch Times via email.

She didn’t respond to a question about whether the paper faced any CCP pressure regarding the ad.

“It was removed after being flagged internally by [New York] Times staff,” she said.

Kingstone, a prolific donor to charitable and conservative causes, had contacted The New York Times via email on March 18, 2020, with an advertorial placement request.

He said he placed an advertorial in the paper’s Sunday edition back in 2018 and the staff “did an excellent job in delivering what was promised both in performance and placement.”

“I am interested in doing the same again,” he said, submitting a draft of the ad.

The text urged the U.S. government to organize and initiate investigations and lawsuits regarding the origins and repercussions of the CCP virus pandemic.

“This virus was the direct result of the incompetence and irresponsibility of the Chinese Government. They showed as much disregard for their own population as they have for ours,” the ad stated.

It called for “massive liability lawsuits” against the CCP as well as investigations into two Chinese labs close to the epicenter of the pandemic, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Scrutiny of the Wuhan Institute of Virology was treated as a taboo subject by social media and the corporate press at the time. Only earlier this year have establishment actors acknowledged that the inquiries were legitimate and that the virus could have escaped from the lab.

On March 19, 2020, the ad placement representative informed Kingstone that it had been accepted.

“My Ad Acceptability team has approved the message as long as we include the footnotes, your email address, a border around the ad, and advertisement slugs,” the representative said.

The two then exchanged several emails regarding technical edits to the ad as well as proof of payment of the ad fee required before publication.

Everything seemed to go smoothly.

Then, on the morning of March 22, 2020, Kingstone was surprised to learn the ad was nowhere to be found in the Florida edition of the paper.

In his inbox, he found an email from the sales representative:

“I wanted to let you know that I was informed late last night that our production team had pulled the ad from the production run, without my knowledge. I’m investigating this now and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can with any updates,” it read.

“I just wanted to assure you that I’m working on this and I will hopefully be able to share additional context on Monday after I speak to the necessary people. I will be in touch on Monday!”

The representative has since left the paper. The Epoch Times is omitting her name for the sake of her privacy.

Kingstone didn’t hide his disappointment.

“I would like to know the reason why they did this,” he said in an email response to the representative, requesting a refund.

He asked whether the paper’s executives concluded that his particular message needed to be silenced.

“I was very pleased with how the NYT treated me on my first advocacy advertisement. They were more than fair. Now my fears about bias are being realized,” he wrote.

The cancellation was all the more a slap in the face given that The New York Times used to regularly publish propaganda advertorials paid for by a company directly controlled by the CCP.

After receiving his refund, Kingstone didn’t leave it at that.

As it happened, his website, which was listed on the ad, came under a cyberattack around the same time the copies of the paper that did include the ad landed on people’s doormats, he said.

This was too much of a coincidence for Kingstone, who has had his share of run-ins with the CCP. It was his company that years earlier won a precedent-setting lawsuit against Chinese counterfeiters. In 2005, he published a book detailing his story, called “The Real War Against America.”

Kingstone started to inquire with his contacts and eventually reached the conclusion that the CCP must have been involved in the ad’s cancellation.

One New York Times executive told him a CCP official called the paper’s leadership, demanding the ad be pulled, he said. The Epoch Times wasn’t able to independently confirm that the phone call took place. Attempts to reach the executive for comment were unsuccessful. The paper’s spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied that such a phone call took place.

In any case, the situation carries “an earmark of how China would operate,” according to Pat Laflin, a former FBI agent who upon retirement led a series of lectures for the bureau to American businesses and research entities on economic espionage by adversarial nations, including China.

It’s “impossible” that the CCP let the ad slide, he told The Epoch Times.

“If there’s anything negative about China, China’s going to scream,” he said in a phone call.

It would just be the question of what form the pressure took, he said.

“Exactly what they said and how subtle it was or how not-so-subtle, that’s all speculation. I don’t know. But did the call come in? Yes.”

The New York Times has over the years repeatedly faced criticism over its relations with the CCP. The controversy reaches back to at least 2001, when the paper’s publisher at the time, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., met with then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin, whose power faction within the communist regime exerts influence even to this day, long after his retirement.

The paper actively discouraged reporting on one of the most gruesome atrocities committed by the CCP—the harvesting of organs from prisoners of conscience, mainly practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual practice—as indicated by former New York Times Beijing correspondent Didi Kirsten Tatlow in her testimony to the independent China Tribunal in the United Kingdom.

Last year, the paper finally cut ties with the CCP-controlled China Daily and quietly deleted hundreds of paid propaganda pieces from its website, The Washington Free Beacon reported. China Daily disclosed to federal authorities one $50,000 payment to The New York Times in 2018. It’s not clear how much total revenue The New York Times drew from CCP advertorials.

NY Times Pulled Ad Calling CCP to Account for Pandemic (theepochtimes.com)

The intelligence community’s (IC) recently declassified non-assessment of the origins of the Chinese coronavirus should be seen as part of a continued charade by the Biden administration that—in effect—protects Communist China.

It enables Team Biden to present the appearance of concern over China’s malign behavior, while absolving itself of any responsibility to forthrightly confront it.

More than a year-and-a-half after the coronavirus began spreading, the IC declared that it “remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19. All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.”

This conclusion seemed almost preordained. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a highly reminiscent statement on May 27, just after President Joe Biden called for the 90-day review into the origins of the coronavirus, asserting that: “The U.S. Intelligence Community does not know exactly where, when, or how the COVID-19 virus was transmitted initially but has coalesced around two likely scenarios: either it emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals or it was a laboratory accident.”

As then, in the final assessment, different agencies gave different weights to these hypotheses.

The IC claimed it could not provide a more definitive conclusion without better clinical samples and the like, and that “China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment.”

Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the IC was only unequivocal on the most provocative thesis regarding the origin of the coronavirus: “We judge the virus was not developed as a biological weapon.” Chinese officials, per the IC, had no “foreknowledge of the virus” before the initial outbreak of COVID-19 emerged.

The report, in short, generated precisely the answer one would have expected from increasingly hyper-politicized bureaucracies keen to hedge on vital questions—and likely even more so given the geopolitical implications at play—when seeking out sensitive information from a closed country in which they lack visibility, where they have frequently found themselves blindsided, and on which they have allegedly gone soft in the recent past.

Occam’s Razor suggests President Biden got exactly the review one would have expected, and therefore that he would have wanted.

We may never fully know why the lab leak thesis became politically correct months after officials across the federal government, in the medical field, and media had gone to such great lengths to pooh-pooh it. But we know that this created a political issue for the Biden administration after it had punted the origin question originally to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-dominated World Health Organization (WHO) for a futile Potemkin inquiry, and reports surfaced that it had quashed a Secretary of State Mike Pompeo-directed investigation into the matter.

The IC review was a necessary sideshow.

Why?

Because in the final analysis, how the coronavirus came about is of secondary importance to what China did once it was literally or figuratively out of the bottle.

Yes, the lab leak thesis is more than plausible based on a mass of circumstantial evidence, including that catalogued by the Secretary Pompeo-led State Department, the writings of prominent scientists and science journalists, and a House Republican-led report on the origins of the coronavirus. The president’s statement subsequent to the release of the IC review that “We will do everything we can to trace the roots of this outbreak…so that we can take every necessary precaution to prevent it from happening again” though banal and toothless, is fine insofar as prudence demands learning from catastrophes.

But set aside how the coronavirus came about.

We know it came from China.

We know the CCP silenced whistleblowers who might have had valuable knowledge and insight into the coronavirus that could have saved lives (and certainly, including those associated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where we know China engaged in dangerous gain-of-function research—one of the only places in the world where such work is conducted—that could very well have resulted in COVID-19).

We know it lied about human-to-human transmission.

We know it shut down internal travel but permitted Chinese citizens to fly all over the world and encouraged other nations not to halt such travel.

We know it hoarded personal protective equipment and then sold shoddy versions of it to peoples worldwide.

We know it pressed the WHO to push its favored narratives—including casting anyone who dared finger China for the coronavirus’s spread as racist and bigoted.

We know its mouthpiece threatened to “plunge” America “into the mighty sea of coronavirus” by withholding vital drugs as the crisis metastasized.

We know it sought to stymie investigations into the coronavirus’s origins at every turn.

We know it aimed to take advantage of the pandemic in service of its hegemonic ambitions in myriad ways, from the very start of the pandemic.

One could rattle off infinitely more such points.

But the bottom line is this: The CCP lied, deceived, and in effect weaponized the coronavirus that began on its soil. It did everything possible to conceal what was transpiring subsequent to the outbreak, stop other nations from taking necessary precautions—but advocating they shut down human life for months on end—and encourage its spread globally, which it has tried to exploit and leverage at every point to increase its power and influence.

The Biden administration has never made this point clear—that a hostile China weaponized the virus, and used it to pursue its ambitions. Consequently, it has never vowed to make China pay for it. And this in turn substantiates the point that the Biden administration’s punting of the question of the origin of the coronavirus to the intelligence community was part of a charade.

The review was the best the Biden administration could do if it wanted to create the impression of holding China to account out of political necessity, without doing anything about it.

And remember who the Biden administration’s core constituency is: The elite. Elites in government who have egg on their face over the gain-of-function research they funded by proxy at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and who again refused to investigate the lab leak thesis when smoking guns may still have been hot; elites in the medical field who appear to have been influenced by China into ignoring or dismissing the lab leak thesis—that Big Tech even banned talk of; elites in the business community, who are wedded to trading with China forever no matter the CCP’s evils; and elites in the media who themselves are complicit in refusing to investigate the coronavirus’s origins, and often running CCP-favorable coronavirus propaganda.

This is to say nothing of President Biden’s well-documented kowtowing to Communist China for nearly 50 years, made all the more disturbing and dangerous given the business activities of son Hunter and other family members.

The losers of this charade are the American people, who are seeing China once again appeased by their leaders, which will only invite further aggression.

The Chinese Coronavirus Origin Charade (theepochtimes.com)

How can you think straight and make rational decisions when each and everyday you hear conflicting and contradictory information from “authoritative” sources? You can’t. No one can. That’s the whole point. That’s why the powers that be are doing this. Welcome to the secular hell of a post-truth world.

We don’t need to wear masks. No wait, now we do. Hold up now we need to wear two masks. We can stop wearing masks now. Surprise, we need to wear masks again. Actually it turns out masks aren’t as effective as we thought.

We just need 15 days to slow the spread. Now we need a month. Maybe a year. Never mind, we didn’t need to lockdown at all and it caused more harm than good.

Don’t take any vaccine that Donald Trump rushed to market. You didn’t get the vaccine, are you nuts? The vaccine is highly effective. Oops it looks like highly vaccinated Israel is having a major outbreak. Get the vaccine or lose your job.

Are you keeping up? This is the reality of living in a post-truth world.

They want us shell shocked with rapidly changing information overload which leads to option paralysis and fear. When people are in a state of fear coupled with option paralysis they are very susceptible to manipulation and easy to control.

While we are all dazed and confused they are destroying families, small businesses, and entire nations. They are rigging elections, they are botching troop withdrawals to flood western countries with refugees, the American border is being invaded by hundreds of thousands of people, they are buying up single family homes and pricing you out of the market, they are printing endless money and inflating your currency.

They are transferring trillions of dollars in wealth to themselves and shutting up each and every last voice of dissent to it all while doing it.

All while the while you worry about a virus that statistically you have a 99% chance of surviving with the immune system God gave you.

It’s exhausting and impossible to keep up with by design. It’s meant to drain you mentally, physically, and spiritually so that you submit to their control. Don’t.

In the post-truth world anything goes. Chaos reigns. Those who create the chaos manifest their means of control. Do not comply. Do not give them one inch. Stand your ground. Hold the line.

Christians reject the post-truth world. We have absolute Truth in Jesus Christ and His Gospel as a firm foundation on which to stand. God is our authority. Not the CDC. Not the Biden administration. Not the WHO. Nor the talking heads on CNN and Fox News.

In the darkness of chaos Jesus is the Light that leads us to salvation. Jesus saves. That is the fundamental Truth of the Gospel. Now more then ever we need saving. We need Truth. We need Order.

The battle rages on, but the war has already been won and we must never forget that. We must cling to the cross and stand firm in our convictions. We must love one another, obey God, and humble ourselves enough to fully depend on Him in this time of great trial.

I know we can do it, because we serve the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Creator of the universe. May you find comfort in His Truth and keep the faith.

God bless you and God bless America,

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus is King

How To Survive In a Post-Truth World Of Chaos – Gab News

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has been dinged several times by fact-checkers over claims he has made during the coronavirus crisis, including a total of 11 “Pinocchios” from the Washington Post.

Over the course of three weeks between March 13 and April 3, Biden was fact-checked five separate times for making false or misleading claims concerning the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic.

A Washington Post fact check on March 13 awarded Biden four Pinocchios, the fact-checker’s most severe rating, for two manipulated videos the Biden campaign circulated.

The first video claimed to show Trump at a Feb. 28 rally saying Democrats were turning the coronavirus into “their new hoax” after they failed to bring Trump down through impeachment. Biden’s video was edited to make it appear that Trump was calling the coronavirus a hoax. Trump, however, was referring to the Democrats’ attempts to blame him for the virus, not the virus itself.

The second Biden campaign video showed Trump saying the phrase “the American Dream is dead,” which the Post found was taken out of context and missing the second part of Trump’s statement where he promised to “bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before.”

Another Post fact check on March 24 gave the campaign four Pinocchios after adviser Ron Klain accused Trump of silencing Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The president and the White House sent a clear message to scientists in the government—there would be a price for speaking out and speaking up,” he said in a campaign video released on March 21.

Messonnier continued to hold routine phone briefings with reporters in the weeks after she raised the alarm about the virus at a press conference with Trump.

Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote that Klain’s framing was “simply wrong.” Messonnier’s alarming rhetoric did irritate Trump, but the idea that she was silenced was a “false narrative,” Kessler added.

At a CNN town hall on March 27, Biden repeated an earlier claim that Trump had eliminated the White House pandemic office. He also claimed Trump made “no effort” to put any pressure on Chinese president Xi Jinping and reduced the CDC’s staff in China prior to the outbreak. Biden added he called for China to admit medical experts from the United States when the outbreak in China was still in its early stages.

The Post‘s fact check gave Biden three Pinocchios due to his imprecise language. The Trump administration sought access for CDC experts, and the administration told the Post that Trump offered to send experts to China to help with the outbreak. Biden also did not specifically call for experts to be sent until late February.

Those weren’t the only times Biden has been fact-checked for rhetoric during the crisis.

On March 15, during the Democratic presidential debate, Biden falsely claimed that Trump refused coronavirus testing kits from the World Health Organization. The kits were never offered in the first place. PolitiFact rated his statement “Mostly False.” CNN, after initially deeming his statement factual, retracted its rating after a report by the Washington Free Beacon.

On March 19, Biden first tweeted that Trump “eliminated” the pandemic response team. The Washington Post fact check found this claim “overstated” due to the fact that the global health directorate was folded into another office under the guidance of former national security adviser John Bolton. Citing “dueling narratives,” however, it didn’t give a rating to Biden’s claim.

Biden Has Earned 11 Pinocchios From Fact-Checkers During Coronavirus Crisis (freebeacon.com)

California voters have long been excoriated by commentators for the 1994 passage of Proposition 187, which severely limited state services for illegal immigrants. Among other things, it required teachers and nurses to report suspected illegal immigrants to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, effectively becoming INS agents. Those were among the reasons the initiative was thrown out of federal court.

Now Prop. 187-style enforcement requirements could be imposed due to COVID-19. A measure by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), Akilah Weber (D-San Diego), and Evan Low (D-Campbell) would mandate proof of vaccination “before entering restaurants, bars, movie theaters, gyms, hotels, stadiums and other indoor establishments.” That’s according to a draft summary of the law obtained by the Sacramento Bee. There’s no bill number or text yet available to read.

If passed, the state Department of Health would be required to develop an enforcement plan by Nov. 1.

It would mean waitresses, bartenders, movie ushers, gym workers and stadium ticket-takers would be turned into police officers for the Department of Health. Would they be fined severely for doing their jobs poorly, or not at all? Would they receive special training? Who would pay for that?

In a state with an ongoing labor shortage, it’s easy to see these employees quitting to do something else. And if they’re fired, would they be given unemployment? If not, would there be thousands of lawsuits against the already overburdened and only partly reformed Employment Development Department?

According to the Bee, “The new law would exempt children who aren’t eligible for vaccines and people who aren’t eligible due to a medical condition or disability, subject to verification.” Would that include the controversial “conscience” exemption some religious groups have advanced? What about the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion, also guaranteed in the California Constitution?

The proposal comes with the rise of the Delta variant of COVID-19. But will the increase in infections recede by November, when the law would go into effect, the way previous surges have receded after a couple of months? Nobody knows.

Meanwhile, Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-Greenbrae) on Wednesday proposed a resolution suspending all member of the Legislature who have not been vaccinated. The suspensions would be imposed just ahead of the Legislature’s Sept. 10 adjournment date.

At the end of session, the Assembly and state Senate camp out in their separate chambers for many hours a day to hammer out legislation. “No other job has people locked up in a room for two weeks,” Levine said. “There’s only one bathroom off the chamber. There’s only one place to get coffee off the chamber. Even if we don’t get sick, we can be carriers.”

The Los Angeles Times reported its survey of the 40 senators and 80 assemblymen and found 12 of them refused to disclose their vaccination status, 11 being Republicans. That’s 39 percent of the GOP’s already minuscule representation of 28 legislators. So their ranks would be reduced to 17.

Moreover, even if the unvaccinated got the jab today, according to the CDC, “It typically takes 2 weeks after vaccination for the body to build protection (immunity) against the virus that causes COVID-19. That means it is possible a person could still get COVID-19 before or just after vaccination and then get sick because the vaccine did not have enough time to build protection.”

That means the Levine resolution would expel the 11 members for the rest of the 2021 session, with no recourse for those affected. It’s hard to think of anything more anti-democratic.

Here’s a better idea: The Legislature should adjourn until next January. It already passed the key budget bills. Few of the hundreds of bills left on the calendar should be passed anyway. Anything worthwhile can wait until January.

California Legislature Planning to Use Pandemic to Shred Democracy (theepochtimes.com)

Many of the reports coming out of Afghanistan this past week mention something that is simultaneously deplored and swept under the rug.

I mean the fact that when the United States raised the white flag to the Taliban it left behind an enormous amount of American-made military hardware.

Just a couple of weeks ago, all of that war-making matériel had been the property of two entities.

Some belonged to U.S. forces themselves.

A lot of it belonged to the U.S.-supplied Afghan government that was—the mighty 300,000 man-strong force that, on July 8, President Joe Biden said would prevail over the Taliban if push came to shove.

Push did come to shove, as we all know, and now those vast stores of military hardware are under sole control of the Taliban.

There have been several differing inventories of these stockpiles. One just published in the London Times provides perhaps the most authoritative accounting published to date.

Scattered in seven Afghan army garrisons across the country, from Kabul and Kandahar to Herat, Mazar-Sharif, Kunduz, these arms depots include an impressive amount of U.S. military hardware: 22,174 armored Humvees, for example, 42 pickup trucks and SUVS, 64,363 machine guns, 162,043 radios. 16,035 night vision goggles, 358,530 assault rifles (the real ones, not the “assault rifles” that Joe Biden warns about at home), 126,295 pistols, and 176 artillery pieces.

And that’s just for starters. The U.S. also generously left behind more than 100 helicopters, including 33 Blackhawks, 4 C-130 transport planes, and some 60 other fixed-wing aircraft.

There was also oodles of ammunition to go along with all the loot.

The question that has not really been pressed about this rather awe-inspiring armory is, why?

Why did we leave it behind to be used by the Taliban?

I don’t believe that question has been addressed with anything like the determination it deserves.

Some people have suggested that it was just a matter of simple incompetence on the part of the Biden administration, particularly the State Department, which is overseeing the evacuation, and the president himself, who apparently chose to ignore advice from some of his advisors about the time table for the evacuation.

But I suspect there is something more insidious than simple incompetence.

What we’re dealing with here is politicized, and therefore, malevolent incompetence.

This is beginning to be recognized in some surprising venues.

The New York Times, for example, just published an op-ed by Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine who is part of a group of “veterans, journalists, and activists” who have been privately helping to organize evacuation efforts in Afghanistan for months.

“Never,” Ackerman wrote, “have I witnessed a greater, swifter collapse of competence than what I have seen with the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan.”

Nor is he shy about identifying the source of the pandemonium: “Events at the airport—desperation, death—indicate the extreme chaos that ensues when the commander in chief doesn’t actually understand the value of service.”

Like many observers, Ackerman focuses mainly on the chaos in Kabul.

But I continue to wonder about all that fire power and supporting matériel that we have left behind.

Why did we do so? Why did we not destroy it?

As far as I know, no one has answered those questions.

Of course, military hardware is not all that we have left behind.

The evacuation “mission” is apparently also leaving behind hundreds of Americans.

According to Rep. Dan Crenshaw, among others, “Biden is not letting U.S. citizens through the airport gates. It has been impossible to get anyone through for the last 24 hours.”

Crenshaw concludes: “This administration has been lying about their intent to save Americans. Unforgivable.”

Biden has been quick to try to shift the blame for this whole debacle onto Donald Trump. “He made a deal with the Taliban!” is his constant refrain.

But Biden neglects to point out that Trump had a plan to leave by the beginning of May, before the “summer fighting season,” and well before the Taliban had overrun the country.

Biden came up with his own timetable for the optics: he wanted to be able to claim the credit for ending “America’s longest war” and to do so in a way that would deny Trump any credit for it.

It has backfired spectacularly, and the blowback, I predict, is far from over.

For those who wonder about the kinder, gentler Taliban that Biden is partnering with, we’re already getting some vivid indications.

Sure, they post pictures of themselves eating ice-cream to taunt Biden.

I have even seen reports that they have bought or are planning to buy a painting by Hunter Biden to install in the Presidential palace.

Maybe that’s satire, who knows?

The Biden administration and its media poodles keep suggesting that the Taliban may be turning over a new leaf. I think you would have to be mad to think so.

One representative incident: The London Times is reporting that “Taliban fighters have shot dead an Afghan folk singer after it outlawed music and women’s voices on television and radio in the bellwether province of Kandahar, laying the ground for a nationwide ban in an echo of the brutal Islamist regime of 20 years ago.”

Uh oh.

What have we left behind in Afghanistan?

The brilliant editorial cartoonist Michael P. Ramirez provided the crispest summary in his cartoon for today.

A big transport helicopter is flying over our (former) embassy in Kabul. One speech balloon asks: “What did we leave behind.”

The other answers: “Our credibility.”

What We Left Behind in Afghanistan (theepochtimes.com)

Newly sworn-in New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is wasting no time taking sides in the school mask wars. Even before taking the top job, she told NBC’s “Today” that she intends to mandate masks for all public school students in the state.

She’s got President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party on her side, but the science is against her. There are no studies that demonstrate forcing young kids to wear masks reduces the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

Mandating masks also ignores the fundamental fact that not all masks are created equal. That should be the basis for a truce in the mask wars breaking out all over the nation. Mandates that settle for cloth masks with cartoon characters on them are a joke.

Most of the masks kids are wearing are laughably ineffective. A cloth mask blocks only 3% of viral particles from reaching the wearer, according to a study in the British Medical Journal. For such a minuscule difference, who would force kids to struggle with masks all day?

Instead of mandating masks, school districts should hand out effective masks, such as N95 or KN95 masks, at the beginning of the school day to kids whose parents request them. These masks block 95% of incoming viral particles. The masks were in short supply at the beginning of the pandemic, but no longer.

Flat surgical masks made from nonwoven polypropylene would be an improvement over what most kids wear. They block out 56% of virus particles, according to the same British study. But note that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns a surgical mask “does NOT provide the wearer with a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles and is not considered respiratory protection” in a health care setting.

Helping families who favor masking is smarter than producing classrooms full of kids with soiled, ineffective masks and many outraged parents.

The delta variant accounts for 98% of U.S. cases now and appears to be more dangerous to children. But would masks at school make a difference?

Not according to a CDC study of 169 Georgia elementary schools last winter. CDC researchers found that schools requiring staff and teachers to mask up had 37% fewer cases of COVID, and schools that improved air quality and ventilation had 39% fewer cases. Those approaches work. But mandating that students wear masks had no statistically significant impact on the spread of COVID. Mandating masks and letting masks be optional produced the same results. Not surprising considering the kinds of masks most kids wear.

Yet a week after releasing the Georgia study, the agency reversed course and recommended universal masking in school without offering new findings to justify that 180-degree flip. Perhaps the agency looked at the rising cases among children and panicked.

No surprise. Over the course of the pandemic, the CDC has earned a reputation as the “Centers for Disease Confusion.” The agency should have been guided by its own research.

Instead, it kowtowed to political correctness. Only a minority of Republicans support mandating masks, while 92% of Democrats agree, according to an Aug. 17 Axios/Ipsos poll.

Ten states — mostly blue states like Connecticut, New Jersey and California — mandate masks. Other states leave it up to local school boards. And eight red states, including Florida, ban local school boards from mandating masks, insisting parents get to decide.

Last week, Biden escalated the mask wars by threatening federal Department of Education lawsuits against the seven states. The New York Times followed with a full-throated endorsement of Biden’s maneuver, calling mandatory masking a “common-sense public health” policy.

Sorry. The science doesn’t support it.

Hochul argues that the New York Health Department has the authority to require masking in the state. According to the letter of the law, she’s right. But the Health Department has lost credibility after forcing nursing homes to take in COVID-positive patients and covering up the deadly results. The Health Department can’t be trusted.

Instead, Hochul should put parents in charge and provide effective masks for families who want them.

That’s good advice for governors in every state. Mandating masks that don’t work is a farce.

The Mask Mandate Farce :: Right & Free (rightandfree.com)

Chesa Boudin, AOC, and other progressive Democrats have cozied up to ‘Sing Tao’

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) earlier this month spoke at the annual gala for a pro-Beijing newspaper that has registered as a foreign agent of China due to its influence activities in the United States.

Newsom lauded Sing Tao for its “journalistic integrity” and for providing “balanced news stories” to its readers. He also said the newspaper, which publishes daily in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City, has helped Chinese Americans acclimate to California.

Sing Tao is considered a pro-Beijing news outlet. Its owners are members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a government advisory group controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. One of the owners, Charles Ho, last year defended a national security law that has been used to arrest pro-democracy journalists in Hong Kong. The Department of Justice required Sing Tao to register this month under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law aimed at tracking foreign influence in the United States. Chinese state-controlled news outlets like CGTN, China Daily, and Xinhua have also registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents.

Newsom’s praise for the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece comes as he is campaigning to remain in office. Newsom’s opponents cited California’s high tax rates, homelessness problem, and lax enforcement of immigration laws as reasons to recall the Democrat.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) has also praised Sing Tao. The “Squad” leader thanked the newspaper in June 2020 for covering a roundtable discussion she held for foreign-language media outlets. Her campaign paid $728 to Sing Tao in April 2021 for ads touting the coronavirus vaccine and $2,755 for ads in June 2020, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Rep. Grace Meng (N.Y.), another progressive Democrat, has paid $12,364 to Sing Tao through her campaign since 2012, the most of any lawmaker.

Former Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.) paid for $6,600 worth of ads in 2016. Royce, who was chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee until his retirement in 2019, is currently a registered lobbyist for Chinese tech giant Tencent.

The Democratic National Committee said in May that it would place ads with Sing Tao and other newspapers to raise awareness about hate crimes against the Asian-American community. The Republican National Committee paid $2,855 to the newspaper in November 2020.

Sing Tao has had most of its success cozying up to policymakers in California.

Chesa Boudin, the progressive San Francisco district attorney, spoke at the Sing Tao gala. Boudin, who once worked as a translator for the government of Hugo Chavez, the late Venezuelan communist dictator, touted an endorsement from Sing Tao during his campaign in 2019.

Like Newsom, Boudin faces a recall in San Francisco. His critics say his criminal justice reform efforts have caused a dramatic spike in crime. Chinese-American activists have criticized Boudin amid a spike in attacks against elderly people of Asian descent in San Francisco. Many of the activists blame Boudin’s soft-on-crime policies and support his recall, according to the New York Times.

San Francisco mayor London Breed (D.) and state senator Scott Wiener (D.) also spoke at the Sing Tao gala.

Newsom, Ocasio-Cortez, and the Democratic National Committee did not respond to requests for comment.

Newsom Praised Chinese Foreign Agent for ‘Journalistic Integrity’ (freebeacon.com)

EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak – the disgraced proponent of the COVID-19 “natural origins” theory and longtime collaborator of the Chinese Communist Party – deleted a tweet revealing his attendance at an event sponsored by Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases featuring Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers.

Posted on December 10th, 2019, just weeks before the Chinese government reported its first case of COVID-19, the tweet revealed Daszak’s attendance at the Nipah Virus International Conference in Singapore.

“The two-day session was co-hosted by Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). Also listed as organizers are the World Health Organization and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,” reports the site Some Bitch Told Me. CEPI was founded with a sizable investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In the now-deleted tweet, Daszak details how Shi Zhengli, the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s “bat lady,” calls for “open and transparent international scientific collaboration on pandemic risk pathogens” at her lab’s Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) facility. He follows up with a slide explaining how “you can train in the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan.”

Daszak’s deletion of the tweet follows The National Pulse unearthing the scientist’s extensive conflicts of interest with the Chinese Communist Party and its Wuhan Institute of Virology. These ties ultimately led to his recusal from the Lancet COVID-19 commission, where he used his position to discredit the “lab leak” theory and spread disinformation about the origins of the virus.

The unearthed post also follows Fauci, whose NIAID sponsored the event, denying affiliation with the Wuhan lab.

EcoHealth’s Peter Daszak Deletes Tweet Revealing Wuhan Lab Researchers At Fauci-Funded Conference. – The National Pulse

Twitter has permanently suspended former New York Times journalist and author Alex Berenson, an outspoken critic of CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus mandates and lockdowns—as well as Big Tech censorship.

“The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules,” a Twitter spokesperson told news outlets on Aug. 28, referring to the disease caused by the CCP virus.

Berenson, on his Substack page, also confirmed the suspension, writing: “Goodbye, Twitter.”

“This was the tweet that did it,” he wrote, referring to a now-deleted tweet that downplayed the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. “Entirely accurate. I can’t wait to hear what a jury will make of this. Meantime, guess you’ll be getting more Substacks.”

Berenson later noted that the ban didn’t come as a surprise to him.

“I expected this day was coming,” he wrote. “And Twitter can’t touch my Substack (in fact, it reportedly tried to buy Substack last year, but Substack fortunately said no).”

Berenson also hinted at possibly filing a lawsuit against Twitter over the suspension.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health agencies have said that COVID-19 vaccines “are safe and effective” after clinical trials and say that side effects are rare. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walenksy and others have cited studies saying that vaccines don’t necessarily prevent transmission of COVID-19, but have stated that the shots limit the severity of the illness.

Berenson worked for The New York Times from 1999 until 2010 before becoming a full-time author.

In July, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisors, criticized Berenson for his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“It’s horrifying … I just don’t get that. I mean, and I don’t think that anybody who is thinking clearly can get that,” he said of the crowd’s response to Berenson’s speech.

Right before his suspension, Berenson had often made note of the results of a preprint Israeli study that found that previous COVID-19 infection provides better protection against the Delta variant than any COVID-19 shot.

“SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccinees had a 13.06-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination) occurred during January and February of 2021,” the study reads.

SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the CCP virus.

Those who were vaccinated, the study found, were also at a higher risk of being hospitalized when compared to individuals who were previously infected.

Berenson also assailed what he described as Big Tech censorship, writing for the Wall Street Journal in December that the pandemic has ushered in a “new age of censorship and suppression.”

“Information has never been more plentiful or easier to distribute. Yet we are sliding into a new age of censorship and suppression, encouraged by technology giants and traditional media companies. As someone who’s been falsely characterized as a coronavirus ‘denier,’ I have seen this crisis firsthand,” he wrote, with Amazon having twice allegedly blocked the publication of his book.

Twitter Permanently Suspends Alex Berenson Over Viral COVID-19 Tweets (theepochtimes.com)

Google reported to the Australian federal government that it has removed around 800,000 YouTube videos concerning COVID-19, and 275 million COVID-19 apps from across its platform as part of its $1 billion (US $726 million) global campaign to “counter COVID-19 misinformation.”

It has also launched a US $3 million fund to wipe out alleged vaccine misinformation.

Google regards official government information from national health departments or the World Health Organization as reliable sources. Meanwhile, the WHO has noted that information changes over time as the world “learns more about the virus.”

Lucinda Longcroft, Google’s director of government affairs and public policy for Australia and New Zealand, told a Senate committee on foreign interference through social media in July that Google has extensive automated systems and a global network of staff to remove “false or misleading” COVID-19 content “as rapidly as possible.”

This is combined with algorithmic tools to help promote government-approved COVID-19 information and bury “borderline” content, which was defined in a January blog post by Youtube as content that “comes close to—but doesn’t quite cross the line of—violating our Community Guidelines.”

“This has been a broad campaign and activity across our organisation,” Longcroft said. “We have deployed significant resources and developed innovative tools, both human-based and machine-based, to curb harmful information and promote authoritative information.”

During the Senate meeting, Longcroft also confirmed that Google had “engaged very closely” with the Australian government, giving it AU $3.6 million worth of free advertising, resulting in 20.6 million impressions of government-approved COVID-19 information for Australian users.

Big Tech Censorship Concerns

Big tech’s efforts to remove public discourse around COVID-19 from online platforms has raised the ire of some researchers working on understanding the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, who have voiced concerns that big tech is stifling scientific debate around the pandemic, calling it censorship.

For example, in June, YouTube removed a video in which Stanford professor of medicine John Ioannidis discussed data related to COVID-19 and the negative impacts of the ongoing lockdown. Despite numerous challenges to the censorship, YouTube did not reveal which part of Ioannidis’s interview it construed as misinformation.

In May, Facebook deleted a post linking to a peer-reviewed Lancet article, which reported that SARS-CoV-2 spreads by airborne transmission. The article had criticised a claim made by a review funded by World Health Organization (WHO) that there were no firm conclusions to be drawn about airborne transmission.

Authors of the Lancet article included world-renowned experts on aerosols, including American scientist Kimberly Prather and the highly cited aerosol researcher Jose-Luis Jimenez from the University of Colorado. 

“We absolutely recognise that measuring misinformation is a real challenge,” Facebook’s head of policy in Australia Josh Machin told the Senate last month.

“First, because people’s views on whether a post on Facebook is misinformation or not can vary, and also because, particularly since the pandemic began last year, we’ve had to really rapidly scale up our policies and continue to consult with experts, and they have been shifting.”

Machin disclosed that Facebook had removed 18 million posts containing “harmful misinformation” about COVID-19 and vaccines, attached “false” labels to 167 million posts on these topics, and collaborated with 80 fact-checkers around the world.

But while social media companies usually turn to the WHO, local health officials, and governments for authoritative information, “this does not imply that they are unerring,” wrote Swedish bioethics researcher Emilia Niemiec in a scientific report last year.

Niemiec argued that because knowledge about COVID-19 is “currently limited and unsettled,” the medical community is still debating “various topics,” such as the lockdown policies and vaccines.

She also noted that while the censorship on social media might seem like an “effective and immediate” solution to the problem of misinformation, it can also limit the sharing of constructive critique of the current evidence and opinions.

These types of information, the medical researcher pointed out, is “necessary” to identify and correct potential errors, as well as further the understanding of complex issues surrounding the pandemic.

“A major question regarding the policies of the communication platforms is who exactly defines … which information is deemed to be false or harmful? And can we rely on these judgements?” Niemiec asked.

She added that if the “exclusive authority” to define what is scientifically proven or medically substantiated is left to social media providers or certain institutions, there is potential for errors and miscalculation, or even the potential abuse of this power to “foster political, commercial, or other interests.”

“The censorship is not based solely on science,” the researcher added. “An analysis of content banned on social networks suggests that the moderation is often politically biased.

“If we add to this the fact that Google is the most popular search engine, it becomes clear that a few tech companies have huge power over what information Internet users can see and how their views are shaped.”

Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts asked in the Senate on Aug. 11 whether there was a potential “conflict of interest” giving Google the final say in how COVID-19 vaccine information is screened and approved.

Roberts noted that Google and YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, owns 12 percent of Vaccitech Ltd. through a venture capital fund GV (formerly Google Ventures). Vaccitech is a UK-based biotechnology company that co-invented the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Epoch Times has contacted Alphabet, Vaccitech, and Google for comments but did not receive a response.

Google Tells Australian Government of $1 Billion Global Campaign to Censor ‘COVID-19 Misinformation’ (theepochtimes.com)

Deborah Seligsohn – an American academic frequently cited by Western media outlets to debunk the COVID-19 “lab leak” theory – has extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party, including delivering lectures at the regime’s Central Party School and accepting fellowships from state-run universities. 

When cited, mainstream media outlets routinely fail to disclose Seligsohn’s deep ties to Beijing, which call into question her ostensible status as a neutral arbiter of COVID-19’s origins. Currently an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Villanova University, Seligsohn was formerly in charge of science and health issues at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing during the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s.

Since her job in the U.S. State Department, Seligsohn has lectured and participated in fellowships at institutions led by the Chinese Communist Party. She addressed the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party – the “exclusive training ground for the elite apparatchiks groomed to govern China” – in December of 2011. She also spoke at the regime-sponsored Shanghai World Expo in 2010.

Seligsohn also served as a research fellow at the state-run Nanjing University before leveraging her credentials to contribute to a host of mainstream media outlets including NPR, Foreign Policy, Associated Press, and more.

In a Foreign Policy op-ed titled “Demands for a Lab Leak Investigation Are a Dangerous Distraction,” Seligsohn posits there “is no actual evidence for the lab leak allegation” despite the theory counting support from scientists and government officials including former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Chief Dr. Robert Redfield and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. Seligsohn’s op-ed was then utilized by Chinese state-run media outlet China Global Television Network (CGTN), amplifying her words in its article “Expert: Demands For Lab Leak Investigation Are Dangerous Distraction.

“Although virologists have said over and again that there is no actual evidence for the lab leak allegation of the coronavirus, some people in the U.S. just won’t let it go. The demands for a lab leak investigation are a dangerous distraction, warned Deborah Seligsohn, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, in an article published recently on the website Foreign Policy,” CGTN wrote in a summary of Seligsohn’s article.

Seligsohn has peddled similar sentiments in outlets including the Associated Press and NPR, both of which failed to include her Chinese Communist Party ties.

In addition to dismissing the lab leak theory, she has also defended scientific collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party, arguing that “joint US-China research on bat coronaviruses is going to be more important after this pandemic, not less” in the Financial Times.

Seligsohn has participated in exclusive interviews with Chinese state-run media outlets decrying officials who trace COVID-19 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and defending National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded collaboration with Chinese Communist Party-run labs.

U.S. Republicans claim the virus causing COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab. Assistant Professor Deborah Seligsohn of @VillanovaU says such conspiracy theories are very damaging. #covid #coronavirus @DebSeligsohn pic.twitter.com/Id9rffa4e1

— CGTN America (@cgtnamerica) August 24, 2021

She joins the ranks of more and more former U.S. government employees and so-called “experts” who have quietly been aiding the Chinese Communist Party for years.

EXC: Media’s ‘Lab Leak’ Denial Darling Is Actually Ex-Chinese Communist Advisor. (thenationalpulse.com)

‘The IOC hasn’t learned anything. They trust the CCP too much.’

When an Australian Olympian ran into Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 2002 waving a 1964 Tokyo Olympic banner with the words “truthfulness, compassion, tolerance” written on it as a stand against human rights abuses in China, she already knew that the communist country had been awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Five years later, in 2007, she traveled the world in the lead-up to the Games as an ambassador for the Global Human Rights Torch Relay (GHRTR)—with the slogan, “Olympics and crimes against humanity cannot coexist in China.” She never expected that eight years later, in 2015, China would be awarded that privilege yet again; this time, to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Former Olympic swimmer Jan Becker, from Melbourne, Australia, now aged 76, swam the 100-meter freestyle relay in Tokyo at the ’64 Olympics and won the silver medal.

Her protest in Tiananmen Square—where she was arrested, interrogated, and deported along with several other Australians—was a major event at the beginning of her decades-long journey in speaking out about the persecution of faith by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). She returned home to see the media headlines: “Olympian Arrested in China.”

Just move the Olympics. With human rights, what they’ve done is just absolutely atrocious. The CCP is so anti-Divine … The International Olympic Committee hasn’t learned anything.— FORMER OLYMPIC SWIMMER JAN BECKER

“When I saw what they were doing, when they were killing people and taking their organs, I just had to stand up,” Becker told The Epoch Times. “That’s why I went to Tiananmen Square, because I wanted to get the news out to the world and to let the Chinese people know that the Western world was aware of what they were going through and that we were supporting them.

“I wanted the CCP to know there was an Olympian there, that that was connected⁠—the Olympics.”

Believing in “a connection” between the Olympics and “faith in the Divine,” yet seeing no ceasing of the CCP’s ongoing persecution of faith, including of Christians, Tibetans, Buddhists, Falun Gong, and more recently of Uyghurs, Becker is urging for a complete move of the 2022 Games away from China.

“I would prefer to see a complete move of the Games, not boycott China, just move the Olympics,” Becker said. “With human rights, what they’ve done is just absolutely atrocious, what they’ve done to Falun Gong practitioners, selling their organs around the world. They don’t believe in any faith. The CCP is so anti-Divine, against people who practice looking up to their God or their divinity.

“So many athletes actually look to the heavens. They do believe in God, they do believe in the Divine, and it must have a connection.” But as for the CCP, “they certainly wouldn’t dedicate anything to faith or religion,” Becker said.

A 22-Year Human Rights Advocacy Journey

Besides being an Olympian, Becker has taught and coached swimming for 20 years, worked as a consultant for 8 years, and was a human resource manager for 22 years before finally retiring in 2014.

But rather than slowing down, Becker, a mother-of-three and grandmother-of-eight, shifted much of her freed-up time into what she’d been doing in her spare time outside of her full-time job since 1999—raising awareness of the grave human rights violations in China, predominantly, of the persecution, torture, and organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners.

“I’ve always given 100 percent of myself to any job, my family, and do everything to the best of my ability. And that’s what I’m doing now,” she said.

Talking about what led her to defend human rights in China, Becker said it’s the CCP’s ongoing persecution of her faith: Falun Gong.

Searching for a cure for an illness at 54, Becker was introduced to the spiritual practice in February 1999. A self-cultivation practice of mind and body incorporating meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of “truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance,” Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) was practiced by 70 million to 100 million people in China before the CCP launched a persecution campaign in July 1999 in an attempt to eradicate the practice.

“I had been suffering probably for five or six years with a terminal illness, and I tried a whole lot of different things and nothing seemed to work,” she said. “And then someone told me about Falun Gong. I could see after reading the book that this would be really good for me to do. It was a spiritual journey.”

Besides the health benefits, Becker said that after 22 years of having taken up the practice, it has made her a better person. “I learned I had to be compassionate. That was the main thing I had to learn. And I have become a better person for it. It’s quite amazing,” she said.

After only five months of Becker having taken up the practice, however, the CCP’s persecution in China was launched.

By 2002, the reports of arrests, torture, and deaths of her fellow Chinese practitioners prompted her and some other Australian practitioners to go to China to stage a peaceful protest in Tiananmen Square to request the communist regime to end the persecution.

“I went to Tiananmen Square with a group of other Australians,” she said. “I took a 1964 Olympic banner, and I had a Falun Gong emblem painted on it—on ⁠the Japanese red circle⁠—and the words ‘truthfulness, compassion, tolerance,’ and I ran into Tiananmen Square.”

Becker said she was determined to make an impact and wasn’t scared of going, despite knowing that thousands of Chinese practitioners who had already protested in the Square before her were arrested, often tortured, and some even lost their lives.

“I never had any fear about going. I knew I was going, I was doing it, and I was coming home,” said Becker, whose story of going to Tiananmen was documented in the 2020 film “Protest at Heaven’s Gate.”

“Being an Olympian gave me a platform to be able to go out. That’s why I went to Tiananmen Square, because I wanted to get the news out to the world. The main thing was to let the CCP know that there was an Olympian in that. And also, make people around the world take a bit more notice of what was happening.”

Becker was arrested on that day, March 7, 2002, along with eight other Australians, not more than 30 seconds after running into the Square with her Olympic banner. She was questioned for 5 1/2 hours before being detained overnight and deported the next day, blacklisted from ever returning.

“They wanted to know where my Falun Gong books were, where my tapes were.” Becker said. “I said ‘they’re in my head and in my heart, I don’t need to bring them here.’ And they came in waving a glove, wanting to do a body search. They asked me to get undressed. I got down to my bra and knickers, and I said, you want me to get them off too?

“I remember telling the policeman that was interviewing me that they need to get out to see the world more, that ‘it’s not like this’ outside China. The world is not like what China was like. Everywhere I went in China, I was watched. They followed us down the street with phones. That’s why the Chinese people are so scared, they’re scared to do anything.”

The harassment didn’t stop there, either, Becker said. It extended beyond China’s walls to include threats to get her to stop speaking out to media only days after she’d returned home to Australia and had already told her story to various news outlets. About two or three days after being back home, she had left her house for the day, and when she returned, she found that the front door had been knocked down, “totally kicked off its hinges.”

“They’d placed a pitchfork on my bed, as if to scare me,” she said, referring to who she describes as “CCP agents” living outside China. Becker reported the incident to the police.

By the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaching, to raise awareness and call for a boycott of the Games, a coalition of China human rights advocates launched their human rights torch relay and asked Becker to serve as the GHRTR Australian ambassador. The relay kicked off in Athens, Greece, on Aug. 9, 2007, and made its way through over 100 cities in more than 30 countries throughout Europe, America, Asia, and Australia.

While the CCP was touring its Olympic torch around the world, Becker was carrying its counterpart, the “human rights torch,” in its own separate international tour, including relaying it through 67 towns and suburbs in her home state, Victoria, in Australia.

“I had to stand up,” she said. “Lots of people were involved. In many towns, there were mayors, MPs, media, faith leaders, school groups, and human rights advocates; there were lots of reports and lots of things that happened with that torch relay.”

‘2022 Olympics Should Be Moved’

In referring to the March 2020 final judgment of the China Tribunal, a London-based people’s tribunal, Becker said that after thorough investigations, chair of the tribunal Sir Geoffrey Nice QC and a seven-member panel summarized that “any government, organization, or individual who interacts with China should recognize they are ‘interacting with a criminal state.’”

The tribunal stated in its judgment that “Commission of Crimes Against Humanity against the Falun Gong and Uyghurs has been proved beyond reasonable doubt,” and that the investigations led to the tribunal’s “unavoidable final conclusion that forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale.”

“Therefore, I’m calling that the 2022 Olympics should be moved,” Becker said. “And I believe that the sanctity of life and respect for human beings takes precedence over any sporting event—even the Olympics.”

Although lawmakers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and recently Australia, have called for a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Becker says she doesn’t believe it will solve the issue, because the CCP no longer cares about pleasing diplomats, so “that’s not going to make them lose anything,” nor stop their human rights abuses.

“I don’t think China will care at all if the diplomats don’t go,” she said. “You’ve just got to look at how they’re treating Australia at the moment, look how many things they’ve taken off Australia; they don’t really care about the politicians or the diplomats that much anymore. I think they’ve got to move the 2022 Games, they’ve got to push to move them.”

Becker, who currently has commemorative items on display at the “Memories of Tokyo 1964” exhibition at the Consulate-General of Japan in Melbourne, said that, even if the Games have to be delayed, which “can be done as we saw for Tokyo 2020,” a complete move away from China is achievable.

“There’s plenty of countries that could do it,” she said. “Plenty of European countries that have got the infrastructure set up. If they need to get things together, we could put it off a year, but I’m sure there will be European countries that would take it on.”

Becker said that expecting any kind of boycott by athletes is not a realistic solution either. Shifting the burden to athletes who’ve “put in 110 percent” would not be a fair or reasonable expectation; she said the burden lies with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

“This may be their only opportunity, one opportunity to go to an Olympics,” Becker said of the athletes. “It’s very hard to ask them to walk away from that. Administrators and the IOC should have made the right choices, it shouldn’t involve the athletes having to make this decision at all.”

The IOC ‘Stands Alone’

In 2001, when the IOC awarded the 2008 Games to China, as a former Olympian still in good relations with the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), Becker raised with them directly the seriousness of the communist regime’s “horrible” human rights record.

Later in 2007, while touring the world as Australian ambassador for the GHRTR, she implored them to ask the IOC to move the Olympics to Athens.

Becker said that, at the time, they had taken up a collection of petitions to move the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And John Coates, the now-vice president of the IOC, who was then a member of the IOC and the AOC, had forwarded those to the then-president of the IOC. “He guaranteed me that they got those petitions. So he reported how I felt. He’s supportive,” she said.

Even when China was still being considered as a contender for hosting the 2008 Olympics, Becker managed to raise her concerns with then-vice president of the IOC Kevan Gosper in-person at an Olympic function they both attended in November 2000. His response was that he believed the CCP would surely change.

“He told me the CCP would improve. I assured him at the time, they wouldn’t,” Becker said. “It’s interesting that they don’t learn, the IOC hasn’t really learned what the CCP’s about. In 2001, they were awarded those Games; It’s 20 years down the track, and they’re still doing the same thing today.”

Referring to the recent Hong Kong issue, suppression of Uyghurs, and the CCP’s recent intrusion activities in Taiwan, Becker called these all “new human rights abuses.” “These are new things after they were awarded the Olympics. The IOC hasn’t learned anything. They trust the CCP too much,” she said. “The CCP have just done exactly what they want to do afterward.”

Becker applauds the members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) who have coordinated legislative actions on the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, saying they’re “politicians who have a good heart and understand the human rights issues.” She said, however, that presidents and prime ministers are not likely to get involved.

“The IOC is a very strong organization. It stands alone, away from politics,” she said. “That’s why those politicians don’t want to get involved. They know that it stands alone. So it’s up to the people to try to talk to the International Olympic Committee, the Australian Olympic Committee, people involved at that level are the people we have to get to.

‘It’s Up to the People’

Becker said citizens around the world who are concerned about Beijing hosting the Olympics can find and sign an existing petition to the IOC, or start a new one. “I think they can all sign a petition,” she said. “Stand up where they can, show China⁠. We’ve seen that China can’t be trusted, even with the COVID situation. I think people are really waking up to how it is.”

In getting the Games moved, Becker said the world shouldn’t rely solely on “people at a high level of government.” “I think individual people can make it happen more, and as the groundswell happens, they then might come onboard,” she said.

Speaking about corporate sponsors dumping money into the Beijing Games—dubbed the “Genocide Olympics” by critics—Becker said corporations “will do anything for money.” “Corporations need to be talked to because they’ve supported the Olympics forever and ever, it’s going to be a difficult one to move them on that, but we have to try,” she said.

Various human rights abuses were reported to have happened during the 2008 Beijing Olympics: Elderly people being thrown out of their homes and made homeless to make way for the Olympic village, and dissidents being rounded up en masse by the CCP and imprisoned out of fear they might expose the CCP’s crimes to overseas visitors.

“We spoke about all these things in 2008,” she said. “I don’t know that many people listened as much as they should have, otherwise we wouldn’t be in this situation. I guess we have to go through it all over again.”

In predicting that “they’ll do it again,” Becker said those previous abuses by the CCP need to be brought back to the world’s attention because, “once again, they’ll make sure that anyone who doesn’t suit the commitment of the Party, the CCP, will be pushed out of town so no one can see them.”

Future of China, CCP, and Communism

When asked her thoughts about a communist country hosting the Olympics, and what she holds out for the future of China, Becker said: “I don’t believe in communism or socialism. I think it’s really bad for the world, you can see what’s happening⁠—people don’t have any thoughts, they can’t think for themselves, it’s just a terrible way of living.”

Becker said she’d like “to see the CCP collapse” and for freedom to be returned to the Chinese people. “It will be a better world for the Chinese people eventually. And I hope it’s sooner than later,” she said.

Seeing communism as a threat to the world, Becker said from her own experience that “we would not want to be ruled by the CCP.” But despite what may appear to be grim prospects with how far the CCP have already infiltrated the West, she maintains hope that the citizens of Western countries will fight to gain their dwindling sovereignty back.

“Even just in Australia⁠—and it’s happening in America and other countries as well⁠—the people are waking up; they’re realizing what the CCP is really all about, and how much they want to control everything,” she said. “People can now see through it.”

As for whether China will remain the host nation of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Becker believes that it “wouldn’t be good for the Olympic movement.”

“They’re putting themselves in a really difficult situation if they let China host the 2022 Olympics. They should have learned from the last one, and from the empty stalls in Tokyo. They may never go on. It may not keep going if we can’t take that away from the CCP,” she said.

“It’s wrong, it’s just wrong for them to have it.”

For Sanctity of Life, ‘Move the 2022 Games,’ Olympian Once Arrested in Beijing Says (theepochtimes.com)

Terminations, job walk-offs could be ‘devastating’ to communities

A nationwide shortage of nurses and health care workers may soon worsen as thousands of medical staff face losing their jobs by refusing to obey new COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

“It will be really terrible. We’re already understaffed,” said one veteran registered nurse who works at a health care facility north of Seattle.

She said she will lose her job after her employer’s Aug. 31 mandated vaccine goes into effect unless she complies with the requirement.

She estimates that as many as 400—20 percent—of the health center’s 2,500 employees refuse to take the vaccine. That number will likely shrink due to the financial hardship of job loss, she said, though “even losing 5 percent would be devastating to the community,” she told The Epoch Times.

The nurse, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said her only solution is if her employer grants her a religious exemption, which appears unlikely at this point.

“It looks like they’re going to reject my religious exemption. They need more information, but they’re not telling me what information they’re going to need. It puts me in a really tough situation,” she said. “I have two [elderly] parents who live with me. It would be extraordinarily disruptive to move them. It’s extremely scary trying to start again somewhere else.”

Stephanie Thorpe, a registered nurse in the UCHealth Colorado system, is also stuck between an employee rock and a medical hard place over her company’s pending vaccine mandate.

Thorpe said she, too, could lose her job if her application for a religious exemption is denied.

UCHealth reports more than 92 percent of 26,000 employees systemwide are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

That leaves a reluctant 8 percent who refuse the shots.

These medical professionals—Thorpe included—will have until Sept. 1 to comply with UCHealth’s Oct. 1 vaccine mandate, or else they will face disciplinary action up to and including termination.

“We do allow if there is a religious exemption or a medical exemption as well,” said UCHealth spokeswoman Kelly Tracer. “UCHealth has been facing the same staffing challenges that hospitals around the country are, definitely. It’s a national shortage.”

Thorpe estimates “a couple hundred” staunch opponents to the vaccine mandate “are willing to walk away” because of the vaccines.

“Right now, [UCHealth] is working short-staffed at many facilities,” she told The Epoch Times.

Thorpe said that even if a small percentage of UCHealth employees are fired or walk off the job, their departure could be significant.

“I’m concerned that the people who are vaccinated and are going to stay are going to take the majority of the workload,” Thorpe said. “We can’t even get people now to fill positions. It could get very scary.”

UCHealth, however, states that over the past six months, more than 4,400 new employees, including 1,100 new nurses, have been hired.

“Our new employee orientations often have hundreds of people in each class, and today, we have about 7 percent more employees than at this time last year,” UCHealth said in a statement. “These new employees are making a difference, but especially when our hospitals are as full as they are right now, recruiting employees and retaining our current employees are top priorities for us.”

However, it’s not only UCHealth employees that refuse the vaccine that may soon join the ranks of the unemployed.

A partial list of other U.S. hospital systems that have mandated or plan to mandate vaccinations for their employees includes Allegheny Health Network (19,000 employees) in Pennsylvania, Banner Health Network (52,000) in Arizona, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (13,000) in New Hampshire, Kaiser Permanente (216,000) in California, Ascension Health (160,000) in Missouri, Advocate Aurora Health (75,000) in Illinois, Bay State Health (12,000) in Massachusetts, and New York-Presbyterian (20,000) in New York.

Ballad Health Care CEO Alan Levine told reporters that mandating shots on the 22-hospital system’s remaining 38 percent of unvaccinated workers would likely worsen an ongoing nursing shortage.

While at least one media outlet referred to those medical professionals who refuse to take the vaccines as “unlikely” to be hesitant because of their knowledge and medical training, several nurses interviewed by The Epoch Times said it’s their scientific training that gives them pause.

The nurse in Washington said there’s “a lot of distrust of the vaccine and the media narrative ‘safe and effective.’”

“There are a lot of credible doctors out there,” she said, “and they’re being shunned” by the medical community because they oppose the mRNA shots.

Another registered nurse, in Virginia, said she chose to give notice to her employer rather than be compelled to take the vaccine.

“This is a new type of vaccine—an mRNA vaccine that has never been used on humans before,” she told The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity. “It’s different from any of the other vaccines.”

“I am not against vaccines,” she said. “I encourage people to get vaccines that have been studied for years. I don’t think I’m being hypocritical by saying I’m pro-vaccine, but not pro this vaccine.”

Like Thorpe, the nurse said COVID-19 vaccine mandates will make the shortage of health care workers much worse.

“Who is going to take care of people with the [COVID-19] influx? You can only work short-staffed to a degree without compromising patient safety,” she said.

To illustrate her point, the nurse said she was recently offered a position at a health care facility without an interview ever taking place. The offer was rescinded when she refused to comply with the company’s vaccine mandate.

“I’ve been in health care over 10 years. I’ve never been given a job offer prior to an interview,” she said.

Currently, there are nearly 4 million registered nurses in the United States. However, the need to hire thousands more qualified staff was present even before the pandemic.

“Without decisive action, nurses will practice under increased stress. As the health care system is strained by an aging population and broadened access to public health care, it will be nurses that feel the weight of patient responsibility on their shoulders,” according to the American Nurses Association (ANA).

The ANA adds that by 2022, there will be “far more registered nurse jobs” than any other profession.

With more than 500,000 seasoned registered nurses (RNs) anticipated to retire by 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the need for 1.1 million new RNs to replace those that have retired and to avoid a nursing shortage.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the United States will also see an estimated shortage of 37,800 to 124,000 physicians by 2034, including shortfalls in both primary and specialty care.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted many of the deepest disparities in health and access to health care services and exposed vulnerabilities in the health care system,” said AAMC President and CEO David J. Skorton in a statement.

To bridge the gap, hospitals and health care systems now offer various incentives to lure qualified nursing staff.

At Duke University Hospital in North Carolina, for example, a recent job posting sought an experienced RN Clinical Team Lead with a $15,000 sign-on bonus.

Nationwide, a skilled RN can earn anywhere from $70,000 to $130,000, and even more in states such as California.

In Arizona, there are currently 75,600 total nurses to serve an aging population that continues to grow.

Ann-Marie Alameddin, president and CEO of the Arizona Hospital and Health Care Association, said the shortage is mainly due to nurse retirement and normal attrition, as well as COVID-19 burnout.

Only “a handful” of hospitals in Arizona currently require a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment, Alameddin told The Epoch Times.

“This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” she said, and likened those employees who get vaccinated to honoring a “social contract” to keep people safe.

Jennifer Bridges, a former nurse at Houston Methodist Hospital, said: “The thing that’s really scary is now [hospitals] are mandating [the vaccine], like everywhere.”

“I mean, nurses and other staff are contacting me from so many different states and all over the place right now. And a lot of them are not going to take [the vaccine]” or they’re getting fired or seeking an exemption. “A lot of times they deny exemptions, so it’s just going create more of a shortage all the way around the board,” Bridges said.

In June, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit brought by 117 employees at Houston Methodist who were suing the hospital system over its COVID-19 vaccine requirement.

The social cost of the vaccine mandates being felt, however, has nothing to do with public health or safety, the nurse in Washington said.

“It’s really shocking and devastating to me. I’m going to lose a whole number of [vaccinated] people I consider friends. I feel like I’m going through this feeling of grief. I’m really scared what this means for society,” she said.

Nurses Warn of Staff Shortages Due to COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates (theepochtimes.com)

America is underwriting its own demise.

Woke Capital apparently wants to hasten it.

Coming on the heels of a letter from titans of American industry to the Biden administration calling for it to jettison punitive China tariffs post-haste, and resume trade negotiations with Beijing, BlackRock’s research arm recently urged investors to increase their exposure to the PRC by two-to-three times.

The world’s leading asset manager of some $10 trillion in assets did so 18 months after China helped foist a pandemic on America and the world that has caused incalculable damage in blood, treasure, and sacrificed liberty and justice.

It did so after China crushed Hong Kong, clashed with India, antagonized Australia, and as it threatens a takeover of Taiwan.

It did so in spite of the fact that Xi Jinping is currently waging a jihad—euphemistically referred to as a “regulatory crackdown”—against China’s largest businesses, U.S.-listed ones of which saw $400 billion of market value lopped off this summer.

It did so surely knowing those funds ultimately redound to the benefit of the sworn adversary of the United States that seeks to supplant it and reign as the dominant world power.

It did so notwithstanding all the U.S. government has done for it, BlackRock having been dubbed the “fourth branch of government” for its political and pecuniary ties to the feds generally, and the quasi-public Federal Reserve in particular.

And it did so irrespective of its claimed fealty to progressive investing principles.

Former Trump administration Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger, one of the principal architects of the administration’s China strategy, broadly captured the symptoms of Woke Capital’s China addiction, and exposed the hypocrisy of the likes of BlackRock, in a recent piece in Foreign Affairs.

Pottinger noted:

“The retirement savings of millions of Americans currently finance Beijing’s military modernization and support Chinese companies that are complicit in genocide and other crimes against humanity. Even as Beijing was systematically expelling foreign journalists from China and making the country’s investment climate increasingly opaque, stock index providers such as FTSE Russell and MSCI continued to add Chinese companies to their indexes, sometimes under pressure from Beijing. Because many American funds benchmark their investments to those same indexes, billions of U.S. dollars automatically flow to Chinese companies, including those that Washington has sanctioned or subjected to export controls.”

This issue is so systemic that until the Trump administration forbade it, the retirement funds of federal employees were being funneled into malevolent Chinese companies as well.

Meanwhile, many financial firms pledging allegiance to “ESG”—prioritizing investments in companies that adhere to progressive environmental, social, and governance standards—demonstrate those concerns do not stretch beyond America’s shores.

As Pottinger adds:

“Some money managers…eschew investing in Western companies that don’t meet…’ESG criteria’…but happily invest in Chinese companies that feature atrocious records in all three categories. There are U.S. university endowments, for instance, that could deliberately decide to invest in only ESG-compliant companies in the United States but simultaneously invest in a raft of Chinese firms that flout all accepted standards of corporate governance and environmental stewardship. Chinese firms contribute more to greenhouse gas emissions, ocean plastic pollution, and illegal fishing than do the companies of any other country on earth. As for social responsibility, a wide variety of Chinese companies—from leading technology firms to manufacturers that export globally—work with Beijing’s security apparatus to track, incarcerate, and extract forced labor from ethnic Uyghur and Kazakh Muslims. With respect to corporate governance, CCP cells, operating mostly in secret, wield significant and often decisive control over Chinese companies—making a mockery of Western standards of corporate transparency and independence.”

When it comes to the likes of BlackRock, and its peers, it’s “ESG for thee, but not for Xi.”

American—increasingly in-name-only—financial firms, which lubricate the global economy, epitomize the Woke elite, who reject the very system from which they have so richly benefited.

That the rest of that elite—our political class, media, academic institutions, and so on—are literally and figuratively invested in, beholden to, or at minimum afraid of running afoul of China, is at root a symptom of an existential crisis that threatens to undo America far before we ever get around to doing all that is necessary to counter Beijing.

The existential crisis concerns our understanding of who we are as a nation, our confidence in its purpose, and our resolve to do whatever is necessary to defend and protect it, and cultivate its greatness.

A pervasive America Last mentality of Wokeism, decadence, and decline prevails over the commanding heights of society. It is born of a sort of moral narcissism, as Roger Simon has termed it, under which our elites confess their sins of power and privilege, while supporting paternalistic policies falling hardest on those for whom they claim to care most. The elites virtue-signal without bearing any cost—on the contrary, they end up further ensconced in their preeminent societal position.

Unserious as this cynical charade is, it may prove fatal.

A nation that prioritizes politics over merit; rewards mediocrity over excellence; protects the connected and targets the contrarian; permits tyranny under the guise of health and safety; privileges foreigners over citizens; and inculcates an ethos of national self-loathing aimed at undoing the system on which it is based, no matter the resources and capabilities of those laboring under it, will be poised to crumble well before it gets around to confronting its global foes.

Domestic peace and prosperity will erode; morale will recede; the will to survive, let alone thrive, will be extinguished.

The zeitgeist of Wokeism, decadence, and decline will defeat us before China has a chance to say “kowtow.” That our putative leaders already kowtow in word and deed—indeed are actively aiding, abetting, and enabling our worst enemy—demonstrates the extent of the rot that has already set in.

Woke Capital Hastens America’s Demise by Backing China (theepochtimes.com)

In light of the Biden Administration encouraging employers to mandate vaccines in order to retain employment while ironically not requiring vaccination mandates for their own staff, Gab has created a No Vax Mandate Job Board group.

You can view and join the group here.

This job board is for sharing job openings that do not require employees to inject themselves with an experimental substance or violate their bodily autonomy and religious beliefs in order to retain employment. This is also a board for job seekers to share their resume, skills, and story.

Related resource: DOWNLOAD COVID VACCINE RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION DOCUMENTS HERE

At Gab we do not require our employees to be vaccinated. In fact we don’t pry into any of the personal health choices of our team because frankly it’s none of our business. We know there are many businesses who share these values with us and many people looking to work for those businesses.

This job board aligns with Gab’s vision of building infrastructure for a parallel economy and we hope to expand further on this job board initiative in the coming months.

As Facebook and other Big Tech giants work to silence and “fact check” any and all vaccine dissent Gab remains committed to mission of being the home of free speech, individual sovereignty, and the free flow of information online.

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus is King

The No Vax Mandate Job Board – Gab News

Matt Cartwright, Susan Wild called for federal aid to assist landlords while raking in rental income

Two Pennsylvania Democrats who collected tens of thousands of dollars in rental income in 2020 pushed for taxpayer-funded relief for landlords without acknowledging that they could profit from the policy.

Reps. Matt Cartwright and Susan Wild collected up to $130,000 in combined rental income in 2020, their latest financial disclosures show. In December, Cartwright deemed a Democratic-led effort to extend the CDC’s eviction moratorium insufficient, writing, “We also need to pass an aid package to assist landlords.” Wild, meanwhile, called federal assistance for landlords “a key part of our state recovery” in March. Neither Democrat acknowledged their status as landlords in their public remarks.

Neither Democrat returned a request for comment.

Cartwright and Wild are far from the only House Democrats who raked in thousands of dollars during the pandemic as they advocated federal landlord relief. “Squad” members Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) reported up to $65,000 in combined 2020 rental income. At the same time, both Democrats backed legislation that would cancel rent and create a “landlord relief fund,” which would require the federal government to reimburse landlords for lost income.

According to their financial disclosures, both Cartwright and Wild reported earning the same range of rental income in 2020 as they did in 2019. Many small landlords, however, struggled to collect rent amid the eviction moratorium, which the Pennsylvania Democrats supported throughout 2020. Cartwright and Wild also reported millions of dollars in assets and enjoy a $174,000 congressional salary—roughly a third of individual landlords earn less than $90,000 a year, according to the left-leaning Brookings Institution.

Neither Democrat returned a request for comment.

Cartwright’s rental income stems from three sources, the Democrat’s financial disclosures show: a Scranton, Pa., office building; a Hague, N.Y., “property trust”; and a Massachusetts holding company based in Nantucket. Cartwright earned up to $115,000 from the properties in 2020.

According to Wild’s financial disclosure, the Democrat owns a Washington, D.C., rental property worth between $250,000 and $500,000. Local real estate records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show that Wild inherited the property from her late mother, Susan Ellis, in 2015. She earned up to $15,000 in rental income from the property in 2019 and 2020. Wild used the property’s address to register a D.C.-based limited liability corporation in 2015, according to the city’s business records. The Democrat then listed the LLC on her financial disclosure to report the rental income, rather than reveal the property’s address.

Both Cartwright and Wild face contentious reelection battles in 2022, having narrowly defeated their Republican challengers by just 3 points each in November. Cartwright is one of seven House Democrats who represent a district that voted for Donald Trump in 2020. He outperformed President Joe Biden by 8 points in the district, which includes Biden’s hometown of Scranton.

Two Pennsylvania Dems Pushed for Taxpayer-Funded Landlord Relief. Both Are Landlords. (freebeacon.com)

The Biden White House granted the Chinese Communist Party-linked firm Huawei – which was crippled by Trump-era sanctions – licenses to purchase American auto chips, according to reports. 

The decision follows the Beijing-backed tech firm hiring several lobbyists, including the brother of Joe Biden’s White House Counselor Steve Ricchetti and CNN guests who have pushed the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

“U.S. officials have approved license applications worth hundreds of millions of dollars for China’s blacklisted telecom company Huawei to buy chips for its growing auto component business, two people familiar with the matter said,” Reuters reported.

The reported approval follows a Trump-era crackdown on the telecommunications firm, which has extensive links to both the Chinese Communist Party. Labeled a “national security threat” by the Trump administration and a decades-long Chinese military collaborator by the U.S. Department of Defense, Huawei routinely provides the regime backdoor access to its products, networks, and devices.

Former President Donald Trump’s State Department also emphasized that the Chinese Communist Party uses Huawei as an “instrument not only for making money but also for pursuing the Party-State’s agenda and fulfilling its strategic objectives […] deeply enmeshed in Beijing’s system of oppression at home and its increasingly assertive strategic ambitions globally.”

The Biden White House, however, has taken a considerably softer approach to the company, as Reuters notes:

Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, has been hobbled by trade restrictions imposed by the Trump administration on the sale of chips and other components used in its network gear and smartphones businesses. The Biden administration has been reinforcing the hard line on exports to Huawei, denying licenses to sell chips to Huawei for use in or with 5g devices. But in recent weeks and months, people familiar with the application process told Reuters the U.S. has granted licenses authorizing suppliers to sell chips to Huawei for such vehicle components as video screens and sensors. 

Biden White House Approves Licensing Deal For Chinese Communist Party-Linked Huawei, Reversing Trump-Era Hardline. – The National Pulse

Oregon Governor Kate Brown has participated in events sponsored by Chinese Communist Party propaganda groups flagged by the U.S. State Department for “directly and malignly influenc[ing]” American officials, The National Pulse can reveal.

The unearthed Chinese Communist Party links follow Oregon Democrats calling for the cancellation of an upcoming event featuring The National Pulse’s Raheem Kassam and Natalie Winters due to the site’s promotion of “China-centric conspiracy theories” and “toxic beliefs.”

The Oregon Democratic Party is attempting to ban China-focused news reporters while one of the party’s most high-profile members – Governor Kate Brown – recently established links with one of the regime’s chief influence groups abroad.

Brown, in fact, has a long history of collaboration with groups tied to Beijing’s United Front Work Department.

Propaganda 101.

China’s billion-dollar “United Front” effort aims to “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies,” according to the federal U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission. United Front groups such as the China United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) have used tactics including free trips to China to garner “favorable coverage” from mainstream media outlets according to Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) filings.

Scarcely a “China-centric conspiracy theory” as the Oregon Democratic Party insist.

Brown also has deep ties to the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), dubbed the “public face” of the United Front and “avowedly an arm of the party-state.” The U.S. State Department has even described the CPAFFC as seeking to “directly and malignly influence” U.S. state and local leaders.

MUST READ:  Chinese Regime Takes Financial Stake In TikTok, Now Directly Linked to Facebook Fact-Checker ‘Lead Stories’.

Brown attended the group’s 2015 China-U.S.Governors Forum, an event the State Department has singled out for its subversive influence on U.S. politics:

“CPAFFC’s actions have undermined the Governors Forum’s original well-intentioned purpose.”

As the CPAFFC recounts, Brown emphasized that “Oregon hopes to enhance cooperation with China” at the event, which counted Chinese Communist Pary leader Xi Jinping as its top speaker. Following the forum, Brown was one of six governors to ink a deal with Beijing to collaborate on “clean technology and economic development.”

While taking a private meeting with CPAFFC Vice President Lin Yi the month following the forum, Brown reportedly described Xi’s remarks as “encouraging” while pushing to “strengthen pragmatic cooperation with China in education, science and technology, health, tourism and sports”:

Governor Brown said it was her great honor to attend the Governors’ Forum held in Seattle last month. President Xi’s remarks were encouraging and the Forum helped provide great opportunities for U.S.-China cooperation. The State of Oregon regards China as the most important international partner and has  willingness to strengthen pragmatic cooperation with China in education, science and technology, health, tourism and sports, etc. 

REVEALED: Oregon Democrat Governor Kate Brown Has Long-Standing Ties to Chinese Communist Influence Groups. (thenationalpulse.com)

Samples from early Wuhan COVID-19 patients show the presence of genetically modified Henipah virus, an American scientist has found.

Henipah was one of the two types of viruses sent to China by Chinese-born scientists from a Canadian laboratory at the centre of a controversy over the firing of the scientists and collaboration with Chinese military researchers. It is not clear whether the virus found in the Chinese samples is related to the virus samples sent by the Canadian lab, which were shipped in late March 2019.

The finding was confirmed for The Epoch Times by another qualified scientist.

The evidence was first found by Dr. Steven Quay, a Seattle-based physician-scientist and former faculty member at the Stanford University School of Medicine, who looked at early COVID-19 samples uploaded by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) shortly after China informed the World Health Organization about the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.

The samples from the patients, who reportedly were found to have an “unidentified pneumonia disease” in December 2019, were uploaded to the genetic sequence database, GenBank, on the website of the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH).

Quay says that while other scientists around the world were mostly interested in examining the genome of SARS-CoV-2 in the samples uploaded by the WIV scientists, he wanted to see what else was in the samples collected from the patients.

So he collaborated with a few other scientists to analyze sequences from the samples.

“We started fishing inside for weird things,” Quay told The Epoch Times.

What they found, he says, are the results of what could likely be contamination from different experiments in the lab making their way into the samples, as well as evidence of Henipah virus.

“We found genetic manipulation of the Nipah virus, which is more lethal than Ebola.” Nipah is a type of Henipah virus.

The Epoch Times asked Joe Wang, PhD, who formerly spearheaded a vaccine development program for SARS in Canada with one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, to verify the finding. Wang is currently the president of NTD Television Canada, the sister company of The Epoch Times in Canada.

After examining the evidence, Wang said he was able to replicate Quay’s findings on the Henipah virus. He explains that the genetic manipulation of the virus was likely for the purposes of vaccine development.

Documents released by the Canadian government state that the WIV’s intended use of the virus samples sent by Canada was “stock virus culturing,” which in simpler terms means storing the viruses while keeping them alive. Genetic manipulation would not be within the scope of this description.

Winnipeg Lab

The firing of Chinese-born scientist Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, from the National Microbiology laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg has been the subject of much controversy in Canada, with opposition parties pressing the government for more details on the case, and the government refusing to release information citing national security and privacy concerns.

Qiu and Cheng along with several Chinese students were escorted out of the NML, Canada’s only lab designated at containment level 4—or P4, the highest level of biosafety—amid a police investigation in July 2019. The two scientists were formally fired in January 2021.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), which is in charge of the NML, said the termination was the result of an “administrative matter” and “possible breaches of security protocols,” but has declined to provide further details, citing security and privacy concerns.

During her time at the NML, Qiu travelled several times to the WIV in an official capacity, helping train personnel on level 4 safety. The Globe and Mail later reported that scientists at the NML have been collaborating with Chinese military researchers on deadly pathogens, and that one of the Chinese military researchers worked at the high-security Winnipeg lab for a period of time.

Documents and emails released by PHAC show that the shipment of Henipah and Ebola samples was done with the permission of NML authorities.

In one of the emails sent in September 2018, David Safronetz, chief of special pathogens at PHAC, informs then-head of NML Matthew Gilmour and other lab administrators about the request from the WIV for the shipment of the samples, saying “I trust the lab.”

In response, Gilmour asks about the nature of the work that will be done at the Wuhan lab, and why the lab doesn’t get the material from “other, more local labs.” He also tells Safronetz that it’s “good to know that you trust this group,” asking how the NML was connected with the group.

In his reply, Safronetz doesn’t specifically say what the samples will be used for in China, but notes that they will only be sent once all paperwork and certification are completed. He also says the WIV is requesting the material from NML “due to collaboration” with Qiu.

He adds, “Historically, it’s also been easier to obtain material from us as opposed to US labs. I don’t think other, closer labs have the ability to ship these materials.”

Gilmour resigned from his position at the NML in May 2020 and joined a UK-based bioresearch company.

MPs have asked NML management why shipment of the samples was allowed and whether they knew if China performs any gain-of-function (GoF) research at the WIV. GoF research involves increasing either the lethal level (virulence) or the transmissibility of pathogens or both.

The NML’s acting scientific director general Guillaume Poliquin told MPs during a parliamentary committee meeting on March 22 that the lab only sent the samples to the WIV after receiving assurance that no GoF research would take place.

Conservative MP John Williamson pressed for more answers, saying the word of the state-run Chinese lab can’t be trusted as the Chinese regime “has a history of theft and lies.”

The issue of GoF research at WIV has been a point of contention in the United States between lawmakers and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the NIH’s head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci’s organization has funded research (through EcoHealth Alliance) on coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul says published work from WIV on coronaviruses shows the lab is conducting GoF research, a charge that Fauci denies.

The Epoch Times sought comment from PHAC, including a response as to how the agency addressed issues of intellectual property and collaboration of the development of any products such as vaccines with WIV, but didn’t hear back by time of publication.

Despite repeated requests by the opposition parties for more details related to the firing of the two NML scientists, the Liberal government has refused to provide records, saying there are national security and privacy concerns.

After the House of Commons issued an order requiring the government to disclose the information, the government took the Speaker of the House to court to obtain confirmation from a judge that it can withhold the documents. The government later dropped its court case once Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called an election and Parliament was dissolved.

Exclusive: Samples From Early Wuhan COVID Patients Had Genetically Modified Henipah, One of Two Types of Viruses Sent From Canadian Lab (theepochtimes.com)

California auditors raised concerns on the homeless housing department for its role as a statewide leader in addressing the homelessness crisis, citing it failed to properly allocate millions in COVID-19 pandemic funding.   

A state audit of the California Department of Housing and Community Development (CDHCD) released Aug. 24 found $316 million in federal funding received through the CARES Act failed to be expedited to address and respond to the state’s homeless population during the COVID-19 pandemic.   

“The department did not take critical steps to ensure that the $316 million in ESG‑CV (Emergency Solutions Grant) funds promptly benefited the vulnerable population for which it was intended,” state auditors said.  

“Its lack of efforts to measure the outcomes of the programs to which it provides funding raise serious concerns about its ability to provide the leadership the State needs to address its ongoing homelessness crisis.”   

There were an estimated 161,548 homeless people living in the state in 2020, a 7 percent increase from 2019. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office responded to the audit findings and told The Epoch Times the state’s response to protecting the homeless during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic was efficient. 

“Governor Newsom acted quickly and comprehensively to protect people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic, which is why California’s approach has become the national model,” spokesperson Erin Mellon told The Epoch Times in an email.  

“Unprecedented resources, deployed at a quick clip has resulted in safely housing 42,000 individuals the construction of permanent shelter for 8,000 more individuals. To suggest anything else is to fundamentally misunderstand how impactful our response was at protecting unsheltered people’s lives from the worst ravages of COVID.”  

While Newsom’s office opposed the audit’s finding, the delay in fund dispersals hindered the ability for organizations through the Continuum of Care entities (COCs)—which assist in providing homeless services and prevention tactics—from receiving monetary necessities provided by the CARES Act. 

According to the audit, while the funding was passed in March 2020, most CoCs did not receive access to the first round of funding until December 2020, seven months after the funding was announced. The second round of funding was not distributed to CoC’s until recently.  

“Recognizing it lacked the capacity to manage this emergency funding, the department hired a contractor to manage the program although it did not do so until 14 months after the CARES Act passed,” the report read.   

As a result of the department’s delays, the funding is at risk of being lost as the Sept. 22 spending deadline approaches, California State Auditor Elaine Howle said in the report.   

The report also found the department is not gathering essential data to note the effectiveness of the allocation of the funds. Furthermore, the audit concluded there are no plants to evaluate and determine the overall effectiveness of the COCs’ homelessness crisis projects.   

While the department disagrees with the audit’s findings, a plan to implement the outlined recommendations is currently underway.   

California Fails to Allocate Millions in CARES Act Funding to Homeless Services (theepochtimes.com)

Newly sworn-in New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is wasting no time taking sides in the school mask wars. Even before taking the top job, she told NBC’s “Today” that she intends to mandate masks for all public school students in the state.

She’s got President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party on her side, but the science is against her. There are no studies that demonstrate forcing young kids to wear masks reduces the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

Mandating masks also ignores the fundamental fact that not all masks are created equal. That should be the basis for a truce in the mask wars breaking out all over the nation. Mandates that settle for cloth masks with cartoon characters on them are a joke.

Most of the masks kids are wearing are laughably ineffective. A cloth mask blocks only 3 percent of viral particles from reaching the wearer, according to a study in the British Medical Journal. For such a minuscule difference, who would force kids to struggle with masks all day?

Instead of mandating masks, school districts should hand out effective masks, such as N95 or KN95 masks, at the beginning of the school day to kids whose parents request them. These masks block 95 percent of incoming viral particles. The masks were in short supply at the beginning of the pandemic, but no longer.

Flat surgical masks made from nonwoven polypropylene would be an improvement over what most kids wear. They block out 56 percent of virus particles, according to the same British study. But note that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns a surgical mask “does NOT provide the wearer with a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles and is not considered respiratory protection” in a health care setting.

Helping families who favor masking is smarter than producing classrooms full of kids with soiled, ineffective masks and many outraged parents.

The delta variant accounts for 98 percent of U.S. cases now and appears to be more dangerous to children. But would masks at school make a difference?

Not according to a CDC study of 169 Georgia elementary schools last winter. CDC researchers found that schools requiring staff and teachers to mask up had 37 percent fewer cases of COVID, and schools that improved air quality and ventilation had 39 percent fewer cases. Those approaches work. But mandating that students wear masks had no statistically significant impact on the spread of COVID. Mandating masks and letting masks be optional produced the same results. Not surprising considering the kinds of masks most kids wear.

Yet a week after releasing the Georgia study, the agency reversed course and recommended universal masking in school without offering new findings to justify that 180-degree flip. Perhaps the agency looked at the rising cases among children and panicked.

No surprise. Over the course of the pandemic, the CDC has earned a reputation as the “Centers for Disease Confusion.” The agency should have been guided by its own research.

Instead, it kowtowed to political correctness. Only a minority of Republicans support mandating masks, while 92 percent of Democrats agree, according to an Aug. 17 Axios/Ipsos poll.

Ten states—mostly blue states like Connecticut, New Jersey, and California—mandate masks. Other states leave it up to local school boards. And eight red states, including Florida, ban local school boards from mandating masks, insisting parents get to decide.

Last week, Biden escalated the mask wars by threatening federal Department of Education lawsuits against the seven states. The New York Times followed with a full-throated endorsement of Biden’s maneuver, calling mandatory masking a “common-sense public health” policy.

Sorry. The science doesn’t support it.

Hochul argues that the New York Health Department has the authority to require masking in the state. According to the letter of the law, she’s right. But the Health Department has lost credibility after forcing nursing homes to take in COVID-positive patients and covering up the deadly results. The Health Department can’t be trusted.

Instead, Hochul should put parents in charge and provide effective masks for families who want them.

That’s good advice for governors in every state. Mandating masks that don’t work is a farce.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

The Mask Mandate Farce (theepochtimes.com)

SEATTLE—A Washington state tech executive has been sentenced to two years in prison after fraudulently obtaining nearly $1.8 million in federal COVID-19 disaster relief loans.

Mukund Mohan, of Clyde Hill, previously worked for Microsoft and Amazon and was making more than $200,000 a year as the chief of technology for the Canadian e-commerce company BuildDirect when he was arrested in July 2020.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle said he submitted eight fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan applications seeking $5.5 million for companies he purportedly ran, and he actually received almost $1.8 million.

Mohan’s attorneys sought a six-month sentence, noting Mohan had no criminal history and had spent only $16,500 of the money. They said his actions, possibly triggered by mental health issues, were such an aberration for him that he fainted when federal agents knocked on his door.

Federal authorities were able to seize the money from Mohan’s accounts. He paid back the amount he had spent and was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine.

As part of the scheme, Mohan submitted fake and altered documents, including phony federal tax filings and altered incorporation documents. He said one of his companies had dozens of employees when in reality it had none.

In a news release, Corinne Kalve, acting special agent in charge of IRS Criminal Investigation, attributed the crime to Mohan’s greed, saying that when people abuse such benefit programs “they are stealing from those that are most vulnerable.”

Tech Exec Sentenced to 2 Years for $1.8 Million COVID Fraud (theepochtimes.com)

On Wednesday, Fox News’ meteorologist Janice Dean, who had relentlessly pursued New York Democrat governor Andrew Cuomo for his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, targeted celebrities who had lavished praise on Cuomo but still have not apologized for their championing of him.

She tweeted, “It would be very helpful if some of these celebrities that fawned over @andrewcuomo fessed up to their terrible judgement and apologized to the women and families affected by their tone deaf comments last year. But they won’t. “

It would be very helpful if some of these celebrities that fawned over @andrewcuomo fessed up to their terrible judgement and apologized to the women and families affected by their tone deaf comments last year. But they won’t.

— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) August 25, 2021

Dean then named some celebrities who had lauded Cuomo last year, including Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Joel, Billy Crystal, Rosie Perez, Ben Stiller, Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, and Cher.

.@WhoopiGoldberg @billyjoel @BillyCrystal @rosieperezbkln (who blocked me) @RedHourBen @chelseahandler @SarahKSilverman @cher

— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) August 25, 2021

In November 2020, when the Emmys gave Cuomo the Founders Award “in recognition of his leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world,” host Bruce Paisner stated:

Last spring, when the virus was new and out of control, and the people of New York were frightened at its relentless spread. One man took it upon himself to use technology to spread reliable information and tell citizens what to do. … And as spring turned into summer this year, the people of New York went from fear of the unknown to increasing knowledge of what was known and a sense that somebody had a plan.

Billy Crystal breathed, “In the darkest days of the pandemic, your daily briefings, live from New York, gave us hope, gave us clarity, gave us the truth, and gave us something we were not getting from Washington: Leadership.”

Billy Joel added, “In the midst of this storm, Andrew Cuomo became the nation’s governor. People across the country tuned into his press conferences every day.” Perez stated, “Governor Andrew Cuomo, you are the man.” Stiller: “I look up to you still.”

Joel wrote of Cuomo on his website in March 2020, “We are not at all surprised by his leadership during such a chaotic time and we are so proud of him. We’re lucky to call him ‘The Godfather,’ his favorite title, and our friend.”

In March 2020, Handler penned an article in Vogue with the gushing title,“Dear Andrew Cuomo, I Want to Be Your First Lady.” She wrote:

Between watching episodes of Tiger King and episodes of Trump’s daily press briefings and trying to find more marijuana to ingest, I quicken to something that cuts through the insanity. Out of the darkness, you, Andrew Cuomo, walk into my life, looking remarkably like the Incredible Hulk.… Thank you, Andrew Cuomo. Thank you for reminding us that there are men who can lead and be clear and tell the truth—even when the news is bad. Who practice benevolent ruthlessness. (Thanks, Maureen Dowd.) Who speak to Americans with respect. Thank you for being a leader at a time when so many of us were desperately looking for one.

Cher had her moment of gushing in April 2020, tweeting, “I’m in love with Andrew Cuomo.”

I’m in Love With Andrew Cuomo 💋
“ANDY”🎶

— Cher (@cher) April 15, 2020

The same month, Sarah Silverman wrote, “I really hope @NYGovCuomo sees this awesome @RandyRainbow video from one great New Yorker to another.”

I really hope @NYGovCuomo sees this awesome @RandyRainbow video from one great New Yorker to another (@chelseahandler you got competish) https://t.co/nms03dutck

— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) April 6, 2020

The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member. 

Janice Dean Names Celebrities Who Lauded Cuomo: Apologize To The Women And Families | The Daily Wire

Former President Donald Trump has dropped a brutal new ad attacking President Joe Biden and nicknaming him the “Surrender-in-Chief.”

Trump has been calling for Biden to step down over his handling of the withdrawal.

The 90-second ad was created by the Save America PAC, which was started by Trump following the 2020 presidential election.

“Joe Biden lied to America and to the World when he told us ‘America was back.’ Instead, he surrendered to the Taliban, and left Americans behind to die in Afghanistan,” a spokesman for the Save America PAC said in a statement.

“This will go down as one of the greatest Military failures in American history. Now, it’s the Taliban that is back – not America,” the spokesman added. “This is not the America we know and the media refuses to hold Biden accountable for the destruction and tragedy he’s caused. It’s time for the truth.”

The ad is a montage of photographs and videos highlighting the inflation since January, the handling of COVID, the border crisis — and of course, the chaos in Kabul as the Taliban took control of the city.

🚨 NEW AD 🚨

President Donald J. Trump releases, “Surrenderer-In-Chief” pic.twitter.com/ctijLXj8gg

— Taylor Budowich (@TayFromCA) August 24, 2021

Another ad released by the PAC earlier this month featured Afghans falling from planes as they attempted to hold on and flee the country. It referred to the chaos as “worse than Saigon.”

Worse than Saigon pic.twitter.com/AdRCirWCLd

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 18, 2021

In a statement released as the Taliban took control, Trump called for Biden to “resign in disgrace.”

“It is time for Joe Biden to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and our crippled economy,” Trump said.

The former president added, “it shouldn’t be a big deal, because he wasn’t elected legitimately in the first place.”

Trump Releases New Attack Ad Dubbing Biden ‘Surrenderer-in-Chief’ | TIMCAST IRL

Iran touts US failure in Afghanistan as it increases enrichment of weapons-grade uranium

Iran is set to hold a series of war drills with Russia and China, as the hardline regime celebrates the United States’ bungled evacuation in Afghanistan and boosts its enrichment of nuclear weapons-grade uranium to historically high levels.

Iranian and Russian leaders announced on Monday that their countries, along with China, will hold joint maritime war exercises in the Persian Gulf later this year or early in 2022, according to Iran’s state-controlled media. The countries said they will focus on “shipping security and combating piracy” as the United States reduces its military footprint in the region following its marred withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The announcement comes as the rogue countries step up their involvement in war-torn Afghanistan amid a hurried effort by the Biden administration to evacuate U.S. personnel from the country. Iran, Russia, and China have all expressed an interest in replacing the United States as a powerbroker in the nation and working with the newly installed Taliban government. Iran’s foreign ministry announced that “Iran is in contact with all parties in Afghanistan to pave the ground for dialogue and reconciliation” and that the Russian and Chinese embassies remain functioning.

Iran’s new hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, celebrated what he called America’s “military failure” in Afghanistan last week, saying the Biden administration’s “military defeat and its withdrawal must become an opportunity to restore life, security, and durable peace in Afghanistan.” Iranian officials also have sought to increase ties with the Taliban, historically a regional enemy, as it expands its footprint in the region.

As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorates for the United States, Iran has increased its enrichment of uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported late last week that Iran produced uranium metals that were enriched up to 20 percent purity for the first time in its history. It also amped up its uranium enrichment program to 60 percent purity, a threshold level that allows the regime to produce the fuel needed for a nuclear weapon.

The move was met with consternation by the United States and its European allies, but they did not take any steps to sanction Iran or issue penalties for its breach of the 2015 nuclear accord. The United States said Iran must cease its enrichment, but would not go further than a public reproach. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom also acknowledged their concerns on the IAEA report in a joint statement on Thursday.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Free Beacon that “the botched Afghanistan drawdown is a propaganda coup for Tehran.”

The Islamic Republic “has long advanced the idea that America can be forced from the region through a sustained death-by-a-thousand-cuts military strategy,” Taleblu said. “Moreover, it is trying to get local actors who are pro-American to accommodate rising Iranian power by saying those who work with Washington will one day be abandoned.”

Iran’s latest enrichment levels are a signal to the U.S. administration that the country “is increasingly comfortable with escalation and has survived peak pressure,” Taleblu said. “Would you be afraid of a state which has denigrated instruments of national power like economic sanctions and military force in a bid to change your national security policy?”

As Iran increases its regional footprint and funds terrorist groups operating in and around Afghanistan, the Biden administration is pursuing negotiations aimed at securing a revamped nuclear agreement.

The State Department has made clear that it remains open to talks even as Iran refuses to come back to the bargaining table. Tehran wants full-scale sanctions relief and access to hard currency, but claims the Biden administration is not going far enough in its concessions, which are rumored to include the removal of sanctions on Iran’s financial system and other sources of revenue for the regime.

U.S. Iran envoy Robert Malley said last week the Biden administration is prepared to present Iran with a new nuclear deal should talks on reentering the 2015 accord fall apart, according to Politico.

Iran recently enlisted U.S. ally Japan in its pursuit of sanctions relief. Japanese foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi landed in Tehran over the weekend to discuss ways both countries can pressure the Biden administration into granting Iran sanctions relief.

“To revive the [nuclear deal], the United States must abandon its excessive demands,” Motegi was quoted as saying following meetings with high-ranking Iranian government officials.

Emboldened Iran To Hold War Drills With Russia and China (freebeacon.com)

New footage appeared on social media Monday allegedly showing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi addressing a crowd at a lavish Napa Valley fundraiser, delivering her address mask-free despite California’s strict COVID advisories.

“Speaker Pelosi wants to lock you down again while she wines and dines with her political donors. It’s utter hypocrisy,” posted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Twitter.

Speaker Pelosi wants to lock you down again while she wines and dines with her political donors. It’s utter hypocrisy. https://t.co/PmiygfqN7F

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) August 22, 2021

Pelosi made national headlines last week when she largely dismissed thousands of pieces of US-made military equipment falling into the hands of the Taliban.

“This is what happens when you withdraw,” Pelosi said in an interview with KPIX 5 News Tuesday. “Some stuff is left there. It was thought that would be used. It was hoped that would be used by the Afghan military to defend its own country.”

“The fact that it did not and could not,” Pelosi added, “was all more the reason for us to leave.”

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations weighed in this week on the unfolding chaos in Afghanistan, saying the UN Security Council issued a “very strongly worded press statement” that the Taliban must respect human rights.

“We have expressed in no uncertain terms, here in the United Nations, through a very strongly worded press statement from the Security Council that we expect the Taliban to respect human rights, including the rights of women and girls,” said Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Watch Pelosi’s lavish address above.

FANCY NANCY RETURNS! Video Shows Mask-Free Pelosi Speaking at Lavish Napa Valley Fundraiser | Sean Hannity

US Border Patrol agents are reportedly suffering low morale, to the point they feel “almost dead inside,” as President Joe Biden’s policies leave only skeleton crews working in the field to intercept national-security threats.

“Everyone shows up to work sort of downtrodden, almost dead inside, for lack of a better term,” Jon Anfinsen, a spokesman for the Border Patrol’s union, told the Washington Examiner in an article published on Sunday. 

They’re not allowed to [do] the job, and they know that people are getting away every single day, every hour.

The US has set new 20-year highs in each of the past two months for the number of illegal aliens encountered by Border Patrol, including 213,000 in July, after Biden dismantled the policies of his predecessor Donald Trump, which he called “an assault on the dignity of immigrant communities.” Agents know that many more people are crossing the border undetected, as hundreds of agents have been pulled from the field to process and care for the crushing flow of migrants.READ MORESuspected terrorists are crossing into US at ‘level we have never seen before,’ outgoing Border Patrol chief tells agents – report

“Agents are primarily indoors, processing, and we’re dealing with the people who are flagging us down – the ones who are walking up to us and turning themselves in,” Anfinsen said. “Meanwhile, the immigrants who don’t want anything to do with us, they’re running away, although sometimes they’re walking because they have no need to run because we’re not there.”

In one 245-mile stretch of the southwest US border, there are only 12 agents patrolling, a record low, the Examiner said. On one recent day, the busy McAllen, Texas, Border Patrol Station had just one person and a dog working in the field because all other agents were needed for non-enforcement tasks, such as processing and transporting illegal migrants.

That’s especially troubling to agents, knowing that drug traffickers and suspected terrorists, among other threats, are exploiting the porous border. People on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist are crossing into the US at an unprecedented level, according to Rodney Scott, whom the Biden administration forced out as Border Patrol chief earlier this month. Also this month, Mark Morgan, a top border official in the Obama and Trump administrations, said the Biden administration has dropped at least 40,000 illegal aliens infected with Covid-19 into US cities.

The Examiner said many field agents have been turned into corrections officers, being jammed into crowded holding facilities with dozens of migrants packed in small rooms. Morgan said 37 employees have died from the virus since the pandemic began.ALSO ON RT.COMBiden administration has dumped 40,000 Covid-positive migrants into US cities, former border chief tells newspaper

The newspaper said its reporting was based on interviews with five current agents and three former senior officials who worked in the Biden administration. The administration has prohibited Border Patrol employees from speaking to media outlets without permission and stopped allowing reporters to do ride-alongs with enforcement agents.

“The mission is no longer deter, detect, detain,” one agent said. “It is wait until they have all crossed, Uber them to the station and process. Morale is below the Mason-Dixon line. We need more agents on the line, not at hospital or processing.” 

The agent added that more operatives are also needed to do intelligence work to target the cartels that are smuggling migrants.

Asked about the alleged plunge in morale, the US Customs and Border Patrol sent a statement to the Examiner, saying it’s fortunate to have agents who “remain resilient as we seek to improve enforcement efforts along the border.” The statement added, “Day in and day out, our Border Patrol agents continue to meet the need to protect our nation’s border as well as process migrants safely and expeditiously.”

Morale among ‘downtrodden’ Border Patrol agents PLUMMETS as Biden policies leave them unable to protect national security – report — RT USA News

On Saturday 18 RINOs joined Democrats to pass the Democrat Party’s infrastructure bill. Democrats never allowed a similar bill to reach President Trump’s desk last year.

The RINOs gave Joe Biden a rare win at a time when the illegitimate president is sinking in the polls and continues to struggle with his diminishing faculties.

Mitch McConnell led the charge of the RINOs.
Here are the 18 GOP members who voted for this monstrosity on Saturday:

** Mitch McConnell
** Roy Blunt of Missouri,
**Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia,
**Bill Cassidy of Louisiana,
**Susan Collins of Maine,
**John Cornyn of Texas,
**Kevin Cramer of North Dakota,
**Mike Crapo of Idaho,
**Chuck Grassley of Iowa,
**John Hoeven of North Dakota,
**Deb Fischer of Nebraska,
**Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,
**Rob Portman of Ohio,
**Jim Risch of Idaho,
**Mitt Romney of Utah,
**Thom Tillis of North Carolina,
**Todd Young of Indiana
**Mike Rounds of South Dakota.

On Sunday morning Senator Kevin Cramer joined Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures to discuss his vote for the Socialist infrastructure plan. Big mistake. Maria Bartiromo chewed him up and spit him out — as he deserved.

TRENDING: MUST SEE: Mike Lindell on War Room Lays Out Day-by-Day Schedule on What to Expect at Much Anticipated Cyber Symposium This Week (VIDEO)

Bartiromo pointed out in the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” monstrosity there is not a single dime for a border wall during the worst border crisis in US history. Cramer had no response. Instead he started spouting off about the globalists at the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable who support the Uniparty spending plan.

Cramer was outmatched and looked ridiculous.
Maria destroyed him.

On Monday the War Room panel pointed out that there is not a dime in the trillion dollar plan supported by RINOs for border security.
And yet 18 Republicans voted for it.
It is clear these dirty RINOs DO NOT support their constituents.

Below are the 17 REPUBLICAN Senators and links to EMAIL THEM, keep your messages short, but let’s flood their email boxes with messages like “VOTE NO on Trillion Dollar Infrastructure bill”, “NO to Socialism”, “NO to GREEN NEW DEAL”.

Via Midnight Rider:

Contact Sen Blunt
https://www.blunt.senate.gov/contact/contact-roy
Senator Burr
https://www.burr.senate.gov/contact/email
Senator Cassidy
https://www.cassidy.senate.gov/contact
Sen Capito
https://www.capito.senate.gov/contact/share-your-opinion
Senator Collins
https://www.collins.senate.gov/CONTACT
Senator Cramer
https://www.cramer.senate.gov/contact/contact-kevin
Senator Crapo
https://www.crapo.senate.gov/contact/email-me
Senator Graham
https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-senator-graham
Senator Grassley
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/contact
Senator Hoeven
https://www.hoeven.senate.gov/contact/email-the-senator
Senator McConnell
https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=contact
Senator Murkowski
https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/contact/email
Senator Portman
https://www.portman.senate.gov/meet/contact
Senator Risch
https://www.risch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/email
Senator Romney
https://www.romney.senate.gov/contact
Senator Tillis
https://www.tillis.senate.gov/email-me
Senator Young
https://www.young.senate.gov/contact

Read More

THEY HATE YOU: Mitch McConnell and 17 RINO Senators Vote for Infrastructure Bill that Included ZERO DOLLARS for Border Security During Greatest Border Crisis in History – Orwellian Post

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Border Patrol’s apprehension numbers of illegal migrants broke records in July for the sixth consecutive month following Joe Biden’s taking office as president, with the numbers reaching an “historic crisis level.”

While the “sweltering” heat of June and July usually slows down illegal immigration at the southern US border, according to Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), in June and July of 2021 border traffic actually increased. Bensman said:

“For the sixth consecutive month since President Joe Biden took office and followed through on campaign promises to dismantle his predecessor’s deterrence-based policies, the number of illegal immigrants encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection broke records, reaching 210,000 in July, the Associated Press reported Monday. The outlet cited a court filing by David Shahoulian, assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security. Based on past trends, the vast majority of those encountered were likely illegal immigrants apprehended by the Border Patrol.”

Authorities encountered on average 6,770 individuals every single day of July, and many of these people were families and “unaccompanied alien minors.” Single adult “runners” were also driving the wave of immigration. Border Patrol is struggling to push these people back into Mexico over and over again, its resources “strained.” The CBP encountered 210,000 illegal aliens in July, and it is estimated that 37,000 migrants evaded Border Patrol altogether, a number which Bensman calls a “likely… significant undercount.”

While June’s apprehension number of 188,829 illegal migrants was the largest for one month in 21 years, July’s number of 210,000 exceeded that record. Overall, in this fiscal year, which ends September 30, CBP encounters reached the staggering number of 1.3 million. The last time border apprehension numbers hit the mark of a million was back in 2006.

In the border crisis “epicenter” of the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, the numbers of illegal migrants stopped by Border Patrol were 51,149 in May, 59,380 in June, and 78,000 in July.

“The July numbers, once finalized and released in the next couple of weeks, will show that the border crisis is going from record high to record high in an upward climb into a red-zone crisis that will defy any control, short of a radical about-face by the Biden administration. Few signs point to any such policy reversal, although the White House has tentatively begun long-haul deportations to Central America aboard ICE jets.

Border Patrol and CBP facilities, meanwhile, are overrun in the crisis’s Texas epicenter, as are hundreds of border communities that have rarely experienced anything like the steadily worsening chaos of wandering immigrants; high-speed car chases; crime; fear of Covid; and widespread insecurity.”

Bensman explained that promises by Democrat candidates for president in 2019 and 2020 to welcome illegal immigrants and institute policies highly favorable to those migrants caused migrants to begin massing in southern Mexico and even increase CBP apprehension numbers, despite then-President Trump’s “tough turn-back policies.” Individuals who had previously been “unable to advance through Trump’s border restrictions” saw a chance to be successful migrants. As polls pointed to a Biden win, migrants continued to cross in increasing numbers. Some of the migrants in Mexico told Bensman they were planning to “wait out” what they expected to be the last few months of Trump’s presidency.

Bensman calls this steadily growing surge of illegal immigration the “Biden effect,” and said that the border crisis was predicted by an October 2020 national threat assessment from the Department of Homeland Security. Biden’s exemption of “unaccompanied alien minors from pandemic-related ‘Title 42’ instant expulsions to Mexico” and effective ending of interior removals for all those migrants who had successfully evaded Border Patrol as soon as he took office made the crisis rapidly worse.

“The exempted family groups and unaccompanied alien minors have driven the crisis, because they have forced Border Patrol agents ‘off the line’ to deal with their care and processing. Agents processed a whopping 80,000 illegal family unit immigrants in July, Shahoulian said, a leap from June’s 55,805. Reports coming from the border in recent days indicate they have been showing up in individual groups of 500, and even 1,000.

U.S. officials probably picked up more than 19,000 unaccompanied children in July, exceeding the previous record of 18,877 in March.”

If the Biden administration continues its failed border policies, apprehension numbers are likely to continue in an upward trend.

Border Patrol Apprehension Numbers Point To Historic, Crisis Levels At American Border. – The National Pulse

Border officers are releasing illegal immigrants who test positive for COVID-19 to a nonprofit organization, Texas authorities said this week.

The immigrants were handed over to the Catholic Charities of The Rio Grande Valley, which arranged for their stay in a La Joya, Texas, hotel that it had rented out entirely, La Joya police officials said.

“We did not know this. No one told the city of La Joya. No one told the police department that these people were here. And no one told us that these people were possibly ill,” La Joya Sgt. Manuel Casas told reporters at a July 27 press conference.

The situation came to light on July 26, after a concerned citizen reported to a police officer that she saw members of a family who were coughing and sneezing without covering their mouths at a Whataburger location, and they weren’t wearing masks. Management at the restaurant where the incident was reported said they wanted the family to leave because they were disregarding other people’s health.

The officer went to the family, who told the officer they had been apprehended by Border Patrol agents just days before, but were released because they had COVID-19. The family was being housed at the Texas Inn Hotel, which authorities later learned had been completely booked to house such immigrants.

“The information we have is that everybody that is staying in that hotel is COVID-19 positive,” Casas said.

Officers later witnessed a group of 20 to 30 people staying at the hotel outside. Most of them weren’t wearing masks.

Officers also later learned that the illegal immigrants being detained by Border Patrol were given over to the nonprofit to be placed in hotels in the La Joya and McAllen, Texas, areas.

“We have been doing well as a community in slowing the spread of this deadly virus. But ill-conceived policies by both the federal and state governments are beginning to have serious consequences on Hildago County. I call on federal immigration officials to stop releasing infected migrants into our community,” Richard Cortez, the county judge, said in a statement.

A Catholic Charities of The Rio Grande Valley representative didn’t return a request for comment by press time.

The charity’s executive director, Sister Norma Pimentel, told Border Report that the group has been helping house COVID-positive immigrants in hotels. Pimentel said that a security guard is now at the La Joya hotel to keep the immigrants inside.

A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection told The Epoch Times via email that the agency in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector “continues to encounter significant numbers of undocumented migrants crossing the border.”

Undocumented migrants is a term for illegal aliens.

“RGV continues to expel individuals under Title 42 authorities as part of COVID mitigation efforts and utilizes pathways under Title 8 proceedings to remove those amenable to their home countries,” the spokesperson wrote. “During these challenging times, our federal, state, and local partnerships are indispensable as we work to secure our borders and to quickly move individuals out of USBP custody and through the appropriate immigration pathway.”

Border agents in the Rio Grande Valley apprehended more than 20,000 illegal immigrants in a single week this month, part of a dramatic rise in apprehensions seen during President Joe Biden’s first term.

Texas authorities have begun taking matters into their own hands, arresting immigrants on trespassing charges. The city of Laredo, Texas, sued the Biden administration last week in a bid to stop the transfer of thousands of illegal immigrants from among those apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio to the city.

US Releasing Illegal Immigrants Who Test Positive for COVID-19: Texas Police (theepochtimes.com)

Data from Public Health England (PHE) shows that, while the overall chances of getting reinfected are very low, the Delta variant, first identified in India and which accounts for around 99% of cases in the UK, poses a higher risk.
It came as new figures showed the breakdown of how many people in hospital with the Delta variant have had one or both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

While it is “possible” to identify that someone may have the DELTA variant, THERE IS NO DIRECT TEST.
So, I repeat my question–how the hell do we know that most of the new cases are “DELTA” when there is no DIRECT test?

How is the Delta Variant Spreading If There is No Direct Delta Variant Test? | Dude Pac | dudepac.com

Almost two years ago I published an article on the Gab News blog about Silicon Valley building a social credit system for the West. Exactly one year later I experienced this social credit system personally when my business and family were blacklisted by Visa after also being banned by Paypal, Stripe, Coinbase, and many other payment processors.

Around this time I wrote a warning letter to Christians about what was happening to me and what would soon be happening, and is now happening, to many more people like me. Earlier this year I wrote about the Silent Christian Secession and the need to build our own economy to escape the pending tyranny of the global elite.

In April I wrote that the vaccine was becoming a religious ceremony–cultish even– and that Christians had an absolute right to reject it. That same month I defended the right of everyone to speak freely on Gab and openly discuss, question, and criticize the vaccines in the face of a censorship crackdown on dissent from Big Tech.

God has blessed me with tremendous foresight and discernment about the Enemy’s next move. It’s why I started Gab in 2016 long before censorship became the center of cultural and political debate that it is today. It’s why I wrote these many warnings to Christians and freedom lovers everywhere about what was happening to me because I knew that it would soon be happening to all of you too.

I don’t take this blessing lightly. These things weigh on my heart heavily as a husband and father of two young children. Everyday I hear stories from Gabbers about how they are being forced and coerced into taking the vaccine when they do not want to.

I am praying that God gives them the peace and discernment they need right now. It sickens me that the Enemy is making my brothers and sisters in Christ choose between feeding their families and retaining their bodily autonomy and being true to their deeply held religious beliefs.

This week we published several religious exemption document templates for people who need them and the response was unbelievable. Many people sent emails, Gab comments, and direct messages thanking us for publishing these and I pray to God that they helped even one person facing an impossible decision to make the right one.

The people in power don’t care about Covid. They don’t care about the vaccines. They care about control. This entire situation is one giant demoralization campaign designed to grind us all down spiritually, emotionally, physically, and financially. If they can get us all to submit once, they can get us all to submit fully and forever.

We can’t let that happen. Do not let them get in your head with the fear mongering, the lies, and the shapeshifting narratives. They are exposing themselves like never before in human history and we are living through a period of immense spiritual warfare.

We must remember that we are human beings, made in the image of God. We always have choices. We always have hope. Darkness cannot and never will consume the light of Christ.

Do not look to political leaders for help. There is no political solution to a spiritual problem. Look to Jesus Christ. Open your Bible. Pray. Put on the full armor of God and get to work building something new. They have left us no choice. We can and must rebuild from scratch and it starts in your own heart and in your own local community.

God bless you all,

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus is King

I Tried My Best To Warn You This Was Going To Happen – Gab News

In February, California resident Sherry Zhang received a call from her parents back in China, who told her a group of officers from the Ministry of State Security, the regime’s top intelligence agency, had shown up at their workplace.

The couple, in their late 70s, runs a factory in southern China’s Guangdong province.

“Are you the principal of this school?” Zhang’s parents asked her on the phone. “Is this true?”

They messaged Zhang a copy of a webpage, which included her photo and a short bio, Zhang told The Epoch Times in a phone interview. She immediately recognized the page—it’s from the official site of the San Francisco High School of the Arts, where she has been principal since 2015.

“I know my parents never go online; they’re old-fashioned,” Zhang said. She believes the officers gave her parents the copy.

According to Zhang, the officers told the elderly couple that Zhang is the head of a school that is “against China.” They then accused the parents of funneling money from their factory to the school, she said.

The officers then issued a veiled threat: if they uncover any proof of this, the factory would be shut down and Zhang’s parents would be jailed, Zhang said.

For the elderly couple, all of this came as a rude shock because Zhang had never told them anything about her profession or where she worked.

This is because Zhang is a practitioner of Falun Gong, a spiritual meditative practice persecuted by the Chinese regime since 1999. Millions of practitioners who refuse to give up their faith have been arrested, detained, or tortured in China. For practitioners based overseas but who have family inside China, the regime has threatened their relatives in a bid to pressure the relatives living outside of China into staying silent about Beijing’s human rights abuses.

Since the start of the persecution, Zhang, a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country for almost two decades, has joined protests in the United States calling for an end to the atrocities in China. She has friends whose relatives from her hometown in China were persecuted to death. “I know it’s real,” she said. “I think we should speak out.”

“Falun Gong is my personal belief,” Zhang said, adding that San Francisco High School of the Arts is a non-religious private school with faculty staff from diverse religious backgrounds.

The school focuses on teaching tradition, universal values, and a sense of civic duty, according to its website. Its arts curriculum includes ballet, Chinese dance, classical instruments and vocal music, visual arts, and musical theatre.

Zhang had not revealed details of her activities to her parents these past years. “I never wanted them to worry,” she said.

The Epoch Times is withholding details relating to Zhang’s parents and their business for safety reasons.

‘They Target Almost Anyone’

For the months following the call in February, officials would show up to “inspect” her parents’ factory every other day, according to Zhang.

“It’s never been seen that so many departments all come at once, and every time they come they have like 7 or 8 people,” Zhang said, adding that officials from tax, labor, customs, and health agencies were all involved. “The employees feel pressured. They cannot operate normally.”

One employee got ahold of Zhang’s number and called her several times. They asked her to back out from her position at the school so the factory can be “free of trouble.”

“I think [the Ministry of State Security] was trying to get their words to me,” Zhang said. “They just want to make things happen, so that I could do things according to their wish.”

Experiencing regular harassment from officials, Zhang’s parents now believe they have only two options left: get Zhang to resign from the school, or cut off all ties with their own daughter, the principal said.

“If you guys feel too much pressure, you can say we are not connected anymore,” Zhang told her parents in a phone conversation. “I don’t want to be your burden.”

This is not the first time Zhang’s parents have been pressured by local authorities.

Chinese police have harassed her parents since as early as 2001, according to Zhang. In one case, the police called her mother to meet at a restaurant. When she got there, the police told her to get Zhang to stop practicing Falun Gong. “My mom felt very disturbed,” she said.

Zhang’s parents were never against her practicing Falun Gong, but they were afraid of the officials, she said. “They don’t feel like they can do a whole lot.”

Recently, communications from Zhang’s parents have dried up. The last time they called was more than two weeks ago. They mentioned the police “keep saying they found more evidence.”

Zhang is unsure what is actually going on back home right now. “My parents try to not tell me much anymore,” she said.

Having not heard from her parents, Zhang doesn’t know what will happen next.

“[The Chinese regime] don’t just target Falun Gong practitioners. I think they’re trying to control overseas Chinese because they have their roots in China: their parents, relatives, friends,” Zhang said. “They target almost anyone they view as not in line with their [communist] doctrine.”

Speaking Out

Zhang has lived in the United States since 1992. She completed a doctorate in chemistry before doing post-doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley researching lithium-ion batteries. After a few years of industry work, she got together with a group of like-minded parents who were dissatisfied with the U.S. public school system, and in 2010 co-founded San Francisco High School of the Arts.

“We think that a school teaching traditional arts and universal values is very important,” Zhang said. “Respect, empathy, honesty, kindness, tolerance, and responsibility.”

“When you go into a lot of schools, especially high schools, you can see the children are not necessarily motivated,” Zhang said. “I was told by many parents there’s not a single high school in San Francisco that doesn’t have drug issues.”

Many parents who come to her are concerned their children lack traditional values and work ethics, she said. “They want their children to be positive contributing members of society.”

Zhang described a typical day of work as “busy but enjoyable.” She holds weekly assemblies with students on topics like the dangers of drug addiction. Zhang’s students are like her own children, she said.

Students would tell Zhang stories of their previous schools. “They [felt] like they cannot speak what’s on their mind, otherwise they cannot fit in,” she said. “Only the loud people got their voices heard.”

Exposing the Chinese regime’s egregious abuses of power is her way of practicing what she teaches to her students, Zhang said.

“Every note [the students] play, every dance movement they make; we keep on encouraging them to work hard, and they will persevere; we teach them that goodness will prevail,” she said. “I would have to stick to the same thing.”

Zhang cautioned that the Chinese regime is infiltrating every corner of the international community. “They try to control everything, control a lot of media, a lot of schools,” she said.

“We’re teaching the traditional values here … that’s not what they [the Chinese regime] want to see.”

Zhang said that the Chinese regime tries to influence Americans through the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, Beijing-funded language centers found in colleges and K-12 institutions that have been criticized for promoting Chinese Communist Party propaganda and suppressing academic discussion and freedom on topics the regime doesn’t want to be discussed.

“They want the next generation to be an easier target and to really infiltrate what’s easy to infiltrate—the children.”

Chinese Authorities Harass Parents of California School Principal in Intimidation Attempt (theepochtimes.com)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is partnered with a self-described “socialist” internet foundation run by the branch of the Chinese Communist Party spearheading its digital campaign to censor factual narratives and push fraudulent information about COVID-19.

The two foundations inked a memorandum of understanding in 2015, pledging cooperation in areas including “public health”:

According to the cooperation memorandum of understanding, the two parties will rely on new technologies such as the Internet to promote pragmatic cooperation in the fields of charity, public health, and international development, and work together to improve the quality of life of the poor and promote poverty reduction in developing countries.The China Internet Development Foundation (CIDF) operates under the Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Civil Affairs and is managed by the Cyberspace Administration of China.Given its close relationship to the Chinese Communist Party, CIDF’s charter pledges to “adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

“Consciously maintain a high degree of consistency with the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core in ideological and political actions, and earnestly fulfill the historical mission of building a network power to promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” are among the foundation’s other objectives.

“The Foundation adheres to the overall leadership of the Communist Party of China and, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the Communist Party of China, establishes an organization of the Communist Party of China, carries out party activities, and provides necessary conditions for the activities of the party organization,” the group’s charter adds.

The CIDF also openly admits to “practicing the core values of socialism.”

CIDF’s oversight body, the Cyberspace Administration of China, also played a critical role in deploying Chinese bot armies on social media platforms to spread propaganda about the origins and severity of COVID-19.

In addition to controlling thousand-person legions online, the body was also responsible for dictating pro-government editorial lines of Chinese state-run media outlets regarding COVID-19 stories.

“All Cyberspace Administration bureaus must pay heightened attention to online opinion, and resolutely control anything that seriously damages party and government credibility and attacks the political system,” reveals a government memo obtained by ProPublica.

Gates Foundation Partnered With ‘Socialist’ Internet Group Running China’s COVID-19 Propaganda Operation. – The National Pulse

State health departments are using the Chinese Communist Party-linked social media platform TikTok to encourage children as young as 12 to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

In West Michigan, Kalamazoo County’s Health and Community Services Department is specifically using the app to “better reach people ages 12 to 29 years old.”

Lyndi Warner, public information officer for the department, reveals the platform is being used to target the young demographic: “When we look at who’s being vaccinated and where are we wanting to make those strides… the 12- to 29-year-old age group is where we really wanted to try and focus in on.”

“We are seeing these videos do really well so far. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well that they’re doing,” she added.

The Alabama Department of Health (ADH) also sponsored a contest on TikTok for individuals aged 13 to 29 to “encourage vaccination against COVID-19 before the beginning of the school year.”

“To participate, contestants are to submit a TikTok video showing themselves getting vaccinated or include a creative message explaining, “This is why I got vaccinated.” All videos must tag @alcovidvaccine, #getvaccinatedAL and #ADPH. […] A panel of judges composed of advertising professionals and ADPH personnel will select four winners who will each be awarded a $250 Visa gift card,” a contest summary continues.

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance employs former Chinese Communist Party officials, including individuals with military ties, to executive roles and grants party members preferential treatment in hiring processes. Its founder has also pledged to use ByteDance to “promote socialist core values” and devotion to the Chinese.

The app’s threat to national security and data privacy prompted the Trump administration to attempt to ban the platform from operating in the U.S. – an effort recently quashed by the Biden White House.

Illegal immigrants are crossing into the United States from Mexico in record-shattering numbers, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is ignoring a congressional request for information regarding where the government is relocating them, lawmakers say.

“On April 15, 2021, 34 Members of the House of Representatives sent a letter requesting important information regarding the destinations within the interior of our nation of the heavy illegal migration over our nation’s border,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) told DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in an Aug. 5 letter.

The letter was also addressed to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra. The two departments are responsible for implementing President Joe Biden’s open border policies on immigration.

“As of the date of this letter, the response from [HHS] deferred to [DHS], and regrettably, DHS has not responded to the Congress’ letter,” Braun and Gohmert told Mayorkas and Becerra.

The lawmakers said the repeated requests for relocation information were made because “border crossings remain unsustainably high. In July, it was reported that attempted crossings at the U.S.–Mexico border remain at a historically high level not experienced in at least 21 years.

“In June, more than 188,829 individuals were taken into custody by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), including 15,018 unaccompanied children. This former figure represents an alarming 141 percent increase from January 2021. Like so many in our nation, we remain deeply concerned about this unlawful, manmade humanitarian and national crisis that is being facilitated on our southern border.”

In addition to Braun and Gohmert, the April and August letters were signed by Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.).

Members of the House of Representatives who signed the letters include Reps. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.), Matthew Rosendale (R-Mont.), Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), Greg Steube (R-Fla.), Randy Weber (R-Texas), Ben Cline (R-Va.), Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), Bob Good (R-Va.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), Michael Cloud (R-Texas), Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Bill Posey (R-Fla.), Vicki Hartzler (R-Mo.), and Pete Sessions (R-Texas).

Representatives from DHS didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

The information sought by the lawmakers includes the following:

“The locations where illegal immigrants have been sent, transported, or provided ability or funding to travel to, or allowed to travel to by other funding including their own or private funding for all individuals who entered the U.S. without visas.

“For each named location, the total number of immigrants who have been sent, transported, or provided ability or funding to travel to, or allowed to travel to by other funding, including their own or private funding to such city.

“The number of immigrants tested for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the number of immigrants that tested positive for COVID-19, and [DHS’s] course of action to respond to immigrants that test positive for COVID-19.”

The signers noted that “this requested information is critical to understanding how the unabetted flow of illegal aliens over the Southern border affects all Americans in each of the 50 states.”

“It must be reiterated that members of the executive branch have a duty, and many have sworn an oath that would include the requirement to carry out the lawfully enacted legislation under the Constitution,” the letter reads.

“With an open border facilitating illegal entry into our nation and the manifold resulting criminalities, the executive branch is failing miserably in its duty.

“Your failure to provide this requested information over the past three months, an eminently reasonable amount of time, raises further concerns about the lack of transparency and your unwillingness to provide this important information to elected representatives of the people of this nation.”

Homeland Security Ignoring Congressional Requests for Info on Where Illegal Immigrants Are Being Sent (theepochtimes.com)

Fellow American:

Did you see the news? 

Joe Biden released 50,000 illegal immigrants into the United States without even giving them a court date. 

We don’t know how many are violent criminals, how many work for the drug cartels, or how many are infected with Covid-19. All we know is that the Left’s plan is working.

They don’t see the lawless humanitarian crisis on the border as the problem. To Democrats, the crisis is the solution. 

ONLY A CONSERVATIVE HOUSE CAN SEAL THE BORDER. CLICK HERE TO GIVE TO HOUSE FREEDOM FUND TODAY!

Democrats want chaos at the border so that they can sneak in as many illegals as possible, right under your nose. So far, more than 1 MILLION illegals have crossed the border since Joe Biden took office! 

Biden isn’t turning them back to Mexico. He’s letting them into our towns, without Covid tests or court dates, while telling American citizens we have to start wearing masks again!

What happened to our country? America belongs to the people who love her, and it’s time to take her back.

Support the House Freedom Fund today, and join the fight to win America back.

HFF is the only organization in the country exclusively committed to electing TRUE CONSERVATIVES to the U.S. House.
      
HFF only supports fighters – men and women like Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, and Lauren Boebert. These are leaders ready to take on the socialist Left, the establishment GOP, the Big Tech billionaires, and the mainstream media.

I know because HFF supports me, and that’s no small thing. I’ve learned that when conservatives truly fight the liberals, even many of the leaders in our own party will abandon them.

Electing more Republicans won’t change anything. Only electing conservatives can make the House great again. HFF is the Right’s secret weapon against the woke socialist Left.

As you know, under our Constitution, the House holds the power of the purse over the federal budget. If we nominate and elect enough conservatives next year, we can cut off Biden’s allowance:

❌ No more money to relocate illegal immigrants into our hometowns;
❌ No more money to poison our children with Critical Race Theory;
❌ No more money to get Big Tech to spy on American citizens;
❌ No more money for new mask mandates or school closures; and
❌ No more money to finance coronavirus experiments by Communist scientists in Chinese labs.

If Democrats won’t turn away illegal immigrants, then the American people have to turn away the Democrats.

Please join me in supporting HFF today!

Thank you for considering this urgent request and doing so much to help fight for America’s future.

Sincerely,

Marjorie Taylor Greene
U.S. Congresswoman (R-GA)

Obama’s super-spreader birthday bash may have ruined the fall party scene in our nation’s capital

Regular Americans love to complain about how the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected their lives. The plebs throw temper tantrums when members of the political élite flaunt their privilege by throwing massive parties and ignoring the rules they put in place for everyone else.

Regular Americans, who as we all know are to blame for ruining democracy and botching the Afghanistan withdrawal, should try to take a deep breath and put their so-called suffering in perspective. They shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the political élite are also suffering, and élite suffering is, for obvious reasons, even more tragic than regular suffering.

Politico reports that members of the Washington, D.C., élite are the victims of a grave injustice perpetrated by one of their own. Former president Barack Obama’s 60th birthday party in Martha’s Vineyard earlier this month was a confirmed super-spreader event. The “Obama variant” has wreaked havoc on the island’s only hospital system.

Thanks, Obama. His insatiable narcissism may have ruined the fall party scene in our nation’s capital. Democratic power players, shocked at the (relatively) critical tone of the media coverage surrounding the Martha’s Vineyard affair, are worried they might have to wait a few months before it’s socially acceptable to hang out with celebrities again:

The bashing of the bash is having a chilling effect on the D.C. party scene as (especially Democratic) pols and their staffers scramble to figure out when and where — or even if — they can party again.

“Who wants to throw a party right now when Obama hired a doctor to make sure everyone’s vaccinated and passes a Covid test and he still gets shamed for it?” said JOHN ARUNDEL, former associate publisher of Washington Life magazine and managing director of Perdicus Communications.

“I just think there’s a stigma to throwing any kind of event,” he added. “The optics of throwing the party or being at the party, it can be chilling.”

The results have been almost as tragic as the chaos unfolding at the Kabul airport. Democratic lobbyist Heather Podesta, for example, was planning to host a lavish gala in September at the French ambassador’s residence. She was forced to reschedule the event for November.

“What we could do six weeks ago, we can’t do now,” lamented Adrienne Elrod, a former Hillary Clinton adviser. “We have to be so cognizant because Republicans are looking for any reason to call us hypocrites or to call us liars.”

All is not lost, however, as a number of swanky gatherings are still on track. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.) will be honored at the March on Washington Film Festival on Sept. 30; hundreds are expected to attend. The Halycon Awards, a fundraising gala for a prominent liberal nonprofit organization, is scheduled for the following day.

A number of Democrats are refusing to let Obama’s bad vibes prevent them from raising money from left-wing billionaires. Kathy Hochul, who is (at least in theory) set to replace disgraced governor Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.), attended a series of high-dollar fundraisers in the Hamptons this weekend.

Journalists and lobbyists, meanwhile, are suffering an almost unfathomable hardship:

Some lobbyists are panicked about shrinking guest lists at fundraisers, especially with the infrastructure and reconciliation bills on the table. Fundraisers are prime opportunities to corner a member and press their interests.

Journalists might suffer too, with the Washington book party circuit in limbo. Lobbyist and D.C. hostess JULEANNA GLOVER was slated to have a book party at her Kalorama home in September for GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON’s new tome, but she’s going to make the call the week before on whether to have the party based on the CDC’s guidance.

Perspective: Stop Whining, Plebs, the DC Élite Are Also Suffering (freebeacon.com)

Fellow Conservative:

We were right all along. It is becoming more and more apparent that Communist China directly caused COVID and that liberals – from the World Health Organization to the United Nations, to Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer – aren’t going to do anything about it.

Joe Biden is terrified of angering Communist China.

Millions are dead, the American economy in shambles and all of it can be tied back to Communist China. Joe Biden’s only response is capitulation and shaming anyone who dares to tell the truth.

Remember all the times Republicans – President Trump especially – were mocked for saying that China caused COVID-19? Remember all the times last year when we fought to close our borders to Chinese travelers, but Joe Biden and his friends on the left mocked us and called this common-sense move racist?

If they won’t do anything, then it is up to us. I am working overtime to expose the truth, save lives, do my part to take back the U.S. Senate for the Republican Party, and I need you to help me in this fight.

The outcome could decide the direction of our nation for generations and our ability to hold China accountable for harming the world.

I have been saying this for months, here is a clip of me on Fox News– if you aren’t angry after watching this, then you aren’t paying attention.

Multiple issues are being covered up:
• The “gain of function” research being conducted on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology;
• Big Tech’s censoring of the evidence for the lab-leak theory during last year’s election campaign;
• The three Wuhan scientists who got seriously ill in late 2019;
• The APPALING conditions at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
• China no longer holding its Military Games in Wuhan.
• The bid for new repairs at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that are going unquestioned…until now.

It is disgusting to see such weakness in the Oval Office. But, if we don’t take back the Senate to add some balance and strength to our government, I don’t know what will happen.

Please, your donation of $1,000, $500, $250, $100, even just $50 to do your part to take back the Senate could make a HUGE difference.

Republicans are fighting to hold China accountable for the lives it has destroyed. Every day, every hour, we cannot stop working to protect our families and the nation I love and served in the U.S. Navy to protect.

China must be held accountable. With your help, I will continue the fight to protect our great country. Please stand with me today.

For our children,

Rick Scott
U.S. Senator, Florida

Attendees paid thousands to enjoy cocktails while local hospitals complained of ‘bursting at the seams’

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe held a swanky fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard as the liberal vacation hotspot struggled to battle a spike in coronavirus cases that follows former president Barack Obama’s birthday party.

McAuliffe charged attendees thousands of dollars to attend the Wednesday event, which he held at Sen. Mark Warner’s (D., Va.) $7 million island mansion, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by New York Times reporter Ken Vogel. While donors enjoyed “cocktails and conversation in support of” McAuliffe, however, local medical professionals rushed to deal with a spike in COVID-19 cases nearly two weeks after Obama held his celebrity-filled soirée on the island. After the former president pledged to “scale back” the party over coronavirus concerns, hundreds of guests, including celebrities John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, and Don Cheadle, flocked to the island to attend.

“We’re bursting at the seams,” Martha’s Vineyard Hospital president and CEO Denise Schepici told reporters Wednesday. “We are pretty jam-packed. … We’re hoping there will be a reprieve in September. But that’s a prayer right now.”

Cases in the island’s surrounding county have increased 179 percent since Obama’s “sophisticated” guests began to arrive for the birthday bash.

The fundraiser marks McAuliffe’s latest attempt to nationalize his fundraising efforts as he works to defeat GOP opponent Glenn Youngkin. Last week, the Democratic candidate attended a Las Vegas fundraiser with Nevada governor Steve Sisolak (D.). McAuliffe ditched a candidate forum hosted by a disabilities advocacy group to fly to the event, a decision that drew a swift rebuke from Virginia’s disabled community.

Warner purchased his Martha’s Vineyard mansion from the late 60 Minutes journalist Mike Wallace in 2011. The waterfront estate consists of “two dwellings connected by a covered brick veranda and two car garage” and boasts six bedrooms, five bathrooms, a private dock, and private beach, as well as a screen porch that provides “unsurpassed water views to the shores of Cape Cod.” Warner’s residence is just miles away from Obama’s $11.75 million, 29-acre estate.

At the fundraiser, Warner announced his intention to investigate President Joe Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, according to Vogel. Event “hosts” paid $10,000 to attend, while “co-hosts” and “sponsors” paid $5,000 and $2,500, respectively, the invitation shows.

McAuliffe Holds Martha’s Vineyard Fundraiser as COVID Hits Island Hard (freebeacon.com)

A Spanish-language flyer by the Red Cross provides detailed routes to the US southern border, shelter locations, and instructions on how to jump off a moving train safely

UVALDE, Texas—Rancher John Sewell recently picked up a pamphlet that had fallen from the backpack of an illegal immigrant who was trespassing on his property near Uvalde, Texas—about 50 miles from the U.S.–Mexico border.

On one side is a map that details transport routes from Panama to the United States. It pinpoints in great detail where migrants can find shelter or get medical help along the way. The other side is full of useful information, in Spanish, including how to more safely travel through forests and jungles, find shelter, get medical help, and deal with immigration authorities.

It was published by the Red Cross and is titled “Messages of Self-Help for Migrants.”

The pamphlet crosses a line beyond providing life-saving information to facilitating illegal immigration, according to Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.

“It’s practically a road map or a TripTech for an illegal migrant,” she told The Epoch Times. “It’s one thing to give out water to migrants. It’s quite another thing to help them migrate illegally—and breach the sovereignty of a border.”

The pamphlet includes advice such as that “it’s always safer to travel in a group, especially for women,” and to stay in contact with relatives and friends, “especially before crossing the border.”

It warns against getting on or off a train when it’s moving or wet, but then advises: “If you do get off a train when it’s moving, keep running so that others don’t fall on top of you,” and “Try not to get on a train if you haven’t eaten or rested. You may fall off if you are sleepy.”

It goes on to say: “Don’t hide in vehicles or in small places where you might suffocate, drown, or get sick. Be sure you have enough space to breathe.”

In Uvalde, where Sewell obtained the pamphlet, Border Patrol has seen a 911 percent increase this year in stowaway illegal aliens on freight trains traveling from the border to San Antonio.

On Aug. 13, on one train inspected by Border Patrol, agents found 20 illegal aliens hiding in the beds of new pickup trucks being hauled in two different train cars. Several of the aliens had been apprehended the previous day by the same agent at the same location. All were single males from Mexico and Honduras.

The map also highlights Red Cross shelters in Mexico and other places that are run by religious organizations, such as the Good Samaritan House in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Catholic Charities in Tucson, Arizona.

Vaughan said that, rather than being a “benign underground railroad-type of exercise,” the pamphlet is “enticing criminal behavior that is also very, very dangerous and illegal.”

She said the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations should be telling migrants not to come. She said most illegal immigrants entering the United States don’t meet the criteria for asylum and won’t be granted asylum status by an immigration judge. Many Central Americans, the largest population of illegal immigrants, don’t end up claiming asylum once they’re in the United States, and of those who do, less than 15 percent are granted relief.

A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the organization doesn’t prevent or encourage migration.

“As an impartial, neutral and independent organization, our actions are focused on addressing the humanitarian needs of migrants to ensure they are treated with dignity, both in their countries of origin, transit and destination, and regardless of their immigration status,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

The ICRC didn’t respond to a question asking where it makes the pamphlets available, but the Red Cross logos from seven countries are printed on the flyer, including the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama.

The spokesperson said the organization provides humanitarian assistance at key points along the route.

“We also inform them of risks they’re undertaking while using the migration route,” the spokesperson said.

“It is essential to prevent the loss of lives and to promote a humanitarian approach. Addressing the needs of this vulnerable population is a shared responsibility, of the authorities in the countries of origin, transit and destination, and of the international community.”

The Geneva-based ICRC operated in 100 countries in 2019 and spent more than $2 billion, according to its latest annual report. It is funded mainly by voluntary donations from governments, and national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, according to its website.

Vaughan said the United States should investigate how the flyer came to be published and with whose funding.

“They should be helping people in the countries where the migrants live, not aid and abet this illegal migration that is so dangerous and has created so many problems for all of the countries where it occurs,” she said.

Red Cross Pamphlet Facilitates Illegal Immigration, Says Expert (theepochtimes.com)

‘Squad’ member collected rent as she vilified landlords

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) collected up to $50,000 in rent payments last year, even as she publicly criticized landlords and supported an eviction moratorium that has hurt other small landlords.

Tlaib—who in December stressed the need to protect Americans from “landlords and bill collectors in the midst of a pandemic”—disclosed in an annual financial statement this month that she took in between $15,000 and $50,000 in rent on a Detroit property.

Tlaib is not the only “Squad” member who has raked in thousands of dollars as a landlord. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) collected up to $15,000 in rental income in both 2019 and 2020 through a Boston property she owns, her financial disclosures show. Like Tlaib, Pressley slammed landlords for collecting rent during the pandemic, calling the issue “literally a matter of life and death.”

While Tlaib collected rent from her tenants, other small landlords in the United States have not been so lucky. Numerous reports have detailed small landlords’ struggles to make ends meet amid the eviction moratorium, which Tlaib has supported since early last year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implemented a ban on evictions last September. The Biden administration extended the eviction freeze through October of this year.

Tlaib, Pressley, and other “Squad” members introduced legislation to cancel rent and mortgage payments. The bill would require the federal government to reimburse landlords for lost rent during the pandemic, allowing Tlaib and Pressley to recoup any potential losses.

“Cancelling rent and mortgage payments for the duration of the COVID-19 virus pandemic would relieve financial pressure, allow residents to stay home from work without the added concern of losing their housing and limit the spread of the virus,” Tlaib said in March 2020.

Tlaib has at times portrayed landlords as preying on their renters.

“Always tons of agreement for tools of war and destroying families abroad, but never this much enthusiasm for protecting American families at home from landlords and bill collectors in the midst of a pandemic,” she tweeted in December.

Tlaib did not disclose the address for the rental property on her financial statement, though details from her filings and local real estate records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon suggest she purchased the property using a $118,600 loan in 2016. Two years later, Tlaib listed the property for $2,000 a month rent before lowering the asking price to $1,800. Assuming Tlaib has not changed the monthly price, she collected rent for at least eight months in 2020, meaning she received payments throughout the pandemic.

According to local real estate records, Tlaib refinanced the three-bedroom home as a multifamily investment property in April 2019. The designation requires the Democrat to maintain rent loss insurance.

Neither Tlaib nor Pressley returned requests for comment.

Rent Cancellation Advocate Rashida Tlaib Cleaned Up as Landlord During Pandemic (freebeacon.com)

My Fellow American:

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been wrong time and time again during this COVID-19 Pandemic, and we need to stop allowing him to set public policy.

He was wrong about closing the schools.

He was wrong about mask mandates.

He was wrong about the origin of this disease.

He is wrong to support eviction moratoriums.

I am working to ensure our rights are never taken away like this again, and I need your help.

In the coming months, you will hear politicians explain away their unconstitutional lockdowns and mandates as “following the science.” Don’t let them get away with it.

They are scaredy-cats who abdicated their responsibility to lead our nation because they were afraid of being made fun of on Saturday Night Live or at the DC Cocktail parties.

I am sick of these cowards taking away our liberties and then throwing their hands up when we prove them wrong AGAIN.

I won’t forget, and we need to make sure that the rest of the nation doesn’t either. I am working with the Republican Liberty Caucus – and that’s why I am asking you to stand with me in support of their organization.

Put simply, the RLC is the conscience of the Republican Party – something we need now, more than ever. A group of freedom-loving individuals focused on ensuring no elected or appointed member of our government can trample on our Constitutional Rights.

Just as we need to rebuild our nation’s economy, we need to rebuild the Republican Party and those who represent us in government. That hard work begins right now, and with your support, it will be led by the Republican Liberty Caucus.

We seem to have forgotten the principles that make us great during the Pandemic. You, me, and the Republican Liberty Caucus are going to remind them.

Please, your donation of $45 or more could make all the difference as we seek to Take Back America.

If you believe in America, if you believe in the Republican Party, and if you believe in finding out the truth about COVID-19 and putting our economy back on track, then please donate today.

Thank you for your time. God Bless America.

Rand Paul
U.S. Senator, Kentucky